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conductors of new colonies, had brought into Greece the arts under the aufpices of the gods honoured in the countries from whence they came: depending on this principle, I conjecture, that Boeotia had been the firft district of Greece where the culture of the vine had been renewed. Cadmus, at the head of a Phoenician colony, fettled there 1519 years before the Chriftian æra. This prince had learned, in his travels, the art of planting the vine. He made it known to his fubjects, and established at the fame time the worship of Bacchus, to whom the tradition of the people of the Eaft had given the honour of the discovery of wine. Every thing feems to favour this fyftem. The Greeks faid, that their Bacchus was the iffue of Jupiter and of Semele, daughter of Cadmus. Herodotus gives us the explication of this fable, by teaching us, that this prince introduced the worship of Bacchus into Greece ». Yet I believe, from the reafons I have already given, that Cadmus only made a renewal of it.

2

The Greeks had very particular methods of making wine. After having cut the grapes, they expofed them ten days to the fun and to the coolness of the night. They put them afterwards into the fhade for five days, and the fixth they ftamped them. This method was very long and very troublesome. It was with great difficulty they could make a large quantity of wine at a time. They must have had a confiderable quantity of ground to spread and expofe the quantity of grapes fufficient to make, for example, ten butts of wine. And there muft not have been a lefs space, and more precautions afterwards to make these grapes dry in the fhade. All these methods were fubject to great inconveniencies. The wine at that time must have been very dear in Greece, although they collected a great quantity. We may also judge of this, by the epithets which Homer gives to many of these countries.

× L. 2. n. 49.

› Odyss. 1. 7. v. 122. &c.; Hefiod. oper. v. 611. &c. See Mad. Dacier's notes on the 7th book of the Odyssey, p. 160.

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The Greeks did not keep their wines in cafks. ful invention of thefe veffels of wood fo commodious, was unknown to them. They put their wines in borachios, and very often into great veffels of earthen ware. The Athenians were particularly famous for making of these forts of vessels. But the cuftom of keeping the wine in these earthen veffels, liable to be broken, or in these lea ther-bags, fubject to contract bad smells, or to unrip, render. ed at that time the carriage of wines very difficult, and the keeping of them lefs fure than with us at prefent.

Wine, if we believe fome authors, was not the only prefent which Bacchus made to the Greeks. After the example of Ofiris, he taught them to compofe with wa ter and barley, a liquor, which, for ftrength and goodnefs, approached to wine. Ovid, fpeaking of the meeting that Ceres, exhausted with wearinefs, had with an old woman named Baubo, fays, that the goddess, having demanded fome water, the old woman prefented her with a liquor compofed of dried grain ‹. It seems that the authors whom I cite would mean beer; but we may doubt if the knowledge of that liquor had been as ancient in Greece as they fay. Homer never mentions it. Is it with defign? or rather, is it not a mark, that in his time beer was not in ufe?

ARTICLE III.

Of the art of making oil.

Hough I have thought we should refuse to the Athe nians the honour of having communicated to all Greece tillage and the culture of the vine, I fhall not fay fo much of all that concerns the plantation of olives and

2 Odyff. 1, 9. v. 196.; Iliad. 1. 9. v. 465.; Herod. 1. 3. n. 6.; Diod. 1. 5. p. 380.; Plin. 1. 35. fect. 46. p. 711.

a See Cafaub. not. in Athen, 1. 1. c. 22. p. 65.

Diod. 1. 4. p. 248.

Metam, 1, 5. v. 449. &c.

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the art of drawing oil from their fruit. Attica appears to have been inconteftably the first country in Greece, in which that part of agriculture is faid to have been known. The Athenians were indebted for it to Cecrops. This prince came from Sais a city of the Lower Egypt, where the culture of the olive-tree was the principal occupation of the inhabitants f. Cecrops, who found the foil of Attica very proper for that fort of trees, took care to have them planted . The fuccefs answered his expectation. Athens in a little time became famous for the excellence of its oil. It was even anciently the only place in Greece where olives were to be found".

Antiquity thought they were indebted to Minerva for the difcovery of this tree . Moreover this goddess was particularly reverenced at Sais *. The culture of the olive was then brought into Greece under the aufpices of Minerva. Cecrops, in imparting that knowledge to the inhabitants of Attica, took occafion to establish, at the fame time, the worship of that goddess1. The feaft of Minerva was celebrated at Athens " in the fame manner as at Sais", by lighting an innumerable quantity of lamps. The Greeks have propagated many fables about all these events; they relate, that Minerva and Neptune had entered into difpute about the honour of giving a name to the city of Athens. The question was to determine this difpute. Some faid, that they would refer it to Cecrops, others, that the oracle ordered all the people to be affembled; fome, laftly, that the twelve great gods were chosen to judge of the difpute. However it was, they determined, that thofe of the two divinities who could produce the most

Herod. 1. 5. n. 82.; Ælian. var. hift. 1. 3. c. 38.; Juftin. 1. 2. c. 6. e Diod. 1. 1. p. 33.

