an aviary as Merula has described and there happens to be a
banquet or a triumph, you will gain forthwith that sixty thousand
sesterces which you so keenly covet and be able to lend the money out
at good interest." And then, turning to me, he added, "Do you tell us
of that other kind of ornithon, namely: for pleasure merely, for it is
said that you have constructed one near Casinum which surpasses not
only the original built by the inventor of such flying cages, our
friend M. Laenius Strabo of Brundisium (who was the first to keep
birds confined in the chamber of a peristyle and to feed them through
the net), but also the vast structures of Lucullus at Tusculum."

"You know," I said, "that there flows through my estate near
Casinum[169] a stream which is both deep and clear and fifty-seven feet
wide between the masonry embankments, so that it is necessary to use
bridges to get from one part of the property to the other. On the
upper reach of this stream is situated my Museum[170] and at a distance
of 950 feet below is an island formed by the confluence of another
stream. Along the bank for this distance is an uncovered walk ten feet
broad and between this walk and the field is the location of my aviary
enclosed on both sides, right and left, with high masonry walls. The
_ornithon_ itself is built in the shape of a writing tablet with a
capital on it, the main quadrangle being forty-eight feet wide and
seventy-two feet long, the capital semi-circular with a radius of
twenty-seven feet. To this a covered walk or portico is joined, as
it were across the bottom of the page of the tablet, with passages
leading on either side of the _ornithon_ proper which contains the
cages, to the upper end of the interior quadrangle [_adjoining the
capital_]. This portico is constructed of a series of stone columns
between which and the main outside walls are planted dwarf shrubs,
a net of hemp being stretched from the top of the walls to the
architrave of the portico, and thence down to the stylobate or floor.
The exterior spaces thus enclosed are filled with all kinds of birds
which are fed through the net, water being provided by a small running
stream. On the interior sides of the porticos, and adjoining them at
the upper end of the interior quadrangle, are constructed on both
sides two narrow oblong basins. Between these basins a path leads
to the _tholus_, or rotunda, which is surrounded with two rows of
columns, like that in the ho