IV
Egypt, Greece, Rome
The story of a nation’s life, from its simple innocence at the beginning to its final corrupt, decadent end, can often most clearly be charted by its gastronomy. This is particularly true of Greece and Rome, but even their mother, Egypt, followed the inevitable pattern in a less splendid, less revolting way than theirs.
Records of the daily life of the Egyptians started in 2320 B.C., and although with the natural increase of the wealthy and leisured classes there came many signs of extravagance and ostentation, the whole long story is one of graciousness and comparative simplicity.
Even poor people lived well in that kindly climate, and the rich lands along the Nile grew every kind of fruit and grain and vegetable that man could hunger for. Melons and grapes and pomegranates flourished under the hot sun, and figs, probably the oldest cultivated fruits in the world, ripened and burst with honey. There were ovens from the beginning, as the wall-paintings show, and Egyptian bakers were in demand in every city around the Mediterranean for their delicious pastries and cakes.
Religious and social restrictions in diet were always numerous, as befits a fastidious people, but they increased to a fantastic point by the end of the pre-Christian era, so that the priests themselves led an almost impossibly ascetic life. It was of course their quasi-paternal wish to make their charges do likewise, and they denounced a hundred foods, including the highly popular garlic, as unclean. Apparently they had the usual modified success of such religious disciplinarians: in 450 B.C. Herodotus quoted a statement inscribed on the Great Pyramid that 16,000 talents had been paid out for onions, radishes, and the foul garlic for workingmen on that mighty pile of stones!
There is a certain historical monotony about the way kings have always eaten, and yet that very monotony, so splendidly banal, so fastuously routine, has always interested not only readers but writers. That is why it is much easier to know how Solomon banqueted, or an unnamed Egyptian ruler, or even Henry VIII of England, than it is to find a description of how pilgrims boiled their groats and bacon on the way to the Holy Land, or what besides wheat-cakes and melons the farmers ate along the Nile Delta while their masters feasted in the airy, flower-filled “big houses.”
Certainly the Egyptian masters dined well, from what the writers and painters have told us. Probably no highly cultured civilization has surpassed the charm and gaiety of their banquets.
People came from long distances to attend them, rather as they were to do centuries later for the fiestas at the great haciendas of Early California. Men and women ate and drank and danced together, and played such games as draughts and checkers, in contrast to the strict segregation that had always existed in the countries farther east, and would later in Greece and Italy.
There were flowers everywhere, in garlands on the walls and chairs and tables and on all the heads, and elaborate evanescent decorations of glass and silk changed the rooms from one banquet to the next. Guests always separated upon their arrival, to be washed and perfumed in the retiring rooms by boy or girl slaves. Then they met to drink and listen to music for a time before the banquet began, usually a little after sundown. It was fashionable to drink a great deal of wine or beer, and women succeeded in making themselves as gloriously drunk as the men.
Their goblets were exquisite and much admired and discussed, and were made of everything from carved jewels and metals to the beautiful glassware that had existed in Egypt since about 2000 B.C. The tables were low and round, and everyone ate with fingers from the plates that were laid out or were held by slaves dressed in short girdles and necklaces of flowers and jewels. According to the wall-paintings of such affairs, the diners should really have had three elegantly beringed hands instead of two . . . one to hold the customary lotus or Nile-lily, another for the omnipresent goblet, and a third for eating the long courses of the feast!
The food itself, although it increased in richness as the culture of the nation developed, was always much simpler than that of corresponding periods in Athens or Rome. There were many kinds of baked fish and meat, and the usual excellent and highly prized breads, pastries, and cakes, and then artful mixtures of fresh and dried fruits. . . and floods of wine. And after the banqueters could eat and drink and dance no more, jugglers and tumblers entertained them, as they have entertained surfeited people since time began.
Such parties, of course, were possible only for people with money and leisure, but they have a pleasant sound about them, whereas the daily deadly piles of food needed to nourish a ruler, even in Egypt, seem foolish in the telling. One Pharaoh, an old report says, “fed 14,000 guests each day, and the quintals of meat, and of butter and sugar for the pastry-work alone, would seem incredible.”
That sounds like Solomon! Each day his table needed thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal; ten fatted oxen and twenty out of the pastures; one hundred sheep; and harts, roebucks, fallow deer, fatted fowl. . . . It is small wonder that he kept twelve stewards, eleven of them to travel constantly in search of new viands.
Such magnificence is apparently a part of being royal. It is only in this twentieth century that the spell has really been broken, and a king has been able to have two poached eggs on toast and a glass of milk for his lunch. The real danger of gastronomical decadence in a nation comes when the wealthy citizens begin to think that at table they too are kings. That happened in the last years of Greece’s glory, and then again, even more sickeningly and dangerously, while Rome was riding for its fall. Both countries learned much from Egypt, but forgot what was good and simple in the teaching.
In the first days, the Greeks lived on cabbage, chestnuts, honey, and the like: food that was made for them by the gods. In some parts of their wild country it was thought to be effeminate and foolish to pay any attention to such a thing as sensuous pleasure in eating, and in Sparta a person who confessed that he liked to cook as well as to eat what he had prepared was exiled, in disgrace and contempt, for the rest of his life.
The Spartans themselves lived almost wholly on their famous black broth, which was supposed by many to be thickened hogs’ blood, but was probably a soup of water, vinegar, salt, and boiled pork. It was known everywhere as the Spartans’ elixir of bravery . . . which makes Warner’s comment in 1791 in Antiquitates Culinariae doubly amusing:
What the ingredients of this sable composition were, we cannot exactly ascertain; but we may venture to say, it could not be a very alluring mess, since a citizen of Sybaris having tasted it, declared it was no longer a matter of astonishment with him, why the Spartans should be so fearless of death in battle, since any one in his senses, would much rather undergo the pains of dissolution, than to continue to exist on such execrable food.
Gradually even the Spartans lost their first asceticism, and a man who lived simply in Greece was looked upon as a curiosity. It was noted with a kind of awe, for instance, that Plato preferred common olives above all other food, although he would admit to an occasional hunger for good bread or pastry. More often than not a simple taste was scoffed at as pure stinginess by the luxury-fattened Greeks, and it was a slang expression to call a frugal or tightwad person an Athenian, because the people of that city lived less extravagantly than their neighbors.
As interest in banqueting increased in the country, so did the kinds of spices and flavorings, until finally a meal was so distorted by weird tastes of asafetida and ambergris and such that the original meats and fishes were unrecognizable, and fashionably so.
The boundless hospitality of the early citizens never changed, though, and no matter how elaborate dinners became, they were always simple in the prime reason for their being: to welcome and nourish friends and strangers alike.
Women were excluded from Greek banquets, as they were later in Rome, being considered much less interesting than the food and wine, as well as deleterious to good conversation. Cup-bearers, however, could be girls; and at the end of any self-respecting dinner came the chosen hetaerae, women whose function it was to converse, sing, and be completely charming. As has always been the case, the men for whom they performed piped the tune for their behavior, so that at their best they were intelligent, witty, and beautiful companions, and at their most degraded they were a troupe of drunken whores.
As time passed and banqueting became more and more important to the soft, gluttonous Greeks, some of the greatest of their writers dwelt on it, in both pleasure and anger, so that it is easy for us now to know what happened so long ago upon those extravagantly inlaid dining-couches, upon those gold and purple cushions.
We can smell the heavy perfume that was sprayed into the air between the interminable courses, and taste it and the roses and the spices in each dish. We can drink the strong sweet wines of Corinth and of Samos and Chios and Tenedos, and listen to the piping voices of the boys and virgins as they sing and dance for us. And we can compliment our host upon his cook, who like most of them in Greece (and later in Rome) is probably a Sicilian who stands in the market-place surrounded by his pots and kettles, waiting to be hired for any such occasion.
If true to form he is a scamp and thief as well as an excellent chef, and fat and drunken to boot—but anything is forgivable when he can conjure up such delicacies as we have eaten: fried sole, “the fish of kings,” and oysters and eels in a pie, and a suckling pig surrounded by roasted pullets, and then the almost obligatory peacock baked whole in his feathers, riding a sea of tiny stuffed ortolans. . . .
