Juvenal's Big-Fish Satire

Extract

Horace puts in the mouth of Ofellus a sermon on plain living. Healthy hunger, says the honest yeoman, is content with ordinary fare; gluttons would like to see a big fish in a big dish,

porrectum magno magnum spectare catino,

but may the south wind turn their dainties bad, though the freshest turbot is already stale for a jaded appetite:

praesentes austri, coquite horum obsonia, quamquam putet aper rhombusque recens, mala copia quando aegrum sollicitat stomachum.

So Sat. ii. 2. 39–43: let us call the passage (a). He adds that he mentions turbots in particular because they happen to be more in fashion nowadays than sturgeons (46–48). Later in the same satire he talks (b) of the scandal and expense of big turbots and big dishes,

grandes rhombi patinaeque grande ferunt una cum damno dedecus. (95–96)

In another satire, an ironical lecture on cookery, we hear (c) that it is a gross fault to buy a big fish very dear and then serve it shabbily in too small a dish,

immane est vitium dare milia terna macello. angustoque vagos piscis urgere catino. (ii. 4. 76–77)

(The conventional translation of rhombus as a turbot has been retained, though it may well be some other fish.)

Juvenal, Satire iv, tells how a huge turbot was caught in the Adriatic off Ancona and hurried south to Alba as a gift to the Emperor. Fisherman and fish are promptly granted audience,

spectant admissa obsonia patres, (64)

and Domitian summons his Cabinet to discuss what is to be done with the treasure trove.