AUCIENT ESTIMATION OP FISH. 53 



phagus/ who had a temple at Elis. Mention is made 

 of a Syrian queen^ Gatis, who kept all the best fish for 

 the royal table^ and issued proclamations by every town- 

 crier in her dominions, that no one should eat fish 

 arep TaTl,ho<;,* without her queenly permission. Many 

 poets, like ChcerUus, spent all their muse money in fish, 

 and grave tragedians, like Nothippus, followed the ex- 

 ample. Zeno, founder of the Stoics, was once dining at 

 the house of a great fish-fancier, and on a noble dish 

 being put before him, immediately seized it, and observ- 

 ing his entertainer look glum, (well he might, since it 

 was the whole dinner !) ' what- opinion,^ said the philoso- 

 pher, ' do you think your guests here must conceive of 

 one who cannot indulge his friend for a single day in his 

 well-known weakness for fish V The dithyrambic poet, 

 PhUoxenus of Syracuse, after eating part of an enor- 

 mous polypus, and being seized with indigestion, called 

 in a physician, who urged him straightway to arrange 

 his affairs, as he would not hold out till the evening. 

 'My affairs are long since settled,' sighed the bard; 

 ' my dithyrambics, now as perfect as I could ever make 

 them, I dedicate to the Muses who iaspired them, and 

 leave Venus and Bacchus my executors; but see, already 

 Charon beckons, and bids me put into his boat what- 

 ever I may want ia the transit; quick, then, as time 

 presses, bring me the remains of my cuttle !' Hege- 



* Tliis absurd derivation from a story as absurd, is properly 

 ridiculed by Casaubon, who parallels it with, another equally 

 plausible; that of Jerusalem, airo tov UpoavKetu, on account of 

 the destruction of its sacred site. The subsequent account of 

 Gatis is, that she and her son Ichthys were thrown to the fish by 

 Mopsus, the Lydian; and passing from martyrdom to the skies, 

 she became a divinity, with an order of priests attached to her 

 temple, who feasted daily upon stewed fish, presenting her only 

 the incense of the gravy : votaries desiring her favour hung the 

 temple-walls with gold and silver fish. 



