Roman Fish SaucesAuthor(s): Thomas H. CorcoranSource: The Classical Journal, Vol. 58, No. 5 (Feb., 1963), pp. 204-210Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3295259Accessed: 21/08/2009 06:56

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ROMAN FISH SAUCES

SENECA DISPLAYS LESS than ecstatic en- thusiasm for the finest fish sauce

of his time, the famous garum so- ciorum which Pliny the Elder (31.93) calls an "exquisite liquid." Seneca (Ep. 95.25) says of it: "It's the overpriced guts of rotten fish! Don't you realize it burns up the stomach with its salted

putrefaction?" He has harsh words also for the

halitosis that comes from eating such a delicacy. Seneca is not alone in recog- nizing this. His fellow-Spaniard Mar-

tial, though personally fond of fish

sauce, makes use of its well-known malodor to illustrate a social disabil-

ity. For example, the young lady named Thais is not as dainty as young ladies ought to be: the truth is, Mar- tial remarks (6.93), she smells worse than a jar of putrid fish sauce. His unfortunate friend Papylus (7.94) suf- fers from a breath that Martial consid- ers as fetid as fish sauce. Another

friend, Flaccus, is a "man of iron" if he can show any romantic interest in his girl friend who takes six helpings of fish sauce (11.27.1-2). A few genera- tions earlier than Martial, the imperial poet Horace (Sat. 2.4.66) allows him- self a curt observation on a fish sauce he is about to enjoy: "it stinks."

Although Pliny often praises fish sauces, he notices that they are made from "worthless fish, good for nothing else." Moreover, they are made from the parts of fish which ought to have been thrown away.

What were those fish sauces and what was their commercial significance for the Romans? First, the terms. Fish sauces were called liquamen, muria, allex, and garum. Liquamen most near- ly approaches a generic usage in Lat- in: it is the general term for fish sauce in the cookbook ascribed to Apicius.2 A dealer in fish sauce was called liqua- minarius and the fish sauce business was termed liquaminarium.3 But ga- rum, derived from Greek, was used by the Romans as practically synony- mous with liquamen. For example, on a jar from the first century of the Christian era the two terms identify the same product: liq[uamen] g[ari] f[los] scombr[i].4 Because all four terms for fish sauce were frequently used without precision, each deserves a brief identification.

Isidore explains that liquamen is so called because little fish placed in sal- samentum "liquefy" (Orig. 20.3.20). By salsamentum he must have in mind the solution for pickling fish that filled

ROMAN FISH SAUCES

the large basins in the salteries. Thus the sauces were often by-products of manufacturing preserved fish (salsa- mentum). There were fine quality grades of liquamen, indicated by the terms liquamen optimum and liqua- men primum, the last equal in value to the best garum.5

Isidore also says that the liquor re- sulting from the manufacture of liqua- men is called muria or salsugo. Pliny, however, makes a distinction between the two and identifies salsugo as simply a saline solution (31.97; 31.92). "But properly speaking," Isidore continues, "it is called muria when mixed with salt water and imbued with the tang of the sea." Thus muria was very salty, as Plautus and Varro stress,6 and usu- ally little more than a brine from the

processing works that was used for

preserving meat, cheese, or salted fish.7 For table use it was not ordinari- ly esteemed by gourmets (cf. Mart. 13.103; 4.88.5). Horace refers to a muria which is merely a pickle used to pre- serve a fish shipped from Byzantium. He frugally re-uses this pickle to pre- pare a simple sauce (Sat. 2.4.64-69).

Just as a type of muria was the by- product of liquamen, so allex was the residue left at the bottom of the jar after the manufacture of garum (Pliny 31.95). One kind of allex was common- ly employed as a cheap seasoning. Cato - notoriously tightfisted - recom- mends giving it to farm workers as a relish after the oil made from in- ferior olives, though issued parsimo- niously, had been used up (RR 58). This kind of allex, then, was only slightly more expensive than the cheap- est olive oil. Martial (3.77.5), for ex-

ample, accuses Baeticus of exposing his low taste by his penchant for cheap foods, among them allex. Yet Horace speaks of allex as a table delicacy (Sat. 2.4.73). The explanation is sup-

plied by Pliny (31.95), who observes that the various kinds of allex are infinite in number and -although al- lex properly consists of imperfectly strained dregs of garum, he says - in his own time special kinds are pre- pared which have become luxury items.

