We have examined the condition of the poor at Athens, and shall now consider how far the laws of the state interfered to better their circumstances by promoting industry, and rendering it honourable. Among the Spartans, idleness, the vice of soldiers,^[389] was regarded as a proof of rank; whence the remark of that disciple of Lycurgus, who, being present at Athens during a trial for this offence, fatal to a democracy, observed, that they punished the man for being a gentleman.^[390] Solon, however, entertained little respect for this mark of gentility. According to his laws, of which the whole design was to create and preserve that feeling of manliness bestowed by the consciousness of independence, the individual, who, possessing no property, refused to labour, was a bad citizen, against whom any one might bring an action of idleness.^[391] Draco, the most Utopian and savage of legislators, punished vagabondage with death, or, according to some, with infamy only. But Solon, who would not require too much of human nature, reserved this latter penalty for those who should be thrice convicted.^[392]

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]

From this, and other circumstances, it would appear, that there were annual exhibitions of works of art and industry, in principle like our cattle-shows, when a careful scrutiny of every improvement and invention took place, and the premium above described was awarded to the most ingenious. It is very certain that an assembly of the trades, more particularly of the bright-smiths, took place, on the thirtieth of Pyanepsion, in honour of Hephæstos, or Athena, when the festival of Pandemon, or Chalkeia, was celebrated; and the conjecture of Petit^[395] is not improbable, that δεῖξις, or exhibition, then took place. It was, perhaps, on the same occasion, that the Athenian potters exhibited their most beautiful works and models.^[396] At Sybaris, the author of any invention in the art of cookery enjoyed by patent, during the whole year, a monopoly of the article; and in the same city, the dyers and importers of purple, as well as those who caught and sold eels, were exempted from all taxes and imposts.^[397]

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 to a man. Thus, an Athenian citizen could not legally be a perfumer, that effeminate vocation being left to the women.^[400] Fishmongers, too, with butchers, cooks, sausage-sellers, fishermen, were held in low estimation both at Rome and Athens. Of all these Attic pariahs, however, the poor wretch who hawked fish,^[401] and was contemptuously said to wipe his nose in his sleeve, or with his elbow, engrossed the largest share of public scorn. To these we may add bird-catchers, and fruit-sellers, and those low black-legs who subsisted on gambling.^[402]

As an encouragement to the citizens to addict themselves to industrious pursuits, foreigners, and all persons not free of the city, were legally incapacitated from carrying on business in the agora;^[403] but this came in later times to be disregarded, since we find Egyptians, Phœnicians, and other aliens, possessing shops, and growing rich there. It was conceived, moreover, that, if men confined themselves to one calling, they would arrive therein at greater excellence; and the law, accordingly, forbade them to be of two trades.^[404] Plato, whose ideal republic was modelled in so many particulars on that of Athens, adopted this law; and for the reason I have stated; comprehending thoroughly what advantages arise from the division of labour. He would not, he says, have the cordwainer meddle with husbandry, weaving, or architecture, that he might carry shoemaking to as great perfection as possible; and, in other branches of industry, men were in like manner to cultivate that only for which nature had fitted them, and wherein they might thus excel.^[405] The same philosopher, while on the subject of industry, makes a remark worthy of consideration: It is not, he says, for the interest of the community, that men engaged in any branch of the arts should be so rich as to be independent of their business or profession, which, in such case, they will be apt to neglect; or so poor as to be harassed in mind, or cramped in the means of carrying on their occupations satisfactorily. In these things, as in every other, a comfortable competence is to be preferred to the extremes both of wealth and poverty.^[406]

Another means of carrying the various arts towards perfection, which in India and Egypt prevailed from time immemorial, is supposed to have been a practice, whether founded on law or custom, resembling the system of castes.^[407] Theories, not destitute of ingenuity, have been constructed on this view of Athenian society.^[408] Thus, the Dædali are supposed to have formed the sculptor caste; the Eupyridæ a caste of husbandmen; the Boutadæ of herdsmen; the Ceryces of heralds; the Hephœstiadæ of blacksmiths; the Poimenidæ of shepherds, and so on. Vestiges of this curious state of things are supposed to be discernible in the history of Attica, even so late as the age of Pericles, when we find Socrates a member of the Dædalian clan, by profession a sculptor. There were certainly in religious matters hereditary offices, which none could with propriety fill but the members of a certain family or clan. Thus, from among the Eteobutadæ was chosen the priestess of Athena Polias, who resided in the temple on the Acropolis; and the priest of Poseidon was drawn by lot from the same house.^[409] To the Praxiergidæ were entrusted certain duties about the statue of Athena during the Plynterian festival.^[410] The descendants of Buzyges performed those sacred ceremonies which thrice a year attended the ploughing of the soil;^[411] to mention for the present no more.

