Chapter XLVIII: Appendix: D

ON NETTING.

MANUFACTURE AND USE OF NETS BY THE ANCIENTS--ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, ETC.

Nets were made of Flax, Hemp, and Broom--General terms for nets--Nets used for catching birds--Mode of snaring--Hunting-nets--Method of hunting--Hunting-nets supported by forked stakes--Manner of fixing them--Purse-net or tunnel-net--Homer’s testimony--Nets used by the Persians in lion-hunting--Hunting with nets practised by the ancient Egyptians--Method of hunting--Depth of nets for this purpose--Description of the purse-net--Road-net--Hallier--Dyed feathers used to scare the prey--Casting-net--Manner of throwing by the Arabs--Cyrus king of Persia--His fable of the piper and the fishes--Fishing-nets--Casting-net used by the Apostles--Landing-net (Scap-net)--The Sean--Its length and depth--Modern use of the Sean--Method of fishing with the Sean practised by the Arabians and ancient Egyptians--Corks and leads--Figurative application of the Sean--Curious method of capturing an enemy practised by the Persians--Nets used in India to catch tortoises--Bag-nets and small purse-nets--Novel scent-bag of Verres the Sicilian prætor.

The raw materials, of which the ancients made nets, were flax, hemp[658], and broom[659]. Flax was most commonly used; so that Jerome, when he is prescribing employment for monks, says, “Texantur et _lina_ capiendis piscibus[660].” The operation of netting, as well as that of platting, was expressed by the verb πλέκειν[661]. The meshes were called in Latin _maculæ_[662], in Greek βρόχοι, _dim._ βροχίδες[663].

[658] Rete cannabina. Varro, _De Re Rust._ iii. 5. p. 216, ed. Bipont.

[659] Pliny, H. N. xix. 1. s. 2; xxiv. 9. s. 40.

[660] Hieron. _Epist._ l. ii. p. 173, ed. Par. 1613, 12mo. Hunting-nets
are called “lina nodosa” by Ovid, _Met._ iii. 153, and vii. 807.
Compare Virg. _Georg_, i. 142; Homer, _Il._ v. 487; Brunck, _Anal._
ii. 94, 494, 495; Artimedorus, ii. 14. See also Pliny, H. N. xix.
1. s. 2.

[661] Πλεξάμενος ἄρκυς, Aristoph. _Lysist._ 790. Τῶν πεπλεγμένων
δίκτυων, Bokkeri _Anecdota_, vol. i. p. 354.

[662] Varro, _De Re Rust._ iii. 11; Ovid, _Epist._ v. 19; Nemesiani
Cyneg. 302.

[663] Heliodor. l. v. p. 231, ed. Commelini.

The use of all the Latin and Greek terms for nets will now be explained, and in connection with this explanation of terms, will be produced all the facts which can be ascertained upon the subject.

I.

RETIS and RETE; _dim._ RETICULUM.

ΔΙΚΤΥΟΝ[664].

[664] From δικεῖν, _to throw_. See Eurip. _Bacc._ 600, and the Lexicons
of Schneider and Passow.

_Retis_ or _Rete_ in Latin, and δίκτυον in Greek, were used to denote nets in general. Thus in an epigram of Leonidas Tarentinus[665], three brothers, one of whom was a hunter, another a fowler, and the third a fisherman, dedicate their nets to Pan. Several imitations of this epigram remain by Alexander Ætolus[666], Antipater Sidonius[667], Archias[668], and others[669]. In one of these epigrams (Ἰουλιάνου Αἰγυπτίου) we find λίνα adopted as a general term for nets instead of δίκτυα, no doubt for the reason above stated. In another epigram[670] a hare is said to have been caught in a net (δίκτυον). Aristophanes mentions nets by the same denomination among the contrivances employed by the fowler[671]. Fishing-nets are called δίκτυα in the following passages of the New Testament: Matt. iv. 20, 21; Mark i. 18, 19; Luke v. 2, 4-6; John xxi. 6, 8, 11: also by Theocritus, _ap. Athen._ vii. 20. p. 284, Cas.; and by Plato, _Sophista_, 220, _b._ p. 134, ed. Bekker.

[665] Brunck, _Anal._ i. 225.

[666] Brunck, _Anal._ i. 418. Alexandri Ætoli _Fragmenta_, a Capelmann,
p. 50.

[667] _Ibid._ ii. 9, Nos. 15, 16.

[668] _Ibid._ ii. 94, No. 9.

[669] _Ibid._ ii. 494, 495. Jacobs, _Anthol._ vol. i. p. 188, 189.

[670] Brunck, _Anal._ iii. 239, No 417.

[671] _Aves_, 526-528.

Netting was applied in various ways in the construction of _hen-coops_ and aviaries; and such net-work is called _rete_[672]. It was used to make pens for sheep by night. At the amphitheatres it was sometimes placed over the podium. At a gladiatorial show given by Nero, the net, thus used as a fence against the wild beasts, was knotted _with amber_[673]. The way in which the net was used by the _Retiarii_ is well known. The head-dress called κεκρύφαλος, was a small net of fine flax, silk, or gold thread, and was also called _reticulum_[674]. But by far the most important application of net-work was to the kindred arts of hunting and fishing: and besides the general terms used alike in reference to both these employments, there are special terms to be explained under each head.

[672] Varro, _De Re Rust._ iii. 5.

[673] Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 3. s. 11.

[674] Nonius Marcellus, p. 542, ed. Merceri. See also the article
CALANTICA, in Smith’s _Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities_.

The use of nets for catching birds was very limited, on which account we find no appropriate name for fowlers’ nets[675]. Nevertheless thrushes were caught in them[676], and doves or pigeons, with their limbs tied up, or fastened to the ground, or with their eyes covered or put out, were confined in a net in order that their cries might allure others into the snare[677]. An account of the nets used by the Egyptians to catch birds is given by Sir Gardner Wilkinson[678], being derived from the paintings found in the catacombs. The net commonly employed for the purpose was the clap-net. Bird-traps were also made by stretching a net over two semicircular frames, which, being joined and laid open, approached to the form of a circle. The trap was baited, and when a bird flew to it and seized the bait, it was instantly caught by the sudden rising of the two sides or flaps.

[675] See Aristophanes, _l. c._

[676] Hor. _Epod._ ii. 33, 34.

[677] Aristoph. _Aves_, 1083.

[678] _Man. and Customs_, vol. iii. p. 35-38, 45.

II.

CASSIS; PLAGA.

ΕΝΟΔΙΟΝ, ΑΡΚΥΣ.

In hunting it was usual to extend nets in a curved line of considerable length[679], so as in part to surround a space, into which the beasts of chase, such as the boar, the wild goat, the deer, the hare, the lion, and the bear might be driven through the opening left on one side. Tibullus (iv. 3. 12) speaks of inclosing woody hills for this purpose:--

... densos indagine colles
Claudentem.

[679] Τὰ δίκτυα περιβάλλουσι. Ælian, H. A. xii. 46. Uno portante
multitudinem, qua saltus cingerentur. Plin. H. N. xix. l. s. 2.
Oppian (_Cyneg._ iv. 120-123) says, that in an Asiatic lion-hunt the
nets (ἄρκυες) were placed in the form of the new moon.

