Whether Homer lived before or after the adoption of fish as a food, we find in the Iliad and Odyssey several references to fishing with the Spear, the Net, the Hand-line, and the Rod.

It is a point of curious interest that nearly all the references, where methods or weapons of fishing find mention, are made for the purpose of or occur in a simile, which despite the so-called Higher Criticism Mackail says, “In Homer reached perfection.”[153] A Homeric comparison, like the parable of the New Testament in its very nature is intended to throw light from the more familiar upon what is less familiar. The poet cannot intend to illustrate the moderately familiar by what is wholly strange. In modern writers the subjects of a simile, apart from those drawn from nature, are sometimes modern or new; in the old they are almost invariably drawn from some well established custom.

If so, it follows that to the Greeks of Homer’s time (as was the case with the Egyptians before them) fishing with Spear, Net, Line, and Rod were old and familiar devices.[154] Which of the first three—Spear, Net, Line—ranks the oldest, has (as shown in my Introduction) been long disputed and seems doubtful of definite settlement.

The passages referring to fishing number eight. Of the four methods of fishing mentioned one is with Spear (Od., X. 124) two with the Net (Od., XXII. 386; Il., V. 487), and one with the Rod (Od., XII. 251).

A. The Spear (Od., X. 124): “And like folk spearing fishes they bare home their hideous meal.” This gives a very lively image, because the companions of Odysseus, whose boats had been smashed by the thrown rocks, are in the water, and are being speared like fish by the Læstrygones.[155]

B. The Net (Od., XXII. 383 ff.): “But he” (Odysseus after the slaughter of the suitors) “found all the sort of them fallen in their blood in the dust, like fishes that the fishermen have drawn forth in the meshes of the net into a hollow of the beach from out the grey sea, and all the fish, sore longing for the salt waves, are heaped upon the sand, and the sun shines forth and takes their life away: so now the wooers lay heaped upon each other.”[156]

In Iliad, V. 487 ff.: “Only beware lest, as though entangled in the mesh of all-ensnaring flax, ye be made unto your foemen a prey and a spoil.”

C. The Rod (Od., XII. 251 ff.): “Even, as when a fisher on some headland[157] lets down with a long rod his baits for a snare to the little fishes below, casting into the deep the horn of an ox of the homestead, and as he catches each flings it writhing, so were they” (i.e. the companions of Odysseus) “borne upward to the cliff” (by Scylla).

D. Line and Hook (Iliad, XXIV. 80 ff.): “And she” (Iris on her Zeus-bidden mission) “sped to the bottom like a weight of lead, that mounted on the horn of a field-ox goeth down, bearing death to the ravenous fishes.”

E. Iliad, XVI. 406 ff.: “As when a man sits on a jutting rock and drags a sacred fish from the sea with line and glittering hook of bronze, so on the bright spear dragged he Thestor,” etc.[158]

F. Odyssey, IV. 368 f.: “Who” (the companions of Menelaus) “were ever roaming round the isle, fishing with bent hooks, for hunger was gnawing at their belly.”

Odyssey, XII. 330 f.: “They” (the companions of Odysseus) “went wandering with barbed hooks in quest of game, as needs they must, fishes and fowls, whatever might come to their hand, for hunger gnawed at their belly.”[159]

The Rod finds one express mention—in passage C. Is its use implied in passages D. and E.? The answer depends greatly on whether the adjectives employed are really descriptive of the qualities and sizes of the fish, or whether they are merely (as often the case in Homer) ornamental or conventional epithets more suited for general than particular use, or are redundant.

Our wonder, if the adjectives are really descriptive, grows by the Rod being only specifically mentioned when “little fishes” are the prey. If the contention of modern fishermen—the value of the rod as an implement increases in proportion to the weight of the fish on the hook—holds good, why does Homer cite the Rod in connection only with “little” fishes, more especially as the prey in the simile (the companions of Odysseus) can hardly be classed as “little”?

