480 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



to the best authorities, by Cassianus Bassus at the com- 

 mand of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. This 

 curious treatise forms an admirable illustration of classic 

 science, containing excerpts from Aratus, Hippocrates, 

 Zoroaster, and numerous other writers on rural matters ; 

 and together with information of all kinds, botanical, 

 agricultural, and piscatorial, it furnishes such items as 

 receipts for universal bait, and charms for driving away 

 mice from any particular field.* It is, in fact, an encyclo- 

 paedia of ancient rural lore. 



Hook, rod, line, and net, every weapon in fact now used 

 by man in his finny warfare except that potent instru- 

 ment the trawl was apparently common to classic times. 

 When the enemy is so easily caught, there is little induce- 

 ment to waste ingenuity in devising new means of offence. 

 Still, the variety of methods, especially in relation to nets, 

 was considerable ; and fishermen, to follow Julius Pollux 

 (or rather Polydeikes), might be divided into three classes 

 the anglers, the employers of nets and torches for night 

 use with the spear, and the divers for sponges, or for the 

 purple-fish. The ordinary implements were as follows : the 

 nassa, or net, said to be made of twigs ; baskets of various 

 kinds ; the casting-net ; the drag-net ; the yasyyapov, or 

 sagena, the time-honoured seine ; corks ; bamboo fishing- 

 rods ; poles or stakes to fix into the ground ; fishing-lines ; 

 flax and sewing-thread ; hooks ; leads and fishing-spears. 

 To this list the author adds the boat utensils ; and observes 



* I am indebted for a knowledge of the existence of this curious 

 treatise, as well as for many other courtesies, to Mr. Garnet, the well- 

 known superintendent of the reading-room at the British Museum ; and 

 I am glad to avail myself of this opportunity for expressing my thanks 

 to the numerous officials in that department who have aided me in 

 my researches. 