The following lines of Virgil show, that the animals were driven into the toils from a distance by the barking of dogs and the shouts of men:

Thy hound the wild-ass in the sylvan chase,
Or hare, or hart, with faithful speed will trace;
Assail the muddy cave with eager cries,
Where the rough boar in secret ambush lies;
Press the tall stag with clamors echoing shrill
To secret toils, along the aërial hill.
Georg. iii. 411-413.--_Warton’s Translation._

In another splendid passage the boar is described as coming into the midst of the nets after he has been driven to them from a mountain or a marsh at a great distance:

And as a savage boar on mountains bred,
With forest mast and fattening marshes fed;
When once he sees himself in toils inclosed,
By huntsmen and their eager hounds opposed;
He whets his tusks, and turns and dares the war:
The invaders dart their javelins from afar:
All keep aloof and safely shout around,
But none presumes to give a nearer wound.
He frets and froths, erects his bristled hide,
And shakes a grove of lances from his side.
_Æn._ x. 707-715.--_Dryden’s Translation._

Even in a case where the same poet introduces an equivalent expression to that of Tibullus, already quoted, viz. “saltus indagine cingunt” (_Æn._ iv. 121), he represents the hunting-party as going over a large extent of country to collect the animals out of it:

Postquam altos ventum in montes atque invia lustra,
Ecce feræ saxi dejectæ vertice capræ
Decurrere jugis; alia de parte patentes
Transmittunt cursu campos, atque agmina cervi
Pulverulenta fuga glomerant, montesque relinquunt.
At puer Ascanius mediis in vallibus acri
Gaudet equo, jamque hos cursu, jam præterit illos,
Spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia votis
Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem.
_Æn._ iv. 151-159.

So Ovid (_Epist._ iv. 41, 42):

In nemus ire libet, pressisque in retia cervis,
Hortari celeres per juga summa canes;
and (_Epist._ v. 19, 20):

Retia sæpe comes maculis distincta tetendi,
Sæpe citos egi per juga longa canes.

The _younger_ Pliny describes himself on one occasion sitting beside the nets, while the hunters were pursuing the boars and driving them into the snare (_Epist._ i. 6). In Euripides (_Bacc._ 821-832) we find the following beautiful description of a fawn, which has been driven into the space inclosed by the nets, but has leaped over them and escaped:--

ὡς νεβρὸς χλοεραῖς
ἐμπαίζουσα λείμακος ἡ-
δοναῖς, ἡνίκ’ ἂν φοβερὸν φύγῃ
θήραμ’ ἔξω φυλακᾶς
εὐπλέκτων ὑπὲρ ἀρκύων, &c.

Here a Bacchanal, tossing her head into the air with gambols and dancing, is said to be “like a fawn sporting in the green delights of a meadow, when she has escaped the fearful chase by leaping over the well-platted nets so as to be out of the inclosure, whilst the shouting hunter has been urging his dogs to run still more swiftly: by great efforts and with the rapidity of the winds she bounds over a plain beside a river, pleased with solitudes remote from man, and hides herself in the thickets of an umbrageous forest.”

If hollows or valleys were inclosed[680], the nets were no doubt extended only in those openings, through which it was possible for the animals to escape. Also a river was of itself a sufficient boundary:

Inclusum flumine cervum.--Virg. _Æn._ xii. 749.

[680]
Nec, velit insidiis altassi claudere valles,
Dum placeas, humeri retia ferre negent.--Tibullus, i. 4. 49, 50.

It was the duty of the attendants (J. Pollux, v. 4. 27-31) in
most cases to carry the nets on their shoulders, agreeably to the
representation in the Plate X. Pliny, _l. c._

Cassibus impositos venor.--Propert. iv. 2. 32.

... alius raras
Cervice gravi portare plagas.--Sen. _Hippol._ i. l. 44.

The proper Latin term for the hunting-net, but more especially for the purse-net, which will be hereafter described, was CASSIS. “Cassis, genus venatorii retis.” Isidori Hispalensis _Orig._ xix. 5. “Arctos rodere casses” is applied by Persius (v. 170) to a quadruped with incisor teeth caught in such a net and striving to escape. See also Propertius as just quoted, and the _Agamemnon_ of Seneca and Virgil’s _Georgics_ as quoted below. _Cassis_ seems to be derived from the root of _capere_ and _catch_. But PLAGA was also applied to hunting-nets, so that Horace describes the hunting of the boar in the following terms:

Aut trudit acres hinc et hinc multa cane
Apros in obstantes plagas.--_Epod._ ii. 31, 32.

Lucretius (lib. v. 1251, 1252) aptly compares the setting up of the _plagæ_ to the planting of a hedge around the forest:

Nam fovea atque igni prius est venarier ortum,
Quam sæpire plagis saltum, canibusque ciere.

In the same manner _plagæ_ is used in the _Hippolytus_ of Seneca, as above quoted, and in Pliny[681].

[681] H. N. xix. 1. s. 2.

To dispose the nets in the manner which has been described, was called “retia ponere” (Virg. _Georg._ i. 307) or “retia tendere” (Ovid, _Art. Amat._ i. 45).

In Homer a hunting-net is called λίνον πάναγρον, literally, “the flax that catches everything[682].” But the proper Greek term for the hunting-net, corresponding to the Latin _cassis_, was ἄρκυς, which is accordingly employed in the passages of Oppian and Euripides cited above. Also the epigram of Antipater Sidonius, to which a reference has already been made, specifies the hunting-net by the same appellation:

Δᾶμις μὲν θηρῶν ἄρκυν ὀρειονόμων.

The word is used in the same sense by Cratinus[683]; also by Arrian, where he remarks that the Celts dispensed with the use of nets in hunting, because they trusted to the swiftness of their greyhounds[684]. In Euripides[685] it is used metaphorically: the children cry out, when their mother is pursuing them,

Ὡς ἐγγὺς ἤδη γ’ ἐσμέν ἀρκύων ζίφους,

_i. e._ “Now how near we are being caught with the sword.”

[682] _Il._ v. 487.

[683] Cratini _Fragmenta_, a Runkel, p. 28.

[684] Καί εἰσὶν αἱ κύνες αὗται, ὅ τι περ αἱ ἄρκυς Ξενοφῶντι ἐκείνῳ,
_i. e._ “And here greyhounds answered the same purpose as Xenophon’s
hunting-nets.” _De Venat._ ii. 21. See Dansey’s translation,
pp. 72, 121.

[685] _Medea_, 1268.

Also in the _Agamemnon_ of Æschylus (l. 1085):

Ἡ δίκτυον τί γ’ Αἴδου;
ἀλλ’ ἄρκυς ἡ ζύνευνος, ἡ ζυναιτία
φόνου.

In this passage reference is made to the large shawl in which Clytemnestra wrapt the body of Agamemnon, as in a net, in order to destroy him. On account of the use made of it, the same fatal garment is afterwards (l. 1353) compared to a casting-net, which in its form bore a considerable resemblance to the _cassis_. In l. 1346, ἀρκύστατα[686] denotes this net as set up for hunting. The same form occurs again in the _Eumenides_ (l. 112); and in the _Persæ_ (102-104) escape from danger is in nearly the same terms expressed by the notion of overleaping the net. In Euripides[687] this contrivance is called ἀρκύστατος μηχανὴ; and in the _Agamemnon_ of Seneca[688] the same allusion is introduced:

At ille, ut altis hispidus silvis aper;
Cum, casse vinctus, tentat egressus tamen,
Arctatque motu vincla, et incassum furit,
Cupit, fluentes undique et cæcos sinus
Disjicere, et hostem quærit implicitus suum.

[686] Or, ἀρκύστατον, ed. Schütz. l. 1376.

[687] _Orestes_, 1405, s. 1421.

[688] L. 886-890.

Part of the apparatus of a huntsman consisted in the stakes which he drove into the ground to support his nets, and which Antipater Sidonius thus describes:

Καὶ πυρὶ θηγαλέους ὀξυπαγεῖς στάλικας;
_i. e._ “The sharp stakes hardened in the fire[689].”

The term which Xenophon uses of the stakes is, according to some manuscripts of his work, σχαλίδες. He says, they should be fixed so as to lean backwards, and thus more effectually to resist the impulse of the animals rushing against them[690]. The Latin term answering to στάλικες was VARI. We find it thus used by Lucan:

Aut, cum dispositis adtollat retia varis
Venator, tenet ora levis clamosa Molossi.
_Pharsalia_, iv. 439, 440.

