As an encouragement to the citizens to addict themselves to industrious pursuits, foreigners, and all persons not free of the city, were legally incapacitated from carrying on business in the agora;[[403]] but this came in later times to be disregarded, since we find Egyptians, Phœnicians, and other aliens, possessing shops, and growing rich there. It was conceived, moreover, that, if men confined themselves to one calling, they would arrive therein at greater excellence; and the law, accordingly, forbade them to be of two trades.[[404]] Plato, whose ideal republic was modelled in so many particulars on that of Athens, adopted this law; and for the reason I have stated; comprehending thoroughly what advantages arise from the division of labour. He would not, he says, have the cordwainer meddle with husbandry, weaving, or architecture, that he might carry shoemaking to as great perfection as possible; and, in other branches of industry, men were in like manner to cultivate that only for which nature had fitted them, and wherein they might thus excel.[[405]] The same philosopher, while on the subject of industry, makes a remark worthy of consideration: It is not, he says, for the interest of the community, that men engaged in any branch of the arts should be so rich as to be independent of their business or profession, which, in such case, they will be apt to neglect; or so poor as to be harassed in mind, or cramped in the means of carrying on their occupations satisfactorily. In these things, as in every other, a comfortable competence is to be preferred to the extremes both of wealth and poverty.[[406]]
Another means of carrying the various arts towards perfection, which in India and Egypt prevailed from time immemorial, is supposed to have been a practice, whether founded on law or custom, resembling the system of castes.[[407]] Theories, not destitute of ingenuity, have been constructed on this view of Athenian society.[[408]] Thus, the Dædali are supposed to have formed the sculptor caste; the Eupyridæ a caste of husbandmen; the Boutadæ of herdsmen; the Ceryces of heralds; the Hephœstiadæ of blacksmiths; the Poimenidæ of shepherds, and so on. Vestiges of this curious state of things are supposed to be discernible in the history of Attica, even so late as the age of Pericles, when we find Socrates a member of the Dædalian clan, by profession a sculptor. There were certainly in religious matters hereditary offices, which none could with propriety fill but the members of a certain family or clan. Thus, from among the Eteobutadæ was chosen the priestess of Athena Polias, who resided in the temple on the Acropolis; and the priest of Poseidon was drawn by lot from the same house.[[409]] To the Praxiergidæ were entrusted certain duties about the statue of Athena during the Plynterian festival.[[410]] The descendants of Buzyges performed those sacred ceremonies which thrice a year attended the ploughing of the soil;[[411]] to mention for the present no more.
But we are not on this account to infer the existence in Attica of anything like the Hindù system of castes, which has itself never been rigidly observed.[[412]] What happens everywhere took place at Athens: fathers generally found it more convenient to bring up their sons to their own calling,[[413]] while the latter, observing constantly certain mechanical operations take place under their eye, were led first to admire and then to imitate. Thus the Potter’s boy, as Plato[[414]] remarks, long ministers to his father before he takes the clay into his own hands and begins to model a vase or tureen.
At Sparta, the heralds, cooks, and flute-players, constituted so many small castes, in which the profession passed down regularly from father to son. Of the absurdity of this practice Herodotus was fully sensible, for he observes, that a man was chosen to be a herald not for the loudness of his voice, but because he was a herald’s son.[[415]] Upon the whole, however, the practice was no more general among the Greeks than it is in England. When it became fashionable to ape gentility, rustic hinds, like Strepsiades in the “Clouds,” found their sons ashamed of the humble callings by which their childhood had been supported; a passion for aristocratic distinction infested the bosom of the vulgar; all desired to appear what they were not; and, despite the wise institutions of Solon, handicraftsmen and artificers sunk into hopeless contempt.[[416]] For this reason most trades by degrees were exercised by foreigners, who frequently acquired wealth and independence.
Notwithstanding this result, however, at which they arrived but slowly, both manufactures and every other branch of industry were in Greece, and at Athens more particularly, carried to a very high pitch of perfection. Even in the very lowest trades the love of gain, or the necessity of somehow earning a subsistence, led men to persevere. For example, in the occupation of a common fisherman, from which little beyond penury could be hoped for, and which impressed upon the countenance that sordid aspect so successfully represented by Hellenic art,[[417]] there were always numbers ready to engage. And yet consider in Theocritus[[418]] their wretched life, sleeping in their weather-beaten hut on the bleak shore, amid heaps of nets, piscatory baskets, lines, &c., and there dreaming, as indigence often does, of discovered treasures and ingots of gold. The patient endurance of the hungry fishers, seated far above the water on steep rocks, watching the entrance of the huge prey into their nets, appears to have been proverbial.[[419]]
In the superior trades and manufactures there was among several cities an emulation, the result of which was to produce constant improvement. Athens, for example, which excelled in pottery, had rivals in Aulis, Rhodes, Megara, Corinth, Cnidos, and several other cities; Sicily and Bœotia were famous for their chariots; Argos for the manufacture of arms; Thessaly for its easy chairs; Chios and Miletos for their beds; Etruria for its gold-plate and works in bronze.[[420]]
It is to be regretted that into the practice of the several trades and useful arts we can see but a very little way. In order, however, to render our idea of Hellenic civilisation as complete as possible, I shall here bring together as many particulars as I have been able to discover on this subject, commencing with those trades which were of primary necessity.[[421]] Of these, that of the miller may doubtless be regarded as of the first importance. In very early ages men understood not the art of reducing corn into meal; but either roasted the unripe ears upon the fire, or parched the separated grains in small fryingpans.[[422]] In process of time, however, the pestle and mortar were invented, by means of which,[[423]] though at a great expense of labour, flour of the finest possible quality could be obtained. To these succeeded the handmill, an invention of very remote ages,[[424]] which, notwithstanding, continued in use down to the days of Cicero. This machine, both in Greece and Italy, was at first commonly worked by women,[[425]] more especially by female slaves. But afterward the rudest and worst conducted of the male domestics were condemned to this severe toil, which at length grew to be regarded in the light of a punishment,[[426]] as working at the treadmill with us. Among the wealthy, each master of a family possessed his own mill; but as civilisation advanced, the grinding of corn constituted a separate occupation, and the trade of the miller was established. Public mills[[427]] were common at Athens in the time of Socrates, and it does not appear to have been unusual for strong and sturdy men of free condition to labour for hire in these establishments.
