§278. Pork was widely used by rich and poor alike, and was considered the choicest of all domestic meats. The very language testifies to the important place it occupied in the economy of the larder, for no other animal has so many words to describe it in its different functions. Besides the general term _sūs_ we find _porcus_, _porca_, _verrēs_, _aper_, _scrōfa_, _māiālis_, and _nefrēns_. In the religious ceremony of the _suovetaurīlia_ (_sūs_ + _ovis_ + _taurus_) it will be noticed that the swine has the first place, coming before the sheep and the bull. The vocabulary describing the parts used for food is equally rich; there are words for no less than half a dozen kinds of sausages, for example, with pork as their basis. We read, too, of fifty different ways of cooking pork. §279. Fowl and Game.--All the common domestic fowls, chickens, ducks, geese, and pigeons, were used by the Romans for food, and besides these the wealthy raised various sorts of wild fowl for the table, in the game preserves that have been mentioned (§145). Among these were cranes, grouse, partridges, snipe, thrushes, and woodcock. In Cicero's time the peacock was most highly esteemed, having at the feast much the same place of honor as the turkey has with us, but costing as much as $10 each. Wild animals were also bred for food in similar preserves, the hare and the wild boar being the favorites. The latter was served whole upon the table as in feudal times. As a contrast in size may be mentioned the dormouse (_glīs_), which was thought a great delicacy. §280. Fish.--The rivers of Italy and the surrounding seas must have furnished always a great variety of fish, but in early times fish was not much used as food by the Romans. By the end of the Republic, however, tastes had changed, and no article of food brought higher prices than the rarer sorts of fresh fish. Salt fish was exceedingly cheap and was imported in many forms from almost all the Mediterranean ports. One dish especially, _tyrotarīchus_, made of salt fish, eggs, and cheese, and therefore something like our codfish balls, is mentioned by Cicero in about the same way as we speak of hash. Fresh fish were all the more expensive because they could be transported only while alive. Hence the rich constructed fish ponds on their estates, a Marcus Licinius Crassus setting the example in 92 B.C., and both fresh-water and salt-water fish were raised for the table. The names of the favorite sorts mean little to us, but we find the mullet (_mullus_; see §251) and a kind of turbot (_rhombus_) bringing high prices, and oysters (_ostreae_) were as popular as they are now.