[2]
The nets must be made of the same flax as those used for hares, of forty-five threads woven in three strands, each strand containing fifteen threads. The height should be ten knots, counted from the top,1 and the depths of the meshes fifteen inches. The ropes at top and bottom must be half as thick again as the nets. There must be metal rings at the elbows, and the ropes must be inserted under the meshes, and their ends must pass out through the rings.2 Fifteen nets are sufficient.3
1 This means, I believe, ten meshes, so that the net would be about 150 inches high. Otto Manns (Uber die Jagd bei den Grieschen), however, thinks that the net was five feet high only, i.e., four meshes (cf. 4.5); but (1) it is hard to see how “four meshes” can be got out of “ten knots,” and (2) the “bosom” (see 7) requires a considerably greater height than five feet.
2 The ends of the upper ropes appear to have been used for fastening the nets together.
3 It is strange that the author does not state the length of the nets.
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 7. E. C. Marchant, G. W. Bowersock, tr. Constitution of the Athenians. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1925.
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