Four differing explanations are possible:—

From the adjectives in passages D. and E. can we infer the use of the Rod? Of the adjective in E., Butcher and Lang write: “It is difficult to determine whether ἱερός in Homer does not sometimes retain its primitive meaning of ‘strong’ (see Curtius, Etym., No. 614); in certain phrases, this may perhaps be accepted, as an archaism.... On the whole we have not felt so sure of the archaic use as to adopt it in our translation.”

Paley, “ἱερὸς means huge, as if a favourite of or dedicated to some sea-god.” Was it from this shade of meaning that Theocritus in his Fisherman’s Dream[161] drew his conception that certain fish might be κειμήλιον Ἀμφιτρίτας, a pet of the sea-goddess? Faesi seems to incline to Paley’s view, but for a more general reason: ἱερὸς equalling ἄνετος earmarks “all herds and shoals of fish, especially those in the Sea, as consecrate to the Gods.”

Granting this, why should one fish be singled out by the epithet when the whole “herd or shoal” is equally ἱερός? The infrequent coupling of the adjective with ἰχθὺς suggests some less general meaning, if it mean anything.

Athenæus[162] after trying to answer, “But what is the fish which is called Sacred?” by citing instances where the Dolphin, Pompilus, Chrysophrys, etc., are so designated, adds a sentence which seems either to be the authority for, or to confirm the authority of Faesi; “but some understand by the term ‘sacred fish’ one let go and dedicated to the God, just as people give the same name to a consecrated ox.”

Seymour holds that “the epithet ἱερὸς as applied to a fish in Il., XVI. 407, has not been satisfactorily explained from ordinary Greek usage: instead of sacred, it seems rather to mean active, vigorous, strong. Cf. the same epithet applied to the picket guard of the Achæans in Il., X. 56.” Curtius connects the word with the Sanskrit ishirá = vigorous. Ἱερὸς as active, agile, strong is applied to horses, spies, mind, women, and cows.

Leaf suggests that the word, when applied to night, etc., would have developed the meaning of mighty, mysterious, and so later on sacred. If sacred, the epithet may have arisen out of some sort of tabu or religious feeling against eating fish, in early times often regarded as either uncanny creatures living under water and possessed of superhuman powers, or as divine or semi-divine.[163]

Gradually the dread of fish as creatures tabu wore off, but survived for long in a hole-and-corner way, e.g. the veneration of τέττιξ ἐνάλιος, ‘the lobster,’ at Seriphos,[164] or the deification of καρκίνοι, ‘crabs,’ in Lemnos.[165]

If ἱερὸς does mean a big, fine, vigorous fish, to most modern fishermen a Rod would seem implied. This is strengthened by the nature of the act to which the simile applies: ὣς ἕλκε δουρὶ φαεινῷ, as Patroclus dragged Thestor on the bright spear from the chariot, so the fishermen dragged the fish from the sea.

In D. the case, if any, for the implied use of the Rod is very weak. In this alone of all the references does lead as a weight occur. Here we have no comparison to action such as dragging up a fine fish, but simply to swiftness; the effect of it, the splash, makes the point of the comparison with which Iris sped on her mission. Nor does the adjective applied to the fish give any aid, for ὠμηστής, if it be not redundant, signifies ‘raw-flesh devouring’ (rather than ‘ravenous’) fish, such as shark or swordfish.[166]

But if the early Greeks and Romans only fished for the pot and not for amusement, the question arises, why should this particular Homeric piscator “be after” swordfish or shark? Fishing, down to the early Roman times, continued to be more of a distinct trade than was the pursuit of animals and birds.[167] Hence the Net with quicker and surer returns and not the Rod was the favourite weapon of the fishermen by trade.

In F. (Od., IV. 369, and XII. 330) something in the nature of a line and of a bait of some sort (though not necessarily of a rod) attached to the bent, or barbed, hooks, must be implied. Hunger would assuredly continue to “gnaw at their bellies,” if their only food was caught by hooks, pure and simple, for, as Juliana Berners pithily puts it, “Ye can not brynge an hoke into a fyssh mouth without a bayte.”

