Kitap 4
11
AN erroneous belief of long standing has established itself and become current, that the philosopher Pythagoras did not eat of animals: also that he abstained from the bean, which the Greeks call ku/amos. In accordance with that belief the poet Callimachus wrote: Fr. 128, Schn. I tell you too, as did Pythagoras, Withhold your hands from beans, a hurtful food. Also, as the result of the same belief, Marcus Cicero wrote these words in the first book of his work On Didination: § 62; see Pease, ad loc. Plato therefore bids us go to our sleep in such bodily condition that there may be nothing to cause delusion and disturbance in our minds. It is thought to be for that reason too that the Pythagoreans were forbidden to eat beans, a food that produces great flatulency, which is disturbing to those who seek mental calm.
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So then Cicero. But Aristoxenus the musician, a man thoroughly versed in early literature, a pupil of the philosopher Aristotle, in the book On Pythagoras which he has left us, says that Pythagoras used no vegetable more often than beans, since that food gently loosened the bowels and relieved them. I add Aristoxenus' own words: F. H. G. ii. 273. Pythagoras among vegetables especially recommended the bean, saying that it was both digestible and loosening; and therefore he most frequently made use of it.
