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Historical Portrait of the Progress of Ichthyology / Tableau historique des progrès de l’ichtyologie

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Georges Cuvier

Part one/Première partie. The Earliest Beginnings/Les origines

2. Aristotle and His Disciples

Texte intégral

  • 1 [Homer], The Odyssey, bk 12, line 332 [Homer, the Greek epic poet, eighth century b.c., according t (...)
  • 2 Ibid., bk 4, line 369 [ “No man in Homeric times would eat fish when he could get meat” (see Homer, (...)
  • 3 [Plato], The Republic, bk 3 [v. 404]. [Plato, born at Athens or Aegina in 427 b.c., became a pupil (...)
  • 4 [Athenaeus], Deipnosophistae, [or Banquet of the Learned], bk x, chap. 15 [Athenaeus was an Egyptia (...)

1It is among the Greeks that we find the first foundations of ichthyology, and of all other sciences as well. Actually, it has been claimed that they at first did not consider fishes an important food. Homer’s heroes were never served fishes, and even Ulysses wrote that his companions caught fishes only after being pressed by hunger. Some commentators believed that an excuse may be found in the words, “For hunger weighed upon our stomachs”1 —words used by Menelaus in a like circumstance,2 but that proves nothing, neither that fishes were undesirable nor that the art of fishing was unknown. The very fact that the companions of Ulysses and Menelaus took fishhooks with them proves the contrary; furthermore, Plato3 and Athenaeus4 attributed the abstinence of these warriors from eating fishes to the fear of weakening themselves with too pleasant a diet.

  • 5 [Homer], The Odyssey, bk 22, v. 384 [ “However he found them all weltering in dust and blood, many (...)
  • 6 Ibid., bk 12, v. 251.
  • 7 Hesiod, Scutum Herculis [ “The Shield of Hercules”], lines 210-215 [see Hesiod, Works and days — Th (...)

2Moreover, Homer spoke in several places about fishing with a hook and with a net. He compared Penelope’s pining suitors to fishes in a pile flapping on the beach where the fishermen had just emptied their nets.5 When Scylla drew six of Ulysses’s men into her whirlpool, he depicted them as being like the little fishes to which the fisherman had held out his bait on a long rod.6 Hesiod placed on the shield of Hercules an alert fisherman, ready to cast his nets over fishes pursued by a dolphin.7

  • 8 [Aristophanes, the great comic dramatist and poet of Athens, c. 448 to c. 385 B.C. (Encyclopaedia B (...)

3How, in fact, could such ignorance and such prohibition, if indeed they ever existed, have continued in force in a country like Greece, invaded everywhere by bays and arms of the sea, where the population was mostly insular and given to navigation from earliest times? We must conclude, on the contrary, that fresh as well as salted fishes were at an early stage perhaps the most important item in the Greek diet. This fact is mentioned unceasingly by the comic poets. Aristophanes,8 in his works that survive, referred to it twenty times, and Athenaeus cited perhaps two hundred passages and authors (their works now lost) on the subject.

  • 9 Athenaeus, [Deipnosophistae, or Banquet of the Learned], bk 3, chap. 90; bk. 8, chap. 23 [Athenaeus (...)
  • 10 See in Athenaeus, [ibid.], bk 8, chap. 24, that Callimedon was the butt of endless jokes.
  • 11 Athenaeus, [ibid.], bk 8 [chap. 25]. [On survivals of ancient Greek zoological illustrations, see K (...)

4The art of fishing thus became one of the most lucrative and most widespread industries; in favorable locations, great salteries were built, which later became considerable towns. Byzantium and Synope flourished especially for this reason; and it was the great abundance of fishes that gave the port of Byzantium the name the “Golden Horn.” Private citizens made rapid fortunes in this commerce, and the ancient comedians made fun several times of a salt-fish merchant named Chaerephilus, who became a citizen of Athens and whose son wasted the fortune that the father had so laboriously amassed.9 Different personalities became the objects of satire solely for having loved fishes so excessively. Such were a certain Callimedon, nicknamed the Crawfish (langouste), about whom the comedians would never keep quiet ;10 Philoxenes of Cythera, a poet in dithyrambics who, learning from his doctor that he was about to die of indigestion from eating the greater part of a fish, asked to eat the rest of it first (a funny story so well versified by La Fontaine); the great orators Callias and Hyperides, who loved fishes as much as games of chance; Melanthus the tragedian; and others. Especially cited is Androcides of Cyzicus, a painter whose liking for fishes led him to represent with great care, after nature, the species in the Strait of Scylla, and who was thus the precursor of the great iconographers of our day.11

  • 12 [See Buffon (Georges-Louis Leclerc de), Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la descr (...)

