For reading “at lairge” Oppian is admirable. At one moment you are enjoying a vivid and passably accurate account (III. 149 ff.) of how the Cramp or Torpedo Fish (νάρκη), like Brer Fox, lies low in the sand and the mud, but on a sudden “ejects his poisoned charms” with such effect that soon
“On every joint an Icy Stiffness steals, The flowing spirit binds and blood congeals.”[414]
A fish stupefied by the shock is likened (II. 81 ff.) unto a man who in dreams tries to escape from the threatening phantoms, only to find his knees bound and his limbs incapable of flight.
At another moment our poet (in I. 217 ff.) is reproving the incredulity of those who doubt the fact that a sucker fish can stop a ship under full sail, by sticking to its keel![415]
The peculiar powers of the Torpedo Fish command some comment. Ancient authors galore, to whom, in the absence of the more powerful electric Eel of Central America, the νάρκη must have appeared an amazing creature, have written and differed about it. Aristotle had early noted that it caught its prey by means of a stupefying apparatus in its mouth, or rather at the back of its head. Claudian asks (Carm. Min. Corp., XLIV. (XLVI.) 1 f.):
“Quis non indomitam miræ Torpedinis artem Audiit et merito signatas nomine vires?”
CAMPANIAN FISH-PLATE WITH PATTERN OF TORPEDO FISH.
Note the small well in centre for sauces.