Food And Drink sources

Question 1

According to columella, what was the storehouse divided into rooms for?

Answer 1

Oil, presses and wine

Question 2

Where were dry foods stored, according to Columella?

Answer 2

Lofts (eg grain, hay, leaves, chaff)

Question 3

What products were kept downstairs for selling, according to columella?

Answer 3

Liquid products (Eg wine/oil)

Question 4

What features should granaries have, according to columella?

Answer 4

Should be accessible by ladders.
Should be ventilated by small windows facing north.
(Most cold and least wet to help preserve grain)

Question 5

What features should the wine room have according to columella?

Answer 5

Should be far away from the baths, oven, manure and places which “give off a foul smell.”
Should be away from cisterns and springs, as moisture is given off and spoils the wine

Question 6

Were donkeys (in mills) fed often and enough, according to Apuleius?

Answer 6

They were not fed often. When they were released from their harnesses, they were ‘dying of hunger.’ However, they were given a ‘generous supply of food.’

Question 7

Why did columella say that press rooms and oil rooms should be warm?

Answer 7

Every liquid is made thin by heat and thickens when it is cold. If oil freezes, it goes bad

Question 8

Where should the orchards be, according to columella?

Answer 8

In a place to which all sewage from barnyard and baths flow, because vegetables and trees enjoy this nourishment

Question 9

According to columella, how does an owner test the quality of his slaves’ bread?

Answer 9

By tasting it

Question 10

Is Horace’s satire reliable?

Answer 10

No, it is a satire so it is exaggerated. It also compares animals to people

Question 11

Why is Horace’s satires reliable?

Answer 11

It is one of the few sources available on food outside towns

Question 12

What was the serving of different foods at the same dinner party a form of?

Answer 12

Social discrimination. Important guests were given expensive food while freedmen/clients were given cheaper food

Question 13

Why was free bread sometimes handed out?

Answer 13

• for bribery in elections
• in terms of starvation
• when corn supply was short
• to stop crowds rioting

Question 14

What does Cicero think of butchers and bakers?

Answer 14

He approves of them as they “provide for bodily pleasures”

Question 15

Give some examples of food for wealthy people, from martial epigrams

Answer 15

Oysters fattened in the lucrine pool
Mushrooms
Turbot
Golden turtle dove

Question 16

Give some examples of food for poor people from martial epigrams

Answer 16

Mussel
Pig fungi
Bream
Magpie that died in its cag

Question 17

How did people get themselves dinner invitations according to martial epigrams

Answer 17

Following someone around the public baths (hermogenes followed him)
Give compliments
Bring drinks
Express amazement at everything

Question 18

What does martial epigrams say about company in dinging situations

Answer 18

It is better to eat poorly with someone else than do it alone (he invites toranius to eat with him)

Question 19

What food does martial offer toranius?

Answer 19

Cheap cappadocian lettuce
Smelly leeks
Tunny hidden in egg-halves
A green cabbage
Sausage lying on white boiled wheat
Pale beans with red bacon
Withered grapes
Pears which bear the name Syrian
Chestnuts 
Wine
Noble olives
Hot chickpeas
Warm lupines

Question 20

What entertainment does martial offer toranius?

Answer 20

A flute player who will play something light and unamusing

Not a speech, or dancing girls

Question 21

According to Ovid fasti, what foods to the gods in the depths of the Styx enjoy

Answer 21

Sprinkled corn and a few grains of salt, and bread softened in wine (put in a jar and left in the middle of the road)

Question 22

Do people drink a lot at the feast of Anna perenna according to Ovid fasti?

Answer 22

Yes. Ordinary folk sit on the green grass drinking. They pray for as many years as the cups they take. They go dancing, and when they return they stagger.
(“A drunken old woman was dragging along a drunken old man”)

Question 23

Was food sold at the baths, according to Seneca the younger?

Answer 23

Yes, he could hear shouts of the drinks-seller and sausage-seller and pastry-seller