204 FISH MANIA— VITELLIUS—APICIUS— COOKS 



his " Do not dishonour your gold serving-dish by a small 

 mullet : none less than two pounds is worthy of it." In pro- 

 portion as they exceeded this, they grew in value. 



One would imagine that Nature had fallen in with the 

 caprice of the Romans, for the fish seems to have grown larger 

 in the decline of the Empire, as if to humour the extravagance 

 of this degenerate people. Horace thought he had pretty 

 well stigmatised the frantic folly of his glutton by a mullet of 

 3 lbs, {Sat., II. 2, 33) ; but the next reign furnished one of 

 4| lbs., which presented to and sold at auction by the Emperor 

 Tiberius was bought by Octavius for ^^40 (Seneca, Ep., XCV. 

 42), while in Juvenal, IV. 15 f., we have one of 6 Ibs.^ 



How long the passion for these big mullets lasted it is 

 impossible to tell, but Macrobius, speaking with indignation of 

 one purchased by Asinius Celer in the reign of Claudius for 

 £$6 (in PUny, A^. H., IX. 31, I find the price was ^64 !), declares 

 that in his time (fifth century a.d.) such mad prices had 

 vanished. 



Alongside of Pliny's caustic comment 2 that the price of 

 a victorious Triumph equalled that of a cook, or a fish, can 

 be set the lament of the Greek comedians that for some fish 

 one had to pay 'i(tov <<t(ij, i.e. for weight avoirdupois you 

 handed over a similar weight in money or, as Mayor neatly 

 renders it, " £ for lb." This gibe at the pubHc mania sprang 

 from bitter personal experience. At Rome, too, we read " of 

 those who sell rare fish for their weight in money." 



Does not Martial's savage outburst on a glutton who had 

 sold a slave for ;^io to procure a dinner, which was not really 

 a good one because nearly all the money was spent on a mullet — 



" Non est hie, improbe, non est 

 Piscis : homo est ; hominem, Calliodore, comes," 



apply with greater force to " the men-eaters" who purchased 

 mullets for ;^4o or ;^6o each ? ^ 



^ See Mayor's Juvenal and Gifford's Trans., IV. 15. In Pliny, IX. 31, 

 Mutianus speaks of a mullet which was caught in the Red Sea, weighing 

 80 lbs. The comment of I. D. Lewis (on Juv., IV. 15 f.) that this fish " is 

 utterly fabulous," is not the voice of one crying in the wilderness. 



* iX. 31, "at nunc coci triumphorum pretiis parantur, et coquorum pisces." 



» Ep., X. 31 f. 



