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Garum is a type of fish sauce condiment popular in Ancient Roman society. It was considered by the Romans to be an aphrodisiac, and was usually only consumed by the higher classes of society.

Although it enjoyed its greatest popularity in the Roman world, it originally came from the Greek, gaining its name from the Greek words garos or garon, which named the fish whose intestines were originally used in the condiment's production. The sauce was generally made through the crushing and fermentation in brine of the innards of various fish such as tuna, eel, and others.

Garum was a sauce which, mixed with wine, vinegar, pepper, oil, or water, was served as a condiment or accompaniment with a wide variety of dishes. Although this was its main use, it also was employed as a medicine or for cosmetics.

Numerous amphoras filled with the fish sauces in demand at the capital (garum, liquamen, muria, and halex) came on Spanish vessels bringing wine and oil. Trade in these condiments was highly profitable since the best brands, for instance the garum sociorum prepared from the scomber in the fisheries of New Carthage, were very costly. According to the inscription found on sherds at Rome, the socii, a firm which bought the fishing concession from the state, packed and distributed its own products; that it did not enjoy a monopoly in the making of garum is proved by the names of independent shippers which appear on jars carrying this article from Malaga (XV, 4737-40) and Gades (4570). At Rome, moreover, there was a guild of negotiantes Malacitani (VI, 9677), which maintained a sales depot for fish sauce from Malaga packed by this group: the socii, then, directed their cargoes to representatives of the guild who managed all details of distribution. These dealers had elected as their president a Greek freedman, P. Clodius Athenio, himself a dealer in salsamenta: sauces, dried fish, and condiments of all kinds.

The products of the famous garum factory of Umbricius Scaurus near Pompeii would certainly be brought to the Roman market, although the fragments of only one amphora testify to Pompeian imports (garum Pompeianum, XV, 4686). It is possible, however, that the A. A. Atinis, sherds of whose jars of garum and muria have been found in great numbers at Rome, were citizens of Pompeii. Garum from Puteoli ( XV, 4687-8) and liquamen Antiatinum ( XV, 4712) also arrived at the city markets. Many cheaper brands of fish sauces and dried salt fish were imported for the everyday food of the lower classes. The Spanish salt fish ranked first (Str., 3, 2, 6) but was almost equalled by the tarichos from the Pontic coast (id., 7, 6, 2).