Note 16 — POMPEII.ToC (continued 2)

It was made of the entrails of fish macerated in brine. That made from the fish called scomber was the best. This word is sometimes translated a herring, but the best authorities render it a mackerel. It was caught, according to Pliny, in the Straits of Gibraltar, entering from the ocean, and was used for no purpose but to make garum. The best was called garum sociorum, a term of which we have seen no satisfactory explanation, and sold for 1,000 sesterces for two congii, about $20 a gallon. An inferior kind, made from the anchovy (aphya), was called alec, a name also given to the dregs of garum. "No liquid, except unguents," Pliny says, "fetched a higher price."—Hist. Nat. xxxi. 43.