II. INDUSTRY: MILLERS, BAKERS, VINTNERS, MARKETS, ETC
We have examined the condition of the poor at Athens, and shall now consider how far the laws of the state interfered to better their circumstances by promoting industry, and rendering it honourable. Among the Spartans, idleness, the vice of soldiers,[389] was regarded as a proof of rank; whence the remark of that disciple of Lycurgus, who, being present at Athens during a trial for this offence, fatal to a democracy, observed, that they punished the man for being a gentleman.[390] Solon, however, entertained little respect for this mark of gentility. According to his laws, of which the whole design was to create and preserve that feeling of manliness bestowed by the consciousness of independence, the individual, who, possessing no property, refused to labour, was a bad citizen, against whom any one might bring an action of idleness.[391] Draco, the most Utopian and savage of legislators, punished vagabondage with death, or, according to some, with infamy only. But Solon, who would not require too much of human nature, reserved this latter penalty for those who should be thrice convicted.[392]
-----
Footnote 389:
Lord Bacon, whose opinions were chiefly based on the study of antiquity, observes, after Plato and Aristotle, that military nations will always be somewhat inclined to idleness, and should rather be indulged in it than otherwise. Essays, p. 79. But both the Athenians and Romans were a hardworking people, and better soldiers have never been known. The best soldiers in the English army are drawn from the central provinces, where industry most abounds, and the laborious Normans are the best troops in France. Cf. Plut. Ages. § 26.
Footnote 390:
Plut. Lycurg. § 24.
Footnote 391:
Diog. Laert. i. ii. § 53. Plut. Sol. §§ 22. 31. Herod. ii. 177. Pollux. viii. 40. Ælian. Var. Hist. iv. 1.
Footnote 392:
Poll. viii. 40. Plut. Sol. § 17.
-----
It has been conjectured, that Peisistratos was author of the law against idleness; by which he sought to compel as many of the citizens as had no visible means of support, to take refuge in the country. Be this, however, as it may, it was not alone by severity, that the laws of Athens sought to recommend the pursuits of industry.[393] Superior excellence in any useful art entitled a man to very high honours, to maintenance at the public expense, in the Prytaneion, in company with the chief magistrates and generals of the commonwealth, and one of the first seats at all spectacles and popular assemblies. But to preserve this post, it was not enough to have once done well. The ambitious citizen could maintain it only by persevering in the career of invention and improvement, for if another man in the same line were judged to excel him, he relinquished to the new comer both his dinners and his seat.[394]
-----
Footnote 393:
In Plutarch’s life of Pericles there occurs a very remarkable passage, describing the constant employment and plenty which were diffused through the city by the policy of that great statesman. As for the mechanics and meaner sort of people, they went not without their share of the public money, nor yet received it to maintain them in idleness. By the constructing of great edifices, which require many arts, and a long time to finish them, they had equal pretensions to be recompensed out of the treasury, (though they stirred not from the city,) with the mariners, soldiers, and garrisons. For the different materials, such as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, and cypress, furnished employment to carpenters, masons, braziers, goldsmiths, painters, turners, and other artificers; the conveyance of them by sea employed merchants and sailors, and, by land, wheelwrights, waggoners, carriers, rope-makers, leather-cutters, paviers, and iron-founders; and every art had a number of the lower people ranged in proper subordination to execute it, like soldiers under the command of a general. Thus, by the exercise of these different trades, was plenty diffused among persons of every rank and condition. § 12. Engl. Trans.
Footnote 394:
Aristoph. Ran. 761, ibique Schol. Cf. Meurs. Them. Att. p. 106.
-----
From this, and other circumstances, it would appear, that there were annual exhibitions of works of art and industry, in principle like our cattle-shows, when a careful scrutiny of every improvement and invention took place, and the premium above described was awarded to the most ingenious. It is very certain that an assembly of the trades, more particularly of the bright-smiths, took place, on the thirtieth of Pyanepsion, in honour of Hephæstos, or Athena, when the festival of Pandemon, or Chalkeia, was celebrated; and the conjecture of Petit[395] is not improbable, that δεῖξις, or exhibition, then took place. It was, perhaps, on the same occasion, that the Athenian potters exhibited their most beautiful works and models.[396] At Sybaris, the author of any invention in the art of cookery enjoyed by patent, during the whole year, a monopoly of the article; and in the same city, the dyers and importers of purple, as well as those who caught and sold eels, were exempted from all taxes and imposts.[397]
-----
Footnote 395:
Cf. Legg. Att. vi. 6. 426, with Meurs. Gr. Feriat. p. 274, sqq.
Footnote 396:
Cf. Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art, i. 28. Meurs. Gr. Fer. v. Δαίδαλα. p. 74, sqq.
Footnote 397:
Athen. xii. 22.
-----
A further incitement to industry, and the apprenticing out of children, was the law which freed any one who had not been instructed in some trade, from the necessity of supporting his parents,[398] to which otherwise all persons were strictly bound. Another law of Solon, which, at the same time shows the erroneousness of the common opinion respecting the condition of women at Athens, proves that to bring industry into good repute was a work of some difficulty. By this it was enacted, that any individual who reproached a citizen, whether male or female, with carrying on any business in the Agora, should be liable to a penalty.[399]
-----
Footnote 398:
Plut. Sol. § 22.
Footnote 399:
Demosth. cont. Eubul. § 10.
-----
There were, however, certain callings which the laws considered disreputable, or, at least, unsuitable to a man. Thus, an Athenian citizen could not legally be a perfumer, that effeminate vocation being left to the women.[400] Fishmongers, too, with butchers, cooks, sausage-sellers, fishermen, were held in low estimation both at Rome and Athens. Of all these Attic pariahs, however, the poor wretch who hawked fish,[401] and was contemptuously said to wipe his nose in his sleeve, or with his elbow, engrossed the largest share of public scorn. To these we may add bird-catchers, and fruit-sellers, and those low black-legs who subsisted on gambling.[402]
-----
Footnote 400:
Athen. xiii. 94. xv. 34.
Footnote 401:
In the Peloponnesos we find it was the custom for itinerant icthyopolists to carry fish in baskets probably, suspended from both ends of a rough pole (τραχεῖα ἄσιλλα) thrown across the shoulders. This fact is alluded to in an Olympic inscription preserved in part by Aristotle. Rhet. i. 7.
Footnote 402:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Charact. p. 185. On sedentary trades, see Poll. i. 51, and Muret, ad Arist. Eth. p. 63.
-----
As an encouragement to the citizens to addict themselves to industrious pursuits, foreigners, and all persons not free of the city, were legally incapacitated from carrying on business in the agora;[403] but this came in later times to be disregarded, since we find Egyptians, Phœnicians, and other aliens, possessing shops, and growing rich there. It was conceived, moreover, that, if men confined themselves to one calling, they would arrive therein at greater excellence; and the law, accordingly, forbade them to be of two trades.[404] Plato, whose ideal republic was modelled in so many particulars on that of Athens, adopted this law; and for the reason I have stated; comprehending thoroughly what advantages arise from the division of labour. He would not, he says, have the cordwainer meddle with husbandry, weaving, or architecture, that he might carry shoemaking to as great perfection as possible; and, in other branches of industry, men were in like manner to cultivate that only for which nature had fitted them, and wherein they might thus excel.[405] The same philosopher, while on the subject of industry, makes a remark worthy of consideration: It is not, he says, for the interest of the community, that men engaged in any branch of the arts should be so rich as to be independent of their business or profession, which, in such case, they will be apt to neglect; or so poor as to be harassed in mind, or cramped in the means of carrying on their occupations satisfactorily. In these things, as in every other, a comfortable competence is to be preferred to the extremes both of wealth and poverty.[406]
-----
Footnote 403:
Demosth. in Eubulid. § 10. The Lydians were said to be the first retail traders. Herod. i. 94. Cf. Huet, Hist. of Commerce, p. 52.
Footnote 404:
Demosth. in Timocrat. § 32. Ulpian ad loc. Arist. Polit. ii. 11. p. 55. Bekk. Petit, Legg. Att. p. 425. Potter, i. 199.
Footnote 405:
Repub. ii. § 11. Stallb. Cf. iii. § 7. In the Laws he states these reasons more strongly, t. viii. p. 110.
Footnote 406:
Repub. iv. 2. Stallb.
-----
Another means of carrying the various arts towards perfection, which in India and Egypt prevailed from time immemorial, is supposed to have been a practice, whether founded on law or custom, resembling the system of castes.[407] Theories, not destitute of ingenuity, have been constructed on this view of Athenian society.[408] Thus, the Dædali are supposed to have formed the sculptor caste; the Eupyridæ a caste of husbandmen; the Boutadæ of herdsmen; the Ceryces of heralds; the Hephœstiadæ of blacksmiths; the Poimenidæ of shepherds, and so on. Vestiges of this curious state of things are supposed to be discernible in the history of Attica, even so late as the age of Pericles, when we find Socrates a member of the Dædalian clan, by profession a sculptor. There were certainly in religious matters hereditary offices, which none could with propriety fill but the members of a certain family or clan. Thus, from among the Eteobutadæ was chosen the priestess of Athena Polias, who resided in the temple on the Acropolis; and the priest of Poseidon was drawn by lot from the same house.[409] To the Praxiergidæ were entrusted certain duties about the statue of Athena during the Plynterian festival.[410] The descendants of Buzyges performed those sacred ceremonies which thrice a year attended the ploughing of the soil;[411] to mention for the present no more.
-----
Footnote 407:
Cf. Plut. Sol. § 23.
Footnote 408:
The younger Ilgen, for example, has written a clever work, in which he endeavours to prove the existence of a system of castes in Athenian society. He sets out with giving an account of the four ancient tribes, and explains the appellations bestowed on them, viz. Γελέοντες or Τελέοντες, Ἀργαδεῖς, Αἰγικορεῖς and Ὅπλητες, to denote the pursuits in which the members of those tribes were engaged. This done, he draws his conclusion: “Quod si verum est,” says he, “efficitur, Tribus hasce nihil aliud fuisse, quàm ordines variis negotiis distinctos et separatos, quales apud Ægyptos et Indos cognovimus, et quos Lusitano vocabulo Castas appellare solemus. Tale vero institutum num apud Atticos exstiterit, multum à viris doctis est dubitatum. At licet sint, quæ in contrariam sententiam aliquem ducere possint, tamen argumenta, quæ revera Tribus castis orientalibus similes fuisse suadent, tam sunt et multa et gravia, ut non debeat dubitari.” Disquisit. de Trib. Att. p. 8, seq.
Footnote 409:
Harpocrat. in v. Apollod. iii. 15. 1. Bossier, de Gent. et Famil. Att. Sacerd. p. 5, seq.
Footnote 410:
Plut. Alcib. § 34.
Footnote 411:
Plut. Præcept. Conjug. § 42.
-----
But we are not on this account to infer the existence in Attica of anything like the Hindù system of castes, which has itself never been rigidly observed.[412] What happens everywhere took place at Athens: fathers generally found it more convenient to bring up their sons to their own calling,[413] while the latter, observing constantly certain mechanical operations take place under their eye, were led first to admire and then to imitate. Thus the Potter’s boy, as Plato[414] remarks, long ministers to his father before he takes the clay into his own hands and begins to model a vase or tureen.
-----
Footnote 412:
See the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 111, seq.
Footnote 413:
When, however, they were put out to other masters an agreement, corresponding to our indentures, was drawn up, in which it was stated what they were to be taught. Xenoph. De Vectig. ii. 2. A further resemblance to our own manners is discoverable in the practice of giving premiums with apprentices, even in the case of the medical profession. Plat. Menon. t. iii. p. 369.
Footnote 414:
De Repub. v. c. 14. Stallb.
-----
At Sparta, the heralds, cooks, and flute-players, constituted so many small castes, in which the profession passed down regularly from father to son. Of the absurdity of this practice Herodotus was fully sensible, for he observes, that a man was chosen to be a herald not for the loudness of his voice, but because he was a herald’s son.[415] Upon the whole, however, the practice was no more general among the Greeks than it is in England. When it became fashionable to ape gentility, rustic hinds, like Strepsiades in the “Clouds,” found their sons ashamed of the humble callings by which their childhood had been supported; a passion for aristocratic distinction infested the bosom of the vulgar; all desired to appear what they were not; and, despite the wise institutions of Solon, handicraftsmen and artificers sunk into hopeless contempt.[416] For this reason most trades by degrees were exercised by foreigners, who frequently acquired wealth and independence.
-----
Footnote 415:
Herod. vi. 60.
Footnote 416:
Muret, in Arist. Ethic. i. p. 63. Plutarch, generally judicious and wise in his remarks, exhibits unequivocal tokens of his Bœotian soul by endeavouring in one part of his writings to class even poetry and sculpture among things disreputable to those who practised them: Ἡ δ᾽ αὐτουργία τῶν ταπεινῶν, τῆς εἰς τὰ καλὰ ῥαθυμὶας μάρτυρα τὸν ἐν τοῖς ἀχρήστοις πόνον παρέχεται καθ᾽ αὑτῆς· καὶ οὐδεὶς εὐφυὴς νέος, ἢ τὸν ἐν Πίσῃ θεασάμενος Δία, γενέσθαι φειδίας ἐπεθύμησεν, ἢ τὴν Ἣραν τὴν ἐν Ἄργει, Πολύκλειτος, οὐδ᾽ Ἀνακρέων, ἢ Φιλήμων, ἢ Ἀρχίλοχος, ἡσθεὶς αὐτῶν τοῖς ποιήμασιν. Οὐ γὰρ ἀναγκαῖον, εἰ τέρπει τὸ ἔργον ὡς χάριεν, ἄξιον σπουδῆς εἶναι τὸν εἰργασμένον. Vit. Pericl. § 2.
-----
Notwithstanding this result, however, at which they arrived but slowly, both manufactures and every other branch of industry were in Greece, and at Athens more particularly, carried to a very high pitch of perfection. Even in the very lowest trades the love of gain, or the necessity of somehow earning a subsistence, led men to persevere. For example, in the occupation of a common fisherman, from which little beyond penury could be hoped for, and which impressed upon the countenance that sordid aspect so successfully represented by Hellenic art,[417] there were always numbers ready to engage. And yet consider in Theocritus[418] their wretched life, sleeping in their weather-beaten hut on the bleak shore, amid heaps of nets, piscatory baskets, lines, &c., and there dreaming, as indigence often does, of discovered treasures and ingots of gold. The patient endurance of the hungry fishers, seated far above the water on steep rocks, watching the entrance of the huge prey into their nets, appears to have been proverbial.[419]
-----
Footnote 417:
See the statue of the fisherman, British Museum, Gallery of Antiquities, Room vi. No. 45, and an account of their operation in Pollux. i. 96, sqq. Lucian, with a few strokes, paints the misery of this wretched tribe casting their nets, toiling vigorously and then bringing up a large stone or an earthen pot full of sand, like the poor fisherman in the Arabian Nights. Hermot. § 65. The same author speaks of an old half-blind beggar of ninety, who partly earned his livelihood by the rod and line. Dial. Mort. xxvii. § 9. Persons of this caste were sometimes by poverty reduced to commit sacrilege. Jup. Trag. § 25.
Footnote 418:
Eidyll. xxi. 6, sqq.
Footnote 419:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 313, conf. ad 361. 862. The transporting of persons to and from Salamis afforded employment to a hardy and skilful race of ferrymen whose operations were judged of sufficient importance to be the subject of a Solonian law: Εάν τὶς τῶν πορθμέων τῶν εἰς Σαλαμῖνα πορθμευόντων ἄκων ἐν τῳ πόρῳ πλοῖον ἀνατρέψῃ, τούτῳ μὴ ἐξείναι πάλιν πορθμεῖ γενέσθαι. Petit, Leg. Att. v. 6. p. 427. Æschin. cont. Ctesiph. § 49. Montaigne speaking of the contradictory customs of different nations, observes àpropos of fares: “Les Romains payoient ce qui estoit deu aux bateliers, pour leur naulage (passage money) dès l’entrée du bateau, ce que nous faisons après estre rendu à port:
Dum æs exigitur, dum mula ligatur, Tota abit hora.”