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.

At Sparta, the heralds, cooks, and flute-players, constituted so many small castes, in which the profession passed down regularly from father to son. Of the absurdity of this practice Herodotus was fully sensible, for he observes, that a man was chosen to be a herald not for the loudness of his voice, but because he was a herald’s son.^[415] Upon the whole, however, the practice was no more general among the Greeks than it is in England. When it became fashionable to ape gentility, rustic hinds, like Strepsiades in the “Clouds,” found their sons ashamed of the humble callings by which their childhood had been supported; a passion for aristocratic distinction infested the bosom of the vulgar; all desired to appear what they were not; and, despite the wise institutions of Solon, handicraftsmen and artificers sunk into hopeless contempt.^[416] For this reason most trades by degrees were exercised by foreigners, who frequently acquired wealth and independence.

Notwithstanding this result, however, at which they arrived but slowly, both manufactures and every other branch of industry were in Greece, and at Athens more particularly, carried to a very high pitch of perfection. Even in the very lowest trades the love of gain, or the necessity of somehow earning a subsistence, led men to persevere. For example, in the occupation of a common fisherman, from which little beyond penury could be hoped for, and which impressed upon the countenance that sordid aspect so successfully represented by Hellenic art,^[417] there were always numbers ready to engage. And yet consider in Theocritus^[418] their wretched life, sleeping in their weather-beaten hut on the bleak shore, amid heaps of nets, piscatory baskets, lines, &c., and there dreaming, as indigence often does, of discovered treasures and ingots of gold. The patient endurance of the hungry fishers, seated far above the water on steep rocks, watching the entrance of the huge prey into their nets, appears to have been proverbial.^[419]

In the superior trades and manufactures there was among several cities an emulation, the result of which was to produce constant improvement. Athens, for example, which excelled in pottery, had rivals in Aulis, Rhodes, Megara, Corinth, Cnidos, and several other cities; Sicily and Bœotia were famous for their chariots; Argos for the manufacture of arms; Thessaly for its easy chairs; Chios and Miletos for their beds; Etruria for its gold-plate and works in bronze.^[420]

It is to be regretted that into the practice of the several trades and useful arts we can see but a very little way. In order, however, to render our idea of Hellenic civilisation as complete as possible, I shall here bring together as many particulars as I have been able to discover on this subject, commencing with those trades which were of primary necessity.^[421] Of these, that of the miller may doubtless be regarded as of the first importance. In very early ages men understood not the art of reducing corn into meal; but either roasted the unripe ears upon the fire, or parched the separated grains in small fryingpans.^[422] In process of time, however, the pestle and mortar were invented, by means of which,^[423] though at a great expense of labour, flour of the finest possible quality could be obtained. To these succeeded the handmill, an invention of very remote ages,^[424] which, notwithstanding, continued in use down to the days of Cicero. This machine, both in Greece and Italy, was at first commonly worked by women,^[425] more especially by female slaves. But afterward the rudest and worst conducted of the male domestics were condemned to this severe toil, which at length grew to be regarded in the light of a punishment,^[426] as working at the treadmill with us. Among the wealthy, each master of a family possessed his own mill; but as civilisation advanced, the grinding of corn constituted a separate occupation, and the trade of the miller was established. Public mills^[427] were common at Athens in the time of Socrates, and it does not appear to have been unusual for strong and sturdy men of free condition to labour for hire in these establishments.

