Hitherto the pig has only figured in a point of view purely historical; we have not sought to weaken its faults, nor have we made mention of the qualities attributed to it--for example, that of discovering truffles. Nevertheless, we ought not to lose sight of the fact, that this animal has not passed entirely without renown through the centuries which divide us from the earliest ages of the world. We shall now speak of its flesh, its exquisite flavour, and the place it occupied in feasts: there it reigned with honour; there we must follow it, with all that antiquity has possessed of celebrated men in the science of degustation and good living. Nature has created the pig for man’s palate; he is good only to be eaten; and life appears to have been given to him merely as a sort of salt to prevent his corrupting.[XVI-21] It is true that he possesses only a vulgar and purely animal substance; but how good is this substance, and how high does it deserve to be placed on account of its delicacy and flavour?[XVI-22] Such is the praise of which a physician and two philosophers have thought it worthy. The pig furnishes a strong and somewhat heavy kind of food;[XVI-23] wherefore wrestlers were recommended to eat much of it, and Galen advised it to persons who worked hard, or used violent exercise.[XVI-24] But it was not necessary to recommend to the Greeks a meat of which they were so fond. Look over the long work of Athenæus--he everywhere extols it, everywhere speaks of it with fresh complacency, and in pompous terms.[XVI-25] An Athenian, renowned as a man of taste and for the refined elegance of his table, would have thought his reputation lost had he not offered to his guests fat _andouilles_, sausages, pigs’ feet, and pork cutlets; above all, he was careful not to forget salted and smoked hams--the honour of the banquet, and the delight of the human race.[XVI-26] The Macedonian, Caranus, invited twenty of his best friends to his wedding, and gave them a feast, of which gastrophagic annals have preserved the remembrance. Each guest received from his munificence a flagon and crown of silver, a crown of gold, and vases of the same precious metal. What shall we say of the dishes displayed at this meeting of learned epicureans? Composed by the art of the most skilful cooks, struck with admiration, they ate and relished, whilst unexpected wonders unceasingly solicited their fatigued, yet not satiated, appetites; when at last appeared an immense silver dish, on which was displayed an entire roasted hog, whose vast sides concealed a multitude of quails and other small birds, _tétines de truie_, relishing yolks of eggs, oysters, and a host of shell fish, prepared with that scientific regard for gastric energy which considerably increases its power.[XVI-27]