ALm:«f K. MANN 
 LUmARY 
 
 AT 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 GT 5870.H4W 
 
 The wanderings of plants and animals fro 
 
 3 1924 014 462 430 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014462430 
 
THE WANDERINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 PLANTS AND ANIMALS 
 
 FROM THEIR FIRST HOME. 
 
 VICTOR HEHN. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 JAMES STEVEN STALLYBRASS, 
 
 EDITOR OK Grimm's " teutonic mythology," etc. etc. 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN AND CO., 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 1888. 
 
Co tlie 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 
 
 this book is 
 (by permission) 
 
 1R,e0pectfuUp aDedicatcli. 
 
196440 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The history of our Domestic Animals and Cultivated Plants is a 
 subject of absorbing interest to the educated man, and (if he knew 
 it) to the uneducated man too. It forms no small , part of the 
 history of Man himself and his slow advance to civilization. 
 
 We cannot afford to kick down the ladders we have climbed 
 by. If our venerable friend the " lowing Steer " has now " doffed 
 the weary yoke" for good and all, and even his quite recent suc- 
 cessor Dobbin bids fair to be driven off the field by a mechanical 
 substitute, " the divel's oan team ; " yet, some three or four 
 thousand years ago, with our first wooden plough just invented, 
 and the steam-plough still a long way ahead, what could we have 
 done without " the ox and the ass to ear the ground " ? 
 
 And we have not quite done with our old friends yet ; not till 
 we have learnt to relish milk an 1 beef manufactured without the 
 aid of milkmaid or butcher; not till the invalid, advised to "take 
 horse-exercise,'' consents to take it alongside Master Tom in the 
 day-nursery. And not then. The Iron Horse was to have ex- 
 terminated his prototype of fiesh and blood, but Dobbin seems 
 inclined to stay ; nay, if we except the plough-horse and the stager, 
 he is in greater request than ever. 
 
 And who can state the sum of our obligations to the sheep, the 
 pig, the camel, the dog, and even poor mousing Puss? Or why 
 should Chanticleer and his family, with other bipeds of the poultry- 
 yard, be forgotten ? And much the same may be said of Culti- 
 vated Plants — the grains, the potherbs, garden-flowers, fruit-trees, 
 timber, and even ornamental trees. 
 
I-REFACE. 
 
 Now the history of the Plants and Animals of Europe— of their 
 reclamation from a wild state to the service of man, and their dis- 
 tribution in their present locale — is susceptible of two or three 
 different methods of investigation, which sometimes clash, and 
 lead to opposite conclusions. It is certain that some of them are 
 not natives of the countries where we find them ; that they have 
 been imported from abroad. But which of them ? whence, and 
 along what route ? how early, and by whom ? Our answers to 
 these questions will be different, accordingly as we lean chiefly on 
 Natural Science, or on Ancient History, Literature, and even 
 Language. 
 
 The purely scientific man will judge chiefly by the suitability of 
 soil and climate. If he finds a plant flourishing pretty abun- 
 dantly in Greece or Italy now, and knows of no climatic or geo- 
 logic changes that would exclude its having flourished there 5,000 
 years ago, he will at once pronounce it indigenous, and scout the 
 notion of its having been imported. 
 
 But now listen to the scholar, and he may tell you that Homer 
 never mentions such a plant ; that later poets speak of it in a 
 vague way as something very choice and very holy, and always in 
 connection with some particular deity : they may have tasted its 
 fruit, may have seen the figure of its flowers (probably conventional) 
 in emblematic painting or carving, but have not the faintest notion 
 of its shape or size, whether it be a grass, a shrub, or a tree ; till 
 at last, in the time of Darius or Alexander, the plant itself emerges 
 into clear visibility. Your inference will be, that it came to 
 Greece within historical times. 
 
 Or suppose the plant was common in Greece in Homer's time, 
 so common that all memory of its introduction had died away, 
 except in half-mythical traditions, say of the migration of a tribe, 
 the founding of a city, and so forth ; — is such Tradition to be 
 despised? Why should not the plant have been imported a 
 thousand years before Homer ? Who knows how long Phoenician 
 commerce, colonization, and conquest had been active, how long 
 "great Zidon " and " the strong city Tyre " had stood? 
 
 Lastly, where History, Literature, and even Tradition fail us, 
 may not the modern science of Language come to our aid ? Sup- 
 pose the name of the plant stands isolated in Greek, but has its 
 root and a family ot relations in Hebrew or Persic ; that it can be 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 traced along the coast of Asia Minor and across a string of ^gean 
 Islands to the south of Greece, or round by the Euxine and 
 ■ Thrace to Northern Greece, following the very track of Phoenician 
 commerce or Iranian conquest and migration ; — can we doubt 
 whence the name and the thing must have come ? 
 
 Professor Hehn thinks that of late years the Scientist has had 
 too much his own way, that it is time for the Historic and Philo- 
 logic methods to come into play, and have their say. Hence his 
 book, which he modestly calls a historico - linguistic sketch. 
 "Sketch" is a light word for the load of learning he pours out 
 before us. Comparative Philology is not the thing of lucky guesses 
 that the Etymology of our fathers used to be ; it has well-ascer- 
 tained laws, which raise it to the dignity of a science. 
 
 He holds that Europe owes much more to Asia than the mere 
 botanist and mere zoologist are willing to admit. In particular, 
 that the Flora of Southern Europe has been revolutionized under 
 the hand of Man ; that the evergeen vegetation of Italy and 
 Greece is not indigenous, but is mainly due to the sacred groves 
 planted round the temples of Oriental gods and goddesses ; that 
 in this way the laurel has followed the worship of Apollo, the 
 cypress and myrtle that of " Ashtoreth of the Zidonians " (Aphro- 
 dite), the olive that of Athena, and so on. At the same time, the 
 reverence for the Olive, the Vine, the Fig, &c., was not all super- 
 stitious fancy, but founded on their value to man as the source 
 (and therefore symbol) of a higher type of life. 
 
 He has much to say on the Indo-Europeans or Aryans at the 
 time of their settling in this continent. He is inclined to place 
 their status as to culture not so high as most recent writers have 
 done. He even thinks they stood at a lower stage of civilization 
 than the builders of the Lake-villages in Switzerland ; that instead 
 of these being a " mysterious pre-Aryan race," they were Aryans 
 at a comparatively advanced stage, for they cultivated barley, 
 wheat, and flax, &c. In fact, the low condition of the Aryans on 
 entering Europe, and their subsequent obligations, both to other 
 Aryans (Iranians) in Asia, and above all to the Semitic race in 
 Palestine, form perhaps the central idea of the whole book. 
 
 The Translator has judged it best, for the convenience of the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 common reader, to banish from the body of the book many Greek 
 and Latin citations — on which the Author rather prides himself — 
 and disquisitions on the exact value of ancient words. In revising 
 her Translation for the press, I have taken the liberty to restore 
 some of this omitted matter, where it seemed essential to the argu- 
 ment. If too much has been omitted, the Translator apologizes to 
 the learned Author on the ground that she wished his book to be 
 read. Readers with an appetite for philology will probably still 
 find an abundant fiast in the " Notes," which are translated in 
 full. 
 
 J. S. S. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION ......... I 7 
 
 THE HORSE {Equus caballus) . . , ^ . . 35 
 
 THE VINE ( Vitis viniferd) 69 
 
 THE FIG-TREE {Ficus Cartco) . . . , . 85 
 
 THE OLIVE-TREE {Olea Europcsa, L.) . . . . . 88 
 
 DOMICILIATION. TREE-CULTURE ..... I02 
 
 ASSES, MULES, GOATS IIO 
 
 STONE ARCHITECTURE ....... 114 
 
 BEER 119 
 
 BUTTER . 127 
 
 FLAX (Linum usitatissimwri) 
 HEMP (Cannabis saiiva) 
 
 LEEK. ONION . 153 
 
 CUMMIN. MUSTARD ........ 162 
 
 LENTILS AND PEAS 1 65 
 
 LAUREL {Lauras Nobilis) \ 
 MYRTLE {Myrtus communis) ) 
 
 THE BOX-TREE 176 
 
 THE POMEGRANATE-TREE {Punica granatwii) : . . 180 
 {{Pyrus Cydonia) 
 
 THE QUINCE -, 
 
 \ {Cydonia vulgaris) 
 
 132 
 
 169 
 
 185 
 
THE PLUM-TREE 
 
 I Prtinus insititia 
 
 MEDICA {Lucerne) 
 
 CYTISUS {Laburnum) 
 
 THE OLEANDER {Neriwn Olea?ider) 
 
 THE PISTACHIO {Pistada vera) 
 
 PEACH {Amygdalus Persicd) 
 
 APRICOT (Prunus Armeniaca) 
 
 187 
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 THE ROSE (Rosa GalHca, centifoUd) I 
 THE LILY (LMiuvi candidum) . . J 
 
 THE SAFFRON {Crocus sativus) . ... 197 
 
 THE DATE-PALM (PJicenix dactyliferd) 202 
 
 THE CWK^SS [Cupressiis sempervirens) . . . . 212 
 
 THE PLANE-TREE {Piatanus Orientalis) 217 
 
 THE PINE-TREE {Piiius pined) 223 
 
 THE CANE {Arundo dcnax) 228 
 
 THE PAPYRUS . 
 
 CUCURBITACEOUS PLANTS 
 
 THE DOMESTIC FOWL 
 
 THE PIGEON 
 
 THE PEACOCK .... 
 
 THE GUINEA-FOWL 
 
 THE PHEASANT 
 
 GOOSE. DUCK 
 
 232 
 
 234 
 
 241 
 
 253 
 
 263 
 
 271 
 
 274 
 
 -277 
 
 HAWKING , . 282 
 
 {Primus domes tica 
 
 287 
 
 THE MULBERRY-TREE {Morus nigra) 200 
 
 ALMONDS. WALNUTS. CHESTNUTS 2g4 
 
 THE CHERRY-TREE (Prunus cerasus) ,Q0 
 
 ARBUTUS {Strawberry-tree) ' 
 
 304 
 
 309 
 312 
 
 320 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FRUIT-CULTURE. IMPING, GRAFTING .... 323 
 
 THE AGRUMI, OR ORANGE GROUP 329 
 
 THE CAROB-TREE {Ceratoma siliqua) 340 
 
 THE RABBIT {Lepus ciinicuhis) 343 
 
 ■THE CAT 346 
 
 THE BUFFALO 354 
 
 THE HOP {Humulus Luptihts) 358 
 
 RETROSPECT 363 
 
 MODERN EUROPE 372 
 
 THE RICE-PLANT {Oryza sativa) 379 
 
 MAIZE {Zea Mais) . 384 
 
 BLACK MILLET (Sorgum vulgare) .... . 385 
 
 BUCKWHEAT {Polygonum fagopyru7n) .... 386 
 
 THE TULIP 391 
 
 AMERICA 394 
 
 CONCLUSION 398 
 
 NOTES V' 407 
 
THE HISTORY AND MIGRATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 CULTIVATED PLANTS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 That the animal and vegetable worlds — that is to say, the whole 
 physiognomy of life, labour, and landscape in a country — may, 
 in the course of centuries, be changed under the hand of 
 Man is an experimental fact that, especially since the discovery 
 of America, cannot be contradicted. During the last three 
 centuries — in a purely historical period, since the invention of 
 printing, and in full view of the civilized world — the native 
 animals and plants in newly discovered islands and in the 
 colonized countries of the Western Hemisphere have been sup- 
 planted by those of Europe, or by a flora and fauna collected 
 from all parts of the globe. In St. Helena, for instance, the 
 aboriginal wild vegetation has retreated to the mountains in the 
 interior of the island, driven in by an advancing circle of novel 
 plants which came over the ocean in the train of Europeans. In 
 the pampas of Buenos Ayres, for miles together, we meet with 
 scarcely one indigenous plant; they have all succumbed to the 
 usurpation of plants introduced from Europe. 
 
 But a far wider view of the subject, extending over two or 
 three thousand years, is afforded by the history of organic nature 
 in Greece and Italy. These two countries in their present state 
 are the result of a long and varied process of culture, and in- 
 finitely removed from the point at which they were first placed by 
 
1 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 nature. Almost everything that strikes the northern traveller on 
 crossing the Alps as novel and agreeable— the quiet,- plastic beauty 
 of the vegetation, the characteristic forms of the landscape and 
 animals, nay, even the geological structure (in so far as it has 
 become exposed by changes in its organic covering, and has then 
 felt the effects of light and atmospheric agencies) — is a product of 
 civilization brought about by manifold transformations during long 
 periods of time. Any bird's-eye view of a tract of land in Italy 
 is at the same time a survey of earlier and of later centuries in its 
 history. Nature gave the polar altitude, the formation of the 
 ground, and the geographical position ; all the rest is the work 
 of improving culture. The contour of the peninsula, half con- 
 tinent and half island ; the temperate climate ; then the multi- 
 plicity of historic relations — in the earliest times the repeated 
 inroads from the north, the marine traffic with Tyre, the Greek 
 colonies, the near neighbourhood of opposite Africa, and the 
 wide-spread Roman empire, which introduced all the gifts and 
 arts of the East; later on, the Teutonic immigrations from the 
 north-east, the Byzantine and the Arab dominion, the Crusades, 
 the connexion of Italian seaports with the Levant ; and lastly, 
 after the discovery of America, the close political union with 
 Spain — all these and other circumstances and fates have produced 
 the land "where amid foliage dark the golden orange glows, 
 where motionless the myrtle stands, and high the laurel towers." 
 The thorny, blue-green American agave and the thick-leaved 
 cactus, which now cover all the shores of the Mediterranean, and 
 so marvellously suit the southern rocks and gardens, were only 
 brought there from America in the sixteenth century! That 
 cypress near the vine-dresser's cottage, towering in solitary gloom 
 above the wilderness of fruit all round it, has its home on the 
 mountains of Afghanistan. Yonder curiously twisted grey-greeii 
 oUve-trees originally came from Palestine and Syria ; the father- 
 land of those date-palms in the convent garden of St. Bonaventura 
 at Rome is the Delta of the Euphrates and Tigris. Though 
 these and other cultivated plants seem to us true children of the 
 Hesperian soil and climate, they were once strangers, slowly 
 introduced in the course of ages, and at long intervals. Often 
 
EXHA USTION BY CUL TURE. 19 
 
 their history lies more or less clearly before us, but oftener still 
 it must be gathered from scattered and doubtful testimony, or 
 guessed by analogy. 
 
 EXHAUSTION BY CULTURE. 
 
 But what if the transformation we now behold be mere corrup- 
 tion, over-cultivation, and decay of vital power ? An opinion so 
 hostile to culture has not wanted advocates among learned men. 
 They say that, as the whole human race has degenerated from a 
 former nobler state, and all we know now is how to destroy the 
 works of God ; as every land and nation has its appointed time, 
 and the same process is being repeated on each in turn, so that 
 history is one monotonous round, which will finally be put an end 
 to by the Last Judgment ; so likewise the classical lands are 
 physically dead, their natural condition has been disturbed, and 
 their soil exhausted by over-culture. As regards Greece, such 
 opinions do at first sight seem partly true. One German author, 
 C. Fraas, declares modern Greece — which in its best days was 
 thickly wooded, rainy, and watered by copious rivers — to be a 
 barren waste, waterless through the uprooting of its woods, stripped 
 of its upper soil, and left a prey to its burning climate ; a land 
 incapable of profitable tillage, or any industry that demands timber, 
 and therefore no fit abode foi an economically developed com- 
 munity. Assertions like these are extended to the whole of 
 Western Asia ; thus Babylonia is said to have been used up by 
 ancient culture and irretrievably ruined. But disappointed hopes 
 and indignation at ungrateful treatment have evidently biassed our 
 author : he does not always quote the ancient authors impartially ; 
 he passes over what did not serve his purpose, and puts a false 
 interpretation on many facts. For example, the great cold com- 
 plained of in the introduction to the " Vendtdad " is no proof that 
 the climate of Iran has become hot since those early days ; for 
 the passage quoted is either a mere reminiscence of the original 
 home of the Zends, the highlands on the western border of 
 Central Asia, or it refers to one of the cold mountain regions 
 not wanting within the limits of Iranian territory. The fact that 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 cypress wood was used in building Alexander the Great's fleet on 
 the Euphrates is not much to the point; for, from the earliest 
 times of Phoenician commerce, cypress wood was considered 
 eminently fit for ship-building ; and then who can tell us whether 
 Babylonia was ever rich in heavy-timbered trees ? That Greece 
 is less wooded now than it was in Homer's time, and earlier, is 
 undeniable; but it is equally true that many mountain districts 
 of the Peloponnesus have denser forests of oak and pine than 
 when the country was thickly peopled and studded with towns ; 
 and that Attica, in the time of Pericles and Alcibiades, was dry 
 as it is now. Plato calls the Ilissus a " streamlet," and we are 
 told that the once bare and treeless Attica was first planted with 
 olive-trees by Pisistratus. ^ The destruction of forests is a phase, 
 but not the final upshot, of culture. When a community takes 
 the first steps towards civilization on a virgin soil, the primeval 
 forest must give way before the most pressing wants : there is 
 no thought of choice or forbearance. Each individual draws what 
 he wants from the unlimited treasure, which, like the free air, is 
 open to all. At this stage the uprooter of the forest seems a 
 benefactor and hero. And in those ancient times it was really 
 more difficult to penetrate into the woods than we now imagine ; 
 it was a work that demanded almost superhuman effort. Theo- 
 phrastus tells of an attempt made by the Romans to found a 
 colony in Corsica, which was frustrated by the impenetrability 
 of the woods ; the new-comers were, so to speak, beaten back by 
 the thicket. A passage in a work of Strabo is also instructive in 
 this connexion : " Eratosthenes says (of Cyprus, but the precedent 
 is typical) that, anciently, dense woods covered all the plains and 
 hindered cultivation ; mining thinned them a little, then came 
 navigation, which also consumed much timber ; but, all this not 
 vanquishing the wilderness, every one was allowed to make a clear- 
 ing and settle where he liked, and the piece of land thus reclaimed 
 was promised to him as his untaxed property." And this last 
 measure, we may add in the same spirit, was the first thing that 
 created light and culture. The farther the forest receded, the 
 more friendly did nature become, and the more varied her gifts of 
 herb and fruit ; for the unbroken primeval forest had suffered only 
 
EXHAUSTION BY CULTURE. 
 
 a limited and uniform vegetation to exist beneath its gloomy and 
 everlasting shade. Not until long after is this condition reversed, 
 in obedience to the law of the three stages. The scarcity of wood, 
 shade, and moisture awakens a regret for the departed freshness 
 of nature ; conscience, so to speak, is aroused ; then the exist- 
 ence of the forest within certain limits is intentionally secured ; 
 or, where it is absolutely wanting, plantations are commenced, as 
 is now the case in many European states. But before thoughtful 
 husbandry can make good what preceding generations have 
 remorselessly spoiled, there often sets in, from other historic 
 causes, a period of ferality, when the land presents the appearance, 
 here of being exhausted by culture, there of having fallen a prey 
 to blind man-hating nature (e.g., by the accumulation of swamps), 
 and that is the point at which Greece now stands. But at no 
 time was that country damp and foggy, like England ; it was 
 always close to Africa, and the ancients themselves kept goats, 
 sank cisterns, and practised artificial irrigation. E. Curtius must 
 have been led away by Fraas, when in the preface to his " Journey 
 in the Peloponnesus," he takes such a gloomy and hopeless view 
 of the physical condition of Greece. What matters it that philo- 
 sophers like Plato sometimes describe the earth, and especially 
 Hellas, as aged, a bare skeleton that once was clothed ? Plato's 
 whole character is that of an elegiac idealist ; and Seneca, when 
 he uses the expression, " senility of the soil," shows himself in 
 this, as in other points, a precursor of Christianity. Is not there 
 the same general impression amongst us ? do not we constantly 
 hear it said that the climate has changed, that in the speaker's 
 younger days people were stronger and healthier, the soil more 
 fertile, and so on? The old sailor with whom Julius Frobel 
 made the passage from New York to Chagres would have it that 
 during his lifetime the trade-winds had fallen off in their 
 punctuality. Times without number the approaching end of all 
 things has been argued from the increasing wickedness of the 
 world. Lasaulx, another Munich romanticist, not long ago 
 prophesied the downfall of West-European civilization (which to 
 him was the same thing as the fall of the Church), and actually 
 installed the Slavs as heirs. Against these maggots of the brain 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 we have means of refutation that were not accessible to our 
 ancestors, namely, the figures of statistics and the calculations of 
 physical science. E. Curtius concludes with the words: "Part 
 of these evils (caused by the destruction of woods) can be rectified 
 by restoring the disturbed order of nature ; other damages no 
 second culture can ever repair, any more than, in organic life, art 
 can revive a power that has died oat." Pray, what may these 
 irreparable damages be ? Moist earth can be laid in terraces on 
 the hill-sides, stagnant rivers purified, dry heaths watered, plains 
 that have gone to marsh can be drained, and forests, if protected 
 from goats and the fires of shepherds, would soon, in that happy 
 climate, cover once more the flanks of the mountains. What is 
 there impossible to capital in all this ? and what powers are lost 
 beyond recall ? The general conditions of nature, which man 
 cannot master, existed in ancient times as much as now. The 
 floods caused by a sudden thunderstorm, for instance, will always 
 rush destructive to the vale, and with them carry trees and rocks, 
 just as they did in Homer's time, and when they subside, leave a 
 long pebbly waste behind ; things of which there is no fear in the 
 plains of Central Europe, where rain often drips from the sky for 
 days together. That which seems to northern travellers who 
 carry an ideal Greece in their imaginations to be present decay, is, 
 in part, the character of southern lands and climates in general. 
 The evils complained of are inseparably bound up with all the 
 charm and bounty of countries lying nearer to the sun. Besides, 
 we must not over-rate the influence of forests on climate. As 
 often occurs with new points of view, this one has beer, too 
 exclusively applied. In the present case were also enlisted the 
 sympathy of poetical minds, and especially the interest of the 
 feudal nobility, who fought on behalf of large estates, who did 
 not relish losing their hunting-grounds, and were happy to be able, 
 for once, to join chorus with the newest doctrines of national 
 economy. In real fact, the climate and atmospheric conditions of 
 European countries, as a whole, do not depend on the vegetable 
 covering of the ground at all, but, next to their latitude, on far- 
 reaching meteorological processes that extend from Africa and the 
 A.tlantic Ocean to Lake Aral and Siberia. 
 
