… Hortensius and Lucullus did not only have their beloved fish ponds, but also game reserves? (and Varro too)
13
"You know, Axius," Appius continued, "that boars can be kept in the
warren with no great trouble; and that both those that have been caught
and the tame ones which are born there commonly grow fat in them. For
on the place that our friend Varro here bought from Marcus Pupius Piso
near Tusculum, you saw wild boars and roes gather for food at the
blowing of a horn at a regular time, when mast was thrown from a
platform above to the boars, and vetch or the like to the roes." 2 "Why," said he, "I saw it carried out more in the Thracian fashion at Quintus Hortensius's place near Laurentum when I was there. For there was a forest which covered, he said, more than fifty iugera; it was enclosed with a wall and he called it, not a warren, but a game-preserve. In it was a high spot where was spread the table at which we were dining, to which he bade Orpheus be called. 3 When
he appeared with his robe and harp, and was bidden to sing, he blew a
horn; whereupon there poured around us such a crowd of stags, boars,
and other animals that it seemed to me to be no less attractive a sight
than when the hunts of the aediles take place in the Circus Maximus
without the African beasts."
Marcus Terentius Varro, On Agriculture, Book III, Chapter 13
Life and Works of Varro
from LacusCurtius
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