The greater part of the Roman emperors were exceedingly fond of sea-eels. The greedy Vitellius, growing tired of this dish, would at last only eat the soft roes: and numerous vessels ploughed the seas in order to obtain them for him.[XXI-66] This exquisite rarity again appeared too common to the maniac child, who dismayed and astonished Rome for the space of three years. Heliogabalus brought the soft roe of the sea eel into disrepute by ordering that the peasants of the Mediterranean should be gorged with it.[XXI-67] This folly amused him, and only cost several millions. That was a trifle when compared with the blood which almost always flowed to satisfy his whims. The Greeks and Latins thought much of sea-eels caught in the straits of Sicily.[XXI-68] They were sometimes served surrounded with crawfish;[XXI-69] but more frequently they were dressed with a seasoning much in fashion, composed of pepper, alisander, savory, saffron, onion, and stoned Damascus plums. These various substances were mixed together, and to them were added wine, sweet sun-made wine, old wine reduced by boiling, garum, vinegar, and oil.[XXI-70] At Rome the fish market was abundantly supplied with sea-eels from the Tiber. Connoisseurs thought nothing of them;[XXI-71] they were sold at a low price, and their disgrace became complete directly they appeared on plebeian tables. The Egyptians venerated this fish, and always esteemed it sacred.[XXI-72] Among the Sybarites, just appreciators of its culinary qualities, the fishers and sellers of sea-eels were exempt from all taxes.[XXI-73] They often procured some of such enormous size, that we should be tempted to accuse the old chroniclers of exaggeration, if we were not aware that this animal attains considerable dimensions. In the year 1786 a sea-eel was taken in the Elbe, weighing sixty pounds. This extraordinary fish measured seven feet two inches in length, and twenty-five inches in the girth.[XXI-74] LAMPREY. In spite of its soft and viscid flesh, this fish occupied in Rome a most honourable rank among the multitudinous dishes which intemperance was ever augmenting, and preference was given to that species caught by enterprising speculators in that strait which separates Sicily from Italy. These good people averred that lampreys which rise to the surface of the sea are immediately dried up by the sun, and cannot any more descend to the depths of the ocean.[XXI-75] This little story did no harm to their sale; on the contrary, they became on that account more curiously interesting.