Food in Latin Literature

This is a University of Helsinki course by Dr Alexandra Grigorieva, fellow of Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies

Food in Latin Literature, from turnips to peacocks, an introduction to Roman literary cuisine (28 hours, 5 credits)

Students are assigned texts in Latin to read and translate (and then discuss in class), they also have to make individual presentations on specific foods using TLL online. Companion page Gastronomy/Food_Images_in_Antiquity

Topics discussed in class

1. Food in Antiquity, an overview of subject and sources
2. Cato the Elder, Varro and Columella, food in the Roman agricultural society
   • ̈Cato 2nd century BC
   • ̈Varro 1st century BC
   • ̈Columella 1st century AD
3. Plautus vs. Terentius, food in Roman comedy
   • ̈Plautus 2nd century BC
   • ̈Terentius 2nd century BC
4. Mos maiorum, moral food vs. immoral food in Roman public rhetoric, from Cicero to Livy etc.
   • ̈Cicero speeches 1st century BC
   • ̈Cicero treatises 1st century BC
   • ̈Livius 1st century BC - 1st century AD
5. The private Roman approach to food, letters of Cicero, letters of Pliny.
   • ̈Cicero letters 1st century BC
   • ̈Pliny the Younger letters 1st-2nd century AD
6. Idyllic food: from Virgil’s Bucolics and Tibullus to Moretum of Appendix Vergiliana.
   • ̈Tibullus 1st century BC
   • ̈Vergilius 1st century BC
   • ̈Ovid Metamorphoses 1st century AD
   • ̈Moretum 1st century AD
7. Food for the gods, Ovid’s Fasti and Roman rituals.
   • ̈Ovid Fasti 1st century AD
8. Horace on food behaviour, laudable vs. regrettable in Sermones.
   • ̈Horace Sermones 1st century BC
9. Satyricon of Petronius and food mores in early imperial Rome, corresponding recipes from Apicius
   • ̈Petronius Satyricon 1st century AD
10. Martial’s food poems and xenia food images.
    • ̈Martial Xenia 1st century AD
    • ̈Martial Apophoreta 1st century AD

Apicius recipes

http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost04/Apicius/api_re00.html

Xenia mosaics from Tunisia, El Djem (Roman Thysdrus destroyed in 238 AD)

xenia

http://www.manar-al-athar.ox.ac.uk/dams/pages/search.php?search=%21collection1375

dice-players and xenia

http://www.manar-al-athar.ox.ac.uk/dams/pages/search.php?search=%21collection1337

iocus neolatinus

Assa mullos, caede cucurbitam, adordina aprunam,

Bullit iam ius, adest lanx sine carne noua,

Caccabus efferuens mugit tibi dite uapore,

Detrahe porcellis denique, uappa, cutem!»

Eneruat sic me coquus atrox talia pergens:

«Fercula ad ardentes suauia pone, piger!

Gustus non reputes attentus seruus et esto,

Herbas uilicus est, uilica nonne probet?»

Infero. Sed mecum potius noua carmina uoluo,

Lagonam implemus, finis ut ornet opus.

Melle miser, pipere alloquor almam Musam et adoro

Nugis et nucibus persequor Aonides!

Ollam debeo carnificis decreto agitare

Pultis, ne uerbis redderit acta minax.

Quassa olla quatio stilum ad aspera dulcia promptum

Rutam pratensem linquens Vergilio.

Suffundit chartas de piscibus ingenio mens

(Tessellatim, eheu, caedam epulis apuam)...

«Vas lauasti? - Mox fugitiue tibi paro cenam! -

Zingiber estne domi?» Versusque conficitur!

Further topics to exploreː

Travelling all over the Empire, foods and food similes in the Golden Ass by Apuleius.

Historia Augusta, castigating emperors’ food habits.

From Ausonius to Macrobius, late Latin authors on food, Christian vs. pagan.

After the fall of Rome: letter of Anthimus (Byzantine physician to the Ostrogoths) on the observance of foods and foods in Etymologiae of Isidore (bishop of Visigoth Seville), ‘the last scholar of the ancient world’.

Suggested foods for exploringː panis, caseus, perna, piper, ovum, puls, mullus, mel, liquamen, acetum, oliva, pavo, ruta, nux, ligusticum, malum, oleum, lac, cicer, placenta, coriandrum, pisum, rapa, aper, lens. Students may also suggest their own choices.

References and suggested readingː

• Alcock, J.P. Food in the ancient world. Westport, 2006.
• Jacques André, L'alimentation et la cuisine à Rome. Paris, 1981.
• N. Blanc, A. Nercessian, La cuisine romaine antique. Grenoble, 1992.
• Bober, P.P. Art, Culture, & Cuisine: Ancient & Medieval Gastronomy. Chicago, 1999.
• Dalby, A. Food in the Ancient World. From A to Z. London and New York, 2003.
• Dalby, A. Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World. New York and London, 2000.
• Dalby, A. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. New York, 1996.
• Dalby, A. Flavours of Byzantium. London, 2003.
• Davidson, J. Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens. New York, 1998.
• Dunbabin, Katherine M. D. The Roman banquet : images of conviviality. Cambridge, 2003.
• Faas, P. Around the Roman Table. Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome. New York, 2003.
• Foss, P. Watchful Lares: Roman Household Organization and the Rituals of Cooking and Dining, in R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond. Portsmouth, 1997.
• Garnsey, P. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Crisis. Cambridge, 1988.
• Garnsey, P. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge, 1999.
• Gowers, E. The Loaded Table. Representations of Food in Roman Literature. Oxford, 1992.
• Grocock, Christopher; Grainger, Sally. Apicius. A critical edition with an introduction and an English translation. Totnes, 2006.
• Humphrey, J.W., J.P. Oleson, and A.N. Sherwood. Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook. London and New York, 1998.
• Kron, G. Animal Husbandry, in G. Campbell (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford, 2014
• Kron, G. . Fishing and Fish Farming, in G. Campbell (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Animals in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford, 2014
• Kron, G. Food Production, in W. Scheidel (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Economic History of the Roman World. Cambridge, 2012.
• Kron, G. Agriculture, Roman Empire, in R. Bagnall, K. Broderson, A. Erskine, S. Heubner (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Oxford, 2012.
• Lindsay, H. Food and Clothing in Martial, Studies in Latin Literature 10, 2000.
• Nielsen, I., and H. S. Nielsen, eds. Meals in a Social Context: Aspects of the Communal Meal in the Hellenistic and Roman World. Aarhus University Press, 1998.
• Olson, S.D., and A. Sens. Archestratos of Gela: Greek Culture and Cuisine in the Fourth Century BCE. Oxford, 1999.
• Riley, Gillian. Food in Artː from Prehistory to the Renaissance. London, 2015.
• Roman dining : a special issue of American Journal of Philology. The Johns Hopkins University Press 2005.
• Weingarten, S. Food for Thought: Some Recent Books on Ancient Greek and Roman Food, Scripta Classica Israelica 26, 2007.
• Wilkins, J.M., and S. Hill. Food in the ancient world. Oxford, 2006.
• Wilkins, J. The Boastful Chef: The Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
• Wilkins, J., ed. Food in European Literature. Exeter, 1996.
• Wilkins, J., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. Food in Antiquity. Exeter, 1995.