CHAPTER VIII.

THEATRE (_continued_).

Into the various questions which have been raised respecting the origin

and constitution of the chorus it is not my intention to enter. It

undoubtedly appears, however, to have arisen amid the festivities of the

vintage, when, after the grapes were brought home and pressed and the

principal labours of the season concluded,[964] the rustics delivered

themselves up to wild joy and merriment, chanting hymns and performing

dances in honour of Dionysos, the protecting god of the vine. At first

the number of the persons engaged in these dances could not have been

fixed, since it is probable that all the vintagers, both male and

female, joined in the sports, as they had previously joined in the

labour. And this free and unformal character the Dithyrambic or

Dionysiac chorus must have preserved, as long as it remained a mere

village pastime. But when afterwards, advancing from one step to

another, it assumed something of an artificial form and several

chorusses arose which contended with each other for a prize, the

performers must have undergone some kind of training,[965] both in

singing and dancing, and then the number of the individuals constituting

the chorus was possibly fixed. There appears to be some reason for

thinking, that these exhibitions were more ancient than the congregation

of the Athenians in one city, and that originally every tribe had its

own chorus,[966] since we find that afterwards, when all the inhabitants

of Attica came to regard themselves as one people, the Choreutæ were

chosen from every tribe five.

-----

Footnote 964:

Cf. Ficorini, Degli Masch. Scen. p. 15.

Footnote 965:

On the importance afterwards attached to the training of the chorus,

see the substance of an inscription in Chandler, ii. 72.

Footnote 966:

Sch. Aristoph. Av. 1404. Schneid. de Orig. Trag. Græc. c. i. p. 2. The

Dithyrambic ode was said to have been invented by Arion at Corinth.

Schol. Pind. Olymp. xiii. 25, seq. The first choral songs were

improvisations. Max. Tyr. Dissert. xxi. p. 249.

-----

By what gradations, however, the village chorus was transformed into the

Dithyrambic, the Dithyrambic into the Satyric, and the Satyric again

into the Tragic, it now appears impossible to ascertain; but it seems to

be quite clear,[967] that in many ancient tragedies the number of the

chorus was fifty,[968] as, for example, in the “Judgment of the Arms,”

by Æschylus, in which silver-footed Thetis appeared upon the stage

accompanied by a train of fifty Nereids.[969] Again, according to

certain ancient authors,[970] in the Eumenides of Æschylus, the chorus

of Furies at first amounted to fifty, which, rushing tumultuously, with

frightful gestures and horrid masks,[971] into the orchestra, struck so

great a terror into the people, particularly the women[972] and

children, that their number was afterwards reduced by law. I am aware

that several distinguished scholars think very differently on this

subject; some maintaining, that the chorus of Furies always consisted of

fifteen, while others reduce their number to three. But, though both

these opinions have been supported with much learning and ingenuity, it

seems difficult to admit either the one or the other. In the first

place, since every thing connected with the stage was in a state of

perpetual fluctuation, since the masks and costume were repeatedly

altered, since the number of the actors was augmented, since almost

every arrangement of the theatre, and every characteristic of the

poetry, underwent numerous modifications; the chorus, also, it is

probable, submitted to the same alterations or reforms till it settled

in that tetragonal figure[973] and determinate number which it

afterwards preserved, as long as the legitimate drama existed in Greece.

-----

Footnote 967:

Poll. iv. 108. Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 210.

Footnote 968:

Cf. Schol. ad Æschin. Tim. Orator. Att. t. xii. p. 376. Tzetz. ad

Lycoph. p. 251, sqq. See also Müller, Dissert. on the Eumenides of

Æschylus, p. 54. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 587.—“Nous savons que sur les

Théâtres Grecs les femmes dansaient dans les chœurs.”—Winkel. Mon.

Ined. iii. p. 86. I have found no proof in any ancient author that

this was the practice among the Greeks.

Footnote 969:

Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 848.

Footnote 970:

Vit. Æschyl. p. vi.

Footnote 971:

Bœttiger, Furies, p. 2. Poll. iv. 110. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 298. Eq.

586.

Footnote 972:

According to Mr. Bœttiger, however, “chez les anciens Atheniens les

femmes n’ont jamais assisté aux représentations théatrales.”—Furies,

p. 3, note. But, in addition to the proofs of the contrary,

accumulated in the preceding book, the reader may consult the

testimony of Aristides, who severely blames his countrymen for

allowing their wives and children to frequent the theatres, t. i. p.

518, cf. p. 507.—Jebb. He speaks, indeed, more particularly of the

Smyrniotes; but Smyrna was an Ionian colony.—Herod. i. 149.

Footnote 973:

Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 209.

-----

In one point of view the history of the chorus is extremely remarkable.

At first, and for some time, it constituted in itself the whole of the

spectacle exhibited at the Dionysiac festivals, where its songs and

dances, accompanied by such rude music as the times afforded, satisfied

the demands of the popular taste, and were consequently supposed to be

everything that the god required. By degrees, as experience suggested

improvements either in the music, in the manner of dancing, or in the

materials and composition of the odes, the movements, singing, and

appearance of the Chorus, assumed a more artificial form, which was

necessarily carried forward many steps in the career of amelioration by

the institution of rival bodies of Choreutæ, who, from the natural

principle of emulation, endeavoured to excel each other. Next, a

detached member of its own body, mounted on a table, enacted the part of

a stranger or messenger come to announce something which it imported the

servants of Dionysos to know. This table was doubtless placed directly

in front of the altar of Bacchos, on the steps of which the leader of

the chorus was probably mounted in after ages, to hold communication

with the stranger; and, as this altar ripened through many gradations

into the Thymele, so the aforesaid table rose through innumerable

changes into the Logeion. It may be remarked, moreover, that the slope

of a hill,[974] when any such existed near the village, would naturally

be chosen on such occasions to afford the peasants an opportunity of

standing behind each other on ascending levels, and thus, without

inconvenience, beholding the show; and where such natural aid did not

present itself, they probably threw up embankments of turf in the

semicircular form, which experience proved to be most convenient, and,

out of this rude contrivance, grew those vast and magnificent

structures, which afterwards constituted one of the noblest ornaments of

Greece.

-----

Footnote 974:

Cf. Scalig. Poet, i. 21. Leroy, Ruines des plus beaux Monumens de la

Grèce, p. 14.

-----

The single actor, detached in the manner we have said from the Chorus,

speedily acquired greater importance, and the aid of poetry was called

in to frame and adorn his recitals; and as, during the songs and dances

of the Chorus, he necessarily remained idle, the idea soon suggested

itself that a second actor[975] would be an improvement, upon which

dialogue and the regular drama sprang into existence.

-----

Footnote 975:

Cf. Hesych. v. νέμησις ὑποκριτῶν.

-----

Among the principal duties of the Chorus was the performance of certain

dances, simple enough at the outset, but, in process of time, refined

and rendered so intricate by art, that it required no little learning

and ability to execute all their varied movements with dignity and

grace. Somewhat to assist the eye and memory, the whole pattern, as it

were, of the dance seems to have been chalked out on the floor of the

orchestra;[976] while the greatest possible pains were taken in drilling

the Choreutæ to open, file off, and wheel through their labyrinthine

evolutions, without confusion. The manner in which these persons usually

entered the orchestra, that is to say, ranged in a square body, three in

front and five deep, or five in front and three deep, has suggested to

some the notion that they represented a military Lochos;[977] but

besides that this is inconsistent with their Dionysiac origin, they did

not always preserve this arrangement, but, on some occasions, came

rushing in confusedly, while on others they traversed the Parodos in

Indian file.

-----

Footnote 976:

This, however, I merely conjecture from the practice of marking with

lines the station of the chorus. Hesych. v. γραμμαί.

Footnote 977:

When making their exit, it is said they were preceded by a

flute-player. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 582. These musicians wore, while

playing, straps of leather called φορβείαι, bound over their mouth in

order to regulate the quantity of air transmitted into the pipe. Id.

ibid. See Burney, Hist. of Music, i. 279.

-----

The musicians,[978] in the Greek theatre, took their station upon and

about the steps of the Thymele, which answers as nearly as possible to

the position of the orchestra in our own theatres. Here, also, stood the

Rhabduchi,[979] or vergers of the theatre, whose business it was to see

that order was preserved among the spectators.

-----

Footnote 978:

Cf. Torrent. in Suet. Domit. Com. p. 390. a. The best auletæ were

those of Thebes. Dion Chrysost. i. 263.

Footnote 979:

Suidas, v. ῥαβδοῦχοι, t. ii. p. 672. f. Scalig. Poet. i. 21.

-----

With respect to the dances[980] performed by the Chorus, they were so

numerous, long, and intricate, that it would be here impossible to

enumerate and describe the whole. They appear to have conceived the idea

of representing almost every passion and action in human life by that

combination of movements and gestures which the term pantomime, borrowed

from their own language, expresses much better than our word

dancing.[981] A taste, in some respects similar, still prevails among

the Orientals, whose Ghawazi and Bayadères, though relying rather upon

routine and impulse than on the resources of art, perform at festivals

and marriages, and before the ladies of the harem, little love-pieces

and pastoral scenes, which evidently belong to the class of mimetic

dances described by ancient authors.

-----

Footnote 980:

See Cahusac, Traité Historique de la Dance, ii. i. t. i. p. 61, sqq.

Footnote 981:

It is said that certain ancient poets were called orchestic,—as

Thespis, Phrynichos, Pratinas, Carcinos,—not only because they adapted

the subjects of their pieces to the dances of the chorusses, but,

also, because they instructed in dancing the chorusses of other

dramatic writers. Athen. i. 39. The above poet, Carcinos, was likewise

celebrated for being the father of three sons who danced in the tragic

chorusses, and, from their extremely diminutive stature, obtained the

name of Quails. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 761.

-----

In tragedy, such as it existed in the polished ages of Greece, the

movements were slow and solemn, and, no doubt, full of dignity. The

spirit of comedy required brisk and lively, and frequently tolerated,

audaciously wanton dances; while the Chorus of the Satyric Drama would

appear to have been rude and clownish rather than indecent, indulging in

grotesque movements, ludicrous and extravagant gestures, and that rustic

and farcical style of mimicry which may be supposed to have prevailed

among the rough peasantry of Hellas.

In classing the various dances, it will, perhaps, be sufficient if we

divide them into lively and serious,[982] joining with the latter all

such as attempted to embody a symbol or an allegory.

-----

Footnote 982:

Hesych. v. ἐμμέλεια. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 532. Poll. iv. 99. Athen.

xiv. 27, seq. Luc. de Saltat. § 22. 26. Plut. Symposiac. ix. 15. 1.

-----

In certain dramas of Phrynichos the Chorus represented a company of

wrestlers,[983] who contrived by the quick, flexible, and varied

movements of the dance, to imitate all the accidents of the palæstra.

Sometimes they personated a party of scouts in the active look-out for

the enemy, each with his right hand curved above the brow: this was one

form of the Scops.[984] On other occasions the dancer mimicked the

habits of the Scops, or mocking-owl, twirling about the head, and

appearing to be absorbed in an ecstasy of imitation, until taken by the

fowler. The performance of a piece like this, by a numerous Chorus,

sometimes breaking off into a brisk gallopade, sometimes maintaining the

same position, jigging, pirouetting, and ducking the crest, must, no

doubt, have appeared infinitely comic; and yet it could have been

nothing in comparison with the Morphasmos,[985] in which, not the

characteristic peculiarities of a single owl, but those of the whole

animal creation were “taken off.” Thus we may suppose that the Hegemon

of the Chorus started as a baboon, his next-door neighbour as a hog, a

third as a lion, a fourth as an ass, and so on, each man accommodating

his voice to the character he had, pro tempore, assumed, and gibbering,

grunting, roaring, braying, as he leaped, or gamboled, or bounded, or

scampered about the orchestra. Anon the frisky foresters were

transformed into slaves, who would seem to have been introduced to the

audience pounding something, perhaps onions and garlick, in a mortar.

-----

Footnote 983:

Suid. v. Φρυνίχου πάλαισμα, t. ii. p. 1092. b. c. d.

Footnote 984:

Poll. iv. 103. Athen. xiv. 27.

Footnote 985:

Poll. iv. 103. Cf. Xenoph. Conviv. vi. 4.

