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CHAPTER VII.
SLAVES.

It will have been remarked, that both in town and country, the mean and painful drudgery was chiefly performed by slaves,^[1] whose origin, condition, and numbers, in the principal Grecian states, it now becomes necessary to describe. The greatest writers of antiquity^[2] were on this subject perplexed and undecided. They appear to have comprehended the full extent of the evil,^[3] but to have been too much the slaves themselves of habit and prejudice to discover, that no form or modification of 2servitude is consistent with human happiness or with justice, without which no happiness can be. This is evident from the conversation in Crete between Plato and his Gnosian and Spartan companions. They do not trouble their minds with inquiries respecting the origin of slavery, which, while some tribes of men are stronger and more civilised than others, could never be difficult to be conjectured; but considering its existence easy to be accounted for, they are concerned to discover by what means may be avoided or mitigated the mischiefs they everywhere saw accompanying it.

Most perplexing of all,^[4] however, was the Laconian Heloteia; because in that case the comparatively great number of the servile caste rendered it necessary, in the opinion of some, to break their spirit and bring them down to their condition by a system of severity which constitutes the infamy of Sparta.

The discredit, however, of subsisting on slave labour was to a certain extent shared by all the states of Greece, even by Athens. They appear to have supposed that no slaves, no body politic.^[5] But in the treatment of those unfortunate men there was as much variation as from the differences of national character might have been inferred. The Athenians in this respect, as in most others, being the antipodes of the Spartans, and falling into the error, if such a thing can be conceived, of extreme humanity and indulgence.

It is no doubt possible by kindness to obliterate many of the ugly features of slavery, so that between the vassal and his lord strong mutual affection may spring up.^[6] We hear, accordingly, of 3slaves whose love for their masters exceeded the love of brothers, or of children;^[7] they have toiled, fought, died, for them; nay they have sometimes surpassed them in courage, and taught them, in situations of imminent danger, how to die, as in the case of that military attendant, who, when taken prisoner with his master, and seeing him resolved on death, yet hesitating about the means, dashed his brains out against the wall to show him how it might be done. Another example is recorded of a slave who put on the disguise of his lord, that he might be slain in his stead. But what then? Do these examples prove that in servitude there is anything ennobling? On the contrary, the only inference to be drawn from them is, that in these cases great and worthy souls had been dealt with unjustly by fortune. However, since none but the incorrigibly base can now be found to advocate this worst of all human vices, I may spare my arguments, and proceed at once to trace the history of slavery in Greece.

In very remote ages mankind, according to tradition, dispensed with the labours of domestic slaves,^[8] 4whose place was supplied by the women of the family,^[9] who rose before day to grind corn for the household; and as they usually sang while thus engaged, the whole village on such occasions would seem alive with music. As in the East, also, they were accustomed to draw water from the wells, or seek it at a distance at the fountains, as I have already, in speaking of the Hellenic women, observed. But as soon as men began to give quarter in war, and became possessed of prisoners, the idea of employing them, and rendering their labours subservient to their maintenance naturally suggested itself. At the outset, therefore, as a very distinguished historian^[10] has remarked, servitude sprung from feelings of humanity; for when it was found that advantages could be derived from captured enemies they were no longer butchered in the field. Hence, from the verb signifying “to be subdued,” they were denominated Dmöes;^[11] for “of whom a man is 5overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.”^[12] Of these constant mention is made in Homer. Thus Telemachos speaks of the Dmöes whom his father had left in his charge; and Agamemnon detained in his tent a number of Lesbian women taken captive in war. In the same condition was Briseïs: and to this fate Hector fears Andromache may be reserved after his death.^[13]

Possibly the practice was borrowed from the East, where the mention of slaves occurs in the remotest ages. Thus too in later times, Atossa, queen of Persia, is represented to have urged Darius into the Grecian war, that she might possess Athenian, Spartan, Argive, and Corinthian slaves.^[14] And the Pythoness foretelling the destruction of Miletus, exclaims:

The practice was when a number of prisoners had been taken, to make a division of them among the chiefs, generally by lot, and then to sell them for slaves.^[16] This Achilles boasts he had frequently done, and old Priam fears will be the destiny of his own sons, as it had been of Lycaon whom the Thessalian hero had seized^[17] in his garden. To the same purpose is the lament of Hecuba,^[18] who accuses him of having reduced many of her sons to slavery. Examples occur in antiquity of whole cities and states being at once subjected to servitude: thus the inhabitants 6of Judea were a first and a second time carried away captive to Babylon, where their masters, not perhaps from mockery, required of them to sing for their entertainment some of their national songs, to which, as we learn from the prophet, they replied: “How can we sing the songs of Zion in a strange land?” The citizens likewise of Miletos, after the unsuccessful revolt of Aristagoras, were transported into Persia, as were those also of Eretria and Carystos in Eubœa.^[19] Like the Israelites, these Greeks long preserved in captivity their national manners and language, though surrounded by strangers and urged by every inducement to assimilate themselves to their conquerors. A similar fate overtook the inhabitants of Thebes, who were sold into slavery by Alexander, as were those of Mycene by the Argives, and the Corinthians by Mummius.^[20]

But the supply produced by war seldom equalled the demand; and in consequence a race of kidnappers sprung up, who, partly merchants and partly pirates, roamed about the shores of the Mediterranean, as similar miscreants do now about the slave-coasts, picking up solitary and unprotected individuals. Sometimes their boldness rose to the wives or daughters of the chiefs; as in the case of Paris, who robbed the house, and carried away the wife of Menelaus; and of those Phœnicians who having landed at Argos and held, during several days, a fair on the beach, ended by stealing the king’s daughter.^[21] Mitford’s supposition that both Io and her companions may have been allured on board,^[22] is founded on the apologetical narrative of the pirates themselves. The practice of kidnapping certainly prevailed widely. Thus Eumæos was, by the Phœnicians, sold to Laertes, and a similar fate awaited the woman whom the Taphian pirates stole away at the same 7time.^[23] Odysseus himself relates how a Phœnician rogue plotted against his liberty when he was sailing with him towards Libya, and that the Thesprotians had meditated a like design.^[24] To enumerate no other instances, Laomedon menaces Apollo and Poseidon with servitude, observing that he will have them bound and shipped to some distant island for sale.^[25]

Neither war, however, nor piracy sufficed at length to furnish that vast multitude of slaves, which the growing luxury of the times induced the Greeks to consider necessary. Commerce by degrees conducted them to Caria and other parts of Asia Minor, particularly the southern coasts of the Black Sea, those great nurseries of slaves from that time until now.^[26] The first Greeks who engaged in this traffic, which even by the Pagans was supposed to be attended by a curse, are said to have been the Chians, and we shall presently see how ill it prospered with them. They purchased their slaves from the barbarians, among whom the Lydians, the Phrygians, and the natives of Pontos, with many others were accustomed, like the modern Circassians, to carry on a trade in their own people.^[27] We find mention made 8in the Anabasis of a Macronian, who having been a slave at Athens and obtaining his liberty, afterwards became a soldier and served the Ten Thousand as an interpreter at a critical moment during their passage through his native country.^[28]

Before proceeding, however, with the history of the slave-trade, it may be proper to describe the power possessed by masters over their domestics during the heroic ages. Every man appears to have been then a king in his own house, and to have exercised his authority most regally. Thus we find the young Telemachos taking pleasure in the idea that he shall be king over his slaves;^[29] and Andromache, with a mother’s fondness, fears lest her son should become the drudge of an unfeeling lord.^[30] Power generally, when unchecked by law, is fierce and inhuman, and over their household, gentlemen, in those ages, exercised the greatest and most awful power, that of life and death, as they afterwards did at Rome.^[31] This is illustrated by an example in the Odyssey, where the hero being, while in disguise, insulted grossly by Melanthios, threatens the slave that he will incite Telemachos to cut him in pieces. Afterwards, when he has recovered his authority, the terrible menace is remembered and fulfilled. The culprit is seized and mutilated with savage barbarity, his members, torn from the body, are thrown to the dogs, and even the poet, upon the whole so humane, does not seem to consider the punishment too great for the offence.^[32] It has even been supposed that 9this kind of mutilation was a punishment peculiar to slaves; for Laomedon, while menacing the gods in the manner above described, adds, that he will cut off their ears.^[33] When supposed to deserve death they were executed ignominiously by hanging, as in the case of the domestics of Odysseus, whose offences, though grave, would scarcely in any free country be visited with capital punishment.^[34] This was regarded as an impure end. To die honourably was to perish by the sword.^[35]

The practice of manumission already in the heroic ages prevailed.^[36] Odysseus promises their freedom to his herdsman and swineherd if by their aid he should slaughter the suitors; and, according to Plutarch, Telemachos actually bestowed on Eumæos and his companions both their liberty and the rights of citizenship, and from them, he adds, the celebrated families of the Koliades and Bukoli were descended.^[37]

Nor does the illustrious race appear to be yet extinct, 10Professor Koliades^[38] claiming to be a lineal descendant from Eumæos, which may very well be since he must be descended from somebody; and there is no reason why a descendant of Eumæos should not be a professor.

In addition to the slaves there were likewise free labourers who worked for hire, and were called Thetes.^[39] These sometimes seem to have been placed on the extremities of estates, as the guardians of boundaries, a post which Eurymachos offers with good wages to Odysseus.^[40] And it is the condition of one of these hinds that Achilles prefers in Hades to the empire of the shades.^[41] The gods also in their sojourn upon earth sometimes submitted to the hardships of this condition. Thus Phœbos Apollo kept the flocks of Admetos, king of Thessaly,^[42] and the belief in this humble condition of the gods on earth is objected by Lucian and Dionysius of Halicarnassus,^[43] as blameworthy to the Greeks. Herodotus, too, relates that the three sons of Temenos—Gavanes, Aëropos, and Perdiccas—fled from Argos into Illyria and thence into Upper Macedonia to the city of Lebæa, where they served the king for hire, the first tending the royal stud, the second the cattle, and the third the sheep and goats.^[44]

From the history of Minos, which, whether true or fabulous, still illustrates the manners of the times, we learn, that the tribute exacted by a victorious enemy sometimes consisted of slaves. Thus the Cretan king, having made a successful descent on the Attic coast, was propitiated (as by our own ancestors were the Danes and other Northern savages) 11by an annual offering of fourteen youths and virgins, who, being conveyed to Crete, were there said to be destroyed by a monster born of Pasiphaë, daughter of the sun.^[45] Theseus, the great hero of the Ionic race, delivered his country from this obnoxious tax, and on his return to Athens was received by the people with unbounded gratitude; sacrifices and processions were instituted in his honour, and the memory of his noble achievement was religiously preserved as long as paganism endured.^[46]

And in some such ways as the above, slaves, in early times, must have been procured; for, as Timæos of Taormina^[47] remarks, the Greeks of those ages obtained none in the regular course of traffic. He further adds, that Aristotle was generally accused of having misunderstood the usages of the Locrians, among whom, as among the Phocians,^[48] it was not of old the custom to possess slaves, whether male or female. The practice, however, prevailed in later times; and the wife of that Philomelos who took Delphi is said to have been the first who was attended by two servile handmaids.^[49] But when men commence evil courses, they seldom know where to stop. Mnason, a Phocian, and friend of Aristotle,^[50] ambitious of rivalling Nicias, the son of Niceratos, purchased for his own service a thousand slaves, for which he was accused by his countrymen of lavishing upon them what would have supported an equal number of free persons.^[51] In that country, therefore, it is clear there existed a class of labourers like the Thetes described by Homer, who were ready to work for hire.^[52] In their domestic economy the simplicity of their manners enabled the Phocians and Locrians to dispense with the services of slaves, it being the custom among them, as among the rustics 12of Eubœa, whom we have described above, for the younger members of the family to wait on the elder.^[53]

The Chians, as I have already observed, are said to have been the first Grecian people who engaged in a regular slave-trade.^[54] For, although the Thessalians and Spartans possessed, at a period much anterior, their Penestæ and their Helots, they obtained them by different means: the latter, by reducing to subjection the ancient Achæan inhabitants of Peloponnesos;^[55] the former, by their conquests over the Magnesians, Perrhæbians, and Bœotians of Arnè. But the Chians possessed only such barbarian slaves as they had purchased with money, in which they more nearly resembled the slave-holding nations of modern times.^[56] Other circumstances, likewise, in the history of slavery among the Chians,^[57] strongly suggest the parallel, and deserve to be studied with more care than appears to have been bestowed upon them. We have here, perhaps, the first type of the Maroon wars, though on a smaller scale, and marked by fewer outbreaks of atrocity. It is not, indeed, stated that the females were flogged, though throughout Greece the males were so corrected; but, whatever the nature of the severities practised on them may have been,^[58] the yoke of bondage was found 13too galling to be borne,^[59] and whole gangs took refuge in the mountains. Fortunately for them, the interior of the island abounded in fastnesses, and was, in those days, covered with forest.

Here, therefore, the fugitives, erecting themselves dwellings, or taking possession of caverns among almost inaccessible cliffs, successfully defended themselves, subsisting on the plunder of their former owners. Shortly before the time of the writer, to whom we are indebted for these details, a bondsman, named Drimacos, made his escape from the city and reached the mountains, where, by valour and conduct, he soon placed himself at the head of the servile insurgents over whom he ruled like a king.^[60] The Chians led several expeditions against him in vain. He defeated them in the field with great slaughter; but, at length, to spare the useless effusion of human blood, invited them to a conference, 14wherein he observed, that the slaves, being encouraged in their revolt by an oracle, would never lay down their arms or submit to the drudgery of servitude. Nevertheless, the war might be terminated. “For, if my advice,” said he, “be followed, and we be suffered to enjoy tranquillity, numerous advantages will thence accrue to the state.”

There being little prospect of a satisfactory settlement of the matter by arms, the Chians consented to enter into a truce as with a public enemy. Humbled by their losses and defeats, Drimacos found them submissive to reason. He, therefore, provided himself with weights, measures, and a signet,^[61] and exhibiting them to his former masters, said, “When, in future, our necessities require that I should supply myself from your stores, it shall always be by these weights and measures, and having possessed myself of the necessary quantity of provisions, I shall be careful to leave your warehouses sealed with this signet. With respect to such of your slaves as may fly and offer themselves to me, I will institute a rigid examination into their story, and if, upon inquiry, they appear to have had just grounds for complaint, I will protect them—if not, they shall be sent back to their proprietors.”

To these conditions the magistrates readily acceded, upon which the slaves who still remained 15with their masters grew more obedient, and seldom took to flight, dreading the decision of Drimacos.^[62] Over his own followers he exercised a despotic authority. They, in fact, stood far more in fear of him than when in bondage of their lords, and performed his bidding without question or murmur, as soldiers obey their commander. For he was severe in the punishment of the unruly, and permitted no man to plunder or lay waste the country, or commit any act of injustice,—in short, to do anything without his order. The public festivals he was careful to observe, going round and collecting from the proprietors of the land, who bestowed upon him voluntarily both wine and the finest victims; but if, on these occasions, he discovered that a plot was hatching, or any ambush laid for him, he would take speedy vengeance.

So far the affairs of the Chians and their revolted bondsmen proceeded smoothly. But things continued not always on this footing. Observing old age to be creeping upon Drimacos, and rendered wanton apparently by prosperity, the government issued a proclamation, offering a great reward to any one who should capture him, or bring them his head.^[63] The old general, discerning, perhaps, signals 16of treachery, or convinced that, at last, it must come to that, took aside a young man whom he loved, and said, “I have ever regarded you with a stronger affection than any other man, and to me you have been, instead of a son, a brother, and every other tie. But now, the days of my life are at an end, nor would I have them prolonged. With you, however, it is not so. Youth and the bloom of youth are yours. What then is to be done? You must prove yourself to possess valour and greatness of soul; and since the state offers riches and freedom to whomsoever shall slay me and bear them my head, let the reward be yours. Strike it off, and be happy!”

At first the youth rejected the proposal, but ultimately Drimacos prevailed. The old man fell, and his friend on presenting his head received the sum which had been offered by the state, together with his freedom, and thereupon after burying his benefactor’s remains, he sailed away to his own country. Now, however, the Chians underwent the just punishment of their treachery. No longer guided by the wisdom and authority of Drimacos, the fugitive slaves returned to their original habits of plunder and devastation; whereupon, remembering the moderation of the dead, they erected an 17Heroön upon his grave, and denominated him the propitious hero. The insurgents, too, holding his memory in no less veneration, continued for ages to offer up the first-fruits of their spoil at his tomb. He was, in fact, honoured with a kind of apotheosis, and canonized among the gods of the island; for it was believed that his shade often appeared to men in dreams for the purpose of revealing some servile conspiracy while yet in the bud: and they to whom he vouchsafed these warning visits, more grateful than when he yet lived, never failed to proceed to his chapel, and offer sacrifice to his manes.^[64]

In another department of iniquity the Chians would appear to have been engaged about the period of Xerxes’ expedition into Greece; I mean the making of eunuchs for the Eastern market. Panionios, a miscreant engaged in this traffic, who had mutilated and sold into slavery a young man named Hermotimos, at length expiated his offence against human nature by being himself, together with his four sons, subjected to the same operation.^[65] His countrymen, also, in process of time, were, in like manner, compelled to drain the bitter cup of servitude. For, as we find recorded by Nicolaos the Peripatetic, and Posidonios the Stoic, having been subjugated by Mithridates of Cappadocia, they were delivered up to their own slaves to be carried away captive into Colchis, which Athenæus, a man not overburdened with religion, considers the just punishment of their wickedness in having been the first who introduced the slave-trade into Greece, when they might have been better served by freemen for hire. From this ancient villany of the Chians is supposed to have arisen the proverb—“the Chian has bought himself a master,” which Eupolis introduced into his drama called the “Friends.”^[66]

18The servile war which took place among the Samians, had a more fortunate issue, though but few particulars respecting it have come down to us. It was related, however, by Malacos, in his annals of the Siphnians, that Ephesos was first founded by a number of Samian slaves, who having retired to a mountain on the island to the number of a thousand, inflicted numerous evils on their former tyrants. These in the sixth year of the war, having consulted the oracle, came to an understanding with their slaves, who being permitted to depart in safety from the island, sailed away, and became the founders of the city and people of Ephesos.^[67]

In Attica, the institution of slavery,^[68] though attended, as it everywhere must be, by innumerable evils, nevertheless exhibited itself under the mildest form which it anywhere assumed in the ancient world.^[69] With their characteristic attention to the interests of humanity, the Athenians enacted a law, in virtue of which slaves could indict their masters for assault and battery. Hyperides, accordingly, observed in his oration against Mantitheos, “our laws making no distinction in this respect between freemen and slaves, grant to all alike the privilege of bringing an action against those who insult or injure them.”^[70] To the same effect spoke Lycurgus^[71] in his first oration against Lycophron; but Demosthenes has preserved the law which empowered any Athenian, not labouring under legal disability, to denounce 19to the Thesmothetæ the person who offered violence to man, woman, or boy, whether slave or free. The action was tried before the court of Heliæa, and numerous were the examples of men who had suffered death for crimes committed against bondsmen. Not, therefore, without reason did the orator eulogise the humane spirit of the law, or dwell upon the beneficial effects which a knowledge of its existence must produce among those barbarous nations who furnished Greece with servile labourers.^[72] Another privilege enjoyed by the slave class in Attica was that of purchasing their own freedom, as often as, by the careful management of the peculium secured them by law, they were enabled to offer to their owners an equivalent for their services.^[73]

