"Whether woodcock or partridge, what does it signify, if the taste is the same? But the partridge is dearer, and therefore thought preferable."—Martial, Epigrams, xiii. 76.

Passing from Greece to Italy, we find frugality to have been a prominent trait of the early Romans, and porridge to have been the national dish until wheaten bread was introduced from Athens. Like the Greeks, who received their initial lessons from the Persians, the Romans derived their knowledge of cookery from Attica, whence they imported their first masters. The Romans proved apt scholars, and soon outrivalled their instructors in the pleasures of the table, where the pomp, luxury, and licentiousness of the times were carried to their furthest limit. It is indeed well nigh impossible to conceive the splendour, prodigality, and sensuality that prevailed during the Republic and the Empire, when fabulous revenues were squandered at a single feast, and gluttony and intemperance were the gods of the hour.

It was towards the decline of the Republic, during the period of Pompey the Great, CÆsar, and Lucullus, that, dispensing with the culinary preceptors of Greece, the Roman cuisine attained its greatest celebrity.

For it was at this period that the great ravagers of the world, who were to carry the name and arms of Rome into distant lands, brought their cooks with them, who vied with one another in contributing the most appetising dishes of various countries. It was then when Antony, intoxicated with the spoils of conquest and more than usually pleased with the artist of his kitchen, sent for him at the dessert and presented him with a city of thirty-five thousand inhabitants—an example followed in a minor way by Henry VIII of England, who rewarded his cook for having composed a pudding of especial merit by the gift of a manor. It was then that the Sybarites bestowed public recompense and marks of distinction upon those who gave the most magnificent banquets, and especially upon those who invented new dishes.[2] It was then that the practised epicure professed to distinguish by the taste from what locality of Italy a wild boar had been procured, or whether a pike had been caught in the lower or upper Tiber. Thus Horace, in one of the "Satires":

It was then that the rich Romans had at their villas magnificent piscinÆ filled with fresh-and salt-water fishes that might be netted at a moment's notice to set before their guests. In his ode "On the Prevailing Luxury," the Venusian bard also alludes to these vivaria and the inordinate fondness for fish of the Romans:

The mansions of the wealthy were likewise provided with splendid aviaries filled with thrushes that were fed with millet and crushed figs mixed with wheaten flour. Cygnets and snow-white geese were held in great repute, and when fattened upon green figs their livers were highly prized.

Hortensius the consul was among the first to maintain salt-water ponds stocked with his favourite fish, the red mullet of the Mediterranean. He was also the introducer of the peacock served in its feathers, a dish extremely popular during the Republic. Horace proved a better judge than his many moneyed hosts, and chose the chicken in preference, asserting that it was the costliness of the bird of Juno and the glory of his glittering train more than the quality of the flesh that were prized. Artificial oyster-beds, according to Pliny, were first formed at BaiÆ by Sergius Orata, a contemporary of Crassus the orator, not for the gratification of gluttony, but as a speculation from which he derived a large income. He too was the first to adjudge the preËminence for delicacy of flavour to the oysters of Lake Lucrinus. Preserves were subsequently formed by others for murenÆ, sea-snails, and numerous saline delicacies.

Like the Hellenes, the Romans had three meals—the breakfast (jentaculum), the luncheon (prandium), and the dinner (cena). Originally, as has been the case with all peoples, the dinner was held in the morning, but with the progress of luxury and owing to the greater convenience to men of affairs, it became gradually deferred to late afternoon or evening. Nine was the favourite number of guests at the cena. It was a custom borrowed from the Greeks to appoint a king or dictator of the feast, who prescribed its laws, which the guests were bound, under penalties, to obey. By him the quantity of the cups to be drunk was decided, ten bumpers being the usual allowance—nine in honour of the Muses, and one to Apollo. Similar to the Grecian custom, every man who had a mistress was compelled to toast her when called upon. To this a penalty was sometimes attached, in which case the challenger was obliged to empty a cup to each letter of the lady's name. When the gallant had reasons for secrecy, he merely announced the number of cups which had to be drunk.

