Triclinium Tastes - Food and Drink in Ancient Rome
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A still life with fruit basket and vases (Pompeii, c. CE 70). / Courtesy Naples National Archaeological Museum, Wikimedia Commons
Romans inherited the task of developing and improving these means of subsistence from early inhabitants.
By Dr. Harold Whetstone JohnstonLate Professor of LatinIndiana University
Natural Conditions
Italy is blessed above all the other countries of central Europe with the natural conditions that go to make an abundant and varied supply of food. The soil is rich and composed of different elements in different parts of the country. The rainfall is abundant, and rivers and smaller streams are numerous. The line of greatest length runs nearly north and south, but the climate depends little upon latitude, being modified by surrounding bodies of water, by mountain ranges, and by prevailing winds. These agencies in connection with the varying elevation of the land itself produce such widely different conditions that somewhere within the confines of Italy almost all the grains and fruits of the temperate and subtropic zones find the soil and climate most favorable to their growth.
The early inhabitants of the peninsula, the Italian peoples, seem to have left for the Romans the task of developing and improving these means of subsistence. Wild fruits, nuts, and flesh have always been the support of uncivilized peoples, and must have been so for the shepherds who laid the foundations of Rome. The very word pecūnia (from pecus; cf. pecūlium) shows that herds of domestic animals were the first source of Roman wealth. But other words show just as clearly that the cultivation of the soil was understood by the Romans in very early times: the names Fabius, Cicero, Piso, and Caepio are no less ancient than Porcius, Asinius, Vitellius, and Ovidius.1 Cicero puts into the mouth of the elder Cato the statement that to the farmer the garden was a second meat supply, but long before Cato’s time meat had ceased to be the chief article of food. Grain and grapes and olives furnished subsistence for all who did not live to eat. These gave the wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread that strengtheneth man’s heart. On these three abundant products of the soil the mass of the people of Italy lived of old as they still live to-day. Something will be said of each below, after less important products have been considered.
Groups and Categories
Fruits
Besides the olive and the grape, the apple, pear, plum, and quince were either native to Italy or were introduced in prehistoric times. Careful attention had long been given to their cultivation, and by Cicero’s time Italy was covered with orchards and all these fruits were abundant and cheap in their seasons, used by all sorts and conditions of men. By this time, too, had begun the introduction of new fruits from foreign lands and the improvement of native varieties. Great statesmen and generals gave their names to new and better sorts of apples and pears, and vied with each other in producing fruits out of season by hothouse culture.
Every fresh extension of Roman territory brought new fruits and nuts into Italy. Among the last were the walnut, hazelnut, filbert, almond, and pistachio; the almond after Cato’s time and the pistachio not until that of Tiberius. Among the fruits were the peach (mālum Persicum), the apricot (mālum Armeniacum), the pomegranate (mālum Pūnicum or grānātum), the cherry (cerasus), brought by Lucullus from the town Cerasus in Pontus, and the lemon (citrus), not grown in Italy until the third century of our era. And besides the introduction of fruits for culture large quantities were imported for food, either dried or otherwise preserved. The orange, however, strange as it seems to us, was not grown by the Romans.
Garden Produce
The garden did not yield to the orchard in the abundance and variety of its contributions to the supply of food. We read of artichokes, asparagus, beans, beets, cabbages, carrots, chicory, cucumbers, garlic, lentils, melons, onions, peas, the poppy, pumpkins, radishes, and turnips, to mention those only whose names are familiar to us all. It will be noticed, however, that the vegetables most highly prized by us, perhaps, the potato and tomato, were not known to the Romans. Of those mentioned the oldest seem to have been the bean and the onion, as shown by the names Fabius and Caepio already mentioned, but the latter came gradually to be looked upon as unrefined and the former to be considered too heavy a food except for persons engaged in the hardest toil. Cato pronounced the cabbage the finest vegetable known, and the turnip figures in the well-known anecdote of Manius Curius.
The Roman gardener gave great attention, too, to the raising of green stuffs that could be used for salads. Among these the sorts most often mentioned are the cress and lettuce, with which we are familiar, and the mallow, no longer used for food. Plants in great variety were cultivated for seasoning. The poppy was eaten with honey as a dessert, or was sprinkled over bread in the oven. Anise, cumin, fennel, mint, and mustard were raised everywhere. And besides these seasonings that were found in every kitchen garden, spices were imported in large quantities from the east, and the rich imported vegetables of larger sizes or finer quality than could be raised at home. Fresh vegetables like fresh fruits could not be brought in those days from great distances.
Meats
Besides the pork, beef, and mutton that we still use the Roman farmer had goatsflesh at his disposal, and all these meats were sold in the towns. Goatsflesh was considered the poorest of all, and was used by the lower classes only. Beef had been eaten by the Romans from the earliest times, but its use was a mark of luxury until very late in the Empire. Under the Republic the ordinary citizen ate beef only on great occasions when he had offered a steer or cow to the gods in sacrifice. The flesh then furnished a banquet for his family and friends, the heart, liver, and lungs (called collectively the exta) were the share of the priest, and the rest was consumed on the altar. Probably the great size of the carcass had something to do with the rarity of its use at a time when meat could be kept fresh only in the coldest weather; at any rate we must think of the Romans as using the cow for dairy purposes and the ox for draft rather than for food.
