266 THE NINE FISH MOST HIGHLY PRIZED 



being worn only by country folk) often employed for striking 

 a person. 1 



Then comes the other play on Lingidaca, which in its first 

 sense equals a chatterbox, and in its second the fish. 



Lysidamus : Soleas. Chalinus : Qui, quaeso, potius quam scul- 

 poneas, 

 Quibus battuatur tibi os, senex nequissime ? 

 Olympio : Vin' lingulacas ? Lysidamus : Quid opust, quando 

 uxor domi est ? 

 Ea lingulaca est nobis, nam numquam tacet.2 



To render the double punning of these lines has been a task 

 too hard even for the excellent Loeb Library. But Badham, 

 perhaps poeta nascitur, but here non fit, comes to the fore : 



" Fresh tongues for sale, who'll buy, who'll buy ? 

 Come, Sir, will you ? No, friend, not I ; 

 Of tongue enow at home I've got 

 In my old wife. Dame Polyglot." 



The Cestreus, or Mugil. My inclination to include this 

 fish among " The Nine Fish most highly prized " was checked 

 in part by Faber's placing it only in Class II., and in part by 

 the possible reproach, seeing that the glories of its cousin the 

 Mullus had been fully recounted, of " too much one family." 

 But as the fish possesses traits very individual, if not always 

 engaging, and as Athenaeus devotes to its gastronomic and other 

 properties no less than four chapters, ^ I cannot pass by it 

 without some comment. 



Its edible qualities vary with the place of its capture. 

 While the Mugil of Abdera, Sinope, and other clear-watered 

 places achieved high praise, its more frequent but muddy- 

 tasting brother of the lagoons formed the staple of one kind 

 of Tupixog. Their predilection for lagoons and brackish 

 water — evidenced by writers as far apart as Aristotle and 

 Apostohdes (1900 a.d.) — came about possibly from the fish 

 " breeding best where rivers run into the sea," or can be 

 accounted for by the belief that " Some of the grey mullet 



^ Terence, Eun., V. 7, 4. 



' Plautus, Casin. II. 8, 59 ff. 



3 Deipn, VII. 77-80 ; cf. Pausanias, IV. 34. 



