It is well known that the ancients had a remarkable predilection for fish as a food. The principal luxury of the Roman banquets consisted of fish, and the poets speak of sumptuous tables spread with them exclusively. In the period between the taking of Carthage and the reign of Vespasian, this taste became a perfect passion, and for its gratification the senators and patricians, enriched by the spoils of Asia and Africa, incurred the most foolish expense. Thus Licinius Murena, Quintus Hortensius and Lucius Philippus, spent millions on their fish ponds and in stocking them with rare species. Lucullus was by far the most extravagant of these fish fanciers. A fish pond was to him very much what the yacht is to the modern millionaire. It is his name that we find so frequently in Cicero’s letters, when he and his set come in for several cleverly-framed rebukes. “No matter,” says Cicero, “about the state, if only their fish-ponds escape harm.” It was Lucullus who had a channel cut through a mountain at an immense outlay of money, in order to let salt water into his fish-ponds. We are told by Varro that one Hirrius had an income of nearly $700,000 from his Roman real estate, and spent the whole amount on his fish-ponds. Some of these fish-ponds were very elaborate. They were constructed with many compartments, in which they kept the different varieties. The care of these ponds, and the feeding of the animals, required a large force of trained men and assistants who, we can infer, learned a great deal about the habits of fishes, their favorite food, and how to propagate them, but their information was never reduced to anything like a science.
That foolish extravagance of the Roman nobles produced but two results, the less of which was the impoverishment of some of Rome’s wealthiest families; the other and more unfortunate result was the destruction of the fishes along the Mediterranean Sea.
Probably the sole contribution to fish-culture resulting from all this extravagance, was the introduction of gold-fish into an artificial habitat and providing them shell-fish for nourishment.
In conclusion, I will note some of the forms that were most popular among the Romans, either for table use or for the aquarium. For these we are indebted to a mosaic discovered in Pompeii. They are formed as they were seen by the artist in an aquarium, but in the mosaic they are supposed to be seen as if in the sea. The varieties found are: The grey mullet, electric ray, gilt-head, muraena, scorpion fish, crawfish, devil-fish, dog-fish, red-mullet, bass, spinola, red gumara, nautis prawn, and from another mosaic may be added the soft prawn, squid and some other species whose English names I do not know.
T. Louis Comparette.
CASSIA CINNAMON.
FROM KŒHLER’S MEDICINAL-PFLANZEN.
Description of Plate: A, flowering twig; 1, diagram of flower; 2, 3, flower; 4, stamen; 5, pistil; 6, fruit.
CINNAMON.
(Cinnamomum cassia blume.)
“Sinament and ginger, nutmegs and cloves,