“In the beginning, some wild and mischievous beast was killed and eaten, and then some little bird or fish was entrapped. And the love of slaughter, being first experimented and exercised in these, at last passed even to the laboring ox, and the sheep that clothes us, and to the poor cock that keeps the house; until by little and little, unsatiableness being strengthened by use, men came to the slaughter of men, to bloodshed and wars.”

— Plutarch , book Moralia

II, 4
Moralia, Of Eating of Flesh

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Plutarch 251

ancient Greek historian and philosopher 46–127

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Plutarch 251

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