INDUSTRY: MILLERS, BAKERS, VINTNERS, MARKETS, ETC.
We have examined the condition of the poor at Athens, and shall now
consider how far the laws of the state interfered to better their
circumstances by promoting industry, and rendering it honourable. Among
the Spartans, idleness, the vice of soldiers,[389] was regarded as a
proof of rank; whence the remark of that disciple of Lycurgus, who,
being present at Athens during a trial for this offence, fatal to a
democracy, observed, that they punished the man for being a
gentleman.[390] Solon, however, entertained little respect for this mark
of gentility. According to his laws, of which the whole design was to
create and preserve that feeling of manliness bestowed by the
consciousness of independence, the individual, who, possessing no
property, refused to labour, was a bad citizen, against whom any one
might bring an action of idleness.[391] Draco, the most Utopian and
savage of legislators, punished vagabondage with death, or, according to
some, with infamy only. But Solon, who would not require too much of
human nature, reserved this latter penalty for those who should be
thrice convicted.[392]
-----
Footnote 389:
Lord Bacon, whose opinions were chiefly based on the study of
antiquity, observes, after Plato and Aristotle, that military nations
will always be somewhat inclined to idleness, and should rather be
indulged in it than otherwise. Essays, p. 79. But both the Athenians
and Romans were a hardworking people, and better soldiers have never
been known. The best soldiers in the English army are drawn from the
central provinces, where industry most abounds, and the laborious
Normans are the best troops in France. Cf. Plut. Ages. § 26.
Footnote 390:
Plut. Lycurg. § 24.
Footnote 391:
Diog. Laert. i. ii. § 53. Plut. Sol. §§ 22. 31. Herod. ii. 177.
Pollux. viii. 40. Ælian. Var. Hist. iv. 1.
Footnote 392:
Poll. viii. 40. Plut. Sol. § 17.
-----
It has been conjectured, that Peisistratos was author of the law against
idleness; by which he sought to compel as many of the citizens as had no
visible means of support, to take refuge in the country. Be this,
however, as it may, it was not alone by severity, that the laws of
Athens sought to recommend the pursuits of industry.[393] Superior
excellence in any useful art entitled a man to very high honours, to
maintenance at the public expense, in the Prytaneion, in company with
the chief magistrates and generals of the commonwealth, and one of the
first seats at all spectacles and popular assemblies. But to preserve
this post, it was not enough to have once done well. The ambitious
citizen could maintain it only by persevering in the career of invention
and improvement, for if another man in the same line were judged to
excel him, he relinquished to the new comer both his dinners and his
seat.[394]
-----
Footnote 393:
In Plutarch’s life of Pericles there occurs a very remarkable passage,
describing the constant employment and plenty which were diffused
through the city by the policy of that great statesman. As for the
mechanics and meaner sort of people, they went not without their share
of the public money, nor yet received it to maintain them in idleness.
By the constructing of great edifices, which require many arts, and a
long time to finish them, they had equal pretensions to be recompensed
out of the treasury, (though they stirred not from the city,) with the
mariners, soldiers, and garrisons. For the different materials, such
as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, and cypress, furnished employment
to carpenters, masons, braziers, goldsmiths, painters, turners, and
other artificers; the conveyance of them by sea employed merchants and
sailors, and, by land, wheelwrights, waggoners, carriers, rope-makers,
leather-cutters, paviers, and iron-founders; and every art had a
number of the lower people ranged in proper subordination to execute
it, like soldiers under the command of a general. Thus, by the
exercise of these different trades, was plenty diffused among persons
of every rank and condition. § 12. Engl. Trans.
Footnote 394:
Aristoph. Ran. 761, ibique Schol. Cf. Meurs. Them. Att. p. 106.
-----
From this, and other circumstances, it would appear, that there were
annual exhibitions of works of art and industry, in principle like our
cattle-shows, when a careful scrutiny of every improvement and invention
took place, and the premium above described was awarded to the most
ingenious. It is very certain that an assembly of the trades, more
particularly of the bright-smiths, took place, on the thirtieth of
Pyanepsion, in honour of Hephæstos, or Athena, when the festival of
Pandemon, or Chalkeia, was celebrated; and the conjecture of Petit[395]
is not improbable, that δεῖξις, or exhibition, then took place. It was,
perhaps, on the same occasion, that the Athenian potters exhibited their
most beautiful works and models.[396] At Sybaris, the author of any
invention in the art of cookery enjoyed by patent, during the whole
year, a monopoly of the article; and in the same city, the dyers and
importers of purple, as well as those who caught and sold eels, were
exempted from all taxes and imposts.[397]
-----
Footnote 395:
Cf. Legg. Att. vi. 6. 426, with Meurs. Gr. Feriat. p. 274, sqq.
Footnote 396:
Cf. Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art, i. 28. Meurs. Gr. Fer. v. Δαίδαλα. p. 74,
sqq.
Footnote 397:
Athen. xii. 22.
-----
A further incitement to industry, and the apprenticing out of children,
was the law which freed any one who had not been instructed in some
trade, from the necessity of supporting his parents,[398] to which
otherwise all persons were strictly bound. Another law of Solon, which,
at the same time shows the erroneousness of the common opinion
respecting the condition of women at Athens, proves that to bring
industry into good repute was a work of some difficulty. By this it was
enacted, that any individual who reproached a citizen, whether male or
female, with carrying on any business in the Agora, should be liable to
a penalty.[399]
-----
Footnote 398:
Plut. Sol. § 22.
Footnote 399:
Demosth. cont. Eubul. § 10.
-----
There were, however, certain callings which the laws considered
disreputable, or, at least, unsuitable to a man. Thus, an Athenian
citizen could not legally be a perfumer, that effeminate vocation being
left to the women.[400] Fishmongers, too, with butchers, cooks,
sausage-sellers, fishermen, were held in low estimation both at Rome and
Athens. Of all these Attic _pariahs_, however, the poor wretch who
hawked fish,[401] and was contemptuously said to wipe his nose in his
sleeve, or with his elbow, engrossed the largest share of public scorn.
To these we may add bird-catchers, and fruit-sellers, and those low
black-legs who subsisted on gambling.[402]
-----
Footnote 400:
Athen. xiii. 94. xv. 34.
Footnote 401:
In the Peloponnesos we find it was the custom for itinerant
icthyopolists to carry fish in baskets probably, suspended from both
ends of a rough pole (τραχεῖα ἄσιλλα) thrown across the shoulders.
This fact is alluded to in an Olympic inscription preserved in part by
Aristotle. Rhet. i. 7.
Footnote 402:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Charact. p. 185. On sedentary trades, see Poll. i.
51, and Muret, ad Arist. Eth. p. 63.
-----
As an encouragement to the citizens to addict themselves to industrious
pursuits, foreigners, and all persons not free of the city, were legally
incapacitated from carrying on business in the agora;[403] but this came
in later times to be disregarded, since we find Egyptians, Phœnicians,
and other aliens, possessing shops, and growing rich there. It was
conceived, moreover, that, if men confined themselves to one calling,
they would arrive therein at greater excellence; and the law,
accordingly, forbade them to be of two trades.[404] Plato, whose ideal
republic was modelled in so many particulars on that of Athens, adopted
this law; and for the reason I have stated; comprehending thoroughly
what advantages arise from the division of labour. He would not, he
says, have the cordwainer meddle with husbandry, weaving, or
architecture, that he might carry shoemaking to as great perfection as
possible; and, in other branches of industry, men were in like manner to
cultivate that only for which nature had fitted them, and wherein they
might thus excel.[405] The same philosopher, while on the subject of
industry, makes a remark worthy of consideration: It is not, he says,
for the interest of the community, that men engaged in any branch of the
arts should be so rich as to be independent of their business or
profession, which, in such case, they will be apt to neglect; or so poor
as to be harassed in mind, or cramped in the means of carrying on their
occupations satisfactorily. In these things, as in every other, a
comfortable competence is to be preferred to the extremes both of wealth
and poverty.[406]
-----
Footnote 403:
Demosth. in Eubulid. § 10. The Lydians were said to be the first
retail traders. Herod. i. 94. Cf. Huet, Hist. of Commerce, p. 52.
Footnote 404:
Demosth. in Timocrat. § 32. Ulpian ad loc. Arist. Polit. ii. 11. p.
55. Bekk. Petit, Legg. Att. p. 425. Potter, i. 199.
Footnote 405:
Repub. ii. § 11. Stallb. Cf. iii. § 7. In the Laws he states these
reasons more strongly, t. viii. p. 110.
Footnote 406:
Repub. iv. 2. Stallb.
-----
Another means of carrying the various arts towards perfection, which in
India and Egypt prevailed from time immemorial, is supposed to have been
a practice, whether founded on law or custom, resembling the system of
castes.[407] Theories, not destitute of ingenuity, have been constructed
on this view of Athenian society.[408] Thus, the Dædali are supposed to
have formed the sculptor caste; the Eupyridæ a caste of husbandmen; the
Boutadæ of herdsmen; the Ceryces of heralds; the Hephœstiadæ of
blacksmiths; the Poimenidæ of shepherds, and so on. Vestiges of this
curious state of things are supposed to be discernible in the history of
Attica, even so late as the age of Pericles, when we find Socrates a
member of the Dædalian clan, by profession a sculptor. There were
certainly in religious matters hereditary offices, which none could with
propriety fill but the members of a certain family or clan. Thus, from
among the Eteobutadæ was chosen the priestess of Athena Polias, who
resided in the temple on the Acropolis; and the priest of Poseidon was
drawn by lot from the same house.[409] To the Praxiergidæ were entrusted
certain duties about the statue of Athena during the Plynterian
festival.[410] The descendants of Buzyges performed those sacred
ceremonies which thrice a year attended the ploughing of the soil;[411]
to mention for the present no more.