It is too easy, faced with such opulent dishes, to forget that the great Epicurus enjoins temperance above all other virtues!
Archestratus of Syracuse was the first great culinary authority of that era, about 330 B.C., and his lost poem “Gastronomy” was so important to all the writers on the subject after him that Atheneus called it “a treasure of light.” A few fragments of this work remain, and the opening stanza of it shows clearly the stateliness of concept of that subject, which soon became blurred as lesser writers (and greater gluttons) took it over:
I write these precepts for immortal Greece,
That round a table delicately spread,
Or three, or four, may sit in choice repast,
Or five at most. Who otherwise shall dine,
Are like a troop marauding for their prey.
Of the many Greeks who followed Archestratus, the most famous was Atheneus, the author of some ten cookery books and histories, of his own country and Rome, but best remembered for his astonishing Deipnosophists or Banquet of the Learned, probably written at the beginning of the third century A.D. This is, in twenty-five books, a seemingly endless and at times impossibly wandering account of an imaginary banquet, during which all the guests discuss their avocation, gastronomy. It is a superhuman hodgepodge of quotations, jokes, recipes, and strange facts about everything that could possibly be associated with eating and drinking, and it is one of the most tiresome and at the same time most delightful collections that anyone could possibly read.
It begins with a discussion of epicures: men like Pithyllus, who “not only had a covering to his tongue made of skin . . . but he is the first who is said to have eaten his meat with fingerstalls on, in order to convey it to his mouth as warm as possible”; and Aristoxenus the philosopher, from whom hams cured in a certain way were called aristoxeni by the gourmets.
It was he who “out of his prodigious luxury used to syringe the lettuces which grew in his garden with mead in the evening, and then, when he picked them in the morning, he would say that he was eating green cheesecakes, which were sent up to him by the earth.”
On and on Atheneus goes, through Asparagus, Pickle, The Cactus (which he thinks is really a form of artichoke, or perhaps vice versa), Eels, and Turnips: “Theophrastus says that there are two kinds of turnips, the male and the female . . . but Diphilus . . . says the turnip has attenuating properties, and is harsh and indigestible, and moreover is apt to cause flatulence. Diphilus goes on to say of the carrot, ‘This vegetable is harsh but tolerably nutritious, and moderately good for the stomach; but it passes quickly through the bowels, and causes flatulence: it is indigestible, diuretic, and not without some influence in prompting men to amatory feelings. . . .”’
On a page headed The Gourd there is this jolly lyric to Athens by Aristophanes:
There you shall at mid-winter see
Cucumbers, gourds, and grapes, and apples,
And wreaths of fragrant violets
Covered with dust, as if in summer.
And the same man will sell you thrushes,
And pears and honey-comb, and olives,
Beestings and tripe, and summer swallows,
And grasshoppers, and bullocks’ paunches.
There you may see full baskets pack’d
With figs and myrtle, crown’d with snow;
There you may see fine pumpkins join’d
To the round rape and mighty turnip;
So that a stranger well may fear
To name the season of the year.
Atheneus occasionally remembers that he is supposed to be writing the conversation of a group of extremely erudite gastronomers at a feast, and inserts a minor detail about the banquet itself, as when, under Pigs, he says:
. . . when a pig was served up before us, the half of which was being carefully roasted, and the other half boiled gently, as if it had been steamed, and when all marveled at the cleverness of the cook, he, being very proud of his skill, said: “And, indeed, there is not one of you who can point out the place where he received the death wound; or where his belly was cut so as to be stuffed with all sorts of dainties. For it has thrushes in it, and other birds; and it has also in it parts of the abdomens of pigs, and slices of a sow’s womb, and the yolk of eggs, and moreover the entrails of birds, with their ovaries, those also being full of delicate seasoning, and also pieces of meat shred into thin shavings and seasoned with pepper. . . .”
In discussing the delicious bird called the Porphyrion, Atheneus says that it is not only excellent for roasting, but “when it is kept in a house, watches those women who have husbands very closely: and has such instantaneous perception of anyone who commits adultery, that, when it perceives it, it gives notice to the master of the house, cutting its own existence short by hanging itself.”
Atheneus writes rather scornfully that partridges are “much devoted to amatory enjoyment . . . so very eager to propagate their species that they fall into the hands of the hunters on that account, sitting on the tiles. They say, too, that when hen partridges are taken out to hunt, even when they see or smell a cock standing or flying down the wind, they become pregnant, and . . . immediately begin to lay eggs.”
In spite of the unreal feeling that a succession of such tidbits gives, a kind of supragastronomical dizziness, the body of The Deipnosophists is fairly dull page-to-page reading, at least for anyone not completely fascinated by the history of obsolete Greek words for “hare,” for instance. And even there, some such quotation as this one from the lost poem by Archestratus turns up:
Many are the ways and many the recipes
For dressing hares; but this is best of all,
To place before a hungry set of guests,
A slice of roasted meat fresh from the spit,
Hot, seasoned only with plain simple salt,
Not too much done. And do not you be vexed
At seeing blood fresh trickling from the meat,
But eat it eagerly. All other ways
Are quite superfluous, such as when cooks pour
A lot of sticky clammy sauce upon it,
Parings of cheese, and lees, and dregs of oil,
As if they were preparing cat’s meat. . . .
Atheneus is perhaps most interesting on the subject of various forms of luxury. It is impossible not to be amused, in a horrid way, by the mention of an ancient king named Sagaus who used “out of luxury, to eat, till he arrived at old age, out of his nurse’s mouth, that he might not have the trouble of chewing his own food”; of Demetrius, whose dinner at the beginning of his career “consisted of a kind of pickle, containing olives and cheese; but when he became rich he bought Moschion, the most skillful of all the cooks and confectioners of that age. And he had such vast quantities of food prepared for him every day, that, as he gave the cook what was left each time, Moschion in two years purchased three detached houses in the city.”
And there was Anaxarchus, “who used to have a naked full-grown girl for his cup-bearer. And his baker used to knead the dough wearing gloves on his hands, and a cover on his mouth, to prevent any perspiration running off his hands, and also to prevent him from breathing on his cakes while he was kneading them.”’
Inevitably we move on this tide of luxury from Greece, where it was bad enough, to Rome, where never before in the world’s history had it been equaled, even at the courts of Sardanapalus and Alexander.
Atheneus says, more than once, that it was Lucullus, the conqueror of Mithridates and of the king of Armenia, who brought back all their wealth to Rome and “was the first teacher of luxury. Now there is no one of those who are even tolerably well off who does not provide a most sumptuous table, and who has not cooks and a great many more attendants, and who does not spend more on his daily living than formerly men used to spend on their festivals and sacrifices.”
Lucullus the Epicure it was of whom Juvenal wrote:
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.
Lucullus the General it was who built an aquarium for his special fish and then pierced a whole mountain between two of his farms to bring sea-water for it.
He it was who paid each of his carvers the fantastic sum of four thousand dollars a year, and had several dining rooms, where the meal “per head” cost from a few hundred dollars up to one thousand in the most beautiful chamber, dedicated to Apollo himself.
The stories of his famous lonely supper, when he chided the cooks for not surpassing themselves, since “Lucullus dined with Lucullus” that night, are as varied as the tellers, and for as many reasons, but it seems true that he was the king of the epicures, no swine at table, and only more insanely extravagant than his fellow citizens in that his income was larger than theirs.
It is a pity that other men, with almost as much wealth as the General’s, did not possess his gift for balancing extravagance with good taste. Julius Caesar spent millions counted as high as twenty-five, although it seems incredible, in four months of supper-parties, and not one of them is remembered. Marc Antony gave his cook a whole town once, when Cleopatra praised the sauce . . . but how was that sauce made? And Heliogabalus, most profligate of all, depleted the treasury of the whole Roman Empire in four years, before he killed himself with gluttony: a possible revenge of the gods for his prize invention of sausages made of oysters, lobsters, and crabs, which he deemed more delicious than any of the exotic dishes he paid his courtiers to produce for him.
