The tuna fisheries of north-western Sicily have long enjoyed international fame, and every spring TV cameras zoom in on the gory spectacle as the trapped tuna are despatched with knives and the waters are turned pink by their blood. Less famous are the fisheries of south-eastern Sicily, where the traps are set later in the year to intercept the shoals of tuna on their return voyage from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic – hence the appellation tonnare di ritorno, as opposed to the tonnare di andata of the north-western coast and islands.
As early as the classical period, tuna was exported from south-eastern Sicily. In a fragment of the lost comedy Sirens (early fourth century bce) Theopompus (F 52 K.-A. = Athen. Deipn. 399d) refers to tuna and Sicily in a manner implying that in the minds of his audience the two were closely associated, and to the average Athenian of the time Sicily would be more or less synonymous with Syracuse. Despite this and other textual evidence for fishing and fish processing in the region, systematic archaeological studies of fish processing installations did not commence until the 1980s, and in the research literature the Roman fishing industries of Sicily have long been overshadowed by those of the northern Black Sea coasts and along the Strait of Gibraltar. This massive volume, the fruit of an Italian–Spanish–French collaborative project, goes a long way towards redressing that imbalance.
After a short bilingual prologue (in Italian and Spanish) by the editors, the thirteen chapters are organised under four main themes. Malfitana, in ‘Economie, mercati e produzioni nei contesti urbani e rurali della Sicilia romana’, situates the Sicilian fish processing industry within its spatial, social and economic contexts. The first part of this rich chapter, the book's longest, takes a geographical approach, discussing key methodological concepts such as ‘consumer cities’ versus ‘producer cities’ and the nature of rural–urban interaction. In the literary and epigraphic sources Roman Sicily appears as a patchwork of territories defined by the island's many municipia and civitates, but Malfitana argues convincingly for viewing Sicily as composed of nine ‘geographical areas’ defined by landscape and hydrography (pp. 24–31 with map 5, p. 25). There is much to be said for abandoning the traditional emphasis on politico-administrative boundaries in favour of ‘functional territories’ and ‘soft spaces’, though one cannot always assume that such functional spaces will follow the natural – or what to a modern observer seems ‘natural’ – geography of a region. Archaeological surveys, of which a number have taken place in Sicily within recent decades (pp. 32–3), may help resolve this question.
In the second part of the chapter the focus closes in on the location of fish processing installations and their related finds within individual cities, while the third part surveys the economic history of Sicily from the Republican era to the Severans (pp. 87–93). The epigraphic evidence suggests that the economy of the Palermo region prospered under the Severans (G. Germana, AJAH 6–8 [2009]), and Syracuse may also have enjoyed an economic upturn (‘la svolta severiana’, p. 87) at the turn of the third century. To what extent this was due to the personal interest of the imperial family (p. 88) is difficult to assess. Septimius Severus served a term as governor of Sicily in 189–190 ce, but the disruption of African and Spanish production networks when the supporters of Clodius Albinus were dispossessed of their estates (Dio 75.8.4; Herodian 3.8.7) may also have played a part in Sicily's economic resurgence.
The two following chapters (‘El Proyecto Archaeofish y el artesanado haliéutico en el sureste de Sicilia’; ‘Las cetariae siracusanas en el contexto haliéutico siciliano’) introduce the project of which this volume is a product and offer an informative comparative study of two Sicilian sites, Portopalo and Vendicari, with the exceptionally well-documented Spanish site of Baelo Claudia (pp. 100–6), a short survey of sources and research history (pp. 123–8), a summary of the most important sites and finds of north-western Sicily (pp. 128–40) and a more detailed discussion of the three most important south-eastern sites, Vendicari, Portopalo and Pachino (pp. 141–70, with summary table on p. 167).