Abstention from fish, however general, did not prevail among Homer’s sailors. Athenæus (I. 22) points out that since the hooks used could not have been forged on the Island, and so must have been carried on board the ships, “it is plain sailors were fond of and skilful in catching fish.”

Basing my surmise on ὄρνιθας in Od., XII. 331 and on the statement of Eustathius ad loc., that hooks were used for capturing sea-birds as well as fish, I suggest that the baits on the hooks were either small fishes (left possibly by the tide in some pool in the rocks), or shellfish, or oysters. These attached to a line (with or without a rod) and thrown into the sea were taken by both sea-fowl and fish.[168]

But all the preceding points dwarf in interest before the term κέρας βοὸς ἀγραύλοιο, “the horn of a field ox, or ox of the homestead.”[169] How does the horn of an ox find itself in this galley? What was its exact use? Where and how was it employed?

Many scholars and fishermen, ancient and modern, have essayed the problem. The reason for the use of the horn passed early out of common knowledge and afforded matter for conjecture from Aristotle downwards.

To enumerate all the theories would necessitate a list almost as long as Homer’s catalogue of the ships. The following, the most important, must suffice for our purpose.

(1) Κέρας was a little pipe or collar of horn protecting the line (which passed through it) just at its junction with the hook, and served the same purpose as a “gimp” on a trolling line.[170] “This precaution (according to Arnold) was taken so that the fish might not gnaw through the line”—a precaution very similar to our use of wire between the line and the hook, when fishing for tigerfish, tarpon, shark, etc.[171]

A similar interpretation of the word occurred to Aristotle, who[172] held that the lower piece of the line was fortified by a little hollow piece of horn, lest the fish should come at the line itself and bite it off. But the use of κέρας in the second (Od.) passage appears to rule out Aristotle’s and Arnold’s interpretations. The fish here are admittedly, not raw-flesh devouring, which might imply size, but small. Why then this elaborate contrivance as precaution against severance of the line?

The above explanation of the use of κέρας derives strong support from the method even now employed in the Nile.[173] The native sportsman, as protection against its being bitten off, covers a soft woollen line, to which is tethered a live rat, a common bait for a big Nile fish, with a pipe or tube of maize stalk. Here the similarity ends; on the Nile no hook is employed; the sportsman harpoons the fish while hanging on to the rat.

(2) Κέρας, according to Paley (quoting Spitzner), was a bit of horn fastened to the hook and plummet to disguise their appearance; this, from being nearly the same colour as the sea, served better to deceive the fish.

(3) Κέρας, according to Trollope and others, was the horn or tube, but in it only the leaden weight was enclosed.

(4) Κέρας was a kind of tress, made out of the hair of a bull. Plutarch, however, states flatly, “But this is an error.” Damm and others insist that the word in this sense is post-Homeric, and agree with Plutarch that these tresses, if ever used, would have been of the hair of a horse, and not of a bull.[174]

(5) Κέρας, according to Hayman and others, was simply a prong of horn attached to a staff to pierce and fork out the fish while feeding; hence the preliminary baits, εἴδατα (similar to baiting a swim on the Thames), are of course not on or attached to the horn.[175]

The epithet in C. is περιμήκης, not merely long, but very long. The adjective, if not redundant, lends weight to Hayman’s theory of spear as against fishing rod. Against it, however, in Od., X. 293, the ῥάβδος, or wand of Circe, which thrice appears (in Od., X. 238, 319, 389) minus any adjective, suddenly takes unto itself περιμήκης, very long, without apparent reason for the distinction.