Garum was popularly supposed to have been made originally from a fish which the Greeks called garos, and to have retained the name long after the fish ceased to be used (Pliny 31.93; Isid. Orig. 20.3.19). But no such fish- name occurs in classical Greek.8 Garum was actually made from the intestines and other parts of innumer- able kinds of fish, the most highly prized from the mackerel (Pliny 31.93- 94; Mart. 13.102). Quotations in Athe- naeus (2.67c) from Greek writers of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. stress that garum was then highly esteemed as a delicacy. For the Romans it was a luxury from the time of Cato the Elder (Pliny 19.57) through the sev- enth century after Christ (Isid. Orig. 20.3.19). Yet Ausonius (Ep. 25), writing in the fourth century after Christ, says that a fish sauce which he calls garum was "little used by our forefathers" (parcior ille maiorum). His meaning is not clear. Certainly a Roman "fore- father" was garum-eating Cato the Eld- er, who lived more than half a millen- nium before Ausonius.

There were many different kinds, but the best was the garum sociorum prepared in the processing factories of

Spain. At Rome in the time of Pliny it retailed at a thousand sesterces for little more than twelve pints, almost as much, Pliny says, as perfume cost

(31.94). Garum was so popular that special

varieties were made which could be used in accordance with religious ob- servances.9 In later times, the term was applied to concoctions that were

205

THOMAS H. CORCORAN

not made from fish at all but from

pears, kitchen herbs, and even from grasshoppers. 10

Directions for making fish sauces are readily found in the Geoponica, a com-

pilation made in the tenth century (of excerpts from ancient writers on rural economy). The ingredients, usually Sen- eca's "guts of rotten fish," and the un-

savory fermentation process explain the half-joking air of revulsion with which Latin writers discuss fish sauce.

In one recipe (20.46.6) the instruc- tions are to take the intestines, blood, serum of the blood, and the gills of

tunnies, sprinkle them with salt, put into a vase and allow to ferment more than two months. Another recipe (20. 46.3) describes how an inferior grade of muria was made. Many kinds of little fish were placed in a basin. To one measure of fish two measures of salt were mixed, and allowed to stand

overnight. Then the mixture was

placed in a clay vessel and exposed, uncovered, to the rays of the sun for

two or three months, occasionally stirred with a stick. Sometimes wine

was added: one measure of wine to one of fish. Fermentation could be has- tened by placing the fish in a vessel

containing water salty enough to float an egg and then cooking the mixture over a slow fire. After cooling, the

liquid was strained two or three times until it became clear; then bottled in a jar with a stopper.

For the manufacture of allex (20.46.1) the intestines of fish were placed in a vase and salted. Small fish were added and also salted. After this had been

exposed to the rays of the sun and

frequently stirred, a basket was low- ered into the vessel and all the liquid drained off, filtering out the larger pieces. The residue left at the bottom of the vessel was then called allex.

Manilius, in his Astronomica (5.667- 681), presents a lively picture of manu-

facturing fish sauces, describing the

ingredients in phrases that seem al- most pejorative. He says that after the fishermen have laid out the catch of

tunny on the shore they cut up each fish and designate its parts for various uses. The preparation of garum comes first. From the intestines, which retain their juices, flow the sanies pretiosa and the flos cruoris which are mixed with salt. Next the preparation of a cheaper sort of fish sauce such as allex: the whole mess (strages) is thoroughly mixed together and made into a "commonly used condiment for food." Then a fish sauce such as muria is made by placing various little fish whole in jars to form a liquida tabes.