5One proof of the great number of species the Greeks succeeded in recognizing is that there remain in their language more than four hundred names for designating fishes, which certainly no other language approaches, and as Buffon said very judiciously: “Does not this abundance of words, this richness in fine and precise expressions indicate the same abundance in ideas and knowledge? Does not one see that these people, who named many more things than we, as a consequence, knew many more things?”12

  • 13 Strabo, [Geographia], bk 13, pt 1, chap. 54.
  • 14 Archestratus, from Syracuse or from Gela, was author of a poem on the subject of good living, whose (...)
  • 15 This is the list of authors connected with the Historia animalium that was placed by Friedrich Sylb (...)
  • 16 These last [three] authors are cited [by Aristotle] in the books of De generatione animalium [e.g., (...)

6Naturally, in these circumstances, several writers wrote either about the fishes themselves, on their fisheries, or on the use made of them in the art of cookery and on the precautions that hygiene recommended in their use. One may judge by the numerous citations of Athenaeus that in fact there existed many books on these matters. Unfortunately, Athenaeus did not indicate when each of these cited authors lived, and among the traits that he reported there are rarely any that are useful in identifying the authors. Therefore, for some of them it is not easy to determine whether they preceded Aristotle or came after him; nor is it easy to distinguish those whose works were used by Aristotle, this first of naturalists, from those who on the contrary profited from his works. Careful as he was in collecting the books of those who came before him, being one of the first to form a library,13 it can hardly be doubted that he acknowledged every author who was able to furnish him with interesting facts, and yet he did not cite any of those Athenaeus mentioned as having spoken of fishes, not even those who must have been his contemporaries, such as Archestratus, master of the art of eating, whose gastrology14 was said to be a guide for Epicurus in his search for pleasure. The only names mentioned in Aristotle’s books on animals are those of Aeschylus, Alcmaeon, Ctesias, Diogenes of Apollonia, Herodorus, Herodotus, Homer, Musaeus, Polybius, Simonides, Syennesis,15 Empedocles, Democritus, and Anaxagoras.16

  • 17 The biography of Aristotle is well known, and only the main points are mentioned here. He was born (...)

7It is true that Aristotle seldom cited any authors but those he wished to refute —a practice too common in our own time— and he has even been accused of ingratitude toward Hippocrates, whose name he did not mention, although he must have borrowed more than one idea from him. On the other hand, I do not believe he did a great wrong to the ichthyologists who preceded him, if in fact there were any before him. Those fragments preserved by Athenaeus that may be attributed to them do not show that they treated their subject methodically or extensively, and we may believe that it was only under the pen of Aristotle that ichthyology, like all other branches of zoology, first took the form of a true science.17

Aristotle
“Aristoteles Homo Graecus Philosophus.” Engraving portrait by Jean Frosne (17th century).
Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN

  • 18 [Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, or Banquet of the Learned], bk 8, chap. 47 [see Athenaeus, The Deipnos (...)

8This great man, supported by a great prince, collected facts from everywhere, and the facts in his works are so numerous and so new that for several centuries they incurred posterity’s disbelief. The personalities described by Athenaeus wondered how Aristotle was able to learn what he wrote in reference to the habits of fishes, their propagation, and other details of their lives that take place in the most hidden recesses of the sea.18

Kylix
by the Ambrosios Painter, Athens, Greece, Archaic period, c. 510-500 BC, ceramic with red-figure technique; original in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.

  • 19 [Ibid.], bk 9, chap. 58. [ “It is said that the Stagirite (Aristotle) received eight hundred talent (...)
  • 20 Pliny, [Naturalis historia], bk 8, chap. 17, v. 44. [Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny (...)

9Athenaeus himself answered the question; he told us that Alexander gave Aristotle eight hundred talents (more than three million francs)19 for collecting materials for his Historia animalium, to which Pliny added that the king put several thousand men at Aristotle’s disposal for hunting, fishing, and observing all that he desired to know.20

  • 21 Pliny [ibid.], in bk 8, chap. 17, mentions fifty books [see Pliny the Elder, Natural history [with (...)

10This is not the place to set forth in detail what Aristotle did with this munificence, to analyze his numerous works of natural history,21 or to enumerate the immense quantity of facts and laws he succeeded in setting down. We shall not even show the genius with which he laid the foundations of comparative anatomy and established in the animal kingdom, and in several of its classes, a classification based on their structure that was changed very little in succeeding ages. It is only as an ichthyologist that we are to consider him, and in that branch of zoology, even had he treated of none other, one must recognize him as a superior man.

