214 FISH MANIA—VITELLIUS—APICIUS—COOKS 
garum made from the scomber was in Pliny’s words “ lauda- 
tissimum,’’ while the dun, or muria, fabricated from the 
intestines and nothing else of the tunny was cheap and inferior. 
Apart from their gastronomic popularity, the medical 
efficacy of the various gava as peaned by Pliny must, like the 
Waverley Pen, have “ come as a boon and a blessing to men,” 
in the wide range of their cures.!. For ulcers of the mouth 
and ears, one mirifice prodest. On the application of other 
gara, “‘ dumb-foundered flee away ’’ burns, blains, dysenteries, 
bites of dogs, maximeque crocodili, etc. Chapter 44 might 
indeed easily pass as the leaflet of an advance agent for a 
patent pill. 
With the knowledge and use of the various internal parts 
of fish, it is strange to find Caviare, made out of the roe of 
the Sturgeon, first in a recipe of the ninth century. Soft and 
hard roes then, as now, were generally exported, but as a 
separate article it became known only in Byzantine times.? 
With the hungry desire for fish among all classes and 
with the deep pockets of the rich enabling them to go to any 
extreme price, is it any wonder that the trade of a fishmonger 
at Athens and Rome was most lucrative? Several fish- 
mongers acquired large fortunes and high position. The 
Athenians even raised to the rank of citizens the sons of 
Cherephilus, for the adequate reason that he sold such 
excellent pickled fish ! 3 
At Athens, and probably at Rome, there existed a Society 
or Corporation of Fishmongers, akin to our own Fishmongers’ 
Company, one of the many trade guilds of medieval times. 
Its power and political pull often defeated or evaded the 
stringent regulations, which from time to time fixed the 
price of fish. In early times fish were sold by the fishermen 
themselves, as soon as the Fish-Market at Rome had been 
opened by the ringing of its bell. 
1 Cf, XXXI. 44, and XXXII. 25. 
2 If O.Keller, op. cit., 338, be right in his authorities, Blakey’s, ‘' the praise 
of Caviare is frequent,” is far astray. Despite the view of Hullmann’s Handels- 
gesch. d. Gr., 149, Athenzus deals merely with gavum and oxygarum, while the 
classical cookery books maintain a uniform silence. 
3’ Athen., III. go. 