-----

The Oclasma,[986] a dance borrowed from the Persians, reminds one

strongly of the performances of the negroes in the interior of Africa,

the whole Chorus alternately crouching upon its heels, and springing

aloft, like the frogs of Aristophanes about the fens of Acheron. Not,

perhaps, un-akin to this, were those three frenzied dances, alluded to

rather than described by the ancients,—that is to say, the

Thermaustris,[987] which seems to have consisted of a series of violent

bounds, like the performances of the Hurons and Iroquois;[988] the

Mongas, which, from the name, probably represented the friskings and

caracollings of a jackass; and the Kernophoros,[989] or dance of the

first-fruits, wherein the Chorus appeared upon the stage, some bearing

censers, others fruit-baskets, evidently in a character resembling that

of Bacchanals.

-----

Footnote 986:

Poll. vi. 99.

Footnote 987:

Pfeiffer. Antiq. Græc. ii. 58. p. 382.

Footnote 988:

Cf. Dodwell, Classical Tour in Greece, vol. i. p. 133, seq.

Footnote 989:

Athen. xiv. 27. Poll. iv. 104.

-----

To this species of dance belonged, also, the Hecaterides, in which the

performer interpreted his desires or passion by furious gestures of the

hands. The Eclactisma was a female dance,[990] requiring the exertion of

great force and agility, its characteristics consisting in flinging the

heels backwards above the level of the shoulders. Corresponding, in some

measure, to the Eclactisma, was the Skistas,[991] in which the dancer

bounded aloft, crossing his legs several times while in the air. There

was a dance, evidently of a very extraordinary description, which they

performed to an air called Thyrocopicon,[992] or “knocking at doors,”

possibly representing the frolics of such wild youths as anticipated the

scape-graces of our own day. The Mothon was a loose dance, common among

sailors; the Baukismos, Bactriasmos, Apokinos, Aposeisis, and

Sobas,[993] were laughable, but lewd dances,[994] resembling the Bolero

and Fandango of the Spaniards.[995]

-----

Footnote 990:

Poll. iv. 10. 2. Aristoph. Vesp. 1492. 1495, et Schol.

Footnote 991:

Poll. iv. 105. See, in the Mus. Cortonens. tab. 60, the representation

of a group of dancers on a platform in a boat, on the margin of the

sea.

Footnote 992:

Athen. xiv. 9.

Footnote 993:

Athen. xiv. 27.

Footnote 994:

On the character of the old comedy, which tolerated these dances, see

Plut. Lucull. § 39. Demet. § 12. Pericl. § 5.

Footnote 995:

Poll. iv. 99.

-----

The Heducomos was a dance expressive of the outbreaks of joy, and the

Knismos,[996] represented the pinching, struggling, and quarrels of

lovers. The Deimalea was a Laconian dance performed by Satyrs and

Seileni, skipping and jumping about in a circle.[997] Another Spartan

dance[998] was the Bryallika, of a ludicrous and licentious character,

performed by women in grotesque masks, whence a courtezan at Sparta was

denominated, Bryallika. The name of Hypogypones,[999] was bestowed on

certain performers who imitated old men, flourishing their sticks about

the stage, as we are informed they did in the play of Simermnos.[1000]

Akin in spirit to these were the Gypones,[1001] who made their

appearance in transparent Tarentine robes, and mounted on stilts

probably in the form of goats’ feet, to give them a resemblance to the

Ægipanes, worshipped as gods of the woods. A peculiar dance in honour of

Artemis took its rise in the village of Carya in Laconia, where its

invention was attributed to Castor and Polydeukes. No description of it,

so far as I know, has come down to us; but the maidens by whom it was

performed probably bore, and steadied with one hand, a basket of flowers

on their heads, thus forming the model of those architectural figures,

still from them called Caryatides.[1002] The representation of this

performance was, doubtless, a favourite subject among Spartan artists or

such as were employed by the Spartans, as may perhaps be fairly inferred

from the circumstance, that the device on the ring, which, in return for

a comb, was presented by Clearchus to Ctesias to be shown to his friends

at Lacedæmon, was a dance of Caryatides.[1003]

-----

Footnote 996:

Id. ib.

Footnote 997:

Poll. iv. 104.

Footnote 998:

See Müller. ii. 354.

Footnote 999:

Poll. iv. 104.

Footnote 1000:

Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 534.

Footnote 1001:

Poll. iv. 104.

Footnote 1002:

Vitruv. i. 1.—Poll. iv. 104.

Footnote 1003:

Plut. Artaxerx. § 18.

-----

Amid the laxity of morals which prevailed in the later ages of Greece,

the Pyrrhic,[1004] once supposed to be peculiar to warriors, degenerated

into a dance of Bacchanals, with thyrsi instead of spears, or carrying

torches in one hand, while with the other they sportively cast light

reeds at one another. The story told in this mimetic performance

referred to remote antiquity, and was both curiously and elaborately

intricate, comprehending all the adventures of Bacchos and his merry

crew during the Indian expedition, and assuming towards the conclusion a

tragical form, developing the sad story of Pentheus.[1005]

-----

Footnote 1004:

Duport. ad Theoph. Char. c. 6. p. 305, sqq. Poll. iv. 99.—Athen. xiv.

29. On the Cretan warlike dances Orsites and Epicredios, id. xiv.

26.—Luc. de Saltat. § 9.

Footnote 1005:

Athen xiv. 29.

-----

Among the dances of a grave character are enumerated the Gingra

performed like the Podismos to slow and solemn music, the Lion and the

Tetracomos,[1006] a warlike measure performed in honour of Heracles and

supposed in its origin to have had some connexion with the Tetracomoi of

Attica, that is, the Peiræeus, Phaleron, Oxypeteones, and

Thymotadæ.[1007] We read, moreover, of dances in which the performers

represented certain historic or mythological personages, such as

Rhodope, Phædra, or Parthenope.[1008]

-----

Footnote 1006:

Poll. iv. 99.

Footnote 1007:

Poll. iv. 105.

Footnote 1008:

Luc. de Saltat. § 2.

-----

The Anthema,[1009] or Flower-dance, appears to have been chiefly

performed in private parties by women, who acted certain characters and

chanted, as they moved, the following verses:

Where is my lovely parsley, say?

My violets, roses, where are they?

My parsley, roses, violets fair,

are my flowers? Tell me where.

-----

Footnote 1009:

Athen. xiv. 27.

-----

The Athenians, however, seem to have imagined that there was nothing in

nature which might not be imitated in the dance, by the turns and mazes

of which they accordingly sought to represent the movements of the

stars.[1010] A similar fancy, if Lucian may be credited, possessed the

Indian Yoghis, who every morning and evening before their doors saluted

the sun, at his rising and setting, with a dance resembling his

own,[1011] which, as that luminary no otherwise dances than by turning

on its axis, must have been a performance resembling that of the

whirling derwishes, whose broad symbolical petticoats are meant, I

presume, to represent the disk of the sun. But the dance most difficult

of comprehension is that upon which they bestowed the name of κόσμου

εκπύρωσις,[1012] or the “Conflagration of the World.” Of the figure and

character of this performance antiquity, I believe, has left us no

account, though it probably represented, by a train of allegorical

personages and movements, the principal events which, according to the

Stoics, are to precede the delivering up of the Universe to fire.[1013]

Scaliger,[1014] who does not attempt to explain this strange exhibition,

observes, however, pertinently, that it was a dance in which Nero might

have figured, his burning of Rome deserving in some sort to be regarded

as a rehearsal of this piece.

-----

Footnote 1010:

It may possibly have been in this dance that Eumelos or Arctinos, an

old Corinthian poet, introduced Zeus himself sporting the toe:—

Μέσσοισιν δ᾽ ὠρχεῖτο πατὴρ ἀνδοῶν τε θεῶν τε. Athen. i. 40.

Cf. Plut. Sympos. ix. 15.

Footnote 1011:

Luc. de Saltat. § 17.

Footnote 1012:

Athen. xiv. 27.

Footnote 1013:

Cf. Lips. Physiolog. Stoic. ii. 22. t. iv. p. 955.

Footnote 1014:

De Poet. i. 18.

-----

There existed among the Spartans[1015] an elegant dance denominated

Hormos, or the Necklace, performed by a chorus of youths and virgins who

moved through the requisite evolutions in a row. The line was headed by

a young man who executed his part in the firm and vigorous steps proper

to his age, and which he would afterwards be expected to preserve in the

field of battle. A maiden immediately followed, but, instead of

imitating his masculine manner, confined herself to the modest graceful

paces and gestures of her sex, and this alternation and interweaving, as

it were, of force and beauty, suggesting the idea of a necklace composed

of many coloured gems, gave rise to the appellation.

-----

Footnote 1015:

Luc. de Saltat. § 12.

-----

The dance of the Crane,[1016] among the Athenians, in some respects

resembled the above. It was, according to tradition, first invented by

Theseus, who landing at Delos on his return from Crete, offered

sacrifice to Apollo and dedicated the statue of Aphrodite which he had

received from Ariadne, after which he joined the young men and women

whom he had delivered, in performing a joyous dance[1017] about the

altar of Horns erected by Apollo, from the spoils of his sister’s bow.

The Choreutæ, engaged in executing the Geranos, or Crane, formed

themselves into one long line with a leader in van and rear, and then,

guided by the design on the floor of the orchestra, described by their

movements the various mazes and involutions of the Cretan labyrinth,

until, having traversed all its intricate passages, they emerged at

once, like their great countryman and his companions, into light and

safety. Other dances there were, which, however curious they may have

been, cannot now be described from the scanty materials left us: such

were the dance of Heralds, or Messengers, the dance of the Lily,[1018]

the Chitonea, the Pinakides, the dance of the Graces,[1019] and that of

the Hours, in which the performers floated about with a circle of light

drapery held over the head by both hands.[1020]

-----

Footnote 1016:

Poll. iv. 101. Spanh. ad Callim. t. ii. p. 513. Plut. Thes. § 21. Cf.

Douglas, Essay on some points of Resemblance, &c., p. 123.

“One of the dances still performed by the Athenians has been supposed

that which was called the Crane, and was said to have been invented by

Theseus, after his escape from the labyrinth of Crete. The peasants

perform it yearly in the street of the Frank convent at the conclusion

of the vintage; joining hands and preceding their mules and asses,

which are laden with grapes in panniers, in a very curved and

intricate figure; the leader waving a handkerchief, which has been

imagined to denote the clue given by Ariadne.” Chandler, ii. 151.

Footnote 1017:

Like the Cyclic Chorus. Vid. Izetzes ad Lycoph. i. p. 251, sqq. Sch.

Aristoph. Nub. 311.

Footnote 1018:

Athen. iii. 82. xiv. 27.

Footnote 1019:

Poll. iv. 93. Xenoph. Conviv. vii. 5. Plat. De Legg. vii. t. viii. p.

55. Cf. Herm. Comment. ad Arist. Poet. xxvii. 3. p. 190, sqq.

Footnote 1020:

Scalig. Poet. i. 18.

-----

If from the dances we now pass to the Choreutæ,[1021] by whom they were

performed, we shall find that they generally made their appearance in

the orchestra with golden crowns upon their heads, and habited in

gorgeous raiment, frequently interwoven or embroidered with gold.[1022]

The Chorus, however, like the actors, must have constantly varied its

costume, to suit the exigencies of the drama; sometimes to perform the

part of senators, sometimes of Nereids, sometimes of female suppliants,

sometimes of urn-bearers, sometimes of clouds, or wasps, or birds. When

in the tragedy of Æschylus they were required to personate the Furies,

their exterior was the most frightful that can well be imagined,—their

long but scanty robes consisting, as has been conjectured, of black

lamb-skins, slit up below and exposing their tawny withered limbs to

sight, while their blood-stained eyes, livid tongue hanging out, and

hair like a mass of knotted serpents, easily accredited the belief of

their being infernal existences. Thus habited, with fingers terminating

in black claws,[1023] and grasping a burning torch, they burst upon the

view of the spectators, like so many hideous phantoms conjured up by an

imagination diseased with terror.

-----

Footnote 1021:

Cf. Buleng. de Theat. c. 55.

Footnote 1022:

Dem. cont. Mid. § 7, seq. Athen. iii. 62. Animadv. t. vii. p. 215.

Footnote 1023:

Bœttiger, Furies, p. 28, sqq. and pl. ii. Casaub. ad Athen. xii. 2.

Aristoph. Plut. 423.

