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Title: The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 3 (of 3)
Author: St. John, James Augustus
Language: English
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AND CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT GREECE, VOLUME 3 (OF 3) ***
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Transcriber’s Note:
This is the third of three volumes of this work, and contains an Index
that references all three.
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. The single
instance of a superscript is given as 4^{o.}.
The many footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which
they are referenced, and have been renumbered for uniqueness.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
THE HISTORY
OF THE
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
OF
ANCIENT GREECE.
BY J. A. ST. JOHN.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
=Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.=
1842.
LONDON:
Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, and FLEY,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
CONTENTS
OF THE THIRD VOLUME.
BOOK V.
CHAPTER PAGE
VII. Slaves 1
VIII. Serfs of Sparta, Crete, Thessaly, &c. 36
BOOK VI.
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY.
I. Condition of the Poor 68
II. Industry: Millers, Bakers, Vintners, Markets, &c. 96
III. Industry: Perfumers, Barbers, Goldsmiths, 131
Lapidaries, &c.
IV. Industry: Smiths, Cutlers, Armourers, the Art of 153
Mining, Charcoal-making, &c.
V. Industry: House-builders, Carpenters, 176
Cabinet-makers, Turners, Musical
Instrument-makers, Potters, Glass-workers, &c.
VI. Industry: Oil and Colourmen, Italian Warehouses, 197
Druggists, Collectors of Simples
VII. Industry: Weavers, Glovers, Sock-makers, 214
Cordwainers, Tanners, Hatters, Dyers of Purple,
&c., Fishermen
VIII. Commerce of Doric States 245
IX. Commerce of Attica 276
X. Navigation 300
XI. Exports and Imports 326
XII. Exports of the Islands, Italy, Gaul, and Spain 355
XIII. Exports from Africa and the East 381
XIV. Funeral Ceremonies 414
THE HISTORY
OF THE
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
OF
ANCIENT GREECE.
--------------
BOOK V.
CHAPTER VII.
SLAVES.
It will have been remarked, that both in town and country, the mean and
painful drudgery was chiefly performed by slaves,[1] whose origin,
condition, and numbers, in the principal Grecian states, it now becomes
necessary to describe. The greatest writers of antiquity[2] were on this
subject perplexed and undecided. They appear to have comprehended the
full extent of the evil,[3] but to have been too much the slaves
themselves of habit and prejudice to discover, that no form or
modification of servitude is consistent with human happiness or with
justice, without which no happiness can be. This is evident from the
conversation in Crete between Plato and his Gnosian and Spartan
companions. They do not trouble their minds with inquiries respecting
the origin of slavery, which, while some tribes of men are stronger and
more civilised than others, could never be difficult to be conjectured;
but considering its existence easy to be accounted for, they are
concerned to discover by what means may be avoided or mitigated the
mischiefs they everywhere saw accompanying it.
-----
Footnote 1:
On the state of domesticity in modern times, see the interesting work
by Monsieur Grégoire, Sur la Domesticité, p. 3, sqq.
Footnote 2:
Cf. Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 38.
Footnote 3:
Thus Metrodoros:—Δοῦλος ἀναγκαῖον μὲν κτῆμα, οὐχ ἡδὺ δὲ. Stob.
Florileg. Tit. 62. 44.
-----
Most perplexing of all,[4] however, was the Laconian Heloteia; because
in that case the comparatively great number of the servile caste
rendered it necessary, in the opinion of some, to break their spirit and
bring them down to their condition by a system of severity which
constitutes the infamy of Sparta.
The discredit, however, of subsisting on slave labour was to a certain
extent shared by all the states of Greece, even by Athens. They appear
to have supposed that no slaves, no body politic.[5] But in the
treatment of those unfortunate men there was as much variation as from
the differences of national character might have been inferred. The
Athenians in this respect, as in most others, being the antipodes of the
Spartans, and falling into the error, if such a thing can be conceived,
of extreme humanity and indulgence.
-----
Footnote 4:
Cf. Plat. de Legg. vi. t. vii. p. 460.
Footnote 5:
Even no house according to Aristot. Polit. i. 3. Stob. Floril. Tit.
62. 44.
-----
It is no doubt possible by kindness to obliterate many of the ugly
features of slavery, so that between the vassal and his lord strong
mutual affection may spring up.[6] We hear, accordingly, of slaves whose
love for their masters exceeded the love of brothers, or of children;[7]
they have toiled, fought, died, for them; nay they have sometimes
surpassed them in courage, and taught them, in situations of imminent
danger, how to die, as in the case of that military attendant, who, when
taken prisoner with his master, and seeing him resolved on death, yet
hesitating about the means, dashed his brains out against the wall to
show him how it might be done. Another example is recorded of a slave
who put on the disguise of his lord, that he might be slain in his
stead. But what then? Do these examples prove that in servitude there is
anything ennobling? On the contrary, the only inference to be drawn from
them is, that in these cases great and worthy souls had been dealt with
unjustly by fortune. However, since none but the incorrigibly base can
now be found to advocate this worst of all human vices, I may spare my
arguments, and proceed at once to trace the history of slavery in
Greece.
-----
Footnote 6:
Herodes Atticus, for instance, lamented the death of his slaves as if
they had been his relations, and erected statues to their memory in
woods, or fields, and beside fountains. Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 10.
Among respectable slaves it was thought disgraceful to drink when the
family was in trouble. Vict. Var. Lect. viii. 4. A striking example of
the affection produced by good usage is mentioned by Libanius: “Sed,
ut intelligas,” says the sophist, writing to Uranius, “quam fidum
habeas servum, quæsivi ego tunc otiosus, cur, præter ejus generis
hominum, consuetudinem tanta fide res tuas curaret? Is vero mihi
graviter sapientissimèque respondit se novum quoddam fidissimæ
servitutis genus excogitare oportuisse, quoniam herum habeat nomine,
re vero fratrem, cum quo eundem cibum caperet, idem vinum biberet, à
quo non modo vapularet, sed ne malum quidem unquam aliquid audiret,”
Epistol. i. 16. Lat. ed J. C. Wolf. p. 739. a.
Footnote 7:
Plato, de Legg. vi. t. vii. p. 460.
-----
In very remote ages mankind, according to tradition, dispensed with the
labours of domestic slaves,[8] whose place was supplied by the women of
the family,[9] who rose before day to grind corn for the household; and
as they usually sang while thus engaged, the whole village on such
occasions would seem alive with music. As in the East, also, they were
accustomed to draw water from the wells, or seek it at a distance at the
fountains, as I have already, in speaking of the Hellenic women,
observed. But as soon as men began to give quarter in war, and became
possessed of prisoners, the idea of employing them, and rendering their
labours subservient to their maintenance naturally suggested itself. At
the outset, therefore, as a very distinguished historian[10] has
remarked, servitude sprung from feelings of humanity; for when it was
found that advantages could be derived from captured enemies they were
no longer butchered in the field. Hence, from the verb signifying “to be
subdued,” they were denominated Dmöes;[11] for “of whom a man is
overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.”[12] Of these constant
mention is made in Homer. Thus Telemachos speaks of the Dmöes whom his
father had left in his charge; and Agamemnon detained in his tent a
number of Lesbian women taken captive in war. In the same condition was
Briseïs: and to this fate Hector fears Andromache may be reserved after
his death.[13]
-----
Footnote 8:
In old times there were neither Manes nor Sekis: the women did
everything. Athen. vi. 83. Cf. Herod. vi. 137. Of these early periods,
however, few records remain, for as soon as the Greeks appear upon the
stage of history they are attended by slaves. On this account Philo
Judæus admires the Argonauts, who on their celebrated expedition
forewent the aid of servile labour: ἄγαμαι καὶ τῶν Ἀργοναυτῶν, οἰ
σύμπαν ἀπέφῃναν ἐλεύθερον τὸ πλήρομα, μηδένα μήτε τᾶς εἰς ἀναγκαίας
ὑπηρεσίας προσέμενοι δοῦλον, ἀδελφὸν ἐλευθερίας αὐτουργίαν ἐν τῷ τότε
ἀσπασαμένων Lib. quisq. virt. Stud. t. ii. p. 467. ed. Mangey.
Footnote 9:
In later times, however, this laborious task devolved upon female
slaves. “Gottlieb Fischer (Disput. Philolog. de Molis Manual. Vet. in
4. Gedani, 1728,) établit, par des preuves multipliées, que chez les
Egyptiens, les Babyloniens, les Perses, les Arabes, les Grecs, les
Romains, ce travail étoit ordinairement le partage des femmes
esclaves. L’invention des moulins à eau fut pour elles l’époque d’une
joie universelle, dont le poète Antipater se rendit l’interprète par
une pièce arrivée jusqu’à nous: Femmes occupées a moudre, ne fatiguez
plus vos bras, dormez la longue matinée ... Cérès a ordonné aux
nymphes de remplacer l’ouvrage de vos mains, etc.” Grégoire de la
Domesticité, p. 7.
Footnote 10:
Mitford, Hist, of Greece, i. 405.$1“$2”$3See on this subject, Grotius
de Jur. Bell. et Pac. iii. 14. Rousseau’s Contrat Social, i. 4.
Footnote 11:
Δμῶες dicti παρὰ δαμᾶσθαι, à domando, Feith. Antiq. Hom. ii. 20. p.
180. Horn. Odyss. ρ. 299.
Footnote 12:
II. Epist. Peter, ch. ii. ver. 19.
Footnote 13:
Odyss. α. 398. Iliad. θ. 128, seq. β. 689, sqq. τ. 193. Virg. Æneid.
iii. 326, seq.
-----
Possibly the practice was borrowed from the East, where the mention of
slaves occurs in the remotest ages. Thus too in later times, Atossa,
queen of Persia, is represented to have urged Darius into the Grecian
war, that she might possess Athenian, Spartan, Argive, and Corinthian
slaves.[14] And the Pythoness foretelling the destruction of Miletus,
exclaims:
“And of a numerous long-haired race thy wives shall wash the
feet.”[15]
-----
Footnote 14:
Herod, iii. 134. Ἐπιθυμέω observes the queen, γὰρ λόγῳ πυνθανομένη,
Λακαίνας τέ μοι γενέσθαι θεράπαινας καὶ Ἀργείας καὶ Ἀττικὰς καὶ
Κορινθίας. The same thing is related by Ælian (De Nat. Animal, xi.
27); but it is probable that Herodotus was the authority on which he
based his narrative.
Footnote 15:
Herod, vi. 19.
-----
The practice was when a number of prisoners had been taken, to make a
division of them among the chiefs, generally by lot, and then to sell
them for slaves.[16] This Achilles boasts he had frequently done, and
old Priam fears will be the destiny of his own sons, as it had been of
Lycaon whom the Thessalian hero had seized[17] in his garden. To the
same purpose is the lament of Hecuba,[18] who accuses him of having
reduced many of her sons to slavery. Examples occur in antiquity of
whole cities and states being at once subjected to servitude: thus the
inhabitants of Judea were a first and a second time carried away captive
to Babylon, where their masters, not perhaps from mockery, required of
them to sing for their entertainment some of their national songs, to
which, as we learn from the prophet, they replied: “How can we sing the
songs of Zion in a strange land?” The citizens likewise of Miletos,
after the unsuccessful revolt of Aristagoras, were transported into
Persia, as were those also of Eretria and Carystos in Eubœa.[19] Like
the Israelites, these Greeks long preserved in captivity their national
manners and language, though surrounded by strangers and urged by every
inducement to assimilate themselves to their conquerors. A similar fate
overtook the inhabitants of Thebes, who were sold into slavery by
Alexander, as were those of Mycene by the Argives, and the Corinthians
by Mummius.[20]
-----
Footnote 16:
Eurip. Troad. 30, sqq.
Footnote 17:
Feith, Antiq. Horn. p. 181.
Footnote 18:
Iliad. φ. 102. ω. 751, seq.
Footnote 19:
Herod, vi. 20, 119.
Footnote 20:
Diod. Sicul. xi. Arrian, Anab. i. p. 11. Plut. Symp. ix. 1. Mitf.
Hist. of Greece, ii. 176.
-----
But the supply produced by war seldom equalled the demand; and in
consequence a race of kidnappers sprung up, who, partly merchants and
partly pirates, roamed about the shores of the Mediterranean, as similar
miscreants do now about the slave-coasts, picking up solitary and
unprotected individuals. Sometimes their boldness rose to the wives or
daughters of the chiefs; as in the case of Paris, who robbed the house,
and carried away the wife of Menelaus; and of those Phœnicians who
having landed at Argos and held, during several days, a fair on the
beach, ended by stealing the king’s daughter.[21] Mitford’s supposition
that both Io and her companions may have been allured on board,[22] is
founded on the apologetical narrative of the pirates themselves. The
practice of kidnapping certainly prevailed widely. Thus Eumæos was, by
the Phœnicians, sold to Laertes, and a similar fate awaited the woman
whom the Taphian pirates stole away at the same time.[23] Odysseus
himself relates how a Phœnician rogue plotted against his liberty when
he was sailing with him towards Libya, and that the Thesprotians had
meditated a like design.[24] To enumerate no other instances, Laomedon
menaces Apollo and Poseidon with servitude, observing that he will have
them bound and shipped to some distant island for sale.[25]
-----
Footnote 21:
Herod, i. 1.
Footnote 22:
History of Greece, i. 32.
Footnote 23:
Odyss. ο. 427. 482.
Footnote 24:
Odyss. ζ. 340.
Footnote 25:
Iliad. φ. 453, seq. Feith observes that the Romans afforded no
encouragement to those low and sordid villains who stole and sold
their fellow-creatures, and kept none as slaves, but such as were
lawfully captured in war. Antiq. Hom. ii. 20.
-----
Neither war, however, nor piracy sufficed at length to furnish that vast
multitude of slaves, which the growing luxury of the times induced the
Greeks to consider necessary. Commerce by degrees conducted them to
Caria and other parts of Asia Minor, particularly the southern coasts of
the Black Sea, those great nurseries of slaves from that time until
now.[26] The first Greeks who engaged in this traffic, which even by the
Pagans was supposed to be attended by a curse, are said to have been the
Chians, and we shall presently see how ill it prospered with them. They
purchased their slaves from the barbarians, among whom the Lydians, the
Phrygians, and the natives of Pontos, with many others were accustomed,
like the modern Circassians, to carry on a trade in their own
people.[27] We find mention made in the Anabasis of a Macronian, who
having been a slave at Athens and obtaining his liberty, afterwards
became a soldier and served the Ten Thousand as an interpreter at a
critical moment during their passage through his native country.[28]
-----
Footnote 26:
Female slaves were obtained from Thrace, Phrygia, and Paphlagonia.
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 261. Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. viii. 7. 12.
Cf. Plut. Sympos. v. 7. 1.
Footnote 27:
Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. viii. 7. 12. The demoralising effects of
this traffic were never perhaps better illustrated than by Barbot.
This writer, while describing the arts by which men entice their own
children, kindred, or neighbours, to the European factories for the
purpose of selling them, relates an anecdote exhibiting the ne plus
ultra of human depravity: “I was told of one who designed to sell his
own son; but he, understanding French, dissembled for a while, and
then contrived it so cunningly as to persuade the French that the old
man was his slave, and not his father, by which means he delivered him
up into captivity; and thus made good the Italian proverb, a furbo
furbo e mezzo; amounting to as much as ‘set a thief to catch a thief’
or ‘diamond cuts diamond.’” Descr. of Guinea, i. 4. The son
immediately after was relieved of his ill-got gains and himself sold
for a slave.
Footnote 28:
Xenoph. Anab. iv. 8. 4.
-----
Before proceeding, however, with the history of the slave-trade, it may
be proper to describe the power possessed by masters over their
domestics during the heroic ages. Every man appears to have been then a
king in his own house, and to have exercised his authority most regally.
Thus we find the young Telemachos taking pleasure in the idea that he
shall be king over his slaves;[29] and Andromache, with a mother’s
fondness, fears lest her son should become the drudge of an unfeeling
lord.[30] Power generally, when unchecked by law, is fierce and inhuman,
and over their household, gentlemen, in those ages, exercised the
greatest and most awful power, that of life and death, as they
afterwards did at Rome.[31] This is illustrated by an example in the
Odyssey, where the hero being, while in disguise, insulted grossly by
Melanthios, threatens the slave that he will incite Telemachos to cut
him in pieces. Afterwards, when he has recovered his authority, the
terrible menace is remembered and fulfilled. The culprit is seized and
mutilated with savage barbarity, his members, torn from the body, are
thrown to the dogs, and even the poet, upon the whole so humane, does
not seem to consider the punishment too great for the offence.[32] It
has even been supposed that this kind of mutilation was a punishment
peculiar to slaves; for Laomedon, while menacing the gods in the manner
above described, adds, that he will cut off their ears.[33] When
supposed to deserve death they were executed ignominiously by hanging,
as in the case of the domestics of Odysseus, whose offences, though
grave, would scarcely in any free country be visited with capital
punishment.[34] This was regarded as an impure end. To die honourably
was to perish by the sword.[35]
-----
Footnote 29:
Odyss. α. 397.
Footnote 30:
Iliad. ω. 734.
Footnote 31:
See Joach. Hopp. Comment. Succinct. ad Instit. Justin. 1. i. Tit.
viii. § 1. p. 61. Grot. De Jur. Bell. et Pac. ii. 5. 28. iii. 7. 3.
Footnote 32:
Odyss. ρ. 369. χ. 475, sqq. In most parts of the ancient world the
punishments of slaves were to the last degree disproportionate and
unjust: “Cibum enim adurere, mensam evertere, dicto tardius audientem
fuisse, cruce, aut flagellis ad minus expiabantur. (Cf. Plut. De
Cohibend. Irâ. § 13. 15.) Dixisses, omnes penitus dominos professos
fuisse Stoicam sectam, adeò illis altè insederat, omnia servorum
peccata æqualia esse. Quo factum est, ut servi nuper empti non
quærerent an superstitiosum, vel invidum, sed an iracundum herum nacti
essent. Seneca; (de Irâ. iii. 28) quid est, quare ego servi mei
hilarius responsum, et contumaciorem vultum, et non pervenientem usque
ad me murmurationem, flagellis et compedibus expiem.” Pignor. De
Servis, p. 5.
Footnote 33:
Feith. Antiq. Hom. ii. 20.
Footnote 34:
Odyss. χ. 462.
Footnote 35:
Eustath. ad loc. p. 1934. Cf. Virg. xii. 603.
-----
The practice of manumission already in the heroic ages prevailed.[36]
Odysseus promises their freedom to his herdsman and swineherd if by
their aid he should slaughter the suitors; and, according to Plutarch,
Telemachos actually bestowed on Eumæos and his companions both their
liberty and the rights of citizenship, and from them, he adds, the
celebrated families of the Koliades and Bukoli were descended.[37]
-----
Footnote 36:
In later times freedmen accused of ingratitude returned, if convicted,
to slavery. Etym. Mag. 124. 53, seq. This also was the practice under
the Roman law, but among our own ancestors, a bondsman, once
disenthralled, could never again be reduced to servitude. Fortescue de
Laud. Leg. Angl. cap. 46. p. 108 b. Under certain circumstances, we
find Athenian emancipated slaves accounted honourable and permitted to
marry free women. Dem. in Steph. i. § 20. Mention occurs in
Demosthenes of a magnificent monument made in honour of the wife of
one of these freedmen. § 22.
Footnote 37:
Plut. Hellen. Problem. 14.
-----
Nor does the illustrious race appear to be yet extinct, Professor
Koliades[38] claiming to be a lineal descendant from Eumæos, which may
very well be since he must be descended from somebody; and there is no
reason why a descendant of Eumæos should not be a professor.
-----
Footnote 38:
See Mr. Nelson Coleridge, Introduction to the Study of the Greek
Poets. Pt. 1. p. 306.
-----
In addition to the slaves there were likewise free labourers who worked
for hire, and were called Thetes.[39] These sometimes seem to have been
placed on the extremities of estates, as the guardians of boundaries, a
post which Eurymachos offers with good wages to Odysseus.[40] And it is
the condition of one of these hinds that Achilles prefers in Hades to
the empire of the shades.[41] The gods also in their sojourn upon earth
sometimes submitted to the hardships of this condition. Thus Phœbos
Apollo kept the flocks of Admetos, king of Thessaly,[42] and the belief
in this humble condition of the gods on earth is objected by Lucian and
Dionysius of Halicarnassus,[43] as blameworthy to the Greeks. Herodotus,
too, relates that the three sons of Temenos—Gavanes, Aëropos, and
Perdiccas—fled from Argos into Illyria and thence into Upper Macedonia
to the city of Lebæa, where they served the king for hire, the first
tending the royal stud, the second the cattle, and the third the sheep
and goats.[44]
-----
Footnote 39:
Odyss. δ. 644. Cf. Clavier, Hist. des Prem. Temps de la Grèce. ii.
315. Suid. v. θῆτες. 1322, who says their hire was called θητώνιον.
Footnote 40:
Odyss. ρ. 356.
Footnote 41:
Odyss. λ. 488.
Footnote 42:
Iliad. υ. 434, seq.
Footnote 43:
Antiq. Rom. ii. 19.
Footnote 44:
Herod. viii. 137.
-----
From the history of Minos, which, whether true or fabulous, still
illustrates the manners of the times, we learn, that the tribute exacted
by a victorious enemy sometimes consisted of slaves. Thus the Cretan
king, having made a successful descent on the Attic coast, was
propitiated (as by our own ancestors were the Danes and other Northern
savages) by an annual offering of fourteen youths and virgins, who,
being conveyed to Crete, were there said to be destroyed by a monster
born of Pasiphaë, daughter of the sun.[45] Theseus, the great hero of
the Ionic race, delivered his country from this obnoxious tax, and on
his return to Athens was received by the people with unbounded
gratitude; sacrifices and processions were instituted in his honour, and
the memory of his noble achievement was religiously preserved as long as
paganism endured.[46]
-----
Footnote 45:
Isocrat. Helen. Encom. § 14.
Footnote 46:
Mitf. Hist. of Greece, i. 70.
-----
And in some such ways as the above, slaves, in early times, must have
been procured; for, as Timæos of Taormina[47] remarks, the Greeks of
those ages obtained none in the regular course of traffic. He further
adds, that Aristotle was generally accused of having misunderstood the
usages of the Locrians, among whom, as among the Phocians,[48] it was
not of old the custom to possess slaves, whether male or female. The
practice, however, prevailed in later times; and the wife of that
Philomelos who took Delphi is said to have been the first who was
attended by two servile handmaids.[49] But when men commence evil
courses, they seldom know where to stop. Mnason, a Phocian, and friend
of Aristotle,[50] ambitious of rivalling Nicias, the son of Niceratos,
purchased for his own service a thousand slaves, for which he was
accused by his countrymen of lavishing upon them what would have
supported an equal number of free persons.[51] In that country,
therefore, it is clear there existed a class of labourers like the
Thetes described by Homer, who were ready to work for hire.[52] In their
domestic economy the simplicity of their manners enabled the Phocians
and Locrians to dispense with the services of slaves, it being the
custom among them, as among the rustics of Eubœa, whom we have described
above, for the younger members of the family to wait on the elder.[53]
-----
Footnote 47:
Ap. Athen. vi. 86. See, however, the testimony of Polybius, xii. 5.
Footnote 48:
Cf. Suid. v. δουλοσύνη. i. 769.
Footnote 49:
Athen. vi. 86.
Footnote 50:
Ælian. Var. Hist. iii. 19.
Footnote 51:
Athen. vi. 86.
Footnote 52:
Odyss. δ. 644.
Footnote 53:
Athen. vi. 86.
-----
The Chians, as I have already observed, are said to have been the first
Grecian people who engaged in a regular slave-trade.[54] For, although
the Thessalians and Spartans possessed, at a period much anterior, their
Penestæ and their Helots, they obtained them by different means: the
latter, by reducing to subjection the ancient Achæan inhabitants of
Peloponnesos;[55] the former, by their conquests over the Magnesians,
Perrhæbians, and Bœotians of Arnè. But the Chians possessed only such
barbarian slaves as they had purchased with money, in which they more
nearly resembled the slave-holding nations of modern times.[56] Other
circumstances, likewise, in the history of slavery among the Chians,[57]
strongly suggest the parallel, and deserve to be studied with more care
than appears to have been bestowed upon them. We have here, perhaps, the
first type of the Maroon wars, though on a smaller scale, and marked by
fewer outbreaks of atrocity. It is not, indeed, stated that the females
were flogged, though throughout Greece the males were so corrected; but,
whatever the nature of the severities practised on them may have
been,[58] the yoke of bondage was found too galling to be borne,[59] and
whole gangs took refuge in the mountains. Fortunately for them, the
interior of the island abounded in fastnesses, and was, in those days,
covered with forest.
-----
Footnote 54:
Steph. Byzant. v. Χῖος. p. 758. b. Arrian. in Indic. p. 529.
Footnote 55:
Cœl. Rhodig. xxv. 19.
Footnote 56:
Athen. vi. 88.
Footnote 57:
The servile wars of Sicily assumed a far more important character, and
resembled rather those civil commotions in states in which one
division of the citizens carries on hostilities against the other; for
the wealth of the islanders increasing rapidly after the expulsion of
the Carthaginians, they purchased great multitudes of slaves, chiefly
from the East, whom they employed in the usual drudgery, and treated
with extraordinary rigour, branding them in the body like
cattle:—Χαρακτῆρα ἐπέβαλλον καὶ στιγμὰς τοῖς σώμασιν. Diodor. Sicul.
34. ap. Phot. Biblioth. Cod. 244. p. 384. Bekk.
Footnote 58:
We may probably, however, form some conjecture respecting the injuries
they endured from the description of the atrocities practised by the
Sicilians against their slaves. These unhappy men were compelled, as
history informs us, to forego even the common reward of labour, and,
though they toiled incessantly for their owners, to provide for their
daily subsistence by plunder and murder:—βαρέως δ᾽ αὐτοῖς κατά τε τὰς
ὑπηρεσίας ἐχρῶντο, καὶ ἐπιμελείας παντελῶς ὀλίγης ἠξίουν ὅσα τε
ἐντρέφεσθαι καὶ ὅσα ἐνδύσασθαι· ἐξ ὠν οἱ πλείους ἀπὸ λῃστείας τὸ ζῇν
ἐπορίζοντο, καὶ μεστὰ φόνον ἦν ἅπαντα καθάπερ στρατευμάτων
διεσπαρμένων τῶν λῃστῶν. Diodor. Sicul. ap. Phot. ubi supra.
Footnote 59:
They, as well as the Achæans, had a prison called Zetreion, where
their slaves worked in chains. Etym. Mag. 411. 33.
-----
Here, therefore, the fugitives, erecting themselves dwellings, or taking
possession of caverns among almost inaccessible cliffs, successfully
defended themselves, subsisting on the plunder of their former owners.
Shortly before the time of the writer, to whom we are indebted for these
details, a bondsman, named Drimacos, made his escape from the city and
reached the mountains, where, by valour and conduct, he soon placed
himself at the head of the servile insurgents over whom he ruled like a
king.[60] The Chians led several expeditions against him in vain. He
defeated them in the field with great slaughter; but, at length, to
spare the useless effusion of human blood, invited them to a conference,
wherein he observed, that the slaves, being encouraged in their revolt
by an oracle, would never lay down their arms or submit to the drudgery
of servitude. Nevertheless, the war might be terminated. “For, if my
advice,” said he, “be followed, and we be suffered to enjoy
tranquillity, numerous advantages will thence accrue to the state.”
-----
Footnote 60:
The history of the servile revolt in Sicily offers numerous points of
resemblance to that of Chios, though Eunus, the leader of the Sicilian
slaves, by no means deserves, either for character or abilities, to be
compared with Drimacos. Eunus was an impostor, who, by visions and
pretended prophecies, excited the slaves to insurrection. He obtained
credit for his predictions by concealing a bored walnut-shell, filled
with some fiery substance, in his mouth, and then breathing forth
sparks and flames like a chimera. His mind, however, was capable of
ambition, for, among the other events which he foretold, he was
careful to introduce the fact, that he was one day, by the decrees of
heaven, to be a king. Diodor. Sicul. 34. Ap. Phot. Biblioth. Cod. 244.
p. 384. Bekk. The contrivances by which he supported his pretensions
to miraculous powers are thus described by Florus, iii. 19: Syrus
quidam nomine Eunus (magnitudo claudium facit, ut meminerimus)
fanatico furore simulato, dum Syriæ deæ comas, jactat ad libertatem et
arma servos, quasi numinum imperio concitavit idquæ ut divinitus fieri
probaret, in ore abdita nuce quam sulfure, et igne stipaveret, leniter
inspirans flammam inter verba fundebat.
-----
There being little prospect of a satisfactory settlement of the matter
by arms, the Chians consented to enter into a truce as with a public
enemy. Humbled by their losses and defeats, Drimacos found them
submissive to reason. He, therefore, provided himself with weights,
measures, and a signet,[61] and exhibiting them to his former masters,
said, “When, in future, our necessities require that I should supply
myself from your stores, it shall always be by these weights and
measures, and having possessed myself of the necessary quantity of
provisions, I shall be careful to leave your warehouses sealed with this
signet. With respect to such of your slaves as may fly and offer
themselves to me, I will institute a rigid examination into their story,
and if, upon inquiry, they appear to have had just grounds for
complaint, I will protect them—if not, they shall be sent back to their
proprietors.”
-----
Footnote 61:
In illustration of the ancient practice of sealing storehouses and
other places where valuable things were kept, we may cite the
following anecdote from Diogenes Laertius. (iv. 8. 3.) Lacydes, who
succeeded Arcesilaus as principal professor in the New Academy,
having, as it would appear, a set of thievish domestics, was in the
habit of carefully sealing the door of his storeroom; but, in order
not to run any risk of losing the seal, he used, unobserved, as he
thought, to slip it into the chamber through an aperture in the door.
The slaves, however, diligently reconnoitering his movements,
discovered the old gentleman’s secret, and visiting his stores as
often as they thought proper, they escaped detection by sealing the
door again, and placing through the hole the signet where he had left
it.
-----
To these conditions the magistrates readily acceded, upon which the
slaves who still remained with their masters grew more obedient, and
seldom took to flight, dreading the decision of Drimacos.[62] Over his
own followers he exercised a despotic authority. They, in fact, stood
far more in fear of him than when in bondage of their lords, and
performed his bidding without question or murmur, as soldiers obey their
commander. For he was severe in the punishment of the unruly, and
permitted no man to plunder or lay waste the country, or commit any act
of injustice,—in short, to do anything without his order. The public
festivals he was careful to observe, going round and collecting from the
proprietors of the land, who bestowed upon him voluntarily both wine and
the finest victims; but if, on these occasions, he discovered that a
plot was hatching, or any ambush laid for him, he would take speedy
vengeance.
-----
Footnote 62:
The conduct of Eunus and his followers, when, immediately after their
revolt, they took possession of the city of Euna, presented the most
striking contrast with this moderation of the Chian slaves: they
pillaged the houses, and, without distinction of age or sex,
slaughtered the inhabitants, plucking the infants from the breasts,
and dashing them to the ground. Over part of their atrocities the
historian modestly drops a veil: Εἰς δὲ τὰς γυναῖκας observes he, οὐδ᾽
ἔστιν εἰπειν (καὶ τότε βλεπόντων τῶν ἀνδρῶν) ὅσα ἐνύβριζόν τε καὶ
ἐνησέλγαινον, πολλοῦ αὐτοῖς πλήθους τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς πόλεως δούλων
προστεθέντος οἱ καὶ κατὰ τῶν κυρίων πρότερον τὰ ἔσχατα ἐνδεικνύμενοι
οὕτω πρὸς τὸν τῶν ἄλλων φόνον ετρέποντο. Diodor. Sicul. ap. Phot.
Biblioth. p. 385.
-----
So far the affairs of the Chians and their revolted bondsmen proceeded
smoothly. But things continued not always on this footing. Observing old
age to be creeping upon Drimacos, and rendered wanton apparently by
prosperity, the government issued a proclamation, offering a great
reward to any one who should capture him, or bring them his head.[63]
The old general, discerning, perhaps, signals of treachery, or convinced
that, at last, it must come to that, took aside a young man whom he
loved, and said, “I have ever regarded you with a stronger affection
than any other man, and to me you have been, instead of a son, a
brother, and every other tie. But now, the days of my life are at an
end, nor would I have them prolonged. With you, however, it is not so.
Youth and the bloom of youth are yours. What then is to be done? You
must prove yourself to possess valour and greatness of soul; and since
the state offers riches and freedom to whomsoever shall slay me and bear
them my head, let the reward be yours. Strike it off, and be happy!”
-----
Footnote 63:
The Romans, it must be owned, conducted the war against Eunus, who had
adopted the style and title of a king, in a manner more worthy of the
republic. The number of the insurgents amounted at one time to sixty
thousand men, who, armed with axes, slings, stakes, and cooking-spits,
defeated several armies, and carried on hostilities during upwards of
three years. Pursuing them, however, without relaxation, the state
prevailed at length, utterly crushed the insurrection, and carried
Eunus a prisoner to Rome, where, according to Plutarch, he, like the
dictator, Sylla, was devoured by vermin: Εἰ δὲ δεῖ καὶ των ἀπ´ οὐδενὸς
μὲν χρηστοῦ γνωρίμων δ´ ἄλλως ἐπιμνησθῆναι, λέγεται τὸν ἄρξαντα τοῦ
δουλικοῦ πολέμου περὶ Σικελίαν δραπέτην, Εὔνουν ὄνομα μετὰ τὴν ἄλωσιν
εἰς Ῥώμην ἀγόμενον ὑπὸ φθειριάσεως ἀποθανεῖν. Vit. Syl. § 36. Cf.
Diod. Sicul. 34. Ap. Phot. Biblioth. 386. The conclusion of the war by
Perperna is thus related by Florus: Tandem Perperna imperatore
supplicium de eis sumptum est. Hic enim victos et apud Eunam novissimè
obsessos quum fame quasi pestilentia consumpsisset reliquias latronum
compedibus catenis religavit, crucibusque punivit fuitque de servis
ovatione contentus, ne dignitatem triumphi servili inscriptione
violaret. iii. 19.
-----
At first the youth rejected the proposal, but ultimately Drimacos
prevailed. The old man fell, and his friend on presenting his head
received the sum which had been offered by the state, together with his
freedom, and thereupon after burying his benefactor’s remains, he sailed
away to his own country. Now, however, the Chians underwent the just
punishment of their treachery. No longer guided by the wisdom and
authority of Drimacos, the fugitive slaves returned to their original
habits of plunder and devastation; whereupon, remembering the moderation
of the dead, they erected an Heroön upon his grave, and denominated him
the propitious hero. The insurgents, too, holding his memory in no less
veneration, continued for ages to offer up the first-fruits of their
spoil at his tomb. He was, in fact, honoured with a kind of apotheosis,
and canonized among the gods of the island; for it was believed that his
shade often appeared to men in dreams for the purpose of revealing some
servile conspiracy while yet in the bud: and they to whom he vouchsafed
these warning visits, more grateful than when he yet lived, never failed
to proceed to his chapel, and offer sacrifice to his manes.[64]
-----
Footnote 64:
Nymphiodor. ap. Athen. vi. 88, sqq.
-----
In another department of iniquity the Chians would appear to have been
engaged about the period of Xerxes’ expedition into Greece; I mean the
making of eunuchs for the Eastern market. Panionios, a miscreant engaged
in this traffic, who had mutilated and sold into slavery a young man
named Hermotimos, at length expiated his offence against human nature by
being himself, together with his four sons, subjected to the same
operation.[65] His countrymen, also, in process of time, were, in like
manner, compelled to drain the bitter cup of servitude. For, as we find
recorded by Nicolaos the Peripatetic, and Posidonios the Stoic, having
been subjugated by Mithridates of Cappadocia, they were delivered up to
their own slaves to be carried away captive into Colchis, which
Athenæus, a man not overburdened with religion, considers the just
punishment of their wickedness in having been the first who introduced
the slave-trade into Greece, when they might have been better served by
freemen for hire. From this ancient villany of the Chians is supposed to
have arisen the proverb—“the Chian has bought himself a master,” which
Eupolis introduced into his drama called the “Friends.”[66]
-----
Footnote 65:
Herod. viii. 105.
Footnote 66:
Athen. vi. 91.
-----
The servile war which took place among the Samians, had a more fortunate
issue, though but few particulars respecting it have come down to us. It
was related, however, by Malacos, in his annals of the Siphnians, that
Ephesos was first founded by a number of Samian slaves, who having
retired to a mountain on the island to the number of a thousand,
inflicted numerous evils on their former tyrants. These in the sixth
year of the war, having consulted the oracle, came to an understanding
with their slaves, who being permitted to depart in safety from the
island, sailed away, and became the founders of the city and people of
Ephesos.[67]
-----
Footnote 67:
Athen. vi. 92.
-----
In Attica, the institution of slavery,[68] though attended, as it
everywhere must be, by innumerable evils, nevertheless exhibited itself
under the mildest form which it anywhere assumed in the ancient
world.[69] With their characteristic attention to the interests of
humanity, the Athenians enacted a law, in virtue of which slaves could
indict their masters for assault and battery. Hyperides, accordingly,
observed in his oration against Mantitheos, “our laws making no
distinction in this respect between freemen and slaves, grant to all
alike the privilege of bringing an action against those who insult or
injure them.”[70] To the same effect spoke Lycurgus[71] in his first
oration against Lycophron; but Demosthenes has preserved the law which
empowered any Athenian, not labouring under legal disability, to
denounce to the Thesmothetæ the person who offered violence to man,
woman, or boy, whether slave or free. The action was tried before the
court of Heliæa, and numerous were the examples of men who had suffered
death for crimes committed against bondsmen. Not, therefore, without
reason did the orator eulogise the humane spirit of the law, or dwell
upon the beneficial effects which a knowledge of its existence must
produce among those barbarous nations who furnished Greece with servile
labourers.[72] Another privilege enjoyed by the slave class in Attica
was that of purchasing their own freedom, as often as, by the careful
management of the peculium secured them by law, they were enabled to
offer to their owners an equivalent for their services.[73]
-----
Footnote 68:
For the condition of the public slaves δημόσιοι see the notes on
Demosth. Olynth. ii. 7. Orat. Att. t. v. p. 45.
Footnote 69:
Occasionally we find them sleeping with their masters in the same
apartment, which, doubtless, resembled the _chambre de ménage_ of the
old French. Aristoph. Nub. 5, et Schol.
Footnote 70:
Ap. Athen. vi. 92.
Footnote 71:
Lycurg. Frag. xi. Orat. Att. iv. 482. Cf. Meurs. Them. Att. ii. 11.
Petit. Legg. Att. vi. 5. 470. Plato was less just to them than the
laws of his country. If, in his imaginary state, a slave killed a
slave in self-defence he was judged innocent; if a freeman, he was to
be put to death like a parricide. De Legg. t. viii. p. 150.
Footnote 72:
Cont. Mid. § 14.
Footnote 73:
Petit. Legg. Att. ii. 6, p. 179.
-----
Still, even in Attica, the yoke of bondage was a heavy yoke, the law
itself, in other matters, drawing distinctions between freemen and
slaves doubly galling because palpably unnecessary. Legally, for
example, they were not allowed to wear long hair,[74] or a garment with
two sleeves,[75] to drink wine, save at the festival of Pithœgia on the
first day of the month Anthesterion; to anoint themselves as in the
gymnasia, to be present at the procession in honour of the Eumenides, or
in the case of females to enter the temple of Demeter during the
celebration of the Thesmophoria.[76] A similar spirit pervaded the
servile code in other parts of Greece. Thus, in the island of Cos they
were prohibited from joining in the sacrifices to Hera, and from tasting
the victims. They were, likewise, forbidden to be present when offerings
were presented to the Manes of Phorbas. But from the very words of the
law which authorised the temple wardens to exclude them on these
occasions, it is clear that on all others they might freely enter.[77]
At Athens, with the exceptions above mentioned, every temple in the city
appears to have been open to them. Occasionally, moreover, certain of
their number were selected to accompany their masters to consult the
oracle at Delphi, when even they were permitted, like free citizens, to
wear crowns upon their heads, which, for the time conferred upon them
exemption from blows or stripes.[78] Among their more serious
grievances, was their liability to personal chastisement, which, besides
being inflicted as our punishment of the treadmill, or whipping,[79] at
the carts’-tail, by an order of the magistrates,[80] was too much left
to the discretion of their owners, whose mercies in many cases would be
none of the most tender. In time of war, however, this planter’s luxury
could not be enjoyed,[81] since the flogged slaves might go over to the
enemy, as sometimes happened.[82] They are said, besides, to have worked
the mines in fetters; probably, however, only in consequence of the
revolt described by Posidonios, in which they slew the overseers of the
mines, and taking possession of the acropolis of Sunium,[83] laid waste
for a considerable time the whole of the adjacent districts. This took
place simultaneously with the second insurrection of the slaves in
Sicily (there was, perhaps, an understanding between them) in the
quelling of which nearly a million of their number were destroyed.[84]
Other grievances they endured, which will be noticed as we proceed; but
in addition to those that actually existed, a learned modern writer has
imagined another, which, in his opinion, reduces their condition beneath
that of the Helots. “Nearly all the ties of family were broken,” he
says, “among the slaves of Athens;” and further explaining himself in a
note remarks, that the marriage of slaves was there an uncommon
event.[85] We find, however, from contemporary writers, that except in
cases of incorrigible perverseness, slaves were, on the contrary,
encouraged to marry, it being supposed they would thus become more
attached to their masters.[86] The same bold and ingenious writer
endeavours to give a reason for what has been quoted above, by saying,
“it was cheaper to purchase than to bring up slaves.” This was not the
opinion of the ancients, “we,” say they, “prefer and put more trust in
slaves born and brought up in the house, than in such as are
purchased.”[87]
-----
Footnote 74:
Schol. Arist. Vesp. 444. In rainy weather they wore dog-skin caps, id.
ib. δοῦλος ὤν κόμην, ἔχεις, was a proverb applied to persons acting
irrationally. Suid. Port. t. i. p. 769.
Footnote 75:
Etymol. Mag. 90. 55.
Footnote 76:
Meurs. Them. Att. ii. 11. 85, seq. with the authors there cited.
Footnote 77:
Athen. vi. 81.
Footnote 78:
Aristoph. Plut. 21.
Footnote 79:
The thongs of whips used in scourging slaves, had sometimes we find
small pieces of bronze fastened at the end. Caylus, Rec. D’Antiq. ii.
p. 334. Among the Tyrrhenians, slaves were absurdly beaten to the
sound of music. Plut. De Cohibend. Irâ. § 11.
Footnote 80:
Meurs. Them. Att. ii. 11.
Footnote 81:
Xenophon, in fact, complains that they could not be struck:—οὔτε
πατάξαι ἔξεστιν αὐτόθι. De Rep. Athen. i. 10. Cf. Muret. in Arist.
Ethic. v. p. 434, sqq. Elsewhere in Greece the beating of slaves would
appear to have been a matter of every day occurrence. Plut. De
Cohibend. Irâ. § 15.
Footnote 82:
Aristoph. Nub. 6, et Schol. When a slave once ran away from Diogenes
he would not pursue him, but observed, that it would be a frightful
thing if Diogenes could not do without the slave, since the slave
could do without Diogenes. Stob. Florileg. Tit. 62. 47.
Footnote 83:
They would appear to have made every slave who joined them a citizen
of Sunium, whence the proverb, “Slaves to-day, and Sunians to-morrow.”
Athen. vi. 83. On one occasion certain slaves took possession of a
number of galleys, and infested the coast of Italy as pirates. 87.
Footnote 84:
Athen. vi. 104.
Footnote 85:
Müll. Dor. ii. 37. Among the Romans, slaves were thought to be
incapable of contracting marriage, properly so called. Porrò ad
militaris contubernii similitudinem quandam factum est ut, cùm inter
servos jure Romano veræ nuptiæ dici nequeant, servile connubium non
matrimonium, ut inter liberos, sed, uti mera cohabitatio, contubernium
diceretur. Torrent. in Suet. Vesp. p. 362.
Footnote 86:
Xen. Œcon. ix. 5. Aristot. Œcon. i. 5, (who says that slaves were to
be bound by the pledge of children.) Columell. i. 8. 5.
Footnote 87:
Πεφύκαμεν γὰρ καὶ τῶν οἰκετῶν μᾶλλον πιστεύειν τοῖς οἴκοι γεννηθεῖσι
καὶ τραφεῖσιν ἤ οὕς ἄν κτησώμεθα πριάμενοι. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 2.
-----
It has been observed that, from the most grievous insults and contumely,
slaves were protected by the laws; but if, in spite of legal protection,
their masters found means to render their lives a burden, the state
provided them with an asylum in the temples of Theseus and the
Eumenides.[88] Having there taken sanctuary, their oppressors could not
force them thence without incurring the guilt of sacrilege.[89] Thus, in
a fragment of Aristophanes’ Seasons we find a slave deliberating whether
he should not take refuge in the Theseion, and there remain till he
could procure his transfer to a new master;[90] for any one who
conducted himself too harshly towards his slaves was by law compelled to
sell them.[91] Nay and not only so, but the slave could institute an
action against his lord called αἰκιάς δίκη, or against any other citizen
who had behaved unjustly or injuriously towards him. But the right of
sanctuary was no doubt limited, and only extended from the time of the
slave’s flight to the next New Moon, when a periodical slave-auction
appears to have been held.[92]
-----
Footnote 88:
Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 1309.
Footnote 89:
Plut. Thes. § 36. With the commentators on Pollux. t. v. p. 232, seq.
Cf. Phil. Jud. Lib. quisq. virt. Stud. t. ii. p. 467. ed. Mangey.
Grot. Le Droit de la Guerre et de la Paix, l. iii. ch. 7. § 8, with
the notes of Barbeyrac.
Footnote 90:
Pollux. vii. 13. Such as took refuge at the Altar of Hestia or the
domestic hearth were denominated ἑδρῖται. Etymol. Mag. 316, 52.
Footnote 91:
In modern times the Turks claim the credit of superior humanity
towards their slaves who, through marriage with their masters’ sons or
daughters, often rise to the highest degree of opulence and
distinction. Most of the Pashas and great officers of state have
sprung from a servile origin. The same thing may be said of the
Sultanas and principal ladies of the empire; for which reason the
Circassian princes and nobles have always been ambitious to have one
at least of their daughters established in a Turkish harem. Habesci,
State of the Ottoman Empire, chap. 31. p. 396, sqq. A correspondent of
the Malta Times, writing from Turkey, observes: “Should the slave
object to remain with his master, he himself has the power to go to
the market and declare he wishes to be sold. The master never opposes
this, and it proves such a check upon him that he seldom dares even to
scold his slave.” Times, February 28, 1842. All this must be
understood, however, with considerable reserve, since no traveller can
pass through the Ottoman Empire without discovering numerous examples
of the cruelty of masters towards their domestics.
Footnote 92:
Ἐν δὲ ταῖς νουμηνίαις οἱ δοῦλοι ἐπωλούντο. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 43.
The auctioneer or slave-broker (προπάτωρ) was answerable at law for
the quality of the persons whom he sold; that is, that they
corresponded with the description given of them in the catalogue.
Poll. vii. 11. 12. Cf. Casaub. ad Theoph. Charact. p. 257, and
Scaliger on the word Propula ad Virg. Cul. 411. p. 1255, seq. Slaves
were sometimes sold in the temple of Castor and Polydeukes. Dem. in
Steph. i. § 23.
On this occasion the slaves were stationed, as I have seen them in the
bazaars of modern Egypt, in a circle in the market-place, and the one
whose turn it was to be sold mounted a table, which seems to have been
of stone, where he exhibited himself and was knocked down to the best
bidder. Sometimes when the articles were lively they made great sport
for the company, as in the case of Diogenes who bawled aloud “whoever
among you wants a master, let him buy me.”[93]
-----
Footnote 93:
Diogen. Laert. vi. 1. 4.
-----
To the friskiness whether natural or assumed which the young barbarians
often exhibited on this occasion, Menander alludes in the following
fragment of his Ephesian:[94]
I scorn by the gods to be breechesless found,
And for sale tripping briskly the vile circles round.
-----
Footnote 94:
Harpocrat. v. κύκλοι. p. 108. Vales. Cf. Poll. vii. 11.
-----
Slaves of little or no value were contemptuously called “salt-bought,”
from a custom prevalent among the inland Thracians, of bartering their
captives for salt;[95] whence it may be inferred, that domestics from
that part of the world were considered inferior.
-----
Footnote 95:
Poll. vii. 14, seq.
-----
Respecting the price of slaves an important passage occurs in the
Memorabilia, where Socrates, conversing with Antisthenes, on the subject
of friendship, inquires whether friends were to be valued at so much per
head, like slaves, some of whom he says were not worth a demimina, while
others would fetch two, five, or even ten minæ,[96] that is, the price
varied from forty shillings to forty pounds. Nay it is even said that
Nicias, son of Niceratos, bought an overseer for his silver mines at the
price of a talent, or two hundred and forty-one pounds sterling.[97]
This passage is in substance quoted by Boeckh,[98] who observes that,
exclusively of the fluctuations caused by the variations in the supply
and the demand, the market-price of slaves was affected by their age,
health, strength, beauty, natural abilities, mechanical ingenuity, and
moral qualities. The meanest and cheapest class were those who worked in
the mills,[99] where mere bodily strength was required, and therefore by
setting Samson at this labour the Philistines intimated their extreme
contempt for his blind energy. A very low value was set upon such slaves
as worked in the mines, about 150 drachmas in the age of
Demosthenes.[100] Ordinary house-slaves, whether male or female, might
be valued at about the same price. Demosthenes, in fact, considered two
minæ and a half a large sum for a person of this class. Of the
sword-cutlers possessed by the orator’s father some were valued at six
minæ, others at five, while the lowest were worth above three.
Chair-makers sold for about two minæ.
-----
Footnote 96:
Cf. Demosth. adv. Spud. § 3.
Footnote 97:
Xenoph. Mem. ii. 5. 2.
Footnote 98:
Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 92.
Footnote 99:
Suid. v. ἱμαῖον ᾆσμα, t. i. p. 1239. c. Poll. vii. 180. Of the
mill-houses of the ancients we have the following description in
Apuleius: “Ibi complurium jumentorum multivii circuitus intorquebant
molas ambage varia; nec die tantum, verum perpeti etiam nocte prorsus
instabili machinarum vertigine lucubrabant perviligem farinam.” He
then sketches a frightful picture of the slaves who work there:
“Homunculi vibicibus livedinis totam cutem depicti, dorsumque plagosum
scissili centunculo magis inumbrati, quàm obtecti; nonnulli exiguo
tegili tantummodo pubem injecti, cuncti tamen sic tunicati, ut essent
per pannulos manifesti; frontes literati, et capillum semirasi, et
pedes annulati.” Metamorph. ix. p. 204, seq. Cf. Pignor. De Servis, p.
9, seq.
Footnote 100:
In Pantænet. §§ 2. 5. Barthelémy, however, who had curiously examined
the subject, supposes, that a mina was worth from 300 to 600 drachmæ.
Voy. du J. Anach. v. 35.
-----
In his discussion on this point, Boeckh[101] charges Demosthenes with
intentional falsehood, because, in his oration against Aphobos, he
reckons fourteen sword-cutlers at forty minæ, something less than three
minæ a-piece. But among those possessed by his father at his death some
were reckoned at only three minæ. His guardians made use of them for ten
years, that is, till they were grown old, by which time the best would
have deteriorated, and the others become of no value.[102] This being
the case, I do not see upon what ground Boeckh bases his accusation. The
wages of slaves, when let out by their masters on hire, varied greatly,
as did also the profit derived from them. A miner was supposed to yield
his master an obolos per day, a leather-worker two oboli, and a foreman
or overseer three. Expert manufacturers of fine goods, such as
head-nets, stuffs of Amorgos, and variegated fabrics like our flowered
muslins, must have produced their owners much greater returns.[103]
-----
Footnote 101:
Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 94.
Footnote 102:
Orat. in Aphob. § 2.
Footnote 103:
Boeckh Pub. Econ. of Athen. i. 92, sqq.
-----
Slaves, at Athens, were divided into two classes, private and public.
The latter, who were the property of the state, performed several kinds
of service supposed to be unworthy of freemen: they were, for example,
employed as vergers, messengers, apparitors, scribes, clerks of public
works,[104] and inferior servants of the gods. Most of the temples of
Greece possessed, in fact, a great number of slaves or serfs, who
cultivated the sacred domains, exercised various humbler offices of
religion, and were, in short, ready on all occasions to execute the
orders of the priests.[105] At Corinth, where the worship of Aphrodite
chiefly prevailed, these slaves consisted almost exclusively of
women,[106] who having, on certain occasions, burnt frankincense, and
offered up public prayers to the goddess, were sumptuously feasted
within the precincts of her fane.
-----
Footnote 104:
Rudig. ad Dem. Olynth. B. § 7. Etymol. Mag. 265. 29, seq.
Footnote 105:
Dissen. ad Fragm. Pind. p. 640.
Footnote 106:
See a representation of sacred female slaves dancing, in Zoëga, Bassi
Relievi. Tav. 20, seq.
-----
Among the Athenians, the slaves of the republic, generally captives
taken in war, received a careful education, and were sometimes entrusted
with important duties. Out of their number were selected the
secretaries,[107] who, in time of war, accompanied the generals and
treasurers of the army, and made exact minutes of their expenditure, in
order that, when on their return these officers should come to render an
account of their proceedings, their books might be compared with those
of the secretaries. In cases of difficulty, moreover, these unfortunate
individuals were subjected to torture, in order to obtain that kind of
evidence which the ancients deemed most satisfactory.[108]
-----
Footnote 107:
Vid. Stock. ad Dem. Olynth. B. § 7. Ulp. ad loc. Harpocrat. v.
δημόσιος. Vales. ad Maussac. p. 374.
Footnote 108:
Lycurg. cont. Leocrat. § 9. Antiph. de Cæd. Herod. § 6. On the extreme
uncertainty of evidence extracted by the torture, see Sir John
Fortescue, de Laud. Leg. Angl. c. 22.
-----
The servile vocabulary was necessarily abundant: διάκονος,[109] a
servant in general; ὑπηρέτης,[110] a personal attendant or valet;
ἀργυρώ-νητης,[111] a slave bought with money; ὤνιος, the same;
οἰκότριψ,[112] οἰκοτραφὴς, a male slave born in the house. The name
given to the female slave in the same condition was σηκὶς, or
οἰκογενὴς.[113] The housekeeper, likewise a slave, received the
appellation of ταμεία[114] from her office. A lady’s maid they called
παιδίσκη,[115] though it be doubtful, according to Pollux, whether the
orator Lysias, who uses the word, does so with reference to the girl’s
youth or condition.[116] A slave born of slaves in the house is called
οἰκοτριβαίος.[117] Chrysippos makes a distinction between οἰκέτης[118]
and δοῦλος,[119] but without much foundation. Clitarchus enumerates
various names by which slaves were known in Greece: ἄζοι,
θεραπόντες,[120] ἀκόλουθοι,[121] πάλμονες, and λάτρεις. Rural slaves
were called ἐρκίται. Hermon, in his Cretan Glossaries, observes, that
slaves, born of free parents (εὐγένεις), were, in the island of Crete,
called μνῶται. Seleucus informs us, that ἄζοι signifies servants male
and female.[122] The latter were also denominated ἀποφράσαι and βολίζαι.
A male slave, born of a slave, was termed σινδρὼν; a female attendant on
a lady, ἀμφίπολος; a slave-girl who walked before her mistress,
πρόπολος. Female slaves were, at Lacedæmon, called χαλκίδες. The term
οἰκέτης was applied to any person employed about a house, whether slave
or free.
-----
Footnote 109:
Etym. Mag. 268. 25.
Footnote 110:
Etym. Mag. 780. 40, sqq.
Footnote 111:
Etym. Mag. 285. 6. Suid. v. ἀργυρώνη. t. i. p. 416. a.
Footnote 112:
Suid. v. οἰκότριψ. t. ii. p. 278. b. Etym. Mag. 598. 15. Ammonius is
more explicit:—οἰκότριψ καὶ οἰκέτης διαφέρει. Οἰκότριψ μὲν γὰρ, ὁ ἐν
τῇ οἰκίᾳ διατρεφόμενος, ὃν ἡμεῖς θρεπτὸν καλοῦμεν· οἰκέτης δὲ, ὁ
δοῦλος ὁ ὠνητός· παρὰ δὲ Σόλωνι ἐν τοῖς ἄξοσιν οἰκεὺς κέκληται ὁ
οἰκότριψ. De Adfin. Vocab. Differ. p. 101, seq. See, also, Valckenaër,
Animadvers. c. iii. p. 172, sqq. Thom. Magist. v. οἰκότριψ. p. 645.
The estimation in which they were held may be learned from
Photius:—οἰκότριβες, οἱ ἐκ δούλων δοῦλοι, οἱ καὶ οἰκογενεῖς λέγονται·
νομίθοντο δὲ τὸ παλαιὸν ἀτιμότεροι τῶν οἰκετὼν, ὅτι οἱ μὲν ἐκ δούλων,
οἱ δὲ ἐξ ἐλευθέρων ἐγένοντο, καὶ οἱ μὲν ἀεὶ δοῦλοι, οἱ δὲ ὕστεροι.
Footnote 113:
Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 768. Etym. Mag. 590. 14. Suid. v. οἰκογενὴς. t.
ii. p. 278. a.
Footnote 114:
Cf. Etym. Mag. 745. 13, sqq.
Footnote 115:
Suid. v. παιδίσκη. t. ii. p. 472. a.
Footnote 116:
Poll. iii. 76. Annot. t. iv. p. 562, seq. There was over the female
slaves of the household an inspector, called σκοπὸς. Etym. Mag. 718.
51.
Footnote 117:
Cf. Meurs. Cret. p. 192.
Footnote 118:
Οἰκέται οὐ μόνον οἱ δοῦλοι, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάντες οἱ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ, γυνὴ καὶ
τέκνα. Ἡρόδοτος ἐν τῇ ὀγδόῃ· ἢν κομίσας τοὺς οἰκέτας οἰκέῃ ἐκείνη·
ὥστε ὑποδεξάμενον τοὺς λόγους τὸν Πανιώνιον, κομίσαι τὰ τέκνα καὶ τὴν
γυναῖκα. Thom. Magist. p. 644. Suid. v. οἰκέται. t. ii. p. 276. b.
Footnote 119:
Etym. Mag. 284. 49.
Footnote 120:
Etym. Mag. 446. 41.
Footnote 121:
Dem. cont. Mid. § 44.
Footnote 122:
Athen. vi. 93.
-----
A very pleasant and significant custom prevailed when a slave newly
purchased was first brought into the house. They placed him before the
hearth, where his future master, mistress, and fellow-servants, poured
baskets of ripe fruit, dates, figs, filberts, walnuts, and so on, upon
his head, to intimate that he was come into the abode of plenty.[123]
The occasion was converted by his fellow-slaves into a holiday and a
feast; for custom appropriated to them whatever was thus cast upon the
new-comer, and as there were sweetmeats among the rest, they had
wherewith to make merry.[124]
-----
Footnote 123:
Sch. Aristoph. Plut. 768, with the commentators. Pollux, iii. 77.
Footnote 124:
Cf. Vales. ad Harpocrat. p. 298.
-----
Their food was commonly, as might be expected, inferior to that of their
masters. Thus the dates grown in Greece, which ripened but imperfectly,
were appropriated to their use; and for their drink they had a small
thin wine called Lora,[125] by the Romans made of the husks of grapes,
laid, after they had been pressed, to soak in water,[126] and then
squeezed again, like our _Bunnel_, in the perry country.[127] That they
generally ate barley-bread in Attica was no peculiar hardship,[128]
since the citizens themselves frequently did the same. We find,
moreover, that to give a relish to their coarse meal, plain broth, and
salt fish,[129] they were indulged with pickled gherkins. In the early
ages of the commonwealth they imitated the frugal manner of their lords,
so that no slave who valued his reputation would be seen to enter a
tavern; but in later times they naturally shared largely in the general
depravity of morals, and placed their summum bonum in eating and
drinking. Their whole creed, on this point, has been summed up in a few
words by the poet Sotion.[130] “Wherefore,” exclaims a slave, “dole
forth these absurdities, these ravings of sophists, prating up and down
the Lyceum, the Academy, and the gates of the Odeion? In all these there
is nothing of value. Let us drink, let us drink deeply, O Sicon,
Sicon![131] Let us rejoice, whilst it is yet permitted us to delight our
souls. Enjoy thyself, O Manes! Nothing is sweeter than the belly, which
alone is to thee as thy father and thy mother. Virtues, embassies,
generalships, are vain pomps, resembling the plaudits of a dream.
Heaven, at the fated hour, will deliver thee to the cold grasp of death,
and thou wilt bear with thee nothing but what thou hast drunk and eaten!
All else is dust, like Pericles, Codros, and Cimon.”
-----
Footnote 125:
Varro, De Re Rust. i. 54. Colum. xii. 40. Cato. 25.
Footnote 126:
See Dioscorid. v. 13.
Footnote 127:
A drink precisely similar, and manufactured in the same manner, is
known in the wine districts of France under the name of _piquette_.
Commonly, also, it is there appropriated to the use of the domestics.
Among the ancient Egyptians the poor, and, _à fortiori_, it may be
conjectured, the slaves were condemned to rely upon beer for the
delights of intoxication. Athen. i. 61.
Footnote 128:
Nevertheless, Trygæos considers it a misfortune to be confined to this
kind of food, since he wishes that the armourers, who desire that
their trade may flourish, might fall into the hands of robbers, and be
dieted on barley-bread:—ληφθεὶς ὑπὸ ληστῶν ἐθίοι κριθὰς μόνας. Pac.
Aristoph. 448. Küst. Vid. Schol. 447. But this was to wish them long
life and sharp senses, since the longevity and keen sight of the
Chaldæans, which enabled them, I suppose, to look into futurity, are
chiefly attributed to their bannocks of barley-meal. Luc. Macrob. § 5.
Cf. Poll. ii. 353. Thucyd. iii. 49. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 816. We find,
from the same scholiast, (Eq. 488.) that barley-dough was designated
by a particular term, φύραμα. Cf. Athen. ix. 67.
Footnote 129:
Luc. Quomod. Hist. Sit conscrib. § 20, where the sophist ridicules a
slave who, having inherited his master’s property, neglected the
dainties set before him, such as poultry, pork, and game, and fell to
on the articles of his former diet. Similar traits were exhibited by
the French servants, who made great fortunes during the Mississippi
scheme. For example, a footman who had enriched himself and purchased
a carriage, instead of entering got up behind it. Lord John Russell.
Hist. of Europe, t. ii. p. 217.
Footnote 130:
Athen. viii. 15. Servile names were usually brief, as Mida, Phryx, &c.
Schol. Arist. Vesp. 433. Cf. Strab. l. vii. t. i. p. 467. a. Casaub.
Footnote 131:
Euripides describes in a few verses the two very different views taken
of servitude by the freeman and the slave:
Orest. Δοῦλος ὢν φοβεῖ τὸν Ἄιδην
ὅς σ’ ἀπαλλάξ εκ κακῶν.
Phryx. Πᾶρ’ ἀνὴρ κἂν δοῦλος
ἦι τις ἥδεται τὸ φῶς ὁρῶν.
Orest. 1537, sqq.
The observation of the Phrygian is just; for God, who tempers the wind
to the shorn lamb, mitigates also the misery of the slave, and enables
him to look upon the light with something like joy.
-----
The employment of household slaves necessarily varied according to the
rank and condition of their lords. In the dwellings of the wealthy and
luxurious they were accustomed to fan their masters and mistresses, and
to drive away the flies with branches of myrtle, instead of which, in
the East, they make use of flappers of palm-leaves. Among the Roman
ladies it was customary to retain a female attendant for the sole
purpose of looking after the Melitensian lap-dogs[132] of their
mistresses, in which they were less ambitious than that dame in Lucian,
who kept a philosopher for this purpose.[133] Female cup-bearers filled
the place of our saucy footmen.[134] Ladies’ maids were likewise slaves.
They were initiated in all the arts of the toilette; and it is told of
Julia, whose hair turned prematurely grey, that her ornatrix was
sometimes surprised plucking out the white hairs by the entrance of her
father.[135] The offices of these ornamenters is thus described by
Manilius:
Illis cura sui vultus frontisque decoræ
Semper erit, tortosque in plexum ponere crineis,
Aut nodis revocare, et rursus vertice denso
Fingere et appositis caput emutare capillis.[136]
-----
Footnote 132:
Pignor. De Serv. p. 190. In illustration of the fondness of certain
persons for animals, it is related, that there was an old lady in
Egypt who habitually slept with a crocodile. Plut. Solert. Anim. § 23.
Footnote 133:
De Merced. Conduct. § 34.
Footnote 134:
Pignor. De Serv. p. 190. Athen. i. 20.
Footnote 135:
Macrob. Saturn. ii. 5.
Footnote 136:
Manil. v. p. 117. v. 28. ed. Scalig.
-----
In these arts they were regularly taught under masters, and there would
likewise appear to have been a set of men who earned their subsistence
by initiating slaves in household labours. An example is mentioned at
Syracuse of a person[137] who probably had an establishment of his own,
where he instructed slaves in the whole round of their domestic duties,
such as bread-making, cooking, washing, and so on. In the baker’s
business Anaxarchos, an Eudaimonist philosopher, one of the fitting
companions of Alexander the Great,[138] introduced an improvement by
which modern times may profit,—to preserve his bread pure from the
touch, and even from the breath of the slaves who made it, he caused
them to knead the dough with gloves on their hands, and to wear a
respirator of some gauze-like substance over the mouth.[139] Other
individuals, who grudged their domestics a taste of their delicacies,
obliged them, while employed at the kneading-trough, to wear a broad
collar, like a wheel, which prevented them from bringing their hands to
their mouths.[140] This odious practice, however, could not have been
general, as it is clear, from an expression in Aristophanes[141] and his
scholiast, that slaves employed in making bread used to amuse themselves
by eating the dough. This seems to be one of the principal causes of
disgust to the rogues in the piece employed in preparing the delicacies
with which Trygæos feeds the beetle whereon he is about to mount to the
court of Zeus.
-----
Footnote 137:
Arist. Polit. i. 2. Cf. Dem. adv. Leochar. § 20.
Footnote 138:
Diog. Laert. ix. 10. 60.
Footnote 139:
This Anaxarchos, upon whom complaisant antiquity bestowed the name of
philosopher, was in reality nothing but a libertine courtier, whose
manners and tastes are thus described by Clearchos of Soli: Τῶν
Εὐδαιμονικῶν καλουμένον Ἀναξάρχω διὰ τὴν τῶν χορηγησάντων ἄγνοιαν
περιπεσούσης ἐξουσίας, γυμνὴ μὲν ᾠνοχόει παιδίσκη πρόσηβος, ἡ
προκριθεῖσα διαφέρειν ὥρᾳ τῶν ἄλλων· ἀνασύρουσα πρὸς ἀλήθειαν τὴν τῶν
οὕτως αὐτῇ χρωμένων ἀκρασίαν· ὁ δὲ σιτοποιὸς χειρίδας ἔχων, καὶ περὶ
τῷ στόματι κημὸν, ἔτριβέ τὸ σταῖς, ἵνα μηδὲ ἱδρὼς ἐπιῤῥέῃ, μήτε τοῖς
φυράμασιν ὁ τρίβων ἐμπνέοι. Athen. xii. 70.
Footnote 140:
Poll. vii. 20. x. 112. Suid. v. παυσικάπη. t. ii. p. 467. b. This and
similar practices are noticed by M. Grégoire. “Les anciens mettoient
aux esclaves, (v. Fabretti Inscrip. Antiq. Explic. p. 522,) comme on
met aux chiens, des colliers ou cercles de fer, sur lesquels étoient
gravés les noms, profession et demeure du propriétaire, avec
invitation de les ramener à leurs maîtres en cas de fuite. Dans le
Supplément aux Antiquités Grecques et Romaines de Poleni, on peut lire
diverses inscriptions de ce genre.(Utriusque Thesauri Antiquitatem,
etc., nova supplementa, ab J. Poleno, t. iv. p. 1247.)Les colons
avoient enchéri sur les anciens en inventions, pour torturer leur
semblables: telle est, par example, l’énorme triangle de fer au cou
des nègres, pour les empêcher de fuir. Cependant, la coutume de
museler les esclaves, de leur cadenasser la bouche afin qu’ils ne
puissent se désaltérer en suçant une canne à sucre, n’est qu’une
imitation de l’antiquité, car Suidas et Pollux nous apprennent qu’on
leur mettoit au cou une machine, nommé _pausicape_, en forme de roue,
qui les empêchoit de porter la main à la bouche et de manger de la
farine lorsqu’on les occupoit à tourner la meule.” De la Domesticité
chez les Peuples Anciens et Modernes, p. 6. Cf. Pignor. de Servis, p.
15, seq.
Footnote 141:
Pac. 12. seq.
Ιδού,
Ἑνὸς μὲν, ὦνδρες, ἀπολελῦσθαί μοι δοκῶ.
Οὐδεις γὰρ ἂν φαίη με μάττοντ᾽ ἐσθίειν.
Upon which the Scholiast remarks: εἰώθασι γὰρ ἅμα τῳ μάρτειν, ἐσθίειν.
-----
In the city of Abdera, as we find from an anecdote of Stratonicos,[142]
every private citizen kept a slave who served him in the capacity of
herald, and announced by sound of trumpet the appearance of the new
moon, and the festival by which it was followed. A _bon mot_ worth
repeating is ascribed to this travelling wit. Being one day in the
cemetery of Teicheios, a town of the Milesian territory,[143] inhabited
by a mixed population from all the neighbouring countries, and seeing on
every tomb the name of some foreigner, “Come,” said he to his slave,
“let us depart from this place. Nobody dies here but strangers.”
-----
Footnote 142:
Athen. viii. 41.
Footnote 143:
Athen. viii. 43.
-----
One of the most steady and faithful of the domestics was usually
selected to be the porter.[144] Occasionally, moreover, in the
establishments of opulent and ostentatious persons, as Callias
for example, eunuchs, imported from Asia, were employed as
door-keepers.[145]
-----
Footnote 144:
Mention is also made of female porters. Dem. in Ev. et Mnes. § 10.
Footnote 145:
The scene in which Callias’s eunuch-porter is introduced to us is
painted in Plato’s liveliest manner. This ancient Bababalouk exhibits
all the crabbedness of the keeper of an oriental harem; and as we
listen to him bawling at Socrates through the door, we appear to be
transported to the establishment of the Emir Fakreddin. Δοκεῖ οὖν μοι,
ὁ θυρωρός, εὐνοῦχός τις, κατήκουεν ἡμῶν· κινδυνεύει δὲ διὰ τὸ πλῆθος
τῶν σοφιστῶν ἄχθεσθαι γοῦν ἐκρούσαμεν τὴν θύραν, ἀνοίξας καὶ ἰδων
ἡμᾶς, Ἔα, ἔφη, σοφισταί τινες· οὐ σχολὴ αὐτῷ. Καὶ ἁμα ἀμφοῖν τοῖν
χεροῖν τὴν θύραν πάνυ προθύμως ὡς οἷός τ᾽ ἦν ἐπήραξε. Καὶ ἡμεῖς πάλιν
ἐκρούομεν. καὶ ὃς ἐγκεκλῃμένης τῆς θύρας ἀποκρινόμενος εἶπεν, Ὦ
ἄνθρωποι, ἔφη, οὐκ ἀκηκόατε ὅτι οὐ σχολὴ αὐτῷ; Ἀλλ᾽ ὠγαθέ, ἔφην ἐγώ,
οὔτε παρὰ Καλλίαν ‘ἀλλ᾽ ὠγαθέ,’ ἥκομεν οὔτε σοφισταί ἐσμεν, ἀλλὰ
θάῤῥει· Πρωταγόραν γάρ τι δεόμενοι ἰδεῖν ἢλθομεν. εἰσάγγειλον οὖν.
Μόγις οὖν ποτὲ ἡμῖν ἄνθρωπος ἀνέωξε τὴν θύραν. Protag. t. i. p. 159,
seq.
-----
The directions, as Mitford justly observes, which Penelope’s housekeeper
gives to the menial servants for the business of the day, might still
serve in the East without variation: “Go quickly,” she said, “some of
you sweep the house, and sprinkle it, and let the crimson carpets be
spread upon the seats; let all the tables be well rubbed with sponges,
and wash carefully the bowls and cups. Some of you go immediately to the
fountain for water.”[146]
-----
Footnote 146:
Odyss. υ. 149. Hist. of Greece, i. 186. Cf. Athen. iii. 73.
-----
Besides working at the mill, and fetching water, both somewhat laborious
employments, we find that female slaves were sometimes engaged in
offices still more unfeminine; that is, in woodcutting upon the
mountains, where the impudent old fellow, in Aristophanes, takes
advantage of Thratta.[147] Events of this kind, however, could only
happen among the peasant girls. In the city both mistresses and maids
were too domestic to meet with adventures in forest or on mountains.
Towards the decline of the commonwealth, it became a mark of wealth and
consequence to be served by black domestics, both male and female, as
was also the fashion among the Romans and the Egyptian Greeks. Thus
Cleopatra[148] had negro boys for torch-bearers; and the shallow
exclusive, in Cicero,[149] is anxious to make it known that he has an
African valet. Juvenal, in his sarcastic style, alludes to this
practice.[150]
Tibi pocula cursor
Gætulus dabit aut nigri manus ossea Mauri.
-----
Footnote 147:
Acharn. 272. The principle on which names were bestowed upon slaves is
thus explained by Helladius: οἱ κωμικοὶ τοὺς οἰκέτας τὸ μὲν πλέον ἀπὸ
τοῦ γένους κάλουν οἷον Σύρον καρίωνα Μίδαν Γέταν καὶ τὰ ὅμοια, ἐκαλουν
δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐξ ἐπιθέτων, ὡς ἀπὸ τοῦ χρώματος μὲν Πυῤῥιαν καὶ Ξανθίαν ἀπὸ
τοῦ τρόπου δὲ Παρμένωνα καὶ Πιστὸν καὶ Δρόμωνα. ἐκάλουν δὲ καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς
ἡμέρας ἐν ᾗ ὠνήσαντο τὸν οἰκέτην, ἐξ οὗ καὶ τοὺς Νουμηνίας ὠνόμαζον.
Chrestomath. ap. Phot. Bib. 532. b. 36, seq. See also the note of
Meursius. p. 57.
Footnote 148:
Athen. iv. 29.
Footnote 149:
Rhetoric. ad Heren.
Footnote 150:
Sat. v. 52, seq.
-----
The Athenian ladies, like our Indian dames, affected as a foil, perhaps,
to be attended by waiting-maids rendered “by Phœbus’ amorous pinches
black.”[151]
-----
Footnote 151:
Theoph. Char. p. 58, et ad Casaub. loc. p. 329, seq.
-----
Travellers among the higher Alps are almost invariably attended by Swiss
guides who, laden with their employer’s baggage, climb before them up
the rocks, and are less fatigued at the close of the day’s journey than
the rich pedestrians who carry nothing beyond their own weight. This is
an exact image of the style of travelling in antiquity. It was then
common even for opulent men, to “make their own legs their compasses,”
as Scriblerus phrases it; but, not to load their own delicate shoulders
with a knapsack, they were attended, like Bacchos in the Frogs, by a
steady slave, who carried the baggage, mounted on a porter’s knot upon
his shoulders. To employ more than one valet in this service was
esteemed a mark of luxurious habits; and therefore Æschines reproaches
Demosthenes that, during his embassy, he was attended by two domestics
with each a carpet-bag.[152] Both by Theophrastus and Xenophon this
attendant is called an _Acoluthos_, or follower, because it was his duty
to walk behind his master; but this name in general signified a youthful
valet, kept in personal attendance on the great.[153] The simplicity of
republican manners at Athens condemned the habit of maintaining many of
those elegant youths, which, moreover was prohibited by law.[154]
-----
Footnote 152:
Συνηκολούθουν δ᾽ αὐτῷ ἄνθρωποι δύο στρωματόδεσμα φέροντες, ἐν δὲ τῷ
ἑτέρῳ τούτων, ὁς αὐτος ἔφη, τάλαντον ἐνῆν ἀργυρίου. De Fals. Legat.
31.
Footnote 153:
Demosth. cont. Mid. § 44.
Footnote 154:
Οὐκ ἐξῆν παρὰ τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἀργὸν τρέφειν οἰκέτην διόπερ οἱ μὲν
αὐλοποιοὺς, οἱ δὲ μαχαιροποιοὺς εἷχον τοὺς δούλους. Μειδίας δὲ τοὺς
τοσούτους ἀργοὺς περιάγων, τοὺς τυράννους μιμεῖται, δορυφορούμενος ὑπὸ
τῶν οἰκετῶν. Ulp. in Demosth. cont. Mid. § 44. Orat. Att. t. x. p.
225. Here we see the reason why Demosthenes inveighed against Meidias
on account of the number of his followers.
-----
From the severity of manners, however, one evil arose—the single slave
was sometimes condemned by vanity to carry the burden of two; and as
their grumblings were proportioned to their hardship, their case was
soon taken up by the comic poets, not, I fear, so much for the sake of
humanity, as because it often furnished them with a good joke or two. By
degrees, as no writers dwell so constantly on a fruitful topic or so
frankly imitate each other, it became the fashion of the stage to
introduce a miserable devil into every comedy, whose misfortunes, like
those of the clown in our pantomimes, usually kept the theatre in a
roar. The practice, however, had already grown stale in the time of
Aristophanes, who both ridiculed and followed it; for while his sneers
at the grumbling valet are repeated usque ad nauseam, much of the humour
and interest of the Frogs arise out of the tricks and adventures of a
melancholy wag of this description as Casaubon[155] long ago observed.
-----
Footnote 155:
Ad. Theoph. Char. p. 248.
-----
When men have usurped an undue dominion over their fellows, they seldom
know where to stop. The Syrians themselves, enslaved politically, and
often sold into servitude abroad, affected when rich a peculiarly
luxurious manner: female attendants waited on their ladies, who, when
mounting their carriages, required them to crawl on all-fours that they
might make a foot-stool of their backs.[156]
-----
Footnote 156:
Montaigne, Essais, iv. 224. Athen. iii. 72. Plut. De Adulat. et Amic.
§ 3.
-----
CHAPTER VIII.
SERFS OF SPARTA, CRETE, THESSALY, ETC.
If we now pass from the consideration of slavery in the comparatively
mild form which it assumed in Attica to an examination of the state of
the Laconian Helots, we shall discover the spirit which actuated the two
governments to present a still broader contrast in this, the lowest
stage of its influence, than when operating upon the nobler citizens on
the great arena of public life.
Among certain scholars on the continent it appears to be very much the
fashion to oppose an invincible scepticism to the testimony of ancient
writers, as often as that testimony makes against any theory they desire
to establish; and on the subject of the Helots several of the ablest
authors among them have adopted an opinion which cannot be supported
without annihilating several Greek authors, who, in their opinion,
prophesy as awkwardly as Calchas did for the peace of Agamemnon.
Among these the principal is Mr. Müller, from whom I have the misfortune
to differ on many points, but without in the least disparaging his
ability or his learning, for both of which I entertain the highest
respect.[157]
-----
Footnote 157:
When the words in the text were written Mr. Müller was still living,
and there was every reason to expect from him a series of learned and
able works on the history and antiquities of Greece. He has since,
however, fallen a victim to the persevering ardour with which he
pursued his researches into the topography of that illustrious land;
and in common, I believe, with every other admirer of the Hellenic
people and literature I sincerely lament his premature death. My
regret moreover is heightened by the knowledge that Mr. Muller had
projected a history of Greece which his profound investigations and
extensive knowledge of the country would unquestionably have rendered
highly valuable. His ashes repose among those of the most
distinguished men of antiquity. He caught his death among the ruins of
Delphi, and was buried at Athens.
-----
As, however, he has adopted a very peculiar system in the interpretation
of antiquity, which, though plausible and ingenious, seems
ill-calculated to lead to truth, I have found it impossible to
participate on many important points the views which he maintains, more
especially on the subject of the Helots. In fact, with all his talents
and sagacity he has chosen rather to become an advocate than an
historian, and pushes so far his eagerness to defend his favourite
people, as not unfrequently to provoke a smile. In his derivation of the
term Helot, however, he is perhaps correct,[158] it being more probable
that it should have sprung from an ancient word signifying “The
Prisoners” than from the name of the town. In the absence of all
testimony we might likewise entertain the conjecture, “that they were an
aboriginal race subdued at a very early period, and which immediately
passed over as slaves to the Doric conquerors.” But we have the weighty
authority of Theopompos to oppose to this inference, and the words of
this historian[159] attentively considered would lead to the etymology
of the name given by Müller:—“having taken them prisoners,” he says,
“they called them εἵλωτες.” They were, however, Greeks of the Achaian
race, who fell, together with the land, into the power of the
new-comers, so that the excuse of only tyrannising over a foreign and
half-savage race is wanting to the Spartans, which was the object aimed
at by Mr. Müller’s ingenious conjecture.
-----
Footnote 158:
Dorians, t. ii. p. 30. Cf. t. i. p. 86, seq. Nevertheless the
Scholiast on Thucydides maintains the old derivation:—Ἕλος, πόλις τῆς
Λακωνικῆς, ἧς οἱ πολίται ἐκαλοῦντο Εἵλωτες. Οἱ οὖν Λακεδαιμόνιοι, διὰ
τὸ ἀεὶ διαφόρους εἶναι ἀλλήλοις, τοὺς δούλους αὐτῶν ἐκάλουν Εἵλωτας,
κατὰ ἀτιμίαν καὶ ὕβριν. t. v. p. 350. Cf. Clint. Fast. Hellen. ii.
412. Etymol. Mag. 300. 7. 332. 51. They were called also Heliatæ.
Athen. vi. 102. Cf. Poll. vii. 83. Ἕλος πόλις Λακονική. οἱ πολίται
εἵλωτες καὶ εἱλῶται, καὶ ἕλιοι, καί ἑλεάται. ἔστι δὲ καὶ Ἕλος
Αἰγύπτου. ταῦτα δὲ ὁ τὰ ἐθνικὰ γραψας, εἰς τὸ ἕτερον Ἕλος λέγει τὸ ἐν
τοῖς ἐφεξῆς ὑπὸ τὸν Νέστορα. ἕτεροι δὲ ὅτι οὐ μόνον πόλις τὸ Ἕλος ἀλλὰ
καὶ εἰς χώραν τινὰ πλατύνεται. ἀφ’ ἧς καὶ μᾶλλον οἱ ἕιλωτες. οἱ
συνελθόντες τοῖς Μεσσηνίοις, ἦν ὅτε καὶ πράγματα παρασχόντες τοῖς
Λακεδαιμονίοις, εἶτα ὑπετάγησαν ὡσεὶ δοῦλοι. καὶ ἐξ αὐτῶν τὸ ὄνομα τῶν
εἱλώτων εῖς δουλικὴν ἀπλῶν μετελήφθη κλῆσιν. Eustath. ad Il. β. p.
223. 28, sqq. Ἐν γοῦν τοῖς Ἡρωδιανοῦ, εὓρηται ὅτι εἵλωτες οἱ ἐπὶ
Ταινάρῳ σάτυροι. Idem, ad Il. β. b. 225, 17. Cf. Capperonier
Recherches sur l’Histoire des Hilotes. Mem. de L’Acad. des Inscrip. t.
xxiii. p. 272.
Footnote 159:
Theopomp. l. xvii. ap. Athen. vi. 88. Cf. Strab. viii. 5. t. ii. p.
188.
-----
In considering the condition of the Helots, I shall not affect, with the
historian of the Doric race,[160] “to range their political rights and
personal treatment,” under separate heads; in the first place because,
strictly speaking, they had no political rights, and, secondly, because
in the treatment they experienced consists whatever is peculiar in their
position. Several of this learned historian’s notions on the
Lacedæmonian serfs appear to be in direct contradiction with those of
the writers from whom all we know concerning the Helots is obtained. Of
this he seems to be conscious, and in the following way endeavours to
bring discredit on them; assuming as a settled thing, that the Helots
must have possessed political rights, he concludes that they “were
_doubtless exactly_ defined by law and custom, though the expressions
made use of by ancient authors are frequently vague and ambiguous.”[161]
Whether this be the case or not we shall presently see. The remark of
Ephoros is, that “they were in a certain point of view public slaves.
Their possessor could neither liberate them nor sell them beyond the
borders.” On this passage which he quotes,[162] the historian raises a
superstructure which it will by no means support. “From this,” he says,
“it is evident, that they were considered as belonging properly to the
state, which, to a certain degree, permitted them to be possessed, and
apportioned them out to individuals, reserving to itself the power of
enfranchising them.”[163]
-----
Footnote 160:
Hist. and Antiq. of the Dorians, t. ii. p. 31.
Footnote 161:
Dorians, ii. 31.
Footnote 162:
Or rather makes up from two or three _disjecta membra_ of Ephoros.
Strab. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 188, seq. Cf. Paus. iii. 20. 6.
Footnote 163:
Dorians, t. ii. p. 31. Ubbo Emmius takes the same view of the subject.
iii. 138.
-----
The contrary I think is the inference. They were the property of
individuals, but the state reserved to itself the right of enfranchising
them and preventing their emancipation, lest persons should be found
who, like Marcus Porcius, Cato,[164] and the Dutch at the Cape, would
sell or give them their liberty when too old to labour. “But to sell
them out of the country,” says Mr. Müller, “was not in the power even of
the state.” It is true there was an ancient law prohibiting the
exportation of the Helots,[165] but the same authority which enacted
that law could have abrogated it. Had Sparta then chosen to convert her
Helots into an article of traffic, who or what was to prevent her? Since
she arrogated to herself the right of beating, maiming, and putting them
to death,[166] though completely innocent, is it to be supposed that,
had it suited her policy, she would have hesitated to sell them? And
after all are we quite certain that these unhappy people were not
frequently sold into foreign lands? On the contrary, we find, that a
regular trade was carried on in female Helots, who were exported into
all the neighbouring countries for nurses.[167] Thus it appears that the
state both had and exercised the power to convert its serfs into
merchandise.
-----
Footnote 164:
Καὶ τούτους (sc. δούλους) πρεσβυτέρους γενομένους (observes Plutarch,
Vit. Cat. Maj. § 4.) ᾤετο δεῖν ἀποδίδοσθαι, καὶ μὴ βόσκειν ἀχρήστους.
But what Cato practised he approved of theoretically, and in his works
recommends to others; servum senem, servum morbosum, vendat, De Re
Rustica, 2. He would also have the agriculturist dispose of his old
oxen and everything else that was old. Vendat boves, vetulos,
ferramenta vetera, &c. id. ibid. Upon which Plutarch in a fine spirit
of humanity observes, Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν οὐδὲ βοῦν ἂν ἐργάτην διὰ γῆρας
ἀποδοιμην, μή τί γε πρεσβυτέρον ἄνθρωπον, ἐκ χώρας συντρόφου καὶ
διαίτης συνήθους, ὥσπερ ἐκ πατρίδος, μεθιστάμενον ἀντὶ κερμάτων
μικρῶν, ἄχρηστόν γε τοῖς ὠνουμένοις, ὥσπερ τοῖς πιπράσκουσι,
γεγενημένον. Vit. Cat. Maj. § 5. For what concerns the Dutch we have
the testimony of Le Vallant: “On rencontre des Négresses légitimement
mariées, et des Nègres établis faisant corps avec la bourgeoisie; ce
sont des hommes qui, par leurs services ou d’autres motifs ont été
affranchis; la facilité avec laquelle on leur donnait la liberté était
autrefois sujette à bien des abus, parce que ces gens, devenus vieux
ou infirmes, ou privés de resources pour subsister, finissaient par
être des voleurs ou des vagabonds. Le gouvernement s’est trouvé forcé
d’y mettre ordre; nul maître à présent ne peut affranchir son esclave
qu’en déposant à la chambre des orphelins une somme suffisante pour sa
subsistance.” Voyage dans l’Intérieur de l’Afrique, t. i. p. 112.
Footnote 165:
Ephor. ap. Strab. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 189.
Footnote 166:
Over the Helots, not the state only but even private individuals, and
much more the kings, possessed the power of life and death. Thus a
Helot behaving offensively to Charillos, he said: “I would kill thee
were I not in a passion.” Plut. Apophthegm. Lacon. Charill. 3.
Footnote 167:
Plut. Alcib. § 1. Καὶ τῶν ἔξωθεν ἕνιοι τοῖς τέκνοις Λακωνικὰς ἐωνοῦντο
τιτθάς· καὶ τήν γε τὸν Ἀθηναῖον Ἀλκιβιάδην τιτθεύσασαν Ἀμύκλαν
ἱστοροῦσι γεγονέναι Λάκαινον. Lycurg. § 16. Cf. Ages. § 3.
-----
That the males also were not exported like cattle, than which they were
far worse treated, was owing simply to the calculation, that it would be
more profitable to retain them. For, as the Spartans possessed estates,
which personally they never cultivated, the Helots, who equally belonged
to them, were stationed throughout the country upon those estates, which
it was their business to till for the owners. To live it was of course
necessary that they should eat, and therefore a portion of the produce
was abandoned to them, according to Tyrtæos,[168] the half, a division
which must have borne very hard upon them, since their numbers were five
times greater than those of the Spartans.[169] However, even in this
arrangement, the learned historian discovers something to praise “as
this quantity had been definitively settled at a very early period (to
raise the amount being forbidden under very heavy imprecations) the
Helots were the persons who profited by a good and lost by a bad
harvest, which must have been to them an encouragement to industry and
good husbandry; a motive which would have been wanting if the profit and
loss had merely affected the landlords.”[170] But on the _res rusticæ_
the notions of this writer are somewhat confused. For in another place
he remarks that, owing to the “usurpations of the successive conquerors
of Peloponnesos, agriculture was kept in a constant state of dependence
and obscurity, so that we seldom hear of the improvement of the country,
which is a necessary part of the husbandman’s business.” It therefore
did _not_ flourish in Laconia. No, says the historian, that is not the
conclusion we must come to, for, notwithstanding that we never hear of
any improvements in it, “agriculture was always followed with great
energy and success!”[171]
-----
Footnote 168:
Franck. Callin. et Tyrt. p. 193. In Attica the θῆτες, paid a sixth of
the produce to the Eupatridæ, whose land they rented. Plut. in Sol. §
13. But this it should be remarked was considered one of the
oppressive acts of the aristocracy. Ælian gives precisely the same
account as Tyrtæos, (Var. Hist. vi. 1,) where see the note of
Perizonius. Cf. Crag. De Rep. Laced. l. i. c. 11. p. 71.
Footnote 169:
Herod. ix. 28. They were in fact far more numerous in proportion to
the citizens than anywhere else in Greece, and next to them in number
were the slaves of the Chians. Thucyd. viii. 40. Cf. Clint. Fast.
Hellen. t. ii. p, 411.
Footnote 170:
Dorians, i. 32.
Footnote 171:
Dorians, i. 86.
-----
There appear to have been instances of Helots becoming comparatively
wealthy in spite of the oppressions they endured: but so we have known
peasants growing rich in the worst despotisms of the East, and such too
was in the middle ages the case with the Jews, notwithstanding the
terrible persecutions and cruelties they endured. This fact, therefore,
only proves that no pressure of hardship or ill-usage can entirely
destroy the elasticity of the spirit; and no doubt, like all slaves, the
Helots sought to soften their miseries by the gratification which a
sense of property procures even in bondage to the sordid mind.[172] “By
means of the rich produce of the land, and in part by plunder obtained
in war, they collected a considerable property, to the attainment of
which almost every access was closed to the Spartans.”[173] But of what
value is property to a man who is himself the property of another?
Besides, the expression of the historian in this place seems calculated
to lead to erroneous conclusions respecting the Spartans, who, so far
from being debarred the means of amassing wealth,[174] rose frequently
to extraordinary opulence, insomuch that this self-denying community
came at length to be the richest in Greece.[175] To assume that the
Helots, like the Thessalian Penestæ,[176] enjoyed means of augmenting
their possessions superior to those permitted themselves by their
masters, is to propagate an error which must vitiate our whole
conception of the Lacedæmonian commonwealth.
-----
Footnote 172:
Herod. ix. 80. Plut. Cleom. § 23.
Footnote 173:
Dorians, ii. 32.
Footnote 174:
Cf. Herm. Polit. Antiq. § 47.
Footnote 175:
Χρυσίον δὲ καὶ ἀργύριον οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν πᾶσιν Ἕλλησιν ὅσον ἐν Λακεδαίμονι
ἰδία. Plut. Alcib. i. t. v. p. 342.
Footnote 176:
Καὶ ἐκλήθησαν τότε μὲν, μενέσται ὕστερον δὲ πενέσται. καὶ πολλοὶ δὲ
τῶν κυρίων αὐτῶν εἰσὶν εὐπορώτεροι. Eustath. ad Il. ν. t. ii. p. 933.
48.
-----
It is confessed that very little intercourse between the Spartans and
the Helots took place, at least in earlier times; for afterwards, when
the masters themselves quitted the capital, resided on their
estates,[177] and took to husbandry, the link must necessarily have been
more closely drawn. And this circumstance renders more probable the
account transmitted to us of Spartan harshness towards them.
Intercommunion would have begotten more humane feelings in the master,
more attachment in the slave. For like other men the Spartans felt the
influence of intimacy, as is proved by their practice of enfranchising
the companions of their childhood. They paid, therefore, an involuntary
compliment to their own hearts when they kept the Helots at a distance,
that they might be able to tyrannise over them. They could not have
resisted the power of close contact, and acted like Messallina, who fled
in tears from the room where a man was pleading for his life, lest she
should forgive him, whispering as she went to her instrument that the
accused must not be suffered to escape nevertheless.[178] However, a
certain number of Helots were retained in the city as personal
attendants on the Spartans, and there waited at the public tables, and
were lent by one person to another,[179] like so many dogs, or oxen;
although it seems probable that all the drudgery of the capital was not
performed by the Helots alone, but that along with them were associated
other classes of domestic slaves,[180] on whose history and condition
antiquity affords us little or no light. But as the Spartans were
constantly making prisoners in their wars with the neighbouring states,
which were occasionally restored at the termination of hostilities, we
appear to be authorized in concluding, that these captives were commonly
reduced to servitude in Laconia, whether employed in household
labours,[181] or dispersed among the Helots in the field.
-----
Footnote 177:
Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 3. 5. Arist. Polit. ii. 2. 11. Pollux, upon I
know not what ground, observes, μεταξὺ δὲ ἐλευθέρων καὶ δούλων οἱ
Λακεδαίμονιων Εἵλωτες. iii. 83. Upon which Jungermann observes,
“Ingenue fateor me non satis capere quare Pollux Helotas medios inter
liberos et servos dicat:” in loc. p. 570. Cf. Crag. De Rep. Lac. i.
11. This difficulty Capperonier undertakes to remove, “Les
Lacédémoniens mettoient une différence entre les Hilotes et leurs
esclaves domestiques nommés οἰκέται; quoiqu’ils eussent tous deux une
origine commune, les derniers étoient tombés dans un tel avilissement
qu’ils n’avoient aucune sorte de considération; de la vient que Pollux
dit que les Hilotes tenoient le milieu entre les gens libres et les
esclaves. Les esclaves domestiques avoient un rapport plus particulier
au maître, et n’étoient employés qu’eux choses du ménage, comme leur
nom même l’exprime. C’étoient eux que les Lacédémoniens forçoient de
boire jusqu’à s’enivrer, et qu’ils offroient dans cet état aux yeux
des jeunes gens pour leur inspirer l’horreur d’un vice qui dégrade
l’humanité: peut-être excusera-t-on la conduite des Lacédémoniens par
l’attention particulière qu’ils donnoient à l’éducation de leurs
enfans. Mais comment justifier la cruauté qu’ils avoient de les
obliger à recevoir tous les ans un certain nombre de coups sans les
avoir mérités, seulement afin qu’ils ne desappressent pas à servir?”
Capperonier, Recherches sur l’Histoire et l’Esclavage des Hilotes.
Mem. De l’Acad. Des Inscrip. t. xxiii. p. 282, seq.
Footnote 178:
Tacit. Annal. xi. 2.
Footnote 179:
Xen. Rep. Lac. vi. 3. Arist. Polit. ii. 2. 5. Plut. Institut. Lac. 23.
Footnote 180:
Their personal attendants for instance were called μοθῶνες , Suid. in
v. ii. 175, and even born in the house like the Oikotribes of the
other Greeks. Etym. Mag. 590. 14. According to Harpocration, (in v. p.
128,) they were slaves educated with the free boys at Sparta. The
conjecture of Maussac, however, is, that they were male nurses like
Phœnix in the Iliad. Similes forte hi fuerint Pappatibus, de quibus
Juvenalis, aut gerulis, quos scholiastes Sophocles in Ajace
Flagellifero βαϊούλους dictos refert id est baiulos: ut hodie Itali
dicunt _balio_ et _balia_. Not. p. 218.
Footnote 181:
To this class probably belonged the θεράποντες of Demaratos, mentioned
by Herodotus, vi. 70, though Mr. Müller conjectures them to have been
Helots. Dorians, t. ii. p. 31.
-----
Another service the Helots performed for their masters, which
necessarily produced some degree of intimacy, I mean the military
service in which they fought and bled by their side.[182] The state was,
no doubt, reluctant to admit them among the Hoplitæ, or heavy-armed,
where the discipline was rigorous, and their weapons would have placed
them on a level with their oppressors. But even this was sometimes
hazarded, as in the reinforcements forwarded to Gyleppus, at
Syracuse,[183] when six hundred Neodomades and picked Helots were
complimented with this dangerous distinction. As light troops, however,
they almost invariably formed the majority of the Lacedæmonian forces.
In other countries, where the subject races were more humanely treated,
no fear was entertained at entrusting them with arms. Among the
Dardanians, for example, where it was not uncommon for a private
individual to possess a thousand slaves, or more, they in time of peace
cultivated the land, and in war filled the ranks of the army, their
masters serving as officers.[184]
-----
Footnote 182:
On this point the remark of Capperonier is ingenious: “On les voit
rarement (les Lacédémoniens) se mettre en campagne sans eux; (les
Hilotes;) la politique l’exigeoit; que n’auroient-ils pas en à
craindre si, les contenant à peine lorsqu’ils étoient chez eux, ils
les y eussent laissés seuls en leur absence?” Recherches sur les
Hilotes, Mem. de l’Acad. Des Inscrip. t. xxiii. p. 285.
Footnote 183:
Thucyd. vii. 19. Cf. v. 57. 64. iv. 80. They were sometimes entrusted
with important commands on foreign stations, which by the free
confederates of Sparta, however, was regarded as an insult: ἀλλὰ τοὺς
μὲν εἴλωτας ἁρμοστὰς, observes the Theban ambassador at Athens,
καθιστάναι ἀξιοῦσι, τῶν δὲ ξυμμάχων ἐλευθέρων ὄντων, ἐπεὶ εὐτύχησαν,
δεσπόται ἀναπεφῄνασιν. Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 5. 12.
Footnote 184:
Athen. vi. 103.
-----
From this circumstance one of two things must be inferred; either that
the Dardanians considered them in the light of subjects, as we do the
natives of India, where large armies are officered by Englishmen, or
that that people understood better than any other in antiquity the art
of ruling over men.
Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, Plutarch, and a number of other writers
agree in convicting the Spartans of great barbarity towards their
bondsmen, differing, however, as to the degree of that barbarity. But
their “philanthropic views”[185] are discarded by the historian, who
with the skill of an able pleader, overlooks these great writers, whom
he could not treat with so much want of ceremony, to bring forward the
picture of Myron of Priene, whose history he denominates a romance, and
whose testimony he contumeliously rejects. In order the more completely,
as he thinks, to demolish this humble writer he quotes the following
passage of his work preserved by Athenæus: “The Helots perform for the
Spartans every ignominious service. They are _compelled_ to wear a cap
of dog-skin,[186] to bear a covering of sheep-skin, and are severely
beaten every year without having committed any fault, in order that they
may never forget they are slaves. In addition to this, those amongst
them who, either by their stature or their beauty, raise themselves
above the condition of a slave are condemned to death, and the masters
who do not destroy the most manly of them are liable to
punishment.”[187] The accusation here made is a serious one, and the
apologist naturally feels his indignation kindle against its author. In
this state of mind he employs very harsh language, charges Myron with
“ignorance and partiality,” and altogether speaks as if he were in
possession of facts wherewith to demolish the Prenian’s statement. But
has he any? Not a single one. He misunderstands entirely the gist of
Myron’s words, in the matter of the dog-skin cap, and then, on the
strength of his own error, presumes to accuse him of misrepresentation.
It is at the first blush evident that Myron considered the hardship to
consist, not in the wearing of the cap, but in being compelled to wear
it. Mr. Müller’s examples, consequently, are nothing to the purpose;
they simply prove that other people had endured similar hardships, (the
mention of Laërtes is superfluous,) nevertheless, without having uttered
one syllable to justify his triumph, he proceeds with much
self-satisfaction to remark, that “since Myron _manifestly_
misrepresents this circumstance, _it is very probable_ that his other
objections are founded in error.”[188]
-----
Footnote 185:
Dorians, ii. 38.
Footnote 186:
On this cap see Meursius, Miscell. Lacon. l. i. c. 17. p. 79.
Footnote 187:
Athen. xiv. 74. Cf. Schol. Arist. Nub. 269. In the matter of food the
slaves were in war reduced to live on half the quantity allowed their
masters. Thucyd. iv. 16.
Footnote 188:
Dorians, ii. 39.
-----
But the allegations of Myron, as the reader will perceive, remain not
only untouched, but more confirmed and established than ever by such a
defence. It happens, in fact, that they are true to the letter, and what
is more, are by no means the gravest imputation which can be
substantiated against the Dorian model-state. We shall proceed, however,
step by step examining fairly, and in order, the charges and the
defence. Plutarch,[189] whose testimony, when favourable, is
unhesitatingly accepted, “relates that the Helots were compelled to
intoxicate themselves, and perform indecent dances as a warning to the
Spartan youth.”[190] Shall we credit Plutarch? No we must not; because
“common sense is opposed to so absurd a method of education.” But if
everything in history which we may determine to be opposed to common
sense were on that account to be rejected, we should make sad inroads
upon the domains of antiquity. That which increases the ridicule of the
practice is, that from among those same Helots they selected tutors for
their younger children,[191] as well as companions, so that in the very
article wherein Xenophon[192] discovered the superiority of Lycurgus’s
educational system, it was completely on a level with that of the other
Greeks, habituating the youth to the intimacy and government of
slaves.[193]
-----
Footnote 189:
Lycurg. § 28. To this may be added the testimony of Demetrius
Cydonius: φασὶ καὶ, Λακεδαιμονίους τῇ τῶν Εἱλώτων μέθῃ τοῖς πασὶν
ὑποδεικνύναι τὸ τῆς νήψεως ἀγαθον. ap. Meurs. Miscell. Lacon. 11. 6.
p. 128.
Footnote 190:
Dorians, ii. 39.
Footnote 191:
Mr. Müller’s argument is put in the form of a question: “Is it
possible that the Spartans should have so degraded the men whom they
appointed as tutors over their young children?” Dorians, ii. 39.
Footnote 192:
De Rep. Laced. ii. 1.
Footnote 193:
Plut. Vit. Ages. § 3. The evils of this intercourse are constantly
dwelt upon by the ancients: ὅπου οἰκέτης ἐστιν, εὐθὺς διαφθείρονται οἱ
γεγνόμενοι παῖδες. Dion Chrysost. Orat. t. i. p. 299. Cf. Orat. 41. t.
ii. p. 261. Though it be most true that domestic slaves are generally
corrupt in manners and ignoble in sentiments, yet we may be sure from
an attentive observation, of human nature, that, even were it not so,
their masters would inevitably seek to justify their own cruelty and
injustice by depreciating the moral character of their dependents.
Thus the ablest of Spanish writers, actuated less perhaps by theory
than by instinct, strives to extenuate the conduct of their countrymen
towards the natives of America by attributing to them the most odious
and repulsive qualities: “Les Indiens,” observes Ulloa, “sont moins à
craindre par leur valeur que par leur perfidie, et par la ruse avec
laquelle ils commettent leur attentats. Victorieux par surprise, ils
sont cruels à l’excès, ne connaissent aucun sentiment de compassion.
Leur cruauté est toujours accompagnée de sang froid, leur plaisir est
le carnage; mais vaincus ce sont les gens le plus lâches les plus
pusillanimes qu’on puisse voir. Dans le premier cas ils ont un
souverain plaisir à répandre le sang des malheureux qu’ils surprennent
au dépourvu, dans le second ils cherchent à se disculper s’humilient
jusqu’à la dernière bassesse, condamnent euxmêmes leur furie, prient,
supplient, et se montrent dans toute leur conduite les plus lâches des
hommes. Ce contraste est celui qui doit résulter de la lâcheté et de
la perfidie qui font le charactère de ces barbares.” Mémoires
Philosophiques. Discours. xvii. t. ii. p. 21, et seq.
-----
If, however, the relation of Plutarch stood alone, its force would be
less, though with no face could we reject it while admitting in other
respects his favourable testimony. But from many authors, besides him,
it is clear, that to demoralise the Helots was the constant policy of
Sparta. Thus when the Thasians brought a number of useless dainties to
Agesilaos and his army: “Give them,” said he, “to those Helots, whom it
is better to corrupt than ourselves.”[194] Consistently with the same
system, and the more completely to debase their minds, they were
commanded to sing obscene songs and perform indecent jigs, while the
Pyrrhic dance and every warlike lay was forbidden them. In proof of
this, it is related, that when the Thebans, under Epaminondas, invaded
Laconia, and made prisoners a number of the Helots, they commanded them
to sing them some of the songs of Sparta, of Spendon, for example, or
Alcman, or Terpander. But the Helots[195] professed their inability,
observing, that the acquisition of those lays was forbidden them. In
short, to adopt the words of Theopompos, they were at all times cruelly
and bitterly treated;[196] deluded, sometimes, from the protection of
sanctuary by perjury, and then coolly assassinated in contempt of
religion and oaths, as in the case of those suppliants who took refuge
in the temple of Poseidon at Tænaros.[197]
-----
Footnote 194:
Theopomp. ap. Athen. xiv. 74.
Footnote 195:
Plut. Vit. Lycurg. § 28. On their cruelty and perfidy towards the same
unhappy men see Ælian. Var. Hist. vi. 1. Polyæn. i. 41. 3.
Footnote 196:
Critias, in fact, observes, that, as the freemen of Sparta were of all
men the most free, so were the serfs of Sparta of all slaves the most
slavish. Liban. Declam. xxiv. t. ii. p. 83, seq. Reiske.
Footnote 197:
Theopomp. ap. Athen. vi. 102 Ὅτε οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοὺς ἐκ Ταινάρου
ἱκέτας παρασπονδήσαντες ἀνέστησαν καὶ ἀπέκτειναν, (ἦσαν δὲ οἰκέται τῶν
Εἱλώτων) κατὰ μῆνιν τοῦ Ποσειδῶνος σεισμὸς ἐπιπεσὼν τῇ Σπάρτη, τὴν
πόλιν ἀνδρειότατα κατέσεισεν, ὡς πέντε μόνας ἀπολειφθῆναι οἰκίας ἐξ
ἁπάσης τῆς πόλεως. Æl. Var. Hist. vi. 7. Thucyd. i. 128. Suid. v.
Ταινάριον. t. ii. p. 874, F. Pausanias, however, relates, that the
suppliants in question were not Helots but Lacedæmonians. iv. 24. 5.
vii. 25. 3. Cf. Capperonier, Recherches sur les Hilotes, Mem. de
l’Acad. des Inscrip. t. xxiii. p. 275.
-----
But all this harsh usage was mild compared with other injuries which the
laws of Sparta inflicted on them. The reader will perceive that I am
about to speak of the Crypteia, not one feature of which, to my mind,
has been softened or explained away, or rendered doubtful by the
ingenious but very useless special pleading of some distinguished
scholars among our contemporaries.[198] Mr. Müller, with much
intrepidity, leads the van of Sparta’s defenders, and, by an artifice
not unfamiliar to rhetoricians, seeks to beat down the authorities on
which belief in the Crypteia rests. He affects to think slightingly of
their means of obtaining information, though certainly, in this respect,
at least, the very meanest of them possessed incalculable advantages
over himself. However, of Isocrates he thus unceremoniously disposes:
“Isocrates speaks of this institution in a very confused manner and from
mere report.”[199] On the contrary, this “old man eloquent,” as Milton
affectionately terms him, luminously, (would that Mr. Müller and I
possessed equal art!) and upon the best authorities,[200] sketches the
history of the Lacedæmonian government, its injustice, its oppressions;
and concludes by describing the annual massacre of the Helots. It is
worthy of remark, that, with Aristotle,[201] he attributes to the Ephori
the direction of this servile war, in which the reins of slaughter were
loosed or tightened by their authority.
-----
Footnote 198:
Capperonier, in the last century, entertained something like
scepticism on the point, though he could not deny that the moral
temperament of the Spartans rendered the existence of the institution
probable. “Le défaut de preuves m’empêche, malgré la ferocité connue
des Lacédémoniens, de rien décider sur l’usage de la Cryptie.” Mem.
&c. p. 284.
Footnote 199:
Dorians, ii. 40, seq.
Footnote 200:
Οἱ τἀκείνων ἀκριβοῦντες. Panathen. § 73.
Footnote 201:
Ap. Plut. Lycurg. § 28.
-----
The relation, however, of Isocrates, who probably descended to
particulars, appears not to have come down to us entire. Plutarch,
though he be the panegyrist, rather than the faithful historian, of
Sparta, has supplied the deficiency. He does so, indeed, reluctantly;
trumpets in the narration with epic flourishes, seeking, by all the art
he is master of, to shield his beloved Lycurgus from the stern but
deserved rebuke of Plato.[202] Too honest, however, was the old Bœotian
entirely to suppress the truth. So that, at length, after much
preparation, the massacre is described hurriedly, briefly, with vehement
unwillingness, but, for that very reason, with the more terrible effect.
-----
Footnote 202:
See the conversation with Megillos in the First Book of the Laws
throughout. Opp. t. vii. p. 201, sqq. And, again, in Book vi. p. 460.
Σχεδὸν γὰρ πάντων τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἡ Λακεδαιμονίων εἱλωτεία πλείστην
ἀπορίαν παράσχοιτ᾽ ἂν καὶ ἔριν τοῖς μὲν ὡς εὖ, τοῖς δ᾽ ὡς οὐκ εὖ
γεγονυῖα ἐστιν. ἐλάττω δὲ ἥ τε Ἡρακλεωτῶν δουλεία τῆς τῶν Μαριανδυνῶν
καταδουλώσεως ἔριν ἂν ἔχοι, τὸ Θετταλῶν τ᾽ αὖ πενεστικὸν ἔθνος.
-----
Having enumerated the regulations affecting the free citizens, “In
these,” he says, “there is no trace of that injustice and griping
ambition which some object to the institutions of Lycurgus, considering
them well adapted to beget bravery though not honest principles. It was
probably the institution of the Crypteia (if as Aristotle contends, it
proceeded from Lycurgus) that inspired Plato with such an opinion of the
legislator and his laws. According to this ordinance the rulers,
selecting from among the youths those most distinguished for ability,
sent them forth armed with daggers and furnished with the necessary
provisions, to scour the country, separating and concealing themselves
in unfrequented places by day, but issuing out at night and slaughtering
all such of the Helots as they found abroad. Sometimes, indeed, they
fell upon them while engaged in their rural labours in the fields, and
there cut off the best and bravest of the race.”[203] Plutarch felt that
connected with this system, as flowing from the same principle of policy
and designed to effect the same purpose, were those extensive massacres
recorded in history, by one of which more than two thousand of those
unhappy men, having been insidiously deluded into the assertion of
sentiments conformable to the gallant actions they had performed in the
service of the state,[204] were removed in a day. Lulled by the gift of
freedom, crowned, smiled upon, they were conducted to the temples, as if
to implicate the very gods in the treachery:—and then suddenly they
disappeared; nor to this hour has the fate which overtook them been
revealed.[205] Compared with this the slaughter of the Janisaries
appears less culpable.
-----
Footnote 203:
Plut. Vit. Lycur. § 28. Vid. Ubb. Emmium, iii. 127, seq. et Crag. de
Rep. Laced. b. i. c. xi. p. 68.
Footnote 204:
Among other nations where servitude was rendered less offensive, both
by law and manners, men were enabled to place a more generous
confidence in their slaves. Sarmatæ Limigantes Gotthorum vicinorum
suorum armis oppressi, cum justas ad resistendum liberorum hominum
copias non haberent, tanquam in extremo periculo servos suos armarunt,
atque eos contra Gotthos duxerunt. Mox autem, cum à servis
deficientibus appetiti, ac sedibus ejecti patriis essent auxilii ac
consilii inopes ad Constantinum subsidium imploratum, et sedes tutas
petitum se contulerunt. Carol. Sigon. De Occident. Imper. l. iv. p.
67.
Footnote 205:
Thucyd. iv. 80.
-----
But had Sparta no apology to offer, for these actions, to humanity? Her
rulers discovered one which appears to have satisfied their own
consciences. Every year, on taking office, the Ephori, formally, in
their good city of Sparta, declared war against their unarmed and
unhappy vassals, “that they might be massacred under pretence of
law.”[206] Mr. Müller overwhelmed with the weight of these testimonies,
does not yet yield up the point: “Were not these Helots, who in many
districts lived entirely alone, united by despair for the sake of common
protection; and did they not every year kindle a most bloody and
determined war throughout the whole of Laconia?” The historian is
pleasant upon the Helots. Kindle a war! How happens it that the Chinese,
who, at many periods of their history, have rivalled the Helots in
suffering, and like them, too, have rebelled occasionally, yet make
annually no “bloody and determined war” against the Mantchoo Tartars?
The answer is written on every page of the history of the world, and was
put in form by Alexander when he inquired whether one butcher were
afraid of many sheep? Nevertheless, even the spirit of slavery itself
did sometimes revolt against oppression and cruelty, and kindled such
“bloody and determined wars” as Sparta, without foreign aid, was unable
to terminate. They were, in fact, during many years, prevented from
disputing with the Athenians the supremacy in Greece, by contests with
their own vassals.[207] And on the occasion of the great earthquake when
nearly every house in Sparta was shaken to the ground,[208] did not the
Helots rejoice at the calamity, and come flocking to the environs of the
city from the whole country round, in order to put an end to their
tyrants as they were escaping in terror from their tottering
habitations? Revolt, then, was not unfamiliar to the Helots—again and
again was the standard of freedom unfurled[209]—and the day, though
late, at length came, when the Spartan saw his slave placed on a level
with himself.[210]
-----
Footnote 206:
Plut. Lycurg. § 28.
Footnote 207:
Πολέμοις οἰκείοις ἐξειργόμενοι. Thucyd. i. 118.
Footnote 208:
Plut. Cim. § 16. Diod. Sic. xi. 63.
Footnote 209:
Athen. vi. 87.
Footnote 210:
Strab. viii. t. c. 6. t. ii. p. 190.
-----
To render credible this sketch of cruelty, the character and education
of the Spartans must be kept in view:
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,
was not their maxim.[211] They loved to trample on the fallen. Even in
boyhood and among themselves, they practised _gouging_ as an
accomplishment, and as an Athenian did music—as a necessary consequence,
even the writers most favourable to their state, confess them to have
been brutal, inhuman, perfidious.[212] Nor among a people so ignorant,
so prejudiced, so narrow-minded, whose understandings were possibly
incapable of comprehending the idea of justice or liberality, can we
altogether wonder at such an outbreak of barbarism. Men have been known
in modern times to shoot slaves for their amusement; a king of France
has been known from the same motive to shoot his subjects, and a learned
professor,[213] not very remarkable for cruelty, has pronounced the
panegyric of that king. There is nothing, therefore, at all incredible
in the Spartan Crypteia, which exactly harmonizes with all we know of
the nation.
-----
Footnote 211:
Ælian. vi. i.
Footnote 212:
In justification of this harsh view of the Spartan character, numerous
ancient authorities of the greatest weight may be cited. On their
extreme licentiousness see the testimony of Agnon. Athen. xiii. 79.
Plato de Legg. viii. t. viii. p. 90. On their tolerance of adultery,
Plut. Paral. Num. § 3. On their inhospitality and sordid avarice,
Aristoph. Pac. 623. Οἱ δ᾽ ἅτ᾽ αἰσχροκερδεῖς καὶ διειρωνόξενοι, κ. τ.
λ. On the avarice of Gylippos, see Max. Tyr. Dissert. p. 133. In the
Acharnes (v. 306, seq.) Aristophanes, again, briefly but energetically
describes the character which the Spartans enjoyed in Greece:
Πῶς δὲ γ᾽ ἂν καλῶς λέγοις ἂν,
εἴπερ ἐσπείσω γ᾽ ἅπαξ,
Οἷσιν οὔτε βωμὸς, οὔτε πίστις,
οὔθ᾽ ὅρκος μένει.
On which the scholiast remarks: ἐπὶ ἀπιστίᾳ γὰρ διεβάλλοντο οἱ
Λακεδαιμόνιοι· καὶ Εὐριπίδης ἐν Ἀνδρομάχῃ·
Σπάρτης ἔνοικοι, δόλια βουλευτήρια.
Τρία δὲ ἐγκλήματα παραβασίας προσέθηκεν αὐτοῖς· αἱ γὰρ συνθῆκαι διὰ
τριῶν τελοῦνται, λόγων, ἔργων, χειρῶν, λόγων μὲν, οἱον δι’ ὅρκων,
ἔργων δὲ, διὰ τῶν ἐν βωμοῖς θυσιῶν, χειρῶν δὲ, ἐπειδὴ αἱ πίστεις διὰ
τῶν δεξιῶν γίνονται. καὶ Ὅμηρος·
Δεξιαὶ, ᾖς ἐπέπιθμεν.
The passage in the Andromachè referred to by the scholiast occurs at
v. 445, sqq. Cf. Thucyd. i. 101. v. 35. See above, Book i. chapter ii.
Book ii. chapter viii.
Footnote 213:
M. Ant. Muret. Orat. xvii. p. 153. The achievement of the king is thus
related by honest Mezeray: Numbers of Huguenots having collected
together on the banks of the Seine his most Christian Majesty, from an
apartment of the Louvre “taschoit de les canarder avec sa grande
arquebuse à giboyer.” Abrégé Chronologique, iii. 1083.
-----
An attempt, however, has been made to explain the whole away, by the
unauthorized inference, that in the casual glance which Megillos, in the
laws of Plato, makes at this institution, we have a complete description
of it in all its features. But very far is this from being the case. The
Spartan interlocutor is there making out a defence of his own country,
and consequently alludes only to such points as appear capable of a
favourable interpretation. Of course he is careful to keep the massacre
of the Helots in the back-ground; and merely says, “There is also
amongst us what is called the Crypteia, the pain of undergoing which is
scarcely credible. It consists in going barefoot in storms, in enduring
the privations of the camp, performing menial offices without a servant,
and wandering night and day through the whole country.”[214] This is the
picture of a Spartan, dwelling on his own hardships; which, however,
must have been endured for some purpose, and what was that? If exercise
and military seasoning were alone aimed at, where was the necessity for
that concealment, that lying in ambush, which the word itself signifies?
It is well known that the Helots were a constant terror to their
masters—that whenever occasion offered, they revolted—whenever any enemy
to the state presented himself, they joined him—that they fled whenever
flight was possible—and were, it is confessed, so numerous and so bold,
that Sparta was compelled, in treaties with foreign states, to stipulate
“for aid against her own subjects.”[215] What more probable, therefore,
under the circumstances, than the institution of the Crypteia? What more
in harmony with the genius of the people?
-----
Footnote 214:
Plat, de Legg. i. t. vii. p. 196. Bekk. Cf. Müller, Hist. of the
Dorians, ii. 41.
Footnote 215:
Dorians, ii. 43. Thucyd. i. 118. v. 14. 23.
-----
There can be no doubt that on certain extraordinary occasions these
chief of slaves obtained their freedom from the state; but that any
“legal way to liberty and citizenship stood open to them,”[216] does not
appear.[217] The chain of “probabilities” by which this conclusion is
attempted to be arrived at is perfectly unique, and would lead with
equal force to any other whatever. “The many intermediate steps, it is
said, _seem to prove_ the existence of a regular mode of transition from
the one rank to the other.” It has not, however, been proved that there
were any intermediate steps; and the very attempt is based almost wholly
on a fragment of that Myron of Priene, whose Messenian History Mr.
Müller denominates a romance, and whose “partiality and ignorance” he
considers so self-evident but a few passages back.
1. The Helots who were esteemed worthy of an “especial confidence were
called ἀργεῖοι.”[218] This however, is no intermediate step, as it is
not said that their being thus called was necessarily followed by any
result.
2. The ἐρυκτῆρες enjoyed the same “(especial confidence) in war.”[219]
On points of this kind it is necessary to rely on some authority, and
the historian adduces none.[220] It has, indeed, been conjectured, from
the derivation of their name, that this class of freedmen served as a
body-guard to their former masters. Positively, however, nothing
whatever is known of their condition.
-----
Footnote 216:
Müll. Dorians, ii. 43.
Footnote 217:
In fact Dion Chrysostom states most distinctly, that there was no such
way: Οὐδὲ ὑπάρχει τοῖς Εἵλωσιν γενέσθαι Σπαρτιάταις, ὅθεν δὴ καὶ
διατελοῦσιν ἐπιβουλεύοντες τῇ Σπάρτη. Orat. xxxvi. t. ii. p. 92.
Reisk.
Footnote 218:
Dorians. ii. 43. Hesych. in v. Ἀργεῖο ... ἐκ τῶν Εἱλώτων οἱ
πιστευόμενοι οὕτως ἐλέγοντο. t. i. p. 514, seq. Albert. This has
previously been remarked by Capperonier: “On lit dans Hesychius, qu’on
donnoit le nom d’Argiens à ceux qui se distinguoient par leur
fidelité.” Recherches sur les Hilotes, Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscript.
t. xxiii. p. 285. Cf. Crag. de Rep. Laced. l. i. c. xi. p. 70.
Footnote 219:
Cf. Anim. ad Athen. t. viii. p. 603.
Footnote 220:
Cf. Athen. vi. 102.
-----
3. The ἀφέται were, _probably_, released from “all service.” The
expression of Eustathius[221] is, “being made free, they were called
aphetæ.”
-----
Footnote 221:
Ad Iliad, ο. p. 1031. 10. Cf. ν. p. 933. 51.
-----
4. “The δεσποσιοναύται,[222] who served in the fleet, resembled,
_probably_, the freedmen of Attica, who were called the
_out-dwellers_.”[223] This phrase is calculated to convey an erroneous
impression, as though these freedmen necessarily took up their quarters
in the country, whereas οἱ χωρὶς οἰκούντες merely signifies persons who
have establishments of their own. With respect to the Desposionautæ,
they would appear to have been slaves brought up in their masters’
houses, and afterwards enfranchised, and ordered to be employed about
the fleet.
-----
Footnote 222:
Cf. Eustath. ad Il. λ. 784. 15.
Footnote 223:
See Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Ath. i. 349.
-----
5. “When they (the Helots) received their liberty, they also obtained
permission _to dwell where they wished_, and, _probably_, at the same
time, a portion of land was granted to them without the lot of their
former masters.” This is drawing a general inference from a particular
case. Thucydides,[224] the authority relied on, speaks only of those
Helots who having served in Thrace under Brasidas, obtained
enfranchisement on their return, together with a portion of the lands
recently taken from the Lepreatæ. On other occasions, as the whole of
Laconia and Messenia had been divided among the citizens, it is
difficult to understand whence the state could have obtained lands to
bestow. The _probability_, therefore, is, that they bestowed none.
-----
Footnote 224:
l. v. § 34.
-----
Of the Neodamodes or “new citizens,” our knowledge is little less scanty
than of the other classes of freedmen. That they were enfranchised
Helots is confidently maintained by several learned writers, though
others suppose them to have been the sons of enfranchised Helots.[225]
This latter supposition, however, is inconsistent with the testimony of
Myron, who observes, that “the Lacedæmonians often emancipated their
slaves, some of whom were then called _aphetæ_, others _adespotæ_,
others _eructeres_, others _desposionautæ_; there were others whom they
denominated _neodamodes_, different from the Helots.”[226] Of those
modern writers who have treated of the Spartan institutions, some elude
the discussion altogether, while others acquiescing in the commonly
received opinion contend, that the Neodamodes were those Helots who,
having conducted themselves gallantly in war, had for some time enjoyed
their freedom. But this decision, however plausible it may seem, is by
no means satisfactory. For, wherever Thucydides, or any other historian
of authority, has occasion to mention this class of freedmen, they
appear to be carefully distinguished from the enfranchised Helots. Thus,
when the companions of Brasidas, before spoken of, had received their
freedom, and were sent as settlers into the Lepreatis, it is added, that
they were accompanied by a number of Neodamodes.[227] But if this term
signified nothing more than Helots who had been rewarded with liberty,
in what did they differ from the other Helots who had likewise been made
free? One learned commentator,[228] not without ingenuity, infers that
they were a class of tributary subjects inhabiting the neighbourhood of
the capital, on whom the right of citizenship had been conferred, though
they did not enjoy perfect equality with the elder citizens. But, as it
is distinctly stated, that they were enfranchised slaves, we are
compelled to abandon even this hypothesis, and seek to discover some
other clue to the truth.
-----
Footnote 225:
Dr. Arnold, in Thucyd. v. 34. Hudson, in Var. Lect. on the same
passage observes, that “Neodamodes fuisse Helotas, contra quam censet
Cragius (de Rep. Lac. i. 12,) clare ostendit Meursius in Miscell.
Lacon. ii. 7.” Thucyd. t. iii. p. 492. Bip. Cf. Diod. Sic. xii.
Footnote 226:
Athen. vi. 102. Cf. Herm. Polit. Antiq. §§ 24. 48. et Valckenaar ad
Herod. ix. 11, where the condition of the Periœci is sought to be
explained. Suid. v. νεοδαμ. ii. 215. Animad. in Athen. t. viii. p.
603. Ubbo Emmius, iii. 138.
Footnote 227:
Thucyd. v. 34. 67. vii. 58. Xenoph. Helen. i. 3. 17. iii. 1. 4. iii.
36. 6. v. 2. 24. vi. 1. 4. I cannot discern the force of Schneider’s
argument in his remark on Thucyd. vii. 58: “Sed locus Thucydidis
clarissimus est: δύναται δὲ τὸ νεοδαμῶδες ἐλεύθερον ἤδη εἶναι. i. e.
significat vocabulum νεοδαμῶδεις homines _nuper_ libertate donatos.”
Not to insist on the opinion of Æmilius Portus, that the above words
have crept from the margin into the text, the _recently_ enfranchised
Helots were as much “homines _nuper_ libertate donatos,” as the
Neodamodes. And yet, when sent together to Lepreon they are carefully
distinguished. See Hudson. Var. Lect. Thucyd. iv. 460. Bip.
Footnote 228:
Morus. ap. Schneid. Ind. Græc. ad Xen. Hellen. p. 468. Cf. Perizon. ad
Ælian. xii. 43.
-----
It has already been observed, that the Spartans appear to have possessed
numbers of slaves properly so called, besides their oppressed and
miserable bondsmen, with whom they seem often to have been confounded.
These, by being more constantly about their masters, were, doubtless,
able to gain more upon their affections, and could not possibly be
viewed with equal dread, since they were necessarily brought together
from various countries, and connected consequently by no bond of union.
As often, therefore, as the state required a fresh supply of citizens,
it is from among these that they appear to have been selected; and that,
too, in numbers so considerable, that Agesilaos, on one occasion, was
enabled to select two thousand to attend him on an expedition wherein he
was accompanied by only thirty Spartans.[229]
-----
Footnote 229:
Plut. Agesil. § 6. Cf. Xenoph. Hellen. i. 3. 15. iii. 1. 3. v. 2. 24.
Diod. Sicul. xv. 20.
-----
Another class of persons[230] commonly ranked among the Laconian slaves
were the Mothaces,[231] to determine whose origin, rank, and condition,
appears to be a matter of no small difficulty. That they never, during
the flourishing ages of the commonwealth, formed any part of the servile
caste may be regarded as certain, whatever may be found to the contrary
in the grammarians of later times. For the Mothaces, observes Athenæus,
though not Lacedæmonians, were _free_. And to the same purpose speaks
Philarchos, whose words are: “The Mothaces were the brotherlike
companions of the Lacedæmonians. For every youthful citizen, according
to his means, chose one, two, or more of these to be brought up along
with him; and, notwithstanding that they enjoyed not the rank of
citizens, they were _free_, and participated in all the advantages of
the national education. It is even said that Lysander, who defeated the
Athenians at sea, was one of this class of men, but raised to the rank
of citizen for his valour.”[232] To the same section of the Laconian
population belonged also Callicratidas and Gylippos,[233] a circumstance
which of itself appears completely to overthrow the hypothesis of those
who derive the Mothaces directly from the Helots; for Cleandridas, the
father of Gylippos,[234] was chosen to accompany King Pleistoanax, as
chief of his councillors, during an expedition into Attica, an honour
which would not, I imagine, have been conferred upon a Helot. Again,
Lysander, whom by one authority we are taught to regard as a Mothax, is
by another spoken of not barely as a Spartan, but as descended from the
Heracleidæ.[235]
-----
Footnote 230:
See Book ii. chapter vii.
Footnote 231:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 632. Ubbo. Emm. iii. 132, seq. Mention is
made in Plutarch of two Syntrophoi of Cleomenes, who were called
Mothaces, and these we find at the head of a party of soldiers. Vit.
Cleom. § 8. Cf. Valck. Diatrib. p. 231.
Footnote 232:
Athen. vi. 102. Müller, alluding to this passage, says, “In Athenæus
they are called _free_ in reference to their _future_, not their
_past_, condition.” Dor. ii. 44. n. b. By the same rule, the vicious
man who is one day to be virtuous, might, in the midst of his crimes,
be pronounced a pattern of morality.
Footnote 233:
Ælian. Var. Hist. xii. 43. Perizon.
Footnote 234:
Cf. Diod. Sicul. xiii. 106, who calls the father Clearchos.
Footnote 235:
Plut. Vit. Lysand. § 2.
-----
How then are we to reconcile these seeming contradictions? Probably by
supposing, that the Mothaces consisted, first of the sons of such
Spartans as were too poor to defray the expenses of their maintenance
and education,[236] which seems to have been the case with Aristocritos,
the father of Lysander, whose early indigence is celebrated; secondly of
bastard Spartans, who it is well known shared the education of their
legitimate brethren; and thirdly, of the sons of persons of rank and
distinction among the Periœci. To these perhaps, in very late times, the
sons of favourite slaves born in the house may have been added, though
there is no ground for believing that this was habitually the case in
the earlier ages. Be this, however, as it may, it seems to be quite
evident, that Lycurgus laid much less stress on “birth and blood” than
on that steadiness and patience of toil which are the first qualities of
a soldier. Whoever from childhood upward gave proof of these, by
submitting unmurmuringly to the rigorous trial he enjoined the youth of
Sparta, was elevated in the end to the rank of a citizen, while they who
shrunk from the severity of his discipline, according to some even
though they had descended from the blood royal, sunk into a state of
degradation or were even confounded with the Helots.[237] Foreigners who
enjoyed the privileges of this system of instruction received among the
Lacedæmonians the name of Trophimoi.
-----
Footnote 236:
Cf. Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 2. 15, where the regulations of the Persian
system are evidently mere copies of those which prevailed, at least in
earlier ages, at Sparta. Plut. Institut. Lac. § 21, seq. Müller, Dor.
ii. 314, seq.
Footnote 237:
Teles, ap. Stob. Florileg. Tit. 40. 8. Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ οὐδὲν τῶν
τοιούτων ὄνειδος ἡγοῦνται· ἀλλὰ τὸν μὲν μετασχόντα τῆς ἀγωγῆς καὶ
ἐμμείναντα, κἂν ξένος, κἂν ἐξ εἵλωτας, ὁμοίως τοῖς ἀριστοῖς τιμῶσι·
τὸν δὲ μὴ ἐμμείναντα, κἂν ἐξ αὐτοῦ τοῦ βασιλέως εἰς τοὺς εἵλωτας
ἀποστέλλουσι, καὶ τῆς πολιτείας ὁ τοιοῦτος οὐ μετέχει. The testimony
of Dion Chrysostom (Orat. xxxvi. t. ii. p. 92), as we have seen above,
is in direct contradiction with this of Teles; but if we suppose them
to speak of different periods of Spartan history, they may both be
right.
-----
Of the Epeunactæ, a peculiar class of freedmen, we have the following
curious account: Having in the Messenian war lost a number of Spartans,
the government began to apprehend that the enemy might discover its
weakness; to conceal which a Helot was substituted in the place of every
fallen warrior. Shortly afterwards these men were raised to the rank of
citizens and denominated Epeunactæ, because they occupied the beds
(εὐναι) of other men.[238]
-----
Footnote 238:
Athen. vi. 101.
-----
But wherever men are base-minded there will be slaves; and accordingly
we find that, in all other parts of Greece, no less than at Sparta, this
miserable class existed for the performance of servile drudgery.
Posidonios, the Stoic,[239] observes, that persons lacking sense to
provide for themselves, voluntarily became the slaves of any who would
take care of them. Thus the Maryandinians submitted to the citizens of
Heraclea,[240] to be their perpetual serfs, stipulating only that they
should always be furnished with the necessaries of life, and on no
account be sold out of the country. They were in fact simply
tributaries, as is implied in the verse of Euphorion, the epic poet,
“Gift-bearers called, who cower before their chiefs.”[241]
-----
Footnote 239:
Ποσειδώνιος δέ φησιν ὁ ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς, πολλούς τινας, ἑαυτῶν οὐ
δυναμένους προΐστασθαι διὰ τὸ τῆς διανοίας ἀσθενὲς, ἐπιδουναι ἑαυτους
εἰς τὴν τῶν συνετωτέρων ὑπηρεσίαν, ὅπως, παρ’ ἐκείνων τυγχάνοντες τῆς
εἰς τὰ ἀναγκαῖα ἐπιμελείας, αὐτοὶ πάλιν ἀποδιδῶσιν ἐκείνοις δι’ αὐτῶν
ἅπερ ἂν ὦσιν ὑπηρετεῖν δυνατοί. Athen vi. 84. Cf. Grot. de Jur. Bell.
et Pac. ii. v. 27.
Footnote 240:
Eustath. ad Il. β. t. i. p. 223. 38.
Footnote 241:
Δωροφόροι καλεοίαθ᾽ ὑποφρίσσοντες ἄνακτας. Athen. vi. 84.
-----
This appellation of Gift-bearers—though their gifts, like the royal
benevolences of our ancestors, were extorted from them—was no doubt
however invented, as Callicratos[242] observes, to disguise the true
nature of their condition. Besides engaging in agricultural labours,
they likewise served on board ship, and consequently contributed greatly
to increase the commerce and naval power of Heraclea.[243]
-----
Footnote 242:
Athen. vi. 84.
Footnote 243:
Aristot. Polit. vii. 5. 7. Müller, ii. 62.
-----
The Thessalians denominated Penestæ,[244] not those who were born in
servitude, but persons who were made captive in war. They were sometimes
also known by the name of Thettaloiketes. Archemachos, in his History of
Eubœa, affords illustration of a very curious point of ancient history
mentioned briefly but with some variation, by Thucydides.[245] According
to him, certain Bœotians migrating northward, founded Arnæa in Thessaly;
after which some returned to Bœotia, while, delighted with the land,
others remained, and became the voluntary villains of the Thessalians.