_i. e._ “The hunter holds the noisy mouth of the light Molossian dog, when he lifts up the nets to the stakes arranged in order.”

[689] Brunck, _Anal._ ii. 10. We find στάλικες in Oppian,
_Cyneg._ iv. 67, 71, 121, 380; Pollux, _Onom._ v. 31.

[690] _De Venat._ vi. 7.

Gratius Faliscus, adopting a Greek term, calls them _ancones_, on account of the “elbow” or fork at the top:

Hic magis in cervos valuit metus: ast ubi lentæ
Interdum Libyco fucantur sandyce pinnæ,
Lineaque extructis lucent anconibus arma,
Rarum, si qua metus eludat bellua falsos.--_Cyneg._ 85-88.

It was the business of one of the attendants to watch the nets:

Ego retia servo.--Virg. _Buc._ iii. 75.

Sometimes there was a watchman at each extremity and one in the middle, as in the Persian lion-hunt[691]. The prevalence of this method of hunting in Persia might be inferred from the circumstance, that one of the chief employments of the inhabitants consisted in making these nets (ἄρκυς, Strabo, xv. 3. § 18). To watch the nets was called ἀρκυωρεῖν (Ælian, H. A. i. 2), and the man who discharged this office ἀρκυωρὸς (Xen., _De Ven._ ii. 3; vi. 1.).

[691] Oppian, Cyneg. iv. 124, &c.

The paintings discovered in the catacombs of Egypt show, that the ancient inhabitants of that country used nets for hunting in the same manner which has now been shown to have been the practice of the Persians, Greeks and Romans[692].

[692] Wilkinson’s _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians_,
vol. iii. p. 3-5.

Hunting-nets had much larger meshes than fishing or fowlers’-nets, because in general a fish or a fowl could escape through a much smaller opening than a quadruped. In hunting, the important circumstance was to make the nets so strong that the beasts could not break through them. The large size of the meshes is denoted by the phrases “retia rara[693]” and “raras plagas[694];” and it is exhibited in a bas-relief in the collection of ancient marbles at Ince-Blundell in Lancashire. See Plate X. fig. 1. This sculpture presents the following circumstances, which are worthy of notice as illustrative of the passages above collected from ancient authors. Three servants with staves carry a large net on their shoulders. The foremost of them holds by a leash a dog, which is eager to engage in the chase[695]. Then follows another scene in the hunt. A net with very large meshes and five feet high is set up, being supported by three stakes. Two boars and two deer are caught. A watchman, holding a staff, stands at each end of the net. Fig. 2, Plate X. is taken from a bas-relief in the same collection, representing a party returning from the chase, with the quadrupeds which they have caught. Two men carry the net, holding in their hands the stakes with forks at the top. These bas-reliefs have been taken from sarcophagi erected in commemoration of hunters, and they are engraved in the _Ancient statues, &c. at Ince-Blundell_, vol. ii. pl. 89 and 126. An excellent representation of these forked staves is given in a sepulchral bas-relief in Bartoli, _Admiranda_, tab. 70, which Mr. Dansey has copied at p. 307 of his translation of Arrian _on Coursing_, and which represents a party of hunters returning from the chase. Another example of the _varus_, or forked staff, is seen in a sepulchral stone lately found at York (England), and engraved in Mr. Wellbeloved’s _Eburacum_, pl. 14. fig. 2. The man, who holds the varus in his right hand, and who appears to be a huntsman and a native of the north of England, though partly clothed after the Roman fashion, wears an inner and outer tunic, and over them a fringed sagum. In the _Sepolcri de’ Nasoni_, published by Bartoli, there is a representation of a lion-hunt, and of another in which deer are caught by means of nets set up so as to inclose a large space. In Montfaucon’s _Supplement_, tome iii., is an engraving from a bas-relief, in which a net is represented: but none of these are so instructive as the two bas-reliefs at Ince-Blundell.

[693] Virg. _Æn._ iv. 131; Hor. _Epod._ ii. 33.

[694] Seneca, _Hippol._ l. c.

[695] See Lucan, as quoted in the last page.

Gratius Faliscus recommends that a net should be forty paces long, and full ten knots high:

Et bis vicenos spatium prætendere passus
Rete velim, plenisque decem consurgere nodis.--_Cyneg._ 31, 32.

The necessity of making the nets so high that the animals could not leap over them, is alluded to in the expression Ὕψος κρεῖσσον ἐκπηδήματος, _i. e._ “a height too great for the animals _to leap out_[696].”

[696] Æschyli _Agamemnon_, 1347.

Xenophon, in his treatise _on Hunting_, gives various directions respecting the making and setting of nets; and Schneider has added to that treatise a dissertation concerning the ἄρκυς. It is evident that this kind of net was made with a bag (κεκρύφαλος, vi. 7), being the same which is now called the _purse-net_, or the _tunnel-net_, and that the aim of the hunter was to drive the animal into the bag; that the watchman (ἀρκυωρὸς) waited to see it caught there; that branches of trees were placed in the bag to keep it expanded, to render it invisible, and thus to decoy quadrupeds into it; that a rope ran round the mouth of the bag (περίδρομος, vi. 9), and was drawn tight by the impulse of the animal rushing in so as to prevent its escape[697]. To this rope was attached another, called ἐπίδρομος, which was used as follows. In fig. 1. of Plate X. we observe, that the upper border of the net consists of a very strong rope. Xenophon calls this σαρδὼν (vi. 9). In the purse-net it was furnished with rings. The ἀρκυωρὸς, or watchman, lay in ambush, holding one end of the ἐπίδρομος, which ran through the rings, and was fastened at the other end to the περίδρομος, so that by pulling it he drew the mouth of the bag still more firm and close. He then went to the bag and despatched the quadruped which it inclosed, or carried it off alive, informing his companions of the capture by _shouting_[698].

[697] This effect of the περίδρομος is well expressed by Seneca,
“Arctatque motu vincla:” also the circumstance of the branches used
to distend the bag and to make it invisible; “Fluentes undique et
cæcos sinus.”

Homer (_Il._ v. 487) seems to allude to the same contrivance, and to
apply the term ἀχῖδες to the rope which encircled the entrance of
the bag, with the others attached to it.

We find in Brunck’s _Analecta_ (ii. 10. No. xx.) the phrase ἀγκύλα
δίκτυα applied to hunting-nets. It was probably meant to designate
the ἄρκυς, which might be called ἀγκύλα, _i. e._ angular, because
they were made like bags ending in a point. The term νεφέλη, which
occurs in Aristophanes (_Aves_, 195), and denoted some contrivance
for catching birds, is said by the Scholiast on the passage to have
meant a kind of hunting-net. But this explanation is evidently good
for nothing.

[698] Oppian, _Cyneg._ iv. 409. Pliny mentions these _epidromi_, or
_running ropes_: H. N. xix. 1. s. 2.

In this treatise Xenophon distinguishes the nets used in hunting by three different appellations; ἄρκυς, ἐνόδιον, and δίκτυον. Oppian also distinguishes the δίκτυον used in hunting from the ἄρκυς[699]. The ἄρκυς or _cassis_, _i. e._ “the purse- or tunnel-net,” was by much the most complicated in its formation. The ἐνόδιον, or “road-net,” was comparatively small: it was placed across any road, or path, to prevent the animals from pursuing that path: it must have been used to stop the narrow openings between bushes. The δίκτυον was a large net, simply intended to inclose the ground: it therefore resembled in some measure the sean used in fishing. The term, thus specially applied, may be translated _a hay_, or _a hallier_[700]. These three kinds of nets appear to be mentioned together by Nemesianus under the names of _retia_ (i. e. δίκτυα), _casses_ (i. e. ἄρκυς), and _plagæ_ (i. e. ἐνόδια.):

Necnon et casses idem venatibus aptos,
Atque plagas, longoque meantia retia tractu
Addiscunt raris semper contexere nodis,
Et servare modum maculis, linoque tenaci.

