Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

334 FISHERIES—PRICE OF FISH—SPAWNINGof these fisheries formed the dowries or allowances for thescents, etc.,1 of the Queens.Later on they also received as appanage the revenues ofAnthylla famous for its wines, so they fared not badly for pinmoney. Herodotus 2 informs us that the town " is assignedexpressly to the wife of the ruler of Egypt to keep her in shoes.Such has been the custom ever since Egypt fell under Persianrule," an origin not improbable from Plato's statement thatone district was allotted for toilette purposes to the PersianQueens and called "The Queen's Girdle."(B) The taxes (or revenues) obtained in the Ptolemaic times,l^Ovripa, were probably a Government monopoly. They weredivided into (a) a tax on fishermen of one quarter of the value ofthe fish caught {Tiraprr] aXitwv), (b) the profits of sale of fishat prices higher than those paid for them direct to the fisherman.In the Roman period we find reXog IxOvrip&g Bpv/jiwv, ora rent from marshes deep enough at the time of the inundationto contain fish and shallow enough at other times to growpapyri and marsh plants.Leases for fishing and selling papyri,etc., brought good returns. But these returns must be distinguishedfrom other revenues derived from the industry,e.g. the fisheries of Lake Moeris, and from a tax paid by thefishermen, both of which seem to correspond with the Ptolemaic" fourth part." On the other hand the (}>6pog, no doubt, wasa tax paid by fishermen for the right of fishing, or for the useof boats in waters owned by the temples. ^The Net, in the marsh country, was not only the mostlucrative " engine of encirclement," but also a double dutypaid. In other parts the inhabitants passed their nights uponlofty towers to escape the gnats, but in the marsh land (Herodotuscontinues), " where are no towers, each man possesses^ Diodorus Siculus, I. 52. Twenty-two different kinds of fish existed inthe royal fish ponds of Mceris. Keller, op. cit., 330.2 II. 98.8 See Grenfell and Hunt, Tebtunis Papyri, II. 180-1, and I. 49-50. AlsoWilcken, Griechische Ostraka, I. 137 ff. The craft employed were usuallyprimitive rafts or canoes made of papyrus canes bound together with cordsof the same plant. Theophrastus, Hist. Plantarum, IV. 8, 2, alludes to them.Pliny, N. H., VII. 57, speaks of Nile boats made of papyrus, rushes and reeds,while Lucan, IV. 136, refers to them in" Conseritur bibula Memphitis cymba papyro."