THE KNICKERBOCKER. Vol. LIV. NOVEMBER, 1859. No. 5. RURAL LIFE IN ANCIENT GREECE. OUR ideas of the ancient Greeks are mostly connected with their systems of government, their arts and literature. We do not often turn our attention to their rustic pursuits and amusements, their agriculture, their gardening, their care of animals, their rural architecture, and those manners and customs which were developed in their villages and hamlets. This is partly owing to the few allusions to rustic life to be met with in the Hellenic authors whose works have been preserved. They relate generally to history and philosophy, to politics, social economy, and war. We must except that small but rich collection of poetry, which describes, however, rather the passions and feelings, than the rural habits and pursuits of the nation. It requires, however, no positive testimony to establish the fact, that very large classes among the Greeks must always have applied themselves diligently to the various processes of rural life. What we regret is, the loss of those works which described the peculiar habits and manners by which the rustic populations were characterized. The Greeks were not, by any means, a listless, dreamy, fantastic people, aiming at finical elegance, and intent exclusively on multiplying monuments of their taste, for the gratification of an admiring posterity. Though in geographical extent Greece is a small country, it contains within itself a greater variety of tribes and classes than any other region inhabited by one people and subject to one political system. In some provinces men were found who were civilized to the highest extent known to antiquity; while on the other hand, there existed large tribes who, down to the latest period, remained in a state of rudeness scarcely conceivable to those who confine themselves within the ordinary range of classical studies. The care of herds and flocks, horses and mules, their breeding and sale, constituted the entire pursuit of certain communities. Others engaged in traffic, conducted in a very simple and primitive manner, disposing of their goods at the nearest market, where they were eagerly bought up by foreigners, in exchange for the productions of the East. The growing taste for the fine arts gave rise to new occupations for the rustic populations. Quarrymen pierced the bowels of the mountains in search of that beautiful material which afterward glittered on the Acropolis and in the marble statues of the gods. The production of groups in bronze gave employment to the miner, to the smelter of metals, to the charcoal-burner, and various other plebeian occupations. All the mountains, hills, and eminences were richly clothed with wood, and gave birth to innumerable brooks, fountains, and streams, by which the whole country was beautified and fertilized. The happy rustic, astonished by the beauties and delighted by the fertility of nature, joined hand in hand with her in improving the country. His comfortable circumstances enabled him to build a neat, pretty homestead; and in the gratitude of his heart, he erected in the groves, near every beautiful spring, elegant chapels to the nymphs and water-gods, the mystic inhabitants of that element, which so much conduced to his prosperity. Rustic altars and basins were also erected, filled with pure water, where the wayfarer, fainting with thirst, might recruit his exhausted energies, and refreshed, proceed rejoicing on his journey. Between the fields ran green lanes, thickly studded, as in England, with beautiful hedges and trees, producing alike neatness and enjoyment. The fields in summer resounded day and night with the songs of the birds, making the very air one immense choir, tempting the amazed and delighted traveller to think himself in Elysium. In the heroic ages, the rural life in Greece was of a very simple character. But as the arts and sciences progressed, the occupations of the husbandman were multiplied and refined; new breeds of animals were introduced; the economy of the farm-yard became more complicated; new fruits were introduced in rapid succession; gardens were laid out, partly for profit, partly for that love of every thing which is beautiful in nature which so distinguished the Greeks of that simple age. Numerous birds were imported from the East, the peacock from India, the cock from Media, while other birds came flocking in from all parts of the world. The astonished and delighted inhabitants, who were ignorant that there were such splendid creatures in existence, received them with transports of delight. The horse and cow were known from the earliest period in Greece, and it is supposed by many that the former was brought from Arabia or the northern shores of Africa. Greece clothed in the magnificent costume of poetry all the achievements of civilization, and often so completely disguised the truth with gorgeous imagery, that our curiosity is defeated by that which was at first perhaps meant to gratify it. The fruitful country produced all those vegetable productions which confer a poetical beauty on the face of nature - the rose and the violet; the lily of all colors, white, blue, and orange; the lotus and the myrtle; and an infinite variety of odoriferous shrubs at once pleasing to the eye and grateful to the sense. Olive-groves and vineyards, with orchards and kitchen-gardens, were found in Greece from very remote antiquity. Oil was one of the principal exports of the country; and the art of cultivating the olive was in some of the states brought to the utmost perfection. Vines of all varieties covered the slopes of the hills; and wines were made which were reckoned among the most valuable productions of the country. Until very recently, it was impossible, without the toil and investigation of years, to form any adequate idea of rural life among the inhabitants of Hellas. But in Mr. St. John's History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece,' we now find collected all that can be possibly known on the subject, and to that excellent work, with some