Plin. Bring hither also the snuffers and clean this candle. But don’t throw the black on the floor lest it smoke, but press it into the snuffers-box whilst it is held together. Bring me my dressing-gown, that long one lined with skin.
Cels. I will provide you with your books. May Minerva be favourable to you!
Plin. May Paul or, what I should rather have said, may Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, be with me.
Cels. Perhaps Christ is adumbrated in the fable of Minerva and that of the birth from Jupiter’s brain.
Plin. Place the table on the supports in the sleeping-chamber.
Cels. Do you prefer the table to the desk?
Plin. At this time, yes; but place a small desk on the table.
Epict. A self-standing one or a movable one?
Plin. Which you like. But where is the Dydimus of my studies?
Cels. I will summon him thither.
Plin. Fetch also my boy-scribe. For I should like to dictate something. Give me those reed-pens and two or three feather pens, those with thick stalk, and the sand-case. Bring me also from the chest the Cicero and Demosthenes, and from the desk, the book in which I make all my notes and important extracts. Do you hear? And my extemporaneous MS. book in which I will polish up some passages.
Dyd. I believe the MS. book is not in the desk but in the chest, locked up.
Plin. Do you yourself search for it. And bring me the Nazianzenus.
Dyd. I don’t know it.
Plin. The book is of slight thickness, sewn together and roughly bound in parchment. Bring also the volume, the fifth from the end.
Dyd. What is its title?
Plin. Xenophon’s Commentaries. The book is in finished style. It is bound in leather with fastenings and knobs of copper.
Dyd. I don’t find it.
Plin. Now I remember. I put it in the fourth case. Fetch it. In the same case there are only loose sheets and rough books just as they have come straight from the press.
Dyd. Which volume of Cicero do you want, for there are four?
Plin. The second.
Epict. It is not yet back from the book-gluer, who had it, I believe, five days ago to glue.
Dyd. How do you like that pen?
Plin. On that point I am not very particular; whatever comes into my hand I use it as if it were good.
Dyd. You have learned that from Cicero.
Plin. You just be quiet. Open me the Cicero. Look me up three or four pages of the Tusculan Questions. Seek the passages on gentleness and joy.
Epict. Whose verses are these?
Plin. They are his own translations of Sophocles. This he does with keen pleasure and therefore often.
Epict. He was, I think, sufficiently apt in writing verses.
Dyd. Most apt and facile, and, for his time, not unhappy in his verse, contrary to what very many think.
Epict. But wherefore hast thou left off pursuing the art of poetry?
Plin. I hope that we yet at times may take it up again in leisure hours, for there is much alleviation in it from more serious studies. I am already weary of studies, meditation, writing. Stretch out my bed.
Epict. In which sleeping-room?
Plin. In the big square room. Take away the reclining cushion out of the corner, and put it in the dining-room. Place over the feather-bed another of wool. See also that the supports of the bed are sufficiently firm.
Epict. What is it that is troubling you? For you don’t lie on one part or other of the frame-work, but in the middle of the bed. It would be more healthy for you if the bed were harder and one which would offer resistance to your body.
Plin. Take the head-pillow away, and instead of it put two cushions, and in this heat I prefer that lightly woven, to the linen, cloth.
Epict. Without bed-covering!
Plin. Yes.
Epict. You will get cold, for the body is exhausted by studies.
Plin. Then put on a light covering.
Epict. These? And no more?
Plin. No. If I feel cold in bed, then I will ask for more clothes. Take away the curtains, for I prefer a mosquito-net for the keeping off of gnats, a net of fine gauze (conopeum).
Epict. I have noticed but few gnats, though of fleas and lice a pretty fair number.
Plin. I am surprised that you notice anything particularly, for you sleep and snore so soundly.
Epict. No one sleeps better than he who does not feel how badly he is sleeping.
Plin. None of the insects with which we are troubled in bed in summer disgust me so much as the bugs because of their ghastly odour.
Epict. Of which there is a good supply in Paris and Lyons.