Thus we find that the philosophers Menedemos and Asclepiades, when young and poor, earned their subsistence, and were enabled to pursue the study of philosophy, by working at night in a mill.^[428] As few persons knew this circumstance, and they were observed all day among the learned in the schools, some one brought against them an accusation of idleness, for which they were cited before the senate of Areopagos. In order to prove that they gained their livelihood in an honest way, the miller for whom they worked was brought forward. His testimony confirmed their statement; and he added, moreover, that he paid to each of them two drachmas per night. The Areopagites were so pleased with this proof of their industry and passion for philosophy, that, on pronouncing their acquittal, they at the same time made them a present of two hundred drachmas.^[429] But these mills were not always put in motion by the hand of man. Yoked to beams projecting from the upper millstone, oxen and asses, moving about in a circle, blindfold, as at present, when similarly employed, sometimes turned the mill instead of slaves.^[430] Upon the construction of these machines little exact information was possessed before the laying open of the ruins of Pompeii, where, in a baker’s shop, four mills, still almost perfect, have been discovered. They consist of a round stone basement with a rim, from the centre of which springs a blunt cone: this is the nether millstone. The upper one consists of an imperfect cylinder, hollowed out within, like an hour-glass, one part of which fits like a cap upon the cone below, while the other expands its bell-mouth above. Into this the corn was poured, and, descending through four small apertures upon the nether stone, was, by the turning round of the upper one thereon, reduced to meal, which passed gradually down, fining as it went, and fell out upon the stone basement below. The corn having been ground, the next operation was, to sever the flour from the bran, though sometimes bread was made from it in the rough,^[431] and regarded, moreover, as extremely wholesome. First, and most simple of these contrivances, was the sieve,^[432] made with slender rushes, which separated the coarse bran and produced a meal sufficiently cleansed for household bread. A much superior sieve was manufactured with linen threads, by which the flour was bolted to a great degree of fineness. When it was required of still superior purity and whiteness, the bolter would seem to have been bottomed with threads of woollen, which, being woven close, allowed nothing but particles of the utmost tenuity to pass.^[433] All the above operations were supposed to be placed under the superintendence of a particular deity named Eunostos,^[434] of whom no mention, I believe, is made in modern systems of mythology.

The ancients employed in the making of bread a great many kinds of grain besides wheat^[435] and barley;^[436] as rye, millet, which was little nourishing, panic, which was still less so,^[437] sesame, olyra, spelt, rice, tiphe, and a sort of grain from Ethiopia, called orindion. Several other substances were likewise used for the same purpose, not for the sake of adulteration, but either to improve the taste, or from reasons of economy; such as the root of the lotos,^[438] and, perhaps, of the day-lily^[439] dried, and reduced, like wheat itself, to flour; and the root of the corn-flag,^[440] which was previously boiled, and, for the sake of communicating a sweet taste to the bread, would appear to have been mixed with the dough as the meal of the potato is in modern times. This plant grew most plentifully in grounds frequented by the mole, which loved to feed upon it. Another ingredient often mixed with bread was, the pulpy seed of the Star of Bethlehem,^[441] of which the root likewise was eaten, both raw and cooked.

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 and Germany among us, enjoyed considerable celebrity, as did likewise the Cappadocians and Phœnicians, the art of the last having been able, it is said, to vary the qualities of the loaf every day in the year.^[450]

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 and describe, since fashion appears to have been constantly varying the materials, the forms, and the appellations, of loaves. Upon the whole, however, the bread sold in the market-place of Athens was esteemed the whitest and most delicious in Greece; for the Rhodians, speaking partially of the produce of their own ovens, supposed they were bestowing on it the highest compliment when they said it was not inferior to that of Athens.^[456] The dimensions of loaves depended, of course, on the object of the baker, and varied from those of the smallest roll, prepared for people of delicate appetites, to those of the enormous obeliæ, sometimes containing upwards of three bushels of flour, borne in procession at the festival of Dionysos.^[457]