EX HA USTION B Y CUL TURE. 23 
 
 Franz Unger, taking a wider view than Fraas, answers the 
 question whether the East, as to its physical natural, is capable of 
 regeneration, in the affirmative. He opposes the notion that there 
 is any such thing as a senile marasmus of nature, and that civiliza- 
 tion digs its own grave. You need only alter the men who inhabit 
 the ground ; the ground itself has lost nothing of its creative force, 
 and only requires forbearance and assistance. ' For instance, if 
 the herds of goats could be diminished or fed at home, the under- 
 wood would grow up into strong forest, and the driest mountains 
 clothe themselves at least with bushes, without any artificial 
 planting or terracing. Ere long the stone-pine and Oriental oak 
 would cease to be the only trees that greet the traveller's eye in 
 Greece. It is difficult to say how many generations must come 
 and go before the East can be verdant again, but under those 
 skies the generative and sanative powers of nature are marvellous. 
 And, as with vegetation, so it is with other evils which the country 
 has suffered since ancient times. Many harbours, for instance, 
 used by the ancients are now blocked up with sand ; there are 
 even finer harbours that were too large and deep for the small 
 craft of the olden time, but are exactly suited to modern means 
 and dimensions. . Thus the questioil whether Greece, Asia Minor, 
 Syria, and Palestine, countries now so utterly neglected, shall 
 ever rejoice in a new florescence, will depend entirely on the 
 course of world-history and culture; physical nature will place 
 no insurmountable hindrance in the way. And the notion that 
 those wretched countries are used up rests not on agricultural or 
 scientific observation, but on false theories of the philosophy of 
 history. 
 
 From another and equally gloomy point of view the disciples 
 of a new science — agricultural chemistry — have already passed 
 sentence on the East and the Mediterranean countries, and 
 raised their lament over the dead. Cultivation of the soil, they 
 say, canied on for thousands of years, exhausts the ground and 
 forces man to migrate to new countries. The materials necessary 
 to the growth and ripening of plants, the alkalies, phosphoric 
 salts, etc., are only present in a limited quantity on any given 
 surface ; and when, from long successive harvests, the stock is 
 
24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 exhausted and the limit reached, the ground can bear no more 
 fruit ; just as an exhausted mine yields no more metal.. By the 
 ground lying fallow, the minerals it contains have merely an 
 opportunity of becoming soluble ; time, so to speak, only opens 
 up the ground, but its power goes no farther. When once those 
 minerals have been taken from it, lying fallow does the ground no 
 good. The most careful farming only serves to further and hasten 
 the chemical processes which the ingredients of the soil must 
 undergo for the plant to get at them ; it cannot create new 
 ingredients of the same kind. By manuring we give back to the 
 ground a part of what we have taken out of it, but only a part, 
 and in the course of centuries the deficit mounts up, till the 
 field that once was richest will no longer reward human labour. 
 Every harvest that is exported, every grain-ship that carries the 
 produce of an agricultural district over the sea, is a direct 
 diminution of the capital lying in the ground. What the towns 
 consume is drawn from the country, and only comes back to it in 
 small quantities or not at all. The refuse of men and animals, 
 the leaves of trees, the dust of decaying organic life is blown 
 away by storms, carried off by streams, and finally deposited in 
 the ocean, the last grand receptacle. What London needs, the 
 counties have had to yield, and by way of the Thames it is sunk 
 in the depths of the German Ocean. As with London, so it was once 
 with Babylon, with Rome, with the innumerable urban settlements 
 of the ancient world ; the surrounding countries now lie prostrate, 
 and there is no hope that they will ever revive, because by early- 
 commenced and long-continued culture all the materials capable 
 of transformation into vegetable life have been sucked up and 
 carried away. If this train of thought be correct, the fate that has 
 already overtaken the ancient countries lies in store for the whole 
 earth. England will no longer bear a grain of wheat, just as her 
 store of iron and coal will some time or other be exhausted. 
 Mexico will still be fruitful then, but for that land too the day of 
 eternal rest will arrive ; and so on through all the lands of both 
 hemispheres. And the fate that is only hastened by the necessities 
 of mankind must, even if man had never existed, follow as a last 
 consequence in the natural course of vegetable life. Then — let 
 
EXHAUSTION BY CULTURE. 25 
 
 US add — all the mountains of the earth will be levelled by the 
 power of water, wind, and atmospheric action ; and the sun, which 
 constantly parts with heat, without, as far as we know, receiving 
 any equivalent, will grow cold and dead, and with it the earth and 
 its inhabitants. Fortunately we cannot even approximately calculate 
 the date when all this is to happen, so we have a little leisure left 
 us to find out if some link in our chain of reasoning may not 
 prove untenable, and the whole prediction turn out a hoax, and a 
 hypochondriacal chimera. For already, in more than one part of 
 the globe, there have been discovered inexhaustible deposits of 
 phosphorite, capable of fructifying the soil of whole countries 
 for an indefinite period. Might not, in the nearer or farther 
 future, the power of space-conquering machinery be so increased 
 that new soil from such local accumulations could be carried to 
 far-distant regions, and with it new energy of vegetable life? 
 What may some day be accomplished in this direction is already 
 possessed in part by the countries round the Mediterranean, in 
 their mountainous and varied conformation, and the irrigation 
 connected with it from the most ancient times. For while the 
 rainfall in the corn-growing plains of the European forest and 
 steppe region simply waters the fields without replacing the loss 
 they have suffered, the torrents rushing from the mountains of 
 the Mediterranean countries continually enrich the de-alkalized 
 upper crust with the treasures of the earth's interior. A living 
 example of this is Lombardy ; the rocky platform against which 
 that province leans pours into it, by means of the rivers and the 
 solid or dissolved earths they carry with them, ever new mineral 
 nourishment, and keeps it as fruitful as it was two thousand years 
 ago. And what nature alone could not accomplish was of set 
 purpose completed by man, taught by necessity. In the East 
 and around the Mediterranean, wherever the summers are rainless, 
 vegetation was threatened with destruction by drought during 
 the three or four hot months of every year. In these countries 
 therefore, from the earliest times, the art of irrigation, the banking 
 and diverting of streams, their horizontal distriluition, the digging 
 of canals, the making of dams and bores, of water-wheels and 
 wells, were practised. So necessary was all this labour under 
 
26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the sunny skies, that it was continued from generation to generation 
 until it became a second nature and innate skill. And as the 
 art of irrigation was originally a sign of awakening reason, it also 
 became a powerful stimulant to further mental development. It 
 bound man to man, not by the stupid natural gregariousness 
 common to beasts, but by free reciprocity, the first germ of all 
 communities and states. North of the Alps this necessity ceased ; 
 there the German settled where he liked, cared nothing for his 
 neighbours, arid developed his characteristic feature of personal 
 independence. Even in the New World, where the two races 
 met under similar natural conditions, this state of things continued. 
 In New Mexico, for instance, the Spaniards had made miles and 
 miles of canal for irrigation, which were afterwards neglected by 
 the Anglo-Saxon immigrants, to the great detriment of the country. 
 "This kind of cultivation," says Frobel, "is foreign to the 
 inhabitants of the United States, and contrary to their indivi- 
 dualizing disposition; for no large system of irrigation is con- 
 ceivable without some legislation that would limit the individual's 
 free dispo-al of his property." Even an American author remarks, 
 that in American hands any agriculture depending on irrigation 
 must always fail, "because the despotic rule of a community 
 necessary under such a system agrees but little with American 
 notions." To the Saxon race, therefore, all organized association 
 seems despotic, whereas on the Mediterranean, from Bactria and 
 Babylonia to the Pillars of Hercules, it was a behest of nature, and 
 became a characteristic feature of the nations. But, apart from its 
 politico-moral effects, irrigation does secure to the soil perennial 
 youth, as long as mountains stand and waters run. Where field 
 and meadow have nothing to look to but the rising and falling 
 vapours from the ocean, that state of exhaustion, which anxious 
 and perhaps supercilious judges attribute to the classical countries, 
 must ensue much more rapidly. 
 
 It was no inexorable law of nature that caused the decline of 
 culture in the East, but the 'succession of historical events; the 
 geographical position, which first favoured and then endangered 
 human development; the collision of races, modes of life, and 
 religions, and the accompanying contamination of blood and rage 
 
EX HA USTION BY CUL TURE. 27 
 
 for destruction. The home of the agricultural and town-building 
 nations of Western Asia abutted on endless steppes and deserts, 
 whence hordes of wild, blood-thirsty Nomads ever and again broke 
 forth. Once, in very early times, nomadic Semites from the 
 Caucasus must have penetrated to the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, 
 and destroyed a civilization then extant, whose nature and duration 
 we have now no means of ascertaining. Just as these invaders 
 had begun to settle down on the new soil, there appeared the 
 Iranian flood, which, perhaps contemporaneously with the first 
 arrival of Indo-Europeans in Europe, split the Semitic world in 
 two, and pushed on in separate waves, as Phrygians, Lycians, etc., 
 till it reached the Mediterranean. From that time the two races 
 strove against each other ; the Semites crowding together in huge 
 despotic centres, round palaces adorned with statues, digging 
 canals and handlmg thespade; the Iranians pasturing their cattle in 
 natural freedom, divided into tribes and led by patriarchs, lying in 
 wait to plunder, destroying or carrying off whatever they could 
 lay their hands on. 
 
 Gradually, by the influence of time and example, and by ruling 
 over more civilized countries, part of the Iranians adopted a 
 settled mode of life and a higher order of government ; while 
 the other half of this immense race — the Sacae and Massagetae, 
 the Sarmatians and Scythians, and later the Alani and Jazyges 
 — continued the old nomadic life on their immeasurable plains. 
 This division into two halves is the antagonism between " Iran 
 and Turan," between civilization and barbaric freedom ; the region 
 of Iranian culture with difHculty defended itself against ever- 
 • recurring invasions of wild tribes from the heart of the steppes. 
 Thus, before the end of the seventh century b.c, plundering 
 Scythians overran the best part of Asia ; which raid, however, only 
 lasting twenty-eight years, was soon forgotten as a mere episode. 
 Cyrus indeed attempt-ed to subjugate the Massageta, and Darius 
 the Scythians, but both without success. On the contrary, during 
 the rule of the Seleucidae, mounted archers of Iranian race 
 from the region of the Jaxartes — the Parthians — established them- 
 selves in Media and Persia as far as the Euphrates. Then, in the 
 seventh century of our era, the Arabs, fanatic sons of the desert. 
 
28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 came like a whirlwind, and tore up by the roots everything con- 
 nected with religion — and what was or is there in the East nol 
 connected with religion? Once more the Semitic spirit had 
 mastered the Iranian, in return for what it had suffered at the 
 hands of Medes and Persians. Yet, great as was the desolation 
 wrought on the gardens and cities of Bactria and Media, on the 
 Tigris and Euphrates lands, on Syria and Asia Minor, by the 
 Turanians and Islamites — these nomad horsemen were, after all, 
 of much the same blood, of noble origin and handsome figure, 
 capable of culture, and unconsciously bearing within them the 
 ' possibilities and needs of civilized life. Complete ruin, beyond 
 hope of recovery, came only when the bestial races, which had 
 hitherto lain concealed in the Altai mountains, around the Baikal 
 Lake, and on the dismal highlands in the heart of the continent, 
 forming a fit nomadic background to the Chinese empire — I mean 
 the Turks and after them the Mongols — found their way south- 
 westward into the Aryan-Semitic world. 
 
 The first of the Turkish races that appeared in Europe was the 
 horde of Huns ; and what impression their brutish exterior alone 
 made on the western world may be seen by the descriptions of 
 contemporary historiansfand by the popular legend of the sup- 
 posed "Tartarean" origin of these Tatirs. Ammianus Marcel- 
 linus, describing the rude customs of the Alani, formerly called 
 Massagetae, adds : " They are for the most part tall, handsome men, 
 somewhat like the Huns in their mode of life, but standing at a 
 higher stage of humanity." In the sixth century a.d., Sogdianaand 
 Bactria, on the Old-Iranian canal-traversed banks of the Jaxartes 
 and Oxus, were already Turkish; thence, in the following cen- 
 turies, all Asia was gradually overrun, desolated, burnt, and 
 plundered, and the inhabitants murdered or led into captivity. 
 Seljukian chiefs wielded the leathern whip, solemnly set their 
 feet on the necks of vanquished Emirs, and then ordered the 
 unhappy wretches to be hewn in pieces; Persian girls, with 
 almond-shaped eyes and long eyelashes, were dragged into the 
 dirty felt tents of their howling, mis-shapen masters ; and, from 
 Lake Aral to the Mediterranean, ignoble Upper-Asian blood was 
 mixed with that of the old civilized nations— a lasting element of 
 
EXHA USTION BY CUL TURE. 29 
 
 moral degradation and mental impotence. Yet even the Turkish 
 conquest seems but a small evil compared with the horrible 
 cruelties that marked the path of the Mongols. Words are futile 
 to describe what was practised in the East by this race of yellow, 
 squinting jackals from the wastes of Gobi. We will quote only 
 one example. When Tchingis Khan, in the year 1 2 2 1, attacked the 
 great flourishing city of Balkh, the Bactra of ancient renown, which 
 possessed 1,200 mosques and 200 public baths, he was met by 
 envoys bearing presents and provisions, and praying for mercy. 
 The Khan, apparently pacified, marched into the city ; and then, 
 on the pretence of wishing to count them, had the whole of the 
 inhabitants led out into the fields in detachments, and there 
 slaughtered : the city itself was razed to the ground, and to this 
 day remains a vast field of ruins. The Turkish nations, which 
 had come from farther west, were almost immediately won over 
 to Islam, and thus became intimately bound up with the West ; 
 and in the course of years, it must be confessed, they did not 
 remain altogether insensible to the milder customs and inherited 
 civilization of the people they had conquered ; but the Mongolian 
 hordes were led solely by the instinct of destruction and murder, 
 and the traces of their existence have not disappeared to the 
 present day. Evpr since their time the East has lain like a man 
 mortally wounded, and has not the power to rise. So fatal to the 
 oldest human culture and the happy lands in which it flourished, 
 was their contiguity to the inhospitable highlands in the interior 
 of the continent, the native home of a lower race with repulsive 
 features and filthy manners. 
 
 So, too, the Greek peninsula owes its ruin to the neighbourhood 
 of Asia and the steppes of Eastern Europe, and to adulteration 
 with foreign blood. The Bulgarians, a Turkish race, settled south 
 of the Danube ; the wild Avars, also of Turkish origin, harried 
 the provinces lying round the fortified capital ; and, five hundred 
 years ago, the Osmans already ruled and wasted this foreland of 
 Europe. The Germans, too, had made Greek soil the scene of 
 their still unsatiated appetite for war and booty ; we need only 
 recall the desolating raids which the Goths, on arriving at the 
 Black Sea, undertook against the coasts, towns, and islands of 
 
30 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Asia Minor and the Peloponnesus. (Italy they mostly spared till 
 after their first fury was spent.) The Slavs have permanently 
 inundated not only the Danube regions and Thrace, but every 
 part of ancient Greece itself, and given names out of their own 
 language to its mountains, valleys, rivers, and towns. From the 
 savage recesses of the mountains, Albanians poured down into 
 the depopulated country ; both races then adopted the degenerate 
 Byzantine Greek imposed upon them by the church and the 
 political rule of Constantinople; and with the remnant of the 
 original inhabitants, so far as any such were left, they formed the 
 present nation of the Greeks. Thus the barbarism out of which 
 Greece is painfully struggling is explained by the abomination of 
 desolation that has fallen upon her, and not by a pretended ex- 
 haustion of the powers of nature, which are, no doubt, as effective 
 now as they were in the days of her fairest bloom. 
 
 THE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 When the great Aryan Migration brought the first inhabitants 
 of a higher race, that we are historically acquainted with, into the 
 two peninsulas which afterwards became the scene of classic 
 culture, those lands (we may imagine) were covered with thick, 
 impenetrable forests of dark firs and evergreen ilexes, or decidu- 
 ous oaks, similar to what is described by Homer : 
 
 " Nor here the sun's meridian rays had power, 
 Nor wind sharp-piercing, nor the rushing shower ; 
 The verdant arch so close its texture kept;" 
 
 interspersed in the river valleys with more open stretches of 
 meadow land, grazed by the herds of the new-comers, and with 
 many a naked or grass-grown precipice, climbed by the nibbling 
 sheep, from whose summits here and there could be seen the 
 waste, unfruitful sea. The swine found plenteous nourishment 
 in the abundant acorns, the dog guarded the flocks, wild honey- 
 combs furnished wax and honey, wild apple, pear, and sloe trees 
 afforded a hard, sour fruit ; at the stag and boar, wild ox and 
 ravening wolf the arrow sped from the bow, or the sharp, stone-tipped 
 spear was hurled. Game and domestic animals furnished all that 
 was needed : skins for clothing, horns for drinking vessels, sinews 
 
THE OLDEN TIME. 31 
 
 and entrails for bow-strings, bones for tools and their handles. Raw 
 hides were the principal material, and needles of bone or horn 
 served to stitch them together. The osier boat was covered with 
 hide, and the leathern coat was sewed together with the sinews of 
 bulls : 
 
 " Sew thee skins with thread of bull." — Hesiod. 
 
 Spear and arrow-heads were fastened to the shaft w^ith thongs, 
 the draught cattle harnessed to the wain with leather straps, and the 
 stick that urged the cattle was armed with a leathern lash. The 
 beaver, which was eaten, was a much persecuted animal, and 
 thickly peopled the lakes and rivers of all Europe. From this 
 animal {LaXvci, fiber ; Celtic, beber, hiber) were named the Gallic 
 cities Bibrax and Bibracte. The name soon disappeared from 
 the Greek dialects, as the animal did from Greece ; on the other 
 hand, it passed from Europe into the East. The wood of the 
 yew tree (note i) served for bows, that of the ash, elder, and 
 privet for the shafts of spears ; wicker shields were woven of the 
 willow. The gigantic trees of the primeval forest were hollowed 
 by fire, and hewn with the stone axe into immense boats. On 
 the wheeled waggon (note 2) — a machine of early invention, and 
 built entirely of wood, with wooden pegs instead of iron nails — 
 were carried the goods and chattels of the wanderer — his milking- 
 pail, skins, and so on. The wool of the sheep was plucked out 
 (note 3), and stamped out into felt covers and cloths, used par- 
 ticularly to protect the head : 
 
 " Over thy head 
 Press the formed felt, thy ears to protect from the wet." — Hesiod. 
 
 From the bark of trees, especially of the lime tree, and from the 
 fibres of the stalks of many plants, principally of the nettle kind, 
 the women plaited (plaiting is a very ancient art, the forerunner of 
 weaving, which it nearly resembles) mats and web-like stuffs, 
 hunting and fishing nets. Milk and flesh were the staple food, 
 and salt a favourite condiment, but difficult to procure, and sought 
 for on the sea-shore and in the ashes of plants (note 4). The 
 farther south the easier it became to winter the cattle, which up 
 in the north found but scanty nourishment beneath the snow, 
 
32 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and in severe seasons must have perished wholesale; for the 
 sheltering of cattle and the storing of dried grass against the 
 winter are inventions of later origin, that followed in the wake o£ 
 a somewhat advanced husbandry. The domestic animals were of 
 poor breed. The pig, for example, was the small so-called peat- 
 pig (torf-swine), far inferior to the animal now improved by culti- 
 vation and commerce. In winter the human dwelling-place was 
 a hole in the ground, artificially dug, and roofed over with turf or 
 dung (note s); in summer it was the waggon itself, or, in the 
 woods, a light tent-like hut, made of branches and wicker work. 
 Warfare amongst a cattle-killing race would of course be san- 
 guinary, and punishments cruel. Rage, revenge, and thirst for 
 booty were the prevailing motives. Cunning, ambush, and sur- 
 prise, like that practised in the chase, were the forms and methods 
 of war. Prisoners were slaughtered, as was the custom with the 
 Cimbrians, and even the Germans of Tacitus ; slaves were muti- 
 lated foir greater safety, the victor drank the blood of his van- 
 quished enemy, whose skull was at once his drinking-bowl at the 
 banquet and a glorious trophy (note 6). Old men, whose fighting 
 days were done, voluntarily suffered death or were murdered ; 
 likewise those who were incurably sick (note 7). Human blood 
 flowed copiously at religious feasts and sacrifices ; the chief was 
 followed into his grave by his servants, wives, horses, and dogs 
 (note 8) ; wives were stolen or purchased, and the new-born child 
 was accepted, or rejected and exposed, by the father. 
 
 The powers of nature, whose presence was felt with dull tenor, 
 had not yet been embodied in any personal form ; the word for 
 God, of which the Latin form is Deus, still signified the sky (as 
 devas and its synonyms among the Finns, etc., preserve that mean- 
 ing to this day); and while moral ideas were already developed in 
 the Indian Varunas, the process of personification had scarcely 
 commenced in the Greek Uranos. Important or exceptional 
 matters were decided by casting lots (note 9). Superstition and 
 prognostics governed all action or inaction; a conjuring spell 
 could unloose the bonds of a captive or give supernatural powers 
 to a weapon; wounds made by the axe were cured, and spouting 
 blood was stanched, by incantations. 
 
