Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

:PILOT-FISH—ATHEN^.US—CRABS 183Some of Oppian's best bits contain animated portraitsof sea-fights. The combatants are as intensely personified asHomer's Greeks and Trojans in their hand-to-hand fight onthe banks of the Scamander, But unhke the Heroes, thebelHgerents of Oppian pull each other to pieces without anyresponsibility on their part, or shock to moral sense on ours" Unwise we blame the rage of warring fishWho urged by hunger must supply the wish ;WTiile cruel man, to whom his ready foodKind Earth affords, yet thirsts for human blood."In proportion as fish, which according to the earliestauthors was despised or disregarded, grew infavour with theGreeks, the frequency of its mention in Greek literatureincreased apace.The DeipnosophistcB by Athenaeus, to which belongs thedistinction of being one of the earliest collections of Ana, isa curious sort of philosophers' feast. It quotes from nearlyevery writer on nearly every topic ; it discusses almost everyconceivable subject, especially gastronomy. It weighs thequalities of all things edible. Comments on fish, taken fromplays, histories, treatises, etc., are plentifully, if incongruously,scattered. 1Everything goes in this work ;grammatical problems aremixed up with gastronomic ; the discursiveness of Athenaeusraces from grave to gay, grim death to any story, howeverapparently disconnected.His tale of the Pinna (III. 46), a bivalve shell-fish, and thePinnothere (a small crab who inhabits the shell of the Pinna)resembles many of the fables current among the West Indiannegroes as regards the cleverness of the Crab.As soon as thesmall fish, on which the Pinna subsists, have swum withinthe shell side, the Pinnothere nips the Pinna as a signal tohim to close his shell and secure them.Plutarch [De Sol.Anim., 30) shows that the habit was notentirely altruistic, for " this being done, they feed togetherclaimed that this fish, Kai Kai-a-waro, was not only the embodiment of histribal Mana and his family guardian angel, but had guided his ancestor elevengenerations before in his exploring of Cook Sound, etc.* See W. Smith, Diet. Gk.-Rom. Biog. and Myth., s.v. ' Athenaeus.'