LIBER IX · CAPUT 55
WHO INVENTED PRESERVES FOR MURENÆ
Latine · Mayhoff 1906
Murenarum vivarium privatim excogitavit ante alios C. Hirrius, qui cenis triumphalibus Caesaris dictatoris sex milia numero murenarum mutua appendit. nam permutare quidem pretio noluit aliave merce. huius villam infra quam modicam |XL| piscinae vendiderunt. Invasit dein singulorum piscium amor. apud Baulos in parte Baiana piscinam habuit Hortensius orator, in qua murenam adeo dilexit, ut exanimatam flesse credatur. in eadem villa Antonia Drusi murenae, quam diligebat, inaures addidit, cuius propter famam nonnulli Baulos videre concupiverunt.
English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57
C. Hirrus 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 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, 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. It was at the same villa that Antonia, 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.