Pork was widely used by rich and poor alike, and was considered the choicest of all domestic meats. The very language testifies to the important place it occupied in the economy of the larder, for no other animal has so many words to describe it in its different functions. Besides the general term sūs we find porcus, porca, verrēs, aper, scrōfa, māiālis, and nefrēns. In the religious ceremony of the suovetaurīlia (sūs + ovis + taurus) it will be noticed that the swine has the first place, coming before the sheep and the bull. The vocabulary describing the parts used for food is equally rich; there are words for no less than half a dozen kinds of sausages, for example, with pork as their basis. We read, too, of fifty different ways of cooking pork.
Fowl and Game
Ancient Rome painting depicting eggs, birds and bronze dishes found in the Roman House of Julia Felix. / Photo by Yann Forget, Naples National Archaeological Museum, Wikimedia Commons
All the common domestic fowls, chickens, ducks, geese, and pigeons, were used by the Romans for food, and besides these the wealthy raised various sorts of wild fowl for the table, in the game preserves that have been mentioned. Among these were cranes, grouse, partridges, snipe, thrushes, and woodcock. In Cicero’s time the peacock was most highly esteemed, having at the feast much the same place of honor as the turkey has with us, but costing as much as $10 each. Wild animals were also bred for food in similar preserves, the hare and the wild boar being the favorites. The latter was served whole upon the table as in feudal times. As a contrast in size may be mentioned the dormouse (glīs), which was thought a great delicacy.
Fish
The rivers of Italy and the surrounding seas must have furnished always a great variety of fish, but in early times fish was not much used as food by the Romans. By the end of the Republic, however, tastes had changed, and no article of food brought higher prices than the rarer sorts of fresh fish. Salt fish was exceedingly cheap and was imported in many forms from almost all the Mediterranean ports. One dish especially, tyrotarīchus, made of salt fish, eggs, and cheese, and therefore something like our codfish balls, is mentioned by Cicero in about the same way as we speak of hash. Fresh fish were all the more expensive because they could be transported only while alive. Hence the rich constructed fish ponds on their estates, a Marcus Licinius Crassus setting the example in 92 B.C., and both fresh-water and salt-water fish were raised for the table. The names of the favorite sorts mean little to us, but we find the mullet (mullus) and a kind of turbot (rhombus) bringing high prices, and oysters (ostreae) were as popular as they are now.
Before passing to the more important matters of bread, wine, and oil, it may be well to mention a few articles that are still in general use. The Romans used freely the products of the dairy, milk, cream, curds, whey, and cheese. They drank the milk of sheep and goats as well as that of cows, and made cheese of the three kinds of milk. The cheese from ewes’ milk was thought more digestible though less palatable than that made of cows’ milk, while cheese from goats’ milk was more palatable but less digestible. It is remarkable that they had no knowledge of butter except us a plaster for wounds. Honey took the place of sugar on the table and in cooking, for the Romans had only a botanical knowledge of the sugar cane. Salt was at first obtained by the evaporation of sea-water, but was afterwards mined. Its manufacture was a monopoly of the government, and care was taken always to keep the price low. It was used not only for seasoning, but also as a preservative agent. Vinegar was made from grape juice. In the list of articles of food unknown to the Romans we must put tea and coffee along with the orange, tomato, potato, butter, and sugar already mentioned.
Cereals
The word frūmentum was a general term applied to any of the many sorts of grain that were grown for food. Of those now in use barley, oats, rye, and wheat were known to the Romans, though rye was not cultivated and oats served only as feed for cattle. Barley was not much used, for it was thought to lack nutriment, and therefore to be unfit for laborers. In very ancient times another grain, spelt (far), had been grown extensively, but it had gradually gone out of use except for the sacrificial cake that had given its name to the confarreate ceremony of marriage. In classical times wheat was the staple grain grown for food, not differing much from that which we use to-day. It was usually planted in the fall, though on some soils it would mature as a spring wheat. After the farming land of Italy was diverted to other purposes (parks, pleasure grounds, game preserves), wheat had to be imported from the provinces, first from Sicily, then from Africa and Egypt, the home supply being inadequate to the needs of the teeming population.
Food Preparation
Preparing the Grain
In the earliest times the grain (far) had not been ground, but merely pounded in a mortar. The meal was then mixed with water and made into a sort of porridge (puls, whence our word "poultice"), which long remained the national dish, something like the oatmeal of Scotland. Plautus (†184 B.C.) jestingly refers to his countrymen as "pulse-eaters." The persons who crushed the grain were called pīnsitōrēs or pīstōrēs, whence the cognomen Pīsō is said to be derived, and in later times the bakers were also called pīstōrēs, because they ground the grain as well as baked the bread. In the ruins of bakeries we find mills as regularly as ovens.
