-----

Footnote 1209:

Cf. Geop. xv. 2, 3, 4.

-----

Their hives were of various kinds and shapes. Some, like the modern

Circassians, they made with fine wicker-work, of a round form and

carefully plastered on the inside with clay.[1210] Other hives were

constructed of bark, especially that of the cork-tree, others of fig,

oxya, beech, and pine-wood,[1211] others, as now in Spain, of the trunk

of a hollow tree, others of earthenware, as is the practice in Russia;

and others again of plaited cane of a square shape, three feet in length

and about one in breadth, but so contrived that, should the honey

materials prove scanty, they might be contracted, lest the bees should

lose courage if surrounded by a large empty space. The wicker-hives were

occasionally plastered both inside and outside with cow-dung to fill up

the cavities and smooth the surface.[1212] A more beautiful species of

hive was sometimes made with the lapis specularis,[1213] which, being

almost as transparent as glass, enabled the curious owner to contemplate

the movements and works of the bees.[1214] When finished, they were

placed on projecting slabs, so as not to touch or be easily shaken.

There were generally three rows of hives rising above each other like

Egyptian tombs on the face of the wall, and there was a prejudice

against adding a fourth.

-----

Footnote 1210:

Vir. Georg. iv. 34, seq. Varro, iii. 16. Colum. ix. 2–7. Sch.

Aristoph. Nub. 295. Vesp. 241. Callim. Hymn. i. 50. Cf. Wheler,

Travels into Greece. Book vi. p. 411.

Footnote 1211:

Geop. xv. 2. 7. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 10. 1.

Footnote 1212:

Geop. xv. 2. 8. Varro, iii. 16. Colum. ix. 14. Pallad. vii. 8. Cato.

81.

Footnote 1213:

Plin. xxi. 47.

Footnote 1214:

At present the hives, we are told, are set on the ground in rows

enclosed within a low wall. Chandler, ii. 143.

-----

The fences of apiaries were made high and strong to protect the inmates

from the inroads of the bears,[1215] which would otherwise have

overthrown the hives and devoured all the combs.[1216] Another enemy of

the bee was the Merops,[1217] which makes its appearance about Hymettos

towards the end of summer.[1218]

-----

Footnote 1215:

Phile gives a long list of the bees’ foes, which begins as follows:

Ὄφις, δὲ καὶ σφὴξ, καὶ χελιδὼν, καὶ φρύνος,

Μύρμηξ τε, καὶ σὴς, αἰγιθαλὴς, καὶ φάλαγξ,

Καὶ σαῦρος ὦχρὸς, καὶ φαγεῖν δεινὸς μέροψ,

Σμήνει μελισσῶν δυσμενεῖς ὁδοστάται.

Iamb. De Animal. Proprietat. c. 30, p. 104, seq.

Footnote 1216:

Arist. Hist. Anim. viii. 5. Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 54.

Footnote 1217:

Besides this enemy the bees of America have another still more

audacious, that is to say, the monkey, which either carries off their

combs or crushes them for the purpose of dipping his tail in the

honey, which he afterwards sucks at his leisure. Schneider, Observ.

sur Ulloa, t. ii. p. 199.—See a very amusing chapter on the enemies of

the bee in Della Rocca, iii. 219, sqq.

Footnote 1218:

Sibthorpe in Walp. Mem. i. 75. The practice, moreover, of stealing

hives was not unknown to the ancients. Plat. De Legg. t. viii. p. 104.

-----

There were, in ancient times, two entrances, one on either hand, and on

the top a lid, which the Melitturgos could remove when he desired to

take the honey, or inspect the condition of the bees. The best of these

lids were made of bark, the worst of earthenware, which were cold in

winter, and in summer exceedingly hot.[1219] It was considered necessary

during spring and the succeeding season for the bee-keeper to inspect

the hives thrice a month, to fumigate them slightly, and remove all

filth and vermin. He was careful, likewise, to destroy the usurpers if

there were more than one queen,[1220] since, in Varro’s[1221] opinion,

they gave rise to sedition; but Aristotle thinks there ought to be

several, lest one should die, and the hive along with it. Of the queen

bees there are three kinds, the black, the ruddy, and the variegated;

though Menecrates, who is good authority, speaks only of the black and

variegated.[1222] Aristotle, however, describes the reddish queen bee as

the best. Even among the working insects there are two kinds, the

smaller, in form round, and variegated in colour, the larger, which is

the tame bee, less active and beautiful. The former, or wild bee,[1223]

frequents the mountains, forests, and other solitary places, labours

indefatigably, and collects honey in great quantities; the latter, which

feeds among gardens, and in man’s neighbourhood, fills its hive more

slowly.[1224] With respect to the drones, or males, which the working

bees generally expel at a certain time of the year, the Attic melitturgi

got rid of them in a very ingenious manner. It was observed, that these

gentlemen though no way inclined to work, would yet occasionally, on

very fine days, go abroad for exercise, rushing forth in squadrons,

mounting aloft into the air, and there wheeling, and sporting, and

manœuvring in the sun.[1225] Taking advantage of their absence, they

spread a fine net over the hive-entrance, the meshes of which, large

enough to admit the bee, would exclude the drone. On returning,

therefore, they found themselves, according to the old saying, “on the

smooth side of the door,” and were compelled to seek fresh

lodgings.[1226]

-----

Footnote 1219:

Colum. ix. 6. Della Rocca, however, considers this kind as equal to

any other, except that it is more fragile. t. ii. p. 17.

Footnote 1220:

Geop. xv. 2. 15.

Footnote 1221:

De Re Rust. iii. 16, 18. Colum. ix. 9. 6. Hist. Anim. v. 19, 22.

Xenoph. Œconom. vii. 32.

Footnote 1222:

Cf. Geop. xv. 2, 6.

Footnote 1223:

On the humble bee, see Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 831.

Footnote 1224:

Varro, De Re Rust. iii. 16.

Footnote 1225:

Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 27.

Footnote 1226:

Arist. Hist. Anim. v. 21. Cf. Xenoph. Œcon. xvii. 14, seq.

-----

In late springs, or when there is a drought or blight, the bees breed

very little, but make a great deal of honey, whereas in wet seasons they

keep more at home, and attend to breeding. Swarms in Greece[1227]

appeared about the ripening of the olive. Aristotle is of opinion, that

honey is not manufactured by the bee, but falls perfectly formed from

the atmosphere, more especially at the heliacal rising or setting of

certain stars, and when the rainbow appears. He observes, too, that no

honey is found before the rising of the Pleiades,[1228] which happens

about the thirteenth of May.[1229] This opinion is in exact conformity

with the fact, that at certain seasons of the year what is called the

honey dew descends, covering thick the leaves of the oak, and several

other trees, which at such times literally drop with honey. On these

occasions the bees find little to do beyond the labour of conveying it

to their cells, and, accordingly, have been known to fill the hive in

one or two days. It has been observed, moreover, that autumn flowers,

which yield very little fragrance, yield, also, little or no honey. In

the kingdom of Pontos there was a race of white bees which made honey

twice a month; and at Themiscyra there were those which built their

combs both in hives and in the earth, producing very little wax, but a

great deal of honey.[1230]

-----

Footnote 1227:

Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 425. In the island of Cuba, where the tame

bee was originally introduced by the English, it has been found to

swarm and multiply with incredible rapidity, each hive sometimes

sending forth two swarms per month, so that the mountains are

absolutely filled with them. This rapid increase seems to have taken

place chiefly in the neighbourhood of the sugar plantations, which

they were long since supposed to deteriorate by extracting too much

honey from the cane. Don Ulloa, Memoires Philosophiques, &c., t. i. p.

185. In North America where bees are known among the natives by the

name of the “English Flies,” they betray an invariable tendency for

migrating southward. Kalm. t. ii. 427. Schneider, Observ. sur Ulloa,

ii. 198.

Footnote 1228:

Hist. Anim. v. 22. Orion rises on the 9th of July, Gœttling ad Hesiod.

Opp. et Dies, 598. Arcturus, 18th September. Id. 610.

Footnote 1229:

A similar opinion has been sometimes maintained also by the

moderns:—“I have heard,” observes Lord Bacon, “from one that was

industrious in husbandry, that the labour of the bee is about the wax,

and that he hath known in the beginning of May, honey combs empty of

honey, and within a fortnight when the sweet dews fall filled like a

cellar.”—Sylva Sylvarum, 612.

Footnote 1230:

Arist. Hist. Anim. v. 22. In the Crimea wild bees are found in great

abundance in the clefts and caverns of the mountains.—Pallas, Travels

in Southern Russia, iii. 324. Among the numerous species of wild bees

found in America there is one which pre-eminently deserves to be

introduced into Europe and brought under the dominion of man. This bee

does not, like the ordinary kind, deposit its honey in combs but in

separate waxen cells about the size and shape of a pigeon’s egg. As

the honey of this bee is of an excellent quality, many persons in

South America have been at the pains to tame its maker, whose labours

have proved extremely profitable.—Schneider, Observ. sur Ulloa, ii.

200.

-----

When the time of year arrived for robbing the bee, some hives were found

to produce five, others ten, others fifteen quarts of honey, still

leaving sufficient for winter consumption.[1231] And in determining what

quantity would suffice great judgment was required; for if too much

remained the labourers grew indolent, if too little they lost their

spirits. However, in this latter case the bee-keepers, having

ascertained that they were in need of food, introduced a number of sweet

figs, and other similar fruit into the hive, as now we do moist sugar in

a split cane. Elsewhere the practice was to boil a number of rich figs

in water[1232] till they were reduced to a jelly, which was then formed

into cakes and set near the hive. Together with this, some bee-keepers

placed honey-water, wherein they threw locks of purple wool, on which

the bees might stand to drink.[1233] Certain melitturgi, desirous of

distinguishing their own bees[1234] when spread over the meadows,

sprinkled them with fine flour. Mention is made of a person who obtained

five thousand pounds’ weight of honey annually; and Varro[1235] speaks

of two soldiers who, with a small country house, and an acre of ground

left them by their father, realised an independent fortune.

-----

Footnote 1231:

Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 27. 24. In Attica, the honey was taken about

the summer solstice; at Rome about the festival of Vulcan, in the

month of August.—Winkelmann. Hist. de l’Art, i. 65. But commentators

are not at all agreed respecting the meaning of Pliny, whom this

writer relies upon. xi. 15. Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 797.

Footnote 1232:

Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 27. 19. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 752. Cf. Meurs.

Græc. Ludib. p. 13.

Footnote 1233:

Varro, de Re Rust. iii. 16.

Footnote 1234:

A gentleman in Surrey desirous of knowing his own bees, when he should

chance to meet them in the fields, touched their wings with vermilion

as they were issuing from the hive. Being one fine day in summer on a

visit at Hampstead, he found them thickly scattered among the wild

flowers on the heath.

Footnote 1235:

De Re Rust. iii. 16.

-----

Theophrastus, in a fragment[1236] of one of his lost works, speaks of

three different kinds of honey, one collected from flowers, another

which, according to his philosophy, descended pure from heaven, and a

third produced from canes. This last, which was sometimes denominated

Indian honey, is the sugar of modern times. There appear, likewise, to

have been other kinds of sugar manufactured from different substances,

as Tamarisk and Wheat.[1237] The honey-dew, on the production of which

the ancients[1238] held many extraordinary opinions, was supposed to be

superior to the nectar of the bee.

-----

Footnote 1236:

Preserved by Photius. Biblioth. cod. 278. p. 529. b.

Footnote 1237:

Herod. vii. 31. Cf. iv. 194.

Footnote 1238:

On the origin of the honeydew, see the Quarterly Journal of

Agriculture, No. XLIV. p. 499, sqq.

-----

Amyntas, in his Stations of Asia, cited by Athenæus, gives a curious

account of this sort of honey which was collected in various parts of

the East, particularly in Syria. In some cases they gathered the leaves

of the tree, chiefly the linden and the oak, on which the dew was most

abundantly[1239] found, and pressed them together like those masses of

Syrian figs, which were called _palathè_. Others allowed it to drop from

the leaves and harden into globules, which, when desirous of using, they

broke, and, having poured water thereon in wooden bowls called

_tabaitas_, drank the mixture. In the districts of Mount Lebanon[1240]

the honey-dew fell plentifully several times during the year, and was

collected by spreading skins under the trees, and shaking into them the

liquid honey from the leaves; they then filled therewith numerous

vessels, in which it was preserved for use. On these occasions, the

peasants used to exclaim, “Zeus has been raining honey!”