Still, even in Attica, the yoke of bondage was a heavy yoke, the law itself, in other matters, drawing distinctions between freemen and slaves doubly galling because palpably unnecessary. Legally, for example, they were not allowed to wear long hair,^[74] or a garment with two sleeves,^[75] to drink wine, save at the festival of Pithœgia on the first day of the month Anthesterion; to anoint themselves as in the gymnasia, to be present at the procession in honour of the Eumenides, or in the case of females to enter the temple of Demeter during the celebration of the Thesmophoria.^[76] A similar spirit pervaded the servile code in other parts of Greece. Thus, in the island of Cos they were prohibited from joining in the sacrifices to Hera, and from tasting the victims. They were, likewise, forbidden to be present when offerings were presented to the Manes of Phorbas. 20But from the very words of the law which authorised the temple wardens to exclude them on these occasions, it is clear that on all others they might freely enter.^[77] At Athens, with the exceptions above mentioned, every temple in the city appears to have been open to them. Occasionally, moreover, certain of their number were selected to accompany their masters to consult the oracle at Delphi, when even they were permitted, like free citizens, to wear crowns upon their heads, which, for the time conferred upon them exemption from blows or stripes.^[78] Among their more serious grievances, was their liability to personal chastisement, which, besides being inflicted as our punishment of the treadmill, or whipping,^[79] at the carts’-tail, by an order of the magistrates,^[80] was too much left to the discretion of their owners, whose mercies in many cases would be none of the most tender. In time of war, however, this planter’s luxury could not be enjoyed,^[81] since the flogged slaves might go over to the enemy, as sometimes happened.^[82] They are said, besides, to have worked the mines in fetters; probably, however, only in consequence of the revolt described by Posidonios, in which they slew the overseers of the mines, and taking possession of the acropolis of Sunium,^[83] laid waste for a considerable time the whole 21of the adjacent districts. This took place simultaneously with the second insurrection of the slaves in Sicily (there was, perhaps, an understanding between them) in the quelling of which nearly a million of their number were destroyed.^[84] Other grievances they endured, which will be noticed as we proceed; but in addition to those that actually existed, a learned modern writer has imagined another, which, in his opinion, reduces their condition beneath that of the Helots. “Nearly all the ties of family were broken,” he says, “among the slaves of Athens;” and further explaining himself in a note remarks, that the marriage of slaves was there an uncommon event.^[85] We find, however, from contemporary writers, that except in cases of incorrigible perverseness, slaves were, on the contrary, encouraged to marry, it being supposed they would thus become more attached to their masters.^[86] The same bold and ingenious writer endeavours to give a reason for what has been quoted above, by saying, “it was cheaper to purchase than to bring up slaves.” This was not the opinion of the ancients, “we,” say they, “prefer and put more trust in slaves born and brought up in the house, than in such as are purchased.”^[87]

It has been observed that, from the most grievous 22insults and contumely, slaves were protected by the laws; but if, in spite of legal protection, their masters found means to render their lives a burden, the state provided them with an asylum in the temples of Theseus and the Eumenides.^[88] Having there taken sanctuary, their oppressors could not force them thence without incurring the guilt of sacrilege.^[89] Thus, in a fragment of Aristophanes’ Seasons we find a slave deliberating whether he should not take refuge in the Theseion, and there remain till he could procure his transfer to a new master;^[90] for any one who conducted himself too harshly towards his slaves was by law compelled to sell them.^[91] Nay and not only so, but the slave could institute an action against his lord called αἰκιάς δίκη, or against any other citizen who had behaved unjustly or injuriously towards him. But the right of sanctuary was no doubt limited, and only extended from the time of the slave’s flight 23to the next New Moon, when a periodical slave-auction appears to have been held.^[92]

On this occasion the slaves were stationed, as I have seen them in the bazaars of modern Egypt, in a circle in the market-place, and the one whose turn it was to be sold mounted a table, which seems to have been of stone, where he exhibited himself and was knocked down to the best bidder. Sometimes when the articles were lively they made great sport for the company, as in the case of Diogenes who bawled aloud “whoever among you wants a master, let him buy me.”^[93]

To the friskiness whether natural or assumed which the young barbarians often exhibited on this occasion, Menander alludes in the following fragment of his Ephesian:^[94]

Slaves of little or no value were contemptuously called “salt-bought,” from a custom prevalent among the inland Thracians, of bartering their captives for salt;^[95] whence it may be inferred, that domestics from that part of the world were considered inferior.

Respecting the price of slaves an important passage occurs in the Memorabilia, where Socrates, conversing with Antisthenes, on the subject of friendship, inquires whether friends were to be valued at so much per head, like slaves, some of whom he says were not worth a demimina, while others would fetch two, 24five, or even ten minæ,^[96] that is, the price varied from forty shillings to forty pounds. Nay it is even said that Nicias, son of Niceratos, bought an overseer for his silver mines at the price of a talent, or two hundred and forty-one pounds sterling.^[97] This passage is in substance quoted by Boeckh,^[98] who observes that, exclusively of the fluctuations caused by the variations in the supply and the demand, the market-price of slaves was affected by their age, health, strength, beauty, natural abilities, mechanical ingenuity, and moral qualities. The meanest and cheapest class were those who worked in the mills,^[99] where mere bodily strength was required, and therefore by setting Samson at this labour the Philistines intimated their extreme contempt for his blind energy. A very low value was set upon such slaves as worked in the mines, about 150 drachmas in the age of Demosthenes.^[100] Ordinary house-slaves, whether male or female, might be valued at about the same price. Demosthenes, in fact, considered two minæ and a half a large sum for a person of this class. Of the sword-cutlers possessed by the orator’s father some were valued at six minæ, others at five, while the lowest were worth above three. Chair-makers sold for about two minæ.

25In his discussion on this point, Boeckh^[101] charges Demosthenes with intentional falsehood, because, in his oration against Aphobos, he reckons fourteen sword-cutlers at forty minæ, something less than three minæ a-piece. But among those possessed by his father at his death some were reckoned at only three minæ. His guardians made use of them for ten years, that is, till they were grown old, by which time the best would have deteriorated, and the others become of no value.^[102] This being the case, I do not see upon what ground Boeckh bases his accusation. The wages of slaves, when let out by their masters on hire, varied greatly, as did also the profit derived from them. A miner was supposed to yield his master an obolos per day, a leather-worker two oboli, and a foreman or overseer three. Expert manufacturers of fine goods, such as head-nets, stuffs of Amorgos, and variegated fabrics like our flowered muslins, must have produced their owners much greater returns.^[103]

Slaves, at Athens, were divided into two classes, private and public. The latter, who were the property of the state, performed several kinds of service supposed to be unworthy of freemen: they were, for example, employed as vergers, messengers, apparitors, scribes, clerks of public works,^[104] and inferior servants of the gods. Most of the temples of Greece possessed, in fact, a great number of slaves or serfs, who cultivated the sacred domains, exercised various humbler offices of religion, and were, in short, ready on all occasions to execute the orders of the priests.^[105] At Corinth, where the worship of Aphrodite chiefly prevailed, these slaves consisted almost exclusively of women,^[106] who having, on certain 26occasions, burnt frankincense, and offered up public prayers to the goddess, were sumptuously feasted within the precincts of her fane.

Among the Athenians, the slaves of the republic, generally captives taken in war, received a careful education, and were sometimes entrusted with important duties. Out of their number were selected the secretaries,^[107] who, in time of war, accompanied the generals and treasurers of the army, and made exact minutes of their expenditure, in order that, when on their return these officers should come to render an account of their proceedings, their books might be compared with those of the secretaries. In cases of difficulty, moreover, these unfortunate individuals were subjected to torture, in order to obtain that kind of evidence which the ancients deemed most satisfactory.^[108]

The servile vocabulary was necessarily abundant: διάκονος,^[109] a servant in general; ὑπηρέτης,^[110] a personal attendant or valet; ἀργυρώ-νητης,^[111] a slave bought with money; ὤνιος, the same; οἰκότριψ,^[112] οἰκοτραφὴς, a male slave born in the house. The name given to the female slave in the same condition was σηκὶς, or οἰκογενὴς.^[113] 27The housekeeper, likewise a slave, received the appellation of ταμεία^[114] from her office. A lady’s maid they called παιδίσκη,^[115] though it be doubtful, according to Pollux, whether the orator Lysias, who uses the word, does so with reference to the girl’s youth or condition.^[116] A slave born of slaves in the house is called οἰκοτριβαίος.^[117] Chrysippos makes a distinction between οἰκέτης^[118] and δοῦλος,^[119] but without much foundation. Clitarchus enumerates various names by which slaves were known in Greece: ἄζοι, θεραπόντες,^[120] ἀκόλουθοι,^[121] πάλμονες, and λάτρεις. Rural slaves were called ἐρκίται. Hermon, in his Cretan Glossaries, observes, that slaves, born of free parents (εὐγένεις), were, in the island of Crete, called μνῶται. Seleucus informs us, that ἄζοι signifies servants male and female.^[122] The latter were also denominated ἀποφράσαι and βολίζαι. A male slave, born of a slave, was termed σινδρὼν; a female attendant on a lady, ἀμφίπολος; a slave-girl who walked before her mistress, πρόπολος. Female slaves were, at Lacedæmon, called χαλκίδες. The term οἰκέτης was applied to any person employed about a house, whether slave or free.

A very pleasant and significant custom prevailed when a slave newly purchased was first brought into the house. They placed him before the hearth, where his future master, mistress, and fellow-servants, poured baskets of ripe fruit, dates, figs, filberts, walnuts, and so on, upon his head, to intimate that 28he was come into the abode of plenty.^[123] The occasion was converted by his fellow-slaves into a holiday and a feast; for custom appropriated to them whatever was thus cast upon the new-comer, and as there were sweetmeats among the rest, they had wherewith to make merry.^[124]

Their food was commonly, as might be expected, inferior to that of their masters. Thus the dates grown in Greece, which ripened but imperfectly, were appropriated to their use; and for their drink they had a small thin wine called Lora,^[125] by the Romans made of the husks of grapes, laid, after they had been pressed, to soak in water,^[126] and then squeezed again, like our Bunnel, in the perry country.^[127] That they generally ate barley-bread in Attica was no peculiar hardship,^[128] since the citizens themselves frequently did the same. We find, moreover, that to give a relish to their coarse meal, plain broth, and salt fish,^[129] they were indulged with pickled gherkins. 29In the early ages of the commonwealth they imitated the frugal manner of their lords, so that no slave who valued his reputation would be seen to enter a tavern; but in later times they naturally shared largely in the general depravity of morals, and placed their summum bonum in eating and drinking. Their whole creed, on this point, has been summed up in a few words by the poet Sotion.^[130] “Wherefore,” exclaims a slave, “dole forth these absurdities, these ravings of sophists, prating up and down the Lyceum, the Academy, and the gates of the Odeion? In all these there is nothing of value. Let us drink, let us drink deeply, O Sicon, Sicon!^[131] Let us rejoice, whilst it is yet permitted us to delight our souls. Enjoy thyself, O Manes! Nothing is sweeter than the belly, which alone is to thee as thy father and thy mother. Virtues, embassies, generalships, are vain pomps, resembling the plaudits of a dream. Heaven, at the fated hour, will deliver thee to the cold grasp of death, and thou wilt bear with thee nothing but what thou hast drunk and eaten! All else is dust, like Pericles, Codros, and Cimon.”

The employment of household slaves necessarily varied according to the rank and condition of their lords. In the dwellings of the wealthy and luxurious 30they were accustomed to fan their masters and mistresses, and to drive away the flies with branches of myrtle, instead of which, in the East, they make use of flappers of palm-leaves. Among the Roman ladies it was customary to retain a female attendant for the sole purpose of looking after the Melitensian lap-dogs^[132] of their mistresses, in which they were less ambitious than that dame in Lucian, who kept a philosopher for this purpose.^[133] Female cup-bearers filled the place of our saucy footmen.^[134] Ladies’ maids were likewise slaves. They were initiated in all the arts of the toilette; and it is told of Julia, whose hair turned prematurely grey, that her ornatrix was sometimes surprised plucking out the white hairs by the entrance of her father.^[135] The offices of these ornamenters is thus described by Manilius:

In these arts they were regularly taught under masters, and there would likewise appear to have been a set of men who earned their subsistence by initiating slaves in household labours. An example is mentioned at Syracuse of a person^[137] who probably had an establishment of his own, where he instructed slaves in the whole round of their domestic duties, such as bread-making, cooking, washing, and so on. In the baker’s business Anaxarchos, an Eudaimonist philosopher, one of the fitting companions of Alexander the Great,^[138] introduced an improvement 31by which modern times may profit,—to preserve his bread pure from the touch, and even from the breath of the slaves who made it, he caused them to knead the dough with gloves on their hands, and to wear a respirator of some gauze-like substance over the mouth.^[139] Other individuals, who grudged their domestics a taste of their delicacies, obliged them, while employed at the kneading-trough, to wear a broad collar, like a wheel, which prevented them from bringing their hands to their mouths.^[140] This odious practice, however, could not have been general, as it is clear, from an expression 32in Aristophanes^[141] and his scholiast, that slaves employed in making bread used to amuse themselves by eating the dough. This seems to be one of the principal causes of disgust to the rogues in the piece employed in preparing the delicacies with which Trygæos feeds the beetle whereon he is about to mount to the court of Zeus.

In the city of Abdera, as we find from an anecdote of Stratonicos,^[142] every private citizen kept a slave who served him in the capacity of herald, and announced by sound of trumpet the appearance of the new moon, and the festival by which it was followed. A bon mot worth repeating is ascribed to this travelling wit. Being one day in the cemetery of Teicheios, a town of the Milesian territory,^[143] inhabited by a mixed population from all the neighbouring countries, and seeing on every tomb the name of some foreigner, “Come,” said he to his slave, “let us depart from this place. Nobody dies here but strangers.”

One of the most steady and faithful of the domestics was usually selected to be the porter.^[144] Occasionally, moreover, in the establishments of opulent and ostentatious persons, as Callias for example, eunuchs, imported from Asia, were employed as door-keepers.^[145]

33The directions, as Mitford justly observes, which Penelope’s housekeeper gives to the menial servants for the business of the day, might still serve in the East without variation: “Go quickly,” she said, “some of you sweep the house, and sprinkle it, and let the crimson carpets be spread upon the seats; let all the tables be well rubbed with sponges, and wash carefully the bowls and cups. Some of you go immediately to the fountain for water.”^[146]

Besides working at the mill, and fetching water, both somewhat laborious employments, we find that female slaves were sometimes engaged in offices still more unfeminine; that is, in woodcutting upon the mountains, where the impudent old fellow, in Aristophanes, takes advantage of Thratta.^[147] Events of this kind, however, could only happen among the peasant girls. In the city both mistresses and maids were too domestic to meet with adventures in forest or on mountains. Towards the decline of the commonwealth, it became a mark of wealth and consequence to be served by black domestics, both male and female, as was also the fashion among the Romans and the Egyptian Greeks. Thus Cleopatra^[148] had negro boys for torch-bearers; and the shallow exclusive, in Cicero,^[149] is anxious to make it known 34that he has an African valet. Juvenal, in his sarcastic style, alludes to this practice.^[150]

The Athenian ladies, like our Indian dames, affected as a foil, perhaps, to be attended by waiting-maids rendered “by Phœbus’ amorous pinches black.”^[151]

Travellers among the higher Alps are almost invariably attended by Swiss guides who, laden with their employer’s baggage, climb before them up the rocks, and are less fatigued at the close of the day’s journey than the rich pedestrians who carry nothing beyond their own weight. This is an exact image of the style of travelling in antiquity. It was then common even for opulent men, to “make their own legs their compasses,” as Scriblerus phrases it; but, not to load their own delicate shoulders with a knapsack, they were attended, like Bacchos in the Frogs, by a steady slave, who carried the baggage, mounted on a porter’s knot upon his shoulders. To employ more than one valet in this service was esteemed a mark of luxurious habits; and therefore Æschines reproaches Demosthenes that, during his embassy, he was attended by two domestics with each a carpet-bag.^[152] Both by Theophrastus and Xenophon this attendant is called an Acoluthos, or follower, because it was his duty to walk behind his master; but this name in general signified a youthful valet, kept in personal attendance on the great.^[153] The simplicity of republican manners at Athens condemned the habit of maintaining many of those elegant youths, which, moreovermoreover was prohibited by law.^[154]

35From the severity of manners, however, one evil arose—the single slave was sometimes condemned by vanity to carry the burden of two; and as their grumblings were proportioned to their hardship, their case was soon taken up by the comic poets, not, I fear, so much for the sake of humanity, as because it often furnished them with a good joke or two. By degrees, as no writers dwell so constantly on a fruitful topic or so frankly imitate each other, it became the fashion of the stage to introduce a miserable devil into every comedy, whose misfortunes, like those of the clown in our pantomimes, usually kept the theatre in a roar. The practice, however, had already grown stale in the time of Aristophanes, who both ridiculed and followed it; for while his sneers at the grumbling valet are repeated usque ad nauseam, much of the humour and interest of the Frogs arise out of the tricks and adventures of a melancholy wag of this description as Casaubon^[155] long ago observed.

When men have usurped an undue dominion over their fellows, they seldom know where to stop. The Syrians themselves, enslaved politically, and often sold into servitude abroad, affected when rich a peculiarly luxurious manner: female attendants waited on their ladies, who, when mounting their carriages, required them to crawl on all-fours that they might make a foot-stool of their backs.^[156]

If we now pass from the consideration of slavery in the comparatively mild form which it assumed in Attica to an examination of the state of the Laconian Helots, we shall discover the spirit which actuated the two governments to present a still broader contrast in this, the lowest stage of its influence, than when operating upon the nobler citizens on the great arena of public life.

Among certain scholars on the continent it appears to be very much the fashion to oppose an invincible scepticism to the testimony of ancient writers, as often as that testimony makes against any theory they desire to establish; and on the subject of the Helots several of the ablest authors among them have adopted an opinion which cannot be supported without annihilating several Greek authors, who, in their opinion, prophesy as awkwardly as Calchas did for the peace of Agamemnon.

