Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

Ciy£"F5—JUVENAL—DIOGENES' POLYPUS 205Juvenal's scathing invective on Crispinus—who had boughta mullet of 6 lbs. for ^^48—runs :" What ! you, Crispinus, brought to Rome erewhile,Lapt in the rushes of your native Nile,Buy scales at such a price ! You might, I guess,Have bought the fisherman himself for less ;Bought, in some countries, manors at this rate,And, in Apulia, an immense estate." 1The folly of the Roman nobles and millionaires did notexhaust itself in buying fish at insane prices, or squanderingtheir fortunes on Vivaria and similar extravagances. Theytouched a yet lower depth of infamy by taking their cognomenfrom fish.Thus Columella contrasts the custom of their ancestors oftaking a cognomen from some great victory, e.g. Numantinusor Isauricus, with that of their decadent successors such asLicinius Murcena or Sergius Orata.-The Greek Comic Poets and Satirists castigate withbitter sarcasms and jeers the frenzied, almost cat-hke devotionto fish.Even Diogenes the Cynic came to an imtimely end byeating with eager haste a polypus raw.^ Philoxenus thePoet, when warned by his doctor, after " he had bought apolypus two cubits long, dressed it, and ate it up himself allbut the head," that he had but six hours left to live and toarrange his affairs, bequeathed his poems and the prizes of hispoems to the Nine Muses :" Such is my Will ! But since old Charon's voiceKeeps crying out Now cross ' ' : and deadl}^ Fate,Whom none can disobey, calls me away,That I may go below with all my goods,Bring me the fragments of that polypus." •*The moraUsts of the Empire bewail " the costly folliesthe patricians."» Sat., IV. 23 ff. (Gifford's Trs.).Juvenal, Martial, and other Roman Satirists« VIII. 16. Cf. also Varro, De Re Rust., Bk. III. 3, 10; .^lian, VIII. 4;and Macrobius, Sat., III. xv. i fi.3 Athen.. VIII. 26.* Ibid. VIII. 26.of