-----
Footnote 407:
Cf. Plut. Sol. § 23.
Footnote 408:
The younger Ilgen, for example, has written a clever work, in which he
endeavours to prove the existence of a system of castes in Athenian
society. He sets out with giving an account of the four ancient
tribes, and explains the appellations bestowed on them, viz. Γελέοντες
or Τελέοντες, Ἀργαδεῖς, Αἰγικορεῖς and Ὅπλητες, to denote the pursuits
in which the members of those tribes were engaged. This done, he draws
his conclusion: “Quod si verum est,” says he, “efficitur, Tribus hasce
nihil aliud fuisse, quàm ordines variis negotiis distinctos et
separatos, quales apud Ægyptos et Indos cognovimus, et quos Lusitano
vocabulo Castas appellare solemus. Tale vero institutum num apud
Atticos exstiterit, multum à viris doctis est dubitatum. At licet
sint, quæ in contrariam sententiam aliquem ducere possint, tamen
argumenta, quæ revera Tribus castis orientalibus similes fuisse
suadent, tam sunt et multa et gravia, ut non debeat dubitari.”
Disquisit. de Trib. Att. p. 8, seq.
Footnote 409:
Harpocrat. in v. Apollod. iii. 15. 1. Bossier, de Gent. et Famil. Att.
Sacerd. p. 5, seq.
Footnote 410:
Plut. Alcib. § 34.
Footnote 411:
Plut. Præcept. Conjug. § 42.
-----
But we are not on this account to infer the existence in Attica of
anything like the Hindù system of castes, which has itself never been
rigidly observed.[412] What happens everywhere took place at Athens:
fathers generally found it more convenient to bring up their sons to
their own calling,[413] while the latter, observing constantly certain
mechanical operations take place under their eye, were led first to
admire and then to imitate. Thus the Potter’s boy, as Plato[414]
remarks, long ministers to his father before he takes the clay into his
own hands and begins to model a vase or tureen.
-----
Footnote 412:
See the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 111, seq.
Footnote 413:
When, however, they were put out to other masters an agreement,
corresponding to our indentures, was drawn up, in which it was stated
what they were to be taught. Xenoph. De Vectig. ii. 2. A further
resemblance to our own manners is discoverable in the practice of
giving premiums with apprentices, even in the case of the medical
profession. Plat. Menon. t. iii. p. 369.
Footnote 414:
De Repub. v. c. 14. Stallb.
-----
At Sparta, the heralds, cooks, and flute-players, constituted so many
small castes, in which the profession passed down regularly from father
to son. Of the absurdity of this practice Herodotus was fully sensible,
for he observes, that a man was chosen to be a herald not for the
loudness of his voice, but because he was a herald’s son.[415] Upon the
whole, however, the practice was no more general among the Greeks than
it is in England. When it became fashionable to ape gentility, rustic
hinds, like Strepsiades in the “Clouds,” found their sons ashamed of the
humble callings by which their childhood had been supported; a passion
for aristocratic distinction infested the bosom of the vulgar; all
desired to appear what they were not; and, despite the wise institutions
of Solon, handicraftsmen and artificers sunk into hopeless
contempt.[416] For this reason most trades by degrees were exercised by
foreigners, who frequently acquired wealth and independence.
-----
Footnote 415:
Herod. vi. 60.
Footnote 416:
Muret, in Arist. Ethic. i. p. 63. Plutarch, generally judicious and
wise in his remarks, exhibits unequivocal tokens of his Bœotian soul
by endeavouring in one part of his writings to class even poetry and
sculpture among things disreputable to those who practised them: Ἡ δ᾽
αὐτουργία τῶν ταπεινῶν, τῆς εἰς τὰ καλὰ ῥαθυμὶας μάρτυρα τὸν ἐν τοῖς
ἀχρήστοις πόνον παρέχεται καθ᾽ αὑτῆς· καὶ οὐδεὶς εὐφυὴς νέος, ἢ τὸν ἐν
Πίσῃ θεασάμενος Δία, γενέσθαι φειδίας ἐπεθύμησεν, ἢ τὴν Ἣραν τὴν ἐν
Ἄργει, Πολύκλειτος, οὐδ᾽ Ἀνακρέων, ἢ Φιλήμων, ἢ Ἀρχίλοχος, ἡσθεὶς
αὐτῶν τοῖς ποιήμασιν. Οὐ γὰρ ἀναγκαῖον, εἰ τέρπει τὸ ἔργον ὡς χάριεν,
ἄξιον σπουδῆς εἶναι τὸν εἰργασμένον. Vit. Pericl. § 2.
-----
Notwithstanding this result, however, at which they arrived but slowly,
both manufactures and every other branch of industry were in Greece, and
at Athens more particularly, carried to a very high pitch of perfection.
Even in the very lowest trades the love of gain, or the necessity of
somehow earning a subsistence, led men to persevere. For example, in the
occupation of a common fisherman, from which little beyond penury could
be hoped for, and which impressed upon the countenance that sordid
aspect so successfully represented by Hellenic art,[417] there were
always numbers ready to engage. And yet consider in Theocritus[418]
their wretched life, sleeping in their weather-beaten hut on the bleak
shore, amid heaps of nets, piscatory baskets, lines, &c., and there
dreaming, as indigence often does, of discovered treasures and ingots of
gold. The patient endurance of the hungry fishers, seated far above the
water on steep rocks, watching the entrance of the huge prey into their
nets, appears to have been proverbial.[419]
-----
Footnote 417:
See the statue of the fisherman, British Museum, Gallery of
Antiquities, Room vi. No. 45, and an account of their operation in
Pollux. i. 96, sqq. Lucian, with a few strokes, paints the misery of
this wretched tribe casting their nets, toiling vigorously and then
bringing up a large stone or an earthen pot full of sand, like the
poor fisherman in the Arabian Nights. Hermot. § 65. The same author
speaks of an old half-blind beggar of ninety, who partly earned his
livelihood by the rod and line. Dial. Mort. xxvii. § 9. Persons of
this caste were sometimes by poverty reduced to commit sacrilege. Jup.
Trag. § 25.
Footnote 418:
Eidyll. xxi. 6, sqq.
Footnote 419:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 313, conf. ad 361. 862. The transporting of
persons to and from Salamis afforded employment to a hardy and skilful
race of ferrymen whose operations were judged of sufficient importance
to be the subject of a Solonian law: Εάν τὶς τῶν πορθμέων τῶν εἰς
Σαλαμῖνα πορθμευόντων ἄκων ἐν τῳ πόρῳ πλοῖον ἀνατρέψῃ, τούτῳ μὴ
ἐξείναι πάλιν πορθμεῖ γενέσθαι. Petit, Leg. Att. v. 6. p. 427. Æschin.
cont. Ctesiph. § 49. Montaigne speaking of the contradictory customs
of different nations, observes àpropos of fares: “Les Romains payoient
ce qui estoit deu aux bateliers, pour leur naulage (passage money) dès
l’entrée du bateau, ce que nous faisons après estre rendu à port:
Dum æs exigitur, dum mula ligatur,
Tota abit hora.”
(Horat. I. 5. 13, seq.) Essais. t. iii. p. 173. On this passage Coste
has the following note: “En Hollande on paye dans le bateau, environ à
mi-chemin du lieu où l’on va.” This last regulation, as most persons
know, has been adopted by our coast steamers.
-----
In the superior trades and manufactures there was among several cities
an emulation, the result of which was to produce constant improvement.
Athens, for example, which excelled in pottery, had rivals in Aulis,
Rhodes, Megara, Corinth, Cnidos, and several other cities; Sicily and
Bœotia were famous for their chariots; Argos for the manufacture of
arms; Thessaly for its easy chairs; Chios and Miletos for their beds;
Etruria for its gold-plate and works in bronze.[420]
-----
Footnote 420:
Athen. i. 49, seq.
-----
It is to be regretted that into the practice of the several trades and
useful arts we can see but a very little way. In order, however, to
render our idea of Hellenic civilisation as complete as possible, I
shall here bring together as many particulars as I have been able to
discover on this subject, commencing with those trades which were of
primary necessity.[421] Of these, that of the miller may doubtless be
regarded as of the first importance. In very early ages men understood
not the art of reducing corn into meal; but either roasted the unripe
ears upon the fire, or parched the separated grains in small
fryingpans.[422] In process of time, however, the pestle and mortar were
invented, by means of which,[423] though at a great expense of labour,
flour of the finest possible quality could be obtained. To these
succeeded the handmill, an invention of very remote ages,[424] which,
notwithstanding, continued in use down to the days of Cicero. This
machine, both in Greece and Italy, was at first commonly worked by
women,[425] more especially by female slaves. But afterward the rudest
and worst conducted of the male domestics were condemned to this severe
toil, which at length grew to be regarded in the light of a
punishment,[426] as working at the treadmill with us. Among the wealthy,
each master of a family possessed his own mill; but as civilisation
advanced, the grinding of corn constituted a separate occupation, and
the trade of the miller was established. Public mills[427] were common
at Athens in the time of Socrates, and it does not appear to have been
unusual for strong and sturdy men of free condition to labour for hire
in these establishments.
-----
Footnote 421:
Cf. Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 79. The president Goguet commiserates the
ancients on their extreme ignorance of the useful arts. Orig. des
Lois, t. v. p. 174.
Footnote 422:
Goguet, Orig. des Lois, i. 208, seq. 221. iii. 380. Beckman, History
of Inventions, i. 227, seq. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 580. Equit. 803.
Footnote 423:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 924.