(Horat. I. 5. 13, seq.) Essais. t. iii. p. 173. On this passage Coste has the following note: “En Hollande on paye dans le bateau, environ à mi-chemin du lieu où l’on va.” This last regulation, as most persons know, has been adopted by our coast steamers.
-----
In the superior trades and manufactures there was among several cities an emulation, the result of which was to produce constant improvement. Athens, for example, which excelled in pottery, had rivals in Aulis, Rhodes, Megara, Corinth, Cnidos, and several other cities; Sicily and Bœotia were famous for their chariots; Argos for the manufacture of arms; Thessaly for its easy chairs; Chios and Miletos for their beds; Etruria for its gold-plate and works in bronze.[420]
-----
Footnote 420:
Athen. i. 49, seq.
-----
It is to be regretted that into the practice of the several trades and useful arts we can see but a very little way. In order, however, to render our idea of Hellenic civilisation as complete as possible, I shall here bring together as many particulars as I have been able to discover on this subject, commencing with those trades which were of primary necessity.[421] Of these, that of the miller may doubtless be regarded as of the first importance. In very early ages men understood not the art of reducing corn into meal; but either roasted the unripe ears upon the fire, or parched the separated grains in small fryingpans.[422] In process of time, however, the pestle and mortar were invented, by means of which,[423] though at a great expense of labour, flour of the finest possible quality could be obtained. To these succeeded the handmill, an invention of very remote ages,[424] which, notwithstanding, continued in use down to the days of Cicero. This machine, both in Greece and Italy, was at first commonly worked by women,[425] more especially by female slaves. But afterward the rudest and worst conducted of the male domestics were condemned to this severe toil, which at length grew to be regarded in the light of a punishment,[426] as working at the treadmill with us. Among the wealthy, each master of a family possessed his own mill; but as civilisation advanced, the grinding of corn constituted a separate occupation, and the trade of the miller was established. Public mills[427] were common at Athens in the time of Socrates, and it does not appear to have been unusual for strong and sturdy men of free condition to labour for hire in these establishments.
-----
Footnote 421:
Cf. Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 79. The president Goguet commiserates the ancients on their extreme ignorance of the useful arts. Orig. des Lois, t. v. p. 174.
Footnote 422:
Goguet, Orig. des Lois, i. 208, seq. 221. iii. 380. Beckman, History of Inventions, i. 227, seq. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 580. Equit. 803.
Footnote 423:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 924.
Footnote 424:
There were those among the ancients who attributed the invention of mills to the Pelasgian Myles, son of Lelex, probably that they might have a hero from whose name they could conveniently derive the word μυλῶν.—Ἀπ’ αὐτου (τοῦ ἱερου Ποσειδῶνος) προελθόντι ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ Ταΰγετον ὀνομάζουσιν Ἀλεσίας χωρίον, Μύλητα τὸν Λέλεγος πρῶτον ἀνθρώπων μύλην τε εὑρεῖν λέγοντες καὶ ἐν ταῖς Ἀλεσίαις ταύταις ἀλέσαι. Paus. iii. 20. 2. According to Hesychius, (v. Μυλὰς) this hero Myles or Mylas was one of the Telchines: Μυλὰς, εἷς τῶν Τελχίνων, ὃς τὰ ἐν Καμείρῳ ἱερα Μυλαντείων ἱδρύσατο. The tradition attributing to this personage the invention of mills is thus related by Stephanus: Μυλαντία, ἄκρα ἐν Καμίρῳ τῆς Ῥόδου. Μυλάντιοι, θεοί ἐπιμύλιοι. ἀπὸ Μύλαντος ἀμφότερα, τοῦ καὶ πρώτου εὑρόντος ἐν τῷ βίῳ τὴν τοῦ μύλου χρῆσιν. De Urb. et Popul. p. 570, seq. where we see the able and learned notes of Berkelius.
Footnote 425:
Who very commonly sang at their employment. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 1339. Plut. Conviv. Sept. Sap. § 45.
Footnote 426:
Poll. i. 80, informs us, that σιτοποιϊκὸς οἶκος was used by a kind of euphemism for μυλῶν.
Footnote 427:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 253. Watermills were known in antiquity. Vitruv. x. 10. Dempster on Rosin. i. 14. p. 87. Pignor. de Serv. 248. These mills were, doubtless, called into requisition in time of war, when the soldiers took along with them large quantities of cheese and meal. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 304. The ancients appear to have been partial to small bread, since we find that four or even eight loaves were sometimes made from a chœnix of flour. Schol. Vesp. 440.
-----
Thus we find that the philosophers Menedemos and Asclepiades, when young and poor, earned their subsistence, and were enabled to pursue the study of philosophy, by working at night in a mill.[428] As few persons knew this circumstance, and they were observed all day among the learned in the schools, some one brought against them an accusation of idleness, for which they were cited before the senate of Areopagos. In order to prove that they gained their livelihood in an honest way, the miller for whom they worked was brought forward. His testimony confirmed their statement; and he added, moreover, that he paid to each of them two drachmas per night. The Areopagites were so pleased with this proof of their industry and passion for philosophy, that, on pronouncing their acquittal, they at the same time made them a present of two hundred drachmas.[429] But these mills were not always put in motion by the hand of man. Yoked to beams projecting from the upper millstone, oxen and asses, moving about in a circle, blindfold, as at present, when similarly employed, sometimes turned the mill instead of slaves.[430] Upon the construction of these machines little exact information was possessed before the laying open of the ruins of Pompeii, where, in a baker’s shop, four mills, still almost perfect, have been discovered. They consist of a round stone basement with a rim, from the centre of which springs a blunt cone: this is the nether millstone. The upper one consists of an imperfect cylinder, hollowed out within, like an hour-glass, one part of which fits like a cap upon the cone below, while the other expands its bell-mouth above. Into this the corn was poured, and, descending through four small apertures upon the nether stone, was, by the turning round of the upper one thereon, reduced to meal, which passed gradually down, fining as it went, and fell out upon the stone basement below. The corn having been ground, the next operation was, to sever the flour from the bran, though sometimes bread was made from it in the rough,[431] and regarded, moreover, as extremely wholesome. First, and most simple of these contrivances, was the sieve,[432] made with slender rushes, which separated the coarse bran and produced a meal sufficiently cleansed for household bread. A much superior sieve was manufactured with linen threads, by which the flour was bolted to a great degree of fineness. When it was required of still superior purity and whiteness, the bolter would seem to have been bottomed with threads of woollen, which, being woven close, allowed nothing but particles of the utmost tenuity to pass.[433] All the above operations were supposed to be placed under the superintendence of a particular deity named Eunostos,[434] of whom no mention, I believe, is made in modern systems of mythology.
-----
Footnote 428:
Cleanthes, the disciple of Zeno, earned his subsistence by drawing water during the night. Suidas, in v. t. i. p. 1467. b.
Footnote 429:
Athen. iv. 65.
Footnote 430:
Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 41. Tim. § 23.
Footnote 431:
Cf. Dioscorid. ii. 107. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 952; and Athen. iii. 83.
Footnote 432:
Plin. xviii. 28. Goguet, i. 211. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 164.
Footnote 433:
Τὸ ἐργαλεῖον ἐν ᾧ τὰ ἄλευρα διεσήθετο, τὸ μὲν ἐκ σχοίνων πλέγμα, κόσκινον· εἰ δὲ τῷ κοσκίνου κύκλῳ ἀντὶ τοῦ σχοίνου λινοῦν τι σινδόνιον εἴη ἐξηρτημένον, ὡς ἀκριβέστερον τὸ ἄλευρον καθαίροιτο, ἀλευρότησις ἐκαλεῖτο· ἡ δὲ ἐξ ἐρίου, κρησέρα. Poll. Onomast. vi. 74.
Footnote 434:
Suid. v. Νοστος. t. i. p. 241. Athen. xiv. 10. Hesych. v. Εὔνοστος. Eustath. ad Il. β. 162. 21. Ad Odys. γ. 754. 50. Etym. Mag. 394. 3. Poll. vii. 180.
-----
The ancients employed in the making of bread a great many kinds of grain besides wheat[435] and barley;[436] as rye, millet, which was little nourishing, panic, which was still less so,[437] sesame, olyra, spelt, rice, tiphe, and a sort of grain from Ethiopia, called orindion. Several other substances were likewise used for the same purpose, not for the sake of adulteration, but either to improve the taste, or from reasons of economy; such as the root of the lotos,[438] and, perhaps, of the day-lily[439] dried, and reduced, like wheat itself, to flour; and the root of the corn-flag,[440] which was previously boiled, and, for the sake of communicating a sweet taste to the bread, would appear to have been mixed with the dough as the meal of the potato is in modern times. This plant grew most plentifully in grounds frequented by the mole, which loved to feed upon it. Another ingredient often mixed with bread was, the pulpy seed of the Star of Bethlehem,[441] of which the root likewise was eaten, both raw and cooked.
-----
Footnote 435:
A fine light bread was made of the three months summer wheat. Dioscor. ii. 107. Others speak of this wheat as requiring four months to come to maturity: Οἱ σιτάνιοι ἄρτοι, ἐκ τῶν σιτανίων πυρῶν, οἵ εἰσιν οἱ τετράμηνοι Poll. vi. 73.
Footnote 436:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 816.
Footnote 437:
Dioscorid. ii. 119, seq. 113, sqq. Poll. i. 248. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 1057. Herod. ii. 36.
Footnote 438:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 88.
Footnote 439:
Ἀσοὁδέλος. Id. Hist. Plant. vii. 13. 3. Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 41. Plin. xxi. 68. In certain countries of the Levant, even dates were converted into a kind of bread. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 10.
Footnote 440:
Φάσγανον. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 12. 3. In their fondness for roots the modern Greeks appear to equal their ancestors: “Ce qui a donné lieu au proverbe, qui dit que les Grecs s’engraissent où les ânes meurent de faim: cela est vrai à la lettre, les ânes ne mangent que les feuilles des plantes, et les Grecs emportent jusques à la racine.” Tournefort, t. i. p. 106.
Footnote 441:
Ὀρνιθόγαλον. Dioscor. ii. 174.
-----
The seed of the pepper-wort,[442] also, was sprinkled over cakes. Among the Thracians, about the river Strymon, they made bread from the flour of the water-caltron,[443] a prickly root of a triangular form, which abounds in the lagoons about Venice, where it is sold commonly in the market-places, and roasted for the table in hot embers.[444] The root of the dragon-wort,[445] eaten both raw and cooked in Greece, was, in the Balearic isles, served up fried with honey at banquets instead of cakes. They gathered it in harvest time, and, having roasted, cut it in slices, which were then strung on a cord and dried in the shade for keeping. The seeds of the garden poppy were used in bread-making, perhaps like carraway-seeds with us, as were those of the wild poppy for medicinal purposes in honeycakes, and certain kinds of sweetmeats.[446] They had in Syria a kind of bread made of mulberries, which caused the hair of those who habitually fed on it to fall off.[447]
-----
Footnote 442:
Μελανθίον. Id. iii. 93.
Footnote 443:
Τριβόλος. Id. iv. 15.
Footnote 444:
Mathée, Notes sur Dioscoride, p. 348.
Footnote 445:
Δρακόντιον. Dioscorid. ii. 196.
Footnote 446:
Id. iv. 65.
Footnote 447:
Athen. iii. 83.
-----
Although in the establishments of the wealthy bread was usually made by the women of the family, whether servile or free, the art of the baker seems early to have been practised as a separate business,[448] frequently at Athens by foreigners. The Lydian bakers, for example,[449] like those of France and Germany among us, enjoyed considerable celebrity, as did likewise the Cappadocians and Phœnicians, the art of the last having been able, it is said, to vary the qualities of the loaf every day in the year.[450]
-----
Footnote 448:
Lucian. Demon. §§ 23. 63.
Footnote 449:
Athen. iii. 77. At present Greek bakers are in most request throughout the Levant. Wolf, Mission. Research. p. 12. Antiphanes, too, in his Omphalè celebrates the Athenian bakers. Athen. iii. 78. And Plato in the Gorgias, t. iii. p. 154, commemorates Thearion, who excelled in this art. On ancient bread-bags, Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. 297.
Footnote 450:
Athen. iii. 77.
-----
Of the form and structure of a baker’s establishment we may acquire some conception from the ruins of Pompeii, where the mills, the ovens, the kneading-troughs,[451] small and great, would appear to have been sometimes of stone, though generally, perhaps, of wood. When the dough had been properly kneaded and leavened,[452] it was removed to a table with a rim, and fashioned into a variety of forms by the hand or with moulds. The larger loaves were placed in rows in a capacious oven, in which wood had been burnt and raked out carefully. Sometimes, also, a fire would appear to have been kept up in an open space round the oven, having at the top a smoke vent. One kind of loaf was baked in a small fictile or iron oven, called cribanos,[453] which was either placed on the fire, or surrounded by hot coals. There was another which they toasted before the fire on a spit;[454] and a great variety of cakes were baked on the live coals, or in the ashes.[455]
-----
Footnote 451:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 660, 666.
Footnote 452:
Cakes of leavened bread were called ζυμίται, those of unleavened bread ἄζυμοι. Poll. vi. 32.
Footnote 453:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 86.
Footnote 454:
Poll. vi. 75. Tzetz. Chiliad. vii. 770.
Footnote 455:
Athen. iii. 76. Some of these were reckoned so delicate as to create appetite, and to have the power of removing drunkenness, 74. At Athens one of the most thriving departments of the baker’s business must have been supplying the fleets and merchantmen with biscuits, ἄρτοι ναυτικοὶ ξηροὶ, a sample of which we find a sailor presenting to his mistress. Luc. Dial. Meret. xiv. § 2. Cf. Poll. vii. 23. Athen. iii. 74.
-----
These it would require a separate treatise to enumerate and describe, since fashion appears to have been constantly varying the materials, the forms, and the appellations, of loaves. Upon the whole, however, the bread sold in the market-place of Athens was esteemed the whitest and most delicious in Greece; for the Rhodians, speaking partially of the produce of their own ovens, supposed they were bestowing on it the highest compliment when they said it was not inferior to that of Athens.[456] The dimensions of loaves depended, of course, on the object of the baker, and varied from those of the smallest roll, prepared for people of delicate appetites, to those of the enormous obeliæ, sometimes containing upwards of three bushels of flour, borne in procession at the festival of Dionysos.[457]
-----
Footnote 456:
Athen. iii. 74.
Footnote 457:
Poll. vi. 75. Tzetz. Chiliad. vii. 770.
-----
The business of the confectioner was in scarcely less request, or less profitable, than that of the baker himself. In most cases, perhaps, the finer kinds of pastry were made by women,[458] whose taste and skill enabled them to gratify the lovers of delicacies with an infinite variety of sweetmeats. The vocabulary connected with this division of the art culinary is singularly rich, but, in many cases, conveys to our minds very little precise information. It may be inferred, however, with something like certainty, that the stock of an Athenian confectioner contained most of those delicious trifles now to be found in the establishments of their successors in London or Paris. It will, consequently, be impossible to enumerate them, or to specify the several ingredients which entered into their composition. It has already, I believe, been observed, in speaking of wine, that the ancients were exceedingly partial to sweets, which, in the making of their confectionary, led them to the constant employment of honey. Most of their favourite cakes contained some portion of this ingredient,[459] sometimes, indeed, found in company with other articles apparently little calculated to combine with it. Wine, too, and cheese, and milk, and seeds, and the juices of vegetables, entered into the composition of various sweetmeats, which were occasionally made to keep long, as when intended for exportation; occasionally to be consumed at the moment, as they issued hot from the oven or the fryingpan. To this latter class belonged those delicate pancakes, the paste of which was poured liquid into the fryingpan, then flooded atop with fresh honey, and sprinkled with sesame and grated cheese.[460] The taste for the catillus ornatus the Greeks appear to have borrowed from the Romans. This was a rich cake, composed of fine flour, kneaded with lard and the juice of lettuces, pounded in a mortar with wine, seasoned with pepper, and fried in boiling oil.[461] Among their pastry was a sort of pie made of vine-birds[462] and beccaficoes,[463] the undercrust of which, kneaded with honey, was sometimes moistened at table in chicken-broth.[464]
-----
Footnote 458:
Poll. iii. 41.
