[168] Odyss. vii. 104; xx. 116; Iliad vi. 457; compare the Book of Genesis, ch. xi. 5. The expression of Telemachus, when he is proceeding to hang up the female slaves who had misbehaved, is bitterly contemptuous:—
Μὴ μὲν δὴ καθαρῷ θανάτῳ ἀπὸ θυμὸν ἑλοίμην
Τάων, etc. (Odyss. xxii. 464.)
The humble establishment of Hesiod’s farmer does not possess a mill; he has nothing better than a wooden pestle and mortar for grinding or bruising the corn; both are constructed, and the wood cut from the trees, by his own hand (Opp. Di. 423), though it seems that a professional carpenter (“the servant of Athênê,”) is required to put together the plough (v. 430). The Virgilian poem Moretum, (v. 24,) assigns a hand-mill even to the humblest rural establishment. The instructive article “Corn Mills,” in Beckmann’s Hist. of Inventions (vol. i. p. 227, Eng. transl.), collects all the information available about this subject.
[169] See Lysias, Or. 1, p. 93 (De Cæde Eratosthenis). Plutarch (Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, c. 21, p. 1101),—Παχυσκελὴς ἀλετρὶς πρὸς μύλην κινουμένη,—and Kallimachus, (Hymn. ad Delum, 242,)—μηδ᾽ ὅθι δειλαὶ Δυστοκέες μογέουσιν ἀλετρίδες,—notice the overworked condition of these women.
The “grinding slaves” (ἀλετρίδες) are expressly named in one of the Laws of Ethelbert, king of Kent, and constitute the second class in point of value among the female slaves (Law xi. Thorpe’s Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, vol. i. p. 7).
[170] Odyss. iv. 131; xix. 235.
[171] Odyss. vi. 96; Hymn, ad Dêmêtr. 105.
[172] Herodot. viii. 137.
[173] Odyss. iv. 643.