Note 557 — Chapter XV · FISH IN SACRIFICES—PICKLED FISH—VIVARIA OF OYSTERS, ETC.—ARCHIMEDES
Reading edition
De Re Rustica, VIII. 16, “Quamobrem non solum piscinas, quas ipsi construxerant, frequentabant sed etiam quos rerum natura lacus fecerat convectis marinis seminibus replebant. Et lupos auratasque procreaverunt ac siqua sint alia piscium genera dulcis undæ tolerantia.”
What fish Columella meant by Aurata is not settled: it is certainly not the “gold-fish,” as some translate, for they are not sea-fish. Facciolati, after saying that the name came from the fish having golden eyebrows, goes on that “some folk deny that he can be identified with the ‘gilthead’ or ‘dory.’” Perhaps the fish is one of the Sparidæ group, which pass at certain seasons of the year from the Mediterranean into salt-water fish marshes, as observed by Aristotle, and confirmed by M. Duhamel. Or can it be the smelt?
Faber, pp. 37, 38, “of fresh-water fishes, twenty-one species, among them the fresh-water Perch, are also common to the sea: amongst the sea fishes, the flounder frequents brackish water, and sometimes enters the rivers: others only occasionally frequent the lagoons and brackish waters, among them the Gilthead,” a statement incidentally confirmed by Martial (Ep. XIII. 90) in his helluous pronunciamento, that practically the only really good Aurata was that whose haunt was the Lucrine lake, and whose whole world was its oyster! of which fish Martial (XIII. 90) seems only appreciative,
“ ... cui solus erit concha Lucrina cibus.”