We have endeavoured to describe in the preceding pages some of those antique entertainments, which seem to be the summum bonum of the gigantic power of those shameless dominators of the Roman empire, whose reigns might be counted as so many banquets, and for whom the entire world was transformed into one vast market.
We are reduced to despair when we attempt to depict such sensualism, and we also despair of inspiring belief. When one goes back into those old pagan times,—when one shuts out the world as it is, to evoke the manners and customs of days gone by, and breathe in their atmosphere,—the mind experiences a sort of stupefaction, so much is it immersed in the senses, so thick is the moral darkness, so low has man fallen!
And, as if it had been decreed that everything should concur to consummate the annihilation of the human species, on the one hand, almost the whole family of man was, for the first time since their dispersion, collected into one body under the Roman domination, which spread its corruption throughout the several members; while, on the other hand, the hordes of barbarians who pressed round—like ferocious beasts waiting till the arena opened—were about to over-run the earth, in the absence of any civilising element that could interpose to stay the destruction, by snatching the conquered from the hands of victory, and the conquerors themselves from their own ferocity.
It belongs not to us to portray this fearful cataclysm, this sudden transition from the development of all the arts which perpetuate the enjoyments of life to the profound ignorance, the savage rudeness, which the northern conquerors imposed on enslaved Europe.
The fifth was the last century of Rome. It was then that barbarism became everywhere victorious. The Vandals were masters of Africa, the Lombards of Italy, the Visigoths of Spain, the Franks of Gaul. Literature followed the destiny of the empire, and seemed to perish at the same time. It is, however, impossible for nations not to receive, as an inheritance from people civilised before themselves, a great part of their intellectual cultivation. Happily modern Europe was swayed by this law: the barbarians reduced Rome by the force of arms,—Rome triumphed in the long run over the barbarians by the genius of civilisation and her arts.
It is known that even after the introduction of vulgar idioms, the learned of the middle ages continued the use of Latin, and that in the 15th century that beautiful language, purified from barbarian corruptions, became once more classic, particularly in Italy.
At that epoch, an obscure inhabitant of Mentz, John Guttenberg, immortalised himself by the discovery of printing, just as the love of antiquity was causing the old literary masterpieces to be sought out, and creating a demand for copies of the manuscripts.
Then, as if they had risen from their tombs after a thousand years of forgetfulness, all the writers of antiquity re-appeared, to charm, instruct, and renovate the world.
It was the era of regeneration, when you, O, beloved masters! Pliny, Apicius, Petronius, Athenæus,—and you, ingenuous and faithful chroniclers of the gastronomic follies of the people-king,—were resuscitated in all your glory! Others instructed the universe in philosophy, eloquence, and history,—you taught man how the ancients dined; and, thanks to your lessons, our fathers began to comprehend that, since the table is the great scene of life where bonds of friendship are formed and cemented, banqueting is indispensable to the prosperity of nations.
No one will accuse us, we hope, of endeavouring to establish a paradox for which we could hardly find an excuse, in our love of the culinary art, as long experience, and public facts within the memory of all, victoriously confirm our assertion.