Footnote 459:
Athen. xiv. 51, sqq.
Footnote 460:
Athen. xiv. 55.
Footnote 461:
Id. xiv. 57.
Footnote 462:
Ἀμπελίδες ἅς νῦν ἀμπελιῶνας καλοῦσιν. Poll. vi. 52.
Footnote 463:
Συκαλίδες. Aristot. Hist. Anim. viii. 3. ix. 49.
Footnote 464:
Poll. vi. 77.
-----
These cakes and sweetmeats were sometimes fashioned into very extraordinary forms; one sort, for example, representing the female breast,[465] another a perfect sphere,[466] a third the head and horns of an ox,[467] while others were wrought into mystical figures, and appropriated to certain festivals of the Pagan calendar. The cake called Chærinè, made with the flour of parched wheat and honey, was bestowed as a prize on those who, during the Pannuchia, remained awake all night.[468]
-----
Footnote 465:
Athen. xiv. 55.
Footnote 466:
Athen. xiv. 56.
Footnote 467:
Poll. vi. 76.
Footnote 468:
Athen. xiv. 56.
-----
The trade of the butcher[469] was carried on at Athens by citizens,[470] whose shops in the Agora would seem to have been extremely well furnished, containing every variety of meat, from the chine of a prize ox,[471] to the hind quarter of an ass.[472] Sheep’s and kids’ heads were commonly sought to be rendered more attractive by having a branch of myrtle stuck between the teeth, whence one of the hetairæ was compared to a goat’s head, because she often walked the street with a sprig of myrtle in her mouth.[473] The information which antiquity has left us respecting butchers’ shops and implements is extremely imperfect. We are told simply, that they had chopping-blocks and cleavers, large axes with which animals were felled in the slaughter-houses, flaying knives, hooks whereon to suspend and display their stock, with scales for weighing meat.[474] A very curious anecdote is related of a Milesian butcher: there was a man named Killicon, who betrayed his native city Miletos, to the Prienians. Among his countrymen, who on this occasion became fugitives, was a butcher. This man fled to Samos, where he carried on his old business.[475] Some time after Killicon himself came to that island, and going into the market to buy provisions, by chance addressed himself to the Milesian butcher, whose name was Theagenes. The man remembered the traitor, and when he would have bought of him a piece of meat, desired Killicon to lay hold of the part he wanted, while he severed it from the carcase; then taking up an axe he smote off his hand, saying, “With that hand, at least, you shall never again betray your country.”[476]
-----
Footnote 469:
Κρεωπώλης. Butchers were also called μαγείροι κρεωδαίτας and κρεουργοὶ. Poll. vii. 25.
Footnote 470:
Athen. xiii. 43.
Footnote 471:
Jason of Pheræ once excited among the Thessalian cities a contention as to which of them should supply the finest ox: Ἐκήρυξε δὲ καὶ νικητήριον χρυσοῦν στέφανον ἔσεσθαι, εἴ τις τῶν πόλεων βοῦν ἡγεμόνα κάλλιστον τῷ θεῷ θρέψειε. Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4. 29.
Footnote 472:
Poll. ix. 48.
Footnote 473:
Athen. xiii. 23. Plut. Dem. § 12 Id. Dion. § 1.
Footnote 474:
Poll. vii. 25. Suid. v. κρεάγρα, t. i. p. 1521, seq.
Footnote 475:
Among the Romans in the good old days of the republic, gentlemen killed their own meat. “Suis enim fundum colit nostrum, quin sues habeat, et qui non audieret patres nostros dicere, ignavum, et sumptuosum esse, qui succidiam in carnario suspenderit potius ab laniario, quam ex domestico fundo?” Varro, De Re Rust. ii. 4. From the same author, (ii. 9,) we learn that ancient, like modern butchers, were fond of being attended by large fierce dogs, which he advises shepherds when in search of a co-guardian for their flocks most especially to eschew.
Footnote 476:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 359.
-----
The vintners and tavern-keepers, who were tolerably numerous in Greece,[477] appear to have acquired much the same reputation as they enjoy in modern times. It was regarded as a matter of some difficulty to discover a jar of pure wine beneath their roofs; and, indeed, the honest vine-growers of the country are accused of having understood the art of making Bacchos acquainted with the nymphs on his way to the city. In other words they sold from their waggons in the Agora[478] a certain quantity of the Ilissos, mingled with the juice of the grape. The tavern-keepers, however, stood in very little need of their assistance, since they were not merely adepts in watering and doctoring their wines, but were skilful at giving short measure;[479] and yet understood various contrivances for alluring people to their houses. Thus one of them, for example, used to present a club that dined at his tavern with a kid,[480] reckoning upon paying himself by the profits of the wine.[481] However, when an opulent and delicate company honoured them with their presence, they could, doubtless, supply wines of the finest flavour; and to render them still more delicious, they were accustomed in summer to plunge the flagons into snow,[482] or, occasionally, to mingle it with the wine, as is still the fashion at Naples and in Sicily. Taverns, therefore, were furnished with ice-cellars, where snow could be kept during the hottest weather. Alexander[483] found means of carrying along with him a quantity of this article of luxury into India, where he probably treated Taxilos and Poros with iced wines. This achievement was imitated many ages after by the Khalif Mahadi, who on his pilgrimage to Mecca traversed the desert accompanied by a numerous train of camels laden with ice and snow, the first, according to Oriental historians, ever beheld in the Holy Cities. In the island of Cimolos, people made use, as coolers, of deep pits, in which jars of soft and tepid water,[484] and, doubtless, wine also, were refrigerated.[485]
-----
Footnote 477:
At the doors of these establishments then were probably, as at Pompeii, holes bored through the stones of the foot pavement, raised considerably above the road, to receive the halters of horses or mules. Hamilton, Discov. at Pomp. p. 12.
Footnote 478:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 244, seq. Athen. x. 38.
Footnote 479:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Thesm. 744.
Footnote 480:
Others defrauded their customers by mixing mutton with kid. Schol. Arist. Eq. 1396.
Footnote 481:
Athen. xiii. 43.
Footnote 482:
Athen. iii. 97. Prodic. ap. Xen. Mem. ii. 1. 30.
Footnote 483:
Athen. iii. 97.
Footnote 484:
Σῆμος δὲ ὁ Δήλιος ἐν δευτέρῳ Νησιάδος, ἐν Κιμώλω τῇ νήσω φησὶ ψυχεῖα κατεσκευάσθαι θέρους ὀρυκτὰ, ἔνθα χλιεροῦ ὕδατος πλήρη κεράμια καταθέντες, ὕστερον κομίζονται χιόνος οὐδὲν διάφορα. Athen. iii. 96. These coolers are rendered necessary by the entire lack of springs in the island, whose inhabitants wholly depend for water on what they can preserve in pits and cisterns. Tournefort, t. i. p. 170.
-----
The wine was laid up in jars, skins, and flasks, which, like the oil-flasks of Florence and Lucca, were cased with fine basket-work.[486] The measures in use were numerous, and somewhat difficult to be reduced with exactness to those of modern times: the metretes (ten gallons two pints) contained twelve choes; the chous (about six pints) six xestæ; the xestes (one pint) two cotylæ; the cotyla (half-pint) two tetarti; the tetarton (one quartern) two oxybapha; the oxybaphon, one cyathus and a-half; the cyathus, two conchæ; the concha, two mystra; the mystron, one chema and a-half; the chema, two cochlearia.[487]
-----
Footnote 485:
But see Beckmann, iii. 327.
Footnote 486:
Aristoph. Av. 799. These flasks were in later times called φλασκία, whence the modern name. Suid. v. πυτίνη, t. ii. p. 672. d. These we find were frequently, as well as baskets, the work of prisoners, who probably thus earned a livelihood. Hesych. v. πυτίνη πλεκτή. Cf. Suid. v. Διΐτρεφης, i. 729. In the cellars of Pompeii, the wine-jars were found ranged along the walls without stoppers, instead of which a little oil was probably poured on the top of the wine, as at present in Italy. Hamilton, Discov. at Pomp. p. 15.
Footnote 487:
Eisenschmid. de Pond. et Mens. Vet. p. 166.
-----
Respecting the price of wines[488] our information is exceedingly imperfect; for although it be frequently stated how much a certain measure cost, the quality of the wine not being mentioned at the same time, we are very little nearer any real knowledge of the value. In Lusitania, ten gallons of pure wine were at one period sold for three-pence; at Athens the price of the metretes,[489] appears to have varied from about one and eight-pence, to three and four-pence, though occasionally it rose as high as about ten shillings. Even of the Mendæan, a wine of very superior quality, the wholesale price did not, at one period, exceed two drachmas, the metretes; but as the innkeepers were accused of having made enormous profits, it is at the same time quite credible, that they should occasionally have charged an obolos for the hemicotyla, especially to tipling women. Elsewhere, however, we find the chous, or twelve cotylæ, sold for an obolos,[490] the price, doubtless, depending partly on the quality of the wine, partly on the conscience of the innkeeper. For, notwithstanding that there were at Athens three magistrates charged with the inspection of wines,[491] part of whose business it probably was to prevent adulteration and exorbitant prices, the vintners, male and female, in all likelihood were an overmatch for them.
-----
Footnote 488:
Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. p. 133.
Footnote 489:
Vid. Athen. iii. 86.
Footnote 490:
Athen. xi. 47. Cf. iii. 86.
Footnote 491:
Athen. x. 25. Poll. vi. 21.
-----
Most of the means by which the ancients adulterated their wines appear to be unknown to us, though we find that they endeavoured to restore the taste of such as were spoiled, by mingling with them a certain quantity of boiled wine[492] and preparations of lime and gypsum. To check the progress of the second fermentation, they were sometimes in the habit of casting a pumice-stone into the jar;[493] but where wine was so cheap, there was little temptation to have recourse to any other art than that of watering a little, which, according to the comic poet, might proceed from a benevolent desire to keep men sober and preserve their health.[494]
-----
Footnote 492:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1005. 878.
Footnote 493:
Conf. Beckmann, Hist. Invent. i. 402. sqq. Dioscor. v. 125.
Footnote 494:
A. Ἐν τοῖς συμποσίοισιν οὐ πίνετ᾽ Ἄκρατον. S. Οὐ γὰρ ῥᾴδιον· πωλοῦσι γὰρ Ἐν ταῖς ἁμάξαις εὐθέως κεκραμένων· Οὐχ ἵνα τι κερδαίνωσι, τῶν δ᾽ ὠνουμένων Προνοούμενοι τοῦ τὰς κεφαλὰς ὑγιεῖς ἔχειν Ἐκ κραιπάλης. Alex. ap. Athen. x. 38.
-----
The stock of a respectable wine-merchant must have been peculiarly rich and varied,[495] consisting of the Anthosmias, a wine of delicious fragrance; the Lesbian,[496] a favourite wine of Alcibiades;[497] the Pramnian,[498] a strong rough wine, celebrated by Homer;[499] the Lemnian, quaffed by the heroes before Troy;[500] the Chian, light and delicate;[501] the Kapnian, from Beneventum in Italy,[502] a sharp red wine which made the eyes water like smoke;[503] the Mesogeites, from Mount Tmolos,[504] which, however delicious might be its taste, gave those who drank it the head-ache; the Phygelites, from Ephesos, equal to that of Lesbos; those of Cos and Clazomenè, pleasant when new, but which would not keep because mixed with sea-water; the Cydonian;[505] the Maronæan,[506] of great strength; the Mendæan;[507] the Mareotic;[508] the Port; and the Thasian, which may be regarded as the flower of the whole for excellence and celebrity.[509]
-----
Footnote 495:
The Greeks gave fanciful names to their wines and their cups; but the English have been still more fanciful in the names of their ales. See Bent. Dissert. on Phalaris, i. pref. xxi.
Footnote 496:
Xen. Hellen. vi. 6. 6. Athen. i. 24.
Footnote 497:
Athen. vii. 9. i. 55. Plut. Alcib. § 12.
Footnote 498:
Athen. i. 55.
Footnote 499:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 107. Etym. Mag. 683. 30, seq.
Footnote 500:
Il. η. 467, sqq.
Footnote 501:
Poll. vi. 15. x. 72.
Footnote 502:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 151; and Thurian. Nub. 331.
Footnote 503:
Suid. v. Καπν. t. i. p. 1370.
Footnote 504:
Dioscor. v. 10.
Footnote 505:
“The district of Cydonia must have been celebrated for its wine in ancient times, for we find on many of its coins a bunch of grapes, or the head of Dionysos. Some of them also exhibit a female head adorned with a chaplet of vine-leaves. I found a beautiful silver coin of Cydonia in the possession of the interpreter of the French Consulate, and the female head seen on its obverse was thus ornamented.” Pashley, Travels in Crete, vol. i. p. 23.
Footnote 506:
Athen. i. 95, seq.
Footnote 507:
Id. viii. 67.
Footnote 508:
Id. i. 25.
Footnote 509:
Aristoph. Lysist. 196. Athen. x. 37. i. 24. Poll. vi. 15.
-----
There were several wines among the ancients which acquired peculiar qualities and flavour from the way in which they were made or preserved. Thus, in Galatia,[510] where, as the grapes ripened but imperfectly, the wine had a tendency to grow sour, a hemicotyla of resin was poured into the metretes of wine, which gave it at first a harsh taste, though in time it acquired a better flavour. In this process the resin was pounded in a mortar, with a quantity of the pine-bark. Some persons allowed it to remain in the vessel, while others strained it off immediately after fermentation. The wine which was preserved by an infusion of pitch,[511] was manufactured in the following manner: the pitch was washed with brine and sea-water[512] until it whitened, then cleansed perfectly with fresh-water, after which an ounce or two was mingled with eight choes of wine. The saline wines were made[513] either by dipping the bunches as gathered into sea-water, or sprinkling them therewith, or pouring it along with them into the press after they had been dried in the sun. But in whatever manner prepared, wines of this description were regarded with an evil eye by physicians.
-----
Footnote 510:
Dioscor. v. 43.
Footnote 511:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 189. 643.
Footnote 512:
Dioscor. v. 48.
Footnote 513:
Id. v. 10. 27. Athen. i. 24.
-----
Among the other riches of an Hellenic cellar were mead or metheglin,[514] and hydromel[515] and omphacomel,[516] with perry and cider,[517] and palm-wine[518] and fig-wine[519] and quince-wine[520] and lotos[521] and pomegranate-wine.[522]
-----
Footnote 514:
Aristot. De Mirab. Auscult. t. xvi. p. 185. Tauchnitz.—Max. Tyr. Dissert. xi. p. 138. The making of this delicious beverage is the simplest process imaginable. Speaking of the Ingushians,—“The excellent honey which they produce,” observes Pallas, “is partly converted into mead, having been previously diluted with boiling water; partly used with a fermented liquor made of millet, and called Busa, and partly eaten at the dessert.” Travels in Southern Russia, ii. 204.
Footnote 515:
Plin. xiv. 20. Beckmann, Hist. of Invent. iii. 373.
Footnote 516:
Dioscor. v. 31. The physician observes of this beverage:—ἡ χρῆσις δ᾽ αὐτοῦ μετ᾽ ἐνιαυτόν.
Footnote 517:
Pallad. iii. 25. Colum. xii. 45. Dioscor. v. 32.
Footnote 518:
The palm-wine of Æthiopia would appear to have been celebrated in antiquity, since a small cask of it was thought a fit present for a Persian king. Herod. iii. 20. Plin. xiii. 4. Diod. Sicul. ii. 136.