Fish sauces were served as a relish with other foods, and except for Pliny's drink (see below) there is no indica- tion that they were taken straight. The salt flavor of garum added an "ex-

quisite taste to food" (Pliny 31.88). It

could be served with hors d'oeuvres, used as a relish with eggs, oysters, fish, and roast boar.11 It also could be used to make a tasty dish even tastier: for

example, the surmullet was served

floating in garum sociorum as a spe- cial treat (Pliny 9.66).

Fish sauces were often mixed with

wine, vinegar, oil, or water to make a

liquid called by the name of its con- stituents (e.g., oenogarum or vinum et liquamen, eleogarum or liquamen et oleum, etc.).12 These could be com- bined by the cook (Mart. 7.27.7-8) or

bought from the manufacturers already mixed and bottled. 13

Pliny (31.95) tells of a garum ad colorem mulsi veteris adeoque dilutam suavitatem ut bibi possit. But it is diffi- cult to imagine anyone drinking garum, a feat analogous to drinking horserad-

206

ROMAN FISH SAUCES

ish. 14 Notice that Pliny does not actual- ly say it was drunk, only that it could be drunk, and he may have been em- ploying hyperbole to convey to the reader its superb refinement.

Fish sauces, either as ingredients among other supposed curatives or as remedies efficacious in themselves, were widely used in the treatment of a variety of ailments and were recom- mended for both internal and external medication. Most of the prescriptions belong to the category of home reme- dies, yet others seem to reflect profes- sional medical practice. The salt in fish sauce was probably not without value in healing wounds, and in poul- tices the products perhaps had drawing power. Fish sauce taken internally may have helped purge the stomach. But their prescription for contradictory reasons reveals that there was no real understanding of their effect on specific disorders. A few typical prescriptions illustrate the rest.

Garum was believed to have the properties of a laxative when mixed with oil, vinegar, or oil and mallows,15 but Galen also prescribes garum with lentils for checking chronic diarrhea (Alim. fac. 1.1.478). For loss of appe- tite Pliny recommends garum with garden herbs,16 while grilled snails mixed with wine and garum was a remedy for upset stomach (Pliny 30.44).

Burns were treated with garum, but the treatment would not be efficacious, Pliny warns (31.97), if the fish sauce were mentioned by name when applied. Muria had great curative properties, according to Pliny, because it was "as-

tringent, mordant, and siccative"; and it was especially useful for the cure of either dysentery or sciatica.

Veterinary medicine also employed fish sauces. Columella (6.34.2) recom- mends pouring garum into the nostrils

of sick animals, the quantity of garum depending on the size of the animal. For example, a spavined mule could be doctored with a pint of the best grade garum in a pound of oil poured down the nostril - the left one (Colum. 6.38.2).

Since fish sauces were often the by- products of manufacturing preserved fish, they may have been produced at any of the salteries operated through- out the Mediterranean. But the com- mercial scope of fish sauce manufac-

turing in the Roman world is amply demonstrated by the impressive num- ber of processing centers that seem to have specialized in fish sauce.

From Etruria to Rome a number of Italian towns were significant as fish

processing centers, but south of Rome fish sauce manufacturing was a major industry. Jars of fish sauce were sent to Rome from factories in Puteoli (CIL 15.4687-4688) and Antium (CIL 15.4712). Beneventum manufactured all kinds of fish products (Pliny 32.19). Pompeii, though, was the real center of the Ro- man fish sauce industry, attested by Pliny (31.94) and especially by the mul- titude of jars from the factories there. 17 South of Pompeii, the Velians were compelled on account of the poverty of their soil, says Strabo (6.1.1 = C252), to

busy themselves with the sea and to establish factories for processing fish. On the eastern coast of Italy, Thurii was noted for its manufacture of fish sauce (Pliny 31.94), while Tarentum exported preserved fish products as

early as the second century B.C. (Eu- thydemus ap. Athen. 3.116e). Opposite Italy, across the Adriatic, Dalmatia

produced a famous fish sauce (Pliny 31.94).