-----

Footnote 1239:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 7. 6. Cf. Hes. Opp. et Dies, 232. seq. Cf.

Lord Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum. 496.

Footnote 1240:

Schneid. Comm. ad Theoph. Frag. t. iv. p. 822.

-----

CHAPTER II.

GARDEN AND ORCHARD.

Lord Bacon, who loved to be surrounded by plants and trees and flowers,

delivers it as his opinion, that the scientific culture of gardens

affords a surer mark of the advance of civilisation than any improvement

in the science of architecture, since men, he observes, enjoyed the

luxury of magnificent palaces before that of picturesque and

well-ordered garden-grounds. This, likewise, was the conviction of the

ancient Greeks,[1241] in whose literature we everywhere discover

vestiges of a passion for that voluptuous solitude which men taste in

artificial and secluded plantations, amid flower-beds and arbours and

hanging vines and fountains and smooth shady walks. No full description,

however, of an Hellenic garden has survived; even the poets have

contented themselves with affording us glimpses of their “studious walks

and shades.” We must, therefore, endeavour, by the aid of scattered

hints, chance expressions, fragments, and a careful study of the natural

and invariable productions of the country, to work out for ourselves a

picture of what the gardens of Peisistratos, or Cimon, or Pericles, or

Epicurus, whom Pliny[1242] denominates the _magister hortorum_, or any

other Grecian gentleman, must in the best ages have been.

-----

Footnote 1241:

But see Dr. Nolan on the Grecian Rose, Trans. Roy. Soc. ii. p. 330,

and Poll. i. 229.

Footnote 1242:

Hist. Nat. xix. 4. Dr. Nolan, p. 330. Nic. Caussin. De Eloquent. xi.

p. 727, seq. Cic. De Senect. § 17. Ælian. De Nat. Anim. xiii. 18, has

a brief but interesting description of the garden of the Indian kings,

with its evergreen groves, fish-ponds, and flights of peacocks,

pheasants, and parrots, reckoned sacred by the Brahmins. Cf. Xenoph.

Œconom. iv. 13, where he celebrates the fondness of the Persian kings

for gardens.

-----

That portion of the ground[1243] which was devoted to the culture of

sweet-smelling shrubs and flowers, usually approached and projected

inwards between the back wings of the house, so that from the windows

the eye might alight upon the rich and variegated tints of the

parterres[1244] intermingled with verdure, while the evening and morning

breeze wafted clouds of fragrance into the apartments.[1245] The lawns,

shrubberies, bosquets, thickets, arcades, and avenues, were, in most

cases, laid out in a picturesque though artificial manner, the principal

object appearing to have been to combine use with magnificence, and to

enjoy all the blended hues and odours which the plants and trees

acclimated in Hellas could afford. Protection, in summer, from the sun’s

rays, is, in those southern latitudes, an almost necessary ingredient of

pleasure, and, therefore, numerous trees, as the cedar,[1246] the

cypress, the black and white poplar,[1247] the ash, the linden, the elm,

and the platane, rose here and there in the grounds, in some places

singly, elsewhere in clumps, uniting their branches above, and affording

a cool and dense shade. Beneath these umbrageous arches the air was

further refrigerated by splashing fountains,[1248] whose waters, through

numerous fair channels, straight or winding, as the use demanded of them

required,[1249] spread themselves over the whole garden, refreshing the

eye and keeping up a perpetual verdure. Copses of myrtles, of roses, of

agnus-castus,[1250] and other odoriferous shrubs intermingled,

clustering round a pomegranate-tree, were usually placed on elevated

spots,[1251] that, being thus exposed to the winds, they might the more

freely diffuse their sweetness. The spaces between trees were sometimes

planted with roses,[1252] and lilies, and violets, and golden

crocuses;[1253] and sometimes presented a breadth of smooth, close,

green sward, sprinkled with wild-flowers, as the violet and the blue

veronica,[1254] the pink, and the pale primrose, the golden motherwort,

the cowslip, the daisy, the pimpernel, and the periwinkle. In many

gardens the custom was, to plant each kind of tree in separate groups,

and each species of flower-bed also had, as now in Holland,[1255] a

distinct space assigned to it; so that there were beds of white

violets,[1256] of irises, of the golden cynosure,[1257] of hyacinths, of

ranunculuses, of the blue campanula, or Canterbury bells, of white

gilliflowers, carnations, and the branchy asphodel.

-----

Footnote 1243:

Here sometimes were grown both vegetables, as lettuces, radishes,

parsley, &c., and flowering shrubs, as the wild or rose-laurel, which

was supposed to be a deadly poison to horses and asses. Lucian. Luc.

siv. Asin. § 17.

Footnote 1244:

Luc. Piscat. § 6.

Footnote 1245:

Geop. x. 1. 1. xii. 2.

Footnote 1246:

The cedar still grows wild on the promontory of Sunium. Chandler, ii.

8.

Footnote 1247:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. pl. 4.

Footnote 1248:

Plato describes, though not in a garden, a fountain and a plane-tree,

in language so picturesque and harmonious, that it has captivated the

imagination of all succeeding writers, many of whom have sought to

express their admiration by imitating it in their own style:—Ἥ τε γὰρ

πλάτανος αὕτη μάλ’ ἀμφιλαφής τε καὶ ὑψηλή, τοῦ τε ἄγνου τὸ ὕψος καὶ τὸ

σύσκιον πάγκαλον, καὶ ὡς ἀγμὴν ἔχει τῆς ἀνθης, ὡς ἄν εὐωδέστατον

παρέχοι τὸν τόπον· ἥ τε αὖ πηγὴ χαριεστάτη ὑπο τῆς πλατάνου ῥεῖ μάλα

ψυχροῦ ὕδατος, ὥς τε γε τῷ ποδὶ τεκμήρασθαι· νυμφῶν τε τινων καὶ

Ἀχελώου ἱερὸν ἀπὸ τῶν κορῶν τε καὶ ἀγαλμάτων ἔοικεν εἶναι· εἰ δ᾽ αὖ

βούλει, τὸ εὔπνουν τοῦ τόπου ὡς ἀγαπητὸν καὶ σφόδρα ἡδὺ· θερινόν τε

καὶ λιγυρὸν ὑπηχεῖ τῷ τῶν τεττίγων χορῷ, πάντων δὲ κομψότατον τὸ τῆς

πόας ὅτι ἐν ἠρέμα προσάντει ἱκανὴ πέφυκε κατακλινέντι τὴν κεφαλὴν

παγκάλως ἔχειν. Phæd. t. i. p. 8, seq. The prevailing image in this

passage is thus expressed by Cicero: “Cur non imitamur Socratem illum,

qui est in Phædro Platonis; nam me hæc tua platanus admonuit, quæ non

minus ad opacandum hunc locum patulis est diffusa ramis, quam illa

cujus umbram secutus est Socrates quæ mihi videtur non tam ipsa

aquula, quæ describitur, quam Platonis oratione crevisse.” De Orat. i.

7. The picture is slightly varied by Aristinætos, who introduces it

into a garden:—Ἡ δὲ πηγὴ χαριεστάτη ὑπὸ τῇ πλατάνῳ ῥεῖ ὕδατος εὖ μάλα

ψυχροῦ, ὥς γε τῷ ποδὶ τεκμήρασθαι, καὶ διαφανοῦς τοσοῦτον, ὥστε

συνεπινηχομένων καὶ διὰ διαυγὲς ὑδάτιον διαπλεκομένων ἐπαφροδίτως

ἀλλήλοις, ἅπαν ἡμῶν φανερῶς ἀποκαταφαίνεσθαι μέλος. Epist. Lib.i.

Epist. 3. p. 14. On the epithet ἀμφιλαφὴς, which Ruhnken (ad Tim. Lex.

p. 24) observes was almost exclusively appropriated by the ancients to

the Plane tree, see Apollon. Rhod. ii. 733. Wellauer. et schol.

Footnote 1249:

Where running water was not to be obtained, they constructed two

gardens, the one for winter, which depended on the showers, the other

on a northern exposure, where a fresh, cool air was preserved

throughout the summer. Geop. xii. 5.

Footnote 1250:

Used by rustics in crowns. Athen. xv. 12. Prometheus was crowned with

agnus-castus. 13.

Footnote 1251:

Geop. xi. 7. Plin. xv. 18.

Footnote 1252:

Geop. x. 1. 3.

Footnote 1253:

Which delighted particularly in the edges of paths and trodden places.

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6.1.

Footnote 1254:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. pl. 5, sqq.

Footnote 1255:

Laing, Notes of a Traveller, p. 6.

Footnote 1256:

Geop. xi. 21, 23, sqq.

Footnote 1257:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. pl. 79. pl. 203. pl. 334, &c.

-----

One of the principal causes which induced the Greeks to attend to the

culture of ornamental shrubs and flowers, was the perpetual use made of

them in crowns and garlands.[1258] Nearly all their ceremonies, whether

civil or religious, were performed by individuals wearing certain

wreaths about their brow. Thus the Spartans, during the Promachian

festival,[1259] shaded their foreheads with plaited tufts of

reeds—priests and priestesses, soothsayers,[1260] prophets, and

enchanters, appeared in their several capacities before the gods in

temples or sacred groves with symbolical crowns encircling their heads,

as the priests of Hera, at Samos, with laurel,[1261] and those of

Aphrodite with myrtle,[1262] while the statues of the divinities

themselves were often crowned with circlets of these “earthly stars.” In

the festival of Europa, at Corinth, a crown of myrtle, thirty feet in

circumference, was borne in procession through the city.[1263] The

actors, dancers, and spectators of the theatre usually appeared crowned

with flowers,[1264] as did every guest at an entertainment, while lovers

suspended a profusion of garlands on the doors of their mistresses, as

did the devout on the temples and altars of the gods.[1265]

-----

Footnote 1258:

Πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ ἀφ’ ὧν ζῶσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, ταῦτα ἡ γῆ φέρει

ἐργαζομένοις· καὶ ἀφ’ ὧν τοίνυν ἡδυπαθοῦσι προσεπιφέρει.—Ἔπειτα δὲ ὅσα

κοσμοῦσι βωμοὺς και ἀγάλματα, καὶ οἷς αὐτοὶ κοσμοῦνται, καὶ ταῦτα μετὰ

ἡδίστων ὀσμῶν καὶ θεαμάτων παρέχει. κ. τ. λ. Xenoph. Œconom. v. 2,

seq.

Pliny has a curious passage on the use of crowns among the Romans,

which Holland has thus translated: “Now when these garlands of flowers

were taken up and received commonly in all places for a certain time,

there came soon after into request those chaplets which are named

Egyptian; and after them, winter coronets, to wit, when the earth

affordeth no flowers to make them, and these consisted of horn

shavings dyed into sundry colours. And so in process of time, by

little and little crept into Rome, also the name of corolla, or as one

would say, petty garlands; for that these winter chaplets at first

were so pretty and small: and not long after them, the costly coronets

and others, corollaries, namely, when they are made of thin leaves and

plates and latten, either gilded or silvered over, or else set out

with golden and silvered spangles, and so presented.” xxi. 2. Pollux

affords a list of the principal flowers used in crowns by the Greeks:

τὰ δὲ ἐν τοῖς στεφάνοις ἄνθη, ῥόδα, ἴα, κρίνα, σισύμθρια, ἀνεμῶναι,

ἕρπυλος, κρόκος, ὑάκινθος, ἑλίχρυσος, ἡμεροκαλὲς, ἑλένειον, θρυαλὶς,

ἀνθρίσκος, νάρκισσος, μελίλωτον, ἀνθεμὶς, παρθενὶς, καὶ τἄλλα ὅσα τοῖς

ὀφθαλμοῖς τέρψιν, ἠῥισὶν ἡδεῖαν ὄσφρησιν ἔχει. Cratinus enumerates

among garland flowers, those of the smilax and the cosmosandalon.

Onomast. vi. 106. Athen. xv. 32. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 1. 2–6.