Footnote 519:
Damm. Lexic. 2224. Cf. Eustath. ad Odyss. ω. t. iii. p. 839. 8, seq. Dioscor. v. 41.
Footnote 520:
Dioscor. v. 28.
Footnote 521:
Herod. iv. 177. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 3. 2. Wines were sometimes flavoured by an infusion of wild carrot-root (δαῦκος). Dioscor. v. 70. There was a drink called βρύτον, with roots, which sometimes supplied the place of wine. Athen. x. 67.
Footnote 522:
Dioscor. v. 34.
-----
Numerous odoriferous plants were likewise employed in communicating a variety of flavours and fragrance to wine, as the rose,[523] thyme,[524] germander,[525] anis,[526] œnanthe,[527] wormwood,[528] betony,[529] southern-wood,[530] squills,[531] myrtle,[532] mastic,[533] terebinth,[534] sycamore,[535] fir-cones,[536] cedar-cones,[537] cypress-cones,[538] juniper-berries,[539] pitch, and larchtree-cones.[540] Almost every other aromatic plant, shrub, and tree, was in like manner, employed to communicate a flavour, or an odour, to wine, chiefly, however, for medicinal purposes; and among these was the hyssop, whose leaves were used in the following manner: a pound of them, having been well bruised, were tied up in a sort of gauze, and by the weight of a few intermingled pebbles sunk to the bottom of the amphora. Here they were permitted to remain forty days, after which the wine was racked.[541] Of these wines that which was tinctured with rose-leaves was commonly drunk after dinner to promote digestion.[542] That which, about the Propontis and Thrace, was flavoured with wormwood, people destined for their summer drink, considering it favourable to health.[543]
-----
Footnote 523:
Id. v. 35.
Footnote 524:
Id. v. 59.
Footnote 525:
Χαμαίδρυς. Id. v. 51.
Footnote 526:
Dioscor. v. 75.
Footnote 527:
Id. v. 33.
Footnote 528:
Id. v. 49.
Footnote 529:
Id. v. 54.
Footnote 530:
Id. v. 62.
Footnote 531:
Id. v. 26.
Footnote 532:
Id. v. 37.
Footnote 533:
Id. v. 38.
Footnote 534:
Id. v. 39.
Footnote 535:
Id. v. 42.
Footnote 536:
Id. v. 44.
Footnote 537:
Id. v. 47.
Footnote 538:
Id. v. 45.
Footnote 539:
Id. v. 46.
Footnote 540:
Id. v. 45.
Footnote 541:
Dioscor. v. 50.
Footnote 542:
Id. v. 35.
Footnote 543:
Id. iii. 27.
-----
The greatest enemies of the vintners[544] were the physicians who, by dwelling on the pernicious qualities of wine, deterred the reasonable part of the world from a too frequent use of it. Old wine, they maintained, shatters the nerves and produces headache; new wine is the parent of horrible dreams. That which is middling, however, for example, about seven years old, is liable to fewer objections, and may upon the whole be drunk with some degree of safety. White wine, too, according to their opinion, is better than red, since it corroborates the stomach, and is, probably, that kind which, when of a proper age, produces pleasant dreams.[545] Pure wine, in general, moreover, was admitted to improve the health and beautify the complexion; and Pindar, whom most persons will allow to have been a good judge, though he could not, like Anacreon, dispose of a cask at a sitting,[546] declares in favour of old wine and new songs.
-----
Footnote 544:
Id. v. 7.
Footnote 545:
Athen. i. 47.
Footnote 546:
This achievement the Teian celebrates in one of his own odes, a fragment of which has been preserved by Athenæus, xi. 45.
Ἠρίστησα μὲν ἰτρίου λέπτον ἀποκλὰς, Οἴνου δ᾽ ἐξέπιον κάδον.
-----
Of beer, though, as we have elsewhere remarked, it was familiarly known to the Egyptians,[547] as well as to the inhabitants of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, who manufactured it from barley and service-berries, as the people of Dantzic now do from the hips of the wild roses,[548] we need say nothing, as the Greeks were so ignorant of its nature, that when the Ten Thousand met with a quantity in Armenia they diluted it with water as they were accustomed to do their wine, that is to say, entirely spoiled it.[549] The establishments of these vintners were almost of necessity most frequent in the neighbourhood of the agora,[550] where the rustics from the country congregated in crowds on market-days; where were held also, on many occasions, the public assemblies; and where newsmongers and loungers of every description most generally passed their leisure hours.
-----
Footnote 547:
Athen. x. 12. i. 61. Dioscor. ii. 110. Goguet. i. 231.
Footnote 548:
Voyages de la Comp. des Indes, i. 62.
Footnote 549:
Xenoph. Anab. iv. 5.
Footnote 550:
Cf. Plat. de Leg. t. viii. p. 114, seq. De Rep. t. vi. p. 176. Muret. ad Arist. Ethic. p. 415.
-----
Making due allowance for difference of dimensions, and their greater or less magnificence, the same description will apply to the agoræ of all Grecian cities. But, as we are best acquainted with the features of that of Athens, if we can succeed in delineating a tolerably correct picture of it, some idea may, therefrom, be easily formed of all the others. We must imagine, therefore, a large circular open space,[551] about the centre of the city, surrounded on all sides by ranges of shops, temples, porticoes, and other public buildings.[552] It was traversed in various directions by avenues of plane-trees, planted shortly after the Persian war, which in summer constituted so many shady walks. About the middle stood the altars of Pity and the Twelve Gods, in a circle,[553] and near them were the statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton,[554] the tyrannicides, whose memory was cherished by the republic with the most religious veneration. By far the greater part of the space, however, was covered by rows of sheds, booths, and tents, furnished with seats[555] (the construction of which formed a separate branch of industry),[556] where every article of use or luxury known to the ancient world was exhibited with the utmost attention to display. Here were the embroidered veils, and shawls, and mantles, and sandals, of the mercer’s quarter;[557] there the chains of gold, the armlets, the anklets, the jewelled circlets for the head, the golden grasshoppers, the seals, the rings, the agraffes, the brooches, the cameos, and every description of engraved gems which constituted the attractions of the jewellers’ quarter. Here were waggons piled with jars, and skins filled with wine; there huge pyramids of apples and pears, and quinces and pomegranates, and dates and plums, and cherries and mulberries, black and white, and grape-clusters of every hue, and oranges and citrons, and rich purple figs, and melons and water-melons.[558]
-----
Footnote 551:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 137. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 125.
Footnote 552:
Cf. Demosth. cont. Con. § 3.
Footnote 553:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 295. Xenoph. de Off. Mag. Eq. iii. 2, with the note of Schneider.—Throughout Greece, persons to whom especial honour was designed had their statues erected in the agora, as Theodectes at Phaselis. Plut. Alexand. § 17. The statue of the market Hermes stood near the Stoa Pœcile, and was usually smeared with pitch, from the practice of sculptors who came constantly to take casts from it with a preparation of that substance. Lucian. Jup. Trag. § 33.
Footnote 554:
Aristoph. Lysist. 678.
Footnote 555:
Casaub. ad. Theoph. Char. p. 349.
Footnote 556:
Poll. vii. 125. On the terms connected with settling and buying, &c. iii. 124, sqq.
Footnote 557:
Ἱματιόπωλις ἀγορά or σπειρόπωλις Poll. vii. 78. Cf. Xenoph. de Vectigal, iv. 8.
Footnote 558:
See Book v. chapter ii.
-----
Touching upon these booths were the stalls of the green-grocers, of Eucharides[559] for example, where every vegetable produced in the kitchen-garden and the fields met the eye in profusion; among which were truffles of all kinds,[560] with the roots of the caraway[561] and jagged lettuce, which were eaten like those of the Egyptian bean[562] and the papyrus,[563] radishes,[564] long and round, bunches of turnips,[565] asparagus, broccoli,[566] heads of garlic, and summer savory, for the poor, all kinds of beans and pease, the vervain[567] for purification and amulets, wild myrtle sprigs instead of asparagus,[568] shoots of the black briony,[569] chokeweed to be boiled with vegetables for rendering them tender, tufts of the wild fig-tree, which performed the same service for beef,[570] goats-beard, clematis for seasoning,[571] with bunches of elm-leaves commonly used as a vegetable.[572] Next to these, were, perhaps, the stands of the flower-sellers,[573] where garlands of the richest colours and fragrance were ready wreathed for the brow,[574] some produced by careful culture in gardens, and others gathered where they grew wild by the women, who in time of peace spread themselves in troops over the whole country for this purpose.[575] In one corner were droves of horses, asses, and mules,[576] ready to have their teeth inspected by the buyers,[577] or groups of youthful slaves from all quarters of the world. In another, near a lofty poplar,[578] stood the auction-mart where goods of every description,[579] including even libraries,[580] were knocked down by the hammer. Close at hand, perhaps, stood the tempting booths of the chapmen who purveyed for the kitchen of the Athenians with hams, and sausages, and black-puddings,[581] and pickles, and cheese, and preserved fruits, and spices, from the farthest east. Here were the sellers[582] of salt-meat and fish from the Black Sea,[583] there the toy-shops and upholsterers, while ever and anon the crowds that thronged the passages were compelled to make way for a string of asses[584] laden with vegetables or wood from Parnes or Cithæron, with the ends sticking out on both sides and threatening the eyes of the buyers. Sometimes a porter,[585] with a wooden knot on his shoulders, bore along, like Protagoras, a load of faggots, the size of which astonished the beholders. At times, near the corner of the street leading from the Eleusinian Gate, you saw a half-starved Megarean[586] sneaking through the crowd and bringing along with him sucking pigs, and leverets, and cucumbers, and salt-fish, and garlic,[587] which if observed by the agoranomoi were, during wartime, seized as contraband. On the other hand the broad-faced jolly Bœotian[588] came smirking and grinning, like a Neapolitan, with mule-loads of wild marjoram, pennyroyal, eaten by sheep, mats, lampwicks, fowls,[589] ducks, locusts, jackdaws, francolins,[590] coots, divers, geese, hares, foxes, moles, hedgehogs, cats, pyctides, otters, and eels, from Lake Copaïs. Here in rows stood, black as chimney-sweeps, the charcoal-sellers from Acharnæ, with their mallequins and rush-baskets full piled before them.[591] Yonder were the cornchandlers,[592] surrounded by piles of sacks, measuring their grain, while a horde of ragged spermologoi[593] hovered round to collect what fell. Close at hand stood the flour-merchants, each beside his huge covered wooden trough,[594] from which he measured forth flour or barley-meal to the buyers. Beyond these were the stalls of the fishmongers,[595] the flambeau-sellers[596] and the shining jars of the oil-merchants, piled in heaps to the roof of the booths. In other rows were the shops of the potters,[597] where every variety of jugs, vases, and tureens, was exhibited with vessels of glass, and bronze, and ivory. Here and there, threading their way through the multitude, you beheld the pedlar[598] with his pack of small-wares, the hawker crying his fish or fruit,[599] or vegetables, or sausages, or wild-fowl, laid out on a board on his head; the female bread-seller, with a variety of delicate loaves and cakes piled up before her on a tray; the pastry-girl with sweetmeats; the flower-girl with nosegays of fresh violets from the meadows of Colonos and the banks of the Eridanos and Cephissos. Sheltered from the warm rays of the sun, beneath some magnificent marble colonnade, or the portico of some temple or chapel, sat whole bevies of female flute-players, citharists, or dancing-girls,[600] calling forth, from time to time, whilst waiting to be hired for a party, bursts of music from their instruments, or humming a war-song, or a Palladian hymn, or a merry scholion, the favourite ditties of the Athenian people. Near these, as being folks of the same kidney, the jugglers, cooks, and parasites,[601] took up their position; the former two ready to be hired for the day by the giver of some magnificent entertainment, the latter that they might discover in what direction they were to ply their craft and ferret out a dinner scotfree. Near the Eurysaceum in this neighbourhood stood that eminence called the Hill of the Agora,[602] or Misthios, because servants, in lack of a master, collected there to be hired, as they still do at fairs in most parts of England. Somewhere close at hand were the shops of those brokers who let out pots and pans, and lamps and plate, and the more delicate kind of crockery, to such persons as were too economical to keep such articles of their own.[603] In the midst of this profusion of wares might be seen, at all hours of the day, crowds of well-dressed persons[604] sauntering to and fro, chatting with each other, cheapening the goods of the shopkeepers, or laughing and jesting with the flower-girls or fluteplayers. At other times individuals, by no means deserving the name of loiterers, came thither, either to post up a bill[605] of some article which they had found, or in quest of some information respecting one they had lost, either from such bills or from the public criers who were there accustomed to make proclamation of treasure trove, or to cry that such or such an article of property had strayed from its lawful owner. Occasionally also people made known by criers what goods they had for sale.[606] The young men of rank, when fatigued by these promenades, used to retire into a perfumer’s or barber’s or armourer’s or bridle-maker’s shop,[607] overlooking the bustling scene, where they discussed nonsense or politics, according to their humour. Hither, too, the philosophers came with a view to inspire patriotic and manly sentiments into the minds of these future rulers of the democracy; so that at one period you might have beheld Socrates and Alcibiades and Critias, and Chæriphon and Crito, with Charmides and the divine Plato, engaged in those animated dialogues, the echo of which still rings sweetly in the ears of posterity. In some shops opposite these, as if with a view to rival or eclipse them, or round one of the umbrellas,[608] beneath which, on an elevated platform, the perfumers dispensed their wares in the agora, stood a group of sophists with their followers, such as Hippias of Elis, Prodicos of Cos, or the Agrigentine Polos, or Gorgias of Leontium, habited in purple robes, embroidered vests, flowered sandals, and with glittering crowns of gold upon their heads. Even their florid discourses, however, would fail to command the attention of their auditors when the youth of equestrian rank,[609] mounted on their chargers and drawn up in military array, swept round the outer circle of the agora, paying devout homage to each divinity whose fane they passed. Here also in a future age might be seen, strutting to and fro, the orator Æschines with his arms akimbo and a fashionable little hat[610] stuck knowingly on one side of his head, railing at Demosthenes, and pleading the cause of Philip. And here, too, the night after the fall of Elatea, a very different scene was witnessed when the citizens from every side of the Cecropian rock rushed tumultuously hither in the wildest alarm, and either not reflecting on what they did, or through ill-judged haste, set fire to the sheds and booths in order that they might find a clear space to deliberate on the public safety.
-----
Footnote 559:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 680. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 420. Acharn. 166. Eq. 493. Athen. xiii. 22.
Footnote 560:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 189. 191. Dioscor. ii. 200.
Footnote 561:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 4. 8. Dioscor. iii. 76.
Footnote 562:
Dioscor. i. 115.
Footnote 563:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 1. 4.
Footnote 564:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 1. 2.
Footnote 565:
Antich. di Ercol. t. ii. p. 52.
Footnote 566:
“The ancients were acquainted with curled cabbage and even some of those kinds which we call broccoli. Under this term is understood all those species, the numerous young flowery heads of which, particularly in spring and autumn, can be used like cauliflowers. Such young shoots are called cymæ, but not turiones; for the latter term denotes the first shoots that arise, like those of hops, asparagus, and other esculent plants. The broccoli used at present was, however, first brought from Italy to France, together with the name, about the end of the sixteenth century.” Beckmann, iv. 266.
Footnote 567:
Καλοῦσι δὲ αὐτοὶ ἱεραν βοτάνην διὰ τὸ εὔχρηστον ἐν τοῖς καθαρμεῖς εἶναι εἰς περιάμματα. Dioscor. iv. 71.
Footnote 568:
Ἀντὶ ἀσπαράγου δε οἱ καυλοὶ νεοθαλεῖς λαχανευόμενοι ἐσθίονται. Dioscor. iv. 146.
Footnote 569:
Id. iv. 185.
