And he does deem the sacred hyces god.
And Numenius, in his Art of Fishing, says—
The spar, or the gregarious hyces;
Or phagrus, ever wand'ring near the rocks.
And Timæus, in the thirteenth book of his Histories, speaking of the town in Sicily, (I mean the town of Hyccara,) says that this town derived its name from the circumstance of the first man who arrived at the place finding abundance of the fish called hyces, and those too in a breeding condition; and they, taking this for an omen, called the place Hyccarus. But Zenodotus says that the Cyrenæans call the hyces the erythrinus. But Hermippus of Smyrna, in his essay on Hipponax, when he speaks of the hyces, means the iulis; and says that it is very hard to catch; on which account Philetas says—
Nor was the hyces the last fish who fled.
133. There is also the phagrus. Speusippus, in the second book of his Things resembling one another, says that the phagrus, the erythrinus, and the hepatus, are very much alike. And Numenius also has mentioned it in the lines which have been quoted not long ago. But Aristotle says that he is a carnivorous and solitary fish; and that he has a heart of a triangular shape, and that he is in season in the spring. And Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Wedding, speaks of the
Aones, and the phagri, and the pikes.
And Metagenes also mentions them in his Thurio-Persæ. And Ameipsias says in his Connus—
A food for orphi and selachia,
And for the greedy phagri.
And Icesius says—"The phagrus, and the chromis, and the anthias, and the acharnanes, and the orphi, and the synodons, and the synagrides, are all very nearly akin to one another; for they are sweet and astringent, and nutritious, but in the same proportion they are hard of digestion. And those of them, which are fleshy, and which are caught nearer land, are the most nutritious, and those also which have the least fat." But Archestratus says—