Baron Cuvier on the Mullets of Europe. ^, 



L. 48 SteirUng), and which weighed nearly ^Ibs. Asinius 

 Celer, as Pliny relates, bought one for 8000 sesterces (about 

 L. 64 Sterling) in the time of Caligula. But the dearest of 

 all are those of which Suetonius speaks, which, three in num- 

 ber, brought 30,000 sesterces (about L. 243 Sterling) : which 

 circumstance induced Tiberius to enact sumptuary laws, and 

 to tax provisions brought to public market. Cuvier conjec- 

 tures that three individuals of large size being oifered for 

 sale at once had thus enhanced the pric^. 



These large mullets came from the sea, and perhaps from]dis- 

 tantfishing-grounds. Though the Romans kept mullets in their 

 fish-ponds, and even tamed them so as to come at their master's 

 call, Pliny says they did not thrive. Their domestication was 

 attended with extraordinary expence, for this fish supports 

 confinement with difficulty, and scarcely one, says Columella, 

 survives of many thousands. 



It would be difficult to explain why Hortensius, as related 

 by Varro, took so much trouble to preserve in his ponds fishes 

 which the neighbouring seas afforded in such abundance, were 

 it not known that one of the refinements of Roman luxury 

 was, to have them in artificial rivulets under their tables, and 

 to see them die in vases of glass, that they might observe the 

 changes which the brilliant colours of the mullet underwent 

 in its dying agonies. Cicero, in one of his letters to Atticus, 

 sadly deplores this puerile taste of the wealthy Romans ; and 

 Seneca makes long declamations against it, at a period when 

 this amusement might have seemed innocent, as compared with 

 the other aberrations of a people surfeited with enjoyment. 



It may be interesting to the general reader to quote one of 

 the passages which Cuvier gives from Seneca, as illustrative 

 of the feelings with which the rich Romans surveyed the chang- 

 ing colours of the dying mullet. " Nothing is finer, it is said, 

 than an expiring mullet. The efforts which it makes against 

 death spread over all its body the most brilliant red, which 

 afterwards terminates in a general paleness ; but in this pas- 

 sage from life to death, how many shades of these two colours 

 are intermingled ! — It has been said formerly, that nothing is 

 better than a mullet taken among rocks. To-day they say 

 nothing is finer than an expiring mullet. — Hand me this vase 



