[527] B. V. Head, Historia Mumorum, Oxford, 1911, p. 67: “These little coins formed the staple of the common currency in the Tarentine fish-markets, as well as in the rural districts subject to Tarentum, and even beyond its territories—in Apulia and Samnium for instance.”

[528] Some authorities (Preller, Griech. Myth., I. 191) believe the head to be that of Artemis, not only the protectress of Arethusa, but also the goddess of rivers and springs, and of the fish therein—one of her emblems was a fish. Some coins show her or Arethusa’s head with seaweed plaited in the hair, or the hair plaited in a sort of fish-net surrounded by little fish. The whole island of Ortygia was absolutely dedicated to Artemis—no plough could cut a furrow, no net ensnare a fish, without instantly encountering a sea of troubles. See Keller, op. cit., p. 343. The sacred fish were seen by Diodorus (V. 3) as late as Octavian’s reign.

[529] For an admirable account of Syracusan coin-types during the ‘fine’ period (413-346 b.c.), see G. F. Hill, Coins of Ancient Sicily (London, 1903), p. 97 ff., with frontispiece and pls. 6-7. On the widespread representation of the Tunny on vases and coins—Carthaginian, Pontic, etc.—see Rhode, op. cit., pp. 73-77.

[530] See G. F. Hill, op. cit., Pl. 7, 13.

[531] L. Siret, Questions de chronologie et ethnographie ibériques (Paris, 1913), Index, s.v. ‘Poulpe.’

[532] Cf. Tacitus, Annals, XII. 63.

[533] De Re Rustica, VIII. 16, “Our ancestors shut up salt-water fishes also in fresh waters. For that ancient rustic progeny of Romulus and Numa valued themselves mightily upon this and thought it a great matter, that, if a rural life were compared with a city life, it did not come short in any part of riches whatsoever.”

[534] “Orata,” according to Festus, p. 196, 26 ff. Lindsay, “genus piscis appellatur a colore auri, quod rustici orum dicebant.”

[535] See ante, p. 146. If he praise our oysters, he straightly condemns the pearls from them, as being “small and discoloured;” wherefore (IX. 57) Julius Cæsar, when he presented a thorax to Venus Genetrix, had it made of British “pearls,” a very poor requital to a goddess, who, if Suetonius is to be trusted, had so often stood him in good stead, both as a distant ancestress, and in other connections! Some really fine pearls have been found in Scotland and Wales: the best known of these, got at Conway in the eighteenth century, was presented to Catherine of Braganza, and is still preserved in the Crown jewels. Wright, op. cit., p. 220.

[536] Pliny, XXXII. 21.

[537] Athen., I. 13; cf. Suidas, s.v. ὄστρεα.

[538] Euphron, incert. fab. frag. 1, quoted by Athen., I. 13.

[539] Cf. Varro, De Re Rust., 3. 12, 1, and Plin., 9. 82.

[540] Petronius, 120, 88, expelluntur aquæ saxis, mare nascitur arvis.

[541] Lucullus, enriched by the vast booty captured from Mithridates and Tigranes, was the first who taught luxury to the Romans (Athen., VI. 109). Polybius (31, 24) writes that M. Porcius Cato denounced the introduction of foreign extravagances into Rome, citing as instances that for a jar of pickled fish from Pontus 300 drachmæ had been paid, and that the price of a beautiful boy exceeded that of a field.

[542] De Re Rustica, III. 17.

[543] De Re Rustica, VIII. 16. Cf. also Juvenal, V. 94 ff.—

and Seneca, Ep., 89, 22—

[544] The explanation for this by Nonnius, op. cit., p. 75—that the Greek coasts, from being surrounded on all sides by seas, yielded ample supplies of fish, while the Romans, “whose seas were not so near,” were not as fortunate and were compelled to be more instant in pisciculture—is a statement at the best doubtful, and certainly not supported by the existence of vivaria in Sicily, lapped on every side by seas.

[545] The existence of such gigantic craft has been called in question, but is proved by an inscription from the temple of the Paphian Aphrodite in Cyprus, which commemorates a builder of an εἰκοσήρης and a τριακοντήρης (W. Dittenberger, Orientis Græci Inscriptiones Selectæ (Lipziæ, 1903), I. 64, no. 39). See also, L. Whibley, A Companion to Greek Studies (Cambridge, 1916), p. 584 f. Athen., V. 40-44. Caligula built two ships for cruising and fishing up and down the Campanian coast: their poops blazed with jewels. They were fitted up with ample baths, galleries, and saloons, while a great variety of vines and fruit trees were cultivated. Suetonius, Cal. 37. Divers have discovered at the bottom of Lake Nemi two imperial house-boats of enormous size, the timbers of which are decked with bronze reliefs of magnificent workmanship. See V. Malfatti, Le navi romane del lago di Nemi, 1905.

