CHAPTER IV

THE DOLPHIN—HERODOTUS—THE ICHTHYOPHAGI—THE TUNNY

The _Shield of Heracles_, now rarely attributed to Hesiod the poet nearest in time to Homer, gives us pictures, similar if more ornate in style to those in Homer’s “The Shield of Achilles.”

_The Shield of Heracles_ would probably not have been written had not Homer’s “Shield of Achilles” existed. It differs from the older poem in the presentation of mythological scenes and a scene of fishing, but is perhaps the most complete illustration from fisher life extant before Theocritus.

“there appeared A sheltering haven from the untamed rage Of ocean. It was wrought of tin refined And rounded by the chisel; and it seemed Like to the dashing wave; and in the midst Full many dolphins chased the fry, and show’d As though they swam the waters, to and fro Darting tumultuous. Two of silver scale Panting above the wave, the fishes mute Gorged, that beneath them shook their quivering fins In brass. But on the crag a fisher sate Observant: in his grasp he held a net Like one that, poising, rises to the throw.”[194]

The painting of the harbour, of the cliffs, of the fishes tossing in tumultuous heaps, and of the chase and capture by dolphins of their prey, all seem to Mr. Hall but a careful elaboration of a suitable background (as the fields, etc., in the ancient Pastorals form an artistic background to the shepherds) for the solitary figure.

“But, on the crag a fisher sate Observant; in his grasp he held a net, Like one that, poising, rises to the throw.”

The occurrence here of the Dolphin, together with the part that it played in the recovery of Hesiod’s body, makes this an appropriate place for a brief _résumé_ of the position occupied by this fish in Greek and Roman authors, and of the many pretty legends in which for all time its memory is enshrined.[195]

The myth of the Dolphin—a creature of lightness and swiftness—as the _protégé_ of the gods and the helpmate of man stands out as a purely Hellenic conception, and contrasts sharply with that of the Tortoise, unmoving, half-hidden, which according to Eastern belief supports the weight of the world.

In Greek and Latin literature (exclusive of the recipes of the gourmets or the rhapsodies of the opsophagi) no fish wins more frequent mention or higher appreciation than the Dolphin.

And justly so, since, of a nature essentially philanthropic, it delights to be with man, and aid man by willing services.[196] Pliny, indeed, confesses that he could never reach the end of the stories about their kindly acts, especially towards the young. He notes that they found pleasure not only in the society of man, but also in music, _præcipue hydrauli sono_, or “the organ,” the only trait, I imagine, common to the fish and to Nero![197]

The helpfulness of the Dolphin shows itself in diverse ways, often on vital occasions. In gratitude for the rescue of Telemachus, Ulysses wore its effigy stamped on signet and on shield. Attracted by Arion’s singing, it saves from the waves “the sweet musician,” and bears him safe to Tænarum.[198] Later on, with pleasant disregard of religious bias, it rescues the Christian Saint Callistratus from a watery grave.[199] It acts as willing, almost as “common” carrier, alike to gods, schoolboys, and damsels in distress. It anticipates our meteorological office, for from the direction of its swim can be predicted the wind of to-morrow.[200]

Its constant and practical service to fishermen meets wide attestation. Oppian sings it: Pliny proses it: Ælian cribs, and confirms it.[201]

From the lagoon of Latera (says our Latin author) multitudes of mugils or grey mullets at stated periods flock to the sea.[202] The moment the migration begins, crowds collect for the sport, shout their loudest, and summon “Simo” from the vasty deep, or rather the mouth of the lagoon.

The Dolphins, formed in line of battle, swim swiftly in, cut off all escape to sea, and drive before them the frightened fish to the shoals.[203] While the nets are being drawn the dolphins kill, but pause not to eat, such fish as escape the meshes. When at last the catch is saved, then they fall to and devour the fish already killed.

