in depth.  This is turned by a boy whose business that is, so that meat and drink is put before all my bird guests in turn.  From the elevation of the platform, where mats are usually placed, the ducks go out to swim in the basin, and from this streams flow into the two basins I have already described, and little fish may be seen darting from one to the other, while warm or cold water may be turned on the guests from the circumference of the revolving table, which I have described as equipped with spokes.

“Within the dome is an arrangement to tell the hours by marking the position in the heavens of the sun by day and Hesperus by night:  and furthermore, as in the clock which [Andronicus] Cyrrestes constructed at Athens, the eight winds are depicted on the dome, and, by means of an arrow connecting with a vane, the prevailing wind is indicated to those within."[172]

As we were talking an uproar was heard on the Campus Martius.  While this did not astonish old parliamentary hands[173] like ourselves, who knew the enthusiasm of an election, yet we were anxious to know what it meant, and at this moment Pantuleius Parra came up and told us that while the votes were being sorted some one was caught stuffing the ballot box[174] and had been haled before the consul by the supporters of the rival candidate.  Pavo rose to go, for it was understood that he who had been arrested was the campaign manager of Pavo’s own candidate.

Of pea-cocks

VI.  “Now that Fircellius is gone you can speak freely of pea-cocks,” said Axius, “for if you should say any thing to their disadvantage in his presence, you might perchance have a crow to pluck with him on account of his relationship."[175]

“Within my memory,” said Merula, “the practice of keeping commercial flocks of pea-cocks has largely developed and it has so developed that M. Aufidius Lurco is said to derive an income of sixty thousand sesterces per annum from them.  If you keep them for profit it is well to have somewhat fewer males than females; while the contrary is true if you keep them for pleasure, for the pea-cock far surpasses his hen in beauty.  With us they are fed in the country, but abroad it is said that they are kept on islands, as at Samos in the grove of Juno and at Planasia, the island of M. Piso.  In setting up a flock age and beauty must be considered, for nature has given the palm of beauty to the pea-cock among all the birds.  The hens are not fit for breeding under two years of age, nor when they are aged.  They are fed all kinds of grain but chiefly barley.  Scius makes a practice of feeding them a modius of barley apiece for the month before they begin to breed, his purpose being to make them more productive.  He expects his overseer to raise three pea fowl for every hen, and he sells them when matured for fifty deniers ($10) a piece, a price such as one never obtains for a sheep.[176]