As there was a certain class of gods who presided over the market-place, so likewise were there particular laws enacted to regulate its transactions, with magistrates especially appointed to carry those laws into execution. These servants of the commonwealth, five in the city and five in the Peiræeus, were denominated Agoranomoi, and paraded all day to and fro, armed with whips of many thongs,[611] amid the crowds of buyers and sellers, both to preserve tranquillity in the market, and prevent or punish those petty acts of fraud and injustice to which persons who subsist by humble traffic are too often in all countries addicted. Thus we find that, not the vintners only, but even the cornchandlers kept small measures;[612] though, as there was a public meter appointed by the state, it could only be when purchasers neglected to employ him, that they lay open to this sort of imposition. Chapmen detected in cheating, or otherwise behaving with impropriety, were scourged by the Agoranomoi on the spot; and it is to be presumed, that, as often as necessary, these officers were attended by a detachment of that powerful and vigilant Scythian police, at one period a thousand strong, which Athens constantly maintained, and which formerly pitched its tents in the agora.[613] Another duty of the Agoranomoi[614] was to collect the tolls paid by Bœotians, Æginetæ, or Megareans, upon whatever articles they brought to the Athenian market. It should here be observed, however, that neither corn nor bread was in later times, at least, placed under the inspection of these magistrates, since there were others called Sitophylaces,[615] whose business it was to see that the public were not defrauded in such articles. The number of these officers, at first three, was afterwards increased to fifteen, of which ten presided over the city corn-market, and five over that of the harbour, where a portico was built by Pericles[616] for the special use of the cornchandlers and flour-merchants.
On the prices of articles,[617] our information is extremely incomplete: it is said, however, that an ox in Solon’s time, was sold for five drachmas,[618] a sheep for one; while about the same period, the former animal sold at Rome for a hundred oboloi, and the latter for ten. In the later, and what are called the more flourishing, ages of the commonwealth, a sheep, according to its age, size, and breed, fetched from ten to twenty drachmas, an ox from fifty to a hundred. The price of a fine saddle-horse, in the age of Pericles, was twelve minæ, or about fifty pounds sterling,[619] but a common animal for draught might be obtained for three minæ. The price of thirteen talents paid by Alexander for Bucephalos was a mere arbitrary piece of extravagance. A yoke of mules sold from five to eight minas; asses sometimes for thirty drachmas;[620] a sucking-pig for three drachmas;[621] a dove or a crow fetched three oboloi; a jackdaw or a partridge one obolos, though the philosopher Aristippos chose to give fifty drachmas for a single bird of this kind; seven chaffinches for an obolos. A chœnix of olives cost two chalci, and a cotyla of the best Attic honey five drachmas.
The weights and measures[622] in common use at Athens were the talent (65 lbs. 12 dwt. 5 grs.) equal to sixty minæ; the mina (1 lb. 1 oz. 4 grs.) equal to a hundred drachmas; the drachma (6 dwt. 2 grs.) equal to six oboloi; the obolos (9 grs.) equal to three keratia; the keration[623] three grains. The Athenian dry measures were the medimnos, equal to six hecteis;[624] the hecteus, equal to two hemihecteis; the hemihecton, equal to four chœnices; the chœnix, equal to two xestæ; the xestes, equal to two cotylæ; the cotyla, equal to four oxybapha; the oxybaphon, equal to one cyathos and a half;[625] the cyathos, equal to ten cochlearia.
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]
389. Lord Bacon, whose opinions were chiefly based on the study of antiquity, observes, after Plato and Aristotle, that military nations will always be somewhat inclined to idleness, and should rather be indulged in it than otherwise. Essays, p. 79. But both the Athenians and Romans were a hardworking people, and better soldiers have never been known. The best soldiers in the English army are drawn from the central provinces, where industry most abounds, and the laborious Normans are the best troops in France. Cf. Plut. Ages. § 26.
390. Plut. Lycurg. § 24.
391. Diog. Laert. i. ii. § 53. Plut. Sol. §§ 22. 31. Herod. ii. 177. Pollux. viii. 40. Ælian. Var. Hist. iv. 1.
392. Poll. viii. 40. Plut. Sol. § 17.
393. In Plutarch’s life of Pericles there occurs a very remarkable passage, describing the constant employment and plenty which were diffused through the city by the policy of that great statesman. As for the mechanics and meaner sort of people, they went not without their share of the public money, nor yet received it to maintain them in idleness. By the constructing of great edifices, which require many arts, and a long time to finish them, they had equal pretensions to be recompensed out of the treasury, (though they stirred not from the city,) with the mariners, soldiers, and garrisons. For the different materials, such as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, and cypress, furnished employment to carpenters, masons, braziers, goldsmiths, painters, turners, and other artificers; the conveyance of them by sea employed merchants and sailors, and, by land, wheelwrights, waggoners, carriers, rope-makers, leather-cutters, paviers, and iron-founders; and every art had a number of the lower people ranged in proper subordination to execute it, like soldiers under the command of a general. Thus, by the exercise of these different trades, was plenty diffused among persons of every rank and condition. § 12. Engl. Trans.
