224 FISH IN SACRIFICES—VIVARIA—ARCHIMEDES 
No wonder the king spake to his admiring guests thus :— 
“A cook is quite as useful as a poet, 
And quite as wise, as these anchovies show it.” 
To Fulvius Herpinus or Lippinus belongs the credit of being 
the first—just before the Civil War—to fatten the Cochlea, or 
sea-snail, in a vivarium. By careful collecting from Africa and 
Tllyrica and skilful feeding, his cockles became renowned for 
size and number.! 
In the period between the taking of Carthage and the reign 
of Vespasian, the taste in fish became a perfect passion ; for its 
gratification Proconsuls enriched, like our Clives from India, 
beyond the dreams of avarice by the spoils of Asia and Africa, 
incurred the most lavish expense. Thus Licinius Murena, 
Quintus Hortensius, Lucius Philippus constructed immense 
basins,? which they filled with rare species. Lucullus, like the 
Persian king at Athos, but with unlike motive, caused even a 
mountain to be pierced to introduce sea-water into his fish- 
ponds, and for the achievement was dubbed by Pompey, 
“ Togatus Xerxes.” 3 
But in many cases the huge outlay was repaid with interest. 
Varro * avers that Hirrius (who first before all others designed 
and carried out the wivavium for Murena@) received twelve 
million sesterces in rent from his properties, and employed the 
entire sum in the care of his fishes! At the death of Lucullus 
the fish in his stew-ponds realised over £32,000. 
The rich Patricians were not satisfied with a single pond ; 
their fish preserves were divided into compartments where they 
kept different kinds. In case any reader, like the Third 
Fisherman in Shakespeare’s Pericles, 
“Marvel how the fishes live in the sea,”’ 
1 Cf. Varro, De Re Rust., 3. 12, 1, and Plin., 9. 82. 
2 Petronius, 120, 88, expelluntur aquae saxis, mare nascitur arvis. 
8 Lucullus, enriched by the vast booty captured from Mithridates and 
Tigranes, was the first who taught luxury to the Romans (Athen, VI. 109). 
Polybius (31, 24) writes that M. Porcius Cato denounced the introduction of 
foreign extravagances into Rome, citing as instances that for a jar of pickled 
fish from Pontus 300 dyachma had been paid, and that the price of a beautiful 
boy exceeded that of a field. 
* De Re Rustica, II. 17. 