Footnote 424:
There were those among the ancients who attributed the invention of
mills to the Pelasgian Myles, son of Lelex, probably that they might
have a hero from whose name they could conveniently derive the word
μυλῶν.—Ἀπ’ αὐτου (τοῦ ἱερου Ποσειδῶνος) προελθόντι ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ Ταΰγετον
ὀνομάζουσιν Ἀλεσίας χωρίον, Μύλητα τὸν Λέλεγος πρῶτον ἀνθρώπων μύλην
τε εὑρεῖν λέγοντες καὶ ἐν ταῖς Ἀλεσίαις ταύταις ἀλέσαι. Paus. iii. 20.
2. According to Hesychius, (v. Μυλὰς) this hero Myles or Mylas was one
of the Telchines: Μυλὰς, εἷς τῶν Τελχίνων, ὃς τὰ ἐν Καμείρῳ ἱερα
Μυλαντείων ἱδρύσατο. The tradition attributing to this personage the
invention of mills is thus related by Stephanus: Μυλαντία, ἄκρα ἐν
Καμίρῳ τῆς Ῥόδου. Μυλάντιοι, θεοί ἐπιμύλιοι. ἀπὸ Μύλαντος ἀμφότερα,
τοῦ καὶ πρώτου εὑρόντος ἐν τῷ βίῳ τὴν τοῦ μύλου χρῆσιν. De Urb. et
Popul. p. 570, seq. where we see the able and learned notes of
Berkelius.
Footnote 425:
Who very commonly sang at their employment. Schol. Aristoph. Nub.
1339. Plut. Conviv. Sept. Sap. § 45.
Footnote 426:
Poll. i. 80, informs us, that σιτοποιϊκὸς οἶκος was used by a kind of
euphemism for μυλῶν.
Footnote 427:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 253. Watermills were known in antiquity.
Vitruv. x. 10. Dempster on Rosin. i. 14. p. 87. Pignor. de Serv. 248.
These mills were, doubtless, called into requisition in time of war,
when the soldiers took along with them large quantities of cheese and
meal. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 304. The ancients appear to have been
partial to small bread, since we find that four or even eight loaves
were sometimes made from a chœnix of flour. Schol. Vesp. 440.
-----
Thus we find that the philosophers Menedemos and Asclepiades, when young
and poor, earned their subsistence, and were enabled to pursue the study
of philosophy, by working at night in a mill.[428] As few persons knew
this circumstance, and they were observed all day among the learned in
the schools, some one brought against them an accusation of idleness,
for which they were cited before the senate of Areopagos. In order to
prove that they gained their livelihood in an honest way, the miller for
whom they worked was brought forward. His testimony confirmed their
statement; and he added, moreover, that he paid to each of them two
drachmas per night. The Areopagites were so pleased with this proof of
their industry and passion for philosophy, that, on pronouncing their
acquittal, they at the same time made them a present of two hundred
drachmas.[429] But these mills were not always put in motion by the hand
of man. Yoked to beams projecting from the upper millstone, oxen and
asses, moving about in a circle, blindfold, as at present, when
similarly employed, sometimes turned the mill instead of slaves.[430]
Upon the construction of these machines little exact information was
possessed before the laying open of the ruins of Pompeii, where, in a
baker’s shop, four mills, still almost perfect, have been discovered.
They consist of a round stone basement with a rim, from the centre of
which springs a blunt cone: this is the nether millstone. The upper one
consists of an imperfect cylinder, hollowed out within, like an
hour-glass, one part of which fits like a cap upon the cone below, while
the other expands its bell-mouth above. Into this the corn was poured,
and, descending through four small apertures upon the nether stone, was,
by the turning round of the upper one thereon, reduced to meal, which
passed gradually down, fining as it went, and fell out upon the stone
basement below. The corn having been ground, the next operation was, to
sever the flour from the bran, though sometimes bread was made from it
in the rough,[431] and regarded, moreover, as extremely wholesome.
First, and most simple of these contrivances, was the sieve,[432] made
with slender rushes, which separated the coarse bran and produced a meal
sufficiently cleansed for household bread. A much superior sieve was
manufactured with linen threads, by which the flour was bolted to a
great degree of fineness. When it was required of still superior purity
and whiteness, the bolter would seem to have been bottomed with threads
of woollen, which, being woven close, allowed nothing but particles of
the utmost tenuity to pass.[433] All the above operations were supposed
to be placed under the superintendence of a particular deity named
Eunostos,[434] of whom no mention, I believe, is made in modern systems
of mythology.
-----
Footnote 428:
Cleanthes, the disciple of Zeno, earned his subsistence by drawing
water during the night. Suidas, in v. t. i. p. 1467. b.
Footnote 429:
Athen. iv. 65.
Footnote 430:
Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 41. Tim. § 23.
Footnote 431:
Cf. Dioscorid. ii. 107. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 952; and Athen. iii. 83.
Footnote 432:
Plin. xviii. 28. Goguet, i. 211. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 164.
Footnote 433:
Τὸ ἐργαλεῖον ἐν ᾧ τὰ ἄλευρα διεσήθετο, τὸ μὲν ἐκ σχοίνων πλέγμα,
κόσκινον· εἰ δὲ τῷ κοσκίνου κύκλῳ ἀντὶ τοῦ σχοίνου λινοῦν τι σινδόνιον
εἴη ἐξηρτημένον, ὡς ἀκριβέστερον τὸ ἄλευρον καθαίροιτο, ἀλευρότησις
ἐκαλεῖτο· ἡ δὲ ἐξ ἐρίου, κρησέρα. Poll. Onomast. vi. 74.
Footnote 434:
Suid. v. Νοστος. t. i. p. 241. Athen. xiv. 10. Hesych. v. Εὔνοστος.
Eustath. ad Il. β. 162. 21. Ad Odys. γ. 754. 50. Etym. Mag. 394. 3.
Poll. vii. 180.
-----
The ancients employed in the making of bread a great many kinds of grain
besides wheat[435] and barley;[436] as rye, millet, which was little
nourishing, panic, which was still less so,[437] sesame, olyra, spelt,
rice, tiphe, and a sort of grain from Ethiopia, called orindion. Several
other substances were likewise used for the same purpose, not for the
sake of adulteration, but either to improve the taste, or from reasons
of economy; such as the root of the lotos,[438] and, perhaps, of the
day-lily[439] dried, and reduced, like wheat itself, to flour; and the
root of the corn-flag,[440] which was previously boiled, and, for the
sake of communicating a sweet taste to the bread, would appear to have
been mixed with the dough as the meal of the potato is in modern times.
This plant grew most plentifully in grounds frequented by the mole,
which loved to feed upon it. Another ingredient often mixed with bread
was, the pulpy seed of the Star of Bethlehem,[441] of which the root
likewise was eaten, both raw and cooked.
-----
Footnote 435:
A fine light bread was made of the three months summer wheat. Dioscor.
ii. 107. Others speak of this wheat as requiring four months to come
to maturity: Οἱ σιτάνιοι ἄρτοι, ἐκ τῶν σιτανίων πυρῶν, οἵ εἰσιν οἱ
τετράμηνοι Poll. vi. 73.
Footnote 436:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 816.
Footnote 437:
Dioscorid. ii. 119, seq. 113, sqq. Poll. i. 248. Schol. Aristoph.
Acharn. 1057. Herod. ii. 36.
Footnote 438:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 88.
Footnote 439:
Ἀσοὁδέλος. Id. Hist. Plant. vii. 13. 3. Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 41.
Plin. xxi. 68. In certain countries of the Levant, even dates were
converted into a kind of bread. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 10.
Footnote 440:
Φάσγανον. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 12. 3. In their fondness for roots
the modern Greeks appear to equal their ancestors: “Ce qui a donné
lieu au proverbe, qui dit que les Grecs s’engraissent où les ânes
meurent de faim: cela est vrai à la lettre, les ânes ne mangent que
les feuilles des plantes, et les Grecs emportent jusques à la racine.”
Tournefort, t. i. p. 106.
Footnote 441:
Ὀρνιθόγαλον. Dioscor. ii. 174.
-----
The seed of the pepper-wort,[442] also, was sprinkled over cakes. Among
the Thracians, about the river Strymon, they made bread from the flour
of the water-caltron,[443] a prickly root of a triangular form, which
abounds in the lagoons about Venice, where it is sold commonly in the
market-places, and roasted for the table in hot embers.[444] The root of
the dragon-wort,[445] eaten both raw and cooked in Greece, was, in the
Balearic isles, served up fried with honey at banquets instead of cakes.
They gathered it in harvest time, and, having roasted, cut it in slices,
which were then strung on a cord and dried in the shade for keeping. The
seeds of the garden poppy were used in bread-making, perhaps like
carraway-seeds with us, as were those of the wild poppy for medicinal
purposes in honeycakes, and certain kinds of sweetmeats.[446] They had
in Syria a kind of bread made of mulberries, which caused the hair of
those who habitually fed on it to fall off.[447]
-----
Footnote 442:
Μελανθίον. Id. iii. 93.
Footnote 443:
Τριβόλος. Id. iv. 15.
Footnote 444:
Mathée, Notes sur Dioscoride, p. 348.
Footnote 445:
Δρακόντιον. Dioscorid. ii. 196.
Footnote 446:
Id. iv. 65.
Footnote 447:
Athen. iii. 83.
-----
Although in the establishments of the wealthy bread was usually made by
the women of the family, whether servile or free, the art of the baker
seems early to have been practised as a separate business,[448]
frequently at Athens by foreigners. The Lydian bakers, for example,[449]
like those of France and Germany among us, enjoyed considerable
celebrity, as did likewise the Cappadocians and Phœnicians, the art of
the last having been able, it is said, to vary the qualities of the loaf
every day in the year.[450]
-----
Footnote 448:
Lucian. Demon. §§ 23. 63.
Footnote 449:
Athen. iii. 77. At present Greek bakers are in most request throughout
the Levant. Wolf, Mission. Research. p. 12. Antiphanes, too, in his
Omphalè celebrates the Athenian bakers. Athen. iii. 78. And Plato in
the Gorgias, t. iii. p. 154, commemorates Thearion, who excelled in
this art. On ancient bread-bags, Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. 297.
