The truffle and the snail were well known to the ancients. The speckled trout, of which there appears to be no mention by the recorders, seems to have been a neglected dainty. How Lucullus would have rejoiced at the sight of the pompano--that ruby of the salt-sea wave--and Apicius have been transported at the apparition of a puff-paste pâté of oyster-crabs! The brilliant iridescent hues of the rainbow-trout would have held a Roman epicure spellbound, while a dish of terrapin or a celery-fed Chesapeake canvasback might have decided the destinies of an empire. What a burst of applause a platter of roast ruffed-grouse would have commanded from a senate! Were the soft-shell crab a denizen of Baiæ, or the whitefish, as he attains supreme perfection in Lake Ontario, a habitant of an Italian tarn, one can fancy how a feast of Heliogabalus would have been prolonged. That there are still as good fish in the sea as ever were caught seems an anomaly, in view of the voracity of the old Latins for this form of food. History has recorded less of the excesses of the table during the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, and even during the dissolute monarchies of Commodus and Caracalla. It would be wrong, however, to assume that these excesses were renounced, even where the rulers did not themselves set the example, or that they did not continue in a flagrant form. The unbridled lust and gluttony of Commodus were scarcely equalled save by Heliogabalus. Septimius Severus, unable to endure the tortures he experienced in all his members, especially in his feet, in place of the poison that was refused him eagerly devoured a quantity of rich viands and died of indigestion. Gout and kindred maladies were notoriously common with both men and women, and upon this subject Seneca has descanted at length: "Is it necessary to enumerate the multitude of maladies that are the punishment of our luxury? The multiplicity of viands has produced a multiplicity of maladies. The greatest of physicians, the founder of medicine, has said that women do not become bald or subject to gout. Now they are both bald and gouty. Woman has not changed since in her nature, but in her mode of life, and, imitating man in his excesses, she shares his infirmities. Where is the lake, the sea, the forest, the spot of land that is not ransacked to gratify our palates? Our infirmities are the price of the pleasures to which we have abandoned ourselves beyond all measure and restraint. Are you astounded at the innumerable diseases?--count the number of our cooks!" The favourite garum of the old Romans of itself were enough to have invited all the diseases that indigestion is heir to. This was a liquid, and was thus prepared: The insides of large fish and a variety of smaller fish were placed in a vessel and well salted, and then exposed to the sun till they became putrid. In a short time a liquor was produced, which, being strained off, was the garum or liquamen.