Roman Fish Tank of Mytilene

A rectangular masonry structure dating to Roman times, in the “Makrys Gialos” area, where the shoreline lay in antiquity. It is a unique find, interpreted as a fish tank (piscina) due to the presence of a built conduit for supplying and renewing seawater and the discovery of several rectangular sockets for vertical bronze or mesh grilles, with which the tank is thought to have been divided into smaller compartments by fish species being raised. Its excavation yielded cooking and table ware that reveal dietary habits in the early Roman period on Lesvos. The monument is linked to the Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus, who, to guarantee fresh fish, built an aquarium supplied with seawater. In a later period, after its original use was abandoned, the tank filled with soil, sand and chiefly utilitarian pottery.