Here, however, as elsewhere in like cases, it was stipulated that they
should neither be put to death nor sold beyond the borders; while on
their part they agreed to cultivate the land and pay the requisite
tribute.[246] On this account they were called Menestæ,[247] that is
“those who remain,” which appellation was by degrees corrupted into
Penestæ. Of these serfs many were richer than their masters.
Euripides,[248] in his “Phryxas,” observes, moreover, that they were
sometimes of very ancient families. Thucydides, on the other hand,
represents them to have been the original inhabitants of Arnè, driven
thence by the Thessalians sixty years after the Trojan war, though a
portion of the nation had long before settled in Bœotia and joined in
the expedition against Troy.[249]
-----
Footnote 244:
Valcken. Diatrib. in Perd. Dram. Eurip. p. 216. b. Ruhnk. ad Tim. Lex.
v. πενεστικόν. Eustath. ad Il. β. p. 223. ν. p. 933. π. p. 1120.
Ammonius. v. πελάτης. Valcken. Animad. iii. 8. p. 192. Schol,
Aristoph. Vesp. 1264. Suid. v. πενέσται. t. ii. p. 479. Strab. l. xii.
t. ii. p. 817. Casaub.—Hesych. v. πενέσται. t. ii. p. 910. Albert.
Footnote 245:
See Poppo. Proleg. in Thucyd. ii. 306. 308. Cf. Aristot. Pol. ii. 9.
28.
Footnote 246:
Athen. vi. 85.
Footnote 247:
“But,” says Hermann, “was the name derived from μένειν, Athen. vi. 88
(Cf. Welcker ad Theogn. p. xx.) or from πένεσθαι, Dionys. Hal. ii. 9.
p. 255, or were they a distinct race? On this resemblance to the
Italian clients, see Niebuhr. vol. i. p. 318.” (1. 277. Engl. Trans.)
Niebuhr, however, remarks, that “the same relation which, in Thessaly,
was rude and revolting, might, at Rome, be refined by different
manners and a better spirit.”
Footnote 248:
Valcken. Diatrib. p. 216. b. Athen. vi. 85.
Footnote 249:
Thucyd. i. 12. Steph. Byzant. v. Ἄρνη.
-----
A state of things not greatly dissimilar[250] prevailed in Crete, where
the servile caste was divided into several classes: first, those of the
cities, called Chrysonetæ, or “bought with gold,” who were doubtless
barbarians; second, those of the country, who received the name of
Aphamiotæ,[251] from their being bound to the Aphamiæ, or estates of the
landed gentry. These were the aboriginal tribes of the island reduced to
servitude by a nation of foreign conquerors. They were sometimes
likewise denominated Clarotæ,[252] from their having been divided among
the conquerors by κλᾶρος, or lot; or, according to others, from their
being located on the lots of the citizens which were called κλᾶροι.[253]
In condition, the Aphamiotæ resembled the Helots,[254] and differed from
the peasantry, or Hypekooi,[255] in much the same degree as the
purchased private slaves of the Turks differ from their _rayahs_, or
subjects. These are habitually protected from being sold out of the
country; though in cases of revolt the captives are reduced to the level
of the common slaves, and sold like cattle. Thus the markets of Egypt
were crowded with Cretans after the late revolt against Mohammed Ali.
Third, there existed in every state in Crete a class of public bondsmen
denominated Mnoia or Mnoa, because reduced to that condition by
Minos.[256] These serfs cultivated the public lands, upon what
conditions is not exactly known: it merely appears that they were
compelled to furnish the body of the citizens a certain sum of money,
together with a part of their flocks and herds and agricultural
produce.[257] That they were sufficiently numerous and powerful to
inspire their masters with dread, is evident from the regulation by
which they were excluded from the gymnasia, and prohibited the use of
arms.
-----
Footnote 250:
See on the subject Classes of Crete, Gœttling. Excurs. ad Aristot.
Pol. p. 473, sqq. Müller. Dor. ii. The undertaker’s business in this
country was entrusted to slaves, who obtained the name of Ergatones.
Hesych. ap. Meurs. Cret. ii. 13. p. 190.
Footnote 251:
Hesych. in voce. t. ii. p. 635. Albert.—Strab. l. xv. t. ii. p. 1027.
l. xii. t. ii. p. 817. Casaub.
Footnote 252:
Suid. in v. i. 1461.
Footnote 253:
Cf. Müll. Dor. ii. 51.
Footnote 254:
Cf. Eustath. ad Iliad, ο. p. 1031.
Footnote 255:
Polyb. iv. 53. The Periœci of Crete bore the same relation to their
lords as the agricultural caste did in Egypt to the nobility. Arist.
Pol. vii. 9.
Footnote 256:
Vid. Ilgen. De Scol. Poës. p. 108.
Footnote 257:
Athen. iv. 22. Cf. Gœttling. ad Arist. Pol. Excurs. ii. p. 473.
-----
Besides these, there was another class of the Cretan population which
must by no means be confounded with the slaves or serfs,—I mean, the
Hypekooi.[258] These were the inhabitants of the smaller towns who had
lost their political independence, but were permitted the use of arms,
and allowed to frequent the public places of exercise, like the nobler
citizens.[259]
-----
Footnote 258:
Athen. vi. 84.
Footnote 259:
Gœttling. Excurs. ii. De Rep. Cretens. p. 474.
-----
In the city of Cydonia, during certain festivals of Hermes, the slaves
were left masters of the place, into which no free citizen had
permission to enter; and if he infringed this regulation it was in their
power to chastise him with whips.[260] In other parts of Crete customs
similar to those of the Roman Saturnalia prevailed; for, while the
slaves in the Hermæan festival were carousing and taking their ease,
their lords, travestied into domestics, waited upon them at table, and
performed, in their stead, all other menial offices. Something of the
same kind took place during the month Gerœstion, at Trœzen, where the
citizens feasted their slaves on one day of the great annual festival,
and played at dice with them.[261] Among the Babylonians, moreover, we
find a similar custom; for, during the Sacæan festival, which lasted
five days, and was celebrated in the month of August,[262] the owners
waited on their slaves, one of whom, habited in a royal robe, enacted
the part of king.
-----
Footnote 260:
Athen. vi. 84.
Footnote 261:
Athen. xiv. 44.
Footnote 262:
Λῷος among the Macedonians. Suid. ii. 60. Anim. ad Athen. xiv. 44.
-----
Upon the whole it may be inferred, that the treatment and condition of
the Cretan serfs were milder than in any other Doric state, though it
would be incorrect to decide,[263] that they were less oppressed than in
any other state in all Greece, since we discover in the song of Hybrias
traces not to be mistaken of their abject state:
Great riches have I in my spear and sword,
And hairy shield, like a rampart thrown
Before me in war; for by these I am lord
Of the fields where the golden harvests are grown;
And by these I press forth the red red wine,
While the Mnotæ around salute me king;
Approaching, trembling, these knees of mine,
With the dread which the spear and the faulchion bring.[264]
-----
Footnote 263:
Müll. Dor. ii. 53.
Footnote 264:
Athen. xv. 50. Cf. Ilgen. de Scol. Poës. xxvi. p. 102, sqq.
-----
The Periœci of Crete are said never to have revolted against their
masters; but this arose, as Aristotle observes, from the circumstance
that every state having serfs of the same kind, it was not for the
interest of any one in their wars to set their bondsmen a bad example by
enticing any to join in those struggles.[265]. The Penestæ of Thessaly,
and the Helots, often joined the enemy, because the neighbouring states
possessed no similar serfs. But, in the case of the Cretan Periœci, the
circumstance already noticed of their not being allowed to frequent the
gymnasia,[266] or possess arms, will account satisfactorily for their
perseverance in the ancient manners, without supposing in them any
preference for those manners, which, as they were deprived of all the
privileges of citizens, they could scarcely have felt.[267]
-----
Footnote 265:
Aristot. Pol. ii. 9. 28.
Footnote 266:
Cf. Arist. Pol. ii. 5. 20.
Footnote 267:
Cf. Müll. Dorians, ii. 54.
-----
Respecting the servile classes in other Grecian states our information
is very scanty: we simply know that the serfs of the Syracusans were
denominated Killicyrii,[268] and exceedingly numerous, so that “more in
number than the Killicyrii,” became a proverb. They would seem to have
dwelt chiefly in the country like the Cretan Mnotæ. In process of time,
however, their multitude inspired them with courage; they assaulted and
drove out their masters, and, fortune favouring their enterprise,
retained possession of Syracuse. Among several of the Italian states,
the subject classes were known by the name of Pelasgi. The people of
Rhodes reduced and kept in bondage the inhabitants of Caunos, and the
celebrated painter Protogenes[269] was the son of one of these bondsmen.
-----
Footnote 268:
Herod. vii. 155. Plat. De Legg. t. vii. p. 205. Suid. in v.
καλλικυρίοι, i. 1359. Eustathius, however, places the Killicyrii in
Crete, and the Ἀρότται (μνῷται?) in Syracuse, ad Il. β. t. i. p. 223.
37.
Footnote 269:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxv. 36. Meurs. Rhod. p. 35.
-----
In the same relation stood the Bithynians to the people of Byzantium;
the Leleges to the Carians, and the Katanocophori to the people of
Sicyon.[270] These last would seem to have been originally[271] merely
the rustic population deprived of their freedom by the tyrants, who
compelled them to affect a mean and squalid appearance, and to wear
sheepskin cloaks,[272] that they might be ashamed to frequent the city,
where they would have been exposed to the laughter and insults of the
rabble.
-----
Footnote 270:
Eustath. ad Il. π. p. 1120. Athen. vi. 101. The institution of slavery
among the Argives was denominated ἄβουτον, (Hesych. in v.) because
their serfs originally, I suppose, were too poor to possess oxen.
Footnote 271:
Sch. Aristoph. Concion. 719. Poll. vii. 68. Cf. Steph. Byzant. v.
Χῖος. p. 758. b.
Footnote 272:
The Peisistratidæ pursued the same policy in Attica. Aristoph. Lysist.
18, sqq. Suid. v. κατωνάκαι, i. 1421.
-----
The corresponding class among the Arcadians, denominated Prospelatæ[273]
were said to have amounted to three hundred thousand in number. Their
treatment was probably more lenient than in many other parts of Greece,
as we find them on public festivals sitting down at table with their
masters, like our old farm-servants, eating of the same food, and
drinking from the same cup.[274]
-----
Footnote 273:
Eustath. ad Il. π. p. 1120. Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. viii. 7. 12,
who observes that, in later times, the Arcadians though more attached
to liberty than any other Greeks, yet maintained a great number of
slaves, standing in need of husbandmen, goatherds, swineherds,
herdsmen, and drove-keepers, and expert woodsmen. The Corinthians had
forty-six myriads of slaves, for which reason the Pythian oracle
called them Chœnix-measurers, probably because they allowed their
slaves a chœnix of corn per day. Athen. vi. 103. Under the tyranny of
Athenion the citizens of Athens were at one time reduced to the fourth
part of a chœnix of barley per diem, which, observes the sophist, was
rather a cock’s food than a man’s. Athen. v. 53.
Footnote 274:
Theopomp. ap. Athen. iv. 31. This historian speaks in another passage
of people who in the present text of Athenæus are denominated Ariæi,
who possessing three hundred thousand slaves, (a favourite number with
Theopompos,) were enabled to spend their whole lives in mirth and
jollity: Ἀριαῖοι δὲ φησὶ, κέκτηνται προσπελατῶν, ὥσπερ εἱλώτων,
τριάκοντα μυριάδασ· καθ᾽ ἑκάστην δὲ ἡμέραν μεθύουσι, καὶ ποιοῦνται
συνουσίας, καὶ διάκεινται πρὸς ἐδωδὴν καὶ πόσιν ἀκρατέστερον. Athen.
x. 60. Cf. vi. 101.
-----
BOOK VI.
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY.
CHAPTER I.
CONDITION OF THE POOR.
Respecting the condition of the poor, in ancient nations, very little is
commonly known, the great historians, the tragic poets, and the other
classic writers who enjoy what may be termed popularity, not having
bestowed their attention on the subject; and to mine, for this species
of knowledge, amid the speculations of philosophers, or the dusky
rubbish of scholiasts and lexicographers, being a task for which few
have patience. Even those writers who might have been expected to enter
fully into this matter, supply but slight and unsatisfactory
information, either because they attached little importance to the
question, or because it did not enter into their design to examine in
all their details the poor-laws of Athens, or the numerous sources of
private and public charity which circumscribed the operation of those
laws. To the best of my ability I shall endeavour to supply the
deficiency.
In the earlier ages of the commonwealth there existed no class of
citizens so necessitous as to require the aid of charity.[275] The
democracy was not disgraced by the beggary of one of its members; for,
though many, compared with their neighbours, might be poor, none were
reduced to sordid indigence, or so lacked credit as to be unable to
command the means of engaging in some profitable branch of industry.
Afterwards, however, through the calamitous events of war, and that
deterioration seemingly inherent in all forms of government, the number
of the indigent exceeded that of the wealthy,[276] (as in every modern
country it does,) and distress and destitution occupying entirely the
thoughts of the sufferers, corroded to the core that spirit of
patriotism which had distinguished their ancestors. But the institutions
of Athens, having been truly designed to promote the happiness and
provide for the wants of the people, the attention of the legislature
was immediately directed to the evil.
-----
Footnote 275:
Before the establishment, however, of the Athenian commonwealth, when
Greece had not yet emerged from the period of barbarism, piratical
expeditions were, by many of the smaller states, undertaken for the
sake of providing for the poor. Thucyd. i. 5.
Footnote 276:
Τότε μὲν οὐδεὶς ἦν τῶν πολιτῶν ἐνδεὴς τῶν ἀναγκαίων οὐδὲ προσαιτῶν
τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας τὴν πόλιν κατῄσχυνε, νῦν δὲ πλείους εἰσὶν οἱ
σπανίζοντες τῶν ἐχόντων. Isocrat. Areop. § 38.
-----
As this was the first developement of the spirit of charity, it
naturally appeared feeble at the outset, and only acquired strength and
volume by degrees. A beginning was made in the case of those who had
been disabled in war,[277] and of the children left behind by citizens
who fell in defence of their country.
-----
Footnote 277:
Καὶ νόμους αὐτὸς ἑτέρους ἔγραψεν, ᾧν ἐστι καὶ ὁ τοὺς πηρωθέντας ἐν
πολέμῳ δημοσίᾳ τρέφεσθαι κελεύων. Plut. Solon. § 31. See the other
authorities collected by Meursius. Them. Att. i. 10. p. 27. Cf. Petit,
Legg. Att. viii. 3. p. 559. Aristotle, in a passage of his Politics,
(ii. 5. 4,) has been supposed to attribute the honour of this idea to
Hippodamos, who, he says, proposed public rewards for useful
inventions, and maintenance and education for the children of slain
warriors. But St. Hilaire, who translates him in this sense, seems to
be mistaken. Aristotle says, that Hippodamos proposed such a law, as
if it were new:—“Now such a law,” he says, “existed at Athens, and in
other states.” Cf. Gœttling. ad loc. p. 327, sqq. St. Hil. i. 147.
-----
To the former a pension, in early times of one obolos a-day, was
allowed: the latter[278] may be said to have been adopted by the state
which maintained and educated them till the age of eighteen, when,
having been taught some trade or business, they were considered able to
provide for themselves.[279]
-----
Footnote 278:
Poll. viii. 91. Gœttlieb. ad Plat. Menex. p. 62, seq.
Footnote 279:
Aristid. Panath. i. 190. Jebb. Μόνοι δὲ ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων τρία ταῦτα
ἐνομίσατε· τῶν μὲν ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως τελευτησάντων αὐτῶν μὲν ἐπαίνους
ἐπὶ ταῖς ταφαῖς καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἔτος λέγειν· τούς δέ παῖδας δημοσίᾳ
τρέφειν ἄχρις ἥβης, καὶ τηνικαῦτα ἀποπέμπειν ἐπὶ τοὺς πατρῴους οἴκους
μετὰ τῶν πανοπλιῶν· τοὺς δὲ ἀδυνάτους τῶν πολιτῶν δημοσίᾳ τρέφειν.
-----
With whom this humane institution originated is not agreed. In the case
of disabled soldiers the honour has, by some, been attributed to
Peisistratos, by others to Solon. Bœckh, though he acknowledges that the
latter “certainly gave the example to Peisistratos,” considers it not
improbable that, for the benefit of this important lesson, humanity is
indebted to the tyrant, who, he observes, “was of a mild disposition;
and usurpers are generally glad to seize every opportunity of conferring
a benefit, with a view to make themselves popular; nor would the
Athenians, with their hatred to tyranny, have attributed this honour to
him if he had not deserved it.”[280]
-----
Footnote 280:
Publ. Econ. of Athen. i. 324.
-----
Of this I am not sure. Peisistratos, a consummate politician, having
unjustly rendered himself master of the state, was, no doubt, careful to
appropriate to himself as many as possible of the honours due to Solon,
the mildest of all legislators; and, if he abstained from abrogating
such a law, might contrive to pass for its author. Certain, at all
events, it is, that a tradition long existed among the ancients which
attributed the institution to Solon;[281] and however mild and popular
in manners the tyrant may have been, it will still, perhaps, be
acknowledged that in those qualities he was excelled by the great
legislator.
-----
Footnote 281:
Schol. ined. ad Æschin. cont. Timarch. p. 14. 40. ap. Taylor, ad Lys.
Orat. Att. t. ii. p. 537. Dobs.—Diog. Laert. i. 2. 8.
-----
By what steps the law, originally instituted with reference solely to
citizens disabled in war, came afterwards to embrace the aged, the sick,
the blind, and infirm of every description, is not known. It did not,
however, require them to be absolutely destitute before they could
receive relief. Any citizen whose property did not exceed three minæ, or
twelve pounds sterling,[282] was entitled to the allowance; to eke out
which he might keep a small shop, or apply himself to any other branch
of industry within his competence. The laws, in fact, were on this point
exceedingly liberal, justly considering it to be the duty of society to
make up as far as possible for the injuries of fortune. There was little
danger of the state’s humanity being abused. The people themselves
examined into every case, which in a community so limited they could
easily do, and afterwards it was still in the power of any citizen, who
suspected imposition, to bring an action against the offender before the
Senate of Five Hundred.
-----
Footnote 282:
Harpocrat, v. ἀδύνατοι. Cf. not. Vales. et Suid. v. t. i. p. 89, b.
-----
The speech of a defendant in a cause of this kind has come down to us.
It was written for the unfortunate citizen by Lysias; and I own I can
discover in it nothing of that “jesting tone,” which, in the opinion of
some writers, proves it to be a mere rhetorical exercise.[283] On the
contrary, it breathes of that manly confidence, which it became the
citizen, however poor, of a republican state, to feel. We must not
conceive of him as a miserable pauper whining to a board of guardians.
He understood the intent and meaning of the law, and certain that his
case entitled him to the relief it was designed to afford, he spoke
before the Senate like a man claiming no more than was equitably due to
him; and too well assured of the humanity and justice of his countrymen
to be under much apprehension. He kept a small shop, it appears, in the
vicinity of the agora, and one of the principal points dwelt on by the
prosecutor was, that he there drew together a number of saunterers and
newsmongers, such as usually at Athens frequented the shops of barbers,
perfumers, &c., in that fashionable part of the town.[284] Another point
was, that he sometimes rode on horseback, which, in the opinion of the
accusers, a man receiving aid from the state should not have done. But,
to this part of the accusation, he replies, that, being so lame as to be
compelled to make use of crutches, he was wholly unable to answer the
more distant calls of business without hiring a horse, the expense of
which only augmented his difficulties.
-----
Footnote 283:
Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, vol. i. p. 325. It should here, perhaps,
be remarked, that they who failed to be present on the day of
examination, lost their allowance for a whole Prytaneia. Schol. ad
Æschin. cont. Tim. § 21. At times it would appear a man required some
skill and eloquence to plead his own cause; or a friend to speak in
his behalf, perhaps, when the number of applicants was very great. We
may gather thus much from the accusation of Æschines against
Timarchos, who, though a rich man, suffered, we are told, his old
blind uncle to inscribe his name on the list of the destitute. On one
occasion, moreover, when the uncle had omitted to attend on the proper
day, and had addressed a petition to the Senate to be allowed his pay
notwithstanding, Timarchos, who happened to be then in court, refused
to support his application, by which means he lost his allowance for
that Prytaneia. Æschin. cont. Tim. § 21. The Scholiast on this passage
adds, that they who petitioned the Senate appeared in person, bearing
in their hand an olive branch wreathed with wool.
-----
-----
Footnote 284:
Andocid. de Myst. § 9. Plut. Timol. § 14.
-----
From these circumstances we may learn, that the Athenian government was
by no means penurious in its appropriation of those funds which the
contributions of the wealthier citizens placed at its disposal.
On the amount of the daily allowance writers are not agreed, some
pretending it was three oboli, others two, and others an obolos. The
truth, probably, is, that, originally, it exceeded not a single obolos,
but that, as prices augmented, or, rather, as the coin deteriorated in
value, it was found necessary to double the amount.[285] Whether it was
ever raised to three oboli seems doubtful; the affirmation of the
Scholiast on Æschines[286] may be a mistake; but the mere fact that this
was the pay of the dicasts is no reason at all for calling the testimony
of the grammarian in question.[287] Be this, however, as it may, in the
time of Lysias,[288] one obolos only was bestowed, and Bœckh has
attempted, with much ingenuity, to determine the date of the increased
allowance. It had not taken place, according to Harpocration, in the
time of Aristotle; but Philochoros, the next writer who touches on the
subject, observes, that it was nine drachmæ a month, or fifty-four
oboli,[289] which, omitting the fractions, is equal to two oboli a day.
The year in which Aristotle composed his treatise on the Athenian
government is not exactly known; it was probably, however, after his
return from Macedon, 334 B.C. Philochoros was Hieroscopos at Athens in
the year of Corœbos, 306 B.C. He did not, however, publish his Atthis
till about the year 260 B.C., at which time the poor allowance had been
raised to two oboli. The date of the increase, therefore, falls
somewhere within the preceding seventy years.[290]
-----
Footnote 285:
That this allowance was not very scanty may be inferred from the fact,
that when the people of Trœzen publicly received the wives and parents
of the Athenians on their retreat from the city during the Persian
invasion, they allowed each individual only two oboli a day. Plut.
Themist. § 10.
Footnote 286:
Ap. Taylor ad Lys. Orat. Att. t. ii. p. 537. Dobs.
Footnote 287:
Bœckh’s over-acuteness has, probably, misled him on this point. i.
325.
Footnote 288:
Pro Impot. §§ 4. 8.
Footnote 289:
Philoch. Fragm. p. 44, seq. with the notes of Lenz and Siebelis. Conf.
Harpocrat. v. ἀδύνατ. cum not. Gronov. et Vales. Petit, Legg. Att.
558, seq.
Footnote 290:
Cf. Clinton Fast. Hellen. ii. p. 175. Siebel. ad Philoch. Fragm. p. 3.
Bœckh. Publ. Econ. of of Ath. i. 327, falls into an extraordinary
error respecting the age of Philochoros, “who was a youth,” he says,
“when Eratosthenes was an old man.” This he states on the authority of
Suidas. But, as Siebelis has already remarked, in exposing the
erroneous imputations of Vossius and Corsini, Suidas was himself
mistaken, or his text is corrupt; for Philochoros, to have obtained
the important office of Hieroscopos in 306, B.C., must have been then
at least twenty years old. Now Eratosthenes was born B.C. 275, Clint.
Fast. Hellen. iii. 5, so that it seems he was a youth when Philochoros
was an old man.
-----
With respect to the number of persons blind, old, sick, maimed, or
otherwise disabled, who received maintenance from the state, no exact
computation can be made. Bœckh,[291] imagining that Meursius had
reckoned them at five hundred, after remarking that the assumption is
founded on a false reading in Suidas, accepts the number as the least
that can be adopted. But Meursius,[292] in the passage referred to,
assumes nothing; he does not even allude to the number at all. And, in
fact, it will be evident, at the first glance, that no conjecture can
hope to approach the truth where circumstances were constantly varying,
adding to, or taking from, the number of those who required relief. This
was chiefly affected by the general poverty of the state, which
augmented rapidly towards its decline, when the number of the aged and
infirm, not possessing three minæ, or twelve pounds sterling, per annum,
must, no doubt, have been considerable. On the other hand, having no
longer to defend its freedom, which was gone for ever, the children of
citizens falling in battle were comparatively few, and, accordingly, the
gain on this item went to balance the loss on the other.
-----
Footnote 291:
Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 327.
Footnote 292:
Lect. Att. vi. 5.
-----
The offspring of citizens thus bequeathed to the care of the state were
at one time exceedingly numerous, and highly exemplary and honourable
was the attention they received.[293] To the females a maintenance,
education, and a portion, were given; and the males having also been
supported and educated until manhood, received in the public theatre a
complete suit of armour, as a memento of their fathers’ valour, to
incite them to follow their example. The whole audience being assembled,
the herald introduced the orphan youths clothed in panoply of “complete
steel,” and then, with a loud voice, proclaimed what Æschines rightly
regarded as a most glorious and valour-inspiring proclamation, viz.,
that the fathers of those youths, like brave and good men, had fallen in
their country’s battles, on which account the state had undertaken the
charge of their bringing up, and now, on the verge of manhood, having
adorned them with an entire suit of armour, dismissed them under happy
auspices to watch over their own affairs, granting them, likewise, for
the day, the most honourable seats in the theatre.[294]
-----
Footnote 293:
Isocrat. de Pac. § 29. To complete the humanity of the laws, the
parents, also, of such as fell in war were placed under the special
protection of the Archons. Petit, Legg. Att. p. 559.
Footnote 294:
Æschin. cont. Ctesiph. § 48, with the notes of the Scholiast, p. 395.
Conf. Plat. Menex. § 21. p. 61. ed. Gœttlieb. The προεδρία which the
Scholiast to Æschines supposes them to have enjoyed during the day on
which they received the panoply, Lesbonax seems to have regarded as
perpetual. They were honoured, moreover, with particular marks of
public favour in the sacred choruses and in the gymnasia. Protrept. i.
§ 5. Conf. Menag. in D. Laert. t. ii. p. 20. c. d.
-----
Petit[295] supposes this to have taken place on their attaining the age
of twenty, before which they could not legally assume the management of
their inheritance, or encounter the fatigue and peril of regular
warfare; but, others, perhaps, with more probability, fix upon the age
of eighteen.
-----
Footnote 295:
Legg. Att. p. 560.
-----
The above legal provision, however, does not appear to have sufficed,
and there sometimes occurred cases of distress which it could not reach.
Many, too, would submit to great privation rather than have recourse to
public aid. Such persons, where numbers were in similar circumstances,
usually united and formed, what may very properly be denominated a
Benefit Club (ἔρανος[296]), to which they contributed when in their
power, that, should misfortune overtake them, they might still be sure
of support. This description, however, of Eranos constituted only one
branch of the numerous Clubs, Companies, Associations, Trades-unions,
&c., which, like the Clubs of the Civil Wars[297] and Associations of a
still later date, occasionally assumed a political character and impeded
the movements of the machinery of the state.[298] These societies were
instituted with various objects. In the first place they were
established to defray by subscription the expense of certain sacrifices,
offered up in behalf of their members who were called Eranistæ and
Thiasotæ. But under cover of this pretext combinations of an evil
tendency were sometimes formed,—among the aristocracy, for example, who
established the tyranny of the Four Hundred,—and these obnoxious clubs,
varying in character with the period, espoused the cause of freedom in
Roman times, and were of course watched jealously by the
conquerors.[299]
-----
Footnote 296:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 1171. Poll. iii. 129. vi. 7. viii. 144. 157.
Footnote 297:
See Locke, Memoirs of Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, Works, folio. vol.
iii.
Footnote 298:
Van Holst, de Eranis. c. ii. p. 35.
Footnote 299:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Charact. p. 284.
-----
With respect to those associations which bore a legal character, they
were by the laws of Solon permitted to enact whatever rules and
regulations they judged proper for their own government and advantage,
provided no public ordinance prevented.[300] Sometimes the citizens of a
whole Demos, or borough, formed themselves into a club, or a ship’s
crew,[301] or an eating society, or persons having a right to the same
burial-ground, or the partners in a mercantile expedition. Thus we find
three several motives,—religion, gain, and pleasure,—impelling men into
unions of this kind, all recognised by law. The curious and intricate
internal structure of Athenian society lent itself readily to the
formation of such clubs; the whole population having originally been
divided into four tribes, each tribe into three phratriæ,[302] each
phratria into thirty clans (γενη), each clan containing thirty houses,
among whom the honours of the priesthood were distributed by lot.[303]
-----
Footnote 300:
Gaius. lib. iv. ad leg. xii. Tabul. in f. 4. d. Petit, Legg. Att. v.
7. 427. Potter, i. 200.
Footnote 301:
The words ἤ ναῦται omitted by some, converted into something else by
others, are judiciously retained by Van Holst, de Eranis, c. ii. p 36,
since they are in exact conformity with what Aristotle remarks. Ethic.
Nicom. viii. 11. p. 470, seq. Victor.
Footnote 302:
Vandale having cited a passage from Pollux, iii. 52, stating that the
temple in which the phratriæ assembled was denominated φράτριον,
adds:—“quas φρατρίας Athenis duodecim numero existentes, ibi tum
ulterius describit atque inter alia notat, illorum ad illos introitu
virum (procul dubio ab ipsorum parentibus) distributum cæteris
φράτορσιν fuisse. Huic οἰνηστήρια sicut et Themistius, Orat. xiii.
notat, illos ante introitum, convocata concione probatos et publico
annulo signatos fuisse.” Dissert. 9. p. 729.
Footnote 303:
Harpocrat. v. v. γεννῆται et τριττὺς. Herm. Polit. Antiq. § 98, seq.
Schöm. Comit. p. 360.
-----
In these Attic associations we discover the germs of those companies of
merchants, guilds, &c.,[304] so familiar to the modern world; or rather
similar wants in both cases gave rise to similar institutions. But with
the trading companies we have, in this place, nothing to do; and if
incidentally the other associations are noticed, it is simply for the
purpose of more fully developing a system of which the Benefit Clubs
formed a part. These evidently rose out of the Eranæ established
originally for purposes of pleasure: that is, a number of individuals
desirous of enjoying a more splendid entertainment than they could
generally afford at home,[305] together with the society of their
intimate friends, entered into a subscription[306] for the purpose of
getting up a public dinner during the celebration of the great national
festivals. In some cases the associations thus formed, pro tempore, did
not outlast the occasion, while in others the taste for social
pleasures, or the accidental meeting of congenial tempers, led to the
establishment of a permanent club, the members of which grew naturally
among a warm-hearted people to take an interest in each other’s welfare.
The expenses of the sacrifices during these festivals were in part
defrayed from the revenues of the sacred lands, but these not sufficing,
it was generally necessary to raise a common fund by subscription.[307]
-----
Footnote 304:
A corresponding distribution of the humbler classes was effected at
Rome by Numa: Ἠν δὲ ἡ διανομὴ κατὰ τὰς τέχνας, αὐλητῶν, χρυσοχόων,
τεκτόνων, βαφέων, σκυτοτόμων, σκυτοδεψῶν, χαλκέων, κεραμέων. Τὰς δὲ
λοιπὰς τέχνας εἰς ταὐτὸ συναγαγῶν, ἓν αὐτῶν ἐκ πασῶν ἀπέδειξε σύστημα
Plut. Num. § 17. Cf. Schol. Nub. Aristoph. 179.
Footnote 305:
The Thebans of Bœotia, intoxicated by the military glory they gained
at the battle of Leuctra, shortly afterwards gave themselves up almost
entirely to the pleasures of the table, which they appear chiefly to
have enjoyed at their clubs. To support these establishments,
therefore, numerous individuals were found who, notwithstanding that
they had children, bestowed the greater portion of their fortunes upon
them, thus manifesting, perhaps, the greatest enthusiasm ever
exhibited in the cause of good-eating. Athen. x. 11.
Footnote 306:
Sch. Æsch. Tim. p. 380. a.
Footnote 307:
Cf. Bergmann and Coray ad Isocrat. Areop. § 11. Van Holst, de Eranis.
c. ii. p. 37.
-----
Of all these clubs, whether temporary or permanent, whose object was the
providing of funds for sacrifice, or to enjoy the pleasures of society,
the generic name was _Erani_, though such as partook of a religious
character received besides the appellation of _Thiasi_.[308] Their
members were called Eranistæ and Thiasotæ. It was common among the
Greeks to indulge in feasting immediately at the close of harvest, both
on account of the plenty which then prevailed, and, because the great
business of the year being finished, they had more leisure to devote to
enjoyment.[309] That these associations tended to generate and promote
friendship and affection among their members was well understood;
wherefore in the ancient tyrannies they were rigidly prohibited,
together with all common tables, educational establishments, and
whatever else, to adopt the expression of Aristotle, promotes reflection
and mutual confidence.[310] It was supposed to be their interest to keep
men as far as possible in ignorance and distrust of each other. Hence
all religions with a tendency to beget mutual love were proscribed (as
among the Romans Christianity) as of an antimonarchical character. Thus
Mæcenas, as ardent a patron of tyranny as of literature, urged Augustus
to persecute and proscribe all attempts at introducing new creeds, as
favourable to innovation or, at least, to change; to sworn brotherhoods,
associations, clubs, things in their nature hostile to monarchy.[311]
-----
Footnote 308:
Etym. Mag. 449. 53. Lucian introduces Pan calling himself the θιασώτης
of Bacchos. Deor. Dial. xxii. Another name bestowed on these societies
was Ὀργεῶνες which appellation however, according to Pollux, was
synonymous with φράτορες· ἐκαλοῦντο δ᾽ οὗτοι καὶ ὀμογάλακτες καὶ
ὀργεῶνες. iii. 52. Cf. viii. 107. Vandale, Dissert. ix. p. 734.
Footnote 309:
Aristot. Ethic. viii. 11.
Footnote 310:
Arist. Polit. v. 11.
Footnote 311:
Dion Cass. l. ii. p. 490. e.
-----
The conjecture is probable, that the conversion of the Erani into
charitable institutions was matter of accident. At first it seems clear,
as I have observed already, that their object was sacrifice, feasting,
and pleasure. But it sometimes happened that, of the funds subscribed,
some portion would, after their objects had been fulfilled, remain; and
if, when this was the case, any member of the club happened to fall into
distress, it was perfectly natural to think of applying this surplus to
his benefit.[312] From this the step was easy to subscribing expressly
for the purpose of relieving indigent members, which, at length, was the
practice, though the gradations by which they arrived at it have not
been accurately marked.[313] Arrian has left a curious account of a
Celtic eranos established by a Hunting Club in honour of Artemis,[314]
to whom solemn sacrifice was annually offered up. A fund was created by
the members of the club in the following manner: every one who caught a
hare paid into the treasury two oboli: the capturer or destroyer of a
fox a drachma, the fox being a mischievous animal and fatal to the hare;
they therefore considered his destruction in the light of a triumph over
an enemy. The sportsman who took a roebuck (δορκὰς), which among them
was the noblest game, and the largest animal hunted, paid four drachmæ.
On the birth-day of the goddess the treasury was opened, and a victim,
whether a sheep, a she-goat, or a calf, according to their means, was
purchased. Sacrifice was then offered, after which both men and dogs
regaled themselves with a banquet. Bitches were on this day crowned with
flowers, to show that the feast was celebrated in their behalf.[315]
-----
Footnote 312:
Salmas. de Usur. c. iii. p. 50.
Footnote 313:
Cf. Plin. Epist. x. 93, seq. Van Holst, de Eran. p. 43.
Footnote 314:
The Thiasi, &c., among the Greeks, appear all to have had their patron
divinities, of whom the most common were Heracles, Phœbos-Apollo, and
Dionysos. This circumstance has been noticed by Vandale: Plerumque,
(sicut ὀργεώνων collegia) cœtus ac fraternitates Baccho, Herculi,
Apollini, aliisve Diis consecratæ: quibus Diis ab harum fratriarum
membris, ut peculiaribus patronis sacrificabatur: atque hinc convivia
inter φράτορας celebrabantur: ad quæ communes illi sumptus sive
impensas pariter conferebant. Dissert. ix. p. 730.
Footnote 315:
Arrian de Venat. c. xxxiii. p. 383. Schneid.
-----
In all these clubs the chest was the soul of everything; for this being
removed the whole society fell to pieces.[316] Accordingly, to become a
member it was necessary to subscribe a certain amount to the fund, and
all payments were made monthly.[317] As these clubs, moreover, were
legal, the person who neglected such payments could be prosecuted at
law, as for any other debt; and what shows the importance of these
institutions at Athens, the ordinances referring to them formed a
separate branch of jurisprudence,[318] to enter into which, however,
does not belong to my present inquiry. The president or chairman of the
club was likewise treasurer, whether chosen by lot or elected by the
members of the club, whose expenses and behaviour, while assembled, he
appears to have regulated.[319] It has been seen that the meetings of
these societies took place during religious festivals; but whenever they
were called together, whether by business or piety, it was customary, as
in all similar cases among ourselves, for the members to dine together.
They do not appear, however, to have possessed club-houses; but, like
our literary men of the last century, to have dined at taverns or
alternately at each others’ dwellings.[320] On these occasions it was
customary to restrain their expenses within moderate limits, the object
being rather the enjoyment of each others’ society than the indulgence
of a passion for luxury.[321]
-----
Footnote 316:
Van Holst, c. ii. p. 46.
Footnote 317:
Harpocrat. p. 85. Bekk. It would, however, appear that payment might
be avoided by pleading poverty: speaking of the hypocrite, πρὸς τοὺς
δανειζομένους, says Theophrastus, καὶ ἐρανίζοντας, ὡς οὐ πωλείφήσεν.
Charact. c. i. p. 5.
Footnote 318:
Poll. viii. 37, 101, 144.
Footnote 319:
Harpocrat. v. πληρωτὴς; where doubtless we must read with Salmasius
(Miscell. Defens. C. ii. p. 27) ᾑρημένοις, for ἐωνημένοις, though
Bekker retains the old lection, p. 155. Cf. Van Holst, p. 56.—Athenæus
describes a festival called Phagesiposia in which every one who passed
by was compelled to repeat a rhapsody in honour of Bacchos. (vii. 1.)
There was also at Alexandria a curious festival called Lagenephoria,
in which every person brought his own portion, and his own bottle, and
reclined on a couch of grass or reeds. (2.)
Footnote 320:
Athen. vi. 35. Van Holst, de Eranis, pp. 30, 59.
Footnote 321:
Arist. Ethic. viii. 11.
-----
On those occasions, when a member received the club at his house, he
himself, it has been conjectured, took the chair,[322] not, however,
necessarily and by rule; for it has been seen that the president was
sometimes chosen by lot, sometimes by vote. But this supposition is,
probably, ill-founded; for, as the same individual was at once eranarch
and treasurer, it appears exceedingly improbable that he should be
changed every time the club dined together. It seems to me more
likely,—and we are left to conjecture,—that an annual chairman was
chosen to transact the general business of the society, while another
individual might be selected to fill the office of chairman for any
particular evening. Towards the close of the republic, when the worship
of Serapis had been introduced, women would seem to have been received
as members of Erani established in honour of that foreign divinity.[323]
-----
Footnote 322:
Van Holst, de Eranis, p. 60.
Footnote 323:
Bœckh, Corp. Inscrip. pt. ii. p. 162.
-----
But as these clubs were only accidentally connected with charity and the
condition of the poor, I proceed to consider another species of Eranæ,
conceived almost in the spirit of Christianity. Van Holst,[324] whose
researches on the subject of the Hellenic clubs, though pedantic and
confused, are not without value, denies that any permanent charitable
associations existed among the Greeks, though among the Romans, he
conceives, they did. At the same time, he confesses what it were
difficult to deny, that the friendly subscription called Eranos derived
its name and being from the clubs above-described. He contends that no
club existed with permanent funds for the relief of distressed friends,
and that the relief actually afforded was the spontaneous effort of
beneficence and humanity. On this point he is at issue with
Casaubon,[325] whom he appears, in some respects, to misunderstand.
Salmasius, he conceives, comes nearer the mark where he says, that when
any person was overwhelmed with debt or poverty, he found a ready refuge
in his friends, who subscribed what they could, both to satisfy his
creditors and provide for his future subsistence. It was in the
discharge of debts, however, that men found most aid from their
friends;[326] though such subscriptions were set on foot on many other
occasions, to redeem a man from captivity, for example, or to portion a
friendless girl, as was the practice also at Thebes.[327]
-----
Footnote 324:
De Eranis, c. iii. p. 73, sqq.
Footnote 325:
Ad Theoph. Char. p. 280, sqq.
Footnote 326:
Salmas. de Usur. c. iii. p. 38.
Footnote 327:
Corn. Nep. Vit. Epaminond. § 3.
-----
The mode in which this subscription was collected, and the principle on
which the transaction was based, had something characteristic about
them. In the first place, the money resembled a loan (which, strictly
speaking, it was not), because, if the receiver afterwards became
fortunate, he was bound to make repayment,[328] though while in
unfavourable circumstances his mind was not oppressed by the
consciousness of being in debt, since no one regarded himself as a
creditor, or could ask him for an obolos. Salmasius observes very
justly, that the greatest proof of generosity is to give without any
desire of a return, which the Greeks called eleëmosynè, or eranos of
strict charity. The second grade is, where money is lent to be repaid
without interest, which our Saviour calls τὰ ἶσα ἀπολαβεῖν.[329] The
lowest, where you lend, but on condition of receiving interest.[330]
-----
Footnote 328:
It ought, moreover, to be remarked, that these eranistic loans were
sometimes returned even to the children of those who advanced them.
Isæus, De Hagn. Hered. § 10.
Footnote 329:
Cf. Cicer. pro Rosc. Amer. § 7.
Footnote 330:
Salmas. de Usur. p. 672.
-----
For the repayment of money collected by eranistic subscription, no exact
time, it has been observed, was fixed. It appears to have depended
entirely on the recipient’s sense of honour or feelings of gratitude.
But Petit,[331] whose researches on this part of his subject were not
sufficiently exact, confounds the monthly subscription paid by members
of a trading company or ordinary club, with the money which a man, aided
by his friends, might be supposed to owe them, and says, that such-a-one
was required to pay it back by monthly instalments, or all at once
within a month. The former would be the case were we to understand
Harpocration to speak of this kind of eranos at all; the latter, if we
accept his interpretation. But Van Holst[332] is right in remarking that
Petit here apprehends the sense of the grammarian “minus recte”; that
is, he mistakes it altogether. However, that the money was at some time
to be repaid appears from a variety of passages. Theophrastus, for
example, in his Chapter on Grumbling, observes, that the querulous man,
to whom a collection made for him by his friends is brought, will reply
to the person who bids him to be of good cheer,—“Wherefore? when I must
return as much to each of them, and be grateful, moreover, for the
favour?”[333]
-----
Footnote 331:
Legg. Att. v. 7. 429.
Footnote 332:
De Eranis, t. iii. p. 75.
Footnote 333:
Theoph. Charact. xvii. Casaub. p. 308. Cf. Ter. Phorm. iv. 4. 22.
Plaut. Asinar. i. 3. 92, sqq. Van Holst, p. 77.
-----
Among the other peculiarities in the construction of Athenian society
which tended to better the condition of the poor, were the
entertainments given by rich citizens to their tribes, on certain
festivals or days of public rejoicing.[334] And this was a matter by no
means left to the caprice of individuals, for if some one came not
forward voluntarily to undergo the expense, the members of the tribe
proceeded to cast lots,[335] and the citizen to whose chance it fell
could not escape the performance of this duty, unless he pleaded, as his
excuse, some cause deemed satisfactory by the public. Of course, the
character of the entertainment depended on the wealth or munificence of
the Hestiator.[336] Necessary, it was not, that he should regale his
fellow-tribesmen sumptuously, as frugality was one of the
characteristics of the nation; but, at the same time, it is quite
evident that on many occasions[337] the Feast of the Tribe was a
magnificent banquet.[338]
-----
Footnote 334:
Athen. v. 2.
Footnote 335:
Harpocrat. in v. ἑστιάτωρ. Dem. cont. Mid. § 44. adv. Lept. § 7. adv.
Bœot. § 3. Cf. Herald. Anim. in Salm. Obs. ad Jus. Athen. et Rom. l.
ii. c. i. § 12.
Footnote 336:
Ἑστιάτωρ, ὁ εἰς εὐφροσυνην καὶ εὐωχίαν καλων· δαιτυμόνες δὲ οἱ
ἀριστηταὶ, οἱ εὐωχούμενοι. Suid. v. t. i. p. 1052. d.
Footnote 337:
There occurred, however, but few holydays on which artisans abstained
altogether from labour. Lucian. Parasit. § 15.
Footnote 338:
Poll. vi. 27. iii. 67. Bœckh, therefore, appears to be wrong in
supposing that delicacies were never used on these occasions. Pub.
Econ. of Athens, vol. ii. p. 222. Cf. Wolf. Proleg. ad Lept. in Orat.
Att. t. vi. p. 372.
-----
Of the state of the poor at Sparta,[339] our information is exceedingly
scanty. We only know that, when they were unable to contribute their
share to the maintenance of the public tables, they lost the privilege
of being present, and had to provide for themselves at home in the best
manner they were able.[340] It would thus appear that their Phiditia
differred very little, except in being more general, from the Erani of
the Athenians. As Laconia abounded with game, it may be conjectured that
the more indigent citizens frequently relied greatly for support on the
chase,[341] to which may be added the charity of their wealthier
neighbours, in whatever way bestowed. In Crete, the citizens being
placed more upon an equality, there was little room for extreme
poverty.[342] The population, moreover, by artificial restraints, was
kept within due bounds; consequently, most persons lived plentifully,
and possessed wherewith to exercise the most generous hospitality. But
even here they multiplied in later times more rapidly than the means of
subsistence, so that numbers of Cretans were fain to serve as mercenary
archers in the intestine wars of Greece. The same remark will apply to
the Arcadians, and several other people whose poorer members earned a
subsistence by their hereditary valour.[343]
-----
Footnote 339:
Vid. Plat. De Leg. t. vii. p. 181. 201. seq. t. viii. p. 101. seq. De
Rep. t. vi. p. 233. The institution of the Phiditia commenced in
Italy. Arist. Pol. vii. 9. The members of these messes were balloted
for. Plut. Lycurg. § 12. Even the relations of Agesilaos, by the
mother’s side, were poor. Agesil. § 4.
Footnote 340:
Aristot. Polit. ii. 9.
Footnote 341:
Cf. Athen. iv. 9.
Footnote 342:
Aristot. Polit. ii. 9.
Footnote 343:
Id. Polit. ii. 10.
-----
At Athens, when persons in easy circumstances made a feast, as on all
occasions of sacrificing they did, the custom was to send some small
presents, as parts of the victim, to their friends, more especially when
poor.[344] But most joyful for the indigent was the period of the
Athenian jubilee, the Panathenaia,[345] on which occasion the state
received presents of oxen from all the colonies founded by Athenians, so
that the whole city overflowed with meat and soup, of which every person
might take his share. Sometimes, however, if not generally, the meat
fell into the hands of those who least needed it, while the poor got
nothing but a little soup with a scanty slice of bread.[346] In times of
great scarcity corn was distributed to the indigent in the Odeion,
where, on ordinary occasions, it was sold.[347] A similar distribution
took place at the Peiræeus in the arsenal, where loaves were given out
at an obolos each. On extraordinary occasions, as when a famine raged in
the country, the state applied for corn to its foreign allies, and, on
receiving any, distributed it equally among the citizens. This was the
case when Psammitichos made the Athenians a present of a vast quantity
of wheat, of which every citizen received five medimni.[348] A peculiar
kind of windfall is commemorated by Athenæus, who relates, that when
Ion, the dramatic poet of Chios, won the prize of tragedy, he was so
overjoyed at his success, that he presented every Athenian with a jar of
the best Chian. No doubt, foreign tragedians were not every day winning
prizes, or, when they won, so rich and generous as Ion; but advantages
of various kinds were enjoyed by the Athenian people not anywhere else
known.[349]
-----
Footnote 344:
Theoph. Char. c. 17. Casaub. p. 259.
Footnote 345:
Meursius (in Panath. c. xv. p. 22) is very unsatisfactory.
Footnote 346:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 385.
Footnote 347:
Demosth. cont. Phorm. § 13. Cf. Meurs. Rhod. p. 127.
Footnote 348:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 718.
Footnote 349:
Athen. i. 5.
-----
Sometimes, when generals obtained any remarkable quantity of plunder,
instead of laying it up to meet the serious exigencies of the state they
lavished it in feasting the people. Thus, Chares is said to have
expended more than sixty talents, or near 15,000_l._ sterling in
entertaining his fellow-citizens,[350] when the public tables were laid
out in the agora; and Conon,[351] having obtained a great naval victory
over the Lacedæmonians at Cnidos, and surrounded the Peiræeus with
fortifications, offered a real hecatomb in sacrifice, and feasted the
whole body of people. Of these thoughtless donations the poor, of
course, obtained their share. Cimon acted more judiciously and more
nobly towards the unfortunate among his countrymen. Looking upon wealth
only as a means of recommending himself and obtaining friends, he set no
guard upon his lands or gardens, from which every Athenian who chose
might freely take what he needed. His house, likewise, in the city was
open to all; a plain table being constantly laid for a number of men, so
that whosoever was at a loss for a dinner might dine there. He willingly
obliged those who came daily to demand some favour of him; and is said
always to have gone abroad accompanied by two or three domestics bearing
money, who were instructed to give to any citizen who approached him
with a request. He contributed also to the interment of many; and,
often, if he observed a poor Athenian meanly clad, ordered one of his
attendants to change raiment with him. By these means, as may be
supposed, he acquired marvellous popularity, and stood first among his
rivals in public estimation.[352]
-----
Footnote 350:
Athen. xii. 43. Money itself was sometimes distributed. Dem. adv.
Leochar. § 12.
Footnote 351:
Athen. i. 5.
Footnote 352:
Theopomp. ap. Athen. xii. 44.
-----
But persons thus subsisting on the bounty of the opulent soon lost of
necessity the dignity of sentiment which should belong to the citizens
of a free state. Many, therefore, when reduced by misfortune, to a
choice of evils, preferred the bread obtained by honest labour,[353]
however mean or ill paid, to so humiliating a dependance on charity;
and, unable to obtain more favourable conditions, actually worked for
their food.[354] To labour for hire they scarcely accounted a hardship.
A large class of citizens, including women,[355] appear by this means to
have gained their livelihood, some as cooks, others as reapers, mowers,
or any other description of labour which happened to offer itself.[356]
Poverty sometimes drove the unprincipled poor to keep houses of ill
fame. Others became itinerant flower-sellers, and cried “roses so many
bunches the obolos;” or hawked radishes, lupines, or olive-dregs about
the streets.[357] And, after their death, the daughters of poor men
sometimes joined the Hetairæ, not having been able to earn their
livelihood by needlework, weaving, and spinning.[358]
-----
Footnote 353:
Alluding to the necessity of labour to the poor, Plato says:—If an
artisan happen to fall sick, he demands a rapid cure of his physician
by emetics or aperients, or cautery, or surgical operation. But if he
be recommended a long and careful attention to regimen, to tie up his
head and such things, he speedily replies, that he has no leisure to
play the valetudinarian, and that it is of no advantage to him to
preserve his life by such continual nursings, while his affairs are
going to ruin. Thus dismissing his physician, and returning to his
ordinary diet, if he recover he pursues his calling, if not he is
delivered from all his troubles at once. De Repub. t. vi. l. iii. p.
145.
Footnote 354:
Ἐπισίτιοι. Plat. Rep. iv. § 1. t. i. p. 263. Stallb. Athen. vi. 50.
Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. 156, on the lowness of wages. On the Pelatæ
see the note of Rünkh. ad Tim. Lex. in v. Meris, p. 208. Bekk.—Plat.
Euthyph. t.i. p. 356. Poll. iii. 82. Dionysius of Halicarnassus
entertained a strange notion of the θῆτες and πελάται of the
Athenians, whose condition he supposes to have been inferior to that
of the Roman clients. He pretends, indeed, that clientship arose in
Greece, and was only established by imitation at Rome: ἔθος Ἑλληνικὸν
καὶ Ἀρχαῖον, he says, ὧ Θετταλοί τε μέχρι πολλοῦ χρώμενοι διετέλεσαν
καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι καταρχὰς. ἐκεῖνοι μὲν γὰρ ἐπιτάττοντες οὐ προσήκοντα
ἐλευθέροις, καὶ ὁπότε μὴ πράξειάν τι τῶν κελευρομένων, πληγὰς
ἐντείνοντες, καὶ τἄλλα ὥσπερ ἀργυρωνήτοις χρώμενοι. ἐκάλουν δὲ
Ἀθηναῖοι μὲν Θῆτας τοὺς Πελάτας, ἐπὶ τῆς λατρείας Θετταλοὶ δὲ,
Πενέστας, ὀνειδίζοντες αὐτοῖς εὐθὺς ἐν τῇ κλήσει τὴν τύχην. Antiq.
Rom. ii. 9. Reiske very justly remarks on this passage, that he does
not see with what propriety the Thetes of Attica are classed with the
Thessalian Penestæ, in comparing them with the Roman Clients. For it
is most certain (as H. Stephens shows in his Schediasm. v. 15, seq.),
that the condition of the Penestæ bore little resemblance to that of
the Roman Clients. And as to the Attic Thetes and Pelatæ they were
completely free, though inferior in rank to the artisans (οἱ βαναυσοὶ,
Steph. Thes. v. θῆς); nor did they serve as slaves serve their masters
(ut δοῦλοι δεσπόταις); but, as appears from the Scholiast on Odyss. δ.
644, as poor and debt-oppressed persons hire their services to the
rich or to their creditors, who were denominated χρήστας, not
προστάτας, or δεσπότας. The condition of the Thessalian Penestæ was
different: for they were nearly slaves, μεταξὺ δούλων καὶ ἐλευθέρων,
as the ancients called them. (Pollux, iii. 83.) Those among them who
served in families were named θετταλοικέται. (Reiske, ad Dion. Hal. t.
i. p. 255.)
Footnote 355:
Demosth. adv. Eubul.
Footnote 356:
Demosth. de Coron. § 16. Cf. Plat. Rep. ii. 12. Stallb.
Footnote 357:
Diphilos ap. Athen. ii. 45.
Footnote 358:
Luc. Dial. Meret. vi. § 1. Plut. Arat. § 54.
-----
In many respects the poor of southern climates have the advantage of
those of the north.[359] The atmosphere itself forms their clothing, and
during a great part of the year it is immaterial to them where they
sleep. But at Athens, however temperate the climate, a shelter from the
cold in winter is desirable, and here, therefore, as in every other part
of Greece, the practice was to erect houses where, as in the
Caravanserais of the East, any man, native or stranger, might enter and
obtain shelter for the night. These buildings were called Leschæ,
erected without doors, to intimate that all were welcome; and in them,
accordingly, beggars and wanderers of every description congregated
round great fires in winter and bad weather, both to sleep and
converse.[360] Even the citizens, particularly at Sparta, met in the
Leschæ, to enjoy the delights of gossiping; whence any idle assemblage
was called a Leschè.[361] In a fragment of the lost oration of Antiphon
against Nicoles, mention is made of these edifices, which served as a
refuge for the destitute. They were erected by the state; and, to cast
over them an air of sanctity, dedicated to Apollo, who thence obtained
the surname of Leschenorios.[362] Nowhere were these humane institutions
so numerous as at Athens, where, according to Proclus,[363] there
existed no fewer than three hundred and sixty, in which the indigent,
who had no home, might congregate together and keep themselves warm at
the nation’s expense.
-----
Footnote 359:
Beggars sometimes sat down on the ground to eat what was given them at
the doors of the charitable. Thus in Antiphanes one says,—“What dost
thou say? Bring me hither to the door something to eat; and then, like
the beggars, I will despatch it, seated on the ground, and who will
see?” Athen. ii. 87.
Footnote 360:
Etym. Mag. 18. 1, seq. 561. 11. Odyss. σ. 328, et Eustath. ad loc. Cf.
Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 493, et 500, seq. with Bœckh. Inscript. i. p.
133. Horat. Serm. i. vii. 3.
Footnote 361:
Pausan. iii. 14. 2. 15. 8. x. 25. 1. Siebel. ad loc.
Footnote 362:
Harpocrat. in v. λέσχαι. Suid. in v. ii. 27, seq. Etymol. Mag. p. 18,
v. ἀδολεσχία.
Footnote 363:
Ap. Meurs. Athen. Att. iii. vi. 158.
-----
In addition to these the public baths served as an asylum to such of the
poor as had no home, or were unable to provide themselves with fuel in
their own dwellings. Here they would seem to have pressed so eagerly
about the furnaces as to be sometimes scorched and blistered;[364] and
the crowd of poor wretches in this necessitous condition would appear to
have been occasionally so great as to deteriorate the state of the
atmosphere by their breath,[365] on which account they were exposed to
be driven forth by the bath-keepers.
-----
Footnote 364:
Πλὴν φώδων ἐκ βαλανέιου. Aristoph. Plut. 535: φλυκταινῶν· ἐκ βαλανείου
δὲ διὰ τὸ τοὺς πένητας ἀποροῦντας ἐνδυμάτων διὰ τὸ ψύχος ἐν βαλανείοις
καθεύδειν, καὶ ἐκ θέρμης ἢ ἀέρος αὐτοὺς ἐξιόντας παραχρῆμα
προσβάλλοντος φλυκτόινας ποιεῖν· Απολλαδωρος τὰ ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς
ἐρυθήματα, ἢ ἐκ ψύχους, ἢ τοὺς τύλους, καὶ τὰ ἐπικαύματα τὰ ἐκ τοῦ
πυρὸς, ὡς τῶν πενήτων διὰ τὸ αὐτουργεῖν τοῦτο πασχόντων. Schol. in
loc.
Footnote 365:
Schol. Aristoph. Plut. 956.
-----
In Homeric times, beggars and all other sorts of vagrants took refuge
from the nightly cold in smiths’ forges,[366] just as in former ages
they did in the glass-houses of London. These fathers of sacrilege, as
Plato[367] calls them, when properly equipped for the road, presented a
tolerably picturesque aspect with their close Mysian bonnet,[368] ragged
cloak, and bottle strapped to the thigh,[369] and supporting themselves
as they walked on a huge staff. To this worshipful society Dionysios,
once tyrant of Syracuse, belonged in his old age.[370]
-----
Footnote 366:
Οὐδ᾽ ἐθέλεις εὕδειν, χαλκήϊον ἐς δόμον ἐλθὼν,
Ἠὲ που ἐς λέσχην.
Odyss. σ. 327, seq.
Χαλκήϊος δὲ δόμος τὸ τῶν χαλκέων ἐργαστήριον, ἔνθα εἰσιόντες ἀκωλύτως
οἱ πτωχοὶ, ἐκοιμῶντο παρὰ τῷ πυρί. Eustath. in loc. p. 672. 28. Basil.
Πὰρ δ᾽ ἴθι χάλκειον θῶκον καὶ ἔπ’ ἀλέα λέσχην
Ὥρῃ χειμερίῃ, ὁπότε κρύος ἀνέρας ἔργων
Ἰσχάνει, κ. τ. λ.
Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 493, sqq.
Footnote 367:
De Repub. t. vi. p. 393. Among the nations of antiquity I remember
none who looked upon poverty in so venerable a light as the
inhabitants of Gadeira, now Cadiz. For these worthy people erected, we
are told, an altar in its honour, probably supposing it to be near
akin to death, whose praises they also sang in pæans. Philost. Vit.
Apoll. Tyan. v. 4, p. 190. Phot. Biblioth. Cod. 241, p. 328, b.
Footnote 368:
Aristoph. Acharn. 440.
Footnote 369:
Lucian. Dial. Mort. i. § 2. Vict. Var. Lect. i. 24. Schol. Aristoph.
Acharn. 410.
Footnote 370:
Ἀυτὸς δὲ Διονύσιος τέλος μητραγυρτῶν καὶ τύμπανο φορούμενος, οἰκτρῶς
τὸν βίον κατέστρεψεν. Clearch. ap. Athen xii. 58. Every just and
upright man would probably rejoice to behold all tyrants in the same
condition. Cf. Tim. Lex. Platon. v. ἀγείρουσαν, with the note of
Rühnken. p. 16, who has collected several passages illustrating the
life and manners of the begging priests of Cybelè.
-----
There was at Athens, in later times, a class of men who resembled the
bone-grubbers and dung-hill scrapers of London and Paris. These were the
grain-pickers of the Deigma and Agora, who hovering about where the
farmers and corn-chandlers meted their grain, and collecting what
dropped from the sacks,[371] or was spilled in measuring, thus earned a
miserable subsistence. Persons of this description might eke out their
livelihood by appropriating to themselves the coarse brown bread which
pious and charitable persons placed in the propylæa of temples for their
use.[372] Here Diogenes, the Cynic, who, carrying about provisions in
his wallet, was independent of these offerings, sometimes dined; and,
for the sake of uttering a _bon mot_, threw out the loaves that might
have been useful to others; observing, that nothing coarse[373] should
be allowed to enter the temples of the gods.
-----
Footnote 371:
Eustath. ap. Casaub. Char. p. 197. In the Acts of the Apostles the
Epicureans and Stoics contemptuously denominate St. Paul a
σπερμολόγος, xvii. 18.
Footnote 372:
The Alexandrians placed loaves in the temple of Chronos for the poor.
Athen. iii. 74. Among the Ethiopians there was an institution called
the Table of the Sun, which we may suppose to have been designed to
supply the poor with food. In a meadow close to the suburbs of the
capital a plentiful entertainment was laid out during the night, which
as soon as day broke every person had permission to partake of. This
feast the natives affected to regard as a gift bestowed upon them
incessantly by the earth. Herod. iii. 18. Cf. Pausan. i. 33. 4. vi.
26. 2.
Footnote 373:
Diog. Laert. vi. 2. § 64. Ῥυπαρὸς, alone, signifies as the French
translator has rendered it, “mal-propres,” t. i. p. 358. But ῥυπαρὸς
ἁρτὸς, means _du pain bis_, as Menage long ago observed, ad loc. ii.
146. b. c. Diogenes, as the reader will perceive, meant to pun upon
the word ῥυπαρὸς.
-----
Religion has everywhere been favourable to the poor. On the festival of
the new moon, when the great and opulent offered up costly sacrifices to
the gods, as to Hecatè, for example, on cross-roads,[374] their more
indigent brethren seized the occasion when their hearts were thus
softened, to ask them for something. Thus Homer, according to the legend
attributed to Herodotus, went in Samos to the houses of the wealthy,
chanting his Eiresione, for which he received a consideration.[375]
-----
Footnote 374:
These suppers were eaten by the poor, together with the eggs and other
small offerings used in purifying places. Luc. Dial. Mort. i. § 1.
Catapl. § 7. Lomeier, de Lustrat. c. xxi. p. 258, seq. Cakes called
Amphiphontes were offered to Artemis within a circle of burning
torches. These offerings were made in the temples, and on cross-roads,
at the full moon, when the sun, rising ere the moon sets, there is
constant light throughout the twenty-four hours, which was signified
by the ring of torches; the whole round of the day being filled with
light. In the island of Hecatè, on the coast of Delos, the Delians
used to dedicate offerings to Iris, of cakes called Basynias, made
with wheaten flour and honey, the offering called cokkora, a dried
fig, and three walnuts. Athen. xiv. 53. The Athenians, when
sacrificing to the Seasons, offered up boiled meat, and not roasted,
as on other occasions; praying to be protected from the heats which
dry up and destroy everything, and to be blessed with moderate warmth,
to ripen and bring everything to perfection. Id. xiv. 72.
Footnote 375:
Herod. Vit. Hom. § 33. t. ii. p. 362. Schweigh.—Meurs. Gr. Fer. p.
213, seq.
-----
There was a class of beggars who went about the country begging for the
crow,[376] holding, apparently, a tame bird of that species like a
falcon on their wrist, and chanting the following ditty:—
SONG OF THE CROW.
Good people, a handful of barley bestow
On the bearers about of the sable crow—
Apollo’s daughter she—
But if the barley heap wax low,
Still kindly let your bounty flow,
And of the yellow grains that grow
On the wheaten stalk be free.
Or a well-kneaded loaf or an obolos give,
Or what you will, for the crow must live.
If the gods have been bountiful to you to-day,
Oh say not to her for whom we sing,
Say not, we implore you, nay,
To the bird of the cloudy wing.
A grain of salt will please her well,
And whoso this day that bestows,
May next day give (for who can tell?)
A comb from which the honey flows.
But come, come, what need we say more?
Open the door, boy, open the door,
For Plutos has heard our prayers.
And see, through the porch a damsel, as sweet
As the winds that play round the flowery feet
Of Ida, comes the crow to meet,
And a basket of figs she bears.
Oh may this maiden happy be,
And from care and sorrow free;
Let her all good fortune find,
And a husband rich and kind.
And when her parents have grown old,
Let her in her father’s arms
Place a boy as fair as she,
With the ringlets all of gold,
And, upon her mother’s knee,
A maiden decked with all her charms.
But I from house to house must go,
And wherever my eyes by my feet are borne,
To the muse at night and morn
For those who do or don’t bestow,
The mellow words of song shall flow.
Come then, good folks, your plenty share,
O give, my prince! and maiden fair,
Be bountiful to-day.
Sooth, custom bids ye all to throw
Whole handfulls to the begging crow;
At least give something; say not, no,
And we will go our way.
-----
Footnote 376:
Athen. viii. 59.
-----
In Rhodes another kind of begging, which usually took place in the month
of March, was denominated Chelidonizein;[377] or, to sing the
SONG OF THE SWALLOW.
The swallow is come, and with her brings
A year with plenty overflowing;
Freely its rich gifts bestowing,
The loveliest of lovely springs.
She is come, she is come,
To her sunny home.
And white is her breast as a beam of light,
But her back and her wings are as black as night;
Then bring forth your store,
Bring it out to the door,
A mass of figs, or a stoop of wine,
Cheese, or meal, or what you will,
Whate’er it be we’ll not take it ill:
Even an egg will not come amiss,
For the swallow’s not nice
When she wishes to dine.
Come, what shall we have? Say, what shall it be?
For we will not go,
Though time doth flee,
Till thou answerest Yes, or answerest No.
But if thou art churlish we’ll break down the gate,
And thy pretty wife we’ll bear away;
She is small, and of no great weight.
Open, open, then we say.
Not old men but boys are we,
And the swallow says,—“Open to me.”
-----
Footnote 377:
Athen. viii. 60. In the warmer atmosphere of the volcanic islands of
Lipari, the swallow has, by modern naturalists, been found stationary.
Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, i. Introd. p. 32.
-----
It was seldom, however, that the indigent in Greece could enjoy the
luxuries here enumerated. Antiphanes[378] describes a poor man’s meal as
consisting of a cake (μαζα),[379] bristling with bran for the sake of
economy, with an onion, and, for a relish, a dish of sow-thistle, or of
mushrooms, or some such wretched produce of the soil, a diet producing
neither fever nor phlegm. However, where meat is to be got, no man, he
thought, would be contented with thyme, though he might pretend to rival
the Pythagoreans.[380] Mention, nevertheless, is made of two
philosophers who voluntarily subsisted all their lives on water and
figs, and grew very healthy and robust upon this fare, though their
perspiration had so ill an odour, that every one avoided them when they
entered the public baths. Pythagoras forbade his abstemious followers
the use of the mallows, upon which the humbler classes in Greece were
accustomed to feed, together with the roots of the day-lily, the nymphea
nelumbo, the nettle,[381] and various other wild plants. The
Kapparis,[382] plentiful in Athens, was very commonly eaten by the
indigent, and hence “to gather kapparis” was at length considered
synonymous with “to be in want.”[383] Alexis furnishes us with a curious
account of a poor Athenian family’s provisions.[384]
Mean my husband is, and poor,
And my blooming days are o’er.
Children have we two,—a boy,
Papa’s pet and mamma’s joy;
And a girl, so tight and small,
With her nurse;—that’s five in all:
Yet, alas! alas! have we
Belly timber but for three!
Two must, therefore, often make
Scanty meal on barley-cake;
And sometimes, when nought appears
On the board, we sup on tears.
My good man, once so strong and hale,
On this fare grows very pale;
For our best and daintiest cheer,
Through the bright half of the year,
Is but acorns, onions, peas,[385]
Ochros, lupines,[386] radishes,
Vetches, wild pears nine or ten,[387]
With a locust[388] now and then.
As to figs, the Phrygian treat,
Fit for Jove’s own guests to eat,
They, when happier moments shine,—
They, the Attic figs, are mine.
-----
Footnote 378:
Athen. ii. 56.
Footnote 379:
Cf. Foës. Œconom. Hippoc. v. μαζα. This bread, we find, was sometimes
leavened. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 557. Athen. xiv. 83.
Footnote 380:
Mention is made of some poor philosophers of this sect, who used to
chew the plant called ἄλιμα to allay hunger, and might be seen
wandering about torrent beds, collecting this and similar herbs in
their wallets. Athen. iv. 52. According to the comic poets, the
Pythagorean sect allowed its disciples a loaf of pure bread and a cup
of water per diem, which constituted the ordinary prison allowance.
Id. ibid.
Footnote 381:
Aristoph. Equit. 420.
Footnote 382:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 445.
Footnote 383:
Athen. xiii. 22.
Footnote 384:
Id. ii. 44.
Footnote 385:
Lucian. Amor. § 33.
Footnote 386:
Athen. x. 17.
Footnote 387:
Aristophanes, Vesp. 1260, enumerates apples and pomegranates among the
ordinary articles of food used by the poor.
Footnote 388:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Ach. 1081. Athen. iv. 7. 10. Phot. Bib. 453. a.
32. Herod. iv. 172.
-----
CHAPTER II.
INDUSTRY: MILLERS, BAKERS, VINTNERS, MARKETS, ETC.
We have examined the condition of the poor at Athens, and shall now
consider how far the laws of the state interfered to better their
circumstances by promoting industry, and rendering it honourable. Among
the Spartans, idleness, the vice of soldiers,[389] was regarded as a
proof of rank; whence the remark of that disciple of Lycurgus, who,
being present at Athens during a trial for this offence, fatal to a
democracy, observed, that they punished the man for being a
gentleman.[390] Solon, however, entertained little respect for this mark
of gentility. According to his laws, of which the whole design was to
create and preserve that feeling of manliness bestowed by the
consciousness of independence, the individual, who, possessing no
property, refused to labour, was a bad citizen, against whom any one
might bring an action of idleness.[391] Draco, the most Utopian and
savage of legislators, punished vagabondage with death, or, according to
some, with infamy only. But Solon, who would not require too much of
human nature, reserved this latter penalty for those who should be
thrice convicted.[392]
-----
Footnote 389:
Lord Bacon, whose opinions were chiefly based on the study of
antiquity, observes, after Plato and Aristotle, that military nations
will always be somewhat inclined to idleness, and should rather be
indulged in it than otherwise. Essays, p. 79. But both the Athenians
and Romans were a hardworking people, and better soldiers have never
been known. The best soldiers in the English army are drawn from the
central provinces, where industry most abounds, and the laborious
Normans are the best troops in France. Cf. Plut. Ages. § 26.
Footnote 390:
Plut. Lycurg. § 24.
Footnote 391:
Diog. Laert. i. ii. § 53. Plut. Sol. §§ 22. 31. Herod. ii. 177.
Pollux. viii. 40. Ælian. Var. Hist. iv. 1.
Footnote 392:
Poll. viii. 40. Plut. Sol. § 17.
-----
It has been conjectured, that Peisistratos was author of the law against
idleness; by which he sought to compel as many of the citizens as had no
visible means of support, to take refuge in the country. Be this,
however, as it may, it was not alone by severity, that the laws of
Athens sought to recommend the pursuits of industry.[393] Superior
excellence in any useful art entitled a man to very high honours, to
maintenance at the public expense, in the Prytaneion, in company with
the chief magistrates and generals of the commonwealth, and one of the
first seats at all spectacles and popular assemblies. But to preserve
this post, it was not enough to have once done well. The ambitious
citizen could maintain it only by persevering in the career of invention
and improvement, for if another man in the same line were judged to
excel him, he relinquished to the new comer both his dinners and his
seat.[394]
-----
Footnote 393:
In Plutarch’s life of Pericles there occurs a very remarkable passage,
describing the constant employment and plenty which were diffused
through the city by the policy of that great statesman. As for the
mechanics and meaner sort of people, they went not without their share
of the public money, nor yet received it to maintain them in idleness.
By the constructing of great edifices, which require many arts, and a
long time to finish them, they had equal pretensions to be recompensed
out of the treasury, (though they stirred not from the city,) with the
mariners, soldiers, and garrisons. For the different materials, such
as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, and cypress, furnished employment
to carpenters, masons, braziers, goldsmiths, painters, turners, and
other artificers; the conveyance of them by sea employed merchants and
sailors, and, by land, wheelwrights, waggoners, carriers, rope-makers,
leather-cutters, paviers, and iron-founders; and every art had a
number of the lower people ranged in proper subordination to execute
it, like soldiers under the command of a general. Thus, by the
exercise of these different trades, was plenty diffused among persons
of every rank and condition. § 12. Engl. Trans.
Footnote 394:
Aristoph. Ran. 761, ibique Schol. Cf. Meurs. Them. Att. p. 106.
-----
From this, and other circumstances, it would appear, that there were
annual exhibitions of works of art and industry, in principle like our
cattle-shows, when a careful scrutiny of every improvement and invention
took place, and the premium above described was awarded to the most
ingenious. It is very certain that an assembly of the trades, more
particularly of the bright-smiths, took place, on the thirtieth of
Pyanepsion, in honour of Hephæstos, or Athena, when the festival of
Pandemon, or Chalkeia, was celebrated; and the conjecture of Petit[395]
is not improbable, that δεῖξις, or exhibition, then took place. It was,
perhaps, on the same occasion, that the Athenian potters exhibited their
most beautiful works and models.[396] At Sybaris, the author of any
invention in the art of cookery enjoyed by patent, during the whole
year, a monopoly of the article; and in the same city, the dyers and
importers of purple, as well as those who caught and sold eels, were
exempted from all taxes and imposts.[397]
-----
Footnote 395:
Cf. Legg. Att. vi. 6. 426, with Meurs. Gr. Feriat. p. 274, sqq.
Footnote 396:
Cf. Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art, i. 28. Meurs. Gr. Fer. v. Δαίδαλα. p. 74,
sqq.
Footnote 397:
Athen. xii. 22.
-----
A further incitement to industry, and the apprenticing out of children,
was the law which freed any one who had not been instructed in some
trade, from the necessity of supporting his parents,[398] to which
otherwise all persons were strictly bound. Another law of Solon, which,
at the same time shows the erroneousness of the common opinion
respecting the condition of women at Athens, proves that to bring
industry into good repute was a work of some difficulty. By this it was
enacted, that any individual who reproached a citizen, whether male or
female, with carrying on any business in the Agora, should be liable to
a penalty.[399]
-----
Footnote 398:
Plut. Sol. § 22.
Footnote 399:
Demosth. cont. Eubul. § 10.
-----
There were, however, certain callings which the laws considered
disreputable, or, at least, unsuitable to a man. Thus, an Athenian
citizen could not legally be a perfumer, that effeminate vocation being
left to the women.[400] Fishmongers, too, with butchers, cooks,
sausage-sellers, fishermen, were held in low estimation both at Rome and
Athens. Of all these Attic _pariahs_, however, the poor wretch who
hawked fish,[401] and was contemptuously said to wipe his nose in his
sleeve, or with his elbow, engrossed the largest share of public scorn.
To these we may add bird-catchers, and fruit-sellers, and those low
black-legs who subsisted on gambling.[402]
-----
Footnote 400:
Athen. xiii. 94. xv. 34.
Footnote 401:
In the Peloponnesos we find it was the custom for itinerant
icthyopolists to carry fish in baskets probably, suspended from both
ends of a rough pole (τραχεῖα ἄσιλλα) thrown across the shoulders.
This fact is alluded to in an Olympic inscription preserved in part by
Aristotle. Rhet. i. 7.
Footnote 402:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Charact. p. 185. On sedentary trades, see Poll. i.
51, and Muret, ad Arist. Eth. p. 63.
-----
As an encouragement to the citizens to addict themselves to industrious
pursuits, foreigners, and all persons not free of the city, were legally
incapacitated from carrying on business in the agora;[403] but this came
in later times to be disregarded, since we find Egyptians, Phœnicians,
and other aliens, possessing shops, and growing rich there. It was
conceived, moreover, that, if men confined themselves to one calling,
they would arrive therein at greater excellence; and the law,
accordingly, forbade them to be of two trades.[404] Plato, whose ideal
republic was modelled in so many particulars on that of Athens, adopted
this law; and for the reason I have stated; comprehending thoroughly
what advantages arise from the division of labour. He would not, he
says, have the cordwainer meddle with husbandry, weaving, or
architecture, that he might carry shoemaking to as great perfection as
possible; and, in other branches of industry, men were in like manner to
cultivate that only for which nature had fitted them, and wherein they
might thus excel.[405] The same philosopher, while on the subject of
industry, makes a remark worthy of consideration: It is not, he says,
for the interest of the community, that men engaged in any branch of the
arts should be so rich as to be independent of their business or
profession, which, in such case, they will be apt to neglect; or so poor
as to be harassed in mind, or cramped in the means of carrying on their
occupations satisfactorily. In these things, as in every other, a
comfortable competence is to be preferred to the extremes both of wealth
and poverty.[406]
-----
Footnote 403:
Demosth. in Eubulid. § 10. The Lydians were said to be the first
retail traders. Herod. i. 94. Cf. Huet, Hist. of Commerce, p. 52.
Footnote 404:
Demosth. in Timocrat. § 32. Ulpian ad loc. Arist. Polit. ii. 11. p.
55. Bekk. Petit, Legg. Att. p. 425. Potter, i. 199.
Footnote 405:
Repub. ii. § 11. Stallb. Cf. iii. § 7. In the Laws he states these
reasons more strongly, t. viii. p. 110.
Footnote 406:
Repub. iv. 2. Stallb.
-----
Another means of carrying the various arts towards perfection, which in
India and Egypt prevailed from time immemorial, is supposed to have been
a practice, whether founded on law or custom, resembling the system of
castes.[407] Theories, not destitute of ingenuity, have been constructed
on this view of Athenian society.[408] Thus, the Dædali are supposed to
have formed the sculptor caste; the Eupyridæ a caste of husbandmen; the
Boutadæ of herdsmen; the Ceryces of heralds; the Hephœstiadæ of
blacksmiths; the Poimenidæ of shepherds, and so on. Vestiges of this
curious state of things are supposed to be discernible in the history of
Attica, even so late as the age of Pericles, when we find Socrates a
member of the Dædalian clan, by profession a sculptor. There were
certainly in religious matters hereditary offices, which none could with
propriety fill but the members of a certain family or clan. Thus, from
among the Eteobutadæ was chosen the priestess of Athena Polias, who
resided in the temple on the Acropolis; and the priest of Poseidon was
drawn by lot from the same house.[409] To the Praxiergidæ were entrusted
certain duties about the statue of Athena during the Plynterian
festival.[410] The descendants of Buzyges performed those sacred
ceremonies which thrice a year attended the ploughing of the soil;[411]
to mention for the present no more.
-----
Footnote 407:
Cf. Plut. Sol. § 23.
Footnote 408:
The younger Ilgen, for example, has written a clever work, in which he
endeavours to prove the existence of a system of castes in Athenian
society. He sets out with giving an account of the four ancient
tribes, and explains the appellations bestowed on them, viz. Γελέοντες
or Τελέοντες, Ἀργαδεῖς, Αἰγικορεῖς and Ὅπλητες, to denote the pursuits
in which the members of those tribes were engaged. This done, he draws
his conclusion: “Quod si verum est,” says he, “efficitur, Tribus hasce
nihil aliud fuisse, quàm ordines variis negotiis distinctos et
separatos, quales apud Ægyptos et Indos cognovimus, et quos Lusitano
vocabulo Castas appellare solemus. Tale vero institutum num apud
Atticos exstiterit, multum à viris doctis est dubitatum. At licet
sint, quæ in contrariam sententiam aliquem ducere possint, tamen
argumenta, quæ revera Tribus castis orientalibus similes fuisse
suadent, tam sunt et multa et gravia, ut non debeat dubitari.”
Disquisit. de Trib. Att. p. 8, seq.
Footnote 409:
Harpocrat. in v. Apollod. iii. 15. 1. Bossier, de Gent. et Famil. Att.
Sacerd. p. 5, seq.
Footnote 410:
Plut. Alcib. § 34.
Footnote 411:
Plut. Præcept. Conjug. § 42.
-----
But we are not on this account to infer the existence in Attica of
anything like the Hindù system of castes, which has itself never been
rigidly observed.[412] What happens everywhere took place at Athens:
fathers generally found it more convenient to bring up their sons to
their own calling,[413] while the latter, observing constantly certain
mechanical operations take place under their eye, were led first to
admire and then to imitate. Thus the Potter’s boy, as Plato[414]
remarks, long ministers to his father before he takes the clay into his
own hands and begins to model a vase or tureen.
-----
Footnote 412:
See the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 111, seq.
Footnote 413:
When, however, they were put out to other masters an agreement,
corresponding to our indentures, was drawn up, in which it was stated
what they were to be taught. Xenoph. De Vectig. ii. 2. A further
resemblance to our own manners is discoverable in the practice of
giving premiums with apprentices, even in the case of the medical
profession. Plat. Menon. t. iii. p. 369.
Footnote 414:
De Repub. v. c. 14. Stallb.
-----
At Sparta, the heralds, cooks, and flute-players, constituted so many
small castes, in which the profession passed down regularly from father
to son. Of the absurdity of this practice Herodotus was fully sensible,
for he observes, that a man was chosen to be a herald not for the
loudness of his voice, but because he was a herald’s son.[415] Upon the
whole, however, the practice was no more general among the Greeks than
it is in England. When it became fashionable to ape gentility, rustic
hinds, like Strepsiades in the “Clouds,” found their sons ashamed of the
humble callings by which their childhood had been supported; a passion
for aristocratic distinction infested the bosom of the vulgar; all
desired to appear what they were not; and, despite the wise institutions
of Solon, handicraftsmen and artificers sunk into hopeless
contempt.[416] For this reason most trades by degrees were exercised by
foreigners, who frequently acquired wealth and independence.
-----
Footnote 415:
Herod. vi. 60.
Footnote 416:
Muret, in Arist. Ethic. i. p. 63. Plutarch, generally judicious and
wise in his remarks, exhibits unequivocal tokens of his Bœotian soul
by endeavouring in one part of his writings to class even poetry and
sculpture among things disreputable to those who practised them: Ἡ δ᾽
αὐτουργία τῶν ταπεινῶν, τῆς εἰς τὰ καλὰ ῥαθυμὶας μάρτυρα τὸν ἐν τοῖς
ἀχρήστοις πόνον παρέχεται καθ᾽ αὑτῆς· καὶ οὐδεὶς εὐφυὴς νέος, ἢ τὸν ἐν
Πίσῃ θεασάμενος Δία, γενέσθαι φειδίας ἐπεθύμησεν, ἢ τὴν Ἣραν τὴν ἐν
Ἄργει, Πολύκλειτος, οὐδ᾽ Ἀνακρέων, ἢ Φιλήμων, ἢ Ἀρχίλοχος, ἡσθεὶς
αὐτῶν τοῖς ποιήμασιν. Οὐ γὰρ ἀναγκαῖον, εἰ τέρπει τὸ ἔργον ὡς χάριεν,
ἄξιον σπουδῆς εἶναι τὸν εἰργασμένον. Vit. Pericl. § 2.
-----
Notwithstanding this result, however, at which they arrived but slowly,
both manufactures and every other branch of industry were in Greece, and
at Athens more particularly, carried to a very high pitch of perfection.
Even in the very lowest trades the love of gain, or the necessity of
somehow earning a subsistence, led men to persevere. For example, in the
occupation of a common fisherman, from which little beyond penury could
be hoped for, and which impressed upon the countenance that sordid
aspect so successfully represented by Hellenic art,[417] there were
always numbers ready to engage. And yet consider in Theocritus[418]
their wretched life, sleeping in their weather-beaten hut on the bleak
shore, amid heaps of nets, piscatory baskets, lines, &c., and there
dreaming, as indigence often does, of discovered treasures and ingots of
gold. The patient endurance of the hungry fishers, seated far above the
water on steep rocks, watching the entrance of the huge prey into their
nets, appears to have been proverbial.[419]
-----
Footnote 417:
See the statue of the fisherman, British Museum, Gallery of
Antiquities, Room vi. No. 45, and an account of their operation in
Pollux. i. 96, sqq. Lucian, with a few strokes, paints the misery of
this wretched tribe casting their nets, toiling vigorously and then
bringing up a large stone or an earthen pot full of sand, like the
poor fisherman in the Arabian Nights. Hermot. § 65. The same author
speaks of an old half-blind beggar of ninety, who partly earned his
livelihood by the rod and line. Dial. Mort. xxvii. § 9. Persons of
this caste were sometimes by poverty reduced to commit sacrilege. Jup.
Trag. § 25.
Footnote 418:
Eidyll. xxi. 6, sqq.
Footnote 419:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 313, conf. ad 361. 862. The transporting of
persons to and from Salamis afforded employment to a hardy and skilful
race of ferrymen whose operations were judged of sufficient importance
to be the subject of a Solonian law: Εάν τὶς τῶν πορθμέων τῶν εἰς
Σαλαμῖνα πορθμευόντων ἄκων ἐν τῳ πόρῳ πλοῖον ἀνατρέψῃ, τούτῳ μὴ
ἐξείναι πάλιν πορθμεῖ γενέσθαι. Petit, Leg. Att. v. 6. p. 427. Æschin.
cont. Ctesiph. § 49. Montaigne speaking of the contradictory customs
of different nations, observes àpropos of fares: “Les Romains payoient
ce qui estoit deu aux bateliers, pour leur naulage (passage money) dès
l’entrée du bateau, ce que nous faisons après estre rendu à port:
Dum æs exigitur, dum mula ligatur,
Tota abit hora.”
(Horat. I. 5. 13, seq.) Essais. t. iii. p. 173. On this passage Coste
has the following note: “En Hollande on paye dans le bateau, environ à
mi-chemin du lieu où l’on va.” This last regulation, as most persons
know, has been adopted by our coast steamers.
-----
In the superior trades and manufactures there was among several cities
an emulation, the result of which was to produce constant improvement.
Athens, for example, which excelled in pottery, had rivals in Aulis,
Rhodes, Megara, Corinth, Cnidos, and several other cities; Sicily and
Bœotia were famous for their chariots; Argos for the manufacture of
arms; Thessaly for its easy chairs; Chios and Miletos for their beds;
Etruria for its gold-plate and works in bronze.[420]
-----
Footnote 420:
Athen. i. 49, seq.
-----
It is to be regretted that into the practice of the several trades and
useful arts we can see but a very little way. In order, however, to
render our idea of Hellenic civilisation as complete as possible, I
shall here bring together as many particulars as I have been able to
discover on this subject, commencing with those trades which were of
primary necessity.[421] Of these, that of the miller may doubtless be
regarded as of the first importance. In very early ages men understood
not the art of reducing corn into meal; but either roasted the unripe
ears upon the fire, or parched the separated grains in small
fryingpans.[422] In process of time, however, the pestle and mortar were
invented, by means of which,[423] though at a great expense of labour,
flour of the finest possible quality could be obtained. To these
succeeded the handmill, an invention of very remote ages,[424] which,
notwithstanding, continued in use down to the days of Cicero. This
machine, both in Greece and Italy, was at first commonly worked by
women,[425] more especially by female slaves. But afterward the rudest
and worst conducted of the male domestics were condemned to this severe
toil, which at length grew to be regarded in the light of a
punishment,[426] as working at the treadmill with us. Among the wealthy,
each master of a family possessed his own mill; but as civilisation
advanced, the grinding of corn constituted a separate occupation, and
the trade of the miller was established. Public mills[427] were common
at Athens in the time of Socrates, and it does not appear to have been
unusual for strong and sturdy men of free condition to labour for hire
in these establishments.
-----
Footnote 421:
Cf. Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 79. The president Goguet commiserates the
ancients on their extreme ignorance of the useful arts. Orig. des
Lois, t. v. p. 174.
Footnote 422:
Goguet, Orig. des Lois, i. 208, seq. 221. iii. 380. Beckman, History
of Inventions, i. 227, seq. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 580. Equit. 803.
Footnote 423:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 924.
Footnote 424:
There were those among the ancients who attributed the invention of
mills to the Pelasgian Myles, son of Lelex, probably that they might
have a hero from whose name they could conveniently derive the word
μυλῶν.—Ἀπ’ αὐτου (τοῦ ἱερου Ποσειδῶνος) προελθόντι ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ Ταΰγετον
ὀνομάζουσιν Ἀλεσίας χωρίον, Μύλητα τὸν Λέλεγος πρῶτον ἀνθρώπων μύλην
τε εὑρεῖν λέγοντες καὶ ἐν ταῖς Ἀλεσίαις ταύταις ἀλέσαι. Paus. iii. 20.
2. According to Hesychius, (v. Μυλὰς) this hero Myles or Mylas was one
of the Telchines: Μυλὰς, εἷς τῶν Τελχίνων, ὃς τὰ ἐν Καμείρῳ ἱερα
Μυλαντείων ἱδρύσατο. The tradition attributing to this personage the
invention of mills is thus related by Stephanus: Μυλαντία, ἄκρα ἐν
Καμίρῳ τῆς Ῥόδου. Μυλάντιοι, θεοί ἐπιμύλιοι. ἀπὸ Μύλαντος ἀμφότερα,
τοῦ καὶ πρώτου εὑρόντος ἐν τῷ βίῳ τὴν τοῦ μύλου χρῆσιν. De Urb. et
Popul. p. 570, seq. where we see the able and learned notes of
Berkelius.
Footnote 425:
Who very commonly sang at their employment. Schol. Aristoph. Nub.
1339. Plut. Conviv. Sept. Sap. § 45.
Footnote 426:
Poll. i. 80, informs us, that σιτοποιϊκὸς οἶκος was used by a kind of
euphemism for μυλῶν.
Footnote 427:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 253. Watermills were known in antiquity.
Vitruv. x. 10. Dempster on Rosin. i. 14. p. 87. Pignor. de Serv. 248.
These mills were, doubtless, called into requisition in time of war,
when the soldiers took along with them large quantities of cheese and
meal. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 304. The ancients appear to have been
partial to small bread, since we find that four or even eight loaves
were sometimes made from a chœnix of flour. Schol. Vesp. 440.
-----
Thus we find that the philosophers Menedemos and Asclepiades, when young
and poor, earned their subsistence, and were enabled to pursue the study
of philosophy, by working at night in a mill.[428] As few persons knew
this circumstance, and they were observed all day among the learned in
the schools, some one brought against them an accusation of idleness,
for which they were cited before the senate of Areopagos. In order to
prove that they gained their livelihood in an honest way, the miller for
whom they worked was brought forward. His testimony confirmed their
statement; and he added, moreover, that he paid to each of them two
drachmas per night. The Areopagites were so pleased with this proof of
their industry and passion for philosophy, that, on pronouncing their
acquittal, they at the same time made them a present of two hundred
drachmas.[429] But these mills were not always put in motion by the hand
of man. Yoked to beams projecting from the upper millstone, oxen and
asses, moving about in a circle, blindfold, as at present, when
similarly employed, sometimes turned the mill instead of slaves.[430]
Upon the construction of these machines little exact information was
possessed before the laying open of the ruins of Pompeii, where, in a
baker’s shop, four mills, still almost perfect, have been discovered.
They consist of a round stone basement with a rim, from the centre of
which springs a blunt cone: this is the nether millstone. The upper one
consists of an imperfect cylinder, hollowed out within, like an
hour-glass, one part of which fits like a cap upon the cone below, while
the other expands its bell-mouth above. Into this the corn was poured,
and, descending through four small apertures upon the nether stone, was,
by the turning round of the upper one thereon, reduced to meal, which
passed gradually down, fining as it went, and fell out upon the stone
basement below. The corn having been ground, the next operation was, to
sever the flour from the bran, though sometimes bread was made from it
in the rough,[431] and regarded, moreover, as extremely wholesome.
First, and most simple of these contrivances, was the sieve,[432] made
with slender rushes, which separated the coarse bran and produced a meal
sufficiently cleansed for household bread. A much superior sieve was
manufactured with linen threads, by which the flour was bolted to a
great degree of fineness. When it was required of still superior purity
and whiteness, the bolter would seem to have been bottomed with threads
of woollen, which, being woven close, allowed nothing but particles of
the utmost tenuity to pass.[433] All the above operations were supposed
to be placed under the superintendence of a particular deity named
Eunostos,[434] of whom no mention, I believe, is made in modern systems
of mythology.
-----
Footnote 428:
Cleanthes, the disciple of Zeno, earned his subsistence by drawing
water during the night. Suidas, in v. t. i. p. 1467. b.
Footnote 429:
Athen. iv. 65.
Footnote 430:
Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 41. Tim. § 23.
Footnote 431:
Cf. Dioscorid. ii. 107. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 952; and Athen. iii. 83.
Footnote 432:
Plin. xviii. 28. Goguet, i. 211. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 164.
Footnote 433:
Τὸ ἐργαλεῖον ἐν ᾧ τὰ ἄλευρα διεσήθετο, τὸ μὲν ἐκ σχοίνων πλέγμα,
κόσκινον· εἰ δὲ τῷ κοσκίνου κύκλῳ ἀντὶ τοῦ σχοίνου λινοῦν τι σινδόνιον
εἴη ἐξηρτημένον, ὡς ἀκριβέστερον τὸ ἄλευρον καθαίροιτο, ἀλευρότησις
ἐκαλεῖτο· ἡ δὲ ἐξ ἐρίου, κρησέρα. Poll. Onomast. vi. 74.
Footnote 434:
Suid. v. Νοστος. t. i. p. 241. Athen. xiv. 10. Hesych. v. Εὔνοστος.
Eustath. ad Il. β. 162. 21. Ad Odys. γ. 754. 50. Etym. Mag. 394. 3.
Poll. vii. 180.
-----
The ancients employed in the making of bread a great many kinds of grain
besides wheat[435] and barley;[436] as rye, millet, which was little
nourishing, panic, which was still less so,[437] sesame, olyra, spelt,
rice, tiphe, and a sort of grain from Ethiopia, called orindion. Several
other substances were likewise used for the same purpose, not for the
sake of adulteration, but either to improve the taste, or from reasons
of economy; such as the root of the lotos,[438] and, perhaps, of the
day-lily[439] dried, and reduced, like wheat itself, to flour; and the
root of the corn-flag,[440] which was previously boiled, and, for the
sake of communicating a sweet taste to the bread, would appear to have
been mixed with the dough as the meal of the potato is in modern times.
This plant grew most plentifully in grounds frequented by the mole,
which loved to feed upon it. Another ingredient often mixed with bread
was, the pulpy seed of the Star of Bethlehem,[441] of which the root
likewise was eaten, both raw and cooked.
-----
Footnote 435:
A fine light bread was made of the three months summer wheat. Dioscor.
ii. 107. Others speak of this wheat as requiring four months to come
to maturity: Οἱ σιτάνιοι ἄρτοι, ἐκ τῶν σιτανίων πυρῶν, οἵ εἰσιν οἱ
τετράμηνοι Poll. vi. 73.
Footnote 436:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 816.
Footnote 437:
Dioscorid. ii. 119, seq. 113, sqq. Poll. i. 248. Schol. Aristoph.
Acharn. 1057. Herod. ii. 36.
Footnote 438:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 88.
Footnote 439:
Ἀσοὁδέλος. Id. Hist. Plant. vii. 13. 3. Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 41.
Plin. xxi. 68. In certain countries of the Levant, even dates were
converted into a kind of bread. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 10.
Footnote 440:
Φάσγανον. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 12. 3. In their fondness for roots
the modern Greeks appear to equal their ancestors: “Ce qui a donné
lieu au proverbe, qui dit que les Grecs s’engraissent où les ânes
meurent de faim: cela est vrai à la lettre, les ânes ne mangent que
les feuilles des plantes, et les Grecs emportent jusques à la racine.”
Tournefort, t. i. p. 106.
Footnote 441:
Ὀρνιθόγαλον. Dioscor. ii. 174.
-----
The seed of the pepper-wort,[442] also, was sprinkled over cakes. Among
the Thracians, about the river Strymon, they made bread from the flour
of the water-caltron,[443] a prickly root of a triangular form, which
abounds in the lagoons about Venice, where it is sold commonly in the
market-places, and roasted for the table in hot embers.[444] The root of
the dragon-wort,[445] eaten both raw and cooked in Greece, was, in the
Balearic isles, served up fried with honey at banquets instead of cakes.
They gathered it in harvest time, and, having roasted, cut it in slices,
which were then strung on a cord and dried in the shade for keeping. The
seeds of the garden poppy were used in bread-making, perhaps like
carraway-seeds with us, as were those of the wild poppy for medicinal
purposes in honeycakes, and certain kinds of sweetmeats.[446] They had
in Syria a kind of bread made of mulberries, which caused the hair of
those who habitually fed on it to fall off.[447]
-----
Footnote 442:
Μελανθίον. Id. iii. 93.
Footnote 443:
Τριβόλος. Id. iv. 15.
Footnote 444:
Mathée, Notes sur Dioscoride, p. 348.
Footnote 445:
Δρακόντιον. Dioscorid. ii. 196.
Footnote 446:
Id. iv. 65.
Footnote 447:
Athen. iii. 83.
-----
Although in the establishments of the wealthy bread was usually made by
the women of the family, whether servile or free, the art of the baker
seems early to have been practised as a separate business,[448]
frequently at Athens by foreigners. The Lydian bakers, for example,[449]
like those of France and Germany among us, enjoyed considerable
celebrity, as did likewise the Cappadocians and Phœnicians, the art of
the last having been able, it is said, to vary the qualities of the loaf
every day in the year.[450]
-----
Footnote 448:
Lucian. Demon. §§ 23. 63.
Footnote 449:
Athen. iii. 77. At present Greek bakers are in most request throughout
the Levant. Wolf, Mission. Research. p. 12. Antiphanes, too, in his
Omphalè celebrates the Athenian bakers. Athen. iii. 78. And Plato in
the Gorgias, t. iii. p. 154, commemorates Thearion, who excelled in
this art. On ancient bread-bags, Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. 297.
Footnote 450:
Athen. iii. 77.
-----
Of the form and structure of a baker’s establishment we may acquire some
conception from the ruins of Pompeii, where the mills, the ovens, the
kneading-troughs,[451] small and great, would appear to have been
sometimes of stone, though generally, perhaps, of wood. When the dough
had been properly kneaded and leavened,[452] it was removed to a table
with a rim, and fashioned into a variety of forms by the hand or with
moulds. The larger loaves were placed in rows in a capacious oven, in
which wood had been burnt and raked out carefully. Sometimes, also, a
fire would appear to have been kept up in an open space round the oven,
having at the top a smoke vent. One kind of loaf was baked in a small
fictile or iron oven, called cribanos,[453] which was either placed on
the fire, or surrounded by hot coals. There was another which they
toasted before the fire on a spit;[454] and a great variety of cakes
were baked on the live coals, or in the ashes.[455]
-----
Footnote 451:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 660, 666.
Footnote 452:
Cakes of leavened bread were called ζυμίται, those of unleavened bread
ἄζυμοι. Poll. vi. 32.
Footnote 453:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 86.
Footnote 454:
Poll. vi. 75. Tzetz. Chiliad. vii. 770.
Footnote 455:
Athen. iii. 76. Some of these were reckoned so delicate as to create
appetite, and to have the power of removing drunkenness, 74. At Athens
one of the most thriving departments of the baker’s business must have
been supplying the fleets and merchantmen with biscuits, ἄρτοι
ναυτικοὶ ξηροὶ, a sample of which we find a sailor presenting to his
mistress. Luc. Dial. Meret. xiv. § 2. Cf. Poll. vii. 23. Athen. iii.
74.
-----
These it would require a separate treatise to enumerate and describe,
since fashion appears to have been constantly varying the materials, the
forms, and the appellations, of loaves. Upon the whole, however, the
bread sold in the market-place of Athens was esteemed the whitest and
most delicious in Greece; for the Rhodians, speaking partially of the
produce of their own ovens, supposed they were bestowing on it the
highest compliment when they said it was not inferior to that of
Athens.[456] The dimensions of loaves depended, of course, on the object
of the baker, and varied from those of the smallest roll, prepared for
people of delicate appetites, to those of the enormous obeliæ, sometimes
containing upwards of three bushels of flour, borne in procession at the
festival of Dionysos.[457]
-----
Footnote 456:
Athen. iii. 74.
Footnote 457:
Poll. vi. 75. Tzetz. Chiliad. vii. 770.
-----
The business of the confectioner was in scarcely less request, or less
profitable, than that of the baker himself. In most cases, perhaps, the
finer kinds of pastry were made by women,[458] whose taste and skill
enabled them to gratify the lovers of delicacies with an infinite
variety of sweetmeats. The vocabulary connected with this division of
the art culinary is singularly rich, but, in many cases, conveys to our
minds very little precise information. It may be inferred, however, with
something like certainty, that the stock of an Athenian confectioner
contained most of those delicious trifles now to be found in the
establishments of their successors in London or Paris. It will,
consequently, be impossible to enumerate them, or to specify the several
ingredients which entered into their composition. It has already, I
believe, been observed, in speaking of wine, that the ancients were
exceedingly partial to sweets, which, in the making of their
confectionary, led them to the constant employment of honey. Most of
their favourite cakes contained some portion of this ingredient,[459]
sometimes, indeed, found in company with other articles apparently
little calculated to combine with it. Wine, too, and cheese, and milk,
and seeds, and the juices of vegetables, entered into the composition of
various sweetmeats, which were occasionally made to keep long, as when
intended for exportation; occasionally to be consumed at the moment, as
they issued hot from the oven or the fryingpan. To this latter class
belonged those delicate pancakes, the paste of which was poured liquid
into the fryingpan, then flooded atop with fresh honey, and sprinkled
with sesame and grated cheese.[460] The taste for the _catillus ornatus_
the Greeks appear to have borrowed from the Romans. This was a rich
cake, composed of fine flour, kneaded with lard and the juice of
lettuces, pounded in a mortar with wine, seasoned with pepper, and fried
in boiling oil.[461] Among their pastry was a sort of pie made of
vine-birds[462] and beccaficoes,[463] the undercrust of which, kneaded
with honey, was sometimes moistened at table in chicken-broth.[464]
-----
Footnote 458:
Poll. iii. 41.
Footnote 459:
Athen. xiv. 51, sqq.
Footnote 460:
Athen. xiv. 55.
Footnote 461:
Id. xiv. 57.
Footnote 462:
Ἀμπελίδες ἅς νῦν ἀμπελιῶνας καλοῦσιν. Poll. vi. 52.
Footnote 463:
Συκαλίδες. Aristot. Hist. Anim. viii. 3. ix. 49.
Footnote 464:
Poll. vi. 77.
-----
These cakes and sweetmeats were sometimes fashioned into very
extraordinary forms; one sort, for example, representing the female
breast,[465] another a perfect sphere,[466] a third the head and horns
of an ox,[467] while others were wrought into mystical figures, and
appropriated to certain festivals of the Pagan calendar. The cake called
Chærinè, made with the flour of parched wheat and honey, was bestowed as
a prize on those who, during the Pannuchia, remained awake all
night.[468]
-----
Footnote 465:
Athen. xiv. 55.
Footnote 466:
Athen. xiv. 56.
Footnote 467:
Poll. vi. 76.
Footnote 468:
Athen. xiv. 56.
-----
The trade of the butcher[469] was carried on at Athens by citizens,[470]
whose shops in the Agora would seem to have been extremely well
furnished, containing every variety of meat, from the chine of a prize
ox,[471] to the hind quarter of an ass.[472] Sheep’s and kids’ heads
were commonly sought to be rendered more attractive by having a branch
of myrtle stuck between the teeth, whence one of the hetairæ was
compared to a goat’s head, because she often walked the street with a
sprig of myrtle in her mouth.[473] The information which antiquity has
left us respecting butchers’ shops and implements is extremely
imperfect. We are told simply, that they had chopping-blocks and
cleavers, large axes with which animals were felled in the
slaughter-houses, flaying knives, hooks whereon to suspend and display
their stock, with scales for weighing meat.[474] A very curious anecdote
is related of a Milesian butcher: there was a man named Killicon, who
betrayed his native city Miletos, to the Prienians. Among his
countrymen, who on this occasion became fugitives, was a butcher. This
man fled to Samos, where he carried on his old business.[475] Some time
after Killicon himself came to that island, and going into the market to
buy provisions, by chance addressed himself to the Milesian butcher,
whose name was Theagenes. The man remembered the traitor, and when he
would have bought of him a piece of meat, desired Killicon to lay hold
of the part he wanted, while he severed it from the carcase; then taking
up an axe he smote off his hand, saying, “With that hand, at least, you
shall never again betray your country.”[476]
-----
Footnote 469:
Κρεωπώλης. Butchers were also called μαγείροι κρεωδαίτας and
κρεουργοὶ. Poll. vii. 25.
Footnote 470:
Athen. xiii. 43.
Footnote 471:
Jason of Pheræ once excited among the Thessalian cities a contention
as to which of them should supply the finest ox: Ἐκήρυξε δὲ καὶ
νικητήριον χρυσοῦν στέφανον ἔσεσθαι, εἴ τις τῶν πόλεων βοῦν ἡγεμόνα
κάλλιστον τῷ θεῷ θρέψειε. Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4. 29.
Footnote 472:
Poll. ix. 48.
Footnote 473:
Athen. xiii. 23. Plut. Dem. § 12 Id. Dion. § 1.
Footnote 474:
Poll. vii. 25. Suid. v. κρεάγρα, t. i. p. 1521, seq.
Footnote 475:
Among the Romans in the good old days of the republic, gentlemen
killed their own meat. “Suis enim fundum colit nostrum, quin sues
habeat, et qui non audieret patres nostros dicere, ignavum, et
sumptuosum esse, qui succidiam in carnario suspenderit potius ab
laniario, quam ex domestico fundo?” Varro, De Re Rust. ii. 4. From the
same author, (ii. 9,) we learn that ancient, like modern butchers,
were fond of being attended by large fierce dogs, which he advises
shepherds when in search of a co-guardian for their flocks most
especially to eschew.
Footnote 476:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 359.
-----
The vintners and tavern-keepers, who were tolerably numerous in
Greece,[477] appear to have acquired much the same reputation as they
enjoy in modern times. It was regarded as a matter of some difficulty to
discover a jar of pure wine beneath their roofs; and, indeed, the honest
vine-growers of the country are accused of having understood the art of
making Bacchos acquainted with the nymphs on his way to the city. In
other words they sold from their waggons in the Agora[478] a certain
quantity of the Ilissos, mingled with the juice of the grape. The
tavern-keepers, however, stood in very little need of their assistance,
since they were not merely adepts in watering and doctoring their wines,
but were skilful at giving short measure;[479] and yet understood
various contrivances for alluring people to their houses. Thus one of
them, for example, used to present a club that dined at his tavern with
a kid,[480] reckoning upon paying himself by the profits of the
wine.[481] However, when an opulent and delicate company honoured them
with their presence, they could, doubtless, supply wines of the finest
flavour; and to render them still more delicious, they were accustomed
in summer to plunge the flagons into snow,[482] or, occasionally, to
mingle it with the wine, as is still the fashion at Naples and in
Sicily. Taverns, therefore, were furnished with ice-cellars, where snow
could be kept during the hottest weather. Alexander[483] found means of
carrying along with him a quantity of this article of luxury into India,
where he probably treated Taxilos and Poros with iced wines. This
achievement was imitated many ages after by the Khalif Mahadi, who on
his pilgrimage to Mecca traversed the desert accompanied by a numerous
train of camels laden with ice and snow, the first, according to
Oriental historians, ever beheld in the Holy Cities. In the island of
Cimolos, people made use, as coolers, of deep pits, in which jars of
soft and tepid water,[484] and, doubtless, wine also, were
refrigerated.[485]
-----
Footnote 477:
At the doors of these establishments then were probably, as at
Pompeii, holes bored through the stones of the foot pavement, raised
considerably above the road, to receive the halters of horses or
mules. Hamilton, Discov. at Pomp. p. 12.
Footnote 478:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 244, seq. Athen. x. 38.
Footnote 479:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Thesm. 744.
Footnote 480:
Others defrauded their customers by mixing mutton with kid. Schol.
Arist. Eq. 1396.
Footnote 481:
Athen. xiii. 43.
Footnote 482:
Athen. iii. 97. Prodic. ap. Xen. Mem. ii. 1. 30.
Footnote 483:
Athen. iii. 97.
Footnote 484:
Σῆμος δὲ ὁ Δήλιος ἐν δευτέρῳ Νησιάδος, ἐν Κιμώλω τῇ νήσω φησὶ ψυχεῖα
κατεσκευάσθαι θέρους ὀρυκτὰ, ἔνθα χλιεροῦ ὕδατος πλήρη κεράμια
καταθέντες, ὕστερον κομίζονται χιόνος οὐδὲν διάφορα. Athen. iii. 96.
These coolers are rendered necessary by the entire lack of springs in
the island, whose inhabitants wholly depend for water on what they can
preserve in pits and cisterns. Tournefort, t. i. p. 170.
-----
The wine was laid up in jars, skins, and flasks, which, like the
oil-flasks of Florence and Lucca, were cased with fine basket-work.[486]
The measures in use were numerous, and somewhat difficult to be reduced
with exactness to those of modern times: the metretes (ten gallons two
pints) contained twelve choes; the chous (about six pints) six xestæ;
the xestes (one pint) two cotylæ; the cotyla (half-pint) two tetarti;
the tetarton (one quartern) two oxybapha; the oxybaphon, one cyathus and
a-half; the cyathus, two conchæ; the concha, two mystra; the mystron,
one chema and a-half; the chema, two cochlearia.[487]
-----
Footnote 485:
But see Beckmann, iii. 327.
Footnote 486:
Aristoph. Av. 799. These flasks were in later times called φλασκία,
whence the modern name. Suid. v. πυτίνη, t. ii. p. 672. d. These we
find were frequently, as well as baskets, the work of prisoners, who
probably thus earned a livelihood. Hesych. v. πυτίνη πλεκτή. Cf. Suid.
v. Διΐτρεφης, i. 729. In the cellars of Pompeii, the wine-jars were
found ranged along the walls without stoppers, instead of which a
little oil was probably poured on the top of the wine, as at present
in Italy. Hamilton, Discov. at Pomp. p. 15.
Footnote 487:
Eisenschmid. de Pond. et Mens. Vet. p. 166.
-----
Respecting the price of wines[488] our information is exceedingly
imperfect; for although it be frequently stated how much a certain
measure cost, the quality of the wine not being mentioned at the same
time, we are very little nearer any real knowledge of the value. In
Lusitania, ten gallons of pure wine were at one period sold for
three-pence; at Athens the price of the metretes,[489] appears to have
varied from about one and eight-pence, to three and four-pence, though
occasionally it rose as high as about ten shillings. Even of the
Mendæan, a wine of very superior quality, the wholesale price did not,
at one period, exceed two drachmas, the metretes; but as the innkeepers
were accused of having made enormous profits, it is at the same time
quite credible, that they should occasionally have charged an obolos for
the hemicotyla, especially to tipling women. Elsewhere, however, we find
the chous, or twelve cotylæ, sold for an obolos,[490] the price,
doubtless, depending partly on the quality of the wine, partly on the
conscience of the innkeeper. For, notwithstanding that there were at
Athens three magistrates charged with the inspection of wines,[491] part
of whose business it probably was to prevent adulteration and exorbitant
prices, the vintners, male and female, in all likelihood were an
overmatch for them.
-----
Footnote 488:
Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. p. 133.
Footnote 489:
Vid. Athen. iii. 86.
Footnote 490:
Athen. xi. 47. Cf. iii. 86.
Footnote 491:
Athen. x. 25. Poll. vi. 21.
-----
Most of the means by which the ancients adulterated their wines appear
to be unknown to us, though we find that they endeavoured to restore the
taste of such as were spoiled, by mingling with them a certain quantity
of boiled wine[492] and preparations of lime and gypsum. To check the
progress of the second fermentation, they were sometimes in the habit of
casting a pumice-stone into the jar;[493] but where wine was so cheap,
there was little temptation to have recourse to any other art than that
of watering a little, which, according to the comic poet, might proceed
from a benevolent desire to keep men sober and preserve their
health.[494]
-----
Footnote 492:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1005. 878.
Footnote 493:
Conf. Beckmann, Hist. Invent. i. 402. sqq. Dioscor. v. 125.
Footnote 494:
A. Ἐν τοῖς συμποσίοισιν οὐ πίνετ᾽
Ἄκρατον. S. Οὐ γὰρ ῥᾴδιον· πωλοῦσι γὰρ
Ἐν ταῖς ἁμάξαις εὐθέως κεκραμένων·
Οὐχ ἵνα τι κερδαίνωσι, τῶν δ᾽ ὠνουμένων
Προνοούμενοι τοῦ τὰς κεφαλὰς ὑγιεῖς ἔχειν
Ἐκ κραιπάλης.
Alex. ap. Athen. x. 38.
-----
The stock of a respectable wine-merchant must have been peculiarly rich
and varied,[495] consisting of the Anthosmias, a wine of delicious
fragrance; the Lesbian,[496] a favourite wine of Alcibiades;[497] the
Pramnian,[498] a strong rough wine, celebrated by Homer;[499] the
Lemnian, quaffed by the heroes before Troy;[500] the Chian, light and
delicate;[501] the Kapnian, from Beneventum in Italy,[502] a sharp red
wine which made the eyes water like smoke;[503] the Mesogeites, from
Mount Tmolos,[504] which, however delicious might be its taste, gave
those who drank it the head-ache; the Phygelites, from Ephesos, equal to
that of Lesbos; those of Cos and Clazomenè, pleasant when new, but which
would not keep because mixed with sea-water; the Cydonian;[505] the
Maronæan,[506] of great strength; the Mendæan;[507] the Mareotic;[508]
the Port; and the Thasian, which may be regarded as the flower of the
whole for excellence and celebrity.[509]
-----
Footnote 495:
The Greeks gave fanciful names to their wines and their cups; but the
English have been still more fanciful in the names of their ales. See
Bent. Dissert. on Phalaris, i. pref. xxi.
Footnote 496:
Xen. Hellen. vi. 6. 6. Athen. i. 24.
Footnote 497:
Athen. vii. 9. i. 55. Plut. Alcib. § 12.
Footnote 498:
Athen. i. 55.
Footnote 499:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 107. Etym. Mag. 683. 30, seq.
Footnote 500:
Il. η. 467, sqq.
Footnote 501:
Poll. vi. 15. x. 72.
Footnote 502:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 151; and Thurian. Nub. 331.
Footnote 503:
Suid. v. Καπν. t. i. p. 1370.
Footnote 504:
Dioscor. v. 10.
Footnote 505:
“The district of Cydonia must have been celebrated for its wine in
ancient times, for we find on many of its coins a bunch of grapes, or
the head of Dionysos. Some of them also exhibit a female head adorned
with a chaplet of vine-leaves. I found a beautiful silver coin of
Cydonia in the possession of the interpreter of the French Consulate,
and the female head seen on its obverse was thus ornamented.” Pashley,
Travels in Crete, vol. i. p. 23.
Footnote 506:
Athen. i. 95, seq.
Footnote 507:
Id. viii. 67.
Footnote 508:
Id. i. 25.
Footnote 509:
Aristoph. Lysist. 196. Athen. x. 37. i. 24. Poll. vi. 15.
-----
There were several wines among the ancients which acquired peculiar
qualities and flavour from the way in which they were made or preserved.
Thus, in Galatia,[510] where, as the grapes ripened but imperfectly, the
wine had a tendency to grow sour, a hemicotyla of resin was poured into
the metretes of wine, which gave it at first a harsh taste, though in
time it acquired a better flavour. In this process the resin was pounded
in a mortar, with a quantity of the pine-bark. Some persons allowed it
to remain in the vessel, while others strained it off immediately after
fermentation. The wine which was preserved by an infusion of pitch,[511]
was manufactured in the following manner: the pitch was washed with
brine and sea-water[512] until it whitened, then cleansed perfectly with
fresh-water, after which an ounce or two was mingled with eight choes of
wine. The saline wines were made[513] either by dipping the bunches as
gathered into sea-water, or sprinkling them therewith, or pouring it
along with them into the press after they had been dried in the sun. But
in whatever manner prepared, wines of this description were regarded
with an evil eye by physicians.
-----
Footnote 510:
Dioscor. v. 43.
Footnote 511:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 189. 643.
Footnote 512:
Dioscor. v. 48.
Footnote 513:
Id. v. 10. 27. Athen. i. 24.
-----
Among the other riches of an Hellenic cellar were mead or
metheglin,[514] and hydromel[515] and omphacomel,[516] with perry and
cider,[517] and palm-wine[518] and fig-wine[519] and quince-wine[520]
and lotos[521] and pomegranate-wine.[522]
-----
Footnote 514:
Aristot. De Mirab. Auscult. t. xvi. p. 185. _Tauchnitz._—Max. Tyr.
Dissert. xi. p. 138. The making of this delicious beverage is the
simplest process imaginable. Speaking of the Ingushians,—“The
excellent honey which they produce,” observes Pallas, “is partly
converted into mead, having been previously diluted with boiling
water; partly used with a fermented liquor made of millet, and called
Busa, and partly eaten at the dessert.” Travels in Southern Russia,
ii. 204.
Footnote 515:
Plin. xiv. 20. Beckmann, Hist. of Invent. iii. 373.
Footnote 516:
Dioscor. v. 31. The physician observes of this beverage:—ἡ χρῆσις δ᾽
αὐτοῦ μετ᾽ ἐνιαυτόν.
Footnote 517:
Pallad. iii. 25. Colum. xii. 45. Dioscor. v. 32.
Footnote 518:
The palm-wine of Æthiopia would appear to have been celebrated in
antiquity, since a small cask of it was thought a fit present for a
Persian king. Herod. iii. 20. Plin. xiii. 4. Diod. Sicul. ii. 136.
Footnote 519:
Damm. Lexic. 2224. Cf. Eustath. ad Odyss. ω. t. iii. p. 839. 8, seq.
Dioscor. v. 41.
Footnote 520:
Dioscor. v. 28.
Footnote 521:
Herod. iv. 177. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 3. 2. Wines were sometimes
flavoured by an infusion of wild carrot-root (δαῦκος). Dioscor. v. 70.
There was a drink called βρύτον, with roots, which sometimes supplied
the place of wine. Athen. x. 67.
Footnote 522:
Dioscor. v. 34.
-----
Numerous odoriferous plants were likewise employed in communicating a
variety of flavours and fragrance to wine, as the rose,[523]
thyme,[524] germander,[525] anis,[526] œnanthe,[527] wormwood,[528]
betony,[529] southern-wood,[530] squills,[531] myrtle,[532]
mastic,[533] terebinth,[534] sycamore,[535] fir-cones,[536]
cedar-cones,[537] cypress-cones,[538] juniper-berries,[539] pitch, and
larchtree-cones.[540] Almost every other aromatic plant, shrub, and
tree, was in like manner, employed to communicate a flavour, or an
odour, to wine, chiefly, however, for medicinal purposes; and among
these was the hyssop, whose leaves were used in the following manner:
a pound of them, having been well bruised, were tied up in a sort of
gauze, and by the weight of a few intermingled pebbles sunk to the
bottom of the amphora. Here they were permitted to remain forty days,
after which the wine was racked.[541] Of these wines that which was
tinctured with rose-leaves was commonly drunk after dinner to promote
digestion.[542] That which, about the Propontis and Thrace, was
flavoured with wormwood, people destined for their summer drink,
considering it favourable to health.[543]
-----
Footnote 523:
Id. v. 35.
Footnote 524:
Id. v. 59.
Footnote 525:
Χαμαίδρυς. Id. v. 51.
Footnote 526:
Dioscor. v. 75.
Footnote 527:
Id. v. 33.
Footnote 528:
Id. v. 49.
Footnote 529:
Id. v. 54.
Footnote 530:
Id. v. 62.
Footnote 531:
Id. v. 26.
Footnote 532:
Id. v. 37.
Footnote 533:
Id. v. 38.
Footnote 534:
Id. v. 39.
Footnote 535:
Id. v. 42.
Footnote 536:
Id. v. 44.
Footnote 537:
Id. v. 47.
Footnote 538:
Id. v. 45.
Footnote 539:
Id. v. 46.
Footnote 540:
Id. v. 45.
Footnote 541:
Dioscor. v. 50.
Footnote 542:
Id. v. 35.
Footnote 543:
Id. iii. 27.
-----
The greatest enemies of the vintners[544] were the physicians who, by
dwelling on the pernicious qualities of wine, deterred the reasonable
part of the world from a too frequent use of it. Old wine, they
maintained, shatters the nerves and produces headache; new wine is the
parent of horrible dreams. That which is middling, however, for example,
about seven years old, is liable to fewer objections, and may upon the
whole be drunk with some degree of safety. White wine, too, according to
their opinion, is better than red, since it corroborates the stomach,
and is, probably, that kind which, when of a proper age, produces
pleasant dreams.[545] Pure wine, in general, moreover, was admitted to
improve the health and beautify the complexion; and Pindar, whom most
persons will allow to have been a good judge, though he could not, like
Anacreon, dispose of a cask at a sitting,[546] declares in favour of old
wine and new songs.
-----
Footnote 544:
Id. v. 7.
Footnote 545:
Athen. i. 47.
Footnote 546:
This achievement the Teian celebrates in one of his own odes, a
fragment of which has been preserved by Athenæus, xi. 45.
Ἠρίστησα μὲν ἰτρίου λέπτον ἀποκλὰς,
Οἴνου δ᾽ ἐξέπιον κάδον.
-----
Of beer, though, as we have elsewhere remarked, it was familiarly known
to the Egyptians,[547] as well as to the inhabitants of Gaul, Spain, and
Britain, who manufactured it from barley and service-berries, as the
people of Dantzic now do from the hips of the wild roses,[548] we need
say nothing, as the Greeks were so ignorant of its nature, that when the
Ten Thousand met with a quantity in Armenia they diluted it with water
as they were accustomed to do their wine, that is to say, entirely
spoiled it.[549] The establishments of these vintners were almost of
necessity most frequent in the neighbourhood of the agora,[550] where
the rustics from the country congregated in crowds on market-days; where
were held also, on many occasions, the public assemblies; and where
newsmongers and loungers of every description most generally passed
their leisure hours.
-----
Footnote 547:
Athen. x. 12. i. 61. Dioscor. ii. 110. Goguet. i. 231.
Footnote 548:
Voyages de la Comp. des Indes, i. 62.
Footnote 549:
Xenoph. Anab. iv. 5.
Footnote 550:
Cf. Plat. de Leg. t. viii. p. 114, seq. De Rep. t. vi. p. 176. Muret.
ad Arist. Ethic. p. 415.
-----
Making due allowance for difference of dimensions, and their greater or
less magnificence, the same description will apply to the agoræ of all
Grecian cities. But, as we are best acquainted with the features of that
of Athens, if we can succeed in delineating a tolerably correct picture
of it, some idea may, therefrom, be easily formed of all the others. We
must imagine, therefore, a large circular open space,[551] about the
centre of the city, surrounded on all sides by ranges of shops, temples,
porticoes, and other public buildings.[552] It was traversed in various
directions by avenues of plane-trees, planted shortly after the Persian
war, which in summer constituted so many shady walks. About the middle
stood the altars of Pity and the Twelve Gods, in a circle,[553] and near
them were the statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton,[554] the
tyrannicides, whose memory was cherished by the republic with the most
religious veneration. By far the greater part of the space, however, was
covered by rows of sheds, booths, and tents, furnished with seats[555]
(the construction of which formed a separate branch of industry),[556]
where every article of use or luxury known to the ancient world was
exhibited with the utmost attention to display. Here were the
embroidered veils, and shawls, and mantles, and sandals, of the mercer’s
quarter;[557] there the chains of gold, the armlets, the anklets, the
jewelled circlets for the head, the golden grasshoppers, the seals, the
rings, the agraffes, the brooches, the cameos, and every description of
engraved gems which constituted the attractions of the jewellers’
quarter. Here were waggons piled with jars, and skins filled with wine;
there huge pyramids of apples and pears, and quinces and pomegranates,
and dates and plums, and cherries and mulberries, black and white, and
grape-clusters of every hue, and oranges and citrons, and rich purple
figs, and melons and water-melons.[558]
-----
Footnote 551:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 137. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 125.
Footnote 552:
Cf. Demosth. cont. Con. § 3.
Footnote 553:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 295. Xenoph. de Off. Mag. Eq. iii. 2, with the
note of Schneider.—Throughout Greece, persons to whom especial honour
was designed had their statues erected in the agora, as Theodectes at
Phaselis. Plut. Alexand. § 17. The statue of the market Hermes stood
near the Stoa Pœcile, and was usually smeared with pitch, from the
practice of sculptors who came constantly to take casts from it with a
preparation of that substance. Lucian. Jup. Trag. § 33.
Footnote 554:
Aristoph. Lysist. 678.
Footnote 555:
Casaub. ad. Theoph. Char. p. 349.
Footnote 556:
Poll. vii. 125. On the terms connected with settling and buying, &c.
iii. 124, sqq.
Footnote 557:
Ἱματιόπωλις ἀγορά or σπειρόπωλις Poll. vii. 78. Cf. Xenoph. de
Vectigal, iv. 8.
Footnote 558:
See Book v. chapter ii.
-----
Touching upon these booths were the stalls of the green-grocers, of
Eucharides[559] for example, where every vegetable produced in the
kitchen-garden and the fields met the eye in profusion; among which were
truffles of all kinds,[560] with the roots of the caraway[561] and
jagged lettuce, which were eaten like those of the Egyptian bean[562]
and the papyrus,[563] radishes,[564] long and round, bunches of
turnips,[565] asparagus, broccoli,[566] heads of garlic, and summer
savory, for the poor, all kinds of beans and pease, the vervain[567] for
purification and amulets, wild myrtle sprigs instead of asparagus,[568]
shoots of the black briony,[569] chokeweed to be boiled with vegetables
for rendering them tender, tufts of the wild fig-tree, which performed
the same service for beef,[570] goats-beard, clematis for
seasoning,[571] with bunches of elm-leaves commonly used as a
vegetable.[572] Next to these, were, perhaps, the stands of the
flower-sellers,[573] where garlands of the richest colours and fragrance
were ready wreathed for the brow,[574] some produced by careful culture
in gardens, and others gathered where they grew wild by the women, who
in time of peace spread themselves in troops over the whole country for
this purpose.[575] In one corner were droves of horses, asses, and
mules,[576] ready to have their teeth inspected by the buyers,[577] or
groups of youthful slaves from all quarters of the world. In another,
near a lofty poplar,[578] stood the auction-mart where goods of every
description,[579] including even libraries,[580] were knocked down by
the hammer. Close at hand, perhaps, stood the tempting booths of the
chapmen who purveyed for the kitchen of the Athenians with hams, and
sausages, and black-puddings,[581] and pickles, and cheese, and
preserved fruits, and spices, from the farthest east. Here were the
sellers[582] of salt-meat and fish from the Black Sea,[583] there the
toy-shops and upholsterers, while ever and anon the crowds that thronged
the passages were compelled to make way for a string of asses[584] laden
with vegetables or wood from Parnes or Cithæron, with the ends sticking
out on both sides and threatening the eyes of the buyers. Sometimes a
porter,[585] with a wooden knot on his shoulders, bore along, like
Protagoras, a load of faggots, the size of which astonished the
beholders. At times, near the corner of the street leading from the
Eleusinian Gate, you saw a half-starved Megarean[586] sneaking through
the crowd and bringing along with him sucking pigs, and leverets, and
cucumbers, and salt-fish, and garlic,[587] which if observed by the
agoranomoi were, during wartime, seized as contraband. On the other hand
the broad-faced jolly Bœotian[588] came smirking and grinning, like a
Neapolitan, with mule-loads of wild marjoram, pennyroyal, eaten by
sheep, mats, lampwicks, fowls,[589] ducks, locusts, jackdaws,
francolins,[590] coots, divers, geese, hares, foxes, moles, hedgehogs,
cats, pyctides, otters, and eels, from Lake Copaïs. Here in rows stood,
black as chimney-sweeps, the charcoal-sellers from Acharnæ, with their
mallequins and rush-baskets full piled before them.[591] Yonder were the
cornchandlers,[592] surrounded by piles of sacks, measuring their grain,
while a horde of ragged spermologoi[593] hovered round to collect what
fell. Close at hand stood the flour-merchants, each beside his huge
covered wooden trough,[594] from which he measured forth flour or
barley-meal to the buyers. Beyond these were the stalls of the
fishmongers,[595] the flambeau-sellers[596] and the shining jars of the
oil-merchants, piled in heaps to the roof of the booths. In other rows
were the shops of the potters,[597] where every variety of jugs, vases,
and tureens, was exhibited with vessels of glass, and bronze, and ivory.
Here and there, threading their way through the multitude, you beheld
the pedlar[598] with his pack of small-wares, the hawker crying his fish
or fruit,[599] or vegetables, or sausages, or wild-fowl, laid out on a
board on his head; the female bread-seller, with a variety of delicate
loaves and cakes piled up before her on a tray; the pastry-girl with
sweetmeats; the flower-girl with nosegays of fresh violets from the
meadows of Colonos and the banks of the Eridanos and Cephissos.
Sheltered from the warm rays of the sun, beneath some magnificent marble
colonnade, or the portico of some temple or chapel, sat whole bevies of
female flute-players, citharists, or dancing-girls,[600] calling forth,
from time to time, whilst waiting to be hired for a party, bursts of
music from their instruments, or humming a war-song, or a Palladian
hymn, or a merry scholion, the favourite ditties of the Athenian people.
Near these, as being folks of the same kidney, the jugglers, cooks, and
parasites,[601] took up their position; the former two ready to be hired
for the day by the giver of some magnificent entertainment, the latter
that they might discover in what direction they were to ply their craft
and ferret out a dinner scotfree. Near the Eurysaceum in this
neighbourhood stood that eminence called the Hill of the Agora,[602] or
Misthios, because servants, in lack of a master, collected there to be
hired, as they still do at fairs in most parts of England. Somewhere
close at hand were the shops of those brokers who let out pots and pans,
and lamps and plate, and the more delicate kind of crockery, to such
persons as were too economical to keep such articles of their own.[603]
In the midst of this profusion of wares might be seen, at all hours of
the day, crowds of well-dressed persons[604] sauntering to and fro,
chatting with each other, cheapening the goods of the shopkeepers, or
laughing and jesting with the flower-girls or fluteplayers. At other
times individuals, by no means deserving the name of loiterers, came
thither, either to post up a bill[605] of some article which they had
found, or in quest of some information respecting one they had lost,
either from such bills or from the public criers who were there
accustomed to make proclamation of treasure trove, or to cry that such
or such an article of property had strayed from its lawful owner.
Occasionally also people made known by criers what goods they had for
sale.[606] The young men of rank, when fatigued by these promenades,
used to retire into a perfumer’s or barber’s or armourer’s or
bridle-maker’s shop,[607] overlooking the bustling scene, where they
discussed nonsense or politics, according to their humour. Hither, too,
the philosophers came with a view to inspire patriotic and manly
sentiments into the minds of these future rulers of the democracy; so
that at one period you might have beheld Socrates and Alcibiades and
Critias, and Chæriphon and Crito, with Charmides and the divine Plato,
engaged in those animated dialogues, the echo of which still rings
sweetly in the ears of posterity. In some shops opposite these, as if
with a view to rival or eclipse them, or round one of the
umbrellas,[608] beneath which, on an elevated platform, the perfumers
dispensed their wares in the agora, stood a group of sophists with their
followers, such as Hippias of Elis, Prodicos of Cos, or the Agrigentine
Polos, or Gorgias of Leontium, habited in purple robes, embroidered
vests, flowered sandals, and with glittering crowns of gold upon their
heads. Even their florid discourses, however, would fail to command the
attention of their auditors when the youth of equestrian rank,[609]
mounted on their chargers and drawn up in military array, swept round
the outer circle of the agora, paying devout homage to each divinity
whose fane they passed. Here also in a future age might be seen,
strutting to and fro, the orator Æschines with his arms akimbo and a
fashionable little hat[610] stuck knowingly on one side of his head,
railing at Demosthenes, and pleading the cause of Philip. And here, too,
the night after the fall of Elatea, a very different scene was witnessed
when the citizens from every side of the Cecropian rock rushed
tumultuously hither in the wildest alarm, and either not reflecting on
what they did, or through ill-judged haste, set fire to the sheds and
booths in order that they might find a clear space to deliberate on the
public safety.
-----
Footnote 559:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 680. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 420. Acharn.
166. Eq. 493. Athen. xiii. 22.
Footnote 560:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 189. 191. Dioscor. ii. 200.
Footnote 561:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 4. 8. Dioscor. iii. 76.
Footnote 562:
Dioscor. i. 115.
Footnote 563:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 1. 4.
Footnote 564:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 1. 2.
Footnote 565:
Antich. di Ercol. t. ii. p. 52.
Footnote 566:
“The ancients were acquainted with curled cabbage and even some of
those kinds which we call _broccoli_. Under this term is understood
all those species, the numerous young flowery heads of which,
particularly in spring and autumn, can be used like cauliflowers. Such
young shoots are called _cymæ_, but not _turiones_; for the latter
term denotes the first shoots that arise, like those of hops,
asparagus, and other esculent plants. The broccoli used at present
was, however, first brought from Italy to France, together with the
name, about the end of the sixteenth century.” Beckmann, iv. 266.
Footnote 567:
Καλοῦσι δὲ αὐτοὶ ἱεραν βοτάνην διὰ τὸ εὔχρηστον ἐν τοῖς καθαρμεῖς
εἶναι εἰς περιάμματα. Dioscor. iv. 71.
Footnote 568:
Ἀντὶ ἀσπαράγου δε οἱ καυλοὶ νεοθαλεῖς λαχανευόμενοι ἐσθίονται.
Dioscor. iv. 146.
Footnote 569:
Id. iv. 185.
Footnote 570:
Αἱ δὲ κράδαι βοείοις κρέασι καθεψόμεναι, εὐέψητα ταῦτα ποιοῦσι.
Dioscor. i. 184. At Carthagena, the same effect is produced by
lemon-juice. “Une chose particulière qu’on remarque en cette ville à
l’égard des limons, c’est que les habitans ayent cette idée, qu’il ne
faut mettre la viande près du feu que trois quarts d’heure, ou une
heure avant le repas. Suivant cette opinion ils ne mettent jamais de
l’eau au pot avec la viande sans y exprimer en même tems le jus de
trois ou quatre de ces limons plus ou moins, selon la quantité de
viande; par ce moyen la viande s’amollit et se cuit si bien, qu’elle
est en état d’être servie au bout de ce court espace. Ces gens là sont
si accoutumés à cette facilité d’apprêter leurs viandes, qu’ils se
moquent des Européens, qui employent toute une matinée pour faire une
chose qui leur coute si peu de tems.” Ulloa, Voyage au Pérou. t. i. p.
68.
Footnote 571:
Dioscor. iv. 182.
Footnote 572:
Id. i. 111.
Footnote 573:
Cf. Plut. Arat. § 6. De Pauw, Rech. Phil. sur les Grecs, i. 3. p. 20.
Flowers seem to have been brought to market in corbels on asses.
Buonaroti, Oss. Istor. sop. alc. Medagl. Antich. p. 385.
Footnote 574:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 1320.
