FISH, " SILVER- WHITE " AND PEACOCK 129 



Theocritus in the fragment on Berenice recommends the 

 sacrifice of a certain fish to a goddess. " And if any man that 

 hath his livelihood from the salt sea, and whose nets serve him 

 for ploughs, prays for wealth and luck in fishing, let him 

 sacrifice, at midnight, to this goddess, the sacred fish that 

 men call ' silver white,' for that it is brightest of sheen of all ; 

 then let the fisher set his nets, and he shall draw them full 

 from the sea." ^ 



If Apollonius of Tyana had been compelled to commend 

 a beauteous fish for sacrifice — an act which his Pythagorean 

 tenets forbade — he must have plumped for the Peacock 

 fish. 



Whether he were, teste Hieroclas, as great a sage, as remark- 

 able a worker of miracles, as potent an exorcist as Jesus 

 of Nazareth, or merely, in the words of Eusebius, a rank 

 charlatan, whose magic, "if he possessed any," was the gift 

 of the powers of evil with whom he lived in league is no ques- 

 tion to be considered here. Apollonius, at any rate, stands 

 out, not only as one of the most interesting and most discussed 

 personalities of the third century, but also as one of the most 

 travelled. 



During his fifty odd Wanderjahre many men had he known, 

 and many cities had he seen of Asia and Africa. In the 

 Hyphasis river of India there exist (we learn from his Life hy 

 Philostratus, III. i) Peacock fish (sacred to Aphrodite) to 

 which, if colour or " silver sheen " insure full creels, the 

 Theocritean certainly must yield place, for " their fins are 

 blue, their scales beautifully dappled, their tails, which fold or 

 spread at will, of golden hue ! " 



But dominant over all other characteristics stands the 

 inevitable and insistent connection of fishermen with Old 

 Age, Toil, and Poverty. Everywhere, in every author, does 

 this note strike loudest ; nowhere, have I come across a 

 young fisherman, except Virgil's Menoetes. 



These characteristics find their place not only in Greek 

 and Latin literature from and before the " sleepless chase " of 



* For discussion as to which was the " sacred fish," see Plutarch, de Sol, 

 Anim., 32, and Athen., VII. 20. 



