Chapter V: Musonius (1st Century, A.d.),

a stoic writer of great repute with his contemporaries, son of a Roman Eques, was born at Volsinii (Bolsena), in Etruria, at the end of the reign of Augustus. He was banished by Nero, who especially hated the professors of the _Porch_; but by Vespasian he was held in extraordinary honour when the rest of the philosophers were expelled from Rome. The time of his death is uncertain. He was the author of various philosophical works which are characterised by Suïdas as “distinguished writings of a highly philosophic nature,” who also attributes to him (but on uncertain evidence) letters to Apollonius of Tyana. We are indebted for knowledge of his opinions to a work (of unknown authorship) entitled _Memoirs of Musonius the Philosopher_. It is from this work that Stobæus (_Anthologion_), Aulus Gellius, Arrian, and others seem to have borrowed, in quoting the _dicta_ of the great Stoic teacher. All the extant fragments of his writings are carefully collected by Peerlkamp (Haarlem, 1822). (See also Herr Ed. Baltzer’s valuable monograph, _Musonius: Charakterbild aus Der Römischen Kaiserzeit_. Nordhausen, 1871):--

“On diet he used to speak often and very earnestly, as of a matter
important in itself and in its effects. For he thought that
continence in meats and drinks is the beginning and groundwork of
temperance. Once, forsaking his usual line of argument, he spoke as
follows:--

“‘As we should prefer cheap fare to costly, and that which is easy
to that which is hard to procure, so also, that which is akin
to man to that which is not so. Akin to us is that from plants,
grains, and such other vegetable products as nourish him well;
also what is derived from (other) animals--not slaughtered, but
otherwise serviceable. Of these foods the most suitable are such
as we may use at once without fire, for such are readiest to hand.
Such are fruits in season, and some herbs, milk, cheese, and
honeycombs. Moreover such as need fire, and belong to the classes
of grains or herbs, are also not unsuitable, but are all, without
exception, akin to man.’

“Eating of flesh-meat he declared to be _brutal_, and adapted to
savage animals. It is heavier, he said, and hindering thought and
intelligence; the vapour arising from it is turbid and darkens the
soul, so that they who partake of it abundantly are seen to be
slower of apprehension. As man is [at his best] most nearly related
to the Gods of all beings on earth, so, also, his _food_ should be
most like to that of the Gods. They, he said, are content with the
steams that rise from earth and waters, and we shall take the food
most like to theirs, if we take that which is _lightest and purest_.

“So our soul also will be pure and clear, and, being so, will be
best and wisest, as Heracleitus judges when he says the clear
soul is wisest and best. As it is, said Musonius, we are fed far
worse than the irrational beings; for they, though they are driven
fiercely by appetite as by a scourge, and pounce upon their food,
still are devoid of cunning and contrivance in regard to their
fare--being satisfied with what comes in their way, seeking only
to be filled and nothing further. But we invent manifold arts and
devices the more to sweeten the pleasure of food and to deceive the
gullet. Nay, to such a pitch of daintiness and greediness have we
come, that some have composed treatises, as of music and medicine,
so also of cookery, which greatly increase the pleasure in the
gullet, but ruin the health. At any rate, you may see that those
who are fastidious in the choice of foods are far more sickly in
body--some even, like craving women, loathing customary foods, and
having their stomachs ruined. Hence, as good-for-nothing steel
continually needs sharpening, so their stomachs at table need the
continual whet of some strong tasting food.... Hence, too, it is
our duty to eat for life, not for pleasure (only), at least if we
are to follow the excellent saying of Socrates, that, while most
men lived to eat, he ate to live. For, surely, no one, who aspires
to the character of a virtuous man, will deign to resemble the
many, and live for eating’s sake as they do, hunting from every
quarter the pleasure which comes from food.

“Moreover, that God, who made mankind, provided them with meats
and drinks for preservation, not for pleasure, will appear from
this. When food is most especially performing its proper function
in digestion and assimilation, then it gives no pleasure to the man
at all--yet we are then fed by it and strengthened. _Then_ we have
no sensation of pleasure, and yet this time is longer than that in
which we are eating. But if it were for pleasure that God contrived
our food, we ought to derive pleasure from it throughout this
longer time, and not merely at the passing moment of consumption.
_Yet, nevertheless, for that brief moment of enjoyment we make
provision of ten thousand dainties_; we sail the sea to its
furthest bounds; _cooks are more sought after than husbandmen_.
Some lavish on dinners the price of estates, and that though their
bodies derive no benefit from the costliness of the viands.

“Quite the contrary; _it is those who use the cheapest food who are
the strongest_. For example, you may, for the most part, see slaves
more sturdy than masters, country-folk than towns-folk, poor than
rich--more able to labour, sinking less at their work, seldomer
ailing, more easily enduring frost, heat, sleeplessness, and the
like. Even if cheap food and dear strengthens the body alike,
still we ought to choose the cheap; for this is more sober and
more suited to a virtuous man; inasmuch as what is easy to procure
is, for good men, more proper for food than what is hard--what is
free from trouble than what gives trouble--what is ready than what
is not ready. To sum up in a word the whole use of diet, I say
that we ought to make its aim health and strength, for these are
the only ends for which we should eat, and they require no large
outlay.”[292]