“Hearing your Majesty say that salt was the commonest thing that comes to table, and altogether so worthless and contemptible, I considered in my mind whether it was a thing that at all deserved to be served up to the table of the king; and, judging that it was not worthy, I abolished it from the king’s kitchen, and dressed all the meats without it. Barring this, the dishes are the same that are sent every day to the table of the king.” Then the king understood the value of salt, and he comprehended how great was the love of his youngest child for him; so he sent and had her apartment opened, and called her to him, never to go away any more. X. THE SALT-CELLAR The rhetorician Arnobius, in his work “Disputationes contra Gentes,” wrote that the pagans were wont to sanctify or hallow their tables by setting salt-cellars thereon. For owing to the fact that salt was employed at every sacrifice as an offering to the gods, and owing moreover to its reputed divine attributes, receptacles containing salt were also held sacred. Indeed, the salt-cellar partook of the nature of a holy vessel, associated with the temple in general, and more particularly with the altar.[334] Pythagoras said that salt was the emblem of justice; for as it preserves all things and prevents corruption, so justice preserves whatever it animates, and without it all is corrupted. He therefore directed that a salt-cellar should be placed upon the table at every meal, in order to remind men of this emblematic virtue of salt.[335] The Romans considered salt to be a sacred article of food, and it was a matter of religious principle with them to see that no other dish was placed upon the table before the salt was in position.[336] A shell served as a receptacle for salt on the table of the Roman peasant, but at the repast of the wealthy citizen the silver salt-cellar, which was usually an heirloom, was placed in the middle of the table; and the same custom prevailed in England in mediæval times. In a work entitled “Antiquitates Culinariæ,” compiled by the Rev. Richard Warner, London, 1791, are to be found, reprinted from an old paper-roll, elaborate directions for the preparation of the banquet-table on the occasion of a great feast at the enthroning of George Neville as Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York in the sixth year of Edward the Fourth, A. D. 1466. After the laying of the “chiefe napkin,” the officials of the king’s household charged with such duties were directed to bring salt, bread, and trenchers, and to “set the salt right under the middest of the cloth of estate.” Minute directions follow regarding the proper disposition of the trenchers, knives, spoons, and bread, and their exact relations to the salt, which was treated with special deference throughout the ceremony.