The business of the confectioner was in scarcely less request, or less profitable, than that of the baker himself. In most cases, perhaps, the finer kinds of pastry were made by women,^[458] whose taste and skill enabled them to gratify the lovers of delicacies with an infinite variety of sweetmeats. The vocabulary connected with this division of the art culinary is singularly rich, but, in many cases, conveys to our minds very little precise information. It may be inferred, however, with something like certainty, that the stock of an Athenian confectioner contained most of those delicious trifles now to be found in the establishments of their successors in London or Paris. It will, consequently, be impossible to enumerate them, or to specify the several ingredients which entered into their composition. It has already, I believe, been observed, in speaking of wine, that the ancients were exceedingly partial to sweets, which, in the making of their confectionary, led them to the constant employment of honey. Most of their favourite cakes contained some portion of this ingredient,^[459] sometimes, indeed, found in company with other articles apparently little calculated to combine with it. Wine, too, and cheese, and milk, and seeds, and the juices of vegetables, entered into the composition of various sweetmeats, which were occasionally made to keep long, as when intended for exportation; occasionally to be consumed at the moment, as they issued hot from the oven or the fryingpan. To this latter class belonged those delicate pancakes, the paste of which was poured liquid into the fryingpan, then flooded atop with fresh honey, and sprinkled with sesame and grated cheese.^[460] The taste for the catillus ornatus the Greeks appear to have borrowed from the Romans. This was a rich cake, composed of fine flour, kneaded with lard and the juice of lettuces, pounded in a mortar with wine, seasoned with pepper, and fried in boiling oil.^[461] Among their pastry was a sort of pie made of vine-birds^[462] and beccaficoes,^[463] the undercrust of which, kneaded with honey, was sometimes moistened at table in chicken-broth.^[464]

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 would seem to have been extremely well furnished, containing every variety of meat, from the chine of a prize ox,^[471] to the hind quarter of an ass.^[472] Sheep’s and kids’ heads were commonly sought to be rendered more attractive by having a branch of myrtle stuck between the teeth, whence one of the hetairæ was compared to a goat’s head, because she often walked the street with a sprig of myrtle in her mouth.^[473] The information which antiquity has left us respecting butchers’ shops and implements is extremely imperfect. We are told simply, that they had chopping-blocks and cleavers, large axes with which animals were felled in the slaughter-houses, flaying knives, hooks whereon to suspend and display their stock, with scales for weighing meat.^[474] A very curious anecdote is related of a Milesian butcher: there was a man named Killicon, who betrayed his native city Miletos, to the Prienians. Among his countrymen, who on this occasion became fugitives, was a butcher. This man fled to Samos, where he carried on his old business.^[475] Some time after Killicon himself came to that island, and going into the market to buy provisions, by chance addressed himself to the Milesian butcher, whose name was Theagenes. The man remembered the traitor, and when he would have bought of him a piece of meat, desired Killicon to lay hold of the part he wanted, while he severed it from the carcase; then taking up an axe he smote off his hand, saying, “With that hand, at least, you shall never again betray your country.”^[476]

The vintners and tavern-keepers, who were tolerably numerous in Greece,^[477] appear to have acquired much the same reputation as they enjoy in modern times. It was regarded as a matter of some difficulty to discover a jar of pure wine beneath their roofs; and, indeed, the honest vine-growers of the country are accused of having understood the art of making Bacchos acquainted with the nymphs on his way to the city. In other words they sold from their waggons in the Agora^[478] a certain quantity of the Ilissos, mingled with the juice of the grape. The tavern-keepers, however, stood in very little need of their assistance, since they were not merely adepts in watering and doctoring their wines, but were skilful at giving short measure;^[479] and yet understood various contrivances for alluring people to their houses. Thus one of them, for example, used to present a club that dined at his tavern with a kid,^[480] reckoning upon paying himself by the profits of the wine.^[481] However, when an opulent and delicate company honoured them with their presence, they could, doubtless, supply wines of the finest flavour; and to render them still more delicious, they were accustomed in summer to plunge the flagons into snow,^[482] or, occasionally, to mingle it with the wine, as is still the fashion at Naples and in Sicily. Taverns, therefore, were furnished with ice-cellars, where snow could be kept during the hottest weather. Alexander^[483] found means of carrying along with him a quantity of this article of luxury into India, where he probably treated Taxilos and Poros with iced wines. This achievement was imitated many ages after by the Khalif Mahadi, who on his pilgrimage to Mecca traversed the desert accompanied by a numerous train of camels laden with ice and snow, the first, according to Oriental historians, ever beheld in the Holy Cities. In the island of Cimolos, people made use, as coolers, of deep pits, in which jars of soft and tepid water,^[484] and, doubtless, wine also, were refrigerated.^[485]

