A Cultural History of Food in Antiquity Volume 1 9781350044562, 9780857850232, 9781474269902

Citation preview

series preface general editors, fabio parasecoli and peter scholliers

A Cultural History of Food presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. This set of six volumes covers nearly 3,000 years of food and its physical, spiritual, social, and cultural dimensions. Volume editors and authors, representing different nationalities and cultural traditions, constitute the cutting edge in historical research on food and offer an overview of the field that reflects the state of the art of the discipline. While the volumes focus mostly on the West (Europe in its broadest sense and North America), they also draw in comparative material and each volume concludes with a brief final chapter on contemporaneous developments in food ideas and practices outside the West. These works will contribute to the expansion of the food history research in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and South America, which is already growing at an increasingly fast pace. The six volumes, which follow the traditional approach to examining the past in Western cultures, divide the history of food as follows: Volume 1: A Cultural History of Food in Antiquity (800 bce–500 ce) Volume 2: A Cultural History of Food in the Medieval Age (500–1300) Volume 3: A Cultural History of Food in the Renaissance (1300–1600) Volume 4: A Cultural History of Food in the Early Modern Age (1600–1800) Volume 5: A Cultural History of Food in the Age of Empire (1800–1900) Volume 6: A Cultural History of Food in the Modern Age (1920–2000)

viii

SERIES PREFACE

This periodization does not necessarily reflect the realities and the historical dynamics of non-Western regions, but the relevance of cultural and material exchanges among different civilizations in each period is emphasized. Each volume discusses the same themes in its chapters: 1. Food Production. These chapters examine agriculture, husbandry, fishing, hunting, and foraging at any given period, considering the environmental impact of technological and social innovations, and the adaptation to the climate and environment changes. 2. Food Systems. These chapters explore the whole range of the transportation, distribution, marketing, advertising, and retailing of food, emphasizing trade, commerce, and the international routes that have crisscrossed the world since antiquity. 3. Food Security, Safety, and Crises. We cannot have a complete picture of the history of food without discussing how societies dealt with moments of crisis and disruption of food production and distribution, such as wars, famines, shortages, and epidemics. These essays reflect on the cultural, institutional, economic, and social ways of coping with such crises. 4. Food and Politics. These chapters focus on the political aspects of public food consumption: food aspects of public ceremonies and feasts, the impact on public life, regulations, controls, and taxation over food and alcohol production, exchange, and consumption. 5. Eating Out. The communal and public aspects of eating constitute the main focus of these essays. Authors consider hospitality for guests, at home and in public spaces (banquets and celebrations), and discuss public places to eat and drink in urban and rural environments, including street food, marketplaces, and fairs. 6. Professional Cooking, Kitchens, and Service Work. These chapters look at the various roles involved in food preparation outside the family nucleus: slaves, cooks, servants, waiters, maitre d’hotel etc., investigating also the most relevant cooking techniques, technologies, and tools for each period, giving special consideration to innovations. 7. Family and Domesticity. The acquisition, shopping and storage, preparation, consumption, and disposal of food in a domestic setting

SERIES PREFACE

ix

are among the most important aspects of food culture. These chapters analyze family habits in different periods of time, paying particular attention to gender roles and the material culture of the domestic kitchen. 8. Body and Soul. These chapters examine fundamental material aspects such as nutritional patterns, food constituents, and foodrelated diseases. Furthermore, spiritual and cultural aspects of thinking about and consuming food are highlighted, including religion, philosophy, as well as health and diet theories. 9. Food Representations. These essays analyze cultural and discursive reflections about food, which not only contributed to the way people conceive of food, but also to the social and geographical diffusion of techniques and behavior. 10. World Developments. These brief chapters overview developments, dynamics, products, food-related behaviors, social structures, and concepts in cultural environments that often found themselves at the margins of Western modernity. Rather than embracing the encyclopedic model, the authors apply a broad multidisciplinary framework to examine the production, distribution, and consumption of food, as grounded in the cultural experiences of the six historical periods. This structure allows readers to obtain a broad overview of a period by reading a volume, or to follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume. Highly illustrated, the full six-volume set combines to present the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on food through history.

Introduction Food and Commensality in the Ancient Near East paul erdkamp

AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION The Epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of the primitive Enkidu and of Gilgamesh, a citizen of the city of Uruk. Enkidu, a wild man from the steppes, is to be civilized by the woman Shamhat, who teaches him the sophisticated ways of love and introduces him to the refinements of more civilized ways of life. She brings him to the home of some shepherds, who offer him the food of their table. However, Enkidu does not know this unfamiliar food and hesitates to touch it: “Enkidu did not eat or drink, but squinted and stared. . . . Enkidu knew nothing about eating bread for food, and of drinking beer he had not been taught.” Shamhat encourages Enkidu, who is said to have been used to sucking the milk from wild beasts, to eat these civilized foodstuffs: “Eat the food, Enkidu, it is the way one lives. Drink the beer as is the custom of the land.” In the end, he enjoys the beer—seven jugs of it!—and the bread, and he even takes a bath, the first of his life.1 Two points may be taken from this story. First, the food one eats is viewed as a sign of one’s civilization, or lack of it. In other words, the

2

INTRODUCTION

food one eats indicates one’s place in the world. Bread and beer are seen as defining the people to whom Shamhat and the shepherds belong: They are “the custom of the land.” Second, cereals dominate the diet, as both items of this everyday meal are made from grain. There is no difference in this regard between city and countryside. The people of Uruk were just as much grain-eaters as the shepherds in the countryside. The difference emphasized is between peoples who know agriculture and peoples who do not.2 Many thousands of years after the introduction of arable farming, people who did not plow and harvest could still be encountered in the early city-states of the Near East. Throughout most of his existence, modern man lived by taking edible goods from the wild, gathering wild cereals, fruits, legumes, and nuts, and by hunting and fishing, including shellfish and insects. Such an existence is not necessarily harsh and frugal. One should be wary of making comparisons with modern hunter-gatherers who have been pushed by more powerful neighbors to marginal habitats. The introduction of agriculture is likely to have resulted in more labor than before, so one may ask why huntergatherers turned into agriculturalists in the first place. Part of the answer should be that no one ever invented agriculture. Agriculture was the result of gradual changes in hunting and gathering activities that led to more direct interference in animal and plant life. As gatherers concentrated on particular plants and got more and more involved in these plants’ growth cycles, they gradually domesticated and changed the nature of these plants. Wild cereals shed their seeds easily and have very hard husks, while gatherers favored cereals that held their seeds better and had thinner husks. Over the centuries, wild cereals turned into emmer wheat, barley, and other grains. Similar changes occurred in the herds of wild animals, as hunting changed their age and sex structure. In a long process, mankind domesticated goats, sheep, and cattle, while other animals, like gazelles, were still hunted in large numbers. These changes may have been stimulated by population growth, which forced people to intensify the use of available resources. From around 9,000 b.c.e., settlements of agriculturalists emerged in the so-called Fertile Crescent, stretching from Palestine and Anatolia, through Syria and northern Mesopotamia, towards western Iran. The agricultural revolution entailed many fundamental changes in society.3 First, it stimulated sedentary ways of life, as a large part of the community was now

INTRODUCTION

3

forced to stay near fields and stocks, even though other members of society still migrated seasonally with domesticated animals or after wild herds. Second, the units in which people lived became larger. While huntergatherers lived in groups that comprised no more than a few dozen people, the early villages could number several hundred inhabitants. Neolithic Çatal Huyuk and Jericho may have boasted populations of a thousand people. Third, while the labor intensified, the productivity of the people working the land allowed others to turn to non–food related activities. Agriculture resulted in increased division of labor and specialization, which in turn stimulated technological levels and social distinctions. Differences in status and influence were expressed in material goods, encouraging trade and manufacture. These transformations of human life unfolded over thousands of years. In the fourth millennium b.c.e. it culminated in the emergence of cities of several thousand inhabitants, governed by local rulers (kings), whose power was based on their control of the main stuff of live: food. It should be noted that the origins of agriculture lay neither on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris nor in the valley of the Nile. An important shift occurred when agriculture spread into southern Mesopotamia in the sixth millennium b.c.e., which had been a vast marshy area, regularly flooded by the Euphrates. The annual flooding of the countryside as a result of rainfall in the mountainous areas to the north offers the key to the developments that occurred in this region. Agriculture had arisen in regions that depended on rain to water the crops. In southern Mesopotamia, precipitation is much too low to allow arable farming, so irrigation is vital. It is likely that population pressure in the neighboring regions compelled peoples to apply their expertise in farming in this much more difficult terrain. The combination of irrigation and fertile soil resulted in much higher levels of productivity than possible in the regions of rain-fed agriculture. Larger settlements, higher levels of specialization, and larger degrees of social and political differentiation were the result. Similar developments occurred in the Nile valley, where circumstances were even more favorable than in Mesopotamia, in that the flooding of the Nile occurs before the crops are sown, while the Euphrates begins to rise during the crops’ growth cycle. The Mesopotamian and Egyptian societies were based on labor-intensive arable farming. Livestock depended on access to fodder, but outside the zone of irrigation, natural grazing in Mesopotamia and Egypt is sparse and

4

INTRODUCTION

frugal. Livestock therefore remained secondary and consisted primarily of sheep and goats, which thrived better on the frugal grazing than cattle did, and of pigs, which ate waste and therefore competed little with humans for the use of soil. Arable fields were interspersed with olive groves, garden plots, and palm trees. The natural resources of river and lakes were exploited too. It is important to realize that rain-fed agriculture continued to be undertaken and developed in neighboring regions. During the early Iron Age, complex farming estates emerged next to small-scale subsistence farming in regions like Palestine and Syria. In the vicinity of Jerusalem, undoubtedly sparked by the city’s demands, terraces were formed to allow a more intensified cultivation of this hilly country. City-states emerged in southern Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium b.c.e., with Uruk as the world’s first metropolis. At the end of the fourth millennium b.c.e., the majority of the people in southern Mesopotamia lived in towns and cities, but most of them were still directly involved in working the land. It has been claimed that the planning involved in irrigation was a stimulus of state formation in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but it is also likely that in the face of the constant threat to the food supply, larger social and political institutions were better able to offer stability to wider groups within society. Any disruption of the flooding of the Nile or Euphrates threatened social stability. The palace and the temple, and the estates of the elites, were at the heart of this civilization. Sumerian clay tablets depict male and female workers laboring under the supervision of an official cadre. They performed specialized tasks in the fields and in the workshops, where the edible and nonedible products of land and livestock were processed. The control of production, processing, and distribution of edible and nonedible goods required a complex administration, which gave rise to an innovation that changes our understanding of these societies dramatically: the development of writing. While archaeology continues to be important, it only goes so far in answering the questions that we have concerning political, economic, social, and cultural developments on its own. Written documents allow us more in-depth knowledge of the food that members of these societies ate, better appreciation of the various processes that created this food, and more awareness of the cultural factors that shaped attitudes toward food and its

INTRODUCTION

5

consumption.4 These topics will be discussed in this chapter regarding the Near East from around 3000 b.c.e. to the beginning of our era. Since most of the subsequent chapters in this volume will deal with classical antiquity, this introduction will deal with preclassical civilization, in particular Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Israel. Developments in the wider world will be dealt with in chapter ten.

DIET AND EATING HABITS Food plays an important role in the goods that are depicted in Egyptian tombs, and many foodstuffs were included among the material goods supplied to the dead. However, these goods and depictions do not directly reflect the Egyptian diet. Wishful thinking regarding the afterlife may cause some dishes and food items to be overrepresented. Other foodstuffs may be depicted often, not so much because they were eaten in large quantities, but because of their symbolic value. Moreover, the exceptional may draw more interest in these sources than the mundane. Royal meals say little about the everyday meals of the common people. Regarding, Mesopotamia we rely very much on administrative documents, but while some foodstuffs may have been of less interest to administrators than others and thus occur less often in the texts, we cannot say that their role in consumption was small. Despite these problems, we have a good idea of the usual fare of the elites and the common people. One constant factor throughout the Near East is the predominance of cereals. Take for example the so-called Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, which sheds light on the everyday fare of common people in Egypt. Before he goes on a voyage, the main character says to his wife: “Look, you have twenty gallons of barley as food for you and your children. Now make for me these six gallons of barley into bread and beer for every day in which I shall travel.”5 Although the wife and children probably ate other foodstuffs too, the husband limits himself to barley to indicate that they are provided for in his absence. In addition, in Mesopotamia, bread is seen as basic nourishment. One Akkadian proverb goes: “Let a poor man die, don’t let him live, when he finds bread, he finds no salt, when he finds salt, he finds no bread.” In other words, it is a sign of extreme poverty if one has either salt or bread, but not both of them.6 Furthermore, the fact that the rations—or, rather, salaries-in-kind—specified in the clay

6

INTRODUCTION

tablets consist primarily of barley, beer, and bread reflects the predominance of cereals in the food supply. In this nonmonetary society, grain, and in particular barley, was so very common that it was used as means of payment.7 The sources from Jewish society confirm this picture, both in the days of the Old Testament and the Babylonian Talmud. The meal of the harvesters that Ruth is invited to take part in consists of bread dipped in “vinegar” (sour wine) and roasted grain (Ruth 2:14), while the Babylonian Talmud condemns eating of wheaten bread as wasteful as long as barley bread is available.8 These sources show that bread, in particular that made from barley, is the main ingredient of the food of the common people. The wealthy and powerful also ate mostly bread, but this is not to say that their table was dull and unvaried. Lists of words—a typical genre in Mesopotamia and Egypt—indicate the existence of over 40 types of bread in Egypt, while over 200 varieties of bread are known for Mesopotamia. The sources on the royal meals of the rulers of Mari indicate a large variety, depending on the way the dough is kneaded and the ingredients that are added to it, such as cracked grains, legumes, and nuts. The common people supplemented their cereal-dominated diet primarily with food that was rich in proteins, in particular legumes such as lentils, fava beans, peas, chickpeas, and broad beans. A good indication of their role in the daily sustenance is provided by the Jewish Mishnah, which ruled (approx. 200 c.e.) that a husband had to provide specified amounts of grain, lentils, oil, and figs to his wife. In addition, servants in Mari (early second millennium b.c.e.) were given figs, as well as plums and pears. Although beekeeping was already known in third-millennium Egypt, the honey in the land of milk and honey was made of figs and dates. Honeyed dishes and fruits were important items on the royal table in Mari. Since milk, usually goat milk, was difficult to keep, dairy products were consumed mostly in the form of butter, cheese, and ghee. They were part of the rations mentioned on early Mesopotamian clay tablets. According to the Old Testament, vegetables were common in Egypt. After their flight from Egypt, when crossing the desert, the Israelites complain: “We remember the fish we used to eat freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic” (Num. 11:5). This passage refers to another source of protein, which was probably very common along the Nile: fish. Meat, on the other hand, was regarded

INTRODUCTION

7

a luxury throughout the Near East, although it is difficult to say exactly how uncommon it was. On the one hand, meat was included in the rations mentioned on the clay tablets of Mesopotamia. Moreover, sheep, goats, and pigs were common enough in Egypt and Mesopotamia not to have been exceptional. In one Mesopotamian story, for instance, a commoner presents an old goat to a local official, who rejects the present as too lowly.9 It is clear, though, that only the rich had access to large amounts of meat, and especially exotic kinds of meat. At the core of festive meals in Egypt were stews and roasted meats. Moreover, the kings of Mari feasted upon meat, including venison and rare birds such as ostriches. The picture is similar at the Persian court in mid–first millennium b.c.e.: Xenophon’s depiction of royal meals emphasizes that meat was seen as the part of the meal that provided the most status.10 As we have seen, beer was the common drink in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and it remained so throughout antiquity. Barley beer was relatively light, and it was drunk by all members of society. It could be brewed at home (see the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant discussed previously) or at the brewery. Wine became known, too. The sources from Mari tell us that in the early second millennium b.c.e., the king drank a mixture of red wines. The Israelites did not drink beer, but did drink wine, including cheap, sour varieties. According to Genesis 9:20, Noah was the first to plant vines and the first to become drunk. Since the Greeks and Romans were wine drinkers too, wine also became an acceptable drink in Christianity. Beer never became a common drink among the people in Palestine. The deep rift that divided Palestine from Mesopotamia in this respect is reflected in the two traditions in the Talmud. While Palestinian rabbis condemn the drinking of beer and praise the beneficial effects of wine, their Babylonian colleagues censure the drinking of wine—instead of beer—as wasteful.11 While the sources offer a reasonable idea of what people ate, they are less clear as to when and how often meals were eaten. Regarding Egypt, we are totally in the dark. In Mesopotamia, wealthy people seem to have eaten four meals a day: a light one and a larger meal before noon, and a light and heavy meal after midday; however, we do not know in which order these meals were eaten. The clay tablets on the royal meals at Mari indicate that the king had two meals a day, but the sources may limit themselves to the official, ceremonious meals.12 According to an Akkadian proverb, men but

8

INTRODUCTION

not women ate breakfast: “A man, after getting up, eats salt. A woman, after getting up, digs in the clay” (SP 1.156). This is interpreted as meaning that while men had breakfast, women were hard at work.13 Jews apparently ate a light meal late in the morning and a main meal in the evening. One of the daily chores of Jewish wives was milling the grain for the day, and according to Proverbs 31:15, the wife got up before daybreak in order to hand out the food to members of the household, including the servants. The preparation of bread, including the milling of grain by hand and the baking process, could take several hours. Ovens were usually located outside, and were fueled with dung, wood, or charcoal. The remains of houses in El Amarna and depictions of Egyptian mansions indicate that cooking took place in courtyards, located downwind of the main house and of reception areas.14 A remarkable feature of Mesopotamia in the late fourth and early third millennium b.c.e. was that the number of hearths and ovens in houses declined, as cooking activities were apparently concentrated in temples and palaces. This was part of the development of a distribution system that was centered on the palace and temple. This is also reflected in the large number of coarse, mass-produced ceramic bowls that appear among the finds of Mesopotamian city-states in this period, which means that centrally prepared meals were handed out to workers, probably next to the salaries-in-kind they received.15

TAXES AND DISTRIBUTION Many people in the ancient Near East expected their daily bread from a temple official or secular ruler. A characteristic feature of Near Eastern societies was that they were temple or palace economies. The temple or the ruler owned the land, including the flocks that grazed on it, and all its produce. Temple or palace officials decided on the use of harvested crops, whether they were used as seed, stored in the depots, or went to bakeries, breweries, or central kitchens, and they determined who got what from the produce. They controlled these vast distribution networks through an army of scribes. The workers in Mesopotamia did not so much pay taxes; the produce was never theirs to begin with. Evidence on the rationing system in Mesopotamia, beginning in the Late Uruk and Djemdet Nasr periods

INTRODUCTION

9

(3100–2800 b.c.e.), consists of written documents and of huge numbers of bowls that were probably used in the actual handing out of food. The food handed out does not simply represent subsistence rations, as there were large differences in the quantities and type of rations, depending on the age, gender, function, and social position of the recipient. Therefore, salary seems to be a better term. Next to their monthly salaries, many people also received their daily meals, which were prepared in central kitchens through this distribution network.16 Similar lists of salaries are also found in Mari, where hundreds of recipients are listed (around 1775 b.c.e.) who each received 24 gallons of barley, which far exceeds individual consumption needs. Other rations at Mari consisted of bread, powdered beer, and sometimes oil.17 The political structure of Egypt depended in similar ways on the control of food. The harshness with which farmers were occasionally forced to hand over part of the harvest is illustrated by the following text: The clerk lands on shore. He monitors the harvest. Servants with sticks accompany him and Nubians with clubs. One says: “Give me the grain!”. “There is none.” The farmer is violently beaten. He is bound, thrown into the pond and submerged upside down. His wife is bound in his presence, his children are in bondage. His neighbors abandon them and flee. Gone! When it is over, there is no grain anymore.18 Officials, scribes, artisans in the workshops, and construction workers building palaces and tombs all received salaries in kind. Workers on a royal tomb in the fifteenth century b.c.e. received 5.5 sacks of grain monthly, and foremen, 7.5 sacks. Another way to redistribute the goods taken by temple and palace was by means of public festivals and large-scale sacrifices. During the Opet festival, which in the period of the New Kingdom and later was held annually in ancient Thebes (mod. Luxor), and which celebrated the regeneration of life and the fertility of man and nature, huge quantities of food were prepared and distributed among the public.19 The Temple of Jerusalem also controlled much of the wealth of Israel. One of the priests was in charge of the depots, where “they had been keeping the grain offering, the incense, and the vessels, along with the tithes

10

INTRODUCTION

of the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil as commanded for the Levites, the singers, the gate keepers, and the offering for the priests” (Neh. 13:5). The text mentions taxes levied on Israel’s main crops: grain, wine, and oil.

YEARS OF SCARCITY AND YEARS OF ABUNDANCE The Christian prayer “Please give us our daily bread” reflects the constant anxiety felt by most people in antiquity regarding their food supply. Levels of precipitation in the Near East were precariously low on average, causing harvest failures in times of prolonged drought. But crops were also damaged by hail storms (as, for instance, in Egypt in Exod. 9:31). Even the flooding of the Nile and Euphrates were not always regular. In other words, an abundant harvest was truly something to celebrate, a gift from god (or, the gods), while famine was seen as divine punishment, as in the case of Marduk punishing Sargon of Akkad.20 Hence, when the depiction of idyllic rural life in an Egyptian landowner’s tomb (fifteenth century b.c.e.) has agricultural laborers praising the abundance of that year’s harvest, it not only celebrates material well-being, but also divine benevolence. One of the most famous stories about hardship is that of Pharaoh’s dreams about seven lean cows eating seven fat ones, and seven miserable ears of corn consuming seven large ears of corn. Joseph, son of Jacob, explains to Pharaoh what this means: God has decided that there will be seven fruitful years, followed by seven lean years. Joseph gives good counsel to Pharaoh: Pharaoh should look for a wise and discerning man and give him authority over all the land of Egypt. Pharaoh should do this—he should appoint officials throughout the land to collect one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven years of abundance. They should gather all the excess food during these good years that are coming. By Pharaoh’s authority they should store up grain so the cities will have food, and they should preserve it. This food should be held in storage for the land in preparation for the seven years of famine that will occur throughout the land of Egypt. In this way the land will survive the famine. (Gen. 41:33–36)

INTRODUCTION

11

The biblical story mirrors historic reality, albeit in an idealized form. The palace and temples controlled most of the surplus production in Egypt, which offered an important means to level out interannual fluctuation in harvests. The vital importance of such stocks is also illustrated in a papyrus that tells us the story of a riot in Egypt in 1156 b.c.e. The laborers working in the City of the Dead complained that they had not received their wages for a long time. They marched toward a local administrative center, but the granaries of the local temple, the maximum capacity of which was sufficient to feed between 17,000 and 20,000 people for a year, were as good as empty. The next day, the marchers, now including wives and children, went to another temple, the stocks of which were apparently full, as they now received a full month’s wages.21 Stores controlled by the temples and secular authorities played an important role in Mesopotamia and Palestine as well. Huge underground storage facilities, dating to the third to first millennium b.c.e., were found in the towns of Palestine. The sources are much more silent regarding coping strategies between people on community level. It is clear that people felt responsibility towards the weak and poor within their own community. As the idyllic depictions of rural life in the abovementioned Egyptian tomb and the biblical story of Ruth illustrate, women among the lower classes were allowed to gather the grain stalks left by harvesters or to harvest certain parts of the fields. Neighbors and relatives probably helped each other in times of need, but this is beyond our sources. Proverbs 31:14 says that a wife is like a merchant’s ship, and gets provisions from afar. Trade may have contributed to alleviate hardship, but it is difficult to say how effective it was. We may speculate that the longdistance grain trade became more important as supraregional contacts intensified in the second and first millennium b.c.e. Jacob, as he learned of the stocks of grain in Egypt during the shortage in Israel, sent his sons to Pharaoh in order to buy grain (Gen. 42:1–3). The story may reflect the closer contacts between both regions as Egypt gained control over SyriaPalestine in the second millennium b.c.e. During a shortage in the first century b.c.e., Israel also received grain from Egypt, but this time it was sent by the Roman governor. The Nile was more reliable than the weather, and together with the rich soil, this meant that Egypt became a structural supplier of grain to outside consumers.

12

INTRODUCTION

DINING, DIPLOMACY, AND STATUS Eating together, varying in the Near East from communal meals to royal dinners, revealed the social and political hierarchies that these rituals embodied. Even stronger, people tried to impose a social and political order on society by including or excluding people from these events, and by strengthening their relative status through the selection of dishes that were put on the table and the arrangement of guests. It was an important aspect of dining in Egypt that the seating arrangement reflect the social order. The more status a guest had, the closer he sat to the host. Important guests were seated on chairs while participants of lesser status crouched on reed mats.22 Communal meals of workers in early Mesopotamia may be seen as a world apart from royal dinners, but they both strengthened the social order in their own way. The eating together of workers and their sharing of the same meal, cooked in a central kitchen, strengthened their awareness of being subjects of the state and/or temple, uniformly dependent on that institution for their sustenance.23 In a similar light, one might see the public festivals in Egypt and elsewhere as a means of displaying the power of the ruler and his authority to rule.24 Some festive meals were hardly exclusive, and are therefore hard to distinguish from the redistributive acts that we have seen earlier. In the ninth century b.c.e., for example, the Assyrian king Asurnasirpal II celebrated the renovation of the capital Nimrud by offering food and drink for ten days to 69,574 guests!25 Royal meals, on the other hand, were designed to set the participants apart. It was a mark of favor to be able to participate, an aspect that was strengthened by the exclusive nature of the dishes that were put on the table. People were eager to attain the required social and political status to attend these meals. At the same time, being present for these meals, and partaking in the status this provided, meant accepting the political hierarchy that was at their heart. Hence, the major function of these ceremonies was to strengthen the authority of the rulers that put them on. Meals could also strengthen the ties between social and political equals, and dining was therefore an invaluable part of diplomacy. Mesopotamian stories often transfer worldly events to the sphere of the gods, which can be revealing about their ideas regarding such ceremonies in the real world. For example, in one story, the gods regularly have a banquet together. However,

INTRODUCTION

13

some gods cannot participate in person, being gods of other spheres, and so they send their representatives. Sharing in a meal does not require one’s actual presence.26 All of these aspects are clearly shown in the archives of clay tablets that have been found in Mari (early second millennium b.c.e.).27 Strict rules determined who was allowed to sit, who had to squat during meals, and who was closest to the king. Eating a meal together was thought to create strong ties between people. In one text it is commented about a man who turned into an enemy: “Once, this man sat by my lord and drank a cup. Having elevated him, my lord reckoned him among worthy men, clothing him in garment, and supplying him with a wig.” In Mesopotamia, it was the custom that guests attending official dinners received gifts, including garments and wigs. The representative from Mari at the court of Hammurabi sent the following account home, complaining about the lesser treatment he had received: We entered to take a meal in Hammurabi’s presence, entering into the Palace Court, just the three of us: Zimri-Addu, I, and YarimAddu. We were outfitted with garments and the Yamhad delegates that entered with us were all outfitted. As all the Yamhadians were dressed, but they did not dress my lord’s servants, I told Sin-bel-aplim (Hammurabi’s chief of staff) on their behalf: ‘why do you discriminate among us as does a sow’s brood? Whose servants are we? [Hammurabi hears about this, and angrily replies:] Do you imagine now that you can dictate to my palace about garments? Who pleases me, I outfit; who does not, I don’t. I won’t come back on this. I will not outfit messengers at banquets!28 Preferential treatment at meals was a good way to reveal one’s stance in international relations. Confirmation of status, this time within the royal family, could also be at issue, as the next example shows. Princess Inib-Sarri wrote a letter to her father complaining that her husband did not dine with her, but preferred one of his other consorts: “His meals and drinks are constantly taken in the presence of this woman.” In other words, the status of the primary wife

14

INTRODUCTION

is confirmed by her having meals with the king regularly, but in this case, another woman is treated as if she were queen.29 The Persians were heir to the practices at the courts in Sumer, Mari, Babylon, and Assyria, as shown by the sources that discuss the royal banquets at the Persian court.30 One of the writers recounting these ceremonies is the Greek contemporary Xenophon, officer of a contingent of Greek mercenaries fighting in Persian service. Xenophon gives the following explanation to his Greek audience about the intentions of Cyrus: He showed at all times as great kindness of heart as he could, for he believed that just as it is not easy to love those who seem to hate us, or to cherish goodwill toward those who bear us ill-will, in the same way those who are known to love and to cherish good-will could not be hated by those who believe themselves loved. He seems to us to have recognized from the start that there is no kindness which men can show one another . . . more acceptable than sharing meat and drink with them. (Xenophon, Cyropaedeia 8.2.1–2) Meat is emphasized by Xenophon, as it was the custom at the court to hand out the meat that was left over from the banquets to followers. These gifts were a special sign of royal favor, given as reward for loyalty and services done. Meat, as we have seen, offered most status—it was the least common food served at banquets. We come across the same aspects of sharing meals that we see in Mesopotamia from around 3000 b.c.e. in the sources on Israel. Careful seating arrangements reflect the social and political hierarchy, as in the case of the banquet celebrated by Joseph and his brothers. The latter are seated in order of age, the eldest having the most status; however, as a sign of particular respect, Joseph orders his younger brother Benjamin to receive five times as much food as his brothers (Gen. 43:33–34). Solomon’s table is depicted in the same vein as royal banquets at other Near Eastern courts, being supplied with thirty kor flour and sixty kor meal, ten fattened and twenty common cattle and a hundred sheep, apart from rams, deer, gazelle, and fattened birds (1 Kings 5:2–3). It is clear that these huge amounts, provided for one month each time by one of the king’s governors (1 Kings 5:7), were sufficient to feed a large number of

INTRODUCTION

15

aristocrats and retainers. Many examples show that taking meals together is perceived as a way of forging strong ties with other peoples. When, for example, Isaac concludes a treaty with the Philistines, “Isaac held a feast for them and they celebrated” (Gen. 26:30). Moreover, the settlement between Jacob and Laban (Gen. 31:46, 54) is followed by a festive meal. The meal is seen as confirmation of the ties between the two parties. This goes so far as to include treaties with God: When Moses, together with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and the seventy elders of Israel conclude their Covenant with God, a meal follows at which Moses and the other eat and drink, in confirmation of this relationship (Exod. 24:11). The physical absence of God at this table is no problem at all.31

FOOD AND RELIGION Rulings concerning the food that one was allowed to eat and how it should be eaten play an important role in Jewish religion. Also remarkable is the Jewish appreciation of fasting. To give one example, when God strikes one of the sons of David with an illness, his father fasts and refuses to eat with the elders, hoping to obtain the mercy of God (2 Sam. 12:15–23). In other words, fasting was seen as a way of communicating with God. Most Jewish dietary laws derive from Leviticus and Deuteronomy and were codified in the Mishnah (from approx. 200 c.e.). Leviticus and Deuteronomy contain unambiguous instructions as to which animals one could eat and which were impure. Cattle, sheep, goats, deer, gazelles, and stags were among the animals that were considered pure. Mary Douglas has argued that the distinctions between clean and unclean animals are based on what were seen as proper characteristics of these animals.32 Water creatures were considered clean if they swam using fins and had scaly skin. Animals of the air were pure if they were two-legged and flew with wings. Animals not fitting these categories were seen as anomalous and hence unclean. Similarly, land animals were identified as clean using certain normal characteristics: “You may eat any animal that has hooves divided into two parts and that chews the cud” (Deut. 14:6), which ruled out those ruminants that did not have split hooves. The pig was impure because it was not a ruminant, although it did have split hooves. Further dietary laws apply to the slaughtering and preparation of animal foodstuffs. Meat may not contain blood. Moreover,

16

INTRODUCTION

meat and milk (or its derivatives) cannot be mixed, which means that the preparation and consumption of these products must be separated in time and space. Although Herodotus (2.47– 48) says that Egyptians did not eat pork because they regarded pigs as unclean, and Julian observes that Syrians did not eat pork because of the chthonic nature of the animals, there was no general ban on pork throughout the Near East.33 Pigs were eaten in early Mesopotamia and in Egypt. Interestingly, pork is not included among the meat eaten by the king of Mari, while it was put on the queen’s table. It might be that pork was seen as unfit to be part of the ceremonious royal meals, but there was no absolute ban on eating it. In addition, among the Hittites, there was apparently no such taboo, as texts refer to pig farming. Archaeology confirms the picture arising from the texts, as bones of pigs were found in large numbers—there were not as many pigs’ bones as those of sheep or cattle, but they were more numerous than those of other animals. Only in southeast Anatolia in the kingdom of Hatti was pork apparently regarded as impure.34 That the taboo on pork was not uniform in the region of Israel also shown by the following story: When he came to the other side, to the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were extremely violent, so that no one was able to pass by that way. They cried out, “Son of God, leave us alone! Have you come here to torment us before the time?” A large herd of pigs was feeding some distance from them. Then the demons begged him, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” And he said, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep slope into the lake and drowned in the water. (Matt. 8:28–32) This text is part of a tradition that not only forbade eating pork, but that went so far as to demonize the animal. Jews were living among peoples that did not adhere to the same rules regarding food. As in modern society, these different habits were a strong instrument for showing and enforcing one’s identity. Whatever the origin of the taboo concerning pork, it did serve to separate Jews from other peoples. It was also consciously used by other

INTRODUCTION

17

powers to widen the gap between the Jews and themselves. The rise of the Maccabees in the second century b.c.e. was triggered by Antiochos IV’s demand that pigs were sacrificed to Zeus Olympios by all subject peoples throughout his kingdom. The pig also became a symbol of animosity between Jews and Romans in the first centuries of the Christian era. The symbol used by the tenth legion, which played an important role in the capture of Jerusalem, was a pig. When the emperor Hadrian (117–138 c.e.) turned Jerusalem into a Roman city, he tried to keep extremist Jews away—or showed his contempt for them—by putting a giant sow on the western gate of the city. The fact that the pig became such a strong symbol of identity was ultimately based on contrasting ideas about eating pork. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, the dead were seen as somehow continuing their existence, in Egypt idealized as farmers in an idyllic version of the real world, in Mesopotamia as more shadowy figures whose attitude toward the living was characterized by malice. In order to placate the dead, the living gave them food, not only at the funeral when a few scraps of food and some water were placed next to the body, but also afterward. Food and drink was sometimes put in front of the face of the deceased, which shows that the dead were intended to eat. In Egypt, too, food and drink were part of the burial gifts.35 According to Mesopotamian thought, the gods needed to eat too. They were given food and drink in the form of libations and sacrifices, and people seem to have thought that the gods somehow consumed this food, even though they knew that in reality, sacrificial animals and other foodstuffs were eaten by men. Rulings concerning the Eanna Temple in Uruk in the early first millennium b.c.e. determined that the king and the temple personnel received prescribed portions of the animals that were sacrificed. For example, the king received a shoulder, the rump, and a rib. In Hellenistic times, when Uruk was part of the Seleucid Empire, portions of the sacrifices were distributed in similar fashion. This sacrificial meat can be regarded as a form of payment, as the recipients were free either to eat or to sell their share of the offerings.36 Jewish thought on the divine was diametrically opposed to this, and this opposition forms the background of one of the stories told about Daniel. The god Bel, the Bible tells us, received “twelve bushels of the finest flour, forty sheep and six measures of wine daily.”37 Daniel, a favorite at the

18

INTRODUCTION

Persian court, expressed his doubts that Bel was a living god. The king exclaimed: “Do you not believe then that Bel is a living god? Do you not see how much he eats and drinks each day?” Daniel laughed. “Your majesty,” he said, “do not be taken in. He is clay inside and bronze outside and has never eaten or drunk anything!” (Dan. 14:6–7) Daniel subsequently proves that the priests, with their wives and children, are secretly entering the temple room at night by a hidden entry and eating the sacrificial food. Angrily, the king condemns the priests to death and orders the temple to be destroyed. Undoubtedly, the Persian king was less naïve than he is depicted to be in this biblical story. The tale shows, however, the Jewish condemnation of the pagan belief that gods actually ate the food that was sacrificed.38 Although their god was not indifferent at all when it came to the food eaten by his subjects, he did not need to eat himself. Daniel refused to eat at the king’s table, since he could not eat impure food. The solution was that he and his companions ate vegetables, while the others feasted on meat (Dan. 1:8–16). Christian converts among nonJewish peoples faced a similar problem. As in Mesopotamia and Egypt, it was common practice among Greeks and Romans to distribute the meat of animals that were sacrificed to the gods. In his letter to the Christian community of Corinth, Paul warns them not to participate in the banquets at pagan temples (1 Cor. 8:10), where they would eat of the sacrificial meat: So then, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. . . . Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all share the one bread. I am not saying that idols or food sacrificed to them amount to anything. No, I mean that what the pagans sacrifice is to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot take part in the table of the Lord and the table of demons. (1 Cor. 10:14 –21)

INTRODUCTION

19

Paul refers here to the Eucharist, which in turn refers to the last supper and which forms the very basis of Christianity, symbolized in the partaking in the bread and wine that represent the body of Christ. In the above letter, Paul consciously emphasizes the contrast between the sacrificial meat, symbol of pagan beliefs, and the bread of the Christian community. It has been a constant theme of the discussion above that meat was associated with luxury, exclusiveness, and excess, and with the palace and the temple. Bread, on the other hand, was a common food, eaten by all, and it carried the opposite meaning, connoting simplicity, temperance, and restraint.39

CHAPTER ONE

Food Production paul halstead

This chapter gives an overview of what food was produced in classical antiquity as well as how it was produced—this doubtless varied over time, regionally, between town and country, and between rich and poor. Most previous syntheses have drawn primarily on Greco-Roman texts from an elite cultural context, which poses the challenge of distinguishing “between prescription and description, between the ideal and the real, the theoretical and the practical.”1 This chapter focuses instead on the growing bioarchaeological record that both reflects the real and practical and is more socially inclusive, although biases of archaeological preservation and research still favor the elite and urban over the underprivileged and rural. Geographically, it focuses on the Mediterranean heartland of GrecoRoman civilization, but extends into its bioarchaeologically rich, temperate European periphery. The chapter examines three complementary bioarchaeological sources: human skeletal evidence of diet, archaeobotanical evidence for what plant foods were produced and how, and zooarchaeological evidence for the contribution of animals to diet and land use. In conclusion, it assesses the relationship between food production and social change and the importance in this regard of advances in technology or knowhow and the diffusion of new crops or improved livestock. First, however, to inform the interpretation of the bioarchaeological evidence, it

22

FOOD PRODUCTION

briefly considers traditional Mediterranean land use and the distribution of ancient population.

TRADITIONAL LAND USE The Mediterranean climate (hot dry summers, mild rainy winters) and accidented (i.e., rough, hilly) terrain have been credited with shaping three timeless features of premechanized land use: lowland cultivation of cereals alternating with fallow, growing in marginal hills of deep-rooted vines and olives, and the transhumance of large sheep flocks between lowlands in winter and mountains in summer. These practices were equally shaped, however, by the socioeconomic context. First, regular fallowing allowed large landowners using draught-oxen to grow cereals extensively—with minimal human labor—and so produce a large surplus, while neighboring smallholders practiced continuous cropping with draught cows or manual tillage. Second, the recent specialization in vines and olives, exploiting international demand for wine/currants and oil, was largely practiced by those with long-term rights to land and, especially for labor-intensive vines, with too little land for self-sufficiency in grain. Third, while arable farmers maintained smaller and less mobile herds, transhumant flocks declined sharply as the dissolution of lowland estates limited winter pasture on fallow land, as cheap imports of wool and cheese reduced the price of animal produce relative to purchased staple grains, and in southeast Europe, as new state boundaries hindered movement. Two polar models of recent land use have heuristic value for antiquity. Large landowners grew cereals for market extensively, and transhumant pastoralists similarly specialized in cheese and wool or textiles while symbiotically grazing and manuring the former’s fallow fields. Conversely, smallholders aimed for diversified self-sufficiency, growing a variety of crops (including labor-intensive pulses) and keeping a few mixed livestock for a range of products, though most sold some surplus grain or cash crops (wine, oil, cheese) to cover rents, fees, and luxuries. Those with insufficient land necessarily specialized in cash crops or crafts, however, or worked for larger landowners as sharecroppers, or especially at harvest, as day laborers. Poor specialists were vulnerable to fluctuating markets, but cerealgrowing smallholders were also at risk, especially if paying tithes or taxes

PAUL HALSTEAD

23

in cash rather than kind, as they sold grain cheaply after good harvests and bought it dearly after bad. Consequently, cereal-growing estates repeatedly re-formed in Greece after dissolution by Ottoman and Greek administrations; high prices after poor harvests enabled large landowners to extend their holdings and ensure a pool of poor, cheap labor.

THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM: SETTLEMENT AND POPULATION Intensive archaeological surveys have revolutionized the understanding of the distribution of population in the landscape. The modest settlements known in early first-millennium b.c.e. Greece and Italy sheltered, at most, a few hundred inhabitants each, but subsequent rural habitation increased in density, while urban centers developed. Literary and epigraphic evidence suggests a population for fifth to fourth century b.c.e. Athens of around 120,000–250,000, though fewer lived in the urban core, and most contemporary cities were much smaller. Rome may have matched Classical Athens in the third century b.c.e. and reached a million by the first century c.e. Over this time, Greek cities also grew in extent, and urban settlements became increasingly important in the west Mediterranean, while urbanism developed a few centuries later in temperate Europe, especially under Roman rule. Few parts of the Mediterranean are rich enough in wild foods to sustain even small villages without exchange at a very favorable rate for agricultural staples. The same is probable for direct dependence on livestock: even if sufficient pasture is available, labor costs are prohibitive. Even taking at face value the sparse evidence for early first-millennium b.c.e. settlement, therefore, people throughout classical antiquity overwhelmingly lived off cultivated grains and many among the increasingly urban population cannot have produced these themselves. Archaeological and written sources also reveal increasing disparities of wealth through classical antiquity. In Greece, Hesiod’s modest farmer around 700 b.c.e. had a pair of oxen, servants, and enough land for fallowing. Fifth- to fourth-century b.c.e. citizen soldiers (hoplites) worked 4–5 hectares with similar help, but poorer citizens had insufficient land for a draught pair, while the richest farmed perhaps 50 hectares. Roman allocations to veterans were too small (1.3–2.5

24

FOOD PRODUCTION

hectares) for a pair of working cows, while the agricultural writers describe ideal estates of 50–60 hectares needing multiple ox teams. The implied growth of estates at the expense of smallholdings may be reflected in some regions in the late Republican–early Imperial Roman decline of small rural sites, but both pattern and process are debated. Farming, and not least profiteering in the urban grain market, was arguably the main source of elite wealth.

HUMAN SKELETAL EVIDENCE FOR DIET The predicted dietary reliance on cultivated grains is consistent with stable carbon (G13C) and nitrogen (G15N) isotope ratios and macroscopic pathological traces in human skeletons. Both datasets pose problems of interpretation, while surviving human remains probably underrepresent the nutritionally underprivileged. Nonetheless, essentially the same picture emerges from very diverse contexts: the fifth- to second-century b.c.e. Greek colony of Apollonia on the Black Sea; eleventh- to fourth-century b.c.e. northern Greece; fifth-century b.c.e. to third-century c.e. Athens; first- to third-century c.e. Isola Sacra near Rome; and the seventh- to second-century b.c.e. Greek colony of Metaponto and first- to second-century c.e. Roman Velia in southern Italy.2 In each case, C3 plants (e.g., wheat, barley, pulses) dominated the diet, with lesser and variable contributions from terrestrial animals, marine species, or C4 plants (e.g., cultivated broomcorn millet and foxtail millet). Of particular relevance to food production are the generally higher levels of both G15N and G13C in Greco-Roman as compared to prehistoric (especially Neolithic) skeletons from the same areas. Since values for local terrestrial herbivores remain unchanged, the trend in G15N implies a rising human intake of terrestrial animal protein (meat, dairy produce) or a declining intake of nitrogen-fixing pulses (legumes), while that in G13C perhaps reflects increased consumption of C4 plants (or C4-grazing animals).

STAPLE GRAIN CROPS Plant remains, usually preserved by charring, are the most direct and (despite variable quality and quantity) reliable evidence for the staple crops of classical antiquity. Whereas cereals and pulses are relatively evenly represented

PAUL HALSTEAD

25

in seventh- to fourth-millennium b.c.e. southeast Europe, cereals predominate heavily in the period of 1000 b.c.e.–500 c.e. in Mediterranean and temperate Europe alike. The declining importance of labor-intensive pulses is consistent both with stable isotopic evidence for diet in Greece and with indications of increasingly extensive agriculture (discussed further on), as well as implying reduced opportunities for cereal-pulse rotation despite the literary evidence of the awareness of its agronomic benefits. Among the cereals, emmer and einkorn (glume wheats) and barley were dominant, and free-threshing wheat (including bread wheat) less frequent on early farming sites. By the second millennium b.c.e., the range often included spelt (another glume wheat) and broomcorn or foxtail millet. From 1000 b.c.e., oat and rye came into widespread cultivation, while free-threshing wheats progressively displaced glume wheats and barley as the predominant cereal. The timing of these changes differed between regions. In Greece, evidence is most abundant from the earlier first millennium b.c.e; alongside barley, free-threshing wheat is well represented at some sites, but glume wheats prevail at others. In Italy, too, free-threshing and glume wheats coexisted for a long time. Free-threshing wheat seemingly displaced or joined the glume wheats as a principal cereal from the mid first millennium b.c.e. in the Black Sea littoral, northeast Spain, and southern France; in late fourth- to first-century b.c.e. Egypt; a few centuries later under (or slightly before) Roman rule in west-central continental Europe; and mostly after the Roman period in Britain.3 Spelt, broomcorn millet, oats, and rye may first have developed as crops, or been widely adopted north rather than south of the Alps, though evidence is sparser in the latter region. The changing cereal repertoire had implications for grain consumption, distribution, and production. First, free-threshing wheats will have been the main ingredient of the white bread prized in Greco-Roman written sources, relegating the lesser cereals to consumption by the poor (as groats, gruels, flatbreads, rusks) or livestock. As in the recent past, fuzzy boundaries between rich / urban food, poor/rural food, and fodder probably moved upwards after good harvests and downwards after bad, such that culinary refinement helped ensure a sufficient if demeaning diet for the poor.4 Second, whereas free-threshing grains are quite easily removed from ripe ears, those of emmer, einkorn, and spelt are tightly enclosed in glumes

26

FOOD PRODUCTION

that protect against field and storage pests, but require additional pounding, threshing, or grinding to dehusk the grain for consumption. Improved storage of glume wheats is advantageous to self-sufficient farmers aiming for food security, but not those producing for market and forced to dehusk on a large scale or transport double the volume of grain in the glume. Conversely, free-threshing wheats facilitate trade in grain, which in turn reduces dependence on long-term storage. The apparent importance of freethreshing wheat at coastal Greek colonies in the Black Sea and at Selinous in Sicily5 contrasts with continued preference for glume wheats and barley in the adjacent hinterlands. Greek colonies may have imported staples from their hinterlands (possibly free-threshing wheat) in return for exported luxuries (discussed further on), and those in the Black Sea participated in expanding grain trade with cities in the motherland. In Roman central Europe, the increasing frequency of free-threshing wheats coincides with archaeobotanical evidence (weed seeds or crop contaminants of southern origin) of long-distance grain transport, albeit of glume wheat. Third, glume wheats standing ripe in the field are less vulnerable than free-threshing wheats to robbing by birds or spoiling by rainfall, so that harvesting is less urgent. In this respect, the apparent association (discussed further on) of free-threshing wheats with an increased scale of cultivation implies that large-scale farmers had ready access to seasonal harvest workers. The C3 cereals can all be sown in autumn-winter, and most also have spring-sown varieties such as the three-month wheat and barley reported by classical authors. Especially in the Mediterranean, however, late sowing leaves these crops at the mercy of unreliable spring rainfall and ancient writers imply that early sowing was usual. Conversely, the millets, as warmloving C4 plants, were usually sown in spring or early summer, and given sufficient moisture, could replace a failed winter crop or allow a farmer to spread the labor of tillage and sowing.6 The ecological characteristics of weeds associated with grain crops confirm mainly autumn-winter sowing on early farming sites in central and perhaps southeast Europe, but from 1000 b.c.e. there is increasing evidence north of the Alps of spring sowing, presumably of millet, root crops, and perhaps barley, though wheat continued to be sown early. Given the indications of increasingly extensive agriculture at this time, farmers perhaps planted in spring to spread labor

PAUL HALSTEAD

27

and sowed millet opportunistically in wet years on fallow plots, like they did with maize more recently. Millet requires minimal seed corn, and if it fails as a grain crop, can be grazed. Indeed, high G13C levels in human skeletons might reflect consumption not of millet, but of dairy produce from flocks pastured on millet or C4 weeds. Weed evidence indicates intensive cultivation in Neolithic central and perhaps southern Europe, and even in late second-millennium b.c.e. northern Greece. Through the first millennium b.c.e. and early first millennium c.e. in central Europe, however, a weed flora developed typical of extensive field-scale cultivation of winter-cereals. In the lower Rhineland, weeds suggestive of extensive cultivation seem associated with the Iron Age–Roman shift from emmer to spelt; and in Late Iron Age (sixth century b.c.e. to first century c.e.) northeast England, while farmers north of the river Tyne grew emmer intensively, their lowland neighbors to the south grew spelt under extensive conditions that sustained a more hierarchical society. It is unclear why spelt was better suited than emmer to such a regime, but extensive agriculture apparently began in temperate Europe well before its incorporation within the Roman Empire, and presumably generated the surplus that financed the construction and use of indigenous hillforts.7 Since extensive agriculture achieves large surplus through low human labor inputs, estimates of area yields (generally proportional to labor) in classical antiquity may be uninformative as well as unreliable. Interestingly, the classical writers deal in seed-to-yield ratios that shed little light on area yields (not least because they depend on sowing rates), but suggest greater concern with net yields than returns on land area.

DIVERSITY IN DIET AND LAND USE: FRUITS, NUTS, VEGETABLES, SPICES, AND HERBS While cereals were the staples of Greco-Roman antiquity, a range of other plant foods was of great cultural importance. In Greece, the elite consumption of olive oil and wine is well documented from the second millennium b.c.e. and, for the better-off in the Archaic-Classical society of the early to mid first millennium b.c.e., oil added flavor to plain food and was used in personal hygiene and after exercise, while the symposion of male wine drinkers was a key social and political institution. Ceramic containers and

28

FOOD PRODUCTION

drinking sets reveal how Greek and Phoenician colonists and traders carried wine, oil, and some associated customs to the west Mediterranean, from where wine in quantity reached southern France and luxury drinking vessels central Europe. Archaeobotany shows that olive and vine growing followed the new cultures of consumption. Wild olive and vine are native to most of the Mediterranean littoral, so ancient pips, wood, or pollen need not be from cultivated plants. In southeast Spain, olive pips and charcoal are not regularly found outside the coastal strip, where wild olive grows, until the Roman period, when specialized processing equipment implies large-scale cultivation.8 Increasing frequencies of olive and grape pips in Early Iron Age eastern Spain and southern France, however, associated with east Mediterranean ceramics, support the view that Greeks and Phoenicians initiated, or extended, cultivation of these crops, while a fourth-century b.c.e. ship wrecked off Majorca was carrying vine stocks. In Early Iron Age western Sicily, grapes in a high-status house at native Monte Polizzo may be imports from the Greek colony of Selinous, possibly in return for free-threshing wheat. In the Black Sea, too, the foundation of Greek colonies presaged widespread appearance on native sites inland of Aegean wine amphorae and craft goods, including drinking cups and jugs, that were presumably exchanged for raw materials—perhaps including grain. Grape pips and pollen again suggest that the Greek colonies introduced or significantly extended viticulture on the northern shores of the Black Sea. Olive and vine growing expanded not only in geographical range, but also in scale. While some massive olive presses from Imperial Roman North Africa imply large-scale processing, recognizable equipment from classical Greece is scarce, often of ambiguous function, and small in capacity.9 Conceivably, wealthy Roman landowners specialized in pressing olives grown by small-scale farmers, but the association in southeast Spain of specialized Roman facilities with the spread inland of olive cultivation suggests more than the centralization of processing. The implication that olive growing, at least in the Imperial Roman period, was substantially in the hands of large landowners, contrasts with its recent importance as a cash crop for small farmers. Labor-intensive viticulture is even more closely associated with recent smallholders, and small-scale processing, without

PAUL HALSTEAD

29

specialized facilities, may be archaeologically invisible. Winemaking on a commercial scale may be implied by carved stone press beds, for example, from a rural site in the fourth-century b.c.e. planned field system of Tauric Chersonesos on the Black Sea coast. Here, locally manufactured amphorae confirm the export of wine, while the subdivision of some plots into narrow-walled (terraced?) strips is compatible with (but hardly indicative of) vine growing. The labor demands of viticulture and subsistence requirement for staple grains, however, suggest that only a small part of even the inner field system of 10,000 hectares was devoted to vines. Wine production may thus have been concentrated among the minority of households that built rural farms equipped with pressing and other facilities. Modeling of the rural economy around Roman Pompeii similarly suggests the concentration of viticulture, at least for commercial wine production, on the estates of wealthy villa owners.10 While oil and wine have attracted most attention, and through transport containers and drinking vessels, dominate the archaeological record of Mediterranean exports to temperate Europe, many fruits, nuts, vegetables, herbs, and spices contributed to Greco-Roman culinary culture. The elite of Bronze Age Greece used herbs and spices—several of east Mediterranean origin—in perfumed oils and exclusive cuisine, but the culinary use of indigenous fruits and flavorings was even older and Bronze Age arboriculture extended to fig, walnut, and chestnut. At the seventh-century b.c.e. sanctuary of Hera on the island of Samos, waterlogging preserved offerings of aromatic plants such as coriander and dill, and fruits including mulberry, peach, and pomegranate, as well as fig, olive, and vine. Burnt funerary offerings from fifth- to third-century b.c.e. Greece include pomegranate, pine nut, almond, walnut, and chestnut. In southern Italy, almond, apple/ pear, carob, cherry, date, fig, hazel, peach, pine nut, pomegranate, and walnut were found at second-century b.c.e. to first-century c.e. Pompeii.11 Several of these fruits and nuts originated in the east Mediterranean or Near East, and while some exotic plants were traded—like south Asian black pepper at Pompeii—others were locally grown, contributing to the long-term enrichment of the European crop repertoire. Crops of Indian or African origin are prominent in written accounts of summer gardens in the post-Roman Mediterranean, but archaeobotany indicates the much earlier

30

FOOD PRODUCTION

introduction of some species: for example, melon appears in late secondmillennium b.c.e. Greece and is joined by watermelon and okra at the seventh-century b.c.e. Heraion on Samos. The range of traded or introduced fruits, nuts, herbs, and spices is even clearer in temperate Europe, where many species are found outside their natural distribution or climatic limits, and moreover, the archaeobotanical record is more frequently enriched by waterlogged preservation of plant parts and species poorly represented among charred remains. There are rare finds of exotic fruits (e.g., figs, plums) and herbs or spices (e.g., celery, dill) in late pre-Roman Iron Age contexts, but the range and frequency of such finds increases dramatically and rapidly under Roman occupation. Species that could not be grown locally, such as olive, date, or black pepper, are initially concentrated in military contexts, but are well represented in urban and elite rural sites from the later first century c.e., and as funerary offerings, are associated with rich graves. The many exotic species that could have been grown locally (e.g., cherry, grape, plum, walnut, coriander, dill) diffused more rapidly to urban and elite rural contexts and even reached native rural sites, indicating the pervasive Romanization of cuisine and suggesting local cultivation. Local cultivation can be assumed for celery and summer savory, of which the leaves and stems rather than archaeologically visible seeds are eaten, and has been confirmed for walnut and grape, respectively, by pollen and processing evidence.12 Gardens and orchards, therefore, played an important role in the temperate European cultural landscape, perhaps from the later Iron Age and certainly in the Roman period. Temperate European farmers had doubtless long added variety to cereal dishes with gathered fruits, tubers, and greens. Precursors of beet, cabbage/turnip (Brassica spp.), carrot, and parsnip are all represented on pre-Roman habitation sites, and whether gathered or cultivated, were probably exploited for their leaves and /or tubers. Culinary use of exotic fruits and herbs was archaeologically more visible, while increasing urbanism presumably promoted greater reliance on cultivation, rather than gathering, as a source of dietary diversity. Like the consumption of exotic foods, however, the creation of gardens (including ornamental plants) was also an important cultural statement that drew on prototypes in Italy, classical Greece, and ultimately the Near East.

