The flesh of the wild boar is much esteemed. Cato the Censor, in his orations, strongly declaimed against the use of the brawn of the wild boar. The animal used to be divided into three portions, the middle part of which was laid by, and is called boar’s chine. Publius Servilius Rullus was the first Roman who served up a whole boar at a banquet; the father of that Rullus, who, in the consulship of Cicero, proposed the Agrarian law. So recent is the introduction of a thing which is now in daily use. The Annalists have taken notice of such a fact as this, clearly as a hint to us to mend our manners; seeing that now-a-days two or three boars are consumed, not at one entertainment, but as forming the first course only.

Fulvius Lupinus was the first Roman who formed parks for the reception of these and other wild animals: he first fed them in the territory of Tarquinii: it was not long, however, before imitators were found in Lucullus and Hortensius. The wild boar of India has two curved teeth, projecting from beneath the muzzle, a cubit in length; and the same number projecting from the forehead, like the horns of the young bull. The hair of these animals, in a wild state, is the color of copper, the others are black. No species whatever of the swine is found in Arabia.