Lesbos[[2222]] produced myrtle-berries and figs; Cos and Cypros[[2223]] exported odoriferous unguents[[2224]] and honey;[[2225]] Scyros, variegated marbles;[[2226]] Ceos, pears and service-berries;[[2227]] Eubœa, sheep,[[2228]] pears,[[2229]] shining apples,[[2230]] olives,[[2231]] walnuts, walnut-wood,[[2232]] an inferior kind of deal,[[2233]] marble,[[2234]] iron, phagroi, anchovies, turbots, and soles;[[2235]] Thera, variegated garments;[[2236]] Chios, soft beds and large casks or jars;[[2237]] Crete, cypress-wood,[[2238]] Cyprian figs,[[2239]] hemlock,[[2240]] honey,[[2241]] and bees’ wax,[[2242]] which was blanched in the rays of the sun and moon. These articles of merchandise were likewise supplied by Cypros;[[2243]] which also exported rich flowered or variegated hangings,[[2244]] triclinia cushions,[[2245]] table-cloths,[[2246]] oakum,[[2247]] bronze vessels,[[2248]] nails,[[2249]] &c. Snails,[[2250]] which formed an important article in the materia medica of the ancients, were exported from Chios and Astypalæa,[[2251]] a small island among the Sporades,[[2252]] which likewise carried on a considerable fishery,[[2253]] and boasted an excellent breed of horses.[[2254]] Thasos furnished the sculptors of Greece with a fine white marble which constituted the material of two celebrated statues of the Emperor Adrian at Athens.[[2255]] The marble of Chios was dead black, like the obsidian stone, and slightly transparent.
Cerinthos in Eubœa, furnished a sort of light dry earth,[[2256]] used to preserve corn in granaries. Malta supplied the idle and luxurious ladies of Greece with a domestic kind of lap-dogs.[[2257]] Sciathos was famous for its mullets; Melos exported kids;[[2258]] Naxos and Scyros, milch goats and lobsters;[[2259]] Leros, guinea fowl; Samos, peacocks; and Cypros, hairy sheep[[2260]] and doves.[[2261]] Among the wild and almost inaccessible cliffs of modern Crete is found a species of blue nightingale,[[2262]] in size somewhat inferior to the thrush, which it resembled in the richness and variety of its notes. This bird is often caught and kept in cages, where it is sometimes taught to imitate the human voice. Occasionally it forms an article of traffic, and is exported into Italy; but if the ancients traded in these birds, the passage in which it may be mentioned has escaped me. In the same island is found an elegant sort of merops which darts in flocks along the sides of the thymy mountains in pursuit of the bees, which delight in those fragrant places. It is of rich and variegated plumage like the parrokeet. The children take it in a very ingenious manner; passing a crooked pin with a fine thread attached through the hard corslet of the cicada, they let go the insect which mounts, thus transfixed, into the air. The merops, bold and voracious, immediately pounces upon and gorges it, when the pin sticks in the throat, the bird becomes hooked like a fish, and is easily drawn down and taken.
The next branch of Greek commerce which demands our notice was that carried on with the countries on the Adriatic, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Gaul, and Spain. This trade was in most instances of later origin than that maintained with regions lying more to the East, but nevertheless came at length to be of considerable importance, especially after the Hellenic colonies in Italy and Sicily had risen to eminence. The cities founded, moreover, on the coasts of Illyria exercised considerable influence over the commerce of Greece, by imparting to the rude natives a taste for her productions and manufactures, and exciting them to the exercise of greater industry to supply suitable commodities in their turn. Nevertheless, the information we possess on this subject is extremely scanty.
The barn-door fowls of these regions,[[2263]] though inferior to those of Greece, and of a smaller size, were yet exported thither, simply because they were foreign, while the natives on the contrary were eager to enrich their country with the breed of Attica. Wild turnips and parsnips,[[2264]] it has been remarked by the ancients, were found growing in Dalmatia;[[2265]] but as they abound in most other countries, it seems not unreasonable to infer, from this particular mentioned of them, that they were exported.[[2266]] The best iris, the odoriferous roots of which were much used in the making of perfume, came from the interior of Illyria,[[2267]] where, having been dug up and cleared of the leaves, they were strung on a linen cord and dried in the shade.
From the same country also were obtained the aspalathos[[2268]] and the wild spikenard,[[2269]] whose leaf resembled that of the ivy, though somewhat smaller and rounder. The wines of the Adriatic shore were in no great request. That which was called Prætutian[[2270]] was light and aromatic, and therefore deceived those who drank of it, being powerfully intoxicating and somniferous. The wines of Istria partook of the same character.
From the city of Apollonia[[2271]] was exported the substance called pissasphaltos,[[2272]] brought down by the river from the Ceraunian mountains, and found in large lumps upon the shore. It exhaled a mingled odour of pitch and bitumen. Great quantities of salt[[2273]] were made in another part of Illyria, where, during the spring, they took of the water of a stream flowing forth from a cleft in the rock and poured it into shallow pits exposed apparently to the sun and air, where it hardened in about five days into salt. The beans of Apollonia were famous for keeping long.[[2274]] Other Illyrian commodities were slaves, ampelitis,[[2275]] cattle, and skins, for which the natives received wine and oil, and other productions of civilised countries in return.[[2276]]
The wines of ancient Italy, which formed an important article in the commerce of that country,[[2277]] are so familiar to most persons that it will be sufficient barely to enumerate the principal of them,—as the Falernian, the Cæcuban,[[2278]] the Alban, the Surrentine, the Brundusian, and the Antheia, a Thurian wine.[[2279]] Of medicinal herbs and substances, Italy exported considerable quantities, and among them were the hyssop,[[2280]] the melilot,[[2281]] from the country round Nola, the wild spikenard,[[2282]] the madder,[[2283]] cultivated in the neighbourhood of Ravenna, and Celtic spikenard from the Ligurian Alps,[[2284]] which was kept tied up in handfuls, together with its roots. Of this article vast quantities, as much it is said as sixty tons per annum, were in the last century exported from hence into the inland parts of Africa, as Æthiopia and Abyssinia,[[2285]] where it was chiefly used in softening and rendering shining the skin. Another export of Italy was the Ligurian all-heal,[[2286]] from the lofty and umbrageous summits of the Apennines, where it flourished chiefly along the edge of the water-courses.
There was in this same mountainous district a species of snail,[[2287]] furnished with a shell in winter, which appears to have been both eaten and used as a medicine.
In many parts of Italy they still make use of snails for the same purpose, digging them up out of the earth with an iron instrument. The ancients kept tame snails for eating, which they fatted with a mixture of flour and sweet wine.[[2288]] In France they are still fed on vine leaves[[2289]] in cages, where they attain an immense size. Connoisseurs in snails find a great difference in their flesh, according to the plants and trees on which they pasture. Those which attach themselves to the wormword plant are bitter, while such as are found among calamint, pennyroyal, and origany, have an extremely agreeable flavour.
Among the delicacies of Italy best known to the ancients, and doubtless exported, were mushrooms,[[2290]] of which several excellent sorts are still produced; those particularly which the Tuscans call Prignoli and Porcini, which, being boiled and afterwards dredged with flour and fried, are exceedingly savoury.[[2291]] The real Porcini are salted and preserved with peculiar care, to be eaten during Lent and other fasts.