The third and longest thematic section, ‘Le attività e le ricerche sul campo’, presents, in turn, the individual sub-projects, their methodology and their results. The first two chapters describe the aims and means of the Archaeofish project (Mazzaglia and Díaz); this is followed by a chapter on the natural environment at Pachino (F. Salomon, Bernal-Casasola, C. Vittori and H. Djerbi), four chapters on the excavations and finds at Portopalo (Díaz, J.M. Vargas Girón, M.L. Medina, Bernal-Casasola, Malfitana, Mazzaglia; J.A. Exposito, J.L. Portillo, J.A. Retamosa, Bernal-Casasola, Malfitana, Mazzaglia; M.Á. Pascual; Bernal-Casasola, R. Marlasca Martín and A. Hernández-Tórtoles) and a short chapter on shellfish finds from Portopalo (J.J. Cantillo Duarte and Bernal-Casasola). The last two chapters in this section discuss the evidence for different fishing techniques and types of fishing gear (Vargas Girón, Bernal-Casasola and Mazzaglia) and ceramic finds (L. Fantuzzi, Bernal-Casasola, Malfitana and Mazzaglia).
In the final chapter of the book, ‘Portopalo, Vendicari y los origines del atún siracusano’, the editors summarise the results of the project and explore potential avenues for future research. This is followed by a bibliography, abstracts in Spanish and Italian and a list of authors, but, regrettably, no indexes.
Space does not permit a discussion of all the results and new insights presented in this volume, but three points will be of particular interest not only to specialists in the archaeology of Magna Graecia but also on a more general level for the study of the ancient fishing economy.
(1) Morphology of pre-Roman salting installations. In contrast to the Punic fishing industry of western Sicily, fish processing during the classical and Hellenistic periods in Syracuse and other Greek cities was until now poorly documented in the archaeological record. On the basis of the available evidence it has so far been assumed that, whereas Punic fish-salters processed their catches in rectangular vats, Greek fish-salters preferred circular vats and that rectangular basins were not used in south-western Sicily until the Roman period (E. Botte, JMA 13 [2018], 378). The Archaeofish project has, however, identified remains of rectangular basins at Portopalo that can be dated to the Greek/Hellenistic period (pp. 242–5; 469).
(2) Transport containers. Another unanswered question concerns the export of the salted product from Sicily: how was it packed and shipped? In the Roman period the so-called ‘tubular amphorae’ with a neck of large diameter relative to the body would have been particularly suited for chunks of salted fish, salsamenta, and possibly represent the continuation of a Punic tradition (pp. 514–16), while for liquids the use of Dressel 21–2 amphorae is well documented, not only by finds from Sicily but also from the ‘garum shop’ at Pompeii, where Dressel 21–2 types were found in situ (pp. 449–51). But how were Syracusan fish products packaged during the classical and Hellenistic periods? It has not been possible to identify a pre-Roman amphora type dedicated exclusively to Sicilian fish products, but the excavators note the frequent occurrence of shapes MGS (Magna Graecia-Sicilia) III and IV as well as Dressel 1. These types are normally associated with the wine trade, but are occasionally found in fishing contexts and/or containing residues of fish. One possibility is that amphora shapes that had proved their worth as wine containers were adopted by fish-salters (as local imitations of Dressel 1A from Spain would seem to imply, p. 521); another that fish sauces were exported in re-used wine amphorae (pp. 517–22).
(3) Dried fish. Whereas preservation by salting is well described in ancient literature and attested by finds of salting vats, it remains an open question to what extent fish were also preserved by air-drying. The excavators have identified post-holes cut into the bedrock at the southernmost of the three fishing sites discussed, Pachino (pp. 155–7 and again pp. 508–9). That the posts in question supported wooden racks for drying fish, similar to structures attested in Sicily at the turn of the last century (fig. 48, p. 509) and in present-day Senegal (fig. 36, p. 157), is a tantalising possibility, which deserves to be followed up by further comparative studies of present-day fish drying in, for example, Iceland or Norway. An alternative hypothesis proposed by the authors is that the post-holes may be part of the substructure for a fish-watching lookout (thynnoskopeion). Certainly, cape Pachino at the south-eastern tip of the island would be a good vantage point from which to scan the horizon for incoming shoals of tuna.
The volume is well produced and copiously illustrated in black and white and colour, but some of the illustrations are reproduced at so small a scale that it is impossible to distinguish the finer details or read the legends on maps and plans (e.g. fig. 17, p. 39; fig. 9, p. 133; fig. 31, p. 163; figs 9–11, pp. 472–3).
