SACRED FISH 79 



Athenaeus ^ after trying to answer, " But what is the fish 

 which is called Sacred ? " by citing instances where the Dolphin, 

 Pompilus, Chrysophrys, etc., are so designated, adds a sentence 

 which seems either to be the authority for, or to confirm the 

 authority of Faesi ; " but some understand by the term ' sacred 

 fish ' one let go and dedicated to the God, just as people give 

 the same name to a consecrated ox." 



Seymour holds that "the epithet lephc as applied to a fish 

 in //., XVI. 407, has not been satisfactorily explained from 

 ordinary Greek usage : instead of sacred, it seems rather to 

 mean active, vigorous, strong. Cf. the same epithet appHed 

 to the picket guard of the Achaeans in //., X. 56." Curtius 

 connects the word with the Sanskrit ishir4= vigorous. 'Uphg 

 as active, agile, strong is appHed to horses, spies, mind, women, 

 and cows. 



Leaf suggests that the word, when applied to night, etc., 

 would have developed the meaning of mighty, mysterious, and 

 so later on sacred. If sacred, the epithet may have arisen out 

 of some sort of tabu or religious feehng against eating fish, in 

 early times often regarded as either uncanny creatures living 

 under water and possessed of superhuman powers, or as divine 

 or semi-divine. 2 



Gradually the dread of fish as creatures tabu wore off, 

 but survived for long in a hole-and-corner way, e.g. the venera- 

 tion of TtTTL^ IvdXiog, ' the lobster,' at Seriphos,^ or the 

 deification of KapKivoi, ' crabs,' in Lemnos.^ 



If hpoQ does mean a big, fine, vigorous fish, to most modern 

 fishermen a Rod would seem impHed. This is strengthened by 

 the nature of the act to which the simile applies : wg 'IXk^ Sovpl 

 (fiauvvo, as Patroclus dragged Thestor on the bright spear from 

 the chariot, so the fishermen dragged the fish from the sea. 



In D. the case, if any, for the implied use of the Rod is very 

 weak. In this alone of all the references does lead as a weight 

 occur. Here we have no comparison to action such as dragging 

 up a fine fish, but simply to swiftness ; the effect of it, the 



^ vii. 18-21. 



- See S. Reinach, Cultes, Mythes, et Religions (Paris 1908), iii. 43 fif. 



3 ^lian, N. H., xiii. 26. 



* Hesych, s.v. KdBeipoi. 