The wine was laid up in jars, skins, and flasks, which, like the oil-flasks of Florence and Lucca, were cased with fine basket-work.^[486] The measures in use were numerous, and somewhat difficult to be reduced with exactness to those of modern times: the metretes (ten gallons two pints) contained twelve choes; the chous (about six pints) six xestæ; the xestes (one pint) two cotylæ; the cotyla (half-pint) two tetarti; the tetarton (one quartern) two oxybapha; the oxybaphon, one cyathus and a-half; the cyathus, two conchæ; the concha, two mystra; the mystron, one chema and a-half; the chema, two cochlearia.^[487]

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 of lime and gypsum. To check the progress of the second fermentation, they were sometimes in the habit of casting a pumice-stone into the jar;^[493] but where wine was so cheap, there was little temptation to have recourse to any other art than that of watering a little, which, according to the comic poet, might proceed from a benevolent desire to keep men sober and preserve their health.^[494]

The stock of a respectable wine-merchant must have been peculiarly rich and varied,^[495] consisting of the Anthosmias, a wine of delicious fragrance; the Lesbian,^[496] a favourite wine of Alcibiades;^[497] the Pramnian,^[498] a strong rough wine, celebrated by Homer;^[499] the Lemnian, quaffed by the heroes before Troy;^[500] the Chian, light and delicate;^[501] the Kapnian, from Beneventum in Italy,^[502] a sharp red wine which made the eyes water like smoke;^[503] the Mesogeites, from Mount Tmolos,^[504] which, however delicious might be its taste, gave those who drank it the head-ache; the Phygelites, from Ephesos, equal to that of Lesbos; those of Cos and Clazomenè, pleasant when new, but which would not keep because mixed with sea-water; the Cydonian;^[505] the Maronæan,^[506] of great strength; the Mendæan;^[507] the Mareotic;^[508] the Port; and the Thasian, which may be regarded as the flower of the whole for excellence and celebrity.^[509]

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 mead or metheglin,^[514] and hydromel^[515] and omphacomel,^[516] with perry and cider,^[517] and palm-wine^[518] and fig-wine^[519] and quince-wine^[520] and lotos^[521] and pomegranate-wine.^[522]

Numerous odoriferous plants were likewise employed in communicating a variety of flavours and fragrance to wine, as the rose,^[523] thyme,^[524] germander,^[525] anis,^[526] œnanthe,^[527] wormwood,^[528] betony,^[529] southern-wood,^[530] squills,^[531] myrtle,^[532] mastic,^[533] terebinth,^[534] sycamore,^[535] fir-cones,^[536] cedar-cones,^[537] cypress-cones,^[538] juniper-berries,^[539] pitch, and larchtree-cones.^[540] Almost every other aromatic plant, shrub, and tree, was in like manner, employed to communicate a flavour, or an odour, to wine, chiefly, however, for medicinal purposes; and among these was the hyssop, whose leaves were used in the following manner: a pound of them, having been well bruised, were tied up in a sort of gauze, and by the weight of a few intermingled pebbles sunk to the bottom of the amphora. Here they were permitted to remain forty days, after which the wine was racked.^[541] Of these wines that which was tinctured with rose-leaves was commonly drunk after dinner to promote digestion.^[542] That which, about the Propontis and Thrace, was flavoured with wormwood, people destined for their summer drink, considering it favourable to health.^[543]

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 so ignorant of its nature, that when the Ten Thousand met with a quantity in Armenia they diluted it with water as they were accustomed to do their wine, that is to say, entirely spoiled it.^[549] The establishments of these vintners were almost of necessity most frequent in the neighbourhood of the agora,^[550] where the rustics from the country congregated in crowds on market-days; where were held also, on many occasions, the public assemblies; and where newsmongers and loungers of every description most generally passed their leisure hours.

