[176] In _The Confessions of a Beachcomber_, pp. 266-8 (London, 1913), the illustrations of pearl-shell fish-hooks in various stages of completion tend to confirm this statement, while the author, Mr. Banfield, inclines to Mr. Minchin’s theory as regards the horn of an ox.
[177] Maspero, _Egyptian Archæology_, p. 270.
[178] “On Homeric Fishing Tackle,” _Jour. of Philology_, XIX., 1891.
[179] Described by Mr. Moseley, _Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger_, p. 467.
[180] In Victor Bérard’s _Les Phéniciens et l’Odyssée_ (Paris, 1903), vol. ii. p. 64 ff. (a work, compact of knowledge and of both classical and modern research, which tracks characters and episodes in Homer to and compares them with Egyptian and Phœnician accounts), is found a very interesting dissertation on Proteus, the guardian of the seals of Poseidon and foreteller of the future (_Od._, IV.). Bérard holds that the name was simply a Greek form of the Egyptian word Prouiti, or Prouti, which was one of the ascriptions or titles of the kings of Egypt, as to whose knowledge of or association with magicians (who, like Proteus, were capable of transforming themselves or other objects) he cites alike Maspero and the Old Testament. See, however, for other possibilities, P. Weizsäcker in Roscher, _Lex. Myth._, iii. 3172-3178, who concludes that for us, as for Menelaos or Aristaios, Proteus the shape-shifter is still a very slippery customer.
[181] Otto Keller, _Die Antike Tierwelt_ (Leipzig, 1913), ii. 357.
THE CONTEST BETWEEN HOMER AND HESIOD—HOMER’S DEATH
The cause and circumstances of Homer’s death remain uncertain and disputed. For them some writers hold fisherfolk responsible.
Midway between (A) the tradition that Homer took so to heart his impotency to read—be it remembered he had been acclaimed “of mortals far the wisest”—the riddle of the fisher boys, that he took also to bed and shortly after died, and (B) the absolute assertion by Herodotus the Grammarian (_Vita Homeri_) that the poet “died at Ios of disease contracted on his arrival there, and not of grief at failing to understand the riddle of the fishers,” lies the account of the death given in the Ἀγὼν Ἡσιόδου καὶ Ὁμήρου, or _The Contest between Hesiod and Homer_.[183]