Part 32

Apicius gives us the recipe for the _Rosatum_:--“Put,” says he, “some rose leaves into a clean linen cloth; sew it up, and leave it seven days in the wine; take out the roses, and put in fresh ones; repeat the operation three times, and then strain the wine. Add some honey at the time of drinking. The roses must be fresh, and free from dew.”[XXVIII-128]

The _Violatum_ is made in the same manner, only violets are used instead of roses.[XXVIII-129]

Rosatum may also be obtained without roses, by putting a small basket filled with green lemon leaves into a barrel of new wine before the fermentation has taken place, and leaving them there for forty days. This wine is to be mixed with honey before it is drunk.[XXVIII-130]

Myrrh wine--_Myrrhinum_, among the ancients--was wine mixed with a little myrrh, to render it better and make it keep longer. They thought much of it.[XXVIII-131]

All these wines, like those previously mentioned, were strained through the _colum vinarium_ before they were served to the guests. This strainer was composed of two round, deep dishes, of four inches in diameter. The upper part was pierced, and received the wine, which ran into the lower recipient, whence the cups were filled.[XXVIII-132]

In Rome the price of common wine--sometimes adulterated[XXVIII-133]--was 300 sesterces for 40 urns, or 15 sesterces for an amphora; that is to say, about sixpence per gallon.[XXVIII-134] At Athens it was thought dear when it cost fourpence per gallon. This measure was commonly sold for not more than twopence.[XXVIII-135]

In the early days of the Roman republic women were forbidden to drink wine;[XXVIII-136] but that law fell into disuse, and noble matrons often carried intemperance as far as their toping husbands.

LIQUEUR WINE.

It must be owned that the Roman law was, for a long time, tyrannical in the extreme with regard to women. Totally interdict the use of wine! Kill the unfortunate creatures who were unable to resist the seductions of that dangerous liquor! For the Roman history furnishes us with more than one example of that atrocious chastisement inflicted on the guilty thirst of the fair sex. The barbarous Micennius immolated his wife on the butt, at which he caught her one day, quenching her thirst at the tap or the bunghole. The ferocious Romulus thought this act simple and natural: he did not even reprimand the cruel husband.[XXVIII-137]

Another unfortunate creature discovered the place where her husband kept the keys of the cellar. She took them, and had the imprudent curiosity to go and visit the mysterious and inauspicious treasure, to which she was forbidden all access. Her family perceived this innocent larceny, and refused her every kind of food, to punish her for an imaginary crime. She died in the tortures of hunger.[XXVIII-138]

Is it necessary to speak of C. Domitius, that uncourteous judge, who deprived a lady of her marriage portion because she had taken the liberty to drink a spoonful or two of wine unknown to her lord and master?[XXVIII-139] But, let us say it at once--Roman civilisation put an end to such strange manners; and so early as the age of Augustus, Livia, the consort of that emperor, affirmed, when eighty-two years old, that she was indebted to Bacchus for her long existence.[XXVIII-140] Let us remark, by the way, that the great prince, her husband, honoured the labours of the vine-dresser and the serious study of wines,[XXVIII-141] to which little attention had been paid down to his time. It began then to be understood that this grateful drink draws the ties of friendship closer,[XXVIII-142] and all honest people, all generous souls, were eager to taste it.

The good Trajan quaffed off numberless cups every day: of course he became the idol of the human species.[XXII-143] Agricola wished to drink before he died.[XXII-144] The imbecile Claudius often found some ray of wisdom at the bottom of an amphora.[XXVIII-145] Domitian merited the pardon of his crimes, thanks to the streams of wine which during the night ran from the fountains;[XXVIII-146] and Caligula would, perhaps, have obtained that popularity which always failed him, had he possessed sufficient sense to offer to the Roman people the delicious Falernian wine he allotted to his favourite horse.[XXVIII-147]

