[1771]. Geop. ii. 30, seq.

[1772]. Geop. ii. 28.

[1773]. Geop. ii. 30.

[1774]. Vid. Theoc. Eidyll. vii. 3. Etym. Mag. 444. 13. Athen. xiii. 65. iii. 80. Meurs. Græc. Fer. p. 15. p. 142. Dem. adv. Neær. § 27, with the authorities collected by Taylor.

[1775]. Such of these as had charge of the timber may be denominated wood-reeves, a term which answers very well the Latin Saltuarius. The slave-guards of forests, in Crete, were called Ergatones. Hesych. ap. Meurs. Cret. p. 190.

[1776]. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 223, seq. Theocrit. Eidyll. xxv. 27. Cf. Feith. Antiq. Hom. iv. i. 276, sqq. Vineyards in Athens still require guards. Speaking of his approach to Athens from the Peiræeus, Chandler observes:—“In a tree was a kind of couch, sheltered with boughs, belonging to a man employed to watch there during the vintage.” ii. 27.

CHAPTER VI.
PASTORAL LIFE.

But within the circle of Hellenic country life[[1777]] there was a kind of parenthetical existence, a remnant of the old nomadic habits, once common, perhaps, to the whole race,—I mean the pastoral life, of which we obtain so many glimpses through the leafy glades and grassy avenues of Greek poetry. No doubt, the fancy of imaginative men, thirsting for a degree of simplicity and happiness greater than they find around them in cities or villages, is apt to kindle and shed too glorious a light on approaching the tranquil solitudes, the pine forests, the mountain glens, the hidden lakes, the umbrageous streams that leap and frolic down the wild rocks of a country so rife with beauty as Greece. Nevertheless, adhering strictly to truth and reality, there is, in such regions, much about the pastoral life to delight the mind. In the first place, the occupations of an ancient shepherd left him great leisure, and he was generally, by habit no less than by inclination, led to prize that “dolce far niente” which, in all southern climates, constitutes the chief enjoyment of existence.

And indeed all the world over, repose, both of mind and body, is sweet. But not entire repose. Accordingly the Grecian shepherd, whose flocks fed tranquilly, whose condition, assured, and pinched by no necessities, left him at liberty to consult his own tastes in his recreations, took refuge from idleness in music and song.[[1778]] At first, and perhaps always, their lays were rude; but nature, their only teacher, infused into them originality and passion, such as we find in the only poet of antiquity, save Homer, in whose verses the fragrance of the woods still breathes. Whether like Paris and Anchises they kept their own flocks or undertook the care for others, they were still on the mountains perfectly free. Their education was peculiar. Abroad much after dark,[[1779]] in a climate where the summer nights are soft and balmy beyond expression, and where the stars seem lovingly to crowd closer about the earth, they necessarily grew romantic and superstitious.[[1780]] Events occurring early in their own lives or handed down to them by tradition, long meditated on, were in the end invested with supernatural attributes. Under similar circumstances their national religion had probably been first formed. They in the same way, in every canton, created a local religion.[[1781]] Their very creed was poetry. Tree, rock, mountain, spring, every thing was instinct with divinity, not mystically, as in certain philosophical systems, but literally; and, as they believed, the immortal race, their invisible companions at all hours, could when they pleased put on visibility, or rather remove from their eyes the film which prevented their habitually beholding them.