Plutarch, De esu carnium II, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 4

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[4] Who, then, were they who later decreed this?

The first to forge the highway’s murderous sword,

And first to eat the flesh of ploughing ox.¹

This is the way, you may be sure, in which tyrants begin their course of bloody slaughters. Just as, for instance, at Athens² they put to death initially the worst of the sycophants, and likewise in the second and third instances; but next, having become accustomed to bloodshed they allowed Niceratus,³ the son of Nicias, to be killed and the general Theramenes⁴ and the philosopher Polemarchus.⁵ Just so, at the beginning it was some wild and harmful animal that was eaten, then a bird or fish that had its flesh torn. And so when our murderous instincts had tasted blood and grew practised on wild animals, they advanced to the labouring ox and the well-behaved sheep and the house-warding cock; thus, little by little giving a hard edge to our insatiable appetite, we have advanced to wars and the slaughter and murder of human beings. Yet if someone once demonstrates that souls in their rebirths make use of common bodies and that what is now rational reverts to the irrational, and again what is now wild becomes tame, and that Nature changes everything and assigns new dwellings

Clothing souls with unfamiliar coat of flesh⁶;

will not this deter the unruly element in those who have adopted the doctrine from implanting disease and indigestion⁷ in our bodies and perverting our souls to an ever more cruel lawlessness, as soon as we are broken of the habit of not entertaining a guest or celebrating a marriage or consorting with our friends without bloodshed and murder?

De esu carnium II. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.

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Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

On the eating of flesh II (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. XII. Cherniss, Harold, and Helmbold, William C., translators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ σαρκοφαγίας λόγος β′ Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. VI. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1895.) — 4 focus

[4] τίνες οὖν ὕστερον τοῦτʼ ἔγνωσαν;

οἳ πρῶτοι κακοεργὸν ἐχαλκεύσαντο μάχαιραν 10

εἰνοδίην, πρῶτοι δὲ βοῶν ἐπάσαντʼ ἀροτήρων.

998b οὕτω τοι καὶ οἱ τυραννοῦντες ἄρχουσι μιαιφονίας. ὥσπερ γὰρ τὸ πρῶτον ἀπέκτειναν Ἀθήνησι τὸν κάκιστον τῶν συκοφαντῶν, ὃς ἐπιτήδειος προσηγορεύθη, καὶ δεύτερον ὁμοίως, καὶ τρίτον· εἶτʼ ἐκ 15 τούτου συνήθεις γενόμενοι Νικήρατον περιεώρων ἀπολλύμενον τὸν Νικίου καὶ Θηραμένη τὸν στρατηγὸν καὶ Πολέμαρχον τὸν φιλόσοφον· οὕτω τὸ πρῶτον ἄγριόν τι ζῷον ἐβρώθη καὶ κακοῦργον, εἶτʼ ὄρνις τις ἢ ἰχθὺς εἵλκυστο καὶ γευσάμενον οὕτω 20 καὶ προμελετῆσαν ἐν ἐκείνοις τὸ φονικὸν ἐπὶ βοῦν ἐργάτην ἦλθε καὶ τὸ κόσμιον πρόβατον καὶ τὸν οἰκουρὸν ἀλεκτρυόνα καὶ κατὰ μικρὸν οὕτω τὴν ἀπληστίαν στομώσαντες ἐπὶ σφαγὰς ἀνθρώπων καὶ 998c πολέμους καὶ φόνους προῆλθον. ἀλλʼ ἐὰν μὴ προσαποδείξῃ τις, ὅτι χρῶνται κοινοῖς αἱ ψυχαὶ σώμασιν ἐν ταῖς παλιγγενεσίαις καὶ τὸ νῦν λογικὸν 5 αὖθις γίγνεται ἄλογον καὶ πάλιν ἥμερον τὸ νῦν ἄγριον, ἀλλάσσει δʼ ἡ φύσις ἅπαντα καὶ μετοικίζει

σαρκῶν ἀλλογνῶτι περιστέλλουσα χιτῶνι

ταῦτʼ οὐκ ἀποτρέπει τῶν ἀνῃρημένων τὸ ἀκόλαστον τὸ καὶ σώματι νόσους καὶ βαρύτητας ἐμποιεῖν καὶ 10 ψυχὴν ἐπὶ πόλεμον ἀνομωτέρων τρεπομένην διαφθείρειν ὅταν ἐθισθῶμεν μὴ αἵματος ἄνευ καὶ φόνου μὴ ξένον ἑστιᾶν, μὴ γάμον ἑορτάζειν, μὴ φίλοις συγγίγνεσθαι.

Translations (1)

Of eating of flesh: Tract II. Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Baxter, William, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 4 focus

[4] Who then were the first authors of this opinion, that we owe no justice to dumb animals?

Who first beat out accursed steel,

And made the laboring ox a knife to feel.

In the very same manner oppressors and tyrants begin first to shed blood. For example, the first man that the Athenians ever put to death was one of the basest of all knaves, whom all thought deserving of death; after him they put to death a second and a third. After this, being now accustomed to blood, they patiently saw Niceratus the son of Nicias, and their own general Theramenes, and Polemarchus the philosopher suffer death. Even so, in the beginning, some wild and mischievous beast was killed and eaten, and then some little bird or fish was entrapped. And the love of slaughter, being first experimented and exercised in these, at last passed even to the laboring ox, and the sheep that clothes us, and to the poor cock that keeps the house; until by little and little, unsatiableness being strengthened by use, men came to the slaughter of men, to bloodshed and wars. Now even if one cannot demonstrate and make out, that souls in their regenerations make a promiscuous use of all bodies, and that that which is now rational will at another time be irrational, and that again tame which is now wild, — for that Nature changes and transmutes every thing,

With different fleshy coats new clothing all, —

this thing should be sufficient to change and reclaim men, that it is a savage and intemperate habit, that it brings sickness and heaviness upon the body, and that it inclines the mind the more brutishly to bloodshed and destruction, when we have once accustomed ourselves neither to entertain a guest nor keep a wedding nor to treat our friends without blood and slaughter.

Notes on the current edition

On the eating of flesh II

1. Aratus, Phaenomena, 131 f.; cf. Lucilius’ parody in the Palatine Anthology, xi. 136.

2. Cf. 959 d supra and the note.

3. Cf. Xenophon, Hellenica, ii. 3. 39.

4. Cf. Xenophon, Hellenica, ii. 3. 56.

5. The son of Cephalus and brother of Lysias; a prominent character in Plato, Republic, i. For the circumstances of his death see Lysias’ oration Against Eratosthenes. It is, however, somewhat unlikely that Plutarch should call Polemarchus the philosopher even though he appeared in the Republic and his philosophic bent was mentioned in the Phaedrus (257 b); so that, once again, we may be faced with interpolation.

6. Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. i, p. 362; Empedocles, frag. 126.

7. Cf. Mor. 128 b-e.

Plutarch De esu carnium II 4

Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator)

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