We are told that in Solon’s days an ox was worth five sheep, but probably in later days the difference was greater, for while oxen became scarce, the feeding of sheep and goats must at all times have been a very common employment throughout Greece. Even in the present day, the traveler can see that from a country for the most part Alpine, with steep ravines and cliffs and wild upland pastures, unfit for culture and difficult of access, no other profit could ever be derived. But now, in the day of its desolation, shepherds with their flocks of sheep and goats have invaded many rich districts, once the scene of good and prosperous agriculture.
The old Greek peasant dressed in sheepskins, made clothes of the wool, used the milk for cheese and the lambs for feasting and sacrifice. We hear of no importing of wool into Greece, but find that the Ionian colonies in Asia Minor, such as Miletus and Laodicea, were most celebrated for fine woolen garments, which they made of the wool of the flocks of Mysia and Phrygia. Many districts all over Greece were also famed for their woolen stuffs, so much so that the woolen cloaks of Pallene were given as prizes to victors in some of the local games. Perhaps Arcadia has remained the least changed part of Greece in this and in other respects. Even now the shepherds go up in summer with great flocks to the snowy heights of Cyllene, and live like Swiss peasants in châlets during the hot weather. In winter they come down to the warm pastures of Argos and Corinth, where a tent of skins under an old olive tree affords them sufficient shelter, with a hedged-in inclosure protected by fierce dogs for their flocks. Such inclosures and even stalls are mentioned in Homer.
The price of a sheep at Athens in the fourth century B. C. seems to have varied from ten to twenty drachmæ, its chief value being the quality of the wool. There is nothing very special known about goats, which were kept, as they now are, very much in the same way as sheep, and their hair used for making ropes and coarse stuffs.
In the same way we know little of pigs beyond that their hides were used for rough coats, and that Homer’s heroes were very fond of pork. We hear of large droves being kept in the mountainous parts of Arcadia, Laconia, and Ætolia, where they fed on the acorns in the oak woods. Fowls were not a usual article of diet, and are therefore not prominent in our accounts of Greek property. The cock is spoken of as a Persian bird, the pheasant as a Colchian, and peacocks were an object of curiosity at Athens in Pericles’ day. The culture of bees, on the other hand, was of great importance, as it took the place of the sugar plantations of our day—all sweetmeats being flavored with honey.
It seems certain that the greatest part of the wealth of the Greeks consisted in these out-of-door possessions, which were managed by slave stewards and shepherds for their masters, if they lived in the city. There is reason to think that they neither laid up much money in banks, nor kept any great treasures in the way of changes of raiment, like the Orientals, nor in furniture and works of art, like the Romans and moderns. But owing to the many wars and invasions, this agricultural wealth was precarious, and liable to sudden destruction. House property, again, which in walled towns was pretty safe, is from its own nature perishable. Private wealth therefore was not great on the average, and the splendid monuments of Greek art in its best days were all the result of public spirit, and not of private enterprise or bounty. A fortune of $250,000 in all kinds of property is the extreme limit we know of, and is spoken of much as $250,000,000 would be now-a-days.