THE OLDEN TIME. :..3 
 
 " With bandage firm Ulysses' knee they bound ; 
 Then chanting mystic lays, the closing wound, 
 Of sacred melody confess'd the force." — Odyssey. 
 
 As in the religious idea the transformation of the powers of nature 
 into demonic personages was not yet complete, or had only just 
 commenced, so forms derived directly from nature still governed 
 Society: from the family tie and the patriarch's rule was developed 
 first a narrow and then a more comprehensive coherence of the 
 tribe (it is only by slow degrees that words like the Gr. poUs, I.at. 
 populus, Goth, thiuda, etc., rise at last into the domain of freedom, 
 that is, into political ideas : note lo). Within historic times 
 tattooing was a sign of noble lineage, and perhaps the relic of 
 a very ancient custom, for it is found among widely scattered 
 members of the great race, among the Geloni and Agathyrsi, the 
 Thracians, Sarmatians, and Dacians, and among the Britons in 
 their distant isle, who apparently owe their very name to the 
 custom (Old Irish brit, Cambr. breith — variegatus), and Pict per- 
 haps is only the Latin translation of Briton, the tattooed. 
 
 In marshalling soldiers for war the numbers of the decimal 
 system were already in use — a first approach to abstraction ; but 
 the idea of thousand had not yet been conceived, for the word is 
 wanting (note 1 1). For the rest, the language was a relatively intact, 
 many-membered organism, internally governed by vital laws ; 
 such as, after thousands of years, is still the wonder and delight 
 of the grammarian, but could only have grown up in the obscurity 
 of a clouded intellect and a direct consciousness of objects, for 
 with awaking reflection the rank overgrowth of grammatical forms 
 and the paradisaical fulness of sound begin to die away. 
 
 Such, so far as we can reconstruct it in our minds from a few 
 of its general features, was the condition of these immigrant 
 nations at the time of their dispersion over Europe. A compari- 
 son is perhaps afforded by indications in the Old Testament of 
 the first conquest of Palestine by Semitic pastoral tribes ; here 
 the Canaanites were met by savage aborigines, who were after- 
 wards imagined as giants, and of whom some remnants still 
 existed, when, quite at the last, the Israelites took forcible 
 possession of the land of their forerunners and kinsmen. So the 
 
 3 
 
j-4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Aryan tribes in Europe may have found aboriginal inhabitants 
 there before them, whom they either exterminated, or with whom 
 they amalgamated : in the east the Finns, a very degraded race 
 of hunters, who were unacquainted with wool, salt, and the 
 wheeled waggon", and could not even count up to a hundred ; in 
 the west and south the Iberians and perhaps Libyans, of whose 
 state of culture we are ignorant. Another and still more instruc- 
 tive parallel occurring in quite historic times is offered by the 
 Turks in their march of conquest through Asia, and the settle- 
 ment of that nomadic race in the wide tract of land it had 
 overrun. Certainly the Turks — and this may somewhat limit 
 the analogy— did not drive herds of cattle before them, but came 
 riding on swift steeds, which carried both them and their tents ; 
 and here the difficult question arises. Did the Aryans bring the 
 tamed horse with them, or did they make acquaintance with it 
 later ? We mentioned above, among funereal sacrifices, the 
 horses of the deceased ; may not we have committed an anachron- 
 ism ? Humboldt says : " The Inner (Kirghis) Horde inhabits a 
 part of the regions over which formerly roamed the Kalmuk- 
 Turguts, who originally came from the Chinese frontier, and 
 who, on the night of the 5th January, 17 71, about seventy years 
 ago (now above one hundred), set out with their 30,000 yurtas 
 to fight their way to the plains of Dzungaria, a march of 2,000 
 miles. This migration of 150,000 Kalmuks, accompanied by 
 their wives, children, and cattle, is a historic fact that throws great 
 light on the ancient incursions of Asiatic nations into Europe." This 
 remark of the far-sighted traveller (for which we would willingly 
 sacrifice a dozen so-called Aryan idylls, however charmingly 
 coloured) must not be forgotten ; but the waggons and herds of 
 those Kalmuks were protected by troops of warlike horsemen, so 
 that the march could be safely and uninterruptedly accomplished ; 
 have we any right to imagine the earliest incursions from Asia to 
 have been similarly constituted ? In what follows next, we will 
 gather together the chief particulars of the most ancient historical 
 accounts of the Horse, and thereby, perhaps, gain some proba- 
 bility for or against the above view. 
 
THE HORSE 
 (EQUUS CABALLUS.) 
 
 The noble horse, the darling and companion of the hero, tf/e 
 delight of poets (witness the splendid descriptions in the Book 
 of Job and in Homer's Iliad) — that glossy, proud, aristocratic, 
 quivering, nervous animal, with its rhythmic action — has his home 
 nevertheless in one of the wildest and most inhospitable regions 
 of the world — the steppes and pasture-lands of Central Asia, the 
 realm of storms. There, we are assured, the wild horse still 
 roams under the name of Tarpan, which tarpan cannot always 
 be distinguished from the only half-wild Musin, or fugitive from 
 tame or half-tame herds. 
 
 It grazes in troops, under a wary leader, always moving against 
 the wind, nostrils and ears alert to every danger, and not seldom 
 struck by a wild panic which drives it full speed across the im- 
 measurable plain. During the terrible winter of the steppes, it 
 scrapes the snow away with its hoofs, and scantily feeds on the 
 dead grasses and leaves which it finds beneath. It has a thick, 
 flowing mane and bushy tail, and when the winter cold com- 
 mences, the hair all over its body grows into a kind of thin fur. 
 And in this very region lived the first equestrian races of whom 
 we have any knowledge — in the east the Mongols, in the west 
 the Turks ; taking those names in their widest sense. Even now 
 the existence of these races is bound up with that of the horse. 
 The Mongol thinks it shameful to go on foot ; he is always on 
 horseback, and when he occasionally dismounts, he moves and 
 stands as if completely out of his element. Before a Mongolian 
 boy can walk, he is lifted on to a horse and clings to its mane ; 
 
36 TBE HORSE. 
 
 thus he grows up on the animal's back, and at last becomes one 
 with it. This mode of living, continued for thousands of years 
 from generation to generation, has given a distinguishing stamp 
 to the physical form of the Mongolian. His legs are bowed, his 
 walk is clumsy, and the upper part of his body leans forward. 
 When in his tent, his restless, wandering eyes have the expression 
 of those of a rider in the immeasurable steppes, always watching 
 the horizon to detect the smallest cloud of dust. His riches 
 consist in the number and size of his half-wild TabUn ; when he 
 wants a young animal, he catches it with the lasso. The milk of 
 the brood-mares is his drink and means of intoxication (great 
 practice and strength are required to milk the mares after they 
 are hobbled) ; horseflesh is his customary and favourite food. It 
 is true that Buddhism has attempted to abolish the last-named 
 article of food among the modern Mongols, and the pious Zama 
 at least abstains from its enjoyment. The skin and hair of the 
 horse are also useful to the Mongol ; out of the first he cuts his 
 indispensable thongs, the latter serves for ropes and sieves, and 
 he clothes himself with the skin of young colts. 
 
 From the wide plains of that part of the world the horse 
 migrated into the highlands of Northern India, the well-watered 
 valleys of Turkestan, and the districts and deserts of the Jaxartes 
 and Oxus. In those parts the Turkoman's horse is even now 
 distinguished for its intelligence, strength, and endurance. With 
 very scanty provision the Turkoman rides a hundred kilometres 
 (sixty-three miles) without stopping; attacks, plunders, and 
 disappears, before his victims recover from their surprise. He 
 often spends the night asleep on the back of his animal in the 
 middle of the desert, which does not afford him one drop of 
 water for his favourite. He loves his horse, Vdmb^ry tells us, 
 better than wife or child, better than himself; it is touching to 
 see the care taken of his animal by this rude, rapacious son of the 
 desert ; how he clothes and protects it from cold and heat, and 
 spends all he can afford on its saddle and bridle. In the eyes of 
 the Kirghis too the horse is the very ideal of beauty. " He loves 
 his horse," says W. Radloff, " better than his sweetheart, and a 
 fine animal can tempt the most respectable and honest man to 
 
THE HORSE. 37 
 
 Steal." But it must be remarked that the Turkoman breed, 
 though pure in the main, has been largely crossed with Arab blood, 
 and to this mixture owes part of its noble qualities. 
 
 That the horse in its original wildness also roamed westward 
 of Turkestan, over the steppes of the present South-eastern and 
 Southern Russia, and to the foot of the Carpathians, seems likely- 
 enough ; not so likely that even the forest region of Central 
 Europe once abounded in troops of that animal. And yet much 
 historical testimony seems to put the fact beyond a doubt. Varro 
 speaks of Spanish wild horses; and Strabo writes, " In Iberia there 
 are many deer and wild horses." Wild horses as well as wild 
 bulls lived among the Alps, as we learn again from Strabo ; and 
 Pliny tells us, not only in the Alps but in the north generally. 
 Nor are the Middle Ages wanting in proofs of the existence of 
 wild horses in Germany and the countries east of Germany. At 
 the time of Venantius Fortunatus the onager — under which name 
 may be understood the wild horse — was hunted in the Ardennes, 
 as well as bears, stags, and wild boars. In Italy wild horses were 
 seen for the first time during the rule of the Longobards, under 
 King Agilulf (Paul. Diac. 4, ri). In 732 Pope Gregory III. 
 writes to St. Boniface : "Thou hast permitted to some the flesh 
 of the wild horse, and to most that of the tame. Henceforward, 
 holy brother, thou shalt in no wise allow it." So, up to that 
 time, the apostle of the Germans had been very liberal, perhaps 
 because in his native island he had been accustomed from his 
 youth to the habit which appeared so horrible to the Italian 
 at Rome. Among the benedictions of Monk Ekkehard of St. 
 Gallen (about 1000 a.d.) to be pronounced over the meats served 
 in the refectory of that monastery, one refers to the flesh of wild 
 horses, which must therefore have been eaten by the pious 
 brethren. An old German proverb says : " A foal taken from a 
 herd of wild horses will sooner be tamed than a depraved man 
 learn to be ashamed." In the " Sachsen-spiegel," where it treats 
 of women's outfit and dowry, it is decreed that wild horses which 
 have not always been guarded shall not be reckoned as part of 
 such property. In a Westphalian document of 13 16, the fishing, 
 game, and wild horses of a certain forest are apportioned to one 
 
38 THE HORSE. 
 
 Herraann. Not alone in the time of the Merovingians, but at 
 the end of the sixteenth century, wild horses would seem to have 
 lived in the Vosges mountains, the wild borderland between two 
 nationalities ; for Rosslin, in his account of Alsace and the Vosges 
 (Strasburg, 1593), thus circumstantially describes them : " Horses 
 that be of their kind much wilder and shyer than the stag; also 
 much more difficult to take even in traps like the stag; yet 
 when they are tamed, which is accomplished with great toil and 
 trouble, they make the very best horses, that equal those of 
 Spain and Turke)', and surpass them in many things, and are 
 hardier, for they are accustomed to cold and to coarse food, and 
 are sure-footed, being as used to mountains and rocks as the 
 chamois." If wild horses were thus found in the cultivated west 
 and south of Germany, they must have existed still longer in the 
 wild country on the Baltic, in Poland and Russia. In fact, 
 we find innumerable proofs of this down to modern times. At 
 the time of Bishop Otto of Bamberg, in the first half of the 
 twelfth century, Pomerania was rich in all kinds of game, in- 
 cluding wild oxen and horses. At the same period wild horses 
 are mentioned as extant in Silesia, whence Duke Sobeslaus in 
 1 1 32 " carried away many captives, and herds of wild mares not 
 a few." It is known, and is confirmed by many literary allusions, 
 tliat till the time of the Reformation, and even later, the woods 
 of Prussia were inhabited by wild horses. Toppen's History of 
 Masovia (Geschichte Masurens, Danzig, 1870) says : "In the time 
 of the Teutonic Knights, wild liorses and other game were hunted 
 chiefly for their skins. In 1543 Duke Albert sent an order to the 
 commander at Lyck, bidding him take measures for the preserva- 
 tion of the wild horses." Proofs of' the horse being an object 
 of the chase in Poland and Lithuania are found far into the 
 seventeenth century. As to Russia, it is sufficient to quote the 
 remarkable words of Vladimir Monomach, prince of Tchernigov, 
 who lived from 1053 to 11 25. He says of himself, in his pos- 
 thumous exhortation to his sons (preserved in the " Lawrentian 
 Chronicle ") : " But at Tchernigov I did this : I caught alive and 
 bound with my own hands from ten to twenty wild horses ; and 
 as I rode along the river Ross (which formed a sort of boundary 
 
THE HORSE. 
 
 39 
 
 between the Russians and the wild Turkish Polovtsy), I caught 
 similar horses with my own hands." 
 
 To form a correct judgment of such passages, it is necessary to 
 weigh the following facts. In the oldest historic times the horse, 
 among Europeans, was kept as it is now by the Asiatic nomads. 
 It grazed at a distance from the settlements in large, half-wild 
 herds (stud, A.S. stod, Slav, stado, O.H.G. stuoi); and when a full- 
 grown animal was needed, it was caught and broken in by severe 
 methods, under which many a poor beast must have been throttled 
 to death. The Old Norse saying, " Feed the horse at home, the 
 dog abroad," was a later rule, giving much the same advice as the 
 Greek proverb which has become naturalized among us: "The 
 master's eye makes a fat horse.'' In earlier times the freedom in 
 which young horses were bred must have frequently led to com- 
 plete feralityboth in individuals and in whole herds; the former — 
 for example, mares at breeding time — running away and getting lost ; 
 and the latter, when hunted by wolves or persecuted by gad-flies, 
 rushing panic-stricken into the wilderness, to become objects of 
 the chase like stags and elks. The fact that in pre-civilized 
 times Central Europe, as far as Spain, was covered with dense 
 forests, makes the hypothesis that that region was one of the 
 natural homes of the horse improbable, for this animal is a native 
 of the steppes, needing wide grass-lands and space in which its 
 speed could be of avail in escaping from the larger beasts of prey. 
 '1 he very way in which some of those facts are recorded seems to 
 l)oint rather to horses gone wild than to those originally wild. 
 When the Vosges horses, though with difficulty, do get broken in ; 
 when Duke Sobeslaus drives home herds of wild mares from 
 Silesia ; when the fishing, the game, atid the vagi egiii of a West- 
 phalian district are assigned to Hermann, and the untended 
 horses of an estate are not to be included in a bride's outfit — in 
 all these cases we may suppose that only fugitive horses are 
 meant. So the animals found in Pomerania by St. Otto, and in 
 Prussia by the Teutonic Knights, may have been born in a wild 
 state, and yet the progeny of merely fugitive mares ; and this 
 becomes the more probable the longer those regions had been 
 the scene of war and rapine. It is still more likely that this was 
 
40 THE HORSE. 
 
 the case in Tchernigov. In that borderland, close to the nomadic 
 hordes, the woods may well have been the refuge of fugitive 
 animals. It must be added that the epithet " white," given by 
 Herodotus to the wild horses that grazed about the lake out of 
 which the Hypanis flowed, shows that they were sacred herds 
 kept in a partly free state. 
 
 Turning from the European chase to the steppes of Asia, the 
 true home of the wild horse, we meet with the important fact, that 
 the farther a country lies from this point of departure, the later is 
 the appearance of the horse and its historical mention in that 
 country, and the more clearly are the modes of breeding the 
 animal seen to be derived from neighbouring nations to the east 
 and north-east of it. 
 
 In Egypt, to begin with the remotest member, no figure of a 
 horse or of a war-chariot has ever been found under the so-called 
 "old kingdom.'' It is only when the period of the Shepherd Kings is 
 over, and the eighteenth dynasty with its campaigns has commenced 
 (about 1800 B.C.), that we find both pictorial representations and 
 the first mention in the papyri (so far as they have been deciphered) 
 of the horse and of war-chariots equipped in Asiatic fashion. The 
 conjecture that the pastoral tribe of the Hyksos had introduced 
 the novel animal, and with it the new art of war, into Egypt, is 
 very tempting, but remains unsupported by any historical proof. 
 It may have been the kings of the above-mentioned eighteenth 
 dynasty that first made acquaintance with the horse and chariot 
 during their peaceful or warlike relations with Syria. The Egyptian 
 name for chariot is almost identical with the Hebrew, and the 
 Egyptian word for horse, sus, is a Semitic one. In Egypt, as in 
 Asia, the horse was kept exclusively for war; not one picture 
 shows that it was ever employed in domestic or agricultural work, 
 for what little seems to point to such a thing we may leave unnoticed 
 as being too doubtful. Achilles is thinking of war-chariots when 
 he says of Egyptian Thebes : 
 
 " The world's great empress on the Egyptian phiin 
 That spreads her conquests o'er a thousand states, 
 And pours her heroes through a hundred gates, 
 Two hundred horsemen, and two hundred cars 
 From each wide portal issuing to the wars." — Ir.iAD. 
 
THE HORSE. 41 
 
 What the Egyptian himself thought of the use of the horse we 
 learn from the following mythic story : " Osiris asked Horus 
 what animal was most useful in war. When Horus answered, 
 'The horse,' Osiris was astonished, and inquired further, 'Why not 
 rather the lion ? ' Then Horus said, ' The lion may be useful to 
 him who requires assistance, but the horse serves to scatter and 
 destroy the flying enemy.' '' If we may trust Egyptian pictures, the 
 lion was so far tamed by the Egyptians as to accompany Pharaoh 
 to battle ; it was chained to the chariot and let loose at the proper 
 moment. 
 
 As to the time when the horse became known to the Semites of 
 Western Asia, we are limited to the evidence of the Old Testa- 
 ment — the Pentateuch, the Book of Joshua, etc. ,• but when were 
 these books written ? There is not a piece in this collection that 
 does not consist of different parts, or that has not passed through 
 the hands of successive revisers. If some single written notes of 
 the time of the Israelite Conquest were really preserved, they may 
 have been interwoven into the narrative. As to the rest, the 
 oldest biblical author, the so-called Elohist, whose book is cer- 
 tainly not older than the time of the Kings, can have had no other 
 source than tradition, which, in accordance with its nature, had 
 been forming and reforming its material during long periods of 
 time. So we cannot be quite sure whether any given passage of 
 the biblical reports was inspired by genuine tradition, by later 
 theocratic or national views, or by the spirit of descriptive poetry. 
 Descriptions of the horse are not wanting in the so-called books 
 of Moses, nor in the historical books. In Joshua, for example, 
 chap. xi. 4, we read, " And they (the Canaanites) went out, they 
 and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand 
 that is upon the sea-shore in multitude, with horses and chariots 
 very many ; " and the contents of such passages are confirmed by 
 the song of Deborah, which must be far older than the foundation 
 of the monarchy, and probably belongs to the thirteenth century 
 before Christ. In Judges v. 22, we read, " Then were the horse- 
 hoofs broken by means of the prancings, the prancings of their 
 mighty ones;" and in ver. 28, "Why is his chariot so long in 
 coming ? why tarry the wheels of his chariot ? " But in these 
 
42 THE HORSE. 
 
 descriptions the horse is never mentioned as a domesiicaied 
 animal ; it has no share in the wanderings and battles of the 
 Children of Israel ; it is the warlike servant of their neighbours 
 and enemies, prancing and stamping before the war-chariot or 
 beneath the rider. As a war-horse, and as such only, it is also 
 celebrated in the fine description in the Book of Job. In the 
 household its place is taken by the ass. " Thou shalt not covet," 
 says the Decalogue, the commands of which were derived from a 
 relatively very ancient period, "thy neighbour's wife, . . . nor his 
 ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his." The horse, the chief 
 object of rapine among mounted nomads, is here, very signifi- 
 cantly, never mentioned. When we are told later that King 
 Josiah abolished, among other heathen abominations, the horses 
 and chariots that were sacred to the sun — this was a feature 
 of the Iranian worship of the sun introduced from Media. 
 
 No wonder that we meet with no mention of the horse among 
 the Ishmaelites or Arabs, that southern branch of the Semitic 
 race. Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find horses accom- 
 panying the shepherds of the Arabian desert ; those people travel 
 only with camels and asses, and the mode of warfare in the despotic 
 kingdoms from the Tigris to the Nile is unknown to them. Quite 
 in agreement with the above is the fact that the Arabs in the army 
 of Xerxes rode only on camels. Herodotus writes, " The Arabs 
 were all mounted on camels, which yielded not to horses in swift- 
 ness." And Strabo informs us that in Arabia Felix there were 
 neither horses nor mules : " There is a superfluity of domestic 
 animals and herds, with the exception of horses, mules, and swine.'' 
 It was the same in the country of the Nabathasi : " There are no 
 horses in the country ; their place is supplied by camels.'' And 
 surely Strabo, the friend and companion of ^lius Gallus, who led 
 the grand but unfortunate expedition into the heart of Arabia, was 
 as well informed about the peninsula as any one living at that 
 time. Again, at the battle of Magnesia, Antiochus the Great, 
 like Xerxes, led Arabs mounted on dromedaries. 
 
 Those who find these ancient reports incredible, because Arab 
 horses are now considered the noblest of the species, forget the fact 
 that similar cases, so far from being rare, are very common indeed 
 
THE HORSE. 43 
 
 in the history of culture. In the sand-seas of Arabia, where 
 oases form the islands, the camel, that ship of the desert, was of 
 greater use than a horse ; it could move as swiftly as the latter, 
 and go for a long time without water ; it fed on the herbs of the 
 desert, and carried on its broad back the women and children, the 
 tents and provisions of the wandering nomads. 
 