Among these the principal is Mr. Müller, from whom I have the misfortune to differ on many points, but without in the least disparaging his ability or his learning, for both of which I entertain the highest respect.^[157]

37As, however, he has adopted a very peculiar system in the interpretation of antiquity, which, though plausible and ingenious, seems ill-calculated to lead to truth, I have found it impossible to participate on many important points the views which he maintains, more especially on the subject of the Helots. In fact, with all his talents and sagacity he has chosen rather to become an advocate than an historian, and pushes so far his eagerness to defend his favourite people, as not unfrequently to provoke a smile. In his derivation of the term Helot, however, he is perhaps correct,^[158] it being more probable that it should have sprung from an ancient word signifying “The Prisoners” than from the name of the town. In the absence of all testimony we might likewise entertain the conjecture, “that they were an aboriginal race subdued at a very early period, and which immediately passed over as slaves to the Doric conquerors.” But we have 38the weighty authority of Theopompos to oppose to this inference, and the words of this historian^[159] attentively considered would lead to the etymology of the name given by Müller:—“having taken them prisoners,” he says, “they called them εἵλωτες.” They were, however, Greeks of the Achaian race, who fell, together with the land, into the power of the new-comers, so that the excuse of only tyrannising over a foreign and half-savage race is wanting to the Spartans, which was the object aimed at by Mr. Müller’s ingenious conjecture.

In considering the condition of the Helots, I shall not affect, with the historian of the Doric race,^[160] “to range their political rights and personal treatment,” under separate heads; in the first place because, strictly speaking, they had no political rights, and, secondly, because in the treatment they experienced consists whatever is peculiar in their position. Several of this learned historian’s notions on the Lacedæmonian serfs appear to be in direct contradiction with those of the writers from whom all we know concerning the Helots is obtained. Of this he seems to be conscious, and in the following way endeavours to bring discredit on them; assuming as a settled thing, that the Helots must have possessed political rights, he concludes that they “were doubtless exactly defined by law and custom, though the expressions made use of by ancient authors are frequently vague and ambiguous.”^[161] Whether this be the case or not we shall presently see. The remark of Ephoros is, that “they were in a certain point of view public slaves. Their possessor could neither liberate them nor sell them beyond the borders.” On this passage which he quotes,^[162] the historian raises a superstructure 39which it will by no means support. “From this,” he says, “it is evident, that they were considered as belonging properly to the state, which, to a certain degree, permitted them to be possessed, and apportioned them out to individuals, reserving to itself the power of enfranchising them.”^[163]

The contrary I think is the inference. They were the property of individuals, but the state reserved to itself the right of enfranchising them and preventing their emancipation, lest persons should be found who, like Marcus Porcius, Cato,^[164] and the Dutch at the Cape, would sell or give them their liberty when too old to labour. “But to sell them out of the country,” says Mr. Müller, “was not in the power even of the state.” It is true there was an ancient law prohibiting the exportation of 40the Helots,^[165] but the same authority which enacted that law could have abrogated it. Had Sparta then chosen to convert her Helots into an article of traffic, who or what was to prevent her? Since she arrogated to herself the right of beating, maiming, and putting them to death,^[166] though completely innocent, is it to be supposed that, had it suited her policy, she would have hesitated to sell them? And after all are we quite certain that these unhappy people were not frequently sold into foreign lands? On the contrary, we find, that a regular trade was carried on in female Helots, who were exported into all the neighbouring countries for nurses.^[167] Thus it appears that the state both had and exercised the power to convert its serfs into merchandise.

That the males also were not exported like cattle, than which they were far worse treated, was owing simply to the calculation, that it would be more profitable to retain them. For, as the Spartans possessed estates, which personally they never cultivated, the Helots, who equally belonged to them, were stationed throughout the country upon those estates, which it was their business to till for the owners. To live it was of course necessary that they should eat, and therefore a portion of the produce was abandoned to them, according to Tyrtæos,^[168] the half, a division which must have borne very hard upon 41them, since their numbers were five times greater than those of the Spartans.^[169] However, even in this arrangement, the learned historian discovers something to praise “as this quantity had been definitively settled at a very early period (to raise the amount being forbidden under very heavy imprecations) the Helots were the persons who profited by a good and lost by a bad harvest, which must have been to them an encouragement to industry and good husbandry; a motive which would have been wanting if the profit and loss had merely affected the landlords.”^[170] But on the res rusticæ the notions of this writer are somewhat confused. For in another place he remarks that, owing to the “usurpations of the successive conquerors of Peloponnesos, agriculture was kept in a constant state of dependence and obscurity, so that we seldom hear of the improvement of the country, which is a necessary part of the husbandman’s business.” It therefore did not flourish in Laconia. No, says the historian, that is not the conclusion we must come to, for, notwithstanding that we never hear of any improvements in it, “agriculture was always followed with great energy and success!”^[171]

There appear to have been instances of Helots becoming comparatively wealthy in spite of the oppressions they endured: but so we have known peasants growing rich in the worst despotisms of the East, and such too was in the middle ages the case with the Jews, notwithstanding the terrible persecutions and cruelties they endured. This fact, therefore, only proves that no pressure of hardship or ill-usage can entirely destroy the elasticity of the spirit; and no doubt, like all slaves, the Helots sought to soften their miseries by the gratification 42which a sense of property procures even in bondage to the sordid mind.^[172] “By means of the rich produce of the land, and in part by plunder obtained in war, they collected a considerable property, to the attainment of which almost every access was closed to the Spartans.”^[173] But of what value is property to a man who is himself the property of another? Besides, the expressionexpression of the historian in this place seems calculated to lead to erroneous conclusions respecting the Spartans, who, so far from being debarred the means of amassing wealth,^[174] rose frequently to extraordinary opulence, insomuch that this self-denying community came at length to be the richest in Greece.^[175] To assume that the Helots, like the Thessalian Penestæ,^[176] enjoyed means of augmenting their possessions superior to those permitted themselves by their masters, is to propagate an error which must vitiate our whole conception of the Lacedæmonian commonwealth.

It is confessed that very little intercourse between the Spartans and the Helots took place, at least in earlier times; for afterwards, when the masters themselves quitted the capital, resided on their estates,^[177] and took to husbandry, the link must necessarily 43have been more closely drawn. And this circumstance renders more probable the account transmitted to us of Spartan harshness towards them. Intercommunion would have begotten more humane feelings in the master, more attachment in the slave. For like other men the Spartans felt the influence of intimacy, as is proved by their practice of enfranchising the companions of their childhood. They paid, therefore, an involuntary compliment to their own hearts when they kept the Helots at a distance, that they might be able to tyrannise over them. They could not have resisted the power of close contact, and acted like Messallina, who fled in tears from the room where a man was pleading for his life, lest she should forgive him, whispering as she went to her instrument that the accused must not be suffered to escape nevertheless.^[178] However, a certain number of Helots were retained in the city as personal attendants on the Spartans, and there waited at the public tables, and were lent by one person to another,^[179] like so many dogs, or oxen; although it seems probable that all the drudgery of the capital was not performed by the Helots alone, but that along with them were associated other classes of domestic slaves,^[180] on whose history and condition antiquity 44affords us little or no light. But as the Spartans were constantly making prisoners in their wars with the neighbouring states, which were occasionally restored at the termination of hostilities, we appear to be authorized in concluding, that these captives were commonly reduced to servitude in Laconia, whether employed in household labours,^[181] or dispersed among the Helots in the field.

Another service the Helots performed for their masters, which necessarily produced some degree of intimacy, I mean the military service in which they fought and bled by their side.^[182] The state was, no doubt, reluctant to admit them among the Hoplitæ, or heavy-armed, where the discipline was rigorous, and their weapons would have placed them on a level with their oppressors. But even this was sometimes hazarded, as in the reinforcements forwarded to Gyleppus, at Syracuse,^[183] when six hundred Neodomades and picked Helots were complimented 45with this dangerous distinction. As light troops, however, they almost invariably formed the majority of the Lacedæmonian forces. In other countries, where the subject races were more humanely treated, no fear was entertained at entrusting them with arms. Among the Dardanians, for example, where it was not uncommon for a private individual to possess a thousand slaves, or more, they in time of peace cultivated the land, and in war filled the ranks of the army, their masters serving as officers.^[184]

From this circumstance one of two things must be inferred; either that the Dardanians considered them in the light of subjects, as we do the natives of India, where large armies are officered by Englishmen, or that that people understood better than any other in antiquity the art of ruling over men.

Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, Plutarch, and a number of other writers agree in convicting the Spartans of great barbarity towards their bondsmen, differing, however, as to the degree of that barbarity. But their “philanthropic views”^[185] are discarded by the historian, who with the skill of an able pleader, overlooks these great writers, whom he could not treat with so much want of ceremony, to bring forward the picture of Myron of Priene, whose history he denominates a romance, and whose testimony he contumeliously rejects. In order the more completely, as he thinks, to demolish this humble writer he quotes the following passage of his work preserved by Athenæus: “The Helots perform for the Spartans every ignominious service. They are compelled to wear a cap of dog-skin,^[186] to bear a covering of sheep-skin, and are severely beaten every year without having committed any fault, in order that they may never forget they are slaves. In addition to this, those amongstamongst them 46who, either by their stature or their beauty, raise themselves above the condition of a slave are condemned to death, and the masters who do not destroy the most manly of them are liable to punishment.”^[187] The accusation here made is a serious one, and the apologist naturally feels his indignation kindle against its author. In this state of mind he employs very harsh language, charges Myron with “ignorance and partiality,” and altogether speaks as if he were in possession of facts wherewith to demolish the Prenian’s statement. But has he any? Not a single one. He misunderstands entirely the gist of Myron’s words, in the matter of the dog-skin cap, and then, on the strength of his own error, presumes to accuse him of misrepresentation. It is at the first blush evident that Myron considered the hardship to consist, not in the wearing of the cap, but in being compelled to wear it. Mr. Müller’s examples, consequently, are nothing to the purpose; they simply prove that other people had endured similar hardships, (the mention of Laërtes is superfluous,) nevertheless, without having uttered one syllable to justify his triumph, he proceeds with much self-satisfaction to remark, that “since Myron manifestly misrepresents this circumstance, it is very probable that his other objections are founded in error.”^[188]

But the allegations of Myron, as the reader will perceive, remain not only untouched, but more confirmed and established than ever by such a defence. It happens, in fact, that they are true to the letter, and what is more, are by no means the gravest imputation which can be substantiated against the Dorian model-state. We shall proceed, however, step by step examining fairly, and in order, the charges and the defence. Plutarch,^[189] whose testimony, 47when favourable, is unhesitatingly accepted, “relates that the Helots were compelled to intoxicate themselves, and perform indecent dances as a warning to the Spartan youth.”^[190] Shall we credit Plutarch? No we must not; because “common sense is opposed to so absurd a method of education.” But if everything in history which we may determine to be opposed to common sense were on that account to be rejected, we should make sad inroads upon the domains of antiquity. That which increases the ridicule of the practice is, that from among those same Helots they selected tutors for their younger children,^[191] as well as companions, so that in the very article wherein Xenophon^[192] discovered the superiority of Lycurgus’s educational system, it was completely on a level with that of the other Greeks, habituating the youth to the intimacy and government of slaves.^[193]

48If, however, the relation of Plutarch stood alone, its force would be less, though with no face could we reject it while admitting in other respects his favourable testimony. But from many authors, besides him, it is clear, that to demoralise the Helots was the constant policy of Sparta. Thus when the Thasians brought a number of useless dainties to Agesilaos and his army: “Give them,” said he, “to those Helots, whom it is better to corrupt than ourselves.”^[194] Consistently with the same system, and the more completely to debase their minds, they were commanded to sing obscene songs and perform indecent jigs, while the Pyrrhic dance and every warlike lay was forbidden them. In proof of this, it is related, that when the Thebans, under Epaminondas, invaded Laconia, and made prisoners a number of the Helots, they commanded them to sing them some of the songs of Sparta, of Spendon, for example, or Alcman, or Terpander. But the Helots^[195] professed their inability, observing, that the acquisition of those lays was forbidden them. In short, to adopt the words of Theopompos, they were at all times cruelly and bitterly treated;^[196] deluded, sometimes, from the protection of sanctuary by perjury, and then coolly assassinated in contempt of religion and oaths, as in the case of those 49suppliants who took refuge in the temple of Poseidon at Tænaros.^[197]

But all this harsh usage was mild compared with other injuries which the laws of Sparta inflicted on them. The reader will perceive that I am about to speak of the Crypteia, not one feature of which, to my mind, has been softened or explained away, or rendered doubtful by the ingenious but very useless special pleading of some distinguished scholars among our contemporaries.^[198] Mr. Müller, with much intrepidity, leads the van of Sparta’s defenders, and, by an artifice not unfamiliar to rhetoricians, seeks to beat down the authorities on which belief in the Crypteia rests. He affects to think slightingly of their means of obtaining information, though certainly, in this respect, at least, the very meanest of them possessed incalculable advantages over himself. However, of Isocrates he thus unceremoniously disposes: “Isocrates speaks of this institution in a very confused manner and from mere report.”^[199] On the contrary, this “old man eloquent,” as Milton affectionately terms him, luminously, (would that Mr. Müller and I possessed equal art!) and upon the best authorities,^[200] sketches the history of the Lacedæmonian government, its injustice, its oppressions; 50and concludes by describing the annual massacre of the Helots. It is worthy of remark, that, with Aristotle,^[201] he attributes to the Ephori the direction of this servile war, in which the reins of slaughter were loosed or tightened by their authority.

The relation, however, of Isocrates, who probably descended to particulars, appears not to have come down to us entire. Plutarch, though he be the panegyrist, rather than the faithful historian, of Sparta, has supplied the deficiency. He does so, indeed, reluctantly; trumpets in the narration with epic flourishes, seeking, by all the art he is master of, to shield his beloved Lycurgus from the stern but deserved rebuke of Plato.^[202] Too honest, however, was the old Bœotian entirely to suppress the truth. So that, at length, after much preparation, the massacre is described hurriedly, briefly, with vehement unwillingness, but, for that very reason, with the more terrible effect.

Having enumerated the regulations affecting the free citizens, “In these,” he says, “there is no trace of that injustice and griping ambition which some object to the institutions of Lycurgus, considering them well adapted to beget bravery though not honest principles. It was probably the institution of the Crypteia (if as Aristotle contends, it proceeded from Lycurgus) that inspired Plato with such an opinion of the legislator and his laws. According to this ordinance the rulers, selecting from among the youths those most distinguished for ability, sent them forth armed with daggers and furnished with the necessary provisions, to 51scour the country, separating and concealing themselves in unfrequented places by day, but issuing out at night and slaughtering all such of the Helots as they found abroad. Sometimes, indeed, they fell upon them while engaged in their rural labours in the fields, and there cut off the best and bravest of the race.”^[203] Plutarch felt that connected with this system, as flowing from the same principle of policy and designed to effect the same purpose, were those extensive massacres recorded in history, by one of which more than two thousand of those unhappy men, having been insidiously deluded into the assertion of sentiments conformable to the gallant actions they had performed in the service of the state,^[204] were removed in a day. Lulled by the gift of freedom, crowned, smiled upon, they were conducted to the temples, as if to implicate the very gods in the treachery:—and then suddenly they disappeared; nor to this hour has the fate which overtook them been revealed.^[205] Compared with this the slaughter of the Janisaries appears less culpable.

But had Sparta no apology to offer, for these actions, to humanity? Her rulers discovered one which appears to have satisfied their own consciences. Every year, on taking office, the Ephori, formally, in their good city of Sparta, declared war against their unarmed and unhappy vassals, “that they might be massacred under pretence of law.”^[206] Mr. Müller 52overwhelmed with the weight of these testimonies, does not yet yield up the point: “Were not these Helots, who in many districts lived entirely alone, united by despair for the sake of common protection; and did they not every year kindle a most bloody and determined war throughout the whole of Laconia?” The historian is pleasant upon the Helots. Kindle a war! How happens it that the Chinese, who, at many periods of their history, have rivalled the Helots in suffering, and like them, too, have rebelled occasionally, yet make annually no “bloody and determined war” against the Mantchoo Tartars? The answer is written on every page of the history of the world, and was put in form by Alexander when he inquired whether one butcher were afraid of many sheep? Nevertheless, even the spirit of slavery itself did sometimes revolt against oppression and cruelty, and kindled such “bloody and determined wars” as Sparta, without foreign aid, was unable to terminate. They were, in fact, during many years, prevented from disputing with the Athenians the supremacy in Greece, by contests with their own vassals.^[207] And on the occasion of the great earthquake when nearly every house in Sparta was shaken to the ground,^[208] did not the Helots rejoice at the calamity, and come flocking to the environs of the city from the whole country round, in order to put an end to their tyrants as they were escaping in terror from their tottering habitations? Revolt, then, was not unfamiliar to the Helots—again and again was the standard of freedom unfurled^[209]—and the day, though late, at length came, when the Spartan saw his slave placed on a level with himself.^[210]

To render credible this sketch of cruelty, the character and education of the Spartans must be kept in view:

was not their maxim.^[211] They loved to trample on the fallen. Even in boyhood and among themselves, they practised gouging as an accomplishment, and as an Athenian did music—as a necessary consequence, even the writers most favourable to their state, confess them to have been brutal, inhuman, perfidious.^[212] Nor among a people so ignorant, so prejudiced, so narrow-minded, whose understandings were possibly incapable of comprehending the idea of justice or liberality, can we altogether wonder at such an outbreak of barbarism. Men have been known in modern times to shoot slaves for their amusement; a king of France has been known from the same motive to shoot his subjects, and a learned professor,^[213] not very remarkable for cruelty, 54has pronounced the panegyric of that king. There is nothing, therefore, at all incredible in the Spartan Crypteia, which exactly harmonizes with all we know of the nation.

An attempt, however, has been made to explain the whole away, by the unauthorized inference, that in the casual glance which Megillos, in the laws of Plato, makes at this institution, we have a complete description of it in all its features. But very far is this from being the case. The Spartan interlocutor is there making out a defence of his own country, and consequently alludes only to such points as appear capable of a favourable interpretation. Of course he is careful to keep the massacre of the Helots in the back-ground; and merely says, “There is also amongst us what is called the Crypteia, the pain of undergoing which is scarcely credible. It consists in going barefoot in storms, in enduring the privations of the camp, performing menial offices without a servant, and wandering night and day through the whole country.”^[214] This is the picture of a Spartan, dwelling on his own hardships; which, however, must have been endured for some purpose, and what was that? If exercise and military seasoning were alone aimed at, where was the necessity for that concealment, that lying in ambush, which the word itself signifies? It is well known that the Helots were a constant terror to their masters—that whenever occasion offered, they revolted—whenever any enemy to the state presented himself, they joined him—that they fled whenever flight was possible—and were, it is confessed, so numerous and so bold, that Sparta was compelled, in treaties with foreign states, to stipulate “for aid against her own subjects.”^[215] What more probable, therefore, under the circumstances, 55than the institution of the Crypteia? What more in harmony with the genius of the people?

