264 THE NINE FISH MOST HIGHLY PRIZED 



were divinatory pebbles shaken in the glittering caldron of 

 Apollo. These sacred associations are all suggested by the 

 language of our enthusiast : 



" It is not meet for every man to taste, 

 Nor see it with his eyes. Nay, he must hold 

 The hollow woven-work of marsh-grown wicker 

 And rattle pebbles in his glittering count," 



But the words, though reminiscent of actual cult, have a double 

 entendre and are meant to bear a more mundane meaning. In 

 plain prose, then, " it needs a wealthy man with capacious 

 cash-box (literally a basket, fiscus) and a rattling big bank- 

 account (pebbles to reckon L. S. D.) to afford such a luxury 

 as this ! " 



Not far behind it among Greek epicures came the Glaucus, 

 possibly the sea-grayhng, of whose " most precious head " 

 Anaxandrides is enamoured, and Antiphanes and Julius 

 Pollux write with appreciative gusto. But are not all things 

 about the Glaucus written in the seventh book of the Deipno- 

 sophistcB, chapters 45, 46, and 47 ? 



g. T\\.eBuglossiis, or Lingulaca {Solea vulgaris, the " Sole " ^), 

 alike at Rome and at Athens the most prized, if not the most 

 lauded in verse, of the Flatfish, held rank as high as an}', 

 actually far higher than its so-called cousin, the Passer. 



Although Xenocrates and Galen differ as to the firmness 

 or reverse of its flesh — I wonder whether the latter got hold 

 of a Lemon Sole ! — the ancient agrees with the modern faculty 

 in accounting it " very nourishing, and of most pleasant 

 flavour." 2 It then as now was almost always the first fish 

 ordered, "as soon as men be sick or ill at ease " in Plutarch's 

 time and words. 



1 See Stephanus, Thesaurus Cycbccc Lingua, ii. 347 c-d. 



- Badham (plagiarising Blaikie), on p. 364 — in " Galen, Xenocrates, 

 Diphilus speak disparagingly of the Sole," is inaccurate. Xenocrates terms 

 its flesh indigestible. Galen states that it is quite the reverse, and commends 

 it highly as a diet. Diphilus does not hesitate to declare that the Sole affords 

 abundant nourishment and is most pleasing to the taste. Cf. Nonnius, p. 89. 

 In the case of a Sole with its customarily modest dimensions it is not easy 

 to hearken unto the command, which was laid down in the twelfth century 

 for the benefit of Robert, the so-called King of England, " Anglorum Regi 

 bcripsit schola tota Salcrni," by " the Schoolc of Salernes most learned and 



