In opertaneis sacris gallinae nigrae non videbantur purae, Idem[1]. Gallum nutrito quidem, ne tamen sacrificato: est enim Soli et Lunae dicatus. Hoc (inquit Lilius Gr. Gyraldus[2]) ab aliquibus inter symbola repositum est. Sunt qui dimidiatum tantum efferant, Gallos enutrias. Nonnulli praeceptum hoc non symbolum faciunt, nec aliud quam gallum ipsum intelligunt. Sed licet etiam symbolice interpretari: vel ut Picus, ut divinam animae nostrae partem, divinarum rerum cognitione, quasi solido cibo et coelesti ambrosia pascamus: Vel simplicius, gallos, id est milites ac bellatores homines in civitate habendos esse, et in contubernio retinendos, non tamen rei sacrae causa. seu urbis vigiles et custodes intelligas, quando ii per gallos significari videntur: et Soli ac Lunae dicati, quoniam tempori hoc hominum genus inserviunt, quod per Solem et Lunam intelligitur: vel quod nos gallus suo cantu admoneat. Alius aliam comminisci poterit expositionem, ut gloriosos et stolidos homines, nimiumque sibi arrogantes, habendos illos quidem, et non penitus eijciendos: non tamen ad sacra, id est arcana admittendos, minusque in seriis et gravioribus sermonibus habendos. Scribit Pausanias in Lacon. (lege, Corinthiacis[3]) Methanam urbem ad Isthmum, in qua cives contra Africum vineis florescentibus ac germinantibus infestum, galli pennis albis ac niveis (alas omnino candidas habentis, Loescherus Pausaniae interpres,) remedio usos fuisse: quem gallum homines in diversa trahentes, discerpebant, per vineas discurrentes: demum in eundem locum redeuntes, ubi discerpserant, gallum sepeliebant. Adeo hi diversi fuere a Pythagorae institutis, quem tradunt gallum album adeo amasse, ut si quando videret, fratris germani loco salutaret, et apud se haberet, (vide inter proverbia, Gallo albo abstineas) suis vero sectatoribus, qui civiles id est politici dicti sunt, permisisse ait Iamblichus, ut gallum, agnum et alia quaedam paulo ante nata, praeter vitulum, rite sacrificarent. Idem scribit Suidas.

In the secret ceremonies the black hens were not regarded as pure, still Giraldi. Nourish undoubtedly the rooster, nevertheless do not sacrifice him: in fact he is devoted to Sun and Moon. This expression (Giglio Gregorio Giraldi says) by some people has been put among the symbols of faith. Some report only a half of it: Nourish the roosters. Some don't reckon this expression a symbol of faith, and they don't mean anything else than the rooster himself. But it is possible to interpret it also symbolically: either as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, so that we feed the divine part of our soul, through the knowledge of the divine things, so to say with solid food and celestial ambrosia: or more simply, that we need to have in a town some roosters, that is, soldiers and warlike men, and that they must be held in a shared tent, however not for sacred reasons. But you have to mean as sentries and keepers of the town, and in such a case it is clear that they have the meaning of roosters: and devoted to Sun and Moon, since at proper time they are on duty of this kind of men, and it is understood through the Sun and the Moon: that is, since the rooster warns us with his song. Another person can contrive another explanation, so that the vainglorious and foolish men, and too much arrogant with themselves, have to possess them of course, and they have do not throw away them totally: nevertheless they are not to be used for sacred rites, that is, for secret ceremonies, and have to less appear in serious and of a certain weight conversations. Pausanias writes in Laconia (read Corinth) that there is the town of Methana near the isthmus of Corinth, in which the inhabitants against the wind blowing from Africa - the  southwest wind - ravaging for vineyards while blooming and budding, used as remedy the white and candid snow-white feathers of a rooster (who had entirely white wings, Abraham Löscher, translator of Pausanias): and the men, running through the vineyards, tore this rooster pulling him in opposite directions: finally, coming back in the same point where they had torn him, buried the rooster. Even this people behaved in an opposite way of the rules of Pythagoras, and they report that he loved the white rooster to such an extent that if by chance he saw him, he greeted him as being a brother born from the same parents, and he held him with himself (see among the proverbs: abstain from the white rooster), and Jamblicus says that he allowed his followers, who were said civilians, that is, politicians, to sacrifice, according to the prescribed rite, the rooster, the lamb and some other just born animals, except the calf. The lexicon Suidas writes the same thing.

