10 Mr. W. B. Spence on a Passage in Herodotus. 



seems not less to be wondered at that the passage in Herodotus which 

 announces it should have been so little noticed by commentators, not 

 one of whom seems to have been struck with the singularity of his 

 statements, which, whether correct or not, equally required observa- 

 tion. One would think that in reading this passage it must have 

 seemed to them rather strange that a casting-net whose meshes must 

 have been wide enough to admit several gnats at a time should yet be 

 asserted by Herodotus to be a sufficient defence from them, though 

 they bit through either linen or woollen ; and one may be well sur- 

 prised that whilst they have spent pages on passages far less curious, 

 they should pass this over with a mere reference to Juvenal or 

 Horace where these authors allude to the conopeum, or gnat-cur- 

 tain. 



The fact seems that all these commentators have been led astray 

 by the word conopeum, confounding the casting-net of the Egyptian 

 fishermen with the gnat-curtain of the Romans, which both from the 

 definitions given of it, " linum tenuissimis maculis nectum," (" thread 

 knitted together in very fine meshes,") and from the use as banners, 

 to which Horace supposed it applied, 



" Interque signa (turpe !) militaria 



Sol aspicit conopeum," (Epod. lib. ix. ode 9.) 



was evidently of a texture resembling our muslin or gauze. If, 

 therefore, they had been duly struck by the passage, they ought either 

 to have shown how it was that a casting-net could exclude gnats as 

 effectually as gauze, or else, that in point of fact the texture of both 

 was the same, the casting-net haAdng, notwithstanding the apparent 

 absurdity of the supposition, meshes so small as to prevent gnats 

 from coming through them, or, on the other hand, the conopeum 

 though applicable for a banner, having meshes as large as a casting- 

 net. But nothing of this kind has been attempted in the way of 

 explanation by Schweighseuser, Larcher, Baehr, or any of the com- 

 mentators I have consulted, who all seem to regard the conopeum, or 

 gnat-curtain, to be the same as the amphiblestron of Herodotus, when 

 in fact, except in the advantages derived from each, they have no 

 more similarity than the paper bags used for covering grapes have 

 with a cherry-tree netf. 



In concluding these imperfect remarks, I hojDe, in order to put be- 

 yond question the accuracy, or the coiati-ary, of the statement of He- 



f In a curious poetical tract, entitled "An Epistle from the Fens to Mr. ** * 

 * * * at Rome," dated May 1, 1737, which my friend the Rev. F. W. Hope, F.R.S., 

 purchased at Mr. Heber's late sale, and which he has liad the goodness to show me 

 since the above was written, the author falls into the same error with all the com- 



