Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

SEA-FISH PREFERRED—TURBOT—PRICES 203If cost be a true criterion, this preference for salt-waterfish continued as late as the fourth century. In Diocletian'sEdict, 301 A.D,, fixing the price of food, etc., throughout theEmpire, the maximum allowed for best quality sea-fish wasnearly double that of best quality river-fish. 1In both Greece and Rome fish became luxuries of the mostexpensive kind. Seas and rivers were scoured far and wide.No price was thought too extravagant for a mullet, a sturgeon,or a turbot ;three mullets of historical celebrity even fetchedin Rome the almost incredible sum of ^^^240!In spite of many laws and decrees made at Athens and atRome (where the Censor often interfered ^ in cases of extravagancein dress, living, etc.) the prices, owing to the ingenuityof the sellers and the wild competition of the buyers, roseconstantly higher. The plaint of Cato the Censor that thingscould not be well with a community, where " a fish fetchedmore than a bull," was uttered in and of a generation, whichin comparison with its successors looks frugal, even niggardly.Pliny records (N. H., IX. 31)" octo milibus nummum unummullum mercatum fuisse " —one mullet equalled £64, or theprice of nine bulls ! He also says {N. H., IX. 30) that mulletswere plentiful and cheap when under 2 lb., "a weight theyrarely exceeded." Martial (£/>., XIV. 97) confirms this in2comptait k peine dans la consommation du poisson de mer : seules les anguillesdu lac Copais avaient quelque renom. Mais la pgche maritime eut toujoursbeaucoup plus d'importance." Pliny, XXXII. lo : Pisces marinos in usufuisse protinus a condita Roma. Philemon the comedian makes the cook inhis play, " The Soldier " (cited by Athen., VII. 32), bewail having for the feastmere," river fish, eaters of mud ;If I had had a scare or bluebacked fish from Attic waters"I should have been accounted an immortal !^ See infra, p. 287.* Suetonius {Tib., 34), " Tresque muUos triginta mihbus nummum." Athousand sesterces, in the time of Augustus, equalled £S 175. id., but lateronly £j 155. id. For convenience I take 1000 sesterces as roughly equivalentto about ;^8 OS. od.^ An amusing instance of official interference is recorded in Apuleius,Metamorhp. I. 18. Lucius, the hero of the story, tries to buy some fish fordinner from a fishmonger at Hypata in Thessaly, who demanded 100 nummi{denarii) : after much haggling, 20 denarii's worth is bought and beingtaken home, when the local aedile intervenes, seizes the parcel on account ofthe extravagant charge, and destroys the fish in the presence of the seller.The result, which Lucius bewails, was loss of both dinner, and denarii I