254 FISHERIES OF THE ORIENTAL REGION. 



43-44. This uncertainty as to the proper form points to a foreign 

 origin for the word, for which an otherwise unknown fish, ydpos, is 

 evidently invented to account. Pliny (I.e.) also gives a string of 

 confused notes upon the subject, taken as it seems from his 

 commonplace book, and set down with several errors, omissions, and 

 misplacements. It is, however, plain from this author, as well as 

 from allusions in Horace and Martial, that Garum was obtained 

 from the Spanish peninsula, and mainly at Carthagena. It was 

 believed to have been originally made, like the Italian Halec, of 

 small fish, but finally at least the best quality of Scomber. This is 

 certainly not Mackerel, but according to Pliny's description, H.N., 

 IX., 19, perhaps the Cori/phoena, commonly called Dolphin. This 

 looks like the advertisement of a manufacturer. The splendour of 

 colour for which this fish is renowned would to a Roman imagina- 

 tion assuredly suggest some more exquisite flavours than could be 

 found in more homely fish, and this prejudice the foreign pickle 

 merchant would of course turn to his own advantage. Anyhow, 

 it is plain that the Romans knew nothing for certain about its 

 manufacture, but that they obtained what they called Muria — 

 made from Tunny — from Byzantium ; that Halec was prepared 

 in Italy from all sorts of fish, and that Garum was i*egarded as 

 infinitely superior to either. The Phoenician origin of Carthagena, 

 and the Eastern commerce of the Phcenicians, reaching as far as 

 Ceylon and Malacca,* might reasonably account for the introduc- 

 tion of an Oriental term into the dictionary of trade ; and since 

 the word is evidently foreign to Latin and Greek, the hypothesis 

 of a Malay origin for Garum seems probable enough. 



I^ote. — A description of the mode of manufacture is, it must be 

 observed, given in the " Geoponica," at the end of Book XX. ; 

 but the work, compiled about a.d. 800, is of slight authority, and 

 is practically anonymous ; although, indeed, the account tallies 

 well with the quotation given above from Cratinus, which con- 

 tains the first mention of the word. 



* For the ancient commerce of Ceylon, see " Heeren's Asiatic Nations," 

 Vol. II., Appendix XI. 