Footnote 450:
Athen. iii. 77.
-----
Of the form and structure of a baker’s establishment we may acquire some
conception from the ruins of Pompeii, where the mills, the ovens, the
kneading-troughs,[451] small and great, would appear to have been
sometimes of stone, though generally, perhaps, of wood. When the dough
had been properly kneaded and leavened,[452] it was removed to a table
with a rim, and fashioned into a variety of forms by the hand or with
moulds. The larger loaves were placed in rows in a capacious oven, in
which wood had been burnt and raked out carefully. Sometimes, also, a
fire would appear to have been kept up in an open space round the oven,
having at the top a smoke vent. One kind of loaf was baked in a small
fictile or iron oven, called cribanos,[453] which was either placed on
the fire, or surrounded by hot coals. There was another which they
toasted before the fire on a spit;[454] and a great variety of cakes
were baked on the live coals, or in the ashes.[455]
-----
Footnote 451:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 660, 666.
Footnote 452:
Cakes of leavened bread were called ζυμίται, those of unleavened bread
ἄζυμοι. Poll. vi. 32.
Footnote 453:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 86.
Footnote 454:
Poll. vi. 75. Tzetz. Chiliad. vii. 770.
Footnote 455:
Athen. iii. 76. Some of these were reckoned so delicate as to create
appetite, and to have the power of removing drunkenness, 74. At Athens
one of the most thriving departments of the baker’s business must have
been supplying the fleets and merchantmen with biscuits, ἄρτοι
ναυτικοὶ ξηροὶ, a sample of which we find a sailor presenting to his
mistress. Luc. Dial. Meret. xiv. § 2. Cf. Poll. vii. 23. Athen. iii.
74.
-----
These it would require a separate treatise to enumerate and describe,
since fashion appears to have been constantly varying the materials, the
forms, and the appellations, of loaves. Upon the whole, however, the
bread sold in the market-place of Athens was esteemed the whitest and
most delicious in Greece; for the Rhodians, speaking partially of the
produce of their own ovens, supposed they were bestowing on it the
highest compliment when they said it was not inferior to that of
Athens.[456] The dimensions of loaves depended, of course, on the object
of the baker, and varied from those of the smallest roll, prepared for
people of delicate appetites, to those of the enormous obeliæ, sometimes
containing upwards of three bushels of flour, borne in procession at the
festival of Dionysos.[457]
-----
Footnote 456:
Athen. iii. 74.
Footnote 457:
Poll. vi. 75. Tzetz. Chiliad. vii. 770.
-----
The business of the confectioner was in scarcely less request, or less
profitable, than that of the baker himself. In most cases, perhaps, the
finer kinds of pastry were made by women,[458] whose taste and skill
enabled them to gratify the lovers of delicacies with an infinite
variety of sweetmeats. The vocabulary connected with this division of
the art culinary is singularly rich, but, in many cases, conveys to our
minds very little precise information. It may be inferred, however, with
something like certainty, that the stock of an Athenian confectioner
contained most of those delicious trifles now to be found in the
establishments of their successors in London or Paris. It will,
consequently, be impossible to enumerate them, or to specify the several
ingredients which entered into their composition. It has already, I
believe, been observed, in speaking of wine, that the ancients were
exceedingly partial to sweets, which, in the making of their
confectionary, led them to the constant employment of honey. Most of
their favourite cakes contained some portion of this ingredient,[459]
sometimes, indeed, found in company with other articles apparently
little calculated to combine with it. Wine, too, and cheese, and milk,
and seeds, and the juices of vegetables, entered into the composition of
various sweetmeats, which were occasionally made to keep long, as when
intended for exportation; occasionally to be consumed at the moment, as
they issued hot from the oven or the fryingpan. To this latter class
belonged those delicate pancakes, the paste of which was poured liquid
into the fryingpan, then flooded atop with fresh honey, and sprinkled
with sesame and grated cheese.[460] The taste for the _catillus ornatus_
the Greeks appear to have borrowed from the Romans. This was a rich
cake, composed of fine flour, kneaded with lard and the juice of
lettuces, pounded in a mortar with wine, seasoned with pepper, and fried
in boiling oil.[461] Among their pastry was a sort of pie made of
vine-birds[462] and beccaficoes,[463] the undercrust of which, kneaded
with honey, was sometimes moistened at table in chicken-broth.[464]
-----
Footnote 458:
Poll. iii. 41.
Footnote 459:
Athen. xiv. 51, sqq.
Footnote 460:
Athen. xiv. 55.
Footnote 461:
Id. xiv. 57.
Footnote 462:
Ἀμπελίδες ἅς νῦν ἀμπελιῶνας καλοῦσιν. Poll. vi. 52.
Footnote 463:
Συκαλίδες. Aristot. Hist. Anim. viii. 3. ix. 49.
Footnote 464:
Poll. vi. 77.
-----
These cakes and sweetmeats were sometimes fashioned into very
extraordinary forms; one sort, for example, representing the female
breast,[465] another a perfect sphere,[466] a third the head and horns
of an ox,[467] while others were wrought into mystical figures, and
appropriated to certain festivals of the Pagan calendar. The cake called
Chærinè, made with the flour of parched wheat and honey, was bestowed as
a prize on those who, during the Pannuchia, remained awake all
night.[468]
-----
Footnote 465:
Athen. xiv. 55.
Footnote 466:
Athen. xiv. 56.
Footnote 467:
Poll. vi. 76.
Footnote 468:
Athen. xiv. 56.
-----
The trade of the butcher[469] was carried on at Athens by citizens,[470]
whose shops in the Agora would seem to have been extremely well
furnished, containing every variety of meat, from the chine of a prize
ox,[471] to the hind quarter of an ass.[472] Sheep’s and kids’ heads
were commonly sought to be rendered more attractive by having a branch
of myrtle stuck between the teeth, whence one of the hetairæ was
compared to a goat’s head, because she often walked the street with a
sprig of myrtle in her mouth.[473] The information which antiquity has
left us respecting butchers’ shops and implements is extremely
imperfect. We are told simply, that they had chopping-blocks and
cleavers, large axes with which animals were felled in the
slaughter-houses, flaying knives, hooks whereon to suspend and display
their stock, with scales for weighing meat.[474] A very curious anecdote
is related of a Milesian butcher: there was a man named Killicon, who
betrayed his native city Miletos, to the Prienians. Among his
countrymen, who on this occasion became fugitives, was a butcher. This
man fled to Samos, where he carried on his old business.[475] Some time
after Killicon himself came to that island, and going into the market to
buy provisions, by chance addressed himself to the Milesian butcher,
whose name was Theagenes. The man remembered the traitor, and when he
would have bought of him a piece of meat, desired Killicon to lay hold
of the part he wanted, while he severed it from the carcase; then taking
up an axe he smote off his hand, saying, “With that hand, at least, you
shall never again betray your country.”[476]
-----
Footnote 469:
Κρεωπώλης. Butchers were also called μαγείροι κρεωδαίτας and
κρεουργοὶ. Poll. vii. 25.
Footnote 470:
Athen. xiii. 43.
Footnote 471:
Jason of Pheræ once excited among the Thessalian cities a contention
as to which of them should supply the finest ox: Ἐκήρυξε δὲ καὶ
νικητήριον χρυσοῦν στέφανον ἔσεσθαι, εἴ τις τῶν πόλεων βοῦν ἡγεμόνα
κάλλιστον τῷ θεῷ θρέψειε. Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4. 29.
Footnote 472:
Poll. ix. 48.
Footnote 473:
Athen. xiii. 23. Plut. Dem. § 12 Id. Dion. § 1.
Footnote 474:
Poll. vii. 25. Suid. v. κρεάγρα, t. i. p. 1521, seq.
Footnote 475:
Among the Romans in the good old days of the republic, gentlemen
killed their own meat. “Suis enim fundum colit nostrum, quin sues
habeat, et qui non audieret patres nostros dicere, ignavum, et
sumptuosum esse, qui succidiam in carnario suspenderit potius ab
laniario, quam ex domestico fundo?” Varro, De Re Rust. ii. 4. From the
same author, (ii. 9,) we learn that ancient, like modern butchers,
were fond of being attended by large fierce dogs, which he advises
shepherds when in search of a co-guardian for their flocks most
especially to eschew.
Footnote 476:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 359.
-----
The vintners and tavern-keepers, who were tolerably numerous in
Greece,[477] appear to have acquired much the same reputation as they
enjoy in modern times. It was regarded as a matter of some difficulty to
discover a jar of pure wine beneath their roofs; and, indeed, the honest
vine-growers of the country are accused of having understood the art of
making Bacchos acquainted with the nymphs on his way to the city. In
other words they sold from their waggons in the Agora[478] a certain
quantity of the Ilissos, mingled with the juice of the grape. The
tavern-keepers, however, stood in very little need of their assistance,
since they were not merely adepts in watering and doctoring their wines,
but were skilful at giving short measure;[479] and yet understood
various contrivances for alluring people to their houses. Thus one of
them, for example, used to present a club that dined at his tavern with
a kid,[480] reckoning upon paying himself by the profits of the
wine.[481] However, when an opulent and delicate company honoured them
with their presence, they could, doubtless, supply wines of the finest
flavour; and to render them still more delicious, they were accustomed
in summer to plunge the flagons into snow,[482] or, occasionally, to
mingle it with the wine, as is still the fashion at Naples and in
Sicily. Taverns, therefore, were furnished with ice-cellars, where snow
could be kept during the hottest weather. Alexander[483] found means of
carrying along with him a quantity of this article of luxury into India,
where he probably treated Taxilos and Poros with iced wines. This
achievement was imitated many ages after by the Khalif Mahadi, who on
his pilgrimage to Mecca traversed the desert accompanied by a numerous
train of camels laden with ice and snow, the first, according to
Oriental historians, ever beheld in the Holy Cities. In the island of
Cimolos, people made use, as coolers, of deep pits, in which jars of
soft and tepid water,[484] and, doubtless, wine also, were
refrigerated.[485]
-----
Footnote 477:
At the doors of these establishments then were probably, as at
Pompeii, holes bored through the stones of the foot pavement, raised
considerably above the road, to receive the halters of horses or
mules. Hamilton, Discov. at Pomp. p. 12.
