DOMITIAN’S TURBOT—LUPUS 259 
It ran often to immense size. Martial’s fish (XIII. 81), although 
“latior patella,”’ can hold no candle to the one presented to 
Domitian.! 
That Emperor, though deeming himself and insisting on 
his subjects acclaiming him, of god-like attributes, was not 
equal to solving the knotty question of how to cook and to 
serve his fish whole, “ Derat pisci patine mensura’’—if its 
proportions were in the same street with a Rhombus vouched 
for by Rondolet, viz. three metres long, two broad, and one 
thick, the fact excites no wonder—so he straightway summoned 
a special meeting of the Senate.? 
Discover, Montanus advises, a new Prometheus capable of 
modelling the amplest trencher instantly, but, since to a god 
like Domitian (he flatteringly adds), offerings of huge fish 
will frequently be made— 
“But, Cesar, thus forewarned make no campaign, 
Unless some potters follow in your train.” 
5. The Lupus 3—Labrax lupus—‘‘ common Bass’’ at Athens 
enjoyed the choicest preference. Aristophanes absolutely 
refused to be disturbed while feasting on a Milesian Labrax. 
Archestratus eulogises it as ‘‘ god-begotten’’ (dada). 
During the early Roman Republic it indeed ranked (with 
the Asellus) only second to the Acipenser.4 
The fish throve best and grew fattest in sewage; hence 
those “‘ from between the two bridges ’’ of the Tiber were famed 
1 Juv., IV. 37 ff. 
2 With this meeting compare that summoned post-haste by Nero in the 
Revolution (which led to his death), when to anxious and breathless senators 
he imparted the important news that he had just effected an improvement of 
the hydraulic organ, by which the notes were made to sound louder and 
sweeter. His étedpnxa conflicts somewhat with the account in Suetonius 
(Nero, 41). The Emperor evidently had a bent and a liking for mechanical 
invention, for according to C. M. Cobern, New Archeological Discoveries, etc., 
1917, in one of his palaces were elevators which ran from the ground to the 
top floor, and a circular dining-room which revolved with the sun. 
3 The part played by fish in recovering episcopal keys and rings has been 
dwelt onelsewhere. Sad itis that in the case of St. Lupus the réle is performed 
not by his namesake fish, but by a barbel, in whose belly was found, just previous 
to the return of the bishop to his See of Sens the selfsame ring which on being 
exiled by Clothaire II. he had cast into the moat. Let us, disregarding all 
geographical habitats, trust that Barbel was here an ichthyic inexactitude for 
Lupus. Cf. S. Baring Gould, The Lives of the Saints, Vol. X. 7, Edinburgh, 
1914. 
4 Pliny, IX. 28. 
