16 PEOSE KATJEUTICS. 



kinds and quality of these articles in days of yore. To 

 begin with, the rod. Very little about the make of this 

 is accurately known : frescos, coins, and gems- do not tell 

 us much ; and a specimen of the real article is still a 

 desideratum in a museum of antiquities. One thing is 

 pretty certain, that there were not, as with us, three sorts, 

 corresponding to those different departments of angUng, 

 — ^trawHng, fly, and worm-fishing, but one good at need 

 for all purposes. The material used was either a perch 

 of some light elastic wood, or else a reed — donax. As no 

 mention is made of joints, we may presume it to have 

 been of one piece, the length of which wotdd of course 

 prevent its being carried in a bag; brass ferules, spare 

 tops, and a spear at the butt-end to fix it in the ground, 

 are obviously after-refinements, and as there were no 

 reels to attach, it would necessarily be unfurnished with 

 rings. 



The little that we have been able to collect about an- 

 cient lines may be stated in as few words : they were 

 sometimes spun of hemp, sometimes of horsehair, per- 

 haps also of byssus,* but certainly not of gut ; and were 

 finely twisted, as the epithets evTrXoKa/j.o'i, Xiv6aTpo^o<;, etc. 

 sufficiently indicate; finally, they were very short, often 

 barely the length of the rod, which was itself shorter 

 than ours. The angler at sea who used no rod, either 

 wound his line round the left wrist, and manoeuvred with 

 the other hand, or else attached it to a boat-peg, ^cii- 

 fivy^, with a number of hooks disposed at intervals, in a 

 similar manner to our hand-lines ; but when he ventured 

 small fish for great ones, only a single large hook, called 

 KadiTr]<;, was fastened to the end of it. Of the third 



* The stringy substance by wbioli certain mussels and pinnte 

 adhere to the rocks. At Taxentum and in Sicily it has been for 

 a long time manufactured into silken stuffs, or knit into fine 

 gloves and stockings. 