Plin. At Paris there is a kind of wood which produces them, and in Lyons the potter’s earth. Place my alarum-clock here, and place the pointer for four o’clock in the morning, for I don’t wish to sleep later. Take my shoes off, and place here the folding-chair in which I may sit. Let the chamber-crockery be set near the bed on a foot-stool. I don’t know what it is that causes a bad smell here. Fumigate with frankincense or juniper. Sing to me something on the lyre as I go to bed after the custom of Pythagoras, so that I may the more quickly fall asleep, and my dreams may be the more peaceful.
Epict.
Lucullus, Apicius, Pistillarius, Abligurinus
In this dialogue Vives describes the matters which concern the kitchen. Nor is it any disgrace for a noble youth to be able to call things, one by one, by their right names, as also the interpreter of Aristophanes thinks in the Acharnians:—
ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο ἀστεῖον καὶ πεπαιδευμένῳ ἀρμόξον, μήδε τῶν κατὰ τὴν οἰκίαν σκευ ῶν τῆς καθημερινῆς χρείας, ἀγνοεῖν τὰ ὀνόματα.58
The names of the interlocutors are aptly chosen, as is always the case. Lucullus and Apicius are fit names of men noted for luxury. As to Lucullus, see Plutarch in his Lucullus and Athenaeus, book xii., who says that he:—
τρυφῆς πρῶτον εἰς ἅπαν Ῥωμαίοις ἡγεμόνα γενέσθαι.59
Also in Book iv. he says:—
τὸν’ Ἀπίκιον περὶ ἀσωτίᾳ πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὑπερηκοντικέναι.60
Pistillarius and Abligurinus are fictitious names; the former from the pounder of a mortar, and as if the epithet for an obtuse man; the latter from a “licking away,” as of a gourmand. This dialogue may be divided into three parts, the management of the kitchen by Apicius, his precepts, and songs.
Luc. Are you an eating-house keeper (popino)?
Apic. I am.
Luc. Where do you work?
Apic. At the eating-house called the Poultry-Cock (galli gallinacei). Do you want my services?
Luc. Yes, for a wedding.
Apic. Let me then hasten home, so that I may give instructions to my wife how to treat the gourmandisers (whom I know are not wont to be lacking in this city) and their guests who are invited.
Luc. Do you hear? You will find me in the Stone Street—in the shoemakers’ district.
Apic. I will soon be with you.
Luc. Very well. Get to your cook-shop.
Apic. Hallo! Pistillarius and Abligurinus, make a fire with big logs on the hearth under the flue, and let them be as dry as possible.
Pist. Do you think you are at Rome? Here we have not stalls for the sale of dry wood from which dry logs can be got. But this which I have will be dry enough.
Apic. If you don’t get it dry enough, Abligurinus, you will, by your work of blowing up the flame, lose your eyesight.
Ablig. Then I shall drink so much the more freely. Curse the wine!
Apic. Curse the water! For you shall not touch wine to-day if I keep in my right mind. I am not going to let you overturn the vessels, and break the small pots to pieces, and ruin the food.
Ablig. This fire won’t burn!
Apic. Throw in a small bundle of sticks smeared in brimstone, and kindling-wood, together with some chips.
Ablig. It is quite gone out.
Apic. Run across to the next house with the shovel and bring us a great big firebrand and some good live coal.
Ablig. The master of that house is a metal-worker, nor does he let a single piece of coal be taken from his furnaces but he has his eye on it (citius oculum).
Apic. He is not a metal-worker, but a metal-cutter; go therefore to the oven. What are you bringing there? This is not a firebrand; it is rather a torch (titionem magis quam torrem).
Ablig. They have not got burning coal.
Apic. What bad coal! You should rather call it turf. Move these logs and stir the kindling wood with this poker so that it may gather flame. Use the pyrolabum (the tongs), you ass!
Ablig. What thing does that word signify?
Apic. Forceps ignaria (tongs for the fire), a pruniceps (a fire-stirrer).
Ablig. Why do you give me words in Greek, as if there were not Latin words for the things?
Apic. Are asses also grammarians?
Ablig. What wonder, since grammarians are certainly asses.
Apic. Make an end of wrangling. I want some coals or pieces of turf lighting for me on this hearth, for cooking the cakes baked in earthen cups. Hang the bronze vessel over the fire so that we can have plenty of hot water. Then throw into the cooking-pot that shoulder of mutton with the salted beef; add calf and lamb flesh, and stir the cooking vessel on the fire. In the chytropus61 we will thoroughly boil the rice.
