viii BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. 



and the angle, as appears from many passages, none of 

 which, liowever, throw any hght on our subject. 



The farthest stretch of profane writers into the history 

 of fishing is the mention made by Diodorus Siculus (Lib. 

 i., 52), of Mcpris the immediate predecessor of Sesostris 

 (see Larcher, Chron. crHerodote, and Biihr on Herodotus 

 ii., 100), which, according to ChampoUion Figeac, would 

 put him about B.C. 1500 (perhaps a hundred years too 

 soon). This Mccris, the historian says, constructed the 

 famous artificial lake called by his name, which was eighty 

 stadia long and Tf>iii\tepov (say four hundred feet) broad ; and 

 it cost fifty talents to open and shut the flood gates. In 

 the middle he erected two sepulchral pyramids, one for 

 himself and the other for his wife, with marble statues of 

 them both on a throne. But it was also a vast fish pond, 

 having in it twenty-two different kinds of fish, which in- 

 creased so fast, that the most extensive preparations for 

 salting them were not sufficient for the purpose. The 

 revenue derived from the fishing he assigned to his wife, 

 who had thus out of that source a talent (810,000) a day 

 for pin money. The passage is curious, as showing the 

 importance of fish as an article of food.* 



Homer speaks distinctly of angling in the sea, Iliad xxiv., 

 80-82 ; and as his text has puzzled not a little both ancient 

 and modern writers, I give the original ; he is speaking of 

 Iris plunging into the sea: 



'H 6i, fto\vp6aivr] iKcXrj, tj ftvaaop ofMVatVf 

 "lire Kar aypaii'Soio /Sodi Kcpaf iftPs.Javia, 

 'Ep^£ra» djftrjaTiJatv iff' i^diai Kr7pa <pipovaa. 



The difficulty is to know what the ox-horn had to do with 

 the angling apparatus. Pope shuns it altogether, unless 

 he mistook it for an angling rod : 



• Calmet on Numbers xi., 32, thinks that tlie Israelites practised the 

 salting of lish for food, having; learned it in Egypt. 