Footnote 478:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 244, seq. Athen. x. 38.
Footnote 479:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Thesm. 744.
Footnote 480:
Others defrauded their customers by mixing mutton with kid. Schol.
Arist. Eq. 1396.
Footnote 481:
Athen. xiii. 43.
Footnote 482:
Athen. iii. 97. Prodic. ap. Xen. Mem. ii. 1. 30.
Footnote 483:
Athen. iii. 97.
Footnote 484:
Σῆμος δὲ ὁ Δήλιος ἐν δευτέρῳ Νησιάδος, ἐν Κιμώλω τῇ νήσω φησὶ ψυχεῖα
κατεσκευάσθαι θέρους ὀρυκτὰ, ἔνθα χλιεροῦ ὕδατος πλήρη κεράμια
καταθέντες, ὕστερον κομίζονται χιόνος οὐδὲν διάφορα. Athen. iii. 96.
These coolers are rendered necessary by the entire lack of springs in
the island, whose inhabitants wholly depend for water on what they can
preserve in pits and cisterns. Tournefort, t. i. p. 170.
-----
The wine was laid up in jars, skins, and flasks, which, like the
oil-flasks of Florence and Lucca, were cased with fine basket-work.[486]
The measures in use were numerous, and somewhat difficult to be reduced
with exactness to those of modern times: the metretes (ten gallons two
pints) contained twelve choes; the chous (about six pints) six xestæ;
the xestes (one pint) two cotylæ; the cotyla (half-pint) two tetarti;
the tetarton (one quartern) two oxybapha; the oxybaphon, one cyathus and
a-half; the cyathus, two conchæ; the concha, two mystra; the mystron,
one chema and a-half; the chema, two cochlearia.[487]
-----
Footnote 485:
But see Beckmann, iii. 327.
Footnote 486:
Aristoph. Av. 799. These flasks were in later times called φλασκία,
whence the modern name. Suid. v. πυτίνη, t. ii. p. 672. d. These we
find were frequently, as well as baskets, the work of prisoners, who
probably thus earned a livelihood. Hesych. v. πυτίνη πλεκτή. Cf. Suid.
v. Διΐτρεφης, i. 729. In the cellars of Pompeii, the wine-jars were
found ranged along the walls without stoppers, instead of which a
little oil was probably poured on the top of the wine, as at present
in Italy. Hamilton, Discov. at Pomp. p. 15.
Footnote 487:
Eisenschmid. de Pond. et Mens. Vet. p. 166.
-----
Respecting the price of wines[488] our information is exceedingly
imperfect; for although it be frequently stated how much a certain
measure cost, the quality of the wine not being mentioned at the same
time, we are very little nearer any real knowledge of the value. In
Lusitania, ten gallons of pure wine were at one period sold for
three-pence; at Athens the price of the metretes,[489] appears to have
varied from about one and eight-pence, to three and four-pence, though
occasionally it rose as high as about ten shillings. Even of the
Mendæan, a wine of very superior quality, the wholesale price did not,
at one period, exceed two drachmas, the metretes; but as the innkeepers
were accused of having made enormous profits, it is at the same time
quite credible, that they should occasionally have charged an obolos for
the hemicotyla, especially to tipling women. Elsewhere, however, we find
the chous, or twelve cotylæ, sold for an obolos,[490] the price,
doubtless, depending partly on the quality of the wine, partly on the
conscience of the innkeeper. For, notwithstanding that there were at
Athens three magistrates charged with the inspection of wines,[491] part
of whose business it probably was to prevent adulteration and exorbitant
prices, the vintners, male and female, in all likelihood were an
overmatch for them.
-----
Footnote 488:
Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. p. 133.
Footnote 489:
Vid. Athen. iii. 86.
Footnote 490:
Athen. xi. 47. Cf. iii. 86.
Footnote 491:
Athen. x. 25. Poll. vi. 21.
-----
Most of the means by which the ancients adulterated their wines appear
to be unknown to us, though we find that they endeavoured to restore the
taste of such as were spoiled, by mingling with them a certain quantity
of boiled wine[492] and preparations of lime and gypsum. To check the
progress of the second fermentation, they were sometimes in the habit of
casting a pumice-stone into the jar;[493] but where wine was so cheap,
there was little temptation to have recourse to any other art than that
of watering a little, which, according to the comic poet, might proceed
from a benevolent desire to keep men sober and preserve their
health.[494]
-----
Footnote 492:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1005. 878.
Footnote 493:
Conf. Beckmann, Hist. Invent. i. 402. sqq. Dioscor. v. 125.
Footnote 494:
A. Ἐν τοῖς συμποσίοισιν οὐ πίνετ᾽
Ἄκρατον. S. Οὐ γὰρ ῥᾴδιον· πωλοῦσι γὰρ
Ἐν ταῖς ἁμάξαις εὐθέως κεκραμένων·
Οὐχ ἵνα τι κερδαίνωσι, τῶν δ᾽ ὠνουμένων
Προνοούμενοι τοῦ τὰς κεφαλὰς ὑγιεῖς ἔχειν
Ἐκ κραιπάλης.
Alex. ap. Athen. x. 38.
-----
The stock of a respectable wine-merchant must have been peculiarly rich
and varied,[495] consisting of the Anthosmias, a wine of delicious
fragrance; the Lesbian,[496] a favourite wine of Alcibiades;[497] the
Pramnian,[498] a strong rough wine, celebrated by Homer;[499] the
Lemnian, quaffed by the heroes before Troy;[500] the Chian, light and
delicate;[501] the Kapnian, from Beneventum in Italy,[502] a sharp red
wine which made the eyes water like smoke;[503] the Mesogeites, from
Mount Tmolos,[504] which, however delicious might be its taste, gave
those who drank it the head-ache; the Phygelites, from Ephesos, equal to
that of Lesbos; those of Cos and Clazomenè, pleasant when new, but which
would not keep because mixed with sea-water; the Cydonian;[505] the
Maronæan,[506] of great strength; the Mendæan;[507] the Mareotic;[508]
the Port; and the Thasian, which may be regarded as the flower of the
whole for excellence and celebrity.[509]
-----
Footnote 495:
The Greeks gave fanciful names to their wines and their cups; but the
English have been still more fanciful in the names of their ales. See
Bent. Dissert. on Phalaris, i. pref. xxi.
Footnote 496:
Xen. Hellen. vi. 6. 6. Athen. i. 24.
Footnote 497:
Athen. vii. 9. i. 55. Plut. Alcib. § 12.
Footnote 498:
Athen. i. 55.
Footnote 499:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 107. Etym. Mag. 683. 30, seq.
Footnote 500:
Il. η. 467, sqq.
Footnote 501:
Poll. vi. 15. x. 72.
Footnote 502:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 151; and Thurian. Nub. 331.
Footnote 503:
Suid. v. Καπν. t. i. p. 1370.
Footnote 504:
Dioscor. v. 10.
Footnote 505:
“The district of Cydonia must have been celebrated for its wine in
ancient times, for we find on many of its coins a bunch of grapes, or
the head of Dionysos. Some of them also exhibit a female head adorned
with a chaplet of vine-leaves. I found a beautiful silver coin of
Cydonia in the possession of the interpreter of the French Consulate,
and the female head seen on its obverse was thus ornamented.” Pashley,
Travels in Crete, vol. i. p. 23.
Footnote 506:
Athen. i. 95, seq.
Footnote 507:
Id. viii. 67.
Footnote 508:
Id. i. 25.
Footnote 509:
Aristoph. Lysist. 196. Athen. x. 37. i. 24. Poll. vi. 15.
-----
There were several wines among the ancients which acquired peculiar
qualities and flavour from the way in which they were made or preserved.
Thus, in Galatia,[510] where, as the grapes ripened but imperfectly, the
wine had a tendency to grow sour, a hemicotyla of resin was poured into
the metretes of wine, which gave it at first a harsh taste, though in
time it acquired a better flavour. In this process the resin was pounded
in a mortar, with a quantity of the pine-bark. Some persons allowed it
to remain in the vessel, while others strained it off immediately after
fermentation. The wine which was preserved by an infusion of pitch,[511]
was manufactured in the following manner: the pitch was washed with
brine and sea-water[512] until it whitened, then cleansed perfectly with
fresh-water, after which an ounce or two was mingled with eight choes of
wine. The saline wines were made[513] either by dipping the bunches as
gathered into sea-water, or sprinkling them therewith, or pouring it
along with them into the press after they had been dried in the sun. But
in whatever manner prepared, wines of this description were regarded
with an evil eye by physicians.
-----
Footnote 510:
Dioscor. v. 43.
Footnote 511:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 189. 643.
Footnote 512:
Dioscor. v. 48.
Footnote 513:
Id. v. 10. 27. Athen. i. 24.
-----
Among the other riches of an Hellenic cellar were mead or
metheglin,[514] and hydromel[515] and omphacomel,[516] with perry and
cider,[517] and palm-wine[518] and fig-wine[519] and quince-wine[520]
and lotos[521] and pomegranate-wine.[522]
-----
Footnote 514:
Aristot. De Mirab. Auscult. t. xvi. p. 185. _Tauchnitz._—Max. Tyr.