-----

The costume of the actors,[1024] which some modern writers suppose to

have been extremely monotonous,[1025] was in reality, however, as rich,

varied, and characteristic as the masks of which we shall presently have

to speak. Gods, heroes, kings, chiefs, soothsayers, heralds, rustics,

the hetairæ, and their mothers; gay youths, flatterers, libertines,

procurers, cooks, satyrs, slaves, &c., had each and all their

appropriate dresses and ornaments, modified, no doubt, from time to time

by the change in public taste, and the fancy of the poets. The

divinities had almost to be wholly framed by the Dionysiac artificers.

Conceived to be of superhuman stature, it was necessary that the actors

who represented them should, in the first place, be lifted up on

Cothurni,[1026] or half-boots, the soles of which were many inches

high,[1027] their limbs and bodies were enlarged by padding, their arms

lengthened by gloves, while their countenances, which might be ignoble

or even ugly, were concealed by masks of exquisite ideal beauty, rising

above the stately forehead in a mass of curls, which at once

corresponded with the nobleness of their features and augmented their

colossal height: add to all this robes of purple, or scarlet, or azure,

or saffron, or cloth of gold, floating about the person in graceful

folds, and training along the floor, and we have some faint idea of the

celestial personages who with gemmed sceptres and glittering crowns made

their appearance on the Grecian stage.

-----

Footnote 1024:

On the actors’ wardrobe, see Poll. iv. 113, sqq.

Footnote 1025:

Müller, Dissert. on the Eumenides, p. 100. Mr. Donaldson, Theatre of

the Greeks, p. 132, adopts this opinion.

Footnote 1026:

Luc. Jup. Tragœd. § 41. Cf. Xen. Cyrop. viii. 8, 17. Poll. ii. 151.

vii. 62.

Footnote 1027:

See Winkel. Monum. Ined. t. iii. p. 84. c. ix. § 1. Les extrémités des

Cothurnes étoient ronds et quelquefois un peu aigues; mais on n’en vit

jamais de carrés, comme aux gravés sur l’estampe, de Vasali. p. 85.

Cf. Luc. de Saltat. § 27. Their height depended first upon the stature

of the actor, second, upon that of the character represented.

Sometimes they were satisfied with attributing four cubits even to the

heroes.—Aristoph. Ran. 1046. Cf. Athen. v. 27. But the ghost of

Achilles when it appeared to Apollonios of Tyana, rose five cubits in

height, and, no doubt, the spectre was careful to accommodate itself

to public opinion.—Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. iv. 16. Aul. Gell. iii.

10. See, also, Scalig. Poet. i. 13. Scaliger relates _à propos_ of the

Cothurnus a facetious remark of his father: “Italas mulieres

altissimis soccis usas vidimus; quamvis diminutiva dicant voce

Socculos. Patris mei perfacetum dictum memini. Ejusmodi uxorum dimidio

tantùm in lectis frui maritos, alter dimidio cum soccis deposito,” p.

53.

-----

The queens and heroes,[1028] who were constantly beheld grouped in

converse, or in action, with these sublime dwellers of Olympos, were

clad in a costume scarcely less majestic; the former, for example, in

times of prosperity, issued forth from their palaces in white garments,

with loose sleeves reaching to the elbow, and closed on the upper part

of the arm by a succession of jewelled agraffes,[1029] their tresses

confined in front by a golden sphendone, or fillet, crusted with gems,

while their robes terminated below in long sweeping trains of

purple.[1030] But when their houses were visited by misfortune, the

milk-white pelisse was exchanged for one quince-coloured or blue, while

the purple train was converted into black. The costume of the

kings,[1031] likewise varied by circumstances, consisted usually of an

ample robe of purple, or scarlet, or dark green, descending to the feet,

a rich cloak of cloth of gold, or of some delicate colour, adorned with

gold embroidery, and a lofty mitre on the head.[1032] When any of these

characters, as Tydeus or Meleager, was engaged in hunting or war, he

wore the scarlet or purple mantle called Ephaptis,[1033] which in action

was wrapped about the left arm. Athenæus, in describing the horsemen of

Antiochos, observes, that these Ephaptides[1034] were embroidered with

gold and adorned with the figures of animals. Bacchanals and

soothsayers, like Teiresias, generally appeared upon the stage in an

extraordinary garment, denominated Agrenon,[1035] formed of a reticular

fabric of wool of various colours. Dionysos himself,[1036] in whose

honour the theatre with all its shows was created, descended from

Olympos in a saffron-coloured robe compressed below the bosom by a broad

flowered belt, and bearing a thyrsus in his hand.[1037] This girdle, in

the case of other gods, or heroes, was sometimes replaced by one of

gold.[1038] Persons overtaken by calamity, especially exiles, wore

garments dirty-white, or sad-coloured, or black, or quince-coloured, or

bluish. The costume of Philoctetes, Telephos, Œneus, Phœnix,

Bellerophontes, was ragged. The Seileni appeared in a shaggy Chiton, and

the other personages of the Satyric drama in the skins of fawns, or

goats, or sheep, or pards, and, sometimes, in the Theraion or Dionysiac

garment, and a flowered cloak and a scarlet Himation. Old men were

distinguished by the Exomis,[1039] a white Chiton of mean appearance,

having no seam or arm-hole on the left side—young men by the

Campulè,[1040] a scarlet or deep purple Himation,—the parasites by

bearing the Stlengis and flask (as country people by the Lagobalon) and

by black or sad-coloured robes, except in the play of the Sicyonians,

where a person of this class, being about to be married, sported a white

garment,—the cook by an Himation double and unfulled,—priestesses by

white robes,—comic old women by such as were quince-coloured or dusky,

like a cloudy morning sky in autumn,—the mothers of the hetairæ wore a

purple fillet about the head,—the dresses of young women were white and

delicate,—of heiresses the same with fringes. Pornoboski wore garments

of various colours, with flowered cloaks, and carried a straight wand,

called ἀρéσκος.[1041] There were, likewise, female characters which wore

the Parapechu and the Symmetria, a chiton reaching to the feet, with a

border of marine purple.

-----

Footnote 1028:

Poll. iv. 119.

Footnote 1029:

Cf. Mus. Chiaramont. tavv. 3. 7. 16.

Footnote 1030:

Poll. vii. 60. Bœttiger, Furies, p. 32. Luc. Jup. Tragoed. § 41.

Footnote 1031:

On voit parmi les plus belles peintures d’Herculaneum un de ces

premiers acteurs, ou protagonistes, avec une large ceinture de couleur

d’or, une sceptre dans une main, et l’épée au côté.—Winkelmann. Monum.

Ined. t. iii. p. 84. Pitt. Ercol. i. 4. i. 41.—Plutarch observes,

that, together with their royal garments, actors assumed the very

strut of kings.—Vit. Demet. § 18.—Demetrius moreover, is said to have

resembled a tragic actor, because he went clad in cloth of purple and

gold, and wore sandals of purple and gold tissue. § 41.

Footnote 1032:

Aristoph. Av. 512, et Schol. Nub. 70. Poll. iv. 115. Suid. v. Ξυστὶς.

t. ii. p. 264. e.—The actor who personated Heracles made his

appearance with club and lion’s skin.—Luc. de Saltat. § 27.

Footnote 1033:

Poll. iv. 116, 117. Aristoph. Nub. 71, et Schol. Lysist. 1189.

Footnote 1034:

Deipnosoph. v. 22.

Footnote 1035:

Poll. iv. 117. Hesych. v. ἀγρηνὸν.

Footnote 1036:

Poll. iv. 118.

Footnote 1037:

It behoved the actors, however, to take care of their gold and jewels,

since it would appear that thieves found their way even to the

stage.—Aristoph. Acharn. 258.

Footnote 1038:

Poll. iv. 118.

Footnote 1039:

Dion. Chrysost. i. 231. Scalig. Poet. i. 13.

Footnote 1040:

Poll. iv. 119, sqq.

Footnote 1041:

Scalig. Poet. i. 13.

-----

We now come to the masks,[1042] a subject upon which much has been

written, though very little has been explained. The primary difficulty

connected with them is, to determine whether they were so constructed as

to resemble a speaking-trumpet,[1043] which, by narrowing the stream,

and compressing, as it were, the particles of the voice, cast it forth

condensed and corroborated upon the theatre,[1044] which it was thus

enabled to penetrate and fill, even to its utmost extremities. My own

opinion, after bestowing much attention upon the subject, is, that the

mask was in reality so constructed as to communicate additional force

and intensity to the voice; but whether by roofing or encircling the

artificial mouth by metallic plates, or thin laminæ of the stone called

Chalcophonos,[1045] it is now scarcely possible to determine. Be this,

however, as it may, there existed in some theatres other contrivances

for conveying and augmenting the volume of the actor’s voice; these were

the Echeia,[1046] vases generally of metal, finely toned, and arranged

according to the musical scale, in a succession of domed cells,[1047]

running in diverging lines up the hollow face of the theatre. They

rested with one edge upon a smooth and polished pavement, the mouth

outward, and the external edge reposing on the summit of a small, blunt

obelisk,[1048] while a low opening in each cell enabled the resonances,

or echoes, thus created, to issue forth, and fill the air with

sound,[1049] which, however the fact may be accounted for, produced no

isolated reverberations, no confusion.

-----

Footnote 1042:

When actors displeased the audience they were sometimes compelled to

take off their masks and face those who hissed them, which was

regarded as a serious punishment. Duport. ad Theoph. Char. p. 308. We

ought, perhaps, to understand Lucian _cum grano_, when he informs us

that actors who performed their parts ill were scourged. Piscator, §

33. On the derivation of the word _persona_, Aul. Gell. v. 7. Cf.

Aristoph. Poet. c. 5. Scalig. Poet. i. 13, on the derivation of

πρόσωπον. Etym. Mag. 691. 1.

Footnote 1043:

Vid. Cassiod. iv. 51. Plin. xlvii. 10. Solin. cxxxvii. Lucian. de

Saltat. § 27. De Gymnast. § 23. A tragic poet, Hieronymos, exposed

himself to ridicule by introducing into one of his pieces a mask of

frightful aspect. Aristoph. Acharn. 390.

Footnote 1044:

Cf. Suid. v. φλοιός. t. ii. p. 1073. Diog. Laert. iv. p. 27.

Footnote 1045:

Plin. xxxvii. 56.

Footnote 1046:

See Burney’s Hist. of Music, i. 153. sqq. Scalig. Poet. i. 21. Antiq.

of Athens, &c., Supplementary to Stuart, by Cockerell, Kinnaird,

Donaldson, &c. p. 39.

Footnote 1047:

Vitruv. v. 6. Antiq. of Ath. by Cockerell, Donaldson, &c. p. 39.

Tectum porticus quod est in summa gradatione, respondet Sienæ

altitudinem, ut vox crescens æqualiter ad summas gradationes et tectum

perveniat. Buleng. de Theat. c. 17.

Footnote 1048:

Marinus’s edition of Vitruv. t. iv. tab. 81.

Footnote 1049:

Empty pots were built into the walls of certain public edifices to

augment the sound of the voice. Aristot. Prob. xi. 8. i. 1. v. 5. The

orchestra was sometimes strewed with chaff, which was found to deaden

the voice. 25. Plin. ii. 51.

-----

The materials wherewith the masks were constructed varied, no doubt,

considerably in different ages;[1050] but that they were ever

manufactured of bronze or copper is scarcely credible, if we reflect

upon the weight of so voluminous an apparatus, covering the entire head

and neck, composed of either of those metals. Such metallic specimens as

have come down to us are to be regarded simply as model-masks, or as

works of art, designed by the statuary as ornaments. The intention, at

first, of this disguise being to give additional boldness and

self-confidence to the actor, by concealing from his neighbours the

shamefacedness which a raw performer would sometimes naturally feel

while strutting about in imperial robes, and pouring forth the

_sesquipedalia verba_ of Pelias and Telephos, they were contented to

cover the face with a piece of linen, having openings for the eyes and a

breathing-place.[1051] To this appears to have succeeded a mask

manufactured from the flexible bark of certain trees,[1052] shaped, of

course, and coloured to resemble the human countenance. The next step

was to employ wood, some kinds of which, while possessing the advantage

of extreme lightness, might be wrought with all the delicacy and

fineness of a statue, while, better than any other material, it would

receive that smooth and polished enamel by which were represented the

texture[1053] and complexion of the skin. Specimens of masks of this

kind have been found among nations in a very rude state; among the

inhabitants, for example, of Nootka Sound, whose dress, we are

told,[1054] “is accompanied by a mask representing the head of some

animal: it is made of wood, with the eyes, teeth, &c., and is a work of

considerable ingenuity. Of these masks they have a great variety, which

are applicable to certain circumstances and occasions. Those, for

example, which represent the head of the otter or any other marine

animals, are used only when they go to hunt them. In their war

expeditions, but at no other time, they cover the whole of their dress

with large bear-skins.”

