DOMITIAN'S TURBOT— Z.C7Pf7S 259 



It ran often to immense size. Martial's fish (XIII. 81), although 

 " latior patella," can hold no candle to the one presented to 

 Domitian.^ 



That Emperor, though deeming himself and insisting on 

 his subjects acclaiming him, of god-hke attributes, was not 

 equal to solving the knotty question of how to cook and to 

 serve his fish whole, " Derat pisci patinae mensura " — if its 

 proportions were in the same street with a Rhombus vouched 

 for by Rondolet, viz. three metres long, two broad, and one 

 thick, the fact excites no wonder — so he straightway summoned 

 a special meeting of the Senate. 2 



Discover, Montanus advises, a new Prometheus capable of 

 modelHng the amplest trencher instantly, but, since to a god 

 like Domitian (he flatteringly adds), offerings of huge fish 

 \vill frequently be made — 



" But, Caesar, thus forewarned make no campaign, 

 Unless some potters follow in your train." 



5. The Lupus ^ — Lahrax lupus — " common Bass " at Athens 

 enjoyed the choicest preference. Aristophanes absolutely 

 refused to be disturbed while feasting on a Milesian Labrax. 

 Archestratus eulogises it as " god-begotten " {BtoTraida). 

 During the early Roman Republic it indeed ranked (with 

 the Asellus) only second to the AcipenserA 



The fish throve best and grew fattest in sewage ; hence 

 those " from between the two bridges " of the Tiber were famed 



» Juv., IV. 37 fi. 



2 With this meeting compare that summoned post-haste by Nero in the 

 Revolution (which led to his death), when to anxious and breathless senators 

 he imparted the important news that he had just effected an improvement of 

 the hydraulic organ, by which the notes were made to sound louder and 

 sweeter. His i^fvp-qKa conflicts somewhat with the account in Suetonius 

 {Nero, 41). The Emperor evidently had a bent and a hking for mechanical 

 invention, for according to C. M. Cobern, New ArchcBological Discoveries, etc., 

 191 7, in one of his palaces were elevators which ran from the ground to the 

 top floor, and a circular dining-room which revolved with the sun. 



3 The part played by fish in recovering episcopal keys and rings has been 

 dwelt on elsewhere. Sad it is that in the case of St. Lupus the r6le is performed 

 not by his namesake fish, but by a barbel, in whose belly was found, just previous 

 to the return of the bishop to his See of Sens the selfsame ring which on being 

 exiled by Clothaire II. he had cast into the moat. Let us, disregarding all 

 geographical habitats, trust that Barbel was here an ichthyic inexactitude for 

 Lupus. Cf. S. Baring Gould, The Lives of the Saints. Vol. X. 7, Edinburgh. 

 1914. 



* Pliny. IX. 28. 



