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The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6) cover

The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 190: CHAP. 2. (3.)—THE SEA MONSTERS OF THE INDIAN OCEAN.
By the Elder Pliny
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About This Book

The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.

CHAP. 2. (3.)—THE SEA MONSTERS OF THE INDIAN OCEAN.

But the most numerous and largest of all these animals are those found in the Indian seas; among which there are balænae,2203 four jugera2204 in extent, and the pristis,2205 two hundred cubits long: here also are found cray-fish2206 four cubits in length, and in the river Ganges there are to be seen eels three hundred2207 feet long. But at sea it is more especially about the time of the solstices that these monsters are to be seen. For then it is that in these regions the whirlwind comes sweeping on, the rains descend, the hurricane comes rushing down, hurled from the mountain heights, while the sea is stirred up from the very bottom, and the monsters are driven from their depths and rolled upwards on the crest of the billow. At other times again, there are such vast multitudes of tunnies met with, that the fleet of Alexander the Great was able to make head against them only by facing them in order of battle, just as it would have done an enemy’s fleet. Had the ships not done this, but proceeded in a straggling manner, they could not possibly have made their escape. No noises, no sounds, no blows had any effect on these fish; by nothing short of the clash of battle were they to be terrified, and by nothing less than their utter destruction were they overpowered.

There is a large peninsula in the Red Sea, known by the name of Cadara:2208 as it projects into the deep it forms a vast gulf, which it took the fleet of King Ptolemy2209 twelve whole days and nights to traverse by dint of rowing, for not a breath of wind was to be perceived. In the recesses of this becalmed spot more particularly, the sea-monsters attain so vast a size that they are quite unable to move. The commanders of the fleets of Alexander the Great have related that the Gedrosi,2210 who dwell upon the banks of the river Arabis,2211 are in the habit of making the doors of their houses with the jaw-bones2212 of fishes, and raftering the roofs with their bones, many of which were found as much as forty cubits in length. At this place, too, the sea-monsters, just like so many cattle,2213 were in the habit of coming on shore, and, after feeding on the roots of shrubs, they would return; some of them, which had the heads of horses,2214 asses, and bulls, found a pasture in the crops of grain.