This devotion to his imprisoned fellow was turned to good account by fishermen. Fastening a hook in the jaw of and trailing a net behind a female _scarus_ (preferably alive) they secured large catches by dropping the lead, which reversed the net and enmeshed the would-be rescuers. With the seed of the coriander _Scari_ are taken “with a vengeance!”[388]
Ælian (I. 4) concludes a similar story, probably purloined from Oppian, for he was an adept in picking up unconsidered and unacknowledged trifles, with, “These things do they, as men do: but to do loving-kindness are _they_ born, not taught”; which demonstrates that the invaluable _Scarus_ provides men, not only with a menu, but also a moral!
If we cannot absolutely claim for Martial the first mention of the jointed Fishing Rod and the natural or artificial Fly, we are safe in acclaiming him the author of the first notice, “Fishing strictly prohibited,” or “Chasse défendue,” in his
“Baiano procul a lacu recede, Piscator: fuge, ne nocens recedas.” (IV. 30.)
This epigram furnishes Bunsmann with one of the only three acts of _Impietas_ which he can allege against the blameless race of fishermen. Martial here solemnly warns a fellow craftsman against fishing in the lake of Baiæ, because (1) the fish there are sacred to the Emperor Domitian, (2) a previous intruder was smitten blind in the very act of landing his fish, so that—and here comes a touch of the true angler—“he could not _see_ his spoil.”
The pretty compliment, veiled in the words “sacred fish,” ranks Domitian as a god, because, as at many temples of the gods fish were held sacred, so at his Baian abode the fish had been shown by divine action to be sacred. But the fulsome bluntness of “than whom in the whole world there is none mightier” mars the effect. Lest, however, his friend might think that “Not twice in this world shall the Gods do thus,” or deem the superhuman sanction played out, Martial adjures him to throw to the fish some plain hookless food, and “dum potes, innocens recede.”
These Baian fish were evidently not as sophisticated or as discriminating as their neighbours, the _Melanuri_, which greedily snatch food thrown into the sea, but to any bit whatsoever containing a hook they approach neither delicately, nor at all.[389]