ceded by more than a hundred years the epoch in which they have commonly fixed the arrival of Ceres in Greece. We must obferve on this fubject, that there must have pafled some time between the ufe of agriculture and the invention of the millstone among the Greeks. Like all other nations. of antiquity, these people at first knew no other method of preparing the grains but that of roasting them ". All these confiderations bring me to think, 1. that the origin of agriculture must be more ancient in Greece than is commonly faid. 2. That that art has fuffered interrup tions. 3. That the pretenfion of the Athenians of having taught tillage to all the rest of Greece, is neither well founded nor very exact. This is the manner in which I attempt to reconcile one part of the contradictions which I have menLioned. I believe we ought to refer the firft knowledge which Greece had in agriculture, to the times the family of the Titans feized on that part of Europe ". These princes came out of Egypt, a country where tillage had been practifed time immemorial. It is to be prefumed that they would instruct their new fubjects in it. They established at the fame time the worship of the gods honoured in the countries from whence they came. Herodotus P, Diodorus, and all the writers of antiquity, acknowledge that the Ceres of the Greeks is the fame divinity with the Egyptian Ifis. The extinction of the family of the Titans, which ended in the perfon of Jupiter, replunged the Greeks into anarchy and confufion. The people gave themfelves up to lead a wandering and vagabond life: the inhabitants of the coaft addicted themselves to ramble over the feas, and make a trade of piracy. This ftate fubfifted till the arrival of new colonies which came from Egypt and Phoenicia to eltablish themfelves, foine time after the Titans, in many Theophraft. apud schol. Hom. ad Iliad. 1. 1. v. 449.; Euftath. ad hunc loc.; Etymol. magn. voce Οὐλοχύτας. See part 1. book 1. chap. 1. See Afchyl. in Prometh. vincto, v. 461. &c. L. 1. p. 18.-31.-107. 1. 5. p. 385. Thucyd. 1. 1. p. 4. & 6.; Plut. in Themift p. 124. E. Z 2 PL. 2. n. 59. countrie 4 firft conquerors. countries of Greece. This fpace of time was more than fufficient to make them lofe the fmall tincture of the arts which the Greeks had learned under the government of their I have faid elsewhere it did not appear to have been of long duration. The knowledge and practice of tillage must particularly have been abolished foon after. This art had had great difficulty of being introduced into Greece. Triptolemus, with whom tradition has divided with Ceres the glory of having fhewn to the Greeks the culture of grains, found great oppofition to his defigns. This is eafy to be perceived even in those fabulous tracts with which the new mythology had loaded the hiftory of this prince: he thought more than once that it would have coft him his life. Ceres was obliged to travel in the air in a chariot drawn by flying dragons": An allegory which must be understood of the meafures taken by that princess to take Triptolemus from the dangers which the new art he would introduce had brought him into. Bacchus ran the fame rifks, when he would inftruct the Greeks in cultivating the vine *. It was not, in reality, a light undertaking to make a change in the manners of such fort of favages, as the Greeks were at that time. It was not easy to fubject to the fatigues of agriculture, these independent people accustomed to a wandering life, which did not oblige them to have any care or any trouble. Men de not love to be fubjected to labour, whatever advantages may accrue from it. The floods which happened under Ogyges and under Deucalion, must also have contributed to make them lofe the knowledge and practice of agriculture: thefe deluges ravaged and laid wafte many countries of Greece. f Part 1. book 1. 1 See Ovid. metam. 1. 5. v. 654. &c. Hygin. fab. 147.; Eufeb. chron. I. 2. p. 82. "Apollod. 1. 1. p. 13.; Ovid. loco cit.; Hygin. poet. aftr. 1. 2. fab. 14.'; Ariftid. orat. in Eleuf. t. 1. p. 257. See Hom. Iliad. 1. 6. v. 130. &c.; Diod. 1. 3. p. 234.; Apollod. 1.3. p.141.; Ovid. Met. 1. 3. v. 514.; Pauf. 1. 1. c. 2.; Hygin. fab. 132. y See part 1. b. 2. ch. 1. art. 2. The example of the favages of America is a convincing proof. 3 See Diod, 1. 5. p. 376.; See also part 1. b. 1. art. v. ; & fupra, b. 1. Greeçe Greece was then fallen again into the ignorance and barbarity from which the Titan princes had drawn it, when the different colonies which went from Egypt and Phoenicia paffed fucceffively into that part of Europe. The first of thefe new colonies was conducted by Cecrops. This prince, at the head of an Egyptian colony, landed in Attica, and fettled there 1.582 years before the Christian æra. Cecrops was not ignorant of agriculture. Cicero tells us that he in troduced in Greece the custom of fpreading of corn, in fu. neral ceremonies, on the tomb of the deceased when they were buried. We may conclude then that Cecrops tried to fow grain; but difcouraged, without doubt, by the dry and fandy foil of Attica, he laid afide that enterprise. We fee that he got his corn from Sicily and Libya. It was not the fame with olives. Cecrops planted them, and fucceeded very well. This prince established afterwards the worship of