The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 269: CHAP. 82. (56.)—WHO INVENTED PRESERVES FOR SEA-SNAILS.

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The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.

CHAP. 82. (56.)—WHO INVENTED PRESERVES FOR SEA-SNAILS.

Fulvius Lupinus 2827 first formed preserves for sea-snails,2828 in the territory of Tarquinii, shortly before the civil war between Cæsar and Pompeius Magnus. He also carefully distinguished them by their several species, separating them from one another. The white ones were those that are produced in the district of Reate;2829 those of Illyria were remarkable for the largeness of their size; while those from Africa were the most prolific; those, however, from the Promontory of the Sun 2830 were the most esteemed of all. For the purpose, also, of fattening them, he invented a mixture of boiled wine,2831 spelt-meal, and other substances; so that fattened periwinkles even became quite an object of gastronomy; and the art of breeding them was brought to such a pitch of perfection, that the shell of a single animal would hold as much as eighty quadrantes.2832 This we learn from M. Varro.