The ladies ventured, in the first place, to wet their lips with a few drops of those light wines which the sun seemed to ripen for them at Tibur, in the environs of Cumæ, and throughout Campania.[XXVIII-148] After a short time, they braved the Falernian itself--true, they generally mixed it with iced water or snow;[XXVIII-149] but the boldest are reported to have risked that dangerous liquor without taking such timid precautions. Falernian was a noble wine! They began to drink it as soon as it had reached its tenth year. Then it was possible to bear up against it. When it was twenty years old, it could only be mastered after it was diluted with water. If older, it was unconquerable; it attacked the nerves, and caused excruciating headache.[XXVIII-150] The ladies struggled a long time for the victory; but, alas! the Falernian always had the best of it. Tired out, at length, with so many useless efforts, the wisest of them left it to their husbands, and sought other beverages which possessed less dangerous charms. Greece and Italy invented new drinks for them, which had a well-merited vogue, notwithstanding the discredit into which they have fallen for many centuries past. Our modern beauties would smile with an air of incredulity if we were to extol asparagus wine, winter savory wine, wild marjoram wine, parsley seed wine, or those made from mint, rue, pennyroyal, and wild thyme; and yet these liquors were the delectable drinks of the most distinguished women of ancient Rome, of those women who could never find in the culinary productions of the entire universe anything sufficiently delicate or rare. Are we, then, to blame their taste, or question our own?

Leaving aside this knotty question, which we do not feel ourselves called upon to resolve, let us state that these different drinks were prepared in a very simple manner. Two handfuls of one of the above-named plants were put into a butt of wort; a pint of sapa and half a pint of sea-water were added.[XXVIII-151] This wine was drunk by the Greek and Roman ladies at breakfast,[XXVIII-152] and was an excellent substitute for the _silatum_, a drink prepared with ochre, and which we can hardly believe to have been introduced by sensuality alone.[XXVIII-153]

It frequently happened, after a banquet, that the wearied and palled stomach refused with loathing the least nourishment. An intelligent slave failed not, under such circumstances, to present his languishing mistress with a cup of wormwood wine, before she quitted her couch. Anon, the livid paleness of her complexion brightened into the rosy hue of health, the dimmed eye resumed its wonted lustre, and that very evening the brilliant matron could seat herself fearlessly at a fresh banquet. That precious wine, that fashionable tonic, which modern sobriety--be it said to our praise--has rendered almost useless, sold well in Rome under the reigns of the Emperors. It was composed by boiling a pound of wormwood in 240 pints of wort until it was diminished one-third. There was also a more simple method of making it, which was to throw a few handfuls of wormwood into a butt of wine.[XXVIII-154]

The live wood, or the leaves of the cedar, the cypress, the laurel, the juniper-tree, or the turpentine-tree, boiled a long time in wort, produced different bitter liqueurs, to which intemperance complacently attributed benign qualities and numerous medical virtues.[XXVIII-155] Equal praise may be accorded to hyssop wine, that famous mixture of three ounces of the plant in twelve pints of wort.[XXVIII-156] Its effects were surprising, and the most popular physicians would not have failed to prescribe it for their languishing patients, whose strength and gaiety it restored.

But, thank Heaven! our Roman beauties were not always obliged to have recourse to the gloomy experience of the disciples of Æsculapius; and when they were in good health, more exhilarating liqueurs lent their aid to toast their return to health and pleasure. They were then seen sipping myrtle wine, a mild beverage, the light vapours of which brought down calm and profound sleep. It was wisdom to drink it; for, alas! not all that would, can sleep! If the reader be troubled with wakefulness, he will hail with joy the recipe for this beneficent narcotic. Let him take young myrtle branches with the leaves, pound them, and boil one pound in eighteen pints of white wine, until it is reduced to two-thirds.[XXVIII-157] Let him drink this liqueur of the Roman ladies, and, without doubt, he will sleep as they did.

The _petites maîtresses_, those delicate women, whose life seemed to be a tissue of vapours mingled with tears--Rome abounded with them--would have fainted even at the smell of the wines made up in the manner indicated above. Their frail, nervous organization, required a different kind of drink, and one was invented for them,--the _Adynamon_. This adynamon, or wine without strength, was the most inoffensive of liqueurs. It was obtained by boiling ten pints of water in twenty pints of white wort.[XXVIII-158] A small cup of this salutary beverage restored a debile Cynthia, a sickly Julia, when, negligently seated at her toilet, a Bœotian slave brought a nosegay of lilies instead of a crown of roses. These charming creatures would soon have lost the use of their senses, if the adynamon had not been promptly applied to their lips. But hardly had they tasted the marvellous liqueur when animation resumed its calm and peaceful course; nay, after the lapse of a few seconds, they were enabled, without any inconvenience whatever, to witness the chastisement of the slave, whose naked shoulders and breasts were lacerated by their orders with a thong studded with sharp points.[XXVIII-159] Who, after that, would dare doubt the properties of the adynamon wine?