Minerva, because that goddess, according to ancient trai dition, had made known to men the utility of these trees, and learned them to cultivate them ". A little while after Cecrops, Cadmus and Danaus, co ming one from Egypt, and the other from Phoenicia, passed into Greece. Cadmus fettled in Boeotia, and Danaus in the Argolide. We have just feen, that, according to all appearances, these princes had brought agriculture into the districts where they were fettled ⚫. About one hundred and fixty-three years after Cecrops, Attica found itfelf afflicted with a very great dearth, because the common convoys, without doubt, had failed them. In this circumftance Erechtheus conductor of a new Egyptian colony, arrived with a fleet loaden with corn, and delivered the country from the famine which oppreffed it. The Athenians, in acknowledgment of fuch an important service, placed him on the throne. Erechtheus ftudied immediately to put his people in a state not to have any more • Tzetzes, ex Philocor. ad Hefiod, op. v. 33. p. 18. edit. in 4to 1603. See infra, art. 3. с Supra, b. 1. chap. 4. Diod. 1. 1. p. 34. recourfe recourse to a stranger. Judging the plains of Eleufis more proper than the reft of Attica for tillage, he caufed it to be ploughed and fown s. He had the happiness to succeed in this undertaking, and to accustom the Athenians to tillage. Diodorus, from whom we have taken one part of this recital, adds, that Erechtheus taught the Athenians the worship of Ceres, and established at Eleufis the mysteries of that goddefs, fuch as they were practifed in Egypt. This is what has given room to fay, according to the remark of the fame historian, that Ceres herself was come to Athens, and to place at that epoch the difcovery of corn, which was then brought from Egypt to the Athenians, under the name and under the auspices of that goddess. We have feen that the Ceres of the Greeks was the fame divinity as the lis of the Egyptians, to whom, according to the tradition of these people, they owed the knowledge of tillage. Erechtheus having fucceeded in his enterprife, it was natural that he should eftablish the worship of Ifis. It was from a fimilar motive that Cecrops, as I have just said, had insti, tuted the worship of Minerva. But the origin of agriculture, and that of the worship of Ceres, were more ancient in Greece than the reign of Erechtheus: we cannot doubt of this after the different tra ditions which I have reported, I think then that the establishment of the myfteries of Ceres at Eleufis, and the knowledge of tillage which they place under Erechtheus, ought only to be regarded as a renewal or re-establishment of ancient cuftoms which the troubles and mifery of the times had infenfibly abolished. The worship of Ceres was greatly esteemed in Greece, under the reign of Erechtheus; nothing is more famous in antiquity than the mysteries celebrated at Eleufis, That feast, at firft peculiar to the inhabitants of Attica, became afterwards common to all the Greeks. Yet the Argives 8 Marm. oxon. ep. 13.; Diod. 1. 5. p. 385,; Juftin, 1. 2. c. 6. p. 87.; Phurnut. de nat. deorum, c. 28. p. 209. b Loco cit. & 1. 5, p. 333. had had received the worship of Ceres before the Athenians *. But whether it was that they did not know all the myfteries, or from motives at present unknown to us, the honour of having communicated to all Greece the worthip of Ceres, remained to the Athenians. As in the idea of these people, the knowledge of tillage was joined to the establishment of the myfteries of Eleufis, they would make us believe, that Greece was equally indebted to them for both discoveries. Yet we fee that fome Greek cities protefted against this pretenfion but it does not appear they paid any regard to it. The plurality of votes was declared for the Athenians: they pafs, in almost all the ancient writings which now remain to us, to have polished Greece. It is to the pens of their writers, that, without doubt, they owe this pre-eminence. The Athenians, vain to excefs, have always boafted of having communicated the arts, the laws, and the sciences, to all the rest of the Greeks. Argos, Thebes, and fome other cities, where the origin of arts to me ap pears almost as ancient as in Attica, have produced neither fo many writers, nor of a merit equal to those of the Athenians. The writings of the Athenians have always carried it. The ancient authors, even the Romans, fed by these writings, have got those ideas of a fuperiority which the Athenians had at all times thought proper to arrogate : they have adopted them, and have tranfmitted them to us. This is perhaps the fource of that anteriority of knowledge, which the Athenians enjoy even at this time. These indeed are only conjectures: but it is an expedient to which we are too often obliged to have recourfe when we treat of events of this high antiquity. If agriculture, as I fufpect, had been difficult to be introduced among the Greeks in the firft ages, thefe people afterwards thought very differently. In all the ftates formed by the new colonies of which I have spoken, the fovereigns applied themfelves to divert their fubjects from the cuftom of rambling upon the feas. They ufed various methods to bring them to cultivate the earth: I have spoken iSee Herod, 1. 2. n. 171.; Paul 1. r. G. 14. of |