Chap. 31.] FISHES. 403 



M. Apicius, a man who displayed a remarkable degree of in- 

 genuity in everything relating to luxury, was of opinion, that 

 it was a most excellent plan to let the mullet die in the pickle 

 known as the " garum of the allies " 25 for we find that even 

 this has found a surname and he proposed a prize for any 

 one who should invent a new sauce, 26 made from the liver of 

 this fish. I find it much easier to relate this fact, than to state 

 who it was that gained the prize. 



CHAP. 31. ENORMOUS PRICES OF SOME FISH. 



Asinius Celer, ** a man of consular rank, and remarkable for 

 his prodigal expenditure on this fish, bought one at Borne, 

 during the reign of Caius, 28 at the price of eight thousand ses- 

 terces. 29 A reflection upon such a fact as this will at once lead 

 us to turn our thoughts to those who, making loud complaints 

 against luxury, have lamented that a single cook cost more 

 money to buy than a horse ; while at the present day a cook 

 is only to be obtained for the same sum that a triumph would 

 cost, and a fish is only to be purchased at what was formerly 

 the price for a cook ! indeed, there is hardly any living being 

 held in higher esteem than the man who understands how, in 

 the most scientific fashion, to get rid of his master's property. 



(18.) Licinius Mucianus relates, that in the Bed Sea there 

 was caught a mullet eighty 30 pounds in weight. What a price 



25 This anchovy, pickle, or fish-sauce, will be found more fully spoken 

 of in B. xxxi. c. 44. 



26 Alecem. See B. xxxi. c. 44. Seneca speaks of this cruel custom of 

 pickling fish alive, Qusest. Nat. B. iii. c. 17. "Other fish, again, they 

 kill in sauces, and pickle them alive. There are some persons who look 

 upon it as quite incredible that a fish should be able to live under-ground. 

 How much more so would it appear to them, if they were to hear of a fish 

 swimming in sauce, and that the chief dish of the banquet was killed at the 

 banquet, feeding the eye before it does the gullet ? " 



27 He may have been the son of C. Asinius Gallus, who was consul B.C. 

 8 ; but he does not appear to have ever been consul himself. 



28 The reign of the Emperor Caligula. 



29 Juvenal, Sat. iv. 1. 15, speaks of a mullet being bought for 6000 ses- 

 terces, a thousand for every pound, and Suetonius tells us that in the reign 

 of Tiberius three mullets were sold for 30,000 sesterces. It is in allusion 

 to this kind of extravagance that Juvenal says, in the same Satire, that it. 

 is not unlikely that the fisherman could be bought as a slave for a smaller 

 sum than the "fish itself. At the above rate, each of these mullets sold for 

 about 70 of our money. 



30 Cuvier says that although the mullet of the Indian Seas is in general 