394. Aristoph. Ran. 761, ibique Schol. Cf. Meurs. Them. Att. p. 106.
395. Cf. Legg. Att. vi. 6. 426, with Meurs. Gr. Feriat. p. 274, sqq.
396. Cf. Winkelm. Hist. de l’Art, i. 28. Meurs. Gr. Fer. v. Δαίδαλα. p. 74, sqq.
397. Athen. xii. 22.
398. Plut. Sol. § 22.
399. Demosth. cont. Eubul. § 10.
400. Athen. xiii. 94. xv. 34.
401. In the Peloponnesos we find it was the custom for itinerant icthyopolists to carry fish in baskets probably, suspended from both ends of a rough pole (τραχεῖα ἄσιλλα) thrown across the shoulders. This fact is alluded to in an Olympic inscription preserved in part by Aristotle. Rhet. i. 7.
402. Casaub. ad Theoph. Charact. p. 185. On sedentary trades, see Poll. i. 51, and Muret, ad Arist. Eth. p. 63.
403. Demosth. in Eubulid. § 10. The Lydians were said to be the first retail traders. Herod. i. 94. Cf. Huet, Hist. of Commerce, p. 52.
404. Demosth. in Timocrat. § 32. Ulpian ad loc. Arist. Polit. ii. 11. p. 55. Bekk. Petit, Legg. Att. p. 425. Potter, i. 199.
405. Repub. ii. § 11. Stallb. Cf. iii. § 7. In the Laws he states these reasons more strongly, t. viii. p. 110.
406. Repub. iv. 2. Stallb.
407. Cf. Plut. Sol. § 23.
408. The younger Ilgen, for example, has written a clever work, in which he endeavours to prove the existence of a system of castes in Athenian society. He sets out with giving an account of the four ancient tribes, and explains the appellations bestowed on them, viz. Γελέοντες or Τελέοντες, Ἀργαδεῖς, Αἰγικορεῖς and Ὅπλητες, to denote the pursuits in which the members of those tribes were engaged. This done, he draws his conclusion: “Quod si verum est,” says he, “efficitur, Tribus hasce nihil aliud fuisse, quàm ordines variis negotiis distinctos et separatos, quales apud Ægyptos et Indos cognovimus, et quos Lusitano vocabulo Castas appellare solemus. Tale vero institutum num apud Atticos exstiterit, multum à viris doctis est dubitatum. At licet sint, quæ in contrariam sententiam aliquem ducere possint, tamen argumenta, quæ revera Tribus castis orientalibus similes fuisse suadent, tam sunt et multa et gravia, ut non debeat dubitari.” Disquisit. de Trib. Att. p. 8, seq.
409. Harpocrat. in v. Apollod. iii. 15. 1. Bossier, de Gent. et Famil. Att. Sacerd. p. 5, seq.
410. Plut. Alcib. § 34.
411. Plut. Præcept. Conjug. § 42.
412. See the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 111, seq.
413. When, however, they were put out to other masters an agreement, corresponding to our indentures, was drawn up, in which it was stated what they were to be taught. Xenoph. De Vectig. ii. 2. A further resemblance to our own manners is discoverable in the practice of giving premiums with apprentices, even in the case of the medical profession. Plat. Menon. t. iii. p. 369.
414. De Repub. v. c. 14. Stallb.
415. Herod. vi. 60.
416. Muret, in Arist. Ethic. i. p. 63. Plutarch, generally judicious and wise in his remarks, exhibits unequivocal tokens of his Bœotian soul by endeavouring in one part of his writings to class even poetry and sculpture among things disreputable to those who practised them: Ἡ δ᾽ αὐτουργία τῶν ταπεινῶν, τῆς εἰς τὰτὰ καλὰ ῥαθυμὶας μάρτυρα τὸν ἐν τοῖς ἀχρήστοις πόνον παρέχεται καθ᾽ αὑτῆς· καὶ οὐδεὶς εὐφυὴς νέος, ἢ τὸν ἐν Πίσῃ θεασάμενος Δία, γενέσθαι φειδίας ἐπεθύμησεν, ἢ τὴν Ἣραν τὴν ἐν Ἄργει, Πολύκλειτος, οὐδ᾽ Ἀνακρέων, ἢ Φιλήμων, ἢ Ἀρχίλοχος, ἡσθεὶς αὐτῶν τοῖς ποιήμασιν. Οὐ γὰρ ἀναγκαῖον, εἰ τέρπει τὸ ἔργον ὡς χάριεν, ἄξιον σπουδῆς εἶναι τὸν εἰργασμένον. Vit. Pericl. § 2.
