First Course.—­Sea urchins.  Raw oysters at discretion. Pelorides or palourdes (a sort of shell-fish now found on the coasts of Poitou in France).  Thorny shelled oysters; larks; a hen pullet with asparagus; stewed oysters and mussels; white and black sea-tulips.

Second Course.—­Spondulae, a variety of oyster; sweet water mussels; sea nettles; becaficoes; cutlets of kid and boar’s meat; chicken pie; becaficoes again, but differently prepared, with an asparagus sauce; murex and purple fish.  The latter were but different kinds of shell-fish.

Third Course.—­The teats of a sow au naturel; they were cut as soon as the animal had littered; wild boar’s head (this was the main dish); sow’s teats in a ragout; the breasts and necks of roast ducks; fricasseed wild duck; roast hare, a great delicacy; roasted Phrygian chickens; starch cream; cakes from Vicenza.

All this was washed down with the light Pompeian wine, which was not bad, and could be kept for ten years, if boiled.  The wine of Vesuvius, once highly esteemed, has lost its reputation, owing to the concoctions now sold to travellers under the label of Lachrymae Christi.  The vintages of the volcano must have been more honestly prepared at the period when they were sung by Martial.  Every day there is found in the cellars of Pompeii some short-necked, full-bodied, and elongated amphora, terminating in a point so as to stick upright in the ground, and nearly all are marked with an inscription stating the age and origin of the liquor they contained.  The names of the consuls usually designated the year of the vintage.  The further back the consul, the more respectable the wine.  A Roman, in the days of the Empire, having been asked under what consul his wine dated, boldly replied, “Under none!” thereby proclaiming that his cellar had been stocked under the earliest kings of Rome.

These inscriptions on the amphorae make us acquainted with an old Vesuvian wine called picatum, or, in other words, with a taste of pitch; fundanum, or Fondi wine, much esteemed, and many others.  In fine, let us not forget the famous growth of Falernus, sung by the poets, which did not disappear until the time of Theodoric.

But besides the amphorae, how much other testimony there still remains of the olden libations,—­those rich craterae, or broad, shallow goblets of bronze damascened with silver; those delicately chiselled cups; those glasses and bottles which Vesuvius has preserved for us; that jug, the handle of which is formed of a satyr bending backward to rub his shoulders against the edge of the vase; those vessels of all shapes on which eagles perch or swans and serpents writhe; those cups of baked clay adorned with so many arabesques and inviting descriptions.  “Friend,” says one of them “drink of my contents.”

    “Friend of my soul, this goblet sip!”