Here let us note an instance of intellectual anticipation of Trade Unionism. Well aware that their labour has yielded far more than the regulation Trade stroke, and earned more than the Eight Hours’ wage, they quietly await settling day—next morning—when they are paid by being stuffed not only with fish, but also with crumbs soaked in wine.[204]

Thus Oppian of another fish-drive,

“The Fishers pick the choicest of the Spoil, Supply their wishes and reward their Toil.”

In a story of similar fishing by Mucianus the Dolphins await neither summons by voice as above, or signal by torch (as in Ælian, II. 8) but “uncalled and of their own accord” present themselves ready for work.

Trades Unionism among the Dolphins is again not obscurely indicated, _ipsis quoque inter se publica est societas_. Furthermore, close corporations, not unlike mediæval Guilds or modern Unions, but wotting not of “blackleg” or even “dilutee,” surely prevailed, for _suum quæque cymba e delphinis socium habet_.[205]

Ælian’s dolphins foreshadow, it would seem, our modern principle of co-operation, when “they draw near demanding the due reward of their joint-undertaking.” But their organisation of labour differed from ours in two respects.

First, the willingness and the wage for night and day shift were identical. Second, since they were not blessed as we in the higher civilisation of the twentieth century are by the exalted, if not always successful conceptions of Conferences of Conciliation or Compulsory Arbitration, a strike, occasioned either by divergence from the strict terms of the bargain, or by gauche “handling” of the workers—whether for it the sanction of the Ballot or an order of the Shop Steward were a necessary preliminary my researches have not as yet disclosed—a strike, I repeat, could not be called off, but was irreparable, for οὐκέτι oἱ δελφῖνες ἀρηγόνες εἰσὶν ἐπ’ ἄγρην.[206]

By the Dolphins the economic weapon was evidently brought to greater perfection than by their human brethren. The crude “down tooling” of the Egyptian masons in the fourteenth century B.C., although accompanied by violence such as forcing main gates, etc., was (according to Maspero) quickly settled by the attacked Governor handing over the keys of the granaries, whence with bags—and bellies—full filled they meekly returned to work.

Of another ingratiating characteristic of the Dolphin, its attachment and services to boys, instances are numerous and well attested.[207] In truth we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, from the autoptic gospel of the Anti-Semite Apion[208] and of the wide-travelled Pausanias[209] to the gleanings of the industrious A. Gellius,[210] that I can draw attention to two stories only. These illustrate the relations existing between the Dolphin, and (_a_) the boy of Baiæ as set forth by Pliny (IX. 8), and (_b_) the boy of Iasos by Oppian (V. 468), Athenæus (XIII. 85), and Ælian (VI. 15).[211]

In the last two occurs the pretty tale of the fish waiting daily till school ended to take the beloved lad for swims and larks in the sea, but without the refinement found elsewhere of waiting every morning and afternoon to carry him to and from school! To the spectacle in Iasian waters of their play and of their races (“to bring the thorough-bred and the donkey together” à la Admiral Rous, the fish must have been crushingly handicapped!):

“Drawn by Report to see the strange Amour Admiring Nations crowded to the Shore. Rapt with delight, surveyed their am’rous Game And owned the Sight superior to the Fame.”

But alas! soon was “their am’rous Game” to end.

One day the lad, tired and eager for a bathe, threw himself on his comrade’s back, only however to impale himself on the dorsal spike and gradually bleed to death. No sooner did the Dolphin perceive the water tinged with blood, than “with the force of a full-sailed Rhodian ship,” he drave straight for land, flung himself and his burden high and dry on the strand, and there, by the side of his beloved dead, abode until death came unto him also.

