Attic Black-Figure Kylix

This Athenian black-figure kylix or cup depicts a fish market. On one side, a fishmonger prepares a tuna for sale. He is about to carve up the fish on a chopping block. Pieces already cut from another fish lie on the table behind him and a fish head rests at his feet. On the other side, another man carries a tuna, perhaps freshly caught. 

*Use a tail-cut from a female tuna. . . . Slice it and bake it to a turn, adding a little salt and oil. Eat the slices hot, dipping them in piquant sauce. It is good also if you eat it plain . . . But if you serve it sprinkled with vinegar it is perfection.* 

This was the culinary advice of Archestratus of Gela, a gourmet who lived in one of the Greek colonies in Sicily around the mid-300s B.C. Given Greece's extensive coastline, fish were important in the Greek diet, but depictions of fishing and the sale of fish are rare in Greek art.