valuation of their ministrations increased proportionately to the
progress in gastronomy and to the prosperity of the nation. During
Rome's frugal era, up to 200 B.C. the primitive cooks were just slaves
and household chattels; but the development of their trade into an
art, stimulated by foreign precepts, imported principally from Greece,
Sicily and Asia Minor, opened up to the practitioners not only the
door to freedom from servitude but it offered even positions of wealth
with social and political standing, often arousing the envy, satire,
criticism of bona-fide politicians, journalists, moralists, satirists
and of the ever-present hordes of parasites and hangers-on. Some cooks
became confidants, even friends and advisors of men in high places,
emperors, (cf. life of Vitellius) and through their subtle influence
upon the mighty they may have contributed in no mean measure to the
fate of the nation. But such invisible string-pullers have not been
confined to those days alone. (Take Rasputin! Take the valet to
William I, reputed to have had more "say" than the mighty Bismarck,
who, as it developed, got "the air" while the valet died in his
berth.)

Such being the case, what potential power reposed in a greasy cookery
manuscript! And, if so, why bare such wonderful secrets to Tom, Dick
and Harry?

Weights and measures are given by Apicius in some instances. But just
such figures can be used artfully to conceal a trap. Any mediocre
cook, gaining possession of a choice collection of detailed and
itemized recipes would have been placed in an enviable position.
Experimenting for some time (at his master's expense) he would soon
reach that perfection when he could demand a handsome compensation for
his ministrations. Throughout antique times, throughout the middle
ages down to the present day (when patent laws no longer protect a
secret) strict secrecy was maintained around many useful and lucrative
formulae, not only by cooks, but also by physicians, alchemists and the
various scientists, artisans and craftsmen. Only the favorite
apprentice would be made heir to or shareholder in this important
stock in trade after his worthiness had been proven to his master's
satisfaction, usually by the payment of a goodly sum of
money--apprentice's pay. We remember reading in Lanciani (Rodolfo L.:
Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries) how in the entire
history of Rome there is but one voice, that of a solitary,
noble-mind