HALIEUTICA, IV. 540-570 



to where the gulf is deepest, mightily they launch 

 into the murky deep the pine-log's stubborn strength. 

 Straightway with swift rush, weighed down by lead 

 and iron, it speeds to the nether foundations of the 

 sea, where it strikes upon the weak Pelamyds hud- 

 dhng in the mud and kills and transfixes as many as 

 it reaches of the hapless crowd. And the fishermen 

 swiftly draw them up, impaled upon the bronze and 

 struggling pitifully under the iron torture. Behold- 

 ing them even a stone-hearted man would pity them 

 for their unhappy capture and death. For the spear- 

 point has entered the flanks of one, the swift shaft 

 has transfixed the head of another ; one is wounded 

 over the tail, the groin of this, the back of that is 

 victim of the bitter warfare, and yet another is pierced 

 in the midst of the belly. As, when the mellay of 

 battle is decided, their comrades take up the slain 

 out of the dust and blood, and array them for the 

 fiery bed, lamenting ; and many and various are the 

 wounds on the bodies of the dead and every sort of 

 warlike stroke is there : even so on the Pelamyds 

 wounds show evervwhere — an image of war but 

 welcome to the fishers. 



Others again take the tribes of the feeble Pelamyds 

 with hght nets. For always in the darkness, whatever 

 falls upon the sea, they are afraid and they have a 

 horror of the night and in the night they are captured 

 as they flee in terror through the deep. The fishers 

 set up very hght nets of buoyant flax and wheel in 

 a circle round about while they violently strike the 

 surface of the sea with their oars and make a din 

 with sweeping blow of poles. At the flashing of the 

 swift oars and the noise the fishes bound in terror 

 and rush into the bosom of the net which stands at 



445 



