Far from being a relatively new phenomenon, vegetarianism has enjoyed a long and diverse history and has been preserved in most cultures since the beginnings of time.
In antiquity, vegetarianism found favour with some of the great figures of the classical world, most notably Pythagoras (580 BCE). Well known for his contributions to mathematics, Pythagoras was an independent thinker, the first to admit women to his intellectual circle on equal terms and to argue that the world was a sphere. His teaching that all animals should be treated as kindred included the abstinence from meat. In the Greek tradition of Pythagoras, it was not only the avoidance of animal cruelty that established vegetarianism as a way of life, he also saw the health advantages a meat-free diet. Pythagoras viewed vegetarianism as a key factor in peaceful human co-existence, putting forward the view that slaughtering animals brutalised the human soul. Other notable Ancient Greek thinkers that came after Pythagoras favoured a vegetarian diet. These included Theophrastus, pupil of Aristotle and successor to him as head of the Lyceum at Athens. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle all debated the status of animals though Aristotle's conclusion that the animal kingdom exists for human use (and in his view, as equal to slaves) prefigured the the view of the Romans and the christian church that was to become the dominant view in the west.
Pythagorean ideals found very limited sympathy within the brutality of Ancient Rome, where many wild animals were murdered at the hands of gladiators in the name of sport and spectacle. Pythagoreans were despised as subversives, with many keeping their vegetarianism to themselves for fear of persecution. However, the term 'Pythagorean' was to become synonymous with 'vegetarian' and vegetarianism was to spread throughout the Roman Empire from the 3rd to 6th centuries among those influenced by Neo-Platonist philosophy. Such authors included Plutarch (c.CE46) whose 16 volume work Moralia includes the 'Essay on Flesh Eating' , Porphyry (c.CE232) who wrote 'On Abstinence From Animal Food' and Apollonius who was a well travelled healer and strict vegetarian who spoke out against deliberately imposed grain restrictions.