  • 22 [Aristotle], Historia animalium, bk 2, chap. 13; and especially De partibus animalium, bk 4, chap.  (...)
  • 23 [Aristotle], Historia animalium, bk 2, chap. 13.
  • 24 [Aristotle], De partibus animalium, bk 3, chap. 1.
  • 25 [Aristotle], Historia animalium, bk 2, chap. 13.
  • 26 [Ibid.], bk 4, chap. 8.
  • 27 Ibid.
  • 28 [Ibid.], bk 2, chap. 13.
  • 29 [Ibid.], bk 2, chaps 15-16.

11He was completely knowledgeable in the general structure of fishes: “They lack a neck,” he said; “their tail is continuous with their body, except in the rays (raies), where it is long and slender; they do not have hands, or feet, or scrotum, or virile member, or teats. One must distinguish them from the marine animals that produce living young, such as the dolphin, which has teats hidden in folds near its vulva. The special character of true fishes is found in the gills and fins: most have four fins [two pairs]; but those with an elongated form, such as freshwater eels (anguilles), have only two. Some, like the moray eel (murène), lack [paired] fins altogether. Rays (raies) swim with their whole wide body. Gills are sometimes supplied with an opercle, but sometimes not, as is the case with the cartilaginous fishes: the gills of some are simple while those of others are double.”22 He even noticed that the swordfish (xiphias) has eight gills on each side, which is true in the sense that each of its gills is divided into two combs. “No fish has hair or feathers; most are covered with scales; some have skin either rough or smooth. Their tongue is hard, often armed with teeth, and sometimes so firmly attached that they appear to be devoid of the organ altogether,23 this because they must swallow rapidly; which is also why their teeth are generally hooked.24 They lack eyelids. One does not see their ears or their nares,25 for what serves as nares is in a hidden cavity.26 Nevertheless, they enjoy the senses of tasting, smelling, and hearing,” which the author proved by a number of experiments.27 “All have blood; all scaly fishes have eggs, but the cartilaginous fishes, except for the anglerfish (baudroie), give birth to live young.28 All have a heart, a liver, and a gallbladder,” and in this regard he goes into quite particular and quite true detail on the gallbladder of the dragonet (callionyme) and the bonito (amia); but he is wrong in denying that fishes have kidneys and a bladder.29

  • 30 [Aristotle], De partibus animalium, bk 3, chap. 14.
  • 31 [Aristotle], Historia animalium, bk 2, chap. 17; De partibus animalium, bk 3, chap. 14.
  • 32 [Aristotle, Historia animalium], bk 3, chap. 1.

12“Their intestines vary greatly; there are some, such as the mullet (muge), that have a fleshy gizzard like that of birds; others scarcely have an apparent stomach.30 Blind appendages or ceca adhere near their stomach, quite numerous in some, not so numerous in others. There are even some that have none at all, like most of the cartilaginous fishes.31 Along the vertebral column extend two organs that serve as testes, the excretory canals of which end at the anus, and that become much larger at the time of spawning.”32

  • 33 [Ibid.], bk 3, chap. 11.
  • 34 [Ibid.], bk 4, chap. 9.
  • 35 [Ibid.], bk 4, chap. 10.
  • 36 [Ibid.], bk 5, chap. 5.
  • 37 He [Aristotle] designates the parts by letters, as is still done today. See [Historia animalium], b (...)

13“Their scales harden with age.33 Lacking lungs, they have no voice as such, and yet there are several (which he names) that make sounds and a sort of grunting.34 Like other animals, they need sleep.35 In most kinds the females are larger than the males. In the sharks (squales) and rays (raies) the male is distinguished by claspers on both sides of the anus.”36 Not only did Aristotle make numerous observations, from which he deduced such exact rules, but he also showed these different structures in drawings.37

  • 38 See [Aristotle, Historia animalium], bk 5, chap. 4; bk 6, chaps 10-17; bk 8, chaps 2, 13, 20, 30; b (...)