Sed et Laertius, Sacrificiis (inquit) utebatur Pythagoras inanimis. Sunt qui dicant, gallis gallinaceis, et hoedis etiam lacteolis quos teneros dicunt, agnis autem minime. Caeterum Aristoxenus apud Gellium, cuncta illum animata in cibum permisisse ait, bove aratore et ariete exceptis. Idem scribit Suidas: qui et illud ait, a Theoclea sorore, vel potius (ut est apud Laertium) Themistoclea, haec placita illum sumpsisse. At vero Christiani theologi nonnulli, per gallos concionatores [contionatores] et divinos homines intelligunt, qui nobis verba salutis enunciant: quique iacentibus in tenebris et umbra mortis, lucem, qui Deus est, praenunciant, et a nobis mentis nostrae veternum ac torporem suo cantu excutiunt, Haec omnia Gyraldus. Socrates in Phaedone[4] ad mortem se praeparans, Aesculapio (inquit) o Crito gallum debemus, quem reddite neque negligatis. Hoc votum tanquam hominis minime sapientis Lactantius lib. 3. Divin. instit.[5] et in Apologetico[6] Tertullianus reprehendunt: defendit Caelius Rhodiginus in Antiquis lectionibus 16. 12. his fere verbis.

But also Diogenes Laërtius says: Pythagoras used inanimate sacrifices. Some would be inclined to say that he used roosters and kids even if sucking which they say being tender, but very few lambs. On the other hand Aristoxenus in Aulus Gellius says that he gave the permission to use as food all those animate beings, with the exception of plowing ox and ram. The lexicon Suidas writes the same thing: saying also that he inferred these precepts from his sister Theoclea, or better Themistoclea (as we find in Diogenes Laërtius). But to say the truth some Christian theologians mean for roosters the preachers and the men consecrated to God, who announce us the words of the salvation: and who announce the light, that is God, to those people who lie in the darkness and in the shade of the death, and with their song they avert from us the apathy and the numbness of our mind, Giraldi writes all these things. Socrates in Phaedo of Plato, while preparing himself to the death, says: O Crito, we owe a rooster to Aesculapius, and give it him and don't breach the pledge. Lactantius in 3^rd book of Divinae institutiones and Tertullian in Apologeticus blame this vow as done by a  man not wise at all: Lodovico Ricchieri defends him in Lectiones antiquae 16,12 more or less by the following words.

Oblitus est (inquit) Lactantius sententiae illius, Nunquam futurum Platonicum, qui allegorice Platonem non putet intelligendum. Quid vero illis involucris sibi Plato voluerit, iam nunc ex Platonicorum sententia promere adoriar. Prisci Aesculapio medico, Phoebi filio gallum sacrificabant, diei Solisque nuncium, id est divinae beneficentiae morborum omnium curatrici, quae divinae providentiae filia nominatur, cui diem, id est vitae lumen se debere fatebantur. Eiusmodi medicum in superioribus Socrates perquiri iusserat, morborum animi curatorem. praeterea priscorum oracula tradunt, animas remeantes in coelum paeana, id est triumphalem cantilenam Phoebo canere. Reddit ergo Deo votum, ut alacer paeana canens coelestem repetat patriam, Haec Rhodiginus. Socrates gallum Aesculapio sacrificandum testamento cavit, cuius rei ex Platone etiam Eusebius, Tertullianus et Lactantius meminere. Artemidorus quoque in libro Onirocriticon quinto, somnium cuiusdam narrat, qui gallum Aesculapio vovit, si sanus foret, Gyraldus[7]. Et rursus in libro de Symbolis Pythagorae. Aesculapio gallus immolabatur. sunt qui gallinas scribant, et has quidem rostro nigro, nigrisque pedibus, et digitis imparibus. Si enim luteo essent rostro, vel pedibus, impurae putabantur ab aruspicibus[8]. Ἀφίησι τῷ Ἀσκληπιῷ ἀνάθημά τε καὶ ἄθυρμα <εἶναι>, οἱονεὶ θεράποντα καὶ οἰκέτην περιπολοῦντα τῷ νεῷ [νεῴ] τὸν ὄρνιν, ὁ Ἀσπένδιος ἐκεῖνος, Suidas ex innominato, in Ἀλεκτρυόνα.

He says: Lactantius forgot that statement which says: No one will ever become a Platonist who does not think that Plato must be understood allegorically. But what Plato meant by those coverings I shall now proceed to explain from the attitude of the Platonists. The ancients used to sacrifice to the physician Aesculapius, son of Apollo - or Phoebus - a rooster, messenger of the day and of the sun, that is, of the divine beneficence, curative of any illness, which is named the daughter of divine providence, to which they acknowledged to owe the day, that is, the light of life. Socrates bade that among superior entities a physician of this kind to be chosen as curator of the illnesses of the soul. Furthermore the rules of the ancients report that the souls on their return to heaven sing a paean to Phoebus, that is, a refrain of triumph. Therefore he fulfils a vow to the god, so that singing cheerful a paean he can come back to heavenly fatherland. Thus far Lodovico Ricchieri. Socrates in his will took care that a rooster was sacrificed to Aesculapius, a thing mentioned also by Eusebius of Caesarea, Tertullian and Lactantius drawing from Plato. Also Artemidorus in the fifth book of Onirocriticon tells the dream of another person who promised a rooster to Aesculapius if he had become healthy, Giraldi. And thus far in Symbolorum Pythagorae Interpretatio he says: A rooster was immolated to Aesculapius. Some write the hens, and they had to have a black beak and black legs and odd toes. For if they had yellow beak or legs they were held impure by soothsayers. Aphíësi tôi Asklëpiôi anáthëmá te kai áthyrma, hoioneì theráponta kaì oikétën peripoloûnta tôi neøi tòn órnin, ho Aspéndios ekeînos – That famous man of Aspendos devotes to Aesculapius, so that it is a votive offering and an amusement, the cock wandering around the temple as minister and servant, the lexicon Suidas from an unknown fellow at the entry Alektryóna.

