< PreviousCQ10 Cahn’s Quarterly 1/2020 bustle that ensues following his cry: “When he sings his song of dawning everybody jumps out of bed – smiths, potters, tanners, cobblers, bathmen, corn-dealers, lyre-turning shield-makers; the men put on their shoes and go out to work although it is not yet light.” (Arist., Birds 488-92). Furthermore, cocks fulfilled a number of symbolic and ritual functions, for instance as sacrificial an- imals or as love tokens from the adult male (erastes) to the younger male (eromenos). Not least, cockfighting was a very popular sport. However, the “Persian bird’s" actual con- quest, which enabled it to become the most common bird in the world with a current population estimated at around 23 billion by the FAO, paradoxically did not begin until it found a place on the dinner menu. It is difficult to determine when, exactly, chicken eggs and meat became a significant nutritional factor in the Mediterranean. An- drew Dalby assumes that in the course of the Classical Period chickens rapidly sup- planted the less productive goose, which had been the farmyard egg-layer in Greece since prehistoric times. ( Food in the Ancient World, 2003, 83). The Greeks may also have played a pioneering role in the consumption of chicken meat. The research group led by Lee Perry-Gal observed a marked increase in chicken remains in archaeological layers from the Hellenistic Period at Levantine sites and suggested that with the emergence of the Hellenistic koine, in which Greek culture and language became defining factors, older ta- boos prohibiting the consumption of chicken meat were abandoned, making it possible for the domestic chicken to become an important source of food. (Earliest Economic Exploita- tion of Chicken, PNAS 2015, doi.org/10.1073/ pnas.1504236112). It could be that chickens were bred on a large scale in Egypt as early as the 4th century B.C. In his Historia animalium (6.2), Aristotle ob- served: “In some cases, as in Egypt, eggs are hatched spontaneously in the ground, by be- ing buried in dung heaps." Diodorus Siculus amplified on this in his description of Egypt: “And the most astonishing fact is that, by reason of their unusual application to such matters, the men who have charge of poultry and geese, in addition to producing them in the natural way known to all mankind, raise them by their own hands, by virtue of a skill peculiar to them, in numbers beyond telling; Recipe from Antiquity The Persian Bird’s Conquest “Those were terrible times for the Athenians. The fleet had been lost in the Sicilian Expe- dition, Lamachos was no longer, Nikias was dead, the Lacedaemonians besieged Attica," the Scholiast explains, pointing out that that is why Peisetairos and Euelpides in the com- edy Birds, with which Aristophanes won the second prize at the City Dionysia in 414 B.C., decide to leave Athens and to build a city in the sky with the help of the birds. Thanks to its strategic location, Peisetairos argues, this city with the “beautiful and great name” Nephelokokkygia (Cloudcuckoocity) can sep- arate the gods from the people and block the passage of sacrificial smoke, thus starving the gods into submission. This would restore the birds to their original rule, for “it was not the gods but the birds who governed and reigned over men in olden times.” To prove this, he cites the example of the cock who “was the first monarch and ruler of the Persians, long before all those Dariuses and Megabazuses – so that in memory of that rulership he is still called the Persian bird. That is why even now he struts about like the Great King, wearing his headgear erect.” (483-7). Expressions such as the term “Persian bird” used by Aristophanes, or the variant “Persian cock” employed by the slightly older poet Crat- inus (Athenaios, Deipnosophistae 374d), re- flect the eastern origin of the domestic chicken (Gallus domesticus), which is thought to have descended from the jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) native to Southeast Asia. The earliest conclu- sive evidence of domestication comes from the Bronze Age Indus Culture and dates from ca. 2500-2100 B.C. By the 8th century B.C. at the latest, the domestic chicken had spread to Mesopotamia, and representations of cocks on pottery and metalwork from Laconia, Rhodes and Corinth attest to its presence in Greece by 600 B.C., well ahead of the political expansion of the Achaemenid Empire. