Now Apicius did not write the book : he was no more a cook 

 than I am : he was a famous bo7i vivant and gour?net, who flourished 

 under the Emperor Tiberius, and whose name has passed into a 

 proverb in all matters connected with the pleasures of the table. 

 The dull idiot who wrote the account of him in the Classical 

 Dictionary calls him a gluifofi, and a more stupid libel was never 

 penned, and that upon one whom all writers, from Juvenal and 

 Martial downwards, have agreed to take as the representative of 

 the haute cuisine of ancient Rome ; upon one who, as Pliny tells 

 us, was the first to introduce to public notice cytnce et coliculi, in 

 other words Brussels sprouts, a dish which charmed the Emperor 

 Tiberius, though it shocked the rigid principle of the virtuous 

 Drusus. 



The name of the compiler is unknown. Mr. Coote pleasantly 

 conjectures him to have been the Soyer or Francatelli of the 

 period, who prefixed the name of Apicius to his book by way of a 

 good advertisement. Many of the dishes owe their nomenclature 

 to historical personages, and by these names Mr. Coote is able to 

 show that the book contains recipes ranging from the time of the 

 Republic to the Emperor Heliogabalus ; but the book is the 

 composition of one writer, as shown by its cross references. Mr. 

 Coote remarks " In its literal style it resembles Mrs. Glasse, in her 

 pleasant pleonasms and sagacious comments." For convenience 

 I shall the book by the name on its title page, Apicius, and the 

 school of cookery it teaches the Apician. 



There have been several editions of this Roman cookery book, 

 but I need not trouble you about them. The best is that of 1705, 

 edited by Dr. Martin Lister, "e Medicis Domesticis serenissimse 

 Reginae Annje." Of this only one hundred and twenty copies 

 were printed, at the expense, as recorded on the back of the 

 title page, of eighteen gentlemen, among whom were the Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Norwich, and of Bath and 

 Wells ; the Earls of Sunderland and Roxburgh ; Sir Robert 

 Harley, Sir Christopher Wren, Isaac Newton, Flamstead the 

 Astronomer-Royal, Hans Sloane, etc. Since this publication 

 the book has fallen almost entirely into oblivion, and the learned 