The place of tobacco was taken by perfumes at feasts, a practice carried by the Romans to great excess. Nard and other perfumes in use being extremely costly, Horace insists upon Virgil contributing them when he comes to dine in the vale of Ustica. Catullus, also, who asks his friend Fabullus to dinner, agrees to supply the perfumes, providing Fabullus bring with him all the other requisites. The spiciness of the essences doubtless spurred the appetite, and tended to produce a pleasant languor.[5]

Very numerous plants and herbs were employed as flavourings in the kitchens of the ancients, such as dill, anise-seed, hyssop, thyme, pennyroyal, rue, cummin, poppy-seed, shallots, and, naturally, onions, garlic, and leeks—savoury then taking the place of parsley, which, though known, was used more as a decoration and worn by guests as an adornment. Cummin was largely utilised for seasoning. Sorrel was cultivated by the Romans to increase its size, and, according to Apicius, was eaten stewed with mustard and seasoned with oil and vinegar. The carrot was stewed, boiled with cummin and a little oil, and eaten as a salad, with salt, oil, and vinegar.

Brocoli was an especial favourite with Apicius, the most tender parts being boiled, with the addition of pepper, chopped onions, cummin and coriander seed bruised together, and a little oil and sun-made wine. Turnips were boiled and seasoned with rue, cummin, and benzoin, pounded in a mortar, adding afterwards honey, vinegar, gravy, boiled grapes, and oil. Asparagus, which Lamb says inspires gentle thoughts, was cultivated with notable care. The finest heads were dried, and when wanted were placed in hot water and boiled. Lucullus and Apicius ate only those that were grown in the environs of Nesis, a city of Campania. Beets, mallows, artichokes, and cucumbers were greatly relished and elaborately prepared, and garlic, extolled by Virgil and decried by Horace, was generously used.

Apicius, in his treatise "De re Culinaria," gives numerous recipes for cooking the cabbage—the silken-leaved, curled, and hard white varieties. From these recipes we at once may judge of his resources, and obtain an idea of a master vegetable-cook of the period:

"1. Take only the most delicate and tender part of the cabbage, which boil, and then pour off the water; season it with cummin seed, salt, old wine, oil, pepper, alisander, mint, rue, coriander seed, gravy, and oil.

"2. Prepare the cabbage in the manner just mentioned, and make a seasoning of coriander seed, onion, cummin seed, pepper, a small quantity of oil, and wine made of sun raisins.

"3. When you have boiled the cabbages in water put them into a saucepan and stew them with gravy, oil, wine, cummin seed, pepper, leeks, and green coriander.

"4. Add to the preceding ingredients flour of almonds, and raisins dried in the sun.

"5. Prepare them again in the above manner, and cook them with green olives."

To what an extent strange condiments, herbs, and other seasonings were employed, as well as to what a task the human stomach was subjected, will be apparent from a recipe, given by the same authority, for a thick sauce for a boiled chicken: "Put the following ingredients into a mortar: anise-seed, dried mint, and lazer-root (similar to asafoetida); cover them with vinegar; add dates; pour in garum, oil, and a small quantity of mustard-seeds; reduce all to a proper thickness with red wine warmed; and then pour this same over your chicken, which should previously be boiled in anise-seed water."

With regard to the olden wines, let us be duly grateful for the progress of viniculture, and thankful that we may read of them, rather than have to partake of them, to rue the Katzenjammer of the following morning. For if one must have a headache on rare occasions as the penalty of dining, it were assuredly less to be deplored if obtained through a grand vintage of the Marne or the MÉdoc than from a wine mixed with sea-water or spices, or old Falernian cloyed with honey from Mount Hymettus. By all means, if we must drink an excessively sweet wine, let it be, at most, a glass of Hermitage paille or Muscat Rivesaltes, iced to snow!

The tables, the plate, and the dinner-service corresponded with the rarity of the viands and beverages. Cicero's table of lemon-wood cost him two hundred thousand sesterces, or over seven thousand dollars. Besides being made of the most precious foreign woods, veined and spotted to imitate the tiger's and the leopard's skin, they were also wrought of ivory, silver, bronze, and tortoise-shell.

The drinking-cups of gold and glass, the nimbus and ampulla—crystal chalices, ewers, and flagons in which the luxurious were wont to mix myrrh, spikenard, and other perfumes with their wine—were equally costly. Martial extols a jewelled cup: "See how the gold, begemmed with Scythian emeralds, glistens! How many fingers does it deprive of jewels!" His lovely description of an exquisitely chased wine-cup of gold, received from Instantius Rufus, will also be recalled. Again, he praises a gold dinner-service: "Do not dishonour such large gold dishes with an insignificant mullet; it ought at least to weigh two pounds." "I see," says Seneca, "the shell of the tortoise bought for immense sums and ornamented with the most elaborate care; I see tables and pieces of wood valued at the price of a senator's estate, which are all the more precious the more knots the tree has been twisted into by disease. I see murrhine-cups, for luxury would be too cheap if men did not drink to one another out of hollow gems the wine to be afterwards thrown up again." In vain Pompey the Great and Licinius Crassus strove to cheek the riotous table extravagance, which continued despite previous and subsequent sumptuary laws for its suppression.

