SEA-FISH PREFERRED—TURBOT—PRICES 203 
If cost be a true criterion, this preference for salt-water 
fish continued as late as the fourth century. In Diocletian’s 
Edict, 301 A.D., fixing the price of food, etc., throughout the 
Empire, the maximum allowed for best quality sea-fish was 
nearly double that of best quality river-fish.! 
In both Greece and Rome fish became luxuries of the most 
expensive kind. Seas and rivers were scoured far and wide. 
No price was thought too extravagant for a mullet, a sturgeon, 
or a turbot ; three mullets of historical celebrity even fetched 
in Rome the almost incredible sum of £240 ! 2 
In spite of many laws and decrees made at Athens and at 
Rome (where the Censor often interfered 3 in cases of extrava- 
gance in dress, living, etc.) the prices, owing to the ingenuity 
of the sellers and the wild competition of the buyers, rose 
constantly higher. The plaint of Cato the Censor that things 
could not be well with a community, where “a fish fetched 
more than a bull,’’ was uttered in and of a generation, which 
in comparison with its successors looks frugal, even niggardly. 
Pliny records (N. H., IX. 31) “ octo milibus nummum unum 
mullum mercatum fuisse’’—one mullet equalled £64, or the 
price of nine bulls! He also says (N. #., 1X. 30) that mullets 
were plentiful and cheap when under 2 Ib., “a weight they 
rarely exceeded.’”’ Martial (E~., XIV. 97) confirms this in 
comptait 4 peine dans la consommation du poisson de mer: seules les anguilles 
du lac Copais avaient quelque renom. Mais la péche maritime eut toujours 
beaucoup plus d’importance.” Pliny, XXXII. 10: Pisces marinos in usu 
fuisse protinus a condita Roma. Philemon the comedian makes the cook in 
his play, ‘‘ The Soldier”’ (cited by Athen., VII. 32), bewail having for the feast 
mere, 
“‘ river fish, eaters of mud ; 
If I had had a scare or bluebacked fish from Attic waters 
T should have been accounted an immortal!” 
1 See infra, p. 287. 
2 Suetonius (Tib., 34), ‘‘ Tresque mullos triginta milibus nummum.” A 
thousand sesterces, in the time of Augustus, equalled £8 17s. 1d., but later 
only £7 15s. 1d. For convenience I take 1000 sesterces as roughly equivalent 
to about £8 os. od. 
% An amusing instance of official. interference is recorded in Apuleius, 
Metamorhp. 1, 18. Lucius, the hero of the story, tries to buy some fish for 
dinner from a fishmonger at Hypata in Thessaly, who demanded 100 nummi 
(denarii): after much haggling, 20 denarii’s worth is bought and being 
taken home, when the local zdile intervenes, seizes the parcel on account of 
the extravagant charge, and destroys the fish in the presence of the seller, 
The result, which Lucius bewails, was loss of both dinner, and denarii / 
P 
