498 OPPIAN'S " HALIEUTICS." 



After reading this veracious statement the reader will 

 be disposed to think, perhaps, that Imperial Rome had 

 its Munchausen ! 



But ^Elian is equally credulous, equally imaginative, 

 and gravely records as facts what the veriest tyro in 

 natural history would now denounce as fables. A galley, 

 he says, was despatched to Corcyra by Periander, the 

 tyrant of Corinth, with orders for the massacre of three 

 hundred children born in the former city. In spite of a 

 fair wind, the ship remained almost motionless ; a result 

 due to the combined efforts of a number of compassionate 

 remoras. Great honours were paid at Cnidus, in the 

 temple of Aphrodite, to the fish which had wrought so 

 famous a miracle ; and our own opinion is that the 

 honours were well deserved ! 



In the " Halieutics " of Oppian we find a spirited 

 description of the astonishment experienced by the crew 

 of a vessel which, sailing before a favourable wind, with 

 the advantage of a strong current, is suddenly arrested 

 in the full force of its career ! In vain the breeze puffs 

 out the useless canvas ; in vain the sails, and shrouds, 

 and cordage creak and crack ; in vain the swift tide 

 hurries past the motionless keel : 



" The seamen run confused, no labour spared, 

 Let fly the sheets, and hoist the topmast yard ; 

 The master bids them give her all the sails, 

 To court the winds, and catch the coming gales : 

 But though the canvas bellies with the blast, 

 And boisterous winds bend down the cracking mast, 

 The bark stands firmly rooted on the sea, 

 And all unmoved as tower or towering tree." 



He elsewhere describes this wonder-working inhabitant 

 of the deep : 



"Slender its shape, its length a en bit ends, 

 No beauteous spot the gloomy race commends : 



