Home › In Greece and Italy › In Greece and Italy: Athenæus

In Greece and Italy: Athenæus

Very much can be said about the use of honey as food among the ancients. With them it was one of the staples of life, as well as a luxury; and the incomparable book of Athenæus, "The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned," has preserved for us many quaint and interesting customs of the people during and before his time. From him we learn of the various ways in which honey was served, and of its place in the feast as well as of its importance as a nutrient. Concerning this last he tells us: "And it is said that Democritus, the philosopher of Abdera, after he had determined to rid himself of life on account of his extreme old age, and when he had begun to diminish his food day by day, when the day of the Thesmophorian festival came round, and the women of his household besought him not to die during the festival, in order that they might not be debarred from their share in the festivities, was persuaded, and ordered a vessel full of honey to be set near him; and in this way he lived many days with no other support than honey; and then some days after, when the honey had been taken away, he In Greece and Italy died. But Democritus had always been fond of honey; and he once answered a man, who asked him how he could live in the enjoyment of the best health, that he might do so if he constantly moistened his inward parts with honey and his outward man with oil. And bread and honey was the chief food of the Pythagoreans, according to the statement of Aristoxenus, who says that those who eat this for breakfast were free from disease all their lives. And Lycus says that the Cyrneans (and they are a people who live near Sardinia) are very long-lived, because they are continually eating honey; and it is produced in great quantities among them."

The story told by Athenæus of Democritus is told in substance by Pliny of Pollio Romilius, as we have already read.¹ 1 We are not surprised to learn that the ambrosia of Mount Olympus was composed largely of honey, according to Roscher being indeed nothing more nor less than honey itself, - a glorified form of that delicacy, one takes for granted; while nectar, that delectable drink of the gods, Roscher says was mead! - also no doubt tinctured by heavenly contact.

One gets, from reading Athenæus, a vivid idea of the luxurious living indulged in by some among the ancients. He quotes Antiphanes as saying, - "Four female flute-players do have their wages, Twelve cooks, and just as many sweet-meat makers, Asking for plates of honey."

Thus too we form an idea of the scale upon which feasting was carried on and also of the amount of honey consumed at feasts. Here may be introduced another quotation from Anti- 1 See page 222. phanes, who gives the following interesting catalogue of the ingredients used to prepare a certain dish : - "Dried grapes, and salt, and eke new wine Newly boiled down, and asafœtida, And cheese, and thyme, and sesame, And nitre too, and cummin seed, And sumach, honey, and marjoram, And herbs and vinegar and oil And sauce of onions, mustard and capers mixed, And parsley, capers too, and eggs.

And lime, and cardamums, and th' acid juice Which comes from the green fig-tree, besides laurel And eggs and honey and flour wrapped in fig-leaves, And all compounded in one savory forcemeat."

The onion as served by these epicurean cooks was a patrician and costly vegetable, vying with the sumptuous forcemeat ball just described; and Athenæus, quoting Philemon, assures us, "Now, if you want an onion just consider What great expense it takes to make it good:

You must have cheese, and honey, and sesame, Oil, leeks, and vinegar, and asafœtida, To dress it up with; for by itself the onion Is bitter and unpleasant to the taste."

Lettuce was treated to a yet more remarkable and extravagant dressing by a certain epicure, - "But Aristoxenus, the philosopher of Cyrene, a real devotee of the philosophy of his country (from whom hams cured in a particular way are called Aristoxeni), out of his prodigious luxury used to syringe the lettuces which grew in his garden with mead in the evening, and then, when he picked them in the morning, he would say that he was eating green cheesecakes which were sent up to him by the earth."

A certain very luxurious dish of the Lydians our author In Greece and Italy tells us is mentioned by Alexis in his book "The Spinners." It is a cook who speaks, lauding his own skill : "'T is a most grand invention, and 't is mine; And if I put a dish of it before you, Such will be your delight that you 'll devour Your very fingers ere you lose a bit of it.

You will serve up an egg well shred, and twice Boil'd till it's hard; a sausage, too, of honey; Some pickle from the frying-pan, some slices Of new-made Cynthian cheese; and then A bunch of grapes, steep'd in a cup of wine :

But this part of the dish is always laughed at, And yet it is the mainstay of the meal." : Cheesecakes made with honey or served with it were very great favorites; without them no banquet seems to have been complete, and they are referred to by many of the ancient writers.

There were many kinds of cheesecakes, some of which were made without cheese at all; but the true cheesecakes were made from cheese, usually mixed with some grain and often with honey as well.