To testify that these twain “were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided,” the citizens of Iasos erected a monument, showing the beautiful boy astride the back of the Dolphin, and issued coins bearing the effigies of each, which were sought far as souvenirs by bands of pilgrims attracted thither by the story. In such regard did the legend continue to be held that even up to the third century B.C. the Iasians struck coins with the device of a youth swimming beside a dolphin, which he clasps with one arm.[212]

Like Scylla, who “fishes for dolphins and whatso greater beast she may anywhere take,” both the Thracians and Byzantines, despite the enormous annual revenues derived by the latter from their fisheries, caught and ate the Dolphin, and for so-doing are branded as impious and barbarian.[213] The more ancient Byzantine coins show a cow standing on a dolphin, which perhaps symbolises the heifer crossing the Bosporus.[214]

The ancient literature of the East also portrays Dolphins (_Ç i çumâras_) as the ready helpers of man, in rescuing lives, in drawing ships, etc.[215] The inhabitants of Isle Sainte Marie, near Madagascar, even now never harm or eat the fish, holding it as sacred, because they believe it rendered signal service to some ancestor.[216]

Herodotus mentions a tribe living round Lake Prasias, who in dwellings and food resemble the Wolga folk, and early Continental and English Lake-dwellers:—

“Platforms supplied by tall piles stand in the middle of the lake, which are approached from the land by a narrow single stage. At first the piles were fixed by all citizens, but since that time the custom that has prevailed about fixing them is this, every man drives in three for each wife he marries. Now the men all have many wives apiece, and this is the way they live. Each has his own hut (wherein he dwells) on one of the platforms, and each has a trap door, giving access to the lake beneath: their wont is to tie the baby children by the foot with a string, to save them from rolling into the water. They feed their horses and other beasts on fish, which abound in the lake in such a degree that a man has only to open his trap door, and let down a basket by a rope into the water, and then wait a very short time, when he draws it up quite full of fish.”[217]

Confirming and illustrating Herodotus’s account (I. 202) of how a tribe dwelling on the Araxes lived on raw fish,[218] but depicting more sharply how on fish a whole people were dependent for everything that made up their lives, comes Arrian’s description[219] of the Ichthyophagi of the Persian Gulf.

Denied by the barrenness of their country the ordinary sources of subsistence, they were compelled to use fish for every purpose—food, clothes, houses, etc. These peoples (for the Indian Ichthyophagi are quite distinct from the Arabian) find comment by many authors—_e.g._ Strabo, Pausanias, Diodorus Siculus. Although by their diet of fish comparatively free from disease, they were noted as short-lived. Alexander the Great, with a view to increasing their span of existence, forbade _all_ the Ichthyophagi an unmixed diet.

Solinus (56, 9) testifies as to their extreme swiftness in swimming: _non secus quam marinæ beluæ nando in mari valent_. Marco Polo (III. 41) found on the coast of Arabia an interesting survival of the Ichthyophagi. In consequence of the sterility of the soil they fed their cattle, camels, and horses on dried fish, “which being regularly served to them they eat without any signs of dislike. They are dried and stored, and the beasts feed on them from year’s end to year’s end. The cattle will also eat these fish just out of the water.”

Not dissimilar is the account given[220] some twelve centuries earlier of the people of Stobera in India. “They clothe themselves in the skins of very large fishes, and their cattle taste like fish and eat extraordinary things: for they are fed upon fish, just as in Cairo the flocks are fed on figs.”

In strong contrast with these Ichthyophagi other races abstained entirely, not as the Egyptians and Jews partially, from fish. Of such were the Syrians, either because they worshipped fish as gods or held them as sacred,[221] or because (as asserted by Anaximander) of the inhumanity, since mankind originally were born from fish, of devouring one’s fathers and mothers.[222]

Surprising, indeed, sounds the statement of Plutarch that among total abstainers in early times were the more religious-minded of the Greeks, among whom later the eating of fish developed into a passionate, almost cat-like, devotion. Invested though the abstentions, total or other, were with divine origin or armed with divine sanction, the root reason of all of them rested, I believe, on the terror of skin-diseases, attributable to a fish diet.[223] Others, however, hold that the ultimate reason of the _tabu_ lay in the uncanny nature of creatures that can and do live under water, while we can not.