Footnote 575:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 528.
Footnote 576:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 348. In wealthy states, says Xenophon, men
applied their riches to the purchase of costly arms, fine horses, and
magnificent houses and furniture; and the women to that of splendid
dresses and ornaments of gold. De Vectigal. iv. 8.
Footnote 577:
Lucian, Luc. siv. Asin. § 35.
Footnote 578:
Cf. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 257, seq.
Footnote 579:
Schol. Aristot. Eq. 103. Andocid. De Myrt. § 22.
Footnote 580:
Lucian. adv. Indoct. § 20.
Footnote 581:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 364. Athen. xiv. 75. See a pork-butcher’s shop in
Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 28.
Footnote 582:
Herod. iv. 53. ii. 15. 113.
Footnote 583:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 153. Dion Chrysost. i. 236. Cf. Leake,
Topog. of Athen. p. 64.
Footnote 584:
Eurip. ap. Poll. x. 112. Cf. Demosth. adv. Phœnip. § 3. Lucian,
Luc. siv. Asin. § 43.
Footnote 585:
Or perhaps water-carriers, this class of men having been numerous in
ancient cities, and remarkable for their insolence. Ælian. Var. Hist.
ix. 17. Even the camels employed in water-carrying are more vicious
than any other.
Footnote 586:
Aristoph. Acharn. 532, sqq.
Footnote 587:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 494, 500.
Footnote 588:
Aristoph. Acharn. 860, sqq.
Footnote 589:
See in Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 27, the representation of a
poulterer’s shop.
Footnote 590:
Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 257.
Footnote 591:
Id. Acharn. 314.
Footnote 592:
Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 83.
Footnote 593:
On the number of the corresponding class in London I possess no exact
information; but a modern writer who has displayed much curious
industry in describing the mechanism of the lower stages of society in
France gives the following estimate of _chiffonniers_ of Paris:—“En
exposant quels sont les principaux élémens de la classe pauvre mais
laborieuse, je ne dois pas omettre de faire connaître le nombre des
chiffonniers, espèce de manouvriers qui se rattachent aux manufactures
par la nature même des objets sur lesquels s’exerce leur industrie. Ce
métier, qui est un des moins honorés, a, malgré le dégoût qu’il
inspire généralement, un attrait particulier pour certaines gens et
surtout pour les enfans, parce qu’il n’assujettit à aucun
apprentissage, et qu’en outre, il permet à celui qui l’exerce, de
vaguer constamment sur la voie publique et de gagner aisément un
salaire raisonnable. On compte 2000 chiffonniers, et à-peu-près un
pareil nombre de femmes et d’enfans exerçant la même profession, en
tout 4000.” Frégier, Des Classes Dangereuses de la Population dans les
Grandes Villes, t. i. p. 27.
Footnote 594:
Τηλία. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 147.
Footnote 595:
Athen. vi. 5.
Footnote 596:
Plut. Arat. § 6.
Footnote 597:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 318.
Footnote 598:
Cf. Poll. i. 51.
Footnote 599:
Athen. ii. 45. The travelling fishmongers even frequented the
country-houses and villages, viii. 57. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 13, seq.
Eq. 1241, sqq. It was probably persons of this class that most
commonly used their mouths as a purse, as the Siamese do their ears.
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 194. Aristoph. Vesp. 791. Their baskets
were commonly of rushes. Athen. vii. 72. See a representation of them,
Antich. di Ercol. t. i. tav. 21. p. 111.
Footnote 600:
Lucian, Amor. § 10. Plut. Arat. § 6.
Footnote 601:
Poll. ix. 48. Athen. ix. 22.
Footnote 602:
Chandler, ii. 104.
Footnote 603:
Athen. iv. 58.
Footnote 604:
Lucian. Bis Accus. § 16. Sch. Arist. Nub. 978.
Footnote 605:
Lucian. Demon. § 17.
Footnote 606:
Poll. iii. 124.
Footnote 607:
Andocid. De Myst. § 9, with the note of Reiske. Plut. Timol. § 14.
Footnote 608:
Athen. xiii. 94.
Footnote 609:
Xenoph. de Off. Mag. Eq. iii. 2.
Footnote 610:
Dem. de Fals. Leg. § 72. Cf. Athen. xi. 109. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art.
iii. 340.
-----
As there was a certain class of gods who presided over the market-place,
so likewise were there particular laws enacted to regulate its
transactions, with magistrates especially appointed to carry those laws
into execution. These servants of the commonwealth, five in the city and
five in the Peiræeus, were denominated Agoranomoi, and paraded all day
to and fro, armed with whips of many thongs,[611] amid the crowds of
buyers and sellers, both to preserve tranquillity in the market, and
prevent or punish those petty acts of fraud and injustice to which
persons who subsist by humble traffic are too often in all countries
addicted. Thus we find that, not the vintners only, but even the
cornchandlers kept small measures;[612] though, as there was a public
meter appointed by the state, it could only be when purchasers neglected
to employ him, that they lay open to this sort of imposition. Chapmen
detected in cheating, or otherwise behaving with impropriety, were
scourged by the Agoranomoi on the spot; and it is to be presumed, that,
as often as necessary, these officers were attended by a detachment of
that powerful and vigilant Scythian police, at one period a thousand
strong, which Athens constantly maintained, and which formerly pitched
its tents in the agora.[613] Another duty of the Agoranomoi[614] was to
collect the tolls paid by Bœotians, Æginetæ, or Megareans, upon
whatever articles they brought to the Athenian market. It should here be
observed, however, that neither corn nor bread was in later times, at
least, placed under the inspection of these magistrates, since there
were others called Sitophylaces,[615] whose business it was to see that
the public were not defrauded in such articles. The number of these
officers, at first three, was afterwards increased to fifteen, of which
ten presided over the city corn-market, and five over that of the
harbour, where a portico was built by Pericles[616] for the special use
of the cornchandlers and flour-merchants.
-----
Footnote 611:
Aristoph. Acharn. 723. Schol. 689. Bekk. Plaut. Captiv. iv. 2. 43.
These magistrates were afterwards called Logistæ. Schol. Acharn. 685.
Bekk. Cf. Poll. ii. 119. viii. 45. 99. x. 44. There was in use among
the ancients a horrid kind of whip in which small bones were
intertwisted with the thongs to render the strokes more painful.
Lucian, Luc. siv. Asin. § 38. Poll. x. 54.
Footnote 612:
Aristoph. Eq. 1005.
Footnote 613:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 54.
Footnote 614:
Id. 861.
Footnote 615:
Harpocrat. v. σιτοφύλακες p. 162. Dem. adv. Lept. § 8. Lys. cont.
Dardan. § 6.
Footnote 616:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 522.
-----
On the prices of articles,[617] our information is extremely incomplete:
it is said, however, that an ox in Solon’s time, was sold for five
drachmas,[618] a sheep for one; while about the same period, the former
animal sold at Rome for a hundred oboloi, and the latter for ten. In the
later, and what are called the more flourishing, ages of the
commonwealth, a sheep, according to its age, size, and breed, fetched
from ten to twenty drachmas, an ox from fifty to a hundred. The price of
a fine saddle-horse, in the age of Pericles, was twelve minæ, or about
fifty pounds sterling,[619] but a common animal for draught might be
obtained for three minæ. The price of thirteen talents paid by Alexander
for Bucephalos was a mere arbitrary piece of extravagance. A yoke of
mules sold from five to eight minas; asses sometimes for thirty
drachmas;[620] a sucking-pig for three drachmas;[621] a dove or a crow
fetched three oboloi; a jackdaw or a partridge one obolos, though the
philosopher Aristippos chose to give fifty drachmas for a single bird of
this kind; seven chaffinches for an obolos. A chœnix of olives cost
two chalci, and a cotyla of the best Attic honey five drachmas.
-----
Footnote 617:
Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. 101, sqq. Diog. Laert. vi. 35. Dem. adv.
Call. §§ 7. 9. Dionys. Halicarn. i. 100.
Footnote 618:
Plut. Poplic. § 11. Sol. § 23. On the low prices of provisions in
Lusitania in the time of Polybius. Athen. viii. 1.
Footnote 619:
Aristoph. Nub. 20. 1226. Lys. adv. Fam. Obtrect. § 4. Some men brought
themselves to ruin by their fondness for magnificent horses. Xenoph.
Œcon. iii. 8.
Footnote 620:
Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 35.
Footnote 621:
The same price was sometimes given for a Copaïc eel. Aristoph. Ach.
960, seq. Athen. xiv. 69.
-----
The weights and measures[622] in common use at Athens were the talent
(65 lbs. 12 dwt. 5 grs.) equal to sixty minæ; the mina (1 lb. 1 oz. 4
grs.) equal to a hundred drachmas; the drachma (6 dwt. 2 grs.) equal to
six oboloi; the obolos (9 grs.) equal to three keratia; the
keration[623] three grains. The Athenian dry measures were the medimnos,
equal to six hecteis;[624] the hecteus, equal to two hemihecteis; the
hemihecton, equal to four chœnices; the chœnix, equal to two xestæ; the
xestes, equal to two cotylæ; the cotyla, equal to four oxybapha; the
oxybaphon, equal to one cyathos and a half;[625] the cyathos, equal to
ten cochlearia.
-----
Footnote 622:
Goguet. ii. 196. Herod. i. 192. Poll. iv. 171. Schol. Aristoph. Nub.
450. Acharn. 108. See an exact representation of an ancient pair of
scales suspended from a bird’s bill in Mus. Cortonens. tab. 27.
Footnote 623:
Eisenschmid. De Pond. et Mens. Vet. p. 156.
Footnote 624:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 633. Eq. 95.
Footnote 625:
Eisenschmid. p. 168.
-----
Of the other measures that occur in ancient authors, it may be worth
while to mention the Persian artabe,[626] (hodie ardeb,) which exceeded
the Attic medimnos by about three chœnices; the akanè,[627] likewise
a Persian measure, equal to forty-five Attic medimnoi or a Bœotian
measure equal to two bushels; the addix[628] equal to four chœnices;
the dadix[629] to six; the capithe to two; the maris to six cotylæ,[630]
the cophinos, a Bœotian measure, to three choes.[631]
-----
Footnote 626:
Athen. xii. 73.
Footnote 627:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 108.
Footnote 628:
Etym. Mag. 16. 53.-17. 45.
Footnote 629:
Poll. iv. 168.
Footnote 630:
Id. x. 184.
Footnote 631:
Id. iv. 168.
-----
CHAPTER III.
INDUSTRY: PERFUMERS, BARBERS, GOLDSMITHS, LAPIDARIES, ETC.
It has been already observed that the shops of the perfumers[632] were,
for the most part, situated in the Agora or its neighbourhood, and much
frequented by newsmongers and young men of distinction. From this it
follows, that they must have been of spacious dimensions; and it is
extremely probable that they were fitted up with every attention to show
and elegance. They necessarily contained a number of seats and chairs
for the accommodation of customers, and there can scarcely be a doubt,
that the various unguents, perfumes, oils, and essences, were ranged on
shelves, along the walls, in fine jars, vases of Cyprian marble, and
boxes of alabaster,[633] sometimes of one piece, with vessels of glass
and silver,[634] or fine earthenware, or porcelain, or beautiful
sea-shells.[635] The counters were probably of marble or polished stone,
as at Pompeii; and the shopman was supplied with the usual paraphernalia
of scales and weights,[636] and measures, and ladles, and spoons, and
spatulæ, as in modern times. Peron, an Egyptian, the owner of one of
these shops, has been thought of sufficient consequence to have his name
transmitted to posterity.[637]
-----
Footnote 632:
Demosth. in Olymp. § 3. Athen. i. 33. Poll. vii. 177.
Footnote 633:
Herod. iii. 20. Pignor. De Serv. 192. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 1015.
1027. Athen. xv. 39. Poll. x. 119.
Footnote 634:
Lucian. Amor. 39.
Footnote 635:
Horat. Carm. ii. 723. Dœring, however, supposes vessels in the shape
of shells to be meant.
Footnote 636:
Poll. x. 126.
Footnote 637:
From the way in which this perfumer is mentioned by the comic poets,
it may be inferred, that he demanded exceedingly high prices for his
commodities. For, in order apparently to tax a person with excessive
extravagance, he is said to have purchased unguents of Peron wherewith
to anoint the feet of some friend or patron. Athen. xv. 40. xii. 78.
-----
From the richness and variety of odours made use of by the ancients we
may infer, that the fragrance of such an establishment at Athens,
exceeded that of Araby the Blest. For every land and every sweet flower
that grew supplied some ingredient to the endless stock of the
perfumer.[638] There was incense, and frankincense, and spikenard,[639]
and myrrh, and oils of saffron and cinnamon,[640] and sweet
marjoram,[641] and fenugreek,[642] and roses,[643] and hyoscyamos,[644]
and maiden’s hair,[645] and iris,[646] and lilies,[647] and watermint,
and rosemary, and eastern privet,[648] and baccharis,[649] and thyme. In
truth the Athenians, who were esteemed the inventors of all good and
useful things,[650] delighted exceedingly in the luxury of sweet smells,
and therefore culled from Sicily, and Egypt, and Phœnicia, and Lydia,
and Babylonia, and India, and Arabia, whatever could communicate a
pleasing scent to their garments,[651] their apartments, or their
beards. Even the doves and swallows that flew tame about the house had
their feathers drenched with odoriferous essences, which they scattered
with their waving wings through the air.[652] This excessive passion for
perfumes rendered the favourite articles of it dear, so that of some
kinds a cotyla sold for two or five minæ;[653] of others, for ten; while
the balm of Gilead, even in the country where it was collected, was
valued at double its weight in silver.[654] There were, however,
inferior kinds of perfume, some of which were cheap enough, since we
find that an alabaster boxful, brought from the East, sometimes sold for
two drachmas.[655]
-----
Footnote 638:
Athen. i. 33. xii. 78. xiv. 50. Bochart. Geog. Sac. i. 272, seq. Max.
Tyr. p. 10.
Footnote 639:
Athen. xv. 42. Dioscor. 1. 75.
Footnote 640:
Dioscor. 1. 74.
Footnote 641:
Ἀμάρακος. Dioscor. i. 68. Poll. vi. 104.
Footnote 642:
Dioscor. i. 57.
Footnote 643:
Id. i. 53.
Footnote 644:
Id. i. 42.
Footnote 645:
Ἀδιάντον. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 14. 1.
Footnote 646:
Poll. vi. 104.
Footnote 647:
Id. vi. 105. Dioscor. iii. 116.
Footnote 648:
Dioscor. i. 124.
Footnote 649:
Poll. vi. 104. Dioscor. iii. 51. Παρὰ πολλοῖς δὲ τῶν κωμῳδιοποιῶν
ὀνομάζεται τι μύρον βάκκαρις· οὗ μνημονεύει καὶ Ἱππώναξ διὰ τούτων·
—Βακκάρει δὲ τὰς ῥῖνας
Ἤλειφον· ἔστι δ᾽ οἵη περ κρόκος.
Athen. Deipnosoph. xv. 41.
Footnote 650:
See on the various inventions of the Athenians, Frid. Creuzer, Orat.
de Civit. Athen. Omn. Human. Parent. Francfurt. 1826.
Footnote 651:
This we are told the person itself of Alexander did, being by nature
scented like a nosegay. Plut. Alexand. § 4. The same thing is related
of Catherine de Medicis, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Blumenbach’s
Physiology, Note. p. 182.
Footnote 652:
Cf. Il. ζ. 288. Athen. vi. 67. Poll. vi. 104. Plat. Rep. iii. p. 203.
Stallb.
Footnote 653:
Athen. xv. 44.
Footnote 654:
Dioscor. i. 18.
Footnote 655:
Lucian. Dial. Meret, xiv. § 2.
-----
Great use was made of saffron as a perfume.[656] Halls, courts, and
theatres were saturated with its odour,[657] and statues[658] were made
to flow, like common fountains, with saffron-water. From a great number
of other flowers, essences and unguents were likewise prepared; such as
our lady’s rose, southernwood,[659] vine-flowers,[660] the
narcissus,[661] anis-flower,[662] high taper, betel-leaf, and the
jasmine, which, in Persia, was used at banquets and in the baths.[663]
-----
Footnote 656:
Κρόκος. Dioscor. i. 64.
Footnote 657:
Æl. Spart. Vit. Adrian. c. 18. p. 16.
Footnote 658:
Lucan. Pharsal. 809.
Footnote 659:
Ἀβροτόνον. Dioscor. i. 60.
Footnote 660:
Οἰνάνθαι. Dioscor. i. 56. Theoph. de Caus. Plant. iii. 14. 8.
Footnote 661:
Dioscor. i. 63.
Footnote 662:
Ἄνηθον Dioscor. i. 61. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 1. 2.
Footnote 663:
Dioscor. Noth. p. 442. d.
-----
In the preparation of unguents, numerous articles were made use of,
either to give them consistency or to modify the scent: among these were
the root of the anchusa,[664] palm spatha,[665] butter,[666]
sweet-scented moss,[667] and the odoriferous reed.[668]
-----
Footnote 664:
Dioscor. iv. 23. Cf. Plin. xiii. 1.
Footnote 665:
Dioscor. i. 55. 150.
Footnote 666:
From which the unguent obtained the name of βουτύρινον. Dioscor. i.
64.
Footnote 667:
Βρύον. Dioscor. i. 20.
Footnote 668:
Dioscor. i. 17.
-----
Several unguents received their names from the persons who invented
them, or from the places whence they were imported, though others were
distinguished by appellations which are no longer intelligible: thus,
the Megalion or Megalesian derived its name from Megallos, a Sicilian
perfumer;[669] the Plangonian from Plango, a female perfumer of
Elis.[670] The black ointment, doubtless, received its name from its
colour; but wherefore the Sagdas is so called is not known:[671] both
these were of Egyptian manufacture. From Lydia was imported the
Brenthion,[672] and from Babylonia the Nardon, which disputed the prize
with the royal unguent. There was among the Egyptians a perfume called
Cyphi,[673] entirely appropriated to the use of the gods, into the
composition of which entered the following ingredients; the cyperus, a
quantity of juniper-berries, raisins, odoriferous reeds and rushes, the
aspalathos, myrrh, wine, resin, and honey, mixed in certain proportions,
and reduced to a fine paste. Unguent of roses was preserved by an
admixture of salt.[674]
-----
Footnote 669:
Athen. xv. 42. To this perfume Strattis alludes in his Medea:—
——Καὶ λέγ’, ὅτι μύρον φέρεις αὐτῇ
Τοιοῦτον, οἷον οὐ Μέγαλλος πώποτε
Ἥψησεν, οὐδὲ Δινίας Αἰγύπτιος
Οὔτ᾽ εἶδεν, οὔτ᾽ ἐκτήσατο.—
Footnote 670:
Poll. vi. 104. Athen. xv. 42.
Footnote 671:
Poll. vi. 104. Athen. xv. 43.
Footnote 672:
Poll. vi. 104.
Footnote 673:
Dioscor. i. 24.
Footnote 674:
Id. i. 53.
-----
But the perfumers dealt not in odours and essences only, their stock
containing every variety of cosmetic for the use of the ladies, who made
a complete business of beautifying their faces,[675] which at length
became wholly artificial, rather a mask than a countenance.[676] They
whitened their foreheads, dyed their eyebrows, and fashioned them like
arches, painted black the edges of their eyelids,[677] rendered their
eyes humid and bright by powder-of-lead ore, spread over their faces the
hues of the lily intermingled with the bloom of the rose, adorned
themselves with false ringlets, changed the yellow into black, the black
into auburn,[678] gave a ruby tinge to their lips, and blanched their
teeth into ivory. But the psimmythion,[679] (ceruse or white lead,)
which rendered them fair, undermined their constitution, and poisoned
their breath. On the subject of rouge, the Greeks had a very poetical
and beautiful saying:—“She plants roses in her cheeks,” said they,
“which, like those of Locris, will bloom in an hour and fade in
less.”[680]
-----
Footnote 675:
We do not hear, however, that they carried their rage against nature
so far as certain Parisian dames commemorated by Montaigne, Essais, t.
iii. p. 29, sqq. “Qui n’a ouy parler à Paris de celle, qui se fit
escorcher pour seulement en acquérir le teint plus frais d’une
nouvelle peau? Il y en a qui se sont fait arracher des dents vives et
saines, pour en former la voix plus molle, et plus grasse, ou pour les
ranger en meilleur ordre. Combien d’examples du mespris de la douleur
avons nous en ce genre? Que ne peuvent-elles? Que craignent-elles pour
peu qu’il y ait d’agencement à espérer en leur beauté?
‘Vellere queis cura est albos à stirpe capillos,
Et faciem demptâ pellere referre novam.’
Tibull. i. 9. 45, seq.
“J’en ay veu engloutir du sable, de la cendre, et ce travailler à
point nommé de ruiner leur estomac pour acquérir les pasles couleurs.
Pour faire un corps bien espagnolé, quelle géhenne ne souffrent-elles,
guindées et sanglées avec de grosses coches sur les costez, jusques à
la chair vive? Ouy quelquefois à en mourir.”
-----
One sort of rouge[681] appears to have been obtained from a species of
sea-moss or wrake,[682] which some have confounded with the
anchusa,[683] though the grammarians enumerate them as things entirely
different. One of the commentators supposes the _purpurissa_ to be
meant, by which the Romans understood a sort of cheek-varnish,
vermilion, or Spanish paint. There was in use a pigment for the
eyebrows, called Hypogramma,[684] and the edges of the eyelids were
tinged black with Stimmis,[685] an oxyde of antimony, which still
constitutes one of the articles of the female toilette in the East.
Sometimes the eyebrows were blackened with resin soot,[686] and the
eyelashes caused to lie regularly by naphtha,[687] and a sort of paste
composed of glue and pounded marble.[688] Another curious cosmetic was,
the Adarces,[689] a substance resembling congealed froth, found on reeds
and the dry stalks of plants about the ponds and marshes of Cappadocia.
It was said to remove freckles, and enjoyed, likewise, great credit in
medicine. A preparation composed of the flour of turnip-seed, lupines,
wheat, darnel, and chick-peas, was used for clearing the skin; so,
likewise, were the Chian and Selinusian earths,[690] which removed
wrinkles, and rendered the skin smooth and shining. They were in
constant use in the baths. Cassia,[691] honey,[692] pepper,[693] and
myrrh,[694] cured pimples and effaced spots; fenugreek[695] whitened the
hands and removed sunburns; briony,[696] isinglass,[697] costos,[698]
galbanum,[699] lupines, rainwater,[700] radishes,[701] and hare’s
blood,[702] the biscutella didyma,[703] truffles,[704] cinnamon,[705]
linseed,[706] ladanum,[707] iris-roots,[708] white hellebore,[709]
Sardinian honey,[710] onion-juice,[711] and spring-wheat, moistened with
oxymel,[712] were among the principal preparations for removing moles
and freckles, and beautifying the skin. In some parts of Greece
elm-juice,[713] expressed at the first putting forth of the leaves in
spring, was employed to give clearness and resplendency to the
complexion. Almond-paste,[714] also, with the roots of the bitter
almond-tree, effaced spots from the skin. Others, for the same purpose,
made use of the berries of the wild-vine,[715] and a paste was prepared
from lilies which induced fairness, and rendered the face smooth and
shining.[716] To protect the complexion from the sun, the whole
countenance was varnished, as it were, with white of egg;[717] and some
women, possibly rustics, used goose and hen’s grease as a cosmetic.[718]
The roots of the spikenard, when imported from the East, usually
retained about them a little of the soil in which the plant had
grown:[719] this was carefully rubbed off, and having been passed
through a fine sieve, was used for washing the hands, as it probably
retained something of the fragrance of the plant. Rose leaves, reduced
to powder, were sprinkled over persons as they issued from the bath,
particularly about the eyes, to heighten the freshness of the face.[720]
To communicate additional sweetness to their persons, Greek ladies
sometimes wore about their necks carcanets of rose pastilles[721]
instead of jewelled necklaces, into the composition of which, however,
several other ingredients entered, as nard, myrrh, costos, Illyrian
iris, honey, and Chian wine.
-----
Footnote 676:
Poll. v. 102.
Μὴ τοίνων τὸ πρόσωπον ἅπαν ψιμύθῳ κατάπλαττε,
Ὥστε προσοπεῖον, κ’ οὐχι πρόσωπον ἔχειν.
Anthol. Græc. xi. 408.
Footnote 677:
The pigment with which the interior of the eyelid is blackened at
present is the soot of Ladanum, or incense, which the ladies
themselves procure by casting a few grains of those precious
substances upon coals of fire, and intercepting the smoke with a
plate, on which the soot speedily accumulates. Chandler, ii. 140.
Footnote 678:
Τὴν κεφαλὴν βάπτεις, τὸ δὲ γῆρας οὔποτε βάψεις
Οὔδὲ παρειάων ἐκτανύσεις ῥυτίδας.
Anthol. Græc. xi. 408.
Footnote 679:
See Book iii. chapter v. and Pollux, v. 102.
Footnote 680:
Ῥόδον παρειαῖς φυτεύει, αὐθωρὸν ἀνθοῦν, καὶ θᾶττον ἀπανθοῦν κατὰ τὸ
Λοκρὸν. Poll. v. 102. This fugitive species of rose is alluded to by
Lycophron, in his Cassandra, 1429:
Λοκρὸν δ᾽ ὁποῖα παῦρον ἀνθήσας ῥόδον.
See the note of Meursius, t. iii. p. 1347. ed. C. G. Müller; and
Jungermann ad Poll. t. iv. p. 1010.
Footnote 681:
To this Lucillius alludes in the Anthology:
Οὔποτε φῦκος
Καὶ ψίμυθος τεύξει τὴν Ἑκάβην Ἑλένην.
Anthol. Græc. xi. 408.
Footnote 682:
Poll. v. 101.
Footnote 683:
Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 8. 3.
Footnote 684:
Poll. v. 101. vii. 95.
Footnote 685:
Ion, in his Omphalè. Poll. v. 101. Luc. Amor. 39.
Footnote 686:
Dioscor. i. 93. And lamp-black. Alex. Frag. ap. Athen. xiii. 23. Cf.
Luc. Bis Accus. § 31.
Footnote 687:
Dioscor. i. 101.
Footnote 688:
Ἡ λιθοκόλλα, μίγμα οὖσα μαρμάρου ἢ λίθου Παρίου καὶ ταυροκόλλης,
δύναται διὰ μηλωτίδος πεπυρωμένης τρίχας ἀνακολλᾷν τὰς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς.
Dioscor. v. 164.
Footnote 689:
Dioscor. v. 137.
Footnote 690:
Id. v. 175.
Footnote 691:
Id. i. 12.
Footnote 692:
Id. ii. 101.
Footnote 693:
Id. ii. 189.
Footnote 694:
Id. i. 77.
Footnote 695:
Τῆλις. Id. i. 57.
Footnote 696:
Ἄμπέλος μελαίνα. Dioscor. iv. 185.
Footnote 697:
Id. iii. 102.
Footnote 698:
Id. i. 15.
Footnote 699:
Id. v. 97.
Footnote 700:
Dioscor. ii. 132.
Footnote 701:
Id. ii. 137.
Footnote 702:
Id. ii. 21. 97.
Footnote 703:
Ἄλυσσον. iii. 105.
Footnote 704:
Dioscor. ii. 200.
Footnote 705:
Id. i. 13.
Footnote 706:
Id. ii. 125.
Footnote 707:
Id. i. 128.
Footnote 708:
Id. i. 1.
Footnote 709:
Id. iv. 150.
Footnote 710:
Id. ii. 102.
Footnote 711:
Id. ii. 181.
Footnote 712:
Id. ii. 107.
Footnote 713:
Id. i. 101.
Footnote 714:
Id. i. 176.
Footnote 715:
Id. iv. 183. From the roots of the wild vine, also, a kind of paste
was prepared, which was thought to cleanse the skin, and remove
pimples and freckles. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 20. 3.
Footnote 716:
Dioscor. iii. 116.
Footnote 717:
Id. ii. 55.
Footnote 718:
Id. ii. 93.
Footnote 719:
Id. i. 6.
Footnote 720:
Id. i. 130.
Footnote 721:
These pastilles (τροχίσκοι) were about three oboloi in weight, and the
purpose for which they were worn is thus stated by Dioscorides:—χρῆσις
δὲ αὐτων ἐστιν, ἐπὶ γυναικῶν περιτιθεμένων τῳ τραχήλῳ ἀντὶ ὁρμῶν,
ἀμβλυνουσῶν τὴν τῶν ἱδρώτων δυσωδίαν. i. 131.
-----
The dentifrices[722] of the Greeks consisted chiefly of the purple fish,
burnt with salt, and reduced to powder;[723] the Arabic stone,[724]
calcined in like manner; and pumice-stone.[725] Asses’ milk was used as
a gargle to preserve the teeth.[726] The toothpicks[727] most commonly
used were small slips of cane, or green branches of the lentiscus,[728]
the ashes of which were likewise mingled with all kinds of tooth-powder.
The citron,[729] eaten as a remedy for longing, was thought to render
the breath sweet. There was a kind of ointment prepared of saffron,
which, mingled with water, they employed to restore brilliance to eyes
which had lost their colour.[730] A pomatum, composed of oil and the
husks of filbert-nuts burnt and reduced to powder, was used in infancy
to change blue eyes into black.[731]
-----
Footnote 722:
Lucian. Amor. § 39. The beauty, however, of the Grecian ladies’ teeth
was remarkable. Luc. Imag. § 9. False teeth were fastened in with gold
wire. Rhet. Præcept. § 24.
Footnote 723:
Dioscor. ii. 4.
Footnote 724:
Id. v. 149.
Footnote 725:
Id. v. 125.
Footnote 726:
Id. ii. 77.
Footnote 727:
Ear-picks were commonly of olive-wood. Poll. ii. 102.
Footnote 728:
Dioscor. i. 89.
Footnote 729:
Ἐὰν τις ἑψήσας ἐν ζωμῷ ἢ ἐν ἄλλῳ τινὶ τὸ ἔξωθεν τοῦ μήλου ἐκπιέση εἰς
τὸ στόμα καὶ καταροφήση, ποιεῖ τὴν ὀσμὴν ἡδεῖαν Theoph. Hist. Plant.
iv. 4. 2. Dioscor. i. 166.
Footnote 730:
Dioscor. i. 64.
Footnote 731:
Id. i. 179.
-----
The barbers, who, both in locality and repute, were next-door neighbours
to the perfumers, enjoyed much the same sort of reputation as they do in
modern times. In their shops scandal was fabricated, and news, good and
bad, put into circulation. It was at a barber’s in the Peiræeus that
some stranger first disclosed the intelligence of the defeat in Sicily,
thereby bringing the longue-tongued shaver into the greatest trouble;
for as he straightway ran up to the city and gave vent to the evil
tidings, he was apprehended and put to the torture, in order to discover
the real author of what was supposed to be an atrocious
fabrication.[732] But that which sometimes thus brought them into
straits, proved most commonly a source of profit, since to hear their
laughable stories and anecdotes many more persons congregated under
their roofs than stood in need of new wigs or curling-irons,[733] and
probably got shaved by way of compliment to the master of the house.
Such of them as were remarkably unskilful sought to make up for their
awkwardness[734] by the number and elegance of their razors, and the
large size of their mirrors.[735] But it was not, we are told,
unfrequent for men to get shaved by some humble practitioner,[736] with
one razor and a cunning hand, and afterwards to lounge into the more
dashing shops, to put their curls in order before the large mirrors
which adorned the walls.[737]
-----
Footnote 732:
Plut. Nic. § 30.
Footnote 733:
These irons were heated in the ashes. Pignor. de Servis, p. 194. Cf.
Poll. ii. 31.
Footnote 734:
Luc. adv. Indoct. § 29. In Asia Minor, where numbers of ancient
customs still linger, congealed blood is often used for shaving
instead of soap. Chandler, i. 96. Can this practice plead a classical
origin?
Footnote 735:
Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 7. p. 88. Gitone, Il Costume Antico e
Moderno di tutti i Popoli, t. i. p. 24. Tav. 15.
Footnote 736:
We learn from an anecdote of Crates, that these barbers, like their
descendants in modern times, were accustomed to envelope their
patients in linen or cotton cloths. The Cynic, thinking proper one day
to walk the streets in his shirt, was reprimanded by the Astynomos. “I
will show you Theophrastus in a similar garb,” he replied. “Where?”
inquired the magistrate. “There!” answered Crates, pointing to a
barber’s shop where the philosopher was undergoing the operation of
shaving. Diog. Laert. vi. 90.
Footnote 737:
Lucian. adv. Indoct. § 29. Cf. Poll. ii. 27.
-----
If we may judge by the works of art that have come down to us, however,
the barbers of Hellas generally understood their business in great
perfection, since nowhere do we find more shapely heads or finer curls
than on the statues of antiquity.[738] Even here, however, we discover
few traces of that variety in the manner of cutting and dressing the
hair,[739] for which they were chiefly distinguished. While the
beard[740] was worn, their principal occupation must have been the
clipping, curling, and perfuming of it; but afterwards when persons
shaved in order to appear young,[741] and had learned to cover their
bald pates with wigs,[742] their business grew to be much the same as it
is at present. Their arts were necessarily in great request among the
ladies, for whom they contrived false eyebrows,[743] and innumerable
dyes for giving whatever colour they desired to the hair, rendering it
luxuriant and preventing it from turning grey. Hog’s lard and even
bear’s grease mixed with powder of burnt filberts[744] were then in
great request for strengthening and restoring the hair, together with
onion-juice,[745] olives steeped in wine,[746] myrrh,[747] wild-olive
oil[748] mingled with water, according to Aristotle,[749] the glutinous
humour of snails obtained by passing a needle through them, and
immediately applied to the roots of the hair,[750] a bruized
cabbage-leaf,[751] a hare’s head reduced to ashes,[752] the ashes of the
asphodel-root,[753] burnt frogs,[754] and goat’s hoof,[755] Naxian
stone,[756] halcyonion,[757] burnt walnuts,[758] and oil of pitch.[759]
The soot of pitch restored fallen eyelashes.[760] Among the depilatory
preparations[761] used by ancient barbers may be enumerated the
fumitory,[762] the scolopendra thalassia,[763] oak-fern,[764] juice of
vine-leaves,[765] orpiment,[766] flour of salt,[767] sea-froth,[768] and
the blood of the chamelion.[769]
-----
Footnote 738:
Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi. ii. 239.
Footnote 739:
Cf. Plut. Thes. §. 5.
Footnote 740:
Vid. Il. δ. 533. Plut. Thes. § 5. Dion Chrysost. i. 261, seq. Κάλυμμα.
Aristoph. Lysist. 530. et Schol. Eq. 578.
Footnote 741:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 118. The practice of shaving does not appear
to have grown common until the times of Alexander of Macedon. Athen.
xiii. 18.
Footnote 742:
Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 631. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 115. Luc. Dial.
Meret. xii. § 5. Poll. ii. 30. Dutens, in his Origines des Découvertes
attribuées aux Modernes, p. 290, seq. has collected an ill-digested
heap of materials on ancient wigs, principally, however, on those of
the Romans.
Footnote 743:
Pignor. De Serv. p. 193.
Footnote 744:
Ὅλα δὲ καέντα λεῖα μετὰ ἀξιουγγίου ἢ στέατος ἀρκτείου, ἀλωπεκίας
ἐπιχρισθέντα δασύνει. Dioscor. i. 169.
Footnote 745:
Dioscor. ii. 181. Maidenhair, black and white, pounded in oil to the
consistence of a paste, prevented the hair from falling off. Theoph.
Hist. Plant. vii. 14. 1.
Footnote 746:
Dioscor. iii. 25.
Footnote 747:
Id. i. 77.
Footnote 748:
Id. i. 140.
Footnote 749:
This fact is mentioned in a very curious passage of the treatise De
Generatione Animalium, v. 5: Ὅτι δὲ γίγνεται ἡ πολιὰ σήψει τινὶ, καὶ
ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν (ὥσπερ οἴονταί τινες) αὔανσις, σημεῖον τοῦ προτέρου
ῥηθέντος, τὸ τὰς σκεπαζομένας τρίχας πίλοις ἢ καλύμμασι, πολιοῦσθαι
θᾶττον· (τὰ γὰρ πνεύματα κωλύει τὴν σῆψιν· ἡ δὲ σκέπη ἄπνοιαν ποιεῖ)
καὶ τὸ βοηθεῖν τὴν ἄλειψιν τοῦ ὕδατος καὶ τοῦ ἐλαίου μιγνυμένων Τὸ μὲν
γὰρ ὕδωρ, ψύχει· τὸ δὲ ἔλαιον μιγνύμενον, κωλύει ξηραίνεσθαι ταχέως.
Τὸ γὰρ ὕδωρ εὐξήραντον.
Footnote 750:
Dioscor. ii. 11.
Footnote 751:
Id. ii. 146.
Footnote 752:
Id. ii. 21.
Footnote 753:
Id. ii. 199.
Footnote 754:
Id. ii. 28.
Footnote 755:
Id. ii. 46.
Footnote 756:
Id. v. 168.
Footnote 757:
Id. v. 136.
Footnote 758:
Id. i. 178.
Footnote 759:
Id. i. 96.
Footnote 760:
Id. i. 96.
Footnote 761:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 157.
Footnote 762:
Dioscor. iv. 110.
Footnote 763:
Id. ii. 16.
Footnote 764:
Δρυοπτερὶς, Dioscor. iv. 189.
Footnote 765:
Dioscor. v. 1.
Footnote 766:
Id. v. 121.
Footnote 767:
Id. v. 129.
Footnote 768:
Id. v. 127.
Footnote 769:
Id. iv. 170.
-----
To dye tresses auburn,[770] a colour much admired by the Greeks, they
pounded a quantity of the leaves of eastern privet[771] in a mortar, and
then steeping it in the juice of fuller’s-herb, applied the preparation
to the hair. The same effect was produced by a decoction of lotus
stems,[772] or of the herb lycion.[773] As black hair, however, obtained
the preference of the majority, partly[774] perhaps because it better
suited their complexions, the number of recipes for giving it that hue
is very great. Among the most remarkable substances employed for this
purpose we may mention the ampelitis,[775] a black earth imported from
Seleucia, in Syria, and the sory,[776] a mineral found chiefly in Egypt.
To these may be added decoctions of wood-blade,[777] myrtle, and
myrtle-berries,[778] ivy,[779] and dwarf-elder berries,[780] sage,[781]
mulberries,[782] and palm-spathæ,[783] as also cypress cones, boiled in
vinegar.[784] There prevailed an opinion in Italy[785] that the birds
which fed on the berries of the smilax or yew-tree became black, though
we do not find, that the barbers had thought of introducing them among
the hair dyes.
-----
Footnote 770:
Poll. v. 102. ii. 37. Plat. De Rep. vi. 87.
Footnote 771:
Κύπρος. Dioscor. i. 124.
Footnote 772:
Dioscor. i. 171.
Footnote 773:
Id. i. 132.
Footnote 774:
Luc. Dial. Meret. xi. § 3.
Footnote 775:
Dioscor. v. 181.
Footnote 776:
Id. v. 119.
Footnote 777:
Φλόμος. Dioscor. iv. 104. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 123.
Footnote 778:
Dioscor. i. 155. v. 37.
Footnote 779:
Dioscor. ii. 210.
Footnote 780:
Χαμαιάκτης καρποὶ. Dioscor. iv. 175.
Footnote 781:
Dioscor. iii. 40.
Footnote 782:
Id. i. 180.
Footnote 783:
Id. i. 150.
Footnote 784:
Dioscor. i. 102.
Footnote 785:
Id. iv. 80. The berry of the yew-tree, known to be perfectly harmless,
was often eaten in antiquity. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 10. 3.
-----
Another class of tradesmen who selected the Agora[786] or its
neighbourhood, for their residence, was the goldsmiths, silversmiths,
jewellers, and lapidaries, who were possibly of more importance in the
ancient than the modern world,[787] since a much greater quantity of the
precious metals was then wrought up into plate, whether for the temples,
chapels and sanctuaries of the gods,[788] or for private
individuals.[789] How much or how little of the articles they produced
could be seen at one time in their shops, it is now impossible to
determine; but if their practice resembled that of the moderns, it would
be difficult to imagine a greater blaze of magnificence[790] than must
have met the eye upon entering their establishments,—where piles of gold
and silver vessels[791] of all forms and dimensions, some burnished[792]
and plain, others embossed with every variety of figure in high or low
relief, others crusted with seed pearls,[793] or brilliants, or set with
gems[794] of every shade and hue, from the ruby, the emerald, and the
hyacinth, to the turquoise, the chrysoprase, the amethyst, the beryl,
and the jasper, might be beheld rising to the ceiling.
-----
Footnote 786:
Dem. cont. Mid. § 8.
Footnote 787:
The kings and courtiers of Persia even during the dangers of their
military expeditions carried along with them not only bowls and
goblets, but complete services for the table in silver and gold.
Herod. vii. 119. These instruments of luxury appear often to have
operated as an incitement to victory upon the enemies of Persia, at
least they constituted its reward. Thus in the plunder of Mardonios’s
camp at Platæa, the Helots found, we are told, tents sumptuously
decorated with silver and gold, bedsteads plated with the same
precious metals, gold bowls, cups, and other drinking vessels, and
carriages laden with golden and silver caldrons: σάκκους τε ἐπ᾽
ἁμαξέων εὕρισκον, ἐν τοῖσι λέβητες ἐφαίνοντο ἐνεόντες χρύσεοι τε καὶ
ἀργύρεοι. Id. ix. 80.
Footnote 788:
Thucyd. vi. 46.
Footnote 789:
Plut. Alcib. § 4.
Footnote 790:
Athen. vi. 17. xi. 105. Demosthen. adv. Tim. § 5. 7. Winkelm. Hist. de
l’Art, i. 277. Poll. i. 28.
Footnote 791:
Plat. Tim. vii. 77. 19. De Rep. t. vi. p. 86. 164. Schol. Acharn.
Arist. 1187. Among the cabinet ornaments of the ancients, we find
ostrich eggs set in silver. Plin. x. 1.
Footnote 792:
Goldsmiths made use, in burnishing, of the Samian stone. Dioscor. v.
173.
Footnote 793:
Athen. iv. 29. Casaub. ad. Theoph. Char. 311. These rich articles we
find were sometimes pledged to raise money. Dem. adv. Spud. § 4.
Footnote 794:
Athen. xi. 17.
-----
Occasionally articles of plate of enormous size were manufactured,[795]
such as cisterns,[796] or vases, or tripods, or salvers, or goblets of
gold or silver, presented as offerings by whole cities or communities to
some divinity. In these cases the workmanship was very frequently so
elaborate and exquisite as to be still more costly than the materials.
Entire landscapes, including innumerable figures and objects were
sometimes represented on the swell of a vase or goblet: Bacchanalian
processions, for example, with whole troops of satyrs and mænades moving
along some wooded valley, or desert mountain, or rocky shore, at the
heels of the Seileni and Dionysos, groups of nereids, nymphs, and
tritons, sporting in the warm sunshine, on the unruffled expanse of
ocean; and sacrifices, marriages, chariot-races, and chorusses of youths
and virgins, moving through the mazes of the dance, around the altar of
Apollo or Artemis. It is also to Hellenic goldsmiths that we are
evidently to attribute those marvellous productions of art reckoned
among the most boasted possessions of the Persian kings, such as that
vine of gold,[797] with its vast grape clusters, imitated both in size
and colour by the most precious gems, which formed a canopy over the
royal couch, or that golden platane-tree[798] and other vine, which,
rising from behind the throne, stretched its branches, tendrils, and
leaves of gold aloft over the monarch as he sat in state to give
audience to his people. Here the bunches of grapes in various stages of
ripeness were represented by emeralds, Indian carbuncles, and other
precious stones of the richest and most dazzling hues. These things we
know were not the works of Persians, having been presented to Darius by
Pythios, the Lydian, who, doubtless, caused them to be fashioned by
Grecian artists. What may have been the exact dimensions of this
platane-tree we know not; but, no doubt, Antiochos took an orator’s
licence, when, in an assembly of the Arcadians, he described it as too
diminutive to afford shelter to a grasshopper.[799]
-----
Footnote 795:
Athen. ix. 75. From the quantity of gold and silver plate laid up in
the Egyptian temples, it is evident the same taste prevailed also in
Egypt. Luc. Toxar. § 28.
Footnote 796:
Herodot. i. 51.
Footnote 797:
Athen. xii. 8. Herod. vii. 27.
Footnote 798:
Athen. xii. 55. The kings of America, guided by the same taste, far
exceeded the Persian monarchs in magnificence. Montaigne, having
spoken of the natural quickness and intelligence of the Indians, adds:
“L’espouvantable magnificence des villes de Cusco et de Mexico; et
entre plusieurs choses pareilles, le jardin de ce roy, où tous les
arbres, les fruicts, et toutes les herbes, selon l’ordre et grandeur
qu’ils ont en un jardin, estoient excellemment formées en or: comme en
son cabinet tous les animaux, qui naissoient en son estat et en ses
mers: et la beauté de leurs ouvrages, en pierrerie, en plume, en
cotton, en la peinture, montrent qu’ils ne nous cédoient non plus en
l’industrie.” Essais, l. iii. c. vi. t. viii. p. 33. Cf. Solis,
Histoire de la Conquête du Mexique, l. iii. c. xiv.
Footnote 799:
Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 1. 38.
-----
We may here perhaps with propriety make mention of that multitude of
golden statues[800] which thronged the temples of Greece. For it is not
true, as Lucian pretends, that the Hellenic gods and goddesses were
contented to shroud their beauty in marble, bronze, or ivory, while
Mithras exhibited his rude visage, and Anubis his dog’s snout, in
gold.[801] Even private individuals had statues erected to them of this
precious metal; and there were not wanting those who, like Gorgias, at
their own expense did the same honour to themselves.[802]
-----
Footnote 800:
Poll. viii. 86.
Footnote 801:
Lucian. Jup. Trag. § § 8. 9. Toxar. § 28. Cf. Alexand. § 18. Not to
mention other statues we find, that there was at Proconnesos, and
afterwards at Cyzicos, an image of Dindymenè of massive gold, except
the face, which was wrought with the teeth of the hippopotamos.
Pausan. viii. 46. 4. See also Winkel. Hist. de l’Art, on the statues
of gold and ivory found in Greece, t. i. p. 35. The Minotaur, whether
in picture or statue, was represented as a man with a bull’s head.
Lucian. Var. Hist. lib. ii. § 41.
Footnote 802:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 24. According to the general testimony of
ancient writers, however, the golden statue at Delphi was erected to
the Leontine sophist, by a general subscription. Eudoc. Ion. p. 101.
Valer. Max. viii. 15. Ext. 2. But from a passage in the Phædros, it
may be inferred, that the practice prevailed as described in the text:
Καὶ σοὶ ἐγώ, ὥσπερ οἱ ἐννέα ἄρχοντες, ὑπισχνοῦμαι χρυσῆν εἰκόνα
ἰσομέτρητον εἰς Δελφοὺς ἀναθήσειν, οὐ μόνον ἐμαυτοῦ ἀλλὰ καὶ σήν.
Plat. Opp. t. i. p. 19.
But the variety of articles thus composed of the precious metals was so
great as almost to defy description.[803] There were candelabra,[804]
thrones,[805] and chairs, shields,[806] basins and ewers,[807] flagons,
censers, goblets in form of walnut-shells, ladles,[808] spoons,
vinegar-saucers,[809] with almost every other article of the table.
Crowns, likewise, for the heads of statues of princes, and successful
generals, and other individuals whom the public desired to honour; with
bread[810] and work baskets probably in filigree, clasps,[811] and
spindles[812] for ladies, with armlets, anklets, bracelets, rings,
necklaces of carbuncles,[813] earrings,[814] and circlets for the head.
That these articles were usually formed with much taste and elegance we
may infer from the fact, that artists of the greatest respectability
were employed to make designs for them, while even the engravers of cups
and goblets, as Mys, for example, sometimes acquired great
celebrity.[815]
Footnote 803:
Among the Athenian chasers in metal Lycios obtained celebrity.
Demosth. adv. Timoth. § 7. Cf. Suid. t. ii. p. 66. d. e.
Footnote 804:
Gitone, Il Costume, tavv. 61, 62. Raccolta de’ Monumenti più
interessanti del Real Museo Borbonico, &c. tavv. 29, 30, 53, 54, 55.
Athen. xi. 48.
Footnote 805:
Xenoph. Hellen. v. 1. 3. Plut. Lysand. § 9.
Footnote 806:
Pausan. i. 25. 7.
Footnote 807:
Athen. ix. 75.
Footnote 808:
Id. iii. 100.
Footnote 809:
Suid. v. Ὀξύβαφον. t. ii. p. 319. d.
Footnote 810:
Athen. vi. 15.
Footnote 811:
Ælian. Var. Hist. i. 18.
Footnote 812:
Herod. iv. 162.
Footnote 813:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. vi. i. Plut. Phoc. § 19. Among the necklaces in
fashion were some of gold and amber beads intermixed. Luc. Heracl. §
3. A pair of earrings sometimes cost no more than five drachmas. Id.
Somn. seu Gall. §29. Cf. Athen. xii. 46. Hom. Odyss. σ. 290.
Footnote 814:
Il. x. 182. Poll. ii. 102.
Footnote 815:
Athen. xi. 19.
-----
The ancients understood well the art of washing and plating articles
formed of the inferior metals with gold and silver, as well as many
ingenious devices for soldering, mixing, varying the colours, frosting
the surface, and inlaying and flowering one metal with another. Statues
in Attica were commonly lacquered with gold;[816] and, from the remotest
antiquity, the art of gilding appears to have flourished in Greece,
since we find mention of it in Homer, who speaks of gilding[817] the
horns of victims offered up to the gods. The ancients, unquestionably,
employed much thicker gold leaf in this process than the moderns; from
which it has been inferred, that they were incapable of reducing it to
greater tenuity. But, besides that, when the leaves were too thin, the
quicksilver which they employed as a glue appeared through, and dimmed
the splendour of the gold, they seem to have aimed at that very duration
which causes us to admire the fragments of their gilding that still
exist:—in the subterraneous chambers, for example, of the Villa Borghese
on the Palatine hill, where the figures in gold scattered over a ground
of celestial blue, look as fresh as if just laid on.[818] Metals of all
kinds were likewise gilt—as copper, and silver, and bronze. In gilding
marble the leaf was attached to the stone with white of egg, which was
likewise employed, instead of quicksilver, by dishonest workmen, who
could thus make use of a much thinner leaf.[819] The moderns in gilding
marble substitute the juice of garlic and figs. The practice of gilding
wood and leather was also common in antiquity, as we find mention of
gilt wooden statues and beads,[820] and harness, and sandal-thongs. The
walls and roofs of chambers were covered, moreover, with gilding, and
this ornament was laid as well on wainscot as stucco.[821] The
conjecture of a modern writer,[822] that the ancients were acquainted
with the art of gilding in ormolu seems to be unfounded.
-----
Footnote 816:
That is if Pollux has been rightly interpreted, ii. 214. vii. 163,
with the notes of the commentators, t. iv. p. 486. t. v. p. 472.
Footnote 817:
Odyss. γ. 437, seq. Macrob. Saturn. i. 17. Ovid. Metam. vii. 161, seq.
x. 271, seq. Cf. Herod. ii. 63.
Footnote 818:
“Les deux chambres souterraines du palais des empereurs sur le mont
Palatin dans la villa Borghèse, nous offrent des ornemens dorés aussi
frais que s’ils venoient d’être faits, quoique ces chambres soient
fort humides à cause de la terre qui les couvre. On ne peut voir sans
admiration les bandes de bleu céleste en forme d’arcs, et chargées de
petites figures d’or, qui décorent ces pièces. La dorure s’est aussi
conservée dans le ruines de Persépolis.” Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art. t.
ii. p. 91.
Footnote 819:
On the gilding of the ancients see Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions. Vol.
iv. p. 176, seq. Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art. t. i. p. 34. t. ii. p.
90, seq. 647. Goguet. t. iv. p. 53, sqq.
Footnote 820:
Xen. Œconom. x. 3. 61.
Footnote 821:
Plin. xxxiii. 18. Senec. Epist. 115.
Footnote 822:
Dutens, Orig. des Découvertes, &c. p. 180.
-----
One of the minor, but most flourishing, branches of the goldsmiths’
trade seems to have been the making and setting of rings,[823] for which
the Greeks indulged an extraordinary fondness. They accordingly had them
of every form and material. Some persons, for example, wore a plain
gold, or silver, or even iron, hoop; others a silver ring encircled by a
narrow band of gold, or a gold ring with a band of silver, or an iron
ring inlaid with gold.[824] Some persons were satisfied with a bronze
ring, or one of gilt iron,[825] which they wore apparently in memory of
Prometheus, who, to preserve Zeus’ word unbroken, was fabled to bear on
his finger an iron ring set with a piece of Caucasian stone as a signet,
so that, by a divine sort of quibble, he might for ever be said to be
chained to Caucasus.[826] Others, again, delighted in rings of
amber,[827] white or yellow, or ivory, or porcelain, at least these were
fashionable in Egypt. Sometimes, they wore silver rings with signets of
gold, or the contrary. Mention, too, is made of a ring formed entirely
of carnelian, which, to preserve it, was encircled by a narrow hoop of
silver, and set with a golden signet.[828]
-----
Footnote 823:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 331. 756. Poll. ii. 155. See Kirchman, de Annulis,
p. 12, and _passim_.
Footnote 824:
Plin. xxxiv. 4.
Footnote 825:
Kirchman, de Annulis Veterum, c. iii. p. 10.
Footnote 826:
Serv. ad Virg. Eclog. vi. 41.
Footnote 827:
Σούκινοι καὶ ἐλεφάντινοι, δάκτυλοι ταῖς γυναιξίν εἰσι σύμφοροι. Suid.
t. ii. 775. c. Artemid. l. ii. c. v. Plin. xxxvii. 2.
Footnote 828:
Kirchman, de Ann. Vet. c. iii. p. 16. The Egyptians were accustomed to
wear little images of carnelian suspended from the neck. A specimen of
these figures, representing Typhon, or the evil principle, I brought
home with me to Europe. It had been found in the ruins of Thebes.
-----
Jugglers sold to persons of large faith rings[829] that would cure the
colic;[830] and articles of this description with magic and talismanic
virtues appear to have been at all times abundant and in great request.
-----
Footnote 829:
Lucian speaks of a talismanic ring having engraved on it the figure of
a Pythian Apollo. Philopseud. § 38; and of another made from the
iron-work of a cross, § 17.
Footnote 830:
Athen. iii. 96.
-----
Of signets[831] the most ancient would appear to have been small bits of
wood, which, having been worm-eaten in a grotesque or fanciful
manner,[832] were cut and polished, and used by some rough Thane for a
crest, in memory of which practice precious stones were in after ages
engraved so as to imitate exactly these rude materials.[833] In process
of time nearly every variety of precious stone[834] came to be engraved
for rings and seals.[835] Of these the most remarkable was the
carbuncle, in colour like a ripe mulberry, which when held up in the sun
glows like a flame or burning coal,[836] probably the reason why it was
supposed to shine in the dark like a lamp.[837] Under this name many
gems known at present by different appellations seem to have been
included, as the ruby,[838] whose proper colour is a cochineal red of
surpassing richness, admitting, however, occasionally, various
intermixtures of blue, producing the rose-red ruby, the former of a full
carmine, or rose colour, the latter tinged with a mixture of blue; the
rubacelle whose glowing red is dashed with a cast of yellow; the true
and the sorane garnet; the rock ruby of a violet red; the almandine and
the hyacinth, now confounded with the amethyst. Next to the above was
the carnelian[839] of a deep ensanguined hue, chiefly obtained from the
island of Sardinia: the jasper of a dark green, with spots of many
colours, the sapphire blue bespangled with gold.
-----
Footnote 831:
Treasurer’s ring. Athen. viii. 29. See Long. de Annul. Sig. p. 42,
sqq. Gorl. de Annul. Orig. Kornman. de Tripl. Ann. p. 44. We may here,
by the way, mention that law of Solon which forbade a lapidary to
retain in his possession the copy of any ring he had engraved. Diog.
Laert. i. 2. 9.
Footnote 832:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. i. 2. Θριπήδεστα, ξυλήφια τὰ ὑπὸθριπων
βεβρωμένα, οἷς ἐχρῶντο οἱ σφόδρα οἰκονομικοὶ ἀντὶ γλυπτῶν σφραγίδων.
Eustath. ad Odyss. α. t. iii. p. 37. 12. Suid. θριπηδέστατον. t. i. p.
1329. b. Etym. Mag. 456. 23.
Footnote 833:
“Dans le cabinet de Stosch il y a une pierre dont la gravure imite
très-bien les sillons d’un bois rongé par les vers.” Winkel. Hist. de
l’Art. t. i. p. 43.
Footnote 834:
Plat. Tim. vii. 80. Plin. ii. 63. xxxiii. 1. Herod. i. 195.
Footnote 835:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 994. See Mawe, Treatise on Diamonds, p. 85—134.
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 954.
Footnote 836:
Ἀλλο δὲ τι γένος ἐστὶ λίθων ὥσπερ ἐξ ἐναντίων πεφυκὸς, ἄκαυστον ὅλως,
ἄνθραξ καλούμενος, ἐξ οὗ καὶ τὰ σφραγίδια γλύφουσιν, ἐρυθρὸν μὲν τῷ
χρώματι, πρὸς δὲ τὸν ἥλιον τιθέμενον ἄνθρακος καιομένου ποιεῖ χρόαν.
Theoph. de Lapid. § 18.
Footnote 837:
“Is vulgo putatur in tenebris carbonis instar lucere; fortassis quia
Pyropus, seu Anthrax appellatus à veteribus fuit.” Anselm, Boet.
Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia, t. ii. c. viii. p. 140.
Footnote 838:
Sir John Hill, Notes on Theophrastus, de Lapidibus, p. 76, seq.
Footnote 839:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 23.
-----
Another gem held in high estimation by the ancients was the
emerald,[840] the exquisite colour of which, generally the most intense
green, was supposed to be more grateful to the eye than the sight of
vernal woods or meadows. For this reason many persons selected it for
seals in preference to all other stones.[841] Even the lapidaries
employed in cutting it were believed to have their vision improved by
its refreshing virtues. All emeralds, however, are not of one hue, but
exhibit every possible shade of green, from the dusky tint of the olive
leaf to the pale verdure of the acacia.[842] The Greek jewellers appear
to have judged of the genuineness of this stone by plunging it into
clear water: for if it were a true emerald it would, they thought,
impart its colour to the whole of the surrounding element; if not, a
small part only of it would be tinged.[843]
-----
Footnote 840:
Plin. xxxvii. 16. Boetius, l. ii. c. lii. 195. Menand. ap. Athen. iii.
46. Luc. Saturn. Epist. § 29. Suid. v. σμάραγδος. t. ii. p. 769. a.
Footnote 841:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 24.
Footnote 842:
See Baldæus, description of the Coasts of Malabar and Coromandel,
chap. xxiv.
Footnote 843:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 23.
-----
The ancients possessed a species of bastard emerald, found in vast
blocks, so that we read of an emerald obelisk in Egypt, which, though
consisting of but four pieces, rose to the height of sixty feet.[844] Of
this stone, probably, was the famous pillar which adorned the entrance
of the temple of Heracles at Tyre.[845] Of real emeralds the largest
known does not exceed six inches in length, and two in diameter. It may
be observed, that much pains and labour were expended in bringing the
emerald to its lustre.[846]
-----
Footnote 844:
Id. § 24. Plin. xxxvii. 19.
Footnote 845:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 25.
Footnote 846:
Id. § 27, seq.
-----
The lyncurios or modern hyacinth is enumerated among the seal gems.[847]
Its colour is that of flame with an intermixture of deep red, though it
is sometimes found of a full saffron hue, or even resembling amber. It
has by several writers been supposed to be the tourmaline. The lyncurios
was exceedingly hard and difficult to work. They likewise cut and
engraved for seals the amber, which Theophrastus describes as a native
mineral; the hyaloides, the omphax, the crystal,[848] the sardonyx, the
agate, the onyx, and the amethyst.[849] A gem of extraordinary beauty
was once found in the gold mines of Lampsacos, which, having been
engraved by a Tyrian lapidary, was presented to the Persian King.[850]
-----
Footnote 847:
Anselm. Boet. Gem. et Lapid. Hist. l. ii. c. 258, p. 477.
Footnote 848:
Winkelm. ii. 110.
Footnote 849:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 30. Poll. iii. 87. Luc. Dial. Meret. ix. § 2. Cf.
de Syr. Dea, § 32. Precious stones of various kinds were employed to
represent the eyes in statues, when the white was imitated by thin
silver plates. Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art. t. ii. p. 94.
Footnote 850:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 32.
-----
Respecting the various processes by which precious stones were engraved,
the ancients have left us but a few scattered hints. It appears certain,
however, that they polished precious stones with emery,[851] and
possessed the lapidary’s wheel, with all the finer tools at present in
use, including the diamond point,[852] which there is reason to believe
they likewise fixed on the wheel.[853] At any rate, they contrived with
the instruments they possessed to engrave figures, as of lions, heroes,
bacchantes, caryatides, trophies,[854] both in relief and intaglio,
which for beauty and delicacy have never yet been equalled. It was at
one time a question whether or not they were acquainted with the
microscope,[855]—though how they could engrave without it figures which
we require its assistance distinctly to perceive, seems somewhat
difficult to comprehend. The gem, for example, called the seal of
Michael Angelo, in the French king’s cabinet, though it does not exceed
half an inch in diameter, contains fifteen figures most elaborately
wrought.[856] A private gentleman at Rome possessed a wolf’s tooth on
which was a representation of the twelve gods.[857] Cicero commemorates
an individual who had written the whole Iliad in characters so minute
and in so small a compass, that it could be contained in a
walnut-shell.[858] Myrmecides, the Milesian, and Callicrates, the
Lacedæmonian, manufactured ivory chariots so small, that they could be
covered with the wing of a fly; and wrote two verses in gold letters on
a grain of sesame.[859]
-----
Footnote 851:
Σμύρις λίθος ἐστιν, ᾗ τὰς ψήφους οἱ δακτυλιογλύφοι σμήχουσι. Dioscor.
v. 166.
Footnote 852:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 15, with the authors cited by Hardouin.
Footnote 853:
Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art. t. ii. p. 108.
Footnote 854:
Plut. Alexand. § 1. Timol. § 31. Herod. iii. 41.
Footnote 855:
Cf. Senec. Quæst. Nat. i. 6. Macrob. Saturn. viii. 14.
Footnote 856:
Dutens, Origine des Découvertes, &c. p. 265.
Footnote 857:
Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art. t. i. p. 36. n. 4.
Footnote 858:
Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 21.
Footnote 859:
Ælian. Var. Hist. i. 17.
-----
We find mention, however, of burning-glasses as early as the age of
Socrates;[860] and a number of lenses, more powerful than those employed
by our own engravers, have been found among the ruins of
Herculaneum.[861] We may here, also, remark by the way, that the Greek
astronomers appear to have been acquainted with the telescope.[862]
-----
Footnote 860:
Aristoph. Nub. 764, seq. Cf. Aristot. Analyt. Post. i. 31. 8.
Barthelémy St. Hilaire de la Logique d’Aristot. t. ii. p. 367.
Footnote 861:
Dutens, Origine des Découvertes, &c. p. 265. i.
Footnote 862:
Id. p. 115, seq. Nixon. in Phil. Trans. v. lii. p. 125.
-----
CHAPTER IV.
INDUSTRY: SMITHS, CUTLERS, ARMOURERS, THE ART OF MINING,
CHARCOAL-MAKING, ETC.
The earliest smiths[863] in Greece wrought not in iron but in brass, of
which, at first, both arms and domestic implements were fashioned. In
Mexico and Peru, where, likewise, copper[864] was known before iron,
they possessed the art of hardening it to so great a degree, that it
would even cut stones and the closest-grained wood. The same or a
similar process was known to the ancients, and might still, perhaps, be
easily recovered were it any longer an object to be desired. The Greeks
always retained a strong partiality for articles of brass, copper, and
bronze, and besides statues,[865] pillars,[866] and trees, where the
fruit was sometimes of gold,[867] employed them in cups, urns, vases,
and caldrons, with covers of the same metal.[868] We also find mention
made of brazen mangers, and even maps.[869]
-----
Footnote 863:
Cf. Il. ξ. 48. Magii, Var. Lect. p. 130. 1.
Footnote 864:
The hardness, however, would appear to have been produced partly by
the interfusion of different metals, partly by the liquid in which the
implements were quenched. Ulloa, Mémoires Philosophiques, &c., t. ii.
p. 90. 94. Observations, p. 468. Cf. Voyages, t. i. p. 384.
Footnote 865:
Plut. Philop. § 8.
Footnote 866:
Thucyd. v. 47.
Footnote 867:
It is related of the bronze palm-tree at Delphi with fruit of gold,
that the dates were imitated so exactly, that they were pecked at and
destroyed by the crows: Ἐν δὲ Δελφοῖς Παλλάδιον ἕστηκε χρυσοῦν, ἐπὶ
φοίνικος χαλκοῦ βεβηκὸς, ἀνάθημα τῆς πόλεως ἀπὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἀριστείων.
Τοῦτ᾽ ἔκοπτον ἐφ’ ἡμέρας πολλὰς προσπετόμενοι κόρακες, καὶ τὸν καρπὸν
ὄντα χρυσοῦν τοῦ φοίνικος ἀπέτρωγον καὶ κατέβαλλον. Plut. Nic. § 8.
Footnote 868:
Herod. i. 48. iv. 81. 70. The extraordinary forms sometimes assumed by
these vases are in part mentioned by Pollux, who, in describing the
προσωποῦττα says, it was a vessel expanding above into the mouth of an
ox, or the jaws of a lion. Onomast. ii. 48. In the Royal Prussian
Museum there is found a vase, the mouth of which represents that of a
griffin. Racolta de’ Monumenti più Interressanti del Real Museo
Borbonico, e di varie Collezioni private, Publicati da Raffaele
Gargiulo, Napoli, 1825, No. 113. See in the same collection a variety
of other vases representing the faces of Hermes, the heads of dragons,
hippogriffs, wild boars, &c. No. 75, sqq.
Footnote 869:
Herod. ix. 70. v. 49.
-----
With tin, also, the Greeks, even in the Homeric age, were
acquainted;[870] and, among other uses which they, in later ages, made
of it, was that of lining the inside of their cooking utensils.[871]
-----
Footnote 870:
Il. σ. 565. φ. 592. ψ. 561.
Footnote 871:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, iv. 13.
-----
At a period beyond the reach of history they obtained a knowledge of the
use of both iron[872] and steel, the invention of which they attributed
to Hephaistos.[873] Homer, who speaks of axes and other implements of
steel, or, rather, of iron steeled at the edge, describes the process of
forming it by immersion in cold water.[874] In the manufacture of the
Homeric swords steel only would appear to have been, in most cases,
employed, since they were extremely brittle, and often shivered to
pieces by a mere blow upon shield or helmet. To guard against this
effect the superior and more delicate articles were, in later times,
cooled not in water but in oil.[875] The Spartans, we are told, quenched
their iron money in vinegar which rendered it, they supposed, brittle
and unmalleable, consequently of no value but as a token.[876]
-----
Footnote 872:
Palæphat. Fragm. ap. Gal. Opusc. Mythol. &c. p. 64, sqq.
Footnote 873:
Il. δ. 487.
Footnote 874:
Odyss. ι. 391.
Footnote 875:
Tenuiora ferramenta oleo restingui mos est, ne aqua in fragilitatem
durentur. Plin. xxxiv. 41.
Footnote 876:
Plut. Lycurgus, § 9.
Among the earliest nations who excelled in the smelting of iron and the
manufacture of steel were the Chalybes,[877] who are said to have
collected the ore from the beds of their rivers, and to have mingled
therewith a certain quantity of the mineral pyrimachos. Aristotle, in
describing the process of smelting, observes, that steel, in passing
through the furnace, not only diminishes in quantity but in specific
gravity also, that is to say, becomes less valuable. It was one merit of
the Chalybean steel that it was not liable to rust. The method of
preparing this metal which prevailed among the Celtiberians was
this:[878] they buried a number of iron plates in the earth, where they
suffered them to remain until the greater portion was converted into
rust.[879] They then drew them forth and wrought them into various kinds
of weapons, particularly swordblades, which were so keen that neither
shields, nor helmets, nor sculls, were able to resist their edge. To
this the complimentary Plutarch likens the language of the
Spartans.[880]
Footnote 877:
Justin. xliv. 4. Plin. vi. 4. 34. vii. 57. viii. 82.
Footnote 878:
Diodor. Sicul. v. 33. Suid. v. μάχαιρα. t. ii. p. 108. c.
Footnote 879:
Aristot. de Mirab. t. xvi. p. 187. Meteorol. iv. 6. p. 119, seq.
Footnote 880:
Καθάπερ γὰρ οἱ Κελτίβηρες ἐκ τοῦ σιδήρου τὸ στόμωμα ποιοῦσιν, ὅταν
κατορύξαντες εἰς τὴν γὴν τὸ πολὺ καὶ τὸ γεῶδες ἀποκαθᾴρωσιν, οὕτως ὁ
Λακωνικὸς λόγος οὐκ ἔχει φλοιὸν, ἀλλ’ εἰς αὐτὸ τὸ δραστήριον ἀφαιρέσει
τοῦ περιττοῦ διωκόμενος στομοῦται. De Garrulitat. § 17.
-----
It was thought of much importance by the ancients to select for the
quenching of steel water possessing certain occult qualities, whose
existence was only to be detected by experiment. By these the river of
the Chalybeans was thought to be distinguished,[881] as well as the
waters near Como, at Calatayud and Tarragona in Spain. Water has,
likewise, been prepared, by a variety of infusions, for communicating a
finer temper and greater hardness to steel, an example of which is
mentioned in the history of the Duke Cosmo, who invented, according to
Vasari,[882] a liquid wherein were hardened the tools with which
Francesco del Tadda was enabled to cut a fountain-basin, and several
other articles, from a block of the hardest porphyry. Nothing, however,
was more common than this operation among the ancients, both Greeks and
Egyptians, by whom porphyry was cut into every variety of form, and
invested with the highest polish.[883]
-----
Footnote 881:
Plin. xxxiv. 41.
Footnote 882:
Vit. de Pitt. Pref. p. 12. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art, ii. 78.
Footnote 883:
Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art, t. i. p. 176, sqq.
-----
The best steel appears to have been obtained from the Seres, from
Parthia, and from India,[884] where, when polished, it assumed the
bright appearance of silver, and probably like that of Damascus
contained a small proportion of this metal. That which came from Sinope
and the Chalybes served for the manufacture of ordinary tools; the
Laconian[885] was wrought into files, augers, chisels, and the other
implements of stone-cutters; the Lydian stood in high estimation with
the sword-cutlers, and the manufacturers of razors and surgical
instruments.[886] The locks and keys[887] of the ancients, if we may
judge from the specimens found at Pompeii, were of a somewhat rude
construction, though probably manufactured of the best iron.
-----
Footnote 884:
Plin. xxxiv. 41.
Footnote 885:
Eustath. ad Il. β. p. 222. Cf. Herod. vii. 61. i. 164. Sch. Aristoph.
Pac. 620. Nub. 179.
Footnote 886:
Eustath. ad Il. β. p. 222. 28, sqq. Steph. de Urb. v. Λακεδαίμων. p.
505, c. seq.
Footnote 887:
Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 155. 200, seq. Poll. i. 77. Eurip. Orest.
1577. Æsch. Sept. 378. Schol. Thucyd. l. ii. t. v. p. 371. Iliad. δ.
132. μ. 121.
-----
The workshop and tools of the smith bore the closest possible
resemblance to those of the present day; the bellows[888] consisting of
thin boards connected by flaps of cow-hide, and having a snout of iron,
the anvil mounted on a high block, the hammer, the tongs, the vice,
which require no particular description.
-----
Footnote 888:
Herod. i. 68. Athen. iii. 71. xiv. 57. Sch. Aristoph. Ach. 853. Poll.
x. 45.
-----
Respecting the quality of Grecian cutlery it must be acknowledged that
our information is exceedingly scanty, though we may reasonably infer,
that it often possessed the greatest excellence and beauty from the
perfection to which they had undoubtedly brought the manufacture of
arms. In this branch of industry the Delphians would seem to have
obtained celebrity, though the form and uses of their knives, alluded to
in a comparison by Aristotle,[889] can be looked upon only as matter of
conjecture. It seems to me, that, like Hudibras’ dagger, they would
serve for a variety of purposes, as a poignard for example, as a
sacrificial instrument, and as a common knife:
When it had stabbed, or broke a head,
It would scrape trenchers or chip bread,
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were
To bait a mousetrap ’twould not care.
-----
Footnote 889:
Polit. i. 1.
-----
There was a very elegant sort of knives among the Athenians, adorned
with ivory handles, delicately carved with the figures of animals, among
which was that of a crouching lioness.[890] For this purpose the ivory
was frequently stained of different colours, as pink, or crimson, or
purple, according to the fancy of the workman. Knife-handles were
sometimes also made of the roots of the lotos,[891] which, no doubt,
took a fine polish and were beautifully clouded. Their scissors,
bodkins, sailmakers’ needles, common needles, pins,[892] and other
articles of this description, would seem to have been manufactured with
much neatness.
-----
Footnote 890:
Schol. Aristoph. Lysist. 231.
Footnote 891:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 3. 3.
Footnote 892:
Poll. ii. 37.
-----
But the most flourishing trade in Greece was probably that of the
armourer,[893] which, at almost every period of her history, was in
constant request. Many, probably, of the useful arts owed much of the
progress they made to the passion of the Greeks for arms, which led them
industriously to study and invent whatever could add to their splendour
or efficiency. We need not now go back to the times when sticks and
stones and pointed reeds formed the national weapons.[894] Among the
very first steps in civilisation were improvements in the art of
self-defence; for, wherever men have found it necessary to create
property, they have felt it to be equally so to invent weapons for
protecting themselves in the enjoyment of it. Accordingly the Greeks,
long before the birth of history, had surrounded themselves by numerous
instruments of destruction, and learned to cover their bodies with
armour infinitely varied in materials and workmanship.
-----
Footnote 893:
See an elegant representation of a columnar anvil which we may infer
was used by armourers. Gemme Antiche, Figurate di Leonardo Agostini,
pt. ii. tav. 36.
Footnote 894:
Goguet. i. 165.
-----
Upon none of their weapons, however, did they bestow greater attention
than on the sword, which if it did not, as among certain barbarians,
constitute one of the objects of their worship,[895] was in most cases
their inseparable companion through life, and descended with them even
to the grave. Thus we find, that, when Cimon opened, at Scyros, the
grave of Theseus, the national hero of Attica, he found beside the
skeleton a spearhead and sword of brass.[896] Their blades were of many
different shapes and dimensions: they had the long, sharp, double-edged
rapier; the short cut and thrust; the crooked scimitar, the sabre, and
the broad-sword.[897] These were generally of the finest steel, highly
polished, and sometimes damaskened exactly like those blades afterwards
manufactured at Damascus. The sheath was sometimes of ivory, sometimes
of gold or silver or tin or other inferior metal.[898] To the
first-mentioned substance we have an allusion in a saying of Diogenes,
who on hearing a handsome young man make use of low language, exclaimed:
“How shameless! to draw forth a sword of lead from a sheath of
ivory.”[899] The hilts were often extremely superb, of costly materials,
and wrought in the most fanciful shapes. We read, for example, of
sword-handles studded or inlaid with gold, or even composed entirely of
that metal, or of silver.[900] Ivory too, and amber,[901] and
terebinth,[902] polished and black as ebony, and a variety of other
woods and substances, stained black with nut-gall,[903] were employed
for this purpose. The father of Demosthenes, who kept a large
manufactory of arms, left behind him a considerable quantity of ivory
and gall-nuts[904] which he had purchased as well for his own use as to
supply other armourers in a smaller way. Of daggers there were various
kinds, some of a larger size, worn suspended on the thigh with the
sword, as the hunting knife was by the Persian youth; others much
smaller, which seem to have been carried about concealed under the
armpit, as is still the fashion in the East. To this practice Socrates
alludes in his conversation with Polos of Agrigentum,[905] on the power
possessed in states by tyrants, whom he compares to one who should go
forth into the marketplace with an enchiridion concealed about him, and
for that reason fancy it in his power to take away every man’s life,
because he could undoubtedly kill any one he pleased.
-----
Footnote 895:
Thus, speaking of the Alani, Ammianus Marcellinus relates: Nec templum
apud eos visitur, aut delubrum ne tugurium quidem culmo tectum cerni
usquam potest: sed gladius barbarico ritu humi figitur nudus, eúmque
ut Martem, regionum quas circumcircant præsulem verecundiùs colunt. l.
xxxi. c. 2. p. 673. Ed. Gronov. 1693. Pomp. Mel. ii. 1. In Justin too,
we find relics of the worship paid of old to arms: Ab origine rerum,
pro diis immortalibus veteres hastas coluêre. xliii. 3. At Chæronea in
Bœotia there subsisted, down to very late times, the worship of a
sceptre on which they bestowed the name of the Spear. Θεῶν δὲ μάλιστα
Χαιρωνεῖς τιμῶσι τὸ σκῆπτρον ὃ ποιῆσαι Διί φησιν Ὅμηρος Ἥφαιστον, παρὰ
δὲ Διὸς λαβόντα Ἑρμῆν δοῦναι Πέλοπι, Πέλοπα δὲ Ἀτρεί καταλιπεῖν, τὸν
δὲ Ἀτρεά Θυέστῃ, παρὰ Θυέστου δὲ ἔχειν Ἀγαμέμνονα· τοῦτο οὖν τὸ
σκῆπτρον σέβουσι, δόρυ ὀνομάζοντες. Pausan. ix. 40. 11.
Footnote 896:
Plut. Thes. § 36. The practice of burying weapons with the dead
prevailed also down to a very late period among the Romans; for in a
stone coffin of Imperial times recently discovered at Héronval in
Normandy, a sword was found by the warrior’s side, together with a
stylus, a buckler, rings, and other ornaments. Times, June 17, 1842.
Footnote 897:
Pollux makes mention of the Celtic broadsword. i. 149.
Footnote 898:
Winkel. Hist. del’ Art. i. 34.
Footnote 899:
Diog. Laert. vi. 2. 65.
Footnote 900:
Poll. x. 141. 144. Damm. Lexicon, 395.
Footnote 901:
Eustath. ad Odyss. δ. 150. 16.
Footnote 902:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 3. 2.
Footnote 903:
On the production of the gall-nut, see Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 5. 2,
and Cf. Valmont de Bomare Dict. d’Hist. Nat. t. iii. p. 8.
Footnote 904:
Demosth. in Aphob. § 4. 8.
Footnote 905:
Plat. Gorg. t. iii. p. 50.
-----
Next in importance perhaps was the manufacture of javelins and
spears.[906] Of the former, the heads,[907] light though sometimes
broad, were mounted on slender ashen shafts shod with iron, or on the
long Cretan reed[908] which abounded in the marshes about Haliartos in
Bœotia. These javelins, in more modern times, were furnished with a
looped thong, by which when the darter had missed his aim, they could be
drawn back.[909] The best kind were supposed to be manufactured in
Bœotia. Spear-shafts were likewise sometimes of ash,[910] but more
frequently of cornel wood,[911] and occasionally, as in the case of the
Macedonian sarissa, eighteen feet long. Like the javelin, the spear also
was shod sharp with iron, in order the more easily to be fixed upright
in the earth, when soldiers slept abroad in the fields.[912] This part
of the iron-work, which was hollow and received the shaft into it, is
said to have been shaped like a lizard, doubtless represented as holding
the point of the handle in its mouth. Projections resembling legs
extended on both sides, designed to prevent the spear from sinking too
deep into the ground. In the lances of the cavalry there was, as some
suppose, a small notch to receive the point of the horseman’s foot when
mounting his steed. The spear-head, generally of iron or steel, was
among the Arab allies of Xerxes formed of goat’s horn, fashioned like
the iron of a lance.[913]
-----
Footnote 906:
Poll. i. 143.
Footnote 907:
Spearheads were sometimes poisoned with the juice of the dorycnion.
Plin. xxi. 81.
Footnote 908:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 11. 13. Plut. Lysand. § 28. Dioscor. i. 94.
Footnote 909:
Poll. i. 136. x. 143.
Footnote 910:
Sibthorp. Flora Græca, tab. 4.
Footnote 911:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 12. 1, seq.
Footnote 912:
Poll. i. 136. x. 143.
Footnote 913:
Herod. vii. 69.
-----
The bows[914] of the ancients were most commonly composed of horn,
tipped with gold or other metal at either end. Among the barbarous
nations there were those who manufactured them of cane or palm-branches,
or even of the long stem of the date.[915] The bowstring was of thong or
horse-hair. Reeds generally constituted the shafts of their arrows,[916]
which were headed with iron or copper, or hard pointed stones, as those
of the Arabs in the army of Xerxes, who employed for this purpose the
same stones wherewith they engraved their seals.[917] Arrows were
frequently winged with eagles’ feathers, and tinged at the point with
poison.[918] In sieges they were often armed with fire.[919]
-----
Footnote 914:
On the Scythian bow, see Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 15; on the Cretan,
Poll. i. 45. 149; on arrows, Athen. x. 18.
Footnote 915:
Poll. i. 244. Herod. vii. 64, 65. 69.
Footnote 916:
Herod. vii. 61. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 11. 11. Dioscor. i. 114. The
Parthian kings, we are told, addicted themselves with pride to the
forging and sharpening of arrow-heads: it may be presumed, because the
bow was the national weapon of their country. Plut. Demet. § 20. The
arrow-heads of the Indians were of unusually large dimensions. Plut.
Alexand. § 63. That the arrow-heads of the ancient Scythians were of
bronze appears from the following relation of Herodotus. Ariantas, a
king of Scythia, desirous of ascertaining the number of his subjects,
commanded them, on pain of death, to bring him each an arrow-head. His
people obeyed the order; and when he had satisfied himself respecting
their number, he ordered a huge vessel to be cast with the bronze,
which, in the age of the Father of History, still existed at a place
called Exampæos, between the Borysthenes and the Hypanis. It was six
inches thick, and contained six hundred amphoræ. iv. 81.
Footnote 917:
Herod. vii. 69.
Footnote 918:
Phot. Bib. 445. 21. Poll. i. 138.
Footnote 919:
Poll. i. 42.
-----
Besides the above, there were several other implements of destruction.
The Greeks made use of the club, the battle-axe, and the sling.[920] And
a tribe of barbarians, once mentioned in history, depended entirely on
their daggers, and a noosed rope of twisted thongs,[921] which they used
for entangling and overthrowing man or horse, much in the same manner as
the lasso is now employed in the Pampas of South America.
-----
Footnote 920:
Id. i. 149. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 181.
Footnote 921:
Poll. ii. 30. Herod. vii. 85.
-----
If we turn now to their armour, we shall find that they displayed in its
manufacture the greatest possible skill, taste, and ingenuity. Their
helmets, cuirasses, shields, cuisses, and greaves, were made of polished
steel, or brass, or tin, sometimes curiously figured, and inlaid with
metals of many different colours, and polished to an exceeding
brightness,[922] sometimes adorned with representations in relief.
Frequently they went cased in shirts of mail, composed of innumerable
small metallic plates, lapping over each other so as to resemble the
scales of fishes. Occasionally the opulent appeared on the field of
battle in golden armour,[923] though this piece of ostentation was
chiefly confined to the barbarians.[924] The armourers’ craft, however,
seems to have gone on improving in proportion as the courage of the
nation deteriorated, until at length, in Macedonian times, armour of
enormous weight, and, literally, impenetrable, came into use. Thus
Zoilos manufactured for Demetrios Poliorcetes two coats-of-mail,[925] of
a steel so hard, that the surface could scarcely be grazed by an arrow
discharged from a catapult. The whole suit weighed no less than one
hundred and thirty pounds, exactly twice as much as an ordinary suit of
armour.
-----
Footnote 922:
Herod. ix. 21. i. 15.
Footnote 923:
Id. i. 215.
Footnote 924:
On one occasion we find the magistrates of Thessaly coming forth with
panoply of gold to meet the ashes of Pelopidas. Ἐκ δὲ τῶν πόλεων, ὡς
ἀπηγγέλθη ταῦτα, παρῆσαν αἵ τ᾽ ἀρχαι, καὶ μετ᾽ αὐτῶν ἔφηβοι καὶ παῖδες
καὶ ἱερεῖς, πρὸς τὴν ὑποδοκὴν τοῦ σώματος, τρόπαια καὶ στεφάνους καὶ
πανοπλίας χρυσᾶς ἐπιφέροντες. Plut. Pelopid. § 33.
Footnote 925:
Plut. Demet. § 21.
-----
Helmets[926] were manufactured of numerous materials. First, in the
ruder ages, they were in reality nothing more than so many close
skull-caps made of the skins[927] of otters or water-dogs, with the hair
on,[928] or foxes, or weasels, or goats, or bulls, or lions. But as the
arts of civilisation improved, metal casques were soon substituted for
these primitive defences, some of which, of wrought steel, were highly
polished, and shone like burnished silver. That of Alexander was
manufactured by Theophilos.[929] The helmet consisted of a variety of
parts: as, first, the casque itself, inlaid with brass and iron,[930]
which enclosed and defended the head, the front brim projecting over the
forehead; the vizor, which dropped over the whole face; the strap, often
richly embroidered or studded with jewels,[931] passing under the chin;
and the ridge, or cone, on the summit, from which rose the plumes, or
crest.[932] This crest, double, treble, or even quadruple, according to
the taste or fancy of the wearer, sometimes consisted of long drooping
ostrich feathers,[933] sometimes of horse-hair, either black or dyed of
different colours, which, trembling and floating over the warrior’s
head, appeared to augment his stature while it added to the terror of
his aspect. King Pyrrhos, we are told, wore upon his helmet the horns of
a goat, symbolical of the power of Macedon;[934] and the Asiatic
Thracians flanked their crests with the horns and ears of an ox in
brass.[935] To break the force of blows from clubs or heavy battle-axes,
the crown of the helmet was thickly lined with sponge or soft wool.[936]
Mention is likewise made of helmets of plaited cord of wood and
leather,[937] and the skins of horses’ heads, retaining the ears and the
mane.[938]
-----
Footnote 926:
Poll. i. 148, seq. Herod. i. 171. Gitone, Il Costume, tav. 40. Feith,
Antiquitat. Homer. iv. 8. p. 316, seq.
Footnote 927:
Goguet, Orig. des Loix, iv. 322.
Footnote 928:
Herod. vii. 75.
Footnote 929:
Plut. Alex. 32.
Footnote 930:
Herod. vii. 84.
Footnote 931:
Plut. Alex. § 32.
Footnote 932:
Cf. Poll. i. 135. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 1188. 389. Plut. Alexand. §
16. The close helmets, without crests, were sometimes ornamented with
feathers, much after the Indian fashion. Gitone, Il Costume, tav. 42.
Footnote 933:
Plin. Nat. Hist. x. 1. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 4. 5.
Footnote 934:
Plut. Pyrrh. § 11.
Footnote 935:
Herod. vii. 76.
Footnote 936:
Brunck. not. in Aristoph. Acharn. 439.
Footnote 937:
Herod. vii. 77. 79. 89.
Footnote 938:
Id. vii. 70.
-----
In the manufacture of corslets and cuirasses[939] much industry and
ability was exhibited. The former were generally composed of linen or
hempen twine curiously wrought, and doubled or trebled according to the
desire of the purchaser,[940] and worn chiefly in the chase;[941] others
consisted of thick leathern jerkins, covered with metallic scales,[942]
single, double, or treble, and fastened to each other by a series of
hooks. In lieu of these plates was sometimes substituted a coating of
intertwisted rings, resembling in some respects the chain armour of a
later age. Wooden cuirasses were also sometimes worn.[943] The
Sarmatians[944] possessing no iron, headed their darts and javelins with
bone, and employed very extraordinary materials in the manufacture of
their cuirasses. Collecting carefully all the hoofs of such horses as
died, they cut them into laminæ, resembling in form the scales of a
fish. These they sewed together with the nerves of horses or oxen, and
thus produced a species of breastplate which for elegance and utility
was scarcely inferior to those of the Greeks. In the manufacture of
linen corslets[945] the Egyptians displayed peculiar excellence, at
least the description of one of them which history has preserved is
calculated to create a very high idea of their ingenuity. It was
curiously wrought, we are told, with fine bobbins, each composed of
three hundred and sixty threads, distinctly visible, adorned with
numerous figures of animals interwoven with cotton and gold.[946] Among
the Greeks this piece of armour was often richly embroidered by the
ladies of the warrior’s family, whom, on more than one occasion, we find
busy at this task on the eve of battle. The cuirasses of brass or steel
were finely polished and buttoned under the arm. Even the horses were
furnished with breastplates and frontlets,[947] and occasionally their
flanks also were protected by armour. The warrior’s greaves[948] were
manufactured of copper, brass, tin, or other metal, and fastened about
the legs with silver buttons. Archers seem commonly to have worn a
species of gloves or fingerlings.[949]
-----
Footnote 939:
Poll. i. 148, seq.
Footnote 940:
Cf. Herod. vii. 89.
Footnote 941:
Paus. i. 21. 7. vi. 19. 7.
Footnote 942:
Cf. Paus. ix. 26. 8.
Footnote 943:
Etym. Mag. 288. 48.
Footnote 944:
Paus. i. 21. 6.
Footnote 945:
Cf. Herod. ii. 182.
Footnote 946:
Herod. iii. 47. Plin. xix. 1. Ælian. Hist. An. ix. 17. Plut. Alex. §
32.
Footnote 947:
Poll. ii. 162. 167.
Footnote 948:
Gitone, Il Costume, tav. 38, where we find representations of
battle-axes, quivers, bows, swords, etc.
Footnote 949:
Constant. Lexic. v. χειρίδες.
-----
The manufacture of shields[950] underwent great fluctuations at
different periods of Grecian history, and even in the same age there
existed numerous and extraordinary differences in their materials, form,
and structure. In early times they consisted simply of a piece of
circular basket-work, plaited for the sake of lightness with
vine-branches[951] or willows; or were made of a solid piece of wood
scooped into the proper form, and covered with one or more coats of
leather. The wood usually preferred for this use was that of the elder,
the beach, the poplar, and the fig; and the leather was generally tough
bull-hide,[952] with or without the hair, though we read of nations, as
the Ethiopians, who made use for this purpose of the skins of
cranes.[953] The same people at the present day have discovered that the
hide of the crocodile, dressed with the scales on, forms a better
integument for their bucklers. Among the Homeric heroes the wooden
framework was protected by many folds of leather, amounting sometimes to
seven, to which were added plates of brass, silver, gold, or tin. Even
when the face of the shield was composed of some inferior metal, the rim
seems frequently to have been of gold.
-----
Footnote 950:
Poll. i. 148, seq.
Footnote 951:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 3. 4. v. 7. 7. Thucyd. iv. 9.
Footnote 952:
Herod. vii. 79.
Footnote 953:
Id. vii. 70.
-----
In later times shields were usually manufactured of brass or steel,
wrought and fashioned with the greatest care, and polished like a
mirror. Occasionally, likewise, they were inlaid with purple, ivory, and
gold,[954] or painted white, or crusted with gold and silver, as among
the Samnites.[955] From the remotest antiquity, moreover, it was
customary to paint upon shields a number of devices, each warrior
selecting one for himself,[956] which, like the armorial bearings of the
knights of chivalry, distinguished him from his comrades in battle. Thus
Perseus chose the head of the Gorgon Medusa;[957] Tydeus the aspect of
the face of the mighty heavens, including the full moon, surrounded by
flaming stars;[958] Eteocles bore before him the figure of a warrior
scaling a lofty tower, while Hippomedon selected, as the emblem of his
character, the figure of Typhœos breathing forth fire and smoke. Every
reader will remember the varied imagery that crowded the shield of the
Homeric Achilles, together with the scenes which Hesiod, in imitation,
depicts on the buckler of Heracles. In the historical period[959] the
people of Sicyon had a sigma, the initial letter in the name of their
capital, painted on their shields.[960] These ornaments, as well as the
handles, it is said, owed their origin to the invention of the Carians.
The form of the shield exhibited much variety. One kind, for example,
was small and circular,[961] another oblong or parallelogrammatic, and
of dimensions so large as to cover the whole body, and allow the fallen
warrior to be borne home on it as upon a bier; others were
rhomboidal,[962] or semilunar, or shaped like an ivy-leaf. But whatever
may have been their figure, there always projected from the centre of
the external face a large boss, with a smaller one, generally pointed,
on the middle of it. This the soldiers dashed in the countenances of the
enemy. Within, two bars, stretching from rim to rim, and crossing each
other like the letter X, gave the warrior, who passed his left arm
behind them, greater power over his defence, while a smaller handle, on
the fore part of the shield, received his grasp.[963] Occasionally, the
place of these bars was supplied by metallic or wooden handles, exactly
of a size to receive the arm; and, by means of a leathern strap, the
buckler, when marching, was usually suspended on the shoulder.[964] In
time of peace both the shield and the helmet were laid up, each in its
appropriate case.[965] Besides the manufacturers of arms, who supplied
states with large orders, there were numerous armourers on a smaller
scale,[966] whose shops exhibited a rich and varied assortment of
shields, helmets, and every kind of weapon.
-----
Footnote 954:
Poll. i. 134.
Footnote 955:
Winkel. Hist. de l’Art, i. 276.
Footnote 956:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 548.
Footnote 957:
Epaminondas had a dragon on his shield as a device. Pausan. viii. 11.
8.
Footnote 958:
Sept. Cont. Theb. 367. 447. 471.
Footnote 959:
The device of Demosthenes was, “To Good Fortune.” Plut. Demosth. § 20.
Footnote 960:
Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 4. 10. It has been conjectured, that the Arcadian
allies of Epaminondas painted the letter Θ on their shields, that they
might appear to be transformed into Thebans. Schneid. ad Xen. Hellen.
vii. 5. 20. The Lacedæmonians painted the letter Λ on their shields.
Meurs. Miscell. Lacon. i. 18.
Footnote 961:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 18.
Footnote 962:
Petit. de Amazon. xxv. 169.
Footnote 963:
Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 645. Acharn. 1087. From certain ancient
monuments it appears, that a small thin cushion ran along behind the
arm on the interior of the shield. Giton. Il Costume, tav. 39. Cf.
Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 47, for the figure of Capaneus advancing
his shield as if in combat.
Footnote 964:
Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 846. 855.
Footnote 965:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 548.
Footnote 966:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 439.
-----
The metals employed in the fabrication of arms were obtained partly from
mines found in Greece itself, partly by commerce from the surrounding
countries.[967] On the methods of mining which prevailed among the
Greeks our information is peculiarly scanty. We know, however, that, at
Laurion,[968] the Athenians made use of both shafts and adits, and that
in chambering they employed much timber.[969] To prevent the falling in
of the superincumbent mountain there were left at intervals vast
pillars,[970] the cutting away of which was by law prohibited on pain of
death. In the potter’s-clay mines of Samos, where the veins, running
generally between beds of rock, were exceedingly shallow, seldom
exceeding two feet in depth, the miners, as in the thin veins of our own
coal mines, were compelled while at work to lie on their back or sides,
which, it may be presumed, was the practice in other mines under similar
circumstances. Whether they possessed any means of protecting themselves
against the fire-damps or malaria,[971] which, we know, prevailed
greatly at Laurion,[972] is a matter of much uncertainty. In Spain, the
mines ran deep into the earth, and were of prodigious extent, having
transverse passages and caverns of great dimensions and elevation.
-----
Footnote 967:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 21. Herod. v. 17. vi. 46. vii. 112. Thucyd.
i. 101. Plut. Cim. § 14.
Footnote 968:
On the price of mining shares, Dem. adv. Pantæn. § 6. Schol. Eq. 1089.
Footnote 969:
Cf. Petit, Legg. Att. vii. 12. p. 543.
Footnote 970:
Μεσοκρινεῖς κίονες, οἱ ἐν τοῖς μετάλλοις ὑφεστηκότες ἀνέχειν τὰ
ὀρύγματα. Poll. vii. 98.
Footnote 971:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 52.
Footnote 972:
Λέγεται βαρὺ τὸ χωρίον εἶναι. Xenoph. Memor. iii. 6. 12.
-----
In an old shaft discovered in the mountains of Santo Spirito,[973] the
sides were supported by masonry; large pools of water were found in some
of the chambers, while the explorers could hear afar off the incessant
roar of waterfalls. Here and there the passages were nearly blocked up
by masses of gold and silver ore.[974]
-----
Footnote 973:
The mountain districts of Spain, in which the mines were situated, are
described by Pliny to be so utterly barren, that they produce nothing
but ore. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 21.
Footnote 974:
“Times,” March 24, 1841.
-----
How the water was drained off, or the ore brought to the surface of the
earth, no ancient author has explained. When extracted, however, it was
pounded in a stone mortar with an iron pestle, then passed through a
sieve, and transferred to the smelting furnace.[975]
-----
Footnote 975:
Vitruv. vii. 7. Demosth. in Pantænet. § 6. Harpocrat. v. κεγκρεὼν.
Suid. t. i. p. 1428. a.
-----
The account transmitted to us of the gold mines of Egypt may probably
throw some light on the practice which prevailed among the Greeks. In
them we find an almost exact type of the degrading toil and disregard of
danger and decency recently brought to light among our own subterranean
population. There, indeed, the workmen were forced to their task by the
direct compulsion of a tyrannical government; while in Great Britain the
constraint is enveloped by a cloud of circumstances which conceal,
though they scarcely soften, the stern laws of necessity.
The Egyptian gold mines were situated in the great eastern desert, on
the shores of the Red Sea. They had been worked from the remotest
antiquity; in proof of which it is related, that copper pickaxes were
frequently found in the deserted shafts and galleries, beside incredible
heaps of human bones, relics of the multitudes who had perished there by
malaria, or fire-damps, or the falling of rocks, or more probably from
the incessant oppression to which they were subjected.[976] In fact the
benevolent historian,[977] to whom we are indebted for nearly all we
know on this curious subject, felt so strongly for the sufferings of
these wretched artificers of Egyptian grandeur, that he pronounced death
in their case to be more desirable than life.[978] But the most
miserable possess resources and springs of gratification unknown to
philosophers and the professors of literature; and, we may be sure, that
even those outcasts who brought up gold from the bowels of the earth to
adorn the thrones and palaces of the Pharaohs, knew how to extract from
their bitter employment some few sweets of sufficient efficacy to render
life endurable.
-----
Footnote 976:
The same excessive waste of human life has been observable in all
countries where mines have been worked on a large scale: “Juan
Gonzales de Alzevedo assuroit en 1609, que le nombre des indigènes
étoit diminué de moitié dans les environs des mines du Pérou, et d’un
tiers en d’autres endroits, depuis 1581.” Schneider, Observations sur
Ulloa, t. ii. p. 264.
Footnote 977:
Agatharchid. ap. Phot. Biblioth. Cod. 250. p. 447. a. sqq.
Footnote 978:
Οὗτοι πάντες οἱ τὸν εἰρημένον τῆς τύχης κλῆρον ὑπελθόντες ποθεινότερον
ἔχουσι τοῦ βίου τὸν θάνατον. Id. p. 448. a. 38.
-----
No doubt the processes of those early times were sufficiently rude. When
about to open a new shaft or adit the Inspectors of the mines appear
carefully to have examined the different faces of the mountain, sombre,
scarped, and barren to the last degree; and having fixed upon a spot in
the face of some cliff, the first operation was to render the rock
friable by the application of powerful fires, which were kindled with
wood at its base. The more robust of the workmen then proceeded with
their pickaxes to the excavation of the galleries, which seldom or never
proceeded in a right line; but following the direction of the metallic
veins, mounted, descended, branched off obliquely to the left or to the
right; and progressing in this manner, sometimes perforated the whole
bulk of the mountain, and striking downwards, like the roots of trees,
extended even to the sea.[979] The men employed in _getting_ the ore,
followed incessantly by task-masters with instruments of chastisement in
their hands, were seldom permitted to proportion their exertions to
their strength; but often toiled on apparently till they dropped, when
their bones joined the heaps of those who had fallen before them. While
thus engaged, more especially when united in great numbers they had
clambered the rocks to a considerable height, they presented an
extraordinary spectacle; for each miner[980] carried a lamp bound to his
forehead, though how, when they bent or kneeled, or worked sideways, it
escaped being extinguished seems difficult of explanation.
-----
Footnote 979:
Similar excavations in the mountain of Potosi are thus described by
Don Antonio d’Ulloa: “Le mont du Potosi doit être considéré comme
l’intérieur d’ une ruche à miel, vu le nombre des percemens, des
galeries, des fouilles qu’on y remarque. C’est ce qu’on se figurera
facilement, en se répresentant la quantité prodigieuse de matières
qu’on a tirées de son intérieur, pour obtener les minérais qui s’y
trouvent répandus partout, et desquels on extrait l’argent. S’il étoit
donc possible de le découvrir totalement de sa croûte externe, on y
appercevroit un nombre infini de routes souterreines percées sans
suite, et comme au hasard, selon la direction des veines métalliques.”
Mémoires Philosophiques, t. i. p. 289.
Footnote 980:
Οὗτοι μὲν οὖν λύχνους προσδεδεμένους τοῖς μετώποις ἔχοντες λατομοῦσιν,
ἀκολουθοῦντες οἷον φλεβὶ τῷ λευκανθίζοντι. Phot. Bib. p. 448. a.
-----
The laborious operation of collecting and _hurrying_ the ore was
performed by boys of tender age, who deposited it beyond the mouth of
the shaft. Another class of workmen, consisting chiefly of the aged and
the infirm, now bore the metalliferous stones to that part of the works
where the founders were stationed. These were powerful and robust men in
the flower of their age, who, with large stone mortars and iron pestles,
reduced, under the eye of rigid Inspectors, the ore to small fragments
not exceeding a vetch in size.[981] This done, it was transferred to the
mills which were turned by women, the wives and daughters of the miners,
who, with the exception of a slender covering about the waist, were
entirely naked, misery in all times and places rendering people
contemptuous of appearances and indifferent to morality.[982] These
mills, heavy no doubt and difficult to work, were turned by six women,
three on either side. They would appear, however, to have answered well
the purpose for which they were designed, since the ore, we are told,
was reduced by them to the fineness of flour; after which it was handed
over to the Selangeus, the last link in that long chain of operators
which connected the mine with the smelting furnace. The business of the
Selangeus consisted in separating the metal from the matrix in which it
had been produced. For this purpose, the auriferous dust was cast in a
heap upon a broad polished board slightly inclined,[983] and there
washed and triturated until the greater part of the terrene particles
had been, by soft sponges and water, separated from the gold, which was
next put into earthen vessels with small quantities of lead, tin, salt,
and barley-bran, and placed in the smelting furnace, where it was
subjected, for five days and nights, to the flames. This done, the
virgin gold came forth glittering and pure as if it had not been wrung
from human agony or sullied by human tears.
-----
Footnote 981:
Cf. Diod. Sicul. iii. 13.
Footnote 982:
Οὗτος δὲ ἐστιν ὁ πόνος τῶν γυναικῶν τῶν εἰς τὰς φυλακὰς συναπηγμένων
ἀνδράσιν ἢ γονεῦσι. Μύλοι γὰρ ἑξῆς πλείους βεβήκασιν, ἐφ᾽ οὒς τὸν
ἐπτισμένον ἐπιβάλλουσι λίθον· καὶ παραστᾶσαι τρεῖς ἑκατέρωθεν πρὸς τὴν
μίαν κώπην, οὕτως ἐζωσμέναι δυσπροσόπτως ὥστε μόνον τὴν αἰσχύνην τοῦ
σώματος κρύπτειν, ἀλήθουσιν. Phot. Bib. p. 448. a.
Footnote 983:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 21.
-----
In the smelting furnaces of Greece, notwithstanding the doubts of
Reitemeier, which Bœckh is contented to combat with mere
inferences,[984] it is quite certain that charcoal was used,[985]—in the
first smelting, that of the aria, the arbutus, and the oak, of which the
last was least esteemed; and in the second, that of the pitch-pine. In
the iron mines the charcoal of the Eubœan walnut-tree was preferred for
second smelting.
-----
Footnote 984:
“That the Athenians made use of the bellows and of charcoal is not
improbable; the latter, indeed, may be fairly inferred from the
account of the charcoal-sellers, or rather charcoal-burners, from
which business a large portion of the Acharnians in particular
obtained their livelihood.” Dissertation on the Mines of Laurion. Pub.
Econ., &c. t. ii. p. 443.
Footnote 985:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 9. 1, sqq.
-----
This leads us to speak of the preparation of charcoal, which was
effected in the following manner:—having excavated a circular cavity in
the earth, they pitched or paved it at bottom, and piling up to a great
height the billets of wood, which were selected for their straightness
in order that they might lie as close as possible, covered over the
whole with earth and turf, so as to form a circular mound, like a
barrow. The heap was then set on fire, and the covering pierced on all
sides with spits, to provide a vent for the smoke. The fire having been
kept burning for the proper time, which is not stated, the charcoal was
removed and laid by for use.[986] Extensive works of this kind were
established at the borough of Acharnè, in Attica, which was supplied
with wood, chiefly the scarlet oak, from the forests on Mount
Parnes.[987]
-----
Footnote 986:
Id. v. 9. 5. ix. 3. 1.
Footnote 987:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 302, 587. Diog. Laert. i. 8. 5.
-----
Much stress was laid by Hellenic artificers on the materials from which
the charcoal was manufactured: thus smiths, braziers, and other
handicraftsmen preferred that of the pitch-pine to what was made from
the oak, because it exhibited a greater tractability to the bellows,
keeping up a more enduring flame, and being less liable to sudden
extinction, though inferior in force. Generally, in fact, all dry woods
furnish a brisker and a brighter flame. Twigs and small branches, as the
Greek philosophers had observed, yield, while burning, the fiercest
heat; but it was supposed that they were too deficient in body to be
profitably converted into charcoal. In France, however, and other parts
of the Continent, we find twigs no bigger than goose-quills used for
this purpose. Some kinds of wood, it was observed, produce in burning a
far greater quantity of smoke than others.[988] Of these are all such as
delight in humid situations, as the platane and the willow, with the
black and white poplar. The vine,[989] too, while moist, stands in the
same category, though it yield the palm to the date-palm, which enjoyed
among the ancients the reputation of being the smokiest tree that
grows.[990] In sharpness, however, the smoke of the fig-tree was
supposed to excel, together with that of the wild fig-tree,[991] and
generally all such natives of the forest as abound in a milky juice.
Nevertheless, having been barked, steeped in running-water, and dried
again,[992] these same kinds of wood were freer than all others from
smoke, and yielded the softest and purest flame.[993] The same thing is
remarked of wood which had been washed with the lees of oil.[994]
-----
Footnote 988:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 9. 5.
Footnote 989:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 326. Lysist. 308. The Haliphloios, a species of
oak, was supposed by the ancients to be peculiarly obnoxious to
lightning, on which account the Æolians never used its wood in
sacrifice. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 8. 52. 5. Cf. v. 1. 2.
Footnote 990:
Τοῦ τε δυσκαπνοτάτου φοίνικος ἐκ γῆς ῥιζοφοιτήτους φλέβας. Chæremon,
ap. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 9. 5.
Footnote 991:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 145. Plut. Sympos. v. 9.
Footnote 992:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 9. 5.
Footnote 993:
Among the uses of charcoal was that of being rammed down under the
foundations of temples, as in that of Artemis at Ephesos: Rursus ne in
lubrico atque instabili fundamenta tantæ molis locarentur, calcatis ea
substravere carbonibus dein velleribus lanæ. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi.
21. On the incorruptibility of charcoal, St. Augustin, who loved to
declaim a little, thus writes:—“Quid? in carbonibus nonne miranda est,
et tanta infirmitas, ut ictu levissimo frangantur, pressu facillime
conterantur: et tanta firmitas ut nullo humore corrumpantur, nulla
ætate vincantur, usque adeo ut eos substernere soleant.... Quis eos in
terra humida effossos, ubi ligna putrescerent, tamdiu durare
incorruptibilior posse, nisi rerum ille corruptor ignis effecit?” De
Civitat. Dei, xxxi. 4. The charcoal was thus employed by the advice of
Theodoros, the son of Rhæcos, the Samian. Οὗτος ἐστιν ὁ συμβουλεύσας
ἄνθρακας ὑποτεθῆναι τοῖς θεμελίοις τοῦ ἐν Ἐφέσω νεώ. Καθύγρου γὰρ
ὄντος τοῦ τόπου, τοὺς ἄνθρακας ἔφη, τὸ ξυλῶδες ἀποβαλόντας, αὐτὸ τὸ
στερεὸν ἀπαθὲς ἔχειν ὕδατι. Diog. Laert. ii. 8. § 19.
Footnote 994:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xv. 8. Cf. Martial. xiii. 15.
-----
In Egypt, where charcoal is at present procured chiefly from the wood of
the acacia, and supplied in most cases from the Desert, it was anciently
prepared, especially for the use of smiths, from the long, tough,
triangular roots of the sari,[995] (Cyperus fastigiatus,) which
resembled those of the papyrus, likewise burnt for fuel.[996] The smiths
of Hellas,[997] however, were not reduced to depend entirely upon
charcoal, since both in Liguria and Elis, on the road, it has been
conjectured, leading over Mount Pholoë to Olympia,[998] pits had been
opened whence the forges were supplied with fossil coal.
-----
Footnote 995:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 8. 5.
Footnote 996:
Id. Hist. Plant. iv. 8. 4. Dioscor. i. 115.
Footnote 997:
Οὓς δὲ καλοῦσιν εὐθὺς ἄνθρακας τῶν θρυπτομένων διὰ τὴν χρείαν, εἰσὶ
γεώδεις· ἐκκαίονται δὲ καὶ πυροῦνται καθάπερ οἱ ἄνθρακες. Εἰσὶ δὲ περί
τε τὴν Λιγυστικὴν, ὅπου καὶ τὸ ἤλεκτρον, καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἠλεία βαδιζόντων
Ὀλυμπίαζε τὴν δι’ ὄρους, οἷς καὶ οἱ χαλκεῖς χρῶνται. Theoph. de Lapid.
§ 16.
Footnote 998:
Annot. ad Theoph. iv. 552. Xen. Anab. v. 3. 10. Strab. viii. p. 145.
Sieb.
-----
We may here observe, by the way, that the ancients, instead of flint and
steel, or lucifer matches, made use, in kindling a fire, of a curious
apparatus still employed in the East:[999] it consisted of two parts,
the one hollowed out like a diminutive mortar, the other resembling a
pestle, which was inserted into it, and turned round with extreme
velocity until sparks were produced. This necessary piece of
furniture[1000] was most commonly manufactured of ivy, or laurel, or
clematis, and was something of the rhamnus ilex, or linden-tree; in
short, of nearly all trees, except the olive. Generally, however, it was
thought best to make the two parts of the instrument of different kinds
of wood. It was observed that, with these contrivances, fire kindled
more readily during the prevalence of the north than the south wind, and
on high places than in hollows. At Rome the vestal virgins originated
the sacred fire by means of a kind of mirror, and the power of
burning-glasses was not unknown.[1001] Nay, things resembling our
lucifer matches were possessed by certain jugglers, though they do not
appear to have passed into general use, either because the inventors
refused to divulge their secret, or from the natural slowness of mankind
to profit by useful discoveries.[1002]
-----
Footnote 999:
Plat. de Repub. t. vi. p. 194.
Footnote 1000:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 9. 4, sqq.
Footnote 1001:
Aristoph. Nub. 758. Cf. Orph. Lith. 171. p. 111.
Footnote 1002:
Athen. i. 35.
-----
CHAPTER V.
INDUSTRY: HOUSE-BUILDERS, CARPENTERS, CABINET-MAKERS, TURNERS, MUSICAL
INSTRUMENT-MAKERS, POTTERS, GLASS-WORKERS, ETC.
Another flourishing branch of industry was that of quarrying stones for
building, carried on wherever marble, or freestone, or tufa, or granite,
was found.[1003] The stones were usually fashioned by the axe, or
saw,[1004] in the quarry, and drawn thence by ropes. In many cases,
however, as where cheapness or despatch was aimed at, bricks were
substituted,[1005] made, in addition to the materials at present
employed, from powdered tufa.[1006]
-----
Footnote 1003:
Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. i. 37.
Footnote 1004:
Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 299.
Footnote 1005:
Plato de Rep. t. vi. p. 15. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art, ii. 544. Goguet.
iv. 11. Theoph. de Lapid. 48.
Footnote 1006:
Winkelmann, ii. 544.
-----
In the preparation of mortar and cement the Greeks exhibited
extraordinary ingenuity.[1007] They made use, in the first place, of
lime procured by burning coarse marble in the ordinary way, or,
secondly, obtained from sea-shells, or stones picked up on the banks of
rivers. A superior kind of cement was made from those stones used in the
manufacture of gypsum, which was so firm and durable, that it was
frequently found to outlast the materials which it had been employed to
unite. It was prepared by being reduced to powder, and mixed with water,
and afterwards well stirred with a piece of wood, since it was too hot
to admit of the hands being used. When removed from old walls it might
be burnt and prepared a second and a third time, as originally from the
stone.[1008] This, in Syria and Phœnicia, was used in facing the walls
of houses, and in Italy for whitening them, as well as in the making of
various mouldings and ornaments within.[1009]
-----
Footnote 1007:
On one occasion, moreover, when they happened to be in lack of hods,
they gave proof of no less ingenuity in their mode of carrying mortar.
In the hasty construction of the fortress of Pylos, by Demosthenes and
his companions, the soldiers took the mud, which was to serve as
cement, on their bare backs, stooping forward that it might not fall
off, and knotting their hands on their loins beneath their burden: καὶ
τὸν πηλὸν, εἴπου δέοι χρῆσθαι, ἀγγείων ἀπορίᾳ, ἐπὶ τοῦ νώτου ἔφερον,
ἐγκεκυφότες τε, ὡς μάλιστα μέλλοι ἐπιμένειν, καὶ τὼ χεῖρε ἐς τοὐπίσω
ξυμπλέκοντες, ὅπως μὴ ἀποπίπτοι. Thucyd. iv. 4. The reader will,
doubtless, be struck by the picturesque energy with which the great
historian relates this humble fact.
Footnote 1008:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 65, sqq. The κονία, or stucco, was likewise called
ἀσβέστος. A wall covered with this substance was called κεκονιαμένος
τοῖχος. Schol. ad Theocrit. i. 31.
Footnote 1009:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 67.
-----
Frequently, also, it appears to have been employed like plaster of Paris
in the casting of statues, as was that composed of powdered marble, in
repairing such as by accident had been broken. An example of this was
observed in the cheek of a sphynx dug up in the island of Capri.[1010]
Instead of water, however, a tough glue, composed of the hides and horns
of bulls, was employed in mixing it.[1011]
-----
Footnote 1010:
Winkelm. Hist de l’Art, ii. 81.
Footnote 1011:
Dioscor. v. 164.
-----
In the roofing of houses pantiles were commonly made use of;[1012]
instead of which, as they were fragile and easily broken by hailstones,
tiles of Pentelic marble, invented by Byzes of Naxos,[1013] were often
substituted in the case of temples, as that for example of Zeus at
Olympia. It is mentioned incidentally by Dioscorides, that physicians
used to reduce acacia-wood to powder by burning it in the
tile-kilns.[1014]
-----
Footnote 1012:
Luc. Contemplant. § 6.
Footnote 1013:
Of this Byzes, who lived in the age of Alyattes and Astyages,
Pausanias gives the following account:—τὸ δὲ εὕρημα (viz. that of the
tiles) ἀνδρὸς Ναξίου λέγουσιv εἶναι Βύζου, οὗ φασὶν ἐν Νάξω τὰ
ἀγάλματα ἐφ᾽ ὧν ἐπίγραμμα εἶναι
Νάξιος Εὔεργός με γένει Λητοῦς πόρε, Βύζεω
Παῖς, ὃς πρώτιστος τεῦξε λίθου κέραμον.
De Situ Græciæ. v. 10. 3. Cf. Poll. i. 12. Another article produced by
the same handicraftsmen was the chimney-pots, ὀπαίαι, which appear to
have been in almost universal use: ὀπαίαν οἱ Ἀττικοὶ τὴν κεραμίδα
ἐκάλουν, ἣ τὴν ὀπὴν εἶχεν. Poll. ii. 54. The nature of the ὀπαία is
more exactly explained by the author of the Etymologicon Magnum:
κράτης δέ φησιν ἀνοπαῖαν τὴν τὲ τρημένην κεραμίδα τὴν ἐπὶ τῆς ὀροφῆς.
iii. 21.
Footnote 1014:
Dioscor. i. 133.
-----
Respecting the business of house-painters our information is exceedingly
scanty; we may infer, however, that they excelled in the imitation of
woods and marbles, since they were employed in imitating on the polished
surface of one stone the veins and colours characteristic of
another.[1015] Some persons covered the walls of their apartments with
historical subjects,[1016] or landscapes, or the figures of animals in
fresco.[1017] In later ages ceilings were painted, or inlaid with
coloured stones,[1018] or abaculi, so as to imitate the feathers and
hues of a peacock’s tail.[1019]
-----
Footnote 1015:
Winkelmann, ii. 68. Xenoph. Œconom. i. 3, seq.
Footnote 1016:
Dion Chrysost. i. 261. ii. 459.
Footnote 1017:
Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 153.
Footnote 1018:
Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 353. Pollux. x. 84.
Footnote 1019:
For a knowledge of this fact we are indebted to the elder Pliny: In
Belgicâ provinciâ candidum lapidem serrâ, qua lignum, faciliusque
etiam, secant, ad tegularum et imbricum vicem: vel si libeat, ad quæ
vocant pavonacea tegendi genera, xxxvi. 44. On which Dalecampus has
the following note: Docti complures legendum putant, pavita, aut
pavimenta, _i. e._ pavimenti modo facta et constructa. Ego pavonacea
interpretor, picturatis lapidum impositorum quadris ad instar pennarum
pavonis fulgentia, et splendentia, ut hodie fit in principum ædibus
tegulis magnâ colorum varietate nitentibus et conspicuis. See also the
note of Hardouin in loc.
-----
Timber for house-building,[1020] the choice of which was regulated by
law,[1021] abounded in most parts of Greece, though the best and
straightest was obtained from Macedonia and Arcadia,[1022] particularly
from a hollow valley near a place called Cranè, never visited by the
sun, and fenced round by rocks on all sides from the winds.[1023] Very
particular rules were laid down respecting the time and manner of
felling trees;[1024] first, wood cut in spring was most easily barked;
second, if this operation was neglected it bred worms, which furrowed
its whole surface like written characters; third, such as was cut when
the moon was below the horizon was thought harder and less liable to
decay.[1025] It may here, perhaps, be worth observing, that stones and
other substances were often found grown into the trunks of wild
olive-trees. This was particularly the case with that which grew in the
market-place of Megara. The oracle had foretold, that when this tree
should be cut down the city would be sacked and destroyed, which was
brought to pass by Demetrius. On this occasion the tree being felled and
sawed into planks, greaves and other articles of Athenian workmanship
were found in the heart of it.[1026] Fragments of the timber remained in
the time of Theophrastus.
-----
Footnote 1020:
Among the frailest dwellings of mankind, with the exception perhaps of
the paper houses of the Japanese, we may mention those of the
Nasamones described by Herodotus, composed of the stems of the
asphodel intertwisted with rushes: οἰκήματα δὲ σύμπηκτα ἐξ ἀνθερίκων
ἐνερμένων περὶ σχοίνους ἐστὶ, καὶ ταῦτα περιφορητά. iv. 190. Cf. v.
101.
Footnote 1021:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 55.
Footnote 1022:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 2. 1.
Footnote 1023:
Id. iv. 1. 2.
Footnote 1024:
See a curious figure of the axe, Mus. Chiaramont, pl. 21. Of the time
of fruit-bearing in forest trees, see Theoph. Hist. Plant, iii. 4. 4.
The same naturalist remarks, that the ilex, in Arcadia, was
perpetually covered with acorns, the old ones not falling off till the
new ones appeared. The yew and the pine blossom, he observes, a little
before midsummer, and the bright yellow flowers of the latter, are
extremely beautiful in form. Ib.
Footnote 1025:
Geopon. i. 6. 4. iii. 1. 2. iii. 10. 4. iii. 15. 3. Theoph. Hist.
Plant. v. 1. 2.
Footnote 1026:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 2. 4.
-----
In cutting hard wood carpenters made use of a blunt axe,[1027] which
thus became sharper, while soft wood produced the contrary effect.[1028]
It was customary before timber was committed to the saw to soak it for
some time in water;[1029] and it is said to have been rendered
incombustible by a solution of alum and certain kinds of vinegar.[1030]
The tools of the Greek carpenter as near as possible resembled our own;
they had the saws small and great, the plane, the axe, the chisel, the
square, the gimlet, the augur,[1031] the compass,[1032] and, in short,
whatever else could be useful in their trade. Among the paintings of
Herculaneum[1033] we find the representation of a carpenter’s workshop,
where two winged genii are busily employed with the mallet and the saw.
In making lines, &c., they used the ruddle now employed.[1034]
-----
Footnote 1027:
Lucian. Jup. Confut. § 11, who elsewhere commemorates the practice of
carpenters, who shut one eye that they may see the better. Icaromenip.
§ 14.
Footnote 1028:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 4. 7.
Footnote 1029:
Id. v. 6. 4.
Footnote 1030:
Aul. Gell. Noct. Apt. xv. 1.
Footnote 1031:
Auger-handles and small mallets were made of oleaster, box, elm, and
ash; large mallets of pine wood. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 8.
Footnote 1032:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 179.
Footnote 1033:
Antich. di Ercol. t. i. tav. 24, p. 181.
Footnote 1034:
Μίλτος τεκτονικὴ. Dioscor. v. 12.
-----
Among the kinds of timber in most general use was the silver fir,
thought to be extremely durable, in illustration of which Theophrastus
relates the following circumstance: it happened at Pheneos, in
Arcadia,[1035] that, owing to the obstruction of the torrent-beds, the
plain was converted into a lake. To traverse this they constructed
bridges of fir, and when the flood rose still higher, bridge upon bridge
was erected in succession. Afterwards when the waters had worked
themselves a passage and ebbed off, the whole of the wood of these
bridges was found in the completest preservation.[1036] The other kinds
of timber were the elm, used for doors, hinges, and weasel traps;[1037]
the cypress,[1038] cedar, and juniper for wainscoting, beams, and
paneled ceilings; the Arcadian, and the Idæan yew,[1039] which latter
was sometimes fraudulently substituted for cedar; the Eubœan walnut,
and the beech, which, not being subject to the rot, were resorted to for
piles and substructions.[1040] The former of these trees, which grew to
an extraordinary size, was likewise applied to the roofing of houses,
chiefly because, by a loud crackling noise, it gave notice when it was
about to break, and thus afforded the inmates leisure to effect their
escape. This happened at the public baths of Antandros, where the
company foreseeing from this warning sound the catastrophe that was
approaching, rushed forth into the streets, and thus avoided being
overwhelmed beneath the ruins.[1041]
-----
Footnote 1035:
In this country the pitch pine (πίτυς) was rare, but it abounded in
Elis. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. iii. 94.
Footnote 1036:
Id. v. 4. 6.
Footnote 1037:
Id. v. 3. 5-7. 4-4, seq.
Footnote 1038:
Athen. ix. 67.
Footnote 1039:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 10. 1, seq.
Footnote 1040:
Theophrast. Hist. Plant. iii. 8. 4. v. 7. 7.
Footnote 1041:
Id. v. 6. 1.
-----
The box, the ilex, and the lotos, they employed for door-pivots, which
were seasoned by being immersed in cow-dung.[1042]
-----
Footnote 1042:
Id. v. 5. 4-6.
-----
Cart and wheel wrights,[1043] necessarily pretty numerous, made use in
their trade of the following kinds of wood,—the scarlet oak,[1044] in
countries not abounding with ilex, as Laconia and Elis, for carts,
ploughs, and other rustic implements; the oxya, the fir, and the elm,
for chariot-bodies;[1045] the ilex, the box, the ash, and the
mast-bearing beech, for axletrees. The wood of all glutinous trees is
naturally flexible, but more especially that of the mulberry and the
wild fig, for which reason these, together with the platane, and the
poplar, were used for making the bended rims of chariot-seats, and the
circles of wheels.[1046] For spokes, the wood of the cornel tree was
preferred, and that of the box, the yew, the maple, and the
carpinus—hedge-beech, or hornbeam—for the yokes of oxen. In old times
the bodies of carts were often formed of basket-work. It may be remarked
by the way, that the Greeks understood the use of the drag-wheel.[1047]
-----
Footnote 1043:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 462. Poll. i. 253.
Footnote 1044:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 16. 3.
Footnote 1045:
Id. iii. 10. 1.
Footnote 1046:
Id. v. 6. 2.
Footnote 1047:
Athen. iii. 55.
-----
It has long been made a question among the learned[1048] whether the
ancients were or were not acquainted with the saddle, properly so
called. It may now be determined in the affirmative, since, besides the
several testimonies of classical writers, which are much too clear to be
set aside, we find in several Herculanean pictures exact representations
of saddles, both on horses and asses, with girths and cruppers exactly
as in modern times.[1049] It is evident, too, that they are constructed
upon wooden frames, to which Herodotus may possibly allude where he
speaks of saddles made of tanned human skins.[1050] Packsaddles for
sumpter-asses are of constant occurrence in history; and that they were
tolerably thick may be inferred from the fact, that numbers of daggers
were concealed in them by Aratos in his attempt upon Argos.[1051] I
shall here mention, also, by the way, and without entering into any
discussion, that horses and asses were occasionally shod by the
ancients,[1052] though the practice was doubtless not universal.
-----
Footnote 1048:
Beckmann decides for the negative, i. 247.
Footnote 1049:
Antich. di Ercol. t. ii. tav. 12, p. 79. t. iii. pp. 227. 231.
Footnote 1050:
Herod. iv. 64.
Footnote 1051:
Plut. Arat. § 25.
Footnote 1052:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, ii. 170, sqq.
-----
The trade of the cooper[1053] was in less general request than in modern
times; his principal employment being the making of tubs, with flour and
water-casks; their wine having been chiefly preserved in jars.[1054]
Latterly, however, small kegs got into use, as well probably as larger
casks even for wine. Pump-makers, together with the pump itself,[1055]
came in late, and of fire-engines they possessed barely the first
rudiments.[1056]
-----
Footnote 1053:
Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 1168.
Footnote 1054:
Id. 1055. 789.
Footnote 1055:
Cf. Dutens, Orig. des Découv. p. 258. Aristoph. Pac. 17, seq. Eq. 432,
cum Schol.
Footnote 1056:
Beckmann, iv. 75, seq.
-----
In speaking elsewhere of the household furniture of the Greeks we
necessarily anticipated much of what was to be said respecting
cabinet-makers and upholsterers. Some few particulars, however, omitted
in that place, shall be here introduced. With respect to the price of
furniture at Athens,[1057] it seems much better to be silent than by a
few imperfect conjectures to confine the mind of the reader. We know
absolutely nothing of the matter.
-----
Footnote 1057:
Cf. Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens. i. 1441, whose laborious
researches on this subject lead to no result.
-----
Among the Egyptians, the roots of the Persea,[1058] a beautiful
fruit-tree, said to have been poisonous in Persia,[1059] furnished the
materials not only of statues but of bedsteads and tables, which were of
a rich dark colour and received a fine polish.[1060] There was likewise,
in Syria, a species of wood the blackness of which was interveined with
ruddy streaks, so that it looked like variegated ebony. From this were
manufactured bedsteads, chairs, and other expensive articles of
furniture.[1061] The maple-tree grows both on plains and mountains. In
the latter situation its wood is of a pleasant reddish colour, finely
veined and solid,[1062] on which account it was much used in superior
cabinet-work. The zygian maple, in general beautifully clouded, was so
hard, that it required to be steeped in water before it could be
wrought.[1063] Of all woods the ancients considered that of the
cypress[1064] the most durable, and it is related in confirmation of
this opinion, that the doors of the temple of Artemis at Ephesos, which
were made of it, had already lasted four centuries in the time of
Theophrastus.[1065] It took the finest polish, and was therefore
employed in costly cabinet-work. The wood of the tree called thuia (a
species perhaps of wild cypress), abounding in Cyrenè, and the Oasis of
Jupiter Ammon,[1066] was thought to be incorruptible; and from its
roots, which were beautifully clouded, the most delicate articles of
furniture were manufactured. Next to these the wood of the mulberry-tree
was preferred, which exhibited a dusky grain like that of the
lotos.[1067] Expensive bedsteads were sometimes made of oxya and
citron-wood, the feet of which, among the Persians, were often turned
from the wood of the doom-palm,[1068] as they were formed among the
Greeks from amber.[1069] Statues,[1070] which ought in truth to be
regarded as articles of furniture, were carved from cedar,
cypress,[1071] lotos, box, and of a smaller size from the roots of
olive-trees, because they did not crack.[1072] Besides these which were
perhaps the more common, we find mention in ancient writers of images of
ebony, oak, yew, maple, beech, palm,[1073] myrtle, pear, linden, and
vine, to which may be added the fig-tree which was frequently preferred
on account of its soft texture, lightness, shining whiteness, and
close-grain. Occasionally statues of horses were carved of ebony and
ivory. As during the prevalence of certain winds several of these kinds
of woods were liable to sweat,[1074] the vulgar, who understood nothing
of the cause, regarded the circumstance as a prodigy.[1075]
-----
Footnote 1058:
This tree, which bore fruit in Egypt, only flowered in Rhodes. iii. 3.
5.
Footnote 1059:
Ælian. De Natur. Animal. ap. Schneid. ad Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2.
5. t. iii. p. 284. The account of this tree given by Dioscorides
contains a brief allusion to the fact related at length by Ælian, that
it was poisonous in its original country, together with some other
particulars nowhere else I believe stated. Περσέα δένδρον ἐστὶν ἐν
Ἀιγύπτῳ, καρπὸν φέρον ἐδώδιμον, εὐστόμαχον· ἐφ᾽ οὗ καὶ τὰ λεγόμενα
κρανοκόλαπτα φαλάγγια εὑρίσκεται, μάλιστα δὲ ἐν Θηβαΐδι. Δύναμιν δὲ
ἔχει τὰ φύλλα λεία ἐπιπλαττόμενα ξηρὰ, αἱμοῤῥαγίαν ἱστᾷν, τοῦτο δὲ
ἱστόρησαν τινες ἐν Περσίδι ἀναιρετικὸν εἶναι, μετατεθὲν δὲ εἰς
Ἀιγύπτον, ἀλλοιωθῆναι καὶ ἐδώδιμον γενέσθαι. i. 187.
Footnote 1060:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 5. Cf. Clusii. Hist. Rar. Plant. i. 2.
Footnote 1061:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 3. 3. Cf. Gitone, Il Costume Antico e Moderno
di tutti i Popoli. t. i. p. 94, tav. 15.
Footnote 1062:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 11. 12, seq.
Footnote 1063:
Id. v. 3. 3.
Footnote 1064:
This tree was supposed particularly to delight in the perpetual snows
of the Cretan Ida. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 1. 3.
Footnote 1065:
Hist. Plant. v. 4. 2.
Footnote 1066:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 37, seq. Cf. Plin. Hist. Nat. 30. Diod. Sicul.
v. 46. This wood, on account of its extraordinary durability, was much
used in the roofing of ancient temples. Many suppose it to be the
Arbor Vitæ. Clus. Hist. Rar. Plant. i. 24. p. 36, seq.
Footnote 1067:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 4. 3.
Footnote 1068:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 7.
Footnote 1069:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 530.
Footnote 1070:
Plat. De Rep. t. vi. 86. Plin. viii. 39. xxxv. 36. xxxiii. 54. Poll.
i. 7. See the note of the Milanese editor of Winkelmann, Hist. de
l’Art, t. i. p. 31, seq.
Footnote 1071:
Plut. Alex. § 14. Herod. ii. 131. Pausanias supplies a list of the
different kinds of wood used in the most ancient statues. viii. 17. 2.
Footnote 1072:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 3. 7.
Footnote 1073:
Id. v. 3. 6.
Footnote 1074:
Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 9. 8.
Footnote 1075:
Plut. Alex. § 14.
-----
From the knotted wood of the fir-tree, tablets for painting or writing
on were made, the inferior kinds of which were very common; but there
was a superior and very beautiful sort used only by the opulent.[1076]
-----
Footnote 1076:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 9. 7.
-----
Another piece of furniture in all Greek houses was the chest or
coffer[1077] in which money and plate, or costly garments, were
deposited. Articles of this description were frequently manufactured of
the finest and most aromatic woods, as cedar for example, and adorned on
all sides, as well as on the cover, with numerous figures in relief,
sometimes in gold or ivory, as in the case of the celebrated coffer of
Cypselos preserved in the treasury at Olympia.[1078] Generally, however,
they were made of humbler materials; sometimes veneered with thin planks
of yew, which took a high polish. Persons of inferior means substituted
for these, mallequins of fine basket-work, or plaited from the bark of
cherry or linden-tree.[1079] We may here remark by the way, that
bread-baskets were manufactured from willows and the twigs of
chestnut-trees,[1080] cleanly peeled, and that in Egypt articles of this
description were generally woven or plaited from the leaves of the date
and doom-palm, and probably variegated in colour as they are at present.
At the court, however, bread-baskets were at one period of gold, but
fashioned so as to resemble the rush-baskets in use among the earlier
Greeks.[1081]
-----
Footnote 1077:
Schweigh. Anim. in Athen. t. vi. p. 52. Schol. Arist. Eq. 1207.
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. 310. Poll. vii. 79. Plat. Tim. t. vii. pp.
52. 61. Luc. Amor. § 39. Arist. De Mund. c. vi.
Footnote 1078:
Creuzer. Commentat. Herodot. Ægypt. et Hellen. i. § 7. p. 62, seq.
Raoul Rochette, Cours D’Archéologie, p. 342, seq.
Footnote 1079:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 10. 4-13. 1. v. 7. 5. Philost. Icon. i. 31.
p. 809.
Footnote 1080:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 15. 2. v. 7. 7. Common baskets too were made
of the leaves of the dwarf-palm, Id. i. 6. 11, and various domestic
utensils from the roots of the papyrus. Id. iv. 8. 4.
Footnote 1081:
Athen. vi. 15.
-----
Lanterns, too, in the first instance, were of basketwork,[1082] though
afterwards manufactured, as in modern times, with thin plates of horn or
ivory.[1083]
-----
Footnote 1082:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 428.
Footnote 1083:
Athen. vi. 157. That the trade of lantern-making was of considerable
importance in the ancient world may be inferred from the great number
of lanterns made use of in fortified cities, either when actually
besieged, or when apprehensive of sudden attacks from the enemy. See
on this subject a long and interesting passage in Æneas Tacticus, cap.
xxvi. p. 81, seq. Ed. Orell. Cf. cap. xxii. p. 67, seq.
-----
In some parts of Greece when individuals, not possessing costly
furniture, desired to give a grand entertainment, they hired whatever
articles they stood in need of, as seats, beds, vases, &c., of a broker,
whose business, in the island of Samos, was once carried on by the
tyrant Polycrates.[1084]
-----
Footnote 1084:
Athen. xii. 57.
-----
As ivory entered largely into the making of furniture among the
ancients,[1085] the reader will not regret to find here an explanation
of the means by which it was rendered soft and tractable. This secret
appears hitherto to have escaped the modern writers on Art. Monsieur
Dutens[1086] and the Milanese editors of Winkelmann[1087] observe, that
the ancients possessed the art of softening ivory without, however,
giving any intimation that they understood in what the secret consisted.
