CHAPTER XVIII 
THE NINE FISH MOST HIGHLY PRIZED 
I suBJOIN a list of the nine fish which found most favour in 
Greece and Rome. This, although necessarily rough and tenta- 
tive, can (I believe), be justified by an examination of our 
authors.! To anyone who on the strength of one author may 
be dissatisfied with the place allotted to a particular fish, I 
would point out that since the oracles of taste vary with the 
ages, it is essential to hold in mind the exact date at which a 
passage was written. 
Then, again, the Greek saw not eye to eye, or ate not 
tooth to tooth, with the Roman. The verdict of the opsopha- 
gists or, as these often differed, of the plain people of one 
century not infrequently reversed that of the last. 
As with us at the present day it is hardly feasible to adjudge 
definitely to what fish belongs the primacy of palate, so was 
it with the ancients. In the case of the Greeks the task is 
impossible. Every one of our nine can boast at least half a dozen 
champions. Then, again, as regards the epoch of individual 
supremacy we are without any guiding statement, such as Pliny’s 
that in his time the Scarus was reckoned the king of fish.? 
1 Any apparent resemblance in this list, or in this book, to Badham’s book 
is easily accounted for by the fact that both derive much from the same source, 
he without any, I with due acknowledgment to the little known volume by 
Nonnius (Antwerp, 1616), which itself draws largely from Athenzus, Xenocrates, 
etc. The sequence of sentences, turns of expression, choice of epithets in 
Badham sometimes so strongly suggest Nonnius, that it is a case of yet another 
miracle of unconscious absorption—from a rare book written in Latin 238 
years previously !—or of—well, Zlianism. I hesitated for a long time from 
even hinting such unacknowledged extraction by an author to whom two 
generations have owed much pleasure and more knowledge. Were it not 
for the inadequacy of his references and for his bursting, Wegg-like, into 
poetry, which doubles the length and sometimes obscures the sense of the 
original Greek or Latin, Badham would be delightful reading. 
2 Bk. IX. 29. 
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