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With Lucullus and Apicius: Mediterranean

This greatly valued fish was the European Mullus barbatus, one of the forty or more different species of the red mullet, found chiefly in the subtropical parts of the Indo-Pacific Ocean. By far the most abundant in the Mediterranean, it is nevertheless not uncommon to the coasts of England and Ireland, though nowhere does it attain so delicate a flavour as in the Mediterranean. The name is said to have reference to the scarlet colour of the sandal or shoe worn by the Roman consuls, and in later times by the emperors, which was called mullus. Like the ruby, the mullet increased rapidly in price when it exceeded the usual size--the largest weighing scarcely three or four pounds. Suetonius is authority for the statement that this fish was so esteemed in his time that three large specimens were sold for thirty thousand sesterces, or more than a thousand dollars, which caused Tiberius to enact sumptuary laws and tax the provisions brought to market. The red mullet, although much less highly thought of than in olden days, is still in request by the modern French epicure. Francatelli cautions that it should never be drawn; it is sufficient to remove the gills only, as the liver and trail are considered the best part an opinion held by the Romans. It is possible that, owing to this circumstance, it has been termed the "sea-woodcock."

The mullet was served by the Romans with a seasoning of pepper, rue, onions, dates, and mustard, to which was added the flesh of the sea-hedgehog reduced to a pulp and oil. When the priceless liver alone was to be eaten by an emperor or a senator, it was cooked and then seasoned with pepper, salt, or a little garum, some oil was added, and hare's or fowl's liver, and oil poured over the whole.

The turbot was another favourite supplied by the sea, and one will remember Martial's panegyric concerning it: "However great the dish that holds the turbot, the turbot is still greater than the dish."

From the foam-fleeced flocks of Proteus many other fish with strange names were transferred by the wealthy Romans to their vast aquaria-the sargus, the harp-fish, the hyca, the synodon, the hespidus, the chromis, the callichthys, "The orphus, the sea-grayling, too, who haunts The places where the sea-weed most abounds."