Note 1657 — BOOK IV.

There are two fish known by the name of squilla; the one apparently a small fish (perhaps a river fish, as Martial mentions their abounding in the Liris: lib. xiii., Ep. 83), used as a sauce or garnish for larger fish. Vid. Hor., ii., Sat. viii., 42, "Affertur squillas inter muræna natantes," which Orell. explains as a conger served up with crabs. The other is a large fish forming a dish of itself. Cf. Juv., v., 80, "Quam longo distendat pectore lancem quæ fertur domino squilla," etc. If it is represented by the Greek κᾶρις, it is something of the lobster or prawn kind. It appears to have been dressed sometimes with sorrel sauce. Cf. Athen., iii., 92, 66. The acipenser is probably not the sturgeon: from its etymology it is some sharp-headed fish. (Acies et penna, or pinna.) Salmas., Ex. Plin., 1316: but what it really was is not known. It was a royal fish, like the sturgeon (Mart., xiii., Ep. 91), and when brought to table was ushered in with great solemnities: the servant who bore it had a chaplet round his head, and was preceded by another playing the flute. Publius Gallonius, the præco, is said to have been the first who introduced this luxury. Macrob., Sat. ii., 12. In Pliny's time, however, he tells us, it had gone out of fashion. H. N., ix., 26.

Decumanus is used here in the same sense as "Fluctus decumanus," i. e., of extraordinary size (Ov., Trist., I., ii., 49), the Pythagorean notion being that the tenth was always the largest; which notion they extended even to eggs. (Compare the Greek τρικυμία, Æsch., P. V., 1015, with Blomfield's gloss.)