Note 22 — PREFACE.

Plutarch, Septem sap. conviv., p. 159 B: “We then, said I” (Diales), “render these tributes to the belly (τῇ γαστρί). But if Solon or any one else has any allegation to make we will listen.” “By all means,” said Solon, “lest we should appear more senseless than the Egyptians, who cutting up the dead body showed [the entrails] to the sun, then cast them into the river, but of the rest of the body, as now become pure, they took care. For in reality this [the belly] is the pollution of our flesh, and the Hell, as in Hades,—full of dire streams, and of wind and fire confused together, and of dead things.”

Plutarch, De esu carnium orat., ii., p. 996, 38: “As the Egyptians, taking out from the dead the belly (τὴν κοιλίαν) and cutting it up before the sun, cast it away, as the cause of all the sins which the man has committed; in like manner that we ourselves, cutting out gluttony and bloodthirstiness, should purify the rest of our life.”

Porphyry, De abst., iv., 10: When they embalm those of the noble that have died, together with their other treatment of the dead body, they take out the belly (τὴν κοιλίαν), and put it into a coffer, and holding the coffer to the sun they protest, one of the embalmers making a speech on behalf of the dead. This speech, which Euphantus translated from his native language, is as follows: “O Lord, the Sun, and all ye gods who give life to men, receive me and make me a companion to the eternal gods. For the gods, whom my parents made known to me, as long time as I have had my life in this world I have continued to reverence, and those who gave birth to my body I have ever honoured. And for the rest of men, I have neither slain any, nor defrauded any of anything entrusted to me, nor committed any other wicked act, but if I haply in my life have sinned at all,: by either eating or drinking what was unlawful, not on my own account did I sin, but on account of these (showing the coffer in which the belly [ἡ γαστήρ] lay).” And having said these things he throws it into the river; but the rest of the body, as pure, he embalms. Thus they thought that they needed to excuse themselves to the Deity on account of what they had eaten and drunk, and therefore to reproach the belly.”