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that the growth of the Persian sphere of influence from the 6th century B.C. onwards contributed to the spread of this spe- cies of bird. In the ancient Persian faith of Zo- roastrianism, which was promoted by Darius I and his successors, the cock was considered a sacred animal that, with its crow, dispelled the demons of the night and exhorted believers to pray. Since the cock’s crow was an important part of their daily ritual, Zoroastrians ensured that there were always domestic chickens close to their homes and considered it a particular- ly meritorious act to make a gift of cocks. (F. Zeuner, A History of Domesticated Animals, 1963, 443-50; I. Mason, Evolution of Domes- ticated Animals, 1984, 298-302; F. Simoons, Eat not this Flesh, 1994, 154; Cock, in: En- cyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 5, fasc. 8, 878-882). The cock’s usefulness as a timekeeper that roused the sleeper before daybreak was also valued in ancient Greece. The Greek word for cock, alektryon, means “awakener", and Pei- setairos paints a vivid picture of the sudden Picentine bread and sala cattabia Apiciana on A PLATE. Clay. Dm. 26 cm. Roman, 3rd-5th cent. A.D. CHF 3,200. A GRATER. Bronze. L. 14 cm. Etruscan, 5th-3rd cent. B.C. CHF 1,800. A KNIFE. Bronze, iron. L. 14.7 cm. Roman, 1st-3rd cent. A.D. CHF 1,800. A SPOON. Silver. L. 9.5 cm. Roman, 2nd-4th cent. A.D. CHF 2,800. By Yvonne YiuCQ11 Cahn’s Quarterly 1/2020 for they do not use the birds for hatching the eggs, but, in effecting this themselves artificially by their own wit and skill in an astounding manner, they are not surpassed by the operations of nature.” (Bibliotheca historica 1.74.1). These hatcheries may have resembled those described by René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur in his treatise The Art of Hatching and Bringing Up Domestick Fowls, published in 1750. “These ovens,” he noted, “which Egypt ought to be prouder of than of her pyramids, are not buildings that strike the eye by their loftiness.” Rather, it was their length and internal structure that rendered them remarkable: Numerous in- cubation chambers, each large enough for 4-5,000 eggs to be spread out on the ground were built along a narrow central corridor. Above them, in a second row of chambers, dung was burnt in order to produce the re- quired incubation temperature. (14-17). Such hatcheries, which are still operated in Egypt today, albeit using lamps to regulate the tem- perature, have the advantage that the chicks can be hatched without a reduction of the hens’ laying performance. (O. Thieme et al., The Oldest Hatcheries are Still in Use, in: Aviculture-Europe, June 2012). In the Roman Empire, chickens were gen- erally kept on a smaller scale. According to Columella, writing in the 1st century A.D., “200 head are the limit which should be acquired, as this number requires the care of only one person, provided, however, that an industrious old woman or a boy be set to watch over those that stray further afield.” One cock was allocated to every five hens. The hen houses were built fac- ing south-east, equipped with perches and nesting places and protected against natu- ral enemies. The attention paid to animal welfare by Columella is quite remarkable. For instance, he recommended that dust and ashes should be made available for the chickens to bathe in, and that they should be allowed to roam freely during the day. Even those birds that were kept in closed precincts “should have a spacious portico to which they can go out and bask in the sun.” It is, therefore, all the more surpris- ing that he has no qualms about recom- mending brutal methods for the castration of cocks using “a red-hot iron” and for fat- tening hens by shutting them up in a place “which is very warm and has very little light” in “narrow coops or plaited cages” that are so small that the birds “cannot turn around” and force-feeding them pellets made of barley-meal. ( De re rustica 8.2- 7). This “slavery of fat”, as Varro terms the cramming of hens (De re rustica 3.9), had a long tradition with the Romans, and it was already described in a very similar manner by Cato the Elder in the mid-2nd century B.C. (De agri cultura 89). Interestingly, chicken farming appears to have depended more heavily on a wealthy clientele than other branches of agriculture. Columella points out: “It is only worth while to go to these expenses and