i6o THE SCARUS— " FISHING PROHIBITED " 



in the time of Tiberius (or Octavius, according to Macrobius) 

 vast quantities at the Emperor's command were collected by 

 an Admiral of the Fleet and planted along the Ostian and 

 Campanian shores. 



Careful protection by land and sea rendered poaching 

 almost impossible. For the period of five years any scarus 

 caught in the nets had, under heavy penalties, to be returned 

 straightway to the water. The enforcement of these wise 

 regulations effected such mighty thriving of the fish, that "postea 

 frequentes inveniuntur Italiae in litore, non antea ibi capti ; 

 admovitque sibi gula sapores piscibus satis et novum incolam 

 mari dedit." 



This operation commands our comment, not merely on 

 account of its big success, but because it is the earliest and (as 

 far as I can discover) the only instance in all ancient literature, 

 certainly in Greek and Latin, of the acclimatisation of Jish (not 

 eggs) in the sea, and on a large scale. 



I do not include, though I do not forget, the large lucrative 

 planting of oysters in the Lucrine lake by Sergius Grata centuries 

 before. 1 Later on we shall read of the Romans carrying eggs, 

 naturally fertilised, from one water to another, and of the 

 Chinese 2 transporting vast quantities of similar eggs consider- 

 able distances. 



But their methods and operations differed from the Emperor's. 

 Pliny expressly states that the Admiral planted fish, not eggs 

 of fish, in the sea, not in fresh water, and in a new habitat 

 hundreds of miles from the old. 



To this planting or involuntary colonisation, Petronius — 

 seemingly, despite controversy, the " Elegantiae Arbiter," or the 

 not altogether Admirable Crichton, of Tacitus — probably alludes : 



" ultimus ab oris 

 Attractus scarus atque arata Syrtis 

 Si quid naufragio dedit, probatur." 3 



Poets and gourmets have vied in singing the praises of the 

 fish as the daintiest of dishes — " according to the Greeks to do 



J Pliny, IX. 79. 



- See J. B. Du Halde, Description gfographique . . . de I'Empire de la 

 Chine. . . . (Paris, 1735), vol. i. p. 36. 

 ^ Petron., Sat., 93, 2. 



