Flesh and marrows of lions

Compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.37. According to Statius （Achill. ii.382ff.）, Chiron fed the youthful Achilles not on ordinary victuals, but on the flesh and marrows of lions. Philostratus says that his nourishment consisted of honeycombs and the marrows of fawns （Philostratus, Her. xx.2）, while the author of theEtymologicum Magnum, s.v. á¼ˆÏ‡Î¹Î»Î»ÎµÏÏ‚, p. 181 says that he was nurtured on the marrows of deer. Compare Eustathius on Hom. Il. 1.1, p. 14. The flesh and marrows of lions, wild boars, and bears were no doubt supposed to impart to the youthful hero who partook of them the strength and courage of these animals, while the marrows of fawns or deer may have been thought to ensure the fleetness of foot for which he was afterwards so conspicuous. It is thus that on the principle of sympathetic magic many races seek to acquire the qualities of certain animals by eating their flesh or drinking their blood; whereas they abstain from eating the flesh of other animals lest they should, by partaking of it, be infected with the undesirable qualities which these creatures are believed to possess. For example, in various African tribes men eat the hearts of lions in order to become lionhearted, while others will not eat the flesh of tortoises lest they should become slow-footed like these animals. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.138ff. On the same principle the ancients believed that men could acquire the art of divination by eating the hearts of ravens, moles, or hawks, because these creatures were supposed to be endowed with prophetic powers. See Porphyry, De abstinentia ii.48; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx.19. So Medea is said to have restored the aged Aeson to youth by infusing into his veins a decoction of the liver of a long-lived stag and of the head of a crow that had survived nine generations of men. See Ov. Met. 7.273ff.

Innards of lions and wild swine and marrows of bears!

fed him on the inwards of lions and wild swine and the marrows of bears

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When Thetis had got a babe by Peleus, she wished to make it immortal, and unknown to Peleus she used to hide it in the fire by night in order to destroy the mortal element which the child inherited from its father, but by day she anointed him with ambrosia.¹ But Peleus watched her, and, seeing the child writhing on the fire, he cried out; and Thetis, thus prevented from accomplishing her purpose, forsook her infant son and departed to the Nereids.² Peleus brought the child to Chiron, who received him and fed him on the inwards of lions and wild swine and the marrows of bears,³ and named him Achilles, because he had not put his lips to the breast;⁴ but before that time his name was Ligyron.