[191] It was on the advice of Socrates that Xenophon consulted the oracle at Delphi, before he set forth for the campaign in Asia, which forms the story of his _Anabasis_. Tablets discovered in Epirus in 1877 by C. Carapanos (_see_ _Dodone et ses Ruines_, Paris, 1878) give examples of questions addressed to the oracle at Delphi. Agis asks if some mattresses and pillows are likely to be recovered. Another pilgrim enquires whether the god recommends sheep-farming as an investment.
[193] Plutarch’s account (_Sept. Sap. Conviv._, ch. 19) varies in many details; notably, (1) it acquits Hesiod of seduction, (2) the brothers of flight, (3) the maiden of hanging herself.
THE DOLPHIN—HERODOTUS—THE ICHTHYOPHAGI—THE TUNNY
The _Shield of Heracles_, now rarely attributed to Hesiod the poet nearest in time to Homer, gives us pictures, similar if more ornate in style to those in Homer’s “The Shield of Achilles.”
_The Shield of Heracles_ would probably not have been written had not Homer’s “Shield of Achilles” existed. It differs from the older poem in the presentation of mythological scenes and a scene of fishing, but is perhaps the most complete illustration from fisher life extant before Theocritus.
“there appeared A sheltering haven from the untamed rage Of ocean. It was wrought of tin refined And rounded by the chisel; and it seemed Like to the dashing wave; and in the midst Full many dolphins chased the fry, and show’d As though they swam the waters, to and fro Darting tumultuous. Two of silver scale Panting above the wave, the fishes mute Gorged, that beneath them shook their quivering fins In brass. But on the crag a fisher sate Observant: in his grasp he held a net Like one that, poising, rises to the throw.”[194]
The painting of the harbour, of the cliffs, of the fishes tossing in tumultuous heaps, and of the chase and capture by dolphins of their prey, all seem to Mr. Hall but a careful elaboration of a suitable background (as the fields, etc., in the ancient Pastorals form an artistic background to the shepherds) for the solitary figure.
“But, on the crag a fisher sate Observant; in his grasp he held a net, Like one that, poising, rises to the throw.”
The occurrence here of the Dolphin, together with the part that it played in the recovery of Hesiod’s body, makes this an appropriate place for a brief _résumé_ of the position occupied by this fish in Greek and Roman authors, and of the many pretty legends in which for all time its memory is enshrined.[195]