The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
3. But Mnaseas of Patra, in his Periplus, says that the fish in the
river Clitor are not dumb; though Aristotle has stated in writing that
the only fishes which have any voice are the scarus and the river-hog.
And Philostephanus, who was a Cyrenæan by birth, and a friend of
Callimachus, in his treatise on Extraordinary Rivers, says that in the
river Aroanius, which flows through Pheneum, there are fish which sing
like thrushes, and that they are called the poiciliæ. And Nymphodorus
the Syracusan, in his Voyages, says that there are pike in the river
Helorus, and large eels, so tame that they take bread out of the hands
of any who bring it to them. And I myself, and very likely many of you
too, have seen cestres tamed to the hand in the fountain of Arethusa,
near Chalcis; and eels, having silver and golden earrings, taking food
from any one who offered it to them, and entrails from the victims, and
fresh cheese. And Semus says, in the sixth book of his Delias—"They say
that a boy once dipped a ewer into the well, and brought water to some
Athenians who were sacrificing at Delos, to wash their hands with; and
he brought up, as it happened, some fish in the ewer along with the
water: and that on this the soothsayers of the Delians told them that
they should become the lords of the sea."
[Sidenote: AQUATIC ANIMALS.]
4. And Polybius, in the thirty-fourth book of his Histories, says that
behind Pyrene, as far as the river Narbo, the whole country is a plain,
through which the rivers Illiberis and Rhoscynus proceed, flowing
through cities of the same name as themselves, which are inhabited by
some of the Celtæ; and in this plain he says that the above-mentioned
fossil fish are also found. And he says that the soil of that plain
is light, and that a great quantity of the herb agrostis grows in it;
and that beneath it, as the soil is sandy for a depth of two or three
cubits, the water flows, which wanders away from these rivers; and so
the fish, too, leaving the rivers, and proceeding underground, in the
course of these erratic underflowings, in quest of food (for they are
exceedingly fond of the root of the agrostis), have caused the whole
plain to be full of subterranean fish, which people catch when they dig
up the plain. "And among the Indians," says Theophrastus, "there are
fish which go forth out of the rivers over the land, and then, leaping
back, return again to the water, just like frogs; being in appearance
very like the fish which are called maxini."
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