 To the above direct evidence we may add the negative testimony 
 of Publius Vegetius, a later compiler. He numbers and describes 
 all the different equine races known to the ancients, but says 
 nothing about Arab horses. Of African horses, which we might 
 have supposed akin to the Arabian breed, he says they were used 
 in the circus as being the fleetest, but he adds that, they were of 
 Spanish blood. An embassy was sent from Antioch to buy up 
 rate-horses, not in near Arabia but in distant Spain, and was pro- 
 vided by Symmachus with a letter of introduction to a Spanish 
 horsebreeder. An older contemporary of Symmachus, however, 
 Am. Marcellinus, in the latter half of the fourth century, mentions 
 the fleet horses and slender camels of the Saracens, whose 
 country he imagines as extending from the Tigris to the cataracts 
 of the Nile. At about the same time the Emperor Valens pos- 
 sessed Saracen cavalry, which he sent against the Goths who were 
 desolating the land. Here then is evidence that in the last days 
 of antiquity and the dawn of the Middle Ages, the Arab horse, if 
 not then introduced for the first time, must have grown, under 
 careful handling and a favourable climate, into the noble and 
 beautiful animal we now admire. The Arab horse is already 
 spoken of with affectionate partiality, and used in similes both in 
 the Koran and in fragments of pre- Islamite poetry, supposing 
 these to be preserved in a genuine form. 
 
 Turning to the Eastern Semites, the Babylonians and Assyrians 
 in the region of the Euphrates and Tigris, we find on the walls of 
 excavated palaces numerous and vivid representations of the war- 
 chariot drawn by richly caparisoned horses. (Layard's "Nine- 
 veh.") It was no doubt from this region that the new engine of 
 war travelled westward and south-westward to the Syrians on the 
 Mediterranean and the Egyptians in the valley of the Nile. It 
 must have been in the plains of Mesopotamia that the application 
 
44 THE HORSE. 
 
 of the chariot to swift attack and as swift retreat for the archer 
 was invented. Wherever, in the sculptures of Nineveh, we meet 
 with a rider armed with bow-and-arrow, his horse is invariably led 
 by another horseman ; if the former wields the spear instead of 
 the bow, he has no assistant. The archer was obliged to have 
 both hands free in order to clutch at the quiver, bend the bow, and 
 send the arrow straight at the mark ; for the Assyrian had not yet 
 become so entirely one with his animal as the Parthian was later 
 on, and the Turkoman is now. Therefore he had recourse to a 
 second horseman, and afterwards to the light two-wheeled chariot, 
 drawn by two horses and holding two men. In this chariot the 
 warrior stood erect, looking freely around, with his driver by his 
 side. In the very act of flight he could turn round and still let 
 fly at the pursuing enemy. But even in the Assyrian wars, chariot- 
 fighting seems to have been a prerogative of the rich, as was, in 
 other times and among other nations, fighting on horseback. An 
 Assyrian king is never represented on foot nor on horseback, but 
 always in a chariot, except when besieging a fortress, where 
 rapidity of movement was no desideratum. Only two horses were 
 actually harnessed to the chariot, but a third, and sometimes a 
 fourth, ran loose at the side, ready to replace the former if wounded 
 or otherwise disabled. The horses in these pictures are, like the 
 men, represented in a highly conventional form ; yet Place, the 
 author of " Nineveh and Assyria," asserts that among the modern 
 Kurds, an Iranic race, he found very similarly shaped animals. 
 And all the circumstances point to the Semitic horse having come 
 fromlranian countries, just as the Egyptian horse came from Semitic 
 countries. Thus the prophet Ezekiel informs us (xxvii. 14) that 
 Tyre procured her horses from Togarraah, that is, from Armenia 
 and Cappadocia : " They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy 
 fairs with horses and horsemen and mules." 
 
 Lower down to the south-east, in India, we visibly get farther 
 away from the centre of the circle described by the propagation of 
 the horse. In India horses were neither frequent, nor beautiful, 
 nor strong; they were introduced from countries on the north- 
 west, and easily degenerated. The ancients not seldom mention 
 this peculiarity of a country otherwise so rich in all natural 
 
THE HORSE. 45 
 
 gifts; and the accounts of modern authors agree with theirs. 
 But on the frontier, among the Vedic tribes in the Land of the Five 
 Rivers (Panj-ab), the horse was highly valued. It was used in 
 war and for sacrifice ; was never ridden, but drew the war-chariot. 
 However, just as other things prove that the life led by those 
 tribes was not entirely original, but had been greatly influenced by 
 western civilization, so we find that the Vedic war-chariot exactly 
 resembles in all particulars that described by Homer, and both 
 resemble the Assyrian chariot from which they were copied. In 
 Carmania, west of the Indus, the ass was used instead of the horse, 
 even in war; and in Persis, whence issued the founder of the 
 Persian empire, the horse was almost entirely wanting, and the art 
 of riding was unknown. Young Cyrus shouted with delight when 
 he learnt to manage the noble beast at his grandfather's court, for 
 in his mountain home it was unusual to keep or ride horses, and 
 the animal was hardly ever seen. Afterwards, when he took up 
 arms against the Medes and Hyrcanians, and had to face their 
 swift cavalry, he recommended his followers thenceforth to " mount 
 the steed and fly at the foe as if on wings." To the eloquent 
 speech that Xenophon puts into his mouth on this occasion, one 
 of his nobles, Chrysantas, responds approvingly ; " and from that 
 time," adds Xenophon, " no Persian gentleman ever likes to be 
 seen on foot." Hence, as we are told in Strabo's works, there 
 was inscribed on the tomb of Darius that the king had not only 
 been a faithful friend, but the best rider, archer, and hunter. On 
 this point, as well as in their form of government, their clothing, 
 manners, and customs, the Persians copied their kinsmen the 
 Medes, following the Babylonian model only so far as this was 
 already established among the Medes. To consider the horse a 
 sacred and prophetic animal, a sacrifice fit for the God of Light ; to 
 picture the chariot of the great king as drawn by pure white horses, 
 and the Immortals as riding on white steeds ; and to incorporate 
 the word a(fa, "a horse," in compound names of heroes and 
 inferior gods — all this is Median and Bactrian, and was adopted 
 by the Persian faith. Strabo says, "The whole of the present 
 form of war called Persian, the preference for archery and riding, 
 the splendour with which royalty is surrounded, and the rever- 
 
46 THE HORSE. 
 
 ence paid to the king as to a god— all this was taught the Persians 
 by the Medes." Media was the land of horses; whence they 
 spread throughout Asia. The former country was well fitted for 
 the purpose, partly by its natural construction, partly by the dis- 
 position of the inhabitants; it even formed the transition from 
 Iran to Turan, that is, from the settled to the wandering tribes of 
 Iranian blood. 
 
 " Media," says Polybius, " is distinguished for its superior races 
 of men and horses ; in the latter it excels all Asia, and for this 
 reason the royal studs were established there." Strabo praises the 
 Median and Armenian breed of horses : " Both lands are excep- 
 tionally rich in horses ; there is a meadow-region, called Hippo- 
 botos, through which travellers who wish to go from Persis and 
 Babylon to the Caspian Gates have to pass. In this region, in 
 the time of the Persians, 50,000 mares are said to have been 
 pastured, but the herds belonged to the king." It was in Media 
 that the celebrated Nissean horses, famed throughout antiquity, 
 were bred. According to Herodotus : " In Media there is a wide 
 plain called Nesaion ; in this plain are bred the large horses named 
 after it." Strabo says that these horses came from the meadow 
 Hippobotos, which also he places in Armenia: "The Nissean 
 horses that, being the largest and best, are used by the Persian 
 kings, come, some say from Media, others from Armenia. . . . 
 Armenia is so blessed with horses that it is not inferior in that 
 respect to Media, and the Nissean horses used by the Persian 
 kings are also found there; the Satrap of Armenia sent every year 
 20,000 young animals to the feast of Mithras." These horses were 
 as swift as those of the modern Turkomans ; and Aristotle says in 
 praise of the Hyrcanian dromedaries, that, when they once began 
 to go, they even outran the Nisasan horses, the swiftest of all. 
 These horses were of peculiar form, resembling the so-called Par- 
 thian horse of the Asiatic Greeks in Strabo's time. Am. Marcel- 
 linus had himself seen troops of warriors thus mounted. Nisaea 
 itself occurs frequently as the name of towns and districts on both 
 sides of the O.xus, and had no doubt only an appellative signifi- 
 cance. The Nissean horses therefore came, as it seems, from the 
 frontier of modern Turkestan, a region whence issued, at all times, 
 
THE HORSE. 47 
 
 the nomadic hordes who invaded the cultivated lands of the East. 
 There, as far as the Jaxartes or Tanais (both Iranic names of the 
 same river), and beyond it, north of the Caspian and the Black 
 Sea, to the European Tanais (Don), Borysthenes (Dnieper), and 
 Ister (Danube), lived the equestrian nomads, Parthians, Massa- 
 getae, Dahae, Sarmatse, Chorasmians, Scythians, and other tribeb, 
 called by the general name of Sacae. Ancient authors frequently 
 describe the manners of these tribes with more or less detail. 
 Herodian gives the following of the Neo-Parthians, against whom 
 the Emperor Alexander Severus marched : " They not only use 
 the horse and the bow for war, like the Romans, but they grow 
 up from childhood in the use of them, passing their lives in 
 hunting. They never lay aside their quivers, nor get off their 
 horses, but use them constantly, either against enemies or the 
 beasts of the chase." The Dahee rode through wide, waterless 
 deserts, halting only at rare intervals ; and thus they invaded 
 Hyrcania, Nesaea, and the plains of Parthyaea. The Sacian cavalry 
 was the best in the Persian army. When Xerxes was in Thessaly, 
 whose horses were esteemed the best in Greece, he instituted races 
 between the native breed and those he had brought with him, and 
 his horses proved to be far superior. The Sacian horset were 
 remarkable for enduring the hardships of the desert. One that 
 the Emperor Probus captured from the Alani, or a similar people, 
 " was of very insignificant appearance, but could gallop a hundred 
 miles a day for eight or ten days together." Herds of beautiful 
 animals must have been kept by Scythian princes, as well as in 
 Media, for King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, took 
 20,000 full-bred mares from the Scythians at the mouth of the 
 Ister, and sent them to Macedonia for breeding purposes. The 
 horses of the Sigynnse, a people that lived on the Caspian Sea, 
 are described as resembling in many ways the wild tarpan of 
 Tartary and Mongolia ; they were covered with hair five inches 
 long ; they had blunt noses, and were so small that they could not 
 carry a rider, but were harnessed to carriages instead, which they 
 drew at a great speed. The Sigynnae were of Median origin, but 
 their animals had either remained stationary at the earliest stage, 
 or degenerated from it, while the rest of the Sacse had improved 
 
48 THE HOKSE. 
 
 theirs by mixture with the improved breed in the richer pastures 
 and milder dimate of Media. But this Median horse itself had 
 originally come from Turan, the home of those north-eastern 
 branches of the great Iranian stock, which, as far as the light of 
 history reaches, are always found a horse-riding race. Now, as the 
 cradle of the central Indo-Europeans (Aryans) must be imagined 
 as situated in or near that region, we find ourselves again facing 
 our main question — Were they roaming tribes of horsemen (like 
 the ancient Turanians) that detached themselves from the parent 
 stock and inundated Europe ? or did they, like the Assyrians and 
 Egyptians, receive the tamed horse at a later period from their 
 former home on the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes ? 
 
 That the Indo-Europeans were acquainted with the horse is 
 proved by its name akva, which is found, with more or less variety 
 of sound, among all the branches of that family ; as, for instance, 
 in Sanskrit apa, Anglo-Saxon esh, Old Irish ech, Latin equus, and 
 many others ; it is only lost in the Slavic languages. The word 
 is derived from the root ak, " to hasten," and was applied to the 
 horse as implying its speed, perhaps in contrast to the slow ox. 
 The conception of the horse as of a swift and fleeting animal ope- 
 rates for a long time in many myths and in poetical language. 
 The sun hastens through heaven, and therefore the Persians 
 and Massagetse sacrificed the horse, as the swiftest animal, to 
 the God of Day. Herodotus says of the Massagetse : " They 
 worship the sun, and sacrifice horses to that god. The mean- 
 ing of this sacrifice is the dedication of the swiftest of all 
 earthly creatures to the swiftest of all divinities." Homer 
 calls the sun "untiring," and the same epithet is applied to 
 Notus and Boreas by Sophocles, while Pindar also describes 
 the chariot-horses as " untiring." Mythically the horse is re- 
 garded as one with the storm ; this comes out very clearly in 
 the fable of Boreas fructifying the mares of Erichthonius ; and in 
 Homer the horses fly without bending the ears of the corn, and 
 skim the foam of the grey sea : 
 
 " These lightly skimming, as they swept the plain, 
 Nor ply'd the grass, nor bent the tender grain ; 
 And when along the level seas they flew, 
 Scarce on the surface curl'd the briny dew." — Iliad. 
 
THE HORSE. 49 
 
 The horse is also called "stormy," "storm-footed;" "more 
 rapid than the hawk," " swift as the bird." The horses of Rhesus 
 " flew like the wind," and those of Achilles were " sons of Zephyrus 
 and the harpy Podarge " (namely, the swift-footed ; the harpies 
 are destructive blasts of wind) ; they " fled with the blowing of the 
 wind; " and one of them says himself: 
 
 " No, — could our swiftness o'er the winds prevail. 
 Or beat the pinions of the western gale." — Iliad. 
 
 .iEolus himself, the ruler of winds, is called Hippotades, i.e., son 
 of Hippotes (horseman). In the pictures of the northern Edda 
 also, wind and storm are represented as horses. Odin, the god of 
 wind, is carried by his eight-legged grey horse Sleipnir. Winter, 
 represented as a giant, builds a castle for the gods, and is assisted 
 by his horse Svadilfari, or the north wind; but before the ice- 
 palace is quite finished, Loki transforms himself into a mare — the 
 south wind — and entices Svadilfari from his work, so in spring the 
 work is still unfinished, and Thor smashes the giant's skull with his 
 hammer ; and so on. In the German legend of the Wild Hunt, 
 at the head of which rode Wodan on his white horse, we have 
 merely the midnight storm transformed into a horse and his rider. 
 The belief prevalent in Roman times, that on the coast of Lusi- 
 tania mares were impregnated by the wind, may be connected with 
 these ancient representations ; Varro, who first mentions it, calls 
 it an incredible but nevertheless true fact. 
 
 The horse being thus known to the aborigines, and dwelling 
 in their imaginations as the emblem of speed, so that its very 
 name was derived from that quality, we may imagine the animal, 
 in relation to man, at three stages ; either as the mere object of 
 the chase, which flew like lightning and was difficult to overtake ; 
 or as an animal for riding, which carried the wandering nomad 
 to his goal, encircling and urging forward the grazing herds; 
 or, finally, as harnessed to waggons, drawing the kibitka, and 
 serving the purposes of migration. But the last is improbable, 
 for in this case speed was not the desideratum, but rather 
 powerful muscles and strong necks. The Scythians, though an 
 equestrian people, are described by Herodotus and Hippocrates 
 
 4 
 
so THE HORSE. 
 
 as riding in waggons drawn by oxen, and the campaigns and 
 migratory marches of the other European nations are spoken of, 
 when first met with in history, as being accomplished in the same 
 manner. When the Cirabrians lost the battle against the 
 Romans, the women threw their children under the wheels of 
 the waggons and the hoofs of the draught animals, while the men, 
 not finding trees enough to hang themselves on, bound them- 
 selves to the legs or horns of oxen, drove the animals in oppo- 
 site directions, and were thus torn into pieces. The bullock- 
 cart, as a remnant of very ancient tradition, still appears at re- 
 ligious and political ceremonies at a time when all other things 
 were greatly changed. Tacitus tells of the goddess Nerthus riding 
 in a carriage drawn by cows ; so with the ancient Gallic goddess, 
 whom Gregory of Tours calls Berecynthia. When a dead Goth 
 was carried to the grave, his funeral car was drawn by bullocks ; 
 Gothic and Merovingian kings were drawn to the people's assem- 
 blies, and to all places where they appeared publicly, by oxen ; 
 and in the same manner were conveyed royal and noble women. 
 On the column of Antoninus two captured princesses are repre- 
 sented riding in a cushioned carriage drawn by an ox ; near them 
 marches a bearded man, his hands bound behind his back, 
 escorted by two Roman soldiers. This is quite the rule ; women 
 and children in the bullock-cart, the warrior on foot. Traces of 
 the most ancient times are also found among the Greeks and 
 Romans, where bullocks were the common draught animals. The 
 invention of the waggon and taming of the ox must be thought 
 of in one connexion. We learn from the touching fable of Cleobis 
 and Biton, related to King Croesus by Solon, that the priestess of 
 the Argive Hera used to ride from the city to her tempfe in an ox-car. 
 In such a carriage Cadmus must have fled with Hartnonia from 
 Thebes to the barbarians, and founded in lUyria the town of 
 Bou-thoe (ox-run). The ox alone was employed in domestic and 
 field work, and harnessed to the plough ; a house, a wife, and a 
 plough-ox formed the basis of a rustic household. 
 
 " But, before all things, a house, a wife, and a ploughing-ox. "— Hesiod. 
 
 He who has no oxen can move no weight, and says to his 
 
THE HORSE. 51 
 
 neighbour, " Give me a pair of oxen and thy waggon ; " but the 
 other replies, " My oxen have to work for me." A proverb says, 
 " The waggon draws the ox ; " the same thing as our " Putting the 
 cart before the horse." 
 
 The ox, the fellow-worker of man, was as inviolable as man 
 himself. " And this was the custom in Attica ; not to sacrifice 
 the ox, who bore the yoke and toiled at the plough or waggon, 
 for he too was a countryman, and shared the labour and toil cf 
 man." A saying of Pythagoras runs as follows : " Lay not thy 
 hand on the ploughing-ox." Among the Homeric Greeks the 
 horse was used only in war, and in exactly the same way as among 
 the Oriental nations ; it was not ridden, but harnessed to the 
 chariot. Riding, of course, was not unknown to the Homeric poets, 
 as indeed how could it be ? When the storm has shattered the 
 raft that much-enduring Ulysses had made on Calypso's isle, he 
 escapes on a plank, sitting on it as "on the back of a racer." 
 When Diomed and Ulysses steal the horses of Rhesus by night, 
 the former wants to carry off the chariot of the murdered king ; 
 but, on the advice of Minerva, the heroes mount the animals 
 instead, and hasten back to their ships. Under the circumstances 
 described this was most natural ; how often they must have seen 
 the boy who took the animals to water doing the same ! In 
 another scene in the Iliad a man has chosen four swift animals 
 from a herd grazing at liberty, and has to take them along the 
 high-road to the town ; he mounts and leaps, while at full gallop, 
 from the back of one to that of another, to the admiration of 
 all beholders. With the exception of these few cases, from which 
 we cannot infer real riding in the present sense of the word, the 
 horse, in Homer, serves only to draw the chariot. The combats 
 before the walls of Troy are conducted in just the same manner 
 as those we see depicted on the walls of the palaces at Koyunjik 
 or Khorsabad. The light war-chariot has one axle and two eight- 
 spoked wheels, is drawn by two horses harnessed to the pole, and 
 brings the hero up to his enemy, when he leaps down and hurls 
 his spear or draws his sword. The horses wait till the moment 
 comes to take their master back to his comrades. The warrior is 
 accompanied by a friend and companion, who stands at his left 
 
52 THE HORSE. 
 
 side as charioteer ; while the one fights in armour with shield and 
 lance, the other directs the steeds. Sometimes a whole squadron 
 of chariots advances in line to the attack, as in the fourth book 
 of the Iliad, where Nestor places his men so that the chariots are 
 in front, the strong foot-men in the rear, and the weak in the 
 middle ; giving orders that no charioteer is to press forward, or 
 lag behind, for in that way, long ago, towns and ramparts had been 
 forced : 
 
 " Our great forefathers held this prudent course, 
 Thus rul'd their ardour, thus preserv'd their force ; 
 By laws like these immortal conquests made, 
 And earth's proud tyrants low in ashes laid." — Iliad. 
 
 The Trojans and their allies fought in the same manner as the 
 Greeks, and there is no doubt that the whole form of war and the 
 use of the horse itself had been borrowed from Asia. Ares him- 
 self, the God of War, fights either on foot or in a chariot ; never on 
 horseback. In the fifth book of the Iliad the wounded Aphrodite, 
 in haste to reach Olympus, borrows of Ares his war-chariot and 
 horses, which carry her swift as an arrow to the abode of the gods. 
 Hence he is depicted on the shield of Herakles, standing on the 
 seat of his chariot, lance in hand, before him his swift steeds, 
 terrible to behold ; and Pindar calls him, " Aphrodite's brazen- 
 charioted spouse." Even apart from war, Homer does not 
 describe the horse as used for riding. Thus, in the third book of 
 the Odyssey, we see Telemachus and Pisistratus driving right 
 across mountainous Peloponnesus, from Pylus to LacedEemon, 
 standing in their chariot, not riding up and down the passes or in 
 the pebbly beds of the torrents. Their harness and other appoint- 
 ments are the same as those of the warriors on the plain of Troy ; 
 beside the hero stands Pisistratus, holding the reins and guiding 
 the horses. When Menelaus, in parting from Telemachus, wishes 
 to present him with three horses and a chariot, Telemachus 
 declines the gift, reminding the would-be giver that Ithaca has 
 neither spacious racing-grounds nor plains ; " Not one of the 
 islands lying in the sea is a fit place for driving the swift chariot, 
 and Ithaca least of all." In such countries, therefore, the horse 
 was useless. Again, at funeral games in the most ancient times 
 
THE HORSE. 53 
 
 there were no races on horseback ; the games at the funeral of 
 Patroclus (Iliad xxiii.) consist in chariot-racing, boxing, wrest- 
 ling, running, fencing, throwing the ball, shooting, and hurUng the 
 speat On the chest, whereon were depicted the celebrated games 
 instituted by Acastus at the burial of, Pelias, the artist has not 
 represented horse-races, but only two-horse chariots in mid career, 
 wrestlers, boxers, discus-throwers, and runners. 
 