Ablig. What shall we do with the chickens?
Apic. They shall be cooked in brazen pots which are lined with tin, so that they may have a more pleasant taste. But don’t bring them too soon; the meat-spits and the pans should be forthcoming about nine o’clock. Let this pike play about in the water a little, then skin him.
Ablig. Are there to be meat and fish at the same meal?
Apic. Decidedly, according to the German fashion.
Ablig. And is this approved by the doctors?
Apic. It is not in accordance with the art of medicine, but it will please the doctors. I thought this block of a man (stips) was merely a grammarian; he is also a doctor.
Ablig. Have you never heard of that question: Whether there are in a city more doctors or fools?
Apic. Who has thrust you into the kitchen, when you are such a salted herring (saperda)?
Ablig. My adverse fate.
Apic. Nay, what is quite clear,—it is thy sluggishness, carelessness, voracity, thy throat and thy stomach, thy degenerate and debased soul. Therefore must thou now run about with naked feet, half-clothed, in old torn garments which don’t cover you behind.
Ablig. What has my poverty got to do with you?
Apic. Nothing at all, and I should not like it to concern me. But to work! And outside of work let us have no more talk than necessary. Are my orders not sufficient? Nothing apparently can be enough for you in the way of closely laying down and insisting over and over again on what is to be done. Give me my cooking-trousers. I want to go out of doors, but I will soon be back. Give me also, please, the olive-crusher (tudicula), the badge of our art. This is my thunderbolt and trident.
Pist. Hallo, Abligurinus, place those jugs on the urn-table and wash this beef steadily, and give it a good rubbing in the basin.
Ablig. Have you any other orders to give? One commander is sufficient for one camp, but it does not seem to be sufficient for one kitchen. Do it all yourself. You are a sharper exactor of work than the master of the cook-shop himself. For the future I won’t call you Pistillarius (a pounder with the pestle), but a sharp sting (stimulus acutus).
Pist. Nay, rather call me Onocentron (the spur of asses). Cut up then this calf’s flesh on this flesh-board. Also powder the cheese so that we can sprinkle it over this dumpling.
Ablig. How? With the hand?
Pist. No, but with the grater. Pour a few drops of oil in from the cruse.
Ablig. Do you mean from this flask?
Pist. Place here the mortar.
Ablig. Which of them?
Pist. That brazen one with the pestle of the same metal.
Ablig. What for?
Pist. For grinding rock-parsley.
Ablig. This is done more satisfactorily in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle.
Pist. Please sing us a song, as you are wont to do.
Ablig.
Pist. Do you say the Fabii or the fabri?
Ablig. On that point inquire of the bandy-legged schoolmaster and you will get for your Fabii and fabri a sound blow on the cheek or the back.
Pist. Is that the sort of man?
Ablig. He is a determined, courageous man, prompt with blows. He compensates for the slowness of his tongue by the swiftness of his hands.
Pist. Here, bring the beer-jug. My palate, throat, gullet are parched with thirst.
Ablig.
Apic. Where hast thou thus learnt to ῥαψωδεῖν?
Ablig. Lately I served a schoolmaster in Calabria who was a poetaster. He often used to give me no other meal than a song of a hundred verses, in which he used to say there was a wonderful savour. I, indeed, would rather have had a little bread and cheese. There was, however, enough water for the house, and we had permission to drink from the well to our heart’s content. If I then had gone hungry to bed, instead of food I chewed those verses and digested them. Nor did there seem to me to be any other remedy to drive away the keenness of hunger (bulimia) than to betake myself to the art of cookery.
Apic. What services did you render that schoolmaster?
Ablig. Such as Caesar rendered to the Republic. I was everything to him. I was his counsellor, though he had nothing to advise about; he had nothing secret from me, not even in his personal habits. I used to pour water on his hand, which he never used to wash himself. I served him as his treasurer.
Apic. What treasure had he?
Ablig. He had a few sheets of the trashiest poems which the moths used to eat away and barbarian mice gnawed at.
Apic. Nay, say learned mice, since they bit their teeth into bad poems.