There can be no doubt that on certain extraordinary occasions these chief of slaves obtained their freedom from the state; but that any “legal way to liberty and citizenship stood open to them,”^[216] does not appear.^[217] The chain of “probabilities” by which this conclusion is attempted to be arrived at is perfectly unique, and would lead with equal force to any other whatever. “The many intermediate steps, it is said, seem to prove the existence of a regular mode of transition from the one rank to the other.” It has not, however, been proved that there were any intermediate steps; and the very attempt is based almost wholly on a fragment of that Myron of Priene, whose Messenian History Mr. Müller denominates a romance, and whose “partiality and ignorance” he considers so self-evident but a few passages back.

1. The Helots who were esteemed worthy of an “especial confidence were called ἀργεῖοι.”^[218] This however, is no intermediate step, as it is not said that their being thus called was necessarily followed by any result.

2. The ἐρυκτῆρες enjoyed the same “(especial confidence) in war.”^[219] On points of this kind it is necessary to rely on some authority, and the historian adduces none.^[220] It has, indeed, been conjectured, 56from the derivation of their name, that this class of freedmen served as a body-guard to their former masters. Positively, however, nothing whatever is known of their condition.

3. The ἀφέται were, probably, released from “all service.” The expression of Eustathius^[221] is, “being made free, they were called aphetæ.”

4. “The δεσποσιοναύται,^[222] who served in the fleet, resembled, probably, the freedmen of Attica, who were called the out-dwellers.”^[223] This phrase is calculated to convey an erroneous impression, as though these freedmen necessarily took up their quarters in the country, whereas οἱ χωρὶς οἰκούντες merely signifies persons who have establishments of their own. With respect to the Desposionautæ, they would appear to have been slaves brought up in their masters’ houses, and afterwards enfranchised, and ordered to be employed about the fleet.

5. “When they (the Helots) received their liberty, they also obtained permission to dwell where they wished, and, probably, at the same time, aa portion of land was granted to them without the lot of their former masters.” This is drawing a general inference from a particular case. Thucydides,^[224] the authority relied on, speaks only of those Helots who having served in Thrace under Brasidas, obtained enfranchisement on their return, together with a portion of the lands recently taken from the Lepreatæ. On other occasions, as the whole of Laconia and Messenia had been divided among the citizens, it is difficult to understand whence the state could have obtained lands to bestow. The probability, therefore, is, that they bestowed none.

Of the Neodamodes or “new citizens,” our knowledge is little less scanty than of the other classes of freedmen. That they were enfranchised Helots 57is confidently maintained by several learned writers, though others suppose them to have been the sons of enfranchised Helots.^[225] This latter supposition, however, is inconsistent with the testimony of Myron, who observes, that “the Lacedæmonians often emancipated their slaves, some of whom were then called aphetæ, others adespotæ, others eructeres, others desposionautæ; there were others whom they denominated neodamodes, different from the Helots.”^[226] Of those modern writers who have treated of the Spartan institutions, some elude the discussion altogether, while others acquiescing in the commonly received opinion contend, that the Neodamodes were those Helots who, having conducted themselves gallantly in war, had for some time enjoyed their freedom. But this decision, however plausible it may seem, is by no means satisfactory. For, wherever Thucydides, or any other historian of authority, has occasion to mention this class of freedmen, they appear to be carefully distinguished from the enfranchised Helots. Thus, when the companions of Brasidas, before spoken of, had received their freedom, and were sent as settlers into the Lepreatis, it is added, that they were accompanied by a number of Neodamodes.^[227] But if this term signified nothing 58more than Helots who had been rewarded with liberty, in what did they differ from the other Helots who had likewise been made free? One learned commentator,^[228] not without ingenuity, infers that they were a class of tributary subjects inhabiting the neighbourhood of the capital, on whom the right of citizenship had been conferred, though they did not enjoy perfect equality with the elder citizens. But, as it is distinctly stated, that they were enfranchised slaves, we are compelled to abandon even this hypothesis, and seek to discover some other clue to the truth.

It has already been observed, that the Spartans appear to have possessed numbers of slaves properly so called, besides their oppressed and miserable bondsmen, with whom they seem often to have been confounded. These, by being more constantly about their masters, were, doubtless, able to gain more upon their affections, and could not possibly be viewed with equal dread, since they were necessarily brought together from various countries, and connected consequently by no bond of union. As often, therefore, as the state required a fresh supply of citizens, it is from among these that they appear to have been selected; and that, too, in numbers so considerable, that Agesilaos, on one occasion, was enabled to select two thousand to attend him on an expedition wherein he was accompanied by only thirty Spartans.^[229]

Another class of persons^[230] commonly ranked among the Laconian slaves were the Mothaces,^[231] to determine 59whose origin, rank, and condition, appears to be a matter of no small difficulty. That they never, during the flourishing ages of the commonwealth, formed any part of the servile caste may be regarded as certain, whatever may be found to the contrary in the grammarians of later times. For the Mothaces, observes Athenæus, though not Lacedæmonians, were free. And to the same purpose speaks Philarchos, whose words are: “The Mothaces were the brotherlike companions of the Lacedæmonians. For every youthful citizen, according to his means, chose one, two, or more of these to be brought up along with him; and, notwithstanding that they enjoyed not the rank of citizens, they were free, and participated in all the advantages of the national education. It is even said that Lysander, who defeated the Athenians at sea, was one of this class of men, but raised to the rank of citizen for his valour.”^[232] To the same section of the Laconian population belonged also Callicratidas and Gylippos,^[233] a circumstance which of itself appears completely to overthrow the hypothesis of those who derive the Mothaces directly from the Helots; for Cleandridas, the father of Gylippos,^[234] was chosen to accompany King Pleistoanax, as chief of his councillors, during an expedition into Attica, an honour which would not, I imagine, have been conferred upon a Helot. Again, Lysander, whom by one authority we are taught to regard as a Mothax, is by another spoken of not barely as a Spartan, but as descended from the Heracleidæ.^[235]

60How then are we to reconcile these seeming contradictions? Probably by supposing, that the Mothaces consisted, first of the sons of such Spartans as were too poor to defray the expenses of their maintenance and education,^[236] which seems to have been the case with Aristocritos, the father of Lysander, whose early indigence is celebrated; secondly of bastard Spartans, who it is well known shared the education of their legitimate brethren; and thirdly, of the sons of persons of rank and distinction among the Periœci. To these perhaps, in very late times, the sons of favourite slaves born in the house may have been added, though there is no ground for believing that this was habitually the case in the earlier ages. Be this, however, as it may, it seems to be quite evident, that Lycurgus laid much less stress on “birth and blood” than on that steadiness and patience of toil which are the first qualities of a soldier. Whoever from childhood upward gave proof of these, by submitting unmurmuringly to the rigorous trial he enjoined the youth of Sparta, was elevated in the end to the rank of a citizen, while they who shrunk from the severity of his discipline, according to some even though they had descended from the blood royal, sunk into a state of degradation or were even confounded with the Helots.^[237] Foreigners who enjoyed the privileges of this system of instruction 61received among the Lacedæmonians the name of Trophimoi.

Of the Epeunactæ, a peculiar class of freedmen, we have the following curious account: Having in the Messenian war lost a number of Spartans, the government began to apprehend that the enemy might discover its weakness; to conceal which a Helot was substituted in the place of every fallen warrior. Shortly afterwards these men were raised to the rank of citizens and denominated Epeunactæ, because they occupied the beds (εὐναι) of other men.^[238]

But wherever men are base-minded there will be slaves; and accordingly we find that, in all other parts of Greece, no less than at Sparta, this miserable class existed for the performance of servile drudgery. Posidonios, the Stoic,^[239] observes, that persons lacking sense to provide for themselves, voluntarily became the slaves of any who would take care of them. Thus the Maryandinians submitted to the citizens of Heraclea,^[240] to be their perpetual serfs, stipulating only that they should always be furnished with the necessaries of life, and on no account be sold out of the country. They were in fact simply tributaries, as is implied in the verse of Euphorion, the epic poet,

This appellation of Gift-bearers—though their gifts, like the royal benevolences of our ancestors, were extorted from them—was no doubt however invented, as Callicratos^[242] observes, to disguise the true nature 62of their condition. Besides engaging in agricultural labours, they likewise served on board ship, and consequently contributed greatly to increase the commerce and naval power of Heraclea.^[243]

The Thessalians denominated Penestæ,^[244] not those who were born in servitude, but persons who were made captive in war. They were sometimes also known by the name of Thettaloiketes. Archemachos, in his History of Eubœa, affords illustration of a very curious point of ancient history mentioned briefly but with some variation, by Thucydides.^[245] According to him, certain Bœotians migrating northward, founded Arnæa in Thessaly; after which some returned to Bœotia, while, delighted with the land, others remained, and became the voluntary villains of the Thessalians. Here, however, as elsewhere in like cases, it was stipulated that they should neither be put to death nor sold beyond the borders; while on their part they agreed to cultivate the land and pay the requisite tribute.^[246] On this account they were called Menestæ,^[247] that is “those who remain,” which appellation was by degrees corrupted into Penestæ. Of these serfs many were richer than their masters. Euripides,^[248] in his “Phryxas,” observes, 63moreover, that they were sometimes of very ancient families. Thucydides, on the other hand, represents them to have been the original inhabitants of Arnè, driven thence by the Thessalians sixty years after the Trojan war, though a portion of the nation had long before settled in Bœotia and joined in the expedition against Troy.^[249]

A state of things not greatly dissimilar^[250] prevailed in Crete, where the servile caste was divided into several classes: first, those of the cities, called Chrysonetæ, or “bought with gold,” who were doubtless barbarians; second, those of the country, who received the name of Aphamiotæ,^[251] from their being bound to the Aphamiæ, or estates of the landed gentry. These were the aboriginal tribes of the island reduced to servitude by a nation of foreign conquerors. They were sometimes likewise denominated Clarotæ,^[252] from their having been divided among the conquerors by κλᾶρος, or lot; or, according to others, from their being located on the lots of the citizens which were called κλᾶροι.^[253] In condition, the Aphamiotæ resembled the Helots,^[254] and differed from the peasantry, or Hypekooi,^[255] in much the same degree as the purchased private slaves of the Turks differ from their rayahs, or subjects. These are habitually protected from being sold out of the country; though in cases of revolt the captives are reduced to the level of the common slaves, and sold like cattle. Thus the markets of Egypt were crowded with Cretans after the late revolt against Mohammed Ali. 64Third, there existed in every state in Crete a class of public bondsmen denominated Mnoia or Mnoa, because reduced to that condition by Minos.^[256] These serfs cultivated the public lands, upon what conditions is not exactly known: it merely appears that they were compelled to furnish the body of the citizens a certain sum of money, together with a part of their flocks and herds and agricultural produce.^[257] That they were sufficiently numerous and powerful to inspire their masters with dread, is evident from the regulation by which they were excluded from the gymnasia, and prohibited the use of arms.

Besides these, there was another class of the Cretan population which must by no means be confounded with the slaves or serfs,—I mean, the Hypekooi.^[258] These were the inhabitants of the smaller towns who had lost their political independence, but were permitted the use of arms, and allowed to frequent the public places of exercise, like the nobler citizens.^[259]

In the city of Cydonia, during certain festivals of Hermes, the slaves were left masters of the place, into which no free citizen had permission to enter; and if he infringed this regulation it was in their power to chastise him with whips.^[260] In other parts of Crete customs similar to those of the Roman Saturnalia prevailed; for, while the slaves in the Hermæan festival were carousing and taking their ease, their lords, travestied into domestics, waited upon them at table, and performed, in their stead, all other menial offices. Something of the same kind took place during the month Gerœstion, at Trœzen, where the citizens feasted their slaves on one day of the great annual festival, and played at dice with them.^[261] Among the Babylonians, moreover, we 65find a similar custom; for, during the Sacæan festival, which lasted five days, and was celebrated in the month of August,^[262] the owners waited on their slaves, one of whom, habited in a royal robe, enacted the part of king.

Upon the whole it may be inferred, that the treatment and condition of the Cretan serfs were milder than in any other Doric state, though it would be incorrect to decide,^[263] that they were less oppressed than in any other state in all Greece, since we discover in the song of Hybrias traces not to be mistaken of their abject state:

The Periœci of Crete are said never to have revolted against their masters; but this arose, as Aristotle observes, from the circumstance that every state having serfs of the same kind, it was not for the interest of any one in their wars to set their bondsmen a bad example by enticing any to join in those struggles.^[265]. The Penestæ of Thessaly, and the Helots, often joined the enemy, because the neighbouring states possessed no similar serfs. But, in the case of the Cretan Periœci, the circumstance already noticed of their not being allowed to frequent the gymnasia,^[266] or possess arms, will account satisfactorily for their perseverance in the ancient manners, without supposing in them any preference for those manners, which, as they were deprived of 66all the privileges of citizens, they could scarcely have felt.^[267]

Respecting the servile classes in other Grecian states our information is very scanty: we simply know that the serfs of the Syracusans were denominated Killicyrii,^[268] and exceedingly numerous, so that “more in number than the Killicyrii,” became a proverb. They would seem to have dwelt chiefly in the country like the Cretan Mnotæ. In process of time, however, their multitude inspired them with courage; they assaulted and drove out their masters, and, fortune favouring their enterprise, retained possession of Syracuse. Among several of the Italian states, the subject classes were known by the name of Pelasgi. The people of Rhodes reduced and kept in bondage the inhabitants of Caunos, and the celebrated painter Protogenes^[269] was the son of one of these bondsmen.

In the same relation stood the Bithynians to the people of Byzantium; the Leleges to the Carians, and the Katanocophori to the people of Sicyon.^[270] These last would seem to have been originally^[271] merely the rustic population deprived of their freedom by the tyrants, who compelled them to affect a mean and squalid appearance, and to wear sheepskin cloaks,^[272] that they might be ashamed to frequent the city, where they would have been exposed to the laughter and insults of the rabble.

The corresponding class among the Arcadians, denominated 67Prospelatæ^[273] were said to have amounted to three hundred thousand in number. Their treatment was probably more lenient than in many other parts of Greece, as we find them on public festivals sitting down at table with their masters, like our old farm-servants, eating of the same food, and drinking from the same cup.^[274]

CHAPTER I.
CONDITION OF THE POOR.

Respecting the condition of the poor, in ancient nations, very little is commonly known, the great historians, the tragic poets, and the other classic writers who enjoy what may be termed popularity, not having bestowed their attention on the subject; and to mine, for this species of knowledge, amid the speculations of philosophers, or the dusky rubbish of scholiasts and lexicographers, being a task for which few have patience. Even those writers who might have been expected to enter fully into this matter, supply but slight and unsatisfactory information, either because they attached little importance to the question, or because it did not enter into their design to examine in all their details the poor-laws of Athens, or the numerous sources of private and public charity which circumscribed the operation of those laws. To the best of my ability I shall endeavour to supply the deficiency.

In the earlier ages of the commonwealth there existed no class of citizens so necessitous as to require the aid of charity.^[275] The democracy was not 69disgraced by the beggary of one of its members; for, though many, compared with their neighbours, might be poor, none were reduced to sordid indigence, or so lacked credit as to be unable to command the means of engaging in some profitable branch of industry. Afterwards, however, through the calamitous events of war, and that deterioration seemingly inherent in all forms of government, the number of the indigent exceeded that of the wealthy,^[276] (as in every modern country it does,) and distress and destitution occupying entirely the thoughts of the sufferers, corroded to the core that spirit of patriotism which had distinguished their ancestors. But the institutions of Athens, having been truly designed to promote the happiness and provide for the wants of the people, the attention of the legislature was immediately directed to the evil.

As this was the first developement of the spirit of charity, it naturally appeared feeble at the outset, and only acquired strength and volume by degrees. A beginning was made in the case of those who had been disabled in war,^[277] and of the children left behind by citizens who fell in defence of their country.

To the former a pension, in early times of one obolos a-day, was allowed: the latter^[278] may be said to have been adopted by the state which maintained 70and educated them till the age of eighteen, when, having been taught some trade or business, they were considered able to provide for themselves.^[279]

With whom this humane institution originated is not agreed. In the case of disabled soldiers the honour has, by some, been attributed to Peisistratos, by others to Solon. Bœckh, though he acknowledges that the latter “certainly gave the example to Peisistratos,” considers it not improbable that, for the benefit of this important lesson, humanity is indebted to the tyrant, who, he observes, “was of a mild disposition; and usurpers are generally glad to seize every opportunity of conferring a benefit, with a view to make themselves popular; nor would the Athenians, with their hatred to tyranny, have attributed this honour to him if he had not deserved it.”^[280]

Of this I am not sure. Peisistratos, a consummate politician, having unjustly rendered himself master of the state, was, no doubt, careful to appropriate to himself as many as possible of the honours due to Solon, the mildest of all legislators; and, if he abstained from abrogating such a law, might contrive to pass for its author. Certain, at all events, it is, that a tradition long existed among the ancients which attributed the institution to Solon;^[281] and however mild and popular in manners the tyrant may have been, it will still, perhaps, be acknowledged that in those qualities he was excelled by the great legislator.

By what steps the law, originally instituted with reference solely to citizens disabled in war, came afterwards to embrace the aged, the sick, the blind, 71and infirm of every description, is not known. It did not, however, require them to be absolutely destitute before they could receive relief. Any citizen whose property did not exceed three minæ, or twelve pounds sterling,^[282] was entitled to the allowance; to eke out which he might keep a small shop, or apply himself to any other branch of industry within his competence. The laws, in fact, were on this point exceedingly liberal, justly considering it to be the duty of society to make up as far as possible for the injuries of fortune. There was little danger of the state’s humanity being abused. The people themselves examined into every case, which in a community so limited they could easily do, and afterwards it was still in the power of any citizen, who suspected imposition, to bring an action against the offender before the Senate of Five Hundred.

The speech of a defendant in a cause of this kind has come down to us. It was written for the unfortunate citizen by Lysias; and I own I can discover in it nothing of that “jesting tone,” which, in the opinion of some writers, proves it to be a mere rhetorical exercise.^[283] On the contrary, it breathes 72of that manly confidence, which it became the citizen, however poor, of a republican state, to feel. We must not conceive of him as a miserable pauper whining to a board of guardians. He understood the intent and meaning of the law, and certain that his case entitled him to the relief it was designed to afford, he spoke before the Senate like a man claiming no more than was equitably due to him; and too well assured of the humanity and justice of his countrymen to be under much apprehension. He kept a small shop, it appears, in the vicinity of the agora, and one of the principal points dwelt on by the prosecutor was, that he there drew together a number of saunterers and newsmongers, such as usually at Athens frequented the shops of barbers, perfumers, &c., in that fashionable part of the town.^[284] Another point was, that he sometimes rode on horseback, which, in the opinion of the accusers, a man receiving aid from the state should not have done. But, to this part of the accusation, he replies, that, being so lame as to be compelled to make use of crutches, he was wholly unable to answer the more distant calls of business without hiring a horse, the expense of which only augmented his difficulties.