His end was less sad, gastronomically, than that of Septimus Severus. Septimus was dying of intolerably painful gout, the result of his piggishness, and when his physicians refused to end his dolor, he ordered the most fantastically rich meal he could imagine, and died deliberately of indigestion!
With such leaders before them, the Roman citizens, always good imitators, soon grew to behave as if they too were sated rulers. Their first simple living was easily forgotten, as it had been with the Greeks, and they eagerly exchanged elaborate banquets for the old national dish of porridge.
Ordinary merchants and doctors devoted themselves, like emperors, to learning to tell the locality of a wild boar’s or a pike’s death-place by a particular flavor, and kept aviaries in the country filled with thrushes. The little birds were fed on a diet of millet, wheat flour, and crushed sweet figs, whereas swans and white geese ate green figs for their livers!
Oyster-beds were cultivated carefully, with special feedings cast upon the waters as prescribed by the greatest gourmets, but it is doubtful if their diet was as fastuous as that of one emperor’s conger eels, who are reported to have thrived on live slave-meat.
The interest in eating became a national obsession, and people spent every cent they could borrow or dig up on such things as four-pound mullets at a thousand dollars for three, a fact noted by Suetonius because it caused Tiberius to pass severe laws against such nonsense. The laws, of course, were soon ignored in the Romans’ almost hysterical pursuit of new taste-adventures.
Every kind of sea-creature was hunted and cooked, except perhaps the dolphin, sacred as the pilot of Triton’s car, and the mermaid! Rare turbots, and trout from the farthest icy lakes, were common fare at any good banquet, but the mullet remained favorite, perhaps because of its refinements of living and dying. Seneca once wrote of it, in telling of a banquet at which live fish were served in tall blown-glass vessels, so that each guest could enjoy the death-throes of his next course: “Look how it reddens! There’s no vermilion like it; look at those lateral veins! See how the gray brightens upon its head—and now it is at its last gasp! It pales, and its inanimate body fades to a single hue. . . .”
(Seneca also wrote of his period’s extravagance in less lightly ironical, angrier moods, as when he said: “I see 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 [Cicero’s famous lemonwood table cost 200,000 sesterces, or about $7000! ], 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 afterward thrown up again.”)
The ceremony of a banquet remained fairly static throughout the Republic and the Empire: it was the amounts of exotic food and the manners of the guests that changed. A well-ordered meal usually had nine guests, one of whom was elected dictator for the evening, to direct the singing, the conversation, and the formalities of drinking.
It was de rigueur to drink at least ten bumpers of wine: nine to the Muses, and one to Apollo. From there on the amount depended on how many mistresses must be saluted by each man challenged by the dictator. It is no wonder that various efforts were made to stay cool-headed, such as wearing wreaths of parsley and fresh roses, and even of small garden-lettuces!
The air was kept heavy with perfumes, which grew so fashionably expensive that one or two of the guests often contributed them, to help the host with his fantastic budget . . .
. . . Nor fell
His perfumes from a box of alabaster;
That were too trite a fancy, and had savor’d
O’ the elder time—but ever and anon
He slipped four doves, whose wings were saturate
With scents, all different in kind—each bird
Bearing its own appropriate sweets: these doves,
Wheeling in circles round, let fall upon us
A shower of sweet perfumery, drenching, bathing,
Both clothes and furniture—and, lordlings all—
I deprecate your envy, when I add,
That on myself fell floods of violet odors.2
The dictator barred all subjects in any way sad or unpleasant, since they might hinder digestion, and a kind of cocktail called the promulsis to strengthen the stomach was served first. It was made of boiled honey, wine, and a great many intricately measured spices. Then, to help the brave diners still more, raw lettuce was often presented between the first few courses, to cool and encourage the assaulted inwards.
Three guests lay on each of the three elaborately carved couches, with the lowest place on the middle couch reserved for the honored man. Each brought his own napkin. Ivory knives were furnished by the host, but because of the reclining position dictated by the couches, spoons and fingers were used most.
Greek wines were popular, but Campanian and Caecuban Falernian were most highly thought of, and were served hot in winter as a further aid to digestion.
The preoccupation of the gluttonous Romans with this sometimes painful subject is understandable for many obvious reasons, but perhaps a menu and one or two recipes will make it even clearer. Here, then, is “How to make thick sauce for a boiled chicken.” It is from De Re Culinaria, which is a good picture of a master-cook at work, written probably by a man named Coelius who called himself Apicius in admiration for one of three brothers of that name. (These brothers were renowned gourmets, and correspondingly extravagant in their desires for strange dishes: Apicius III, who finally killed himself, once hired a large ship to look for a certain kind of shrimp, and after a month’s severe voyage turned back in disgust when he found that ordinary fishermen ate the little sea-fleas.)
Put the following ingredients into a mortar: anise-seed, dried mint, and lazerroot [like asafetida]. Cover them with vinegar. Add dates. Pour in liquamen [juice from salted ferments of fish-guts], oil, and a small quantity of mustard seeds. Reduce all to a proper thickness, with sweet wine warmed; and then pour this same over your chicken, which should previously be boiled in anise-seed water.
And here, without pause for rumination on this ghastly thing, is a menu for a very ordinary and simple affair, not one to compete in any way with a truly Lucullan banquet:
GUSTUS (appetizer): sorrel, lettuce, oysters, eggs, sardines, radishes, mushrooms, pickles, served with Falernian wine mixed with Greek honey.
FIRST COURSE : conger eels, oysters, two kinds of mussels, thrushes on asparagus, fat fowls, ragout of all kinds of shellfish.
SECOND COURSE : shellfish, fig-peckers, haunches of venison, wild boar, pastry of small birds.
THIRD COURSE : sow’s udder, boar’s head, fricassee of fish, fricassee of sow’s udders, various kinds of ducks, roast fowl, hares, sausages, roast pig, peacocks.
FOURTH COURSE : very elaborate set-pieces of pastry and Pirentine bread.
FIFTH COURSE : fruits and wines.
Seneca wrote bitterly of a Roman’s life: Edunt et vomant; vomant et edunt. His meaning was clear, even to a person with little Greek and less Latin! The incredible procession of such food, all heavy with rich sauces and washed down on floods of sweetened wines, is nauseating even to think upon. It is no wonder that many diners took purgatives and emetics first, or even during a meal, to make room within themselves for more.
Special toilets and vomitoria built near the banquet-rooms were requisite in any thoughtful host’s apartments, and it was considered a compliment to the cook to have to use them often. However, Romans must have been constructed much like other human beings except for their especially trained stomachs, and it is hard to know just what the natural or unnatural processes were in a man like Tiberius, who according to Suetonius spent two whole days and one night at a feast without leaving the table!
Little feathers on sticks were usually provided by the host in the vomitorium, much as a modern powder-room has its thoughtful supply of face-tissues and gargles, but it is interesting to know just what the emetics were made of, in case a guest preferred to arrive prepared to do his own heaving.
The nearest I can come to it, although I have looked hard for a recipe, is this one copied from an Elizabethan pamphlet. My druggist tells me that such things have changed little in two thousand years, so perhaps Mr. Marriott, “the great Eater of Grays-Inn,” drank much the same potion in London in 1630 as was downed in Caesar’s Rome:
. . . he would often follow the Fariars Rule for Drenches, which Receit best agreed with his body: for he would take Milk and Oyl with Aquavitae, Pepper, and Brimstone, all mingled together: a pottle at one time is nothing with him to scour his Maw.
It is too easy to grow sated with descriptions of such a way of life, which nonetheless hold a kind of sick fascination for us, and perhaps it is good to use them, if for no better reason, as a kind of emetic of the mental bowels, a scourer of the maw of our mind’s gastronomy. That is why I have chosen, after one or two purple passages from Edgar Saltus’ book on Rome, to print some of Trimalchio’s notorious banquet, much as it bores me with its stuffy slang and strained rowdiness. I agree with the critics who condemn the “Oscar Wilde translation” as “reeking of stale perfume,” but even so it seems better than most others procurable to modern readers.
