The period for coupling the hog lasts from the return of the west wind to the vernal equinox; the proper age commences in the eighth month, indeed, in some places, in the fourth even, and continues until the eighth year[2] They bring forth twice in the year, the time of gestation being four months; the number at a birth amounts to twenty even, but they cannot rear so large a number.[3] Nigidius informs us, that those which are produced within ten days of the winter solstice are born with teeth. One coupling is sufficient, but it is repeated, on account of their extreme liability to abortion; the remedy for which is not to allow coupling the first time the female is in heat, nor until its ears are flaccid and pendant. The males do not generate after they are three years old. When the females become feeble from old age, they receive the males lying down.[4] It is not looked upon as anything portentous when they eat their young. The young of the hog is considered in a state of purity for sacrifice when five days old,[5] the lamb on the seventh day, and the calf on the thirtieth. Coruncanius asserts, that ruminant animals are not proper for victims until they have two teeth.[6] It has been supposed, that when a pig has lost one eye, it will not live long;[7] otherwise, these animals generally live up to fifteen, or sometimes twenty years. They sometimes become mad; besides which, they are liable to other diseases, especially to quinsy[8] and to scrofula.[9] It is an indication that the hog is diseased, when blood is found at the root of a bristle pulled from its back, and when it holds its head on one side while walking. When the female becomes too fat, she has a deficiency of milk; the first litter is always the least numerous. Animals of this kind delight in rolling in the mud.[10] The tail is curled, and it has also been remarked, that those are a more acceptable offering to the gods, whose tail is turned to the right than those which have it turned to the left. They may be fattened in sixty days, and more especially if they have been kept without food for three days before fattening. The swine is by far the most brutish of all the animals, and it has been said, and not unaptly, that life has been given them in place of salt.[11] And yet it has been known, that these animals, when carried away by thieves, have recognized the voice of their keeper; and when a vessel has been under water through the inclination of one of its sides, they have had the sense to go over to the other side. The leader of the herd will even learn to go to market, and to different houses in the city. In the wild state also, they have the sense to pass their urine in plashy places, that they may destroy all traces of them, and so lighten themselves for flight.[12] The female is spayed, just as is done with the camel; after they have fasted two days, they are suspended by the hind feet, and the orifice of the womb is cut; after this operation, they fatten more quickly.[13]

M. Apicius[14] made the discovery, that we may employ the same artificial method of increasing the size of the liver of the sow, as of that of the goose;[15] it consists in cramming them with dried figs, and when they are fat enough, they are drenched with wine mixed with honey, and immediately killed. There is no animal that affords a greater variety to the palate of the epicure; all the others have their own peculiar flavour, but the flesh of the hog has nearly fifty different flavours. Hence it is, that there are whole pages of regulations made by the cen- sors, forbidding the serving up at banquets of the belly, the kernels,[16] the testicles, the womb, and the cheeks. However, notwithstanding all this, the poet Publius,[17] the author of the Mimes, when he ceased to be a slave, is said to have given no entertainment without serving up the belly of a sow, to which he also gave the name of "sumen."