Roman Cooks (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 Excerpt: ...multant. 'Not only did cooks steal, but their patron goddess even was laverna, the goddess of thieves, for in Plautus, Aulularia, 445, Congrio says, Ita me bene amet Laverna. Paulus ex Festo, De Ponor under 'Laverniones' tells us, 'Laverniones fures antiqui dicebant, quod sub tutela deae Lavernae essent.' The only story that we have of an honest cook is the one told by Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, xxn, 8. A certain cook ' Cattosus ' found an ' anulum aureum in ventriculo piscis, miseratione flexus et religione perterritus homini eum reddidit'-who sold him the fish. C. I. L. vi, 49, gives a characteristic which cooks should possess. Whether they really conformed to this fitting standard is another question. Bacchum et Sylenum sobrios vides Sic cocum decet. In Greek Comedy, scenes which were composed of the jests of cooks were frequently introduced. These were similar to Pseudolus, in, 2. Athenaeus, xiv, 659, says, /xaXiora yap flffdyovrai (sc. ev Ttj vea Ktofjioa&ia) ol jj.dyipoi Ctkcotttikoi rivei. Roman cooks also were fond of jokes, and somewhat given to puns. In Plautus, Mercator, 748 ff., the cook, who has heen hired by Lysimachus to dress a dinner for his sweetheart, meets the old gentleman on the street, with his wife, and thoroughly enjoys the discomfiture to which he puts him, as he slyly reveals the situation to the jealous wife: that her husband had employed him to prepare a dinner for another woman, that he had said that his wife, whom he loathed as a serpent, was in the country. The old man is at his wits' end and can only say, 762, Ita me amabit Iuppiter, TTxor, ut ego illud numquam deixi. In line 768 the cook slyly remarks, Nisi metuis tu istanc. In the Menaechmi, 220, Cylindrus is directed to buy provisions for three guests. He inquires w...