Footnote 570:
Αἱ δὲ κράδαι βοείοις κρέασι καθεψόμεναι, εὐέψητα ταῦτα ποιοῦσι. Dioscor. i. 184. At Carthagena, the same effect is produced by lemon-juice. “Une chose particulière qu’on remarque en cette ville à l’égard des limons, c’est que les habitans ayent cette idée, qu’il ne faut mettre la viande près du feu que trois quarts d’heure, ou une heure avant le repas. Suivant cette opinion ils ne mettent jamais de l’eau au pot avec la viande sans y exprimer en même tems le jus de trois ou quatre de ces limons plus ou moins, selon la quantité de viande; par ce moyen la viande s’amollit et se cuit si bien, qu’elle est en état d’être servie au bout de ce court espace. Ces gens là sont si accoutumés à cette facilité d’apprêter leurs viandes, qu’ils se moquent des Européens, qui employent toute une matinée pour faire une chose qui leur coute si peu de tems.” Ulloa, Voyage au Pérou. t. i. p. 68.
Footnote 571:
Dioscor. iv. 182.
Footnote 572:
Id. i. 111.
Footnote 573:
Cf. Plut. Arat. § 6. De Pauw, Rech. Phil. sur les Grecs, i. 3. p. 20. Flowers seem to have been brought to market in corbels on asses. Buonaroti, Oss. Istor. sop. alc. Medagl. Antich. p. 385.
Footnote 574:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 1320.
Footnote 575:
Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 528.
Footnote 576:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 348. In wealthy states, says Xenophon, men applied their riches to the purchase of costly arms, fine horses, and magnificent houses and furniture; and the women to that of splendid dresses and ornaments of gold. De Vectigal. iv. 8.
Footnote 577:
Lucian, Luc. siv. Asin. § 35.
Footnote 578:
Cf. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 257, seq.
Footnote 579:
Schol. Aristot. Eq. 103. Andocid. De Myrt. § 22.
Footnote 580:
Lucian. adv. Indoct. § 20.
Footnote 581:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 364. Athen. xiv. 75. See a pork-butcher’s shop in Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 28.
Footnote 582:
Herod. iv. 53. ii. 15. 113.
Footnote 583:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 153. Dion Chrysost. i. 236. Cf. Leake, Topog. of Athen. p. 64.
Footnote 584:
Eurip. ap. Poll. x. 112. Cf. Demosth. adv. Phœnip. § 3. Lucian, Luc. siv. Asin. § 43.
Footnote 585:
Or perhaps water-carriers, this class of men having been numerous in ancient cities, and remarkable for their insolence. Ælian. Var. Hist. ix. 17. Even the camels employed in water-carrying are more vicious than any other.
Footnote 586:
Aristoph. Acharn. 532, sqq.
Footnote 587:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 494, 500.
Footnote 588:
Aristoph. Acharn. 860, sqq.
Footnote 589:
See in Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi, tav. 27, the representation of a poulterer’s shop.
Footnote 590:
Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 257.
Footnote 591:
Id. Acharn. 314.
Footnote 592:
Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 83.
Footnote 593:
On the number of the corresponding class in London I possess no exact information; but a modern writer who has displayed much curious industry in describing the mechanism of the lower stages of society in France gives the following estimate of chiffonniers of Paris:—“En exposant quels sont les principaux élémens de la classe pauvre mais laborieuse, je ne dois pas omettre de faire connaître le nombre des chiffonniers, espèce de manouvriers qui se rattachent aux manufactures par la nature même des objets sur lesquels s’exerce leur industrie. Ce métier, qui est un des moins honorés, a, malgré le dégoût qu’il inspire généralement, un attrait particulier pour certaines gens et surtout pour les enfans, parce qu’il n’assujettit à aucun apprentissage, et qu’en outre, il permet à celui qui l’exerce, de vaguer constamment sur la voie publique et de gagner aisément un salaire raisonnable. On compte 2000 chiffonniers, et à-peu-près un pareil nombre de femmes et d’enfans exerçant la même profession, en tout 4000.” Frégier, Des Classes Dangereuses de la Population dans les Grandes Villes, t. i. p. 27.
Footnote 594:
Τηλία. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 147.
Footnote 595:
Athen. vi. 5.
Footnote 596:
Plut. Arat. § 6.
Footnote 597:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 318.
Footnote 598:
Cf. Poll. i. 51.
Footnote 599:
Athen. ii. 45. The travelling fishmongers even frequented the country-houses and villages, viii. 57. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 13, seq. Eq. 1241, sqq. It was probably persons of this class that most commonly used their mouths as a purse, as the Siamese do their ears. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 194. Aristoph. Vesp. 791. Their baskets were commonly of rushes. Athen. vii. 72. See a representation of them, Antich. di Ercol. t. i. tav. 21. p. 111.
Footnote 600:
Lucian, Amor. § 10. Plut. Arat. § 6.
Footnote 601:
Poll. ix. 48. Athen. ix. 22.
Footnote 602:
Chandler, ii. 104.
Footnote 603:
Athen. iv. 58.
Footnote 604:
Lucian. Bis Accus. § 16. Sch. Arist. Nub. 978.
Footnote 605:
Lucian. Demon. § 17.
Footnote 606:
Poll. iii. 124.
Footnote 607:
Andocid. De Myst. § 9, with the note of Reiske. Plut. Timol. § 14.
Footnote 608:
Athen. xiii. 94.
Footnote 609:
Xenoph. de Off. Mag. Eq. iii. 2.
Footnote 610:
Dem. de Fals. Leg. § 72. Cf. Athen. xi. 109. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. iii. 340.
-----
As there was a certain class of gods who presided over the market-place, so likewise were there particular laws enacted to regulate its transactions, with magistrates especially appointed to carry those laws into execution. These servants of the commonwealth, five in the city and five in the Peiræeus, were denominated Agoranomoi, and paraded all day to and fro, armed with whips of many thongs,[611] amid the crowds of buyers and sellers, both to preserve tranquillity in the market, and prevent or punish those petty acts of fraud and injustice to which persons who subsist by humble traffic are too often in all countries addicted. Thus we find that, not the vintners only, but even the cornchandlers kept small measures;[612] though, as there was a public meter appointed by the state, it could only be when purchasers neglected to employ him, that they lay open to this sort of imposition. Chapmen detected in cheating, or otherwise behaving with impropriety, were scourged by the Agoranomoi on the spot; and it is to be presumed, that, as often as necessary, these officers were attended by a detachment of that powerful and vigilant Scythian police, at one period a thousand strong, which Athens constantly maintained, and which formerly pitched its tents in the agora.[613] Another duty of the Agoranomoi[614] was to collect the tolls paid by Bœotians, Æginetæ, or Megareans, upon whatever articles they brought to the Athenian market. It should here be observed, however, that neither corn nor bread was in later times, at least, placed under the inspection of these magistrates, since there were others called Sitophylaces,[615] whose business it was to see that the public were not defrauded in such articles. The number of these officers, at first three, was afterwards increased to fifteen, of which ten presided over the city corn-market, and five over that of the harbour, where a portico was built by Pericles[616] for the special use of the cornchandlers and flour-merchants.
-----
Footnote 611:
Aristoph. Acharn. 723. Schol. 689. Bekk. Plaut. Captiv. iv. 2. 43. These magistrates were afterwards called Logistæ. Schol. Acharn. 685. Bekk. Cf. Poll. ii. 119. viii. 45. 99. x. 44. There was in use among the ancients a horrid kind of whip in which small bones were intertwisted with the thongs to render the strokes more painful. Lucian, Luc. siv. Asin. § 38. Poll. x. 54.
Footnote 612:
Aristoph. Eq. 1005.
Footnote 613:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 54.
Footnote 614:
Id. 861.
Footnote 615:
Harpocrat. v. σιτοφύλακες p. 162. Dem. adv. Lept. § 8. Lys. cont. Dardan. § 6.
Footnote 616:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 522.
-----
On the prices of articles,[617] our information is extremely incomplete: it is said, however, that an ox in Solon’s time, was sold for five drachmas,[618] a sheep for one; while about the same period, the former animal sold at Rome for a hundred oboloi, and the latter for ten. In the later, and what are called the more flourishing, ages of the commonwealth, a sheep, according to its age, size, and breed, fetched from ten to twenty drachmas, an ox from fifty to a hundred. The price of a fine saddle-horse, in the age of Pericles, was twelve minæ, or about fifty pounds sterling,[619] but a common animal for draught might be obtained for three minæ. The price of thirteen talents paid by Alexander for Bucephalos was a mere arbitrary piece of extravagance. A yoke of mules sold from five to eight minas; asses sometimes for thirty drachmas;[620] a sucking-pig for three drachmas;[621] a dove or a crow fetched three oboloi; a jackdaw or a partridge one obolos, though the philosopher Aristippos chose to give fifty drachmas for a single bird of this kind; seven chaffinches for an obolos. A chœnix of olives cost two chalci, and a cotyla of the best Attic honey five drachmas.
-----
Footnote 617:
Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. 101, sqq. Diog. Laert. vi. 35. Dem. adv. Call. §§ 7. 9. Dionys. Halicarn. i. 100.
Footnote 618:
Plut. Poplic. § 11. Sol. § 23. On the low prices of provisions in Lusitania in the time of Polybius. Athen. viii. 1.
Footnote 619:
Aristoph. Nub. 20. 1226. Lys. adv. Fam. Obtrect. § 4. Some men brought themselves to ruin by their fondness for magnificent horses. Xenoph. Œcon. iii. 8.
Footnote 620:
Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 35.
Footnote 621:
The same price was sometimes given for a Copaïc eel. Aristoph. Ach. 960, seq. Athen. xiv. 69.
-----
The weights and measures[622] in common use at Athens were the talent (65 lbs. 12 dwt. 5 grs.) equal to sixty minæ; the mina (1 lb. 1 oz. 4 grs.) equal to a hundred drachmas; the drachma (6 dwt. 2 grs.) equal to six oboloi; the obolos (9 grs.) equal to three keratia; the keration[623] three grains. The Athenian dry measures were the medimnos, equal to six hecteis;[624] the hecteus, equal to two hemihecteis; the hemihecton, equal to four chœnices; the chœnix, equal to two xestæ; the xestes, equal to two cotylæ; the cotyla, equal to four oxybapha; the oxybaphon, equal to one cyathos and a half;[625] the cyathos, equal to ten cochlearia.
-----
Footnote 622:
Goguet. ii. 196. Herod. i. 192. Poll. iv. 171. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 450. Acharn. 108. See an exact representation of an ancient pair of scales suspended from a bird’s bill in Mus. Cortonens. tab. 27.
Footnote 623:
Eisenschmid. De Pond. et Mens. Vet. p. 156.
Footnote 624:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 633. Eq. 95.
Footnote 625:
Eisenschmid. p. 168.
-----
Of the other measures that occur in ancient authors, it may be worth while to mention the Persian artabe,[626] (hodie ardeb,) which exceeded the Attic medimnos by about three chœnices; the akanè,[627] likewise a Persian measure, equal to forty-five Attic medimnoi or a Bœotian measure equal to two bushels; the addix[628] equal to four chœnices; the dadix[629] to six; the capithe to two; the maris to six cotylæ,[630] the cophinos, a Bœotian measure, to three choes.[631]
-----
Footnote 626:
Athen. xii. 73.
Footnote 627:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 108.
Footnote 628:
Etym. Mag. 16. 53.-17. 45.
Footnote 629:
Poll. iv. 168.
Footnote 630:
Id. x. 184.
Footnote 631:
Id. iv. 168.
-----
III. INDUSTRY: PERFUMERS, BARBERS, GOLDSMITHS, LAPIDARIES, ETC
It has been already observed that the shops of the perfumers[632] were, for the most part, situated in the Agora or its neighbourhood, and much frequented by newsmongers and young men of distinction. From this it follows, that they must have been of spacious dimensions; and it is extremely probable that they were fitted up with every attention to show and elegance. They necessarily contained a number of seats and chairs for the accommodation of customers, and there can scarcely be a doubt, that the various unguents, perfumes, oils, and essences, were ranged on shelves, along the walls, in fine jars, vases of Cyprian marble, and boxes of alabaster,[633] sometimes of one piece, with vessels of glass and silver,[634] or fine earthenware, or porcelain, or beautiful sea-shells.[635] The counters were probably of marble or polished stone, as at Pompeii; and the shopman was supplied with the usual paraphernalia of scales and weights,[636] and measures, and ladles, and spoons, and spatulæ, as in modern times. Peron, an Egyptian, the owner of one of these shops, has been thought of sufficient consequence to have his name transmitted to posterity.[637]
-----
Footnote 632:
Demosth. in Olymp. § 3. Athen. i. 33. Poll. vii. 177.
Footnote 633:
Herod. iii. 20. Pignor. De Serv. 192. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 1015. 1027. Athen. xv. 39. Poll. x. 119.
Footnote 634:
Lucian. Amor. 39.
Footnote 635:
Horat. Carm. ii. 723. Dœring, however, supposes vessels in the shape of shells to be meant.
Footnote 636:
Poll. x. 126.
Footnote 637:
From the way in which this perfumer is mentioned by the comic poets, it may be inferred, that he demanded exceedingly high prices for his commodities. For, in order apparently to tax a person with excessive extravagance, he is said to have purchased unguents of Peron wherewith to anoint the feet of some friend or patron. Athen. xv. 40. xii. 78.
-----
From the richness and variety of odours made use of by the ancients we may infer, that the fragrance of such an establishment at Athens, exceeded that of Araby the Blest. For every land and every sweet flower that grew supplied some ingredient to the endless stock of the perfumer.[638] There was incense, and frankincense, and spikenard,[639] and myrrh, and oils of saffron and cinnamon,[640] and sweet marjoram,[641] and fenugreek,[642] and roses,[643] and hyoscyamos,[644] and maiden’s hair,[645] and iris,[646] and lilies,[647] and watermint, and rosemary, and eastern privet,[648] and baccharis,[649] and thyme. In truth the Athenians, who were esteemed the inventors of all good and useful things,[650] delighted exceedingly in the luxury of sweet smells, and therefore culled from Sicily, and Egypt, and Phœnicia, and Lydia, and Babylonia, and India, and Arabia, whatever could communicate a pleasing scent to their garments,[651] their apartments, or their beards. Even the doves and swallows that flew tame about the house had their feathers drenched with odoriferous essences, which they scattered with their waving wings through the air.[652] This excessive passion for perfumes rendered the favourite articles of it dear, so that of some kinds a cotyla sold for two or five minæ;[653] of others, for ten; while the balm of Gilead, even in the country where it was collected, was valued at double its weight in silver.[654] There were, however, inferior kinds of perfume, some of which were cheap enough, since we find that an alabaster boxful, brought from the East, sometimes sold for two drachmas.[655]
-----
Footnote 638:
Athen. i. 33. xii. 78. xiv. 50. Bochart. Geog. Sac. i. 272, seq. Max. Tyr. p. 10.
Footnote 639:
Athen. xv. 42. Dioscor. 1. 75.
Footnote 640:
Dioscor. 1. 74.
Footnote 641:
Ἀμάρακος. Dioscor. i. 68. Poll. vi. 104.
Footnote 642:
Dioscor. i. 57.
Footnote 643:
Id. i. 53.
Footnote 644:
Id. i. 42.
Footnote 645:
Ἀδιάντον. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 14. 1.
Footnote 646:
Poll. vi. 104.
Footnote 647:
Id. vi. 105. Dioscor. iii. 116.
Footnote 648:
Dioscor. i. 124.
Footnote 649:
Poll. vi. 104. Dioscor. iii. 51. Παρὰ πολλοῖς δὲ τῶν κωμῳδιοποιῶν ὀνομάζεται τι μύρον βάκκαρις· οὗ μνημονεύει καὶ Ἱππώναξ διὰ τούτων·
—Βακκάρει δὲ τὰς ῥῖνας
Ἤλειφον· ἔστι δ᾽ οἵη περ κρόκος.
Athen. Deipnosoph. xv. 41.
Footnote 650:
See on the various inventions of the Athenians, Frid. Creuzer, Orat. de Civit. Athen. Omn. Human. Parent. Francfurt. 1826.