Aristippus, Lurco
This dialogue is connected with the two following dialogues. For this contains descriptions of the master of a feast and his dining-room, the next of the banquet itself, and the third, drunkenness. It has two parts—the introduction and description (narratio). Triclinium is so called from having three dining-couches (lectus). For, of old, those about to breakfast or dine were accustomed to arrange couches for lying on, for the most part three. See Castilionius in book 6; Vitruvius, cap. 5; Baysius de Vasculis. Aristippus was the disciple of Socrates, from whom was derived the Cyrenaic teaching. For he lived in ease, sumptuously, voluptuously. He sought out every luxury of perfumes, clothes, women, and counted life happy in so far as it was full of pleasure.
Arist. Why are you so late getting up and, indeed, still half-asleep?
Lurc. I am surprised that I have waked up at all the whole of this day, since yesterday we were eating and drinking.
Arist. Nay, as it appears, you were simply gorging, gourmandising, and overwhelming yourself with sumptuous dishes and wine. But where was it you were thus loading your swift-sailing ship?
Lurc. At the house of Scopas, at a banquet (convivium).
Arist. Nay, rather, according to the manner of the Greeks, call it a συμπόσιον than by the Latin word convivium.
Lurc. One brawler aroused another to speech. Olives and sauces pricked and pinched the sated stomach, and would not let the appetite get wearied out.
Arist. Pray tell us all the courses so that by hearing of them I can imagine that I was there, and as if I were drinking with you, as that man who ate two great loaves of bread in a Spanish inn, and enjoyed the exhalation of a roasted partridge, in place of further viands.
Lurc. Who could tell all? This would be a greater undertaking than to have bought the food, or prepared it, or what would have beaten everything in difficulty, to have eaten it all up.
Arist. Let us sit down here in this willow-plantation, by the bank of this little stream, and, since we are tired, let us talk of your yesterday’s dining out, instead of other things. The grass will serve us for bolsters. Lean on that elm-tree.
Lurc. On the grass? Won’t the moisture harm us?
Arist. How stupid! moisture, when the dog-star is rising!
Lurc. Formerly I refused; now my mind desires to tell you yet more than you ask. You inquire from me as to the banquet; you shall also hear as to the host and the dining-room. You asked that I would speak; I will do so that, soon perhaps, you will ask, proclaim, command silence, as was the case with the Arabian flute-player who was induced to sing for an obolus, but was only brought to silence by receiving three.
Arist. Say as much as thou wishest of the feast; I shall not be pained by it, since we are now sitting in a shady place, and the goldfinch there accompanies thy narrative, or at least will bring harmony into it, as the slaves with the flute did into the speech of C. Gracchus.69
Lurc. What was that story?
Arist. When you have finished your account of the feast you shall have the story of the Gracchi, of the graculi,70 and the Graeculi.
Lurc. We were going for a walk by chance across the market (forum), Thrasybulus and I. We happened to have got more leisure than is usual with us. Scopas joined us. When he had made his first salutations, and started a suave conversation, Scopas began earnestly to entreat us that we would, on the next day, which was yesterday, go to his house. First we excused ourselves, the one for one reason, the other for another; I, on account of an important engagement with a magistrate (praetor), a very irritable gentleman. But Scopas, a man who likes to boast of his wealth, began an elaborate speech, as if his life were in question. What need of further words? We said yes, so that he should not continue to worry us.
Arist. Do you know why he arranged the banquet?
Lurc. What was it, pray, do you suppose?
Arist. He is indeed himself a rich man, well provided with silver, clothes, and house-provisions. But he had bought three gilded silver phials and six cups. These would have lost their value to him, had he not invited some guests to whom he might show them. For he believes that it is in the ostentation of wealth that its pleasure consists. He is driven on to profuse expenditure by his wife, who calls it magnificence.
Lurc. Yesterday, then, about mid-day we came together to his dining-room.
Arist. What kind of a lunch was it?
