Vegetarian Radicals in Classical Antiquity
Tom Garvey
University of Virginia
tgarvey@virginia.edu
Anthropologists have long noted that cultures define themselves by their food systems, and the ancient Greeks and Romans were no exception. The basic yet quintessential elements of the Mediterranean diet have been the same for as long as we have historical testimonials - olives, wheat and barley, the vine, and fish. But they defined themselves above all by the ritual of animal sacrifice in which a domesticated beast was led to the altar, had its throat cut and its blood poured over the altar in the presence of the worshippers. It was flayed; the vital organs were removed and a portion offered by burning to the gods, the rest roasted and tasted by the leading participants... In this system the gods were honoured, the community expressed its solidarity, and a rare chance to eat meat was enjoyedc Anyone who was a vegetarian was not taking part and was in a sense opting out of society.
The eating of meat was thus not only acceptable, but actually required by cult and ancestral custom. And since the sacrifice and subsequent eating of animals were such communal acts, not participating was difficult to hide. Scorned by their fellow countrymen for their unorthodoxy, ancient vegetarians thus banded together on the fringes of society to form their own communities.
After their founder's death, the Pythagorean communes of 5th c Southern Italy became the targets of increasing hostility, beginning with the burning of homes and ending in large-scale massacres. Hereafter still more liminal, vegetarians remained the object of abuse and derision (as in Greek comedy) and suspicion (most dangerously in imperial Rome) until finally championed anew by Neoplatonists like Porphyry. This paper investigates ancient vegetarians of every stripe (from adherents of metempsychosis to health freaks to animal lovers) and the fates their ideology earned them.