SEA-FISH PREFERRED— TURBOT— PRICES 203 



If cost be a true criterion, this preference for salt-water 

 fish continued as late as the fourth century. In Diocletian's 

 Edict, 301 A.D., fixing the price of food, etc., throughout the 

 Empire, the maximum allowed for best quality sea-fish was 

 nearly double that of best quality river-fish. ^ 



In both Greece and Rome fish became luxuries of the most 

 expensive kind. Seas and rivers were scoured far and wide. 

 No price was thought too extravagant for a mullet, a sturgeon, 

 or a turbot ; three mullets of historical celebrity even fetched 

 in Rome the almost incredible sum of i2^<d ! 2 



In spite of many laws and decrees made at Athens and at 

 Rome (where the Censor often interfered ^ in cases of extrava- 

 gance in dress, hving, etc.) the prices, owing to the ingenuity 

 of the sellers and the wild competition of the buyers, rose 

 constantly higher. The plaint of Cato the Censor that things 

 could not be well with a community, where "a fish fetched 

 more than a bull," was uttered in and of a generation, which 

 in comparison with its successors looks frugal, even niggardly. 



Pliny records (.V. H., IX. 31) " octo milibus nummum unum 

 muUum mercatum fuisse " — one mullet equalled l^/\, or the 

 price of nine bulls ! He also says {N . H.,IX. 30) that mullets 

 were plentiful and cheap when under 2 lb., " a weight they 

 rarely exceeded." Martial {Ep., XIV. 97) confirms this in 



comptait k peine dans la consommation du poisson de mer : seules les anguilles 

 du lac Copais avaient quelque renom. Mais la peche maritime eut toujours 

 beaucoup plus d'importance." Pliny, XXXII. lo : Pisces marines in usu 

 fuisse protinus a condita Roma. Philemon the comedian makes the cook in 

 his play, " The Soldier " (cited by Athen., VII. 32), bewail having for the feast 

 mere, 



" river fish, eaters of mud ; 



If I had had a scare or bluebacked fish from Attic waters 



I should have been accounted an immortal ! " 



1 See infra, p. 287. 



* Suetonius (Tib., 3^), " Tresque mullos tnginta mihbus nummum." A 

 thousand sesterces, in the time of Augustus, equalled ^^8 17s. id., but later 

 only £7 15s. id. For convenience I take 1000 sesterces as roughly equivalent 

 to about £'8 OS. od. 



3 An amusing instance of official interference is recorded in Apuleius, 

 Metamorhp. I. 18. Lucius, the hero of the story, tries to buy some fish for 

 dinner from a fishmonger at Hypata in Thessaly, who demanded 100 nummi 

 (denarii) : after much haggling, 20 denarii's worth is bought and being 

 taken home, when the local aedile intervenes, seizes the parcel on account of 

 the extravagant charge, and destroys the fish in the presence of the seller. 

 The result, which Lucius bewails, was loss of both dinner, and denarii J 



P 



