222 FISH IN SACRIFICES— VIVARIA— ARCHIMEDES 



although it did not bulk so big in early Mediterranean religion 

 as L. Siret would make out. i 



The taxes or duties derived from fish or fishing furnished the 

 peculiar of the Temples at Delos, Ephesus, and elsewhere : at 

 Byzantium and some other places they went to the city. After 

 the Roman conquests these imposts were paid not to the cities 

 (Cyzicus and other places were the exceptions), but to the State, 

 and were gathered by the intermediary " publicans." 2 



With stories before him, such as those of the suppers recorded 

 by the dozen in Athenaeus, and given to and by the Emperor 

 Vitellius, for which the fish were brought in ships of war from 

 the Carpathian Sea and the Straits of Spain, it is no wonder 

 that a modern author is driven to conclude that the ancients 

 thought more of the edible than the sporting qualities of the 

 fish. They ransacked the habitable globe for side-dishes, but 

 did not trouble themselves about the precepts of Mrs. Glasse. 



Apart from this ransacking of the globe, the Romans 

 developed, as the demand for fish by rich and poor alike grew 

 ever greater, the Egyptian and Assyrian vivarium to a marvel- 

 lous extent. 



Built at first (as Columella avers ^) simply for the purpose 

 of supplying fresh fish for the table, they found such favour 

 that no self-respecting Roman could afford to be without his 

 vivarium. With the rich they were the occasion of most costly 

 ostentation and extravagant expenditure. 



Whether Sergius Aurata (or Grata) took or not his cognomen ^ 

 from the fish Aurata, all writers identify him as the first to 

 build a vivarium for oysters. From their sale, from the income 

 derived from the vapour baths {pensiles balineas), of which he 

 was also the pioneer, and from the villas erected on his property, 

 close to Baiae, the baths, and the oysters, he amassed an 



- L. Siret, Questions de chronologic et ethnographic ibe'riques (Paris, 1913), 

 Index, s.v. ' Poulpe.* 



^ Cf. Tacitus, Annals, XII. 63. 



' De Re Rustica, VIII. 16, " Our ancestors shut up saltwater fishes also in 

 fresh waters. For that ancient rustic progeny of Romulus and Numa valued 

 themselves mightily upon this and thought it a great matter, that, if a rural 

 life were compared with a city hfe, it did not come short in any part of riches 

 whatsoever." 



* " Orata," according to Festus, p. 196, 26 ff. Lindsay, " genus piscis 

 appellatur a colore auri, quod rustici ornm dicebant." 



