THE EEL. 347 



In reference to the remark anent man-fatted eels for Roman gour- 

 mands, I ought properly to say that the record referred to speaks of 

 the sea eel, or murcena, not onr own comparatively inoffensive an- 

 gnilla. Vedius Pollio, according to Badham, is indissolnbly connected 

 with this eel in name. Pliny informs ns that this person was a fol- 

 lower and prime favourite of Augustus, who devised a variety of cruel 

 experiments by means of this fish, causing offending slaves to be 

 thrown into stews in which the fish were kept, that they might be torn 

 or nibbled up, "not," as his quaint translator, Dr. Holland, says, 

 " that there were not wilde beastes ynow upon lande for this feate, but 

 because he took pleasure to beholde a man torne and plucket in pieces all 

 at once, which pleasant sight he could not see upon any other beastes 

 upon lande." But there are variations of this story, and the most 

 picturesque is that the tyrant imposed on any servant who broke 

 decanters (fregit crystallinum) et hoc, fyc. the death by fishes. On one 

 occasion, when a grand banquet was being given to Augustus, the slave 

 appointed to wait on this august personage inadvertently smashed some- 

 thing. Knowing his doom, he did not wait till the emperor had departed, 

 but, rushing into the room, prostrated himself before the emperor, and 

 confessing his carelessness or awkwardness, begged for a different death. 

 He " did not care to die, but thought it hard for a man, even though a 

 slave, to be made esca piscines the live bait of fish." Augustus, with 

 some severity, it must be said, not only set the suppliant free, but 

 ordered all the ponds to be filled up and all his entertainer's stock of 

 glass to be instantly smashed in the presence of the assembled guests 

 (crystallina ante omnia coram se frangi jussit complerique piscinum 

 Seneca De Ira). 



Dr. Badham observes that Vedius Pollio was not the only person who 

 entertained fish on his own kind. Mopsus, the Lydian, gave Queen 

 Gadis and her son up to the scaly community of Lake Ascalon ; and 

 Crena, Agamemnon's mother, was, for her misconduct, also given by her 

 own father to the deep for the benefit of sharks and mursenas. 



So much for the food of the eel tribe. 



The eel is distributed almost all over the world. An able naturalist, 

 Mr. Lane, speaks of them as being the only fresh-water fish of Madeira, 

 where, it is said, they abound in water 500ft. above the level of the sea. 

 Greenland is said to possess them by Fabricius, but whether this is 

 correct or not I cannot say. They are also to be found in Japan and 

 parts of China, as I have been informed by a member of the Chinese 

 Embassy now in London, and they are especially plentiful in the countries 

 bounding the north and east of the Mediterranean. In Hungary they 

 are found in large numbers in lakes and ponds. Narbonne and Mont- 