Fishermen rank higher in the time of Herodotus than in the Homeric era. Even the oracles and soothsayers now condescend to avail themselves of their technique and parlance for framing their answers. Thus Amphilytus the Acarnanian encourages Pisistratus before the battle of Pallene with

“The casting net is thrown down, and the fishing net spread wide. And the tunnies shall dart to and fro (therein) in the moonlight.”[224]

If Pisistratus squared the Acarnanian, as effectively as the Alcmæonidæ (his hereditary foes and the ejectors of his descendants from Athens) absolutely bought the oracle at Delphi, words of greater light and leading than “The Tunnies shall dart to and fro in the moonlight” might have been vouchsafed, for Herodotus relates that Pisistratus fell on the enemy, when they were having their _mid-day_ meal, or asleep after it, or playing dice. To suppose that these words foretold and were understood by Pisistratus to foretell the hour of the subsequent capture of Athens itself presumes a power of mental suggestion, which even Charcot would have envied.

The deliverance may possibly have been particular as regards time, but more probably was, oracle-like, entirely general in terms and time. The words “And the tunnies shall dart up and down in the moonlight” merely continue the fishing analogy of the first line, and refer to the well-known method of catching Tunnies “at the full of the moon,” when, allured by the silvery light, they glide and race through the water, and are easily taken.

The mention here of the Tunny makes appropriate some notice of a fish, which looms large in nearly all our authors. Most of them dilate at length on its multitude, migrations, habits, and size. Its economic value as a food asset, then and now, finds ample recognition by writers separated over two thousand years (such as Aristotle and Apostolides), and in its current title of “The Manna of the Mediterranean.”

It is curious that the first two fish, the Dolphin and Tunny, on which I have occasion to comment because of the chronological sequence of Hesiod and Herodotus, should have greater attention paid them and should occupy more space in ancient writers than any other.

The reasons, however, are very dissimilar.

The Dolphin by its engaging habits of aidfulness and of comradeship—to it scarcely anything human seems alien—evoked gratitude and liking. The Tunny, apart from the wonder awakened by its multitudes and migrations, compelled an economic interest from its food-producing quantities and qualities. Rhode has excellently summarised the dissemblance: “_Delphinus veterum cordibus atque animis se insinuavit, thynnus gulis atque ventriculis._”[225]

The annual campaign of the Tunny fishing, lasting from May 15 to Oct. 25, was based on a regular and thorough organisation. All the boats of a given section of the coast acted under the orders of an elected Captain, whose word was law.

Descriptions of fishing for Tunny and Pelamyde—the name given to the young Tunny from his habit of burying himself in the mud (πήλῳ μύειν),[226] a derivation often attributed to Aristotle, see _H. A._, VIII. 15, or of herding together (πέλειν ἅμα) according to Plutarch—may be found in Aristotle, _N. H._, IV. 10, and VIII. 15, in Pliny, _H. N._, IX. 53, in Ælian, _de nat. an._, XV. 5 and 6, and in Oppian, _hal._, IV. 531 ff. The story by the last of the Thracians piercing and taking myriads of mutilated Pelamydes from the mud, in which they have for warmth ensconced themselves, merits reading if only for his indignant burst:

“The various Tortures of the bleeding Shoal Command a Pity from the stoutest Soul.”[227]

Aristophanes (_Hipp._, 313) compares Cleon to the watch posted on a cliff or height to signal the advent of the Tunnies, a position (as Theocritus [III. 26] and Oppian [_hal._, IV. 637] show), very similar to that of the “Hooer” in the pilchard fishery of Cornwall at the present day.

These look-outs were frequently artificial. Ælian, _de nat. an._, XV. 5, describes a scaffolding consisting of two fir trees between which many cross pieces were fastened. The long ladders still used in Austria and Italy (of which Keller gives an illustration[228]) and the Turkish _dalian_ of the Bosporus represent the modern scaffold. Oppian (_hal._, III. 630 ff.) and Ælian (_de nat. an._, XV. 5) note the enormous hauls made by the fishermen when “the army” of the Tunnies set out on its migrations, company by company.

The nets used for the capture of Tunny by the Italians (at the present day) are fixed: made of thick cord, without leads, and sometimes as much as 250 fathoms long, and 15 fathoms deep, thus recalling Oppian’s “a Town of Nets.”[229] Special regard has to be paid now as of old, in fixing their position, to the course frequented by this eminently migratory genus in its annual passage from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, a distance of 2800 miles and back again. The same route is always travelled by an ever living stream of undiminished fulness, furnishing food to millions on the Mediterranean.