_Cyneg._ 299-302.

[699] _Ibid._ iv. 381.

[700] See Arrian _on Coursing: the Cynegeticus of the younger_
Xenophon, _translated from the Greek_, &c. &c. _by a graduate of
Medicine_ (William C. Dansey, M. B.). London, 1831, pp. 68, 188.

Xenophon, in his treatise on Hunting, further informs us, that the cord used for making the ἄρκυς, or purse-net, consisted of three strands, and that three lines twisted together commonly made a strand (ii. 4); but that, when the net was intended to catch the wild boar, nine lines went to a strand instead of three (x. 2).

It remains to be noticed, that, when the long range of nets, set up in the manner which has been now represented, was designed to catch the stag (_cervus_), it was flanked by cords, to which, as well as to the nets themselves, feathers _dyed scarlet_, and of other bright colors intermixed with their native white, and sometimes probably birds’ wings, were tied so as to flare and flutter in the wind[701]. This appendage to the nets was called the _metus_ or _formido_ (Virg. _Æn._ xii. 750), because it frightened these timid quadrupeds so as to urge them onwards into the toils. Hence Virgil, speaking of the method of taking stags in Scythia, says,

Nor toils their flight impede, nor hounds o’ertake,
Nor plumes _of purple dye_ their fears awake.

_Georg._ iii. 371, 372.--_Sotheby’s Translation._

[701] Dum trepidant alæ.--Virg. _Æn._ iv. 121.

The following passages likewise allude to the use of this contrivance in the stag-hunt:

Nec formidatis cervos includite pennis.--Ovid. _Met._ xv. 475.

Vagos dumeta per avia cervos
Circumdat maculis et multa indagine pinnæ.

Auson. _Epist._ iv. 27.

Nemesianus, in the following passage, asserts that the cord (_linea_) carrying feathers of this description had the effect of terrifying not the stag only, but the bear, the boar, the fox and the wolf:

Linea quinetiam, magnos circumdare saltus
Quæ possit, volucresque metu concludere prædas,
Digerat innexas non una ex alite pinnas.
Namque ursos, magnosque sues, cervosque fugaces
Et vulpes, acresque lupos, ceu fulgura cœli
Terrificant, linique vetant transcendere septum.
Has igitur vario semper fucare veneno
Cura tibi, neveisque alios miscere colores,
Alternosque metus subtemine tendere longo.

_Cyneg._ 303-311.

The same fact is asserted in a striking passage, which has been above quoted from Gratius Faliscus. To the same effect are the following passages:

Nec est mirum, cum maximos ferarum greges linea pennis distincta conterreat, et ad insidias agat, ab ipso effectu dicta formido.--Seneca, _de Ira_, ii. 11.

Feras lineis et pinna conclusas contine: easdem a tergo eques telis incessat: tentabunt fugam per ipsa quæ fugerant, proculcabuntque formidinem.--Seneca, _de Clementia_, i. 12.

Picta rubenti lineo pinna
Vano claudat terrore feras.

Seneca Frag. _Hippol._ i. 1.

III.

FUNDA, JACULUM, RETE JACULUM, RETIACULUM.

ΑΜΦΙΒΛΗΣΤΡΟΝ, ΑΜΦΙΒΟΛΟΝ.

Fishing-nets[702] were of six different kinds, which are enumerated by Oppian as follows:

Τῶν τὰ μὲν ἀμφίβληστρα, τὰ δὲ γρῖφοι καλέονται,
Γάγγαμα τ’, ἠδ’ ὑποχαὶ περιηγέες, ἠδὲ σαγῆναι,
Ἄλλα δὲ κικλήσκουσι καλύμματα.--_Hal._ iii. 80-82.

[702] Ἁλιευτικὰ δίκτυα. Diod. Sic. xvii. 43. p. 193, Wessel.

Of these by far the most common were the ἀμφίβληστρον, or _casting-net_, and the σαγήνη, _i. e._ the _drag_ or _sean_. Consequently these two are the only kinds mentioned by Virgil and Ovid in the following passages:

Atque alius latum funda jam verberat amnem,
Alta petens; pelagoque alius trahit humida lina.

Virg. _Georg._ i. 141, 142.

Hi jaculo pisces, illi capiuntur ab hamis;
Hos cava contento retia fune trahunt.

Ovid, _Art. Amat._ i. 763, 464.

By Virgil the casting-net is called _funda_, which is the common term for a sling. In illustration of this it is to be observed, that the casting-net is thrown over the fisherman’s shoulder, and then whirled in the air much like a sling. By this action he causes it to fly open at the bottom so as to form a circle, which is loaded at intervals with stones or pieces of lead, and this circle “strikes the broad river[703]:” for the casting-net is used either in pools of moderate depth, or in rivers which have, like pools, a broad smooth surface; whereas the sean is employed for fishing in the deep (_pelago_)[704].

[703] The Arabs now employ the casting-net on the shores of the Arabian
Gulf. “Its form is round, and loaded at the lower part with small
pieces of lead; and, when the fisherman approaches a shoal of
fish, his art consists in throwing the net so that it may expand
itself in a circular form before it reaches the surface of the
water.”--Wellsted’s _Travels in Arabia_, vol. ii. p. 148.

[704] For a technical account of nets, including the casting-net as now
made, the reader is referred to the Hon. and Rev. Charles
Bathurst’s _Notes on Nets; or the Quincunx practically considered_,
London, 1837, 12mo. Duhamel wrote on the same subject in French.

Isidore of Seville, in his account of the different kinds of nets (_Orig._ xix. 5), thus speaks: “_Funda_ genus est piscatorii retis, dicta ab eo, quod in fundum mittatur. Eadem etiam a jactando _jaculum_ dicitur. Plautus:

Probus quidem antea jaculator eras[705].”

[705] _Jaculator_ corresponds to the Greek ἀμφιβολεὺς.

Ausonius, in the following lines, which refer to the methods of
fishing in the vicinity of the Garonne, appears to distinguish
between the _jaculum_ and the _funda_.

Piscandi traheris studio? nam tota supellex
Dumnotoni tales solita est ostendere gazas:
Nodosas vestes animantum Nerinorum,
Et jacula, et fundas, et nomina villica lini,
Colaque, et indutos terrenis vermibus hamos.
_Epist._ iv. 51-55.

Besides the passage of Plautus, here quoted by Isidore, there are two others, in which the casting-net is mentioned under the name of _rete jaculum_, viz. _Asinar_. l. i. 87, and _Truc._ l. i. 14. Pareus, as we find from his _Lexicon Plautinum_, clearly understood the meaning of the term, and the distinction between the casting-net and the sean. Of the _Rete jaculum_ he says, “Sic dicitur ad differentiam _verriculi_, quod non jacitur, sed trahitur et verritur.” He adds, that Herodotus calls it ἀμφίβληστρον, and the Germans _Wurffgarn_.

The word occurs twice in Herodotus, and both places throw light upon its meaning. In Book i. c. 141. he says: “The Lydians had no sooner been brought into subjection by the Persians than the Ionians and Æolians sent ambassadors to Cyrus at Sardis, entreating him to receive them under his dominion on the same conditions on which they had been under Crœsus. To this proposal he replied in the following fable. A piper, having seen some fishes in the sea, _played for a while on his pipe, thinking that this would make them come to him on the land_. Perceiving the fallacy of this expectation, he took a casting-net, and, having thrown it around a great number of the fishes, he drew them out of the water. He then said to the fishes, as they were jumping about, _As you did not choose to dance out of the water, when I played to you on my pipe, you may put a stop to your dancing now_.” The other passage (ii. 95) has been illustrated in a very successful manner by William Spence, Esq., F. R. S., in a paper in the Transactions of the Entomological Society for the year 1834. In connection with the curious fact, that the common house-fly will not in general pass through the meshes of a net, Mr. Spence produces this passage, in which Herodotus states, that the fishermen who lived about the marshes of Egypt, being each in possession of a casting-net, and using it in the day-time to catch fishes, employed these nets in the night to keep off the gnats, by which that country is infested. The casting-net was fixed so as to encircle the bed, on which the fisherman slept; and, as this kind of net is always pear-shaped, or of a conical form, it is evident that nothing could be better adapted to the purpose, as it would be suspended like a tent over the body of its owner. In this passage Herodotus twice uses the term ἀμφίβληστρον, and once he calls the same thing δίκτυον, because, as we have seen, this was a common term applicable to nets of every description[706].