From Spain came the processed fish

products that were the most esteemed

by Roman gourmets. Fish processing was an ancient industry there, first car-

207

THOMAS H. CORCORAN

ried on by Carthaginians (whose instal- lations still stand along the coast).18 Because of its factories the city of Malaca may have derived its name from a Carthaginian word meaning the

"fish-processing place."19 The Romans

simply built on the old Carthaginian factory sites and continued an indus-

try that was in some regions the chief

occupation of the inhabitants, who proc- essed fish for export to Italy.20 The

processing works at Gades manufac- tured a highly prized product (cf. Pol- lux Onom. 6.49) which even in the fourth century B.C. was rated a delica-

cy in Greece.21 In the second century B.C. merchants of Bruttium and Cam-

pania exported preserved fish from Gades "packed tightly in jars" (Eu- thydemus ap. Athen. 3.116c).

Although the tunny processed at Gades was a famous delicacy for centuries, the inhabitants themselves ate the John

Dory (faber, also called zeus), which was elsewhere considered a "disgust- ing" fish that could not be cooked

thoroughly unless it had been beaten with a rod-evidently a tenderizing process.22 The people of Gades may have eaten an inferior fish and reserved the tunny for processing and exporting as their money crop.

Mallaria and Baelo also had estab- lishments for processing fish (Strabo 3.1.8 = C140). The fish sauce factories of Carteia were renowned (Pliny 9.92, 31.94). Turdetania, and the rest of the seaboard outside the Pillars, pro- duced a processed product not inferior to that of the Pontic region, according to Strabo (3.2.6 = C144). Processing fish

was the main activity of the inhabi-

tants of New Carthage, as it was also

of the other places nearby (Strabo 3.4.6 = C158).

The Island of Hercules, not far from New Carthage, was nicknamed Scom-

braria, or Mackerel Island, from the

mackerel (scomber) caught there and used in the best grade of fish sauce.23 Near the mouth of the Rhone, Antipolis was noted for a fish sauce that was a cheap commodity at Rome.24 Fish sauce was also manufactured at Forum Julii (the remains of the processing works are still there).25

In the pre-Roman period the most famous fisheries and processing works were located along the shores of the Pontus. This region continued to sup- ply the immediate neighborhood with fresh fish and to export processed prod- ucts, but early in the Roman Empire the best Pontic grades had to take second place to those from the western factories.26 The cheaper grades may have been a common commodity at Rome: Horace's reference (Sat. 2.4.66) to a processed tunny from Byzantium strongly implies that it was modest and inexpensive fare. As mentioned

above, he was able to re-use the muria in which the fish had been packed.

A few other fish processing centers deserve mention. In Asia Minor, Cla- zomenae manufactured a famous fish sauce (Pliny 31.94; 32.18). In North

Africa, the city of Zuchis had all kinds of fish processing establishments (Stra- bo 17.3.18=C835), and Leptis was out-

standing for its manufacture of fish sauce (Pliny loc. cit.).

The names of owners of fish sauce factories appear on jars, especially from Pompeii. The manufacturer A. Umbricius Scaurus occurs most fre-

quently- in about twenty-seven in-

scriptions in the CIL.27 But not all the

jars bearing his name may have come

ex officina Scauri; perhaps they con-

tained a particular kind of fish sauce

based on a recipe named after him,2s

just as amphoras contained a fish sauce

made according to the recipe of a

certain Lucretius (CIL 15.4691). The

wife, or daughter, of Scaurus also op-

208

ROMAN FISH SAUCES

erated or owned a fish sauce factory in Pompeii, and many jars carry the label Umbricia Fortunata,29 or Um- bricia ex officina Scauri (CIL 4.2574), or simply ab Umbricia,30 and a For- tunata (CIL 4 Suppl. 5662).

