We see they had writers who exhausted their genius on these professional topics; and books of cookery were much read:  for a comic poet, quoted by Athenaeus, exhibits a character exulting in having procured “The New Kitchen of Philoxenus, which,” says he, “I keep for myself to read in my solitude.”  That these devotees to the culinary art undertook journeys to remote parts of the world, in quest of these discoveries, sufficient facts authenticate.  England had the honour to furnish them with oysters, which they fetched from about Sandwich.  Juvenal[126] records that Montanus was so well skilled in the science of good eating, that he could tell by the first bite whether they were English or not.  The well-known Apicius poured into his stomach an immense fortune.  He usually resided at Minturna, a town in Campania, where he ate shrimps at a high price:  they were so large, that those of Smyrna, and the prawns of Alexandria, could not be compared with the shrimps of Minturna.  However, this luckless epicure was informed that the shrimps in Africa were more monstrous; and he embarks without losing a day.  He encounters a great storm, and through imminent danger arrives at the shores of Africa.  The fishermen bring him the largest for size their nets could furnish.  Apicius shakes his head:  “Have you never any larger?” he inquires.  The answer was not favourable to his hopes.  Apicius rejects them, and fondly remembers the shrimps of his own Minturna.  He orders his pilot to return to Italy, and leaves Africa with a look of contempt.

A fraternal genius was Philoxenus:  he whose higher wish was to possess a crane’s neck, that he might be the longer in savouring his dainties; and who appears to have invented some expedients which might answer, in some degree, the purpose.  This impudent epicure was so little attentive to the feelings of his brother guests, that in the hot bath he avowedly habituated himself to keep his hands in the scalding water; and even used to gargle his throat with it, that he might feel less impediment in swallowing the hottest dishes.  He bribed the cooks to serve up the repast smoking hot, that he might gloriously devour what he chose before any one else could venture to touch the dish.  It seemed as if he had used his fingers to handle fire.  “He is an oven, not a man!” exclaimed a grumbling fellow-guest.  Once having embarked for Ephesus, for the purpose of eating fish, his favourite food, he arrived at the market, and found all the stalls empty.  There was a wedding in the town, and all the fish had been bespoken.  He hastens to embrace the new-married couple, and singing an epithalamium, the dithyrambic epicure enchanted the company.  The bridegroom was delighted by the honour of the presence of such a poet, and earnestly requested he would come on the morrow.  “I will come, young friend, if there is no fish at the market!”—­It was this Philoxenus, who, at the table of Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, having near him a small barbel,