[706] _None of the commentators appear to have understood these
passages._ In particular we find that Schweighäuser in his _Lexicon
Herodoteum_ explains Ἀμφίβληστρον thus: “Verriculum, Rete quod
circumjicitur.” _Rete_, however, corresponds to δίκτυον, which meant
a net of any kind; and _Verriculum_ is the Latin for Σαγήνη, which,
as will be shown hereafter, was a sean, or drag-net.

The antiquity of the casting-net among the Greeks appears from a passage in the _Shield of Hercules_, attributed to Hesiod (l. 213-215). The poet says, that the shield represented the sea with fishes seen in the water, “and on the rocks sat a fisherman watching, and he held in his hands a casting-net (ἀμφίβληστρον) for fishes, and seemed to be throwing it from him.” We apprehend that, the position of _sitting_ was not so suitable to the use of the casting-net as standing, because it requires the free use of the arms, which a man cannot well have when he sits. In other respects this description exactly agrees with the use of the casting-net: for it is thrown by a single person, who remains on land at the edge of the water, observes the fishes in it, and throws the net from him into the water so as suddenly to inclose them.

In two of the tragedies of Æschylus we find the term ἀμφίβληστρον applied _figuratively_ by Clytemnestra to the _shawl_, in which she enveloped her husband in order to murder him.

Ἄπειρον ἀμφίβληστρον, ὥσπερ ἰχθύων,
περιστίχιζω, πλοῦτον εἵματος κακόν.--_Agamem._ 1353, 1354.

Μέμνησο δ’, ἀμφίβληστρον ὡς ἐκαίνισαν.--_Choëph._ 485.

Lycophron (l. 1101) calls this garment by the same name, when he refers to the same event in the fabulous history of Greece. We have seen, that in other passages the shawl so used is with equal aptitude called a purse-net (ἄρκυς).

One of the comedies of Menander was entitled Ἁλιεῖς, “the Fisherman.” The expression, Ἀμφιβλήστρῳ περιβάλλεται, is quoted from it by Julius Pollus (x. 132)[707].

[707] Menandri et Phil. _Reliquæ, a Meineke_, p. 16.

Athenæus (lib. x. 72. p. 450 c. Casaub.) quotes from Antiphanes the following line, which describes a man “throwing a casting-net on many fishes”:

Ἰχθύσιν ἀμφίβληστρον ἀνὴρ πολλοῖς ἐπιβάλλων.

In an epigram of Leonidas Tarentinus we find the casting-net called ἀμφίβολον instead of ἀμφίβληστρον[708].

[708] Brunck, _Anal._ i. 223, No. xii. Jacobs, _Anthol._ i. 2. p. 74.

The ἀμφίβληστρον is mentioned together with two other kinds of nets by Artemidorus, and which will be quoted presently.

The following curious passage of Meletius _de Natura Hominis_, in which that author, probably following Galen, describes the expansion of the optic nerves, mentions the casting-net as “an instrument used by fishermen”:

Διασχίζονται δὲ τὰ νεῦρα εἰς τοὺς θαλάμους, ὥσπερ ἤν τις λαβὼν πάπυρον, ταύτην εἰς λεπτὰ διατεμὼν καὶ διασχίζων ἀναπλέκηται πάλιν, καὶ ποιῇ χιτῶνα λεγόμενον ἀμφιβληστροειδῆ, ὅμοιον ἀμφιβλήρτρῳ. ὄργανον δὲ τοῦτο θηρευταῖς ἰχθύων χρήσιμον.--Salmasius, _in Tertull. de Pallio_, p. 213.

The χιτὼν ἀμφιβληστροειδὴς, or _tunica retina_, was so called on account of its resemblance in form to the casting-net.

As we learn from Herodotus that the casting-net was universally employed by the fishermen of Egypt, we shall not be surprised to find it mentioned in the Alexandrine, or, as it is commonly called, the Septuagint version of the Psalms and Prophets:--

Πεσοῦνται ἐν ἀμφιβλήστρῳ αὐτοῦ ἁμαρτωλοὶ,
_i. e._ “Sinners shall fall in _his_ casting-net.”--_Psalm_ cxli. 10.
Cadent in retiaculo ejus peccatores.--_Vulgate Version._
“Let the wicked fall in their own nets.”
--_Common English Version._

The word in the original Hebrew is מכמור, which Gesenius translates “Rete,” _a net_. This word must have been more general in its meaning than the Greek ἀμφίβληστρον, and included the purse-net, or ἄρκυς. The Chaldee and Syriac versions use in this passage a word, which denotes _snares_ in general. See _Isaiah_ li. 20, where the same word is used in the Hebrew, but applied to the catching of a quadruped, and where consequently the purse-net must have been intended.

Καὶ οἱ βάλλοντες σαγήνας, καὶ οἱ ἀμφιβολεῖς πενθήσουσι.

_i. e._ “And they who throw seans, and they who fish with the casting-net, shall mourn.”--_Isa._ xix. 8.

Et expandentes rete super faciem aquarum emarcescent.--_Vulgate Version._

“And they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.”--_Common English Version._

It is to be observed, that this prophecy relates to Egypt. The Hebrew verb פרש, here translated “_expandentes_,” “_they that spread_,” is exactly applicable to the remarkable expansion of the casting-net just as it reaches the surface of the water. In the Alexandrine version we may also observe the clear distinction between the two principal kinds of nets, the sean and the casting-net, and that the man who fishes with the latter is called ἀμφιβολεὺς, as in Latin he was designated by the single term _jaculator_.

Εἵλκυσεν αὐτὸν ἐν ἀμφιβλήστρῳ, καὶ συνήγαγεν αὐτὸν ἐν ταῖς σαγήναις αὐτοῦ· ἕνεκεν τοὺτου εὐφρανθήσεται καὶ χαρήσεται ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ. Ἕνεκεν τούτου θύσει τῇ σαγήνῃ αὐτοῦ, καὶ θυμιάσει τῷ ἀμφιβλήστρῳ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἐν αὐτοῖς ἐλίπανε μερίδα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ βρώματα αὐτοῦ ἐκλεκτά. Διὰ τοῦτο ἀμφιβαλεῖ τὸ ἀμφίβληστρον αὐτοῦ, καὶ διαπαντὸς ἀποκτένειν ἔθνη οὐ φείσεται.

_i. e._ “He (the Chaldean) hath drawn him in a casting-net and gathered him in his seans: therefore his heart shall rejoice and be glad. Therefore he shall sacrifice to his sean and burn incense to his casting-net, because by them he hath fattened his portion and his chosen dainties. Therefore he shall throw his casting-net, and not spare utterly to slay nations.”--_Habakkuk_, i. 15-17.

“They catch them in their net and gather them in their drag; therefore they rejoice and are glad. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net and burn incense unto their drag: because by them their portion is fat and their meat plenteous. Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?”--_Common English Version._

The Latin Vulgate in this passage uses without discrimination the terms _rete_ and _sagena_, which latter is the Greek word in a Latin form.