"To-day," says Pliny, "a cook costs as much as a triumph, a fish as much as a cook, and no mortal costs more than the slave who knows best how to ruin his master." Fabulous prices were paid for fish, notably for the famed red mullet or sea-barbel. Tiberius, who was an exception, and was not partial to this fish, on being presented with an unusually large specimen, weighing four and a half pounds, sent it to the market to be sold. "I will be greatly surprised," he observed, "if the mullet is not purchased by Apicius or Octavius." It was borne off in triumph by Octavius, who became celebrated for having paid two hundred dollars for a fish sold by the emperor and that Apicius himself had not secured.

Seneca also states that the mullet was looked upon as tainted unless it expired in the hands of the guests, who were provided with glass vessels in which to put their fish, in order the better to perceive their changes and motions in the last agony betwixt life and death. "Look how it reddens!" cries one; "there is no vermilion like it; look at those lateral veins, see how the grey brightens upon its head, and now it is at its last gasp, it pales and its inanimate body fades to a single hue." "The mullet of the ocean is certainly a meritorious fish," observes Baron Brisse, "but how greatly superior is that of the Mediterranean!"

This greatly valued fish was the European Mullus barbatus, one of the forty or more different species of the red mullet, found chiefly in the subtropical parts of the Indo-Pacific Ocean. By far the most abundant in the Mediterranean, it is nevertheless not uncommon to the coasts of England and Ireland, though nowhere does it attain so delicate a flavour as in the Mediterranean. The name is said to have reference to the scarlet colour of the sandal or shoe worn by the Roman consuls, and in later times by the emperors, which was called mullus.

Like the ruby, the mullet increased rapidly in price when it exceeded the usual size—the largest weighing scarcely three or four pounds. Suetonius is authority for the statement that this fish was so esteemed in his time that three large specimens were sold for thirty thousand sesterces, or more than a thousand dollars, which caused Tiberius to enact sumptuary laws and tax the provisions brought to market. The red mullet, although much less highly thought of than in olden days, is still in request by the modern French epicure. Francatelli cautions that it should never be drawn; it is sufficient to remove the gills only, as the liver and trail are considered the best part—an opinion held by the Romans. It is possible that, owing to this circumstance, it has been termed the "sea-woodcock."

The mullet was served by the Romans with a seasoning of pepper, rue, onions, dates, and mustard, to which was added the flesh of the sea-hedgehog reduced to a pulp and oil. When the priceless liver alone was to be eaten by an emperor or a senator, it was cooked and then seasoned with pepper, salt, or a little garum, some oil was added, and hare's or fowl's liver, and oil poured over the whole.

The turbot was another favourite supplied by the sea, and one will remember Martial's panegyric concerning it: "However great the dish that holds the turbot, the turbot is still greater than the dish." From the foam-fleeced flocks of Proteus many other fish with strange names were transferred by the wealthy Romans to their vast aquaria—the sargus, the harp-fish, the hyca, the synodon, the hespidus, the chromis, the callichithys,

The huge tunny and sturgeon, the tiny anchovy, and, in fact, nearly every denizen of the ocean appeared upon the Roman tables in some form. The dolphin was a sacred fish, and was left unmolested to pilot Triton's car. Even the polypus, sea-urchin, and cuttlefish were held in great esteem. The scaurus or char, a species unknown to us, and the murex, an edible purple mussel of which the finest flavoured came from BaiÆ were highly prized. Fatted eels were considered a great delicacy, and among fresh-water species the tench, carp, and pike were the most employed. Piscis was the Phryne of the Roman feasts, and dolphins, whales, and mermaids appear to be the only species that were not consumed.

According to Juvenal, who relates the story at great length, the members of Domitian's cabinet were one day suddenly summoned to the Alban Villa, where they were obliged to remain in waiting while the emperor gave audience to a fisherman who had brought him an unusually large Rhombus, and when they were finally admitted they found they had nothing to debate about except whether the fish was to be minced or cooked in a special dish, there being none of sufficient size in the imperial kitchens. After mature deliberation, a special receptacle was decided upon, when the audience was dismissed. The turbot was served with a sauce piquante.