Syncell. p. 153. B.

Virgil. georg. l. 1. v. 18.;

£ Herod. 2. n. 59. & 62.

k Herod. 1. 2. n. 59. & 62.;

506.

h Herod. 1. 5. n. 82.

Diod 1. 5. p. 389.

Cicero de nat. deor. 1. 3. n. 23. t. 2. p.

1 Pauf. 1. 1. c. 27. 1. 2. c. 36.; Eufeb. praep. evang. 1. 10. c. 9. p. 486.

" Herod. 1. 2. n. 62. • Eufeb. chron. 1. 2. p. 75.

m Marth. p. 128.

P Varro apud Auguft. de civit. Dei, 1. 18. chap. 9.

Apollod. 1. 3. p. 192.

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useful invention fhould name the city they were building. Neptune, with a stroke of his trident, made a horse come out of a rock: Minerva, by striking the earth with a lance, made an olive-tree come up: this production got her the victory. The explication of this fable is not very difficult to penetrate into.

It appears that it was not without fome difficulty that Cecrops engaged the inhabitants of Attica to apply themselves to the culture of olive-trees. The establishment of the worthip of the gods was at that time too intimately connected with the establishment of the arts to receive one without the other. To adopt the worship of Minerva, was to declare that they would apply themselves to thofe arts of which that goddess paffed for the inventrefs. The ancient inhabitants of Attica, profiting by their neighbourhood to the sea, were accuftomed to piracy. Neptune of confequence was their tutelar divinity. One party opposed the new establishment of Cecrops; he would change the ancient manner of life. This prince nevertheless found the means to gain the greatest number of the inhabitants, and the plurality of votes gave it for the worship of Minerva, that is to fay, the preference to agriculture.

Yet we fee in the circumstances of this fable, that spirit of vanity which, in the latter times, has brought the Greeks to invent the most extraordinary fictions to bring back to their gods the invention and merit of all the arts. They had received them from their first sovereigns, who coming out of policed countries, had brought into Greece the difcoveries forgotten or unknown till their arrival. They had introduced at the fame time the worship of the gods who were thought to be the authors of all these inventions. They infenfibly confounded the history and motives of these establishments. The Greeks naturally vain, and lovers of the marvellous, perplexed the ideas and obfcured tradition, to attribute to the divinities which they had created, the discovery of all the arts.

I have spoken in the first part of this work of the different methods invented originally to give light in the night. We

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⚫ have there feen that the more or the lefs induftry in the ways which men invented to remedy the obfcurity of darknefs, diftinguished barbarous people from polished nations. If this propofition is true, we may fay, that, in this refpect, the Greeks in the heroic ages did not differ any thing from the people of whom we now form the most difadvantageous idea. Their little industry had not permitted them to procure any of the proper means to give light cafily and commodioufly during the night.

The Greeks were not at that time ignorant of the art of making oil: yet they had not the ufe of lamps. They likewife knew wax and tallow, but had not found the secret to draw from them their principal utility. These people, at the times I am speaking of, were lighted only by fires which they had in their apartments. The princes, and thofe who piqued themselves upon delicacy, burnt odoriferous woods. Virgil has conformed to the cuftom of these ancient times, when he fays that Circe made them burn cedar to light hert.

With regard to torches which are often mentioned and fpoken of in Homer, they were pieces of wood split lengthwife, which they carried in their hand when they went in the night from one place to another". I have fhewn, in the first part of this work, the antiquity and the univerfality of this practice. I fhall add, that probably they employed for this use refinous woods.

Homer, indeed, has ufed on one occafion a term which at firft fight would make us think the Greeks knew lamps in the heroic times. He tells us in the Odyffee, that Minerva took a vafe of gold to light Ulyffes: but it is more than probable that this vafe was not a lamp. In reality, there is never any thing spoken of by this poet which has any relation to thefe fort of machines: we fee on the contra

Odyff. 1. 6. v. 305. 1. 18. v. 306. &c. 1. 19. v. 63. &c.

1 Odyff. 1. 5. v. 59. & 63.

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• Urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum. Æneid. 1. 7. v. 13.

Odyff. 1. 18. v. 309. 310. & 316.

L. 19. V. 34.

VOL. II.

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