4. Persons returning from a voyage were sometimes crowned with

flowers. Plut. Thes. § 22. Soldiers also going to battle. Ages. § 19.

Cf Philost. Icon. i. 24. p. 799. Plut. Sympos. iii. 1.

Footnote 1259:

Athen. xv. 15.

Footnote 1260:

Id. xv. 16.

Footnote 1261:

Id. xv. 13.

Footnote 1262:

Id. xv. 18.

Footnote 1263:

Id. xv. 22.

Footnote 1264:

Id. xv. 26.

Footnote 1265:

Athen. xv. 9.

-----

Most of the flowers cultivated, moreover, suggested poetical or

mythological associations; for the religion of Greece combined itself

with nearly every object in nature, more particularly with the

beautiful, so that the Greek, as he strolled through his garden, had

perpetually before his fancy a succession of fables connected with

nymphs and goddesses and the old hereditary traditions of his county.

Thus the laurel recalled the tale and transformation of Daphnè,[1266]

the object of Apollo’s love—the cypresses or graces of the vegetable

kingdom,[1267] were the everlasting representatives of Eteocles’

daughters, visited by death because they dared to rival the goddesses in

dancing—the myrtle[1268] was a most beautiful maiden of Attica, fairer

than all her countrywomen, swifter and more patient of toil than the

youth, who therefore slew her through envy—the pine[1269] was the tall

and graceful mistress of Pan and Boreas—the mint that of Pluto—while the

rose-campion sprung from the bath of Aphrodite, and the humble cabbage

from the tears of Lycurgus, the enemy of Dionysos.[1270]

-----

Footnote 1266:

Geop. xi. 2. Ovid. Metam. 550.

Footnote 1267:

Geop. xi. 4.

Footnote 1268:

Geop. xi. 6.

Footnote 1269:

Geop. xi. 10. Cf. Plut. Sympos. vol. iii. 1, where he assigns the

reason why the pine was sacred to Poseidon and Dionysos. The foliage

of the pine-forests was so dense in Bœotia as to permit neither snow

nor rain to penetrate through. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 9. 6. The

shade of such trees, therefore, would be more especially coveted.

Footnote 1270:

Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 537. Geop. xii. 17. 16.

-----

It has sometimes been supposed,[1271] that the flower which constitutes

the greatest ornament of gardens was wholly unknown in the early ages of

Greece. But this theory, imagined for the purpose of destroying the

claims of the Anacreontic fragments to be considered genuine,[1272] is

entirely overthrown by the testimony of several ancient writers, more

particularly Herodotus,[1273] who speaks of the rose of sixty leaves, as

found in the gardens of Midas in Thrace, at the foot of the snowy

Bermios. Elswhere, too, he compares the flower of the red Niliac

lotus[1274] to the rose; and Stesichoros,[1275] an older poet than

Anacreon, distinctly mentions chaplets composed of this flower.

Many a yellow quince was there

Piled upon the regal chair,

Many a verdant myrtle-bough,

Many a rose-crown featly wreathed,

With twisted violets that grow

Where the breath of spring has breathed.

-----

Footnote 1271:

By Dr. Nolan. See his paper on the Grecian Rose. Trans. Roy. Soc. of

Lit. ii. 327, sqq.

Footnote 1272:

Cf. Athen. xv. 11.

Footnote 1273:

Οἱ δὲ, ἀπικόμενοι ἐς ἄλλην γῆν τῆς Μακεδόνιης, οἴκησαν πέλας τῶν κήπων

τῶν λεγομένων εἶναι Μίδεω τοῦ Γορδίεω. ἐν τοῖσι φύεται αὐτόματα ῥόδα,

ἕν ἕκαστον ἔχον ἑξήκοντα φύλλα ὀδμῆ δὲ ὑπερφέροντα τῶν ἀλλων· ἐν

τούτοισι καὶ ὁ Σιληνὸς τοῖσι κήποισι ἥλω, ὡς λέγεται ὑπὸ Μακεδόνων.

ὑπὲρ δὲ τῶν κήτων οὖρος κέεται, Βέρμιον οὔνομα, ἄβατον ὑπὸ χειμῶνος.

viii. 138. On the arts and manners of this Midas, who, together with

Orpheus and Eumolpos was the founder of the Hellenic religion, see J.

G. Voss. de Idololat. i. 24, and Bouhier, Dissert. sur Herod. ch. 80.

Footnote 1274:

Cf. Theop. Hist. Plant. iv. 87.

Footnote 1275:

Athen. iii. 21. Stesichoros lived before Christ about 632. Clint.

Fast. Hellen. ii. 5. Crowns of roses are mentioned by Cratinus who was

born 519 B. C. which shows that roses must have been largely

cultivated in his time. Athen. xv. 27.

-----

Homer,[1276] too, it is evident, was familiar with the rose, to whose

fragrant petals he compares the fingers of the morning, and not, as has

been imagined, to the blood-red flower of the wild pomegranate

tree.[1277]

-----

Footnote 1276:

Il. α. 477. ι. 703. Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 610. To place the matter

beyond dispute, Homer speaks of oils rendered fragrant by the perfume

of the rose:—ῥοδόεντι δὲ χρῖεν ἐλαίῳ. Il. ψ. 186.

Footnote 1277:

Dioscor. i. 154.

-----

According, moreover, to a tradition preserved to later times, the

seasons of the year, which in remote antiquity were but three, they

symbolically represented by a rose, an ear of corn, and an apple.[1278]

This division is thought to have been borrowed from the Egyptians, in

whose country, however, the apple was never sufficiently naturalised to

be taken as an emblem of one of the seasons of the year.

-----

Footnote 1278:

“Les Egyptiens, selon le département de leur Roy Horus, n’en mettaient

que trois (saisons): le printemps, l’esté, et l’automne: leur

attribuans quatre mois à chacune, et les figurans par une rose, une

espy, et une pomme, ou raisin.” Les Images de Platte Peinture des deux

Philostrates, par Vigenère, Paris, fol. 1627, p. 555.

-----

But, at whatever period the rose began to be cultivated, it evidently,

as soon as known, shared with the violet the admiration of the Athenian

people, whose extensive plantations of this most fragrant shrub recall

to mind the rose gardens of the Fayoum, or Serinaghur. The secret,

moreover, was early discovered of hastening or retarding their maturity,

so as to obtain an abundant supply through every month in the

year.[1279] Occasionally, too, numbers of rosebuds were laid among green

barleystalks, plucked up by the roots, in unglazed amphoræ, to be

brought forth and made to blow when wanted. Others deposited them

between layers of the same material on the ground, or dipped them in the

liquid dregs of olives. Another mode of preserving the rose was

exceedingly curious,—cutting off the top of a large standing reed, and

splitting it down a little way, they inserted a number of rosebuds in

the hollow, and then bound it softly round and atop with papyrus in

order to prevent their fragrance from exhaling.[1280] How many varieties

of this flower[1281] were possessed by the ancients it is now, perhaps,

impossible to determine; but they were acquainted with the common, the

white, and the moss rose, the last, in Aristotle’s[1282] opinion, the

sweetest, together with the rose of a hundred leaves,[1283] celebrated

by the Persian poets. Even the wild rose was not wholly inodorous in

Greece.[1284] Roses were artificially blanched by being exposed while

unfolding to powerful and repeated fumigations with sulphur.[1285] The

roses which grew on a dry soil were supposed to be the sweetest, while

their fragrance was augmented by planting garlic near the root.[1286] To

cause them to bloom in January, or in early spring (for even in the most

southern parts of Greece the rose season only commences in April)[1287]

various means were resorted to; sometimes, the bushes were watered twice

a-day during the whole summer; on other occasions, a shallow trench was

dug at a distance of about eighteen inches round the bush, into which

warm water was poured morning and evening;[1288] while a third, and,

perhaps, the surest, method was to plant them in pots, or baskets,

which, during the winter months, were placed in sheltered sunny spots by

day,[1289] and carried into the house at night; afterwards, when the

season was sufficiently advanced, these portable gardens were buried in

the earth.

-----

Footnote 1279:

Geop. xi. 18. A species of perpetual rose is said to have been

recently discovered in France, where “A Parisian florist, we are told,

has succeeded in producing a new hybrid rose from the Bourbon rose and

Gloire de Rosomène, the flowers of which he had fertilised with the

pollen of some Damask and hybrid China roses. The plant is extremely

beautiful, the colour bright crimson shaded with Maroon purple, and is

further enriched with a powerful fragrance.” TIMES, March 24th, 1841.

Footnote 1280:

Geop. xi. 18. 12.

Footnote 1281:

Plinius varia genera commemorat, Milesia ardentissimo colore,

Alabandica albicantibus foliis, Spermonia vilissima, Damascenæ albæ

distillandis aquis usurpantur. Differunt foliorum multitudine,

asperitate, lævore, colore, odore.—Heresbachius, de Re Rustica, lib.

ii. p. 121. a.

Footnote 1282:

Problem. xii. 8. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6. 5.

Footnote 1283:

Athen. xv. 29. Plin. xxi. 10. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6. 4.

Footnote 1284:

As Dr. Nolan seems to suppose. On the Grecian Rose. Transact. Roy.

Soc. ii. 328. Though Theophrastus states the contrary very distinctly.

Hist. Plant. vi. 2. 1—6. 4—7. 5. The white rose appears at present to

be commonly cultivated in Attica.—Chandler, ii. 181.

Footnote 1285:

Geop. xi. 18. 13.

Footnote 1286:

Geop. xi. 18. 1.

Footnote 1287:

Pashley, Trav. i. 8, who observes, that the rose is common in February

at Malta.

Footnote 1288:

Geop. xi. 18. 5. Plin. xxi. 4. Pallad. iii. 21. 2.

Footnote 1289:

Geop. xi. 18. 4. Cf. xii. 19. 3.

-----

Another favorite denizen of Hellenic gardens was the lily, which,

probably, introduced from Suza or from Egypt, beheld the virginal snow

of its bells compelled, by art, to put on various hues, as deep red and

purple,[1290]—the former, by infusing, before planting, cinnabar into

the bulb,—the latter, by steeping it in the lees of purple wine. This

flower naturally begins to bloom[1291] just as the roses are fading;

but, to produce a succession of lilies at different seasons, some were

set near the surface, which grew up and blossomed immediately, while

others were buried at different depths, according to the times at which

they were required to flower.

Along with these, about the dank borders of streams or fountains, grew

the favourite flower of the Athenian people, purple, double, white, and

gold,[1292]

“The violet dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,

Or Cytherea’s breath;”[1293]

the pansy,[1294] “freaked with jet;” the purple cyperus, the iris, the

water-mint,[1295] and hyacinth,[1296] and the narcissus,[1297] and the

willow-herb, and the blue speedwell, and the marsh-marigold, or, brave

bassinet, and the jacinth, and early daffodil,

“That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty.”

-----

Footnote 1290:

Geop. xi. 20. Heresbach. de Re Rust. p. 122. b. Theoph. Hist. Plant.

vi. 6. 4, 8.

Footnote 1291:

Plin. xxi. 13.

Footnote 1292:

Colum. De Cultu Hortorum, x. 102.

Footnote 1293:

Winter’s Tale, iv. 5.

Footnote 1294:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 222, tab. 318. Schol. Aristoph. Eq.

1320. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6. 4. The finest violets, crocusses,

&c., in the ancient world, were supposed to be found in Cyrene. Id.

vi. 6. 5.

Footnote 1295:

Dioscor. ii. 155.

Footnote 1296:

On the birth of the Hyacinth, see Eudocia in the Anecdota Græca, i.

408.

Footnote 1297:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 6. 9. 8. 2. This flower flourishes after the

setting of Arcturus, about the autumnal equinox.—“We were ferried over

a narrow stream fringed with Agnus-Castus, into a garden belonging to

the convent. A number of vernal flowers now blossomed on its banks;

the garden anemone was crimsoned with an extraordinary glow of

colouring. The soil which was a sandy loam, was further enlivened with

the Ixia, the grass-leaved Iris, and the enamel-blue of a species of

speedwell, not noticed by the Swedish Naturalist.” Sibth. Walp. Mem.

i. 282, seq.