to this trouble in places near the city, or in other locations where the prices of hens and their produce are high.” Similarly, he recommends fatten- ing “the largest birds for the more sump- tuous feasts; for thus a worthy recompense attends one’s trouble and expense.” (RR 8.4, 8.7). If one compares the prices listed in the, admittedly much later, Edict on Maximum Prices issued in 301 A.D. by Emperor Diocle- tian, it is indeed striking that chicken meat and eggs were rather expensive products. The maximum price for a chicken was fixed at 60 denarii; as such it was cheaper than a goose (unfattened 100 denarii, fattened 200 denarii) but significantly more expensive than pork or beef (12 resp. 8 denarii for 1 libra/326 g). An egg was priced at 1 denar- ius, the same amount as 1 libra of dessert grapes. By comparison, an unskilled worker earned about 25 denarii per day and a skilled worker received 50-75 denarii in addition to food and lodging per day. The various chick- en dishes in De re coquinaria, a compilation of recipes attributed to the gourmet Apicius, were more likely to be intended for the law- yer, who was allowed to charge 250 denarii for opening a case and another 1,000 denarii for pleading it. STATUETTE OF A COCK. H. 8.3 cm. Clay. Greek, early 5th cent. B.C. CHF 900 Picentine Bread (After Pliny, Naturalis historia 18.27) “Picenum,” Pliny notes, “still maintains its ancient reputation for making the bread which it was the first to invent, alica (spelt semolina or groats) being the grain em- ployed. The flour is kept in soak for nine days, and is kneaded on the tenth with rai- sin juice, in the shape of long rolls; after which it is baked in an oven in earthen pots until they break. This bread, how- ever, is never eaten until it has been well soaked, which is mostly done in milk or mulsum (wine sweetend with honey).” For the sourdough starter mix 200 g spelt sem- olina with 200 g water using your fingers in order to inoculate the mixture with Lac- tobacillus sanfranciscensis. Ferment for nine days in a warm place (28-35 °C) stir- ring occasionally. On the 10th day, make a dough by kneading together the start- er, 300 g spelt flour, 100 g raisin juice (or grape juice) and 1 tsp salt. Form long rolls and prove for several hours until doubled in volume. Bake at 250 °C for 20 minutes, switch off the oven and bake a further 10 minutes. Aliter sala cattabia Apiciana (De re coquinaria 4.1.2) For the salad dressing, mix 1 tsp celery seeds, 1 tbsp each of dried pennyroyal, dried mint and grated ginger, a handful of fresh coriander, 50 g raisins, 1 tsp honey and 3 tbsp each of vinegar, oil and wine in a mortar. Soak Picentine bread in pos- ca (water with a dash of vinegar), squeeze out gently and line a large bowl with it. Cut 300 g fried chicken breast, 150 g Ves- tine cheese (smoked goat's cheese) and 1-2 cucumbers into thin slices. If you like it wholly authentic, you can also pre-cook and chop 100 g of goat’s sweetbreads. Roast 25 g pine nuts. Place these ingredi- ents on top of the bread, sprinkle with 2 tbsp finely chopped dried onions and driz- zle the dressing over the salad. Sprinkle with snow immediately before serving.CQ12 Cahn’s Quarterly 1/2020 Highlight The short tunic with long sleeves, the cloak on shoulders and back, the simple belt and sword sling with single-bladed spatha, its hilt decorated with a twisted pattern, leave us in no doubt: this young man belonged to the Roman military. The cingulum or belt was an especially important part of the soldier’s out- fit, since it doubled as a marker of service. To lose one’s belt, as might happen in the heat of battle, was to be dishonoured. To the man shown here, the staff held in his right hand would surely have seemed no less important. Given the slight turn of the hand, it must have been at an angle. An ensign, standard or banner can therefore be ruled out, as they are shown bolt upright in most images. Judg- ing by the position and orientation, it could have been a vitis, i.e. a grapevine like those that feature in various representations of cen- turiones, for whom it was a badge of identi- ty. The hole in the hand, however, seems too large for such a slender stick. The most likely explanation therefore seems to be a spear, which could certainly have been held in a way that would fit the statuette. Since a spear alone says nothing about rank, the man hold- ing it might be a military man of any level, even