The grinding of the grain into regular flour was done in a mill (mola). This consisted of three parts, the lower millstone (mēta), the upper (catillus), and the frame-work that surrounded and supported the latter and furnished the means to turn it upon the mēta. All these parts are shown distinctly in the cut, and require little explanation. The mēta was, as the name suggests, a cone-shaped stone (A) resting on a bed of masonry (B) with a raised rim, between which and the lower edge of the mēta the flour was collected. In the upper part of the mēta a beam (C) was mortised, ending above in an iron pin or pivot (D) on which hung and turned the frame-work that supported the catillus. The catillus (E) itself was shaped something like an hourglass, or two funnels joined at the neck. The upper funnel served as a hopper into which the grain was poured; the lower funnel fitted closely over the mēta, the distance between them being regulated by the length of the pin, mentioned above, according to the fineness of the flour desired.
The frame-work was very strong and massive on account of the heavy weight that was suspended from it. The beams used for turning the mill were fitted into holes in the narrow part of the catillus as shown in the cut. The power required to do the grinding was furnished by horses or mules attached to the beams, or by slaves pushing against them. This last method was often used as a punishment. Of the same form but much smaller were the hand mills used by soldiers for grinding the frūmentum furnished them as rations. Under the Empire water mills were introduced, but they are hardly referred to in literature.
The transition from the ancient porridge to bread baked in the modern fashion must have been through the medium of thin cakes baked in or over the fire. We do not know when bread baked in ovens came into use. Bakers as representatives of a trade do not go back beyond 171 B.C., but long before this time, of course, the family bread had been made by the māter familiās, or by a slave under her supervision. After public bakeries were once established it became less and less usual for bread to be made in private houses in the towns. Only the most pretentious of the city mansions had ovens attached, as shown by the ruins. In the country, on the other hand, the older custom was always retained. Under Trajan (98-118) it became the custom to distribute bread to the people daily, instead of grain once a month, and the bakers were organized into a guild (corpus, collegium), and as a corporation enjoyed certain privileges and immunities.
Making the Bread
Fresco showing a piece of bread and two figs. / Photo by Carole Raddato, Naples National Archaeological Museum, Wikimedia Commons
After the flour collected about the edge of the mēta had been sifted, water and salt were added and the dough was kneaded in a trough by hand or by a simple machine. Yeast was added as nowadays and the bread was baked in an oven much like those still found in parts of Europe.
There were several qualities of bread, varying with the sort of grain, the setting of the millstones and the fineness of the sieves. The very best, made of pure wheat-flour, was called pānis silīgneus; that made of coarse flour, of flour and bran, or of bran alone was called pānis plebēius, castrēnsis, sordidus, rūsticus, etc. The loaves were circular and rather flat—some have been found in the ruins of Pompeii—and had their surface marked off by lines drawn from the center into four or more parts. The wall painting of a salesroom of a bakery, also found in Pompeii, gives a good idea of the appearance of the bread. Various kinds of cakes and confections were also sold at these shops.
Olives and Olive Oil
Next in importance to the wheat came the olive. It was introduced into Italy from Greece, and from Italy has spread through all the Mediterranean countries; but in modern as well as in ancient times the best olives are those of Italy. The olive was an important article of food merely as a fruit, being eaten both fresh and preserved in various ways, but it found its significant place in the domestic economy of the Romans in the form of the olive oil with which we are familiar. It is the value of the oil that has caused the cultivation of the olive to become so general in southern Europe, and it is claimed that its use is constantly widening, extending especially northward, where wine and oil are said to be supplanting the native beer and butter. Many varieties were known to the Romans, requiring different climates and soils and adapted to different uses. In general it may be said that the larger berries were better suited for eating than for oil.
The olive was eaten fresh as it ripened and was also preserved in various ways. The ripe olives were sprinkled with salt and left untouched for five days; the salt was then shaken off, and the olives dried in the sun. They were also preserved sweet without salt in boiled must. Half ripe olives were picked with their stems and covered over in jars with the best quality of oil; in this way they are said to have retained for more than a year the flavor of the fresh fruit. Green olives were preserved whole in strong brine, the form in which we know them now, or were beaten into a mass and preserved with spices and vinegar. The preparation epityrum was made by taking the fruit in any of the three stages, removing the stones, chopping up the pulp, seasoning it with vinegar, coriander seeds, cumin, fennel, and mint, and covering the mixture in jars with oil enough to exclude the air. The result was a salad that was eaten with cheese.
Roman olive mosaic. / Public Domain
The oil was used for several purposes. It was employed most anciently to anoint the body after bathing, especially by athletes; it was used as a vehicle for perfumes, the Romans knowing nothing of distillation by means of alcohol; it was burned in lamps; it was an indispensable article of food. As a food it was employed as butter is now in cooking or as a relish or dressing in its natural state. The olive when subjected to pressure yields two fluids. The first to flow (amurca) is dark and bitter, having the consistency of water. It was largely used as a fertilizer, but not as a food. The second, which flows after greater pressure, is the oil (oleum, oleum olīvum). The best oil was made from olives not fully ripe, but the largest quantity was yielded by the ripened fruit.