The _Œnanthinum_ wine was destined for more vigorous constitutions, for natures of less exquisite delicacy. The Roman ladies, somewhat fond of rusticating, who passed a part of the year in their villas, prepared it by putting two pounds of wild vine flowers into a butt of wort. They were left there thirty days, and then the liquor was drawn off into other vessels.[XXVIII-160]

Such were the vinous drinks which fashion formerly brought into repute in the capital of the world. The women set no bounds to their taste for these concocted wines; but went on from one excess to another as long as the empire lasted. These strange habits, now buried under the Roman colossus, have been replaced by a new order of civilisation. Woman, that graceful being of whom antiquity was not worthy, now appears such as Christianity has made her, to reveal to us virtues which ancient Greece and Italy never knew. Daughter, wife, and mother, she consoles, encourages, and supports man amid the trials of life. Her sweet smile welcomes him at the cradle; her prayer accompanies him to the tomb. It was she who softened the ferocious instincts of the barbarous hordes that the forests of the north vomited over Europe; and still exercising her empire over modern society, she is hailed as a queen, whose virtues and chaste attractions render her the living embodiment of the flower and the angel, those sweet symbols of love and beauty, between which a modern poet has gracefully placed her throne.

* * * * *

The primitive inhabitants of Great Britain learned from the Romans to plant the vine, under the reign of the Emperor Probus. The conquerors taught them also the art of cutting it, and how to make wine. But, as Strutt observes, the vine could never be of any great utility in this country. It was more ornamental than useful, with the exception that it afforded the means of procuring a cool retreat and shade.[XXVIII-161] However, some provinces of England became celebrated for their wines. “The county of Gloucester is renowned for its vines,” says William of Malmesbury; “and the wines it produces are scarcely inferior to those of France.”[XXVIII-162]

Saint-Louis was the first who established statutes for the dealers in wine.[XXVIII-163] New ones were framed in 1585,[XXVIII-164] and the dealers were then divided into four classes, each of which was designated by a particular name, viz., the inn-keepers, the publicans, the tavern-keepers, and the wine-dealers by measure. The inn-keepers had accommodation for man and horse; the publicans served drink with table-cloth and plates--that is to say, they might serve food and drink at the same time; the tavern-keepers served drink alone; and the retail dealers could only sell it in considerable quantities at one time.[XXVIII-165] In 1680 these four classes were reduced to two--wine-merchants and retail wine-dealers.

Under the reign of Louis XIV., a great dispute arose concerning the relative merits of Burgundy and Champagne wines, and the preference due to the one or the other. This quarrel originated in a thesis, maintained at the commencement of the 17th century at the Medical School of Paris, in which it was asserted, that the wine of Beaune, in Burgundy, was not only the most agreeable but the most wholesome. This thesis excited no murmur at the time: from the 13th century the wine of Beaune had always enjoyed the highest reputation, and no one dreamed of disputing it. But forty years later they risked a proposition much more rash than the preceding one: it was maintained, in the same school, that the wines of Burgundy were not only preferable to those of Champagne, but that the latter attack the nerves, cause a fermentation of the humours, and infallibly bring on the gout in persons not naturally subject to it. They fortified this incredible opinion with the authority of the celebrated Fagon, chief physician of Louis XIV., who had just forbidden the king, as they said, the use of Champagne wine.

