[211]. But we cannot on this account characterise the Semites generally by the assertions, ‘The Semites are in general a pastoral people,’ ‘the Semites live in tents,’ as Friedrich von Hellwald does in his Culturgeschichte in ihrer natürlichen Entwickelung, p. 134. A glance at the sedentary Phenicians and the settled Semites of Mesopotamia shows at once the important exceptions. It must also not be overlooked that agriculture was in practice to no small extent among the Phenicians; even the Romans call a kind of threshing machine, the ‘Punic:’ Varro, De re rustica, I. 52; cf. Lowth, De sacra poesi Hebraeorum, Oxford 1821, Prael. VII. p. 62. The commerce with Egypt, which von Hellwald brings into prominence, is no sufficient reason why the favourite characterisation of the Semites does not apply to these nations. The Hebrews continued their nomadic life for a long time after they had made intimate acquaintance with Egypt; and the nomadic Arabs were not materially influenced by communication with sedentary nations.
[212]. Given by Josephus Langius, Florilegii magni seu Polyantheae ... libri XXIII., Lugduni 1681, I. 120, as by Aristophanes; but the author and the translator have searched the works and fragments of Aristophanes in vain.
[213]. Ovid also begins with the life of the fields; his golden age is distinguished from the others only in this, that:
Ipsa quoque immunis, rastroque intacta, nec ullis
Saucia vomeribus, per se dabat omnia tellus;
and
Mox etiam fruges tellus inarata ferebat:
Nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis.
(Metamorph. I. 101–2, 109–10.)
[214]. History of Herodotus, tr. G. Rawlinson, IV. c. 46, note 5.