There was in circulation among the Greeks a small body of precepts, addressed more especially to husbandmen, designed to promote the real object of civilisation. Quaint, no doubt, and ineffably commonplace, they will now appear, but they served, nevertheless, in early and rude times, to soften the manners and regulate the conduct of the rustic Hellenes. Who first began to collect and preserve them is, of course, unknown; they are thickly sprinkled through the works of Hesiod,[[1626]] and impart to them an air of moral dignity which relieves the monotony that would otherwise result from a mere string of agricultural maxims. The chief aim of the poet seems to be, to promote peace and good neighbourhood, to multiply among the inhabitants of the fields occasions of joining the “rough right hand,”[[1627]] to apply the sharp spur to industry, and thus to augment the stores, and, along with them, the contentment, of his native land. Be industrious, exclaims the poet, for famine is the companion of the idle. Labour confers fertility on flocks and herds, and is the parent of opulence. He who toils is beloved by gods[[1628]] and men, while the idle hand is the object of their aversion. The slothful man envies the prosperity of his neighbour; but glory is the reward of virtue. Prudence heaps up that which profligacy dissipates. Be hospitable to the stranger, for he who repels the suppliant from his door is no less guilty than the adulterer, than the despoiler of the orphan, or the wretch who blasphemes his aged parent on the brink of the grave: of such men the end is miserable, when Zeus rains down vengeance upon them in recompense for their evil actions. Be mindful that thou offer up victims to the gods with pure hands and holy thoughts,—to pour libations in their temples, adorn their altars, and render them propitious to thee in all things. When about to ascend thy couch to enjoy sweet sleep, and when the sacred light of the day-spring first appears, omit not to demand of heaven a pure heart and a cheerful mind, with the means of extending thy possessions, and protection from loss. When thou makest a feast, invite thy friends and thy neighbours, and in times of trouble they will run to thy assistance half-clad, while thy relations will tarry to buckle on their girdles. Borrow of thy neighbour, but, in repaying him, exceed rather than fall short of what is his due. Rise betimes. Every little makes a mickle. Store is no sore. Housed corn breaks no sleep. Drink largely the top and the bottom of the jar; be sparing of the middle:[[1629]] it is niggardly to stint your friends when the wine runs low. Do unto others as they do unto you.—These seeds of morality are simple, as I have said, and far from recondite; but they produced the warriors of Marathon and Platæa, and preserved for ages the freedom and the independence of Greece.
The other branches of an Hellenic farmer’s studies comprehended something like the elements of natural philosophy,—the influence of the sun and moon, the rising and setting of the stars, the motion of the winds, the generation and effects of dews, clouds, meteors, showers and tempests, the origin of springs and fountains, and the migrations and habits of birds and other animals. In addition to these things, it was necessary that he should be acquainted with certain practices, prevalent from time immemorial in his country, and, probably, deriving their origin from ages beyond the utmost reach of tradition. The source of these we usually denominate superstition, though it would, perhaps, be more proper to regard them as the offspring of that lively and plastic fancy which gave birth to poetry and art, and inclined its possessors to create a sort of minor religion, based on a praiseworthy principle, but developing itself chiefly in observances almost always minute and trifling, and sometimes ridiculous. To describe all these at length would be beside my present purpose, which only requires that I mention by the way the more remarkable of those connected especially with agriculture.
The knowledge of soil was called into play both in purchasing estates and in appropriating their several parts to different kinds of culture. According to their notions, which appear to have been founded on long experience, and in most points, I believe, agree with those which still prevail, a rich black mould, deep, friable, and porous,[[1630]] which would resist equally the effects of rain and drought, was, for all purposes, the best. Next to this they esteemed a yellow alluvial soil, and that sweet warm ground which best suited vines, corn, and trees. The red earth, also, they highly valued, except for timber.
Their rules for detecting the character and qualities of the soil appear to have been judicious. Good land, they thought, might be known even from its appearance, since in drought it cracks not too much, and during heavy and continued showers becomes not miry, but suffers all the rain to sink into its bosom. That earth they considered inferior which in cold weather becomes baked, and is covered on the surface by a shell-like incrustation. They judged, likewise, of the virtue of the soil by the luxuriant or stunted character of its natural productions:[[1631]] thus they augured favourably of those tracts of country which were covered by vast and lofty timber-trees, while such as produced only a dwarfed vegetation, consisting of meagre bushes, scattered thickets, and hungry grass, they reckoned almost worthless.
