248 TACKLE— CURIOUS .METHODS— 5/L[/7?C7S— EELS 



of an Eel at Athens we have to spend twelve drachmcE or more ! " 

 Anaxandrides' ^ makes a Greek say to an Egyptian : 



" You count the Eel a mighty deity, 

 And we a mighty dainty ! " 



Juvenal in Satire XV. (written probably after his return 

 from semi-exile in Egypt) lashes with ridicule the compatriots 

 of his butt Crispinus. The enumeration of their animal and 

 vegetable gods is a fine specimen of dignified humour. By 

 piscem in line 7, may be indicated the Oxyrhytichus, the Lepi- 

 dotus, or the Phagrus, the so-called Eel — three sacred fishes 

 of the Nile. 



" Illic aeluros, hie piscem fluminis, illic 

 Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam." 



(B) As a delicacy, the Eel by the Greeks was rated very 

 high. But the reverse held good at Rome. Unlike its cousin 

 the MurcB?ta it gets little commendation by the Latin comedians 

 — Terence's in Adelphi, 377-381, is the solitary exception I can 

 recall — and by the gourmets. Apicius deemed it worthy of 

 but one recipe. 2 



" Vos anguilla manet longae cognata colubrae " (Juvenal, V. 

 103) is often quoted as stamping the low position of the Eel 

 at Rome, but in reality, as the whole context bears out, this 

 particular " cousin of the snake " was condemned not because 

 of its kinship, but because it was C/oaca-bred and drain-fed. ^ 



^ Anaxandr., U6\(is, frag, i, 5 f. ; ap. Athen., 7, 55. 



2 Contrast with the Greeks and Romans the abstention from the MurcBnidcB 

 by the Egyptians, Jews, Mussulmans, and Highlanders ; in the case of the 

 last, however, the abstention was due to no religious injunction but to physical 

 loathing. 



Fuller on the derivation of the Isle of Ely is too quaint to omit : " WTien 

 the priests of this part of the country would still retain their wives in spite 

 of what Pope and monks could do to the contrary, their wives and children 

 were miraculously turned into eels, whence it had tlie name of Ely. I consider 

 it a lie." That Ely is derived from the abundance of Eels taken there has the 

 ancient authority of Liber Eliensis (II. 53). J. B. Johnston, The Place-Names 

 of England and Wales (London, 1915), p. 250, takes Ely to mean the " eel- 

 island." He adds, however, that Skeat regarded Elge, Bede's spelling of the 

 name, as " eel-region," the second element in the compound, ge, being a very 

 rare and early Old EngUsh word for " district " (cf. German, Gau). Isaac 

 Taylor, Names and Histories (London, 1896), s.v. Ely, states that rents were there 

 paid in Eels. 



3 Care must be taken to distinguish between the Eel, fyxf>v!, of the Greeks, 

 Anguilla of the Romans, and the so-called Lamprey, fivpatva, or Murcena. 



