Therefore, as those philosophers who were called Elpistics (from the Greek word signifying hope, which above all others they cried up) averred that there was nothing in the world which concurred more to the preservation of life than hope, without whose gracious influence life would be a burden and altogether intolerable; in the like manner that of all other things may be said to get us a stomach to our meat without which all meat would be unpalatable and nauseous.

And among all those things the earth yields, we find no such things as salt, which we can only have from the sea.

First of all, without salt, there would be nothing eatable which mixed with flour seasons bread also.

Neptune and Ceres had both the same temple.

Besides, salt is the most pleasant of all condiments.
For those heroes who like athletes used themselves to a spare diet, banishing from their tables all vain and superfluous delicacies, to such a degree that when they encamped by the Hellespont they abstained from fish, yet for all this could not eat flesh without salt; which is a sufficient evidence that salt is the most desirable of all relishes.