417. See the statue of the fisherman, British Museum, Gallery of Antiquities, Room vi. No. 45, and an account of their operation in Pollux. i. 96, sqq. Lucian, with a few strokes, paints the misery of this wretched tribe casting their nets, toiling vigorously and then bringing up a large stone or an earthen pot full of sand, like the poor fisherman in the Arabian Nights. Hermot. § 65. The same author speaks of an old half-blind beggar of ninety, who partly earned his livelihood by the rod and line. Dial. Mort. xxvii. § 9. Persons of this caste were sometimes by poverty reduced to commit sacrilege. Jup. Trag. § 25.
418. Eidyll. xxi. 6, sqq.
419. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 313, conf. ad 361. 862. The transporting of persons to and from Salamis afforded employment to a hardy and skilful race of ferrymen whose operations were judged of sufficient importance to be the subject of a Solonian law: Εάν τὶς τῶν πορθμέων τῶν εἰς Σαλαμῖνα πορθμευόντων ἄκων ἐν τῳ πόρῳ πλοῖον ἀνατρέψῃ, τούτῳ μὴ ἐξείναι πάλιν πορθμεῖ γενέσθαι. Petit, Leg. Att. v. 6. p. 427. Æschin. cont. Ctesiph. § 49. Montaigne speaking of the contradictory customs of different nations, observes àpropos of fares: “Les Romains payoient ce qui estoit deu aux bateliers, pour leur naulage (passage money) dès l’entrée du bateau, ce que nous faisons après estre rendu à port:
(Horat. I. 5. 13, seq.) Essais. t. iii. p. 173. On this passage Coste has the following note: “En Hollande on paye dans le bateau, environ à mi-chemin du lieu où l’on va.” This last regulation, as most persons know, has been adopted by our coast steamers.
420. Athen. i. 49, seq.
421. Cf. Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 79. The president Goguet commiserates the ancients on their extreme ignorance of the useful arts. Orig. des Lois, t. v. p. 174.
422. Goguet, Orig. des Lois, i. 208, seq. 221. iii. 380. Beckman, History of Inventions, i. 227, seq. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 580. Equit. 803.
423. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 924.
424. There were those among the ancients who attributed the invention of mills to the Pelasgian Myles, son of Lelex, probably that they might have a hero from whose name they could conveniently derive the word μυλῶν.—Ἀπ’ αὐτου (τοῦ ἱερου Ποσειδῶνος) προελθόντι ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ Ταΰγετον ὀνομάζουσιν Ἀλεσίας χωρίον, Μύλητα τὸν Λέλεγος πρῶτον ἀνθρώπων μύλην τε εὑρεῖν λέγοντες καὶ ἐν ταῖς Ἀλεσίαις ταύταις ἀλέσαι. Paus. iii. 20. 2. According to Hesychius, (v. Μυλὰς) this hero Myles or Mylas was one of the Telchines: Μυλὰς, εἷς τῶν Τελχίνων, ὃς τὰ ἐν Καμείρῳ ἱερα Μυλαντείων ἱδρύσατο. The tradition attributing to this personage the invention of mills is thus related by Stephanus: Μυλαντία, ἄκρα ἐν Καμίρῳ τῆς Ῥόδου. Μυλάντιοι, θεοί ἐπιμύλιοι. ἀπὸ Μύλαντος ἀμφότερα, τοῦ καὶ πρώτου εὑρόντος ἐν τῷ βίῳ τὴν τοῦ μύλου χρῆσιν. De Urb. et Popul. p. 570, seq. where we see the able and learned notes of Berkelius.
425. Who very commonly sang at their employment. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 1339. Plut. Conviv. Sept. Sap. § 45.
426. Poll. i. 80, informs us, that σιτοποιϊκὸς οἶκος was used by a kind of euphemism for μυλῶν.
427. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 253. Watermills were known in antiquity. Vitruv. x. 10. Dempster on Rosin. i. 14. p. 87. Pignor. de Serv. 248. These mills were, doubtless, called into requisition in time of war, when the soldiers took along with them large quantities of cheese and meal. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 304. The ancients appear to have been partial to small bread, since we find that four or even eight loaves were sometimes made from a chœnix of flour. Schol. Vesp. 440.
