5. The Lupus[644] —Labrax lupus—“common Bass” at Athens enjoyed the choicest preference. Aristophanes absolutely refused to be disturbed while feasting on a Milesian Labrax. Archestratus eulogises it as “god-begotten” (θεόπαιδα). During the early Roman Republic it indeed ranked (with the Asellus) only second to the Acipenser.[645]
The fish throve best and grew fattest in sewage; hence those “from between the two bridges” of the Tiber were famed far and near; see Horace, Sat., II. 2, 31; Macrobius, Sat., II. 12; and Juvenal, V. 103-8. The latter’s “et solitus mediæ cryptam penetrare Suburæ” was rendered quite clear only in 1743, when the remains of the Cloaca leading from the low-lying ground to the Tiber were excavated. From this greedy scavenging he is christened by Lucilius (Sat. 4, frag., 127, Baehrens) “the platter-licker” (catillo)—
“Hunc pontes Tiberinus duo inter captus catillo.”[646]
The Doctors once more are at variance. The Court, unanimous that (in Walton’s phrase) “its savour was excellent,” only by a majority (Galen and Celsus J.J.) upheld its nutritive powers, Hicesius J. dissenting. Rondolet against the volume of authority affirms that the Lupus of the sea is of better quality than that of the river. Pliny[647] dubs the Lupus “lanatus”—not from his woolly appearance, or woolly taste, but from the whiteness of his flesh—laudatissimus. But by the time of Domitian it has fallen from its proudest place.
Its Aristophanic title of “the wisest of fish” was earned by its cunning in escape from net or hook; its method in the case of the former is vouched for by Cassiodorus,[648] and of the latter by Ovid:[649]
“quassatque caput, dum vulnere sævus Laxato cadat hamus et ora patentia linquat.”
Pliny, commenting on the marvellous friendships and hatreds which exist among fish, instances the astounding combination of both in the lupus and the mugil (grey mullet), “who burn with mutual hate for some, yet live in concord for other, months of the year”—despite the cheery custom, hereditary in the lupus, of nibbling off the tail of the mugil; all, however, live, “quibus caudae sic amputentur.”[650]
6. The Asellus has been identified as the Gadus merlangus, the “Cod;” and as the Merluccius vulgaris, the “Hake,” by Scaliger and Rondolet, and by Hardouin with some doubt.
It cannot be the Cod (although Dorion speaks[651] of “the ὄνος which some call the γάδος”), because hardly any of the Gadidæ, except the Hake, frequent the Mediterranean on account of the temperature of the water. Nor can the Asellus be the Hake, because, while the latter is taken all the year round, Pliny[652] and Ælian[653] distinctly state that the Asellus hides in the heat of summer.
This assertion, if the ὄνος be the same as the Asellus, tallies with, probably indeed derives from, Aristotle’s remark that it is the only fish that hides itself in a hole in the ground in the hot weather, when the Dog-star rages.[654] The fish, Varro informs us, is called Asellus from the ashen colour of its scales, resembling that of the coat of an ass.[655]