Martial on Eating
← Back to Martial Profile
“However great the dish that holds the turbot, the turbot is still greater than the dish.”
“Philo swears that he has never dined at home, and it is so; he does not dine at all, except when invited out.”
“If my opinion is of any worth, the fieldfare is the greatest delicacy among birds, the hare among quadrupeds.”
“See, how the liver is swollen larger than a fat goose! In amazement you will exclaim: Where could this possibly grow?”
“Whether woodcock or partridge, what does it signify, if the taste is the same? But the partridge is dearer, and therefore thought preferable.”
“I am a shell-fish just come from being saturated with the waters of the Lucrine lake, near Baise; but now I luxuriously thirst for noble pickle.”
“You praise, in three hundred verses, Sabellus, the baths of Ponticus, who gives such excellent dinners. You wish to dine, Sabellus, not to bathe.”
“As long as I have fat turtle-doves, a fig for your lettuce, my friend, and you may keep your shellfish to yourself. I have no wish to waste my appetite.”
“Mithriades, by frequently drinking poison, rendered it impossible for any poison to hurt him. You, Cinna, by always dining on next to nothing, have taken due precaution against ever perishing from hunger.”
“Annius has some two hundred tables, and servants for every table. Dishes run hither and thither, and plates fly about. Such entertainments as these keep to yourselves, ye pompous; I am ill pleased with a supper that walks.”