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The Oyster Culture of the Ancient Romans. 



By 



R. T. Giinther, M.A., 

 Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. 



With Plate I. 



While engaged in the examination of some vase pictures which have 

 been stated to represent certain parts of the shores of the Bay of 

 Pozzuoli as it existed in Roman times, I was struck by two drawings of 

 lioraan oyster culture grounds, or ostrearia, which seem to me to be of 

 considerable interest, not only as aftbrdiug us direct information con- 

 cerning the method of oyster culture employed by the Eomans in the 

 neighbourhood of Baia3, but also because they show clearly that that 

 method was the same as the one which still survives and is still carried 

 on, in common with so many other Roman customs in the same locality, 

 exactly as it was nearly two thousand years ago. 



Our knowledge of the methods pursued by the Romans in the 

 cultivation of oysters is derived from two sources. In the first place 

 we meet with scattered allusions to oysters and their cultivation in 

 many classical authors ; and secondly, there are still preserved to us 

 certain vases decorated with views of the apparatus employed in oyster 

 culture. 



Although passages alluding to oysters are fairly numerous, Latin 

 authors seem to have found their gastronomic qualities a more attrac- 

 tive theme than their natural history. Some, however, surprise us with 

 the close and careful observation displayed by their remarks. 



The credit of having been the first to lay out artificial oyster beds is 

 commonly given to 0. Sergius Grata. Grata was Praetor in 97 B.C., and 

 was one of the most noted connoisseurs in the matter of oysters in his 

 time. We read in Valerius Maximus that he closed the Lucrine Lake 

 with extensive and lofty buildings, in order that the molluscs 

 (conchylia) might always be obtainable in a fresh condition. The 

 works undertaken by Grata were evidently necessary to preserve the 

 tranquillity of the waters of the oyster grounds, because it is probable 



