FISH— SACRED, DIVINATORY, SPICED 219 



were foreshadowed by the fighting of fish among themselves 

 in the vivaria belonging to Henry H. and Cromwell. ^ 



As is but natural in hot countries, the trade in salted and 

 pickled fish, the rapixot; of the Greeks, the salsamentum of the 

 Romans, grew to great importance. 2 



This sweet-sour comestible was among both nations early, 

 universal, and pushed to the extreme of madness. ^ In such 

 high esteem was it held that it came to be looked on as an 

 offering meet for the gods. Cato and others testify to the 

 exorbitant prices commanded by Pontic and kindred salsa- 

 mentum, of which a small flask fetched more than one hundred 

 sheep ! Of every kind — and they were as diverse as the 

 countries and towns that furnished them— we find champions 

 ready to go to the stake to prove the superiority of their own 

 pet choice. 



Of some towns it was the chief, if not the only, commerce. 

 As modern towns frequently bear for their arms or on their 

 seal some device connected with their history or trade, so 

 ancient seaports which produced salsamentum often stamped 

 their coins with the figures of fish, etc. 



Thus Olbia, one of the most important markets for salt or 

 pickled fish, bears on its money an eagle taking a fish,* while a 



1 The cause, sympathy with their owners, mentioned by Robinson, op>. 

 cit., 88-9, hardly recommends itself. 



* The Greek term, Tapixn, was applied to Conserves de viande et poisson— 

 but chiefly the latter. Salted fish was a food far commoner among the Latins 

 than among the Greeks (Daremberg and Sagho). Sausages — Isicia or 

 Insicia — were made from fish as well as meat. Of both there were, according 

 to Apicius (Bk. II.), many preparations, those from fish being in great demand. 



3 Nonnius, op. cit., p. 155. Apart from fashionable mania, the salsamentum 

 was used for very practical purposes, e.g. as food for the Athenian soldier on 

 campaign. Cf. Aristoph., Ach., iioi, 2. From the frequent notices and 

 quotations in Athena?us, Euthydemus the Athenian seems to have been the 

 most prohfic author on pickled fish. On him and his three treatises, see 

 Pauly-Winowa, Real. Enc. VI. 1505. 



* A propos of the fish-trade of Olbia, Koehler (in the Mdni. de I' Acad, des 

 Sciences de St. Petersburg. Vime serie, tome i, p. 347, St. Petersburg, 1832, as 

 quoted by E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks, Cambridge, 1913, p. 440) con- 

 cludes that preserved fish of every quality, from jars of precious pickle, corre- 

 sponding to our caviare or anchovy, to dried lumps answering to our stock- 

 fish were all sent to Greece, and later to Rome, from the mouths of Dnepr and 

 the sea of Azov. As regards some of the small copper coins of Olbia, Mr. G. F, 

 Hill, A Handbook of Greek and Roman Coins (London, 1899), p. 3, writes: " If 

 these are coins, they differ from the ordinary Greek coin only in the fact that, 

 instead of putting a fish type on a flan of ordinary shape, the whole coin was 

 made in the shape of a fish. Another explanation is suggested by the fact 