But the whole matter was extremely simple, since they merely steeped the
piece of ivory about to be worked in a fermented liquor, called
zythos,[1088] prepared from barley, and drank commonly, with or without
a mixture of honey, by all persons in Gaul. Many of these ivory
ornaments were produced by the turning-lathe. They turned also from the
knots of the Arcadian fir large bowls of a shining black colour.[1089]
There was even a kind of stone which, being soft when drawn from the
quarry, was turned and cut into bowls, plates, and other articles for
the table, which were susceptible of a high polish, and became hard by
constant exposure to the air.[1090]
-----
Footnote 1085:
Luc. Cynic. § 9. Somn. seu Gall. § 14.
Footnote 1086:
Origine des Découvertes, p. 194.
Footnote 1087:
Histoire de l’Art. p. 34.
Footnote 1088:
Εὐεργης δὲ καὶ ὁ ἔλεφας γίνεταὶ βρεχόμενος αὐτῳ. Dioscor. ii. 109.
Footnote 1089:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 7. 1.
Footnote 1090:
Id. de Lapid. § 42. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 44. Tournefort, Voyage, t.
i. p. 209.
-----
It was, probably, to the turner’s art that the Greeks owed many of those
straight and elegant kinds of walkingsticks,[1091] particularly affected
by the opulent, and called Persian, doubtless because the use of them
came originally from Asia. Others preferred the Laconian scytale,[1092]
fashioned usually from a piece of whitethorn, and philosophers, sticks
of olive-wood.[1093] Rustics then, as now, were in the habit of carrying
twisted and uncouth walkingstaves, bent sometimes atop, and of heavy
materials. The straight light stem of the malachè,[1094] and birch, and
elder,[1095] were likewise in use; while some carried sticks made from
the agnus castus or the laurel, which were believed to possess the
virtue of preserving those who bore them from accident or injury.[1096]
The making of umbrellas or parasols, which opened and closed like our
own,[1097] no doubt constituted a separate branch of industry. These
articles, it may be observed, were manufactured with great elegance,
with handles gracefully ornamented, and furnished at the periphery[1098]
with numerous elongated drops. It was, probably, the same tradesmen in
whose shops were found those folding-seats, or camp-stools, invented by
Dædalos, the use of which seems to have been very common at
Athens.[1099]
-----
Footnote 1091:
Gitone, Il Costume, pl. 20.
Footnote 1092:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. 170, seq. Suid. v. σκύταλον, t. ii. p. 768.
b. Poll. iv. 170. v. 18. x. 113.
Footnote 1093:
Luc. Dial. Meret. xi. § 3. The Celastron, an evergreen, and the Mya,
were also used for walkingsticks. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 7.
Footnote 1094:
Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 3. 2, seq.
Footnote 1095:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 13. 4. 14. 4. Old men sometimes flourished a
pair. Sch. Aristoph. Plut. 272. Generally, however, they were content,
even in winter, with one, and were, therefore, compared by the poets
to three-legged stools. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 533. Æschyl. Agam. 80.
Eurip. Troad. 275. For the thick, heavy staff affected by old men see
in Zoëga (Bassi Rilievi, tav. 40) a basso rilievo representing the
Death of Meleager.
Footnote 1096:
Dioscor. i. 135.
Footnote 1097:
To this fact Aristophanes jocularly alludes, where he describes the
ears of the Demos as opening and closing under the influence of
eloquence. Equit. 1344, seq.
Τὰ δ᾽ ὦτα γάρ σου, νὴ Δί᾽, ἐξεπετάννυται,
Ὥσπερ σκιάδιον, καὶ πάλιν ξυνήγεται.
On this passage the Scholiast observes: σκέπασμά τι, ὅπερ αἱ γυναῖκες
παρὰ τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ἔχουσι θέουσαι ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ καίεσθαι τὰς ὄψεις ὑπὸ
τοῦ ἡλίου. ἐκτείνεται δὲ καὶ συστέλλεται πρὸς τὸν κατεπείγοντα καιρόν.
Footnote 1098:
Hope, Costumes of the Ancients.—Gitone, Il Cost. Ant. e Mod. pl. 17.
pl. 67.
Footnote 1099:
Aristoph. Eq. 1384. cum Schol.
-----
Respecting the manufacture of musical instruments, we have but a few
particulars to communicate, though it formed a profitable branch of
industry in every part of Greece. Musical instruments were divided by
the ancients into three kinds:[1100] those which were played by means of
the breath,—the pipe, the trumpet, and the flute; those whose harmony
resided in their strings, as the lyre and the cithara; and those which
produced sound by beating or clashing against each other, as cymbals and
the drum. The best trumpets, supposed to have been an invention of the
Tyrrhenians,[1101] were obtained from Italy, though on many occasions
great sea-shells were substituted for those larger instruments. In the
East, trumpets were sometimes manufactured of cow-hide, though the usual
materials were brass and iron, with a little bone for the
mouth-piece.[1102] There were two kinds,—the straight and the crooked.
-----
Footnote 1100:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 312.
Footnote 1101:
Poll. iv. 70. Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 133. Cf. Raoul Rochette, Cours
D’Archéol. p. 136. In lieu of trumpets the Indians, we are told, made
use of certain whips, by the flourishing and cracking of which in the
air they produced a kind of rude music. These strange sounds were
accompanied by the low and terrible roll of their great drums, which
still continue to delight the ear of the Hindùs. Suid. v. σάλπιγξ, t.
ii. 709. b. For the common form of the trumpet see Gitone, Il Costume,
tav. 81. Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 9.
Footnote 1102:
Poll. iv. 71.
-----
Of the pipe of barley-straw,[1103] invented by Osiris, nothing need be
said except, that its use and manufacture formed the amusement of
shepherds. The fashioning of the common pipe constituted an important
branch of industry, particularly in Bœotia, where the reed[1104] from
which it was made abounded in the Orchomenian marshes,[1105] between the
Cephisos and the Melas, in the place called Pelecania.[1106] The season
for cutting, which prevailed up to the age of Antigones, was the month
Boedromion; but, for the improvement of the instrument, that musician
altered the time, which thenceforward was in the months Scirophorion and
Hecatombion.[1107] The reeds were prepared in the following manner:
being cut, they were piled in a heap with their leaves on, and left in
the open air during the whole winter. Having in spring been cleared of
their outer integuments, well rubbed and exposed to the sun, they were,
during the summer, cut into lengths at the knots, and left a little
longer in the open air.[1108] The internodial spaces did not fall short
of two palms in length, and the best portions of the reed used for
making the double pipe[1109] was about the middle.[1110] Pipes and
flutes[1111] were likewise manufactured of the leg-bones of stags, at
least in Bœotia. The lotos-wood[1112] transverse flute was an
invention of the Africans. The elymœan flute made of boxwood owed its
origin to the Phrygians, and was played during the worship of Cybelè.
That called hippophorbos was invented by the last dwellers of Libya, who
habitually played on it while pasturing their great droves of horses in
the desert.[1113] It appears to have been a very simple instrument,
fashioned of a piece of laurel-wood, by removing the bark and scooping
out the pith. Its sharp shrill sound which could be heard far and near,
delighted the ears of the horses, who probably, like the Turks, estimate
the merit of music by its loudness. The monaulos, a favourite invention
of the Egyptians, spoken of by Sophocles in his Thamyris, was usually
played in marriage concerts.[1114] The lugubrious funeral-pipe of the
Carians was a Phrygian invention. There existed among the Thebans a
curious instrument of this kind, probably used in hunting, made from the
bones of fawns, with a coating of bronze.[1115] The Tyrrhenians, like
the rude sportsmen of Europe, drew music from the horn. Among the
Phœnicians was a small flute made of goose-bones, not exceeding a
span in length, called gingras[1116] in honour of Adonis, so named in
their language, which emitting a plaintive and melancholy note, was
doubtless much used in the wailing orgies of that divinity. Its
character being exceedingly simple, it was habitually put into the hands
of beginners,[1117] and seems to have been very common at Athens. The
most extraordinary pipes, however, enumerated by ancient writers, were
the ones in which those Scythian tribes denominated by the Greeks,
Cannibals, Black Cloaks, and Arimaspians, delighted; and manufactured
from the leg-bones of eagles and vultures.[1118] The Celts and the
islanders of the ocean, our own forefathers, doubtless eschewed the
music of vultures’ legs, and contented themselves with the notes of the
syrinx.[1119]
-----
Footnote 1103:
Cf. Aristot. Problem. xix. 23.
Footnote 1104:
Cf. Philost. Icon. i. 20. p. 794.
Footnote 1105:
The borders of this lake must at all times have presented a most
picturesque appearance, tufted as they were with thickets of the
willow and the eleagnos, while a variety of terrestrial and aquatic
plants descended its banks and spread themselves far into the water,
as the pipe and the common reed, the white nymphæa, the typha, the
phleos, the cyperos, the menyanthos, the icmè, and the ipnon. Theoph.
Hist. Plant. iv. 10. 1.
Footnote 1106:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 11. 8. Dioscor. i. 94. The κάλαμος συριγγίας
is the Saccharum Ravennæ of Sibthorp, Flora Græca, tab. 52, where it
is observed, that it is found “in Peloponneso coprosè; ad littora
Ponti Euxini propè _Fanar_.”
Footnote 1107:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 11. 9.
Footnote 1108:
The form of the modern pipe is thus described by Chandler, who, after
having spoken of the taborer, adds “this was accompanied by a pipe
with a reed for the mouth-piece, and below it a circular rim of wood,
against which the lips of the player came. His cheeks were much
inflated, and the notes so various, shrill, and disagreeable, as to
remind me of the composition designed for the ancient Aulos or flute,
as was fabled by Minerva.” Travels, &c. i. 49.
Footnote 1109:
Cf. Gitone, Il Costume, tav. 65.
Footnote 1110:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 11. 6, seq.
Footnote 1111:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 827, seq. Cf. Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 386.
Footnote 1112:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 3. 3. Poll. iv. 74.
Footnote 1113:
Poll. iv. 74. Comm. t. iv. p. 720. Ælian. De Nat. Animal. xii. 44.
Footnote 1114:
Poll. iv. 75.
Footnote 1115:
Id. iv. 75.
Footnote 1116:
Athen. iv. 76. Poll. iv. 76.
Footnote 1117:
Athen. iv. 75. Hesych. v. γιγγρίσι.
Footnote 1118:
Poll. iv. 76.
Footnote 1119:
Suid. v. σύριγξ, t. ii. p. 844. a.
-----
In earlier times there was a flute appropriated to each mode, or grand
division of the national music, but afterwards Pronomos of Thebes,[1120]
invented one equally well suited to every mode. Even the manufacture of
mouth-pieces, and flute-cases formed a considerable branch of industry.
The materials from which the above instruments were chiefly made, were,
in addition to those already mentioned, branches of the elder tree and
dwarf laurel, bones of asses and kids, ivory and silver.[1121] Organs,
and hydraulic organs, the latter invented by the Alexandrian barber
Ctesibios, to whom antiquity was likewise indebted for the knowledge of
the pump, were reckoned by the ancients among wind-instruments.[1122]
-----
Footnote 1120:
Cf. Dion Chrysost. i. 263.
Footnote 1121:
Jul. Scalig. Poet. i. 20, p. 78, seq.
Footnote 1122:
Athen. iv. 75. Pignor. de Serv. p. 88, seq. Vitruv. ix. 9.
-----
Of stringed-instruments the most common was the lyre,[1123] manufactured
from many kinds of fine wood, and sometimes of ivory.[1124] The bridge
was usually of ilex.[1125] The cithara,[1126] introduced at Athens by
Phrynis,[1127] was made sometimes of horn with wooden pegs,[1128] though
mention occurs of one formed entirely of solid gold, adorned with
figures in relief of the Muses, Orpheus, and Apollo, and thickly studded
with emeralds and other precious stones.[1129] The magadis,[1130]
sometimes reckoned among wind-instruments, was unquestionably stringed,
since we find Timotheus, accused at Sparta of innovating in the number
of its chords, pointing out to his accuser an ancient statue of Apollo,
in which the god was represented playing on a magadis with an equal
number.[1131] In proof of its antiquity it may be remarked, that
Lesbothemis, a sculptor, who flourished in a remote age at Mytilene,
where this instrument was always in high favour,[1132] represented one
of the Muses with the magadis in her hand. The pectis, said to have been
an invention of Sappho, and by some confounded with the magadis, ought
rather perhaps to be regarded as a modification of that
instrument.[1133] The epigoneion, so called from its inventor Epigonos,
by birth an Ambraciot, though afterwards made a citizen of Sicyon, was a
kind of harp with forty strings, resembling, probably, those
many-chorded instruments represented on the monuments of Egypt and
Ethiopia. This Epigonos, is said to have been the first person who in
playing dispensed with the use of the plectron.[1134] The ancient Arabs
forestalled Signor Paganini, and drew a world of sweet sounds from an
instrument of one chord:[1135] the Assyrians had their pandoura, with
three strings.[1136] Among the Scythians was found the pentachordon,
stringed with thongs of raw bull-hide, and played on by a plectron of
goat’s hoof. The Libyans, more especially the Troglodytes, filled their
caverns with the music of the psithura, otherwise called the ascaron, an
instrument a cubit square, which produced sounds resembling the tinkling
of castanets. Cantharos attributes its invention to the Thracians. To
these we may add the drum, the tambourine,[1137] with cymbals, and
castanets, sometimes of brass, and sometimes of shells, played on by
women in honour of Artemis.
-----
Footnote 1123:
A rude species of lyre is still in use in Asia Minor. Chandler,
Travels, &c., i. 149.
Footnote 1124:
Athen. xv. 50. Herod. iv. 192.
Footnote 1125:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 6.
Footnote 1126:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 574.
Footnote 1127:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 958.
Footnote 1128:
Luc. adv. Indoct. § 10.
Footnote 1129:
Id. § 8.
Footnote 1130:
Athen. iv. 35. Poll. iv. 61. Anab. vii. 3. Meur. Lect. Att. iv. 20.
Footnote 1131:
Athen. xiv. 40.
Footnote 1132:
Id. 36.
Footnote 1133:
Poll. iv. 59.
Footnote 1134:
Etym. Mag. 605. 45.
Footnote 1135:
Poll. iv. 60.
Footnote 1136:
There was likewise an instrument of four chords. Etym. Mag. 514. 34.
Footnote 1137:
See a representation of this instrument, with a portrait painted on
the bottom of it. Antich. di Ercol. t. iv. p. 151.
-----
The business of the potter[1138] was held in considerable estimation
among the Greeks, so that several celebrated cities rivalled each other
in their productions. Among these, Athens,[1139] Samos, and Rhodes held
the first rank.[1140] Even the Bœotian Aulis obtained some degree of
reputation for its earthenware.[1141] But that made at Kolias,[1142] in
Attica, from the clay there found, and richly painted with figures in
minium, appears to have been the most beautiful known to antiquity.
-----
Footnote 1138:
On the potter’s wheel, see Suidas. v. κωλιάδος κεραμῆες. t. i. p.
1511. b.
Footnote 1139:
Aristoph. Acharn. 901, seq.
Footnote 1140:
Athen. xi. 37.
Footnote 1141:
Pausan. ix. 19. 8.
Footnote 1142:
Schol. Aristoph. Lysist. 2. Chandler, Travels, ii. 166. Lucian
observes somewhat jocularly that in some parts of Africa the natives
were driven to the use of ostrich’s eggs for goblets, because no
potter’s clay was found in their country. De Dipsad. § 7. Cf. Plin.
Nat. Hist. x. 1. Bochart. Hierozoic. Compend. ii. 16.
-----
The number of rough articles produced was prodigious, seeing that oil,
and wine, and salt-fish, and pickles, and a variety of other commodities
were exported in jars; while almost all culinary operations were carried
on in earthern vessels. Such of these as found their way to Egypt, after
the conquest of that country by the Persians, were filled with Nile
water, and transported into the desert, on camels, to slake the thirst
of the wayfarers on that arid waste.[1143] Perhaps, the largest articles
of earthenware, however, were the corn-jars, some of which are said to
have contained nearly a quarter of grain, in lieu of which plaited
corbels were sometimes used.[1144] Much art and elegance was displayed
in the forms, varnishing, and painting of fictile vases, some of which,
of light and graceful contour, were made without bottoms, wholly for
ornament.[1145] The colours employed in the painting of vases, more
particularly those intended to hold the ashes of the dead, were
generally light and durable; and the ease and beauty of the figures
prove that the ancient potters paid great attention to the arts of
design. The ornaments were extremely various, sometimes consisting of
representations of the gods, as Heracles, Pan, or the genii, sometimes
of oakleaves, garlands, or festoons, arranged with taste and
elegance.[1146] Athenæus speaks of a kind of porcelain called
Rhossican,[1147] covered with the forms of flowers, upon which Cleopatra
expended five minæ per day. Another branch of the potter’s business
consisted in the manufacturing of lamps,[1148] which were so generally
in use, that, throughout the Greek and the Roman world, the sites of
cities, the ruins of temples, and the sepulchral chambers excavated
beneath the earth, lavishly abound with them, entire or in
fragments.[1149] Hyperbolos is said to have amassed a considerable
fortune by selling lamps of an inferior quality.[1150] Wax-candles,
however, were likewise in use, at least in later ages,[1151] and with
the same materials they fashioned artificial pomegranates and other
ornaments, together with small portable images of animals, men, and
gods, which, like our figures of plaster of Paris, were sold, as well as
those of clay, about the streets. Some notion, too, may be formed of the
price, since we find that a figure of Eros fetched a drachma.[1152]
-----
Footnote 1143:
Herodot. iii. 6. A large branch of the potter’s business consisted in
the manufacture of earthen pipes used in conveying water to towns and
cities. See Chandler, Travels, &c. i. 22. seq. 133.
Footnote 1144:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 614.
Footnote 1145:
Winkelmann, Hist, de l’Art. t. i. p. 30, seq.
Footnote 1146:
“Morning Chronicle,” July 17, 1838, p. 3, where we find an account of
several of these jars dug up at Exeter.
Footnote 1147:
Athen. vi. 15.
Footnote 1148:
These were filled with the ἀρύταινα, a brazen ladle. Schol. Arist. Eq.
1087. Æropos, king of Macedon, was an amateur lamp-maker, devoting his
leisure hours to the manufacture of diminutive lamps and tables, just
as other kings used to unbend their minds, after the enjoyment of
luxury, by painting, playing the flute, or wielding the turning-lathe.
Plut. Demet. § 20.
Footnote 1149:
Herodot. ii. 62. Cf. Sophocl. Aj. 285, sqq.
Footnote 1150:
Aristoph. Eq. 1301. Vesp. 1001.
Footnote 1151:
Vid. Plin. xiii. 27. xvi. 70, cum not. Hard.—Antipat. ap. Anthol.
Græc. vi. 249.
Footnote 1152:
Anacreon, 10. Athen. viii. 50. Suid. v. κοροπλάθοι t. ii. p. 1500. a.
-----
The manufacture of glass[1153] was carried to a very high degree of
perfection among the ancients.[1154] They understood the methods of
blowing, cutting, and engraving on it; could stain it of every rich and
brilliant colour so as to imitate the most precious gems,[1155] from the
ruby and the amethyst to the turquoise and the beryl; they could fashion
it into jars, and bowls, and vases, exhibiting all the various hues of
the peacock’s train, which, like shot-silks and the breast of the dove,
exhibited fresh tints in every different light,—fading, quivering, and
melting into each other as the eye changed its point of view.[1156]
Squares of glass were produced, perfectly polished and transparent
without, but containing figures of various colours in their
interior.[1157] Glass, likewise, was wrought into bassi and alti
rilievi, and cast, as gems were cut, into cameos.[1158] The
manufacturers of Alexandria excelled in the working of glass,[1159] with
which they skilfully imitated all kinds of earthenware, fabricating cups
of every known form.
-----
Footnote 1153:
Plat. Tim. t. vii. p. 81.
Footnote 1154:
Large glass cups. Luc. Quomed. Hist. sit Conscrib. § 25. In the
Antichita di Ercolano we see represented a glass vase so completely
transparent, that the eggs with which it is filled are seen as
distinctly as through water. t. ii. p. 111. Cf. t. iii. p. 287.
Footnote 1155:
Petron. Satyr, p. 99. Cf. Treb. Poll. Gallien. § 12. p. 321. Caylus
supposes them to have mixed a small portion of lead with their glass.
t. ii. p. 355.
Footnote 1156:
The allusions of ancient authors to these vases are few. They are
mentioned, however, in a letter of Adrian to the Consul Servianus:
“Calices tibi _allassontes_ versicolores transmisi, quos mihi sacerdos
templi obtulit, tibi et sorori meæ specialiter dedicatos, quos tu
velim festis diebus conviviis adhibeas.” Vopisc. in Vit. Saturnin.
cap. viii. Casaubon, in his note on this passage, speaks of these cups
in the following terms: Allassontes qui colorem mutant sicut
palumborum colla. The murrhine vases, the nature of which so many have
attempted to explain, if they were not after all a species of glass,
appear at least to have had many analogous qualities; and the
following description of Pliny is calculated to create the highest
idea of their beauty: “Splendor his sine viribus: nitorque verius quam
splendor. Sed in pretio varietas colorum subinde circumagentibus se
maculis in purpuram candoremque, et tertium ex utroque ignescentem,
veluti per transitum coloris, in purpura, aut rubescente lacteo. Sunt
qui maxime in iis laudent extremitates et quosdam colorum repercussus
quales in cœlesti arcu spectantur.” Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 8.
Footnote 1157:
Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art. i. 48.
Footnote 1158:
Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. i. 51. See Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions, vol.
i. p. 240.
Footnote 1159:
Athen. xi. 28. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 756.
-----
It is added, moreover, that a certain kind of earth was found in Egypt,
without which the best kind of coloured glass[1160] could not be
produced. Petronius informs us, that, in the reign of Tiberius, a
skilful experimentalist discovered the art of rendering this substance
malleable, but that the emperor, from some freak of tyranny, put the man
to death, and thus his secret was lost to the world.[1161] A similar act
of cruelty was perpetrated by the public authorities at Dantzic, who, in
the seventeenth century, caused an able mechanician, who had invented a
superior kind of ribbon-loom, to be strangled.[1162]
-----
Footnote 1160:
Strab. ap. Beckmann, History of Inventions, i. 198.
Footnote 1161:
Satyr. c. 51, p. 25, seq. Burm. Plin. xxxvi. 66.
Footnote 1162:
Beckmann, iii, 494.
-----
CHAPTER VI.
INDUSTRY: OIL AND COLOUR MEN.—ITALIAN WAREHOUSES.—DRUGGISTS.—COLLECTORS
OF SIMPLES.
There was, moreover, produced in Greece, a number of articles, whether
of use or luxury, to the venders of which it appears difficult to
appropriate a name. It must necessarily be inferred, however, that there
existed a class of shopkeepers analogous to our oil and colour men, at
whose establishments were found most or all of the following
commodities: every kind of vegetable oil, for cookery, painting, or to
be burned as lamp-oil, of sea salt, probably for medicinal
purposes,[1163] oil of horseradish,[1164] used instead of the root
itself, as a condiment. Among the lamp-oils it is worthy of observation
that the Greeks included castor oil[1165] which was commonly, from its
nauseous effects, eschewed as a medicine. Bitumen[1166] also was
occasionally burnt in lamps. Their lampwicks were ordinarily of
rushes,[1167] which they sometimes anointed with the oil expressed from
the seeds of the myagrum perenne;[1168] and from certain nuts found on
the oak they obtained a sort of woolly substance[1169] which, being
twisted into wicks, burnt freely without oil. The dried stem of the
torch-weed[1170] was likewise employed for this purpose. Their flambeaux
consisted originally of slips of the pine or pitch tree,[1171] or even
as at Rhodes of the bark of the vine,[1172] but afterwards certain
combustible compositions were burned in painted and ornamented
handles.[1173]
-----
Footnote 1163:
Aristoph. Problem. xxiii. 15.
Footnote 1164:
Ῥαφανέλαιον. Dioscor. i. 45.
Footnote 1165:
Κίκινον ἔλαιον.—Κικι, οἱ δὲ σήσαμον ἄγριον, οἱ δὲ, σέσελι Κύπριον.
Dioscor. iv. 164.
Footnote 1166:
Dioscor. i. 99. Cf. Herod. 179.
Footnote 1167:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 60. Athen. x. 25.
Footnote 1168:
Dioscor. iv. 117.
Footnote 1169:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 7. 4. Plin. xviii. 10.
Footnote 1170:
Poll. i. 229, seq.
Footnote 1171:
The same torch is still in use in Circassia. J. S. Bell, Journal of a
residence in Circassia, ii. 69.
Footnote 1172:
Athen. xvi. 61. Cf. Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 48. t. i. p. 343.
Footnote 1173:
Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 1373. Bœttiger. Fur. pl. 2. Barthelémy,
Anacharsis, ii. 330. Goguet. iii. 391. Cf. Gitone, Il Costume, tav.
63. Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 14.
-----
The making of pitch, generally found in these shops, was carried on in
the following manner,[1174] particularly among the Macedonians: Having
cleared a large level space in the forests, as when constructing a
threshing-floor, they carefully paved it, and gave the whole a slope
towards the centre. The billets of wood were then piled up endways as
close to each other as possible, and so as that the height of the heap
should always be in proportion to its magnitude. These piles were
frequently of enormous dimensions, falling little short of a hundred
yards in circumference and rising to the height of eighty or ninety
feet. The whole mound was then covered with turf and earth; and the wood
having been set on fire by means of an open passage below, which
immediately afterwards was closed, numerous ladders were thrown up along
its sides in order that, should the least smoke anywhere appear, fresh
layers of turf and earth might be cast upon it: for if the flame found a
vent the hopes of the manufacturer were destroyed. The pitch flowed off
by an underground channel leading from the centre of the area to a
spacious cistern sunk in the earth about twenty feet beyond the
circumference of the mound, where it was suffered to cool. During two
days and two nights the fire in these heaps continued generally to burn,
requiring the incessant care and vigilance of the workmen, though it
frequently happened that before sunset on the second day, the earthy
crust flattened and fell in, the wood being reduced to ashes. This was
generally preceded by the pitch ceasing to flow. The whole of this
period was converted into a holiday by the labourers, who offered
sacrifice to the gods, and preferred many prayers, that their pitch
might be plentiful and good.
-----
Footnote 1174:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 3. i. Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 189. 643.
-----
Nitre was procured from wood-ashes,[1175] as it is at this day in
Circassia, from the ashes of a plant cultivated for the purpose. It has
been supposed that the ancients were acquainted with gunpowder;[1176]
and there appears to have been a dim tradition of artificial thunder and
lightning among the Brachmanes in the remotest antiquity.[1177]
-----
Footnote 1175:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 7. 6. Dutens, Orig. des Découvertes, &c. p.
183. Bell, Resid. in Circassia, ii. 30. Beckmann, ii. 434.
Footnote 1176:
Dutens, p. 194, sqq.
Footnote 1177:
Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. ii. 33. iii. 13. Themist. Orat. 27. p. 337.
-----
The demand for the various earths and colours was considerable; such as
the Melian, a fine white marl, used by artists frequently for
communicating to green paint a pale hue;[1178] the Cimolian, by
fullers;[1179] and the gypsum, employed occasionally by both. The
Samian, being fat and unctuous,[1180] was eschewed by painters, though
it found its place among the materia medica. Another article in much
request was the argol, a beautiful moss,[1181] used both by painters and
dyers; to which we may add the cinnabar[1182] and the kermes, used for
dying scarlet; the Indian black,[1183] indigo, ultramarine, lamp and
ivory black, painter’s soot, collected from glass furnaces,[1184]
verdigris, ceruse, and minium, used in painting vases and clay
statues.[1185] Other substances which sometimes entered into the
materials of painters were, the sandarach[1186] and the orpiment, found
in gold, silver, and copper mines, ochre, ruddle, and chrysocolla.
Ruddle was successfully imitated by burnt ochre, the manufacturing of
which was the invention of Cydias,[1187] who having observed that a
quantity of ochre found in a house which was burnt down had assumed a
red colour, profited by the hint, though the article thus produced was
inferior to the natural. The Lemnian earth,[1188] having been mixed with
goats’ blood, kneaded into small round pastilles, and stamped with the
figure of a goat, was vended, partly as a medicine, partly to be used in
sacrifice. In the same shops, doubtless, sealing-wax and ink were
sold.[1189] The receipt for preparing the latter was as follows:[1190]
to an ounce of gum they added three ounces of pine-torch or resin soot,
or even that which was obtained from the glass furnaces, and used, as
above observed, by painters. In this latter case, a mina of soot was
mingled with a pound and a half of gum, and an ounce and a half of
bull’s glue and copperas-water. An infusion of wormwood[1191] was
sometimes used in the manufacture of ink, which preserved the
manuscripts written with it from being gnawed by rats or other vermin.
Another method was, to smear the parchment with saffron and cedar
oil.[1192]
-----
Footnote 1178:
Dioscor. v. 180. Theoph. de Lapid. § 63.
Footnote 1179:
Dioscor. v. 176. Beckmann, iii. 245. Theoph. de Lap. § 62. Plin. xxxv.
56, seq.
Footnote 1180:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 62, seq. Plin. xxviii. 53. 77. xxxi. 46.
Footnote 1181:
Beckmann, i. 60.
Footnote 1182:
Dioscor. v. 109. Theoph. de Lap. 58.
Footnote 1183:
Beckmann, iv. 120. 111. 117.
Footnote 1184:
Dioscor. v. 182.
Footnote 1185:
Suid. v. κωλιάδος κεραμῆες, t. i. p. 1511. b. Paus. vi. 26. 11.
Herodot. iv. 191. 194. vii. 68, who says, it was also used by certain
people in painting their bodies.
Footnote 1186:
Dioscor. v. 122. 121. On the earths and ochres of the ancients, see
Sir Humphrey Davy, in the Philosophical Transactions, 1815, pt. i. p.
97, seq.
Footnote 1187:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 53.
Footnote 1188:
Dioscor. v. 113. Plin. xxviii. 24. xxix. 33. xxxv. 14.
Footnote 1189:
Luc. Alexand. § 21.
Footnote 1190:
Dioscor. v. 183. i. 93. Plin. xxxv. 25.
Footnote 1191:
Dioscor. iii. 26.
Footnote 1192:
Luc. adv. Indoct. § 16. By the odour of this oil the books of Numa
were said, by tradition, to have been preserved for many generations.
“Mirabantur alii, quomodo illi libri durare potuissent: ille (Hemina)
ita rationem reddebat: lapidem fuisse quadratum circiter in mediâ arcâ
vinctum candelis quoquo versus. In eo lapide insuper libros impositos
fuisse, propterea arbitrari eos non computruisse. Et libros cedratos
fuisse: propterea arbitrarier tineas non tetigisse.” Plin. Nat. Hist.
xiii. 27. To the virtues of this oil Vitruvius also bears testimony.
“Quæ unguntur cedrio, ut libri à tineis et carie non læduntur.” ii. 9.
In the above passage of Pliny, Hardouin reads “libros citratos,” and
supposes the naturalist to mean that citron-leaves were folded in the
manuscript: “quorum hæc propria dos, ut arceant animalium noxia, hoc
est, tineas.” Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 7. But as the citron was not
introduced into Greece or Italy until several centuries after the age
of Numa, it is very clear that “cedratos” must remain in the text of
Pliny.
-----
Next to these, perhaps, should be ranged those shops which resembled our
Italian warehouses, where the gourmands of antiquity procured their best
vinegar, pickles, and sauces.[1193] To enumerate all the articles found
in such an establishment would be somewhat difficult; but we may observe
that they sold, among other things, the best Colophonian mustard,[1194]
pepper,[1195] together with all the substitutes occasionally used for
it, such as the Syrian nard,[1196] water-pepper,[1197] and, among the
ancient Italians, lovage of Lombardy,[1198] garlic heads,[1199] a
mixture of salt and thyme,[1200] pickled olives, and cornel-berries, to
be eaten at table, pickled dittander,[1201] mountain rue,[1202]
snakeweed or wake-robin, fennel or chervil, tendrils of the wild
vine,[1203] eringo root, sea-heath, cammock, lettuces and parsley.[1204]
To these may be added silphion, sesame, citron-peel, cumin, wild
marjoram, capers, cresses, and fig-leaves.[1205] Among the Syrians, the
root and seeds of the sison-amomum were used as spices, and pickled with
sliced gourds.[1206] The Arabs, we are told, seasoned their dishes with
the leaf of the ginger plant.[1207] Ginger-root was likewise known and
used as a condiment in Greece.
-----
Footnote 1193:
Diog. Laert. ii. 31. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 192. 643. Athen. ii. 75,
seq. Dioscor. v. 21. Plat. De Rep. vi. p. 404.
Footnote 1194:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 629.
Footnote 1195:
Ἀνώδυνον τε ἐστὶ καὶ ὑγιείνον· καὶ ὄρεξιν κίνει. Dioscor. ii. 189.
Footnote 1196:
Δράβη. Dioscor. ii. 187.
Footnote 1197:
Id. ii. 191.
Footnote 1198:
Λιγυστικὸν. Dioscor. iii. 58.
Footnote 1199:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 680.
Footnote 1200:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 737. Athen. ii. 45.
Footnote 1201:
Dioscor. ii. 205.
Footnote 1202:
Id. iii. 53.
Footnote 1203:
Id. ii. 167.
Footnote 1204:
Poll. vi. 61.
Footnote 1205:
Athen. ii. 76. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 891.
Footnote 1206:
Dioscor. iii. 34.
Footnote 1207:
Id. ii. 190.
-----
Although, properly speaking, there may, in early times, have been no
such trades as those of the druggist and the apothecary, there very soon
arose a class of men who nearly resembled them, though professing to
practise medicine.[1208] Into the shops of those persons we shall now
beg leave to enter, and observe some few of the materials with which the
children of Æsculapius preserved or destroyed the health of the Greeks.
The art of medicine itself, as it existed among them, I shall not
venture to examine, abandoning that part of the subject to the
investigation of professional men.[1209]
-----
Footnote 1208:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, ii. 122, sqq.
Footnote 1209:
See, on this subject, Dissen. ad Pind. Pyth. iii. 47. 51. I may here,
however, by the way, remark, that while the free citizens were
attended by physicians of their own rank, there were likewise servile
practitioners who prescribed for the diseases of slaves. Plat. De Leg.
iv. t. vii. p. 362, seq. Cf. Poll. iv. 177, sqq.
-----
The interior of an ancient surgery, though it may have been less
lavishly furnished than one of our own day, made, nevertheless, some
pretensions to show. There were, for example, ranged in order on
shelves, numerous medicine chests of ivory; brass and silver cupping
instruments,[1210] lancet-cases, and cases inlaid with gold.[1211]
Flowers and aromatic plants were laid up in boxes of the wood of the
linden tree, while seeds were preserved in paper or leaves. Liquid
medicines were kept in vessels of silver, glass, or horn, or even in
earthenware jars, provided they were well glazed. For these they
sometimes substituted vases of boxwood, though those of metal were
generally preferred, at least for all such as were intended for the
eyes, or contained vinegar, pitch, or cedar juice. Lard, marrow, and all
similar substances, were put into vessels of pewter.[1212] The
instruments[1213] in most common use besides the bistoury, were the
forceps, the scissors, the hypographs, the ear-pick, the probe,[1214]
the needle, the scalpel, the tooth-file, the tooth-wrench, the eueidion,
and the podostrabe, an instrument for reducing luxations. We ought,
likewise, perhaps, to mention the bandages, ligatures, swathes,
plaisters, lint, amulets, and bleeding-bowls.[1215]
-----
Footnote 1210:
Aristot. Poet. c. 22, Rhet. iii. 2.
Footnote 1211:
Luc. adv. Indoct. § 29.
Footnote 1212:
Dioscor. proœm. p. 4.
Footnote 1213:
On the primitive instruments of surgery see Goguet, Origine des Loix.
t. ii. p. 17.
Footnote 1214:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, iii. 160.
Footnote 1215:
Poll. iv. 181.
-----
Their knowledge of the materia medica was acquired for the most part by
experience, though there existed, previously to the time of Hippocrates,
works on the virtues of plants, among which we may mention that of
Cratevas. By degrees these treatises were greatly multiplied, and
included, at length, a species of encyclopedia, arranged in alphabetical
order;[1216] though not one single fragment of it has been spared by
time. At first, and for many ages, the art relied chiefly upon simples,
the qualities of which were consequently studied with great ardour, and,
no doubt, with much success. Numerous individuals devoted themselves to
the gathering, drying, and preserving, of medicinal roots and herbs, an
occupation requiring considerable time and labour,—for which reasons the
physicians, by whom it was originally performed, soon abandoned it to
the rizotomists.
-----
Footnote 1216:
Dioscorides, however, who mentions this work, is far from speaking of
the plan with praise: ἥμαρτον δὲ καὶ περὶ τὴν τάξιν· οἱ μὲν ἀσυμφύλους
δυνάμεις συγκρούσαντεσ· οἱ δὲ κατὰ στοιχεῖα ἀναγράψαντες. διέζευξαν
τῆς ὁμογενείας τὰ τε γένη καὶ τὰς ἐνεργείας αὐτῶν, ὡς διὰ τοῦτο
ἀσυμμνημόνευτα γίνεσθαι. Proœm. p. 2.
-----
But the business of collecting simples, by whomsoever performed,
required great knowledge and perseverance. The individuals who carried
it on spread themselves, at the proper seasons of the year, through all
Greece, more especially over Mount Pelion in Thessaly, Telethra in
Eubœa, Parnassos in Phocis, and the uplands of Laconia and
Arcadia,[1217] making inquiries, as they went along, of the inhabitants
of every district and canton respecting the medicaments in use among
them, and collecting from the mouths of peasants and shepherds the
fruits of their limited but close observation. They passed, as a matter
of course, the greater part of their lives in the fields, studying the
topography and distribution of plants, and investigating all the
phenomena of vegetation. They believed, that herbs vary in virtues and
powers according as they are found in mountains or in valleys, in places
overrun with moisture, and where the air is rank and heavy, or on spots
swelling and exposed, where they are fanned and invigorated by every
breeze that blows. They laid much stress, too, on the season of the
year, on the weather, and on the hour of the day; some simples
requiring, it was supposed, to be gathered when the sun has exhaled from
them all extraneous moisture, others before its rising, others amid the
darkness of night when their leaves and flowers were suffused with dew.
They were guided, likewise, in their operations by other rules, some
founded on experience, others originating in fancy and superstition. In
culling, for example, the thapsia[1218] and several other herbs, they
were careful, having first anointed themselves with oil, to stand with
their backs to the wind, persuaded that they otherwise should inhale
certain noxious effluvia which would cause their whole bodies to swell,
or, in the case of the dog-rose,[1219] that their sight would be
impaired.
-----
Footnote 1217:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 15. 3, sqq.
Footnote 1218:
Dioscor. iv. 157. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 5.
Footnote 1219:
Κυνόσβατον. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 5.
-----
Those who gathered the mountain rue,[1220] anointed their faces and
hands with oil, to guard themselves against cutaneous inflammation.
Again, of other herbs the juices are so pungent as to burn like fire:
these were collected in the greatest haste. In digging the
hellebore,[1221] too, the odour of which was supposed rapidly to affect
the brain, they proceeded with great celerity, and were careful to eat a
clove or two of garlic beforehand, and to drink a little pure wine
after. But all these precautions were trifling compared with those which
the good rizotomists had persuaded themselves were indispensable in
collecting the peony flower.[1222] About this operation they interwove a
sort of netting of romance: it was to be undertaken they affirmed by
night, lest the woodpeckers, who regarded it with as much jealousy as
the Indian ants do their gold, should fall upon the unfortunate
herbalists, and with their sharp beaks pluck out their eyes. So,
likewise, in gathering the centaury they were to stand on their guard
lest they should be assaulted and maltreated by the hawks. Considering
all these numerous evils which rizotomist flesh was heir to,
Theophrastus thinks it by no means absurd, that when issuing forth on an
enterprise so perilous, they should have fortified their nerves with
many prayers. Some few, however, of their practices the philosopher
condemns as a trifle beyond the mark, as for example when in digging the
root of the Asclepian all-heal, they judged it necessary to propitiate
mother earth by burying in its stead a cake composed of many various
sweets. And again in unearthing the root of the iris fœtidissima,
they interred a cake of spring wheat mixed with honey, not, however,
before they had drawn round the spot a treble circle with a two-edged
sword. When they had obtained possession of one of the roots, they held
it up for some time in the air, and then proceeded to procure a second,
and so on. Strangest of all, however, were the ceremonies observed in
digging the mandrake.[1223] First, the triple magic circle was inscribed
on the earth with a sword, then the pious rizotomist turned his face
toward the west, and began to use his knife, while a second operator
went dancing round, uttering all kinds of amorous incantations. Still
more perilous was the gathering of the black hellebore, which they
performed with the face towards the east, and many prayers to Apollo and
Asclepios.[1224] The strictest watch was meanwhile to be kept, that no
eagle appeared above the horizon; for if the eye of this king of birds
happened to fall upon the herbalist while engaged in digging, he would
infallibly die within the year.[1225]
-----
Footnote 1220:
Dioscor. iii. 53.
Footnote 1221:
King Attalus, desirous not to have far to reach in the matter of
poisons, cultivated a great variety of them with his own hands in the
royal gardens, such as hyoscyamus, hellebore, hemlock, aconite, and
dorycnion, of whose virtue and qualities he obtained a thorough
knowledge by experiments. Plut. Demet. § 20.
Footnote 1222:
Παιωνία. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 6.
Footnote 1223:
Μανδράγορας. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 8.
Footnote 1224:
Dioscor. iv. 151.
Footnote 1225:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 5, sqq. The spleen-wort, (ἀσπλήνον) when
designed to produce sterility was collected on a dark night: ἀσελήνου
δὲ νύκτος φασι δεῖν αὐτὴν ὀρύσσειν εἰς ἀτόκιον. Dioscor. iii. 151.
-----
After all these toilsome and dangerous enterprises it was natural that
the rizotomists should desire to enjoy some advantages,[1226] which,
accordingly, they procured themselves by selling dear their hard-won
prizes to their equally superstitious countrymen. Making no pretension
as I have said to describe the regular medical practice among the
Greeks, I shall here, nevertheless, introduce some few particulars more
or less connected with it, which may be regarded as characteristic of
the age and people.[1227] Great were the virtues which they ascribed to
the herb alysson, (biscutella didyma,) which, being pounded and eaten
with meat, cured hydrophobia. Nay, more, being suspended in a house, it
promoted the health of its inhabitants;[1228] it protected likewise both
man and cattle from enchantment; and, bound in a piece of scarlet
flannel round the necks of the latter, it preserved them from all
diseases.
-----
Footnote 1226:
Cf. Poll. iv. 177.
Footnote 1227:
See a witty disquisition on charms in Luc. Philopseud. § 7, and a list
of medicinal plants introduced into remedies for the gout. Tragopodag.
138, seq.
Footnote 1228:
Dioscor. iii. 105. Another mode of repelling contagious disorders was
to cause verses to be written by soothsayers on the door. Luc.
Alexand. § 36. Fevers were also cured in some places by touching
miraculous statues, as that of the wrestler Polydamas at Olympia, or
that of Theagenes, at Thasos. Deor. Concil. § 12. A sea-onion was
planted before dwelling houses as a charm. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii.
13. 4.
-----
Coriander-seed,[1229] eaten in too great quantity, produced, they
thought, a derangement of the intellect. Ointment of saffron had an
opposite effect, for the nostrils and heads of lunatics being rubbed
therewith they were supposed to receive considerable relief.[1230]
Melampos the goatherd was reported to have cured the daughters of
Prætos[1231] of their madness by large doses of black hellebore, which
thereafter received from him the name of Melampodion. Sea-onions[1232]
suspended over the doors preserved from enchantment, as did likewise a
branch of rhamnus over doors or windows.[1233] A decoction of
rosemary[1234] and of the leaves and stem of the anemone[1235] was
administered to nurses to promote the secretion of milk, and a like
potion prepared from the leaves of the Cretan dittany[1236] was given to
women in labour. This herb, in order to preserve its virtues unimpaired,
and that it might be the more easily transported to all parts of the
country, was preserved in a joint of a ferula or reed. A plaster of
incense,[1237] Cimolian earth, and oil of roses, was applied to reduce
the swelling of the breasts. A medicine prepared from mule’s fern,[1238]
was believed to produce sterility, as were likewise the waters of a
certain fountain near Pyrrha, while to those about Thespiæ a contrary
effect was attributed, as well as to the wine of Heraclea in
Arcadia.[1239] The inhabitants of this primitive region drank milk as an
aperient[1240] in the spring, because of the medicinal herbs on which
the cattle were then supposed to feed. Medicines of laxative properties
were prepared from the juice of the wild cucumber, which were said to
retain their virtues for two hundred years,[1241] though simples in
general were thought to lose their medicinal qualities in less than
four.[1242] The oriental gum called kankamon was administered in water
or honeyed vinegar to fat persons to diminish their obesity, and also as
a remedy for the toothache.[1243] For this latter purpose the gum of the
Ethiopian olive[1244] was put into the hollow tooth, though more
efficacy perhaps was attributed to the root of dittander[1245] which
they suspended as a charm about the neck. A plaster of the root of the
white thorn[1246] or iris[1247] roots prepared with flour of copper,
honey, and great centaury, drew out thorns and arrowheads without pain.
An unguent procured from fern[1248] was sold to rustics for curing the
necks of their cattle galled by the yoke. A decoction of marsh-mallow
leaves[1249] and wine or honeyed vinegar was administered to persons who
had been stung by bees or wasps or other insects;[1250] bites and burns
were healed by an external application of the leaf smeared with oil, and
the powdered roots cast into water caused it to freeze if placed out
during the night in the open air; an unguent was prepared with oil from
reeds, green or dry, which protected those who anointed themselves with
it, from the stings of venomous reptiles. Cinnamon unguent,[1251] or
terebinth and myrtle-berries,[1252] boiled in wine, were supposed to be
a preservative against the bite of the tarantula or scorpion, as was the
pistachio nut against that of serpents.[1253] Some persons ate a roasted
scorpion to cure its own bite;[1254] a powder, moreover, was prepared
from sea-crabs supposed to be fatal to this reptile.[1255] Vipers[1256]
were made to contribute their part to the materia medica; for, being
caught alive, they were enclosed with salt and dried figs in a vase
which was then put into a furnace till its contents were reduced to
charcoal, which they esteemed a valuable medicine. A considerable
quantity of viper’s flesh was in the last century imported from Egypt
into Venice, to be used in the composition of medicinal treacle.[1257]
From the flowers of the sneezewort,[1258] a sort of snuff appears to
have been manufactured, though probably used only in medicines. The
ashes of old leather[1259] cured burns, galls, and blistered feet.
-----
Footnote 1229:
Dioscor. iii. 71.
Footnote 1230:
Δύναμιν δὲ ἔχει (κρόκινον) θερμαντικὴν, ὑπνωτικὴν, ὅθεν πολλάκις ἐπὶ
φρενετικῶν ἁρμόζει καταβρεχόμενον, ἢ ἀποσφραινόμενον, ἦ καὶ κατα
μυζωτηρων διαχριόμενον. Dioscor. i. 64.
Footnote 1231:
Dioscor. iv. 151. Apollod. ii. 2. 2.
Footnote 1232:
Luc. Alexan. § 47. Dioscor. ii. 202.
Footnote 1233:
Dioscor. i. 119.
Footnote 1234:
Λιβανωτις. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 11. 10. Dioscor. iii. 87. “In
insulis Græcis rariùs in Melo legit.” Sibth. Flor. Græc. tab. 14. “In
Zacintho, nec non in Bœotia.” D. Hawkins.
Footnote 1235:
Dioscor. ii. 207.
Footnote 1236:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 16. 1.
Footnote 1237:
Dioscor. i. 81. Cf. Cels. ii. 33. Pills of wax were given to nurses to
prevent the thickening of the milk. Dioscor. ii. 105. We have already
remarked on the exuberance of milk in Greek women. Nevertheless the
opinion prevailed that one nurse could not suckle two children: οὐδὲ
δύο βρέφη ὑπὸ τροφοῦ μιᾶς ἐκτρεφόμενα Geopon. v. 13. 4. The stone
Galactites was worn round the neck by superstitious nurses in order to
increase their milk. Plin. viii. 16. xxxvii. 10. Vigenère, Imagen. de
Philostrate, p. 576.
Footnote 1238:
Ἡμιόνιον. Theoph. Hist. | Plant. ix. 18. 7.
Footnote 1239:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 18. 10.
Footnote 1240:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 15. 4. The belief was prevalent, however,
that milk at all times was a species of medicine. Thus when Timagoras
accepted, among other things, eighty cows from the king of Persia,
with herdsmen to take care of them, he pretended that he had need of
their milk on account of the delicacy of his health: ὧς δὴ πρὸς
ἀῤῥωστίαν τινὰ γάλακτος βοείου δεόμενος. Plut. Pelopid. § 30.
Footnote 1241:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 14. 1.
Footnote 1242:
Dioscor. in proœm. p. 4.
Footnote 1243:
Dioscor. i. 23.
Footnote 1244:
Id. i. 141.
Footnote 1245:
Id. ii. 205.
Footnote 1246:
Id. i. 122.
Footnote 1247:
Ξυρὶς, Iris fœtidissima. Dioscor. iv. 22.
Footnote 1248:
Πτέρις. Dioscor. iv. 186.
Footnote 1249:
Dioscor. iii. 163. A plaster of fresh laurel leaves was thought to
produce the same effect. i. 106.
Footnote 1250:
As a protection against musquitos the Greeks we find were accustomed
to anoint their bodies with oil which had been flavoured with
wormwood. Dioscor. iii. 26.
Footnote 1251:
Dioscor. i. 13.
Footnote 1252:
Id. i. 91. 155.
Footnote 1253:
Id. i. 177.
Footnote 1254:
Id. ii. 13.
Footnote 1255:
Id. ii. 12.
Footnote 1256:
Id. ii. 18.
Footnote 1257:
Hazelquist, Travels, p. 221.
Footnote 1258:
Πταρμικὴ. Dioscor. ii. 192.
Footnote 1259:
Τὰ δὲ ἀπο τῶν καττυμάτων παλαιὰ δέρματα, κεκαυμένα καὶ λεία
καταπλασσόμενα, πυρίκαυστα καὶ παρατρίμματα καὶ τὰ ἐξ ὑποδημάτων
θλίμματα θεραπεύει. Dioscor. ii. 51.
-----
The common remedy when persons had eaten poisonous mushrooms was a dose
of nitre exhibited in vinegar and water;[1260] with water it was
esteemed a cure for the sting of the burncow, and with benzoin it
operated as an antidote against the poison of bulls’ blood. The seeds of
mountain-rue, in small quantities, were regarded as an antidote, but,
administered too copiously, were themselves lethal.[1261] White
hellebore was employed with honey and other medicines to poison
rats;[1262] bastard saffron,[1263] mice, pigs, and dogs; which last were
physicked with hellebore.[1264] The deadly qualities of this plant, when
taken in any quantity, were universally known, and, therefore, the
pharmacopolist, Thrasyas,[1265] of Mantinea, who boasted of having
invented a poison which would kill without pain, attained the credit of
possessing something like miraculous powers, because he used frequently,
in the presence of many witnesses to eat a whole root, or even two, of
hellebore. One day, however, a shepherd, coming into his shop, utterly
destroyed his reputation; for, in the sight of all present, he devoured
a whole handful, observing that it was nothing at all, for that he and
his brethren on the mountains were accustomed to do as much, and more,
daily.[1266] They had, in fact, discovered, that medicine is no
medicine, and poison no poison, to those with whose bodies they have
been assimilated by use. When limbs were to be amputated, and previous
to the application of the cautery, a dose of powdered mandragora-root
was usually administered.
-----
Footnote 1260:
Dioscor. v. 130.
Footnote 1261:
Id. iii. 53.
Footnote 1262:
Dioscor. iv. 150.
Footnote 1263:
Χαμαιλέων λευκὸς ... ἀποκτείνει καὶ κύνας καὶ ὗας καὶ μύας, σὺν ἀλφίτῳ
πεφυραμένη, καὶ ὑδρελαίῳ διεθεῖσα. Dioscor. iii. 10.
Footnote 1264:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 8. 4.
Footnote 1265:
Theophrast. Hist. Plant. ix. 16. 7, seq. Cf. Sext. Empir. Pyrrh.
Hypot. l. i. p. 17. b.
Footnote 1266:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 17. 1.
-----
On the nature, power, and uses, of ancient poisons, it is not my purpose
to enlarge.[1267] It may be proper, however, to observe, that they had
discovered drugs which would kill secretly, and at almost any given time
from the moment of administering them. They, by certain preparations of
aconite,[1268] so called from Aconè, a village in the country of the
Mariandynians, the professional poisoners could take off an individual
at any fixed period, from two months to two years. The possession,
however, of this poison was in itself a capital offence.[1269] It was
usually administered in wine or hydromel, where its presence was not to
be detected by the taste. At first, there was supposed to exist no
remedy, so that all who took it inevitably perished; but, at length,
physicians, and even the common people of the country, discovered more
than one antidote prepared from the ground-pine,[1270] from honey, and
from the juice of the grape. Another poison, evidently in frequent use,
was the bulb of the meadow-saffron (colchicum autumnale), which being
known to everybody, and nearly always at hand, slaves[1271] were said to
have plucked and eaten when enraged against their masters; but,
repenting presently, they used, with still greater celerity, to rush in
search of an antidote. Some persons, anxious to fortify their children
against the effects of all noxious drugs, were in the habit of
administering to them as soon as born a small dose of the powder of
bindweed,[1272] which they believed to possess the power of protecting
them for ever. When persons were invited out to dine where they ran the
risk of meeting with ratsbane in their dishes, it was customary to chew
a little calamint before the repast.[1273] In the case of the canine
species the Argives, instead of having recourse to poison, like their
neighbours, used to celebrate an annual festival during the dog-days, in
which they seem to have slaughtered[1274]
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And cur of low degree,
the moist atmosphere of their city having been peculiarly liable to
engender hydrophobia.
-----
Footnote 1267:
See on Scythian slow poison, Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 15. 2. Among the
Romans the lepus marinus (the aplysia depilens of Linnæus) was
sometimes used as a secret poison, as we find from the example of
Domitian, who employed it in removing his brother Titus. Δυοὶν δὲ
ἐτοῖν μετὰ τὸν πατέρα τὴν ἀρχὴν κατασχόντα, ὑπὸ τοῦ θαλαττίου λαγὼ
ἀποθανεῖν. τὸν δὲ ἰχθὺν τοῦτον, παρέχεσθαι χυμοὺς ἀποῤῥήτους, ὑπὲρ
πάντα τὰ ἐν τῇ θαλάττῃ καὶ γῇ ἀνδροφόνα. καὶ Νέρωνα μὲν ἐμποιῆσαι τοῖς
ἐαυτου ὄψοις τὸν λαγὼν τοῦτον ἐπὶ τοὺς πολεμιωτάτους, Δομετιανὸν δὲ
ἐπὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν Τῖτον, οὐ τὸ ξὺν ἀδελφῷ ἄρχειν δεινὸν ἡγούμενον, ἀλλὰ
τὸ ξὺν πράῳ τε καὶ χρηστῷ. Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. vi. 32, p. 271.
The baneful qualities of this fish are noticed, likewise, by
Dioscorides, Alexipharm. 30; by Ælian. de Nat. Animal. ii. 45. xvi.
19, and by Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 72. xxxii. 3.
Footnote 1268:
Cf. Beckmann, i. 82.
Footnote 1269:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 16. 7.
Footnote 1270:
Dioscor. iii. 175.
Footnote 1271:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 16. 6.
Footnote 1272:
Dioscor. iv. 144.
Footnote 1273:
Id. iii. 43.
Footnote 1274:
Athen. iii. 56. There appears to be no other authority for this
custom. Cf. Meurs. Græc. Feriat. iv. p. 183. The poison of a mad dog’s
bite was exhausted by the cupping-glass. Celsus, v. 27. 2.
-----
Among the more remarkable of the materia medica was the cedar gum,
generally transparent, and of a most pungent odour. It was esteemed
destructive of living bodies, but formed, doubtless, an important
ingredient among the embalmer’s materials, since it completely preserved
corpses from corruption, on which account it was sometimes called the
Life of the Dead.[1275] It entered, moreover, into preparation designed
to sharpen the sight.
-----
Footnote 1275:
Δύναμιν δὲ ἔχει σηπτικὴν μὲν τῶν ἐμψύχων, φυλακτικὴν δὲ τῶν νεκρῶν
σωμάτων. ὄθεν καὶ νεκροῦ ζωήν τινες αὐτὴν ἐκάλεσαν. Dioscor. i. 105.
-----
The gum obtained from the cherry-tree[1276] was administered in wine and
water to promote appetite. A dose of saffron and boiled wine restored
the tone of the stomach after excess at table. Asses’ milk was
habitually given to consumptive patients, connected with which practice
there is an apothegm of Demosthenes, which may be worth repeating. When
he was once exerting himself to prevail on some foreign state to ally
itself with Athens, an orator in opposition observed, that the Athenians
were like asses’ milk, whose presence always indicated sickness in the
places they visited. “It is true,” replied Demosthenes, “but the
sickness previously exists, and they come to cure it.” A mixture of salt
and water, to which the Egyptians added the juice of the radish,[1277]
constituted a very common emetic. Opium was in general use even so
early, apparently, as the age of Homer,[1278] who seems to have
celebrated it under the name of nepenthè. The Spartan soldiers appear to
have made considerable use of the poppy-head;[1279] but whether for the
same purpose as the Rajpoots of modern India, I do not pretend to
determine. Persons desirous of obtaining frightful and dismal
dreams[1280] could always gratify their wishes by eating leaks or
lentils, or the seeds of the great bind-weed,[1281] mixed with
dorycnion. We may mention by the way, that the ancients understood well
the doctrine of the circulation of the blood.[1282]
-----
Footnote 1276:
Dioscor. i. 157.
Footnote 1277:
Συρμαία, Poll. i. 247.
Footnote 1278:
Odyss. δ. 221. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxi. 21. Dutens, p. 183. From a
passage in Herodotus there seems reason to suspect, that certain
Asiatic nations were already in his time acquainted with the
inebriating effects of opium smoke. For, describing the inhabitants of
the larger islands found in the Araxes, he relates that they were
accustomed to gather together round a fire, and casting the fruit of
some unknown tree into the flames to inhale with delight the smoke and
effluvia emitted by it, until they experienced all the delight and
madness of intoxication, which impelled them to leap about, and dance
and sing. i. 202. Among the Scythians, moreover, we find in the same
author distinct traces of the use of beng, or hemp-seed. iv. 75.
Footnote 1279:
Thucyd. iv. 26. Celsus, ii. 32. Dioscor. iv. 65.
Footnote 1280:
Dioscor. ii. 129. 179.
Footnote 1281:
Σμίλαξ λεία. Dioscor. iv. 145.
Footnote 1282:
Poll. ii. 46. 214. 216. Plat. Tim. t. vii p. 19, seq. 89, seq. 98.
-----
CHAPTER VII.
INDUSTRY: WEAVERS, GLOVERS, SOCK-MAKERS, CORDWAINERS, TANNERS, HATTERS,
DYERS OF PURPLE, ETC., FISHERMEN.
In spinning and weaving the ancients evidently rivalled us, though
without the aid of machinery. As far, indeed, as the former process is
concerned, no machinery can rival the human hand, which, from its slight
oily exudation[1283] is enabled to communicate superior strength and
evenness to the finest threads. Thus in Hindustân muslins were formerly
produced, which, laid on the grass and wetted by dew, became
invisible.[1284] And there is no reason for doubting that the produce of
ancient Greek looms rivalled those of Dakka. The fabrics of Cos[1285]
and Tarentum appear, in fact, from the testimony of the ancients, to
have floated like a snowy mist around the female form, disclosing its
whole contour like a gauze veil.[1286] In flowered and variegated
tissues,[1287] too, they attained extraordinary excellence. The finest
and most brilliant shot stuffs imitating the breast of the dove,
flowered cloth of gold, and the weaving of gold wire itself, were known
to the ancients. Silk, before that of China[1288] was common in the
west, they obtained from the beard of a sea shell; and lawn and cambric
and open work, like Brussels or Valenciennes lace, were familiar to
them.
-----
Footnote 1283:
The whole of the manufacture in India is by hand-spinning,
consequently there is a greater tension, from the moisture which the
hand gives them, than can be had from anything in the shape of
machinery; a fine yarn can be produced by hand-spinning “from a short
staple, which frame-spinning will not touch at all.” Report from the
Lords, July 8, 1830, p. 316.
Footnote 1284:
Tavernier relates, “that the ambassador of Shah Sefi, on his return
from India, presented his master with a cocoa-nut, set with jewels,
containing a muslin turban, sixty covits, or thirty English yards, in
length, so exquisitely fine, that it could scarcely be felt by the
touch.” The Hindoos, vol. i. p. 188.
Footnote 1285:
Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. i. 498.
Footnote 1286:
Athen. xii. 23. Aristoph. Lysist. 48. Poll. vii. 76.
Footnote 1287:
To these an allusion is made in the following passage of Plato: ὥσπερ
ἱμάτιον ποικίλον πᾶσιν ἄνθεσι πεποικιλμένον, οὕτω καὶ αὔτη πᾶσιν ἤθεσι
πεποικιλμένη καλλίστη ἂν φαίνοιτο. De Repub. viii. t. vi. p. 401. Cf.
Poll. iii. 34. Winkelmann, i. 500. Athen. ii. 30.
Footnote 1288:
Paus. vi. 266, sqq. Aristoph. Hist. Animal. v. 19, p. 138. Plin. Nat.
Hist. ix. 26, seq. Gibbon, t. vii. p. 90, seq. Dapper, p. 266.
-----
Being ignorant of who was the inventor of the art of weaving, they
attributed the honour to Athena, who imparted a knowledge of it to
Arachnè,[1289] a virgin of Mæonia, afterwards changed into a spider. But
spiders were not long the only weavers among the Hellenes, who speedily
invented the upright and horizontal looms, which, in after times at
least, were constructed from the wood of the andrachnè.[1290]
-----
Footnote 1289:
Goguet, i. 266. Plut. Nic. § 9.
Footnote 1290:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 7. The stem of the bastard-saffron (κνῆκος)
was used as a spindle by the women of remote antiquity. vi. 14. 3.
-----
Among the finest and most elegant fabrics of Greece were those
manufactured in the Achæan city of Patræ,[1291] where the women being
twice as numerous as the men, would alone appear to have worked in the
factories, from which the greater number of the inhabitants, doubtless,
derived their livelihood. The flax, from which the fine linen and
head-nets[1292] of this town were made, was not grown in the
neighbourhood, but in the plains of Elis,[1293] where alone, in Greece,
the plant attained the highest degree of perfection, not yielding in
fineness to the best produced in India, while it was possessed of
superior whiteness.[1294] The fine cloths manufactured from it sold for
their weight in gold.[1295] Another species of very fine flax was
cultivated in the island of Amorgos,[1296] where were likewise
manufactured linens of the most beautiful texture, frequently dyed
purple, on which account the word Amorgis[1297] has sometimes been
supposed to denote a purple stuff, though the fabrics of the island were
as often white as of any other colour. In imitation of the Egyptians,
they wove a sort of fine napkins, which were evidently used in the same
manner as our pocket-handkerchiefs.[1298]
-----
Footnote 1291:
Pausan. vii. 21. 14. Cf. Dutens, Origine des Découvertes, p. 285.
Herod. ii. 105.
Footnote 1292:
Foës. Œconom. Hippoc. v. κεκρύφαλος. p. 202. These head-nets were
purple among the Spartans. Athen. xv. 28. The Grecian ladies, it would
appear, sometimes wore upon their heads cauls of fine skin, probably
semi-transparent, which obtained the name of πομφόλυγες. Mœris, p.
206. Bekk. In a former part of this work, I have supposed this word,
where it occurs in Pollux, to signify beads, because water-bubbles,
which transparent beads resemble, were so called. Etym. Mag. 682. 10.
Suid. v. πομφόλ. t. ii. p. 565. d. Martial alludes to the cauls
above-mentioned in the following verses:
Fortior et tortos servat vesica capillos,
Et mutat Latias spumâ Batavâ comas.
Epigram. viii. 23. 19.
Footnote 1293:
Not as Mr. Bœckh supposes in Achaia, this name signifying Greece in
general. It grew, observes Pliny, _circa Elim in Achaia_. Nat. Hist.
xix. 4. Bœckh. i. 142.
Footnote 1294:
Paus. vi. 26. 6. v. 5. 2. vii. 21. 14. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art, i. 498.
Sixteen matrons wove the peplos of Hera in Elis. Meurs. Gr. Fer. iii.
130, sqq.
Footnote 1295:
Quaternis denariis scripula ejus permutata quondam, ut auri reperio.
Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 4.
Footnote 1296:
Suid. v. Ἀμοργὶς. Aristoph. Lysist. 150, et Schol. This was the rate
at which silk was afterwards sold, as we learn from an anecdote of
Aurelian. “Vestem holosericam neque ipse in vestiario suo habuit,
neque alteri utendam dedit. Et quum ab eo uxor sua peteret, ut unico
pallio blatteo serico uteretur, ille respondit, _absit ut auro fila
pensentur_: libra enim auri tunc libra serici fuit.” Vopisc. Vit.
Aurelian, cap. xlv.
Footnote 1297:
See Dapper, Description des Iles de l’Archipel. p. 184.
Footnote 1298:
For which the old man substitutes a fox’s tail. Aristoph. Eq. 906, et
Schol.
-----
Even from hemp, very superior cloths were produced[1299] in antiquity,
especially amongst the Thracians, in whose country this plant was found
both in a cultivated and a wild state. It differed very little from
flax, except in its superior height and thickness; and the fabrics
manufactured from it were not to be distinguished from linen, save by
the most experienced judges. From hair, too, they both wove and plaited
a variety of garments, among which would seem to have been a sort of
mantle for ladies.[1300] Sacks, too, were manufactured from the same
materials, together with socks, whips, and fishing-lines. The Egyptians,
we may observe by the way, wove fine cloths and sails, and made ropes,
from the fibre of the papyrus plant,[1301] as the Indians did from a
sort of grass or fine rush.[1302]
-----
Footnote 1299:
Poll. vii. 73. Herod. iv. 74.
Footnote 1300:
Hemst. ad Poll. x. 32. Cf. ii. 24.
Footnote 1301:
Herod. vii. 12.
Footnote 1302:
Id. iii. 98. Comm. on Poll. vii. 76.
-----
In the island of Cos existed, from a very early age, the art of rearing
silkworms and weaving silk. As these insects, however, fed on the leaves
of the pine, the ash, and the oak, the white mulberry not having been
yet introduced into Greece, the silk they produced was very different in
quality from that of China. The art of unwinding the cocoons and
spinning the threads was invented by Pamphila, daughter of Plates,[1303]
who thus became the benefactress of her country, whose fabrics were
universally admired for their delicacy, fineness, and transparency,
since they allowed the whole form and colour of the body to be
distinguished through them, like the gauze chemises worn by the Turkish
ladies in the recesses of the harem.[1304] Another kind of silk was
manufactured by the ancients from the floss-like beard of the pinna
marina, or silk-worm of the sea,[1305] found on the coasts of Asia
Minor, Sicily, and the Balearic isles. This kind of silk was evidently,
at one period, held in the highest estimation, since we find the
emperors of Rome bestowing robes of it as a mark of their imperial
favour on the satraps of Armenia. In modern times, however, this branch
of industry has been almost totally neglected, though very warm and
beautiful winter gloves and stockings are still manufactured from it at
Tarento. A pair of these gloves was considered of sufficient importance
to be presented as a gift to Pope Benedict the Fourteenth.[1306]
-----
Footnote 1303:
Aristot. Hist. Animal. v. 19. Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 26.
Footnote 1304:
Lady Montague’s Works, t. ii. p. 191.
Footnote 1305:
Shaw, Travels in Barbary. Winkelmann, i. 499.
Footnote 1306:
Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art. i. 499. Æschyl. Agamem. 855.
-----
But not for lightness and fineness only were the silks and other
delicate fabrics of the ancients valued. They were variegated[1307] with
stripes, lozenges, the figures of birds and other animals, sprigs,
flowers,[1308] and stars,[1309] inwoven into their texture, and of the
most brilliant and beautiful colours.
-----
Footnote 1307:
Plut. Aristid. § 16. Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art, i. 492. Herod. vii.
67.
Footnote 1308:
Plat. de Repub. t. vi. p. 401.
Footnote 1309:
Athen. xiii. 45. xii. 50. Cf. Winkelmann, i. 499. Gitone, Il Costume
Antico e Moderno di tutti i Popoli, t. i. p. 94. Tav. 15.
-----
Occasionally, moreover, when the ground of the whole tissue was white, a
border of fanciful scrolls, leaves, and flowers, intermingling their
several tints, extended round the whole robe or mantle, which was
sometimes also bedropped with asterisks of gold. Their flowered silks,
and cloths of various colours, were worn, not only by ladies in their
dresses, but occasionally, also, by vain young men, who thus exposed
themselves to the derision of the multitude. Bed-curtains, too, and the
hangings of apartments[1310] were of variegated stuffs. In the
manufacturing of tapestry[1311] and drapery for the statues and temples
of the gods, the greatest possible magnificence and beauty were
displayed. Whole years were devoted to the production of a single piece,
which exhibited views of landscapes and cities, together with figures of
gods, and heroes, and groups of warriors, sometimes arranged in
religious processions, at other times engaged in battle, where the
scene, the combatants, their armour, their weapons, and the flowing gore
were represented by various colours to the life.[1312] In the
manufacture of carpets, the Greeks displayed great taste and elegance,
whether we regard the figures of animals, trees, or flowers, with which
they were inwrought, or their pile, softness, and texture.[1313] Many
times when they had not been flowered by the hand of the weaver, they
were adorned by the ladies themselves with sprigs, and leaves, and
figures, in embroidery; sometimes of various bright colours, at others
with threads of gold.[1314] Even napkins in Egypt were embroidered with
golden flowers,[1315] as both these and all kinds of handkerchiefs still
are throughout the East. In Greece, the fine soft vests which
warriors[1316] wore beneath their shirts of mail were usually figured
with rich embroidery by the females of their family.
-----
Footnote 1310:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 172. Athen. xv. 42.
Footnote 1311:
Hom. Il. γ. 125, sqq.
Footnote 1312:
Cf. Hom. Il. ζ. 289. 295.
Footnote 1313:
See Book III. chap. ii.
Footnote 1314:
One of the most extraordinary productions of the Grecian loom seems to
have been that magnificent chlamys which was weaving for king
Demetrius at the period of his overthrow. It had been, we are told, a
long time in hand, and represented in one vast picture both the face
of the earth, and heaven with all its constellations. But it was never
completed, none of the succeeding sovereigns of Macedon possessing the
gorgeous taste of the son of Antigonos. Plut. Demet. § 41. Next
perhaps to this in curious workmanship may be reckoned that rich
mantle fifteen cubits in length, which the Sybarite Alcisthenes
exhibited on Mount Lacinium during the festival of Hera, which was
frequented by all the people of Italy. Dionysios, the elder, obtaining
possession of this garment, sold it to the Carthaginians for a hundred
and twenty talents. It was of a rich sea purple colour, and surrounded
on all sides by a border containing the figures of animals, the upper
row consisting of those of Susiana, the lower of those of Persia
Proper. In the middle appeared an assembly of the gods—Zeus, Hera,
Themis, Athena, Apollo, and Aphroditè. At either end stood a figure of
Alcisthenes himself with a representation, probably symbolical of the
city of Sybaris. All these figures were the produce of the loom, and
not of the needle. Aristot. de Mirab. Auscult. t. xvi. p. 199, seq.
Athen. xii. 58.
Footnote 1315:
Poll. iv. 116. Athen. ix. 79. v. 28. Herod. ii. 122. Lucian. Amor. §
36, sqq.
Footnote 1316:
Cf. Herod. vii. 61. ix. 76. 109.
-----
It appears to be generally supposed,[1317] that silver threads were not
employed until a very recent period, either in weaving or
embroidery;[1318] we find mention, however, in Philo Judæus,[1319] of
purple coverlets inwrought with silver and gold. But at length the love
of show and magnificence rose to so high a pitch, that robes were woven
entirely of threads of gold.[1320] Ribbons also were manufactured of the
same materials, and several fragments of these fabrics have more than
once been discovered in cinerary urns at Rome, though the greediness of
the finder has almost invariably led to their being melted down.[1321]
At a later period stuffs were woven partly of silk or woollen and partly
of gold.[1322]
-----
Footnote 1317:
By Beckmann, for example, History of Inventions, ii. 217, and
Salmasius, ad Vopisc. p. 394, and ad Tertull. de Pallio, p. 208.
Footnote 1318:
Cf. Lucian. Amor. § 38, sqq.
Footnote 1319:
Ed. Mangey, ii. 478.
Footnote 1320:
Winkelmann, i. 503. Huet, Hist. of Comm. p. 33. Cf. Athen. xii. 5,
sqq.
Footnote 1321:
Winkel. Hist. de l’Art, i. 503.
Footnote 1322:
Id. i. 504.
-----
Of gloves[1323] the Greeks made little use, though they must have
observed very early, that they were worn by the Persians, and probably
by other nations of Asia.[1324] Nay even among their own rustics they
would appear to have been in fashion as far back as the heroic
ages.[1325] The principal customers, therefore, of the Hellenic glovers
were the hedgers and ditchers, woodmen, and actors; for on the stage it
was frequently necessary to appear in gloves,[1326] either in order to
disguise the colour or augment the size of the hands, or, as in the case
of the Furies, to give them the appearance of being furnished with
talons like those of the hippogriff.[1327]
-----
Footnote 1323:
Cf. Poll. ii. 152.
Footnote 1324:
Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 8.
Footnote 1325:
Odyss. ω. 229. Paccichelli, de Chirothecis, in p. 238.
Footnote 1326:
Luc. Jup. Tragœd. § 41.
Footnote 1327:
See an example, Mus. Chiaramont, tav. 16. Museo Real Borbonico, tav.
32. 50.
-----
Stockings properly so called, were perhaps little known to the Greeks,
though we find mention made of certain socks woven from the cotonaceous
filaments of a species of river truffle,[1328] which must have resembled
them very closely both in form and texture. Besides, we see in works of
art representations of this kind of sock reaching nearly to the knees,
and somewhat loose, which may probably therefore have been woven. But
the common sock, like the hat, was of felt,[1329] and usually
white,[1330] fitting close to the foot and leg, and chiefly worn by
women, with shoes or sandals,[1331] and sometimes in lieu of them,[1332]
though in some cases it occupied the same place in the costume of the
Greeks as it does in modern times.
-----
Footnote 1328:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 13. 8.
Footnote 1329:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 13. Athen. ii. 67. Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 10.
Poll. i. 148. ii. 196. Some persons wore in winter a lambskin covering
for the legs and feet. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 720.
Footnote 1330:
Lucian. Rhet. Præcept. § 15.
Footnote 1331:
Schol. Aristoph. Lysist. 417. Acharn. 299.
Footnote 1332:
Constant, v. πῖλοι. Antich. di Ercol. t. ii. p. 185.
-----
The Hellenic cordwainers[1333] appear in every age to have carried on
a thriving trade, since all the world, with the exception of a few
philosophers, went well shod. Their workshops seem to have been neatly
furnished. The shoes already made, whether plain or gilded,[1334] used
to be ranged on shelves fixed up against the wall with fanciful
brackets, while their lasts, pastepots, pincers, awls,[1335] and other
implements, were kept in armories, sometimes furnished with double
folding-doors, four or five deep shelves, and extremely elegant in
form. Their cutting-boards[1336] were made from the wood of the wild
pear-tree which being of a close hard grain kept their knives
constantly in edge. Among the Israelites we find mention made of shoes
of badger-skins.[1337]
-----
Footnote 1333:
Poll. vii. 80-96. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 299. Eq. 321. 709. Vesp.
103. Athen. iii. 56. On the Cretan Cothurn. Poll. vii. 193. v. 18.
Bœttig. Les Furies, p. 35. There was an expensive sort of Ionian shoe
called βαυκίδες. Etym. Mag. 192. 17. Κρηπίδες. Hieron. Mag. Miscell.
iii. 3. A pair of these slippers appears to have been a day’s work,
and cost in Lucian’s time seven oboloi. Somn. seu Gal. § 22. Herodotus
speaks of purple buskins, vii. 76. The women of Thessaly wore wooden
shoes. Athen. xiii. 55.
Footnote 1334:
Luc. adv. Indoct. § 6.
Footnote 1335:
Poll. ii. 195. x. 141. Antich. di Ercol. t. i. tav. 35. p. 187.
Footnote 1336:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 5. 1.
Footnote 1337:
Ezekiel, xvi. 10.
-----
Of the various processes resorted to for tanning, dressing, and dyeing
leather,[1338] whether to be worked up into clothing, armour, shoes, or
parchment, too little by far is known. We are merely informed that, in
removing the hair from hides and skins, they made use of the berries of
the white briony;[1339] that, in preparing them for receiving any dye or
colour, the seeds of the sumach[1340] were employed; and that the bark
of the fir-tree and the wood of the alder,[1341] reduced to chips,
entered into various preparations for dressing and dyeing.[1342]
Fawn-skins among the Thracians were prepared probably with the hair
on,[1343] for a sort of buskins,[1344] and the skins of sheep,[1345] and
dogs,[1346] beavers,[1347] otters, and badgers, tanned in a variety of
ways, sometimes with and sometimes without the hair, were appropriated
to the manufacture of various articles of dress. Leather, moreover, was
dyed of every bright colour,[1348] purple, scarlet, and crimson, and
occasionally gilded or flowered with gold,[1349] for sandals, thongs,
and other purposes.
-----
Footnote 1338:
Schol. Aristoph. Av. 259.
Footnote 1339:
Dioscor. iv. 184.
Footnote 1340:
Ῥόος. Dioscor. i. 147.
Footnote 1341:
Theoph. Hist. Plant, iii. 9. 1. 14. 3.
Footnote 1342:
The low oak, which produces the large acorn used in tanning, is now
found in abundance in the Troad. Chandler i. 25.
Footnote 1343:
Herod. vii. 75.
Footnote 1344:
Sandals of leather with the hair on are still occasionally observed
among the sailors of Greece. Chandler. ii. p. 12.
Footnote 1345:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 398.
Footnote 1346:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 269.
Footnote 1347:
Dioscor. ii. 26.
Footnote 1348:
As early as the age of Moses we find mention of rams’-skins dyed red.
Exod. xxv. 5.
Footnote 1349:
Poll. vii. 87.
-----
The manufacture of hats and caps,[1350] though a less important branch
of industry than among the northern nations of modern times, afforded
nevertheless employment to a pretty numerous class of persons. At Athens
it was not fashionable in fine weather to wear a hat at all, chiefly,
perhaps, because the practice was supposed to hasten the approach of
grey hairs;[1351] but in those seasons of the year when sudden showers
were looked for, cautious persons seldom went abroad without their
broad-brim, which being furnished with a long skin thong was suffered to
fall back and hang over the shoulders. If they happened to be caught by
the rain when not thus provided, they threw, like Strepsiades in the
Clouds, a corner of their mantle over the head. These hats were of
various shapes,[1352] and manufactured of very different materials;
sometimes square or lozenge-formed, like our college-caps: sometimes
round with broad leaf[1353] and low basinet crown; sometimes peaked atop
with rim curling all round like the bell of the Egyptian lotos. There
was another modification of the hat,[1354] fashioned like a
limpet-shell, and without a brim, chiefly worn by fishermen and poor
operatives, and sometimes also by travellers.[1355]
-----
Footnote 1350:
Poll. vii. 171. The President Goguet, however, imagines the Greeks had
no hats. v. 440. Nightcaps. Sch. Vesp. 10. Arist. Cf. Antich. di
Ercol. t. viii. p. 47. Gitone, Il Cost. Ant. e Mod. di tut. i Pop. t.
i. p. 102. pl. 16.
Footnote 1351:
Aristot. de Gen. Animal. v. 1. p. 355.
Footnote 1352:
Dion Chrysost. ii. 67.
Footnote 1353:
Poll. x. 164. Athen. i. 12.
Footnote 1354:
Poll. vii. 124. x. 127, 138. Solerius, de Pileo. c. viii. p. 167.
Footnote 1355:
Solerius, de Pileo. c. viii. p. 167.
-----
The cynic, Menippos, however, when making his round through Thebes, in
the costume of a Fury, wore a broad-brimmed Arcadian hat, on which were
represented the twelve signs of the zodiac.[1356] Among the Macedonians,
who in all things affected magnificence, the hats of the courtiers and
nobles were purple,[1357] like the tiara of the Persians,[1358] which,
however, was furnished with side-flaps, resembling a peacock’s wings.
The most common material was felt, though they were likewise made of
leather. Caps were ordinarily manufactured of dog, or sheep, or lamb
skin.[1359]
-----
Footnote 1356:
Bœttiger. Furies, p. 29, sqq.
Footnote 1357:
Plut. Eumenes. § 8.
Footnote 1358:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 63. Cf. Poll. iv. 154.
Footnote 1359:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 269. Poll. iv. 139.
-----
But if in some of these branches of the useful arts the Greeks
approached, and, perhaps, equalled, the moderns, in another they
probably excelled them; I mean in dyeing,[1360] more particularly, that
deep crimson, or purple, of which Greek and Roman authors so often speak
with an admiration bordering on rapture. Winkelmann[1361] is not far
wrong in supposing there were two kinds of purple, the one containing a
tinge of violet, or sea-blue, produced at Tarentum,[1362] the other
resembling our lake, known in antiquity as Tyrian dye. On the origin of
this colour the ancients had many legends (for they loved to build a
mythos on what they could not explain), from among which we shall select
the most poetical. The Tyrian Heracles loved, they say, a nymph, who
dwelt somewhere about the sea-coast, and her name, it is added, was
Tyros. In visiting this young lady, Heracles, according to the custom of
the heroic age, was accompanied by his dog, as we find Telemachos, in
the Odyssey. This same dog, not having love to support him, grew hungry
by the way, and espying a purple fish upon a rock, with its head
protruding from the shell, he seized, and devoured it. On Heracles
reaching the residence of the nymph, she observed the muzzle of the
animal dyed of a bright purple, and, in the style of a froward beauty,
declared she would never again see her lover until he brought her a
dress of that colour. Now this hero, as all the world knows, or may
learn from the comic poets, was always more remarkable for courage and
gluttony than for invention. Love, however, on the present occasion,
sharpened his wits. He discovered the fish, turned dyer, and, having
produced such an article as the lady required, had the honour of being
esteemed the inventor of the Tyrian purple.[1363]
-----
Footnote 1360:
Cf. Plat. Tim. t. vii. 95. De Rep. t. vi. p. 183, seq. Don J. P.
Canáls y Martí, sob. la Purp. de los Antiguos. Gibbon, however,
considered the ancient purple very inferior to our own: “By the
discovery of cochineal, &c., we far surpass the colours of antiquity.
Their royal purple had a strong smell, and a dark cast, as deep as
bull’s blood—obscuritas rubens (says Cassiodorus, Var. i. 2,) nigredo
sanguinea. The president, Goguet, will _amuse_ and _satisfy_ the
reader.” Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vii. 90. _Note._ Goguet
will, no doubt, amuse and instruct, but I very much question whether
he will satisfy, the reader. When Goguet and Gibbon wrote, the subject
was much less understood than it is at present.
Footnote 1361:
Hist. de l’Art. iv. 5. 500, sqq.
Footnote 1362:
Horat. Epist. ii. 1. 207.
Footnote 1363:
Poll. i. 45. sqq. Palæphat. Fragm. ap. Gal. Opuscul. Mytholog. &c. p.
62. Goguet, Origine des Loix. iii. 196. Fab. Column. de Purp. i. 22.
-----
The writer to whom we are indebted for this fable, which he related for
the amusement of Commodus, has preserved a valuable account of the
purple fishery as carried on by the Phœnicians. They fastened, he
observes,[1364] a number of small bell-formed baskets, at regular
distances, to a long, stout, and tough cable, capable of resisting the
action of the sea. These baskets, like the eel-traps of modern times,
were surrounded at the mouth with a circle of slender twigs[1365]
projecting inward, and almost meeting at the centre, resembling the
bottom of a claret bottle, but with an opening through which the fish
could easily force its way in, though the twigs closing with a spring
behind it prevented its egress. To entice the prey, there was a bait in
the basket, which, according to some, was a cockle, according to others,
a frog, upon a hook,[1366] so that assurance was made doubly sure. All
things thus prepared, the fisherman conveyed the apparatus to a rocky
part of the shore, where they let it down, having previously fastened to
it a strong cord with a piece of cork at the end, that they might be
able to discover and pull it up. Leaving their traps there all night and
all the ensuing day, they generally took up the basket full. Then,
pounding both shell and flesh together, to prepare it for dyeing they
cleansed away all impurities with water, and boiled the whole in a
cauldron. The blood, being of an oily nature, melted on coming in
contact with the heat and acquired its rich colour. Not always did it
assume the same tint, but was sometimes yellow, sometimes a deep violet,
and, occasionally, some other shade. Into this whatever was dipped
immediately took the tincture of it. Nor did it all fade in the sun;
but, on the contrary, rejoiced in the rays of light, as it were, its
brightness imparting additional brilliance, and heightening the bloom
and splendour of its tints.[1367]
-----
Footnote 1364:
Cf. Pausan. x. 37. 3.
Footnote 1365:
Cf. Poll. i. 97. Plat. Sophist. t. iv. p. 134. Æl. Var. Hist. xiii.
43.
Footnote 1366:
Athen. iii. 33.
Footnote 1367:
Poll. i. 47, sqq.
-----
Wherever, and by whomsoever, discovered, the purple was known in the
time of Moses, who introduced it into the costume of the high priest,
and among the ornaments of the tabernacle.[1368] Homer,[1369] too,
speaks of purple among the colours worn by his heroes, for example, a
large purple pelisse. Iris is denominated “purple;” we have mention,
also, of a “purple cloak, of a purple ball wherewith to play;” “purple
coverings,” of great beauty, for beds, or seats; “purple carpets;”
“purple threads,” where the “sea-purple” is distinctly spoken of.[1370]
Again, in another part of the Odyssey, we find it said, that women wove
the “purple cloaks.”[1371] The President Goguet has entered into many
useful investigations respecting the manner in which the Tyrian dye was
used; but at the outset confounds the _conchyliatæ vestes_ with the
purple garments, though Pliny, on whom he chiefly relies, constantly
distinguishes them. The dye was obtained from several kinds of
shell-fish[1372] found in the Mediterranean, the best on the island on
which New Tyre was built.[1373] Aristotle, who of all the ancients has
best described the purple fish, observes, that there were several
species, of which some were of considerable size, such as those caught
near Sigeion and Lecton; while those found on the coast of Caria and in
the Euripos were small. Generally, he says, such as inhabited bays or
arms of the sea were large and rough, and contained a liquid of blackish
hue, though sometimes it was reddish, and small in quantity. Some of
these were a mina, or about seventeen ounces, in weight. Those caught
close along shores, or about headlands were usually of small size, but
the dye they yielded was of a ruddier tinge. In general, too, it was
thought that those found on northern coasts produced a darker, those on
southern coasts a ruddier dye.[1374] Purple fisheries were carried on on
the coast of Africa, near the island of Menninx, and on the shores of
Getulia.[1375] So, likewise, in Europe,[1376] on the coast of
Laconia,[1377] whose purple was greatly celebrated; in the Euripos, as
we have seen above;[1378] and in the terrible southern bend of Eubœa,
beneath the cliffs of Mount Caphareus.[1379] An inferior kind of purple
was obtained from the buccinum,[1380] but the genuine dye was produced
by the _calchè_ alone. The colour was contained in a white vein about
the neck, the remainder of the fish being of no value. To secure, this,
however, it was necessary to take the fish alive, for at its death the
colour fled. Having been carefully collected, and left to macerate in
salt[1381] during three days, it was mixed with a certain quantity of
water. The whole was then boiled for ten days in leaden boilers over a
slow fire.[1382] After this the wool well washed, cleansed and properly
prepared, was dipped into it. Here it was allowed to soak during five
hours. It was then taken out, dried, carded, and thrown back, where it
was suffered to remain till it imbibed the whole of the dye.[1383] To
this double-dyed purple the poets often allude. Thus Horace:
Te bis Afro
Murice tinctæ
Vestiunt Lanæ.[1384]
-----
Footnote 1368:
Exod. xxv. 4, sqq.
Footnote 1369:
Il. ζ. 219. θ. 221. ρ. 547. Odyss. δ. 115. 154. τ. 225. 242. θ. 373.
δ. 298. ι. ω. 645. 796. ι. 200. Odyss. υ. 151. Cf. Pind. Pyth. iv.
203. 6.
Footnote 1370:
Odyss. ξ. 53. 306.
Footnote 1371:
Id. ν. 108.
Footnote 1372:
See a representation of the purple fish on a red jasper in Gori, Mus.
Florent. ii. pl. 21. fig. 4.
Footnote 1373:
Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 60.
Footnote 1374:
Arist. Hist. Anim. v. 15. p. 128, seq. Vitruv. vii. 13.
Footnote 1375:
Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 60.
Footnote 1376:
There was another purple fishery of considerable note carried on in
the Corinthian gulf by the citizens of Bulis, a city of Phocis.
Pausan. x. 37. 2. 3. Steph. de Urbib. p. 238. On the modern state of
Bulis see Chandler, ii. p. 288.
Footnote 1377:
Pausan. iii. 21. 6.
Footnote 1378:
Pausan. iii. 21. 6.
Footnote 1379:
Dion Chrysost. Orat. vii.
Footnote 1380:
This fish is now abundant on the shores of Naples, where it is
commonly eaten. Fab. Column. de Purp. iv. 1.
Footnote 1381:
The proportion of salt was 20 oz. to 1 cwt. of the purple matter.
Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 62.
Footnote 1382:
The animal matter mingled with it being constantly skimmed off. Plin.
Nat. Hist. ix. 62.
Footnote 1383:
Plin. ix. 62. Gog. iii. 20.
Footnote 1384:
Carm. ii. 16. 35, sqq. On this the ancient scholiast quoted by
Bentley, says, “Bis tinctæ, dibaphæ vestes preciocissimæ.” Cf. Pompon.
Mel. iii. 10. 35, p. 301. Gronov.
-----
And again where the Phœnician operation is spoken of:
Muricibus Tyriis iteratæ vellera lanæ
Cui properabantur?[1385]
-----
Footnote 1385:
Epod. xii. 21, seq.
-----
Elsewhere in enumerating the things, wherein the vulgar pride
themselves, he once more enumerates purple garments—
Gemmas, marmor, ebur, Tyrrhena sigilla, tabellas,
Argentum, vestes Gætulo murice tinctas,
Sunt qui non habeant, est qui non curat habere.[1386]
-----
Footnote 1386:
Epist. ii. 2. 180, seq.
-----
It was seldom or never considered sufficient to rely upon one species of
fish. Usually several kinds were mingled together;[1387] and to the
mixture were added many other ingredients, as nitre, urine, water, salt,
and the fucus—a kind of moss—by some writers supposed to be our
argol,[1388] found in abundance on the rocky shores of Crete.[1389] The
tint produced by this mixture resembled the colour of the
amethyst.[1390] For, under the word purple, the ancients included three
distinct colours,—the first a deep violet with a black or dusky tinge,
designed by Homer, when he speaks of the “purple wave,” or of “purple
death.” This was the amethystine shade spoken of as so magnificent by
Pliny; produced by the calchæ and buccina alone. The second which
resembled deep scarlet or crimson, which is the colour of a ripe
pomegranate, was the purple of Tyre and Tarentum. The third was the deep
blue of the Mediterranean sea, when it begins to be ruffled by the
winds; a variety produced by the buccinum alone, and always understood
by the word conchyliata.[1391] Near the Isthmus of Darien, a sea-snail
has been discovered, which some have supposed to be the murex of the
ancients. In dimensions it is about equal to the bee. Being of extremely
rare occurrence, the Indian fishermen preserve it, when found, in a
vessel of water until they have collected a sufficient quantity for
dyeing a piece of stuff. They then, like the ancient Tyrians, pound it
shell and all with a smooth stone or something which serves them for a
mortar, which as the shell is extremely thin and frail is a task of
little labour, and immediately dip the cotton yarn or stuff in the
liquor thus obtained. The colour resulting from this operation is the
richest purple that can be conceived, which instead of fading by being
passed through water grows more lustrous and brilliant the more it is
washed. Stuffs dyed in this manner are, as may be supposed, exceedingly
costly, and on account of their beauty much coveted by the richest of
the Indian women.[1392]
-----
Footnote 1387:
The buccinum, for example, to give the ruddy hue. Fab. Column. de
Purp. i. 19. Johan. Daniel. Annot. p. 33. Plin. ix. 37.
Footnote 1388:
Beckmann, i. 59, sqq.
Footnote 1389:
Goguet, iii. 20.
Footnote 1390:
Fab. Column. de Purpura, c. i. § 8.
Footnote 1391:
Dalecamp. ad Plin, ix. 62. t. iii. p. 770. Cf. Winkel. iv. 1. § 14.
Footnote 1392:
Valm. de Bomare. v. Murex, p. 169.
-----
The fucus above-mentioned, found on the shores of Crete, was sometimes
employed separately in dyeing fillets, garments, and wool, and the
colour thus produced was still more brilliant than that of the purple
fish, though no means of fixing it could be discovered.[1393] The purple
of Hermione, however, preserved its lustre and freshness for centuries.
Alexander, for example, found in the royal palace of Susa vast
quantities of purple garments dyed at Hermione, which, though they had
been laid up nearly two hundred years, exhibited all their pristine
bloom and beauty; because, observes the historian, the wool had been
previously combed with white oil, and the colour fixed with honey.[1394]
Even in Plutarch’s own time garments of equal age were to be seen, the
purple of which had preserved its brilliance and splendour undiminished.
Nay, a small pot of the dye was discovered at Pompeii which though
covered atop with a thick tawny film had preserved all the deep tone and
richness attributed to the Tyrian purple by the ancients.
-----
Footnote 1393:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 6. 5. Another method of dyeing purple
prevailed in a district of Asia Minor, where the quality of the
springs would appear to have fixed the colour: “The waters of
Hierapolis were surprisingly attempered for tinging wool with a colour
from roots, rivalling the more costly purples; and were a principal
source of the riches of the place.” Chandler, i. p. 270. The learned
traveller, who is exceedingly sparing of his authorities, doubtless
based his relation on the following passage in Strabo: Ἔστι δὲ καὶ
πρὸς, βαφὴν ἐρίων θαυμαστῶς σύμμετρον τὸ κατὰ τὴν Ἱεράπολιν ὕδωρ, ὥστε
τὰ ἐκ τῶν ῥιζῶν βαπτόμενα ἐνάμιλλα εἶναι τοῖς ἐκ τῆς κόκκου καὶ ταῖς
ἁλουργέσιν. l. xiii. c. iv. t. iii. p. 158.
-----
In dyeing scarlet, the ancients made use of kermes[1395] or cochineal,
found in several parts of Greece, but imported likewise from various
other countries. It was sometimes employed in giving the ground to
purple stuffs.[1396] Garments of this colour would appear to have been
extremely rare among the Orientals, since the admiration excited in
Darius by the scarlet cloak of Syloson, whom he saw walking in the great
square of Memphis, can be accounted for only by supposing that he had
never beheld the like before;[1397] otherwise he would not have been so
captivated by its magnificent colour as to press its wearer to sell it
to him in the street. Syloson presented him the cloak as a gift; but
afterwards, when Darius was king of Persia, he took care to proceed to
court and make the circumstance known, upon which the generous prince
overwhelmed him with his favours. This kind of dye appears to have been
known in Greece from the remotest antiquity, since Simonides supposes
that even the signal sail given by Ægeus to Theseus in his expedition to
Crete was of a scarlet colour.[1398] Sardis was celebrated for its
scarlet,[1399] whence the proverb,—to be dyed with the tincture of
Sardis,—for, to be beaten black and blue. The ancients, however,
generally mistook the insect for the fruit of the holm-oak, upon whose
leaves it feeds; a circumstance which may be regarded as very
extraordinary, when it is remembered that both the insect and the tree
were daily under their eyes.
-----
Footnote 1394:
Plut. Vit. Alex. § 36.
Footnote 1395:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 6. 9. Cf. Fab. Column. de Purp. i. 13. Don
Juan Pablo Canáls Y Martí, Memorias sobra la Purpura de los Antiguos.
c. v. Phile, De Animal. Proprietat. c. xliii. p. 172, sqq. appears to
describe, though in an indistinct and imperfect manner, the cochineal
insect among the productions of India.
Footnote 1396:
Beckmann, ii. 171.
Footnote 1397:
Herod. iii. 139.
Footnote 1398:
Plut. Thes. § 17. In later times we find Alcibiades, on his return to
Athens, hoisting purple sails in the Admiral’s galley. Plut. Alcib. §
32.
Footnote 1399:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 1140. ad Acharn. 118. Cf. Plin. xxiv. 4.
-----
The wool of sheep is said by the Greek poets to have been dyed red on
their backs by eating the madder plant.[1400] The wool of brown sheep
was spun, woven, and worn of its natural colour, as it is still by the
rustics of several European countries. Dyes of every other colour were
likewise known to the ancients; as bright flame and saffron-colour,
pink, green, and russet grey;[1401] deep and sky-blue, produced by
woad;[1402] and red by madder.[1403] The Phrygian dyers made use of a
kind of mineral[1404] obtained from Cappadocia; and wool was sometimes
dyed with a decoction of beans.[1405] Among the Egyptians, linens,
muslins, and all kinds of cloths were painted with flowers and figures,
in a great variety of colours;[1406] which was the case, also, among the
Massagetæ, who impressed on their fine woollen cloths a multitude of
patterns, which preserved their brilliance unfading to the last.[1407]
-----
Footnote 1400:
Virg. Eclog. iv. 45. Beckmann, History of Inventions, iii. 256—_note_.
Footnote 1401:
Poll. vii. 13.
Footnote 1402:
Ισάτις ἥμερος. Dioscor. ii. 215. Cf. Aristoph. Cimon. 332. Nub. 71.
Dioscor. iii. 160.
Footnote 1403:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, t. iii. p. 255.
Footnote 1404:
Dioscor. v. 141.
Footnote 1405:
Id. ii. 127.
Footnote 1406:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxv. 42.
Footnote 1407:
Herod. i. 203.
-----
As many kinds of woollens are wholly spoiled by common washing,[1408]
they were regularly, when soiled, carried by the Greeks to the
fullers,[1409] whose mill and trade are supposed to have been invented
by Nycias of Megara.[1410] These artisans made use of numerous earths
and other substances in their operations; such as gypsum,[1411] the
Cimolian earth and the Chian, the Lemnian, the Sardian, the Umbrian, the
Samian, the Tymphæan, and the Chalastræan.[1412] Wool, previous to being
spun, was cleansed by soap-wort.[1413] In washing clothes they commonly
made use of a lye prepared with lime or wood ashes.[1414] Sponges were
blanched in the following manner:[1415] over such as were extremely soft
they sprinkled a quantity of salt-fish, collected from the rocks, after
which they were carefully washed, and laid in the summer sun with their
hollow part uppermost. They were rendered still whiter by being
saturated with salt froth or sea-water, and exposed during a succession
of calm summer nights to the moon’s rays.
-----
Footnote 1408:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Charact. p. 241.
Footnote 1409:
Herod. iv. 14. i. 92.
Footnote 1410:
Plin. vii. 57. Goguet. iv. 6.
Footnote 1411:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 67.
Footnote 1412:
Constant. v. χαλαστραῖον. Theoph. de Lapid. § 64. Plat. Rep. t. vi.
184. Poll. vii. 39. x. 135.
Footnote 1413:
Στρουθίον. Dioscor. ii. 193. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 10. 3. Plin.
Nat. Hist. xix. 18.
Footnote 1414:
See Mitchell on the Acharnes. 7. Gog. Origine des Loix, i. 279.
Footnote 1415:
Dioscor. v. 138.
-----
The extent and importance of the Grecian fisheries[1416] may be inferred
from the prodigious quantities of fish eaten in every part of Greece;
for although they knew nothing in antiquity of those long fasts during
which the members of the Greek church in modern times, ceasing to prey
upon the dumb inhabitants of terra firma, let loose their voracity
against those of the sea, they were no less partial to this kind of food
than their descendants,[1417] as will have been seen from a preceding
portion of this work. Fisheries were accordingly established on nearly
every part of the coast of Hellas, as well as of those islands and
distant colonies of which she became mistress.
-----
Footnote 1416:
In the heads of certain fish, jewels are said to have been sometimes
found. Athen. iii. 70.
Footnote 1417:
Strabo relates an excellent anecdote in illustration of this passion
of his countrymen. Speaking of the city of Iasos, situated in an
island of the same name on the coast of Caria, whose inhabitants drew
their chief subsistence from their maritime pursuits, and were
abundantly supplied with fish, he adds,—that once upon a time a
celebrated musician was performing in public before the inhabitants of
this city: suddenly the bell which announced the opening of the
fish-market was heard to sound. Away, in an instant, scampered the
Iasians, eager to secure their favourite dainty, all except a single
individual, who appeared to enjoy the performance of the citharador.
Flattered by this mark of his taste or politeness, the musician
approached the man, and said, “I am greatly obliged by the attention
you have shown me, and have to congratulate you on your love of the
art; for all the rest, as soon as they heard the bell ring, ran
away.”—“What then! has the bell rung?” inquired the apparent listener,
who happened to be deaf. “Yes,” answered the musician. “Then good luck
be with you!” cried the man, and rising hastily from his seat, he
rushed after his townsmen. Strab. xiv. 2. t. iii. p. 203, seq.
-----
Thus a celebrated lamprey[1418] fishery existed on the Faro of Messina,
an eel-fishery at Syracuse,[1419] another for taking the purple fish, on
the eastern coast of Eubœa, a second on the shores of Laconia, a third
at Sigæum in Asia Minor, and a fourth in the neighbourhood of Tyre and
Sidon.[1420] Whales and dolphins were caught in the Mediterranean, and
in the Black Sea; thunnies in the same sea, on the Bosporos, in the sea
of Marmora, in the Hellespont, in the Adriatic, and in nearly all the
eastern parts of the Mediterranean. Many kinds of smaller fish afforded
employment to numerous bodies of men in the gulfs and bays of Attica and
the Peloponnesos; and flourishing sponge-fisheries were carried on along
the coast of Crete, and in several other parts of the Archipelago.[1421]
-----
Footnote 1418:
The observations made by Spallanzani on the eel and lamprey fisheries
of Stromboli, may, with equal propriety perhaps, be applied to those
which are found along the roots of Ætna: “The fish here,” he says,
“are very plentiful and large, especially the sea-eels and murænas;
and, during my short stay in this island, I saw a greater quantity
taken than during the whole time of my continuance in all the Eolian
isles. They are, likewise, of an excellent taste. This abundance, I am
inclined to attribute to the volcano, which has continued incessantly
burning from time immemorial; and which, extending to an immense
depth, must necessarily communicate a part of its heat to the
submarine base of the mountain, and to the waters that surround it, in
the gentle warmth of which the fish find a more agreeable place of
resort, and perhaps propagate in greater numbers than elsewhere.”
Travels in the Two Sicilies, iv. 125.
Footnote 1419:
Plut. Timol. § 20. In catching this fish it was customary to disturb
the waters. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 862. In the polypus fisheries,
besides the difficulty of detaching the animal from its place, there
was supposed to be another, arising from the power it possesses of
assuming, like the chameleon, the colour of the surrounding rocks.
Lucian. Dial. Deor. Marin. iv. § 3.
Footnote 1420:
This fish served for food as well as a dye. Luc. Cynic. § 11. The
cuttle-fish also was eaten as now. Catapl. § 7.
Footnote 1421:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 6. 5. Poll. i. 97.
-----
In seas frequented by sharks, sponge-fishers necessarily incurred much
risk. They therefore carefully observed every circumstance denoting the
absence of danger, as for example, the appearance of the anthias,[1422]
which is supposed never to be seen in the neighbourhood of any voracious
sea-monster; for which reason it obtained from the Greeks the name of
the Sacred Fish.
-----
Footnote 1422:
Aristot. Hist. Animal. ix. 37. p. 279. 20. Bekk.
-----
The divers engaged in this trade made use, moreover, of many
contrivances to diminish the toil and hazard of their dangerous calling.
Sometimes they poured oil[1423] upon the waves, which rendered them at
once more tranquil and translucent and enabled them the better to carry
on their operations at the bottom of the sea. They made likewise the
first step towards the invention of the diving-bell, by descending with
a large vessel turned upside down upon their heads, taking care that its
edges sank into the water at the same instant, by which means they
carried along with them a quantity of air, and were enabled to continue
a considerable space of time beneath the surface.[1424] A diver and his
daughter are said to have performed good service for their country
during the Median war; for, descending into the sea during a tempest,
they loosened the anchors of many Persian vessels, and thus set them
adrift to perish by the weather; in remembrance of which services, a
statue was erected to both father and daughter at Delphi.[1425]
-----
Footnote 1423:
Dutens, Origine des Découvertes, 145.
Footnote 1424:
Aristot. Problem. xxxii. 5.
Footnote 1425:
Paus. x. 19. 2. Athen. vii. 48. Anthol. Græc. ad Palat. Cod. ed. ix.
296. Cf. Herod. viii. 8. Quint. Curt. iv. 3.
-----
The business of fishing was pursued in much the same manner as in modern
times. Great numbers of smacks,[1426] of all dimensions, crowded the
narrow seas between the islands and the main, making sometimes pretty
long voyages, and taking passengers to augment their gains.[1427] These,
moreover, formed the principal nurseries for the Grecian navies,[1428]
particularly those of Athens, which consequently were manned, in the
better ages of the republic, by the hardiest and most expert seamen in
the ancient world. They employed in their operations both the harpoon
and various kinds of large nets;[1429] and the ease and rapidity with
which they filled their vessels may be inferred from the accounts given
in modern times of the vast shoals of fish of all species and dimensions
which in spring time collect in the eastern extremity of the
Mediterranean, and pour in such multitudes into the narrow stream of the
Dardanelles and the Bosporos,[1430] that, with one sweep of a net, the
fishermen are enabled to fill whole skiffs, while they may be taken by
the hand from the shores, killed like birds with stones, caught with
unbaited hooks, or by the women in common baskets, let down by ropes
from the windows of such houses in Constantinople[1431] as happen to
stand on the beach. Elsewhere the fishermen made use of stop-nets in
rivers or along the sea-coasts where the water for some way out was
shallow. Various kinds of baskets,[1432] also, they had recourse to,
together with the rod and line. Even that barbarous method, still in
many parts of Europe put in practice by the vulgar, of poisoning the
waters, was known to the Greeks, who, for this purpose, cast into
streams or ponds the pounded leaves of the Euphorbia Platyphylla.[1433]
-----
Footnote 1426:
Dion Chrysost. i. 220. Cf. Aristoph. Nub. 878. Ran. 139. Eq. 1220.
Acharn. 367.
Footnote 1427:
Dion Chrysost. i. 220.
Footnote 1428:
See a comparison between the hardy occupations of the citizen and the
hunter in Oppian. Halieut. i. 12. Cyneget. i. 49. The same poet in the
third book of his Halieutics, (35, sqq.) describes the principal
qualities of a fisherman, bodily and mental, such as strength,
watchfulness, love of the sea, all which must have admirably fitted
him for distinguishing himself in his country’s navy.
Footnote 1429:
Plut. De Solert. Anim. § 24. Poll. i. 97. Anglers’ lines were
sometimes made of τέρμινθος, a plant resembling flax. Id. i. 233.
Salmas. ad Solon. p. 911. a. Etymol. Mag. 753, 10. Fishing-hooks.
Goguet, i. 166. Nets were sunk by leaden weights. Poll. i. 97. Cf.
Philost. Icon. i. 13. p. 783. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 14. p. 102.
Footnote 1430:
See in Oppian a long and highly picturesque passage describing the
allurements by which the Black Sea drew into itself those innumerable
shoals of fish which in the text I have described flocking towards it.
Halieut. i. 598, sqq. Cf. Strab. vii. 6. t. ii. p. 112.
Footnote 1431:
Gyllius, De Topograph. Constant. p. 6.
Footnote 1432:
Poll. i. 97.
Footnote 1433:
Dioscor. iv. 165. Plat. De Repub. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Concon. 404.
See the whole process of poisoning described by Oppian, Halieut. iv.
647, seq.
-----
On the land-locked seas, also, and lakes, and rivers, they pursued that
striking and romantic species of fishery[1434] carried on at
night,[1435] in which a flaming torch held at the boats’ bows allures
the fish to the surface, where by their bright eyes and glittering
scales shining through the transparent water, they directed the aim of
the fisherman’s trident.[1436] A small fleet of this kind of boats
dispersed over a smooth sea under the lea of woody headlands or rocky
shores, each with its bright red light, gliding noiselessly[1437] hither
and thither, discloses a scene of singular beauty to the imagination. In
the paintings of Herculaneum,[1438] we find a landscape representing a
group of fishermen immediately before day, when the dusky shadows are
beginning to be dispersed by the first straggling rays of light which
barely enable us to distinguish the boats, the nets, the rods, the
fishermen themselves, and the picturesque shore on which they are at
work.
-----
Footnote 1434:
Cf. Herod. i. 62.
Footnote 1435:
Chandler supplies us with a picture of this kind of fishing as carried
on in modern Greece: “We embarked with a rougher sea than was
pleasing, and rowed out in the dark towards the island, intending to
fish. We joined our two seines, and the boats parted, moving each a
different way, a man letting the net gently down into the water. We
met again in the centre, when some embers which had been hidden, were
blown up and exposed on an iron grate, the flame was fed with cedar
dipped in oil, which blazing in the wind, brightened over the deep;
the red coals hissing as they fell, and were extinguished. At the same
time we began to clatter with wooden hammers on the sides and seats of
the wherries, to dash with a pole, and to throw stones, disturbing and
driving the fish, and darting a trident or spear if any appeared at
the top, dazzled by the light; sprinkling oil to render the surface
tranquil and pellucid. The men drew up the net with caution, fearing
the fins of some poisonous fish, particularly the scorpion, which is
killed with a blow on the head while entangled, when the danger
ceases. The boats meeting again, they untie the seines, and throwing
the fiery brands into the sea, proceed in the dark to some other
place. This is the common method of fishing in these seas.” Travels in
Greece and Asia Minor, ii. p. 198, seq.
Footnote 1436:
Quint. Smyrn. Posthomeric, vii. 569, sqq.
Footnote 1437:
Cf. Oppian. Halieut. iii. 429.
Footnote 1438:
Antich. di Ercol. t. xii. p. 273.
-----
One of the most profitable of the Greek fisheries was that of the
thunny, which commenced about the rising of the Pleiades and terminated
shortly after the setting of Arcturus.[1439] As this animal always moves
about in troops, and swims near the surface of the water, which it
visibly disturbs in its progress, at the same time blowing sportively,
and uttering a loud noise, the fishermen, on the shores frequented by
it, constantly stationed a number of watchmen along the beach, some
perched aloft on the summits of cliffs, others on detached rocks, rising
out of the waves, or in trees, or on the top of masts set up at certain
distances along the coast, that they might give notice of the approach
of the thunnies.[1440] As soon as the signal was given the fishermen
pushed out with their barks, making a wide circuit, so as to take the
fish in flank. Then letting down their long nets furnished with leaden
weights to sink them, and with cords[1441] wherewith to draw them up,
they formed themselves into a semicircle, which rapidly narrowing round
the shoal drove them towards the land, by which means the greatest
number were either taken in the nets, or speared by tridents.[1442]
Respecting one of these fishing stations, on the coast of Cypros, a very
romantic anecdote is related.[1443] The inhabitants we are told, having
sculptured a marble lion, which they adorned with emerald eyes, set it
up on the tomb of a prince of the country named Hermias,[1444] upon an
eminence overlooking the sea. The splendour of the emerald, penetrating
through the waves, scared away the thunnies, which in truth are
remarkable for their timidity, so that the fishermen of that part of the
island must unquestionably have been ruined had they not discovered the
property of their lion’s optics, and substituted in lieu of the emerald,
eyes less terrible to the pusillanimous herds of Thetis. A circumstance
almost equally extraordinary is related of the strait by which the
stream of the Bosporos disgorges itself into the Propontis. Here they
say a rock of marvellous whiteness is discovered on the Asiatic side
through the waves in the neighbourhood of Chalcedon, which by its
brightness scares away the thunnies, both in their way to and from the
Black Sea. The ancient naturalists remark, that the thunny in this part
of its migrations observes steadily one course, keeping generally on the
Asiatic side in the ascent to the Pontus, where, excepting the seal and
the dolphin, nothing destructive to fish is found, and, after making the
circuit of its shores, returning to the Ægæan close along the coast of
Europe.
-----
Footnote 1439:
Plin. ix. 20. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 313. 361. 862. Philost. Icon.
i. 13, p. 783.
Footnote 1440:
Suid. v. θυννοσκόπος. t. i. p. 1336, seq. Aristoph. Eq. 313. Aristot.
Hist. Animal. iv. 10. They who act as sentinels in the catching of the
sword-fish, take their station on a platform in the fishing boat
itself. “In the middle (of the bark) is fixed an upright pole,
seventeen feet high, with ladders to go up it, and a kind of round
platform at the top, for one of the crew, who acts as sentinel, to
stand on. This platform is called _fariere_.” Spallanzani, Travels in
the Two Sicilies, iv. 336.
Footnote 1441:
Poll. i. 97.
Footnote 1442:
Similar methods still prevail in the Mediterranean. “We had,” says
Chandler, “frequent opportunities (while at Genoa) of seeing the
method of fishing within the mole. Several seines are united and
extended so far as to form a large semicircle, but much curved at the
two extremities. The men then retire to some distance, and begin
clattering with sticks or hammers on the sides of their boats; the
noise making the fish rise. One stationed on the yard-arm of a ship,
takes notice which way they swim, and gives directions, until they are
within the net, when they are driven towards the ends, and are soon
entangled; or, trying from despair to leap over, fall on a wing, which
is fastened to long reeds, and kept floating horizontally on the
surface. The reward of much toil was, now and then a few mullet. The
thynnus, or thunny fish, was anciently and is now taken nearly in this
manner, but in shoals which endanger and often break the nets.”
Travels, &c., i. p. 6, seq.
Footnote 1443:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 17.
Footnote 1444:
Cf. Winkelm. ii. 93.
-----
This proceeding they account for by supposing that, of its two dull
eyes, the right sees best, and that, in obedience to the guidance of
this peeper, it makes the circuit of the sea in the manner stated. A
better reason may be, that its peculiar food[1445] is most plentiful on
the Asiatic coast in spring, and on the European in autumn, if, after
all, we are to regard the fact itself as well established.[1446] In this
traject, however, it seems in reality, for some cause or another, to
shun the vicinity of the City of the Blind, which constituted, perhaps,
one of the principal causes of its inferiority to Byzantium.
Nevertheless, a very delicate species of pelamys,[1447] caught there,
was known in the commerce of the ancient world, and transported to all
parts of Greece.
-----
Footnote 1445:
Observations made on the habits of the swordfish may be thought to
give some colour to this relation of the ancient naturalists: “The
swordfish, we are told, is taken by the Messinese sailors in two ways;
that is, with the lance, and the palimadara, a kind of net with very
close meshes. This fishery begins about the middle of April, and
continues till the middle of September. From the middle of April to
the end of June it is carried on upon the coast of Calabria; and from
the end of June to the middle of September on that of Sicily. The
reason of this is, that, by the account of all the fishermen, the
swordfish, from April till June, entering by Faro, coasts the shore of
Calabria, without approaching that of Sicily; and passes the contrary
way from the end of July to the middle of September. We know not
whether it takes this contrary route for the sake of food, or from any
other cause; or whether it be the same fish that passes and repasses;
it is only certain that it does not coast the shore of Sicily but when
it goes to spawn.” Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, iv. 331.
-----
We have remarked above, that the taking of the thunny commenced in
spring, when it appears to have been in excellent condition, and very
highly prized. During winter, whatever may have been its quality, it was
not to be caught, since it retired to the depths of the Ægæan, beyond
the reach of nets or tridents. In the heat of summer it was rendered
lean and flabby by the persecution of a kind of worm, which, insinuating
itself beneath the fins,[1448] harassed it incessantly. But, towards
autumn, being delivered by nature from this pest, it again became plump,
and was esteemed excellent eating. The growth of this fish is extremely
rapid, more especially in the Black Sea, where, amid the vast quantities
of mud and slime brought down by the numerous rivers, it finds in great
abundance the food most congenial to its taste.[1449] The thunny,
properly so called, is at present[1450] scarce along the coast of
Mingrelia, where, by the ancients, it is said to have abounded, which
renders it not improbable, that they included under this name more than
one species of sturgeon, a fish still found in great numbers in those
parts of the Black Sea.
-----
Footnote 1446:
Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 20.
Footnote 1447:
Oppian, who tells a wonderful story about the thunny devouring its
spawn, immediately adds, that the roes which escaped, concealed among
the reeds and rushes, became pelamydes:
Τὰ δ᾽ ἐν δονάκεσσι καὶ ἐν σχοίνοισι μένοντα
Πηλαμύδων ἀγέλας ὥρη τέκεν
Halieut. iv. 510, seq.
Footnote 1448:
Aristot. Hist. Animal. viii. 13. p. 231. 30.
Footnote 1449:
Oppian. Halieut. i. 600, sqq.
Footnote 1450:
Voyages au Nord, vii. 187.
-----
The method of taking the pelamys[1451] has been graphically described by
an ancient writer. A well-appointed and swift bark, putting to sea with
her rowers, dashed out as rapidly as possible into deep water, upon
which one of the crew, stationed at the stern, let down the tackle. This
consisted of two strong ropes, one on either side, to which were
attached a number of small cords, each with a hook at the end, baited
with the Laconian purple fish, and garnished with a feather of the
sea-mew, which, glancing hither and thither in the currents of the sea,
assisted in attracting the eye of the pelamydes. The boat then traced
various lines upon the surface of the deep, now skimming in this
direction, now in that, until it was followed by a shoal of fish, which,
coming up with it, voraciously gorged the baits until not a single hook
was left without its prey. Upon this the rowers desisted from their
toil, and, pulling up the ropes, generally found their boat laden with
the take.[1452]
-----
Footnote 1451:
Pallas supposes this fish to be the Mugil Cephalus, or mullet, from
the eggs of which Botargo is prepared. Travels in Southern Russia, iv.
241.
Footnote 1452:
Ælian. de Nat. Animal. xv. 11.
-----
The manner in which the thunny is taken on the coast of Chili may,
perhaps, be worth mentioning for the sake of comparison. As soon as the
Indians discover a shoal of these fish near the shore they put to sea on
large sealskin floats inflated, like bladders, with air, carrying with
them a sharp-pronged trident, fastened to a tough and very long rope.
They then approach and pierce the fish, which, immediately upon being
struck, darts out to sea with prodigious celerity, the Indian,
meanwhile, rapidly uncoiling his rope till the strength of the thunny is
spent through loss of blood, after which he draws back his prey, and,
raising it upon his float, returns to the shore rejoicing.[1453]
-----
Footnote 1453:
Ovalle, i. 17. Baumgarten, i. 4. Aristot. Hist. Anim. iv. p, 109.
Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 20, seq.
-----
It is probable that, in this manner of fishing, the Indian draws near
the thunny while asleep,[1454] as we find to have been often the
practice among the Greek fishermen, who when they went forth at night,
at which time the thunny is exceedingly drowsy, were attracted towards
their prey by the white belly of the fish sleeping quietly on the
surface of the water. Many other kinds of fish also appear to have been
taken while asleep, notwithstanding that in general their slumbers are
brief. Thus flat-fish, nestling in the sand or mud, were discovered
through the transparent water, and pierced with the trident. So likewise
the sea-dog, the gilthead, and the mullet, were taken by day, with the
trident, while asleep; otherwise it has been thought they could scarcely
be touched by this instrument. The skate and other fishes of the
Selachian tribe were sometimes found to sleep so soundly, that they
could be taken by the hand.[1455]
-----
Footnote 1454:
According to Oppian, however, most species of fish, like the Olympian
Zeus, refuse to submit to the chains of sleep, and keep their
intellectual faculties perpetually on the stretch. But the Scaros, he
allows, is occasionally caught napping. Halieut. ii. 656.
Footnote 1455:
Aristot. Hist. Animal. iv. 10. p. 109.
-----
On the shores of the Chelidonian isles there was a celebrated anthias
fishery which was carried on in a peculiar manner. The fishermen putting
to sea in their bark, and clad in garments of a sober colour, sailed
backward and forward daily in the same place and at the same hour. By
this means, the anthias, which in great numbers frequents that part of
the sea, became accustomed to the sight of the vessel, and by degrees
approached it, one of the shoal generally preceding the rest. To him the
fishermen threw out something of which the anthias is fond, and
continued to do so until the fish became so tame that they would eat
food from his hand. A hook was then introduced into the bait, and as the
fish crowded around the bark in prodigious multitudes, they were caught
rapidly, and handed to a second person, who threw them into the bottom
of the boat upon heaps of soft rags, lest by their bounding and
struggling they should make a noise and frighten away their companions.
The shadow of the boat assisted in concealing this manœuvre from the
fish. It was considered necessary to spare the anthias which first
approached, since, being probably a kind of leader, his disappearance
instantly put all the rest to flight.[1456] Sometimes it is said
multitudes of these fish were collected round the boat by the striking
of two bits of wood together in the manner of castanets.[1457] The
Milesians[1458] possessed close to their city a very lucrative fishery
chiefly of the sea-dog,[1459] which there attained a larger size than
anywhere else. This is supposed to have been owing to an extensive
lagoon of fresh water, having however with the sea a channel of
communication through which these fish found their way in, where they
grew tame and fat, and were taken in great numbers.[1460]
-----
Footnote 1456:
Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 85.
Footnote 1457:
Oppian. Halieut. iii. 205, sqq.
Footnote 1458:
Athen. vii. 86, seq.
Footnote 1459:
Remarkable for its voracity. Lucian. Dial. Mort. viii. The sea-dog was
classed by Linnæus among the amphibia; but Spallanzani and M.
Vicq-d-Azyr, restored it, upon more accurate observation, to its place
among the fishes. Travels in the Two Sicilies, iv. 379.
Footnote 1460:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 361.
-----
At a point on the gulf of Smyrna, a productive fishery is at present
carried on in a very ingenious manner. The shore being low and level, a
continuous sweep of reed-fences is stretched along, so as to enclose a
considerable space of water, and furnished at intervals with gates,
which are raised occasionally for letting in the shoals. The avenues are
then closed, and the fish taken with facility. On the coast of China a
similar fishery is found, lines of mats being substituted for
reeds.[1461]
-----
Footnote 1461:
Chandler, i. 85. Cf. 151. Osbeck, Voyage to China, i. 199.
-----
There was a small, but apparently productive, fishery in the canton of
Marathon.[1462] The right of fishing in the salt stream of the Rheitæ
was secured by law to the priests of Eleusis,[1463] whose city was
famous for the scombros as well as for soles or turbots.[1464]
-----
Footnote 1462:
Paus. i. 32. 7. Meurs. Rel. Att. c. viii. p. 32. Chandler. ii. 184.
Footnote 1463:
Paus. i. 38. 1. ii. 24. 6. Chandler, ii. 210.
Footnote 1464:
Athen. vii. 24.
-----
CHAPTER VIII.
COMMERCE OF DORIC STATES.
On the commerce of Greece, which would supply materials for an
interesting work, it is not my design to enter into very numerous
details, though a brief view of the subject belongs to this undertaking.
The blessings of commerce are well understood in our times, and the
grand scale upon which it is now conducted may perhaps induce some to
look back with something like contempt on its feeble beginnings in the
Mediterranean.[1465] There, however, lay the centre of that circle which
has gone on increasing until it at length embraces the whole world, and
almost renders the most distant races necessary to each other. It must
be interesting, therefore, to look
“O’er the dark backward and abysm of time,”
at the first movements of men towards forging the links of this chain
which binds together the whole human race in one society, disturbed
sometimes by evil passions, but cohering nevertheless, and apparently
becoming more interfused daily.
-----
Footnote 1465:
The reader will find in the work of Monsieur F. Thiersch, De l’Etat
actuel de la Grèce, t. ii. p. 72, sqq., an interesting and instructive
chapter on the trade carried on by the descendants of that people
whose manners and customs I have undertaken to describe. He there
enters at length into the advantageous position of the country, and
the upright and honourable character of its inhabitants, of whose
singular probity he produces many proofs. Other writers have taken a
different view of the modern Greek character. But I am disposed to
place more reliance on the statement of M. Thiersch than on that of
those prejudiced travellers who desire to obtain a reputation for
exactness by an ill-natured interpretation of a free people whose
hospitality they have enjoyed, and in too many cases abused.
-----
In this movement there were, doubtless, several nations that preceded
the Greeks. The civilisation of the East existing anterior to that of
Greece, it was the Orientals who made the first step towards opening up
that intercourse which afterwards became so intimate between the
inhabitants of Hellas and the Arabs of Phœnicia, the Egyptians, the
Persians, and other nations of the East. At first, indeed, the
camel,[1466] that important instrument of human improvement, revealed to
the rude tribes bordering on Arabia, the existence of wants within them,
of which they before knew nothing. He came with sweets and luxuries on
his back to the hamlet or the encampment, and by the sight of them
created desires, to gratify which the aid of industry was to be called
in. At a very early age strings of camels, laden with perfumes and
spices, and gold, traversed the plains of western Asia, ascended and
descended along the Nile, penetrated the northern coasts of Africa, and,
by barter and traffic, diffused the productions of the East much further
even than their own footsteps reached, as now the manufactures of
England find their way into the countries never beheld by an Englishman.
-----
Footnote 1466:
See a picture of this beast and his baskets, Antich. di Ercol. t. v.
p. 5. In the book of Genesis, chap. xxxvii. v. 25, we find a brief
picture of the commerce carried on by means of this animal, and an
enumeration of some of the principal commodities which he bore from
country to country. “And they (the sons of Jacob) sat down to eat
bread: and they lifted up their eyes, and looked, and, behold, a
company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing
spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.”
-----
Presently the blue and beautiful waters of the Mediterranean tempted the
adventurous Arabs who had settled in Phœnicia, the country of the
palm-tree, to launch their barks on it, and push from isle to isle till
they found themselves in Hellas, where the beauty of the women
occasionally, perhaps, when they were not to be enticed away, may have
tempted an adventurer[1467] to remain as other Arabs have done in every
land whither they have wandered.[1468] This, I am persuaded, is all that
can be conceded to those who see so many proofs of Oriental colonies in
Greece. But though the Orientals did not colonize Greece, they no doubt
aided very powerfully in civilizing it. For when the rude natives saw
that there were many desirable things to be obtained from the strangers
if they could give them any thing valuable in return, it must have set
their wits at work to invent new means of obtaining the things they
coveted. At the outset it was a rough system of barter. The Phœnicians
took the produce of the country in exchange for their merchandise, and
secured their own success by awakening an appetite for pleasures which
they alone could furnish.
-----
Footnote 1467:
This is, moreover, the common opinion. Thus Dionysios (Perieg. v. 907,
seq.)
—πρῶτοι νήεσσιν ἐπειρήσαντο θαλάσσης,
Πρῶτοι δ᾽ ἐμπορίης ἁλιδινέος ἐμνήσαντο.
They first in ships the billowy ocean tried,
And first sea-wandering commerce gave to man.
On this account Cicero observes: “Eos primos mercatores mercibus suis
avaritiam, magnificentiam et inexplebiles cupiditates primum in
Græciam intulisse.” De Rep. fr. l. 111. ap. Feith, Antiq. Hom. ii. 10.
1.
Footnote 1468:
Some such event as this is no doubt alluded to in the story of Cadmos.
-----
However, tradition has preserved evident traces of voyages of discovery
and commercial adventure undertaken by the Greeks[1469] themselves, in
imitation of the Phœnicians,—for, into this the Argonautic expedition,
in what direction soever it proceeded, resolves itself, in fact. The
Greeks possessed manufactures, ships, commerce, and, as a consequence,
considerable wealth, long before the birth of history, a circumstance
which goes far to overthrow the wild theories of certain modern scholars
respecting the Iliad and Odyssey; for, if the Greeks had constant
dealings with nations who were indisputably in possession of the art of
writing, with abundant materials, they must have been the slowest and
most stupid of mankind if they neglected to imitate those nations.
Besides, the Phœnicians would be as ready to supply them with paper,
parchment, and whatever else they wrote on, as with any other articles
of commerce, and must have desired to awaken in them the wish to consume
what they were deeply interested in supplying. Thus, if the
Phœnicians and Egyptians understood the art of writing, as from the
sacred Scriptures we know they did, it is all but impossible that the
Greeks should have remained ignorant of it.
-----
Footnote 1469:
Apollodoros, recounting the exploits of the Argonauts, mentions
incidentally a curious particular respecting the women of Lemnos, who,
he says, were deserted by their husbands on account of the ill odour
they exhaled. Their places were supplied by female slaves from Thrace;
upon which, in revenge, they murdered all the men in the island, with
the exception of Thoas, who was saved by his daughter, Hypsipyle.
Biblioth. i. 9. 17. Cf. Pind. Pyth. iv. 159, sqq. ed. Dissen. whose
commentary may be consulted, t. ii. p. 235.
Homer, of course, supplies the best account we can possess of Grecian
commerce in remote antiquity, though it had been carried on ages before
his time. Mariners, in the Odyssey, obtain the name of πρηκτῆρες, or
“merchants,” and are elsewhere said to plough the seas, ἐπὶ πρῆξιν καὶ
χρήματα,—“for traffic and gain.”[1470] The most celebrated mariners
known to Homer were the Phœnicians, whom he therefore terms,
Ναυσίκλυτοι ἄνδρες
Τρῶκται, μυρί᾽ ἄγοντες ἀθύρματα νηῒ μελαίνῃ.[1471]
Famous mariners,
Roguish, numerous trinkets bringing in black ships.
Footnote 1470:
Odys. θ. 162. Hymn. in Apoll. 397.
Footnote 1471:
Odyss. ο. 414, seq.
That from the beginning, moreover, they obtained celebrity for their
piratical arts, the story of Eunæos, in the Odyssey, and the rape of Io,
as related by Herodotus,[1472] clearly show. Nay, Thucydides himself, in
a recapitulation of the ancient history of Greece, observes that the
islanders, chiefly Carians and Phœnicians, were no less renowned than
their neighbours for piracy.[1473] The Phœnicians, however, would
appear to have led the way, and, probably, by their successes excited
the emulation of the Carians, who drove them from the island, and
adopted the business of piracy in their stead.[1474]
Footnote 1472:
L. i. c. 2. See, also, Philost. Vit. Apollon. iii. 24. p. 114.
Footnote 1473:
Thucyd. i. 8. Tournefort, Voyage, i. 154. The Phocians, also, about
the time when they founded Marseilles, distinguished themselves at
once by their mercantile and piratical habits. Namque Phocenses
exiguitate ac macie terræ coacti studiosius mare quam terras
exercuêre: piscando, mercando plerumque etiam latrocinio maris quod
illi temporibus gloriæ habebatur, vitam tolerabant. Justin. 43. 3.
Footnote 1474:
Conon. Dieg. 47. ap. Phot. Cod. 141. a. 20. Hudson, ad Thucyd. t. i.
p. 302. See in Scheffer, De Re Militiâ Navali, Addenda, Lib. Prim. p.
313, a list of the nations who anciently exercised the piratical art.
-----
Though the value of the precious metals was already well understood,
they had not been adopted as the sole instruments of exchange; for, from
the often-cited passage of the Iliad,[1475] it is clear that the
practice of barter still prevailed. The poet describes certain ships
arriving at the Grecian camp with a cargo of wine from Lemnos, on which
the chiefs and soldiers flock to the shore, and provide themselves with
what they needed, some giving in exchange for it a quantity of brass,
iron, skins; and others, oxen or slaves. Among the rustic population of
Greece, if the poets may be relied on, the system of barter prevailed
down to a very late period, since we find the goatherd, in
Theocritus,[1476] giving a she-goat and a cheesecake for a pastoral cup.
The Spartans, too, after the death of Polydoros, purchased his palace
from the widow for a certain number of oxen; whence it was afterwards
called βοώνητα,[1477] or “bought with oxen,” unless the legend was
invented to account for the name. Pausanias, however, states as a reason
for the transaction, that neither gold nor silver money was yet in use,
but that things were disposed of after the ancient fashion of exchanging
goods for their value in some other article,—oxen, slaves, or gold or
silver in ingots. He adds, in illustration, that the Indians, even in
his age, were ignorant of the use of money, though abounding with the
precious metals, and used to barter their own manufactures for the
merchandise brought by the Greeks: besides, at Sparta, there was a law,
attributed to Lycurgos, which prescribed barter in lieu of purchase and
sale.[1478]
-----
Footnote 1475:
Il. η. 472, sqq. Cf. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 1.
Footnote 1476:
Eidyll. i. 57, seq. where, for τυρόεντα, both Porson and Kiessling
propose τυρῶντα. Ἄρτον τυρῶντα occurs in a fragment of Sophron. ap.
Athen. iii. 75.
Footnote 1477:
Paus. iii. 12. 1-3.
Footnote 1478:
Justin, iii. 2.
-----
From a passage in the Iliad, which would seem to signify the direct
contrary, it has been inferred, that the use of money in commerce was
known among the Greeks in the Homeric age. Speaking of the exchange of
armour, between Glaucos and Diomedes, the poet says:
Χρύσεα χαλκείων, ἑκατόμβοι ἐννεαβοίων.[1479]
Gold armour for brazen, a hundred-ox value for nine.
-----
Footnote 1479:
Il. ζ. 236.
An ancient scholiast on the passage understands by βοῦς a piece of
money, stamped on one side with the figure of an ox, and on the other
with that of a king.[1480] But one of the scholia published by
Villoison, observes on the word ἑκατόμβοια, “worth a hundred oxen, for
they did not as yet make use of money.” Another scholion,[1481] however,
remarks, οἱ γὰρ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐν τοῖς ἐαυτῶν νομίσμασι βοῦν ἐνετύπουν.
Pollux[1482] relates the same fact, observing that, in remote antiquity,
the Athenians made use of a piece of money called βοῦς, because it had
impressed upon it the figure of an ox, and that, by many, Homer was
supposed to have alluded to this Attic coin in the verse above cited,
“indocte,” however, as Heyne[1483] observes. Mention of a fine called
δεκάβοιον occurred, according to Pollux, in the laws of Dracon; and in
the procession (θεωρία) to Delos, the herald used to proclaim when a
certain prize was given, that so many oxen were bestowed on such a one.
The value of the coin was two didrachmæ, so that the Bous was simply a
_didrachma_.[1484] The ox was stamped by the Athenians on their coins as
the symbol of peace and abundance.[1485]
Footnote 1480:
Ap. Feith, Antiq. Hom. ii. 10. 3.
Footnote 1481:
Tom. i. p. 188. ed. Bekk.
Footnote 1482:
Onomast. ix. 60.
Footnote 1483:
Ad Il. t. iv. p. 238. He remarks, that Arist. Ethic. v. 11,
quotes this verse on showing that no man can be injured
voluntarily—ἀδικεῖσθαι ἑκούσιον. That it became a proverb may be
inferred from Cicero, ad Ath. vi. 1.
Footnote 1484:
Διδραχμον· τὸ δ`ε παλαιὸν τοῦτο ἦν Αθ᾿ηναῖοις νόμισμα καὶ ἐκαλεῖτο
βοῦς, ὅτι βοῦν εἶχεν ἐντετυπωμένον Pollux. ix. 60.