-----

Footnote 1050:

Scalig. Poet. i. 14. Poll. iv. 143.

Footnote 1051:

Suid. in θέσπις, p. 1315. d. Poll. x. 167.

Footnote 1052:

Virg. Georg. ii. 387.

Footnote 1053:

Vid. Horat. de Art. Poet. 278. Athen. xiv. 77. Suid. v. χοιρίλλος, t.

ii. p. 1160. f. Etym. Mag. 376. 47. Poll. iv. 133, sqq. Schol. Soph.

Œdip. Tyr. 80.

Footnote 1054:

Meare’s Voyage, p. 254.

-----

But while the above improvements were going on in the national

theatre,[1055] the rustic drama continued to preserve its original

simplicity, the actors to prevent their being recognised, shading their

brows with thick projecting crowns of leaves, and daubing their

faces[1056] with lees of wine. Thus disguised they chanted their songs

upon the public roads, sitting in a waggon,[1057] whence the proverb,

“he speaks as from the waggon,” _i. e._ he is shamelessly abusive, which

was in fact the case with the comic poets.

-----

Footnote 1055:

On the Roman Stage the actors appeared in hats up to the age of Livius

Andronicus. Roscius Gallus was the first who put on a mask, which he

did on account of his squinting. Ficorini, Masch. Scen. p. 15. On the

origin of the Mask see Paccichelli De Larvis, Capillamentis, et

Chirothecis. Neap. 1693.

Footnote 1056:

Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 29. Scalig. Poet. i. 13.

Footnote 1057:

Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 545. Nub. 29.—Demosth. De Coron. § 37. Ulp. in. §

5.

-----

The masks were divided into three kinds, the Tragic, the Comic, and the

Satyric. Those belonging to Tragedy were again subdivided into numerous

classes, representing every marked variety of character, and every stage

of human life from childhood to extreme old age. In the highly varied

range of countenances thus brought into play, the mask-maker enjoyed

abundant opportunities of exhibiting his skill. The hair, of course, was

real and adjusted on the mask like a wig,[1058] differently fashioned

and coloured according to the age, habits, and complexion of the wearer.

In some cases it was gathered together and piled up on the

forehead,[1059] in a triangular figure,[1060] adding many inches to the

actor’s stature; at other times it was combed smoothly downwards, from

the crown, twisted round a fillet and disposed like a wreath about the

head as we sometimes find it in the figures of Asclepios and the

philosopher Archytas. Some characters were represented wholly bald, with

a garland of vine-leaves or ivy wreathed about the brow,[1061] others

were simply bald in front, while a third class exhibited a bushy fell of

hair, something like a lion’s mane. Young ladies displayed a profusion

of pendant curls, kept in order by the fillet or sphendone, or gathered

up in nets, or twisted about the head in braided tresses. In

representing certain characters the eye-sockets were left open, so that

the actor’s eyes could be seen moving and flashing within;[1062] but on

other occasions, when the part of a squinter was to be acted by a

performer who did not squint or vice versa, as in the case of Roscius

Gallus, the mask-maker must have represented the eyes by glass or some

other transparent substance, through which the actor could see his way.

This was necessarily the case in the part of the poet Thamyris,[1063]

who, like our own Chatterton, had eyes of different colours, one blue,

the other black, which, as Aristotle informs us, was common among the

horses of Greece.

-----

Footnote 1058:

Scalig. Poet. i. 13.—Poll. iv. 133, sqq.

Footnote 1059:

Cf. Thucyd. i. 6, et Schol. Ælian. Var. Hist. iv. 22.

Footnote 1060:

See a beautiful head of Aphrodite with a pole of curls. (ὄγκος) Mus.

Chiaramont. tav. 27. Cf. a tragic female mask, with the hair bound by

a fillet, in the Cabinet d’ Orleans, pl. 52.

Footnote 1061:

It may be remarked that persons ridiculed upon the stage were

introduced with masks exactly resembling their countenances. They

seized, however, upon the ludicrous features, which any one happened

to possess, as the eyebrows of Chærephon, and the baldness of

Socrates. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 147, 224. This applies to living

characters. The dead were protected from ridicule by the laws. Sch.

Pac. 631. The Comic mask was said to have been invented by Mason.

Athen. xiv. 77. The Comte de Caylus, however, attributes the invention

of masks to the Etruscans. Recueil d’ Antiq. i. 147, seq.

Footnote 1062:

Cic. de Orat. ii. 46. See in Agostini Gemme Antiche, pl. 17, a

representation of one of these masks. For examples of hideous masks

see Mus. Florent. t. i. pp. 45–51.

Footnote 1063:

Poll. iv. 141. Dubos, Reflex. Crit. sur la Poes. et sur la Peint. i.

603.

-----

The time of acting, as is well-known, was during the Dionysiac and

Lenæan festivals, in the spring and autumn.[1064] The theatres being

national establishments, in the proper sense of the word, were therefore

open, free of expense, to all the citizens, who were not called together

as with us by playbills,[1065] but for the most part knew nothing of

what they were going to see till they were seated in the theatre, and

the herald[1066] commanded the chorus of such and such a poet to

advance. Previously to the commencement of the performance the theatre

was purified by the sacrifice of a young hog, the blood of which was

sprinkled on the earth.[1067]

-----

Footnote 1064:

Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 545. Acharn. 336. Cf. Dem. cont. Mid. § 4, et

annot. Plut. Vit. x. Rhet. Lycurg.

Footnote 1065:

Winkelmann, however, supposes they had a kind of playbill, Monum.

Ined. iii. p. 86, founding his opinion upon a misinterpretation of

Pollux, iv. 131.

Footnote 1066:

Aristoph. Acharn. 10, sqq.

Footnote 1067:

Sch. Æschin. Tim. p. 17. Orator. Att. t. xiii. p. 377. Vales. ad

Harpoc. 99, 296. Suid. v. καθάρσιον, t. i. p. 1346. a. Poll. viii.

104.

-----

BOOK V.

RURAL LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

THE VILLA AND THE FARMYARD.

If we now, for a moment, quit the city and its amusements, and observe

the tone and character of Hellenic rural life, we shall find, perhaps,

that there existed in antiquity a still greater contrast between town

and country than in modern times. From the poetry of Athens, rife with

sylvan imagery, we, no less than from its history, discover how deeply

they loved the sunshine and calm and quiet of their fields. The rustic

population confined to the city during the Peleponnesian war almost

perished of nostalgia within sight of their village homes. Half the

metaphors in their language are of country growth. The bee murmurs, the

partridge whirrs, the lark, the nightingale, the thrush, pour their

music through the channels of verse and prose. The odours of ripe fruit,

of new wine “purple and gushing,” the fresh invigorating morning breeze

from harvest fields, from clover meadows dotted with kine, the scent of

milk-pails, of honey, and the honey-comb, still breathe sweetly over the

Attic page, and prove how smitten with home delights the Athenian people

were,

“With plesaunce of the breathing fields yfed.”

This their manly and healthful taste, however, constantly, in time of

war, exposed them to the malice of their enemies. For the valleys and

grassy uplands of Attica, being thickly covered with villas and

farmhouses,[1068] the first act of an invading army was to lay all those

beautiful homesteads in ashes. Thus the Persians, in their two

invasions, destroyed the whole with fire and sword. But the gentlemen,

immediately on their return, rebuilt their dwellings[1069] with greater

taste and magnificence, so that, before the breaking out of the

Peloponnesian war, it is probable that, as a scene of unambitious

affluence, taste, high cultivation, and rustic contentment, nothing was

ever beheld to compare with Attica. Here and there, throughout the land,

perched on rocks, or shaded by trees, were small rustic chapels

dedicated to the nymphs, or rural gods.[1070] On the mountains, and in

solitary glens, and wherever springs gushed from the cliffs, caverns

were scooped out by the hands of the leisurely shepherds,[1071] and

consecrated by association with mythology. Fountains, also, and

water-courses, altars, statues,[1072] and sacred groves,[1073] protected

at once by religion and the laws,[1074] imprinted on the landscape

features of poetry and elegance.

-----

Footnote 1068:

Demosth. in Ev. et Mnes. § 15.

Footnote 1069:

Thucyd. ii. 65.

Footnote 1070:

In the neighbourhood of the Isthmus the shepherds of the present day

often pass the winter months in mountain caverns.—Chandler, ii. p.

261.

Footnote 1071:

Theocrit. i. 143, seq.

Footnote 1072:

Cf. Iliad. β. 305, seq.

Footnote 1073:

On the wild olive and other trees, of which these groves were

composed, the eye of the passenger usually beheld suspended a number

of votive offerings.—Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 943.

Footnote 1074:

Cf. Plat. Phæd. t. i. p. 9.

-----

Another cause which, in the eyes of the Athenians, imparted sanctity to

their lands, was the practice of burying in them their dead. The spot

selected for this sacred purpose seems usually to have been the orchard,

where, amid fig-trees and trailing vines,[1075] often near the

boundaries of the estate, might be seen the ancient and venerable

monuments of the dead. All Attica, therefore, in their eyes, appeared

holy as a sepulchre; and, as every one guarded his own ancestral ashes,

to sell a farm cost a man’s feelings more than in countries where people

inter those they love in public cemeteries; and this circumstance with

many would operate like a law of entail.[1076]

-----

Footnote 1075:

Eurip. Bacch. 10, seq. Cf. Kirch. de Funer. Rom. iii. 17.

Footnote 1076:

Demosth. in Callicl. § 4.

-----

But it is easy thus to present to the imagination a general picture of

the country. What we want is to thrust aside the impediments, to

dissipate the obscurity of two thousand years, and lift the latch of a

Greek farmhouse, such as it existed in the days of Pericles.

In the first place it was common in Attica to erect country-houses in

the midst of a grove of silver firs,[1077] which in winter protect from

cold, and in summer attract the breezes that imitate in their branches

the sound of trickling runnels, or the distant murmur of the sea.

Towards the centre of the grove, with a spacious court in front and a

garden behind, stood the house,[1078] sometimes with flat, sometimes

with pointed roof, ornamented with a picturesque porch, and surrounded

with verandahs or colonnades. Occasionally opulent persons had on the

south front of their houses large citron trees,[1079] growing in pots,

on either side the door, where they were well watered and carefully

covered during winter.[1080] In the plainer class of dwellings, numerous

outhouses, as stables, sheds for cattle,[1081] henroosts, pigstyes, &c.,

extended round the court, while the back-front, generally in the East

the principal, opened upon the garden or orchard.

-----

Footnote 1077:

Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 406. On the music of the pine-groves, the Schol.

on Theocritus, i. 1, has an amusing passage: ἡ πίτυς ἐκείνη, ἡδὺ τι

μελουργεῖ, κατὰ τὸ ψιθύρισμα. κ. τ. λ.

Footnote 1078:

Called in Latin pagus from πηγὴ, a fountain. Serv. ad Virg. Georg.

182. See also the note of Gibbon, t. iii. p. 410.

Footnote 1079:

Geop. x. 7. 11. These pots, like those in which the palm-tree was

cultivated, were pierced at the bottom like our own. Theoph. Hist.

Plant. iv. 4. 3.

Footnote 1080:

As the orange-tree is still in Lemnos. Walp. Mem. i. 280.

Footnote 1081:

The stalls for cattle were built as often as convenient, near the

kitchen and facing the east, because when exposed to light and heat

they became smooth-coated. Vitruv. vi. 9. Cf. Varro. i. 13.

-----

Much pains was usually taken in selecting the site of a farmhouse,[1082]

though opinions of course varied according to the peculiar range of

experience on which they were based. In general such positions were

considered most favourable as neighboured the sea, or occupied the

summits or the slopes of mountains,[1083] more especially if looking

towards the north.[1084] The vicinity of swamps and marshes, and as much

as possible of rivers, was avoided, together with coombs, or hollow

valleys, and declivities facing the south or the setting sun. If

necessitated by the nature of the ground to build near the banks of a

stream, the front of the dwelling was carefully turned away from it,

inasmuch as its waters communicated an additional rigour to the winds in

winter, and in summer filled the atmosphere with unwholesome vapours.

