Red mullet fever was common in ancient Rome, although it almost always struck the rich. Symptoms included insatiable cravings, driving some to dig out huge ponds in which to breed the two species, Mullus barbatus and Mullus surmuletus, caress them and train them to recognise that a bell meant feeding, by hand. Alan Davidson describes the ancient Roman enthusiasm for red mullet brilliantly in his Oxford Companion to Food, in particular the preoccupation with size, which led to absurd prices for really big ones. Servius Asinius Celer, a Roman senator during the reign of Caligula, is said to have paid 8,000 sesterces for a red mullet (for comparison, a
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