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The first fishponds of the ancient times and their owners

by Egenia Salza Prina Ricotti

The first fishponds of the ancient times and their owners

Strangely the first one to build fish pond and to breed fishes in them were the owners of hinterland’s estates who, Living far away from the sea, wonted to prove that also if they lived far from the sea they had nothing to envy to the rich villas of the coast and that also they could offer good fish to their guests. Thus they build large basin of spring water and even used small lakes to breed gilt-heads and sea-bass. Obviously fresh water and the different pasturages produced inferior quality fishes which were spurned by connoisseurs, thus we must not find odd if at the start of the I cent B.C. wanting to have always fresh fish on their tables all the Tyrrenian coasts was covered by luxurious fishponds, the ones of Cicero’s friends, the “piscinarii”.
Probably at the beginnings they were not only done for the owner’s table but also used to sell the fishes on the market. But very soon they became something to show off, a kind of status symbol at the point that not only the owners did not sell their fishes, but didn’t not even admit to eat them. As Varro tells us speaking of one of his friend Quintus Hortensius
“Notwithstanding the near by Bauli fact that my friend Quintus Hortensius had splendid fishponds I was his guest for quite a long period to be able to know that he sent to buy fishes for his table at Pozzuoli. And it was enough for Hortensius not to eat his fishpond’s ones because he pushed his love for them at such an extent to give them food by his own hand….”
And many piscinarii’s mania got to such an extent that the death of a beloved mullet or of an adored moray threw them in deep mourning.
The piscinarii, however had lots of money to waste and they built always more and more splendid fishponds. Among them was a spectacular one at Ponza’s, a fishpond created in the island’s grottoes. It was connected with a large villa located on the promontory in which its different basins hollowed themselves. The owners used to go in it descending stairs cut in the hill’s rocks, or by galleries. Among other things in this fishpond there was a basin for morays and we can still recognize it because, as the naturalist Pliny the older tells us, Roman’s relieved that the morays could procreate only if, at the light of a certain star, they were made pregnant by a serpent which appeared just one time in a year. Now the basin in question was hollowed in the mountain and to be sure that the morays would receive the visit of this serpent at the light of this star a window with the same inclination which the rays of it would have at the given date was cut in the mountain to bless the holy nuptials.
However the piscinarii didn’t limit them to this. They transformed their fishponds in extremely luxurious decorated places as in the Sperlonga’s grotto that was peopled by splendid and brightly coloured Hellenistic statues. Brightly coloured I say and it is difficult to understand how, once transported in a museum and restored they have become completely white. Dr. Laura Fabbrini who was there when they had just excavated Ulysses’ head described it to me as it was, with his cap blue, hairs and beard reddish, and chestnut eyes wide open, and do not think that the painting was not important. Today you can reconstruct how the statue looked with a computer. That was made and I must confess that it was a real shock to see that face, now of white marble, so calm and Olympic transform itself in a mask of horror and fear when the colour were put back. Even more interesting was the fact hat some years ago a German tourist brought to the museum a piece of Ulysses’ mantle still bright red. How could this marble fragment dragged on the sand and knocked by the waves preserve its colour when the statues saved in the museum had lost it? This is another one of Sperlonga many dark misteries.

Bibliography

E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI – L'importanza del pesce nella vita, nel costume e nell'industria del mondo antico in Rendiconti Pontificia Accademia di Archeologia Vol. LXXI, 1998-1999 pp.111-165