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]
[Illustration: THE DOLPHIN AND THE BOY OF IASOS.
From Coin, British Museum, Cat. Pl. 21. 7.]
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.”
[Illustration: CUTTING UP THE TUNNY.
From Gerhard, _Aus. Vas._, Pl. 316, 2.]
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.