Nor were the affluent nobles and business men far behind the triumvirs, consuls, and emperors in their ruinous manner of living. Autocracy set the pace, and her wealthy vassals were not slow to follow. Trimalchio, the moneyed landholder, was accustomed to serve a wild boar whole, with a number of live fieldfares inside, ready to fly out as soon as they were given their liberty by Carpus, his professional carver. These, as they fluttered about the room, were caught by fowlers with reeds tipped with bird-lime.

The minute account of one of Trimalchio's dinners, given by the licentious Latin classicist Petronius Arbiter, descriptive of the viands, beverages, service, and table customs of the day, may be advantageously consulted by those whose powers of digestion are strong enough to enable them to consider a representative feast during the reign of Nero at the home of this ostentatious host. The elaborate first course is described as terminating with the appearance of a servant bearing a silver skeleton so artfully constructed that its joints and backbone turned in all directions; when, having cast it several times upon the table and causing it to assume various postures, Trimalchio cried out, "Of such are we—let us live while we may!" The first course finished, the second was presented in the form of a large circular tray with the twelve signs of the zodiac surrounding it, upon each of which the arranger had placed an appropriate dish—on Aries, ram's-head pies; on Taurus, a piece of roasted beef; on Gemini, kidneys and lamb's fry; on Cancer, a crown; on Leo, African figs; on Virgo, a young sow's haslet; on Libra, a pair of scales, in one of which were tarts, in the other cheese-cakes; on Scorpio, a little sea-fish of the same name; on Sagittarius, a hare; on Capricorn, a lobster; on Aquarius, a goose; on Piscis, two mullets, while in the centre spread a green turf on which lay a honeycomb. It will be readily apparent that the modern French chef does not stand alone in his skill of producing a piÈce-montÉe. Meanwhile, an Egyptian slave carried bread in a silver portable oven, singing a song in praise of wine flavoured with laserpitium. Whereupon four attendants came dancing in to the sound of music, and, removing the upper part of the tray, there was revealed on a second tray beneath stuffed fowls, a sow's paps, and in the middle a hare fitted with wings to resemble Pegasus. At the several corners stood four figures of Marsyas spouting a highly seasoned sauce on a school of fish.

At the third course a very large hog was brought in, much larger even than the wild boar that had been previously served. This was followed by a young calf, boiled whole, with more wine, perfumes, fruits, and sweetmeats—thrushes in pastry, stuffed with nuts and raisins, and quinces stuck over with prickles to resemble sea-urchins. "Only command him," exclaimed the host, "and my cook will make you a fish out of a pig's chitterlings, a wood-pigeon out of the lard, a turtle-dove out of the gammon, and a hen out of the shoulder!"

Apparently, the artist of Trimalchio was no less fertile in resources and liberal ideas of expenditure than the chef of the Prince of Soubise, who, on being taken to task by his employer for including fifty hams for a single supper, replied:

"Only one will appear upon the table, monseigneur; the rest are not the less necessary for my espagnole, my blonds, my garnitures, my—"

"Bertrand, you are plundering me."

"Oh, monseigneur," replied the conjurer, "you do not understand our resources; say the word, and these fifty hams which confound you—I will put them all into a glass bottle no bigger than your thumb!"

To be sure, the accounts given by Petronius Arbiter, Juvenal, Martial, and other satirists must be taken with some limitation. Yet, making all due allowance for exaggeration, it is hardly to be wondered at that many of the olden rulers and opulent personages, armed with unbounded power and possessed of unlimited riches, should have yielded so abjectly to luxury and vice as to have fully warranted the stricture of Juvenal:

These accounts, moreover, attested as they are by serious annalists, may not be dismissed as largely imaginative or grossly exaggerated. The strictures on the besetting vices that occur in the contemporary works of historians, moralists, philosophers, and poets are far too vehement and voluminous to leave any doubt of the inordinate abuse of the table among the ancients, particularly among the Romans, when their wealthy capital, as Propertius records, "was beset all round in its own victories." It was the period of insatiable voracity and the peacock's plume. Even Martial was careful to state that it was vices, not personages, to which his scourge was applied. His caustic and highly seasoned epigrams deal largely with the dinner-table, and from these one may derive a most realistic idea of the bill of fare of his contemporaries, as well as of the varied and luxurious character of the presents made to the guests at feasts. The excesses of eating and drinking are roundly denounced by him at every turn, while his picture of the crapulous Santra in the Seventh Book is only equalled by the "Portrait of a Gourmand" of Carle Vernet, or Spenser's etching of "Gluttony" in the "Faerie Queene."