PAUL HALSTEAD

31

THE ROLE OF ANIMALS Cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs were reared, variously for their carcasses and secondary products (wool / hair, milk, labor), long before 1000 b.c.e. in both Mediterranean and temperate Europe. Horses, and more patchily, donkeys were also kept for riding, pack transport, or light draught, but were not normally eaten, and cattle were the principal plough animals. Chickens, originally from Southeast Asia, appear by the mid first millennium b.c.e. from Greece to Spain and north of the Alps, becoming abundant in the Roman period; thanks to survival and retrieval biases, their bones are certainly underrepresented. Favored in certain sacrificial contexts, chickens were also small enough for rearing and consumption by poor households. Exotic species in temperate Europe attest to the transport of preserved Mediterranean fish and the unintended introduction of grain pests. The main evidence for changing food production, however, is the relative frequencies of age, sex, or size categories of domestic animals, and these frequencies are influenced by selective consumption at particular sites (settlement vs. sanctuary, etc.), by selective discard in particular contexts, and by variability in methods of carcass processing, preservation, archaeological recovery, and zooarchaeological quantification. Analysis should control for such differences, or failing that, minimize the risk of generating misleading results by using a large and diverse sample of contexts and sites, such as those from Italy and especially west-central Europe beyond the Alps. A long-term decline in the size of livestock was reversed in the period under review. In Italy, sheep, cattle, and pigs exhibit more or less clear gains in size between the Republican (late first millennium b.c.e.) and Imperial (early first millennium c.e.) periods. In Greece, increasing size is reported for early first-millennium b.c.e sheep and goats at Kastanas in the northern mainland, sixth- to first-century b.c.e. sheep on Delos, and Classical to Roman oxen at Eleutherna on Crete. North of the Alps, similar trends occur between the Iron Age and Roman period from central Europe to southern Britain. There is debate, which may be resolved by ancient DNA, about whether the increasing size results from indigenous selective breeding and improved husbandry or the introduction of larger stock from advanced societies to south and east. Size sometimes increased gradually

32

FOOD PRODUCTION

over a few centuries, equally compatible with indigenous and exogenous explanations, but north of the Alps, atypically large cattle soon after (or even before) the Roman conquest and a change in horn type favor the idea that some new stock was introduced.13 Whether indigenous or introduced, larger improved animals will have been more demanding to feed, and north of the Alps where preservation is better than in the Mediterranean, there is archaeobotanical evidence for Iron Age and especially Roman hay meadows. Hay is more nutritious than straw, and unlike grains such as barley, cannot be diverted to humans after bad harvests. Together with oats and millets, possibly sown late for grazing as much as grain, hay perhaps sustained the increased size of livestock. Regional and local variability, in degree and timing of size increase and species affected, highlights the importance of the wider economy in providing potential and incentive for livestock improvement. Continuity of small cattle north of the Roman frontier, despite occasional large specimens arguably representing imported males, supports this point. Larger livestock were visually impressive, and presumably valued as evidence of expert or well-resourced husbandry, but they also provided larger carcasses, more labor and perhaps more or better wool and milk. Culling ages offer clues to the relative importance of these products: slaughter of infants frees milk for human consumption; animals approaching adult size offer most meat for least fodder; and those culled in old age are likely to have been used for traction, milk or wool production, or breeding. For cattle in Roman Italy, a majority of adult deaths (including many elderly) and a fairly balanced ratio of females to males overall (the latter mostly castrated oxen rather than entire bulls) suggests that husbandry was geared in large part toward providing draught animals, as the agricultural writers imply. A similar pattern is discernible at Roman Sagalassos in Turkey, at early first-millennium b.c.e Kastanas and fourth- to first-century b.c.e. Kassope in Greece, and perhaps in high proportions of adult and elderly cattle (unsexed) at Roman Pessinus in Turkey and Classical to Roman Eleutherna. North of the Alps, older adults are again well represented at Roman sites, and better than at local Iron Age sites or contemporary sites north of the frontier, while the predominant adult sex shifts from females in the Iron Age and early Roman period to males in the later Roman period. Pathological alterations to feet and horns support the use of many adult

PAUL HALSTEAD

33

cattle for heavy draught. The importance of draught oxen in Roman assemblages contrasts with reliance on working cows by recent Mediterranean smallholders. Coupled with the increasing size of Roman cattle, this implies a widespread need for powerful draught animals for extensive agriculture and /or heavy haulage. Working oxen were used before the Iron Age, however, in both Mediterranean and temperate Europe, and cows continued in this role, as illustrated by examples with “traction pathologies” at the small Iron Age–Roman rural settlements of Tiel-Passewaaij in the Netherlands.14 Thanks to large litters and the lack of secondary products, pigs consistently display younger mortality than cattle or sheep/goats. North of the Alps, rural villas with many adults presumably exported young pigs to urban and military sites, where immature animals are more frequent and the lack of fetal/newborn piglets sometimes argues against local breeding. No such pattern is evident in Italy where, conversely, fetal/newborn piglets suggest local husbandry at smaller urban as well as rural sites. The heavier build of Roman than Iron Age pigs north of the Alps has been attributed to rearing of more castrated males and later slaughter (especially in the second winter). A similar temporal trend occurs in the first to third and fourth centuries c.e. at Sagalassos in Turkey, and perhaps in Greece between early first-millennium b.c.e. Kastanas and Classical to Roman Eleutherna, with peak mortality in the first and second years, respectively. A distinction by Roman writers between large-scale extensive and small-scale intensive pig husbandry may be paralleled in iconographic representations of small bristly and larger smooth pigs, respectively, and perhaps in biometric data from Italy. Whereas the dental microwear of pigs from late Iron Age–Roman Elms Farm in England and Roman Sagalassos indicates intensive (stalled?) fattening before slaughter, however, linear enamel hypoplasia data from Sagalassos suggest a combined husbandry strategy with pigs mainly reared extensively.15 For sheep and goats (predominantly the former), data from Roman Italy suggest variability in husbandry, but neither infants nor adults are sufficiently frequent to imply specialized milk or wool production. The predominance of older juveniles and young adults, coupled with a reasonably even adult sex ratio, leaves open the possibility that wool as well as mutton was prioritized. In Greece, too, a majority of adult deaths with a fairly balanced sex ratio among sheep (but a prevalence of females among goats),

34

FOOD PRODUCTION

suggests compromise between meat and wool at early first-millennium b.c.e. Kastanas and fourth- to first-century b.c.e. Kassope. Slaughter concentrated on young adult sheep/goats at Classical to Roman Eleutherna might reflect a similar compromise, but younger culls at first-century b.c.e. Skardana on Delos (with females strongly predominant among adults of both species) and early first-millennium b.c.e. Kavousi-Kastro on Crete suggest the prioritization of meat (or meat and milk) over fiber. North of the Alps, where sheep strongly outnumber goats, infant deaths are few and adults predominant, while adult sex ratios (balanced for sheep, mainly female goats) support an emphasis on wool (or a meat/wool compromise) that intensifies from the Iron Age to Roman period. Mortality patterns vary in all regions, doubtless due partly to the selective export of age /sex categories from rural producers to urban or military consumers. They do not, however, suggest specialized dairying, as practiced by recent Mediterranean pastoralists, nor is specialized wool production likely. Rather, emphasis on meat or a meat / wool compromise (neither of which precludes small-scale cheese making) is implied for rural and urban sites alike. Mixed exploitation is consistent with the epigraphic record from fifth- to first-century b.c.e. Greece and Asia Minor and writings of Roman agronomists,16 despite the bias of both sources toward larger lowland flocks. It is also consistent, despite literary references to sheep breeds with desirable wool and an elite concern with luxury textiles, with downplaying of the scale and economic significance of the Roman weaving industry. As for pigs, Roman writers distinguish between small-scale stationary and large-scale mobile herding of sheep, and the latter is documented in inscriptions dealing with the movement of livestock across administrative boundaries in Classical-Hellenistic Greece and Republican-Imperial Italy. Such evidence has invited comparison with very large-scale medieval and early modern transhumance, but need not indicate movement of large numbers or over long distances. Indeed, quite wealthy landowners in Classical-Hellenistic Greece owned flocks of 50–200 head, matched by many recent farmers of modest means and dwarfed by the flocks of transhumant shepherds. On the other hand, between 500 b.c.e. and 500 c.e., the emergence of major urban markets, the development of extensive agriculture and large landholdings, and the subjugation of vast areas to a single political authority created conditions that were increasingly favorable to

PAUL HALSTEAD

35

large-scale mobile herding. On the Crau coastal plain in southern France, Roman sheep stalls (identified from sedimentary traces of dung) imply substantial flocks of 700 and a total of 150,000 sheep around 100 c.e. One excavated stall overwhelmingly yielded sheep bones, while abundant newborn and young lambs and the absence of older lambs suggest their presence in winter only.17 Flocks could have moved in summer, however, not to the high Alps (as did their recent counterparts), but to nearer uplands or local wetlands. In the high French Alps, neither archaeological nor paleoecological evidence suggests increased human activity, pastoral or otherwise, in the Roman (as opposed to medieval) period.18 Roman traces are richer in the more modest Apennine uplands of central Italy, but some at least suggest arable rather than pastoral activity. Likewise, Iron Age settlements on the high central Anatolian plateau, with winters far more severe than in central Italy, yielded faunal evidence for year-round occupation; diverse livestock more typical of mixed farming than specialist pastoralism; and culling of sheep /goats, suggesting an emphasis on meat rather than milk or wool. While seasonal movement doubtless took place between lowland winter and upland summer pastures in the ancient Mediterranean, its scale was arguably much smaller than in medieval and early modern times. Indirect support for this view comes from the contribution of different species to meat consumption. Although recent Mediterranean transhumance involved goats, cattle, and even pigs, sheep were most numerous and best suited to grazing both the short summer pasture of the high mountains and winter pasture of lowland fallow fields. Other things being equal, therefore, a major expansion in transhumant herding during classical antiquity should have increased the proportion of sheep among regional livestock, and ultimately, among deadstock consumed at archaeological sites. In fact, there is no consistent trend in Republican to late Antique Italy and sheep / goats decline from the Bronze Age to the Roman period in central Italy. Sheep /goats likewise decline through time in favor of cattle and /or pigs at early first-millennium b.c.e. Kastanas and fourth- to second-century b.c.e. Kassope in Greece, and at Roman Sagalassos in Turkey. Thus, any expansion in transhumant herding of sheep /goats was insufficient to affect meat consumption patterns in the lowland towns that were the likely market for such animals. North of the Alps, the relative frequency of sheep

36

FOOD PRODUCTION

also declines in favor of pigs and especially cattle from the late Iron Age to the late Roman period, in both central and western Europe. Moreover, given the widespread trend toward later culling of cattle and pigs (and less clearly, sheep), the decline of sheep among deadstock was possibly even more marked than among livestock. Some scholars have interpreted changing deadstock proportions, and their differential association with military versus civilian or Romanized versus native sites, in terms of Roman or Romanized dietary preferences, but such choices were constrained by the changing mixed farming and broader economic regime—not least the use of many cattle for draught before slaughter and consumption. Animal bones cannot normally illuminate average levels of meat consumption. Jongman argues that a peak in bone deposition under the Roman Empire represents rising meat intake and accounts for increased human stature.19 The number of bones recovered and published per century, however, is too influenced by archaeological formation processes and research priorities to be a reliable guide to the rate of bone deposition, while the latter must be calibrated against human population size to monitor meat consumption per caput. Conversely, increasing population and urbanism favor consumption of more staple grains and less animal produce. Admittedly, larger livestock and evidence for improved feeding indicate some intensification of animal rearing, but increasing proportions of elderly cattle and perhaps adult sheep will have reduced the efficiency of meat production, while the stable or declining proportion of sheep argues against large-scale mobile herding. A decline in average meat consumption thus seems more likely, and though animal protein was also consumed as cheese, is consistent with the stable isotopic data if extensive cereal agriculture lowered the intake of pulses (as discussed previously). Average protein intake is less important for stature than are dietary security and the distribution of food resources through society. In the latter context, rearing of chickens and the development of specialist urban butchers may have widened access to meat.

CONCLUSIONS Greco-Roman society was essentially sustained by grain crops. Over time, this society became progressively urban, with an increasing proportion of the population dependent on grain produced by others, whether locally

PAUL HALSTEAD

37

or—notably for Imperial Rome and some Roman frontier troops—far away. Most of this grain for towns and army was the product of extensive agriculture, as described by classical writers and reflected in archaeobotanical weed floras and zooarchaeological evidence for draught oxen. Written sources also imply that many Greek and Roman citizens held too little land to support or occupy a pair of draught cattle, and alongside extensive agriculture, more intensive cultivation is indicated by weed data from pre-Roman northeast England (and probably underrepresented elsewhere). Cultivation on a modest scale, potentially with intensive methods, is also implied (and again, doubtless, underestimated) by zooarchaeological evidence for draught cows. While extensive, ox-powered agriculture arguably underpinned GrecoRoman surplus production, ample evidence of agricultural intensification ranges from the construction of large-scale irrigation or drainage systems,20 through local cutting of drainage ditches or field drains, to labor-intensive haymaking and the spreading of manure from stall-fed working cattle. Conquest and increasingly inequitable land ownership presumably made labor available for both capital projects and intensive husbandry. Between 1000 b.c.e. and 500 c.e., free-threshing wheats suitable for bread making became increasingly common, but glume wheats, barley, and millet continued to be grown, widely joined by oats or rye. These less prestigious cereals provided food for the poor and fodder for livestock, while the permeable distinction between these categories buffered the poor against periodic scarcity. A cereal-based diet was enlivened by fruits, nuts, vegetables, herbs, and spices, the range of which was greatly enriched by several introductions and a few imports from the Near East, Africa, and Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean and thence to temperate Europe. The dissemination of new species and the spread of gardens and orchards marked the diffusion of exotic and often elite tastes, but was also a practical response to the constraints of urbanism and extensive agriculture on dietary diversity. In the Mediterranean, evidence for the cultivation, processing, and distribution of nonstaple crops is particularly widespread and abundant for olives and vines. The increased capacity of Imperial Roman over Classical Greek processing facilities matches the steep rise in volume of traded oil and wine implied by ceramic transport vessels, but also suggests that the commercial production of oil and wine—like grain—was dominated by wealthy landowners.

38

FOOD PRODUCTION

During the first millennium b.c.e., the domestic chicken spread across Mediterranean and temperate Europe. Easily reared, even by urban dwellers, chickens may have widened access to animal protein. Cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats became increasingly unsuitable for domestic consumption, thanks to larger size, later slaughter, and declining relative importance of small sheep and goats. Epigraphic and iconographic evidence for specialized urban and military butchers is confirmed by zooarchaeological evidence for standardized carcass processing and heavy cleavers. Zooarchaeology sheds no direct light on whether average meat consumption increased or decreased, but meat production was progressively subordinated to the prior exploitation of cattle for labor and of sheep for wool. The increasing size of domesticates implies more intensive husbandry, compatible with archaeobotanical evidence for fodder crops and haymaking. Coupled with the declining proportions of sheep, this suggests that the growth of extensive agriculture was not matched by similar expansion in extensive mobile herding; this, in turn, arguably favors the view that there was a reduction in average meat intake. Either way, epigraphic and literary sources indicate that at least some transhumant herds were owned by wealthy individuals (including the Roman emperor), and if sheepherding was mostly small- to medium-scale, this leaves limited scope for independent specialized pastoralists, invisible in the written record. If commercial production of livestock, oil, and wine was indeed largely under the control of wealthy lowland landowners, this contrasts with the specialized pastoralists and viticultural smallholders of the recent past. Together with the lack of evidence for specialized management of livestock for wool or milk, this suggests that classical Greek and even Imperial Roman farming was significantly less market-oriented than its medieval and modern counterparts.21 The Greco-Roman world witnessed considerable changes in food production, including new crops, some new (primarily processing) technology, and both the intensification and extensification of husbandry practices. The first appearance, in Europe, of written advice on farming, reinforced by rapid change following Roman conquests north of the Alps, has favored emphasis on advances in agronomic knowledge as a source of innovation. The advice of classical authors is often moralizing or idealized, however, and much that is pragmatic was probably common knowledge among

PAUL HALSTEAD

39

farmers. Bioarchaeological evidence, conversely, suggests the piecemeal introduction of new species and breeds and the adoption of new husbandry practices over many centuries in the Mediterranean, and even to some extent in temperate Europe. Exposure to new species, tastes, and perhaps technologies promoted changes in food production in Mediterranean and temperate Europe alike, but the adoption of these innovations must be understood in the context of related developments in social hierarchy, urbanism, surplus mobilization, and diacritical consumption. The increasingly dense, nucleated, hierarchical, and large-scale societies of classical antiquity were sustained by extensive agriculture that owed more to inequalities in control of land and labor than to agricultural innovation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I thank Umberto Albarella, John Bennet, Valasia Isaakidou, Wim Jongman, Anna Lagia, Jane Rempel and Sevi Triantaphyllou for bibliographical help and comments.

CHAPTER TWO

Food Systems in Classical Antiquity wim broek aert and arjan zuiderhoek

How did ancient Greeks and Romans acquire the food they needed? For most people at all times and everywhere in the ancient world, the answer to that question was easy: they were farmers who cultivated their own food. Small farmers and their families consumed most of what they produced. They sold their surplus on the local urban market to raise money to buy the necessities they lacked and pay off debts, rents, and taxes. Wealthy landowners similarly fed their households, stocked some of their produce, and sold the rest. For people living in towns and cities, the situation was different: they had to buy most of their food (at least if they were not urban-based farmers who commuted daily to their lands in the city’s territory, as many townspeople did throughout Greco-Roman history). If they were attached to elite households as slaves, freedmen, or clients, they might also receive part of their nourishment from their masters or patrons. Those with citizen status might also receive food distributions from the civic government, either as emergency rations in times of shortage, or on a regular basis, as in the case of the later Republican and imperial Roman annona. Then, there might be the occasional generous elite benefactor, doling out grain, wine, or olive oil,

42

FOOD SYSTEMS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

or organizing a public banquet. Also, meat was often distributed among the populace after religious sacrifices. Whatever the means by which its urban inhabitants acquired their food in practice, every ancient town tried to live largely off its own land. Selfsufficiency was the economic and moral ideal. The ideal, however, was not often matched by reality, for throughout classical antiquity, food (especially the Mediterranean staples, grain, wine, and olive oil) was distributed over wide areas, regional and interregional. In this chapter, therefore, we will focus on the transportation, advertising, and marketing of foodstuffs in the ancient world. We will discuss the different ways in which food reached the Greek and Roman consumer. Attention will be given to various distribution patterns, from the noneconomic redistribution of food by cities and empires to large-scale commercial trade. We will also discuss local markets and the everyday sale of foodstuffs in shops and stalls. Finally, we will devote some attention to the technology of transportation and to the diverse ways in which foodstuffs were advertised.

INTERREGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF FOOD AND THE MECHANISMS OF FOOD EXCHANGE In this section, we focus on the medium- and long-distance distribution of foodstuffs in antiquity. We concentrate first on the main factors stimulating such distribution—climate, population growth, empire, demand for (semi-) luxuries, and cultural preferences—and then on the various forms this distribution assumed (i.e., reciprocity, redistribution, market exchange). What were the main factors generating interregional food distribution in classical antiquity? First, in a Mediterranean setting characterized by raindependent dry farming (that is, little or no irrigation), high interannual and interregional variability in rainfall, and great microecological variation, gluts in one region would often be matched by shortages in another, leading to the exchange of foodstuffs, for which the Mediterranean Sea proved a useful conduit.1 Such trade might either take the form of gift exchange between friendly states, or of commercial trade, as we shall see below. Secondly, uneven population growth between regions and cities eventually caused some communities to outgrow the productive potential of their hinterlands. One solution to this problem, practiced by Greek poleis

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

43

throughout the archaic period, but starting even earlier, was to send off (part of ) the surplus population to establish a new settlement elsewhere.2 It is indeed noteworthy that many of these new poleis were founded in conspicuously fertile areas (e.g., southern Italy and Sicily, southern France, the Black Sea coast).3 Some of the western settlements may well have become net exporters of grain to Greece proper during the archaic period, though we have very little direct evidence for such trade.4 This easily brings us to another solution often adopted by cities when population outgrew local food supply: food imports. Numerous Greek and Roman cities had to import grain on a regular basis. The main suppliers for Greece were the Black Sea region and Egypt, and to a lesser degree the western half of the Mediterranean.5 The Roman Empire largely relied on the provinces (Sicily, Egypt, Africa, Spain, Gaul).6 The most famous and best-known importers were of course the large cities of Athens and Rome. Precisely when Athens first became dependent on non-Attic grain is much debated, but scholars agree that for most of the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e. (as well as later on), the Athenians needed substantial grain imports to feed their population.7 During this period, much of the grain arrived in Athens simply because the city’s huge demand for it attracted many traders. The vital importance of the grain supply meant, however, that the city authorities could not remain uninvolved. During the fourth century b.c.e., the grain supply was a fixed item on the agenda of the Athenian assembly and the city had to engage in complex diplomatic relations with those states controlling the grain supplying areas, chiefly in the Black Sea region, to secure privileged access to supplies.8 In the preceding fifth century, on the other hand, Athens had made full use of its then unrivalled fleet and eastern Mediterranean empire of subject Greek cities to make sure that as many grain ships as possible found their way to the Piraeus. Wardens were stationed on the Hellespont, and there is some evidence to suggest that Athens could easily regulate the supply of Pontic grain coming through, holding up ships heading for rebel or enemy cities at Byzantium.9 Recent research suggests that fifth-century Athens also made full use of its cleruchies (land allotments to Athenian citizens in the territories of subject poleis) to supply itself with grain, depopulating grainrich areas such as the islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, and allotting

44

FOOD SYSTEMS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

the land to wealthy Athenians to farm in large holdings, which were then taxed in kind by the city.10 Much of what has been said so far for the Greek world also applies mutatis mutandis to Rome. Numerous merchants from Italy and the provinces travelled to the capital, confident that they could sell their food supplies to the ever-hungry Roman masses.11 During the early Republic, before Rome could rely on extensive taxes in kind from the provinces, shortages were dealt with by sending envoys and ad hoc magistrates to friendly nations. In this way, Rome managed to survive the shortage of 492 b.c.e., negotiating with the Sicilian tyrant and buying sufficient grain.12 With the gradual building of an empire, however, and the consequent introduction of taxes levied in kind, the mechanisms of buying additional grain and gift exchange slowly disappeared. The capture of Egypt, the largest Mediterranean grain supplier, in particular eased the food supply. With this, we have touched on a third factor stimulating interregional food distribution in antiquity, namely political and military domination, or in short, empire. Fifth-century Athens used its imperial power to regulate to some extent the flow of foodstuffs in the eastern Mediterranean, and to exploit grain-rich areas to its own advantage. In the following centuries, while individual Greek poleis remained perennially concerned with their own food supply, Hellenistic monarchies drew in (besides money taxes) large quantities of foodstuffs as taxes in kind, which were then redistributed where needed, exported, or sold in the market. In Hellenistic Egypt under Ptolemy II, the state’s annual grain revenue amounted to six million artabas, sufficient to feed 500,000 adults for a year.13 The Roman state, of course the empire pur sang, raised substantial taxes in kind on a much larger scale. These consisted primarily of grain and possibly oil as well, a significant part of which was used for free distributions to the citizens of Rome (the annona), with the rest either being sold off (and thus converted into money) or distributed among the legions (the annona militaris).14 For the Republican era, we can only make an educated guess as to the grain imports from one province, namely Sicily. In 73 b.c.e., 3 million modii were levied as fiscal grain, while Rome decided to buy an additional 3.8 million, totaling 6.8 million or nearly 60,000 tons.15 Imperial Rome, however, could rely on the massive amounts of annual Egyptian tax grain, which is estimated to have added up to 25 to 30 million modii.16 The

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

45

other North African provinces are thought to have exported another 27 to 30 million modii, which would put at Rome’s disposal a total of some 60 million modii or 522,000 tons.17 To these figures should be added the minor (but hardly quantifiable) imports from Sicily, Sardinia, Gaul, Spain, and other provinces. No doubt the annona was one of the greatest organizational accomplishments of the Roman Empire. A byproduct of the creation of territorial empires such as the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman Empire was the rise of supra-urban or imperial elites. Together with the kings and emperors, they were the superrich of antiquity. Large estates held in widely diverse regions by members of such elites, like the holdings donated by kings to royal favorites (philoi) in the Hellenistic world, or the provincial estates owned by Roman knights and senators, would also contribute to the (long-distance) movement of foodstuffs, primarily grain, wine, and olive oil, as harvests were processed and sold off to generate money rents. The same would of course be true for the vast estates held by the Roman emperors themselves in various parts of the empire. These remarks on elite income bring us to a fourth factor stimulating interregional food distribution, namely above-subsistence and elite demand for (semi-)luxuries. The ancient world’s staple was grain. The diet of the poor consisted mostly of cereal porridge, and even the wealthy ate a lot of bread. Add to this some olive oil, dry legumes and pulses (broad beans, lentils, chickpeas, and peas), and cheap wine, and you have the basic ingredients of the Greco-Roman diet.18 For the poor, most other things were already a luxury. It is not the case that they never got any of these things; as said, in towns, meat from the animal victims was often distributed after sacrifices, and small farmers often kept some pigs, goats, or chickens whose meat, milk, or eggs might be consumed. Some fruits, dried or fresh, might also often be available. Yet the distinction between the staple and anything else was fundamental, and became enshrined in Greek thought: they spoke of sitos (grain, the staple, in the form of bread), to which one might add opson, “relish,” which could be anything from boiled vegetables, onions, garlic, cheese, olives, or any kind of sauce to fish and seafood.19 The demand for opson and other delicacies gave rise to the long-distance movement of quality products. A few examples may suffice. High-quality wines from famous wine-producing regions such as the Chalcidice, Chios, Lesbos, Samos, and Thasos were transported all around the Mediterranean

46

FOOD SYSTEMS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

and have been discovered in large quantities in Athens and Rome, but also in smaller cities such as Pompeii.20 Greek fish connoisseurs craved eel from Lake Copais.21 For the more discerning customer, we find Persian dried fruit, nuts from Herakleia, and Egyptian beans for sale in the Athenian agora.22 Spanish quality fish sauces were sold in Rome for thousands of sesterces, while pepper and spices from Egypt, Arabia, and India were in such high demand that a special warehouse, the horrea piperataria, was built.23 Vivid pictures of luxurious dining Roman-style can also be found in the enumeration of delicacies in Apicius’s cookbook, De re coquinaria, or Petronius’s comical description of the Cena Trimalchionis, the most famous (and decadent) Roman banquet. While the volume of long-distance distribution of abovesubsistence foodstuffs should not be overestimated, neither should it be neglected. It catered for a sizeable section of middling citizens in both Greek and Roman cities, whose aggregate demand could be quite substantial. Above-subsistence and elite patterns of consumption bring us finally to a fifth factor stimulating interregional food distribution, namely the geographical spread of Mediterranean cultural preferences in food consumption (wine, olive oil, fish sauce) throughout the ancient world. Thus, the spread of Greek cities eastwards in the centuries after Alexander initiated what was to become a substantial export of olive oil from the coastal areas of Asia Minor into the Anatolian hinterland, where the olive tree will not grow.24 Contacts with Greek and Roman traders allowed Gallic aristocrats in the early first century b.c.e. to distinguish themselves from their beer-drinking inferiors by drinking wine imported from Roman Italy or the Greek city of Massilia.25 Finally, the large-scale presence of Roman soldiers along the imperial border (limes) in the west generated a considerable import of olive oil, wine, and fish sauce (garum) into northwestern Europe. As the empire progressed, the soldiers increasingly shifted their preferences to local foodstuffs (pork and beer), yet olive oil, imported from Spain and North Africa, remained an important part of the military diet.26 In such ways, food and identity interacted to generate specific, culturally induced patterns of distribution.

FORMS OF FOOD DISTRIBUTION So far, little has been said about the various forms that the interregional distribution of food assumed in antiquity. All foodstuffs that were not

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

47

directly consumed by their producers were distributed via some kind of exchange. Anthropologists and historians of premodern societies have distinguished between reciprocity (or gift exchange), redistribution (also called administered trade), and commerce (or market exchange) to categorize systems of exchange. All three are well documented in Greco-Roman food distribution. First, reciprocity is visible in the gift exchange between neighboring farmers, recommended by Hesiod, and in the gift of food by a patron to his client, who offered obedience and loyalty in return.27 On an urban level, we see gift exchange in the activity of the wealthy benefactor, who treated his city to a banquet and received public honors in exchange. Numerous honorific inscriptions from the Greek and Roman world mention benefactors distributing grain, oil, wine, or small baskets containing some food and money to their fellow citizens.28 Even the relationship between the Athenians and their main grain providers, the Bosporan kings, while involving a fair bit of market exchange, was presented in reciprocal terms, with the suppliers receiving public honors for their benefactions.29 The Roman Republic, too, was quite adept at pulling diplomatic strings and calling on gifts. One can question, however, whether gift is an adequate notion, as most of the time Rome initiated the gift exchange and Rome’s military power was expanding rapidly across the Mediterranean world.30 The creation of an empire with taxpaying provinces implies that in Roman imperial times, interregional gift exchange became rarer, though a widespread use of gift exchange is again posited for late antiquity, when market efficiency is believed to have dwindled.31 Second, redistribution, or the gathering of goods at a political center from where they are then distributed, is visible, for instance, in the public grain dole at Rome (annona), though a lot of this grain reached Rome by means of (subsidized) commercial shipping. The gathering (and subsequent distribution) of foodstuffs as taxes in kind by rulers, kings, or emperors, might also fall under this heading. Market exchange, finally, was present in the ancient world from Homeric times onwards. The Greek and Roman economies were economies with markets (though one might hesitate to call them market economies), where food was bought and sold for a market price, and haggling was common practice.32 Much traffic in foodstuffs, therefore, from basic staple goods

48

FOOD SYSTEMS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

to more refined ingredients, had always been in the hands of private traders, from the merchant who modestly bought a wagonload of agricultural surpluses to sell them in a neighboring urban marketplace to the wholesale trader who shipped thousands of amphorae to a market in another city, region, or province.33 The impact of market exchange on food systems and price levels should not be underestimated. Local supply and demand, but also the intermediary role of the travelling merchant, especially those dealing in the basic ingredients of the Mediterranean diet, determined market prices for food. Hoarding supplies or keeping the impending arrival of other merchants a secret were but some of the techniques traders used to force up food prices, in the meantime jeopardizing the citizens’ security.34 City and state authorities, however, took some care to prevent harvest fluctuations and merchants’ interventions from making staple foods too expensive for the mass of the urban population. They set up public grain funds to buy or distribute grain at a subsidized price during shortages or relied on benefactors to offer cheap or free supplies (redistribution again).35 In general, we might say that market exchange was a significant addition to reciprocity and redistribution, the three forms essentially being complementary yet of varying importance for single-food systems. We can safely assume that reciprocity and redistribution prevailed in rather secluded economic systems, such as archaic Greece, with trade playing only a minor role in food exchange. Once the determinants of empire—such as the gradual unification of measures, weights, and currency; Greek and Latin as linguae francae; diminution of piracy and war; and more uniform legal systems—reduced trading costs and stimulated economic integration, market exchange was allowed a more substantial role in the Mediterranean food system, without, however, eliminating reciprocity and redistribution.36 It should be stressed that food exchange systems did not function flawlessly. Thus, while it is certainly true that Mediterranean ecological fragmentation stimulated trade in foodstuffs, so that gluts in one region would compensate for scarcity elsewhere, it is also true that this system worked best for cities located on or near the seacoast. More inland communities would often be left to fend for themselves during a food shortage, as Gregory of Nazianzus noted on the occasion of a famine at landlocked Caesarea in Cappadocia.37 The Mediterranean Sea, moreover, was only

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

49

safely navigable for ancient seagoing vessels during the months from April to November. In the winter months, the sea was closed, or as a Roman military writer put it, mare clausum, due to heavy storms and generally adverse conditions.38 The dangers of sea travel at any time, summer or winter, were so well known as to become a topos in ancient literature: Trimalchio, the absurdly rich freedman of Petronius’s Satyricon, lost five ships loaded with wine at one stroke during a heavy storm.39

MARKETS AND FAIRS The ancient world knew markets, to some limited extent (arguably) in the abstract sense of modern economics, but certainly in the common physical sense of the marketplace. Food was sold in a variety of such marketplaces and at other occasional gatherings. Markets and fairs could be organized on a daily basis (usually in larger cities), periodically every one or two weeks (predominantly in more rural settings), or in conjunction with (often annual) religious festivals. The scale and supplies of the markets obviously widely diverged. Local fairs and markets concentrated on small-scale exchange and the marketing of rural surpluses. Regional fairs were characterized by large-scale transactions, involving the sale of specialized merchandize, in particular livestock, while interregional fairs attracted merchants from the whole of the Mediterranean world and were dominated by the sale of nonlocal and often luxurious items.40 The archetypical ancient marketplace, however, was the agora or forum, located at the heart of the Greco-Roman city, often, as in Athens, combining political, administrative, legal, religious, and economic activities all in one, though it should be noted that in some poleis there were separate agorae for political and economic activities.41 In classical Athens, though food products were sold in other parts of the city as well (particularly in Piraeus), the central agora became progressively more important as a food market.42 Buying one’s food in the agora, instead of growing everything on one’s farm, came to be seen as proper democratic behavior, because it entailed participation in the patterns of communal exchange between citizens; these exchanges might be political, judicial, social, or indeed economic.43 The intermingling of different activities in the agora of course invited comment. Thus, the fourth-century b.c.e. comic poet Euboulos makes

50

FOOD SYSTEMS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

fun of the spatial proximity of economic transactions and legal proceedings in the agora, while at the same time revealing a glimpse of the wide array of foodstuffs that might be bought there: In one and the same place you will find all kinds of things for sale together at Athens: figs, bailiffs, bunches of grapes, turnips, pears, apples, witnesses, roses, medlars, milk-puddings, honeycomb, chickpeas, lawsuits, beestings-pudding, curds, myrtle, allotment machines, irises, lambs, waterclocks, laws and indictments.44 Most Roman markets shared basically the same features as the Greek ones. In the capital, however, we notice a marked distinction between politics and economic life, and again, a remarkable increase in scale. With the growth of the empire, the Roman forum became the habitat of politicians and lawyers, while commercial exchange was shifted to other places. In permanent marketplaces or macella, a wide variety of meat and fish could be purchased. Smaller fora specialized further, in the sale of cattle, vegetables, pork, fish, and wine.45 Ancient cities tried to regulate their markets to some extent. Market overseers (agoranomoi, aediles), who had to ensure that wares were of acceptable quality, correctly weighed and measured and fairly priced, were a near universal phenomenon. In particular, and for obvious reasons, crucial staples such as grain received much administrative attention. Classical Athens employed a small army of officials to regulate the grain supply, ranging from port supervisors (epimeletai tou emporiou) to grain wardens (sitophylakes) to public grain buyers (sitonai), who bought up grain during local shortages.46 Aristotle speaks of grain measurers (sitometrai) as a common type of civic official in Greek cities.47 Sitonai with duties similar to those in Athens are well known in Hellenistic times and abundantly attested to in the poleis of Roman Asia Minor.48 At Rome, very similar mechanisms were at work. The central annona administration was not only responsible for collecting and importing the necessary food for the distributions, but also for keeping an eye on the Roman market and price levels. As the majority of the Roman populace bought their food on a day-to-day basis, some market regulation was indispensable.49 If shortages threatened daily food rations, citizens addressed the

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

51

emperor, hoping that additional measures by the praefectus annonae and his staff would be taken to ensure the arrival of grain. Usually, temporary price fixing on the Roman marketplaces, buying extra supplies from the provinces, or selling reserves stored in the horrea at a subsidized price, would save Rome from starvation.50 Even outside actual shortage periods, the civic authorities could not always keep the food market entirely under control. In the Hellenistic capitals and Rome, the power of the central government was great, but in smaller provincial cities, artificial scarcity was sometimes created by elite landowners refusing to sell their produce on the local market, speculatively holding on to it to await higher prices, or to sell in another locality where demand and thus profits would be greater. Such behavior often led to riots among the urban populace, sometimes to central government intervention, and just occasionally, to a performance by a miracle worker.51

SHOPS, STALLS, AUCTIONS, AND PUBS The urban population mostly bought their food, drinks, and other ingredients in small shops and stalls, such as the one operated by Abudia Megiste, who sold grain and vegetables in a booth at a flight of steps in Rome.52 These stalls of canvas or wickerwork (skenai) could be found all across the city and especially lining the marketplaces and fora.53 Stalls selling the same or similar commodities seem to have clustered in their own corners.54 Thus, we hear of an ichtyopolis, or fish market, within the Athenian agora district, and people would go to “the wine,” or “the olive oil,” “the vegetables,” “the garlic and the onions,” and so on, suggesting that these were sold in fixed locales on or around the square.55 Many temporary stalls were also set up in small squares or courtyards, in porticoes, or on street corners. In the Roman world, permanent food shops were easy to recognize by their wide entrances, where part of the merchandize was displayed in large jars or on shelves, but classical Greek shops (ergasteria) are often quite hard to distinguish from ordinary private houses.56 Lysias mentions the many shops surrounding the Athenian agora, and excavators have found numerous remains, including those of wine shops or taverns just east of the agora.57 More specific commercial buildings were also constructed, such as the Stoa of Attalos, erected on the Athenian agora in the second

52

FOOD SYSTEMS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

century b.c.e. by King Attalos II of Pergamon, which housed forty-two shops and effectively served as “the ancient predecessor of the modern shopping mall.”58 Roman artwork offers some clues on the ancient shopping experience. Many funerary monuments are decorated with scenes depicting life and work in food shops. One can see a butcher boning hams, a wine merchant behind a counter with amphorae on the wall, and customers choosing the geese they want to have processed or testing a cushion’s softness.59 We know that in the Roman world, food could also be bought at auctions, although these usually involved the sale of bulk commodities such as large batches of wine or small samples of luxury ingredients.60 We may assume the same applies to the Greek world, though sources are lacking. Finally, we also need to mention the availability of ready-made food. As cooking infrastructure was not available to every citizen and many dined out often, food was also sold for immediate consumption. Refreshments and small snacks such as cakes, hot sausages, peas, and beans could be purchased from itinerant hawkers strolling around in the streets, such as the (female) bread and sausage sellers mocked in the comedies of Aristophanes and invariably ridiculed in Roman literature.61 Pubs and bars offered dry food (vegetables, grain, beans, nuts, and dried fruit), hot meals (soup, porridge, and meat), and a variety of vintages.62 Yet, if we are to believe both Roman literature and the scribbling on Pompeian walls, one couldn’t set one’s hopes too high when entering a Roman pub. They were gathering places for thieves and murderers, pestered with parasites, without chamber pots or decent couches to recline on, and the landlords served cheap wine!63

TRANSPORT Transport, especially over land, has been called “the greatest failure of ancient technology,” and has been deemed slow, costly, and highly inefficient.64 Recent scholarship, however, has rather stressed the accomplishments of Greek and Roman transport, which apparently effortlessly parallel those of other preindustrial societies.65 In the total movement of goods, food transport took the greatest share, as large quantities of grain, wine, oil, and other foodstuffs were brought from the countryside to the urban consumers. Food imports to urban giants, such as Athens, Rome,

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

53

Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage in particular relied on a complex transport system. Most food was transported over land and over short distances. Farmers and local merchants brought their merchandise to a nearby market with porters, carts, and pack animals or drove their livestock on foot.66 Liquids were transported in large hides, while dry foodstuffs were usually stored in sacks.67 Whenever food had to be moved over large distances, water transport, which was quicker and cheaper, was preferred. Therefore, landowners were advised to locate their estate close to a river or the sea.68 A large variety of ship types engaged in food transport, with cargo capacities ranging from 25 to no less than 500 tons.69 For shipping liquids such as wine, oil, and fish sauce, several types of transport ceramics or amphorae were used.70 Dry food was often taken aboard in sacks, as can be seen in the famous fresco of the Isis Giminiana, a river barge being loaded by porters carrying sacks of wheat.71 Sometimes, grain was stored loose in the hold.72 Ancient wrecks also indicate that, occasionally, amphorae could be reused as containers for salted meat, nuts, olives, and so on.73 For the bulk transport of liquids, a specialized ship type was developed, in which several dolia were attached in the hold. These large earthen containers could each hold 528 gallons or more. It has been calculated that dolia enabled shippers to take aboard fifty percent more merchandise than when using amphorae.74 This kind of technological development enabling mass transport highlights the enormous amounts of food transported across the Mediterranean. As mentioned previously, however, seaborne trade remained a dangerous business: highly profitable, but highly risky.

ADVERTISING Just like any person who wants to sell something today, Greek and Roman merchants had to advertise their products to attract customers and convince them to buy. Various methods were used. The most straightforward method of advertising was simply praising the merchandise in a loud voice. A famous example of a merchant’s neverending rattle can be found in Herodas’s depiction of the shoe seller Cerdo.75 Aristophanes, in the Acharnians, has the farmer Dicaeopolis comment

54

FOOD SYSTEMS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

upon the constant cries of “buy my charcoal, my vinegar, my oil, my anything” characteristic of the city, while the Roman philosopher Seneca no doubt rightfully complained about the constant shouting of hawkers, trying to sell their cakes and sausages in the public baths.76 Hawkers’ cries are remarkably often ridiculed in Greek and Roman literature: Lucian portrays Hermes as a noisy auctioneer in his satire Philosophies for Sale and Apuleius offers a parody of a peddler’s speech to sell a stubborn donkey.77 Another option for merchants was to use visual advertising. This could easily be done by displaying the most attractive merchandise directly to the customer or at the storefront and offering samples.78 Shop and inn owners sometimes had their names and an indication of the building’s purpose painted on the wall. At the entrance of a Pompeian inn, one can read “inn of C. Hyginius Firmus.”79 Inside, frescoes of people drinking, eating, and shopping can regularly be found.80 Paintings could also indicate the products sold. One of Ostia’s taverns, the thermopolium in the Via di Diana, was decorated with a fresco showing a variety of vegetables and fruits that were available there, such as olives, turnips, peaches (or eggs?), and watermelon (or cheese?).81 A fresco on the exterior of a wine shop in Herculaneum even showed various vintages with the prices added below.82 Others decorated their shops and houses with mosaics showing the merchandise in which they specialized. The famous Pompeian fish sauce merchant A. Umbricius Scaurus adorned the impluvium of his house with mosaics representing the amphorae he produced and sold in his shop. We may safely assume that part of his business dealings were transacted in this room, with the mosaics being used as both advertisements and as an indication of the merchant’s wealth for every customer to see.83 Plaques with small but meaningful reliefs could be placed close to the shops’ entrances. In Pompeii, a plaque with a relief of a goat was built into the wall of a milk dealer’s shop. Another showed two men carrying a wine amphora and no doubt indicated an inn or wine shop.84 Merchants also made use of painted inscriptions (tituli picti) on containers (usually amphorae), which offered product information meant to advertise.85 These texts can identify the brand, the origin, a special preparation, the quality, or a famous producer. Some mention “high-quality sauce made from mackerel” (gari flos scombri), “fish sauce from Pompeii” (garum Pompeianum), “high-quality piquant fish sauce” (muria arguta

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

55

flos), “high-quality fish sauce” (gari flos), and “high-quality fish sauce made from mackerel, prepared according to the recipe of Scaurus in the workshop of Scaurus” (gari flos scombri Scauri ex officina Scauri).86

CONCLUSION In the ancient world, most people ate food they produced themselves. Whether they would have enough, too much, or too little depended mostly on the vagaries of the weather. Nonfarming urban inhabitants, however, faced a double insecurity: not just the skies but also the relative efficiency of systems of exchange, transport, and marketing—local, regional, and interregional—determined whether their bellies would be filled. That despite occasional shortages, or more rarely, famines, Greeks and Romans for many centuries managed to feed the inhabitants of the very numerous cities that constituted their world is, in the final analysis, testament to the comparative robustness of the food systems of classical antiquity.

CHAPTER THREE

Food Security, Safety, and Crises paul erdkamp

The Eternal City was fearing the disaster of a coming shortage of grain, and from time to time Tertullus, who was prefect at the time, was assailed by the violent threats of the commons, as they anticipated famine, the worst of all ills. —Ammianus Marcellinus 19.10.1–2 Suddenly there came into our view to-day the Alexandrian ships,—I mean those which are usually sent ahead to announce the coming of the grain fleet; they are called “mail-boats.” The Campanians are glad to see them; all the rabble of Puteoli stand on the docks, and they can recognize the Alexandrian boats, no matter how great the crowd of vessels, by the very trim of their sails. . . . While everybody was rushing about and hurrying to the water-front, I felt great pleasure in my laziness. —Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 77.1–2 Imperial Rome, a city of nearly a million inhabitants, depended on the timely arrival of overseas shipments of food. As the cases at the start of the chapter show, disruption of these shipments caused fear of famine—the

58

FOOD SECURITY, SAFETY, AND CRISES

worst of all evils—with panic often turning into violence. Not surprisingly, then, the timely arrival of the grain ships from Egypt was a cause for celebration, not least for the officials responsible for the food supply, many of whom undoubtedly greeted their arrival with a sigh of relief. Ammianus (26.3.6), a fourth-century c.e. historian, observes that riots resulting from shortages were a regular phenomenon in Rome in his day. The frequency of rioting, however, is an imperfect indication of the vulnerability of a city’s food supply. In past centuries, the Roman populace had learned that violent protests provided added incentive to politicians, emperors, and highranking officials to ensure an adequate food supply, but Rome was to some extent an exception in this regard. In contrast to the populace of the capital, the inhabitants of hundreds of minor cities in the Greco-Roman world lacked direct access to rulers who had the power to draw on the production of all the fertile lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. This was even more the case with the people inhabiting the countryside, where most had few options but to trust that their plots and livestock would offer them enough food to last through the year, and hope that food prices would not rise so much as to take the foodstuffs on the market beyond their reach. Rome—and, for that matter, classical Athens—are also exceptional in the sense that these cities attracted the most attention of the authors on whose literary works modern historic research depends. These writers saw the world from an urban and elite perspective. The poor and the destitute, the dwellers of the countryside, and the inhabitants of marginal regions very much remain in the dark.

SYSTEM FAILURE Food consumption in a complex society is the end result of the interplay of agricultural, logistical, economic, and political factors, all of which have the potential to disrupt the process.1 To begin with, crops are at the mercy of the weather, and this certainly held true in Mediterranean lands, whose climate is characterized by mild winters and hot, dry summers. In many parts of the Mediterranean, the average amount of annual rainfall is only just sufficient for the cultivation of cereals, legumes, and vegetables, which increases their susceptibility to variations in the timing of precipitation within the year. In particular, in southern Italy, southern Greece, and

PAUL ERDKAMP

59

parts of Spain, drought threatened harvests. Yields dropped if too little rain fell during the early stages of a plant’s growth cycle, or when the summer drought set in too soon. On the other hand, harvest also failed when the melting of snow in the mountains combined with springtime depressions, resulting in the flooding of river valleys, or if storms and heavy rainfall destroyed part of a ripening crop. Rainfall statistics are often said to indicate that harvests would fail often. However, harvest failure is not an on /off situation. The amount of crops farmers could gather from their fields always fluctuated between extremely good and extremely bad years. Whether a harvest was seen as having failed depended as much on the expectations of the farmers as on the inches of rainfall. While the fluctuation of harvests is largely determined by natural conditions, its impact on surplus production also depends on the nature of landholding. Briefly put, agriculture depends on seed and the sustenance of labor for its continuation. How much seed and how much food is needed are determined by seed-yield ratios and labor productivity. A farmer could lower the amount of seed he would sow after a bad year only at the cost of his next harvest. Even more important for the size of the surplus is labor productivity. No fixed ruling can be given for this, since labor productivity depends very much on the type of crop and techniques used. The point I want to make, however, is this: smallholders tend to invest much labor in their land in order to maximize the productivity of the small plots they cultivate, while the owners of large estates opt for a less labor-intensive regime, which increases overall labor productivity. Hence, smallholders consume a larger and less elastic part of the produce of their land than the workers on the estates of the rich. The same bad harvest that only causes a reduction of the surplus produced on large estates may cause shortages among small-scale farmers.2 Shortages may be unrelated to harvest failures. In the example above, storms caused the delay of shipments of grain from Africa, creating panic in Rome. Provisioning Rome by freighters that were at the mercy of the weather proved a logistical nightmare, which was aggravated by the break in shipping, which lasted from November till March (Vegetius, Epitoma rei militaris 4.39). Building up reserves to last until the resumption of seafaring in spring was a constant problem. Tacitus (Histories 4.52) claims that in the spring of 70 c.e., only ten days’ grain was left in the city’s

60

FOOD SECURITY, SAFETY, AND CRISES

storehouses. Rome might be an extreme case, but all cities that depended on outside provisioning were vulnerable to the breakdown of transportation or the obstruction of supply channels. Ancient consumers tended to blame distribution failures on speculators and landowners who hoarded stocks in order to drive up prices. However, the scale on which merchants and landowners actually caused shortages rather than simply responding to them may have been limited.3 A major cause of disruption was war. In the first place, besides disrupting trade, the military needs withdrew large amounts of staple foods from the market. The scale on which this happened depended very much on the historical context. Greek armies in classical times were relatively small, while the campaigning season hardly lasted beyond summer. Hence, Greek armies partly lived off the land. Nevertheless, for the largest part, they relied on nearby farmers having stocks to sell and merchants who were attracted by the soldiers’ hard currency. On the other hand, in order to be able to mobilize more troops for a longer time, Roman authorities gradually built up a logistical apparatus that drew on the agricultural resources of its provinces. From about 200 b.c.e., for example, Sicily and Sardinia paid an annual tribute of ten percent of their harvest, which in times of increased military deployment was doubled to twenty percent. This tax grain was sent to armies fighting in Greece and Asia Minor. Taxes in kind were supplemented by voluntary gifts and requisitions as the need arose. In imperial times, however, the impact of the armies on the empire’s food supply was limited, as they represented less than two percent of the empire’s population, and the legions now relied on structural supply channels. The impact of foraging armies was much more direct. In 195 b.c.e., for instance, the Roman commander in Spain sent away the supply ships, saying that “the war will sustain itself” (Livy 34.9.12). Plundering armies tend to dominate the picture of how ancient armies supported themselves, but the truth is that armies mostly relied on outside supplies. To the extent that armies did live off the land, the consequences for the local population were devastating. One should remember that armies numbering tens of thousands of soldiers, servants, horses, and pack animals were larger than most towns. Such an army easily consumed thirty or forty tons of food and fodder daily, which meant that a region that saw protracted operations was exhausted far and wide. This was of course detrimental to the troops

PAUL ERDKAMP

61

as well, as many a famished soldier found out during the lengthy siege of a walled town. In order to put pressure on the enemy, forcing him to face battle or admit his weakness, armies often deliberately caused as much devastation to crops and farms in hostile territory as they could manage. Ripening grain fields were set ablaze, and while the long-term destruction of olive trees and vineyards should not be exaggerated, in the short term, troops armed with torches and axes were able to wreak havoc. The impact of war on a civilian community’s food supply depended greatly on its location. Inland regions, which were isolated from the outside world by the threshold of high transport costs over land, were unbothered by wars waging beyond their horizons. If, on the other hand, military campaigns entered such lands, the impact was devastating, since armies necessarily lived off the land and outside regions could offer no relief. Lands on the coast or navigable rivers were often faced with outside military demands, or conversely, the provisioning of large armies diminished the flows of food on which they depended. The impact, however, was usually less catastrophic.4

RISK MANAGEMENT AND SURVIVAL STRATEGIES IN THE COUNTRYSIDE Despite the employment of various strategies to reduce the risk of failures, shortages occurred. The options available to households and individuals for coping with the risks and consequences of food shortages differed very much for the population of the countryside and the people living in the small towns and cities.5 Until recently, farmers in the Mediterranean tended to cultivate their land in fragmented and dispersed plots. Fragmentation lessened the risk of total harvest failure on the level of the household by giving each farmer a share in different soil types and their susceptibilities to weather conditions. The efficiency of fragmentation in lessening the impact of harvest failure depended on the generally high degree of diversity within the Mediterranean landscape. That not only smallholders took these considerations into account is shown by a wealthy landowner’s contemplations on whether to buy a neighboring estate: “I don’t know whether it is prudent to venture so much of one’s property under the same climate, and to the same casualties;

62

FOOD SECURITY, SAFETY, AND CRISES

it seems a more sure method of guarding against the caprices of fortune to distribute one’s possessions into different locations” (Pliny, Letters 3.19, 4). Fragmentation was a means of spreading the effects of weather conditions more evenly within the community, but it could not lessen the impact on the community as a whole. Crop diversification constituted another adaptation to the uncertainties of agriculture in the Mediterranean. By cultivating different kinds of grain and legumes, each with their own susceptibilities to extreme conditions, the risk of total crop failure was reduced. By selecting the most suitable locations and soil types for the various crops, total production was increased in comparison with a situation in which farmers specialized in one main crop, though wheat and barley did remain the predominant products. The wealthy landowner mentioned previously uses a metaphor from agriculture to explain that in his role as lawyer, he uses many different means to convince the jury: he cultivates not only emmer and wheat, but also millet, beans, and other legumes, because the mood of the jury is as unpredictable as the weather (Pliny, Letters 1.20.16f ). An added advantage of the cultivation of minor cereals such as millet was that these were useful as emergency crops. Whether an emergency sowing was possible after the main crop had been lost depended mainly on the time of year. For instance, if a crop had been lost due to flooding in winter, a second sowing could be attempted in spring. However, since the new crop had to ripen before the summer drought, only a few months were left for the plants to mature. The short growth cycle of millet and its high degree of drought resistance made it a very useful crop for such circumstances, while it could be fed to the livestock in case of an abundant harvest of wheat and barley. Hence, it was always good to plant part of one’s land with such cereals as millet in order to have seed grain available when an emergency sowing was necessary. Arable farming produces crops once a year, requiring farmers to keep stocks until the next harvest. A good way of ensuring against future shortages was to keep more in store than needed until the next harvest, and smallholders probably responded to good harvests by increasing their reserves. If not needed, last year’s stocks could always be used as fodder. Conversely, animals were slaughtered after bad harvests because the household needed the lesser grains and legumes to supplement its diet. In this

PAUL ERDKAMP

63

sense, animals provided a means for rural dwellers to diminish inelasticity of demand. Although it cannot be denied that interannual storage alleviated the impact of bad harvests, the extent to which peasants generally held stores beyond a year’s needs should not be overrated. It is beyond doubt that Mediterranean farmers in classical antiquity, just as their modern successors, preferred having ample reserves, but this does not prove that they generally did. As far as we can judge from the sparse literary sources, peasants did not have elaborate storage facilities. Dio Chrysostom (Orations 7.47) describes the dwellings of two smallholding families in Roman Greece who partly sustained themselves through hunting, as “two pretty huts, and a third where the grain and the pelts are kept,” while the famous “poor man” in pseudo-Virgil’s Moretum (13ff ) simply had a heap of grain on the floor. The general depiction of late winter and early spring as a time of rural poverty and hardship is revealing in this regard. The second-century c.e. physician Galen (6.620) states that rustics ate acorns and similar substitutes in late winter and spring, while Columella (12.14) mentions the role of dried fruit in the rustics’ wintertime diet: If there is a large quantity of them, they provide the country-folk with not the least part of their food during the winter. For they serve instead of a relish, as does the fig, which is dried and stored away and helps the country-folk in time of winter. The assumption that smallholders generally warded off shortage by keeping large stores is unrealistically optimistic. Instead, the strained food supply during the months before the next harvest shows that these farmers lacked reserves when faced with natural or man-made disruption.6 The literary sources generally depict the countryside as a rustic idyll. One such source is Dio Chrysostom’s seventh oration, quoted previously. A daughter of one of the two families, we are told, is married to a welloff man from a nearby village, to whom they occasionally give game and vegetables: “Last year we borrowed some wheat just for seed, but we repaid them as soon as harvest time was come” (Orations 7.68). Not only does the story illustrate a shortage of seed grain in this particular year, it also nicely illustrates that in antiquity, the peasantry was not a uniform,

64

FOOD SECURITY, SAFETY, AND CRISES

undifferentiated class—a fact that we tend to forget. The communities of smallholders consisted in part of prosperous farmers who, on the one hand, had social ties with their poorer neighbors, and on the other had the means to assist them in their needs. As Hesiod (Works and Days 339– 41) points out: if you help your neighbor in his need, he might help you in yours. While the nature of our sources does not allow us to confirm the importance of such horizontal ties within peasant communities in everyday life, it is likely that, just as in later times, assistance from relatives and neighbors helped people to avoid starvation during minor crises.7 While even well-to-do neighbors and relatives were hit by crises themselves, the potential of wealthy landowners to provide assistance was much larger, but the reciprocity was of a different nature than in the social risk management strategies with kin and neighbors. Elite families expected social prestige and material advantage in return for their assistance of smallholders. The survival of tenants or potential day laborers in itself was beneficial to wealthy landowners, but only up to a certain level. It was of no concern to the wealthy landowners if the number of households above this level was reduced by starvation or migration. It may even have provided them with a welcome opportunity to expand their holdings. The local elite had to weigh the advantages of social standing against the opportunity to make large profits by selling their produce for hard cash elsewhere. In times of rising prices, the urban market offered a profitable alternative. Material gain outweighed social obligations even more when commercial farms were in the hands of absentee landowners, whose ties with local communities were probably not very close. Social strategies to alleviate hardship among the rural population reduced the number of households that were pushed into starvation or flight, but their effectiveness in times of major crises was certainly limited. The complaints about debt bondage in early Greece and Rome and the plight of the destitute selling their children should warn against overestimating the value of horizontal and vertical social ties.

