Thus a celebrated lamprey[[1418]] fishery existed on the Faro of Messina, an eel-fishery at Syracuse,[[1419]] another for taking the purple fish, on the eastern coast of Eubœa, a second on the shores of Laconia, a third at Sigæum in Asia Minor, and a fourth in the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon.[[1420]] Whales and dolphins were caught in the Mediterranean, and in the Black Sea; thunnies in the same sea, on the Bosporos, in the sea of Marmora, in the Hellespont, in the Adriatic, and in nearly all the eastern parts of the Mediterranean. Many kinds of smaller fish afforded employment to numerous bodies of men in the gulfs and bays of Attica and the Peloponnesos; and flourishing sponge-fisheries were carried on along the coast of Crete, and in several other parts of the Archipelago.[[1421]]
In seas frequented by sharks, sponge-fishers necessarily incurred much risk. They therefore carefully observed every circumstance denoting the absence of danger, as for example, the appearance of the anthias,[[1422]] which is supposed never to be seen in the neighbourhood of any voracious sea-monster; for which reason it obtained from the Greeks the name of the Sacred Fish.
The divers engaged in this trade made use, moreover, of many contrivances to diminish the toil and hazard of their dangerous calling. Sometimes they poured oil[[1423]] upon the waves, which rendered them at once more tranquil and translucent and enabled them the better to carry on their operations at the bottom of the sea. They made likewise the first step towards the invention of the diving-bell, by descending with a large vessel turned upside down upon their heads, taking care that its edges sank into the water at the same instant, by which means they carried along with them a quantity of air, and were enabled to continue a considerable space of time beneath the surface.[[1424]] A diver and his daughter are said to have performed good service for their country during the Median war; for, descending into the sea during a tempest, they loosened the anchors of many Persian vessels, and thus set them adrift to perish by the weather; in remembrance of which services, a statue was erected to both father and daughter at Delphi.[[1425]]
The business of fishing was pursued in much the same manner as in modern times. Great numbers of smacks,[[1426]] of all dimensions, crowded the narrow seas between the islands and the main, making sometimes pretty long voyages, and taking passengers to augment their gains.[[1427]] These, moreover, formed the principal nurseries for the Grecian navies,[[1428]] particularly those of Athens, which consequently were manned, in the better ages of the republic, by the hardiest and most expert seamen in the ancient world. They employed in their operations both the harpoon and various kinds of large nets;[[1429]] and the ease and rapidity with which they filled their vessels may be inferred from the accounts given in modern times of the vast shoals of fish of all species and dimensions which in spring time collect in the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean, and pour in such multitudes into the narrow stream of the Dardanelles and the Bosporos,[[1430]] that, with one sweep of a net, the fishermen are enabled to fill whole skiffs, while they may be taken by the hand from the shores, killed like birds with stones, caught with unbaited hooks, or by the women in common baskets, let down by ropes from the windows of such houses in Constantinople[[1431]] as happen to stand on the beach. Elsewhere the fishermen made use of stop-nets in rivers or along the sea-coasts where the water for some way out was shallow. Various kinds of baskets,[[1432]] also, they had recourse to, together with the rod and line. Even that barbarous method, still in many parts of Europe put in practice by the vulgar, of poisoning the waters, was known to the Greeks, who, for this purpose, cast into streams or ponds the pounded leaves of the Euphorbia Platyphylla.[[1433]]
On the land-locked seas, also, and lakes, and rivers, they pursued that striking and romantic species of fishery[[1434]] carried on at night,[[1435]] in which a flaming torch held at the boats’ bows allures the fish to the surface, where by their bright eyes and glittering scales shining through the transparent water, they directed the aim of the fisherman’s trident.[[1436]] A small fleet of this kind of boats dispersed over a smooth sea under the lea of woody headlands or rocky shores, each with its bright red light, gliding noiselessly[[1437]] hither and thither, discloses a scene of singular beauty to the imagination. In the paintings of Herculaneum,[[1438]] we find a landscape representing a group of fishermen immediately before day, when the dusky shadows are beginning to be dispersed by the first straggling rays of light which barely enable us to distinguish the boats, the nets, the rods, the fishermen themselves, and the picturesque shore on which they are at work.
