210 FISH MANIA—VITELLIUS—APICIUS—COOKS 
that but barely £80,000 remained, and despairing of being 
able to satisfy the cravings of his hunger from such a miserable 
pittance he poisoned himself. He is possibly the author of a 
Treatise (in ten books!) of recipes for new dishes and new 
sauces for fish; for one of the latter more than twenty-five 
ingredients were necessary.! 
The importance attached to cooks and cooking finds a 
cloud of witnesses in Greek and Roman writers. Athenzus 
in especial recites their triumphs and their bombastic boasts. 
So high was the chef’s position and so excellent was the cuisine 
in Greece that we find the Roman ambassadors, who in the 
sixth century B.c. were sent to investigate the working of 
Solon’s Laws, bringing home a special report on Cooking ! 
To these Attic cordons bleus in succeeding generations not 
only Italy but Persia were glad to send pupils, and pay 
exorbitant fees for tuition. The Attic cook gave himself the 
same airs of superiority over his Roman brother, as the French 
chef over the Anglican—him “ of a hundred sects but only 
one sauce.” Caréme, the chef of Talleyrand (the author of 
this mot), never abated his claim that to the success of the 
Congress of Vienna he contributed no less than his master.? 
His salary, however, does not begin to compare with that of 
Antony’s cook, £3000 a year and “‘ perquisites ’’ galore. 
1“ 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 Celius Apicius, the traditional author 
of the work de ve coquinaria, should rather be Celii Apicius, i.e. “ the Apicius 
of Celius,’’ Apicius being the title and Ccelius 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.” 
For C. Matius the earliest (in the time of Augustus) and for other Latin writers 
on Cookery, see Columella, XXI. 4 and 44. 
2 See A. Hayward, Art of Dining. 
