_Lacedaemonian Black Broth_.--Your correspondent "W." in No. 11., is
amusing as well as instructive; but it does not yet appear that we must
reject the notion of coffee as an ingredient of the Lacedaemonian black
broth upon the score of _colour_ or _taste_.

That it _was_ an ingredient has only as yet been mooted as a
_probability_.

Pollux, to whom your correspondent refers us, says that [Greek: zomos
melas] was a Lacedaemonian food; and that it was called [Greek:
aimatia], translated in Scott and Liddell's _Lexicon_, "_blood-broth_."
These lexicographers add, "The Spartan black broth was made with blood,"
and refer to Manso's _Sparta_, a German work, which I have not the
advantage of consulting.

Gesner, in his _Thesaurus_, upon the word "jus," quotes the known
passage of Cicero, _Tusc. Disp_. v. 34., and thinks the "jus nigrum" was
probably the [Greek: aimatia], and made with an admixture of blood, as
the "botuli," the _black_ puddings of modern time, were.

Coffee would not be of much lighter colour than blood. A decoction of
senna, though of a red-brown, is sometimes administered in medicine
under the common name of a "_black_ dose."

As regards the _colour_, then, whether blood or coffee were the
ingredient, the mess would be sufficiently dark to be called "_black_."

In respect of _taste_, it is well known, from the story told by Cicero
in the passage above referred to, that the Lacedaemonian black broth was