NETS— RODS— LINES— HOOKS 237 



hairs of animals (seta) but most generally of horsehair, ^ of 

 flax, of sparton out of the genista, perhaps of byssus, but never 

 of gut, was very finely twisted, as the epithet tuTrXoica^oc 

 shows. It was usually as long as the rod itself, although in 

 the Agathemeros relief we find it nearly double the length. 

 The colours of the line were grey, black, brown — sometimes red 

 or purple. It was made tight to the top of the Rod and not 

 let down to the butt, or running. 2 



Plutarch prescribes that the hairs next to the hook should 

 for deception's sake be taken from a white horse, and adds 

 advice, as pertinent now as then, that there " should not be 

 too many knots in the line ! " ^ 



To the line was fastened the hook (hamus) which was of one 

 or two sharp barbs. '^ From Herculaneum,^ Pompeii, and 

 elsewhere have been collected hooks which vary extremely 

 in form, size, and method of adjustment. ^ Although sometimes 

 of bone, they are mostly manufactured from iron or bronze. 

 Cf. Oppian, III. 285 * X'^^^'^^^ /^^^ (T»cXijpo7o Ttrvyixivov »j£ aioiipov. 



It strikes us moderns as strange to have the epithet hard 

 applied to bronze and not to iron, till we are informed that the 



1 Plutarch, de Sol., 24, commends those of a staUion as longest and strongest, 

 of a gelding next, and of a mare least, because of the weakness of the hairs 

 due to her urination. 



2 Mlia.n, N. H., XII. 43. See Introduction. 

 2 Plutarch, de Sol., 24. 



* It is of great interest to note that according to Langdon (see Jewish 

 Chapter), probably in Sumerian, and certainly in Hebrew, the word equalling 

 hook, in its primary sense equals thorn, which strongly suggests, if it do 

 not absolutely prove, that the ancients employed, as do even now the catchers 

 of flat fish in Essex, and the Indians in Arizona, a thorn as their primitive hook. 

 In Latin hamus signifies hook and thorn. Cf. Ovid {Nux.. 11 3-1 16). 



* Waldstein and Shoobridge, Herculaneum (London, 1908), p. 95, " The 

 only industry which has left much trace is fishing ; hooks, cords, floats, and 

 nets were found in much abundance." 



8 See antea, p. 157, and note i. According to Petrie, Tools and Weapons 

 (London, 1917), p. 37 f. : " The European fish-hooks do not appear before the 

 fonderia age : in Greece and Roman Italy hooks are common." G. Lafaye, 

 in Daremberg and Saglio, op. cit., III. 8. s.v. " hamus," gives figure 3696, a 

 simple bronze hook, figure 3697, a small double hook in the Museum at Naples, 

 figure 3698, a quadruple hook (four bronze barbs attached to the angles of a 

 square plate of lead), and figure 3699, a bronze hamus catenatus. H. B. 

 Walters — -Catalogue of the Bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan in British 

 Museum (London, 1899), Nos. 38 and 39 — describes, but does not figure, two 

 hooks of the Mycenaean period from Rhodes, 2 inches and 27/8 inches long, 

 which are dated about 1450 B.C. Petrie, loc. cit., states that the " usual 

 pattern of the Greek-Romans is, as figured in No. 100, while loi and 102 are 

 the Hmits of size." 