From these circumstances we may learn, that the Athenian government was by no means penurious in its appropriation of those funds which the contributions of the wealthier citizens placed at its disposal.

On the amount of the daily allowance writers are not agreed, some pretending it was three oboli, others two, and others an obolos. The truth, probably, is, that, originally, it exceeded not a single obolos, but that, as prices augmented, or, rather, as the coin deteriorated in value, it was found necessary to double the amount.^[285] Whether it was ever raised to three 73oboli seems doubtful; the affirmation of the Scholiast on Æschines^[286] may be a mistake; but the mere fact that this was the pay of the dicasts is no reason at all for calling the testimony of the grammarian in question.^[287] Be this, however, as it may, in the time of Lysias,^[288] one obolos only was bestowed, and Bœckh has attempted, with much ingenuity, to determine the date of the increased allowance. It had not taken place, according to Harpocration, in the time of Aristotle; but Philochoros, the next writer who touches on the subject, observes, that it was nine drachmæ a month, or fifty-four oboli,^[289] which, omitting the fractions, is equal to two oboli a day. The year in which Aristotle composed his treatise on the Athenian government is not exactly known; it was probably, however, after his return from Macedon, 334 B.C. Philochoros was Hieroscopos at Athens in the year of Corœbos, 306 B.C. He did not, however, publish his Atthis till about the year 260 B.C., at which time the poor allowance had been raised to two oboli. The date of the increase, therefore, falls somewhere within the preceding seventy years.^[290]

74With respect to the number of persons blind, old, sick, maimed, or otherwise disabled, who received maintenance from the state, no exact computation can be made. Bœckh,^[291] imagining that Meursius had reckoned them at five hundred, after remarking that the assumption is founded on a false reading in Suidas, accepts the number as the least that can be adopted. But Meursius,^[292] in the passage referred to, assumes nothing; he does not even allude to the number at all. And, in fact, it will be evident, at the first glance, that no conjecture can hope to approach the truth where circumstances were constantly varying, adding to, or taking from, the number of those who required relief. This was chiefly affected by the general poverty of the state, which augmented rapidly towards its decline, when the number of the aged and infirm, not possessing three minæ, or twelve pounds sterling, per annum, must, no doubt, have been considerable. On the other hand, having no longer to defend its freedom, which was gone for ever, the children of citizens falling in battle were comparatively few, and, accordingly, the gain on this item went to balance the loss on the other.

The offspring of citizens thus bequeathed to the care of the state were at one time exceedingly numerous, and highly exemplary and honourable was the attention they received.^[293] To the females a maintenance, education, and a portion, were given; and the males having also been supported and educated until manhood, received in the public theatre a complete suit of armour, as a memento of their fathers’ valour, to incite them to follow their example. The whole audience being assembled, the herald introduced the orphan youths clothed in panoply of “complete steel,” and then, with a loud voice, proclaimed 75what Æschines rightly regarded as a most glorious and valour-inspiring proclamation, viz., that the fathers of those youths, like brave and good men, had fallen in their country’s battles, on which account the state had undertaken the charge of their bringing up, and now, on the verge of manhood, having adorned them with an entire suit of armour, dismissed them under happy auspices to watch over their own affairs, granting them, likewise, for the day, the most honourable seats in the theatre.^[294]

Petit^[295] supposes this to have taken place on their attaining the age of twenty, before which they could not legally assume the management of their inheritance, or encounter the fatigue and peril of regular warfare; but, others, perhaps, with more probability, fix upon the age of eighteen.

The above legal provision, however, does not appear to have sufficed, and there sometimes occurred cases of distress which it could not reach. Many, too, would submit to great privation rather than have recourse to public aid. Such persons, where numbers were in similar circumstances, usually united and formed, what may very properly be denominated a Benefit Club (ἔρανος^[296]), to which they contributed when in their power, that, should misfortune overtake them, they might still be sure of support. This description, however, of Eranos constituted only one branch of the numerous Clubs, Companies, Associations, Trades-unions, &c., which, like the Clubs of the Civil Wars^[297] and Associations of a 76still later date, occasionally assumed a political character and impeded the movements of the machinery of the state.^[298] These societies were instituted with various objects. In the first place they were established to defray by subscription the expense of certain sacrifices, offered up in behalf of their members who were called Eranistæ and Thiasotæ. But under cover of this pretext combinations of an evil tendency were sometimes formed,—among the aristocracy, for example, who established the tyranny of the Four Hundred,—and these obnoxious clubs, varying in character with the period, espoused the cause of freedom in Roman times, and were of course watched jealously by the conquerors.^[299]

With respect to those associations which bore a legal character, they were by the laws of Solon permitted to enact whatever rules and regulations they judged proper for their own government and advantage, provided no public ordinance prevented.^[300] Sometimes the citizens of a whole Demos, or borough, formed themselves into a club, or a ship’s crew,^[301] or an eating society, or persons having a right to the same burial-ground, or the partners in a mercantile expedition. Thus we find three several motives,—religion, gain, and pleasure,—impelling men into unions of this kind, all recognised by law. The curious and intricate internal structure of Athenian society lent itself readily to the formation of such clubs; the whole population having originally been divided into four tribes, each tribe into three phratriæ,^[302] each phratria into thirty 77clans (γενη), each clan containing thirty houses, among whom the honours of the priesthood were distributed by lot.^[303]

In these Attic associations we discover the germs of those companies of merchants, guilds, &c.,^[304] so familiar to the modern world; or rather similar wants in both cases gave rise to similar institutions. But with the trading companies we have, in this place, nothing to do; and if incidentally the other associations are noticed, it is simply for the purpose of more fully developing a system of which the Benefit Clubs formed a part. These evidently rose out of the Eranæ established originally for purposes of pleasure: that is, a number of individuals desirous of enjoying a more splendid entertainment than they could generally afford at home,^[305] together with the society of their intimate friends, entered into a subscription^[306] for the purpose of getting up a public dinner during the celebration of the great national festivals. In some cases the associations thus formed, pro tempore, did not outlast the occasion, while in others the taste for social pleasures, or the accidental meeting of congenial tempers, led 78to the establishment of a permanent club, the members of which grew naturally among a warm-hearted people to take an interest in each other’s welfare. The expenses of the sacrifices during these festivals were in part defrayed from the revenues of the sacred lands, but these not sufficing, it was generally necessary to raise a common fund by subscription.^[307]

Of all these clubs, whether temporary or permanent, whose object was the providing of funds for sacrifice, or to enjoy the pleasures of society, the generic name was Erani, though such as partook of a religious character received besides the appellation of Thiasi.^[308] Their members were called Eranistæ and Thiasotæ. It was common among the Greeks to indulge in feasting immediately at the close of harvest, both on account of the plenty which then prevailed, and, because the great business of the year being finished, they had more leisure to devote to enjoyment.^[309] That these associations tended to generate and promote friendship and affection among their members was well understood; wherefore in the ancient tyrannies they were rigidly prohibited, together with all common tables, educational establishments, and whatever else, to adopt the expression of Aristotle, promotes reflection and mutual confidence.^[310] It was supposed to be their interest to keep men as far as possible in ignorance and distrust of each other. Hence all religions with a tendency to beget mutual love were proscribed (as among the Romans Christianity) as of an antimonarchical character. Thus Mæcenas, as ardent a patron of tyranny as of literature, urged Augustus to 79persecute and proscribe all attempts at introducing new creeds, as favourable to innovation or, at least, to change; to sworn brotherhoods, associations, clubs, things in their nature hostile to monarchy.^[311]

The conjecture is probable, that the conversion of the Erani into charitable institutions was matter of accident. At first it seems clear, as I have observed already, that their object was sacrifice, feasting, and pleasure. But it sometimes happened that, of the funds subscribed, some portion would, after their objects had been fulfilled, remain; and if, when this was the case, any member of the club happened to fall into distress, it was perfectly natural to think of applying this surplus to his benefit.^[312] From this the step was easy to subscribing expressly for the purpose of relieving indigent members, which, at length, was the practice, though the gradations by which they arrived at it have not been accurately marked.^[313] Arrian has left a curious account of a Celtic eranos established by a Hunting Club in honour of Artemis,^[314] to whom solemn sacrifice was annually offered up. A fund was created by the members of the club in the following manner: every one who caught a hare paid into the treasury two oboli: the capturer or destroyer of a fox a drachma, the fox being a mischievous animal and fatal to the hare; they therefore considered his destruction in the light of a triumph over an enemy. The sportsman who took a roebuck (δορκὰς), which among them was the noblest 80game, and the largest animal hunted, paid four drachmæ. On the birth-day of the goddess the treasury was opened, and a victim, whether a sheep, a she-goat, or a calf, according to their means, was purchased. Sacrifice was then offered, after which both men and dogs regaled themselves with a banquet. Bitches were on this day crowned with flowers, to show that the feast was celebrated in their behalf.^[315]

In all these clubs the chest was the soul of everything; for this being removed the whole society fell to pieces.^[316] Accordingly, to become a member it was necessary to subscribe a certain amount to the fund, and all payments were made monthly.^[317] As these clubs, moreover, were legal, the person who neglected such payments could be prosecuted at law, as for any other debt; and what shows the importance of these institutions at Athens, the ordinances referring to them formed a separate branch of jurisprudence,^[318] to enter into which, however, does not belong to my present inquiry. The president or chairman of the club was likewise treasurer, whether chosen by lot or elected by the members of the club, whose expenses and behaviour, while assembled, he appears to have regulated.^[319] It has been seen that the meetings of these societies took place during religious festivals; but whenever they were called 81together, whether by business or piety, it was customary, as in all similar cases among ourselves, for the members to dine together. They do not appear, however, to have possessed club-houses; but, like our literary men of the last century, to have dined at taverns or alternately at each others’ dwellings.^[320] On these occasions it was customary to restrain their expenses within moderate limits, the object being rather the enjoyment of each others’ society than the indulgence of a passion for luxury.^[321]

On those occasions, when a member received the club at his house, he himself, it has been conjectured, took the chair,^[322] not, however, necessarily and by rule; for it has been seen that the president was sometimes chosen by lot, sometimes by vote. But this supposition is, probably, ill-founded; for, as the same individual was at once eranarch and treasurer, it appears exceedingly improbable that he should be changed every time the club dined together. It seems to me more likely,—and we are left to conjecture,—that an annual chairman was chosen to transact the general business of the society, while another individual might be selected to fill the office of chairman for any particular evening. Towards the close of the republic, when the worship of Serapis had been introduced, women would seem to have been received as members of Erani established in honour of that foreign divinity.^[323]

But as these clubs were only accidentally connected with charity and the condition of the poor, I proceed to consider another species of Eranæ, conceived almost in the spirit of Christianity. Van Holst,^[324] whose researches on the subject of the Hellenic clubs, though pedantic and confused, are not without value, denies that any permanent charitable associations existed among the Greeks, though among 82the Romans, he conceives, they did. At the same time, he confesses what it were difficult to deny, that the friendly subscription called Eranos derived its name and being from the clubs above-described. He contends that no club existed with permanent funds for the relief of distressed friends, and that the relief actually afforded was the spontaneous effort of beneficence and humanity. On this point he is at issue with Casaubon,^[325] whom he appears, in some respects, to misunderstand. Salmasius, he conceives, comes nearer the mark where he says, that when any person was overwhelmed with debt or poverty, he found a ready refuge in his friends, who subscribed what they could, both to satisfy his creditors and provide for his future subsistence. It was in the discharge of debts, however, that men found most aid from their friends;^[326] though such subscriptions were set on foot on many other occasions, to redeem a man from captivity, for example, or to portion a friendless girl, as was the practice also at Thebes.^[327]

The mode in which this subscription was collected, and the principle on which the transaction was based, had something characteristic about them. In the first place, the money resembled a loan (which, strictly speaking, it was not), because, if the receiver afterwards became fortunate, he was bound to make repayment,^[328] though while in unfavourable circumstances his mind was not oppressed by the consciousness of being in debt, since no one regarded himself as a creditor, or could ask him for an obolos. Salmasius observes very justly, that the greatest proof of generosity is to give without any desire of a return, which the Greeks called eleëmosynè, or eranos of 83strict charity. The second grade is, where money is lent to be repaid without interest, which our Saviour calls τὰ ἶσα ἀπολαβεῖν.^[329] The lowest, where you lend, but on condition of receiving interest.^[330]

For the repayment of money collected by eranistic subscription, no exact time, it has been observed, was fixed. It appears to have depended entirely on the recipient’s sense of honour or feelings of gratitude. But Petit,^[331] whose researches on this part of his subject were not sufficiently exact, confounds the monthly subscription paid by members of a trading company or ordinary club, with the money which a man, aided by his friends, might be supposed to owe them, and says, that such-a-one was required to pay it back by monthly instalments, or all at once within a month. The former would be the case were we to understand Harpocration to speak of this kind of eranos at all; the latter, if we accept his interpretation. But Van Holst^[332] is right in remarking that Petit here apprehends the sense of the grammarian “minus recte”; that is, he mistakes it altogether. However, that the money was at some time to be repaid appears from a variety of passages. Theophrastus, for example, in his Chapter on Grumbling, observes, that the querulous man, to whom a collection made for him by his friends is brought, will reply to the person who bids him to be of good cheer,—“Wherefore? when I must return as much to each of them, and be grateful, moreover, for the favour?”^[333]

Among the other peculiarities in the construction of Athenian society which tended to better the condition of the poor, were the entertainments given by rich citizens to their tribes, on certain festivals or days of public rejoicing.^[334] And this was a matter 84by no means left to the caprice of individuals, for if some one came not forward voluntarily to undergo the expense, the members of the tribe proceeded to cast lots,^[335] and the citizen to whose chance it fell could not escape the performance of this duty, unless he pleaded, as his excuse, some cause deemed satisfactory by the public. Of course, the character of the entertainment depended on the wealth or munificence of the Hestiator.^[336] Necessary, it was not, that he should regale his fellow-tribesmen sumptuously, as frugality was one of the characteristics of the nation; but, at the same time, it is quite evident that on many occasions^[337] the Feast of the Tribe was a magnificent banquet.^[338]

Of the state of the poor at Sparta,^[339] our information is exceedingly scanty. We only know that, when they were unable to contribute their share to the maintenance of the public tables, they lost the privilege of being present, and had to provide for themselves at home in the best manner they were able.^[340] It would thus appear that their Phiditia differred very little, except in being more general, from the Erani of the Athenians. As Laconia abounded with game, it may be conjectured that the more indigent citizens frequently relied greatly for support on the chase,^[341] to which may be added the 85charity of their wealthier neighbours, in whatever way bestowed. In Crete, the citizens being placed more upon an equality, there was little room for extreme poverty.^[342] The population, moreover, by artificial restraints, was kept within due bounds; consequently, most persons lived plentifully, and possessed wherewith to exercise the most generous hospitality. But even here they multiplied in later times more rapidly than the means of subsistence, so that numbers of Cretans were fain to serve as mercenary archers in the intestine wars of Greece. The same remark will apply to the Arcadians, and several other people whose poorer members earned a subsistence by their hereditary valour.^[343]

At Athens, when persons in easy circumstances made a feast, as on all occasions of sacrificing they did, the custom was to send some small presents, as parts of the victim, to their friends, more especially when poor.^[344] But most joyful for the indigent was the period of the Athenian jubilee, the Panathenaia,^[345] on which occasion the state received presents of oxen from all the colonies founded by Athenians, so that the whole city overflowed with meat and soup, of which every person might take his share. Sometimes, however, if not generally, the meat fell into the hands of those who least needed it, while the poor got nothing but a little soup with a scanty slice of bread.^[346] In times of great scarcity corn was distributed to the indigent in the Odeion, where, on ordinary occasions, it was sold.^[347] A similar distribution took place at the Peiræeus in the arsenal, where loaves were given out at an obolos each. On extraordinary occasions, as when a famine raged in the country, the state applied for corn to its foreign allies, and, on receiving any, distributed 86it equally among the citizens. This was the case when Psammitichos made the Athenians a present of a vast quantity of wheat, of which every citizen received five medimni.^[348] A peculiar kind of windfall is commemorated by Athenæus, who relates, that when Ion, the dramatic poet of Chios, won the prize of tragedy, he was so overjoyed at his success, that he presented every Athenian with a jar of the best Chian. No doubt, foreign tragedians were not every day winning prizes, or, when they won, so rich and generous as Ion; but advantages of various kinds were enjoyed by the Athenian people not anywhere else known.^[349]

Sometimes, when generals obtained any remarkable quantity of plunder, instead of laying it up to meet the serious exigencies of the state they lavished it in feasting the people. Thus, Chares is said to have expended more than sixty talents, or near 15,000l. sterling in entertaining his fellow-citizens,^[350] when the public tables were laid out in the agora; and Conon,^[351] having obtained a great naval victory over the Lacedæmonians at Cnidos, and surrounded the Peiræeus with fortifications, offered a real hecatomb in sacrifice, and feasted the whole body of people. Of these thoughtless donations the poor, of course, obtained their share. Cimon acted more judiciously and more nobly towards the unfortunate among his countrymen. Looking upon wealth only as a means of recommending himself and obtaining friends, he set no guard upon his lands or gardens, from which every Athenian who chose might freely take what he needed. His house, likewise, in the city was open to all; a plain table being constantly laid for a number of men, so that whosoever was at a loss for a dinner might dine there. He willingly obliged those who came daily to demand some favour of him; and is said always to have gone 87abroad accompanied by two or three domestics bearing money, who were instructed to give to any citizen who approached him with a request. He contributed also to the interment of many; and, often, if he observed a poor Athenian meanly clad, ordered one of his attendants to change raiment with him. By these means, as may be supposed, he acquired marvellous popularity, and stood first among his rivals in public estimation.^[352]

But persons thus subsisting on the bounty of the opulent soon lost of necessity the dignity of sentiment which should belong to the citizens of a free state. Many, therefore, when reduced by misfortune, to a choice of evils, preferred the bread obtained by honest labour,^[353] however mean or ill paid, to so humiliating a dependance on charity; and, unable to obtain more favourable conditions, actually worked for their food.^[354] To labour for hire they scarcely accounted 88a hardship. A large class of citizens, including women,^[355] appear by this means to have gained their livelihood, some as cooks, others as reapers, mowers, or any other description of labour which happened to offer itself.^[356] Poverty sometimes drove the unprincipled poor to keep houses of ill fame. Others became itinerant flower-sellers, and cried “roses so many bunches the obolos;” or hawked radishes, lupines, or olive-dregs about the streets.^[357] And, after their death, the daughters of poor men sometimes joined the Hetairæ, not having been able to earn their livelihood by needlework, weaving, and spinning.^[358]

In many respects the poor of southern climates have the advantage of those of the north.^[359] The atmosphere itself forms their clothing, and during a great part of the year it is immaterial to them where they sleep. But at Athens, however temperate 89the climate, a shelter from the cold in winter is desirable, and here, therefore, as in every other part of Greece, the practice was to erect houses where, as in the Caravanserais of the East, any man, native or stranger, might enter and obtain shelter for the night. These buildings were called Leschæ, erected without doors, to intimate that all were welcome; and in them, accordingly, beggars and wanderers of every description congregated round great fires in winter and bad weather, both to sleep and converse.^[360] Even the citizens, particularly at Sparta, met in the Leschæ, to enjoy the delights of gossiping; whence any idle assemblage was called a Leschè.^[361] In a fragment of the lost oration of Antiphon against Nicoles, mention is made of these edifices, which served as a refuge for the destitute. They were erected by the state; and, to cast over them an air of sanctity, dedicated to Apollo, who thence obtained the surname of Leschenorios.^[362] Nowhere were these humane institutions so numerous as at Athens, where, according to Proclus,^[363] there existed no fewer than three hundred and sixty, in which the indigent, who had no home, might congregate together and keep themselves warm at the nation’s expense.

