It is quite bizarre that a culture so besotted with food and all things relating to the stomach and the senses should have left but one cookery book. The curious, therefore, must resort to other sources of inspiration for information about the Romans at table. Not least among these sources is the poetry of men such as Horace, Martial, Juvenal, Catullus, Ovid, Livy and Seneca, here translated with grace and aplomb by the Latin scholar and poet Alistair Elliot. This work contains the Latin and English as parallels on facing pages. Alistair Elliot is a classical teacher and scholar, as well as a recognized poet.