The olives were picked from the tree, those that fell of their own accord being thought inferior, and were spread upon sloping platforms in order that a part of the amurca might flow out by itself. Here the fruit remained until a slight fermentation took place. It was then subjected to the action of a machine that bruised and pressed it. The oil that flowed out was caught in a jar and from it ladled into a receptacle (lābrum fictile), where it was allowed to settle, the amurca and other impurities falling to the bottom. The oil was then skimmed off into another like receptacle and again allowed to settle, the process being repeated (as often as thirty times if necessary) until all impurities had been left behind. The best oil was made by subjecting the berries at first to a gentle pressure only. The bruised pulp was then taken out, separated from the stones or pits, and pressed a second or even a third time, the quality becoming poorer each time. The oil was kept in jars which were glazed on the inside with wax or gum to prevent absorption, the covers were carefully secured and the jars stored away in vaults
Through the Grapevine
Overview
Grapes were eaten fresh from the vines and were also dried in the sun and kept as raisins, but they owed their real importance in Italy as elsewhere to the wine made from them. The vine was not native to Italy, as until recently it was supposed to be, but was introduced, probably from Greece, long before history begins. The earliest name for Italy known to the Greeks was Oenōtria, "the land of the vine-pole," and very ancient legends ascribe to Numa restrictions upon the use of wine. It is probable that up to the time of the Gracchi wine was rare and expensive. The quantity produced gradually increased as the cultivation of cereals declined, but the quality long remained inferior, all the choice wines being imported from Greece and the east. By Cicero’s time, however, attention was being given to viticulture and to the scientific making of wines, and by the time of Augustus vintages were produced that vied with the best brought in from abroad. Pliny, writing about the middle of the first century of our era, says that of the eighty really choice wines then known to the Romans two-thirds were produced in Italy, and Arrian of about the same time says that Italian wines were famous as far away as India.
Viticulture
The ‘Foro Boario’ vineyard at Pompeii, replanted as it was at the time of the eruption, with small wine press in structure at back. / Photo by Marco Ebreo, Wikimedia Commons
Grapes could be grown almost anywhere in Italy, but the best wines were made south of Rome within the confines of Latium and Campania. The cities of Praeneste, Velitrae, and Formiae were famous for the wines grown on the sunny slopes of the Alban hills. A little farther south, near Terracina, was the ager Caecubus, where was produced the Caecuban wine, pronounced by Augustus the noblest of all. Then comes Mt. Massicus with the ager Falernus on its southern side, producing the Falernian wines, even more famous than the Caecuban. Upon and around Vesuvius, too, fine wines were grown, especially near Naples, Pompeii, Cumae, and Surrentum. Good wines but less noted than these were produced in the extreme south, near Beneventum, Aulon, and Tarentum. Of like quality were those grown east and north of Rome, near Spoletium, Caesena, Ravenna, Hadria, and Ancona. Those of the north and west, in Etruria and Gaul, were not so good.
Vineyards
The sunny side of a hill was the best place for a vineyard. The vines were supported by poles or trellises in the modern fashion, or were planted at the foot of trees up which they were allowed to climb. For this purpose the elm (ulmus) was preferred, because it flourished everywhere, could be closely trimmed without endangering its life, and had leaves that made good food for cattle when they were plucked off to admit the sunshine to the vines. Vergil speaks of "marrying the vine to the elm," and Horace calls the plane tree a bachelor (platanus coelebs), because its dense foliage made it unfit for the vineyard. Before the gathering of the grapes the chief work lay in keeping the ground clear; it was spaded over once each month through the year. One man could properly care for about four acres.
Wine Making
The making of the wine took place usually in September, the season varying with the soil and the climate. It was anticipated by a festival, the vīnālia rūstica, celebrated on the 19th of August. Precisely what the festival meant the Romans themselves did not fully understand, perhaps, but it was probably intended to secure a favorable season for the gathering of the grapes. The general process of making the wine differed little from that familiar to us in Bible stories and still practiced in modern times. After the grapes were gathered they were first trodden with the bare feet and then pressed in the prēlum or lorcular. The juice as it came from the press was called mustum, "new," and was often drunk unfermented, as "sweet" cider is now. It could be kept sweet from vintage to vintage by being sealed in a jar smeared within and without with pitch and immersed for several weeks in cold water or buried in moist sand. It was also preserved by evaporation over a fire; when it was reduced one-half in this way it became a grape-jelly (dēfrutum) and was used as a basis for various beverages and for other purposes.
After fermentation, Roman wine was stored in amphoras to be used for serving or further aging. / Photo by M.Dirgėla, Wikimedia Commons
Fermented wine (vīnum) was made by collecting the mustum in huge vat-like jars (dōlia), large enough to hide a man and containing a hundred gallons or more. These were covered with pitch within and without and partially buried in the ground in cellars or vaults (vīnāriae cellae), in which they remained permanently. After they were nearly filled with the mustum, they were left uncovered during the process of fermentation, which lasted under ordinary circumstances about nine days. They were then tightly sealed and opened only when the wine required attention or was to be removed. The cheaper wines were used directly from the dōlia, but the choicer kinds were drawn off after a year into smaller jars (amphorae), clarified and sometimes "doctored" in various ways, and finally stored in depositories often entirely distinct from the cellars. A favorite place was a room in the upper story of the house, where the wine was artificially aged by the heat rising from the furnace or even by the smoke escaping from the fire. The amphorae were sometimes marked with the name of the wine, and the names of the consuls for the year in which they were filled.