In addition to these the public baths served as an asylum to such of the poor as had no home, or were unable to provide themselves with fuel in their own dwellings. Here they would seem to have pressed so eagerly about the furnaces as to be sometimes scorched and blistered;^[364] and the crowd of poor 90wretches in this necessitous condition would appear to have been occasionally so great as to deteriorate the state of the atmosphere by their breath,^[365] on which account they were exposed to be driven forth by the bath-keepers.

In Homeric times, beggars and all other sorts of vagrants took refuge from the nightly cold in smiths’ forges,^[366] just as in former ages they did in the glass-houses of London. These fathers of sacrilege, as Plato^[367] calls them, when properly equipped for the road, presented a tolerably picturesque aspect with their close Mysian bonnet,^[368] ragged cloak, and bottle strapped to the thigh,^[369] and supporting themselves as they walked on a huge staff. To this worshipful society Dionysios, once tyrant of Syracuse, belonged in his old age.^[370]

91There was at Athens, in later times, a class of men who resembled the bone-grubbers and dung-hill scrapers of London and Paris. These were the grain-pickers of the Deigma and Agora, who hovering about where the farmers and corn-chandlers meted their grain, and collecting what dropped from the sacks,^[371] or was spilled in measuring, thus earned a miserable subsistence. Persons of this description might eke out their livelihood by appropriating to themselves the coarse brown bread which pious and charitable persons placed in the propylæa of temples for their use.^[372] Here Diogenes, the Cynic, who, carrying about provisions in his wallet, was independent of these offerings, sometimes dined; and, for the sake of uttering a bon mot, threw out the loaves that might have been useful to others; observing, that nothing coarse^[373] should be allowed to enter the temples of the gods.

Religion has everywhere been favourable to the poor. On the festival of the new moon, when the great and opulent offered up costly sacrifices to the gods, as to Hecatè, for example, on cross-roads,^[374] their more indigent brethren seized the occasion 92when their hearts were thus softened, to ask them for something. Thus Homer, according to the legend attributed to Herodotus, went in Samos to the houses of the wealthy, chanting his Eiresione, for which he received a consideration.^[375]

There was a class of beggars who went about the country begging for the crow,^[376] holding, apparently, a tame bird of that species like a falcon on their wrist, and chanting the following ditty:—

In Rhodes another kind of begging, which usually took place in the month of March, was denominated Chelidonizein;^[377] or, to sing the

It was seldom, however, that the indigent in Greece could enjoy the luxuries here enumerated. Antiphanes^[378] describes a poor man’s meal as consisting of a cake (μαζα),^[379] bristling with bran for the sake of economy, with an onion, and, for a relish, a dish of sow-thistle, or of mushrooms, or some such wretched produce of the soil, a diet producing neither fever nor phlegm. However, where meat is to be got, no man, he thought, would be contented with thyme, though he might pretend to rival the Pythagoreans.^[380] Mention, nevertheless, is made of two philosophers who voluntarily subsisted all their lives on water and figs, and grew very healthy and robust upon this fare, though their perspiration had so ill 95an odour, that every one avoided them when they entered the public baths. Pythagoras forbade his abstemious followers the use of the mallows, upon which the humbler classes in Greece were accustomed to feed, together with the roots of the day-lily, the nymphea nelumbo, the nettle,^[381] and various other wild plants. The Kapparis,^[382] plentiful in Athens, was very commonly eaten by the indigent, and hence “to gather kapparis” was at length considered synonymous with “to be in want.”^[383] Alexis furnishes us with a curious account of a poor Athenian family’s provisions.^[384]

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, 97who would not require too much of human nature, reserved this latter penalty for those who should be thrice convicted.^[392]

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]

98From 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]

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]

There were, however, certain callings which the laws considered disreputable, or, at least, unsuitable 99to 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]

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 100possible; 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]

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 101herdsmen; 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.

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.

102At 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.

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 103sordid 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]

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, 104and 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]

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, 105continued 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.

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 106confirmed 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 107bolted 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.

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] 108which 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.

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]

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 109and 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]

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]

These it would require a separate treatise to enumerate 110and 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]

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, 111found 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]

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]

The trade of the butcher^[469] was carried on at Athens by citizens,^[470] whose shops in the Agora 112would 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 113piece 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]

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 114fashion 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]

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; 115the cyathus, two conchæ; the concha, two mystra; the mystron, one chema and a-half; the chema, two cochlearia.^[487]

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.

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 116of 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]

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] 117of 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]

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.

Among the other riches of an Hellenic cellar were 118mead 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]

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 119to 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]

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.

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 120so 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.

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 121the 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]

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, 122for 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 123spread 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 124saw 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 125forth 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 126craft 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 127and 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.

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, 128armed 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.

129On 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.

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 130keratia; 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.

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]

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 132thought of sufficient consequence to have his name transmitted to posterity.^[637]

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, 133or 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]

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]

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]

134Several 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]

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 135length 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]

One sort of rouge^[681] appears to have been obtained 136from 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] 137radishes,^[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 138of which, however, several other ingredients entered, as nard, myrrh, costos, Illyrian iris, honey, and Chian wine.

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]

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 139city 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]

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 140variety 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 141applied 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]

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 142vinegar.^[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.

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 143with 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.

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, 144which, 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]

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 145those who, like Gorgias, at their own expense did the same honour to themselves.^[802]

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 146even the engravers of cups and goblets, as Mys, for example, sometimes acquired great celebrity.^[815]

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, 147by 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.

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, 148at 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]

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.

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 149like 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.

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 150olive 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]

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]

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]

151Respecting 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 elaboratelyelaborately 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]

We find mention, however, of burning-glasses as 152early 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]

The earliest smiths^[863] in Greece wrought not in iron but in brass, of which, at first, both arms and domestic implements were fashioned. In Mexico and Peru, where, likewise, copper^[864] was known before iron, they possessed the art of hardening it to so great a degree, that it would even cut stones and the closest-grained wood. The same or a similar process was known to the ancients, and might still, perhaps, be easily recovered were it any longer an object to be desired. The Greeks always retained a strong partiality for articles of brass, copper, and bronze, and besides statues,^[865] pillars,^[866] and trees, where the fruit was sometimes of gold,^[867] employed them in cups, urns, vases, and caldrons, with covers of the 154same metal.^[868] We also find mention made of brazen mangers, and even maps.^[869]

With tin, also, the Greeks, even in the Homeric age, were acquainted;^[870] and, among other uses which they, in later ages, made of it, was that of lining the inside of their cooking utensils.^[871]

At a period beyond the reach of history they obtained a knowledge of the use of both iron^[872] and steel, the invention of which they attributed to Hephaistos.^[873] Homer, who speaks of axes and other implements of steel, or, rather, of iron steeled at the edge, describes the process of forming it by immersion in cold water.^[874] In the manufacture of the Homeric swords steel only would appear to have been, in most cases, employed, since they were extremely brittle, and often shivered to pieces by a mere blow upon shield or helmet. To guard against this effect the superior and more delicate articles were, in later times, cooled not in water but in oil.^[875] The Spartans, we are told, quenched their iron money in vinegar which rendered it, they supposed, brittle and unmalleable, consequently of no value but as a token.^[876]

Among the earliest nations who excelled in the smelting of iron and the manufacture of steel were 155the Chalybes,^[877] who are said to have collected the ore from the beds of their rivers, and to have mingled therewith a certain quantity of the mineral pyrimachos. Aristotle, in describing the process of smelting, observes, that steel, in passing through the furnace, not only diminishes in quantity but in specific gravity also, that is to say, becomes less valuable. It was one merit of the Chalybean steel that it was not liable to rust. The method of preparing this metal which prevailed among the Celtiberians was this:^[878] they buried a number of iron plates in the earth, where they suffered them to remain until the greater portion was converted into rust.^[879] They then drew them forth and wrought them into various kinds of weapons, particularly swordblades, which were so keen that neither shields, nor helmets, nor sculls, were able to resist their edge. To this the complimentary Plutarch likens the language of the Spartans.^[880]

It was thought of much importance by the ancients to select for the quenching of steel water possessing certain occult qualities, whose existence was only to be detected by experiment. By these the river of the Chalybeans was thought to be distinguished,^[881] as well as the waters near Como, at Calatayud and Tarragona in Spain. Water has, likewise, been prepared, by a variety of infusions, for communicating a finer temper and greater hardness to steel, an example of which is mentioned in the history of the Duke Cosmo, who invented, according to Vasari,^[882] a liquid wherein were hardened the tools 156with which Francesco del Tadda was enabled to cut a fountain-basin, and several other articles, from a block of the hardest porphyry. Nothing, however, was more common than this operation among the ancients, both Greeks and Egyptians, by whom porphyry was cut into every variety of form, and invested with the highest polish.^[883]

The best steel appears to have been obtained from the Seres, from Parthia, and from India,^[884] where, when polished, it assumed the bright appearance of silver, and probably like that of Damascus contained a small proportion of this metal. That which came from Sinope and the Chalybes served for the manufacture of ordinary tools; the Laconian^[885] was wrought into files, augers, chisels, and the other implements of stone-cutters; the Lydian stood in high estimation with the sword-cutlers, and the manufacturers of razors and surgical instruments.^[886] The locks and keys^[887] of the ancients, if we may judge from the specimens found at Pompeii, were of a somewhat rude construction, though probably manufactured of the best iron.

The workshop and tools of the smith bore the closest possible resemblance to those of the present day; the bellows^[888] consisting of thin boards connected by flaps of cow-hide, and having a snout of iron, the anvil mounted on a high block, the hammer, the tongs, the vice, which require no particular description.

Respecting the quality of Grecian cutlery it must be acknowledged that our information is exceedingly scanty, though we may reasonably infer, that it 157often possessed the greatest excellence and beauty from the perfection to which they had undoubtedly brought the manufacture of arms. In this branch of industry the Delphians would seem to have obtained celebrity, though the form and uses of their knives, alluded to in a comparison by Aristotle,^[889] can be looked upon only as matter of conjecture. It seems to me, that, like Hudibras’ dagger, they would serve for a variety of purposes, as a poignard for example, as a sacrificial instrument, and as a common knife:

There was a very elegant sort of knives among the Athenians, adorned with ivory handles, delicately carved with the figures of animals, among which was that of a crouching lioness.^[890] For this purpose the ivory was frequently stained of different colours, as pink, or crimson, or purple, according to the fancy of the workman. Knife-handles were sometimes also made of the roots of the lotos,^[891] which, no doubt, took a fine polish and were beautifully clouded. Their scissors, bodkins, sailmakers’ needles, common needles, pins,^[892] and other articles of this description, would seem to have been manufactured with much neatness.

But the most flourishing trade in Greece was probably that of the armourer,^[893] which, at almost every period of her history, was in constant request. Many, probably, of the useful arts owed much of the progress they made to the passion of the Greeks for arms, which led them industriously to study and 158invent whatever could add to their splendour or efficiency. We need not now go back to the times when sticks and stones and pointed reeds formed the national weapons.^[894] Among the very first steps in civilisation were improvements in the art of self-defence; for, wherever men have found it necessary to create property, they have felt it to be equally so to invent weapons for protecting themselves in the enjoyment of it. Accordingly the Greeks, long before the birth of history, had surrounded themselves by numerous instruments of destruction, and learned to cover their bodies with armour infinitely varied in materials and workmanship.

Upon none of their weapons, however, did they bestow greater attention than on the sword, which if it did not, as among certain barbarians, constitute one of the objects of their worship,^[895] was in most cases their inseparable companion through life, and descended with them even to the grave. Thus we find, that, when Cimon opened, at Scyros, the grave of Theseus, the national hero of Attica, he found beside the skeleton a spearhead and sword of brass.^[896] Their blades were of many different shapes 159and dimensions: they had the long, sharp, double-edged rapier; the short cut and thrust; the crooked scimitar, the sabre, and the broad-sword.^[897] These were generally of the finest steel, highly polished, and sometimes damaskened exactly like those blades afterwards manufactured at Damascus. The sheath was sometimes of ivory, sometimes of gold or silver or tin or other inferior metal.^[898] To the first-mentioned substance we have an allusion in a saying of Diogenes, who on hearing a handsome young man make use of low language, exclaimed: “How shameless! to draw forth a sword of lead from a sheath of ivory.”^[899] The hilts were often extremely superb, of costly materials, and wrought in the most fanciful shapes. We read, for example, of sword-handles studded or inlaid with gold, or even composed entirely of that metal, or of silver.^[900] Ivory too, and amber,^[901] and terebinth,^[902] polished and black as ebony, and a variety of other woods and substances, stained black with nut-gall,^[903] were employed for this purpose. The father of Demosthenes, who kept a large manufactory of arms, left behind him a considerable quantity of ivory and gall-nuts^[904] which he had purchased as well for his own use as to supply other armourers in a smaller way. Of daggers there were various kinds, some of a larger size, worn suspended on the thigh with the sword, as the hunting knife was by the Persian youth; others much smaller, which seem to have been carried about concealed under the armpit, as is still the fashion in the East. To this practice Socrates alludes in his conversation with Polos of Agrigentum,^[905] on the power possessed in states by tyrants, whom he compares 160to one who should go forth into the marketplace with an enchiridion concealed about him, and for that reason fancy it in his power to take away every man’s life, because he could undoubtedly kill any one he pleased.

Next in importance perhaps was the manufacture of javelins and spears.^[906] Of the former, the heads,^[907] light though sometimes broad, were mounted on slender ashen shafts shod with iron, or on the long Cretan reed^[908] which abounded in the marshes about Haliartos in Bœotia. These javelins, in more modern times, were furnished with a looped thong, by which when the darter had missed his aim, they could be drawn back.^[909] The best kind were supposed to be manufactured in Bœotia. Spear-shafts were likewise sometimes of ash,^[910] but more frequently of cornel wood,^[911] and occasionally, as in the case of the Macedonian sarissa, eighteen feet long. Like the javelin, the spear also was shod sharp with iron, in order the more easily to be fixed upright in the earth, when soldiers slept abroad in the fields.^[912] This part of the iron-work, which was hollow and received the shaft into it, is said to have been shaped like a lizard, doubtless represented as holding the point of the handle in its mouth. Projections resembling legs extended on both sides, designed to prevent the spear from sinking too deep into the ground. In the lances of the cavalry there was, as some suppose, a small notch to receive the point of the horseman’s foot when mounting his steed. The spear-head, generally of iron or steel, was among the Arab allies of Xerxes formed of goat’s horn, fashioned like the iron of a lance.^[913]

161The bows^[914] of the ancients were most commonly composed of horn, tipped with gold or other metal at either end. Among the barbarous nations there were those who manufactured them of cane or palm-branches, or even of the long stem of the date.^[915] The bowstring was of thong or horse-hair. Reeds generally constituted the shafts of their arrows,^[916] which were headed with iron or copper, or hard pointed stones, as those of the Arabs in the army of Xerxes, who employed for this purpose the same stones wherewith they engraved their seals.^[917] Arrows were frequently winged with eagles’ feathers, and tinged at the point with poison.^[918] In sieges they were often armed with fire.^[919]

Besides the above, there were several other implements of destruction. The Greeks made use of the club, the battle-axe, and the sling.^[920] And a tribe of barbarians, once mentioned in history, depended entirely on their daggers, and a noosed rope of twisted thongs,^[921] which they used for entangling and overthrowing man or horse, much in the same 162manner as the lasso is now employed in the Pampas of South America.

If we turn now to their armour, we shall find that they displayed in its manufacture the greatest possible skill, taste, and ingenuity. Their helmets, cuirasses, shields, cuisses, and greaves, were made of polished steel, or brass, or tin, sometimes curiously figured, and inlaid with metals of many different colours, and polished to an exceeding brightness,^[922] sometimes adorned with representations in relief. Frequently they went cased in shirts of mail, composed of innumerable small metallic plates, lapping over each other so as to resemble the scales of fishes. Occasionally the opulent appeared on the field of battle in golden armour,^[923] though this piece of ostentation was chiefly confined to the barbarians.^[924] The armourers’ craft, however, seems to have gone on improving in proportion as the courage of the nation deteriorated, until at length, in Macedonian times, armour of enormous weight, and, literally, impenetrable, came into use. Thus Zoilos manufactured for Demetrios Poliorcetes two coats-of-mail,^[925] of a steel so hard, that the surface could scarcely be grazed by an arrow discharged from a catapult. The whole suit weighed no less than one hundred and thirty pounds, exactly twice as much as an ordinary suit of armour.