The names of slaves on fish sauce jars testify that they worked in the fish sauce factories and that some even attained positions similar to foremen.31 At Pompeii, Abascantes and Agatho- pus, former slaves of Scaurus, either were in charge of branch factories be- longing to Scaurus or operated facto- ries of their own.32

The distribution of products from the fish processing factories indicates an elaborate commercial organization. For example, a fish product was manu- factured in Spain and then shipped to Puteoli for bottling (Aelian NA 13.6). As mentioned above, merchants of Bruttium and Campania dealt in the

export of processed fish products from Gades. An inscription from the early period of the Empire lists merchants of processed fish, including a certain T. Claudius Docimus, negotians salsa- mentarius et vinariarius maurarius.33 Seemingly he was a Moor who dealt in African wares and processed fish at Rome. Another inscription of the same period shows a "corporation of mer- chants of Malaca," evidently a holding company located at Rome and dealing in processed fish products from Spain. One of its officials was an Athenian, P. Clodius, negotians salsarius.34 Similar

1 Pliny 31.93-94. Citations of "Pliny" are to Pliny the Elder's Historia naturalis.

2 The term appears about forty-seven times in Apicius, e.g., 32, 73, 77-78, 89, 104.

3 Corp. gloss. Lat. ed. Goetz 3.470.48, 3.477.30. 4 CIL 4 Suppl. 5683. Caelius Aurelianus, Morb.

chron. 2.2 and 7, speaks of "garum, called liqua- men."

5 CIL 4.2589-2592, 2594 (optimum); CIL 3 Suppl. p. 1931, 3, 6, 7; 4.2595, 2593 (primum). Cf. Apicius 289, 229.

companies from the provinces of Syria and Asia had their headquarters in Malaca (CIL 2 p. 251). It would seem from this, and from the non-Italian names of distributors on fish sauce jars found at Rome,35 that much of the distribution of processed fish prod- ucts was in the hands of foreigners.

The demand for luxury grades was not overly exaggerated by Latin writ- ers, for many jars remain whose in- scriptions show that they held just such expensive fish sauces.36 Other jars, not as numerous as the containers for the delicacies, carry inscriptions identifying the cheaper grades.37 The literary references to their use in the kitchen and on the farm for preparing household remedies, preserving food-

stuffs, and for the diet of slaves in- dicate that the cheaper fish sauces were readily available.

Although Latin writers could make fun of fish sauce as a gastronomic horror, or condemn it as an extrava-

gance, their remarks should not obscure the evidence that fish processing was a major industry and "it was reserved for the Roman Empire to raise it to the highest degree of perfection."38 Quality fish sauce was the principal export item of some localities and, as Pliny solemn- ly observes (31.94), "the nations which produced it became quite ennobled

thereby."

THOMAS H. CORCORAN

Tufts University

6 Plautus Poen. 241; Varro ap. Nonius 223 M 15-20.

7Cato RR 88, 105; Quint. 10 8.2.3; Colum. 12.55.4, 12.25.1, 12.6, 12.7; Celsus 4.9.15, 4.16.

8 D'Arcy W. Thompson, A glossary of Greek fishes (London 1947) 43.

9 See my note, "Pliny's garum castimoniarum," Classical bulletin 34 (1958) 69.

10 Palladius 3.25.12; Aetios 16.141; Geopon. 13.1.7.

209

210

11 Galen Alim. fac. 3.21.707, 2.11.258 sqq., 2.22.589 sqq.; Mart. 13.40, 11.83, 7.27; Hor. Sat. 2.8.46; Apicius 379, 381.

12 Apicius 32 sqq. has about thirty-one recipes for oenogarum and about twenty-seven references to liquamen et oleum.

13 In his introduction to the titles on jars, Dres- sel, CIL 14 p. 682, discusses these manufactured mixtures.

14 M. Kohler, "Tarichos," Memoires de l'Acad- emie Imperiale des Sciences de Saint-Peters- bourg, Sixieme Serie 1 (St. Petersburg 1832) 403, believes this to be a table drink. Zahn, RE, s.v. "Garum," disagrees.

