Theocritus (Idyll. vii. 12-20.) describes a goatherd of Cydon in Crete, named Lycidas; and from the account which he gives of his attire, we may judge of that commonly used in ancient Greece by the same description of persons. He wore on his shoulders the dun-colored hide of a shaggy goat, and an old shawl was fastened about his breast with a broad girdle. In his right hand he held a crook of wild olive.
The same author (Idyll. iii. 5.) mentions a fine strong he-goat, which was brought from Lybia to Sicily. The design of its transportation was, no doubt, to improve the breed. Probably Chromis, the Lybian (Idyll. i. 24.), who resided in Sicily, had migrated there to undertake the management of goats and to improve their quality.
Maximus Tyrius (Diss. xxvii.) seems to suppose, that a flock of goats could not even exist without the music of the syrinx. “If you take away,” says he, “the goatherd and his syrinx, you dissolve the flock of goats; in like manner, if you take away reason from the society of men, thus depriving them of their leader and guide, you destroy the flock, which by nature is tame, but may be injured by a bad superintendence.”
The he-goat was employed to lead the flock as the ram was among sheep. The following passages of scripture allude to this custom. “Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he-goats before the flocks.” Jer. l. 8. “Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I punished the goats.” Zech. x. 3. In Proverbs xxx. 31., according to the Septuagint version, we read of “the goat which leads the flock.” Julius Pollux (Lib. i. cap. 12. sect. 19.) says, that “The he-goat leads the goats[375].”
[375] See also Ælian, Hist. Anim. vi. 42. and Pausanias, ix. 13. 4.
On a cameo in the Florentine Museum there is a representation of an ancient goatherd[376]. The goatherd holds the syrinx in his left hand, and a young kid in his right. A goat stands beside him, and his dog appears partially concealed within a kennel formed in the rock, upon which the goatherd is seated. The herdsman is represented sitting under an aged ilex. At least this supposition accords with the language of Tibullus already quoted.
[376] Mus. Florentinum. Gemmæ antiquæ a Gorio illustratæ. tab. xc. No. 7.
A modern authoress, who spent some of the summer months in the year 1819 among the mountains east of Rome, notices goats in the following terms as part of the stock of the farmers in that country.
“We frequently walked to one of these little farms, to meet the goats coming in at night from the mountain. As the flock crowded down the broken road leading to the fold, followed by their grotesque-looking shepherd and his rough dogs, the pet-kids crowding round their master and answering to his call, we could not help thinking of the antique manners described by the poets, and represented in the pictures of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
“The goats are the most useful domestic animals. Here no other cheese or milk is tasted. Besides, the ricotta, a kind of curd, and junkets, are made of goats’-milk, and, with bread serve many of the country people for food[377].”