Helmets^[926] were manufactured of numerous materials. First, in the ruder ages, they were in reality nothing more than so many close skull-caps made of the skins^[927] of otters or water-dogs, with the hair on,^[928] 163or foxes, or weasels, or goats, or bulls, or lions. But as the arts of civilisation improved, metal casques were soon substituted for these primitive defences, some of which, of wrought steel, were highly polished, and shone like burnished silver. That of Alexander was manufactured by Theophilos.^[929] The helmet consisted of a variety of parts: as, first, the casque itself, inlaid with brass and iron,^[930] which enclosed and defended the head, the front brim projecting over the forehead; the vizor, which dropped over the whole face; the strap, often richly embroidered or studded with jewels,^[931] passing under the chin; and the ridge, or cone, on the summit, from which rose the plumes, or crest.^[932] This crest, double, treble, or even quadruple, according to the taste or fancy of the wearer, sometimes consisted of long drooping ostrich feathers,^[933] sometimes of horse-hair, either black or dyed of different colours, which, trembling and floating over the warrior’s head, appeared to augment his stature while it added to the terror of his aspect. King Pyrrhos, we are told, wore upon his helmet the horns of a goat, symbolical of the power of Macedon;^[934] and the Asiatic Thracians flanked their crests with the horns and ears of an ox in brass.^[935] To break the force of blows from clubs or heavy battle-axes, the crown of the helmet was thickly lined with sponge or soft wool.^[936] Mention is likewise made of helmets of plaited cord of wood and leather,^[937] and the skins of horses’ heads, retaining the ears and the mane.^[938]

In the manufacture of corslets and cuirasses^[939] much industry and ability was exhibited. The former were 164generally composed of linen or hempen twine curiously wrought, and doubled or trebled according to the desire of the purchaser,^[940] and worn chiefly in the chase;^[941] others consisted of thick leathern jerkins, covered with metallic scales,^[942] single, double, or treble, and fastened to each other by a series of hooks. In lieu of these plates was sometimes substituted a coating of intertwisted rings, resembling in some respects the chain armour of a later age. Wooden cuirasses were also sometimes worn.^[943] The Sarmatians^[944] possessing no iron, headed their darts and javelins with bone, and employed very extraordinary materials in the manufacture of their cuirasses. Collecting carefully all the hoofs of such horses as died, they cut them into laminæ, resembling in form the scales of a fish. These they sewed together with the nerves of horses or oxen, and thus produced a species of breastplate which for elegance and utility was scarcely inferior to those of the Greeks. In the manufacture of linen corslets^[945] the Egyptians displayed peculiar excellence, at least the description of one of them which history has preserved is calculated to create a very high idea of their ingenuity. It was curiously wrought, we are told, with fine bobbins, each composed of three hundred and sixty threads, distinctly visible, adorned with numerous figures of animals interwoven with cotton and gold.^[946] Among the Greeks this piece of armour was often richly embroidered by the ladies of the warrior’s family, whom, on more than one occasion, we find busy at this task on the eve of battle. The cuirasses of brass or steel were finely polished and buttoned under the arm. Even the horses were furnished with breastplates and frontlets,^[947] and occasionally their flanks also were protected by armour. The 165warrior’s greaves^[948] were manufactured of copper, brass, tin, or other metal, and fastened about the legs with silver buttons. Archers seem commonly to have worn a species of gloves or fingerlings.^[949]

The manufacture of shields^[950] underwent great fluctuations at different periods of Grecian history, and even in the same age there existed numerous and extraordinary differences in their materials, form, and structure. In early times they consisted simply of a piece of circular basket-work, plaited for the sake of lightness with vine-branches^[951] or willows; or were made of a solid piece of wood scooped into the proper form, and covered with one or more coats of leather. The wood usually preferred for this use was that of the elder, the beach, the poplar, and the fig; and the leather was generally tough bull-hide,^[952] with or without the hair, though we read of nations, as the Ethiopians, who made use for this purpose of the skins of cranes.^[953] The same people at the present day have discovered that the hide of the crocodile, dressed with the scales on, forms a better integument for their bucklers. Among the Homeric heroes the wooden framework was protected by many folds of leather, amounting sometimes to seven, to which were added plates of brass, silver, gold, or tin. Even when the face of the shield was composed of some inferior metal, the rim seems frequently to have been of gold.

In later times shields were usually manufactured of brass or steel, wrought and fashioned with the greatest care, and polished like a mirror. Occasionally, likewise, they were inlaid with purple, ivory, and gold,^[954] or painted white, or crusted with gold and silver, as among the Samnites.^[955] From the remotest 166antiquity, moreover, it was customary to paint upon shields a number of devices, each warrior selecting one for himself,^[956] which, like the armorial bearings of the knights of chivalry, distinguished him from his comrades in battle. Thus Perseus chose the head of the Gorgon Medusa;^[957] Tydeus the aspect of the face of the mighty heavens, including the full moon, surrounded by flaming stars;^[958] Eteocles bore before him the figure of a warrior scaling a lofty tower, while Hippomedon selected, as the emblem of his character, the figure of Typhœos breathing forth fire and smoke. Every reader will remember the varied imagery that crowded the shield of the Homeric Achilles, together with the scenes which Hesiod, in imitation, depicts on the buckler of Heracles. In the historical period^[959] the people of Sicyon had a sigma, the initial letter in the name of their capital, painted on their shields.^[960] These ornaments, as well as the handles, it is said, owed their origin to the invention of the Carians. The form of the shield exhibited much variety. One kind, for example, was small and circular,^[961] another oblong or parallelogrammatic, and of dimensions so large as to cover the whole body, and allow the fallen warrior to be borne home on it as upon a bier; others were rhomboidal,^[962] or semilunar, or shaped like an ivy-leaf. But whatever may have been their figure, there always projected from the centre of the external face a large boss, with a smaller one, generally pointed, on the middle of it. This the soldiers dashed in the countenances of the enemy. Within, 167two bars, stretching from rim to rim, and crossing each other like the letter X, gave the warrior, who passed his left arm behind them, greater power over his defence, while a smaller handle, on the fore part of the shield, received his grasp.^[963] Occasionally, the place of these bars was supplied by metallic or wooden handles, exactly of a size to receive the arm; and, by means of a leathern strap, the buckler, when marching, was usually suspended on the shoulder.^[964] In time of peace both the shield and the helmet were laid up, each in its appropriate case.^[965] Besides the manufacturers of arms, who supplied states with large orders, there were numerous armourers on a smaller scale,^[966] whose shops exhibited a rich and varied assortment of shields, helmets, and every kind of weapon.

The metals employed in the fabrication of arms were obtained partly from mines found in Greece itself, partly by commerce from the surrounding countries.^[967] On the methods of mining which prevailed among the Greeks our information is peculiarly scanty. We know, however, that, at Laurion,^[968] the Athenians made use of both shafts and adits, and that in chambering they employed much timber.^[969] To prevent the falling in of the superincumbent mountain there were left at intervals vast pillars,^[970] the cutting away of which was by law prohibited on pain of death. In the potter’s-clay mines 168of Samos, where the veins, running generally between beds of rock, were exceedingly shallow, seldom exceeding two feet in depth, the miners, as in the thin veins of our own coal mines, were compelled while at work to lie on their back or sides, which, it may be presumed, was the practice in other mines under similar circumstances. Whether they possessed any means of protecting themselves against the fire-damps or malaria,^[971] which, we know, prevailed greatly at Laurion,^[972] is a matter of much uncertainty. In Spain, the mines ran deep into the earth, and were of prodigious extent, having transverse passages and caverns of great dimensions and elevation.

In an old shaft discovered in the mountains of Santo Spirito,^[973] the sides were supported by masonry; large pools of water were found in some of the chambers, while the explorers could hear afar off the incessant roar of waterfalls. Here and there the passages were nearly blocked up by masses of gold and silver ore.^[974]

How the water was drained off, or the ore brought to the surface of the earth, no ancient author has explained. When extracted, however, it was pounded in a stone mortar with an iron pestle, then passed through a sieve, and transferred to the smelting furnace.^[975]

The account transmitted to us of the gold mines of Egypt may probably throw some light on the practice which prevailed among the Greeks. In them we find an almost exact type of the degrading toil and disregard of danger and decency recently brought to light among our own subterranean 169population. There, indeed, the workmen were forced to their task by the direct compulsion of a tyrannical government; while in Great Britain the constraint is enveloped by a cloud of circumstances which conceal, though they scarcely soften, the stern laws of necessity.

The Egyptian gold mines were situated in the great eastern desert, on the shores of the Red Sea. They had been worked from the remotest antiquity; in proof of which it is related, that copper pickaxes were frequently found in the deserted shafts and galleries, beside incredible heaps of human bones, relics of the multitudes who had perished there by malaria, or fire-damps, or the falling of rocks, or more probably from the incessant oppression to which they were subjected.^[976] In fact the benevolent historian,^[977] to whom we are indebted for nearly all we know on this curious subject, felt so strongly for the sufferings of these wretched artificers of Egyptian grandeur, that he pronounced death in their case to be more desirable than life.^[978] But the most miserable possess resources and springs of gratification unknown to philosophers and the professors of literature; and, we may be sure, that even those outcasts who brought up gold from the bowels of the earth to adorn the thrones and palaces of the Pharaohs, knew how to extract from their bitter employment some few sweets of sufficient efficacy to render life endurable.

No doubt the processes of those early times were sufficiently rude. When about to open a new shaft 170or adit the Inspectors of the mines appear carefully to have examined the different faces of the mountain, sombre, scarped, and barren to the last degree; and having fixed upon a spot in the face of some cliff, the first operation was to render the rock friable by the application of powerful fires, which were kindled with wood at its base. The more robust of the workmen then proceeded with their pickaxes to the excavation of the galleries, which seldom or never proceeded in a right line; but following the direction of the metallic veins, mounted, descended, branched off obliquely to the left or to the right; and progressing in this manner, sometimes perforated the whole bulk of the mountain, and striking downwards, like the roots of trees, extended even to the sea.^[979] The men employed in getting the ore, followed incessantly by task-masters with instruments of chastisement in their hands, were seldom permitted to proportion their exertions to their strength; but often toiled on apparently till they dropped, when their bones joined the heaps of those who had fallen before them. While thus engaged, more especially when united in great numbers they had clambered the rocks to a considerable height, they presented an extraordinary spectacle; for each miner^[980] carried a lamp bound to his forehead, though how, when they bent or kneeled, or worked sideways, it 171escaped being extinguished seems difficult of explanation.

The laborious operation of collecting and hurrying the ore was performed by boys of tender age, who deposited it beyond the mouth of the shaft. Another class of workmen, consisting chiefly of the aged and the infirm, now bore the metalliferous stones to that part of the works where the founders were stationed. These were powerful and robust men in the flower of their age, who, with large stone mortars and iron pestles, reduced, under the eye of rigid Inspectors, the ore to small fragments not exceeding a vetch in size.^[981] This done, it was transferred to the mills which were turned by women, the wives and daughters of the miners, who, with the exception of a slender covering about the waist, were entirely naked, misery in all times and places rendering people contemptuous of appearances and indifferent to morality.^[982] These mills, heavy no doubt and difficult to work, were turned by six women, three on either side. They would appear, however, to have answered well the purpose for which they were designed, since the ore, we are told, was reduced by them to the fineness of flour; after which it was handed over to the Selangeus, the last link in that long chain of operators which connected the mine with the smelting furnace. The business of the Selangeus consisted in separating the metal from the matrix in which it had been produced. For this purpose, the auriferous dust was cast in a heap upon a broad polished board slightly inclined,^[983] and there washed and triturated until the greater part of the terrene particles had been, by soft sponges 172and water, separated from the gold, which was next put into earthen vessels with small quantities of lead, tin, salt, and barley-bran, and placed in the smelting furnace, where it was subjected, for five days and nights, to the flames. This done, the virgin gold came forth glittering and pure as if it had not been wrung from human agony or sullied by human tears.

In the smelting furnaces of Greece, notwithstanding the doubts of Reitemeier, which Bœckh is contented to combat with mere inferences,^[984] it is quite certain that charcoal was used,^[985]—in the first smelting, that of the aria, the arbutus, and the oak, of which the last was least esteemed; and in the second, that of the pitch-pine. In the iron mines the charcoal of the Eubœan walnut-tree was preferred for second smelting.

This leads us to speak of the preparation of charcoal, which was effected in the following manner:—having excavated a circular cavity in the earth, they pitched or paved it at bottom, and piling up to a great height the billets of wood, which were selected for their straightness in order that they might lie as close as possible, covered over the whole with earth and turf, so as to form a circular mound, like a barrow. The heap was then set on fire, and the covering pierced on all sides with spits, to provide a vent for the smoke. The fire having been kept burning for the proper time, which is not stated, the charcoal was removed and laid by for use.^[986] Extensive works of this kind were established at the borough of Acharnè, in Attica, which was supplied 173with wood, chiefly the scarlet oak, from the forests on Mount Parnes.^[987]

Much stress was laid by Hellenic artificers on the materials from which the charcoal was manufactured: thus smiths, braziers, and other handicraftsmen preferred that of the pitch-pine to what was made from the oak, because it exhibited a greater tractability to the bellows, keeping up a more enduring flame, and being less liable to sudden extinction, though inferior in force. Generally, in fact, all dry woods furnish a brisker and a brighter flame. Twigs and small branches, as the Greek philosophers had observed, yield, while burning, the fiercest heat; but it was supposed that they were too deficient in body to be profitably converted into charcoal. In France, however, and other parts of the Continent, we find twigs no bigger than goose-quills used for this purpose. Some kinds of wood, it was observed, produce in burning a far greater quantity of smoke than others.^[988] Of these are all such as delight in humid situations, as the platane and the willow, with the black and white poplar. The vine,^[989] too, while moist, stands in the same category, though it yield the palm to the date-palm, which enjoyed among the ancients the reputation of being the smokiest tree that grows.^[990] In sharpness, however, the smoke of the fig-tree was supposed to excel, together with that of the wild fig-tree,^[991] and generally all such natives of the forest as abound in a milky juice. Nevertheless, having been barked, steeped in running-water, and dried again,^[992] these same kinds of wood were freer than all others from 174smoke, and yielded the softest and purest flame.^[993] The same thing is remarked of wood which had been washed with the lees of oil.^[994]

In Egypt, where charcoal is at present procured chiefly from the wood of the acacia, and supplied in most cases from the Desert, it was anciently prepared, especially for the use of smiths, from the long, tough, triangular roots of the sari,^[995] (Cyperus fastigiatus,) which resembled those of the papyrus, likewise burnt for fuel.^[996] The smiths of Hellas,^[997] however, were not reduced to depend entirely upon charcoal, since both in Liguria and Elis, on the road, it has been conjectured, leading over Mount Pholoë to Olympia,^[998] pits had been opened whence the forges were supplied with fossil coal.

We may here observe, by the way, that the ancients, instead of flint and steel, or lucifer matches, made use, in kindling a fire, of a curious apparatus 175still employed in the East:^[999] it consisted of two parts, the one hollowed out like a diminutive mortar, the other resembling a pestle, which was inserted into it, and turned round with extreme velocity until sparks were produced. This necessary piece of furniture^[1000] was most commonly manufactured of ivy, or laurel, or clematis, and was something of the rhamnus ilex, or linden-tree; in short, of nearly all trees, except the olive. Generally, however, it was thought best to make the two parts of the instrument of different kinds of wood. It was observed that, with these contrivances, fire kindled more readily during the prevalence of the north than the south wind, and on high places than in hollows. At Rome the vestal virgins originated the sacred fire by means of a kind of mirror, and the power of burning-glasses was not unknown.^[1001] Nay, things resembling our lucifer matches were possessed by certain jugglers, though they do not appear to have passed into general use, either because the inventors refused to divulge their secret, or from the natural slowness of mankind to profit by useful discoveries.^[1002]

Another flourishing branch of industry was that of quarrying stones for building, carried on wherever marble, or freestone, or tufa, or granite, was found.^[1003] The stones were usually fashioned by the axe, or saw,^[1004] in the quarry, and drawn thence by ropes. In many cases, however, as where cheapness or despatch was aimed at, bricks were substituted,^[1005] made, in addition to the materials at present employed, from powdered tufa.^[1006]

In the preparation of mortar and cement the Greeks exhibited extraordinary ingenuity.^[1007] They made use, in the first place, of lime procured by burning coarse marble in the ordinary way, or, secondly, 177obtained from sea-shells, or stones picked up on the banks of rivers. A superior kind of cement was made from those stones used in the manufacture of gypsum, which was so firm and durable, that it was frequently found to outlast the materials which it had been employed to unite. It was prepared by being reduced to powder, and mixed with water, and afterwards well stirred with a piece of wood, since it was too hot to admit of the hands being used. When removed from old walls it might be burnt and prepared a second and a third time, as originally from the stone.^[1008] This, in Syria and Phœnicia, was used in facing the walls of houses, and in Italy for whitening them, as well as in the making of various mouldings and ornaments within.^[1009]

Frequently, also, it appears to have been employed like plaster of Paris in the casting of statues, as was that composed of powdered marble, in repairing such as by accident had been broken. An example of this was observed in the cheek of a sphynx dug up in the island of Capri.^[1010] Instead of water, however, a tough glue, composed of the hides and horns of bulls, was employed in mixing it.^[1011]

In the roofing of houses pantiles were commonly made use of;^[1012] instead of which, as they were fragile and easily broken by hailstones, tiles of Pentelic marble, invented by Byzes of Naxos,^[1013] were 178often substituted in the case of temples, as that for example of Zeus at Olympia. It is mentioned incidentally by Dioscorides, that physicians used to reduce acacia-wood to powder by burning it in the tile-kilns.^[1014]

Respecting the business of house-painters our information is exceedingly scanty; we may infer, however, that they excelled in the imitation of woods and marbles, since they were employed in imitating on the polished surface of one stone the veins and colours characteristic of another.^[1015] Some persons covered the walls of their apartments with historical subjects,^[1016] or landscapes, or the figures of animals in fresco.^[1017] In later ages ceilings were painted, or inlaid with coloured stones,^[1018] or abaculi, so as to imitate the feathers and hues of a peacock’s tail.^[1019]

Timber for house-building,^[1020] the choice of which was regulated by law,^[1021] abounded in most parts of Greece, though the best and straightest was obtained 179from Macedonia and Arcadia,^[1022] particularly from a hollow valley near a place called Cranè, never visited by the sun, and fenced round by rocks on all sides from the winds.^[1023] Very particular rules were laid down respecting the time and manner of felling trees;^[1024] first, wood cut in spring was most easily barked; second, if this operation was neglected it bred worms, which furrowed its whole surface like written characters; third, such as was cut when the moon was below the horizon was thought harder and less liable to decay.^[1025] It may here, perhaps, be worth observing, that stones and other substances were often found grown into the trunks of wild olive-trees. This was particularly the case with that which grew in the market-place of Megara. The oracle had foretold, that when this tree should be cut down the city would be sacked and destroyed, which was brought to pass by Demetrius. On this occasion the tree being felled and sawed into planks, greaves and other articles of Athenian workmanship were found in the heart of it.^[1026] Fragments of the timber remained in the time of Theophrastus.