Horace in particular, a scholar, poet, and man of the world, the friend of MÆcenas, and an onlooker and frequenter of society, may be accepted as a competent authority on the table manners and customs of the times. No one more than he was aware of the gross extravagance and intemperance of the age. Nor has any writer depicted his own and the everyday life of the Romans more vividly. To peruse him attentively in the "Satires," "Epistles," "Epodes," and "Odes," is to take part in the feasts, be admitted to the inner circle of the optimates, knock at the door of Lydia, and join in the pageant of the Sacra Via. The table of MÆcenas, the rich voluptuary and dilettante, who had a palace on the Esquiline Hill, where Horace was often a guest, was widely celebrated. As the poet was a visitor also at the palace of Augustus, and numbered among his friends the most eminent men of Rome, he had unusual opportunities to become acquainted both with the vie intime and haute cuisine of his day. While not a gastronomer, he was far from averse to good living, though, from his digestion not being of the soundest, he had frequent cause to rue the sumptuous banquets, borrowed from the Asiatic Greeks, which were in vogue at the time. And while he was a frequent attendant at the entertainments of the wealthy, we nevertheless find him constantly censuring their intemperance and extravagance at table. For himself, he would have "simple dinners, richly dressed," and "let the strong toil give relish to the feast." Rare old CÆcuban, Falernian, and Massic, MÆcenas might pour out at home from his well-filled amphorÆ into chased crystal cups and vessels of gold—at the Sabine farm the common Sabine wine in modest goblets would alone be tendered him.

If we may regard the elaborate repast of Nasidienus as a typical one, we may readily conceive the nightmares that must have ensued from such a plenitude of viands and wines and such copious libations. The student of Horace will remember the menu. First a Lucanian boar, surrounded by excitants to the appetite—

Fish and wild fowl, lampreys and shrimps, succeeded, washed down with brimmers of CÆcuban, Alban, Falernian, and vintages of Greece; and finally, as the feast and the night wore on,

That Nasidienus was proverbially penurious, was guilty of purchasing tainted game in order to save expense, and would have been chary of his wines had it not been for Servilius, who cried loudly for "larger goblets," leads one to conclude that even his repast was far below those of the pampered upper classes in its prodigality.

Apicius, who is referred to by Pliny, Seneca, Juvenal, and Martial, is said to have squandered nearly four million dollars in riotous living, when, looking over his accounts, he found he had only about a tenth of that amount remaining, and, unwilling to starve on such a pittance, he poisoned himself. Of the three persons bearing the name of Apicius, one of whom lived in the times of Sulla, another during the reign of Tiberius, and the third under Trajan, none is supposed to be the author of "De re Culinaria," since published in so many different editions, a work now ascribed to Coelius, who, in admiration of the renowned Marcus Gabius, termed himself Apicius. The latter, the richest of the three who bore the name by right, vied with royalty in his regal tastes. He is reported as having voyaged to Africa expressly to ascertain whether the crawfish there were superior to those he was accustomed to have at MinturnÆ; but finding them inferior, he returned immediately, without setting foot to land. "Look at Nomentanus and Apicius," says Seneca, "who digest all the good things, as they call them, of the sea and the land, and review upon their tables the whole animal kingdom. Look at them as they lie on beds of roses, gloating over their banquet and delighting their ears with music, their eyes with exhibitions, their palates with flavours."

Where the deliciously scented cyclamen carpets the shore of the Mediterranean in myriads at BaiÆ, Apicius repaired to savour shell-fish—"the manna of the sea"—and from the self-same sea that laves the isle of Capri and rolls its azure wave into the famed blue grotto, Tiberius sent turbots to him that Apicius was not rich enough to buy himself.

