542 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



or break it. When cauglit in a net, they quickly choose some mesh 

 through which their body can glide. 



Those who have studied the classics will remember the passionate 

 love with which the Eoman gourmet regarded these fishes. In the days 

 of the Empire enormous sums were expended in keeping up the ponds 

 which enclosed them, and the fish themselves were multiplied to such 

 an extent that Caesar, on the occasion of one of his triumphs, dis- 

 tributed six thousand among his friends. Licinius Crassus was cele- 

 brated among wealthy Eomans for the splendour of his eel-ponds. 

 They obeyed his voice, he said, and when he called them they darted 

 towards him in order to be fed by his hands. The same Licinius 

 Crassus, and Quintus Hortensius, another wealthy Kornan patrician, 



Fig. 365. The Sea-Eel (Mursena Helena). 



wept the loss of their muraenas on one occasion, when they all died in 

 their ponds from some disease. This, however, was only a matter 

 of taste, passion, or fashion; sometimes, however, accompanied by 

 cruelty and gross corruption. 



It was thought among the Komans that muraenas fed with human 

 flesh were the most delicately flavoured. A rich freedman, named 

 Pollion, who must not, however, be confounded with the orator 

 of the name, had the cruelty to order such of his slaves as he 

 thought deserving of death, and sometimes even those who had done 

 nothing to excite his anger, to be thrown to them. On one occa- 

 sion, when he entertained the Emperor Augustus, a poor slave who 

 attended had the misfortune to break a precious vase ; Pollion im- 

 mediately ordered him to be thrown to the eels. But the indignant 



