I04 OYSTERS UNDER THE ROMANS chap. 



The vast heaps of empty shells known as ' kitchen-middens,' 

 occur in almost every part of the world. They are found in 

 Scotland, Denmark, the east and west coasts of North America, 

 Brazil, Tierra del Fuego, Australia and New Zealand, and are 

 sometimes several hundred yards in length. They are invariably 

 composed of the edible shells of the adjacent coast, mixed with 

 bones of Mammals, birds, and fish. From their great size, it 

 is believed that many of them must have taken centuries to 

 form. 



Pre-eminent among existing shell-fish industries stands the 

 cultivation of the oyster and the mussel, a more detailed account 

 of which may prove interesting. 



The cultivation of the oyster ^ as a luxury of food dates at 

 least from the gastronomic age of Rome. Every one has heard 

 of the epicure whose taste was so educated that 



" he could tell 

 At the first mouthful, if his oysters fed 

 On the Rutupian or the Lucrine bed 

 Or at Circeii." 2 



The first artificial oyster-cultivator on a large scale appears 

 to have been a certain Roman named Sergius Orata, who lived 

 about a century B.C. His object, according to Pliny the elder,^ 

 was not to please his own appetite so much as to make money 

 by ministering to the appetites of others. His vivaria were situ- 

 ated on the Lucrine Lake, near Baiae, and the Lucrine oysterfe 

 obtained under his cultivation a notoiiety which they never 

 entirely lost, although British oysters eventually came to be 

 more highly esteemed. He must have been a great enthusiast 

 in his trade, for on one occasion when he became involved in a 

 law-suit with one of the riparian proprietors, his counsel declared 

 that Orata's opponent made a great mistake if he expected to 

 damp his ardour by expelling him from the lake, for, sooner 

 than not grow oysters at all, he would grow them upon the roof 

 of his house.* Orata's successors in the business seem to have 

 understood the secret of planting young oysters in new beds, for 



1 Much information has been derived, on this subject, from Bertram's Har- 

 vest of the Sea, Siinmonds' Commercial Products of the Sea, the publications of 

 the Fisheries Exhibition, especially vol. xi. (Anson and Willett) ; see also Fhil- 

 pots, Oysters and all about them. 



'^ Juvenal, Sat. iv. 140-142. a Hist. Nat. ix. 79. * Val Max. ix. 1. 