[546] Op. cit., p. 246.

[547] Cf. Tibullus, II. 3. 45.

[548] Pliny, IX. 81.

[549] Plutarch, De Sol. Anim., 23.

[550] De Re Rustica, III. 17. This abstinence on the part of Hortensius from eating his “mulli barbati” is the more to be appreciated, when we remember that, according to Sophron, the savour of the “barbati” was far pleasanter than that of any other mullet. Athen., VII. 126.

[551] Martial, Ep., IV. 30, 4.

and Martial, X. 30, 22.

Cicero, Ep. ad Att., XX. I., “Our leading people think that they attain unto Heaven if they own in their ponds bearded mullets, who will come to them to be stroked.” Cf. Lucian (De Dea Syria, 45-48). Ælian, VIII. 4, confirms these statements, and in 12. 30, tells of a spring in Caria sacred to Zeus, in which were kept eels decked with earrings and chains of gold, while Pliny, XXXII. 8, writes that at the Temple of Venus at Hierapolis, of which Lucian speaks as an eye-witness, “adveniunt pisces exornati auro.” This practice is, and has been, world-wide. “Fishes though little have long ears,” is an old Chinese proverb. “In Japan fish are summoned to dinner by melodious gongs. In India, I have seen them called out of the muddy depths of the river at Dohlpore by the ringing of a handbell, while carp in Belgium answer at once to the whistle of the monks who feed them, and in far away Otaheite, the chiefs have pet eels, whom they whistle to the surface” (Robinson, op. cit., p. 14). Cf. Athen., VIII. 3, “and I myself and very likely many of you too have seen eels having golden and silver earrings, taking food from any one who offered it to them.” The Egyptians similarly adorned their crocodiles with gold earrings. Herod. 2. 69.

[552] VII. 18.

[553] IX. 39.

[554] De Ira, III. 40.

[555] For eels devouring the flesh of a corpse, see Iliad, 203 and 353.

[556] Aristophanes, Frogs, 474 f., Ταρτησία μύραίνα, a great dainty (Varro, ap. Gell., 6. 16. 5), is of course meant to suggest Tartarus. Contrast with this, the popularity of the fish, as attested by its frequent mention, especially in Plautus, and by the fact which Helbig (Camp. Wandgemälde (Leipzig, 1868), Index, p. 496, s.v. “Muräne”) brings out, that on the mural decorations of Pompeii no fish finds more frequent representation.

[557] De Re Rustica, VIII. 16, “Quamobrem non solum piscinas, quas ipsi construxerant, frequentabant sed etiam quos rerum natura lacus fecerat convectis marinis seminibus replebant. Et lupos auratasque procreaverunt ac siqua sint alia piscium genera dulcis undæ tolerantia.”

What fish Columella meant by Aurata is not settled: it is certainly not the “gold-fish,” as some translate, for they are not sea-fish. Facciolati, after saying that the name came from the fish having golden eyebrows, goes on that “some folk deny that he can be identified with the ‘gilthead’ or ‘dory.’” Perhaps the fish is one of the Sparidæ group, which pass at certain seasons of the year from the Mediterranean into salt-water fish marshes, as observed by Aristotle, and confirmed by M. Duhamel. Or can it be the smelt?

Faber, pp. 37, 38, “of fresh-water fishes, twenty-one species, among them the fresh-water Perch, are also common to the sea: amongst the sea fishes, the flounder frequents brackish water, and sometimes enters the rivers: others only occasionally frequent the lagoons and brackish waters, among them the Gilthead,” a statement incidentally confirmed by Martial (Ep. XIII. 90) in his helluous pronunciamento, that practically the only really good Aurata was that whose haunt was the Lucrine lake, and whose whole world was its oyster! of which fish Martial (XIII. 90) seems only appreciative,

[558] Faber, op. cit., 86. Cf. Revue Contemporaine, June 30 and July 15, 1854, where the fisheries at Comacchio are described at length.

[559] Trans., by Diaper and Jones (London, 1722—see supra, p. 177), which I usually employ. Cf. III. 84: μυρία δ’ αἰόλα τοῖα δολορραφέων λίνα κόλπων. Fishing nets from Pompeii, even now almost entire, are to be found in Italian Museums. The best times for hauling up the nets were (according to Arist., N. H., VIII. 19) “just about sunrise and sunset. Fishermen speak of these as ‘nick-of-time’ (ὡραῖοι) hauls. The fact is that at these times fishes are particularly weak-sighted” (D’Arcy Thompson, Trs.). Pliny, IX. 23, practically copies Aristotle.

