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of it in the article of government. Their defiga fucceeded, the Greeks were not long of perceiving and acknowledging the advantages of agriculture: they gave them. felves up to it with much ardour and fuccefs.

Barley was the first fpecies of grain which the Greeks cultivated, and the plains of Rharia were the firft which were fown in Attica. The forts of grains which were fown there are not indeed specified by the marbles; the word is effaced, but we may fupply it from Paufanias. This author fays, that, in remembrance of the first effays of agriculture, the fort of cakes which the Athenians used in their facrifices were still made in his time with barley gathered from the fields of Rharia". We are ignorant in what time they began to cultivate in Greece wheat and other grains. There is room, for example, to doubt, if in the ages we now speak, or even for a long time afterwards, the Greeks had any knowledge of oats. We see that in the time of the war of Troy barley was the common food of the horses.

Homer and Hefiod are the only perfons who can give as any knowledge of the manner in which the ancient Greeks, cultivated their lands. We may judge of these original practices by those which fubfifted in the times of these authors. It appears that they then gave three ploughings to the ground. Two forts of ploughs were in ufe:

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* B. 1. art. 8. p. 65. & 66.

1 Dionyf. Halicarn. 1. 2. p. 95.; Plut. t. 2. p. 292. B.; Plin. 1. 18. fect. 14. p. 108.; Pauf. 1. 1. c. 38.; Pindar. schol. ad Olymp. od. 9. p. 93.

in Marm. Oxon. ep. 13. Plutarch feems to oppose this tradition. t. 2. P. 144. A.

" L. 1. c. 38.

• Odyff. 1. 4. v. 41.

P Ibid. 1. 5. v. 127.; Hefiod. Theog. v. 971. See Salmaf. Plin. exercit. P. 509. &c.; Le Clerc, not. in Hefiod. p. 264. & 266.

I think we perceive a glimpse of that ancient practice in the name of Triptolemus. Le Clerc, according to his cuftom, has fearched in the oriental lan. guages the etymology of this word. Triptolemus, according to his opinion, fignifies breaker of the ridges. Bibl. univerf. t. 6. p. 54. & 91.

But I think that it would be more natural to draw the name of Triptolemus from two Greek words Teis & Toλew, ter verso.

This name probably has allufion to the cuftom of ploughing the land three times; a custom which the tradition of the Greeks implies, without doubt, to have been fhewn by Triptolemus. A paffage of Hefiod feems to favour this conjecture. See Theog. v. 971.

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one which was only a single piece of wood; the other, more compounded, confifted of two pieces of wood contrived in fuch a manner that one part made the body of the plough, and the other served to yoke the oxen to. I have borrowed from Hefiod this defcription: but I confess, at the fame time, it is not easy to form a clear and perfect ] idea of all its conftruction. We may fay in general, that these ploughs were very fimple; they had no wheels, and we do not find that they had any iron about them *.

Oxen and mules appear to have been the animals which the Greeks made use of most commonly for tillage. They used mules preferably to oxen when they wanted to open the earth lightly, as when they gave to the field a fecond ploughing. We may conjecture alfo, and with much reafon, that horfes were fometimes ufed in this work,.

The Greeks had been a long time without the knowledge of the harrow. This machine does not appear to have been in ufe even in the time of Hefiod. We fee in reality, that this poet employs a young flave to cover with a fpade the feeds fpread on the furface of the earth".

The custom of manuring the grounds was established very anciently in Greece. Pliny attributes the invention of it to Augeas, so famous in Greek antiquity for the immenfe quantity of his flocks *. The care of cleaning the stables

9 We may conjecture this from the epithets that the poet gives to the two ploughs of which he speaks. Oper. & Dies, V. 432. & 433. See Graevius, lection. Hefiod. p. 48. & 49.; Hom. Iliad. 1. 10. v. 353, & fchol. ad hunc verf.

*They might object, that Homer, Iliad. 1. 23. v. 835. in speaking of a mass of iron, fays, that it might be of great ufe to an husbandman, and conclude from thence that it should enter into the conftruction of ploughs. But I think that the poet would only fay, that iron was proper to make many of the tools of which they had need for the country, fuch as fickles, axes, &c. The reafon on which I ground this is, that if they had ufed iron in the construction of ploughs, the fhare, without doubt, ought to have been made of it. But Hefiod, who was probably pofterior to Homer, fays plainly that the share was made of a fort of oak very hard, called giv. Op. & Dies, v. 436. Hefiod. op. & dies. v. 46.

See Iliad. 1. 10. v. 351. &c.; Odyff. 1. 8. v. 124.

Hefiod. op. & dies, v. 816.

*L. 17. fect. 6. p. 55.

VOL. II.

" Id. Opera, v. 469. &c.

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of this prince was, fay they, one of the labours which Euryftheus impofed on Hercules . What is certain, is, that the fecret of meliorating the grounds and fertilizing them by means of manure, was known to the Greeks in the moft ancient times. Homer fpeaks of it precifely z. Cicero and Pliny had already remarked it.