THE MARKET AND URBAN CONSUMERS The price of grain not only rose and fell with the seasons, but also differed in various regions of the Mediterranean world. Polybius (2.15.1–3), for

PAUL ERDKAMP

65

example, remarked on the low price of foodstuffs in Cisalpine Gaul, while the Roman jurist Gaius observed that “prices of things vary from one city and region to another, especially of wine, oil and grain” (Digest 13.4.3). Moreover, as a wide range of evidence shows, grain prices tended to be twice as high in spring, when stores were getting low and the new harvest not yet available, as was the case just after the harvest. Prices were also very volatile in cities, where the merest rumor drove up the costs of food. The high instability of prices was due to the inelasticity of demand: cereals constituted the staple food of all people relying on the market for their sustenance, and consumers would neither need less grain in times of shortage nor eat much more of it in times of abundance. Not only being the motor behind all trading of grain over space or time, the extent to which prices differed may be seen as a measure of the limits to which trade was able to overcome local and temporal gluts and shortages. There are two ways of compensating for fluctuations in production: transporting surpluses to regions experiencing shortage, or storing surpluses until the next year. Occasionally, we see traders responding to high prices by importing foodstuffs, as for instance in one case in fourth-century Athens, which is described in detail in Demosthenes’s fifty-sixth oration. Traders planned to make a profit from high prices in Athens by importing grain from Egypt, only to see their plans thwarted by shipments arriving from Sicily that lowered the prevailing price of grain. Greek cities did everything they could to attract traders, from offering them loans and guaranteed profits to honoring them in public decrees. Conversely, we are told of communities sending out ships to obtain grain at external markets in times of dearth. The activities of traders apparently had their limitations, which made it necessary for Greek communities either to fetch the grain they required from overseas markets themselves, or to offer added incentives to attract traders.8 It seems obvious that farmers and traders responded to harvest shocks by storing or transporting food. In many cases they undoubtedly did, but this price-driven exchange mechanism was hampered by the costs involved in storage and transportation. Landowners and grain traders initially faced high costs, and they ran the risk of financial loss if the selling price was lower than expected. Nor was it possible to predict many months in advance the outcome of the next harvest. Long-term storage (or carryover)

66

FOOD SECURITY, SAFETY, AND CRISES

largely failed as a means to even out harvest shocks because of their unpredictability: “The distinctive character of carry-over is that the time horizon of such an operation stretches into the unknown—next year’s harvest— and further into the future. Trade, even long-distance trade, primarily concerned intra-year transactions in which uncertainty was less pronounced.”9 In other words, merchants and landowners would sooner sell their surpluses overseas than gamble on the profit they might make from building up stocks for future demand. The workings of the overseas grain trade favored the large cities and commercial centers that were connected by a network of communication and trade. Regions that did not normally import grain lacked the necessary connections and infrastructure, thereby increasing the traders’ transaction costs. This was not only a question of port facilities, but also of merchants who acted as middlemen and investors who offered credit. Even though the need might be much more pressing in the countryside or isolated small towns, profits for grain traders were higher and more certain in cities and commercial centers. Profitability depended on buying power, the availability of reliable information, the likelihood that prices would not be offset by the arrival of a few grain ships, and the availability of profitable return cargoes. Away from the main markets, small-scale shippers operated who offered access to external resources only on a small scale. In short, owing to high transport costs and the workings of the market, surpluses in one region did not always reach the needy in another.10 Tacitus remarks that the price of food was the most pressing concern of the common people in Rome: Since the grain ships for Rome were now detained by the severity of the winter, the common people at Rome, being accustomed to buy their food day by day and having no interest in public affairs save the grain supply, believed in their fear that the ports were closed and the convoys of grain held back. (Histories 4.38) Several elements combined to make food prices such a pressing concern for the masses of the ancient cities. First, their buying power was so low compared to prices that most of their income was spent on food. Early modern figures on the consumption pattern in European cities indicate that the

PAUL ERDKAMP

67

costs of daily sustenance used up about half or three-quarters of the income of the common people. There is no reason to assume otherwise regarding antiquity.11 Second, the income of many wage earners was unstable and threatened by seasonal fluctuations in employment, which were caused, for instance, by the decrease in shipping during winter and the subsequent decline in the handling of cargoes and processing of goods. Third, when the price of grain rose, urban consumers had little recourse to alternative foodstuffs. Grain dominated the urban diet to such an extent that it may have led to malnutrition. The reason for this was that grain was hardy and nutritious, making it easier and cheaper to store and transport than other foodstuffs. Because the daily sustenance consumed more than half of the income of an average household, the consequences of a prolonged doubling of prices were grave. Even if outright starvation could be limited to beggars and vagabonds, even the well to do among the common people had to eat into their reserves, while the less fortunate were forced to accept more frugal living conditions than those to which they were accustomed. High food prices would often have caused a period of economic malaise, as the studies of subsistence crises in preindustrial Europe have shown. Increased spending on food necessarily implied a reduction in spending on other commodities, resulting in a loss of income for those who catered for the needs of the common people. In sum, a prolonged rise in prices could seriously threaten the sustenance and way of life of the populace, with all the ensuing consequences for economic and political stability in the cities.12 The vulnerability of the food supply permeates every aspect of urban society. While leaving the political side of the urban food supply to the next chapter in this volume, a few consequences of the urban populace’s concern with food prices may be mentioned. First, both wealthy landowners and the salaried workforce avoided the vagaries of the market to some extent. Rich estate owners generally tried to fulfill the needs of their urban and rural workforces by directly distributing their estates’ production. Concomitantly, the salaries of their workers, including laborers on Egyptian estates as well as urban slaves in Rome, were partly paid in kind. These were not simply rations, as they often exceeded the individuals’ needs, and both landowners and wage laborers avoided the vagaries of fluctuating grain prices by dealing in kind. Second, since Gaius Sempronius Gracchus’s instigation of

68

FOOD SECURITY, SAFETY, AND CRISES

the lex frumentaria (123 b.c.e.), a large part of consumers in Rome were shielded from price rises by the monthly handing out of grain—in the beginning for a low price, later on for free. Recipients of the grain dole, probably numbering about 200,000 adult male citizens in the early imperial period, each received sufficient grain to feed more than one person. The effect must have been a lessening of the price volatility in the capital.13 Exceptionally high prices potentially threatened the social fabric of urban communities. Hence, the rulers of Greek poleis and of the municipal magistrates in the Roman Empire tried to ensure as much as possible a wellstocked food market. These measures included the intervention of wealthy benefactors, who aided the consumers in a particular town or city by making grain available below the market price.14 Failure of such structural and incidental measures by the community’s political and social leaders could lead to serious rioting. We know most about food riots in the city of Rome, but it is clear that riots occurred outside the capital city as well. Riots were generally not triggered by the fear of starvation, but by the feeling that accustomed ways of life were unjustifiably disrupted by the actions of landowners and merchants, and by the lack of an adequate response by the municipal leaders. As the burning of the urban prefect’s house in Rome during a riot concerning the price of wine shows, once the Roman populace had become used to the monthly distribution not only of bread but of wine and pork as well, even high prices of wine were sufficient to spark violent protests. The sources offer only a few detailed accounts outside Rome, but here too we see a tendency of the urban consumers to hold the political and social elites responsible for high prices.15

FAMES ET PESTILENTIA The literary works offer remarkably few accounts of famine. One of the most detailed descriptions of a famine in antiquity was written by Eusebius (approx. 260–340 c.e.), who was appointed bishop of the city of Caesarea in Palestine around the year 314 c.e. It is worthwhile to quote his description of the famine that struck Palestine in 312–313 c.e. nearly in full: Rains and showers which usually fell in the winter season now withheld their accustomed contribution upon the earth. An un-expected

PAUL ERDKAMP

famine came on, and pestilence after this. Another kind of sickness also followed, which was a species of ulcer called by an epithet the carbuncle, on account of its inflammatory appearance. . . . The rest of the inhabitants of cities under Maximinus were dreadfully afflicted both by famine and pestilence, so that a single measure of wheat was sold for 2,500 Attic drachms. Immense numbers were dying in the cities, still more in the country and villages, so that now the vast population in the interior was almost entirely swept away, nearly all being suddenly destroyed by want of food and pestilential disease. Many, therefore, were anxious to sell their most valuable effects to those better supplied, for the smallest quantity of food. Others gradually spending all their possessions were reduced to the last extreme of want. And now some—even chewing remnants of hay, and others eating without distinction certain noxious herbs—miserably destroyed the constitution of the body. Also, some of the more honorable females throughout the cities, constrained by want to throw aside all shame, went into the public markets to beg, indicating the evidences of their former liberal education, by the modesty of their countenances and the decency of their apparel. . . . Some, however, of those that appeared better supplied, astonished at the great multitude of those begging, after giving vast quantities away, afterwards yielded to a harsh and inflexible disposition, expecting that they would soon suffer the same things with those begging of them. So that now in the midst of the streets and lanes, the dead and naked bodies, cast out and lying for many days, presented a most painful spectacle to the beholders. . . . The pestilence, however, in the mean time, did not the less prey upon every house and family, particularly those however, whom the famine from their abundance of food could not destroy: the wealthy, the rulers, generals, and vast numbers in office, who, as if they had been designedly left by the famine to the pestilence, were overtaken by a sudden, violent, and rapid death. . . . In this manner death waged a desolating war with these two weapons, famine and pestilence, destroying whole families in a short time, so that one now could see two or three dead bodies carried out at once. . . . Then, also, the evidences of the zeal and piety of the Christians became manifest and obvious to all, for they were the only ones in the midst of such

69

70

FOOD SECURITY, SAFETY, AND CRISES

distressing circumstances that exhibited sympathy and humanity in their conduct. They continued the whole day, some in the care and burial of the dead, for numberless were they for whom there was none to care. Others, collecting the multitude of those wasting by the famine throughout the city, distributed bread among all. (Eusebius, Church History 9.8.1–15) One of the most striking elements of Eusebius’s account of the famine is that hunger and disease are so clearly interwoven. The regular occurrence of the phrase fames et pestilentia as two sides of the same coin shows the awareness in antiquity of the causal relationship between hunger and disease. This is also reflected in some of the other accounts of famine in the ancient world. Flavius Josephus, for example, begins his description of the famine that hit the same region in 25–24 b.c.e. as follows: For in the first place, there were continual droughts, and as a result the earth was unproductive even of such fruits as it usually brought forth by itself. In the second place, because of the change of diet brought about by the lack of cereals bodily illnesses and eventually the plague prevailed, and misfortunes continually assailed them. ( Jewish Antiquities 15.299ff ) In its account of a famine in the region of Edessa in the years 499–501 c.e., the Chronicle of Ps.-Joshua the Stylite (chs. 38–39) also observes the close relationship between hunger and epidemic disease.16 This general feature of famine, which is better known and more easily studied for later times, may be explained in three ways. First, harvest failure was often the result of extreme weather conditions that could also lead to the rise of infectious diseases. For example, extreme heat and drought that on the one hand caused crops to fail, on the other created favorable conditions for the spread of diseases. As in all preindustrial societies, infectious diseases were the major cause of crisis mortality. Their role is reflected in the annual peak in numbers of deaths in the city of Rome in late summer and early autumn. Thousands of Christian funerary inscriptions that mention the date of death show that the number of people dying rose in late summer and early autumn, when the heat in the city was at its highest, only

PAUL ERDKAMP

71

to fall again with the emergence of colder and wetter weather in winter. This annual cycle of death can only be explained by the endemic nature of many weather-related diseases in the city of Rome. Undoubtedly the situation was much the same in other large Mediterranean cities.17 This also leads to the second cause: when stocks became depleted and the situation became desperate in the countryside, rural dwellers fled to the cities looking for food and assistance. Populous cities were associated with large stores, grain trade, and overseas shipments, and the city was also the destination of much of the rents and taxes from the countryside. In the previously mentioned Chronicle of Ps.-Joshua the Stylite, the city of Edessa is said to have been filled with “a multitude of country people.” The point is that these refugees from the countryside, when heading to the big city, also entered a hostile environment where infectious diseases were endemic that only struck the countryside for short—albeit often deadly—periods. The crowded and pitiable living conditions of these destitute people increased their susceptibility to the urban diseases even more, while hunger and deprivation—and this is the third cause—lessened their resistance. Hence, it is not surprising that the refugees in the streets of Edessa died by the thousands. The sources mention several prices during famines and shortages, but they are of limited value for our understanding of the impact of food crises. Their function is merely to emphasize that prices in the range of 2,500 Attic drachms for one measure of wheat were beyond the means of the average citizen. Eusebius rather harshly observes that the wealthy and rural elite who survived the famine could not escape their fate and died as a result of the disease. The point made is that, while the famine distinguished between the poor and the wealthy, the epidemic did not. However, Eusebius also stresses that ladies from good families were hit hard by the scarcity, while even those who still held on to stocks feared future shortage. A major divide arose between those having stocks of food and those relying on the market for their daily sustenance. The artisans and wage laborers among the latter were hit even harder by higher unemployment and the collapse of the demand for nonfood items. Famines were not on /off situations, and hence we should not be surprised that food was available while people starved. Some individuals undoubtedly got rich by selling food to those who could afford their exorbitantly

72

FOOD SECURITY, SAFETY, AND CRISES

high prices. Many more will have refrained from exploiting the plight of their fellow men, but at the same time held onto the stocks they needed for their dependents: family, relatives, slaves, freedmen, and clients. The most vulnerable were undoubtedly those who had no close ties to the wealthy and powerful. On occasion, the state or members of ruling families intervened. For example, Flavius Josephus tells us the following on a food shortage in Judea in 46– 47 c.e.: At that time the city was hard pressed by famine and many were perished from want of money to purchase what they needed. Queen Helena [of Adiabene] sent some of her attendants to Alexandria to buy grain for large sums and other to Cyprus to bring back a cargo of figs. Her attendants speedily returned with these provisions, which she thereupon distributed among the needy. She has thus left a very great name that will be famous forever among our whole people for her benefaction. ( Jewish Antiquities 20.51–53) However, we should not overestimate the role of charity in antiquity. State officials and wealthy individuals generally did not regard it as their duty to avoid starvation during famines. In normal times, patrons and benefactors handed out money and goods, including food, but the recipients tended to be those deemed most worthy of it, not those most in need of it. Inscriptions publicly emphasize acts of generosity, but these are usually not related to any kind of crisis and the recipients are most often citizens or members of some professional organization. In short, during famines, the poor, the marginal, and the destitute could not count on the assistance of the social or ruling elite. When Eusebius emphasized that only Christians offered meaningful help by handing out bread to the needy, he may be right: Christian attitudes on charity did make a difference. We generally lack quantifiable material on the rate of mortality during ancient famines or epidemics. Suetonius (Life of Nero 39.1) mentions a figure of 30,000 dead during one autumn as a result of an epidemic hitting Rome under the reign of Nero, while Cassius Dio (73.14.3) mentions 2,000 dying in Rome each day during an epidemic in 189 c.e. Suetonius refers to the registration of deaths in Rome in the Temple of Libitina, and so these

PAUL ERDKAMP

73

figures may actually have some founding in official data. However, officials generally had no idea of the number of people succumbing to disease or starvation in the countryside or those among the urban poor who ended up in mass graves. Even worse is the fact that we have little idea how common famines actually were. As said before, the sources offer only a few detailed descriptions of the impact of famines. Most mentions are much vaguer. See, for instance, the passage from Josephus on the shortage in Judea in 46–47 c.e. How many people died in this case? What is the more important point for Josephus: the severity of the crisis, or the generosity and fame of Queen Helena? And when he mentions no deaths, but only high prices for another year (approx. 60 c.e.), are we justified in concluding that this was no real famine? Josephus recounts: Our country was in the grip of a famine so severe that an assaron was sold for four drachms, and when no less than 70 cors of flour— equivalent to 31 Sicilian or 41 Attic medimnoi—had been brought in during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, not one of the priests ventured to consume a crumb, albeit such dearth prevailed throughout the country, from fear of the law. ( Jewish Antiquities 3.320–321) Again, it is not the shortage on which Josephus focuses, but on the fact that the priests did not touch the bread made from foreign grain. Did no people starve, because none are mentioned? There are a few points I want to make. First, Peter Garnsey has rightly stressed that shortages are part of a spectrum: from scarcities that the various survival strategies were able to cope with to fully fledged famines resulting in thousands of deaths.18 However, famine and starvation are not black / white, but should be depicted in shades of gray. Even a minor scarcity pushed some individuals over the brink if they barely subsisted at the best of times. The main difference with real famines—that is, on the same scale as the one that struck Palestine in 312–313 c.e.—is that in the latter case even people starved who normally did not have to worry about their daily sustenance (such as Eusebius’s honorable ladies). In short, as food shortages climb on the Richter scale, heightened mortality climbs up the social ladder.

74

FOOD SECURITY, SAFETY, AND CRISES

Second, ancient authors wrote from an elite and urban perspective. Few of them are genuinely interested in the lower classes, which they therefore tend to treat as a uniform and undifferentiated group, and they do not always see reason to pay attention to the fate of the common people. If they do, they generally have a point to make. Josephus mentions three food crises in Judea in less than a century. Regarding the famine of 25–24 b.c.e., he focuses on the measures taken by King Herod; in 46–47 c.e., on the fame of Queen Helena; and in approx. 60 c.e., on the attitude of the priests. The marginal people in the countryside and among the urban poor were most vulnerable in times of scarcity, but at the same time most neglected in our sources. Had the works of Flavius Josephus and Eusebius, or the Chronicle of Ps.-Joshua the Stylite, not survived beyond antiquity, would we still have realized the gravity of the situation? Lacking a similar source on Hellenistic Syria or Roman Spain, should we assume that famines did not occur there? Athens and Rome are clearly exceptions, both in the attention they receive in our sources and in their food supply. Hence, if we rarely hear about starvation in classical Athens or imperial Rome, this might reflect the greater resources on which both cities could rely. But beyond the walls of Athens and Rome, there was a completely different world.

CHAPTER FOUR

Food and Politics in Classical Antiquity wim broek aert and arjan zuiderhoek

Sometime in the later first century c.e., the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom, citizen of Prusa, a town in Asia Minor, rose to speak in the Prusan popular assembly to defend himself against accusations of speculatively hoarding grain. The price of grain in Prusa had for some time been higher than normal, and Dio and a neighbor, both large landowners and members of the Prusan urban elite, were suspected of holding back stocks to drive up the price. An angry group of poorer citizens had tried, without success, to sack and burn Dio’s estate (including its proprietor). In the popular assembly called together the following morning, Dio made a speech in his defense, much interrupted by angry shouting, denying the accusations. Given that he survived to have a long and eventful career as an orator and politician, we can only assume that on this occasion, his eloquence was successful (Orations 46). About a century and a half later, in the midst of a period of crisis that would nearly destroy the Roman Empire, a certain C. Iulius Verus Maximinus suddenly found himself emperor, proclaimed by the troops after the murder of the previous incumbent, Severus Alexander. A military man of humble background from the province of Moesia, Maximinus was regarded, by the

76

FOOD AND POLITICS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

Roman senatorial aristocracy, as an unacceptable barbarian, and the extant sources reflect this deeply hostile judgment. To illustrate Maximinus’s utter barbarism, one source focuses on his eating habits, stating that he never ate vegetables, but only meat, and in huge quantities, forty or sixty pounds per day (Historia Augusta, The Two Maximini 4.1–2).1 These two anecdotes neatly illustrate some of the ways in which food, particularly the extent to which it was safely supplied, and by whom, as well as how it was consumed, and by whom, might become politicized in the ancient world. Greece and Rome were premodern agrarian societies, where the primary source of wealth was ownership of land. Ultimately, therefore, the political power of Greek and Roman elites was based on their control of the means of food production: labor, but above all, land. This did not, however, mean that their control was never challenged by a hungry populace demanding nourishment, or more often, just prices in the market. In societies like Greece and Rome with, by preindustrial standards, remarkably high levels of urbanization, city-based governing elites could hardly avoid paying attention to the needs of the agriculturally inactive among the poorer urban inhabitants if they wished to avoid social unrest. The food supply, therefore, was inevitably on the political agenda in almost any larger city of antiquity. In fourth-century b.c.e. Athens, the largest polis of classical Greece, it was a fixed item for discussion in the popular assembly, on par with defense of the country (Athenaion Politeia 43.4). As the Maximinus example shows, comment on food consumption patterns could be part of a serious political attack, even if delivered ex post facto. Food and eating habits are powerful markers of class and status. They might divide, might be used to erect (social, cultural, political) barriers between individuals and groups. Yet, they can also unite. With whom you eat is as important as what or how you eat. In this chapter, we shall explore some of the ways in which food and politics interacted in the Greco-Roman world. Our inquiry will focus on two main themes: food supply and food consumption.2 Under the heading of “Supply,” we discuss several responses by ancient (civic) governments to the political dynamics created by (the threat of) food shortages: market regulation, public benefactions, and emergency provisions. Under “Consumption,” we discuss the political dimension of commensality

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

77

among Greeks and Romans, as well as legislation regulating the consumption of food (sumptuary laws).

SUPPLY The food supply of ancient cities was structured and constrained by a number of factors, among which two stand out. The first of these was the unpredictability of harvest failures. Ancient dry farming depended primarily on precipitation. High interannual variability in rainfall made it difficult to know, at least on a year-to-year basis, if and when harvests would be abundant, normal, or bad. In ancient Attica, for instance, the wheat harvest failed on average once every four years, yet no one, of course, could predict when this would occur.3 This situation presented a severe problem for ancient urban communities, for whereas small cities and towns might still harbor a majority of citizen-farmers who grew their own food in the city’s territory (a situation fairly common in archaic and classical Greece), many medium-sized and larger cities contained a significant number of agriculturally inactive inhabitants. A small minority of those belonged to the urban elite, who had their estates worked for them, but most such individuals will have been (moderately) poor people who had to buy their food on the urban market. People’s demand for food is highly inelastic; that is, they cannot start to eat less than they need to stay alive if prices rise (and they will also not start eating substantially more if prices drop). Given that in normal years, the urban poor already spent some sixty to eighty percent of their income on procuring food, even a mild rise in food prices could already make basic foodstuffs too expensive for the mass of urban consumers.4 Such vulnerability to output shocks among poor urban inhabitants could of course easily translate into economic misery and social and political crisis. Consequently, ancient urban elites developed a range of strategies to offer their poorer fellow citizens some protection against the extremes of grain price volatility. These strategies, however, might be partially undermined by a second factor, namely the speculative behavior of food producers. Abundant harvests, while good news for poor urban buyers, were not necessarily beneficial to the producers of grain. Peasants would benefit from high prices

78

FOOD AND POLITICS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

provided the shortage wasn’t so severe as to affect their own consumption levels, but a glut meant low prices and the possibility that they would not raise enough cash to pay off debts, rents, and taxes. While small farmers were fairly defenseless in the face of such market fluctuations, the major suppliers of the urban food markets, large landowners, could simply decide to store their harvest and wait for prices to rise or sell elsewhere where prices were higher. As a group, ancient urban elites had every possible interest in maintaining social harmony—which, in practice, meant investing in the regulation of the food supply—but as individual landowners they might have a strong incentive for speculation.5 As the experiences of Dio Chrysostom show, however, popular response to such income maximizing strategies of elite individuals would generally be instantaneous, strong, and frequently violent. Primarily, this reaction was provoked by the high prices that might directly imperil people’s livelihood, or at least cause them serious difficulties, since not every shortage was life-threatening. Yet there was a deeper layer to these protests. It consisted of a pattern of expectations and assumptions among the populace based on past behavior of elites and governments in times of scarcity (or at least collective memories infused with moral ideals about correct behavior of authorities in such circumstances), what E. P. Thompson has called a “moral economy.” Studying eighteenth-century English food riots, Thompson found that protesters often focused on what they perceived as a breach of customary, fair regulation of the grain market that ensured prices were reasonable and the poor received their share; in the recent past, this regulation had been supported by the aristocracy and the government. The liberalization of the British grain market, however, started to erode such upper-class / governmental support, resulting, in times of shortage, in popular demands that the elite once again take up a paternalistic role.6 Similar mechanisms were at work in many other premodern societies, including the ancient world, where the shared citizenship of urban elites and masses would have reinforced further the notion of a duty of care on the part of the political upper class. This, of course, was advantageous to elites, as it offered them a means to legitimate their position, but it also made them to some extent “prisoners of the people.”7 On the other hand, it was mostly the urban elites who regulated the market, fixed prices, and organized food distributions (even if, in Greek poleis,

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

79

public assemblies had some say in the matter). This implies that, whatever ideas of moral duty and social harmony were conveyed in inscriptions and civic public discourse, forms of regulation in practice often tended to emphasize social hierarchy as much as shared citizenship. Counting on protection always comes at the price of acknowledging inferiority. Those who controlled food supplies controlled the citizens’ gratitude and support, and such control constituted a major weapon in the political arena. Eventually, the creation of the Roman Empire and the shift of power to one man gave rise to an additional, supra-urban level of food distribution, connecting several Mediterranean regions into a single supply system. At Rome itself, the speedy turnover of ideas concerning political responsibility for the food supply can be illustrated from two passages about the cura annonae, the urban grain distribution scheme (see further on). In the aftermath of the civil war, when the Roman senators were trying to prevent the demise of Republican institutions and a political shift to dictatorship, they ordained that “no one man should be responsible for the corn supply or elected commissioner of food” (Cassius Dio 46.39.3). Ever sensible to tradition, Augustus, while de facto governing Rome singlehandedly, only broke with this precedent and created the office of praefectus annonae when no one was questioning monarchic government any more. Yet, already in 22 c.e., Tiberius wrote to the Senate, stating: “that [i.e., the supply system], Roman senators, is a charge which rests upon the shoulders of the emperor; if that charge is neglected, the state will be utterly ruined” (Tacitus, Annals 3.54). So strongly was the annona associated with the emperor that the citizens of Rome even expected immediate supply problems when Nero was planning to leave the capital and travel to Greece (Tacitus, Annals 15.36.4). The political shift, however, did not fundamentally alter notions concerning elite moral responsibility for the food supply. Though the duty of care was now attributed to a single man, his interventions were still perceived as those of a benevolent, protective pater. When Pliny eulogizes Trajan’s food policies, he stresses the harmony between Rome and her allies, who were voluntarily sending grain to the capital, and the emperor’s assistance to any region plagued with famine (Pliny, Panegyricus. 32). The way in which Rome intervened in collecting, transporting, and distributing food all over the empire was considered exceptional, but the emperor’s duty of protection was not.

80

FOOD AND POLITICS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

It is through such tensions and contradictions that a seemingly technical and administrative issue like the food supply could become so highly politicized in ancient cities and states. We will now discuss in more detail three main features of the urban food supply and their political and ideological aspects: market regulation, benefactions (munificence/euergetism), and direct (emergency) provision of grain by the government.

Market Regulation Few ancient cities ever outgrew the productive potential of their immediate hinterlands. Those that did could intensify agricultural production, but usually had to resort to structural imports. Even for small cities, however, the vagaries of climate could easily jeopardize local production, just as the speculative behavior of elite landowners could disrupt local supply. It is therefore hardly surprising to find traces of market regulation in the policies adopted by Greek and Roman cities. In discussing such regulation, temporary measures need to be distinguished from continuous ones. The former generally served to solve transitory problems, while the latter fit in with longstanding economic policies and recurrent difficulties in food supplies. We also need to distinguish between the various regulating mechanisms that cities and states were using, such as outlawing imports or exports, negotiating floor and ceiling prices, fixing price levels, levying customs dues on specific merchandise, and offering honors and privileges to merchants complying with the regulations. The actual choice of regulations indicates which problems the government was trying to combat—these usually amounted to preventing shortages, reducing price fluctuations, and protecting local production by discouraging supply from abroad—but also the range of strategies at its disposal. When reviewing the information on market regulation in Greek and Roman cities, it immediately becomes clear that our sources are heavily biased towards the long-term strategies adopted by the megalopoleis Athens and Rome. The large populations of these cities created the need for a stable supply system and many decrees survive to illustrate their enduring economic policies. The Athenian and Roman legislation on grain imports in particular is well documented.8 Given the extraordinary size and

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

81

particular role of these cities as centers of larger empires, they can hardly be representative of Greek and Roman cities in general. One might indeed be inclined to propose a clear distinction between the institutionalized regulation of the food markets in Athens and Rome on the one hand, and the ad hoc measures in smaller cities on the other. Yet, this dichotomy does not seem to hold true entirely. First, Athens and Rome intervened permanently in just a small area of the food trade, because they were trying to ensure sufficient imports of only the main constituent of the Mediterranean diet: grain. Only for the city of Rome, with its immense population, was regulating the grain supply merely a first stage. The possibility of shipping provincial taxes, levied in kind, to the capital enabled an extension of the supply system. Possibly during the second century c.e., Rome decided to add oil to the imperial supply system and later also included wine and pork.9 Trade in other foodstuffs, however, was either entirely left to the free market or regulated only occasionally to prevent shortages, hoarding, and unusually high price levels. Second, we also find a few traces of long-term policies in other cities. In the late fifth century b.c.e., Thasos, a famous wine-growing area, issued a decree forbidding the import of foreign wine to Thasos and its territory, thereby protecting local trade (IG 12 Suppl. 347, II). The decree’s phrasing indicates the decision was meant to last. We will now discuss some strategies ancient cities used to regulate the market. We have already mentioned legislation strictly organizing food imports and exports. The most famous example is obviously the body of Athenian decrees concerning grain imports. One forbade Athenian residents from shipping grain to any other harbor than Piraeus (Demosthenes 34.37). Another prohibited Athenians and metics (resident-foreigners) from extending maritime loans to merchants who were not willing to bring back a cargo of grain (Demosthenes 35.51). Yet, such far-reaching interventions required a large body of administrators, which most cities were unable to maintain. Moreover, any measures taken by an individual polis that made life more difficult for traders might lead them to take their goods elsewhere. Given its exceptional prosperity and size, and hence its concomitant attractiveness to merchants no matter what, Athens could afford such policies, but most poleis could not. Measures of this kind were therefore rare in the Mediterranean world. Wartime constituted an exception. In the early fifth

82

FOOD AND POLITICS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

century, during the Persian wars, Teos explicitly forbade the export of grain shipped to the city (CIG 3044 = Teos 261).10 Usually, cities relied on other, less sweeping tactics, which the customary body of magistrates was able to monitor. They tried, for instance, to prevent citizens from speculatively hoarding their produce or joining forces to corner the market and buy up all the available food. The municipal law of the city of Irni, for instance, explicitly forbade any action meant to keep produce from the market and drive up prices (CILA II, 4, 1201, par. 75). One of the most important mechanisms for controlling the market was the regulation of prices. Intervention occurred on several levels. The most straightforward intervention involved fixing maximum prices. This mainly occurred during shortages, wars, or festivals, when supplies were scarce and demand was high, or because everyone was expected to be able to join in the festivities.11 On several occasions, disturbances in the supply system forced the Roman emperors to temporarily fix the prices of grain and other foodstuffs.12 The most famous attempt to regulate prices was obviously Diocletian’s price edict, which proclaimed maximum prices for many goods and services and was enforced empire-wide.13 Yet, fixing price levels by command could be counterproductive, as such measures might force merchants to sell their goods elsewhere. This could endanger the supply system and actually increase the scarcity, as happened during the reign of Commodus (Historia Augusta Comm. 14.3). Therefore, other mechanisms were used. We can illustrate some price interventions by following the various stages of the Athenian grain business (Athenaion Politeia 51.3–4; Lysias 22.5–8).14 Merchants importing grain into Athens were first ordered to transport one third of their cargo to the agora in Piraeus, and two thirds to the Athenian agora, a distance of some 4.5 miles. This division was clearly intended to reduce price fluctuations by securing the supplies to both markets. Upon arrival at the agora, the merchants could sell the grain to local traders, the sitopolai. At this moment, the magistrates who were responsible for the grain trade, the sitophylakes, tried to persuade the importers to sell at a cheap and fixed price. This price would obviously be below the current market price, but as the importers were still allowed to make a profit and could immediately dispose of all their merchandise, selling at this price and saving time was probably far more interesting to them

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

83

than waiting for several small-scale purchasers and repeatedly negotiating the price. Next, the profit the sitopolai were allowed to make on reselling the grain on the agora were limited and fixed by the sitophylakes to protect the customers. Again, the magistrates ensured that the merchants could make a profit. All of these regulations imply that on the Athenian Agora, the free market price for grain was in fact not entirely free, but was only allowed to fluctuate between certain variable limits. Prices and price fluctuations had to be acceptable for both the merchants and the Athenian consumers. This strategy does not seem to have been confined to Athens. A similar measure was envisaged by Plato, who ordained that in his ideal city, merchants should not be allowed to continuously change the prices of their merchandise during a single day (Laws 11.917b– c). A Delian law also suggests that merchants were expected to agree with the local magistrates on a price, although this decree was part of an emergency measure (ID 509, line 9–11).15 Another mechanism can be seen in an inscription discovered in Piraeus and dated to the first century b.c.e. (SEG 47.196A–B).16 Each side of the stone offers a list of prices for cold meats, both being engraved within the interval of a few years. The most recent text, which gives slightly different prices, cites the name of an agoranomos (market overseer). Descat argues that agoranomoi regularly published lists of this kind, to establish an average price, which was then used to calculate commercial taxes. Yet, even if this was not price fixing per se, the lists no doubt had a profound influence on the actual market price: customers could check the prices deemed reasonable by the agoranomoi, and merchants evidently adjusted their prices. It helped, of course, that agoranomoi occasionally made a display of their powers: In Apuleius’ comical novel The Golden Ass, an agoranomos has a fishmonger’s wares destroyed because the fish is sold at too high a price (Metam. 1.24–25). Price levels could also be influenced by intervening in the series of sales and resales. Hadrian, for instance, tried to reduce the impact of middlemen in the Athenian fish market (IG 22, 1103). Before city magistrates could even begin to regulate prices, however, they had to ensure that sufficient quantities of food reached the marketplace. We have already mentioned several forms of direct intervention in

84

FOOD AND POLITICS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

the supply system, but sometimes magistrates tried to influence the availability of foodstuffs more circuitously, by manipulating taxes levied on merchandise arriving in the harbor or on the marketplace. Cities often tried to stimulate food imports by granting tax exemption (ateleia) or a reduction of customs. An inscription from Heraclea Latmia mentions that tax immunity was offered to local producers and merchants who brought grain to the city market to be sold immediately (SEG 37.859). Sometimes, sales taxes were also abolished to encourage merchants to supply the markets. During the fifth century c.e., the Ostrogothic ruler of Italy Theodoric decided that a commercial tax called siliquaticum should not be levied on the sale of grain, oil, or wine, not coincidentally the major constituents of the Mediterranean diet (Cassiodorus, Varia 4.19). The mechanism of stimulating imports by customs reductions was probably used by Rome to ensure a steady supply of olive oil. When merchants were crossing a regional toll boundary inside the Empire, in nearly all the western provinces an ad valorem tax of 2.5 percent was levied (quadragesima).17 In the Spanish district, however, the toll amounted to two percent, until, during the reign of the Severi, the fiscal organization of Spain was brought into line with the other provinces.18 This change coincided with the reorganization of the annona, during which oil was officially added to the supply system.19 It seems that, as long as Rome kept relying on merchants to ship oil to Rome, the tax reduction was meant to secure steady oil imports. When, however, the state became fully responsible for the oil supply, there was no longer any reason to offer fiscal incentives to merchants and shippers, as merchandise belonging to the annona was never taxable (Codex Theodosianus 13.5.16.2; 13.23–24; 13.32). Cities could also aim for preferential fiscal treatment in grain-producing areas. Athens, for instance, negotiated an exemption from the tax on grain exports, levied by the Bosporan kingdom (Demosthenes 20.31–32).

Munificence and Direct State Provisions Elites could also intervene in the food supply through public gifts (munificence, or euergetism, from the Greek euergetes, “benefactor”) and direct government provisioning. Both types of interventions were strongly politically motivated. We start with munificence.20

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

85

Public gifts by wealthy individuals to their communities were a prominent aspect of civic life in the Greco-Roman world. They were an expected part of elite behavior, and donors could acquire great prestige. Through the centuries, countless rich citizens spent part of their wealth on public buildings, games, and festivals, including banquets and food distributions, to the benefit of their communities. Kings and emperors followed suit. Since their control over food resources as large landowners was basic to elites’ wealth and power, gifts of food to the urban population had huge ideological significance, as the ultimate proof that political elites cared for the communities they governed.21 Such generosity, however, was not primarily a form of charity: No matter if it took the form of an occasional donation or a more permanent foundation, urban food-related munificence was generally targeted not at the neediest but at citizens, whether rich or poor. Even if the gifts thus entailed some poor relief, this was not necessarily their donors’ primary aim. Nor did munificent gifts of food constitute an effective structural defense mechanism against grain price volatility, given that such gifts were too incidental and dependent on the whims of individual elite donors—state sponsored schemes and alimentary foundations partially excepted, of course.22 Distributing food was primarily a political act. Thus, the generosity of the fifth-century b.c.e. Athenian politician and general Cimon, who gave the citizens of his deme access to the produce of his estates and organized free public dinners at his own house, was uniformly interpreted by ancient commentators as part of a strategy in his struggle for political preeminence with Pericles (Athenaion Politeia 27.2–5; Plutarch, Cimon 10). That the primary motive of the benefactors was not altruism is also clear from the fact that the political class that produced the benefactors also produced speculators, but above all from the fact that actual distributions of free grain by individual elite benefactors are comparatively rare. Instead, many benefactors chose to sell grain at a low price during periods of scarcity.23 The Athenian Chrysippus and his brother, for example, in 330/329 b.c.e. imported over 10,000 medimnoi of wheat and sold them at the normal price of 5 drachmas per medimnos when the market price had reached 16 drachmas (Demosthenes 34.38–39). Huge gains in terms of prestige and political influence could be made by those who thus sold grain at lowerthan-scarcity prices or lent money (often interest-free) for the purchase of

86

FOOD AND POLITICS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

grain, as several impressive Hellenistic civic honorific inscriptions testify (I. Erythrai-Klazomenai 28; I. Priene 108; SIG3 495 = Austin 97). Free gifts of grain did of course occur as well, as when in 42 c.e. the agoranomoi Demetrios and Empedon supplied grain to the bakers of Akraephia out of their own resources (SEG 15. 330) or when C. Licinius Fronto added grain from his own stocks to a public distribution at a time of shortage in Lycian Oenoanda (IGR 3. 493). A benefactor could also treat his fellow citizens to a public banquet, as Pliny the Younger’s friend Caninius Rufus planned to do at Comum in northern Italy (Letters 7.18) or as the fabulously wealthy Ti. Claudius Atticus repeatedly did in secondcentury c.e. Athens, “sacrificing one hundred oxen to the goddess on a single day . . . and providing a sacrificial feast for the whole people of Athens” (Philostratus, Lifes of Sophists 2.548).24 From the thousands of remaining honorific inscriptions for generous elite benefactors, the enormous political capital that might be generated through such munificence is abundantly clear. “Is it not you,” Dio Chrysostom told the popular assembly at Prusa, “who often praise us [i.e., the urban elite] all day long, calling some ‘excellent,’ others ‘Olympians,’ others ‘saviors,’ others ‘nourishers’ ” (Orations 48.10). Yet if elite members could gain a great deal by being publicly generous, they might also lose out painfully if they weren’t, as Plutarch clearly recognized (Moralia 821f–822a). The people expected their leaders to use their private wealth to contribute to the common good, which implied ensuring that food was supplied, free or at an acceptable (just) price. And what applied to local elites also applied, perhaps even more strongly, to kings and emperors. Thus King Ptolemy II Philadelphus gave 20,000 medimnoi of grain to the Athenians during a scarcity in 283–282 b.c.e.,25 and in 99 c.e. the emperor Trajan sent grain from Rome to Egypt, normally Rome’s breadbasket, to relieve a shortage there (Pliny, Panegyricus 30–32). The structural volatility of food prices, however, demanded a more permanent solution to protect urban consumers than incidental acts of munificence could provide, and again, people looked to their governing elites or sole rulers for initiative, as the emperor Tiberius’s comments to the Senate about Rome’s grain supply system make clear (Tacitus, Annals 3.54). Schemes for direct state provision of grain came roughly in two varieties: (1) regular government distributions of grain to citizens, and (2) municipal

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

87

funds set up and maintained by cities to buy grain (and then sell it cheaply) during local shortages. The most famous state distributions of food in antiquity were those organized by the Roman government in the imperial capital. Food supply and politics had always been intertwined at Rome. During the early and middle Republic, responsibility for acquiring emergency or supplementary grain supplies rested initially with the consuls and from the early third century b.c.e. with the aediles. Attempts by any other elite member apart from the curule magistrates in office to provide grain to the people were regarded with deep suspicion by the political class, as is illustrated by the anecdote about Spurius Maelius, a man from a nonaristocratic background who was put to death on the accusation of aiming for kingship in the 330s b.c.e. after cheaply selling grain to the poor at Rome (Livy 4.13–16; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 12.1–4).26 Aiming for kingship was also the accusation leveled by the senatorial elite at the tribune of the plebs Gaius Gracchus when in 123 b.c.e. he instituted a scheme for monthly sale of grain at a fixed low price to citizens of Rome, a reasonable measure given the growth of the city to about 250,000 people at this time (a size far outstripping the carrying capacity of the city’s Italian hinterland) and the Roman people’s propensity for hostile demonstrations and riots in the event of food crises. In the century that followed, this distribution scheme became a pawn in the political struggles that would eventually lead to the Republic’s demise, with legislation alternately cutting and enlarging the number of beneficiaries. The tribune P. Clodius Pulcher made the rations free in 58 b.c.e., and the emperor Augustus in 2 b.c.e. set the number of recipients (known as the plebs frumentaria) at 200,000. After the Augustan reorganization of the system, the distribution scheme, now called annona, came under the supervision of a specially created equestrian official, the praefectus annonae (see earlier). Anyone in the possession of entitlement tickets (tesserae) could receive his monthly ration out of the grain paid as tax or rent by the provinces.27 The rations of grain, however, did not suffice to feed a family, so that recipients had to buy additional supplies on the market. Also, the plebs frumentaria formed only a privileged minority of Roman citizens. Hence, the majority of the city’s inhabitants were in fact completely dependent on the urban markets. The political risk involved in ignoring these people’s needs was simply too

88

FOOD AND POLITICS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

high,28 so the emperors assumed partial responsibility for the market supply of grain as well, by investing in better harbor facilities and offering shippers a range of legal and fiscal privileges. Some thought was also given to Roman citizens in the rest of Italy. The emperor Trajan initiated a poor relief scheme called the alimenta, in which the government provided local landowners with sums equivalent to eight percent of the declared value of their land, on which they paid a five percent interest that was transferred to alimentary funds in the towns concerned, who then distributed the money among local boys and girls. Over fifty towns may have benefitted, and though there is some debate over the extent to which the receivers can be classed as poor, the scheme was nonetheless a powerful political signal that the emperor cared for the welfare of his citizens, especially those in the Empire’s heartland.29 The philhellenic emperor Hadrian also gave an annual grain supply to Athens (Cassius Dio 69.16.2), and a corn dole to Egyptian Antinoopolis, a city founded to commemorate his favorite, Antinous, who had drowned in the Nile in 130 c.e.30 Regular distribution schemes, financed locally, are known in some other cities, yet they were never particularly widespread, presumably because of the great expense involved. Still, some cities managed. Cretan cities had common messes for all citizens and their families, based on the income from public land and the tribute paid by the serf population (Aristotle, Politics 2.1272a17). At second-century b.c.e. Samos, there existed a continuous state distribution scheme, with grain being bought on the mainland using the interest on financial contributions from wealthy citizens (SIG3 976), and there are hints in the epigraphic evidence of somewhat similar schemes in other Hellenistic Greek cities.31 In Roman Egypt, the town of Oxyrhynchus had a regular grain dole in the second half of the third century c.e., yet most recipients seem to have been of relatively high status. Doles are also attested at Hermopolis in the first and third centuries c.e. and in Alexandria in the third century.32 In the province of Lycia in Roman Asia Minor, finally, a number of private benefactors are known to have set up grain distributions, but again mostly for high-status recipients.33 A far more common institution for the direct governmental provision of grain, at least during the Roman imperial period, was the municipal grain fund, through which citizens were provided with cheap or free grain in

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

89

times of shortage. Civic or state-run grain funds are well attested in other premodern, urbanized societies, such as medieval and early modern Europe and imperial China, and thus seem a common and arguably fairly efficient means of dealing with the random fluctuations in the size and quality of yields characteristic of premodern agriculture. Typically, in early modern Europe, cities would buy and store grain in years of good harvests, to bring it onto the market at a reduced price in years of dearth.34 The Roman grain funds, however, seem mostly to have been money funds, as the language of the legal and epigraphic texts referring to them makes clear (frumentaria pecunia, ta sitonika chremata, to sitonikon tamieion, i.e., the grain treasury).35 Such municipal funds, financed with both public (tax) and private money (gifts), are best attested to in the eastern provinces (but including Sicily), primarily Greece, the Aegean Islands, and particularly Asia Minor.36 Here, we find a special category of civic magistrates called sitonai, who were in charge of the funds and probably annually made the decision of whether the market situation was such that it would be necessary to use the fund to buy grain abroad and bring it onto the local urban market at a reduced price.37 Although they are mostly attested to in the east, the legal references to municipal grain funds suggest that similar institutions may have existed in the west as well. All in all, they were a good option for the civic elites, not only for protecting the urban population from the extremes of price volatility, but also as insurance against the social unrest potentially resulting from that volatility. Grain funds, as well as the other forms of intervention discussed above, were as much a solution to a political as to an economic problem.

CONSUMPTION Public Commensality Food unites. A companion is quite literally someone you share your bread with, and commensality, or dining together (literally, “sharing a table”) is perhaps one of the oldest ways to emphasize peaceful relations and reinforce social bonds. In antiquity, dining together was perceived to be a sign of civilization and political coherence. Only people who had been living

90

FOOD AND POLITICS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

in a bygone age before the introduction of society or savage tribes located on the fringes of civilization, like the whale-eaters in the arctic regions, ate individually and out of necessity, not to increase communal sociability (Aristotle, Politics 7.1329b; Diodorus Siculus 17.25.3). Commensality was hence part of the fabric of society and essential for the creation of a political identity. Differences in political institutions could therefore be connected to differences in dining habits. Ancient commentators indeed frequently contrasted the frugality of communal meals in democratic Greece with the luxurious dining-habits of non-Greek monarchs (Athenaeus 4.141–150 and 5.195). The ancient world knew various institutionalized forms of commensality. The Greek world as described in Homer knew heroic feasts for its warrior class. Sparta developed the syssitia, the common messes of the adult male Spartan citizens (a warrior class too), which, like the Homeric feasts, served to inculcate in the participants a sense of martial brotherhood. Under Eastern influence, however, there developed in the archaic Greek world a specific after-dinner communal drinking ritual called the symposion (see Xenophon, Symposium, for a fairly realistic description). The aristocratic male participants wore garlands, and while reclining on couches and leaning on their left elbow, drank wine mixed with water that was served by slave boys, all the while enjoying a performance of lyric poetry or the company of female slaves (hetairai). Citizen-women were excluded, and there was a strong element of (homoerotic) male bonding present as well. At Athens, the symposion was the breeding ground of the hetaireiai, political associations of young aristocratic males who assisted each other in law courts and elections, and were said to be behind the oligarchic coups in Athens in 411 and 404 b.c.e.38 In the symposion, the internal equality of the group of elite participants was emphasized through the equal distribution of the wine. Prayers and libations marked the beginning and end of the session. These same elements, religion and a concern for equality, also characterized the other great Greek ritual of commensality, the public sacrificial banquet. At such banquets, the sacrificial meat of the victims of the preceding sacrifice (cattle, sheep) was consumed by the citizenry. The equality (isonomia) between the participants, here all the citizens instead of just an elite group, was stressed by the distribution among them of equal portions. Thus, the Greek civic

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

91

public banquet served as an important ritual underscoring civic koinonia (“togetherness”) and the ideal of the polis as a community of citizens.39 The Romans also knew their private and public banquets, yet these were somewhat differently structured. Hierarchy, not equality, was the central organizing principle of Roman commensality, reflecting the centrality of status hierarchies in Roman politics and society. The Roman banquet or convivium was a private social gathering, organized at the host’s home, where the meal (cena) was more important than the after-dinner drinks (comissatio), and with the guests consisting of friends and clients.40 Present also might be the wife of the host, and even his children, as well as the guests’ wives, a practice which the Romans shared with the Etruscans and which the Greeks found shocking (Athenaeus 12. 517–18; Cicero, Against Verres 2.1.66). Though a private affair, the convivium could have a decidedly sociopolitical dimension: it provided an ideal, almost ritualized setting for the host to play out his role as a powerful patron entertaining his socially less elevated amici and clientes. Also, it might be a locus of political discussion (see further on). For emperors, the organization of large convivia quickly became an expected element of imperial generosity, and they were morally judged by their performance at such occasions: the biographer Suetonius, for instance, praised the emperor Augustus for the great attention he paid to the rank and status of guests at his banquets (Augustus 74).41 Roman public meals came in two basic varieties: the cena, a public banquet, and the epulum, a public feast that was part of a religious ceremony or festival (much like the Greek sacrificial banquet). Both could be organized by the community as well as by public benefactors (Pliny, Letters 4.1.5–6). As in the case of the convivium, the emphasis was on hierarchy. As numerous inscriptions testify, participants were ranked per status group, and the size or quality of the portions of food received depended upon their place in the hierarchy: the social elite of decuriones (members of the city council) and their families received the largest portions or the highest quality of food. Next came the Seviri, then the Augustales, then members of the professional associations (collegia), and finally the plebs, or ordinary citizens. In the more exclusive cenae, often the plebs were not even included, whereas they were mostly present at the more socially inclusive epula.42 Thus, like the Greek public meals, the Roman public banquets also served

92

FOOD AND POLITICS IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

to legitimate and reinforce the existing social order, not to emphasize political equality, but precisely “to register and naturalise the inequalities of the social system.”43

Controlling Consumption: Sumptuary Laws Food also divides. Patterns of consumption identify your place in society, for the food you serve, the tableware you present, the guests you invite all reflect your good (or bad) taste, wealth, and, especially, the extent and quality of your social networks. Thus, for any elite individual with subversive political plans, a dinner party presented an excellent opportunity to try and gain support from peers. In Rome, political discussions were indeed an essential feature of banquets (Seneca, Controversiae 9.2.20; Tacitus, Annals 3.53.4–54.1). We can easily understand, therefore, why politicians repeatedly tried to monitor meticulously the various aspects of their opponents’ dinner parties. Restricting ostentatious display of wealth and influence during private meals might limit the influence of one’s rivals. It is against this background that a large number of Roman laws against table luxuries actually make sense. Between 182 and 18 b.c.e., a series of sumptuary laws on dining expenditure were promulgated. They concerned various aspects of banqueting, such as the amount of money spent by the host, the kinds of food and wine served, and the maximum number of guests (Macrobius, Saturnalia 3.17; Aulus Gellius 2.24).44 Roman morality and rhetoric welcomed these laws as a long-anticipated stop to luxury, but in fact they were an attempt to mediate access to political power. The majority of the sumptuary laws coincided with the political turmoil of the late Republic. Especially during the first century b.c.e., when the quick succession of civil wars and political conflicts prefigured the arrival of a new political system, it is rather striking to see every single politician who emerged momentarily victorious quickly proclaiming a set of sumptuary laws to monopolize the political battlefield and deny potential opponents the possibility to create new and dangerous networks. However, the speed at which successive sumptuary laws were enacted clearly indicates that they were mostly ignored. After Augustus, no emperor seems to have bothered much about luxuria. Perhaps it was recognized that

WIM BROEKAERT AND ARJAN ZUIDERHOEK

93

monitoring luxuria was indeed virtually impossible. More importantly, however, since the system of sole rule severely reduced the political importance of networks of clientes and amici for the Roman aristocracy, the original purpose of the sumptuary laws had become obsolete. Thus, empire eventually managed to depoliticize even dinner tables, except for one.

CHAPTER FIVE

Eating and Drinking Out steven j. r. ellis

[Vitellius] was a man whose appetite was not only boundless, but also regardless of time or decency, and so he could never refrain, even when he was sacrificing or making a journey, from snatching bits of meat and cakes amid the altars, almost from the very fire, and devouring them on the spot; and in the taverns along the road, viands smoking hot or even those left over from the day before and already partly consumed. (Suetonius, Vitellius 13.3) Suetonius’s mockery of the Emperor Vitellius was as much about one man’s indecent appetite as it was about eating out and the civic rules for doing so: food and drink might have been available in all manner of places, but the appropriate consumption outside of the home was governed by strict social contracts. Vitellius’s deplorable habit of snatching food away from smoking altars, or already half-eaten bits from the countertops of the city taverns, sullied his very character. Any insight into the rules for where, when, how, and with whom one could eat out can therefore lead us to a richer understanding of the organization of ancient social networks and the role that eating out had in the shaping of communities. What follows is an exploration of the eating out options and rules for the Greek and the Roman, a journey that should typically cover both the

96

EATING AND DRINKING OUT

luxurious banquets of the urban elites and the bucolic sanctuary settings with the gods, to even the humblest of street-side fare for the masses. This range is as unimaginable to fully grasp, however, as it would have been to partake in; beyond the most apparent impediments of time and space, specific social class structures defined (and denied) access to eating out activities to only the most appropriate individuals and groups. Even in the very definitions of Greek and Roman there is a patent vagueness, boundless and indeterminable, which denies the historical and cultural distances between and of them; the one could have lived in Attica in the earliest years of the first millennium b.c.e. (or even, through mythology, indefinably earlier still), the other in the center of Rome herself during the formation of empire, or in the corner of some far-off Roman province as, say, a small coastal town in Spain, or lost among the urban throb of a megalopolis like Constantinople in the middle of the first millennium c.e. The available evidence by which we might tap into this immeasurable and disparate feast of eating out is itself difficult to fully harness. The written word on eating out in antiquity is preserved among poems and plays, histories and legislature, or passed on to us through lofty letters of the literati or even menus scribbled messily on the tavern wall with a chunk of coal not yet used to heat the meal it advertises. The material record is especially wide-ranging in its capture (depending, of course, on the interests of its capturer!) of the practical and, significantly, the rich social aspects of eating out. Archaeology delivers us the many different kinds of buildings that served food and drink; these, in turn, reveal the facilities that prepared, cooked, and served the comestibles; the containers used to transport, store, and decant them; the cups and plates from which the food and drink were consumed and even the furniture where this often occurred; and, of course, the delicate remains of the foods and drinks themselves. The art-historic record lends an important voice too, at once vividly illustrating several of these elements in a single whole, but also—and infinitely usefully—the many other elements that would otherwise be lost to us. If this range of dining experience, and the evidence for it, seems insurmountable, and it surely is, then we must find some containment and focus. While the many opportunities for eating out in the ancient world can be charted under two broad categories, ritualized and commercialized, the intention here will be to focus on the latter for which the evidence is

STEVEN J. R. ELLIS

97

not only—if arguably—best (if more so for the Roman than the Greek world) but, paradoxically, more commonly undervalued and understudied. Ritualized dining is certainly the more commonly covered topic, dealing as it does with seemingly high-brow subjects and a more typically, but not exclusively, elite fabric of society. Ritualized eating out included public feasts of varying proportions at variable places (from sanctuaries to stoas to tombs), as well as more private affairs in the homes of friends and acquaintances, such as the highly socially and politically charged symposia (the private and heavily ritualized drinking, feasting, and socializing gatherings) of the Greek world and its Roman descendant.1 The second category—commercialized eating out, which covers urban bars and taverns, as well as rural inns—is by far the least well-known field of enquiry, even if it covered a massively greater proportion of the ancient populace and has left a healthy range of evidence to work from. Apart from a focus on specific structures and institutions—structural and social—for commercial dining, broader communal themes will persist throughout on account of their impact and currency across all areas of eating out in antiquity; conviviality (living together), after all, was borne from commensality (eating together), regardless of time or space, or of culture, class, or creed.

EATING OUT IN THE GREEK WORLD Commercialized eating out in the Greek world appears to have taken place in buildings known as kapaleia (kapaleion in the singular). There are some problems of clarity with this term and what it described, not least because it could be used for more generic retail establishments; a kapelos was a retailer, and often it was the adjective given to that term that determined the specific retail business (a wine-seller, for example). More problematic still is the fact that the term kapelos could also be applied to, apparently, anyone of poor moral standing—for example, a cheat, thief, or huckster. The seemingly synonymous association between a tavern-keeper and a rogue, however, is as much a modern fixation as it was an ancient denigration, and one that is borne from the vast social distance that separates the author of a text from the retailer of food and drink. In his catalogue of disreputable trades, for example, the second-century c.e. Greek writer Julius Pollux (Onomasticon 6.128) included the kapelos alongside

98

EATING AND DRINKING OUT

the pimp (pornoboskos). The pattern of derision is even more commonly found in the Roman world where, of the 174 references to bar-like activity found among the ancient texts, most overstated the moral turpitude of such establishments, and of those who hung about them2; it was common to defame another’s character by placing them among the bars and taverns, to all hours, with certain Roman emperors not beyond reproach: Gaius Caligula (37–41 c.e.), Claudius (41–54), Nero (54–68), Vitellius (69), Lucius Verus (161–169), Commodus (177–192), and Gallienus (253–268) were all known to have loitered, at times in disguise, among the city bars.3 It is also problematic that while commonly referred to in plays, letters, histories, and so on, at least from the fifth century b.c.e., the mentions of kapaleia exist as little more than casual referrals in passing. The subject never seemed to have warranted a direct treatment as to what a kapaleion was, what it included and looked like, how it was used and by whom, and what its role might have been to that community. The kapaleion was either so widely well understood, employed simply as a literary foil, or so beneath the dignity of the discussion to be outlined with any particularity. We instead have to infer that information from the often vague and filtered context in which the passing mention was set; and in that setting, the modern reading of the kapaleion, as a passing character, was typically that of a scoundrel. This is not to say that the ancient (and modern) literary biases inherent in the passing mentions of kapaleia are invalid and cannot be put to good use. Indeed, much can be gleaned from them—beyond the direct castigations—for understanding the role of kapaleia in Greek society. In fact, the very root of the poor relationship between the comic playwright or ancient historian and the institution of the tavern was in the “breaking of the bulk,” a process by which wine was mixed with variable proportions of water. The kapeleion had cast aside the symposiast’s krater, from which wine was decanted into equal measures, instead selling the wine as a commodity for profit. This phenomenon was seen as a fundamentally important movement from wholesaling to retailing. A sharp distinction had been drawn between the egalitarian yet exclusive symposion and the open market of the tavern where social hierarchy was tied directly to the measure and subsequent cost of the food and drink on offer. The other difference lay in the perception that symposia were highly ritualized, whereas kapaleia were not. Of course the former were, and

STEVEN J. R. ELLIS

99

undeniably so. To be welcomed into another’s home, offered fine foods and wine and all manner of hospitality, was a custom of ageless tradition in Greek culture. When we see it in Homer’s Odyssey (1.109–60), it is clear the practice was already well established and that it had its pedigree in civic and warrior feasts. Born from this tradition were a set of rituals, some of which even brought about a specific form of furniture—the U-shaped couch upon which to recline on the left arm so as to keep the right hand free for drinking, eating, gesticulating, and, not least, fondling(!). Even specific forms of tableware were manufactured for the events. Through commensality, the symposium ritualized appropriate behavior in the private and exclusive, yet egalitarian and ostentatious, consumption of ethics, morality, and conservatism on the one hand, but also pleasure and entertainment on the other. Yet the tavern was equally infused with ritualized appropriateness and social norms. The places one chose to (or was accepted into) dine, the times of day, the company kept, the foods and drinks consumed, and the conspicuous behavior displayed during all of these activities was subject to its own ritual. The importance of pursuing those rules of appropriate conduct could hardly be overstated. Even if the eating out at a tavern was the principal domain of the nonelite, it was equally important to the operation and maintenance of the broader socioeconomy. The kapaleion could equally serve as andron (the customary room of the elite house in which the symposium was held), where no less the same political and social charges, with all of their economic rewards that were generated by the circulation of information—consciously or otherwise—played out across tables and chairs that rung with conviviality and merriment. But these networks, fused and wired in the same commensal ways as for those who attended the symposium, powered a potentially much larger human machine in the socioeconomic organization of the urban landscape, but one which is mostly absent to us in the archaeological record. The written sources are all the more important when compared to what can often be considered a poor archaeological record for Greek taverns. Through the historical record, we have only to imagine a high currency of taverns in the Greek world, in both the urban and rural setting. From a curse tablet, for example, we can conjure a scene where taverns might have been expected at every street intersection. It reads: “I bind Callias,

100

EATING AND DRINKING OUT

the taverner and his wife Thraitta, and the tavern of the bald man, and Anthemion’s tavern near . . . and Philo the taverner. I bind their soul, their trade, their hands and feet, their taverns . . . and also the taverner Agathon, servant of Sosimenes . . . I bind Mania the bar-girl at the spring, and the tavern of Aristander of Eleusis.”4 The archaeological record for Greek taverns, however, is far less forthcoming. Relatively few have been uncovered, at least by comparison to the Roman record. The problem lies in our ability to recognize them archaeologically. Taverns in the Greek world are typically identified by the presence of high numbers of drinking cups and storage vessels such as amphorae and pitchers; for example, the possible tavern uncovered in Corinth during the late 1940s, or another uncovered in the Athenian agora excavations during the early 1970s.5 To stretch the definition, we might add the katagogeion, such as those at the sanctuary settings of Olympia and Isthmia, especially, but also Kassope, but which provided a commercialized form of eating out by serving as guesthouses for the countless visitors to these important sanctuaries. These were the essential pit stops for the Greek traveler, so that when Dionysos made his journey toward Hades he bade Herakles to list for him the best “harbors, bakeries, brothels, rest-stops, detours, springs, and roads, the towns, their customs, and the inns” (Aristophanes, Frogs 109–15). The dearth in the archaeological record for Greek taverns, as compared to what we will see for the Roman world, below, is more than a curious comparison caused by some accident of survival, but a more genuine statistical fact that warrants explanation. Simply, once we move from the Greek to the Roman period, we become able to plot the archaeological and architectural remains of many scores of Roman taverns. Even if we were to discount the abundant physical remains from the cities destroyed by Vesuvius, we could still count many more examples of eating out opportunities for the Roman sites than what we can do for the Greek ones. The difference hinges on chronology, with the second century b.c.e. at its apex. The mid-second-century b.c.e. marked an early high-point in Roman history, and one that is most easily seen in the archaeology of urban sites that covered this period. The Roman conquest of the Mediterranean had brought about many victories and achievements, with the result that the Italian peninsula was now flooded with countless new immigrants (many of them slaves), energizing ideas and influences, and an unparalleled influx

STEVEN J. R. ELLIS

101

of money. Of the many beneficiaries of this Golden Age, it was the urban centers that registered the greatest overall gains. The rapid rise in urban complexity brought about more highly specialized retailing opportunities and customs. The combination of a cashed-up society, an increased specialization among retail outlets, and a suddenly massive yet still growing retail market must have proved irresistible to would-be tavern owners. At least so far as we can recognize them, no Roman bar can be dated to before the second century b.c.e. In truth, it was probably the urban bakeries, the majority of which also date to this era, that played a key role in the arrival of specialized retail outlets for eating out; the heat needed for large-scale baking at an urban level led as much to communal ovens as it must have to the retailing of heated food and drink.