Lurc. In the open air, in the cool shade. All was splendidly prepared, decorated, polished up. Nothing was lacking in elegance, splendour, and magnificence. Immediately on entrance, our eyes and souls were exhilarated by the most beautiful and most pleasant sights. There was a great sideboard, full of beautiful vases of all kinds, of gold, silver, crystal, glass, ivory, myrrh-wood; also others of more common material, tin, horn, bone, wood, shell, or earthenware, in which art lent a merit to the commonness of the material, for there were very many pieces of embossed work, all brightly cleaned and polished; the glitter almost dazzled the eyes. You might have seen there two great silver wash-hand-basins with gilded borders. The middle part together with the ornaments about it were of gold. Every basin had its outlet whose bung was gilded. There stood there also another water-basin of glass, similarly with gilded pipe, as well as an earthenware wash-basin varnished with red sandarach,71 a piece of work of the Spanish city of Malaca. Besides, there were phials of every kind and two silver ones for the most generous kind of wines.
Arist. From my own experience I prefer flasks of glass or of shells, which they call stone-ware.
Lurc. What are you to do? Such is the nature of man! He does not in these things seek so much convenience as the opinion of being thought rich.
Arist. These very rich people pretty often seem so to others whilst to themselves they seem poor. So there is no end of bringing forward, and presenting, to the eyes of others, their possessions. Especially is this so with those who have no other kind of skill in which they can trust. But proceed.
Lurc. The border of the sideboard was covered with a shaggy carpet brought from Turkey. At a distance from the sideboard there were placed two small tables with quadrants and silver orbs. Every one had his salt-cellar, knife, bread, and napkin. Under the sideboard stood a refrigerator and large wine-decanters. Then they had various kinds of seats, settles, double-seats, benches, and the seat of the lady of the house, arranged so as to fold up, a noteworthy piece of work with silken upholstery, and provided with a foot-stool.
Arist. Lay the table now, and unfold the napkins, for my vitals cry out for hunger.
Lurc. The dining-table was large. It was inlaid with ancient mosaic work. It had belonged to the Prince Dicæarchus.
Arist. O old table, what a different master is yours now!
Lurc. He had bought the table at an auction sale at a sufficiently high price, only because it had belonged to the prince, and he would thus have something that had been his. Water is given for the washing of hands. At first there are great mutual refusings and invitations and yielding by turns.
Arist. The same thing happened in all this yielding of dignity, when each one made himself of less account than the other, and exalted the other with the haughtiest courteousness, whilst in reality every one thought himself more important than all the rest.
Lurc. But the host, by his own right, allotted the seats. Grace was said by a little boy briefly and perfunctorily, but not without rhythm:—
Each one unfolds his napkin and throws it over the left shoulder. Then he cleans his bread with his knife, in case he did not think it had been sufficiently cleaned by the servant, for it had been placed before him with the crust taken off.
Arist. Did you sit in ease?
Lurc. Never with more ease.
Arist. You couldn’t get a poor lunch. For the eatables had been supplied to redundancy, so far as ever the market had them; this I know.
Lurc. In no place has this more certainly happened. But the very abundance palled. The director of the table busied himself with laying knives and forks. Then came in, with great pomp, the chief steward with a long band of boys, younger and older, who bore away the dishes of the first course.
Scopas, Simonides, Crito, Democritus, Polaemon
Concerning Scopas, see Cicero, book 2, de Orat. As to Polaemon, see Val. Max. bk. 6, cap. 11. There are three kinds of banquets, είλαπίνη, a magnificent and splendid banquet; γάμος, a nuptial banquet; and ἔρανος, when each guest came at his own expense and brought his own food. Homer links together those forms of banquets: εἰλαπίνη ἠὲ γάμος· ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἔρανος τάδε γ’ ἐστί (Odyssea, i. 226).
The parts of this dialogue are these: Initium, apparatus, finis. Apparatus contains two courses.
COURSES
| First | { | Cibus | { | Panis Obsonia |
{ | Carnes Pultes Pisces |
| Potus | { | Vinum Aqua Cerevisia Pocula |
||||
| Second | { | Fructus Casei Tragemata |
||||
Scop. Where is our Simonides?
Crit. He said he would come immediately after he had met a debtor of his in the market.
Scop. He does rightly. He will more easily get away from a debtor than he would from a creditor.
Crit. How is this?
