Whether land or sea animals are cleverer (20-24)

[*] Yet perhaps it is ridiculous for us to make a parade of animals distinguished for learning when Democritus[*] declares that we have been their pupils in matters of fundamental importance: of the spider in weaving and mending, of the swallow in homebuilding, of the sweet-voiced swan and nightingale[*] in our imitation of their song. Further, of the three divisions of medicine,[*] we can discern in animals a generous portion of each; for it is not cure by drugs alone of wrhich they make use. After devouring a serpent tortoises[*] take a dessert of marjoram, and weasels[*] of rue. Dogs[*] purge themselves when bilious by a certain kind of grass. The snake[*] sharpens and restores its fading sight with fennel. When the she-bear comes forth from her lair,[*] the first thing she eats is wild arum[*]; for its acridity opens her gut which has become constricted. At other times, when she suffers from nausea,[*] she resorts to anthills and sits, holding out her tongue all running and juicy with sweet liquor until it is covered with ants; these she swallows[*] and is alleviated. The Egyptians[*] declare that they have observed and imitated the ibis’ clyster-like purging of herself with brine; and the priests make use of water from which an ibis has drunk to purify themselves; for if the water is tainted or unhealthy in any way, the ibis will not approach it.

Then, too, some beasts cure themselves by a short fast, like wolves[*] and lions who, when they are surfeited with flesh, lie still for a while, basking in the sun. And they say a tigress, if a kid is given her, will keep fasting for two days without eating; on the third, she grows hungry and asks for some other food. She will even pull her cage to pieces, but will not touch the kid which she has now come to regard as a fellow-boarder and room mate.[*]

Yet again, they relate that elephants employ surgery: they do, in fact, bring aid to the wounded[*] by easily and harmlessly drawing out spears and javelins and arrows without any laceration of the flesh. And Cretan goats,[*] when they eat dittany,[*] easily expel arrows from their bodies and so have presented an easy lesson for women with child to take to heart, that the herb has an abortive property[*]; for there is nothing except dittany that the goats, when they are wounded, rush to search for.

These matters, though wonderful, are less surprising than are those creatures which have cognition of number and can count,[*] as do the cattle near Susa. At that place they irrigate the royal park with water raised in buckets by wheels, and the number of bucketfuls is prescribed. For each cow raises one hundred bucketfuls each day, and more you could not get from her, even if you wanted to use force. In fact, they often try to add to the number to see; but the cow balks and will not continue when once she has delivered her quota, so accurately does she compute and remember the sum, as Ctesias[*] of Cnidus has related.

The Libyans laugh at the Egyptians for telling a fabulous tale about the oryx,[*] that it lets out a cry[*] at that very day and hour when the star rises that they call Sothis,[*] which we call the Dog Star or Sirius. At any rate, when this star rises flush with the sun, practically all the goats turn about and look toward the east; and this is the most certain sign of its return and agrees most exactly with the tables of mathematical calculation.[*]

But that my discourse may add its finishing touch and terminate, let me make the move from the sacred line [*] and say a few words about the divine inspiration and the mantic power of animals. It is, in fact, no small or ignoble division of divination, but a great and very ancient one, which takes its name from birds[*]; for their quickness of apprehension and their habit of responding to any manifestation, so easily are they diverted, serves as an instrument for the god, who directs their movements, their calls or cries, and their formations which are sometimes contrary, sometimes favouring, as winds are; so that he uses some birds to cut short, others to speed enterprises and inceptions to the destined end. It is for this reason that Euripides[*] calls birds in general heralds of the gods; and, in particular, Socrates[*] says that he considers himself a fellow-slave of the swans. So again, among monarchs Pyrrhus[*] liked to be called an Eagle and Antiochus[*] a Hawk. But when we deride, or rail at, stupid and ignorant people we call them fish. Really, we can produce cases by the thousand of signs and portents manifested to us by the gods through creatures of land and air, but not one such can the advocate for aquatic creatures name.[*] No, they are all deaf and blind[*] so far as foreseeing anything goes, and so have been cast aside into the godless and titanic[*] region, as into a Limbo of the Unblessed, where the rational and intelligent part of the soul has been extinguished. Having, however, only a last remnant of sensation that is clogged with mud and deluged with water, they seem to be at their last gasp rather than alive.

HERACLEON. Raise your brows, dear Phaedimus, and rouse yourself to defend us the sea folk, the island-dwellers ! This bout of argument has become no child’s play, but a hard-fought contest, a debate which lacks only the actual bar and platform.[*]

PHAEDIMUS. Not so, Heracleon, but an ambush laid with malice aforethought has been disclosed. While we are still tipsy and soused from yesterday’s bout, this gentleman, as you see, has attacked us with premeditation, cold sober. Yet there can be no begging off. Devotee of Pindar[*] though I am, I do not want to be addressed with the quotation

