146 PLINY— MARTIAL— WAS THE ROD JOINTED? 



Concha Lucrini delicatior stagni, rendered by Paley " more 

 delicate " (in complexion) " than the mother-of-pearl in the 

 shell of the Lucrine oyster." ^ 



Others hold that concha is meant for the oyster itself. 

 One author, basing himself on the varying praises of the 

 particular beauties of the child, rhapsodises thus : " Oysters 2 

 so tender, so juicy, so succulent, so delicious, that the poet 

 could find no fitter comparison for a charming young girl ! " 

 But in the words of Jeffrey of the Edinburgh Review, " This will 

 never do." To twist the verse into a comparison of pleasure 

 derived from the sense of taste rather than of beauty from the 

 sense of sight passes the inadmissible, and unless Martial could 

 eat, or in Charles Lamb's word on a gift of game, " incorporate " 

 the pretty child, reaches the ludicrous. 



Martial shows up as a sportsman. Proud of a good day, 

 he knows — and tells us— what it is to be " blank " (" ecce redit 

 sporta piscator inani," Ep., X. 37, 17). That he is no " River 

 Hog " and quite eligible for some select club on the Test or 

 Itchen appears from his throwing back into his native river any 

 mullet which looked less than three pounds. 3 



The interest attaching to his Epigrams lies not only in the 

 evidence they afford of his and his friends' love for things 



1 Ep.. V. 37. 3. 



2 Pliny (XXXII., 21) and other writers show that epicures, then as now, 

 were divided as to which was the best oyster. Mucianus awards the palm over 

 all the other oysters to those from Cyzicus : " Cyzicena majora Lucrinis, 

 dulciora Britannicis, suaviora Medulis, acriora Lepticis, pleniora Lucensibus, 

 sicciora Coryphantenis, teneriora Istricis, candidiora Circeiensibus," but 

 Pliny in " Sed his neque dulciora neque teneriora esse ulla, compertum est," 

 evidently plumps for those of Circeii in Latium. The British oysters came 

 chiefly from Rutupia^ (in Kent), now Richborough, not far from our Whit- 

 stable of oyster fame. The castle and camps of Rutupia; and Regulbum were 

 built by the Romans to command and secure the entrance to the Thames by 

 the arm of the sea. which then separated Kent from the Isle of Thanet. These 

 oysters find mention in Juvenal (IV. 141), " Rutupinoque edita fundo Ostrea 

 callebat primo deprendere morsu." Dalecampius says of them, " Pra^stan- 

 tissima nutriunt." Our modern rule that no oyster should be eaten in a month 

 whose name lacks an r probably descends from the Mediaeval 



"Mensibus erratis vos ostrea manducatis." 

 » Ep., X. 37, 7 and 8, 



" Ad sua captivum quam saxa remittere mullum, 

 Visus erit libris qui minor esse tribus." 

 This is an attempt to show how large and plentiful the mullets were in Spain, 

 and is just hospitable swagger, for Pliny, N. H., IX. 30, states that a mullet 

 rarely exceeded two pounds. 