To the Phœnicians and to the Spaniards of old the Tunny ranked high as a commercial asset. The Tyrian tunny was specially prized[230]; its _salsamentum_ travelled far and wide. Rhode (p. 38) points out, however, that this originally was designed not as a delicacy, but as a preventive against scurvy and other diseases attendant on the long voyages which the far-flung commerce of the Phœnicians demanded.

The older port, Sidon, got its name from its wealth of fish, which in Phœnician was called _Sidon_,[231] while Tyrus, one of the earliest inhabitants of the younger port, traditionally invented fishing tackle.[232] Many Spanish towns, as their coins attest, notably those of Gades and Carteia, owed much of their prosperity, if not their existence, to the salt or pickled fish trade. Tunny fishing still remains a lucrative industry in the Peninsula.[233]

Pliny bears witness to the full stream of Tunny in IX. 2, where he tells us the multitude of the fish which met the fleet of Alexander the Great under the command of Nearchus on one occasion was so vast, that only by advancing in battle line, as on an enemy, was he able to cut his way through: _non voce, non sonitu, non ictu, sed fragore terrentur, nec nisi ruina turbantur_.[234]

Faber’s account of the watchman, of the alarm caused by throwing in stones near the inlet through which the shoal of fish has just passed, of the raising of the hue and cry to drive it towards the end of the enclosure, the battering of the fish to death with oars, and of other devices might well pass, although written in the nineteenth century, for a description of the Tunny fishing by an author of the first century.

From this fishing Æschylus[235] drew his vivid image of the destruction of the host of Xerxes at sea—an image placed with more poetic than dramatic aptness in the mouth of the Persian messenger who paints the battle to Atossa. “But the Greeks,” he tells her, “kept striking, hacking us with fragments of oars and splinters of wrecks, _as if we were Tunnies or a draft of fish_.”

The comparison strikes as all the more telling, when we remember that one of the most killing methods of capturing the Tunny was and still is by stabbing with pikes and poles the fish, after having driven them into a narrow space.

Imagine the storm of applause, which that bold and glowing picture (in but two lines!) of the common practice and of the wondrous victory must have aroused from an audience who eight years before had either fought at or feared for Salamis, to an author whose conspicuous gallantry both there and at Marathon had earned for him the high honour of a place in the great commemorative fresco in the Stoa Poikile at Athens!

Phædimus states: “The Tunny is so sensible of the equinoxes and solstices that he teaches even men themselves without the help of any astrological table.”[236] Further, that being dim sighted, or as according to Æschylus “casting a squint-eye like a Tunny,” the fish always coast the Euxine Sea on the right side and contrariwise when they come forth—“prudently committing the care of their bodies to their best eye!”

Again, although the fish lack knowledge of arithmetic, they are yet so endowed that “they arrive in such a manner to the perfection of that science,” that for mutual love and protection “they always make up their whole fry into the form of a cube and make a solid of the whole number consisting of six equal planes, and swim in such order as to present an equal front in each direction.”

“The Tunny more than any other fish delights in the heat of the sun. It will burrow for warmth in the sand in shallow waters near the shore, or will, because it is warm, disport itself on the surface of the sea.”[237] With this pleasure inevitably _surgit aliquid amari_, for about the rising of the Dog-star this fish, as well as the sword fish, became the prey of a piercing parasite, which was nicknamed the “gadfly.”

The ordinary weights and sizes to which the Tunny attained are uncertain. The passages in Arist., _N. H._, VIII. 30, and in Pliny, IX. 17, on account of the doubt whether the span of tail should be two or five cubits are not authoritative. Richter records the capture in 1565 of a fish thirty-two feet long and sixteen feet thick, on whose skin a ship of war was depicted in its entirety.[238]

The power of the skin to expand seems the only limitation of their size and weight, for they take on fat till they burst.[239] No wonder that for beasts of such dimensions the Celtæ used great iron hooks,[240] which elsewhere were double.[241] But their devices met defeat by these “Fat” (if not somnolent) “Boys” of the Sea, for _teste_ Oppian,

“Oft on the Spikes that arm the indented Chine Rolling averse they sawed the trembling Line.”

