When they die, mullets spectacularly change colours. The dying mullet
flashes patches of red ochre, and green. In Roman days, the host at a posh banquet would have a still-living mullet brought in a vase to table. When the water was removed from the vase, guests would watch the fish change
colors as it gasped out its life. Pale in death, the mullet would be
returned to the kitchen to be cooked.
The red mullet was almost extinguished in Ancient Times since the Romans
were crazy about this fish. The red mullet only repopulated when it became
too expensive because of its rarity: the common man couldn't afford it
anymore, and the Romans lost interest.
In one of Roman historian Suetonius' writings, the mullet plays a funny
role:
A few days after Tiberius came to Capri, a fisherman suddenly
intruded on his solitude by presenting him with an enormous mullet, which he
had lugged up the trackless cliffs at the rear of the island. Tiberius was
so scared that he ordered his guards to rub the fisherman's face with the
mullet. The scales skinned it raw, and the poor fellow shouted in his agony:
"Thank heaven I did not bring Caesar that huge crab I also caught". Tiberius sent for the crab and had it used in the same way.
Suetonius, Tib.
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