FISH, ‘‘ SILVER-WHITE” AND PEACOCK 129 
Theocritus in the fragment on Berenice recommends the 
sacrifice of a certain fish to a goddess. ‘“‘ And if any man that 
hath his livelihood from the salt sea, and whose nets serve him 
for ploughs, prays for wealth and luck in fishing, let him 
sacrifice, at midnight, to this goddess, the sacred fish that 
men call ‘ silver white,’ for that it is brightest of sheen of all ; 
then let the fisher set his nets, and he shall draw them full’ 
from the sea.” ! 
If Apollonius of Tyana had been compelled to commend 
a beauteous fish for sacrifice—an act which his Pythagorean 
tenets forbade—he must have plumped for the Peacock 
fish. 
Whether he were, teste Hieroclas, as great a sage, as remark- 
able a worker of miracles, as potent an exorcist as JESUS 
of Nazareth, or merely, in the words of Eusebius, a rank 
charlatan, whose magic, ‘‘if he possessed any,” was the gift 
of the powers of evil with whom he lived in league is no ques- 
tion to be considered here. Apollonius, at any rate, stands 
out, not only as one of the most interesting and most discussed 
personalities of the third century, but also as one of the most 
travelled. 
During his fifty odd Wanderjahre many men had he known, 
and many cities had he seen of Asia and Africa. In the 
Hyphasis river of India there exist (we learn from his Life by 
Philostratus, III. 1) Peacock fish (sacred to Aphrodite) to 
which, if colour or ‘‘silver sheen ’’ insure full creels, the 
Theocritean certainly must yield place, for “their fins are 
blue, their scales beautifully dappled, their tails, which fold or 
spread at will, of golden hue!” 
But dominant over all other characteristics stands the 
inevitable and insistent connection of fishermen with Old 
Age, Toil, and Poverty. Everywhere, in every author, does 
this note strike loudest; nowhere, have I come across a 
young fisherman, except Virgil’s Mencetes. 
These characteristics find their place not only in Greek 
and Latin literature from and before the “‘ sleepless chase ”’ of 
1 For discussion as to which was the ‘' sacred fish,’’ see Plutarch, de Sol. 
Anim., 32, and Athen., VII. 20. 
