"Insensible the palate of old age, More difficult than the soft lips of youth To move, I put much mustard in their dish; With quickening sauces make their stupor keen, And lash the lazy blood that creeps within." Nor does Athenæus fail to depict a glutton of the period, transcribed from Pherecrates: "A. I scarcely in one day, unless I'm forced, Can eat two bushels and a half of food. B. A most unhappy man! how have you lost Your appetite, so as now to be content With the scant rations of one ship of war?" Milo of Crotona, Titormus the Ætolian, and Astydamas the Milesian were still more celebrated; and even Ulysses in his old age is represented by Homer as eating "endless dishes" and quaffing "unceasing cups of wine." Gargantua and Pantagruel evidently existed long before the days of Rabelais, and time will run back to fetch the age of gluttony, as well as that of gold. [Illustration] [Illustration] WITH LUCULLUS AND APICIUS "Whether woodcock or partridge, what does it signify, if the taste is the same? But the partridge is dearer, and therefore thought preferable."--MARTIAL, Epigrams, xiii. 76. Passing from Greece to Italy, we find frugality to have been a prominent trait of the early Romans, and porridge to have been the national dish until wheaten bread was introduced from Athens. Like the Greeks, who received their initial lessons from the Persians, the Romans derived their knowledge of cookery from Attica, whence they imported their first masters. The Romans proved apt scholars, and soon outrivalled their instructors in the pleasures of the table, where the pomp, luxury, and licentiousness of the times were carried to their furthest limit. It is indeed well-nigh impossible to conceive the splendour, prodigality, and sensuality that prevailed during the Republic and the Empire, when fabulous revenues were squandered at a single feast, and gluttony and intemperance were the gods of the hour. [Illustration: PORTRAIT DU GOURMAND After Carle Vernet] It was towards the decline of the Republic, during the period of Pompey the Great, Cæsar, and Lucullus, that, dispensing with the culinary preceptors of Greece, the Roman cuisine attained its greatest celebrity.