Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/147

 What time the last of the Flavii was flaying the half-dying world, and Rome was enslaved to a bald-headed Nero, there fell into a net in the sea of Hadria, in front of the shrine of Venus reared high on Dorian Ancona, a turbot of wondrous size, filling up all its meshes,—a fish no less huge than those which the lake Maeotis conceals beneath the ice till it is broken up by the sun, and then sends forth, torpid through sloth and fattened by long cold, to the mouths of the Pontic sea. This monster the master of the boat and line designs for the High Pontiff ; for who would dare to put up for sale or tobuy so big a fish in days when even the sea shores were crowded with informers? The inspectors of sea-weed would straightway have taken the law of the poor fisherman, ready to affirm that the fish was a run-away that had long feasted in Caesar's fishponds; escaped from thence, he must needs be restored to his former master. For if Palfurius is to be believed, or Armillatus, every rare and beautiful thing in the wide ocean, in whatever sea it swims, belongs to the Imperial Treasury. The fish therefore, that it be not wasted, shall be given as a gift.

And now death-bearing Autumn was giving way before the frosts, fevered patients were hoping for a quartan, and bleak winter's blasts were keeping the booty fresh; yet on sped the fisherman as though the South wind were at his heels. And when beneath him lay the lake where Alba, though in ruins, still holds the Trojan fire and worships the lesser Vesta, a wondering crowd barred his way for a while; as it gave way, the gates swung open on easy 61