Lastly, It must not be omitted, that there were in many places public entertainments, at which a whole city, or a tribe, or any other body or fraternity of men were present; these were termed by the general name of συσσίτια, πανδαισιαι, &c. or sometimes from the body of men who were admitted, δημοθοινίαι, δείπνα δημόσια, and δημοτικά, Φρατρικά, φυλετικά, &c. according to those of the same borough (os) fraternity (gargia) or tribe (pa) met together. And the provision was sometimes furnished by contribution, sometimes by the liberality of some of the richer sort, and sometimes out of the public revenue. The design of these entertainments, which were in some places appointed by the laws, was to accustom men to parsimony and frugality, and to promote peace and good neighbourhood. They were first instituted in Italy, by king Italus, from whom that country received its name, as we are informed by Aristotle'. The next to these, in order of time, were those appointed by king Minos in Crete, after whose example Lycurgus instituted the public entertainments at Sparta, though the name was varied; for, as Plutarch reports, in his Life of the Spartan lawgiver, τὰ συσσίτια Κρήτες μὲν ἀνδρεῖα, οι Λακεδαιμόνιοι δε Quditia Agorayogiúz, the Cretans term their Syssitia, or public entertainments agia, and the Lacedæmonians pidiτia' yet this difference was not primitive, if we may believe Aristotle, who affirms, that τό γε ἀρχαῖον ἐκαλεν οἱ Λάκωνες & φειδίτια, ἀλλὰ ἀνδρεῖα, καθάπερ οἱ Kers, anciently the Lacedæmonians did not use the name of puditia, but that of avoga, which was the Cretan word. These entertainments were managed with the utmost frugality, and persons of all ages were admitted, the younger sort being obliged by the lawgiver to repair hither, as to didarxahɛła owQgooúvns, schools of temperance and sobriety, where, by the example and discourse of the elder men, which was generally instructive, they were trained to good manners and useful knowledge. The Athenians had likewise their Syssitia, as particularly that wherein the senate of five hundred, together with such men, who, for the public services, or eminent merit of themselves or their ancestors, were thought worthy of this honour, were entertained at the public expence; and many others, both at Athens and in other places, are mentioned by the Greek authors, to enumerate which would require a larger compass than our present design will admit. I De Repub. lib. vii, cap. 10. CHAP. XVIII. Of the Materials whereof the Entertainments consisted. In the primitive times, men lived upon such fruits as sprung out of the earth without art or cultivation, and desired no sort of drink besides that which the fountains and rivers afforded: thus Lucretius has described the food then used": Quæ sol atque imbres dederant, quod terra crearet Elian, describing the most ancient food of several nations, reports, that at Argos they fed chiefly upon pears, at Athens upon figs, in Arcadia upon acorus ; and so celebrated were the Arcadians for living upon that sort of diet, that they are distinguished in Lycophron by the name of saλampayo, acorn-eaters. Most other nations in Greece made use also of acorns. Hence it was customary at Athens, when they kept their marriage-festivals, for a boy to bring in a bough full of acorns, and a plate covered with bread, proclaiming, "EQvyov xxxòv, tûgov äμsivov, I have escaped the worse, and found the better; which was done in memory of their leaving the use of acorns for that of bread, as hath been elsewhere related. At Rome, also, the corona civica was composed fronde quernâ, quoniam cibus victusque antiquissimus quernus capi solitus sit P, of oak leaves, because that tree afforded the most ancient food for the same reason, some of the trees which bear acorns were termed in Greek payor, from Qayu, to eat, and in Latin esculi, from esca, which signifies food; and as Macrobius hath observed, Meminit vel fabulatur antiquitas glande prius et baccis alitos, sero de sulcis sperâsse alimoniam. Ancient authors have either delivered upon their knowledge, or feigned, that in the first ages men lived upon acorns and berries, and were for a long time unacquainted with the art of ploughing the earth for corn; nevertheless, they believed, that in the golden age, when men enjoyed all sorts of plenty and prosperity, the earth produced corn without cultivation thus Hesiod reports, in his description of those happy times $: m Lib. v. n Var. Hist. lib. iii. cap. 39. o V. 482. ubi. conf. commentarii. P A. Gellius, lib. v. cap. 6. 10. 4 Isidorus orig. lib. xvii. cap. 7. Oper. lib. i. v. 116. ἐσθλὰ δὲ πάντα Τοῖσιν ἔην καρπὸν δ ̓ ἔφερε ζείδωρος ἄρθρα The fields, as yet untill'd, their fruits afford, And fill a sumptuous, and unenvied board. But this age being expired, the earth (as they imagined) became unfruitful, and men talling into extreme ignorance and barbarity, lived, in Macrobius's language, non multum a ferarum asperitate dissimiles, not unlike to brute beasts, till Ceres taught them the art of sowing, and several other useful inventions, the memory whereof was many ages after celebrated on their festival days, as hath been elsewhere observed. The first whom Ceres taught to sow and to till the ground was Triptolemus, by whom that knowledge was communicated to his countrymen the Athenians. Afterwards, she imparted the same art to Eumelus, a citizen of Patræ in Achaia, by whom it was first introduced into that country, as it was also by Arcas into Arcadia ". Some farther report, that the invention of making and baking bread is owing to Pan. And we must not omit, that barley was used before any other sort of corn, πρώτην γὰρ τροφὴν ταύτην ἂν ἀνθρώποις δεδόσθαι παρὰ θεῶν λόγος ἔχει· for it is reported that this was the first food which the gods imparted to mankind, as Artemidorus hath observed; and that it was antiquissimum in cibis, the most ancient sort of victual, Atheniensium ritu, Menandro auctore apparet, et gladiatorum cognomine, qui hordearii vocantur, appears both from the custom of the