14As for species, Aristotle knew and named as many as 117, and he wrote about their way of life, their migrations, their friendships and rivalries, the ruses they employ, their loves, the times of their spawning, their egg laying and fecundity, the method of catching them, the times when their flesh is best, with details that one would have difficulty today either contradicting or confirming, so far are modern men from observing fishes the way this great naturalist seems to have done, through his own effort or through his correspondents. It would be necessary to spend several years in the islands of the Archipelago and live there with the fishermen to be able to have an opinion on this subject.38

Fishing scene
Rectangular plate of baked clay decorated with the figures of four marine fishes and two bivalves, the work of a greek artist of souther Italy, fourth century B.C. Illustration after Singer (Charles),
A history of biology to about the year 1900: A general introduction to the study of living things [third and revised ed.], New York: Abelar-Schuman, 1959, xxxvi + 579 p., fig. 3.

  • 39 [Of the numerous hermaphroditic fishes in the Mediterranean (most of which belong to the families S (...)

15Aristotle, it is true, accepted spontaneous generation, but it must be admitted that he supported this theory with rather specious facts. However, what he said about the difficulty of finding freshwater eels (anguilles) in a state of reproduction is well founded, and naturalists of our day scarcely have more certain knowledge of the procreation of this species than the ancients. Even in recent times, one of his most paradoxical assertions has been verified, namely, that a species of Serranus (channa) impregnates itself, and that all individuals of the species produce eggs.39

16What is most regrettable in this mass of such precise information is that the author did not suspect that the nomenclature used in his time would come to be obscure, and that he took no precaution to make recognizable the species he was writing about. This is a general fault among ancient naturalists; one is almost obliged to guess the meanings of the names they used. Even tradition has changed and leads us into error: it is only by very laborious calculations and by bringing together and comparing the characteristics scattered among the authors that one succeeds in getting fairly positive results for some species, but we are still condemned to be ignorant of most of them.

  • 40 Theophrastus, born about 371 b.c. on the island of Lesbos of a fuller named Melanthus, was at first (...)
  • 41 [The genus Ophicephalus (now recognized as a junior synonym of Channa Scopoli, 1777) was originally (...)

17We have purposely given this somewhat extensive discussion of the works of Aristotle on fishes because he is not only the first but also the only one of the ancients to have written about their natural history with a scientific viewpoint and with some genius. For a while his school followed in his footsteps: Theophrastus,40 his most worthy student, added some interesting facts to this part of science. In his treatise On Fishes That Live on Dry Land, he spoke clearly about the fishes of India, described just recently under the name Ophicephalus (ophicephales),41 and of the loach (misgurn, Cobitis fossilis Linnaeus), which remains alive in the mud after the marsh it inhabits has dried up.

  • 42 Athenaeus, [Deipnosophistae, or Banquet of the Learned], bk 7, chap. 1 [see Athenaeus, The Deipnoso (...)
  • 43 Ibid., bk 8, chaps 5, 6.
  • 44 Ibid., bk 7, chap. 17, and several other places in this book.
  • 45 Ibid., bk 8, chap. 18.

18The famous physician and anatomist Erasistratus, grandson of Aristotle, his pupil and also the pupil of Theophrastus, wrote a work on nutrition derived from fishes. Clearchus, another disciple of Aristotle,42 composed a treatise on the general subject of aquatic animals, of which Athenaeus quoted passages on the flying fish (adonis or exocet) and on fishes that make sounds.43 Another treatise on fishes was written by Dorion,44 who must have lived at about the same time, if he is the same man about whom many droll stories are told and who was quoted by Lynceus, a disciple of Theophrastus.45

  • 46 Ibid., bk 1, chap. 22, and elsewhere throughout the book.

19Several works on hygiene can also be attributed to this era and to the influence of the Peripatetic philosophy. I include among them that by Diocles of Carystus, dedicated to Antigonus; the treatise on healthful things for the healthy and the sick by Diphilus of Siphne, a contemporary of Demetrius, son of Antigonus; the treatise on nutrition by Philotimus, disciple of Praxagoras and contemporary of Herophilus; and another on the same subject by Icesius, a disciple of Herophilus. One sees from the quotations of Athenaeus that fishes were often mentioned. If there were any certainty about the time when their authors lived, I could also readily include the poem on men and the sea by Pancratius the Arcadian; the Halieutica by Numenius of Heraclea; poems on fishes by Coclus of Argos and by Posidonius of Corinth, a very different man from the great philosopher Posidonius of Apamea; prose essays by Seleucus of Tarsus and Leonides of Byzantium; and the book on salted fishes by Euthydemus of Athens. But all these writers are known to us only from the few words Athenaeus wrote about them.46

  • 47 Alexander died in 324 b.c., Ptolemy-Lagus in 284 b.c., and Ptolemy-Philadelphus in 246 b.c.
  • 48 Lucian, Vitarum Audio [Sale of Creeds, v. 26: “Why, from him (the Peripatetic) you will find out in (...)
  • 49 Lucius Apuleius, of Madaura in Numidia, also a contemporary of the Antonines [born c. a.d. 125; the (...)

