BOOK VIII. XVI. 5-8 



immense sum of 400,000 sesterces. For culinary 

 delicacies were already in great demand when fish- 

 ponds were made to communicate with the sea and, 

 just as at an earlier date Numantinus <* and Isauricus ^ 

 rejoiced in names taken from conquered nations, 

 so Sergius Orata (goldfish) " and Licinius Muraena 

 (lamprey),*^ who made fish-ponds their chief interest, 

 rejoiced in the names of the fish they had captured. 



But since men's moral sense has become so blunted 6 

 that such behaviour is reckoned not only as customary 

 but also as highly laudable and honourable, we too, 

 lest we should seem to be only out-of-date critics of 

 so many past generations, will show that the fish- 

 pond is also a source of profit which the head of a 

 household can gain from his country estate. He who 

 has bought either islands or land near the sea and is 

 unable, owing to the poverty of the soil which is 

 generally found near the coast, to gather the fruits 

 of the earth, should establish a source of revenue 

 from the sea. The first step in this direction is to 7 

 examine the nature of the ground where you have 

 decided to construct your fish-ponds, for every kind of 

 fish cannot be kept on every coast. A muddy stretch 

 of shore is the place for rearing flat fish, such as the 

 sole, the turbot and the flounder ; « it is also 

 very suitable for testaceous animals : of purple- 

 producing shell-fish, the true purple fish ; and 

 also, of other molluscs, the oyster, small scallops, 

 barnacles or sphondyliJ But the sandy whirlpools are 8 

 not bad feeding-grounds for flat-fish — better, however, 



** Licinius Muraena according to Pliny [loc. cit. § 170) 

 invented fish-ponds for all sorts of fish. 



' Or dab; the identification is doubtful. 



f Apparently another kind of mussel, perhaps spondylus 

 gaedaropus. 



