NETS—RODS—LINES—HOOKS 237 
hairs of animals (sefa) but most generally of horsehair,! of 
flax, of sparton out of the genista, perhaps of byssus, but never 
of gut, was very finely twisted, as the epithet edmAdKapyoc 
shows. It was usually as long as the rod itself, although in 
the Agathemeros relief we find it nearly double the length. 
The colours of the line were grey, black, brown—sometimes red 
or purple. It was made tight to the top of the Rod and not 
let down to the butt, or running.? 
Plutarch prescribes that the hairs next to the hook should 
for deception’s sake be taken from a white horse, and adds 
advice, as pertinent now as then, that there “‘ should not be 
too many knots in the line!” 3 
To the line was fastened the hook (hamus) which was of one 
or two sharp barbs.4 From Herculaneum,5 Pompeii, and 
elsewhere have been collected hooks which vary extremely 
in form, size, and method of adjustment.6 Although sometimes 
of bone, they are mostly manufactured from iron or bronze. 
Cf. Oppian, III. 285: yadxov piv cxAnpoto rervypévov He otdijpov. 
It strikes us moderns as strange to have the epithet hard 
applied to bronze and not to iron, till we are informed that the 
1 Plutarch, de Sol., 24, commends those of a stallion as longest and strongest, 
of a gelding next, and of a mare least, because of the weakness of the hairs 
due to her urination. 
2 #Elian, N. H., XII. 43. See Introduction. 
8 Plutarch, de Sol., 24. 
4 It is of great interest to note that according to Langdon (see Jewish 
Chapter), probably in Sumerian, and certainly in Hebrew, the word equalling 
hook, in its primary sense equals thorn, which strongly suggests, if it do 
not absolutely prove, that the ancients employed, as do even now the catchers 
of flat fish in Essex, and the Indians in Arizona, a thorn as their primitive hook. 
In Latin hamus signifies hook and thorn. Cf. Ovid (Nux., 113-116). 
5 Waldstein and Shoobridge, Herculaneum (London, 1908), p. 95, “ The 
only industry which has left much trace is fishing ; hooks, cords, floats, and 
nets were found in much abundance.” 
§ See aniea, p. 157, and note1. According to Petrie, Tools and Weapons 
(London, 1917), p. 37 £.: “‘ The European fish-hooks do not appear before the 
fonderia age: in Greece and Roman Italy hooks are common.” G. Lafaye, 
in Daremberg and Saglio, of. cit., III. 8. s.v. ‘‘ hamus,” gives figure 3696, a 
simple bronze hook, figure 3697, a small double hook in the Museum at Naples, 
figure 3698, a quadruple hook (four bronze barbs attached to the angles of a 
square plate of lead), and figure 3699, a bronze hamus catenatus. H. B. 
Walters—Catalogue of the Bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan in British 
Museum (London, 1899), Nos. 38 and 39—describes, but does not figure, two 
hooks of the Mycenzan period from Rhodes, 2 inches and 27/8 inches long, 
which are dated about 1450 B.c. Petrie, loc. cit., states that the “ usual 
pattern of the Greek-Romans is, as figured in No, 100, while ror and 102 are 
the limits of size,” 
