FISHING—LAKE COMO 143 
a fishing syndicate than the country gentleman living on his 
place or river. 
Pliny the Younger possesses, in addition to his appreciation 
of the various joys of country life, a passionate yet exquisite 
feeling for beauty of scenery, especially for that round Lake 
Como, to which his letters recur again and again. 
I cannot, however, conceive him much of a hunter, despite 
the abundant game which the Apennine or Laurentine coverts 
harboured, or much of a fiscator, despite his notices of fishing 
on his favourite lake. A letter (Epist., I. 6) to Tacitus, who had 
apparently been chaffing him as a sportsman, frankly admits 
that although he has killed three boars his chief pleasure in 
the chase consists of sitting quietly beside the nets, to which 
the game was driven, wrapt in contemplation or jotting down 
on his tablets the ideas which the solitude and silence demanded 
by the sport were wont to produce. 
As a fisherman he took his pleasure, if not sadly, for the most 
part vicariously. He joyed more, if I read him aright, in 
watching from one or other of his villas the boatmen toiling 
with their nets and lines than in a day’s fishing, an impression 
which seems confirmed by his appreciation of the joy of being 
able to angle from bed ! 
Thus we read in Epist., IX. 7: “On the shores of Como 
I have several villas, but two occupy me most . . . That one 
feels no wave; this one breaks them. From that, you may 
look down upon the fishermen below; while from this, you 
may yourself fish, and lower your hook from your bedroom— 
almost from your very bed—just as from a little boat.” ! 
If the site of the present Villa Pliniana is that of the ancient 
Villa, as from Pliny’s description 2 of the close proximity of 
the spring (which even now preserves the unusual character- 
istics specified in his letter) we may safely conclude, the feat 
of throwing your hook from your bedroom is obviously of the 
easiest. 
1 Cf. Martial, Epist., X. 30, 17, 
“Nec saeta longo querit in mari predam. 
Sed e cubili lectuloque iactatam 
Spectatus alte lineam trahit piscis.” 
2 Epist., V. 7. 
