THE TALMUD— PARASANG LIMIT 421 



support may be quoted : " The fish net must be removed from 

 the fish which another is already trying to catch as far as to allow 

 the fish to escape." " How far is that ? " Rabba, son of 

 Rabbi Hona answered, " As far as a parasang." The case is 

 otherwise with fish to which hues have been cast." ^ 



My second reason is the manifest absurdity of the enormous 

 area allotted to the individual netter. Our latest authority, 

 Westberg, computes that the parasang was equal to 3 miles 

 1335 yards, or about 3^^ miles {Klio, xiv. 338 ff.).2 



Let us now see how this parasang possession works out on 

 Lake Tiberias, the only sheet of water where netting widely 

 prevailed. 



Its extreme length is about thirteen miles : its greatest 

 width less than seven. Allowing for sinuosities of coast fine, 

 let us concede fifty miles in circumference. This extent of 

 shore, if the area of a parasang is possessed on only one side 

 of the netter, would suffice for 13I netters, or, if on both sides, 

 for 6f netters, i.e. a monopoly on the most prolific water, 

 which, in Euclidian parlance, " is absurd." 



If we disregard the words " set up a net on a bank," and 

 allow that the parasang possession holds merely for the surface 

 area, we are immediately confronted by two different questions. 



First, does this allotted space spread from the boat by a 

 parasang only North, or by a parasang only South, etc ? Second, 

 if not, but extends for a circumference of which the boat is the 

 centre, how is the possessory area to be measured, known, or 

 shown ? Oppian, it is true, sings with poetical license of " Nets, 

 Which Uke a city to the floods descend," but even he does not 

 vouchsafe to us a picture of netting on such a grandiose scale 

 as seven and a half miles. 



Before this area of possession can be definitely established, 

 far weightier authority must be produced than a casual sentence 



^ " The first fisherman has already bestowed labour on the fish, and regards 

 them as his property." 



^ Zuckermann, a leading Jewish authority, in Das judische Maassystem, 

 p. 31, gives, it is true, the following equivalents : i Parasang =4 Mil. (Lat. mille= 

 30 Ris (stadia) — 8000 Hebrew cubits. Reckoning the cubit at, in round 

 figures, 18 inches, we get a parasang of 4000 yards, or about 2 J miles. Later 

 authorities, however, are agreed that the Persian parasang was at least 3I miles, 

 or more. 