Yet far exceeding Apicius, who was almost deified for discovering how to maintain oysters fresh and alive during long journeys, was his predecessor Lucullus, the wealthy general, a great patron of learning and the arts, as well as the king of epicures. Juvenal has etched his portrait in four lines:

The Monte Cristo of Naples, he pierced a mountain to place two of his country villas in closer communication and to conduct the sea-water to one of them, where he had constructed a huge aquarium for sea-fish. His carvers were paid at the rate of four thousand a year. The various dining-rooms at his Neapolitan palace were designed according to the costliness of the repasts which were given in them, the saloon of Apollo being the most sumptuous. Cicero and Pompey, resolving one day to surprise him, presented themselves unceremoniously, and, upon being pressed to remain to dinner, assented on condition that he would go to no extra trouble. Summoning his major-domo, he dismissed him with the simple command:

"Place two more covers in the saloon of Apollo"—the cost of the dinner in this apartment being fixed at a thousand dollars per plate.

No review of the Roman table, however brief, would be complete without retelling the story of Lucullus as his own host. On this occasion, when, through some misunderstanding, he was without guests for dinner, his cook appeared as usual to receive his orders.

"I am alone," said Lucullus; whereupon his servitor, thinking that a five-hundred-dollar dinner would suffice, acted accordingly. At the conclusion of his repast, his face flushed with the juices of Falernian, Lucullus sent for his minister of the interior and took him severely to task. There were no fig-peckers, and the prized spawn of the sea-lamprey was missing. The cook was profuse in his apologies.

"But, seigneur, you were alone—"

"It is precisely when I happen to be alone that you require to pay especial attention to the dinner; at such times you must remember that Lucullus dines with Lucullus."

The great dining-room of Claudius, termed "Mercury," was constructed on an equally magnificent scale. But this was eclipsed by Nero's marvellous Domus aurea, which, through a circular movement of its sides and ceiling, counterfeited the changes of the skies and represented the different seasons of the year, while at intervals during the repast flowers and essences were showered down upon the guests.

The gluttonous feasts of Verres, Claudius, Nero, Vitellius, Domitian, and the rest of the Roman potentates are familiar to the student of ancient history. Claudius, who had usually six hundred guests at his feasts, died of an indigestion of mushrooms, facilitated, it is said, by a poisoned feather applied to his throat. Tiberius is also said to have met his death through an asphyxia of poisonous mushrooms, seconded by suffocation on the part of his favourite Macro, who in turn was put to death by Caligula. Caligula was noted for the fabulous sums spent upon his suppers, while CÆsar is credited with a four months' supper bill of more than five millions sterling. The present of this monarch, during one of his table debauches, of a sum equivalent to eighty thousand dollars to his charioteer Eutychus is the largest table present recorded of the Romans. Seneca states that one of his suppers cost nearly half a million, and he also it was who gave his charger Incitatus barley mixed with wine in a vase of gold. Vitellius spent not less than fifteen thousand dollars for each of his repasts, the composition of his favourite dishes requiring that vessels should constantly ply between the Gulf of Venice and the Straits of Cadiz. The flocks of flamingos placidly feeding in the Pontine marshes dreaded his fowlers—he had dishes made of their tongues. Later on, their haunts were invaded by Heliogabalus, who preferred their brains.[7] The life and reign of Vitellius were a continuous orgy, and his name was bequeathed to a multitude of dishes. According to Suetonius, Tiberius, who was inordinately fond of fig-peckers and mushrooms, presented Sabinus the author with eight thousand dollars for having composed a dialogue in which the fig-pecker, mushroom, oyster, and thrush were the dramatis personÆ. As the author and the poet are proverbially scantily remunerated, it is easy to imagine the wealth that a competent chef could command in the days when the haughty mistress of the world, sated with conquest and exultant with victory, lapsed into luxury and sensuality, while a constant stream of riches flowed into her treasury from tributary rulers and oppressed and spoliated nations.

The truffle and the snail were well known to the ancients. The speckled trout, of which there appears to be no mention by the recorders, seems to have been a neglected dainty. How Lucullus would have rejoiced at the sight of the pompano—that ruby of the salt-sea wave—and Apicius have been transported at the apparition of a puff-paste pÂtÉ of oyster-crabs! The brilliant iridescent hues of the rainbow-trout would have held a Roman epicure spellbound, while a dish of terrapin or a celery-fed Chesapeake canvasback might have decided the destinies of an empire. What a burst of applause a platter of roast ruffed-grouse would have commanded from a senate! Were the soft-shell crab a denizen of BaiÆ, or the whitefish, as he attains supreme perfection in Lake Ontario, a habitant of an Italian tarn, one can fancy how a feast of Heliogabalus would have been prolonged. That there are still as good fish in the sea as ever were caught seems an anomaly, in view of the voracity of the old Latins for this form of food.