[560] Alciphr., Epist., 1. 17.

[561] A terra-cotta relief of the type known as “Median,” c. 460 b.c., in Brit. Mus. Cat. of Terra-cottas, No. B. 372, Pl. 20, shows a fisherman holding two fishes, or a fish and a purse, and as if in the act of pulling in a net. This a very early exemplar of Greek Netting.

[562] Cf. the rod of Heracles on a black-figured vase published by C. Lenormant and J. de Witte, Élite des Monuments Céramographiques, Vol. III., Plate 14. The Rod is 8 cm. and the Line is 6 cm.

[563] Od., 12, 251. Cf. the same phrase in Od., 10, 293, for Circe’s magic wand.

[564] Plutarch, de Sol., 24, commends those of a stallion as longest and strongest, of a gelding next, and of a mare least, because of the weakness of the hairs due to her urination.

[565] Ælian, N. H., XII. 43. See Introduction.

[566] Plutarch, de Sol., 24.

[567] It is of great interest to note that according to Langdon (see Jewish Chapter), probably in Sumerian, and certainly in Hebrew, the word equalling hook, in its primary sense equals thorn, which strongly suggests, if it do not absolutely prove, that the ancients employed, as do even now the catchers of flat fish in Essex, and the Indians in Arizona, a thorn as their primitive hook. In Latin hamus signifies hook and thorn. Cf. Ovid (Nux., 113-116).

[568] Waldstein and Shoobridge, Herculaneum (London, 1908), p. 95, “The only industry which has left much trace is fishing; hooks, cords, floats, and nets were found in much abundance.”

[569] See antea, p. 157, and note 1. According to Petrie, Tools and Weapons (London, 1917), p. 37 f.: “The European fish-hooks do not appear before the fonderia age: in Greece and Roman Italy hooks are common.” G. Lafaye, in Daremberg and Saglio, op. cit., III. 8. s.v. “hamus,” gives figure 3696, a simple bronze hook, figure 3697, a small double hook in the Museum at Naples, figure 3698, a quadruple hook (four bronze barbs attached to the angles of a square plate of lead), and figure 3699, a bronze hamus catenatus. H. B. Walters—Catalogue of the Bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan in British Museum (London, 1899), Nos. 38 and 39—describes, but does not figure, two hooks of the Mycenæan period from Rhodes, 2 inches and 2⁷⁄₈ inches long, which are dated about 1450 b.c. Petrie, loc. cit., states that the “usual pattern of the Greek-Romans is, as figured in No. 100, while 101 and 102 are the limits of size.”

[570] Op. cit., Pl. 378.

[571] Bk. II. 556.

[572] Bk. III. 138-148.

[573] Ovid, Hal., 38 f.; cf. Oppian, III. 482 ff.

[574] Pliny, N. H., XXXII. 5; Ovid, Hal., 44 ff.; Plutarch, De Sol. Anim., 25. This trick is also characteristic of the Armado of the Parana river, but its enormous strength enables it also either to jerk the paddle of the fisher away, or to capsize the boat. Cf. S. Wright, The Romance of the World’s Fisheries (London, 1908), p. 208.

[575] Pliny, IX. 67, taken totidem verbis from Aristotle, N. H., II. 17, and IX. 51.

[576] The fisherman on the Mosaic from the Hall of the Mystæ in Melos (R. C. Bosanquet, in the Jour. of Hellenic Studies (1898), xviii. 60 ff., Pl. 1) appears to have been using a glass bottle half-filled with wine as a lure. The inscription ΜΟΝΟΝ ΜΗ ΥΔΩΡ is generally taken to be late Greek for “Everything here except water” (which will be supplied by the next rainfall). But the words might be legitimately rendered: “Only let no water be used”—a natural exclamation from the devotees of the wine-god! Prof. Bosanquet, despite his fine sense of humour, has missed the double entendre.

[577] For the poisoning of the Tunny, cf. Aristot., N. H., VIII. Cakes made of cyclamen and clay were let down near the lurking places of the fish, according to Oppian.

[578] With one method of fishing the ancients (in common with nearly all the moderns) were unfamiliar. The locus is off Catalina Island, etc.: the modus is by kites with line and bait attached, to which last, moving over and on the surface of the water, the Tuna seems irresistibly attracted. See antea, p. 41, note 3.

[579] Cf. Apostolides, op. cit., p. 31.

[580] Bk. IV. 308 ff. Cf. Ælian, I. 23.