20Still, one may see that fishes were an object of general attention among the Greeks, and it is probable that if the Greeks had continued in the footsteps of Aristotle, ichthyology would have made great progress; but to have more Aristotles, more Alexanders were needed. Positive natural history requires work and expense that a private person without patronage cannot afford. Ptolemy-Lagus, himself a pupil of the philosopher of Stagira [Aristotle], and his son Ptolemy-Philadelphus, throughout their lives47 gave encouragement to all kinds of science, but their unworthy successors no longer took an interest, and the school they established at Alexandria found it more convenient to cultivate erudition, geometry, and metaphysics than to exert itself in research on the productions of nature. As a natural consequence, the Peripatetic philosophy, especially its emphasis on experiment, fell by degrees into a kind of contempt; the Academy and the Porch [Platonists] were in the ascendant, and scientific observers were ridiculed. The drolleries of Lucian, who shows us a Peripatetic philosopher examining the length of a gnat’s life and the nature of the soul in the oyster,48 were probably told long before him; these kinds of studies became so uncommon that when Apuleius was accused of magic, one of the main arguments used against him was that he engaged in the study of rare and strange fishes.49

Notes

1 [Homer], The Odyssey, bk 12, line 332 [Homer, the Greek epic poet, eighth century b.c., according to legend, is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.]

2 Ibid., bk 4, line 369 [ “No man in Homeric times would eat fish when he could get meat” (see Homer, Odyssey, books I-XII [with introduction, notes, etc. by Merry W. W.], Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895, 2 pts in 1, pt 2, p. 57).]

3 [Plato], The Republic, bk 3 [v. 404]. [Plato, born at Athens or Aegina in 427 b.c., became a pupil of Socrates (c. 470 to c. 399 b.c.), visited Sicily, formed a school in the garden of Academus in 386 b.c., and died in 347 b.c. (see Plato, The Republic [tr. by Lindsay A. D.], New York: E. P. Dutton, 1954, p. ii).]

4 [Athenaeus], Deipnosophistae, [or Banquet of the Learned], bk x, chap. 15 [Athenaeus was an Egyptian, born in Naucratis on the Nile; the age he lived in is uncertain, but most agree that his work, at least the latter portion of it, must have appeared after a.d. 228 (see Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned [literally translated by Yonge Charles Duke] London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854, vol. 1, p. iii).]

5 [Homer], The Odyssey, bk 22, v. 384 [ “However he found them all weltering in dust and blood, many as the fish dragged forth by sailors from the grey sea in seine nets up on the beach of some bay, where they lie heaped on the sand and languishing for the briny waves, while the sun’s shining saps their life away. Just so were the suitors heaped together” (Homer, The Odyssey [newly translated into English prose by Shaw Thomas Edward], New York: Oxford University Press, 1932, p. 301).]

6 Ibid., bk 12, v. 251.

7 Hesiod, Scutum Herculis [ “The Shield of Hercules”], lines 210-215 [see Hesiod, Works and days — The Theogony — The shield of Herakles [tr. by Way Arthur Sanders], London: Macmillan, 1934, p. 61]. [Hesiod, born at Ascra, near Mount Helicon, probably flourished during the eighth century B.C.; he is considered the father of Greek didactic poetry (Encyclopaedia Britannica, London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1951, vol. 11, p. 529).]

8 [Aristophanes, the great comic dramatist and poet of Athens, c. 448 to c. 385 B.C. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1951, vol. 2, p. 347]

9 Athenaeus, [Deipnosophistae, or Banquet of the Learned], bk 3, chap. 90; bk. 8, chap. 23 [Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned [literally translated by Yonge Charles Duke], London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854, 2 vols].

10 See in Athenaeus, [ibid.], bk 8, chap. 24, that Callimedon was the butt of endless jokes.

11 Athenaeus, [ibid.], bk 8 [chap. 25]. [On survivals of ancient Greek zoological illustrations, see Kádár (Zoltán), Survivals of Greek zoological illuminations in Byzantine manuscripts, with 232 half tone and 10 colour plates [tr. by Wilkinson Timothy], Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978, 138 + 232 p.]

12 [See Buffon (Georges-Louis Leclerc de), Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du cabinet du Roy, Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1749, vol. 1, pp. 42-43; see also chap. 8, note 36.]

