Apicius’ culinary directions and preparations include a variety of fish that had, in Rome times and also in later ages, provocative amatory properties. Among such piscatory agents are: Grilled red mullet, young tunny, sea-bream, murena, horse-mackerel, gold-bream. And, among sea food: octopus and mussels, sea-urchin, oysters, cuttlefish, squid, sea-crayfish, electric ray.
In some of the fragments and extant verses of the Roman philosopher Seneca, there are illustrations of the erotic theme. In one poem the partly obliterated verses run:
Love, my darling, and be loved in turn always,
So that at no instant may our mutual love cease ...
From sunrise to sunset,
And may the Evening Star gaze
upon our love
And the Morning Star too.
An instance of abnormal lust also occurs: