ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE OYSTER. 4.1 



by him, not for the gratification of gluttony, but of avarice, 

 as he contrived to make a large income by the exercise of 

 his ingenuity. He was the first, too, to invent hanging 

 baths, and after buying villas and trimming them up, he 

 would every now and then sell them again. 



He, too, was the first to adjudge the pre-eminence, 

 for delicacy of flavour, to the oysters of Lake Lucrinus ; 

 for every kind of aquatic animal is superior in one place to 

 what it is in another. Thus, for instance, the best wolf- 

 fish of the Tiber is caught between the two bridges, and 

 the turbot of Ravenna is the most esteemed, the muraena 

 of Sicily, the elops of Rhodes ; the same, too, as to the 

 other kinds, not to go through all the items of the culinary 

 catalogue. 



The British shores had not as yet sent their supplies 

 at the time when Grata thus ennobled the Lucrine ovsters ; 



J 



at a later period, however, it was thought worth while to 

 fetch oysters all the way from Brundisium, at the very 

 extremity of Italy ; and in order that there might exist no 

 rivalry between the two flavours, a plan had been recently 

 hit upon of feeding the oysters of Brundisium in Lake 

 Lucrinus, famished as they must naturally have been after 

 so long a journey." (/') 



We have here an early notice of people gathering 

 oysters from one locality and transplanting them to other 



stomach of its load by artificial means, and then returned to indulge 

 again their appetite with a fresh supply of oysters. Strange as it may 

 appear to us in the nineteenth century, this custom was universal 

 amongst the wealthy of Imperial Rome, Caesar himself often indulging 

 in it, when the repast was to his taste ; and ladies, the cream of the 

 cream of that luxurious period, carried about with them peacock's 

 feathers and other dainty throat ticklers for the purpose, when they 

 anticipated a more luxurious feed than usual." " The Oyster," p. 40. 

 (z) Nat. Hist., vol. 6, p. 469, ed. Bohn. 



