Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

2NONNIUS—GOURMETS—DOCTORS 163because it brings forth its young thrice a year ^ and second,because it eats the sea-hare, who bears death to man.Nonnius (p. 81) informs us that the followers of Pythagoraswere forbidden to eat the Scams because it was Tpv'yr)(j)ajog,i.e. an eater of grain or grapes, whence or how obtained hevouchsafes not to inform us.3 It is of interest to read inFaber {op. cit., p. 27) that the common seal {Phoca vitulina) isbelieved at the present time to go ashore in the Ombla Valleyin quest of grapes during the vintage, and is also said to commitgreat havoc in the vineyards of Sardinia and Sicily !But for once Nonnius naps ! Although, according totradition, Pythagoras proscribed all fish, three kinds only areexpressly and by name forbidden (in Symbols 18, 19, 60), viz. theMelanurus, the Erythinius, and the Sepia ; nothing is saidabout the Scarus.I presume that the error arose from Nonnius confusing apassage in Plutarch [Symp., VIII. 8, 3.) where a propos ofPythagoras, rpvy^cftuyoq is associated with the Scarus, but inexactly the opposite sense, " for we can Jtot call the Mulletcorn-destroying, or the Scarus grape-eating," etc.Again our Nonnius ! Bya passage from Pliny, XXXII. 3,he attempts to clear the Scarus and throw the blame for choleraon the Mullet.But Pliny distinctly states that alone of all animals the fish1 Cf. Oppian, I. 590.2 ^lian, XVI. 19, writes that these sea-hares were so poisonous, that if aman touched one thrown up on the shore with his hand, he shortly died, unlessnaedicine was at once administered. So poisonous indeed are they, that " ifyou touch them with but your walking stick, there is the same danger whichcontact with a lizard evokes," which in II. 5 is described ridv-qKiv 6 Kvpios t^sXvyovl Nero, to " mak siccar " (hke Kirkpatrick with the Red Comyn), employedthe sea-hare as a dainty for friends whose deaths he earnestly desired. Cf.Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VI. 32.* Nonnius, always the alert defender of his favourite fish, ingeniouslysuggests that the scams of Pythagoras was not our famous scarus, because asthis fish, even during the Augustan period, was extremely rare in Italianwaters, there seems little necessity for its being banned by the " HyperboreanApollo of the Crotoniates " in b.c. 540-510. Numa, apparently influencedby Pythagorean precepts, forbade (according to Cassius Hemina, PUny,XXXII. 10) all scaleless fish being offered to the gods. Festus, p. 253, a. 20,however, states that in such offerings it was allowable to present all fish withscales, except the Scarus, which was sacrificiable, and most acceptable to thegod of the peasants, Hercules, whose " swinish gluttony Crams and blasphemes|his feeder." For squaram, Miiller suggests scarum, while Lindsay printssquatum, the skate.