Beverages
After water and milk, wine was the ordinary drink of the Romans of all classes. It must be distinctly understood, however, that they always mixed it with water and used more water than wine. Pliny mentions one sort of wine that would stand being mixed with eight times its own bulk of water. To drink wine unmixed was thought typical of barbarism, and among the Romans it was so drunk only by the dissipated at their wildest revels. Under the Empire the ordinary qualities of wine were cheap enough to be sold at three or four cents a quart; the choicer kinds were very costly, entirely beyond the reach, Horace gives us to understand, of a man in his circumstances. More rarely used than wine were other beverages that are mentioned in literature. A favorite drink was mulsum, made of four measures of wine and one of honey. A mixture of water and honey allowed to ferment together was called mulsa. Cider also was made by the Romans, and wines from mulberries and dates. They also made various cordials from aromatic plants, but it must be remembered that they had no knowledge of tea or coffee.
Style of Living
The table supplies of a given people vary from age to age with the development of civilization and refinement, and in the same age with the means and tastes of classes and individuals. Of the Romans it may be said that during the early Republic, perhaps almost through the second century B.C., they cared little for the pleasures of the table. They lived frugally and ate sparingly. They were almost strictly vegetarians, much of their food was eaten cold, and the utmost simplicity characterized the cooking and the service of their meals. Everything was prepared by the māter familiās or by the maidservants under her supervision. The table was set in the ātrium, and the father, mother, and children sat around it on stools or benches, waiting upon each other and their guests. Dependents ate of the same food, but apart from the family. The dishes were of the plainest sort, of earthenware or even of wood, though a silver saltcellar was often the cherished ornament of the humblest board. Table knives and forks were unknown, the food being cut into convenient portions before it was served, and spoons being used to convey to the mouth what the fingers could not manage. During this period there was little to choose between the fare of the proudest patrician and the humblest client. The Samnite envoys found Manius Curius, the conqueror of Pyrrhus (275 B.C.), eating his dinner of vegetables from an earthen bowl. A century later the poet Plautus calls his countrymen a race of porridge eaters (pultiphagōnidae), and gives us to understand that in his time even the wealthiest Romans had in their households no specially trained cooks. When a dinner out of the ordinary was given, a professional cook was hired, who brought with him to the house of the host his utensils and helpers, just as a plumber or surgeon responds to a call nowadays.
The last two centuries of the Republic saw all this changed. The conquest of Greece and the wars in Asia Minor gave the Romans a taste of eastern luxury, and altered their simple table customs, as other customs had been altered by like contact with the outside world. From this time the poor and the rich no longer fared alike. The former constrained by poverty lived frugally as of old: every schoolboy knows that the soldiers who won Caesar’s battles for him lived on grain, which they ground in their handmills and baked at their campfires. The very rich, on the other hand, aping the luxury of the Greeks but lacking their refinement, became gluttons instead of gourmands. They ransacked the world for articles of food, preferring the rare and the costly to what was really palatable and delicate. They measured the feast by the quantities they could consume, reviving the sated appetite by piquant sauces and resorting to emetics to prolong the pleasures of the table and prevent the effects of over-indulgence. The separate dining-room (trīclīnium) was introduced, the great houses having two or more, and the oecī were pressed into service for banquet halls. The dining couch took the place of the bench or stool, slaves served the food to the reclining guests, a dinner dress was devised, and every familia urbāna included a high-priced chef with a staff of trained assistants. Of course there were always wealthy men, Atticus, the friend of Cicero, for example, who clung to the simpler customs of the earlier days, but these could make little headway against the current of senseless dissipation and extravagance. Over against these must be set the fawning poor, who preferred the fleshpots of the rich patron to the bread of honest independence. Between the two extremes was a numerous middle class of the well-to-do, with whose ordinary meals we are more concerned than with the banquets of the very rich. These meals were the ientāculum, the prandium, and the cēna.
Meal Times
A re-creation of moretum, a herb and cheese spread eaten with bread. / Photo by Bullenwächter, Wikimedia Commons
Three meals a day was the regular number with the Romans as with us, though hygienists were found then, as they may be found nowadays, who believed two meals more healthful than three, and then as now high livers often indulged in an extra meal taken late at night. Custom fixed more or less rigorously the hours for meals, though these varied with the age, and to a less extent with the occupations and even with the inclinations of individuals. In early times in the city and in all periods in the country the chief meal (cēna) was eaten in the middle of the day, preceded by a breakfast (ientāculum) in the early morning and followed in the evening by a supper (vesperna). In classical times the hours for meals in Rome were about as they are now in our large cities: that is, the cēna was postponed until the work of the day was finished, thus crowding out the vesperna, and a luncheon (prandium) took the place of the old-fashioned "noon dinner." The evening dinner came to be more or less of a social function, guests being present and the food and service the best the house could afford, while the ientāculum and prandium were in comparison very simple and informal meals.