13 Strabo, [Geographia], bk 13, pt 1, chap. 54.

14 Archestratus, from Syracuse or from Gela, was author of a poem on the subject of good living, whose title was variously reported to be Gastronomia, Hedypathy, Deipnology, and Opsopaea.

15 This is the list of authors connected with the Historia animalium that was placed by Friedrich Sylburg [1536-1596] at the beginning of his edition of Aristotle’s work [published at Frankfurt, 1587].

16 These last [three] authors are cited [by Aristotle] in the books of De generatione animalium [e.g., see bk 4, v. 1].

17 The biography of Aristotle is well known, and only the main points are mentioned here. He was born at Stagirus in Macedonia in 384 b.c. His father, Nichomachus, was physician to Amyntas, the father of Philip of Macedonia, and belonged to a branch of the Asclepiades. He first studied medicine under his father. Orphaned at eighteen years, he went to Athens and supported himself by selling medicinals (Athenaeus called him “Pharmacopole” because of this). He studied under Plato and opened his own school sometime before the death of his master. As early as 356 b.c., Philip appointed him tutor to Alexander. When war erupted between Philip and Athens in 346 b.c., Aristotle left that city and took refuge with Hermias, the prince of Atarna, in Mysia. After the latter was betrayed and killed by the Persians, Aristotle married his sister. In 343 b.c. Alexander, at the age of thirteen, was put in his care. It is believed that he followed Alexander on his expedition to Egypt. In 331 b.c. he went back to Athens and opened a school of his own in a garden known as the Lyceum. After the death of Alexander in 324 b.c., the demagogues supported by the Sophists and the Platonists accused him of impiety and (as he himself explained it) “to prevent the Athenians from committing another crime against philosophy,” he withdrew with his disciples to Euboea, where he died in 322 b.c. at the age of sixty-three. [On Aristotle and the beginnings of zoology, see Balme (David M.), “Aristotle and the beginnings of zoology,” Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, vol. 5, no. 4, 1970, pp. 272-285.]

18 [Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, or Banquet of the Learned], bk 8, chap. 47 [see Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned [literally translated by Yonge Charles Duke], London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854, 2 vols].

19 [Ibid.], bk 9, chap. 58. [ “It is said that the Stagirite (Aristotle) received eight hundred talents from Alexander as his contribution towards perfecting his History of Animals” (Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned [literally translated by Yonge Charles Duke], London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854, vol. 2, p. 628).]

20 Pliny, [Naturalis historia], bk 8, chap. 17, v. 44. [Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, was born at Como in a.d. 23 and died in the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in a.d. 79 (Pliny the Elder, Natural history [with an English tr. by Rackham Harris], Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938, vol. 1, p. vii).]

21 Pliny [ibid.], in bk 8, chap. 17, mentions fifty books [see Pliny the Elder, Natural history [with an English translation by Rackham Harris], Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940, vol. 3, p. 35] but only twenty-five are extant: nine on the natural history of animals, four on the parts of animals, five on the generation of animals, one on the locomotion of animals one on the senses and their organs, one on sleep and wakefulness, one on the movement of animals, one on the length of life, brevity and longevity, one on youth, old age, life and death, and one on respiration. Twelve more are found in another enumeration, albeit quite incomplete, by Diogenes Laertius [see Diogenes Laertius, The lives and opinions of eminent philosophers [literally tr. by Yonge Charles Duke], London: H.G. Bohn, 1853, pp. 181- 194]: eight on anatomical dissections, one on a selection of dissections, one on composite animals, one on mythological animals, and one on the causes of sterility; this last book is perhaps the one ordinarily included as the ninth volume on the natural history of animals. Also attributed to him is the treatise De mirabilibus auscultationibus [On the marvels of hearing], the best edition being that of Johann Beckmann (1739-1811), Göttingen, 1786, in quarto. The Historia animalium, which particularly interests us, should be read in the general edition of the works of Aristotle by [Guillaume] du Val [1572-1646], Paris, 1629; or in the special edition by [Julius Caesar] Scaliger [1484-1558], Toulouse, 1619; and especially the one by [Johann Gottlob] Schneider [see chap. 10, note 10], published at Leipzig, 1811, in four octavo volumes. [Armand Gaston] Camus [1740-1804] published a French edition in 1783 at Paris, two volumes in quarto; the translation is generally accurate, but unfortunately he included notes that are not those of a naturalist. There is a German translation, with notes, by [Christian Friedrich Leberecht] Strack [1784-1852], published at Frankfurt am Main in 1816, one volume in octavo.

