Dining with an Ancient Roman [pp. 439-441]

DINING WITH AN ANCIENT R OJfAN.4
DINING WITH AN ANCIENT ROMAN.
F any people ever knew how to cook, and by
cooking to elevate the necessity of eating
into the refined luxury of dining, it was the Romans under the early emperors. They had then
acquired all the poetical and culinary art of
Greece, and united it to the more solid learning
of Rome.
Those Romans were good livers, huge eaters,
and great spendthrifts. Vitellius never squandclered less than ten thousand crowns at a meal,
and at one celebrated dinner had on table two
thousand fishes and seven thousand fat birds.
As for that monster of extravagance, Heliogabalus-Gobbleus it ought to be-at one special
party he gave each guest the gold cup from
which he had drank, and sent each person
home in a carriage presented to him for the
purpose. Albanus, a Gaulish consul, is said to
have devoured at one supper, one hundred
peaclhes, ten melons, fifty large green figs, and
three hundred oysters. There is a rumor, too,
that the tyrant Maximus used to eat forty
pounds of meat per day.
The Romans had their jentaculum, or breakfast, soon after they rose; and this early snack
consisted of bread, raisins, olives, eggs, and
cheese. Their beverage at this meal was milk,
or mulsum-honeyed wine. The prandium was
a sort of lunch about noon; but the real solid
repast was the ccena, our dinner, at the ninth
hour, about half-past two in Summer' It matters little whether we call it an early supper or
a late dinner, since our own seven o'clock meal
is open to the same doubts.
XVe all know the ordinary Roman house,
thanks to the pretty revival at Sydenham.
From the center hall, with its little garden and
cool murmuring fountain, opened the dim bins
which served for sleeping-rooms, each with its
curtained doorway. The black walls of the
rooms, opening from the hall, and all on one
floor, were painted with little groups of sea
nymphs, and Cupids, and triumphs of Bacchus.
The floors were mosaic. In every thling the
Italian climate was taken into consideration,
and there were no stuffy carpets or dusty mattings to retain the dirt and heat.
We will suppose the ninth hour near at hand,
and the slaves busy in the kitchen preparing to
dish up dinner. The busts of the ancestors in
the hall have been dusted and rubbed, and the
couches are ready ranged in the triclinium-:.or
dining-room. The gold and silver cups are
ranged on the buffets, and all is ready for the
feast, even down to the garlands of roses which
are to be given to the guests after the banquet.
The couches were so arranged that they
formed three sides of a square, and in the midst
stood the cedar and ivory, or tortoise-shell and
bronze tables, on which each course was placed,
arranged in trays. The gutests lay down on the
couches in an uncomfortable Oriental way, three
to a couch: each guest, propped up with cushions, leaning on his left arm, the right being free
to receive food and to hold his plate. Silk
cushions marked the place of each guest. The
host pointed out the special seats to favored
guests, much as your host does now.
As soon as the guests had taken their places,
slaves came and removed their sandals, and
boys with their loins girded up offered water in
bowls: in which it was the custom for all to dip
their hands. At a nod of the hlost, the first
f course would appear-generally shell-fish, eggs,
and vegetables-and writh it a bill of fare to
guide the appetite of each diner. Every rich
man had his own slave at his back, to hand the
dishes or to pass the wine.
We can, by help of a learned German professor-a distinguishled friend of Dreikopf'sand Petronius, pretty correctly follow a preliminary "gustatorium," which more resembled the
conclusion than the beginning of an Englishl
dinner. Let us place in the center of the first
tray, which was inlaid with tortoise-shell, a
bronze ass, in whose silver panniers were piled
black and green olives. On the back of this
ass rode a portly bronze Silenus, firom whose
hands ran down a sauce of oysters and fishl-livers upon a sow's breast that floated in the dish
below. There were also sausages on silver
gridirons; the hot coals beneath, simulated by
crimson pomegranate pips and Syrian plums;
and there was lacertus-a common fishserved utip with chopped eggs, mint, and rue.
Snails and oysters were also handed round,
garnished with asparagus, lettuces, and radish.
The guests were all this time constantly supplied with goblets of white wine and honey-a
sort of Athol brose. In fact, this opening of the
Roman banquet did not differ very much from
the opening of a modern Russian dinner, which
commences withl sardines, anchovies, and a
small glass of brandy or liqueur.
The second course would probably be a surprise-one of those elaborate, practical jokes in
which the Roman epicure delighted-perhaps a
whole pig stuffed with fat thrushes, the yolks of
eggs, and mince-meat. But we will follow Petronius at his banquet. A wooden hen with
outspread wings, exquisitely carved, was there
brought in in a basket full of chaff, brooding on
eggs; which the slaves drew out and handed to
the guests. These eggs were found, to every
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