The breakfast (ientāculum or iantāculum) was eaten immediately after rising, the hour varying, of course, with the occupation and condition of the individual. It consisted usually merely of bread, eaten dry or dipped in wine or sprinkled over with salt, though raisins, olives, and cheese were sometimes added. Workmen pressed for time seem to have taken their breakfast in their hands to eat as they went to the place of their labor, and schoolboys often stopped on their way to school at a public bakery to buy a sort of shortcake or pancake, on which they made a hurried breakfast. More rarely the breakfast became a regular meal, eggs being served in addition to the things just mentioned, and mulsum and milk drunk with them. It is likely that such a breakfast was taken at a later hour and by persons who dispensed with the noon meal. The luncheon (prandium) came about eleven o’clock. It, too, consisted usually of cold food: bread, salads, olives, cheese, fruits, nuts, and cold meats from the dinner of the day before. Occasionally, however, warm meat and vegetables were added, but the meal was never an elaborate one. It is sometimes spoken of as a morning meal, but in this case it must have followed at about the regular interval an extremely early breakfast, or it must itself have formed the breakfast, taken later than usual, when the ientāculum for some reason had been omitted. After the prandium came the midday rest or siesta (merīdiātiō), when all work was laid aside until the eighth hour, except in the law courts and in the senate. In the summer, at least, everybody went to sleep, and even in the capital the streets were almost as deserted as at midnight. The vesperna, entirely unknown in city life, closed the day on the farm. It was an early supper which consisted largely of the leavings of the noonday dinner with the addition of such uncooked food as a farm would naturally supply. The word merenda seems to have been applied in early times to this evening meal, then to refreshments taken at any time (cf. the English "lunch"), and finally to have gone out of use altogether.
The Formal Meal
Overview
The busy life of the city had early crowded the dinner out of its original place in the middle of the day and fixed it in the afternoon. The fashion soon spread to the towns and was carried by city people to their country estates, so that in classical times the late dinner (cēna) was the regular thing for all persons of any social standing throughout the length and breadth of Italy. It was even more of a function than it is with us, because the Romans knew no other form of purely social intercourse. They had no receptions, balls, musicales, or theater parties, no other opportunities to entertain their friends or be entertained by them. It is safe to say, therefore, that when the Roman was in town he was every evening host or guest at a dinner as elaborate as his means or those of his friends permitted, unless, of course, urgent business claimed his attention or some unusual circumstances had withdrawn him temporarily from society.
On the country estates the same custom prevailed, the guests coming from neighboring estates or being friends who stopped unexpectedly, perhaps, to claim entertainment for a night as they passed on a journey to or from the city. These dinners, formal as they were, are to be distinguished carefully from the extravagant banquets of the ostentatious rich. They were in themselves thoroughly wholesome, the expression of genuine hospitality. The guests were friends, the number was limited, the wife and children of the host were present, and social enjoyment was the end in view. Before the meal itself is described something must be said of the dining-room and its furniture.
The Dining Couch
The position of the dining-room (trīclīnium) in the Roman house has been described already, and it has been remarked that in classical times the stool or bench had given place to the couch. This couch (lectus trīcliniāris) was constructed much as the common lectī were, except that it was made broader and lower, had an arm at one end only, was without a back, and sloped from the front to the rear. At the end where the arm was, a cushion or bolster was placed, and parallel with it two others were arranged in such a way as to divide the couch into three parts. Each part was for one person, and a single couch would, therefore, accommodate three persons. The dining-room received its name (trīclīnium) from the fact that it was planned to hold three of these couches (κλίναι in Greek), set on three sides of a table, the fourth side of which was open. The arrangement varied a little with the size of the room. Nine may be taken as the ordinary number at a Roman dinner party. More would be invited only on unusual occasions, and then a larger room would be used where two or more tables could be arranged in the same way, each accommodating nine guests. In the case of members of the same family, especially if one was a child, or when the guests were very intimate friends, a fourth person might find room on a couch, but this was certainly unusual; probably when a guest unexpectedly presented himself some member of the family would surrender his place to him. Often the host reserved a place or places for friends that his guests might bring without notice. Such uninvited persons were called umbrae. When guests were present the wife sat on the edge of the couch instead of reclining, and children were usually accommodated on seats at the open side of the table.
Places of Honor
Reproduction of a triclinium. / Photo by Mattes, Archäologischen Staatssammlung München aus der Zeit des Römischen Reiches, Wikimedia Commons
The guest approached the couch from the rear and took his place upon it, lying on the left side, with his face to the table, and supported by his left elbow, which rested on the cushion or bolster mentioned above. Each couch and each place on the couch had its own name according to its position with reference to the others. The couches were called respectively lectus summus, lectus medius, and lectus īmus, and it will be noticed that persons reclining on the lectus medius had the lectus summus on the left and the lectus īmus on the right. Etiquette assigned the lectus summus and the lectus medius to guests, while the lectus īmus was reserved for the host, his wife, and one other member of his family. If the host alone represented the family, the two places beside him on the lectus īmus were given to the humblest of the guests.
The places on each couch were named in the same way, (locus) summus, medius, and īmus. The person who occupied the place numbered 1 was said to be above (super, suprā) the person to his right, while the person occupying the middle place (2) was above the person on his right and below (īnfrā) the one on the left. The place of honor on the lectus summus was that numbered 1, and the corresponding place on the lectus īmus was taken by the host. The most distinguished guest, however, was given the place on the lectus medius marked 3, and this place was called by the special name locus cōnsulāris, because if a consul was present it was always assigned to him. It will be noticed that it was next the place of the host, and besides was especially convenient for a public official; if he found it necessary to receive or send a message during the dinner he could communicate with the messenger without so much as turning on his elbow.