The Tuna of the Canadian and Californian coasts run very heavy: one of the former caught on _a Rod and Line_ weighed 707 lbs.

FOOTNOTES:

[194] Translated by C. A. Elton. In the last two lines occurs the solitary mention by Hesiod of fishing.

[195] From the fish (in old English _daulphin_) came apparently the title of the eldest son of the kings of France from 1349 to 1830. According to Littré the name Dauphin, borne by the lords of the Viennois, was the proper name _Delphinus_ (the same word as the name of the fish), whence the province subject to them was called _Dauphiné_. Humbert III., on ceding the province, made it a condition that the title should be perpetuated by being borne by the eldest son of the French king. A. Brachet, _An Etymological Dict. of the French Language^3_ (Oxford, 1883), p. 113, states that the title—peculiar to S. France—first appears in 1140: “the origin is obscure, though it certainly represents the _Delphinus_.”

[196] Lucian (_Dialogues of the Sea Gods_, VIII.) offers an unexpected explanation of this trait. On Poseidon’s commending the fish for the rescue of Arion, the Dolphin makes answer: “You need not be surprised to find us doing a good turn to Man: _we were men before we were fishes_.”

[197] Pindar (_frag._ 235 Bergk^4, 140^b, 68 ff., Schroeder) likens himself to the dolphin,

“Which flutes’ beloved sound Excites to play Upon the calm and placid sea.”

Pliny (Delphin edition, 1826, which I use throughout), IX. 8. Suetonius, _Nero_ 41.

[198] Herodotus, I. 24. Pausanias, III. 25. Plutarch, _Sept. Sap. Conviv._, 18. Cf. Lucian’s characteristic account, _op. cit._, VIII.

[199] S. Baring-Gould, _The Lives of the Saints_ (London, 1897), vol. x. 385.

[200] Keller, _op. cit._, 347, confirms this habit of the fish, which, I suggest, is dictated by reason of food.

[201] Oppian, _hab._ V. 425 ff.; Pliny, IX. 9; Ælian, _de nat. an._, II. 8.

[202] The Mugil, especially Mugil _saltator_, vies with if it do not surpass the salmon in its power of leaping. It often (according to Oppian) jumps right over the surrounding nets. Our Dolphin a double duty pays, in (1) driving the fish, and (2) killing the successful _saltatores_.

[203] In Arist., _N. H._, IX. 48, the Dolphin “seems to be the swiftest of all the _creatures_, marine or terrestrial,” but in _N. H._, IX. 37, he credits the grey mullet as being “the swiftest of _fishes_.”

[204] Pliny, IX. 9: “Sed enixioris operæ, quam in unius diei præmium conscii sibi opperiuntur in posterum: nec piscibus tantum sed et intrita panis e vino satiantur.”

[205] In Lapland the “sea-swallows” render great aid in the salmon season. For some cause these small marine birds elect to follow the inward and outward course of the fish, and are thus infallible guides to the fishermen, with whom they become so tame that they will light on their fingers, and take, if not “the choicest of the spoil,” scraps of fish. No wonder they are termed “The Luck-bringers.” See S. Wright, _The Romance of the World’s Fisheries_ (London, 1908), p. 69.