22 [Aristotle], Historia animalium, bk 2, chap. 13; and especially De partibus animalium, bk 4, chap. 13.

23 [Aristotle], Historia animalium, bk 2, chap. 13.

24 [Aristotle], De partibus animalium, bk 3, chap. 1.

25 [Aristotle], Historia animalium, bk 2, chap. 13.

26 [Ibid.], bk 4, chap. 8.

27 Ibid.

28 [Ibid.], bk 2, chap. 13.

29 [Ibid.], bk 2, chaps 15-16.

30 [Aristotle], De partibus animalium, bk 3, chap. 14.

31 [Aristotle], Historia animalium, bk 2, chap. 17; De partibus animalium, bk 3, chap. 14.

32 [Aristotle, Historia animalium], bk 3, chap. 1.

33 [Ibid.], bk 3, chap. 11.

34 [Ibid.], bk 4, chap. 9.

35 [Ibid.], bk 4, chap. 10.

36 [Ibid.], bk 5, chap. 5.

37 He [Aristotle] designates the parts by letters, as is still done today. See [Historia animalium], bk 3, chap. 1. [Aristotle seems to have been the first to illustrate a biological treatise, referring to diagrams several times in his Historia animalium. The figures have long since disappeared, but his descriptions are such that they can often be reconstructed with confidence (see Singer (Charles), A history of biology to about the year 1900: A general introduction to the study of living things [third and revised ed.], New York: Abelar-Schuman, 1959, p. 25, figs 12-14; for more on illustrations in Aristotle’s zoological works, see Kádár (Zoltán), Survivals of Greek zoological illuminations in Byzantine manuscripts, with 232 half tone and 10 colour plates [tr. by Wilkinson Timothy], Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978, pp. 30-33).]

38 See [Aristotle, Historia animalium], bk 5, chap. 4; bk 6, chaps 10-17; bk 8, chaps 2, 13, 20, 30; bk 9, chap. 37; De generatione animalium, bk 3, chaps 4-5.

39 [Of the numerous hermaphroditic fishes in the Mediterranean (most of which belong to the families Serranidae, Sparidae, and Centracanthidae), the most likely one referred to by Aristotle is Serranus cabrilla (which still bears the vernacular name channos) or, somewhat less likely, Serranus scriba (at present called perdika); a third species, Serranus hepatus (channaki), is even less likely, because sexually mature individuals occupy deep waters (60-120 meters), making accurate observations of reproductive behavior next to impossible in Aristotle’s time (Lejeune (Pierre), Boveroux (Jean-Marie.) & Voss (Jacques), “Observation du comportement reproducteur de Serranus scriba Linné (Pisces, Serranidae), poisson hermaphrodite synchrone,” Cybium, 3rd ser., vol. 10, 1980, pp. 73-80; C. Papakonstantinou, pers. comm., 26 June 1991).]

40 Theophrastus, born about 371 b.c. on the island of Lesbos of a fuller named Melanthus, was at first called Tyrtamus. Aristotle named him Theophrastus because of his divine eloquence. He was first a disciple of Leucippus and Plato. Tenderly loved by Aristotle, he succeeded him in his teaching post in 324 b.c.; he had more than two thousand students. He created one of the first botanical gardens. His two main works of natural history are Enquiry into Plants, in nine books [see Theophrastus, Enquiry into plants and minor works on odours and weather signs [with an English translation by Hort Arthur], New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916, 2 vols], and De causis plantarum, in six books, a kind of plant physiology. He is much better known for his Characters [Theophrastus, Characters [newly edited and tr. by Edmonds John Maxwell], New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1929, vii + 132 p.; xxvi + 364 p., ills], which were translated and so deftly imitated [in 1699] by Jean de La Bruyère [1645-1696]. It is said that he lived nearly a hundred years and that all of Athens turned out for his funeral.

41 [The genus Ophicephalus (now recognized as a junior synonym of Channa Scopoli, 1777) was originally described by Bloch in 1793 (see Bloch (Marcus Elieser), Naturgeschichte der ausländischen Fische, Berlin: Auf Kosten des Verfassers, und in Commission in der Buchhandlung der Realschule, 1793, vol. 7, p. 137, pl. 358), but Cuvier is here most probably referring to Hamilton’s (formerly Buchanan) account of the fishes found in the river Ganges (see Hamilton (Francis), An account of the fishes found in the river Ganges and its branches, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, 1822, p. 59; see also Gudger (Eugene Willis), “The sources of the material for Hamilton-Buchanan’s fishes of the Ganges, the fate of his collections, drawings and notes, and the use made of his data,” Journal and Proceedings, Asiatic Society of Bengal, new series, vol. 29, no. 4, 1924, pp. 121-136).]

