CAC´CABUS
CAC´CABUS less correctly CACABUS, a cooking-pot. The statement of Varro,
L.
L. 5.127, “vas ubi coquebant cibum, ab eo caccabum
appellarunt,” may be accepted in proof of the meaning of the
word, however absurd as an etymology. The Greek forms
κακκάβη and
κάκκαβος both
occur in the Comic Fragments, and the former is as old as Aristophanes (see
Liddell and Scott's
Lexicon, and compare Phrynichus, p. 427,
Lobeck; p. 496, Rutherford).
The different processes of boiling and frying are not always clearly
distinguished in the ancient kitchen (cf. SARTAGO;
Mayor on
Juv. 10.64; Mommsen-Marquardt, 7.636).
It seems certain, however, that the
caccabus was
used for boiling meat, vegetables, &c.; and that it was placed
immediately upon the fire, or upon a trivet (
tripus）
standing over it. It is thus distinguished from the
AENUM which was suspended over the fire (Serv. on
Aen. 1.213; Paul.
Dig. 33, 7, 18.3); and
from the
AUTHEPSA which was
probably not used for cooking at all. The material varied. Athenaeus, in an
enumeration of
σκεύη μαγειρικά, mentions
the
κακκάβη as equivalent to the
χύτρα, i.e. earthen cooking-pot or pipkin (4.169
c); and so usually in Latin (
fictilis,
Marquardt,
l.c.; Colum.
R. R. 12.41).
But
caccabi were also sometimes of metal;
stanneus, doubtless, as in modern times, of tinned
iron or block tin, Colum.
R. R. 12.42.1;
aeneus, ib. 12.48.1;
arqgenteus,
Ulpian in
Dig. 34, 2, 19.12.
[
W.W]