-----

A netting of wild thyme[1298] tufted with sweet mint, and

marjoram,[1299] which, when crushed by the foot, yielded the most

delicious fragrance, embraced the sunny hillocks, while here and there

singly, or in beds, grew a profusion of other herbs and flowers, some

prized for their medicinal virtues, others for their beauty, others for

their delicate odour, as the geranium, the spike-lavender, the

rosemary,[1300] with its purple and white flowers, the basil,[1301] the

flower-gentle, the hyssop, the white privet, the cytisus, the sweet

marjoram, the rose-campion, or columbine,[1302] the yellow amaryllis,

and the celandine. Here, too,

“Their gem-like eyes

The Phrygian melilots disclose,”[1303]

with the balm-gentle, the red, the purple, and the coronal

anemone,[1304] the convolvulus, yellow, white, pale pink, and blue,

together with our Lady’s-gloves, the flower of the Trinity,

southernwood,[1305] and summer-savory,[1306] œnanthe,[1307] gith, the

silver sage,[1308] Saint Mary’s thistle, and the amaranth, while high

above all rose the dark pyramidal masses of the rhododendron,[1309] with

its gigantic clusters of purple flowers.

-----

Footnote 1298:

This plant was brought from Mount Hymettos, to be cultivated in the

gardens of Athens. The Sicyonians, likewise, transplanted it to their

gardens from the mountains of Peloponnesos.—Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi.

7. 2.

Footnote 1299:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 7. 4.

Footnote 1300:

Dioscor. iii. 89. Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 14, tab. 192, seq.

tab. 310, tab. 518, tab. 549. Column. x. De Cult. Hort. 96, sqq.

Footnote 1301:

The basil-gentle was watered at noon, other plants morning and

evening.—Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 5. 2.

Footnote 1302:

Dioscor. iii. 114.

Footnote 1303:

Colum. x. 399, seq. Engl. Trans.

Footnote 1304:

The anemone among other flowers beautifies the fields of Attica, so

early as the month of February.—Chandler, ii. 211. “Les campagnes et

les collines sont rouges d’anémones.”—Della Rocca, Traité sur les

Abeilles, t. i. p. 5.

Footnote 1305:

Cultivated usually in pots, resembling the gardens of Adonis. Theoph.

Hist. Plant. vi. 7. 3. Thickets of this shrub constitute one of the

greatest beauties of the islands of the Archipelago. “Les lauriers

roses, que l’on conserve en France avec tant de soin, viennent à

l’aventure dans les prairies, et le long des ruisseaux qui en sont

bordés. Rien n’est plus agréable que de voir ces beaux arbres, de la

hauteur de douze à quinze pieds, variés de fleurs rouges et blanches,

se croiser par les branches d’en haut, sur un ruisseau ou sur le lit

d’une fontaine, et faire un berceau qui dure quelquefois un grand

quart de lieue.” Della Rocca, Traité Complet sur les Abeilles, t. i.

p. 6.

Footnote 1306:

Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 253.

Footnote 1307:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 8. 2.

Footnote 1308:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 27.

Footnote 1309:

Known also by the names of νηρίον and ῥοδοδάφνη.—Dioscor. iv. 82.

Geop. ii. 42. 1.

-----

How many of the lovely evergreens[1310] that abound in Greece were

usually cultivated in a single garden, we possess no means of

ascertaining, though all appear occasionally to have been called in to

diversify the picture. The myrtle,[1311] whose deep blue berries were

esteemed a delicacy,[1312] in some places rose into a tree, while

elsewhere it was planted thick, and bent and fashioned into

bowers,[1313] which, when sprinkled with its snowy blossoms, combined,

perhaps, with those of the jasmine, the eglantine, and the yellow tufts

of the broad-leaved philyrea,[1314] constituted some of the most

beautiful objects in a Greek paradise. Thickets of the tamarisk,[1315]

the strawberry-tree,[1316] the juniper, the box, the bay, the styrax,

the andrachne, and the white-flowered laurel, in whose dark leaves the

morning dew collects and glistens in the sun like so many tiny mirrors

of burnished silver, varied the surface of the lawn, connecting the

bowers, and the copses, and the flower beds, and the grassy slopes with

those loftier piles of verdure, consisting of the pine tree, the smilax,

the cedar, the carob, the maple,[1317] the ash, the elm tree, the

platane,[1318] and the evergreen oak which here and there towered in the

grounds. In many places the vine shot up among the ranges of elms or

platanes, and stretched its long twisted arm from trunk to trunk, like

so many festoons of intermingled leaves and tendrils, and massive

clusters of golden or purple grapes.[1319] Alternating, perhaps, with

the lovely favourite of Dionysos, the blue and yellow clematis[1320]

suspended their living garlands around the stems, or along the boughs of

the trees, in union or contrast with the dodder, or the honeysuckle, or

the delicate and slender briony. And, if perchance a silver fir, with

its bright yellow flowers,[1321] formed part of the group, large pendant

clusters of mistletoe, the food sometimes of the labouring ox,[1322]

might frequently be seen swinging thick among its branches. In some

grounds was probably cultivated the quercus suber,[1323] or cork tree,

with bark four or five inches thick, triennially stripped off,[1324]

after which it grows again with renewed vigour. Occasionally, where

streams and rivulets[1325] found their way through the grounds, the

black and white poplar, the willow, and the lentiscus, with a variety of

tufted reeds, crowded about the margin, here and there shading and

concealing the waters.

-----

Footnote 1310:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 9. 3.

Footnote 1311:

Cf. Clus. Hist. Rar. Plant. i. 43. p. 65.

Footnote 1312:

Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 85. The berry, both of the myrtle and the

laurel, assumed, we are told, a black colour in the garden of

Antandros.—Theophrast. Hist. Plant. ii. 2. 6.

Footnote 1313:

Hemsterhuis, Annot. ad Poll. ix. 49. p. 943. Cf. Dion. Chrysost. i.

273.

Footnote 1314:

Sibthorp. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 2, tab. 367, tab. 374, seq.

Footnote 1315:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 9. 3.

Footnote 1316:

The strawberry-tree is found flourishing in great beauty and

perfection on Mount Helicon, and its fruit is said to be exceedingly

sweet.—Chandler, ii. 290.

Footnote 1317:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. tab. 361.

Footnote 1318:

Ἔνθα πλάτανος μὲν ἀμφιλαφής τε καὶ σύσκιος, πνεῦμα δὲ μέτριον, καὶ πόα

μαλθακὴ, ὥρα θέρους ἐπανθεῖν εἰωθυῖα. Aristænet. Epist. lib. i. Epist.

3. p. 13. There was, according to Varro, an evergreen platane tree in

Crete, i. 7. The same platane is mentioned by Theophrastus, who

informs us, that it grew beside a fountain in the Gortynian territory

where Zeus first reclined on landing from the sea with Europa, i. 9.

5. Near the city of Sybaris, there is said to have grown a common oak

which enjoyed the privilege of being undeciduous. Ibid.

Footnote 1319:

Ἄμπελοι δὲ παμμήκεις σφόδρα τε ὑψηλαὶ περιελίττονται κυπαρίττους ὡς

ἀνακλᾷν ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ πολὺ τὸν αὐχενα πρὸς θέαν τῶν κύκλῳ συναιωρουμένων

βοτρών, ὧν οἱ μὲν ὀργῶσιν, οἱ δὲ περκάζουσιν οἱ δὲ ὄμφακες, οἱ δὲ

οἰνάνθαι δοκοῦσιν.—Aristænet. Epist. lib. i. Ep. 3. p. 13, seq.

Footnote 1320:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. tab. 516.

Footnote 1321:

Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 13. 1.

Footnote 1322:

Dodwell, ii. 455. Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 283. There was a species of

mistletoe called the Cretan, which found equally congenial the

climates of Achaia and Media. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 1. 3.

Footnote 1323:

That is to say at a late period, for in the time of Theophrastus it

would seem not to have been common in Greece, if it had been at all

introduced. Hist. Plant. iii. 17. 1.

Footnote 1324:

Dodwell, ii. 455.

Footnote 1325:

Even the platane, also, delights in humid places. Theoph. Hist. Plant.

i. 4. 2. The black poplar was said to bear fruit in several parts of

Crete. iii. 3. 5.

-----

Proceeding now into the orchard we find, that, instead of walls, it was,

sometimes at least, if it touched on the confines of another man’s

grounds, surrounded by hedges[1326] of black and white thorn, brambles,

and barberry bushes, as at present[1327] by impenetrable fences of the

Indian cactus.[1328] On the banks of these hedges, both inside and out,

were found, peculiar tribes of plants and wild flowers, in some places

enamelling the smooth close turf, elsewhere flourishing thickly in dank

masses of verdure, or climbing upwards and interlacing themselves with

the lofty and projecting thorns, such as the enchanter’s nightshade, the

euphorbia, the iris tuberosa, the red-flowered valerian, the

ground-ivy,[1329] the physalis somnifera, with its coral red seeds in

their inflated calyces,[1330] the globularia, the creeping heliotrope,

the penny-cress,[1331] the bright yellow scorpion-flower, and the

broad-leaved cyclamen or our Lady’s-seal, with pink flower, light green

leaf, veined with white and yellow beneath. The ancient Parthians

surrounded their gardens with hedges of a fragrant, creeping shrub

denominated philadelphos or love-brother,[1332] whose long suckers they

interwove into a kind of network forming a sufficient protection against

man and beast. In mountainous districts, where rain-floods were to be

guarded against, the enclosures frequently consisted of walls of loose

stones,[1333] as is still the case in Savoy on the edge of mountain

torrents.

-----

Footnote 1326:

Geop. v. 44. Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 24. p. 112.

Footnote 1327:

Walp. Mem. i. 60.

Footnote 1328:

The cactus, as most travellers will have remarked, flourishes

luxuriantly in Sicily even among the beds of lava where little else

will grow; it appears, however, to delight in a volcanic soil.

Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, “i. 209. In the Æolian

Islands it thrives so well that it usually grows to the height of ten,

twelve, and sometimes fifteen feet, with a stem a foot or more in

diameter. The fruits, which are nearly as large as turkeys’ eggs, are

sweet and extremely agreeable to the palate. It is well-known that the

fruits grow at the edges of the leaves, the number on each leaf is not

constant, but they are frequently numerous, as I have counted two and

twenty on a single leaf.” iv. 97.

Footnote 1329:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 29. tab. 157. tab. 185.

Footnote 1330:

Sibth. in Walp. Trav. p. 73, seq. On the seasons of these wild flowers

see Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 9. 2.

Footnote 1331:

Dioscor. ii. 186.

Footnote 1332:

Athen. xv. 29.

Footnote 1333:

Demosth. in Callicl. § 1. 3, seq.

-----

It was moreover the custom, both in Greece and Italy, to plant, on the

boundary line of estates, rows of olives or other trees,[1334] which not

only served to mark the limits of a man’s territory, but shed an air of

beauty over the whole country. A proof of this practice prevailing in

Attica, has with much ingenuity[1335] been brought forward from the

“Frogs,” where Bacchos, addressing the poet Æschylus in the shades,

observes “It will be all right provided your anger does not transport

you beyond the olives.” It may likewise be remarked that in

olive-grounds,[1336] the trees, excepting the sacred ones called

_moriæ_, were always planted in straight lines, from twenty-five to

thirty feet[1337] apart, because, in order to ripen the fruit,[1338] it

is necessary that the wind should be able freely to play upon it from

all sides. And further because they delight in a warm dry air like that

of Libya, Cilicia,[1339] and Attica, the best olive-grounds were

generally supposed to be those which occupied the rapid slopes of hills

where the soil is naturally stony and light. The oil of the plains was

commonly coarse and thick.

-----

Footnote 1334:

Cf. Varro. i. 15. Magii Miscellan. lib. iv. p. 187. b. As the

cotton-tree in modern times has been supposed not to thrive at a much

greater distance than twenty miles from the sea; so, among the

ancients, the olive was supposed not to flourish at a greater distance

than three hundred stadia. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 2. 4. Both

opinions are probably erroneous, as the olive-tree is found in

perfection in the Fayoum, and the cotton-plant in Upper Egypt.

Footnote 1335:

Vict. Var. Lect. p. 874. But the Scholiast (Aristoph. Ran. 1026) gives

a different though less probable interpretation to the passage.

Footnote 1336:

Cf. Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. i. tab. 3.