the emperor himself. Nor is the scroll he holds in his other hand specific to any par- ticular rank. Such scrolls are not uncommon on soldiers’ funerary reliefs. Perhaps the one held by the statuette can be identified as an officer’s commission. For all the many questions raised by both costume and equipment, they do at least provide reliable information on the time this bronze statuette was made. In the centuries immediately following the turn of the mil- lennium, the equipment carried by Roman soldiers underwent certain changes which, although not immediately noticeable, were certainly significant. We would expect a Ro- man soldier of the middle Imperial Period, for example, to carry a dagger as well, which ordinary soldiers wore on the left side of the belt, centurions on the right. This item of equipment was then dropped in the course of the 3rd century. At around the same time the conventional short sword was replaced by a long one, which as on this statuette was worn on the left side of the body. To this should be added the smooth, unadorned belt, which irrespective of rank became standard in ca. 300 A.D., supplanting the buckled belts that had been widespread in the previous century. stands, relaxed, his slim body actively held erect. His slightly turned head further adds to the impression that this figure is not at all typ- ical of late antique representations. This has nothing to do with scale – or if so, then only in part; in its preserved state, the statuette meas- ures 24 cm in height. It is above all a result of the deliberate, habitual interpretation of a statuary scheme that is familiar to us from sol- diers’ tombstones. The modelling of the piece, moreover, was also informed by the classicist style of the time. This is especially evident in the meticulously delineated strands of hair and its volume, which contrasts sharply with the negation of all plasticity in representations of hair in ca. 300 A.D. Also noteworthy is the way the hard, angular folds of pre-Constan- tinian statues have been overcome on both tu- nic and paludamentum . The unpretentiousness of the figure thus combines with the precise modelling to produce a harmonious work of outstanding quality. A CHLAMYDATUS WITH SWORD. H. 24 cm. Bronze. Late Roman, 1st third of the 4th cent. B.C. CHF 82,000 The statuette, which originally measured ca. 34 cm in height and after being hollow-cast in bronze would have been gilded all over, does in fact date from the 4th cen- tury. The proportions of the head, the small mouth, the uniformly convex facial surfaces, the large eyes and compact tufts of hair are characteristics that are all typical of Constantinian portraiture, the par- allels with imperial portraits of that period being particularly striking. Especially remarkable is the atten- tion to detail that the artist lavished on the individual forms, such as the heavy eyelids rendered in the style typical of that period and the hair over the forehead to which he lent a very distinctive look. While two locks seem almost to grow out of the forehead skin itself, taper off to- wards the top and then flop down to the left, a third curl to the right of them falls in the opposite direction. This gives rise to a motif that recurs neither in the imperial nor in the private portraits of the period, but that cannot conceal a certain resem- blance with Alexander the Great. A deliberate reference to that image of military prowess par excellence thus seems entirely conceivable. This raises the question of whether the stat- uette perhaps even shows an emperor. The answer is, however, negative. Any identi- fication with one of the obligatory portrait types is ruled out by the coiffure. The cos- tume would also be atypical, since from Con- stantine onwards, armour alone served as the mark of an emperor, effectively supplanting the tunic that was still widespread even in ca. 300 A.D. From the Constantinian period onwards, therefore, all portraits of emperors on coins show them wearing armour. On a statuette like this one, moreover, we might reasonably have expected to find imperial in- signia of some sort, especially the ornamen- tal chains dangling preferably from fibulae called pendilia. What makes this figure so appealing, however, is the effortless naturalness of the pose. There is nothing smug about it, nor any boastful assertion of prowess. The young man simply A Late Roman Chlamydatus By Detlev KreikenbomNext >