extracts from Herodotus and other ancient writers, we are indebted for our knowledge of the rural life of the ancient Greeks. It was customary in Greece to build their farm-houses in the midst of plantations of silver fir, which in winter defended them from cold, and in summer attracted the refreshing breeze. The house was built in the middle of the grove, with sometimes a flat, sometimes a pointed roof, with a porch surrounded with a rustic colonnade. The larger houses had generally large pots, in which citron-trees were planted, placed on either side of the doors facing the south. The Attic farmer cared little for the comfort of a home; there was none of the thriftiness and neatness which is so characteristic of the New-England farm-house. The entrance of his dwelling was crowded with bags of corn, heaps of new cheese, hurdles of dried figs, and packages of raisins. The racks groaned with sweet hams and fat bacon. Even the bed-chamber was often made use of for the reception of fruit-melons hung in long festoons suspended from the rafters. Close to the house was the sanctum of those -to the Greek-important birds, the geese; it was styled the Chenobascion. Here the birds were kept and fed with all the care that a farmer of the present day would bestow upon a favorite horse. Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, introduced into that island the Malassian and Spartan dogs, the Syrian and Naxian goats, and sheep from Miletos and Attica. Horses were not common, and were seldom employed for agricultural purposes, but were kept principally for military and religious pomp and processions. The mule and the ass were, however, much used: the former for carts and ploughs; the latter by the wood-cutters to carry fagots to the city. The raising of bees was a favorite and important employment of the rustic populations of Greece. Owing to the climate, they thrive better and produce more honey there than in any other part of the world, amongst which the fragrant gold-colored honey of Hymettus stood foremost. It was raised by Pelasgians, the land having been granted them by the Athenians, in payment for a wall they had built around the Acropolis. In course of time, however, the Athenians, true to their character, jealous of the way the Pelasgians had cultivated the heretofore barren land, drove them out of Attica, under the pretence that they had made thieving incursions into the neighboring country. In the Homeric age, the bees had not been provided with hives, for whenever we find mention of them in the poet, it is either when they are streaming forth from a hollow rock, or settling in golden clusters on the spring blossoms. Virgil, also, who rather imitated what he read than pictured what he saw, speaks of bees that 'HUNT the golden dew In summer heat, on tops of lilies feed, Or creep within their bells to suck the balmy seed.' Hesiod, when comparing women with drones, has an expression, however, that proves that hives were in use in his time: 'As when within their well-roofed hives the bees On others' labor cheer their worthless souls.' Small runnels of water, not exceeding two or three inches in depth, paved with pebbles and shells rising above the surface, were constructed in those places where the bees most congregated, so that they might drink at ease and with perfect safety. When the spring was near a large stream or river, other contrivances were resorted to, to give the bees plenty of water to drink. 'THEN o'er the running stream or standing lake, A passage for thy weary people make. With osier-floats the standing water strow, Of massy stones make bridges if it flow, The making of charcoal was another very prominent feature all over Greece. Coal was found in the Morea, and used by smiths in their forges; but it was never brought into general use. The method of preparing charcoal was very simple. Digging a round pit, the burner paved it with stones, and piled up straight billets of wood as close as possible, covering the whole over with turf, so as to form a circular barrow. Fire was then applied to the whole pile, and the covering pierced with holes for the escape of the smoke. When it had burned for a sufficient time, the wood was taken out and laid by for use. Oak and walnut were the woods principally used. Unfortunately no Greek writer has left us a complete picture of a garden. Allusions are found in the poets, and occasional hints are given by many prose writers; from these fragments, however, it is impossible to give any thing like an approach to a faithful picture of them, and we must, therefore, let the subject alone. Some modern writers, from some inexplicable reason, have endeavored to give currency to the opinion, that one of the most beautiful of modern flowers, the rose, was unknown to the ancient Greeks. But this opinion is altogether erroneous. Homer, speaking of the rosy-fingered morn, does not, as has been supposed, mean the flower of the wild promegranate tree, which was of a different color. Herodotus speaks of the garden belonging to Midas, son of Gordias, in which wild roses grew, each one having sixty leaves, and surpassing all others in fragrance. Elsewhere, too, he compares the flower of the red Niliac lotus to the rose. And Stesichoros, an older poet than Anacreon - who has alluded to the rose in his poems-distinctly mentions chaplets composed of the rose: 'MANY a yellow quince was there Piled upon the regal chair; Many a rose-crown fealy wreathed With twisted violets that grow Where the breath of spring has breathed.' Showing also that that pretty little flower, the violet, was known and valued in those days. Indeed, it shared with the rose the admiration of the Athenian people, who had extensive plantations of both flowers. Growing along the dark borders of streams or fountains, purple, white, and gold, 'THE violet dim, But sweeter than the lids of JUNO's eyes, Or CYTHERA's breath.' The geranium, the spike-lavender, the rosemary, the basil, the hyssop, the cytsus, the rose-campaor or columbine, the yellow amaryllis, and the celandine. |