xiv BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



made, sigillo piscatoris), as the Massachusetts people (who 

 eschewed Friday for the same purpose, " lest they should 

 appear unto men to fast") dine every Saturday on salt 

 cod. The wealthy Romans exceeded even the Greeks in 

 their love of fisli. The reservoirs are still seen which Lu- 

 cullus excavated under the rocky promontory near Baiae, 

 at immense cost, cutting through the hill that the tide might 

 flow and ebb within them ; for which Tubero the Stoic (as 

 Plutarch tells us) called him " Xerxes in a toga,''^ alluding 

 to the Persian's tunnel through Mount Athos for his ships, 

 which the Roman had imitated for his fish. The fish in 

 them were sold after his death for forty thousand sesterces, 

 and the fish-ponds themselves for four hundred thousand 

 (compare Varro iii., 17, Columella viii., 16, and Pliny viii., 

 54). Hortensius (the orator) also constructed fish-ponds 

 of a like kind and scale, keeping vast numbers of fishermen 

 to increase his stock, but, principally, to supply the pre- 

 serves with little fish as food : yet, rather than serve up any 

 from his ponds, he bought fish in the markets of Puteoli, 

 for his entertainments : one could have had his carriage 

 mules out of his stable, sooner than a single bearded mullet 

 from him, and he cared more for the health of his fish than 

 that of his slaves {Varro iii., 17). We learn also, from the 

 same authority, that Caius Hirrius (who was the first to set 

 the fashion of fish-ponds), furnished Julius Cresar, on a tri- 

 umphal occasion, with six thousand lampreys, for which he 

 would receive no pay ; and his villa soon after sold (prin- 

 cipally on account of the fish-ponds) for four millions of 

 sesterces. 



To such a strange excess did these epicures go, that the 

 fish were brought in alive, and weighed before the guests 

 (reporters being in attendance), that they might see what 

 exquisite dainties they were about to dine upon {Ammian. 

 Marcel, xxviii.). Seneca (who, no doubt, enjoyed the 

 feast as much as any of them) assumes his stoical indigna- 

 tion, and says {Quccs. Nat. iii., 17) : "Fishes swim in the 



