THE TALMUD—PARASANG LIMIT 421 
support may be quoted: ‘‘ The fish net must be removed from 
the fish which another is already trying to catch as far as to allow 
the fish to escape.” ‘How far is that?’’ Rabba, son of 
Rabbi Hona answered, “ As far as a parasang.”” The case is 
otherwise with fish to which lines have been cast.’’ ! 
My second reason is the manifest absurdity of the enormous 
area allotted to the individual netter. Our latest authority, 
Westberg, computes that the parasang was equal to 3 miles 
1335 yards, or about 37/5 miles (Kito, xiv. 338 ff.).? 
Let us now see how this parasang possession works out on 
Lake Tiberias, the only sheet of water where netting widely 
prevailed. 
Its extreme length is about thirteen miles: its greatest 
width less than seven. Allowing for sinuosities of coast line, 
let us concede fifty miles in circumference. This extent of 
shore, if the area of a parasang is possessed on only one side 
of the netter, would suffice for 134 netters, or, if on both sides, 
for 6? netters, 7.e. a monopoly on the most prolific water, 
which, in Euclidian parlance, “ is absurd.” 
If we disregard the words ‘‘ set up a net on a bank,” and 
allow that the parasang possession holds merely for the surface 
area, we are immediately confronted by two different questions. 
First, does this allotted space spread from the boat by a 
parasang only North, or by a parasang only South, etc? Second, 
if not, but extends for a circumference of which the boat is the 
centre, how is the possessory area to be measured, known, or 
shown ? Oppian, it is true, sings with poetical license of ‘‘ Nets, 
Which like a city to the floods descend,’’ but even he does not 
vouchsafe to us a picture of netting on such a grandiose scale 
as seven and a half miles. 
Before this area of possession can be definitely established, 
far weightier authority must be produced than a casual sentence 
1 “ The first fisherman has already bestowed labour on the fish, and regards 
them as his property.” 
2 Zuckermann, a leading Jewish authority, in Das jidische Maassystem, 
Pp. 31, gives, it is true, the following equivalents: 1 Parasang=4 Mil. (Lat. mille= 
30 Ris (stadia)—8000 Hebrew cubits. Reckoning the cubit at, in round 
figures, 18 inches, we get a parasang of 4000 yards, or about 2} miles. Later 
authorities, however, are agreed that the Persian parasang was at least 3} miles, 
or more. 
