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.
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