One of the most profitable of the Greek fisheries was that of the thunny, which commenced about the rising of the Pleiades and terminated shortly after the setting of Arcturus.[[1439]] As this animal always moves about in troops, and swims near the surface of the water, which it visibly disturbs in its progress, at the same time blowing sportively, and uttering a loud noise, the fishermen, on the shores frequented by it, constantly stationed a number of watchmen along the beach, some perched aloft on the summits of cliffs, others on detached rocks, rising out of the waves, or in trees, or on the top of masts set up at certain distances along the coast, that they might give notice of the approach of the thunnies.[[1440]] As soon as the signal was given the fishermen pushed out with their barks, making a wide circuit, so as to take the fish in flank. Then letting down their long nets furnished with leaden weights to sink them, and with cords[[1441]] wherewith to draw them up, they formed themselves into a semicircle, which rapidly narrowing round the shoal drove them towards the land, by which means the greatest number were either taken in the nets, or speared by tridents.[[1442]] Respecting one of these fishing stations, on the coast of Cypros, a very romantic anecdote is related.[[1443]] The inhabitants we are told, having sculptured a marble lion, which they adorned with emerald eyes, set it up on the tomb of a prince of the country named Hermias,[[1444]] upon an eminence overlooking the sea. The splendour of the emerald, penetrating through the waves, scared away the thunnies, which in truth are remarkable for their timidity, so that the fishermen of that part of the island must unquestionably have been ruined had they not discovered the property of their lion’s optics, and substituted in lieu of the emerald, eyes less terrible to the pusillanimous herds of Thetis. A circumstance almost equally extraordinary is related of the strait by which the stream of the Bosporos disgorges itself into the Propontis. Here they say a rock of marvellous whiteness is discovered on the Asiatic side through the waves in the neighbourhood of Chalcedon, which by its brightness scares away the thunnies, both in their way to and from the Black Sea. The ancient naturalists remark, that the thunny in this part of its migrations observes steadily one course, keeping generally on the Asiatic side in the ascent to the Pontus, where, excepting the seal and the dolphin, nothing destructive to fish is found, and, after making the circuit of its shores, returning to the Ægæan close along the coast of Europe.
This proceeding they account for by supposing that, of its two dull eyes, the right sees best, and that, in obedience to the guidance of this peeper, it makes the circuit of the sea in the manner stated. A better reason may be, that its peculiar food[[1445]] is most plentiful on the Asiatic coast in spring, and on the European in autumn, if, after all, we are to regard the fact itself as well established.[[1446]] In this traject, however, it seems in reality, for some cause or another, to shun the vicinity of the City of the Blind, which constituted, perhaps, one of the principal causes of its inferiority to Byzantium. Nevertheless, a very delicate species of pelamys,[[1447]] caught there, was known in the commerce of the ancient world, and transported to all parts of Greece.
We have remarked above, that the taking of the thunny commenced in spring, when it appears to have been in excellent condition, and very highly prized. During winter, whatever may have been its quality, it was not to be caught, since it retired to the depths of the Ægæan, beyond the reach of nets or tridents. In the heat of summer it was rendered lean and flabby by the persecution of a kind of worm, which, insinuating itself beneath the fins,[[1448]] harassed it incessantly. But, towards autumn, being delivered by nature from this pest, it again became plump, and was esteemed excellent eating. The growth of this fish is extremely rapid, more especially in the Black Sea, where, amid the vast quantities of mud and slime brought down by the numerous rivers, it finds in great abundance the food most congenial to its taste.[[1449]] The thunny, properly so called, is at present[[1450]] scarce along the coast of Mingrelia, where, by the ancients, it is said to have abounded, which renders it not improbable, that they included under this name more than one species of sturgeon, a fish still found in great numbers in those parts of the Black Sea.
The method of taking the pelamys[[1451]] has been graphically described by an ancient writer. A well-appointed and swift bark, putting to sea with her rowers, dashed out as rapidly as possible into deep water, upon which one of the crew, stationed at the stern, let down the tackle. This consisted of two strong ropes, one on either side, to which were attached a number of small cords, each with a hook at the end, baited with the Laconian purple fish, and garnished with a feather of the sea-mew, which, glancing hither and thither in the currents of the sea, assisted in attracting the eye of the pelamydes. The boat then traced various lines upon the surface of the deep, now skimming in this direction, now in that, until it was followed by a shoal of fish, which, coming up with it, voraciously gorged the baits until not a single hook was left without its prey. Upon this the rowers desisted from their toil, and, pulling up the ropes, generally found their boat laden with the take.[[1452]]
The manner in which the thunny is taken on the coast of Chili may, perhaps, be worth mentioning for the sake of comparison. As soon as the Indians discover a shoal of these fish near the shore they put to sea on large sealskin floats inflated, like bladders, with air, carrying with them a sharp-pronged trident, fastened to a tough and very long rope. They then approach and pierce the fish, which, immediately upon being struck, darts out to sea with prodigious celerity, the Indian, meanwhile, rapidly uncoiling his rope till the strength of the thunny is spent through loss of blood, after which he draws back his prey, and, raising it upon his float, returns to the shore rejoicing.[[1453]]