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With Lucullus and Apicius: Mæcenas
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 wellfilled 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 - "Rapes, Lettuce, Radishes, Anchovy-Brine With Skerrets, and the Lees of Coan Wine."
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, "The Slaves behind in mighty Charger bore A Crane in Pieces torn, and powder'd o'er With Salt and Flour, and a white Gander's Liver, Stuff'd fat with Figs, bespoke the curious Giver; Besides the Wings of Hares, for, so it seems, No man of Luxury the Back esteems.
Then saw we Black-birds with o'er roasted Breast, Laid on the Board, and Ring-Doves Rump-less drest!
Delicious Fare! did not our Host explain Their various Qualities in endless Strain, Their various Natures; but we fled the Feast, Resolved in Vengeance nothing more to taste, As if Canidia, with empoison'd Breath, Worse than a Serpent's, blasted it with Death." 1 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 1 Rev. Philip Francis' transl. 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 Cælius, 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: "Stretch'd on the unsocial couch, he rolls his eyes O'er many an orb of matchless form and size, Selects the fairest to receive his plate, And at one meal devours a whole estate."
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 majordomo, 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 figpeckers, 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."