What Kinds of Fish Were Kept in Ancient Roman Fish Ponds?

In ancient times, wealthy Romans enjoy pisciculture, their term for raising fish. The fish ponds they kept were called piscinae, and were incredibly expensive to maintain. Marcus Terentius Varro, an ancient Roman scholar, said of the ponds that "in the first place they are built at great cost, and in the second place they are stocked at great cost, and in the third place they are kept up at great cost." The types of fish maintained in the ponds varied, though many are familiar to this day. The rich kept private ponds filled with salt water, while fresh water ponds were open to the public.

  1. Care and Feeding

    • The Romans took great care of their fish, and did not fish or harvest from their fish ponds. Even the wealthy with many ponds full of a variety of fish would rather send out fishermen than harm their fish. Fishermen were regularly sent to collect minnows, shrimp and other small fish to feed the captive fish; when the sea was stormy, the rich would feed salted fish to their collections instead. Occasionally, instances of stormy weather or poor oceangoing conditions would lead to the fish being fed breadcrumbs and bits of fruit instead.

    Saltwater Fishes

    • In book three of "On Agriculture," Varro specifically mentions various nobles keeping lampreys and barbed mullets, and feeding them minnows. The tunny was one especially popular type of fish. Other evidence points to the keeping of soles, brills, gilt-heads and sea breams. Many of these ocean-going fish were quite large, and kept in great numbers in the saltwater ponds. Rocky pools were well-suited for lampreys, moray eels and other oceanic fishes. Eels were especially popular.

    Other Marine Life

    • Ancient Romans kept other creatures in their fish ponds, as well. Romans who lived near muddy shores would keep oysters, clams, cockles and a variety of other bivalves.

    Fresh vs. Salt Water

    • Though both fresh and saltwater ponds existed, scholars of the time focused their attentions on the saltwater fishes rather than the fresh. Fish that came from the sea were more valuable, selling at the market for upwards of twice the price of freshwater fish. While anywhere from 100 to 400 different kinds of fish were kept, there were 10 or so that were most popular. The lack of mentions of freshwater fish make it difficult to determine which of these were most often kept.