D. _Line and Hook_ (_Iliad_, XXIV. 80 ff.): “And she” (Iris on her Zeus-bidden mission) “sped to the bottom like a weight of lead, that mounted on the horn of a field-ox goeth down, bearing death to the ravenous fishes.” E. _Iliad_, XVI. 406 ff.: “As when a man sits on a jutting rock and drags a sacred fish from the sea with line and glittering hook of bronze, so on the bright spear dragged he Thestor,” etc.[158] F. _Odyssey_, IV. 368 f.: “Who” (the companions of Menelaus) “were ever roaming round the isle, fishing with bent hooks, for hunger was gnawing at their belly.” _Odyssey_, XII. 330 f.: “They” (the companions of Odysseus) “went wandering with barbed hooks in quest of game, as needs they must, fishes and fowls, whatever might come to their hand, for hunger gnawed at their belly.”[159] The Rod finds one express mention—in passage C. Is its use implied in passages D. and E.? The answer depends greatly on whether the adjectives employed are really descriptive of the qualities and sizes of the fish, or whether they are merely (as often the case in Homer) ornamental or conventional epithets more suited for general than particular use, or are redundant. Our wonder, if the adjectives are really descriptive, grows by the Rod being only specifically mentioned when “little fishes” are the prey. If the contention of modern fishermen—the value of the rod as an implement increases in proportion to the weight of the fish on the hook—holds good, why does Homer cite the Rod in connection only with “little” fishes, more especially as the prey in the simile (the companions of Odysseus) can hardly be classed as “little”? Four differing explanations are possible:— 1. That “little” is an ornamental or redundant adjective. 2. That ῥάβδος, which is usually translated rod, _i.e._ _fishing_-rod, is (according to Hayman and others) not a fishing-rod, but merely a staff, or spear, shod with horn, and that “little” signifies only fish suitable for food, not large fish, such as dolphins, etc. 3. That the fishermen of Homer (anticipating our professional deep-sea fishermen in Kent and the Channel Islands, who for quickness and certainty, especially in the case of heavy fish, prefer hand-lines to rods), limited the use of the Rod to “little,” _i.e._ not large, fish.[160] 4. That “little” is partly ornamental, partly intentional, because fish caught close inshore are normally smaller than those caught farther out. From the adjectives in passages D. and E. can we infer the use of the Rod? Of the adjective in E., Butcher and Lang write: “It is difficult to determine whether ἱερός in Homer does not sometimes retain its primitive meaning of ‘strong’ (see Curtius, _Etym._, No. 614); in certain phrases, this may perhaps be accepted, as an archaism.... On the whole we have not felt so sure of the archaic use as to adopt it in our translation.”