THE OTSTEK. 21 



CHAPTER II. 



AT^CIENT HISTORY OF THE OTSTEE. 



The Ancients ; Oysters a Greek and Koman Luxury ; Sergius 

 Grata and the Oyster-beds of Baia ; Immense Consump- 

 tion at Rome ; Failure of the Circean and Lucrinian 

 Oyster-beds under Domitian, and Introduction of Rutupians 

 fi'om Britain ; Agi'icola, Constantine, and Helena ; Athenian 

 Oysters and Ai'istides. 



HORACE, Martial, and Juvenal, Cicero and Seneca, 

 Pliny, ^tius, and tlie old Greek doctor Oribasius, 

 whom Julian the Apostate delighted to honour, and 

 other men of taste amongst the ancients, have enlarged 

 upon the various qualities of the oyster; and was it 

 not to Sergius Grata that we owe our present oyster- 

 beds ; for he it was who introduced layers or stews for 

 oysters at Baia, the Brighton of ancient Rome, as we 

 have them at present. That was in the days when 

 luxury was rampant, and when men of great wealth, like 

 Licinius Crassus, the leviathan slave merchant, rose to 

 the highest honours; for this dealer in human flesh 

 in the boasted land of liberty, served the of&ce of consul 

 along with Pompey the Great, and on one occasion re- 

 quired no less than 10,000 tables to accommodate all 

 his guests. How many barrels of oysters were eaten at 

 that celebrated dinner, the ''Ephemerides" — as Plutarch 

 caUs ''The Times" and '' Morning Post" of that day- 

 have omitted to state; but as oysters then took the 



