Note 308 — Chapter VI · CHARACTERISTICS OF FISHERMEN IN GREECE AND ROME—POVERTY “THE BADGE OF ALL OUR TRIBE”—DEITIES OF FISHING

The happiest, perhaps the only happy, fishermen are those shown at the bottom of drinking cups, etc.! In P. Hartwig’s (Die griechischen Meisterschalen (Stuttgart-Berlin, 1893), p. 37 ff.) collection of red-figured Greek vases representing fishermen at work, there is an Attic kylix (fifth cent. b.c.) with such a fisherman, who (the idea ran) was only in his element, when the cup was filled with wine. Cf. Theocritus, I. 39 ff., for another old fisherman in the bottom of a herdsman’s cup.