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[407] For the use of ἱερόν here see note on 1.366 and App. D (vol. i. p. 592). “ὅτι οὐκ ἐπί τι εἶδος ἰχθύος φερόμενος εἴρηκεν ἱερὸν ἰχθύν, καθάπερ τινὲς ἀποδεδώκασι τὸν πομπίλον, οἱ δὲ τὸν κάλλιχθυν” (v. Lex.) “ἀλλὰ κοινότερον τὸν ἀνετὸν καὶ εὐτραφῆ, ὡς ἱερὸν βοῦν λέγομεν τὸν ἀνειμένον”, An., i.e. fat as a sacred ox which has no work to do. So Fäsi explains the adj. to mean ‘living an idle life’ like sacred cattle, nullo mortali opere contacti (Tac.), and owning allegiance only to the god of the sea. But all this is needlessly far-fetched. There is in fact abundant evidence for the sanctity of fish both in Greece and elsewhere; Frazer gives it with his usual wealth of reference in Paus. iv. 153-54. The Homeric Greeks had only partially outgrown the superstitious dislike to eating the sacred fish; they would do so under the stress of necessity (see Od. 4.368-69), but they still retained the epithet which implied that it was wrong.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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