MULLET—ACIPENSER 257 
writers, which is often, if not convincingly, identified with the 
Sturio, the “ Sturgeon,” and by Archestratus! is affirmed 
but wrongly, to be the yaAsdc, enjoyed a long and glorious 
reign of supremacy from the early times of the Republic down 
to Vespasian. For it alone, with perhaps one exception, was 
reserved the high honour of being served at a banquet to the 
music of flutes and pipes, crowned itself, borne by slaves like- 
wise crowned.2 
Its praise and its price (Varro styles it multinummus) 
seem alike exorbitant. We find the name of Gallonius the 
glutton-auctioneer, the first to bring the fish into fashion, 
occurring again and again. On Ovid’s (Hal. 134) “ Tuque 
peregrinis acipenser nobilissimus ’’ may be piled passage upon 
passage. Plautus ina fragment of his Bacaria * asks : 
“Quis est mortalis tanta fortuna affectus umquam 
Qua ego nunc sum ? quoius hec ventri portatur pompa : 
Vel nunc qui mihi in mari acipenser latuit antehac, 
Quoius ego latus in latebras reddam meis dentibus et manibus.” 
Cicero—no fish story-teller he—makes at least four refer- 
ences to it. In De Fato, frag. 5, he sets forth the tale of the 
Acipenser (‘piscis...in primis nobilis’) presented to 
Scipio, to whom, as he persisted in inviting all and every one 
who saluted him, Pontius anxiously whispered, ‘‘ Do you know 
what you are about? Lo! this is a fish fit only for a few 
choice palates !”’ 
As to its decline from its high estate, Pliny’s definite 
assertion (IX. 27), ‘“‘ Apud antiquos piscium nobilissimus 
habitus acipenser...nullo nunc in honore est,’ finds 
corroboration by Martial, XIII. gr: 
“ Ad Palatinas acipensem mittite mensas ; 
Ambrosias ornent munera rara dapes.”’ 5 
1 Archestrat., ap. Athen, VII. 44. 
2 Cf. Macrobius, Sat., II. 12, and Athenzus, VII. 44. 
3 Horace, Sat. II. 2, 46. 
4 Macrobius, Sat., III. 16, 1. 
5 Pliny claims for the Acipenser that he ‘‘unus omnium squamis ad os 
versis contra aquam nando meat.’’ The reading of the last four words is 
however much disputed. C. Mayhoff prints contva quam in nando meant. 
Plutarch, De Sol. Anim., 28, of the Elops, “it always swims with the wind and 
tide, not minding the erection or opening of the scales, which do not lie towards 
the tail, as in other fish.” 