Dissert. xi. p. 138. The making of this delicious beverage is the
simplest process imaginable. Speaking of the Ingushians,—“The
excellent honey which they produce,” observes Pallas, “is partly
converted into mead, having been previously diluted with boiling
water; partly used with a fermented liquor made of millet, and called
Busa, and partly eaten at the dessert.” Travels in Southern Russia,
ii. 204.
Footnote 515:
Plin. xiv. 20. Beckmann, Hist. of Invent. iii. 373.
Footnote 516:
Dioscor. v. 31. The physician observes of this beverage:—ἡ χρῆσις δ᾽
αὐτοῦ μετ᾽ ἐνιαυτόν.
Footnote 517:
Pallad. iii. 25. Colum. xii. 45. Dioscor. v. 32.
Footnote 518:
The palm-wine of Æthiopia would appear to have been celebrated in
antiquity, since a small cask of it was thought a fit present for a
Persian king. Herod. iii. 20. Plin. xiii. 4. Diod. Sicul. ii. 136.
Footnote 519:
Damm. Lexic. 2224. Cf. Eustath. ad Odyss. ω. t. iii. p. 839. 8, seq.
Dioscor. v. 41.
Footnote 520:
Dioscor. v. 28.
Footnote 521:
Herod. iv. 177. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 3. 2. Wines were sometimes
flavoured by an infusion of wild carrot-root (δαῦκος). Dioscor. v. 70.
There was a drink called βρύτον, with roots, which sometimes supplied
the place of wine. Athen. x. 67.
Footnote 522:
Dioscor. v. 34.
-----
Numerous odoriferous plants were likewise employed in communicating a
variety of flavours and fragrance to wine, as the rose,[523]
thyme,[524] germander,[525] anis,[526] œnanthe,[527] wormwood,[528]
betony,[529] southern-wood,[530] squills,[531] myrtle,[532]
mastic,[533] terebinth,[534] sycamore,[535] fir-cones,[536]
cedar-cones,[537] cypress-cones,[538] juniper-berries,[539] pitch, and
larchtree-cones.[540] Almost every other aromatic plant, shrub, and
tree, was in like manner, employed to communicate a flavour, or an
odour, to wine, chiefly, however, for medicinal purposes; and among
these was the hyssop, whose leaves were used in the following manner:
a pound of them, having been well bruised, were tied up in a sort of
gauze, and by the weight of a few intermingled pebbles sunk to the
bottom of the amphora. Here they were permitted to remain forty days,
after which the wine was racked.[541] Of these wines that which was
tinctured with rose-leaves was commonly drunk after dinner to promote
digestion.[542] That which, about the Propontis and Thrace, was
flavoured with wormwood, people destined for their summer drink,
considering it favourable to health.[543]
-----
Footnote 523:
Id. v. 35.
Footnote 524:
Id. v. 59.
Footnote 525:
Χαμαίδρυς. Id. v. 51.
Footnote 526:
Dioscor. v. 75.
Footnote 527:
Id. v. 33.
Footnote 528:
Id. v. 49.
Footnote 529:
Id. v. 54.
Footnote 530:
Id. v. 62.
Footnote 531:
Id. v. 26.
Footnote 532:
Id. v. 37.
Footnote 533:
Id. v. 38.
Footnote 534:
Id. v. 39.
Footnote 535:
Id. v. 42.
Footnote 536:
Id. v. 44.
Footnote 537:
Id. v. 47.
Footnote 538:
Id. v. 45.
Footnote 539:
Id. v. 46.
Footnote 540:
Id. v. 45.
Footnote 541:
Dioscor. v. 50.
Footnote 542:
Id. v. 35.
Footnote 543:
Id. iii. 27.
-----
The greatest enemies of the vintners[544] were the physicians who, by
dwelling on the pernicious qualities of wine, deterred the reasonable
part of the world from a too frequent use of it. Old wine, they
maintained, shatters the nerves and produces headache; new wine is the
parent of horrible dreams. That which is middling, however, for example,
about seven years old, is liable to fewer objections, and may upon the
whole be drunk with some degree of safety. White wine, too, according to
their opinion, is better than red, since it corroborates the stomach,
and is, probably, that kind which, when of a proper age, produces
pleasant dreams.[545] Pure wine, in general, moreover, was admitted to
improve the health and beautify the complexion; and Pindar, whom most
persons will allow to have been a good judge, though he could not, like
Anacreon, dispose of a cask at a sitting,[546] declares in favour of old
wine and new songs.
-----
Footnote 544:
Id. v. 7.
Footnote 545:
Athen. i. 47.
Footnote 546:
This achievement the Teian celebrates in one of his own odes, a
fragment of which has been preserved by Athenæus, xi. 45.
Ἠρίστησα μὲν ἰτρίου λέπτον ἀποκλὰς,
Οἴνου δ᾽ ἐξέπιον κάδον.
-----
Of beer, though, as we have elsewhere remarked, it was familiarly known
to the Egyptians,[547] as well as to the inhabitants of Gaul, Spain, and
Britain, who manufactured it from barley and service-berries, as the
people of Dantzic now do from the hips of the wild roses,[548] we need
say nothing, as the Greeks were so ignorant of its nature, that when the
Ten Thousand met with a quantity in Armenia they diluted it with water
as they were accustomed to do their wine, that is to say, entirely
spoiled it.[549] The establishments of these vintners were almost of
necessity most frequent in the neighbourhood of the agora,[550] where
the rustics from the country congregated in crowds on market-days; where
were held also, on many occasions, the public assemblies; and where
newsmongers and loungers of every description most generally passed
their leisure hours.
-----
Footnote 547:
Athen. x. 12. i. 61. Dioscor. ii. 110. Goguet. i. 231.
Footnote 548:
Voyages de la Comp. des Indes, i. 62.
Footnote 549:
Xenoph. Anab. iv. 5.
Footnote 550:
Cf. Plat. de Leg. t. viii. p. 114, seq. De Rep. t. vi. p. 176. Muret.
ad Arist. Ethic. p. 415.
-----
Making due allowance for difference of dimensions, and their greater or
less magnificence, the same description will apply to the agoræ of all
Grecian cities. But, as we are best acquainted with the features of that
of Athens, if we can succeed in delineating a tolerably correct picture
of it, some idea may, therefrom, be easily formed of all the others. We
must imagine, therefore, a large circular open space,[551] about the
centre of the city, surrounded on all sides by ranges of shops, temples,
porticoes, and other public buildings.[552] It was traversed in various
directions by avenues of plane-trees, planted shortly after the Persian
war, which in summer constituted so many shady walks. About the middle
stood the altars of Pity and the Twelve Gods, in a circle,[553] and near
them were the statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton,[554] the
tyrannicides, whose memory was cherished by the republic with the most
religious veneration. By far the greater part of the space, however, was
covered by rows of sheds, booths, and tents, furnished with seats[555]
(the construction of which formed a separate branch of industry),[556]
where every article of use or luxury known to the ancient world was
exhibited with the utmost attention to display. Here were the
embroidered veils, and shawls, and mantles, and sandals, of the mercer’s
quarter;[557] there the chains of gold, the armlets, the anklets, the
jewelled circlets for the head, the golden grasshoppers, the seals, the
rings, the agraffes, the brooches, the cameos, and every description of
engraved gems which constituted the attractions of the jewellers’
quarter. Here were waggons piled with jars, and skins filled with wine;
there huge pyramids of apples and pears, and quinces and pomegranates,
and dates and plums, and cherries and mulberries, black and white, and
grape-clusters of every hue, and oranges and citrons, and rich purple
figs, and melons and water-melons.[558]
-----
Footnote 551:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 137. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 125.
Footnote 552:
Cf. Demosth. cont. Con. § 3.
Footnote 553:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 295. Xenoph. de Off. Mag. Eq. iii. 2, with the
note of Schneider.—Throughout Greece, persons to whom especial honour
was designed had their statues erected in the agora, as Theodectes at
Phaselis. Plut. Alexand. § 17. The statue of the market Hermes stood
near the Stoa Pœcile, and was usually smeared with pitch, from the
practice of sculptors who came constantly to take casts from it with a
preparation of that substance. Lucian. Jup. Trag. § 33.
Footnote 554:
Aristoph. Lysist. 678.
Footnote 555:
Casaub. ad. Theoph. Char. p. 349.
Footnote 556:
Poll. vii. 125. On the terms connected with settling and buying, &c.
iii. 124, sqq.
Footnote 557:
Ἱματιόπωλις ἀγορά or σπειρόπωλις Poll. vii. 78. Cf. Xenoph. de
Vectigal, iv. 8.
Footnote 558:
See Book v. chapter ii.
