Felicem diem natalem, Hadriane! 🎂

Happy 1948th birthday, Hadrian!

This year, I decided to cook Cato the Elder’s recipe for Libum (sweet cheesecake) as Hadrian’s birthday cake.

Libum (original recipe from LacusCurtius):

Bray 2 pounds of cheese thoroughly in a mortar; when it is thoroughly macerated, add 1 pound of wheat flour, or, if you wish the cake to be more dainty, ½ pound of fine flour, and mix thoroughly with the cheese. Add 1 egg, and work the whole well. Pat out a loaf, place on leaves, and bake slowly on a warm hearth under a crock.

Modern recipe (serves 2)

• 180-200g plain, all-purpose flour
• 225g ricotta cheese
• 1 egg, beaten
• bay leaves
• 1/2 cup clear honey

Sift the flour into a bowl. Beat the cheese until it’s soft and stir it into the flour along with the egg.  Form a soft dough and divide into 4. Mold each one into a bun and place them on a greased baking tray with a fresh bay leaf underneath. Heat the oven to 190°C/380°F and bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown. Warm the honey and place the warm cakes in it so that they absorb it. Allow to stand 30 minutes before serving.

In celebration of Hadrian’s birthday, I also opened a bottle of Conditum Paradoxum. This spiced and sweet Roman wine is today produced in Germany (you can buy it from der-Roemer-shop here) and is made according to a recipe from Apicius. Conditum was so prized by the Romans that it is the very first recipe in Apicius’s cookbook ‘De re coquinaria’.

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One thousand nine hundred years ago, Hadrian probably celebrated his 48th birthday in Nicomedia (Bithynia). After sailing along the southern Black Sea coast, possibly visiting the Pontic towns of Amisus, Sinope and Amastris (read here), Hadrian is thought to have spent the winter of AD 123/4 in Nicomedia before touring Asia Minor. During his stay in the Bithynian province, the Emperor probably visited several major cities, including Heraclea Pontica, Claudiopolis (former Bythinium), Prusias ad Hypium and Nicaea. During one of these visits, Hadrian met Antinous. He was to take the young Greek boy with him on his many travels as a cherished lover and companion (most likely from AD 128).

Nicomedia and Nicaea were only just recovering from the damage caused by a catastrophic earthquake. Hadrian took special care of the Bithynian province. He contributed to the reconstruction of both cities, as suggested by the new set of coins celebrating Hadrian as Restitutor Nicomediae (restorer of Nicomedia) and the long dedications above the eastern and northern city gates of Nicaea.

“To the emperor king Trajan Hadrian Augustus, son of the god Trajan Particus, grandson of the god Nerva, he who bears upon himself the authority of the people’s sovereignty, Nikaia, descended from the line of Dionysos and Herakles, the first (city) of Bithynia and Pontus, metropolis by the decrees of the emperors and the sacred Roman senate, offers the most pious Neokoros of the Augusti”. (IK Iznik 29)

The #Hadrian1900 blog post about Hadrian’s stay in Bithynia in early AD 124 will be published soon!

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