CHAPTER IV. 

 ANCIENT ESTIMATION OF FISH. 



Hoc pretiiim squamae ! pottiit fortasse minoris 

 Piscator, quam piscis, emi. Provincia tanti 

 Vendit agros; sed majores Apulia veudit. — Jwv. 



lA/ITH this brief notice we take leave of ancient 

 ' ' vivaria and modem ponds, and proceed to point 

 out the high esteem in which fish were held in the olden 

 time, when, independent of culinary honours, they en- 

 joyed immunities and privileges beyond every other class 

 of vertebrated creatures. 



Domesticated at Rome, and provided by their patri- 

 cian entertainers with baths in the principal bedrooms, 

 ' they swim about our cubilia,' says Seneca; ' we catch 

 them under our tables.^ Nor were fish forgotten in the 

 amphitheatre : while the gladiators [retiarii] cast nets, 

 and sought, like fishermen, to entangle their victims, 

 these myrmillones (so called from the fish mormyrus, 

 which they wore as a crest) advanced, and endeavoured 

 with a trident to transfix the retreating foe. ' One fa- 

 vourite fish (the sturgeon) was paraded with much pomp 

 in triumphal procession through the streets, moving to 

 the sound of military music, with a crown on his head.' 

 The Caesars patronized them: Augustus wore a dolphin 

 for his signet-ring, and after him a dozen of his succes- 

 sors struck fish on their coins. The mints of maritime 

 Greece were equally piscatory in their devices; words* 



* As thunnazein, literally to harpoon a tliumiy; second mean- 

 ing, to worry, teaze, or goad; mainesthai, from fiaivri or fuiivii 

 (the moon-fish), to go mad. 



D 



