[177] ἰχθυόεντα. Most modern commentators render this ‘monster-teeming deep.’ Cp. Horace Od.4. 14. 47‘beluosus Oceanus.’ However much a fish-diet might have been admired in later days (on which subject consult Athenaeus, bb. 7 and 8), fish generally formed no part of human food in heroic times, except under pressure of hunger. Cp. Od.12. 331“ἄγρην ἐφέπεσκον ἀνάγκῃ”
“ἰχθῦς . . γναμπτοῖς ἀγκίστροισιν: ἔτειρε δὲ γαστέρα λιμός”. Fish, it is true, were often reckoned with the beasts of prey, cp. Il.24. 82“ἰχθύες ὠμησταί”, Aj.1297“ἐφῆκεν ἐλλοῖς ἰχθύσιν διαφθοράν”. But it must be remembered that “ἰχθυόεις” is used as the epithet of the river Hyllus, in Il.20. 392; and, in the list of some of the blessings of life in Od.19. 113, we have “θάλασσα δὲ παρέχει ἰχθῦς”“ἐξ εὐηγεσίης”.