Not content with the testimony of the eye, some husbandmen were accustomed to consult both the smell and the taste; for, digging a pit of some depth, they took thence a small quantity of earth, from the odour of which they drew an opinion favourable or otherwise. But to render surety doubly sure, they then threw it into a vase, and poured on it a quantity of potable water, which they afterwards tasted, inferring from the flavour the fertility or barrenness of the soil. This was the experiment most relied on; though many considered that soil sweet which produced the basket-rush, the reed, the lotos, and the bramble. On some occasions they employed another method, which was, to make a small excavation, and then, throwing back the earth into the opening whence it had been drawn, to observe whether or not it filled the whole cavity:[[1632]] if it did so, or left a surplus, the soil was judged to be excellent; if not, they regarded it as of little value. Soils possessing saline qualities were shunned by the ancients, who carefully avoided mingling salt with their manure, though lands of this description were rightly thought to be well adapted to the cultivation of palm-trees,[[1633]] which they produce in the greatest perfection,[[1634]] as in Phœnicia, Egypt, and the country round Babylon.[[1635]]
Another art in which the condition of the husbandman required him to be well versed was that of discovering the signs of latent springs,[[1636]] the existence of which it was necessary to ascertain before laying the foundation of a new farm. The investigation was complicated, and carried on in a variety of ways. First, and most obvious, was the inference drawn from plants and the nature of the soil itself; for those grounds, they thought, were intersected below by veins of water which bore upon their surface certain tribes of grasses and herbs and bushes, as the couch-grass, the broad-leaved plantain, the heliotrope, the red-grass, the agnus-castus, the bramble, the horse-tail, or shave-grass, ivy, bush-calamint, soft and slender reeds,[[1637]] maiden-hair, the melilot, ditch-dock, cinquefoil, or five leaf-grass, broad-leaved bloodwort, the rush, nightshade, mil-foil, colt’s-foot or foal’s-foot, trefoil or pond-weed, and the black thistle. Spring-heads were always supposed to lurk beneath fat and black loam, as, likewise, in a stony soil, especially where the rocks are dark and of a ferruginous colour. But in argillaceous districts, particularly where potter’s-clay abounds, or where there are many pebbles and pumice-stones,[[1638]] they are of rare occurrence.
To the above indications they were in most cases careful to add others. Ascending ere sunrise to a higher level than the spot under examination, they observed by the first rays and before the light thickened, whether they could detect the presence of any exhalations, which were held unerringly to indicate the presence of springs below. Sometimes inquisition was made during the bright and clear noon, when the subterraneous retreats of the Naiads were supposed in summer to be betrayed by cloudlets of thin silvery vapour, and in the winter season by curling threads of steam. In this way the natives of southern Africa discover the existence of hidden fountains in the desert.[[1639]] Swarms of gnats flitting hither and thither, or whirling round and ascending in a column, were regarded as another sign.
When not entirely satisfied by any of the above means, they had recourse to the following experiment:[[1640]] sinking a pit to the depth of about four feet and a half, they took a hemispherical pan or lead basin, and having anointed it with oil, and fastened with wax a long flake of wool to the bottom, placed it inverted in the pit. It was then covered with earth about a foot deep, and left undisturbed during a whole night. On its being taken forth in the morning, if the inside of the vessel were covered thickly with globules, and the wool were dripping wet, it was concluded there were springs beneath, the depth of which they calculated from the scantiness or profusion of the moisture. A similar trial was made with a sponge covered with reeds.
Since most streams and rivers take their rise in lofty table-lands or mountains, which by the ancients were supposed to be richer in springs in proportion to the number of their peaks, it would seem to follow, that scarcely any country in Europe should be better supplied with water than Greece. Experience, however, shows, that this in modern times is not the fact, several rivers supposed to have been of great volume in antiquity, having now dwindled into mere brooks, and innumerable streamlets and fountains become altogether dry; on which account the credit of Greek writers is often impugned, it being supposed that the natural characteristics of the country must necessarily be invariable. But this is an error. For the existence of springs and rivulets depends less perhaps on the presence of mountains than on the prevalence of forests, as Democritos[[1641]] long ago observed. Now, from a variety of causes, still in active operation, the ridges and hills and lower eminences of modern Greece have been almost completely denuded of trees, along with which have necessarily disappeared the well-springs, and runnels, and cascades, and rills, and mountain tarns, which anciently shed beauty and fertility over the face of Hellas, whose highlands were once so densely clad with woods[[1642]] that the peasants requiring a short cut from one valley to another, were compelled to clear themselves a pathway with the axe.[[1643]] To restore to Greece, therefore, its waters, and the beauty and riches depending on them, the mountains must be again forested, and severe restraint put on the wantonness of those vagrant shepherds who constantly expose vast woods to the risk of entire destruction for the sake of procuring more delicate grass for their flocks.[[1644]]
In Attica,[[1645]] both fields and gardens were chiefly irrigated by means of wells which, sometimes, in extremely long and dry summers, failed entirely, thus causing a scarcity of vegetables.[[1646]] The water, we find, was drawn up by precisely the same machinery as is still employed for the purpose. The invention of these conveniences of primary necessity having preceded the birth of tradition, has, by some writers, been attributed to Danaos, who is supposed to have emigrated from Egypt into Greece. Arriving, we are told, at Argos, he, upon the failure of spontaneous fountains, taught the inhabitants to dig wells, in consequence of which he was elected chief. But where was Danaos himself to have learned this art? He is said to have been an Egyptian, and Egypt is a country so entirely without springs, that two only exist within its limits, and of these but one was known to the ancients. Of wells they had none. Danaos could, therefore, if he was an Egyptian, have known nothing of springs or wells; and, if he had such knowledge, he must have come from some other land.[[1647]]