Metamorphoses

A later king named Numa turns his interest to natural science, visiting the city of Crotona. Hercules helped Crotona develop by arranging for the Greek man Myscelus, forced out of his own home, to travel there and build a city.

In Crotona lives a Samian philosopher named Pythagoras who promotes vegetarianism. He wants people to eat like they did in the Golden Age and associates meat with violence, saying, “Never by slaughter dispossess / souls that are kin and nourish blood with blood! (357). Pythagoras also teaches that all the universe is in constant flux, like the seasons and the earth’s natural features and the rise and fall of cities.

When Numa dies, his wife, the nymph Egeria, mourns him. Theseus’ son Hippolytus finds her and tries to cheer her up by telling her the story of his tragic life.