The pantropheon: or, History of food, and its preparation, from the earliest ages of the world / by A. Soyer. Embellished with forty-two steel plates, illustrating the greatest gastronomic marvels of antiquity.

  • Soyer, Alexis, 1809-1858.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pantropheon: or, History of food, and its preparation, from the earliest ages of the world / by A. Soyer. Embellished with forty-two steel plates, illustrating the greatest gastronomic marvels of antiquity. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    One of the laws of the twelve tables punished with death the indi- vidual who had premeditatedly set fire to his neighbour’s corn; and inflicted a fine or the whip on any one rvho caused so great a calamity by his imprudence.25 In Greece, a special magistrate, the “ Sitocome” was charged with the inspection of the corn; and various officers, such as the sitones, the sitojihylcices, and the sitologes, were appointed to watch over its purchase. And lastly, public distributors, under the names of siturches and sitometres, were exclusively occupied with the allotment of corn ;2G they prevented any one from purchasing a greater quantity than was actually necessary for his wants. The law forbad the delivery of more than fifty measures to one individual.27 The Roman government was so convinced that abundance of bread was one of the best means of maintaining public tranquillity,28 that Julius Caesar created two praetors, and two ediles or magistrates, to preside over the purchase, conveyance, storing, and gratuitous distribution of wheat.29 For we know that this people of kings, powerful but frivolous, and careless of the morrow, submitted to the incredible follies of their rulers on the sole condition of being well fed and amused by them.30 In the time of Demosthenes the common price of wheat in Greece was about 3s. 1 Id. the four bushels.31 In Rome, during the republic, wheat was distributed to 60,000 persons.32 Julius Caesar desired that 320,000 plebeians should enjoy this bounty ; but this number was afterwards reduced to 150,000,33 or perhaps, according to Cassius, to 160,000.34 Augustus fed, at first, 200,000 citizens, then only 120,000.35 Nero, who always went to extremes either in good or evil, gave corn throughout the empire to 220,000 idle people, including the soldiers of the praetorian guard.36 Adrian added to this list all the children of the poor: the boys to the age of 18, and the girls to that of 14. Finally, this liberality, more politic than generous, and so foreign to our present manners, was carried, under the Emperor Severus, to 75,000 bushels per day.37 The bushel weighed twenty pounds of twelve ounces each.38 Ihe Greeks esteemed highly the corn of Boeotia, Thrace, and Pontus. The Romans preferred that of Lombardy, the present duchy of Spoletta, Sicily, Sardinia, and a part of Gaul. Sardinia, Sicily, and Corsica, sup- plied them every year with 800,000 bushels of twenty-one pounds weight, which made them call those islands “ the sweet nurses of Rome.”30