PISH SAUCES. 69 



the far-famed scomber, and the black and red garums, 

 in general use, a garum piperatum* is mentioned by 

 Petronius Arbiter, and a very costly elixir called aima- 

 teon, or blood sauce, because it was formed of the gore 

 and entrails of the thunny, crammed into a vessel her- 

 metically closed and drawn off when decomposition was 

 complete ; another Icind, made of lupus, msenades, sma- 

 rades, and other scaly fish, was used, says Pliny, by cer- 

 tain superstitious votaries to keep themselves chaste; 

 and he adds that the Jews, who may not eat fish but 

 with fins and scales, employed this kind in their reli- 

 gious rites and ceremonies. Garum was everywhere 

 held in the highest esteem; and notwithstanding the 

 number of different fish used in the preparation, the 

 demands were so constant, that dealers sought to in- 

 crease the quantity, and heighten the flavour, by mixing 

 with it a variety of other fluid ingredients — as oil, wine, 

 vinegar, or water; whence it took the several names of 

 elaiogarum, oinogarum, oxygarum, hydrogarum, and each 

 of these particular erases had its admirers, who used it 

 not -only as a ^fish-sauce at table, but as a liqueur that 

 might be indulged in at all hours of the day;t rich men 



called leucrocorum, originally inveiited by a Greek sailor, who 

 having ' tapped tlie admiral,' — that is, bored tkrouglitbe cask, and 

 abstracted a portion of tlie contents, replaced the deficiency by an 

 equal quantity of sea-water, producing a compound so highly ap- 

 proved of, that the people of Cos, Lesbos, and Khodes, taking the 

 bint, mixed a large quantity of brine with all their vintages, and 

 made a species of marine wine much esteemed by connoisseurs. 



* Pepper was by no means a common ingredient in the cookery 

 of the ancients, being, as Plutarch says, 'spurned and disliked;' 

 so that men were debarred the free use of lemon-juice, of which 

 it would have been the corrective. 



+ A pint per diem was the camp allowance of the pro-Emperor 

 Aurelian, when a private in the service of Valerian; this suggests 

 the propriety of the second reading of ' garum asotorum,' or sots' 

 sauce, in place of the common one, garum sotiorum, or allies' 



