Fish-ponds, of course, varied with the wealth, the ingenuity, and the taste of their owners.  Many were of vast size and of heterogeneous contents.  The costly Muraena, the carp, the turbot, and many other varieties, sported at will in the great inclosures prepared for them.  The greater part of the Roman emperors were very fond of sea-eels.  The greedy Vitellius, growing tired of this dish, would at last, as Suetonius assures us, eat only the soft roe; and numerous vessels ploughed the seas in order to obtain it for him.  The family of Licinius took their surname of Muraena from these fish, in order thus to perpetuate their silly affection for them.  The love of fish became a real mania, and the Murcena Helena was worshipped.

Hortensius, who possessed three splendid country-seats, constructed in the grounds of his villa at Bauli a fish-tank so massive that it has endured to the present day, and so vast as to gain for it even then the name of Piscina Mircihilis.  It is a subterraneous edifice, vaulted, and divided by four rows of arcades and numerous columns,—­some ten feet deep, and of very great extent.  Here the largest fishes could be fattened at will; and even the mighty sturgeon, prince of good-cheer, might find ample accommodations.

Lucullus, that most ostentatious of patricians, and autocrat of bons-vivants, had a mountain cut through in the neighborhood of Naples, so as to open a canal, and bring up the sea and its fishes to the centre of the gardens of his sumptuous villa.  So Cicero well names him one of the Tritons of fish-pools.  His country-seat of Pausilypum resembled a village rather than a villa, and, if of less extent, was more magnificent in luxury than the gigantic villa of Hadrian, near Tivoli.  Great masses of stone-work are still visible, glimmering under the blue water, where the marble walls repelled the waves, and ran out in long arcades and corridors far into the sea.  Inlets and creeks, which wear even now an artificial air, mark the site of piscinae and refreshing lakes.  Here were courts, baths, porticoes, and terraces, in the villa urbana, or residence of the lord,—­the villa rustica for the steward and slaves,—­the gallinarium for hens,—­the apiarium for bees,—­the suile for swine,—­the villa fructuaria, including the buildings for storing corn, wine, oil, and fruits,—­the horius, or garden,—­and the park, containing the fish-pond and the vivarium.  Statues, groves, and fountains, pleasure-boats, baths, jesters, and even a small theatre, served to vary the amusements of the lovely grounds and of the tempting sea.