Home › With Lucullus and Apicius › With Lucullus and Apicius: Romans

With Lucullus and Apicius: Romans

In the mid-Ocean, or where Tiber pays With broader Course his Tribute to the Seas.” 1 It was then that the rich Romans had at their villas magnificent piscina 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: "Soon regal piles each rood of land Will from the farmer's ploughshare take, Soon ponds be seen on every hand More spacious than the Lucrine lake." 2 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, 1 Rev. Philip Francis' transl. 2 Sir Theodore Martin's transl. 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 preeminence 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 mealsthe 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.¹ 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. 1 Tobacco, unknown to the ancients, did not come into use among Asiatic and European peoples until the latter half of the sixteenth century, or a long period after the discovery of America-nearly all its species being of American origin. Its name, Nicotiana, was derived from that of John Nicot of Nismes, ambassador from the King of France to Portugal, who procured the first seeds from a Dutchman who had them from Florida.

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 silkenleaved, 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 asafœtida); 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 check 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!"