To excuse oneself when combat is offered

Has consigned valour to deep obscurity;

for we have much leisure[*]; and it is not our discourse that will be idle, but our dogs and horses, our nets and seines of all kinds, for a truce is granted for to-day because of our argument to every creature both on land and sea. Yet do not fear: I shall use it[*] with moderation, introducing no opinions of philosophers or Egyptian fables or unattested tales of Indians or Libyans. But those facts that may be observed everywhere and have as witnesses the men who exploit the sea and acquire their credit from direct observation, of these I shall present a few. Yet there is nothing to impede illustrations drawn from land animals: the land is wide open for investigation by the senses. The sea, on the other hand, grants us but a few dubious glimpses. She draws a veil over the birth and growth, the attacks and reciprocal defences, of most of her denizens. Among these there are no few feats of intelligence and memory and community spirit that remain unknown to us and so obstruct our argument. Then too, land animals[*] by reason of their close relationship and their cohabitation have to some extent been imbued with human manners; they have the advantage of their breeding and teaching and imitation, which sweetens all their bitterness and sullenness, like fresh water mixed with brine, while their lack of understanding and dullness are roused to life by human contacts. Whereas the life of sea creatures, being set apart by mighty bounds from intercourse with men and having nothing adventitious or acquired from human usage, is peculiar to itself, indigenous, and uncontaminated by foreign ways, not by distinction of Nature, but of location. For their Nature is such as to welcome and retain such instruction as reaches them. This it is that renders many eels tractable, like those that are called sacred in Arethusa[*]; and in many places there are fish which will respond to their own names,[*] as the story goes of Crassus’[*] moray, upon the death of which he wept. And once when Domitius[*] said to him, Isn’t it true that you wept when a moray died ? he answered, Isn’t it true that you buried three wives and didn’t weep ?

The priests’ crocodiles[*] not only recognize the voice of those who summon them and allow themselves to be handled, but open their mouths to let their teeth be cleaned by hand and wiped with towels. Recently our excellent Philinus came back from a trip to Egypt and told us that he had seen in Antaeopolis an old woman sleeping on a low bed beside a crocodile, which was stretched out beside her in a perfectly decorous way.

They have long been telling the tale that when King Ptolemy[*] summoned the sacred crocodile and it would not heed him or obey in spite of his entreaties and requests, it seemed to the priests an omen of his death, which came about not long after; whence it appears that the race of water creatures is not wholly unendowed with your precious gift of divination.[*] Indeed, I have heard that near Sura,[*] a village in Lycia between Phellus and Myra, men sit and watch the gyrations and flights and pursuits of fish and divine from them by a professional and rational system, as others do with birds.

But let these examples suffice to show that sea animals are not entirely unrelated to us or cut off from human fellowship. Of their uncontaminated and native intelligence their caution is strong evidence. For nothing that swims and does not merely stick or cling to rocks is easily taken or captured without trouble by man as are asses by wolves, bees by bee-eaters,[*] cicadas by swallows, and snakes by deer, which easily attract them.[*] This, in fact, is why deer are called elaphoi, not from their swiftness,[*] but from their power of attracting snakes.[*] So too the ram draws the wolf by stamping and they say that very many creatures, and particularly apes, are attracted to the panther by their pleasure in its scent.[*] But in practically all sea-creatures any sensation is suspect and evokes an intelligently inspired defensive reaction against attack, so that fishing has been rendered no simple or trivial task, but needs all manner of implements and clever and deceitful tricks to use against the fish.

This is perfectly clear from ready examples: no one wants to have an angler s rod too thick, though it needs elasticity to withstand the thrashing of such fish as are caught; men select, rather, a slender rod so that it may not cast a broad shadow and arouse suspicion.[*] In the next place, they do not thicken the line with many plies when they attach the loop and do not make it rough; for this, too, betrays the lure to the fish. They also contrive that the hairs which form the leader shall be as white as possible; for in this way they are less conspicuous in the sea because of the similarity of colour. The remark of the Poet[*]:

Like lead she[*] sank into the great sea depths,

Like lead infixed in hora of rustic ox

Which brings destruction to the ravenous fish -

some misunderstand this and imagine that the ancients used ox-hair for their lines, alleging that keras [*] means hair and for this reason keirasthai means to have one’s hair cut and koura is a haircut [*] and the keroplastes [*] in Archilochus[*] is one who is fond of trimming and beautifying the hair. But this is not so: they use horse-hair which they take from males, for mares by wetting the hair with their urine make it weak.[*] Aristarchus[*] declares that there is nothing erudite or subtle in these lines; the fact is that a small piece of horn was attached to the line in front of the hook, since the fish, when they are confronted by anything else, chew the line in two.[*] They use rounded hooks[*] to catch mullets and bonitos, whose mouths are small[*]; for they are wary of a broader hook. Often, indeed, the mullet suspects even a rounded hook and swims around it, flipping the bait with its tail and snatching up bits it has dislodged; or if it cannot do this, it closes its mouth and purses it up and with the tips of its lips nibbles away at the bait.[*]

The sea-bass is braver than your elephant[*]: it is not from another, but from himself without assistance, that he extracts the barb when he is caught by the hook; he swings his head from side to side to widen the wound, enduring the pain of tearing his flesh until he can throw off the hook.[*] The fox-shark[*] does not often approach the hook and shuns the lure; but if he is caught, he immediately turns himself inside out, for by reason of the elasticity and flexibility of his body he can naturally shift and twist it about, so that when he is inside out, the hook falls away.