The favourite exposure was towards the east whence the most salubrious

breezes were supposed to blow, while the cheerful beams of the sun, as

soon as they streamed above the horizon, dissipated the dank fogs and

murkiness of the air. Notwithstanding the warmth of the climate,

moreover, they loved such situations as were all day long illuminated by

the sun, whilst every care was taken to fence out the sirocco, a moist

and pestilential wind, blowing across the Mediterranean from the deserts

of Africa. In Italy, nevertheless, the farmer often selected for the

site of his mansion the southern roots of mountains, further defended

from Alpine blasts by a sweep of lofty woods.

-----

Footnote 1082:

Geop. ii. 3. Cf. Vitruv. i. 4.

Footnote 1083:

Petatur igitur aer calore et frigore temperatus, quem fere medius

obtinet collis, quod neque depressus hieme pruinis torpet, aut torret

æstute vaporibus, neque elatus in summa montium perexiguis ventorum

motibus, aut pluviis omni tempore anni sævit. Columell. De Re Rust. i.

4.

Footnote 1084:

The same opinion is held by Hippocrates, De Morbo Sacro. cap. 7. p.

308, ed. Foes. Ὁ Βορέης ὑγιεινότατος ἐστι τῶν ἀνέμων. Cf. Plin. ii.

48. Varro. i. 12.

-----

According to the fashion prevailing in antiquity, farmhouses were built

high, large, and roomy, though Cato[1085] shrewdly advises, that their

magnitude should bear some relation to that of the domain, lest the

villa should have to seek for the farm, or the farm for the villa.

-----

Footnote 1085:

De Re Rust. 3. “Ita ædifices, ne villa fundum quærat, neve fundus

villam.” Cf. Colum. De Re Rust. i. 4. It may here by the way be

observed that, during the flourishing periods of Roman agriculture,

farms were generally rather small than large. Plin. Hist. Nat. viii.

21. Schulz. Antiq. Rustic. § vii.

-----

Much, however, would depend upon the taste of the individual; but in a

plain farmhouse more attention appears to have been paid to substantial

comfort, and something like rough John-Bullism, than to that cold

finical elegance which certain persons are fond of associating with

whatever is classical. An Attic farmer of the true old republican school

was anything but a fine gentleman. He scorned none of the occupations or

productions by which he lived. On entering his dwelling you found no

small difficulty in steering between bags of corn,[1086] piles of

cheeses, hurdles of dried figs[1087] or raisins, while the racks groaned

with hams[1088] and bacon flitches. If they resembled their

descendants,[1089] too, even their bedchambers were invaded by some

species of provisions, for there in the present day you often behold

long strings of melons suspended like festoons from the rafters. In one

corner of the ground-floor stood a corbel filled with olive-dregs,

recently pressed, in another a wool-sack or a pile of dressed

skins.[1090] Yonder in the room looking into the garden, with the

honey-suckle twining about the open lattice, were madam’s loom and

spinning-wheel, and carding apparatus, and work-baskets; and there with

the lark[1091] might you see her, serene and happy, suckling her young

democrat, and rocking the cradle of a second with her foot, thriftily

giving directions the while to Thratta, Xanthia or “the neat-handed”

Phillis.[1092]

-----

Footnote 1086:

Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 45.

Footnote 1087:

Philost. Icon. ii. 26. p. 851.

Footnote 1088:

Cf. Athen. iv. 38.

Footnote 1089:

Walp. Mem. i. 281.

Footnote 1090:

Aristoph. Nub. 45, seq. et Schol.—Schol. Eq. 803.

Footnote 1091:

Plat. De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 40. Aristoph. Lysist. 18, sqq.

Footnote 1092:

Aristoph. Acharn. 272. Vesp. 824. Pac. 1138. Thesm. 286, seq. Suid. v.

Θρᾶττα. t. p. 1330. a.

-----

The kitchen must sometimes have been in fine disorder; geese and ducks

waddling across the floor, picking up the spilled grain, or snatching

away the piece of bread and honey which my young master had just put

down on the stool to play at a game of romps with Thratta. Up in the

dusky corner there, behind a huge armchair or settle, you may discern a

very suspicious looking enclosure, from which, at intervals, issues a

suppressed grunt; it is the pigsty.[1093] But be not offended; the

practice is classical; and pigs, in my apprehension, are as pleasant

company as geese and many other animals. Now, that geese were fed even

about palaces, we have the testimony of Homer, whose Penelope, the _beau

idéal_ of a good housewife, says—

“Full twenty geese have we at home, that feed

On wheat in water steeped.”[1094]

-----

Footnote 1093:

Ἐπὶ τῆς ἑστίας τρέφουσι χοίρους.—Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 844. Lysist.

1073, Poll. ix. 16.

Footnote 1094:

Odyss. τ. 536.

Footnote 1095:

Cf. Vict. Var. Lect. p. 891.

-----

But the whole economy of geese-feeding[1095] has been transmitted to us;

in the first place, the birds usually preferred were those most

remarkable for their size and whiteness.[1096] The ancients esteemed the

variegated, or spotted, as of inferior value. The same rule applied to

fowls. The chenoboscion,[1097] or enclosure in which the geese were

kept, was commonly situated near ponds or freshes,[1098] abounding with

rich grass and aquatic plants. Geese, it was observed, are not nice in

the article of food, but devour eagerly nearly all kinds of plants,

though the chick-pea, and the couch-grass, the laurel and the

laurel-rose,[1099] were by the ancients supposed to be hurtful to them.

Of their eggs some were hatched by hens, but such as were designed to be

sitten on by the goose herself, (who, during the period of

incubation[1100] was fed on barley steeped in water,) were marked by

writing or otherwise, to distinguish them from the eggs of their

neighbours, which it was thought she would not be at the pains to hatch.

For the first ten days after they had broken the shell the young

goslings were kept within-doors, where they were fed on wheat steeped in

water, _polenta_ a preparation of barley-meal dried at the fire, and

chopped cresses. This period over, they were driven out to feed and

afterwards to water; they who tended them taking great care that they

should not be stung by nettles, or pricked by thorns, or swallow the

hair[1101] of pigs or kids, which they imagined to be fatal to them.

-----

Footnote 1096:

Geop. xiv. 22. Varro. iii. 10. Colum. viii. 14.

Footnote 1097:

Poll. ix. 16. Heresbach. De Re Rust. lib. iv. p. 285. a.

Footnote 1098:

Cf. Pallad. i. 30. Plin. x. 79. Plaut. Trucul. ii. 1. 41.

Footnote 1099:

Ælian. De Nat. Anim. v. 29. This ingenious writer, anxious to remove

from geese the reputation of folly, relates that, when traversing

Mount Taurus, conscious of their disposition to cackling, they carry

stones in their bills, and thus frequently escape the eagles which

inhabit that lofty ridge of mountains. This the poet Phile undertakes

to confirm in verse:—

Λίθον δὲ τῷ στόματι μὴ κλάγξῃ στέγων

Ὅνπερ καλοῦσι Ταῦρον, ἀμείβει πάγον

Τοὺς ἀετοὺς γὰρ φασὶ τοὺς χηνοσκόπους,

Ἐκεῖσε δεινῶς ἐλλοχᾷν πρὸ τοῦ ψύχους.

Iamb. De Animal. Proprietat. c. 15. p. 62.

Footnote 1100:

Which according to Aristotle was thirty days.—-Hist. Anim. vii. 6.

Footnote 1101:

Pallad. i. 30. Cavendum est etiam, ne pulli eorum setas glutiant.

-----

When full-grown geese were intended to be fattened, the custom was, to

confine them in dark and extremely warm cells.[1102] Their food was

scientifically varied and regulated, proceeding from less to more

nutritious, until they were judged fit for the table. At first their

diet consisted of a preparation composed of two parts _polenta_, and

four parts bran boiled in water. Of this they were permitted to eat as

much as they pleased three times a day, and once again at midnight,

while water was furnished them in abundance. When they had continued on

this regimen for some time, they were indulged with a more luxurious

table,—nothing less than the most exquisite dried figs, which, being

chopped small, and dissolved in water, were served up as a sort of jelly

for twenty days, after which the pampered animal itself was ready for

the spit.

-----

Footnote 1102:

The Quintilian Brothers, ap. Geop. xiv. 22. For the fate of these

illustrious authors, Maximus and Condianus, see Gibbon, i. 142. “Sint

calido et tenebroso loco: quæres ad creandas adipes multum conferunt.”

Colum. viii. 14.

-----

Occasionally that delicate and humane device, for the practice of which

Germany has, in modern times, obtained so enviable a celebrity, of

enlarging preternaturally the dimensions of the liver, was resorted to

by the ancients,[1103] whose mode of proceeding was as follows: during

five-and-twenty days, being cooped up as before in a place of high

temperature, the geese were fed with wheat and barley steeped in water,

the former of which fattened, while the latter rendered their flesh

delicately white. For the next five days certain cakes or balls,

denominated collyria,[1104] the composition of which is not exactly

known, were given them at the rate of seven per day, after which the

number was gradually augmented to fifteen, which constituted their whole

allowance for other twenty days. To this succeeded the most

extraordinary dish of all, consisting of bolusses of leavened dough,

steeped in a warm decoction of mallows, by which they were puffed up for

four days. Their drink, meanwhile, was still more delicious than their

food, being nothing less than hydromel,[1105] or water mingled with

honey. During the last six days dried figs, chopped fine, were added to

their leaven, and the process being thus brought to a conclusion, the

gourmands for whom they were intended, feasted on the tenderest geese

and the largest livers in the world. It should be added, however, that

before being cooked the liver was thrown into a basin of warm water,

which the _artistes_ several times changed. Geese, adds the ingenious

gastronomer to whom we are indebted for these details, are, both for

flesh and liver, much inferior to ganders. The Greeks did not, however,

like the Romans and the moderns, select young geese for this species of

culinary apotheosis, but birds of a mature age and of the largest size,

from two to four years old, which only proves the superior strength and

keenness of their teeth.

-----

Footnote 1103:

Eupolis, ap. Athen. ix. 32.

Footnote 1104:

Cf. Suid. v. κολλύρα. t. i. p. 1489. a. Poll. i. 248. Etym. Mag. 526.

26. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 122.

Footnote 1105:

Cf. Dioscor. v. 30.

-----

Ducks were kept in ponds, carefully enclosed, and, perhaps, covered over

that they might not fly away. In the centre were certain green

islets,[1106] planted with couch-grass, which the ancients considered as

beneficial to ducks as it was hurtful to geese. Their usual food, which

was cast in the water encircling the islets, consisted of wheat, millet,

barley, sometimes mixed with grape-stones and grape-skins. Occasionally

they were indulged with locusts, prawns, shrimps,[1107] and whatever

else aquatic birds habitually feed on. Persons desirous of possessing

tame ducks were accustomed to beat about the lakes and marshes[1108] for

the nest of the wild bird. Giving the eggs to a hen to sit on, they

obtained a brood of ducklings perfectly domesticated.[1109] Wild ducks

were sometimes caught by pouring red wine, or the lees of wine, into the

springs whither they came to drink.

-----

Footnote 1106:

Geop. xiv. 23. Varro, iii. 11. Ælian. De Nat. Anim. v. 33. Aristot. De

Hist. Anim. viii. 3. Athen. ix. 52. Phile, De Anim. Proprietat. c. 14.

p. 59.

Footnote 1107:

Athen. iii. 64. Κουρίδες· καρίδες, ἢ τὰς μικρ`ας ἐγχλώρας, τὰς δὲ

ἐρυθρὰς καμμάρους. Hesych.

Footnote 1108:

Cf. Philost. Icon. i. 9. p. 776.

Footnote 1109:

Colum. viii. 15. Heresbach. De Re Rust. lib. iv. p. 288. a.