Making due allowance for difference of dimensions, and their greater or less magnificence, the same description will apply to the agoræ of all Grecian cities. But, as we are best acquainted with the features of that of Athens, if we can succeed in delineating a tolerably correct picture of it, some idea may, therefrom, be easily formed of all the others. We must imagine, therefore, a large circular open space,^[551] about the centre of the city, surrounded on all sides by ranges of shops, temples, porticoes, and other public buildings.^[552] It was traversed in various directions by avenues of plane-trees, planted shortly after the Persian war, which in summer constituted so many shady walks. About the middle stood the altars of Pity and the Twelve Gods, in a circle,^[553] and near them were the statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton,^[554] the tyrannicides, whose memory was cherished by the republic with the most religious veneration. By far the greater part of the space, however, was covered by rows of sheds, booths, and tents, furnished with seats^[555] (the construction of which formed a separate branch of industry),^[556] where every article of use or luxury known to the ancient world was exhibited with the utmost attention to display. Here were the embroidered veils, and shawls, and mantles, and sandals, of the mercer’s quarter;^[557] there the chains of gold, the armlets, the anklets, the jewelled circlets for the head, the golden grasshoppers, the seals, the rings, the agraffes, the brooches, the cameos, and every description of engraved gems which constituted the attractions of the jewellers’ quarter. Here were waggons piled with jars, and skins filled with wine; there huge pyramids of apples and pears, and quinces and pomegranates, and dates and plums, and cherries and mulberries, black and white, and grape-clusters of every hue, and oranges and citrons, and rich purple figs, and melons and water-melons.^[558]

