Yet far exceeding Apicius, who was almost deified for discovering how to maintain oysters fresh and alive during long journeys, was his predecessor Lucullus, the wealthy general, a great patron of learning and the arts, as well as the king of epicures. Juvenal has etched his portrait in four lines:
"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."
The Monte Cristo of Naples, he pierced a mountain to place two of his country villas in closer communication and to conduct the sea-water to one of them, where he had constructed a huge aquarium for sea-fish. His carvers were paid at the rate of four thousand a year. The various dining-rooms at his Neapolitan palace were designed according to the costliness of the repasts which were given in them, the saloon of Apollo being the most sumptuous. Cicero and Pompey, resolving one day to surprise him, presented themselves unceremoniously, and, upon being pressed to remain to dinner, assented on condition that he would go to no extra trouble. Summoning his major-domo, he dismissed him with the simple command:
"Place two more covers in the saloon of Apollo"—the cost of the dinner in this apartment being fixed at a thousand dollars per plate.
No review of the Roman table, however brief, would be complete without retelling the story of Lucullus as his own host. On this occasion, when, through some misunderstanding, he was without guests for dinner, his cook appeared as usual to receive his orders.
"I am alone," said Lucullus; whereupon his servitor, thinking that a five-hundred-dollar dinner would suffice, acted accordingly. At the conclusion of his repast, his face flushed with the juices of Falernian, Lucullus sent for his minister of the interior and took him severely to task. There were no fig-peckers, and the prized spawn of the sea-lamprey was missing. The cook was profuse in his apologies.