Note 1144 — JUVENAL'S SATIRES. (continued 3)

Pythagoras. iii., 228, "Culti villicus horti unde epulum possis centum dare Pythagoreis." Holding the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, Pythagoras was averse to shedding the blood of any animal. Various reasons are assigned for his abstaining from beans; from their shape—from their turning to blood if exposed to moonshine, etc. Diog. Laert. says (lib. viii. cap. i.), τῶν δὲ κυάμων ἀπηγόρευεν ἔχεσθαι διὰ τὸ πνευματώδεις ὄντας μᾶλλον μετέχειν τοῦ ψυχικοῦ—καὶ τὰς καθύπνους φαντασίας λείας καὶ ἀταράχους ἀποτελεῖν. In which view Cicero seems to concur: De Div., ii., 119, "Pythagoras et Plato, quo in somnis certiora videamus, præparatos quodam cultu atque victu proficisci ad dormiendum jubent: Faba quidem Pythagorei utique abstinuere, quasi vero eo cibo mens non venter infletur." Cf. Ov., Met., xv., 60, seq. See Browne's Vulgar Errors, book i., chap. iv. (Bohn's Antiquarian Library): "When (Pythagoras) enjoined his disciples an abstinence from beans, ... he had no other intention than to dissuade men from magistracy, or undertaking the public offices of the state; for by beans was the magistrate elected in some parts of Greece; and after his days, we read in Thucydides of the Council of the Bean in Athens. It hath been thought by some an injunction only of continency."