After it comes a snippet from Peregrine Pickle, by Tobias Smollett: a slapstick account of an attempt to re-create, in eighteenth-century England, the supposed glories of a Roman banquet.
Then, to take the taste of all this indigestible mess from our mouths, I have put in a little section of The Golden Ass, because it is funny and fresh and delightful to eat with a man who turned into an ass after watching so many men who turned into swine instead. The translation of this book by Apuleius, the Greek turned Roman, was done in 1566 by an Englishman named Adlington whose Latin was sometimes shaky, but who had a fine fair sense of the book’s flavor!
To table, then, and may there be no need of too drastic a purging afterward!
From Imperial Purple by Edgar Saltus, 1855–1921
In the hall, like that of Mecænas, one divided against itself, the upper half containing the couches and tables, the other reserved for the service and the entertainments that follow, the ceiling was met by columns, the walls hidden by panels of gems. On a frieze twelve pictures, surmounted by the signs of the zodiac, represented the dishes of the different months. Beneath the bronze beds and silver tables mosaics were set in imitation of food that had fallen and had not been swept away. And there, in white ungirdled tunics, the head and neck circled with coils of amaranth—the perfume of which in opening the pores neutralizes the fumes of wine—the guests lay, fanned by boys, whose curly hair they used for napkins. Under the supervision of butlers the courses were served on platters so large that they covered the tables; sows’ breasts with Lybian truffles; dormice baked in poppies and honey; peacock-tongues flavored with cinnamon; oysters stewed in garum—a sauce made of the intestines of fish—sea-wolves from the Baltic; sturgeons from Rhodes; fig-peckers from Samos; African snails; pale beans in pink lard; and a yellow pig cooked after the Troan fashion, from which, when carved, hot sausages fell and live thrushes flew. Therewith was the mulsum, a cup made of white wine, nard, roses, absinthe, and honey; the delicate sweet wines of Greece; and crusty Falernian of the year six hundred and thirty-two. As the cups circulated, choirs entered, chanting sedately the last erotic song; a clown danced on the top of a ladder, which he maintained upright as he danced, telling meanwhile untellable stories to the frieze; and host and guests, unvociferously, as good breeding dictates, chatted through the pauses of the service; discussed the disadvantages of death, the value of Noevian iambics, the disgrace of Ovid, banished because of Livia’s eyes.
Such was the Rome of Augustus.
. . . Caligula and Vitellius had been famous as hosts, but the feasts that Heliogabalus gave outranked them for sheer splendor. From panels in the ceiling such masses of flowers fell that guests were smothered. Those that survived had set before them glass game and sweets of crystal. The menu was embroidered on the table-cloth—not the mere list of dishes, but pictures drawn with the needle of the dishes themselves. And presently, after the little jest in glass had been enjoyed, you were served with Camels’ heels; combs torn from living cocks; platters of nightingale-tongues; ostrich-brains, prepared with that garum sauce which the Sybarites invented, and of which the secret is lost; therewith were peas and grains of gold; beans and amber peppered with pearl dust; lentils and rubies; spiders in jelly; lion’s dung, served in pastry. The guests that wine overcame were carried to bedrooms. When they awoke, there staring at them were tigers and leopards—tame, of course; but some of the guests were stupid enough not to know it, and died of fright.
From The Satyricon by Petronius Arbiter, circa 50 A.D.
Well! at last we take our places, Alexandrian slave-boys pouring snow-water over our hands, and others succeeding them to wash our feet and cleanse our toenails with extreme dexterity. Not even while engaged in this unpleasant office were they silent, but sang away over their work. I had a mind to try whether all the house servants were singers, and accordingly asked for a drink of wine. Instantly an attendant was at my side, pouring out the liquor to the accompaniment of the same sort of shrill recitative. Demand what you would, it was the same; you might have supposed yourself among a troupe of pantomime actors rather than at a respectable citizen’s table.
Then the preliminary course was served in very elegant style. For all were now at table except Trimalchio, for whom the first place was reserved—by a reversal of ordinary usage. Among the other hors d’oeuvres stood a little ass of Corinthian bronze with a packsaddle holding olives, white olives on one side, black on the other. The animal was flanked right and left by silver dishes, on the rim of which Trimalchio’s name was engraved and the weight. On arches built up in the form of miniature bridges were dormice seasoned with honey and poppy-seed. There were sausages too, smoking hot on a silver grill, and underneath (to imitate coals) Syrian plums and pomegranate seeds.
We were in the middle of these elegant trifles when Trimalchio himself was carried in to the sound of music, and was bolstered up among a host of tiny cushions, a sight that set one or two indiscreet guests laughing. And no wonder; his bald head poked up out of a scarlet mantle, his neck was closely muffled, and over all was laid a napkin with a broad purple stripe or laticlave, and long fringes hanging down either side. Moreover, he wore on the little finger of his left hand a massive ring of silver gilt, and on the last joint of the next finger a smaller ring, apparently of solid gold, but starred superficially with little ornaments of steel. Nay! to show this was not the whole of his magnificence, his left arm was bare and displayed a gold bracelet and an ivory circlet with a sparkling clasp to put it on. . . .
Meantime . . . a dish was brought in with a basket on it, in which lay a wooden hen, her wings outspread round her as if she were sitting. Instantly a couple of slaves came up, and to the sound of lively music began to search the straw, and pulling out a lot of peafowl’s eggs one after the other, handed them round to the company.
Trimalchio turns his head at this, saying, “My friends, it was by my orders that hen was set on the peafowl’s eggs yonder; but, by God! I am very much afraid they are half-hatched. Still, we can but try whether they are still eatable.” For our part, we take our spoons, which weighed at least half a pound each, and break the eggs, which were made of paste. I was on the point of throwing mine away, for I thought I discerned a chick inside. But when I overheard a veteran guest saying, “There should be something good here!” I further investigated the shell, and found a very fine fat beccafico [fig-pecker] swimming in yolk of egg flavoured with pepper.
Trimalchio had . . . been helped to all the dishes before us, [and] had just announced in a loud voice that any of us who wanted a second supply of honeyed wine had only to ask for it, when suddenly, at a signal from the band, the hors d’oeuvres are whisked away by a troupe of slaves, all singing too. But in the confusion a silver dish happened to fall and a slave picked it up again from the floor. This Trimalchio noticed, and, boxing the fellow’s ears, rated him soundly and ordered him to throw it down again. Then a groom came in and began to sweep up the silver along with the other refuse. . . .
He was succeeded by two long-haired Ethiopians, carrying small leather skins, like the fellows that water the sand in the amphitheatre, who poured wine over our hands; for no one thought of offering water.
After being duly complimented on this refinement, our host cried out, “Fair play’s a jewel!” and accordingly ordered a separate table to be assigned to each guest. “In this way,” he said, “by preventing any crowding, the stinking servants won’t make us so hot.”
Simultaneously there were brought in a number of wine-jars of glass carefully stoppered with plaster, and having labels attached to their necks reading FALERNIAN: OPIMIAN VINTAGE ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD. . . .
Our applause was interrupted by the second course, which did not by any means come up to our expectations. Still, the oddity of the thing drew the eyes of all. An immense circular tray bore the twelve signs of the zodiac displayed round the circumference, on each of which the Manciple or Arranger had placed a dish of suitable and appropriate viands: on the Ram, ram’s-head-pease; on the Bull, a piece of beef; on the Twins, fried testicles and kidneys; on the Crab, simply a Crown; on the Lion, African figs; on the Virgin, a sow’s haslet cut to shape and supporting a honeycomb. Meanwhile an Egyptian slave was carrying bread round in a miniature oven of silver. . . .
Seeing us look rather blank at the idea of attacking such common fare, Trimalchio cried, “I pray you, gentlemen, begin; the best of your dinner is before you.” No sooner had he spoken than four fellows ran prancing in, keeping time to the music, and whipped off the top part of the tray. This done, we behold underneath, on a second tray in fact, stuffed capons, a sow’s paps, and as a centrepiece a hare fitted with wings to represent Pegasus. We noticed besides four figures of Marsyas, one at each corner of the tray, carrying little wine-skins which spouted out peppered fish-sauce over the fishes swimming in the Channel of the dish.
