Book 13
11
And he does not omit to tell what the nature of the dessert ought to be. For he uses these words: Those sweetmeats (bellaria) are sweetest which are not sweet; An example of Varro's fondness for word-plays; sweetest is used in the double sense of sweetest to the taste and pleasantest in their after-effects. for harmony between delicacies and digestion is not to be counted upon.
11
That no one may be puzzled by the word bellaria which Varro uses in this passage, let me say that it means all kinds of dessert. For what the Greeks called pe/mmata or tragh/mata, our forefathers called bellaria. mensa secunda bellariorum occurs in the Transactions of the Arval Brethren for May 27, A.D. 218. In the earlier comedies p. 144, 65, Ribbeck 3. one may find this term applied also to the sweeter wines, which are called Liberi bellaria, or sweetmeats of Bacchus.
12
That the tribunes of the commons have the right to arrest, but not to summon.
