The ancients were fully alive to the value of
vegetable food and of fruit as a healthy diet in warm climates, and
the wonderfully full information we have on this subject comes from
medical writers like Galen, as well as from Pliny's _Natural History_,
and from the writers on agriculture. The very names of some Roman
families, e.g. the Fabii and Caepiones, carry us back to a time when
beans and onions, which later on were not so much in favour, were a
regular part of the diet of the Roman people. The list of vegetables
and herbs which we know of as consumed fills a whole page in
Marquardt's interesting account of this subject, and includes most
of those which we use at the present day.[84] It was only when the
consumption of meat and game came in with the growth of capital
and its attendant luxury, that a vegetarian diet came to be at all
despised. This is another result of the economic changes caused by the
Hannibalic war, and is curiously illustrated by the speech of the cook
of a great household in the _Pseudolus_ of Plautus, who prides himself
on not being as other cooks are, who make the guests into beasts of
the field, stuffing them with all kinds of food which cattle eat, and
even with things which cattle would refuse![85] we may take it that at
all times the Roman of the lower class consumed fruit and vegetables
largely, and thus gave employment to a number of market-gardeners and
small purveyors.
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