¶ Maiae, quam et Proserpinam et Cererem vocant, gallinaceum consecrarunt. quamobrem initiati huic deae avibus cortalibus abstinent, nam et Eleusine abstinentia ab his alitibus, et piscibus fabisque praecipitur, Porphyrius lib. 4. de abstinendo ab animatis. ¶ Gallus etiam Cybeli dicatus fuit, Gyraldus. ¶ Sunt qui tradant Pythagoram praeter sua instituta, bovem quandoque Musis, et Iovi gallum album immolasse: quoque vix crediderim, propter ea quae de eo in Symbolis retuli, Idem. ¶ Pecudem spondere sacello | Balantem, et laribus cristam promittere galli | Non audent, Iuvenalis Sat. 8. ¶ Gallum Latonae in amore esse aiunt, et quod ei affuerit parienti, et quod etiam nunc parientibus adsit, et faciles partus efficiat, Aelian[9]. Kiranides quidem gallinae cor ea adhuc palpitante exemptum, et coxae adalligatum, partum egregie accelerare scribit.

¶ To Maia, they also call Proserpina and Ceres, they consecrated a rooster. That's why the initiates of this goddess abstain from courtyard animals, for also at Eleusis is prescribed the abstinence from these fowls, as well as from fishes and broad beans, Porphyrius in 4^th book of De abstinentia ab animalibus. ¶ The rooster was also devoted to Cybeles, Giraldi. ¶ Some report that Pythagoras, neglecting his own precepts, sometimes immolated an ox to Muses, a white rooster to Jupiter: also this I would find hard to believe because of what I reported on him in Symbolorum Pythagorae Interpretatio, still Giraldi. ¶ They don't dare to promise in vote to the sanctuary a bleating animal and a comb of a rooster to the Lares, Juvenal 13^th Satire, vv. 232-34. ¶ They say that the rooster is beloved by Latona, both because he was beside her when she was giving birth, and because now he is beside the women in labor, and provokes easy deliveries, Aelian. And Kiranides writes that the heart extracted from a hen still shaking and laced to the thigh hastens the delivery in a marvelous way.

¶ Gallus sacer erat Marti, et in templis dedicabatur, Eustathius. Hinc forte Aristophanes in Avibus gallum Ἄρεως νεοττόν, hoc est Martis pullum cognominat. Scholiastes quidem sic vocari ait, tanquam fortem et pugnacem. Romani Marti interdum gallum appingebant, ob militum videlicet vigilantiam: vel propter Alectryonis fabulam, Martis satellitis, in eam avem conversi, ut in eius nominis Festivo libello Lucianus scribit, et Ausonius[10] poeta uno pene versu attigit: Ter clara instantis Eoi, | Signa canit serus deprenso Marte satelles, Lilius Gr. Gyraldus. Lacedaemonii cum aliquo strategemate victoria potiti essent, Marti bovem immolabant: si vero aperto Marte vicissent, gallum. id quod ab eis non sine ratione fiebat, quod [409] pluris aestimabant incruentam victoriam, quam cruentam, Lilius Gr. Gyraldus: ut duces suos exercerent, non bellicosos tantum esse, sed etiam στρατηγικούς (lego στρατηγηματικούς,) Plutarchus in Laconicis.

¶ The rooster was sacred to Mars and was devoted in temples, Eustathius. Perhaps because of this Aristophanes in Birds nicknames the rooster Áreøs neottón, that is, chick of Ares. And the scholiast says that he is so called as to say that he is strong and pugnacious. The Romans sometimes portrayed a rooster beside Mars, clearly because the soldiers kept watch: or because of the fable of Alectryon, bodyguard of Mars, turned into this bird, as Lucian writes in the amusing booklet with the same name - The dream or the rooster - Òneiros ë alektryøn -, and whom the poet Ausonius mentioned with hardly a verse: After Mars has been caught, the dumb bodyguard sings thrice the ringing signals of pressing Aurora, Giglio Gregorio Giraldi. Lacedaemonians, if they seized the victory by some subterfuge, sacrificed to Mars an ox: but if they won at open battle, sacrificed a rooster. A thing done by them not without a reason, for they valued a bloodless victory more highly than a bloody one, Giglio Gregorio Giraldi: to train their leaders to be not only warlike, but also stratëghikoús - strategists (I interpret stratëghëmatikoús - experienced in stratagems), Plutarch in Laconica apophthegmata.