CHAPTER XXII 
THE RING OF HELEN 
In the countries dealt with in this book I give instances where 
Fish and Fishing have, according to myth or tradition, played 
a prominent part in human affairs, and have been the cause, 
direct or indirect, of important events. 
Thus in Greece and Rome, to fish is assigned the responsi- 
bility for— 
(A) The death of Homer, from his inability to solve the 
riddle of the lads.? 
(B) The death of Theodoric, who recognised in the head of 
a pike which he was eating the head of his murdered victim, 
Symmachus.3 
(C) No less an event than the Trojan War, which, according 
to the windbag Ptolemy Hephestion, happened on this wise. 
In the belly of a huge fish named Pan (from its resemblance 
to that god) was found a gem (asterites), which when exposed 
to the sun shot forth flames and became a powerful love philtre. 
Helen, on acquiring this, had it engraved with a figure of the 
Pan fish, and when desirous of making a special impression 
wore it as a signet ring. 
Thus, when Paris visited Sparta the charm blazed from her 
finger with the result of the immediate conquest of Paris, the 
flight from Menelaus, and the Ten Years’ War ! 
But, despite Homer, it was discovered (!) afterwards that 
1. From a splendid vase-painting representing the two sides of a magnificent 
scyphos made by the potter Hieron and painted by the artist Makron. The 
original (now in Boston) is of the finest fifth-century (B.c.) art. See Furt- 
wenger ao Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei (Miinchen, 1909), vol. II. 
125 ff., pl. 85. 
°s aoe Chapter III. 
3 See antea, p. 200. 
295 
