138 THEOCRITUS— GREEK EPIGRAMMATISTS 



Who fell beside his lines and hooks and rod, 

 And the choked fisher sought his last abode. 

 His dust lies here. Stranger, this humble grave 

 An angler to a brother angler gave." 



Alciphron, judging from his extant letters, seems the most 

 prolific of the later Piscatory writers. His tribute to the 

 veracity of Sosias, " who is famous for the delicious sauce made 

 of the fish which he entices," reads in such deadly opposition 

 to the common but false impression that fishermen rank next 

 to mining engineers as the biggest liars in the world, that it 

 must be quoted, if only on the principle of " An angler to a 

 brother angler gave." 



"He is one of those who duly reverence Truth, and such 

 an one would never even slip into Falsehood." 



Lest as an Angler I may be accused of " slipping into 

 Falsehood " in my translation, I subjoin the Greek : 



"Ecrrt St tQv tTrieiK&g rr/i aXiiOtiav ti/jlwvtwv, koI oijk av ttot 

 iKHVoq HQ ipiv^Tijopiav oXicrOoi.^ 



Lucian's Dialogues of the Sea Gods, by their confidential 

 chat, give witty expression to the author's own scepticism 

 towards mythology. " With their imitation of the earlier 

 poets and their amoebean form they may be considered as 

 connecting links between Theocritus and others of his group 

 and the eclogues of marine mythology, sometimes classed as 

 piscatory eclogues during the renaissance." 2 



If any doubt be as to their being "links," there can be 

 none as to the charm of The Dialogues of (in Macaulay's words) 

 " the last great master of Attic eloquence, and Attic wit," or 

 (he has been perhaps equally well termed) " the first of the 

 moderns." 



1 Bk. I. 18. 



* See Hall, op. cit. p. 22 (1914). and ibid., p. 35 (1912). Lucian, although 

 a Syrian (to which nation fish was from the earliest times a forbidden food), 

 frequently shows himself very conversant with fishes and avails himself of 

 their characteristics: e.g. Menelaus, after witnessing some of the "turns" 

 of that celebrated " lightning-change artist," Proteus, exclaims frankly, " there 

 must be some fraud ! " The artist pooh-poohs him and bids him consider the 

 everyday miracle of invisibility wrought by the Polypus, who having " selected 

 his rock and having attached himself by means of his suckers, assimilates 

 himself to it, changing his colour to match that of the rock. Thus there is no 

 contrast of colour to betray his presence ; he looks just like a stone " {Dialogues 

 of the Sea Gods, iv. 1-3, Fowler's Translation). 