-----
Touching upon these booths were the stalls of the green-grocers, of
Eucharides[559] for example, where every vegetable produced in the
kitchen-garden and the fields met the eye in profusion; among which were
truffles of all kinds,[560] with the roots of the caraway[561] and
jagged lettuce, which were eaten like those of the Egyptian bean[562]
and the papyrus,[563] radishes,[564] long and round, bunches of
turnips,[565] asparagus, broccoli,[566] heads of garlic, and summer
savory, for the poor, all kinds of beans and pease, the vervain[567] for
purification and amulets, wild myrtle sprigs instead of asparagus,[568]
shoots of the black briony,[569] chokeweed to be boiled with vegetables
for rendering them tender, tufts of the wild fig-tree, which performed
the same service for beef,[570] goats-beard, clematis for
seasoning,[571] with bunches of elm-leaves commonly used as a
vegetable.[572] Next to these, were, perhaps, the stands of the
flower-sellers,[573] where garlands of the richest colours and fragrance
were ready wreathed for the brow,[574] some produced by careful culture
in gardens, and others gathered where they grew wild by the women, who
in time of peace spread themselves in troops over the whole country for
this purpose.[575] In one corner were droves of horses, asses, and
mules,[576] ready to have their teeth inspected by the buyers,[577] or
groups of youthful slaves from all quarters of the world. In another,
near a lofty poplar,[578] stood the auction-mart where goods of every
description,[579] including even libraries,[580] were knocked down by
the hammer. Close at hand, perhaps, stood the tempting booths of the
chapmen who purveyed for the kitchen of the Athenians with hams, and
sausages, and black-puddings,[581] and pickles, and cheese, and
preserved fruits, and spices, from the farthest east. Here were the
sellers[582] of salt-meat and fish from the Black Sea,[583] there the
toy-shops and upholsterers, while ever and anon the crowds that thronged
the passages were compelled to make way for a string of asses[584] laden
with vegetables or wood from Parnes or Cithæron, with the ends sticking
out on both sides and threatening the eyes of the buyers. Sometimes a
porter,[585] with a wooden knot on his shoulders, bore along, like
Protagoras, a load of faggots, the size of which astonished the
beholders. At times, near the corner of the street leading from the
Eleusinian Gate, you saw a half-starved Megarean[586] sneaking through
the crowd and bringing along with him sucking pigs, and leverets, and
cucumbers, and salt-fish, and garlic,[587] which if observed by the
agoranomoi were, during wartime, seized as contraband. On the other hand
the broad-faced jolly Bœotian[588] came smirking and grinning, like a
Neapolitan, with mule-loads of wild marjoram, pennyroyal, eaten by
sheep, mats, lampwicks, fowls,[589] ducks, locusts, jackdaws,
francolins,[590] coots, divers, geese, hares, foxes, moles, hedgehogs,
cats, pyctides, otters, and eels, from Lake Copaïs. Here in rows stood,
black as chimney-sweeps, the charcoal-sellers from Acharnæ, with their
mallequins and rush-baskets full piled before them.[591] Yonder were the
cornchandlers,[592] surrounded by piles of sacks, measuring their grain,
while a horde of ragged spermologoi[593] hovered round to collect what
fell. Close at hand stood the flour-merchants, each beside his huge
covered wooden trough,[594] from which he measured forth flour or
barley-meal to the buyers. Beyond these were the stalls of the
fishmongers,[595] the flambeau-sellers[596] and the shining jars of the
oil-merchants, piled in heaps to the roof of the booths. In other rows
were the shops of the potters,[597] where every variety of jugs, vases,
and tureens, was exhibited with vessels of glass, and bronze, and ivory.
Here and there, threading their way through the multitude, you beheld
the pedlar[598] with his pack of small-wares, the hawker crying his fish
or fruit,[599] or vegetables, or sausages, or wild-fowl, laid out on a
board on his head; the female bread-seller, with a variety of delicate
loaves and cakes piled up before her on a tray; the pastry-girl with
sweetmeats; the flower-girl with nosegays of fresh violets from the
meadows of Colonos and the banks of the Eridanos and Cephissos.
Sheltered from the warm rays of the sun, beneath some magnificent marble
colonnade, or the portico of some temple or chapel, sat whole bevies of
female flute-players, citharists, or dancing-girls,[600] calling forth,
from time to time, whilst waiting to be hired for a party, bursts of
music from their instruments, or humming a war-song, or a Palladian
hymn, or a merry scholion, the favourite ditties of the Athenian people.
Near these, as being folks of the same kidney, the jugglers, cooks, and
parasites,[601] took up their position; the former two ready to be hired
for the day by the giver of some magnificent entertainment, the latter
that they might discover in what direction they were to ply their craft
and ferret out a dinner scotfree. Near the Eurysaceum in this
neighbourhood stood that eminence called the Hill of the Agora,[602] or
Misthios, because servants, in lack of a master, collected there to be
hired, as they still do at fairs in most parts of England. Somewhere
close at hand were the shops of those brokers who let out pots and pans,
and lamps and plate, and the more delicate kind of crockery, to such
persons as were too economical to keep such articles of their own.[603]
In the midst of this profusion of wares might be seen, at all hours of
the day, crowds of well-dressed persons[604] sauntering to and fro,
chatting with each other, cheapening the goods of the shopkeepers, or
laughing and jesting with the flower-girls or fluteplayers. At other
times individuals, by no means deserving the name of loiterers, came
thither, either to post up a bill[605] of some article which they had
found, or in quest of some information respecting one they had lost,
either from such bills or from the public criers who were there
accustomed to make proclamation of treasure trove, or to cry that such
or such an article of property had strayed from its lawful owner.
Occasionally also people made known by criers what goods they had for
sale.[606] The young men of rank, when fatigued by these promenades,
used to retire into a perfumer’s or barber’s or armourer’s or
bridle-maker’s shop,[607] overlooking the bustling scene, where they
discussed nonsense or politics, according to their humour. Hither, too,
the philosophers came with a view to inspire patriotic and manly
sentiments into the minds of these future rulers of the democracy; so
that at one period you might have beheld Socrates and Alcibiades and
Critias, and Chæriphon and Crito, with Charmides and the divine Plato,
engaged in those animated dialogues, the echo of which still rings
sweetly in the ears of posterity. In some shops opposite these, as if
with a view to rival or eclipse them, or round one of the
umbrellas,[608] beneath which, on an elevated platform, the perfumers
dispensed their wares in the agora, stood a group of sophists with their
followers, such as Hippias of Elis, Prodicos of Cos, or the Agrigentine
Polos, or Gorgias of Leontium, habited in purple robes, embroidered
vests, flowered sandals, and with glittering crowns of gold upon their
heads. Even their florid discourses, however, would fail to command the
attention of their auditors when the youth of equestrian rank,[609]
mounted on their chargers and drawn up in military array, swept round
the outer circle of the agora, paying devout homage to each divinity
whose fane they passed. Here also in a future age might be seen,
strutting to and fro, the orator Æschines with his arms akimbo and a
fashionable little hat[610] stuck knowingly on one side of his head,
railing at Demosthenes, and pleading the cause of Philip. And here, too,
the night after the fall of Elatea, a very different scene was witnessed
when the citizens from every side of the Cecropian rock rushed
tumultuously hither in the wildest alarm, and either not reflecting on
what they did, or through ill-judged haste, set fire to the sheds and
booths in order that they might find a clear space to deliberate on the
public safety.
-----
Footnote 559:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 680. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 420. Acharn.
166. Eq. 493. Athen. xiii. 22.
Footnote 560:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 189. 191. Dioscor. ii. 200.
Footnote 561:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 4. 8. Dioscor. iii. 76.
Footnote 562:
Dioscor. i. 115.
Footnote 563:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 1. 4.
Footnote 564:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 1. 2.
Footnote 565:
Antich. di Ercol. t. ii. p. 52.
Footnote 566:
“The ancients were acquainted with curled cabbage and even some of
those kinds which we call _broccoli_. Under this term is understood
all those species, the numerous young flowery heads of which,
particularly in spring and autumn, can be used like cauliflowers. Such
young shoots are called _cymæ_, but not _turiones_; for the latter
term denotes the first shoots that arise, like those of hops,
asparagus, and other esculent plants. The broccoli used at present
was, however, first brought from Italy to France, together with the
name, about the end of the sixteenth century.” Beckmann, iv. 266.
Footnote 567:
Καλοῦσι δὲ αὐτοὶ ἱεραν βοτάνην διὰ τὸ εὔχρηστον ἐν τοῖς καθαρμεῖς
εἶναι εἰς περιάμματα. Dioscor. iv. 71.
Footnote 568:
Ἀντὶ ἀσπαράγου δε οἱ καυλοὶ νεοθαλεῖς λαχανευόμενοι ἐσθίονται.
Dioscor. iv. 146.
Footnote 569:
Id. iv. 185.
Footnote 570:
Αἱ δὲ κράδαι βοείοις κρέασι καθεψόμεναι, εὐέψητα ταῦτα ποιοῦσι.
Dioscor. i. 184. At Carthagena, the same effect is produced by
lemon-juice. “Une chose particulière qu’on remarque en cette ville à
l’égard des limons, c’est que les habitans ayent cette idée, qu’il ne
faut mettre la viande près du feu que trois quarts d’heure, ou une
heure avant le repas. Suivant cette opinion ils ne mettent jamais de
l’eau au pot avec la viande sans y exprimer en même tems le jus de
trois ou quatre de ces limons plus ou moins, selon la quantité de
viande; par ce moyen la viande s’amollit et se cuit si bien, qu’elle
est en état d’être servie au bout de ce court espace. Ces gens là sont
si accoutumés à cette facilité d’apprêter leurs viandes, qu’ils se
moquent des Européens, qui employent toute une matinée pour faire une
chose qui leur coute si peu de tems.” Ulloa, Voyage au Pérou. t. i. p.
68.
Footnote 571:
Dioscor. iv. 182.
Footnote 572:
Id. i. 111.
Footnote 573:
Cf. Plut. Arat. § 6. De Pauw, Rech. Phil. sur les Grecs, i. 3. p. 20.
Flowers seem to have been brought to market in corbels on asses.
Buonaroti, Oss. Istor. sop. alc. Medagl. Antich. p. 385.
Footnote 574:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 1320.
Footnote 575:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 528.
Footnote 576:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 348. In wealthy states, says Xenophon, men
applied their riches to the purchase of costly arms, fine horses, and
magnificent houses and furniture; and the women to that of splendid
dresses and ornaments of gold. De Vectigal. iv. 8.
Footnote 577:
Lucian, Luc. siv. Asin. § 35.
Footnote 578:
Cf. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 257, seq.
Footnote 579:
Schol. Aristot. Eq. 103. Andocid. De Myrt. § 22.
Footnote 580:
Lucian. adv. Indoct. § 20.
Footnote 581:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 364. Athen. xiv. 75. See a pork-butcher’s shop in
Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 28.
