Your correspondent "R.O." having inquired after the author of the conjecture that the Lacedæmonian Black Broth was composed wholly, or in part, of coffee, such an idea appearing to me to have arisen principally from a presumed identity of colour between the two, and to have no foundation in fact, I have endeavoured to combat it, in the first instance by raising the question, whether it was black or not?
This has brought us to the main point, what the [Greek: zomos melas] really was. And here "R.O." appears to rest content upon the probablity of coffee having been an ingredient. Permit me to assign some additional reasons for entertaining a different opinion.
We read nothing in native writers of anything like coffee in Greece, indigenous or imported; and how in the world was it to get into Laconia, inhabited, as it is well known to have been, by a race of men the least prone of any to change their customs, and the least accessible to strangers. Lycurgus, we are told, forbade his people to be sailors, or to contend at sea[6], so that they had no means of importing it themselves; and what foreign merchant would sell it to them, who had only iron money to pay withal, and dealt, moreover, as much as possible by way of barter?[7]
But it may be said they cultivated the plant themselves; that is, in other words, that the Helots raised it for them. If so, how happens it that all mention of the berry is omitted in the catalogue of their monthly contributions to the Phiditia, which are said to have consisted of meal, wine, cheese, figs, and a very little money?[8] and when the king of Pontus[9] indulged in the expensive fancy of buying to himself (not hiring, let it be recollected) a cook, to make that famous broth which Dionysius found so detestable, how came he not at the same time to think of buying a pound of coffee also? Moreover, if we consider its universal popularity at present, it is hardly to be supposed that, in ancient times, coffee would have suited no palate except that of a Lacedæmonian.
With respect to the colour of the broth, I am reminded of my own reference to Pollux, lib. vi. who is represented by your correspondent to say that the [Greek: melas zomos] was also called [Greek: aimatia], a word which Messrs. Scott and Liddell interpret to denote "blood broth," and go on to state, upon the authority of Manso, that blood was a principal ingredient in this celebrated Lacedæmonian dish. Certainly, if the case were really so, the German writer would have succeeded in preparing for us a most disagreeable and warlike kind of food; but my astonishment has not been small, upon turning to the passage, to find that "R.O.'s" authorities had misled him, and that Pollux really says nothing of the kind. His words (I quote from the edition 2 vols. folio, Amst. 1706) are these,
[Greek: "O de melas kaloumenos zomos Lakonikon men hos epi to poly to edesma. esti de hae kaloumenae haimatia. to de thrion hode eskeuazon, k.t.l.">[
The general subject of the section is the different kinds of flesh used by man for food, and incidentally the good things which may be made from these; which leads the writer to mention by name many kinds of broth, amongst which he says towards the end, is that called [Greek: melas zomos] which might be considered almost as a Lacedæmonian dish; adding further, that there was a something called hæmatia (and this might have been a black pudding or sausage for anything that appears to the contrary); also the thrium, which was prepared in a manner he proceeds to describe. Now the three parts of the sentence which has been given above in the original do, to the best of my judgment, clearly refer to three different species of food; and I would appeal to the candid opinion of any competent Greek scholar, whether, according to the idiom of that language, the second part of it is so expressed, as to connect it with, and make it explanatory of, the first. We want, for this purpose, a relative, either with or without [Greek: esti]; and the change of gender in hæmatia seems perfectly unaccountable if it is intended to have any reference to [Greek: zomos].
It may not be unimportant to add that the significant silence of Meursius, (an author surely not to be lightly thought of) who in his Miscellanea Laconica says nothing of blood broth at the Phiditia, implies that he understood the passage of Pollux as intended to convey the meaning expressed above.
Another lexicographer, Hesychius, informs us that [Greek: Bapha] was the Lacedæmonian term for [Greek: zomos]; and this, perhaps, was the genuine appellation for that which other Greeks expressed by a periphrasis, either in contempt or dislike, or because its colour was really dark, the juices of the meat being thoroughly extracted into it. That it was nutritive and powerful may be inferred from what Plutarch mentions, that the older men were content to give up the meat to the younger ones, and live upon the broth only[10], which, had it been very poor, they would not have done.
When these remarks were commenced, it was for the purpose of showing, by means of a passage not generally referred to, what the ancients conceived the "black broth" to be, and that consequently, all idea of coffee entering into its composition was untenable. How far this has been accomplished the reader must decide: but I cannot quit the subject without expressing my sincere persuasion, founded upon a view of the authorities referred to, that the account given by Athenæus is substantially correct. Pig meat would be much in use with a people not disposed to take the trouble of preparing any other: the animal was fit for nothing but food; and the refuse of their little farms would be sufficient for his keep. Athenæus also, in another passage, supplies us with a confirmation of the notion that the stock was made from pig, and this is stronger because it occurs incidentally. It is found in a quotation from Matron, the maker of parodies, who, alluding to some person or other who had not got on very well at a Lacedæmonian feast, explains the cause of his failure to have been, that the black broth, and boiled odds and ends of pig meat, had beaten him;