8 



his taste for luxury and magnificence. The Romans threw all 

 their strong nature into the new art : they became dinner givers 

 and diners out ; ransacked their most distant provinces for new 

 luxuries ; they discovered and imported the pheasant, the wood- 

 cock, and the guinea-fowl. Fame was to be attained by the 

 successful culture of some new viand for the table : and Columella 

 in his De Re Rustica, tells us that Sergius Orata, i.e. Sergius the 

 gold brasse (a small fish), and Licinius Murena, i.e. Licinius the 

 sea eel, derived their names from the successful cultivation of those 

 fish for the table. 



Of course there was a re-action. As Mr. Coote says, "ideas of 

 such novelty taken second-hand from the lively and luxurious 

 Greek, aroused what still remained of the stern and puritanical 

 character of the Romans." Sumptuary laws were enacted : no one 

 was allowed to have more than three guests to dinner : dormice, 

 and shellfish, and strange birds brought from foreign countries 

 (the pheasant, woodcock, and guinea-fowl,) were prohibited." "No 

 success," says Mr. Coote, "could wait on such grim essays at 

 retrogression. They accordingly proved failures, and the efforts 

 of sumptuary laws and censors could not drive the Roman genilc- 

 man back into the plain cookery of his ancestors." 



Now there has come down to us a Book, which reveals to us 

 the taste of the Roman palate — and the dishes of this Asiatico- 

 Greeko-Romano-art which pleased it. It is a book whose name 

 sounds familiar to most people, but which few, even among 

 scholars, have ever seen. It rarely occurs even in the best 

 libraries. No translation exists: the production of one would 

 puzzle the best scholars of the day, who are not as a rule familiar 

 with the terms of art of the Roman or English kitchen. 



But SmoUet had read Apicius, and understood it too, and he 

 had read the commentators, Humelbergius and Lister, and the 

 famous " Dinner in the Manner of the Ancients," in Peregrine 

 Pickle, is the work of a scholar in culinary matters. 



The title of the work is — Apicii Coelii de Opsoniis et Condimentis 

 sive Arte Coqiiinaria Libri Decern. " The ten books of Apicius 

 Coelius upon Viands and Sauces, or The Art of Cookery." 



