264 THE NINE FISH MOST HIGHLY PRIZED 
were divinatory pebbles shaken in the glittering caldron of 
Apollo. These sacred associations are all suggested by the 
language of our enthusiast : 
“Tt is not meet for every man to taste, 
Nor see it with his eyes. Nay, he must hold 
The hollow woven-work of marsh-grown wicker 
And rattle pebbles in his glittering count.” 
But the words, though reminiscent of actual cult, have a double 
entendre and are meant to bear a more mundane meaning. In 
plain prose, then, ‘“‘it needs a wealthy man with capacious 
cash-box (literally a basket, fiscus) and a rattling big bank- 
account (pebbles to reckon L. S. D.) to afford such a luxury 
as this!” 
Not far behind it among Greek epicures came the Glaucus, 
possibly the sea-grayling, of whose ‘‘ most precious head” 
Anaxandrides is enamoured, and Antiphanes and Julius 
Pollux write with appreciative gusto. But are not all things 
about the Glaucus written in the seventh book of the Detpno- 
sophista, chapters 45, 46, and 47? 
g. The Buglossus, or Lingulaca (Solea vulgaris, the ‘‘ Sole’’ !), 
alike at Rome and at Athens the most prized, if not the most 
lauded in verse, of the Flatfish, held rank as high as any, 
actually far higher than its so-called cousin, the Passer. 
Although Xenocrates and Galen differ as to the firmness 
or reverse of its flesh—I wonder whether the latter got hold 
of a Lemon Sole !—the ancient agrees with the modern faculty 
in accounting it ‘very nourishing, and of most pleasant 
flavour.” 2 It then as now was almost always the first fish 
ordered, ‘‘as soon as men be sick or ill at ease’ in Plutarch’s 
time and words. 
1 See Stephanus, Thesaurus Grace Lingua, ii. 347 C-D. 
° Badham (plagiarising Blaikie), on p. 364—in ‘“‘ Galen, Xenocrates, 
Diphilus speak disparagingly of the Sole,” is inaccurate. Xenocrates terms 
its flesh indigestible. Galen states that it is quite the reverse, and commends 
it highly as a diet. Diphilus does not hesitate to declare that the Sole affords 
abundant nourishment and is most pleasing to the taste. Cf. Nonnius, p. 89. 
In the case of a Sole with its customarily modest dimensions it is not easy 
to hearken unto the command, which was laid down in the twelfth century 
for the benefit of Robert, the so-called King of England, ‘‘ Anglorum Regi 
scripsit schola tota Salerni,” by ‘‘ the Schoole of Salernes most learned and 
