Note 577 — Chapter III · FOOD OF HOMERIC TIMES—MEAT, FISH, ETC.

The Pythagoreans, however, must be excluded from this category since they abstained from fish because they kept perpetual silence like themselves.—Athen. vii. 80. Another and a better reason, perhaps, may be discovered in a passage of Archestratos, who, observing that the sea-dog is delicious eating, proceeds to dispose of the objection that it feeds on human flesh, by saying, that all fish do the same. Id. vii. 85. From this fact the Pythagoreans esteemed fish-eaters no better than cannibals at second-hand.