In my article about the saltwater fishponds of ancient Rome, I mentioned that amphorae have been found embedded into the walls of a number of Roman fishponds. Archeologists often assume that these amphorae where intended for eels to hide in, but they may also have been intended for fish to breed in.
These amphorae were not intended for eels to breed in. Up until the early twentieth century almost nothing was known about how eels reproduce. Aristotle believed that eels were sexless and that they arose from the "ges entra" (the entrails of the sea). Pliny the Elder suggested that eels reproduced by rubbing up against rocks and that this resulted in bits of skin being loosened which eventually became mature eels.
Since the ancient Greeks and Romans thought that eels were sexless, they may have though that male and female European eels (Anguillae argentatae) were different species because the male eels are smaller and tend to stay in brackish water, while females migrate inland into freshwater. When kept in artificial ponds, the females of this species will never breed and they will often live to be at least 25 years old. The oldest known European eel was caught in 1863, when she was three years old; this eel died in 1948.
The Romans usually called all species of eel murenae, but they also referred to them as anguillae and congri. The word "murenae" was probably used to describe all species of eel-like fish, including lampreys, while the other names may have been used for certain species of eel. Anguillae argentatae was probably the species of eel most often raised in freshwater fishponds. Congers and moray eels were more likely to be kept in saltwater ponds, but they can also tolerate freshwater.
Wealthy Romans were often accused of loving their fish more than they did their servants. Varro tells us that Quintus Hortensius "was no less disturbed over his sick fish than he was over his ailing slaves. And so he was less careful to see that a sick slave did not drink cold water than that his fish should have fresh water to drink". Vedius Pollio was a very extreme example of this attitude. According to Seneca the Younger (c.4 BCE - c.65 CE), Vedius Pollio would fatten his murenae on human blood, and order those slaves who had for some reason incurred his displeasure to be thrown into his fishpond. He may have actually done this; Pliny the Elder and Tertullian repeat the same story.
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