We all join in the applause started by the domestics and laughingly fall on the choice viands. . . . Finally, fresh servants entered and spread carpets before the couches, embroidered with pictures of fowling nets, prickers with their hunting spears, and sporting gear of all kinds. We were still at a loss what to expect when a tremendous shout was raised outside the doors, and lo and behold! a pack of Laconian dogs came careering round and round the very table. These were succeeded by another huge tray, on which lay a wild boar of the largest size, with a cap on its head, while from the tushes hung two little baskets of woven palm leaves, one full of Syrian dates, the other of Theban. Round it were little piglets of baked sweetmeat, as if at suck, to show it was a sow we had before us; and these were gifts to be taken home with them by the guests.
To carve the dish [appeared] a great bearded fellow, wearing leggings and a shaggy jerkin. Drawing his hunting knife, he made a furious lunge and gashed open the boar’s flank, from which there flew out a number of fieldfares. Fowlers stood ready with their rods and immediately caught the birds as they fluttered about the table. Then Trimalchio directed each guest to be given his bird, and this done, added, “Look what elegant acorns this wild-wood pig’s fed on.” Instantly slaves ran to the baskets that were suspended from the animal’s tushes and divided the two kinds of dates in equal proportions among the diners. . . .
At the end of this course Trimalchio left the table to relieve himself, and when he re-entered, and after wiping his brow and scenting his hands: “Pardon me, my friends,” he said after a brief pause, “but for several days I have been costive. My physicians were non-plussed. However, pomegranate rind and an infusion of fir-wood in vinegar has done me good. And now I trust my belly will be better behaved. At times I have such a rumbling about my stomach, you’d think I had a bull bellowing inside me. So if any of you want to relieve yourselves, there’s no necessity to be ashamed about it. None of us is born solid. I don’t know any torment so bad as holding it in. It’s the one thing Jove himself cannot stop. . . . I never hinder any man at my table from easing himself, and indeed the doctors forbid our baulking nature. Even if something more presses, everything’s ready outside—water, close-stools, and the other little matters needful. Take my word for it, the vapours rise to the brain and may cause a fluxion of the whole constitution. I know many a man that’s died of it, because he was too shy to speak out.”
We thank our host for his generous indulgence, taking our wine in little sips the while to keep down our laughter. But little we thought we had still another hill to climb, as the saying is, and were only half way through the elaborations of the meal. For when the tables had been cleared with a flourish of music, three white hogs were brought in, hung with little bells and muzzled; one, so the nomenclator informed us, was a two-year-old, another three, and the third six. For my part, I thought they were learned pigs, come in to perform some of those marvellous tricks you see in circuses. But Trimalchio put an end to my surmises by saying, “Which of the three will you have dressed for supper right away? Farmyard cocks and pheasants and suchlike small deer are for country folks; my cooks are used to serving up calves boiled whole.” So saying, he immediately ordered the cook to be summoned, and, without waiting for our choice, directed the six-year-old to be killed. Then speaking loud and clear, he asked the man, “What decuria do you belong to?”
“To the fortieth,” he replied.
“Bought,” he went on, “or born in my house?”
“Neither,” returned the cook, “I was left you by Pansa’s will.”
“Then mind you serve the dish carefully dressed; else I shall order you to be degraded into the decuria of the outdoor slaves.”
And the cook, thus cogently admonished, then withdrew with his charge into the kitchen.
But Trimalchio, relaxing his stern aspect, now turned to us and said: “If you don’t like the wine, I’ll have it changed; otherwise please prove its quality by your drinking. Thanks to the gods’ goodness, I never buy it; but now I have everything that smacks good growing on a suburban estate of mine. I’ve not seen it yet, but they tell me it’s down Terracina and Tarentum way. I am thinking at the moment of making Sicily one of my little properties; then, when I’ve a mind to visit Africa, I may sail along my own boundaries to get there.” . . .
He was still in the middle of this nonsense, when a tray supporting an enormous hog was set on the table. One and all, we expressed our admiration at the expedition shown, and swore a more ordinary fowl could not have been cooked in the time—the more so as the hog appeared to be a much larger animal than the wild boar just before. Presently, Trimalchio, staring harder and harder, exclaimed, “What! What! Isn’t he gutted? No! by heaven! He’s not. Call the cook in.”
The cook came and stood by the table, looking sadly crestfallen and saying he had clean forgotten. “What! forgotten?” cried Trimalchio; “To hear him, you would suppose he’d just omitted a pinch of pepper or a bit of cummin. Strip him!”
Instantly the cook was stripped, and standing between two tormentors, the picture of misery. But . . . Trimalchio, . . . a smile breaking over his face, “Well! well!” said he, “as you have such a bad memory, bowel him now, where we can all see.”
Thereupon the cook resumed his tunic, seized his knife, and with a trembling hand slashed open the animal’s belly. In a moment, the apertures widening under the weight behind, out tumbled a lot of sausages and blackpuddings.
At this all the servants applauded like one man, and chorussed, “Gaius for ever!” Moreover, the cook was gratified with a goblet of wine and a silver wreath, and received a drinking cup on a salver of Corinthian metal. . . .
Then, with the servants bustling in all directions, a boiled calf was borne in on a silver dish weighing two hundred pounds, and actually wearing a helmet. Then came Ajax, and rushing at it like a madman slashed it to bits with his naked sword, and making passes now up now down, collected the pieces on his point and so distributed the flesh among the astonished guests.
We had little time, however, to admire these elegant surprises; for all of a sudden the ceiling began to rattle and the whole room trembled. I sprang up in consternation, fearing some tumbler was going to fall through the roof. The other guests were no less astounded, and gazed aloft, wondering what new prodigy they were to expect now from the skies. Then lo and behold! the ceiling opened and a huge hoop, evidently stripped from an enormous cask, was let down, all round which hung suspended golden wreaths and caskets containing precious unguents. These we were invited to take home with us as mementos.
Then looking again at the table, I saw that a tray of cakes had been placed on it, with a figure of Priapus, the handiwork of the pastrycook, standing in the middle, represented in the conventional way as carrying in his capacious bosom grapes and all sort of fruits. Eagerly we reached out after these dainties, when instantly a new sell set us laughing afresh. For each cake and each fruit was full of saffron, which spurted out into our faces at the slightest touch, giving us an unpleasant drenching. . . .
After a short interval Trimalchio next ordered the dessert to be served; hereupon the servants removed all the tables and brought in fresh ones, and strewed the floor with saffron- and vermilion-coloured saw-dust and, a refinement I had not seen before, with [glass from a mirror] reduced to powder. The moment the tables were changed, Trimalchio remarked, “I could really be quite content with what we have; for you see your ‘second tables’ before you. However, if there is anything spicy for dessert, let’s have it in.”. . .
The Extra-Course now [came] in—thrushes of pastry, stuffed with raisins and walnuts, followed by quinces stuck over with thorns, to represent sea-urchins. This would have been tolerable enough, had it not been for a still more outlandish dish, such a horrible concoction, we would rather have died than touch it. Directly it was on the table—to all appearance a fatted goose, with fish and fowl of all kinds round it—”Friends,” cried Trimalchio, “every single thing you see on that dish is made out of one substance.” With my wonted perspicacity, I instantly guessed its nature, and said, “For my part, I shall be greatly surprised if it is not all made of filth, or at any rate mud. When I was in Rome at the Saturnalia, I saw some sham eatables of the same sort.” I had not done speaking when Trimalchio explained, “As I hope to grow a bigger man—in fortune I mean, not fat—I declare my cook made it every bit out of a pig. Never was a more invaluable fellow! Give the word, he’ll make you a fish of the paunch, a wood-pigeon of the lard, a turtledove of the forehand, and a hen of the hind legs! And that’s why I very cleverly gave him such a fine and fitting name as Daedalus. And because he’s such a good servant, I brought him a present from Rome, a set of knives of Noric steel.” These he immediately ordered to be brought, and examined and admired them, even allowing us to try their edge on our cheeks.
