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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 47, September, 1861 by Various
page 156 of 295 (52%)
servants, had an extraordinary weakness concerning his fine sea-eels. He
passed his life beside the superb fish-pond, where he lovingly
fattened them from his own hand. Nor was his fondness for pisciculture
exceptional in his times. The fish-pond, to raise and breed the
finest varieties of fish, was as necessary an adjunct to a complete
establishment as a barn-yard or hen-coop to a modern farmer or rural
gentleman. Wherever there was a well-appointed Roman villa, it contained
a _piscina_; while many gardens near the sea could boast also a
_vivarium_, which, in this connection, means an oyster-bed.

Fish-ponds, of course, varied with the wealth, the ingenuity, and the
taste of their owners. Many were of vast size and of heterogeneous
contents. The costly _Muraena_, the carp, the turbot, and many other
varieties, sported at will in the great inclosures prepared for them.
The greater part of the Roman emperors were very fond of sea-eels.
The greedy Vitellius, growing tired of this dish, would at last, as
Suetonius assures us, eat only the soft roe; and numerous vessels
ploughed the seas in order to obtain it for him. The family of Licinius
took their surname of Muraena from these fish, in order thus to
perpetuate their silly affection for them. The love of fish became a
real mania, and the _Murcena Helena_ was worshipped.

Hortensius, who possessed three splendid country-seats, constructed in
the grounds of his villa at Bauli a fish-tank so massive that it has
endured to the present day, and so vast as to gain for it even then the
name of _Piscina Mircihilis_. It is a subterraneous edifice, vaulted,
and divided by four rows of arcades and numerous columns,--some ten
feet deep, and of very great extent. Here the largest fishes could be
fattened at will; and even the mighty sturgeon, prince of good-cheer,
might find ample accommodations.
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