Other Furniture
In comparison with the lectī the rest of the furniture of the dining-room played an insignificant part. In fact the only other absolutely necessary article was the table (mēnsa), placed as shown in the figures above between the three couches in such a way that all were equally distant from it and free access to it was left on the fourth side. The space between the table and the couches might be so little that the guests could help themselves, or on the other hand so great that slaves could pass between to serve the food. The guests had no individual plates to be kept upon the table, so that it was used merely to receive the large dishes in which the food was served, and certain formal articles, such as the saltcellar and the things necessary for the offering to the gods.
The table, therefore, was never very large (one such would be almost lost in a modern dining-room), but it was often exceedingly beautiful and costly. Its beauties were not hidden either by any cloth or covering; the table-cloth, as we know it, did not come into use until about the end of the first century of our era. The cost and beauty of the dishes, too, were limited only by the means and taste of the owner. Besides the couches and the table, sideboards (abacī) were the only articles of furniture usually found in the trīclīnium. These varied from a simple shelf to tables of different forms and sizes and open cabinets. They were set out of the way against the walls and served as do ours to display plate and porcelain when not in use on the table.
Courses and Servings
Overview
In classical times even the simplest dinner was divided into three parts, the gustus ("appetizer"), the cēna ("dinner proper"), and the secunda mēnsa ("dessert"); the dinner was made elaborate by serving each of the parts in several courses. The gustus consisted of those things only that were believed to excite the appetite or aid the digestion: oysters and other shell-fish fresh, sea-fish salted or pickled, certain vegetables that could be eaten uncooked, especially onions, and almost invariably lettuce and eggs, all with piquant sauces. With these appetizers mulsum was drunk, wine being thought too heavy for an empty stomach, and from the drink the gustus was also called the prōmulsis; another and more significant name for it was antecēna.
Then followed the real dinner, the cēna, consisting of the more substantial viands, fish, flesh, fowl, and vegetables. With this part of the meal wine was drunk, but in moderation, for it was thought to dull the sense of taste, and the real drinking began only when the cēna was over. The cēna almost always consisted of several courses (mēnsa prīma, altera, tertia, etc.), three being thought neither niggardly nor extravagant; we are told that Augustus often dined on three courses and never went beyond six. The secunda mēnsa closed the meal with all sorts of pastry, sweets, nuts, and fruits, fresh and preserved, with which wine was freely drunk. From the fact that eggs were eaten at the beginning of the meal and apples at the close came the proverbial expression, ab ovō ad māla.
Bills of Fare
We have preserved to us in literature the bills of fare of a few meals, probably actually served, which may be taken as typical at least of the homely, the generous, and the sumptuous dinner. The simplest is given by Juvenal (†2d century A.D.): for the gustus, asparagus and eggs; for the cēna, young kid and chicken; for the secunda mēnsa, fruits. Two others are given by Martial (43-101 A.D.): the first has lettuce, onions, tunny-fish, and eggs cut in slices; sausages with porridge, fresh cauliflower, bacon, and beans; pears and chestnuts, and with the wine olives, parched peas, and lupines. The second has mallows, onions, mint, elecampane, anchovies with sliced eggs, and sow’s udder in tunny sauce; the cēna was served in a single course (ūna mēnsa), kid, chicken, cold ham, haricot beans, and young cabbage sprouts; fresh fruits, with wine, of course. The last we owe to Macrobius (†5th century A.D.), who assigns it to a feast of the pontifices during the Republic, feasts that were proverbial for their splendor.
The antecēna was served in two courses: first, sea-urchins, raw oysters, three kinds of sea-mussels, thrush on asparagus, a fat hen, panned oysters, and mussels; second, mussels again, shell-fish, sea-nettles, figpeckers, loin of goat, loin of pork, fricasseed chicken, figpeckers again, two kinds of sea-snails. The number of courses in which the cēna was served is not given: sow’s udder, head of wild boar, panned fish, panned sow’s udder, domestic ducks, wild ducks, hares, roast chicken, starch pudding, bread. No vegetables or dessert are mentioned by Macrobius, but we may take it for granted that they corresponded to the rest of the feast, and the wine that the pontifices drank was famed as the best.
Serving the Dinner
The dinner hour marked the close of the day’s work, as has been said, and varied, therefore, with the season of the year and the social position of the family. In general it may be said to have been not before the ninth and rarely after the tenth hour. It lasted usually until bedtime, that is, for three or four hours at least, though the Romans went to bed early because they rose early. Sometimes even the ordinary dinner lasted until midnight, but when a banquet was expected to be unusually protracted, it was the custom to begin earlier in order that there might be time after it for the needed repose. Such banquets, beginning before the ninth hour, were called tempestīva convīvia, the word "early" in this connection carrying with it about the same reproach as our "late" suppers. At the ordinary family dinners the time was spent in conversation, though in some good houses (notably that of Atticus) a trained slave read aloud to the guests. At "gentlemen’s dinners" other forms of entertainment were provided, music, dancing, juggling, etc., by professional performers.
