12.03.24: breakfast time

‘Ēn’ inquam ‘Parātum tibi adest ientāculum!’ (Apuleius)

I said, "Hey, your breakfast is ready."

If you like one of those full English breakfasts, you would have been disappointed in Ancient Rome:

ientāculum: “a slight morning meal taken at different times by early and late risers.” (Dictionary of Classical Antiquities [1898])

Facebook posts preclude a huge amount of historical detail. If, however, you use wiktionary to look up a word, there are individual links given to the Dictionary of Classical Antiquities.

Surgite: iam vēndit puerīs ientācula pistor / Cristātaeque sonant undique lūcis avēs. (Martial)

Rise; the baker is already selling breakfasts to the boys; / and the crested birds of dawn are crowing on all sides.

Note: already, albeit in a very small way, what you’re learning is emerging in the literature:

From Apuleius:

[i] parātus: prepared, from 1st conjugation parāre (to prepare)

[ii] tibi: why is it dative singular? The breakfast is prepared for you, you are the one who benefits from it

[iii] adest is simply the verb esse (to be) with the prefix ad > ad¦esse to be present

From Martial:

[iv] surgite: the verb is surgere (to get up), a 3rd conjugation, and one you’ll be using soon

[v] vēndit: vēndere (to sell)

[vi] puerīs: why is it dative plural? He’s selling the breakfasts to the boys

[vii] spot the enclitic -que ‘and’: cristātaeque …..avēs (and the crested birds)

[viii] sonant: 1st conjugation sonāre: to make a noise; cry out

And you can throw in a couple of other useful words:

[ix] iam: already

[x] undique: on all sides (a word you’ll see a lot when soldiers are being attacked on all sides)

But leave the “crested birds of dawn” for the moment!

The fact that Martial refers to selling breakfasts for the boys suggests this is when they were going to school very early in the morning.

And so, with early morning calls from Apuleius and Martial …

Quid in ientāculō edis / bibis? What do you eat / drink at breakfast?

• Pōma edō.
• Aquam bibō.

Ubi ientāculum sūmis? Where do you take breakfast?

• Ientāculum in culīnā / trīclīniō sūmō.

Quid sūmis? What do you take?

Quid coquis? What do you cook?

All 3rd conjugation verbs:

• bibere: to drink
• coquere: to cook
• edere: to eat
• sūmere: to take

There are, of course, lots of food and drink words to choose from, but we will focus on 1st / 2nd declension nouns. When you look at nouns of the 3rd declension, your vocabulary will markedly increase. However, I will add a few nouns from the 3rd declension (asterisked) here for the sake of completeness, but I’m not going to open the door to those nouns yet. I will also include a few New Latin words since, in relating this topic to our own lives, they will come in useful.

Quid edis?

• būtȳrum: butter
• cāseus: cheese
• crustula (sg. crustulum): any kind of small cake or pastry
• mālum: an apple (don’t forget the long /a/ otherwise you’re eating ‘evil’!)
• ōva (sg. ōvum): eggs
• ōva fricta: fried eggs
• pōmum: any type of fruit
• succīdia: refers to pork meat (bacon) rather than the animal itself (porcus); if you tried to eat a porcus, it might fight back! There is also lār(i)dum which, in Classical Latin, actually refers to bacon fat (lard).
• *pānis: bread (3rddeclension); Pānem edō.

It’s not always straightforward to “import” the Roman world into ours, but we can get close:

• *pānis tōstus (New Latin): toast; Pānem tostum edō; tōstus is not a “made up” word but does mean ‘toasted’ and so it is reasonable enough to put the two words together to talk about a common breakfast food.
• laganum: “pancake”; flat cake (Gafflot: sorte de crêpe)

The English word ‘cereal’ is derived from French céréale which, in turn, comes from Latin Cerealis relating to Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. And so, in New Latin, since the Romans never ate Wheetabix, we can use:

*cereālia: cereals (New Latin; 3rd declension)

Quid bibis?

• aqua: water
• sūcus / succus: juice
• *lac: milk (3rd declension); Lactem bibō. Don’t ask why it has a /t/! That will be explained in later posts. Just drink the milk and don’t worry about the ending!

And since most of the world can’t survive without them:

• caf(f)ēa: (New Latin) coffee; Cafēam bibō.
• thea: (New Latin) tea; theam bibō.

As way of a side note: “New Latin” does not necessarily refer to vocabulary of the 21st century to express “microwave oven”. For centuries Latin was still used as a common language throughout Europe in schools, monasteries and universities. Academics would write in Latin because they knew that their work would be accessible to their peers in other countries. The word caffea, for example, appears in texts in the early 18th century.