Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

THE TALMUD—PARASANG LIMIT 421support may be quoted :" The fish net must be removed fromthe fish which another is already trying to catch as far as to allowthe fish to escape." " How far is that ? " Rabba, son ofRabbi Hona answered, " As far as a parasang." The case isotherwise with fish to which hues have been cast." ^My second reason is the manifest absurdity of the enormousarea allotted to the individual netter. Our latest authority,Westberg, computes that the parasang was equal to 3 miles1335 yards, or about 3^^ miles {Klio, xiv. 338 ff.).2Let us now see how this parasang possession works out onLake Tiberias, the only sheet of water where netting widelyprevailed.Its extreme length is about thirteen miles : its greatestwidth less than seven. Allowing for sinuosities of coast fine,let us concede fifty miles in circumference. This extent ofshore, if the area of a parasang is possessed on only one sideof the netter, would suffice for 13I netters, or, if on both sides,netters, i.e. a monopoly on the most prolific water,for 6fwhich, in Euclidian parlance, " is absurd."If we disregard the words " set up a net on a bank," andallow that the parasang possession holds merely for the surfacearea, we are immediately confronted by two different questions.First, does this allotted space spread from the boat by aparasang only North, or by a parasang only South, etc ?Second,if not, but extends for a circumference of which the boat is thecentre, how is the possessory area to be measured, known, orshown ? Oppian, it is true, sings with poetical license of " Nets,Which Uke a city to the floods descend," but even he does notvouchsafe to us a picture of netting on such a grandiose scaleas seven and a half miles.Before this area ofpossession can be definitely established,far weightier authority must be produced than a casual sentence^ " The first fisherman has already bestowed labour on the fish, and regardsthem as his property."^ Zuckermann, a leading Jewish authority, in Das judische Maassystem,p. 31, gives, it is true, the following equivalents : i Parasang =4 Mil. (Lat. mille=30 Ris (stadia)—8000 Hebrew cubits. Reckoning the cubit at, in roundfigures, 18 inches, we get a parasang of 4000 yards, or about 2 J miles. Laterauthorities, however, are agreed that the Persian parasang was at least 3I miles,or more.