VIVARIA ROMAN, SICILIAN— ARCHIMEDES 225 



I hasten to endorse the 



First Fisherman : " Why as men do on land ; the great ones eat 

 up the httlc ones," 



and to add that tlic lish confined in these separate ponds found 

 in the waters their business and hvehhood from the tesiacecB 

 purposely planted. 



This passion for piscines gradually impoverished the 

 Mediterranean and other seas. Fish in the Tyrrhenian Sea 

 had no time to come to maturity, because as Columella com- 

 plains, " Maria ipsa Neptunumque clauserunt ! " ^ While 

 Varro and Columella give careful directions as to the making 

 and keeping of practical fish stews, they keep silence as to 

 methods of capturing the inhabitants. 



I have come across no notice of vivaria among the Greeks : 2 

 their kinsman in Sicily erected at least one magnificent example. 

 Diodorus Siculus (XI. 2) tells us that the Agrigentines (pro- 

 bably by the labour of the Carthaginian prisoners) " sunk a 

 fishpond, with great costs and expenses, seven furlongs in 

 compass, and twenty cubits in depth : in this water, brought 

 both from fountains and rivers, fish were planted which soon 

 supplied them with an ample stock both for food and pleasure." 



To the great Archimedes is due the unique achievement of a 

 vivarium on board ship. It is impossible here to set forth all 

 the glories of this wonderful vessel, intended for the corn 

 traffic between Egypt and Sicily, and propelled by means of 

 huge sweeps — every sweep worked by a team of twenty men 



(eiicoo-opoc). 



Her Gymnasium, her three Baths, her Flower Garden, her 



1 De Re Riistica, VIII. i6. Cf. also Juvenal, V. 94 ff.— 



" quando omne peractum est 

 Et iam defecit nostrum mare, dum gula saevit, 

 Retibus assiduis penitus scrutante macello 

 Proxima, nee patimur Tyrrhenum crescere piscem," 

 and Seneca, Ep., 89, 22 — 

 "quorum profunda et insatiabilis gula hinc maria scrutatur, hinc terras." 



* The explanation for this byNonnius, op. cit., p. 75 — -that the Greek coasts, 

 from being surrounded on all sides by seas, yielded ample supplies of fish, 

 while the Romans, " whose seas were not so near," were not as fortunate and 

 were compelled to be more instant in pisciculture — is a statement at the best 

 doubtful, and certainly not supported by the existence of vivaria in Sicily, 

 lapped on every side by seas. 



