THE ROD IN HOMER 77 
glittering hook of bronze, so on the bright spear dragged he 
Thestor,’’ etc.! 
F. Odyssey, IV. 368 £.: “ Who” (the companions of Menelaus) 
“were ever roaming round the isle, fishing with bent hooks, 
for hunger was gnawing at their belly.” 
Odyssey, XII. 330 f.: ‘ They”’ (the companions of Odysseus) 
‘went wandering with barbed hooks in quest of game, as needs 
they must, fishes and fowls, whatever might come to their 
hand, for hunger gnawed at their belly.”’ ? 
The Rod finds one express mention—in passage C. Is its 
use implied in passages D. and E.? The answer depends greatly 
on whether the adjectives employed are really descriptive of the 
qualities and sizes of the fish, or whether they are merely (as 
often the case in Homer) ornamental or conventional epithets 
more suited for general than particular use, or are redundant. 
Our wonder, if the adjectives are really descriptive, grows 
by the Rod being only specifically mentioned when “ little 
fishes ”’ are the prey. If the contention of modern fishermen— 
the value of the rod as an implement increases in proportion 
to the weight of the fish on the hook—holds good, why does 
Homer cite the Rod in connection only with “little’’ fishes, 
more especially as the prey in the simile (the companions of 
Odysseus) can hardly be classed as “ little’ ? 
1 See Eustathius ad loc. The spear with which Telegonos wounded 
Odysseus was tipped with the «évrpov of a Roach, according to A. G. Pearson, 
Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge, 1917), vol. ii. p. 105 ff., 2 propos of the lost 
’OSucceds axavOomant. Van Leeuwen (Odyssey, 2nd ed., Leyden, 1917), in his 
note on xi. 134-7, makes the fish the sting-ray (radio raie pastinace), which 
from its deadly character (cf. Pliny, N. H., ix. 67) is to my mind much more 
probable, despite Liddell and Scott’s translation of tpvyav as ‘ voach,’ the 
absolutely harmless Roach! Cf. Epicharmus, Frvag. 66 Kaibel, rpuyédves 
7 émioOdxevrpo, and Aristotle, N. H.,ix. 48. Whatever the fish were, it is good to 
know that it too came to an untimely death at the hands of Phorcys, because 
of its cannibal propensities. See Eustathius, Od., p. 1676, 45,commenting on 
xi. 133. In The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, vi. 32, Philostratos says Odysseus 
was wounded by the aixyi) ris tpvydvos. Van Leeuwen instances among some 
old armour preserved at Bergum the weapon of an Indian pirate, ‘‘ which is 
made of the tail of the ray.”’ 
2 It is with something of a shock I find such careful translators as Butcher 
and Lang translating yvayrroiow ayxiorpacw in Od., IV. 369, as ‘‘ bent,” 
and in Od., XII. 332, as ‘‘ barbed”? hooks, without one word of explanation. 
These weapons differ in appearance, execution, and date of invention. To 
evolve the bavbed from the bent hook required probably as many generations 
of men, and centuries of effort, as the development of the bent hook from the 
primitive gorge. See Introduction. 