 Those earliest times have only left us very conventional repre- 
 sentations of the horse ; those of a later period, when art was in 
 its prime, show, in the opinion of judges, the slender Oriental type, 
 not an importation of the aboriginal type from the distant north. 
 
 A few features of the oldest form of worship have yet to be 
 mentioned as pointing likewise to Iranian influence. The Per- 
 sians worshipped rivers by sacrificing horses. When Xerxes 
 arrived at the Strymon, the magians sacrificed white horses 
 to that stream ; and in Tiberius's time, the Parthian Tiridates 
 conciliated the river Euphrates by sacrificing a horse. Even so 
 the Trojans were accustomed to throw living horses into the 
 eddies of the Scamander ; Achilles says to them — 
 
 " Your living coursers glut his gulfs in vain." — Iliad. 
 
 Off the Argive coast there was a spring of sweet water, forming 
 a whirlpool in the middle of the sea. Into it the Argives, in the 
 very earliest time, used to throw horses as a sacrifice to Poseidon. 
 The Rhodians used, every year, to throw into the sea a team of 
 four horses dedicated to the Sun. To sacrifice horses to the Sun, 
 to regard white horses — a sickly, abnormal breed produced by 
 cultivation — as being by this colour sacred to the God of Light, 
 and then as gods' horses in general and as kings' horses, was an 
 Iranian custom and religious fancy, which is found here and there 
 in Greece, and even in Italy. Castor and Pollux, both Gods of 
 Light, ride on snow-white horses ; so they appeared, clad in their 
 scarlet mantles, when coming to the aid of Locrians at the battle 
 of the river Sagra. They are wedded to the blithe and shining 
 daughters of Leucippus, whose bright being is revealed in his 
 name. JBoth ^schylus and Sophocles represent Day rising with 
 white horses, and chasing away Night's dismal round. When 
 
54 THE HOKSE. 
 
 Exaenetus of Agrigentum returned home as a victor, he was accom- 
 panied by his rejoicing fellow-citizens with three hundred carriages 
 drawn by white horses ; and Camillus, after taking Veii, entered 
 the city riding in triumph in a chariot drawn by white horses, 
 which act was blamed by his contemporaries as an encroachment 
 on the rights and glory of the God of Day. The Lacedaemonians 
 sacrificed horses to Helios on the summit of the Taygeton ; which 
 custom could not be Phoenician, for the Phoenicians did not use 
 horses in their religious ceremonies. It was rather derived from 
 the Iranians of Asia Minor ; and if the original Greeks really 
 arrived at their future home riding the small, shaggy horses of the 
 steppes, all traces of the fact had certainly disappeared before the 
 earliest period known to us. 
 
 It is r?ot quite so with Thrace, a land lying north of Greece, 
 and celebrated by Homer for its horses. Homer's account 
 might indeed be purely mythical : Thrace might be the home of 
 the horse as it was of northern storms ; the wild waves rushed 
 down from the Thracian sea; the horse symbolized the storm 
 and the white foam of the waves ; it was therefore created by 
 Poseidon (Neptune), and used in the games in honour of that god. 
 But the Thracian horses of the Epic look too realistic and his- 
 torical to be merely mythical. The Thracians had anciently much 
 intercourse with the nations of Asia Minor ; and Rhesus, with his 
 horses whiter than snow, his chariot and weapons more fit for a 
 god than a man, is copied from an Iranian spirit of light ; it is 
 therefore in the darkness of night that he is despoiled of his horses 
 and his life. Thrace, however, like Asia Minor, lies near the 
 home of the northern horsemen, and the Thracian breed might 
 have come straight from the country of the Hippomolgi (mare- 
 milkers). And in like manner it is probable that the tamed 
 horses of the Slavs, Lithuanians, and Germans were descended 
 from those of their neighbours, the Iranian horsemen. — Of the 
 Slavs, Tacitus expressly says they were not a horse-riding nation 
 like the Sarmatians, that their strength lay in infantry, and he 
 therefore prefers to class them with the Germans. Afterwards, when 
 the Slavs had advanced to the Elbe and Oder on the heels of the 
 retreating Germans, the historians of the Middle Ages mention 
 
TJIE HORSE. 55 
 
 a worship of the horse as prevailing among them, which forcibly 
 reminds us of that among the Iranians. They dedicate a white 
 horse to Svatovit, the God of Light, and a black horse, to Triglav, 
 the evil one ; the latter horse is never ridden, but the former is 
 sometimes mounted by a priest. Horses are prophetic of good 
 and evil fortune, and the temples at which they are kept become 
 oracles. In the legend relating to the origin of Bohemia, it is a 
 demonic horse that shows the envoys of Libussa the way to 
 Premysl, the chosen ruler. This contrast of light and dark, and 
 the sacred character of the horse, as well as the name for God, 
 bogu, must have been derived from the Sarmatian and Alanian 
 neighbours. — Ancient witnesses describe the Lithuanians as 
 drinkers of horse-milk : a custom which, though unknown to the 
 Germans, had spread from the horsemen of the South-Russian 
 steppes to the Baltic. Wulfstan tells King Alfred that " there is 
 so much honey in the land of the Estes (that is, Prussians) that 
 the king and rich persons leave all the mead to the poor, them- 
 selves drinking the milk of mares." That this "milk " was dis- 
 tilled and intoxicating, we learn from Adam of Bremen and 
 Peter of Dusburg. In Lithuania, then, as among the Iranians, 
 mares were kept in great herds, and driven together to be 
 milked, to which process the animals gradually became accus- 
 tomed, especially if they were led to drink at the same time. The 
 milk was fermented, and became an intoxicating beverage much 
 liked by the nobles ; from which last circumstance we may con- 
 clude that the breeding of horses was an art derived from abroad. 
 A note on Adam's Chronicle would seem to indicate that even 
 the Goths in Sweden intoxicated themselves on mares' milk; but 
 the milking of mares was never a habit among pure Teutonic 
 races, and the annotator's "Sembi et Gothi" must, as Grimm 
 says, have stood for Samo-getas. — The cult of the horse among 
 the Germans has also some peculiarly Iranian features. Horses 
 were sacrificed to the gods, drew the sacred chariot, and had the 
 gift of prophecy ; the white colour was most sacred, just as among 
 the Persians, Scythians, and other nations. Roman judges con- 
 sidered the German horses insignificant and ignoble. Caesar 
 speaks of them as small and ill-shaped, though inured to great 
 
56 THE HORSE. 
 
 labour. Tacitus says they were not conspicuous for beauty or 
 speed. Possibly the type of these horses was very similar to that 
 of the horses of the steppes—" small, swift, and stubborn," as 
 Strabo says of those to the north of the Euxine. The German, 
 like the Slav, was much firmer on foot than on horseback, except 
 perhaps a few tribes to the east, which had associated more closely 
 with the Iranian inhabitants of the steppes. Turning to the 
 other side of Germany, Procopius pretends that the horse was 
 totally unknown to the Germans of the north-west, to the Angles 
 settled in Britain, and the Warnes, whom he places on the Lower 
 Rhine. " These islanders are more warlike than the other bar- 
 barians, but they always fight on foot. They do not even know 
 a horse by sight, and the animal is not to be found in Brittia. If 
 one of these people come as ambassador or otherwise to the 
 Romans or Franks, he is incapable of mounting a horse, and 
 must be lifted on. So, too, if he would dismount, he must be set 
 on the ground. Also the Warnes are no riders, but go on foot." 
 At the period of which Procopius speaks, this is very improb- 
 able, and perhaps the accounts he made use of referred to the 
 marsh-lands of the north-west, a region impenetrable to horses. 
 Instead of the Angles he should have named the Frisians, and 
 instead of Britain, one of the river-islands of the Continent. But 
 the Batavians, the inhabitants of the island at the mouth of the 
 Rhine, were considered the very best riders among the Germans, 
 accustomed to swim the Rhine on horseback in their armour. 
 Ancient writers also describe the Caledonian horse as being small 
 and insignificant, it was therefore related to the German animal, 
 and represented the old Celtic breed, which, in Gaul, had long 
 since been crossed and improved. Dion Cassius says of the 
 Caledonians : " They have small, swift horses, but also go on foot, 
 walking very fast, and standing very firmly in battle." So the 
 Caledonians too were swift runners, as the Germans and Wends 
 were in comparison with the Sarmatians; and cavalry among them 
 was of secondary consideration in war. Rather did the horse- 
 man need a nimble and strong foot-companion, who accompanied 
 him, and came to his assistance at critical moments. This combina- 
 tion of riding and running among the Germans is circumstantially 
 
THE HORSE. 57 
 
 described by Caesar : " There were (in the army of Ariovistus) 
 six thousand horsemen, and the like number of very nimble and 
 powerful footmen, whom the former for their own safety's sake 
 had selected from the whole, and with whom they remained in 
 communication during the battle. To these, when necessary, the 
 horsemen retreated ; if the battle went ill at any point, the footmen 
 hurried up ; if a horseman was wounded and fell from his animal, 
 the footmen surrounded and protected him ; if it was necessary 
 to go quickly forward or back, the practice in running of these 
 footmen was so great that they kept pace with the horses, holding 
 on by their manes." Long before that time the Bastarnse were 
 accustomed to mix such auxiliary troops among their horse ; and 
 we learn from some reports that the Gauls, who resemble the 
 later Germans the more, the farther back we penetrate into their 
 history, did not rely on their cavalry alone, but supported those 
 troops by powerful infantry. So, from Gaul to the mouth of the 
 Danube, it was a general North-European custom. It is true 
 that, now and then, we hear of a similar mode of fighting among 
 the Southern nations ; but, as will be seen on closer examination, 
 it was of a very different nature. The Iberians rode to battle 
 two on one horse, and then one of the riders fought on foot ; and 
 Diodorus says of the Celto-Iberians, that when they had fought 
 on horseback with success, they jumped off arid did astounding 
 deeds on foot. The stratagem once used by the Romans in the 
 second Punic war was similar. When Capua was besieged by 
 Q. Fulvius Flaccus, and the Reman cavalry, being fewer in 
 number, were on the point of yielding to that of the besieged, 
 the centurion Q. Navius thought of the following means of putting 
 an end to this shameful state of things ; he chose the strongest 
 and swiftest youths out of all the legions, and armed them with 
 long spears ; these youths mounted behind the horsemen, and at 
 a given signal sprang off, so that a battle on foot and on horseback 
 was developed at the same moment : the surprise and the wounds 
 received put the enemy to flight. Probably this stratagem was 
 not an impromptu invention on the part of the centurion, but 
 had either been seen or heard of by him among the barbarians 
 or the Greeks. Alexander the Great is said to have invented a 
 
•58 :rii-RjiojiS£. 
 
 kind of cavalry more lightly armed than the Hoplites, but more 
 heavily than the regular cavalry, and practised in fighting both on 
 foot and on horseback. Like Gustavus's dragoons, this doubly 
 exercised troop was not a product of national custom, but oi' 
 military art. We might fancy we found this compound system 
 of fighting in the Odyssey, where it is said of the Cicones, a 
 Thracian tribe : 
 
 "All expert soldiers, skill'd on foot to dare, 
 Or from the bounding courser urge the war ; '" 
 
 but the expression "from horses" means, everywhere else in Homer, 
 fighting/wOT the chariot, and thus the tactics of the Cicones would 
 quite agree with those mentioned in the Iliad. Then why is it 
 expressly mentioned? Because it was something unexpected in 
 a barbarian race? To our surprise, however, this Trojan and 
 Ciconian chariot-fighting agrees with the war-customs which Csesar 
 afterwards found in use among the Celts of Britain. Like the 
 heroes before Troy, the Celts rolled into battle in their chariots. 
 Cssar minutely describes their tactics : " First, they ride about in 
 all directions shooting their missiles, and trying to throw tlie enemy's 
 ranks into confusion. Then having crept in among their own 
 horse, they suddenly spring from their chariots and fight on foot. 
 Meanwhile their drivers retire, and stand ready, if the warriors 
 are hard pressed, to offer them a speedy retreat. So they combine 
 the speed of horse with the steadfastness of foot. Their practice 
 therein is so perfect that they can guide or stop a horse when at 
 full gallop on a steep mountain-side; and run backwards and 
 forwards on the pole, or step on the yoke, and then return intb 
 the chariot again in a moment." Agricola witnessed the same 
 manner of battle in the Grampians ; and Mela says that the 
 chariots were armed with scythes, a point on which Ceesar and 
 Tacitus are silent. Other historians say that such war-chariots 
 were in use among the Belgians, which leads to the conclusion 
 that, during the great Celtic migrations in the east in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Iranian and Thracian peoples, the custom had been 
 borrowed from the latter ; and that after it had died out on 
 the Continent, it was still preserved in the British Isles like so 
 
THE HORSE. 59 
 
 many other ancient customs. The scythe-chariot was Asiatic ; 
 and driving into battle, as we have seen, was altogether a custom 
 of Assyria, Persia, and Asia Minor. 
 
 Poets, in their fancies about pre-historic ages, have sometimes 
 raised the question whether riding or driving was the oldest. 
 Lucretius thinks that for an armed man to mount a horse and 
 guide it with the rein is older than to go to battle in a chariot ; 
 and he may be right in this sense, that though the waggon in 
 itself is a very ancient invention, yet it is a far step from the rude, 
 lumbering ox-wain of early ages to the light, swift, elegant, metal- 
 bound and two-wheeled chariot of the Assyrians. The use of the 
 ox as a draught-animal might invite men to train the captured 
 horse for a like purpose; but it was more natural to mount it, 
 clii;ig to its back with hands and feet, and ride it till it grew tired 
 and willing. And, as we have seen, the horse was always a war- 
 like animal, whose value consisted in speed, and the rider only 
 thought of harnessing it to a lightly rolling vehicle, capable of 
 holding himself and a companion, in order to achieve more com- 
 pletely his warlike aims. 
 
 If we take all the above data together, we find that nowhere 
 in Europe, neither among the classic nations of the south, nor the 
 North-European nations from the Celts in the west to the Slavs 
 in the east, is the high antiquity of the horse and of its subjugation 
 to man betrayed by any clear traces or undoubted evidence. Many 
 facts, indeed, seem positively to exclude any acquaintance with 
 the animal in early times ; for instance, the fact of the Homeric 
 Greeks not riding, as they must have done had they possessed 
 the animal from the first, but only driving, as they had seen the 
 Asiatics do. We have therefore no ground for imagining the 
 Indo-Germans (Aryans) in their earliest migrations as a horse-riding 
 people, galloping over Europe with loose rein, and catching men 
 and animals with horse-hair lasso. But if the horse did not then 
 accompany them on their great march through the world, it 
 must have been the Iranian branch, which remained near the 
 original point of departure, that learnt the art of riding later ; and 
 from whom did they learn it if not from the Turks, who dwelt 
 next behind them, and in course of time drew nearer and nearer? 
 
6o THE HORSE. 
 
 To those Turks, and to the Mongols beyond them, must be 
 attributed the first capture of the swift, single-hoofed animal of the 
 steppes, and the art of using it for hunting and war. When the 
 Turks first showed themselves to the civilized people of the West, 
 they were a horse-riding nation to an extent till then unknown, 
 not excepting even the Scythians, Parthians, and other Iranian 
 tribes. " The Huns," say the ancient historians (Suidas, Mar- 
 cellinus, etc.), "fall at every step — they have no feet to walk, they 
 live, wake, sleep, eat, drink, and hold counsel on horseback." 
 Their animals were strong and ugly, and therefore must have come 
 fresh from the steppes of Northern Asia. So Zosimus : " They are 
 unable to set their feet firmly on the ground, but live entirely on 
 horseback, even sleeping on their animals," etc. The steppe 
 was the birthplace of the horse ; the yellow sons of the steppe 
 tamed the animal, and, succeeding in that, founded their whole 
 lives upon it. After that their creative power was spent, and 
 when they rode to the west they could only destroy. If, as 
 modern discoveries seems to indicate, Media either had an 
 original Turanian, that is, non-Aryan population, or, being 
 originally peopled by Iranians, was subjugated by immigrant 
 Turanians — the fact would explain how Media became the 
 cradle of horse-breeding and the art of riding for the whole of 
 Western Asia (note 12). 
 
 GREEKS, ITALIANS, PHCENICI.iNS. 
 
 In the earliest twilight shed by history on the Greek peninsula, 
 what we can discern is the following. The nation whose fame, 
 under the name of Hellenes, afterwards filled the world, had prob- 
 ably fought its way through mountain and forest from the eastern 
 side of tlie Adriatic to Dodona in Epirus, with which place posterity 
 connected its oldest recollections and conceptions of ancient 
 worship and primitive life. Here was a halting point, and thence 
 issued the two general national names : that of Hellenes, which 
 prevailed more in the east ; and that of Graikoi, which clung to 
 the west of the peninsula, and was accepted by the opposite 
 Italians, but died away in the mother country. 
 
 From Epirus the immigrant march, doubtless in avoidance of 
 
GREEKS, ITALIANS, PHCENICIANS. 6i 
 
 wild hordes pressing in from the north, crossed the pathless 
 mountains to Thessaly, where we find a second but still very 
 ancient Dodona; and thence extended over the neighbouring 
 lands, the accessible islands, and the southernmost part of the 
 peninsula, which is almost entirely surrounded by the sea. 
 
 At a much later period, when the small tribe of Dorians, leaving 
 its home on Parnassus, had victoriously overrun the Peloponnesus, 
 the preparatory time of unstable migrations and mingling of races 
 ceased, and the populations of the peninsula permanently took 
 possession of the settlements in which history has since accustomed 
 us to see them. 
 
 Everywhere, before the true Greek age, we must imagine a 
 former period of the Felasgians, a name in which either a former 
 age and elder civilization has been personified (the name probably 
 meaning forefathers, the grey in age: note 13), or in which the 
 memory of a branch of the same nation, which preceded and was 
 afterwards absorbed by the Greeks proper, has been preserved. 
 What happened to the Pelasgians, happened also to the early 
 extinguished races which we may comprise under the name of 
 Leleges (probably meaning selected, in another form Locrians), 
 and which maybe traced, as scattered remnants of Western Greece, 
 across the islands to isolated points on the coast of Asia Minor. 
 Like the Pelasgians they formed part of the first great immigrations, 
 and were scattered, or subdued, or driven across the sea, by multi- 
 tudes pressing on their rear. As far as we can make out, their starting 
 point was Acarnania and the opposite islands (note 14). At this 
 earliest period the division of the nations is not at all clear, and 
 we find transitions on every side. Progressive civilization first 
 created the contrast between Barbarian and Hellene. Races 
 ethnologically akin, but which had stood still at earlier stages of 
 culture, and whose dialect was no longer understood, seemed now 
 to be of doubtful or foreign blood. Among such half-Hellenes of 
 intermediate position were numbered the .^tolians and Acar- 
 nanians ; farther north the Thesprotians and Molossians in the 
 once Greek Epirus; and on the opposite side, the afterwards, 
 great and famous Macedonians, a name which signifies tall peofle,~ 
 just as Minyae means little people. 
 
62 THE HORSE. 
 
 These formed the connecting links to two widely spread nations, 
 the Thracians to the east and the Illyrians to the west, which in 
 fact belonged to the Indo-European family, and were therefore 
 not absolutely foreign to the Hellenes, but, by long separation and 
 diverse fates, were already at such a distance that when the two 
 met they had no longer any sense of kinship in blood or civiliza- 
 tion. It is a matter of doubt whether these two great races 
 followed south of the Danube in the wake of the primitive Greeks 
 after these had penetrated into their own peninsula, or whether 
 the latter pushed their way, fighting, past the former. Pott, in his 
 " Inequality of Human Races," is of the latter opinion. It is of 
 no small detriment to the elucidation of the early history of Indo- 
 Germanism in Europe, that the languages of both those nations 
 are lost to us for ever — languages which would have afforded a 
 key for solving so many problems concerning the dispersion, the 
 course of migration, and the successive arrivals of the principal 
 members of that system of nations. For the Thracians, together 
 with the kindred Getae and Dacians, and the Illyrians with their 
 branches, the Pannonians and Veneti, form the central mass from 
 which numerous connecting threads spread to all sides. They 
 were closely allied to the Greeks and also to the Phrygians, and 
 through the latter to the Armenians and the Iranian races ; with 
 the last, indeed, they were besides directly connected through the 
 Scythians and Sarmatians ; some not insignificant traces also point 
 to a connexion with the Lithuano-Slavs and Germans in the north, 
 and the Celts in the west. 
 
 An important link in the chain of languages and nations being 
 thus missing, we are reduced in our grouping of the same to 
 isolated observations, which may be valued by different persons in 
 different degrees. Of one of those languages a valuable remnant 
 at least seems to be preserved in the Albanian dialect ; but this 
 idiom exists only in its modern and much disfigured form, having 
 been deeply influenced by surrounding tongues both in ancient 
 and modern times. It is often doubtful what must be attributed to 
 primitive affinity and what to foreign influence, and all this together 
 has hitherto prevented comparative philology, which has enough 
 to do elsewhere, from attempting any extensive excavation in this 
 field, though perhaps it hides much that is valuable (note 15). 
 
