508 PLIKT's KATUEAL HTSTOET. [Book XXXI. 
of garum is that prepared from the scomber/^ in the fisheries 
of Carthago Spartaria it is known as garum of the allies/^ 
and for a couple of congii we have to pay but little less than 
one thousand sesterces. Indeed, there is no liquid hardly, 
with the exception of the unguents, that has sold at higher 
prices of late ; so much so, that the nations which produce it 
have become quite ennobled thereby. There are fisheries, 
too, of the scomber on the coasts of Mauretania, and at Carteia 
in Baetica, near the Straits which lie at the entrance to the 
Ocean ; this being the only use that is made of the- fish. Tor 
the production of garum, Clazomense is also famed, Pompeii, 
too, and Leptis ; while for their muria, Antipolis,^^ Thurii, and 
of late, Dalmatia,^^ enjoy a high reputation. 
CHAP. 44. ALEX : EIGHT KEMEDIES. 
Alex, which is the refuse of garum, properly consists of the 
dregs of it, when imperfectly strained : but of late they have 
begun to prepare it separately, from a small fish that is other- 
wise good for nothing, the apua^^ of the Latins, or aphua of 
the Greeks, so called from the fact of its being engendered 
from rain.^''' The people of Forum Julii make their garum 
from a fish to which they give the name of ^^lupus."^^ In 
process of time, alex has become quite an object of luxury, and 
the various kinds that are now made are infinite in number. 
The same, too, with garum, which is now prepared in imitation 
of the colour of old honied wine, and so pleasantly fiavoured 
as to admit of being taken as a drink. Another kind, again, 
is dedicated to those superstitious ot)servances ^ which enjoin 
strict chastity, and that prepared from fish without scales, to 
As to the identity of the Scomber, see B. ix. c. 19. 
See B. xix. c. 7. " Garum sociorum." 
*3 The present Straits of Gibraltar. In Gallia Narbonensis. 
SiUig reads ^'Delmatia" here. 
See B. ix. c. 74. The fry of larger fish, Cuvier says. 
Ajasson considers this to be an absurd derivation ; and thinks it 
much more probable, that the name is from d privative, and (pvaj, " to 
beget it being a not uncommon notion that these small fish were pro- 
duced spontaneously from mud and slime. 
The present Frejus, in the south of France. 
49 "Wolf." Not the fish of that name, Hardouin says, mentioned in 
B. ix. c. 28. 
The festivals of Ceres. The devotees, though obliged to abstain from 
meat, were allowed the use of this ganmi, it would appear. 
Gesner proposes to read ^^non carentibus," *^with scales" — fishes 
