A few days after he 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.