All of a sudden in rushed two slaves, as if fresh from a quarrel at the fountain; at any rate they still had their water-pots hanging from the shoulder-yokes. Then when Trimalchio gave judgement upon their difference, they would neither of them accept his decision, but each smashed the other’s pot with a stick. We were horrorstruck at the drunken scoundrels’ insolence, and, looking hard at the combatants, we noticed oysters and scallops tumbling out of the broken pitchers, which another slave gathered up and handed round on a platter. This refinement was matched by the ingenious cook, who now brought in snails on a little silver gridiron, singing the while in a quavering, horribly rasping voice. I am really ashamed to relate what followed, it was so unheard-of a piece of luxury. Long-haired slave-boys brought in an unguent in a silver basin, and anointed our feet with it as we lay at table, after first wreathing our legs and ankles with garlands. Afterwards a small quantity of the same perfume was poured into the wine-jars and the lamps. . . .
The thing was getting positively sickening, when Trimalchio, now in a state of disgusting intoxication, commanded a new diversion, a company of horn-blowers, to be introduced; and then stretching himself out along the edge of a couch on a pile of pillows, “Make believe I am dead,” he ordered. “Play something fine.” Then the horn-blowers struck up a loud funeral dirge. In particular one of these undertaker’s men, the most conscientious of the lot, blew so tremendous a fanfare that it roused the whole neighbourhood. Hereupon the watchmen in charge of the surrounding district, thinking Trimalchio’s house was on fire, suddenly burst open the door, and, rushing in with water and axes, started the much-admired confusion usual under such circumstances. For our part, we seized the excellent opportunity thus offered . . . and ran away helter-skelter just as if we were escaping!
From The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett, 1721–1771
The Doctor with an air of infinite satisfaction began:—This here, gentlemen, is a boiled goose, served up in a sauce composed of pepper, lovage, coriander, mint, rue, anchovies, and oil! I wish for your sakes, gentlemen, it was one of the geese of Ferrara, so much celebrated among the ancients for the magnitude of their livers, one of which is said to have weighed upwards of two pounds: with this food, exquisite as it was, did the tyrant Heliogabalus regale his hounds. But I beg pardon, I had almost forgotten the soup, which I hear is so necessary an article at all tables in France. At each end there are dishes of the salacacabia of the Romans; one is made of parsley, pennyroyal, cheese, pine-tops, honey, vinegar, brine, eggs, cucumbers, onions, and hen-livers; the other is much the same as the soup-maigre of this country. Then there is a loin of veal boiled with fennel and caraway seed, on a pottage composed of pickle, oil, honey, and flour, and a curious hachis of the lights, liver and blood of an hare, together with a dish of roasted pigeons. Monsieur le Baron, shall I help you to a plate of this soup?—The German, who did not at all approve of the ingredients, assented to the proposal, and seemed to relish the composition; while the marquis was in consequence of his desire accommodated with a portion of the soup-maigre; and the count supplied himself with a pigeon. . . .
The Frenchman, having swallowed the first spoonful, made a pause; his throat swelled as if an egg had stuck in his gullet, his eyes rolled, and his mouth underwent a series of involuntary contractions and dilations. Pallet, who looked steadfastly at this connoisseur, with a view of consulting his taste, before he himself would venture upon the soup, began to be disturbed at these emotions, and observed, with some concern, that the poor gentleman seemed to be going into a fit; when Peregrine assured him these were symptoms of ecstasy, and, for further confirmation, asked the marquis how he found the soup. It was with infinite difficulty that his complaisance could so far master his disgust, as to enable him to answer, “Altogether excellent, upon my honour!” And the painter, being certified of his approbation, lifted the spoon to his mouth without scruple; but far from justifying the eulogium of his taster, when this precious composition diffused itself upon his palate, he seemed to be deprived of all sense and motion, and sat like the leaden statue of some river god, with the liquor flowing out at both sides of his mouth. . . .
The Doctor, alarmed at this indecent phenomenon, earnestly inquired into the cause of it; and when Pallet recovered his recollection, and swore that he would rather swallow porridge made of burning brimstone, than such an infernal mess as that which he had tasted, the physician, in his own vindication, assured the company, that, except the usual ingredients, he had mixed nothing in the soup but some sal-ammoniac instead of the ancient nitrum, which could not now be procured; and appealed to the marquis, whether such a succedaneum was not an improvement of the whole. The unfortunate petit-maître, driven to the extremity of his condescension, acknowledged it to be a masterly refinement; and deeming himself obliged, in point of honour, to evince his sentiments by his practice, forced a few more mouthfuls of this disagreeable potion down his throat, till his stomach was so much offended that he was compelled to start up of a sudden; and, in the hurry of his elevation, overturned his plate into the bosom of the baron. The emergency of his occasions would not permit him to stay and make apologies for this abrupt behaviour; so that he flew into another apartment, where Pickle found him puking, and crossing himself with great devotion; and a chair, at his desire, being brought to the door, he slipped into it, more dead than alive. . . . When our hero returned to the dining-room the places were filled with two pyes, one of dormice liquored with syrup of white poppies which the Doctor had substituted in the room of toasted poppy-seed, formerly eaten with honey, as a dessert; and the other composed of a hock of pork baked in honey.
Pallet hearing the first of these dishes described, lifting up his hands and eyes, and with signs of loathing and amazement, pronounced, “A pye made of dormice and syrup of poppies—Lord in Heaven! What beastly fellows those Romans were!”
All the Doctor’s invitations and assurances could not prevail upon his guests to honour the hachis and the goose; and that course was succeeded by another. “That which smokes in the middle,” said he, “is a sow’s stomach, filled with a composition of minced pork, hog’s brains, eggs, pepper, cloves, garlick, aniseed, rue, oil, wine, and pickle. On the right-hand side are the teats and belly of a sow, just farrowed, fried with sweet wine, oil, flour, lovage, and pepper. On the left is a fricassee of snails, fed, or rather purged, with milk. At that end, next Mr. Pallet, are fritters of pompions, lovage, origanum, and oil; and here are a couple of pullets, roasted and stuffed in the manner of Apicius.”
The painter, who had by wry faces testified his abhorrence of the sow’s stomach, which he compared to a bag-pipe, and the snails which had undergone purgation, no sooner heard him mention the roasted pullets, than he eagerly solicited the wing of a fowl; but scarce were they set down before him, when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he called aloud in a manifest disorder, “Z——nds! This is the essence of a whole bed of garlic!” That he might not, however, disappoint or disgrace the entertainer, he applied his instruments to one of the birds, and when he opened up the cavity, was assailed by such an irruption of intolerable smells, that, without staying to disengage himself from the cloth, he sprung away, with an exclamation of “Lord Jesus!” and involved the whole table in havoc, ruin, and confusion.
Before Pickle could accomplish his escape, he was soused with the syrup of the dormouse-pye, which went to pieces in the general wreck; and as for the Italian count, he was overwhelmed by the sow’s stomach, which bursting in the fall, discharged its contents upon his leg and thigh, and scalded him so miserably, that he shrieked with anguish, and grinned with a most ghastly and horrible aspect. . . .
The Doctor was confounded with shame and vexation. He expressed his sorrow for the misadventure and protested there was nothing in the fowls which could give offense to a sensitive nose, the stuffing being a mixture of pepper, lovage, and assafoetida, and the sauce consisting of wine and herring-pickle, which he had used instead of the celebrated garum of the Romans.
From The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, circa 160 A.D.
