Note 32 — V. SENECA. DIED 65 A.D.

Epistola vii. and De Brevitate Vitæ xiv. As to the effect of the gross diet of the later athletes, Ariston (as quoted by Lipsius) compared them to columns in the gymnasium, at once “sleek and stony”—λιπαροὺς καὶ λιθίνους. Diogenes of Sinope, being asked why the athletes seemed always so void of sense and intelligence, replied, “Because they are made up of ox and swine flesh.” Galen, the great Greek medical writer of the second century of our æra, makes the same remark upon the proverbial stupidity of this class, and adds: “And this is the universal experience of mankind—that a gross stomach does not make a refined mind.” The Greek proverb, “παχεῖα γαστὴρ λεπτὸν οὐ τίκτει νόον,” exactly expresses the same experience.