Footnote 582:
Herod. iv. 53. ii. 15. 113.
Footnote 583:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 153. Dion Chrysost. i. 236. Cf. Leake,
Topog. of Athen. p. 64.
Footnote 584:
Eurip. ap. Poll. x. 112. Cf. Demosth. adv. Phœnip. § 3. Lucian,
Luc. siv. Asin. § 43.
Footnote 585:
Or perhaps water-carriers, this class of men having been numerous in
ancient cities, and remarkable for their insolence. Ælian. Var. Hist.
ix. 17. Even the camels employed in water-carrying are more vicious
than any other.
Footnote 586:
Aristoph. Acharn. 532, sqq.
Footnote 587:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 494, 500.
Footnote 588:
Aristoph. Acharn. 860, sqq.
Footnote 589:
See in Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 27, the representation of a
poulterer’s shop.
Footnote 590:
Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 257.
Footnote 591:
Id. Acharn. 314.
Footnote 592:
Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 83.
Footnote 593:
On the number of the corresponding class in London I possess no exact
information; but a modern writer who has displayed much curious
industry in describing the mechanism of the lower stages of society in
France gives the following estimate of _chiffonniers_ of Paris:—“En
exposant quels sont les principaux élémens de la classe pauvre mais
laborieuse, je ne dois pas omettre de faire connaître le nombre des
chiffonniers, espèce de manouvriers qui se rattachent aux manufactures
par la nature même des objets sur lesquels s’exerce leur industrie. Ce
métier, qui est un des moins honorés, a, malgré le dégoût qu’il
inspire généralement, un attrait particulier pour certaines gens et
surtout pour les enfans, parce qu’il n’assujettit à aucun
apprentissage, et qu’en outre, il permet à celui qui l’exerce, de
vaguer constamment sur la voie publique et de gagner aisément un
salaire raisonnable. On compte 2000 chiffonniers, et à-peu-près un
pareil nombre de femmes et d’enfans exerçant la même profession, en
tout 4000.” Frégier, Des Classes Dangereuses de la Population dans les
Grandes Villes, t. i. p. 27.
Footnote 594:
Τηλία. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 147.
Footnote 595:
Athen. vi. 5.
Footnote 596:
Plut. Arat. § 6.
Footnote 597:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 318.
Footnote 598:
Cf. Poll. i. 51.
Footnote 599:
Athen. ii. 45. The travelling fishmongers even frequented the
country-houses and villages, viii. 57. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 13, seq.
Eq. 1241, sqq. It was probably persons of this class that most
commonly used their mouths as a purse, as the Siamese do their ears.
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 194. Aristoph. Vesp. 791. Their baskets
were commonly of rushes. Athen. vii. 72. See a representation of them,
Antich. di Ercol. t. i. tav. 21. p. 111.
Footnote 600:
Lucian, Amor. § 10. Plut. Arat. § 6.
Footnote 601:
Poll. ix. 48. Athen. ix. 22.
Footnote 602:
Chandler, ii. 104.
Footnote 603:
Athen. iv. 58.
Footnote 604:
Lucian. Bis Accus. § 16. Sch. Arist. Nub. 978.
Footnote 605:
Lucian. Demon. § 17.
Footnote 606:
Poll. iii. 124.
Footnote 607:
Andocid. De Myst. § 9, with the note of Reiske. Plut. Timol. § 14.
Footnote 608:
Athen. xiii. 94.
Footnote 609:
Xenoph. de Off. Mag. Eq. iii. 2.
Footnote 610:
Dem. de Fals. Leg. § 72. Cf. Athen. xi. 109. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art.
iii. 340.
-----
As there was a certain class of gods who presided over the market-place,
so likewise were there particular laws enacted to regulate its
transactions, with magistrates especially appointed to carry those laws
into execution. These servants of the commonwealth, five in the city and
five in the Peiræeus, were denominated Agoranomoi, and paraded all day
to and fro, armed with whips of many thongs,[611] amid the crowds of
buyers and sellers, both to preserve tranquillity in the market, and
prevent or punish those petty acts of fraud and injustice to which
persons who subsist by humble traffic are too often in all countries
addicted. Thus we find that, not the vintners only, but even the
cornchandlers kept small measures;[612] though, as there was a public
meter appointed by the state, it could only be when purchasers neglected
to employ him, that they lay open to this sort of imposition. Chapmen
detected in cheating, or otherwise behaving with impropriety, were
scourged by the Agoranomoi on the spot; and it is to be presumed, that,
as often as necessary, these officers were attended by a detachment of
that powerful and vigilant Scythian police, at one period a thousand
strong, which Athens constantly maintained, and which formerly pitched
its tents in the agora.[613] Another duty of the Agoranomoi[614] was to
collect the tolls paid by Bœotians, Æginetæ, or Megareans, upon
whatever articles they brought to the Athenian market. It should here be
observed, however, that neither corn nor bread was in later times, at
least, placed under the inspection of these magistrates, since there
were others called Sitophylaces,[615] whose business it was to see that
the public were not defrauded in such articles. The number of these
officers, at first three, was afterwards increased to fifteen, of which
ten presided over the city corn-market, and five over that of the
harbour, where a portico was built by Pericles[616] for the special use
of the cornchandlers and flour-merchants.
-----
Footnote 611:
Aristoph. Acharn. 723. Schol. 689. Bekk. Plaut. Captiv. iv. 2. 43.
These magistrates were afterwards called Logistæ. Schol. Acharn. 685.
Bekk. Cf. Poll. ii. 119. viii. 45. 99. x. 44. There was in use among
the ancients a horrid kind of whip in which small bones were
intertwisted with the thongs to render the strokes more painful.
Lucian, Luc. siv. Asin. § 38. Poll. x. 54.
Footnote 612:
Aristoph. Eq. 1005.
Footnote 613:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 54.
Footnote 614:
Id. 861.
Footnote 615:
Harpocrat. v. σιτοφύλακες p. 162. Dem. adv. Lept. § 8. Lys. cont.
Dardan. § 6.
Footnote 616:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 522.
-----
On the prices of articles,[617] our information is extremely incomplete:
it is said, however, that an ox in Solon’s time, was sold for five
drachmas,[618] a sheep for one; while about the same period, the former
animal sold at Rome for a hundred oboloi, and the latter for ten. In the
later, and what are called the more flourishing, ages of the
commonwealth, a sheep, according to its age, size, and breed, fetched
from ten to twenty drachmas, an ox from fifty to a hundred. The price of
a fine saddle-horse, in the age of Pericles, was twelve minæ, or about
fifty pounds sterling,[619] but a common animal for draught might be
obtained for three minæ. The price of thirteen talents paid by Alexander
for Bucephalos was a mere arbitrary piece of extravagance. A yoke of
mules sold from five to eight minas; asses sometimes for thirty
drachmas;[620] a sucking-pig for three drachmas;[621] a dove or a crow
fetched three oboloi; a jackdaw or a partridge one obolos, though the
philosopher Aristippos chose to give fifty drachmas for a single bird of
this kind; seven chaffinches for an obolos. A chœnix of olives cost
two chalci, and a cotyla of the best Attic honey five drachmas.
-----
Footnote 617:
Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. 101, sqq. Diog. Laert. vi. 35. Dem. adv.
Call. §§ 7. 9. Dionys. Halicarn. i. 100.
Footnote 618:
Plut. Poplic. § 11. Sol. § 23. On the low prices of provisions in
Lusitania in the time of Polybius. Athen. viii. 1.
Footnote 619:
Aristoph. Nub. 20. 1226. Lys. adv. Fam. Obtrect. § 4. Some men brought
themselves to ruin by their fondness for magnificent horses. Xenoph.
Œcon. iii. 8.
Footnote 620:
Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 35.
Footnote 621:
The same price was sometimes given for a Copaïc eel. Aristoph. Ach.
960, seq. Athen. xiv. 69.
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The weights and measures[622] in common use at Athens were the talent
(65 lbs. 12 dwt. 5 grs.) equal to sixty minæ; the mina (1 lb. 1 oz. 4
grs.) equal to a hundred drachmas; the drachma (6 dwt. 2 grs.) equal to
six oboloi; the obolos (9 grs.) equal to three keratia; the
keration[623] three grains. The Athenian dry measures were the medimnos,
equal to six hecteis;[624] the hecteus, equal to two hemihecteis; the
hemihecton, equal to four chœnices; the chœnix, equal to two xestæ; the
xestes, equal to two cotylæ; the cotyla, equal to four oxybapha; the
oxybaphon, equal to one cyathos and a half;[625] the cyathos, equal to
ten cochlearia.
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Footnote 622:
Goguet. ii. 196. Herod. i. 192. Poll. iv. 171. Schol. Aristoph. Nub.
450. Acharn. 108. See an exact representation of an ancient pair of
scales suspended from a bird’s bill in Mus. Cortonens. tab. 27.
Footnote 623:
Eisenschmid. De Pond. et Mens. Vet. p. 156.
Footnote 624:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 633. Eq. 95.
Footnote 625:
Eisenschmid. p. 168.
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Of the other measures that occur in ancient authors, it may be worth
while to mention the Persian artabe,[626] (hodie ardeb,) which exceeded
the Attic medimnos by about three chœnices; the akanè,[627] likewise
a Persian measure, equal to forty-five Attic medimnoi or a Bœotian
measure equal to two bushels; the addix[628] equal to four chœnices;
the dadix[629] to six; the capithe to two; the maris to six cotylæ,[630]
the cophinos, a Bœotian measure, to three choes.[631]
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Footnote 626:
Athen. xii. 73.
Footnote 627:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 108.
Footnote 628:
Etym. Mag. 16. 53.-17. 45.
Footnote 629:
Poll. iv. 168.
Footnote 630:
Id. x. 184.
Footnote 631:
Id. iv. 168.
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