BOOK IX.] History of Nature. 1 33 



Rboetia among the Alps, called Brigantius ; and yet they are 

 equal to those of the Sea. Of the other Fishes the Mullus 1 

 is the best, as well in Excellency and Favour as in Plenty ; 

 but they are only of moderate Size, for it is uncommon to 

 find them weigh above two Pounds : nor will they grow in 

 Store-Ponds. They are bred only in the North Sea; and 

 never in the nearest Coast of the West Ocean. Moreover, of 

 this Fish there are several Sorts. And they live on Sea- 

 weeds, Oysters, Mud, and the Flesh of other Fishes. They 



1 Mullus surmuletus, and M. barbatus. LINN. Surmullet. Among 

 the Romans this fish was indispensable at tables which made any preten- 

 sions to fashion ; and at the same time it was the most costly of all their 

 dishes : so that it is referred to by the poets as a glaring example of the 

 extravagance that pervaded the city. When this first reached the weight 

 of two pounds, the ordinary price was its own weight in silver. Horace 

 mentions as enormous one which weighed three pounds; though this 

 does not exceed what the Editor has seen on the coast of Cornwall. Two, 

 which were caught nearly together, weighed two and two-and-a-quarter 

 pounds avoirdupois : the latter being precisely the weight of Horace's 

 fish of thirty -six ounces. Martial speaks of a Surmullet of four pounds ; 

 and Seneca relates a story of the avarice of Tiberius, who sent a mullet 

 weighing four-and-a-half pounds to market, where, perhaps to flatter the 

 emperor, two noblemen contended who should purchase it ; by which it 

 reached the price of 5000 sesterces. Juvenal, perhaps with exaggeration, 

 speaks of one that weighed six pounds. Suetonius states, that for three 

 of these fishes was paid at one time 30,000 sesterces; and Martial wrote 

 an epigram on one who sold a servant to raise the means of making 

 a sumptuous supper, at which the principal dish, and the one that swal- 

 lowed up the chief expense, was the enormous Surmullet above-men- 

 tioned. (B. x. Ep. 30.) Those who wished to ape the great, without 

 sufficient means, were obliged to be satisfied with half a mullet. " Mul- 

 lum dimidium, lapumque totum, mursenaeque latus " (Martial) : the 

 " side " of murasna being on the same scale of stinted luxury. When an 

 epicure was asked whether these prices were not absurd, he replied that 

 two morsels of the fish were worth the expense : the head and the liver. 

 The latter formed a delicious sauce ; but the head must have been valued 

 only because there was so little in it. Attempts were made to breed these 

 fishes in ponds ; but tiiey could not bear the confinement ; so that not 

 Only did they cease to grow in size, but not more than one or two in a 

 thousand continued alive. 



The fish mentioned at the beginning of the next chapter, as a mullet 

 of the Red Sea, must have been of another species, and even genus. 

 Wern. Club. 



