336 MURiENA. 



understood that he would be repaid only by the return of 

 an equal quantity of these fish by weight. Pliny adds, his 

 villa was of a very humble character on the inside, but 

 when it was sold, in consequence of the value set on his 

 ponds, it reached the price of four millions of sesterces 

 (quadrigies.) A noble of the family of Licinius is said to 

 have expended a large sura in forming ponds for fish; and 

 we may suppose that the Muraena had a place in them, since 

 he is said to have received an addition to his name on 

 account of his love for it, although it should be observed 

 that the name of Muraena belonged to a family of Romans 

 long before this time. But former examples were outdone by 

 Lucullus, who expended enormous sums in forming a passage 

 through a mountain near Naples, to admit the water of the 

 sea into his ponds; and so high was the value ascribed to 

 this work, that after his death these ponds were sold for the 

 same price as the villa and ponds of Hirius, the latter of 

 whom was accustomed to expend the rent of his houses, 

 which, according to Varro, amounted to twelve millions of 

 sesterces, in food for his Mursenae. But, as far as regarded 

 these fish, the labour of Lucullus in bringing the salt water 

 might have been spared, since it is found that they will live 

 and thrive in fresh water just as well as in the sea. 



A choice of food, as also abundance of it, appears to have 

 been of no small consequence in preparing these fish for the 

 market, and it is known that they are eager in searching for 

 it, as also that they are ferocious in their attack, as well as 

 in self-defence, in which their teeth are so capable of inflicting 

 injury by laceration as to have given occasion to the opinion 

 among fishermen that some poison is connected with the bite. 

 The voracity of the Muraena had indeed grown into a proverb 

 among the Greeks, and the poet Jj^schylus couples it in this 

 respect with the viper, its connection with the latter being 

 the subject of some legends, of which an explanation is 

 scarcely difiicult. Aristophanes, in his comedy of the "Frogs," 

 reckons his Tartesian Muraense (from near Cadiz, whence, 

 according to epicures, the best were obtained) as among the 

 monsters that will tear the entrails of the wicked in hell. 

 Even by respectable authority a wound by these teeth was 

 judged a serious affair; and that eminent physician Paulus 



