Marcus apicius biography

1st century AD Roman aristocrat and gourmet

For the cookbook see Apicius. For other people named Apicius see Apicius (disambiguation)

Marcus Gavius Apicius is believed to have been a Roman gourmet and lover of luxury, who lived sometime in the 1st century AD, during the reign of Tiberius.

The Roman cookbook Apicius is often attributed to him, though it is impossible to prove the connection. He was the subject of On the Luxury of Apicius, a famous work, now lost, by the Greek grammarian Apion.

M. Gavius Apicius apparently owed his cognomen (his third name) to an earlier Apicius, who lived around 90 BC, whose family name it may have been: if this is true, Apicius had come to mean "gourmand" as a result of the fame of this earlier lover of luxury.

Biography

Evidence for the life of M. Gavius Apicius derives partly from contemporary or almost-contemporary sources but is partly filtered through the above-named work by Apion, whose purpose was p