MUE^NID^. 395 



The MuRiENA. 



E^iSva 6' eKaroyKefpdKos, fj ra a^Xdyxva aov 

 Aia(T7rapd^etj irvevfxovav r dvddy^erai 

 TapTijfria fivpmva. — Arisioph. 



The names of Mursena and Vedius Pollio are indis- 

 solubly connected. Vedius Pollio was, as Pliny informs 

 his readers, ' a Roman gentleman (i. e. in the Russian 

 despot's sense of the term), a follower and prime fa- 

 vourite of Augustus, who devised a variety of cruel ex- 

 periments by means of this fish ; causing offending slaves 

 to be thrown into stews where mursenae were kept, that 

 they might be torn, or rather nibbled to pieces ; ' not,' 

 says his quaint translator. Dr. Holland, ' that there were 

 not wilde beastes ynow upon lande for this feate, but be- 

 cause he tooke pleasure to beholde a man torn and 

 plucket in pieces all at once, which pleasant sight he 

 could not see upon any other beastes upon lande.' This 

 is the Roman naturalist's version of a story told in vari- 

 ous ways by different narrators ; from one of them it is 

 made to appear that an additional motive to that here 

 suggested, occasionally instigated this 'gentleman' to 

 these summary proceedings, — namely, to train expert 

 waiters for his table, by making dreadful example of the 

 clumsy or careless. But this inference is merely con- 

 jectural ; and as Vedius Pollio never designed to state 

 his principles of action, posterity must be content, with 

 Seneca, to remain in ignorance, whether he maintained 

 mursense merely to indulge in propensities naturally 

 cruel, or with a prospective reference to the table ; whe- 

 ther, in short, it was to feed his anger, or to keep the fish 

 in good condition for himself and friends. Whatever 

 his intentions may have been, on one memorable occa- 

 sion he seems to have relied a little too much on the kind 

 indulgence of his patron. Augustus, ignorant, we may 