EATING OUT IN THE ROMAN WORLD While it is the lack of good archaeological evidence that hampers the secure identification of ancient Greek taverns, it is conversely the abundance of data that scrambles the picture for the Roman period. Countless buildings have been uncovered from among the urban Roman ruins which, on account of their finds assemblages, built fixtures like ovens and shop counters, and architectural arrangements, have been identified very generally as Roman taverns. More problematic still, however, is that in spite of the mass of archaeological information, there has been a conventional overreliance on the literary record to identify and categorize Roman taverns based almost exclusively on the Latin names that were only casually assigned to them at their discovery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, even though these labels have no corroboration to the archaeological record.6 This typically translates into a Roman urban network of buildings labeled tabernae, popinae, cauponae, and thermopolia. Attached to these literary terms are a host of activities, in spite of the fact that these references never offer any suggestion of the specific functions or physical characteristics that might be recognizable in the archaeological record today. So, tabernae are considered, very generally, as shops and taverns; cauponae as restaurants and hotels; popinae as restaurants and bars; and thermopolia as bars. Moreover, these properties that are collected under specific labels in fact

102

EATING AND DRINKING OUT

share few common characteristics: some have shop-front counters, others do not; some are equipped with hearths and ovens, others are without; and some are large complexes with many rooms, while others are small oneroom joints. Whereas the assemblages of finds recovered from properties on Greek sites can prove decisive in identifying the presence of a food and drink outlet, for the Pompeian record, at least, relatively little can be (or has been) learned via this approach. Were the records of finds from Pompeii in a better state for analysis, then the daily-use objects might point toward clear differences in the types of outlets, from determining the sorts of items sold to where they were stored and how some of the rooms were used. This is clearly not the case at Pompeii, in spite of the city’s archaeological reputation; very few of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century excavations of commercial and retail businesses have been recorded with any degree of accuracy as to the types of finds and their locations. A greater emphasis therefore has to be placed on the structure of the buildings, their spatial arrangement, and the remains of their fixtures, for these are the most appropriate indicators of activity and building type. While the available archaeological and literary data may seem multifarious and unwieldy, various components from each set can be carefully pulled together to enable the identification of different types of Roman food and drink outlets. The single most important feature for identifying a food and drink outlet is the shop-front counter (Figure 5.1).7 No other surviving feature or installation offers the archaeologist as clear a picture of eating out as the counter. The counter facilitated the production, display, transaction, and consumption of food and drink: they were typically placed at the street front of the property for public display and access; were equipped with storage containers, some of which retain identifiable foodstuffs when excavated; and usually contained an in-built hearth for the heating and cooking of food and drink. The vast majority of these counters were constructed of masonry, a number of which were faced with colored fragments of reused marble. A survey of the surviving masonry counters of the Roman world finds almost all of them in Italy, if primarily because of the unique destruction of the Vesuvian cities in 79 c.e. A handful of them exist throughout the peninsula, such as at Alba Fucens and Lucus Feroniae, but by far the best in terms of number and preservation are at

STEVEN J. R. ELLIS

103

FIGURE 5.1: Bar counter at IX.7.24–25, Pompeii. Photograph by Steven Ellis.

Ostia (38 examples), Herculaneum (12 examples), and Pompeii (158 examples). The study of food and drink outlets is therefore skewed, necessarily, toward the 158 examples at Pompeii. Here, because so much of the city streetscape is available, we can learn something of their distribution (Figure 5.2). The Pompeian bars were distributed along the busiest roads and intersections, occupying the highest-profit land. Of the ninetysix known intersections at Pompeii, for example, no less than sixty-three were bordered by at least one food and drink outlet; around fifty percent of all Pompeian bars, in fact, were located in these places. In a similar vein, almost all of the city’s public fountains were located on a street intersection; just two of the thirty-eight fountains were placed beyond ten meters from an intersection. Especially popular were the main streets, on which close to seventy percent of all Pompeian bars were located. To merge these statistics together, a full eighty-five percent of Pompeii’s bars were located on a main road and/or intersection. This was not an exclusively Pompeian phenomenon as, after all, the albeit fewer examples across Italy tended

104

EATING AND DRINKING OUT

FIGURE 5.2: Distribution of the 158 bars at Pompeii. Image by Steven Ellis.

equally to line main thoroughfares and face onto fora and other major public monuments. But the statistics at Pompeii are more meaningful, given their number and the scale of the cityscape on which they can be plotted. In any case, it is not without significance that the food and drink outlets of the Roman world occupied the most commercially viable street-frontages and the busiest confluences of people and traffic in the urban network, a situation suggestive of the level of investment placed in them by their owners and tenants. To refine the identification of Roman food and drink outlets yet more, and not least to begin to assess the kinds of services they offered, of the 158 counters at Pompeii, 128 (eighty-one percent) retain evidence for some kind of cooking facility built either directly into the counter itself, or nearby.8 This statistic alone ought to indicate something of the connection between masonry counters and the provision of food and drink. It is also supported by the fact that wooden counters—which although they must have been numerous in antiquity, the vast majority of which do not survive the archaeological record—were more likely to have been used for other forms of retail: the constant use and exchange of liquids, and not least the danger of fire from cooking, must have precluded their use in favor of the masonry type. Of the 128 bars with cooking facilities in Pompeii, only two appear to have operated from behind a wooden counter. Depictions of retailing and shop

STEVEN J. R. ELLIS

105

scenes on Roman funerary reliefs confirm that bars chose masonry counters, while shops of various types preferred the wooden version.9 Bakeries, on the other hand, appear to have preferred wooden counters, doubtless because the production of bread was carried out in large ovens in back rooms, so its retail sale was not dependent on cooking at or near a counter; just two of the nineteen bakeries at Pompeii sold bread from masonry counters (the buildings IX.1.3 and IX.3.10–12 according to the modern street and building numbers in Pompeii). The architectural arrangement of those properties that contained a service counter can be especially telling, particularly when the significant differences in size and spatial complexity are explored: for example, some were simple, comprising a single room with a wooden staircase to an upstairs mezzanine for storage and accommodation; others had separate ground-floor rooms set out specifically for the storage of commodities, eating areas, or as accommodation; while a number were large complexes with many rooms set aside for the clients to eat and drink. Most had upper floors, though because of the usual lack of surviving evidence it is difficult to determine precisely the sorts of activities conducted there. Those upper-floor rooms, however, were generally considered to have served as the living quarters for the managers and their families, or as guest accommodation, gaming dens, or dining rooms. To examine these differences more closely, and to build a typology based on the number and arrangement of rooms, can yield significant results for better understanding the general organization of Roman food and drink outlets and, especially, for understanding how they were incorporated into the buildings and neighborhoods where they were found. A basic typology—one that is based upon the presence of a counter with a cooking facility, along with the number of rooms and an awareness of the larger structure to which the establishment was connected—can potentially sort the many and various food and drink outlets into groups that are more intelligible, while also revealing the particular kinds of eating out opportunities available (and necessary) to the Pompeian community. To spatially differentiate all of the 128 bars that had a counter and cooking facility produces the outcome in Table 5.1. To compare the number of rooms of Pompeian food and drink outlets with the distinction of whether they were attached to a house or not can tell

106

EATING AND DRINKING OUT

Table 5.1: Typology of Pompeian Bars Type

Description

1 1H

One-room bar One-room bar attached to a house Two-room bar Two-room bar attached to a house Three-room bar Large establishment (four or more rooms)

2 2H 3 4

Number

Percent of Total

Average Area (meters2)

14 11

11 9

26 22

26 8

20 6

44 40

23 46

18 36

57 126

us something about the use of shared resources and facilities, and therefore reveal much about the urban socioeconomy from an awareness of the management of shop and home. For example, it is clear that cooking facilities, at least, were shared between the two bars at I.4.3 and IX.7.24 –25 and the houses to which they were attached; in both examples, the bars used the cooking hearths located in the central courtyards (atria) of their attached houses. Access to other resources that were common to both the bar and the adjacent house includes water supplies and the storage of commodities and equipment, though access to the latter is less detectable because of the insufficient finds record. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of shared facilities is surely reflected in the average sizes of single-room bars attached to houses, which are the smallest of any type at just 22 square meters, compared to more isolated single room bars which average 26 square meters. The sharing of facilities and resources must have compensated for (or caused) the lack of space given over to the retail activities of bars attached to houses. The same statistical pattern exists for two-room bars attached to houses. Even the absence of certain facilities can reveal much about the services offered by certain bars as determined by their size and connection to a house. Toilets, for example, were very rare among the smallest of bars (just twenty-five percent of the single-room bars, or twenty-nine percent of the two-room establishments), and completely absent from the one- and two-room bars attached to a house. This statistic, which is highlighted by

STEVEN J. R. ELLIS

107

the fact that a full eighty-seven percent of the three-room bars provided a toilet, while one-hundred percent of the four-room or larger did much the same, seems equally to be explained by the sharing of facilities between the smaller outlets and the homes to which they were attached. This sharing of facilities and resources among differing retail outlets might explain why we see considerably fewer of the two-room bars being attached to houses, as compared to single-room bars, which were likely to have been more reliant upon cooperative resources; only eight of the total of thirty-four bars with two rooms were attached to a house (twenty-four percent), as compared to eleven of the total of twenty-five single-room bars (forty-four percent). In other words, almost twice as many single-room properties were attached to a house as two-room properties. This statistic implies that the owners of such houses were generally less inclined to set aside two rooms for retailing activities, and probably instead chose to share facilities and space. This trend is therefore an important indicator of the dichotomous attitudes of homeowners to the retailing of food and drink. On the one hand, the conversion of parts of many houses into retail space was widespread across the city; we see this process in staggering numbers, and may recognize the obvious economic benefit. Yet on the other hand, the process seems constrained, with most converting just a single room over to retail, and choosing to share space and other resources. So seemingly unprepared were Pompeian house owners to set aside larger spaces for bars than absolutely necessary that we do not see any Pompeian houses opening up food and drink outlets of three or more rooms. Pompeian bars of three or more rooms occur only as separate, independent establishments. To recognize the specific spaces associated with the consumption of food and drink in each of the properties under discussion is of course difficult, given the lack of recorded finds among the Pompeian bars. Moreover, with the decoration of most bars no longer extant, the difficulties in locating the rooms for consuming food and drink are further exacerbated. In any case, dining rooms can be recognized from the archaeological remains of fixtures and the arrangement of space. Some of these rooms may be identified as such by their arrangement with a wide doorway fronting directly onto a central room or courtyard. Other rooms faced, or had a window onto, a garden. The presence of fixtures associated with the consumption

108

EATING AND DRINKING OUT

of food and drink, particularly triclinia (dining couches), offer a more certain indication. Other arrangements for dining may have existed on upper floors. Varro tells us that the consumption of meals on upper floors was a developing phenomenon among Roman houses (De lingua Latina 5.162).

THE MENU Evidence for the types of food available from Roman bars is available but rare.10 Some foods are known from the excavation of the shop counters themselves, in which were set ceramic storage vessels that held mostly dry goods. This evidence is somewhat meager, given that the conditions of preservation at Pompeii have not allowed for the remains of foodstuffs, most liquids, and other degradable materials to be determined. The traditional belief is that these vessels stored wine and/or hot stews.11 This idea was based initially on analogy to the retail counters of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Rome, in which the inserted vessels were sealed, albeit for oil, not wine.12 Fixed into the counter, however, any of the vessels set into Roman shop counters would have been ill equipped to contain liquids because of their porous linings, and their shape was unsuitable for cleaning as any leftover wine could not be tipped out. It is possible that these vessels could have served as storage bays for other more portable and smaller vessels filled with liquids, though none have ever been reported in the excavation records. Another possibility is that skins were placed inside as a nonporous lining, but again no evidence is forthcoming. It seems more likely that the inset containers were reserved primarily for dried goods, and that liquids were kept in nearby portable amphorae. Archaeological evidence for the types of goods held by the inset vessels, therefore, typically consists of dried foods, and is usually recorded at the better-preserved city of Herculaneum. Here, a number of inset vessels contained grains, nuts, legumes, beans, and chickpeas.13 The only known published example of a Pompeian bar counter retaining evidence of food, in this case lentils, comes from the bar at IX.7.21–22.14 Pompeii does, however, offer epigraphic evidence for the types of food and drink on offer. Various commodities were advertised on the wall of the bar at IX.7.24 –25; among the cheeses (one to two asses, though soft cheese was four asses), wines (two to three asses, but “champion wine” was

STEVEN J. R. ELLIS

109

considerably more expensive, starting at one denarius), onions (five asses), dates (one ass), and sausages (one ass) was the curious term “HXERES”— the only known instance of this word in Latin—listed for sale at one denarius.15 The term originates from the Greek, meaning “dried foods.”16 More recent excavations of some Pompeian food and drink establishments have uncovered their kitchens along with their drains; it is the contents of the drains, especially, that are useful for reconstructing something of the menu for each establishment, as they can often preserve food waste. The excavations of two inns within the same town block—one at VIII.7.1– 4, the other at VIII.7.9–11—revealed the food-waste contents from drains that had originated from food preparation areas before heading toward the fronts of each property where they were intended to spill onto the street.17 The material from the drains revealed a range and quantity of material to suggest a rather clear socioeconomic distinction between the activities and consumption habits of each property, which were otherwise seemingly similar hospitality businesses. The contents from the drain in the property at VIII.7.1–4 revealed a diet dominated by inexpensive and widely available foodstuffs: grains, olives, lentils, local fish, and some chicken eggs, with only a minimal amount of more expensive items such as shellfish and meat. The drain from the other property at VIII.7.9–11, by contrast, included a far richer variety of foods, some of which were clearly imported from outside of Italy: large amounts of meat, shellfish, and sea urchin, along with delicacies such as dormice and even the butchered leg joint of a giraffe.18 The ceramic assemblages from these same properties demonstrate that the byproducts of salted fish—that is, the well-known fish sauce called garum—were especially common. Wild African animals and imported seafood aside, Roman food and drink outlets principally served more basic needs and fare, as dictated by the demands of urban living conditions. The discovery in the 1930s of a four-storey apartment complex below the medieval Church of Saint Mary in Aracoeli, on the Via Giulio Romano below the Capitoline in Rome, provides some indication of the living standards of the ancient capital’s poorer classes, and in turn, the exigency of food and drink outlets. None of the upper-floor apartments retained evidence for kitchen or cooking facilities; latrines were another notable absence.19 Either small portable braziers were used (albeit without leaving any trace), or the inhabitants

110

EATING AND DRINKING OUT

relied on food and drink outlets, including those which operated from the ground-floor shops of this insula for their staple needs. A contemporary (i.e., second-century c.e.) terracotta relief, found near Ostia at the Isola Sacra (near tomb 154), and now housed in the Museo Ostiense, is of special interest (Figure 5.3).20 Much of the scene is fragmented, and several of the pieces now lost. The left part of the panel, however, retains much of the illustration of a shop front. It clearly shows a storage shelf high on the wall, supporting an amphora. Just below is another shelf or rack, from which hang two smaller vessels. It is the bottom part of the scene, however, which commands most attention. Here a retailer, named Lucifer, stands behind a counter. We know his name from the inscription on the counter: LUCIFER AQVATARI, or “Lucifer the water seller.”21 That our man sells

FIGURE 5.3: Terracotta relief of a water-seller from near Tomb 154, Isola Sacra. After

Kampen (1981, Fig. 35). Reproduced with permission.

STEVEN J. R. ELLIS

111

water, whether warmed for taste or boiled for purity, is telling of the urban necessities of a large second-century c.e. Roman city, as it thus ought to be for any other town or city of antiquity. The retail sale of heated water must have been common enough among Roman bars that it warranted imperial sanction, along with several other commodities, as part of the so-called sumptuary laws of the first century c.e.; we are told that Claudius banned the sale of boiled meat and hot water from food and drink outlets (Cassius Dio 60.6.6–7).22 He was not alone: Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, and Vespasian were all known to have imposed bans on the kinds of foods sold at Roman bars.23 The Imperial anxiety that prompted these bans was tied not so much to the foods themselves, but to the gathering of people at certain centers for eating out. Thus, it was also the trade and neighborhood guilds—the Roman collegia, where eating out opportunities blossomed in the second century c.e.—that magnetized and potentially mobilized large groups of social persuasion, priests and plebs alike.24 The emperor Trajan explained in a letter to Pliny the Younger that “if people assemble for a common purpose, whatever name we give them, and for whatever reason, they soon turn into a political club” (Pliny, Letters 10.34). Membership to these clubs established identity and power, which, albeit of diminishing currency outside of the collegium, could at least foster some structured social mobility. The provision of food and drink among the collegia was key, with the availability as well of a living and dining space for those who otherwise had no such luxury in their dark and cramped apartments. Eating out at Roman collegia thus became a defining custom at these clubs, with the byproduct of an organized commensality being a form of nonelite, but proudly exclusive, hierarchical and powerful, conviviality. The ultimate imperial response to these powder kegs of rebellion, beyond the outright restrictions imposed on the collegia, came by way of the massive, monumental public bathing complexes of the second century c.e. that harnessed and refocused civic interests through the promise of a bath, some exercise, and not least an opportunity to eat out among others. Regardless of one’s place in Greek or Roman society, there was no shortage of commercialized opportunity to eat outside of the home. The broad range and high currency of places was almost immeasurable, yet equally matched by the frequency with which all members of the urban community

112

EATING AND DRINKING OUT

gathered among them. In this the scope of eating out was seemingly— perhaps necessarily—reduced to its most constituent parts. That is, no matter what was served, or to whom, or where or when, the essential ingredient remained the same: conviviality. The social networks that developed among the guests fuelled every part of the urban community, and became one of the more conspicuous features of the ancient civic experience.

CHAPTER SIX

Professional Cooking, Kitchens, and Service Work robert i. curtis

The image of the modern professional cook (or chef, in the case of haute cuisine) is that of a man or woman schooled, sometimes in internationally noted culinary institutes, in myriad ways to prepare a wide variety of dishes, meats, fish, vegetables, breads, and desserts, many flavored with a diverse range of carefully selected common and rare condiments. Sometimes assisted by trained or apprentice staff, the professional cook works in an ample kitchen well supplied with tools of the trade, an array of utensils, pots, and pans, in whose use he is keenly skilled. Some chefs achieve a wide reputation and popularity, and occasionally even wealth and social standing; this is particularly the case with those who work in upscale restaurants, appear on television, or compose their own specialty cookbooks. The culinary professional is not a recent phenomenon, but has its roots in antiquity. Though professional cooks may have worked in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, little is known about them or their workspaces. This is not the case, however, with Greco-Roman professional cooks, their staffs, and their kitchens. Although they show some affinity with their modern counterparts, they remain rooted in their own social and economic environment.

114

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

The ancient Greek meal (deipnon) traditionally fell into two parts: sitos, a cereal-based food, such as bread or porridge, and opson, any supplement or relish to enhance flavor, such as vegetables, cheese, eggs, especially fish, and infrequently meat. Following the meal often came the symposium, where wine was drunk and, perhaps, some dainties, such as nuts, fruits, and sweet cakes, were consumed.1 The wife and /or slaves provided the family with the basic fare on a daily basis (Aristotle, Politics 1323a4). On special occasions, where a particularly expensive fish was to be served at a sumptuous meal, or especially when a sacrifice was to be made and guests invited to share the meat, a professional chef, though not required, could be hired. In Athens, major magistrates oversaw public sacrifices and communal meals for the citizenry at large, and subdivisions of the city-state, called demes, did the same for their members. State sacrifices at all levels accounted for forty to forty-five days annually.2 In the private sphere, special occasions such as weddings, funerals, or dedications to a deity increased the number of days requiring a sacrifice and meal. The man at the center of these important events, both public and private, was the mageiros, who functioned as sacrificer, butcher, and cook.3

THE GREEK MAGEIROS While the mageiros appears occasionally in Old Comedy, by the mid fourthcentury b.c.e., he had become a stock character in Greek Middle and New Comedy, where private life, especially family, cooking, ritual, and sacrifice, received greater emphasis.4 In these plays, the mageiros, recognizable in distinct costume and holding a cleaver, is parodied as a low-status, usually free, boastful, verbally abusive, and talkative individual who was not above stealing part of the food he had been hired to prepare (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 4.169d, 9.376f–377b, 9.381c–f ).5 Though the characterization might be an exaggeration for comic effect, nevertheless, the conventional settings, activities, social attitudes and behaviors, and, above all, the food items themselves represented in the plays probably closely reflect reality.6 While keeping in mind that much of what we know of the Greek professional cook comes from comedy, we can reasonably deduce a good idea of him and his profession.

ROBERT I. CURTIS

115

The mageiros, as sacrificer attached to a temple or available for hire, was a central figure in Greek public life. Following the sacrifice, the mageiros butchered the animal, usually an ox, sheep, goat, or pig, and prepared the communal meal from the best cuts. Inferior parts such as the feet, snout, and intestines could be reserved for the priests or sold on the market to be made into sausage or other dishes. Although the evidence is neither plentiful nor unambiguous, it seems that most, if not all, meat consumed by Greeks came from animals sacrificed on a public or private altar.7 It is as a professional cook in domestic settings, where wellto-do individuals hired him as occasions arose, that the mageiros plays a significant role in Middle and New Comedy. Those in search of his services could easily find him in the mageireion, a special area of the Agora reserved for cooks, perhaps in the Keramikos, or potters’ area, where the cook could buy crockery, or near the “butchers’ stalls” where he would sell meat left over from a sacrifice (Menander, Dyskolos 260–65; Pollux, Onomasticon 9.48).8 To call a cook professional implies a degree of specialized training to develop particular skills, about which the comic chef was never reticent to boast.9 A mageiros-to-be served an apprenticeship to a seasoned master from as little as ten months (a period noted as very short) to up to two years and ten months (Athenaeus 3.102a, 9.379d). According to one mageiros (Athenaeus 7.291e), knowing how to cook is insufficient; wisdom is also necessary. In comic parody, this knowledge includes astronomy, geometry, painting, medicine, and the art of war (Athenaeus 7.290e–291d). Sosipater (Athenaeus 9.378d–f ) is certainly closer to the truth when he writes that a mageiros must know about arranging a proper kitchen for light and for air circulation to ensure the evacuation of smoke.10 He goes on to say that a sense of order is important. He must know how to serve food and take it away at the proper time, and to observe diners carefully to be able to tell what they want or need in the way of hot and cold dishes. As part of their stereotypical braggadocio and sense of competition, comic mageiroi frequently mention cookery schools, either to boast of attendance or to deny association with them or their founder (Athenaeus 9.378a). Nevertheless, there may be something to these claims of centers of cooking expertise. If one can trust the playwrights, schools arose in many places throughout the

116

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

Greek world, but the most noted were associated with Sicily and southern Italy (Athenaeus 4.169d, 12.521c). Sicily was also the origin of the earliest cookery books, such as the mid fourth-century b.c.e. Hedupatheia (Life of Luxury) by Archestratus of Gela.11 A favorite boast of mageiroi was that he had learned his craft from cookery books written by past masters or vowed to write his own (Athenaeus 9.404b).12 Athenaeus (12.516c) lists some eighteen authors who had written treatises entitled The Art of Cookery (Opsartutikon), but how instructive for the cook these and other works were is difficult to deduce from the few surviving short excerpts. Most authors probably emphasized the finished product, the dish of food and its ingredients, in an attempt to motivate and entertain the diner rather than to provide to the cook detailed instructions he would need to replicate it. Implicit in all this academic training is the fact that the mageiros must know how to kill and butcher an animal, be it an ox or fish, and how best to cook it, plus have a knowledge of condiments, herbs, and spices, and be familiar with cooking utensils and cookware. Consequently, hands-on instruction by a master mageiros offered the most practical training. The mageiros oversaw all aspects of the meal and either accomplished each task himself or designated an attendant (opsopoios) to perform some of them.13 The mageiros in Menander’s Woman of Samos (287–92) explains that to do his job he needs to know several things prior to arriving at his client’s home, such as the time of the dinner, the number of tables to be set, and whether a table setter (trapezopoios) will be necessary. The table setter would wash dishes, prepare lamps for proper lighting, see that libations were ready, and sometimes serve at meals (Athenaeus 4.170d, 7.291c–292d). Specialist attendants were not absolutely required, since the mageiros could bring his pupils along to assist, and if necessary, many duties could be shared with household staff (Menander, Dyskolos 393– 426; Athenaeus 9.381c–d).14 The mageiros in Menander’s play also inquired as to whether there were enough pots and pans in the house and whether the kitchen (optanion) was roofed, that is, located indoors. He needed to know what cooking implements to bring with him and where he would be cooking. Both questions go to the heart of the Greek kitchen. Where was it located in the house and how was it equipped? Apparently, the mageiros could not assume the answer to either query.

ROBERT I. CURTIS

117

THE GREEK KITCHEN At Olynthus, excavations have revealed over 400 houses dating from the late fifth- to the mid fourth-century b.c.e. In up to thirty of these structures, excavators have identified as a kitchen a small rectangular room, averaging roughly 24 feet long by 15.5 feet wide, divided into two unequal areas. In some of these rooms, the larger area had a fixed hearth in the center, while excavators designated the smaller area, defined by four columns usually embedded in a low wall, as the flue. The bases for designating these rooms as kitchens are the presence of fixed hearths or remains of ash and the discovery in one room of a meat hook (kreagra) and in another what may have been terracotta supports for a spit (obelos). But, since most houses in Olynthus lack such a room, only seven of these kitchen complexes even had a hearth, and none of these designated kitchens had an identifiable space to prepare food, the identification of them as Greek indoor kitchens must remain tentative.15 The closest the Greek house comes to having a kitchen in the modern sense, therefore, is a room with a fixed hearth. Those Greeks whose houses possessed one, plus a means to evacuate the smoke and heat arising from cooking and a water supply and drain for food preparation and cleaning up afterward (cf. Aristophanes, Wasps 131– 49), might very well have identified the area as a kitchen. That cooking may have taken place outside the Greek house, such as in a courtyard, lies behind the question of the mageiros in Menander’s Woman of Samos. It seems best, then, to conclude that most Greeks, except those of considerable wealth, did not possess a specified room in their house where cooking always took place. On a daily basis, cooking could occur in almost any room inside the house or in a space close by or adjoining the house proper. Which location was chosen may have had more to do with the weather, the season of the year, or extraordinary occasions. On special days, particularly those that called for a sacrifice and the eating of meat or an exceptional fish, the Greek kitchen was wherever the mageiros set up his portable brazier and laid out his cooking paraphernalia.16

COOKING IN THE GREEK KITCHEN The mageiros himself might shop for food, as did the chef in Menander’s Dyskolos (393–424), who provided the sacrificial animal whose meat

118

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

would be the centerpiece of the meal, or have someone else, such as the agorastes or opsones, do so (Athenaeus 4.171a, 9. 405a–b). We also know that where household crockery was insufficient for the meal, the mageiros could rent what he needed at stalls in the Agora (Athenaeus 4.164f– 65a; Menander, Dyskolos 456–521). Archaeologists in Athens, Olynthus, and elsewhere have excavated numerous examples that correspond to and augment those listed in literary sources.17 Once in the kitchen, the mageiros butchered the meat or fish on tables set up for that purpose. A useful utensil in this task was the cleaver (machaira). Grain, probably stored in a large terracotta container (pithos) or an amphora, had to be processed into flour to be made into bread. If grains resistant to threshing, such as barley, were to be used, he would first roast them in a barley roaster (frugetron), pound them with mortar (holmos) and pestle (hyperon), and then separate the meal from the bran with a sieve (koskinon) before grinding them on a saddle quern.18 Upon obtaining flour, he kneaded the dough either in a bowl (lekane) set on a table or in a trough (kardopos) and baked it in an oven (Figure 6.1). Since pounding in a mortar is a common motif on Greek vases and bread and porridge made up one-half of the basic Greek diet, baking bread was probably not a usual task that the mageiros performed. As a specialist, he no doubt focused on the elaborate parts of the meal. Besides, he could always obtain bread directly from commercial bakeries that used the more technologically advanced hopper-rubber mill to grind grain to produce flour on a large scale. Commercial bakeries could also employ larger or more ovens to bake bread products in bulk quantities.19 Greek cooking involved primarily dry (no liquid) and wet (with water) processes.20 For dry cooking, such as baking, roasting, grilling, and frying, the cook could use the portable oven (ipnos), dome-shaped cooking bell (pnigeus), shallow brazier (eschara), grill (tagenon), and spit (obelos or obeliskos). A larger, but still somewhat mobile oven, dubbed the barrel cooker for lack of a Greek term, could serve a dual function (Figure 6.2). Shaped somewhat like a barrel and open at the top, the oven could accommodate a cooking pot. Its second function was similar to that of the modern tannur oven or tabun. The cook, after heating the oven, baked flat bread by placing dough on the inside walls.21 For wet cooking, including boiling, stewing, poaching, and braising, the mageiros could use the kettle

FIGURE 6.1: A couple kneads dough on a table (top) while two men tend fire (bot-

tom). A fifth figure (not shown) holds a loaf of bread. Greek amphora stand from Athens, circa 510 b.c.e., wheel-thrown, slip-decorated earthenware with incised details. Height: 6-11/16 inches (17 cm); diameter (rim): 6-15/16 inches (17.6 cm); diameter (foot): 7-11/16 inches (19.5 cm). The Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, Ohio). Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1958.69B. Photo credit: Toni Marie Gonzalez, Toledo Museum of Art.

120

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

FIGURE. 6.2: Women baking bread. Attic red-figure kylix attributed to the Painter of Munich 2660, circa 470–460 b.c.e. Height: 3-7/8 inches (9.9. cm); diameter 9-7/16 inches (23.9 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, lent by Nicholas S. Zoullas (L.1982.110). Image copyright: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

(chytra), cauldron (lebes), and casserole (lopas). Utensils useful in this type of cooking include the cooking stand (lasana) to support crockpots, ladle (kuathos) to empty the pots, strainer and colander (ethmos or hethmos) to separate liquid from solid material, jug (oinochoe) to hold liquids, funnel (kona) to pour liquids, meat hook (kreagra) to retrieve meat from the cook pot, and cheese grater (turoknestis). How many implements would normally be maintained in a Greek house and where and what the mageiros would have to provide probably varied depending on the size of the household and wealth of the individual client. Most Greek kitchen equipment, portable and made of terracotta, at least until the fourth century b.c.e., was probably located in a storeroom until needed (Figure 6.3). Some equipment designs may have arisen with comfort and ease of use in mind, such as placement of handles on the ipnos and various jars.22 Many items used in the kitchen were apparently deemed so efficient that they remained relatively unchanged throughout antiquity. This was particularly true for the transport amphora, the pithos for storage, the mortar and pestle for pounding, and knives and cleavers used for butchery.

ROBERT I. CURTIS

121

FIGURE 6.3: Greek storeroom. An amphora with handle next to a tall stand supporting a drinking cup (skyphos); a ladle, sieve, and jug hang from hooks (left). On a wall hang a kettle and grill. A transport amphora leans against a storage cabinet supporting two baskets and a jug (right). Attic red-figure skyphos, circa 470–460 b.c.e. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California. Unknown. Inventory number 86.AE.265.

THE ROMAN COOK The Greek mageiros-in-training, at least as represented in Greek comedy, learned the basics of cooking by watching and doing during his apprenticeship. As a professional chef he hired himself out for monetary gain, boasted of his culinary skills and gastronomic appreciation, and laid claim to academic knowledge learned in cooking schools or from cookery books written by master mageiroi.23 He was, after all, a free man. In Rome, however, the cook was a slave or freedman. He had no combined sacred and private function, nor did he double as a butcher.24 His knowledge came from apprenticeship, though not from a formal master-student relationship. He learned on the job and never pretended to contribute to a culinary art form. His servile status and lack of interest, to say nothing of his lack of leisure time, in pursuing the more esoteric aspects of gastronomy, distinguish

122

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

him from his Greek predecessor. While disdaining their status, however, Roman aristocrats eagerly sought cooks whose skills could provide them with meals whose elegance and tastefulness would mark them, the owners, as refined and wealthy enough to afford such a culinary master. In the sense that Roman cooks possessed specialist skills in demand by those who would expend huge sums to obtain their services, not necessarily for hire but for purchase, many Roman cooks can be considered to have practiced a profession. The literary portrayals of Roman cooks in the second-century b.c.e. comedies of Plautus and Terence rely heavily on their Greek models, although, generally speaking, cooks in Plautine comedy display both Greek and Roman characteristics in varying degrees.25 Plautine cooks, in the manner of Greek mageiroi, are boastful, thievish, quarrelsome, and sometimes ingenious. The humor came from the absurdity of watching a cook with an attitude, because he was so Greek, not Roman. Consequently, caution must be exercised in using Roman drama as a source for the Roman cook.26 Greek influence directly appears in the Roman use of the Greek terms magirus as a synonym for the more common Latin cocus (or coquus) or coctor for cook and archimagirus for head cook.27 In Roman society, a sharp divide existed between slave cook, whether in a Roman house or imperial palace, and gourmand, between practical cooking and theoretical gastronomy.28 A few Romans, such as Ennius and Gaius Matius, did compose gastronomic treatises, but the recipe book of Apicius, the only collection of recipes preserved whole from the Greco-Roman world, differs significantly.29 Usually attributed to M. Gavius Apicius, a noted gourmand of the mid first century c.e., this collection has long been recognized as a work of compilation formed over an extended period of time and, in the form that we have it, dated to the fourth or early fifth century c.e.30 Grocock and Grainger, however, see the core of the collection as haute cuisine recipes extracted from a Greek work of the grammarian Apion entitled The Luxury of Apicius (Athenaeus 7.294f ).31 Over time, Apicius’s name that attached to the collection came to refer not so much to the gourmand as to what he represented, that is, good food. In this way, any collection of recipes came to be called Apicius. The facts that, unlike other cookery books, the work has no authorial voice and the recipes are generally formulaic or mere lists,

ROBERT I. CURTIS

123

suggest to Grocock and Grainger that cooks added recipes to the collection over time that other cooks consulted as needed. In other words, this became a work written by cooks for cooks. According to Livy (39.6.9), in the early second century b.c.e., the value of cooks rose significantly as a result of Roman conquests in the east that led to an increase in luxury, especially in the number and expense of household furniture, entertainments, and banquets. Prior to that time, Livy says, the cook (coquus) was an “exceedingly worthless slave.” In fact, cooking was a humble calling at all periods, inextricably linked to servile status, whether slave or freedman.32 Cicero (De Officiis 1.42), for example, quoting Terence (Eunuchus 257), lists cooks along with fish sellers, butchers, poulterers, and fishermen among the most pedestrian and least respected occupations. The contempt, however, seems to rest primarily on the philosophical basis that cooks provide luxurious food to please the palate and so contribute to excessive pleasure that should be avoided (Seneca, Moral Letters 87.17, 88.18, 95.23; Petronius, Satyricon 2). Nevertheless, while the cook remained relegated to the lowest levels of society, his presence among the domestic staff of aristocrats became a symbol of prestige, wealth, and refinement, and his absence implied the opposite (cf. Cicero, Against Piso 67). Cicero (For Roscius 134), for example, criticizes Chrysogonus for his extravagancies, including having as part of his domestic staff the common occupations (artes vulgares) of cooks, bakers, and musicians, such that his life is marked by excessive expenditure, lavishness, and loud dinner parties. Even what one paid for a cook could redound to a person’s discredit. The historian Sallust ( Jugurthine War 85.39), for example, has Marius complain that people consider him stingy and uncultured because his cook cost less than an estate manager.33 Although a cook could command large sums, nevertheless, he continued to be subject to typical slave punishments, such as verbal abuse and whippings (Martial, Epigrams 3.94; Juvenal, Satires 9.102–12; Plutarch, Cato 21.3; Athenaeus 10.420e). Roman cookery schools comparable to those supposedly available for Greek mageiroi find no place in any literary or epigraphic source. Roman cooks received on-the-job training as fellow slaves or as slaves of slave or freedman cooks.34 The evidence is little better on the question of cooks for hire.35 Plautus (Pseudolus 790) mentions a forum coquinum and Terence (Eunuchus 255), followed by Pliny (Natural History 18.108), states that

124

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

a mageiros could be hired in the marketplace (macellum). But these references appear merely to echo the playwright’s Greek models, and Juvenal’s allusion (Satires 7.185) to a cook coming to a person’s home to prepare a meal is too vague regarding whether the arrangement is a hire, purchase, or loan (cf. Cicero, Letters to his Friends 16.15.2). Hiring of cooks, slave and freed, may be at work, however, in the activities of two late Republican collegia, possibly associated with temples.36 All of this, however, remains speculative. Freedman cooks, doubtless once slave cooks, were of a different status and apparently did hire themselves out, perhaps in the manner of a mageiros.37 The Roman cook, like the mageiros, no doubt had assistants, probably fellow slaves who were assigned their own special tasks, such as the focarius, or general kitchen worker, and the cellarius who supervised the larder. The obsonator was keen to know how many would be dining at a meal and how much his master wished to spend so that with this information he could purchase food according to his master’s likes and dislikes (Martial, Epigrams 14.217; Seneca, Moral Letters 47.8). Wealthy and imperial households had hosts of slave attendants and specialist cooks, such as baker (pistor), various pastry cooks (placentarius, dulciarius, scriblitarius, crustularius, and libarius), and sausage maker (botularius), doubtless under the supervision of a head chef (archimagirus).38 As with his Greek counterpart, the Roman cook would need to know the basics of food preparation, cooking, spices, kitchen paraphernalia, and, most especially, the taste preferences of his master (Martial, Epigrams 14.220). Ancient sources are almost silent concerning any special skills that Roman cooks possessed, except for one, the oft-repeated encomium on cooks who could disguise lesser-quality foods as better or different ones. Its prominence among Latin authors other than playwrights makes it seem a quality highly prized by Romans generally. So, for example, Martial (11.31) lauds a cook’s ability to use gourds to create the look and taste of lentils, beans, mushrooms, sausage, tunny tails, and sprats. Apicius (4.2.12) suggests substituting sea anemones for anchovies, and then brags that no one will be able to distinguish them.39 Our sources allow only a glimpse at kitchen activity at meal time when the cook directed his staff in their duties. Seneca (Moral Letters 114.26) speaks of cooks bustling about tending many fires as more than one dish cooked simultaneously (cf. Figure 6.8).

ROBERT I. CURTIS

125

THE ROMAN DOMESTIC AND COMMERCIAL KITCHEN Prior to the second century b.c.e., Romans had no special place within their homes to cook their meals. The Roman kitchen was located wherever the meal was to be cooked, such as on a small fixed hearth ( focus) or portable brazier at the entrance of the house or in the atrium (Vergil, Eclogues 7.49–50; Ovid, Fasti 6.301– 6).40 In the second century b.c.e. with the increasing slave population and general rise in wealth, the place for cooking shifted toward the rear of the home into a specific room (culina) set aside for the purpose (Varro, in Nonius Marcellus 55M; Servius, on Aeneid 3.134). In reality, Roman kitchens appeared in a variety of places, such as in a converted bedroom located on either side of the house entrance and opening onto the atrium, off the peristyle facing into the garden, or hidden in service quarters down a hallway from the peristyle (Figure 6.4). Even

FIGURE 6.4: Kitchen with cooking platform and lararium. Pompeii, first century c.e.

Region VI.6.1 (House of Cn. Alleius Nigidius Maius). Author’s photograph.

126

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

in the imperial period, while cooks for upper-class Romans could prepare meals in the kitchen, on occasion they might use a portable brazier placed near dining rooms to ensure that food arrived hot on the table (Seneca, Moral Letters 78.23).41 Although archaeologists have recognized kitchens in Roman houses in various places throughout the Roman world, Pompeii and Herculaneum provide the best evidence in regard to quantity, variety, and state of preservation. With few exceptions, such as large or imperial villas, the dimensions of Pompeian kitchens were generally uniform, regardless of the size of the house, measuring on average 25 square feet.42 Their shape varied between square and rectangular, sometimes quite narrow. The most readily recognizable feature of a Roman kitchen is the masonry cooking platform usually placed against a back or side wall, sometimes inserted into the wall with a vaulted covering (Figure 6.5). Approximately three feet in height

FIGURE 6.5: Kitchen with cooking and preparation platforms. Pompeii, first century c.e.

Region III.4.2-3 (House of the Moralist). Author’s photograph.

ROBERT I. CURTIS

127

and eighteen to twenty-four inches in depth, its width varied but rarely extended from wall to wall. The top surface was often layered with tiles to create a heat-absorbing surface that could be easily cleaned. The top edges, especially the front, often had a rounded curb to prevent ashes from spilling off the platform. Many platforms also had built into them, below the level of the top, one or more vaulted, rectangular, or triangular spaces to store fuel (Figure 6.5). Some platforms had on their level surface two or more built masonry or brick burners laid parallel with each other a few inches apart and abutting against the back wall (Figure 6.6). This arrangement allowed fuel to be placed between the supports to heat food in pots resting on top. Hot charcoal spread along the surface of the cooking platform allowed more than one food item to be cooked simultaneously.43 Frequently found

FIGURE 6.6: Cooking platform. Pompeii, first century c.e. Region VI.6.1 (House of Cn.

Alleius Nigidius Maius). Author’s photograph.

128

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

in kitchens near the cooking platform was a lararium (cf. Figure 6.4), the household shrine, sacred to the Lares who watched over the inhabitants, and in this specific case, food preparation.44 Since Campanian kitchens lacked flues or chimneys and wall decorations, such as lararia, when excavated, showed no signs of soot, the fuel used on cooking platforms was most likely charcoal, a combustible material that gives off heat that is susceptible to close control and produces little smoke. Any smoke, soot, or heat arising from cooking escaped through a door, a window onto the street, or through a perforated roof tile.45 These apertures also provided light and ventilation necessary for the cook and his attendants to perform their tasks. Roman kitchens possessed other distinguishing characteristics, such as a preparation platform, constructed of wood or masonry, used to prepare food prior to cooking (cf. Figure 6.5). An oven ( furnus), usually small, rarely large, and made for baking and roasting, was constructed of masonry in a beehive or rectangular shape. Small ovens sat atop one end of the cooking platform while larger examples stood separately on the floor against a wall.46 Domestic ovens, however, appear rarely, since they take up prime kitchen space. Most roasting and baking could be done using portable pans on the cooking platform, and bread could be easily obtained from a commercial bakery. Often in close physical proximity to the kitchen was the latrine. This arrangement gave a relatively warm location for those using the latrine and permitted it to be cleaned with water from the kitchen. The kitchen floor was usually of beaten earth or covered with a layer of lime mixed with crushed terracotta (opus signinum). Walls rarely received decoration. In Ostia, and presumably Rome, where apartment living predominated, kitchens of the Campanian type rarely appear. Most inhabitants in these cities either ate out or cooked meals on braziers set up in the medianum, a long narrow hall or room usually facing out onto a street or courtyard.47 Cooking here apparently involved wood more often than charcoal. This seems to be reflected in comments by Martial (1.92, 3.2, 10.66), who speaks frequently of sooty kitchens, and Seneca (Moral Letters 64.1), who describes smoke coming from kitchens of the wealthy. And finally, Columella (Res Rusticae 1.63) suggests that kitchen ceilings should be built high to avoid a fire hazard.48 Cooking over a true flame posed the greatest risk

ROBERT I. CURTIS

129

of fire, as Horace (Satires 1.5.71–76) discovered on a trip to Brundisium when a fire broke out in the kitchen of an inn where he stayed. Commercial eating establishments dominated Roman urban areas. These businesses went under various names (caupona, popina, and taberna) but all served hot food prepared by a cook. Many Pompeian eateries, designed primarily to serve customers off the sidewalk, had a fixed hearth constructed on the free end of the L-shaped masonry serving counter (Figure 6.7).49 A few large restaurants had a kitchen-triclinium complex. The Praedia of Julia Felix (Region II.4), for example, had a kitchen located toward the front of the dining room, where the cook and his activities could not be directly seen by diners. The House of the Cryptoporticus (Region I.6.2), on the other hand, had an alcove inserted into the wall at the front

FIGURE 6.7: Bar with hearth built into free end of serving counter. Pompeii, first century c.e. Region I.4.27. Author’s photograph.

130

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

of the dining room that allowed diners to watch the cook at work.50 In both cases, the odor of cooking food, if not the smoke, would have been strong.

COOKING IN THE ROMAN KITCHEN A kitchen containing a cooking and preparation platform left little room for the cook and his attendants, much less storage facilities for food and cooking paraphernalia, beyond perhaps a few items hanging on walls.51 Most households apparently stored cooking utensils, pots, and pans, sometimes in cabinets and chests, in nearby rooms designated for that purpose and only brought them into the kitchen at mealtime (Columella, Res Rusticae 12.3.2–3).52 Excavations of these assemblages have yielded various examples of Roman cooking implements in terracotta, bronze, and iron. Since Roman cooking differed little from that of the Greeks, involving both wet and dry methods, Roman cooks employed similar cookery implements. Roman kitchen paraphernalia, however, show a wider range of material, shape, and decoration, in addition to some important technological improvements.53 To grind foods and to produce cheese, cooks used the mortarium, a shallow terracotta bowl that had grit or glass baked into it to create a durable rough surface. Once ground, cooks could weigh out proper proportions using balances and steelyard weights. An animal could be butchered and its meat separated from the bone and cut into pieces by a variety of knives, cleavers, and meat mincers. The funnel (infundibulum) served to transfer foods from one container to another, while the strainer or colander (colum) separated off liquids from solids. In these processes, cooks would also employ a number of different small terracotta and bronze jugs, such as the urceus, lagena, and situla. For dry cooking, bread and pastries could be baked in large or small ovens. If unavailable, the ashes on the cooking platform served just as well. The dough could be placed directly on the ashes, or more frequently in a well-stocked kitchen, under an earthenware or bronze lid, or clibanus, sometimes fitted with a vent, and covered with hot ashes in what was termed sub testu cooking.54 Processing cereals and baking bread products show the greatest technological improvements over Greek methods. Romans used the mortar and pestle, like Greeks, to reduce cereals that required parching,

ROBERT I. CURTIS

131

but they employed the technologically advanced rotary hand mill to grind the kernels, after which they used a fine or coarse-meshed sieve (cribrum) to separate the flour from the bran. Though rarely found in private homes, commercial bakeries (pistrina) used donkey mills that operated on the same principle as hand mills, and mechanical kneading machines. In some locations, bulk quantities of flour came from water-powered rotary mills.55 Commercial bakeries used large beehive ovens to bake a variety of bread products; domestic cooks could use smaller ovens to produce pastries baked in large and small pans and animal-shaped bronze moulds. Meat could be broiled or roasted in a clibanus or placed on an iron grill (craticulum) over heated ashes. An iron meat hook (harpago) was used to lift it off the grill. Frying in a special pan ( fretale or sartago) was a popular method of preparing meat as well. Some of these frying pans had folding handles for storage. Wet cooking employed a variety of terracotta and bronze containers of differing sizes, such as the patina (patella or patera), a round shallow pan deeper than a frying pan, for casseroles, and wide-mouthed bowls (olla or caccabus) and kettles (aenum) of varying shapes, sizes, and materials, for boiling water, meat, or vegetables. These containers could sit directly on the ashes, but normally rested on tripods or cooking stands placed over hot ashes atop the cooking platform. Liquid or mushy foods were removed from the cook pot by a ladle (trulla or simpula), some with extension handles; meats were extracted by the harpago. This may be reflected in a fourpart kitchen scene incised on a Praenestine bronze cista dating to the late third century b.c.e. (Figure 6.8).56 The specific activities can be deduced

FIGURE 6.8: Kitchen scene incised on a bronze cista. Praeneste, late third century b.c.e.

After Duvau (1890: plate VI).

132

PROFESSIONAL COOKING, KITCHENS, AND SERVICE WORK

from the images of seven kitchen attendants with Latin inscriptions so placed as to represent their conversations (CIL 122.560). These include (1) preparing fish and butchering meat with a knife, (2) carrying pieces of meat to be cooked on a tray, (3) cooking them in a large pan (patina?) placed on a tripod over a fire and removing them with a meat hook (harpago), and (4) serving them on spits.

CONCLUSION The Greek mageiros is essentially a literary construct, but the real professional chef can be glimpsed between the lines of the literary sources. Free, literate, and literary, he was a gourmand as well as a cook who worked for hire in both the public and private spheres. On the other hand, little is known of the professional Roman cook. He was probably a slave or freedman, literate but not literary. Despised by the elite, he was nevertheless deemed necessary for their self-image and social standing. Greeks rarely had a fixed location for the kitchen. A small hearth or portable brazier could be placed anywhere within the house, or outside, where cooking was performed. Roman houses, however, from the second century b.c.e. had a specific room designated as kitchen that is recognizable by the masonry cooking platform. A well-stocked Roman kitchen had a variety of cooking implements, pots, and pans, many similar to Greek cookware but more varied, and in some instances, more technologically advanced, especially in regard to grain processing and baking. A close look at professional cooks and their kitchens provides a window into the everyday lives of Greeks and Romans.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Family and Domesticity konrad vössing

THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL GREEK WORLD That the family home provides a marked-off and protected space where family members not only sleep but also eat is an anthropological constant. How important a place the family fireplace was is shown already in the Early Greek period by the omnipresence and importance of the goddess (Hestia, whom the Romans called Vesta). The reception at the fireplace, that is, in the domestic protected sphere, already affected the oikos community in Homeric society; this communal effect was later transferred to the whole social body, the polis.1 Originally, this fireplace served as the location where meals were prepared and consumed (and sacrifices were made); this remains true for households of the lower classes (see, e.g., Aristophanes’s comedy “The Peace,” v. 1131). It was, however, a decisive feature of the Greco-Roman culture of eating that as early as the archaic period, the spheres for cooking and eating became separate. The increasing need for aristocratic selfrepresentation entailed the emergence of dining rooms that were distinct from the kitchen,2 a development favored by the custom of lying at the table that had been taken over from Asian societies in the seventh century b.c.e. The first example in the Greek world is found in the poems of Alcman (seventh century b.c.e.) who speaks of the klinai (dining beds, couches) as a

134

FAMILY AND DOMESTICITY

prerequisite for a formal dinner. Whoever could afford to do so, therefore, furnished a separate banquet room with usually three to seven couches (sufficient for one to two people each) along the walls.3 This marked the beginning of an institution that was to decisively shape Greek social history, the symposium, which designated the complete dinner, including the subsequent drinking bout (the potos or kômos).4 At the same time, however, it meant the beginning of the separation of family and banquet (on the symposium, see also Ellis, in this volume.) In the Homeric epics (see for example Odyssey 4.219–64 and 7.136– 43), it had been the custom for the lord and lady of the house to preside together in the megaron (the great rectangular hall) during festive banquets,5 whereas now, the homes (oikoi) of the upper classes contained the men’s hall (andrôn) while the women were restricted to the part of the house that was less accessible to the public (gynaikôn or gynaikônitis). Firm rules pertaining to the allocation of the house did not exist: the women’s quarters will frequently have been upstairs, yet Lysias, an Attic orator of the fifth / fourth century b.c.e., reveals in one of his forensic speeches (1.9–10) that there was the possibility of variation: My dwelling (oikídion) is on two floors, the upper being equal in space to the lower, with the women’s quarters above and the men’s below. When the child was born to us, its mother suckled it; and in order that, each time that it had to be washed, she might avoid the risk of descending by the stairs. I used to live above, and the women below.6 Irrespective of where the women’s quarters were located, however, this space was separated by a social barrier from the public part of the house, and especially from the banqueting room. Cornelius Nepos, the earliest biographer of the Roman world whose works survive (first century b.c.e.), attests to this from a Roman perspective from which this custom appeared rather alien: There are numerous actions decent by our [Roman] standards which are thought base by them (the Greeks). For what Roman is ashamed to take his wife to a dinner party? Where does the lady of the house

KONRAD VÖSSING

135

not occupy the rooms to the front (primum locum aedium) and moves freely in company. This is all very different in Greece: she is only invited to dinners of the family and sits only in the inner part of the house, which is called the women’s quarters (gynaeconitis): no one enters unless bound by ties of kinship.7 Since archaic times, the symposium served mainly to cultivate relationships between men (of a political, social, and also erotic nature) while women were admitted in subservient capacities only (for instance, as musicians or dancers in order to entertain the guests and as hetaeras).8 It is obvious, therefore, that we have to give up any conception we might have of a domestic meal being an interfamilial one which served the essential purpose of demonstrating and strengthening the relations within the core family.9 No longer do we find a representative family dinner in the Greek oikos, but only the banquet of the men (running according to fixed traditions of relaxed civic sociability, including, after dinner, a drinking culture that was shaped by fixed rules)10; on the other hand, the meals of women and children took place in the private part of the house—the girls ate in this area until their marriage and the boys until the age when they were taken along by their fathers to banquets outside the house (long before they could participate in them as equals).11 There is hardly any information available to us on the domestic meal of women and children. Usually, we can do no more but interpret the silence in the sources. For instance, we can consider significant the way in which Lysias has his client describe the previous evening in the speech mentioned previously—he conducts a defense of a husband who has killed an adulterer who intruded into his house: I had an intimate friend named Sostratus. After sunset I met him as he came from the country. As I knew that, arriving at that hour, he would find none of his circle at home, I invited him to dine with me; we came to my house, mounted to the upper floor [where, as we remember, he had transferred the dining-room of the house when their child was born, while the women lived below], and had dinner. When he had made a good meal, he left me and departed; then I went to bed. (1,22f.)

136

FAMILY AND DOMESTICITY

Since the adulterer enters the ground floor—at first without being noticed by the accused—and there meets the lady of the house, one has to assume that she had not left her quarters during the dinner of the two friends. The effort to separate the sphere of the women from public view, which has to be seen in the context of an attempt to be able to guarantee one’s children to be doubtlessly legitimate, consequently had the effect that interfamilial dinners rarely took place and are hardly mentioned in the literature. Nevertheless, it is possible to qualify the typical separation of the oikos that has just been outlined. This qualification, quite apart from the fact that we are only talking about social strata able to afford a fairly spacious house (and a wife who remained inside the house), is threefold. The master of the house will have joined his family for dinner on those days when he had no guests and was himself not invited somewhere else; yet, we must refrain from imagining the family now lying at table in the andrôn: this dining posture was considered a privilege in the world of the symposium dominated by men (as shown, e.g., by Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 1.31 p. 18 A). Instead, the master of the house will have dined from time to time in the private part of the house, but yet again, we will have to part with the modern conception of a bourgeois family eating together: most likely, the wife first served her husband and then ate separately along with her children. Moreover, the previously mentioned separation of the woman holds true for the average dinner party, but not for two specific types of the communal meal: the family feast and the religious feast. If a wedding was celebrated, the whole family took part in the banquet although even then, there were men’s and women’s tables. The sacrificial banquet in the framework of the family is of particular importance for us (there were, of course, sacrifices and ritual dinners of women, which have nothing to do with meals of the family).12 Not only the life of the city as a whole, but also that of each individual family, was structured along the religious festivals which comprised the sacrifice and the subsequent communal feasting on the sacrificial meats.

THE HELLENISTIC WORLD An average sacrificial banquet performed within the family circle can be reconstructed from Menander’s comedy “The Bad-Tempered Man”

KONRAD VÖSSING

137

(Dyskolos, first performed in 317–316 b.c.e.): the focal point is a sacrifice at a rural shrine of the god Pan. The subsequent meal is very likely to have taken place out in the open,13 and not with the participants standing, but rather like an elaborate picnic with cutlery, cushions for lying on, and so on.14 It is remarkable that during the preparations for this sacrificial dinner, the mistress of the house plays the essential part. She decides that a sacrifice is to be held and hires the sacrificial cook (v. 263: the mageiros, this well-known character from the Greek sacrificial dinner—and from Greek Comedy)—who was responsible for the slaughtering of the animal, and afterwards, the allocation as well as the preparation of the meat).15 She decides on the place where guests are to rest after the sacrifice, and organizes the installation of the picnic, that is, making sure that blankets and cushions are brought and then grouped in rounds (stibades), and so on. (cf. lines 402–5 and 943). Yet again, one must not imagine scenes of intimate family life. Particularly remarkable is the lack of synchronization of the dinner: the son of the house does not know anything about the sacrifice and arrives at the festivity by chance, while the father joins the party only after dinner (261, 554–66, 776–78). But even if the whole family had been together from the start, they would not have eaten conjointly in an intimate circle. When the event develops into an engagement and drinking party, it becomes obvious that a spatial separation of the genders is being observed (855–57, 871, 941s., 946–48); this separation was probably already practiced during dinner. We must, therefore, assume separate groups during the dinner and the drinking party, although it needs to be highlighted that here women (and children, too) dine reclining aground on blankets and cushions grouped in semicircles, that is, in a way which was considered a comparatively relaxed and free kind of social get-together, up until the imperial period (when a new type a furniture was developed, the sigma, a semicircular couch for lying down).16 In any case, the members of the family were united (even though they dined separately and sometimes at different times) by participating in one and the same sacrifice and outdoor dinner.17 In the Hellenistic house, whose architecture testifies an opening to the public and an increasing ambition to show the wealth and the social status of the family, the strict style of the men drinking exclusively in all-male company while admitting only paid women to join them seems to have

138

FAMILY AND DOMESTICITY

been somewhat softened, as literary sources such as Theocritus’s fourteenth Idyll suggest.18 Even though in Hellenistic times women attained a higher level of visibility in public dinner parties, the domestic dinner was still normally not a communal family dinner and in any case, the dining posture made a clear distinction.19 Women and children did not participate at the same level, but sat upright next to the men who were lying down. In Theocritus’s fourteenth Idyll, we encounter a group of four revelers, three men and one woman, who are having a party in the countryside, but apparently inside a house (14, 41s.); one of the men flirts with the girl, but she has given her heart to someone else and therefore leaves the party: “but quicker than the swallow Cynisca flew from her soft seat straight through the porch and house-door, wherever her feet carried her” (41f.). Apparently, she was the only one who sat on a chair.

THE ROMAN WORLD Our sources attest to the same practices in the time of the Roman Republic, the more sophisticated culture of which was derived, for the most part, from the Hellenistic East: the recipes for food and drink, the banqueting furniture, the separation of kitchen and dining room, and so on, were largely Hellenistic imports.20 In this way, Roman society seems to have deliberately distinguished itself from Etruscan banqueting culture, which—although in terms of equipment it, too, was strongly influenced by Greek culture—was particularly conspicuous in that it allowed men and women from the same social background to recline together on dinner couches (lecti): “They [the Etruscans] dine, not with their own husbands, but with any men who happen to be present, and they pledge with wine any whom they wish.” This had seemed a scandalous practice to the Greeks, for which reason they had described such banquets as orgies of sexual license and promiscuity.21 Women from the Roman upper classes, however, were indeed present at the dinner party (convivium)—and, by the way, not only in their own houses, but also when invited somewhere else (emphasized, as we have seen, by Cornelius Nepos). Still, they sat on chairs, as did their older children although, in later times, these children were also seated at the foot of their fathers’ couch. This is reported by the Latin biographer Suetonius (second

KONRAD VÖSSING

139

century c.e.) concerning Augustus’s grandchildren: “He never dined in their company unless they sat beside him on the lowest couch” (customarily, the host would recline on this third of the three lecti). The older form was that of sitting on seats next to the dining couch of the father (ad fulcra); sometimes, children and adolescents were seated at their own tables.22 For boys, there existed an age limit (which cannot be exactly determined), above which they were allowed to lie down on the lectus during dinner as equals.23 Women in Rome, especially from higher social strata, in principle enjoyed greater freedom in the dining room than women in Greece (which, presumably, was due to the greater significance of the individual aristocratic family prestige as opposed to the collective—male—citizenship and civil liberty among the Greeks). As a consequence, could accept invitations for dinner elsewhere with their children. This does not imply that the Roman family as such24 had their own distinct dining place in the house: the convivium domesticum, just like the aristocratic domus as a whole, had a public quality, even if it took place in that part of the house to which only invited guests were admitted. Vitruvius, a Roman architect in Caesar’s service and author of a famous reference book, discusses this distinction: we must . . . consider how, in private buildings, the rooms belonging to the family (propria loca patribus familiarum), and how those which are shared with visitors, should be planned. For into the private rooms (quae propria sunt) no one can come uninvited, such as the bedrooms, dining-rooms, baths, and other apartments with similar purposes. The common rooms are those into which, though without invitation, people can come by right, i.e. such rooms as vestibules, courtyards, peristyles, and other apartments of similar uses. Therefore, magnificent vestibules and alcoves and halls are not necessary to people of common fortune because they pay their respects by visiting others, and are not visited by others.25 The separation of dining rooms and so on from common rooms for clients (for example) did not make the domus part of a private life in the modern sense because events like invitations and banquets, too, were directed mainly toward the demonstration of one’s social status, and thus toward a public audience,26 although here, an invitation was required in order to be let in.

