CHAPTER VI 



CHARACTERISTICS OF FISHERMEN IN GREECE AND ROME 

 — POVERTY "THE BADGE OF ALL OUR TRIBE" — 

 DEITIES OF FISHING 



" Laud to the Lord, who gives to this, to that denies his wishes, 

 And dooms one toil and catch the prey, another eat the fishes." ^ 



This seems the most convenient, if not quite the chronological, 

 place for examining the position and attributes of fishermen in 

 the poems, epigrams, and eclogues of Greek literature. 



Of the two oldest of fisher-folk epigrams or epitaphs, the 

 first is attributed to Sappho, the second to Alcaeus of Mitylene. 

 In these rings insistent the same note of hard toil and poverty, 

 which permeates the piscatory eclogues of Theocritus and his 

 followers. 



From Sappho " the sole woman of any age or any country 

 who gained and still holds an unchallenged place in the first 

 rank of the world's poets " 2 comes down 



" Meniscus, mourning for his only son, 

 The toil-experienced fisher Pelagon, 

 Has placed upon his tomb a net and oar, 

 The badges of a painful life and poor." 3 



I cherished high hope of finding in the recently discovered 

 Fragments of Sappho in Part X. of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, 



' Burton, Arabian Nights. 



^ Mackail, op. cit., p. 92. Cf. Strabo's naive but curiously true phrase 

 about her, " a marvellous creature " {QavixaffrSv n xpv/j-a). 

 3 Anth. Pal.. VII. 505: 



r<f> yptiru ntXa-yoifi irar^p fVeflTj/ce MfulffKOS 

 KvpTOV KoX Konray, ixviifxa KaKo|otas. 



Translated by T. Fawkes. 



1X6 



