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Salt and Fish Processing in the Ancient Mediterranean: A Brief Survey

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Abstract

The demand for salt generated by the dietary and domestic needs of most Greek city-states could be usually fulfilled by local resources given the general abundance of salt along the coasts of the ancient Mediterranean. The extremely rare references to interregional salt trade in literary and documentary sources corroborate this idea. As a bulky commodity with little economic value, salt was too expensive to be transported over long distances and was more conveniently obtainable from local resources. However, the situation was different when large-scale fish processing centers entered into the equation. The production and widespread distribution of processed fish required a steady supply of both fish and salt. Salt only was able to transform fish—which is otherwise extremely perishable—into a durable commodity, easy to store and trade. The strategic importance that salt assumed at these centers transformed its economic significance and made interregional trade both convenient and profitable. Also, it was through the medium of processed fish that the surplus of salt production available in certain regions was redistributed across the Mediterranean and came to play an important, albeit indirect, role in interregional trade.

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Notes

  1. This survey is largely based on Carusi (2016), (2008, 149–188), with some updates.

  2. Today, for example, according to European estimates, the average individual consumption is around 3.2 kg of salt per annum, compared to the minimum of 1 kg required by the human body (see Moinier 1997, 23–24, 111–115).

  3. See [Arist.] Mir. 138; Sall. Iug. 89.7–8; Varro Rust. 1.7.8; Tac. Ann. 13.57; App. Hisp. 54.227; Syn. Ep. 148.

  4. See Moinier (2011, 138–139) for the equation of 1 modius of salt to 7 kg and for the consumption and possible uses of the salt allocated to rural slaves. See also Carusi (2008, 23–24, 149–150).

  5. Moinier (2011, 139–140) prefers an estimate of 12 g/d for the individual consumption of Roman citizens in the last three centuries of the Republic, i.e., 4.3 kg per annum. This estimate, however, includes only dietary consumption. With the addition of salt used for making bread, curing hides, fish salting, and animal feeding, he suggests an individual consumption of between 12 and 24 g/d, i.e., 4.3 and 8.7 kg per annum. If we accept Moinier’s estimations, we should double our figures in order to include animal consumption. However, we must consider that in the Greek world animal husbandry played a less preponderant role than in Roman Italy (see Chadezon 2003, 402–404). Given the lack of data, I prefer not to propose any specific figure.

  6. See Horden and Purcell (2000, 24–34). In my detailed survey of all available sources concerning the production of salt I have come to the conclusion that said production was generally widespread throughout the Mediterranean, with seawater being its main source (see Carusi 2008, 45–148).

  7. It is widely accepted that this section of the Naturalis Historia is based on Theophrastus’ lost treatise On salts, niter, and alum quoted by Diogenes Laertius (Vit. Phil. 5.42). See Carusi (2008, 16–18).

  8. See Plin. HN 31.82-83; Arist. Mete. 2.3.359a-b; [Arist.] Mir. 138; Antig. Mir. 143; Varro Rust. 1.7.8; Cic. Nat.D. 2.132; Tac. Ann. 13.57; Arr. Anab. 1.29.1; Lycoph. Alex. 133-135.

  9. See Cato Agr. 24.88.105; Col. Rust. 7.8.9, 8.6, 12.25; Plin. HN 18.68.

  10. See Davaras (1980, 2–4). Other ethnographic examples as this are too common to be mentioned here.

  11. For the description of ancient salt-works see Manilius’ Astronomica (5.682-692), Rutilius Namatianus’ De reditu suo (475–490), and Nicander of Colophon’s Alexipharmaca (518–520). For a recent survey of all remains of ancient salt-works identified so far see García Vargas and Martínez Maganto (2017).

  12. See Arist. Mete. 2.3.359a; Cato Agr. 88, 106; Plin. HN 31.81, 85, 92 (see Carusi 2008, 36–37). These passages offer clear evidence that ancient authors were aware of the different degrees of concentration reached by seawater during the evaporation process and the necessity of leaching.

  13. Kaudos: Guarducci (1930, 477–479) (in antiquity see Carusi 2008, 91–93); Thermisi: Jameson et al. (1994, 311); Tragasai: Cook (1973, 222–224) (in antiquity see Carusi 2008, 79–81); Pérécop: Baladié (1994, 155).

  14. For the low economic value of salt and the lack of reference to interregional salt trade in the ancient literature see Carusi (2016, 344–347) and Carusi (2008, 159–181). The only exception were some specific varieties of salt, such as the ammoniac salt, the Iberian salt, and the Cappodocian salt, which enjoyed a particular renown due to their use in pharmacology and which seems to have circulated well beyond their respective areas of production.

  15. For a survey of the different types of fish sauces and salted fish consumed in the Greco-Roman world see Curtis (1991, 6–15), Botte (2009, 14–24).

  16. See Grimal and Monod (1952, 32–33, 37).

  17. See García Vargas et al. (2014, 71–72). See 68–71 in the same article for other ancient recipes concerning the preparation of garum and liquamen.

  18. For example, Sáez Romero and Moreno Pulido (2017, 241–242), assume a salt to fish ratio equivalent to 1:1 in estimating the salt demand of the processing installations of Gades in the 5th c. BCE.

  19. Marzano (2013, 121), points clearly out that processing facilities depending on the seasonal migration of fish coul not be working all year round; nevertheless, given the amount of financial and logistics investment they required, it made sense to keep them active and at full capacity as much as possible by processing smaller fish, molluscs, and even meat, when migrating species such as tuna were not available.

  20. For the abundance of fish in these areas see Étienne and Mayet (2002, 26–35) and Dumont (1976–77, 96–113).

  21. For the literary evidence concerning the wide circulation of fish products from these areas see Carusi (2008, 182–186). For the development of the fish processing industry in the Imperial period see Curtis (1991, 177–181) and Marzano (2013, 89–122). For a recent survey of the archaeological evidence see Botte (2009, 24–51). The lack of archaeological remains from the earlier period might be due to the use of different production methods and different containers, i.e., pithoi or wooden tubs instead of salting vats made of cement and tiles, and baskets or wooden barrels instead of transport amphoras.

  22. For Chersonnesus and the Crimean peninsula see Carusi (2008, 75–76); for Gades see García Vargas (2001, 20–21) and Ménanteau and Villalobos (2006, 93–97).

  23. See Lagóstena Barrios (2007, 311–319).

  24. In 1672, Jean Chardin, a French Protestant in exile, described the salt-works of Caffa, in Crimea, and reported that this city supplied with its salt Constantinople and many other places. In 1803, Jean de Reuilly, charged with a diplomatic mission in Russia and Crimea, revealed that the salt of Pérécop was transported not only to the northern hinterland but also to Constantinople and the southern coast of the Black Sea. Finally, Charles de Peyssonnel, French consul in Crimea from 1753 to 1757, observed the salt-works of Borysthenes, at the estuary of the Dnieper River, and reported that boats loaded with salt were sailing from there to Constantinople (see Baladié 1994, 151, 156, 159).

  25. See Carusi (2008, 76–79, 178–179).

  26. A generic reference to “ships carrying salt” in Plutarch (Mor. 685d) reveals that salt trade was not an exceptional phenomenon in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, the reference lacks any geographical and chronological connection.

  27. For salted fish and fish sauces as substitutes for salt see Morère (1994, 249) and Marzano (2013, 91).

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    Cristina Carusi

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Carusi, C. Salt and Fish Processing in the Ancient Mediterranean: A Brief Survey. J Mari Arch 13, 481–490 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11457-018-9196-0

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