Ichthyophagi

Ichthyophagi (Gr. for "fish-eaters"), the name given by ancient geographers to several coast-dwelling peoples in different parts of the world and ethnically unrelated.

• Nearchus mentions such a race as inhabiting the barren shores of the Mekran on the Arabian Sea
• Pausanias locates them on the western coast of the Red Sea
• Ptolemy speaks of fish-eaters in Ethiopia, and on the west coast of Africa
• while Pliny relates the existence of such tribes on the islands in the Persian Gulf
• 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 Egypt.

The existence of such tribes was confirmed by Sir Richard F Burton (El-Medinah, p. 144).