Ἀμφίβληστρον occurs twice in the New Testament. Matthew iv. 18: “Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon and Andrew, _casting a net into the sea_; for they were fishers”: in the original, βάλλοντας ἀμφίβληστρον εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν; in the Vulgate version, “mittentes rete.” It appears no sufficient objection to the sense which has been assigned to ἀμφίβληστρον, that here two persons are mentioned as using it at the same time. Being partners and engaged in the same employment, one perhaps collecting the fishes which the other caught, they might be described together as “throwing the casting-net,” although only one at a time held it in his hands. In other respects this explanation is particularly suitable to the circumstances. Jesus was walking on the shore and accosted the two brothers. This suits the supposition that they were on the shore likewise, and not fishing out of a boat, as they did with the sean at other times. In verse 20 the Evangelist uses the term δίκτυα (nets), saying “they left their nets,” and meaning both their casting-net and those of other kinds. In verse 21 he mentions that James and John were in their boat, mending their nets (δίκτυα).

The same things are to be observed in Mark i. 16, which is the parallel passage.

IV.

ΓΡΙΦΟΣ, _or_ ΓΡΙΠΟΣ.

Pursuing the order adopted by Oppian in his list of fishing nets above quoted, we come to the Γρῖφος. What kind of net this was we have been unable to discover. It must, however, have been one of the most useful and important kinds, because Plutarch mentions γρίφοι καὶ σαγήναι as the common implements of the fisherman[709], and Artemidorus speaks of this together with the casting-net and the sean in similar terms[710].

[709] Περὶ ἐνθυμίας, vol. v. p. 838, ed. Steph.

[710] L. ii. c. 14.

It may be observed, that Γριπεὺς is used for a fisherman[711], apparently equivalent to ἁλιεὺς[712]. We also find the expression Γριπηΐδι τέχνῃ, meaning, “By the fisherman’s art[713]”.

[711] Jacobs, _Anthol._ vol. i. p. 186, Nos. 4 and 5.

[712] Theocrit. i. 39; iii. 26.

[713] Brunck, _Anal._ ii. 9, No. 14.

V.

ΓΑΓΓΑΜΟΝ.

The third fishing-net in Oppian’s enumeration is Γάγγαμον. We find it once mentioned metaphorically, viz. by Æschylus, who calls an inextricable calamity, Γάγγαμον ἄτης[714]. In Schneider’s edition of Oppian we find this note, “Rete ostreis capiendis esse annotavit Hesychius.” Passow also in his Lexicon explains it as “a small round net for catching oysters.” The reference to Hesychius is incorrect. If it was a net for catching oysters, which appears very doubtful, it may have been the net used by the Indians in the pearl-fishery[715].

[714] _Agam._ 352.

[715] Λέγει Μεγασθένης θηρεύεσθαι τὴν κόγχην αὐτοῦ δικτύοισι.
Arrian, _Indica_, vol. i p. 525, ed. Blancardi.

VI.

ὙΠΟΧΗ.

The ὑποχὴ, which is the fourth in Oppian’s enumeration, was the landing-net, used merely to take fishes out of the water when they rose to the surface, or in similar circumstances to which it was adapted. It was made with a hoop (κύκλος) fastened to a pole, and was perhaps also provided with the means of closing the round aperture at the top[716].

Of the Κάλυμμα we find nowhere any further mention.

[716] See Oppian, _Hal._ iv. 251.

VII.

TRAGUM, TRAGULA, VERRICULUM.

ΣΑΓΗΝΗ.

These were the Greek and Latin names for the _sean_. Before producing the passages in which they occur, we will present to the reader an account of this kind of net as now used by the fishermen on the coast of Cornwall (England) for catching pilchards, and as described by Dr. Paris in his elegant and pleasant _Guide to Mount’s Bay and Land’s End_[717].

“At the proper season men are stationed on the cliffs to observe by the color of the water where the shoals of pilchards are to be found. The sean is carried out in a boat, and thrown into the sea by two men with such dexterity, that in less than four minutes the fish are inclosed. It is then either moored, or, where the shore is sandy and shelving, it is drawn into more shallow water. After this the fish are bailed into boats and carried to shore. A _sean_ is frequently _three hundred fathoms long, and seventeen deep_. The bottom of the net is kept to the ground by leaden weights, whilst the corks keep the top of it floating on the surface. A sean has been known to inclose at one time as many as _twelve hundred hogsheads_, amounting to about _three millions of fish_.”

[717] Penzance, 1816, p. 91

Let this passage be compared with the following, which gives an account of the use of the same kind of net among the Arabs. It will then appear how extensively it is employed, since we find it used in exactly the same way both by our own countrymen and by tribes which we consider as ranking very low in the scale of civilization; and on making this comparison, the inference will seem not unreasonable, that the ancient Greeks and Romans, who in several of their colonies in the Euxine Sea, on the coasts of Ionia, and of Spain, and in other places, carried on the catching and curing of fish with the greatest possible activity and to a wonderful extent, used nets of as great a compass as those which are here described.

“The fishery is here (_i. e._ at Burka, on the eastern coast of Arabia) conducted on a grand scale, by means of nets many hundred fathoms in length, which are carried out by boats. The upper part is supported by small blocks of wood, formed from the light and buoyant branches of the _date-palm_, while the lower part is loaded with lead. To either extremity of this a rope is attached, by which, when the whole of the net is laid out, about thirty or forty men drag it towards the shore. The quantity thus secured is enormous; and what they do not require for their own consumption is salted and carried into the interior. When, as is very generally the case, the nets _are the common property of the whole village_, they divide the produce into equal shares[718].”

[718] Lieutenant Wellsted’s _Travels in Arabia_, vol. i. (_Ornam_), pp.
186, 187.

That this method of fishing was practised by the Egyptians from a remote antiquity appears from the remaining monuments. The paintings on the tombs show persons engaged in drawing the sean, which has floats along its upper margin and leads along the lower border[719]. An ancient Egyptian net, obtained by M. Passalacqua, is preserved in the Museum at Berlin. Some of its leads and floats remain, as well as a gourd, which assisted the floats[720].

[719] See Wilkinson’s _Manners and Customs of Ancient Egypt_, vol. ii.
p. 20, 21; see also vol. iii. p. 37. One of these paintings, copied
from Wilkinson, is introduced in Plate X. fig. 3. of this work.
The fishermen are seen on the shore drawing the net to land full
of fishes. There are eight floats along the top, and four leads at
the bottom on each side. The water is drawn as is usual in Egyptian
paintings.

[720] Un filet de pêche à petites mailles, et fait avec du fil de lin.
Cet objet, qui est garni de ses plombs, conserve encore les
morceaux de bois qui garnissaient sa partie supérieure, ainsi
qu’une courge qui l’aidait à surnager.--Thèbes, Passalacqua,
_Catalogue des Antiquitiés découvertes en Egypte_, No. 445. p. 22.

Besides the verses of Oppian, which are above quoted, we find another passage of the same poem (_Hal._ iii. 82, 83), which mentions the following appendages to the σαγήνη, viz. the πέζαι, the σφαιρῶνες, and the σκολιὸς πάναγρος. As the πόδες, or _feet_ of a sail were the ropes fastened to its lower corners, we may conclude that the πέζαι were the ropes attached to the corners of the sean, and used in a similar manner to fasten it to the shore and to draw it in to the land, as is described by Ovid in the line already quoted,--

Hos cava _contento_ retia _fune_ trahunt.

The σφαιρῶνες, as the name implies, were spherical, and must therefore have been either the floats of wood or cork at the top, or the weights, consisting either of round stones or pieces of lead, at the bottom. The σκολιὸς πάναγρος must have been a kind of bag formed in the sean to receive the fishes, and thus corresponding to the purse or conical bag in the ἄρκυς. The term is illustrated by the application of the equivalent epithet ἀγκύλα or “angular,” to hunting-nets in a passage from Brunck’s _Analecta_, which was formerly explained, and by the epithet “cava” in the line just quoted from Ovid[721].

[721] Observe also the use of the word μυχὸς in the passage of Lucian’s
_Timon_, quoted below.

