334 FISHERIES— PRICE OF FISH— SPAWNING 



of these fisheries formed the dowries or allowances for the 

 scents, etc.,^ of the Queens. 



Later on they also received as appanage the revenues of 

 Anthylla famous for its wines, so they fared not badly for pin 

 money. Herodotus 2 informs us that the tow^n " is assigned 

 expressly to the wife of the ruler of Egypt to keep her in shoes. 

 Such has been the custom ever since Egypt fell under Persian 

 rule," an origin not improbable from Plato's statement that 

 one district was allotted for toilette purposes to the Persian 

 Queens and called "The Queen's Girdle." 



(B) The taxes (or revenues) obtained in the Ptolemaic times, 

 IxOur^pa, were probably a Government monopoly. They were 

 divided into (a) a tax on fishermen of one quarter of the value of 

 the fish caught {TtTapTi] aXdwv), (b) the profits of sale of fish 

 at prices higher than those paid for them direct to the fisherman. 



In the Roman period we find rAoc Ix^vT/iofic Bpvuwv, or 

 a rent from marshes deep enough at the time of the inundation 

 to contain fish and shallow enough at other times to grow 

 papyri and marsh plants. Leases for fishing and selling papyri, 

 etc., brought good returns. But these returns must be dis- 

 tinguished from other revenues derived from the industry, 

 e.g. the fisheries of Lake Mceris, and from a tax paid by the 

 fishermen, both of which seem to correspond with the Ptolemaic 

 " fourth part." On the other hand the (popog, no doubt, was 

 a tax paid by fishermen for the right of fishing, or for the use 

 of boats in waters owned by the temples. 3 



The Net, in the marsh country, was not only the most 

 lucrative " engine of encirclement," but also a double duty 

 paid. In other parts the inhabitants passed their nights upon 

 lofty towers to escape the gnats, but in the marsh land (Hero- 

 dotus continues), " where are no towers, each man possesses 



^ Diodorus Siculus, I. 52. Twenty- two different kinds of fish existed in 

 the royal fish ponds of Mceris. Keller, op. cii., 330. 



2 II. 98. 



' See Grenfell and Hunt, Tebtunis Papyri, II. 180-1, and I. 49-50. Also 

 "Wilcken, Griechische Ostraka, I. 137 ff. The craft employed were usually 

 primitive rafts or canoes made of papyrus canes bound together with cords 

 of the same plant. Theophxastus, Hist. Plantarum, IV. 8, 2, alludes to them. 

 Pliny, N. H., VII. 57, speaks of Nile boats made of papyrus, rushes and reeds, 

 while Lucan, IV. 136, refers to them in 



"Conseritur bibula Memphitis cymba papyro." 



