268 THE NINE FISH MOST HIGHLY PRIZED 
being found to contain food. This perhaps may be accounted 
for by the great length of its gut, throughout which the filmy 
garbage and vegetable matter forming its chief diet are in- 
conspicuously disposed. ‘‘ The Cestreus is fasting’’ even 
became a proverb and was applied to men who lived with strict 
regard to justice, because—as Athenzeus explains—the fish is 
never carnivorous.! 
(F) The use in cases of adultery of the Cestveus in Greece 
and the Mugil at Rome, if not singular among fish, is striking ; 
for it survived into the civilised age of Catullus (‘‘ percurrent 
raphanique mugilesque,’’ 2) and of Juvenal (““ Quosdam mcechos 
et mugilis intrat,’’ 3). Indeed, traces of the same barbaric 
custom still exist among certain tribes on the West Coast of 
Africa. 
Gifford writes: “‘ the being clystered (as Holyday expresses 
it) by a Mugil was allowed by no written law, but it seems to 
have been an old and approved method of gratifying private 
vengeance. Isidorus thinks that the fish was selected for 
this purpose on account of its anti-venereal properties, but he 
confounds the Mugilis with the Mullet.’’ 4 
From The Fisheries of the Adriatic, a most elaborate Report 
by Faber on the kinds and market values of the fishes of that 
sea, I give the class allotted to the fish of my list. It must 
once more be impressed on the reader that these eight fish 
(for of course Faber does not deal with the xampoc), were the 
most renowned in Greece and Rome. Of these, five only— 
the Mullet, Acipenser, Rhombus, Lupus, and Sole—are in Class I. ; 
the Asellus and Murvena in II.; the Scarvus, and it could not 
be lower, in III. 
The classification disappoints and depresses, especially in 
the case of the vaunted and lovable Scavus. It tempts, how- 
ever, to an insoluble sum in proportion. If about these and 
1 Aristophanes, and half a dozen other comedians cited by Athen., VII. 78. 
2 XV. 19. 
8 Sat., X. 317. 
4 Further details must be sought in Robinson Ellis, A Commentary on 
Catullus (Oxford, 1876), p. 46, and Schneider, op. cit., 69. 
5 Although these five must be reckoned in the first class everywhere, none 
of the five or other Mediterranean fishes can compare in taste with their 
northern representatives, 