GREEKS, ITALIANS, PHCENICIANS. 63 
 
 The Thracians (the name seemsf of Greek origin, meaning the 
 rough or mountain folk) had early experienced the effects of 
 Asiatic culture, and their southern branches in their turn influenced 
 the north of Greece ; the Illyrians lead us on the opposite side to 
 the sister peninsula, Italy. There, under the name of Veneti, 
 Heneti, or Eneti, the Illyrians had not only occupied the country 
 at the mouths of the Po and other Alpine rivers, but, as many 
 traces of names prove, and as direct evidence confirms, had ex- 
 tended at a very early time along the whole of the eastern coast 
 down to the southern point of the peninsula, without, however, 
 crossing the Apennines. The Messapians and Japygians in the 
 south-east of the peninsula, together with the neighbouring peoples, 
 may also be reckoned as belonging to the Illyrian stock; 
 
 Along the great pathway of the nations, round the Venetian 
 Gulf, either pushing the Italo-Ill3'rians to one side and before them, 
 or, vice iiersd, pressed forward by them to the south and south- 
 west, the Italians proper advanced into the peninsula. This 
 people, as is evident to an unprejudiced mind, had separated 
 comparatively late from the primitive Hellenes. Among the sub- 
 divisions into which it parted on the new soil, and which perhaps 
 owed their existence to the shocks of successive intermittent im- 
 migrations, the Latins settled in the plain south of the Lower Tiber, 
 and on the adjoining volcanic hills. The Sabellians advanced 
 along the ridge of the mountain-chain itself; the Umbrians ex- 
 tended from the Lower Po and the plains skirting the Adriatic Sea, 
 across the peninsula to the western coast ; and, close to them on 
 the north-west, in the mountains that descend to the Gulfs of 
 Genoa and Spezzia, settled the Ligyans or Ligurians, a non-Italian 
 people. Whether the immigrants along the west coast of Italy, 
 down as far as Sicily, found Iberians and Libyans settled there, 
 whom they drove away or destroyed, is a thing more to be guessed 
 at than asserted or denied But the Umbrians, at a very early 
 period, were split into groups and subjugated by a new inroad 
 from the north ; the mysterious, but probably Aryan, Etruscans 
 settled themselves firmly, from the Alps to the Tiber, in all the 
 upper half of the peninsula, and became powerful on the sea, after- 
 wards advancing even to Campania, until they were more and more 
 
64 THE HORSE. 
 
 limited and weakened by the Celts, who, breaking in from beyond 
 the Alps, took permanent possession of the plains of Upper Italy. 
 But meanwhile the warlike, roving, and reiving pastoral nations 
 of both Greece and Italy had gradually turned their attention to 
 husbandry, and thereby taken the first and mightiest step on the 
 path of humanity. That in the Greco-Italian period before the 
 immigration, nay, that even in the heart of Asia, they had culti- 
 vated the ground and fed on the fruit of Demeter, has often been 
 asserted with more or less probability; but the proofs brought 
 forward in support of the assertion are scarcely tenable. A com- 
 parison of the names for spelt and barley only shows that at a time 
 when the Greeks, Lithuanians, and Germans were yet united, certain 
 grain-bearing grasses were known by names common to two or 
 more nations. The language of a pastoral nation must naturally 
 have been rich in names for plants and grasses. There is only 
 one word-root (Grk. aro-, Lat. ara-, Lith. ar-, Goth, arj-, to ear 
 or plough) that might be taken as proof of an acquaintance with 
 ploughing and the plough, before the dispersion of the nations 
 over Europe. The long migration from the regions beyond the 
 Sea of Aral must have been interrupted by intervals of repose, 
 during which, according to their longer or shorter duration, the 
 beginnings, but only the beginnings, of the art of husbandry were 
 possible. As soon as the love of change revived, the hard and 
 tiresome labour of turning up the sod, so hateful to all pastoral 
 peoples, was once more neglected, leaving behind it only a general 
 acquaintance with the art. We may therefore presume that the 
 Grffico-Italians were only acquainted with the half-nomadic hus- 
 bandry still to be found among the Bedouins, the nations beyond 
 the Volga, and elsewhere. The original plough was a piece of 
 naturally bent wood, such as was sought and found in the forest, 
 and still known as late as Hesiod ; while the different parts of the 
 constructed plough, mentioned both by Homer and Hesiod, have 
 quite different names in Greek and in Latin. We must infer that 
 the plough was invented, or derived from a foreign nation, only 
 after the separation of the Greeks and Latins in their new homes 
 (note i^). The plant which they cultivated may have been millet, 
 which-»;^s a kind of grain very early common to both East and 
 
GREEKS, ITALIANS, PHCENICIANS. 65 
 
 West. Side by side with millet we often find the turnip and bean, 
 two very ancient fruits, called by common names, and the plant- 
 ing of which probably preceded the art of husbandry (note 17). 
 
 However that may be, when the restless pastoral nations found 
 a settled abode in the sea-bordered lands of Greece and Italy, 
 when the old roving spirit sobered down into purely local Sittings 
 and fightings, then those 
 
 "Who settled close to the sea, 
 Or in the vale far from its foaming waves ; 
 And, at the foot of the gloomy ravine. 
 Turned up the fruitful soil " — Hesiod. 
 
 must have been tempted by the rich black soil and favourable skies 
 to cultivate corn. The Pelasgians became a peasant people, bend- 
 ing their faces to mother earth, and gaining their livelihood by 
 the cultivation of the ground ; goading the ox before them, and 
 sweating under the " labour imposed on men by the gods " 
 (Hesiod). The shepherd, who clung to the forest-clad mountains, 
 rejoiced in greater freedom. Shy of work, and rapacious like all 
 shepherds, he attacked the dwellings, fences, and barns of the 
 husbandmen; and, on a small scale, the same conditions ruled 
 which, on a large one, ruled, between Iran and Turan, between 
 the Gauls shortly before Caesar and the Germans, and afterwards 
 between the Germans and Hungarians. 
 
 Thus human wants led to solid dwellings, walls, and forts on 
 the heights — protective works to shield the fields against the wild 
 neighbours of the mountains. So in many parts of Greece, under 
 the names of Ephyra (watch-tower), Larissa (more correctly Larisa 
 = endowed with fat soil ; Larisa is the daughter of Piasos = 
 fat ; and in the Thessalian Larisa rule the Aleuades = thrashers, 
 pounderg), and Argos (fruit-plain opening towards the sea), we 
 meet with solid settlements of husbandmen and builders from the 
 dark to the historic ages. 
 
 While the kindred nations in the north continued their un- 
 settled mode of life, the Grseco-Italian races settled down com- 
 fortably in their new and splendidly furnished home, waiting for 
 the impulse that should rouse them from their natural dulness 
 and launch them on an endless career of culture. This impulse 
 
 S 
 
66 THE HORSE. 
 
 was given by their, contact with the Semites, a clever race in 
 comparison with the heavier Aryan nature, rich in the power of 
 abstraction and already far advanced in many arts of civilization. 
 Sidonian Phoenicians, in company with Carians, had occupied the 
 islands of the ^gssan Sea perhaps as early as the thirteenth or 
 fourteenth century B.C. According to their custom, they had taken 
 possession of small islands and isolated promontories along the 
 edge of the continent, as being commodious and safe points for 
 trade and manufacture ; from the more northerly islands they had 
 crossed over to Thrace, and had there come in contact with immi- 
 grant Phrygians ; they ruled in Boeotia and Attica (remember the 
 legends of Europa and of the Athenian tribute to Crete) ; and from 
 the island Cythera, a very ancient seat of Phoenician culture, they 
 made good their footing on the opposite Lacedsemonia, occupied 
 Corinth, where Aphrodite (the Phoenician Astarte) and Elis, where 
 Herakles (the Phoenician Melkarth), were anciently worshipped ; 
 and perhaps even went up the coast of the Ionian Sea as far as 
 the ^tolians, Thesprotians, and Illyrians. At suitable places 
 they carried on purple-fisheries and dye-works ; they dug mine;;, 
 and engaged in profitable commerce with the children of nature 
 who lived around their factories, a commerce in which, after the 
 fashion of the most ancient and also modern times, cheating and 
 robbery went hand in hand. What the natives could give in 
 exchange was naturally only the produce of their herds and 
 forests, such as hides, wool, wood, wild honey, cattle, and sheep, 
 also strong youths and beautiful maidens — that is, slaves. What 
 they received was of many kinds : all sorts of trinkets that tempt 
 savages — images, boxes of bronze or glass, ready-made clothes 
 (chiton and tunica are Phoenician words), iron and other metal 
 tools, knives, and weapons; the products of various handicrafts; 
 the mechanics of masonry ; mythical stories, ideas of West-Asiatic 
 religious symbolism and cruel rites of sacrifice. It is true that 
 the foreign element, which must have been numerically weaker, 
 was gradually absorbed by the nationality of the natives, and as 
 a separate existence died out; it is true that after the Dorian 
 Migration enterprising emigrants streamed out of Greece in re- 
 peated sea-expeditions, passing from island to island, then to 
 
GREEKS, ITALIANS, PHCENICIANS. 67 
 
 single points of the Carian and Lydian coast, and thence again to 
 others, even peopling and subjugating the once Semitic islands of 
 Crete and Rhodes ; it is true that, during this period of a Greek 
 occupation of the ^gean, Phoenicians from Tyre no longer appear 
 on the Hellenic shore except as merchants, and in single ships. 
 But many ideas and much knowledge derived from them were not 
 rooted out when they were driven away or assimilated ; they re- 
 mained behind as a half-intelligible religious cult, as a national 
 custom whose origin was soon forgotten, or as a valuable and pro- 
 ductive possession in implements, inventions, and modes of culti- 
 vation. Who shall decide whether the Greeks had brought with 
 them the knowledge of the potter's wheel, of the loom and spindle ; 
 or whether that knowledge was obtained from the Carians, Lydians, 
 and Phoenicians (note 18)? whether the words denoting metals 
 and many trade terms did not also originate among those peoples 
 (notes 19 and 20)? Phoenician sanctuaries had been adopted by the 
 Greeks and gradually transformed by the more liberal Hellenic spirit 
 without ever entirely losing their original type ; Asiatic trees which 
 surrounded the ancient places of worship, branches and flowers 
 that had served as ancient symbols, continued to propagate in 
 their new home. The wine that first came from across the sea, 
 the sweet dried fruits, the fragrant oil, might take root and flourish 
 in the land itself; and if some beginnings of such culture died 
 out again in Hellas proper, they were revived by their own colo- 
 nization of the East — they flowed back to the mother country 
 from Crete and Rhodes, from Naxos and Thasos, and from the 
 new settlements on the Anatolian coast. Semitic cultivation of 
 the olive, the vine, and the fig found a home on the hills that 
 bordered the sown field; and the plantation that constantly re- 
 quired a nurturing hand found a place beside the field that was 
 merely ploughed with oxen, sown, and then left to the care of the 
 heavenly and subterranean gods. As if by a miracle, a picture of 
 the manners, occupations, and ideas of mankind at that period 
 has been preserved to us in the Homeric poems ; but, full of light 
 as that picture is, it leaves many riddles unsolved, and though it 
 seems to bear faithful witness, it must be accepted with great 
 caution. For in the epics of Homer and Hesiod all is not equally 
 
68 THE HORSE. 
 
 valuable; naive songs with genuine legendary contents and the 
 clever work of later revisers and imitators, poems full of antique 
 faith and later productions of profane rhapsodic skill, are more or 
 less deftly, and with more or less probability, all enclosed in one 
 frame. It is necessary to fix our eyes upon the most ancient 
 portions as far as they can be recognised ; what lies behind Homer 
 is wrapt in an obscurity which is only now and then illuminated 
 by some passing ray from the science of language or from the 
 religious myth. 
 
THE VINE. 
 
 (VITIS VINIFERA.) 
 
 We find wine in general use among the Greeks of Homer, and in 
 that poet's works wine is looked upon as a natural gift of the 
 country. Calypso, on the departure of Ulysses, gives him bread, 
 wine, and clothes, the three first necessaries of life. In bread 
 and wine lie the strength of men, and the gods are distinguished 
 from mortals by their needing no food and drinking no wine. 
 Little children are reared on wine ; Phoenix the son of Amyntor 
 gives food and drink to the infant Achilles, cutting up his meat 
 and holding the wine-cup to his lips : full oft have his garments 
 been soiled by the boy bringing up in childish fashion what he has 
 drunk. Young ladies and their maids drink like the men ; when 
 Nausicaa goes to wash linen on the sea-beach, her mother provides 
 her not only with meats and cates, but also with wine in a goat- 
 skin (note 2i). 
 
 In the eighteenth book of the Iliad we find figured on 
 Achilles' shield, not only fallow-fields and crops ripe for the 
 harvest, with other scenes of rural life, but also a vineyard in 
 which the vintage is being joyfully gathered. As with the Greeks, 
 so with the Trojans : Hector, encamping with his hosts on the 
 river-side, causes the horses to be unharnessed and fed, and oxen 
 and sheep and delicious wine to be brought for the men. Grecian 
 towns and districts are described as rich in vines. A number of 
 ancient towns and districts derive their names from the vine and 
 vine-culture. If we inquire at what place in Greece the cultivation 
 of the vine was first commenced, the answer seems to be given in 
 numerous legends relating to the origin of the vine ; but such 
 legends generally melt away under examination into a mere mythic 
 symbolism of the budding, blossoming, and withering of the 
 plant, or of the antagonism between the novel fetters of civilization 
 
70 THE VINE. 
 
 and the rude and free forest life of shepherds. In one legend, 
 Southern ^tolia is the birthplace of the vine ; there, a dog 
 CSirius, the hot season) bore to the son of Deucalion, Orestheus 
 (man of the mountain), the end of a branch ; he buried it in the 
 earth, and from it grew a vine rich in grapes ; therefore he gave 
 his son the name of Phytios (planter), and the son of Phytios was 
 Oineus, named after the vine. Exactly the same thing is told by 
 the neighbouring Locrians as having happened to them; and their 
 surname of Ozolse is derived from the sprouting of the first vine- 
 stock. In the Iliad the ^tolian Oineus represents the genial 
 culture of the vine. He refused to sacrifice to Artemis, and was 
 therefore pursued by the destroying boar. His brothers are Agrios 
 (the wild) and Melas (the black, foul), that is, the goatherd, which 
 name is the same in sense as that of Melantheus, the wicked goat- 
 lierd of the Odyssey. His son, the hunter Meleager, who saves 
 his fortress from the besieging Curetes, is the husband of Cleo- 
 patra ; Cleopatra's mother, again, is Marpessa (the female brigand), 
 whose parents are Idas (the wooded mountain), and Euenine (the 
 daughter of the ^tolian river Euenos). So in the Calydonian 
 legend of the wine-man as given by Homer, we see not only the 
 rivalry of hostile races, but also that of the different modes of life 
 they lead. In many other places besides ^tolia, the vine was 
 said to have been first created or given to man by Dionysus 
 (Bacchus); thus, in the Attic demos Icaria, to Icarius, who is 
 both father of Erigone (the Spring-born) and master of the dog 
 Maira (the twinkler = Sirius), and a multitude of transparent 
 legends, and of cheerful or awful festivals in different places, 
 celebrate the memory of that god's birth, adventures, sufferings, 
 and glorious deeds. 
 
 But Thrace, more than all other places, seems the principal 
 home and point of departure of the worship of Dionysus. There 
 was situated the oldest Nysa, that mentioned by Homer : 
 
 " Bacchus, and Bacchus' votaries he drove 
 With brandished steel from Nysa's sacred grove." 
 
 Thence wine-laden ships came daily to the Greek camp before 
 Troy (note 22); then Ulysses received from Maron (note 23), the 
 priest of Apollo, and the son of Euanthes, that is, of Dionysus 
 
THE VINE. 71 
 
 himself — the delicious wine with which he intoxicated the Cyclop. 
 A remarkable passage in Herodotus mentions an independent 
 and warlike Thracian mountain tribe, the Satres, who possessed a 
 Dionysian oracle. The worship of that god penetrated into the 
 interior of the country up to the Hsemus mountains. Doubtless 
 this Thracian wine-god originated in the opposite Asia Minor, 
 with whose customs and religions military inroads had early made 
 the Thracians acquainted. The great invasion of Mysians and 
 Teucrians, for instance, which Herodotus places before the siege 
 of Troy, may have introduced Sabos-worship, the vine, and the art 
 of fermenting the juice of the grape, to the wild Thracians, " the 
 worshippers of Ares," for Mysia was celebrated for its wealth of 
 grapes. The representations of a suffering and then triumphant 
 God of the Sun or Year ; the heart-breaking laments and furious 
 mirth with which the Thyiades celebrated his death and resurrec- 
 tion ; the double character in which Dionysus and Apollo, or Ares 
 and Dionysus, melt into one ; this, with all that holds of it, smacks 
 of Phrygia and of Western Asia in general. 
 
 In the Thracian, as in the ^tolian myth of Bacchus, through 
 all the symbolism of nature we get glimpses of a contrast in culture, 
 of an antagonism of rival races. Homer's Lycurgus, who pursues 
 the nurses of Dionysus in sacred Nyseion till the terrified god 
 himself takes refuge in the depths of the sea, may indeed, like 
 Pentheus in Boeotia, be an image of winter ; but, as " krateros 
 Lyko-orgos" (the stern wolf-man), as a son of Dryas (the forest), 
 as " andro-phonos " (man-slayer), with the ox-felling axe (note 24) 
 in his hand, he is the bloodthirsty Thracian mountaineer, who 
 affrights the peaceful vine-dresser by his sudden attacks, and will 
 not tolerate the new-fangled religious rites. In this sense we 
 explain that passage in the Odyssey where Maron, the priest 
 of Apollo, rewards the hero not only with gold and silver, but 
 with twelve amphorae of wine, for protecting him and his wife 
 and child : 
 
 " Him and his house heaven moved my mind to save, 
 And costly presents in return he gave, .... 
 And twelve large vessels of unmingled wine. 
 Mellifluous, undecaying, and divine I " — Odyssey. 
 
72 THE VINE. 
 
 But the use of wine, and the religion that saw in wine all the 
 fulness of nature, spread throughout Thrace, and with the 
 Thracians it moved further south ; filled Macedonia, where the 
 Mimdllones and Kloddnes (bacchanals) raved ; reached Parnassus 
 and Delphi, whence Apollo only by degrees dislodged his brother- 
 god ; it passed on to Thebes, where Semele, the goddess of the 
 earth (note 25) bore to Zeus her glorious son; to Mount 
 Cithseron in Boeotia ; and, personified as Eumolpus, to Attica, 
 and Eleusis in countless ramifications elsewhere. But this stream 
 of culture, from the very first, encountered one originally identical 
 but coming from the opposite direction, that of the Phcenicians 
 or Caro-Phoenicians. The coast of Thrace was an old haunt of 
 Phoenician colonization and commerce ; Phoenicians had first 
 opened the gold-mines on Mount Pangseus, occupied the isle of 
 Thasos, rich in gold and wine, and thence founded emporiums on 
 the coasts of Thrace and the Hellespont, which their successors 
 the Parians had much difficulty in maintaining. Wherever the 
 Phoenicians landed, they would tempt the barbarians to trade with 
 them by offering the wine. they had brought with them ; and where 
 they settled permanently they would compel the aborigines to 
 cultivate the vine. From Crete, a centre of Phoenician coloniza- 
 tion, this culture and the legend attached to it found their way to 
 the islands of the ^gsan, to Naxos, Chios, and farther still. Fr. 
 Osann's " CEnopion and his Kin " shows that the diffusion of viti- 
 culture through the Hellenic world was personified in the story of 
 a Cretan family travelling by way of Naxos to Chios, which then 
 becomes the centre of an improved culture, and of numerous 
 colonies that propagate the vine. Now, according to a tradition 
 as old as Hesiod, even the Thracian Maron of the Odyssey was 
 a son or grandson of this CEnopion ; and thus the two branches 
 or outlets of Greek wine-cultivation meet in one (note 26). 
 
 That wine reached the Greeks through the Semites we learn 
 from the identity of name (Hebr. yain, Ethiop. and Arab, wain, 
 Gr. voinos, Lat. vinum). The course taken by civilization makes 
 it extremely improbable that the Semites should have borrowed 
 the word from the Aryans ; that is, from the Graeco-Italians, for 
 the Iranians have it not. Attempts to show from Sanskrit that 
 
THE VINE. 73 
 
 wine was an original possession of the unseparated Aryan races 
 have fallen through, and, in the eyes of the unprejudiced, only 
 prove the contrary. The true home of the vine, which is the 
 luxuriant country south of the Caspian Sea, was also, as far as can 
 be historically determined, close to the cradle of the Semitic race, 
 or of one of its chief branches. There in the woods, the vine, thick 
 as a man's arm, still climbs into the loftiest trees, hanging in 
 wreaths from summit to summit, and temptingly displaying its 
 heavy bunches of grapes. There, or in Colchis on the Phasis, in 
 the countries lying between the Caucasus, Ararat, and Taurus, the 
 primitive methods of cultivation we read of in the works of the 
 Greeks and Romans are still practised ; for instance, the dividing 
 of vineyards by cross-paths running from north to south (cardo) 
 and east to west {limes decumanus) ; the pitching or chalking of 
 the amphorse, the burying of them in the ground, etc. There 
 grow the spicy, orange-yellow wines of penetrating odour, and the 
 precious Cachetian grape yields a juice so intensely dark-red that 
 ladies write their letters with it. From those regions the vine 
 accompanied the teeming race of Shem to the lower Euphrates in 
 the south-east, and to the deserts and paradises of the south-west, 
 where we afterwards find them settled, and developing the peculiar 
 civilization which succeeded the Egyptian and long preceded the 
 Aryan. To the Semites, then, who even invented the distillation 
 of alcohol, who accomplished the gigantic abstractions of mono- 
 theism, measurement, money, and alphabetic writing (a kind of 
 mental distillation, on the threshold of which the Egyptians had 
 halted), belongs also the dubious fame of having arrested the juice 
 of the grape at the stage of fermentation, and so produced an ex- 
 hilarating or stupefying beverage. From S3T:ia the cultivation of the 
 vine spread to the Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, and other Iranian 
 or half-Iranian nations which had in the meantime moved up from 
 the east Thus it entered the Greek peninsula from the north, while 
 at the same time Phoenician commerce, Carian colonies, and also 
 old Greek communities that had crossed from Europe to Asia, 
 brought the wonderful invention, and in time the plant itself, 
 direct by sea. At the time of the Homeric Epos and Hesiod's 
 poems, its introduction had long been accomplished and forgotten, 
 
74 THE VINE. 
 
 the existence of the vine and of wine was taken for granted, and 
 attributed, like all the blessings of life, to the instructions or the 
 creating hand of a deity. 
 