When the guests had been ushered into the dining-room the gods were solemnly invoked, a custom to which our "grace before meat" corresponds. Then they took their places on the couches (accumbere, discumbere) as these were assigned them, their sandals were removed, to be cared for by their own attendants, and water and towels were carried around for washing the hands. The meal then began, each course being placed upon the table on a waiter or tray (ferculum), from which the dishes were passed in regular order to the guests. As each course was finished the dishes were replaced on the ferculum and removed, and water and towels were again passed to the guests, a custom all the more necessary because the fingers were used for forks. Between the chief parts of the meal, too, the table was cleared and carefully wiped with a cloth or soft sponge. Between the cēna proper and the secunda mēnsa a longer pause was made and silence was preserved while wine, salt, and meal, perhaps also regular articles of food, were offered to the Lares. The dessert was then brought on in the same way as the other parts of the meal. The signal to leave the couches was given by calling for the sandals, and the guests immediately took their departure.
The Comissatio
Cicero tells us of Cato and his Sabine neighbors lingering over their dessert and wine until late at night, and makes them find the chief charm of the long evening in the conversation. For this reason Cato declares the Latin word convīvium "a living together," a better word for such social intercourse than the one the Greeks used, symposium, "a drinking together." The younger men in the gayer circles of the capital inclined rather to the Greek view and followed the cēna proper with a drinking bout, or wine supper, called comissātiō or compōtātiō. This differed from the form that Cato approved not merely in the amount of wine consumed, in the lower tone, and in the questionable amusements, but also in the following of certain Greek customs unknown among the Romans until after the second Punic war and never adopted in the regular dinner parties that have been described. These were the use of perfumes and flowers at the feast, the selection of a Master of the Revels, and the method of drinking.
The perfumes and flowers were used not so much on account of the sweetness of their scent, much as the Romans enjoyed it, as because they believed that the scent prevented or at least retarded intoxication. This is shown by the fact that they did not use the unguents and the flowers throughout the whole meal, but waited to anoint the head with perfumes and crown it with flowers until the dessert and the wine were brought on. Various leaves and flowers were used for the garlands (corōnae convīvālēs) according to individual tastes, but the rose was the most popular and came to be generally associated with the comissātiō. After the guests had assumed their crowns (and sometimes garlands were also worn around the neck), each threw the dice, usually calling as he did so upon his sweetheart or some deity to help his throw. The one whose throw was the highest was forthwith declared the rēx (magister, arbiter) bibendī. Just what his duties and privileges were we are nowhere expressly told, but it can hardly be doubted that it was his province to determine the proportion of water to be added to the wine, to lay down the rules for the drinking (lēgēs īnsānae, Horace calls them), to decide what each guest should do for the entertainment of his fellows, and to impose penalties and forfeits for the breaking of the rules.
The wine was mixed under the direction of the magister in a large bowl (crātēr), the proportions of the wine and water being apparently constant for the evening, and from the crātēr, placed on the table in view of all, the wine was ladled by the servants into the goblets (pōcula) of the guests. The ladle (cyathus) held about one-twelfth of a pint, or more probably was graduated by twelfths. The method of drinking seems to have differed from that of the regular dinner chiefly in this: at the ordinary dinner each guest mixed his wine to suit his own taste and drank as little or as much as he pleased, while at the comissātiō all had to drink alike, regardless of differences in taste and capacity. The wine seems to have been drunk chiefly in "healths," but an odd custom regulated the size of the bumpers. Any guest might propose the health of any person he pleased to name; immediately slaves ladled into each goblet as many cyathī (twelfths of a pint) as there were letters in the given name, and the goblets had to be drained at a draft. The rest of the entertainment was undoubtedly wild enough; gambling seems to have been common, and Cicero speaks of more disgraceful practices in his speeches against Catiline. Sometimes the guests spent the evening roaming from house to house, playing host in turn, and making night hideous as they staggered through the streets with their crowns and garlands.
The Banquets of the Rich
Roman fresco with a banquet scene from the Casa dei Casti Amanti, Pompeii. / Photo by WolfgangRieger, Wikimedia Commons
Little need be said of the banquets of the wealthy nobles in the last century of the Republic and of the rich parvenus who thronged the courts of the earlier Emperors. They were arranged on the same plan as the dinners we have described, differing from them only in the ostentatious display of furniture, plate, and food. So far as particulars have reached us, they were grotesque and revolting, judged by the canons of to-day, rather than magnificent. Couches made of silver, wine instead of water for the hands, twenty-two courses to a single cēna, seven thousand birds served at another, a dish of livers of fish, tongues of flamingos, brains of peacocks and pheasants mixed up together, strike us as vulgarity run mad. The sums spent upon these feasts do not seem so fabulous now as they did then. Every season in our great capitals sees social functions that surpass the feasts of Lucullus in cost as far as they do in taste and refinement. As signs of the times, however, as indications of changed ideals, of degeneracy and decay, they deserved the notice that the Roman historians and satirists gave them.
Chapter 8 from The Private Life of the Romans, by Harold Whetstone Johnston (1903), published by Project Gutenberg to the public domain.
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