BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. xxi 



he treats, as understood by the ancients, we must go to 

 Oppian. 



I have been the more particular in enlarging upon the 

 merits of Oppian, not only because his work is the work of 

 antiquity on our subject, but because he is so little read, 

 and so seldom within the reach of an American student. 

 The editio princeps of our poet bears date Florence, 

 1515. The Aldine, only two years later, contains also the 

 index and translation of L. Lippius, published first, 1447. 

 There is a good French prose translation, written con 

 amore, by J. M. Limes, who has added full and valuable 

 notes ; but the only English translation known to me is, 

 that already referred to, by Messrs. Diaper and Jones, of 

 Baliol College, Oxford, 1722, which is rare. It is not all 

 we could wish, but yet deserving of praise. For one, who 

 had leisure, and the opportunity of a good publisher, it 

 would be a pleasant work to bring Oppian into the notice 

 he deserves ; for, as Sir Thomas Brown says : " It is not 

 without wonder that his elegant lines are so neglected : 

 surely hereby we reject one of the best epic {i. e. hexameter) 

 poets." The best edition of Oppian is that of Schneider, 

 Argent, 1776, which includes the Latin prose translation 

 of Turncbus ; but it should be read with the notes of Limes 

 at hand. I ought to add, that Schneider does not think 

 that the Cynegetics and Halieutics were written by the 

 same person, but that there were two Oppians, father and 

 son, or uncle and nephew : an opinion which Belin de 

 Ballu, the French translator of the Cynegetics, labors to 

 refute, though not to our satisfaction. 



From a comparison of the various Halieutical authorities 

 which we have brought together, we learn that many 

 artifices in fishing, thought to be modern, were known to 

 the ancients. Various recipes for making pastes are given 

 in the Geoponica, xx. Instances abound of their using 

 lights to attract the fish, "burning the water," as the Scotch 



