OPPIAN 



the business of the first two is hazardous^ " it suffices 

 the Fowlers to wander with dehght in plain and 

 grove and meadow and to hearken to the sweet 

 singing of the birds, using neither sword nor club 

 nor spear, nor employing nets and dogs, but carrying 

 only birdlime and reeds, and fine lines and lightest 

 creels (kv/dtods, traps, cages) under the arm. Some- 

 times too they dress a tree with branches not its 

 own and bring tame birds to share the hunt." 

 Fowling methods are summarized thus : I^m ^pw/j-evois 

 rj dpi^lv iTTTretats fj Atvois rf irayais rj koI TrrjKrla-iv r) 

 Tpocfiy Siked^ovcriv ^ tov crvfJi(f)vXov opviv eiriSeiKvva-tv. 

 Pliny X. deals with Birds. There are nine lines 

 on Fowling {Paulini Nolani carmen de aucupio) in 

 Poet. Lat, Minores, ed. N. E. Lemaire, Paris, 1824, 

 vol. i. 



2. Hunting (^Kvvrjyka-iov, Kvvi^yeTLK-q, venatio). On 

 Hunting we possess the Cynegeticus of Xenophon 

 (c. 430-c. 354 B.C.) and the supplementary Cynegeticus 

 of Arrian (c. a.d. 150), and in Latin the Cynegetica of 

 Grattius (contemporary of Ovid, cf. Ep. ex Po?it. iv. 

 l6. 34 aptaque venanti Grattius arma daret) in 541 

 hexameters, and the Cynegetica of Nemesianus (a.d. 

 3rd cent.). Much useful information is to be found 

 in the Onomasticon of Pollux {circ. a.d. 166 dedicated 

 to Commodus), especially v. 1 -94, which is practically 

 a systematic treatise on the subject ; in the irepl 

 7i(uiav of Aelian (in time of Septimius Severus) ; and 

 in the Natural History of Pliny (a.d. 23-79), especially 

 Bk. viii., as well as in the Res rusticae of Varro 

 (116-27b.c.), the De re rustica of Columella (a.d. 

 1st cent.), and Palladius (a.d. iv. cent.). Merely 

 incidental references are often instructive, e.g. Xen. 

 Cyr. i. 6. 40 " Against the Hare, again, because he 