The Champagne people took fire--it was time--the dangerous heresy threatened to spread; so they attacked the Burgundians bravely. The latter defended themselves with equal courage. The battle waxed warm. Each party sought to crush their antagonists with heavy writings. The inhabitants of Burgundy pretended that the wine of Champagne owed its vogue entirely to the influence of Colbert and Louvois, the then ministers, one of whom was a native of Champagne, and the other in possession of immense vineyards. The Champagne growers proved that this assertion was false in every particular. Long before the time of these two statesmen, said they, the French got tipsy on Champagne wine; ergo, they valued that exhilarating liquor. This argument was irrefragable. They might have added that, from the 16th century, the wine of Aï, a canton of Champagne, enjoyed such renown that the Emperor Charles V., Pope Leo X., Henry VIII. of England, and Francis I. of France, were anxious to possess this nectar, and tradition assures us that each of these great sovereigns purchased a close at Aï, in which a little house was built for a vine-dresser, who sent them every year a stock of wine, which enlivened their repasts.[XXVIII-166]

The epicureans took part in this great discussion, and that they might give their judgment after mature deliberation, founded on a perfect knowledge of facts, they have been tasting Champagne and Burgundy wines these two hundred years. May the vouchers in this suit never fail them!

Wine was long used for presents and fees--a custom established under Charlemagne. After a baptism, a marriage, or a burial, the priests received the _vicar’s wine_; before marriage, _wedding wine_ was offered to the intended bride; after a law-suit, the counsellor was presented with _clerk’s wine_; the _wine of citizenship_ was given to the mayor of a town in which any person took up his abode. This present subsequently took the name of _pot-de-vin_ (bribe), still in great favour. It has changed its character, certainly, but the variations have multiplied to infinity.[XXVIII-167]

In the middle ages sober people intoxicated themselves regularly once a month. Arnaud de Villeneuve examines seriously the advantages of this Hygienic custom.[XXVIII-168] There was a kind of glory attached to the swallowing of more wine than any other man without being _non compos mentis_. There was, however, a means of avoiding these bacchanalian encounters. It was, to choose a champion who, as in judicial combats, accepted the challenges for his candidate, to whom the victory or defeat was attributed, as if he himself had drank.[XXVIII-169]

In the middle ages, and in the 16th century, intoxication was severely punished in France.

By five ordinances, in the years 802, 803, 810, 812, and 813, Charlemagne declares habitual drinkers unworthy of being heard before courts of justice in their own cause, or as witness for another.[XXVIII-170]

Francis I. decreed, by an edict, in the month of August, 1536, that whosoever should be found intoxicated was to be imprisoned on bread and water for the first offence; the second time, flogging in the prison was added; the third time, he was publicly flogged; and if the offender was incorrigible, his ears were out off, he was deemed infamous, and banished the kingdom.[XXVIII-171]

Now every one is free to quench his thirst, and drink more if he chooses.

“_The Crafte to make Ypocras._--Take a quarte of red wine, an ounce of synamon, ane halfe an once (ounce) of gynger, a quarter of an unnce (ounce) of greynes and long pepper, and halfe a pound of suger, and brose all this (not too small), and then put them in a bage of wullen clothe, made therefore (for that purpose), with the wire, and it hange over a vessel tyll the wine be run thorowe (through).”[XXVIII-172]--Quoted by STRUTT.

The English were extremely partial to a drink they called _Clarey_, or _Clarre_. According to Arnold[XXVIII-173] it was compounded in the following manner:--

“For eighteen gallons of good wyne, take halfe a pounde of ginger, quarter of a pound of long peper, an ounce of safron, a quarter of an ounce of coliaundyr, two ounces of calomole dromatycus, and the third part as much honey that is clarifyed as of youre wyne, streyne them through a cloth, and do it into a clene vessell.”

John, in the first year of his reign, made a law that a tun of Rochelle wine should not be sold for more than twenty shillings, a tun of wine from Anjou for twenty-three shillings, and a tun of French wine for twenty-five shillings, except some that might be of the very best sort, which was allowed to be raised to twenty-six shillings and fourpence, but not for more, in any case. By retail, a gallon of Rochelle wine was to be sold for fourpence, and a gallon of white wine for sixpence, and no dearer.[XXVIII-174]

XXIX.

REPASTS.

