FISH EATEN ONLY BY THE POOR 69 



they owed much, begin to reahse and utiUse the wealth of the 

 harvest to be won from the adjacent seas.^ 



Fishing, followed at first mainly by the very poor to procure 

 a food in low esteem, gradually found itself. 



In the Iliad and Odyssey no fish appear at banquets or in the 

 houses of the well-to-do : only in connection with the poorest 

 or starving do they obtain mention. 



Meleager of Gadara accounted for this fact — previously 

 noted by Aristotle — by the suggestion that Homer represented 

 his characters as abstaining from fish, because as a Syrian by 

 descent he himself was a total abstainer. The curious omission 

 of fish has been held to indicate that Homer either hved before 

 the adoption of fish as food, or, if not, that the social conditions 

 and habits of diet which he delineates are those of generations 

 before such transition. 2 



The decision, if one be possible, lies for Homeric scholars, 

 and not for a mere seeker after piscatoriana. Even to such an 

 one, however, two alternatives seem clear. 



First, if Homer did five after the transition occurred, his 

 descriptions of ancient times and customs unconsciously 

 included habits and conditions of a more modern society. ^ 



to Pausanias, V. 17) with figures in relief, holds an intermediate place between 

 The Shield of Achilles and the art of the classic period. Hence we infer that the 

 Shield belongs to the earlier time, when (as we also learn from Homer) the 

 Phoenicians were the great carriers between the Mediterranean countries 

 and the East" (Monro, //., XYHI). Professor Jebb {Homer, p. 66) ranks, in 

 the earlier period, Phoenician lower than Phrygian influence, but the latest 

 writer on the subject — F. Poulsen, Der Orient und die friihgriechische Kunst, 

 Leipzig-Berhn, 1912 — makes large claims for the influence of the Phoenicians 

 in art. 



1 Under ' Piscator ' in Diet, des Antiquites Daremberg and Saglio write : 

 " The configuration of the country generally would naturally induce a large 

 part of the population to seek their livelihood in fishing and fish." 



2 The explanation of Athenaeus (Bk. 1. 16, 22 and 46) is ingenious. Homer 

 never represents fish or birds, or vegetables, or fruit " as being put on the table 

 to eat, lest to mention them would seem hke praising gluttony, thinking besides 

 there would be a want of decorum in dwelhng on the preparation of such things, 

 which he considered beneath the dignity of Gods and Heroes." The latest 

 explanation — by Professor J. A. Scott, Class. Journ. ; Chicago, 1916-17, p. 329 

 — that " Homer looked upon fish with great disfavour, because as a native 

 of Asia Minor he had been trained to regard fish as an unhealthful and distaste- 

 ful food to be eaten only as a last resort," would attain nearer " what seems the 

 solution of this vexed question" (Scott's words), if he produced (i) data 

 establishing Homer's country of birth, and (2) evidence far stronger than 

 " Tips to Archaeological Travellers " (even though these be written by Sir Wm. 

 Ramsay) as regards the general " unhealthfulness " of the fish of Asia Minor. 



* Schrader, Reallexikon (Strassburg, 1901), p. 244, states that in neither the 