15 Galen Alim. fac. 1.1.14.462; 3.2.2.669; Marc. Empir. 30.41; Geopon. 12.12.1.

16 Pliny 20.34; cf. Galen Alim. fac. 2.22.5.599. 17 Cf. CIL 4.2569 sqq.; 4 Suppl. 5657 sqq., 6919

sqq. On the importance of fish sauce manufactur- ing at Pompeii, see, for example, M. Rostovtzeff, Social and economic history of the Roman Em- pire (Oxford 1926) 72, 514, and Tenney Frank, Economic survey of ancient Rome (Baltimore 1940) 5.263.

18 First discovered in 1878, these remains are described by Antonio Mesquita de Figueiredo, "Ruines d'antiques etablissements salaisons sur le littoral sud du Portugal," Bulletin hispanique 8 (1906) 2,109-121.

19As believed by Maurice Besnier, DS, s.v. "Salsamentum," and J. K. Smidth, Report of the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries for 1873-74 and 1874-75 (Washington 1876) III 16. But perhaps there was a goddess called Malache in Phoeni- cian, cf. CIL 2 p. 251.

20 Cf. E. Albertini, CAH 11. 495-496; C. H. V. Sutherland, The Romans in Spain (London 1939) 16, 101-102.

21 Antiphanes and Nicostratus ap. Athen. 3.118d and e.

22 Pliny 9.68; cf. Colum. 8.16.9. Van Nostrand, Ec. survey (above, note 17) 3.182, seems to state that the faber is another name for tunny. E. de Saint-Denis, Le vocabulaire des animaux marins en latin classique (Paris 1947) 38-39, Pline l'Ancien Livre IX (Paris 1954) 120, and D'Arcy Thompson (above, note 8) 281-282, identify this

fish as the John Dory (Zeus faber, L.). There is no indication that Pliny and Columella mean the tunny.

23 Strabo 3.4.6=C159. Athenaeus, 2.121b, quoting Strabo, says Skombroaria is the name of a city (not an island).

24 Pliny 31.94; on its cheapness, see Mart. 13.103 and 4.88.5.

25 Pliny 32.95. See Albert Grenier, Ec. survey (above, note 17) 3.585-586.

26 Cf. Galen Alim. fac. 3.30.3-6.728-729; Strabo 3.2.6=C144, 7.6.2.-C320; Pliny 32.146, 153.

27 CIL 4.2572 sqq., and 4 Suppl. 2682 sqq. 28 CIL 4.2576, 4 Suppl. 5686-5687, 5691-5693 may

designate only a "Scaurus type" fish sauce. 29 CIL 4.2573, 4 Suppl. 5661, 5674-5675. 30 CIL 4.2578, 2594, 4 Suppl. 5670, 5697, 5713,

5723. 31 CIL 15. 4371, 4706, 4732. A. M. Duff, Freed-

men in the early Roman Empire (Oxford 1928) 93, discussing the inscriptions on bricks, points out that in factories many slaves obtained their lib- erty and became directors.

32 CIL 4 Suppl. 5672, 5685, 5689, 5774 (Abas- cantes); 5690-5691, 5695, 5712, 6921, 7110 (Agatho- pus).

33 CIL 6.9676; cf. Tenney Frank (above, note 17) 5.276.

34 CIL 6.9677; cf. Van Nostrand, Ec. survey (above note 17) 3.199-200 and Diedrich Bohlen, Die Bedeutung der Fischerei fiir die antike Wirt- schaft (Hamburg 1937) 57. On the basis of this in- scription, Bohlen thinks there were only a few merchants of processed fish products in any one locality.

35 CIL 15.4690, 4692-4693, 4695-4702, 4705, 4729, 4804. It is not certain that they were distributors. They may have been manufacturers.

36 There are about 117 inscriptions on the ex- pensive fish sauces in CIL 4.2574 sqq.; 4 Suppl. 5657 sqq.; 6919 sqq., 7110; and 15.2; 1.4686 sqq.

37 The cheaper fish sauces appear in about twenty-seven inscriptions in CIL 4 Suppl. 5699 sqq., 6922 sqq.; and 15.2; 1.4713 sqq.

38 Smidth (above, note 19) 14.