-----

With respect to barn-door fowl, originally introduced from India and

Media into Greece, the greatest care appears to have been taken to vary

and improve the breeds. For this purpose cocks and hens were

imported[1110] from the shores of the Adriatic, from Italy, Sicily,

Numidia, and Egypt, while those of Attica were occasionally exported to

other countries. There appears to have been a prejudice against keeping

more than fifty fowls[1111] about one farmyard, some traces of which may

also be discovered in the practice of the Arabs.[1112] The fowl-house

furnished with roosts,[1113] as with us, was so contrived and situated

as to receive from the kitchen a tolerable supply of smoke, which was

supposed to be agreeable to these Median strangers. The food of

fowls[1114] being much the same all the world over, it is unnecessary to

observe more than that the green leaves of the Cytisus were supposed to

render them prolific. To preserve them from vermin, the juice of rue, by

way I suppose of charm, was sprinkled over their feathers.[1115] The

proportion of male birds was one to six. Hens were usually put to sit

about the vernal equinox, during the first quarter of the moon, in nests

carefully constructed of boards, and strewed with fresh clean straw,

into which, as a sort of talisman against thunder, they threw an iron

nail, heads of garlic, and sprigs of laurel.[1116] During the period of

incubation, the eggs which had previously been kept in bran were turned

every day.

-----

Footnote 1110:

Athen. vii. 23. Of these birds the black were esteemed less than the

white. ix. 15. On the fighting cocks. Plin. x. 24. Æsch. Eum. 864,

869. Schol. ad Æsch. Tim. Orat. Attic. t. xii. p. 379. Schol.

Aristoph. Eq. 492.

Footnote 1111:

Geop. xiv. 7, 9.

Footnote 1112:

Arabian Nights, Story of the Ass, the Ox, and the Labourer, vol. 1. p.

23.

Footnote 1113:

Ταῤῥοὶ. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 227.

Footnote 1114:

Beans, however, were eschewed as they were supposed to prevent them

from laying.—Geoponic. ii. 35. But cocks were suffered to feed on

them, at least when they belonged to poor men.—Luc. Mycill. § 4.

Footnote 1115:

Dioscor. iii. 52.

Footnote 1116:

Geop. xiv. 7. 11. Colum. viii. 5.

-----

The other inhabitants of the farmyard were peacocks,[1117] commonly

confined in beautiful artificial islands provided with elegant sheds;

pheasants[1118] from the shores of the Black Sea;[1119] guinea-fowls

from Numidia,[1120] though according to other authors they were

originally found in Ætolia;[1121] partridges, quails, and the attagas.

Thrushes were bred in warm rooms with slight perches projecting from the

walls, and laurel boughs or other evergreens fixed in the corners.[1122]

Over the clean floor was strewed their food, dried figs, which had been

steeped in water, and mixed with flour or barley meal, together with the

berries of the myrtle; the lentiscus, the ivy, the laurel, and the

olive. They were fattened with millet, panic, and pure water.[1123]

Other still smaller birds were reared, and fattened in like manner.

Every farmhouse had, moreover, its columbary and dove-cotes,[1124]

sometimes so large as to contain five thousand birds. They usually

consisted of spacious buildings,[1125] roofed over and furnished with

windows closed by lattice work, made so close that neither a lizard nor

a mouse could creep through them. In the floor were channels and basins

of water, in which these delicate birds[1126] might wash and plume

themselves, and adjoining was a chamber into which such as were required

for sale, or the table, were enticed. Even jackdaws were kept about

farmyards, and like common fowls had perches set up for them.[1127]

-----

Footnote 1117:

Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 63. Petit. Leg. Att. p. 277. Geop. xiv. 18.

1. Athen. xiv. 70. See the poetical description of this bird by Phile:

De Animal. Proprietat. c. 8. p. 32, sqq.

Footnote 1118:

Geop. xiv. 19. Colum. viii. 12. Pallad. i. 28. Athen. ix. 37, seq.

Suid. v. φασιανοὶ. t. i. p. 1083. a. b. Aristoph. Nub. 109.

Footnote 1119:

According to Diogenes Laertius, (i. iv. 51) both pheasants and

peacocks were familiar to the Greeks in the days of Solon.

Footnote 1120:

Athen. xiv. 71. Ælian. De Nat. Anim. v. 27. Aristot. Hist. Anim. vi.

2. A number of these birds were kept on the Acropolis of Athens.—Suid.

v. μελεαγρίδες. t. ii. p. 122. a.

Footnote 1121:

Within the enclosure for these birds pellitory of the wall was

probably planted, as they loved to roll in and pluck it up.—Theoph.

Hist. Plant. i. 6. 11.

Footnote 1122:

Cf. Pollux. ii. 24.

Footnote 1123:

Geop. xiv. 24. 5, seq.

Footnote 1124:

The king of Tuban, in Java, had formerly his bed surrounded by cages

of turtle-doves, which roosted on perches of various coloured

glass.—Voyage de La Compagnie des Indes, i. 533.

Footnote 1125:

Varro. iii. 7. Columell. viii. 8. Pallad. i. 24.

Footnote 1126:

For the food with which they were supplied, see Geopon. xiv. 1. 5.

Occasionally when the birds were permitted to fly abroad, their owners

sprinkled them with unguents, or gave them cumin seed to eat, in order

that they might attract and bring back with them flights of doves or

wild pigeons to their cells.—Id. xiv. 3. 1. So also Palladius:

Inducunt alias, si cumino pascantur assidue, vel hirci alarum balsami

liquore tangantur, i. 24. Cf. Plin. x. 52.

Footnote 1127:

Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 129.

-----

Much pains was taken by the ancients to improve the breed of

animals.[1128] Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, introduced into that island

the Molossian and Spartan dogs, goats from Scyros and Naxos, and sheep

from Attica and Miletos.[1129] The fineness and beauty of Merinos were

also known to the ancients, who purchased from Spain rams for breeding

at a talent each, that is, about two hundred and forty-one pounds

sterling.[1130]

-----

Footnote 1128:

Cf. Arist. Hist. Anim. vii. 6. 5.

Footnote 1129:

Athen. xii. 57.

Footnote 1130:

Strab. iii. 2. t. i. p. 231.

-----

Horses were at all times few, and, consequently, dear in Greece; they

were, therefore, seldom employed in agriculture, but bred and kept

chiefly for the army, for religious pomps and processions, and for the

chariot races at Olympia. Originally, no doubt, the horse was introduced

from Asia, and, up to a very late period, chargers of great beauty and

spirit, continued to be imported from the shores of the Black Sea.[1131]

Princes, in the Homeric age, appear to have obtained celebrity for the

beauty of their steeds, as Laomedon, Tros, and Rhesos; and it was

customary for them to possess studs of brood mares in the rich pasture

lands on the sea-shore. That of Priam, for example, lay at Abydos, on

the Hellespont.[1132]

-----

Footnote 1131:

Aristoph. Nub. 109. Suid. v. φασιανοὶ. t. ii. p. 1033. b. Thom.

Magist. v. φασιανοὶ. p. 885. Blancard. Of the commentators on

Aristophanes, however, some by the word φασιανοὶ understand horses,

and some pheasants. The probability is, that they imported both, and

that the poet means to play upon the word.

Footnote 1132:

Iliad. δ. 500.

-----

The high estimation in which horses[1133] were held in remote antiquity,

may be gathered from the numerous fables invented respecting them,—as

that of the centaurs in Thessaly, of the winged courser of

Bellerophontes, and the Muses, and of the marvellous steeds presented by

Poseidon to Peleus on his marriage with Thetis. They were reckoned,

likewise, among the most precious victims offered in sacrifice to the

gods. Thus we find the Trojans plunging live horses into the whirlpool

of the Scamander[1134] to deprecate the anger of that divinity. The

Romans, likewise, in later times, sacrificed horses to the ocean;[1135]

and, in many parts of Asia, it appears to have been customary in nearly

all ages, to offer up, as anciently in Laconia,[1136] this magnificent

animal on the altars of the sun.[1137] Thus, among the Armenians, whose

breed, though smaller than that of the Persians, was far more spirited,

this practice prevailed as it still does in Northern India, and

Xenophon,[1138] a religious man, observes in the Anabasis, that he gave

his steed, worn down with the fatigues of the march, to be fed and

offered up by the Komarch, with whom he had been for some days a guest.

From Homer’s account of Pandarus we may infer, that the possessors of

fine horses often submitted to great personal inconvenience rather than

hazard the well-being of their favourites. For this wealthy

prince,[1139] who possessed eleven carriages and twenty-two steeds, came

on foot to the assistance of Priam, lest they should not find a

plentiful supply of provender at Troy.

-----

Footnote 1133:

See also Iliad, ε. 358. Wolf. Proleg. 80, seq.

Footnote 1134:

Iliad φ. 132.

Footnote 1135:

Fest. v. October, t. ii. p. 521, seq. v. Panibus, p. 555. Lomeier, de

Lustrat. cap. 23. p. 292, seq. Propert. iv. i. 20, with the note of

Frid. Jacob, in whose edition it is, v. i. 20.

Footnote 1136:

Pausan. iii. 20. 4. Fest. v. October, t. ii. p. 520, tells us that

this horse was sacrificed to the winds.

Footnote 1137:

Herod. i. 216. Brisson. de Regn. Pers. ii. 5. The reason why the horse

was selected as a victim to the sun, was that its swiftness appeared

to resemble that of the god:—ὡς τακύτατον τῷ τακύτατω. Bochart.

Hierozoic. pt. i. l. ii. c. 10. Olear. in Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan.

i. 31. p. 29. Justin. i. 10. Suid. v. μίθρου. t. ii. p. 162, f. This

practice is likewise mentioned by Ovid, (Fast. i. 385, seq.)

Placat equo Persis radiis Hyperiona cinctum,

Ne detur celeri victima tarda deo.

Cf. Vigenere, Images des Philostrates, p. 773. Par. 1627.

Footnote 1138:

Anab. iv. 5. 35.

Footnote 1139:

Iliad. ε. 192, seq.

-----

Several countries were famous[1140] for their breed of horses, as

Cyrene, Egypt, Syria, Phrygia, and the Phasis.[1141] Thessaly, too,

particularly the neighbourhood of Triccæ, abounded in barbs, as did

likewise Bœotia. But one of the most remarkable races was that produced

in Nisæon,[1142] a district of Media, which seems to have been white, or

of a bright cream colour,[1143] and of extraordinary size and swiftness.

On one of these Masistios[1144] was mounted during the expedition into

Greece. Apollo, in an oracle is said to have spoken of the beauty of

mares, alluding, perhaps, to those of Elis, which were remarkable for

their lightness and elegance of form; and Aristotle celebrates a

particular mare of Pharsatis, called Dicæa, which was famous for

bringing colts resembling their sires.[1145] Among the Homeric chiefs,

Achilles and Eumelos boasted the noblest coursers, as we learn from a

picturesque and striking passage in the Catalogue:[1146] “And now, O

Muse, declare, which of the leaders and their horses were most

illustrious. Excepting those of Achilles, the finest steeds before Troy

were those of Eumelos from Pheræ, swift as birds, alike in mane, in age,

and so equal in size, that a rule would stand level on their backs. They

were both bred by Apollo in Pieria, both mares, and they bore with them

the dread of battle. Noblest of all, however, were the coursers of

Achilles. But he, in his lunar-prowed, sea-passing ships remains

incensed against Atreides, the shepherd of his people; his myrmidons

amuse themselves on the sea-shore with pitching the quoit, launching the

javelin, and drawing the bow; their horses, standing beside the

chariots, feed upon lotus, trefoil and marsh parsley; and the chariots

themselves, well covered with hangings, are drawn up in the tents of the

chiefs, while the soldiers, sighing for the leading of their impetuous

general, stroll carelessly through the camp without joining in the war.”

-----

Footnote 1140:

Sch. Pind. Pyth. iv. 1.

Footnote 1141:

Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 110.

Footnote 1142:

Strab. xi. 13. p. 453. Τούς δὲ Νησαίους ἵππους, οἷς ἐχρῶντο οἱ

βασιλεῖς ἀρίστοις οὖσι καὶ μεγίστοις. Cf. Herod. i. 189, on the sacred

horses of Persia.

Footnote 1143:

Suid. v. ἱππος Νισαῖος. t. i. p. 1271. d. who relates that, according

to some, the breed was found near the Erythrean Sea.

Footnote 1144:

Herod. ix. 20. Cf. Il. ε. 583. δ. 142, seq. In Philostratus we find

mention made of a black Nisæan mare with white feet, large patch of

white on the breast, and white nostrils.—Icon. ii. 5. p. 816.