Mortals were formerly remarkably sober, and the gods themselves set them the example, by feeding exclusively on ambrosia and nectar.[XXIX-1] The most illustrious warriors in the Homeric ages were generally contented with a piece of roast beef; for a festival, or a wedding dinner, the frugal fare was a piece of roast beef; and the king of kings, the pompous Agamemnon, offered no greater rarity to the august chiefs of Greece, assembled round his hospitable table. It is true that the guest to be most honoured received for his own share an entire fillet of beef.[XXIX-2]

The vigorous but uncultivated appetites of these heroes were hardly satisfied when everything disappeared, and none of them thought to prolong the pleasures of good cheer.[XXIX-3] Happy times of ingenuous and ignorant frugality! what has become of you?

It must not, however, be imagined that they were entirely destitute of more refined aliments. Homer gives to the Hellespont the epithet of _fishy_; Ithaca, and several other islands of Greece, abounded in excellent game;[XXIX-4] but the magiric genius was asleep--it awoke at a later period.

Beware, however, of a mistake: those men--with so little choice respecting their viands--all possessed stomachs of astounding capacity.[XXIX-5] Theagenes, an athlete of Thasos, eat a whole bull;[XXIX-6] Milo of Crotona did the same thing--at least once.[XXIX-7] Titormus had an ox served for supper, and when he rose from table, they say not a morsel remained.[XXIX-8] Astydamas of Miletus, invited to supper by the Persian, Ariobarzanes, devoured a feast prepared for nine persons.[XXIX-9] Cambis, King of Lydia, had such an unfortunate appetite, that one night the glutton devoured his wife![XXIX-10] Thys, King of the Paphlagonians, was afflicted with voracity nearly similar.[XXIX-11] The Persian Cantibaris, eat so much and so long that his jaws were at last tired, and then attentive servants used to press the food into his mouth.[XXIX-12]

These are facts of which we do not exactly guarantee the truth, for history--it is no secret--has some little resemblance to the microscope: it frequently magnifies objects by presenting them to us through its deceitful prism.

We close this singularly incomplete list of the ancient polyphagists by adding that the Pharsalians[XXIX-13] and the Thessalians[XXIX-14] were redoubtable eaters, and that the Egyptians consumed a prodigious quantity of bread.[XXIX-15]

In more modern times, some men have acquired, by the energy of their hunger, an illustration they would have vainly demanded from their genius or their virtues. The Emperor Claudius sat down to table at all hours and in any place. One day, when he was dispensing justice according to his own fashion in the market-place of Augustus, his olfactory nerves scented the delicious odour of a feast which exhaled from one of the neighbouring temples. It was the priests of Mars, who were merry-making at the expense of the good souls in the surrounding locality. The glutton emperor immediately left his judgment-seat, and, without any further ceremony, went and asked them for a knife and fork.[XXIX-16] Never, no, never, adds the biographer of this prince, did he leave a repast until he was distended with food and soaked with drink, and then only to sleep. Yes, the ignoble Cæsar slept; but still, the “peacock’s feather,” an unseemly invention of Roman turpitude, was called into requisition to prepare the monarch for new excesses.[XXIX-17]

Galba could taste nothing if he was not served with inconceivable profusion. His stomach imposed limits upon him, but his eyes knew none; and when he had gloated to his heart’s content upon the magnificent spectacle of innumerable viands for which the universe had been ransacked, he would have the imperial dessert taken slowly round the table, and then heaped up to a prodigious height before the astonished guests.[XXIX-18]

Vitellius, the boldest liver, perhaps, of the whole imperial crew, and the most active polyphagist of past times, caused himself to be invited the same day to several senatorial families. This deplorable honour often caused their ruin, for each repast cost not less than 400,000 sesterces (£3,200). The intrepid Vitellius was equal to the whole, thanks to the peacock’s feather, which, doubtless, was cursed more than once by the unfortunate victims of his dreadful gluttony.[XXIX-19]

True, this poor prince was continually tormented with a hunger that no aliment seemed capable of satisfying. In the sacrifices, like the Harpies of whom Virgil speaks,[XXIX-20] he took the half-roasted viands from the altars, and disputed the sacred cakes with the gods. As he passed through the streets he seized the smoking-hot food spread out before the shops and public-houses; he did not even disdain the disgusting scraps that a miserable plebeian had gnawed the evening before, and which a hunger-stricken slave would have hardly contested with him.[XXIX-21]