CHAP. 81. (55.)—WHO INVENTED PRESERVES FOR MURENÆ.
C. Hirrus[1] was the first person who formed preserves for
the murena; and it was he who 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[2] 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,[3] 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.[4] It was at the same villa that Antonia,[5] 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.
1. Probably the same person as the C. Hirrius Posthumius, who is
mentioned as a voluptuary by Cicero, De Fin. B. ii. c. 22, § 70. Varro
speaks of him, as expending the rent of his houses, amounting to twelve
millions of sesterces, in bait for his murenæ.
2. This is, probably, the meaning of "quadragies "here, though it has
been translated 400,000.
3. See B. iii. c. 9.
4. Porphyry, Tzetzes, and Macrobius relate the same story.
5. See B. vii. c. 18, and B. xxxv. c. 36. Her grandson, Caligula, is
supposed to have hastened her death.