Footnote 1485:
Spanheim, de Præstantia et Usu Numismatum Antiquorum, p. 129, 267.
-----
Plutarch[1486] assigns, by conjecture, two reasons; first, that Theseus,
whom he regards as its inventor, may have meant by the figure of the ox
to recall the memory of Minos’s general Tauros; or, second, because he
wished to turn the mind of the citizens to agriculture.
-----
Footnote 1486:
Thes. § 25. Cf. Goguet, t. iv. p. 228.
-----
The talent of gold is mentioned more than once by Homer;[1487] but we
are not to imagine with Feith[1488] that there was a piece of money so
called, though in the case of Homer he supposes it to signify a certain
weight of gold, and not a coin. Modern critics get over all difficulties
in the usual way by pronouncing the passage spurious.[1489] No doubt the
people of those early times did not greatly abound in wealth, which,
arising from the assiduous cultivation of the useful arts, could not be
plentiful where these arts were scarcely at all known. Even tyrants, who
always contrive to obtain their share of whatever riches exist in their
country, were long after the Homeric age possessed of but little wealth,
any more than their people.[1490] Money, however, does not constitute
opulence. There was a rude plenty of all the necessaries of life, and as
the secret representative of wealth had not been invented, men sought to
possess the realities,—herds of oxen, flocks of sheep, lands, houses,
and splendid apparel. Fine studs of horses, also, were naturally
desired, being at once useful in war, and showy in peace.[1491]
-----
Footnote 1487:
Il. ι. 122. 264. σ. 507, sqq. Cf. Herod. i. 14. et Adnot. ad Ælian. i.
22. Goguet, iv. 229.
Footnote 1488:
Antiq. Homer. ii. 10. 3.
Footnote 1489:
Heyne, ad Il. σ. 507, who observes, justly no doubt, that we are
ignorant what the Homeric talent weighed. Cf. Serv. ad Æneid. v. 112.
Footnote 1490:
Herod. viii. 137.
Footnote 1491:
Hymn. in Herm. 400. Pausan. iv. 3. 6.
-----
We observe in these ages, however, as well as in all others, that men no
sooner enjoyed the necessaries than they desired the luxuries and
ornaments of life. In several countries bordering upon the
Mediterranean, there was already great magnificence displayed. The kings
of Midian, for example, wore purple garments, golden earrings, and
jewelled collars; their camels, moreover, were covered with costly
trimmings and ornaments of gold.[1492]
-----
Footnote 1492:
Judges, viii. 21, sqq.
-----
Of the internal commerce of Greece, in the earlier ages, little,
comparatively, is known. Goguet[1493] appears to suppose, that hardly
any traffic can be carried on without the aid of sumpter animals, such
as camels, mules, or asses. But the natives of Canara[1494] drive a
pretty thriving trade, though nearly every article of merchandise is
transported on men’s heads. In Greece, however, the use of vehicles was
very ancient, its origin being lost in fable.[1495] Boats, canoes, &c.,
came early into vogue also; and yet Thucydides relates, that the
intercourse of the rural tribes of the Hellenes was for many ages so
slight as scarcely to merit attention. Bad roads, the absence of inns,
the want of a police, the great number of robbers, were great obstacles;
but the very existence of robbers attests the fact, that attempts were
constantly made to extend inland commerce, though it may have been long
before it was established on a solid basis.
-----
Footnote 1493:
Origine de Loix, t. iv. p. 204.
Footnote 1494:
Buchanan, Journey through the Mysore, ii. p. 347. Hindoos, i. p. 44.
Footnote 1495:
Ælian. iii. 38.
-----
Descending towards the historical periods we find the Æginetans first
distinguishing themselves as a commercial people. Their history, as far
as ancient fragments supply it, has been composed by a modern
scholar[1496] of eminence, whose researches must prove of the utmost
utility to all succeeding inquirers. This people, living on a small and
nearly barren island, early directed their attention to the arts, to the
various processes of industry, and to commerce, the only employment
suited to the nature of their soil. Too much stress has, perhaps, been
laid on the situation of Ægina, which will not at all explain the
commercial turn of its inhabitants, since Crete, with more abundant
means, and possibly a better situation, was never very remarkable as a
trading country. However, poverty and a good position combined with the
genius of the people to render them commercial. They enjoyed still fewer
advantages in the matter of soil even than Attica; their lands were of
little value; they could neither become hunters nor shepherds; nor could
even the most slender population subsist on the produce of the mines.
Fishing they, probably, tried at the outset, as well as piracy, but,
finding that neither led to opulence, they adopted the mercantile life;
for which reason they have, with much ingenuity, been termed the
Phœnicians of Greece,[1497] though no colonies from Phœnicia ever
settled in their island. The Æginetæ were already famous, however, from
remote antiquity, as mariners, and, in the course of time, converted
their whole island into an emporium.[1498]
-----
Footnote 1496:
Müller, in his Æginetica. See on the subject of Commerce and Industry,
c. iii. 74, sqq. And compare the account of Coronelli, Mémoires, &c.,
p. 187, sqq.
Footnote 1497:
By Müller, Æginetica, iii. p. 74.
Footnote 1498:
See Michaelo d’ Jorio, Storia del Commercio, i. 225, seq. and
Caryophilus de Mercatura Veterum.
-----
On the antiquity of the Æginetan trade a very curious passage occurs in
Pausanias. This writer relates, that, in the time of Pompos, king of
Arcadia, who flourished during the second century before the first
Olympiad, Æginetan ships landed at Cyllenè, the great harbour of Elis,
whence they transported their merchandise, on strings of sumpter
animals, to Arcadia. The king was so much pleased with them on this
account, that he named his son Æginetes, in remembrance of their
traffic.[1499] It was about this period that the Greeks first began to
trade in their own bottoms, and to possess merchandise of their own. It
has been observed, that in Homer the word ἔμπορος never signifies
merchant, and that where mention of real merchants occurs they are
always barbarians, or semi-barbarians,[1500] Phœnicians, Cretans,
Tyrsenians, Lemnians, Taphians, or Phæacians.[1501] No Achaian or Argive
is found who derived his subsistence from commerce, though there seem to
be passages from which the contrary may be inferred. But in Hesiod, who
lived later, and describes more homely scenes and manners, we find
commerce already spoken of as a profitable employment.[1502]
-----
Footnote 1499:
Pausan. viii. 5. 5.
Footnote 1500:
Hom. Hymn. in Dionys. 8.
Footnote 1501:
Müller, Æginetica, p. 75.
Footnote 1502:
Opp. et Dies, 644.
-----
Originally, the Æginetans were led by their piratical propensities to
apply themselves to maritime affairs; finding, no doubt, that robbery
was an easier and more agreeable profession than any modification of
industry, particularly as in those tolerant ages there was no disgrace,
but the contrary, attached to it, when exercised against men of a
different class. These worthy islanders, however, were impartial in
their rapine. For, no sooner had they thrown off the yoke of the
Epidaurians, than they made incursions[1503] into their mother country,
which they soon extended to the coasts of Attica; and they were,
probably, the buccaneers against whom the tyrant Hippias fitted out a
fleet.[1504] Afterwards, forming an alliance with the Thebans, they
plundered and devastated all the maritime towns of Attica, and even lay
in ambush to intercept the sacred galley on its way to Delos.
-----
Footnote 1503:
It was owing to such piratical descents that the early inhabitants of
Greece, for the most part, erected their towns and villages at some
distance from the sea-coast, in situations difficult of access.
Thucyd. § 7. Similar reasons have elsewhere led in modern times to
similar results. Thus, in Alicuda, the remotest and most exposed of
the Lipari islands, the dwellings of their simple natives and their
priests are perched high in the hills among rocks and steep
acclivities, through fear of the Barbary corsairs, who, from time to
time, land there, and carry away into captivity whomsoever they are
able to seize and subdue. Further, to guard against these incursions,
a sentinel is stationed on the Monte della Guardia, in the principal
isle, where he keeps watch day and night. Spallanzani, Travels in the
Two Sicilies, iv. 140, sqq. We have here a picture which carries back
the imagination to the most barbarous ages of Grecian history.
Footnote 1504:
Æginetica, p. 76.
-----
Having been restored to their country, after the Peloponnesian war, they
resumed their plundering habits, and obtained from the Spartan Ephori
permission to infest the Attic coasts, which they frequently did in
times of profound peace. Their taste for piracy was lasting. In the age
of Demosthenes their island was a nest of pirates, and a fair for the
sale of their plunder, which it continued for many centuries
after.[1505]
-----
Footnote 1505:
Demosth. de Nicostrat. § 3.
-----
Reverting, however, to the trade of Ægina: its ancient traffic with
Arcadia was marked by many curious circumstances. In the first place we
must infer from it, as the historian of the island remarks, the
existence of previous traffic elsewhere.[1506] For, if their merchandise
consisted merely of raw materials, these must still have been procured
from other lands; and, if of manufactured goods, then, in addition to
the existence of a foreign trade to supply them with the raw articles,
we must suppose in them the existence of considerable skill. Again, as
Pompos, the Cypselid, probably reigned at Orchomenos, they must have
been able to perform long voyages by sea, and long journeys by land;
though we can account for their taking the dangerous route round capes
Skylleion and Malea, and the mountainous roads from Eleia to Arcadia, in
preference to the shorter way from Corinthia or Argolis, only by
supposing them to have been driven to it by the rivalry of the Argives
and Corinthians. It must be admitted to be honourable to their ingenuity
thus to have opened up a road into Arcadia, which would seem to be shut
out by nature from all commerce.
-----
Footnote 1506:
Æginetica, p. 77.
-----
With the Arcadians alone, however, could inland trade be carried on upon
a large scale; among every other Hellenic people possessing sea-coasts
and harbours, it degenerated into mere peddling. Hence, the Æginetans
obtained the character, once possessed in this country by the Scotch, of
being a nation of pedlars—sometimes travelling from village to village,
with their packs; at other times settling, like the Maltese of the
present day, in towns on the coast of Greece, they became
corn-chandlers, vintners, toymen, or victuallers, in established shops
or stalls in the agora. Hence, all kinds of humble wares, or pedlary,
obtained the appellation of Æginetan wares. Like the Jews, too, both
they and the Cretans (noted liars, as St. Paul[1507] assures us) were
regarded as skin-flints, and, in many cases, betook themselves to the
practice of usury.[1508]
-----
Footnote 1507:
Epist. to Titus, i. 12, where he cites the testimony of Euripides,
though without naming him.
Footnote 1508:
Eustath. ad Il. β. p. 604. Hesych. v. Ἀιγιναῖα. Cf. Interp. i. 137.
Schol. Pind. Ol. viii. 26. Erasm. Adag. 71, 72.
-----
Frequently, however, they soared above these petty arts, and became
merchants on a large scale, trading with distant lands and acquiring
very great wealth. The entire island, in Strabo’s time, was regarded as
an emporium; and, even so far back as the age of Aristotle, their whole
marine was employed in commerce. In some cities, he says, nearly all the
shipping is engaged in one kind of service; those of Byzantium and
Tarentum in the fisheries; those of Athens in war; those of Chios and
Ægina as merchantmen; and those of Tenedos as transports.[1509] It has
been conjectured, not without reason, that Sostratos, the son of
Leodamos, celebrated by Herodotus for his riches, was a merchant. “The
Samians,” says this historian, “induced by divine command to undertake
the voyage of Tartessos, brought home with them greater wealth (sixty
talents) than any other Greeks ever gained by trade, if we except
Sostratos, with whom no one can contend in opulence.[1510]”
-----
Footnote 1509:
Polit. iv. 4. 1.
Footnote 1510:
Herod. iv. 152. Cf. Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 9.
-----
But the Æginetans also engaged in foreign trade, sending ships to
Tartessos towards the west, and to the Black Sea towards the east. It is
related, for example, that when Xerxes was at Abydos, he saw merchantmen
sailing down the Dardanelles with corn for Ægina and the
Peloponnesos,[1511] which were stopped by his fleet with the design of
taking both ships and men. But when Xerxes learned they were bound for
Greece, he dismissed them, considering the corn as so much provision for
his own army, which, he doubted not, would be able to subjugate the
whole country. From which Müller conjectures, but without reason, that
the great corn markets of the Black Sea were at that time exclusively in
the hands of the Æginetans; though afterwards, during the Peloponnesian
war, when Ægina fell, they passed over to the Athenians. The reason
“that the Æginetans stood so much in need of the supply, that they would
not have endured a rival,” could only hold good if they had the power to
command a monopoly, which, for any length of time at least, is highly
improbable, since although they are said to have been masters of the sea
about the age of Darius Hystaspes,[1512] their domination was extremely
short-lived.[1513] It would seem, however, that they were at that time
in the habit of supplying the Peloponnesos with grain. Slaves they
imported both from Pontos and from Crete, and it is doubtful whence they
obtained the greater number. A large proportion of their exports found
their way into Crete, where they had established a colony at Cydonia.
Besides lying one day’s sail distant from the Peloponnesos, and that of
a day and a night from Africa, this great island formed an excellent
midway station between Ægina and the mouth of the Nile.
-----
Footnote 1511:
Herod. vii. 147. Polyæn. Stratag. vii. 15. 3.
Footnote 1512:
Perizon. ad Æl. xii. 10. Gog. v. 302.
Footnote 1513:
The jealousy excited in antiquity by the Æginetæ, was, in the
seventeenth century, inspired into all the maritime states of Europe
by the Dutch, who somewhat resembled those hardy and unscrupulous
islanders. Observe the ingenuous alarms of our countryman, Sir Josiah
Child, whose studies had evidently carried him beyond the
counting-house,—“I think no true Englishman will deny that the season
cries aloud to us to be up and doing, before our fields become
unoccupied, and before the Dutch get too much the whip-hand of us,
whom (in such a case, were they freed from their French fears which
they labour under at present) I fear we should find as severe
task-masters as ever the Athenians were to the lesser trading cities
of Greece.” Discourse of Trade, Preface, p. 39.
-----
The port at which all the Greeks resided during their stay in Egypt was
Naucratis in the Delta, which the Pharaohs granted them in the same way
as the Chinese emperors now do Canton to the Europeans, as their only
abode. Here, by permission of Amasis, such Greeks as merely traded with
Egypt built altars and erected sacred enclosures in the neighbourhood of
the city, though I vainly sought, when on the spot, to discover the
slightest trace of them. The nine cities of Ionians, Dorians, and
Æolians erected at their common expense a sacred edifice, which they
called Hellenion. The Ionian cities were Chios, Teos, Phocea and
Clazomenæ; the Dorian, Rhodes, Cnidos, Halicarnassos, and Phaselis; of
the Æolian, Mitylene only. The Æginetans raised for their own use a
temple to Zeus,—the Samians to Hera,—the Milesians to Apollo.[1514] At
this time, however, Naucratis was the only harbour in Egypt; and as this
was pretty generally known, ships making land anywhere else were
naturally suspected of being pirates; for which reason the captain was
required to swear that he had come hither involuntarily. This done, he
was to steer from the Canopic mouth of the Nile; or, if the weather were
contrary, his cargo was conveyed round the Delta in barides to
Naucratis, which the historian[1515] understood to be done for the
benefit of the foreign settlers, for so greatly, says he, was Naucratis
honoured. At this time, one of the principal articles exported into
Egypt by the Greeks would appear to have been wine, since all then drunk
in the country was foreign, the vine not having been as yet introduced.
-----
Footnote 1514:
Herod. ii. 178.
Footnote 1515:
Hist. ii. 179. Müll. Æginet. p. 82.
-----
Of the trade of Sparta extremely little is known. In fact, until a
comparatively late period, it appears to have been inconsiderable, and
to have been conducted in the rudest manner possible. Each citizen, on
receiving the proceeds of his lands, laid up in his storehouses what he
judged sufficient for the consumption of the ensuing year, and disposed
of the remainder in the Agora, not, it has been conjectured, for money,
but by the ancient manner of barter.[1516] It is said that the
Lacedæmonians exhibited much ingenuity in their mode of preserving the
fruits of the earth; but in what that ingenuity consisted we are not
informed. They were likewise noted for the care and order with which the
implements of domestic economy were kept, so that everything was ready
at hand when wanted.[1517] The fact that they had granaries on their
estates, which were locked up and sealed, argues much greater connexion
with the country, than they are supposed to have maintained; for had
they never lived on those estates, it is not probable they would have
left their property there, subject, as Mr. Müller[1518] thinks, to the
conscientious visits of every poor man who might choose to out-hunt his
provisions.
-----
Footnote 1516:
Müll. Dor. ii. 218.
Footnote 1517:
Aristot. Œcon. vi. 6. 11. p. 278, seq. Cf. Xen. Rep. Lac. vi. 3. 4.
Aristot. Pol. ii. 2. 5. Plut. Laced. Instit.
Footnote 1518:
Dorians, ii. 218.
-----
Money, we are incessantly told, was prohibited at Sparta; but,
nevertheless, it seems to have been in constant use. It is affirmed,
indeed, by a writer somewhat too prone to panegyric, that “it was
employed more often as a medium of comparison than of exchange; small
coins were chiefly used, and no value was attributed to the possession
of large quantities.”[1519] But I do not see what is meant by employing
money “as a medium of comparison;” and with regard to the value set on
money by the Spartans, history incapacitates us for accepting the
generous gloss of Mr. Müller. It is perhaps true that Lycurgos aimed at
eradicating avarice from the Spartan breast, but, in the means to be
adopted for that end, only showed his ignorance of human nature; since,
though he might bring his vinegar-cooled iron medium of comparison into
contempt, he could not thereby diminish the value of the things
exchanged, that is of real wealth, which accordingly was estimated as
highly at Sparta as elsewhere. Thus we see that poor men, not able to
contribute their quota of provisions, were excluded from the common
tables, which therefore resembled the hospitality and common tables of
an inn,[1520]
Where the Red Lion staring o’er the way,
Invites each passing stranger—_that can pay_.
-----
Footnote 1519:
Müll. Dor. ii. 219. Bœckh. Econ. of Athen. ii. 389.
Footnote 1520:
Ἀναγκαῖον ἐν τῇ τοιαύτῃ πολιτείᾳ τιμᾶσθαι τὸν πλούτον, ἄλλως τε κἂν
τύχωσι γυναικοκρατούμενοι, καθάπερ τὰ πολλὰ τῶν στρατιωτικῶν καὶ
πολεμικῶν γενῶν. Aristot. Polit. ii. 9.
-----
The learned, with all their leaning towards scepticism, sometimes
interpret too literally the language of authors in whom license and
exaggeration are a merit. Thus Bœckh[1521] conceives “that, even in the
time of the Trojan war, the precious metals were well known in the
Peloponnesos,” because Homer describes Menelaus as possessed of both
gold and silver.[1522] But the Achæan prince had travelled in the East,
whence, according to the poet, he brought his gold, and it does not
appear historically that the precious metals were “well known,” which
extensive use only could render them, till some ages after the Trojan
war. The Dorians, however, whatever may have been the case with the
Achæans, long continued to be scantily supplied with the precious
metals, which may be accounted for from their isolated mountainous
country, want of industry, and aversion for all intercourse with
strangers, without adopting the unphilosophical fancy, that they were
instigated by a kind of argyrophobia strictly to prohibit the use of
gold and silver.[1523] Conceiving that, by cutting his people off from
human intercourse, he might render them more warlike, as dogs are made
savage by chaining, Lycurgos, or whoever was the author of the Spartan
constitution, may have desired to keep them poor, and therefore have
prohibited commerce. But even in their own domestic traffic, the
necessity of some instrument of exchange was soon perceived, and
iron[1524] being as plentiful as gold and silver were scarce, he adopted
the expedient of employing iron money. At first the metal was used in
bars or spits (ὀβελοὶ, ὀβελίσκοι) which were stamped with some mark in
the furnaces of Laconia, just as in other countries bars of silver or
copper were used; “whence the obolos or _spit_ and the drachma or
_handful_ received their names.”[1525]
-----
Footnote 1521:
Econ. of Athen. ii. 385.
Footnote 1522:
Od. δ. 80, sqq. 351, sqq. Cf. Strab. i. 2. p. 62.
Footnote 1523:
Which is Bœckh’s fancy. ii. 386.
Footnote 1524:
The people of Byzantium are said by some writers to have imitated the
Spartans in their numismatic taste, and like them to have used iron
money. Πλάτων Πεισάνδρῳ “χαλεπῶς ἂν οἰκησαίμεν ἐν Βυζαντίοις, ὅπου
σιδαρέοισι νομίσμασι χρῶνται.” Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 250.
Footnote 1525:
Bœckh, ii. 386. Plut. Lysand. § 17. See too the authorities quoted by
Bœckh. l. i. § 15.
-----
When the Argives, in the reign of Pheidon, abandoned the use of metallic
bars, and began to coin money, the Spartans followed in their train, but
still adhered to the use of iron, so that the coins which first
proceeded from a Laconian mint, probably resembled quoits more than
crown-pieces. Mr. Müller observes, but I know not on what authority,
that the chief coin was called from its _shape_, and perhaps also from
its _size_, πέλανορ, the cake used in sacrifices. If this was the case
it must have been a coin of extraordinary conformation, for the
_pelanos_ resembled, in figure, a bull, horns and all,[1526] and was
habitually offered to Apollo, Artemis, the Moon, and Hecatè. This
odd-looking piece of money was in value about four chalci or hemioboloi,
that is, about three farthings. But such an unwieldy coinage, which, as
tokens, might serve very well for the home currency, would be of no
service abroad; so that when Sparta began to aim at foreign conquest, it
found it necessary to set aside the ancient laws, and create a currency
for effecting its purpose. A tribute was therefore imposed on the
islands, and a contribution of a tenth was demanded from all those
Greeks who acknowledged its supremacy.[1527]
-----
Footnote 1526:
Pollux. vi. 76.
Footnote 1527:
Bœckh, ii. 387. Without such a currency, Sparta, says Mr. Müller,
would have been unable to send ambassadors to foreign states, or to
take foreign mercenaries into pay. ii. 220.
-----
It seems, however, to have been intended by the legislator, that
individuals should not possess gold and silver money; but the severity
of the punishment[1528] awarded transgressors, instead of proving how
strong the hold of this ancient custom (of being without money) was upon
the Spartan mind, shows the direct contrary, for there is no necessity
to be severe with men who obey from habit, but with those who evince a
disposition to break through all restraint. Besides, the law seems to
have permitted the use of the precious metals when wrought into
ornaments or articles of furniture. Offerings of gold, such as the stars
of the Dioscuri, were dedicated by the state at Delphi, and statues of
gold and ivory, the works of native artists, were set up within the city
about the period of the Persian war.[1529] A hundred years earlier, when
the state desired to gild the face of Apollo, at Thornax, they travelled
as far as Lydia[1530] in search of the necessary gold, which wholly
disproves the assumption of Bœckh mentioned above.
-----
Footnote 1528:
See the remarks of Monsieur Bitaubè, in his “Dissertation sur La
Richesse de Sparte.” Nouveaux Mémoires de l’Acad. Roy. des Sciences et
des Belles Lettres, de Berlin, t. xxxvii. 560.
Footnote 1529:
Müller. Dor. iii. 2. 3.
Footnote 1530:
Herod. i. 69.
-----
But after all the learned researches of modern writers, this Spartan
ordinance respecting the possession of money is surrounded by
insurmountable difficulties. For Sparta, unquestionably, carried on some
commerce, which it could not have done without possessing a coinage of
universal currency; though Mr. Müller is not authorized to state, as he
does, that there was a constant export of corn from Laconia and Arcadia
downwards to the coast of Corinth, since the passage in
Thucydides,[1531] on which he relies, merely relates in the words of the
Corinthians, that unless they joined in the war against Athens in aid of
the maritime states, they would find no market for the produce of their
lands, (including corn, no doubt,) nor would they be able to import what
they might stand in need of from abroad.[1532] However, so far back as
the Persian war, the Peloponnesos did not produce corn sufficient for
home consumption, since we find it importing it from the countries of
the Black Sea. It is, therefore, extremely improbable that it should
have done so in the time of the Peloponnesian war, when it had grown far
more populous, so that possibly among the things which ἡ θάλασση τῇ
ἠπείρῳ δίδωσι corn may have been included.
-----
Footnote 1531:
Book i. ch. iv. § 7.
Footnote 1532:
Thucyd. i. 120.
-----
It appears, therefore, that Sparta both exported and imported; but who
were the agents? The state, which alone it is supposed possessed an
available instrument of exchange, could not, it is argued, have carried
on the trade. But wherefore? “Because it would have required a
proportionate number of public officers.”[1533] Those officers, however,
might easily have been found, and, therefore, this is no reason; and
that no such officers existed, our knowledge of the government is too
scanty to enable us to affirm. Accordingly, it does not follow from this
that the trade “was in the hands of the Periœci.” However, if such was
the case, the possession of a gold and silver coinage must have been
permitted to them, which at once places the great majority of the free
inhabitants of Laconia in precisely the same condition as other nations
in this respect. Admitting this, it will be difficult to believe that
their neighbours and acquaintances, the military and ruling class, would
abstain from what they enjoyed. In fact, we cannot consent to believe,
that such a state of things “could not have had much influence on the
Spartans, since they had not any personal connexion with the Periœci,
the latter being only tributary to the state.” The reverse of all this
is true, as any one might know without any other testimony than his own
experience. Our countrymen in India occupy the same position as the
Dorians in the Peloponnesos, and for a short time kept much aloof from
the natives. But personal intercourse became inevitable, and it would
now be absurd to say, that the wealth of the Hindûs would exercise
little influence on the English, supposing the latter to be poor and
proud as the Spartans. The fact of the Periœci being tributary, which
seems to be offered as a reason, is no reason at all. It were far better
to confess our ignorance at once, than by a series of groundless
conjectures, put forward with confidence, to create a semblance of
knowledge. There does not appear to be any foundation for the statement,
that none but iron money was used in the Spartan market, where the
landlords and their serfs disposed of the produce of their lands. On the
contrary, it seems probable, that as, in many cases, it must have been
sold to the Periœci for exportation, (foreigners being excluded,) the
landlords would receive gold and silver unminted, perhaps, to evade the
law in return. Again, the kings of Sparta, it is evident, could possess
gold and silver. This, history proves so clearly that Mr. Müller is
constrained to confess it. And if the kings and the Periœci, nay, even
the very Helots could amass and enjoy the precious metals, and the
luxuries they purchase, it is too much to suppose that the masters of
the kings, of the Periœci and all, would have dwelt in ascetic
forbearance in the midst of so many temptations. Besides, we constantly
find the Spartans in situations in which their iron money could be of no
service to them. What, for example, could it have availed them at
Olympia? Yet there they were, the men in person, the women by proxy,
with their horses and their chariots, and every mark and indication of
wealth.
-----
Footnote 1533:
Müller, iii. ch. x. § 10.
-----
But to men travelling beyond the borders money was allowed. This sum
they might expend, or they might not. If they did not, were they
searched on their return, and the surplus taken from them? Otherwise men
would make journeys and accumulate cash in that way. Again, we are told,
that great obstacles were placed in the way of foreign travel by the
necessity of obtaining a passport along with the travelling expenses
(ἐφόδια) from the magistrates or the king, and reference is made to
Herodotus. But that historian in the passage referred to is speaking of
king Demaratos, who being driven from the country by his mother’s bad
character, takes what money he needs for his journey, and departs
without asking leave of any one.[1534]
-----
Footnote 1534:
Herod. vi. 70.
-----
However, when straitened in circumstances individuals had sometimes
recourse to the kings or to the state as to a bank; and that the thing
was customary appears from the fact, that princes, in order to start
with a popular measure, always upon their accession remitted the debts
of the citizens both to themselves and to the state.[1535] On this
occasion they destroyed all the bonds or instruments of mortgage
(κλάρια), bringing them into the agora, and there piling them up into a
heap and setting them on fire.[1536]
-----
Footnote 1535:
Id. vi. 69.
Footnote 1536:
Plut. Agis, § 13. But this was at a late period, when rich men and
usurers had monopolised all the wealth of Sparta.
-----
It is certain, therefore, and admitted even by Mr. Müller, that whatever
may have been the intention of the original Spartan institutions, their
severity was soon relaxed, and wealth with all its concomitants,
introduced into the state. Even so far back as the ages before the
Persian war, as we learn from the speech of Leutychides,[1537] at
Athens, foreigners found no obstacle to prevent their bringing gold and
silver to Sparta, where one of the most distinguished citizens undertook
the keeping of a rich Milesian’s money, whose children he afterwards
endeavoured to defraud. Could he have made no use of this money he would
scarcely have desired to retain it. The share of the plunder accruing to
Sparta in the Persian war was evidently not confined to the public
coffers, though we may possibly allow that the Persian subsidies went to
the defraying of national expenses.[1538] At all events certain it is
that Sparta, about the time of Socrates, was by many regarded as the
wealthiest state in Greece, and that not as a community, but
individually, reckoning their estates in Messenia, the number of their
slaves, Helots and others, their splendid studs, and vast droves of
cattle. Nay, their wealth in gold and silver is particularly specified,
with the additional remark, that for many ages the precious metals had
been flowing into that country, both from Grecian and barbarian
sources,[1539] but that no one had ever seen any flow out, an
observation which Montesquieu,[1540] and others have applied without
reflection, to Hindústân.
-----
Footnote 1537:
Herod, vi. 86.
Footnote 1538:
Müller, l. iii. ch. x. § 11.
Footnote 1539:
Plat. Alcib. i. t. v. p. 342, seq. This inferior production, with its
admiration of courts and eunuchs, cannot be Plato’s, but contains,
nevertheless, several curious facts. On the subject of Spartan wealth,
however, it perfectly agrees with Plato’s own opinion in the Hippias,
t. v. p. 414. Cf. Bitaubè, Sur la Richesse de Sparte. Nouveaux
Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, de
Berlin, xxxvii. 559.
Footnote 1540:
Esprit des Loix, xxi. 12.
-----
It exceeds our faith in human nature to believe, with Mr. Müller, that,
in spite of these untoward circumstances, “the citizens maintained the
same proud indigence.” History, in fact, renders inexcusable the belief
in such virtue, though men occasionally arose at Sparta, as well as at
Athens and elsewhere, who, with a stoical firmness, resisted the
allurements of riches and pleasure. The greater number fell, and yielded
themselves up with so much enthusiasm to the pursuit of gain, adding
acre to acre and gold to gold, that from the Ephoralty of Epitadeus
downwards, the city was infested with usurers, great capitalists, and
extensive landed proprietors, who, by degrees, got into their hands the
whole property of the country. Much less ingenuity than the Spartans
possessed would, in fact, have enabled them to evade the old law, which
seems to have immediately grown obsolete when the arts of rendering it
powerless had been invented. They deposited their surplus wealth at
Delphi, in Arcadia, and several other countries, so that if driven into
exile,[1541] of which there was always a probability, they might be able
to subsist in splendour in their new country.[1542] But these
speculations sometimes failed; in the case of the Arcadians, the
possession of the gold converted bankers into enemies, as, by picking a
quarrel with the owners, they hoped to be able to defraud them.[1543]
Lysander, though he did not commence this practice, at least
countenanced it by his example. Gylippos, inheriting from his family the
thirst of gold, was condemned and starved to death, by the Ephori, for
purloining public property. His father Cleandridas, in conjunction with
king Pleistoanax, had accepted bribes from Pericles, and ended his days
in exile.[1544] From this period, as seems to be undeniable, the
possession of gold and silver by private individuals was permitted by
law, or connived at; and the Spartans proceeded, after the manner of all
other nations, to divide themselves into very rich and very poor, to
house together, in the same city, misery and splendour, extreme luxury
and extreme want, until the common fate, foreign conquest and slavery,
overtook them.
-----
Footnote 1541:
This was thought necessary even by so great a man as Lysander. Plut.
Lysand. § 18.
Footnote 1542:
As in the case of Cleandridas, father of Gylippos.
Footnote 1543:
Athen. vi. 24.
Footnote 1544:
Thucyd. vi. 104. Plut. Pericl. § 22. Müller, ii. 225.
-----
The trade which, meanwhile, was carried on by Laconia must have been at
times very considerable, though there were few points on the coast
provided with roadsteads, or harbours, capable of receiving ships of
burden. To facilitate intercourse with foreign nations, an artificial
harbour was constructed at Trinasos, around which the inhabitants of
Gythium, situated on an eminence some distance inland, gradually
clustered, deserting their ancient residence for one more convenient and
profitable. From hence the productions of Laconia, which will be
enumerated elsewhere, were shipped for foreign countries, Libya for
example, and Egypt, whence merchandise of various kinds were obtained in
return. But, as this port appears to have been little commodious or
secure, the merchantmen, on their return from Africa, usually put into
the island of Cythera,[1545] where are several harbours, amongst which
that of St. Nicholas, anciently Scandeia,[1546] on the eastern coast, is
sheltered and spacious, and provided with so narrow an entrance that it
may at pleasure be closed with a chain. The inhabitants of this island,
like those of the Laconian territories on the main, were free
Lacedæmonians, who appear to have directed their attention entirely to
commerce and agriculture, and the management of the productive purple
fishery, carried on among the shoals and rocks encircling their
island.[1547] Besides its use in dyeing, this fish is said to have been
employed as a bait in taking the pelamys, and there was, likewise, in
this sea, a considerable whale fishery. The nerves of these leviathans,
properly prepared, were used in stringing the psaltery, and other
musical instruments, and also for bowstrings. It may, therefore, be
presumed, that they formed an important article of commerce.[1548]
-----
Footnote 1545:
Thucyd. iv. 53.
Footnote 1546:
Pausan. iii. 23. 1. Steph. de Urb. p. 672.
Footnote 1547:
Strab. viii. 5. l. ii. p. 186. Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 60. xi. 22. xxxv.
26. Horat. Carm. ii. 18. 8. The purple of Laconia was esteemed only
second to that of Phœnicia:—κόχλους δὲ ἐς βαφὴν πορφύρας παρέχεται τὰ
ἐπιθαλλάσσια τῆς Λακωνικῆς ἐπιτηδειοτάτας μετά γε τὴν Φοινίκων
θάλασσαν. Pausan. iii. 21. 6.
Footnote 1548:
Dapper, Description des Iles de l’Archipel. 554. Ælian. De Animal.
xvii. 6.
-----
Here, likewise, were quarries of porphyry,[1549] from which, in earlier
ages, the island is said to have obtained the name of Porphyrussa. At
the distance of a mile and a quarter from Scandia stood the city of
Cythera, with an Acropolis situated on a very high rock. At this place
was a temple of the celestial Aphroditè, esteemed one of the most
ancient in Greece,[1550] the inhabitants having addicted themselves to
the worship of this goddess, because, when she first sprang from the
waves, she is said to have come floating thither on a shell of
mother-of-pearl.[1551] How many of the productions of this island passed
annually into commerce cannot be known. But, it is described as
abounding, in modern times, with wild asses, and deer, and hares, and
quails, and turtle-doves,[1552] which last were, of old, sacred to the
goddess of the isle. Corn, also, and oil, and wine of excellent quality,
were found in Cythera, though by no means in abundance. It likewise
produces tragoriganon and bastard dittany. The island being thus
productive, it is by no means surprising that the Spartans should have
set a high value on it, and sent thither, annually, a magistrate, named
Cytherodices, together with a garrison of heavy-armed men. Another
advantage which Sparta derived from the possession of this island was,
that it served it as a kind of defence against the incursions of
pirates, commanding, in some sort, the narrow sea between Peloponnesos
and Crete.
-----
Footnote 1549:
At least I find this notion in Dapper, Desc. de l’Arch. p. 375-378,
who observes “D’autres assurent qu’elle avoit été ainsi nommée à cause
du porphyre qu’on y trouve en abondance.” The name has with more
probability, however, been derived from the purple fish (Πορφύρα)
which abounds on the coast, ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ Πορφύρουσσα, διὰ τὸ κάλλος τὸ
παρὰ τῶν πορφυρῶν, ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης. Steph. de Urb. 487, a. To the same
purpose, Eustathius ad Dion. Perieg. 498: ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ, φασὶ, καὶ
Πορφυροῦσσα ποτὲ, διὰ τὸ καλλίστας ἔχειν πορφύρας. Cf. ad Il. ο. p.
1031. 13. Plin. Nat. Hist. iv. 19.
Footnote 1550:
Paus. iii. 23. 1.
Footnote 1551:
This mythological incident is beautifully engraved in the Museo Real
Borbonico, from an ancient painting found at Pompeia. Honest
Buondelmonte, who, instead of describing the island, amuses himself
with relating its mythology, delineates, elegantly enough, another
picture of the floating goddess: “Sculpebatur etenim puella
pulcherrima, nuda et in mari natans, tenens concham marinam in dextrâ,
ornata rosis et à columbis circumvolantibus comitata, &c.” Christ.
Buond. Lib. Insul. Archip. c. ix. p. 64.
Footnote 1552:
Dapper, Desc. de l’Archip. 375-379.
-----
That this was no small advantage will be evident if we consider to what
extent, and with how much cruelty, piracy was exercised in old times. It
dogged incessantly the heels of commerce, appearing on every sea and
penetrating to every land whither industry betook itself for the
acquisition of wealth. It may be said, indeed, to have been a kind of
bastard brother of trade, both proceeding from the desire of gain.
Against the masters of this craft the first war-galleys appear to have
been fitted out in the Mediterranean. For, among the principal exploits
of the half-fabulous king of Crete is enumerated his clearing the sea of
pirates, his object being to secure the transmission of his revenues
from the smaller islands to the seat of empire. For, in old times, both
the Greeks and barbarians of the continent, inhabiting the sea-coast,
and all those who dwelt in the islands, no sooner addicted themselves to
navigation, than they took to piracy, being led by their most powerful
fellow-citizens, partly for their own advantage, and partly with a view
of providing for the poor; and falling suddenly on unwalled cities, or
people dispersed in villages, they plundered the whole country, and thus
chiefly procured themselves subsistence. Nor, in fact, was this sort of
life attended with disgrace, but with some degree of honour. Even in
Thucydides’ own time, many tribes of the continent gloried in their
piratical skill, and from the ancient poets, he says, it was clear the
same feeling had always prevailed; for, the first question put to
seamen, on their landing, was, whether they were pirates or not; and
this without the persons interrogated considering it to be any offence,
or those who asked intending any.[1553] No idea of caste seems to have
existed. The reception of Pelops, who came with great wealth from Asia
into Peloponnesos, shows that riches, however acquired, were valued
before both; for he might have been, and, probably, was, a pirate.[1554]
-----
Footnote 1553:
Hom. Odyss. γ. 312.
Footnote 1554:
Thucyd. i. 9.
-----
In the interior, also, plundering expeditions were carried on by land,
as on the borders of England or Scotland, and more anciently on the
Welsh marshes. And up to the period of the Peloponnesian war, many Greek
nations still continued to live after the ancient manner, as the Ozolian
and Epicnemidian Locrians, the Ætolians, the Acarnanians, and other
neighbouring tribes, of which their habit of wearing arms may be
considered as a memento. To repress the ravages of these half-civilized
races was often an object of great concern to the Athenians, who, to
check the cruises of the Opuntians, long accustomed to enrich themselves
by plundering the coast of Eubœa during the Peloponnesian war, took and
fortified the uninhabited island of Atalantè.[1555] Some ages before,
they had, under the conduct of Cimon, expelled from Scyros the piratical
Dolopians, who not only scoured the neighbouring seas, but even
plundered such vessels as put into their harbour.[1556] Nothing,
however, could extirpate the evil, which has always continued to be the
curse of those seas, sometimes denounced, sometimes encouraged, by the
princes of the neighbouring countries, who, like Philip of Macedon, find
it convenient, according to the exigencies of their affairs, to make war
upon the buccaneers, or to unite with them in pursuit of plunder.
-----
Footnote 1555:
Thucyd. i. 151.
Footnote 1556:
Plut. Cim. § 8.
-----
Of all the Doric states the most commercial was undoubtedly Corinth.
That, situated on the isthmus by which the Peloponnesos is united with
the rest of Greece, became very early an emporium, and rose to
opulence[1557] and splendour; for whatever merchandise was transported
from northern Greece into any of the states of the peninsula by land,
necessarily passed through this city, and paying, as was customary,
transit dues, tended greatly to enrich it. The same thing may be said of
the productions of the Peloponnesos, which, by this road, found their
way into Hellas. Afterwards addicting themselves to navigation, the
Corinthians, from their two ports of Lechæum and Cenchreæ,[1558] carried
on an extremely extensive commerce with Italy and the countries on the
Adriatic on the one hand, and with Asia Minor[1559] and the islands on
the other; so that whatever articles of commerce are reckoned among the
imports of Athens were likewise in a measure to be found at Corinth. The
aversion of the ancient mariners to double Cape Malea long secured its
trade to Corinth. There was a proverb[1560] which said, that whoever
sailed round that redoubtable promontory must be unmindful of his
friends at home; and, in truth, the boisterous and contrary winds which
still encounter the mariner who passes from the Myrtoan to the Ionian
sea might well appear terrible to the small craft of remote antiquity.
To avoid this dangerous navigation these barks themselves, together with
the merchandise they carried, were drawn across the isthmus, and
launched again on the opposite sea. The project of Nero, therefore, who
designed to open a canal at this place, would, if completed, have proved
of the greatest service to the Corinthians, whose city might have
continued to be enriched by it to the present day.
-----
Footnote 1557:
Luc. Dial. Mort. 11.
Footnote 1558:
Steph. de Urb. p. 464. d.
Footnote 1559:
Strab. viii. 6. t. ii. 213. Pausan. ii. 2. 3.
-----
With respect to the articles which Corinth herself supplied to commerce,
they will be found enumerated among the exports and imports of Greece.
Her manufactures were numerous and important,[1561] consisting, among
others, of rich coverlets, fine woollen garments, costly pottery, and
works in that rich metal known under the name of Corinthian bronze.
This, it is said, consisted of a small mixture of gold and silver with
brass; though, according to another account, it was produced by heating
the metal red-hot, and in that state plunging it into the waters of
Peirenè.[1562]
-----
Footnote 1560:
Μαλεὰ δε κάμψας ἐπιλάθου τῶν οἴκαδε. See the long and interesting note
of Berkelius ad Steph. de Urb. p. 531, seq.
Footnote 1561:
And, doubtless, worked by their forty-six myriads of slaves. Athen.
vi. 103. The Pythian Oracle calls the Corinthians Chœnix Measurers,
probably because they allowed their slaves a chœnix of corn per day.
Footnote 1562:
Paus. ii. 3. 3. Florus, ii. 16.
-----
Much trade was carried on in the territories of Corinth during the
celebration of the Isthmian games, which, bringing together a vast
multitude of people from Ionia, Sicily, Italy, Libya, Thessaly, and the
extremities of the Black Sea, necessarily attracted thither, among the
rest, the retailers of all kinds of provisions. These finding a speedy
market for their goods, other tradesmen followed their example, so that
at length assemblies, originating in religion, resembled prodigious
fairs,[1563] whither every description of merchandise was conveyed for
the admiration and purchase of the pilgrims.[1564]
-----
Footnote 1563:
It is said, moreover, that Iphilos established a fair at Olympia,
together with the sacred games. Vel. Paterc. i. 8. Strab. viii. 3. t.
i. p. 178.
Footnote 1564:
Dion Chrysost. i. 289.
-----
It is, however, with much difficulty that we obtain an insight into the
manner[1565] in which the inland traffic of Greece was carried on in the
earlier ages; but it is probable, that, as in India, Egypt, and Arabia,
great fairs were held on some convenient spot, whither the sellers and
buyers resorted from all the countries around. That this was the case in
many places we know. There was, for example, a monthly fair held at
Aleision,[1566] near Amphidolis in Eleia, on the mountain road from Elis
to Olympia, to which all the peasants of the neighbourhood resorted.
Among the Romans smaller fairs or markets were held every nine days, and
were thence called nundinia.[1567] On these occasions the rustics
intermitted their usual employment and repaired to the city, as well to
furnish themselves with what they needed, as to learn what new laws or
regulations might have been promulgated in the interim.
-----
Footnote 1565:
Plat. De Rep. ii. t. vi. p. 79. 84. See in Mons. Thiersch Etat. Actuel
de la Grèce, t. ii. p. 74, a somewhat detailed description of the
internal trade of modern Greece.
Footnote 1566:
Strab. viii. 3. t. ii. p. 151.
Footnote 1567:
Columel. i. Præf. ii. 1. Dacier, in Fest. i. p. 501.
-----
The Epidamnians, who, as Müller[1568] observes, “retained much of
ancient custom, paid great attention to the intercourse with
foreigners,” and held great annual fairs, which were frequented by the
neighbouring Illyrians. By this is meant, strange as it would seem, that
they sought to cut off all such intercourse. For, as Plutarch[1569]
relates in his Greek Questions, the people of Epidamnia living in the
vicinity of the Illyrians, and observing, that such of their citizens as
associated with them grew corrupt, and fearing innovation, elected one
of their chief citizens to conduct the necessary intercourse and the
barter which took place annually at a great fair. This officer, called
Poletes, acted as broker-general for his fellow-citizens.
-----
Footnote 1568:
Dorians, ii. 223.
Footnote 1569:
Quæst. Græc. 29. Var. Script. t. ii. p. 317. Cf. Steph. de Urb. voce
Δυῤῥάχιον, p. 316, sqq. Palmer. Descrip. Græc. Antiq. p. 73, sqq. 118,
sqq. Pausan. vi. 10. 8.
-----
CHAPTER IX.
COMMERCE OF ATTICA.
To speak now of the commerce of Attica, the most extensive and important
in the ancient world. It is an error shared by persons in other respects
above the vulgar, that a commercial people is necessarily sordid; and
hence Napoleon considered it opprobrious to the English, that they are a
nation, as he expressed it, of shopkeepers. There are some lessons in
the science of human nature that Napoleon had not learned, among which
this is one,—that the greatest, wisest, and most virtuous of mankind
have risen and flourished in trading communities, and been themselves in
many instances engaged in commerce. No country in the modern world has
produced men of more chivalrous honour or heroic disinterestedness than
England; and in antiquity the Athenians, as a community and as
individuals, far outshone in wisdom, high-mindedness, and patriotism,
every other people with whom we could compare them. In one word, they
were the English of antiquity;—bold, adventurous, indefatigable people,
equally renowned in trade, philosophy, and war. That they were less
fortunate may be accounted for from their geographical position, lacking
the inestimable advantage which we enjoy in being seated on an island,—a
misfortune well understood by Pericles, who alludes to it in his first
oration for the war.[1570]
-----
Footnote 1570:
Thucyd. i. 143. Bœckh, therefore, is certainly in error when he says,
that Attica enjoyed _all_ the advantages of insular position. Book i.
§ 9.
-----
No country, however fertile, produces all that its inhabitants, when
advancing in civilisation, require, which tends more than any other
circumstance to promote the amelioration of society; and Attica, from
its comparative barrenness and very limited extent, peculiarly
experienced the necessity of foreign commerce. To this accordingly the
Athenians from a very early period applied themselves, and with so much
success, that whatever commodities the ancient world produced were
generally to be found in the greatest abundance in their city.[1571]
They enjoyed as has been already observed, most of the advantages of
insular position, that is,[1572] excellent harbours conveniently
situated, in which they received supplies during all winds,[1573] and,
in addition to these, some of the compensating advantages of being
situated on the continent, in facilities for inland traffic. Chief of
all, however, were the blessings flowing from the wisdom, and
moderation, and liberality, of its government, which rendered Athens the
resort of all the enterprising and enlightened men of every other
country. Its dealings with foreigners were facilitated by the purity of
the coin, as the traders who did not choose to purchase merchandise
might take bullion, which, as Xenophon expresses it, was a very handsome
article, and of so little alloy as everywhere to pass for more than its
nominal value, like the old Spanish dollars, and English gold currency
in the East.[1574] Prohibitions to export money, as Bœckh observes, were
unknown in ancient times, and are only compatible with bills of
exchange.[1575]
-----
Footnote 1571:
Cf. Xen. de Rep. Athen. ii. 6.
Footnote 1572:
Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 65.
Footnote 1573:
Xenoph. de Vectig. i. 7.
Footnote 1574:
Id. iii. 2.
Footnote 1575:
Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 65.
-----
Though war to a certain extent interfered with Athenian commerce, yet,
being masters of the sea, they could generally command a plentiful
supply of foreign commodities, so that many articles regarded as rare in
other countries might be found abundantly in the warehouses of the
Peiræeus. “Hither, on account of the richness of our city,” says
Pericles, “are borne the products of all lands, so that we are not more
familiar with the use of wheat grown in Attica than with the productions
of other countries.”[1576] So Isocrates: “the Peiræeus, has been
established as an emporium in the heart of Greece, and so far excels all
its rivals, that articles with difficulty met with singly in other ports
may be readily found here altogether.”[1577] And true it is, that every
region of the east and island of the Mediterranean poured their
productions into Attica, whence they were distributed throughout Greece.
Thither were brought the magnificent carpets and fine wool of Persia,
Phrygia, and Miletos; the gloves and purple of Tyre and Sidon; the fine
linen of Egypt;[1578] the gold and ivory of Africa; the pearls of India
and the Red Sea;[1579] white and black slaves, and corn, and timber, and
spices, and costly wines, and perfumes from Spain, Sicily, Italy,
Cypros, Lydia, the Black Sea, and the farthest regions of the
east.[1580]
-----
Footnote 1576:
Thucyd. ii. 38.
Footnote 1577:
Isocrat. Panath. § 11.
Footnote 1578:
Demosth. cont. Aphob. § 6.
Footnote 1579:
Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. § 2. See chapters xi. xii. and xiii. of
this book.
Footnote 1580:
Bœckh, i. 66.
-----
This extended commerce, and the encouragement which strangers of all
countries found to settle at Athens, rendered it the home of all
languages and religions,[1581] and led to the adoption of many barbarous
words. But she thus created a boundless market for her own exports,
whether consisting of manufactures or the surplus produce of the soil;
and as we now retail to the Continental nations many productions of
Eastern Asia, so the Athenians disposed, in the uncommercial countries
around, of the commodities they had elsewhere collected. For example,
they found a vent among the nations on the Black Sea for the wines of
the islands and shores of the Ægean, Peparethos, Cos, Thasos, Mendè,
Skionè, Lemnos, and Crete.[1582] From a passage in Xenophon, it would
appear either that Greek sailors amused themselves by reading on their
voyages, or that books were exported to Pontos, for there seems to be no
foundation for the suspicions that they were blank books.[1583] “Here,”
says Xenophon, speaking of the coast of Thrace, “are found numerous
beds, cabinets, books, and such other things as shipmasters are
accustomed to transport in chests.”[1584] Theopompos represents the
Persians as carrying books (χάρται βιβλίων) along with them in their
invasion of Egypt, and the Greeks could have been scarcely less
literary.[1585] Certain, at all events, it is, that there was a
book-market at Athens, probably resembling the bazars of the East, where
the dealers in manuscripts kept their shops;[1586] and thence, in all
likelihood, the Greek cities on the Black Sea were supplied; and this is
by no means inconsistent with the proverb respecting Hermodoros, Plato’s
Sicilian publisher, who was said, contemptuously, to traffic in words;
for, as he himself was one of Plato’s hearers, it may have been thought
beneath him to turn trader.[1587] Somewhat later we read of Zeno, a
stranger in the city, going into a bookseller’s shop to sit down, where
he finds the owner reading Xenophon, and is recommended by him to follow
Crates.[1588]
-----
Footnote 1581:
Strab. ix. 1. Xen. de Rep. Athen. ii. 7.
Footnote 1582:
Bœckh, i. 66. Demosth. in Laert. § 8.
Footnote 1583:
Bœckh, i. 67.
Footnote 1584:
Anab. vii. 5. 14. Larcher would read βυβλία, and translate “beaucoup
de cordages;” but where he learned that sailors used to carry cables,
or cordage either, in their sea-chests, does not appear.
Footnote 1585:
Ap. Longin. De Sublim. § 43.
Footnote 1586:
Pollux, ix. 47, with the commentary, t. vi. p. 934, seq.
Footnote 1587:
Cicero ad Att. xiii. 29. Suid. in v. λόγοισιν Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται.
t. ii. p. 54. b.
Footnote 1588:
Diog. Laert. vii. p. 164. c.
-----
So extensive a trade as Athens carried on could not be conducted without
protecting regulations, and the co-operation of a commercial police.
Accordingly the government exhibited much wisdom and liberality in
whatever related to commerce, by all means seeking to encourage
enterprise and industry. Numerous officers were appointed to watch over
the commercial dealings of the citizens; such as the superintendents of
the harbour, ten persons appointed annually by lot; the overseers of the
market, likewise ten, of whom five superintended the markets in the
city, the other five, those in the Peiræeus; fifteen inspectors of
weights and measures, ten of whom attended in the city, the other five
those in the port; and subordinate, probably, to these were the public
meters, who seem to have been Scythians, and therefore slaves of the
state: their duty was to measure whatever grain was sold in the
market,[1589] for which was paid a small sum, applied, it may be
supposed, to the augmentation of the revenue. Great care, in fact, was
bestowed on the subject of weights and measures, and to the market
regulations generally; and yet we find from the comic poets[1590] that
much fraud was occasionally committed.[1591]
-----
Footnote 1589:
Harpocrat. in v. προμετρητὴς; and see the note of Gronovius, p. 111,
seq. Bekker omits more than half the article, p. 158.
Footnote 1590:
Aristoph. Eq. 1005.
Footnote 1591:
But see Bœckh, Corp. Inscript. i. 164.
-----
It is, by some writers, supposed that credit was at a low ebb in Greece;
but this notion seems to have been formed hastily, without allowing for
circumstances, as the condition of the times sufficiently accounts for
the facts which suggested it; for all large and established houses are
known to have possessed almost unlimited credit, since they were able,
on the mere security of their name, to raise whatever money they needed;
so that none, probably, but persons little known, or not known
advantageously, were required to give security.[1592] The inhabitants of
certain cities, as, for example, of Phaselis, enjoyed, as we say, a bad
reputation,[1593] and were, no doubt, among those whom people refused to
trust.
-----
Footnote 1592:
Vid. Bern. adv. Polycl. § 15. Compare Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la
Grèce, ii. 78, seq. 85.
Footnote 1593:
See the opening of the speech against Lacritos (§ 1), where the orator
heaps his compliments unsparingly upon those “honest dealers,” whom he
describes as “the most unjust and villanous of mankind:” πονηρότατοι
ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀδικώτατοι.
-----
If severity, however, in the laws of debtor and creditor have any
tendency to support credit, the confiding portion of the community had
little reason to complain at Athens, since the spirit of this branch of
Athenian jurisprudence was unusually stern. The man who obtained the
loan of money and fraudulently withheld his security, was deemed to have
committed a capital offence, nor could his high rank or honourable
connexions skreen him from punishment.[1594] For it was considered,
observes the orator, that an offender of this description not only
defrauded the individuals with whom he dealt, but also made an attempt
against the sources of public prosperity, commercial operations
depending not on the borrower but on the lender, without whose
coöperation no ship, or captain, or passenger, can move. On which
account the most effective protection was afforded them by law.
-----
Footnote 1594:
Dem. in Phorm. § 17. Mr. Bœckh, if the English translation exactly
represents his meaning, understands this passage differently, and his
interpretation is more favourable to the Athenian law: “Even a
citizen, who, in his capacity of a merchant, _withdrew_ from a
creditor a pledge for a sum vested in bottomry, could be punished with
loss of life.” (Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 69.) It may be doubted,
however, whether οὐ παρασχόντα τὰς ὑποθήκας can mean anything more
than “withholding the securities;” and I, therefore, suppose Bœckh’s
translators to have employed the verb “withdraw” for “withhold.”
-----
Merchants and sea-captains were also defended by very severe enactments
against false accusers, who, upon conviction, were heavily fined, and,
in default of payment, deprived of the rights of citizenship.[1595]
Causes of this kind were tried in the Commercial Court of the Nautodikæ,
which was also empowered to examine the claims of citizens accused of
foreign extraction.[1596] The causes were introduced by the Thesmothetæ,
and in lawsuits between citizens of different nations, by virtue of a
particular agreement, there existed an appeal from one state to the
other.[1597] Nothing more clearly shows the consideration in which
nautical and mercantile affairs were held at Athens, than the laws which
regulated the proceedings of this court: in the first place, not to
interrupt the course of business and occasion loss to individuals, the
Nautodikæ sat during the winter months, from September till March, when
navigation was usually suspended. At first, indeed, they did not
commence their sittings till January;[1598] but this was found
inconvenient, the decision of the court being frequently delayed till
late in the spring or summer, to the great loss and detriment of the
litigants. Consequences still more disastrous, perhaps, ensued when the
cause stood over till the ensuing winter, when, as new judges would be
appointed, the whole business had to be commenced _de novo_. To remedy
this evil a plan of reform was conceived by Xenophon,[1599] but with
nothing like a statesman’s views, its chief merit consisting in
proposing a prize to be awarded to the most able and expeditious judge.
His scheme, however, may have had the merit of fixing the attention of
wiser men upon the subject, which at length produced the monthly suits
to which belonged all causes concerning trade-clubs, dowries, and
mines.[1600] Upon the introduction of this improvement in the practice
of the commercial court the advantage proposed by Xenophon was fully
obtained, since causes could not, as some have imagined, stand over from
month to month, but must absolutely be decided within the term.[1601]
The more completely to protect and advance the interests of commerce,
each state had its consul[1602] (προξένος) who represented the interests
of his country, and, like our own consuls in the Levant, was bound to
receive and entertain such citizens as arrived at the port where he
resided. Besides, when a merchant or trader died abroad, it was part of
the consul’s duty to take charge of his property, and transmit
immediately to his friends an account of what had taken place, with the
necessary particulars.[1603] Occasionally, however, very improper
persons obtained this respectable and, no doubt, lucrative situation, as
the man Lycidas, formerly one of Chabrias’s slaves, who contrived, by
intrigue, to be appointed consul of Messina; and Dionysios, a man of
like origin and character, and by birth a Megarean, who enjoyed the
honour of representing Athens at Megara.[1604]
-----
Footnote 1595:
Liban. arg. ad Orat. in Theocrin. t. viii. p. 334.
Footnote 1596:
Poll. viii. 126. Petit, v. 5. p. 522.
Footnote 1597:
Bœckh, i. 69. Cf. Kühn ad Poll. viii. 63. t. iv. p. 675.
Footnote 1598:
Lysias, περὶ δημος. χρημ. § 4. Harpocrat. v. ναυτοδίκη, p. 131. Suid.
t. ii. p. 208, seq. Cf. Sigon. de Repub. Athen. iv. 3. 441.
Footnote 1599:
De Vectigal. iii. 3.
Footnote 1600:
Poll. viii. 63. 101, with the Notes. Bœckh. i. 70.
Footnote 1601:
Demosth. in Apatur. § 7, in Pantænet. § 1.
Footnote 1602:
Demosth. in Callip. § 3, adv. Leptin. § 14. Suid. in v. p. 609. a. b.
Poll. iii. 59. viii. 91. Προξένους ἐκάλουν, τοὺς τεταγμένους εἰς τὸ
ὑποδέχεσθαι τοὺς ξένους τοὺς ἐξ ἄλλων πόλεων ἥκοντας. Schol. Aristoph.
Av. 1022. Kust.
Footnote 1603:
Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 71.
Footnote 1604:
Demosth. adv. Lept. § 28. Cf. Dem. in Callip. § 3.
-----
It has been made a question, whether or not perfect freedom of trade
existed among the ancients, and upon the whole it appears, that among
the Athenians, at least, no unwise or vexatious interference habitually
took place.[1605]
-----
Footnote 1605:
Publ. Econ. of Athens, i. 71, seq. Xen. de Vectigal. passim. Cf.
Heeren, Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, c. x. p. 163.
-----
Bœckh remarks that, in the plan of Xenophon for restoring the revenue,
no allusion is made to the removal of onerous restrictions on trade;
from which it may be inferred that none such existed. Heeren[1606] is
clearly of this opinion: “nothing was known of the balance of trade, and
consequently all the violent measures resulting from it were never
devised by the Greeks. They had duties as well as the moderns; but these
duties were exacted only for the sake of increasing the public revenue,
not to direct the efforts of domestic industry by the prohibition of
certain wares. There was no prohibition of the exportation of the raw
produce; no encouragement of manufactures at the expense of the
agriculturist. In this respect, therefore, there existed a freedom of
industry, commerce, and trade. And such was the general custom. As every
thing was decided by circumstances, and not by theories, there may have
been single exceptions, and perhaps single examples, where the state for
a season usurped a monopoly. But how far was this from the mercantile
and restrictive system of the moderns!”
-----
Footnote 1606:
Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, c. x. p. 163.
-----
This it appears to me is the philosophical view of the matter, which is
not modified materially by the remarks of Bœckh. No doubt the interests
of the state were regarded as paramount, comprehending, as in just
states they do, the interests of all individuals; but for this very
reason they would, to the best of their knowledge, beware of interfering
capriciously or unnecessarily with private interests, since a prosperous
community cannot be constituted of unprosperous members. Mr. Bœckh
seems, with all his learning and acuteness, to misapprehend the
political theory of the ancients, and to imagine that, because the right
of governments to regulate the actions of individuals was recognized,
they might safely do so on all occasions without rhyme or reason. But in
this he is certainly in error. The object of government was understood
then as well as it is now; so that I am apt to think that the erudite
professor advances, in the following passage, a doctrine which would
have met with but a cold reception among the Athenians, though adopted
literally by the historians of the Doric race: “Not in Crete and
Lacedæmon alone, two states completely closed up, and from their
position unsusceptible of free trade, but generally throughout the whole
of Greece, and even under the free and republican government of Athens,
the poorest as well as the richest citizen was convinced that the state
had the right of claiming the whole property of every individual; any
restriction in the transfer of this property, regulated according to
circumstances, was looked upon as just, nor could it properly be
considered an infringement of justice before the security of person and
property was held to be the sole object of government; a light under
which it never was viewed by any of the ancients.”[1607]
-----
Footnote 1607:
Public Economy of Athens, i. 72.
-----
It would be difficult to select from any writer, ancient or modern, a
passage more abounding than this with erroneous conclusions. Neither
Lacedæmon nor Crete was excluded by its position from the advantages of
free trade; and at Athens there was no citizen, however poor or
ignorant, who acknowledged in the state any such right as Mr. Bœckh
speaks of, except for the purpose of providing for the general safety,
in which case it would be as cheerfully acknowledged in every modern
community. While penning the concluding sentence, Mr. Bœckh must have
been thinking of the despotic governments of Germany. An Englishman
considers the preservation of his political rights as much an object of
government as the protection of his person or his property, and would as
strenuously contend for it, in which feeling he resembles the Athenian.
But I will not permit even this theme to tempt me from the matter in
hand.
There can be no difficulty in admitting that, as the very existence of
commerce, properly so called, depends on the existence of political
communities, the state has a right to interfere, under certain
circumstances, with the movements of commerce. For example, merchants
may justly be prevented by the laws from furnishing their country’s
enemy with arms, with ammunition, with provisions, in short, with any
article whatsoever, which, by strengthening the hands of the foe, may
tend to the detriment of their own community. Again, in famines and
scarcities, the law of self-preservation authorizes states to restrain
the exportation of articles absolutely required for home consumption;
because distress produces discontent and tumult and insurrection, and
may thus endanger the very existence of the government itself.
Prohibitions to export, originating in such motives, are perfectly
defensible. But so much can scarcely be said for monopolies, which were
not unknown to the Greeks, though it is not denied that they were of
short duration.[1608] “It can, however, be safely asserted,” says Mr.
Bœckh, “that no republic ever demanded of its citizens that they should
furnish commodities to the state in specific quantities, and at prices
arbitrarily fixed at a low rate, with a view to secure to itself a
monopoly: such a demand could only have been enforced in countries under
the government of a tyrant.”[1609] The folly, as well as the wickedness,
of such despotic interference, I witnessed in the depopulation and
misery of Egypt, which at length proceeded so far as to alarm the Pasha
himself, and produce some amelioration of his vicious system.
-----
Footnote 1608:
Aristot. Polit. i. 7.
Footnote 1609:
Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 73.
-----
It is, no doubt, possible, that many monopolies of which we know nothing
may have existed in antiquity;[1610] but it will be quite evident that,
upon such possibility, it would be useless to reason. The monopolies
which we know to have existed were few, and of short duration.
Aristotle, while observing what advantages both individuals and states
sometimes derived from them, attributes a better policy to Athens. He
gives two or three examples of private monopolies, the well-known story
of Thales and the oil-presses, and that of a man who bought up all the
iron[1611] at Syracuse, and adds, that, in great pecuniary straits,
governments were sometimes found to imitate them.[1612] Thus, at a late
period of their history, the Athenians are supposed to have monopolised
the lead obtained from the silver mines of Laureion, which they did, we
are told, at the instigation of Pythoclos; that is, they bought it up at
the usual price of two drachmas the commercial talent, and sold it at
six drachmas.[1613] At Rome the price was higher. As there can be little
doubt that the lead was for exportation, no injury was inflicted on
individuals. With respect to the monopoly granted by the Byzantines to a
banker, it may be observed, that it was only one of the many shifts to
which the nakedness of their treasury compelled them to have recourse.
The list is given in the second book of the Economics, and is not
without interest. I would not affirm that their contrivances were
innocent.[1614] Again, the Selymbrians, in a period of public
difficulty, constituted themselves monopolists in a manner which Mr.
Bœckh might fearlessly have pronounced “less defensible.” By law they
were not permitted to export in times of scarcity; but being in want of
money, they decreed that the state should purchase all the old stock at
a fixed price, leaving individuals sufficient for their yearly
consumption, after which they sold the surplus at a higher price, with
permission to export.[1615]
-----
Footnote 1610:
Id. Ibid.
Footnote 1611:
Dr. Gillies translates “corn,” and calls the man a banker! “Ethics and
Politics,” ii. 52.
Footnote 1612:
Aristot. Pol. i. 11, seq. 18, seq. Bekk.
Footnote 1613:
Aristot. Œcon. ii. 37. Bœckh it is who conjectures the commercial to
be meant, no weight being mentioned in the original. Pub. Econ. of
Ath. i. 44. 73. Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist, xxxiv. 48. Dr. Wordsworth
restores, with great felicity, the true reading in the passage of
Aristotle: τῶν ἀργυρίων for τῶν τυρίων. Athens and Attica, p. 208.
Bœckh’s conjecture, though ingenious, is less probable. Publ. Econ.
ii. 429.
Footnote 1614:
Aristot. Œcon. ii. 4.
Footnote 1615:
Id. ii. 18. From Mr. Bœckh’s account it might seem as though the
exportation of corn was always prohibited at Selymbria (Pub. Econ. i
73); whereas this was the case during famines only.
-----
It is difficult to say what men will agree to consider “perfect freedom
of trade;” but it appears to me, that commerce was as unshackled at
Athens as it could have been consistently with the welfare of the
community. Mr. Bœckh says, “There are abundant proofs that exportation
and importation were regulated according to the exigencies and interests
of the community, which is by no means consistent with the perfect
freedom of trade.”[1616] There appears to lurk a fallacy in this. Such
freedom as this writer would call perfect is inconsistent with the very
existence of civil society, whose fundamental laws require that no man’s
freedom shall trench upon the freedom, and still less upon the life, of
another. But if in commerce the exigencies and interests of the
community could have been set at nought, there would have been an end of
such community, since frequently its well-being, if not its being,
depended on its commercial relations with foreign states.
-----
Footnote 1616:
Pub. Econ. i. 73, seq.
-----
So far, therefore, it must, doubtless, be admitted, that commerce was
not free. To this extent, and no further, does Aristotle counsel or
contemplate interferences with trade: “With regard to importation and
exportation,” he says, “it is necessary to know how large a supply of
provisions the state requires, and what proportion of them can be
produced in the country and what imported, and what imports and exports
are necessary for the state, in order that commercial treaties and
agreements may be concluded with those of whom the state must make use
for this purpose.”[1617]
-----
Footnote 1617:
Rhet. i. 4.
-----
With regard to the prohibition to export attributed to Solon, it is
necessary either to abandon the subject altogether, or to understand it
in the contrary sense to that usually given. Plutarch, as his text now
stands, tells a very strange story, observing, that the exportation of
every thing but oil was prohibited by Solon, and therefore he adds, it
is not wholly improbable that figs also were prohibited.[1618] I
understand the matter differently. Solon, probably observing that
Attica, at that time, produced barely sufficient oil for its own
consumption, prohibited its exportation, though as agriculture improved,
the law fell into desuetude, and oil became a principal export. From
this example, Plutarch thinks it not improbable, that figs also may at
some time or another have been prohibited. The matter is thus clear and
natural. Besides, the Scholiast on Pindar, alluding no doubt to some
particular period, observes, that the exportation of oil was not
permitted.[1619] It is therefore surprising that Bœckh should have
laid any stress at all on so contradictory a passage, without
endeavouring to restore it, particularly as Solon was himself a merchant
and a transgressor of his supposed law. That the exportation of corn
should not have been allowed is both intelligible and reasonable, as
Attica never produced sufficient for its own consumption; and they were
not disposed to adopt the system of the modern Tuscans, who would sell
their own corn to the English, and subsist on an inferior sort from the
Black Sea, if indeed it be inferior.[1620]
-----
Footnote 1618:
Plut. Solon. § 24.
Footnote 1619:
Pind. Nem. x. 64. Shulz. Cf. Dissen. t. ii. 505. Petit, p. 417.
Footnote 1620:
Bowring, Statistics of Tuscany, p. 15. Ulpian, to whom Bœckh, i.
74, refers, merely repeats the well-known prohibition to ship-captains
to take a cargo of corn to any foreign port. Orat. x. p. 271. a.
-----
Certain commodities were, however, undoubtedly not allowed to be
exported, as for example, timber, tar, wax, rigging, and “leathern
bottles, articles which,” as Bœckh observes, “were particularly
important for the building and equipment of the fleet.”[1621] But the
word which this distinguished scholar conceives to mean “leathern
bottles,” had a very different signification, and meant that leathern
defence through which the oars passed, and which was designed to keep
the sea from rushing in at the row-port. This we gather as well from the
scholiast on Aristophanes,[1622] as from several passages of Pollux
overlooked by Bœckh. This writer observes, that the leathern defence
of the row-port was called ἄσκωμα,[1623] and elsewhere he says that a
woman’s breast, when full of milk, was also so called;[1624] from which
we may conjecture what form the askoma assumed, when the oar forced it
outwards during the act of rowing. Nor do I suppose that such
prohibition existed only during time of war, for it would have been
equally imprudent to furnish such articles to men preparing for war, as
men always are in peace, as to such as were actually engaged in it. From
a passage in Theophrastus, it has been inferred that permission to
export timber for ship-building was sometimes granted free of duty to
individuals; but as it is the Boaster who makes the assertion, adding
that, to avoid envy, he never made use of it,[1625] it may be regarded
as no less a joke than the reason for prohibiting lamp-wicks from
Bœotia, viz., that they might set the fleet on fire![1626]
-----
Footnote 1621:
Economy of Athens, p. 75.
Footnote 1622:
Ran. 364: ἄσκωμα δὲ δερμάτιον τι ᾧ ἐν ταῖς τριήρεσι χρῶνται, καθ᾽ ὁ ἡ
κώπη βάλλεται.
Footnote 1623:
Pollux. i. 88: τὸ δὲ πρὸς αὐτῷ τῷ σκαλμῷ δέρμα ἄσκωμα.
Footnote 1624:
Pollux. ii. 164: τὸ δε ὑποπιμπλάμενον τοῦ γάλακτος, κὸλπος καὶ ἄσκωμα.
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 97. Hescych. Etym. Mag. et Suid. in v.
But more especially Scheffer, De Militiâ Navali, p. 13, Cf. Brunck ad
Ran. 364. This confirms the extremely ingenious conjecture of Mitford,
though he was mistaken in supposing the thing to have been called
ὑπηρέσιον, which meant simply “a cushion.” Hist. of Greece, iii. 154.
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 344, is very unsatisfactory.
Footnote 1625:
Theoph. Char. p. 63. Casaub. 344.
Footnote 1626:
Aristoph. Acharn. 916.
-----
The prohibition to export arms during war to the country of the enemy,
and that under pain of death,[1627] was an obvious measure of
self-defence. In time of peace, however, the trade in arms was as free
as any other trade; and the Athenians imported from their neighbours,
the Bœotians, helmets,[1628] in the manufacture of which this people
excelled. No doubt, as states derive the sinews of war, in part at
least, from commerce, the Athenians had the sagacity to attack their
enemies in the vulnerable point of their pride, for the purpose of
bringing them the sooner to reason. They thus, too, taught the inferior
states, such as Megara and Bœotia, that Athens was independent of
them in all respects, while it was for them to consider whether they
were equally independent of her.[1629] Thus the Ocean Queen of antiquity
was said to exercise (as Great Britain formerly) a despotic sway over
trade; as when, for example, she exacted a tenth from all ships sailing
to or from the Black Sea;[1630] though in this, as in all human affairs,
the despotism[1631] arose naturally from the possession of superior
power, and could scarcely have been guarded against. To weaken the enemy
by every possible means was the object of a wise policy; so that in
contemplating every coast belonging to a power not in alliance with
Athens as in a state of blockade,[1632]—in seizing, capturing, or
detaining, all vessels of every description by which her interests could
be infringed, Athens only acted in self-defence. That she was hated for
her superiority we need not be surprised, who know with what
heart-burnings and secret aversion our own maritime supremacy has ever
been beheld by the nations of the Continent, who repeat against us all
the accusations anciently muttered by the surrounding states against
Athens.
-----
Footnote 1627:
Dem. de Fals. Legat. § 90.
Footnote 1628:
Poll. i. 149.
Footnote 1629:
Conf. Acharn. 660, sqq. and Bœckh, i. 76.
Footnote 1630:
Xen. Hellen. iv. 8. 27. Dodwell, Chron. Xenophon. § 21.
Footnote 1631:
Xen. Rep. Athen. ii. 3. 11. 12.
Footnote 1632:
Xen. ut sup. Thucyd. v. 83.
-----
Utopian speculators, reading history in their easy chairs, find it
facile to condemn the measures of ancient statesmen. But allowing them
to have been reprehensible, it remains to be seen whether, in the same
circumstances, we could have carried any better into execution; for the
ability to imagine better is nothing, unless we suppose that events
always allow men to act up to their knowledge. However this may be, the
Athenian government found itself compelled by its position sometimes to
interfere with the course of trade; but it may well be doubted whether
any other freedom of trade than there existed be either possible or
desirable. For, both commerce, and every other mode in which the
energies of a nation can develope themselves, should no otherwise exist
than as they are beneficial to the nation at large; and of this the
managers of public business ought always to be better judges than
merchants or speculators, who only consider their own interests, which
may not always be identical with those of the state. I am far, however,
from designing to maintain that the commercial regulations of Athens
were in no case oppressive. Perhaps in the matter of the corn-trade they
were so; and yet much may be said for a populous city surrounded by a
barren country, and therefore solicitous about its own subsistence. Let
us examine those regulations. According to the letter of the law, which
was often transgressed, no inhabitant of Athens could land a cargo of
corn anywhere but on the Peiræeus; but, arrived there, and the
necessities of the state provided for, the remainder could be disposed
of elsewhere. This was the full amount of the grievance, if it ought to
be so called.
With respect to the law which is supposed to have restrained capitalists
from lending money on any vessel not returning to Athens with corn or
other commodities, it would be highly unreasonable, with Mr. Bœckh, to
denominate it “excessively oppressive,” until we understand it.[1633]
For my own part, until something better be proposed, I must adopt the
interpretation of Salmasius, that it was not permitted to lend money for
the purpose of buying corn in other countries except upon the condition,
that that corn should be imported into Athens.[1634] There no doubt are
difficulties attending this view of the matter; but this is equally the
case in whichever way we understand it. It may have been that, in order
to render Athens as far as possible the emporium of the world, the law
required that money should not be lent to merchants or supercargoes,
unless it was their intention to return thither with a lading, whether
of corn or some other commodity. But even this seems very doubtful.
-----
Footnote 1633:
Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 77. i. 65.
Footnote 1634:
De Modo Usur. ap. Vet. p. 193, sqq. Bœckh, i. 78.
-----
But, by whatever laws this branch of trade was regulated, no doubt can
exist as to its extent and importance. For, as the population of Attica
had, at a very early period, outgrown the means of subsistence supplied
by the country itself, the republic found itself constrained to depend
for the primary article of food upon the productions of foreign states,
to the amount of nearly one-third of its whole consumption; that is to
say, while there were grown at home two hundred and ninety-two thousand
three hundred and ninety-two quarters, as may be proved by
calculation,[1635] there were imported a hundred and eighteen thousand
quarters in the age of Demosthenes. Earlier its importation of corn was
still more considerable, when the greater part of the supply was
obtained from Eubœa, by the way of Oropos and the pass of
Deceleia.[1636]
-----
Footnote 1635:
Adv. Lept. § 9. Consult on this subject the note of Clinton. Fast.
Hellen. t. ii. p. 392, seq.
Footnote 1636:
Thucyd. vii. 28.
-----
Of the hundred and eighteen thousand quarters abovementioned, about
sixty thousand were obtained from the countries on the Black Sea,
chiefly from Theodosia, now Kaffa,[1637] in the Crimea, the remainder
from Thrace, the islands of the Ægæan, Egypt, and Sicily.[1638]
-----
Footnote 1637:
Cf. Strab. vii. 4. t. ii. p. 95. Dem. adv. Lept. § 9. Herod. vii. 147.
The climate of this country was regarded as extremely severe by the
ancients, so that at Panticapæum, a city lying between the modern
Kertsh and Yenikale, neither the myrtle nor the laurel would grow on
account of the cold, though many attempts had been made to rear them
for sacred purposes. And yet the laurel was found to brave the
inclemencies of the season on Mount Olympos. Most fruit-trees,
however, as apples, pears, figs, and pomegranates flourished in the
Crimea abundantly, though the pomegranate required to be covered in
winter, and all fruits ripened later. The usual timber trees of the
country were the oak, the elm, and the ash; the pine, the silver-fir,
and the pitch-tree, finding the climate uncongenial. Theoph. Hist.
Plant. iv. 5. 3. The nitrous plains around Panticapæum are still bare
of wood, though covered thickly by the harmala, a plant which grows
spontaneously upon saltpetre grounds. Pallas, Travels in Southern
Russia, iii. 356.
Footnote 1638:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 4. Lysias in Diogit. § 5. Athen. ii. 13.
xiii. 50.
-----
Yet the people of Athens were subject to few scarcities; and those they
experienced happened in later times, when their enemies had acquired the
superiority at sea. For so long as this state attended to her own navy
and maintained her maritime supremacy, there was never, I believe, a
deficiency of the grain in Peiræeus,[1639] though attempts were
frequently made by the corn-dealers to create a monopoly and extort
famine prices from the public,[1640] for which they were sometimes
punished with death. Numerous proofs of the ease with which Athens could
provision herself, occurred during the latter years of the Peloponnesian
war, and the age immediately succeeding. Thus, when the Spartans, with
their king Agis, were in possession of the pass of Deceleia, and ravaged
habitually the whole territory of Attica, they felt that even the
occupation of that important post was scarcely of any avail to them so
long as Athens remained mistress of the sea, since they daily saw
numbers of corn ships from all parts of the Levant, sailing into the
Peiræeus.[1641] Afterwards, when the Spartans had begun to apply
themselves to naval affairs, one of their first endeavours was to
distress Attica, by attacking her corn ships, as on the occasion when
Pollis sought to capture the transports in the neighbourhood of
Geræstos, which however were relieved by the fleet under Chabrias.[1642]
-----
Footnote 1639:
Though afterwards in the decline of the republic it was otherwise. See
in Plutarch an account of the base infraction of the law of nations by
Demetrius which caused a famine in Athens. Demet. § 33. Cf. Xenoph.
Hellen. v. i. 23.
Footnote 1640:
See the whole oration of Lysias, against the Corn Monopolists in the
Oratores Attici, ii. 523. Cf. Dem. cont. Dionysod. § 2.
Footnote 1641:
Xenoph. Hellen. i. 35.
Footnote 1642:
Id. v. 4. 61.
-----
No inconvenience was ever experienced from the reluctance of the
corn-growing states to export their produce. On the contrary, the petty
kings of the countries on the Euxine were so anxious to secure to
themselves the custom of Athens, that they conferred on that state
numerous privileges and made her great presents, in order to tempt her
corn ships into their harbours and prevent the application to rival
states. It may indeed be said, that peace was scarcely ever interrupted
between Athens and the exporting countries, and that not through the
Athenians truckling to them to obtain their corn, but through their
truckling to the Athenians to be allowed to supply them. Thus, as far as
the experience of antiquity can be relied on, it must be concluded, that
the country which purchases agricultural produce invariably exercises a
paramount influence over the countries which supply it. It is in fact a
rule all the world over, that it is the customer who coerces the dealer,
not the dealer who influences the customer.
But, further, this immense importation of grain did not throw any of the
lands of Attica, however poor and barren, out of cultivation.[1643] On
the contrary, the powers of the soil were still taxed to the utmost, and
the processes of agriculture carried to a much higher degree of
perfection than in any other part of Greece.[1644] In fact, with its
vineyards, the whole of Attica resembled a continued garden up to the
very walls of the city.[1645] From which, as well as from positive
testimony, it appears evident, that the Athenians always retained their
partiality for rural labours,[1646] notwithstanding the extent to which
the manufacturing system was carried among them. The cultivation of the
soil has, indeed, so many charms for mankind, that they will never
desert it so long as it is able to provide for their wants. Men become
manufacturers only when they can no longer live by agriculture.
-----
Footnote 1643:
Xenoph. de Vectigal. ch. i.
Footnote 1644:
Xenoph. Œconom. _passim_.
Footnote 1645:
Dicæarchos, p. 1.
Footnote 1646:
Aristoph. Acharn. 32, sqq.
-----
It should, perhaps, he added, that of the grain imported into the
Peiræeus the surplus was frequently exported to other parts of Greece,
when the wants of the commonwealth had been properly supplied, and that
a slight fixed duty, for the sake of revenue, appears to have been
always levied on imported grain.[1647]
-----
Footnote 1647:
Dem. cont. Neær. § 9.
-----
But this necessary of life was not generally paid for in specie. On the
contrary, it was with manufactures that Greece purchased the corn of the
rude nations on the Euxine, whom, by her trade, she gradually reclaimed
from barbarism, inoculated with a taste for harmless luxuries, and, at
length, even for Hellenic literature.[1648]
-----
Footnote 1648:
Xenoph. Anab. vii. 5. 14.
-----
In one case we find that the Nomadic Scythians applied themselves to the
cultivation of the soil, and, of course, became stationary merely for
the purpose of supplying Greece with corn.[1649] Again, in the later
ages of the Roman republic, when a corn-field was a rarity in Italy,
which had been almost entirely converted by the nobility into gardens
and pleasure-grounds,[1650] Sicily, Egypt, and other agricultural
countries of the Levant, furnished so ample a supply of grain, that
scarcity was never experienced, except when the public officers were
grossly negligent of their duty. In fact, the carrying trade devolved
upon the Phœnicians, who, to a great extent subsisting by it alone, were
necessarily most careful, for their own sake, to keep up the
supply.[1651] Had the Romans been themselves a commercial people, like
the English, their traffic might have been still better regulated.
-----
Footnote 1649:
Herod. iv. 17.
Footnote 1650:
Varro de Re Rust. l. 1.
Footnote 1651:
Lucian. Navig. § 6.
-----
To return, however: it is admitted, that liberal as, upon the whole, the
principles of trade were in antiquity, those of the Athenians were the
most so of any.[1652] The Argives and Æginetans, at one period,
prohibited the importation of Athenian manufactures, particularly their
pottery, or, at least, prohibited the use of them in religious
ceremonies, though up to that period they had been allowed. The object,
of course, was to bring their own earthenware into use, Argos,[1653]
especially, possessing a manufacture which at length rivalled that of
Attica itself. It is regarded as a mark of ancient simplicity, that
neither gold nor silver, nor jewelled plate, but fictile vases merely,
were originally employed in making libations to the gods.[1654]
-----
Footnote 1652:
Bœckh. i. 80.
Footnote 1653:
Herod. v. 88. Athen. iv. 13. xi. 60.
Footnote 1654:
Valcken. ad Herod. Wessel. p. 416.
-----
The same principles which regulated maritime commerce governed also the
intercourse which nations carried on by land. It would, therefore, be
unreasonable to look for what is, oddly enough, denominated
“unrestricted freedom,” since, without at all admitting that “the police
mixed itself with everything,” we cannot deny that the state, in this,
as in all other respects, sought to advance its own interests. Foolish
attempts were sometimes made to bring down the price of certain
necessaries, as salt, an example of which is mentioned by Aristophanes;
but the law was soon abrogated.[1655] Had the state been disposed to
interfere tyrannically in anything, it would have been where corn was
concerned. It is, however, admitted by Bœckh, who has taken the wrong
side on this question, that in this article “we certainly find a great
freedom of prices,” though the law interfered to prevent the evil
consequences to the public of combinations among corn-dealers for the
purpose of creating a monopoly.[1656]
-----
Footnote 1655:
Concion. 813, with the Scholiast.
Footnote 1656:
Econ. of Athens, i. 81.
-----
In general, the business of retail-dealing in the market was confined by
law to the citizens, but this was not always rigidly enforced, since we
find Egyptians, Phœnicians, and other foreigners, had their stalls
there, for which, it would appear, they paid a distinct duty.[1657] They
were more especially found among the fishmongers and dealers in small
wares. But, in the Peiræeus, the number of foreign traders greatly
exceeded that of the natives. For their use, moreover, a species of
exchange (δεῖγμα) was created, whither they brought specimens of their
merchandise for exhibition, the place being usually crowded with buyers
from all the neighbouring countries. This was, possibly, the most
striking scene in Greece, crowded with merchants from the East, in their
gorgeous and varied costumes, intermingled with Greeks of all classes,
and gay women who came hither to see and be seen.[1658]
-----
Footnote 1657:
It is thus that Bœckh understands a passage in the speech against
Eubulides, § 10, which both Wolf and Taylor interpret very
differently. With respect to the fact, however, of foreign dealers
actually holding stalls, we are not left to depend on any doubtful
testimony.
Footnote 1658:
Pollux, ix. 34. Comm. t. ii. p. 911, seq.
-----
On the prices of things in antiquity, compared with those at present
prevailing, we have only one way of judging, and that is by ascertaining
whether a greater degree of labour was required to provide the
necessaries of life. The contrary was certainly the case in Attica,
which, nevertheless, was, probably, the most expensive place of
residence in the world. Even the slaves would appear to have enjoyed
more leisure and exemption from toil than the industrious classes of our
own most industrious community: and the citizens themselves, with their
numerous festivals and amusements, public and private, evidently devoted
a far greater proportion of their time to pleasure than would now be
possible to any save the opulent. This, in fact, resulted from the
moderate custom duties charged by the state, but much more from the
superior fertility of the soil, which yielded greater returns for less
labour, and from the comparative fewness of unproductive inhabitants. In
modern language, the supply was greater in proportion to the demand.
Still, it appears quite certain, that, though the duties laid on by the
state were moderate, the merchants and retail dealers made very great
profits. “This,” as Bœckh observes, “is sufficiently proved by the high
rate of interest on money lent upon bottomry, in which thirty per cent
for one summer was not unfrequently paid.”[1659]
-----
Footnote 1659:
Pub. Econ. of Ath. i. 81, seq.
-----
I am not quite sure that, as a general rule, “a high rate of interest
and profit is an infallible sign that industry and trade are yet in
their infancy,” and still less that lowness of interest is a sign of a
flourishing country.[1660] On the contrary, I should infer, from the
former, that trade was in that healthy state in which it is scarcely a
speculation; and, from the latter, that its current had become stagnant.
However, a high interest was paid, and great profits were made in
antiquity. Of this a striking example is furnished by Herodotus. A
Samian ship trading with Egypt was, by some accident, led to push its
way westward, as far as Tartessos, in Iberia, antecedent to the period
at which the Greeks began to trade regularly with that port.[1661] What
the nature and value of its cargo may have been is not known, any more
than the articles which it received in exchange. The conjecture,
however, that it received silver at a low rate, as the Phœnicians
anciently did, is not improbable. At all events, the merchants engaged
in this adventure cleared upon that one cargo the sum of sixty talents,
of which, in pious gratitude, they dedicated a tenth to Hera the tutelar
goddess of their island. And this historian adds, that, with the
exception of Sostratos of Ægina, the most fortunate of mercantile
adventurers, no Grecian merchant had ever up to his time made so
successful a voyage.
-----
Footnote 1660:
Compare Hume’s Essay on Interest, p. 172, sqq. with Mr. Bœckh’s Public
Economy of Athens, i. 82.
Footnote 1661:
Herod. iv. 152.
-----
CHAPTER X.
NAVIGATION.
As the art of navigation was not invented by the Greeks, it will be in
this place unnecessary to inquire very minutely into its rude
beginnings. Most maritime tribes doubtless discovered for themselves the
means of traversing such rivers, and creeks, and bays, and arms of the
sea, as lay in their immediate neighbourhood and impeded their
communication, whether hostile or friendly, with the various tribes on
their borders. Another motive, moreover, which probably tempted men to
trust themselves very early upon the waters, was the desire to regale on
those dainty fish which abound on nearly all shores, and constitute
among the most savage nations an important article of food. It will
readily be believed that history cannot pretend to name the individual
who in any country first launched his raft or canoe upon the deep.
Nevertheless, tradition among the Phœnicians, endeavoured to supply the
defect of history. Ousoös, we are told,[1662] a primitive Arab hero,
observing the trunk of a large tree overthrown, perhaps by a hurricane,
near the shore, lopped off the branches, set it afloat, and committed
himself along with it to the mercy of the waves. He had very soon an
abundance of imitators. In every part of the Red Sea, on the Nile, the
Indus, and the Persian Gulf, hardy navigators made their appearance, who
undertook voyages more or less hazardous, in piraguas constructed of a
single bamboo, or the shell of a vast tortoise, or of a wicker-work
frame covered with leather[1663]—the coracles of our British ancestors
still in common use on many streams in Wales. Occasionally, too, more
especially on the rivers and shores of the Euxine, capacious, long, and
sturdy barks[1664] were scooped out of the trunks of enormous trees,
which were denominated Monoxyla, and seem to have been at one time or
another in general use all over the world from the island of Australasia
to the Arctic Circle. A specimen of those employed by our own
forefathers may be seen in the colonnade of our national Museum. On the
Nile were several kinds of barks peculiar to Egypt, such for example, as
those which were plaited from the papyrus plant,[1665] or from rushes.
Most extraordinary of all, however, were their boats of earthenware, in
which, furnished both with sails and oars, they glided over the serene
bosom of the river.
-----
Footnote 1662:
Sanchoniath. ap Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. p. 23, bis. Leroy, Marine des
Anciens Peuples, p. 188.
Footnote 1663:
Herod. i. 194.
Footnote 1664:
In the sea of Marmora, a boat somewhat similar in form, though
different in construction, is still used, and known under the name of
piade. It is narrow, and “from twenty to forty feet in length, very
sharp both in the prow and stern; it is built of willow, and often
beautifully carved and ornamented.” Douglas, Essay, &c., p. 13.
Footnote 1665:
Herod. ii. 96. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 8. 4.
-----
As soon as the Greeks began to apply themselves to maritime affairs,
they constructed ports and docks in various parts of the country, where
they built numerous ships, rude enough at first, perhaps; but improving
by experience and study[1666] they in time equalled, and at length
surpassed, the Phœnicians, by whom at the outset they may perhaps have
been instructed. Among the greatest difficulties they had to encounter
was the scarcity of ship-timber, for which they were always compelled
greatly to depend on other countries. The materials, however, being
collected, their shipwrights appear to have proceeded in much the same
manner as those of modern times, laying down the keel, fixing in the
ribs, planking, decking, caulking, and pitching, until the hull was
completed.
-----
Footnote 1666:
Cf. Hom. Il. α. 316. Thucyd. i. 10.
-----
In their war-galleys,[1667] constructed under the superintendence of a
naval architect elected by lot, they exhausted all the resources of art
in their endeavours to communicate to them the greatest beauty of form
and splendour of appearance. Painting, carving, and gilding,[1668] were
called in to cover both stern and prow with images and ornaments of the
most fanciful kinds, glowing with bright blue or vermilion,[1669]
intermingled with scrolls and flourishes of other colours, and figures
of burnished gold. Occasionally beneath the rim of the prow were bright
cerulean bands,[1670] painted in encaustic and defended by so durable a
varnish that they could neither be blistered by the sun, nor dimmed by
the action of the sea-water. In this part, beneath the roots as it were
of the acrostolion, were placed those ornaments resembling eyes, one on
either side, over which the name of the ship was written.[1671] The
sweep of the deck was a gentle curve, the lowest dip of which was at the
ship’s waist. On the poop stood a deep alcove in which the pilot took
his station,[1672] protected in a great degree from wind and weather,
and having over his head a large lantern, in which a bright light was
kindled at nightfall.
-----
Footnote 1667:
Vid. Gyrald. de Navig. c. xvi. t. i. col. 646. Thucyd. i. 13, seq.
Athen. xi. 49. Aristoph. Lysist. 173. On the names of different
classes of vessels, see Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 143. Eq. 1363. Thucyd.
iv. 67.
Footnote 1668:
Poll. i. 84. Goguet, iv. 261. Winkel. i. 26. n.
Footnote 1669:
Lucian. Charidem. § 25.
Footnote 1670:
Athen. v. 37.
Footnote 1671:
Poll. i. 86.
Footnote 1672:
In this he had a seat which was called ικρία. Hesych. in v.
-----
Firm and lofty bulwarks rose along the ship’s sides, protecting the
mariners from being swept off in tempests by the passing surge. On the
bows again, there was usually a square tower furnished with lofty
portals, through which the combatants, protected from annoyances on both
flanks, poured, in close fight, their darts into the enemy’s ship, or
rushed forward to board it. At the very front of the prow, where our
bowsprit is now placed, arose an elegant winding scroll, which though
projecting slightly beyond the hull, could never touch the corresponding
part of the enemy’s galley until the iron or brazen beaks[1673] below
had met and shattered each other. The rudder[1674] consisted of two
paddles placed one on either side of the ship, which was impelled along
by oar and sail. The row-ports of these galleys being somewhat capacious
might, if left open, have shipped a great deal of water, on which
account they were furnished with strong leather bags, in form like a
woman’s breast, projecting outwards, nailed to the circle of the
row-port, and fitting tight about the oar. The rowers, to render their
condition more comfortable, were furnished with cushions or soft-dressed
fleeces.[1675]
-----
Footnote 1673:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 552.
Footnote 1674:
Spallanzani in describing the preparations made by the Portuguese for
the first doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, mentions, among other
things, a double rudder, so “that in case one should be damaged there
might be another to act.” Travels in the Two Sicilies, iv. 201.
Footnote 1675:
The sea-term ὑπηρέσιον which occurs in Thucydides, ii. 93, is very
variously explained. Mitford (Hist. Greece, iii. 154) contends, that
it means a sort of bag placed in the τρῆμα, or aperture through which
the oar passed, and was designed to prevent the flowing in of the
waves. This bag, however, as I have already remarked in pp. 289, 290,
was called ἄσκωμα. Poll. ii. 154. Potter (ii. 136,) thinks it was a
skin on which the rowers sat. Lilius Gyraldus, (De Navigiis, c. vi. p.
627,) supposes it to have been that part of the galley on which the
oar rested, and sometimes signified the oar itself. The Greek
scholiast on Thucydides, (t. v. p. 399,) agrees with Potter, saying,
that it means a sheep-skin with the fleece which covered the rowers’
benches.
-----
The merchantmen differed considerably both in form and general
arrangements from the war-galleys. As in our own ships of burden, under
the old system of admeasurement, the hull instead of sinking down sharp
towards the keel, bellied outwards at the sides, so as to render the
bottom almost flat. They were very much shorter, moreover, in proportion
to their height than ships of the line,[1676] which, from their slender
elongated figure, obtained the appellation of long galleys. In trading
vessels,[1677] much greater stress was laid on sails than on oars, since
the crews could never be sufficiently numerous to furnish constantly
fresh relays of rowers; and, in their protracted voyages, it would have
been impossible for the same men to remain perpetually on the benches.
The masts consequently were here of very great height, equalling,
according to rule, the length of the ship, which rendered it practicable
to crowd an immense quantity of canvass, but at the same time rendered
them liable to capsize in a heavy gale, as is still the case with the
Levant-built ships, which are generally much taller rigged than ours.
They commonly gave a greater length to the hull of transports, though
not altogether so great as to ships of war. Pirate luggers were always
built without decks,[1678] and extremely low that they might be the
better able to approach their prey unperceived. Their sloops, smacks,
and lighters,[1679] together with all the other small craft employed in
the coasting trade, exhibited every variety of form, but appear to have
been generally stout-built and well-appointed.
-----
Footnote 1676:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 1363.
Footnote 1677:
One of these vessels, when built for speed, would, with a fair wind,
make a hundred and fifty miles in the twenty-four hours. Herod. iv.
86.
Footnote 1678:
Thucyd. i. 10. Schol. t. v. p. 311.
Footnote 1679:
Much of the coasting trade of the Mediterranean is still carried on in
extremely small barks or open boats. See Spallanzani, Travels in the
Two Sicilies, iii. 122, sqq. In the Adriatic, however, the necessity
has at length been felt of employing vessels of a broad and flat
construction, and extremely solid, to resist the violence of the
storms so frequent in that sea, id. iv. 200.
-----
Respecting the tonnage and dimensions of the largest class of
merchantmen, we possess little positive information. It would appear,
however, that in comparison with the vessels engaged in the corn-trade,
between Alexandria and Italy,[1680] they were of very moderate burden,
since the appearance of one of those large ships in the Peiræeus excited
general astonishment. The size of this Egyptian trader, which seems to
have been no way distinguished from others engaged in the same traffic,
may perhaps assist the imagination in forming some definite idea of an
ancient merchantman: its length, from stem to stern, was one hundred and
eighty feet, its breadth nearly fifty, and its clear depth in the hold
about forty-five. It was furnished with one enormous mast, with yards in
proportion, and a capacious mainsail, composed of numerous tiers of
ox-hides. The cables and anchors, capstains, windlasses, with all the
other appurtenances of a ship, were on a suitable scale, while the crew
was so numerous as to be compared to an army. In the stem were airy and
spacious cabins, above which rose the gilded figure of a goose. On
either side of the bows stood an image of Isis,[1681] bending over the
waves and appearing to afford her divine protection to those who had
chosen her for their tutelar goddess. Among the Greeks, however, the
place assigned to the tutelar divinity was sometimes the stern, where
oaths were taken, expiations made, prayers and sacrifices offered up,
and where such of the crew as had committed any offence took sanctuary.
On the top of the mast was a vane[1682] of burnished metal which,
turning and flashing in the sun, appeared like a streak of flame. As
their ships, more especially during long voyages, ran perpetual risk of
being assailed by pirates, they were abundantly supplied with all kinds
of arms and implements of war, which were ranged along the cabin
partitions and elsewhere with so much order and regularity, that they
could always, by night or day, be found at a moment’s warning.
-----
Footnote 1680:
Lucian. Navig. § 5.
Footnote 1681:
On the bows of the Athenian war-galleys a wooden statue of Athena,
richly gilded, occupied the place here assigned to Isis. Aristoph.
Acharn. 457, et Schol.
Footnote 1682:
See on vanes, flags, &c., Beckmann, History of Inventions, iv. 161. As
many of our sailors carry about their persons a child’s caul as an
amulet to protect them against the dangers of the ocean, so the
mariners of Greece attributed a sort of miraculous power to the skins
of the seal and the hyæna, which they bound around the summits of
their masts as a safeguard against lightning and thunderbolts. Plut.
Sympos, iv. 2. 1.
-----
It was by very slow advances that the ancients arrived at that high
degree of excellence in the art of ship-building, which, in the most
flourishing ages of Greece, its maritime states exhibited. In the
Homeric age, the largest vessels known were of very moderate burden,
since even the poet, who would doubtless allow himself some licence,
speaks of no transport which could carry more than one hundred and fifty
men. These barks, too, Thucydides thinks, were undecked, like the pirate
vessels of his own times, and indeed in ours also, in most parts of the
Ægæan, though I have myself sailed in a large Greek brig, of piratical
construction, which carried several guns, and was not only decked, but
so admirably built, that after labouring ten days in a storm, she made
not an inch more water than when in port.
The various stages in improvement have not been marked. They went on,
however, each age excelling that which had preceded it, until at length
having reached the utmost perfection of which their system was
susceptible, they began to apply their skill to the creation of huge
fabrics merely for show and magnificence, and calculated rather for the
gratification of an insane luxury than for the genuine purposes of
trade. One of these naval monsters was constructed at Syracuse under the
eye of Archimedes, and at the expense of king Hiero.
Having procured from the forests of Mount Ætna timber sufficient for the
building of sixty triremes, together with a variety of other materials
from Italy, Spain, and Gaul, as crooked timber for ribs, hard wood for
pegs, with pitch and hemp, and Spanish broom[1683] for cables, he
assembled a sufficient number of ship-wrights, with Archias, the
Corinthian, at their head, and set them to work under the inspection of
Archimedes, though he himself spent the greater part of his day
overlooking the workmen at the dock. When in about six months the
planking had been carried to about half the height of the hull, and
properly sheathed with lead in lieu of the copper at present employed,
the ship was launched[1684] by means of a machine, invented for the
purpose by Archimedes, into a sort of floating dock, where it was
completed in other six months. The planks were fastened to the ribs with
copper bolts, of which some were of ten and others fifteen pounds’
weight, passed through holes prepared for them by the auger; and over
the heads of these bolts plates of lead were fixed, having been first
lined, as it were, with a layer of wadding steeped in pitch.
-----
Footnote 1683:
Athen. v. 40.
Footnote 1684:
By what ceremonies a ship-launch was accompanied in antiquity, I have
nowhere discovered. Those which take place on the occasion in modern
Greece are extremely pleasing, and may, perhaps, have had a classical
origin. A crown of flowers “is suspended from the prow of a vessel
when it is first launched, and the ‘καρόβακηρι,’ or master of the
ship, raises the jar of wine to his lips as he stands upon the deck,
and then pours it on the ground. Surely, nothing can be more
beautifully classical; and it were to be wished that we could trace
some part of a ceremony that takes place with us upon the same
occasion to this source, and not consider it as an imitation of one of
the most sacred rites of our religion.” Douglas, p. 65.
-----
They next proceeded to the interior arrangements, the explanation of
which is replete with difficulty. The whole depth of the ship seems to
have been divided into four stories, of which the lowest, or hold, was
filled by the cargo; the second, descended to by long flights of steps,
was appropriated to the rowers, who were ranged in twenty banks; the
third was laid out in cabins for the use of the crew, while the military
officers and the men occupied the uppermost. The kitchen was situated in
the stern.
All these cabins were adorned with pavements in mosaic, representing in
a long series of compartments the entire action of the Iliad; while the
furniture, doors, and ceilings were furnished with proportionate
splendour and elegance. On the upper deck was a gymnasium, exactly
proportioned to the dimensions of the ship, together with a number of
walks running through the midst of gardens laid out on leaden terraces,
and containing all kinds of odoriferous plants and flowers. All these
alleys were arched with trellis-work, overlaid with the intermingled
foliage of the white-ivy and the vine growing out of troughs filled with
earth, arranged along the promenades, and watered like other gardens. In
a different part of the ship was a magnificent apartment called the
Aphrodision, furnished with three couches, and having a pavement
variegated with agates, and all the richest and most beautiful marbles
of Sicily. It was wainscotted and roofed with cypress, while its doors
were of Atlantic citron-wood inlaid with ivory. On all sides, moreover,
it was adorned with pictures and statues and vases and goblets, of the
most fanciful and varied forms. Contiguous to this chamber was the
library, furnished with five couches and store of books. Its doors and
wainscot were of box, and on its roof was a sun-dial, constructed in
imitation of that in the Achradina. There was also a bath, in which were
three couches, and three caldaria of bronze, together with a basin
containing five metretæ, lined with Taurominian marble of various
colours. There were numerous cabins fitted up for the soldiers and the
crew, from whom was selected a number of persons whose sole business it
was to superintend the pumps.[1685] The ship likewise contained twenty
stables, ten on either hand, well supplied with fodder, and every
convenience for the grooms.
-----
Footnote 1685:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 432.
-----
In the bows was a prodigious reservoir of fresh-water, lined with
tarpaulin, and kept under lock and key; and near it lay the piscina or
fish-pond, overlaid with lead, and filled with sea-water, in which was
preserved an ample supply of fish for a long voyage. On projecting
galleries, extending along the ship’s sides, were situated the
wood-house, the kitchen, the bake-house, the mills, and other
conveniences. At different distances along the sides were ranged
numerous figures of Atlas, nine feet in height, supporting the triglyphs
and the projecting portions of the ship: its whole surface, moreover,
was adorned with suitable paintings.
There arose from the deck eight towers, two on the stern, two on the
prow, and four in the ship’s waist, in diameter and elevation
proportioned to the dimensions of the whole. From the outer battlements
of each of these turrets projected two immense beams, hollowed out like
troughs, which being balanced in the middle on the edge of the tower,
could be filled with huge stones, that, by elevating the inner extremity
of the machine, were launched into the enemy’s ship as it sailed
beneath. These engines were probably worked by ropes and pulleys
attached to the opposite battlements. Six armed men, two of whom were
archers, took their station in each turret, the whole interior of which
was filled with stones and darts. All round the ship, supported by a
series of triangles, ran a gallery, defended by a parapet and
battlements. On this stood a catapult, invented by Archimedes, which
cast darts eighteen feet long, with stones upwards of three hundred and
fifty pounds in weight, to the distance of a furlong. This gallery, as
well, I presume, as the men who worked the engine, was protected by a
close net-work of large ropes suspended from brazen chains. To each of
the three masts was attached a couple of engines, which darted iron bars
and masses of lead against the enemy. The sides of the ship bristled
with iron spikes, designed to protect it against boarding; and on all
sides were likewise grapples, which could be flung by machines into the
galleys of the foe, so as to retain them within reach of the missiles
from on board. Along the galleries, and round the masts and catapults,
were drawn up two hundred and forty men in complete armour. In the fore,
main, and mizen-tops were stationed other warriors, who were supplied
with stones and similar missiles by baskets running on pulleys, and
worked by boys. The ship was supplied with twelve anchors, of which four
were of wood, and eight of iron.[1686]
-----
Footnote 1686:
Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 23, p. 110, with the amusing conjectures
of Goguet, &c., on the origin of anchors, Origine des Loix, ii. 221.
Pausanias attributes the invention of the anchor to Midas, i. 4. 5.
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 753. If we may trust to the testimony of Lucian,
a small boat-anchor could be bought for five drachmas. Dialog.
Mortuorum, iv. 1.
-----
Very little difficulty was experienced in discovering pines sufficiently
lofty for the fore and mizen-masts of this huge galley; but it was only
by accident that a swineherd in the mountains of the Abruzzi found a
tree of sufficient magnitude for the mainmast. It was conveyed to the
sea by Philias, an engineer of Taurominium. The pump, notwithstanding
its great depth, was easily worked by the screw of Archimedes, and only
required the labour of one individual. The name first bestowed on this
ship by Hiero was “The Syracusan;” but when afterwards he despatched it
as a present to King Ptolemy, he changed it to that of the “The
Alexandrian.”
Besides the individuals already enumerated, there were six hundred men
stationed on the prow; and to administer justice in this floating
commonwealth a court was instituted, consisting of the captain, the
pilot, and the principal officers in command in the forecastle, who
judged according to the laws of Syracuse. It was followed on the voyage
to Egypt by a number of smaller craft, of which the majority were
fishing-smacks.
The cargo of “The Alexandrian,” which, together with the vessel itself,
was presented to King Ptolemy at a time when famine raged in Egypt,
consisted of sixty thousand medimni of corn, two thousand jars of
salt-fish, twenty thousand talents of wool, and an equal quantity of
other commodities. The poet Archimelos having written a copy of verses
on this nautical castle, Hiero felt so greatly flattered by the
compliment that he sent the author a thousand medimni of wheat, which he
landed for him at the Peiræeus.
In order to convey some idea of another department of nautical
architecture among the ancients, in which there was probably a greater
display of fancy than of science, we shall here introduce the
description of a pleasure-barge in which Ptolemy Philopater and the
ladies of his court used to sail upon the Nile.[1687] Among the caliphs
and sultans of the East we find traces of a similar taste for gorgeous
and magnificent barks; but neither in history nor fiction do we remember
to have met any account of a vessel so curiously constructed, or so
superbly and sumptuously adorned. It was, in the first place, half a
furlong in length, flat-bottomed, and rising high above the water on
account of the swell, with projecting keel, and prow of most graceful
curvature,—or, I should rather, perhaps, say, prows, for it appeared
double in front, as though a pair of galleys had been lashed together.
Along the sides and stern ran two galleries, the one above the other,
where the persons on board might stroll and take exercise as the barge
was wafted along by the wind. Of these the lower one resembled an open
peristyle, the upper a close arcade furnished at intervals with windows
looking out upon the river.
-----
Footnote 1687:
The great attention paid to navigation by the Egyptians, under the
government of the Ptolemies, may be inferred from the fact, that they
possessed at one time upwards of four thousand ships of all sizes.
Athen. v. 36.
-----
Considering the whole barge as one great building, the architect placed
the extreme hall encircled by a single row of columns at the extremity
of the stern, where it was, doubtless, approached from the upper
gallery. Having traversed this, you next beheld a propylæon erected with
the most precious wood and ivory. This led into a proscenion roofed
over, in the vicinity of which lay a variety of chambers. Of these the
most remarkable was a vast peripheral hall fitted up with twenty
couches. This apartment was wainscotted with cedar and Milesian cypress;
the doors, twenty in number, were formed of panels of citron wood richly
inlaid with ivory. The hinges, the nails, the knockers, and
door-handles, were of copper, gilt. The shafts of the columns were
cypress wood, and the Corinthian capitals of gold and ivory were
surmounted by an architrave richly overlaid with gold. Above this again
was a broad frieze adorned with numerous figures of animals roughly
sculptured in ivory, but remarkable for the costliness of the materials.
The ceiling was of cedar wood elaborately carved and covered with a
blaze of gilding. Close at hand were the apartments of the women, in the
structure and ornaments of which equal magnificence was displayed. In
another part of the bark was a chapel of Aphroditè surmounted by a dome.
It contained a statue of the goddess in Parian marble. This sacred
edifice was surrounded by other suites of apartments among which was a
symposion adorned with pillars of Indian marble. Towards the prow was a
saloon sacred to Dionysos, surrounded on all sides with pillars
furnished with numerous couches, and adorned with gilded cornices. The
roof was enriched with ornaments suited to the character of the god,
that is, in all probability orgeastic processions of Bacchantes and
Bacchanals, with crowns of ivy and vine leaves. On the right hand this
saloon opened into a grotto or cavern, in which the colours of rocks
were imitated by an incrustation of precious stones, whose brilliance
was in various parts relieved by ornaments of gold. The busts of the
royal family sculptured of Parian marble were ranged round the grot.
On the roof of the great saloon was erected a small symposion, in the
form of a tent, exceedingly agreeable from its airiness and the fine
prospect it commanded over the whole valley of the Nile. It was
completely open in front, and the roof consisting of a series of
semicircular hoops like the top of a calèche, it could be bent down and
drawn forward at pleasure, and was covered with purple hangings. By a
winding staircase constructed in a different part of the bark, you
ascended to another hall, constructed and decorated after the Egyptian
manner, being adorned with a number of round pillars composed of a
succession of blocks of equal height, alternately white and black. Their
capitals, likewise were round, but contracting rather than expanding at
the top like an elongated rose-bud.
In all this part of the column, technically denominated calathos, there
were neither volutes nor rows of open and projecting foliage as in Greek
architecture, but bells of the river lotos, or other flowers,
intermingled with newly formed fruit of the date palm. To correspond
with these columns, the walls of Egyptian edifices were frequently lined
with black and white slabs alternating with each other. Of these the
white were sometimes of alabaster.
This bark was furnished with but one mast, one hundred and five feet in
height, to which was fitted a single sail of byssus with purple fringe.
The dimensions of the sail must, however, have been prodigious, but from
the fineness of its fabric it could never have been hoisted in rough
weather.
If we turn now to the materials wherewith the ships of the ancients were
constructed we shall find that they here differed as much from the
practice of modern nations, at least in the north, as in the form and
style of rigging. With us scarcely anything but oak or teak is employed
in those parts which come in contact with the water, whereas the Greeks
constructed their war galleys, in which speed was of the greatest
moment, of fir,[1688] while they chiefly made use of pitch pine in the
building of merchantmen, as that wood long resists the corrosive action
of the sea.
-----
Footnote 1688:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 6. 5. Plat. de Legg. iv. t. vii. 333.
-----
The Cypriotes appear in all cases to have given the preference to the
pine which abounds in the island, and was esteemed superior to the pitch
tree,[1689] though the latter was sometimes appropriated to the building
of ships of war. Among the Syrians and Phœnicians, in whose country a
supply of pine was not to be obtained,[1690] the custom prevailed of
building ships entirely of cedar.[1691] The practice of employing
oak[1692] had, likewise, already been introduced, though it does not
appear to have been common; but in the larger classes of ships the keel
was always of that timber, in order that, when drawn on shore, it might
be able to sustain the weight of the superincumbent mass. In the
holcades or merchantmen, the keel, like the ship itself, was of pitch
pine; but all such vessels were in those days supplied with a false
keel, called chelysma,[1693] of oak, or oxya, designed to act as a
protection when they were drawn up into dry dock. Masts and yards were
commonly of the silver fir;[1694] oars of such timber as grew on the
northern slopes of mountains.[1695] The turned work used in ornamenting
the interior was commonly of mulberry, ash, elm, or platane wood, of
which the last was least esteemed.[1696]
-----
Footnote 1689:
Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 25, p. 113.
Footnote 1690:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 5.
Footnote 1691:
Id. iv. 5. 5. v. 6. 5. There were cedars on Mount Lebanon eighteen
feet in circumference, v. 8. 1.
Footnote 1692:
Theophrastus appears to give the preference to the oak of Epeiros, the
acorns of which had been frequently sown in other parts of Greece, but
produced, he says, inferior timber. Hist. Plant. ii. 2. 6. Cf. Orph.
Argonaut. 130. Cf. Valer. Flacc. viii. 161. i. 303.
Footnote 1693:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 2, seq. iii. 10. 1.
Footnote 1694:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 1. 7.
Footnote 1695:
Id. iv. 1. 4. The oar was usually fastened to the row-port by a stout
thong, which, of the size used in boats, seems to have cost about two
oboloi. Lucian. Dial. Mortuor. iv. § 1.
Footnote 1696:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 3.
-----
Sails were made and manufactured from a variety of materials. It has
been seen above, in speaking of the Egyptian war ships, that they
sometimes consisted of a number of hides sown together. They were,
likewise, in various countries, plaited, as now in China,[1697] from
reeds, or rushes, but the sailcloth of the Greeks was generally, like
our own, woven from hemp.[1698] For this, in Egypt, the papyrus was
sometimes substituted. Princes and grandees occasionally, in their
pleasure-boats, employed, in lieu of these rude materials, cotton or
fine linen, dyed, to augment their beauty, of the most brilliant purple.
To this Shakespeare alludes in the following passage, which though
familiar, perhaps, to the reader, I must, nevertheless, beg permission
to quote:
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burnt on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with ’em: the oars were silver;
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description. She did lie
In her pavilion, (cloth of gold of tissue,)
O’er-picturing that Venus, where we see
The fancy out-work nature. On each side her,
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids,
With diverse-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool;
And what they undid, did.——
Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids, or
So many mermaids, tended her i’ th’ eyes’,
And made their bends adorning; at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackles
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs.[1699]
-----
Footnote 1697:
Goguet, iv. 260.
Footnote 1698:
Theoph. Hist. iv. 8. 4.
Footnote 1699:
Anthony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Scene 3.
-----
An ancient anonymous writer on the art military describes a vessel
closely resembling our steamboats in construction, but in which
bullocks, stationed in the hold, worked the paddle-wheels instead of an
engine. It flew along the water, says the author, without oars or sails,
simply by the impulses of wheels, which, rising partly above the waves,
operated, when in action, like a succession of oars.
Ropes and cables[1700] were manufactured in antiquity from a great
variety of materials. At first, the cordage most in use would appear to
have been composed of twisted thongs; for which, in process of time, was
substituted goats’ hair,[1701] the Spanish broom,[1702] the bark of the
cornel[1703] and linden-tree,[1704] with byblos, hemp,[1705] and
flax.[1706] The enormous cables which supported the bridge thrown by
Xerxes over the Hellespont were manufactured from mixed materials, of
which two-thirds were byblos and one-third white flax.[1707] They were
of dimensions so vast that a piece half a yard in length weighed one
hundred and twenty-five pounds.
-----
Footnote 1700:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 129. Æschyl. 175.
Footnote 1701:
Geop. xviii. 9. Common sacks and cushions for rowers on board the
galleys were likewise manufactured from the same material. Cf. Var. de
Re Rustic. ii. 7. Columel. 7. 6. 2.
Footnote 1702:
Athen. v. 40.
Footnote 1703:
Plut. Alexand. § 18.
Footnote 1704:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 5.
Footnote 1705:
Dioscor. iii. 165.
Footnote 1706:
Herod. vii. 25.
Footnote 1707:
Id. vii. 34. 36.
-----
Of the sailors, upon whose energy, skill, and courage, the success of
every voyage necessarily depended, ancient writers have been more than
usually scanty in their communications. We know, however, that the
mariners as well on board the merchantmen of Athens as those of the
other states of Greece, were partly citizens, partly strangers, and in
many instances slaves. Leading a life full of hardship and danger,
engaged as it were in a perpetual conflict with the elements, their
tempers grew fierce, their manners boisterous and rude,[1708] and their
morals none of the most elevated. During the intervals they spent on
shore, they endeavoured by snatching at all the coarse pleasures within
their reach, to make themselves some amends for their habitual
privations. The excuse, however, for this conduct was often
sophistically borrowed from religion, for during the prevalence of
storms at sea, it was customary to make vows to Poseidon, or Castor and
Polydeukes, or some of the other patrons of the nautical art; and on
reaching port the victims were slain and offered up, and the sacrifice
of necessity was accompanied by a feast. To these their boon companions,
dancing-girls, female flute-players, hetairæ, jugglers, and low
parasites, were invited, and the whole usually terminated in excessive
intoxication and a battle royal. Most mariners were attached to some
dame of equivocal reputation in the Peiræeus or elsewhere, to whom on
their return from voyages they were in the habit of bringing presents,
such as a pair of gilded slippers, a dainty cheese, a jar of pickles, or
saltfish, or a measure or two of onions. What was the amount of wages,
which enabled them to indulge in this kind of liberality, I have nowhere
been able to discover, though in all probability it was at least equal
to the pay received by seamen in the war-galleys, that is from three to
four oboloi a-day. Their operations while on board, were regulated of
course by circumstances and the accidents of the weather. Thus, when the
breeze was strong and favourable, they might lounge or sit about the
decks, or sleep, during the greater part of the twenty-four hours,
without shifting a sail or handling an oar, though a man was always
stationed at the prow to keep a sharp look-out, and watch the aspect of
the sky.[1709] In calms, however, or when the swell and roar of the sea
foretold an approaching tempest, the whole crew took to their cushions,
and raising at the command of the boatswain,[1710] a loud chant,[1711]
which contended in volume with the angry voice of the ocean, they
strained every nerve to augment the velocity of their bark, and gain
some friendly port before the storm fairly set in. Occasionally,
however, they were overtaken by tempests in the neighbourhood of rocky
islands or bleak and inhospitable promontories like the Chelidonian
rocks, where from whatever point of the compass the wind might blow a
heavy surge beat upon the shore perpetually. Under these circumstances
it was observed, more especially during the darkness of the night, that
two brilliant glancing lights played evermore about the masts and yards,
shooting hither and thither, and kindling up the crest of the surge by
their luminous appearance. These were the Dioscuri, the tender and
affectionate brothers of Helen, whose benevolence towards mankind in
general was only to be equalled by their attachment to each other. When
matters came to extremities and the waves appeared ready to engulf both
crew and passengers, all on board became keenly sensible to the
irregularities of their past lives, and the whispered interrogation
passed round the bark: “have you been initiated?” Because those to whom
the truths treasured up in the sanctuary of Eleusis had been revealed,
were supposed to be better prepared than other men for meeting death,
and appearing at the judgment-seat of heaven. It was now that vows and
prayers were heard, and that feelings of repentance were sincere, and it
would have required a more than ordinary degree of apathy to forget such
circumstances when, by an unlooked-for interposition of Providence, they
were snatched from the jaws of death, and restored to their kindred and
their homes. We may remark here, by the way, that, to passengers
labouring under the effects of sea-sickness, a decoction of a species of
thyme[1712] (thymum tragoriganum) was administered.
-----
Footnote 1708:
Plat. Phædr. t. i. p. 34.
Footnote 1709:
Aristoph. Eq. 548.
Footnote 1710:
Suid. v. κελευστὴς. Stallb. ad Plat. Rep. i. 198.
Footnote 1711:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 909.
Footnote 1712:
Dioscor. iii. 35.
-----
In their political predilections,[1713] the mariners of Greece were
almost invariably observed to be democratic, probably because being
possessed of superior energy they naturally spurned all control save
that of the laws, and were ready at all times and under all
circumstances to contend for liberty. This was more especially the case
with the Athenian seamen, who, in the flourishing periods of Hellenic
history bore much the same relation to the other seafarers of Greece, as
the sailors of England do to those of the neighbouring European states.
-----
Footnote 1713:
Plut. Themist. § 19.
-----
Although the mariners’ compass had not yet been invented, the ancient
sailors did not, as appears to be generally supposed, creep timidly from
headland to headland along the shore, but traversed boldly the open sea,
directing their course by the constellations, more particularly that of
the greater bear. In this practice the Arabs of Phœnicia led the way as
in most other early improvements connected with seamanship.
It is sometimes believed that, in very remote ages, mankind possessed no
names for the winds,[1714] because as they had not yet addicted
themselves to navigation, it concerned them very little to observe how
or which way they blew. Possibly, however, we somewhat exaggerate the
heedlessness and ignorance of the remoter generations of men who must
have been singularly obtuse in their intellect if they could not tell
whether the wind blew up or down a valley, or on the back or front of
their houses, and had failed to designate the several currents of the
atmosphere by distinct appellations, whereby to distinguish them when
they had occasion to speak of their effects. About the period of the
Trojan war some inventive genius sprang up who gave a name to the north
and the south winds, and already in the time of Homer the Greeks had
contrived to have four points to their compass, at least the poet speaks
but of the four cardinal winds, Boreas, the north; Euros, the east;
Notos, the south, and Zephyros, the west. To these other four were
afterwards added, and at the same time some change was introduced into
the ancient nomenclature, the north-east was called Cæcias;[1715] the
south-east, Euros; the name of the east being changed to Apeliotes; the
south-west, Libs; the north-west, Argestes, and sometimes
Olympias,[1716] or Iapyx, or Sciron; which, however, according to Pliny
differed from the Argestes, and was peculiar to Athens. These are the
winds represented on the tower of Andronicos Cyrrhestes at Athens,
spoken of by Varro, Vitruvius,[1717] and many modern travellers.
Pliny,[1718] Galen, and Aulus Gellius differ from Aristotle in confining
the name of Aparctias to the north wind, and giving that of Boreas to
the north-east, or Aquilo of the Romans.[1719]
-----
Footnote 1714:
See Gœttling’s note on v. 379, of Hesiod’s Theogon. p. 38, seq.
Footnote 1715:
Called also Ἑλλησποντίας, by Aristot. Probl. xxvi. 58. Plin. ii. 46.
Cf. Aristoph. Eq. 435.
Footnote 1716:
Cf. Theoph. Caus. Plant. v. 2. 5. Hist. Plant. iv. 14. 11.
Footnote 1717:
l. i. c. 6.
Footnote 1718:
Nat. Hist. ii. 46.
Footnote 1719:
See further in Coray, Disc. Prelim. ad Hippoc. § 61.
-----
Winds blowing from the northern points of the compass are most frequent
in Greece. Aristotle[1720] remarks, that Boreas is strong at its
commencement, but feeble towards its close; and that of the south wind,
the reverse is true.[1721] It may, moreover, be added, that the north
wind was not only the most common, but also the dryest and most severe,
though sometimes accompanied by lightning, and hail, and snow. The same
wind brought rain on the Hellespont, and at Cyrenè. The Cæcias commonly
prevailed about the vernal equinox, and, in Attica and the islands, was
a rainy wind;[1722] the Apetiotes was a humid but soft wind felt chiefly
in the morning.[1723] The Euros, which, as Gœttling[1724] observes, is
the Scirocco of the Italians, prevails about the winter solstice, and at
first is warm and dry, but afterwards by blowing long over the sea
becomes moist, and brings rain, particularly in Lesbos.[1725] Aristotle,
however, speaks of the Notos as the chief rainy wind in this
island,[1726] and observes what I have myself verified in the Delta,
that during the Simoom objects appear greater than their natural
size.[1727] The Notos blows chiefly about the end of autumn in Greece,
as I found it also on the Nile immediately after the winter solstice,
and at the commencement of spring.[1728] It likewise prevails during the
dog-days[1729] (ἐπὶ κυνὶ). Naturally moist and warm, it was at first
weak, but grew powerful as it drew towards its end, when it covered the
sky with clouds and ended in rain.[1730] South winds blowing from the
sea, by which they were cooled, were considered favourable to vegetation
particularly in the Thriasian plain in Attica, lying between the Sciros
and the Cephissos. These same winds were supposed to be cold in Libya; I
think erroneously, since the south winds are warm in Egypt. The Libs is
moist and cloudy, though less so than the Cæcias; but the clouds which
it brings are quickly dispersed; it blows chiefly about Cnidos and
Rhodes.[1731]
-----
Footnote 1720:
Meteorol. ii. 6.
Footnote 1721:
Problem. xxvi. 41.
Footnote 1722:
Arist. Problem. xxvi. 58.
Footnote 1723:
Aristot. Meteorol. ii. 6. Problem. xxvi. 33. 34. 57.
Footnote 1724:
Ad Hesiod. Theogon. 379.
Footnote 1725:
Coray, Disc. Prelim. ad Hippoc. § 61.
Footnote 1726:
Problem. xxvi. 58.
Footnote 1727:
Aristot. Problem. xxvi. 55.
Footnote 1728:
Id. xxvi. 16.
Footnote 1729:
Aristot. Prob. xxvi. 12.
Footnote 1730:
Id. xxvi. 2.
Footnote 1731:
Theophrast. De Ventis, § 51.
-----
The Zephyr[1732] which prevails in the spring, at mid-summer and in
autumn is felt chiefly in the evening and never in the morning.
According to Aristotle it is the gentlest wind that blows.[1733]
Theophrastus, however, remarks, that it is cold in some countries,
though less so than Boreas;[1734] but in the opinion of Hippocrates, it
is most of all winds charged with rain.[1735] The Argestos is no less
dry and serene than the Aparctias, though it sometimes brings
thunder-clouds and hail.[1736] This wind is remarkably cold at Chalcis
in Eubœa. When about the winter solstice it happens to blow, it dries
up and withers the trees more than long continued heats and
droughts.[1737] At Rhodes and at Cnidos it is usually accompanied by
heavy clouds.[1738]
-----
Footnote 1732:
Ζέφυρος, τὴν ᾠδὴν τοῖς κύκνοις ἐνδιδοὺς. Philost. Icon. i. 9. p. 779.
Footnote 1733:
Meteorol. ii. 5. 6. Problem. xxvi. 33. 35. 37. 54. 57.
Footnote 1734:
De Ventis, § 31.
Footnote 1735:
De Aër. et Loc. § 26.
Footnote 1736:
Aristot. Meteorol. ii. 6.
Footnote 1737:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 17. De Caus. Plant. v. 16.
Footnote 1738:
De Ventis, § 51.
-----
The Etesian winds which commence immediately after the summer solstice,
and continue through the dog-days, are in reality northern winds, but
occasionally point obliquely both towards the west and towards the east.
They prevail chiefly at night;[1739] and are sometimes exceedingly
powerful on the coast of Egypt.[1740] Another class of Etesian winds
prevailed earlier in the year, beginning about twenty days after the
winter solstice. These are weaker, more variable, and of briefer
duration than the real Etesian winds, and I will add, from my own
experience, cover the sky with dark clouds, and blow extremely cold even
along the shores of Marmarica and Cyrenè. In ancient Greece they
obtained the name of Ornithiæ—“the Bird Winds”—because they announced
the return of the birds.[1741] Or, according to another version of the
matter, because they were so cold as to strike dead various kinds of
birds during their flight, and strew the earth with their bodies.[1742]
-----
Footnote 1739:
Aristot. Meteorol. ii. 5. 6.
Footnote 1740:
Cæsar. De Bell. Civil.
Footnote 1741:
Coray, Disc. Prelim. ad Hippoc. de Aër. et Loc. §. 76.
Footnote 1742:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 877.
-----
During the winter months these cold and piercing winds blow with so much
fury over the land-locked seas and islands of Greece, that among the
ancients all navigation was suspended during the brumal season. In proof
of the violence of these aërial currents, which may almost be said to
set steadily in one direction through a great portion of the year, it
may be observed, that in several of the islands neither vines nor
fig-trees can be trained upright, but are blown down and compelled to
creep along the rocks.[1743] An example of the strength of the gales
which sometimes also prevail on the Hellenic continent is recorded in
history; during the retreat of Cleombrotos out of Bœotia, his army being
overtaken by a storm as it was traversing the mountain passes leading
from Creusis to Ægosthena along the shore of the sea, numerous sumpter
asses were blown with their ladings over the precipices; even the
shields and arms were in many cases whirled from the hands of the
soldiers and precipitated into the waves below; and to prevent similar
misfortune the rest of the army turned their bucklers upside down and
filled them with stones, while they pushed forward, divested of
defensive armour, into the Megaris, a friendly country, from which they
afterwards returned and fetched off their shields.[1744]
-----
Footnote 1743:
Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce. t. i. p. 284. Della Rocca, Traité
Complet des Abeilles. t. i. p. 203.
Footnote 1744:
Xenoph. Hellen. v. 4. 17.
-----
In cases of shipwreck the protection afforded to crews and merchandise
depended in most cases, perhaps, on the character and progress of
civilisation of the people on whose shore the accident happened. On the
coast of Thrace, in the neighbourhood of Salmydessos, where the whole
maritime population appear to have been confirmed wreckers, numerous
pillars were set up along the beach to mark the limits within which each
little community might claim whatever booty was drifted in by the sea.
Previous to this arrangement, the barbarians used frequently to come to
blows in the eager pursuit of this inhuman calling, and in these brawls
many lives were lost. Afterwards they appear to have carried on their
war against distressed mariners with perfect harmony and
equanimity.[1745] But among the Rhodians, an enterprising mercantile
people, the amount of salvage was regulated by a law which, together
with the rest of their commercial code, was afterwards adopted by the
Romans.
-----
Footnote 1745:
Xenoph. Anab. vii. 5. 12, seq.
-----
If gold, or silver, or any other article, be brought up from the depth
of eight cubits, the person who saves it shall receive one-third. If
from fifteen cubits, the person who saves it shall, on account of the
depth, receive one-half. If goods are cast up by the waves towards the
shore, and found sunk at the depth of one cubit, the person who carries
them out safe shall receive a tenth part.[1746] It was customary,
moreover, in old times, to keep a number of divers on board ships for
the purpose of descending to loosen the anchors when they chanced to
take too firm a hold in the sand, as also to recover goods which had
been thrown overboard in times of danger.[1747]
-----
Footnote 1746:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, i. 180.
Footnote 1747:
Lucian. Pharsal. iii. 697. Livius, xliv. 10. Manil. Astronom. 449.
-----
On various headlands and promontories of the ancient world beacon-fires
were habitually kindled to guide the course of the ships into port; and
for these, in after ages, light-houses, adorned with every beauty of
architecture, and carried to a vast height, were substituted. Of these
the most remarkable was that erected for Ptolemy Philadelphus, by
Sostratos, the Cnidian, whose name, by permission of the king, was
inscribed upon the structure.[1748] By one author it is described as
four hundred and fifty feet high, and equal in dimensions at the base to
one of the great pyramids of Memphis. In form it may possibly have
resembled the Haram el Kedâb, which consists of a series of square
towers from the basement upwards, diminishing in size, and appearing to
spring up out of each other. With this the language of Strabo[1749] very
well agrees, since he tells us, it was a building consisting of numerous
stages. On the summit bright fires were kept perpetually burning, so
that on that low shore, where there is no hill or mountain for many
days’ journey, the Pharos was ever the first object which presented
itself to mariners at sea, where its light, we are told, was visible at
the distance of a hundred miles. Occasionally, however, from its great
size and brilliance, it was mistaken for the moon, as this planet
itself, rising behind the dome and towers of a great capital, has
suggested to distant beholders the idea of a conflagration.[1750]
-----
Footnote 1748:
Cf. Lucian. Quom. Hist. sit. Conscrib. § 62.
Footnote 1749:
Geograph. xvii. 1. t. iii. p. 423.
Footnote 1750:
Vossius, ad Pomp. Mel. de Situ Orb. l. ii. c. 4. p. 272.
-----
CHAPTER XI.
EXPORTS AND IMPORTS.
Although we have above glanced slightly at the exports and imports of
Athens and several other states, we ought here perhaps to enter into
greater detail, for the purpose of rendering as complete as possible our
idea of the vigorous and extensive commerce carried on by the Greeks. It
will not of course be understood, that all the articles enumerated in
the present chapters constituted at any one time the floating materials
of Hellenic trade; the probability being, that some grew out of fashion
and were succeeded by others, for which at a later period they may again
have been substituted. But the mind must suppose itself to be dealing
with the whole extent of authentic Grecian history, within the limits of
which it will be found, that everything we here mention was trafficked
in, though it seems to be now impossible to observe in these matters a
strict chronology and fix the epoch at which each particular commodity
came into vogue, or was abandoned for something else.
Attica itself exported comparatively few of its own natural
productions;[1751] but having obtained the raw materials from other
regions, it expended upon them so much skill, and taste, and industry,
that they appeared to undergo a new creation, and were issued from the
Peiræeus like the native growth of the soil. This was the case with
various kinds of arms and armour, as sabres, and scimitars, greaves,
cuirasses, and helmets.[1752] These were sometimes richly gilt or inlaid
with gold, and adorned with embossed figures of rare workmanship.[1753]
-----
Footnote 1751:
Observing the plenty and prosperity always found in free states, Sir
Josiah Child observes, that good laws are sufficient of themselves to
render any region fertile. Discourse of Trade, p. 24. Among the best
productions of Attica was its barley, though I nowhere remember to
have seen it said that it was exported: Ἀθήνῃσι δ᾽οὖν αἱ κριθαὶ τὰ
πλεῖστα ποιοῦσι τὰ ἄλφιτα· κριθοφόρος γὰρ ἀρίστη. Theoph. Hist. Plant.
viii. 8. 2.
Footnote 1752:
Εὐδόκιμα δὲ, θώραξ Ἀττικουργὴς. Poll. i. 149.
Footnote 1753:
Ἕνιοι μέντοι τοὺς ποικίλους καὶ τοὺς ἐπιχρύσους θώρακας μᾶλλον
ὠνοῦνται. Xenoph. Memor. iii. 10. 14.
-----
Perfumes,[1754] also, with unguents and essences,[1755] and odoriferous
oils were among the exports of Athens, which, indeed, at one period
retailed to the rest of Greece the manufactures of every country in the
civilised world.
