Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

2FISH EATEN ONLY BY THE POOR 69they owed much, begin to reahse and utiHse the wealth ofharvest to be won from the adjacent seas.^theFishing, followed at first mainly by the very poor to procurea food in low esteem, gradually found itself.In the Iliad and Odyssey no fish appear at banquets or in thehouses of the well-to-do : only in connection with the poorestor starving do they obtain mention.Meleager of Gadara accounted for this fact— previouslynoted by Aristotle— by the suggestion that Homer representedhis characters as abstaining from fish, because as a Syrian bydescent he himself was a total abstainer. The curious omissionof fish has been held to indicate that Homer either Uved beforethe adoption of fish as food, or, if not, that the social conditionsand habits of diet which he deUneates are those of generationsbefore such transition.The decision, if one be possible, lies for Homeric scholars,and not for a mere seeker after piscatoriana. Even to such anone, however, two alternatives seem clear.First, if Homer did Uve after the transition occurred, hisdescriptions of ancient times and customs unconsciouslyincluded habits and conditions of a more modern society. ^to Pausanias, V. 17) with figures in relief, holds an intermediate place betweenThe Shield of Achilles and the art of the classic period. Hence we infer that theShield belongs to the earlier time, when (as we also learn from Homer) thePhoenicians were the great carriers between the Mediterranean countriesand the East" (Monro, //., XVHI). Professor Jebb {Homer, p. 66) ranks, inthe earlier period, Phoenician lower than Phrygian influence, but the latestwriter on the subject— -F. Poulsen, Der Orient und die friihgriechische Kunst,Leipzig-Berlin, 1912—makes large claims for the influence of the Phoeniciansin art.1 Under ' Piscator ' in Did. des Antiquites Daremberg and Saglio write :" The configuration of the country generally would naturally induce a largepart of the population to seek their livelihood in fishing and fish."2 The explanation of Athenaeus (Bk. 1. 16, 22 and 46) is ingenious. Homernever represents fish or birds, or vegetables, or fruit " as being put on the tableto eat. lest to mention them would seem like praising gluttony, thinking besidesthere would be a want of decorum in dweUing on the preparation of such things,which he considered beneath the dignity of Gods and Heroes." The latestexplanation—by Professor J. A. Scott, Class. Journ. ; Chicago, 1916-17, p. 329—that " Homer looked upon fish with great disfavour, because as a nativeof Asia Minor he had been trained to regard fish as an unhealthful and distastefulfood to be eaten only as a last resort," would attain nearer " what seems thesolution of this vexed question" (Scott's words), if he produced (i) dataestablishing Homer's country of birth, and (2) evidence far stronger than" Tips to Archaeological Travellers " (even though these be written by Sir Wm.Ramsay) as regards the general " unhealthfulness " of the fish of Asia Minor.* Schrader, Reallexikon (Strassburg, 1901), p. 244, states that in neither the