 The earliest voyages of the Greeks to the west must have intro- 
 duced the intoxicating beverage to the Italian coast, for that wine 
 came to Italy from Greece is proved by the word vinum, its neuter 
 form being accounted for by imitation of the accusative voinon 
 (note 27). The Greek sailors found a simple shepherd folk, on 
 whom the foreign wine had the same stupefying effect as on the 
 Centaurs mentioned by Pindar : " When the Pheres became 
 acquainted with the man-subduing power of sweet wine, they 
 hastily pushed the white milk from the tables, drank out of silver 
 horns, and wandered helplessly about." That in Latium milk was 
 older than wine is proved by ordinances attributed to Romulus, 
 according to which white milk, and not wine, was to be poured 
 out to the gods ; and Numa decreed that wine should not be 
 sprinkled on the bier, vyhich shows that wine was not yet in use at 
 the oldest funeral ceremonies. For there was a time when the 
 Romans only practised agriculture, and the cultivation of the vine 
 had not yet been introduced. It is remarkable that in that country, 
 as in Greece, legends of battles between the nations are connected 
 with the introduction of the vine. A much noted legend relates 
 that Mezentius, King of Caere, demanded of the Latins the first- 
 fruits of their vineyards, or the first wine from the press ; but that 
 they vowed these things to Jupiter, and so won the victory 
 over the wicked tyrant. The rule of the Etruscans in Campania 
 and Latium was probably broken by an alliance of the Greeks and 
 Latins ; and the faint remembrance of this victory got mixed up 
 with that of the introduction of Greek viticulture and that of 
 the institution of firstfruits to Jupiter Liber and Venus Libera. 
 The igih of August, the day of the foundation of two temples to 
 Murcia and Libitina, goddesses of the harvest, now also became 
 the day of the vinalia rustica, which was preceded on the 23rd of 
 April by the vinalia priora, both feasts connecting the younger 
 cultivation of the vine with the older cultivation of the field. It 
 was natural that Jupiter should be the patron of the new gift, and 
 that his priest, the Flamen Dialis, should consecrate the harvest ; 
 
THE VINE. 75 
 
 for all fecundity and fruits of the earth were attributed to that god. 
 The surname Liber, which makes him the god of wine, is a trans- 
 lation from the Greek; the Greek genealogy, which made Bacchus 
 a son of Jupiter, had not taken root in Italy. The vine soon grew 
 so luxuriantly on the mountains of South Italy, that already in 
 the fifth century B.C. Sophocles calls Italy the favourite land of 
 Bacchus, and Herodotus calls the southern point of Italy the land 
 of vine-poles — CEnotria. CEnotria was the land where the vine 
 was trained on poles, in contrast with Etruria and Campania, for 
 instance, where it twined round trees; or Massilia and Spain, where 
 it was cut short and left without support; with Brundusium, 
 where it spread roof-like over trellis-work or cords ; or Asia Minor, 
 where it crept upon the ground. These different methods of 
 training resulted partly from the nature of the soil, which was 
 either rocky and hot or damp and rich in humus., partly from the 
 want of sufficient wood or cane, and partly from the habits of 
 those by whom the cultivation had been introduced, and the kind 
 of grape they brought with them. The abundance of timber in the 
 country afterwards called Lucania and Bruttium — also called Italia 
 from the cattle-breeding connected with those woods— may have 
 led to the general use of proper vine-poles, and the name CEnotria 
 may have been given by those Greeks who were accustomed to 
 train the vine freely on the ground or on trees (note 28). In the 
 districts at the mouth of the Po the vinestock must have been 
 introduced very early by Greek maritime commerce, although the 
 low and damp ground seemed little favourable to its cultivation. 
 Even Strabo was surprised at the co-existence of marshes and 
 flourishing vines. The vine grew well near Ravenna, bearing the 
 heat and rains, nourishing itself on the mists, and yielding abun- 
 dance of wine, and the same is remarked of other northern grapes. 
 Wine in Ravenna was cheaper than water, so that the poet 
 Martial says he would rather possess a tank of water than a vine- 
 yard, and complams that a cheat of a publican has sold him pure 
 wine instead of wine and water. Picenum, where the geographical 
 names and other things indicate that it was anciently connected 
 with the mouth of the Po, is very early described as rich in wine. 
 We read in Polybius that Hannibal cured the horses of his army 
 
76 THE VINE. 
 
 with the old wine of that country, of which there was an abun- 
 dance ; and long afterwards the wines of Picenum were still 
 exported to Gaul and the East. There grew the celebrated 
 Praetutian grapes, resembling the Istrian, and were identified by 
 Pliny with the Pucinian grapes that grew on the river Timavus 
 near Aquileia. The Picene vine had therefore been propagated 
 from the old Greek times along the west coast of the Adriatic to 
 the very head of that gulf. Polybius, who speaks as an eye- 
 witness, praises the wine of the extensive and fertile plains that 
 stretched from the Po to the foot of the Alps. Most likely the 
 vine grew there already when the Celts invaded Italy, tempted by 
 its southern wines and fruits. Martial speaks of the vine-covered 
 slopes of the volcanic Euganean hills near Padua. The Rhcetian 
 wines, that is, the wines of what is now Tyrol and Valtelin, were 
 anciently celebrated. They really owe their immortality to Virgil, 
 who considered them only second to Falernian wine; but perhaps 
 he eulogized the Rhcetian wine because Augustus particularly 
 liked it Strabo joined in the song of praise, most likely echoing 
 Virgil. The district of Verona, too, was celebrated long after for 
 its wines. 
 
 Cato was of opinion that of all kinds of culture that of the grape 
 was the most profitable ; and during the last years of the Roman 
 Republic, Italy had become such a wine country that the relation 
 between wine and corn was reversed ; wine was exported, and 
 corn imported. But the cultivation of the vine had also long since 
 begun to cross the borders of Italy and make itself at home in the 
 north and west. Columella quotes from an older writer on agri- 
 culture, Saserna, the opinion that the climate had changed, for 
 districts formerly too cold to produce oil and wine had now a 
 superfluity of both. The truth is, the cultivation of these plants 
 constantly spread northward, not because the climate changed, 
 but through gradual acclimatization. In modern times — com- 
 pared to the Middle Ages — the reverse has taken place; the 
 cultivation of the vine has retired from the northern districts, 
 where it had ceased to be profitable. Northern France, the 
 southern counties of England, Thuringia, and Brandenburg, etc., 
 once produced wine ; but with progressing commerce it became 
 
THE VINE. 77 
 
 more convenient to purchase the wines of more favoured countries 
 in exchange for the grains which their own soil brought forth in 
 greater plenty and with greater certainty. But the introduction 
 of the vine into France, occurring within historical times, and 
 known to us from scattered notices, probably affords a fair picture 
 of the processes by which it was introduced to the peoples in the 
 interior of Italy centuries before. The first vinestock on Gallic 
 soil was doubtless planted by the hand of a Massiliote ; the vine 
 flourished on the hills around Massilia (Strabo). The mode of 
 culture was the same as that common in Asia Minor, without 
 props or poles. Then the colonists, spreading eastward and 
 westward, propagated this industry along the coast. The natives — 
 Ligurians, Iberians, and afterwards Celts — ^bartered the raw pro- 
 ducts of their country for wine, just as in later times the inhabitants 
 cf Aquileia bartered their oil and wine for Illyrian slaves, cattle, 
 and skins. At first it was only the rich that drank the Italian and 
 Massilian wines, while the poor continued to use the national 
 drink made of fermented grain. Gradually the new culture spread 
 into the interior ; the more distant tribes learned to cultivate the 
 plant themselves, and transform the juice of the grape into wine ; 
 till at length the Romans, who were not only a nation of warriors, 
 but of shrewd traders, began to be jealous, and in the interests of 
 Italian exportation made it a condition of peace with the Trans- 
 alpine tribes that they should abstain from cultivating the vine and 
 olive. " Pretty specimens of justice we are ! " says Cicero, in an 
 outburst of honest indignation (De Repub. 3, 9, 16). Even when 
 the region between the Pyrenees, Cevennes, and Alps had become 
 Provincia Narbonensis, wine was still largely imported from Italy. 
 This is proved by Cicero's speech in defence of Fonteius, who had 
 actually ventured to levy a toll on Italian wines. 
 
 Then followed Csesar's conquest of the whole country as far as 
 the North Sea and the Rhine, after which Roman civilization, 
 manners, and customs inundated the land. In the first century 
 of the empire, Gaul appears already as an independent and rival 
 wine country, with its own peculiar growths of grape and wine, 
 though not without indications of a culture but recently adopted and 
 still young. At that time Gaul stood in relation to Italy as Italy 
 
78 THE VINE. 
 
 had stood in primitive times to Greece, and Greece before that to 
 Syria, Phrygia, and Lydia. GalHc wines pleased the Italian palate. 
 Burgundy was drunk, though not under that name. It tasted of 
 pitch (as some Burgundy does now), and was indeed artificially 
 treated with resin and pitch. It was much appreciated at home, 
 but was also exported to Italy. Gallic varieties of grape, which 
 had been produced by transplantation to new soils, were trans- 
 mitted to Italy and propagated there. The virtues ascribed to 
 these Gallic vines entirely consist in greater resistance to an un- 
 favourable climate, productiveness even on poor soil, and endurance 
 of cold, rain, and wind ; they all bear abundance of fruit, and 
 yield a large quantity of must ; they easily degenerate when 
 removed to another soil, and have therefore no stable character ; 
 the grape called helvennaca does not thrive well in Italy, but 
 remains small and easily decays ; the aroma of the Allobrogian 
 wine is rapidly lost, and so on. It was owing to this want of 
 dura.bility that the wines of Massilia, which somewhat resembled 
 the present Cette wines, were smoked in the Grecian manner ; and 
 the Provence wines in general came into the market not only 
 disfigured by smoking, but by the addition of herbs and spices. 
 The ancients had recourse to all sorts of means, such as boiling, 
 smoking, and mixing, because they were not yet acquainted with 
 brandy, by which our sherries, ports, marsalas, and other southern 
 wines are kept from spoiling. It was in the natural course of 
 things, that during the empire the culture of the vine should not 
 only become permanent in Gaul, but be extended to the valleys 
 of the Garonne, the Marne, and the Moselle, though it did not as 
 yet cross the Rhine. But, if not the vine, yet wine itself soon 
 became known to the neighbouring Germans, who by their 
 acceptance of this product concluded the fateful compact with 
 Gallic-Roman civilization; while the more distant tribes, from 
 their so-called sense of liberty, that is, from their adherence to 
 the half-nomadic hunting and pastoral life inherited from their 
 forefathers, refused to admit so suspicious a gift. (More than a 
 thousand years later it fared with the Germans in Norway as once 
 with the Romans in Germany — they were now the southerners 
 who introduced wine, corrupted the people, and were therefore 
 
THE VINE. 79 
 
 refused admittance into Bergen by King Sverris). However, the 
 cultivation of the vine in the Roman provincec threatened to 
 choke the cultivation of grain to such a degree that the Emperor 
 Domitian, in an excess of anxiety, ordered that half and more 
 than half of all the vineyards outside Italy should be destroyed — 
 which order, naturally, could not be carried out. Prohibition of 
 the Oriental custom of castration being issued about the same 
 time, Apollonius said that the emperor spared men but eunuchized 
 the earth. In Ionia, and Asia generally, the execution . of the 
 above-named order was warded off by an embassy (note 29). But 
 the cultivation of the vine in the provinces must always have been 
 regarded unfavourably by Italy, for it is recorded specially of the 
 Emperor Probus, that he Jiermitted the provinces of Gaul, Spain, 
 and Britain (according to others, Gaul, Pannonia, and Moesia), to 
 possess vineyards and make wine. So drinkers of Tokay may 
 toast the Emperor Probus, who had a short reign, but is become 
 a legendary hero — a sort of wine saint. 
 
 Less eulogized in song, but not less important, is another pro- 
 duct of civilization, introduced into Transalpine Europe from the 
 south at the same time as wine — we mean vinegar: French, 
 vinaigre (sour wine) ; Gothic, akeit (from acetuvi) ; Anglo-Saxon, 
 oced ; Pol. Wall. Bulg., ocet, etc. The Russian and Lithuanian names 
 for vinegar, uksus and uksosas, were derived from the Greek, that is, 
 from Byzantium, though there is now no country with a greater 
 partiality to everything sour than the wide tract from the Car- 
 pathians to the Chinese Wall Vinegar mixed with water was a 
 common beverage among the Italian people and in the Roman 
 camps, from which it may have spread into the barbaric countries. 
 
 If we compare the present condition of viticulture with what 
 it was in ancient times, we find that it has in some degree followed 
 the general course of history ; that is, it has declined in the 
 countries of its origin, and stands at the highest point of develop- 
 ment in those countries where it was introduced the latest. When 
 Western Asia, the cradle of the vine, was overwhelmed by nations 
 of the faith of Islam, it was natural that a product, the enjoy- 
 ment of which was forbidden to the conquerors, should no longer 
 flourish. In all countries that came under Arab government — in 
 
8o THE VINE. 
 
 North Africa, Sicily, and Spain — the cultivation of the vine 
 declined, for the ruling class in their Semitic temperance were 
 more addicted to the worship of water and cooling shade than to 
 that of heating drinks. Some fanatical princes would not even 
 tolerate the existence of wine ; for example, the Caliph Hakem 
 II. of Spain, who caused almost all the vines in that country to 
 be uprooted, leaving only about the third part of the vineyards 
 standing for the sake of the ripe grapes, dried fruit in the shape 
 of raisins, or syrup and grape-honey, the use of which was per- 
 mitted to Mohammedans. What Islam could not quite accomplish 
 in Spain — as the present sherry and Malaga wines prove — was com- 
 pleted in Morocco. The Atlantic coast of Morocco was anciently 
 a very productive and celebrated wine district, into which the 
 vine had been introduced, not by the Carthaginians, but by other 
 Phoenicians long before. There lay the promontory of Ampelusia 
 (vine-cape), now Cape Spartel, and the ancient town of Lix, whose 
 Punic and Punico-Roman coins have the bunch of grapes for their 
 distinctive mark, and of whose inhabitants it is related that they 
 nourished themselves on the berries of wild vines. Strabo says 
 that the vinestocks of Maurusia were so thick that two men could 
 not span them, and they bore bunches of grapes three feet long. 
 Other historians mention the large production of wine, and con- 
 sequent export, in this district. The culture must still have been 
 going on in the Middle Ages when the Arabs arrived, for the town 
 they built on the site of ancient Lix was named £1-Araish (vine- 
 yard). But now, in consequence of the Arab dominion, this ex- 
 tremely fruitful country possesses scarcely any or no vineyards, and 
 only among the free Shelluhs of the Rif has Islam failed to eradi- 
 cate theforbidden drink(note 30). Modern Greece — afler so many 
 fatalities, after centuries of ethnologic and economic degradation 
 — produces, with few exceptions, very bad wine ; the fame of her 
 Chian, Lesbian, Thasian has long since evaporated, and the 
 resinous Resinato — at which Liudprand grumbled so long ago as 
 968 on his ambassadorial journey to Constantinople — is not cal- 
 culated to revive it. Perhaps currants are only a variety of grape 
 produced by degeneration. They are said to have come from the 
 Isle of Naxos, and to have been unknown in the Morea before 
 
THE VINE. 8 1 
 
 1600. It is remarkable that they wander, as it were, from place 
 to place. They have disappeared from Naxos, exist no longer at 
 Corinth whence they received their name, and are now only 
 found in Patras, Zante, and Cephalonia. 
 
 In Italy the Ostrogoth and Longobardian princes and nobles, 
 like all barbarians, certainly cared more for the quantity than the 
 quality of their wine which the subjugated colonists were obliged 
 to furnish. He who drinks out of his vanquished enemy's skull 
 at a banquet will like best what is pungent and strong, and, above 
 all things, will desire to empty and refill his warlike bowl as often 
 as possible. The Normans in the south, the German kings on 
 their march to Rome, and their accompanying dukes, earls, barons, 
 and men-at-arms were all famous drinkers, but no fastidious con- 
 noisseurs. To this add the inalienable property in land, which 
 kept the labouring classes ignorant and stupid, the everlasting 
 and destructive invasions, and the insecurity and barbarism of 
 life in general, which permitted no investment of capital for any 
 length of time. Perhaps a few ecclesiastical proprietors made an 
 exception, and the cellars of some venerable monasteries might 
 now and then contain fine old wines ; but we must not imagine 
 that the taste of the bishops and abbots of the Holy Roman 
 Empire was very refined, for they, like the knights, were also the 
 children of a rude period. They not only drank wine without 
 water — in contrast to the "human" custom of the ancients — 
 but generally liked it best when boiled with spice, berries, and 
 honey, vinum moratum, daratum—^a. sort of mixed drink or 
 daret, that is sometimes mentioned by the ancients, but only as 
 one of the secondary iises of the product that served for daily 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Having regard to these unfavourable conditions, we may well 
 suppose that all higher culture of the vine had declined after the 
 Roman period. When we read Pliny's lengthy treatise on wine, 
 or the passage on the same subject in the first book of Athenseus, 
 we see clearly that the taste and wealth of the Roman nobles 
 must have kept that branch of industry in constant activity. An 
 infinite variety of wines was produced (" as the Libyan sands, or 
 the waves of the sea," says Virgil), of which one kind was patronized 
 
 6 
 
82 THE VINE. 
 
 by this magnate, another by that. Eagerness to outdo one 
 another led to ever new experiments, both in choosing the grape 
 and in the treatment of the juice; fashions changed, but not 
 more rapidly than the natural qualities of the plant Thus, in the 
 time of Augustus, the wines grown on the borders of Latium and 
 Campania — made known to all the world by Horace under the 
 names of Falernian, Massic, and Cascuban — were considered the 
 finest in the peninsula ; but Pliny reports that in his time, two 
 generations later, they were valued no longer, which, he adds, is a 
 proof that every soil has its appointed time. He had said shortly 
 before, that Falernian was no longer so good as formerly, because the 
 producers thought more of quantity than quality. Manufacturers 
 of wine in Greece and Italy are now reproached with exactly the 
 same thing. Under the prevalent system of farming, based on the 
 natural production, the quantity alone is looked at, and that mode 
 of cultivation is preferred which promises the greatest yield ; the 
 vintage is carelessly gathered, ripe and unripe grapes mixed 
 together, and, to produce the darkest possible colour, for which 
 there is a general demand, the must is tapped too late, so that the 
 vegetable slime and colouring matter contained in the skins of the 
 grapes passes into the wine, causing the sour fermentation which 
 commonly takes place in Italian wines before the end of the year. 
 There is, besides, the high temperature prevailing during the pro- 
 cess of fermentation in autumn, as well as the want of solid air- 
 tight barrels and cool cellars. The temperature of the latter is 
 seldom lower than the average temperature of the year. The 
 mode of preservation common among the ancients was perhaps 
 really more suitable to a warm climate than our barrels, with which 
 the Romans first became acquainted through the Cis- Alpine Gauls 
 and Alpine tribes, and which thence spread farther south (note 
 31). The Oriental wine-skins have at least the advantage of 
 entirely excluding the air, and of shrinking as the wine is used, of 
 being easily packed, and also of serving for a couch or seat 
 during a journey. 
 
 It is universally admitted that in modern times the palm in the 
 production of wine is due to Central and Southern France. 
 Whilst Italy almost entirely consumes the thirty million hectolitres 
 
THE VJNE. 83 
 
 of her yearly produce, and has therefore little to spare for export, 
 France, on the contrary, till the vine-louse began its ravages, pro- 
 duced double the quantity at a money value of about 2,000 to 
 3,000 million francs, and became the chief exporting country, 
 supplying all parts of the world with the finest wines as well as com- 
 mon table wines. The Department de I'Hdrault alone furnished 
 on the average from 12 to 15 million hectolitres — three or four 
 times as much as the whole kingdom of Portugal. It is a remark- 
 able fact that vines now produce the best wines in places close to 
 the northern limit of their extension, where the plant was only 
 gradually and with difficulty, and last of all, acclimatized ; wines 
 now famed over the world under the names of Burgundy, 
 Johannisberg, etc. Here, of course, culture and technical skill 
 have done their utmost ; and who knows what they might not 
 accomplish if adopted in the original homes of the vine ? In 
 this connexion, a fact that meets our eye in the first two or three 
 centuries of the Middle Ages deserves serious attention. At that 
 time, we find the Western world thought of the wines of Pales- 
 tine as the strongest and finest, just as we now quote the ports and 
 sherries of the Pyrenean peninsula; and this wine of the 
 Phoenician-Philistine coast was greatly valued at the Byzantine 
 court. It was the Arab invasion that put an end to its production 
 and the commerce founded upon it. 
 
 In ancient times the vinestock was carried to all the countries 
 surrounding the Mediterranean ; has it now, we might ask, when 
 civilization embraces the whole earth in an ever-increasing degree, 
 spread over all parts of the world ? The answer must be in the 
 negative. In the southern hemisphere, with the slight exception 
 of Cape Colony, the narrow belt of climate in which the vine 
 will flourish is not to be found. In the so-called New World the 
 attempts to cultivate it with profit have had no great success. 
 North America produces perhaps one million hectolitres, and 
 native Californian is to be had in most United States hotels, but it 
 is described as having no agreeable flavour. Wine, we might say, 
 loves not the west, and clings to the neighbourhood of its old 
 home. In some parts of Australia there are said to exist tolerably 
 extensive vineyards, mostly planted Ly Germans, but the Australian 
 
!S4 THE VJNE. 
 
 Bordeaux is too heating, the Australian Moselle and Rhenish have 
 no aroma — and so on. 
 