[581] Cf. Oppian, IV. 375 ff. I. Walton, citing the Sargus as an example of “the lustful fish,” quotes Dubartas, “because none can express it better than he does,” whose last two lines, as examples of this perfect expression, I cannot resist,

[582] But in confirmation of “this statement of Ælian,” Badham, had he taken the trouble, could have found several others by that and other authors. Thus Ælian, XVII. 18, of the Sea-roach. Ibid., VI. 31, of the Crab, which on hearing the flute and singing would not only quit the sea, but follow the retreating singer to dry land, and capture! Ælian, VI. 32, of the Thrissa states that it was caught by singing to it, and by the noise of shell clappers which induced the fish to dance itself into the Nets and boats. Cf. also Athenæus, VII. 137, where the Trichias is so delighted with singing and dancing, that when it hears music it leaps out of the sea and is enticed on land! Cf. also Herodotus, I. 141, for the story of Cyrus likening the Ionians to dancing fish. Not only were there fish that delighted in music and singing, like the dolphin (Pliny, IX. 8, musicæ arti, mulcetur symphoniæ cantu, sed præcipue hydrauli sono), but according to Philostephanus there were others, that themselves made music, like the Poeciliæ, who “sang like thrushes” (cf. Pliny, XI. 112). Of singing fish Pausanias, VIII. 21. 2, says, “among the fish in the Aroanius are the so-called spotted fish: they say that they sing like a thrush. I saw them after they were caught, but I did not hear them utter a sound, though I tarried by the river till sunset, when they were said to sing most.”

[583] The head of the ox was Thor’s bait when fishing for the monstrous Midhgardh serpent. See D. P. Chantepie de la Saussaye, The Religion of the Teutons (Boston, 1902), p. 242. C. A. Parker, The Ancient Crosses of Gosforth, Cumberland (London, 1896), p. 74 ff., describes and figures a relief representing Thor’s fishing. In this we see the line (below the boat) with an ox’s head, surrounding which are several enormous fishes.

[584] For ἔρμα, “support,” perhaps we should read ἔρυμα, “protection,” i.e. against erosion.

[585] See Forest and Stream, Nov. 7, 1914.

[586] The shark finds great favour among the negroes; “you can swallow him in de dark,” is a commendation based on the absence of small tricky bones, such as the shad’s. But to the best black gourmets, the fish only attains its highest perfection in soup, after being buried for two weeks! The cook of the friend with whom I was staying in Jamaica only consented to cutting up my shark, on condition that if a gold watch was found in its belly, that was to be her perquisite—a condition postulated, I eventually discovered, because on a similar occasion one hundred years before, her grandmother did discover a gold watch. Alas for her! two ship-bolts of iron were her only treasure-trove.

[587] N. H., VI. 13.

[588] De Anim., VIII. 3, p. 262.

[589] Theodore Gill, “The Remarkable Story of a Greek Fish,” Washington Univ. Bull., Jan. 1907, pp 5-15.

[590] N. H., VI. 13.

[591] XIV. 8.

[592] Hal., IV. 450 ff.

[593] “Bobbing for eels,” with a bunch of worms on worsted is of like principle, but lacks the pneumatic touch. The eels seem to get their teeth caught in the worsted, and are pulled out before they can let go. See antea, p. 42, for the garfish of the Solomon Islands being caught from a kite by a hookless spider’s web.

[594] Equites, 864 ff.

[595] Fishing by “stirring up the mud,” is known in India. The agents employed for the trampling in the pools are elephants ranged in close order: the beasts enter thoroughly into the sport. Cf. G. P. Sanderson, Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts in India.

[596] Herodotus, II. 72, who states that it was sacred to the Nile.

[597] Ælian, VIII. 4; Plutarch, Mor., 976A. See Chapter XVI. ante.

[598] Athenæus, VII. 50.

[599] Antiphan., Lykon frag. 1, 1 ff., ap. Athen., 755.

[600] Anaxandr., Πόλεις, frag. 1, 5 f.; ap. Athen., 7, 55.

[601] Contrast with the Greeks and Romans the abstention from the Murænidæ by the Egyptians, Jews, Mussulmans, and Highlanders; in the case of the last, however, the abstention was due to no religious injunction but to physical loathing.

