“Quoi qu’en dise Aristote, et sa digne cabale, Le tabac est divin, il n’est rien qui l’égale,”
is hardly happy, for, as the weed nicotine only reached Europe some nineteen centuries after the philosopher’s death, his “dise” equals rien!
[411] With δόναξ and κύρτος, cf. the πλεκτὸν ὕφασμα in Archestratus (frag. xv. 6). See pp. 147 and 176 ff. of Paulus Brandt’s Parodorum epicorum Græcorum et Archestrati Reliquiæ, Leipzig, 1888. Brandt argues that the expression describes a nassa, qua retis loco piscatores utebantur, and on the analogy of the Dalmatian fishermen (cf. Brehm, Thierleben, IV., vol. II. p. 533) who, when the sea is not quite calm, drop from the bow of the boat pebbles dipped in oil to make smooth the surface, and so more easily detect the fish, explains δονεῖν ψήφους in Frag. XV. line 8. Although Archestratus’s statement that the fish are not to be seen (oὐd’ ἐσιδεῖν ὄσσοισιν), except by those who resort to the πλεκτὸν ὕφασμα, and εἰώθασι δονεῖν ψήφους, gives some colour to Brandt’s ingenious identification, the lack of any mention of the essential factor in such a calming operation, the oil, seems to rule it out.
[412] IV. 640. Cf. Oppian, cyneg., 4, 140 ff. for a similar description.
[413] This method, originating from the curiosity of fish and their desire (in Shelley’s words) “to worship the delusive flame,” is especially successful in rivers at the spawning season. In the Rhodian Laws—a code for the government of mariners and fishermen originally promulgated by Tiberius—occurs a special proviso, re fishing by means of torches, forbidding fishermen to display lights at sea, lest thereby they should deceive other vessels. It has been suggested, prettily, but I fear not practically, that leistering was learnt from the hunting habit and natural endowments of the Halcyon or Kingfisher; just as to the brilliancy of its colours and splendour of its flash the fish are attracted, so to the brightness of the torches and the shimmer of their rays come the salmon, etc.
[414] Cicero, de Nat. deor., II. 50, 127.
[415] Perhaps the best prose description of the power of the Echineis is to be found in Cassiodorus, Var., I. 35. Pliny, XXXII. 1, solemnly asserts that the death of the Emperor Caligula was presaged by a Remora stopping his great galley, alone out of all the accompanying fleet, on his voyage to Antium. Not only did the Remora stop a ship, but according to Pliny, it could, from its power of checking the natural actions of the body under excitement, hasten or stay an accouchement as well as a lawsuit: hence plaintiffs seldom ventured into the fish market, because the mere sight of a Remora at such a juncture was most inauspicious! (Pliny, IX. 41, and XXXII. 1). Cf. Aristotle, H. A., 2. 14, “καὶ χρῶνταί τινες αὐτῷ πρὸς δίκας καὶ φίλτρα.” For an explanation of the myth of the Remora, see V. W. Ekman, “On Dead Water,” in the Reports of Nansen’s Polar Expedition, Christiania, 1904.
[416] For a profoundly interesting study of the extant portrait-busts of Socrates, see A. Hekler, Greek and Roman Portraits (London, 1912), p. xi. f., with plates 19, 20, 21.
[417] The Torpedo was one of the food fishes of the ancients, and is represented with other fish on several of the Campanian-ware fish plates to be seen at the British Museum, e.g. Cat. Vases, vol. iv., p. 121, F. 268, which shows the small well in the centre of the plate used for fish sauce.
[418] Anth. Pal., XI. 414.