Ichthyophagi

• the name of several nations living upon fish, Plin. 6, 23, 25, § 95; Greek gen. plur. Ichthyophagōn, id. 6, 28, 32, § 51.

ICHTHYO´PHAGI (Ἴχθυοφάγοι, Diod. 3.15, seq.; Hdt. 3.19; Paus. 1.33.4; Plin. Nat. 6.30. s. 32), were one of the numerous tribes dwelling on each shore of the Red Sea which derived their appellation from the principal article of their diet. Fish-eaters, however, were not confined to this region: in the present day, savages, whose only diet is fish cast ashore and cooked in the sun, are found on the coasts of New Holland. The Aethiopian Ichthyophagi, who appear to have been the most numerous of these tribes, dwelt to the southward of the Regio Troglo-dytica. Of these, and other more inland races, concerning whose strange forms and modes of life curious tales are related by the Greek and Roman writers, a further account is given under TROGLODYTES.

(Ἰχθυοφάγοι, “fish-eaters”). A vaguely descriptive name given by the ancients to various peoples on the coasts of Asia and Africa, of whom they knew but little. Thus we find Ichthyophagi (1) in the extreme southeast of Asia, in the country of the Sinae;

(2) on the coast of Gedrosia;

(3) on the northeastern coast of Arabia Felix;

(4) in Africa, on the coast of the Red Sea, above Egypt;

(5) on the western coast of Africa.

• Cambyses' interpreters in his mission to the Ethiopians: Hdt. 3.19-23