Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

— ^CLEOPATRA'S ANGLING—OPPIAN'S REWARD 175and combines material based on observations with much extraordinaryinformation gathered from floating material.last part of the treatise,In thethe accounts given of the methods ofcapturing fish by men on various coasts lend a few pictures akinto independent Idylls." Most of the poem, however, is very like Pliny's NaturalHistory, put into verse. These didactic poems, as a whole,have little relationship with the Piscatory Eclogue, other thanthat implied in the fact that they are written in verse and tellmuch about the practices of fishers."This grudging estimate of Oppian by Mr. Hall contrastsstrangely with the terms of highest eulogy which authors ofall ages have bestowed on him.Scaliger calls him " a divineand incomparable poet." Sir Thomas Browne bewails withwonder that " Oppian's elegant lines are so much neglected :surely we hereby reject one of the best epic poets." Scaligerremarks that no author makes more frequent use than Oppianof similes, which he praises warmly for their strength andbeauty, for their briUiancy and effect.In my humble opinion they occur fartoo frequently andregularly. If we do not come across one at least in everyhundred lines, the effect is agreeable disappointment. The subjectsof comparison, moreover, are conventional and limited.But Oppian's poems were held in the very highest favour,not only by our stingy stepmother. Posterity, but by hiscontemporaries. The Emperor (whether he were Antoninus—of all the Emperors 1 perhaps the keenest fishermanCaracaUa, or Severus is not clear, as Oppian's exact date isstill unsettled 2), on hearing the author recite his verses revokedthe decree of banishment on Oppian's father (to Malta), andpaid the poet a golden stater, or more than a guinea a verse.1 Suetonius, Augustus, c. 83, classes fishing as one of Octavian's chief relaxations.2 W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur, ed. 3 (Miinchen, 1898),p. 629, decides for Marcus Aurelius.' As there are 3506 hexameters, the reward was over 3506 guineas sterling,which, without allowing for the increase in value of money between the secondcentury and the twentieth, contrasts remarkably with the fourpence halfpennya volume of Martial. According to Suidas, however, Oppian received fromthe Emperor 20,000 staters, which would be a fai larger reward than Octaviabestowed on Virgil for his JEneid. It has been suggested that this largesse