[416]. Muret, in Arist. Ethic. i. p. 63. Plutarch, generally judicious and wise in his remarks, exhibits unequivocal tokens of his Bœotian soul by endeavouring in one part of his writings to class even poetry and sculpture among things disreputable to those who practised them: Ἡ δ᾽ αὐτουργία τῶν ταπεινῶν, τῆς εἰς τὰ[τὰ] καλὰ ῥαθυμὶας μάρτυρα τὸν ἐν τοῖς ἀχρήστοις πόνον παρέχεται καθ᾽ αὑτῆς· καὶ οὐδεὶς εὐφυὴς νέος, ἢ τὸν ἐν Πίσῃ θεασάμενος Δία, γενέσθαι φειδίας ἐπεθύμησεν, ἢ τὴν Ἣραν τὴν ἐν Ἄργει, Πολύκλειτος, οὐδ᾽ Ἀνακρέων, ἢ Φιλήμων, ἢ Ἀρχίλοχος, ἡσθεὶς αὐτῶν τοῖς ποιήμασιν. Οὐ γὰρ ἀναγκαῖον, εἰ τέρπει τὸ ἔργον ὡς χάριεν, ἄξιον σπουδῆς εἶναι τὸν εἰργασμένον. Vit. Pericl. § 2.
[417]. See the statue of the fisherman, British Museum, Gallery of Antiquities, Room vi. No. 45, and an account of their operation in Pollux. i. 96, sqq. Lucian, with a few strokes, paints the misery of this wretched tribe casting their nets, toiling vigorously and then bringing up a large stone or an earthen pot full of sand, like the poor fisherman in the Arabian Nights. Hermot. § 65. The same author speaks of an old half-blind beggar of ninety, who partly earned his livelihood by the rod and line. Dial. Mort. xxvii. § 9. Persons of this caste were sometimes by poverty reduced to commit sacrilege. Jup. Trag. § 25.
[418]. Eidyll. xxi. 6, sqq.
[419]. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 313, conf. ad 361. 862. The transporting of persons to and from Salamis afforded employment to a hardy and skilful race of ferrymen whose operations were judged of sufficient importance to be the subject of a Solonian law: Εάν τὶς τῶν πορθμέων τῶν εἰς Σαλαμῖνα πορθμευόντων ἄκων ἐν τῳ πόρῳ πλοῖον ἀνατρέψῃ, τούτῳ μὴ ἐξείναι πάλιν πορθμεῖ γενέσθαι. Petit, Leg. Att. v. 6. p. 427. Æschin. cont. Ctesiph. § 49. Montaigne speaking of the contradictory customs of different nations, observes àpropos of fares: “Les Romains payoient ce qui estoit deu aux bateliers, pour leur naulage (passage money) dès l’entrée du bateau, ce que nous faisons après estre rendu à port:
Dum æs exigitur, dum mula ligatur,
Tota abit hora.”[hora.”]
(Horat. I. 5. 13, seq.) Essais. t. iii. p. 173. On this passage Coste has the following note: “En Hollande on paye dans le bateau, environ à mi-chemin du lieu où l’on va.” This last regulation, as most persons know, has been adopted by our coast steamers.
[420]. Athen. i. 49, seq.
[421]. Cf. Plat. De Rep. t. vi. p. 79. The president Goguet commiserates the ancients on their extreme ignorance of the useful arts. Orig. des Lois, t. v. p. 174.
[422]. Goguet, Orig. des Lois, i. 208, seq. 221. iii. 380. Beckman, History of Inventions, i. 227, seq. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 580. Equit. 803.