The term which Xenophon uses of the stakes is, according to some manuscripts of his work, [Greek: schalides]. He says, they should be fixed so as to lean backwards, and thus more effectually to resist the impulse of the animals rushing against them[1]. The Latin term answering to [Greek: stalikes] was Vari. We find it thus used by Lucan:
Aut, cum dispositis adtollat retia varis
Venator, tenet ora levis clamosa Molossi.
Pharsalia, iv. 439, 440.
i. e. "The hunter holds the noisy mouth of the light Molossian dog, when he
lifts up the nets to the stakes arranged in order."
Gratius Faliscus, adopting a Greek term, calls them ancones,
on account of the "elbow" or fork at the top:
Hic magis in cervos valuit metus: ast ubi lentæ
Interdum Libyco fucantur sandyce pinnæ,
Lineaque extructis lucent anconibus arma,
Rarum, si qua metus eludat bellua falsos.—Cyneg. 85-88.
It was the business of one of the attendants to watch the nets:
Ego retia servo.—Virg. Buc. iii. 75.
Sometimes there was a watchman at each extremity and
one in the middle, as in the Persian lion-hunt[2]. The prevalence
of this method of hunting in Persia might be inferred
from the circumstance, that one of the chief employments of
the inhabitants consisted in making these nets ([Greek: arkys], Strabo,
xv. 3. § 18). To watch the nets was called [Greek: arkyôrein] (Ælian, H.
A. i. 2), and the man who discharged this office [Greek: arkyôros] (Xen.,
De Ven. ii. 3; vi. 1.).
The paintings discovered in the catacombs of Egypt show, that the ancient inhabitants of that country used nets for hunting in the same manner which has now been shown to have been the practice of the Persians, Greeks and Romans[3].
Hunting-nets had much larger meshes than fishing or fowlers'-nets, because in general a fish or a fowl could escape through a much smaller opening than a quadruped. In hunting, the important circumstance was to make the nets so strong
