The sumptuous abode of Licinius Crassus echoes with his sighs and groans. His children and slaves respect his profound sorrow, and leave him with intelligent affection to solitude,--that friend of great grief, so grateful to the afflicted soul, because tears can flow unwitnessed. Alas! the favorite sea-eel of Crassus is dead, and it is uncertain whether Crassus can survive it! This sensitive Roman caused his beloved fish to be buried with great magnificence: he raised a monument to its memory, and never ceased to mourn for it. So say Macrobius and Aelian. This man, we are told, who displayed so little tenderness towards his servants, had an extraordinary weakness concerning his fine sea-eels. He passed his life beside the superb fish-pond, where he lovingly fattened them from his own hand. Nor was his fondness for pisciculture exceptional in his times. The fish-pond, to raise and breed the finest varieties of fish, was as necessary an adjunct to a complete establishment as a barn-yard or hen-coop to a modern farmer or rural gentleman. Wherever there was a well-appointed Roman villa, it contained a _piscina_; while many gardens near the sea could boast also a _vivarium_, which, in this connection, means an oyster-bed. 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.