Footnote 651:
This we are told the person itself of Alexander did, being by nature scented like a nosegay. Plut. Alexand. § 4. The same thing is related of Catherine de Medicis, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Blumenbach’s Physiology, Note. p. 182.
Footnote 652:
Cf. Il. ζ. 288. Athen. vi. 67. Poll. vi. 104. Plat. Rep. iii. p. 203. Stallb.
Footnote 653:
Athen. xv. 44.
Footnote 654:
Dioscor. i. 18.
Footnote 655:
Lucian. Dial. Meret, xiv. § 2.
-----
Great use was made of saffron as a perfume.[656] Halls, courts, and theatres were saturated with its odour,[657] and statues[658] were made to flow, like common fountains, with saffron-water. From a great number of other flowers, essences and unguents were likewise prepared; such as our lady’s rose, southernwood,[659] vine-flowers,[660] the narcissus,[661] anis-flower,[662] high taper, betel-leaf, and the jasmine, which, in Persia, was used at banquets and in the baths.[663]
-----
Footnote 656:
Κρόκος. Dioscor. i. 64.
Footnote 657:
Æl. Spart. Vit. Adrian. c. 18. p. 16.
Footnote 658:
Lucan. Pharsal. 809.
Footnote 659:
Ἀβροτόνον. Dioscor. i. 60.
Footnote 660:
Οἰνάνθαι. Dioscor. i. 56. Theoph. de Caus. Plant. iii. 14. 8.
Footnote 661:
Dioscor. i. 63.
Footnote 662:
Ἄνηθον Dioscor. i. 61. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 1. 2.
Footnote 663:
Dioscor. Noth. p. 442. d.
-----
In the preparation of unguents, numerous articles were made use of, either to give them consistency or to modify the scent: among these were the root of the anchusa,[664] palm spatha,[665] butter,[666] sweet-scented moss,[667] and the odoriferous reed.[668]
-----
Footnote 664:
Dioscor. iv. 23. Cf. Plin. xiii. 1.
Footnote 665:
Dioscor. i. 55. 150.
Footnote 666:
From which the unguent obtained the name of βουτύρινον. Dioscor. i. 64.
Footnote 667:
Βρύον. Dioscor. i. 20.
Footnote 668:
Dioscor. i. 17.
-----
Several unguents received their names from the persons who invented them, or from the places whence they were imported, though others were distinguished by appellations which are no longer intelligible: thus, the Megalion or Megalesian derived its name from Megallos, a Sicilian perfumer;[669] the Plangonian from Plango, a female perfumer of Elis.[670] The black ointment, doubtless, received its name from its colour; but wherefore the Sagdas is so called is not known:[671] both these were of Egyptian manufacture. From Lydia was imported the Brenthion,[672] and from Babylonia the Nardon, which disputed the prize with the royal unguent. There was among the Egyptians a perfume called Cyphi,[673] entirely appropriated to the use of the gods, into the composition of which entered the following ingredients; the cyperus, a quantity of juniper-berries, raisins, odoriferous reeds and rushes, the aspalathos, myrrh, wine, resin, and honey, mixed in certain proportions, and reduced to a fine paste. Unguent of roses was preserved by an admixture of salt.[674]
-----
Footnote 669:
Athen. xv. 42. To this perfume Strattis alludes in his Medea:—
——Καὶ λέγ’, ὅτι μύρον φέρεις αὐτῇ Τοιοῦτον, οἷον οὐ Μέγαλλος πώποτε Ἥψησεν, οὐδὲ Δινίας Αἰγύπτιος Οὔτ᾽ εἶδεν, οὔτ᾽ ἐκτήσατο.—
Footnote 670:
Poll. vi. 104. Athen. xv. 42.
Footnote 671:
Poll. vi. 104. Athen. xv. 43.
Footnote 672:
Poll. vi. 104.
Footnote 673:
Dioscor. i. 24.
Footnote 674:
Id. i. 53.
-----
But the perfumers dealt not in odours and essences only, their stock containing every variety of cosmetic for the use of the ladies, who made a complete business of beautifying their faces,[675] which at length became wholly artificial, rather a mask than a countenance.[676] They whitened their foreheads, dyed their eyebrows, and fashioned them like arches, painted black the edges of their eyelids,[677] rendered their eyes humid and bright by powder-of-lead ore, spread over their faces the hues of the lily intermingled with the bloom of the rose, adorned themselves with false ringlets, changed the yellow into black, the black into auburn,[678] gave a ruby tinge to their lips, and blanched their teeth into ivory. But the psimmythion,[679] (ceruse or white lead,) which rendered them fair, undermined their constitution, and poisoned their breath. On the subject of rouge, the Greeks had a very poetical and beautiful saying:—“She plants roses in her cheeks,” said they, “which, like those of Locris, will bloom in an hour and fade in less.”[680]
-----
Footnote 675:
We do not hear, however, that they carried their rage against nature so far as certain Parisian dames commemorated by Montaigne, Essais, t. iii. p. 29, sqq. “Qui n’a ouy parler à Paris de celle, qui se fit escorcher pour seulement en acquérir le teint plus frais d’une nouvelle peau? Il y en a qui se sont fait arracher des dents vives et saines, pour en former la voix plus molle, et plus grasse, ou pour les ranger en meilleur ordre. Combien d’examples du mespris de la douleur avons nous en ce genre? Que ne peuvent-elles? Que craignent-elles pour peu qu’il y ait d’agencement à espérer en leur beauté?
‘Vellere queis cura est albos à stirpe capillos, Et faciem demptâ pellere referre novam.’ Tibull. i. 9. 45, seq.
“J’en ay veu engloutir du sable, de la cendre, et ce travailler à point nommé de ruiner leur estomac pour acquérir les pasles couleurs. Pour faire un corps bien espagnolé, quelle géhenne ne souffrent-elles, guindées et sanglées avec de grosses coches sur les costez, jusques à la chair vive? Ouy quelquefois à en mourir.”
-----
One sort of rouge[681] appears to have been obtained from a species of sea-moss or wrake,[682] which some have confounded with the anchusa,[683] though the grammarians enumerate them as things entirely different. One of the commentators supposes the purpurissa to be meant, by which the Romans understood a sort of cheek-varnish, vermilion, or Spanish paint. There was in use a pigment for the eyebrows, called Hypogramma,[684] and the edges of the eyelids were tinged black with Stimmis,[685] an oxyde of antimony, which still constitutes one of the articles of the female toilette in the East. Sometimes the eyebrows were blackened with resin soot,[686] and the eyelashes caused to lie regularly by naphtha,[687] and a sort of paste composed of glue and pounded marble.[688] Another curious cosmetic was, the Adarces,[689] a substance resembling congealed froth, found on reeds and the dry stalks of plants about the ponds and marshes of Cappadocia. It was said to remove freckles, and enjoyed, likewise, great credit in medicine. A preparation composed of the flour of turnip-seed, lupines, wheat, darnel, and chick-peas, was used for clearing the skin; so, likewise, were the Chian and Selinusian earths,[690] which removed wrinkles, and rendered the skin smooth and shining. They were in constant use in the baths. Cassia,[691] honey,[692] pepper,[693] and myrrh,[694] cured pimples and effaced spots; fenugreek[695] whitened the hands and removed sunburns; briony,[696] isinglass,[697] costos,[698] galbanum,[699] lupines, rainwater,[700] radishes,[701] and hare’s blood,[702] the biscutella didyma,[703] truffles,[704] cinnamon,[705] linseed,[706] ladanum,[707] iris-roots,[708] white hellebore,[709] Sardinian honey,[710] onion-juice,[711] and spring-wheat, moistened with oxymel,[712] were among the principal preparations for removing moles and freckles, and beautifying the skin. In some parts of Greece elm-juice,[713] expressed at the first putting forth of the leaves in spring, was employed to give clearness and resplendency to the complexion. Almond-paste,[714] also, with the roots of the bitter almond-tree, effaced spots from the skin. Others, for the same purpose, made use of the berries of the wild-vine,[715] and a paste was prepared from lilies which induced fairness, and rendered the face smooth and shining.[716] To protect the complexion from the sun, the whole countenance was varnished, as it were, with white of egg;[717] and some women, possibly rustics, used goose and hen’s grease as a cosmetic.[718] The roots of the spikenard, when imported from the East, usually retained about them a little of the soil in which the plant had grown:[719] this was carefully rubbed off, and having been passed through a fine sieve, was used for washing the hands, as it probably retained something of the fragrance of the plant. Rose leaves, reduced to powder, were sprinkled over persons as they issued from the bath, particularly about the eyes, to heighten the freshness of the face.[720] To communicate additional sweetness to their persons, Greek ladies sometimes wore about their necks carcanets of rose pastilles[721] instead of jewelled necklaces, into the composition of which, however, several other ingredients entered, as nard, myrrh, costos, Illyrian iris, honey, and Chian wine.
-----
Footnote 676:
Poll. v. 102.
Μὴ τοίνων τὸ πρόσωπον ἅπαν ψιμύθῳ κατάπλαττε, Ὥστε προσοπεῖον, κ’ οὐχι πρόσωπον ἔχειν. Anthol. Græc. xi. 408.
Footnote 677:
The pigment with which the interior of the eyelid is blackened at present is the soot of Ladanum, or incense, which the ladies themselves procure by casting a few grains of those precious substances upon coals of fire, and intercepting the smoke with a plate, on which the soot speedily accumulates. Chandler, ii. 140.
Footnote 678:
Τὴν κεφαλὴν βάπτεις, τὸ δὲ γῆρας οὔποτε βάψεις Οὔδὲ παρειάων ἐκτανύσεις ῥυτίδας. Anthol. Græc. xi. 408.
Footnote 679:
See Book iii. chapter v. and Pollux, v. 102.
Footnote 680:
Ῥόδον παρειαῖς φυτεύει, αὐθωρὸν ἀνθοῦν, καὶ θᾶττον ἀπανθοῦν κατὰ τὸ Λοκρὸν. Poll. v. 102. This fugitive species of rose is alluded to by Lycophron, in his Cassandra, 1429:
Λοκρὸν δ᾽ ὁποῖα παῦρον ἀνθήσας ῥόδον.
See the note of Meursius, t. iii. p. 1347. ed. C. G. Müller; and Jungermann ad Poll. t. iv. p. 1010.
Footnote 681:
To this Lucillius alludes in the Anthology:
Οὔποτε φῦκος Καὶ ψίμυθος τεύξει τὴν Ἑκάβην Ἑλένην. Anthol. Græc. xi. 408.
Footnote 682:
Poll. v. 101.
Footnote 683:
Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 8. 3.
Footnote 684:
Poll. v. 101. vii. 95.
Footnote 685:
Ion, in his Omphalè. Poll. v. 101. Luc. Amor. 39.
Footnote 686:
Dioscor. i. 93. And lamp-black. Alex. Frag. ap. Athen. xiii. 23. Cf. Luc. Bis Accus. § 31.
Footnote 687:
Dioscor. i. 101.
Footnote 688:
Ἡ λιθοκόλλα, μίγμα οὖσα μαρμάρου ἢ λίθου Παρίου καὶ ταυροκόλλης, δύναται διὰ μηλωτίδος πεπυρωμένης τρίχας ἀνακολλᾷν τὰς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς. Dioscor. v. 164.
Footnote 689:
Dioscor. v. 137.
Footnote 690:
Id. v. 175.
Footnote 691:
Id. i. 12.
Footnote 692:
Id. ii. 101.
Footnote 693:
Id. ii. 189.
Footnote 694:
Id. i. 77.
Footnote 695:
Τῆλις. Id. i. 57.
Footnote 696:
Ἄμπέλος μελαίνα. Dioscor. iv. 185.
Footnote 697:
Id. iii. 102.
Footnote 698:
Id. i. 15.
Footnote 699:
Id. v. 97.
Footnote 700:
Dioscor. ii. 132.
Footnote 701:
Id. ii. 137.
Footnote 702:
Id. ii. 21. 97.
Footnote 703:
Ἄλυσσον. iii. 105.
Footnote 704:
Dioscor. ii. 200.
Footnote 705:
Id. i. 13.
Footnote 706:
Id. ii. 125.
Footnote 707:
Id. i. 128.
Footnote 708:
Id. i. 1.
Footnote 709:
Id. iv. 150.
Footnote 710:
Id. ii. 102.
Footnote 711:
Id. ii. 181.
Footnote 712:
Id. ii. 107.
Footnote 713:
Id. i. 101.
Footnote 714:
Id. i. 176.
Footnote 715:
Id. iv. 183. From the roots of the wild vine, also, a kind of paste was prepared, which was thought to cleanse the skin, and remove pimples and freckles. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 20. 3.
Footnote 716:
Dioscor. iii. 116.
Footnote 717:
Id. ii. 55.
Footnote 718:
Id. ii. 93.
Footnote 719:
Id. i. 6.
Footnote 720:
Id. i. 130.
Footnote 721:
These pastilles (τροχίσκοι) were about three oboloi in weight, and the purpose for which they were worn is thus stated by Dioscorides:—χρῆσις δὲ αὐτων ἐστιν, ἐπὶ γυναικῶν περιτιθεμένων τῳ τραχήλῳ ἀντὶ ὁρμῶν, ἀμβλυνουσῶν τὴν τῶν ἱδρώτων δυσωδίαν. i. 131.
-----
The dentifrices[722] of the Greeks consisted chiefly of the purple fish, burnt with salt, and reduced to powder;[723] the Arabic stone,[724] calcined in like manner; and pumice-stone.[725] Asses’ milk was used as a gargle to preserve the teeth.[726] The toothpicks[727] most commonly used were small slips of cane, or green branches of the lentiscus,[728] the ashes of which were likewise mingled with all kinds of tooth-powder. The citron,[729] eaten as a remedy for longing, was thought to render the breath sweet. There was a kind of ointment prepared of saffron, which, mingled with water, they employed to restore brilliance to eyes which had lost their colour.[730] A pomatum, composed of oil and the husks of filbert-nuts burnt and reduced to powder, was used in infancy to change blue eyes into black.[731]
-----
Footnote 722:
Lucian. Amor. § 39. The beauty, however, of the Grecian ladies’ teeth was remarkable. Luc. Imag. § 9. False teeth were fastened in with gold wire. Rhet. Præcept. § 24.
Footnote 723:
Dioscor. ii. 4.
Footnote 724:
Id. v. 149.
Footnote 725:
Id. v. 125.
Footnote 726:
Id. ii. 77.
Footnote 727:
Ear-picks were commonly of olive-wood. Poll. ii. 102.
Footnote 728:
Dioscor. i. 89.
Footnote 729:
Ἐὰν τις ἑψήσας ἐν ζωμῷ ἢ ἐν ἄλλῳ τινὶ τὸ ἔξωθεν τοῦ μήλου ἐκπιέση εἰς τὸ στόμα καὶ καταροφήση, ποιεῖ τὴν ὀσμὴν ἡδεῖαν Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 4. 2. Dioscor. i. 166.
Footnote 730:
Dioscor. i. 64.
Footnote 731:
Id. i. 179.
-----
The barbers, who, both in locality and repute, were next-door neighbours to the perfumers, enjoyed much the same sort of reputation as they do in modern times. In their shops scandal was fabricated, and news, good and bad, put into circulation. It was at a barber’s in the Peiræeus that some stranger first disclosed the intelligence of the defeat in Sicily, thereby bringing the longue-tongued shaver into the greatest trouble; for as he straightway ran up to the city and gave vent to the evil tidings, he was apprehended and put to the torture, in order to discover the real author of what was supposed to be an atrocious fabrication.[732] But that which sometimes thus brought them into straits, proved most commonly a source of profit, since to hear their laughable stories and anecdotes many more persons congregated under their roofs than stood in need of new wigs or curling-irons,[733] and probably got shaved by way of compliment to the master of the house. Such of them as were remarkably unskilful sought to make up for their awkwardness[734] by the number and elegance of their razors, and the large size of their mirrors.[735] But it was not, we are told, unfrequent for men to get shaved by some humble practitioner,[736] with one razor and a cunning hand, and afterwards to lounge into the more dashing shops, to put their curls in order before the large mirrors which adorned the walls.[737]
-----
Footnote 732:
Plut. Nic. § 30.
