The first person who formed artificial oyster-beds was Sergius Orata, who established them at BaiÆ, in the time of Lucius Crassus, the orator, just before the Marsic War. This was done by him, not for the gratification of gluttony, but as a commercial venture, and he contrived to make a large income by this exercise of his ingenuity. He was the first to invent hanging baths over heating furnaces, and after buying villas and trimming them up, he would every now and then sell them again. He, too, was the first to adjudge the preËminence for delicacy of flavor to the oysters of Lake Lucrinus; for every kind of aquatic animal is superior in one place to what it is in another. Thus, for instance, the wolf-fish of the river Tiber is the best that is caught between the two bridges, and the turbot of Ravenna is the most esteemed, the murena of Sicily, the elops of Rhodes; the same, too, as to the other kinds, not to go through all the items of the culinary catalogue. The British shores had not as yet sent their supplies, at the time when Orata thus ennobled the Lucrine oysters: at a later period, however, it was thought worth while to fetch oysters all the way from Brundisium, at the very extremity of Italy; and in order that there might exist no rivalry between the two flavors, a plan has been more recently hit upon, of feeding the oysters of Brundisium in Lake Lucrinus, famished as they must naturally be after so long a journey.

In the same age, Lucinius Murena was the first to form preserves for other fish; and his example was soon followed by the noble families of the Philippi and the Hortensii. Lucullus had a mountain pierced near Naples, at a greater outlay even than that which had been expended on his villa, in order to admit the sea to his preserves. For this reason Pompey gave him the name of “Xerxes in a toga.”[148] After his death, the fish in his preserves were sold for the sum of four million sesterces ($150,000).

C. Hirrus was the first person who formed preserves for the murena; he lent six thousand of these fishes for the triumphal banquets of CÆsar the Dictator; on which occasion he had them duly weighed, as he declined to receive the value of them in money or any other commodity. His villa, which was of a very humble character in the interior, sold for four millions of sesterces, in consequence of the valuable nature of the stock-ponds there. Next after this, there arose a passion for individual fish. At Bauli, in the territory of BaiÆ, the orator Hortensius had some fish-preserves, in which there was a murena to which he became so much attached, as to be supposed to have wept on hearing of its death. It was at the same villa that Antonia, the wife of Drusus, placed earrings upon a murena which she had become fond of; the report of which singular circumstance attracted many visitors to the place.

Fulvius Lupinus first formed preserves for sea-snails, in the territory of Tarquinii, shortly before the civil war between CÆsar and Pompey. He also carefully distinguished them by their several species, separating them from one another. The white ones were those that are produced in the district of Reate; those of Illyria were remarkable for the largeness of their size; while those from Africa were the most prolific; those, however, from the Promontory of the Sun were the most esteemed of all. For the purpose of fattening them, he invented a mixture of boiled wine, spelt-meal, and other substances; so that fattened periwinkles became quite an object of gastronomy; and the art of breeding them was brought to such a pitch of perfection, that the shell of a single animal would hold as much as eighty quadrantes (fifteen quarts). This we learn from Marcus Varro.