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These people had a manner of making their harvest, dif ferent from that which we practife at prefent. Their reapers did not range themselves in a line as ours do. They divided themselves into two parties, and each taking an end `of a ridge, advancing one against the other, they met about the middle of the field. The Greeks did not heap up their grains in fheaves in the barns, as is our practice. They put them in veffels of earth, or in baskets destined for that purpose. Inftead of beating the corn with flails, they made the oxen tread it. There is great reafon to think, that the fan which they used, had no resemblance to ours. We may conjecture that this machine was made a good deal like a fhovel.

I have already faid elsewhere, that the Greeks originally, like all other people, had been ignorant of the art of reducing their grain to meal. They then eat it green and half roasted *. They learned afterwards to grind it. This art must have been very rude in the beginning. They knew nothing but the pestle and mortar to reduce the grain into flour. The Greeks, by degrees, had in ufe hand-mills.

Diod. 1. 4, p. 259.; Pauf. 1. 5. c. 1. p. 377.

z Odyff. 1. 17. v. 297. &c.

b L, 17. fect. 6. p. 55.

a De fenect. n. 15. t. 3. p. 312.

• The paffage of Homer meant by Cicero and by Pliny, is found in the the Odyffey, 1. 23. v. 225. & 226,

They speak of Laertes, father of Ulyffes, whom Homer, according to these two authors, reprefents employed in manuring his lands. It is in this fense that they translate the word λisgaivovτa, used by this poet, though literally this word means fimply, to raise or rake. But without having recourfe to this paffage, which may be dubious, we find in that which 1 have quoted the cuftom of manuring the grounds established in a precife manner, a Iliad. 1. II. v. 67. &c. • Hefiod. op. v. 475, & 482. &c.

f Iliad. 1. 20. v. 495. &c.

* Odyff. 1. 11. v. 125. See the notes of Mad. Dacier.

Supra, p. 179.

Hefiod. op. v. 423.

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We have feen, that they gave the honour of this invention to Myles fon of Lelex first King of Laconia *. These machines, notwithstanding, were very imperfect. They were ignorant then of the art of making them move by means of water and of wind. The ancients, during many ages, knew nothing but hand-mills. In Greece, as well as in Egypt, it was the women who were charged with the labour of turning the mill.

The Greeks had a custom of giving to the grains, before they ground them, many preparations which proved how very imperfect the machines were which they employed in that operation. They began by steeping the grains in water. They then left them to dry for a whole month; and afterwards dried them by the fire. It was only after all thefe operations that they brought their corn to the mill1. I have explained elsewhere the motives of all these preparations m.

I have nothing particular to say of the manner in which the Greeks used the flour in the first times. I have spoke fufficiently of these ancient practices in the first part of this work. We cannot determine the time in which the art of making bread began to be known in Greece. Tradition gives the honour of this invention to the god Pan⚫. We fee by Homer, that this discovery must have been very ancient P. I fhall remark farther, that in the heroic times the women appear to have been the only perfons who concerned themselves in the care of preparing this ali

ment.

* Supra, p. 179.

* See part 1. book 2. chap. 1.

m Part 1. book 2. chap. 1.

i Odyff. 1. 7. v. 103. &c. 1. 20. v. 105. &c. 1 Plin. 1. 18. fect. 14. p. 108.

n Book 2. chap. 1.

• Caffiodor. var. 1. 6. formul. 18. p. 106.

P Iliad. 1. 9. v. 216.; Odyff. I. I. v. 147.

See Ody. 1. 7. v. 103. &c. l. 18. v. 559. & 560.; Herod. 1. 8. n. 137.

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ARTICLE II.

Of the art of making wine.

THE epoch in which the Greeks had begun to cultivate the vine, and to know the art of making wine, labours under almost as many difficulties as that of tillage.. The Athenians pretend equally to have communicated this knowledge to all Greece. They place the epoch in the reign of Pandion the First, fifth King of Athens, 1463 years before Chrift. But they were not agreed about the author of this discovery. Some give that honour to Bacchus, others to one Eumolpus, who had, say they, quitted Thrace, his original country, to come and fettle in Attica". I do not think we ought to pay much regard to this pretenfion of the Athenians. In all refpects, it appears to

me to have no foundation.

The greatest part of ancient authors agree to give the discovery of the vine to Bacchus. They acknowledge, it is true, many perfons who have borne that name; neverthelefs, it is only to one who paffed for the son of Jupiter. We ought, therefore, to make the firfl knowledge which the Greeks had of making wine, to afcend to the ages in which the Titans had reigned in that part of Europe; and I think in reality, that the culture of the vine had been introduced among the Greeks under the dominion of these princes. But it must have been with this knowledge, as with many others which were abolished in the trouble and confufion which the extinction of the family of the Titans, and the destruction of their empire, occafioned in GreeceI have already faid, that fome time after this event, the

Apollod. 1. 3. p. 197.; Hygin. fab. 130.; Justin. 1. 2. c. 6.; Pauf. I. 1. c. 2.; Propert. 1. 2. eleg. 33. v. 29.

Apollod. 1. 3. p. 197.

Id. ibid.; Hygin. fab. 130.

" Plin. 1. 7. fect. 57. p. 415. Pliny makes this Eumolpus an Athenian, but he is wrong. He was originally of Thrace, from whence he came to settle at Athens, See Strabo, 1. 7. p. 494.

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