Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

—224 FISH IN SACRIFICES—VIVARIA—ARCHIMEDESNo wonder the king spake to his admiring guests thus :" A cook is quite as useful as a poet,And quite as wise, as these anchovies show it."To Fulvius Herpinus or Lippinus belongs the credit of beingthe first— just before the Civil War-—to fatten the Cochlea, orsea-snail, in a vivarium. By careful collecting from Africa andIllyrica and skilful feeding, his cockles became renowned forsize and number. ^In the period between the taking of Carthage and the reignof Vespasian, the taste in fish became a perfect passion ;for itsgratification Proconsuls enriched, like our Clives from India,beyond the dreams of avarice b}^ the spoils of Asia and Africa,incurred the most lavish expense. Thus Licinius Muraena,Quintus Hortensius, Lucius Philippus constructed immensebasins, 2 which they hlled with rare species. Lucullus, like thePersian king at Athos, but with unlike motive, caused even amountain to be pierced to introduce sea-water into his fishponds,and for the achievement was dubbed by Pompey," Togatus Xerxes." ^But in many cases the huge outlay was repaid with interest.Varro ^ avers that Hirrius (who first before aU others designedand carried out the vivarium for MurcBnce) received twelvemillion sesterces in rent from his properties, and employed theentire sum in the care of his fishes ! At the death of LucuUusthe fish in his stew-ponds realised over ;^32,ooo.The rich Patricians were not satisfied with a single pond ;their fish preserves were divided into compartments where theykept different kinds. In case any reader, like the ThirdFisherman in Shakespeare's Pericles," Marvel how the fishes live in the sea,"^ Cf. Varro, De Re Rust., 3. 12, i, and Plin.. q. 82.- Petronius, 120, 88, expelluntur aquae saxis, mare nascitur arvis.* LucuUus, enriched by the vast booty captured from Mithridates andTigranes, was the first who taught luxury to the Romans (Athen, VI. 109).Polybius (31, 24) writes that M. Porcius Cato denounced the introduction offoreign extravagances into Rome, citing as instances that for a jar of pickledfish from Pontus 300 drachmcE had been paid, and that the price of a beautifulboy exceeded that of a field.* Da Re Rustica, III. 17.