THE TALMUD— PARASANG LIMIT 421 



support may be quoted : " The fish net must be removed from 

 the fish which another is already trying to catch as far as to allow 

 the fish to escape." " How far is that ? " Rabba, son of 

 Rabbi Hona answered, " As far as a parasang." The case is 

 otherwise with fish to which Hncs have been cast." ^ 



My second reason is the manifest absurdity of the enormous 

 area allotted to the individual netter. Our latest authority, 

 Westberg, computes that the parasang was equal to 3 miles 

 1335 yards, or about 3/,) miles {Klio, xiv. 338 ff.).^ 



Let us now see how this parasang possession works out on 

 Lake Tiberias, the only sheet of water where netting widely 

 prevailed. 



Its extreme length is about thirteen miles : its greatest 

 width less than seven. Allowing for sinuosities of coast fine, 

 let us concede fifty miles in circumference. This extent of 

 shore, if the area of a parasang is possessed on only one side 

 of the netter, would sufiice for 13I netters, or, if on both sides, 

 for 6 1 netters, i.e. a monopoly on the most proHfic water, 

 which, in Euclidian parlance, " is absurd." 



If we disregard the words " set up a net on a bank," and 

 allow that the parasang possession holds merely for the surface 

 area, we are immediately confronted by two different questions. 



First, does this allotted space spread from the boat by a 

 parasang only North, or by a parasang only South, etc ? Second, 

 if not, but extends for a circumference of which the boat is the 

 centre, how is the possessory area to be measured, knowoi, or 

 shown ? Oppian, it is true, sings with poetical license of " Nets, 

 Which Hke a city to the floods descend," but even he does not 

 vouchsafe to us a picture of netting on such a grandiose scale 

 as seven and a half miles. 



Before this area of possession can be definitely established, 

 far weightier authority must be produced than a casual sentence 



' " The first fisherman has already bestowed labour on the fish, and regards 

 them as his property." 



2 Zuckermann, a leading Jewish authority, in Das judische Maassystem, 

 p. 31, gives, it is true, the following equivalents : i Parasang=4 Mil. (Lat. mille= 

 30 Ris (stadia) — 8000 Hebrew cubits. Reckoning the cubit at, in round 

 figures, 18 inches, we get a parasang of 4000 yards, or about 2 J miles. Later 

 authorities, however, are agreed that the Persian parasang was at least 3^ miles, 

 or more. 



