[483] Thomson’s translation. The mania for expensive bowls obtained in either nation: the philosopher Aristotle owned 70, while Æsop, the tragic actor, paid £8000 for a single ewer. The histrionic, as Æsop and Roscius show, was a most lucrative profession. Cf. Pliny, XXXV. 46.
[484] According to Dion., 65. 4, and Tacitus, Hist., II. 95.
[485] Tac., loc. cit., “noviens milies sestertium paucissimis mensibus intervertisse creditur sagina.”
[486] Herodot., VII. 118-120, Athen., IV. 27.
[487] See Athenæus (V. 46), who is so struck that he quotes the passage twice! The culinary accommodations must have been “prodeegeous!” At the birthday feast of a mere Persian grandee, an ox and an ass, and other animals that were his, even a horse and a camel, were roasted whole in stoves (or ovens). Herodot., I. 133.
[488] V. 25-35.
[489] “The Treatise we now possess is a sort of Cook-Confectioners’ Manual, containing a multitude of recipes for preparing and cooking all kinds of flesh, fish, and fowl. From the solecisms of style it is probable that it was compiled at a late period by one who prefixed the name of Apicius in order to attract attention and insure the circulation of his book.”—Smith’s Dict. Gk. Rom. Biog. and Myth.
Teuffel and Schwabe, History of Roman Literature (trans. G. C. W. Warr, London, 1892), II. 28 f., point out that Cœlius Apicius, the traditional author of the work de re coquinaria, should rather be Cœlii Apicius, i.e. “the Apicius of Cœlius,” Apicius being the title and Cœlius the writer. The book was founded on Greek originals.
In Seneca (ad. Helv., 10), “sestertium milies in culinam consumpsit.” See Martial, III. 22, who flays Apicius with biting scorn in his—
“Dederas, Apici, bis trecenties ventri, Sed adhuc supererat centiens tibi laxum. Hoc tu gravatus ut famem et sitim ferre Summa venenum potione perduxti. Nil est, Apici, tibi gulosius factum.”