phanes, crumbs belong to the heroes, for in his Heroes he says° : Xor taste ye of what falls beneath the board ! Another of his precepts was not to eat white cocks, as being sacred to the Month and wearing suppliant garb — now supplication ranked with things good sacred to the Month because they announce the time of day ; and again white represents the nature of the good, black the nature of evil. Not to touch such fish as were sacred ; for it is not right that gods and men should be allotted the same things, any more than free men and slaves. Not to break bread ; for once friends used to meet over one loaf, as the barbarians do even to this day ; and you should not divide bread which brings them together ; some give as the explanation of this that it has reference to the judgement of the dead in Hades, others that bread makes cowards in war, others again that it is from it that the whole world begins. b He held that the most beautiful figure is the sphere among solids, and the circle among plane figures. Old age may be compared to everything that is decreasing, while youth is one with increase. Health means retention of the form, disease its destruction. Of salt he said it should be brought to table to remind us of what is right ; for salt preserves whatever it finds, and it arises from the purest sources, sun and sea. This is what Alexander says that he found in the Pythagorean memoirs. What follows is Aristotle's. But Pythagoras's great dignity not even Timon