The Roman History · Amm. 28.4.34
Among these men are many chiefly addicted to fattening themselves up by gluttony, who, following the scent of any delicate food, and the shrill voices of the women who, from cockcrow, cry out with a shrill scream, like so many peacocks, and gliding over the ground on tiptoe, get an entrance into the halls, biting their nails while the dishes are getting cool. Others fix their eyes intently on the tainted meat which is being cooked, that you might fancy Democritus, with a number of anatomists, was gazing into the entrails of sacrificed victims, in order to teach posterity how best to relieve internal pains.Read in context ›
Ammianus Marcellinus · translated by C. D. Yonge · 1911 reprint
C. D. Yonge translation (preface dated February 1862); G. Bell and Sons, 1911; Project Gutenberg #28587
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