Footnote 1145:

Hist. Anim. vii. 6.

Footnote 1146:

Il. β. 760, sqq.

-----

The food of the Homeric horses,[1147] was little inferior to that of

their masters, since, besides the natural delicacies of the meadows,

they were indulged with sifted barley and the finest wheat.[1148] The

halter with which, while feeding, they were tied to the manger seems

usually to have been of leather. Aristotle,[1149] remarks, that horses

are fattened less by their food than by what they drink, and that, like

the camel,[1150] they delight in muddy water, on which account they

usually trouble the stream before they taste it.

-----

Footnote 1147:

Iliad. θ. 560. Cf. ι. 123, seq. 265, 407. κ. 565, seq.

Footnote 1148:

Il. ε. 196. On an ancient crystal engraved in Buonaroti a man with cap

and short breeches is represented feeding an ass with corn. Osserv.

Istorich. sop. alc. Medagl. Antich. p. 345.

Footnote 1149:

Hist. Anim. viii. 10.

Footnote 1150:

Phile applies the same observation to the elephant:

Ὕδωρ δὲ πίνει πλῆθος ἄφθονον πάνυ·

Πλὴν οὐ καθαρὸν, καὶ διειδὲς οὐ θέλει,

Ἀλλ’ οὖν ῥυπαρὸν καὶ κατεσπιλωμένον.

Iamb. de Animal. Proprietat. c. 39. p. 56, 165, seq.

-----

The Greek conception of equine beauty[1151] differed but little from our

own, since they chiefly loved horses of those colours which are still

the objects of admiration: as snow-white, with black eyes like those of

Rhesos, which Plato thought the most beautiful; cream-coloured, light

bay, chestnut, and smoky grey. They judged of the breeding of a horse by

the shortness of its coat and the dusky prominence of its veins. As a

fine large mane greatly augments the magnificent appearance of this

animal, they were careful after washing to comb and oil it[1152] while

they gathered up the forelock in a band of gilded leather.[1153] The

floors of their stables were commonly pitched with round pebbles bound

tight together by curbs of iron.[1154]

-----

Footnote 1151:

Geop. xvi. 2. Philost. Icon. i. 28. p. 804. Notwithstanding the

admiration of the Greeks for horses we do not find that they made any

attempt to naturalize among them those Shetlands of the ancient world

which, according to a very grave naturalist, were no larger than rams.

These diminutive steeds were found in India:—Παρά γε τοῖς ψύλλοις

καλουμένοις τῶν Ἰνδῶν, εἱσὶ γὰρ καὶ Λιβύων ἕτεροι, ἵπποι γίνονται τῶν

κριῶν οὐ μείζους. Ælian. de Animal. xvi. 37. Modern writers relate the

same thing of a certain breed of oxen in India: “Naturalists speak of

a diminutive breed of oxen in Ceylon, and the neighbourhood of Surat,

no larger than a Newfoundland dog, which, though fierce of aspect, are

trained to draw children in their little carts.” Hindoos, i. 23.

Footnote 1152:

Iliad, χ. 281, seq.

Footnote 1153:

Il. ε. 358.

Footnote 1154:

Xenoph. de Re Equest. iv. 4.

-----

Horses were usually broken[1155] by professed grooms, who entered into a

written agreement with the owners implicitly to follow their

directions.[1156] The process was sufficiently simple. They began with

the year-and-a-half colts,[1157] on which they put a halter when

feeding, while a bridle was hung up close to the manger, that they might

be accustomed to the touch of it, and not take fright at the jingling of

the bit.[1158] The next step was to lead them into the midst of noisy

and tumultuous crowds in order to discover whether or not they were bold

enough to be employed in war.[1159] The operation was not completely

finished till they were three years old. When, on the course or

elsewhere, horses had been well sweated,[1160] they were led into a

place set apart for the purpose, and, in order to dry themselves, made

to roll in the sand. It was customary for owners to mark their horses

with the Koppa,[1161] or other letter of the alphabet, whence they were

sometimes called Koppatias, Samphoras, &c.

-----

Footnote 1155:

Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 158.

Footnote 1156:

Xenoph. de Re Equest. ii. 2. Cf. Œconom. iii. 11. xiii. 7.

Footnote 1157:

Geop. xvi. i. 11.

Footnote 1158:

Xen. de Re Equest. 10. 6. Poll. viii. 184.

Footnote 1159:

The swimming powers of the war-horse were probably augmented by

exercise, since we find them passing by swimming from Rhegium to

Sicily. Plut. Timol. § 19. This feat, however, was nothing to that of

the stags which swam from Syria to Cyprus! Ælian. De Nat. Anim. v. 56.

Footnote 1160:

Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 32. Cf. 25, 28.

Footnote 1161:

Aristoph. Eq. 601. Nub. 25. Spanh. in loc. Athen. xi. 30.

-----

The mule and the ass were much employed in rural labours, the former

both at the cart and the plough, the latter in drawing small tumbrils,

and in bearing wood[1162] or other produce of the farm to the

city.[1163] The wild ass[1164] was sometimes resorted to for improving

the breed of mules, which, in the Homeric age, were found in a state of

nature among the mountains of Paphlagonia.[1165]

-----

Footnote 1162:

In carting wood from Mount Ida in the Troad oxen are at present

substituted for asses, and the bodies of the vehicles they draw, in

form resembling ancient cars, are constructed of wickerwork. Chandler,

i. 47.

Footnote 1163:

Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 43. Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 12. p. 97.

Footnote 1164:

Geop. xvi. 21. Varro ii. 6. 3. To account for this care it may be

observed, that rich men sometimes rode, as they still do in the East,

on asses superbly caparisoned and adorned with bells. Lucian. Luc.

sive Asin. § 48.

Footnote 1165:

Il. β. 852.

-----

But their cares extended even to swine, which, if King Ptolemy may be

credited, were sometimes distinguished in Greece for their great size

and beauty. He, in fact, observes in his Memoirs, that in the city of

Assos he saw a milk-white hog two cubits and a half in length, and of

equal height; and adds, that King Eumenes had given four thousand

drachmæ, or nearly two hundred pounds sterling, for a boar of this

enormous size, to improve the breed of pigs in his country.[1166] So

that we perceive those great generals, whom posterity usually

contemplates only in the cabinet or in the battle-field, were, at the

same time, in their domestic policy, the rivals of the Earls Spencer and

Leicester. Superstition, among the Cretans, prevented the improvement of

bacon; for as a sow was said to have suckled the infant Jupiter, and

defended his helpless infancy, they, in gratitude,[1167] abstained from

hog’s flesh.

-----

Footnote 1166:

Athen. ix. 17. Cf. Steph. De Urb. 184. e.

Footnote 1167:

Athen. ix. 18.

-----

In all farms the care of cattle necessarily formed a principal

employment. The oxen[1168] were used in ploughing, treading out the

corn, drawing manure to the fields, and bringing home the produce of the

harvest. To prevent their being overcome by fatigue while engaged in

their labours, the husbandmen of Greece had recourse to certain

expedients, one of which was, to smear their hoofs with a composition of

oil and terebinth, or wax, or warm pitch:[1169] while, to protect them

from flies, their coats were anointed with their own saliva, or with a

decoction of bruised laurel berries and oil.[1170] Their milch cows, in

the selection of which much judgment was displayed,[1171] were commonly

fed on cytisus and clover; and, still further to increase their milk,

bunches of the herb dittany were sometimes tied about their flanks. The

usual milking-times[1172] were, in the morning immediately after the

breaking-up of the dawn, and in the evening about the close of twilight;

though, occasionally, both cows, sheep, and goats were milked several

times during the day. In weaning calves they made use of a species of

muzzle,[1173] as the Arabs do in the case of young camels. Their pails,

like our own, were of wood,[1174] but somewhat differently shaped, being

narrow above, and spreading towards the bottom. When conveyed into the

dairy the milk was poured into pans,[1175] on the form of which I have

hitherto found no information.[1176] That they skimmed their milk is

evident (whatever they may have done with the cream), from the mention

of that thin pellicle which is found on it only when skimmed, whether

scalded or not. “Here, drink this!” said Glycera to Menander, when he

had returned one day in exceeding ill-humour from the theatre. “I don’t

like the wrinkled skin,” replied the poet to the lady, whose beauty, it

must be remembered, was at this time on the wane. “Blow it off,” replied

she, immediately comprehending his meaning, “and take what is

beneath.”[1177] Milk, in those warm latitudes, grows sour more rapidly

than with us; but the ancients observed that it would keep three days

when it had been scalded, and stirred until cold with a reed or

ferula.[1178]

-----

Footnote 1168:

Scheffer, De Re Vehic. p. 80; et vid. Dickenson, Delph. Phænicizant.

c. 10. p. 116, seq. Heresbach. De Re Rust. p. 236, sqq.

Footnote 1169:

Geop. xvii. 9, with the note of Niclas. Aristoph. Hist. Anim. viii. 7.

23. Cato. De Re Rust. 72. Plin. xxviii. 81.

Footnote 1170:

African. ap. Geop. xvii. 11.

Footnote 1171:

Geop. xvii. 2. 8.

Footnote 1172:

Buttm. Lexil. p. 86.

Footnote 1173:

Hesych. v. πύσσαχος.

Footnote 1174:

Eustath. ad Odyss. ε. p. 219. Their milk-cups were sometimes of ivy.

Eurip. Fragm. Androm. 27. Athen. xi. 53. Macrob. Sat. v. 21. Cf. on

the milk-pans and cheese-vats, Poll. x. 130; Theocrit. Eidyll. v. 87.

Milk-pails were sometimes called πέλλαι, ἀμολγοὶ, γαλακτοδόκα, and out

of these they sometimes drank. Schol. i. 25.

Footnote 1175:

Cf. Il. π. 642, et Schol. Venet. Etym. Mag. 659. 41. Athen. xi. 91.

Footnote 1176:

Even Philostratus, while mentioning these vessels, filled to the brim

with milk, on which the cream lies rich and shining, omits to furnish

any hint of their form:—ψυκτῆρες γάλακτος, οὐ λευκοῦ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ

στιλπνοῦ· καὶ γὰρ στίβειν ἔοικεν, ὑπὸ τῆς ἐπιπολαζούσης αὐτῷ πιμελῆς.

Icon. i. 31. p. 809.

Footnote 1177:

Athen. xiii. 49.

Footnote 1178:

Geop. xviii. 19. 4.

-----

The Greeks of classical times appear to have made no use of

butter,[1179] though so early as the age of Hippocrates they were well

enough acquainted with its existence and properties.[1180] Even in the

present day butter is much less used in Greece than in most European

countries, its place being supplied by fine olive oil. For cheese,

however, they seem to have entertained a partiality, though it is

probable that the best they could manufacture would have lost very

considerably in comparison with good Stilton or Cheshire, not to mention

Parmasan. It was a favourite food, however, among soldiers in Attica,

who during war used to supply themselves both with cheese and

meal.[1181] Their cheese-lope or rennet in most cases resembled our own,

consisting of the liquid substance found in the ruen of new-born

animals, as calves, kids, or hares, which was considered superior to

lamb’s rennet.[1182] Occasionally they employed for the same purpose

burnt salt or vinegar, fowl’s crop or pepper, the flowers of bastard

saffron, or the threads which grow on the head of the artichoke. For

these again, was sometimes substituted the juice of the fig-tree;[1183]

or a branch freshly cut[1184] was used in stirring the milk while

warming on the fire. This cheese would seem, for the most part, to have

been eaten while fresh and soft,[1185] like that of Neufchatel, though

they were acquainted with various means of preserving it for a

considerable space of time. Acidulated curds were kept soft by being

wrapped in the leaves of the terebinth tree, or plunged in oil, or

sprinkled with salt. When desirous of preserving their cheese for any

length of time, they washed it in pure water, and, after drying it in

the sun, laid it upon earthen jars with thyme and summer savory. Some

other kinds were kept in a sort of pickle, composed of sweet vinegar or

oxymel or sea-water, which was poured into the jars until it entirely

penetrated and covered the whole mass. When they wished to communicate a

peculiar whiteness to the cheese, they laid it up in brine. Dry cheese

was rendered more solid and sharp-tasted by being placed within reach of

the smoke. If from age it were hard or bitter, it was thrown into a

preparation of barley-meal, then soaked in water, and what rose to the

top was skimmed off.[1186]

-----

Footnote 1179:

See Beckman. Hist. of Inv. i. 372, seq. Butter is made at present in

Greece by filling a skin with cream and treading on it. Chandler, ii.