(6) Mr. Minchin’s explanation is ingenious, if open to two objections. “As to the ox horn puzzle,” he writes to me, “I feel no doubt that the Cherithai (as the Bible calls the Kretans) cut a ring out of the horn of an ox, and then cut a gap, thus making a crescent of horn, to the one end of which they attached their line, which is exactly what the black fellows (in Australia) do to-day with a pearl shell.”[176]

But against this conjecture weighs the fact that as the grain of the horn runs from butt to point, if the hook be cut from cross-section it would probably break, as the cross-section would be across the grain, and so very frayable. If, however, the hook were cut from a panel removed from the side of the horn and just where the curve comes before the point, the substance of the hook might possibly stand.

On this point Mr. E. B. Tylor writes to Monro as follows: “Fish-hooks of horn are in fact known in prehistoric Europe, but are scarce, and very clumsy. After looking into the matter, I am disposed to think that the Scholiast knew what he was about, and that the old Greeks really used a horn guard, where the modern pike fisher only has his line bound, to prevent the fish biting through. Such a horn guard, if used then, would last on in use, anglers being highly conservative, and I shall look out for it.”

Maspero,[177] however, states, “Objects in bone and horn are still among the rarities of our museums: horn is perishable and is eagerly devoured by certain insects, which rapidly destroy it,” with which statement may be compared Od., XXI. 395, “lest the worms might have eaten the horns” (of the bow of Odysseus).

Finally the explanation first suggested by Mr. C. E. Haskins[178] and adopted by Dr. Leaf, that κέρας was an artificial bait of horn, appears to me as an angler and as having seen in the Pacific, but not used, “bait fish-hooks made of shell all in one piece, of a simple hooked form without any barb,”[179] to be perhaps the most likely solution of our problem.

According to Mr. Haskins, κέρας means an artificial bait of horn, probably shaped like a small fish, and hollow at all events at the upper end, into which a μολύβδαινα (lead) was inserted to sink it. It had hooks of χαλκός fastened to it and was used by being thrown out, allowed to sink, and then rapidly drawn through the water to attract the fish by its glitter and motion. The εἴδατα may either be the same as the κέρας mentioned in the next line, or more probably ground bait thrown in to attract fish to the spot, while the use of the present participle, κατὰ ... βάλλων, seems to imply constant action, i.e. the fisherman throwing in at intervals a handful of ground bait.

While I have not, like Mr. Haskins, “caught many trout with artificial baits made of horn,” I can vouch that in England horn minnows still exist and that horn spoons are even now used for pike.

We find in Homer no special variety of fishes, except eels and dolphins. Eels are not ranked in a strict sense as fish; the words are “both eels and fishes” (Il., XXI. 203, 353). Sea calves and seals also find a place. Other fish occur in the picture of Scylla (Od., XII. 95): “and there she fishes (ἰχθυάᾳ) swooping round the rock, for dolphins or sea-dogs, or whatso greater beast she may anywhere take, whereof the deep-voiced Amphitrite feeds countless flocks.”

Seals[180] greedily devour a corpse in the sea (Od., XV. 480). Il., XXI. 122, 203, extend the pleasant practice to fish and eels: “around him eels and fishes swarmed, tearing and gnawing the fat about his kidneys.”

It is noteworthy that in Greek and Latin literature the first fish attaining to the dignity of a name is the Eel.[181]

The sea is called ἰχθυόεις, “fishy,” or perhaps better “fishful,” twelve times: the Hellespont only once. Plutarch (Symp., IV. 4) had this probably in mind, when he wrote, “the heroes encamped by the Hellespont used themselves to a spare diet, banishing from their tables all superfluous delicacies to such a degree that they abstained from fish.” Ἰχθυόεις happens but once in connection with a river, the Hyllus (Il., XX. 392).

Homer seemingly applies it only where he is impressed, not by the number of fish obvious to the eye or still remaining in, but by the number already taken out of the water. The proportion of salt water ‘fishfuls’ to fresh water ‘fishfuls’—13 as against 1—would, if not quite accidental, accord with the fact that the early Greeks, whatever be the time at which they became Ichthyophagists, set no high store on fresh-water fish.[182]