ANTONIA'S RECORD— FISH-BREEDING 229 



its savage nature no other could inhabit the same vivarium, the 

 many stories of its tameness and dociUty ? — that one of the 

 direst of imprecations ran that in the underworld your enemy's 

 lungs should be mangled by Murcence ! ^ 



In times preceding these infatuated extravagant ages, the 

 purpose for which vivaria were first created was steadfastly 

 kept in mind and wonderfully advanced by practical pisci- 

 culturists. From being a mere pond for keeping fish alive till 

 needed for the table, vivaria developed in the course of time into 

 spawning grounds. 



The pisciculturists went even farther. They turned lakes 

 and rivers into natural vivaria by depositing in them not only 

 adult fish, but the spawn of all such species as are in the habit, 

 although born at sea, of pushing some distance up estuaries 

 and streams. Columella instances specially the rivers Velinus, 

 Sabatinus, Ciminus, and Volsinius as examples of the great 

 success of this experiment in fish propagation. 2 



Comacchio on the Adriatic, from its extraordinary ad- 

 vantages of position and of fish-food, can hardly have escaped 

 being utiHsed for similar purposes by the Romans. For many 



1 Aristophanes, Frogs, 474 f., Taprriala (xvpaiva, a great dainty (Varro, 

 ap. Gell., 6. 16. 5), is of course meant to suggest Tartarus. Contrast with this, 

 the popularity of the fish, as attested by its frequent mention, especially in 

 Plautus, and by the fact which Helbig {Camp. Wandgemdlde (Leipzig, 1868), 

 Index, p. 496, 's.v. " Murane ") brings out, that on the mural decorations of 

 Pompeii no fish finds more frequent representation. 



2 De Re Rustica, VIII. 16, " Quamobrem non solum piscinas, quas ipsi 

 construxerant, frequentabant sed etiam quos rerum natura lacus fecerat 

 convectis marinis seminibus replebant. Et lupos auratasque procreaverunt 

 ac siqua sint alia piscium genera dulcis undae tolerantia." 



" What fish Columella meant by Aurata is not settled : it is certainly not 

 the " goldfish." as some translate, for they are not sea-fish. Facciolati, after 

 saying that the name came from the fish having golden eyebrows, goes on that 

 " some folk deny that he can be identified with the ' gilthead ' or * dory.' " 

 Perhaps the fish is one of the Sparidcs group, which pass at certain seasons of 

 the year from the Mediterranean into salt-water fish marshes, as observed by 

 Aristotle, and confirmed by M. Duhamel. Or can it be the smelt ? 



Faber, pp. 37, 38, " of fresh- water fishes, twenty-one species, among them 

 the fresh-water Perch, are also common to the sea : amongst the sea fishes, 

 the flounder frequents brackish water, and sometimes enters the rivers : 

 others only occasionally frequent the lagoons and brackish waters, among them 

 the Gilthead," a statement incidentally confirmed by Martial (Ep. XIII. 90) 

 in his helluous pronujxiamento, that practically the only really good Aurata was 

 that whose haunt was the Lucrine lake, and whose whole world was its oyster ! 

 of which fish Martial (XIII. go) seems only appreciative, 



"... cui solus erit concha Lucrina cibus." 



