Laid on the Board, and Ring-Doves Rump-less drest!
Delicious Fare! did not our Host explain
Their various Qualities in endless Strain,
Their various Natures; but we fled the Feast,
Resolved in Vengeance nothing more to taste,
As if Canidia, with empoison'd Breath,
Worse than a Serpent's, blasted it with Death."[6]
That Nasidienus was proverbially penurious, was guilty of purchasing tainted game in order to save expense, and would have been chary of his wines had it not been for Servilius, who cried loudly for "larger goblets," leads one to conclude that even his repast was far below those of the pampered upper classes in its prodigality.
Apicius, who is referred to by Pliny, Seneca, Juvenal, and Martial, is said to have squandered nearly four million dollars in riotous living, when, looking over his accounts, he found he had only about a tenth of that amount remaining, and, unwilling to starve on such a pittance, he poisoned himself. Of the three persons bearing the name of Apicius, one of whom lived in the times of Sulla, another during the reign of Tiberius, and the third under Trajan, none is supposed to be the author of "De re Culinaria," since published in so many different editions, a work now ascribed to Cœlius, who, in admiration of the renowned Marcus Gabius, termed himself Apicius. The latter, the richest of the three who bore the name by right, vied with royalty in his regal tastes. He is reported as having voyaged to Africa expressly to ascertain whether the crawfish there were superior to those he was accustomed to have at Minturnæ; but finding them inferior, he returned immediately, without setting foot to land. "Look at Nomentanus and Apicius," says Seneca, "who digest all the good things, as they call them, of the sea and the land, and review upon their tables the whole animal kingdom. Look at them as they lie on beds of roses, gloating over their banquet and delighting their ears with music, their eyes with exhibitions, their palates with flavours."
Where the deliciously scented cyclamen carpets the shore of the Mediterranean in myriads at Baiæ, Apicius repaired to savour shell-fish—"the manna of the sea"—and from the self-same sea that laves the isle of Capri and rolls its azure wave into the famed blue grotto, Tiberius sent turbots to him that Apicius was not rich enough to buy himself.