Footnote 1337:

Cato. De Re Rusticâ 6. They were sometimes also grafted, we are told,

on lentiscus stocks. Plut. Sympos. ii. 6. 1.

Footnote 1338:

In Syria and some other warm countries the olive was said to produce

fruit in clusters. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 11. 4. And when this

fruit was found chiefly on the upper branches, they augured a

productive year. id. i. 14. 2. Geop. ix. 2. 4. The ancients

entertained extraordinary ideas concerning the purity of the olive,

which they imagined bore more freely when cultivated by persons of

chaste minds. Thus the olive-grounds of Anazarbos, in Cilicia, were

thought to owe their extraordinary fertility to the reserved and

modest manners of the youths who cultivated them. Id. ix. 2. 6.

Footnote 1339:

Geop. ix. 3. 1. Virg. Georg. ii. 179. The heads of olive-stocks when

freshly planted were covered with clay, which was protected from the

wet by a shell. Xenoph. Œconom. xix. 14. The pits for the planting of

the olive and other fruit-trees were of considerable depth and dug

long beforehand. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 1.

-----

Among these olive grounds in summer, the song of the tettix[1340] is

commonly heard; for this musical insect loves the olive, which, like the

sant of the Arabian desert, yields but a thin and warm shade.[1341] The

tettix, in fact, though never found in an unwooded country, as in the

plains about Cyrene, equally avoids the dense shade of the woods.[1342]

Here likewise[1343] are found the blackbird, the roller, and three

distinct species of butcher-bird—the small grey, the ash-coloured, and

the redheaded.

-----

Footnote 1340:

Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 582, seq.

Footnote 1341:

Οὐ γίνονται δὲ τέττιγες ὅπου μὴ δένδρα ἐστιν· διὸ καὶ ἐν Κυρήνη οὐ

γίνονται ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ, περὶ δὲ τὴν πόλιν πολλοί, μόλιστα δ᾽ οὗ ἐλαῖαι·

οὐ γὰρ γίνονται παλίν σκίοι. Aristot. Hist. Anim. v. 30. Cf. Phile, de

Animal. Proprietat. c. 25. p. 81.

Footnote 1342:

In Spain, however, these insects exhibit a somewhat different taste,

being there found amid the foliage of the most leafy trees. “Every oak

in the cork-wood near Gibraltar was the abode if not of harmony, at

least of noise, and the concert kept up amidst the foliage by the

numerous grass or rather tree-hoppers was quite deafening.” Napier,

Excursions on the shores of the Mediterranean, ii. p. 2.

Footnote 1343:

Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 75.

-----

In an Attic orchard were most of the trees reared in England, together

with many which will not stand the rigour of our climate.—The

apple,[1344] cultivated with peculiar care in the environs of Delphi and

Corinth; the pear,[1345] the cherry from Cerasos on the southern shore

of the Black Sea,[1346] which sometimes grew to the height of nearly

forty feet,[1347] the damascene,[1348] and the common plum. Along with

these were likewise to be found the quince,[1349] the apricot, the

peach, the nectarine, the walnut, the chestnut, the filbert, introduced

from Pontos,[1350] the hazel nut, the medlar, and the mulberry, which,

according to Menander, is the earliest fruit of the year.[1351] With

these were intermingled the fig, white, purple, and red, the

pomegranate,[1352] from the northern shores of Africa, the orange,[1353]

still planted under artificial shelter at Lemnos, the citron, the

lemon,[1354] the date-palm,[1355] the pistachio, the almond, the

service, and the cornel-tree.

-----

Footnote 1344:

On the cultivation of the apple see Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 3. 3.

Geop. xviii. 18.

Footnote 1345:

Athen. xiv. 63. Etym. Mag. 122. 20.

Footnote 1346:

Geop. x. 41. Plin. xv. 25. Athen. ii. 35.

Footnote 1347:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 13. 1.

Footnote 1348:

Etym. Mag. 211. 4, sqq.

Footnote 1349:

Geop. x. 3. 73.

Footnote 1350:

Geop. xiii. 19. Athen. ii. 38.

Footnote 1351:

Athen. ii. 12. Vid. Cœl. Rhodigin. vii. 15. Bochart, Geog. Sac. col.

629.

Footnote 1352:

Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 3. 3. The fruit of the pomegranate-tree

lost much of its acidity in Egypt. Id. Hist. Plant. ii. 2. 7.

Footnote 1353:

In Greece the orange-tree and the lemon blossom in June, Chandler, ii.

238.

Footnote 1354:

Cf. Chandler, ii. 250.

Footnote 1355:

In Babylonia the palm-tree was by some thought to be propagated by

off-shoots. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. ii. 2. 2. In Greece, the fruit

seldom ripened completely. iii. 3. 5.

-----

As these gardens were arranged with a view no less to pleasure than to

profit, the trees were planted in lines, which, when sufficiently close,

formed a series of umbrageous avenues, opening here into the lawn and

there into the vineyard, which generally formed part of a Greek

gentleman’s grounds. And such an orchard decked in its summer pride with

foliage of emerald and fruit, ruddy, purple, and gold, the notes of the

thrush, the nightingale,[1356] the tettix, with the “amorous thrill of

the green-finch,”[1357] floating through its boughs, and the perfume of

the agnus-castus, the myrtle, the rose, and the violet, wafting richly

on all sides, was a very paradise.

-----

Footnote 1356:

Ἔτι δὲ τὸ ἔμπνουν τῆς αὔρας λιγυρὸν ὑπηχεῖ τῷ μουσικῷ τῶν τεττίγων

χορῷ δι᾽ ἥν καὶ τὸ πνίγος τῆς μεσημβρίας ἠπιῶτερον ἐγεγόνει ἡδὺ καὶ

ἀηδόνει, περὶ πετόμεναι τὰ νάματα, μελωδοῦσιν. ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἡδὺ

φώνῶν κατηκούομεν ὀρνίθων, ὥσπερ ἐμμελῶς ὁμιλούντων ανθρώποις.

Aristænet. Epist. lib. i. Ep. 3. p. 17.

Footnote 1357:

“The amorous thrill of the green-finch was now heard distinctly. The

little owl hooted frequently round the walls of the convent. In the

river below, otters were frequently taken. On the sides of the banks

were the holes of the river-crabs; and the green-backed lizard was

sporting among the grass.” Sibth. in Walp. Trav. p. 76.

-----

Not unfrequently, common foot-paths traversed these orchards and

vineyards, in which case the passers-by were customarily, if not by law,

permitted to pick and eat the fruit,[1358] which seems also from the

account of our Saviour to have been the practice in Judæa. The contrary

is the case in modern Europe. In Burgundy and Switzerland, where

pathways traverse vineyards, it is not uncommon to see the grapes

smeared with something resembling white lime which children are assured

is a deadly poison. This, while in the country, I regarded as a mere

stratagem, intended to protect the vineyards from depredation, though

there seems after all to be too much reason to believe the nefarious

practice to exist in several localities. At least two children were

recently killed at Foix by eating poisoned grapes on the way-side.

-----

Footnote 1358:

Plat. De Legg. t. viii. p. 107.

-----

The Greeks placed much of their happiness in spots like those we have

been describing, as may be inferred from such of their fabulous

traditions,[1359] as relate to the garden of the Hesperides,[1360] the

gardens of Midas, with their magnificent roses, and those of

Alcinoös,[1361] which still shed their fragrance over the pages of the

Odyssey. From the East, no doubt, they obtained, along with their

noblest fruit-trees, the art of cultivating them, and, perhaps, that

sacred tradition of the Garden of Eden, preserved in the Scriptures,

formed the basis of many a Hellenic legend.[1362] The Syrians acquired

much celebrity among the ancients for their knowledge of gardening, in

which, according to modern travellers, they still excel. Of the manner

of cultivating fruit-trees in the earlier ages very little is known. No

doubt they soon discovered that some will thrive better in certain soils

and situations than in others, and profited by the discovery; but the

art of properly training and grafting trees is comparatively

modern.[1363]

-----

Footnote 1359:

Eudoc. Ionia. 434.

Footnote 1360:

Plin. xix. 19. Athen. xi. 39.

Footnote 1361:

Bœttig. Fragm. sur les Jar. des Anciens, in Magaz. Encycloped. Ann.

vii. t. i. p. 337. Cardinal Quirini, Primordia Corcyræ, c. vii. p. 60,

sqq.

Footnote 1362:

See in Xenophon a brief description of the gardens of Cyrus. Œconom.

iv. 21. Upon this passage our countryman, Sir Thomas Browne, has

written an elaborate treatise.

Footnote 1363:

On the various methods of propagating trees see Theophrast. Hist.

Plant. ii. 1. 2.

-----

No mention of it occurs in the Pentateuch, though Moses there gives

directions how to manage an orchard. For the first three years the

blossoms were not to be suffered to ripen into fruit, and even in the

fourth all that came was sacred to the Lord. From the fifth year,

onward, they might do with it what they pleased. Of these regulations

the intention was to prevent the early exhaustion of the trees. Homer,

also, is silent on the practice of grafting, nor does any mention of it

occur in the extant works of Hesiod, though Manilius[1364] refers to his

poems in proof of the antiquity of the practice. By degrees, however, it

got into use;[1365] and, in the age of Aristotle,[1366] was already

common, as at present almost everywhere, save in Greece,[1367] since no

fruit was esteemed excellent unless the tree had been grafted. Some few

of the rules they observed in this process may be briefly noticed.[1368]

Trees with a thick rind were grafted in the ordinary way, and sometimes

by inserting the graft between the bark and the wood, which was called

infoliation.[1369] Inoculation, also, or introducing the bud of one tree

into the rind of another, was common among Greek gardeners.[1370] They

were extremely particular in their choice of stocks.[1371] Thus the fig

was grafted only on the platane[1372] and the mulberry; the mulberry on

the chestnut,[1373] the beech, the apple, the terebinth, the wild pear,

the elm, and the white poplar, (whence white mulberries;) the pear on

the pomegranate, the quince, the mulberry, (whence red pears,) the

almond, and the terebinth; apples[1374] on all sorts of wild pears and

quinces, (whence the finest apples called by the Athenians

Melimela,)[1375] on damascenes, also, and _vice versâ_, and on the

platane, (whence red apples.)[1376] Another method of communicating a

blush to this fruit was to plant rose-bushes round the root of the

tree.[1377] The walnut was grafted on the strawberry-tree only;[1378]

the pomegranate on the myrtle[1379] and the willow; the laurel on the

cherry[1380] and the ash; the white peach on the damascene and the

almond; the damascene on the wild pear, the quince, and the apple;

chestnuts on the walnut, the beech, and the oak;[1381] the cherry on the

terebinth, and the peach; the quince on the oxyacanthus; the myrtle on

the willow; and the apricot on the damascene, and the Thasian

almond-tree. The vine, also, was grafted on a cherry and a myrtle-stock,

which produced, in the first case, grapes in spring,[1382] in the

second, a mixed fruit, between the myrtle-berry and the grape.[1383]

When the gardener desired to obtain black citrons, he inserted a

citron-graft into an apple-stock, and, if red, into a mulberry-stock.

-----

Footnote 1364:

Astronomicon, ii. p. 30. l. 4. Scalig. et not. p. 67.

Footnote 1365:

Cf. Athen. xiv. 68.

Footnote 1366:

De Plantis, ii. 6.

Footnote 1367:

Hobhouse, Travels, i. 227. Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce, t. i. p.

297.

Footnote 1368:

Geop. iii. 3. 9. Clem. Alexand. Stromat. l. vi. Opera, t. ii. p. 800.

Venet. 1657.

Footnote 1369:

Geop. xii. 75. x. 75. 19.

Footnote 1370:

Geop. x. 77. Colum. v. 11. 1. Pallad. vii. 5. 2. Plin. xvii. 26. Cato.

42. Virg. Georg. ii. 73, sqq.

Footnote 1371:

Geop. x. 76.

Footnote 1372:

Introduced by Dionysios the elder into Rhegium, where it attained,

however, no great size. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 5. 6. The same

naturalist speaks of two plane trees, the one at Delphi, the other at

Caphyæ in Arcadia, said to have been planted by the hand of Agamemnon,

which were still flourishing in his own days, iv. 13. 2. This tree

attains a prodigious size in Peloponnesos. Chandler, Travels, ii. 308.

