THANKS

For many helpful hints, for access to works in their libraries and for
their kind and sympathetic interest in this work I am especially
grateful to Professor Dr. Edward Brandt, of Munich; to Professor Dr.
Margaret Barclay Wilson, of Washington, D.C., and New York City; to
Mr. Arnold Shircliffe, and Mr. Walter M. Hill, both of Chicago.

J. D. V.
Chicago, in the Summer of 1936.

THE BOOK OF APICIUS

{Illustration: POMPEII: CASA DI FORNO--HOUSE OF THE OVEN

Ancient bakery and flour mill of the year A.D. 79. Four grain grinders
to the right. The method of operating these mills is shown in the
sketch of the slaves operating a hand-mill. These mills were larger
and were driven by donkeys attached to beams stuck in the square
holes. The bake house is to the left, with running water to the right
of the entrance to the oven. The oven itself was constructed
ingeniously with a view of saving fuel and greatest efficiency.}

{Illustration: WINE DIPPER

Found in Pompeii. Each end of the long handle takes the form of a
bird's head. The one close to the bowl holds in its bill a stout wire
which is loosely fastened around the neck of the bowl, the two ends
being interlocked. This allows the bowl to tilt sufficiently to hold
its full contents when retired from the narrow opening of the amphora.
The ancients also had dippers with extension handles to reach down to
the bottom of the deep amphora. Ntl. Mus., Naples, 73822; Field M.
24181.}

THE BOOK OF APICIUS

A STUDY OF ITS TIMES, ITS AUTHORS AND THEIR SOURCES, ITS AUTHENTICITY
AND ITS PRACTICAL USEFULNESS IN MODERN TIMES

Anyone who would know something worth while about the private and
public lives of the ancients should be well acquainted with their
table. Then as now the oft quoted maxim stands that man is what he
eats.

Much of the ancient life is still shrouded and will forever be hidden
by envious forces that have covered up bygone glory and grandeur.
Ground into mealy dust under the hoofs of barbarian armies!
Re-modeled, re-used a hundred times! Discarded as of no value by
clumsy hands! The "Crime of Ignorance" is a factor in league with the
forces of destruction. Much is destroyed by blind strokes of
fate--fate, eternally pounding this earth in its everlasting enigmatic
efforts to shape life into something, the purpose of which we do not
understand, the meaning of