[506] Athen., VIII. 8.
[507] Ælian, XV. 6.
[508] Athen., VII. 50, and Paulus Rhode, Thynnorum Captura (Lipsiæ, 1890), p. 71. Most of the major deities—e.g. Diana, Apollo, Mercury, Juno, Neptune, Ceres, and Venus—claimed a particular sacrificiable fish or fishes. Sometimes fishes were offered to two or more gods, e.g. the mullet to Ceres and Proserpine. Cf. J. G. Stuck, Sacrorum et sacrificiorum gentil. descriptio, ii. p. 72.
[509] ἰχθύων δὲ θύσιμος οὐδεὶς οὐδὲ ἱερεύσιμός ἐστιν.
[510] Hermes (1887), XXII. 86. 100. The reason here stated for the Eel being sacrificiable was because it could be brought alive to the altar and its blood poured out on it. Stengel’s argument, especially in association with his remark that sacrifices of fish were as scarce as those of game, is not convincing, for why should not other fishes be kept alive in water till the hour of oblation? The belief in the sanctity of the Eel pertains even unto our day, for in the spring at Bergas (between the Dardanelles and Lapsaki) they are or were before the War inviolate.
[511] Fasti, III. 339 ff.
[512] Festus, p. 274, 35 ff. W. Lindsay.
[513] Plutarch, Symp., VIII. 8. 4.
[514] De Lingua Latina, 6. 20 (in his description of the Volcanalia).
[515] F. Boehm, De symbolis Pythagoreis (Berlin, 1905), p. 19, would connect the fish-offering of the Volcanalia with the belief that the soul took the form of a fish. G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer,2 (München, 1912), p. 229, m. 13.