-----
Footnote 1754:
Μύρον ἐξ Ἀθηνῶν. ap. Athen. i. 49.
-----
Among the articles of merchandise,[1756] the peculiar produce of her own
soil, were the fragrant gold-coloured honey of Hymettos, the best in the
ancient world; olives, and olive oil,[1757] which likewise appear to
have been unrivalled; fruits of various kinds, but more especially
figs,[1758] which were transported to Persia and most of the other
regions of the East.[1759]
-----
Footnote 1755:
Τὸ δὲ Παναθηναϊκὸν λεγόμενον ἐν Ἀθήναις. Athen. xv. 38.
Footnote 1756:
Μέλι πρωτέυει τὸ Ἀττικὸν, καὶ τούτου τὸ Ὑμήττιον καλούμενον. Dioscor.
ii. 101. Strab. ix. 1. t. ii. p. 246. Geopon. vii. 17. viii. 25. 1.
Ἄριστον μέλι τὸ Ἀττικὸν, καὶ τοῦ Ἀττικοῦ τὸ Ὑμήττιον. Diophan. ap.
Geopon. xv. 7. 1. Plin. Nat. Hist. xi. 13. xxi. 10. Galen. de Antidot.
i. 2. Virg. Georg. iv. 177. Tzetz. Chil. vii. 93. xi. 370. Synes.
Epist. 147. Eustath. ad Dion. Perieg. 530.
Footnote 1757:
Petit, de Legg. Att. v. 5, p. 417. Æschin. Epist. 5. Orat. Att. xii.
p. 305. Geopon. ix. 1. 1. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 14.
Footnote 1758:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 767.
Footnote 1759:
The importation of these delicacies, however, originally profited the
subjects of Persia only, the king having been forbidden by a
fundamental law of the monarchy the use of all foreign commodities.
The ordinance of course was speedily dispensed with, since we find the
eunuchs placing before their master, at his dessert, the figs of
Attica, which on one occasion, drew from the Shah a right royal
remark: Ἐρωτῆσαι ποταπαὶ εἶεν. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐπύθετο ἐξ Ἀθηνῶν, τοῖς
ἀγορασταῖς ἐκέλευεν ὠνεῖσθαι, ἕως, ἂν ἐξουσία γένηται αὐτῷ λαμβάνειν
ὅταν ἐφέλῃ, καὶ μὴ ἁγοράζειν. Athen. xiv. 62. The best figs came from
the Demos Ægilia. Id. ibid. Ἀπ’ Αἰγίλω ἰσχάδα τρώγοις. Theocrit.
Eidyll. i. 147. These fruits we find reached Persia in a state of the
greatest freshness and perfection. Plut. Alexand. § 50.
-----
A trade was carried on too in herbs and plants, which being more
fragrant and possessing greater virtues here than in any other country,
the citizens of the neighbouring states sought to obtain the like, by
procuring slips and seeds from Athens. Thus strangers having observed
that the knolls and uplands of Attica were covered with thyme,[1760]
which, flowering about midsummer, filled the air with sweetness, and
enabled the owners of bees to foretell with exactness whether honey
would be scarce or plentiful, desired to transplant it to the
neighbourhood of their own cities. It was found however by experience,
that it flourished and attained its natural luxuriance only in such
situations as were reached by the sea breezes.[1761] In Arcadia, for
example, it refused to be naturalised, though the climate of that
country was found to agree very well with the marjoram, and the summer
savory. Among the simples employed by the ancients in their materia
medica were the Attic valerian,[1762] hemlock,[1763] and melilot.[1764]
Kermes also were produced in this country.[1765]
-----
Footnote 1760:
Ægialeus appears, for example, to have been no less celebrated for its
thyme than Hymettos. Suid. V. μᾶσσον. t. ii. p. 104. a. Meurs. Rel.
Attic. i. p. 2. Plin. Nat. Hist. iv. 11.
Footnote 1761:
Οὐ γάρ φασι δύνασθαι φύεσθαι καὶ λαμβάνειν, ὅπου μὴ ἀναπνοὴ
διϊκνεῖται, ἡ ἀπὸ τῆς θαλάσσης· διὸ οὐδ᾽ ἐν Ἀρκαδίᾳ γίνεται· θύμβρα δὲ
καὶ ὀρίγανον καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα πολλὰ καὶ πολλαχοῦ. Theoph. Hist. Plant.
vi. 2. 4.
Footnote 1762:
Sibthorp, Flora Græca. tab. 29. Dioscor. i. 10.
Footnote 1763:
Dioscor. iv. 79. According to Plutarch, however, it was not a common
plant; for speaking of a prodigy which happened during the misfortunes
of the republic, under the reign of Antigonos, he says: περὶ δὲ τοὺς
βωμοὺς τοὺς ἐκείνων ἐξήνθησεν ἡ γῆ κύκλω πολὺ κώνειον, ἄλλως μηδὲ τῆς
χώραι πολλαχοῦ φυόμενον. Vit. Demet. § 12.
Footnote 1764:
Dioscor. iii 48. Damogeron, ap. Geopon. vii. 13. 4. Pollux. vi. 106.
Footnote 1765:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxiv. 4.
-----
The Athenian pottery,[1766] being the most tasteful and beautiful known
to the ancient world, was consequently in great request and exported in
immense quantities to all the countries on the shores of the
Mediterranean.[1767] At one time, however, the people of Ægina and
Argos, partly out of resentment,[1768] and partly to encourage some less
costly manufacture of their own, prohibited its introduction; while the
people of Aulis,[1769] Samos,[1770] and Rhodes,[1771] became, in this
branch of industry, the rivals of the Athenians, whom they endeavoured
to undersell by producing an inferior article.[1772]
-----
Footnote 1766:
Schol. Aristoph. Lysist. 2. Potters, notwithstanding the utility of
their calling, appear to have been assailed by many a joke among the
Athenians, who sometimes sarcastically denominated them Prometheuses.
Καὶ αὐτοὶ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι τοὺς χυτρέας, καὶ ἰπνοποιοὺς, καὶ πάντας, ὅσοι
πυλουργοὶ, Προμηθέας ἀπεκάλουν, επισκώπτοντες ἐς τὸν πηλὸν, καὶ τὴν ἐν
πυρὶ οἶμαι τῶν σκευῶν ὄπτησιν. Lucian. Prometh. 2. Cf. Chandler, ii.
166.
Footnote 1767:
Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 1768:
Herod. v. 88. Athen. xi. 107. Poll. vi. 100. Steph. Byzant. v.
Αἰγιναι. p. 53. a.—v. Γάζα. p. 257. a.
Footnote 1769:
Pausan. ix. 19. 8.
Footnote 1770:
Theoph. De Lapid. § 63. “On faisoit autrefois d’excellente poterie à
Samos, et c’êtoit peut-être avec la terre de Bavonda.” Tournefort,
Voyage du Levant, t. ii. p. 112.
Footnote 1771:
Athen. xi. 11. 95. 101. 108.
Footnote 1772:
The inferiority of the Samian pottery may be inferred from the
following passage of Cicero: “Ille, homo eruditissimus, ac Stoicus,
stravit pelliculis hœdinis lectulos Punicanos, et exposuit vasa Samia:
quasi verò esset Diogenes Cynicus mortuus, et non divini hominis
Africani mors honestaretur.” Pro Muren. 36. Cf. Plin. xxxv. 46.
-----
Among the other exports of Athens we find enumerated soft fine
wool,[1773] linen and woollen cloths,[1774] slippers,[1775] beds,
chests, books,[1776] wine,[1777] Sphettian vinegar,[1778]
sweetmeats,[1779] glaucisci,[1780] anchovies,[1781] sheep,[1782] live
fowls,[1783] Hymettian[1784] and Pentelic[1785] marbles,
quicksilver,[1786] ochre,[1787] and cinnabar.[1788]
-----
Footnote 1773:
Athen. v. 60.
Footnote 1774:
Thucyd. i. 6.
Footnote 1775:
Lucian. Rhet. Præcept. § 15.
Footnote 1776:
Xenoph. Anab. vii. 5. 14.
Footnote 1777:
Much of the wine, however, exported by the Athenians into foreign
countries was the produce of the islands. Demosth. cont. Lacrit. § 8.
Footnote 1778:
Schol. Aristoph. Plut. 720. Athen. ii. 76.
Footnote 1779:
Plat. De Rep. iii. t. vi. p. 142. Sweetmeats seem in Greece to have
been exported exactly as at present, in boxes of peculiar construction
in which they were afterwards kept till eaten. This I think may be
inferred from the following passage of the letter from Hippolochos to
Lynceus: καὶ τελευταῖαι ἐπεισῆλθον ἐπιδορπίαι τράπεζαι· τραγήματα τ᾽
ἐν πλεκτοῖς ἐλεφαντίνοις ἐπεδόθη πᾶσι, καὶ πλακοῦντες ἕκαστα γένη,
Κρητικῶν, καὶ τῶν σῶν, ἑταῖρε Λυγκεῦ, Σαμιακῶν, καὶ Ἀττικῶν, αὐταῖς
ταῖς ιδίαις τῶν πεμμάτων θήκαις. Athen. iv. 5.
Footnote 1780:
Athen. vii. 24.
Footnote 1781:
Aristoph. Acharn. 901, sqq. Athen. vii. 22.
Footnote 1782:
Athen. xii. 57.
Footnote 1783:
Athen. vii. 23.
Footnote 1784:
Strab. ix. 1. t. ii. p. 246.
Footnote 1785:
Lucian. Jup. Tragœd. § 10. Chandler, ii. 280.
Footnote 1786:
Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, ii. 434.
Footnote 1787:
Dioscor. v. 108. Plin. xxxiii. 56.
Footnote 1788:
Theophrast. De Lapid. § 59. Plin. Nat. Hist. iii. 37.
-----
Another class of exports consisted of statues and works of arts of all
kinds, in gold, marble, bronze, and ivory, jewellery, and engraved gems.
But the most valuable and commodious of all her merchandise was that
silver[1789] of unrivalled purity and fineness which so long placed her
foremost among the commercial states of antiquity, and was one of the
great props of her empire both by sea and land.
-----
Footnote 1789:
Strab. ix. 1. t. ii. p. 246. Suid. v. ἀργυροῦν, t. i. p. 415. e.
Thucyd. ii. 55. vi. 91. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 361, 1091. Pausan. i. 1.
1.
-----
In the matter of imports we shall consider Athens in a double point of
view; first as the purchaser of the surplus produce of the other Grecian
states,[1790] and second as the representative of Greece in general,
collecting together in her ports the commodities of the rest of the
world, and afterwards distributing them among her neighbours. With the
Megaris, which once formed part of her own territory, Athens, at
particular periods of her history, carried on an active traffic in the
common necessaries of life,—as groats,[1791] fish,[1792] salt,[1793]
goats, vegetables,[1794] leverets, poultry, pigs, and cattle.[1795]
Hemlock was likewise numbered among the exports of Megara,[1796]
together with jars,[1797] and rough upper garments.[1798] It seems
probable moreover that, as numerous sheep were reared in this territory,
fine wool was likewise on occasions imported thence into Attica,[1799]
together with the rich sweet wine made at Ægosthena.[1800]
-----
Footnote 1790:
Ἐπεισέρχεται δὲ διὰ μέγεθος τῆς πόλεως ἐκ πάσης γῆς τὰ πάντα· καὶ
ξυμβαίνει ἡμῖν μηδὲν οἰκειότερα τῇ ἀπολαύσει τὰ αὐτοῦ ἀγαθὰ γιγνόμενα
καρποῦσθαι, ἢ καὶ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἄνθρώπων. Thucyd. ii. 38.
Footnote 1791:
Athen. iii. 101.
Footnote 1792:
Id. vii. 45.
Footnote 1793:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 760. Dioscor. v. 126.
Footnote 1794:
As for instance radishes, (Athen. vii. 23,) and cucumbers. (Schol.
Aristoph. Pac. 966. Acharn. 494.) I know not whether the samphire
(κρίθμον) now found growing among the Saronian rocks (Chandler, ii.
225) entered into the list of the exports of Megara, though it was
used both as a medicine and as a vegetable. Dioscor. ii. 157.
Footnote 1795:
Aristoph. Acharn. 519, seq.
Footnote 1796:
Dioscor. iv. 79.
Footnote 1797:
Athen. i. 50.
Footnote 1798:
Xenoph. Memor. ii. 7. 6.
Footnote 1799:
Diog. Laert. vi. 2. 41.
Footnote 1800:
Athen. x. 56. Pausan. i. 44. 4. Steph. De Urb. p. 54. a.
-----
From the various divisions of the Peloponnesos, which we may here regard
as one country, several useful commodities were exported. In the matter
of corn these divisions of Greece were alternately exporters and
importers according, probably, to the fluctuations of the season or
peculiar exigencies created by the accidents of peace or war.[1801] They
perpetually, however, supplied their neighbours with cheese and wine,
and various other articles of use or luxury.
-----
Footnote 1801:
See above, Book vi. chap. 9.
-----
The poet Alcman celebrates a fragrant wine produced in the vicinity of
Sparta,[1802] but it is nowhere stated whether it was exported or not.
The little state of Phlius produced likewise a superior wine which was
esteemed at Athens.[1803] Laconia exported cheese, which, being shipped
at Gythium,[1804] was commonly supposed to be made at that place. The
cheese of Tromileia in Achaia enjoyed as great a reputation throughout
Greece, as the Parmasan in modern Europe. It was remarkable for the
extreme delicacy of its flavour, and was made from goat’s milk with the
juice of the fig-tree instead of rennet.[1805] Sicyon carried on a
considerable trade in salted conger.[1806]
-----
Footnote 1802:
Athen. i. 57.
Footnote 1803:
Id. i. 49.
Footnote 1804:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. § 14.
Footnote 1805:
Athen. xiv. 76. Eurip. Cyclop. 136.
Footnote 1806:
Athen. vii. 31. i. 49.
-----
Several medicinal plants were obtained from this part of Greece, as
liquorice vetch[1807] found on the tops of lofty mountains where the
snows lay unmelted during a considerable portion of the year. The canton
which most abounded in this plant seems to have been the country round
Pheneon in Arcadia.
-----
Footnote 1807:
Ἀστράγαλος, Dioscor. iv. 62. “Peut-on rien voir de plus beau, en fait
de plantes, qu’un Astragale de deux pieds de haut, chargé de fleurs
depuis le bas jusques à l’extremité de ses tiges?” Tournefort, Voyage
du Levant, t. iii. p. 101.
-----
In the neighbourhood of Psophis in the same state, the cultivation of
the heraclean all-heal[1808] was carried on to a great extent, as
Arcadia traded largely in this article of the materia medica. The juice
was collected in two ways, and at two different seasons of the year;
first from the root when the plant began to germinate in spring. A small
trench having been excavated about it, an incision was made in the root
and a number of broad leaves spread around to receive the liquor which
flowed forth. This, at first white, assumed externally as it dried, a
saffron hue. The second method was to make an incision in the stem about
harvest-time, when the fluid appears tog have been collected in the same
manner as before. Near Nonacris was obtained a poisonous water which
distilled slowly like dew from a rock. It was of a sharp and icy
coldness, and so bitter and acrid, that no vessel whatsoever could
contain it save the hoof of an ass, in which accordingly it was
preserved.[1809]
-----
Footnote 1808:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 56. Πανάκες Ἡράκλειον. Dioscor. iii. 55. Theoph.
Hist. Plant. ix. 11. 3. Cornel. Cels. v. 19. 3. Cf. Tournefort, Voyage
du Levant, t. iii. p. 25.
Footnote 1809:
Plut. Alexand. § 76. Senec. Quæst. Nat. iii. 5. Plin. Nat. Hist. ii.
106. xxi. 19.
-----
Among the poisons of the Peloponnesos was the root of the
meadow-saffron,[1810] found chiefly in Messenia, where likewise grew the
æthiopis, a plant used by magicians as well as by the children of
Æsculapius.[1811] The centaury,[1812] likewise, and the seseli,[1813]
were among the exports of this part of Greece.
-----
Footnote 1810:
Κολχικὸν. Dioscor. iv. 84.
Footnote 1811:
Dioscor. iv. 105.
Footnote 1812:
Id. iii. 8.
Footnote 1813:
Id. iii. 92. Celsus, iv. 18. 29. This plant was employed in
preparations to drive away serpents. Geopon. xiii. 8. 2. Nicand.
Theriac. 76. Apul. de Herb. c. xcv.
-----
From Arcadia were obtained large carbuncles,[1814] which were cut and
polished into mirrors, with timber of all kinds,—as deal, larch, and
pine, together with the smilax,[1815] which was sawed into thin planks,
and used for necessary articles of furniture. The neighbourhood of
Mantinea produced an excellent species of radish which was
exported.[1816] Arcadia likewise produced, in its rich pastures, fine
herds of cattle, together with asses and horses, no way inferior to
those of Thessaly.[1817]
-----
Footnote 1814:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 33. Cf. Anselm. Boet. Gem. et Lap. Hist. ii. 9, p.
141.
Footnote 1815:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 16. 3.
Footnote 1816:
Athen. i. 6.
Footnote 1817:
Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 68. Strab. viii. 8. t. ii. p. 226.
-----
Argos exported also horses,[1818] with purple garments,[1819] wild
boars,[1820] caldrons,[1821] shields,[1822] and richly varied
carbuncles,[1823] found in the neighbourhood of Trœzen;[1824] Sicyon,
pictures,[1825] wine,[1826] and a peculiar kind of shoe which looked
well with white socks or stockings;[1827] Elis, magnificent
horses,[1828] whips,[1829] flax,[1830] poisons, iris unguent,[1831]
centaury from the skirts of Mount Pholoë,[1832] nenuphar,[1833] which
was found growing on the river Anygros, and sea-coal, used chiefly by
smiths;[1834] Achaia mistletoe, parsley,[1835] headnets, all kinds of
fine linen, manufactured at Patræ,[1836] and the Pellenian cloaks,[1837]
which were proposed as prizes in certain games. Epidauros was remarkable
for its noble breed of horses;[1838] Corinth, which was frequently
supplied with corn from Epeiros, itself exported[1839] carpets, ladies’
summer mantles, linen tunics,[1840] articles of virtu in bronze and
gold,[1841] and carbuncles variegated like those of Trœzen, with purple
and white, but of a paler hue.[1842] Quinces[1843] of the richest colour
and finest flavour, were found in this part of the isthmus; and probably
pears which were found every where else in Peloponnesos. Corinthia
abounded also with large and excellent turnips, which were no doubt
exported to the neighbouring countries.[1844]
-----
Footnote 1818:
Strab. viii. 8. t. ii. p. 227.
Footnote 1819:
Plut. Vit. Alexand. § 36.
Footnote 1820:
Athen. vii. 32.
Footnote 1821:
Athen. i. 49, seq. Poll. i. 149.
Footnote 1822:
Dissen, ad Pind. Nem. x. 41.
Footnote 1823:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 25. Theoph. de Lapid. § 33. Athen. v. 26.
Footnote 1824:
Anselm. Boet. Gem. et Lap. Hist. ii. 9, p. 142.
Footnote 1825:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxv. 36. Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art, t. ii. p. 200, seq.
Footnote 1826:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. 9.
Footnote 1827:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. § 14. Rhet. Præcept. § 15. Ammon. v. Σχισταὶ, p.
133.
Footnote 1828:
Plat. Hipp. Maj. t. v. p. 424.
Footnote 1829:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 724.
Footnote 1830:
Pausan. viii. 21. 14.
Footnote 1831:
Dioscor. i. 66.
Footnote 1832:
Id. iii. 8.
Footnote 1833:
Id. iii. 148.
Footnote 1834:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 16.
Footnote 1835:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 46.
Footnote 1836:
Pausan. vii. 21. 14.
Footnote 1837:
Strab. viii. 7. t. ii. p. 224.
Footnote 1838:
Strab. viii. 8. t. ii. p. 227.
Footnote 1839:
Athen. i. 49. xiii. 45.
Footnote 1840:
Athen. xii. 29.
Footnote 1841:
Athen. v. 30. Plin, Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 12. ix. 65. xxxiv. 6. Cf.
Goguet, Orig. des Loix, v. 303. Iorio, Storia del Commercio, t. iv. l.
ii. c. vi. p. 251.
Footnote 1842:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 25. Theoph. de Lapid. § 33.
Footnote 1843:
To this fruit Euphorion alludes in the following verses:
Ὥριον οἷά τε μῆλον, ὁ δ᾽ ἀργιλλώδεσιν ὄχθαις
Πορφύρεον ἐλαχείῃ ἐνι τρέφεται Σιδόεντι.
Athen. iii. 22. Geopon. x. 3. 6.
Footnote 1844:
Εὐαυξεστάτην δὲ τὴν Κορινθίαν (ῥαφανίδα), ἣ καὶ τὴν ῥίζαν ἔχει γυμνήν·
ὠθεῖται γὰρ εἰς τὸ ἄνω, καὶ οὐχ ὡς αἱ ἄλλαι κάτω. Theoph. Hist. Plant.
vii. 4. 2. Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 25.
-----
Among the productions which Laconia[1845] supplied to commerce were a
bearded and somewhat light wheat,[1846] cheese, rathe figs,[1847]
cabbage, lettuces, cucumbers,[1848] which required much watering, the
euphorbia, hemlock, second in virtue to that of Susa,[1849] clouded
canes,[1850] beautiful green marbles,[1851] hones and emeralds from
Mount Taygetos.[1852] The dogs of Sparta were highly prized by the rest
of Greece,[1853] and exported largely for the chace; according to
Shakespeare, as early as the age of Theseus.
My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-kneed and dew-lap’d like Thessalian bulls,
Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouths like bell
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never hollow’d to, nor cheer’d with horn
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.
-----
Footnote 1845:
Cf. Huet, Hist. of Commerce, p. 47. Goguet, Orig. des Loix, v. 309.
Footnote 1846:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xviii. 20. Cf. Xenoph. iii. 4. 3.
Footnote 1847:
Id. xvi. 49.
Footnote 1848:
Id. xix. 23. 38. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 4. 6.
Footnote 1849:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxv. 95. Schol. Aristoph. Concion. 404.
Footnote 1850:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 174. Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 66.
Footnote 1851:
Pausan. ii. 3. 5. iii. 21. 4. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 11. Tibull.
Eleg. l. iii. el. 3. v. 13, seq. The marble of Tænaros was of a yellow
colour. Sext. Empir. Hypot. p. 26. Cf. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art, i. 40.
Footnote 1852:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 47. xxxvii. 18. Douglas, Essay on the Modern
Greeks, p. 167.
Footnote 1853:
Athen. i. 49. Plin. Nat. Hist. x. 83. Pollux. v. 37. Aristot. Hist.
Animal. viii. 28. Spanh. Observ. in Callim. in Dian. 94, t. ii. p.
196.
-----
In addition to the above, Sparta exported cothons,[1854] a species of
fictile cups of a dusky brown, and so small as to have been conveniently
carried in the long-necked wicker baskets which served the soldiers of
Greece in lieu of a knapsack. It had one handle, and the rim projecting
inwards, kept back the grosser particles of mud contained in the water,
or rather, perhaps, deceived the eye by its hue. It was, moreover, the
common drinking vessel of sailors on board ship.[1855] The manufacture
of these cups formed a distinct branch of business, the individuals
engaged in which were called cothon-makers,[1856] to distinguish them
from ordinary potters.
-----
Footnote 1854:
Suid. v. κώθων et κώθωνες, t. i. p. 1510. a. b.
Footnote 1855:
Suid. v. κώθωνες, t. i. p. 1510. b. Hesych. in v. Athen. xi. 66. Plut.
Lycurg. § 9. Poll. vi. 96, seq. Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 2. 8.
Footnote 1856:
Poll. vii. 160.
-----
In their festivals and marriage entertainments, as well as in war which
they regarded much in the same light, the Spartans indulged in the
luxury of fictile vessels, but at their common tables they drank out of
wooden bowls,[1857] for the production of which, as well as of smaller
goblets, Laconia was famous. It likewise, in later times at least,
manufactured for exportation massive gold plate curiously chased, which,
under the Macedonian kings, found its way to Egypt.[1858] Indeed these
military utilitarians appear to have excelled in the making of all
articles of ordinary convenience, as couches, easy-chairs, and tables,
which accordingly were much sought after.[1859] Doors have likewise been
enumerated among Laconian exports,[1860] but with little probability,
especially when we recollect the directions given by the Spartan
legislator for the construction of this part of domestic defence;[1861]
nor is it a jot more likely that the carts and waggons which the
Lacedæmonians constructed of smilax ever found their way beyond the
borders of Laconia, unless employed in carrying provisions for its own
armies.[1862]
-----
Footnote 1857:
Polem. ap. Athen. xi. 66.
Footnote 1858:
Athen. v. 28. 30.
Footnote 1859:
Plut. Lycurg. § 9.
Footnote 1860:
Müller, Dorians, ii. 25. Meurs. Lacon. ii. 17.
Footnote 1861:
Plut. Lycurg. § 13.
Footnote 1862:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 16.3.
-----
The steel and iron, however, of the Lacedæmonian forges were, as
elsewhere stated, in great request for the making of carpenters’ and
stonecutters’ tools, augers, files, chisels,[1863] &c.; as were likewise
the Laconian locks and keys, which were divided into three wards, and
far more intricate than those in common use.[1864] The manufactures
which flourished in the city of Sparta itself, and were chiefly,
perhaps, designed to supply the home-market were those of iron rings,
daggers,[1865] short scimitars, swords, spits, axes, hatchets, and
scythes, together with felt,[1866] walking-sticks,[1867] lute and
bow-strings, which, as well as several of the above, we know to have
been exported.[1868]
-----
Footnote 1863:
Steph. de Urb. v. Λακεδαίμων, p. 505. c. seq. Eustath. ad Il. β. 222.
27. Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 3. 7. Plin. Nat. Hist. vii. 56. Cf. Æn.
Tactic. ii. 16.
Footnote 1864:
Suid. v. Λακωνικαὶ κλεῖδες, t. ii. p. 6. b.
Footnote 1865:
Poll. i. 149. 137. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 4. Xenoph. Anab. iv. 8.
25. Suid. v. ξυήλήν, t. ii. p. 258. e. f.
Footnote 1866:
Poll. i. 149.
Footnote 1867:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 174. The καλαυροψ, or shepherd’s crook,
was most probably reckoned among the exports of Arcadia. Cf. Etym.
Mag. 485. 36. Suid. t. i. p. 1356. c.
Footnote 1868:
Περὶ τὰ Κύθηρα δὲ ἔτι καὶ μείζω τὰ κήτη ὑμνοῦσι γίνεσθαι. Ἕοικε δ᾽
αὐτῶν καὶ τὰ νεῦρα λυσιτελῆ εἶναι εἰς τὰς τῶν ψαλτηρίων, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων
ὀργάνων χερδοστροφίας· καὶ μέντοι καὶ ἐς τὰ πολεμικὰ ὀργάνα αἱ τούτων
νευραὶ δοκοῦσι λυσιτελέσταται. Ælian. de Animal. xvii. 6.
-----
The citizens of Amyclæ excelled in the making of ladies’ slippers;[1869]
and in the other parts of Laconia were produced an elegant kind of men’s
shoes of red leather,[1870] like those at present worn by the
Turks.[1871] In weaving and dyeing, also, the Lacedæmonians
distinguished themselves, their mantles[1872] and their woollen
garments, whether of purple or scarlet,[1873] having been in much esteem
throughout Greece, as was likewise the purple by itself.[1874]
-----
Footnote 1869:
Theocrit. Eidyll. x. 35, cum Schol. Cf. Aristoph. Vesp. 1159.
Footnote 1870:
Steph. de Urb. v. Λακεδαίμων, p. 505. c. seq. Suid. v. Λακωνικαὶ, t.
ii. p. 6. a. Lucian. Rhet. Præcept. § 15. Athen. v. 54. Ὑποδήματα
ἄριστα Λακωνικὰ. Id. xi. 66.
Footnote 1871:
Poll. vii. 88. Müller, Dorians, ii. 25.
Footnote 1872:
Athen. v. 28. Suid. v. Λακωνικαὶ, t. ii. p. 6. a.
Footnote 1873:
Hesych. v. πυτά.
Footnote 1874:
Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 60. xxi. 22. Horat. Od. ii. 18. Pausan. iii 21.
6. Iorio, Storia del Commercio, t. iv. l. ii. c. x. p. 267.
-----
If we proceed now to the states of northern Greece, commencing with
Bœotia, we shall find, that their exports were little less rich or
varied. For the daily consumption of life[1875] the Athenians obtained
from this country a plentiful supply of poultry and wild-fowl,[1876]
such as the francolin, the coot, ducks, divers, geese,[1877] jackdaws,
and pyctides. Cats, too, were among the exports of Bœotia, (though
whether, as in Spain, they were substituted for rabbits at table, seems
hard to determine,) together with foxes, moles, otters, hares, and
hedgehogs.[1878]
-----
Footnote 1875:
Aristoph. Acharn. 860, sqq. Schol. ad Pac. 968, ad Lysist. 703. Poll.
vi. 63.
Footnote 1876:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 1079.
Footnote 1877:
Cf. Geopon. xiv. 22.
Footnote 1878:
Aristot. Hist. Animal. viii. 28.
-----
This state, likewise, furnished the rest of Greece with reeds[1879] for
the manufacture of pipes and flutes: they were produced on the banks of
the Melas, a river which, according to the ancients, resembled in
character and productions the Egyptian Nile. The wheat of Bœotia, where
such is the fertility of the soil, that it returns fifty for one, was of
old observed to be so heavy and full of nourishment, that the
athletæ[1880] considered a chœnix and a half of it as equal to two
chœnices of that produced in Attica. If any country, therefore, could,
in the matter of bread, have been expected to be independent of its
neighbours, it would doubtless have been Bœotia, which, nevertheless, we
find importing, in times of scarcity, corn from Thessaly.[1881]
-----
Footnote 1879:
Theoph. Hist. Plant, iv. 11. 5, seq. Strab. ix. 2. t. i. p. 624.
Casaub. On the river Melas and its plants see Plut. Sylla. § 20.
Footnote 1880:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 4. 5.
Footnote 1881:
Xenoph. Hellen. v. 4. 56.
-----
The remaining exports of this state may be thus enumerated:
cucumbers,[1882] radishes, leeks from Ascra, turnips from Thebes,[1883]
mustard, heraclean all-heal,[1884] pennyroyal, wild marjoram, nenuphar,
or madonia, found in the river Haliartos,[1885] the best black hellebore
from Mount Helicon,[1886] lampwicks, mats,[1887] locusts, cheese,[1888]
wine and stock-fish from Anthedon,[1889] and eels from Lake
Copais.[1890] Granite, likewise, and a valuable kind of marble, now
called brocatello, was obtained from the quarries near Thebes.[1891]
-----
Footnote 1882:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 23. Quintil. ap. Geopon. xii. 19.
Footnote 1883:
Athen. i. 6. ii. 48. Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 25.
Footnote 1884:
Πανάκες Ἡράκλειον. Dioscor. iii. 55.
Footnote 1885:
Dioscor. iii. 148. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 13. 1.
Footnote 1886:
Dioscor. iv. 151. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 10. 3. Geopon. vii. 12. 21.
Lomeier, de Lustrat. cap. xxiv. p. 304.
Footnote 1887:
Aristoph. Acharn. 860, sqq.
Footnote 1888:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 477.
Footnote 1889:
Dicæarch. ap. Geogr. Minor, ii. 18.
Footnote 1890:
Athen. i. 49. vii. 45. Aristoph. Lysist. 30. Acharn. 961. 1000. 1002.
Schol. ad Pac. 970.
Footnote 1891:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 6. See Sir John Hill’s Notes, p. 35.
-----
The magnet[1892] also was found in this country, as well as a species of
myrrh extracted from the root of a tree,[1893] and resembling in
fragrance and medicinal qualities the celebrated Arabian gum. Of
manufactured goods no great quantities seem to have been sent out of
Bœotia,[1894] though its helmets and chariots, together with its
apothecaries’ mortars[1895] and the pottery of Aulis enjoyed a great
reputation.[1896]
-----
Footnote 1892:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 25.
Footnote 1893:
Dioscor. i. 78.
Footnote 1894:
Poll. i. 149. Athen. i. 50.
Footnote 1895:
Dioscorid. v. 102.
Footnote 1896:
Pausan. ix. 19. 8.
-----
Phocis exported a celebrated kind of cutlery,[1897] manufactured at
Delphi, golden tripods,[1898] fans which found their way even to
Cypros,[1899] together with excellent wheat and barley grown in the
neighbourhood of Elatea,[1900] an inferior kind of deal,[1901]
black[1902] and white hellebore from Anticyra,[1903] apples from the
uplands around the shrine of Apollo,[1904] agrostis from
Parnassos,[1905] purple fish caught at Bulis,[1906] and kermes from the
plain between Ambryssos and Stiris:[1907] the colouring matter it was
known proceeded from an insect which, however, was supposed to exist in
the fruit of the tree.[1908]
-----
Footnote 1897:
Aristot. Polit. i. 1. Athen. iv. 74.
Footnote 1898:
Athen. v. 26.
Footnote 1899:
Id. vi. 70.
Footnote 1900:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 8. 2.
Footnote 1901:
Id. v. 2. 12.
Footnote 1902:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxi. 76.
Footnote 1903:
Ruf. Frag. p. 22, ap. Schneid. ad Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 10. 2.
Dioscor. iv. 150. Chandler, ii. 276. Polyænus, vi. 13.
Footnote 1904:
Athen. iii. 6.
Footnote 1905:
Dioscor. iv. 32. The reed-agrostis, which grew by the wayside in
Babylonia, was said to be fatal to the cattle which fed on it. Id. iv.
31.
Footnote 1906:
Chandler, ii. 228. Steph. de Urb. p. 238. c. Οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι οἱ ἐνταῦθα
πλέον ὑμίσεις κόχλων ἐς βαφὴν πορφύρας εἰσὶν ἁλιεῖς Pausan. x. 37. 3.
Footnote 1907:
Chandler, ii. 279.
Footnote 1908:
Pausan. x. 36. 1.
-----
The principal articles which Thessaly supplied to commerce were
shoes,[1909] easy chairs, slaves, branded on the forehead, and usually
shipped at Pagasæ,[1910] horses,[1911] cattle, wheat,[1912] chironean
all-heal,[1913] the best black hellebore,[1914] the nymphæa nelumbo from
the waters of the Peneios,[1915] gypsum,[1916] poisonous water, like
that of Nonacris,[1917] found near Tempè, and medicinal chalk.[1918]
-----
Footnote 1909:
Steph. Byzant. de Urb. v. Θεσσαλία. p. 394. a. Poll. vii. 89.
Footnote 1910:
Athen. i. 49. 50.
Footnote 1911:
Oppian. Cyneg. i. 171. Strab. viii. 8. t. ii. p. 226.
Footnote 1912:
Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 14.
Footnote 1913:
Πανάκες Χειρώνιων. Dioscor. iii. 57.
Footnote 1914:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 10. 2, with the note of Schneider.
Footnote 1915:
Dioscor. iii. 149. The root of this plant, which as has above been
seen was eaten in Greece, forms to this day an article of food among
the Chinese. The poor even eat it raw, in which case it is said to be
not very palateable. Osbeck, Voyage to China, i. 310.
Footnote 1916:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 64.
Footnote 1917:
Senec. Quæst. Nat. iii. 25, who gives as the reason, that the water
springs from iron or copper mines.
Footnote 1918:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 64. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxv. 57.
-----
From Epeiros were obtained wheat,[1919] gypsum, shepherds’ dogs,[1920] a
large superior sort of round apple,[1921] excellent horses, a breed of
oxen remarkable for their size,[1922] magnificent oak timber,[1923] and
acorns in large quantities for the planting of forests in other parts of
Greece;[1924] Ætolia, saffron,[1925] black hellebore,[1926] and
guinea-fowls,[1927] or, perhaps, wild turkeys, of which it was the
original country; Narycia, in the territories of the Epicnemidian
Locrians, tar;[1928] Acarnania, slings,[1929] mother of pearl,[1930] and
gold and silver-coloured pyrites.[1931]
-----
Footnote 1919:
Lycurg. cont. Leochar. § 8.
Footnote 1920:
Aristot. Hist. Animal. ix. 1. Poll. v. 39. Ælian. de Nat. Animal. iii.
2.
Footnote 1921:
Dioscor. i. 162. Plin. Nat. Hist. xv. 15.
Footnote 1922:
Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 70.
Footnote 1923:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ii. 2. 6.
Footnote 1924:
Palmer. Descrip. Græc. Antiq. p. 222.
Footnote 1925:
Dioscor. i. 25. In Venetian times the environs of Naupactos were
thought to produce the best wines of all Greece. Coronelli, Mem. de la
Morée, p. 231.
Footnote 1926:
Dioscor. iv. 151.
Footnote 1927:
Μελεαγρίδες. Athen. xiv. 70. Suid. t. ii. p. 122. a. Aristot. Hist.
Animal. vi. 2.
Footnote 1928:
Virg. Georg. ii. 438. Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. 25.
Footnote 1929:
Poll. i. 149.
Footnote 1930:
Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 56. Rondelet. i. 48. Aristot. Hist. Animal. v.
15.
Footnote 1931:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 30.
-----
The productions which Macedonia and Thrace contributed to the commerce
of the ancient world were numerous, and, in many cases, of the highest
value; as, for example, gold and silver,[1932] of which there were
mines[1933] both in Mount Pangæos,[1934] Scapte Hyle,[1935] and several
other places along the coast. History makes particular mention of those
which existed in the neighbourhood of Crenides,[1936] afterwards
Philippi, contending for which the Athenian general, Sophanes, lost his
life in a battle with the Edonians.[1937] In the country of the Pœonians
the husbandmen, cultivating the fields, often turned up bits of virgin
gold with the plough. To these we may add ship timber, pitch, and
tar,[1938] upon which the Athenians in the later ages of the republic,
chiefly depended for the construction of their navies, with rich and
fragrant wines, such as those of Mendè and Maronea.[1939]
-----
Footnote 1932:
Lucian, de Sacrif. § 11. Id. Fugitiv. § 24. Id. Icaromenip. § 18.
Plin. Nat. Hist., xxxiii. 21. vii. 57. Herod. vii. 112. ix. 75.
Xenoph. Hellen. v. 2. 12. Athen. ii. 16. Strab. vii. frag. 17. t. ii.
p. 133. Pausan. i. 29.
Footnote 1933:
The mines in the neighbourhood of lake Prasias, produced, in the time
of Alexander, son of Amyntas, a talent of silver a day. Herodot. v.
17.
Footnote 1934:
Xenoph. Hellen. v. 2. 17. Plin. vii. 57.
Footnote 1935:
These mines of Scapte Hyle produced to the Thasians, when they
possessed a power on the continent, a revenue of eighty talents a
year. Herodot. vi. 46. Appian. Bell. Civil. iv. 106.
Footnote 1936:
Diodor. Sicul. xvi. 8.
Footnote 1937:
Herodot. ix. 75. Meurs. Lection. Att. vi. 31.
Footnote 1938:
Æschin. adv. Timarch. § 6. Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1. 4. Thucyd. iv. 108.
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 2. 1. The wood grown on the northern slopes of
mountains was esteemed toughest, and, therefore, best suited for oars.
Id. Hist. Plant. iv. 1. 4.
Footnote 1939:
Athen. i. 47. Iorio, Storia del Commercio, t. iv. l. ii. c. iii. p.
235. Hom. Odyss. ix. 197. Steph. de Urb. v. Μένδη, p. 550. b. In the
vineyards of Mendè the husbandmen used to sprinkle the grape clusters
with the juice of the wild cucumber, which communicated to the wine a
medicinal quality. Athen. i. 53.
-----
From the gardens at the foot of Mount Pangæos the rose of a hundred
leaves appears to have been propagated throughout Greece.[1940] Rue, the
leaves and seeds of which were much used in ancient medicine,[1941]
abounded in a certain district of Macedonia, but does not appear to have
been introduced into commerce because it was esteemed a poison, and
flourished in a district greatly infested with vipers. The
rose-root,[1942] exported from Macedonia, resembled that of the costus
in form, and diffused an odour analogous to the perfume of the rose. It
was applied with oil of roses to remove the head-ache.
-----
Footnote 1940:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6. 4. The Greek fable on the birth of the
rose is familiar to every reader, but it may not, perhaps, be so well
known, that the Mahommedans believe it to have sprung from the sweat
of their prophet: “Ut veteres rosam ex sanguine Veneris, sic isti
(Turcæ) ex sudore Mahumetis natam sibi persuaserint.” Busbeq. Epist.
i. p. 51.
Footnote 1941:
Dioscor. iii. 52. From a passage in Polyænus it would appear, that
Thrace carried on habitually a trade with the neighbouring countries
in hay and straw. Stratagem. iii. 15.
Footnote 1942:
Dioscor. iv. 45.
-----
Among the other exports of Thrace and Macedonia were wine flavoured with
wormwood,[1943] truffles,[1944] beans from about Philippi,[1945]
heraclean all-heal,[1946] the juice of which was called opopanax,
odoriferous roots some of which exhaled the perfume of spikenard,[1947]
the meon,[1948] alum,[1949] corn,[1950] cheese,[1951] salt-fish,[1952]
mullets from Abdera,[1953] delcani from the lake Delcon,[1954] eels from
the Strymon,[1955] skates from Ænia,[1956] enormous horns of wild
bulls,[1957] timber for ships[1958] and oars,[1959] chrysocolla,[1960]
alum, reddle, jet from the neighbourhood of Bena,[1961] dark
carbuncles,[1962] and earths for preserving corn found near
Olynthos.[1963]
-----
Footnote 1943:
Dioscor. iii. 26.
Footnote 1944:
Athen. ii. 20. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 13.
Footnote 1945:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 8. 6.
Footnote 1946:
Dioscor. iii. 55.
Footnote 1947:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 7. 3. Dioscor. i. 1.
Footnote 1948:
Dioscor. i. 3.
Footnote 1949:
Id. v. 123.
Footnote 1950:
Lys. in Diogit. § 5. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 107.
Footnote 1951:
Athen. ii. 68.
Footnote 1952:
Id. vii. 45.
Footnote 1953:
Id. vii. 77.
Footnote 1954:
Id. iii. 87.
Footnote 1955:
Id. vii. 53.
Footnote 1956:
Id. vii. 25.
Footnote 1957:
Herod. vii. 126. Spanh. ad Callim. in Dian. 157. Plin. Nat. Hist.
viii. 16.
Footnote 1958:
Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1. 4.
Footnote 1959:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 1. 4.
Footnote 1960:
Dioscor. v. 123. 104. Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions, i. 292.
Footnote 1961:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 15.
Footnote 1962:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 25.
Footnote 1963:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 10. 7.
-----
From the countries situated on the Bosporos and the Black Sea, Greece
imported numerous valuable commodities, among which the principal were
corn,[1964] salt-meat,[1965] and fish,[1966]—as thunnies, corduli,
turbots, the kolias, a kind of mackerel, Tethæan oysters from Chalcedon,
amiæ,[1967] mullets,[1968] sturgeons, oxyrunchi,[1969] coracini, skates,
herrings,[1970] crabs,[1971] and the edible mussel.[1972] The way in
which some of these fish were caught in the Euxine is perhaps worth
describing:[1973] the natives pitching, in winter, their tents on the
ice,[1974] cut therein large open spaces, towards which the fish
thronging to enjoy the light, were taken in great numbers.
-----
Footnote 1964:
Demosth. adv. Polycl. § 2. Cont. Lept. § 9. This wheat, however, was
considered lighter than that grown in Greece. Theoph. Hist. Plant.
viii. 45. 5. Herod. vii. 147. Thucyd. iii. 2. Iorio, Storia del
Commercio, t. iv. l. ii. c. iii. p. 219.
Footnote 1965:
Demosth. in Lacrit. § 8. Busbequius, Epist. i. p. 67.
Footnote 1966:
Athen. iii. 84, sqq. § i. 49. Strab. vii. 6. t. ii. p. 112. A species
of rhombos, bret, or turbot, is still caught in considerable
quantities in the sea of Azof and in the Black Sea. Pallas, Travels in
Eastern Russia, iv. 243. Cf. Strab. ix. 2. t. ii. p. 401.
Footnote 1967:
Athen. vii. 6.
Footnote 1968:
Id. vii. 77.
Footnote 1969:
Athen. iii. 84.
Footnote 1970:
Lucian. Diall. Meret. § 14. Somn. seu Gall. § 22. Dioscor. ii. 7.
Pallas informs us, that at the present day large quantities of fat and
delicate herrings are caught with the trail-net in the Black Sea.
Travels in Southern Russia, iv. 242.
Footnote 1971:
Athen. vii. 45.
Footnote 1972:
Id. iii. 64.
Footnote 1973:
The Borysthenes which produced in its pure waters numerous species of
delicate fish, abounded likewise with a large kind, cured by the
inhabitants with the salt found plentifully at its mouth. Herod. iv.
53. Eustath. ad Dion. Perieg. 311.
Footnote 1974:
Aristot. Meteorol. i. 12, p. 29. A similar mode of fishing is
practised on Lake Ontario. “In the winter, when the bay (of Toronto)
is frozen over solidly, huts are erected, and holes made in the ice,
where the fish are caught by spearing.” Sir R. H. Bonnycastle,
Canadas, &c. i. 166.
-----
To the above may be added[1975] nuts, chestnuts, walnuts,[1976] honey,
wax,[1977] tar, wool, rigging, leather, goatskins, timber,[1978]
horses[1979] and pheasants from the Phasis,[1980] and slaves,
particularly archers.[1981] The honey of Heraclea, like that of
Mazanderân, and certain poisons, is said to have produced a temporary
madness.[1982] From the kingdom of Pontos was obtained that medicinal
root denominated rha,[1983] which has sometimes been confounded with
rhubarb,[1984] though the latter be laxative, the former astringent,
together with isinglass,[1985] used in cosmetics, for smoothing the
wrinkles of the face, liquorice-root, brought also from
Cappadocia,[1986] wild spikenard found growing on shady mountains,[1987]
wormwood which fattened sheep and diminished their gall,[1988]
amomon,[1989] and germander.[1990]
-----
Footnote 1975:
Athen. ii. 13. Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 66.
Footnote 1976:
Didym. ap. Geopon. x. 68. 1. Plin. Nat. Hist. xv. 22.
Footnote 1977:
Dioscor. ii. 105.
Footnote 1978:
Lucian. Navig. § 23. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 2. 12.
Footnote 1979:
There are in modern times few countries where horses are cheaper and
more numerous than in Colchis:—“Il n’y a point d’homme si pauvre dans
la Colchide qui n’ait un cheval, car il ne coute rien à entretenir;
entre les gentilshommes il y eu a qui en nourrissent deux cens et le
prince en a cinq mille.” Lamberti, Relation de la Mingrelie, Voyages
au Nord, t. vii. p. 193.
Footnote 1980:
Aristoph. Nub. 109. The woods of Colchis abound still in pheasants and
partridges. Busbequius, Epist. iii. p. 205. Lamberti, however,
relates, that the race of partridges was almost extinct in Colchis,
through the abundance of birds of prey. Voyages au Nord, t. vii. p.
192.
Footnote 1981:
Thucyd. iii. 2. Plut. Sympos. v. 7. 1. Eurip. in Alcest. 675.
Footnote 1982:
There was likewise in Pontos a honey of a bitter taste, (Dion.
Chrysost. i. 289, seq.) collected, according to Dioscorides (ii. 103),
and Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxi. 44), from the purple flowered dwarf
rhododendron which abounds on the northern shores of the Black Sea,
more particularly in the vicinity of Trebizond. (Tournefort, t. iii.
p. 74, sqq.) This, apparently, was the honey that produced effects so
extraordinary upon the Ten Thousand, (Xenoph. Anab. iv. 8. 20,) and
had the reputation of causing temporary madness. The shrub above named
must be carefully distinguished from the common rhododendron which
yields no honey. Della Rocca, i. 352, seq. Another cause of the
bitterness of the Colchian honey is assigned by Lamberti: “Ils mettent
quelquefois leur miel dans des écorces de citrouilles amères, ce qui a
peut-être donné sujet à Strabon, [l. xi. c. 2. t. ii. p. 409,
Tauchnitz.] d’en parler comme il a fait, et il est vrai aussi que
celui qu’on ramasse dans les montagnes, dans le tems que le
laurier-rose est en fleur, fait vomir ceux qui en prennent: si bien
que les païsans, faute d’autre remède, s’en servent pour se purger.”
Voyages au Nord, t. vi. p. 197.
Footnote 1983:
Dioscor. iii. 2. It has been conjectured by Prosper Alpinus that the
Rha was brought to Pontos from the banks of the Volga, as Ammianus
Marcellinus in fact, relates: Rha vicinus est amnis, in cujus
superciliis quædam vegetabilis ejusdem nominis gignitur radix,
proficiens ad usus multiplices medelarum, l. xxii. c. 8, p. 340.
Footnote 1984:
See the whole question ably discussed by Prosper Alpinus, De
Rhapontico, cap. ii. p. 9.
Footnote 1985:
Ἡ δὲ ἰχθυόκολλα λεγομένη κοιλία ἐστὶν ἰχθύος κητώοὺ Dioscor. iii. 102.
Footnote 1986:
Africanus, ap. Geopon. v. 24. 2. vii. 24. 4. Dioscor. iii. 7. Plin.
Nat. Hist. xi. 119.
Footnote 1987:
Dioscor. i. 9.
Footnote 1988:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 17. 4. Dioscor. 26, seq.
Footnote 1989:
Dioscor. i. 14. Damogeron. ap. Geopon. vii. 13. 1. Plin. Nat. Hist.
xii. 13.
Footnote 1990:
Σκορδίον. Dioscor. iii. 125.
-----
Melilot[1991] was exported from Chalcedon, and Cyzicos, where there was
likewise an extensive manufactory of unguent of marjoram,[1992] a plant
which appears to have grown abundantly amid the neighbouring hills, and
was commonly wreathed in garlands. The making of this article of
commerce was a complicated operation, and numerous ingredients entered
into its composition,—as oil of green olives, and of acorns, balsam
wood, odoriferous rushes and reeds perfumed with marjoram, spikenard,
costus, amomon, cassia, carpobalsamon, and myrrh. To render the ointment
still more precious cinnamon was sometimes intermingled with it, the
vessel in which it was kept moistened with wine, while honey was made
the basis of the paste.
-----
Footnote 1991:
Dioscor. iii. 48. Pollux, vi. 106.
Footnote 1992:
Dioscor. i. 68. Cf. iii. 47. Cyzicos, likewise exported beans. Theoph.
Hist. Plant. viii. 10. 3.
-----
The shores of the Propontis furnished wine flavoured with
wormwood,[1993] cardamums,[1994] and the substance called halcyonion,
supposed by the ancients to have been that indurated froth of the
sea,[1995] with which the halcyon built her nest. It was obtained as
well on the continent as from the island of Besbicos, now
Kalolimno.[1996] A very similar substance, called Adarces, was found in
Cappadocia,[1997] about the rivers and marshes, where it hung suspended
on the tops of reeds. Aconite[1998] and origany came from the country of
the Maryandinians,[1999] and agaric from Sarmatia,[2000] doubtless by
way of the Dnieper. The Sea of Marmora produced black coral, as also a
sort of floating petroleum.[2001]
-----
Footnote 1993:
Id. iii. 26.
Footnote 1994:
Id. i. 5.
Footnote 1995:
Dioscor. v. 136. See a representation of the halcyonion in Forskal,
Flora Ægyptiaca-Arabica, tab. 27, d. e.
Footnote 1996:
Dapper, Description des Isles de l’Archipel. p. 497.
Footnote 1997:
Dioscor. v. 137. Cardan, misunderstanding Serapion, has taken the
adarces to be a stone, which error is corrected by Scaliger, de
Subtilitate, Exercit. 130, p. 446.
Footnote 1998:
Cf. Strab. l. xii. t. ii. p. 818.
Footnote 1999:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 16. 4. Dioscor. v. 61.
Footnote 2000:
Γεννᾶται δὲ ἐν τῇ Ἀγαρίᾳ τῆς Σαρματικῆς. Dioscor. iii. 1. On its uses
cf. Prosp. Alpin. de Medicin. Ægypt. iv. 15, p. 340. Brand, Journal of
an Embassy to China, in Harris, vol. i. p. 230.
Footnote 2001:
Dapper, Description des Isles de l’Archipel. p. 497.
-----
The orpiment[2002] of Pontos and Cappadocia enjoyed but a secondary
reputation; the first place being given to that of Mysia. The lapis
lazuli[2003] of Scythia necessarily found its way into Greece by the
Black Sea, as did, likewise, the cinnabar of Colchis, said to have been
discovered amid inaccessible rocks and precipices,[2004] whence it was
brought down by darts and arrows. Probably, also, brass was exported
from Colchis.[2005] In the Homeric age great quantities of silver[2006]
would seem to have been obtained from the country of the Halizones, as
in later ages of steel and iron from that part of Asia Minor inhabited
by the Chalybes,[2007] who are said to have worked their mines naked.
The finest kind of minium was excavated from certain caverns in
Cappadocia,[2008] and transported by land to the city of Sinope, whence
it was sent into Greece.[2009] It was of three kinds,—the one deep, the
other extremely pale, and the third sort a shade between the two. There
were likewise in the same district mines of ochre, and both were so
infected with damp and malaria, that the workmen, as in our own
coalpits, were constantly in danger of their lives.[2010] Many of the
commodities of this place were probably distributed through Greece and
Asia by the travelling merchants, who resorted, at the annual festival
of the goddess, to the great fair of Komana.[2011]
-----
Footnote 2002:
Dioscor. v. 121.
Footnote 2003:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 55. From the country of the Agathyrsi a species of
diamond appears to have been obtained in great abundance. Ammianus
Marcellinus, xxii. 8, p. 341. Dion. Perieg. 319. Priscian. Perieg.
311. Plin. Nat. Hist. iv. 20. Pompon. Mel. ii. 1.
Footnote 2004:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 58.
Footnote 2005:
Peyssonnel, Observations Historiques et Géographiques sur les Peuples
barbares qui ont habité les bords du Danube et du Pont Euxin, p. 68,
sqq.
Footnote 2006:
Hom. Il. β. 857. Heyne, ad loc. t. iv. p. 430.
Footnote 2007:
Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. t. xvi. p. 185. Eustath. ad Dion. Perieg.
767. Æschyl. Prometh. Vinct. 301. Xenoph. Anab. v. 5. 1. Steph.
Byzant. de Urb. p. 753. a. Salmas. ad Solin. p. 1085. Suid. v.
χάλυβες. t. ii. p. 1108. d. Apollon. Rhod. ii. 1005, sqq. v. 374, seq.
Valer. Flacc. iv. 610. Ammian. Marcellin. xxii. 8, p. 338. Pollux.
vii. 107. x. 186. Strab. xii. 3. t. iii. p. 27. Tauchn.
Footnote 2008:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 52.
Footnote 2009:
Συλλέγεται δὲ ἐν τῇ Καππαδοκίᾳ ἐν σπηλαίοις τισί. διυλίζεται δὲ καὶ
φέρεται εἰς Σινώπην καὶ πιπράσκεται. ὅθεν καὶ τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν. Dioscor.
v. 111. Strab. xii. t. ii. p. 814. Casaub.
Footnote 2010:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 52.
Footnote 2011:
Τὰ μὲν οὖν Κόμανα εὐανδρεῖ, καὶ ἔστιν ἐμπορεῖον τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς Ἀρμενίας
ἀξιόλογον· συνέρχονται δὲ κατὰ τὰς ἐξόδους τῆς θεοῦ πανταχόθεν, ἔκ τε
τῶν πόλεων καὶ τῆς χώρας, ἄνδρες ὁμοῦ ταῖς γυναιξὶν ἐπὶ τὴν ἑορτήν·
καὶ ἄλλοι δὲ κατ᾽ εὐχην ἀεί τινες ἐπιδημοῦσι, θυσίας τε ἐπιτελοῦντες
τῇ θεῷ. Strab. xii. 3. t. iii. p. 43. Heeren, Researches on the
Commerce and Politics of the Ancients, i. 121. Similar gatherings,
partly religious, partly commercial, still take place among the
Mahommedans at Mecca, and among the Hindoos at various places,
particularly at Haridwârâ, where two millions and a-half of pilgrims
have sometimes been known to assemble. Hindoos, i. 224. Asiatic
Researches, vi. 311, sqq.
-----
In speaking of the Black Sea we have already entered upon that of Asia
Minor, which, taken altogether, was perhaps the richest and most
important anywhere carried on by the Greeks. Every province of this
fertile and beautiful division of Asia abounded in costly or useful
articles of merchandise, and its roads and rivers incessantly poured
towards Greece not only the productions of its own soil, but those also
of Central Asia, brought thither by the caravans from both shores of the
Caspian. Gold dust[2012] was collected from the sands of the
Pactolos;[2013] marbles of the most brilliant whiteness were exported
from Ephesos, (whose inhabitants decreed divine honours to the shepherd
Pyxodoros,[2014] by whom the quarries were discovered), and from Synnada
in Phrygia;[2015] large veins of lapis specularis, a stone so
transparent[2016] that it served the ancients instead of glass for
windows, were found in Cappadocia; the precious gem called
alabandine[2017] was procured from the district round Miletos, jet[2018]
from Lycia, not far from the river Gagas, and the fortress Plagiopolis.
The places whence this mineral is chiefly obtained at present are
Inspruck, in the Tyrol,[2019] where it is rolled down by the waters of a
certain stream, and Wirtemberg,[2020] where it is wrought into all kinds
of ornaments.
-----
Footnote 2012:
Gold was likewise obtained from a place on the shores of the
Propontis, lying between Lampsacos and Abydos. Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 8.
37. On the mines found here, Schneider has the following note: “Auri
metalli Lampsacena memorat Plinius 37, sectione 74, et Polyænus ii. 1.
26. Abydena nusquam reperi dicta. Forte fuerint in agro medio inter
Lampsacum et Abydum stadiis 170, distantem à Lampsaco, teste
Strabone.” Cf. Theophrast. de Lapid. § 32.
Footnote 2013:
Peyssonnel, Observations Historiques, &c., p. 342. Ovid. Metam. xi. 3.
1, sqq. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. ii. 67. Cf. Tibull. lib. iii. 3. 13.
Footnote 2014:
Vitruv. x. 7. Chandler Travels, i. 143, seq.
Footnote 2015:
Strab. xii. t. ii. p. 865. Casaub.—Chandler, i. 160. ii. 86. 108.
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, iii. 236.
Footnote 2016:
Strab. xii. t. ii. p. 814. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 45.
Footnote 2017:
Plin. Nat. Hist, xxxvii. 25. Theoph. de Lapid. § 19. On which see the
note of Sir John Hill, p. 76.
Footnote 2018:
Γαγάτης. Dioscor. v. 146. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 34. Aldrovand. de
Metall. iii. 19. Scalig. de Subtilitat. Exercit. civ. 3, p. 383.
Florent. ap. Geopon. viii. 8. Orpheus, de Lapid. 468.
Footnote 2019:
Martin Mathée, Notes sur Dioscoride, p. 503.
Footnote 2020:
Valmont de Bomare, Dictionnaire d’Histoire Naturelle, t. iii. p. 414.
Anselm. Boet. Gemm. et Lapid. Hist. ii. 164, p. 336, observes, that
jet is sometimes found in Britain, and our antiquarian, Camden, speaks
of its being sometimes dug up from pits near Okewood in Surrey.
Britannia, col. 163.
-----
The touchstone was found in great quantities in the bed of the river
Tmolos.[2021] It resembled in form a flat pebble, though considerably
larger, and the side which had lain uppermost exposed to the sun was
supposed to exercise a greater power over metals than the side opposite,
which was more saturated with moisture. Basalt and the green marble
called verdello are now often used instead of it in making experiments
on the purity of gold.[2022] From this part of the world also was first
obtained that extraordinary stone whose properties slightly observed by
the ancients have since effected so wonderful a change in the science of
navigation; I mean the magnet, found originally in Lydia, near the city
of Heraclea.[2023]
-----
Footnote 2021:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 47. Dioscor. v. 111.
Footnote 2022:
Sir John Hill, Notes on Theophrast. p. 190, seq.
Footnote 2023:
Plat. Tim. t. vii. p. 118. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 45.
-----
In the neighbourhood of Ephesos there was a manufacture of
cinnabar,[2024] which was produced in the following manner: taking a
quantity of sand of a bright scarlet colour, they triturated it to a
very fine powder in stone mortars, after which it was washed in brazen
vessels, and the remainder pounded and washed as before till the whole
had been reduced to the fineness required.
-----
Footnote 2024:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 58.
-----
The fossil and mineral salt called alum,[2025] was dug out of the earth
near Hierapolis in Phrygia, from which country also the best salt[2026]
was procured. It was found, as at present, on the shores of Lake Tatta,
on which account it obtained the name of the Tattæan salt.[2027] A
causeway traverses the lake nearly through the centre, as in the case of
the lake Tritonis in northern Africa.
-----
Footnote 2025:
Dioscor. v. 123. The alum also of Egypt appears to have been
extensively exported, and held in high estimation by Physicians.
Celsus, v. 38. 12.
Footnote 2026:
Dioscor. v. 126.
Footnote 2027:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxi. 41. Strabo, speaking of these salt-springs of
Tatta, relates a somewhat extraordinary circumstance: ἡ μὲν οὖν Τάττα
ἁλοπήγιον ἐστιν αὐτοφυές· οὔτω δὲ πειρπήττεται ῥᾳδίως τὸ ὕδωρ παντὶ τῷ
βαπτισθέντι εἰς αὐτὸ, ὥστε στεφάνους ἁλῶν ἀνέλκουσιν, ἐπειδὰν καθῶσι
κύκλον σχοίνινον· τά τε ὄρνεα ἁλίσκεται τὰ προσαψάμενα τῷ πτερώματι
τοῦ ὕδατος παραχρῆμα πίπτοντα δὶα τὴν περίπηξιν τῶν ἁλῶν. xii. 6. t.
iii. p. 58.
-----
The best nitre[2028] known to the ancients came from Philadelphia, near
the source of the Cogamos in Lydia. That of Magnesia, in Caria, was
esteemed inferior. From Colophon,[2029] in early times was obtained that
liquid resin which distils from the pine and pitch trees, on which
account it obtained the name of Colophonia.[2030]
-----
Footnote 2028:
Dioscor. v. 130. Celsus, ii. 33, p. 94.
Footnote 2029:
Dioscor. i. 92.
Footnote 2030:
Cf. Suid. v. Κολοφωνία, t. i. p. 1487, seq.
-----
Medicinal chalk[2031] and dry pitch, of which there were two
kinds,[2032] were imported from Lycia and Mysia.[2033] From the same
country likewise, as well as from Galatia, came the best wild
cumin,[2034] a low plant found growing along the slopes and crests of
hills. Herb mastic,[2035] resembling origany in fragrance, was produced
in Magnesia and around the Lydian city of Tralles. Both Lydia and
Cilicia exported saffron.[2036] That, however, which enjoyed among the
ancients the greatest celebrity grew upon the heights of Mount
Corycos,[2037] in the neighbourhood of the Corycian cave.[2038]
-----
Footnote 2031:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxv. 57.
Footnote 2032:
Dioscor. i. 97.
Footnote 2033:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 2. 5.
Footnote 2034:
Dioscor. iii. 69. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 3. 2. Caus. Plant. iv.
15. 2. Sibth. Flor. Græc. tab. 243.
Footnote 2035:
Μάρον. Dioscor. iii. 49. Theophrast. de Odor. § 33, seq. Plin. Nat.
Hist. xii. 53.
Footnote 2036:
Dioscor. i. 25. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 301.
Footnote 2037:
Vit. Sequest. p. 29. Virg. Georg. iv. 127. Martial. iii. 65.
Footnote 2038:
Galen. de Antidot. c. xiii. Spanh. Observ. in Callin. in Apoll. 83. t.
ii. p. 102. Horat. Satir. ii. 4. 68. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxi. 17.
-----
The saffron of Lycia was likewise the produce of a mountain, being found
chiefly on the Olympos of that country.[2039]
-----
Footnote 2039:
Dioscor. i. 25.
-----
The kermes,[2040] with which alone before the discovery of America and
the introduction of cochineal, a bright scarlet dye could be produced,
were obtained from various parts of Asia Minor, Galatia, Lycia, and
Cilicia, where they were found feeding on the leaves of the scarlet
oak.[2041] The gathering of these insects, then, however, supposed to be
mere tubercular excrescences, formed an important branch of industry,
carried on entirely by women, who separated them from the leaf with a
crooked iron instrument, and not with the mouth as has been inferred
from a wrong reading in Dioscorides.[2042] At present the nail only is
used in this operation, which is performed before sunrise, while the dew
is still on the tree.[2043]
-----
Footnote 2040:
Dioscor. iv. 48. Pollux, vii. 56. x. 42. iv. 154.
Footnote 2041:
Cf. Scalig. de Subtilitat. Exerc. cxciv. 7. p. 631, seq.
Footnote 2042:
Cf. Serapion. c. cccxi. ap. Beckmann, ii. 170.
Footnote 2043:
Garidel, Histoire des Plantes qui naissent aux environs d’Aix. p. 254.
-----
Chervil[2044] and oil[2045] were exported from Cilicia; wild spikenard
came from Phrygia;[2046] madder from Caria, where it was cultivated in
the interspaces between the olive-trees, and produced an immense
return;[2047] wormwood[2048] and the blue flowers of a species of wild
thyme from Cappadocia and Pamphylia;[2049] and centaury from the
neighbourhood of Smyrna and from Lycia.[2050] In the gathering of this
last plant the rizotomists observed certain rules. Going forth at peep
of dawn into the fields, they were careful to cull it immediately before
the rising of the sun, and during serene weather, when the virtues of
plants are in great perfection.
-----
Footnote 2044:
Γιγγιδίον. Dioscor. ii. 167. Artedia squammata. Sibthorp, Flora Græca,
tab. 268.
Footnote 2045:
Florent. ap. Geopon. ix. 3. 1.
Footnote 2046:
Dioscor. i. 9.
Footnote 2047:
Dioscor. iii. 160. Sibthorp, Flora Græca, tab. 141.
Footnote 2048:
Geopon. viii. 21. 1.
Footnote 2049:
Dioscor. iv. 179. iii. 126, 127.
Footnote 2050:
Id. iii. 8. Celsus, v. 27. 10.
-----
From this country as well as from Cappadocia was obtained the
lycion,[2051] a syrup about the consistence of honey, regarded as a
remedy against ophthalmia.
-----
Footnote 2051:
Id. i. 132. Celsus, v. 28. 16.
-----
The hyssop of Cilicia[2052] was in great esteem for flavouring wine, as
were likewise its mountain spikenard,[2053] its pickled cactus,[2054]
its agrostis,[2055] its œnanthe,[2056] its tragoriganon,[2057] its
hemlock,[2058] its silybos, whose young shoots were eaten as food, while
the juice of its root was employed as an emetic,[2059] its fossil
verdigris,[2060] and its cyperus comosus,[2061] used in giving a body to
perfumes.[2062]
-----
Footnote 2052:
“Est autem optimum (hyssopum) Cilicium e Tauro monte, dein Pamphyliam,
ac Smyrnæum.” Plin. Nat. Hist. xxv. 87. Dioscor. v. 50. iii. 30.
Columell. xii. 35.
Footnote 2053:
Dioscor. i. 8.
Footnote 2054:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 4. 10.
Footnote 2055:
Dioscor. iv. 32. Democrit. ap. Geopon. ii. 6. 23.
Footnote 2056:
Dioscor. v. 5.
Footnote 2057:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xx. 68. Dioscor. iii. 35. Etym. Mag. 763, 30. Clusii,
Hist. Rar. Plant. iii. p. 358.
Footnote 2058:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxv. 95. Dioscor. iv. 67. Scaliger, de Subtilitat.
Exercit. 151, p. 505, sqq.
Footnote 2059:
Dioscor. iv. 159. Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxii. 42.
Footnote 2060:
Μελαντηρια. Dioscor. v. 118.
Footnote 2061:
Κύπειρον, ἥν τινες ζέρναν καλοῦσι. Democritus, ap. Geopon. 11. vi. 32.
Columell. xii. 20. Pallad. xii. 18. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 8. 1. De
Caus. Plant. vi. 11. 10. Hom. Odyss. δ. 603.
Footnote 2062:
Dioscor. i. 4.
-----
From Galatia and Cappadocia came the white hellebore,[2063]
southernwood,[2064] and wild rue;[2065] from Pisidia, the most fragrant
lilies for perfumes;[2066] from Mount Ida, in the Troad, timber,[2067]
pitch,[2068] and the æthiopis,[2069] a species of verbascum, used by
enchanters to open locks and stay the course of rivers; from Sigeion and
Lecton, now Cape Baba, on the confines of the same country, and from
Æolia, purple fish;[2070] from Abydos oysters; from Parion sea
urchins;[2071] from Colophon mustard;[2072] from Galatia and Cilicia
agaric, where it grew among the cedars;[2073] from Ionia carobs;[2074]
from Mount Amanos, on the confines of Syria, stone parsley,[2075] and
cœrulescent wormwood.[2076]
-----
Footnote 2063:
Dioscor. iv. 150.
Footnote 2064:
(Ἀβροτόνον.) Id. iii. 29. Tarentinus, ap. Geopon. ii. 27. 6. Celsus,
iii. 21.
Footnote 2065:
Dioscor. iii. 53.
Footnote 2066:
Id. iii. 116.
Footnote 2067:
Xenoph. Hellen. i. 1. 25.
Footnote 2068:
Didymus, ap. Geopon. vi. 5. 1. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 2. 5. Virg.
Georg. iii. 450. iv. 41. Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. 25.
Footnote 2069:
Dioscor. iv. 105.
Footnote 2070:
Aristot. Hist. Animal. v. 15.
Footnote 2071:
Archestratus, ap. Athen. iii. 44.
Footnote 2072:
Athen. ix. 2.
Footnote 2073:
Dioscor. iii. 1.
Footnote 2074:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 4.
Footnote 2075:
Σμυρνίον, ὅπερ ἐν Κιλικίᾳ, πετροσέλινον καλοῦσι. Dioscor. iii. 79.
Sibth. Flor. Græc. 289. This plant was used as a bait for fish.
Geopon. xx. 24. 1.
Footnote 2076:
Σμυρνίον, ὅπερ ἐν Κιλικίᾳ, πετροσέλινον καλοῦσι. Dioscor. iii. 27.
From the name of this plant the island of Seriphos, according to some,
derived its name: “Dicitur à _Serfi_ Græcè, _herba_, Latinè, quæ ad
dolorem renum salutifera hic invenitur.” Bondelmonti, Lib. Insul.
Archipelag. § 25. p. 83. “È opinione che’l nome di Serfino li sia
stato dato da un’ erba, che nasce quì, chiamata Serfi, ottima per
guarire il mal di fianco.” Boschini, p. 32, ap. Ludov. de Sinner,
Annot. in Bondelmont. p. 177.
-----
Among the exports of Pisidia and Cilicia was the gum styrax,[2077] which
being usually burned on the altars of the theatre during the performance
of Phrygian airs it was observed by one of the Greeks to be redolent of
that wild music.[2078] The tree from which this gum was obtained
resembled that of the quince. A kind of artificial styrax, in appearance
like macaroni, was manufactured in the following manner, and preferred
by the ignorant to the gum itself. Taking a quantity of wax and perfumed
lard, and working it up into a paste with a certain proportion of
styrax, they placed it in the sun during the hottest days of the year,
when, having been thus rendered nearly liquid, it was passed through a
coarse sieve into cold water.[2079]
-----
Footnote 2077:
Dioscor. i. 79. Florent. ap. Geopon. xiii. 88. Plin. Nat. Hist. x. 90.
Sibthorp. Flora Græca, 375.
Footnote 2078:
Athen. xiv. 23.
Footnote 2079:
Dioscor. i. 79.
-----
Iris unguent[2080] was exported from Perga, a city of Pamphylia; a
sarcophaginous stone used in making coffins,[2081] scammony,[2082] and
beans from Mysia; from Smyrna[2083] a superior kind of lettuces.[2084]
At present the bees make much honey in the neighbourhood of this city,
from the flower of the hypecoum recumbens.[2085] Caria exported
slaves,[2086] excellent oil and vinegar,[2087] gum sycamore,[2088]
purple fish, figs,[2089] and carobs,[2090] which were grown in the
neighbourhood of Caunos and Cnidos; Paphlagonia chestnuts and splendid
almonds;[2091] Cappadocia the finest horses known to the ancients;[2092]
Phrygia slaves,[2093] cheese made of mares’ and asses’ milk,[2094] hams
of the finest qualities cured at Cibyra,[2095] carpets, oil,[2096] and
fine black wool, which latter commodities were also among the
merchandise of Miletos.[2097]
-----
Footnote 2080:
Id. i. 66.
Footnote 2081:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 27. Dioscor. v. 142. Theoph. de Ign. § 46.
Albert. Mag. ii. 2. De Mineral. 17.
Footnote 2082:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 9. 1-20. 5. Dioscor. iv. 171.
Footnote 2083:
On the modern fruits of Smyrna see Chandler, i. 77. 247.
Footnote 2084:
Athen. ii. 53.
Footnote 2085:
Hazelquist, Travels, p. 242. Sibthorp. Flor. Græc. tab. 155.
Footnote 2086:
Eurip. in Alcest. 675. Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. iii. 25. p. 115.
Footnote 2087:
Athen. ii. 74. 76. xiv. 67. Cf. Brunckh. ad Aristoph. Pac. 574.
Footnote 2088:
Dioscor. i. 181.
Footnote 2089:
Athen. iii. 9.
Footnote 2090:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 4.
Footnote 2091:
Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2092:
Oppian de Venat. i. 171. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, iii. 13.
Footnote 2093:
Euripid. in Alcest. 675. Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2094:
Aristot. Hist. Animal. iii. 20.
Footnote 2095:
Athen. xiv. 75. Poll. vi. 48.
Footnote 2096:
Strab. xii. t. ii. p. 865.
Footnote 2097:
Athen. xii. 17.
-----
From this city were likewise obtained the sheep that produced the
celebrated fleeces, together with water-cresses,[2098] roses,[2099] rich
tapestry, soft beds,[2100] and cypress wood;[2101] chestnuts, eunuchs,
and fine scarlet cloths, with richly-figured carpets of double pile,
were also brought from Sardis.[2102] The wines of Asia Minor in most
estimation were those of Ephesos, Miletos,[2103] Phygela, Armata,
Clazomenè,[2104] and that denominated Catakekaumenitis.[2105] Physicians
condemned those of Mount Tmolos as generative of headache. Ephesos
exported tents and jewellery;[2106] Miletos sea wolves[2107] and
cockles; Smyrna squills; and Patara, in Lycia, seems to have been famous
for its gilded sandals.[2108] The same country, likewise, supplied hams
of a superior quality.[2109]
-----
Footnote 2098:
Id. i. 49.
Footnote 2099:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxi. 10.
Footnote 2100:
Athen i. 49.
Footnote 2101:
Id. v. 38.
Footnote 2102:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 112. Athen. vi. 67. ii. 30. Bochart, Geog.
Sac. i. 6. Aristoph. Vesp. 1132.
Footnote 2103:
Athen. i. 52.
Footnote 2104:
Dioscor. v. 10, 11. Athen. i. 52. Chandler, i. 163. 243. In Homeric
times Phrygia was celebrated for its vines, See Il. γ. 184.
Footnote 2105:
Strab. xiii. 4. t. iii. p. 155. Chandler’s description is almost a
translation of Strabo. “This region which is above, or to the east of
Philadelphia, was called Catakekaumenè, or _the Burned_. By some it
was reckoned in Mysia, by others in Mœonia, or Lydia. It was five
hundred stadia, or sixty-two miles and a half long; and four hundred
stadia, or fifty miles broad; and anciently bare of trees, but covered
with vines, which produced the wine called by its name, and esteemed
not inferior to any in goodness.” i. 284.
Footnote 2106:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. vii. Andocid. adv. Alcib. § 11.
Footnote 2107:
Athen. vii. 86. 87. Aristoph. Eq. 361.
Footnote 2108:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. xiv.
Footnote 2109:
Athen. xiv. 75.
-----
CHAPTER XII.
EXPORTS OF THE ISLANDS, ITALY, GAUL, AND SPAIN.
Before we describe the trade of Syria, Egypt, and the farther East, we
shall endeavour to give some account of that carried on by the numerous
islands of the Mediterranean, together with Italy, Gaul, and Spain, and
the whole northern coast of Africa. The commodities furnished to
commerce by the various groups and larger islands of the Ægæan and
Ionian seas scarcely yielded in number to those of Asia Minor. Of these
the most important were the wines, which fluctuated in value, strength,
and flavour, according to the soil, temperature, and elevation above the
sea, of the vineyards which produced them.
The island of Lesbos, during the flourishing ages of the Athenian
republic, formed part, as it were, of the territory of that great
maritime state which compelled it to carry its wines exclusively to
Athens.[2110] Among these was the Pramnian,[2111] which, also produced
in Achaia, was a strong, harsh wine, apparently resembling port. Most,
however, of the islands,[2112] both large and small, supplied wine—as
Tenedos,[2113] Chios,[2114] Cypros,[2115] which furnished, among others,
a curious fig wine;[2116] Thasos,[2117] where one particular kind was
somniferous,[2118] Peparethos, Lesbos, Eubœa,[2119] Crete, where among
others was found the Malmsey;[2120] Leucadia, Cos,[2121] and Corcyra.
-----
Footnote 2110:
Athen. vii. 9.
Footnote 2111:
Athen. i. 55. Poll. vi. 16. Etym. Mag. 686. 30, seq. Schol. Aristoph.
Eq. 107.
Footnote 2112:
Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 134.
Footnote 2113:
Douglas, Essay on the Modern Greeks, p. 140.
Footnote 2114:
Plut. de Anim. Tranquil. § 10. Dioscor. v. 11. Vib. Sequest. p. 32,
ed. Oberlin.
Footnote 2115:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. 2. Synes. Epist. 147.
Footnote 2116:
Κατορχίτης or Συκίτης. Dioscor. v. 41.
Footnote 2117:
Athen. vii. 67. x. 37, 40. i. 52. Florent. ap. Geopon. viii. 23. 1.
Theoph. de Odoribus, § 51. Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. 9.
Footnote 2118:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 18. 11.
Footnote 2119:
Athen. vii. 13. Andocid. adv. Alcib. § 11.
Footnote 2120:
Athen. x. 56.
Footnote 2121:
Berytius, ap. Geopon. viii. 24. Cato, de Re Rustica, 112.
-----
Few of the islands grew more corn than they could consume, except
Eubœa,[2122] which was for many years the granary of Athens.
Lesbos,[2123] too, produced the most superb barley, which was grown upon
the hills round Eresos, the birthplace of Theophrastus. The Thasians,
likewise, cultivated an inferior kind of barley which, from the extreme
productiveness of the island, seems occasionally to have been exported,
though I remember no authority in proof of the fact. Samos furnished
Greece with the best olive oil next to that of Attica.[2124]
-----
Footnote 2122:
Herod. v. 31.
Footnote 2123:
Athen. iii. 77.
Footnote 2124:
Id. ii. 74. A species of oil, called βομβοία the island of Cypros.
Hesych. v. Βομβοία.
-----
But of all the minor islands none appear to have supplied so many
articles to the coasting trade of Greece as Thasos, whose productions
were singularly rich and varied. There, in the earlier ages, the
Phœnicians discovered and worked gold mines which in after times became
exhausted, but the fertility of the island and the industry of its
inhabitants seem never to have failed. From hence were exported
radishes,[2125] fish sauce, pickles,[2126] almonds, and walnuts,[2127]
with the trees of which the island was thickly shaded.
-----
Footnote 2125:
Athen. ii. 48.
Footnote 2126:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 192. 643. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 27.
Footnote 2127:
Athen. xiv. 57. Plin. Nat. Hist. xv. 24.
-----
Crete, Cypros, and Naxos exported hones;[2128] Paros figs[2129] and the
best white marble[2130] drawn from quarries, the vast extent of which is
still the admiration of travellers.[2131] Cypros, sory, a substance
resembling verdigris,[2132] sulphate of copper, emeralds, and
jasper.[2133] Linen, white and dyed purple, was brought from
Amorgos;[2134] thapsia from Thapsos;[2135] painters’ earth of the best
quality, that is of loose texture, crumbling, dry, and without
fatness,[2136] obtained from the neighbourhood of Pharis; sulphur,[2137]
alum,[2138] and pumice stone from Nisyros and Melos,[2139] where this
latter substance was extremely light, and sometimes found imbedded in
other stones. The pumices of the island of Nisyros[2140] were of an
inferior description, and crumbled to pieces in the hand. They were,
however, extremely plentiful, occurring in heaps, and generally about
the size of the fist.
-----
Footnote 2128:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 47.
Footnote 2129:
Athen. iii. 9.
Footnote 2130:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 28. 29. 43. Bondelmont. § 34. Strab. x. 5. t.
ii. p. 390. Dapper, Description des Iles de l’Archipel. p. 260, seq.
Steph. Byzant. de Urb. v. Μάρπησσα. p. 537. c. Chandler, i. 295.
Footnote 2131:
Tournefort, Voyages, i. 238, seq.
Footnote 2132:
Dioscor. v. 119. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 30.
Footnote 2133:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 35.
Footnote 2134:
Schol. ad Æschin. Timarch. p. 381. Schol. Aristoph. Lysist. 150, 735.
Poll. vii. 74.
Footnote 2135:
Dioscor. iv. 157. Sibthorp, Flora Græca, tab. 287. See a description
of the plant in Tournefort, t. iii. p. 298, sqq. Theoph. Hist. Plant.
ix. 8. 3.
Footnote 2136:
Dioscor. v. 129.
Footnote 2137:
Dioscor. v. 124. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxv. “Le soufre de Milo est
parfaitement beau, et a un petit œil verdâtre et luisant, qui le
faisoit préférer par les anciens à celui d’Italie: on trouve ce soufre
en cette isle par gros morceaux en creusant la terre, et par grosses
veines dans les carrières d’où l’on tire les meules de moulin.”
Tournefort, Voyage du Levant. i. 187. Buondelmonti gives the following
account of the sulphur of Nisyros: “Circa medium (insulæ) mons
erigitur altissimus, quo in summitate per subterraneos meatus
sulphureus ignis die ac nocte eructat in altum, ut in insula Stronguli
apud Liparum habetur. In descensu vero montis, ad jactum lapidis, fons
calidissimus emanat in imum, et in plano circa lacum profundissimumque
obscurum aquæ descendunt; ibique colentes quantitatem maximam
sulphuris mercatoribus præparant.” § 17. p. 76, seq.
Footnote 2138:
Dioscor. v. 123.
Footnote 2139:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 21. Pumice stones are at present found in great
numbers on the shores of the Troad, whither Chandler supposes them to
have been floated by the waves from Mount Ætna or Vesuvius, though an
abundant supply appears to be constantly furnished by the volcanic
islands of the Archipelago. Travels, i. 26.
Footnote 2140:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 21. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 42. This island
likewise supplied the Greeks with excellent millstones Eustath. ad
Dion. Perieg. 526, and purple fish. Steph. de Urb. p. 594. c. Suid. v.
Νίσυρος t. ii. p. 234. d. Eustath. ad Il. β. t. i. p. 241.
-----
Carystos in Eubœa exported verde antico,[2141] and the amianthos, or
stone from which towels and similar fabrics were manufactured,
indestructible by fire;[2142] Eretria medicinal earth;[2143] Chalcis
exported copper;[2144] Cimolos chalk and fullers’ earth;[2145] Samos
jars[2146] and medicinal earths, ash-coloured and white,[2147] in which
was found a stone used by jewellers in polishing gold.[2148]
-----
Footnote 2141:
Strab. ix. t. i. p. 667. Dion. Chrysost. Orat. lxxx. p. 664.
Footnote 2142:
Strab. x. ii. p. 684. Casaub. Coronelli, Mem. de la Morée, p. 208,
seq.
Footnote 2143:
Celsus, v. 19. 7.
Footnote 2144:
Steph. Byzant. v. Χαλκὶς.
Footnote 2145:
Ovid. Metamorph. vii. 463. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxv. 16. Tournefort, i.
p. 172. Strab. x. 5. t. ii. p. 386. Poll. x. 135. vii. 39. Zoroaster,
ap. Geopon. vii. 6. 11.
Footnote 2146:
“Morning Chronicle,” July 17, 1838, p. 3. Cicero, pro Muren. 36. Plin.
Nat. Hist. xxxv. 48. 46.
Footnote 2147:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxviii. 53. 77. xxxi. 46.
Footnote 2148:
Dioscor. v. 173. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 40.
-----
From Lemnos three different kinds of earth were obtained,—the first
known among the ancients by the name of terra sigillata, was sold in
small round cakes mingled, according to Dioscorides,[2149] with the
blood of a goat and stamped with his image in the sacred seal of
Artemis; though Galen, who visited the island on purpose to examine this
earth, denies that, in his time, any blood was intermixed with it. The
second of the Lemnian earths[2150] was reddle, and the third fullers’
earth. The first of these earths, of a slight red colour, was sometimes
denominated sacred, apparently because used in sacrifices. In modern
times the substance known under this name is usually brown or
pink-coloured.
-----
Footnote 2149:
Ἡ δὲ Λημνία γενωμένη γῆ, ἔστιν ἐκ τινος ὑπονόμου, ἀντρώδους,
ἀναφερομένη ἀπὸ Λήμνου τῆς νήσου, ἐχούσης ἑλώδη τόπου, κᾀκεῖθεν
ἐκλέγεται καὶ μίγνυται αἵματι αἰγείῳ· ἣν οἱ ἐκεὶ ἄνθρωποι
ἀναπλάσσοντες καὶ σφραγίζοντες εἰκόνι αἰγὸς, σφραγίδα καλοῦσιν αἰγὸς.
Dioscor. v. 113.
Footnote 2150:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 52. Florent. ap. Geopon. x. 90. 1. Plin. Nat.
Hist. xxxvi. 14. Salmas. ad Solin. p. 1156.
-----
The mine[2151] whence the sealed earth is at present excavated lies on
the summit of a precipitous mountain, on the eastern shore of the
island, about four bowshots from the ancient city of Hephæstia. The road
leading thither, after arriving at the chapel of Sotira, is divided, and
branches off to the right and left. Both ways pass by a fountain; the
one on the right bordered with elder, willow, and carob trees, by one
which, though closely shaded from the sun’s rays, fails in summer; while
that on the left conducts to a spring which, lying in a marshy spot,
producing nothing but rushes, is perennial. Both these fountains are
situated among the roots of the hill, now ascended by steps cut in the
rock, but anciently by a road practicable all the way to the summit. The
digging of the Lemnian earth appears to have been always under the
protection of religion; for, during the operation, a priest anciently
stood on the mountain near the mine, and, after having made a sort of
libation of corn, which was cast as an offering upon the ground, and
performed various other ceremonies, caused a waggon to be laden with the
earth and conducted to the city, where it was prepared, sealed, and sold
to merchants.
-----
Footnote 2151:
Dapper, Description des Iles de l’Archipel. p. 245. In the island of
Cea there were regular pits whence the best reddle was obtained. That
found in iron mines was esteemed inferior. Theoph. de Lapid. § 52.
-----
In modern times, ever since the period when the Venetians were in
possession of the island, a different and more cumbrous set of
ceremonies has been practised.[2152] The principal inhabitants of the
island, both Turks and Christians, assembling on the sixth of August,
march out in grand procession to the mountains of sealed earth, halting
by the way at the chapel of Sotira, where the priests chant the liturgy
of the Greek church, and repeat many prayers, after which they ascend
the acclivity. Arrived at the summit, fifty or sixty stout men commence
excavating in search of the stratum of precious clay, which being found,
the priests fill therewith a number of skin sacks, which they deliver to
the custody of the Subashi.
-----
Footnote 2152:
Cf. Busbeq. Epist. iii. p. 214, seq.
-----
When a sufficient quantity has been procured the mouth of the mine is
closed, and never opened again until that day twelvemonths. A certain
quantity is then despatched to the Sultan, who distributes it in
presents to princes and monarchs. The remainder is sold as of old to the
merchants. It is quite possible that this substance might be discovered
in other parts of the island; but the Greeks would set no value upon it
unless obtained from the spot in question, and excavated with the proper
ceremonies. For any private individual to attempt digging it is a
capital offence.
Copper dross or tutty[2153] was obtained from the muddy bottom of a
copper mine in Cypros.[2154] Having been exposed to dry in the sun, a
quantity of brushwood was cast around it and set on fire, by which means
it underwent a second calcination, and thence obtained the name of
diphryges, or twice-burned.
-----
Footnote 2153:
Διφρυγὲς, Dioscor. v. 120.
Footnote 2154:
Cf. Iorio, Storia del Commercio, t. iv. l. ii. c. vi. p. 249. Meurs.
Cypr. ii. 2. p. 84.
-----
In the same island was found the recrement of brass called Cadmia[2155]
by the ancients. It was generated in the following manner: the furnaces
in which they smelted copper were constructed of iron arched above, and
of very large dimensions. As the metal underwent the action of the fire,
the lighter and mere aërial particles, detaching themselves from the
molten mass, ascended like sparks, rolling upwards along the sides of
the furnace and settling on the roof.
-----
Footnote 2155:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 22.
-----
Here, these particles forming into layers, one above another, coalesced
into a hard substance which was called Cadmia.[2156] Of this there were
several kinds, one of which was produced by the burning of Pyrites,
obtained from precipices overhanging the city of Soli. In these
extraordinary mountains were found veins of copper ore,[2157] sulphate
of copper,[2158] sory,[2159] verdigris,[2160] lapis lazuli,[2161]
chrysocolla,[2162] copperas, and tutty.[2163]
-----
Footnote 2156:
Dioscor. v. 84.
Footnote 2157:
Χαλκῖτις. Foës. Œconom. Hippocrat. p. 405. Aristot. Hist. Animal. v.
19.
Footnote 2158:
Μίσυ. Dioscor. v. 117. Plin. Nat. Hist, xxxiv. 31. Oribas. Collect. l.
xiii.
Footnote 2159:
Dioscor. v. 119.
Footnote 2160:
Μελαντήρια. Dioscor. v. 118.
Footnote 2161:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 55.
Footnote 2162:
Dioscor. v. 104. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 29.
Footnote 2163:
Dioscor. v. 84.
-----
The recrement of silver was produced in a similar manner during the
smelting of the silver ore, but it was in colour paler, and of an
inferior quality. In various parts of the island were found in abundance
black and white alum,[2164] nitre, sulphur, rock and sea salt,[2165] the
former near Citium, the latter in the neighbourhood of Salamis. It
likewise exported burnt copper and copper flakes. Several kinds of
precious stones were moreover discovered here, as the diamond,[2166] the
emerald, the agate,[2167] found also at Lesbos, the opal, the jasper,
the sapphire, the eagle stone,[2168] the amethyst,[2169] crystal, and
talc,[2170] and hones from the environs of Arsinoë.
-----
Footnote 2164:
Meurs. Cyprus, ii. 4. p. 91.
Footnote 2165:
Dioscor. v. 124. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxi. 39.
Footnote 2166:
Meurs. Cyprus, ii. 5. p. 93.
Footnote 2167:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 54.
Footnote 2168:
Id. xxxvi. 39.
Footnote 2169:
Meurs. Cyprus. ii. 5. p. 94.
Footnote 2170:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 39. 45.
-----
The Egyptians alloyed their silver money with a third part of gypsum,
copper, and an equal portion of sulphur. Mines of gold have been in
modern times worked in the islands near Nicosia.
The finely tempered steel of Cypros,[2171] known by the name of adamant
among the ancients, was used in making the best cuirasses and deemed
impenetrable.
-----
Footnote 2171:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 15. Marbod. Carm. de Gem. cap. i. Plut.
Demet. § 21.
-----
From this island were obtained the finest spodium and flowers of zinc,
which were produced in the following manner: In a building, two stories
high, was constructed a furnace, open at top, and having directly over
it a small aperture, communicating with the upper room. The bellows were
worked in an adjoining apartment, the snout passing through a wall into
the furnace, with which the workman was enabled to communicate by a
small door. The fossil Cadmian-stone having been broken into small
pieces was cast into the fire through an aperture from above, after
which the flames having been blown up to greater fierceness, the mineral
converted itself into a dense white vapour, and a cloud of fiery sparks
ascended through the mouth of the furnace, the lighter particles
attaching themselves like white bubbles or flocks of wool to the walls
and vaulted roof of the building, while the heavier, after cooling, fell
back into the flames or were scattered about the floor, where they
indurated and formed a sort of incrustation. This coarser and weightier
substance was usually found when scraped off to contain hairs,
splinters, and particles of earth, and received the name of spodion,
while that detached from the walls or roof was either milk-white or
azure, and was what we now denominate flowers of zinc.
Another mode of manufacturing this article was to cast the fossil
Cadmia, reduced to powder, on the surface of the liquid metal in bronze
furnaces which caused a similar evaporation. Spodion was likewise
procured from gold, silver, and lead, and next after the above this last
was considered the best.
Near the village of Amianthos was a celebrated asbestos quarry whose
produce, a greyish filamentous stone, was carded like wool and spun and
woven into cloth[2172] which when soiled was cast into the fire instead
of being washed, and came forth brilliant and pure as from the loom,
though at each burning it lost something of its weight. In cerecloths of
asbestos the bodies of kings and illustrious personages were burned, in
antiquity, to preserve their remains from mingling with the ashes of the
pyre.[2173] Matches likewise were made of this substance, more
particularly for those durable lamps which were kindled by the Pagans in
sepulchres,[2174] and supposed to burn on for ever. Other quarries of
asbestos were found in Cypros, chiefly at the foot of the precipices
bordering the road leading from Gerandium to Soli.
-----
Footnote 2172:
Dioscor. v. 156. Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 4.
Footnote 2173:
Dapper, Description des Iles de l’Archipel. p. 52.
Footnote 2174:
Valmont de Bomare, v. Amiante. t. i. p. 144.
-----
There was found in the island of Siphnos a fossil substance, usually of
a spherical form, which was scooped out, and turned into various
articles, such as vases, plates, and even pots which would bear the
fire. When rubbed with oil and exposed to the action of the air it
became black and hard, and resembled the finest pottery:[2175] similar
stones are in modern times brought from the island of Minorca.[2176]
-----
Footnote 2175:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 42. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 44. Isidor. Orig. xvi.
4. Tournefort, i. 209.
Footnote 2176:
Sir John Hill, Notes on Theophrastus, p. 180.
-----
Two kinds of medicinal earths, the one white, the other ash-coloured,
were obtained from Eretria, in Eubœa.[2177] Chios, likewise, exported a
white earth used in cosmetics and at the baths.[2178] From time
immemorial the Greeks appear to have obtained from the island of
Zacynthos[2179] tar impregnated with a bituminous scent. It was found
anciently in a pool, about seventy feet in circumference, and of very
great depth, situated in a small valley on the sea-shore nearly
encircled by mountains. The tar ascended from the bottom in bubbles as
large as a cannon-ball, through the clear water, and on reaching the
surface spread over the pond in a kind of film. It was drawn forth with
myrtle branches attached to the end of a pole, and laid in pits to
harden, after which it was barrelled and exported. It now sells for
about two shillings per cask.
-----
Footnote 2177:
Dioscor. v. 171.
Footnote 2178:
Plin. xxxv. 56. Dioscor. v. 174.
Footnote 2179:
Herod. iv. 195. Dioscor. i. 99. Chandler, ii. 340. Leontinus, ap.
Geopon. xv. 8. 1. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxv. 51. Vitruv. viii. 3. Dr.
Wordsworth’s Greece, p. 287.
-----
Among the medicinal plants and substances produced in the Grecian
islands were the argol,[2180] anis,[2181] germander,[2182]
hemlock,[2183] hellebore,[2184] and dittany, found chiefly in
Crete;[2185] together with the misletoe, the seeds of which[2186] were
bruised and beaten into a paste; hyssop,[2187] the cyperus comosus which
abounded in the Cyclades,[2188] from which also an excellent kind of
honey[2189] was exported; marjoram,[2190] scammony, green terebinth;
resin from Cypros,[2191] aloes from Andros,[2192] aspalathos from
Nisyros, Crete, and Rhodes;[2193] hartwort or seseli[2194] and
onions[2195] from Samothrace, an island much vexed by winds; origany
from Tenedos; from Chios hemlock[2196] and gum mastic,[2197] which the
Turkish ladies chew constantly to keep their breath sweet and their
teeth white;[2198] Chios, also, as well as Cos and Crete, furnished also
tragoriganon.[2199] The last-mentioned island alone produced the Idæan
bramble, whose flowers were used in remedies for ophthalmia.[2200] The
inhabitants of Rhodes obtained from the Egyptian, or Pharaoh’s fig-tree,
a medicinal gum esteemed a remedy against the bite of serpents.[2201] In
early spring, before the appearance of the fruit, they gently bruised
the bark with a stone, upon which, on all sides, there gushed forth a
kind of liquor which, collected with flocks of wool or with sponge, was
suffered to harden, formed into small round cakes, and preserved in
earthen vases.[2202]
-----
Footnote 2180:
Φύκος Θαλλασσίον. Dioscor. iv. 100.
Footnote 2181:
Dioscor. iii. 65. Plin. Nat. Hist. xx. 73.
Footnote 2182:
Σκορδίον. Dioscor. iii. 125.
Footnote 2183:
Dioscor. iv. 79. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxv. 95.
Footnote 2184:
Demet. Constantinop. de Cur. Accipit. c. clxxviii.
Footnote 2185:
Dioscor. iii. 39. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxv. 53. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix.
16. 3. Florent. ap. Geopon. xiii. 8. 8. Apuleius, de Virtut. Herb.
cap. lxii.
Footnote 2186:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. i. 3.
Footnote 2187:
Florent. ap. Geopon. vi. 8. 1.
Footnote 2188:
Τὸ δὲ χρίσμα τὸ Ἐρετρικὸν εκ τοῦ κυπείρου· κομίζεται δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν
Κυκλάδων τὸ κύπειρον. Theophrast. de Odor. § 28. Dioscor. i. 4.
Footnote 2189:
Dioscor. ii. 101.
Footnote 2190:
Σαμψύκον. Dioscor. iii. 47. Geopon. xi. 27.
Footnote 2191:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxiv. 22.
Footnote 2192:
Dioscor. iii. 25. Sibthorp, Flor. Græc. tab. 341.
Footnote 2193:
Prosper. Alpin. de Medicor. Ægypt. iv. 10. p. 296. Dioscor. i. 19.
Footnote 2194:
Πευκέδανος. Dioscor. iii. 92.
Footnote 2195:
Athen. i. 49. x. 18.
Footnote 2196:
Dioscor. iv. 79.
Footnote 2197:
Twenty-one villages were, last century, employed in the cultivation of
the lentiscus, from which this gum is procured by boring the trunks
during summer with a small sharp iron. Chandler, Travels, i. 60.
Footnote 2198:
Hazelquist, Travels, p. 297. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 36; xxiv. 74.
Dioscor. i. 90.
Footnote 2199:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 1. Dioscor. iii. 35. Plin. xix. 68.
Footnote 2200:
Dioscor. iv. 38.
Footnote 2201:
Id. i. 181.
Footnote 2202:
Id. ibid.
-----
The modes of collecting the ladanum,[2203] of which the best sort
appears to have been found in Cypros,[2204] was still more curious. It
was found in spring exuding from the leaves of a species of costus on
which the goats delighted to feed. As they pastured among the plants the
gum attached itself to their beards and the long hair about their legs,
from whence it was removed by the goatherds, who melted and strained it
like honey, after which it was rolled up into balls and sold to the
merchants. Sometimes, however, a number of cords were thrown over the
shrubs, about which the gum collected.
-----
Footnote 2203:
Cf. Chandler, i. 284.
Footnote 2204:
Dioscor. i. 128. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 37. Tournefort, who gives a
representation of the whip of numerous thongs used in collecting the
ladanum, describes one of the localities in which it is produced, and
the manner in which it is gathered. “Enfin tirant du côté de la mer,
nous nous trouvâmes sur des collines sèches et sablonneuses, couvertes
de ces petits arbrisseaux qui fournissent le ladanum. C’étoit dans la
plus grande chaleur du jour, et il ne faisoit pas de vent: cette
disposition du temps est nécessaire pour amasser le ladanum. Sept ou
huit paysans en chemise et en caleçon, rouloient leurs fouets sur ces
plantes: à force de les secouer et de les frotter sur les feuilles de
cet arbuste, leurs courroyes se chargeoient d’une espèce de glu
odoriférante, attachée sur les feuilles; c’est une partie du suc
nourricier de la plante, lequel transude au travers de la tissure de
ces feuilles comme une sueur grasse, dont les gouttes sont luisantes,
et aussi claires que la térébenthine. Lorsque les fouets sont bien
chargez de cette graisse on en ratisse les courroyes avec un couteau,
et l’on met en pains ce que l’on eu détache: c’est ce que nous
recevons sous le nom de ladanum.” Voyage du Levant, t. i. p. 88.
-----
In addition to the above, the islands furnished numerous other
commodities, such as onions,[2205] of which the best came from Cypros
and Corcyra;[2206] beans from Lemnos;[2207] from Rhodes ampelitis,[2208]
pitch,[2209] the best white transparent glue,[2210] raisins,[2211]
chalk,[2212] carobs,[2213] dried figs, which procured agreeable
dreams,[2214] excellent aphyæ[2215] and cabbage-seed, which last was in
great request at Alexandria,[2216] almonds from Naxos and Cypros,[2217]
whence also came the best pomegranates,[2218] mustard,[2219] and
excellent lettuces[2220] grown in the neighbourhood of Paphos.[2221]
-----
Footnote 2205:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. xiv. Sibthorp. Flor. Græc. tab. 326. Dioscor. ii.
181.
Footnote 2206:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 32. Cypros was likewise celebrated for its
garlic. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 4. 11.
Footnote 2207:
Athen. ix. 2.
Footnote 2208:
Strab. vii. 5. t. ii. p. 106.
Footnote 2209:
Didymus, ap. Geopon. vi. 5. 1.
Footnote 2210:
Dioscor. iii. 101.
Footnote 2211:
Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2212:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxiv. 1.
Footnote 2213:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 4. Dioscor. iii. 101.
Footnote 2214:
Athen. iii. 19.
Footnote 2215:
Athen. vii. 24.
Footnote 2216:
Id. ix. 9. Cf. Demosth. cont. Dionysod. § 1, for the trade between
this island and Egypt.
Footnote 2217:
Athen. ii. 39. Ammon. v. ἀμυγδαλῆ, p. 12.
Footnote 2218:
Meurs. Cyprus, ii. 4. p. 89.
Footnote 2219:
Poll. vi. 67. Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2220:
Columell. de Re Rust. xi. 3. p. 454.
Footnote 2221:
Meurs. Cyprus, ii. 4. p. 89.
-----
Lesbos[2222] produced myrtle-berries and figs; Cos and Cypros[2223]
exported odoriferous unguents[2224] and honey;[2225] Scyros, variegated
marbles;[2226] Ceos, pears and service-berries;[2227] Eubœa,
sheep,[2228] pears,[2229] shining apples,[2230] olives,[2231] walnuts,
walnut-wood,[2232] an inferior kind of deal,[2233] marble,[2234] iron,
phagroi, anchovies, turbots, and soles;[2235] Thera, variegated
garments;[2236] Chios, soft beds and large casks or jars;[2237] Crete,
cypress-wood,[2238] Cyprian figs,[2239] hemlock,[2240] honey,[2241] and
bees’ wax,[2242] which was blanched in the rays of the sun and moon.
These articles of merchandise were likewise supplied by Cypros;[2243]
which also exported rich flowered or variegated hangings,[2244]
triclinia cushions,[2245] table-cloths,[2246] oakum,[2247] bronze
vessels,[2248] nails,[2249] &c. Snails,[2250] which formed an important
article in the materia medica of the ancients, were exported from Chios
and Astypalæa,[2251] a small island among the Sporades,[2252] which
likewise carried on a considerable fishery,[2253] and boasted an
excellent breed of horses.[2254] Thasos furnished the sculptors of
Greece with a fine white marble which constituted the material of two
celebrated statues of the Emperor Adrian at Athens.[2255] The marble of
Chios was dead black, like the obsidian stone, and slightly transparent.
-----
Footnote 2222:
Athen. xiv. 67.
Footnote 2223:
Athen. xv. 39. In Cypros a delicate perfume was manufactured from the
œnanthe which in Greece was inodorous: αὕτη δ᾽ ἐν Κύπρῳ φύεται ὀρεινὴ
καὶ πολύοδμος· ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς ἐν τῇ Ἑλλάδι οὐ γίνεται διὰ τὸ ἄοδμον.
Theoph. de Odor. § 27. Plin. Nat. Hist. xiii. 2.
Footnote 2224:
Dioscor. i. 70.
Footnote 2225:
Diophan. ap. Geopon. xv. 7. 1. Synes. Epist. 147. Eustath. ad Il. β.
677. ad Dion. Perieg. 530.
Footnote 2226:
Eustath. ad Dion. Perieg. v. 521.
Footnote 2227:
Athen. xiv. 63.
Footnote 2228:
Id. v. 32.
Footnote 2229:
Id. i. 49.
Footnote 2230:
Id. i. 49.
Footnote 2231:
Dicæarch. Stat. Græc. ap. Geograph. Minor, t. ii. p. 19. Plin. iv. 12.
Footnote 2232:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 7.
Footnote 2233:
Poll. vii. 48. 77. iv. 118.
Footnote 2234:
Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieg. v. 521.
Footnote 2235:
Athen. vii. 30. 45.
Footnote 2236:
Tibull. Eleg. iii. 3. 13.
Footnote 2237:
Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2238:
Id. i. 49. Lucian. Ver. Hist. c. ii. § 40. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxiv. 61.
Footnote 2239:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 3.
Footnote 2240:
Dioscor. iv. 79. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxv. 95.
Footnote 2241:
Pashley, Travels, i. 228.
Footnote 2242:
Dioscor. ii. 105. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxi. 49.
Footnote 2243:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xx. 87. xv. 19. Synes. Epist. 147. Dioscor. i. 182.
Footnote 2244:
Τὸ παραπέτασμα Κύπριον τὸ ποικίλον. Aristoph. ap. Poll. x. 32.
Footnote 2245:
Trebell. Poll. Claud. § 13.
Footnote 2246:
Vopisc. Aurelian. § 12.
Footnote 2247:
Quint. Curt. ix.
Footnote 2248:
Dioscor. i. 134.
Footnote 2249:
Damogeron, ap. Geopon. x. 64. 4.
Footnote 2250:
Dioscor. ii. 11.
Footnote 2251:
Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 59. xxx. 11.
Footnote 2252:
Strab. x. 5. t. ii. p. 392. Bentley, Dissert. on Phal. i. 169. 357,
sqq. Steph. de Urb. p. 189, b. speaks of it as one of the Cyclades.
Footnote 2253:
Dapper, Description des Isles de l’Archipel. p. 185.
Footnote 2254:
Cf. Oppian. Cyneg. i. 170. where he celebrates the horses of Crete. In
a former chapter I have spoken of a breed of wild asses said to be
found in modern times in the island of Cythera or Cerigo. It is
Cerigotto, however, that is celebrated by Buondelmonti, for its asses,
§ 10. p. 65. But Boschini, whom Dapper perhaps follows (Descript. des
Isles de l’Archipel. p. 378), restores the animals to Cerigo: “ha gran
quantita d’Asini’ salvatichi ch’ hanno una certa pietra in la testa,
che vale contro il mal caduco; e facilita il parto alle donne.”
L’Arcipelago, p. 6. Venezia, 1658. 4^{o.}
Footnote 2255:
Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. t. i. p. 41.
-----
Cerinthos in Eubœa, furnished a sort of light dry earth,[2256] used to
preserve corn in granaries. Malta supplied the idle and luxurious ladies
of Greece with a domestic kind of lap-dogs.[2257] Sciathos was famous
for its mullets; Melos exported kids;[2258] Naxos and Scyros, milch
goats and lobsters;[2259] Leros, guinea fowl; Samos, peacocks; and
Cypros, hairy sheep[2260] and doves.[2261] Among the wild and almost
inaccessible cliffs of modern Crete is found a species of blue
nightingale,[2262] in size somewhat inferior to the thrush, which it
resembled in the richness and variety of its notes. This bird is often
caught and kept in cages, where it is sometimes taught to imitate the
human voice. Occasionally it forms an article of traffic, and is
exported into Italy; but if the ancients traded in these birds, the
passage in which it may be mentioned has escaped me. In the same island
is found an elegant sort of merops which darts in flocks along the sides
of the thymy mountains in pursuit of the bees, which delight in those
fragrant places. It is of rich and variegated plumage like the
parrokeet. The children take it in a very ingenious manner; passing a
crooked pin with a fine thread attached through the hard corslet of the
cicada, they let go the insect which mounts, thus transfixed, into the
air. The merops, bold and voracious, immediately pounces upon and gorges
it, when the pin sticks in the throat, the bird becomes hooked like a
fish, and is easily drawn down and taken.
-----
Footnote 2256:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 10. 7.
Footnote 2257:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 331.
Footnote 2258:
Athen. 1. 6.
Footnote 2259:
Athen. i. 49. vii. 45.
Footnote 2260:
Saligniac. Itin. Hierosol. t. iv. c. vii.
Footnote 2261:
Athen. xiv. 70. Ἡ Κύπρος Δ’ ἔχει πελείας διαφόρους.
Footnote 2262:
Dapper, Description des Isles de l’Archipel. p. 460. Travellers make
mention of a species of white nightingale in Abyssinia with a tail two
palms in length. Jerome Lobo, Voyage d’Abissinie, i. 89.
-----
The next branch of Greek commerce which demands our notice was that
carried on with the countries on the Adriatic, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia,
Gaul, and Spain. This trade was in most instances of later origin than
that maintained with regions lying more to the East, but nevertheless
came at length to be of considerable importance, especially after the
Hellenic colonies in Italy and Sicily had risen to eminence. The cities
founded, moreover, on the coasts of Illyria exercised considerable
influence over the commerce of Greece, by imparting to the rude natives
a taste for her productions and manufactures, and exciting them to the
exercise of greater industry to supply suitable commodities in their
turn. Nevertheless, the information we possess on this subject is
extremely scanty.
The barn-door fowls of these regions,[2263] though inferior to those of
Greece, and of a smaller size, were yet exported thither, simply because
they were foreign, while the natives on the contrary were eager to
enrich their country with the breed of Attica. Wild turnips and
parsnips,[2264] it has been remarked by the ancients, were found growing
in Dalmatia;[2265] but as they abound in most other countries, it seems
not unreasonable to infer, from this particular mentioned of them, that
they were exported.[2266] The best iris, the odoriferous roots of which
were much used in the making of perfume, came from the interior of
Illyria,[2267] where, having been dug up and cleared of the leaves, they
were strung on a linen cord and dried in the shade.
-----
Footnote 2263:
Athen. vii. 23.
Footnote 2264:
Id. ix. 8.
Footnote 2265:
Among the exports of this country gold, found in a virgin state, near
the surface of the earth, was at one time included: aurum ...
invenitur aliquando in summa tellure protinus, rara felicitate: ut
nuper in Dalmatia principatu Neronis, singulis diebus etiam
quinquagenas libras fundens. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 21.
Footnote 2266:
Thus wild carrots have in modern times been exported from Crete for
medicinal purposes. Prosper. Alpin. de Medicin. Ægypt. iv. 11. p. 306.
Footnote 2267:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 5. 3. Damogeron, ap. Geopon. vii. 13. 4.
Florent. ap. id. vi. 8. 1. Leontin. ap. id. xi. 21. Plin. Nat. Hist.
xxi. 7.
-----
From the same country also were obtained the aspalathos[2268] and the
wild spikenard,[2269] whose leaf resembled that of the ivy, though
somewhat smaller and rounder. The wines of the Adriatic shore were in no
great request. That which was called Prætutian[2270] was light and
aromatic, and therefore deceived those who drank of it, being powerfully
intoxicating and somniferous. The wines of Istria partook of the same
character.
-----
Footnote 2268:
Dioscor. i. 19.
Footnote 2269:
Id. i. 9.
Footnote 2270:
Dioscor. v. 11. Cf. Sarracen. ad loc. p. 105. Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. 6.
-----
From the city of Apollonia[2271] was exported the substance called
pissasphaltos,[2272] brought down by the river from the Ceraunian
mountains, and found in large lumps upon the shore. It exhaled a mingled
odour of pitch and bitumen. Great quantities of salt[2273] were made in
another part of Illyria, where, during the spring, they took of the
water of a stream flowing forth from a cleft in the rock and poured it
into shallow pits exposed apparently to the sun and air, where it
hardened in about five days into salt. The beans of Apollonia were
famous for keeping long.[2274] Other Illyrian commodities were slaves,
ampelitis,[2275] cattle, and skins, for which the natives received wine
and oil, and other productions of civilised countries in return.[2276]
-----
Footnote 2271:
Leontinus, ap. Geopon. xv. 8. 1.
Footnote 2272:
Strab. vii. 5. t. ii. p. 106. Dioscor. i. 100.
Footnote 2273:
Strab. vii. 5. t. ii. p. 108.
Footnote 2274:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 10. 3. The same quality is attributed to
the beans of Cyzicos, id. ib.
Footnote 2275:
Strab. vii. t. i. p. 487.
Footnote 2276:
Id. v. 1. t. i. p. 346.
-----
The wines of ancient Italy, which formed an important article in the
commerce of that country,[2277] are so familiar to most persons that it
will be sufficient barely to enumerate the principal of them,—as the
Falernian, the Cæcuban,[2278] the Alban, the Surrentine, the Brundusian,
and the Antheia, a Thurian wine.[2279] Of medicinal herbs and
substances, Italy exported considerable quantities, and among them were
the hyssop,[2280] the melilot,[2281] from the country round Nola, the
wild spikenard,[2282] the madder,[2283] cultivated in the neighbourhood
of Ravenna, and Celtic spikenard from the Ligurian Alps,[2284] which was
kept tied up in handfuls, together with its roots. Of this article vast
quantities, as much it is said as sixty tons per annum, were in the last
century exported from hence into the inland parts of Africa, as Æthiopia
and Abyssinia,[2285] where it was chiefly used in softening and
rendering shining the skin. Another export of Italy was the Ligurian
all-heal,[2286] from the lofty and umbrageous summits of the Apennines,
where it flourished chiefly along the edge of the water-courses.
-----
Footnote 2277:
Lucian. Navig. seu Vot. § 23. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 331. Didymus, ap.
Geopon. viii. 22. 1.
Footnote 2278:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. 6.
Footnote 2279:
Strab. v. t. i. p. 357. Casaub. Dioscor. v. 10, seq.
Footnote 2280:
Florent. ap. Geopon. vi. 8. 1.
Footnote 2281:
Dioscor. iii. 48.
Footnote 2282:
Id. i. 9.
Footnote 2283:
Ἐρυθρόδανον. Dioscor. iii. 60.
Footnote 2284:
Dioscor. i. 7. The leaves of this plant were used as a bait for fish
at all seasons of the year. Geopon. xx. 24. 1. Damogeron. ap. id. vii.
13. 4; 24. 4. Florent. ap. id. vi. 8. 1. Columell. de Re Rust. xii.
20.
Footnote 2285:
Hazelquist, Travels, p. 302.
Footnote 2286:
Λιγυστικὸν. Dioscor. iii. 58.
There was in this same mountainous district a species of snail,[2287]
furnished with a shell in winter, which appears to have been both eaten
and used as a medicine.
Footnote 2287:
Dioscor. ii. 11.
-----
In many parts of Italy they still make use of snails for the same
purpose, digging them up out of the earth with an iron instrument. The
ancients kept tame snails for eating, which they fatted with a mixture
of flour and sweet wine.[2288] In France they are still fed on vine
leaves[2289] in cages, where they attain an immense size. Connoisseurs
in snails find a great difference in their flesh, according to the
plants and trees on which they pasture. Those which attach themselves to
the wormword plant are bitter, while such as are found among calamint,
pennyroyal, and origany, have an extremely agreeable flavour.
-----
Footnote 2288:
Martin Mathée, Notes sur Dioscoride, p. 118.
Footnote 2289:
The Greeks on the coast of the Black Sea still esteem the large
vine-snail a delicacy, in which they chiefly indulge during Lent.
Pallas, Travels in Southern Russia, iv. 247. These delicacies are
probably not in season until they begin to fly the Pleiades and seek
the shade of the leaves:
Ἀλλ᾽ ὁποτ᾽ ἂν φερέοικος ἀπὸ χθονὸς ἀμφυτὰ βαίνῃ,
Πληϊάδας φεύγων, τότε δὴ σκάφος οὐκέτι οἰνέων.
Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 571, seq.
-----
Among the delicacies of Italy best known to the ancients, and doubtless
exported, were mushrooms,[2290] of which several excellent sorts are
still produced; those particularly which the Tuscans call Prignoli and
Porcini, which, being boiled and afterwards dredged with flour and
fried, are exceedingly savoury.[2291] The real Porcini are salted and
preserved with peculiar care, to be eaten during Lent and other fasts.
There are found in the kingdom of Naples certain stones,[2292] which
being sunk in the ground, covered with a thin layer of earth, and
irrigated with warm water, produce mushrooms in four days. These stones
are preserved both at Rome and at Naples in cellars, for the production
of mushrooms. Occasionally, however, contrivances of this sort prove
fatal. In a convent in France where the nuns cultivated mushrooms on a
hot bed in a cellar, the noisome exhalations destroyed several persons
sent down to collect them.[2293]
-----
Footnote 2290:
Dioscor. iv. 83.
Footnote 2291:
Martin Mathée, Notes sur Dioscoride, p. 385.
Footnote 2292:
Id. ib.
Footnote 2293:
Valmont de Bomare, Dict. d’Hist. Nat. t. ii. p. 594.
-----
It has been seen that the yew-tree of Arcadia was much used by
cabinet-makers; but the Italian yew[2294] is mentioned by Greek
botanists only for its singular and noxious properties, since the birds,
they inform us, which ate of its berries turned black, while men were
afflicted with troublesome diseases. Around that of Gaul the imagination
had woven a tissue of terrors almost equal to that which modern times
have cast about the upas; for, to sleep, or even to recline, beneath its
shade, was supposed to cause dangerous maladies and occasionally even
death.
-----
Footnote 2294:
Dioscor. iv. 80.
-----
The plant of most deadly qualities known to the ancients grew
plentifully in the mountains of the Vestini, neighbours of the
Sabines.[2295] It was identical in nature with that of Pontos, and many
extraordinary circumstances are related of its effects. By the mere
touch it was said to possess the power to benumb the scorpion, which
again recovered its activity if brought in contact with the hellebore.
It was used by hunters in the chace to destroy wild beasts, and by
physicians for various purposes. At present it appears to be found
chiefly among the recesses of the Rhætian Alps, from whence it passes to
the Papal States and the kingdom of Naples, in both which countries
there is a particular class of men whose sole occupation is the
extirpation of wolves, and who formerly used to sell this poison openly
on the bridge of St. Angelo, at Rome.[2296]
-----
Footnote 2295:
Dioscor. iv. 77, seq.
Footnote 2296:
Martin Mathée, Notes sur Dioscoride, p. 382.
-----
Among the other exports of Italy may be enumerated the squills of
Minturnæ,[2297] which exceeded in size those of Smyrna, and the lobsters
of Alexandria: amber, too, and coal, of which there are said to have
been mines in Liguria,[2298] found their way into the channels of
commerce. The amber of the Po existed only in the regions of
mythology.[2299]
-----
Footnote 2297:
Athen. i. 12.
Footnote 2298:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 16.
Footnote 2299:
Lucian. de Electro seu Cygnis, § 1.
-----
Calabria supplied pitch,[2300] and bronze from Temessa;[2301] Etruria,
resin,[2302] figured gold, plate and articles in bronze,[2303] Thurii,
gypsum, and wine;[2304] Tarentum, fine gauze-like fabrics; Italy,[2305]
generally, groats and salt-beef,[2306] whetstones, wax,[2307] and
adarces, used as a dentifrice;[2308] Algidum, transparent
radishes;[2309] Apulia, capparis;[2310] Campania, wheat, from which the
best gruel was made, zea, and panic.[2311] Northern Italy, which
abounded in forests, reared immense droves of pigs, which were fed on
acorns, so that Rome was almost entirely supplied from thence with pork
and bacon.[2312] It likewise exported millet, pitch,[2313] exceedingly
fine wool from the neighbourhood of Mutina and the banks of the
Scultenna,[2314] long coarse wool from Liguria and the country of the
Symbri,[2315] with a middling sort from the neighbourhood of Padua, with
which coats, carpets, with several varieties of shaggy cloth, were
manufactured.[2316]
-----
Footnote 2300:
Dioscor. i. 97.
Footnote 2301:
Gog. Origine des Loix, iv. 223. Hom. Odyss. α. 182, seq. Steph.
Byzant. p. 703. d. Ἐνθα ἄριστος γίνεται χαλκὸς, ἢν καὶ τέμψαν ἄχοι τοῦ
νῦν οἱ Καλαβροὶ λέγουσι καὶ οἱ βάρβαροι, ὡσπερ αἰδούμενοι μεταποιῆσαι,
καθ᾽ ὁλοκληρίαν τὴν τοῦ Ὁμήρου φωνήν. Tzetz. Schol. in Lycoph. 854.
Strab. vi. t. i. p. 393. Casaub.
Footnote 2302:
Dioscor. i. 92.
Footnote 2303:
Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2304:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 64.
Footnote 2305:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. vii. § 2. Calumn. non Tem. Cred. § 16.
Footnote 2306:
Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2307:
Dioscor. ii. 194.
Footnote 2308:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 47. xvi. 66.
Footnote 2309:
Id. xix. 26.
Footnote 2310:
Dioscor. ii. 166.
Footnote 2311:
Strab. v. t. i. p. 372. Casaub. Plin. Nat. Hist. xviii. 11.
Footnote 2312:
Αἱ ὕλαι τοσαύτην ἔχουσι βάλανον, ὥστ᾽ ἐκ τῶν ἐντεῦθεν ὑοφορβίων ἡ Ῥώμη
τρέφεται τὸ πλέον. Strab. v. 1. t. i. p. 352. From other parts of
Italy a similar supply was obtained. “The forest of Lucania, whose
acorns fattened large droves of wild hogs, afforded, as a species of
tribute, a plentiful supply of cheap and wholesome meat. During five
months of the year a regular allowance of bacon was distributed to the
poorer citizens; and the annual consumption of the capital, at a time
when it had much declined from its former lustre, was ascertained, by
an edict of Valentinian the Third, at three millions six hundred and
twenty-eight thousand pounds.” Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, v. 281.
Footnote 2313:
Dioscor. i. 97.
Footnote 2314:
Strab. v. 1. t. i. 352. Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 7. Columell. de Re
Rust. vii. 2. Martial. xiv. 155.
Footnote 2315:
Strab. v. 1. t. i. p. 352.
Footnote 2316:
Id. v. 1. t. i. p. 353.
-----
This part of Italy, likewise, produced immense quantities of wine, which
the inhabitants laid up in tuns as large as dwelling-houses.[2317] Gold
mines were anciently worked in the country of the Vercelli.[2318]
-----
Footnote 2317:
Id. v. 1. t. i. p. 352.
Footnote 2318:
Id. v. 1. t. i. p. 353.
-----
The chief exports of Sicily were wheat,[2319] of which the best and
cleanest came from the neighbourhood of Agrigentum;[2320] cheese,[2321]
which appears to have been made in all parts of the island, as far back
at least as the days of Polyphemos; hogs,[2322] pigeons, and
doves,[2323] whose chief haunt was about the temple of Aphroditè[2324]
on Mount Eryx; variegated robes,[2325] costly furniture, more
particularly plate and pillows,[2326] and superbly wrought
chariots.[2327] The Sicilian saffron,[2328] grown in the neighbourhood
of Centuripa was of an inferior quality, but seems nevertheless to have
been imported into Italy,[2329] where it is supposed to have been
applied to the dyeing of the cedar beams used in the construction of
temples.
-----
Footnote 2319:
Herod. vii. 158. Thucyd. iii. 86. Iorio, Storia del Commercio, t. iv.
1. ii. c. iii. p. 229. Demosth. cont. Dionysod. § 3. Theoph. Hist.
Plant. viii. 6. 6.
Footnote 2320:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 4. 6.
Footnote 2321:
Athen. xiv. 76. i. 49. Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 838. Pac. 249.
Footnote 2322:
Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2323:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 167.
Footnote 2324:
Larcher, Mem. sur Venus, p. 187.
Footnote 2325:
Athen. xiv. 76.
Footnote 2326:
Id. ii. 29, seq.
Footnote 2327:
Id. i. 49.
Footnote 2328:
Florent. ap. Geopon. vi. 8. 1.
Footnote 2329:
Dioscor. i. 25.
-----
The honey of Mount Hybla,[2330] celebrated through all antiquity,
constituted another important article of commerce, as did likewise, more
particularly, the Adrian and the Mamertinian.
-----
Footnote 2330:
Diophan. ap. Geopon. xv. 7. 1. Dioscor. ii. 101. Cluver. Sicil. Antiq.
i. 11. Sil. Ital. xiv. 200. Varro, de Re Rust. iii. 16. 14.
-----
Among the better known plants of Sicily were the marjoram,[2331] and the
cactus, the latter of which was eaten, whether fresh or pickled.[2332]
-----
Footnote 2331:
Dioscor. iii. 47.
Footnote 2332:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 4. 10. Athen. ii.
-----
From the neighbourhood of Tetras, was obtained a sort of stone which
became light and porous in burning so as to resemble the pumice.[2333]
About the Erinæan promontory a species of jet was found in great plenty,
which when burnt emitted a bituminous odour.[2334]
-----
Footnote 2333:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 15.
Footnote 2334:
Id. ib.
-----
Sicily likewise exported salt,[2335] emeralds,[2336] lapis
specularis,[2337] and agates.[2338] An abundant supply of coral was
obtained from the sea around Cape Pachynos, near Syracuse;[2339] and
from Agrigentum, a liquid bitumen found floating on the clear surface of
fountains and burnt instead of oil in lamps, and therefore called by
some the oil of Sicily.[2340] Poisons of great force were also found in
the island. Among the favourite dishes of the ancients were the lampreys
and eels of the Pharo of Messina,[2341] the bellies of thunnies caught
near Cape Pachynos,[2342] snails,[2343] and oysters from Cape
Peloros.[2344]
-----
Footnote 2335:
Dioscor. v. 126.
Footnote 2336:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 18.
Footnote 2337:
Id. xxxvi. 45.
Footnote 2338:
This stone appears to have derived its name from a Sicilian river:
Καλὸς δὲ λίθος καὶ ὁ ἀχάτης ὁ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἀχάτου ποταμοῦ τοῦ ἐν Σικελίᾳ,
καὶ πωλεῖται τίμιος. Theoph. de Lapid. § 31. Cf. Vib. Sequest. p. 3.
Oberlin.
Cernitur egregius lapis hic, cui nomen _achates_:
Hoc dederat fluvius cujus generatur ad undas:
Hanc simulacra vides venis ostendere gemmam.
Priscian. Perieg. 502, sqq.
Footnote 2339:
Dioscor. v. 139. On the Coral of modern Sicily see Spallanzani,
Travels, Introduction, vol. i. p. 36. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 7.
3.
Footnote 2340:
Dioscor. i. 99.
Footnote 2341:
Athen. i. 6. vii. 53.
Footnote 2342:
Id. iii. 85.
Footnote 2343:
Dioscor. ii. 18.
Footnote 2344:
Athen. i. 6. iii. 44.
-----
The Lipari islands exported sulphur,[2345] alum,[2346] reddle, pumice
stone,[2347] crabs,[2348] and anchovies;[2349] Corsica, timber[2350] of
a superior quality; Sardinia, carnelians,[2351] snails,[2352] salt
provisions,[2353] wax,[2354] and honey, which though bitter, because the
bee there fed on wormwood, was much used in cosmetics. In this island
likewise was found the seseli,[2355] the juice of which, extracted from
the root, was set to thicken in the shade, because, exposed to the sun,
it evaporated altogether. It was esteemed a cure for the toothache. The
persons employed in collecting it were careful to anoint their beard and
nostrils with oil of roses, in order to escape those pains and vertigoes
which would otherwise have been caused by its effluvia. The little
island of Elba exported iron ore and a precious stone richly sprinkled
with brilliant colours.[2356]
-----
Footnote 2345:
Dioscor. v. 124.
Footnote 2346:
Dioscor. v. 123. Strab. vi. 2. t. ii. p. 39. According to the
conjecture of Spallanzani the alum obtained by the ancients from
Lipari was the production of the neighbouring island of Vulcano.
Otherwise the vein must be lost, since though he traversed every foot
of the island he only found some traces or efflorescences of it.
Travels in the two Sicilies, iv. 118. Dolomieu, Voyage aux Iles de
Lipari. p. 78.
Footnote 2347:
Spallanzani, ii. 298.
Footnote 2348:
Athen. iii. 64.
Footnote 2349:
Id. i. 6.
Footnote 2350:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 8. 2.
Footnote 2351:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 23.
Footnote 2352:
Dioscor. ii. 11.
Footnote 2353:
Poll. vi. 48.
Footnote 2354:
Dydim. ap. Geopon. vi. 5. 8.
Footnote 2355:
Dioscor. iii. 92.
Footnote 2356:
Strab. v. 2. t. i. p. 361. Plin. Nat. Hist. iii. 12. xxxiv. 41. Vict.
Var. Lect. xix. 10.
-----
With Gaul Greece carried on no great trade. The few articles which it
thence obtained were hams, reckoned among the best in the ancient
world,[2357] pitch,[2358] larch, resin,[2359] wool; French lavender,
from the island of Hieres; wormwood from Xaintonges;[2360] seseli,[2361]
whetstones called passernices,[2362] and carbuncles from Marseilles,
which were so highly esteemed, that a stone of very small size sold for
fifty pieces of gold.[2363] In the environs of Ruscino[2364] a very fine
sort of mullet was caught in certain sandy lagoons near the sea.
Aquitania produced gold; Belgium a sort of white stone (_pierre
franche_) which was sawed into tiles more easily than wood, and used for
mosaics.[2365]
-----
Footnote 2357:
Athen. xiv. 75.
Footnote 2358:
Id. v. 40.
Footnote 2359:
Dioscor. i. 92.
Footnote 2360:
Id. iii. 28.
Footnote 2361:
Id. iii. 60.
Footnote 2362:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 47.
Footnote 2363:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 18.
Footnote 2364:
Strab. iv. 1. t. i. p. 292.
Footnote 2365:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 44.
-----
The produce of Spain and Portugal was richer and more varied: merino
rams[2366] for breeding, valued at two hundred and forty pounds, were
thence imported into Greece, together with wool of the very finest
quality.[2367] At an earlier period superior cloth had been manufactured
for exportation.[2368] The linen of Emporiæ and of the Saltiæti long
continued to be famous.[2369] The kermes[2370] procured from Spain were
of an inferior quality, but they always continued to be an article of
commerce,[2371] as well as the alum,[2372] the slate used in medicine,
the whetstone,[2373] lapis specularis,[2374] the sory,[2375]
minium,[2376] and palmati, round pebbles having within the figure of a
palm-tree, found near Munda.[2377]
-----
Footnote 2366:
Strab. iii. t. i. p. 213. Casaub. Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 49. Diod.
Sicul. v.
Footnote 2367:
Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 48.
Footnote 2368:
Strab. iii. t. i. p. 213. Casaub.
Footnote 2369:
Strab. iii. t. i. p. 213. Casaub. Sil. Italic. iii. 373.
Footnote 2370:
Dioscor. iv. 48. Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 65.
Footnote 2371:
D. Juan Pablo Canàls y Martì, sob. la Purp. de los Antig. c. v.
Footnote 2372:
Dioscor. v. 123. See Don Guil. Bowles, Introd. à la Hist. Nat. &c., de
Espag. p. 39. Dillon, Trav. through Spain. 220. D. J. P. Canàls y
Martì, c. viii.
Footnote 2373:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 47.
Footnote 2374:
Id. xxxvi. 45.
Footnote 2375:
Dioscor. v. 119.
Footnote 2376:
Id. v. 109.
Footnote 2377:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 29.
-----
The cinnabar[2378] of this country was artificial,[2379] and produced
from the mixture of a certain ore and argentiferous sand, which being
cast into furnaces assumed a most brilliant and flame-like colour. In
the mines the above ore emitted so pestilential a vapour that, to
protect themselves from it, the workmen covered their faces with a mask
of transparent bladders, which at once guarded their eyes and prevented
their inhaling it, until by their own breath it had been somewhat
tempered. This pigment was used by artists in painting the most costly
and gorgeous frescoes.
-----
Footnote 2378:
Sometimes, however, the mineral would appear to have been found in a
natural state: κιννάβαρι ... εὑρίσκεσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν Ἰβήρων ὁμοῦ τῷ χρυσῷ
λέγεται. Pausan. viii. 39. 6.
Footnote 2379:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 58. D. J. P. Canàls y Martì, cap. vi.
-----
It has often been remarked that Spain[2380] was to the ancient world
what Peru and Mexico afterwards were to Spain. Gold and silver abounded
almost throughout the land. The miners in constant working were
numerous; the rivers and mountain-torrents rolled down golden sands; and
frequently after floods morsels of this precious metal were discovered
flashing and glittering among the rocks and stones.[2381] Silver was so
plentiful, that the natives applied it to the most common uses, and the
Phœnicians and Greeks who first touched upon the shore not only
freighted their ships with it, but absolutely cast away their anchors
and supplied their place with masses of silver.[2382]
-----
Footnote 2380:
Cf. Diodor. Sicul. v. 36, seq. t. i. p. 359. Wesseling. Iorio, Storia
del Commercio, t. v. 1. ii. c. vii. seq. p. 254, sqq.
Footnote 2381:
Καταφέρουσι δὲ οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ οἱ χείμαρῥοι τὴν χρυσίτην ἄμμον,
πολλαχοῦ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἄνυδροις τόποις οὖσαν, κ. τ. λ. Strab. iii. t. i.
p. 216. Casaub. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 4.
Footnote 2382:
Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 31.
-----
The large and opulent province of Bætica, now Andalusia, supplied the
ancient world with numerous valuable commodities, among which were
wheat,[2383] wine,[2384] oil,[2385] bees’ wax, honey, pitch,[2386]
kermes,[2387] vermilion not inferior to that of Sinopè,[2388] rock-salt,
and excellent salt-fish.[2389] The thunnies of this part of Spain were
said to fatten, like droves of wild hogs,[2390] on the large acorns of
the dwarf oak which grew plentifully along the coast, and dipped its
fruit into the sea. Hence, too, were obtained numerous species of
shellfish, among which were conchs of enormous size.[2391] The congers
and murænas, likewise, attained extraordinary dimensions, some of them
weighing no less than eighteen minæ, while polypi were found a full
talent in weight, and cuttle-fish a yard in length.[2392]
-----
Footnote 2383:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xvii. 3.
Footnote 2384:
Id. xiv. 6.
Footnote 2385:
Lucian. Navig. § 23. Damogeron, ap. Geopon. ix. 26. Plin. Nat. Hist.
xv. 2.
Footnote 2386:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. 20.
Footnote 2387:
Strab. iii. t. i. p. 212, seq. Casaub. Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 41. xvi.
8. Iorio, Storia del Commercio, t. iv. 1. ii. c. x. p. 269.
Footnote 2388:
Justin. xliv. 1. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 7. Vitruv. vii. 8.
Footnote 2389:
Lucian. Navig. § 23. Athen. iii. 84. Poll. Onomast. vi. 48.
Footnote 2390:
Strab. iii. t. i. p. 215. Casaub. Athen. vii. 14.
