[1160]. Strab. ap. Beckmann, History of Inventions, i. 198.
[1161]. Satyr. c. 51, p. 25, seq. Burm. Plin. xxxvi. 66.
[1162]. Beckmann, iii, 494.
CHAPTER VI.
INDUSTRY: OIL AND COLOUR MEN.—ITALIAN WAREHOUSES.—DRUGGISTS.—COLLECTORS OF SIMPLES.
There was, moreover, produced in Greece, a number of articles, whether of use or luxury, to the venders of which it appears difficult to appropriate a name. It must necessarily be inferred, however, that there existed a class of shopkeepers analogous to our oil and colour men, at whose establishments were found most or all of the following commodities: every kind of vegetable oil, for cookery, painting, or to be burned as lamp-oil, of sea salt, probably for medicinal purposes,[[1163]] oil of horseradish,[[1164]] used instead of the root itself, as a condiment. Among the lamp-oils it is worthy of observation that the Greeks included castor oil[[1165]] which was commonly, from its nauseous effects, eschewed as a medicine. Bitumen[[1166]] also was occasionally burnt in lamps. Their lampwicks were ordinarily of rushes,[[1167]] which they sometimes anointed with the oil expressed from the seeds of the myagrum perenne;[[1168]] and from certain nuts found on the oak they obtained a sort of woolly substance[[1169]] which, being twisted into wicks, burnt freely without oil. The dried stem of the torch-weed[[1170]] was likewise employed for this purpose. Their flambeaux consisted originally of slips of the pine or pitch tree,[[1171]] or even as at Rhodes of the bark of the vine,[[1172]] but afterwards certain combustible compositions were burned in painted and ornamented handles.[[1173]]
The making of pitch, generally found in these shops, was carried on in the following manner,[[1174]] particularly among the Macedonians: Having cleared a large level space in the forests, as when constructing a threshing-floor, they carefully paved it, and gave the whole a slope towards the centre. The billets of wood were then piled up endways as close to each other as possible, and so as that the height of the heap should always be in proportion to its magnitude. These piles were frequently of enormous dimensions, falling little short of a hundred yards in circumference and rising to the height of eighty or ninety feet. The whole mound was then covered with turf and earth; and the wood having been set on fire by means of an open passage below, which immediately afterwards was closed, numerous ladders were thrown up along its sides in order that, should the least smoke anywhere appear, fresh layers of turf and earth might be cast upon it: for if the flame found a vent the hopes of the manufacturer were destroyed. The pitch flowed off by an underground channel leading from the centre of the area to a spacious cistern sunk in the earth about twenty feet beyond the circumference of the mound, where it was suffered to cool. During two days and two nights the fire in these heaps continued generally to burn, requiring the incessant care and vigilance of the workmen, though it frequently happened that before sunset on the second day, the earthy crust flattened and fell in, the wood being reduced to ashes. This was generally preceded by the pitch ceasing to flow. The whole of this period was converted into a holiday by the labourers, who offered sacrifice to the gods, and preferred many prayers, that their pitch might be plentiful and good.
Nitre was procured from wood-ashes,[[1175]] as it is at this day in Circassia, from the ashes of a plant cultivated for the purpose. It has been supposed that the ancients were acquainted with gunpowder;[[1176]] and there appears to have been a dim tradition of artificial thunder and lightning among the Brachmanes in the remotest antiquity.[[1177]]
The demand for the various earths and colours was considerable; such as the Melian, a fine white marl, used by artists frequently for communicating to green paint a pale hue;[[1178]] the Cimolian, by fullers;[[1179]] and the gypsum, employed occasionally by both. The Samian, being fat and unctuous,[[1180]] was eschewed by painters, though it found its place among the materia medica. Another article in much request was the argol, a beautiful moss,[[1181]] used both by painters and dyers; to which we may add the cinnabar[[1182]] and the kermes, used for dying scarlet; the Indian black,[[1183]] indigo, ultramarine, lamp and ivory black, painter’s soot, collected from glass furnaces,[[1184]] verdigris, ceruse, and minium, used in painting vases and clay statues.[[1185]] Other substances which sometimes entered into the materials of painters were, the sandarach[[1186]] and the orpiment, found in gold, silver, and copper mines, ochre, ruddle, and chrysocolla. Ruddle was successfully imitated by burnt ochre, the manufacturing of which was the invention of Cydias,[[1187]] who having observed that a quantity of ochre found in a house which was burnt down had assumed a red colour, profited by the hint, though the article thus produced was inferior to the natural. The Lemnian earth,[[1188]] having been mixed with goats’ blood, kneaded into small round pastilles, and stamped with the figure of a goat, was vended, partly as a medicine, partly to be used in sacrifice. In the same shops, doubtless, sealing-wax and ink were sold.[[1189]] The receipt for preparing the latter was as follows:[[1190]] to an ounce of gum they added three ounces of pine-torch or resin soot, or even that which was obtained from the glass furnaces, and used, as above observed, by painters. In this latter case, a mina of soot was mingled with a pound and a half of gum, and an ounce and a half of bull’s glue and copperas-water. An infusion of wormwood[[1191]] was sometimes used in the manufacture of ink, which preserved the manuscripts written with it from being gnawed by rats or other vermin. Another method was, to smear the parchment with saffron and cedar oil.[[1192]]
Next to these, perhaps, should be ranged those shops which resembled our Italian warehouses, where the gourmands of antiquity procured their best vinegar, pickles, and sauces.[[1193]] To enumerate all the articles found in such an establishment would be somewhat difficult; but we may observe that they sold, among other things, the best Colophonian mustard,[[1194]] pepper,[[1195]] together with all the substitutes occasionally used for it, such as the Syrian nard,[[1196]] water-pepper,[[1197]] and, among the ancient Italians, lovage of Lombardy,[[1198]] garlic heads,[[1199]] a mixture of salt and thyme,[[1200]] pickled olives, and cornel-berries, to be eaten at table, pickled dittander,[[1201]] mountain rue,[[1202]] snakeweed or wake-robin, fennel or chervil, tendrils of the wild vine,[[1203]] eringo root, sea-heath, cammock, lettuces and parsley.[[1204]] To these may be added silphion, sesame, citron-peel, cumin, wild marjoram, capers, cresses, and fig-leaves.[[1205]] Among the Syrians, the root and seeds of the sison-amomum were used as spices, and pickled with sliced gourds.[[1206]] The Arabs, we are told, seasoned their dishes with the leaf of the ginger plant.[[1207]] Ginger-root was likewise known and used as a condiment in Greece.