140

FAMILY AND DOMESTICITY

Roman houses did not contain a large banqueting hall that could accommodate a great number of guests; instead, it had many multifunctional rooms that could all be used, if necessary, for invitations.27 Yet, smaller dinners limited to one room only still must not be thought to be meals of the core family. Just as in the Greek culture and in the Hellenistic house, the size of the dining rooms was such that only limited groups of five to ten people could recline together (in Rome, the triclinium prevailed, a term which designated three dining couches put together to form a rectangular U with three people on each couch easily finding space). However, it seems that this room was never exclusively used for family dinners. Women and children were allowed to participate in the convivium; the crucial relationship, however, that was the focal point of these dinners (and of their whole luxurious equipment, including the wall paintings of the dining rooms) was the one between the host and the invited (external) guests. This applies to the houses in town (domus) as well as to the villae in the countryside.28 Indeed, we will have to assume that in the Roman house, informal meals took place in which only members of the core family participated, but the literary and archaeological sources are so silent about them that we have to assume them to have been meaningless in terms of ideology;29 these meals appear to have been purely functional. The notion of a family intimacy in this context is anachronistic anyway, because being constantly served by a number of slaves (especially trained for the purpose) was the normal practice even in less wealthy houses. The decisive element of a successful domestic dinner, therefore, seems to have still been the presence of the right sort of guests. Horace, for instance, describes (in the Augustan Age) a relaxed family supper with these words: O nights and feasts of the gods! When I myself and my friends eat before my own household god and I feed the cheeky homeborn slaves after making a food-offering. Just as each one pleases, the guests, freed from crazy laws, drain dry unequal cups, whether the hardheaded one takes his drinks undiluted, or whether with moderate ones he grows mellow more happily. And so conversation rises, not about other people’s villas or town-houses, nor whether Lepos dances badly or not, but we discuss what has more relevance to us and not to know is an evil: whether it is wealth or virtue that makes men happy;

KONRAD VÖSSING

141

or what leads us to friendships, self-interest or rectitude; and what is the nature of goodness and what its highest form. (Satires 2.6.65–76) Horace mentions four features which seem to characterize a comfortable domesticity: the fact that the supper takes place in one’s own home (ante lar proprium), that one’s own slaves’ children, born and bred in the house (vernae), in their typical poses hang about the table and are being fed (customarily after the meal and the sacrifice of the dominus), the lack of rules for drinking that allowed each his individual share, and importantly, the presence of a friend with whom an enjoyable (which, for Horace, means philosophical) talk was possible.30 There is no talk about the presence and the interaction with members of the family. It might be objected that Horace was unmarried and childless, but his description of a familiar meal can still be generalized. In the Greek sources of the classical period it is already becoming clear that the romping and unregulated nibbling of the children can indeed characterize the quite relaxed and familiar atmosphere of a meal. These children, however, were not—contrary to expectations it—the children of the hosts or of the guests, but rather slave children who were born to the house slaves and therefore to their owner. The children of the masters, when they became toddlers, were constricted in the corset of behavior according to their rank and their corresponding education, which did not allow them—contrary to the children of slaves— such lax manners, especially during the banquet. Often, not even the simple participation mentioned above was allowed. This is why in the antique household, a considerable part of the positive emotionality connected with this behavior (in our opinion, quite distinctive of a family) was separated from the nuclear family and transferred more or less durably to slave children, a transmission which in any case didn’t infect the hierarchical structure of the society. There is nothing that characterizes the ambivalence of these emotions more exactly than the apodosis, with which the sophist Athenaeus (about 200 c.e.) ends his description of such a meal with slave children: “But the citizens of Sybaris [a Greek city on the western shore of the Gulf of Taranto, known for its wealth and luxury] delighted only in Maltese puppy dogs” (12.16 p. 519 B). As to the position of the bodies during such cenae, it is interesting to note that the basic rule of the woman, who always sat upright, was no

142

FAMILY AND DOMESTICITY

longer strictly adhered to from sometime in the late Republic. Valerius Maximus, writer in the reign of Tiberius and author of a famous handbook containing Memorable Deeds and Sayings, says in his description of ancient institutions: Women used to dine seated with their reclining menfolk, a custom which made its way from the social gatherings of men to things divine. For at the banquet of Jupiter he himself was invited to dine on a couch, while Juno and Minerva had chairs, a form of austerity which our age is more careful to retain on the Capitol than in its houses, no doubt because it is more important to the commonwealth that discipline be maintained for goddesses than for women. (2.1.2) Isidore of Seville, the last scholar of the ancient world (seventh century c.e.), quotes in his Etymologies a statement by Marcus Terentius Varro, incidentally the first scholar of Latin antiquities (first century b.c.e.): Seats (sedes) are so called because among the ancient Romans there was not the practice of reclining at table, and hence they were said to “sit down” (considere). Afterwards, as Varro says in On the Life of the Roman People, men began to recline and women to sit, because reclining was seen as unseemly for a woman. (20.11.9) Varro seems to describe the situation as it was before the time when the change that Valerius Maximus observed began. In a period when individual women from aristocratic families gained (informal) possibilities to exact political influence in a way that had not been open to them before, their wish to be adequately represented—and especially in the triclinium— had prevailed over the tradition in which it was inappropriate to commune with reclined women in the symposium. Yet the basic social order remained visible because women did not lie down on the prime place of a couch (lectus) for three, the place that belonged to the head of the household, but rather in a more subordinate place. This custom, however, might have been modified by a significant alteration in the Roman dining rooms of the late first century c.e.: from the sphere of the relaxed outdoor picnic and in allusion to the reclining

KONRAD VÖSSING

143

aground in this context, a new piece of furniture was being introduced: the large semicircular reclining bench (stibadium, also known by the name of sigma), which offered enough space for up to ten people and thus sufficed for a whole banqueting party.31 The important transfer of the Roman woman from the chair onto the couch for dining and the popularity of lying down on a sigma is clouded by the archaeological sources and the fact that, on funerary reliefs in the northwest, which were particularly popular among soldiers, a woman sitting upright sometimes appears with a man lying down for dinner in the center of a single lectus.32 Scholars like to call such representations (ambiguously—for they have nothing to do with real funerary banquets) Totenmähler or family dinner reliefs; yet, this is not a representation of real life, but the reception and adaptation of an ancient and prestigious funerary tradition33 deriving, ultimately, from the Near East and as old as the banqueting couch itself. Family intimacy during dinner might have existed in the funerary sphere, too, under the limited conditions described above (also with children, who appear only rarely on the reliefs); yet, since such intimacy had no meaning in terms of self-representation, we lack literary as well as iconographical evidence for it.34

CONCLUSION Communal meals in antiquity were always defined by the social affiliation of the participants (within the framework of dominance and fraternity), and their impact was so closely connected to these collectives (of peers, companions, citizens, clients, congenial spirits, associates, or fellow believers) that eating at home only with the family was either socially meaningless or a sign of demonstrative self-isolation (like the solitary meal, the cena solitaria).35 Within the families—conceived of as groups of people affiliated by consanguinity, or in the Roman way, as households—the hierarchical order was nearly set in stone and their belonging together was undisputed. In this context, there was no need for gestures of self-definition or self-affirmation, and family feasts (banquets marking the coming of age, celebrations of a betrothal, a wedding, or a bereavement)36 were primarily directed toward the public.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Body and Soul robin nadeau

For while we do not invariably make use of other resources, life without food is impossible, be we well or ill. —Galen (On the Properties of Foodstuffs 1.1) Omnipresent in our lives, food is much more than mere nourishment for the body. Food choices are often heavily formed by cultures as well as social and political structures. As the anthropologist Lévi-Strauss wrote: good food to eat is good food to think.1 To put it briefly, selecting the right foods involves multiple criteria, each charged with symbolic connotations. For this reason, we should not ignore the influence of social norms and religious beliefs on food choices, since what is good to eat is often what makes the eater not only feel good with him or herself, but also look good in the eyes of her community. The first part of this chapter will discuss the concept of dietetics in normative texts, such as medical, philosophical, and other normative writings in Greek and Roman literature. The second part will focus on the ethics of eating, mainly as illustrated by philosophers. In the last section, I will discuss the social, ideological, and symbolic aspects of food choices, such as religious beliefs, eating restrictions (taboos), and social projections.

146

BODY AND SOUL

BODY AND HEALTH In ancient Greece, the word “diet” (diaita) carried a wider range of meaning than the word we use today. In addition to eating choices, the word could also refer to a way of life. First appearing in literature in works by such authors as Alcaeus, Pindar, Aeschylus, and Thucydides, it indicated a way of life or customs for both individuals and entire populations.2 Later, it tended to have a more restricted and technical signification in medical literature for health and eating-related choices.3 Beyond the selection of food and drink for a healthy lifestyle, the word, then, also envelops numerous other behaviors and activities in the context of the classical world: physical exercise, sexual intercourse, sleep quality, and bath/cleaning habits (Hippocrates, Regimen in Acute Diseases 66; Ps. Hippocrates, Airs Waters Places 1; Regimen II 57–66; Regimen III 68; Diocles of Carystus, fr. 182 [van der Eijk]; etc.). The image of the body is culturally constructed, serving to inform the community about the relation between the eater and his or her eating habits. There is thus a direct link between body image and diet. For this reason, Greek physicians accorded much attention to the study of physical activities. Furthermore, since the body illustrates a person’s social and political standing, the perception of bodies tends to change depending on the social and historical context.4 In archaic and classical Greece, for example, the youthful and athletic physique was the ideal representation of the Greek citizen’s body. Citizens, and above all, members of the elite spent plenty of time training in the local gymnasium. Like attending the assembly, hunting, going to war, and taking leisure time, physical exercise was a regular activity of citizens. The normative role of the body is particularly evident in Sparta, where future citizens followed an intensive physical training program in order to join the citizens’ army. In compliance with a eugenic ideology which held that mothers in good physical shape make good babies, Spartan women also had access to physical education (Plutarch, Lycurgus 14). While the Romans did not praise athletic activity for citizens as much as the Greeks did, doctors did provide adapted recommendations to those who were unable to exercise (Cicero, On the Orator 2.21; Oribasius, 3.1.10–18). Having considered these specific examples, the mainstream ideology among the Roman elite could be expressed as

ROBIN NADEAU

147

“mens sana in corpore sano,” having a “sound mind in a sound body” (Juvenal, Satires 10.356). Ancient dietetics is based on the principal of the balance of humors. Established on the medical assumption according to which the human body is ruled by a flux of humors that must be regulated, sickness is interpreted as a disturbance in the balance of these elements. Dietetics, therefore, is the art of maintaining an internal balance of humors. The discipline appears right from the beginning in medicinal literature: in the Hippocratic corpus (fifth–fourth centuries b.c.e.), Rufus of Ephesus (late first century c.e.), Galen (second century c.e.), Oribasius (fourth century c.e.), and Anthimus (sixth century c.e.), but also in works of other writers such as Celsus (first century c.e.), Dioscorides (first century c.e.), Plutarch (first–second centuries c.e.), Athenaeus of Naucratis (second–third centuries c.e.), and Ps. Apuleius (fourth–fifth centuries c.e.), just to mention a few. Health was also a very important question for philosophers of every school of thought, since it was alleged that the way a person eats has a lot to do with his or her way of life and beliefs. A short list of authors who wrote on eating behaviors would include Epicurus, Seneca (Stoicism), and Plato, Plutarch (Middle Platonism), and Porphyry (Neoplatonism). Ancient medicine includes three branches: dietetics, surgery, and pharmacology. As a medical discipline, dietetics not only aims to cure diseases, but also to prevent them and to maintain good health. For ancient doctors, a man who chooses the wrong path will simply become sick. To be healthy, a person must follow a good diet and lead a healthy lifestyle. If the wealthy enjoyed the luxury of receiving dietetic counsel (Ps. Hippocrates, Regimen III 68–69), the majority of the population was often limited to what was available (or customary) when choosing foods. For these people, engaging the dietetic services of a physician was simply out of the question (Plato, Republic 3.406c ff ). Doctors placed themselves in a long tradition of healing beliefs and techniques like the worship of healing gods. Even though physicians did not reject divine interventions, they proposed cures that differed from traditional healing rituals such as incubation and incantations in sanctuaries of gods like Asclepius.5 But even after the spread of Hippocratic ideas and techniques, traditional superstitions and curative rituals were still common among the population.

148

BODY AND SOUL

For ancient doctors, in addition to the nourishment value of food for the body (trophe), each item of food exercised distinct powers (dunameis) over the humors and internal parts of the body (Ps. Hippocrates, Regimen II 39). The physician Diocles says it clearly: Those, then, who suppose that [substances] that have similar flavours or smells or [degrees of] hotness or some other [quality] of this kind all have the same powers, are mistaken; for it can be shown that from [substances] that are similar in these respect, many dissimilar [effects] result; and indeed, one should also not suppose that every [substance] that is laxative or promotes urine or has some other power is like that for the reason that it is hot or cold or salt, seeing that not all [substances] that are sweet or pungent or salt or those having any other [quality] of this kind have the same powers; rather must one think that the whole nature is the cause of whatever normally results from each of them; for in this way on will least fail to hit the truth. (fr. 176)6 Sickness is the result of an imbalance in the body’s humors: blood (hot and humid), phlegm (cold and humid), yellow bile (hot and dry), and black bile (cold and dry). The ideal diet involved eating foods that will restore balance to the body. In this way, an individual could neutralize the effect of an excessive or deficient humor by eating food with an opposite value. The balance of the humors could be reinstated by a careful modification in dietary, exercise, or bath regimens, but also with the help of surgery and drugs for more serious cases. Food items could be hot or cold, dry or humid, but also digestible or indigestible, wholesome or unwholesome, laxative or constipating. Consequently, the food that should be eaten helps the body to regain balance: But above all things everyone should be acquainted with the nature of his own body, for some are spare, others obese; some hot, others more frigid; some moist, others dry; some are costive, in others the bowels are loose. It is seldom but that a man has some part of his body weak. So then a thin man ought to fatten himself up, a stout one to thin himself down; a hot man to cool himself, a cold man to make himself warmer; the moist to dry himself up, the dry to moisten himself; he

ROBIN NADEAU

149

should render firmer his motions of loose, relax them if costive; treatment is to be always directed to the part which is mostly in trouble. (Celsus, On Medicine 1.3.13–14) According to the Hippocratic corpus, skinny individuals should prefer moister foods and more corpulent individuals, dry foods (Regimen in Health 2). Each person has a specific condition; therefore, they should adapt their regime and activities to offset the body’s weaknesses. Furthermore, gender, age, corpulence, region, and seasons should be taken into consideration when choosing food, since the body changes with respect to numerous factors: The way to discern the situation and nature of various districts is, broadly speaking, as follows: the southern countries are hotter and drier than the northern, because they are very near the sun. The race of men and plants in these countries must of necessity be drier, hotter and stronger than those which are in the opposite countries. . . . Marshy and boggy places moisten and heat. They heat because they are hollow and encompassed about, and there is no current of air. They moisten, because the things that grow there, on which the inhabitants feed, are more moist, while the air which is breathed is thicker, because the water there stagnates. (Ps. Hippocrates, Regimen II 37–38)7 For doctors, it is mandatory that people alter their eating behaviors with each season of the year in order to offset the effects of the environment on the human body: in winter, hot, dry, and nourishing foods are better; in summer, cold, moist, and easy-to-digest products are preferred; and a combination of these properties should be ingested in spring and fall: The season of the year also merits consideration. In winter it is fitting to eat more, and to drink less but of a stronger wine, to use much bread, meat preferably boiled, vegetable sparingly. . . . At that season everything taken should be hot of heat-promoting. . . . But in spring food should be reduced a little, the drink added to, but, however, of wine more diluted; more meat along with vegetables should be taken, passing gradually from boiled to roast. Venery is safest at this season

150

BODY AND SOUL

of the year. But in summer the body requires both food and drink oftener, and so it is proper in addition to take a meal at midday. At that season both meat and vegetables are most appropriate; wine that is much diluted in order that thirst may be relieved without heating the body; laving with cold water, roasted meat, cold food or food which is cooling. But just as food is taken more frequently, so there should be less of it. In autumn owing to changes in the weather there is most danger. . . . A little more food may now be taken, the wine less in quantity but stronger. (Celsus, On Medicine 1.3.34–39)8 Dietary changes should also occur progressively, since any sudden change would harm the body. Galen also indicates that country folk are accustomed to hard work and thus eat food that is more difficult to digest (Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs 1.2). Similarly, the same food products are not fit for every ethnic group, since the body is conditioned by its surroundings. The Egyptian’s body, for example, is considered hotter and the German’s body cooler. Concerning age groups, babies are considered hot and moist, children hot and dry, adults, cold and dry, and elderly people, usually cold and moist. Therefore, foods considered to possess cooling and drying properties should be given in priority to babies, cooling and moisturizing to children, warming and moisturizing to adults, and warming and drying to the elderly (Ps. Hippocrates, Regimen I 33). Gender also plays an important role. Females are considered colder and moister, contrary to males who are hotter and dryer (Ps. Hippocrates, Regimen I 34)—a dissimilarity that leads, naturally, to different prescribed regimens. Oribasius cites the work of the doctor Athenaeus of Attaleia on this topic: The cold and wet condition of the body of women has to be corrected by a regime which is weighted towards the hot and the dry. Women should therefore avoid the cold and the wet, air or places, and choose foods that are drying rather than moistening, as in any case nature itself teaches us, since women show very little need of liquid. Women should take little wine because of the weakness of their nature. (Liber Incertus 21.1–3)9

ROBIN NADEAU

151

This dietary distinction serves as a reminder of the strong disparity between the sexes in antiquity, especially in Greece. In many cultures, food is distributed according to the social hierarchy in force—sometimes taking the form of a paradox. This is particularly the case in Greece, where despite receiving less at meal times, women were in charge of managing food resources within the household. At the same time, however, as wives and mothers, women were often the agents of their own social subordination, reproducing and teaching respect for social conventions built on gender inequality.10 Xenophon’s Oeconomicus (“household management”; 7.5–6, 33–43) provides a relevant example, as the obedient household mistress must accept her role and moderate her eating habits (see also Oribasius, Liber Incertus 18.10). For their part, young women were taught restraint in their appetites, including sexual desire (Rufus of Ephesus 18.2). Concerning food, they often received only the “bare necessities” (Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 1.3; Galen in Orabasius, Liber Incertus 22.13–15), due to a cultural belief that aimed to give them what they needed with respect to their social status. As Peter Garnsey notes, this practice mostly ignored the real nutritional needs of women.11 In the Hippocratic collection, we also learn that the same regime (diaita) is not appropriate for both healthy and sick people: For the art of medicine would never have been discovered to begin with, nor would any medical research have been conducted—for there would have been no need for medicine—if sick men had profited by the same mode of living and regimen as the food, drink and mode of living of men in health, and if there had been no other things for the sick better then these. But the fact is that sheer necessity has caused men to seek and to find medicine, because sick men did not, and do not, profit by the same regimen as do men in health. (Hippocrates, Ancient Medicine 3) The author of Ancient Medicine pleads in favor of the individuality of every human being, since, says he, each person reacts differently to food and drink according to the nature of his or her body. An adapted regime can help sick individuals regain health, though drugs and surgery may be more appropriate for serious illness. Of course, it is fundamental for physicians to avoid foods that will worsen a patient’s condition.

152

BODY AND SOUL

The majority of ancient doctors believed that foods, once ingested, were transformed into liquid in the stomach and then absorbed through the vessels. The digestive process was associated with cooking, or concoction. Cooked foods were therefore considered easier to digest, since physicians thought that the process of concoction had already begun before eating. Digestion was a form of cooking. Easier to digest and concoct were hot and humid foods. While the ripening of vegetables was viewed as part of the concoction process, flesh, associated with putrefaction, required cooking to initiate the concoction process and ease digestion. That said, the characteristics of foods could change according to several factors, such as the original environment, preparation, cooking process, and added condiments (Ps. Hippocrates, Regimen II 56; Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs 3.1). Numerous health recommendations appear in Greek and Roman literature. First, physicians provide advice in treatises that seem to address a well-educated readership. The influence of doctors amongst the Greek and Roman intelligentsia can be observed in the works of scholars such as Seneca, Celsus, Plutarch, Athenaeus of Naucratis, and so on. If such treatises helped physicians and members of the well-read elite, who had access to a wider variety of foods, observe eating recommendations and achieve a balanced diet, the vast majority of poor urban and rural populations hardly had access to this dietary advice. In any case, their precarious economic situation would have obliged them to settle for whatever food was available, particularly in times of food shortage—which seems to have occurred frequently.12 In his book On the Properties of Foodstuffs, the physician Galen acknowledges this cleavage between the social classes in terms of access to food, writing about products eaten by the common people, notably in times of food crises. He alerts his readers that, even though some food items are not ideal, they can replace other, unavailable foods. The ability to choose one’s food according to the recommendations of a physician or any other author was a luxury reserved only for the few—a privilege, we should note, ridiculed by Horace (Satires 2.4). Still, at least for the elite, about whom we are best informed, scientific dietetic principles would have exercised a strong influence upon food choices, although the main objective of dietetic treatises remained the prevention and healing of minor illnesses (Seneca, On Anger 1.6.2).

ROBIN NADEAU

153

To sum up, every eater is conditioned by his or her culture. In cultures with a developing system of writing, such as ancient Greece and Rome, guidelines that help readers make choices begin to appear. In their societies, these authors also become authorities, just as food critics do in our culture today. Food selection is closely knit into the processes of social representation. Therefore, if a famous and respected author expresses an opinion, it will influence the reader in his or her food choices.13 One of the oldest and certainly the most famous of gastronomic guidebooks is Archestratus’s The Life of Luxury, which gives a glimpse of regional specialties for gourmets and offers tips on how certain dishes are best prepared. Its influence in antiquity is attested to in Athenaeus’s Deipnosophists. In Latin literature, Apicius was a well-known gourmet to which tradition even associated a recipe book. Pliny the Elder also authored, for instance, a catalogue of wines, ranking them according to criteria like region or health benefits. His classification of bons crus (book 14) is, of course, influenced by his own beliefs and culture, but it also illustrates the typical desire of Greek and Roman scholars to understand the world within a scientific discourse marked by well-thought-out categories.

BODY AND MIND Ancient physicians were influenced by philosophical concepts in their understanding of nature and the human body. Conversely, philosophers were also well informed of and influenced by medical work (authors such as Seneca and Plutarch, for example). As discussed by philosophers, the notion of ethics had a strong impact on doctors. For instance, the ethical doctrines of the pre-Socratic philosophers greatly influenced the writers of the Hippocratic books.14 In both ancient dietetics and philosophy, balance and moderation emerge as central concepts (Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs 1.1)—an unsurprising fact if we remember that medical authors were also well-trained intellectuals in fields like rhetoric, literature, and philosophy. For physicians and especially for philosophers, all types of excess are discouraged, including the overindulgences of frugality or of gluttony, drunkenness or strict abstinence (Celsus, On Medicine 1.2.8; Horace, Satires 2.2; Seneca, Moral Letters 83.27; On Tranquillity of Mind 17.8–10; Galen, An Exhortation to Study the Arts 11.1–11). Plato, for

154

BODY AND SOUL

example, pleaded for self-control and simplicity in diet (Republic 2.372a– d; 9.571b–c). In Xenophon’s Memorabilia (3.14.2–4), Socrates eulogizes the consumption of staple food (sitos) and decries the importance of relish (opsa), since eating is a vital need that should not serve as source of pleasure. In short, according to Socrates, one should eat to live and not live to eat (Athenaeus 4.158f; Diogenes Laertius 2.34).15 Plutarch, who wrote a book entitled Advices on How to Keep Well, explicitly praises the benefits of moderation (metron) in accordance with the tradition of the Platonic school (Table Talks 1.4.3.621c–d). In his view, knowledge and philosophy are the best tools to escape the slavery of need and desire (Coriolanus 1.3–4; How a Man May Become Aware of His Progress in Virtue 8.79c; 15.85b). Generally speaking, philosophers most often argue for a frugal diet. In the mind of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, lust and health problems result from weak moral standards, while the journey to virtue leads to good health (Moral Letters 78.5, 22–5; 90.14–5, 19; 110.11–13, 18–20; 114.24–27; 122.4–5). His fellow thinker Musonius Rufus even viewed desire as a disease: “I would choose sickness rather than luxury, for sickness harms only the body, but luxury destroys both body and soul, causing weakness and impotence in the body and lack of self-control and cowardice in the soul.” Seneca argues for the same restriction of corporal desires. In accordance with the Stoic doctrine, the wise man must ignore hunger and desire in order to lead a more spiritual life and reach a higher plane of thought. This philosophical and mystical pursuit is characteristic of some philosophical movements that we can best describe as sects, as communities of people sharing the same ideas and rituals. If schools of thought like Platonism and Stoicism denied desire and pleasure, other doctrines like Epicurism or the Cynenaic School took another, less severe, route (Athenaeus 12.544a ff). Since the classical tradition often ascribed immoral and decadent lifestyles to followers of these ideologies, it comes as no surprise that Christians and authors from opposing schools tried to demonize supporters of these doctrines. Contrary to what is commonly thought about the founder of the Epicurean School (named “The Garden,” after the garden in which his followers met), Epicurus did not preach the supremacy of pleasure above all else. Instead, according to him, virtue should be a source of pleasure: “ ‘We should prize the Good and the virtues and such things as that, provided they give us pleasure; but if they

ROBIN NADEAU

155

do not give pleasure, we should renounce them’; by these statements clearly making virtue the minister of pleasure” (Epicurus, frag. 123 = Athenaeus 12.546f-547a). However, his message is normally reduced only to the fulfillment of desire. For this reason, in the literary tradition we have received, we see a nearly exclusive emphasis on the quest for pleasure associated with Epicurean schools (e.g., Baton, fr. 3 and 5 [K.-A.] = Athenaeus 7.279a-c; Hegesippus, fr. 2 [K.-A.] = Athenaeus 7. 279d). In his work On Abstinence from Killing Animals, Porphyry offers an overview of vegetarian beliefs in ancient literature, since, like his master Plotinus (a Neo-Platonist), he was a vegetarian.16 Skeptical of the fundaments of traditional civic religious belief and its customary meat sacrifice, some philosophical and mystic communities chose to live an ascetic lifestyle, and even adopted a vegetarian regimen. In their view, such a diet purifies the body and allows individuals to lead a spiritual quest, free from physical need. Believing in the transmigration of the soul, the Pythagoreans normally refused to sacrifice animals and to eat meat, since it would require the criminal act of depriving a living being of its soul17—but other traditions relate that they were able to eat meat, except sheep and plough oxen (Aristotle, fr. 179 [Rose] = Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 4.11.12; Aristoxenus, fr. 29a = Diogenes Laertius 8.20; Plutarch, Table Talks 8.728d–730f; Iamblicus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life 109; Porphyry, On Abstinence from Killing Animals 3.19, etc.). In general, though, we attribute an exclusive regimen based on vegetarian products to this sect (Plutarch, Numa 8.8; Iamblicus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life 68, 106–8, 225; Diogenes Laertius 8.22; etc.). Orphism is another religious and spiritual movement that opted for vegetarianism. Pythagoreans and followers of Orphism were strictly prohibited from eating beans, since they symbolize the rebirth cycle and the passing between life and death (Pausanias 1.37.4; Iamblicus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life 109).18 All of these groups preferred to communicate with the gods through nonbloody sacrifices (Diogenes Laertius 8.13), such as burning aromatic herbs and nonanimal foodstuff. In short, according to them, piety is no excuse for feasting on sacrificed meat. Although, technically speaking, eating meat never posed an ethical problem within Christian conceptual thought, which separated the animal kingdom and human beings, who were “created in God’s image” (Gen. 1:28; Matt. 5), Christian authors were still highly influenced by the ideas

156

BODY AND SOUL

of pagan philosophers on eating. Indeed, the Church fathers were quite attuned to ancient literature, since they were well versed in paideia and its branches like rhetoric, philosophy, and medicine. Distancing themselves from the Torah’s dietary laws, the first Christian authors promoted a dietary regime inspired by the Greek intellectual heritage and Greek philosophy (Platonism, Stoicism, Cynicism, Pythagoreanism, etc.).19 Christian authors such as Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215 c.e.) discredited luxurious food and gastronomic pleasures, instead pleading in favor of frugality and temperance. He viewed eating more as a moral issue rather than as a religious concern (Paidagogos 2.1 ff.; see also Origen [c. 185–253 c.e.], Against Celsus 5.49; Augustine, Confessions 10.31 [46]). For Tertullian (c. 160–220), these moral recommendations further extend to include abstinence from consuming blood (Acts 15:20, 29; Apologeticus 9.13–4; Ieiunio 4; see also Origen, Against Celsus 8.29–31).20 A practice already eulogized by Tertullian, fasting arose as an important eating model in Christian literature of the fourth century, especially with the development of monasticism (and the hermit figure) and the promotion of the ascetic ideal. Jerome (fourth century) and Augustine (354–430) advocated the renouncement of one’s needs (food and sexual urges) and self-denial (Jerome, Life of Paul 6; Letters 22.11; Augustine, Confessions 10.31 [43–44]). Henceforward, fasting would become an idealized model of piousness and spiritual life in Christendom.21

FOOD AND SOCIETY In every civilization, eaters have a general idea about the kinds of food that can and should be eaten, as well as the context in which these foods can be consumed without committing any faux pas. Food choices, then, are also a social statement indicative of a given society’s identity. Spartans were particularly proud of their famously awful black broth. Generally speaking, Greeks and Romans considered bread and wine to be symbols of civilization, since they require a complex preparation process. Therefore, some Barbarians, Germans and Numidians, for instance, in addition to certain fictitious tribes, are pictured as flesh-eating and milk-drinking populations— and thus disregarded as nonsedentary societies (Odyssey book 9; Varro, On Agriculture 2.1.3–5; Sallust, Jugurthine War 89; Caesar, Gallic War 6.22).

ROBIN NADEAU

157

Good and bad Roman emperors were often represented in eating situations, their behaviors symbolizing either their moral integrity or dishonesty. In antiquity, a ruler demonstrating a slavish craving for food was seen as incapable of rational government. The tyranny of the stomach was used as a metaphor for despotism as a political system. It was also a widely used ethnographic stereotype attributed to foreign rulers and disgraced Roman emperors (Herodotus 9.82; Athenaeus 12.513e ff).22 Body fat was also held to imply moral weakness (Juvenal, Satires 11.35–43; Athenaeus 12.549a ff). In this context, doctors’ diagnoses were in turn influenced by ethnological presumptions. For instance, in the Hippocratic treatise On Airs, Waters, and Places (16), Asiatic peoples are presented as delicate, even as cowards who are often ruled by despots. As stated earlier, ideas about what is good or bad to eat has as much to do with health factors as with cultural, social, religious, and symbolic considerations. Humans, despite the high availability of foods in nature, tend only to take advantage of a small percentage of these foods.23 In fact, what is potentially good to eat is not necessarily “good to think” for individuals, to use Lévi-Strauss’s phrase. Human beings tend to make food choices according to cultural beliefs, or implicit taxonomic classification systems that distinguish the edible from the inedible. In other words, human beings choose foods in line with what is socially and symbolically accepted.24 One well-known example is the pork taboo in the Jewish religious system (Lev. 11; Deut. 14). Animals considered improper for sacrifice and consumption are typically described as anatomically abnormal or as belonging to a species that does not fit with cognitive and cultural paradigms.25 Within a social system, shared beliefs and commensality produce mutual identity and represent membership to a community. Eating unsuitable foods or sharing a meal with outsiders could thus be considered improper. Such situations became a topic of debate within Jewish and early Christian groups.26 According to Paul of Tarsus, early Christians of Jewish origin, like Peter and James, did not share meals with gentile Christians in Antioch because they did not share the same dietary rules (Gal. 2:11–14). The question of whether or not (gentile) Christians should adopt Jewish dietary laws was an important matter of debate in the early Christian Church. For Paul, all types of food are suitable for consumption, neither is any harm done in mixing company, whether among Jewish and gentile Christians

158

BODY AND SOUL

or Christians and pagans (1 Cor. 8.4–10; Rom. 14.20; Acts 10. 28–19). His views, however, were highly debated in the early Church (Ps. Clement, Homilies 7.3– 4).27 Galen cites several examples of unfit food in Greek culture. Vipers, reptiles, and woodworms are eaten by Egyptians, according to Galen, yet are ignored by Greeks and Romans (On the Properties of Foodstuffs 3.2). He is personally disgusted by meat that he does not usually eat: However, some people also eat the flesh of very old donkeys, which is most unwholesome, very difficult to concoct, bad for the stomach and, still more, is distasteful as food, like horse and camel meat; which latter meats men who are asinine and camel-like in body and soul also eat! Some people even eat bear meat, and that of lions and leopards, which is worse still, boiling it either once only, or twice. (On the Properties of Foodstuffs 3.1.) Hardly concealing his repugnance, he labels as barely comestible the flesh he is unaccustomed to eating. We find the same kinds of prejudices and associations in Seneca, who considers all mushrooms as dangerous and advises his readers to avoid them, since they are an unusual kind of plant (Letters 95.24–5; see also Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs 2.67). Such taxonomic irregularities cause disgust among these authors, who discourage the consumption of these products and sometimes go as far as expressing health concerns.28 Rufus of Ephesus advises against eating aquatic birds and other species that live in marshes, since they come from a humid environment, and consequently are moister in nature and harder to digest (De padagra 11). Galen wrote that one should prefer fish caught in the open sea rather than those from stagnant waters or rivers running through large cities, as they are contaminated by human pollution (On the Properties of Foodstuffs 3.24, 26 and 29). Eating dog meat, however, would be perfectly fine according to Greek doctors, particularly young dogs, which were often eaten in Greece (Ps. Hippocrates, Regimen II 46; Diocles, fr. 151 [van der Eijk]; Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs 3.1). The Greeks and Romans identified themselves with the foods they produced, the grains they harvested, and the animals they kept, sacrificed, and cooked. They liked to consider themselves civilized due to their active

ROBIN NADEAU

159

preparation and cooking processes (Hippocratus, Ancient Medicine 3 and 5). They believed that sacrificial offerings allowed them to communicate with the gods and to act as intermediaries between the cosmic forces and animals. Good “food to think” would then be that which could place them in relation with the divine forces and nature, but also distinguish them from other human civilizations, since they considered themselves to be members of a superior culture.29 In Greece and Rome, eating meat that was not killed expressly for consumption (like decaying carcasses) was irregular (Porphyry, On Abstinence from Killing Animals 3.18.2). Cannibalism was also out of the question (Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs 3.1). The killing of animals was regulated by strict religious rituals that, according to the beliefs of the Greeks and Romans, distinguished them from other ethnic groups. The sacred laws (or customs) precisely determined the course of the ceremony and the characteristics of the sacrificed animal. Any animal not meeting the standards required for the ritual would be dismissed (Plutarch, Obsolescence of Oracles 437b).30 Violations of rules were believed to carry a heavy price, as illustrated in the Odyssey, when Odysseus’s companions died for having feasted on helios sacred cattle, disregarding a religious prohibition. Other forbidden animals were sometimes owned by sanctuaries and devoted to a god’s worship (e.g., Xenophon, Anabasis 1.4.9; Mnaseas, fr. 31 [Cappelletto] = Athenaeus, 8.346d–e; Diodorus Siculus 5.3.5–6; Pausanias 1.38.1, 7.22.4; etc.).31 In some religious rituals, the sacred law prescribed fasting to worshipers as a cleansing rite before some cults.32 This is the case for the Eleusian Mysteries, for instance, where custom prescribed abstinence from certain species of fish and snails before the ceremony (Scholia in Lucian, Dialogi Meretricii 7.4). According to some testimonies, the consumption of pilot fish (pompilos) was prohibited (Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals 15.23; Athenaeus 7.282e ff). In Rome, it was forbidden for the priest of Jupiter to be in contact with raw flesh, flour, or yeast before cooking, since they are symbolically linked with corruption (phthora) and fermentation (zumôsis) (Plutarch, The Roman Questions 109–10). In the end, respecting these rules seems not only to be a religious obligation, but also a statement of identity that separates those who follow rules from those who do not, that is, Barbarians and noncitizens.

160

BODY AND SOUL

In ancient societies, eating meat played a symbolic and an ideological role. Furthermore, the sharing of sacrificial meat served to represent the political system in Greek and Roman cities. This ritual created a dual link: between the worshipers and the gods, and between the eaters, who thus asserted their common affiliation to the community.33 Due to their elevated importance, a flaw in the ritual could be considered extremely impious (Ps. Demosthenes 59.116–17; Athenaeus 10.420e–f). The calendar of religious events is structured around the cycle of seasons and economic activities, such as the end of the harvest period (Eleusian Mysteries), the tasting of the year’s first wines in spring (Athenaeus 11.465a), or the coming of fish shoals, for instance (Athenaeus 7.297e). Animals were rarely bred for consumption, since domestic animals normally provided people with milk, wool, and work assistance. Still, they could be eaten in periods of food crisis, and the fodder would then be kept for nourishment in extreme situations (Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs 2.38). With the spread of Christianity, Greek and Roman ritual sacrifices gradually disappeared.34 Early Christianity evokes a diversity of Eucharistic meal ceremonies, eating rituals, and food choices. Local and regional customs were thus socially reproduced, both consciously and unconsciously, with respect to local beliefs and traditions.35 After its official recognition by Roman authorities, an organized Christian Church gradually established a canonical and orthodox etiquette. Thereafter, certain of the numerous eating rituals within Christian communities were labeled heretical by a centralized ecclesiastic authority and its effort to standardize beliefs and rituals. Eating right often means eating in accordance with social conventions. How and with whom a person eats is just as significant socially as what a person consumes. Eating functions as a means of communication and self-promotion.36 The average eater typically reproduces what he or she has learned and behaves according to expectations.37 Classical Sparta provides a good example of social reproduction in this domain. There, young eaters learned how to behave at mealtime and, consequently, to act like citizens (Plutarch, Lycurgus 10 and 12; Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaimonians 5). By etymology, the meal (dais in Greek or cena in Latin) implies sharing. Eating alone with prodigality would be considered a misbehavior, an act of gluttony (Cicero, Cato 13.45; Plutarch, Lucullus

ROBIN NADEAU

161

40; Table Talks 7.1.697c; 8.6.5.726e). A real meal, then, implied sharing, a process of social exchange and the creation of social alliances. Generally speaking, the rich ate the same foods as the poor, but they would also have access to a wider variety of victuals and be able to buy superior grains. Celsus tells his readers not to scorn the common people’s food: “to avoid no kind of food in common use” (On Medicine 1.1.2). Nevertheless, the rich and the powerful displayed their social status with food. Fish is normally pictured in Greco-Roman literature as a very expensive product. Though rare species were considered high-status food symbols and were condemned by moralists as the most decadent products of all, the majority of the population could eat fish. Nevertheless, larger species caught in the open sea were too expensive for the majority. Indeed, the cost of catching fish one by one, the risk of fishing in far-off seas, the handling costs for shipping to cities far from the coast, and the conservation problems for products that had to be rapidly consumed added up to make these fish an expensive product.38 The wealthiest could also eat more meat—considered a high-status food because of the high breeding costs— and had access to imported goods like spices from remote lands. This is why the warriors of the Trojan War were said to have eaten a high-protein, meat diet, since animal sacrifice symbolizes piousness, evokes the regimen of athletes and combatants, and underlines the social status of the eaters, who were kings and princes. Smaller animals, on the other hand, were cheaper for the common people and less-desired parts of animals were also accessible to the poorer classes (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 8.209). Wine is another indicator of social status, as each social group drank its characteristic wine. This is particularly evident in ancient Rome, where slaves drank a beverage made from marc and water (lora), poor citizens a wine no older than one year (vinum rusticum), and the rich old wine (vinum vetus sequentis gustus).39 Nevertheless, a paradox seems to exist in ancient Greece and Rome. On the one hand, it was a moral necessity for hosts to welcome their guests with lavishness, in order to prove their respect and show their social status. On the other hand, simplicity was highly valued, particularly among traditional aristocracies. The Greek Comedy, Theophrastus, and the Roman Satirists each mock the nouveaux riches who took pleasure in displaying their wealth with food. Simply being rich and showing it did not suffice,

162

BODY AND SOUL

since real members of the elite tried to behave like true gentlemen according to arbitrary codes of conduct.40 This kind of charme distingué is met in literature as a behavioral model (Horace, Satires 2.2; Athenaeus 12. 544a– 554f). In private life, a model citizen was expected to eat and behave modestly. Particularly in Rome, the frugality of ancestral diets became a literary topos. However, this stereotype of simplicity should be interpreted in the context of the Roman Empire’s expansion, the import of wealth to Rome, and exogenous practices that were not always welcomed by conservative authors. Still, wealth had already made its way to Rome well before its condemnation in Greco-Roman literature.41 To sum up, individuals do not always eat and drink what is good for their bodies. Eaters often settle for what is customary for people of the same social group or what is available in situations of food crisis. Eating is a strong economic, social, and political indicator.42 For their part, the Greeks and Romans not only ate what made them feel good physically, but also what made them look good in the community’s eyes, what met social expectations. An impressive similarity joins the Greek and Roman conceptions of eating; this is largely due to the influence of Greek literature on Roman values, but also to the fact that the same philosophical beliefs and medicinal concepts freely travelled between the two cultures, and were adopted by authors writing in both Greek and Latin. We can safely say that Greece and Rome shared the same intellectual culture, especially among members of the elite classes, to whom we owe written testimonies concerning their customs and beliefs. For these privileged groups, a balanced diet and moderate behaviors were often the keys to a healthy life, but they alone possessed the means to follow these guiding principles.

CHAPTER NINE

Food Representations hugh lindsay

The sporadic nature of evidence from the ancient world conditions the extent to which we can explore ancient diet and the high points in ancient techniques related to preparing and presenting food. The social and political environment, as well as the genres employed by the main authors who deal with feasting and culinary matters, have a great impact on the topics we can discuss. The background also has a profound influence on the visual evidence. Diet and the rituals employed in the preparation, display, and consumption of food are important in the process of defining interactions between individuals of like or disparate status. Some changed emphases can be tracked between Greek, Etruscan, and Roman culture.

VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS The earliest representations of food in the Greek world date from the late Bronze Age and appear in the Minoan and Mycenaean palaces of the second millennium b.c.e. There has been a lot of recent interest in the role and representation of feasting in that world in various mediums, including frescoes.1 Emphasis is on high status, and the activities of the elite are celebrated. Their enjoyment of food and drink is catered for by an enormous staff, with the main emphasis on drink, especially the consumption of wine.

164

FOOD REPRESENTATIONS

Hunting, heroic behavior and elite competitions demonstrate male success, and form the background to feasting, which symbolizes participation in the activities of the prestigious group. We are still located in a world of heroes in the eighth century b.c.e., when the text of Homer can supply us with a view of the epic world of Greek and Trojan heroes and their competition for supreme status. Homer’s text was a crucial part of a Greek upbringing and introduced later generations to the world of gods and heroes. The poet’s text provided a repertoire of scenes from the heroic world that had an immense cultural influence on later Greek art and life. Wine drinking was seen as something appropriate for the heroic male. Food seems secondary. Drinking scenes, often drawn from the Homeric epics, began to appear on black figure pottery from about 600 b.c.e. Couches were commonly depicted as suitable furniture for the context, and the designs show the influence of the palace cultures of the Near East, in Assyria and Babylonia, but now divorced from the royal court. Men recline on the left elbow on the couches, supported by cushions. This is a sign of their eminence and power. Although three-legged tables with cakes or strips of meat are represented, most emphasis is still on drinking and singing.2 However, the symposion or drinking party is more prominent on the later red figure vases (from c. 525 b.c.e.), with the same range of accompaniments, either outdoors or in the andron (the men’s quarters in the Greek house). Women are generally not depicted—at least not respectable women. Hetaerae are often depicted nude. Sometimes, women appear as entertainers with flutes and other musical instruments.3 These themes continue on red figure vases from South Italy (from c. 440 b.c.e.), on which revelers are often shown on the move.4 The elite chamber tombs of Etruria help to illustrate Etruscan dining. Cups and other equipment to service banquets are found as early as the eighth century b.c.e., contemporary with Homer. At Tarquinia, the earliest examples date from the sixth century b.c.e., although most are from the next century; here, unlike in Greece, the whole family is depicted reclining and enjoying the activity. In tombs in Etruria, husbands and wives are commemorated as couples, fully clothed, reclining, and enjoying shared banquets. In contrast, the tomb of the Diver in Paestum (c. 470 b.c.e.) celebrates Greek themes—the Greek symposion, with its exclusively male drinking party and association with homosexual relationships.

HUGH LINDSAY

165

There are few sources to illustrate Roman banquets in the early and middle Republic, and when our sources begin to come into play, both Etruscan and Roman customs are under Hellenistic influence. Banqueting scenes have a wide diffusion. Communal feasts were a feature of public life and were used to celebrate religious occasions and triumphs. Funeral feasts were also important and funerary clubs provided a means to organize regular celebrations. Julius Caesar gave a public feast for the whole populace on the occasion of his triumph in 45 b.c.e. (Plutarch, Caesar 55.2), but this type of display has not been taken up by the iconographic record. Some towns in Italy depict public feasting in relief sculpture that has survived. Sometimes, banqueters are depicted seated rather than reclining; on a relief from Amiternum, Katherine Dunbabin has identified these as persons of lesser status, and this emphasizes attitudes to hierarchy in Roman society.5 At a higher level in society, the emperor Domitian held a banquet in the Colosseum (Statius, Silvae 1.6.29–50). There, the seating already defined hierarchy. Greek, Etruscan, and Roman funerary monuments commonly represent reclining banqueters. The range of representation is very wide, as well as the status of those commemorated. From the columbarium of Livia on the Via Appia, we have C. Iulius Bathyllus, a significant freedman of Augustus, in charge of the temple of the deified Augustus and Livia, reclining on a couch with a drinking bowl in front of him (CIL 6.4222)6; he is dressed formally as a token of status. Meanwhile, a lesser freedman from Tibur, Flavius Agricola (c. 160 c.e.), whose grave was revealed in the Vatican necropolis, promotes and boasts of a carnal drinking and sexual career (CIL 6.17985a).7 Although respectable Roman women, unlike their Greek counterparts, are often depicted reclining in banqueting scenes, there also exist images where women are depicted seated at the foot of a couch on which her partner is reclining. Scenes of banquets in a domestic context appear in Third and Fourth Style paintings at Pompeii and Herculaneum, thus dating before the eruption of 79 c.e. These sites also provide evidence for the organization of the triclinium, a three-couch dining room with a sole table in the middle between the diners. Rooms are consequently long and narrow. Fittings from furniture in Roman triclinia show Hellenistic influence. Outside, in Pompeian gardens, masonry couches and tables in this format also survive.8

166

FOOD REPRESENTATIONS

Roman seating arrangements reflected the hierarchical Roman social pyramid. The surviving images of banquets have often been extracted from their original context, but in any case reflect conditions in the Hellenistic world, and often do not display the characteristic layout of a Roman triclinium. The main influence is Hellenistic art, but Katherine Dunbabin warns that painters often adjusted their copies of Greek originals to suit localized needs and tastes.9 Still life in Roman painting also encompasses a wide range of subjects, including items of food such as bowls of fruit, fish, and game birds.10 Mosaic pavements can be found throughout the Mediterranean world. Still life in this genre is represented at Pompeii. A well-known mosaic is one of a number of representations of marine life from the site, and includes as a central scene a fight between an octopus and a lobster, surrounded by quite an array of sea creatures (House VIII.2, 16).11 There has been considerable interest in recent years in how the themes represented in Pompeian houses reflect the usage of the rooms, as well as how foods depicted should be contextualized.12

WRITTEN ACCOUNTS: SCOPE AND COVERAGE The written authorities from Greece and Rome focus primarily on elite behavior. Homer’s epics concentrate on the working out of the lives of the heroes; social occasions are incidental. Few sources from the high classical age of the fifth century b.c.e. deal with diet, although occasional snippets can be found in Herodotus. Plato and Athenaeus provide us with more detailed insights into the construction of feasting in the Greek world. Plato’s world of the fourth century b.c.e. is that of the male elite engaged in social, sexual, and intellectual activity accompanied by a symposion. Plato is a considerable supplement to the visual evidence. Athenaeus is a much later writer of around 200 c.e., again recounting highly academic discussion, who illuminates a wider range of contexts and cites a great deal of otherwise unknown Greek literature, often from Greek comedy. The most notable source here is Archestratu from Gela in Sicily, who was of unknown social status. An elite perspective is surely certain in view of the extent of his travels. He likes food, especially fish. In Rome, the farming manuals, although largely practical, help us understand the use of rural

HUGH LINDSAY

167

retreats by powerful individuals and the impact of these estates on the way of life of urbanized Romans.13 Occasionally, gastronomic interests emerge. In the early empire, some of our best sources are concerned with food only to make moral points. Petronius’s Cena Trimalchionis depicts the fictitious freedman Trimalchio, who is obsessed by the desire to display his wealth and power. This is an elite view of an underclass, but the text still reflects the world of the elite. Other satirical works of the period develop a critique of contemporary manners and morals without much specific interest in gourmet items. There is a considerable gap between satire and reality. In the Suetonian biographies, imperial attitudes toward food are seen as a moral test of the quality of emperors, whose lives incidentally deal with prestige foods. More practical, and closer to the table, is the work attributed to the first-century c.e. identity Apicius, which has come down to us in an apparently mutilated and late form that was reached in about the fourth century c.e. It is the most useful single source, both in terms of the range of ingredients and the cooking techniques that can be deduced from its text. The existing text provides a largely elite view of Roman cooking and presumes the ready availability of labor.

WRITTEN ACCOUNTS: THE GREEK WORLD Homer Soon after the end of the Bronze Age, literacy became established in Greece, and the Homeric poems evolved from oral to written texts. The Homeric poems are set several hundred years before the poet’s time, and his own world of about 700 b.c.e. was quite altered from the world of the Trojan saga that he depicted. His age of heroes provides some reflection of diverse aspects of the world of the Minoan and Mycenaean palaces, and a narrative which can be used to flesh out the archaeological finds. Recipes as such do not appear in the Iliad or the Odyssey. The Iliad displays a competitive warrior culture, and such food as appears seems to have been obtained by hunting, complemented by wine. Roasted meat is prominent. We hear also of porridge created out of a combination of wine and barley meal, known as kykeon (Homer, Iliad 11.638–41), and pulses of various types formed part of the standard diet.

168

FOOD REPRESENTATIONS

The wanderings of Odysseus extended over ten years before his return to Ithaca. During a visit to the goddess Calypso, her maidservants fed him with all manner of mortal foods while she enjoyed nectar and ambrosia (Homer, Odyssey 5. 194–99). There are no specifics on the mortal diet, but a lot of emphasis on appropriate protocol. When Odysseus visits the palace of Alcinous, we hear of an orchard with flourishing fruit trees—apples, pears, and pomegranates are mentioned, as well as figs and olives (Odyssey 7. 112–32). When he eventually arrives home in disguise as a beggar to reclaim the faithful Penelope, the suitors are eating him out of house and home. The diet is meat based, and supplemented with bread and wine (Odyssey 20. 248–55). Questions of status are paramount for Odysseus.

Plato Plato in his fourth-century context is far removed from the world of heroes. The sophisticated philosophical discussion depicted in Plato’s Symposion can hardly be typical of these drinking parties. It reveals something of the atmosphere in the andron, the men’s quarters within the Greek house, with most emphasis on the drinking party, but little about food at the symposion. Commensality was essentially an all-male activity conducted in the segregated andron, and thus can be differentiated from Etruscan and Roman habits, which allowed for the presence of the women of the household.14 In archaic representations, there is not much variation in what is depicted on the tables at a symposion. The dishes are usually bread or cakes, meat and wine.15

Athenaeus For more sophisticated Greek food in antiquity we are best served by Athenaeus (about 200 c.e.), who in his sprawling work gives us insights into numerous otherwise inaccessible authors, including Lynceos of Samos and Archestratu of Gela. Otherwise, we are forced back on the occasional vignettes that appear in a diverse selection of literary authors starting with Homer. Athenaeus has attracted quite a bit of attention in the last few years, and is made more accessible by the volume edited by Braund and Wilkins.16 He is the source of a passage from Ephippos, a writer of Middle

HUGH LINDSAY

169

Comedy (fourth century b.c.e.), who is cited on the subject of typical menu at an amphidromia, a baby’s naming day: At an amphidromia, it is traditional to toast slices of Chersonese cheese, and to sear cabbage glistening with olive oil, to stew fat lambs’ ribs, to pluck pigeons and thrushes, together with finches, and at the same time to gnaw baby cuttlefish along with squids, to chew on many tentacles of octopus, and to drink many cups of completely unmixed wine. (Athenaeus 370 d) Although Athenaeus, because of the subject of his work, the Deipnosophistai (Philosophers at Dinner), may give us an exaggerated impression of the importance of food and drink as a topic in Greek comedy, this particular passage provides a valuable insight into the structure of an important family ceremony in the Greek world.

Archestratu’s Hedupatheia Archestratu was a fourth-century poet from Gela, a Greek colony in Sicily. A pale reflection of Hedupatheia is preserved through passages cited by Athenaeus, and has become accessible through two modern editions.17 Archestratu was often concerned with the description of food and where and how it should be sourced. Among other things this book is a link in the history of Mediterranean cuisine and culinary tradition. The Life of Luxury (as it has been named by Wilkins and Hill) has the advantage of not being Athenocentric, and shows the perspective of the entire Greek world— Greece, Southern Italy, Sicily, coastal Asia Minor, and the Black Sea: This Archestratu in his love for pleasures, travelled over every land and sea with precision, in a desire, as it seems to me, to review with care the things of the belly; and imitating the writers of geographical descriptions and voyages, his desire is to set forth everything precisely, wherever the best to eat and the best to drink are to be found.18 Archestratu has a broad vision when it comes to potential sources of ingredients, but almost nothing is known of Archestratu’s life. Athenaeus valued

170

FOOD REPRESENTATIONS

the work highly and utilized sixty-two fragments of the poems, only a taste of the work, with no real sense of its shape. Its form was as a poem intended as a parody of epic—poetry with inappropriate characters or subject matter (food rather than heroes), an example from a long but imperfectly known tradition of parody—again mostly known through Athenaeus. Archestratu’s unusual work also provides instruction on the preparation and acquisition of good food. The following provides a sample of its general tone: Archestratu in those fine counsels advises: in the city of Torone you must buy the underbelly of the dog-shark, the hollow part below. Then sprinkle them with cumin and bake with a little salt. Add nothing else my dear except perhaps some yellow-grey oil. When it is baked, then add your pounded sauce and the trimmings. Now whenever you stew something within the sides of a hollow cooking pot, do not add water or wine vinegar, but pour on it only oil and dried cumin together with fragrant leaves. Stew it over the heat of the charcoal without bringing it too close to the flames, and stir often in case it burns without your noticing. There are not many mortals who know of this divine food, nor do they desire to eat it, those that is that have the soul of a storm petrel or a locust, and are scared rigid because the creature is a man-eater. But every fish likes human flesh, whenever he can get it. So it’s only right that all those who babble on in this way go over to vegetables and join Diodorus the philosopher and with him follow Pythagoras in a strict and severe fashion.19 Chefs were low status, and it seems that Archestratu was not a chef himself, but was knowledgeable about the quality of produce. He would, like other ancient epicures, supervise the preparation of dishes and the condiments to be included. His comments are edgy, and hint at an individual who liked to display heterodox views.

WRITTEN ACCOUNTS: THE ROMAN WORLD Cato the Censor and De Agricultura Cato the Censor’s (234–149 b.c.e.) De Agricultura (c. 160 b.c.e.) is the earliest of the farming handbooks.20 Recipes emerge from advice that is

HUGH LINDSAY

171

provided on how to equip the farm, make it work profitably, and get the most out of the investment (De Agricultura 1.1–7). Vats for storage of wine and oil will enable the master to hang on to his products until he can get a good price for them. Other matters relating to the care of olives are discussed (3.2–6), and later he supplies an account of the production of green oil, and the duties of staff (65–69). He has ideas about what to grow and where, with an eye on productivity (6–9). He gives expert advice on equipment, including suitable suppliers of mills (22.3–4). There is advice on wine making (23.2–24), and a great deal of organizational advice on planting and ensuring that crops are harvested efficiently. Appropriate rations for the slave familia, including staples, wine, and relish are enumerated (56– 58). Later, other details about making wine are given (104–5, 109, 112–14, 122–23, 125). The first recipe to appear is a simple one for bread: Make kneaded bread as follows. Wash your hands and a mortar thoroughly. Pour flour into the mortar and add a little water and absorb it properly. When you have integrated it, roll it out and cook it under a cover. (74) This is followed by advice on how to make libum and placenta, both types of cakes that were traditionally used in religious rites (7582).21 The recipes involve generically similar processes related to baking. In addition, porridges are also in evidence (85–86). The ritual importance of the baked items is made specific with the offering to Mars Silvanus, a ritual from which women were excluded (83). An offering to Jupiter Dapalis is also scheduled, and the ritual is outlined (131–32), as well as the pig sacrifice (porca praecidanea) to Ceres before the harvest (134). The interest in baking is related to placating the gods of fertility, and thus the male proprietor must have a good knowledge of how to make the necessary trappings for the rituals as a support for his elite rank. The vilica has a significant role in food preparation, and she is required to have on hand sufficient food for the master and the slave familia (143). Vegetables attract attention for their medicinal value, especially the cabbage (156–57). Old wives’ tales are not far away. A final section deals with salting hams (162). There is not much here for the gourmet, and no doubt

172

FOOD REPRESENTATIONS

Cato or his later editor would not have seen the authorial role as extending beyond advice on farm management. The account, however, is valuable for the light it sheds on techniques in common currency, and Cato’s own contact with food preparation.

Varro from Reate and Columella from Cadiz Amongst his vast productivity, Varro (116–27 b.c.e.) wrote a treatise on farming, De Re Rustica, late in his long life. Much of the material replicates Cato, but he expands on what should be produced, reared, or farmed at the villa (De Re Rust. 3.3). He specifies the presence of an aviary to contain a wide range of elements for the table, and itemizes creatures to be raised in a game reserve (leporarium). Most significant is his account of fishponds (De Re Rust. 3.3). Contemporary expectations were that ponds would be stocked with suitably exotic specimens. He provides the earliest account of fish rearing in the Roman world (De Re Rust. 3.17.1–10). Columella, writing in the age of Nero, built on this material (Columella 8.16.2–3). These Roman fish farms have recently been discussed and catalogued by Higginbotham, which enables us to appreciate the range of seafood prized by Roman connoisseurs.22 Useful in this context is the work of Alan Davidson, who gives a comprehensive catalogue and discussion of seafood to be found in the Mediterranean world.23 This sophisticated discussion has an eye to the history of each species from antiquity to the present. Varro also treats aviaries and their management for profit at considerable length (De Re Rust. 3.5–8). Moreover, game reserves were in fashion, and would incorporate a wide range of animals to be hunted: wild boars, deer, hare and others (De Re Rust. 3.12–15). Information on beekeeping is supplied (De Re Rust. 3.16). There is a description of the location of the aviary in Varro’s villa at Casinum and the dining facilities located in the middle of a lake, with a revolving table, fitted out to supply diners with hot and cold water (De Re Rust. 3.5.9–17).24 The genre involves providing advice and instructions to the elite.