Footnote 2391:
Strab. iii. t. i. p. 215. Casaub.
Footnote 2392:
Id. ib.
-----
The Spartium, or Spanish broom, principally used in the manufacture of
ropes[2393] and cables, grew chiefly[2394] along the high and arid
plains of Valentia and Catalonia, through which passed the great high
road from Italy.[2395] Spain exported, besides, cumin, together with
wild rocket,[2396] which grew chiefly on the shores of the
Atlantic.[2397] The seeds were substituted by the natives for mustard.
In fact, we find that it was a common practice among the ancients to use
the seed of rocket in seasoning their dishes; and in order to preserve
it for constant use they reduced it with milk or vinegar to a kind of
paste, which they fashioned into round cakes, and laid up when dry.
-----
Footnote 2393:
Athen. v. 40.
Footnote 2394:
It is now found in gardens on the gulf of Cadiz. “The _Spartium
Junceum_ (Spanish broom) showed its admirable flowers over a
garden-wall which was higher than a man’s head. This plant is
discoverable at a great distance by its fine smell.” Osbeck, Voyage to
China, i. 81.
Footnote 2395:
Strab. iii. 4. t. i. p. 275.
Footnote 2396:
Dioscor. ii. 69.
Footnote 2397:
Id. iii. 170.
-----
CHAPTER XIII.
EXPORTS FROM AFRICA AND THE EAST.
Having thus cast a rapid glance over the principal articles, natural or
artificial, which commerce derived from Europe and Asia Minor, we shall
pass over into Africa, in order, as nearly as possible, to ascertain
what that part of the world contributed to the trade of antiquity. We
shall then proceed by way of Egypt into Syria and Arabia, and from
thence to Persia, India, and the farther regions of Asia, with which we
will conclude our view of the commerce of the Greeks. Numerous articles
of merchandise of the highest value were, from very early ages, obtained
from Africa;[2398] as gold in ingots, and gold dust, ivory,[2399] blocks
of ebony and black slaves.[2400] The ancients have remarked, that a
piece of green ebony placed near the fire kindled, and rubbed against a
stone assumed a reddish colour.[2401] In some parts of the country
elephants’ teeth were so plentiful, that the very cattle-sheds were
enclosed with palings of ivory;[2402] and the present of the Æthiopians
to the Persian king[2403] consisted of twelve elephants’ teeth, two
hundred blocks of ebony, five black slaves, and a quantity of unwrought
gold.[2404] From this country were exported linen or flax, medicinal
roots, perfumes, and aromatic spices.[2405]
-----
Footnote 2398:
Cf. Demosth. adv. Callip. § 2.
Footnote 2399:
Philost. Vit. Sophist, ii. 21. § 2. Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2400:
Herod, iii. 97.
Footnote 2401:
Dioscor. i. 129.
Footnote 2402:
Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 10.
Footnote 2403:
Herod. iii. 97.
Footnote 2404:
From the same country the ancients likewise obtained the rhinoceros,
as well, no doubt, as the giraffe, sometimes paraded in their
processions. Athen. v. 32. Didymus, however, supposes the giraffe to
have been brought from India. Ἐγὼ δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰνδίας ἐνεχθεῖσαν
ἐθεασάμην ἐν Ἀντιοχείᾳ καμηλοπάρδαλιν, ap. Geopon. xvi. 22. 9.
Agatharchid. ap. Phot. p. 455. b.
Footnote 2405:
Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. vi. 2, p. 229.
-----
According to the information furnished to Herodotus by the
Carthaginians, there was anciently a lake in the small island of
Kerkenna, out of which the young women drew up gold dust with bunches of
feathers.[2406] Africa, likewise, supplied alum,[2407] salt,[2408]
sory-stone,[2409] cinnabar,[2410] hexecontalithoi,[2411] blood-stones,
eagle-stones, black palmati, and magnets.[2412] Anciently even diamonds
are said to have been obtained from certain mines in Æthiopia, lying
between the temple of Hermes and the island of Meroe.[2413]
-----
Footnote 2406:
Herod, iv. 195.
Footnote 2407:
Dioscor. v. 123.
Footnote 2408:
Id. v. 126.
Footnote 2409:
Id. v. 119.
Footnote 2410:
Id. v. 109.
Footnote 2411:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 60. Solin. cap. xxxi. Isidor. Orig. xvi. 12.
Footnote 2412:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 29. 39. 25. Isidor. Orig. xvi. 4. Marbod. de
Lapid. cap. xliii.
Footnote 2413:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii, 15.
-----
A purple, rivalling that of Tyre,[2414] was produced from a fish caught
along the northern coast. Hence, also, were obtained kermes[2415] and
ostrich feathers, with which the crests of helmets were sometimes
adorned. Monkeys[2416] were commonly imported from Africa, together with
Æthiopian sheep, a species of fowl,[2417] and various kinds of
locusts[2418] which, eaten by the inhabitants only, figured among the
materia medica of the Greeks. Dried and burnt, their smoke was snuffed
up for certain complaints, and, reduced to powder, they were drunk in
Rome as a remedy against the bite of a scorpion.[2419]
-----
Footnote 2414:
Iorio, Storia del Commercio, t. v. 1. ii. c. x. p. 268.
Footnote 2415:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 12. xxii. 3. Iorio, Storia, &c., t. iv. 1. ii.
c. x. p. 269. Colonel Scott, who mistakes the insects for berries,
gives the following brief account of the collection and price of
kermes in the territories of Abd-el-Kader: “We travelled for the
greater part of the day through a barren and mountainous country; but
one at the same time abounding in riches, from the circumstance of its
being covered with the plant which furnishes the _kermes_, a small
berry about the size of a pea split in two, and which gives a dye
between vermilion and red, and is an article of considerable trade,
selling at from a dollar to one dollar and a half per pound in Fez,
whilst here, during the month of May, which is the season for
gathering it, it can be procured at from one bougou (1s. 4d.) to one
and a half per pound, when bought from the Arabs: but if the proper
plan were adopted, which is, to send a party hired by the month, with
a superintendent to direct their operations, it might be procured at
from eight-pence to one shilling per pound, and would form a most
lucrative branch of trade.” Journal of a Residence in the Esmailla of
Abd-el-Kader, p. 88.
Footnote 2416:
Massinissa inquired of certain merchants, whom he saw coming to Africa
in search of monkeys, whether the women bore no children in their
country? Athen. xii. 16. Cf. Plut. Pericl. § 1.
Footnote 2417:
Athen. v. 32.
Footnote 2418:
Lucian. Navig. § 23.
Footnote 2419:
Dioscor. ii. 57. The cicada is spitted, roasted, and eaten at the
present day in Affghanistân. Vigne, Ghuzni, Kabul, &c., p. 99. See,
also, Hazelquist, p. 230, and Leo Africanus, p. 769.
-----
Slabs of citron-wood, used principally in the making of tables, seem to
have been obtained exclusively from this part of the world,[2420] which,
likewise, furnished various kinds of beautiful marbles. Fine carbuncles
for seals were obtained from the neighbourhood of Carthage,[2421] as
were the emerald and the bastard emerald from a small island called
Cothon, opposite that part of the coast.
-----
Footnote 2420:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xiii. 30. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 1.
Footnote 2421:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 31.
-----
The gum ammoniac distils in a milky juice[2422] from an umbelliferous
plant growing in the desert near the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, as well as
on the confines of Cyrenè, whence it appears to have been chiefly
exported.[2423]
-----
Footnote 2422:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 49. xxiv. 14.
Footnote 2423:
Dioscor. iii. 98.
-----
In the same country grew the silphion,[2424] which, according to
tradition, was not indigenous to the soil, but sprang up suddenly for
the first time after a violent tempest.[2425] If we can rely on this
relation we must suppose the seed to have been borne thither by the
winds, probably from some part of the interior. Both the root and the
juice were exported, sometimes adulterated with bean-flowers or gum
sagapenum. Marmarica supplied an extremely pungent kind of
capparis,[2426] which, also, was found on the shores of the Red Sea. The
wild asparagus flourished abundantly in this country, and attained a
great height.[2427]
-----
Footnote 2424:
Supposed to be the prangus by several modern writers. Vigne, Ghuzni,
Kabul, &c., p. 100, seq. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 3. 1. 1. 5. 2.
Athen. vii. 26. Aristoph. Plut. 926. Av. 534. 1578, 1581. Aristot.
Hist. Animal. viii. 29.
Footnote 2425:
At the same time a wood of trees, previously unknown in the country,
sprang up. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 1. 6. Cf. on the silphion, Schol.
Aristoph. Eq. 891. Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 3. Dioscor. iii. 94. Athen.
i. 49. iii. 58. Geopon. v. 48. 5. ii. 37. 1. xiii. 10. 6.
Footnote 2426:
Dioscor. ii. 204.
Footnote 2427:
Athen. ii. 62. Cf. Sibth. Flor. Græc. tab. 337. Dioscor. ii. 152.
-----
From Cyrenaica came an inferior sort of saffron,[2428] with truffles of
a very delicate flavour,[2429] some of which were of a reddish
hue,[2430] the best white hellebore,[2431] heraclean all-heal,[2432] the
herb alysson from Africa generally,[2433] with gum-ladanum,[2434] olive
oil,[2435] iris roots,[2436] and terebinth berries.[2437] In the country
of the Troglodytes, on the western part of the Red Sea, were groves of
myrrh trees, the gum of which was of a palish green, pellucid, and of a
biting taste.[2438]
-----
Footnote 2428:
Dioscor. i. 25.
Footnote 2429:
Athen. ii. 60. Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 13.
Footnote 2430:
Dioscor. ii. 200.
Footnote 2431:
Id. iv. 150.
Footnote 2432:
Id. iii. 56.
Footnote 2433:
Dioscor. iv. 180.
Footnote 2434:
Id. i. 128.
Footnote 2435:
Florent. ap. Geopon. ix. 3. 1. Plin. Nat. Hist. xvii. 19.
Footnote 2436:
Dioscor. i. 1.
Footnote 2437:
Id. i. 91.
Footnote 2438:
Id. i. 77.
-----
The euphorbium,[2439] which received its name from Euphorbius, physician
to king Juba, who discovered the virtues of its juices, is found on
Mount Atlas, and in most parts of northern Africa. In procuring this
substance they spread a number of sheepskins round the shrub, which they
then pierced with darts or lances from a distance, in order to avoid the
penetrating noxious vapours which exhaled from it at its first coming in
contact with the air. The same precaution, according to a modern
traveller, is still practised.
-----
Footnote 2439:
Id. iii. 96. Cf. Leo. African. p. 770. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxv. 38.
-----
Carthage traded generally in all the productions of the ancient world,
her exports consequently were numerous, and among these were magnificent
tapestry and richly figured pillows.[2440] From the same part of Africa
were exported a superior kind of snails.[2441] Horses, hides,[2442] and
hams cured in a particular manner, were supplied by Cyrenè,[2443]
together with the best unguent of roses.[2444] This country was likewise
famous for its fragrant violets and saffron flowers.[2445] The horns of
the oryx were exported to Phœnicia, where they were employed in
constructing the sides of citharæ.[2446] The scink, whose flesh was used
as an antidote and in aphrodisiacs, was exported from the neighbourhood
of mount Atlas, where it attained the length of four feet and a
half.[2447] The Carthaginians, who sailed down the western shore of
Africa to the gold coast, used to trade with the natives without
personal communication. Landing from their ships they deposited a
quantity of merchandise on the ground and retired on board, where they
kindled large fires, that their coming might be announced by the smoke;
upon this the natives approached, and laid close by what they conceived
to be the value of the articles in gold. If what they brought satisfied
the Carthaginians, they took away the gold and left the merchandise; if
not, they suffered the whole to remain; upon which the natives added a
quantity of the precious metal, until the strangers were
satisfied.[2448] Similar rules are observed by the Moors in trading with
the negroes in various parts of this continent.
-----
Footnote 2440:
Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2441:
Dioscor. ii. 11.
Footnote 2442:
Athen. i. 49. iii. 58.
Footnote 2443:
Id. i. 12.
Footnote 2444:
Id. xv. 38. The moss roses of Cyrenè were renowned in antiquity for
their fragrance. Theoph. Hist. Plant, vi. 6. 6.
Footnote 2445:
Id. xv. 29.
Footnote 2446:
Herod. iv. 192.
Footnote 2447:
Id. ibid. Dioscor. ii. 71.
Footnote 2448:
Herod. iv. 96. Circumstances of a like nature are described by
Philostratus, (Vit. Apoll. Tyan. vi. 2, p. 229,) in the commerce
carried on by the Egyptians with the inhabitants of Ethiopia.
-----
On nearly the whole coast of northern Africa flourished the lotus tree,
the fruit of which constituted the principal subsistence of some of the
natives, who likewise made from it a kind of wine which could not be
exported, since it turned sour in three days. The nourishing quality of
this fruit was experienced by the army of Ophella,[2449] which
proceeding across the desert, to attack the Carthaginians, was reduced
to subsist upon it entirely for several days. It is about the size of a
white cherry and straw-coloured, excepting on the side next the sun,
which has a ruddy blush: the best are said to be without stones, but
those which are produced in the Saïd have very large ones. Whether it
has yet been introduced into England I know not; I myself, however, made
the attempt in pots placed in a warm room; but on the first frosty night
of autumn the plants perished entirely, with all the silk trees I had
planted at the same time. From the same part of the country was obtained
the lotus plant, used in cosmetics and medicines.[2450]
-----
Footnote 2449:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 3. 2. Vid. Diod. Sicul. xx. 42. Plut. Dem. §
14. Palmer. Excercitat. p. 594.
Footnote 2450:
Dioscor. iv. 112.
-----
From Egypt, which we shall here consider apart from the rest of Africa,
the most valuable exports were undoubtedly wheat[2451] and rice,[2452]
after which, in later ages, the wines of Lake Mareotis,[2453] and
several cities along the Nile, deserve to be enumerated. The seeds of
the bitter cabbage of Egypt[2454] were exported to be employed in
medicine. Marjoram, too, was obtained from this country,[2455] together
with the odoriferous rush;[2456] the creeping inula,[2457] cœrulescent
wormwood,[2458] the arisaron,[2459] garlic,[2460] the acacalis, or berry
of a certain shrub used in remedies against ophthalmia,[2461]
myrobalans,[2462] amomum,[2463] cumin,[2464] gum-acacia, transparent as
glass,[2465] and the leaves and flowers of the Eastern privet.[2466]
-----
Footnote 2451:
Demosth. cont. Dionysod. § 9. Plut. Pericl. § 37. Athen. ii. 10. 13.
Schol. Aristoph. Av. 301. Geopon. iii. 3. 11. Theoph. Hist. Plant.
viii. 4. Plin. Nat. Hist. xviii. 12. Cf. Spanh. ad Callim. Hymn in
Cerer. 2. t. ii. p. 657.
Footnote 2452:
Athen. iii. 75.
Footnote 2453:
Id. i. 60. Geopon. xx. 15. Strab. xvii. t. ii. p. 1151. Casaub.—Vibius
Sequester, p. 24. Virg. Georg. ii. 91. Plin. Nat. Hist. xiv. 3.
Isidor. Orig. xvii. 5. Horat. Od. i. 37. 14.
Footnote 2454:
Dioscor. ii. 146.
Footnote 2455:
Id. iii. 47.
Footnote 2456:
Damogeron, ap. Geopon. vii. 13. 4.
Footnote 2457:
Dioscor. i. 26.
Footnote 2458:
Id. iii. 27.
Footnote 2459:
Id. ii. 178.
Footnote 2460:
Id. ii. 182. Sibthorp, Flor. Græc. Tab. 313.
Footnote 2461:
Dioscor. i. 118.
Footnote 2462:
Id. iv. 160.
Footnote 2463:
Prosp. Alpin. De Medicin. Ægypt. iv. 10, p. 300, seq.
Footnote 2464:
Dioscor. iii. 68. On the cumin of Æthiopia, Id. Theriac. c. xix.
Footnote 2465:
Τὸ δὲ κόμμι τῆς ἀκάνθης διαφέρει τὸ σκωληκοειδὲς ὑελίζον, διαυγὲς,
ἄξυλον, εἶτα τὸ λευκόν. Dioscor. i. 133. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 11.
15.
Footnote 2466:
Κύπρος, Dioscor. i. 124.
-----
It is possible, that the sensitive plant was introduced into Greece from
Egypt, since this appears to be the native country of all the acacia
tribe, to which the sensitive plant belongs; and we find it to have been
plentifully produced in the neighbourhood of Memphis.[2467] Both the
seeds and flowers of the tamarisk were used in medicine,[2468] and of
its wood were made cups, which were supposed to impart a medicinal
virtue to whatever was drunk out of them.
-----
Footnote 2467:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 11.
Footnote 2468:
Dioscor. i. 116.
-----
From dill,[2469] which was exported from Egypt and other countries, a
perfume was made, which was supposed to mitigate the acuteness of the
headache. Other kinds of perfume[2470] were likewise manufactured in
this country,[2471] of which that called metopion, chiefly composed of
galbanum,[2472] and the unguent of lilies may be regarded as the
principal.[2473]
-----
Footnote 2469:
Ἄνισον. Dioscor. iii. 65.
Footnote 2470:
Athen. xiv. 50.
Footnote 2471:
Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. § 2.
Footnote 2472:
Dioscor. i. 71.
Footnote 2473:
Δοκεῖ δὲ διαφέρειν τὸ ἐν Φοινίκῃ καὶ ἐν Αἰγύπτω γινόμενον ἄριστον δὲ
ἐστὶν αὐτοῦ, τὸ ὄζον κρίνων. Dioscor. i. 62.
-----
Egypt, likewise, exported paper,[2474] sails, curiously wrought linen
breastplates,[2475] linen[2476] and cotton[2477] cloths, jars,[2478]
salt, lobsters, Canopic muscles, Venus’s ears,[2479] the shad,[2480]
dates, mustard,[2481] vinegar,[2482] palm wine,[2483] and salt
provisions.[2484] The scink, or land crocodile, was likewise furnished
by Egypt.[2485] The game-cocks of Alexandria, which appear to have been
held in the highest estimation were doubtless exported.[2486] The
Egyptian oil stunk because no salt was used in the making of it.[2487]
Upon the fields of Egypt, at the period of the inundation, was found in
great plenty the nymphæa lotus, with its white flower, which was said to
remain open so long as the sun continued above the horizon, but closed
at the approach of twilight, and dipped its whole head beneath the
water, where it remained concealed till sunrise, when it rose and spread
its petals to the dawn. The roots of this plant, about the size of a
quince, and in taste like the yolk of an egg, when cooked, were eaten by
the Egyptians, who with its seed made also a kind of bread.[2488]
-----
Footnote 2474:
Lucian. de Syria Dea, § 7. Athen. i. 49. Ἡ βίβλος ψιλὴ ῥαβδος ἐστὶν
ἐπ᾽ ἄκρου ἔχουσα χαίτην. Ὀ δὲ κύαμος κατὰ πολλὰ μέρη φύλλα καὶ ἄνθη
ἐκφέρει, καὶ καρπὸν ὅμοιον τῳ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν κυάμῳ, μεγέθει μόνον καὶ
γεύσει διαλάττοντα. Strab. xvii. t. ii. p. 1151. Casaub.--Iorio,
Storia del Commercio, t. iv. 1. xi. c. xii.
Footnote 2475:
Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. § 2.
Footnote 2476:
Iorio, Storia del Comm. e della Navig. t. iv. 1. ii. c. xiii. p. 275.
Footnote 2477:
It appears to be perfectly clear, notwithstanding the arguments of
Palmerius, (Exercitat. in Auct. Græc. p. 17, sqq.,) that the
wool-bearing trees described by Herodotus, (iii. 106, cf. ii. 86, vii.
181,) and Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. iv. 7. 7,) were no other than the
perennial cotton shrubs. Palmerius was led into the mistake he has
committed by having been informed, that the cotton was an annual
plant, whereas, as is now well known, there are two species of cotton
shrub, the one annual, the other perennial, and it was evidently the
latter that flourished in India and the island of Tylos. Pollux, who
speaks distinctly of cotton, relates, that it was produced in Egypt.
(Onomast. vii. 75.) Belon, (Observat. ii. 6,) seems to imagine that
the ancient authors above cited, speak of the silk tree, which is
found growing at the present day on the banks of the Nile, in Upper
Egypt and Nubia.
Footnote 2478:
Athen. xi. 11.
Footnote 2479:
Fab. Column. De Purpur. xviii. 3. Athen. iii. 40.
Footnote 2480:
Σιλούρος, Paxamus, ap. Geopon. xiii. 10. 11. Athen. vii. 18.
Footnote 2481:
Pelagon, ap. Geopon. xvi. 17. 1.
Footnote 2482:
Athen. ii. 76.
Footnote 2483:
Athen. xiv. 50.
Footnote 2484:
Poll. vi. 48. Athen. iii. 93.
Footnote 2485:
Dioscor. ii. 71.
Footnote 2486:
Εἰσὶ δὲ ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ τῇ πρὸς Αἴγυπτον ὄρνεις Μονόσιροι, ἑξ ὧν οἱ
μάχιμοι ἀλεκτρυόνες γεννῶνται. Florent. ap. Geopon. xiv. 7. 30.
Footnote 2487:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 2. 9.
Footnote 2488:
Dioscor. iv. 114.
-----
Among the minerals and precious stones obtained from this country were
the sory,[2489] the bloodstone,[2490] the emerald,[2491] and the
carbuncle. Lapis lazuli was manufactured in Egypt,[2492] the secret of
imitating nature in the produce of this substance having been discovered
by one of its kings. In the neighbourhood of Memphis was found a sort of
variegated pebbles, which, being broken and reduced to powder, were used
by surgeons when about to apply the knife or the cautery in dulling the
sense of pain, which it effected completely without danger.[2493]
-----
Footnote 2489:
Id. v. 119.
Footnote 2490:
Αἱματίτης. Id. v. 144.
Footnote 2491:
Athen. iii. 46.
Footnote 2492:
Σκευαστὸς δὲ ὁ Αἰγύπτιος· (κυάνος·) καὶ οἱ γράφοντες τὰ περὶ τοὺς
βασιλεῖς καὶ τουτο γράφουσι, τίς πρῶτος βασιλεὺς ἐποίησε χυτὸν κύανου
μιμησάμενος τὸν αὐτοφυῆ. Theoph. de Lapid. § 55.
Footnote 2493:
Dioscor. v. 158.
-----
The morochthos,[2494] likewise used in medicine, was a species of
Egyptian clay applied to the bleaching of linen. From Æthiopia came the
stone called thyites,[2495] which, though green like the jasper, being
dipped in water, imparted to it the colour of milk, and rendered it a
cure for ophthalmia. The nitre[2496] of Egypt was superior to that of
Lydia.[2497] Aloes, likewise,[2498] and the fine sand for the gymnasia
were supplied by this country.[2499] The best burnt copper was exported
from Egypt, where it was prepared as follows in the neighbourhood of
Memphis.[2500] Taking a number of copper nails from ships decayed and
fallen to pieces, they piled them in unbaked jars, alternating with
layers of earth and sulphur of equal weight, which, having been well
luted, were then placed in red-hot furnaces, where they were kept until
the jars were thoroughly baked. In lieu of salt and sulphur alum was
sometimes substituted.
-----
Footnote 2494:
Id. v. 152.
Footnote 2495:
Id. v. 154.
Footnote 2496:
Id. v. 130. Florent. ap. Geopon. vi. 16. 6. Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxi. 10.
Footnote 2497:
See Hazelquist, Travels, p. 275.
Footnote 2498:
Dioscor. v. 123.
Footnote 2499:
Plut. Alexand. § 40.
Footnote 2500:
Dioscor. v. 87.
-----
Others, without adding any of these substances, burnt the nails for
several days; while a fourth method was, previously to smear them with a
mixture of alum, vinegar, and sulphur, and afterwards to burn them in
unbaked jars. Copper thus calcined assumed a red colour, and, when
pounded in Theban mortars and repeatedly washed with rain water,
resembled cinnabar or minium.[2501] It was usually kept by physicians in
boxes of bronze. The marbles of Egypt, used by ancient artists, were
generally green and red porphyry.[2502] All kinds of glass vessels, it
is well known, were exported from Alexandria.[2503]
-----
Footnote 2501:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 23. Sarracen. ad Dioscor. v. 87.
Footnote 2502:
Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. t. i. p. 176.
Footnote 2503:
Athen. xi. 28.
-----
In the commerce of ancient Syria, one of the principal articles was
dates,[2504] whether dried in the ordinary manner or pressed together
and fashioned into square masses. Figs,[2505] likewise, with
prunes,[2506] and walnuts,[2507] and pomegranates,[2508] and apples, and
nuts,[2509] and almonds,[2510] came from thence. With respect to the
exports of Phœnicia we can say but little in this place, as it collected
together the wealth of the whole ancient world, which it again
distributed according to the tastes and wants of various countries.
Thus, we find, that from Egypt the merchandise borne to Tyre consisted
of fine linen, with broidered work, which was used in sails on her
galleys; blue and purple from the Ægæan; silver, iron, tin, and
lead,[2511] from Cilicia; slaves and brazen vessels from Javan, Tubal,
and Meschech; horses and mules from Kùrdistân; ivory and ebony from the
shores of the Persian gulf; emeralds, purple and broidered work, fine
linen, coral, and agates, from Syria; wheat of Minnith and Pannag,
honey, oil, and balms, from Judea; and white wool and the wine of Helbon
from Damascus. Among the other exports of Tyre were bright iron, cassia,
and calamus; Arabia furnished her with lambs, rams, and goats, spices,
precious stones, and gold, blue cloths and broidered work, and chests of
rich apparel, bound with cords and made of cedar.[2512]
-----
Footnote 2504:
Herod. i. 193. Cf. iv. 172. Athen. i. 49.
Footnote 2505:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. § 14.
Footnote 2506:
Dioscor. i. 174.
Footnote 2507:
Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 6. 2.
Footnote 2508:
Apsyrtius, ap. Geopon. xvi. 8. 2.
Footnote 2509:
Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist. xv. 24.
Footnote 2510:
Prosper. Alpin. iv. 3. p. 266.
Footnote 2511:
Bochart. Geog. Sac. Pt. i. 1. iv. cap. xxxviii. p. 356.
Footnote 2512:
Ezekiel, xxvii. 7, sqq.
-----
From this country was first obtained the Marocco leather which
is no other than goat’s-skin tanned with the bark of the
pomegranate-tree.[2513] The frankincense[2514] laid up in vast
quantities in the sea-ports of Syria to be conveyed to every country on
the shores of the Mediterranean, not having been the growth of the
country, will be described elsewhere; but various other odoriferous
substances, whether gums, oils, or unguents, were the produce of their
land.[2515]
-----
Footnote 2513:
Athen. iii. 66. See Villebrune, French Translation, t. i. p. 414.
Footnote 2514:
Herod, iii. 107. Athen. i. 49. Plut. Alexand. § 25.
Footnote 2515:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. § 14.
-----
Among these was the balm of Gilead,[2516] which exuded from a tree
originally introduced from Arabia Felix. The gardens, two in
number,[2517] in which the balsam trees were cultivated lay in the
valley of Jericho, flanked on both sides by continuous ridges of lofty
mountains,[2518] and were of small dimensions, the larger not exceeding
twenty acres. The tree itself, at present found to flourish in several
regions of the East, resembled in size that of the pomegranate,
spreading into numerous branches and covered with an evergreen foliage,
in form like the leaves of rue, though in colour lighter. Its fruit
resembled the terebinth-berries both in hue and size. The gum, for which
alone it is valued, is produced in extremely small quantities, but
exhales the most delicious odour.
-----
Footnote 2516:
Dioscor. i. 18.
Footnote 2517:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 6. 1. Strab. xvi. t. ii. p. 1107. Casaub.
Busbequius, Epist. iv. p. 359. Prosp. Alpin. de Balsamo, cap. ii.
Footnote 2518:
Justin. xxxvi. 3.
-----
The season for gathering it in old times was during the extremest heat
of the dog-days, when an incision being made with certain iron claws
towards the upper part of the trunk, the balsam trickled forth slowly so
as scarcely to fill a single shell during the whole day, as was more
particularly observed during the visit of Alexander to this valley. The
produce of the large garden during the whole year did not exceed six
choes, that of the smaller one a chous. The balsam, when it issued from
the tree, was liquid, somewhat resembling milk in colour, and about the
consistence of oil. It was sometimes collected on flocks of wool and
squeezed into small horns, from whence it was transferred to fictile
vases. This substance was so fragrant that the smallest particle
perfumed the atmosphere to a considerable distance. It is now seldom
found unadulterated in Europe. Pompey carried the balsam-tree in his
triumph at Rome, and Vespasian afterwards brought another specimen into
Italy.[2519]
-----
Footnote 2519:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 34. Dioscor. i. 18. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 6.
Annot. p. 734, seq. Tacit. Histor. v. 6. Pausan. ix. 28. 3.
-----
The Syrian costus bore the third rank in the estimation of the ancients,
and the superior kinds were adulterated with the roots of a species of
inula, growing in the district of Comagena.[2520] Another Syrian export
was galbanum[2521] which appears to have been produced only in this
country; another, the speckled wake-robin,[2522] the roots of which were
eaten like parsnips, while the leaves were salted and used to season
dishes. This appears to have been one of the plants which formed the
garland of Ophelia, to which the queen alludes in the following words:
There with fantastic garlands did she come,
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and _long purples_,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.
-----
Footnote 2520:
Dioscor. i. 15. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 7. 4.
Footnote 2521:
Dioscor. iii. 97.
Footnote 2522:
Arum maculatum, Sibthorp. Flor. Græc. Prodrom. 2279. t. ii. p. 245.
Dioscor. ii. 197.
-----
With the roots of the wake-robin the Italian ladies made a wash, which,
under the name of gersa, renders their skin fair and shining.[2523]
Numerous other medicines, plants, and substances, were exported from
Syria, among which were the cyperus comosus,[2524] mountain
spikenard,[2525] cardamums from the district of Comagena,[2526] and
aspalathos,[2527] used in thickening unguents; crocomagma, a species of
perfume,[2528] elæomel,[2529] a sweet oil distilled from the trunk of a
tree near Palmyra, gum-styrax, produced particularly in the
neighbourhood of Gabala and Marathos, from which was prepared a costly
ointment, used in medicine, and called styracinon,[2530]
terebinth-berries,[2531] pistachio-nuts,[2532] gingidion,[2533]
southernwood,[2534] the root of the anchusa,[2535] sison, a kind of
spice,[2536] silphion,[2537] the magadaris,[2538] papaver
spinosum,[2539] of which the leaves were dried in a half-cold oven and
then pounded to extract the juice; the most fragrant kind of
lilies,[2540] the androsaces, a remedy against gout,[2541] madder from
Galilee,[2542] and the berries of the wild vine, which were kept in
unglazed jars.[2543]
-----
Footnote 2523:
Mart. Mathée, Annot. sur Dioscor. ii. 159.
Footnote 2524:
Dioscor. i. 124.
Footnote 2525:
Id. i. 8.
Footnote 2526:
Id. ii. 185.
Footnote 2527:
Id. i. 19.
Footnote 2528:
Id. i. 26.
Footnote 2529:
Ἐλαιόμελι κατὰ Παλμυρᾶ τῆς Συρίας ἔκ τινος στέλεχους ἔλαιον μέλιτος
παχύτερον ῥέι, γλυκὺ τῇ γεύσει. Dioscor. i. 37.
Footnote 2530:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxiv. 15. Dioscor. i. 79.
Footnote 2531:
Dioscor. i. 91. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 3. 2.
Footnote 2532:
Dioscor. i. 177.
Footnote 2533:
Id. ii. 167.
Footnote 2534:
Id. iii. 29.
Footnote 2535:
Theophrast. de Odor. § 31. Sibthorp. Flor. Græc. tab. 166.
Footnote 2536:
Dioscor. iii. 64.
Footnote 2537:
Id. iii. 94.
Footnote 2538:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 3. 7.
Footnote 2539:
Dioscor. iii. 100.
Footnote 2540:
Id. i. 62. iii. 116.
Footnote 2541:
Id. iii. 150.
Footnote 2542:
Id. iii. 160.
Footnote 2543:
Id. v. 5. iii. 135.
-----
The calamus and sweet rush, found in many other countries, appear to
have been most fragrant in Palestine, where they grew in stagnant waters
among the marshes bordering on Lake Gennesareth.[2544] These marshes, in
summer dry, occupied a space of about four miles in length, which seems
of old to have been thick with reeds and rushes. From the green plants
no perfume exhaled, but when they were cut down and laid to dry in the
sun there issued from them a delicate fragrance which impregnated the
whole air, and, as some fabulously pretended, could be detected by
mariners approaching the shore at a distance of more than a hundred and
fifty stadia.[2545]
-----
Footnote 2544:
Strab. xvi. t. ii. p. 1095. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 22.
Footnote 2545:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 7. 1. Schneid. Annot. t. iii. p. 737.
-----
The cucumbers of Antioch were celebrated.[2546] From Syria was obtained
the best terebinth-wood blacker than ebony, used in making
dagger-handles, and turned into cups,[2547] together with an artificial
kind of gypsum made by burning parget stones.[2548] Near Seleucia there
were mines of an earth called ampelitis,[2549] of which the black was
the most excellent, resembling pitch; fine charcoal used, mixed with
oil, for blackening the eyebrows and dyeing the hair. People likewise
smeared with it the stems of vines to protect them against the
depredations of insects.
-----
Footnote 2546:
Athen. ii. 53.
Footnote 2547:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 3. 2.
Footnote 2548:
Theoph. de Ign. § 66.
Footnote 2549:
Strab. vii. 5. t. ii. p. 106. Theoph. de Lapid. § 49. Dioscor. v. 181.
-----
The best bitumen[2550] was obtained from the environs of the Dead Sea,
in Palestine, and sometimes adulterated with pitch.[2551] In Judæa also
was found the singular stone called by Pliny and the Greek physicians
leucolithos, in magnitude about the size of an acorn, of a milk-white
colour and marked with a number of parallel bands, regular as if
produced by the turning lathe. Reduced to powder it was exhibited as a
medicine.[2552]
-----
Footnote 2550:
Dioscor. i. 99.
Footnote 2551:
Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 2. 3.
Footnote 2552:
Dioscor. v. 155.
-----
The articles of merchandise supplied to commerce by the peninsula of
Arabia,[2553] were rather curious and valuable than numerous.[2554] Of
these one of the most extraordinary was that white and transparent gem,
in search of which they went forth into the desert at midnight, when the
stone was discovered by its brightness reflecting amid palm-trees and
sand hillocks the refulgence of the moon, whose several phases it was
supposed to imitate in form, being circular at times and at times
semicircular. For this reason it obtained the name of aphroselenon or
moonstone.[2555] From a belief in its hidden virtues women wore it about
their necks as an amulet against enchantment. It was likewise suspended
upon trees to augment their bearing. Eagle-stones[2556] were also a
production of Arabia, together with certain fine white stones which when
calcined were used as a dentrifice.[2557]
-----
Footnote 2553:
Cf. Huet. Hist. of Commerce, p. 13.
Footnote 2554:
We find, however, that the nomadic tribes sometimes exported sheep.
Athen. v. 32.
Footnote 2555:
Dioscor. v. 159.
Footnote 2556:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 39. Geopon. xv. 1. 30.
Footnote 2557:
Id. xxxvi. 41.
-----
Hence too was obtained a beautiful diaphanous marble resembling the
phengites, which, when sawed into thin laminæ, served instead of glass
for window-panes.[2558] Near certain islands on the coast of Arabia, in
the Persian gulf, was a pearl-fishery which, though inferior in value
and celebrity to that of Serendib, still furnished Greece and the whole
western world with a large quantity of pearls.[2559]
-----
Footnote 2558:
Id. xxxvi. 46.
Footnote 2559:
Id. ix. 54. Ælian. de Animal. x. 13. See in Nieuhoff an elaborate
account of the pearl-fishery in the Persian gulf. This traveller
gives, from the traditions of the natives, a fabulous explanation of
the origin of the pearls, which is exceedingly fanciful and poetical:
“It is generally believed that these pearls are progenerated by the
May dews, during which month the oysters rise up to the surface of the
waters, and opening themselves receive a small quantity of dew, which,
being coagulated, afterwards produces these pearls. Certain it is,
that, if these oysters are opened before June, the pearls are soft and
pliable like pitch.” Churchill’s Collection of Voyages, vol. ii. p.
196.
-----
The plains of the Arabian wastes have in all ages been covered at
intervals with forests of palm-trees. Dates, therefore, from the
earliest times, have been among the exports of the peninsula. The manner
of climbing the trees in the fruit season was much the same in antiquity
as at present. The person about to ascend made with a cord a loop
inclosing both his own body and the tree, which warping up as he mounted
enabled him to rest at intervals.[2560]
-----
Footnote 2560:
Lucian. de Syr. Dea, § 29.
-----
But the soil, sandy and arid, exposed almost perpetually to a burning
sun, delights above all things in the production of thorny shrubs and
trees, whose gum and resin, from the united virtues of the climate and
the earth, are nearly all fragrant and medicinal.[2561] Of these some
are still in use, while others have disappeared from commerce, or are
known under different names. Among the latter was the cancamon, a
strongly odoriferous gum used by physicians, introduced into the
manufacture of odoriferous unguents, and mingled with myrtle and styrax
for perfuming apparel.[2562] Among the former were the ladanum,[2563]
the myrrh, and the frankincense,[2564] of which the ancient naturalists
have left us an interesting account. It was produced, they say, in the
territory of the Sabæeans about Mamali, Citibaina and Adramytta, now
Hadramaut. Both the frankincense and the myrrh trees grew partly on the
mountains, partly on private grounds at their roots, where they were
cultivated, while the others, apparently, were left to the
superintendence of nature. The favoured ridges adorned by these aromatic
plantations are said to have been extremely lofty, covered with woods
and clad above with snow, while from their slope and summits numerous
streams poured down to the plains.
-----
Footnote 2561:
Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 7. 2.
Footnote 2562:
Id. i. 23.
Footnote 2563:
Dioscor. i. 128. Herod. iii. 107. Thom. Magist. v. θύωμα, p. 462.
Footnote 2564:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 4. 1, sqq. Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. § 2.
Ammon, v. λίβανος, p. 89. This gum is now of very inferior quality and
value, and was sent in the last century in vast quantities into
Muscovy to tan Russia leather. Hazelquist, Travels, p. 297. Of old it
seems to have been sacred exclusively to the gods and was daily burnt
as a morning sacrifice on their altars. Gœttling, ad Hesiod, p. 162.
In the ages preceding the discovery of frankincense, people made use
of rosemary for the same purpose. Apuleius, de Virtut. Herb. cap.
lxxix. Cf. Fabric. Biblioth. Lat. p. 126. Lomeier, de Lustrat. Vet.
Gent. c. xxiv. p. 298. On the plants, fruits, and trees, used in
sacrifice, see Saubert. de Sacrificiis, cap. xxiv.
-----
The tree[2565] which produces this most precious gum attains no great
height, sometimes not above seven or eight feet; but throws out
exceedingly numerous branches and expands itself in breadth. The
foliage, though more diminutive, resembles in form that of the
pear-tree, but its verdure approaches the light colour of the rue. In
smoothness the bark everywhere, both on trunk and branches, resembles
that of the laurel. The myrrh-tree is still smaller, and more like a
shrub. Its stem clothed with a smooth bark, and about the thickness of a
man’s leg, is extremely tough and twisted towards the root. In character
its foliage has at once been compared to the elm and the scarlet
oak,—rough, pointed, and uneven, and armed at the edges with thorns.
-----
Footnote 2565:
Cf. Diodor. Sicul. l. v. t. i. p. 364. Wesseling.
-----
Of myrrh there were various kinds, deriving their different qualities
from the nature of the soil or from the manner in which the gum was
obtained from its tree, some being thick and unctuous, and abounding in
that sweet oil called stactè,[2566] while other kinds were light, clean,
and transparent. These accounts appear to have been obtained from
eye-witnesses. Certain mariners, we are told, setting sail from the gulf
of Heroes, now Suez, and arriving in the frankincense country, landed in
search of water.[2567] During this excursion they advanced as far as the
mountains, where they observed the appearance of the trees and the
manner of collecting the gum. Incisions, they related, were made in the
trunk and the branches, some large, as with a hatchet, others smaller.
-----
Footnote 2566:
Dioscor. i. 79.
Footnote 2567:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 4. 7.
-----
From some of these the frankincense rained upon the ground, while in
other parts it issued forth more slowly, thickening as it flowed. Mats
of palm leaves were by some proprietors spread on all sides under the
tree, which thus appeared to spring from a carpeted floor, while others
merely levelled the soil and swept it.[2568] The frankincense, however,
which fell upon the mats was more pure and pellucid than the other,
which necessarily attracted some particles of earth. What remained
sticking to the trees was severed with a knife, on which account it
sometimes contained small splinters of bark. The superior kinds were
generally found in commerce of a globular form, into which it was said
to have run at the first. In colour it was white, unctuous when broken,
and immediately kindled at the approach of flame. That which was brought
from India in colour somewhat yellow and livid, was manufactured into
grains by art; for, having been pressed into a mass, it was cut into
small square pieces which were cast into a vessel and shaken until they
assumed a round form.
-----
Footnote 2568:
See also Dioscor. i. 77. A fable concerning the collection of the
frankincense occurs in Herod. iii. 117.
-----
The same observer affirmed, that the whole of this mountain tract was
divided among the Sabæans, who were the lords of that part of the
country, and distinguished for their justice, on which account the trees
required no watching. They were further informed, that both the myrrh
and the frankincense when collected were conveyed on camels to the
Temple of the Sun, the holiest place in the country of the Sabæans, and
continually guarded by armed men. When the precious merchandise had been
borne thither, each person piled his own property in a separate heap, on
the top of which placing a tablet declaring its weight and value, they
committed it to the care of the temple wardens.
When the merchants arrived they inspected the tablets, and if satisfied
with the price took possession of the merchandise, leaving the value in
its place. The transaction being concluded, the priest, according to
some authorities, appropriated one-third of the proceeds to the service
of the gods; but others speak with more probability of a tenth, which
seems, everywhere in the ancient world, to have been consecrated to the
service of religion. The remainder was kept for the owners until they
arrived to claim it.
The frankincense produced by young trees was of a pale white colour, but
less fragrant than the gum of older trees, which was of a deep yellow.
The former probably was what was called Amomites, which possessing
little consistence easily melted like gum-mastic, by the touch of the
hand. On the way to Greece it was frequently adulterated with fine resin
and common gum; but the imposture was easily detected because the gum
refused to burn, and the resin resolved itself into smoke, whereas the
frankincense yielded a clear flame. In the opinion of many the best kind
was brought from Arabia, though in colour it was deemed inferior to the
produce of the neighbouring islands. Connected with the natural history
of this production, a circumstance is related which seems to have been
viewed by the ancients in the light of a prodigy. In the grounds of a
temple near Sardis[2569] a species of frankincense tree sprang forth
spontaneously from the earth, having a smooth bark like the laurel, and
shedding a gum resembling that of the Arabian perfume.
-----
Footnote 2569:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 4. 7.
-----
The numerous groves of frankincense trees which covered the hills and
valleys of southern Arabia, constantly distilling their sweet gums, are
said to have impregnated the whole atmosphere with their delicious
fragrance, which, when the breezes prevailed off the land, was wafted
out many leagues from the shore. To this Milton alludes in the well
known lines:[2570]
As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabæan odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest: with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheer’d with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.
-----
Footnote 2570:
Paradise Lost, iv. 159-165.
-----
Nor is this to be regarded as a mere poetical figure of speech. Sir
Thomas Herbert,[2571] sailing up the Persian gulf on his return from the
East Indies, found the atmosphere of the ocean perfumed by the spirits
issuing from the flowers of Arabia, and observes, that mariners while
yet out of sight of land have discovered where they were by the
prevalence of these odoriferous gales. The same effect has been observed
in other parts of the world. Pernetty[2572] relates, that, on
approaching the island of St. Catharine on the Brazil coast, the
fragrance of its aromatic herbs and flowers may be detected at more than
three leagues. In dark nights, or hazy weather, the dogs on board a ship
will smell the land at considerable distance, so as in such cases to
serve instead of a telescope.
-----
Footnote 2571:
Some years’ Travels into Africa and Asia, p. 102. Cf. Chandler, i. 6.
Footnote 2572:
Voyage aux Isles Malouines, t. i. p. 155.
-----
From a district of Arabia Felix, as well as from Petra in Idumæa, was
obtained that gum in globules, called bdellion,[2573] alluded to in the
second chapter of Genesis,—“and the gold of that land is good; there is
bdellion and the onyx stone.” Arabia likewise exported preserved
ginger,[2574] though not apparently till a comparatively late period. In
the country itself they seasoned their drinks and potages with the green
leaves, as the Greeks usually did with rue.[2575]
-----
Footnote 2573:
Dioscor. i. 80. Plin. Nat. xii. 19.
Footnote 2574:
Dioscor. ii. 19.
Footnote 2575:
Dioscor. iii. 52.
-----
Among the other exports of Arabia was cassia[2576] of various qualities,
together with cinnamon,[2577] respecting the gathering of which the
following mythological narrative was delivered to strangers. The trees
producing this sweet and fragrant bark grew, they said, in a certain
valley, inhabited by innumerable serpents, to guard themselves against
which, those who came to gather cinnamon had their feet and hands
carefully covered with boots and gloves.
-----
Footnote 2576:
The shrub is twelve feet high and flowers in May. Hazelquist, Travels,
p. 247. Cf. Dioscor. i. 12.
Footnote 2577:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 5. 1. Dioscor. i. 13. Prosper. Alpin. de
Medicin. Ægypt. iv. 9, p. 304. Hen. van Rheede, Hortus Indicus
Malabaricus, p. 107, sqq. Carletti, who travelled towards the close of
the sixteenth century, gives a lively description of the cinnamon
tree, the leaves of which he compares to those of the peach tree.
Viaggi, &c., t. ii. p. 231. Baldæus, Description of Ceylon, chapter
iv.
-----
The spice being collected was divided into three parts, of which one
belonged to the Sun. To prevent the god from being defrauded of his due
share, lots were drawn, and the portion which thus fell to him was piled
up in a heap upon the sand. The Arabs then departed, but, having reached
a certain distance, usually turned back, when they were sure to behold
the portion of the sun on fire, and sending up its flames and smoke
towards the god to whom it appertained.[2578] It is clear from this,
that the natives of the Arabian peninsula had already begun to collect
materials for “The Thousand and One Nights.”
-----
Footnote 2578:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 5. 2.
-----
Another fragrant production of this country was the wood of aloes,[2579]
which seems to have found its way, in great quantities, to the west,
together with capers,[2580] costus,[2581] carpobalsamum,[2582]
cardamums,[2583] aloes,[2584] gum-ladanum,[2585] myrobalans,[2586]
terebinth-berries,[2587] and the odoriferous rush;[2588] the scink, of
which we have already made frequent mention, was likewise obtained from
Arabia.[2589] Broth made of the flesh of this animal is taken as an
aphrodisiac by the Arabs, and its flesh dried and reduced to powder was
still exported in the time of Hazelquist,[2590] through Alexandria to
Venice and Marseilles.
-----
Footnote 2579:
Dioscor. i. 21.
Footnote 2580:
Id. ii. 204.
Footnote 2581:
Id. i. 15.
Footnote 2582:
Prosper. Alpin. de Medicin. Ægypt. iv. 9, p. 302.
Footnote 2583:
Dioscor. ii. 185. Bontius, In Ind. Archiat. de Medicin. Indor. p. 16.
“The shrub which bears this spice is very pleasant to behold, of a
light green colour, with white flowers tipped with purple, red at the
extremities.” Nieuhoff, p. 266.
Footnote 2584:
Dioscor. iii. 25.
Footnote 2585:
Id. i. 128. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 37.
Footnote 2586:
Id. iv. 160.
Footnote 2587:
Id. i. 91.
Footnote 2588:
Id. i. 16.
Footnote 2589:
Id. ii. 71.
Footnote 2590:
Travels, p. 228.
-----
The island of Tylos, now Bahrein,[2591] on the coast of Lahsa, in the
Persian gulf, is said to have furnished excellent timber for
ship-building, which in the water would last upwards of two hundred
years.[2592] Could this have been a species of teak?[2593] Here, also,
as well as on the continent grew the cotton tree in great abundance,
from which the natives manufactured coarse calicoes and fine muslins.
Another production of the island was a tree bearing inodorous flowers
resembling the white violet, though four times as large. Here, too, was
found another tree with leaves like the rose, which being fully expanded
at noon contracted as the day advanced, and closed entirely at night,
when the tree, by the natives, was said to sleep. The same thing, by the
people of India, is at present predicated of the Averrhoa Carambola.
-----
Footnote 2591:
Cf. Gosselin, Recherches sur la Géographie des Anciens, t. iii. p.
104, sqq. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 21. On the pearl fisheries of this
island, see vi. 33. See in Bochart a long and learned inquiry
respecting the name, situation, and ancient history of Tylos,
Geographia Sacra, pt. ii. 1. i. c. xlv. p. 766, seq.
Footnote 2592:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 4. 7.
Footnote 2593:
“This wood,” says William Marsden, “is in many respects preferable to
oak, working more kindly, and equal, at least, in point of duration;
many ships built of it at Bombay, continuing to swim for so many years
that none can recollect the period at which they were launched.”
History of Sumatra, p. 130.
-----
The fertility of this island may be compared with that of Thasos. Here
grew in abundance the date palm, the vine, the olive, the apple, and
most kinds of nuts, with fig trees which never shed their foliage. No
value was set upon the moisture derived from the clouds; on the
contrary, when any showers fell, the inhabitants were careful
immediately afterwards to irrigate their plantations, as if to wash away
the rain. With this they were, in fact, enabled to dispense, on account
of the number of fountains and streams of water which there
abounded.[2594]
-----
Footnote 2594:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 7. 7, seq. At the present day, the water
actually found on the island is brackish, while the sea is thought by
some to have gained so far upon the land as to cover certain springs
which supplied the ancient inhabitants with excellent water. Even now,
however, the produce of these fountains is not wholly lost though
doubtless deteriorated by the admixture of sea-water. “There are
certain springs,” observes Nieuhoff, “arising in the bottom of the
sea, at three fathoms and a half deep. Near the city of Manama,
certain divers go early in the morning in boats, about three musket
shots from the land, and dive to the bottom of the sea, fill their
earthen or leathern vessels with the water that issues from the
springs, and so come up again and return to the shore.” Churchill’s
Collection, Vol. ii. p. 196.
-----
From Mesopotamia, Persia, Armenia, and the adjacent countries, the
Greeks obtained a number of valuable commodities, of which far too
meagre an account has been left us by the ancients. Of these the most
curious, however, may be said to have been the naphtha, or rock oil,
which springs forth spontaneously from the earth in several parts of
those regions lying between the Caspian and the Persian gulf.[2595] The
most remarkable of their oil springs was found of old near Ecbatana, now
Hamadan, where Alexander was smitten with astonishment at beholding a
torrent of flame ascending perpetually out of the earth.
-----
Footnote 2595:
For example, near the Oxus, where a Macedonian, named Proxenos, in the
act of pitching Alexander’s tent, discovered a spring of pure oil.
Even the waters of the Oxus were supposed by the ancients to contain
oily particles. Plut. Alexand. § 57. On the Persian sulphur, Polyæn.
Stratag. iv. 6. 11.
-----
This everlasting fire was supplied through subterraneous channels with
naphtha, which in the vicinity welled forth from the soil and formed a
small lake. This naphtha, clear, when pure, as fine oil, is, perhaps,
the most inflammable substance known, kindling by the invisible gases
which surround it considerably before it comes into actual contact with
fire. Several experiments illustrative of its qualities were performed
for the amusement of the son of Philip. In the first place certain
Persians sprinkled with it the street leading to the royal quarters, and
then applying a torch to the earth at the farther end of it, the flame
ran along with the rapidity of thought, so that in an instant the whole
street seemed to be converted into a channel of fire.
On another occasion one Athenophanes, a profligate buffoon who had
abandoned the sweets of freedom at Athens to attend on the Macedonian
tyrant, being along with his master in the bath, advised him in the true
spirit of a courtier to make a cruel experiment of the power of the
naphtha on a poor youth named Stephanos, of homely person and comic
expression of face, but gifted with a magnificent voice, and who used
apparently to divert Alexander while bathing.
“Shall we try the force of this substance on Stephanos? For, if it
kindle and prove difficult to be extinguished on him its powers may
truly be said to be altogether strange and irresistible!”
The youth readily consented to encounter the peril. As soon, however, as
he had been anointed with it and brought near a fire the naphtha[2596]
instantaneously kindled, and his whole body was sheathed in flame to the
extreme perplexity and terror of Alexander. He would, in fact, have been
reduced to ashes had there not been at hand many persons bearing vessels
of cold water for the baths, which pouring over him they with extreme
difficulty extinguished the flames. He, nevertheless, felt severely the
effect of his royal master’s inhuman curiosity.[2597]
-----
Footnote 2596:
Strab. Casaub. xvi. t. ii. p. 1078. Sir Thomas Herbert’s account of
the Persian naphtha is not exactly consistent with that of Plutarch.
“This naphtha,” says he, “is an oily or fat liquid substance, in
colour not unlike soft, white clay; of quality hot and dry, so as it
is apt to inflame with the sunbeams, or heat that issues from fire, as
was mirthfully experimented upon one of Alexander’s pages, who, being
anointed, with much ado escaped burning.” Some Years’ Travels, p. 182.
Footnote 2597:
Plut. Alexand. § 35.
-----
Certain writers, desirous of giving an historical explanation of the
legends of the mythology, suppose the golden crown and veil sent by
Medea to Creüsa, which utterly consumed her in the presence of her
family, to have been smeared with naphtha;[2598] for the flames burst
not forth spontaneously from the ornaments themselves, but a fire
burning near, they, by a subtle power, attracted its seeds and were
kindled invisibly.[2599]
-----
Footnote 2598:
Eurip. Med. 1183, sqq. Plin. Nat. Hist. ii. 109. Gibbon, Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. x. p. 15, note 18, where, in speaking
of the Greek Fire, the historian touches incidentally on the qualities
of naphtha.
Footnote 2599:
In the mountains near Derabad, in Affghanistân, a kind of naphtha is
obtained by placing flocks of wool on the places where it oozes from
the earth. It contains a mixture of bitumen, supposed to be mumia, and
is less pure than the Persian. Vigne, Affghanistân, p. 61, seq.
Masson, Balochistân, &c. i. 115.
-----
It was believed by the ancients that the country of Babylonia was
pervaded throughout by veins of fire, which maintained a perpetual
inflammation in the earth and produced towards the surface a species of
pulsation. For, according to them, grains of barley being cast upon the
soil would leap up and rebound, for which, however, other causes might
be assigned. But the heat of the climate is undoubtedly prodigious, and,
to mitigate it, we are told, the ancient inhabitants were accustomed to
sleep on skins filled with water. Harpalos, who was made governor of the
province by Alexander, laboured to acclimate there the trees and plants
of Greece, and succeeded in everything excepting ivy which, delighting
in a cold soil, could not be reconciled to the “temper of that fiery
mould.”[2600]
-----
Footnote 2600:
This expression is Dr. Langhorne’s, t. v. p. 239. Plut. Alexand. § 35.
Sympos. iii. 2. 1.
-----
There was obtained from Persia a gum of singularly healing qualities,
which on this account received the name of sarcocolla,[2601] or
flesh-glue, as, also, kermes,[2602] cardamums,[2603] pistachio
nuts,[2604] artichokes,[2605] amomum,[2606] hemlock,[2607]
silphion,[2608] and citrons. Persia likewise exported gold solder,[2609]
onyx shells,[2610] whetstones,[2611] and jaspers,[2612] one kind of
which was intersected with white veins. Amulets of this stone were much
used in incantations. From the province of Bactriana emeralds of great
beauty, but of small size, were procured for the studding of costly cups
or goblets. They were found in a sandy and desert tract of country, the
one apparently which separates Khorasan from Balkh and Khawaresmia
during the prevalence of the Etesian gales which, unsettling and
shifting the sand, kept constantly laid open fresh spots which were, in
many cases, strewed with gems. The search for these emeralds, a hardy
and laborious undertaking, was performed by horsemen who, by fleet
riding, could scour the wilderness in a brief space of time, bending
their keen glances hither and thither as they moved along.[2613]
-----
Footnote 2601:
Dioscor. iii. 99.
Footnote 2602:
Id. iv. 48.
Footnote 2603:
Id. i. 5.
Footnote 2604:
Athen. xiv. 61.
Footnote 2605:
Id. ii. 82.
Footnote 2606:
Dioscor. i. 14.
Footnote 2607:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxv. 95.
Footnote 2608:
Dioscor. iii. 94.
Footnote 2609:
Id. v. 104.
Footnote 2610:
Id. ii. 10.
Footnote 2611:
Theophrast. de Lapid. § 44.
Footnote 2612:
Dioscor. v. 160. Sword and dagger handles, and mouth-pieces for pipes,
are carved from the jasper-agate of Yarkund. Vigne, Affghanistân, p.
209. It is reported that silver, copper, iron, lead, antimony, lapis
lazuli, (cf. Osbeck, Voyage to China, i. 244,) and asbestos are found
in different parts of the mountains around Kabul. The sand of the
Kirman stream is washed for gold, Id. p. 208. For a full account of
the lapis lazuli, as known to the ancients, see Gemme Fisica
Sotteranea, 1. iii. c. viii. t. i. p. 416. Tournefort, Voyage du
Levant. t. iii. p. 128.
Footnote 2613:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 35.
-----
In a region beyond Bactria a species of corn was found which must
unquestionably have been maize, since the grains are said to have been
as large as olive stones,[2614] and to maize only can we apply
Herodotus’s description of the wheat found in Babylonia, the straw of
which was encircled by leaves four inches in diameter, and its return
from two to three hundredfold. Now, in wheat, I believe, so prodigious
an increase is all but impossible, whereas a still greater return might
be obtained from the Indian corn. A lady whom I knew at Thebes counted
eighteen hundred grains in one ear of Syrian maize which was, probably,
not less than nine inches in circumference; and from such grain the
return mentioned by Herodotus[2615] is not at all extraordinary.
-----
Footnote 2614:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 4. 6. There is still, however, in this part
of the world a very large-grained wheat called camel’s tooth. Vigne,
Affghanistân, p. 170. On the extraordinary fertility of Hyrcania, &c.,
see Strab. xi. 7. t. ii. p. 426, and cf. on the nutritive qualities of
maize, &c., Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, i. 49.
Footnote 2615:
l. i. § 193.
-----
The millet and sesamum of Babylonia are likewise mentioned, though it is
probable that, owing to the difficulty of carriage, it only exported
small quantities to be used as seed. Barn-door fowls were introduced
into Greece from Persia, and always continued to be known by the name of
the Median birds.[2616] Peaches, too, and various other kinds of fruit,
as we have already mentioned in the book on Country Life, were brought
to Greece from the Persian empire.
-----
Footnote 2616:
Athen. xiv. 69.
-----
This country likewise exported the oil of white violets used in the
bath, and the odour of which they enjoyed during their repasts;[2617]
shaggy winter cloaks seem to have been obtained from northern Persia,
together with dyed leather,[2618] resembling the shagreen and marocco of
present times, brought partly from Babylonia, partly from Persia Proper,
which likewise supplied the world with carpets exquisitely variegated
with figures of animals.[2619]
-----
Footnote 2617:
Dioscor. Notha. p. 442.
Footnote 2618:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, iv. 206.
Footnote 2619:
Athen. v. 26. Cf. Plut. Agesil. § 12. We still find that, for richness
of colouring and softness of texture, the carpets of Persia are quite
unrivalled. Fowler, Three Years in Persia, i. 81. Gibbon, in his rich
and picturesque style, has given a description of one of these carpets
found by the Arabs in the dwelling of the Persian monarch: “One of the
apartments of the palace was decorated with a carpet of of silk, sixty
cubits in length, and as many in breadth; a paradise or garden was
depicted on the ground; the flowers, fruits and shrubs were imitated
by the figures of the gold embroidery and the colours of the precious
stones, and the ample square was enriched by a variegated and verdant
border.” Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ix. p. 370.
-----
The Persians also imported furs, but do not appear to have exported
them, the use of these articles being little known to the Greeks.[2620]
-----
Footnote 2620:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, iv. 204, sqq.
-----
Respecting the commerce carried on with India the notions of the
ancients were confused, chiefly because the various commodities passing
through other countries were often confounded with their indigenous
productions. We know, however, that from this rich land came many of the
spices and precious stones in use among the Greeks,—as the diamond, the
ruby, the sapphire,[2621] and the finest kind of pearls,[2622] the most
fragrant spikenard,[2623] with costus,[2624] and amomum,[2625] and
cinnamon,[2626] and cassia,[2627] and odoriferous reeds.[2628] Thence
also was obtained a kind of cyperos,[2629] whose juice was bitter, and
of yellow colour, and appears to have been used for removing hair from
the skin.
-----
Footnote 2621:
Carletti, Viaggi, t. ii. p. 231.
Footnote 2622:
Ælian. Hist. Animal. x. 13. xv. 8. Athen. iii. 44, seq. Theoph. de
Lapid. § 36. Huet. Hist. of Commerce, p. 19. Iorio, Storia del
Commercio, t. iv. 1. ii. c. ix. p. 264, sqq. Nieuhoff, Voyage to the
East Indies, in Churchill’s Collection, vol. ii. p. 248. Baldæus,
Description of the Coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, c. xxii.
Footnote 2623:
Dioscor. i. 6.
Footnote 2624:
Bontius, In Ind. Archiat. de Medic. Ind. p. 21.
Footnote 2625:
Dioscor. i. 14.
Footnote 2626:
Id. i. 13.
Footnote 2627:
Damogeron, ap. Geopon. vii. 13. 4.
Footnote 2628:
Prosper. Alpin. de Medicin. Ægypt. iv. 10, p. 297. Dioscor. i. 17.
Footnote 2629:
Dioscor. i. 4.
-----
Another Indian export was the bark called narcapthon,[2630] which,
together with wood of aloes obtained from the same country, was used as
a perfume.[2631] Black, white, and long pepper,[2632] were likewise
among the productions of India, which found their way to the west,
together with sugar, the art of manufacturing and refining which appears
to have been known to the Hindûs from the remotest antiquity. The
whiteness of the Indian sugar, as well as that it was loafed may be
inferred from a passage of Dioscorides, who compares it to salt, and
says, that it broke easily beneath the tooth.[2633]
-----
Footnote 2630:
Dioscor. i. 22.
Footnote 2631:
Bontius, In Ind. Archiat. de Medicin. Indor. p. 11. Dioscor. i. 21.
Footnote 2632:
Dioscor. ii. 189. Carletti, Viaggi, t. ii. p. 218. Marsden, History of
Sumatra, p. 117, sqq. Bontius, p. 15. Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, i.
349.
Footnote 2633:
Dioscor. ii. 104. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 17, cum not. Dalecamp. et
Hard. Lucan. iii. 237. Indor. Orig. xvii. 7.
-----
There was in India, moreover, a kind of myrrh produced from a thorny
shrub, of which no exact description is given.[2634] But one of its most
celebrated productions was the spikenard, which is said to have grown
upon a mountain at the foot of which flowed the Ganges. The
malabathron,[2635] another export of the Indian peninsula, was from the
similarity of its odour by some of the ancients confounded with the leaf
of the spikenard, as it appears to have been by the moderns with the
piper betel, or the Canella Silvestris Malabarica. But from the
description of Dioscorides, it is clearly neither the one nor the other;
for, while the betel is a parasite cultivated on terra firma, like the
vine and the Canella Silvestris, the malabathron was, we are told, an
aquatic plant, floating on the surface of lakes, or the waters of
morasses, without the slightest connexion with the soil beneath, like
the little lentil of the marshes: its leaves when gathered were strung
on a linen thread, and in that manner hung up to dry, after which they
were laid by for exportation. Occasionally, during the heats of summer,
the malabathron lakes were dried up, upon which the natives were
accustomed to scatter heaps of brushwood over their whole site and set
them on fire, so that the entire surface of the earth might be burned,
without which, it was supposed the plant would no more appear. Among the
uses of the malabathron was the sweetening of the breath, which was done
by placing a leaf under the tongue. Thrown into coffers or wardrobes it
communicated a perfume to raiment, and preserved it from the moth. The
uses to which the wood of aloes was put were in some respects similar,
as it was kept in the mouth to sweeten the breath, and sprinkled, when
reduced to powder, over the body to repress perspiration.
-----
Footnote 2634:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 1. 2.
Footnote 2635:
Dioscor. i. 11.
-----
A coarse kind of bdellion,[2636] and a species of lycion were reckoned
among the productions of India.[2637] From an island on the coast was
obtained a precious bark called macer,[2638] of great medicinal virtue;
aloes, too, was thence exported in abundance. The artichoke[2639] was
plentifully produced on the banks of the Indus, as well as in the
mountains of Hyrcania and Khawaresmia. The substance denominated onyx
shell,[2640] procured from a fish resembling the myrex, was found in
certain Indian marshes, where a species of spikenard is said to have
flourished. On the drying up of the waters in the great heats of summer,
these shells were found strewed over the soil, and exported for their
odoriferous and medicinal qualities. The great lizard, called the land
crocodile,[2641] has likewise been enumerated among the productions of
India. Other Indian commodities were fine muslins,[2642] ivory, and
tortoise shell,[2643] from Taprobana,[2644] a rich species of
marble,[2645] steel of the finest quality,[2646] peacocks,[2647] and a
large, beautiful breed of white oxen.[2648]
-----
Footnote 2636:
Dioscor. i. 80.
Footnote 2637:
Id. i. 132. Plin. Nat. Hist. xii. 15.
Footnote 2638:
Dioscor. i. 93. Galen. de Facult. Simpl. Med. p. 205. Plin. Nat. Hist.
xii. 16.
Footnote 2639:
Athen. ii. 82. Galen. de Aliment. Facult. cap. li.
Footnote 2640:
Dioscor. ii. 10.
Footnote 2641:
Id. ii. 71.
Footnote 2642:
Lucian. de Sacrif. § 11.
Footnote 2643:
Lucian. Musc. Encom. § 1. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 77.
Footnote 2644:
Strab. ii. 1. t. i. p. 114. Cf. Diod. Sicul. ii. 37. t. i. p. 169.
Wesseling.
Footnote 2645:
Athen. v. 39.
Footnote 2646:
Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions, iv. 247.
Footnote 2647:
Lucian. Navig. § 23. As the Brahmins looked upon the parrot as a
sacred bird, they did not perhaps permit it to become an article of
commerce, although they had already begun to employ their leisure in
teaching it to imitate the human voice. Ælian. de Nat. Animal. xiii.
18.
Footnote 2648:
Athen. v. 32.
-----
Two kinds of indigo, employed both in painting and dyeing were exported
from Hindùstân.[2649] Of these the one is said to have been a natural
production which exuded from certain canes and hardened in the sun, the
other was artificial, consisting of the substance which adhered to the
copper vessels wherein artificers dyed blue. Having been scraped thence
it was supposed to be dried and introduced into commerce. These accounts
have already, by other authors, been shown to be erroneous, but they
prove at least that indigo was in common use among the ancients, though
we understand nothing of the means by which it was produced, or how it
was cultivated.[2650]
-----
Footnote 2649:
Dioscor. v. 107. See the Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 414.
Footnote 2650:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, iv. 101, seq. Cf. Asiatic Researches,
iii. 414. Hen. van Rheede, Hortus Indicus Malabaricus, p. 102.
-----
The cotton tree appears to have been grown in India[2651] from the
remotest antiquity, where the natives manufactured from it the finest
fabrics, as calicoes, and chintzes, and muslins, regarded even as
superior to the manufactures of Greece.[2652]
-----
Footnote 2651:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 7. 7.
Footnote 2652:
Lucian. de Musca, § 1. Herod. iii. 106.
-----
Another production of Eastern Asia, which was imported into Greece much
earlier than is generally believed, was silk,[2653] of the origin and
natural history of which they had but an imperfect and confused
knowledge. It was understood, however, to be created by the labour of an
insect with eight feet, called ser, about twice the size of the largest
beetle. In other respects it was compared with the spider which suspends
its web from the boughs of trees. These insects they kept in houses, the
temperature of which was regulated according to the change of the
seasons. The fine thread spun by the ser was found twisted about its
legs. They fed them during four years upon the leaves of common panic,
but on the fifth, because they knew they would live no longer, they gave
them green reeds to eat, which was the food in which the creature most
delighted. On this it fed so greedily, that it burst itself, upon which
store of fine thread was found in its bowels.
-----
Footnote 2653:
Pausan. vi. 26. 6, sqq.
-----
The country whence this substance was obtained is said to have been a
kind of delta, situated in a deep recess of the Indian ocean, and
inhabited by a mixed race, half Indian and half Scythian. In this
account there is we see some truth, mingled with a great deal of error.
The greatest care is still taken in China to regulate the temperature of
the houses in which the silkworms are bred, as well as to remove them
beyond the reach of all noises and offensive smells.[2654] With respect
to the figure and food of the insect Pausanias had been misinformed,
though he might have obtained more correct knowledge by passing over
into the island of Ceos, where the silkworm had been found from time
immemorial.[2655]
-----
Footnote 2654:
Hazelquist, Travels, p. 234. Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 428.
Footnote 2655:
Aristot. Hist. Animal. v. 19.
-----
In later ages the merchandise of India, and central Asia was chiefly
conveyed to the countries on the Mediterranean by way of Arabia and the
Red Sea, but at an earlier period it came wholly overland. The exact
course pursued by the caravans in these remote times has not been
accurately described to us; but as the nature of the country has always
remained unchanged, it is to be presumed, that they pursued exactly the
identical tracks which they at present follow. Occasionally some few of
the commodities of Central Asia may have found their way into Greece by
the desert, north of the Caspian, but the more common route lay through
Khawaresmia and Syria, whence they were distributed to the rest of the
western world by the Phœnicians.
The produce of India was probably transported across the Indus at
Attock,[2656] and from thence through one of the nine passes into
Persia, by way of Candahar and Herat, after which the caravan fell into
the road leading to Susa,[2657] Ecbatana, or Persepolis, according as
its destination was the northern or southern part of Mesopotamia.
Sometimes commerce followed the course of rivers, down the Indus for
example, thence along the coast of Persia, and up the Persian gulf and
the Euphrates or the Red Sea. On most of the roads mentioned there
appear to have existed in those ages caravanserais, as at present, where
merchants and travellers were accommodated with lodging, water, and
fuel, being expected to carry along with them whatever provisions they
required. Into this part of the subject, however, it is not my purpose
to enter at any length, since to investigate it thoroughly would require
a separate volume.
-----
Footnote 2656:
Here the ferry-boats, in the present day, are built of hill-cedar,
fastened together with clamps of iron, and ornamented with carvings.
Vigne, Affghanistân, p. 32.
Footnote 2657:
When certain articles of this merchandise, as pepper, for example,
reached Athens, the merchants were sometimes denounced by sycophants
as spies of the great king, and threatened, at least, with the
torture. Antiphon. ap. Athen. ii. 73. Casaub. Animadv. t. vi. p. 445.
-----
CHAPTER XIV.
FUNERAL CEREMONIES.
Having now gone through the whole circle of private life among the
Hellenes, we shall consider them in the hour of death, and during the
ceremonies with which dust was committed to dust. From a great variety
of causes, the dissolution of the body was regarded by the pagans of
antiquity with less terror and apprehension than modern nations
experience. Their belief in the continuance of existence was not perhaps
more unshaken than that of pious men in Christian countries, but the
life to come was contemplated as more nearly resembling the present; and
they imagined that, by the performance of certain rites and ceremonies,
and through the favour of the gods in various ways obtained, they might
easily secure to themselves a blissful immortality, which, according to
their creed, was denied to none but the incorrigibly flagitious. In
earlier times, moreover, before the birth of the sceptical systems of
philosophy, no chilling doubts had been thrown on the doctrine of
immortality. Ignorant they might be of the Divine nature, of the
relations of man to his Creator, of the true duties, obligations, and
rules of life; but they were so fully convinced of the existence of a
race of superior beings, that they might almost be said to feel its
truth as they did that of their own existence. These beings they
believed to be everlastingly occupied with human, or rather with
Hellenic, concerns; for it seems evident that most of the gods were
looked upon more as the parents and guardians of the Grecian race than
as remote and general watchers over the whole universe. To pass out of
life, therefore, was but to pass out of the domains of one god into
those of another; to exchange the protection of the celestial for that
of the infernal Zeus. Everywhere and on all occasions Gods were supposed
to attend their footsteps, but more especially at the moment of their
decease, when a cloud of heavenly messengers hovered around them, some
to accomplish the separation between soul and body, others to lead and
protect the spirit in its descent to the subterranean world, and others
again to watch over its happiness while there, sharing along with it the
same dwelling-place, and bearing the same relation to it as a monarch
does to his subjects.
Possessed firmly by persuasions of this kind, it is little to be
wondered at that the ancient Greek experienced less reluctance to enter
upon the domains of the dead than is now too commonly felt.[2658] He
had, besides, another motive to cheer his departure. It was his firm
expectation to be welcomed on his entrance to the Elysian fields by his
parents or friends or companions, by all, in short, whom he had loved in
life, and who had preceded him to that sacred and serene abode. Thinking
and feeling thus, death seemed scarcely death, but a mere shifting of
the scene or change of locality. It was but falling asleep in one place
to wake in another where their happiness could know no change; where God
would wipe away tears from all eyes, and where there should be no more
trouble or sorrow or suffering for ever.
-----
Footnote 2658:
Plat. Tim. t. vii. p. 121, sqq.
-----
These, nevertheless, must be regarded as the habitual convictions of the
mind, which, however they might influence the actions and resolutions of
men, could by no means stifle their feelings, or prevent that sorrow and
regret which must always be experienced by persons about to be separated
from those they love. Hence the death-bed of the Greeks presented not a
scene of stoical indifference. All the tenderness and sympathy of which
the human heart is capable was usually awakened. The friends, and more
especially the women of the family, crowded about the couch to press the
dying hand, and catch the last breath as it fluttered in broken murmurs
from the lips.[2659] Most persons, when about to bid an eternal adieu to
the world, desired to lay some command on their sorrowing friends, not
as an imperious task but as a labour of love, by performing which they
might be reminded of the departed. Such commands as these the Grecian
women were most anxious to receive, that they might treasure them up in
their souls, and by pondering on them incessantly, day and night, keep
vividly alive in their memory the idea of those who had once been all in
all to them. Nor when the spirit had departed did they forsake the
corpse, nor abandon it to the care of menials. With their own hands they
closed the beloved eyes,[2660] and tied up the mouth from which words of
kindness or comfort were never more to sound. Putting a severe restraint
upon their feelings, they straightened,[2661] laved, anointed, and laid
out the corpse,[2662] covered it with costly garments,[2663] and placed
crowns of flowers upon its head: it was then borne to the vestibule of
the mansion and laid with the feet towards the door,[2664] to intimate
that it was about to proceed on its last journey, and take up its abode
in the house prepared for all living. Vessels of lustral water[2665]
were then placed beside it; that, being accounted unclean, all those who
passed in or out and might be supposed to be reached by the effluvia
which exhaled from the dead, might sprinkle and purify themselves.
Branches of laurel and acanthus, with locks of hair, were suspended over
the doorway, each being a symbol speaking to the imagination of that
lively people. While thus exposed the corpse was watched day and night
by its natural guardians, until the moment arrived for bearing it forth
to the funeral pile or the grave. It was then laid in a coffin,
generally of cedar or cypress-wood,[2666] which, being placed upon a
bier,[2667] was borne away, the mourning friends and family attending.
-----
Footnote 2659:
Il. ω. 743. Kirchman. de Funer. Romanor. p. 34.
Footnote 2660:
Odyss. λ. 425. Eurip. Phœn. 1465. Virg. Æn. ix. 486.
Footnote 2661:
Eurip. Alcest. 160. Gal. de Method. Medend. xiii. 13. Plat. Phæd. t.
v. p. 123.
Footnote 2662:
Eurip. Hyppol. 786, seq. Il. ο. 350.
Footnote 2663:
Ælian. Var. Hist. i. 16. Eurip. Troad. 1134.
Footnote 2664:
Il. τ. 211, sqq. Τοὺς νεκροὺς οἱ ἀρχαῖοι προετίθισαν πρὸ τῶν θυρῶν καὶ
ἐκόπτοντο. Sch. Aristoph. Lysist. 611.
Footnote 2665:
Eurip. Alcest. 99.
Footnote 2666:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxiv. 5. Thucyd. ii. 34. Horat. Od. ii. 14. 23. Epod.
v. 18. Meyer, p. 12. Cf. Dem. adv. Bœot. § 11. Euripid. Orest. 1052.
Footnote 2667:
Cf. Hesych. v. κλιματηφόρος.
-----
At Athens[2668] this ceremony took place immediately before
day-break,[2669] numerous individuals bearing the mortuary torches,
preceding the bier,[2670] and lighting up its melancholy way. The men
next of kin marched silently in the rear of the coffin to intimate that
they should shortly follow in the same track, and the women who kept
together in a body,[2671] closed the procession, weeping and lamenting
as they went. Stationed here and there in the crowd, were certain
funeral musicians playing airs solemn and sad, but with an intermixture
of enthusiastic notes, upon Lydian or Phrygian flutes. Sometimes the
company was mounted in chariots or upon horses, but when especial honour
was intended to the dead, everybody accompanied the hearse on foot. And
surely a group like this, moving along by night through the narrow
winding streets of Athens skirting the rocks of the Acropolis, flitting
across the agora, between its silent booths and stately plane-trees, and
issuing forth through the city gates into the sepulchral suburbs of the
Cerameicos, where a forest of tombs stretched a considerable distance
along the said way, to deposit, as if by stealth, the dust of a human
being in the bosom of the earth, must have exhibited a striking and a
solemn spectacle; more particularly if we suppose that, roused by the
mournful music, thousands of neighbours and fellow-citizens hurried to
their casements to behold their countryman carried to his long home.
Having reached the destined spot, the body, if to be interred, was laid
in the grave with its face looking towards the west.[2672] The earth was
then thrown upon the coffin, and a monument, in most cases, speedily
erected over it. If by special desire of the deceased, or for any other
reason, cremation[2673] was preferred, they constructed a funeral pile
of unctuous and odoriferous woods upon which oil and sweet unguents were
commonly poured.
-----
Footnote 2668:
Demosth. adv. Macart. § 15.
Footnote 2669:
Cf. Theocrit. xv. 132.
Footnote 2670:
The same practice still prevails in modern times. Chandler, ii. 153.
Footnote 2671:
Terent. Andria. i. l. 90, seq. Lys. de Cæd. Eratosth. § 2.
Footnote 2672:
They likewise sacrificed to the ghosts of the dead with their faces
towards the west, to the Uranian gods, with their faces eastward.
Scol. Apoll. Rhod. i. 589.
Footnote 2673:
Cf. Plut. Themist. § 8. Schol. Thucyd. ii. 34.
-----
On the summit of this the corpse was then placed, and a torch having
been applied to the pyre by some near relation of the dead, the whole
was reduced to ashes. Before, however, the flames were quite
extinguished, custom required that a little wine should be cast upon
them, after which if any bones of the dead remained unconsumed they were
carefully collected together with the ashes, and deposited in an urn,
which in Greece was usually committed to the earth.[2674] All the
surviving relations now returned mourning to their dwelling, where,
towards evening, a funeral feast was celebrated in honour of the
dead.[2675] Twice during the same month were sacred rites performed at
the tomb, and afterwards for ever on the anniversary of the deceased’s
birth, as well as on a certain day of the festival of Anthesteria, when
unfading flowers were strewed around, and heaps of crowns and garlands
suspended on the monument. The outward tokens of the grief felt inwardly
consisted of black garments,[2676] heads partially shorn and a sad and
neglected countenance.
-----
Footnote 2674:
Numerous bassi-relievi representing these funeral banquets have been
preserved both at Athens and in the island of Chios, where the custom
has prevailed in modern times of fixing such pieces of antiquities in
the walls, over doors and gateways. Chandler, ii. 39.
Footnote 2675:
Kirchman. p. 502, sqq.
Footnote 2676:
Quintil. Declam. x.
-----
In nearly all parts of the world, the moment death sets the impress of
his seal on the human clay it appears to acquire an awful and mysterious
sanctity, which none but the hardened and base will consent to violate.
Belonging to the grave, its everlasting calm and silence seem already to
brood over it. It presents itself to our eyes like the inhabitant of
another world, and therefore though voiceless it reveals to us, as it
were, some particulars respecting a state of being of which we know
nothing, but feel necessarily the most devouring curiosity. Besides,
when the deceased has been dear to us in life, we regard his corpse as
the deserted mansion of a friend, as the tabernacle of a soul scarcely
different, though divided from our own. On this account the ancient
Greeks, a people beyond most others pious, imaginative, and
affectionate, cultivated with peculiar care the duties which we owe the
dead. Ancient writers abound with illustrations of this truth. When the
Thebans, after the defeat of Adrastos and Polyneices refused burial to
the fallen Argives, it was considered by the Athenians a sufficient
cause for declaring war against Bœotia. It was not pretended that the
invaders had been engaged in an honourable war; but having expiated
their transgression by death, their remains had passed under the
protection of the infernal deities, and to refuse them the rites of
sepulture was not so much to insult them as Pluto, and the other gods of
Hades, whose subjects they were now become. The unburied corpse was,
moreover, a polluting object which defiled the temples of the celestial
divinities, and therefore they also were interested in watching over the
rights of the dead; for dogs and beasts of prey might carry their flesh
or bones into the fanes, and thus render them unclean. And this
sentiment, which constituted one of the most amiable parts of the Greek
character, tended likewise to confer imperishable beauty and interest on
the Hellenic land. For, the numerous tombs, public and private,[2677]
which clustered over and hallowed its surface, addressed themselves
still more powerfully to the heart than to the eye. Everywhere the
devotion of the people clung around them. They were at once the
creations and the monuments of human love, of public gratitude, of holy
reverence for intellect and virtue.
-----
Footnote 2677:
Cf. Demosth. adv. Call. § 4.
-----
The same observation, indeed, applies universally. The pyramid, the
solitary barrow, rising like a hillock on the plains of Asia, the
crowded cemetery, the vast suites of sepulchres excavated beneath the
surface of the earth, each and all of these must ever be regarded by men
of sensibility and unsophisticated understanding as so many unequivocal
tokens of the ineradicable goodness of human nature. Examples without
number might be adduced in illustration. When a North American chief was
urged to cede to the European invaders the hunting-ground of his tribe,
he stated his objection in these words: “How can we abandon the country
in which all our ancestors lie interred? Shall we say to the bones of
our forefathers, ‘Arise, and go along with us into a strange land’?” In
many countries a more absorbing interest attaches to the abodes of the
dead than to the habitations of the living. Who, for example, can
traverse, without the most profound emotion, those suites of
subterraneous palaces at Thebes denominated the Tombs of the Kings? You
seem, in these vast painted halls and dusky passages, to hold actual
converse with death. The grave unfolds its mysteries on all sides
around. The imagination is kindled and takes a colour from the unearthly
creations presented to it, and you return with something like reluctance
to the glare and turmoil and busy passions of the world. Among the
Greeks, as we have observed, the dead were invested with a sanctity
which all good men esteemed inviolable, and this persuasion acquired
additional force from the belief, that, though separated, the spirit and
the body were not yet wholly independent of each other. For, upon the
treatment experienced by its remains the state of the soul was in some
measure regulated in the realms below. If these received the rites of
interment, the spirit was allowed freely to traverse that stream, dusky
and inviolable, which surrounded the realm of Hades. If not, the ghost,
cold and desolate, wandered along its hither shore during the space of a
hundred years; after which, the laws of Orcus relented, and permitted it
to taste of happiness amid the groves of Asphodel,[2678] and those
blissful bowers where poets and sages devoted the circle of eternity to
the culture and pure delights of wisdom. From this persuasion, the
ghosts of persons denied the rites of sepulture[2679] are represented by
the poets hovering around their corses and presenting themselves in
visions to their surviving friends, requesting them to sever, by the
performance of their obsequies, the sad links which still bound them to
their dwellings of clay. Thus Homer introduces Elpenor[2680] conjuring
Odysseus to perform this last sad office for his remains. Often when, by
shipwreck or murder, the body was cast on some solitary shore, or
abandoned in the recesses of some forest or mountain, inhumation was
solely dependent on chance. But if fortune conducted any stranger to the
spot, it was considered incumbent on him to discharge, in one way or
another, the ties of humanity to the dead. But, because he might not be
able to dig a grave or consume the body on a funeral pile, it was
reckoned sufficient to cast three handfuls of dust upon the corpse, of
which one, at least, was to be sprinkled on the head. Thus we find, in
Horace,[2681] the manes of the Pythagorean philosopher, Archytas,
intreating the mariners, who had found his body on the beach, to honour
it with this rite:
Quamquam festinas, non est mora longa, licebit
Injecto ter pulvere curras.
Though great thy haste, this will not much delay;
Cast thrice the dust, then hasten hence away.
-----
Footnote 2678:
Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 169, sqq. Pind. Olymp. ii. 70, sqq.
Footnote 2679:
Cf. Lys. Epitaph. § 4.
Footnote 2680:
Odyss. ξ. 66, sqq.
Footnote 2681:
Od. i. 28. 36. Quintil. Declam. v. 6. Cœlius Rhodiginus, xvii. 20.
Potter. ii. 166.
-----
In order the more certainly to secure this act of humanity from the
passer-by[2682] persons about to perish by shipwreck were accustomed to
tie around their body gold, or jewels, or whatever else they possessed
of value, that it might defray the expenses of their interment, and
reward him who undertook it.
-----
Footnote 2682:
Meurs. in Lycoph. Cassand. 367.
-----
There were, however, certain classes of men who, by their open or secret
wickedness, were supposed to be placed beyond the expansive circle of
human sympathy, on whom it would have been criminal to lavish sepulchral
rites. These were, in the first place, individuals struck by lightning,
whom the gods were believed thus to have destroyed,[2683] from a
knowledge of their guilt, though hidden from all other eyes. Corpses of
this kind were usually covered with earth where they lay without the
slightest ceremony, unless they happened to have fallen in some public
temple, or agora, or highway, under which circumstances a hook was
fastened to the body, by which it was dragged and cast into some pit. On
other occasions the carcase was hedged round and so left. Men guilty of
suicide were likewise denied the honours of burial, but more especially
those of the funeral pile. Their carcases were simply thrown into a pit
and covered over, to prevent their becoming a nuisance to the living.
Villains who committed sacrilege, and traitors to their country were not
suffered to enjoy in death the protection of those divinities whom they
had outraged, or the refuge of a grave in a country which they had
basely betrayed to the enemy.[2684] Their dishonoured bones were cast
beyond the borders, nor was it permitted any citizen to celebrate for
them the rites of burial. Thus King Pausanias, who sought to enslave his
country to the Persians, was treated by the Lacedæmonians, Aristocrates
by the Arcadians, and Phocion by the people of Athens,[2685] though in
this last case, perhaps, through error and misapprehension. The last and
worst class were tyrants[2686] equally objects of hatred to gods and
men, who usually when overcome by their subjects expiated their guilt by
the most unheard-of torments, while, in the nether world, the worst
pangs of Tartarus were reserved for them. To deposit in the bosom of the
earth the carcases of malefactors so heinous would of itself have been
esteemed a crime of a very deep dye. The remains were, therefore,
trodden under foot, subjected to every other species of indignity, and
then cast forth to be devoured by the dogs and vultures. Nay, if we may
interpret the expression of Plato literally, the punishment of men who
even aimed at tyranny in a free state and failed in the attempt was
tremendous: they were tortured and mutilated, had their eyes burned out,
suffered every imaginable insult and injury, and at last crucified, or
covered with pitch and burned alive: their wives and children suffered
the same punishment—the innocent being confounded with the guilty. To
protect their ashes from insults such as the above, the kings of Egypt
who erected the pyramids and were in character fierce and tyrannical,
are supposed by Herodotus not to have entrusted their bones to the
keeping of those structures. A wild story is also related of Periander
of Corinth,[2687] who, conscious of having ruled his countrymen with a
rod of iron, dreaded the effects of their resentment on his corpse.
Effectually to conceal the place of his interment he is said to have
directed two of his satellites to go forth at night on a certain road
and kill and bury clandestinely the first man they should meet. Four
others were despatched to execute the same vengeance upon them, and
another crowd of assassins received orders to exterminate and bury these
four. Periander, then old and infirm, presented himself to the first
murderers, was slain and buried, and the place, from the sudden death of
all who might have known it, thus remained undiscovered for ever.
-----
Footnote 2683:
Artemidor. ii. 8. Eurip. Suppl. 945. Persius, ii. 27.
Footnote 2684:
Diod. Sicul. xvi. 6.
Footnote 2685:
Plut. Phoc. § 37.
Footnote 2686:
Odyss. γ. 256.
Footnote 2687:
Diog. Laert. i. 96.
-----
Most opposed to these were those honourable citizens[2688] who fell for
their country in defence of its liberty and laws, whom their
fellow-citizens followed to the tomb with every conceivable mark of
public gratitude and honour, and whose names future generations were
taught to reverence like those of gods. In some sense, indeed, they were
actually deified. Rites and ceremonies and sacrifices were performed
annually in their honour, and by their great and heroic spirits future
generations swore as by the most ancient inhabitant of Olympos.
Sometimes, as on the plain of Marathon, the remains of the warriors were
collected together, and with holy rites enclosed in one common barrow,
calculated by its dimensions to be co-lasting with the world. On other
occasions their remains were brought to the city and buried there. Thus,
at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, the first citizens who fell
received the distinguished honours of a public funeral. Their remains
were enclosed in coffins of cedar, and laid in open hearses, drawn by
horses carefully caparisoned, and covered with garlands, were conveyed
to the Cerameicos, the whole population of the state attending. When
they had been there committed to the earth, Pericles, the greatest
statesman and orator of those times, ascended a bema, and, in words
which must thrill through the hearts of all posterity, pronounced on
them an encomium to merit which most brave men would cheerfully have
bartered life.
-----
Footnote 2688:
Thucyd. ii. 34. Cf. J. D. H. Meyer. Pericl. ap. Thuc. Orat. p. 10,
sqq. On some occasions the bodies of the dead were followed with great
pomp to the grave, accompanied by the sound of many instruments and
voices. Athen. xiii. 67. The bodies of the dead were at other times,
apparently in the field of battle, stretched out on beds of leaves or
rushes, and a festive banquet with drinking cups was placed before
them, and crowns upon their heads. § 2.
-----
The modes of sepulture prevalent in different ages among the Hellenes
were various in like manner as the monuments erected in honour of the
dead. Originally, when public security was weak, men buried their dead
within the walls of their own dwellings, where alone, perhaps, they
could hope to preserve their resting-place inviolable. In accordance
with this pious feeling a law was anciently enacted at Thebes in Bœotia,
that whoever built himself a house should construct within or adjoining
it a repository for the dead. But when states grew up and acquired
strength, and the shadow of their protection fell around far and wide,
it was found practicable to consult the public health without
infringement of the reverence due to the divinities of Hades, and the
habitations of the departed were erected, like a sacred circle, round
the city walls.
Afterwards, in the period of Grecian decrepitude, the cities once more
opened their gates to their ancestors, and permitted that they should
share with themselves the imperfect security which was the lot of all in
those degenerate times.
Much has been said on the custom which obtained among both Greeks and
Romans, of extending their cemeteries along the high roads leading
countrywards from the city gates.[2689] Their object appears to have
been twofold: first, by erecting the monuments of deceased friends in
sight of all persons entering or quitting the city to render their
memory more enduring; secondly, that by witnessing the honours paid to
the brave and good of past times, those who came after them might be
incited to imitate their example.
-----
Footnote 2689:
Cf. Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 2. 14.
-----
But no place was deemed too sacred to admit the remains of good or great
men, which were occasionally enshrined within the precincts of temples
or sacred groves.[2690] Thus the children of Medea were buried in the
temple of Hera, Œdipos found a tomb in the grove of the Eumenides at
Colonos,[2691] and Hesiod, whose body comes floating to the shore while
the Samians are engaged in the performance of sacred rites, is honoured
with a funeral in the grove of the Nemean Zeus.[2692] Euchides,
likewise, who died in consequence of the extraordinary celerity with
which he performed the journey to and from Delphi in quest of the sacred
fire, was interred by the Platæans in the temple of Artemis Euclea.
Among the Spartans the practice commonly prevailed of burying around
sacred edifices; nor did they, even in later times, banish their dead to
the suburbs; the design of this departure from the fashion elsewhere
established being to eradicate from the mind of youth all apprehensions
of spectres, and reluctance to move, whether by night or by day, among
tombs and graves. In all parts of Greece, families, at least when above
the humblest in rank, possessed each their burial grounds, whether
standing wholly apart in orchards or gardens,[2693] or forming so many
separate portions of the general cemetery.[2694] But nowhere does so
great stress appear to have been laid on this distinction of families in
death as at Sparta, as may be inferred from the account of that battle
in which, animated by the songs of Tyrtæos, the youth bound about their
right arms tablets inscribed with their own names and those of their
fathers, that so, should they all perish, their friends might be able to
select from among the heaps of slaughter the bodies of their relatives,
and inter them with scarlet mantles and olive-leaves in the cemeteries
of their clans.[2695]
-----
Footnote 2690:
Eurip. Med. 1378.
Footnote 2691:
Soph. Œdip. Col. 1584, sqq.
Footnote 2692:
Plut. Sept. Sap. Conv. 19, and see Lobeck, Aglaopham. p. 281.
Goëttling. Pref. Hesiod. ix.
Footnote 2693:
Dem. adv. Call. § 4.
Footnote 2694:
The tombs in these burial-grounds were often so many flat slabs with
inscriptions. Chandler, ii. 123.
Footnote 2695:
Ælian. Var. Hist. vi. 6. Plut. Lycurg. § 27.
-----
Frequently the remains of distinguished persons were consigned to the
dust in picturesque situations, remote from towns and the habitations of
men, where chapels were in many instances erected to their memory. Thus
we find the heroon of Androcrates[2696] shrouded in thick copses and
trees amid the spurs of Mount Cithæron, on the western extremity of the
field of battle of Platæa. In a situation very similar stood the tomb
and temple of Amphiaraos, and the heroon of Drimacos in the island of
Chios. Among the Cretans, likewise, the sepulchre of Zeus occupied the
lofty summit of a mountain, where its ruins are still pointed out to the
traveller. A poetical sentiment, moreover, has, in modern times, given
rise to the persuasion that the ruins of Themistocles’ tomb are still to
be seen amid that line of ancient sepulchres which run along the
surf-beaten rocks near the point of Cape Halimos. On this supposition is
based the well-known passage of Byron:
“No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian’s grave;
That tomb which, gleaming o’er the cliff,
Just greets the homeward-veering skiff,
High o’er the land he saved in vain:—
When shall such hero live again?”
-----
Footnote 2696:
Plut. Aristid. § 11.
-----
But the learning of Colonel Leake has clearly shown, that the monument
of this illustrious statesman stood within the horns of the great port
of Aphrodisium. In the city of Magnesia, where he died, his tomb stood
in the agora, which was customary when extraordinary honour was designed
the dead.[2697] Thus the monument of Timoleon,[2698] surrounded by
porticoes and other public buildings, was erected in the agora of
Syracuse; and that of Harmodios and Aristogeiton occupied the same place
in the city of Athens, where, in more ancient times, the tombs of
distinguished personages were hewn out in the face of the cliffs, lined
with marble, and otherwise sumptuously adorned. Solon, however, sought
to repress the luxury of cemeteries[2699] by ordaining that no tomb
should have an arched roof, or require more labour than could be
performed by ten men in three days. But this law, in all probability,
was never strictly observed; for the Cimonian sepulchres, still seen
high amid the rocks overlooking the hollow valley which divides the
Areopagos from the Pnyx, seem to have been of dimensions too spacious to
have been hewn out within the legal term.[2700] Afterwards, moreover,
mortuary monuments of extraordinary magnificence were erected at Athens,
as that, for example, of the hetaira Pythonicè. But it was in barbarous
countries that funereal structures exhibited the greatest splendour,
which reached possibly its acmè in the tomb of Mausolos, king of Caria,
an edifice consisting of a pyramid erected on a square basis, adorned on
all sides with sculptured figures in relief, and surmounted by a chariot
drawn by four horses. The tomb of the mistress of Gyges, though for
materials inferior, probably exceeded in dimensions this seventh wonder
of the world. It was erected, too, as a memorial of affection; for, when
the woman who, during her life, had ruled both him and his kingdom, had
been removed from earth, that shepherd king collected together, we are
told, the whole of his subjects, and threw up so vast a barrow over her
remains, that, in whatever part of his realm he might be, within Mount
Tmolos, he might enjoy the melancholy pleasure of beholding her grave.
-----
Footnote 2697:
Chandler, vol. i. p. 143.
Footnote 2698:
Plut. Timol. § 39.
Footnote 2699:
Cf. Cicero, de Leg. ii. 64.
Footnote 2700:
Chandler, vol. ii. p. 99.
-----
In the structure of their tombs, as well as their mode of interment, the
various nations of antiquity observed each a different style. Thus, in
the purification of Delos, the monuments of the Carians were easily
distinguished from those of the Greeks by the manner in which their
remains were deposited in the grave. Certain sepulchral mounds, found in
Peloponnesos, were distinguished by some characteristic features from
those of the natives, and denominated the Tombs of the Phrygians; and
the burying places of certain foreigners on whom the Greeks bestowed the
name of Amazons, exhibited as long as they endured some distinctive
marks[2701] by which they were known to cover the ashes of some
barbarous people. Over the tomb of Hippolyta, indeed, a pillar was
erected in the Grecian manner; but at Chalcis, where there was an
Amazonium, the structure would appear to have exhibited some peculiar
features, as well as the tomb of these warlike ladies, which was shown
in the Megaris, between the agora and a spot named Rhus, in the form of
a lozenge,[2702] resembling their shields. Similar in shape, likewise,
were probably the Amazonian monuments found near Scotussa in Thessaly,
as well as those on the banks of the rivulet Hermodon, in the
neighbourhood of Cheronæa.[2703] On the plains of Troy the Amazon
Myrinna reposed under a vast barrow.[2704]
-----
Footnote 2701:
Plut. Thes. § 27. Paus. i. 41. 7. Petit, de Amazon, p. 185.
Footnote 2702:
Plut. Thes. § 27.
Footnote 2703:
Petit, de Amazon. p. 313. 184.
Footnote 2704:
Hom. Il. β. 814.
-----
The structures thus erected in honour of the dead might have proved more
durable but for the practice common among the ancients, of interring
jewels, gold, precious vases,[2705] and other treasures with the corpse,
which afterwards roused the cupidity of profligate men, and tempted them
to rifle the last houses of their forefathers; for it is one of the most
odious and debasing features of civilisation, at certain stages of it,
that death is habitually desecrated, and the grave ceases to be a
refuge. Thus the tombs of the Macedonian kings were plundered by the
Gauls[2706] in the alliance of Pyrrhos. Again, the colony of Roman
freedmen sent to raise Corinth from its ashes, discovering by chance
that the catacombs contained bronze and fictile vases of great beauty,
rifled the whole cemetery, and filled Rome with the spoils, which were
denominated Necrocorinthia. Even the obolos[2707] placed beneath the
tongue, and the simple ornaments of the humbler dead, proved sufficient
to excite the avarice of a certain class of robbers, denominated from
their practices tomb-spoilers.[2708] When, however, the dust of the
departed has reposed in its cerements for many ages, to disturb and
plunder it becomes the pursuit of learned men, and is regarded as a
branch of the science of antiquities. Thus the sepulchres of the
Egyptian kings have been spoiled and polluted by travellers, who have
burned by thousands the wooden gods of the Pharaohs in their kitchens,
sawed off the faces of pillars, dragged forth bodies and coffins from
their last hiding-place in order to pilfer the golden ornaments
suspended around the necks of the dead. In Etruria, too, the same
scientific havoc has been carried on, and the museums of Europe have
been enriched by what was once a capital offence. Even in our own
country, barrows have been habitually opened, and the bones of our
ancestors dislodged from their homes. Very curious relics of antiquity,
however, have thus been brought to light. Similar tumuli in the East,
denominated topes, have been examined in Affghanistân. Beneath the
centre is usually a well, in which the ancient remains, consisting of
metallic vases, small cylinders of gold, rings, jewels, and gold pins,
appear to be found.[2709]
-----
Footnote 2705:
Hence the idea of the vast riches of Charon subsisting in the legends
of the East. Vigne, Trav. in Affghanistân, p. 206.
Footnote 2706:
Plut. Pyrrh. § 26.
Footnote 2707:
Suid. v. καρκάδοντα. t. ii. p. 1374. e. Hesych. v. δανάη. Etym. Mag.
v. δάνα. Aristoph. Ran. 141. Besides the piece of money, a honey cake
is said to have been put into the mouth for Cerberus. Suid. v.
μελιτοῦττα. t. ii. p. 126. a. Aristoph. Lysist. 601. Virg. Æneid. vi.
417.
Footnote 2708:
Arg. ii. in Dem. Mid. Growing bold by degrees, sacrilege at length
broke into the temples, and shore the golden tresses from the very
statues of Zeus himself. Luc. Jup. Trag. § 25. Cf. § 10.
Footnote 2709:
Vigne, Ghuzni, Cabul, &c., p. 141.
-----
It was customary among the Greeks, not only while their grief was yet
new, but habitually for many years, to visit the graves of the dead, to
suspend garlands and crowns and fillets of wool upon their head-stones,
or possibly, as is still the custom in Burgundy, to place wreaths or
other ornaments of pure wool upon the grave itself,[2710] and to protect
them by a trellis-work of willow boughs. Hither, too, were brought
baskets full of all fair and fragrant flowers, more particularly roses,
myrtles, amaranths,[2711] and lilies, to be strewed upon the beloved
spot. Sometimes graves were covered by a netting of wild thyme,[2712]
which, like those characters that are ennobled by affliction, yielded
forth a delicious perfume beneath the foot of the mourner. In cool and
shady spots, graves were sometimes adorned with the small
everlasting,[2713] and the white flower called pothos.[2714] Public
cemeteries were likewise, in many places, beautified by trees, selected
in some cases for their thick foliage and spreading form, as the elm; in
others, for their graceful shape and evergreen leaf, as the poplar and
the cypress. Other trees, also, whether planted by the hand of man or
springing up spontaneously, covered the walks or spots of green sward
found in the cemeteries of Greece, supplying in abundance that sombre
shade into which grief loves to retire, and where the sepulchral plants
chiefly delight to grow.
-----
Footnote 2710:
Varro, Ling, Lat. l. vi. ap. Kirckman. de Funer. Rom. p. 500.
Footnote 2711:
Philost. Heroic. xix. 14. p. 741. Eurip. Electr. 324. Vict. Var. Lect.
xvi. 2. Mag. Miscell. ii. 17.
Footnote 2712:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 168.
Footnote 2713:
Dioscor. iv. 90, if we read τάφοις for τάφροις.
Footnote 2714:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 8. 3.
-----
Such spots so shaded, so verdant, and full of fragrance, so consecrated
to silence and repose, probably first suggested the idea of the Elysian
Fields or Islands of the Blessed, which the poets of Greece assigned to
be the abode of happy souls. At first perhaps the ghosts were believed
to dwell in the cemeteries, retiring by day to the depths of the tombs
and issuing forth during the dark and tranquil hours of night to enjoy,
by the light of the moon or the stars, the sight of the world they had
partially quitted. From this notion flowed all the modifications
observable in the internal structure of tombs. First, care was taken
that the earth should not press heavily on the corpse, somewhere within
the dimensions of which the ghost was supposed[2715] habitually to
reside. Sentiments not greatly dissimilar still survive among ourselves.
I once remember to have read on the gravestone of a little girl standing
near the stile by which you enter the shady churchyard of Newport, in
Monmouthshire, the following epitaph, in which this idea is clearly
embodied:
Here a pretty baby lies,
Sung asleep with lullabies;
Pray be silent, and not stir
The easy earth that covers her.
-----
Footnote 2715:
Among the Mohammedans of Persia like notions are found to exist. “I
often saw groups of people uttering the most doleful lamentations and
bedewing with their tears the dry sod which they surrounded. They
imagine the dead to be capable of _hearing_ but not of answering their
plaints.” Fowler, Three Years in Persia, i. p. 31.
-----
Secondly spacious and elegant chambers were frequently constructed for
the spirit’s use, where food was likewise placed, and lamps were kindled
which, furnished with wicks of amianthos[2716] and supplied with
inexhaustible fountains of oil, were believed to burn on everlastingly.
A similar notion leads many Mohammedan nations to turn a small arch in
the stone basement of their tombs to accommodate the ghost with free
ingress and egress. Connected also with this article in the creed of the
ancients[2717] was the opinion, that spirits might often be seen gliding
in shadowy shapes among the tombs, which may be regarded as a notion
almost co-extensive with humanity itself.
-----
Footnote 2716:
Kirchman. de Funer. Rom. l. iv. 4.
Footnote 2717:
Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 122, sqq.
-----
In their modes of sepulture the barbarous nations[2718] of the ancient
world differed widely from each other and from the Greeks. The Syrians,
Egyptians, and even Persians, wholly eschewing the funeral pile, buried
their dead, having first embalmed them with various conservative and
aromatic substances, as myrrh and aloes, and cedar-gum,[2719] and honey,
and salt, and wax, and asphaltus, and resin, mingled with perfumes and
precious unguents. Among the Pythagoreans, who adopted foreign rites in
preference to those of their country, it was customary to wrap the dead
in leaves of myrtle, poplar, and aloes, and thus to commit them to the
earth. The Albani put money into the coffins with the corpse; the
Taxilli, the Brahmins, and the Thracians, like the modern Parsees,
exposed the bodies of their relations to be devoured by vultures; the
Barchæi, a people inhabiting the borders of the Black Sea, followed the
customs of these nations in the case of such of their countrymen as fell
in war; but when they happened to be so effeminate as to die peaceably
in their beds, they were condemned to the flames. Dogs and carnivorous
birds constituted the sepulchres of the Parthians, Magians, Hyrcanians,
and other savage nations, who, however, were careful to inter the bones
which were left undevoured. Among these philosophical people no thought
was more habitual than that of death, since men walked daily beside
their graves; for persons of condition, who could afford to be luxurious
in matters of this kind, fed and pampered huge dogs for the express
purpose of being devoured by them after death, such mode of interment
being among them esteemed the most honourable. The Essedones, the
Calantii, the Massagetæ, the Derbices, and the Hybernians, on this point
very strongly resembled in taste and habits the Battas of Sumatra, the
custom among them having been to honour their parents and friends with a
far superior sepulchre to that of the foregoing people, since they ate
them themselves. It is remarked, however, in the case of the Essedones,
that the skulls were carefully cleansed, gilded, and laid by, to be
produced on their solemn annual festivals. The Derbices somewhat
improved upon the method of their neighbours; for, when their old people
were found to live too long, they hastened the approach of death in the
case of the men, by slaughtering them like victims, and in that of the
old women, by strangling them.
-----
Footnote 2718:
Alex. ab Alex. iii. 2. p. 114. a. sqq. Kirchman. de Fun. Rom. append.
2. p. 590.
Footnote 2719:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxi. 19. xxiv. 5. xxii. 24. Herod. ii. 86, sqq. i.
140. Xenoph. Hellen. v. 3. 19. Dioscor. i. 105. Kirchman. de Funer.
Rom. l. i. 8.
-----
Among the Hyperboreans the practice was, when old people lived so long
as to be thought troublesome, to give them a farewell feast, and then,
having crowned their brows with chaplets, to pitch them over steep
cliffs into the sea. The Caspians adopted a different method of bringing
down the population to a level with the means of subsistence; for, when
their parents and friends exceeded the age of seventy, they either
exposed them in remote and desolate places, as infants in many countries
were, or shut them up in huts to perish of hunger and thirst. The mode
of disposing of the dead adopted by one of the Scythian nations was, to
bind their corpses to the trunks of trees, where they remained a long
time, congealed in the midst of ice and snow: to have interred them in
the earth they would have regarded as a crime. Not greatly dissimilar
was the Phrygian mode, according to which the dead were placed upright
on ranges of stones fifteen feet high. A large cemetery of this kind,
having many ranges of rude columns, each with its corpse or skeleton,
viewed by the dubious light of the moon, with flights of ravens or
vultures preying upon the bodies recently set up, must have presented a
terrific spectacle. The Nasamones, a people of northern Africa, buried
their dead in a sitting posture, which, as I am informed by General
Miller, is still the custom among the Araucanian Indians, who, binding
the corpse in the necessary posture with cords, excavate for it a grave
beneath their own beds. In some parts of the world, as in Thrace, for
example, and India, persons greatly advanced in years, more especially
such as were distinguished for the cultivation of wisdom frequently
ascended voluntarily the funeral pile, like the Yoghee Calanos, and
Perigrinos who affected the airs of a philosopher, terminated their
existence with composure, or even an appearance of gaiety in the flames.
A certain tribe said to have inhabited the coast of the Red Sea, beyond
the Æthiopians and the Arabs, interred their friends in the sand, within
high-water mark, so that their graves should constantly be overflowed by
the surge. The Æthiopians either cast the bodies of the deceased into
the Nile, or enclosed them in glass coffins, through which the
mouldering form might ever be contemplated. In some parts of Upper Nubia
a similar practice still prevails; for the corpse being laid on the
sand, a wall of loose rocks is built up around it, and secured with a
slab atop. Through numerous apertures in the sides, of dimensions to
admit light but exclude the jackals, the skeleton may easily be seen.
According to a tradition preserved by Ælian,[2720] Belos was interred in
a glass coffin, which, when Xerxes caused his tomb to be opened, was
found nearly filled with oil, wherein the body lay floating. Beside it
stood a small column, on which was this inscription, “Woe to him who
having broken into this sepulchre shall fail to fill my coffin.” At this
Xerxes was troubled, and immediately gave orders that oil should be
poured into the sarcophagus, but to no purpose; for, though they made
the attempt once and again, it rose no nearer to the brim than before.
Conceiving that some grievous calamity was impending over him, the king
at length desisted, and quitted the monument in the deepest dejection.
He shortly afterwards, adds the historian, undertook his unhappy
expedition into Greece, at the conclusion of which, flying back to his
own country, he was there assassinated, as believed, by his own son.
The Pœonians cast their dead into marshy pools; the Ichthyophagi into
the sea. Very different was the custom of the Troglodytæ, who, tying
their corpses neck and heels with the twigs of some flexible shrub, in
this manner carried them forth, and raising over them heaps of stones,
as the Phoceans did over Laïos and his servants, fixed, with laughter
and merriment, the horns of goats upon the tumulus. Similar tombs exist
at this day in Affghanistân, in which are stuck sticks bearing wreaths
and shreds of cloth, together with tusks of the moufflon, the ibex, and
markhur.[2721] In China, at the annual festival in honour of the dead,
the sepulchres are decorated with streamers of red and white paper. Dead
bodies, in the Balearic isles, were jointed, cut up, and stowed in urns
on which huge piles of rock were thrown. The Panebi, a people of Libya,
had a custom resembling in part that of the Essedones: on burying the
bodies of their kings they gilded their skulls, and suspended them in
their temples as ornaments. The Sindi, a people of Scythia, doubtless a
branch of the Ichthyophagi, used to bury in the graves of their warriors
a small fish for every enemy he had slain in battle, which must,
doubtless, if they were a brave people, have rendered their cemeteries
anything but odoriferous.[2722]
-----
Footnote 2720:
Var. Hist. xiii. 3.
Footnote 2721:
Vigne, pp. 88, 89.
Footnote 2722:
The remains of shell-fish are at this day found in great abundance in
the barrows of Guernsey. See Duncan’s History of that island.
-----
From the enumeration of these fantastic and barbarous rites we may
perceive how striking was the contrast between the manners of the
Hellenes and those of most other ancient nations. At one time, however,
a practice, little inferior in atrocity to those above described, is
said to have prevailed in the island of Ceos,[2723] where men on
reaching sixty years of age were constrained to drink hemlock or opium,
in order to economise the means of subsistence. But this law, if it ever
existed, must be thrown back to very remote times, it being wholly
inconsistent with even the smallest advances of civilisation.
-----
Footnote 2723:
Strab. x. 5. t. ii. p. 387. Val. Max. ii. 6. 8.
-----
The ceremonies and symbols by which among the Hellenes sorrow was
expressed for the loss of friends were numerous and significant. In the
first place, all tokens of pleasure and enjoyment were suppressed, that
affliction might seem to have extinguished every spark that might
thereafter have kindled joy. From wine and sumptuous viands and whatever
else brings gratification to the mind at ease, they abstained as though
wholly unworthy to be honoured with even the semblance of a capacity to
mitigate their sorrow for the departed. They banished all instruments of
music which happened to be in the house, to intimate that they
thenceforward renounced the delights derivable from sweet sounds.[2724]
The same practice precisely prevailed among the Arabs under the Kalifat.
Thus “Haroon-er-Raschid, wept, we are told, over Shemselnihar, and,
before he left the room, ordered all the musical instruments to be
broken.” They excluded the light from their chambers, and retired to sob
and lament in gloomy recesses, as different as possible from the spots
which in the company of the beloved and lost object they were accustomed
to frequent. They neglected the care of their persons, suffered in some
places the hair and beard to grow, or disfigured themselves by cutting
off a portion of their locks, casting ashes on their heads, and wrapping
themselves in coarse and black apparel.[2725] In consequence we find,
that the very manes[2726] of their mules and horses were shorn.
Alexander, during the paroxysm of his grief for the loss of
Hephæstion,[2727] even demolished the battlements of cities, and,
exaggerating the cruelty and barbarism of remoter ages, crucified the
physician who had attended the youth, prohibited all music in his camp,
and undertaking an expedition against certain tribes hitherto unsubdued,
offered up whole hecatombs to the manes of his minion.[2728] The
mourning of the Lacedæmonians on the death of their kings partook
largely of the spirit of barbarism. As soon as the event occurred,
horsemen were despatched to make it known throughout the Lacedæmonian
territories, while crowds of women paraded up and down the city, beating
or sounding kettle-drums. From every family two persons, one of either
sex, were then selected, who were compelled under grievous penalties to
smear and disfigure themselves.[2729] In fact, assembling in great
numbers, Spartans, Laconians, and Helots, together with their wives,
they beat their foreheads and uttered strange howlings, ever and anon
affirming, amid their well-acted grief, that the last king was the best.
When the prince happened to fall in battle, his effigy was borne home on
a bier sumptuously adorned, and to this the same honour was paid as to
the real corpse. During the ten days immediately succeeding the funeral
no public business was transacted. For private individuals, the
Lacedæmonians scarcely mourned at all, their system of ethics requiring
them to suppress every more tender feeling of the heart.
-----
Footnote 2724:
Eurip. Alcest. 354.
Footnote 2725:
Il. ψ. 135. Eurip. Orest. 128, 451.
Footnote 2726:
Plut. Aristid. § 14.
Footnote 2727:
Plut. Alex. § 72.
Footnote 2728:
Cf. Luc. Calum. non Tem. Cred. § 17. Xenoph. iii. 3. 1.
Footnote 2729:
This was forbidden at Athens. Cf. Plut. Solon. § 21. Eurip. Orest.
691. Androm. 826. Hom. Il. τ. 288. Eurip. Hec. 655. Klausen, Comm. in
Æschyl. Choeph. p. 86.
-----
The ceremonies designed to perpetuate the memory of brave men can
scarcely perhaps be regarded as envious, but the glory which was like
the Shekina on their land, appeared to purify and ennoble their
descendants by inflaming them with the love of country and liberty.
Grecian manners abounded with rites of this kind, but none seem more
worthy of commemoration than those observed annually by the Platæans, in
honour of the warriors who fell around their city. It is well-known that
the Greeks regarded the spirits of good men of former ages as guardian
genii, to whom belonged religious veneration amounting perhaps to
worship. Their gods, in truth, were in many cases colonists from earth,
which can surprise no one who observes, that among them the principle of
life was deified, and this, derived from gods to mortals, resided for a
time on earth, and then, by continuing to move on in the circle,
returned to the heavens from which it sprang. They seem to have regarded
the earth as a sort of nursery-ground in which the seeds of divinity
were sown, to be afterwards transplanted and bloom elsewhere. But among
the offspring of earth none appeared to them so nearly akin to deity as
those in whom courage and energy shone preëminently, who loved
passionately the soil from which they sprang, and who sought cheerfully
in its breast a refuge from dishonour. Hence the apotheosis and
adoration of the brave; hence the Platæan ceremonies, which, down even
to Roman times, inspired the youth of Greece with admiration for their
ancestors, and called to their mind those glorious days when their
country teemed with freemen ready at any moment to shed their blood for
the institutions and the land which those institutions alone rendered
holy.[2730] These anniversary rites were celebrated on the sixteenth day
of the month Maimacterion, the Alalcomenios of the Bœotians. The
procession moved forth from the city in the grey of the morning, having
at its head a trumpeter sounding the signal of battle. Numerous chariots
followed, filled with myrtle-branches, and wreaths, and garlands,
succeeded by a black bull. Vessels of wine, and jars of milk, and vases
of oil and odoriferous essences were borne next by a number of free
youths, no slave being permitted to take part in these solemnities
performed in honour of men who had died for liberty. Last in the
procession came the archon, habited in a scarlet robe and armed with a
sword, though on all other occasions he was forbidden the touch of
steel, and went clad in white. In his hand he bore a water-jar taken
from the Hall of Archives. In this he drew water from a fountain, and
having laved therewith the pillars which surmounted the tombs, he
perfumed them with the essences: next slaying the bull at the altar, and
addressing his prayers to Zeus and the Chthonian Hermes, he invoked to
partake of the funeral repast and the streams of blood, the spirits of
those valiant men who had fallen for their country. Then, filling a
goblet with wine and pouring it forth in libations, he concluded with
these words: “I drink to the warriors who died for the liberties of
Greece.”[2731]
-----
Footnote 2730:
See the description of a tomb of honour in Plat. de Legg. xii. t.
viii. p. 292, where Suidas seems to suppose the arch to have been
built of precious stones, v. ψαλίδα t. ii. p. 1165. c.
Footnote 2731:
Plut. Aristid. § 21.
-----
INDEX
A.
Abdera, slaves of, iii. 32.
Abortion, i. 125.
Absolution, sold in ancient times, i. 357.
Acacalis, from Egypt, iii. 387.
Acacia-gum, from Egypt, iii. 387.
Academy, gymnasium of the, i. 193.
Acarnania, formerly called Curetis, i. 1, _n._ 17.
exports of, iii. 340.
Accoucheurs, i. 115.
Achaia, exports of, iii. 333.
Acharnæ, charcoal of, iii. 172.
Achillean barley, ii. 2, _n._ 1711.
Achilles, his filial piety, i. 31.
his swiftness in the chase, i. 211.
his cup, ii. 114.
Achradina, sun-dial of, iii. 308.
Acoluthos, or attendant on travellers, iii. 34.
Aconite, iii. 211.
of Italy, iii. 373.
Acorns eaten in ancient times, ii. 125-127.
exported from Epeiros, iii. 340.
Acratisma, ii. 171.
Acratopotes, honours paid to, ii. 169.
Acropolis of Athens, i. 77.
of Sparta, i. 93.
Acting, seasons of, ii. 268.
Actors, various classes of, ii. 236.
bad character of, ii. 241.
description of, ii. 232, sqq.
salary of, ii. 240.
costume of, ii. 260.
Adarces, a cosmetic, iii. 136.
from Cappadocia, iii. 345.
Adonis, gardens of, ii. 322.
Adriatic, barn-door fowls from, iii. 369.
Adulteration of wine, iii. 115.
Adultery unknown at Sparta, i. 394.
Ægæan, extreme blueness of, i. 55.
Ægaleus, a mountain in Attica, i. 66.
Ægidæ, quarter of the, at Sparta, i. 95, 105.
Ægina, description of, i. 67.
dimensions of, i. 68.
population of, i. 69.
commerce of, iii. 253.
Æginetan pottery, iii. 329.
wares, iii. 256.
Æginetans, engaged in foreign trade, iii. 257.
Ægis, an ornament for the bosom, ii. 64.
Ægosthena, wine of, iii. 331.
Æolia, purple fish from, iii. 352.
Æropos, a royal lampmaker, iii. 194, _n._ 1148.
Æsakos, or branch of song, ii. 209.
Æschylus, his style and characters, i. 329.
Æsopic fables, i. 166.
Æsopos, the actor, ii. 242.
Æthiopia, exports of, iii. 381.
Æthiopians, their mode of sepulture, iii. 435.
Æthiopis, a plant, iii. 332.
from Mount Ida, iii. 352.
Ætolia, called Curetis, i. 5.
exports of, iii. 340.
Ætolians, called Curetes by Homer, i. 6.
Affghanistân, topes or barrows of, iii. 431.
Africa, productions of, iii. 381.
Agaric from Sarmatia, iii. 345.
Agates from Sicily, iii. 373.
Agatharchos, a scene-painter, ii. 232.
Agathocles, an amateur of cups, ii. 113.
Age at which children walked, i. 136.
Agelæ, i. 279.
Agnodice, story of, i. 115.
Agnus-castus, crowns of, ii. 2, _n._ 1250.
Agora of Athens, description of, iii. 120.
of Sparta, i. 96.
situation of, i. 103.
foreigners excluded from, iii. 99.
Agoranomoi, iii. 127.
Agrenon, a curious garment worn on the stage, ii. 262.
Agriculture, science of, ii. 363.
of Laconia, iii. 41.
Agrigentum, bitumen from, iii. 376.
Air, dryness of, in Greece, i. 44.
Akinetinda, a game, i. 153.
Alabandine, from Miletos, iii. 348.
Alalcomenios, Bœotian for Maimacterion, iii. 440.
Alastor, i. 363.
Albani, their mode of sepulture, iii. 433.
Alcestis, i. 333.
Alcinoös, his orchard, ii. 133, 318.
Alcisthenes, his rich mantle, iii. 219, _n._ 1314.
Aleipterion, i. 196.
Aleision, fair of, iii. 274.
Alexander, his power of drinking, ii. 195.
his patronage of actors, ii. 234, 235.
his grief for the loss of Hephæstion, iii. 438.
Alexandria, game-cocks of, iii. 388.
Alexis, his picture of a poor family, iii. 95.
Algidum, radishes from, iii. 374.
Allowance to the poor, iii. 72.
Almond-crackers, ii. 163.
Almonds, ii. 163.
from Syria, iii. 390.
from Naxos, iii. 366.
Aloes, from Andros, iii. 364.
from Egypt, iii. 389.
Aloes-wood, from Arabia, iii. 401.
Alopecidæ, a breed of dogs, i. 214.
Altar of Artemis, boys flogged at, i. 274.
to the unknown gods, i. 75.
Altars in the agora, iii. 120.
Alum, from Phrygia, iii. 349.
Alysson, from Africa, iii. 384.
virtues of the, iii. 206.
Amasis, privileges granted by him to the Greeks, iii. 258.
Amazonium at Chalcis, iii. 429.
Amber, from Liguria, iii. 373.
goblets, ii. 111.
Ambracian Gulf, i. 56.
Amiæ, from the Black Sea, iii. 312.
Amianthos, asbestos quarries near, iii. 362.
Aminian vine, ii. 342.
Ammoniac, from Africa, iii. 383.
Amomites, a kind of frankincense, iii. 399.
Amomon, from Pontos, iii. 344.
from Persia, iii. 408.
Amorgos, linen of, ii. 54, iii. 337.
flax of, iii. 216.
Ampelitis, from Syria, iii. 394.
from Rhodes, iii. 366.
from Illyria, iii. 370.
Amphiaraos, tomb of, i. 98, iii. 427.
Amphidromia, i. 128.
Ampyx, a fillet, ii, 59.
Amulets, ii. 63. iii. 406.
for vineyards, i. 1, _n._ 341, ii. 350.
Amylæ, slippers of, iii. 337.
Anaclinopale, i. 201.
Anacreon and the nurse, an anecdote, i. 139.
Anactoria, a name of Miletos, i. 15.
Anadendrides, appearance of a vineyard of, ii. 347.
trained on trees, ii. 346.
Anadesma, a gilded fillet, ii. 61.
Anazarbos, olive grounds of, ii. 2, _n._ 1338.
Anchises, his meeting with Aphrodite, ii. 416.
Anchovies from the Lipari islands, iii. 376.
from Athens, iii. 329.
Anchusa, root of, from Syria, iii. 393.
Ancients, their theory concerning the Pelasgi, i. 3.
Andalusia, productions of, iii. 379.
Andania, Dii Kabyri worshipped at, i. 19.
Androcrates, heroon of, iii. 427.
Andros, aloes of, iii. 364.
Androsaces, from Syria, iii. 393.
Anemonies, ii. 2, _n._ 1304.
Angling in Homeric times, ii. 132.
Animal food, ii. 137.
Animals, protected by the gods, i. 358.
breed of, ii. 280.
flesh of young, when not eaten, ii. 150.
Anis, from the Grecian islands, iii. 364.
Anklets, ii. 63.
Ankula, a term in the game of Kottabos, ii. 213.
Antandros, a Pelasgian city, i. 13.
Antecœnium, or whet, ii. 156.
Anthedon, wine of, iii. 338.
Anthema, a dance, ii. 257.
Anthesteria, festival of, iii. 419.
Anthias, a sacred fish, iii. 234.
fishery, iii. 242.
Anthosmias, a wine, ii. 166, iii. 116.
Anticyra, hellebore of, iii. 339.
Antidotes, iii. 211.
Antigenes, season of reed-cutting in his time, ii. 189.
Antigone, i. 331.
Antioch, cucumbers from, iii. 394.
Antiope, children of, where exposed, i. 123.
Aoidoi, i. 319.
Aones, i. 11.
Apageli, i. 278.
Aparctias, iii. 322.
Apetiotes, iii. 321.
Aphamiotæ, Cretan serfs, iii. 63.
Aphetæ, street of, i. 98, 104.
Aphetæ, the, iii. 56.
Aphrodision, iii. 308.
a basin of the Peiræeus, i. 74.
Aphrodite, character of her beauty, i. 309.
her appearance to Anchises, ii. 416.
Aphroselenon, from Arabia, iii. 395.
Apia, a name of Peloponnesos, i. 17.
Apiaries, fences of, ii. 295.
Apodyterion, i. 196.
in the baths, ii. 90.
Apokinos, a dance, ii. 255.
Apollo, altar of, at the theatre, ii. 226.
Apollonia, asphaltos from, iii. 370.
Aposeisis, a dance, ii. 255.
Apothetæ, i. 121.
Appetite, repressed at Sparta, i. 267.
Apple trees, ii. 316.
in Ithaca, ii. 133.
Apples, ii. 159.
grafting of, ii. 320.
from Phocis, iii. 359.
Apragmosune, a flower, i. 194.
Apulia, capparis from, iii. 374.
Aquitania, gold from, iii. 377.
Arabia, productions of, iii. 399.
Arcadia, overland traffic with, iii. 254.
exports of, 332.
description of, i. 57.
home of the Pelasgi, i. 18.
superstition in, i. 364.
Arcadian hat, iii. 223.
Arcadians older than the moon, i. 18.
their love of music, i. 285.
Arcadian serfs, iii. 66.
Archæanassa, beloved by Plato, ii. 45.
Archery, i. 201.
Archestratos the gastronomer, ii. 201.
Archias Phugadotheras, ii. 242.
Archimedes, vast ship built by him, iii. 306.
Architecture preceded painting and sculpture, i. 303.
in the heroic ages, ii. 77.
Archytas, manes of, iii. 422.
Argeioi, iii. 55.
Argestos, iii. 320, 322.
Argive money, iii. 262.
Argo, expedition of to Colchis, i. 3.
Argol, iii. 199.
from the Grecian islands, iii. 364.
Argolis, description of, i. 58.
Argonautic expedition commercial, iii. 247.
Argos, pottery of, iii. 329.
its manufacture of arms, iii. 104.
exports of, iii. 333.
women of, i. 396.
Ariadne and Dionysos, a dance, ii. 137.
Ariæan slaves, iii. 67, 67, _n._ 274.
Arisaron from Egypt, iii. 386.
Aristocratic feeling, iii. 102.
Aristophanes, his genius and defects, i. 334.
his attack upon Socrates, i. 337.
his peculiar powers, i. 335.
his immorality, i. 336.
his poetry, i. 336.
Aristotle, his opinion of the Spartan women, i. 384.
Aristoxenos, his lettuces, ii. 327.
Arithmetic, study of, i. 182.
Armour, iii. 162.
used in decorating houses, ii. 121.
Armourers, trade of, iii. 157.
Arms, manufactured at Argos, iii. 104.
of primitive hunters, i. 207.
exported from Athens, iii. 327.
their export prohibited, iii. 291.
Aromatic wines, iii. 128.
Arrows of reeds, iii. 162.
Arrow-heads, iii. 161, _n._ 916.
Art, progress of, i. 396.
philosophy of, i. 307.
causes of its excellence in Greece, i. 297.
spirit of, i. 291.
periods of, i. 293.
works of exported, iii. 330.
of war when neglected, i. 112.
Artemis Brauronia, worship of, i. 403.
her epithets, i. 1, _n._ 742.
character of her beauty, i. 310.
Orthia, i. 103, 104.
Artichoke, on the banks of the Indus, iii. 410.
from Persia, iii. 406.
Artists in Greece appreciated by the public, i. 302.
judges of beauty, i. 298.
highly esteemed, i. 301.
Arts of the Pelasgi, i. 26.
Artizans kept in farms, ii. 331.
Aryballos, a kind of goblet, ii. 115.
Ascoliasmos, a rustic game, i. 156.
Ascoma, iii. 289.
Ash-props for vines, ii. 346.
Asia Minor, exports of, iii. 347.
Askolia, a Dionysiac festival, i. 156.
Aspalathos from Syria, iii. 393.
from Illyria, iii. 370.
Asparagus, ii. 328.
from Lybia, iii. 384.
Aspasia, her character and genius, ii. 46.
Asphodel, groves of, iii. 421.
Ass, the inventor of pruning, ii. 350.
hoof of, how used, iii. 332.
head, a rustic talisman, ii. 326.
Asses, ii. 285.
Arcadian and Argive, iii. 333.
milk of, iii. 212.
Asbestos from Cypros, iii. 362.
Astragal, the sides of, how distinguished, i. 161.
Astragalismos, a game, i. 160.
Astronomy, study of, i. 182.
its origin among shepherds, ii. 408.
Astu, i. 76.
Astypalæa, snails from, iii. 367.
Asylum for slaves, iii. 22.
Athena Polias, chapel of, i. 81.
colossal statue of, i. 73.
Chalciæcos, i. 96.
character of her beauty, i. 310.
Athenian Agora, iii. 120.
bread, iii. 110.
education, superior excellence of, i. 288.
married pair, ii. 32.
commerce, iii. 277.
ladies, their condition, i. 401.
Athenophanes, a buffoon, iii. 404.
Athens, law of, in favour of industry, iii. 97.
extent of its walls, i. 72.
description of, i. 70.
called Hellas, i. 2.
Atlantic citron wood, iii. 308.
Atmosphere of Laconia, i. 95.
Atossa, her desire for Grecian slaves, iii. 5.
Attagas, or francolin, ii. 152.
Attendants in baths, ii. 89.
Attic sheep, ii. 429.
exports, iii. 329.
Attica, peopled by the Pelasgi, i. 21.
form assumed by slavery in, iii. 18.
commerce of, iii. 276.
population of, i. 68.
description of, i. 61.
Auction-mart in the Agora, iii. 123.
Aulis, pottery of, iii. 102, 238, 329.
Autocabdali, extemporaneous actors, ii. 239.
Autochthoneïty of the Pelasgi, i. 3.
Axe for wood-cutting, iii. 179.
Axletrees, with what wood made, ii. 381.
B.
Babylon, dimensions of, i. 72.
Babylonia, soil of, iii. 405.
Babylonian slaves, iii. 64.
Baby, origin of the word, i. 140.
Babyx, bridge of, at Sparta, i. 105.
Bachelors, disreputable at Sparta, ii. 6.
excluded from the gymnasium, i. 387.
Bactriana, emeralds from, iii. 406.
Bactriasmos, a dance, ii. 255.
Bætica, production of, iii. 379.
Baggage of travellers borne by slaves, iii. 35.
Baioulos, or nurse father, i. 136.
Baker, trade of the, iii. 108.
establishment of, 109.
slaves did the work of, iii. 30.
Baking, process of, iii. 109.
Balaneia, i. 197.
Balaneion, ii. 88.
Balls, games with, i. 157.
for children, i. 145.
Balm of Gilead, iii. 391.
Balsam gardens, iii. 391.
Ban dogs, ii. 77.
Barbers, their shops, iii. 139.
their reputation, iii. 138.
Barchæi, their mode of sepulture, iii. 433.
Bards, sacred in Greece, i. 317.
Barley bread, iii. 28, _n._ 128.
duration of its seeds, ii. 387.
Barn-door fowls, from the Adriatic, iii. 369.
Barrow on the plains of Troy, i. 15.
Bars and bolts, ii. 94.
Barter, iii. 249.
Basilinda, a game, i. 154.
Basil-gentle, when watered, ii. 2, _n._ 1301.
Basket-work round flasks, iii. 114.
Bastard emerald, iii. 150.
Bathing-room, ii. 88.
Baths, ii. 89.
Baths, frequented by the poor, ii. 89.
architectural arrangements of, ii. 90.
Battle-axes, iii. 161.
of the Issos, i. 304.
pieces, i. 308.
Baukides, ii. 65.
Baukismos, a dance, ii. 255.
Bazar in the Peiræeus, i. 74.
Bdellion, from Arabia Felix, iii. 400.
Beans, food of cocks, ii. 2, _n._ 1114.
from Philippi, iii. 342.
Bear, hunting of, i. 224.
where found, i. 225.
his habits, &c., i. 226.
an enemy of the bee, ii. 295.
Beards, worn long at Sparta, ii. 71.
perfumed before dinner, ii. 175.
Beasts of burden, iii. 252.
Beautiful, our ideas of the, i. 291.
Beauty, the ideal of, i. 292.
stages of, i. 43.
decline of, i. 301.
estimation in which it was held, i. 297.
honours to, in men, i. 300.
of the Spartans, i. 279.
of Grecian women, i. 370.
of the modern Greeks, i. 1, _n._ 1051.
Beccaficoes, &c., pie made of, iii. 111.
Bed-chambers, ii. 84.
coverings, ii. 104, 105.
Beds of Spartan youths, i. 271.
of flowers, ii. 304.
from Miletos, iii. 104.
from Chios, iii. 104.
Bedsteads, ii. 102, 106.
wood employed in making, iii. 184.
Bee, natural history of the, ii. 291.
Beef, how rendered tender in boiling, iii. 122.
Bees, wild, ii. 290.
three kinds of, distinguished by Aristotle, ii. 296.
attention to their comforts, ii. 293.
their alleged aversion to smells, ii. 293, 2, _n._ 1207.
how known by their owners, ii. 298.
how robbed, ii. 298.
Pontic race, white, ii. 297.
Bee-keepers, ii. 291.
Bees’-wax from Cypros, iii. 367.
Beer, iii. 119.
Beggars, costume of, iii. 90.
song of, iii. 92.
Belgium, pierre franche from, iii. 377.
Bellows, ii. 124.
of the smith, iii. 156.
Belos, the glass coffin of, iii. 436.
Βηλὸς, the name bestowed by the Dryopes on Mount Olympos, i. 13.
Bembyx, or top, i. 147.
Bena, jet from the neighbourhood of, iii. 342.
Bendideion, i. 76.