As for me, I was ruled and handled by fortune, according to her pleasure: for the soldier which got me without a seller and paid never a penny for me, by the commandment of his captain was sent unto Rome in course of his duty to carry letters to the great Prince, and before he went he sold me for eleven pence to two of his companions, brothers, being servants to a man of worship and wealth, whereof one was a baker, that baked sweet bread and delicates; the other a cook, which dressed with rich sauces fine and excellent meats for his master. These two lived in common, and would drive me from place to place to carry such vessels as were necessary for their master when he travelled through divers countries. In this sort I was received by these two as a third brother and companion, and I thought I was never better placed than with them: for when night came and the lord’s supper was done, which was always exceedingly rich and splendid, my masters would bring many good morsels into their chamber for themselves: one would bring large rests of pigs, chickens, fish, and other good meats; the other fine bread, pastries, tarts, custards, and other delicate junkets dipped in honey. And when before meat they had shut their chamber door and went to the baths; O Lord, how I would fill my guts with those goodly dishes: neither was I so much a fool, or so very an ass, as to leave the dainty meats and grind my teeth upon hard hay. In this sort I continued a great space in my artful thieving, for I played the honest ass, taking but a little of one dish and a little of another, whereby no man mistrusted me. In the end I was more hardier and more sure that I should not be discovered, and began to devour the whole messes of the sweetest delicates, which caused the baker and the cook to suspect not a little; howbeit they never mistrusted me, but searched about to apprehend the daily thief. At length they began to accuse one another of base theft, and to keep and guard the dishes more diligently, and to number and set them in order, one by another, because they would learn what was taken away: and at last one of them was compelled to throw aside all doubting and to say thus to his fellow: “Is it right or reason to break promise and faith in this sort, by stealing away the best meat and selling to augment thy private good, and yet nevertheless to have thy equal part of the residue that is left? If our partnership do displease thee, we will be partners and brothers in other things, but in this we will break off: for I perceive that the great loss which I sustain will at length grow from complaining to be a cause of great discord between us.” Then answered the other: “Verily I praise thy great constancy and subtileness, in that thou (when thou hast secretly taken away the meat) dost begin to complain first; whereas I by long space of time have silently suffered thee, because I would not seem to accuse my brother of a scurvy theft. But I am right glad in that we are fallen into communication of this matter, to seek a remedy for it, lest by our silence like contention might arise between us as fortuned between Eteocles3 and his brother.” When they had reasoned and striven together in this sort, they sware both earnestly that neither of them stole or took away any jot of the meat, but that they must conclude to search out the thief by all kind of means in common. For they could not imagine or think that the ass, who stood alone there, would fancy any such meats, and yet every day the best parts thereof would utterly disappear; neither could they think that flies were so great or ravenous as to devour whole dishes of meat, like the birds harpies which carried away the meats of Phineus, king of Arcadia.
In the mean season, while I was fed with dainty morsels, and fattened with food fit for men, I gathered together my flesh, my skin waxed soft and juicy, my hair began to shine, and I was gallant on every part; but such fair and comely shape of my body was cause of my dishonour, for the baker and the cook marvelled to see me so sleek and fine, considering that my hay was every day left untouched. Wherefore they turned all their minds towards me, and on a time when at their accustomed hour they made as they would go to the baths and locked their chamber door, it fortuned that ere they departed away they espied me through a little hole how I fell roundly to my victuals that lay spread abroad. Then they marvelled greatly, and little esteeming the loss of their meat laughed exceedingly at the marvellous daintiness of an ass, calling the servants of the house, one by one and then more together, to shew them the greedy gorge and wonderful appetite of a slow beast. The laughing of them all was so immoderate that the master of the house passing by heard them, and demanded the cause of their laughter; and when he understood all the matter, he looked through the hole likewise, wherewith he took such a delectation that he had well nigh burst his guts with laughing and commanded the door to be opened, that he might see me at his pleasure. Then I, beholding the face of fortune altogether smiling upon me, was nothing abashed, but rather more bold for joy, whereby I never rested eating till such time as the master of the house commanded me to be brought out as a novelty, nay he led me into his own parlour with his own hands, and there caused all kinds of meats, which had been never before touched, to be set on the tables; and these (although I had eaten sufficiently before, yet to win the further favour of the master of the house) I did greedily devour, and made a clean riddance of the delicate meats. And to prove my mild and docile nature wholly, they gave me such meat as every ass doth greatly abhor, for they put before me beef and vinegar, birds and pepper, fish and sharp sauce. In the mean season, they that beheld me at the table did nothing but laugh; then one of the wits that was there said to his master: “I pray you, sir, give this feaster some drink to his supper.” “Marry,” quoth he, “I think thou sayest true, rascal; for so it may be that to his meat this our dinner-fellow would drink likewise a cup of wine. Oh, boy, wash yonder golden pot, and fill it with wine; which done, carry it to my guest, and say that I have drank to him.” Then all the standers-by looked on, looking eagerly to see what would come to pass; but I (as soon as I beheld the cup) stayed not long, but at my leisure, like a good companion, gathering my lips together to the fashion of a man’s tongue, supped up all the wine at one draught, while all who were there present shouted very loudly and wished me good health.
But no, not even a golden ass, so sleek and gay, can ease for us the revolting tightness of our spiritual belts. Bestial gluttony has tainted us, and there is the sour stink of indigestion everywhere.
Lucullus still stands proud and pure, if criminally wasteful, as the one Roman who fed his various hungers with finesse and delicacy, and would never have stooped to the ugliness of his admirers’ table habits. But Lucullus is not enough. It takes more than one mortal man to atone for many.
That is why, as antidote to all this surfeit, I have chosen to end with two stories of the immortals.
The first one, by Ovid, is as fresh and sweet as the breezes that still move in the boughs of two trees that might be Baucis and Philemon, on any hill where love is.
And the second story, with a little piece in front of it by Rabelais of France, is of the death of Socrates.
Perhaps that seems a strange kind of feast to put in this book, but surely the bitter cup of hemlock was in its way important to men’s souls, like the wine and the unleavened bread of a Passover feast in Jerusalem, shared in a room with twelve men other than Jesus. It is not only Christians who have been touched by the superhuman mystery of that Last Supper. And philosophers are not the only men whose lives have bent to the beauty and the dignity of Socrates’ final cup with his friends, which he drank alone but which each one of them forever after tasted.
From Philemon and Baucis by Ovid, 43 B.C.–? 17 A.D.
In the Phrygian Hills an oak-tree stands by the side of a linden, both surrounded by a low wall; I have seen the place myself. Not far from this place there is a marsh, once habitable land, now water, haunted by divers and coots. To this place Jupiter came, once upon a time, in mortal guise, and with him Mercury, without his wings or wand. To a thousand homes they came, seeking a place for rest; and a thousand homes were bolted against them. Still, one house did receive them, a little cottage, to be sure, humble, thatched with straw and rushes. A good old woman, Baucis, and her old husband Philemon had been married in that house when they were young, and had grown old there together; they made their poverty light by admitting it, and by bearing it with no mean spirit. It would make no difference if you asked for masters or servants in that house; the two of them were the whole household; the two of them give the orders and obey them.
So when the gods came to this humble home, and, ducking their heads, came through the low doorway, the old man set out a bench, and bade them rest their limbs, while over the bench the old wife threw a rough covering. Then she raked aside the warm ashes on the hearth and fanned to life yesterday’s fire, feeding it with leaves and dry bark, blowing them to flame with the breath of her old body. Then she took down from the roof some fine-split wood and dry twigs, broke them up, and placed them under the small copper kettle. From the well-watered garden her husband had brought in a head of cabbage, which she took and stripped of its outer leaves. In the meantime he took a forked stick and reached down a side of bacon which hung from the black beams, and he cut off a lean strip, and put it to cook in the boiling water. And they keep the talk going while these preparations are being made.
A mattress of soft sedge-grass was placed on a couch with frame and feet of willow. Over this they threw a spread, usually reserved for holiday occasions, but even this was poor and frayed, a very good match for the willow couch. Here the gods reclined. The old woman, her skirts tucked up, set the table with trembling hands. One of the legs was too short; she used a shell to prop it up and make it even. Then when it was level, she scoured the surface with a handful of green mint. Next she set on the table olives, green ones and ripe ones, and some autumnal wild cherries pickled in the lees of wine; endive, radishes, cottage cheese, and eggs, lightly turned in the warm ashes, all these being served in earthen dishes. After this course, a mixing bowl of the same . . . ware was set on the table, with beechwood cups, coated inside with yellow wax. There was a short wait, and then the steaming victuals were brought from the fire, and wine, none too old, was served, and the final course made ready. This time there were nuts and figs, dried dates, plums and apples in sweet-smelling baskets, purple grapes just picked from the vines, and in the center of the board a comb of clear white honey. And over and beyond all this, were kindly faces, and a good will neither sluggish nor poverty-stricken.
