CHAPTER XV

FISH IN SACRIFICES—PICKLED FISH—VIVARIA OF OYSTERS, ETC.—ARCHIMEDES

The Feast Day, _Ludi_, of the Tiber fishermen was celebrated on the Campus Martius in June under the management of the _Prætor Urbanus_ with much ceremony. Ovid[504] sings:

“Festa dies illis qui lina madentia ducunt, Quique tegunt parvis æra recurva cibis.”

The custom of offering to the Gods fish (although rarer than that of animals) certainly and widely prevailed. Proof can be piled on proof—_pace_ a passage from Plutarch and _pace_ the contention that the practice is not purely Hellenic—from the pages of both Greek and Roman authors.

Take, for instance, the statement of Agatharchides of Knidos: that the largest eels from Lake Copaïs were sacrificed by the Bœotians, who crowned them like human victims, and after sprinkling them with meal offered prayers over them.[505] Or the story in Posidonius the Stoic of Sarpedon celebrating his victory by “sacrificing to Neptune, who puts armies to flight, enormous quantities of fish.”[506] Theocritus in his fragmentary _Berenice_, Ælian,[507] and Antigonus on the offering of the Tunny all confirm the custom.[508]

Plutarch (_Symp._, VIII. 3) would seem indeed the only exception: he straightly asserts, according to Nonnius and others, that “no fish is fitting for offering or sacrifice.”[509]

This is but another instance of Plutarch’s being saddled with responsibility for some expression or opinion uttered by one of his characters, as is clearly shown by the words: “Sylla, commending the discourse, added with regard to the Pythagoreans that they tasted especially the flesh sacrificed to the gods, but that no fish is fit for offering or sacrifices.”

P. Stengel holds that fish, with the curious exception of the Eel, were not sacrificed to the gods in early days, because they neither possessed blood which could be poured forth at the altar, nor could they be offered up alive as could be an enemy, a sacrifice which found special favour in divine eyes.[510]

This statement, unless explained in some manner, contrasts queerly with the passage in Plutarch’s _Life of Numa Pompilius_, where the king is taught by Picus and Faunus, reinforced subsequently by Jupiter himself, to make a lustration “as a charm against thunder and lightning, composed of Onions, Hair, and Pilchards!” Lest these curious constituents arouse your mirth and infect you with doubt as to their efficacy, hearken unto Plutarch’s further words, “which is used even unto this day!”

From this account (wittily versed by Ovid)[511] we discover Jupiter, resentful at being brought down to earth by the magic of Picus and Faunus, ordering the charm to consist “of Heads”—“Of onions,” replied Numa. “Human”—“Hairs,” said Numa, desirous to fence against the dreadful injunction, and interrupting the god. “Living,” said Jupiter—“Pilchards,” broke in Numa.

Whether fish were but rarely sacrificed or not, Festus[512] at any rate makes clear that at the _Ludi_ on June 7th, and possibly the _Volcanalia_ in September (although at the latter the oblations were mostly animal), Roman fishermen did offer up fish, “quod id genus pisciculorum vivorum datur ei Deo pro animis humanis.”

Offerings of fish may be (as O. Keller suggests) a relic of Totemism resting on the belief that the spirits of men after death pass into fish.

The suggestion gains force when we remember that Anaximander[513] and others taug