70 HOMER— POSITION OF FISHERMEN 



Second, if he lived before such transition — a supposition, 

 which scarcely consists with the presence in PalaeoUthic debris 

 of copious remains of fish — passages such as Od., XIX. 109-114, 

 which ranks " a sea-given store of fish " a constituent of a well- 

 ordered realm, and //., XVI. 746, where " This man would 

 satisfy many by searching (or diving) for oysters," are inter- 

 polations by later writers. 



It is difficult otherwise to reconcile or explain conflicting 

 passages. How, for instance, can the dictum, that " Fish as a 

 food was in the Poems only used by the very poor or starving," 

 be made to harmonise with II., XVI. 746, just quoted ? 1 If 

 it be confined solely to the Odyssey, a more plausible case may 

 possibly be presented. 



Another suggestion, not quite similar, yet not repugnant, 

 is Seymour's. " The Poet represented the Ufe which was familiar 

 to himself and his hearers. Each action, each event might be 

 given by tradition, or might be the product of the poet's 

 imagination, but the details which show the customs of the 

 age, and which furnish the colours of the picture, are taken 

 from the life of the poet's time. His interest is centred in the 

 action of the story, and the introduction of unusual manners 

 and standard of hfe would only distract the attention of his 

 hearers." 



Mackail, perhaps, concludes the whole matter. " The 

 Homeric world is a world imagined by Homer : it is placed in 

 a time, evidently thought of as far distant, though there are 



Avesta nor the Rig-Veda is there any mention of fishing, nor in the Aryan 

 period were there any common names for fish, and that throughout the 

 Homeric age, which generally knows fishing as an existent occupation, there 

 still seems to be a recollection of a time when the Greek hero ate fish just as 

 little as he rode, wrote, or cooked soup I 



1 It is but fair, however, to add that the Scholiast notes this passage as 

 the only one in the Iliad where fish is mentioned as a food, while Monro makes 

 the ingenious comment that these oysters, or shell fish, are to be regarded not 

 as luxuries, but as a way of satisfying the hunger of a crew at sea. Of oysters 

 this is the only mention in the Homeric Poems. As oyster shells and 

 even unopened oyster shells were found by Dr. SchUemann at Mycense, the 

 liking for oysters is not likely to have been lost between the Mycenzean 

 and the Homeric times. The remains of the Homeric (sixth) city at Troy 

 yielded very many cockle shells, but of cockles there seems no mention in the 

 poems. 



Numerous representations of fishes are found on Mycenaean and Cretan 

 works of artv 