Fuller on the derivation of the Isle of Ely is too quaint to omit: “When the priests of this part of the country would still retain their wives in spite of what Pope and monks could do to the contrary, their wives and children were miraculously turned into eels, whence it had the name of Ely. I consider it a lie.” That Ely is derived from the abundance of Eels taken there has the ancient authority of Liber Eliensis (II. 53). J. B. Johnston, The Place-Names of England and Wales (London, 1915), p. 250, takes Ely to mean the “eel-island.” He adds, however, that Skeat regarded Elge, Bede’s spelling of the name, as “eel-region,” the second element in the compound, ge, being a very rare and early Old English word for “district” (cf. German, Gau). Isaac Taylor, Names and Histories (London, 1896), s.v. Ely, states that rents were there paid in Eels.

[602] Care must be taken to distinguish between the Eel, ἔγχελυς, of the Greeks, Anguilla of the Romans, and the so-called Lamprey, μύραινα, or Muræna. Although both belong to the large family of Murænidæ, the Muræna is usually a much smaller fish, seldom over 2½ feet long. In shape and general appearance it closely resembles the Eel, but can be differentiated by its teeth and certain spots over the body. It becomes very corpulent, so much so that in late life it is unable to keep its back under water: it is easier to flay, and whiter of flesh than its relative. Apart from its mating with the viper, and its tendency (teste Columella) to go mad, its chief characteristics are greed and fierceness of attack. The second book of Oppian has two really spirited pictures of its fight with, and conquest of, the Cuttle fish, and of its rush at, but eventual defeat by, the Lobster. At Athens the Eel, at Rome the Muræna, was the favourite.

[603] Menand., Μέθη, frag. I. 11 ff., ap. Athen., 8, 67.

[604] Archestratos, ap. Athen., 7, 53.

[605] Eubul., Echo., frag. 1, 1 f., ap. Athen. 7, 56.

[606] Aristoph., Ach., 883. See F. M. Blaydes’s note on 880 ff.

[607] Eubul., Ion, frag. 2, 3 f., ap. Athen., 7, 56.

[608] Aristoph., Ach., 894. Pax, 1014.

[609] Bk. 7, 53.

[610] Bk. VII. 53.

[611] Philetær., Oinopion, frag. 1, 4 ap. Athen., 7, 12.

[612] Badham, op. cit., 392.

[613] Athenæus, XII. 15 and 20. If the fish found favour helluously, medically condemnation attended it. Hippocrates warns against its use; Seneca, Nat. Qu., III. 19, 3, terms it “gravis cibus.” If to the gastronomic virtues of the Murænidæ both Greeks and Latins were more than kind, to other characteristics they were far indeed from blind—e.g. their slipperiness, etc., was proverbial. See Lucian, Anach., I, and Plautus, Pseud., II. 4, 57. Further, did the fish but hap in a dream, then good-bye to all hopes and desires, which slipped away, as surely as Alice’s “slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” See Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, II. 14. The phallic character of the fish prevalent in ancient times continues in modern Italy, e.g. the proverbs (1) about holding an Eel by his tail, and (2) that when it has taken the hook, it must go where it is drawn. De Gubernatis, op. cit., II. 341.

[614] For the many classical theories on Eel procreation see Schneider, op. cit., pp. 36 ff.

[615] Aristotle, H. A., IV. 11.

[616] Pliny, IX. 23 and 74, and X. 87. In IX. 38 he asserts that Eels alone of all fish do not float when dead. Aristotle, who (N. H., VIII. 2) is, as usual, his authority, confines himself to noting this characteristic as not possessed “by the majority of fish,” and accounts for it by the smallness of stomach, lack of water in it, and want of fat; he states, however, that when fat they do float.

[617] Accuracy as to procreation was not Father Izaak’s strong point, as his theory that pike were bred from pickerel weed shows. It was on this point that Richard Franck, author of Northern Memoirs (written in 1658, but unpublished till 1694), with the invincible contempt of the fly-fisher for the bait-fisher, so jumped on Walton, that “he huffed away.” See Sir H. Maxwell, op. cit., IV. 123.

[618] Robinson, op. cit., 73. This seems a bit of bogus mythology. Perhaps Natalis Comes may be responsible.

[619] It is curious to find that a similar belief was held in Sardinia: according to Jacoby, the water beetle (Dytiscus roeselii) is there believed to be the progenitor of the Eel, and is accordingly called the “Mother of the Eels” (Turrell, op. cit., p. 37).

[620] Migrations of Fishes, London, 1916.

[621] J. Schmidt found the youngest known stages of Leptocephalus, the larval stage of eels, to the west of the Azores, where the water is over 2000 fathoms deep: they were one-third of an inch in length and so were probably not long hatched.

[622] It is believed that no Eels return to the rivers, and that they die not long after procreation. “They commence the long journey, which ends in maturity, reproduction, and death.” Presidential Address, British Association, Cardiff, 1920.