Our traveller was prevented from measuring the stem by the fear of

certain Albanian soldiers who lay asleep under it; but Theophrastus

gives us the dimensions of a large platane, at Antandros, whose trunk,

he says, could scarcely be embraced by four men, while its height

before the springing forth of the boughs was fifteen feet. Having

described the dimensions of the tree, he relates a very extraordinary

fact in natural history, namely, that this platane, having been blown

down by the winds and lightened of its branches by the axe, rose again

spontaneously during the night, put forth fresh boughs, and flourished

as before. The same thing is related of a white poplar in the museum

at Stagira, and of a large willow at Philippi. In this last city a

soothsayer counselled the inhabitants to offer sacrifice, and set a

guard about the tree, as a thing of auspicious omen. Theoph. Hist.

Plant. iv. 16. 2, seq. Cf. Plin. xvi. 57. In corroboration of the

narrative of Theophrastus, Palmerius relates, that, during the winter

of 1624–25, while Breda was besieged by Ambrosio Spinola, he himself

saw in Brabant an oak twenty-five feet high, and three feet in

circumference, overthrown by the wind, and recovering itself exactly

in the manner described by the great naturalist. The vulgar, who

regarded it as a miracle, preserved portions of its bark or branches

as amulets.—Excercitationes, p. 598.

Footnote 1373:

Plut. Sympos. ii. 6. 7.

Footnote 1374:

“It is reported,” observes Lord Bacon, “that, in the low countries,

they will graft an apple scion upon the stock of a colewort, and it

will bear a great flaggy apple, the kernel of which, if it be set,

will be a colewort and not an apple.” Sylva Sylvarum, 453.

Footnote 1375:

Geop. x. 20. 1. Varro. i. 59. Mustea (mala) a celeritate mitescendi:

quæ nunc melimela dicuntur, a sapore melleo.—Plin. xv. 15. Dioscor. i.

161.

Footnote 1376:

Plut. Sympos. ii. 6. 1.

Footnote 1377:

Geop. x. 19. 15, cum not. Niclas.

Footnote 1378:

Inseritur vero ex fœtu uncis arbutus horrida. Virg. Georg. ii. 69,

with the note of Servius.

Footnote 1379:

Plut. Sympos. ii. 6. 1.

Footnote 1380:

Plin. xvii. 14.

Footnote 1381:

Castanea inseritur in se, et in salice, sed ex salice tardius maturat,

et fit asperior in sapore. Pallad. xii. 7. 22. Cf. Virg. Georg. ii.

71. Plutarch speaks of certain gardens on the banks of the Cephissos,

in Bœotia, in which he beheld pears growing on an oak-stock: ἦσαν δὲ

καὶ δρύες ἀπίους ἀγαθὰς ἐκφέρουσαι. Sympos. ii. 6. 1.

Footnote 1382:

Geop. x. 41. 3. iv. 12. 5.

Footnote 1383:

Geop. iv. 4.

-----

Citrons were likewise occasionally grafted on the pomegranate-tree. In

the present day, the almond, the chestnut, the fig, the orange, and the

citron, with many other species of fruit-trees, are no longer thought to

require grafting.[1384]

-----

Footnote 1384:

Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce, t. i. p. 298.

-----

In illustration of the prolific virtue of the Hellenic soil it may be

mentioned, that young branchless pear-trees, transplanted from Malta to

the neighbourhood of Athens, in the autumn of 1830, were the next year

covered thick with fruit, which hung even upon the trunk like hanks of

onions.[1385]

-----

Footnote 1385:

Idem. t. i. p. 288. Speaking of the fertility of the islands, Della

Rocca remarks: “Le terroir y est si bon, et les arbres y viennent si

vîte, que j’ai vu à Naxie des pépins d’orange de Portugal pousser en

moins de huit ans de grands orangers, dont les fruits étoient les plus

délicieux du monde, et la tige de l’arbre si haute, qu’il falloit une

longue échelle pour y monter.”—Traité Complet des Abeilles, t. i. p.

6.

-----

Notwithstanding the early season of the year at which Gaia distributes

her gifts in Greece, numerous arts were resorted to for anticipating the

productions of summer,[1386] though of most of them the nature is

unknown. It is certain, however, that they possessed the means of

ripening fruits throughout the winter, either by hothouses or other

contrivances equally efficacious.[1387] During the festival celebrated

in honour of the lover of Aphrodite, the seeds of flowers were sown in

those silver pots, or baskets, called the gardens of Adonis,[1388] and

with artificial heat and constant irrigation compelled to bloom in eight

days. Among the modern Hindus corn is still forced to spring up in a few

days, by a similar process, during the festival of Gouri.[1389] To

produce rathe figs,[1390] a manure, composed of dove’s dung and pepper

and oil, was laid about the roots of the tree. Another method was that

which is still employed under the name of caprification, alluded to by

Sophocles.[1391] For this purpose care was taken to rear, close at hand,

several wild fig-trees, from which might be obtained the flies made use

of in this process,[1392] performed by cutting off bunches of wild figs

and suspending them amid the branches of the cultivated species,[1393]

when a fly issuing from the former pricked the slowly ripening fruit and

accelerated its maturity.[1394] In growing the various kinds of fig they

were careful to plant the Chelidonian, the Erinean, or wild fig, the

Leukerinean, and the Phibaleian[1395] on plains. The autumn-royals would

grow anywhere. Each sort has its peculiar excellence. The following were

the best: the colouroi, or truncated, the forminion, the diforoi, the

Megaric, and the Laconian, which would bear abundantly if

well-watered.[1396] Rhodes was famous for its excellent figs, which were

even thought worthy to be compared with those of Attica.[1397] Athenæus,

however, pretends that the best figs in the world were found at Rome.

There were figs with a ruddy bloom in the island of Paros, the same in

kind as the Lydian fig.[1398] The Leukerinean produced the white

fig.[1399]

-----

Footnote 1386:

On the artificial ripening of dates, Theoph. ii. 8. 4.

Footnote 1387:

Athen. iii. 19. Plut. Phoc. § 3. Xenoph. Vectigal. i. 3.

Footnote 1388:

Ὁ νοῦν ἔχων γεωργός, ὧν σπερμάτων κήδοιτο καὶ ἔγκαρπα βούλοιτο

γενέσθαι, πότερα σπονδῇ ἂν θέρους εἰς ᾿Αδώνιδος κήπους ἀρῶν χαίροι

θεωρῶν καλοὺς ἐν ἡμέραισιν ὀκτὼ γιγνομένους.—Plat. Phœd. t. i. p.

99. Suid. v. Ἀδώνιδ. κῆπ. t. i. p. 84. b. Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7.

3. Caus. Plant. i. 12. 2. Eustath. ad Odyss. λ. p. 459. 4.

Footnote 1389:

Tod, Annals of Rajast’han, vol. i. p. 570.

Footnote 1390:

Cf. Athen. iii. 12. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 3. 3. The fruit of the

Egyptian sycamore, or Pharaoh’s fig-tree, was eaten in antiquity as

now. Athenæus, who was a native of the Delta, says they used to rip

open the skin of the fruit with an iron claw, and leave it thus upon

the tree for three days. On the fourth it was eatable, and exhaled a

very agreeable odour. Deipnosoph. ii. 36. Theophrastus adds, that a

little oil was likewise poured on the fruit when opened by the iron.

De Caus. Plant. i. 17. 9. ii. 8. 4. In Malta figs are still sometimes

ripened by introducing a little olive oil into the eye of the fruit,

or by puncturing it with a straw or feather dipped in oil. Napier,

Excursions along the Shores of the Mediterranean, vol. ii. p. 144. Cf.

Lord Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, 446.

Footnote 1391:

Ap. Athen. iii. 10. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 8. 1.

Footnote 1392:

Aristot. de Gen. Anim. t. i.

Footnote 1393:

Suid. v. ερινεὸς. t. i. p. 1038. d.

Footnote 1394:

Cf. Tournefort, t. ii. p. 23.

Footnote 1395:

Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 767

Footnote 1396:

Athen. iii. 7. The Laconian fig-tree was not commonly planted in

Attica. Frag. Aristoph. Georg. 4. Brunck. This kind of fig requires

much watering, which was found to deteriorate the flavour of other

kinds. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 7. 1.

Footnote 1397:

Athen. iii. 8.

Footnote 1398:

Athen. iii. 9. In the fig-tree orchards of Asia Minor the spaces

between the trees are sown, as in vineyards, with corn, and the bushes

are often filled with nightingales.—Chandler, i. 244.

Footnote 1399:

Athen. iii. 10. There was, also, a species which received its name

from resembling the crow in colour. Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 611. Philost.

Icon. i. 31. p. 809, where figs are enumerated in his elegant

description of the Xenia. Cf. Pausan. i. 37. Vitruv.

-----

The fancy of Hellenic gardeners amused itself with effecting numerous

fantastic changes in the appearance and nature of fruit. Thus citrons,

lemons, &c., were made, by the application of a clay mould, to assume

the form of the human face, of birds and other animals.[1400]

Occasionally, too, they were introduced, when small, into the neck of a

bottle provided with breathing holes, the figure of which they assumed

as they projected their growth into all its dimensions. We are assured,

moreover, that, by a very simple process, they could produce peaches,

almonds,[1401] &c., covered, as though by magic, with written

characters. The mode of operation was this,—steeping the stone of the

fruit in water for several days, they then carefully divided it, and

taking out the kernel inscribed upon it with a brazen pen whatever words

or letters they thought proper. This done, they again closed the stone

over the kernel, bound it round with papyrus, and planted it; and the

peaches or almonds which afterwards grew on that tree bore every one of

them, _mirabile dictu!_ the legend inscribed upon the kernel. By similar

arts[1402] they created stoneless peaches, walnuts without husks, figs

white one side, and black the other, and converted bitter almonds into

sweet.[1403]

-----

Footnote 1400:

Geop. x. 9. Clus. Rar. Plant. Hist. i. 4.

Footnote 1401:

Geop. x. 14. 60. Pallad. ii. 15. 13.

Footnote 1402:

Geop. x. 16. 53. 76.

Footnote 1403:

Geop. x. 59. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ii. 8. 1. Caus. Plant. i. 9. 1.

Plin. xvii. 43. Pallad. ii. 15. 1l.

-----

The rules observed in the planting of fruit-trees were numerous.[1404]

Some, they were of opinion, were best propagated by seed, others by

suckers wrenched from the root of the parent stock,[1405] others, again,

by branches selected from among the new wood on the topmost boughs. A

rude practice, too, common enough in our own rural districts, appears to

have been in much favour among them,—bending some long pendant bough to

the ground, they covered a part of it with heavy clods, allowing,

however, the extremity to appear above the earth. When it had taken root

it was severed from the tree and transplanted to some proper situation.

At other times, the points of boughs were drawn down and fixed in the

ground, which even thus took root, and sent the juices backwards, after

which the bough was cut off and a new stock produced. Trees generated by

this method, as well as those planted during the waning moon,[1406] were

supposed to spread and grow branchy, while those set during the waxing

moon attained, though weaker, to a much greater height. It ought,

perhaps, to be further added, that all seeds and plants were put into

the ground while the moon was below the horizon.[1407] Those trees which

it was customary to renew by seed were the pistachio, the filbert, the

almond, the chestnut, the white peach, the damascene, the pine-tree, and

the edible pine, the palm, the cypress, the laurel, the ash, the maple,

and the fig. The apple,[1408] the cherry, the rhamnus jujuba, the common

nut, the dwarf laurel, the myrtle, and the medlar, were propagated by

suckers; while the quicker and surer mode of raising trees from boughs

was frequently adopted in the case of the almond, the pear, the

mulberry, the citron,[1409] the apple, the olive, the quince,[1410] the

black and white poplar, the ivy, the jujube-tree, the myrtle, the

chestnut, the vine, the willow, the box, and the cytisus.

-----

Footnote 1404:

Geop. x. 3. Cf. Xenoph. Œconom. xix. 3.

Footnote 1405:

Plin. xvii. 13. When a tree was barren, or had lost its strength in

blooming, they split it at the root, and put a stone into the fissure

to keep it open, after which it was said to bear well. Theoph. Hist.