428. Cleanthes, the disciple of Zeno, earned his subsistence by drawing water during the night. Suidas, in v. t. i. p. 1467. b.
429. Athen. iv. 65.
430. Lucian. Luc. siv. Asin. § 41. Tim. § 23.
431. Cf. Dioscorid. ii. 107. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 952; and Athen. iii. 83.
432. Plin. xviii. 28. Goguet, i. 211. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 164.
433. Τὸ ἐργαλεῖον ἐν ᾧ τὰ ἄλευρα διεσήθετο, τὸ μὲν ἐκ σχοίνων πλέγμα, κόσκινον· εἰ δὲ τῷ κοσκίνου κύκλῳ ἀντὶ τοῦ σχοίνου λινοῦν τι σινδόνιον εἴη ἐξηρτημένον, ὡς ἀκριβέστερον τὸ ἄλευρον καθαίροιτο, ἀλευρότησις ἐκαλεῖτο· ἡ δὲ ἐξ ἐρίου, κρησέρα. Poll. Onomast. vi. 74.
434. Suid. v. Νοστος. t. i. p. 241. Athen. xiv. 10. Hesych. v. Εὔνοστος. Eustath. ad Il. β. 162. 21. Ad Odys. γ. 754. 50. Etym. Mag. 394. 3. Poll. vii. 180.
435. A fine light bread was made of the three months summer wheat. Dioscor. ii. 107. Others speak of this wheat as requiring four months to come to maturity: Οἱ σιτάνιοι ἄρτοι, ἐκ τῶν σιτανίων πυρῶν, οἵ εἰσιν οἱ τετράμηνοι Poll. vi. 73.
436. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 816.
437. Dioscorid. ii. 119, seq. 113, sqq. Poll. i. 248. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 1057. Herod. ii. 36.
438. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 88.
439. Ἀσοὁδέλος. Id. Hist. Plant. vii. 13. 3. Cf. Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 41. Plin. xxi. 68. In certain countries of the Levant, even dates were converted into a kind of bread. Theoph. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 10.
440. Φάσγανον. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 12. 3. In their fondness for roots the modern Greeks appear to equal their ancestors: “Ce qui a donné lieu au proverbe, qui dit que les Grecs s’engraissent où les ânes meurent de faim: cela est vrai à la lettre, les ânes ne mangent que les feuilles des plantes, et les Grecs emportent jusques à la racine.” Tournefort, t. i. p. 106.
441. Ὀρνιθόγαλον. Dioscor. ii. 174.
442. Μελανθίον. Id. iii. 93.
443. Τριβόλος. Id. iv. 15.
444. Mathée, Notes sur Dioscoride, p. 348.
445. Δρακόντιον. Dioscorid. ii. 196.
446. Id. iv. 65.
447. Athen. iii. 83.
448. Lucian. Demon. §§ 23. 63.
449. Athen. iii. 77. At present Greek bakers are in most request throughout the Levant. Wolf, Mission. Research. p. 12. Antiphanes, too, in his Omphalè celebrates the Athenian bakers. Athen. iii. 78. And Plato in the Gorgias, t. iii. p. 154, commemorates Thearion, who excelled in this art. On ancient bread-bags, Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. 297.
450. Athen. iii. 77.
451. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 660, 666.
452. Cakes of leavened bread were called ζυμίται, those of unleavened bread ἄζυμοι. Poll. vi. 32.
453. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 86.
454. Poll. vi. 75. Tzetz. Chiliad. vii. 770.
455. Athen. iii. 76. Some of these were reckoned so delicate as to create appetite, and to have the power of removing drunkenness, 74. At Athens one of the most thriving departments of the baker’s business must have been supplying the fleets and merchantmen with biscuits, ἄρτοι ναυτικοὶ ξηροὶ, a sample of which we find a sailor presenting to his mistress. Luc. Dial. Meret. xiv. § 2. Cf. Poll. vii. 23. Athen. iii. 74.
456. Athen. iii. 74.
457. Poll. vi. 75. Tzetz. Chiliad. vii. 770.
458. Poll. iii. 41.
459. Athen. xiv. 51, sqq.
460. Athen. xiv. 55.
461. Id. xiv. 57.
462. Ἀμπελίδες ἅς νῦν ἀμπελιῶναςἀμπελιῶνας καλοῦσιν. Poll. vi. 52.
463. Συκαλίδες. Aristot. Hist. Anim. viii. 3. ix. 49.