Petronius Petronius’s portrait of the fictitious freedman Trimalchio, in particular the Cena Trimalchionis (Satyricon 26–78), presents the problem that it is hard

HUGH LINDSAY

173

to distinguish humor from realism.25 The questions raised include whether Trimalchio is in any sense typical of his class, and where he was being located by the author on the social spectrum between commercial operator and landed proprietor.26 The Cena is recounted not by Trimalchio himself, but by Encolpius, who both participates in and observes the banquet. Encolpius thus has the role of remembering and selecting elements from his autobiography.27 Horsfall has shown that, despite this, Trimalchio’s cultural world is not too far removed from a social reality.28 Nevertheless, some of the menu items are truly outlandish. Undoubtedly there is much emphasis on a tasteless display by a tasteless man.29 However, despite the moralizing, the decadence of the Petronian banquet leaves a lasting reflection of the extremes of first-century luxury. Dishes in Petronius are vastly extravagant and a reflection of the identity of Trimalchio, who is satirized mercilessly. He is pretentious and anxious to impress; he is vulgar and undeterred by the grotesque results that often ensue. The dishes display his social and economic capabilities, and are often not what they seem on the surface. They also demonstrate a desire to show off a superficial cleverness: A dish followed not as big as we expected; but its novelty struck every eye. For a round vessel had the 12 signs of the Zodiac arrayed in a circle, over which the artisan had arranged food fit and proper to the symbol: over Aries, ram shaped chick-pea, over Taurus a cut of beef, over Gemini testicles and kidneys, over Cancer a wreath of flowers, over Leo an African fig, over Virgo a sterile sow’s womb, over Libra a balance, on one side of which was a cheese tart, on the other a cake, over Scorpio a small sea fish, over Sagittarius a fish with eye markings (oculata), over Capricorn a crayfish, over Aquarius a goose, over Pisces two mullets. But in the middle a piece of grassed turf held up a honeycomb. An Egyptian boy was carting round bread in a silver baking dish. (Satyricon 35) Trimalchio later belabors the significance of all this astrology, preening himself on his cleverness (Satyricon 39). The whole atmosphere is theatrical and pretentious and keyed into ancient mythology. He is represented as

174

FOOD REPRESENTATIONS

a man who can command people and resources effortlessly. Nevertheless, his identity includes careful use of available resources: Don’t think that there is anything he has to buy. Everything originates at home: mastic, citrus fruit, pepper, if you demand hen’s milk, you’ll get it. In short, the wool that was growing was not good enough for him: he bought rams from Tarentum, and shoved them right into his flock. He brought bees from Athens so that Attic honey might be produced at home; moreover the native born bees will be enhanced by the Greek ones. Look, in the last few days, he has written to have mushroom seed from India sent to him. (Satyricon 38) Trimalchio conducts his banquet as a man enjoying petty power and his control over great resources, more than any culinary experience. Later in the sequence a theatrical presentation ensued where a ceiling opened and a hoop was let down, hung around with golden crowns and containers of perfume: A plate with a few cakes on it has been set out. A Priapus made by the baker occupied the middle of it, and in his ample lap he held up every type of fruit and grapes in the customary style. We stretched out our hands greedily . . . all the cakes and all the fruit touched ever so lightly began to pour forth saffron and the odious juice got as far as our faces. (Satyricon 60) The emphasis is on the benefits not matching the appearance. After further entertainment more wine was brought in, followed by savories: In place of thrushes, a single chicken was brought around to each of us, and goose eggs wearing caps of freedom, which Trimalchio insistently required us to eat, saying that the chickens had been boned. (Satyricon 65) After all this, Habinnas, the monumental mason, enters drunk and is asked to recount details of another feast held by Scissa for a faithful slave—the

HUGH LINDSAY

175

event which has made him late for Trimalchio’s party. Throughout this scene, Habinnas and Scissa are both seen as social buffoons, with different weaknesses:30 First we had a pig crowned with a wine cup, and around it black pudding and finely prepared giblets, and indeed beetroot and wholemeal bread, which I prefer to white; it gives strength and when I crap I don’t complain. The next course was cold cheese tart and on top warm honey infused with fine Spanish wine. And so I ate quite a bit of tart, until I soaked myself in honey. Then, chick peas and lupines, a choice of nuts and an apple apiece . . . in prospect was a piece of bear. When Scintilla had tasted it, she nearly brought up her guts; on the other hand, I ate more than a pound, since it tasted like wild boar. For my part I say if a bear eats a man, all the more ought a poor man to eat a bear. At the end we had cheese softened with wine, and individual snails, and a piece of tripe, and liver on little plates, and eggs in caps of freedom, and turnip and mustard. (Satyricon 66) These extracts give a sense of the distorted social scene with which Petronius confronts his audience. He clearly has a conception of what is truly grand style, but his characters can only achieve foolish parodies of the lives of the social elite. The message is that upstarts cannot successfully imitate their betters.

Martial and Juvenal and the Moralistic Tradition The satirists use food to promote their moralistic aims. Food is employed as part of a larger critique of contemporary manners and customs. In general, there is not much sign that the food itself is at the center of the canvas. Emphasis is on the quality of social relations.31 Juvenal in his fourth satire does show an interest in a prestigious turbot netted at Ancona in the Adriatic.32 The gluttony of Apicius is a topos which appeals to Martial (3.22).33 Nero, too, is criticized for excess, and this is related to his presentation by the main sources as a tyrant.34 Vitellius is portrayed as unspeakably gluttonous, even while on campaign during the civil war in 69 c.e. (Suetonius,

176

FOOD REPRESENTATIONS

Vitellius 10). The scale of his banquets was proverbial, and his interest in exotic ingredients is treated with disdain by Suetonius: The most outrageous feast of all was that given on his arrival in Rome by his brother, at which two thousand of the choicest fishes and seven thousand birds were set before him. Even this he topped by dedicating a dish which on account of its tremendous magnitude he kept saying was “the shield of Minerva the defender of the city.” In this he mixed up livers of pike, brains of pheasants and peacocks, tongues of flamingos, lamprey-milt, sought out from as far away as Parthia and the Straits of Gibraltar by naval commanders and triremes. (Vitellius 13) Flavian propaganda emphasized the extravagance of Vitellius, his inappropriate use of resources, and penchant for grotesque exotica. Recipes in the Apician corpus are attributed to him, and serve to show that his status as an outstanding gourmet made him particularly vulnerable to this sort of attack (Apicius 5.3.5, 5.3.9, 8.7.7). Suetonius usually provides a rubric on eating in his biographies, and this amounts to a moral test of his subject (e.g., Suetonius, Augustus 76; Claudius 33.1, 40.1; Domitian 21).

Apicius The cookery book that has survived under the name Apicius is in fact a composite work with a long history. It has been thought to be a product of the late fourth or early fifth century c.e.;35 this is based on linguistic and other features.36 Pictures at some stage accompanied the text. This is proved by a specifically Apician recipe that refers to a drawing of a bronze plate illustrated below, which has not survived (Apicius 4.2.14). In other respects, the existing text fails to comply with the chapter headings supplied.37 Although the editor has included some recipes that seem to have a peasant or medical origin, it is agreed that most of the work is drawn from the world of haute cuisine. This is largely an elite view of Roman cooking. The name Apicius is already associated with prodigal expenditure on appetites in the Republican period and the adjective Apician is used by Cato the Censor in reference to viticulture (De Agricultura 7.1, 24.1, a vine

HUGH LINDSAY

177

and type of grape described as Apician; also known to Varro, De Re Rust. 1.25, 1.58). There has been a suggestion that the name Apicius could be a complimentary cognomen given to outstanding gourmets, rather than a nomen indicating family origin, and this idea is worth considering, given the complicated history of the Apicii. A notorious figure from the age of Augustus and Tiberius, M. Gavius Apicius, has attractions as the identity behind the cookery book (PIR2 G 91). He is said to have made a science of the culinary arts, and his fame is mentioned by Seneca (Ad Helviam Matrem 10.8). The elder Pliny writing under the Flavians cites Apicius on the delicacy of flamingo’s tongue (Natural History 10.133). Another recipe attributed to Marcus Apicius is the stuffing of sows’ livers in the same way as geese with dried figs, then feeding them mead immediately before slaughter (8.209). Pliny credits Apicius with a recipe for sating mullets with a garum created out of mullet’s liver (9.66). Several later authors also refer to Apician writings.38 In the reign of Elagabalus, Apician exotica are said to have been prominent. Criticism of imperial taste is clearly involved, and some of the items named in the Historia Augusta are suspect (Historia Augusta, Heliog. 18.4, 19.4–6, 20.5–7, 24.3–4). The work as it stands is divided into ten books with Greek chapter headings. The origin of these headings and their relationship to the history of the text is disputed, but wherever they originated it seems that a large amount of Roman material has been integrated into the text. However, there are also traces of items that have been translated from a Greek original. The introductory book is partly about household management (epimeles), and thus has a link with the works on farming. In addition to instruction on spicing wine, there is a great deal about preserving perishables. The second book concentrates on minces (sarcoptes) and their utilization in types of sausage. The management of vegetables takes up the third book (cepuros, the gardener), while book 4 consists of composite dishes (pandecter). The pulses (ospreon, a late Greek word-form for a pulse) occupy book 5, a crucial element for the Romans who are described by Plautus as porridge eaters (pultiphagi). Book 6 covers birds (aeropetes), including peacocks and pheasant, as well as more mundane poultry. Book 7 is an inventory of expensive delicacies (polyteles) such as sow’s wombs and truffles—the sort of items as we have seen associated by the elder Pliny with Apicius, and book 8 concentrates on game, mentioning the same assortment of creatures

178

FOOD REPRESENTATIONS

identified by Varro in De Re Rustica. The final two books—9 and 10—deal with fish and almost exclusively with sauces. The recipes are quite austere in their presentation and do not reveal the personality of their creator. These examples are chosen to illustrate some of the more exotic elements: You make Apician stew thus: pieces of cooked sow’s udder, fish fillets, chicken flesh, figpeckers or cooked breast of thrush and any other excellent elements. Chop up all of this carefully except the figpeckers. Next dissolve raw eggs with olive oil. Pound pepper, lovage, pour on liquamen [another name for garum, fish sauce], wine and passum (raisin wine). Stick it in a saucepan to warm it, and thicken with starch. But first add all the diced meats and let them cook. But when cooked refresh it with its own sauce; put it into a new pot with a ladle with whole peppercorns and pine nuts, so that under each layer you also place a cake. As many cakes as you use, put the same number of ladles of the mixture. Then pierce one cake with a reed and place it on top. Sprinkle with pepper. But crack the eggs and bind these meats before you then put them in the pan with the mixture. The kind of bronze dish you need is illustrated below. (Apicius 4.2.14) Preparing a flamingo: Pluck and wash the flamingo and dress it. Put it in a pan and add water, salt, anise, and a bit of vinegar. When half cooked you should tie up a bunch of leek and coriander and let it cook. When nearly cooked put in defrutum (grape juice) to colour it. Add crushed pepper, cumin, coriander, asafoetida, mint, rue. Break it up and pour over vinegar, add dates, and drench with its own juice. Replace in the same pan, bind it with starch, pour on the sauce and bring it to table. (Apicius 6.6.1) These are instructions of the most basic type, and make no judgment about the character of the ingredients or the difficulty of sourcing them, or indeed about the hazards and difficulties in preparing them. The assumptions

HUGH LINDSAY

179

behind the work are of professionalism. Those delegated the task of preparing food in this slave-based society are presumed to be capable of coping with such bare and unfettered instructions.

CONCLUSION Hunting and feasting were important facets of the courtly life of the Minoan and Mycenaean palaces. These activities seem to have had a direct impact on the world of heroes portrayed by Homer. However, the earliest representations of food and banqueting in the Greek world on black and red figure ware were also influenced by what was known of the nearly contemporary court life of the eastern monarchies, especially Assyria. In a seventh-century relief from Nineveh, depicting the Garden Feast of Assurbanipal, the monarch is portrayed reclining at a banquet in the presence of his queen.39 The scale of resources at his command is a visible symbol of their power. When transposed to Greece, the banquet became a male preserve and was often accompanied by a drinking party and sexual encounters. Respectable women did not attend, but courtesans and flute players were present, as can be seen on Athenian pottery and texts such as Plato’s Symposion. The Greek male dominated and controlled resources. Greek customs had some impact in Italy, especially in the south, and also had some influence on the Etruscans. In Etruria, however, the elite graves often depict married couples feasting together, and this is an influence on developments at Rome, where there is less emphasis on drinking, and more on fine food and fine trappings. This was so great a facet of aristocratic competition that sumptuary laws were felt necessary to keep expenditure on banquets within bounds. Satirical literary accounts deal with the scale of display, and Petronius’s Cena Trimalchionis provides an outstanding highlight. The domestic context at Pompeii and Herculaneum provides in paintings and mosaics images of feasting drawn from the Hellenistic world, but to some indefinable extent adapted to the local context. Traces of the recipes employed by the elite are preserved in the Apician corpus. Elite Roman women did attend banquets, not merely foreign mavericks like Cleopatra, but there is still some emphasis on separate dining, as indicated by banquets for the wives of senators hosted by the empress Livia, and some criticism of decadent occasions, contrasting with old-fashioned traditional values.

CHAPTER TEN

World Developments fabio parasecoli

The production, storage, distribution, and consumption of food have arguably been among humankind’s main concerns since its beginnings. Besides the preparation and organization of meals, various food-related features of human life were—and still are—relevant from a cultural perspective. The previous chapters in this volume have illustrated many aspects of food culture during classical antiquity in Europe and the Middle East. However, as we move back in time and away in space from the areas studied by classical archeology and ancient history, it becomes increasingly difficult to trace the material origins of civilizations that for centuries have been considered by Western scholars as secondary, or in the worst cases, primitive and irrelevant. Especially for the periods most removed from us, despite the expanding research of archaeologists, anthropologists, botanists, biologists, climatologists, geographers, and ecologists, many conclusions are still at best hypothetical, even if built on solid evidence. This chapter does not claim to offer new insights based on original material, but it is, rather, an overview of the research on the sources and the diffusion of techniques, products, food-related behaviors, social structures, and concepts in cultural environments that have been traditionally excluded from studies on Western classical antiquity. The material is organized around the main foyers where plants and animal were domesticated,

182

WORLD DEVELOPMENTS

originating food cultures that over time expanded to far-flung areas, often interacting with cultural and material elements deriving from other ecosystems. Since the Introduction already examines the Neolithic revolution and the events that took place in the Fertile Crescent, this chapter will focus on the domestications and the cultural dynamics that took place in other parts of the world. Based on archeological research, we can now place the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and shepherding around 11,000 years ago. We can suppose that from the first settlements, located in areas quite distant from each other (as a further confirmation of the fortuitous nature of the transformations), the Neolithic revolution spread throughout the world in two main forms: slash-and-burn agriculture in the forests of temperate and tropical climates, and shepherding in grassy plains, steppes, and savannas, where cheese making became a fundamental resource.1 When overexploitation due to the growth of population caused deforestation and even desertification, slash-and-burn cultures were replaced by various agricultural systems that took on specific characteristics in order to adapt to the different ecosystems. At the end of the Neolithic, in areas of low rainfall, access to water sources, although irregular, gave rise to agricultural systems closely depending on flood management, like in Mesopotamia, along the Nile, the Indus, and the Yellow River, or in the valleys of Peru. In more humid tropical areas, submerged rice growing became the main agricultural pattern, adapting to various environments, from the beds and deltas of rivers (Yangtze River, Niger inland delta), to slopes of mountains (Yunnan, Vietnam, Java) and brackish tropical shores covered with mangroves (Senegambia). When arable farming expanded to more temperate regions in Europe, it developed into productive models that integrated rainfall grain cultivation with rotation and raising animals whose manure was used to fertilize the fields, while in areas between the tropics it led to the formation of systems that made the best of savannas (Sahel) and high plateaus (the Congo). When compared to arable farming, due to the stable nature of the environments where it established itself, in its expansion shepherding maintained its main organizational and cultural traits largely unchanged, although developing in different ways according to time and place. This does not mean that pastoral societies were closed in on themselves and impermeable to change; as a matter of fact, the lack of certain necessary

FABIO PARASECOLI

183

products always forced shepherding and nomadic communities to establish regular exchanges with sedentary and agricultural communities, which in turn needed some products that only the neighboring nomadic and seminomadic societies were able to provide. Recent research on ancient central Asian communities, for instance, seems to confirm these hypotheses.2 It is clear that, since the beginning, sedentary societies regularly exchanged material goods, techniques, and ideas, with other sedentary and nonsedentary communities, originating commercial routes that connected very far areas of the world by land and by water. A few common elements can be observed throughout the Neolithic revolution all over the world: in the areas where domestication led to agriculture practiced by sedentary communities, it seems that the new crops constituted a diverse food package that included both grains and pulses, sources respectively of carbohydrates and proteins, often together with textile plants. When the package lacked some elements, the domestication did not lead to sedentary settlements, but the new crops tended rather to be integrated into a nomadic lifestyle. Also, the presence of large mammals that were good candidates for domestication increased the chances of sedentarization. However, each agricultural system was the result of very specific interactions between environments, production organizations that included specialized tools and techniques, social structures, and cultures. Some processes of domestication were quite limited in extension, while others expanded and influenced wide territories, especially in the case of similar environmental conditions. According to Jared Diamond, this would explain why crops were adopted faster along the east-west axis (due to similar day lengths, seasonal variations, temperatures, and habitats) than along the north-south axis, where plants had to adapt to quite different conditions.3 Moreover, when agricultural techniques were adopted by communities that inhabited environments with different plants and small animals, sometimes they gave rise to secondary centers of domestication. As the introduction illustrates, the first area of domestication can be located, around 11,000 years ago, in the so-called Fertile Crescent, spanning from today’s Iraq through southeastern Turkey all the way to Syria, Israel, and Lebanon. By 6,000 year ago, the agricultural techniques and some of the crops domesticated in the Fertile Crescent had expanded all around the

184

WORLD DEVELOPMENTS

Mediterranean. Spreading probably along the Danube, into central and northern Europe, the adoption of agriculture led to the domestication of crops such as poppy, spelt, and oats. Moving south toward Africa, agriculture entered into contact with local wild plants, giving origin to secondary areas of domestication located north of the equator. However, many scholars consider these areas in the Sahel and tropical West Africa as cradles of independent domestication.4 Probably their most important contributions to global agriculture are the different varieties of sorghum.5 Among other relevant crops, we can mention oil palm, okra, yam (Dioscorea cayenensis and rotundata, different from the Asian plants), pearl millet, fonio, Bambara groundnut, black-eyed peas, kola, ackee, watermelon, and African rice (Oryza glaberrima), which until recently was believed to be a local adaptation of Asian rice.6 The area also saw the domestication of the guinea fowl. Ethiopia developed the use of the grain teff, Levant cotton (Gossypium herbaceum)—which expanded through southern Arabia, Persia, and central Asia to China, where it arrived around 600 c.e.—and coffee of the variety arabica, which then spread to Yemen and southern Arabia.7 On the other hand, it is likely that coffee of the variety robusta was domesticated in western and central Africa. The Fertile Crescent agricultural revolution also spread eastward into Persia, central Asia, and India.8 Central Asia seems to boast limited domestications, but including onion, garlic, camel, and yak in the Himalayas.9 Around 3200 b.c.e., the canalization of the abundant water of the Indus allowed the blossoming of urban cultures in Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, where we find a strong prevalence of barley and wheat (varieties of Triticum aestivum, with traces of cultivation dating back to 6000 b.c.e.); in fact, some of the most noticeable remains from these civilizations are sophisticated and imposing grain warehouses. Archaeological findings point to the presence of farming communities starting from 4,000 years ago also in southern India, with cultivations of small millets, sesame, the pulses mung bean and horse gram, tree cotton (Gossypium arboreum) as a textile plant, and other plants including cucumbers and eggplants.10 It seems that a local variety of auroch bovines played an important role in agriculture, while horses, domesticated in the plains of southern Russia, also became common by 2500 b.c.e.11 The Indian cultures were part of wide commercial networks connecting them to Mesopotamia, probably

FABIO PARASECOLI

185

both by land and by sea: Akkadian cylinder seals mention Meluha, now identified with the Indus Valley civilization, while Harappan seals have been found in Mesopotamian cities.12 Starting from around 1700 b.c.e., the Mohenjo Daro and Harappa cultures slid into decadence, allowing the penetration of nomadic tribes from the northwest. These populations, whose religious beliefs were transmitted in sacred text such as the Rigveda, traditionally consumed meat and milk products, from curds to butter and ghee. They cultivated barley, while wheat started carrying a stigma as the grain favored by the defeated Harappans.13 They also adopted rice as they migrated south and east on the Gange plain, deforesting and plowing large areas with the iron tools that they had learnt to use around 1000 b.c.e. In time, these migrations led to the formation of cities that were later unified by the Maurya dynasty around 324 b.c.e., probably as a reaction to the arrival of the Macedonians and the Greeks led by Alexander. The new kingdom peaked under As´oka (269–232 b.c.e.), under which Buddhism, founded in the fifth century b.c.e., flourished, and with it those vegetarian traditions that had already started developing centuries before; this was also expressed as respect for the cow, probably a remnant of the pre-Aryan cultures. After the fall of the Maurya in 184 b.c.e., India remained politically fragmented until the fourth century c.e., all while becoming the core of trade networks that reached out to the Roman and the Chinese empires, based on cotton, ivory, and jewels, but also pepper and spices, which were routinely employed in Roman high-class banquets. Remnants of Roman wine jars were actually found near Pondicherry. In this period, it is unclear if under the influence of the work by Galen or vice versa, the medical theories of ayurveda emerged, describing health as depending on the balance between three bodily humors: sattva (truth), rajas (passion), and tamas (darkness). These were first elaborated in the Charakasamhit, the oldest Indian text of medicine, written around the first century b.c.e. Classifications of food between cold and hot elements, the necessity to adapt one’s diet to the environment and the climate, and concepts of ritual purity and pollution that later on would constitute the backbone of Hindu culture also developed in this period. In its expansion toward the East, the Middle Eastern agricultural complex met the techniques and the cultivations of Chinese origin in central Asia. This explains the presence of barley and wheat in China around the

186

WORLD DEVELOPMENTS

second millennium b.c.e., when Chinese culture had already expanded to areas with winter rainfalls and a certain level of moisture all year round. These environments were quite different from what many scholars consider the cradle of Chinese agriculture. The first traces of plant domestication, dating to 8,500 years ago, are in fact found in northern China, more specifically in the loess terraces along the middle Yellow River, with crops such as foxtail millet and panic millet, vegetables like cabbages, and the textile plant hemp. In these areas, an independent domestication of pig might have also taken place. Between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago, the expansion of the Chinese agricultural revolution towards the northeast gave origin to the domestication of soybean and probably buckwheat, while the southeast diffusion towards the area of the Yangtze River saw the beginning of rice production, accompanied probably by the domestication of water buffalo.14 However, other scholars argue that rice was domesticated independently in these areas. This theory is backed by the identification of rice of the variety japonica in archaeological sites dating at least 9,000 years ago.15 DNA analysis of rice’s wild ancestor, Oryza rufipogon, found in the eastern Himalayas, Indochina, and parts of southern China, seems to point to a separate domestication of the two main varieties, Oryza sativa indica in eastern India, Myanmar, and Thailand, and Oryza sativa japonica in southern China, which in its expansion towards Indonesia would have given origin to the javanica variety.16 Under the Shang (sixteenth to eleventh century b.c.e.) and Zhou (eleventh century to 221 b.c.e.) dynasties, the first to organize Chinese culture into a structured and in some way feudal polity, food also assumed political and symbolic meaning: ox scapula bones (but also deer skulls and tortoise belly shells, showing the existence of trade networks with the Far South) were exposed to flame and the fissures appearing on them were read for divination, while ale brewed from local grains was used to reach ecstatic states that were the remnants of shamanic rites, as the zoomorphic shapes of the spectacular bronze drinking vessels of the Zhou demonstrate.17 The Li Ji (Book of Rites) mentions rituals focusing on food, aiming at ensuring good harvests and regulating the production, preservation, and distribution of supplies, with the king as intermediary with the divine sphere. Also in this period, food offerings come to constitute one of the focuses between the living and the dead: ancestors were the dead fed by their descendants, ghosts were dead

FABIO PARASECOLI

187

who were not fed by the descendants, and spirits were dead who were fed by many people besides the descendants.18 Food was produced by farmers that gave part of their crops to the nobles controlling their lands, who in turn were at least theoretically dependent on the king. Under the Zhou, in a period called the Warring States when local lords were able to obtain virtual independence from the king, the first hydraulic engineering projects were built, such as reservoirs and irrigation canals. The appearance of cast iron revolutionized farming techniques and improved productivity. Salt was extensively produced and traded under a state monopoly that ignited many political debates. Judging from the archaeological remains and the textual testimonies from the Shi Jing, the oldest Chinese collection of poetry and songs, the main staple was millet, which was well adapted to the hot and dry conditions of northwestern China after the environmental change, and used also to make noodles.19 Food was already divided into fan, or staple grain food, and cai (whatever is eaten with the fan), a cultural distinction that is still relevant to this day.20 The Shi Jing also mentions peaches, apricots, plums, jujubes, and other fruits, showing the existence of grafting techniques. With the Qin (221–206 b.c.e.) and Han (206 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) dynasties the imperial government developed comprehensive agricultural and extension policies that increased crop yields and allowed urbanization and market growth by mitigating taxes and propagating useful knowledge among farmers. The agricultural manual by Fan Shengzhi, dating to the first century b.c.e., mentions techniques like multiple cropping, pretreatment of seed, fertilization, and ridge cultivation.21 Farm price supports, granaries to stabilize the market, and standardized weights and measures all had a positive influence on agricultural expansion. Under the emperor Wu (140–87 b.c.e.), who expanded the empire to include parts of central Asia, new plants such as grapes and alfalfa were introduced in China and trade was improved along the so-called Silk Road, a route connecting a series of cities and oasis that thrived on the commerce with the West (Roman Empire included). From the culinary point of view, under the Han we see the perfection of salting and pickling techniques, such as soybean fermentation, the introduction of noodle making, and the diffusion of stir-frying, which imply effective oil-rendering technologies applied to the newly introduced sesame and perilla seeds. If the early Han often confiscated and

188

WORLD DEVELOPMENTS

redistributed land to limit the power of the nobles, the later Han (first to second century c.e.) allowed the formation of vast estates that empowered the nobles and decreased agricultural productivity, eventually leading to the demise of the dynasty. The following four centuries saw the prevalence of central Asian populations that divided the empire into independent kingdoms. During this period, crops and technologies that had previously been limited to the south spread to the whole of China, like mustard green or citruses, while dairy products such as yogurt and butter appeared in the north. Until then, the Chinese medicinal system had classified foods as yin and yang, or according the theory of the five elements, each corresponding to specific body organs, flavors, and smells (fire / heart / bitter / scorched, earth/spleen/sweet/fragrant, metal/lungs/hot[pungent]/rotten, water/kidneys/ salty / putrid, wood/liver/sour/rancid). The contact with central Asia and the diffusion of Buddhism brought echoes of Indian and Western humoral theories that gave origin to classifications such as cooling and heating, wet and dry, to which windy was added, probably under the influence of the five elements theory that explains reality as the interaction of wood, fire, water, metal, and earth. The Chinese agricultural revolution spread all over eastern Asia, exerting a strong cultural influence above all over Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. In Korea, advanced agricultural settlements developed from the first millennium b.c.e., and by the fourth century b.c.e., at the time of the introduction of agricultural iron tools from China, Chinese texts record the presence of organized polities that grew into three main states—Koguryo, Silla, and Paekche—that lasted until the seventh century b.c.e. Food customs were centered on grains like rice, which assumed particular cultural and economic relevance (it was often used for taxes), but also barley, sorghum, and millet, all of Chinese origin. Vegetables and pulses (soybeans and adzuki beans) accompanied the grains, often in soups or together with grain-based gruels. Beef was consumed for special occasions among the higher classes until the introduction of Buddhism. Consumption of fish was more common, depending on the distance from the shores.22 On the Japanese archipelago, more or less at the same time as agriculture was starting on the mainland, the local hunters, fishers, and gatherers of the Jomon culture (c. 10,500–c. 400 b.c.e.) developed pottery, used as cooking utensils as well as storage vessels for staple foods such as acorns,

FABIO PARASECOLI

189

chestnuts, and walnuts, long before switching to the agriculture of crops such as buckwheat and millet, which were consumed with meat but also much seafood along the coasts.23 The cultivation of wet rice spread in western Japan from the third century b.c.e., probably through southern Korea, marking the passage to a full agricultural society known as Yayoi, structured around a number of chiefdoms that were unified around 250 c.e. in a state centered in Yamato, near today’s Nara. Rice spread slowly towards the northeast, and only when rice varieties suited to colder climates were developed. However, the other crops were never abandoned, especially in the interior. Farther southeast, 9,000 years ago, New Guinea probably became the center of an agricultural revolution that gave origin to the domestication of plants such as lychee, banana, sugarcane, greater and lesser yams (Dioscorea alata and esculenta), and taro—although some researchers place the origin of the last one in Malaysia.24 The cultivation of these plants spread westwards, reaching Southeast Asia, where they were integrated with agricultural systems of Chinese origin, originating local domestications such as mango, jackfruit, and probably lemons and limes, although some scholars argue the latter two were domesticated in China.25 On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the arrival of humans in the Americas and their progressive expansion is still the object of heated debate. Some scholars argue that Asian populations crossed the Bering Strait 13,000 years ago, during the last glaciations, moving from north to south in small groups that had little impact on the environment and whose culture supposedly changed little over time. Others contend instead that the continent had been populated a lot earlier by much larger groups whose arrival and axes of movement are still unclear, evolving uninterruptedly and changing the environment so much that what the first Europeans found was a landscape profoundly influenced by human presence.26 Two very important centers for agricultural domestication were located in the Americas: the oldest one is probably the area that stretches from the Pacific to the western limits of the Amazon basin, in today’s Peru and Ecuador. Recent archaeological digs have revealed the existence of urban centers in the narrow river valleys of the Norte Chico, the otherwise dry coastal area of Peru north of Lima, which probably flourished between 3200 and 2500 b.c.e., at the same time as the Sumer civilization.27 These

190

WORLD DEVELOPMENTS

cultures lived both on the seafood that was fished along the coast and on the inland cultivation of domesticated crops such as squash, beans, the tuber camote (a variety of sweet potato), the fruits lùcuma, guava, pacay, and avocado, and long fiber cotton (Gossypium barbadense), whose production was stimulated by the demand for waving nets from the coastal fishermen and was probably at the origin of centralized governments. This area apparently developed an efficient food package without a staple grain, allowing the establishment of a series of cultures among which Chavin (900–200 b.c.e.), Paracas in the Pisco province (750 b.c.e. to 100 c.e.), and Moche on the northern coast (100 to 800 c.e.). However, the coastal area was not the only one undergoing an agricultural revolution. In the high altitude plateaus and in the irrigated valleys of the Andes, farmers developed crops such as peanuts, potatoes, ocas (small starchy tubers), and quinoa grains. In this area, guinea pigs were domesticated for meat, and llama and alpaca for transportation and their wool. Trade networks were established early among different production environments, mostly managed by the various governments through a lineage and kinship relationship rather than by market dynamics. On the eastern side of the mountains, in the Amazon basin and all the way to the Orinoco River and the lowlands of Central America—it is uncertain if under the influence of the Andean agriculture—crops like coca, pineapple, papaya, cacao, and vanilla (probably transferred to Mexico via the Caribbean), manioc, a variety of yam (Dioscorea trifida), and sweet potato were domesticated.28 It has been argued that the local populations did not actually use slash-and-burn techniques, learning instead to plant and use the Amazon’s myriad trees such as babaçu, açai, pejibaye palm, and many others. The forest that many early explorers perceived as an uncontaminated and natural paradise was actually the result of centuries of interaction between the environment and its inhabitants.29 Moreover, many areas along the Amazon show what has been defined as terra preta or “dark earth,” manmade soil rich in nutrients from excrements and waste, and above all charcoal, the result of slash-and-char techniques aimed not at burning biomass to ashes, but rather charring it and turning it into charcoal. Along the Rio Negro, terra preta seems to go back to the fourth century b.c.e., and the technique later on spread with the migration of populations down the river and toward the Caribbean.30

FABIO PARASECOLI

191

Between 9,000 and 4,000 years ago, southern Mexico saw the domestication of crops like chili peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, avocado, maize (it is debated whether it derived from the annual teosinte Zea parviglumis or from the Zea diploperennis), various species of beans and squashes (with some of the latter also used as containers), amaranth, the tuber jicama, the fruit sapote, and a local variety of cotton, the Gossypium hirsutum, which nowadays constitutes the majority of the cotton grown all over the world. Maize was cooked in water with lime and then grounded in a process called nixtamalization, which ensured the availability of vitamin B precursors. Like in other parts of the Americas, large-sized animals were not domesticated, while we have traces of late domestication of turkeys and Muscovy (or Barbary) ducks. On the south coast of the Gulf of Mexico coastal plain of southern Veracruz and Tabasco, the Olmec, whose urban civilization thrived from around 1500 b.c.e., created the first irrigation system applied to the local crops. Its productivity allowed the construction of city-states and the development of complex social structures. Around 300 b.c.e., the Olmec empire collapsed; the Teotihuàcan culture in the west, in the central plateau, and the Mayan cities, whose influence in the east spread all the way to Yucatan and Guatemala, became the most influential societies in the area. Meanwhile, the Zapotec state in the Oaxaca valley was just emerging as an independent entity. It seems that the Mayas manipulated the wetland landscape of Yucatan, using soil or algae from the wetlands to enrich upland garden plots to cultivate trees within their communities.31 They also made feasting an important part of their political ritual, using festive fare such as tamales and chocolate, which was consumed mostly by the upper class and was so valuable that the grains were used as money.32 Less important and relevant only locally, at least until more recent times, were other areas of plant domestication such as the Middle Mississippi (between 4,000 and 800 years ago). In the area between the Appalachians and the Great Prairies, sunflower (with its relative topinambur, also known as Jerusalem artichoke from the Italian name girasole), wild rice, sumpweed, and goosefoot were domesticated to integrate the nutritional needs of populations that still lived a seminomadic life based on hunting and fishing. Between 500 and 200 b.c.e., the exploitation of other plants like little barley, maygrass, and knotweed, all providing tiny seeds, did not offer a food package interesting enough to allow hunter-gatherers to settle. Only

192

WORLD DEVELOPMENTS

later, between 250 b.c.e. and 200 c.e., when maize, beans, and pumpkins arrived from Central America, did some tribes opt for the sedentary lifestyle, giving origin to settlement built on large earthen mounds—like the Adena ones in the Ohio Valley, flourishing from about 800 to 1000 b.c.e., or the Hopewell culture, which survived until 400 c.e., and where tobacco was cultivated and used to achieve altered states of consciousness for religious reasons.33

notes

Introduction 1. Quoted from Bottero 2004, 36–37. 2. See for example the following text on nomadic Amorites: “he is dressed in sheep’s skins; he lives in tents in wind and rain . . . ; he digs up truffles and is restless; he eats raw meat, lives his life without a home.” Quoted from Van De Mieroop 2007, 83. Likewise, “the Amorite eats it [a cake] but he can’t recognize its ingredients.” Quoted from Milano 2004, 247. 3. The literature on the beginnings of agriculture in the Near East is vast. See Nissen 1988; Pollock 1999; Miller and Wetterstrom 2000. 4. Cf. Bray 2003. 5. Quoted from Szprakowska 2008, 93. 6. Geller 2004, 220. 7. Bottero 2004, 15; Pollock 2003, 28. 8. Geller 2004, 239. 9. Bottero 2004, 98. 10. For example, Xenophon, Cyr. 1.3.4–7. Discussed by Parpola 2004, 281–85. 11. Geller 2004, 225, 239. 12. Szprakowska 2008, 92; Bottero 2004, 111; Sasson 2004, 185. 13. Geller 2004, 219. 14. Smith 2003b, 50. 15. Pollock 1999, 117–48; 2003, 21. 16. Damerow 1996, 153–67; Pollock 2003, 27–29. 17. Bottero 2004, 15; Sasson 2004, 184. 18. Translated on the basis of Clauss 2001, 363. 19. Clauss 2001, 393; Smith 2003b, 47. 20. See Van De Mieroop 2007, 73.

194

NOTES

21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Clauss 2001, 395–96. Smith 2003b, 47. Pollock 2003, 27–32. Smith 2003b, 45. Bottero 2004, 101–2. Parpola 2004, 291: the quantity of meat at the Assyrian court was “enough to feed hundreds of people.” Bottero 2004, 121. Sasson 2004. Quoted from Sasson 2004, 201–2n63. Quoted from Sasson, 2004, 200n60. Cf. Van De Mieroop 2007, 109. Parpola 2004, 281. Feely-Harnik 1981, 85–91. Douglas 1966, 41–57. On ancient thinking on Jewish attitudes towards pigs, see Grottanelli 2004. De Martino 2004, 49–55. Szpakowska 2008, 191–99. Corò Capitanio 2004, 260–67. The stories about Bel and the dragon are included in the Catholic but not the Protestant Bible. See Corò Capitanio 2004, 267 on the rejection of Mesopotamian attitudes in the Syro-Palestinian area. On aspects of food and commensality in early Christianity, see in particular McGowan 1999; Meeks 2003; Smith 2003b; Taussig 2009.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

Chapter 1 1. Spurr 1986, xiii. 2. Triantaphyllou 2001; Keenleyside 2008; Craig et al. 2009; Kavvadias and Lagia 2009. 3. Motta 2002; Kutajsov 2006; Buxó 2008; Kreuz and Schäfer 2008; Jacomet and Brombacher 2009. 4. Spurr 1986, 99–102; Garnsey 1999, 119–22. 5. Stika, Heiss, and Zach 2008. 6. Spurr 1986; Sallares 1991, 326–32. 7. Van der Veen 1992; Van der Veen 2007; Jacomet and Brombacher 2009. 8. Rodríguez-Ariza and Montes Moya 2005. 9. Foxhall 2007. 10. Jongman 1988; Nikolaenko 2006. 11. Kucan 1996; Ciaraldi 2007; Megaloudi, Papadopoulos, and Sgourou 2007. 12. Bakels and Jacomet 2003. 13. Becker 1986; Peters 1998; MacKinnon 2004; Albarella, Johnstone, and Vickers 2008. 14. De Cupere et al. 2000; Groot 2005.

NOTES

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

195

Vanpoucke et al. 2009. Frayn 1984; Chandezon 2003. Leguilloux 2003; Badan, Brun, and Congès 2006. Leveau 2006. Jongman 2007. Butzer et al. 1985. Cf. Finley 1973.

Chapter 2 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

Garnsey 1988; Horden and Purcell 2000. Garnsey 1999, 29. Osborne 2007, 283. Note the case of the Megara Hyblaea in Sicily, however, where large grain silos were constructed early in the city’s history; see De Angelis 2000; De Angelis 2002; and Bissa 2009, 155–56 for archaic trade coinciding with the great waves of Greek settlement abroad. Bissa 2009, 155–67, 193–206. Rickman 1980, 101–18. Garnsey 1988, 89–106. See chapter 4, “Food and Politics in Classical Antiquity,” this volume. Thucydides 3.2; IG 13 61, lines 32–41. Garnsey 1988, 120–23. Moreno 2007. Roman epigraphy offers several examples of both Italian (CIL 14.2852) and provincial (CIL 14.4142; 4549, 34–36; 4620) grain merchants supplying the capital. For the Roman grain market, see Erdkamp 2005. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman antiquities 7.20.3. Manning 2007, 454–55. For the Seleukid Empire, see Aperghis 2004, 137–52. See Duncan-Jones 1990, 189–94 for a discussion of Roman taxation in kind. Cicero 2. Against Verres 3.163 and Erdkamp 2005, 214–16. Erdkamp 2005, 226–31. Rickman 1980, 231–35. Garnsey 1999, 12–21. Davidson 1997a, 20–35. Numerous amphorae shreds have been discovered in Pompeii, pointing to large imports of Greek wines. Some still bear inscriptions identifying the vintage, such as wine from Kos (CIL 4.5541) or Chios (4.10722). For the wine trade, see Tchernia 1986. Aristophanes, Acharnians 880–94. See Möller 2007, 363–65. IG 22 1013, 18–20. Pliny, Natural History 31.93–94; 12.14.28. Rickman 1971, 104–6 for the horrea. For Rome’s trade with the East, see Young 2001.

196

NOTES

24. Mitchell 1993, 257. 25. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 4.152c. 26. For the consumption of oil on the limes, see Remesal Rodríguez 1997. For beer and wine, see Marlière and Torres Costa 2005. 27. Hesiod, Works and Days 340–55. 28. Mrozek 1987; Zuiderhoek 2009. 29. Herman 1987. 30. Polybius 1.16.10; Livy 22.37 and 23.38. 31. Whittaker 1983. In one of his letters (Epistulae 25), Ausonius thanks his friend for a consignment of oil and fish sauce. 32. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 6.224. 33. See Libanius, Orations 11.230 for regional markets. For long-distance trade, see Pliny, Natural History 14.2 on the idea that the whole Mediterranean world was united by trade (commercio). Glimpses of traders’ mobility can be found in epigraphy, documenting the presence of African traders in the Balkan region (CIL 3.5230) or Syrian merchants in Morocco (AE 1942/43, 21). For a survey of trade in the Greco-Roman world, see Morley 2007. A study of Roman traders and shippers can be found in Broekaert 2010. 34. Cicero, De Officiis 3.50ff. 35. Dirscherl 2000. 36. Scheidel, in press, 2011. 37. In laudem Basilii 34f. See Erdkamp 2005, 176. 38. Vegetius, Epitoma rei militaris 4.39. 39. Petronius, Satyricon 76.6. 40. De Ligt 1993. Local fairs: Digest 33.1.20. Regional fairs: Varro, Res Rusticae 2, praef. 6. Interregional fairs: Ammianus Marcellinus 14.3.3. 41. Aristotle, Politics 7.1331a.30–1331b.3 on Thessaly and the specialized markets in Rome mentioned further on. 42. Plutarch, Pericles 16.4. 43. Möller 2007, 371–72; Reden 1995, 106–7. 44. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 12.640b-c Kock 1880–88, II. 190. Trans. Millett 1998, 217. 45. Macellum: De Ruyt 1983. Fish: Plautus, Aulularia 373 and Rudens 979–80; meat: Juvenal, Satires 6.39–40. Fora: forum boarium (cattle market: Ovid, Fasti 6.477–78; Livy 10.23.3), holitorium (vegetable market; Varro, de Lingua Latina 5.146), piscarium (fish market; Livy 26.27.2; Varro, de Lingua Latina 5.146–47), suarium (pork market; CIL 6.3728 and 9631), and vinarium (wine market; CIL 6.9181–82). For Roman markets, see Frayn 1993. 46. Athenaion Politeia 51.3–4; Demosthenes, Orations 34.37, 35.50, 18.248. See chapter 4, “Food and Politics in Classical Antiquity,” this volume. 47. Aristotle, Politics 4.1299a23. 48. Strubbe 1987. 49. Tacitus, Histories 4.38.

NOTES

197

50. Suetonius, Tiberius 18.2; Pliny, Panegyricus 32. See Sirks 1991 for the imperial legislation on food imports. 51. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, 1.15 where the travelling sage and miracle worker Apollonius of Tyana encounters just such an artificial shortage, and accompanying riot, in the city of Aspendus, and manages to resolve the situation. 52. CIL 6.9683. 53. Mau 1907, 94–96. 54. Xenophon, Oeconomicus 8.22; Millett 1998, 216. 55. Wycherley 1956 collects the many references. 56. Mau 1907, 270–72; Wycherley 1956, 18; DeLaine 2005. 57. Lysias, Orations 24.20. Hopper 1979, 129–32; Camp 1986, 135–47. 58. Camp 1986, 172. 59. Zimmer 1982. 60. Cato, De agricultura 2.7; Martial, Epigrams 6.66; CIL 6.1953 and 1956. 61. See Aristophanes, Wasps 1388 (female bread seller); Knights 144 (sausage seller). For Rome, see Digest 14.3.5. 9; Seneca, Moral letters 56; Martial, Epigrams 1.41. 62. DeFelice 2008. 63. Juvenal, Satires 8.173–76; Petronius, Satyricon 95–98; Pliny, Natural History 9.154; Martial, Epigrams 5.70; CIL 4.4957 and 4.3948. 64. Brunt 1972, 156. 65. Sippel 1987; Adams 2007. 66. Homer, Iliad 24.265–80; Hesiod, Works and Days 455–65; Varro, Res Rusticae 1.20.4 and 2.6.5; Cicero, 2. Against Verres 3.183. 67. Kneissl 1981. 68. Cato, De agricultura 1.3. 69. Pomey and Tchernia 1978; Casson 1995. 70. Homer, Iliad 23.92; 23.170; Peacock and Williams 1986. 71. Meiggs 1973, 295, Fig. 25e. 72. Digest 19.2.31. 73. Parker 1992, 149–50, 167–68. 74. Hesnard et al. 1988, 149–54. 75. Herodas, Mime 7. 76. Aristophanes, Acharnians 33–35; Seneca, Moral Letters 56. 77. Apuleius, Metamorphoses 8.23–24. 78. Homer, Odyssey 15.455–65; Pliny, Natural History 10.121; Horace, Carmina 1.4.71–74. 79. CIL 4.3779. 80. Mau 1907, 403. 81. Hermansen 1981, 131–32. 82. Insula VI, 14 and AE 1989, 182. 83. Curtis 1984.

198

NOTES

84. Mau 1907, 387. 85. Curtis 1984–86. 86. CIL 4.2575; 4.5686 (for the high reputation of this product, see Pliny, Natural History 31.94); 15.4723; 4.5666; 4.5694.

Chapter 3 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

On causes of harvest failure and famine, see in particular Garnsey 1988. Erdkamp 2005, 51–53. Erdkamp 2005, 262–65. Erdkamp 1998, 241–69. On risk management, see in particular Forbes 1989, 87–97; Gallant 1991; Erdkamp 1998, 222–30. Erdkamp 1998, 231–33 contra Garnsey 1988, 53–55; Forbes and Foxhall 1995. See in particular Gallant 1991. Jameson 1983; Garnsey 1988, 70–74. See also Garnsey and Morris 1989. Persson 1999, 67. In more detail in Erdkamp 2005, 143–205. See also Bang 2006. On income and employment, Aldrete and Mattingly 1999, 173. Cf. Cherry 1993. Erdkamp 2005, 259–61. On the grain dole of Rome, see Rickman 1980, in particular 175–97. See also Rowland Jr. 1976, 64–73. For examples from Roman imperial times, see Dardaine and Pavis d’Escurac 1998; Quass 1993; Zuiderhoek 2008. Erdkamp 2002. See also Kohns 1961. The latter text quoted in full in Garnsey 1988, 3–6. Scheidel 1994; Shaw 1996. Garnsey 1988, 6–7.

Chapter 4 1. Garnsey 1999, 124–25. 2. Food in this discussion means primarily grain because this was antiquity’s main staple. Cereals made up the larger part of the diet of the poor, and even the wealthy probably ate a lot of bread. If other foodstuffs are meant, they will be explicitly mentioned. 3. Garnsey 1988, 10f. See also chapter 3, “Food Security, Safety, and Crises,” this volume. 4. Jongman and Dekker 1989. See Cipolla 1994, 23, on patterns of expenditure among the poor in preindustrial cities. 5. Erdkamp 2002; Erdkamp 2005, 308–9.

NOTES

199

6. Thompson 1993. See Erdkamp 2002 for application of Thompson’s model in an analysis of Roman food riots. 7. Thompson 1993, 189. 8. Erdkamp 2005; Moreno 2007. 9. See Broekaert 2008 on oil and Lo Cascio 1999 on wine and pork, both with further references. 10. Bresson 2008, 190–91. 11. Migeotte 1997. 12. Tiberius: Tacitus, Ann. 2.87; Nero: Tacitus, Ann. 15.39.2; Commodus: SHA Comm. 14.3; Iulian: Misop. 368c; and Libanius Or. 18.195. 13. Meissner 2000. 14. Bresson 2000. 15. Bresson 2008, 123. 16. Descat 1997. 17. De Laet 1949. 18. Etienne 1951. 19. Broekaert 2008. 20. Veyne 1990; Zuiderhoek 2009. 21. Zuiderhoek 2008. 22. Partially, because governmental distribution schemes such as the Roman annona did not provide an individual with enough food to feed his family. 23. Garnsey 1988, 82–83. 24. See Schmitt-Pantel 1992 for a study of civic public banquets, and further on. 25. Shear 1978. 26. Garnsey 1988, 177; Cornell 1995, 268. 27. Olive oil, wine, and pork were added in the second and third centuries c.e., respectively, see previously. 28. Note, for example, the scarcity riots in 6 c.e., when Augustus deployed the vigiles to counter the insurgents (Cassius Dio 55.27.1–2; Suetonius, Aug. 25.2), and the vigorous protests, nearly turning into riots, against Tiberius in 32 c.e. when grain prices were high (Tacitus, Ann. 6.13). Claudius was once set upon and pelted with stale bread by an angry crowd in the Forum during a shortage (Suetonius, Claudius 18.2). 29. Duncan-Jones 1982, ch. 7; Garnsey 1988, 252; Jongman 2002. 30. Boatwright 2000, 92, 190ff. 31. See Hands 1968, D. 6 for a translation of this document, and 95–97 for discussion of this and similar schemes. Also Garnsey 1988, 81–82. 32. See Rea 1972 (Oxyrhynchus); P. Lond. III 955 (Hermopolis); Eusebius, Church History 7.21.9 (Alexandria). Garnsey 1988, 265–66; Erdkamp 2005, 276. 33. Erdkamp 2005, 276–77. 34. Persson 1999. 35. See Digest 50.8.2.3 and Strubbe 1987 for the epigraphic evidence, with 1989, 108–9 for discussion. Zuiderhoek 2008; Erdkamp 2005; Erdkamp 2008. 36. Strubbe 1987; Strubbe 1989.

200

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

NOTES

Erdkamp 2005, 276; Zuiderhoek 2008, 166. On the symposion see Murray 1982; Murray 1983; Murray 1990. Schmitt-Pantel 1992. Murray 1982; Garnsey 1999, 136–38. Donahue 2004, 67–70. Van Nijf 1997, 152–56. Gordon 1990, 229. Baltrusch 1989, 77–102; De Ligt 2002.

Chapter 5 1. The bibliography on symposia is bountiful. See especially Lissarrague 1990; Murray 1990; Slater 1991; Davidson 1997a; Garnsey 1999; and Donahue 2003. 2. Ellis 2004a; Ellis 2004b; Ellis 2005; Ellis 2008. 3. Caligula (Historia Augusta, Verus 4.5–8); Claudius (Suetonius, Claudius 40); Nero (Tacitus, Annales 13.25; Suetonius, Nero 26–27; Hist. Aug., Verus 4.5– 8; Cassius Dio 62.14.1–3; Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana 4.39–42); Vitellius (Hist. Aug., Verus 4.5–8; Suetonius, Vitellius 13.3); Verus (Hist. Aug., Verus 4.5–8); Commodus (Hist. Aug., Commodus 2.6–3.7); Gallienus (Hist. Aug., Gallienus 30; Pretenders (Celsus) 29.1; 30 Pretenders (Ingenuus) 9.1; 30 Pretenders (Marius) 8.9; 30 Pretenders (Postumus) 3.4; Gallieni 21.6). For Otho getting about the taverns as a youth, see Suetonius, Otho 2.1. 4. Passage and translation from Davidson 1997a, 55. 5. Corinth: Broneer 1947, 239–41; Athens: Leslie Shear Jr. 1975, 357–58. 6. Especially the following: Fiorelli 1875; Kleberg 1957; Della Corte 1965; Eschebach 1970; Raper 1977; Packer 1978; La Torre 1988; Laurence 1994, 70–87; DeFelice 2001. 7. For further discussion on the definition, typology, and distribution of Pompeian bars, see Ellis 2004a; Ellis 2004b; Ellis 2005; Ellis 2008. 8. Just twenty-one were without direct evidence of a nearby cooking facility, while nine were indeterminable because of a complete lack of surviving evidence for the property. 9. A wall painting showing a wooden counter was found outside the entrance to IX.7.7 at Pompeii. It portrays a woman selling shoes from behind a wooden counter to a customer seated on a couch to one side. See Della Corte 1927, 9, Fig. 3; Kampen 1981, no. III.42, Fig. 46. 10. For a review of some recent scholarship on foods consumed in the Greek and Roman worlds, see Weingarten 2007. 11. See Mau 1907, 394. Followed by Tanzer 1939, 42, and Ruddell 1964, 18. 12. Mazois 1824, 2:43– 44 n3. 13. See Maiuri 1958, 402 (beans and chickpeas in the counter at V.6) and 434 (grains and legumes discovered in the counter at IV.15–16). See also White 1975, 145; Packer 1978, 47–48; De Carolis 1996, 34–37.

NOTES

201

14. Notizie degli scavi di antichita, 1887, 244. Ann Laidlaw, however, believes that excavators found legumes in the counter at VI.2.5 (personal communication). 15. CIL IV, 5380. On costs and values in the Roman world see Duncan-Jones 1994, ch. 2; more generally see Greene 1986, ch. 3. 16. Cleaves 1934, 68. See also Ellis 2004b, 48. 17. The excavations were conducted by the University of Cincinnati’s “Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia,” under the direction of the author. See Ellis and Devore 2010. See also Ellis and Devore 2006, 3. 18. The presence of the giraffe bone is the subject of a forthcoming article by Steven Ellis and Emily Holt of the “Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia.” 19. Packer 1968–69, 127– 48; Packer 1971, 72–74. Cooking facilities and latrines: Packer 1968–69, 147– 48. 20. Ostia, Museo Ostiense, inv. nos. 5858, 5859. Kampen 1981, 57, cat. no. II.17, Fig. 35 (with extensive bibliography). 21. On the inscription itself, see Thylander 1951, 129, A 169a. 22. On Roman sumptuary laws, see Miles 1987; Toner 1995, 79–83. For the Greek world, cf. Davidson 1997b. 23. See especially: Augustus (ILS 4966); Tiberius (Suetonius, Tib., 34); Nero (Suetonius, Nero, 16; Cassius Dio 61 (62).14); and Vespasian (Cassius Dio 65.10). 24. For the types of meals available at Roman collegia, see Donahue 2003, 432–34.

Chapter 6 1. Dalby 1996, 16–20, 22–24. Most of our literary evidence for Greek cookery derives from the Deipnosophistae (Philosophers at Dinner) by Athenaeus, the second-century c.e. gastronomic writer who quotes extensively from earlier Greek literary works, especially Middle and New Comedy playwrights. Wilkins 2000a, 408–10. 2. Rosivach 1994, 11–12, 35–67. 3. Rankin 1907; Giannini 1960; Dohm 1964; Berthiaume 1982. Women were classed among specialists, or artisans (demiourgoi), who might roast small pieces of meat or bake cakes. Athenaeus 4.172b–c; Bober 1999, 79; Wilkins 2000b, 130. 4. Berthiaume 1982, 13, 30–31; Lowe 1985, 73–76; Wilkins 2000a, 369–79. 5. Rankin 1907, 11–23, 71–92; Handley 1965, 37; Berthiaume 1982, 73–76; Sparkes 1962, plate VIII, 6; Lowe 1985, 75, 93–94; Arnott 1996, 536–38; Wilkins 2000a, 408. 6. Wilkins 2000a, 420; Goldberg 2008. 7. Rankin 1907, 64–66; Berthiaume 1982, 44–69; Detienne and Vernant 1989, 11; Rosivach 1994, 84–88. 8. Rankin 1907, 42–45; Harris 2002: 74–75.

202

NOTES

9. Rankin (1907, 46–47) argues that in Athens, state officials called gynaikonomoi supervised mageiroi, who had to register with them so that they (the officials) could oversee the number of guests at entertainments such as weddings (Athenaeus 6.245b–c). That these officials oversaw the qualifications of professional cooks and maintained a register of those meeting the standards may be doubted. 10. Even with a flue, however, soot probably remained an omnipresent result of cooking (Simonides fr. 7.57–62). Rayner 1956; Pellizer and Tedeschi 1990, 136–37. 11. Olson and Sens 2000; Wilkins 2000a, 386. 12. Wilkins 2000a, 341–68; Wilkins and Hill 2006, 45–48, 207–8. 13. In Damoxenus’s Foster Brothers (Athenaeus 3.102f), the mageiros boasts that he sits and watches his assistants, intervening only to explain culinary principles and to comment on their work. In a more practical sense, the mageiros in one of Philemon’s plays (Athenaeus 7.291d–e) instructs his assistant on how to control the fire for roasting meat. For varying views on the opsopoios and his relationship with the mageiros, see Plato, Republic 373c; Athenaeus 9.404e–05b; 12.521c; Grocock and Grainger 2006, 41–42; Harris 2002, 68, 93–94; Berthiaume 1982, 77; Wilkins 2000a, 363; Dalby 2003, 102. 14. Pritchett (1956, 279) indicates that a domestic slave who served as a general manager of the kitchen might also be termed trapezopoios. 15. Robinson and Graham 1938, 42–44, 185–98; Scheffer 1981, 93. 16. The close association of the kitchen with the mageiros is reflected in Greek vocabulary for kitchen. The most common term is mageireion, a clear reference to the place where the mageiros performed his job. The second word often used for kitchen, optanion, refers to a place for roasting, a primary method of cooking meat, the very food that often called for the presence of a mageiros. The term ipnos, in addition to denominating a type of largely portable oven, can also designate the place where the oven is located, that is, the kitchen. Cf. Aristophanes, Wasps 837; Liddell and Scott 1996: sv mageireion, optanion, and ipnos. 17. See especially Robinson and Graham 1938, 312–16, 326–36; Robinson 1941, 191–99; Pritchett 1958; Amyx 1958; Sparkes 1962; Sparkes 1965; Sparkes 1981; Sparkes and Talcott 1970; Scheffer 1981; Morris 1985. For a list of cooking equipment named in Greek comedy, see Athenaeus 4.169b–f. 18. Rotary hand mills did not appear in Greece before the first century b.c.e. (Curtis 2001, 279–81, 288). 19. Commercial bakeries were probably operating in Athens by the fifth century b.c.e. Sparkes 1962, 123–26; Curtis 2001, 279–93. 20. Olson and Sens 2000, lii; Dalby 2003, 99–100; Olson 2007, 271. 21. Sparkes 1962, 130–31; Sparkes and Talcott 1970, 1:233; 2: Pl. 97, no. 2023; Neils 2004, 57–58.

