Lectures · Lecture 18a

18a.1

On the subject of food he was accustomed to speak often, and with great earnestness, saying that it was no small matter, nor one that made a small difference; for he held that the beginning and foundation of self-control lay in restraint in food and drink. Once, setting aside the other discourses which he regularly delivered, he said something like this: that just as one ought to prefer plain food to expensive food, and food easy to obtain to food hard to obtain, so also one ought to prefer the food that is akin to human nature to that which is not such. And that the food akin to us is that which comes from things that grow from the earth—both such things as are grain-like and such things as, though not grain-like, are able to nourish a human being well enough—and that which comes from animals not slaughtered, but otherwise serving our use. Of these foods, the most suitable are those which can be used just as they are, without fire, since these are also the readiest to hand—such as fruits in season, some of the vegetables, milk, cheese, and honeycombs. And even those foods which require fire, whether grain-like or vegetable-like, are not unsuitable either, but all of them are akin to human nature. The eating of meat, however, he declared to be more beastly and more fitting for wild animals. And he said that this kind of food was also heavier, and an impediment to thinking and understanding; for the exhalation arising from it, being more turbid, casts a shadow over the soul. For this reason, too, those who make greater use of it appear slower in their intellect. And that a human being, since among earthly creatures he is most akin to the gods, ought also to be nourished most similarly to the gods. Now for them the vapors rising from earth and water suffice, and we, he said, would take in food most similar to this if we took the lightest and purest food; and in this way too our soul would be pure and dry, and, being of such a kind, it would be best and wisest, as Heraclitus holds when he says: "a dry beam of light is the wisest and best soul." But as it is, he said, we nourish ourselves far worse than the irrational animals. For they, even if they are driven vehemently toward their food by desire as though by some whip, nevertheless are free of cunning and artifice concerning their food, being content with whatever comes their way and seeking only to be filled, and nothing further.

18a.2

But we, he said, contrive various arts and devices so as to make the eating of our food more pleasant and to flatter our swallowing all the more. And we have advanced so far in daintiness and gluttony that, just as there are treatises on music and medicine, so certain people have composed treatises on cookery, which greatly increase the pleasure felt in the throat, but ruin one's health. At any rate, one may see that those who indulge in delicacies of food are far worse off in their bodies; and some of them resemble pregnant women with strange cravings. For these men too, just like those women, are disgusted with the most ordinary foods and have ruined stomachs. Hence, just as useless iron continually needs to be tempered, so too the stomachs of such people, while they eat, continually need to be sharpened, whether by strong wine, or by vinegar, or by some pungent food. But the Spartan was not such a man, who, when he saw someone before whom a bird of the fat and costly kind had been set, and who out of luxuriousness refused to eat it, declaring that he could not, said: "But I can eat even a vulture and a buzzard." And Zeno of Citium thought that not even when ill ought one to take more delicate food; but when the physician attending him ordered him to eat the young of a pigeon, he would not endure it, and said, "Treat me as you would Manes." For he claimed, I suppose, that in his treatment nothing softer should be done for him than for one of his slaves who was ill; for if they can be cured without taking more costly food, so, he held, could we. For the good man must in no way be softer than any slave. Therefore Zeno reasonably held that one should be on guard against extravagance in food, and not give way to such a thing even a little; since one who once gives way would advance very far indeed, seeing that pleasure has much room for increase both in drink and in food. These, then, were the somewhat novel things he seemed to us to say at that time about food, beyond what he was accustomed to say on every occasion.