VENUS AND CUPID ANGLING.
From the Real Museo Borbonico, vol. iv. pl. 4.
CHAPTER XI
PLUTARCH: THE CHARGE AGAINST HIM OF CONTEMNING FISHING QUITE FALSE—CLEOPATRA’S FISHING—OPPIAN—THE TORPEDO FOR GOUT—ATHENÆUS
Our next two authors, Plutarch (a little later than Martial) and Oppian (c. 170 a.d.), both wrote in Greek.
Plutarch for centuries has been misrepresented and maligned as an opponent and contemptuous disdainer of fishing, but quite inaccurately. I am not of the class of writers who invest Nero with a halo, or canonise Clytæmnestra. I am no Knight of the Round Table on a quest to redeem lost characters, but I feel it a duty and a pleasure on behalf of Plutarch to fling down the glove and challenge his traducers to a duel à outrance.