NOTES

203

22. Marmaras, Poulakakis, and Papakostopoulos 1999; Curtis 2001, 313–14. 23. Little can be said concerning fees mageiroi charged for their services and any food or equipment provided. Rankin 1907, 59, 69–70. 24. Lowe 1985, 76–85. 25. Lowe 1985; Gowers 1993, 93–107. 26. Plautus, Pseudolus 790–904; Harcum 1914, 39–50; Lowe 1985, 101–2; Grainger 2007, 73. Cf. Goldberg 2008, 136: “The famous ‘mirror of life’ created by the comedy rooted in the look, the feel and the preoccupation of fourth-century Athenians became in time the fun house mirror that Roman dramatists held up to their own Roman audiences.” 27. Magirus (Cato fr. 96; Pliny, Natural History 33.157); coctor (Petronius, Satyricon 95; CIL 4.1658, 6823); archimagirus (Juvenal, Satires 9.109; CIL 6.7458, 8750–51; Sidonius Apollinaris 2.9.6). Supra cocos (CIL 6.9261) and praepositus cocorum (CIL 6.8752) are apparently Latin alternatives to archimagirus. 28. Grainger 2007, 72. Cf. Bober 1999, 146: “Everything Romans learned of gourmandizing came from Hellenic practice and Greek literature on gastronomy.” On Greek influences on Roman cuisine and gastronomy generally, see Dalby 1996, 162–83. 29. For Ennius (239–169 b.c.e.), who patterned his Hedyphagetica (Pleasant Eating) on Archestratus’s poem, and Matius (mid first century b.c.e.), among whose works was Cocus (The Cook), see Olson and Sens 2000, 241–45; Dalby 2003, 133, 210. 30. Flower and Rosenbaum 1958, 12–15; Bober 1999, 149–50. 31. Grocock and Grainger 2006, 13–38. 32. Cooks identifiable as freedmen appear in CIL 6.7458 8750, 8752, 9263, 9270–71; CIL 9.3938. 33. On the cost of cooks, see Harcum 1914, 51–57. 34. Grocock and Grainger (2006, 69) suggest that slave cooks trained in a household could be resold to another who would in turn train other cooks. Grainger (2007, 76) notes that collegia of cooks in imperial households may have been an ideal venue where “recipe collections were surely gathered into makeshift books that were shared and exchanged especially for the purpose of training.” Juvenal (Satires 11.136–41) speaks of a specialist school for carvers, not cooks per se. 35. Harcum 1914, 58–61; Lowe 1985, 83–84; Grocock and Grainger 2006, 66–69. 36. CIL 11.3078; 14.2875; Lowe 1985, 83–84 and n75–76; Grocock and Grainger 2006, 67–68. 37. The monetary terms of a hire described by Porphyrion in his commentary on Horace, Satires 1.1.101 suggest a long-term contract. If so, it differed significantly from the typical arrangement seen in Greek Middle and New Comedy. Cf. Lowe 1985, 84; Grocock and Grainger 2006, 66.

204

NOTES

38. For cook’s assistants, see esp. Martial, Epigrams 14.222; Seneca, Moral letters 78; CIL 6.8946; Harcum 1914, 69–77; Treggiari 1975, 54, and 68n74. The manuscript (Scribonius Largus, Compositiones 230) and epigraphic (CIL 4.373) evidence for culinarius (cook) is unreliable. 39. Cf. Petronius, Satyricon 70; Cicero, Letters to his Friends 9.20.2; Apicius 9.10.10–12. 40. Foss 1994, 69–71. 41. Foss 1994, 166–76; Allison 2004, 103; Allison 2006, 388–89. 42. Foss 1994, 131–34. Kastenmeier (2007, 57), whose study is, like that of Foss, limited to part of the city, says that Pompeian kitchens do not exceed ten to fifteen square meters. 43. Foss 1994, 79–82; Salza Prina Ricotti 1978–80, 241–43; Salza Prina Ricotti 1987, 119. 44. Foss 1994; Foss 1997, 165; Salza Prina Ricotti 1978–80, 246–55. 45. Salza Prina Ricotti 1978–80, 252–55; Foss 1994, 134–36; Kastenmeier 2007, 58–60. 46. Richardson 1955, 71; Maiuri 1958, 278, and 227, Fig. 221; Maiuri 1967, 85; Kastenmeier 2007, 61–62. 47. Packer 1971, 72–73; Hermansen 1981, 43–44. 48. Not all kitchens in Pompeii had a permanent roof and of those that did, the heights varied (Richardson 1955, 71–72; Kastenmeier 2007, 57). 49. Some cooks, whether free or slave is unknown, apparently set up portable braziers in the Forum to cook and sell hot food. Nappo 1989, 86. 50. Salza Prina Ricotti 1978–80, 269–73. Cf. Seneca, Moral letters 78.23. 51. Kastenmeier 2007, 65, Fig. 49. 52. Foss 1994, 153–57; Allison 2006, 387–88. 53. Relating terminology for kitchenware found in the literature with the artifacts themselves is difficult. For various cookery paraphernalia, see Harcum 1921, Annecchino 1977; Salza Prina Ricotti 1987, 153–60; Allison 2006, 17–38. 54. Cubberley, Lloyd, and Roberts, 1988; Cubberley 1999. 55. Curtis 2001, 335–62. 56. Duvau 1890; Kent 1929.

Chapter 7 1. For the deity of the fireplace see Kajava 2004; reception at the fireplace: Homer, Iliad 9.63 Aristophanes, Peace 1097; cf. Bruns 1970; “transferred to the polis”: Gernet 1968; Merkelbach 1980. 2. Cf. Sparkes 1962. 3. Alcman 19 ( Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 3.75 p. 111 A); cf. Dentzer 1971; Dentzer 1982; Fehr 1971. For the dining couch see also Bergquist 1999.

NOTES

205

4. See, for example, Plutarch, Quaestiones convivales 5.6.1, p. 680 A; cf. Vössing 2008, 172–77. It is important to note that kômos, normally conceived as outdoor revel through the streets, can also have the meaning of potos, that is, of a drinking bout after the dinner within the house. 5. For the world of Homer see Kistler 2005; Renaud and Wathelet 2008; for a discussion of houses from geometric and archaic times see Schattner 1990; Lang 2002. 6. Lysias 1.9–10 (translation by W.R.M. Lamb); For the separation, see also Plato, Symposium 176E; cf. also Schmitt-Pantel 2001. For a discussion and plans of excavated houses in the Greek world see Walker 1999; Nevett 1999; Hoepfner 1999. 7. Cornelius Nepos, praef. 7; cf. also Xenophon, Cyropaedia 5.5.2 (gynaikôn). 8. Fehr 1999; Schäfer 1997; Gilula 2002; Hartmann 2002, 135–82; Auhagen 2009, 79. 9. For the family in the ancient Greek world cf. Lacey 1968; Pomeroy 1997; Baumgarten 2006; Schmitz 2007. 10. Cf. Fisher 1988; Bowie 1997; Schmitt-Pantel 1997; Schäfer 2002; Wilson 2003. 11. Aristophanes, Peace 1265–1302; Plutarch, Moralia 272 C. 12. For the family feast see, for example, Aristophanes, Aues 131F; Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 14.52 p. 644 D; Lucian, Symposion 8 cf. in general, Athenaeus 2.86 p. 71 EF (Menander); Isaeus 3.14 (e contrario, because “reputable women don’t think of feasting in the company of strangers”); Cornelius Nepos, praef. 7. For sacrificial banquets cf. Dalby 1996, 2–5; for ritual dinners of women see, for example, Schmidt 2000. 13. Here I disagree with the modern commentators, for example, Gomme and Sandbach 1973; Ireland 1995. The question demands scrutiny. 14. V. 402–5; cf. also v. 447s; for iconographical evidence cf. Sourvinou-Inwood 2003, 82–84. 15. Dohm 1964; Berthiaume 1982; Vernant and Detienne 1989; Wilkins 2000a; the cooks were incorporated among the house slaves and table attendants as late as in Hellenistic times (and only in very rich households), see Vössing 2004, 171–73. Cf. also chapter 6 in this volume. 16. Ghedini 1992; Dunbabin 2003, 169–74. 17. Cf. line 851 (pantes) and line 873. Since we are told that there were at least two stibades with several guests, servants, and even room for a little dance (lines 950–952), this feast is possibly took place (like the eating before) not in the shrine of Pan, but in a location (perhaps a sort of pergola) close to the sanctuary. Given the rural ambiance of the setting, it is not likely that the symposium took place in a permanent banquet house of the type one frequently finds in the vicinity of great temples, see, for example, Bookidis et al. 1999; Leypold 2008. 18. For the ostentation of the Hellenistic house see Raeder 1988. In Theocritus’s fourteenth Idyll, it is not easy to define the status of the girl presented

206

19. 20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

NOTES

here: she might come from the demimonde; cf. Burton 1992; Burton 1995, 43– 52; Burton 1998. Cicero, 2. Against Verres 1.66 (negavit moris esse Graecorum, ut in convivio virorum accumberent mulieres) still shows the old distinction. Cf. Van Bremen 1996, 155; Schmitt-Pantel 2005. André 1998; Dalby 2003; Cerchiai Manodori Sagredo 2004; Foss 1994; Foss 1997; Zaccaria Ruggiu 1995; Dunbabin 1998; Vössing 2004, 561–66; Morvillez 2005. Theopomp in Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 12.14 p. 517 D–F. For the banquets of the Etruscans see Small 1994; Tuck 1994. Suetonius, Augustus 64.3; ad fulcra: Suetonius, Claudius 32; Vössing 2004, 382s and 552–54 and Roller 2006 with the review in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2007.10.08 (Vössing); their own tables: Tacitus, Annals 13.16.1. It was the nature of the banquets of the early principes to have their dinners conform to the same rules as the upper classes, see Vössing 2004, 541. Cicero, 2. Against Verres 3.23, 5.81; Plutarch, Antony 28.7ss and Suetonius, Titus 2 show that the toga virilis was not always a precondition. For Roman women in the dining room cf. Paillier 2001; Stein-Hölkeskamp 2005b. For the Roman family see Bradley, 1991; Dixon 1992; George 2005; Smith 2006. Vitruvius, On Architecture 6.5.1 (translation by F. Granger); it is worth noting that Vitruvius did not share our notion of privacy. For the interpretation see Zaccaria Ruggiu, 1998–99; Vössing 2004, 237–39. For the Roman domus and villa see Clarke 1991; Foss 1994; Wallace-Hadrill 1994, 17–37 (“The Language of Public and Private”); Allison 1997; Dickmann 1999; Hales 2003; for a discussion of recent works see Allison 2001. Velleius Paterculus 2.14.3; Plutarch, Moralia 800F; Cicero, De Officiis 2.44; Philippicae 8.29; cf. also Treggiari 1998; Winterling 2005. For the questionability of attributing special functions to the rooms of the Roman house (oecus, tablinum, triclinium, cubiculum) see Allison 1993. Dunbabin 1996; for the wall paintings see, for example, Ritter 2005. See Bradley 1998. For the household gods (Lares) cf. Bodel 2008; for the table talks see also Plutarch, Quaestiones convivales and esp. Moralia 697 D; Apuleius, Metamorphoses 2.19.3 speaks of the sermo epularis; cf. in general Slater, in Vössing (ed.) 2008, 113–27 (“The Ancient Art of Conversation”). See previous note 16; Vössing 2004, 557–61. Noelke 1998; Stewart 2009. Cf. (also for real funerary banquets) Fabricius 1999; Lindsay 1998; Dunbabin 2003, 103–32; Carroll 2006, 71–74; Braune 2008. Cf. Ritter 2002–3. Tietz 2008, 157–68 (“Das ‘einsame Mahl’ im römischen Moraldiskurs”). Cf., for example, Livy 39.46.2; Cicero, Against Vatinius 30–32; Pliny, Natural History 9.117s.; Cassius Dio, 48.44.3. For the Roman family see Saller 1994; Corbier 1991; Martin 2009.

NOTES

207

Chapter 8 1. Lévi-Strauss 1962. Throughout the chapter, the translations used are those of the Loeb edition and of Powell (Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs). 2. The verb diaitô has a broader definition, as “to govern,” “to choose,” “to live,” or “to behave.” 3. Jouanna 2008. 4. Prost and Wilgaux 2006; Thommen 2007. 5. Edelstein 1987; Steger 2004; Wickkiser 2008. 6. Trans. van der Eijk. On the debate between Diocles and Galen on the empiric and dogmatic approaches, see van der Eijk 2005. 7. See also Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs 1.18. 8. See also Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs 1.18. 9. See also Rufus of Ephesus 20.1–2; 10; 17. 10. Goody 1982, 68. 11. Garnsey 1999, 100–112. 12. Garnsey 1988; Garnsey 1999. 13. Corbeau and Poulain 2002, 147. 14. Edelstein 1987. 15. Romeri 2002. 16. For a discussion of ancient and modern vegetarianisms, see Dombrowski 1984. 17. On the so-called guilt of killing: Detienne 1994; Georgoudi 2008; Petropoulou 2008. 18. Detienne 1994. 19. McGowan 1999, 87, 261 ff. 20. Grimm 1996. 21. Grimm 1996; Garnsey 1999, 95–99. 22. Solier 2006, 109; Vössing 2004. 23. De Garine 1990, 1453. 24. Fischler 2001, 47. 25. Douglas 2002; Soler 1996. However, some scholars favor biological explanations: Harris 1985; Fessler and Navarrete 2003. 26. Smith 2003a; Beer 2010; Rosenblum 2010; Erdkamp, forthcoming. 27. Erdkamp, forthcoming. 28. Gourévitch 1974. 29. Vernant 1994; Wilkins and Hill 2006. 30. Scheid 2005; Brulé and Touzé 2008, 120. 31. Sokolowski 1955, no. 17. 32. Inscript. Del. 2530 Sokolowski 1962, no. 54. 33. Detienne and Vernant 1989; Schmitt-Pantel 1992. 34. Petropoulou 2008. 35. Grimm 1996; McGowan 1999.

208

NOTES

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

Barthes 1961. Bourdieu 1989. Davidson 1997a. Tchernia 1986. Nadeau 2010. Davidson 1997a; Purcell 2003; Stein-Hölkeskamp 2005a; Wilkins and Hill 2006. 42. Goody 1982.

Chapter 9 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

Halstead and Barrett 2004; Wright 2004. Boardman 1974, 210. Boardman 1975, 216–19. Trendall 1989, 265. Dunbabin 2003, 82. Dunbabin 2003, 110–11. Dunbabin 2003, 103–4. Dunbabin 2003, 38–43. Dunbabin 2003, 53. Ling 1991, 153–54. Discussed by Dunbabin 1999, 49. Kondoleon 1994; Dunbabin 2003. Dalby 2000, 21–81. Murray 1990, 6. Schmitt-Pantel 1990, 18. Braund and Wilkins 2000. Archestratu’s Hedupatheia was probably written before 348 b.c.e. (Dalby 1996, 118). For the modern editions, see Wilkins and Hill 1994; Olson and Sens 2000. Athenaeus 278d, fragment 2 in Wilkins and Hill 1994. Athenaeus 310a–e and 163d, fragment 23 in Wilkins and Hill 1994. Dalby and Grainger 1996, 82–85. Recipes for cheesecake from this section of the work are included by Dalby and Grainger 1996, 92–96, illuminating De Agricultura 75–76. Higginbotham 1997. Davidson 2002. Discussed by Dunbabin 1995, 260. D’Arms 1981, 97. Veyne 1961. Beck 1975. Horsfall 1989a and 1989b.

NOTES

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

209

Schmeling 1970. Kleijwegt 2002. Lindsay 2000. Discussed by Davidson 2002, 154. Lindsay 2000, 323. Goddard 1994, 67–82. Accessible translations by Vehling 1936/1977; Flower and Rosenbaum 1958; Edwards 1984. Lindsay 1997. Lindsay 1997, 148. Lindsay 1997, 149–50n15. Dunbabin 2003, 14–15.

Chapter 10 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Mazoyer and Roudart 2002. Di Cosmo 1994. Diamond 1997. Diamond 1997, 100. Dahlberg 1995. Carney 2001. Belachew 2003, 763; Silvestrini et al. 2007. Allchin and Allchin 1997, 287; Chakrabarti 1999, 374. Kiple 2007, 19, 21, 32. Kimata, Ashok, and Seetharam 2000; Fuller et al. 2004; Tsao and Lo 2006. Kiple 2007, 18. Achaya 1994, 26. Achaya 1994, 34. Kiple 2007, 17, 43, 20. Harlan 1992; Jiang and Li 2006; Lu et al. 2002. Londo et al. 2006. Sterckx 2005, 9–33. Sterckx 2005, 75–95. Lu et al. 2005. Anderson 1988, 25. Anderson 1988, 49. Pettid 2008, 27–68. Ishige 2001, 9–16. Golson 1983; Onwueme 1999. Kiple 2007, 47, 41. Mann 2005, 4. Shady Solis, Haas, and Creamer 2001; Haas, Creamer, and Ruiz 2004.

210

NOTES

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Allem 1999; Srisuwan, Sihachakr, and Siljak-Yakovlev 2006, Kiple 2002, 119. Clement 1999. Lehman et al. 2003. Fedick and Morrison 2004. Lecount 2001; McAnany and Murata 2007. Riley, Edging, and Rossen 1990; Smith 1989.

bibliography

EXPLANATORY NOTE It is common usage among classicists and ancient historians to refer to ancient texts by the name of the author (if known), and if the author has written more than one work, an abbreviated title of the work. For example, Tacitus, Ann. refers to the Annales of the Roman historian Tacitus. The history written by Ammianus Marcellinus is referred to under his name only, as this is his only extant work. In order to offer easier access to ancient works, a fuller version of ancient titles are given in this volume, usually selecting the version that will be most universally known or clearest to the general reader. For example, Cicero’s Epistulae ad familiares are referred to as Letters to His Friends. In addition, following common practice, a reference system is used here that refers to books, chapters, and/or lines. For example, Homer, Odyssey 4.1–36 refers to the book 4, lines 1–36 of Homer’s Odyssey, describing the invitation of Telemachus and Peisistratus to a wedding banquet by King Menelaus. Ammianus Marcellinus 26.3.6 refers to book 26, chapter 3, line 6 of his work, telling us that in his day food riots happened often in the city of Rome. The convenience of this method is that all editions and translations generally use the same reference system. Hence, the same passage may be found whatever edition or translation is used. Most ancient literary works are readily available in various editions and translations in print and on the internet. Care must be taken that the latter are full rather than abbreviated versions and that translations are of

212

BIBLIOGRAPHY

academic standard. The most widely known English translations in print are those of the so-called Loeb editions (including Greek / Latin and translation), which are regularly reprinted and revised. The titles of such translations may differ from ancient titles. Inscriptions are usually referred to as part of the epigraphic collections in which their text (with comments and sometimes translations) appeared. For example, CIL refers to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, the multivolume collection of Latin inscriptions published in Berlin from 1862 onwards. The full title of collections will be given in the list of abbreviations.

ABBREVIATIONS AE

L’Année épigraphique. Revue des publications épigraphiques relatives a l’antiquite romaine. Published in Revue Archéologique and separately. Paris 1888–. Austin M. M. Austin, The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest. A Selection of Sources in Translation. Cambridge 1981. CIG Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum. Berlin 1828–77. CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin 1862–. CILA Corpus de Inscripciones Latinas de Andalucia. Sevilla 1991–. ID Inscriptions de Délos. 7 vols. Paris 1926–1972. I. Erythrai-Klazomenai H. Engelmann and R. Merckelbach, Die Inschriften von Erythrai und Klazomenai Bonn 1972–73. J. Kirchner, ed., Inscriptiones Graecae, edition minor, IG 22 vol. 2/3: inscriptions Atticae Euclidis anno posteriors. Berlin: de Gruyter 1924–40. D. M. Lewis, ed., Inscriptiones Atticae Euclidis anno anIG 13 teriores, fasc. 1: decreta et tabulae magistratuum; fasc. 2: Dedicationes, catalogi, termini, tituli sepulcrales, varia, tituli Attici extra Atticam reperti, addenda; fasc. 3: indices. Berlin: de Gruyter3 1981–98. IG 12. Suppl. F. Hiller von Gaertringen, ED., Inscriptiones Graecae insularum maris aegaei praeter delum. Supplementum. Berlin: de Gruyter 1939. IGR Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes. Paris 1911–27. I. Priene F. Hiller von Gaertingen, Die Inschriften von Priene. Berlin 1906. Prosopographia Imperii Romani. 2nd ed. 1933–. PIR2

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SEG SIG3 SP

213

Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. 1923–. W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. 3rd ed. Leipzig 1915–24. Sumerian Proverb Collection

MODERN WORKS Achaya, K. T. 1994. Indian Food. A Historical Companion. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Adams, C. 2007. Land Transport in Roman Egypt 30 BC—A.D. 300. A Study in Administration and Economic History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Albarella, U., C. Johnstone, and K. Vickers. 2008. “The Development of Animal Husbandry from the Late Iron Age to the End of the Roman Period: A Case Study from South-East Britain.” Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 1828–48. Aldrete, G. S., and D. J. Mattingly. 1999. “Feeding the City. The Organization, Operation and Scale of the Supply System for Rome.” In Life, Death and Entertainment in the Roman Empire, ed. D. S. Potter and D. J. Mattingly, 171–204. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Allchin, B., and R. Allchin. 1997. Origins of a Civilization. The Prehistoric and Early Archeology of South Asia. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Allem, A. C. 1999. “The Closest Wild Relatives of Cassava.” Euphytica 107 (2): 123–33. Allison, P. M. 1993. “How Do We Identify the Use of Space in Roman Housing?” In Functional and Spatial Analysis of Wall Painting, ed. E. M. Moormann, 1–8. Leiden, Germany: Stichting Babesch. Allison, P. M. 1997. “Roman Households: An Archaeological Perspective.” In Roman Urbanism, ed. H. M. Parkins, 112–46. London: Routledge. Allison, P. M. 2001. “Using the Material and Written Sources: Turn of the Millennium Approaches to Roman Domestic Space.” American Journal of Archaeology 195: 181–208. Allison, P. M. 2004. Pompeian Households. An Analysis of Material Culture. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Allison, P. M. 2006. The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii. Vol. 3 of The Finds, A Contextual Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Amyx, D. A. 1958. “The Attic Stelai. Part III. Vases and Other Containers.” Hesperia 27: 164–310. Anderson, E. N. 1988. The Food of China. New Haven: Yale University Press. André, J. 1998. Essen und Trinken im alten Rom. French orig. 2nd ed. 1981. Stuttgart, Germany: Reclam. Annecchino, M. 1977. “Suppellettile fittile da cucina di Pompei.” In L’instrumentum domesticum di Ercolano e Pompei nella prima età imperiale. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider.

214

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aperghis, G. G. 2004. The Seleukid Royal Economy. The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arnott, W. G. 1996. Alexis: The Fragments. A Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Auhagen, U. 2009. Die Hetäre in der griechischen und römischen Komödie. München, Germany: C. H. Beck Verlag. Badan, O., J.-P. Brun, and G. Congès. 2006. “Les bergeries romaines de la Crau d’Arles.” In Aux origines de la transhumance: les Alpes et la vie pastorale d’hier à aujourd’hui, ed. C. Jourdain-Annequin and J.-C. Duclos, 263–310. Paris: Editions Picard. Bakels, C., and S. Jacomet. 2003. “Access to Luxury Foods in Central Europe during the Roman Period: The Archaeobotanical Evidence.” World Archaeology 34: 542–57. Baltrusch, E. 1989. Regimen morum: die Reglementierung des Privatlebens der Senatoren und Ritter in der römischen Republik und frühen Kaiserzeit. München, Germany: Beck. Bang, P. F. 2006. “Imperial Bazaar. Towards a Comparative Understanding of Markets in the Roman Empire.” In Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies. Archaeology, Comparative History, Models and Institutions, ed. P. F. Bang, Mamoru Ikeguchi, and H. G. Ziche, 51–88. Bari, Italy: Edipuglia. Barthes, R. 1961. “Pour une psycho-sociologie de l’alimentation contemporaine.” Annales ESC 16: 977–86. Baumgarten, R. 2006. “Familie und Kindheit: Griechenland.” In Handbuch der Erziehung und Bildung in der Antike, ed. J. Christes, R. Klein, and C. Lüth, 29–35. Darmstadt, Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Beck, R. 1975. “Encolpius at the Cena.” Phoenix 29: 271–83. Becker, C. 1986. Kastanas: die Tierknochenfunde. Berlin: Volker Spiess. Beer, M. 2010. Taste of Taboo. Dietary Choices in Antiquity. Totnes, UK: Prospect. Belachew, M. 2003. “Coffee.” In Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. S. von Uhlig, 763. Wiesbaden, Germany: Horrowitz. Bergquist, B. 1999. “Sympotic Space: A Functional Aspect of Greek Dining Rooms.” In Sympotica: A Symposium on the “Symposion,” 2nd ed., O. Murray, 37–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berthiaume, G. 1982. Les rôles du mágeiros. Étude sur la boucherie, la cuisine et le sacrifice dans la Grèce ancienne. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Bissa, E.M.A. 2009. Governmental Intervention in Foreign Trade in Archaic and Classical Greece. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Boardman, J. 1974. Athenian Black Figure Vases. London: Thames and Hudson. Boardman, J. 1975. Athenian Red Figure Vases. London: Thames and Hudson. Boatwright, M. T. 2000. Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bober, P. P. 1999. Art, Culture, and Cuisine. Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

215

Bodel, J. 2008. “Ciceros’s Minerva, Penates, and the Mother of the Lares: An Outline of Roman Domestic Religion.” In Household and Family Religion in Antiquity, ed. J. Bodel and S. M. Olyan, 248–75. Malden: Blackwell. Bookidis, N., J. Hansen, L. Snyder, and P. Goldberg. 1999. “Dining in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth.” Hesperia 68: 1–54. Bottero, J. 2004. The Oldest Cuisine in the World. Cooking in Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bourdieu, P. 1979/1989. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Bowie, A. M. 1997. “Thinking with Drinking: Wine and the Symposium in Aristophanes.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 117: 1–21. Bradley, K. R. 1991. Discovering the Roman Family. Studies in Roman Social History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bradley, K. R. 1998. “The Roman Family at Dinner.” In Nielsen and Nielsen, Meals in a Social Context, 36–55. Braund, D. 2004. “Herodotus’ Spartan Scythians.” In Pontus and the Outside World, ed. C. J. Tuplin, 25–41. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Braund, D., and Wilkins, J., eds. 2000. Athenaeus and His World. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press. Braune, S. 2008. Convivium funebre. Gestaltung und Funktion römischer Grabtriklinien als Räume für sepulkrale Bankettfeiern. Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag. Bray, T. L. 2003. “The Commensal Politics of Early States and Empires.” In The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires, ed. T. L. Bray, 1–13. New York: Kluwer. Bresson, A. 2000. “Prix officiels et commerce de gros à Athènes.” In La cité marchande, 182–210. Paris: Ausonius. Bresson, A. 2008. L’économie de la Grèce des cités (fin VIe—Ier siècle a.C. 2: Les espaces de l’échange). Paris: Armand Colin. Broekaert, W. 2008. “Roman Economic Policies during the 3rd Century AD. The Evidence of the Tituli Picti on Oil Amphorae.” Ancient Society 38: 197–219. Broekaert, W. 2010. “Navicularii et negotiantes. A prosopographical study of Roman traders and the commercial organisation during the Empire.” PhD diss., Ghent University. Broneer, O. 1947. “Investigations at Corinth in 1946–1947.” Hesperia 16: 239–41. Brulé, P., and R. Touzé. 2008. “Le hiereion, phusis et psuchè d’un medium.” In Le sacrifice antique, ed. V. Mehl and P. Brulé, 111–38. Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Bruns, G. 1970. Küchenwesen und Mahlzeiten. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Brunt, P. A. 1972. Review of Roman Farming by K. D. White. Journal of Roman Studies 62: 153–58.

216

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burton, J. B. 1992. “The Function of the Symposium Theme in Theocritus’ Idyll 14.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 33: 227–45. Burton, J. B. 1995. Theocritus’s Urban Mimes: Mobility, Gender, and Patronage. Berkeley: University of California Press. Burton, J. B. 1998. “Women’s Commensality in the Ancient Greek World.” Greece and Rome 45: 143–65. Butzer, K. W., J. F. Mateu, E. K. Butzer, and P. Kraus. 1985. “Irrigation Agrosystems in Eastern Spain: Roman or Islamic Origins?” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 75: 479–509. Buxó, R. 2008. “The Agricultural Consequences of Colonial Contacts on the Iberian Peninsula in the First Millennium b.c.” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17: 145–54. Camp, J. M. 1986. The Athenian Agora. Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens. London: Thames & Hudson. Carney, J. 2001. Black Rice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carroll, M. 2006. Spirits of the Dead. Roman Funerary Commemoration in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Casson, L. 1995. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cerchiai Manodori Sagredo, C. 2004. Cibi e banchetti nell’antica Roma. Rome: Libreria dello Stato, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato. Chakrabarti, D. K. 1999. India. An Archaeological History: Palaeolithic Beginnings to Early Historic Foundations. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Chandezon, C. 2003. L’élevage en Grèce (fin Ve-fin Ier s. a.C.): l’ apport des sources épigraphiques. Paris: Ausonius. Cherry, D. 1993. “Hunger at Rome in the Late Republic.” Echos du monde classique/Classical Views 37: 433–50. Ciaraldi, M. 2007. People and Plants in Ancient Pompeii: a New Approach to Urbanism from the Microscope Room. The Use of Plant Resources at Pompeii and in the Pompeian Area from the 6th Century BC to AD 79. London: Accordia Research Institute, University of London. Cipolla, C. M. 1994. Before the Industrial Revolution. European Society and Economy 1000–1700. 3rd ed. New York: Norton. Clarke, J. R. 1991. The Houses of Roman Italy. 100 B.C.–A.D. 250. Ritual, Space and Decoration. Berkeley: University of California Press. Clauss, M. 2001. Das alte Ägypten, Berlin: Alexander Fest Verlag. Cleaves, F. W. 1934. “Hxeres.” Classical Philology 29: 68. Clement, C. R. 1999. “1492 and the Loss of Amazonian Crop Genetic Resources.” Economic Botany 53 (2): 188–202 and 203–16. Corbeau, J.-P., and J.-P. Poulain. 2002. Penser l’alimentation. Toulouse, France: Privat. Corbier, M. 1991. “Family Behaviour of the Roman Aristocracy, Second Century b.c.–Third Century a.d.” In Women’s History and Ancient History, ed. S. B. Pomeroy, 173–96. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

217

Cornell, T. J. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC). London: Routledge. Corò Capitanio, P. 2004. “Meat, Prebends and Rank. A Short Note on the Distribution of Sacrificial Meat in Seleucid Uruk.” In Food and Identity in the Ancient World, ed. C. Grottanelli and L. Milano, 257–67. Padova, Italy: S.A.R.G.O.N. Craig, O. E., M. Biazzo, T. C. O’Connell, P. Garnsey, C. Martinez-Labarga, R. Lelli, L. Salvadei, G. Tartaglia, A. Nava, L. Renò, A. Fiammenghi, O. Rickards, and L. Bondioli. 2009. “Stable Isotopic Evidence for Diet at the Imperial Roman Coastal Site of Velia (1st and 2nd centuries a.d.) in Southern Italy.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 139: 572–83. Cubberley, A. 1999. “Bread-Baking in Ancient Italy. Clibanus and Sub Testu in the Roman World: Further Thoughts.” In: Food in Antiquity. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press. Cubberley, A., J. Lloyd, and P. Roberts. 1988. “Testa and Clibani: The Baking Covers of Classical Italy.” Papers of the British School at Rome 56: 98–119. Curtis, R. I. 1984. “A Personalized Floor Mosaic from Pompeii.” American Journal of Archaeology 88 (4): 557–66. Curtis, R. I. 1984–86. “Product Identification and Advertising on Roman Commercial Amphorae.” Ancient Society 15–17: 209–28. Curtis, R. I. 1991. Garum and Salsamenta. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Curtis, R. I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Dahlberg, J. 1995. “Dispersal of Sorghum and the Role of Genetic Drift.” African Crop Science Journal 3 (2): 143–51. Dalby, A. 1996. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. New York: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2000. Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World. London: Routledge. Dalby, A. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. New York: Routledge. Dalby, A., and S. Grainger. 1996. The Classical Cook Book. London: British Museum. Damerow, P. 1996. “Food Production and Social Status as Documented in ProtoCuneiform Texts.” In Food and the Status Quest. An Interdisciplinary Perspective, ed. P. Wiessner and W. Schiefenhövel, 149–70. Providence, RI: Berghahn. Dardaine, S., and H. Pavis d’Escurac. 1986. “Ravitaillement des cités et évergetisme annonaire dans les provinces occidentales sour le Haut-Empire.” Ktèma 11: 291–302. D’Arms, J. 1981. Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Davidson, A. 2002. Mediterranean Seafood. Totnes, UK: Prospect Books. Davidson, J. 1997a. Courtesans and Fishcakes. The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens. London: Harper Collins. Davidson, J. 1997b. “A Ban on Public Bars in Thasos?” Classical Quarterly 47 (2): 392–95.

218

BIBLIOGRAPHY

De Angelis, F. 2000. “Estimating the Agricultural Base of Greek Sicily.” Papers of the British School at Rome 68: 111–48. De Angelis, F. 2002. “Trade and Agriculture at Megara Hyblaia.” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 21: 299–310. De Carolis, E. 1996. “Il recupero di due impianti commerciali ercolanesi.” I Beni Culturali 4 (2): 34–37. De Cupere, B., A. Lentacker, W. Van Neer, M. Waelkens, and L. Verslype. 2000. “Osteological Evidence for the Draught Exploitation of Cattle: First Applications of a New Methodology.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 10: 254–67. DeFelice, J. F. 2001. Roman Hospitality. The Professional Women of Pompeii. Warren Center, PA: Shangri-La Publications. DeFelice, J. F. 2008. “Inns and Taverns.” In The World of Pompeii, ed. J. J. Dobbins and P. W. Foss, 474–86. London: Routledge. De Garine, I. 1990. “Les modes alimentaires.” In Histoire des mœurs I. Vol. 2, ed. J. Poirier, 1447–1627. Paris: Gallimard. De Laet, S. J. 1949. Portorium. Etude sur l’organisation douanière chez les Romains, surtout à l’époque du Haut-Empire. Bruges, Belgium: De Tempel. DeLaine, J. 2005. “The Commercial Landscape of Ostia.” In Roman Working Lives and Urban Living, ed. A. MacMahon and J. Price, 29–47. Oxford: Oxbow. De Ligt, L. 1993. Fairs and Markets in the Roman Empire. Economic and Social Aspects of Periodic Trade in a Pre-Industrial Society. Amsterdam: Gieben. De Ligt, L. 2002. “De Romeinse leges sumptuariae in vergelijkend perspectief.” In Tesserae Romanae. Opstellen aangeboden aan Hans Teitler, ed. L. de Ligt, J. Blok, and J. J. Flinterman, 9–22. Utrecht, Netherlands: Verloren. De Martino, S. 2004. “Pork Meat in Food and Worship among the Hittites.” In Food and Identity in the Ancient World, ed. C. Grottanelli and L. Milano, 49–57. Padova, Italy: S.A.R.G.O.N. De Ruyt, C. 1983. Macellum. Marché alimentaire des Romains. Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium: Institut superieur d’archeologie et d’histoire de l’art, College Erasme. Della Corte, M. 1927. Pompeii, the New Excavations (Houses and Inhabitants). A new ed. Valle di Pompei, Italy: Tip. di F. Sicignano. Della Corte, M. 1965. Case ed abitanti di Pompei. 3rd ed. Napoli, Italy: Faustino Fiorentino. Dentzer, J.-M. 1971. “Aux origines de l’iconographie du banquet couché.” Revue Archéologique 2: 215–58. Dentzer, J.-M. 1982. Le motif du banquet couché dans le Proche-Orient et le monde grec du VIIe au IVe siècle av. J.C. Paris: Boccard. Descat, R. 1997. “Les prix dans l’inscription agoranomique du Pirée.” In Prix et formation des prix dans les économies antiques, ed. J. Andreau, P. Briant, and R. Descat, 13–20. Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, France: Musée Archéologique Départemental. Detienne, M. 1972/1994. The Gardens of Adonis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

219

Detienne, M., and J.-P. Vernant, eds. 1979/1989. The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Di Cosmo, N. 1994. “Ancient Inner Asian Nomads: Their Economic Basis and its Significance in Chinese History.” The Journals of Asian Studies 53 (4): 1920– 26. Diamond, J. 1997. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York: W. W. Norton. Dickmann, J.-A. 1999. Domus frequentata. Anspruchsvolles Wohnen im pompejanischen Stadthaus. München, Germany: Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil. Dirscherl, H.-C. 2000. “Die Verteilung von kostenlosem Getreide in der Antike vom 5. Jh. v. Chr. bis zum Ende des 3. Jhs. n. Chr.” Münstersche Beiträge zur Antiken Handelsgeschichte 19 (1): 1–33. Dixon, S. 1992. The Roman Family. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Dohm, H. 1964. Mageiros. Die Rolle des Kochs in der griechisch-römischen Komödie. München, Germany: C. H. Beck Verlag. Dombrowski, D. 1984. The Philosophy of Vegetarianism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Donahue, J. F. 2003. “Typology of Roman Public Feasting.” American Journal of Philology, 124 (3): 423–41. Donahue, J. F. 2004. The Roman Community at Table during the Principate. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Douglas M. 2002. Purity and Danger, 2nd ed. with new Preface. London: Routledge. Dunbabin, K. 1995. “Scenes from the Roman Convivium.” In In Vino Veritas, ed. O. Murray and M. Tecuan, 252–65. London: British School at Rome. Dunbabin, K. 1996. “Convivial Spaces: Dining and Entertainment in the Roman Villa.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 9: 66–80. Dunbabin, K. 1998. “Ut Graeco more biberetur. Greeks and Romans on the Dining Couch.” In Nielsen and Nielsen, Meals in a Social Context, 81–101. Dunbabin, K. 1999. Mosaics in the Greek and Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dunbabin, K. 2003. The Roman Banquet. Images of Conviviality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duncan-Jones, R. 1982. The Economy of the Roman Empire. Quantitative Studies. 2nd. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duncan-Jones, R. 1990. Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duncan-Jones, R. 1994. Money and Government in the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duvau, L. 1890. “Ciste de Préneste.” Mélange d’archéologie et d’histoire 10: 303–16. Edelstein, L. 1967/1987. Ancient Medicine: Selected Papers, ed. O. Temkin and C. L. Temkin. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Edwards, J. 1984. The Roman Cookery of Apicius: Translated and Adapted for the Modern Kitchen. New York: Hartley and Marks.

220

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ellis, S.J.R. 2004a. “The Distribution of Bars at Pompeii: Archaeological, Spatial and Viewshed Analyses.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 17: 371–84. Ellis, S.J.R. 2004b. “The Pompeian Bar: Archaeology and the Role of Food and Drink Outlets in an Ancient Community.” Food & History 2 (1): 41–58. Ellis, S.J.R. 2005. “The Pompeian Bar and the City. Defining Food and Drink Outlets and Identifying their Place in an Urban Environment.” PhD diss., University of Sydney. Ellis, S.J.R. 2008. “The Use and Misuse of ‘Legacy Data’ in Identifying a Typology of Retail Outlets at Pompeii.” Internet Archaeology 24, http://intarch.ac.uk/ journal/issue24/ellis_index.html. Ellis, S.J.R., and G. Devore. 2006. “Towards an Understanding of the Shape of Space at VIII.7.1–15, Pompeii: Preliminary Results from the 2006 Season.” The Journal of Fasti Online 71: 1–15. Ellis, S.J.R., and G. Devore. 2010. “The Fifth Season of Excavations at VIII.7.1–15 and the Porta Stabia at Pompeii: Preliminary Report.” Journal of Fasti Online www.fastionline.org/docs/folder-it-2010–202.pdf. Erdkamp, P. 1998. Hunger and the Sword. Warfare and Food Supply in Roman Republican Wars (264–30 BC). Amsterdam: Gieben. Erdkamp, P. 2002. “A Starving Mob Has No Respect. Urban Markets and Food Riots in the Roman World, 100 BC–400 AD.” In The Transformation of Economic life under the Roman Empire, ed. L. de Blois and J. Rich, 93–115. Amsterdam: Gieben. Erdkamp, P. 2005. The Grain Market in the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Erdkamp, P. 2008. “Grain Funds and Market Intervention in the Roman World.” In Feeding the Ancient Greek City, ed. R. Alston and O. M. van Nijf, 109–26. Groningen-Royal Holloway Studies in the Greek City after the Classical Age, vol. 1. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. Erdkamp, P. Forthcoming. “Pagans, Jews and Christians at the Dinner Table.” Food and History. Eschebach, H. 1970. Die Städtebauliche Entwicklung des antiken Pompeji. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung; Heidelberg: Kerle. Etienne, R. 1951. “Quadragesima ou quinquagesima Hispaniarum?” Revue des études anciennes 53: 62–70. Fabricius, J. 1999. Die hellenistischen Totenmahlreliefs. Grabrepräsentation und Wertvorstellungen in ostgriechischen Städten. München, Germany: Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil. Fedick, S. L., and B. A. Morrison. 2004. “Ancient Use and Manipulation of Landscape in the Yalahau Region of the Northern Maya Lowlands.” Agriculture and Human Values 21 (2–3): 207–19. Feely-Harnik, G. 1981. The Lord’s Table. The Meaning of Food in Early Judaism and Christianity. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

221

Fehr, B. 1971. Orientalische und griechische Gelage. Bonn, Germany: Bouvier Verlag. Fehr, B. 1999. “Entertainers at the Symposion.” In Sympotica: A Symposium on the “Symposion,” 2nd ed., O. Murray, 185–95. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fernàndez-Armesto, F. 2002. Near a Thousand Tables. New York: The Free Press. Fessler, D.M.T., and C. D. Navarrete. 2003. “Meat Is Good to Taboo.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 3 (1): 1–40. Finley, M. I. 1973. The Ancient Economy. London: Chatto and Windus. Fiorelli, G. 1875. Descrizione di Pompei. Napoli: Massa Editore. Fischler, C. 1990/2001. L’Homnivore. Paris: Odile Jacob. Fisher, N.R.E. 1988. “Greek Associations, Symposia, and Clubs.” In Civilisation of the Ancient Mediterranean, ed. M. Grant and R. Kitzinger, 1167–97. Vol. 2 of Greece and Rome. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Flower, B., and E. Rosenbaum. 1958. The Roman Cookery Book: A Critical Translation of the Art of Cooking by Apicius for Use in the Study and the Kitchen. London: Harrap. Forbes, H. 1989. “Of Grandfathers and Grand Theories. The Hierarchised Ordering of Responses to Hazard in a Greek Rural Community.” In Bad Year Economics. Cultural Responses to Risk and Uncertainty, ed. P. Halstead and J. O’Shea, 87–97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forbes, H., and L. Foxhall. 1995. “Ethnoarchaeology and Storage in the Ancient Mediterranean. Beyond Risk and Survival.” In Food in Antiquity, ed. J. Wilkins, D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, 69–86. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Foss, P. W. 1994. Kitchens and Dining Rooms at Pompeii: The Spatial and Social Relationship of Cooking to Eating in the Roman Household. 2 vols. PhD diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. University Microfilms International. Foss, P. W. 1997. “Watchful Lares: Roman Household Organization and the Rituals of Cooking and Dining.” In Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond, ed. R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill, 196–218. Portsmouth, UK: Journal of Roman Archaeology. Foxhall, L. 2007. Olive Cultivation in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frayn, J. M. 1984. Sheep-Rearing and the Wool Trade in Italy during the Roman Period. Liverpool, UK: Francis Cairns. Frayn, J. M. 1993. Markets and Fairs in Roman Italy. Their Social and Economic Importance from the Second Century BC to the Third Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fuller, D., R. Korisettar, P. C. Venkatasubbaiah, and M. K. Jones. 2004. “Early Plant Domestications in Southern India: Some Preliminary Archaeobotanical Results.” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 13 (2): 115–29. Gallant, T. W. 1991. Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece. Reconstructing the Rural Domestic Economy. Cambridge: Polity.

222

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Garnsey, P. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P., and I. Morris. 1989. “Risk and the Polis. The Evolution of Institutionalised Responses to Food Supply Problems in the Ancient Greek State.” In Bad Year Economics. Cultural Responses to Risk and Uncertainty, ed. P. Halstead and J. O’Shea, 98–105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Geller, M. J. 2004. “Diet and Regimen in the Babylonian Talmud.” In Food and Identity in the Ancient World, ed. C. Grottanelli and L. Milano, 217–42. Padova, Italy: S.A.R.G.O.N. George, M., ed. 2005. The Roman Family in the Empire. Rome, Italy, and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Georgoudi, S. 2008. “Le consentement de la victime sacrificielle.” In Le sacrifice antique, ed. V. Mehl and P. Brulé, 139–53. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Gernet, L. 1968. “Sur le symbolisme politique: le foyer commun.” In Anthropologie de la Grèce ancienne, ed. L. Gernet, 382–402. Paris: Maspero. Ghedini, F. 1992. “Caccia e banchetto: un rapporto difficile.” Rivista di Archeologia 16: 72–88. Giannini, A. 1960. “La figura del cuoco nella commedia greca.” Acme 13: 135– 216. Gilula, D. 2002. “Entertainment at Xenophon’s Symposium.” Athenaeum 90: 207–13. Goddard, J. 1994. “The Tyrant at Table.” In Reflections of Nero, ed. J. Elsner and J. Masters, 67–82. London: Duckworth. Goldberg, S. M. 2008. “Comedy and Society from Menander to Terence.” In The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre, ed. Marianne McDonald and J. Michael Walton, 124–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Golson, J. 1983. “Kuku and the Development of Agriculture in New Guinea: Retrospection and Introspection.” In Pacific Production Systems: Approaches to Economic History. Occasional Papers in Prehistory No. 18, ed. D. E. Yen and J.M.J. Mummery, 139–47. Canberra: Department Prehistory Australian National University. Gomme, A. W., and F. H. Sandbach. 1973. Menander. A Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goody, J. 1982. Cooking, Cuisine and Class. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gordon, R. 1990. “The Veil of Power: Emperors, Sacrificers and Benefactors.” In Pagan Priests. Religion and Power in the Ancient World, ed. M. Beard and J. North, 199–231. London: Duckworth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

223

Gourévitch, D. 1974. “Le menu de l’homme libre.” In Mélanges de philosophie, de littérature et d’histoire ancienne offerts à Pierre Boyancé 311–44. Rome: Ecole française de Rome. Gowers, E. 1993. The Loaded Table. Representations of Food in Roman Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Grainger, S. 2007. “The Myth of Apicius.” Gastronomica. The Journal of Food and Culture 7 (2): 71–77. Greene, K. 1986. The Archaeology of the Roman Economy. Berkeley: University of California Press. Grimm, V. E. 1996. From Feasting to Fasting, The Evolution of a Sin. London: Routledge. Grocock, C., and S. Grainger, eds. 2006. Apicius. Totnes, UK: Prospect Books. Groot, M. 2005. “Palaeopathological Evidence for Draught Cattle on a Roman Site in the Netherlands.” In Diet and Health in Past Animal Populations: Current Research and Future Directions, ed. J. Davies, M. Fabis I. Mainland, M. Richards and R. Thomas, 52–57. Oxford: Oxbow. Grottanelli, C. 1996. “La viande et ses rites.” In Histoire de l’alimentation, ed. J.-L. Flandrin and M. Montanari 117–32. Paris: Fayard. Grottanelli, C. 2004. “Avoiding Pork. Egyptians and Jews in Greek and Latin Texts.” In Food and Identity in the Ancient World, ed. C. Grottanelli and L. Milano, 59–93. Padova, Italy: S.A.R.G.O.N. Haas, J., W. Creamer, and A. Ruiz. 2004. “Dating the Late Archaic occupation of the Norte Chico region in Peru.” Nature 432: 1020–23. Hales, S. 2003. The Roman House and Social Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Halstead, P., and Barrett, J. C., eds. 2004. Food, Cuisine and Society in Prehistoric Greece. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Handley, E. W. 1965. The Dyskolos of Menander. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hands, A. R. 1968. Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Harcum, C. G. 1914. Roman Cooks. Baltimore, MD: J. H. Furst Company. Harcum, C. G. 1921. “Roman Cooking Utensils in the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology.” American Journal of Archaeology 25 (1): 37–54. Harlan, J. R. 1992. Crops and Man. Madison, WI: American Society of Agronomy. Harris, E. M. 2002. “Workshop, Marketplace and Household. The Nature of Technical Specialization in Classical Athens and Its Influence on Economy and Society.” In Money, Labour and Land. Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece, ed. Paul Cartledge, Edward E. Cohen, and Lin Foxhall, 67–99. London: Routledge. Harris, M. 1985. Good to Eat. Riddles of Food and Culture. London: Allen & Unwin.

224

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hartmann, E. 2002. Heirat, Hetärentum und Konkubinat im klassischen Athen. Frankfurt, Germany: Campus-Verlag. Herman, G. 1987. Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hermansen, G. 1981. Ostia. Aspects of Roman City Life. Edmonton, Canada: University of Alberta Press. Hesnard, A., M.-B. Carre, M. Rival, and B. Dangréaux. 1988. “L’épave romaine du Grand-Ribaud D (Hyères, Var),” Archaeonautica 8. Higginbotham, J. 1997. Piscinae: Artificial Fishponds in Roman Italy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Hoepfner, W. 1999. “Die Epoche der Griechen.” In Geschichte des Wohnens 1: 5000 v.Chr.–500 n.Chr., ed. W. Hoepfner, 123–608. Stuttgart, Germany: DVA Verlag. Hopper, R. J. 1979. Trade and Industry in Classical Greece. London: Thames & Hudson. Horden, P., and N. Purcell. 2000. The Corrupting Sea. A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horsfall, N. 1989a, b. “The Uses of Literacy and the Cena Trimalchionis I and II.” Greece and Rome 36: 74–89, 194–209. Ireland, S., ed. 1995. Menander, The Bad-Tempered Man (Dyskolos). Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips. Ishige, N. 2001. The History and Culture of Japanese Food. London: Kegan Paul. Jacomet, S., and C. Brombacher. 2009. “Geschichte der Flora in der Regio Basiliensis seit 7500 Jahren: Ergebnisse von Untersuchungen pflanzlicher Makroreste aus archäologischen Ausgrabungen.” Mitteilungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaften beider Basel 11: 27–106. Jameson, M. 1983. “Famine in the Greek World.” In Trade and Famine in Classical Antiquity, ed. P. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker, 6–16. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jiang, Leping, and Liu Li. 2006. “New Evidence for the Origins of Sedentism and Rice Domestication in the Lower Yangzi River.” China. Antiquity 80: 355–61. Jongman, W. 1988. The Economy and Society of Pompeii. Amsterdam: Gieben. Jongman, W. 2002. “Beneficial Symbols. Alimenta and the Infantilization of the Roman Citizen.” In After the Past. Essays in Ancient History in Honour of H. W. Pleket, ed. W. M. Jongman and M. Kleijwegt, 47–80. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Jongman, W. 2007. “Gibbon was Right: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” In Crises and the Roman Empire, ed. O. Hekster, G. de Kleijn, and D. Slootjes, 183–99. Leiden: Brill. Jongman, W., and R. Dekker. 1989. “Public Intervention in the Food Supply in PreIndustrial Europe.” In Bad Year Economics. Cultural Responses to Risk and Uncertainty, ed. P. Halstead and J. O’Shea, 114–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

225

Jouanna, J. 2008. “Réflexions sur le régime des peuples dans la Grèce classique.” Revue des Etudes Grecques 121 (1): 17–42. Kajava, M. 2004. “Hestia Hearth, Goddess, and Cult.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 102: 1–20. Kampen, Natalie. 1981. Image and Status. Roman Working Women in Ostia. Berlin: Mann. Kastenmeier, P. 2007. I luoghi del lavoro domestico nella casa pompeiana. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider. Kavvadias, G. G., and A. Lagia. 2009. “Neo fos se palaia evrimata. Duo klasikoi tafoi apo to oikopedo Sapountzaki stin Odo Peiraios.” In Athenian Potters and Painters II, ed. J. H. Oakley and O. Palagia, 73–89. Oxford: Oxbow. Keenleyside, A. 2008. “Dental Pathology and Diet at Apollonia, a Greek Colony on the Black Sea.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 18: 262–79. Kent, R. G. 1929. “The Cookery Inscription from Praeneste.” Language 5 (1): 18–22. Kimata, M., E. G. Ashok, and A. Seetharam. 2000. “Domestication, Cultivation and Utilization of Two Small Millets, Brachiaria ramosa and Setaria glauca (Poaceae) in South India.” Economic Botany 54 (2): 217–27. Kiple, K. K. 2007. A Movable Feast. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kistler, E. 2005. “Ehefrauen im megaron, aber keine im andron! Ranghohe Frauen beim Bankett im vor- und früharchaischen Griechenland.” In Gender Studies in den Altertumswissenschaften: Räume und Geschlechter in der Antike, ed. T. Späth, 15–36. Trier, Germany: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. Kleberg, T. 1957. Hôtels, restaurants et cabarets dans l’antiquité romaine: études historiques et philologiques. Uppsala, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell. Kleijwegt, M. 2002. “Cum Vincensimariis Magnam Mantissam Habet (Petronius Satyricon 65.10).” American Journal of Philology 123: 275–86. Kneissl, P. 1981. “Die utricularii. Ihre Rolle im gallo-römischen Transportwesen und Weinhandel.” Bonner Jahrbücher 181:169–204. Kock, T. 1880–88. Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta. Leipzig: Teubner. Kohns, H. P. 1961. Versorgungskrisen und Hungerrevolten im spätantiken Rom. Bonn, Germany: Habelt. Kondoleon, C. 1994. “Signs of Privilege and Pleasure: Roman Domestic Mosaics.” In Roman Art in the Private Sphere, ed. E. Gazda, 105–15. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Kreuz, A., and E. Schäfer. 2008. “Archaeobotanical Consideration of the Development of Pre-Roman Iron Age Crop Growing in the Region of Hesse, Germany, and the Question of Agricultural Production and Consumption at Hillfort Sites and Open Settlements.” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17: S159–S179. Kucan, D. 1996. “Zur Ernährung und dem Gebrauch von Pflanzen im Heraion von Samos im 7. Jahrhundert v. Chr.” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 110: 1–64. Kurke, L. 1989. “.$3+/(,$ and Deceit: Theognis 59–60.” American Journal of Philology 110: 535–44.

226

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kutajsov, V. A. 2006. “The Chora of Kerkinitis.” In Surveying the Greek Chora: Black Sea Region in a Comparative Perspective, ed. P. G. Bilde and V. F. Stolba, 141–49. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press. Lacey, W. K. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. London: Thames and Hudson. Lang, F. 2002. “Housing and Settlement in Archaic Greece.” In Habitat et urbanisme dans le monde grecque de la fin des palais mycéniens à la prise de Milet (494 av. J.-C.), ed. J.-M. Luce. Pallas, 58: 13–32. La Torre, G. F. 1988. “Gli impianti commerciali ed artigianali nel tessuto urbano di Pompei.” In Pompeii: l’informatica al servizio di una cittá antica, ed. A. De Simone, 73–102. Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Laurence, R. 1994. Roman Pompeii: Space and Society. London: Routledge. Lecount, L. J. 2001. “Like Water for Chocolate: Feasting and Political Ritual among the Late Classic Maya at Xunantunich, Belize.” American Anthropologist 103 (4): 935. Leguilloux, M. 2003. “Les bergeries de la Crau: production et commerce de la laine.” Revue archéologique de Picardie 1: 339–46. Lehman, J., D. C. Kern, B. Glaser, and W. I. Woods, eds. 2003. Amazonian Dark Earths: Origins, Properties, Management. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer. Leslie Shear, T., Jr. 1975. “The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1973–1974.” Hesperia 44: 357–58. Leveau, P. 2006. “Entre la plaine de la Crau et le massif des Écrins, la question du pastoralisme romain.” In Aux origines de la transhumance: les Alpes et la vie pastorale d’hier à aujourd’hui, ed. C. Jourdain-Annequin and J.-C. Duclos, 205–21. Paris: Editions Picard. Lévi-Strauss, C. 1962. Le totémisme aujourd’hui. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Leypold, C. 2008. Banketträume in griechischen Heiligtümern. Wiesbaden, Germany: Reichert Verlag. Liddell, H. G., and R. Scott. 1996. A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lindsay, H. 1997. “Who was Apicius?” Symbolae Osloenses 72: 144 –54. Lindsay, H. 1998. “Eating with the Dead: the Roman Funerary Banquet.” In Nielsen and Nielsen, Meals in a Social Context, 67–80. Lindsay, H. 2000. “Food and Clothing in Martial.” Studies in Latin literature and Roman History 10: 303–12. Ling, R. 1991. Roman Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ling, R. 1997. The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii. Vol. 1 of The Structures. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lissarrague, F. 1990. The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet. Images of Wine and Ritual. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lo Cascio, E. 1999. “Canon frumentarius, suarius, vinarius: stato e privati nell’ approvvigionamento dell’Urbs.” In The Transformations of Urbs Roma in Late

BIBLIOGRAPHY

227

Antiquity, W. V. Harris. Supplementary series, Journal of Roman Archaeology 33: 163–82. Londo, J. P., Y. C. Chiang, K. H. Hung, T. Y. Chiang, and B. A. Schaal. 2006. “Phylogeography of Asian Wild Rice, Oryza rufipogon, Reveals Multiple Independent Domestications of Cultivated Rice, Oryza sativa.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (25): 9578–83. Lowe, J.C.B. 1985. “Cooks in Plautus.” Classical Antiquity 4 (1): 72–102. Lu, H., H. Liu, N. Wu, S. Berné, Y. Saito, B. Liu, and L. Wang. 2002. “Rice Domestication and Climatic Change: Phytolith Evidence from East China.” Boreas 31 (4): 378–85. Lu, H., X. Yang, M. Ye, K.-B. Liu, Z. Xia, X. Ren, L. Cai, N. Wu, Liu, and Tung-Sheng. 2005. “Culinary Archaeology: Millet Noodles in Late Neolithic China.” Nature 437: 967–68. MacKinnon, M. 2004. Production and Consumption of Animals in Roman Italy: Integrating the Zooarchaeological and Textual Evidence. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology. Maiuri, A. 1958. Ercolano. I nuovi scavi (1927–1958). 2 vols. Rome: La Libreria dello Stato. Maiuri, A. 1967. La Villa dei Misteri. 2nd ed. Rome: La Libreria dello Stato. Mann, C. C. 2005. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Manning, J. G. 2007. “Hellenistic Egypt.” In Scheidel, Morris, and Saller, Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, 434–59. Marlière, E., and J. Torres Costa. 2005. “Tonneaux et amphores à Vindolanda. Contribution à la connaissance de l’approvisionnement des troupes stationnées sur le mur d’Hadrien (II).” In Vindolanda Excavations 2003–2004, ed. A. Birley and J. Blake, 214–36. Greenhead, UK: Roman Army Museum. Marmaras, N., G. Poulakakis, and V. Papakostopoulos. 1999. “Ergonomic Design in Ancient Greece.” Applied Ergonomics 30: 361–68. Martin, J. 2009. “Das Vaterland der Väter. Familia, Politik und cognatische Verwandtschaft in Rom.” In Bedingungen menschlichen Handelns in der Antike. Gesammelte Beiträge zur Historischen Anthropologie, ed. W. Schmitz. Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag, 311–27. Mau, A. 1907. Pompeii. Its Life and Art. Trans. F. W. Kelsey. New York: Macmillan. Mazois, C. F. 1824. Les ruines de Pompei. Vols. I–IV. Paris: F. Didot. Mazoyer, M., and L. Roudart. 2002. Histoire des agricultures du monde. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Mazzini, I. 1996. “L’alimentation et Ia médecine dans te monde antique.” In Histoire de l’alimentation, ed. J.-L. Flandrin and M. Montanari, 253–64. Paris: Fayard. McAnany, P. A., and S. Murata. 2007. “America’s First Connoisseurs of Chocolate.” Food & Foodways 15 (1–2): 7–30.