Footnote 733:
These irons were heated in the ashes. Pignor. de Servis, p. 194. Cf. Poll. ii. 31.
Footnote 734:
Luc. adv. Indoct. § 29. In Asia Minor, where numbers of ancient customs still linger, congealed blood is often used for shaving instead of soap. Chandler, i. 96. Can this practice plead a classical origin?
Footnote 735:
Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 7. p. 88. Gitone, Il Costume Antico e Moderno di tutti i Popoli, t. i. p. 24. Tav. 15.
Footnote 736:
We learn from an anecdote of Crates, that these barbers, like their descendants in modern times, were accustomed to envelope their patients in linen or cotton cloths. The Cynic, thinking proper one day to walk the streets in his shirt, was reprimanded by the Astynomos. “I will show you Theophrastus in a similar garb,” he replied. “Where?” inquired the magistrate. “There!” answered Crates, pointing to a barber’s shop where the philosopher was undergoing the operation of shaving. Diog. Laert. vi. 90.
Footnote 737:
Lucian. adv. Indoct. § 29. Cf. Poll. ii. 27.
-----
If we may judge by the works of art that have come down to us, however, the barbers of Hellas generally understood their business in great perfection, since nowhere do we find more shapely heads or finer curls than on the statues of antiquity.[738] Even here, however, we discover few traces of that variety in the manner of cutting and dressing the hair,[739] for which they were chiefly distinguished. While the beard[740] was worn, their principal occupation must have been the clipping, curling, and perfuming of it; but afterwards when persons shaved in order to appear young,[741] and had learned to cover their bald pates with wigs,[742] their business grew to be much the same as it is at present. Their arts were necessarily in great request among the ladies, for whom they contrived false eyebrows,[743] and innumerable dyes for giving whatever colour they desired to the hair, rendering it luxuriant and preventing it from turning grey. Hog’s lard and even bear’s grease mixed with powder of burnt filberts[744] were then in great request for strengthening and restoring the hair, together with onion-juice,[745] olives steeped in wine,[746] myrrh,[747] wild-olive oil[748] mingled with water, according to Aristotle,[749] the glutinous humour of snails obtained by passing a needle through them, and immediately applied to the roots of the hair,[750] a bruized cabbage-leaf,[751] a hare’s head reduced to ashes,[752] the ashes of the asphodel-root,[753] burnt frogs,[754] and goat’s hoof,[755] Naxian stone,[756] halcyonion,[757] burnt walnuts,[758] and oil of pitch.[759] The soot of pitch restored fallen eyelashes.[760] Among the depilatory preparations[761] used by ancient barbers may be enumerated the fumitory,[762] the scolopendra thalassia,[763] oak-fern,[764] juice of vine-leaves,[765] orpiment,[766] flour of salt,[767] sea-froth,[768] and the blood of the chamelion.[769]
-----
Footnote 738:
Zoëga, Bassi Rilievi. ii. 239.
Footnote 739:
Cf. Plut. Thes. §. 5.
Footnote 740:
Vid. Il. δ. 533. Plut. Thes. § 5. Dion Chrysost. i. 261, seq. Κάλυμμα. Aristoph. Lysist. 530. et Schol. Eq. 578.
Footnote 741:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 118. The practice of shaving does not appear to have grown common until the times of Alexander of Macedon. Athen. xiii. 18.
Footnote 742:
Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 631. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 115. Luc. Dial. Meret. xii. § 5. Poll. ii. 30. Dutens, in his Origines des Découvertes attribuées aux Modernes, p. 290, seq. has collected an ill-digested heap of materials on ancient wigs, principally, however, on those of the Romans.
Footnote 743:
Pignor. De Serv. p. 193.
Footnote 744:
Ὅλα δὲ καέντα λεῖα μετὰ ἀξιουγγίου ἢ στέατος ἀρκτείου, ἀλωπεκίας ἐπιχρισθέντα δασύνει. Dioscor. i. 169.
Footnote 745:
Dioscor. ii. 181. Maidenhair, black and white, pounded in oil to the consistence of a paste, prevented the hair from falling off. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 14. 1.
Footnote 746:
Dioscor. iii. 25.
Footnote 747:
Id. i. 77.
Footnote 748:
Id. i. 140.
Footnote 749:
This fact is mentioned in a very curious passage of the treatise De Generatione Animalium, v. 5: Ὅτι δὲ γίγνεται ἡ πολιὰ σήψει τινὶ, καὶ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν (ὥσπερ οἴονταί τινες) αὔανσις, σημεῖον τοῦ προτέρου ῥηθέντος, τὸ τὰς σκεπαζομένας τρίχας πίλοις ἢ καλύμμασι, πολιοῦσθαι θᾶττον· (τὰ γὰρ πνεύματα κωλύει τὴν σῆψιν· ἡ δὲ σκέπη ἄπνοιαν ποιεῖ) καὶ τὸ βοηθεῖν τὴν ἄλειψιν τοῦ ὕδατος καὶ τοῦ ἐλαίου μιγνυμένων Τὸ μὲν γὰρ ὕδωρ, ψύχει· τὸ δὲ ἔλαιον μιγνύμενον, κωλύει ξηραίνεσθαι ταχέως. Τὸ γὰρ ὕδωρ εὐξήραντον.
Footnote 750:
Dioscor. ii. 11.
Footnote 751:
Id. ii. 146.
Footnote 752:
Id. ii. 21.
Footnote 753:
Id. ii. 199.
Footnote 754:
Id. ii. 28.
Footnote 755:
Id. ii. 46.
Footnote 756:
Id. v. 168.
Footnote 757:
Id. v. 136.
Footnote 758:
Id. i. 178.
Footnote 759:
Id. i. 96.
Footnote 760:
Id. i. 96.
Footnote 761:
Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 157.
Footnote 762:
Dioscor. iv. 110.
Footnote 763:
Id. ii. 16.
Footnote 764:
Δρυοπτερὶς, Dioscor. iv. 189.
Footnote 765:
Dioscor. v. 1.
Footnote 766:
Id. v. 121.
Footnote 767:
Id. v. 129.
Footnote 768:
Id. v. 127.
Footnote 769:
Id. iv. 170.
-----
To dye tresses auburn,[770] a colour much admired by the Greeks, they pounded a quantity of the leaves of eastern privet[771] in a mortar, and then steeping it in the juice of fuller’s-herb, applied the preparation to the hair. The same effect was produced by a decoction of lotus stems,[772] or of the herb lycion.[773] As black hair, however, obtained the preference of the majority, partly[774] perhaps because it better suited their complexions, the number of recipes for giving it that hue is very great. Among the most remarkable substances employed for this purpose we may mention the ampelitis,[775] a black earth imported from Seleucia, in Syria, and the sory,[776] a mineral found chiefly in Egypt. To these may be added decoctions of wood-blade,[777] myrtle, and myrtle-berries,[778] ivy,[779] and dwarf-elder berries,[780] sage,[781] mulberries,[782] and palm-spathæ,[783] as also cypress cones, boiled in vinegar.[784] There prevailed an opinion in Italy[785] that the birds which fed on the berries of the smilax or yew-tree became black, though we do not find, that the barbers had thought of introducing them among the hair dyes.
-----
Footnote 770:
Poll. v. 102. ii. 37. Plat. De Rep. vi. 87.
Footnote 771:
Κύπρος. Dioscor. i. 124.
Footnote 772:
Dioscor. i. 171.
Footnote 773:
Id. i. 132.
Footnote 774:
Luc. Dial. Meret. xi. § 3.
Footnote 775:
Dioscor. v. 181.
Footnote 776:
Id. v. 119.
Footnote 777:
Φλόμος. Dioscor. iv. 104. Theoph. Hist. Plant. ix. 123.
Footnote 778:
Dioscor. i. 155. v. 37.
Footnote 779:
Dioscor. ii. 210.
Footnote 780:
Χαμαιάκτης καρποὶ. Dioscor. iv. 175.
Footnote 781:
Dioscor. iii. 40.
Footnote 782:
Id. i. 180.
Footnote 783:
Id. i. 150.
Footnote 784:
Dioscor. i. 102.
Footnote 785:
Id. iv. 80. The berry of the yew-tree, known to be perfectly harmless, was often eaten in antiquity. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 10. 3.
-----
Another class of tradesmen who selected the Agora[786] or its neighbourhood, for their residence, was the goldsmiths, silversmiths, jewellers, and lapidaries, who were possibly of more importance in the ancient than the modern world,[787] since a much greater quantity of the precious metals was then wrought up into plate, whether for the temples, chapels and sanctuaries of the gods,[788] or for private individuals.[789] How much or how little of the articles they produced could be seen at one time in their shops, it is now impossible to determine; but if their practice resembled that of the moderns, it would be difficult to imagine a greater blaze of magnificence[790] than must have met the eye upon entering their establishments,—where piles of gold and silver vessels[791] of all forms and dimensions, some burnished[792] and plain, others embossed with every variety of figure in high or low relief, others crusted with seed pearls,[793] or brilliants, or set with gems[794] of every shade and hue, from the ruby, the emerald, and the hyacinth, to the turquoise, the chrysoprase, the amethyst, the beryl, and the jasper, might be beheld rising to the ceiling.
-----
Footnote 786:
Dem. cont. Mid. § 8.
Footnote 787:
The kings and courtiers of Persia even during the dangers of their military expeditions carried along with them not only bowls and goblets, but complete services for the table in silver and gold. Herod. vii. 119. These instruments of luxury appear often to have operated as an incitement to victory upon the enemies of Persia, at least they constituted its reward. Thus in the plunder of Mardonios’s camp at Platæa, the Helots found, we are told, tents sumptuously decorated with silver and gold, bedsteads plated with the same precious metals, gold bowls, cups, and other drinking vessels, and carriages laden with golden and silver caldrons: σάκκους τε ἐπ᾽ ἁμαξέων εὕρισκον, ἐν τοῖσι λέβητες ἐφαίνοντο ἐνεόντες χρύσεοι τε καὶ ἀργύρεοι. Id. ix. 80.
Footnote 788:
Thucyd. vi. 46.
Footnote 789:
Plut. Alcib. § 4.
Footnote 790:
Athen. vi. 17. xi. 105. Demosthen. adv. Tim. § 5. 7. Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art, i. 277. Poll. i. 28.
Footnote 791:
Plat. Tim. vii. 77. 19. De Rep. t. vi. p. 86. 164. Schol. Acharn. Arist. 1187. Among the cabinet ornaments of the ancients, we find ostrich eggs set in silver. Plin. x. 1.
Footnote 792:
Goldsmiths made use, in burnishing, of the Samian stone. Dioscor. v. 173.
Footnote 793:
Athen. iv. 29. Casaub. ad. Theoph. Char. 311. These rich articles we find were sometimes pledged to raise money. Dem. adv. Spud. § 4.
Footnote 794:
Athen. xi. 17.
-----
Occasionally articles of plate of enormous size were manufactured,[795] such as cisterns,[796] or vases, or tripods, or salvers, or goblets of gold or silver, presented as offerings by whole cities or communities to some divinity. In these cases the workmanship was very frequently so elaborate and exquisite as to be still more costly than the materials. Entire landscapes, including innumerable figures and objects were sometimes represented on the swell of a vase or goblet: Bacchanalian processions, for example, with whole troops of satyrs and mænades moving along some wooded valley, or desert mountain, or rocky shore, at the heels of the Seileni and Dionysos, groups of nereids, nymphs, and tritons, sporting in the warm sunshine, on the unruffled expanse of ocean; and sacrifices, marriages, chariot-races, and chorusses of youths and virgins, moving through the mazes of the dance, around the altar of Apollo or Artemis. It is also to Hellenic goldsmiths that we are evidently to attribute those marvellous productions of art reckoned among the most boasted possessions of the Persian kings, such as that vine of gold,[797] with its vast grape clusters, imitated both in size and colour by the most precious gems, which formed a canopy over the royal couch, or that golden platane-tree[798] and other vine, which, rising from behind the throne, stretched its branches, tendrils, and leaves of gold aloft over the monarch as he sat in state to give audience to his people. Here the bunches of grapes in various stages of ripeness were represented by emeralds, Indian carbuncles, and other precious stones of the richest and most dazzling hues. These things we know were not the works of Persians, having been presented to Darius by Pythios, the Lydian, who, doubtless, caused them to be fashioned by Grecian artists. What may have been the exact dimensions of this platane-tree we know not; but, no doubt, Antiochos took an orator’s licence, when, in an assembly of the Arcadians, he described it as too diminutive to afford shelter to a grasshopper.[799]
-----
Footnote 795:
Athen. ix. 75. From the quantity of gold and silver plate laid up in the Egyptian temples, it is evident the same taste prevailed also in Egypt. Luc. Toxar. § 28.
Footnote 796:
Herodot. i. 51.
Footnote 797:
Athen. xii. 8. Herod. vii. 27.
Footnote 798:
Athen. xii. 55. The kings of America, guided by the same taste, far exceeded the Persian monarchs in magnificence. Montaigne, having spoken of the natural quickness and intelligence of the Indians, adds: “L’espouvantable magnificence des villes de Cusco et de Mexico; et entre plusieurs choses pareilles, le jardin de ce roy, où tous les arbres, les fruicts, et toutes les herbes, selon l’ordre et grandeur qu’ils ont en un jardin, estoient excellemment formées en or: comme en son cabinet tous les animaux, qui naissoient en son estat et en ses mers: et la beauté de leurs ouvrages, en pierrerie, en plume, en cotton, en la peinture, montrent qu’ils ne nous cédoient non plus en l’industrie.” Essais, l. iii. c. vi. t. viii. p. 33. Cf. Solis, Histoire de la Conquête du Mexique, l. iii. c. xiv.
Footnote 799:
Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 1. 38.
-----
We may here perhaps with propriety make mention of that multitude of golden statues[800] which thronged the temples of Greece. For it is not true, as Lucian pretends, that the Hellenic gods and goddesses were contented to shroud their beauty in marble, bronze, or ivory, while Mithras exhibited his rude visage, and Anubis his dog’s snout, in gold.[801] Even private individuals had statues erected to them of this precious metal; and there were not wanting those who, like Gorgias, at their own expense did the same honour to themselves.[802]
-----
Footnote 800:
Poll. viii. 86.
Footnote 801:
Lucian. Jup. Trag. § § 8. 9. Toxar. § 28. Cf. Alexand. § 18. Not to mention other statues we find, that there was at Proconnesos, and afterwards at Cyzicos, an image of Dindymenè of massive gold, except the face, which was wrought with the teeth of the hippopotamos. Pausan. viii. 46. 4. See also Winkel. Hist. de l’Art, on the statues of gold and ivory found in Greece, t. i. p. 35. The Minotaur, whether in picture or statue, was represented as a man with a bull’s head. Lucian. Var. Hist. lib. ii. § 41.
Footnote 802:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 24. According to the general testimony of ancient writers, however, the golden statue at Delphi was erected to the Leontine sophist, by a general subscription. Eudoc. Ion. p. 101. Valer. Max. viii. 15. Ext. 2. But from a passage in the Phædros, it may be inferred, that the practice prevailed as described in the text: Καὶ σοὶ ἐγώ, ὥσπερ οἱ ἐννέα ἄρχοντες, ὑπισχνοῦμαι χρυσῆν εἰκόνα ἰσομέτρητον εἰς Δελφοὺς ἀναθήσειν, οὐ μόνον ἐμαυτοῦ ἀλλὰ καὶ σήν. Plat. Opp. t. i. p. 19.
