But the recent discovery at Tiryns of a fresco where two ladies are depicted standing in a car at a boar-hunt[152]—perhaps “in at the death”—certainly makes for considerable qualification, and, if succeeded by similar finds, for complete reversal of the non-sporting theory. On Circe’s Island, Odysseus strikes down “a tall antlered stag” as “he was coming down from his pasture in the woodland to the river, for verily the might of the Sun was sore upon him.” He bears the “huge beast” across his neck to the black ship of his companions, who soon devour it. This is the only mention of venison in Homer (_Od._, X. 158 ff.). FOOTNOTES: [122] For several reasons I have anachronously placed this section first instead of last. [123] The representation, reproduced by the kind permission of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, consists of four men carrying in each hand a fish by the tail. The absence of boots and ornaments is in keeping with their occupation. The fishes with one exception have heads like dolphins, similar to the representation of Poseidon with a tiny dolphin in his hand. The painting is executed in the “black and red” style upon the usual white slip. The figures are drawn firmly and boldly according to the conventional scheme, shoulders to front and legs in profile; the slim proportions of the bodies are common to many Mycenæan works. The most barbaric features of the drawing are the absence of hands, and the monstrous eye in the middle of the cheek. Cf. No. 80 in the _British Museum Cat. of Gems_, which shows a man clad with the characteristic Mycenæan loin cloth carrying a fish by a short line attached to its gullet. _Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos_ (London, 1904), p. 123, pl. xxii. [124] Equally famous, perhaps even more so, is the representation of a fish found in 1882 near Vettersfelde in Lower Lausitz, but now in Berlin. It is the shield-sign of a Scythian chief, made in gold _repoussé_ work early in the fifth century B.C. See the publications of A. Furtwängler, _Der Goldfund von Vettersfelde_ (Berlin, 1883), (= _id. Kleine Schriften_ (München, 1912), I. 469 ff. pl. 18); cf. E. H. Minns, _Scythians and Greeks_ (Cambridge, 1913), p. 236 ff. fig. 146. Furtwängler thinks that the fish may have been meant for the _Thymus alalonga_. [125] Homer, according to Sir A. Evans, “is at most sub-Mycenæan, his age is more recent than the latest stage of anything that can be called Minoan or Mycenæan,” _Jour. Hellenic Studies_, xxxii. (1912) 287. This would seem to place Homer about the twelfth century. [126] _Deipnosophistæ_, I. ch. 22. [127] Herodotus (II. 164) describing the different grades of Egyptian society begins with the priests and ends with the boatmen, among whom he apparently includes the fishermen. Their humble position is confirmed by other evidence; see _postea_ 333. In Laconia fishing was confined to the Helots and Περίοικοι.