[206] Oppian, _hal._, V. 447. In mediæval times instances of dolphins aiding fishermen are related by Albertus Magnus, _De Animalibus_, VI. p. 653, and by Rondolet, _Libri de piscibus marinis_, etc. (Lugduni, 1554-5), XVI. p. 471. At the present day in Lake Menzalah porpoises shepherd the fish: the Egyptian, however, spares to his helpers their lives, but naught else. The natives of Angola were much more recognisant of service, as an interesting description by an old traveller of a fish drive there evidences: “They use upon this coast to fish with harping irons, and waite upon a great fish which cometh once a day to feed along the shoare which is like a grampus. Hee runneth very near the shoare, and driveth great skuls of fish before him; the negroes runne along and strike their harping irons about him, and kill great store of fish, and leave them in the sand till the fish hath done feeding and then they come and gather up the fish. This fish will many times runne himself aground, but they will presently shore him off again, which is as much as four or five men can doe. They call him Emboa, which is in their speech a Dogge: and will by no means hurt or kill any of them.” _The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh in Essex._ (_Haklutus Posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes_ (ed. Glasgow, 1905-7), vol. VI. p. 404.)

[207] The evidence is collected and discussed by K. Klement, _Arion_ (Wien, 1898), pp. 1-64, and by H. Usener, _Die Sintfluthsagen_ (Bonn, 1899), pp. 138-180.

[208] _Aegyptiaca_, book v. _frag._ 6 (_Frag. hist. Gr._, III. 510 f. Müller).

[209] Pausanias, III. 25. 7, recalls that among the votive offerings at Tænarum “is a bronze statue of the minstrel Arion. Herodotus tells his story from hearsay, but I have actually seen the Dolphin at Poroselene that was mauled by fishermen and testified its gratitude to the boy who healed it. I saw that Dolphin answer to the boy’s call, and carry him on his back when he chose to ride.”

[210] _Noctes Atticæ_, 6. 8. 1-7.

[211] For instances in classical mythology of rescues from drowning, and of corpses brought ashore, see A. B. Cook, _Zeus_ (Cambridge, 1914), i. p. 170, and for similar hagiographical instances, see S. Baring-Gould, _The Lives of the Saints_ (London, 1873-82), _passim_. C. Cahier, _Caractéristiques des Saints dans l’art populaire_ (Paris, 1867), ii. 691 ff., gives an account full of interest, which is increased by his illustrations of Saints accompanied by fish.

[212] _Brit. Mus. Cat._, pl. XXI. 7. B. V. Head, _Historia Numorum_, 620 f. (ed. 2, Oxford, 1911). In Plutarch’s (_de Sol. Anim._, 36) the lad was thrown from the fish’s back by a terrible shower of hail and was drowned.

[213] Oppian, _hal._, V. 521 ff.

[214] B. V. Head, _op. cit._ p. 266 ff. As an emblem of the sea the dolphin is very general, from the rude sculpturings of Etruscan sarcophagi, the later mural adornments at Pompeii, down to the paintings of the walls of the Vatican by Raphael. In all, the striking dissemblancy to the actual dolphin of natural history can be remarked at a glance. In the case of Raphael, however, it must be remembered that the designs are modelled on the classical decorations which were discovered in the Baths of Titus, where the Dolphin had been with propriety introduced as a marine symbol (Moule, _Heraldry of Fish_, p. 8).

[215] De Gubernatis, _Zoological Mythology_ (London, 1872), ii. 336.

[216] Frazer, _Totemism and Exogamy_ (London, 1910), ii. 636. W. A. Cork, _op. cit._, p. 96, states that the Karayás of the Amazon Valley, although eating nearly every other fish, abstain from the Dolphin.

[217] V. 16, Rawlinson’s Translation.

[218] See also I. 200, where three Babylonian tribes exist only on fish which they dried in the sun, brayed in a mortar, and strained through a linen sieve.

[219] _Indica_, 26.

[220] Philostratus, _The Life of Apollonius of Tyana_, III. 48.

[221] Xenophon, _Anab._, I. 4; Cicero, _de nat. Deorum_, III. 39; Ovid, _Fasti_, II. 473-4.

