[529] For an admirable account of Syracusan coin-types during the ‘fine’ period (413-346 B.C.), see G. F. Hill, _Coins of Ancient Sicily_ (London, 1903), p. 97 ff., with frontispiece and pls. 6-7. On the widespread representation of the Tunny on vases and coins—Carthaginian, Pontic, etc.—see Rhode, _op. cit._, pp. 73-77. [530] See G. F. Hill, _op. cit._, Pl. 7, 13. [531] L. Siret, _Questions de chronologie et ethnographie ibériques_ (Paris, 1913), Index, _s.v._ ‘Poulpe.’ [532] Cf. Tacitus, _Annals_, XII. 63. [533] _De Re Rustica_, VIII. 16, “Our ancestors shut up salt-water fishes also in fresh waters. For that ancient rustic progeny of Romulus and Numa valued themselves mightily upon this and thought it a great matter, that, if a rural life were compared with a city life, it did not come short in any part of riches whatsoever.” [534] “Orata,” according to Festus, p. 196, 26 ff. Lindsay, “genus piscis appellatur a colore auri, quod rustici _orum_ dicebant.” [535] See _ante_, p. 146. If he praise our oysters, he straightly condemns the pearls from them, as being “small and discoloured;” wherefore (IX. 57) Julius Cæsar, when he presented a _thorax_ to Venus Genetrix, had it made of British “pearls,” a very poor requital to a goddess, who, if Suetonius is to be trusted, had so often stood him in good stead, both as a distant ancestress, and in other connections! Some really fine pearls have been found in Scotland and Wales: the best known of these, got at Conway in the eighteenth century, was presented to Catherine of Braganza, and is still preserved in the Crown jewels. Wright, _op. cit._, p. 220. [536] Pliny, XXXII. 21. [537] Athen., I. 13; cf. Suidas, _s.v._ ὄστρεα. [538] Euphron, _incert. fab. frag._ 1, quoted by Athen., I. 13. [539] Cf. Varro, _De Re Rust._, 3. 12, 1, and Plin., 9. 82. [540] Petronius, 120, 88, _expelluntur aquæ saxis, mare nascitur arvis_. [541] Lucullus, enriched by the vast booty captured from Mithridates and Tigranes, was the first who taught luxury to the Romans (Athen., VI. 109). Polybius (31, 24) writes that M. Porcius Cato denounced the introduction of foreign extravagances into Rome, citing as instances that for a jar of pickled fish from Pontus 300 _drachmæ_ had been paid, and that the price of a beautiful boy exceeded that of a field. [542] _De Re Rustica_, III. 17. [543] _De Re Rustica_, VIII. 16. Cf. also Juvenal, V. 94 ff.— “quando omne peractum est Et iam defecit nostrum mare, dum gula sævit, Retibus assiduis penitus scrutante macello Proxima, nec patimur Tyrrhenum crescere piscem,” and Seneca, _Ep._, 89, 22— “quorum profunda et insatiabilis gula hinc maria scrutatur, hinc terras.”