But the variety of articles thus composed of the precious metals was so great as almost to defy description.[803] There were candelabra,[804] thrones,[805] and chairs, shields,[806] basins and ewers,[807] flagons, censers, goblets in form of walnut-shells, ladles,[808] spoons, vinegar-saucers,[809] with almost every other article of the table. Crowns, likewise, for the heads of statues of princes, and successful generals, and other individuals whom the public desired to honour; with bread[810] and work baskets probably in filigree, clasps,[811] and spindles[812] for ladies, with armlets, anklets, bracelets, rings, necklaces of carbuncles,[813] earrings,[814] and circlets for the head. That these articles were usually formed with much taste and elegance we may infer from the fact, that artists of the greatest respectability were employed to make designs for them, while even the engravers of cups and goblets, as Mys, for example, sometimes acquired great celebrity.[815]
Footnote 803:
Among the Athenian chasers in metal Lycios obtained celebrity. Demosth. adv. Timoth. § 7. Cf. Suid. t. ii. p. 66. d. e.
Footnote 804:
Gitone, Il Costume, tavv. 61, 62. Raccolta de’ Monumenti più interessanti del Real Museo Borbonico, &c. tavv. 29, 30, 53, 54, 55. Athen. xi. 48.
Footnote 805:
Xenoph. Hellen. v. 1. 3. Plut. Lysand. § 9.
Footnote 806:
Pausan. i. 25. 7.
Footnote 807:
Athen. ix. 75.
Footnote 808:
Id. iii. 100.
Footnote 809:
Suid. v. Ὀξύβαφον. t. ii. p. 319. d.
Footnote 810:
Athen. vi. 15.
Footnote 811:
Ælian. Var. Hist. i. 18.
Footnote 812:
Herod. iv. 162.
Footnote 813:
Lucian. Dial. Meret. vi. i. Plut. Phoc. § 19. Among the necklaces in fashion were some of gold and amber beads intermixed. Luc. Heracl. § 3. A pair of earrings sometimes cost no more than five drachmas. Id. Somn. seu Gall. §29. Cf. Athen. xii. 46. Hom. Odyss. σ. 290.
Footnote 814:
Il. x. 182. Poll. ii. 102.
Footnote 815:
Athen. xi. 19.
-----
The ancients understood well the art of washing and plating articles formed of the inferior metals with gold and silver, as well as many ingenious devices for soldering, mixing, varying the colours, frosting the surface, and inlaying and flowering one metal with another. Statues in Attica were commonly lacquered with gold;[816] and, from the remotest antiquity, the art of gilding appears to have flourished in Greece, since we find mention of it in Homer, who speaks of gilding[817] the horns of victims offered up to the gods. The ancients, unquestionably, employed much thicker gold leaf in this process than the moderns; from which it has been inferred, that they were incapable of reducing it to greater tenuity. But, besides that, when the leaves were too thin, the quicksilver which they employed as a glue appeared through, and dimmed the splendour of the gold, they seem to have aimed at that very duration which causes us to admire the fragments of their gilding that still exist:—in the subterraneous chambers, for example, of the Villa Borghese on the Palatine hill, where the figures in gold scattered over a ground of celestial blue, look as fresh as if just laid on.[818] Metals of all kinds were likewise gilt—as copper, and silver, and bronze. In gilding marble the leaf was attached to the stone with white of egg, which was likewise employed, instead of quicksilver, by dishonest workmen, who could thus make use of a much thinner leaf.[819] The moderns in gilding marble substitute the juice of garlic and figs. The practice of gilding wood and leather was also common in antiquity, as we find mention of gilt wooden statues and beads,[820] and harness, and sandal-thongs. The walls and roofs of chambers were covered, moreover, with gilding, and this ornament was laid as well on wainscot as stucco.[821] The conjecture of a modern writer,[822] that the ancients were acquainted with the art of gilding in ormolu seems to be unfounded.
-----
Footnote 816:
That is if Pollux has been rightly interpreted, ii. 214. vii. 163, with the notes of the commentators, t. iv. p. 486. t. v. p. 472.
Footnote 817:
Odyss. γ. 437, seq. Macrob. Saturn. i. 17. Ovid. Metam. vii. 161, seq. x. 271, seq. Cf. Herod. ii. 63.
Footnote 818:
“Les deux chambres souterraines du palais des empereurs sur le mont Palatin dans la villa Borghèse, nous offrent des ornemens dorés aussi frais que s’ils venoient d’être faits, quoique ces chambres soient fort humides à cause de la terre qui les couvre. On ne peut voir sans admiration les bandes de bleu céleste en forme d’arcs, et chargées de petites figures d’or, qui décorent ces pièces. La dorure s’est aussi conservée dans le ruines de Persépolis.” Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art. t. ii. p. 91.
Footnote 819:
On the gilding of the ancients see Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions. Vol. iv. p. 176, seq. Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art. t. i. p. 34. t. ii. p. 90, seq. 647. Goguet. t. iv. p. 53, sqq.
Footnote 820:
Xen. Œconom. x. 3. 61.
Footnote 821:
Plin. xxxiii. 18. Senec. Epist. 115.
Footnote 822:
Dutens, Orig. des Découvertes, &c. p. 180.
-----
One of the minor, but most flourishing, branches of the goldsmiths’ trade seems to have been the making and setting of rings,[823] for which the Greeks indulged an extraordinary fondness. They accordingly had them of every form and material. Some persons, for example, wore a plain gold, or silver, or even iron, hoop; others a silver ring encircled by a narrow band of gold, or a gold ring with a band of silver, or an iron ring inlaid with gold.[824] Some persons were satisfied with a bronze ring, or one of gilt iron,[825] which they wore apparently in memory of Prometheus, who, to preserve Zeus’ word unbroken, was fabled to bear on his finger an iron ring set with a piece of Caucasian stone as a signet, so that, by a divine sort of quibble, he might for ever be said to be chained to Caucasus.[826] Others, again, delighted in rings of amber,[827] white or yellow, or ivory, or porcelain, at least these were fashionable in Egypt. Sometimes, they wore silver rings with signets of gold, or the contrary. Mention, too, is made of a ring formed entirely of carnelian, which, to preserve it, was encircled by a narrow hoop of silver, and set with a golden signet.[828]
-----
Footnote 823:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 331. 756. Poll. ii. 155. See Kirchman, de Annulis, p. 12, and passim.
Footnote 824:
Plin. xxxiv. 4.
Footnote 825:
Kirchman, de Annulis Veterum, c. iii. p. 10.
Footnote 826:
Serv. ad Virg. Eclog. vi. 41.
Footnote 827:
Σούκινοι καὶ ἐλεφάντινοι, δάκτυλοι ταῖς γυναιξίν εἰσι σύμφοροι. Suid. t. ii. 775. c. Artemid. l. ii. c. v. Plin. xxxvii. 2.
Footnote 828:
Kirchman, de Ann. Vet. c. iii. p. 16. The Egyptians were accustomed to wear little images of carnelian suspended from the neck. A specimen of these figures, representing Typhon, or the evil principle, I brought home with me to Europe. It had been found in the ruins of Thebes.
-----
Jugglers sold to persons of large faith rings[829] that would cure the colic;[830] and articles of this description with magic and talismanic virtues appear to have been at all times abundant and in great request.
-----
Footnote 829:
Lucian speaks of a talismanic ring having engraved on it the figure of a Pythian Apollo. Philopseud. § 38; and of another made from the iron-work of a cross, § 17.
Footnote 830:
Athen. iii. 96.
-----
Of signets[831] the most ancient would appear to have been small bits of wood, which, having been worm-eaten in a grotesque or fanciful manner,[832] were cut and polished, and used by some rough Thane for a crest, in memory of which practice precious stones were in after ages engraved so as to imitate exactly these rude materials.[833] In process of time nearly every variety of precious stone[834] came to be engraved for rings and seals.[835] Of these the most remarkable was the carbuncle, in colour like a ripe mulberry, which when held up in the sun glows like a flame or burning coal,[836] probably the reason why it was supposed to shine in the dark like a lamp.[837] Under this name many gems known at present by different appellations seem to have been included, as the ruby,[838] whose proper colour is a cochineal red of surpassing richness, admitting, however, occasionally, various intermixtures of blue, producing the rose-red ruby, the former of a full carmine, or rose colour, the latter tinged with a mixture of blue; the rubacelle whose glowing red is dashed with a cast of yellow; the true and the sorane garnet; the rock ruby of a violet red; the almandine and the hyacinth, now confounded with the amethyst. Next to the above was the carnelian[839] of a deep ensanguined hue, chiefly obtained from the island of Sardinia: the jasper of a dark green, with spots of many colours, the sapphire blue bespangled with gold.
-----
Footnote 831:
Treasurer’s ring. Athen. viii. 29. See Long. de Annul. Sig. p. 42, sqq. Gorl. de Annul. Orig. Kornman. de Tripl. Ann. p. 44. We may here, by the way, mention that law of Solon which forbade a lapidary to retain in his possession the copy of any ring he had engraved. Diog. Laert. i. 2. 9.
Footnote 832:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. i. 2. Θριπήδεστα, ξυλήφια τὰ ὑπὸθριπων βεβρωμένα, οἷς ἐχρῶντο οἱ σφόδρα οἰκονομικοὶ ἀντὶ γλυπτῶν σφραγίδων. Eustath. ad Odyss. α. t. iii. p. 37. 12. Suid. θριπηδέστατον. t. i. p. 1329. b. Etym. Mag. 456. 23.
Footnote 833:
“Dans le cabinet de Stosch il y a une pierre dont la gravure imite très-bien les sillons d’un bois rongé par les vers.” Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. t. i. p. 43.
Footnote 834:
Plat. Tim. vii. 80. Plin. ii. 63. xxxiii. 1. Herod. i. 195.
Footnote 835:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 994. See Mawe, Treatise on Diamonds, p. 85—134. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 954.
Footnote 836:
Ἀλλο δὲ τι γένος ἐστὶ λίθων ὥσπερ ἐξ ἐναντίων πεφυκὸς, ἄκαυστον ὅλως, ἄνθραξ καλούμενος, ἐξ οὗ καὶ τὰ σφραγίδια γλύφουσιν, ἐρυθρὸν μὲν τῷ χρώματι, πρὸς δὲ τὸν ἥλιον τιθέμενον ἄνθρακος καιομένου ποιεῖ χρόαν. Theoph. de Lapid. § 18.
Footnote 837:
“Is vulgo putatur in tenebris carbonis instar lucere; fortassis quia Pyropus, seu Anthrax appellatus à veteribus fuit.” Anselm, Boet. Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia, t. ii. c. viii. p. 140.
Footnote 838:
Sir John Hill, Notes on Theophrastus, de Lapidibus, p. 76, seq.
Footnote 839:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 23.
-----
Another gem held in high estimation by the ancients was the emerald,[840] the exquisite colour of which, generally the most intense green, was supposed to be more grateful to the eye than the sight of vernal woods or meadows. For this reason many persons selected it for seals in preference to all other stones.[841] Even the lapidaries employed in cutting it were believed to have their vision improved by its refreshing virtues. All emeralds, however, are not of one hue, but exhibit every possible shade of green, from the dusky tint of the olive leaf to the pale verdure of the acacia.[842] The Greek jewellers appear to have judged of the genuineness of this stone by plunging it into clear water: for if it were a true emerald it would, they thought, impart its colour to the whole of the surrounding element; if not, a small part only of it would be tinged.[843]
-----
Footnote 840:
Plin. xxxvii. 16. Boetius, l. ii. c. lii. 195. Menand. ap. Athen. iii. 46. Luc. Saturn. Epist. § 29. Suid. v. σμάραγδος. t. ii. p. 769. a.
Footnote 841:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 24.
Footnote 842:
See Baldæus, description of the Coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, chap. xxiv.
Footnote 843:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 23.
-----
The ancients possessed a species of bastard emerald, found in vast blocks, so that we read of an emerald obelisk in Egypt, which, though consisting of but four pieces, rose to the height of sixty feet.[844] Of this stone, probably, was the famous pillar which adorned the entrance of the temple of Heracles at Tyre.[845] Of real emeralds the largest known does not exceed six inches in length, and two in diameter. It may be observed, that much pains and labour were expended in bringing the emerald to its lustre.[846]
-----
Footnote 844:
Id. § 24. Plin. xxxvii. 19.
Footnote 845:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 25.
Footnote 846:
Id. § 27, seq.
-----
The lyncurios or modern hyacinth is enumerated among the seal gems.[847] Its colour is that of flame with an intermixture of deep red, though it is sometimes found of a full saffron hue, or even resembling amber. It has by several writers been supposed to be the tourmaline. The lyncurios was exceedingly hard and difficult to work. They likewise cut and engraved for seals the amber, which Theophrastus describes as a native mineral; the hyaloides, the omphax, the crystal,[848] the sardonyx, the agate, the onyx, and the amethyst.[849] A gem of extraordinary beauty was once found in the gold mines of Lampsacos, which, having been engraved by a Tyrian lapidary, was presented to the Persian King.[850]
-----
Footnote 847:
Anselm. Boet. Gem. et Lapid. Hist. l. ii. c. 258, p. 477.
Footnote 848:
Winkelm. ii. 110.
Footnote 849:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 30. Poll. iii. 87. Luc. Dial. Meret. ix. § 2. Cf. de Syr. Dea, § 32. Precious stones of various kinds were employed to represent the eyes in statues, when the white was imitated by thin silver plates. Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art. t. ii. p. 94.
Footnote 850:
Theoph. de Lapid. § 32.
-----
Respecting the various processes by which precious stones were engraved, the ancients have left us but a few scattered hints. It appears certain, however, that they polished precious stones with emery,[851] and possessed the lapidary’s wheel, with all the finer tools at present in use, including the diamond point,[852] which there is reason to believe they likewise fixed on the wheel.[853] At any rate, they contrived with the instruments they possessed to engrave figures, as of lions, heroes, bacchantes, caryatides, trophies,[854] both in relief and intaglio, which for beauty and delicacy have never yet been equalled. It was at one time a question whether or not they were acquainted with the microscope,[855]—though how they could engrave without it figures which we require its assistance distinctly to perceive, seems somewhat difficult to comprehend. The gem, for example, called the seal of Michael Angelo, in the French king’s cabinet, though it does not exceed half an inch in diameter, contains fifteen figures most elaborately wrought.[856] A private gentleman at Rome possessed a wolf’s tooth on which was a representation of the twelve gods.[857] Cicero commemorates an individual who had written the whole Iliad in characters so minute and in so small a compass, that it could be contained in a walnut-shell.[858] Myrmecides, the Milesian, and Callicrates, the Lacedæmonian, manufactured ivory chariots so small, that they could be covered with the wing of a fly; and wrote two verses in gold letters on a grain of sesame.[859]
-----
Footnote 851:
Σμύρις λίθος ἐστιν, ᾗ τὰς ψήφους οἱ δακτυλιογλύφοι σμήχουσι. Dioscor. v. 166.
Footnote 852:
Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 15, with the authors cited by Hardouin.
Footnote 853:
Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art. t. ii. p. 108.
Footnote 854:
Plut. Alexand. § 1. Timol. § 31. Herod. iii. 41.
Footnote 855:
Cf. Senec. Quæst. Nat. i. 6. Macrob. Saturn. viii. 14.
Footnote 856:
Dutens, Origine des Découvertes, &c. p. 265.
Footnote 857:
Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art. t. i. p. 36. n. 4.
Footnote 858:
Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 21.
Footnote 859:
Ælian. Var. Hist. i. 17.
-----
We find mention, however, of burning-glasses as early as the age of Socrates;[860] and a number of lenses, more powerful than those employed by our own engravers, have been found among the ruins of Herculaneum.[861] We may here, also, remark by the way, that the Greek astronomers appear to have been acquainted with the telescope.[862]
-----
Footnote 860:
Aristoph. Nub. 764, seq. Cf. Aristot. Analyt. Post. i. 31. 8. Barthelémy St. Hilaire de la Logique d’Aristot. t. ii. p. 367.
Footnote 861:
Dutens, Origine des Découvertes, &c. p. 265. i.
Footnote 862:
Id. p. 115, seq. Nixon. in Phil. Trans. v. lii. p. 125.
-----