Meanwhile they saw that the wine-bowl, as often as it was drained, kept filling up of its own accord, and that the wine, all by itself, kept brimming up again. The two old folks were frightened and amazed; with upturned hands they prayed, begging pardon, trembling old things, for their scanty fare and meager entertainment. They had one goose, the guardian of their small estate, and now they decided to catch and kill him to please their divine guests. But the goose was swift of wing, and the slow old people almost ran out of breath in trying to catch him. For a long time he kept out of their reach, and finally seemed to flee for refuge to the feet of the gods themselves. Then the gods told them not to kill the goose.
“We are gods,” they said, “and this wicked neighborhood shall be punished as it deserves; but you shall be saved and protected. Only leave your house and come with us and go with us to that tall mountain over there.” They obeyed, and tottered along, using their staves, up the long mountain slope. They were almost at the summit, within arrow-shot, when they looked back and saw the whole countryside flooded with water, only their own house above the waves. And even while they were wondering at this, and grieving for the fate of their neighbors, their old house, small even for the two of them, turned into a temple. Marble columns took the place of the worked wooden props; the yellow straw turned yellow gold; the gates were richly carved, the ground was floored with marble. Then Jupiter calmly spoke: “O good old man, and wife, worthy of the good husband, tell us what you would like to have.” Philemon spoke a few words with Baucis, then, turning to the gods, revealed their common decision: “We ask to be priests and to guard your temple; and since our years together have been happy ones, we pray that the same hour may carry us both off; let me never see the tomb of my wife, and let her never see mine.”
Their request was granted. As long as they lived, they had charge of the temple. And at last, when they were very old indeed, and happened to be standing in front of the temple, talking of olden times, Baucis saw Philemon putting forth leaves, and likewise Philemon saw Baucis so, and as the tree-top formed over their faces, they had time for one phrase only, “Farewell, my dear!”, and the bark closed over and covered their mouths. Even to this day the local peasants point out the two trees standing close together, and growing from one double trunk. Sensible old men (and there was no reason why they should want to fool me) told me this story. And I saw votive garlands hanging from the boughs, and added fresh ones of my own, and hanging them, I made up a verse: “The gods look after the good, and those who cherish are cherished.”
From the Prologue to Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais, 1483?–1553
Alcibiades [in the work of Plato’s called The Banquet], praising his master Socrates (undoubtedly the prince of philosophers), happens, among other things, to liken him to sileni. Sileni, in the days of yore, were small boxes such as you may see nowadays at your apothecary’s. They were named for Silenus, foster father to Bacchus. The outside of these boxes bore gay, fantastically painted figures of harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, hares with gigantic horns, saddled ducks, winged goats in flight, harts in harness, and many other droll fancies. They were pleasurably devised to inspire just the sort of laughter Silenus, Bacchus’s master, inspired.
But inside these sileni, people kept priceless drugs such as balsam of Mecca, ambergris from the sperm whale, amomum from the cardamon, musk from the deer, and civet from the civet’s arsehole—not to mention various sorts of precious stones, used for medical purposes, and other invaluable possessions.
Well, Alcibiades likened Socrates to these boxes, because, judging by his exterior, you would not have given an onion skin for him. He was ill-shaped, ridiculous in carriage, with a nose like a knife, the gaze of a bull, and the face of a fool. His ways stamped him a simpleton, his clothes a bumpkin. Poor in fortune, unlucky when it came to women, hopelessly unfit for all office in the republic, forever laughing, forever drinking neck to neck with his friends, forever hiding his divine knowledge under a mask of mockery. . . .
Yet had you opened this box, you would have found in it all sorts of priceless, celestial drugs: immortal understanding, wondrous virtue, indomitable courage, unparalleled sobriety, unfailing serenity, perfect assurance, and an heroic contempt for whatever moves humanity to watch, to bustle, to toil, to sail ships overseas, and to engage in warfare.
From The Death of Socrates by Plato, 427?–347 B.C.
When he had bathed, and his children had been brought to him—he had two sons quite little, and one grown up—and the women of his family were come, he spoke with them in Crito’s presence, and gave them his last commands; then he sent the women and children away, and returned to us. By that time it was near the hour of sunset, for he had been a long while within. When he came back to us from the bath he sat down, but not much was said after that. Presently the servant of the Eleven came and stood before him and said, “I know that I shall not find you unreasonable like other men, Socrates. They are angry with me and curse me when I bid them drink the poison because the authorities make me do it. But I have found you all along the noblest and gentlest and best man that has ever come here; and now I am sure that you will not be angry with me, but with those who you know are to blame. And so farewell, and try to bear what must be as lightly as you can; you know why I have come.” With that he turned away weeping, and went out.
Socrates looked up at him, and replied, “Farewell; I will do as you say.” Then he turned to us and said, “How courteous the man is! And the whole time that I have been here, he has constantly come in to see me, and sometimes he has talked to me, and has been the best of men; and now, how generously he weeps for me! Come, Crito, let us obey him: let the poison be brought if it is ready, and if it is not ready, let it be prepared.”
Crito replied: “Nay, Socrates, I think that the sun is still upon the hills; it has not set. Besides, I know that other men take the poison quite late, and eat and drink heartily, and even enjoy the company of their chosen friends, after the announcement has been made. So do not hurry; there is still time.”
Socrates replied: “And those whom you speak of, Crito, naturally do so; for they think that they will be gainers by so doing. And I naturally shall not do so; for I think that I should gain nothing by drinking the poison a little later, but my own contempt for so greedily saving up a life which is already spent. So do not refuse to do as I say.”
Then Crito made a sign to his slave who was standing by; and the slave went out, and after some delay returned with the man who was to give the poison, carrying it prepared in a cup. When Socrates saw him, he asked, “You understand these things, my good sir, what have I to do?”
“You have only to drink this,” he replied, “and to walk about until your legs feel heavy, and then lie down; and it will act of itself.” With that he handed the cup to Socrates, who took it quite cheerfully, Echecrates, without trembling, and without any change of colour or of feature, and looked up at the man with that fixed glance of his, and asked, “What say you to making a libation from this draught? May I, or not?” “We only prepare so much as we think sufficient, Socrates,” he answered. “I understand,” said Socrates. “But I suppose that I may, and must, pray to the gods that my journey hence may be prosperous: that is my prayer; be it so.” With these words he put the cup to his lips and drank the poison calmly and cheerfully. Till then most of us had been able to control our grief fairly well; but when we saw him drinking, and then the poison finished, we could do so no longer; my tears came fast in spite of myself, and I covered my face and wept for myself: it was not for him, but at my own misfortune in losing such a friend. Even before that, Crito had been unable to restrain his tears, and had gone away; and Apollodorus, who had never once ceased weeping the whole time, burst into a loud cry, and made us one and all break down by his sobbing and grief, except only Socrates himself. “What are you doing, my friends?” he exclaimed. “I sent away the women chiefly in order that they might not offend in this way; for I have heard that a man should die in silence. So calm yourselves and bear up.” When we heard that, we were ashamed, and we ceased from weeping. But he walked about, until he said that his legs were getting heavy, and then he lay down on his back, as he was told. And the man who gave the poison began to examine his feet and legs, from time to time: then he pressed his foot hard, and asked if there was any feeling in it, and Socrates said, “No”: and then his legs, and so higher and higher, and showed us that he was cold and stiff. And Socrates felt himself, and said that when it came to his heart, he should be gone. He was already growing cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face, which had been covered, and spoke for the last time. “Crito,” he said, “I owe a cock to Asclepius; do not forget to pay it.” “It shall be done,” replied Crito. “Is there anything else that you wish?” He made no answer to this question; but after a short interval there was a movement, and the man uncovered him, and his eyes were fixed. Then Crito closed his mouth and his eyes.
Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend, a man, I think, who was the wisest and justest, and the best man that I have ever known.