10 plint's natural histokt. [Book XXXir. 



he states also that it grunts^ like a ho^ when taken. These 

 accidental varieties in the natural flavour of fish — a thing that 

 is still more surprising — may, in some cases, be owing to the 

 nature of the locality; an apposite illustration of which is, the 

 well-known fact that, at Beneventum^^ in Italy, salted provi- 

 sions of all kinds require^^ to be salted over again. 



CHAP. 10. WHEN SEA-FISH WERE FIEST EATEN BY THE PEOPLE OF 



HOME. THE ORDINANCE OF KING NIJMA AS TO FISH. 



Cassius Hemina informs us that sea-fish have been in use 

 at Rome from the time of its foundation. I will give his own 

 words, however, upon the subject : — *' Numa ordained that fish 

 withont^^ scales should not be served up at the Festivals of 

 the Gods ; a piece of frugality, the intention of which was, 

 that the banquets, both public and private, as well as the 

 repasts laid before the couches'" of the gods, might be pro- 

 vided at a smaller expense than formerly : it being also his 

 wish to preclude the risk that the caterers for the sacred 

 banquets would spare no expense in buying provisions, and so 

 forestall the market." 



CHAP. 1 1 . CORAL : FORTY-THREE REMEDIES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



In the same degree that people in our part of the world 

 set a value upon the pearls of India — a subject on which we 

 have already spoken'^ on the appropriate occasion at sufficient 

 length — do the people of India prize coral : it being the 

 prevailing taste in each nation respectively that constitutes 

 the value of things. Coral is produced in the Red Sea also, 



^^ Ajasson thinks that this notion may possibly have been derived from 

 the name, which not improbably was given to it from the spongy and 

 oleaginous nature of the flesh. 



6^ See B. iii. c. 16. 



^8 Owing, perhaps, to the moisture of the atmosphere. 



69 "We learn from Festus, that he prohibited the use also of the scarus, 

 a fish with scales. 



'0 "Ad pulvinaria." Literally, "At the cushions;" in reference to 

 the practice of placing the statues of the gods upon pillows at the Lectis- 

 ternia, which were sacrifices in the nature of feasts, at which images of 

 the gods were placed reclining on couches, with tables and food before 

 them, as if they were really partaking of the things ofi'ered in sacrifice. 

 Livy, B. V. c. 13. gives an account of a Lectisternium celebrated with great 

 pomp, which he asserts to have been the first instance of the practice. 



71 In B. ix. c. 54. 