Scop. It is as in a victory, the victor imposes the conditions, not the vanquished. The debtor comes away from the creditor when he will, the creditor when the debtor is willing. But have you not all met, as you arranged, and left the seriousness of home, bringing with you cheerfulness, wit, grace, pleasantness?
Crit. Clearly these things are so, I hope, and we will be as M. Varro advises, an agreeable company.
Scop. Let the rest be my concern.
Crit. Here is Simonides coming!
Scop. Happy event!
Sim. All prosperity to you!
Scop. We have keenly desired you!
Sim. Ah, how boorish it all is! But you see I was invited to lunch, not for a period of detention in business. But have I really kept you waiting long?
Scop. No, indeed not.
Sim. Why did you not set to the meal without me? At least you could have begun with the fruit which I am not much given to eating.
Scop. Courteous words, but how could we sit down without you?
Crit. Enough of civilities. Let us begin our description. The best and lightest of bread! It is as light in weight as a sponge. The wheat is soft as a medlar. You must have an industrious miller.
Scop. Roscius has the mill in his charge.
Sim. Is he never hurled into it?
Scop. Far be such a fate from such a thrifty servant!
Dem. Pass me the coarse bread (made of unbolted flour).
Sim. And me the bread made of the middle quality of foreign wheat.
Scop. Why do you wish that?
Sim. Because I have both heard and found from experience that I eat less when the bread has not a fine taste.
Scop. Here, boy, bring him common bread, and even the black bread if he prefers. We will have the most pleasant of meals, if every one shall take what most pleases him.
Pol. This bread, which you praise so much, is spongy, watery; I prefer it thicker.
Crit. I indeed don’t dislike it spongy—so long as it isn’t hastily made. But this also has cracks such as cakes baked on the hearth are accustomed to have, although, as is sufficiently clear, this came out of the oven.
Pol. This black bread is both sour and full of chaff; you would say that it was from flour of second-rate wheat.
Scop. So our husbandmen are accustomed to do with all wheat which they bring hither; first to make it pungent with the common, and to mix it with all kinds of seeds; the taste then comes from the leaven being excessive.
Pol. No class of men are more deceptive than husbandmen. They only act wrongly through ignorance.
Crit. This bread is not sufficiently fermented.
Dem. For to-day think thyself a Jew, one of those who, by the ordinance of God, only feed on bread which is unleavened.
Crit. And this, indeed, was because they were such very bad men that the eating of swine was forbidden them, than which nothing is more pleasing to the palate; nor if taken moderately is anything more healthful. With unleavened bread sauces must be eaten together with field lettuce, which is extremely bitter.
Pol. All this has too much depth of meaning. Let us leave the subject.
Scop. Yes, indeed, and the whole discussion about bread! If there is so much difference of opinion about what is eaten with bread, how much discord there will be over every part of the menu of the whole meal!
Crit. It happens, forsooth, as Horace says:—
Scop. Bring those dishes and plates with the cherries, plums, pomegranates, ripe fruit, and early ripe fruit.
Pol. Why did Varro say that the number of guests ought not to exceed the number of the Muses, when the number of the Muses is not settled? For some put the number at three; others six; others nine.
Crit. He spoke as if it were established that there were nine, and so it was commonly accepted. Whence Diogenes made his joke at the expense of the schoolmaster, who had only a small number of scholars in the school, whilst he had the Muses painted on the walls. The master, said he, has many scholars, if you reckon in the Muses (σὺν ταῖς μοῦσαις).
Dem. But is it true that the Persians introduced into Greece the fruit which they regarded as so deadly as to be a pestilence to those against whom they were waging war?
Crit. So I have heard.
Dem. How wonderful is the variety of products in the different nature of soils!
Crit. India sends ivory, says Vergil,74 the effeminate Sabaeans their frankincense. Oh! look at those Persian quinces!
Sim. This is a new kind of grafting which the ancients did not know of. Reach me the bowl with the hard-skinned figs, which are, as you know, early ripe.
Scop. Enough of the fruits! Let us be filled with more healthful foods of the body.
Crit. What is, then, healthier?
Scop. Nothing, if to be health-giving and of good taste are the same thing as in a mid-day dream.
Crit. I forgive fruits their harmfulness on account of their pleasantness of taste.
Scop. Do you remember the verse of Cato?