Benefit clubs, iii. 75.
Betrothment, ii. 11.
Bibasis, a kind of dance, i. 388.
Bills pasted in the agora, iii. 126.
Birds in the farm-yard, ii. 279.
what kinds eaten, ii. 151.
in orchards, ii. 316.
manure of, ii. 383.
their language, i. 367.
Biscuits, iii. 109, _n._ 455.
Bithynians, serfs of the Byzantines, ii. 66.
Bitumen, smeared over vines, ii. 351.
burnt in lamps, iii. 197.
brought from the Dead Sea, iii. 394.
Blackberries eaten, ii. 162.
Black sheep, ii. 429.
shepherds, ii. 2, _n._ 1818.
slaves, iii. 333.
Sea, exports from the, iii. 342.
puddings, ii. 154.
Blindman’s buff, i. 149.
Blinds, ii. 82.
Blocks of stone of vast dimensions, i. 81.
Blood, circulation of, iii. 213.
used instead of soap, iii. 139, _n._ 739.
stones from Africa, iii. 381.
Boar-spears, i. 207.
Bœotia, chariots of, iii. 104.
exports of, iii. 337.
Bœotian commerce with Athens, iii. 124.
Boiling meat, ii. 129.
Bolsters, ii. 104.
Bolting flour, iii. 106.
Book-shelves, ii. 84.
Boots, or half-boots, ii. 65.
Boöneta, i. 96, iii. 250.
Booths in the agora, iii. 121.
Boreas, iii. 320.
Borysthenes, salt fish from, iii. 343, _n._ 1973.
Bosom, generally covered, ii. 67.
Bosporos, crossed by the Pelasgi, i. 4.
exports from the, iii. 342.
abundance of fish in, iii. 236.
Bottiæa, inhabited by the Pelasgi, i. 7.
Bouagor, the, at Sparta, i. 271.
Boughs, what trees raised from, ii. 325.
Boundary olives, ii. 314.
Bous, a didrachma, iii. 251.
Bows, iii. 161.
Bowstring, iii. 161.
Laconian, iii. 336.
Boxing, i. 202.
not allowed in the gymnasia at Sparta, i. 276.
but taught to virgins, according to Propertius, i. 386.
Boys admitted into the gymnasia, i. 193.
drank wine, ii. 136.
why scourged when detected in theft at Sparta, i. 273.
Bracelets, ii. 63.
Brahmins, their mode of sepulture, iii. 433.
Brains eaten, ii. 151.
Bran, how removed from flour, iii. 106.
Brass, used before iron, iii. 153.
sword of, iii. 158.
Brazen fly, a game, i. 150.
Bread, ii. 128.
materials employed in making, iii. 107.
Bread-baskets of silver, ii. 129.
ivory, ii. 22.
Bread-making, process of, iii. 109.
Breast-plates for horses, iii. 164.
Breed of animals, ii. 280.
dogs, i. 214.
horses attended to by Spartan ladies, i. 389.
Breeding-time, chase pursued during, i. 216.
Brenthion, an unguent, iii. 134.
Bridal costume, ii. 15.
gifts, ii. 26.
Bride-cake, ii. 20.
Brick-kilns, inspector of, ii. 95.
Bricks, iii. 176.
manufacture of, ii. 95.
Bright-smiths, assembly of, iii. 98.
Broccoli, ii. 329, iii. 121, _n._ 566.
Brokers had pots and kettles for hire, ii. 123.
Bronteion, a machine for mimicking thunder on the stage, ii. 229.
Bronze of Corinth, iii. 273.
vessels from Cypros, iii. 367.
salvers, ii. 21.
Brood mares, studs of, ii. 280.
Bryallicha, a Spartan dance, i. 389, ii. 255.
Bryton, a kind of wine, iii. 118, _n._ 521.
Buffoons, ii. 25.
their character, ii. 182.
Burials, iii. 417.
Burning glasses, iii. 152, 175.
Bustles, ii. 56.
Butcher, trade of the, iii. 111.
anecdote of one at Miletos, iii. 112.
Butchers’ shops, iii. 112.
Butler, ii. 237.
Byzantium, monopoly at, iii. 287.
C.
Cabbage, its origin, ii. 306.
an enemy to Dionysos, ii. 348.
-seed from Rhodes, iii. 336.
Cabbages, ii. 328.
Cabinet-makers, woods used by, iii. 183.
Cables of vast dimensions, iii. 316.
Cactus for hedges, ii. 2, _n._ 1328.
from Cilicia, iii. 351.
pickled, from Sicily, iii. 373.
Cadmia, from Cypros, iii. 360.
Cæcias, iii. 320.
Cakes, shapes of, iii. 111.
Calabis, a Spartan dance, i. 388.
Calabria, pitch of, iii. 373.
Calamus from Syria, iii. 393.
Calantii ate their parents, iii. 434.
Calasiris, a Persian tunic, ii. 73.
Callicrates, the Spartan, iii. 151.
Callipedes, the actor, ii. 242.
Calves, weaning of, ii. 286.
Calydonian boar, i. 297.
Camel, instrument of civilisation, iii. 246.
Camp stool of Dædalos, i. 84.
Camp stools, iii. 188.
Cancamon, a gum from Arabia, iii. 396.
Candelabra, ii. 120.
Candelabrum of gold, i. 82.
Candlestick of wood, ii. 121.
Canes, Laconian clouded, iii. 334.
Cannibals, ii. 127.
in Peloponnesos, i. 11.
Canopic muscles, iii. 388.
Cantharos, a basin of the Peiræeus, i. 74.
Caper bushes, ii. 330.
Caphesias, the flute-player, i. 187.
Capnodoche, ii. 92.
Cappadocia, lapis specularis of, iii. 346.
orpiment of, iii. 348.
Cappadocian baker, iii. 109.
Caprification, ii. 322.
Caps, manufacture of, iii. 322.
Caranos, his marriage feast, ii. 29.
Caravans, course of, iii. 412, 413.
Carbuncle, iii. 148.
Carbuncles, iii. 334.
from Marseilles, iii. 377.
Arcadian, iii. 332.
Carcanets of rose pastilles, iii. 137.
Cardamums from Syria, iii. 393.
Caria, exports of, iii. 353.
Carian sepulchres, i. 14.
serfs, iii. 66.
mercenaries, i. 16.
conquests, i. 16.
Carians, Pelasgi, i. 4.
a Lelegian tribe, i. 15.
dwelt in rocky places, i. 1, _n._ 54.
Carnelian ring, iii. 148.
Carpathos, island of, i. 219.
Carpenters’ tools, iii. 180.
Carpets, manufacture of, ii. 109, iii. 218.
of Sardis, ii. 104.
from Persia, iii. 407.
Carts, of what wood made, iii. 181.
Carriage melody, ii. 18.
Carriages, ladies rode in, ii. 2, _n._ 107.
Carrying trade, iii. 296.
Carthage, carbuncles from, iii. 383.
its carpets and pillows, ii. 109.
its commerce, iii. 384.
Carthaginians, their trade with the interior, iii. 385.
Caryatides, dance of, ii. 256.
Caryatides, earrings, ii. 62.
Carystos, amianthos of, iii. 356.
Caspians, exposed their parents, iii. 434.
Casques, iii. 163.
Cassander, son of Antipater, a sportsman, i. 228.
Cassia, from Arabia, iii. 401.
Casting statues with pitch, iii. 120, _n._ 553.
Castor oil, making of, ii. 355.
Castorides, a breed of dogs, i. 213.
Castes, did not exist at Athens, iii. 100.
Catillus ornatus, a cake, iii. 111.
Cats, exported from Bœotia, iii. 337.
Cattle, how fattened, ii. 289.
fed on fish, ii. 289.
stalls, ii. 2, _n._ 1081.
Caucons, Pelasgi, i. 4, 7.
of Paphlagonia, i. 4, 12.
a Trojan tribe, i. 14.
in Elis, i. 20.
Caunacè, costume of the Phallophoroi, ii. 240.
Cavalry-parade in the Agora, iii. 127.
Cecrops, not the institutor of marriage, ii. 2.
Cedar-gum, the life of the dead, iii. 218.
Celibacy, disreputable, ii. 5.
Ceilings, ii. 82.
Celtiberian steel, iii. 155.
Celtic eranos, iii. 79.
spikenard, iii. 371.
Cement, iii. 176.
statues of, iii. 177.
Cemeteries, hallowed, iii. 426.
Centaurs, Pelasgi, i. 5.
in Thessaly, i. 10.
Centaury, Peloponnesian, iii. 332, 333.
gathering of, iii. 295.
Ceos, old men poisoned in, iii. 437.
Ceremonies of marriage, ii. 13.
at Sparta, i. 393.
Cerinthos, earth from, iii. 368.
Chæremon, a picture from him, ii. 412.
Chairs, ii. 101.
Chair-makers, price of, iii. 24.
Chairman of an Eranos, iii. 81.
Chalcedon, white rock of, iii. 239.
Chalcophonos, stone used in the masks, ii. 264.
Chalk, medicinal, from Thessaly, iii. 339.
Chalkismos, a game, i. 159.
Chalybean steel, iii. 155, 346.
Chalybes, excelled in the manufacture of steel, iii. 154.
Chandeliers, ii. 121.
Chaones, Pelasgi, i. 7.
in Epeiros, i. 8.
Chaonia, i. 54.
Character of the Greeks, i. 29.
energy and excellence of, i. 46.
Characteristics of the various states, i. 40.
Charcoal, ii. 124.
preparation of, iii. 172.
used in smelting furnaces, iii. 172.
sellers of, in the Agora, iii. 124.
Chares, his entertainment of the citizens, iii. 86.
Charges in public baths, ii. 91.
Chariots, where made, iii. 104.
Charitable Eranæ, iii. 81.
institutions, iii. 79.
Charms, iii. 206.
Charonian staircase in the theatre, ii. 231.
Chase, setting out for the, ii. 215.
of the wild boar, i. 221.
Chastisement of slaves, iii. 20.
Chastity, uncommon in Sparta, i. 390.
Cheerfulness of the Greek character, i. 49.
Cheese in Homeric times, ii. 132.
quality of, ii. 287, 288.
used in pastry, iii. 113.
how preserved, ii. 288.
Gythian and Tromileian, iii. 331.
from Sicily, iii. 375.
moulds for, ii. 2, _n._ 1184.
Cheimera occupied by the Chaones, i. 8.
Chelichelone, a game, i. 151.
Chelidonian rocks, iii. 318.
Chelonis, her story, i. 398, 400.
Chelysma, or false keel, iii. 314.
Chemise, ii. 54.
Chenoboscion, ii. 274.
Cherries, grafting of, ii. 320.
Chervil, from Cilicia, iii. 351.
Chestnuts, ii. 163.
from the Black Sea, iii. 341.
Chests, of what manufactured, iii. 185.
Chian earth, iii. 363.
beds, iii. 104.
wine, iii. 116.
Chians, possessed only barbarian slaves, iii. 12.
slave-traders, iii. 7.
servile wars of, iii. 12.
Childbirth, i. 116.
Childhood, its representative, i. 310.
Child-sacrifice in Syria, i. 1, _n._ 372.
Children, care of, commenced before their birth, i. 113.
of fallen citizens supported by the state, iii. 69.
of disabled soldiers supported by the state, iii. 69.
where exposed at Delphi, i. 122.
denied clean linen at Sparta, i. 171.
Chimneys, ii. 92.
Chiton, ii. 53.
Chitonea, dance so called, ii. 259.
Chlaina, a garment, ii. 69, 70.
Chlamys, a garment, ii. 2, _n._ 70.
Choaspes, water of, ii. 134.
Chœnix-measurers, iii. 67, _n._ 273.
Chœrinæ, a cake, iii. 111.
Choke-weed, its growth how subdued, ii. 388.
Chopping-blocks, ii. 124.
Choreutæ, costume of, ii. 259.
Choros, part of the Agora at Sparta, i. 96.
Chorus, history of, ii. 250, seq.
its origin, ii. 248.
number of, ii. 249.
Chrysocolla, from Thrace, iii. 342.
Chrysonetæ, Cretan slaves, iii. 63.
Chytra, ii. 122.
exposure of infants in, i. 121.
a form of salute, i. 152.
Chytrinda, a game, i. 151.
Cider, ii. 361, iii. 118.
Cilicia, exports of, iii. 351.
Cilician pirates, i. 16.
Cimolian earth, iii. 358, 199.
Cimolos, water coolers of, iii. 114.
Cimon, his generosity to the Athenians, iii. 86.
Cinnabar, manufacture of, iii. 349.
Spanish, iii. 378.
Attic, iii. 330.
Cinnamon, from Arabia, iii. 401.
Circulation of the blood, iii. 213.
Cisterns, where placed, ii. 372.
Cistus, two species of in gardens, ii. 331.
Cithara, of what materials made, iii. 191.
Citharistæ, i. 186.
Citharœdi, i. 186.
Citron tree, ii. 160.
Citron, an antidote, ii. 161.
Citrons, ii. 321.
Civilisation, causes of, i. 208.
Clans, iii. 101.
Clarotæ, Cretan serfs, iii. 63.
Classes of slaves, iii. 26.
Clazomenè, wine of, iii. 116.
Cleanthes, the parasite, ii. 200.
Cleinias, the Pythagorean, i. 187.
Clematis, ii. 313.
Clepsydra, i. 85.
Climate and soil, effect of, i. 43.
force of in Greece, i. 45.
its variations in Greece, i. 51.
of Attica, i. 63.
Clothing of shepherds, ii. 407.
Clouds of Aristophanes, how represented on the stage, ii. 245.
Clover, time of sowing, ii. 390.
Clubs at Athens, iii. 76, 161.
Cnidos, pottery of, iii. 163.
Coal, use of, iii. 174.
mines of Liguria, iii. 373.
Cock-fighting, i. 190.
Coffins, of what woods made, iii. 417.
Colchis, cucumbers of, iii. 346.
Collections, private, of works of art, i. 304.
Colonies from Egypt and Phœnicia, fabulous, i. 28.
Colophon, resin from, iii. 349.
Colophonians, luxury of, ii. 74.
Columbary, construction of, ii. 279.
Columns, why fluted, ii. 83.
Comedy, origin of, ii. 221.
scenery requisite for, ii. 227.
Commerce of remote antiquity, iii. 248.
of Attica, iii. 276.
of Doric states, iii. 245.
Commercial court, iii. 281.
Conchyliatæ vestes, iii. 226.
Confinement, period of, i. 114.
Conflagration of the world, a dance, ii. 258.
Conger fish at table, ii. 179.
Congers, Spanish, iii. 379.
Conon feasts the people, iii. 86.
Consanguinity, disregarded in primitive marriages, ii. 6.
Consul, iii. 282.
Conversation at entertainments, ii. 204.
Convulsions in children, i. 133.
Cook, Athenian, his character, ii. 197, 199.
Cooking in the Homeric ages, ii. 129.
Cooks, &c., lived in the Agora, iii. 125.
Cooper, trade of, iii. 182.
Copais, eels of, iii. 338.
Copses of myrtle, &c., ii. 303.
Copper bolts, iii. 307.
dross, from Cypros, iii. 366.
laminæ in walls of houses, ii. 80.
used instead of iron, iii. 153.
burnt, from Egypt, iii. 389.
Coral, from Sicily, iii. 375.
black, from the Sea of Marmora, iii. 345.
Cordax, a kind of dance, i. 389.
Corinna, influence of her beauty, i. 298.
Corinth, manufactures of, iii. 273.
pottery of, iii. 103.
commerce of, iii. 272.
exports of, iii. 333.
Corinthian slaves, iii. 67, _n._ 273.
Cork tree, account of, ii. 313.
Corn, in what islands produced, iii. 356.
ploughed into the field, ii. 384.
trod out by oxen, ii. 394.
grinding of, iii. 105.
how eaten in early ages, iii. 104.
amount of importation at Athens, iii. 293.
from the Black Sea, iii. 342.
-chandlers in the Agora, iii. 124.
-flag in bread, iii. 107.
-jars, iii. 194.
-laws, iii. 293, 296.
-market, iii. 128.
-ships, iii. 257, 305.
-trade, iii. 292.
Corporal punishment of boys, i. 169.
Corpses, care of, iii. 416.
ominous of evil, i. 368.
Corpulence, a crime at Sparta, i. 271.
Corselets, iii. 163.
Corsica, timber from, iii. 376.
Corycian cave, saffron of the, iii. 350.
Corythalistriæ, i. 142.
Cos, fabrics of, iii. 214.
wine of, ii. 167, iii. 116.
exports of, iii. 366.
silkworms of, iii. 217.
Cosmetics, conversation concerning, ii. 33.
use of, iii. 134.
Cosmo, invented a liquid to harden steel, iii. 155.
Costume of the Greeks, ii. 50.
of Athenian youth, ii. 72.
of a hunter, i. 212.
of choreutæ, ii. 259.
Cothon, bastard emerald from, iii. 383.
Cothons, Laconian, iii. 335.
Cothurni, use of on the stage, ii. 260.
Cottabos, _see_ Kottabos.
Cotton, Egyptian, iii. 388.
manufacture in India, iii. 411.
-tree, in Tylos, iii. 402.
Counterpanes, ii. 106.
Country houses, ii. 271.
Courage of the stag, i. 221.
Courts of houses, ii. 77.
Coverlets of peacocks’ skins, ii. 103.
Cows, ii. 286.
Cradles, i. 117, 136.
Cranaans, Pelasgi, i. 7.
the Pelasgi of Attica so called, i. 22.
Crane dance, so called, ii. 258, and 2, _n._ 1016
or Geranos, a machine used upon the stage, ii. 230.
Cratesiclea, her death, i. 397.
Credit, iii. 280.
Creion, a cake, i. 393.
Cremation, iii. 418.
Crenides, mines of, iii. 340.
Crestona, inhabited by Pelasgi, i. 7.
Crests, iii. 163.
Cretan marksmen, i. 227.
serfs, their divisions, i. 63.
their condition, iii. 65.
education, i. 109.
Cretans, their attempt to subjugate Attica, i. 22.
Crete, a commercial station, iii. 258.
dittany from, iii. 364.
Cribanos, a cake, i. 393, iii. 109.
Criers, iii. 126.
Crimes committed in the wars of Greece, i. 48.
Crocomagma from Syria, iii. 393.
Crocotion, a robe, ii. 58.
Crowns, use of, ii. 304.
Crows, round the Acropolis, i. 1, _n._ 249.
Cruelty of Spartans towards their slaves, iii. 45.
Crypteia, institution of the, i. 275, iii. 49.
Cucumbers, forcing of, 326.
extraordinary ones, ii. 327.
Cuirasses, iii. 163.
Cumin, from Galatia, iii. 350.
Cunei of the theatre, ii. 2, _n._ 872.
Cup-bearers, ii. 191.
slaves, iii. 30.
engravers, ii. 115.
Cupboard, description of the, ii. 111.
Cups, number of, drunk, ii. 194.
their various dimensions, ii. 192.
Curds, ii. 288.
Curetes in Eubœa, i. 5.
worsted in a contest for the Lalantian plain, i. 5.
fly across the Euripos, i. 5.
the Ætolians called by this name in Homer, i. 1, _n._ 17.
take refuge in Acarnania, i. 6.
Curetis, ancient name of Ætolia, i. 5.
Acarnania, i. 1, _n._ 17.
Cushions, ii. 104, 2, _n._ 752.
Cutlery, quality of, iii. 156.
Cyclops, a Pelasgian caste, i. 18.
Cydonian slaves, iii. 64.
wine, iii. 116, and _n._ 13.
Cynisca sent chariots to Olympia, i. 389.
Cynosarges, gymnasium of, i. 195.
children exposed there, i. 124.
Cynosuræ, quarter of the, i. 94, 105.
Cyphi, a perfume, iii. 134.
Cypresses, legend connected with, ii. 305.
Cypros, exports of, iii. 357.
productions of, iii. 361.
hairy sheep from, iii. 368.
Cypselos, prize of beauty proposed by, i. 299.
Cyrenaica, productions of, iii. 384.
Cyrenè, silphion from, iii. 383.
Cythera, commerce of, iii. 269.
Cytherodices, iii. 270.
Cytisus, food of sheep, ii. 2, _n._ 1856.
of fowls, ii. 278.
Cyzicos, a Pelasgian city, i. 1, _n._ 11, 13.
melilot from, iii. 344.
D.
Daggers, varieties of, iii. 159.
Dalmatia, wild turnips from, iii. 369.
Damon, remark of his upon education, i. 187.
Danaos, said to have taught the art of digging wells, ii. 372.
Dances, practised by women, i. 1, _n._ 1144.
mimetic, in the theatre, ii. 252.
at entertainments, ii. 186.
performed by the Choros, ii. 251.
classification of, ii. 253.
Dancing, study of, at Sparta, i. 287.
its character at Sparta, i. 388.
a portion of gymnastics, i. 203.
Dancing-girls at entertainments, ii. 184.
Dardanian slaves, iii. 45.
Dates, ii. 165.
Dates from Syria, iii. 390.
from Arabia, iii. 396.
Day-lily, in bread, iii. 107.
Dead, duties to the, iii. 419.
buried in private cemeteries, ii. 270.
Dearness of fish, ii. 143.
Death, Greek notion of, iii. 415.
Declaration of love, i. 419.
Decoy-dove, ii. 2, _n._ 1126
Decoys, in hunting, i. 230.
Deicelistæ, Spartan actors, ii. 238.
Deicelistic dance at Sparta, i. 389.
Deigma in the Peiræeus, i. 75.
Deimalea, a dance, ii. 255.
Deipnocletor, his office, ii. 172.
Deipnon, ii. 171.
Deity delights in lofty mountains, i. 13.
Delian games, i. 416.
Delos, purification of, iii. 429.
Delphian cutlery, iii. 157.
Demetrius, his magnificent chlamys, iii. 219, _n._ 1314
Demi of Attica, i. 64.
Democracy, its struggles with oligarchy, i. 47.
confers undue influence on women, ii. 36.
Demosthenes, his character as an orator, i. 346.
Dentifrices, iii. 138.
Depilatory preparations, iii. 141.
Derbices, ate their parents, iii. 434.
Deshabille, indecorous, what, ii. 38.
Desposionautæ, iii. 56.
Dessert, iii. 181.
Devices on shields, iii. 166.
Diamonds from Æthiopia, iii. 382.
Dicæa, a celebrated mare, ii. 282.
Didaskaloi, not respected, i. 179.
Dielkustinda, a game, i. 155.
Dill, exported from Egypt, iii. 387.
Dining-rooms, ii. 87.
Dinner, preparations for, ii. 174.
Diodotos, oration of Lysias for the children of, i. 406.
Diogenes, reduced to slavery, i. 171.
his system of education, i. 172.
Dionysiac theatre, ii. 221.
artificers, ii. 233.
Dionysios, a beggar, iii. 90.
Diopos, an earring, ii. 62.
Diphtheræ, clothing of shepherds, ii. 407.
Diploïdion, a garment, ii. 57.
Dipodia, a Spartan dance, i. 388.
Disabilities of slaves, iii. 19.
Disapprobation, mark of, at the theatre, ii. 224.
Discipline of Spartan education, i. 267.
Dishes, number of, ii. 181.
eaten hot, ii. 180.
Disreputable callings, iii. 99.
Districts set apart for the chase, i. 217.
Divans, iii. 83.
method of reclining on, ii. 177.
Divers, their arts, iii. 234.
Divination, i. 367.
Diving-bell, first notion of, iii. 235.
Division of labour, iii. 99.
Dmoës, origin of the name, iii. 4.
Dodona, oracle of, i. 6.
a place of this name in Thessaly, i. 1, _n._ 18
Dodonæan Zeus, fane and oracle of, i. 56.
Does, suckling their fawns, i. 220.
Dog-rose, gathering of, iii. 204.
skin-cap worn by Helots, iii. 45.
Dogs, i. 213.
of what countries famous, i. 214.
of Sparta, iii. 334.
crossed with the tiger, i. 214.
employed as guardians, ii. 77.
in hunting, i. 209.
used by shepherds, ii. 406.
killed during the dog-days at Argos, iii. 211.
Dolopians, Pelasgi, i. 8.
Dolops, son of Hermes, i. 1, _n._ 32
Domestic medicine, iii. 206.
Door-handles, ii. 95.
keepers, ii. 77.
pivots, iii. 181.
Doors, materials of, ii. 94.
Dorian women, their beauty, i. 382.
Dorians, their intellectual cultivation, i. 280.
Dove-cotes, construction of, ii. 279.
Doves, shot with arrows, i. 210.
from Cypros, iii. 368.
from Sicily, iii. 375.
Draco, his laws against vagabondage, iii. 96.
Dragonwort eaten, iii. 108.
Drains, ii. 93.
Dramatic exhibitions, origin of, ii. 220.
Drawing, for what purpose taught, i. 188.
Dreams of evil omen, i. 368.
faith in, ii. 2, _n._ 1780
frightful, how obtained, iii. 213.
Dress, object of, ii. 68.
Drimacos, story of, iii. 13.
heroon of, iii. 427.
Drinking, laws of, ii. 196.
bouts among the Macedonians, ii. 194.
horns, ii. 116, 118.
Dromos of Sparta, i. 101.
a part of the theatre, ii. 225.
Drones, how expelled from hives, ii. 296.
Dryopes, in Doris, i. 10.
in Thessaly, i. 10.
in Epeiros, i. 10.
in Peloponnesos, i. 10.
Ducks, wild, ii. 150.
care of, ii. 277.
Dutch, their laws concerning slavery, iii. 39, _n._ 164.
Duty on corn, fixed, iii. 296.
Dwellings of private people not mean, ii. 75.
Dyeing, iii. 223.
hair, iii. 141.
E.
Eagle, its war with the hare, i. 216.
stones from Arabia, iii. 395.
Early rising, ii. 79.
Earrings, ii. 61.
Earthenware, boats of, iii. 301.
Earthquakes, foretold by birds, i. 2, _n._ 1670
Earths, painters’, iii. 199.
Ebony, from Africa, iii. 381.
Ecbatana, i. 72.
Eccyclema, a machine upon the stage, ii. 227.
Echeia of the theatre, ii. 264.
Echinos, or sea-chestnut, anecdote concerning, ii. 147.
Echo, disliked by bees, ii. 293.
Eclactisma, a dance, ii. 255.
Education, theory of, i. 107.
at Athens, not national, i. 111.
of the Greeks excellent, i. 166.
of the world, i. 262.
of girls, i. 403.
of shepherds, iii. 402.
of slaves, iii. 26, 30.
of the Spartans, Cretans, Arcadians, &c., i. 265.
at Sparta in the hands of the state, i. 266.
objects of at Sparta, i. 288.
Lycurgus’s idea of, i. 385.
at Sparta, martial and severe, i. 270.
of Spartan girls, i. 385, 389.
Eel fisheries, iii. 233.
Eels, ii. 148.
Eggs, how eaten, ii. 156.
Egypt, its exports, iii. 386.
gold mines of, iii. 168.
charcoal of, iii. 174.
Egyptian vines, ii. 337.
marble, iii. 390.
fig-tree, ii. 2, _n._ 1390
Egyptians, their mode of sepulture, iii. 433.
Eilapinè, or grand dinner, ii. 172.
Eileithyia, i. 114.
Eiresionè, iii. 92.
Eiscyclema, a machine upon the stage, ii. 228.
Elatea, wheat of, iii. 339.
Elba, iron ore from, iii. 377.
Electra, i. 334.
Elementary instruction, i. 164.
Elephant, a cup, ii. 117.
Elephantinè, undeciduous vines of, ii. 337.
Elis, the Holy Land of the Hellenes, i. 57.
exports of, iii. 332.
Eloquence, study of, i. 235.
Elymœan hares, i. 219.
Elysian fields, iii. 432.
Emancipation of the Helots, iii. 39.
Emathea, occupied by Pelasgi, i. 7.
Embroidery, iii. 219.
in Homeric times, i. 379.
Emerald, engraved for rings, iii. 149.
lions’ eyes made of, iii. 238.
from Egypt, iii. 389.
from Bactriana, iii. 406.
Emetics, iii. 212.
Employments of slaves, iii. 30.
Emporiæ, lines of the, iii. 377.
Empusa, &c., i. 140.
fear of, conquered in children, i. 135.
Empusæ ludus, i. 156.
Enallos, story of, ii. 113.
Encotyle, a game, i. 151.
Endymion, beloved by Sleep, i. 424.
Engraving gems, iii. 151.
Enigmas, ii. 215.
Entertainments, ii. 170.
picture of, ii. 179.
Entimos of Gortyna, his history, ii. 106.
Epeiros, peopled by Pelasgi, i. 6.
included in Greece, by Homer, i. 1, _n._ 177
exports of, iii. 340.
Epeunactæ, iii. 61.
Ephebeion, i. 196.
Ephedrismos, a game, i. 150.
Ephentinda, a game, i. 163.
Ephesos, exports of, iii. 354.
Epiblema, a garment, ii. 57.
Epicnemidian Locrians, i. 11.
Epidamnian commerce, iii. 275.
Epigoneion, a musical instrument, iii. 192.
Episitioi, iii. 87.
Epitaph on a cat, i. 1, _n._ 621
Epithalamium, ii. 26.
Epomis, a garment, ii. 57.
Epostrakimos, a game, i. 153.
Equine beauty, conception of, ii. 283.
Eranistæ, members of Eranoi, iii. 76.
Eranoi, iii. 75.
money regulations of, iii. 83.
Erectheion, description of, i. 80.
Erectheus, chapel of, i. 80.
sea of, i. 85.
Eretrian earths, iii. 363.
Erichthonios, i. 81.
Erinæan jet, iii. 375.
Erinnyes, their duties, i. 360, 361.
Eructeres, iii. 55.
Essedones, ate their parents, iii. 434.
Etesian winds, iii. 322.
Etrurian plate, iii. 104.
Eubœa, adventures in, ii. 418.
exports of, iii. 367.
Eubœan walnut wood, iii. 180.
Eumenides, representation of, i. 412.
Eumolpos, settles at Eleusis, i. 22.
Eunostos, the god of mills, iii. 107.
Eunuchs, porters, iii. 32.
trade in, iii. 17.
from Sardis, iii. 354.
Eunus, story of, iii. 13, _n._ 60
Euphorbia from Laconia, iii. 334.
from Mount Atlas, iii. 384.
Euripides, character of his intellect, i. 332.
Euros, iii. 320.
Eurotas, banks of the, i. 1, _n._ 284
Euryleonis, sent chariots to Olympia, i. 390.
Eurypontidæ, tombs of, i. 98.
Euthydemus, specimens of sophistical arguments from the, i. 255.
Euxine, traces of the Pelasgi on its southern shore, i. 4.
Evergreens, ii. 311.
Exchange, or Deigma, iii. 298.
Exercise necessary for children, i. 144.
Exercises of youth, i. 189.
Exhibitions of art, i. 303.
of industry, iii. 98.
of leeks, ii. 332.
Exomis, a garment, ii. 57, 69.
Exports and imports of Greece, iii. 326.
Exports of Athens, iii. 278.
Exposure of infants, iii. 121.
Eyes, i. 43.
what coloured preferred for, i. 1, _n._ 1053
F.
Fable of the lion, i. 165.
Fables, i. 165, 166.
Façade, ii. 80.
Fair of Komana, iii. 347.
Fairs, iii. 274.
Falconry, i. 228.
in Thrace, i. 229.
Fallowing, ii. 385.
Fallow-grounds, ii. 386.
Families at Sparta, iii. 427.
Family, internal regulation of the, ii. 29.
Fans from Phocis, iii. 339.
Farce, acted during the vintage, ii. 351.
Farmer, his studies, ii. 362, sqq.
Farm-house, interior of, ii. 279.
Fastenings of doors, ii. 94.
Fat tyrant, story of, i. 1, _n._ 872
Fatness, how avoided, ii. 56.
Fawn hunting, i. 219, 220.
Fawn-skin buskins, iii. 222.
Feast of the Fifth Day, i. 128.
Features, uniformity of, among the Scythians, i. 1, _n._ 149
Felloes of wheels, with what made, ii. 381.
Felt, Laconian, iii. 336.
Female education at Sparta, i. 385.
beauty not easily represented, i. 312.
slaves, their employments, iii. 33.
Fermentation, the second, how checked, iii. 116.
Ferocity of the Spartans, iii. 53.
Ferret, used in rabbit-hunting, i. 218.
Ferrymen, iii. 103, _n._ 419
Fertility of parts of Laconia, i. 60.
Festivals, attended by women, i. 404.
Fighting cocks, ii. 155.
Fig-wine, iii. 118.
Figs, ii. 158.
various kinds of, ii. 323.
Attic, iii. 327.
how used in the nursery, i. 137.
from Paros, iii. 356.
tree, grafting of, ii. 319.
planted outside vineyards, ii. 349.
Filial piety, i. 30.
Fine Arts, their influence on education, i. 289.
Fingerlings for archers, iii. 165.
Fire, how procured, ii. 123, iii. 175.
Fish, list of, ii. 149.
dearness of, ii. 143.
their sleep, iii. 242.
eaten in Homeric times, ii. 131.
much eaten in later times, ii. 138.
given to cattle, ii. 289.
buying, ii. 139.
market, ii. 139.
laws of, ii. 142.
Fisheries, iii. 232.
Fisherman’s life, iii. 103.
Fishing in Homeric times, ii. 132.
with hooks, i. 210.
at night, iii. 237.
Fishmongers in the agora, iii. 125.
disreputable trade, 99.
Fish-pond on board ship, iii. 308.
Flail, sometimes used, ii. 395.
Flambeau-sellers in the agora, iii. 125.
Flambeaux, iii. 197.
Flap, used for a bellows, ii. 124.
Flasks, made by prisoners, iii. 114.
Flax, grown in Elis, iii. 215, 333.
Flesh-food, ii. 129.
Flies, what, ii. 173.
Flocks of even numbers, ii. 432.
number of, ii. 405, and _n._ 5.
Floor of kitchen, ii. 93.
Flooring, ii. 81.
Florentine kiss, i. 152.
Flour, how produced, iii. 104.
merchants in the agora, iii. 124.
Flower garden, ii. 302.
beds, ii. 304.
dance, ii. 257.
girls, iii. 128.
sellers in the agora, iii. 123.
Flowered tissues, iii. 218.
Flowers used in crowns, ii. 2, _n._ 1258
mythological association of, ii. 305.
profusion of, ii. 310.
what kind loved by the bee, ii. 292.
Flute, music of the, i. 186, iii. 190.
players in the agora, iii. 125.
Folding seats, iii. 188.
Food, ii. 125.
classification of, ii. 128.
working for, iii. 87.
of the poor, iii. 94.
of slaves, iii. 28.
of the bear, i. 226.
Football, English game of, i. 157.
Footsnares, i. 222.
Foreigners, could not sell in the agora, iii. 99.
Four-post bedsteads, ii. 103.
Fowl-house, ii. 278.
Fowling, i. 206.
cruelty in, i. 230.
Fowls, ii. 150.
care of, ii. 277.
food of, ii. 278.
Frankincense, from Arabia, iii. 396.
Freckles, how removed, iii. 136, seq.
Freedom, how obtained by Attic slaves, iii. 19.
Free states, spirit of education in, i. 238.
Friendship, aptitude of the Greeks for, i. 32.
Frontlets for horses, iii. 164.
Fruit trees, ii. 316.
shops in the agora, iii. 121.
what kinds eaten, ii. 158-165.
how preserved, ii. 358-361.
how moulded by gardeners, ii. 323.
exportation of, iii. 327.
Fruits, how forced, ii. 321.
Fuel, ii. 124, iii. 173.
Fullers, trade of the, iii. 232.
Fullers’ earth, iii. 199.
Fund of the Erani, iii. 80.
Funeral ceremonies, iii. 414.
pile, iii. 418.
Furies, their costume on the stage, ii. 260.
Furniture, ii. 97.
of what woods made, iii. 183.
Furs, imported by Persia, iii. 408.
Future rewards and punishments, i. 356.
G.
Gadflies, ii. 2, _n._ 1835
Gaia, mystic navel of, i. 56.
Galatia, wine of, iii. 117.
Galbanum, from Syria, iii. 392.
Galleys, iii. 302.
Gall-nuts, for staining wood, iii. 159.
Gamelion, or nuptial month, ii. 9.
Gamelios, or bride-cake, ii. 20.
Games of children, i. 149, 163.
Game eaten in the Homeric times, ii. 130.
cocks of Alexandria, iii. 388.
Garden of the Greeks, ii. 79, 301.
Gardens of Adonis, ii. 322.
Alcinoös, of the Hesperides, and of Midas, ii. 318.
Garlands, use of, ii. 304.
Garlic, ii. 332.
eaten in Homeric times, ii. 133.
from Megara, ii. 155.
from Egypt, iii. 386.
Gastronomers, list of celebrated, ii. 201.
Gaul, exports of, iii. 377.
Geese, feeding, ii. 274.
how fattened, ii. 275.
their livers how enlarged, ii. 276.
sagacity of, ii. 2, _n._ 1099
Gems, engraved for signets, iii. 148.
Genii of eating and drinking, ii. 169.
Geometry, study of, i. 183.
Geranion, or crane’s bill, a sort of truffle, ii. 333.
Germander, from Pontos, iii. 344.
Gerula, or under-nurse, i. 136.
Gethyllis, a species of leek, ii. 332.
Ghosts, belief in, i. 364.
Gift-bearers, or serfs, iii. 61.
Gilding, art of, ii. 80, iii. 146.
Ginger, iii. 201.
from Arabia, 400.
Gingidium, from Syria, iii. 393.
Gingra, a dance, ii. 257.
Gingras, a flute, iii. 190.
Giraffe, from Æthiopia and India, iii. 381.
Girls, their education, i. 403.
Glass, manufacture of, iii. 195, 196.
coloured, iii. 196.
malleable, iii. 196.
from Alexandria, iii. 390.
cups, ii. 115.
dishes, ii. 23.
mirrors, ii. 119.
windows, ii. 82.
Gloves, iii. 220.
worn by rustics, ii. 383.
Glycera, bon mot attributed to her, ii. 44.
the queen of Harpalos, ii. 45.
Gnathena, her witty repartees, ii. 44.
Goad, use of the, ii. 385.
Goatherds, ii. 427.
Goats, ii. 280.
cheese of, i. 227.
horns, why placed at the feet of vines, ii. 343.
Goat-skin cloak, ii. 407.
Goblets of amber, ii. 111.
God, belief in, i. 350.
nature of, incomprehensible, i. 354.
his attributes, i. 354.
belief in his unity, i. 353.
Goddesses, their form and beauty, i. 311.
wherefore draped, i. 313.
Gods, beneficent, i. 30.
character of, i. 311.
borrowed some of their glory from the human mind, i. 290.
of the shepherd race, ii. 2, _n._ 1781
Gold mines on the shores of the Euxine, i. 4.
on the shores of Thrace, i. 5.
of Thasos, iii. 356.
of Egypt, iii. 168.
Gold, at Sparta, iii. 263.
plate, ii. 110.
plates on walls of houses, ii. 80.
thread, iii. 220.
Golden age, food of the, i. 12, ii. 128.
water in Persia, ii. 135.
statues, iii. 144.
Goldsmiths, iii. 142.
Goose’s liver, ii. 152, 276.
Gorgias, account of, i. 246.
under whom he studied, i. 247.
his pupils, i. 248.
ambassador from Leontium, i. 247.
his golden statue at Delphi, i. 249.
Goslings, care of, ii. 274.
Gourd, eaten, ii. 326.
Government, origin of the Greek notions on, i. 38.
Grace before meat, ii. 176.
Graces, dance of the, ii. 259.
Grafting, first mention of, iii. 318.
Grain, various kinds of, iii. 107.
how preserved in granaries, ii. 397 sqq.
how eaten in ancient times, ii. 128.
choice of, for sowing, ii. 387.
pickers, iii. 91.
Grammateion, a kind of cup, ii. 116.
Granaries, preparation of, ii. 396.
of Syra, Northern Africa, and the Azores, ii. 2, _n._ 1770
Granite, Theban, iii. 388.
Grapes, ii. 165.
the kinds now cultivated in Greece, ii. 2, _n._ 1601
how produced without stones, ii. 341.
medicinal, how produced, ii. 341.
how preserved fresh, ii. 356.
smeared with lime, ii. 317.
Grass, beds stuffed with, ii. 103.
Graves, how adorned, iii. 431.
Greaves, iii. 165.
Greece, called Hellas, i. 1.
Greece, its varied surface, i. 53.
Greeks, their superiority in the arts, i. 290.
Greengrocers in the agora, iii. 121.
Grinding corn, iii. 104.
Griphoi, ii. 215.
Griphos, definition of, ii. 216.
Groups of statues in the Acropolis, i. 79, 80.
Groves, around houses, ii. 271.
Gruel, ii. 153.
Guardian spirits, i. 364.
Guardians of estates, ii. 400.
Guests, departure of the, ii. 219.
number of, fixed by law, ii. 173.
Guild of actors, ii. 233.
Guinea-fowls, Ætolian, iii. 340.
Gunpowder, iii. 199.
Gyges, story of, ii. 410.
vast barrow thrown up by him, iii. 429.
Gymnasia, general description of, i. 195.
of Athens, i. 193.
exercises of, i. 191.
Gymnasiarch, i. 176.
Gymnastics, object of, i. 191, 192.
at Sparta, i. 275.
enthusiastically studied, i. 204.
first step in, i. 197.
Gymnopædia, i. 287.
Gynæconitis, ii. 80.
Gypones, certain dancers, ii. 256.
Gypsum, from Epeiros, iii. 340.
for windows, ii. 82.
Gythium, the port of Sparta, iii. 268.
H.
Hair, care of, ii. 66.
colour of, i. 1, _n._ 1053
how dyed, iii. 141.
how preserved and strengthened, iii. 140.
worn long at Sparta, ii. 71.
garments of, iii. 217.
Halcyonion, from the shores of the Propontis, iii. 345.
Half-doors, ii. 94.
Haliacmon, valley of, i. 5.
Halicarnassos, ii. 167.
Halimos, procured milk to nurses, i. 1, _n._ 407
Hamadryads, i. 362.
Hams, &c., sold in the agora, iii. 123.
from Gaul, iii. 377.
from Cyrenè, iii. 381.
from Phrygia, iii. 353.
Hand-mill, invention of, iii. 104.
mirrors, ii. 119.
Hands, perfumed before dinner, ii. 175.
Hangings, ii. 80.
Hare-hunting, i. 217.
Harrows, ii. 382.
Harvest, sacrifices preceding, ii. 390.
Hatching, time of, ii. 278.
Hats, ii. 72.
manufacture of, iii. 222.
Hawking vegetables in the street, iii. 88.
Hay, ii. 389.
Thracian trade in, iii. 341.
fields, moss how removed from, ii. 389.
harvest, ii. 389.
Head-nets, from Achaia, iii. 333.
Healths, drinking of, ii. 192.
Hecatè, sacrifices to, eaten by the poor, iii. 91.
Hecaterides, a dance, ii. 255.
Hedges, ii. 313.
Hedge-flowers, ii. 314.
Heducomos, a dance, ii. 255.
Heir apparent, at Sparta, exempted from punishment when a boy, i.
270.
Helen, goblet of, ii. 112.
Heliotrope, wherefore it turns towards the sun, ii. 2, _n._ 1460
Helix, an ornament, ii. 62.
Hellas, signification of, i. 1.
a city of Thessaly, i. 1.
original inhabitants of, i. 1.
progress of the name, i. 1.
Hellebore, eaten by shepherds, iii. 210.
Hellenes, not the original inhabitants of Hellas, i. 2.
their origin, i. 27.
Hellenion, a place at Sparta, i. 98.
at Naucratis, iii. 258.
Helmets, iii. 162.
Helot nurses sold, iii. 40.
derivation of the word, iii. 37.
wars, iii. 52.
Heloteia, iii. 36.
Helots, their condition, iii. 38.
lived on the estates, iii. 43.
Greeks, iii. 38.
in the army, iii. 44.
their position in the scale of society, iii. 42, _n._ 177
obtained wealth, iii. 41.
instructors of children, i. 267.
purposely demoralised, iii. 48.
compelled to intoxicate themselves, iii. 47.
how supported, iii. 40.
classes of, iii. 55.
modern opinions on, iii. 36.
Hemicycle, a machine upon the stage, ii. 230.
Hemlock, Attic, iii. 328.
Megaric, iii. 330.
Hemp, cloths of, iii. 216.
Hen’s milk, ii. 152.
Hephæstion, grief of Alexander for, iii. 438.
Hera, character of her beauty, i. 310.
Heraclea, serfs of, iii. 61.
Heraclean all-heal, iii. 332.
honey, iii. 343.
Heracles, the discoverer of the purple, iii. 224.
his bowl, ii. 114.
Herald-slaves, iii. 32.
Heralds, hereditary at Sparta, iii. 102.
dance of the, ii. 259.
Herb-mastic, in Magnesia, iii. 350.
Herbs, exportation of, iii. 328.
Herdsman’s life, ii. 421, seq.
his superiority to the shepherd, ii. 426.
Herdsmen, hunters, i. 206.
Hereditary goblets, ii. 112.
trades, iii. 101, 162.
Hermæan festival, freedom of slaves during, iii. 64.
Hermata, or earrings, ii. 61.
Hermes, Pelasgian statue of, i. 83.
Hermione, purple of, iii. 229.
Herodes Atticus, slaves of, iii. 1, _n._ 3
Herodotus, his character as a writer, i. 338.
Heroes of the Argo confounded with the Pelasgi, i. 4.
Heroic shepherds, ii. 403.
Heroon of Lelex, at Sparta, i. 19.
Herpyllis, beloved by Aristotle, ii. 48.
Herrings from the Black Sea, iii. 343.
Hesperisma, ii. 171.
Hestiator, his duties, iii. 84.
Hetairæ, their condition, ii. 40.
the vicissitudes of their lives, ii. 42.
honourable actions of, ii. 48.
mistresses of the philosophers, ii. 45.
from the poorer classes, iii. 88.
Hexecontalithoi, from Africa, iii. 382.
Hides from Cyrenè, iii. 385.
Hiero, vast ship built for him, iii. 306.
Hieroduli, iii. 25.
Hilarodos, a kind of actor, ii. 238.
Hill of the Spartan Acropolis, i. 103.
of the Agora, iii. 126.
of Attica, i. 62.
Hills of Attica, i. 62.
of Sparta, i. 103.
Hilts of swords, iii. 159.
Himanteligmos, a game, i. 159.
Himation, ii. 52.
Hindù falconry, i. 229.
Hippagretæ, three hundred followers of, i. 278.
Hippas, a game, i. 151.
Hippocampia, earrings, ii. 62.
Hippodameia, an agora in the Peiræeus, i. 74.
Hippodrome of Sparta, i. 103.
Hippophorbos, iii. 190.
Hippothoös, or Pelasgian, i. 1, _n._ 51
Hireling shepherds, ii. 2, _n._ 1817
Hives, position of, ii. 292.
materials of, ii. 294.
average produce of, ii. 298.
lids of, ii. 298.
in the age of Hesiod, ii. 290.
Hobbes, his opinion of the philosophers, i. 1, _n._ 809
Hog, first animal eaten by man, ii. 137.
from Sicily, iii. 375.
flesh, eschewed by the Cretans, ii. 286.
Holidays, none given to boys, i. 168.
Homer, his character as a poet, i. 327.
his school at Chios, i. 180.
the preceptor of Hellas, i. 326.
public recitations of, at Sparta, i. 283.
Homeric poems, by whom written, i. 325.
horses, food of, ii. 283.
Homeridæ, i. 323.
Hones, from Mount Taygetos, iii. 334.
from Crete, &c., iii. 356.
Honey, three different kinds of, ii. 299.
what quantity produced by one hive, ii. 297.
of Attica, i. 63, ii. 290, iii. 327.
of Heraclea, iii. 343.
of Hybla, iii. 375.
of Hymettos, ii. 2, _n._ 1204
of Corsica, bitter, ii. 293.
unsmoked, ii. 291.
use of by confectioners, iii. 110.
dew, ii. 297.
how collected in Syria, ii. 299.
Hoops, used by children, i. 147.
Hormos, a necklace, ii. 63.
a Spartan dance, ii. 258.
Horn lanterns, ii. 121.
windows, ii. 82.
Horns, used as drinking cups, ii. 116.
Horses, sold in the agora, iii. 123.
price of, iii. 129.
sacrifice of, ii. 281.
branded, ii. 285.
for what purposes employed, ii. 280.
fables concerning, ii. 281.
diminutive, ii. 2, _n._ 1151
breaking in of, ii. 284.
countries famous for, ii. 282.
Arcadian, iii. 333.
Astypalæan, iii. 367.
of Achilles, ii. 282.
Hospitality, origin of, i. 34.
of Turkish shepherds, ii. 2, _n._ 1837
of an Eubœan shepherd, ii. 422.
Hours, dance of the, ii. 259.
House-painting, iii. 178.
Hunting, i. 206.
Hunting, Eubœan, ii. 408.
apparatus, i. 213.
Hyacinthine road, i. 94.
Hyaline floors, ii. 81.
Hyantes, i. 11.
ancient name of the Ætolians, i. 1, _n._ 17
Hyantis, ancient name of Ætolia, i. 1, _n._ 17
Hybernation of the Spartan youth, i. 274.
Hybernians ate their parents, iii. 434.
Hybla, honey of, iii. 375.
Hybrias, song of, iii. 65.
Hydromel, iii. 118.
Hymeneal lay, ii. 19.
Hymettos, its food for bees, ii. 2, _n._ 1204
honey of, ii. 292, _n._ 6, iii. 327.
marble of, iii. 330.
Hypekooi, Cretan subject peasantry, iii. 63, 64.
Hyperboreans, their filial piety! iii. 434.
Hyperides, his famous rhetorical artifice, ii. 47.
Hypogypones, certain dancers, ii. 255.
Hypogramma, a pigment for the eyebrows, iii. 136.
Hyporchema, invented by the Pelasgi, i. 26.
Hyporchematic dance of Sparta, i. 389.
Hyposcenion, a part of the theatre, ii. 225.
Hyrcanians, their mode of sepulture, iii. 434.
Hyssop of Cilicia, iii. 351.
I.
Iamos, birth and exposure of, i. 124.
Iapyx, iii. 320.
Iasian ichthyophagi, iii. 233, _n._ 1417
Ideal, i. 309.
Idleness, respected at Sparta, iii. 96.
Illyria, exports of, iii. 376.
iris from, iii. 369.
Illyrians, Pelasgi, i. 7.
Imitation on the stage, ii. 244.
Immorality of certain women, ii. 37.
Immortality, belief in, iii. 414.
Impenitence, vengeance against, i. 359.
Imports of Athens, iii. 278.
Implements of husbandry, ii. 381, seq.
Inachos, son of the Ocean, i. 17.
India, commerce of, iii. 408.
Indian oxen, iii. 411.
jugglers, i. 1, _n._ 467
marble, iii. 312.
purple fishery, iii. 229.
Indigo, from India, iii. 411.
Industry, how encouraged at Athens, iii. 97.
Infants, new-born, how treated, i. 116.
Infanticide, i. 118-127.
Theban laws concerning, i. 125.
Initiation, doctrine of, i. 361.
its power, iii. 318.
Ink, manufacture of, iii. 200.
Innovation in toys condemned, i. 145.
Inspection of children, Plato’s idea of, i. 169.
Inspectors of women, iii. 115.
Institutions of Sparta unfavourable to chastity, i. 391.
Instruction in the open air, i. 176.
how imparted to women in Homeric times, i. 374.
Interest, rate of, iii. 299.
Interior economy of a school, i. 178.
Intrigues, how conducted, ii. 38.
Inula from Egypt, iii. 386.
Inventions of the Pelasgi, i. 26.
Ionia, carobs from, iii. 352.
Ionian costume, ii. 73.
Ionic women, their position, i. 401.
Irene, her devotion to Ptolemy, ii. 48.
Iris, from Illyria, iii. 369.
from Pamphylia, iii. 353.
fetidissima, gathering of, iii. 205.
Iron money, iii. 154.
invention of, iii. 154.
Ischomachos, ii. 30.
Isinglass from Pontos, iii. 344.
Islands, medicinal plants of, iii. 364.
game on, i. 216.
wines of, iii. 355.
of the Blessed, i. 83, iii. 432.
Isocrates, his opinion of the Spartan Crypteia, iii. 49.
Issorion at Sparta, i. 100.
Istria, wines of, iii. 370.
Italian method of reaping, ii. 393.
wines, iii. 378.
Italians, their character compared with the Greeks, i. 37.
Italy, preference given to the soil of, by Varro, i. 51.
snails eaten in, iii. 372.
Itinerant fishmongers, iii. 99.
Iton, a kind of truffle, ii. 333.
Ithyphalli, actors, ii. 239.
Ivory feet of tables, ii. 100.
from Africa, iii. 381.
stained by a Pelasgian woman, i. 26.
how worked, iii. 186.
Ivory-handled knives, iii. 157.
J.
Jackdaws, how caught, i. 232.
Bœotian, iii. 337.
in farm-yards, ii. 280.
Jambs of doors, ii. 94.
Jars from Egypt, iii. 388.
multitude of, iii. 193.
Jason, anecdote of him, ii. 130.
Jasper, an amulet, i. 141.
Javelin darting, i. 201.
Javelins, iii. 160.
Jet, from Bena, iii. 342.
from Lycia, iii. 348.
Jewellers, iii. 142.
their quarter in the agora, iii. 121.
Johur, performing, i. 396.
Jugglers, their performances, ii. 186.
in great request, i. 1, _n._ 166
sold magic rings, iii. 148.
K.
Kabobs, eaten hot, ii. 202.
Kalyx, an ornament, ii. 60.
Kapnian wine, iii. 116.
Kapparis, food of the poor, iii. 95.
Karides, a city of Chios, foundation of, i. 1, _n._ 67
Katabaukalesis, specimen of, i. 138.
Katagogis, a garment, ii. 57.
Katanocophori, serfs of Sicyon, iii. 66.
Katastiktos, a garment, ii. 57.
Katatomè, a part of the theatre, ii. 222.
Kekruphalos, an ornament, ii. 59.
Kerasbolos, ii. 387.
Keraunoscopeion, a machine for mimicking lightning on the stage, ii.
229.
Kerkenna, gold from, iii. 382.
Kermes, iii. 230.
from Phocis, iii. 339.
from Attica, iii. 328.
from Asia Minor, iii. 256.
from Spain, iii. 377.
from Africa, iii. 382, _n._ 2415
Kernophoros, a dance, ii. 254.
Keys, &c. ii. 94, iii. 156.
Kid, presented to a club by a tavern-keeper, iii. 113.
Kidnapping, origin of, iii. 6.
Killicon, story of, iii. 112.
Killicyrii, serfs of Syracuse, iii. 66.
Killios, a robe, ii. 59.
Kismis, stoneless grapes in Persia, ii. 2, _n._ 1521
Kissing, contest in, i. 300.
Kitchen garden, ii. 326.
utensils, ii. 122-124.
Kitchens, ii. 91-93.
Knife-handles, iii. 157.
Knismos, a dance, ii. 255.
Knives, iii. 157.
Knockers, ii. 95.
Knowledge, the stream of, flowed through Thrace into Greece, i. 5.
with what object pursued, i. 239.
Kobaloi, i. 142.
Kolias, pottery of, iii. 193.
Kollabismos, a game, i. 150.
Komana, fair of, iii. 347.
Konisterion, i. 196.
Kopis, a banquet of nurses, i. 142.
Κόσμου εκπύρωσις, ii. 258.
Kottabos, a game, ii. 212.
Kottabos Katactos, a game, ii. 213.
Krade, a machine upon the stage, ii. 228.
Kranion of Corinth, i. 71.
Kubesinda, a game, i. 151.
Kulikeion, or cupboard, ii. 111.
Kurdistân, horses and mules from, iii. 390.
Kynæthes, why expelled from Arcadia, i. 287.
Kyndalismos, a game, i. 155.
Kynitinda, a game, i. 152.
Kyrittoi, i. 143.
L.
Labour, division of, iii. 99.
Labra of the baths, ii. 88.
Lacedæmonian nurses, i. 134.
mourning, iii. 438.
Lacedæmonians, their mode of preserving the fruits of the earth, iii.
259.
Laconia, cheese of, iii. 331.
productions of, iii. 334.
description of, i. 58.
steel of, iii. 156, 336.
Laconic sayings, i. 282.
Lacydes, the philosopher, anecdote of him, iii. 14.
Ladanum, collection of, iii. 365.
Ladies’ summer mantles, iii. 334.
Lagenophoria, an Alexandrian festival, iii. 80, _n._ 319
Lagobolon, i. 213.
Laïs, anecdote concerning her, ii. 43.
Lalantian plain, contest for, i. 10.
Lambs, protected by law, ii. 130.
Lamia, story of, i. 141.
Lamprey fisheries, iii. 233.
Lamps, ii. 120.
manufacture of, iii. 194.
Lamp-wicks, iii. 197.
Bœotian, iii. 338.
Lances, iii. 160.
Language of Macedonia identical with that of Greece, i. 9.
the Pelasgi, i. 26.
Thrace identical with that of Greece, i. 9.
Lanterns, iii. 186.
of horn, iii. 121.
Lapdogs from Malta, iii. 368.
Lapis lazuli, from Scythia, iii. 346.
Lapis specularis for windows, ii. 82.
Lapithæ, Pelasgi, i. 5.
overcome the Perrhæbians, i. 9.
Larch resin, iii. 397.
Larissa, in Mysia, i. 13.
Larissa, cities so named, i. 10.
Cremaste, i. 10.
in Thessaly, i. 10.
Latagè, a term in the game of kottabos, ii. 213.
Latax, ᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧ”ᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧ”ᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧ”ᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧᚧ ii. 213.
Lattice work, ii. 82.
Laughter, story of the man who had lost the power of, ii. 188.
Laura of Samos, i. 74.
Laurel staff, its miraculous powers, i. 368.
legend connected with, ii. 305.
Laurion, mines of, iii. 168.
Laws of the fishmarket, ii. 142.
Leaping as an exercise, i. 199.
Leather dyed, iii. 222.
Leda, egg brought forth by, i. 102.
Leeks, from Ascra, iii. 338.
Legend of a cup, ii. 113.
Legends of the mythology taught to children, i. 164.
Lelegeis, ancient name of Miletos, i. 15.
Leleges, Pelasgi, i. 47.
slaves of the Carians, i. 24.
in Doris, Locris, &c., i. 11.
in Laconia, i. 19.
serfs of the Carians, iii. 66.
in Caria, i. 14.
fortifications of, i. 14.
Lelex, an autochthon of Laconia or Leucadia, i. 19.
Lemnian wine, iii. 116.
earth, iii. 200.
Lemnos, earths of, iii. 358.
wine of, iii. 249.
Lending money, iii. 292.
Lentiscus, cultivation of, iii. 364, _n._ 2197
Leroi, ornaments, ii. 64.
Leros, Guinea fowl from, iii. 368.
Lesbian wine, iii. 116.
Lesbos, myrtle-berries of, iii. 366.
Leschæ, places of refuge for the poor, iii. 89.
Lesche Pœcile at Sparta, i. 102.
Leschenorios, an epithet of Apollo, iii. 89.
Letters, little cultivated at Sparta, i. 288.
Lettuces from Paphos, iii. 366.
how blanched, ii. 326.
Leucolithos in Judea, iii. 394.
Libations before dinner, ii. 176.
to absent friends, ii. 193.
to mistresses, ii. 193.
Library, ii. 84.
Libs, South-west wind, iii. 321.
Lightning, its import, ii. 377.
Light-houses, iii. 324.
Ligurian all-heal, iii. 371.
Lilies in Grecian gardens, ii. 309.
from Pisidia, iii. 352.
succession of, how produced, ii. 309.
Lily, dance so called, ii. 259.
Limnatæ, quarter of the, i. 94, 104.
Linen corslets, iii. 164.
Lion hunting, i. 208.
a dance, ii. 257.
and shepherds, ii. 404.
where found, i. 226.
Lipari islands, exports of, iii. 376.
Liquorice vetch, iii. 331.
Literature, its lofty character, i. 318.
little esteemed at Sparta, i. 281.
its effect on our fancy, i. 295.
character of the Hellenic, i. 314.
Grecian, varied character of, i. 315.
its influence on education, i. 1, _n._ 970
Loans, iii. 281.
Loaves, size of, iii. 110.
Lobsters from Egypt, iii. 388.
Locks of the ancients, iii. 156.
Locrians possessed no slaves, iii. 11.
Locust eating, iii. 95, _n._ 388
Locusts from Africa, iii. 383.
Logeion, a part of the theatre, ii. 225.
Logic, study of, i. 235.
Logistæ, iii. 128, _n._ 611
Long walls, i. 76.
Longevity, Greece the abode of, i. 45.
Loom, labours of the, share of the women, i. 376.
Lotus-tree in Africa, iii. 385.
where found, ii. 330.
in bread, iii. 107.
wine, ii. 361, iii. 118.
Love, mode of declaring, i. 419.
elevated conception of, i. 423.
Love-chamber at Sparta, i. 192.
Lovers wrote the names of their mistresses on trees, i. 418.
Lucanians, a law of theirs, i. 1, _n._ 145
Lunar influences regarded in marriage, ii. 10.
rainbow, iii. 1, _n._ 5
Lupins, ii. 330.
Lustral font, i. 367.
Lute-strings, Laconian, iii. 336.
Lyceum, gymnasium of, i. 194.
Lycia, a Pelasgian settlement, i. 7.
Lycion, from Cappadocia, iii. 351.
Lycurgos, his object in legislation, i. 383.
aimed at extinguishing avarice, iii. 260.
Lydia, steel of, iii. 156.
Lydian slaves, iii. 7.
bakers, iii. 108.
Lyncurios, iii. 150.
Lysias, his speech for a poor man’s allowance, iii. 71.
Lysiodos, a kind of actor, ii. 236.
Lysippus invented a new kind of vase, i. 116.
M.
Macedonia, exports of, iii. 340.
Macedonian sportsmen, i. 228.
language identical with that of Greece, i. 7.
Macedonians, Pelasgi, i. 7.
Machinery, description of that used on the stage, ii. 227.
Madder, from Caria, iii. 351.
from Galilee, iii. 393.
Macrones, Eubœan Pelasgi, i. 5.
Macronian slaves, iii. 8.
Madonia, Bœotian, iii. 338.
Magadaris, from Syria, iii. 393.
Magados, a kind of actor, ii. 236, 237.
Magians, their mode of sepulture, iii. 434.
Magic rings, i. 363.
Magnet from Bœotia, iii. 338.
from Heraclea, iii. 349.
Magnificence, love of, i. 35.
Magodis, a stringed instrument, iii. 192.
Mail, shirts of, iii. 162.
Maize, return of, iii. 407.
Malabathron, from India, iii. 409.
Malaria, iii. 168.
Mallows, ii. 2, _n._ 1459
Malta, lap-dogs of, iii. 368.
Mandrake, digging of, iii. 205.
Manes, a term in the game of kottabos, ii. 214.
Mantinean radishes, iii. 333.
Mantle of Athenian ladies, ii. 55.
Manufactures of Corinth, iii. 273.
of Bœotia, iii. 338.
Manumission, iii. 9.
Manure, ii. 383.
pits of, ii. 383.
for vines, ii. 340.
Manuscripts, description of, i. 84.
how laid up, ii. 84.
Maple tables, ii. 100.
tree, furniture made of, iii. 183.
Marathon, fishery of, iii. 244.
Marathonian bull, i. 207.
Marble of Paros, iii. 356.
Mareotic vines, ii. 337.
wine, ii. 167, iii. 117.
Mariners, their political predilections, iii. 319.
Marjoram, from Egypt, iii. 386.
Market, description of the, iii. 120, 128.
regulations of, iii. 280.
(See fish-market.)
of slaves, iii. 23.
Marmarica, capparis from, iii. 384.
Marocco leather, iii. 391.
Maronean wine, iii. 116.
Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, i. 303.
invention of, ii. 2.
Marriage a portion of the education of women, i. 409.
reverence of, at Athens, ii. 5.
preliminaries of, i. 409.
age at which contracted, ii. 8.
of brothers and sisters, ii. 8.
sometimes interested, i. 410.
in what month contracted, ii. 9.
ceremonies of, ii. 13.
gifts, ii. 11.
feasts, ii. 19, 174, _n._ 1.
feast of Caranos, ii. 20.
of slaves, iii. 21.
at Sparta, i. 391.
Married women, condition of, ii. 28.
people occupied the same beds, ii. 35.
Marseilles, carbuncles from, iii. 377.
Maryandinians, serfs, iii. 61.
Maschalister, a belt, ii. 64.
Masks, materials of, ii. 265.
classification of, ii. 266.
of the stage, ii. 263, 266.
varieties of, ii. 267.
used during vintage time, ii. 353.
Massacre of the Helots, iii. 51.
Massagetæ, their woollen cloths, iii. 232.
ate their parents, iii. 434.
Masters, their authority over slaves, iii. 8, 10.
Masts, iii. 304.
Matchmaker, her office, ii. 1.
Materia medica, iii. 203, 209.
Mats, Bœotian, iii. 338.
Mattrasses, ii. 104.
Mausolos, tomb of, iii. 428.
Mead, iii. 118.
Meadows, formation of, ii. 389.
Meadow-saffron, iii. 211.
Messenian, iii. 332.
Measures, iii. 129, 130.
of wine, iii. 114.
Meat, trade in, iii. 112.
Mechanè, a machine upon the stage, ii. 228.
Mechanism, curious specimen of, ii. 24.
Medical maxims, iii. 206, 209.
Megalesian unguent, iii. 134.
Megara, i. 66.
pottery of, iii. 203.
Megarean, contraband commerce, iii. 224.
sheep, ii. 429.
cucumbers, ii. 326.
Megaris, trade of, ii. 330.
Melas, productions of the, iii. 337.
Melian earth, iii. 199.
Melilot, from Chalcedon, iii. 344.
Attic, iii. 328.
Melilotus, ii. 330.
Melimela, ii. 320.
Melitta, a keen repartee attributed to her, ii. 45.
Melitturgos, ii. 291.
Melolanthe, a kind of beetle, i. 149.
Melos, kids from, iii. 368.
Memphis, stones exported from the neighbourhood of, iii. 389.
Men, their dress, ii. 69.
Mendæan wine, ii. 116, iii. 117.
price of, iii. 115.
Menecrates, of Syracuse, anecdote of, ii. 198.
Menelaides, a breed of dogs, i. 214.
Menelaus, his riches, iii. 261.
Menestæ, or Penestæ, iii. 62.
Mercers’ quarter of the agora, iii. 121.
Merchandise in the agora of the Peiræeus, i. 74.
Merchantmen, iii. 303.
Merino rams, ii. 280.
Merops, an enemy of the bee, ii. 295.
how taken in Crete, iii. 368.
Mesogeites, a wine, iii. 116.
Messenia, description of, i. 61.
Messoatæ, quarter of, i. 95.
Metals, value of, understood, iii. 249.
Metheglin, iii. 118.
Metopion, perfume from Egypt, iii. 387.
Microscope, known to the ancients, iii. 151.
Midas, his gardens, ii. 318.
Migrations from Central Asia, i. 3.
Milch cows, ii. 286.
Milesian beds, iii. 104.
wool, ii. 105.
sheep, ii. 429.
cypress, iii. 312.
Miletos, exports of, iii. 354.
Military games among the Spartans, i. 276.
Milk in Homeric times, ii. 137.
substitutes for, i. 137.
how preserved, ii. 287.
pails for, ii. 286.
pans, ii. 286.
Milking time, ii. 286.
Milky column, i. 126.
Miller, trade of the, iii. 104.
Millet, duration of, in granaries, ii. 396.
Mills, by whom invented, iii. 104, _n._ 424
public and private, iii. 105.
worked by women, i. 380, iii. 4, _n._ 9
by slaves, iii. 105.
by animals, iii. 106.
Millstones, description of, iii. 106.
Milton compared with Homer, i. 327, 328.
Mimicry of the sounds of nature, ii. 244.
Mines worked by the Pelasgi, i. 4.
of gold and silver, i. 4.
worked by slaves, iii. 20.
of gold on the shores of Thrace, i. 5.
of Spain, iii. 378.
of Macedonia, iii. 340.
Mining, iii. 167.
Minium from Cappadocia, iii. 346.
Minos, tribute of slaves paid to, iii. 10.
Mint, legend concerning, ii. 306.
Minyans expelled from Lemnos, i. 16.
Miraculous images, &c., i. 366.
Mirrors, ii. 118.
Misthios, the place where servants were hired, iii. 126.
Mistletoe, food of the ox, ii. 313.
from the Grecian islands, iii. 364.
Misu, a kind of truffle, ii. 333.
Mnoia, a class of Cretan bondsmen, iii. 64.
Models of Grecian artists, i. 310.
Molos, worship of his body, i. 366.
Molossia, i. 54.
Molossian dogs, ii. 280.
Molossians, Pelasgi, i. 8.
Monarchies, spirit of education in, i. 237.
Monaulos, a musical instrument, iii. 190.
Money, iii. 250.
whether prohibited at Sparta, iii. 260, 268.
allowed to Spartan travellers, iii. 265.
Mongas, a dance, ii. 254.
Monkeys, their tricks at entertainments, ii. 188.
from Africa, &c., iii. 382.
Monopolies, iii. 286.
Monoxyla, iii. 301.
Monstrous fruit, ii. 323.
vegetables, ii. 327.
Moon, influence of, on fruit, ii. 2, _n._ 1406
Moral precepts for the use of agriculturists, ii. 363.
Morality of early ages, ii. 415.
Morals, first lesson in, learned from the poets, i. 234.
of the Sophists, i. 261.
Moriæ, or sacred olives, ii. 315.
Morochthos, from Egypt, iii. 389.
Morphasmos, a dance, ii. 254.
Morrille, eaten by the ancients, ii. 333.
Mortars, ii. 382, iii. 176.
Mosaic work, ii. 81.
Moss roses, from Cyrenè, iii. 385.
Mothaces, who they were, i. 268.
account of them, iii. 59.
Mother of pearl, Acarnanian, iii. 340.
language of the Greek, Sanskrit, &c., i. 3.
obedience paid to her, i. 175.
Mothers of Sparta, their real character, i. 394.
Mothon, a dance, ii. 255.
Mourning, iii. 437.
Mowing time, ii. 389.
Muïnda, a game, i. 149.
Mulberry tree, wood of, iii. 184.
grafting of, iii. 319.
bread of, iii. 108.
Mules, price of, iii. 129.
Mullets, from Abdera, iii. 342.
Munda, palmati from, iii. 378.
Munychia, i. 75.
Murænas, Spanish, iii. 379.
Musæos, i. 317.
Mushrooms, ii. 332.
eaten, ii. 154.
danger of eating them, ii. 157.
poisonous, remedy against, iii. 209.
how produced, ii. 332.
from Italy, iii. 373.
Music, branch of education, i. 181.
estimation in which it was held, ii. 240.
influence of, on character, i. 285.
its effect on the character of the Arcadians, i. 286.
importance of, in education, i. 184.
healing powers of, i. 187.
loved by shepherds, ii. 2, _n._ 1778
study of, at Sparta, i. 281.
Musical instruments, iii. 188.
of shepherds, ii. 406.
measures, i. 185.
Musicians of the theatre, ii. 252.
at entertainments, ii. 183.
stood for hire in the agora, iii. 125.
Mussels, ii. 146.
from the Black Sea, iii. 343.
Mustard, iii. 201.
Mycenæ, ancient capital of Argolis, i. 18.
Myles, inventor of mills, iii. 104, _n._ 424
Myndos, wine of, ii. 167.
Myrmecides, the Milesian, iii. 151.
Myrobalans, from Egypt, iii. 387.
Myron, his account of the Helots, iii. 46.
Myrrh, from Arabia, iii. 397.
Myrtle-berries, ii. 2, _n._ 1312
Myrtle, legend connected with, ii. 305.
Mys, a cup engraver, ii. 115.
Mysia, exports of, iii. 353.
Myttotos, a dish, ii. 2, _n._ 756
N.
Naming children, i. 129, sqq.
Names of goblets, ii. 115.
on what principle given, i. 131.
whence derived, i. 132.
Naphtha, from Mesopotamia, iii. 403.
anecdote concerning, 404, seq.
Napkins, ii. 2, _n._ 740, iii. 216.
Narcaphthon, from India, iii. 409.
Narcissus, season of its blooming, ii. 2, _n._ 1297
Nardon, an unguent, iii. 134.
Narycia, tar of, iii. 340.
Nasamones, their mode of sepulture, iii. 435.
National education, i. 109.
Nations, their various food, ii. 125.
Naucratis, an Egyptian port, iii. 258.
Nausicaa, her character in Homer, i. 374.
Nautodikæ, iii. 281.
Navigation, iii. 300.
cultivated by the Pelasgi, i. 26.
Naxos, milch goats from, iii. 368.
Necklace, a dance so called, ii. 258.
Necklaces, ii. 62, iii. 145, _n._ 813
Necrocorinthia, iii. 430.
Nectar, ii. 166, 168.
Nenuphar, iii. 333.
Neodomades in the army, iii. 44.
who they were, i. 268.
account of them, iii. 57.
Nepenthè, iii. 213.
Nets used in Homeric times, ii. 132.
Nettle, eaten, ii. 154.
Neurospastæ, i. 146.
Night-fishing, iii. 237.
Nightingale, blue, in Crete, iii. 368.
Nikostrateios, kind of grape, ii. 165.
Nisæan horses, ii. 282.
Nisyros, pumices of, iii. 357.
Nitre, iii. 199.
Egyptian, iii. 389.
from Philadelphia, iii. 349.
Nonacris, poisonous water of, iii. 332.
Nooses or lassos, iii. 161.
North wind, prevalence of, i. 44.
Notos, iii. 320.
Nuptial ceremonies at Sparta, i. 392.
rites, ii. 18.
Nurse, her songs, i. 137.
Nursery, i. 136.
-governess, i. 136.
songs, i. 138.
tales, i. 140.
of young vine plants, ii. 342.
Nurses, iii. 207, _n._ 1237.
Lacedæmonian, i. 134.
Nuts from the Black Sea, iii. 343.
Nymphæa Lotus, Egyptian, iii. 388.
nelumbo, ii. 330.
from Thessaly, iii. 339, _n._ 1915
Nymphs, i. 362.
founders of a temple of Hera, i. 15.
their love of mortals, i. 363.
O.
Oa, female apartments, ii. 86.
Oaths of ladies, i. 390.
Ochres, iii. 199, _n._ 1186.
Ochthoiboi, ii. 64.
Oclasma, a dance, ii. 254.
Octogenarian dancers, ii. 25.
Ocribas, a part of the theatre, ii. 225.
Odd and even, i. 162.
Œagros, the actor, ii. 242.
Œdipos, i. 332.
Œta, the rocks of, peopled by Pelasgi, i. 5.
Oil in wine, ii. 2, _n._ 1592
of olives, how made, ii. 357.
merchants of, in the agora, iii. 25.
merchants of, iii. 197.
Olen, the Lycian, comes to Greece, i. 7.
Oligarchy, spirit of education in, i. 237.
and democracy, their struggles, i. 47.
Olive gathering, ii. 357.
-grounds, trees how planted in, ii. 315.
best situation for, ii. 315.
oil, iii. 327.
-trees, ii. 2, _n._ 1334
-wood, image of Athena, i. 82.
Olives, iii. 327.
planting of, ii. 2, _n._ 1339
Olympias, iii. 320.
Olympos, i. 13.
nine mountains of that name, i. 13, and _n._ 47.
inhabited by Pelasgi, i. 5.
Olynthos, earth exported from, iii. 343.
Olyra, ii. 129.
Omens, i. 368.
during marriage ceremonies, ii. 16.
Omphacomel, iii. 118.
Omphakinon, a robe, ii. 58.
Onagrinos, a robe, ii. 59.
Onions, from Cypros, iii. 366.
Onyx shells, iii. 406.
from India, iii. 410.
Ophella, army of, iii. 386.
Ophthalmia, bees troubled with, i. 225.
Opisthosphendone, an ornament, ii. 61.
Opium, iii. 212.
Opopanax, iii. 342.
Opsonomoi, ii. 144.
Oracle of Dodona, i. 6.
concerning education, i. 1, _n._ 318
Oral teaching, i. 233.
Orange-trees, ii. 316.
Orators of Greece, i. 345.
unknown at Sparta, i. 282.
Orchard of Alcinoös, ii. 133.
of the Greeks, ii. 313.
Organs, invention of, iii. 191.
Oriental civilisation, iii. 248.
colonies, iii. 247.
Origin of slaves in the East, iii. 5.
Ornaments for the head, ii. 59.
Ornithias, the name of a wind, i. 1, _n._ 153
Ornithiæ, or bird-winds, iii. 322.
Orphans, how educated and treated by the state, iii. 74.
Orpheus sings his wisdom to the Hellenes, i. 7.
Orphic pantheism, i. 1, _n._ 993
Orpiment of Pontos, iii. 346.
Orthopale, i. 201.
Oryx, from Carthage, iii. 385.
Ossa, inhabited by Pelasgi, i. 5.
Ostrakinda, a game, i. 155.
Ostrich-eggs, iii. 142, _n._ 791
-feathers from Africa, iii. 382.
Ostrya, an ominous wood, i. 1, _n._ 322
Othryades, story of, i. 280.
Otos, or bustard, i. 231.
Ousoös, iii. 300.
Outhouses, ii. 271.
Oven, heating of, iii. 109.
Owls, catching of, i. 230.
Ox, figure of, impressed on money, iii. 251.
when first eaten, ii. 137.
Oxen employed in threshing not muzzled, ii. 394.
from Epeiros, iii. 340.
how employed, ii. 286.
how defended from flies, &c., ii. 286.
Oxyrunchi, from the Black Sea, iii. 343.
Oysters, eaten in Homeric times, i. 210.
from Abydos, iii. 352.
how eaten, ii. 147.
P.
Packsaddles, iii. 182.
Pactolos, gold dust in the, iii. 347.
Pæan, singing of, at entertainments, ii. 209.
Pædagogues, slaves, i. 169.
their duties and character, i. 170.
Pædonomos, his authority at Sparta, i. 268.
Pædotribæ, i. 193.
Paint, ii. 68.
Painters’ materials, iii. 199.
Painting cloths, iii. 231.
its rise and character, i. 306.
on walls, ii. 81.
Paints, iii. 99.
Palaces of Homeric times, ii. 76.
Palæstra, i. 193, 196.
Palm wine, iii. 118.
Palmati, from Spain, iii. 378.
Pamphila, daughter of Plates, iii. 217.
Pan, his hour of slumber, ii. 431.
Panathenaia, treatment of the poor during, iii. 85.
Pancration, not allowed at Sparta, i. 276.
Pancuphos, i. 85.
Pandoura, an instrument with three strings, iii. 192.
Pandrosion, i. 81.
Pandrosos, chapel of, i. 84.
Pangæos, mines of, iii. 340.
Panoply of gold, iii. 162.
Panteus, his wife, story of, i. 397.
Pap, feeding children with, i. 137.
Papaver spinosum, from Syria, iii. 393.
Paper, from Egypt, iii. 387.
Paphian prince, his luxurious bed, ii. 104.
Paphlagonia, exports of, 353.
Paphlagonian slaves, iii. 7, _n._ 26
Paphos, lettuces of. iii. 300.
Papyrus, barks of, iii. 301.
Paralourges, a garment, ii. 58.
Parapechu, a garment, ii. 58.
Parasites, ii. 173, 202, sqq.
their poetical quotations, ii. 200.
Parasitical plants, ii. 313.
Parasols, iii. 187.
Parents, their influence on education, i. 74.
Parion, sea-urchins from, iii. 353.
Parmeniscos, how he regained the power of laughter, ii. 188,
189.
Parodoi, parts of the theatre, ii. 226.
Parrot, sacred in India, iii. 411, _n._ 2647
Parsley-borders, ii. 325.
how sown, ii. 329.
Parthenope, dance representing, ii. 257.
Parthenon, description of, i. 86, sqq.
view from the roof of, i. 90.
Parthian court, ferocity prevailing in, i. 1, _n._ 143
hedges, ii. 314.
Parthians, their tombs, iii. 434.
Parties, political, in Greece, i. 46.
Paruphes, a garment, ii. 58.
Passion of love, i. 420.
Passions, art of commanding them, i. 263.
Pastoral life, glimpses of, in Homer, ii. 404.
ii. 401, sqq.
picture, ii. 423.
Pastry, made by women, iii. 110.
Patræ, fabrics of, iii. 215.
Pay of actors, ii. 240.
Peaches, Persian, iii. 407.
Peacocks, from India, iii. 411.
skin-coverlets of, ii. 303.
in the farm-yard, ii. 278.
Pear-trees, ii. 321.
in Ithaca, ii. 133.
Pearl-fishery in the Persian Gulf, iii. 395.
Pectis, a stringed instrument, iii. 192.
Pedlars, iii. 125.
Peiræeus, a closed port, i. 73.
commerce of, iii. 278.
Pelamydes, iii. 240, _n._ 1447
Pelamys, how taken, iii. 241.
Pelanos, a piece of money, 262.
Pelasgi, derivation of the name, i. 2, 3.
migrate from Central Asia, i. 3.
take possession of Cyzicos, i. 1, _n._ 11
expelled from Cyzicos by the Tyrrhenians, i. 1, _n._ 11
among the defenders of Troy, i. 4.
approached Greece over the Bosporos, i. 5.
their settlements on both sides the Bosporos, i. 5.
Pelasgi, expelled from Thessaly by the Ætolians, i. 1, _n._ 11
cross over into Eubœa, i. 5.
called Macrones and Curetes in Eubœa, i. 5.
in the valley of the Haliacmon, i. 5.
on Olympos, Ossa, and Pelion, i. 5.
called Centaurs and Lapithæ, i. 5.
enter Epeiros, i. 6.
settle round Dodona, i. 6.
in Bottiœa, i. 7.
in Emathea, i. 7.
at Crestona, i. 7.
at Miletos, i. 15.
in Lydia, i. 15.
at Ephesos, i. 15.
inhabit the whole western coast of Asia Minor, i. 14.
in Cypros, i. 16.
in Rhodes and Samos, i. 16.
in Chios, in Lesbos, &c., i. 16.
in Crete, i. 17.
land at Argos, i. 17.
at Epidauros and Hermione, i. 18.
in Messenia, i. 19.
in Achaia and at Corinth, i. 20.
how they found their way into Attica, i. 21.
build the walls of the Acropolis, i. 22.
piratical, expelled from Attica, i. 23.
cross into Italy, i. 23.
piratical, i. 4.
masters of the seas, i. 4.
a general appellation including several tribes, i. 7.
Nomades, but not miserable, i. 1, _n._ 42.
considered a wandering people, i. 25.
inventors of the arts of primary necessity, i. 24.
slaves in Italy, i. 24.
serfs in Italy, iii. 66.
possessed a knowledge of the true God, i. 25.
made the first step in the arts, i. 25.
Pelasgia, derivation of the name, i. 2.
an ancient name of Scyros, i. 17.
the ancient name of Thessaly, i. 10.
an ancient name of Chios, i. 16.
an ancient name of Lesbos, i. 1, _n._ 75
a name of Peleponnessos, i. 7.
Pelasgian Argos, i. 10.
laurel, i. 13.
wall, i. 23.
love of music, ii. 406.
Pelasgiotis, i. 10.
Pelasgos, from whom descended, i. 3.
king of Hemonia, i. 5.
Pelion, inhabited by Pelasgi, i. 5.
Pellenian cloaks, iii. 333.
Pellitory of the wall, where planted, ii. 2, _n._ 1121
Peloponnesos, general description of, i. 57.
Pelorian festival, origin of, i. 9.
Peloros, a slave, i. 9.
Penestæ, iii. 62.
Penitence, power of, i. 359.
Pennyroyal, Bœotian, iii. 333.
Pentachordon, a musical instrument, iii. 192.
Pentalitha, a girl’s game, i. 160.
Pentathli, the, i. 201.
Pentelic marble, i. 86, and _n._ 266.
Peplos, what, i. 82.
a garment or veil, ii. 57.
Pepper from India, iii. 409.
Pepperwort, root of, eaten, iii. 108.
Perfume, use of, at repasts, ii. 175.
how used at repasts, ii. 184.
exported from Athens, iii. 327.
price of, iii. 133.
variety, iii. 132.
Perfumed oil, ii. 2, _n._ 1606
Perfumers sat under umbrellas, iii. 125.
their shops, iii. 131.
Perfumer’s-trade, disreputable, iii. 91.
Periactoi, a portion of the stage machinery, ii. 227.
Periœci, Spartan trade, not in the hands of, iii. 264.
Peritrachelion, a collar, ii. 62.
Perirrhansis, i. 367.
Periscelides, ii. 63.
Peristyle, ii. 79.
Peron, the perfumer, iii. 132.
Perrhæbians, Pelasgi, i. 8.
Perry, ii. 361, iii. 118.
Persea, used by Cabinet makers, iii. 164.
Persia, luxury of, ii. 106.
Persian kings, their drink, ii. 135.
dresses, ii. 73.
Persians, their mode of sepulture, iii. 433.
Peter, the czar, brutality of, i. 1, _n._ 143
Petroleum, from the sea of Marmora, iii. 345.
Pestle and mortar, iii. 104.
Phæninda, a game at ball, ii. 158, 375.
Phaleron, i. 75.
Phallophori, actors, ii. 240.
Pharos, of Alexandria, iii. 324.
Phaselis, baths of, ii. 91.
‘Phaselitan,’ a ‘for a farthing,’ ii. 91.
Phaselitans, their bad reputation, iii. 280.
Phasis, horses and pheasants from, iii. 343.
horses from, ii. 2, _n._ 1171
Pheasant, eaten, ii. 152.
Pheasants in the farmyard, ii. 279.
Pheidias, his reputation, i. 302.
Phemios, his school at Smyrna, i. 179.
Phiditia, iii. 84.
Philadelphos, or Parthian hedges, ii. 314.
Philemon, his character of a cook, ii. 197.
Philias, an engineer of Taurominium, iii. 310.
Philip the jester, anecdote of him, ii. 182.
of Macedon, his numerous wives, ii. 4.
Philippos, divine honours paid to his beauty, i. 298.
Philiscos, the wild man, his studies of the bee, ii. 290.
Philochoros, opinion of, on the Pelasgi, i. 3.
Philon, arsenals built by, i. 74.
Philosophers working in mills, iii. 105.
their love of show, ii. 73.
Philosophy, by whom invented, i. 41.
its comprehensive nature, i. 235.
Philoxenos, the parasite, ii. 201.
Phlius, wine of, iii. 331.
Phocian commerce, iii. 1, _n._ 2
Phocians possessed no slaves, iii. 11.
Phocis, exports of, iii. 339.
Phœdra, dance representing, ii. 257.
Phœnicia, exports of, iii. 390.
Phœnician bakers, iii. 109.
Phœnicians, their commerce, iii. 246.
Phorbeiai, ii. 2, _n._ 977
Phreattys, i. 75.
Phriel, a talismanic wood, ii. 387.
Phructorion, a machine upon the stage, ii. 229.
Phrygia, exports of, iii. 353.
Phrygian dyers, iii. 231.
measures, i. 185.
slaves, iii. 7.
Phrygians, their mode of sepulture, iii. 435.
Pelasgi, i. 4.
tombs of the, iii. 429.
Phryginda, a game, i. 155.
Phrynè, golden statue of her at Delphi, ii. 48.
her celebrated beauty, ii. 47.
Phthiotis, called Hellas, i. 1.
peopled by Pelasgi, i. 5.
a Pelasgian settlement, i. 1, _n._ 37
Phygelites, a wine, iii. 116.
Physical sciences, study of, i. 240.
organization of the Greeks, i. 42.
studies of the philosophers, i. 349.
Physicians, their opinions concerning wine, iii. 119.
Picenum, reaping at, ii. 393.
Pickles, iii. 201.
Picture-gallery, ii. 84.
when exhibited, ii. 176.
Piety of the Greeks, i. 92.
Pig offered up at rustic marriages, ii. 414.
Pigs, fattened near the hearth, ii. 274.
Pilanatæ, the quarter of, i. 9.
Pillar of infamy, i. 1, _n._ 353
Pillows of Sicily, ii. 3.
Pimples, how removed, iii. 130.
Pinakides, dance so called, ii. 259.
Pine, legend concerning the, ii. 300.
Pinna marina, or silkworm of the sea, iii. 217.
Pipe of barley-straw, iii. 271.
Pirate luggers, iii. 304.
Pisidia, lilies from, iii. 352.
Pissasphaltos from Apollonia, iii. 370.
Pistachio nuts from Syria, iii. 393.
Pitch from Rhodes, iii. 366.
making of, iii. 198.
in wine, iii. 117.
Pitfalls for the lion, i. 227.
i. 221.
Pithyllos, the parasite, ii. 203.
Pituoussa, a name of Miletos, i. 15.
Placia, a Pelasgian city, i. 13.
Plane tree in the agora, iii. 120.
trees, isle of, i. 95.
Plangonian unguents, iii. 134.
Planting trees, ii. 324.
vines, season for, ii. 344.
Plants, when watered, ii. 2, _n._ 1301
Platæa, women of, i. 396.
Platæans, rites celebrated by them in honour of the brave, iii. 439.
Platane tree, description of, ii. 2, _n._ 1248
evergreen, ii. 2, _n._ 1318
tree of vast dimensions, ii. 2, _n._ 1372
Platanistas, the, i. 101.
battle in, i. 277.
Plate from Etruria, iii. 104.
ii. 109.
varieties of, iii. 145.
enormous quantity of, iii. 143.
Plato, his account of the Crypteia, iii. 54.
his conception of philosophy, i. 353.
his opinions concerning the stage, ii. 246.
Pleasure barge of Ptolemy Philopater, iii. 311.
Plecte Anadesme, ii. 59.
Plectron, or clavis, i. 148.
Pleiades, why noted by the farmers, ii. 373.
Plinthinè, the cradle of Dionysos, ii. 336.
Ploughing, ii. 384.
by night, ii. 385.
vineyards, ii. 349.
Ploughs, ii. 382.
Plundering expeditions, iii. 272.
Plutarch, his description of the Crypteia, iii. 50.
Podismos, a dance, ii. 257.
Poetry, legal in Crete, i. 281.
Poetry, its rise, i. 319.
Poetry, element of education, i. 181.
Poets, high honour in which they were held, i. 323.
wronged by Plato, i. 234.
wandering, in ancient times, i. 324.
in some sense rhapsodists, i. 322.
their influence, i. 234, 316.
how tyrannized by actors, ii. 241.
how quoted by the parasites, ii. 200.
Poisoning fish, iii. 236.
wild beasts, i. 227.
Poisons, iii. 210.
Polenta, geese fattened with, ii. 276.
Poletes of Epidamnos, iii. 275.
Political institutions, their influence, i. 384.
Politics of the sophists, i. 259.
why studied, i. 235.
Polos, his style of acting, ii. 243.
Polycrates, his attention to the breed of animals, ii. 280.
Polygamy in very ancient times, ii. 3.
Polypi, large in Spain, iii. 379.
Polytheism, i. 352.
creation of, i. 25.
Pomegranate wine, ii. 361, iii. 118.
Pomegranates, ii. 164, 360.
from Cypros, iii. 366.
Pompeii, remains of a baker’s shop at, iii. 106.
Pompholyges, ii. 64, iii. 215, _n._ 1292
Pompos, commerce in the time of, iii. 254.
Pontos, exports from, iii. 344.
Poor, allowance to, iii. 71, 73.
corn distributed to, iii. 85.
their food, iii. 94.
their fare during the Panathenaia, iii. 85.
citizens, their employment, iii. 88.
condition of the, iii. 68.
supported by piracy, iii. 1, _n._ 1
Poppy-seed, iii. 213.
in bread, iii. 108.
Poppysma, i. 368.
Population of Attica, i. 68.
Porch of Homeric times, ii. 80.
Porches, ii. 78.
Pork, from Northern Italy, iii. 374.
Porphyrion, a bird, ii. 153.
Porphyris, a bird, ii. 153.
Porphyry, cutting of, iii. 156.
quarries at Cythera, iii. 269.
Port wine, iii. 117.
Portals of the stage, ii. 226.
Portents, i. 368.
Porters, ii. 77.
slaves, iii. 32.
Portico in the Peiræeus for the use of corn-merchants, iii. 128.
Porticoes, ii. 78.
of the theatre, ii. 225.
Porticoes, of the gymnasia, i. 196.
Portions, ii. 11.
Poseidoniatæ, curious custom of, i. 1, _n._ 115
Potter’s exhibition, iii. 98.
Potters, iii. 193.
Pottery, Attic, iii. 328.
prohibitions of, iii. 297.
of Athens, &c., iii. 103.
Poultry, ii. 150.
brought from Bœotia, iii. 124.
Pounding corn, iii. 104.
Prætutian wine, iii. 370.
Pramnian wine, iii. 116.
Prangus or silphion, iii. 383, _n._ 2425
Prayer, notions concerning, i. 357.
duty of, ii. 364.
Praying for children, i. 113.
Precedence at table, ii. 178.
Presents at marriage-feasts, ii. 21.
Price of fish, ii. 145.
of slaves, ii. 145.
of wine, iii. 115.
Prices in ancient Greece, iii. 129, 298.
Priests, influence of, on religion, i. 351.
Primitive Worship, i. 65.
Prisoners of war reduced to slavery, iii. 5.
Prize of singing, ii. 211.
to the solver of a griphos, ii. 217.
in the game of kottabos, ii. 214.
Productions of Cythera, iii. 270.
Prognostications concerning the seasons, ii. 2, _n._ 1652
Prohibition to export, iii. 282, 289.
Promachos, cake so called, i. 278.
Promenade in the agora, iii. 126.
Prometheus, iron ring of, iii. 147.
Pronomos of Thebes, iii. 191.
Propator, or slave broker, iii. 1, _n._ 1
Prophetesses, i. 367.
Props for vines, ii. 345.
Propylæa, i. 77, 78.
Proscenion, a part of the theatre, ii. 225.
Prospelatæ, iii. 67.
Protagoras professed himself a sophist, i. 244, 245.
account of, i. 251.
Πρόξενοι, public entertainers of ambassadors, i. 1, _n._ 145.
Proxenos, or consul, iii. 282.
Pruning learnt from an ass, ii. 350.
the anadendrades, ii. 2, _n._ 1558
vines, when performed, ii. 344.
Prytaneion of Athens, iii. 97.
proverb concerning, i. 1, _n._ 145
Psammitichos, his present to the Athenians, iii. 86.
Psimmythion, iii. 135.
Psophis, Heraclean all-heal of, iii. 332.
Public baths, ii. 89.
buildings in the agora of Sparta, i. 97.
Public slaves, iii. 25.
mills, iii. 165.
Puelos, ii. 88.
Pummice-stone from Melos, iii. 357.
Pump-makers, iii. 182.
Punishments of slaves, iii. 8, _n._ 32
Puppets, i. 145.
Purple fishery, iii. 225.
fish eaten, ii. 146.
caught at Cythera, iii. 269.
discovery of, iii. 224.
from Africa, iii. 382.
dye, preparation of, iii. 227.
Puss, her nightly frolics, i. 215.
Pylæon, an ornament, ii. 60.
Pyreion or Trypanon, ii. 123.
Pyrites, Acarnanian, iii. 340.
Pyrrhic, a dance, i. 279, 287, ii. 256.
Pythagorean diet, iii. 94.
Pythagoreans, their mode of sepulture, iii. 433.
Pythionica, tomb of, i. 73, iii. 428.
Python, the orator, anecdote concerning, ii. 35.
Pyxodoros, discoverer of the marble of Ephesos, iii. 347.
Q.
Quail-fighting, i. 1, _n._ 621
Quails, catching of, i. 232.
Quarrying, iii. 176.
Queen-bees, ii. 296.
Quercus suber, ii. 313.
Quicksilver, Attic, iii. 330.
Quince wine, iii. 118.
Quinces, ii. 159.
Corinthian, iii. 334.
Quoit-pitching, i. 200.
R.
Rabbit-hunting, i. 218.
Radishes, iii. 329.
Rain, signs of, ii. 374.
water, how collected, ii. 372.
Rainbows, their import, ii. 377.
Raisins, ii. 354.
Rams, how prevented from butting, ii. 432.
Rathe figs, ii. 322.
Rattle, invention of, i. 145.
Reading, art of possessed by women, i. 405.
Reapers, where hired, ii. 391.
Reaping, process of, ii. 391.
in Umbria, &c., ii. 393.
in Homer, ii. 392.
naked, ii. 391.
Reaping, time of, ii. 390.
with a cart in Gaul, ii. 392.
Reed-props for vines, ii. 345.
Reeds for pipes, iii. 189.
Bœotian, iii. 337.
javelins of, iii. 160.
where they grow, ii. 2, _n._ 1542
Refuge, place of, for slaves, iii. 22.
Registration of children, i. 131.
Regulations of commerce, iii. 279.
of Spartan nurses, i. 135.
Regulators of the women, ii. 39.
Relics, preserved in temples, i. 1, _n._ 263
Religion of Greece, its spirit, i. 349.
an element of education, i. 108.
its connexion with the fine arts, i. 290.
Religious philosophy, i. 350.
education, i. 236.
Rennet, ii. 288.
Reserve of women, to what extent carried, i. 372.
Resin from Colophon, iii. 349.
in wine, iii. 117.
Resinated wine, ii. 353.
Respirators over the mouths of slaves, iii. 31.
Resurrection, traces of, in the doctrine of the Magi, i. 355.
Retail dealing, iii. 297.
Rha, from Pontos, iii. 344.
Rhabduchi, the, of the theatre, ii. 252.
Rhapsodists, i. 320.
what poems they sang, i. 321.
Rheitæ, right of fishing in the, iii. 244.
Rhenea, tables of, ii. 100.
Rhinoceros, from Æthiopia, iii. 381, _n._ 2404
Rhodes, pottery of, iii. 103, 329.
exports of, iii. 366.
Rhodian cups, ii. 117.
Rhodians, mercantile laws of, iii. 324.
Rhododendron, ii. 2, _n._ 1309 See _n._ 4.
Rhodope, representation of, in the orchestra, iii. 257.
Rhossican porcelain, iii. 194.
Rice, from Egypt, iii. 366.
Riddles, origin of, ii. 216.
Rings, ii. 64.
manufacture of, iii. 147.
Rivers depend on forests, ii. 370.
Rizotomists, iii. 203.
Roasting, ii. 129.
Rocket, used in seasoning dishes, iii. 380.
Roman infanticide, i. 126.
Rome, reaping, how performed near, ii. 393.
Roof of the theatre, ii. 2, _n._ 875
houses, ii. 91.
Roosts for fowls, ii. 278.
Rose, whence brought, iii. 341.
leaves, for what purpose used, iii. 137.
Rose plantations, ii. 307.
varieties of the, ii. 308.
its origin, iii. 341, _n._ 1940
its flavour communicated to wine, iii. 118.
campion, legend concerning, ii. 306.
root, Macedonian, iii. 341.
the symbol of spring, ii. 307.
how preserved, ii. 308.
how rendered sweet, ii. 308.
early, ii. 308.
antiquity of, ii. 306.
Rouge, use of, ii. 67, iii. 135.
Rudder, the, of ships, iii. 303.
Ruddle, iii. 200.
specimen of, ii. 217, 218.
Rue, of the mountain, gathering of, iii. 204.
Macedonian, iii. 341.
borders of, iii. 325.
how sown, ii. 329.
Running in the Dromos, i. 198.
Rural life, ii. 269.
Ruscino, mullet from, iii. 377.
Rustic cups, ii. 115.
Rustics, their cloaks, ii. 69.
S.
Sabæa, frankincense from, iii. 398.
Sacæan festival, iii. 65.
Sacred slaves, iii. 25.
Saddles, iii. 182.
Saffron, iii. 133.
Ætolian, iii. 340.
from Lycia, iii. 350.
from Sicily, iii. 375.
Sagdas, an unguent, iii. 134.
Sailors, their character, iii. 316.
Sails, iii. 315.
from Egypt, iii. 387.
Salad, found on fallow lands, ii. 386.
eaten by the poor, iii. 95.
Salamis, i. 66.
Salmydessos, wreckers of, iii. 323.
Salt-lickers, ii. 134.
from Illyria, iii. 370.
fish, ii. 144.
meat sold in the agora, iii. 123.
from lake Tatta, iii. 349.
called divine, ii. 133.
Saltiæti, linen of, iii. 377.
Sambuke, ii. 22.
Samian, earth, iii. 199.
servile war, iii. 18.
Samians, luxury of, ii. 74.
Samos, mines of, iii. 168.
pottery of, iii. 329.
peacocks from, iii. 368.
Samothrace, peopled by Pelasgi, i. 6.
Sanctuary for slaves, iii. 22.
Sandals, ii. 63, 64.
from Patara, iii. 354.
Sapphire, from India, iii. 408.
Sarcocolla, or flesh-glue, iii. 406.
Sardis, scarlet of, iii. 231.
Sarmatians, their cuirasses, iii. 164.
Saturnalia, origin of, i. 9.
Satyros, the actor, ii. 241.
Sauces, iii. 201.
Saunterers in the agora, iii. 126.
Scales, a representation of, iii. 129, _n._ 622
Scapte Hyle, mines of, iii. 340, _n._ 1935.
Scarcities, iii. 294.
Scarecrows, ii. 388.
Scarlet dye, iii. 230.
Scene, a part of the theatre, ii. 226.
painters, ii. 232.
Schœnophilinda, a game, i. 154.
School-houses, i. 176.
of great dimensions, i. 177.
room, representation of, i. 176.
hours, i. 167.
apparatus, i. 178.
age at which children were sent to, i. 166.
picture of children going to, i. 167.
Schools, regulations concerning, i. 175.
Sciathos, mullets from, iii. 368.
Scink, from Egypt, iii. 388.
from Africa, iii. 385.
from Arabia, iii. 402.
Sciron, iii. 320.
Scissors, &c., iii. 157.
Scolia, or drinking songs, ii. 207.
Scombros, how eaten, ii. 145.
Scops, a dance, curious form of, ii. 252.
Sculpture, its character, i. 307.
Scylace, a Pelasgian city, i. 13.
Scyros, milch-goats from, iii. 368.
Scytale, Laconian, iii. 187.
Scythia, Asiatic, connexion of the Greeks with, i. 4.
Scythian nations, their mode of sepulture, iii. 433.
Caucons, i. 13.
Sea-sickness, cure for, iii. 319.
weed, used as manure, iii. 384.
dog, fishery of, at Miletos, iii. 243.
water in wine, iii. 117.
Sealed earth, iii. 359.
Seals, of emerald, iii. 149.
Seasons, prognostications concerning, ii. 374.
Seats, ii. 83.
of the theatre, ii. 223, 224.
in the agora, iii. 121.
before doors, ii. 78, 79.
Seed, what trees renewed by, ii. 325.
scattering of, ii. 387.
how preserved in the earth, ii. 388.
when sown, ii. 325.
Sekitai lambs, ii. 432.
Selangeus, his office in the mines, iii. 171.
Selymbrian monopoly, iii. 287.
Selli, round the lake of Dodona, i. 8.
Sensibility of the Greeks, i. 283.
Sensitive plant, iii. 387.
Sepulture to whom denied, iii. 422.
modes of, among barbarous nations, iii. 433.
importance of, iii. 421.
various modes of, among the Hellenes, iii. 425.
Serangion, i. 75.
Serfs of Sparta, Crete, &c., iii. 36.
Serpents, worship of, i. 83.
charmers of, i. 363.
bite of, how cured, iii. 209.
Servile vocabulary, iii. 26.
wars, iii. 12.
Sesamum of Babylonia, iii. 407.
Seseli Peloponnesian, iii. 332.
Sexes, when separated, i. 403.
Shakespeare compared with Homer, i. 327, 328.
Shaving, iii. 140, _n._ 741
Shearing, ii. 432.
Sheaths of ivory, iii. 159.
Sheds for calves, ii. 420.
Sheep, ii. 282.
clothed, ii. 429.
cotes, ii. 428.
food of, ii. 428.
names given to, ii. 431.
how protected against serpents, ii. 428.
bedding of, ii. 428.
with large tails, ii. 2, _n._ 1848
Shell-fish, ii. 146.
Shepherds, condition of, ii. 402.
pipe, ii. 406.
tales of, ii. 411.
their vices and virtues, ii. 414, seq.
princes, ii. 403.
dogs, ii. 406.
their knowledge of plants, iii. 408, _n._ 2621
their costume, ii. 407.
Shepherdesses, ii. 411.
Shields, invented by the Pelasgi, i. 26.
manufacture of, iii. 163.
Ship, timber for, iii. 306, 314.
cables, iii. 316.
building of, iii. 302.
Shipping, of various cities, iii. 257.
Shoe-makers, iii. 221.
Shoes, ii. 64, iii. 221.
of Sicyon, iii. 333.
dispensed with at Sparta, i. 270.
Shops of the barbers, iii. 139.
of the perfumers, iii. 132.
Shores, of Greece, i. 52.
Short measures, iii. 113.
Shrimps, ii. 180.
Sicilian Dorians, corrupted by music, i. 284.
servile wars, iii. 12, _n._ 57
Sicily, exports of, iii. 374.
chariots of, iii. 104.
Sickle, ii. 392.
Sicyon, exports of, iii. 333.
shields of, iii. 166.
Sicyonian serfs, iii. 66.
Sideboard, furniture of, ii. 99.
Sieve, flour passed through, iii. 106.
Signets, iii. 148.
use of, iii. 14.
Signs of rain, ii. 374, sqq.
Silk, iii. 215.
importation of, from Asia, iii. 411.
worms, iii. 217.
Silphion, from Cyrenè, iii. 363.
Silver fir, iii. 180.
mirrors, ii. 119.
mines, on the shores of the Euxine, i. 4.
threads, in weaving, iii. 219.
tables, ii. 100.
smiths, iii. 142.
from the country of the Halizones, iii. 346.
Attica, iii. 330.
Silybos, from Cilicia, iii. 351.
Simples, collection of, iii. 203.
Singers at entertainments, ii. 183.
Singing at table, ii. 210.
practised by ladies in Heroic times, i. 377.
Sinks, ii. 93.
Sinopè, steel of, iii. 156.
Sinopic minium, iii. 346.
Siphnian stone, iii. 363.
Sisyræ, ii. 108.
Site of a farm, selection of, ii. 272.
Sitophylaces, iii. 128.
Sixty, the name of a club, ii. 190.
Skaperda, a game, i. 159.
Skates, from the Black Sea, iii. 343.
Skeleton of silver, i. 146.
Skeptinda, a game, i. 163.
Skias, a building at Sparta, i. 98.
Skimming milk, ii. 287.
Skin, how rendered clear, iii. 136.
Skistas, a dance, ii. 255.
Skreen for enclosing hunting-grounds, i. 228.
Slates, ii. 96.
Slave heralds, iii. 32.
markets, iii. 23.
trade, of the Black Sea, iii. 7.
Slavery, in Attica, iii. 18.
opinions of the ancients concerning, iii. 2.
origin of, iii. 4.
Slaves, punishment of, iii. 7, _n._ 32
creed of, iii. 29.
their employment, iii. 30.
education of, iii. 26.
daily value of, iii. 25.
household, of Spartans, iii. 43.
employed to watch estates, ii. 400.
from the Black Sea, iii. 343.
affections of, iii. 2, _n._ 6
condition of, iii. 1.
their food, iii. 26.
early mention of, iii. 3, _n._ 8
various classes of, iii. 26.
worked in corn-mills, iii. 105.
their price, iii. 23.
love of, towards their masters, ii. 3.
sold in the agora, iii. 123.
bakers, iii. 31.
punishment of, iii. 7, _n._ 27
Store-room, ii. 98.
Slings, iii. 161.
Slippers, ii. 65.
of Amyclæ, iii. 337.
Smelting-furnaces, iii. 172.
Smilax, Arcadian, iii. 133.
Smith, his workshop, iii. 156.
forges frequented by the poor, iii. 90.
Smiths, iii. 153.
Smyrna, fishing in the gulf of, iii. 243.
Snails, from Chios, iii. 367.
from Liguria, iii. 371.
still eaten in Italy, iii. 372.
eaten, ii. 154.
Snares, i. 221.
Snow, wine cooled in, ii. 169, iii. 113.
used in cooling the hands, ii. 2, _n._ 738.
carried along with armies, iii. 114.
Soap, substitute for, iii. 139, _n._ 734.
Sobas, a dance, ii. 255.
Socks, iii. 220.
Socrates, saying of his concerning perfumes, ii. 184.
had two wives, ii. 4.
his visiting costume, ii. 174.
Soil, knowledge of, ii. 365.
character of, how detected, ii. 366.
Soldiers ate cheese, ii. 267.
Solon, his laws concerning industry, iii. 98.
concerning disabled soldiers, iii. 70.
Song of the swallow, iii. 93.
of the crow, iii. 92.
Songs at entertainments, ii. 204.
of nurses regulated by philosophers, i. 138.
Sons of the people, i. 1, _n._ 411.
Sophists, their corrupt influences, i. 242.
coveted by an Indian king, i. 264.
their rise, i. 241.
their morals, i. 261.
their style of arguing, i. 254.
their arts, i. 263.
their disguises, i. 244.
their mercenary character, i. 258.
travelled over Greece, i. 244.
their real origin, i. 243.
merry, i. 253.
Sophocles, criticism of his writings, i. 330.
his female characters, i. 331.
Sophronistæ, i. 176.
Sory-stone, iii. 361, 382.
Sostratos, a merchant, iii. 257.
Sotades, the poet, his fate, ii. 237.
Soul, its immortality, i. 355.
transmigration of, i. 356.
Soups, ii. 153.
Sowing sieve, ii. 387.
time, ii. 2, _n._ 1712.
rules of, ii. 386.
Spain, productions of, iii. 377.
mines of, iii. 168.
Spanish broom, iii. 306, 379.
Sparta, study of music and singing at, i. 285.
actors of, ii. 238.
plans of, i. 1, _n._ 281.
site of, i. 59.
manufactures of, iii. 336.
topography of, i. 92.
infanticide at, i. 120.
dogs of, iii. 334.
its trade, iii. 259.
Spartan character, iii. 53.
commerce, iii. 263.
poor, iii. 84.
money, iii. 261.
nurses sold, iii. 40.
serfs, iii. 36.
dogs, ii. 280, iii. 334, 335.
education, i. 110, 265.
dances, ii. 255, 258.
Spartans buried round sacred edifices, iii. 426.
their social character, i. 50.
their beauty, i. 277.
Spartium, or Spanish broom, iii. 308, 379.
Spear-heads, iii. 160.
Spears, iii. 160.
Spectral armies, i. 365.
Spell cast over a vineyard, ii. 339.
to defend seed in the ground, ii. 388.
Spermologoi, iii. 91, _n._ 371, iii. 124.
Sphæristerion, i. 196.
Sphendone, an ornament, ii. 61.
Spikenard from India, iii. 408, 409.
Spinning, i. 379, iii. 214.
gold chafers, i. 148.
Spirit, care for its comfort, iii. 433.
Spirituality, deficiency of, in Greek literature, i. 315.
Spits, ii. 124.
Spodium, from Cypros, iii. 361.
Spokes, of what wood made, iii. 181.
Sponge, use of, in the kitchen, ii. 123.
Sponge, fisheries of, iii. 234.
beds of, ii. 103.
how blanched, iii. 232.
used in cleaning tables, ii. 100.
Springs, how discovered, ii. 2, _n._ 1639.
in volcanic countries, ii. 2, _n._ 1630.
Squills, of Minturnæ, ii. 373.
Stables, ii. 284.
Stag-hunting, i. 219.
Stage, architecture of, ii. 226.
scenery of, ii. 232.
singular representations introduced upon, ii. 245, 247.
costume of the, ii. 259, 283.
mimicry on, ii. 244.
machinery of, ii. 227.
Star of Bethlehem, iii. 108.
Stars, movements of, imitated by a dance, ii. 257.
States, diminutive, in Greece, how formed, i. 36.
Statue of Athena, i. 89.
Statues in private houses, ii. 120.
of women, i. 402.
of wood, iii. 184.
character of Greek, i. 294.
Stealing allowed to boys at Sparta, i. 272.
in baths, ii. 90.
Steel, invention of, iii. 154.
Laconian, iii. 336.
of Cypros, iii. 361.
best, where obtained, iii. 156.
Homeric swords of, iii. 154.
Stephanos, a page of Alexander’s, iii. 404.
Stimmis, iii. 136.
Stings, cure of, iii. 208.
Stock of a wine merchant, iii. 116.
Stock-fish from Anthedon, iii. 338.
Stocks, choice of, for grafting, ii. 319.
Stone parsley, iii. 352.
Storms, signs of, ii. 379.
Story of the Eubœan hunter, ii. 419.
Stratonicos, anecdote of him, iii. 32.
Straw, value of, ii. 393.
Strawberry tree on Mount Helicon, ii. 2, _n._ 1316.
Street-door, ii. 93.
Stringed instrument, iii. 191.
Strolling actors, ii. 234.
Stromata, ii. 108.
Stropheion, a machine upon the stage, ii. 231.
Strophion, a band, ii. 60.
Stuffs, variegated, iii. 218.
Style of the sophists, i. 252.
Styracinon, from Syria, iii. 393.
Styrax, iii. 352.
Subscriptions for charitable purposes, iii. 82.
Substances, various, used in making bread, iii. 107.
Suckers, what trees propagated by, ii. 325.
Suckling children, i. 133.
Sudarium, ii. 90.
Sugar, Indian, iii. 409.
called honey by Theophrastus, ii. 299.
Summer apartments, ii. 86.
Sumpter animals, iii. 252.
Sumptuary laws, ii. 38.
Sun invoked by children, i. 149.
Sunian, servile wars, ii. 20.
Sunset, description of, ii. 2, _n._ 1656.
Superstition of shepherds, ii. 409.
Superstitions, i. 362, 368.
Supply of corn, iii. 294.
Surgery, interior of, in ancient times, iii. 202.
Swaddling-bands, i. 116.
Swarming, time of, ii. 296.
Swearing, ladies addicted to, at Sparta, i. 390.
Sweet Ancon of Sardis, i. 74.
wine, making of, ii. 2, _n._ 1590.
mint, ii. 330.
Sweetmeats exported from Attica, iii. 329, _n._ 1779.
from Lydia, iii. 393.
of what composed, iii. 111.
Swimming taught, i. 190.
Swine, care of, ii. 285.
Sword cutlers, price of, iii. 24.
importance of, iii. 158.
Sycamore, or Egyptian fig-tree, ii. 2, _n._ 1390.
Syloson, scarlet cloak of, iii. 230.
Synnada, marble of, iii. 348.
Synodon, a fish, ii. 180.
Syntrophoi, i. 269.
Syracuse, vast ship constructed at, iii. 306.
Syracusan serfs, iii. 66.
Syria, productions of, iii. 390.
Syrian costus, iii. 392.
slaves, footstools, iii. 35.
gardeners, ii. 318.
Syrians, their mode of sepulture, iii. 433.
T.
Tabaitas, wooden bowls, ii. 299.
Table dogs, i. 209.
Table of the sun, iii. 91, _n._ 372.
Tables, ii. 99.
Tablets for painting, &c., iii. 185.
Tænaros, marble of, iii. 334, _n._ 1851.
Tæniotic wine, ii. 167.
Talc, for windows, ii. 82.
Talent of gold, iii. 251.
Talismans of rustics, ii. 326.
Tamarisk wood, cups of, iii. 387.
Tanagra, honours there paid to beauty, i. 298.
Tanning, iii. 221.
Tantheuristos Hormos, ii. 63.
Tapestry of Miletos, ii. 108.
Tar, from Zacynthos, iii. 363.
from Thrace, iii. 341.
Tarentum, fabrics of, iii. 214, 373.
Tasters at repasts, ii. 2, _n._ 750.
Taurominian marble, iii. 308.
Tavern-keepers, iii. 113.
Teak, iii. 402, _n._ 2593.
Tecmessa, i. 331.
Telescope, iii. 152.
Temessa, bronze of, iii. 373.
Tempe, valley of, i. 55.
Temples, dead buried in the precincts of, iii. 426.
Tepidarium, ii. 90.
Terebinth-wood, from Syria, iii. 394.
Terms of schoolmasters, i. 179.
Tethæan oysters, iii. 342.
Tetracomos, a dance, ii. 257.
Tetras, export of, iii. 375.
Tettix in olive ground, ii. 315.
Thalamos, ii. 85, 87.
Thales, and the oil-presses, iii. 286.
Thamyris, the Thracian, traverses Hellas, i. 7.
Thapsia, iii. 357.
gathering of, iii. 204.
Thargelos, a cake, ii. 400.
Thasian wine, iii. 117.
Thasos, wines of, ii. 166.
productions of, iii. 356.
marbles of, iii. 367.
Thatch, ii. 96.
Theatre of Sparta, i. 100.
origin of its form, ii. 251.
of Bacchos, description of, ii. 222, sqq.
Theatres, remains of ancient, ii. 2, _n._ 866.
frequented by women, i. 408, 411, 415.
Thebaid, wines of, ii. 168.
Thebans, discouraged infanticide, i. 119, 125.
Theilopedon, for making raisins, ii. 355.
Theocrines, his reputation, ii. 242.
Theodoros, the actor, his caprices, ii. 241.
Theodosia, importation of corn from, iii. 293.
Theogamia, ii. 10.
Theologeion, a gallery on the stage, ii. 230.
Theomelida, a place at Sparta, i. 100.
Thericlean cups, ii. 117.
Thermaustris, a dance, ii. 254.
Theseion, a refuge for slaves, iii. 22.
Thesmothetæ, iii. 281.
Thesprotians, Pelasgi, i. 8.
Thessalian serfs, iii. 62.
Thessalians, patronised the sophists, i. 249.
Thessaly, movements of the Pelasgi therein, i. 9.
description of, i. 54.
exports of, iii. 339.
Thessaly, called Hellas, i. 1.
the plain of a lake, i. 5.
Thetes, iii. 10, 87, _n._ 354.
their condition, iii. 40, _n._ 168.
Thiasi, religious associations, iii. 78.
Thiasotæ, members of Thiasi, or Eranæ, iii. 76, 78.
Tholos, or fstore-room, ii. 98.
Thracian falconry, i. 229.
slaves, iii. 7, _n._ 26.
bread, iii. 108.
language identical with that of Greece, i. 7.
Thracians, their mode of sepulture, iii. 433.
inhabited both sides of the Bosporos, i. 5.
entirely of Pelasgian origin, i. 6.
Thrasyas, of Mantinea, iii. 210.
Thrasymachos, his character as a sophist, i. 257.
Thrasymedes, story of, i. 417.
Threshing, ii. 393.
machine, ii. 393.
floor, ii. 393, 394.
Thrion, how made, ii. 154.
Thrones of the Persian kings, ii. 101.
of the Gods, ii. 101.
Thrush feeding, ii. 279.
eaten, ii. 150.
Thucydides, his defects, i. 341.
his daughter, i. 405.
his philosophy, i. 340.
the gloominess of his pictures, i. 342.
character of his genius, i. 339.
Thuia, a tree, iii. 184.
Thunder, by what signs foretold, ii. 377.
Thunny fishery, iii. 237.
how taken on the coast of Chili, iii. 241.
migrations of, iii. 239.
season for, iii. 240.
fed on acorns in Spain, iii. 379.
Thurii, exports of, iii. 373.
Thyites, from Egypt, iii. 389.
Thyme, loved by the bee, ii. 292.
Attic, iii. 328.
its flavour communicated to wine, iii. 118.
Thymele, a part of the theatre, ii. 225.
Thyrocopicon, a dance, ii. 255.
Tiasa, a brook, i. 93.
Tight rope, i. 203.
Tiles, ii. 96, iii. 177.
Timagoras, of Athens, ii. 107.
Timber for house-building, iii. 178.
Tin, known to the Greeks, iii. 154.
Tiryns, walls of, i. 18.
Tirynthians, the, ii. 80.
Tissues, variegated, iii. 214.
Tithenidia, feast of nurses at Sparta, i. 142.
Tmolos, touchstone from, iii. 348.
Toilette, processes of, ii. 65.
of Grecian ladies, ii. 50.
Tokens, left with exposed infants, i. 122.
Tomb spoilers, iii. 430.
Tombs of the Phrygians, i. 14.
luxury of, reproved by Solon, iii. 428.
Tonnage, iii. 304.
Toothpicks, iii. 138.
Tortoiseshell, bedsteads ornamented with, ii. 102.
Touchstone, from the river Tmolos, iii. 348.
Tower of the winds, iii. 320.
Town-houses, ii. 80.
Toys of children, i. 145.
Trade, freedom of, iii. 283, 286.
Trades, what disreputable, iii. 99.
no man allowed to be of two, iii. 99.
Trading vessels, iii. 304.
Tragedy, origin of, ii. 223.
Tragic poets, their temper and character, i. 328.
Tragoriganon, from Crete, iii. 364.
Transmigration, doctrine of, i. 356.
Traps for the bear, i. 224.
Travelling on foot, iii. 34.
Treasury of Athens, i. 18.
Trees, importance of, in Greece, ii. 370.
what injurious to, ii. 339.
names of lovers inscribed on, i. 418.
of precious metals, iii. 143, seq.
Trespass forbidden even during the chase, i. 216.
Tribon, a variety of the himation, ii. 70.
Trichiasis, a disorder of nurses, i. 133.
Trinasos, the harbour of Gythium, iii. 268.
Triopia, earrings, ii. 62.
Tritopatores, i. 113.
Trœzen, carbuncles of, iii. 333.
Trœzenian slaves, iii. 64.
Troglodytæ, their mode of sepulture, iii. 436.
myrrh in the country of, iii. 384.
Troisa, a game, i. 162.
Trophimoi, i. 269.
Truffle, how discovered, ii. 334.
seed, whence imported, ii. 334.
eaten by the ancients, ii. 333.
Thracian, iii. 342.
from Cyrenaica, iii. 384.
Trumpet, invented by the Tyrrhenians, iii. 188.
Trygodiphesis, i. 157.
Trypanon, ii. 123.
Tumblers, ii. 185.
Tumuli in Tartary, i. 14.
Tunics, sleeveless, ii. 72.
Turkomân falconry, i. 229.
Turners, iii. 187.
Turnips, ii. 329.
Theban, iii. 338.
Tutty, from Cypros, iii. 360.
Twelve Gods, their statues in the agora, iii. 120.
Tylos, productions of, iii. 402.
Tyrants, denied the rites of sepulture, iii. 423.
Tyre, its imports, iii. 390.
purple of, iii. 224, 229.
Tyrrhenians, infanticide unknown among them, i. 119, seq.
expelled from Cyzicos by the Milesians, i. 1, _n._ 11.
inventors of the trumpet, iii. 188.
U.
Umbracula, constructed near the threshing-floor, ii. 395.
Umbrellas, iii. 187.
Umbria, method of reaping in, ii. 393.
Unguent of marjoram, iii. 345. preparation of, iii. 133.
V.
Valerian, Attic, iii. 328.
Valley of the Eurotas, i. 1, _n._ 185.
Vane, on ships, iii. 305.
Vanity, ludicrous example of, ii. 99.
Vases, curious, iii. 154, _n._ 868.
Vegetable garden, iii. 326.
Vegetables, in the interstices of vineyards, ii. 348.
variety of, ii. 331.
between orchard-trees, ii. 325.
ii. 155, 158.
sold in the agora, iii. 121.
Veil, ii. 56.
Velarium of the theatre, ii. 2, _n._ 875.
Veneration for the Divinity, i. 29.
Venus’s ears from Egypt, iii. 388.
Vercelli, gold mines of, iii. 374.
Vermilion, from Spain, iii. 379.
Vices of the Greek character, i. 33.
Vine, grafting of, ii. 321.
how propagated, ii. 340.
origin of, ii. 335.
grafted, on cherry-tree, &c. ii. 342.
in gardens, ii. 312.
varieties of, ii. 344.
planting of, ii. 340.
in what countries it flourished, ii. 336.
importance of in France, ii. 2, _n._ 1487.
props for, ii. 345.
-bird pie, iii. 111.
what soil preferred for its cultivation, ii. 336.
its prodigious productiveness, ii. 355.
occasionally of a vast size, ii. 348.
affected by the winds, ii. 338.
of Egypt, ii. 337.
cultivated without props, ii. 349.
Vineyards, how formed, ii. 339.
their situation in Greece, ii. 337.
selection of, ii. 338.
boys set to keep watch over, ii. 400.
Vintage, season of, ii. 351.
sports of, ii. 353.
description of, ii. 352.
Vintners, iii. 113.
Violets, varieties of, ii. 309.
country of, ii. 2, _n._ 1294.
Vipers, iii. 209.
Virgins, their secluded life, i. 410.
raced naked at Sparta, i. 386.
W.
Wages of mariners, iii. 317.
Waggons, construction of, ii. 381.
Wainscoting, ii. 80.
Wake-robin, when sown, ii. 332, iii. 392.
Walking-sticks, iii. 187.
Laconian, iii. 336.
Walls of orchards, ii. 314.
War, passion of the Greeks for, i. 33.
galleys, iii. 302.
the chief of sciences, i. 112.
Warm baths, ii. 88.
Washing hands, ii. 173.
Water, how purified, ii. 373.
how discovered, ii. 367.
why poisonous, iii. 339, _n._ 1917.
indications of, ii. 369.
drinking of, ii. 134.
superior for the quenching of steel, iii. 155.
-caltron, bread of, iii. 108.
coolers for, iii. 114.
how cooled, ii. 2, _n._ 1651.
-melons, ii. 326.
-mills, iii. 105, _n._ 427.
Water mingled with wine, iii. 113.
Watery milk, ii. 269.
Wax, from Sardinia, iii. 376.
Weaning children, i. 143. calves, ii. 286.
Weasel, about farms, ii. 2, _n._ 1765.
Weather, observations concerning, ii. 373.
Weaving, iii. 214.
origin of the art, iii. 215.
Weaving and dyeing in Laconia, iii. 337.
Weeding, ii. 388.
Weights, iii. 129.
Wells in Attica, ii. 371.
Whale-fishery at Cythera, iii. 269.
Whales, iii. 234.
Wheat, from Spain, iii. 379.
of Elatea, iii. 339.
from Sicily, iii. 374.
Bœotian, iii. 338.
Wheelwrights, iii. 181.
Whip, of great service at Sparta, i. 385.
used in scourging slaves, iii. 20, _n._ 79.
from Elis, iii. 33.
White bees, ii. 297.
Wicker lanterns, ii. 121.
Wife of Panteus, story of, i. 397.
on what terms she lived with her husband, ii. 31.
possessed the control of the house, i. 407.
Wigs, iii. 140.
Wild boars, from Argos, iii. 33.
chase of, i. 221.
ducks, how caught, ii. 277.
thyme, planted in gardens, ii. 2, _n._ 1298.
spikenard, iii. 344.
Wind, signs of, ii. 380.
their effect on vines, ii. 338.
names of, 319. violent, iii. 323.
Wine, adulterated, iii. 115.
Peloponnesian, iii. 331.
early use of, ii. 135.
varieties of, ii. 169.
how drunk, ii. 190.
watered, iii. 113.
drunk clandestinely by boys, i. 167.
drunk by women, ii. 36.
miraculous production of, ii. 336.
-press, ii. 352.
with what plants flavoured, ii. 118.
invention of, ii. 165.
its qualities, iii. 119.
price of, iii. 115.
sold in the agora, iii. 121.
of Asia Minor, iii. 354.
of the islands, iii. 355.
of Italy, iii. 370.
Winnowing, ii. 392.
Winter apartments, ii. 88.
Wits’ club, ii. 189.
Wives, borrowing of, at Sparta, i. 394.
how chosen, at Sparta, i. 392.
Women, their thrifty habits, i. 379.
of Sparta, not courageous, i. 395.
worked handmills, iii. 105.
wives of the state in Sparta, i. 383.
their position among the Ionians, i. 401.
business habits of, i. 1, _n._ 1156.
frequented the theatre, i. 408, 411, 415.
not present at entertainments, ii. 174.
their authority, ii. 35.
their sway, i. 407.
liberty enjoyed by them in Homeric times, i. 372, 373.
performed religious rites, i. 403.
fought on horseback among the Sauromatæ, i. 1, _n._ 143.
fetched water, in Heroic times, i. 380, 382.
in the Heroic ages, i. 369.
drank wine, ii. 136.
made bread, i. 380.
what festivals they attended, i. 404.
their position in society, i. 32.
worked before the introduction of slaves, iii. 4.
idea of their beauty, i. 371.
respect paid to them, i. 33.
freedom among the shepherds, ii. 412.
of Doric states, i. 382.
present at the theatre, ii. 2, _n._ 972.
said to have danced on the stage, ii. 2, _n._ 968.
their dress, ii. 53.
their form, i. 369.
vain and luxurious, ii. 39.
Wood sold in the agora, iii. 123.
of Attica, i. 62.
Wooden tables, ii. 100. bowls, ii. 115.
Wool, Megarian, iii. 331.
Italian, iii. 374.
dyeing of, iii. 331.
Work-baskets, i. 379.
World, education of the, i. 289.
Wormwood, wine flavoured with, iii. 119, 342.
Wreaths, use of, ii. 304.
Wreckers, iii. 323.
Wrestling, i. 201.
Writing, art of, possessed by women, i. 406, 407.
early understood by the Greeks, iii. 248.
how taught, i. 180.
little stress laid on at Sparta, i. 280.
Written characters on fruit, ii. 324.
X.
Xaintonges, wormwood from, iii. 377.
Xanion, an ornament, ii. 61.
Xenophon, his character as a writer, i. 342.
his historical character, i. 344.
his minor writings, i. 344.
Ξένος, signification of, i. 1, _n._ 145.
Xysta, i. 197.
Xystoi, i. 197.
Xystos, i. 196, 197.
Y.
Yew trees, of Italy, iii. 372.
Yokes of maple-wood, ii. 381.
Young men, their ambition, i. 243.
Youth entrusted to the care of slaves, iii. 47.
their desire of knowledge, i. 234.
Z.
Zacynthos, tar of, iii. 363.
Zea, a basin of the Peiræeus, i. 74.
Zephyr, iii. 321.
Zephyros, iii. 320.
Zetreion, or slaves’ prison, iii. 13, _n._ 59.
Zeus, the companion of the wanderer, i. 1, _n._ 145.
statue of, i. 89.
a Pelasgian god, i. 17.
tomb of, iii. 427.
his priest chosen for his beauty, i. 297, 298.
of Pheidias, i. 305.
Zoilos, coats of mail manufactured by him, iii. 162.
Zoma, ii. 58.
Zygian maple, iii. 183.
FINIS.
LONDON:
Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, and FLEY,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
The printer employed the cursive forms of beta (ϐ) and theta (ϑ),
sometimes in the same passage with the standard β and θ. These have been
replaced with the standard forms.
Some place names appear with slight spelling variations. In the interest
of text searches, these have been modified to the most frequently used
version. Compound words sometimes appear with or without a hyphen, e.g.,
‘corn-chandler’ / ‘cornchandler’. Where hyphenation occurs on a line
break, the hyphen is retained only if there is a clear preference
elsewhere.
Punctation errors and inconsistencies in the footnote and index
apparatus have been corrected with no further mention here.
Index entries refer to topics in all three volumes of this text. Notes
were numbered sequentially from ‘1’ on each page. In this medium, the
footnotes have been re-sequenced for uniqueness, and any references to
footnotes in the index employ those new numbers.
Index entries in Greek sometimes do not include diacritical marks. These
have been changed to match the referenced text, to facilitate text
searches.
Comments
80.5.7 The third footnote on p. 80 (note 317) contains a
Greek quotation from Theophrastus’ Characters c. 1.:
“πρὸς τοὺς δανειζομένους καὶ ἐρανίζοντας, ὡς οὐ
=πωλείφήσεν=.” The passage as it appears in the
Perseus collection ends with “ὡς οὐ =πωλεῖ, καὶ= μὴ
πωλῶν.”
124.n8.9 The opening quotation mark was printed several lines
down at ‘“élémens de la classe...’.
474.61 In the original entry regarding the lack of stress on
writing in Sparta, there was no volume reference, and
the page reference was to p. 180. It was found at iii.
280.
446.16 The entry ‘cattle stalls’ refers to the first note on
p. 291 of Vol ii. The note was found on p. 271.
466.42 The entry for ‘Rhododendron’ includes a reference to
‘note 4’, without a volume or page reference. The only
other reference in these volumes is at iii. 344 _n._ 1
(note 1982 here).
466.13 The note referring to ‘Relics preserved in temples’ at
i. 34 _n._ 2 is found at p. 84 of Vol. i., now note
263.
Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected,
and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the
original. Corrections within notes are denote with ‘n’ and the original
note number.
32.n1.2 ὦ[᾿´]νδρες, ἀπολελῦσθαί Removed.
32.n5.10 ε[υ/ὐ]νοῦχός Replaced.
32.n5.14 σ[ό/ο]φισταί Replaced.
32.n5.20 Ἀλλ’ [ὦ ’/ὠ]γαθέ, ἔφην Replaced.
34.32 which, more[o]ver was prohibited Inserted.
34.n5.1 παρα τοις Αθηναίο[ι]ς Inserted.
42.8 the express[s]ion of the historian Removed.
45.36 those amon[g]st them Inserted.
56.18 at the same time, [“]a portion of land Removed.
76.n5.12 [ὀι[/οἰ]νηστήρια Replaced.
76.n5.16 et publico annulo signatos fuisse.[”] Added.
89.n5.8 Απολλαδωρος Απολλ=ό=δωρος?
102.n2.10 τῆς εἰς τὰ[ί] καλὰ ῥαθυμὶας Removed.
103.n3.25 Tota abit hora.[”] Added.
111.n3.1 [α/ἀ]μπελιῶνας Replaced.
118.n1 observes Pallas, [“]is partly converted Added.
124.n8.30 un salaire raison[n]able Inserted.
137.n22.5 χρῆσις δὲ α[ῦ/ὐ]των ἐστιν Replaced.
151.20 most elabo[bo]rately wrought. Removed.
184.8 abounding in Cyren[e/è] Replaced.
194.n5.4 Æropos, king[ /of] Macedon Restored.
198.n2.3 Barthelémy, Ana[r]charsis Removed.
200.n6.12 libros impositos fuisse[./,] Replaced.
203.1 knowle[d]ge Inserted.
250.22 [ἐ/ἑ]κατόμβοι Replaced.
250.28 [ἐ/ἑ]κατόμβοι Replaced.
274.2 used as a dent[r]ifice Removed.
315.32 i[ ’/’ ]th[ ’/’ ]eyes Spaces adjusted.
340.n18.1 Diod[ro/or]. Sicul. xvi. 8 Transposed.
347.n2.1 Τὰ μὲν ο[ὗ/ὖ]ν Κόμανα Replaced.
347.n2.10 ἐπιτελοῦντες τ[ῆ/ῇ] θεῷ. Replaced.]
373.n7.1 [Ε/Ἐ]νθα ἄριστος γίνεται Replaced.
399.28 a species[,] of frankincense tree Removed.
416.n6.1 τῶν θυρῶν καὶ ἐκ[ο/ό]πτοντο Replaced.
427.33 [“]No breath of air Added.
434.32 by strangling them[.] Added.
436.9 on which was this in[s]cription Inserted.
444.44 Bards, sacred in Gree[e/c]e Replaced.
454.18 free[e]dom of slaves Removed.
462.3 Ostrich-eggs, i[ii]. 791 Added.
464.5 Pellenian cloaks, iii. 33[8/3]. Replaced.
466.44 Protagor[o/a]s professed himself Replaced.
466.45 Πρ[ο/ό]ξενοι Diacritic added.
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