214 SURMULLET. 



a dainty so much esteemed, but who contented himself with 

 half of a fish, as all he was able to supply. Under these 

 circumstances the price might be expected to rise very high, 

 and accordingly a Mullet of two pounds (each pound amounting 

 to twelve ounces) was expected to bring its weight of silver. 

 This value, however, was often exceeded, and especially per- 

 haps when the fish had grown scarce in their own waters, 

 and in consequence were sought for on the distant coasts of 

 Corsica and the south of Sicily. At that time a thousand 

 sesterces Avere equal to three pounds of silver, and, according 

 to this reckoning, Juvenal speaks of a single Surmullet as 

 having obtained the price of almost fifty pounds; and if as 

 a satiric poet he may be suspected of exaggeration, his story 

 is confirmed by the more sober Suetonius, who tell us that 

 on one occasion three of these Mullets were sold for thirty 

 thousand sesterces, which made at least seventy pounds for 

 each fish. Juvenal remarks on examples of this nature, that 

 the fisherman might have been bought for less money than 

 his fish; and, according to Pliny, so might, in former days, 

 the cook that dressed it. 



According to the last-named author, Asinius Celer expended 

 sixty-five pounds in the purchase of a single Mullet; which 

 will render less extraordinary a story told of the Emperor 

 Tiberius, in which instance the price obtained will be ascribed 

 to the wish of contending courtiers to obtain the notice of 

 their prince, rather than to the fashionable value of the fish 

 itself. It appears that some one had obtained a Mullet which 

 reached the unusual weight of four pounds and a half, and 

 which he judged a proper present for the emperor; but the 

 latter, either from avarice or caprice gave command that it 

 should be carried to the market for public sale, where two 

 noblemen contended for the purchase until it reached the sum 

 of five thousand sesterces, or fifteen pounds of silver. But 

 people of a lower degree had similar aspirations; and an 

 Egyptian, who had been a slave and had obtained his freedom, 

 and afterwards been raised to the rank of a knight by the 

 Emperor Domitian, was rich enough, as well as sufficiently 

 ambitious, to pay six thousand sesterces for the fish. And 

 yet, stranger still, all of those examples must give way to 

 what is told of the Emperor Ileliogabalus, who, in a freak 



