It is acknowledged even by his enemies, that in regard to wine he was abstemious. A remark is ascribed to Marcus Cato, "that Caesar was the only sober man amongst all those who were engaged in the design to subvert the government." In the matter of diet, Caius Oppius informs us, "that he was so indifferent, that when a person in whose house he was entertained, had served him with stale, instead of fresh, oil,1 and the rest of the company would not touch it, he alone ate very heartily of it, that he might not seem to tax the master of the house with rusticity or want of attention."
1 Plutarch tells us that the oil was used in' a dish of asparagus. Every traveller knows that in those climates oil takes the place of butter as an ingredient in cookery, and it needs no experience to fancy what it is when rancid.
Suetonius: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars; An English Translation, Augmented with the Biographies of Contemporary Statesmen, Orators, Poets, and Other Associates. Suetonius. Publishing Editor. J. Eugene Reed. Alexander Thomson. Philadelphia. Gebbie & Co. 1889.
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