CHAPTER XV 
FISH IN SACRIFICES—-PICKLED FISH—VIVARIA OF 
OYSTERS, ETC.—ARCHIMEDES 
Tue Feast Day, Ludi, of the Tiber fishermen was celebrated 
on the Campus Martius in June under the management of the 
Pretor Urbanus with much ceremony. Ovid! sings: 
“Festa dies illis qui lina madentia ducunt, 
Quique tegunt parvis era recurva cibis.” 
The custom of offering to the Gods fish (although rarer 
than that of animals) certainly and widely prevailed. Proof 
can be piled on proof—pace a passage from Plutarch and 
pace the contention that the practice is not purely Hellenic— 
from the pages of both Greek and Roman authors. 
Take, for instance, the statement of Agatharchides of Knidos : 
that the largest eels from Lake Copais were sacrificed by the 
Beeotians, who crowned them like human victims, and after 
sprinkling them with meal offered prayers over them.? Or 
the story in Posidonius the Stoic of Sarpedon celebrating his 
victory by “ sacrificing to Neptune, who puts armies to flight, 
enormous quantities of fish.” Theocritus in his fragmentary 
Berenice, 7Elian,* and Antigonus on the offering of the Tunny 
all confirm the custom.5 
1 Fasti, VI. 239 ff. 
* Agatharchides, frag. 1 ap. Athen., VII. 50. In these days of the Science 
of Comparative Curiosity and International Meddling the answer of the 
Beeotian to a foreigner asking how so singular a victim and sacrifice originated 
rings out pleasantly refreshing: ‘‘I only know one thing: it is right to 
maintain the customs of one’s ancestors, and it is not right to explain them 
to foreigners ! ”’” 
3 Athen., VIII. 8. 
4 #lian, XV. 6. 
5 Athen., VII. 50, and Paulus Rhode, Thynnorum Captura (Lipsie, 1890), 
p- 71. Most of the major deities—e.g, Diana, Apollo, Mercury, Juno, Neptune, 
215 
