[60:] Thuc., vii. 27, 5.
[61:] Suet., Ner. 30.
XVII.—AGRICULTURE.
(Wall-Case 52.)
Farming, the rearing of live stock, the cultivation of corn, vines and olives were practised by the earliest civilisations of the Aegean, and of Greece.
The use of the plough was also known at that distant period. In this Case are shown three bronze ploughshares (No. 512), which belong to the Mycenaean Age, and were found in Cyprus. A plough in its most primitive form was merely the trunk of a tree which served as the pole, with two branches on opposite sides, one forming the share, the other the handle. This was the plough in one piece spoken of by Hesiod. The Mycenaean ploughshare belongs to a later development, when the plough is made up of several parts, the "joined plough" of Homer and Hesiod. Such is the plough seen in the very primitive bronze group (No. 513), where it is in the act of being turned at the end of the furrow. To effect the turning the two oxen are pulling the yoke in opposite directions. A black-figured vase of the sixth century, here exhibited (No. 514), shows the later plough in a simple form, which has changed but little for many centuries, as may still be observed in the East. The different parts can be seen more clearly from a bronze votive plough of the third century B.C. at Florence (fig. 209). It is made up of (1) a horizontal share-beam, to which is fastened the iron share, (2) a pole, at the end of which is the yoke, (3) the vertical handle. This type of plough is exactly described by Virgil in the Georgics.[62]
Fig. 209.—Bronze Votive Plough.
Fig. 210.—Wine being Decocted (No. 518). L. 1 ft. 9 in.