In the following passage Ovid mentions the use both of the corks and of the leads[722]. This passage also shows that several nets were fastened together in order to form a long sean:

Aspicis, ut summa cortex levis innatat unda,
Cum grave nexa simul retia mergat onus?

_Trist._ iii. 4. 1, 12.

[722] Μολύβδαιναι, J. Pollux, x. 30. § 132.

This use of cork and lead in fishing is also mentioned by Ælian, _Hist. Anim._ xii. 43; and that of cork by Pausanias, viii. 12. § 1; and by Pliny, H. N. xvi. 8. s. 13, where, in reciting the various uses of cork, he says it was employed “piscantium tragulis.” Sidonius Apollinaris, describing his own villa, says:--

Hinc jam spectabis, ut promoveat alnum piscator in pelagus, ut stataria retia suberinis corticibus extendat.--_Epist._ ii. 2.

“Hence you will see how the fisherman moves forward his boat into the deep water, that he may extend his stationary nets by means of corks.”

Alciphron, in his account of a fishing excursion near the Promontory of Phalerum, says, “The draught of fishes was so great as almost to submerge the corks[723].” The earnest desire of a posterity, founded on the wish for posthumous remembrance, which was a very strong and prevailing sentiment among the ancients, is illustrated by the language of Electra in the Choëphorœ of Æschylus, where she entreats her father upon this consideration to attend to her prayer, and likens his memory to a net, which his children, like corks, would save from disappearing:--“_Do not extinguish the race of the Pelopidæ. For thus you will live after you are dead. For a man’s children are the preservers of his fame when dead, and, like corks in dragging the net, they save the flaxen string from the abyss._” The use of the corks is mentioned in several of the epigrams of the Greek Anthology, already referred to, and in the following passage of Plutarch:--

Ὥσπερ τοὺς τὰ δίκτυα διασημαίνοντας ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ φελλοὺς ὁρῶμεν ἐπιφερομένους .--_De Genio Socratis_, p. 1050, ed. Steph.

[723] Μικρὸν καὶ τοὺς φελλοὺς ἐδέησε κατασύραι ὕφαλον τὸ δίκτυον
ἐξογκούμενον.--_Epist._ i. 1.

Passages have been already produced from Plutarch, Artemidorus, and the Alexandrine version of Isaiah and Habakkuk, in which the sean is mentioned by its Greek name σαγήνη, in contradistinction to other kinds of nets. Also the passage above cited from Virgil’s Georgics (“pelagoque alius trahit humida lina”), indicates the use of the sean in deep water, and the practice of dragging it out of the water by means of ropes, which gave origin both to its English name, _the Drag-net_, and to its Latin appellations, _tragula_, used by Pliny (_l. c._), and _tragum_, which is found in the ancient Glossaries and in Isidore of Seville[724].

[724] Tragum genus retis, ab eo quod trahatur nuncupatum: ipsum est et
verriculum. Verrere enim trahere est.--_Orig._ xix. 5.

The Latin name _verriculum_ occurs in a passage of Valerius
Maximus, which is also remarkable for a reference to the Ionian
fisheries, and for the use of the word _jactus_, literally, _a
throw_, corresponding to that which the Cornish men denominate, _a
hawl of fish_.

A piscatoribus in Milesia regione verriculum trahentibus quidam
jactum emerat.--_Memor._ lib. iv. cap. 1.

We introduce here an expression of Philo, in which we may remark
that βόλος ἰχθύων corresponds exactly to _jactus_ in Latin, and
that the drawing of the net into a circle is clearly indicated:
βόλον ἰχθύων πάντας ἐν κύκλῳ σαγηνεύσας. --_Vita Mosis_, tom. ii.
p. 95. ed. Mangey.

We find mention of the sean more especially for the capture of the tunny and of the pelamys, which were the two principal kinds of fish caught in the Mediterranean. Lucian speaks of the tunny-sean[725], which was probably the largest net of the kind, and he relates the circumstance of a tunny escaping from its bag or bosom[726]. The sean is thrice mentioned in the Epistles of Alciphron (_l. c._ and lib. i. epp. 17, 18.), and in the two latter passages, as used for catching tunnies and pelamides. We read also of a dolphin (δελφὶς) approaching the sean[727]; but this might be by accident. It was not, we apprehend, employed to catch dolphins.

[725] Σαγήνη θυννευτική.--_Epist. Saturn._ tom. iii. p. 406. ed. Reitz.

[726] Ὁ θύννος ἐκ μυχοῦ τῆς σαγήνης διέφυγεν.--_Timon_,
§ 22. tom. i. p. 136.

[727] Οὐκ ἔτι πλησιάζει τῇ σαγήνῃ.--Ælian, H. A. xi. c. 12. In this
chapter the same net is twice called by the common name, δίκτυον.

In the following passage of the Odyssey (xxii. 384-387) we have a description of the use of a sean in a small bay, having a sandy shore at its extremity, and consequently most suitable for the employment of this kind of net:

Ὥστ’ ἰχθύας, οὕσθ’ ἁλιήες
Κοῖλον ἐς αἰγιαλὸν πολιῆς ἔκτοσθε θαλάσσης
Δικτύῳ ἐξέρυσαν πολυωπῷ· οἱ δέ τε πάντες
Κύμαθ’ ἁλὸς ποθέοντες ἐπὶ ψαμάθοισι κέχυνται.

The poet here compares Penelope’s suitors, who lie slain upon the ground, to fishes, “which the fishermen by means of a net full of holes have drawn out of the hoary sea to a hollow bay, and all of which, deprived of the waves of the sea, are poured upon the sands.” Although the general term δίκτυον is here used, it is evident that the net intended was the sean, or dragnet.

In one of the passages of Alciphron already referred to, mention is made of the use of the sean in a similar situation. Some persons, who are fishing in a bay for tunnies and pelamides, inclose nearly the whole bay with their sean, expecting to catch a very large quantity[728]. This circumstance proves, that the sean was used with the ancient Greeks, as it is with us, to encompass a great extent of water.

[728] Τῇ σαγῆνῃ μονονουχί τὸν κόλπον ὅλον περιελάβομεν. --_Epist._ i. 17.

A few miscellaneous passages, which refer to the use of the sean,
may be conveniently introduced here:

Diogenes, seeing a great number of fishes in the deep, says there
is need of a sean to catch them; σαγήνης δέησις.--Lucian, _Piscata_,
§ 51. tom. i. p. 618, ed. Reitz.

The sean is called, from its material, σαγηναίον λίνον, in an
epigram of Archias.--Brunck, _Anal._ ii. 94. No. 10.

Plutarch, describing the _spider’s web_, says, that its _weaving_
is like the labor _of women at the loom_, its hunting like that
of fishermen with the sean.--_De Solertia Animalium_, tom. x. p.
29, ed. Reiske. He here uses the term σαγηνευτὴς for _a fisher with
the sean_. This verbal noun is regularly formed from σαγηνεύειν,
which means _to inclose or catch with the sean_: e. g. ἐν δίκτυοις
σεσαγηνευμένοι.--Herodian, iv. 9, 12.

Lucian uses the same verb in reference to the story of Vulcan
inclosing Mars and Venus in a net; σαγηνεύει τοῖς δεσμοῖς.--_Dialogi
Deor._ tom. i. p. 243. _Somnium_, tom. ii. p. 707, ed. Reitz.

Leonidas of Tarentum, in an epigram enumerating the ornaments
of a lady’s toilet (Brunck, _Anal._ i. p. 221), mentions ὁ πλατὺς
τριχῶν σαγηνευτήρ. Jacobs (_Annot. in Anthol._ i. 2. p. 63) supposes
this to mean the lady’s comb; but, judging from the known meaning
of σαγήνη and its derivatives, we may conclude that it was the
κεκρύφαλος, or net, which inclosed and encircled the hair, like a sean.

The following verse of Manilius (lib. v. ver. 678.) is remarkable
as a rare instance of the adoption of the Greek word _sagena_ by a
Latin poet:--

Excipitur vasta circumvallata sagena.

