Our viands

Small figures of Mercury, Hercules, and the penates were placed on the table, and libations were poured to them at the beginning and end of a feast; whilst the salt placed beside them was regarded as sacred. We find, too, the superstitions regarding the spilling of salt, and the unlucky number thirteen, in full force among the Romans. Pliny says the purchase of a cook cost as much as the expense of a triumph, and no mortal was so valued as the slave who was most expert in the art of ruining his master. Hosts seemed to vie with each other in the costliness of feasts, and of Apicius it is related that, after having wasted half a million sterling on the pleasures of the table, he committed suicide because, having only eighty thousand pounds left, he could not continue his extravagances. ' Sketches of Manners and Institutions of the Romans,' p. 164. i6 OUR VIANDS And yet, during the early part of the Empire, sumptuary laws were in force regulating the expenses to be incurred at banquets, and even the number of dishes, and it is said that Julius Caesar frequently sent lictors to suspected houses, and had the dishes carried off from the tables if they exceeded the number permitted by law ; whilst Augustus decreed that an ordinary repast should not cost more than 200 sesterces (about ;£i, i2s. 6d.), or 300 on feasts or days of solemnity, and 1000 at a wedding. If we compare this with the luxury of Nero and Elagabalus and later emperors, when a single fish cost fifty guineas, when pearls were dissolved in vinegar and drunk, not for pleasure, but only to add to the cost of a feast ; and when the senate was convened to con- sult as to the best manner of dressing a turbot for the emperor's table, we shall hardly be surprised at the decline and fall of Rome. Yet this excess of luxury was a great incentive to com- merce, for merchants who scoured the seas for things rare and costly were sure of a market on their return ; whilst they carried with them in their wanderings to distant shores not only many useful wares by way of barter, but also those germs of civilisation, destined to grow up and bear fruit when the pomp of the Roman emperors which had caused their transplantation had withered and fallen into an un- timely grave. PART I BREAD WHEAT, BARLEY, RYE, OATS ' ftttttt fjalfr a loafe tfjan no tart/ CHAPTER I BREAD MAN is an omnivorous animal: nothing comes amiss to him. When hunger impels he will eat the vilest refuse, but in times of prosperity bread, meat, and vegetables form the staple of his diet. 'Doctors differ' as to the original food of mankind. It varied probably, as now, according to climate, consisting of fruit and seeds where these grew spontaneously and in abundance, and of animal food where fruit, etc., could not be readily obtained ; but with the dawn of civilisation man began to cultivate plants for food, and particularly the several grains still used for making bread. Of these, wheat, barley, and rye seem to have been the earliest cultivated, oats being later, whilst it is doubtful whether maize was known except on the American continent.