Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/405

 HARBOR AND FISHERY OF TARENTUM. 339 would hardly have relinquished such a site as that of Tarentum, which, while favorable and productive, even in regard to the adjoining land, was with respect to sea-advantages without a par- allel in Grecian Italy. 1 It was the only spot in the gulf which possessed a perfectly safe and convenient harbor, a spacious inlet of the sea is there formed, sheltered by an isthmus and an outlying peninsula, so as to leave only a narrow entrance. This inlet, still known as the Mare Piccolo, though its shores and the adjoining tongue of land appear to have undergone much change, affords at the present day a constant, inexhaustible, and varied supply of fish, especially of shell-fish ; which furnish both nourishment and employment to a large proportion among the inhabitants of the contracted modern Taranto, just as they once served the same purpose to the numerous, lively, and jovial pop- ulation of the mighty Tarentum. The concentrated population of fishermen formed a predominant element in the character of the Tarentine democracy. 2 Tarentum was just on the borders 1 Strabo, vi, p. 278; Polyb. x, 1. 2 Juvenal, Sat. vi, 297. "Atquc coronatum ct petulans madidumque Tarentum: " compare Plato, Legg. i, p. 637; and Horat. Satir. ii, 4, 34. Aristot. Polit. iv, 4, 1. ol anisic iv Tupavn Kal Bvfaim'u. " Tarentina ostrca," Varro, Fragm. p. 301, ed. Bipont. To illustrate this remark of Aristotle on the fishermen of Tarentum, as the predominant class in the democracy, I transcribe a passage from Mr. Keppel Craven's Tour in the Southern Provinces of Naples, ch. x, p. 182. " Swinburne gives a list of ninety-three different sorts of shell-fish which are found in the gulf of Taranto ; but more especially in the Mare Piccolo. Among these, in ancient times, the murex and purpura ranked foremost in value ; in our degenerate days, the mussel and oyster seem to have usurped a preeminence as acknowledged but less dignified ; but there are numerous other tribes held in proportionate estimation for their exquisite flavor, and as qreedily sought for during their respective seasons. The appetite for shell- fish of all sorts, which seems peculiar to the natives of these regions, is such as to appear exaggerated to a foreigner, accustomed to consider only a few of them as eatable. This taste exists at Taranto, if possible, in a stronger degree than in ar.y other part of the kingdom, and accounts for the com- paratively large revenue which government draws from this particular branch of commerce. The Marc Piccolo is divided into several portions, which are let to different societies, who thereby become the only privileged fishermen ; the lower classes are almost all employed by these corporations, M every revolving season of the year affords occupation for them, so that Nature herself jecms to have afforded the exclusive trade most suited to the