We have seen that the sean supplied figures of speech no less than the purse-net (ἄρκυς), and the casting-net (ἀμφίβληστρον). It is applied thus in the case of persons who are ensnared by the wicked[729], who are captivated by the charms of love[730] or of eloquence[731], or who are held in bondage by superstition[732]. But by far the most distinct, expressive and important of its metaphorical applications, was to the mode of besieging a city by encircling it with one uninterrupted line of soldiers, or sweeping away the entire population of a certain district by marching in similar order across it. Of this the first example occurs in Herodotus iii. 145:--

Τὴν δὲ Σάμον σαγηνεύσαντες οἱ Πέρσαι παρέδοσαν Σολυσῶντι, ἐρῆμον ἐοῦσαν ἀνδρῶν.

“The Persians, having dragged Samos, delivered it, being now destitute of men, to Solyson.”

[729] Σαγηνεύομαι πρὸς αὐτῶν.--Lucian, _Timon_, § 25. tom. i. p. 138,
ed. Reitz.

[730] Brunck, _Anal._ iii. 157. No. 32. Here the sean is called by the
general term δίκτυον, but the particular kind of net is indicated by
the participle σαγηνευθείς.

[731]
Τῶνδὲ μαθητὴν,
Οἳ κόσμον γλυκερῇσι Θεοῦ δήσαντο σαγήναις,

_i. e._ “A disciple of those who bound the world in the sweet seans
of God.”--Greg. Nazianz. _ad Nemesium_, tom. ii. p. 141, ed. Paris,
1630. (See Chap. III, p. 53.)

[732] Plutarch, evidently referring to the siege of Jerusalem by
Titus, says, “The Jews on the Sabbath sitting down on coarse
blankets (ἐν ἀγνάμπτοις, literally, in ἱμάτια, or blankets, which
had not been fulled, or cleansed by the γναφεύς), even when the
enemy were setting the ladders to scale the walls, did not rise up,
but remained, as if inclosed in one sean, namely, superstition,
(ὥσπερ ἐν σαγήνῃ μιᾷ, τῇ δεισιδαιμονίᾳ, συνδεδεμένοι).”--_Opp._
tom. vi. _De Superstit._ p. 647, ed. Reiske.

As we speak of _dragging_ a pit, so the Greeks would have spoken, in this metaphorical sense, of _dragging_ an island. In the sixth book (ch. xxxi.) Herodotus particularly describes this method of capturing the enemy. According to this account the Persians landed on the northern side of the island. They then took hold of one another’s hands so as to form a long line, and thus linked together they walked across the island to the south side, so as to hunt out all the inhabitants. The historian here particularly mentions, that Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos were reduced to captivity in this manner. It is recorded by Plato[733], that Datis, in order to alarm the Athenians, against whom he was advancing at the head of the Persian army, spread a report that his soldiers, joining hand to hand, had taken all the Eretrians captive as in a sean. The reader is referred to the Notes of Wesseling and Valckenaer on Herod. iii. 149 for some passages, in which subsequent Greek authors have quoted Herodotus and Plato. We find σαγηνευθῆναι, “to be dragged,” used in the same manner by Heliodorus[734].

[733] _De Legibus_, lib. iii. prope finem.

[734] Lib. vii. p. 304. ed. Commelini.

In addition to the passages of Isaiah and Habakkuk which mention the drag in opposition to the casting-net; we find three references to the use of it in the prophecies of Ezekiel, viz. in Ezek. xxvi. 5. 14; xlvii. 10. The prophet, foretelling the destruction of Tyre, says it would become _a place to dry seans upon_, ψυγμὸς σαγηνῶν; “siccatio sagenarum,” _Vulgate Version_; “a place for the spreading of nets,” _Common English Version_. The Hebrew term for a drag or sean is here חרם.

The only passage of the New Testament which makes express mention of the sean, is Matt. xiii. 47, 48: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net (σαγήνη) that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.” The casting-net, which can only inclose part of a very small shoal, would not have been adapted to the object of this parable. But we perceive the allusion intended by it to the great quantity and variety of fishes of every kind which are brought to the shore of the bay (αἰγιαλὸν) by the use of the drag. The Vulgate here retains the Greek word, translating _sagena_ as in the above-cited passages of Habakkuk and Ezekiel. In John xxi. 6. 8. 11, the use of the sean is evidently intended to be described, although it is called four times by the common term δίκτυον, which denoted either a sean, or a net of any other kind. It is in this passage translated _rete_ in the Latin Vulgate.

The Greek σαγήνη having been adopted under the form _sagena_ in the Latin Vulgate, this was changed into rezne by the Anglo-Saxons[735], and their descendants, have still further abridged it into _sean_. In the south of England this word is also pronounced and spelt _seine_, as it is in French. We find in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History[736] a curious passage on the introduction of this kind of net into England. He says, “the people had as yet only learnt to catch eels with nets. Wilfrid caused them to collect together all their eel-nets, and to use them as a sean for catching fishes of all kinds.”

[735] See Caedmon, p. 75. ed. Junii.

[736] Page 294, ed. Wilkins.

VIII.

RETICULUS or RETICULUM.

ΓΥΡΓΑΘΟΣ.

In the ancient Glossaries we find Γύργαθος translated _Reticulus_ and _Reticulum_: it meant, therefore, _a small net_. It was not a name for nets in general, nor did it denote any kind of hunting-net or fishing-net, although the net indicated by this term might be used occasionally for catching animals as well as for other purposes. It was used, for example, in an island on the coast of India to catch tortoises, being set at the mouths of the caverns, which were the resort of those creatures[737]. But the same term is applied to the nets which were used to carry pebbles and stones intended to be thrown from military engines[738]; and a similar contrivance was in common use for carrying loaves of bread[739]. Hence it is manifest that the γύργαθος was often much like the nets in which the Jewish boys in our streets carry lemons, being inclosed at the mouth by a running string or noose. We may therefore translate γύργαθος, “a bag-net,” as it was made in the form of a bag. “To blow into a bag-net,” εἰς γύργαθον φυσᾷν, became a proverb, meaning to labor in vain. But this bag was often of much smaller dimensions, and of much finer materials, than in the instances already mentioned. From a passage of Æneas Tacticus (p. 54. ed. Orell.) we may infer that it was sometimes not larger than a purse for the pocket. Hence Aristotle[740] properly applies the term γύργαθος to the small spherical or oval bag in which spiders deposit their eggs. Among the luxurious habits of the Sicilian prætor Verres, it is recorded, that he had a small and very fine linen net, filled with rose-leaves, “which ever and anon he gave his nose[741].” This net was, no doubt, called γύργαθος in Greek.

[737] Ἐν δὲ ταύτῃ τῇ νήσῳ καὶ γύργαθοις αὐτὰς ἰδίως λινεύουσιν,
ἀντὶ δικτύων καθίεντες αὐτοὺς περὶ τὰ στόματα τῶν προράχων.

[738] Athenæus, lib. v. § 43. p. 208, ed. Casaub.

[739] Γύργαθον· σκεῦος πλεκτὸν, ἐν ᾧ βάλλουσι τὸν ἄρτον οἱ
ἀρτοκόποι.--Hesych. Reticulum panis.--Hor. _Sat._ i. l. 47.

[740] _Anim. Hist._ v. 27. Compare Apollodorus, _Frag._ xi. p. 454, ed.
Heyne.

[741] Reticulum ad nares sibi admovebat, tenuissimo lino, minutis
maculis, plenum rosæ.--Cic. _in Verr._ ii. 5. 11. --_Arrian, Per.
Maris Eryth._ p. 151. ed. Blancardi.

THE END.

Transcriber’s Notes:

A number of typographical errors have been corrected silently.

Cover is in public domain.

Footnote 731 may not be pointing to the exactly correct location as the original was not marked.