The founder of Rome also had the wisdom to ordain that, in certain cases, the inhabitants of the same ward should take their repasts in common, as a sign of peace and good feeling; nay, more: he decreed these suppers to be a part of the religious worship, and they were called “sacred banquets.”[XXIX_86]
Man abuses every thing. The Romans, tired of eating merely to support life, and disdaining, little by little, that austere sobriety which rendered them the masters of the world, gave themselves up at last to unbridled luxury, which appears to have redoubled during the war of Italy, and the civil wars of Marius, 83 B.C. Cornelius Sylla assumed the government, and one of the terrible dictator’s laws (Lex Cornelia) renewed the ancient sumptuary regulations, and fixed the prices of provisions.[XXIX_87] Julius Cæsar also made great efforts to oppose the redoubtable invasions of Roman gastronomy. That prince stationed guards in the markets, with orders to seize whatever they found there in contravention of the laws. If, through want of vigilance or fidelity, they allowed anything to escape, it was sure to be confiscated by more active agents, on the very tables, and in presence of the assembled guests.[XXIX_88] Resistance only increased the evil. Augustus thought to render the laws more efficacious by modifying them. He permitted twelve persons to meet in honour of the twelve great gods, and to spend eight shillings in ordinary repasts; twelve shillings in the banquets of the calends, the ides, and the nones; and even two pounds on wedding days and the day following.[XXIX_89]
Tiberius granted still more. Under his reign, a worthy citizen might spend for supper the sum of four pounds, without having to fear that any one would find fault with it.[XXIX_90]
Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—doubtless better judges of liberty than their predecessors—allowed every one the right to ruin himself as joyously as he pleased. These good princes, so far from repressing the luxury of the table, strove to fortify it with the authority of their examples.[XXIX_91]
Vitellius was by nature a non-reformer. That voracious Cæsar operated on a large scale; he spent in four months, for his suppers, a little more than five millions sterling.[XXIX_92] A trifle for a Roman emperor! Did not the riches and labour of Europe, Asia, and Africa, form his civil list? It is quite true that out of this modest revenue he had to find corn to stop the cravings of the proletarians, and provide the games of the Circus, in order to amuse them in their dangerous idleness. But Vitellius, who had no other passion than that of good cheer, was royally equal to the task. And these things cause no surprise when we remember that a Roman general, Lucullus, spent not less than £1,000 to offer a little collation to two of his friends, who refused him the time he required to treat them in a less unceremonious manner.
We find in the history of “Jack of Newbury”[XXIX_93] instructions relative to the manner in which an English tradesman was to feed the persons in his employment in the 16th century, which would certainly not be very pleasing now to that useful and laborious class:—
“You feed your folks with the best of beef and the finest of wheat, which is an oversight; neither do I hear of any knight in this country that doth it, and, to say the truth, how were they able to bear that part which they do, if they saved it not by some means? Come thither, and I warrant you that you shall see brown bread upon the board; if it be of wheat and rye mingled together, it is a great matter, and bread most highly commended, but most commonly they eat barley bread, or rye mingled with peasen or such-like coarse grain, which is doubtless of small price, and there is no other bread allowed except it be at their own board; and in like manner for their meat, it is well known that necks and points of beef is their ordinary fare; which, because it is commonly lean, they seeth therewith now and then a piece of bacon or pork, whereby they make their pottage fat, and therewith drive out the rest with more content: and this you must do. And besides that, the midriffs of oxen, and the cheeks, the sheep’s heads, and the gathers, which you give away at your gate, might serve them well enough; this would be a great spareing to your meat, and by this means you would save much money in the year, whereby you might better maintain your French hood and silk gown.”
The following is the style of living at the court of the Dauphin of France in the 14th century:—
As in all well-regulated houses, there were five repasts, viz.: the morning (except on fast days), the breakfast; the repast of ten o’clock,—(dix heures, or the décimheure; by abbreviation décimer, and by a second abbreviation, dîner)—the dinner; the second dinner, the supper (souper), at which they eat no more soup than we do; and lastly, the night repast, which they called a collation.