[222] Very different was the behaviour of the first generation of Man (who according to Philo’s _Translation of Sanchuniathon_, quoted by Eusebius, _præp. ev._, I. 9, 5), “consecrated the plants shooting out of the earth, judged them gods, worshipped them, but yet lived upon them” (Cf. de Brosses, _Culte des Dieux Fétiches_). In Plutarch, _Symp._, VIII. 8. 4, Nestor states that “the priests of Poseidon never eat fish, for Poseidon is called the Generator; and the race of Hellen sacrificed to him as the first father, imagining, as likewise did the Syrians, that Man rose from a liquid substance, and therefore they worship a fish as of the same production and breeding as themselves, being in this matter more happy in their philosophy than Anaximander: for he says that fish and men were not produced in the same substance, but that men were first produced in fishes and, when they were grown up and able to fend for themselves, were thrown out and so lived on the land. Therefore, as fire devours its parents, that is the matter out of which it was first kindled, so Anaximander, asserting that fish were our common parents, condemneth our feeding upon them.” The belief in the descent of man from fish exists in the present day among the Ponapians of the Caroline Islands, and elsewhere (J. G. Frazer, _Folk Lore in the Old Testament_ (London, 1918), i. 40). As regards the changes in our development which make the whole world kin, Empedocles, (Καθαρμοί, _frag._ 117, Diels) sings,

ἤδη γάρ ποτ’ ἐγὼ γενόμην κοῦρός τε κόρη τε θάμνος τ’ οἰωνός τε καὶ ἔξαλος ἔλλοπος ἰχθύς.

[223] _Symposium_, VIII. 8, 3: γέγονεν ἁγνείας μἐρος ἀποχὴ ἰχθύων. Elsewhere we read of more prosaic and practical reasons why the great majority of the Greeks abstained from certain kinds of fish, e.g. the fear in the case of the loach, of which the Syrian goddess was protectress, lest she gnaw their legs, cover their bodies with sores, and devour their livers.

[224] Herodotus, I. 62.

[225] Paulus Rhode, _Thynnorum Captura_ (Lipsiæ, 1890). Had his exhaustive monograph come to hand earlier, this notice would have been worthier, and much time spent on Aristotle, Oppian, etc., have been saved.

[226] The real derivation of πηλαμύς, which was probably a pre-Hellenic word, seems unknown: see É. Boisacq, _Dictionnaire Étymologique de la langue grecque_ (Paris, 1913), p. 779.

[227] Their method was to let down by a rope from the boats blocks of wood (heavily weighted with lead) to which were attached great spikes and hooks, which on reaching the bottom were drawn to and fro, with the result that “here gasping Heads confess the killing Smart, | There bleeds a Tail, which quivers round the Dart.” Cf. a fragment from Menander’s _The Fisherman_, _frag._ 12 in the _Frag. comicor. Graec._, IV. 77, Meineke, “The muddy sea which nourishes the great Tunny.” Sophron’s _Tunnyfisher_ seems the earliest mime, where this fish figures.

[228] O. Keller, _Die Antike Tierwelt_, vol. ii. 388, fig. 122. This work (published at Leipzig a year before the War) unfortunately came into my hands only when I had practically finished my book, and thus I have been precluded from the more copious use of the _Fische_ portion, which I should have desired and which it would certainly have demanded. The seventy pages dealing with fish form a compact treasure-house of ichthyic literature, but owing perhaps to their scope lack piscatorial interest.

[229] Faber, _Fisheries in the Adriatic_, London, 1883.

[230] According to Pollux, VI. 63.

[231] Justin, XVIII. 3, 2.

[232] Cf. Ezekiel, XXVI. 5, 14.

[233] Cf. the allusion of Cervantes: _dos cursos en la academia de la pesca de los atunos_.

[234] Arrian (_Ind._, XXX. 1) and Strabo (XV. 12, p. 726) tell the same story of whales in the Indian Ocean.

[235] _Persæ_, 424 ff.

[236] Plutarch, _de Sol. Anim._, ch. 29.

[237] Arist., _N. H._, VIII. 19.

[238] _Ichthyol._, II. p. 376.

[239] Pliny, _N. H._, IX. 20, on the say-so of Arist., _N. H._, VI. 16, “pinguescunt in tantum ut dehiscant.”

[240] Ælian, _de nat. an._, XIII. 16.

[241] Oppian, _hal._, III. 285.