In cutting hard wood carpenters made use of a blunt axe,^[1027] which thus became sharper, while soft wood produced the contrary effect.^[1028] It was customary before timber was committed to the saw to soak it for some time in water;^[1029] and it is said to 180have been rendered incombustible by a solution of alum and certain kinds of vinegar.^[1030] The tools of the Greek carpenter as near as possible resembled our own; they had the saws small and great, the plane, the axe, the chisel, the square, the gimlet, the augur,^[1031] the compass,^[1032] and, in short, whatever else could be useful in their trade. Among the paintings of Herculaneum^[1033] we find the representation of a carpenter’s workshop, where two winged genii are busily employed with the mallet and the saw. In making lines, &c., they used the ruddle now employed.^[1034]

Among the kinds of timber in most general use was the silver fir, thought to be extremely durable, in illustration of which Theophrastus relates the following circumstance: it happened at Pheneos, in Arcadia,^[1035] that, owing to the obstruction of the torrent-beds, the plain was converted into a lake. To traverse this they constructed bridges of fir, and when the flood rose still higher, bridge upon bridge was erected in succession. Afterwards when the waters had worked themselves a passage and ebbed off, the whole of the wood of these bridges was found in the completest preservation.^[1036] The other kinds of timber were the elm, used for doors, hinges, and weasel traps;^[1037] the cypress,^[1038] cedar, and juniper for wainscoting, beams, and paneled ceilings; the Arcadian, and the Idæan yew,^[1039] which latter was sometimes fraudulently substituted for cedar; the Eubœan walnut, and the beech, which, not being 181subject to the rot, were resorted to for piles and substructions.^[1040] The former of these trees, which grew to an extraordinary size, was likewise applied to the roofing of houses, chiefly because, by a loud crackling noise, it gave notice when it was about to break, and thus afforded the inmates leisure to effect their escape. This happened at the public baths of Antandros, where the company foreseeing from this warning sound the catastrophe that was approaching, rushed forth into the streets, and thus avoided being overwhelmed beneath the ruins.^[1041]

The box, the ilex, and the lotos, they employed for door-pivots, which were seasoned by being immersed in cow-dung.^[1042]

Cart and wheel wrights,^[1043] necessarily pretty numerous, made use in their trade of the following kinds of wood,—the scarlet oak,^[1044] in countries not abounding with ilex, as Laconia and Elis, for carts, ploughs, and other rustic implements; the oxya, the fir, and the elm, for chariot-bodies;^[1045] the ilex, the box, the ash, and the mast-bearing beech, for axletrees. The wood of all glutinous trees is naturally flexible, but more especially that of the mulberry and the wild fig, for which reason these, together with the platane, and the poplar, were used for making the bended rims of chariot-seats, and the circles of wheels.^[1046] For spokes, the wood of the cornel tree was preferred, and that of the box, the yew, the maple, and the carpinus—hedge-beech, or hornbeam—for the yokes of oxen. In old times the bodies of carts were often formed of basket-work. It may be remarked by the way, that the Greeks understood the use of the drag-wheel.^[1047]

182It has long been made a question among the learned^[1048] whether the ancients were or were not acquainted with the saddle, properly so called. It may now be determined in the affirmative, since, besides the several testimonies of classical writers, which are much too clear to be set aside, we find in several Herculanean pictures exact representations of saddles, both on horses and asses, with girths and cruppers exactly as in modern times.^[1049] It is evident, too, that they are constructed upon wooden frames, to which Herodotus may possibly allude where he speaks of saddles made of tanned human skins.^[1050] Packsaddles for sumpter-asses are of constant occurrence in history; and that they were tolerably thick may be inferred from the fact, that numbers of daggers were concealed in them by Aratos in his attempt upon Argos.^[1051] I shall here mention, also, by the way, and without entering into any discussion, that horses and asses were occasionally shod by the ancients,^[1052] though the practice was doubtless not universal.

The trade of the cooper^[1053] was in less general request than in modern times; his principal employment being the making of tubs, with flour and water-casks; their wine having been chiefly preserved in jars.^[1054] Latterly, however, small kegs got into use, as well probably as larger casks even for wine. Pump-makers, together with the pump itself,^[1055] came in late, and of fire-engines they possessed barely the first rudiments.^[1056]

In speaking elsewhere of the household furniture of the Greeks we necessarily anticipated much of what was to be said respecting cabinet-makers and 183upholsterers. Some few particulars, however, omitted in that place, shall be here introduced. With respect to the price of furniture at Athens,^[1057] it seems much better to be silent than by a few imperfect conjectures to confine the mind of the reader. We know absolutely nothing of the matter.

Among the Egyptians, the roots of the Persea,^[1058] a beautiful fruit-tree, said to have been poisonous in Persia,^[1059] furnished the materials not only of statues but of bedsteads and tables, which were of a rich dark colour and received a fine polish.^[1060] There was likewise, in Syria, a species of wood the blackness of which was interveined with ruddy streaks, so that it looked like variegated ebony. From this were manufactured bedsteads, chairs, and other expensive articles of furniture.^[1061] The maple-tree grows both on plains and mountains. In the latter situation its wood is of a pleasant reddish colour, finely veined and solid,^[1062] on which account it was much used in superior cabinet-work. The zygian maple, in general beautifully clouded, was so hard, that it required to be steeped in water before it could be wrought.^[1063] Of all woods the ancients considered that of the 184cypress^[1064] the most durable, and it is related in confirmation of this opinion, that the doors of the temple of Artemis at Ephesos, which were made of it, had already lasted four centuries in the time of Theophrastus.^[1065] It took the finest polish, and was therefore employed in costly cabinet-work. The wood of the tree called thuia (a species perhaps of wild cypress), abounding in CyrenèCyrenè, and the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon,^[1066] was thought to be incorruptible; and from its roots, which were beautifully clouded, the most delicate articles of furniture were manufactured. Next to these the wood of the mulberry-tree was preferred, which exhibited a dusky grain like that of the lotos.^[1067] Expensive bedsteads were sometimes made of oxya and citron-wood, the feet of which, among the Persians, were often turned from the wood of the doom-palm,^[1068] as they were formed among the Greeks from amber.^[1069] Statues,^[1070] which ought in truth to be regarded as articles of furniture, were carved from cedar, cypress,^[1071] lotos, box, and of a smaller size from the roots of olive-trees, because they did not crack.^[1072] Besides these which were perhaps the more common, we find mention in ancient writers of images of ebony, oak, yew, maple, beech, palm,^[1073] myrtle, pear, linden, and vine, to which may be added the fig-tree which was frequently preferred on account of its soft texture, 185lightness, shining whiteness, and close-grain. Occasionally statues of horses were carved of ebony and ivory. As during the prevalence of certain winds several of these kinds of woods were liable to sweat,^[1074] the vulgar, who understood nothing of the cause, regarded the circumstance as a prodigy.^[1075]

From the knotted wood of the fir-tree, tablets for painting or writing on were made, the inferior kinds of which were very common; but there was a superior and very beautiful sort used only by the opulent.^[1076]

Another piece of furniture in all Greek houses was the chest or coffer^[1077] in which money and plate, or costly garments, were deposited. Articles of this description were frequently manufactured of the finest and most aromatic woods, as cedar for example, and adorned on all sides, as well as on the cover, with numerous figures in relief, sometimes in gold or ivory, as in the case of the celebrated coffer of Cypselos preserved in the treasury at Olympia.^[1078] Generally, however, they were made of humbler materials; sometimes veneered with thin planks of yew, which took a high polish. Persons of inferior means substituted for these, mallequins of fine basket-work, or plaited from the bark of cherry or linden-tree.^[1079] We may here remark by the way, that bread-baskets were manufactured from willows and the twigs of chestnut-trees,^[1080] cleanly peeled, 186and that in Egypt articles of this description were generally woven or plaited from the leaves of the date and doom-palm, and probably variegated in colour as they are at present. At the court, however, bread-baskets were at one period of gold, but fashioned so as to resemble the rush-baskets in use among the earlier Greeks.^[1081]

Lanterns, too, in the first instance, were of basketwork,^[1082] though afterwards manufactured, as in modern times, with thin plates of horn or ivory.^[1083]

In some parts of Greece when individuals, not possessing costly furniture, desired to give a grand entertainment, they hired whatever articles they stood in need of, as seats, beds, vases, &c., of a broker, whose business, in the island of Samos, was once carried on by the tyrant Polycrates.^[1084]

As ivory entered largely into the making of furniture among the ancients,^[1085] the reader will not regret to find here an explanation of the means by which it was rendered soft and tractable. This secret appears hitherto to have escaped the modern writers on Art. Monsieur Dutens^[1086] and the Milanese editors of Winkelmann^[1087] observe, that the ancients possessed the art of softening ivory without, however, giving any intimation that they understood in what the secret consisted. But the whole matter was extremely simple, since they merely steeped the piece of ivory about to be worked in a fermented liquor, called zythos,^[1088] prepared from barley, and drank commonly, 187with or without a mixture of honey, by all persons in Gaul. Many of these ivory ornaments were produced by the turning-lathe. They turned also from the knots of the Arcadian fir large bowls of a shining black colour.^[1089] There was even a kind of stone which, being soft when drawn from the quarry, was turned and cut into bowls, plates, and other articles for the table, which were susceptible of a high polish, and became hard by constant exposure to the air.^[1090]

It was, probably, to the turner’s art that the Greeks owed many of those straight and elegant kinds of walkingsticks,^[1091] particularly affected by the opulent, and called Persian, doubtless because the use of them came originally from Asia. Others preferred the Laconian scytale,^[1092] fashioned usually from a piece of whitethorn, and philosophers, sticks of olive-wood.^[1093] Rustics then, as now, were in the habit of carrying twisted and uncouth walkingstaves, bent sometimes atop, and of heavy materials. The straight light stem of the malachè,^[1094] and birch, and elder,^[1095] were likewise in use; while some carried sticks made from the agnus castus or the laurel, which were believed to possess the virtue of preserving those who bore them from accident or injury.^[1096] The making of umbrellas or parasols, which opened and closed like 188our own,^[1097] no doubt constituted a separate branch of industry. These articles, it may be observed, were manufactured with great elegance, with handles gracefully ornamented, and furnished at the periphery^[1098] with numerous elongated drops. It was, probably, the same tradesmen in whose shops were found those folding-seats, or camp-stools, invented by Dædalos, the use of which seems to have been very common at Athens.^[1099]

Respecting the manufacture of musical instruments, we have but a few particulars to communicate, though it formed a profitable branch of industry in every part of Greece. Musical instruments were divided by the ancients into three kinds:^[1100] those which were played by means of the breath,—the pipe, the trumpet, and the flute; those whose harmony resided in their strings, as the lyre and the cithara; and those which produced sound by beating or clashing against each other, as cymbals and the drum. The best trumpets, supposed to have been an invention of the Tyrrhenians,^[1101] were obtained from Italy, though on many occasions great sea-shells were substituted for those larger instruments. In the East, trumpets were 189sometimes manufactured of cow-hide, though the usual materials were brass and iron, with a little bone for the mouth-piece.^[1102] There were two kinds,—the straight and the crooked.

Of the pipe of barley-straw,^[1103] invented by Osiris, nothing need be said except, that its use and manufacture formed the amusement of shepherds. The fashioning of the common pipe constituted an important branch of industry, particularly in Bœotia, where the reed^[1104] from which it was made abounded in the Orchomenian marshes,^[1105] between the Cephisos and the Melas, in the place called Pelecania.^[1106] The season for cutting, which prevailed up to the age of Antigones, was the month Boedromion; but, for the improvement of the instrument, that musician altered the time, which thenceforward was in the months Scirophorion and Hecatombion.^[1107] The reeds were prepared in the following manner: being cut, they were piled in a heap with their leaves on, and left in the open air during the whole winter. Having in spring been cleared of their outer integuments, well rubbed and exposed to the sun, they were, during the summer, cut into lengths at the knots, and left a little longer in the open air.^[1108] The 190internodial spaces did not fall short of two palms in length, and the best portions of the reed used for making the double pipe^[1109] was about the middle.^[1110] Pipes and flutes^[1111] were likewise manufactured of the leg-bones of stags, at least in Bœotia. The lotos-wood^[1112] transverse flute was an invention of the Africans. The elymœan flute made of boxwood owed its origin to the Phrygians, and was played during the worship of Cybelè. That called hippophorbos was invented by the last dwellers of Libya, who habitually played on it while pasturing their great droves of horses in the desert.^[1113] It appears to have been a very simple instrument, fashioned of a piece of laurel-wood, by removing the bark and scooping out the pith. Its sharp shrill sound which could be heard far and near, delighted the ears of the horses, who probably, like the Turks, estimate the merit of music by its loudness. The monaulos, a favourite invention of the Egyptians, spoken of by Sophocles in his Thamyris, was usually played in marriage concerts.^[1114] The lugubrious funeral-pipe of the Carians was a Phrygian invention. There existed among the Thebans a curious instrument of this kind, probably used in hunting, made from the bones of fawns, with a coating of bronze.^[1115] The Tyrrhenians, like the rude sportsmen of Europe, drew music from the horn. Among the Phœnicians was a small flute made of goose-bones, not exceeding a span in length, called gingras^[1116] in honour of Adonis, so named in their language, which emitting a plaintive and melancholy note, was doubtless 191much used in the wailing orgies of that divinity. Its character being exceedingly simple, it was habitually put into the hands of beginners,^[1117] and seems to have been very common at Athens. The most extraordinary pipes, however, enumerated by ancient writers, were the ones in which those Scythian tribes denominated by the Greeks, Cannibals, Black Cloaks, and Arimaspians, delighted; and manufactured from the leg-bones of eagles and vultures.^[1118] The Celts and the islanders of the ocean, our own forefathers, doubtless eschewed the music of vultures’ legs, and contented themselves with the notes of the syrinx.^[1119]

In earlier times there was a flute appropriated to each mode, or grand division of the national music, but afterwards Pronomos of Thebes,^[1120] invented one equally well suited to every mode. Even the manufacture of mouth-pieces, and flute-cases formed a considerable branch of industry. The materials from which the above instruments were chiefly made, were, in addition to those already mentioned, branches of the elder tree and dwarf laurel, bones of asses and kids, ivory and silver.^[1121] Organs, and hydraulic organs, the latter invented by the Alexandrian barber Ctesibios, to whom antiquity was likewise indebted for the knowledge of the pump, were reckoned by the ancients among wind-instruments.^[1122]

Of stringed-instruments the most common was the lyre,^[1123] manufactured from many kinds of fine wood, and sometimes of ivory.^[1124] The bridge was usually of ilex.^[1125] The cithara,^[1126] introduced at Athens by Phrynis,^[1127] was made sometimes of horn with wooden 192pegs,^[1128] though mention occurs of one formed entirely of solid gold, adorned with figures in relief of the Muses, Orpheus, and Apollo, and thickly studded with emeralds and other precious stones.^[1129] The magadis,^[1130] sometimes reckoned among wind-instruments, was unquestionably stringed, since we find Timotheus, accused at Sparta of innovating in the number of its chords, pointing out to his accuser an ancient statue of Apollo, in which the god was represented playing on a magadis with an equal number.^[1131] In proof of its antiquity it may be remarked, that Lesbothemis, a sculptor, who flourished in a remote age at Mytilene, where this instrument was always in high favour,^[1132] represented one of the Muses with the magadis in her hand. The pectis, said to have been an invention of Sappho, and by some confounded with the magadis, ought rather perhaps to be regarded as a modification of that instrument.^[1133] The epigoneion, so called from its inventor Epigonos, by birth an Ambraciot, though afterwards made a citizen of Sicyon, was a kind of harp with forty strings, resembling, probably, those many-chorded instruments represented on the monuments of Egypt and Ethiopia. This Epigonos, is said to have been the first person who in playing dispensed with the use of the plectron.^[1134] The ancient Arabs forestalled Signor Paganini, and drew a world of sweet sounds from an instrument of one chord:^[1135] the Assyrians had their pandoura, with three strings.^[1136] Among the Scythians was found the pentachordon, stringed with thongs of raw bull-hide, and played on by a plectron of goat’s hoof. The Libyans, more especially the Troglodytes, filled their caverns with the 193music of the psithura, otherwise called the ascaron, an instrument a cubit square, which produced sounds resembling the tinkling of castanets. Cantharos attributes its invention to the Thracians. To these we may add the drum, the tambourine,^[1137] with cymbals, and castanets, sometimes of brass, and sometimes of shells, played on by women in honour of Artemis.

The business of the potter^[1138] was held in considerable estimation among the Greeks, so that several celebrated cities rivalled each other in their productions. Among these, Athens,^[1139] Samos, and Rhodes held the first rank.^[1140] Even the Bœotian Aulis obtained some degree of reputation for its earthenware.^[1141] But that made at Kolias,^[1142] in Attica, from the clay there found, and richly painted with figures in minium, appears to have been the most beautiful known to antiquity.

The number of rough articles produced was prodigious, seeing that oil, and wine, and salt-fish, and pickles, and a variety of other commodities were exported in jars; while almost all culinary operations were carried on in earthern vessels. Such of these as found their way to Egypt, after the conquest of that country by the Persians, were filled with Nile water, and transported into the desert, on camels, to slake the thirst of the wayfarers on that arid waste.^[1143] Perhaps, the largest articles of 194earthenware, however, were the corn-jars, some of which are said to have contained nearly a quarter of grain, in lieu of which plaited corbels were sometimes used.^[1144] Much art and elegance was displayed in the forms, varnishing, and painting of fictile vases, some of which, of light and graceful contour, were made without bottoms, wholly for ornament.^[1145] The colours employed in the painting of vases, more particularly those intended to hold the ashes of the dead, were generally light and durable; and the ease and beauty of the figures prove that the ancient potters paid great attention to the arts of design. The ornaments were extremely various, sometimes consisting of representations of the gods, as Heracles, Pan, or the genii, sometimes of oakleaves, garlands, or festoons, arranged with taste and elegance.^[1146] Athenæus speaks of a kind of porcelain called Rhossican,^[1147] covered with the forms of flowers, upon which Cleopatra expended five minæ per day. Another branch of the potter’s business consisted in the manufacturing of lamps,^[1148] which were so generally in use, that, throughout the Greek and the Roman world, the sites of cities, the ruins of temples, and the sepulchral chambers excavated beneath the earth, lavishly abound with them, entire or in fragments.^[1149] Hyperbolos is said to have amassed a considerable fortune by selling lamps of an inferior quality.^[1150] Wax-candles, however, were likewise in use, at least in 195later ages,^[1151] and with the same materials they fashioned artificial pomegranates and other ornaments, together with small portable images of animals, men, and gods, which, like our figures of plaster of Paris, were sold, as well as those of clay, about the streets. Some notion, too, may be formed of the price, since we find that a figure of Eros fetched a drachma.^[1152]

The manufacture of glass^[1153] was carried to a very high degree of perfection among the ancients.^[1154] They understood the methods of blowing, cutting, and engraving on it; could stain it of every rich and brilliant colour so as to imitate the most precious gems,^[1155] from the ruby and the amethyst to the turquoise and the beryl; they could fashion it into jars, and bowls, and vases, exhibiting all the various hues of the peacock’s train, which, like shot-silks and the breast of the dove, exhibited fresh tints in every different light,—fading, quivering, and melting into each other as the eye changed its point of view.^[1156] 196Squares of glass were produced, perfectly polished and transparent without, but containing figures of various colours in their interior.^[1157] Glass, likewise, was wrought into bassi and alti rilievi, and cast, as gems were cut, into cameos.^[1158] The manufacturers of Alexandria excelled in the working of glass,^[1159] with which they skilfully imitated all kinds of earthenware, fabricating cups of every known form.

It is added, moreover, that a certain kind of earth was found in Egypt, without which the best kind of coloured glass^[1160] could not be produced. Petronius informs us, that, in the reign of Tiberius, a skilful experimentalist discovered the art of rendering this substance malleable, but that the emperor, from some freak of tyranny, put the man to death, and thus his secret was lost to the world.^[1161] A similar act of cruelty was perpetrated by the public authorities at Dantzic, who, in the seventeenth century, caused an able mechanician, who had invented a superior kind of ribbon-loom, to be strangled.^[1162]