156 
TURBOT. 
Turbots of the largest size; and Martial refers to a feast 
where 
the enormous fish 
Was wider than the broadest dish. 
A more remarkahle circumstance connected with its ancient 
history, as significant of foolish desj)otism on the one hand, 
and on the other of the degradation of a once illustrious 
assembly, is that in which the Emperor Domitian is said to 
have summoned a meeting of the Senate, or rather they 
assembled of their own accord, when the object of the meeting 
was found to be — that they might advise the sovereign what 
should be the sort and size of the vessel in which might 
be cooked a mighty Turbot that had been brought to him. 
It must be confessed, however, that tliis oft-repeated story 
appears to stand in need of confirmation, since, while it is 
mentioned by a satirist, it is not referred to by Suetonius, 
who has shewn no reserve in speaking of the bad deeds of 
this prince; and who, if it were true, cannot be believed to 
have been insensible to the insult thus offered to, or the 
disgrace incurred by the nobility of the einpu'e. 
For the more ready sujrply of tliis much-coveted delicacy. 
Turbots were preserved in ponds of salt-water; and this seems 
to have been the more necessary, since there is reason to 
believe that this fish is not very generally distributed in the 
Mediterranean. Dr. Gulia, in his account of the fishes known 
at Malta, regards it as of casual and rare occurrence in that 
island; and it is not named by Rafinesque among the fishes of 
Palermo. 
Attempts have been made to prove that the fish referred to 
in the satirical poetry of Juvenal, as also in other ancient 
authors, under the name of Rhombus, and among the Greeks 
as Psetta, was not die Turbot, but the Biill, another sjiecies 
which comes next in the order of our enumeration. There 
is much probability that these fishes, which nearly resemble 
each other, were often by the ancients confounded together; 
but the particular reason why the Brill has been judged the 
more likely to have been the ti'uc Rhombus of antiquity 
appears to be that there were a few fishes, among which 
were the Rhombus and Ascllus, which were believed to conceal 
themselves in the sand or mud at the bottom, and there 