History has recorded less of the excesses of the table during the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, and even during the dissolute monarchies of Commodus and Caracalla. It would be wrong, however, to assume that these excesses were renounced, even where the rulers did not themselves set the example, or that they did not continue in a flagrant form. The unbridled lust and gluttony of Commodus were scarcely equalled save by Heliogabalus. Septimius Severus, unable to endure the tortures he experienced in all his members, especially in his feet, in place of the poison that was refused him eagerly devoured a quantity of rich viands and died of indigestion. Gout and kindred maladies were notoriously common with both men and women, and upon this subject Seneca has descanted at length: "Is it necessary to enumerate the multitude of maladies that are the punishment of our luxury? The multiplicity of viands has produced a multiplicity of maladies. The greatest of physicians, the founder of medicine, has said that women do not become bald or subject to gout. Now they are both bald and gouty. Woman has not changed since in her nature, but in her mode of life, and, imitating man in his excesses, she shares his infirmities. Where is the lake, the sea, the forest, the spot of land that is not ransacked to gratify our palates? Our infirmities are the price of the pleasures to which we have abandoned ourselves beyond all measure and restraint. Are you astounded at the innumerable diseases?—count the number of our cooks!"

The favourite garum of the old Romans of itself were enough to have invited all the diseases that indigestion is heir to. This was a liquid, and was thus prepared: The insides of large fish and a variety of smaller fish were placed in a vessel and well salted, and then exposed to the sun till they became putrid. In a short time a liquor was produced, which, being strained off, was the garum or liquamen.

With the advent of Heliogabalus upon the throne, gluttony and extravagance reigned supreme. By this youthful monarch, during his brief reign of four years, the tyranny of Nero, and Caligula, the lust of Claudius and Commodus, the prodigality of Vitellius, the saturnalia and riotous living of Verres and Domitian were trebly exceeded. Entering Rome from Syria in a chariot drawn by naked women, surrounded with eunuchs, courtesans, and buffoons, wearing the tiara of the priests of the sun-god, dressed as a female in stuffs of silk and gold, and accompanied by a historiographer whose sole function it was to describe his orgies, he at once eclipsed all his predecessors. The Sardanapalus of Rome, his daily feasts are said to have consisted of over twoscore courses, and to have cost not less than ten thousand dollars each.

As related by Lampridius, his table-couches were stuffed with hares' down or partridges' feathers, his beds adorned with coverlets of gold, and in his kitchens none but richly chased utensils of silver were employed. The invention of a new sauce was royally rewarded by him, but if it was not relished the inventor was confined, to partake of nothing else until he had produced another more agreeable to the imperial palate. The liver of the priceless mullet seeming too paltry to Heliogabalus, he was served with large dishes completely filled with the gills. He brought the soft roe of the rare sea-eel into disrepute by maintaining a fleet of fishing craft for their capture, and ordering that the peasants of the Mediterranean should be gorged with them. Resides countless dishes, each of which was worth the price of a king's ransom, he was the inventor of coloured decorations at table. "In the summer," says Lampridius, "Heliogabalus gave feasts at which the service was composed of different colours, constantly varied throughout the season." The brains of partridges and ostriches were among his favourite dainties. Frequently the brains of six hundred ostriches were served at a single repast, as well as the heads of innumerable parrots, pheasants, and peacocks. He had cockscombs served in pÂtÉs, and was therefore the inventor of vol au vent À la financiÈre. The tongues of nightingales and thrushes he had likewise served in pÂtÉs, and hearing that a strange bird, the phoenix, existed in Lydia, he offered two hundred pieces of gold to him who would procure it. In the course of his reign of four years he had depleted the treasury of an empire largely through gluttony, and died, anticipating the assassination of his soldiers, by his own hand.

It were superfluous to follow the subject to the decadence of the Empire, when, with wars and contentions and invasions of conquering hordes, came the decline of cookery, literature, and the arts. Nor does history record a resumption of gastronomy until towards the Renaissance—when Dante and Petrarch had touched their lyres, and Donatello and Robbia wrought their bassi-rilievi; when the Medici and the Este became the patrons of art; when Leonardo, Raffaello, Titian, and Guido stamped their genius upon the canvas; when Michelangelo created his "David," and Cellini his "Perseus"; when Giorgio fashioned his gorgeous lustres, and Orazio his glorious vasques.

Or, rather, with the revival of cookery we find the revival of literature and the arts, and mark the Muses resume their sway.