Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

228 FISH IN SACRIFICES—VIVARIA—ARCHIMEDESAntonia, to whom the lands and villa of Hortensiusdescended, even stripped herself of her earrings to put them on amurcena.This lady, apart from this anecdote, was no ordinaryperson. We find her passing from the positive of celebratedrenown for her beauty, her virtue, her chastity (no mean featin that day !), through the comparative of being the mother ofGermanicus Caesar and Claudius, and the grandmother ofCaligula (which last, in slang parlance, " wanted a bit ofdoing ! "), unto the superlative of deathless fame in Pliny's" Nunquam exspuisse " (never spat !).iThe savage use, to which Vedius Pollio put his vivaria, can belearnt from the pages of Pliny - and Seneca. ^ A slave, forbreaking a crystal decanter at a banquet given to Augustus,was ordered to be thrown instantly into a piscina, there to beeaten alive by the nibbling voracious Murcena;. Escapingfrom his guards he threw himself at the Emperor's feet," beseeching nothing else except that he should die otherwisethan as food for fish " *. Caesar moved " novitate crudelitatis "(he little knew that this was his host's cheery custom) commandedthe crystals of Pollio to be smashed on the spot, theslave to be freed, and all the fishponds to be filled up.As conducive to la joie de vivre of the other slaves, thecommand was commendable, for the bite of the Murcena sserrated teeth, according to Nicander's Theriaca—that " nulliusfidei farrago "—owing to its mating with the viper, dealtpoisonous death and destruction to the fishermen driven byits pursuit " headlong from their boats," and was only curableby a mixture made of ashes from its own burnt head ! Sodreaded was this fish—curious is it not, to read, although fromChinese proverb. " In Japan fish are summoned to dinner by melodious gongs.In India, I have seen them called out of the muddy depths of the river atDohlpore by the ringing of a handbell, while carp in Belgium answer at onceto the whistle of the monks who feed them, and in far away Otaheite, thechiefs have pet eels, whom they whistle to the surface " (Robinson, op. cit.,p. 14). Cf. Athen,, VIII. " 3, and I myself and very likely many of you toohave seen eels having golden and silver earrings, taking food from any onewho offered it to them." The Egyptians similarly adorned their crocodileswith gold earrings. Herod. 2. 69.1 VII. 18.' IX. 39.» De Ira, III. 40.* For eels devouring the flesh of a corpse, see Iliad, 203 and 353.