Fowling too, if we may depend upon Athenæus,[699] entered into the list of heroic amusements. It is clear, however, that the sportsmen of those days were arrant poachers, for, not content with attacking their prey in open fight, they condescended to spread nets for them and set gins for their feet. But being accomplished bowmen, however, they could occasionally, when pressed for provisions, fetch down a thrush, a pigeon, or a dove with an arrow, dexterously as that Jew in Eusebius[700] who exhibited his marksmanship to demonstrate the fallacy of augury. For in the funeral games of Patroclus, we find one of the heroes hitting from a considerable distance a dove which had been tied by a small cord to the summit of a mast.[701] Footnote 700: Præp. Evang. l. ix. c. 4. p. 408. d. Footnote 701: Iliad, ψ. 853. sqq. They were given moreover not only to fishing with nets—a practice in nowise unbecoming a hero when in want of a dinner—but even to angling with “crooked O’Shaughnessies,”[702] as Homer expresses it; though the passage in the Iliad, indeed, where a net is mentioned, cannot well be adduced in corroboration, since it may refer to fowling as well as to fishing.[703] Certain verses in the Odyssey, however, prove beyond a doubt that the Greeks had already begun to derive a great part of their sustenance from the sea;[704] and the Homeric heroes even understood the value of oysters, which, as appears from the Iliad, were procured by diving.[705] Footnote 702: Γναμπτοῖς ἀγκιστροίσιν. Odyss. μ. 331. seq. Ludovic. Nonn. de Re Cibar. iii. 4. p. 294. Plut. de Solert. Anim. § 24. Cf. Antich. di Ercol. t. i. tav. 36. p. 191. From an expression of Augustus, if we can regard it as anything more than a figure of speech, it may be inferred that to increase the luxury of the sport by converting it into a species of gambling, people sometimes fished with golden hooks.—Polyæn. Strat. viii. 24. 6. Footnote 703: Iliad, γ. 487. seq. Eustath. ad Odyss. χ. 386. Footnote 704: Odyss. χ. 386. Footnote 705: Iliad, π. 747. sqq.