464. Poll. vi. 77.
465. Athen. xiv. 55.
466. Athen. xiv. 56.
467. Poll. vi. 76.
468. Athen. xiv. 56.
469. Κρεωπώλης. Butchers were also called μαγείροι κρεωδαίτας and κρεουργοὶ. Poll. vii. 25.
470. Athen. xiii. 43.
471. Jason of Pheræ once excited among the Thessalian cities a contention as to which of them should supply the finest ox: Ἐκήρυξε δὲ καὶ νικητήριον χρυσοῦν στέφανον ἔσεσθαι, εἴ τις τῶν πόλεων βοῦν ἡγεμόνα κάλλιστον τῷ θεῷ θρέψειε. Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4. 29.
472. Poll. ix. 48.
473. Athen. xiii. 23. Plut. Dem. § 12 Id. Dion. § 1.
474. Poll. vii. 25. Suid. v. κρεάγρα, t. i. p. 1521, seq.
475. Among the Romans in the good old days of the republic, gentlemen killed their own meat. “Suis enim fundum colit nostrum, quin sues habeat, et qui non audieret patres nostros dicere, ignavum, et sumptuosum esse, qui succidiam in carnario suspenderit potius ab laniario, quam ex domestico fundo?” Varro, De Re Rust. ii. 4. From the same author, (ii. 9,) we learn that ancient, like modern butchers, were fond of being attended by large fierce dogs, which he advises shepherds when in search of a co-guardian for their flocks most especially to eschew.
476. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 359.
477. At the doors of these establishments then were probably, as at Pompeii, holes bored through the stones of the foot pavement, raised considerably above the road, to receive the halters of horses or mules. Hamilton, Discov. at Pomp. p. 12.
478. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 244, seq. Athen. x. 38.
479. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Thesm. 744.
480. Others defrauded their customers by mixing mutton with kid. Schol. Arist. Eq. 1396.
481. Athen. xiii. 43.
482. Athen. iii. 97. Prodic. ap. Xen. Mem. ii. 1. 30.
483. Athen. iii. 97.
484. Σῆμος δὲ ὁ Δήλιος ἐν δευτέρῳ Νησιάδος, ἐν Κιμώλω τῇ νήσω φησὶ ψυχεῖα κατεσκευάσθαι θέρους ὀρυκτὰ, ἔνθα χλιεροῦ ὕδατος πλήρη κεράμια καταθέντες, ὕστερον κομίζονται χιόνος οὐδὲν διάφορα. Athen. iii. 96. These coolers are rendered necessary by the entire lack of springs in the island, whose inhabitants wholly depend for water on what they can preserve in pits and cisterns. Tournefort, t. i. p. 170.
485. But see Beckmann, iii. 327.
486. Aristoph. Av. 799. These flasks were in later times called φλασκία, whence the modern name. Suid. v. πυτίνη, t. ii. p. 672. d. These we find were frequently, as well as baskets, the work of prisoners, who probably thus earned a livelihood. Hesych. v. πυτίνη πλεκτή. Cf. Suid. v. Διΐτρεφης, i. 729. In the cellars of Pompeii, the wine-jars were found ranged along the walls without stoppers, instead of which a little oil was probably poured on the top of the wine, as at present in Italy. Hamilton, Discov. at Pomp. p. 15.
487. Eisenschmid. de Pond. et Mens. Vet. p. 166.
488. Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. p. 133.
489. Vid. Athen. iii. 86.
490. Athen. xi. 47. Cf. iii. 86.
491. Athen. x. 25. Poll. vi. 21.
492. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1005. 878.
493. Conf. Beckmann, Hist. Invent. i. 402. sqq. Dioscor. v. 125.
494.
495. The Greeks gave fanciful names to their wines and their cups; but the English have been still more fanciful in the names of their ales. See Bent. Dissert. on Phalaris, i. pref. xxi.
496. Xen. Hellen. vi. 6. 6. Athen. i. 24.
497. Athen. vii. 9. i. 55. Plut. Alcib. § 12.
498. Athen. i. 55.
499. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 107. Etym. Mag. 683. 30, seq.
500. Il. η. 467, sqq.
501. Poll. vi. 15. x. 72.
502. Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 151; and Thurian. Nub. 331.
503. Suid. v. Καπν. t. i. p. 1370.
504. Dioscor. v. 10.
505. “The district of Cydonia must have been celebrated for its wine in ancient times, for we find on many of its coins a bunch of grapes, or the head of Dionysos. Some of them also exhibit a female head adorned with a chaplet of vine-leaves. I found a beautiful silver coin of Cydonia in the possession of the interpreter of the French Consulate, and the female head seen on its obverse was thus ornamented.” Pashley, Travels in Crete, vol. i. p. 23.