Athenians mentioned by Menander, which is elsewhere described, and from the name of those gladiators, who are called hordearii, from the Latin name of barley, as Pliny hath related. But in more civil ages, to use the same author's words, Panem ex hordeo antiquis usitatum vita damnavit, quadrupedum tradidit refectibus, barley-bread came to be the food of beasts only; nevertheless it was still used by the poorer sort, who were not able to furnish their tables with better provision; and in the Roman camp, as Vegetius hath informed us, soldiers who had been guilty of any offence, hordeum pro' frumento cogebantur accipere, were fed with barley instead of bread-corn. An example whereof we find in the second Punic war, wherein the cohorts which lost their standards had an allowance of barley assigned by Marcellus. And Augustus Cæsar, Cohortes, si quæ cessissent loco, de Oper. loco citato. X u Vid. Pausanias Atticis, Achaicis, Arcadicis. ▾ Lib i. cap. 71. VOL. II. cimatas hordeo pavit, commonly punished the cohorts which gave ground to the enemy, by a decimation, and allowing them no provision but barley, as Suetonius reports in the life of that enperor z 2 The first ages of men, as Plato reports, ragxã άixOrTO, is 8% ὅσιον ὄν ἐσθίειν, ἐδὲ τοὺς τῶν θεῶν βωμὸς αἵματι μιαίνειν, wholly abstained from flesh, out of an opinion that it was unlawful to eat, or to pollute the altars of the gods with the blood of living creatures. The same is affirmed by Dicæarchus in Porphyry, who hath left us a tract concerning abstinence from animals, and by many others. Swine were used for food first of all animals, they being wholly unserviceable to all other purposes, and having, in the language of Cicero, animam pro sale ne putrescant, their souls only, instead of salt, to keep them from putrifying. As, on the contrary, for several ages after flesh came to be eaten, it was thought unlawful to kill oxen, because they are very serviceable to mankind, and partners of their labour in cultivating the ground, as hath been elsewhere observed. It was also unusual to kill young animals; whence, as Athenæus is of opinion, Priamus is introduced by Homer reproving his sons for feasting upon young lambs; the reason whereof was, either that it savoured of cruelty to deprive those of life which had scarce tasted the joys of it, or that it tended to the destruction of the species; whence, at a time when sheep were scarce at Athens, there was a law enacted to forbid ἀπέκτε ἀρνὸς γενέσθαι, the eating of lambs which had never been shorn, as hath been observed from Philochronus. Neither did the ancients seek for dainties or rarities, but were content with sheep, goats, swine, oxen, when it was become lawful to kill them, what they caught in hunting, what was most easy to be provided, and afforded the most healthful nourishment. Hence all the Grecians in Homer live upon a simple diet; young and old, kings and private men, are contented with the same provision. Agamemnon entertains Ajax, after his combat with Hector, with the chine of an ox, as a reward of his valour. Alcinous, king of Phæacia, who affected a more splendid and delicate way of living, feeds upon beef. Menelaus sets before Telemachus a chine of beef at the marriage-feast of his son. Aud the courtiers of Penelope, though given to all sorts of pleasure, are never entertained with either fish or fowl, or any delicacies. This, with Archeologiæ hujus lib. ii. cap. de * Cap. 24. a Lib. vi. de legibus. b Lib. ii. de natura deorum. Sacrificiis. several other things to the same purpose, hath been observed by Athenæus d; who has likewise remarked, that Homer's heroes neither boil their meat, nor dress it with sauces, but only roast it. This was in most places the ancient way of dressing meat, whence Servius also reports, that heroicis temporibus non vescebantur carne elixa, in the heroical ages they did not eat boiled flesh; and observes farther out of Varro, that among the Romans the primitive diet was roast, then boiled, and last of all broths came into use. Nevertheless, as Athenæus hath elsewhere taken notice, even in Homer's time, boiled meat was sometimes provided; which appears both from that entertainment in the Odysses, where an ox's foot is thrown at Ulysses; it being well known, that (in that author's words) Tida Bónov ¿dsiç iærỡ, no man ever roasts an ox's foot; and also, from the express words of the 21st Iliad f: Ως δὲ λέβης ζῶ ἔνδον ἔπειγόμενος πυρὶ πολλῷ, As when the flames beneath a cauldron rise, To melt the fat of some rich sacrifice. POPE This was the way of living among the ancient Greeks; neither were the Lacedæmonians of later ages less temperate than their ancestors, so long as they observed the laws of Lycurgus. They had their constant diet at the Zurriria, public entertainments, wherein the food was extremely simple, whereof each person had a certain proportion allotted. The chief part of the provision was peśxas wòs, the black broth, peculiar to that nation, which was so unpleasant, that a citizen of Sybaris happening once to be entertained at Sparta, cried out, that he no longer wondered why the Lacedæmonians were the valiantest soldiers in the world, when any man in his right wits would rather choose to die a thousand times than to live upon such vile food.' And it is reported that Agesilaus distributed certain sweatmeats, which had been presented to him by the Thasians, amongst the slaves, saying, 'that the servants of virtue ought not to indulge themselves with such delicacies, it being unworthy of men of free birth to share those pleasures whereby slaves are allured.' For which reason the cooks of Lacedamon were οψοποιοὶ κρέως μόνε, ὁ δὲ παρὰ τᾶτο ἐπισε τάμενος, ἐξηλαύνετο Σπάρτης, ὡς τὰ τῶν νοσέντων καθάρσια, only dressers of flesh, and they who understood any thing farther in the art of cookery were cast out from Sparta, as the filth of men, infected with the plague. Hence Mithæcus, a very eminent cook, de d Lib. i. p. 9. e In Eneid i. & Conf. Athenæus, lib. iv. (cap. 6. p. 138. Elianus, lib. xiv. cap. 7. |