in drops and laid
low and stunned, you should gather them in a dish and place them under
cover in a warm place until the weather has cleared, when they should
be sprinkled with ashes of fig wood (making sure that the ashes are
rather hot than warm) the dish should then be shaken gently without
touching the bees with your hand, and placed in the sun. When the bees
feel this warmth they revive and get on their feet again, just as
flies do after they have been apparently drowned. This should be done
near the hive so that when the bees have come to themselves they may
return home and to work."

_Of fish ponds_

XVII. Here Pavo returned and said: "You may weigh anchor now if you
wish. The drawing of the lots of the tribes to determine a tie vote is
over and the herald is announcing the result of the election."

Appius arose without delay and went to congratulate his candidate, and
escort him home.

Merula said: "I will leave the third act of our drama of the husbandry
of the steading to you, Axius," and went out with the others, leaving
Axius with me to wait for our candidate whom we knew would come to
join us. Axius said to me: "I do not regret Merula's departure at this
point, for I am quite well up on the subject of fish ponds, which
still remains to complete our programme.

"There are two kinds of fish ponds, of fresh water and salt water. The
former are commonly maintained by farmers and without much expense,
for the Lymphae, the homely goddesses of the Fountains, supply the
water for them, while the latter, the sea ponds, are the play things
of our nobles and are furnished with both water and fishes, as it were
by Neptune himself: serving more the purposes of pleasure than of
utility, their accomplishment being rather to empty than to fill the
exchequers of their lords. For in the first place they are built at
great expense, then they are stocked at great expense, and finally
they are maintained at great expense.

"Hirrus was wont to derive an income of twelve thousand sesterces from
the buildings surrounding his fish ponds, all of which he spent
for food for his fishes: and no wonder, for I remember that on one
occasion he lent two thousand _murenae_ to Caesar[219] by weight
(stipulating for their return in kind), so that his villa (which
was not otherwise extraordinary) sold for four million sesterces on
account of the stock of fish.

"In sooth, the inland ponds of our farmer folk may well be called
_dulc