[414] Cicero, _de Nat. deor._, II. 50, 127. [415] Perhaps the best prose description of the power of the Echineis is to be found in Cassiodorus, _Var._, I. 35. Pliny, XXXII. 1, solemnly asserts that the death of the Emperor Caligula was presaged by a _Remora_ stopping his great galley, alone out of all the accompanying fleet, on his voyage to Antium. Not only did the _Remora_ stop a ship, but according to Pliny, it could, from its power of checking the natural actions of the body under excitement, hasten or stay an _accouchement_ as well as a lawsuit: hence plaintiffs seldom ventured into the fish market, because the mere sight of a _Remora_ at such a juncture was most inauspicious! (Pliny, IX. 41, and XXXII. 1). Cf. Aristotle, _H. A._, 2. 14, “καὶ χρῶνταί τινες αὐτῷ πρὸς δίκας καὶ φίλτρα.” For an explanation of the myth of the _Remora_, see V. W. Ekman, “On Dead Water,” in the _Reports of Nansen’s Polar Expedition_, Christiania, 1904. [416] For a profoundly interesting study of the extant portrait-busts of Socrates, see A. Hekler, _Greek and Roman Portraits_ (London, 1912), p. xi. f., with plates 19, 20, 21. [417] The Torpedo was one of the food fishes of the ancients, and is represented with other fish on several of the Campanian-ware fish plates to be seen at the British Museum, _e.g. Cat. Vases_, vol. iv., p. 121, F. 268, which shows the small well in the centre of the plate used for fish sauce. [418] _Anth. Pal._, XI. 414. [419] Athen., VII. 90. [420] _N. H._, XXXII. 6. [421] Oppian, V. 66 ff. [422] Cf. Pliny, IX. 68; Ælian, II. 13; Plutarch, _De Sol. Anim._, 31. With this pilot fish must be mentioned that other, so famous in New Zealand waters, “Pelorus Jack.” A cetacean of the Dolphin tribe, he regularly met the coastal steamers between Wellington and Nelson. The old Maori chief, Kipa Hemi, claimed that this fish, _Kai Kai-a-waro_, was not only the embodiment of his tribal _Mana_ and his family guardian angel, but had guided his ancestor eleven generations before in his exploring of Cook Sound, etc. [423] See W. Smith, _Dict. Gk.-Rom. Biog. and Myth._, _s.v._ ‘Athenæus.’ [424] Athen., III. 46. From Faber, _op. cit._, p. 94, we learn that “the pinnotherus finds refuse in the shells of living bivalves, living on the small animalculæ contained in the constant stream of water, which flows in and out of these molluscs. The fancy of the ancients has attributed the status existing between the two species as arising from a friendly alliance, protection and board afforded on the one hand, and watching against and warning of the approach of an enemy on the other. These observations descend from so early a date that we find the pinna and the crab among the Egyptian hieroglyphs, bearing the interpretation of the duty of paterfamilias to provide for his offspring.” [425] The rendering of passages from Athenæus (_Deipn._) and from Pliny (_N. H._) are usually Bohn’s. CHAPTER XII