42 Athenaeus, [Deipnosophistae, or Banquet of the Learned], bk 7, chap. 1 [see Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned [literally tr. by Yonge Charles Duke] London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854, 2 vols.]

43 Ibid., bk 8, chaps 5, 6.

44 Ibid., bk 7, chap. 17, and several other places in this book.

45 Ibid., bk 8, chap. 18.

46 Ibid., bk 1, chap. 22, and elsewhere throughout the book.

47 Alexander died in 324 b.c., Ptolemy-Lagus in 284 b.c., and Ptolemy-Philadelphus in 246 b.c.

48 Lucian, Vitarum Audio [Sale of Creeds, v. 26: “Why, from him (the Peripatetic) you will find out in no time how long a gnat lives, to how many fathoms’ depth the sunlight penetrates the sea, and what an oyster’s soul is like” (Lucian of Samosata, The works of Lucian of Samosata, complete with exceptions specified in the preface [tr. by Fowler H. W. and Fowler F. G.], Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905, p. 204)]. Everyone knows Lucian of Samosata [in Syria], the famous Greek sophist and satirist [c. a.d. 120 to c. 180], contemporary [of the Roman emperors] Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus [see Lucian of Samosata, Lucian: Selected writings [ed. by Allinson Francis Greenleaf], Boston; New York: Ginn & Co, 1905, pp. vii-xxx; Lucian of Samosata, The works of Lucian of Samosata, complete with exceptions specified in the preface [tr. by Fowler H. W. and Fowler F. G.], Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905, 4 vols, pp. vii-xiv; Lucian of Samosata, Lucian: Seventy dialogues [introduction and commentary by Levy Harry L.], Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976, pp. xiii-xxiii].

49 Lucius Apuleius, of Madaura in Numidia, also a contemporary of the Antonines [born c. a.d. 125; the date of his death is unknown (Apuleius, Apvlei apologia sive Pro se de magia liber [with introduction and commentary by Butler Harold Edgeworth & Owen A.S.], Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914, pp. vii-xix; Apuleius, The golden ass, being the Metamorphosis of Lucius Apuleius [with an English tr. by Adlington W.; revised by Gaselee S.], London: William Heinemann, 1915, p. v)]. [Platonic philosopher and rhetorician], author of the unusual novel Metamorphoses or Golden Ass [see Apuleius, The Golden ass of Lucius Apuleius [tr. by Adlington William; edited, with an introduction, by Darton F.J. Harvey], London: Privately printed for the Navarre Society, 1924, 359 p., ills], he devotes twenty pages in the first part (chaps 1-65) of his Apologia to justifying his curiosity in the study of fishes and proving it was not for magical operations [ “I do not know of fish that are useful for magic (…) therefore, if you do know of such fish, it is clear that you, rather than I, are the magician” (Apologia, chap. 30, v. 4; see Apuleius, Apvlei apologia sive Pro se de magia liber [with introduction and commentary by Butler Harold Edgeworth & Owen A.S.], Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914, commentary, p. 75]. It can be seen from this discourse that he wrote much on the subject of fishes, but nothing has survived [Numerous scientific works by Apuleius have been lost. He himself mentions his Quaestiones naturales, and especially a treatise on fishes titled De piscibus (Apologia, chaps 36, 38, 40; see Apuleius, Apvlei apologia sive Pro se de magia liber [with introduction and commentary by Butler Harold Edgeworth & Owen A. S.], Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914, pp. xxvii-xxviii).]

Table des illustrations

Légende Aristotle“Aristoteles Homo Graecus Philosophus.” Engraving portrait by Jean Frosne (17th century).Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN
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Fichier image/jpeg, 228k
Légende Kylixby the Ambrosios Painter, Athens, Greece, Archaic period, c. 510-500 BC, ceramic with red-figure technique; original in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.
URL http://books.openedition.org/mnhn/docannexe/image/6284/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 55k
Légende Fishing sceneRectangular plate of baked clay decorated with the figures of four marine fishes and two bivalves, the work of a greek artist of souther Italy, fourth century B.C. Illustration after Singer (Charles), A history of biology to about the year 1900: A general introduction to the study of living things [third and revised ed.], New York: Abelar-Schuman, 1959, xxxvi + 579 p., fig. 3.
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