Plant. ii. 7. 6. It was customary, moreover, to wound the trunks of

almond, pear, and other trees, as the service-tree in Arcadia, in

order to render them fertile. 1d. ii. 7. 7. The berries of the cornel

and service-trees were sweeter and ripened earlier wild than when

cultivated, iii. 2. 1.

Footnote 1406:

The ancients believed that the moon ripens fruit, promotes digestion,

and causes putrefaction in wood, and animal substances. Athen. vii. 3.

Cf. Plut. Sympos. iii. 10.

Footnote 1407:

Geop. x. 2. 13.

Footnote 1408:

Cf. Vigenère, Images des Philostrates, p. 48.

Footnote 1409:

“Les orangers et les citronniers perfument l’air par la quantité

prodigieuse des fleurs dont ils sont chargés, et qui s’épanouissent

aux premières chaleurs.”—Della Rocca, Traité sur les Abeilles, t. i.

p. 5.

Footnote 1410:

Originally of Crete. Pashley, i. 27. κοδύμαλον in the ancient dialect

of the country. Athen. iii. 2.

-----

But the thrifty people of Hellas seldom devoted the orchard-ground

entirely to fruit-trees. The custom seems to have been to lay out the

whole in beds and borders for the cultivation of vegetables, and to

plant trees, at intervals, along the edges and at the corners. These

beds, moreover, were often, as with us, edged with parsley and rue;

whence the proverb,—“You have not proceeded beyond the rue,” for “You

know nothing of the matter.”[1411]

-----

Footnote 1411:

Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 480. Geop. xii. 1. 2.

-----

The rustics of antiquity, who put generally great faith in spells and

talismans, possessed an extraordinary charm for ensuring unfailing

fertility to their gardens; they buried an ass’s head deep in the middle

of them, and sprinkled the ground with the juice of fenugreek and

lotus.[1412] Somewhat greater efficacy, however, may be attributed to

their laborious methods of manuring and irrigation.[1413]

-----

Footnote 1412:

Geop. xii. 6. Pallad. i. 35. 16.

Footnote 1413:

Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 43.

-----

The aspect of such a garden differed very little, except perhaps in

luxuriance, from a similar plot of ground in Kent or Middlesex. Here you

perceived beds of turnips, or cabbages, or onions; there, lettuces, or

endive, or succory,[1414] in the process of blanching, or the delicate

heads of asparagus, or broad-beans, or lentils, or peas, or

kidney-beans, or artichokes. In the most sunny spots were ranges of

boxes or baskets for forcing cucumbers.[1415] Near the brooks, where

such existed, were patches of watermelons,[1416] the finest in the

world; and here and there, clasping round the trunks of trees,[1417]

and, suspending its huge leaves and spheres from among the branches, you

might behold the gourd,[1418] as I have often seen it in the palm-groves

of Nubia. It may be added, that the pumpkin, or common gourd, was eaten

by the Greeks,[1419] as it is still in France and Asia Minor.[1420]

-----

Footnote 1414:

Geop. ii. 37. 40.

Footnote 1415:

These were covered with plates of the lapis specularis, and furnished

with wheels, that they might the more easily be moved in and out from

under cover. Colum. De Re Rust. xi. 3. p. 461: see also Castell,

Villas of the Ancients, p. 4.

Footnote 1416:

These are found growing at present even in the cemeteries. “Des melons

d’eau qui végètent çà et là sur ces tombes abandonnées, resemblent,

par leur forme et leur pâleur, à des crânes humains qu’on ne s’est pas

donné la peine d’ensèvelir.” Chateaub. Itin. i. 27. These fruit are

considered so innocent in the Levant as to be given to the sick in

fevers. Chandler, i. p. 77.

Footnote 1417:

Colum. De Cult. Hortor. 234.

Footnote 1418:

Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 494.

Footnote 1419:

Athen. iii. 1.

Footnote 1420:

Chandler, i. 317.

-----

Lettuces[1421] were blanched by being tied a-top, or being buried up to

a certain point in sand.[1422] They were, moreover, supposed to be

rendered more rich and delicate by being watered with a mixture of wine

and honey, as was the practice of the gourmand Aristoxenos, who having

done so over-night, used next morning to cut them, and say they were so

many green cakes sent him by mother Earth.[1423]

-----

Footnote 1421:

See Strattis’s Invocation to the Caterpillar. Athen. ii. 79. Theoph.

Hist. Plant. vii. 2. 4. 5. 4.

Footnote 1422:

Geop. xii. 13. 3. Pallad. ii. 14. 2.

Footnote 1423:

Athen. i. 12.

-----

The Greek gardeners appear to have delighted exceedingly in the

production of monstrous vegetables. Thus, in the case of the cucumber,

their principal object appears to have been to produce it without seed,

or of some extraordinary shape.[1424] In the first case they diligently

watched the appearance of the plant above ground, and then covering it

over with fresh earth, and repeating the same operation three times, the

cucumbers it bore were found to be seedless. The same effect was

produced by steeping the seeds in sesamum-oil for three days before they

were sown. They were made to grow to a great length by having vessels of

water[1425] placed daily within a few inches of their points, which,

exciting by attraction a sort of nisus in the fruit, drew them forward

as far as the gardener thought necessary.[1426] They were made,

likewise, to assume all sorts of forms by the use of light, fictile

moulds,[1427] as in the case of the citron. Another method was, to take

a large reed,[1428] split it, and clear out the pith; then introducing

the young cucumber into the hollow, the sections of the reed were bound

together, and the fruit projected itself through the tube until it

acquired an enormous length. It is observed by Theophrastus, that if you

steep the seeds of cucumbers in milk, or an infusion of honey, it will

improve their flavour.[1429] They were, moreover, believed to expand in

size at the full of the moon, like the sea-hedgehog.[1430] A fragrant

smell was supposed to be communicated to melons[1431] by constantly

keeping the seed in dry rose-leaves. To preserve the seed for any length

of time, it was sprinkled with the juice of house-leek.

-----

Footnote 1424:

Geop. xii. 19. 1, sqq. Pallad. iv. 9. 8.

Footnote 1425:

Plin. xix. 23. Pallad. iv. 9. 8.

At qui sub trichila manantem repit ad undam,

Labentemque sequens nimio tenuatur amore,

Candidus, effœtæ tremebundior ubere porcæ.

Colum. x. De Cult. Hortor. 394.

Footnote 1426:

Lord Bacon, having noticed this fact, adds the following sage remark:

“If you set a stake or prop at a certain distance from it (the vine),

it will grow that way, which is far stranger than the other: for that

water may work by a sympathy of attraction; but this of the stake

seemeth to be a reasonable discourse.” Sylva Sylvarum, 462.

Footnote 1427:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 3. 5. Plin. Hist. Nat. xix. 24.

Footnote 1428:

Plin. xix. 23.

Footnote 1429:

Cf. Athen. iii. 5.

Footnote 1430:

Athen. iii. 2.

Footnote 1431:

The best melons at present known in Greece are those of Cephalonia,

which lose their flavour if transplanted. Hobhouse, Trav. &c., i. 227.

Cf. Chandler, i. p. 14.

-----

The Megaréans, in whose country melons, gourds,[1432] and cucumbers were

plentiful, were accustomed to heap dust about their roots during the

prevalence of the Etesian winds, and found this answer of

irrigation.[1433] It appears from the following proverb,—“The end of

cucumbers and the beginning of pompions,”—that the former went out of

season as the latter came in.[1434]

-----

Footnote 1432:

Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 494.

Footnote 1433:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. ii. 7. 5.

Footnote 1434:

Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 966.

-----

To procure a plentiful crop of asparagus, they used to bury the shavings

of a wild ram’s horn, and well water them.[1435] By banking up the

stalks, moreover, immediately after cutting the heads, they caused new

shoots to spring forth, and thus enjoyed a fresh supply throughout the

year. This plant was probably obtained from Libya,[1436] where it was

said to attain, in its wild state, the height of twelve, and sometimes

even of thirty cubits;[1437] and on the slopes of Lebanon, in Syria, it

has in our own clay been seen from twelve to fifteen feet high.

Footnote 1435:

Geop. xii. 18. 2. Plin. xix. 42. Dioscor. ii. 152. The physician,

however, modestly professes his unbelief: ἔνιοι δὲ ἱστόρησαν, ὅτι ἐάν

τις κριοῦ κέρατα συγκόψας κατορύξῃ, φύεται ἀσπάραγος · ἐμοὶ δὲ

ἀπίθανον.

Footnote 1436:

The asparagus, however, has been found, in modern times, growing wild

among the ruins of Epidauros. Chandler, ii. 249.

Footnote 1437:

Athen. ii. 62.

-----

That kind of cabbage which we call savoys was supposed to flourish best

in saline spots, on which account the gardeners used to sift pounded

nitre[1438] over the beds where it was sown, as was the practice also in

Egypt. In and about Alexandria,[1439] however, there was said to be some

peculiar quality in the earth which communicated a bitter taste to the

cabbage. To prevent this they imported cabbage-seed from the island of

Rhodes, which produced good plants the first year, but experienced in

the second the acrid influence of the soil.[1440] Kumè was celebrated

for its fine cabbages, which, when full-grown, were of a yellowish green

colour, like the new leather sole of a sandal. Broccoli and sea-kale and

cauliflowers would appear to have been commonly cultivated in the

gardens of the ancients. There was, likewise, among them a sort of

cabbage supposed to have some connexion with the gift of prophecy;[1441]

and by this, probably, it was, that certain comic personages used to

swear, as Socrates by the dog, and Zeno by the caper-bush.

-----

Footnote 1438:

Geop. ii. 41.

Footnote 1439:

Athen. ix. 9. Suid. v. κράμβη. t. i. p. 1518. b. Cf. Foës. Œconom.

Hippoc. v. κραμβίων. p. 214. Dioscorid. ii. 146.

Footnote 1440:

Cf. Steph. Byzant. de Urb. p. 488. b.

Footnote 1441:

Cf. Casaub. Animadv. in Athen. ix. 9. t. x. p. 24.

-----

Radishes[1442] were rendered sweet by steeping the seeds in wine and

honey, or the fresh juice of grapes: Nicander speaks of preserved

turnips.[1443] Parsley-seed was put into the earth in an old rag, or a

wisp of straw,[1444] surrounded with manure, and well-watered, which

made the plant grow large. Rue they sowed in warm and sunny spots,

without manure.[1445] It was defended from the cold of winter by being

surrounded with heaps of ashes,[1446] and was sometimes planted in pots,

probably to be kept in apartments for the sake of its bright yellow

flowers,[1447] and because, when smelt, it was said to cure the

head-ache. The juice of wild rue, mixed with woman’s milk, sharpened the

sight, in the opinion of the ancients.[1448] The juice of sweet mint,

which was a garden herb, squeezed into milk,[1449] was supposed to

prevent coagulation, even should rennet be afterwards thrown into it.

-----

Footnote 1442:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 1. 3.

Footnote 1443:

Athen. iv. 11.

Footnote 1444:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 4. 2. 6. 4. Aristoph. Concion. 355, et

schol.

Footnote 1445:

Geop. xii. 1.

Footnote 1446:

Geop. xii. 25. 1.

Footnote 1447:

Cf. Sibth. Flor. Græc. tab. 368.

Footnote 1448:

Dioscor. iii. 53. Geop. xii. 25. 4.

Footnote 1449:

Geop. xii. 24.

-----

Both the root and bean of the nymphæa nelumbo or red lotus,[1450] were

eaten in Egypt,[1451] where its crimson flowers were woven into crowns

which diffused an agreeable odour, and were considered exceedingly

refreshing in the heat of summer.[1452] This plant was by the Greeks of

Naucratis denominated the melilotus, to distinguish it from the lotus

with white flowers. Theophrastus[1453] observes, that it grows in the

marshes to the height of four cubits, and has a striped root and stem.

This lotus was also anciently found in Syria and Cilicia, but did not

there ripen. In the environs of Toronè in Chalcidice,[1454] however, it

was found in perfection in a small marsh.

-----

Footnote 1450:

The rose-coloured lotus was said by the poet Pancrates to have been

produced from the blood of the lion slain by the Emperor Adrian.

Athen. xv. 21.

Footnote 1451:

Athen. iii. 1.

