ANTHROPOPHAGI, cannibals, or such as feed on human flesh. It is with difficulty we can bring our selves to believe, that such monsters ever existed; and yet there is scarcely any fact more fully established by the concurring testimony both of ancient and modern authors. There is an evident propensity in human na ture to deal in what is marvellous, monstrous, and un common ; and to this principle we owe many of those improbable stories, which never had any foundation but in the imagination of the narrator: We are therefore justified in entertaining a considerable degree of scep ticism, with regard to all such accounts as contradict our experience, and shock our reason and our feelings. At the same time, it must be confessed, that there is nothing so barbarous and revolting to our feelings, but may be exemplified in the history of human nature ; and the authenticated instances of depraved taste, and monstrously perverted judgment, may serve to render us less incredulous, even with regard to the most impro bable details. All history, sacred and profane, clearly attests, that the feelings of nature have been so pervert ed, that parents have yielded up their children to the sacrificer's knife, or committed them to the flames, in hopes of propitiating an angry demon. Need we then he surprised that the barbarous practice of eating human flesh should have been so generally adopted ? Diogenes, and others of the stoics, maintained, that there was nothing unnatural in the practice, and that we might as well eat the flesh of men as that of other ani mals. To such a position as this we enter our strongest dissent. The practice is no less shocking to reason, than it is to every feeling of nature ; and, if adopted, would sink mankind to a degree of brutality below the most ferocious beasts of the forest.
Fishes, and a few of the more ignoble of the land animals, may occasionally prey on their own kind ; but a general horror is felt at the practice through the whole of nature, and nothing but the extremity of hunger will force an animal to eat the flesh of one of its own species. An experiment is said to have been made by Leonardus Floroventius, in order to ascertain whether there was any real repugnancy in nature to this horrid practice. For this purpose he fed a hog with hog's flesh, and a dog with dog's flesh ; in consequence of which, the bristles fell off from the hog, and the dog became full of ulcers.
We find, however, that neither moral feelings, nor physical repugnance, have been able to restrain man kind from this worse than brutal repast ; and revolting as the subject is, it would nevertheless be interesting to trace the history, and to ascertain the origin, of this unnatural practice. With this view, we shall enumerate
some of the nations, ancient and modern, which are mentioned as most infamous for cannibalism ; and then we shall endeavour to determine what could give rise to such an abominable custom.
Fabulous history is full of accounts of Anthropophagi. According to some authors, to eat human flesh was a primitive and universal custom. Thus Euhemerus in forms us, as the passage has been transmitted by En nius, (quoted by Lactantius Divin. Institut. vol. e. xiii. p. 59.) that Saturn and Ops, and the rest of mankind in their time, were accustomed to feed on human flesh.
&summit et Onem exterosque tum homines humanam carnem solitos esitare. The first step towards civiliza tion, was the abolition of this barbarous custom ; and Orpheus is thought to have had the merit of this refor mation. What Horace says concerning him, cannot well be understood, except as relating to this prac tice :— By the poets, the Lxstrygons, the Lamix, the Sirens, and the Cyclops, are all celebrated as infamous Anthro pophagi. Circe and Scylla come under the same cha racter as individuals. A horrid account is given by Ho mer of the fate of Ulysses's companions in the Cyclops' den :— Though these accounts be overcharged, and mixed with fable, there can be little doubt that they are found ed on the manners of the times ; for we find the same accounts given by grave historians, and authenticated by all the evidence which the nature of the case will ad mit. Strabo, 1. 7. p. 463, declares, that the Seythians were Anthropophagi. Pliny says the same in more places than one. (Vid. 1. 6. p. 315. and 1. 7. p. 370.) The Sam, the Indi, and the Indo-Scythx, are repre sented by Mela, as addicted to the same barbarous cus fan. Scythe aunt Androphagi et Sacs. Indorum yzeidanz, proxinzos, pezrentesyuc, priusquam annis et xgritudine izz macienz eant, velut hostias crdunt, exsorunzque visceribus epulare fas, et maxime pium est. Several nations are enumerated by Aristotle, as devoted to the same prac tice, such as the Achoeans, the Heniochi, and other na tions on the borders of Pontus. Herodotus gives the same account of the Scythians and Indians.