Thus we find that the philosophers Menedemos and Asclepiades, when young and poor, earned their subsistence, and were enabled to pursue the study of philosophy, by working at night in a mill.[[428]] As few persons knew this circumstance, and they were observed all day among the learned in the schools, some one brought against them an accusation of idleness, for which they were cited before the senate of Areopagos. In order to prove that they gained their livelihood in an honest way, the miller for whom they worked was brought forward. His testimony confirmed their statement; and he added, moreover, that he paid to each of them two drachmas per night. The Areopagites were so pleased with this proof of their industry and passion for philosophy, that, on pronouncing their acquittal, they at the same time made them a present of two hundred drachmas.[[429]] But these mills were not always put in motion by the hand of man. Yoked to beams projecting from the upper millstone, oxen and asses, moving about in a circle, blindfold, as at present, when similarly employed, sometimes turned the mill instead of slaves.[[430]] Upon the construction of these machines little exact information was possessed before the laying open of the ruins of Pompeii, where, in a baker’s shop, four mills, still almost perfect, have been discovered. They consist of a round stone basement with a rim, from the centre of which springs a blunt cone: this is the nether millstone. The upper one consists of an imperfect cylinder, hollowed out within, like an hour-glass, one part of which fits like a cap upon the cone below, while the other expands its bell-mouth above. Into this the corn was poured, and, descending through four small apertures upon the nether stone, was, by the turning round of the upper one thereon, reduced to meal, which passed gradually down, fining as it went, and fell out upon the stone basement below. The corn having been ground, the next operation was, to sever the flour from the bran, though sometimes bread was made from it in the rough,[[431]] and regarded, moreover, as extremely wholesome. First, and most simple of these contrivances, was the sieve,[[432]] made with slender rushes, which separated the coarse bran and produced a meal sufficiently cleansed for household bread. A much superior sieve was manufactured with linen threads, by which the flour was bolted to a great degree of fineness. When it was required of still superior purity and whiteness, the bolter would seem to have been bottomed with threads of woollen, which, being woven close, allowed nothing but particles of the utmost tenuity to pass.[[433]] All the above operations were supposed to be placed under the superintendence of a particular deity named Eunostos,[[434]] of whom no mention, I believe, is made in modern systems of mythology.
The ancients employed in the making of bread a great many kinds of grain besides wheat[[435]] and barley;[[436]] as rye, millet, which was little nourishing, panic, which was still less so,[[437]] sesame, olyra, spelt, rice, tiphe, and a sort of grain from Ethiopia, called orindion. Several other substances were likewise used for the same purpose, not for the sake of adulteration, but either to improve the taste, or from reasons of economy; such as the root of the lotos,[[438]] and, perhaps, of the day-lily[[439]] dried, and reduced, like wheat itself, to flour; and the root of the corn-flag,[[440]] which was previously boiled, and, for the sake of communicating a sweet taste to the bread, would appear to have been mixed with the dough as the meal of the potato is in modern times. This plant grew most plentifully in grounds frequented by the mole, which loved to feed upon it. Another ingredient often mixed with bread was, the pulpy seed of the Star of Bethlehem,[[441]] of which the root likewise was eaten, both raw and cooked.
The seed of the pepper-wort,[[442]] also, was sprinkled over cakes. Among the Thracians, about the river Strymon, they made bread from the flour of the water-caltron,[[443]] a prickly root of a triangular form, which abounds in the lagoons about Venice, where it is sold commonly in the market-places, and roasted for the table in hot embers.[[444]] The root of the dragon-wort,[[445]] eaten both raw and cooked in Greece, was, in the Balearic isles, served up fried with honey at banquets instead of cakes. They gathered it in harvest time, and, having roasted, cut it in slices, which were then strung on a cord and dried in the shade for keeping. The seeds of the garden poppy were used in bread-making, perhaps like carraway-seeds with us, as were those of the wild poppy for medicinal purposes in honeycakes, and certain kinds of sweetmeats.[[446]] They had in Syria a kind of bread made of mulberries, which caused the hair of those who habitually fed on it to fall off.[[447]]