10 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



any great size, they did not hesitate to pay its weight in gold if it 

 was unusually large. Seneca and Suetonius have given us, in their 

 writings, descriptions of the extravagant taste in the preparation of 

 the mullet for the table of the rich. We read there how each guest, 

 with the most refined cruelty, looked upon the mullet destined for 

 his own dish, die before him, in order to enjoy the rapid change 

 of brilliant hues which the fish then exhibited. The wildest fancies 

 that the most extravagant luxury could imagine were realized in pre- 

 paring it for the table. The freedmen who were intrusted with the 

 preparation of the mullet enjoyed the greatest privileges, and a good 

 cook was often better paid than a good general. Mullets were served 

 on dishes lavishly adorned with precious stones, and the most costly 

 spices were used in cooking them. During the reign of Heliogabalus, 

 extravagance reached such a height that this emperor, who had become 

 tired of mullets, although at that time they were growing scarce, ordered 

 (according to Lampridius) a dish to be prepared consisting of nothing 

 else but the mouth-fibers of mullets. It may well be imagined what an 

 enormous quantity was required to satisfy this morbid taste. 



" Mullets from the straits of Gades (the straits of Gibraltar or the 

 straits of the Pillars of Hercules) enjoyed the greatest reputation. 



Dat rhombos Sinuessa, Dicarchea littora pagros, 

 Herculese nmllum rupes .... 



" Scarcely less famous were those from the sea around Sicily and Cor- 

 sica. According to Seneca, (epist. 95,) the Emperor Tiberius sold at 

 auction a mullet, weighing four pounds, to Apicius and Octavius jointly, 

 for the sum of 4,000 sesterces, ($156.) This fish, which can easily be 

 recognized, is very frequently represented on the fresco paintings which 

 have been dug out from the ruins of Herculaneum and Portici." 



Though not exposed to the same cruelties as the mullet, there was 

 another fish which almost equaled it in costliness: — 



THE SCARUS. 



The scarus, a fish of the labroid family, was, according to Pliny, (Hist. 

 Nat., ix, 17; xxx, 10,) originally found only in the iEgean Sea. But 

 in the time of the emperors, when the simplicity of former days degen- 

 erated into extravagance and luxury, the wrasse was brought from 

 Greece to adorn the tables of the wealthy Eomans. One of the freed- 

 men of the Emperor Claudius, Elipertius Optatus, who commanded a 

 Eoman fleet in the Ionian Sea, brought a large quantity of these fish to 

 the coast of Italy, where they were put into the water near Ostia, at 

 the mouth of the Tiber. For five years all fishermen who caught such 

 fish in their nets were ordered to throw them into the sea again ; and 

 the consequence was, that that portion of the sea, aud even the Tiber 

 itself, as far' as the gates of Rome, swarmed with them. This attempt 

 to transplant fish proved so entirely successful, that these transplanted 



