Latin Ichthyophagi and Greek Ichthyophagoi (, "fish-eaters") are the names given by ancient geographers to several ethnically unrelated coast-dwelling peoples in different parts of the world.

  • Herodotus (book i. c. 200) mentions three tribes of the Babylonians who were solely fish-eaters, and in book iii. c. 19 refers to Ichthyophagi in Aethiopia.
  • Pausanias locates them on the western (African) coast of the Red Sea.
  • They are described in the Liber Monstrorum as fully naked and covered in hair, inhabiting streams and ponds near the Indian Ocean in India.

See also

  • Troglodyti
  • Huteimi
  • Solluba
  • Eskimos
  • Anthrophagi

References

  • R. Bloch, «Ichthyophagoi», in Der Neue Pauly. Altertum. Stuttgart-Weimar, Verlag J. B. Metzler, vol. 5, 1998, p. 883.
  • O. Longo, «Un viaggio fra i mangiatori di pesci (dal Periplo di Nearco)», Atti e Memorie dell’Accademia Patavina di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, Memorie della Classe di Scienze morali Lettere ed Arti, XCVIII, parte III, 1986, p. 153-57.
  • O. Longo, «I mangiatori di pesce: regime alimentare e quadro culturale», Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici, 18, 1987, p. 9-56.
  • O. Nalesini, «Roman and Chinese Perception of a "Marginal" Coastal Population: Ptolemy's Far Eastern Ichthyophágoi», in The Prehistory of Asia and Oceania, Edited by G. Afanas’ev, S. Cleuziou, J. R. Lukacs and M. Tosi, Forlì, ABACO, 1996, p. 197-204.
  • Oscar Nalesini, "History and use of an ethnonym: Ichthyophágoi", in Connected Hinterlands: Proceedings of Red Sea Project IV held at the University of Southampton September 2008, edited by L. Blue, J. Cooper, R. Thomas and J. Whitewright. Oxford, Archaeopress, 2009, pp. 9–18.
  • J. Tkač, «Ichthyophagoi», in Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, neue Bearbeitung von G. Wissowa, Stuttgart, IX, 1916, coll. 2524–31.
  • H. Treidler, «Ichthyophagen», in Der Kleine Pauly, München, Beck’sche Verlag, vol. II, 1979, coll. 1333–34.
  • The origins of the name on Livius.org