[565] Ælian, N. H., XII. 43. See Introduction.
[566] Plutarch, de Sol., 24.
[567] It is of great interest to note that according to Langdon (see Jewish Chapter), probably in Sumerian, and certainly in Hebrew, the word equalling hook, in its primary sense equals thorn, which strongly suggests, if it do not absolutely prove, that the ancients employed, as do even now the catchers of flat fish in Essex, and the Indians in Arizona, a thorn as their primitive hook. In Latin hamus signifies hook and thorn. Cf. Ovid (Nux., 113-116).
[568] Waldstein and Shoobridge, Herculaneum (London, 1908), p. 95, “The only industry which has left much trace is fishing; hooks, cords, floats, and nets were found in much abundance.”
[569] See antea, p. 157, and note 1. According to Petrie, Tools and Weapons (London, 1917), p. 37 f.: “The European fish-hooks do not appear before the fonderia age: in Greece and Roman Italy hooks are common.” G. Lafaye, in Daremberg and Saglio, op. cit., III. 8. s.v. “hamus,” gives figure 3696, a simple bronze hook, figure 3697, a small double hook in the Museum at Naples, figure 3698, a quadruple hook (four bronze barbs attached to the angles of a square plate of lead), and figure 3699, a bronze hamus catenatus. H. B. Walters—Catalogue of the Bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan in British Museum (London, 1899), Nos. 38 and 39—describes, but does not figure, two hooks of the Mycenæan period from Rhodes, 2 inches and 27⁄8 inches long, which are dated about 1450 b.c. Petrie, loc. cit., states that the “usual pattern of the Greek-Romans is, as figured in No. 100, while 101 and 102 are the limits of size.”
[570] Op. cit., Pl. 378.
[571] Bk. II. 556.
[572] Bk. III. 138-148.
[573] Ovid, Hal., 38 f.; cf. Oppian, III. 482 ff.
[574] Pliny, N. H., XXXII. 5; Ovid, Hal., 44 ff.; Plutarch, De Sol. Anim., 25. This trick is also characteristic of the Armado of the Parana river, but its enormous strength enables it also either to jerk the paddle of the fisher away, or to capsize the boat. Cf. S. Wright, The Romance of the World’s Fisheries (London, 1908), p. 208.