245.

Footnote 1180:

Foes, Œconom. Hippoc. v. πικέριον, p. 306.

Footnote 1181:

Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 394.

Footnote 1182:

Varro. De Re Rust. ii. 11. 4. Colum. vii. 8. Eustath ad Il. ε. p. 472.

Hesych. v. ὀπὸς.—Mœris: ὀπὸς Ἀττικοὶ, πυτία Ἕλληνες. p. 205. Cf.

Aristot. Hist. Anim. iv. 21.

Footnote 1183:

The cheese made in this manner was called ὀπίας. Eurip. Cyclop. 136.

Athen. xiv. 76. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 353. Dioscor. i. 183. Plin.

xxiii. 63. Plut. Sympos. vi. 10.

Footnote 1184:

Geop. xviii. 12. These cheeses were sometimes made in box-wood moulds.

Colum. vii. 8.

Footnote 1185:

Philostratus describes one of these delicate little cheeses freshly

made and quivering like a slice of blanc-manger:—καὶ τρυφαλὶς ἐφ᾽

ἑτέρου φύλλου νεοπαγὴς, καὶ σαλέυουσα. Icon. i. 31. p. 809.

Footnote 1186:

Geop. xviii. 19.

-----

That the milk-women in Greece understood all the arts of their

profession may be gathered from the instructions which have been left us

on the best methods of detecting the presence of water in milk. If you

dip a sharp rush into milk, says Berytios, and it run off easily, there

is water in it. And again, if you pour a few drops upon your thumb-nail,

the pure milk will maintain its position, while the adulterated will

immediately glide away![1187]

-----

Footnote 1187:

Geop. xviii. 20.

-----

Their mode of fattening cattle[1188] was as follows: first they fed them

on cabbage chopped small and steeped in vinegar, to which succeeded

chaff and gurgions during five days. This diet was then exchanged for

barley, of which for nearly a week they were allowed four cotylæ a-day,

the quantity being then gradually augmented for six other days. As of

necessity the hinds were stirring early, the cattle began even in winter

to be fed at cock-crowing; a second quantity of food was given them

about dawn, when they were watered, and their remaining allowance

towards evening. In summer their first meal commenced at day-break, the

second at mid-day, and the third about sunset. They were at this time of

the year suffered to drink at noon and night of water rendered somewhat

tepid; in winter it was considerably warmer.

-----

Footnote 1188:

Geop. xvii. 12. Heresbach. p. 233. a.

-----

About Mossynos, in Thrace, cattle were sometimes fed upon fish, which

was likewise given to horses, and even to sheep. Herodotus, who mentions

a similar fact, calls food of this description χόρτος, “fodder,”[1189]

though hay or dried straw was, doubtless, its original meaning. The

provender of cattle in the district about Ænia appears to have been so

wholesome, that the herds which fed upon it were never afflicted by the

mange.[1190]

-----

Footnote 1189:

Herod. v. 16. Athen. vii. 72. Ælian. de Nat. Anim. v. 25. Cf. Sch.

Aristoph. Pac. 891.

Footnote 1190:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 14. 3.

-----

Among the animals domesticated and rendered useful by the Greeks we

must, doubtless, reckon bees,[1191] which, in the heroic ages, had not

yet been confined in hives. For, whenever Homer describes them, it is

either where they are streaming forth from a rock,[1192] or settling in

bands and clusters on the spring flowers. So, likewise, in Virgil, they

Hunt the golden dew;

In summer time on tops of lilies feed,

And creep within their bells to suck the balmy seed.

-----

Footnote 1191:

Athen. iii. 59. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 107.

Footnote 1192:

Il. β. 87. μ. 67. Odyss. ν. 106.

-----

In that Bœotian old savage, Hesiod,[1193] however, we undoubtedly find

mention of the hive where he is uncourteously comparing women to drones—

As when within their well-roofed hives the bees

Maintain the mischief-working drones at ease,

Their task pursuing till the golden sun

Down to the western wave his course hath run,

Filling their shining combs, while snug within

Their fragrant cells, the drones, with idle din,

As princes revel o’er their unpaid bowls,

On others’ labours cheer their worthless souls.

-----

Footnote 1193:

Theogon. 594, seq.—Pro σίμβλοισι, quod præbet R. S., cæteri Mss.

σμήνεσσι. Schæferus tamen malebat σίμβλοισιν ἐπηρεφέεσι. Gœttling. But

Goguet, who has considered this passage, does not think that “hives”

are meant; because, if their use had been known in the times of

Hesiod, he would not have failed to leave us some directions on the

subject. Origine des Loix, t. iii. p. 399. Wolff, following in the

footsteps of Heyne, gets easily over the difficulty by pronouncing the

whole passage, v. 590–612, spurious. Gœttling, p. 55. Cf. Schol.

Aristoph. Nub. 937. Phile, de Animal. Proprietat. c. 28. p. 87, seq.

-----

As the honey of Attica constantly, in antiquity, enjoyed the reputation

of being the finest in the world,[1194] the management of bees naturally

formed in that country an important branch of rural economy. The natural

history, moreover, of the bee was studied with singlar enthusiam by the

Greeks in general. Aristomachos of Soli, devoted to it fifty-eight

years, and Philiscos, the Thasian, who passed his life among bees in a

desert, obtained on that account the name of the Wild Man. Both wrote on

the subject.[1195]

-----

Footnote 1194:

The pasturage of Hymettos, however, was, by Pausanias, regarded as

second to that of the Alazones on the river Halys, where the bees were

tame, and worked in common in the fields. i. 32. 1.

Footnote 1195:

Plin. Hist. Nat. xi. 9.

-----

This branch of rural economy was carried to very great perfection in

Attica. The vocabulary[1196] connected with it was extensive, as every

separate operation had its technical term, by the study of which,

chiefly, an insight into their practice is obtained. Thus, from certain

expressions employed by Aristotle[1197] and Pollux, it seems clear that

bee-managers, whom we may occasionally call melitturgi, constituted a

separate division among the industrious classes; and these, instructed

by constant experience, probably anticipated most of the improvements

imagined in modern times. For example, instead of destroying the

valuable and industrious little insects for the purpose of obtaining

possession of their spoils, they in some cases compelled them by smoke

to retire temporarily from the hive, whence their treasures were to be

taken; and in the mining districts about Laureion they understood the

art, concerning which, however, no particulars are known, of procuring

the virgin honey pure and unsmoked.[1198]

-----

Footnote 1196:

Poll. i. 254. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 22. p. 109.

Footnote 1197:

Hist. Anim. v. 22. ix. 40. Etym. Mag. 458. 44.

Footnote 1198:

Τοῦ δὲ μέλιτος, ἀρίστου ὄντος τῶν πάντων τοῦ Ἀττικοῦ, πολὺ βέλτιστὸν

φάσι τὸ ἐν τοῖς ἀργυρέοις, ὁ καὶ ἀκαπνίστον καλοῦσιν ἀπὸ τοῦ τρόποῦ

τῆς σκευασίας. Strab. ix. 2. t. ii. p. 246.—Wheler describes the

modern method observed by the Athenians in taking honey without

destroying the bee, but in a style so lengthy and uncouth, that I must

content myself with a reference to his travels. Book vi. p. 412, seq.

-----

The grounds of a melitturgos or bee-keeper were chosen and laid out with

peculiar care.[1199] In a sheltered spot, generally on the thymy slope

of a hill, the hives were arranged in the midst of flowers and

odoriferous shrubs. And if the necessary kinds had not by nature been

scattered there, they were planted by the gardener. Experience soon

taught them what blossoms and flowers yielded the best honey,[1200] and

were most agreeable to the bees. These, in Attica, were supposed to be

the wild pear-tree, the bean, clover, a pale-coloured vetch, the syria,

myrtle, wild poppy, wild thyme, and the almond-tree.[1201] To which may

be added the rose, balm gentle, the galingale or odoriferous rush, basil

royal, and above all the cytisus,[1202] which begins to flower about the

vernal equinox, and continues in bloom to the end of September.[1203] Of

all the plants, however, affected by the bee, none is so grateful to it

as the thyme, which so extensively abounds in Attica and Messenia[1204]

as to perfume the whole atmosphere. In Sicily too, all the slopes and

crests of its beautiful hills, from Palermo to Syracuse, are invested

with a mantle of thyme,[1205] and other odoriferous shrubs, which,

according to Varro, gives the superior flavour to the Sicilian honey.

Box-wood abounded on mount Cytoros, in Galatia, and in the island of

Corsica, on which account the honey of the latter country was

bitter.[1206]

-----

Footnote 1199:

On the management of bees in Circassia and other countries on the

Black Sea, see Pallas, Travels in Southern Russia, ii. p. 204.

Footnote 1200:

On the coast of the Black Sea bees sucked honey from the grape. Geop.

v. 2.

Footnote 1201:

Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 26, 27.

Footnote 1202:

Geop. xv. 2. 6.

Footnote 1203:

Varro, De Re Rust. iii. 16.

Footnote 1204:

Sibthorpe in Walpole’s Memoirs, t. ii. p. 62. Geop. xv. 2. 5. Speaking

of Hymettos, Chandler observes, that it produces a succession of

aromatic plants, herbs, and flowers, calculated to supply the bee with

nourishment both in winter and summer, ii. p. 143. “Les montagnes (des

îles) sont couvertes de thym et de lavande. Les abeilles, qui y volent

par nuées, en tirent un miel qui est aussi transparent que notre

gelée.” Della Rocca, Traité sur les Abeilles, t. i. 6.

Footnote 1205:

This plant in Greece flowers about midsummer, and those who kept bees

conjectured whether honey would be plentiful or not, according as it

was more or less luxuriant. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 2, 3. The wild

thyme of Greece was a creeping plant which was sometimes trained on

poles or hedges, or even in pits, the sides of which it speedily

covered. Id. vi. 7. 5.

Footnote 1206:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 15. 5. The honey of modern Crete is esteemed

of a good quality. Pashley, Travels, vol. i. p. 56.

-----

In selecting a spot for hives, the ancients observed a rule which I do

not recollect to have been mentioned by modern bee-keepers, and that was

to avoid the neighbourhood of an echo,[1207] which by repeating their

own buzzing and murmuring suggested the idea perhaps of invisible

rivals. Place them not, says Virgil,[1208]

Near hollow rocks that render back the sound,

And doubled images of voice rebound.

-----

Footnote 1207:

Echo, in the mythology, is said to have been beloved of Pan, by which

she seems tacitly to be connected with the generation of Panic Terrors

Polyæn. Stratagem. i. 2. 1. Offensive smells are often reckoned among

the aversions of bees, but I fear without good reason. At least they

have sometimes been found to select strange places wherein to deposit

their treasures of sweets. In the book of Judges, chap. xiv. ver. 8,

seq., it is related that, when Samson, on his way to Timnath, turned

aside to view the carcass of a young lion which he had a short time

previously slain, “behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the

carcass of the lion, and he took thereof in his hands and went on

eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them and they

did eat, but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the

carcass of the lion.” Upon this passage the following may serve as a

note:—“Among this pretty collection of natural curiosities, (in the

cemetery of Algesiras,) one in particular attracted our attention;

this was the contents of a small uncovered coffin in which lay a

child, the cavity of the chest exposed and tenanted by an industrious

colony of bees. The comb was rapidly progressing, and I suppose,

according to the adage of the poet, they were adding sweets to the

sweet, if not perfume to the violet.” Napier, Excursions on the Shores

of the Mediterranean, v. i. 127.

Footnote 1208:

Georg. iv. 50, with the commentaries of Servius and Philargyrius; and

Varro, De Re Rust. iii. 16.

-----

Care was taken to conduct near the hives small runnels of the purest

water, not exceeding two or three inches in depth with shells or pebbles

rising dry above the surface, whereon the bees might alight to

drink.[1209] When of necessity the apiary was situated on the margin of

lakes or larger streams other contrivances were had recourse to for the

convenience of the airy labourers.

Then o’er the running stream or standing lake

A passage for thy weary people make,

With osier floats the standing water strow,

Of massy stones make bridges if it flow,

That basking in the sun thy bees may lie

And resting there their flaggy pinions dry,

When late returning home the laden host

By raging winds is wrecked upon the coast.