Footnote 1452:

Nicander in Georgicis ap. Athen. iii. 1.

Σπείρειας κύαμον Αἰγύπτιον, ὄφρα θερείης

Ἅνθεα μὲν στεφάνους ἀνύῃς· τὰ δὲ πεπτηῶτα

Ἀκμαίου καρποῖο κιβώρια δαινυμένοισιν

Ἐς χέρας ἠΐθεοισι, πάλαι ποθέουσιν, ὀρέξης

Ῥίζας δ᾽ ἐν θοίνῃσιν ἀφεψήσας προτίθημι.

See the note of Schweighæuser, t. vii. 10.

Footnote 1453:

Histor. Plant. iv. 10.

Footnote 1454:

It was also found in Thesprotia. Athen. iii. 3.

-----

The lupin,[1455] and the caper-bush, probably cultivated for the beauty

of its delicate white flowers,[1456] deteriorated in gardens,[1457] as

did likewise the mallows,[1458] which, together with the beet, were said

to acquire in gardens the height of a small tree.[1459] The stem of the

mallows was sometimes used as a walking stick. Its large pale red flower

which

Follows with its bending head the sun,[1460]

constituted one of the ornaments of the garden.

-----

Footnote 1455:

Geop. ii. 39. Apuleius relates that the lupin-flower turned round with

the sun, even in cloudy weather, so that it served as a sort of rural

clock. Cf. Plin. xviii. 67.

Footnote 1456:

The caper-bush blossoms in June. Chandler, ii. 275.

Footnote 1457:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 3. 6. Cf. Sibth. Flor. Græc. tab. 488.

Footnote 1458:

Athen. ii. 52.

Footnote 1459:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 9. 2. Cf. vii. 3, 3. Hesiod reckons the mallow

and the asphodel among edible plants. Opp. et Dies, 41. Gœttling,

therefore, (in loc.) wonders Pythagoras should have prohibited the

mallow. Cf. Aristoph. Plut. 543. Suid. v. θύμος. t. 1. p. 1336. e.

Horat. Od. i. 32. 16.

Footnote 1460:

Colum. de Cult. Hortor. 253. Cardan in his treatise De Subtilitate

having undertaken to assign the cause why certain flowers bend towards

the sun, his antagonist, J. C. Scaliger, remarks upon his philosophy

as follows:—“De floribus, qui ad Solem convertuntur non pessime ais:

tenue humidum ad Solis calorem, se habere, ut corii ad ignem. Cæterum

adhuc integra restat quæstio. Rosis enim tenuissimum esse humidum

testantur omnia. Non convertuntur tamen. Platonici flores quosdam

etiam Lunæ dicunt esse familiares: qui sane huic Sideri, sicut illi

suo canant hymnos, sed mortalibus ignotos auribus.” Exercit. 170, § 2.

“The cause (of the bowing of the heliotrope) is somewhat obscure; but

I take it to be no other, but that the part against which the sun

heateth, waxeth more faint and flaccid in the stalk, and thereby less

able to support the flower.” Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum § 493.

-----

Besides these the ancients usually cultivated in their grounds two

species of cistus, one with pale red flowers now called the long rose,

the other which about midsummer has on its leaves a sort of fatty dew,

of which laudanum is made;[1461] together with the blue eringo,[1462]

rocket, cresses, (which were planted in ridges,) bastard parsley,

penny-royal, anis,[1463] water-mint, sea-onions, monk’s rhubarb,

purslain, a leaf of which placed under the tongue quenched thirst,

garden coriander, hellebore, yellow, red, and white, bush origany,[1464]

with its pink cones, flame-coloured fox-glove, brank-ursine, or bear’s

foot, admired for its vast pyramid of white flowers, chervil, skirwort,

the mournful elecampane, giant fennel, dill, mustard and wake-robin,

which was sown,

Soon as the punic tree, whose numerous grains,

When thoroughly ripe, a bright red covering hides,

Itself did with its bloody blossoms clothe.[1465]

-----

Footnote 1461:

Sibth. Flor. Græc. t. 1. tab. 258, seq.

Footnote 1462:

Colum. x. de Cult. Hortor. 230, sqq. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 235.

Footnote 1463:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 72. 2.

Footnote 1464:

Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 826, 837.

Footnote 1465:

Colum. x. De Cult. Hortor. 374. English Translation. Theoph. Hist.

Plant. vii. 12. 1.

-----

Other garden herbs were the cumin, the seed of which was sown with abuse

and curses,[1466] the sperage-berry, the dittander, or pepperwort,

turnips,[1467] and parsnips, (found wild in Dalmatia,)[1468] with

onions, garlic, and leeks.[1469] For these last Megara was famous, as

Attica was for honey, which suggested to the Athenians an occasion of

compliment to themselves,[1470] it having been a saying among them, that

they were as superior to the Megareans as honey is to garlic and leeks.

-----

Footnote 1466:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 3. 3. Cf. Dioscor. iii. 68, seq.

Footnote 1467:

Athen. iv. 11.

Footnote 1468:

Athen. ix. 8.

Footnote 1469:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 4. 7, 10, 11. Aristoph. Plut. 283, et schol.

Eq. 675. 494. Vesp. 680. Acharn. 166, 500. Plut. 283.

Footnote 1470:

Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 246. 252.

-----

The cultivation of that species of leek called gethyllis was carried to

great perfection at Delphi,[1471] where it was an established custom,

evidently with a view to the improvement of gardening, that the person

who, on the day of the Theoxenia,[1472] presented the largest vegetable

of this kind to Leto should receive a portion from the holy table.[1473]

Polemo, who relates this circumstance says, that he had seen on these

occasions leeks nearly as large as turnips. The cause of this ceremony

was said to be, that Leto when great with Apollo longed for a leek.

-----

Footnote 1471:

Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 675.

Footnote 1472:

This passage has escaped the diligence of Meursius, Græc. Feriat. p.

150.

Footnote 1473:

Athen. ix. 13.

-----

Mushrooms[1474] were sedulously cultivated by the ancients, among whose

methods of producing them were the following. They felled a

poplar-tree[1475] and laying its trunk in the earth to rot, watered it

assiduously, after which mushrooms, at the proper time sprung up.

Another method was to irrigate the trunk of the fig-tree after having

covered it all round with dung, though the best kind in the opinion of

others were such as grew at the foot of elm and pine-trees.[1476] Those

springing from the upper roots were reckoned of no value.

-----

Footnote 1474:

Dioscor. ii. 200, seq. Plin. xix. 11.

Footnote 1475:

Athen. ii. 57. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 189, 191. Eccles. 1092. Geop.

xii. 36.

Footnote 1476:

A similar observation is made in France respecting the truffles, the

best of which are supposed to grow about the roots and under the

shadow of the oak. Trollope’s Summer in Western France, ii. 352.

-----

On other occasions[1477] they chose a light sandy soil accustomed to

produce reeds, then burning brushwood, &c., when the air was in a state

indicating rain, this ambiguous species of vegetable started forth from

the earth with the first shower. The same effect was produced by

watering the ground thus prepared, though this species was supposed to

be inferior. In France, the most delicate sort of mushrooms are said to

proceed from the decayed root of the Eryngium.

-----

Footnote 1477:

Geop. xii. 41. 2.

-----

This vegetable appears to have been a favourite dish among the ancients,

together with the truffle,[1478] eaten both cooked and raw;[1479] and

the morrille.[1480] That particular kind, called geranion, is the modern

crane’s bill. The Misu, another sort of truffle,[1481] grew chiefly in

the sandy plains about Cyrene, and, as well as the Iton,[1482] found in

the lofty downs of Thrace, was said to exhale an agreeable odour

resembling that of animal food. These fanciful luxuries, which were

produced among the rains and thunders[1483] of autumn, continued to

flourish in the earth during a whole year, but were thought to be in

season in spring. Truffle-seed was usually imported from Megara, Lycia,

and Getulia; but in Mytelene the inhabitants were spared this expense,

their sandy shores being annually sown from the neighbouring coast by

the winds and showers. It has been remarked, that neither truffles nor

wild onions were found near the Hellespont.[1484]

-----

Footnote 1478:

Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 189.

Footnote 1479:

This was more particularly the case on the Tauric Chersonese.—Theoph.

Hist. Plant. vii. 13. 8.

Footnote 1480:

Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 10. 7.

Footnote 1481:

Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 13.

Footnote 1482:

Athen. ii. 62.

Footnote 1483:

Plut. Sympos. iv. 2. 1. who relates that the ὕδνα attained to a very

large size in Elis.

Footnote 1484:

Vid. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 13.

-----

What methods the ancients employed for discovering the truffle, which

grows without stem or leaf in a small cell beneath the surface of the

earth, I have nowhere seen explained. At present[1485] their existence

is said to be detected in Greece, not by the truffle hound, but by the

divining rod. On the dry sandy downs of the Limousin, Gascogne,

Angoumois, and Perigord, as well as in several parts of Italy,[1486]

they are collected by the swineherds; for the hogs being extremely fond

of them utter grunts of joy, and begin to turn up the earth as soon as

they scent their odour, upon which the herdsmen beat the animals away,

and carefully preserve the delicacy for the tables of the rich. At other

times they are discovered in the following manner: the herdsmen stooping

down, and looking horizontally along the surface of the Landes, observe

here and there, on spots bare of grass and full of fissures, clouds of

very diminutive flies hatched in the truffle, and still regaling

themselves with its perfume. In some parts of Savoy they have been found

two pounds in weight.

-----

Footnote 1485:

Walp. Mem. i. 284.

Footnote 1486:

Valmont de Bomare, Dict. D’Hist. Nat. t. ii. p. 21, seq.

-----

CHAPTER III.

VINEYARD, VINTAGE, ETC.

One of the principal branches of husbandry[1487] in Greece was the

culture of the vine, probably introduced from Phœnicia.[1488] Long

before the historical age, however, it had spread itself through the

whole country, together with several parts of Asia Minor, as may be

inferred from the language of Homer,[1489] who frequently enumerates

vineyards among the possessions of his heroes. Like most things the

origin of which was unknown, the vine furnished the poets and common

people with the subjects of numerous fables, some of which were reckoned

of sufficient importance to be treasured up and transmitted to

posterity. Thus, among the Ozolian Locrians, it was said[1490] to have

sprung from a small piece of wood, brought forth in lieu of whelps by a

bitch. Others supposed a spot near Olympia[1491] to have given birth to

the vine, in proof of which the inhabitants affirmed a miracle was

wrought annually among them during the Dionysiac festival. They took

three empty brazen vessels, and having closely covered and sealed them

in the presence of witnesses, again opened them after some interval of

time, not stated, when they were found full of wine. According to other

authorities, the environs of Plinthinè, in Egypt, had the honour of

being the cradle of Dionysos, on which account the ancient Egyptians

were by some accused of inebriety, though in the age of Herodotus[1492]

there would appear to have been no vineyards in the whole valley of the

Nile. In reality,[1493] the vine appears to be a native of all temperate

climates, both in the old world and the new, and will even

flourish[1494] and produce fine grapes in various situations within the

tropics, where clusters in different stages of ripeness may be observed

upon its branches at all seasons of the year.

-----

Footnote 1487:

The importance of this branch of cultivation in some countries may be

perceived from the fact, that in France it is said to afford

employment to 2,200,000 families, comprising a population of

6,000,000, or nearly one-fifth of the population of the entire

kingdom. TIMES, Aug. 3, 1838. The quantity of land devoted to the

culture of the vine was estimated in 1823, at 4,270,000 acres, the

produce of which amounted to 920,721,088 gallons, 22,516,220_l._

15_s._ sterling. Redding, Hist. of Modern Wines, chap. iv. p. 56. In

the Greek Budget of 1836, the tax on cattle produced 2,100,000

drachmas, on bees 35,000, olive-grounds 64,776, and on vineyards and

currant-grounds 58,269.—Parish, Diplomatic History of the Monarchy of

Greece, p. 175.

Footnote 1488:

Or according to Athenæus, from the shores of the Red Sea. Deipnosoph.

xv. 17.

Footnote 1489:

Iliad. β. 561. γ. 184. ι. 152, 294. Cf. Pind. Isth. viii. 108.

Footnote 1490:

Paus. x. 38. 1.