Short answers, pulled from the story.
Authorship of Apicius is disputed. One theory credits an otherwise unknown Caelius Apicius, based on a manuscript headed API CAE and recipe headings crediting a cook named Apicius. Another theory points to Marcus Gavius Apicius, a Roman gourmet who lived in the first century AD during the reign of Tiberius, though the book may instead have been assembled by several Roman cooks of that era.
Apicius may have been compiled in the fifth century AD or earlier. The presence of silphium, a plant thought to have gone extinct in the first century AD, supports an earlier date, but the food scholar Bruno Laurioux argues from textual analysis that the surviving version was not compiled until the fifth century, at the end of the Roman Empire.
Apicius is written in Latin, but its language shifts between eras. Earlier recipes use Classical Latin words such as iecur and fervere, while later recipes use Vulgar Latin words such as ficatum and bullire.
Apicius is organized into ten books, each carrying a Greek title. They include Epimeles (The Diligent), Sarcoptes (The Butcher), Cepuros (The Gardener), Pandectes (The Encyclopedia), and Tetrapus (four-legged animals), among others.
The Vinidarius excerpt is an abbreviated version of Apicius titled Apici excerpta a Vinidario, described as a pocket Apicius. It was compiled by a man named Vinidarius, called an illustrious man, as late as the Carolingian era, and survives in a single 8th-century uncial manuscript.
Apicius was first printed in 1498 in Milan, under the title In re quoquinaria, followed by a Venice edition in 1500. The long-standard scholarly edition was prepared by C. T. Schuch and published in Heidelberg in 1867.