OF ALL COUNTRIES. 27 



CHAPTER IV. 



FISHERIES OF MANY CENTURIES. 



May't rain above all almanacks, till 



The carriers sail and the king's fishmonger 



Ride like Arion upon a trout to London. 



Beaumont atid Fletcher. 



Although the records of fisheries and fishermen during 

 the earlier part of the Christian era are for the most part 

 buried in obscurity, yet indications are not wanting of 

 the importance attaching to them. For many centuries 

 mariners and fishermen continued to be governed by the 

 Rhodian Laws, a code originally promulgated by Tiberius, 

 and confirmed by the Emperors Hadrian, Antoninus, 

 Pertinax and Septimus Severus. Their origin is quaintly 

 recorded in the preamble. " When," says Tiberius, " all the 

 merchants and sailors petitioned me to furnish them with a 

 report upon the general laws affecting maritime matters, 

 Nero said to me : ' Most Illustrious Emperor, why not send 

 a Commission to Rhodes to find out all about them?'" 

 And so the Commission was sent. Some of the regulations 

 thereby imposed were of a highly practical and ingenious 

 order; as, for instance, the rule ordaining that when 

 seamen quarrel they may fight it out as much as they 

 like in words, but are on no account to proceed to blows ; 

 a regulation recalling the advice of Athene to the angry 



