274 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



itself two feet above a pond, and five feet wide, so 

 that guests can walk round to their cushions and 

 the small columns.^ Lowest of all and surrounded 

 by the platform is a pond having a margin a foot 

 wide, and in the middle of the pond is a little 

 island. Round about the quay docks have also 

 15 been cut out as houses for the ducks. In the island 

 is a small column which has inside it a vertical rod 

 that supports, instead of a table, a wheel with 

 spokes, and at the circumference of the wheel where 

 is generally the curved felloe is a board hollowed 



rock; {^) falerae or phalerae (Keil), the breast ornaments of 

 horses or men. 



May it not be for Phalerum'i The <}>a.\ripov, the western 

 harbour of Athens, was almost circular in form. The navalta 

 {vtu)(ToiKoi), mentioned later, would then continue the metaphor. 

 I ought, perhaps, to have translated **a circular quay." 



^ Columellas. It is difficult to determine what is meant by 

 these. Are they the columnas tenues of § 13, or small pillars — 

 not mentioned before — which served as tables for the guests? 

 Keil, however, considers that all previous commentators have 

 erred in thinking that there were any guests at all to be fed, 

 and holds that the ducks were themselves the convivae. He 

 reminds us that Varro had already disapproved (4, 3) of 

 Lucullus's practice of having a dining-room in the aviar\'. 

 But what need had ducks of culcitael Why the elaborate 

 arrangement described for providing drink {ad hihendum) as 

 well as food if it was for ducks which swam in a pond ? And 

 why have hot water laid on for them ? The aviary was built 

 for pleasure {animi causa), and to it Varro, no doubt, often 

 took his guests, and when they were there gave them, not 

 indeed a cena, but perhaps a cold lunch laid out on the rotating 

 table. The hot and cold water was of course to mix with their 

 wine and to cleanse their hands after eating. 