Touching upon these booths were the stalls of the green-grocers, of Eucharides^[559] for example, where every vegetable produced in the kitchen-garden and the fields met the eye in profusion; among which were truffles of all kinds,^[560] with the roots of the caraway^[561] and jagged lettuce, which were eaten like those of the Egyptian bean^[562] and the papyrus,^[563] radishes,^[564] long and round, bunches of turnips,^[565] asparagus, broccoli,^[566] heads of garlic, and summer savory, for the poor, all kinds of beans and pease, the vervain^[567] for purification and amulets, wild myrtle sprigs instead of asparagus,^[568] shoots of the black briony,^[569] chokeweed to be boiled with vegetables for rendering them tender, tufts of the wild fig-tree, which performed the same service for beef,^[570] goats-beard, clematis for seasoning,^[571] with bunches of elm-leaves commonly used as a vegetable.^[572] Next to these, were, perhaps, the stands of the flower-sellers,^[573] where garlands of the richest colours and fragrance were ready wreathed for the brow,^[574] some produced by careful culture in gardens, and others gathered where they grew wild by the women, who in time of peace spread themselves in troops over the whole country for this purpose.^[575] In one corner were droves of horses, asses, and mules,^[576] ready to have their teeth inspected by the buyers,^[577] or groups of youthful slaves from all quarters of the world. In another, near a lofty poplar,^[578] stood the auction-mart where goods of every description,^[579] including even libraries,^[580] were knocked down by the hammer. Close at hand, perhaps, stood the tempting booths of the chapmen who purveyed for the kitchen of the Athenians with hams, and sausages, and black-puddings,^[581] and pickles, and cheese, and preserved fruits, and spices, from the farthest east. Here were the sellers^[582] of salt-meat and fish from the Black Sea,^[583] there the toy-shops and upholsterers, while ever and anon the crowds that thronged the passages were compelled to make way for a string of asses^[584] laden with vegetables or wood from Parnes or Cithæron, with the ends sticking out on both sides and threatening the eyes of the buyers. Sometimes a porter,^[585] with a wooden knot on his shoulders, bore along, like Protagoras, a load of faggots, the size of which astonished the beholders. At times, near the corner of the street leading from the Eleusinian Gate, you saw a half-starved Megarean^[586] sneaking through the crowd and bringing along with him sucking pigs, and leverets, and cucumbers, and salt-fish, and garlic,^[587] which if observed by the agoranomoi were, during wartime, seized as contraband. On the other hand the broad-faced jolly Bœotian^[588] came smirking and grinning, like a Neapolitan, with mule-loads of wild marjoram, pennyroyal, eaten by sheep, mats, lampwicks, fowls,^[589] ducks, locusts, jackdaws, francolins,^[590] coots, divers, geese, hares, foxes, moles, hedgehogs, cats, pyctides, otters, and eels, from Lake Copaïs. Here in rows stood, black as chimney-sweeps, the charcoal-sellers from Acharnæ, with their mallequins and rush-baskets full piled before them.^[591] Yonder were the cornchandlers,^[592] surrounded by piles of sacks, measuring their grain, while a horde of ragged spermologoi^[593] hovered round to collect what fell. Close at hand stood the flour-merchants, each beside his huge covered wooden trough,^[594] from which he measured forth flour or barley-meal to the buyers. Beyond these were the stalls of the fishmongers,^[595] the flambeau-sellers^[596] and the shining jars of the oil-merchants, piled in heaps to the roof of the booths. In other rows were the shops of the potters,^[597] where every variety of jugs, vases, and tureens, was exhibited with vessels of glass, and bronze, and ivory. Here and there, threading their way through the multitude, you beheld the pedlar^[598] with his pack of small-wares, the hawker crying his fish or fruit,^[599] or vegetables, or sausages, or wild-fowl, laid out on a board on his head; the female bread-seller, with a variety of delicate loaves and cakes piled up before her on a tray; the pastry-girl with sweetmeats; the flower-girl with nosegays of fresh violets from the meadows of Colonos and the banks of the Eridanos and Cephissos. Sheltered from the warm rays of the sun, beneath some magnificent marble colonnade, or the portico of some temple or chapel, sat whole bevies of female flute-players, citharists, or dancing-girls,^[600] calling forth, from time to time, whilst waiting to be hired for a party, bursts of music from their instruments, or humming a war-song, or a Palladian hymn, or a merry scholion, the favourite ditties of the Athenian people. Near these, as being folks of the same kidney, the jugglers, cooks, and parasites,^[601] took up their position; the former two ready to be hired for the day by the giver of some magnificent entertainment, the latter that they might discover in what direction they were to ply their craft and ferret out a dinner scotfree. Near the Eurysaceum in this neighbourhood stood that eminence called the Hill of the Agora,^[602] or Misthios, because servants, in lack of a master, collected there to be hired, as they still do at fairs in most parts of England. Somewhere close at hand were the shops of those brokers who let out pots and pans, and lamps and plate, and the more delicate kind of crockery, to such persons as were too economical to keep such articles of their own.^[603] In the midst of this profusion of wares might be seen, at all hours of the day, crowds of well-dressed persons^[604] sauntering to and fro, chatting with each other, cheapening the goods of the shopkeepers, or laughing and jesting with the flower-girls or fluteplayers. At other times individuals, by no means deserving the name of loiterers, came thither, either to post up a bill^[605] of some article which they had found, or in quest of some information respecting one they had lost, either from such bills or from the public criers who were there accustomed to make proclamation of treasure trove, or to cry that such or such an article of property had strayed from its lawful owner. Occasionally also people made known by criers what goods they had for sale.^[606] The young men of rank, when fatigued by these promenades, used to retire into a perfumer’s or barber’s or armourer’s or bridle-maker’s shop,^[607] overlooking the bustling scene, where they discussed nonsense or politics, according to their humour. Hither, too, the philosophers came with a view to inspire patriotic and manly sentiments into the minds of these future rulers of the democracy; so that at one period you might have beheld Socrates and Alcibiades and Critias, and Chæriphon and Crito, with Charmides and the divine Plato, engaged in those animated dialogues, the echo of which still rings sweetly in the ears of posterity. In some shops opposite these, as if with a view to rival or eclipse them, or round one of the umbrellas,^[608] beneath which, on an elevated platform, the perfumers dispensed their wares in the agora, stood a group of sophists with their followers, such as Hippias of Elis, Prodicos of Cos, or the Agrigentine Polos, or Gorgias of Leontium, habited in purple robes, embroidered vests, flowered sandals, and with glittering crowns of gold upon their heads. Even their florid discourses, however, would fail to command the attention of their auditors when the youth of equestrian rank,^[609] mounted on their chargers and drawn up in military array, swept round the outer circle of the agora, paying devout homage to each divinity whose fane they passed. Here also in a future age might be seen, strutting to and fro, the orator Æschines with his arms akimbo and a fashionable little hat^[610] stuck knowingly on one side of his head, railing at Demosthenes, and pleading the cause of Philip. And here, too, the night after the fall of Elatea, a very different scene was witnessed when the citizens from every side of the Cecropian rock rushed tumultuously hither in the wildest alarm, and either not reflecting on what they did, or through ill-judged haste, set fire to the sheds and booths in order that they might find a clear space to deliberate on the public safety.