FISHERIES AMONG THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS. 19 



lake, which had a clear bottom and pure water, was connected both with 

 the salt water of the ocean and with fresh river- water, and in the hands 

 of Orata it soon became a gigantic oyster-pond, which could at all times 

 supply Rome with oysters of such an excellent flavor as soon to gain the 

 very highest reputation among all the dainty eaters in Italy; for they 

 ordered these oysters to be sent to them in wooden boxes filled with 

 water, even to places at a great distance from the sea. Athenseus tells us 

 that a noble sycophant, by the name of Apicius, sent fresh oysters care- 

 fully packed in jars to the Emperor Trajan, while he was waging war 

 against the Parthians in the interior of Asia. 



The fullest information on this subject we gain from two ancient mon- 

 uments of the time of Nero, of which a short description is given in the 

 above-mentioned work by M. Coste. These remains consist of two 

 supulchral-urns of glass, one of which was discovered near Popularia, the 

 other near Borne. They resemble in shape our refrigerators of terra- 

 cotta, viz, a round vessel with a long, narrow neck. The outside of 

 these urns is covered with a sort of engraving, which, notwithstanding 

 its rudeness, shows us very distinctly an ancient oyster-pond. To con- 

 vince us still further, we fiod on one of them the following inscriptions 

 over the engraving: "Anima felix vivas," and "Stagnuni Pallatium," 

 (the first containing a wish that the soul may live happy, the second be- 

 ing the name of a country-seat which the Emperor Nero possessed on 

 Lake Lucrinus ;) and immediately in the center of the engraving we 

 read the word " ostriaria," i. e n oyster-pond. On the other urn we read 

 the following inscription, " Stagnum Neronis Ostriaria ; Stagnum Silva 

 Bajoe," which leads the thought to Bajoe's famous coast, where also 

 Nero had a villa. The most remarkable thing about these engravings is 

 that a great number of poles are seen rammed in the ground — placed in 

 circles — for this can only have been done with the same object for which 

 this is done in our days near Lake Fusaro, viz, to give to the young oys- 

 ter an object to which it may cling. 



It is evident from this that the ancients not only kept a stock of oys- 

 ters in their ponds, but also let tbem breed there, and in various inge- 

 nious ways made their extraordinary fruitfulness a source of income. 

 We have here authoritative proof of a regularly organized system of 

 oyster-culture, which brought untold wealth to its inventor, Sergius 

 Orata, this " niagister luxuriorum," as Cicero calls him. His example 

 was followed, and soon many other oyster-ponds were established. Li- 

 cinius Murena was the first who had ponds for fish, especially for the 

 muraena, which he named after himself, and soon most of the rich and 

 noble Boman families possessed their own fish-ponds, such as Philippus, 

 Hortensius, r.nd Lncullus. The last mentioned, as Pliny tells us, had a 

 channel dug through a mountain, near Naples, at a greater expense 

 than it would have cost to build a magnificent country seat, and in this 

 manner brought the sea- water into his gardens.^ Pompey, from this cir- 

 cumstance, called him a " Xerxes in the toga." 



Shortly before the outbreak of the civil war with Pompey, Fulvius 



