534 
T1IE OCEAN WORLD. 
or break it. When caught in a net, they quickly choose some mesh 
through which their body can glide. 
Those who have studied the classics will remember the passionate 
love with which the Roman gourmet regarded these fishes. In the days 
of the Empire enormous sums were expended in keeping up the ponds 
which enclosed them, and the fish themselves were multiplied to such 
an extent that Caesar, on the occasion of one of his triumphs, dis- 
tributed six thousand among his friends. Licinius Crassus was cele- 
brated among wealthy Romans for the splendour of his eel-ponds. 
They obeyed his voice, he said, and when he called them, they- darted 
towards him in order to be fed by his hands. The same Licinius 
Crassus, and Quintus Hortensins, another wealthy Roman patrician, 
Fig. 361. The Sea-Eel (Muneau Helena). 
wept the loss of their muraenas on one occasion, when they all died in 
their ponds from some disease. This, however, was only a matter 
of taste, passion, or fashion ; sometimes, however, accompanied by 
cruelty, and gross corruption. 
It was thought among the Romans that murasnas fed with human 
flesh were the most delicately-flavoured. A rich freedman, nam ei 
Pollion, who must not, however, be confounded with the oratoi 
of the name, had the cruelty to order such of his slaves as 
thought deserving of death, and sometimes even those who had do« e 
nothing to excite his anger, to be thrown to them. On one occa 
sion, when he entertained the Emperor Augustus, a poor slave w 
attended had the misfortune to break a precious vase; Pollion lin ^ 
mediately ordered him to be thrown to the eels. But the indignan 
