176 History of Nature. [BooK IX. 



CHAPTER LV. 

 Who invented Store-ponds for Murcence. 



CAIUS HIRTIUS was the Man who, of himself, before 

 all others, thought of a Pond to keep Muraenae in. He it was 

 that lent Ccesar the Dictator, for his triumphal Suppers, six 

 hundred Muraenae in Numher, to be paid again ; for he 

 would not sell them for Money, nor exchange them for other 

 Merchandise. Although his Villa was of moderate size, yet 

 the Fish-ponds about it sold the House for four millions of 

 Sesterces. After this the Love of some one particular Fish 

 became general. The Orator Hortensius had a Pond at 

 Bauli, upon the Side that lieth toward Baeiae, in which was a 

 Muraena for which he felt such regard, that when it was 

 dead it is believed that he wept for it. 1 At the same Villa, 

 Antonia the wife of Drusus affixed Ear-rings to a Muraena 

 in which she delighted ; the Report of which caused some 

 People to wish to visit Bauli. 



CHAPTER LVI. 

 The Preserves for Snails , 2 and who first invented them. 



FULVIUS HIRPINUS was the first Inventor of Store- 

 preserves for Snails within the Territory of Tarquinii, a little 

 before the Civil War with Pompey the Great. And those 

 had their distinct Partitions for their several Sorts : so that 



1 JElian (B. viii. ch. iv.), perhaps from hearsay, has jumbled these two 

 incidents into one ; but he has added a piece of wit, which renders it 

 worth transcribing. " The Romans celebrate the Muraena of Crassus, 

 which he adorned with ear-rings and precious stones, as if it had been a 

 beautiful girl. He also taught the fish to know his voice, and to swim to 

 him and take food from his hand. I have been informed that when this 

 fish died he wept for it, and gave it an honourable funeral. When on 

 some occasion Domitius said to him : * What a fool, Crassus, to weep for 

 the death of a Mura?na 1 ' To which he answered : * True, I wept the 

 death of an animal ; but that is more than any one saw you do at the 

 funerals of your three wives.'" Wern. Club. 



2 See B. viii. ch. xxxix. Wern. Club. 