228

BIBLIOGRAPHY

McGowan, A. 1999. Ascetic Eucharists. Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Meeks, W. A. 2003. The First Urban Christians. The Social World of the Apostle Paul. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Megaloudi, F., S. Papadopoulos, and M. Sgourou. 2007. “Plant Offerings from the Classical Necropolis of Limenas, Thasos, Northern Greece.” Antiquity 81: 933–43. Meiggs, R. 1973. Roman Ostia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Meissner, B. 2000. “Über Zweck und Anlass von Diokletians Preisedikt.” Historia 49: 79–100. Merkelbach, R. 1980. “Der Kult der Hestia im Prytaneion der griechischen Städte.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 37: 77–92. Migeotte, L. 1997. “Le contrôle des prix dans les cités grecques.” In Prix et formation des prix dans les économies antiques, ed. J. Andreau, P. Briant, and R. Descat, 33–52. Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, France: Musée Archéologique Départemental. Milano, L. 2004. “Food and Identity in Mesopotamia. A New Look at the Aluzinnu’s Recipes.” In Food and Identity in the Ancient World, ed. C. Grottanelli and L. Milano, 243–56. Padova, Italy: S.A.R.G.O.N. Miles, D. P. 1987. “Forbidden Pleasures. Sumptuary Laws and the Ideology of Morality in Decline in Ancient Rome.” PhD diss., University College London. Miller, N. F., and W. Wetterstrom. 2000. “The Beginnings of Agriculture. The Ancient Near East and North Africa.” In The Cambridge World History of Food, ed. K. F. Kiple and K. Coneè Ornelas, 1123–39. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Millett, P. 1998. “Encounters in the Agora.” In Kosmos. Essays in Order, Conflict and Community in Classical Athens, ed. P. Cartledge, P. Millett, and S. von Reden, 203–28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, S. 1993. Anatolia. Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor. Vol. 1: The Celts and the Impact of Roman Rule. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Möller, A. 2007. “Classical Greece: Distribution.” In Scheidel, Morris, and Saller, Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, 362–84. Moore, M. B. 1998. Corpus Vasgrum Antiquorum. The J. Paul Getty Museum Malibu. Fasc. 8. [USA Fasc., 33]. Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum. Moreno, A. 2007. Feeding the Democracy. The Athenian Grain Supply in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morley, N. 2007. Trade in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morris, S. P. 1985. “ ‘Lasana’: A Contribution to the Ancient Greek Kitchen.” Hesperia 54 (4): 393–409. Morvillez, E. 2005. “ ‘Klinai’ ou ‘triclinium’? Sur la permanence de l’utilisation du mobilier grec de banquet à l’époque romaine.” Mètis 3: 57–76.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

229

Motta, L. 2002. “Planting the Seed of Rome.” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 11: 71–77. Mrozek, S. 1987. Les distributions d’argent et de nourriture dans les villes italiennes du haut empire romain. Bruxelles, Belgium: Latomus. Murray, O. 1982. “Symposion and Männerbund.” In Concilium Eirene 16, ed. P. Oliva and A. Frolikóvá, 47–52. Prague: Kabinet pro studia rˇecká, rˇímská a latinská CˇSAV. Murray, O. 1983. “The Symposion as Social Organisation.” In The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century BC: Tradition and Innovation, ed. R. Hagg, 195–99. Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, June 1–5, 1981. Stockholm: P. Astrom. Murray, O., ed. 1990. Sympotica. A Symposium on the “Symposion.” Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murray, O., ed. 1999. Sympotica. A Symposium on the “Symposion.” 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nadeau, R. 2010. Les manières de table dans le monde gréco-romain. Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Nappo, S. C. 1989. “Fregio dipinto dal ‘praedium’ di Gulio Felice con rappresentazione del foro di Pompei.” Rivista di studi pompeiani 3: 79–96. Neils, J. 2004. “Kitchen or Cult? Women with Mortars and Pestles.” In Greek Art in View. Essays in Honour of Brian Sparkes, ed. S. Keay and S. Moser, 80–88. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Nevett, L. C. 1999. House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nielsen, I., and H. S. Nielsen, eds. 1998. Meals in a Social Context. Aspects of the Communal Meal in the Hellenistic and Roman World. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press. Nikolaenko, G. M. 2006. “The Chora of Tauric Chersonesos and the Cadastre of the 4th–2nd Century BC.” In Surveying the Greek Chora: Black Sea Region in a Comparative Perspective, ed. P. G. Bilde and V. F. Stolba, 151–71. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press. Nissen, H. J. 1988. The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000–2000 B.C. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Noelke, P. 1998. “Grabreliefs mit Mahldarstellungen in den germanisch-gallischen Provinzen—soziale und religiöse Aspekte.” In Bestattungssitte und kulturelle Identität. Grabanlagen und Grabbeigaben der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit in Italien und in den Nordwestprovinzen, ed. P. Fasold, T. Fischer, H. von Hesberg, and M. Witteyer, 399–418. Köln: Rheinland-Verlag. Olson, S. D. 2007. Broken Laughter. Select Fragments of Greek Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Olson, S. D., and A. Sens, eds. 2000. Archestratu of Gela: Greek Culture and Cuisine in the Fourth Century BCE. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Onwueme, I. 1999. Taro Cultivation in Asia and the Pacific. Bangkok: FAO.

230

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Osborne, R. 2007. “Archaic Greece.” In Scheidel, Morris and Saller, Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, 277–301. Packer, J. 1968–69. “La casa di Via Giulio Romano.” Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 81: 127–48. Packer, J. 1971. The Insulae of Imperial Ostia. Rome: The American Academy in Rome. Packer, J. 1978. “Inns at Pompeii: A Short Survey.” Cronache Pompeiane 4: 5–53. Paillier, J.-M. 2001. “Une place pour elle à table: le cas de Rome.” Clio (Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés) 14: 119–31. Parker, A. J. 1992. Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. Parpola, S. 2004. “The Leftovers of God and King. On the Distribution of Meat at the Assyrian and Achaemenid Imperial Courts.” In Food and Identity in the Ancient World, ed. C. Grottanelli and L. Milano, 281–312. Padova, Italy: S.A.R.G.O.N. Paterson, J. 1998. “Trade and Traders in the Roman World: Scale, Structure and Organisation.” In Trade, Traders and the Ancient City, ed. H. C. Parkins and C. Smith, 149–67. London: Routledge. Peacock, D.P.S., and D. F. Williams. 1986. Amphorae and the Roman Economy, An Introductory Guide. London: Longman. Pellizer, E., and G. Tadeschi. 1990. Semonide. Rome: Ateneo. Persson, K. G. 1999. Grain Markets in Europe, 1500–1900. Integration and Deregulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peters, J. 1998. Römische Tierhaltung und Tierzucht: eine Synthese aus archäozoologischer Untersuchung und schriftlich-bildlicher Überlieferung. Rahden, Germany: Leidorf. Petropoulou, M.-Z. 2008. Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pettid, M. J. 2008. Korean Cuisine: An Illustrated History. London: Reaktion Books. Pollock, S. 1999. Ancient Mesopotamia. The Eden that Never Was. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pollock, S. 2003. “Feasts, Funerals, and Fast Food in early Mesopotamian states.” In The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires, ed. T. L. Bray, 17–38. New York: Kluwer. Pomeroy, S. B. 1997. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pomey, P., and A. Tchernia. 1978. “Le tonnage maximum des navires de commerce romains.” Archaeonautica 2: 233–52. Pritchett, W. Kendrick. 1956. “The Attic Stelai. Part II.” Hesperia 25: 178–328. Pritchett, U. U. 1958. “The Allic Stealae. Part III.” Kesperia 27: 164–310. Prost, F., and J. Wilgaux, eds. 2006. Penser et représenter le corps dans l’Antiquité. Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

231

Purcell, N. 2003. “The Way We Used to Eat.” American Journal of Philology 124 (3): 329–58. Quass, F. 1993. Die Honoratiorenschicht in den Städten des griechischen Ostens. Untersuchungen zur politischen und sozialen Entwicklung in hellenistischer und römischer Zeit. Stuttgart, Germany: Steiner. Raeder, J. 1988. “Vitruv, de architectura VI 7 (aedificia Graecorum) und die hellenistische Wohnhaus- und Palastarchitektur.” Gymnasium 95: 316–68. Rankin, E. M. 1907. The Role of the MAGEIROI in the Life of the Ancient Greeks as Depicted in Greek Literature and Inscriptions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Raper, R. A. 1977. “The Analysis of the Urban Structure of Pompeii. A Sociological Examination of Land Use (Semi-Micro).” In Spatial Archaeology, ed. D. L. Clarke, 189–221. London: Academic Press. Rayner, L. 1956. “Kitchen Problems in Ancient Greece.” The South African Archaeological Bulletin 11 (44): 108–10. Rea, J. R. 1972. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 40. London: Egypt Exploration Society. Reden, S. von. 1995. Exchange in Ancient Greece. London: Duckworth. Remesal Rodríguez, J. 1997. Heeresversorgung und die wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zwischen der Baetica und Germanien. Materialen zu einem Corpus der in Deutschland veröffentlichten Stempel auf Amphoren der Form Dressel 20. Stuttgart, Germany: Steiner. Renaud, J.-M., and P. Wathelet. 2008. Les relations familiales dans l’épopée grecque archaïque. Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France: Université Charles de Gaulle-Lille 3. Richardson, L., Jr. 1955. Pompeii: The Casa dei Dioscuri and Its Painters. Rome: American Academy in Rome. Rickman G. E. 1971. Roman Granaries and Store Buildings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rickman G. E. 1980. The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Riley, T. J., R. Edging, and J. Rossen. 1990. “Cultigens in Prehistoric Eastern North America.” Current Anthropology 31 (5): 525–41. Ritter, S. 2002–3. “Zur Bildersprache römischer ‘Alltagsszenen’: Die Mahl- und Küchenreliefs am Pfeilergrab von Igel.” Bonner Jahrbücher 202–3: 149–70. Ritter, S. 2005. “Zur kommunikativen Funktion pompejanischer Gelagebilder: Die Bilder aus der Casa del Triclinio und ihr Kontext.” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 120: 301–71. Robinson, D. M. 1941. Metal and Minor Miscellaneous Finds, an Original Contribution to Greek Life. Part 10 of Excavations at Olynthus. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. Robinson, D. M., and J. W. Graham. 1938. The Hellenic House. Part 8 of Excavations at Olynthus. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. Rodríguez-Ariza, M. O., and E. Montes Moya. 2005. “On the Origin and Domestication of Olea europaea L. (olive) in Andalucía, Spain, Based on the

232

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Biogeographical Distribution of Its Finds.” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 14: 551–61. Roller, M. B. 2006. Dining Posture in Ancient Rome. Bodies, Values, and Status. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Romeri, L. 2002. Phillosophes entre mots et mets. Grenoble, France: Jérôme Millon. Rosenblum, J. D. 2010. Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosivach, V. J. 1994. The System of Public Sacrifice in Fourth-Century Athens. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Rowland, R. J., Jr. 1976. “The Very Poor and the Grain Dole at Rome and Oxyrhynchus.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 21: 64–73. Ruddell, S. M. 1964. “The Inn, Restaurant and Tavern Business in Ancient Pompeii.” MA thesis, University of Maryland. Sallares, R. 1991. The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World. London: Duckworth. Saller, R. P. 1994. Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salza Prina Ricotti, E. 1978–1979–1979–1980. “Cucine e quartieri servili in epoca Romana.” Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 51–52: 237–94. Salza Prina Ricotti, E. 1987. “Alimentazione, cibi, tavola e cucine nell’età imperial.” In L’alimentazione nel mondo antico. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato. Sassinari, V. M. 1993. Il vasellame bronzeo di Pompei. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider. Sasson, J. M. 2004. “The King’s Table. Food and Fealty in Old Babylonian Mari.” In Food and Identity in the Ancient World, ed. C. Grottanelli and L. Milano, 179–215. Padova, Italy: S.A.R.G.O.N. Schäfer, A. 1997. Unterhaltung beim griechischen Symposion. Darbietungen, Spiele und Wettkämpfe von homerischer bis in spätklassische Zeit. Mainz, Germany: Philipp von Zabern. Schäfer, A. 2002. “Alte Werte, neue Bilder: Das Trinkgelage klassischer Zeit in Athen.” In Die Griechische Klassik—Idee oder Wirklichkeit, ed. W.-D. Heilmeyer, 285–95. Ausstellungskatalog. Berlin, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Schattner, T. G. 1990. Griechische Hausmodelle. Untersuchungen zur frühgriechischen Architektur. Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag. Scheffer, C. 1981. Cooking and Cooking Stands in Italy, 1400–400 B.C. Vol. 2, Part 1 of Acquarossa. Stockholm: Paul Aströms Förlag. Scheid, J. 2005. Quand faire, c’est croire. Paris: Flammarion. Scheidel, W. 1994. “Libitina’s Bitter Gains. Seasonal Mortality and Endemic Disease in the Ancient City of Rome.” Ancient Society 25: 151–75. Scheidel, W. in press 2011. “A Comparative Perspective on the Determinants of the Scale and Productivity of Maritime Trade in the Roman Mediterranean.” In

BIBLIOGRAPHY

233

Maritime Technology and the Ancient Economy, ed. W. V Harris. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology. Scheidel, W., I. Morris, and R. Saller, eds. 2007. The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmeling, G. 1970. “Trimalchio’s Menu and Wine List.” Classical Philology 65: 248–51. Schmidt, M. 2000. “Rituelle Frauengelage auf einer noch unbekannten attischen Vase.” In “Agathòs daímoon.” Mythes et cultes. Études iconographiques en l’honneur de Lilly Kahil, 433–42. Athen, Paris: Ecole Française d’Athènes. Schmitt-Pantel, P. 1990. “Sacrificial Meal and Symposion.” In Sympotica: A Symposium on the “Symposion,” 2nd ed., O. Murray, 14–36. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schmitt-Pantel, P. 1992. La cité au banquet. Rome: Ecole française de Rome. Schmitt-Pantel, P. 1997. “Les repas grecs, un rituel civique.” In Histoire de l’alimentation, ed. J.-L. Flandrin and M. Montanari, 151–65. Paris: Fayard. Schmitt-Pantel, P. 2001. “Les femmes grecques et l’andron.” Clio 14: 155–81. Schmitt-Pantel, P. 2005. “Du Symposion au sanctuaire: les espaces des cités grecques entre gender et identité politique.” In Gender Studies in den Altertumswissenschaften: Räume und Geschlechter in der Antike, ed. T. Späth, 1–14. Trier, Germany: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. Schmitz, W. 2007. Haus und Familie im antiken Griechenland. München, Germany: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. Shady Solis, R., J. Haas, and W. Creamer. 2001. “Dating Caral, a Preceramic Site in the Supe Valley on the Central Coast of Peru.” Science 292 (5517): 723–26. Shaw, B. D. 1982–83. “ ‘Eaters of Flesh, Drinkers of Milk’: The Ancient Mediterranean Ideology of the Pastoral Nomad.” Ancient Society 13–14: 5–31. Shaw, B. D. 1996. “Seasons of Death. Aspects of Mortality in Imperial Rome.” Journal of Roman Studies 86: 100–138. Shear, L. 1978. Kallias of Sphettos and the Revolt of Athens in 286 B.C., Hesperia. Supplement 17. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Shelton, J.-A. 1998. As the Romans Did. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Silvestrini, M., M. G. Junqueira, A. C. Favarin, O. Guerreiro-Filho, M. P. Maluf, M. B. Silvarolla, and C. A. Colombo. 2007. “Genetic Diversity and Structure of Ethiopian, Yemen and Brazilian Coffea arabica L. Accessions using Microsatellites Markers.” Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 54 (6): 1367–79. Sippel, D. V. 1987. “Some Observations on the Means and Cost of Transport of Bulk. Commodities in the Late Republic and Early Empire.” Ancient World 16: 35–45. Sirks, A.J.B. 1991. Food for Rome. The Legal Structure of the Transportation and Processing of Supplies for the Imperial Distributions in Rome and Constantinople. Amsterdam: Gieben. Slater, W. J., ed. 1991. Dining in a Classical Context. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

234

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Small, J. P. 1994. “Eat, Drink and Be Merry. Etruscan Banquets.” In Murlo and the Etruscans. Art and Society in Ancient Etruria, ed. R. de Puma and J. P. Small, 85–94. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Smith, B. D. 1989. “Origin of Agriculture in Eastern North America.” Science, n.s., 246 (4937): 1566–71. Smith, C. J. 2006. The Roman Clan. The “Gens” from Ancient Ideology to Modern Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, D. E. 2003a. From Symposium to Eucharist. The Banquet in the Early Christian World. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress. Smith, S. T. 2003b. “Pharaohs, Feasts, and Foreigners. Cooking, Foodways, and Agency on Ancient Egypt’s Southern Frontier.” In The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires, ed. T. L. Bray, 39–64. New York: Kluwer. Smith, W. D. 1980. “The Development of Classical Dietetic Theory.” In Hippocratica. Actes du Colloque hippocratique de Paris (4–9 septembre 1978), ed. M. D. Grmek, 439–48. Paris: CNRS. Sokolowski, F. 1955. Lois sacrées d’Asie Mineure (LSAM). Paris: De Boccard. Sokolowski, F. 1962. Lois sacrées des cites grecques: Supplément (LSS). Paris: De Boccard. Soler, J. 1996. “Les raisons de la Bible: règles alimentaires hébraïques.” In Histoire de l’alimentation, ed. J.-L. Flandrin and M. Montanari, 73–84. Paris: Fayard. Solier, S. 2006. “Manières de tyran à table de la satire latine.” Food and History 4(2): 91–111. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 2003. Tragedy and Athenian Religion. Oxford: Lexington Books. Sparkes, B. A. 1962. “The Greek Kitchen.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 82: 121–37. Sparkes, B. A. 1965. “The Greek Kitchen: Addenda.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 85: 162–63. Sparkes, B. A. 1981. “Not Cooking, But Baking.” Greece & Rome 28 (2): 172–78. Sparkes, B. A., and L. Talcott. 1970. Black and Plain Pottery of the 6th, 5th and 4th Centuries B.C. 2 Vols. Vol. 12 of The Athenian Agora. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Spurr, M. S. 1986. Arable Cultivation in Roman Italy c.200 B.C.–c.A.D. 100. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Srisuwan, S., D. Sihachakr, and S. Siljak-Yakovlev. 2006. “The Origin and Evolution of Sweet Potato Ipomoea batatas Lam. and its Wild Relatives throughout the Cytogenetic Approaches.” Plant Science 171 (3): 424–33. Steger, F. 2004. Asklepiosmedizin. Medizinischer Alltag in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Stuttgart, Germany: Steiner. Stein-Hölkeskamp, E. 2005a. Das römische Gastmahl. Munich, Germany: C. H. Beck. Stein-Hölkeskamp, E. 2005b. “Convivia mit Clodia und Calpurnia. Frauen bei römischen Gastmählern.” In Lebenswelten. Bilder und Räume in der römischen

BIBLIOGRAPHY

235

Stadt der Kaiserzeit, ed. R. Neudecker and P. Zanker, 175–85. Symposium 2002. Wiesbaden, Germany: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. Sterckx, R., ed. 2005. Of Tripod and Palate. Food, Politics, and religion in Traditional China. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Stewart, P. 2009. “ ‘Totenmahl’ Reliefs in the Northern Provinces: A Case-Study in Imperial Sculpture.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 22: 253–74. Stika, H.-P., A. G. Heiss, and B. Zach. 2008. “Plant Remains from the Early Iron Age in Western Sicily: Differences in Subsistence Strategies of Greek and Elymian sites.” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17: S139–S148. Strubbe, J.H.M. 1987. “The Sitonia in the Cities of Asia Minor under the Principate (I).” Epigraphica Anatolica 10: 45–82. Strubbe, J.H.M. 1989. “The Sitonia in the Cities of Asia Minor under the Principate (II).” Epigraphica Anatolica 13: 97–122. Szpakowska, K. 2008. Daily Life in Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Blackwell. Tanzer, H. H. 1939. The Common People of Pompeii. A Study of the Graffiti. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. Taussig, H. 2009. In the Beginning was the Meal. Social Experimentation and Early Christian Identity. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress. Tchernia, A. 1986. Le vin de l’Italie romaine. Rome: Ecole française de Rome. Thommen, L. 2007. Antike Körpergeschichte. Zürich, Switzerland: VDF. Thompson, E. P. 1993. “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century.” In Customs in Common, 185–258. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. Thylander, H. 1951. Inscriptions du Port d’Ostie. Lund, Sweden: C.W.K. Gleerup. Tietz, W. 2008. “Das ‘einsame’ Mahl im römischen Moraldiskurs.” In Vössing, Das römische Bankett im Spiegel der Altertumswissenschaften, 157–68. Toner, J. P. 1995. Leisure and Ancient Rome. Cambridge, MA: Polity. Treggiari, S. 1975. “Jobs in the Household of Livia.” Papers of the British School at Rome 43: 48–77. Treggiari, S. 1998. “Home and Forum: Cicero between ‘Public’ and ‘Private.’ ” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 128: 1–23. Trendall, A. D. 1989. Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily. A Handbook. London: Thames and Hudson. Triantaphyllou, S. 2001. A Bioarchaeological Approach to Prehistoric Cemetery Populations from Central and Western Greek Macedonia. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. Tsao, J., and Hsiao-Feng Lo. 2006. “Vegetables: Types and Biology.” In Handbook of Food Science, Technology, and Engineering, ed. Yiu H. Hui, 20:1–16. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Tuck, A. S. 1994. “The Etruscan Banquet. Villanovan Ritual and Etruscan Iconography.” American Journal of Archaeology 98: 617–28.

236

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Van Bremen, R. 1996. The Limits of Participation. Women and Civic Life in the Greek East in the Hellenistic and Roman Period. Amsterdam: Gieben. Van de Mieroop, M. 2007. A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 B.C. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Van der Eijk, P. J. 2005. Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van der Veen, M. 1992. Crop Husbandry Regimes: An Archaeobotanical Study of Farming in Northern England, 1000 B.C-A.D 500. Sheffield, UK: J. R. Collis. Van der Veen, M. 2007. “Food as an Instrument of Social Change: Feasting in Iron Age and Early Roman Southern Britain”. In The Archaeology of Food and Identity, ed. K. C. Twiss, 112–29. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University. Van Nijf, O. M. 1997. The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East. Amsterdam: Gieben. Vanpoucke, S., I. Mainland, B. de Cupere, and M. Waelkens. 2009. “Dental Microwear Study of Pigs from the Classical Site of Sagalassos (SW Turkey) as an Aid for the Reconstruction of Husbandry Practices in Ancient Times.” Environmental Archaeology 14: 137–54. Vehling, J. D. 1936 /1977. Apicius: Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome. New York: Dover Books. Vernant, J.-P. 1972/1994. Introduction to The Gardens of Adonis, by M. Detienne. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Vernant, J.-P., and M. Detienne. 1989. Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Veyne, P. 1961. “Vie de Trimalchion.” Annales ESC 16: 213–47. Veyne, P. 1990. Bread and Circuses. Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. Vössing, K. 2004. Mensa Regia. Das Bankett beim Kellenistiscken König und beim römischer Kaiser. Munich, Germany: K. G. Saur. Vössing, K. 2008. “Das römische Trinkgelage (comissatio)—eine Schimäre der Forschung?” In Vössing, Das römische Bankett im Spiegel der Altertumswissenschaften, 169–89. Vössing, K., ed. 2008. Das römische Bankett im Spiegel der Altertumswissenschaften. Stuttgart, Germany: Steiner. Walker, S. 1999. “Woman and Housing in Classical Greece: The Archeological Evidence.” In Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt, 81–91. London: Routledge. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1994. Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Weingarten, S. 2007. “Food for Thought. Some Recent Books on Ancient Greek and Roman Food (Review Article).” Scripta Classica Israelica 26: 205–10. White, K. D. 1975. Farm Equipment of the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

237

Whittaker, C. R. 1983. “Late Roman Trade and Traders.” In Trade in the Ancient Economy, ed. P. Garnsey, K. Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker, 163–80. London: University of California Press. Wickkiser, B. L. 2008. Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing in FifthCentury Greece. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wilkins, J. 2000a. The Boastful Chef. The Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilkins, J. 2000b. “Food Preparation in Classical Greece: Representations of Gender Roles in the Literary Evidence.” In Representations of Gender from Prehistory to the Present, ed. Moira Donald and Linda Hurcome, 118–34. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Wilkins, J., and S. Hill. 1994. Archestratus: The Life of Luxury. Totnes, UK: Prospect Books. Wilkins, J., and S. Hill. 2006. Food in the Ancient World. Oxford: Blackwell. Wilson, H. 2003. Wine and Words in Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages. London: Duckworth. Winterling, A. 2005. “ ‘Öffentlich’ und ‘privat’ im kaiserzeitlichen Rom.” In Gegenwärtige Antike—antike Gegenwarten. Festschrift Rolf Rilinger, 223–44. München, Germany: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. Woolf, G. 1998. Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wright, J. C., ed. 2004. The Mycenaean Feast. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Wycherley, R. E. 1956. “The Market of Athens. Topography and Monuments.” Greece and Rome 3 (1): 2–23. Young, G. K. 2001. Rome’s Eastern Trade. International Commerce and Imperial Policy, 31 BC–AD 305. London: Routledge. Zaccaria Ruggiu, A. P. 1995. “Origine del triclinio nella casa romana.” In Splendida civitas nostra. Studi archeologici in onore di Antonio Frova, ed. G. C. Manasse and E. Roffia, 137–54. Roma: Ed. Quasa. Zaccaria Ruggiu, A. P. 1998–99. “Loca propria e loca communia. Lo Spazio triclinare e il concetto di ‘privato’ in Vitruvio.” Archeologia Veneta 21–22: 185–204. Zimmer, G. 1982. Römische Berufsdarstellungen. Berlin: Mann. Zuiderhoek, A. 2008. “Feeding the Citizens. Municipal Grain Funds and Civic Benefactors in the Roman East.” In Feeding the Ancient Greek City, ed. R. Alston and O. M. van Nijf, 159–80. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. Zuiderhoek, A. 2009. The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites, and Benefactors in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

contributors

Wim Broekaert finished his PhD in 2010 on merchants and the organization

of trade during the Roman empire and is now working as a postdoctoral research assistant at Ghent University. His current research intends a structural and comparative analysis of the Roman business community and the various strategies Roman entrepreneurs employed to combat the shortcomings of a volatile trading world. Robert I. Curtis is Professor Emeritus, Department of Classics, University of

Georgia. His research interests include food technology, food and drink at Pompeii, and Roman long-distance trade. His publications include Garum and Salsamenta: Production and Commerce in Materia Medica (Leiden, 1991) and Ancient Food Technology (Leiden, 2001). Steven J. R. Ellis is an assistant professor of Classics at the University of

Cincinnati. As a Roman archaeologist his publications deal primarily with ancient cities, particularly their subelite networks and retail economies. He is the project director for the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia and the East Isthmia Archaeology Project. Paul Erdkamp is professor of ancient history at the Flemish Free University

of Brussels. He is the author of Hunger and the Sword: Warfare and Food Supply in Roman Republican Italy (1998) and The Grain Market in the Roman Empire (2005). He has published A Companion to the Roman Army (2007). His other research interests include Polybius and Livy and the social and cultural aspects of food and dining.

240

CONTRIBUTORS

Paul Halstead is a prehistorian and zooarchaeologist whose main focus

of research is the relationship between social change and the production and consumption of food, especially in the Neolithic and Bronze ages (the seventh through second millennia b.c.) of the Aegean. He has particular interests in the integration of bioarchaeological and textual evidence and in the interpretation of both in light of an oral historical study of recent Mediterranean farming communities. Hugh Lindsay is Senior Lecturer in Classics in the School of Humanities and

Social Science at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales. He has written articles on Strabo, Suetonius, and Roman social history, and is the author of Adoption in the Roman World (2009). He was also coeditor and contributor to Strabo’s Cultural Geography (2005). Robin Nadeau is an ancient food historian. He is currently an Honorary University Fellow at the University of Exeter in the Classics and Ancient History Department. He has held an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship at the Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut and Humboldt University-Berlin. He recently published a book on table manners in imperial Greece titled Les manières de table dans le monde gréco-romain (Tours/Rennes, 2010). Fabio Parasecoli is associate professor of food studies at the New School

in New York City. His research focuses on the intersections among food, media, and politics. His current projects focus on the history of Italian food and on the sociopolitical aspects of geographical indications. His recent publications include Food Culture in Italy (2004), The Introduction to Culinary Cultures in Europe (2005), and Bite Me! Food in Popular Culture (2008). Konrad Vössing is professor of ancient history at the Rheinische Friedrich-

Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. He is the author of Mensa Regia: Das Bankett beim hellenistischen König und beim römischen Kaiser (2004). He has also published on ancient cultural and social history, in particular on education, representation, and the rituals of social relations. Arjan Zuiderhoek is lecturer in ancient history at Ghent University. He

is author of The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

index

Aaron, 15 Abihu, 15 Abudia Megiste, 51 Adena, 192 Aegean Islands, 89 Aelianus, Claudius, 159 Aeschylus, 146 Africa, 28, 43, 45–6, 59, 184 North Africa, 28, 43, 45–6 afterlife, 5, 17, 30 Agathon, 100 agora and forum, 46, 49–51, 82–3, 86, 100, 104, 118, 123, 128 agriculture, 2– 4, 22–8, 30, 33–9, 58–9, 62, 89, 182– 4, 186, 188–90 extensive, 25–7, 33– 4, 37–9 intensive, 27–8, 37, 59 premodern, 22, 89 self-sufficiency, 22 slash-and-burn, 182 specialization, 3, 22 Akkad, 10 Akkadia, 185 Alba Fucens, 102 Alcaeus, 146 Alcinous, 168 Alcman, 133 Alexander the Great, 46, 185 Alexandria, 53, 57, 72, 88 algae, 191 Alleius Nigidius Maius, Gnaeus, 125, 127

Alps, 25–6, 31–5, 38 Amazon, the, 189–90 Amiternum, 165 Ammianus Marcellinus, 57–8 ancient medicine, 147–53 see also Hippocratic corpus Ancona, 175 Andes, 190 annona, 41, 44 –5, 47, 50 –1, 79, 84, 87 Anthemion, 100 Anthimus, 147 Antinoopolis, 88 Antinous, 88 Antioch, 53, 157 Antiochus IV, 17 Apicius, Marcus Gavius, 46, 122, 124, 153, 167, 175–8 Apion, 122 Apollonia (Black Sea), 24 Appalachians, 191 Apuleius, Lucius, 54, 83 Apuleius (Ps.), 147 Aquarius, 173 Arabia, 46, 184 Archaic Period, 43, 48, 146 Archestratus of Gela, 116, 153, 166, 168–70 Aries, 173 Aristander of Eleusis, 100 Aristophanes, 52– 4, 100, 133 Aristotle, 50, 76, 88, 90, 114, 155

242

Aristoxenus, 155 Asclepius, 147 Asia, 31, 37, 184 –5, 187–9 Southeast Asia, 31, 37 Asia Minor, 34 –5, 46, 50, 60, 75, 88–9, 169 Anatolia, 2, 16 see also Turkey Asoka, 185 Assyria, 12, 14, 164, 179 Assyrian kings, 12 Asurnasirpal II, 12 Athenaeus of Attaleia, 150 Athenaeus of Naucratis, 90 –1, 114 –16, 118, 122–3, 136, 141, 147, 152–5, 157, 159–60, 162, 166, 168–70 Athenaion Politeia, 76, 82, 85 Athens, 23– 4, 43– 4, 46, 49–50, 52, 58, 65, 74, 76, 80 – 4, 86, 88, 90, 114, 118–19, 174 Attalus II, 52 Attica, 77, 96 Augustales, 91 Augustine, 79, 87, 91–2, 111, 139, 156, 165, 176–7 Aulus Gellius, 92, 155 Babylon, 6–7, 14, 164 Babylonian kings, 13 bakeries, 100 –1, 105 banquets, 12–14, 18, 42, 46–7, 85–6, 90 –2, 96, 123, 134 –6, 138–9, 141– 3, 164 –5, 173– 4, 176, 179, 185 beans, 7, 45–6, 52, 62, 108, 124, 188, 190 –2 adzuki beans, 188 horse grams, 184 bears, 158, 175 beer, 1–2, 5–7, 9, 46 bees, 172, 174 Bel, 17–19 Benjamin, 14 Bering Strait, 189 Bible, 6–8, 10 –11, 14 –15, 18, 157–8 Babylonian Talmud, 6 Deuteronomy, 15 Genesis, 7, 11 Leviticus, 15 Old Testament, 6

INDEX

Proverbs, 11 Ruth, 6, 11 birds, 7, 14, 26, 158, 166, 169, 176–7 ducks, 191 flamingos, 176–8 ostriches, 7 peacocks, 176–7 pheasants, 176–7 pigeons, 169 thrushes, 169 Black Sea Coast, 24 –9, 43, 169 boars, 172, 175 Bosporean kings, 47 Braund, D., and Wilkins, J., 168 bread, 1–2, 5–6, 8–10, 18–19, 25, 37, 45, 52, 68, 70, 72–3, 86, 89, 105, 113–14, 118, 120, 128, 130 –1, 149, 156, 168, 171, 173, 175 Britain, 25, 31 England, 25, 27, 31, 33, 37 Bronze Age, 29, 35, 163, 167 Brundisium, 129 butchers, 36, 38, 52, 109, 114 –16, 118, 120 –1, 123, 130, 132 butter, 6, 185, 188 ghee, 6, 185 Byzantium, 43 Caesarea (Cappadocia), 48 Caesarea (Palestine), 68 Caligula, 98 Callias, 99 Calypso, 168 Cancer, 173 cannibalism, 159 Capitol, 109, 142 Capricorn, 173 Caribbean, 190 Carinus, 86 Carthage, 53 Casinum, 172 Cassiodorus, Flavius Magnus Aurelius, 84 Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Lucius, 72, 79, 88 Catal Huyuk, 3 Cato the Censor, 170, 172 Celsus, 147, 149–50, 152–3, 156, 161 Central America, 190, 192

INDEX

ceramics, 8–9, 27–9, 37, 48, 52– 4, 96, 99–100, 108–10, 113, 118–20, 128, 130, 164, 185–6, 188 Cerdo, 53 cereals, 2, 5–6, 9, 22, 24 –7, 30, 36–7, 45, 58, 62, 65, 70, 114, 130 barley, 2, 5–7, 9, 24 –6, 32, 62, 118, 167, 184 –5, 188, 191 einkorn, 25 emmer, 2, 25, 27, 62 fonio, 184 grain, 2, 6, 8–11, 22–9, 31–2, 36–7, 41–5, 47–8, 50 –3, 57–68, 71–3, 75, 77–8, 108–9, 118, 122, 132, 158, 161, 182–8, 190 –1 hay, 32, 37–8, 69 maize, 191–2 millet, 24 –7, 32, 37, 62, 184, 186–9 oats, 25, 31–5, 37–8, 45 rice, 22–3, 184 –9 rye, 25, 37 sesame, 184, 187 spelt, 25, 27, 184 straw, 32 sumpweed, 191 sunflower, 191 teff, 184 teosinte, 191 wheat, 2, 5–6, 24 –26, 28, 37, 53, 62–3, 69, 71, 77, 85, 184 –6, 189 Ceres, 171 Chalcidice, 45 charcoal, 8, 28, 54, 127–8, 170, 190 charity, 72 Chavin, 190 cheese, 6, 22, 34, 36, 45, 54, 108, 114, 120, 130, 169, 173, 175, 182 children and banquets, 91, 138– 41 China, 89, 184 –9 Chios, 45 chocolate, 191 Christianity, 7, 10, 17–19, 69–70, 72, 154 –8, 160 Chrysippus, 85 Chrysogonus, Lucius Cornelius, 123 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 91, 123– 4, 146, 160 Cimon, 85

243

cities, 3, 21, 23–5, 30, 33– 4, 36–8, 41–9, 51–5, 58, 61, 63–74, 76–8, 80 –9, 91 city authorities, 43, 48, 50, 68, 82– 4, 86, 89 City of the Dead, 11 classical period, the, 146, 154, 160 Claudius Atticus Herodes, Tiberius, 86 Claudius, 98, 111 Clement of Alexandria, 156 Clement of Alexandria (Ps.), 157 Cleopatra, 179 Clodius Pulcher, Publius, 87 Codex Theodosianus, 84 coffee, 184 Colosseum, 165 Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus, 63, 128, 130 Commodus, 82, 98 Comum, 86 Congo, the, 182 Constantinople, 96 cooks, 113–32, 137, 170 Corinth, 18, 100 cotton, 184 –5, 190 –1 countryside, the, 23, 30, 61, 63– 4, 66–7, 71, 73– 4, 77–8 Crete, 31, 34, 88 crops, 3, 8, 10, 21–2, 24–6, 28–9, 36–8, 58–9, 61–2, 70, 171, 183–4, 186–91 cash crops, 22–3, 28 emergency crops, 62 C3 and C4 plants, 24, 26–7 Cynenaic School, 154 Cynisca, 138 Cyprus, 72 Cyrus, 14 Daniel, 17–18 David, 15 Davidson, Alan, 172 decuriones, 91 deer, 14 –15, 172, 186 Delos, 31, 34, 83 Demetrios and Empedon, 86 demons, 16, 18 Demosthenes, 65, 81, 84 –5 Demosthenes (Ps.), 160 Descat, R., 83

244

desserts, 52, 54, 95, 113–14, 168, 171, 174, 178 Diamond, Jared, 183 Dicaeopolis, 53– 4 diet, 24 –5, 36, 62–3, 67–70, 146–57, 161–3, 166–8 Dio Chrysostomus, 63, 75–6, 86 Diocles of Carystus, 146, 148, 158 Diocletian, 82 Diodorus of Aspendus, 170 Diodorus Siculus, 90, 159 Diogenes Laertius, 154 –5 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 87 Dionysus, 100 Dioscorides, 147 Djemdet Nasr, 8–9 dogs, 158 domestication, 2–3, 31, 181– 4, 186, 189–91 Domitian, 165, 176 Douglas, Mary, 15 draught animals, 22–3, 31–3 Dunbabin, Katherine, 165–6 Eanna temple, 17 Ecuador, 189 Edessa, 70 –1 eggs, 45, 54, 109, 114, 174, 175, 178 Egypt, 3–12, 14 –18, 25, 43– 4, 46, 58, 65, 67, 88, 113, 150, 158 El Amarna, 8 Elagabalus, 177 Eleusian mysteries, 159–60 Eleutherna, 31– 4 Elms Farm, 33 Enkidu, 1 Ennius, Quintus, 122 Ephippus of Athens, 168 Epicurism, 147, 154 –5 epidemics, 70 –2 Ethiopia, 184 Euboulus, 49 euergetism, 80, 84 –9 Euphrates, 3– 4, 10 Europe, 21–31, 33, 36–9, 66–7, 89, 181–2, 184, 189 central Europe, 26–8, 31, 36 central and northern Europe, 184

INDEX

early modern Europe, 89 Mediterranean Europe, 31, 33, 38 northwestern Europe, 46 preindustrial Europe, 67 southeast Europe, 22, 25–7 temperate Europe, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29–31, 33, 37–9 west-central continental Europe, 25 west-central Europe, 31 western Europe, 36 Eusebius of Caesarea, 68–74 famine, 10, 48, 55, 57–8, 63– 4, 67– 4, 79 farmers, 9, 17, 22–3, 26–8, 30, 34, 39, 41, 45, 47, 53, 59–65, 77–8, 187, 190 feasts and festivals, 12, 49, 136, 165, 191 Fertile Crescent, 2, 182– 4 fish, 6, 15, 31, 45, 51, 55, 109, 114, 116–18, 132, 158–61, 166, 169–70, 172–3, 176, 178, 188, 190 –1 anchovies, 124 crayfish, 173 cuttlefish, 169 dog-shark, 170 lampreys, 176 mackerel, 54 –5 mullet, 173, 177 sprats, 124 tunny tails, 124 fish sauces, 45–6, 53–5 see also garum fishponds, 172 Flavius Agricola, 165 flour, 14, 118, 131, 159, 171 food preparation, 8–9, 52, 101–2, 104 –6, 109, 115–20, 122, 124 –32, 152, 167, 170 –2 food storage, 10 –11, 26, 46, 51–3, 63, 65, 120 –1 food transport, 42, 45, 52– 4 France, 25, 28, 35, 43 see also Gaul freedmen, 41, 49, 121, 123– 4, 132, 165, 167, 172 fruit, 2, 6, 10, 24, 27, 29–30, 37, 45–6, 52, 54, 58, 62–3, 70, 108, 114, 166, 168, 174, 187, 189–91

INDEX

ackee, 184 apples, 50, 190 apricots, 187 avocados, 190 –1 banana, 189 buckwheat, 186 cacao, 190 cherries, 30, 185 citrus, 188 coca, 190 coriander, 29, 178 cumin, 170, 178 dates, 6, 109, 178, 183 dill, 29–30 eggplants, 184 figs, 6, 50, 168, 173, 177 guava, 190 jackfruit, 189 jujubes, 187 legumes, 2, 6, 24, 45, 58, 62, 108 lemon, 189 lentils, 6, 45, 108–9, 124 lime, 189 lùcuma, 190 lychee, 189 mangos, 189 melons, 6, 30, 54, 184 mulberry, 29 ocas, 190 okra, 30, 184 pacay, 190 papaya, 190 peaches, 187 pears, 6, 30, 50 peas, 6, 45, 50, 52, 108, 155, 175–6, 184 pineapple, 190 plums, 187 pomegranates, 168 sapote, 191 soybeans, 186, 188 squash, 190 funerary monuments, 5, 11, 30, 52, 105, 164 –5, 179 Gadarenes, 16 Gaius (jurist), 65 Gaius Matius, 122

245

Galen of Pergamon, 63, 145, 147, 150 –3, 158–60, 185 Gallienus, 98 game, 166, 172, 177 game reserves, 172 gardens, 4, 29–30, 37, 107, 125, 154, 165, 177, 179, 191 Garnsey, Peter, 73, 151 garum, 46, 54, 109, 177–8 Gaul, 43, 45 gazelles, 2, 14 –15 Gela, 166, 168–9 Gelo I, 44 Gemini, 173 gender, 137, 159–61 Germans, 150, 156 gift exchange, 42, 44, 47 Gilgamesh, 1 gods, 10, 12–13, 17, 96 banquets and, 12–13 Gracchus, Gaius Sempronius, 65, 87 Great Prairies, 191 Greece, 7, 18, 23–5, 27–35, 58, 60, 63– 4, 76–7, 79, 89–90, 135, 139, 146, 151, 153, 158–9, 161–2, 164, 166–7, 169, 179 Greek rulers, 17 Gregory of Nazianzus, 48 Grocock, C., and Grainger, S., 122 Guatemala, 191 Gulf of Mexico, 191 Habinnas, 174 –5 Hades, 100 Hadrian, 17, 83, 88 Hammurabi, 13 Han, 182, 187–8 Harappa, 184 –5 hares, 172 harvest failure, 10, 58–62, 68, 70 Hatti, 16 health, 146–7, 149, 151– 4, 157–8, 162, 185 Hegesippus, 155 Helena of Adiabene, 72– 4 Hellespont, 43 Heraclea Latmia, 84 Heraion, 30

246

Herakleia, 46 herbs, 27, 29–30, 37, 69, 116, 155 goosefoot, 191 knotweed, 191 lovage, 178 maygrass, 191 perilla, 187 rue, 178 Herculaneum, 54, 103, 108, 126, 165, 179 Hercules, 100 Hermes, 54 Hermopolis, 88 Herod, 74 Herodas, 53 Herodotus, 16, 157, 166 Hesiod, 24, 47, 64 Hestia, 133 Himalaya, 184, 186 Hippocrates (Ps.), 146–50, 152, 158 Hippocrates of Cos, 146, 151 Hippocratic corpus, 147, 149, 151, 153, 157 Historia Augusta, 76, 82, 177 Homer, 90, 99, 134, 156, 159, 164, 166–8, 179 honey, 6, 50, 168, 173–5 Hopewell, 192 Horace, Quintus Flavius, 129, 140 –1, 152–3, 162 Horsfall, N., 173 hunter-gatherers, 2–3, 188, 191 Hyginius Firmus, 54 Iamblicus, 155 identity, 16–17, 111, 156 Imbros, 43 India, 46 Indochina, 186 Indonesia, 186 Indus, 182, 184 –5 Inib-Sarri, 13 insects, 2 Iran, 2 Iraq, 183 Irni, 82 Iron Age, 4, 27–8, 30 –6 Isaac, 15 Isidore of Seville, 142

INDEX

Isola Sacra, 24, 110 Israel, 5–7, 9–11, 14 –16, 183 Isthmia, 100 Italy, 23–5, 29–35, 43, 44, 46, 58, 102– 3, 109, 116, 164 –5, 169, 179 Campania, 128 Etruria, 138, 164 –5, 168, 179 Sardinia, 45, 60 Sicily, 26, 28, 43–5, 60, 65, 116, 166, 169 Iulius Bathyllus, 165 Jacob, 10 –11, 15 James (Saint), 157 Japan, 188–9 Java, 186 Jericho, 3 Jerome, 156 Jerusalem, 4, 9, 17 Jesus Christ, 18–19 Jewish rulers, 14 Jomon Culture, 188 Joseph, 10, 14 Josephus, Titus Flavius, 70, 72– 4 Joshua the Stylite (Ps.), 70 –1, 74 Judea, 72– 4 Julia Felix, 129 Julian, 16 Julius Caesar, Gaius, 139, 156, 165 Juno, 142 Jupiter, 142, 159 Jupiter Dapalis, 171 see also Zeus Olympios Juvenal, Decimus Iunius, 123– 4, 147, 157, 175 kapeloi, 97–8 Kassope, 32, 34 –5, 100 Kastanas, 31–5 Kavousi-Kastro, 34 Keramikos, 115 Koguryo, 188 Korea, 188–9 Laban, 15 Lake Copais, 46 Lares, 128 Lebanon, 183 Lemnos, 43

INDEX

Leo, 173 leopard, 158 Lepos, 140 Lesbos, 45 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 145, 157 Levites, 10 Libitina (temple), 72 Libra, 173 Licinius Fronto, 86 Lima, 181–2, 185, 189 lion, 158 livestock, 2– 4, 15, 21–3, 25, 31–8, 49, 53, 58, 62 alpaca, 190 camel, 158 cattle, 2, 4, 10, 14 –16, 22, 24, 31–3, 35–8, 50, 90, 115–16, 154, 157, 159 chickens, 31, 36, 38, 45, 109, 174, 178 donkeys, 31 goats, 2, 4, 6–7, 15, 31, 33–5, 38, 45, 54, 115 goose, 173– 4 guinea pigs, 190 horses, 31 lamb, 35, 169 llama, 190 pigs, 4, 7, 15–17, 31, 33–6, 38, 45–6, 50, 81, 108, 157, 190 sheep, 2, 4, 7, 14 –17, 22, 31, 33–6, 38, 90, 115, 155 see also draught animals Livia, 165, 179 Livy, Titus, 60, 87, 123 lobster, 166 Lucian of Samosata, 54, 159 Lucifer, 110 Lucus Feroniae, 102 Lycia, 86, 88 Lynceus of Samos, 168 Lysias, 51, 82, 134 –5 Maccabees, 17 Macrobius, 92 Majorca, 28 Malaysia, 189 Malta, 141 Mania, 100

247

Marduk, 10 Mari kings, 4, 6–7, 9, 13–14, 16 Marius, Gaius, 123 markets, 22, 24, 26, 34 –5, 38, 41, 42, 44, 47–51, 53, 58, 60, 64 –9, 71, 76–8, 80 –5, 87, 89, 101, 115, 124, 187 Mars Silvanus, 171 Martialis, Marcus Valerius, 123– 4, 128, 175 Massilia, 46 Maurya, 185 Maximinus, 69, 75–6 Maya, the, 191 meals common, 5, 19, 25, 45–6, 111, 125, 161 rich, 7, 19, 25, 27, 29, 45, 161 royal, 5, 7, 12, 14, 76, 95 see also banquets meat, 6–7, 14 –19, 24, 32, 34 –6, 38, 42, 45, 50, 52–3, 67, 109, 111, 113–15, 117–18, 120, 130 –2, 136– 7, 149–50, 155, 158–61, 163– 4, 167–8, 178, 185, 189–90 Meluha, 185 Menander, 115–18, 136–7 Mesopotamia, 3–8, 11–14, 16–18, 113, 182, 184 Metaponto, 24 Mexico, 190 –1 Middle East, 181, 185 migration, 64 milk, 1, 6, 16, 31–5, 38, 45, 50, 54, 156, 160, 174, 185 Minerva, 142, 176 Minoan palaces, 163, 167 Mishnah, 6, 15 Mississipi, 191 Mnaseas, 159 Moche, 190 Moesia, 75 Mohenjo, 184 –5 Monte Polizzo, 28 Moses, 15 mushrooms, 124, 158 Musonius Rufus, 154 Myanmar, 186 Mycenaean palaces, 163, 167

248

Nadab, 15 Nara, 189 Near East, 2, 5, 7–8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 29–30, 37, 143, 164 Neolithic, 3, 24, 27, 182–3 Neolithic revolution, 182–3 Nepos, Cornelius, 134, 138 Nero, 72–3, 79, 85–6, 91, 98, 102, 111, 172, 175 Netherlands, the, 33 New Guinea, 189 Nile, 3– 4, 6, 10 –11, 88, 182 Nimrud, 12 Nonius Marcellus, 125 Norte Chico, 189 Nubians, 9 Numidians, 156 nuts, 24, 27, 29–30, 32, 37, 46, 52–3, 108, 114, 175, 178, 189–90 almond, 29 Bambara groundnut, 184 hazel, 29 kola, 184 pine nut, 29, 178 walnut, 29–30, 189 Oaxaca, 191 Odysseus, 159, 168 Oenoanda (Lycia), 86 offerings, 17–18, 29–31, 45, 86, 95, 114 –15, 117–18, 136–7, 158–60, 171, 186–7 Ohio Valley, 192 oil palm, 184 Old Testament, 6 olives and olive oil, 22, 27–8, 37, 41–2, 45–6, 51, 53– 4, 61, 81, 84, 109, 168–9, 171, 178 Olmec, 191 Olympia, 100 Olynthus, 117–18 Opet festival, 9 orchards, 30, 37, 168 Oribasius, 146–7, 150 –1 Origen Adamantius, 156 Orinoco River, 190 Orphism, 155 Ostia, 54, 103, 110, 128 Ovidius, Publius Naso, 125 Oxyrhynchus, 88

INDEX

Pacific Ocean, 189 Paekche, 188 Paestum, 164 Palestine, 2, 4, 7, 11, 68, 73 Pan, 137 Paracas, 190 Parthia, 176 Paul of Tarsus, 18–19, 157–8 Pausanias, 155, 159 Penelope, 168 Pericles, 85 Persia, 14, 184 Persian kings, 14, 18 Peru, 182, 189 Pessinus, 32 pests, 26, 31 Peter (Saint), 157 Petronius Arbiter, Gaius, 46, 49, 123, 167, 172–3, 175, 179 Pharaohs, 10 –11 Philo of Alexandria, 100 Philostratus, Lucius Flavius, 86 Phoenicians, 28 Pindar, 146 Piraeus, 43, 81–3, 149 Pisces, 173 Plato, 83, 147, 166, 168, 179 Platonism, 147, 154 –6 Plautus, Titus Maccius, 122–3, 177 Pliny the Elder, 123, 153, 161 Pliny the Younger, 62, 79, 86, 91, 111 Plotinus, 155 Plutarch, Lucius Mestrius, 85–6, 123, 146–7, 152–5, 159–60, 165 Polybius, 64 Pompeii, 29, 46, 54, 102–5, 108, 125–7, 129, 165–6, 179 Porphyrus, 147, 155, 159 Praeneste, 131 Priapus, 174 Prusa, 75, 86 Ptolemy (II) Philadelphus, 44, 86 Puteoli, 57 Pythagoras, 170 Qin, 187 rabbis, 7 religious rites, 171 reptiles, 158

INDEX

Rhineland, 27 Rio Negro, 190 riots, 11, 51, 58, 68, 75–6, 78, 87, 111 Roman Emperors, 17, 38, 45, 51, 58, 79, 81–8, 91, 95–6, 98, 111, 157, 165, 167 Rome, 7, 18, 23– 4, 37, 43–7, 51–2, 57–60, 64, 66–8, 70 –2, 74, 76, 79–81, 84, 86–7, 92, 96, 108–9, 121, 128, 139– 40, 153, 156, 161–2, 166, 176, 179 Rufus of Ephesus, 147, 151, 158 Russia, 184 Sagalassos, 32–3, 35 Sagittarius, 173 Sahel, 182, 184 Sallustius Crispus, Gaius, 123, 156 salt, 5, 8, 109, 148, 187–8 Samos, 29–30, 45, 88 Santa Maria Aracoeli, 109 Sargon, 10 sausages, 52, 54, 109, 115, 124 Scintilla, 175 Scissa, 174 –5 Scorpio, 173 Scyros, 43 sea anemones, 124 sea urchin, 109 Selinous, 26, 28 Seneca the Elder, 92 Seneca the Younger, 54, 57, 123– 4, 126, 128, 147, 152– 4, 158, 177 Senegambia, 182 Servius Honoratus, Marcus, 125 Severus Alexander, 75 Shambat, 1–2 Shang, 186 shellfish, 2, 109 sickness, 69, 147–8, 154 see also epidemics Silk Road, 187 Silla, 188 Sin-Bel-Aplim, 13 sitos and opson, 45, 114, 154, 171 Skardana, 34 slaves, 67, 72, 90, 114, 121–5, 132, 141, 171, 174, 179 banquets and, 90, 141, 174 cooking and, 114, 121–5, 132, 171

249

smallholders, 22, 28, 33, 59, 61– 4 snails, 159 social order and norms, 12, 14, 78, 89, 95, 98–9, 140, 145, 151, 161–2, 174 –5 social status, 7, 9, 12–14, 76, 85–6, 96, 98–9, 139– 40, 143, 145, 161–6, 174 –5 Socrates, 154 Solomon, 14 Sosimenes, 100 Sosipater, 115 Sostratus, 135 Spain, 25, 28, 31, 43, 45–6, 59–60, 74, 84, 96 Gibraltar, 176 Sparta, 90, 146, 156, 160 spices, 27, 29–30, 37, 46, 116, 124, 185 asafoetida, 178 chili peppers, 191 mastic, 174 mint, 178 mustard, 175 peppers, 29–30, 46, 174, 178, 185, 191 saffron, 174 Spurius Maelius, 87 squid, 166, 169 stags, 15 state authorities, 4, 8–9, 11, 13, 19, 48, 50 –1, 58, 60, 68, 72, 79, 81–2, 87 Statius, Publius Papinius, 165 Stoicisim, 147, 154, 156 Suetonius Tranquillus, Gaius, 72, 91, 95, 138, 167, 175–6 sugarcane, 189 Sumer, 4, 11, 14 Sybaris, 141 symposion, 27, 90, 97–8, 114, 134 –6, 142, 164, 166, 168, 179 Syria, 2, 4, 11–12, 14, 16, 74, 183 Tabasco, 191 taboo, 16, 145, 157 Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, 59, 66, 79, 86, 92 tamales, 191 Tarquinia, 164 Tauric Chersonesos, 29 Taurus, 173

250

taverns and bars, 95, 97–101, 103–8, 111 see also kapeloi taxes, 41, 44, 47, 60, 71 temples, 4, 8–9, 11–12, 14, 17–19 Teos, 82 Teotihuàcan, 191 Terence Afer, Publius, 122–3 terra preta, 190 Tertullian, Quintus Septimius Florens, 156 Tertullus (prefect), 57 Thailand, 186 Thasos, 45, 81 Thebes (Egypt), 9 Theocritus, 138 Theodoric, 84 Theophrastus, 161 Thompson, E. P., 78 Thraitta, 100 Thucydides, 146 Tiberius, 79, 86, 142, 177 Tibur, 165 Tiel-Passewaaij, 33 Tigris, 3 tobacco, 191 Torah, 156 Torone, 169 trade, 11, 42– 4, 46–8, 53, 60, 65–6, 71, 79, 81–2 see also markets Trajan, 79, 86, 88, 111 Trimalchio, 46, 49, 167, 172–5, 179 Trojan War, 161 truffles, 177 Turkey, 32–3, 35, 183, 191 turkeys, 191 Tyne River, 27 Umbricius Scaurus, 54 –5 Uruk, 1, 2, 4, 17 Valerius Maximus, 142 vanilla, 190 Varro, Marcus Terentius, 108, 125, 142, 156, 172, 177–8 Vatican necropolis, 165 vegetables, 6, 18, 45–6, 52, 58, 63, 76, 113–14, 131, 149–50, 152, 170, 171, 177, 186, 188 amaranth, 191

INDEX

beetroots, 175 beets, 30, 175 cabbage, 30, 169, 171, 186 carob, 29 cucumbers, 6, 184 garlic, 6, 45, 51, 184 leek, 6, 178 onions, 6, 45, 51, 109, 184 parsnips, 30 potatoes, 190 pumpkins, 192 tomatillos, 191 tomatoes, 191 tuber camote, 190 tuber jicama, 191 turnip, 30, 50, 54, 175 yams, 184, 188–9 vegetarianism, 155–6 Vegetius, Publius Flavius, 49, 59 Velia, 24 venison, 7 Veracruz, 191 Vergil, Publius Maro, 125 Vergil (Ps.), 63 Verus, Lucius, 98 Vespasianus, 111 Vesta, 133 Vesuvius, 100 Vietnam, 182, 188 vipers, 158 Virgo, 173 Vitellius, 95, 98, 175–6 Vitruvius, Marcus Pollio, 139 war, 48, 60 –1, 69, 79–82, 92, 115, 146, 161, 175 Warring States Period, 187 water, 3, 15–17, 29–30, 50, 53, 57, 90, 98, 106, 110–11, 117–18, 128, 131, 170–2, 178 182–4, 186, 188, 191 weed, 26–7, 37, 191 wine, 5–7, 10, 17, 19, 22, 27–9, 37–8, 41–2, 45–7, 49–54, 61, 65, 68, 81, 84, 87, 90, 92, 97–9, 108, 114, 138, 147, 149–50, 153, 156, 159–61, 163–4, 168–71, 174–8, 185 women at banquets, 91, 136– 43, 164, 175, 179 woodworms, 158

INDEX

wool, 22, 31–5, 38, 160, 174, 190 Wu, 187 Xenophon, 7, 14, 90, 151, 154, 159–60 Yamato, 189 Yamhad, 13 Yangtze River, 186 Yarim-Addu, 13 Yayoi, 189

251

Yellow River, 182, 186 Yemen, 184 yogurt, 188 Yucatan, 191 Yunnan, 182 Zapotec, 191 Zeus Olympios, 17 Zhou, 186–7 Zimri-Addu, 13