 At two points only, and quite at the end of the Middle Ages, has 
 the hand of man really extended the region of the vine, namely, 
 in Madeira and the Canaries — which may in a sense be said to 
 belong still to Europe and the Mediterranean. Prince Henry 
 the Voyager introduced shoots of the vine from the Peloponnesus 
 and Crete into Madeira; and Alonzo de Lungo transplanted vines 
 from Madeira to Teneriffe about the year 1507. The wine yielded 
 there by Grecian grapes became celebrated all over the world ; but 
 lately the grape-fuugus has destroyed this culture, and it is being 
 revived with difficulty. But the cultivation of the vine in those 
 islands is also interesting, because there it comes nearest to the 
 climate of the tropics ; the vineyards even of Southern Persia and 
 of the Cape are further away from the equator than the Isle of 
 Ferro at 27° 48' latitude. 
 
THE FIG-TREE. 
 
 (ficus carica.) 
 
 IT IS natural that we should take the fig-tree, " the sister of the 
 viae," as Hipponax already called it, for our next subject. The 
 real fatherland of the fig-tree is Semitic Western Asia, Syria, and 
 Palestine, where it grows the most luxuriantly, and bears the 
 sweetest fruit. The Old Testament often mentions the tree, 
 especially in connexion with the vine, and is full of figures and 
 similes taken from it. To sit under one's own vine and fig-tree is 
 equivalent to enjoying a peaceful and happy existence. In Lydia, 
 wine and figs were so much considered the chief blessings of Ufe that 
 those who advised Croesus not to march against Cyrus rested their 
 arguments on the fact that the Persians drank not wine but water, and 
 ate no figs. Phrygia was also famed for its abundant fig-trees. But 
 at the time and in the scenes embraced by the Iliad, the fig-tree is 
 not yet found on the western coasts and islands of Asia Minor, 
 still less then could it have been known in the mainland of Greece. 
 The first Greek mention of the fig-tree we find in the Odyssey, 
 and there only ih passages which are evident interpolations. In 
 the book containing the description of Ulysses's descent into the 
 nether world, which itself seems to consist of various pieces of 
 different ages, figs, among other fruit, hang above the head of 
 famishing Tantalus : 
 
 " Above, beneath, around his hapless head, 
 Trees of all kinds delicious fruitage spread ; 
 There figs, sky-dyed, a purple hue disclose, 
 Green looks the olive, the pomegranate glows ; 
 There dangling pears exalting scents unfold, 
 And yellow apples ripen into gold." 
 
86 THE FTG-TREE. 
 
 These verses are repeated in a fragment, awkwardly foisted into 
 the really antique description of the palace of Alcinous, in order 
 to bring in also the garden of the Phasacian king : 
 
 " The reddening apple ripens here to gold, 
 Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows. 
 With deeper red the full pomegranate glows, 
 The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, 
 And verdant olives flourish through the year. " 
 
 And finally, in the last scenes of the Odyssey, a late addition, we 
 find Laertes designated the planter of fig-trees. Even Hesiod 
 knows nothing of the fig-tree or its cultivation ; but in the works 
 of Archilochus (700 B.C.) we find it mentioned as the product of 
 his native island Paros, in a verse that is probably not much 
 younger than the last-quoted passage of the Odyssey. In later 
 times Attica and Sicyon boasted of producing the finest figs ; nay 
 Demeter herself rewarded Phytalus, who had hospitably entertained 
 her in Attica, by causing a fig-tree to sprout up from the earth. 
 That this gift was felt to be the forerunner of a nobler and more 
 cultivated life, is proved by the name given to a mass of dried figs 
 presented at the Athenian feast of the Plynteria : a name signifying 
 that the cultivation of the fig was the guide to purer manners 
 (note 32). Wine and figs became necessaries of life in Greece, as 
 common to the poor as to the rich. As the Arab is content with a 
 handful of dates, so a few dried figs sufficed the Attic idler who 
 spent his day staring about, and, according to the season, lying in 
 the sun or in the shade. The epithet philo-sukos (lover of figs) 
 applied to Plato might have been equally bestowed on all Athenians; 
 and the story of the Persian king Xerxes shows how proud the 
 Athenian was of his country's production. Xerxes, namely, 
 caused Attic figs to be set before him whenever he dined, to remind 
 him that the land where they grew was not yet his, and that 
 instead of receiving the fruit as a tribute, he was obliged to buy it 
 from abroad. The city of Syko-phants (lit., fig-informers) defended 
 herself from Persian thraldom, but, as that nickname reminds us, 
 she could not escape the decay of her political morality, and the 
 ruin that ensued. Into Southern and Central Italy the fig-tree 
 must have been introduced by the Greek colonists. It is found 
 
THE FIG-TREE. 87 
 
 interwoven with the legend of the origin of Rome, for Romulus 
 and Remus are said to have been suckled by the she-wolf under 
 the Ficus ruminalts — a feature of the legend that evidently owes 
 its existence to the same symbolism that placed that showy and 
 fertile tree in the Eden of the Hebrews (note 33). Under the 
 Caesars the varieties and names of fig-trees had become so nume- 
 rous, that Pliny thought the formative law which keeps a species 
 permanent was evidently changing. As late as the reign of Tiberius, 
 the finest varieties of the fig-tree were still being transplanted to 
 Italy direct from Syria. As it was then, so it is now ; the fig, both 
 fresh and dried, is the common and wholesome food of the 
 Italian people, particularly in the south. Besides the kinds that 
 bear fruit once a year, there is a variety that bears twice — in 
 summer and in late autumn — the Ficus bifera. The ripe fruit must 
 be eaten as soon as plucked, and cannot bear much handling. 
 Cato used this fact as a striking argument before the Roman Senate, 
 when he produced a fig from Carthage which was still perfectly 
 fresh, saying, " So near to our walls is the enemy ! " But we may 
 reasonably imagine it had been plucked unripe, and that time and 
 pressure had matured it Smyrna figs, now considered the best, 
 were also known in Italy in ancient times, being sent there pressed 
 in boxes as they are now. The Ficus duplex of Horace may still 
 be found in South Italy, where the mode of treatment can be 
 learned from actual sight better than from the words of ancient 
 authors. As is the case with all cultivated fruit-trees, there were, 
 and are, many varieties of fig, but particularly two kinds — one 
 dark purple, the other green, still called neri and bianchi, the 
 black and the white. The latter being sweeter are chiefly used 
 for drying, the former are eaten fresh. In hot countries the fig- 
 tree, with its gigantic leaves pendent from its gnarled and many- 
 jointed branches, affords a welcome shade in the Greece and 
 Italy of to-day as in Palestine of old. The wild fig grows 
 picturesquely out of the chinks of old walls, in ruins, and on 
 rocks. Its wood, spongy and brittle while new {inutile lignum), 
 is said, when properly dried, to become as hard and firm as oak. 
 
THE OLIVE-TREE. 
 
 (OLEA EUROP/EA, L.) 
 
 Like the fig-tree, the olive is a native of the south part of Western 
 Asia, and in this, its proper home, it vcas very early cultivated and 
 improved by the Semitic races. In all parts of the Old Testa- 
 ment we find oil in common use for food, for sacrifice, for 
 burning in lamps, and for anointing the head or body. Towards 
 the interior of Asia the cultivation ceases, for the olive-tree loves 
 the sea and limestone mountains. Egypt also produced no olive 
 oil. The wild olive was frequent on the Greek coasts of Asia 
 Minor, in the islands, and in Greece itself, and we find it often 
 mentioned in the Homeric poems. Its evergreen foliage, the 
 great age it attained, its indestructible vitality, and its hard wood, 
 vvhich admits of a high polish, attracted the notice of the people 
 and of epic legend. Thus, in the Iliad, Pisander's axe has a 
 long, well-polished handle of olive-wood : 
 
 "An olive's cloudy grain the handle made." 
 
 The Cyclop's club is of the same material ; so, in Theocritus and 
 elsewhere, is the club of Hercules. Ulysses built his marriage-bed 
 on the stump of an olive still firmly rooted in the ground : 
 
 " Full in the court 
 An olive spread its ever-verdant head. 
 
 I lopp'd the brancliy head ; aloft in twain 
 Severed the bole, and smoothed the shining grain : 
 Then posts capacious of the frame I raise, 
 And bore it regular from space to space ; 
 Athwart the frame, at equal distance, lie 
 Thongs of tough hides that boast a purple dye." 
 
THE OLIVE-TREE. 89 
 
 The olive is evidently chosen for its stability, because it clings 
 to the ground with far-spreading roots, and symbolizes the security 
 of the marriage bond. A wild olive stands at the entrance of the 
 cave where the Phaeacians land the sleeping Ulysses, and is 
 therefore called " sacred : " 
 
 " High at the head a branchy olive grows, 
 And crowns the perched cliffs with shady boughs. 
 
 Now, seated in the olive's sacred shade, 
 Confer the hero and the martial maid." 
 
 The oleaster (wild olive), with the branches of which the victors 
 were crowned at Olympia, was said to have been brought to Elis 
 from the extreme west by Hercules, a legend adopted by Pindar. 
 In the market-place of Megara stood a very ancient wild olive, 
 dating from the heroic ages. Thus the existence of the wild 
 olive in Greece is vouched for by the oldest authorities and tra- 
 ditions ; but it is very improbable that, in a climate somewhat 
 rude, and amongst a nation still young and undeveloped (com- 
 pared to the Semites), it was ever cultivated into an oil-bearing 
 tree ; far more likely its cultivation was introduced to the Greeks, 
 with other valuable things, by neighbouring nations. The question 
 is, how early ? Oil is not unknown to the Homeric world, but 
 evidently only as a foreign production, to be used by the rich and 
 noble. When the heroes have washed or bathed, their bodies are 
 anointed with oil in the Oriental fashion, and rendered sleek and 
 supple. When Nausicaa goes to the sea-shore, she receives from 
 her mother a flask of scented oil. The corpse of Patroclus is 
 washed and anointed with oil ; so are the manes of Achilles' 
 horses, for they were sons of Zephyros, and immortal. In the 
 treasure-house of Telemachus lay gold, bronze, wine, and scented 
 oil. The salve used by the goddesses is especially costly and 
 of rare virtue. Hera, when tempting Zeus, anoints herself with 
 divine oil, which fills heaven and earth with its perfume. In 
 Cyprus, the Graces anoint Aphrodite with immortal oil such as 
 appertains to the gods. Penelope, in her grief, neither bathes 
 nor anoints herself; but she sinks into a slumber, during which 
 Athena purifies her face with the balm of immortal beauty used 
 
go THE OLIVE-TREE. 
 
 by Cytherea when she joins in the dance of the Graces. The 
 explanation of two other passages in Homer was a puzzle even to 
 tne ancients : in one, the garments of dancing youths are described 
 as softly shining with oil ; in the other, oil drips from the clothes 
 of maids as they sit. Either the author merely compares the 
 liquid lustre of the stuff to that of oil \ or, according to a modern 
 interpretation, the threads had been soaked in oil to make the 
 fabric flexible or glossy, so that it still dripped with oil when the 
 maids had it on ! — a hypothesis that hardly needs refuting. As 
 scented garments were common in the East and among the epic 
 gods, at least of the later epics, one might suppose that the author 
 meant some volatile oil with which the dress was slightly sprinkled; 
 but there is no mention of scent, only of shining, and the analogy 
 of the Greek word here employed points to the first opinion, already 
 given by the ancient commentators. The white stone bench on 
 which Nestor sits before the door of his house is also described 
 as shining with fat, that is, glossy as if it were covered with fat. 
 The jars used at the funeral of Patroclus doubtless contained 
 honey and animal fat, two substances highly prized by primitive 
 man, and therefore bestowed on the dead. When the river 
 Titaresius is described in the Catalogue of Ships as rolling "his 
 easy tides '' into the Peneus, and yet not mixing with the latter 
 stream, the author had no doubt observed the fact while bathing 
 and anointing himself, that oil floats on the top of water. Taking 
 all the passages together, they would seem to prove that oil was 
 not a common native product, but a cosmetic introduced from 
 the East, which gradually supplanted animal fats. It was used 
 for anointing the body, but not for food or light. It is always 
 very long before a northern people will reconcile itself to dressing 
 its food with oil. As a German peasant relishes large pieces of 
 fat bacon, but is rarely to be persuaded to pour oil over his vege- 
 tables or fry his meat in it, so the Gauls, as Posidonius tells us, 
 refused to use oil in the kitchen. It must have been the same with 
 the ancient Greeks. So much the less can we expect that the tree 
 itself had been already really cultivated. Among the rural scenes 
 depicted on the shield of Achilles, we find a black field with 
 ploughmen on it, a harvest scene, a vineyard and a vintage, herds 
 
THE OLIVE-TREE. 91 
 
 of sheep and cattle, but no olive grove. ^Ve saw before that the 
 olive-tree and its fruit are mentioned in the same passages of the 
 Odyssey that speak of the fig-tree, but that these passages are 
 late additions, and probably were not composed before the begin- 
 ning of the Olympiads. This is not to be doubted of the end 
 of the Odyssey, and as to the other two passages, which, taken 
 together, are really only one, they show clear traces of later 
 insertion. Even in them the olive-tree is only described as a 
 garden-tree like the apple, pear, pomegranate, and fig, planted for 
 the sake of its eatable fruit, and not as the object of cultivation 
 for the production of oil. In one of the most original and 
 glorious parts of the Odyssey, however, there is a verse, which, if 
 the usual interpretation were correct, would oblige us to believe 
 in the existence of cultivated olive-trees. Ulysses, thrown on the 
 shores of Scheria, finds in the forest two trees growing together, 
 and serving as a protection against sun and wind : 
 
 " There grew two olives, closest of the grove, 
 With roots entwined, and branches interwove ; 
 Alike their leaves, but not alike they smiled 
 With sister-fruits ; one fertile, one was wild." 
 
 The Greek words are: "The one a. phylia, the other an elata." 
 Now if phylia meant the oleaster, the other can only be the fruit- 
 bearing olive-tree. But phylia is one of those words by which 
 the ancients themselves no longer knew what the poet meant. 
 Ammonius says the mastich, others a degenerate olive with 
 myrtle-like leaves ; and Eustatius declares that many people used 
 it in that sense down to his day. Pausanias mentions it as one 
 of the species of unfruitful olive-trees. This later use of the name 
 may very likely have originated in the very passage of Homer we 
 have quoted. The word phylia by its derivation clearly gives 
 a general and abstract meaning, that of a plant, particularly an 
 evergreen plant, which is especi.nlly rich in vitality. If we must 
 guess at some particular plant, the myrtle, which is not otherwise 
 mentioned by Homer, would be the most probable in connection 
 with a passage in Theophrastus, who says that some trees seem 
 to love each other, and relates (quoting an older authority, 
 
92 THE OLIVE-TREE. 
 
 Androtion) that the myrtle and olive-tree used to intertwine their 
 roots, and the myrtle branches to grow through the boughs of the 
 olive, while other plants shunned the neighbourhood of the olive- 
 tree. It is possible that this belief also was derived from Homer ; 
 but whatever plant may be supposed (for instance, the stone-lime, 
 or some kind of elxagnus), the second tree mentioned in the 
 passage, the elaia, is here, as elsewhere, the wild bushy oleaster, 
 a plant of the woods, growing near the water far from the town, 
 as the poet expressly says. It is not so easy to decide about 
 another passage, in which the olive-tree is mentioned. Here it is 
 related that Menelaus pierced Euphorbus, the son of Panthous, 
 with his spear, and the wounded man fell to the ground like the 
 sprout of a verdant olive-tree which a planter cultivates in a 
 solitary, well-watered place ; soft airs breathe on it from all sides ; 
 it bursts into white blossom ; but suddenly a whirlwind dashes it 
 to the ground. Here it is certainly possible to suppose that it 
 was a slip of oleaster, intended some day to yield, not fruit indeed, 
 but shade, timber, and green leaves ; still the planting of a forest- 
 tree is not very likely in the Homeric age so rich in woods. So, 
 taking all together, we may say that, during the probably long 
 period of which Homer's poems are the monument, we see the 
 cultivation of the fig and olive at first unknown and foreign, then 
 distantly announcing itself, and lastly, in later additions and a 
 simile, coming forward bodily, and, as we might have expected, 
 on the Ionian coasts and islands first of all. It was there also 
 that the cultivation of oil flourished in the post-Homeric period, 
 ^schylus calls the island of Samos "olive-planted," and an 
 anecdote that Aristotle of Thales relates bears still older witness 
 as to Miletus and Chios. Thales, it seems, on meteorological 
 grounds surmised that an unusually rich olive-crop was to be 
 expected ; he therefore hired for the coming year all the olive- 
 presses in Miletus and Chios, and as the harvest really turned out 
 very abundant, he made a large profit by letting the presses; 
 thus proving that even a philosopher can derive a practical 
 benefit from his science. In the Isle of Delos, which is sur- 
 rounded by the Ionian Cyclades, and where from early times 
 Ionian pilgrims assembled to hold their yearly processions— 
 
THE OLIVE-TREE- 
 
 Latona, in giving birth to her divine Twins, had either clasped in 
 her arms the Dalian palm-tree, or held by an olive-tree, or leaned 
 against both. The chorus in Euripides' " Iphigenia in Tauris " 
 longs for the palm, the laurel, and the sacred olive of Delos. 
 Strabo makes the goddess merely rest under an olive-tree after 
 the birth of her children, by which turn of speech the conflicting 
 forms of the myth were happily reconciled. The Ephesians 
 afterwards declared that the birth at the foot of the olive-tree had 
 not happened at Delos, but at Ephesus, and that the tree still 
 existed, there being also a spring at Ephesus called " Under the 
 Olives," which was mixed up with the legend of the foundation 
 of that city. As the olive-tree is otherwise altogether foreign to 
 the worship of Apollo (for the one dedicated to that god at Miletus 
 is quite an exception), we may suppose that the olive in Delos, 
 and the myth connected with it, were not native to that island, 
 but owed their existence to the Athenians, and the rising worship 
 of Pallas Athena; but in Rhodes, once an entirely Phoenician 
 island, which afterwards belonged to the Dorians, the olive-tree 
 must have existed in very ancient times. There the town of 
 Lindos possessed a temple of Athena built by the Danaids, and 
 containing offerings left by Cadmus, with an olive-grove that 
 outrivalled the olive-trees of Attica. On the mainland of Greece, 
 in the parts described by Hesiod, and therefore within the sphere 
 of .^olian-Bceotian customs, there are still no traces of the cul- 
 tivation of the olive. Among the later Greeks, Athens was 
 considered the original seat of such culture j and there is a 
 remarkable saying in Herodotus, that " at a time not long past 
 there was not an olive-tree in the world except those at Athens." 
 Accordingly, when the Epidaurians, on the failure of their crop, 
 applied to the oracle at Delphi, they were advised to make 
 statues of Damia and Auxesia from the wood of the tame olive ;, 
 they therefore asked permission of the Athenians to cut down 
 one of their olive-trees as being the most sacred, or because none 
 existed elsewhere. The Athenians consented on condition that 
 the Epidaurians should sacrifice every year to Athena Polias and 
 to Erechtheus. At that time the ^ginetes were still subject to 
 Epidaurus ; but after that they fell away from their mother city^ 
 
94 THE OLIVE-TREE. 
 
 carried ofT the two images, and having neglected the promised 
 sacrifices, incurred the enmity of Athens. Herodotus says nothing 
 about the date of this event, but it probably took place about the 
 middle of the sixth century b.c. Already at the commencement 
 of that century Solon promulgated laws concerning the cultivation 
 of the fig and olive, which must therefore have had some impor- 
 tance ; although Pisistratus, Athena's protdg^ is said to have first 
 encouraged the planting of the useful olive in the hitherto bare 
 and treeless country. In the Athenian Academy stood the sacred 
 olive-trees [moria) dedicated to the goddess, which, unlike other 
 sacred possessions, must have yielded a rich profit, for the 
 numerous oil-vases given as prizes at the games instituted by 
 Pisistratus were filled with oil ft-om those trees. The trees in 
 the Academy were from the stock of the mother olive in the 
 citadel, which Athena herself had created and which, after being 
 burnt by the Persians, sprouted up again spontaneously. From the 
 Greek epithet applied to it, it must have been a mere groundling 
 sucker. The fact that the Athenians distinguished by different 
 names the wild from the cultivated olive proves that the cultiva- 
 tion of the felix oliva had taken firm hold in Attica. Pindar 
 mentions it in one of his hymns, and Herodotus makes the oracle 
 speak of the tame olive. The whitish limestone soil of the Attic 
 peninsula, unfriendly to corn, was just the reverse for olives ; and 
 there, to quote the words of the chorus in " CEdipus at Colonus," 
 the trees flourished " more than in the land of Asia or the great 
 Dorian Isle of Pelops.'' But how came Pallas Athena to be 
 patroness of the new culture, and why were oil and the cultivation 
 of the olive so intimately and variously mixed up with the worship 
 of the Goddess of Light who sprang from the head of Jupiter ? 
 Suidas says, because oil served for lighting, and the olive-tree fed 
 the flame of the lamp; from which we perceive that the use of oil 
 for burning came second in order of time, as its use for food came 
 third. Homer is not yet aware of any connexion between the 
 olive and the goddess, for the adjective sacred used once in the 
 Odyssey cannot be taken as indicating such a connexion. But 
 when oil formed the principal source of riches and the character- 
 istic product of the Attic land, when the Athenians boasted that. 
 
THE OLIVE-TREE. 95 
 
 not long before, the cultivated olive was to be found only in their 
 country, when they claimed all places where corn and olives grew 
 as their property, they could not do otherwise than dedicate the 
 pride and blessing of their country to that country's goddess, and 
 look upon it as her gift. 
 
 It may be the fact that wild olives grew on the rock of the 
 citadel, that one of them was grafted with a fruit-bearing olive 
 from over the sea, and supplied other slips and cuttings, and that 
 the root of the vivax oliva put forth fresh shoots after the burning 
 of the city by the Persians ; but the myth had no need of such 
 realistic support When at the end of the Persian war the old 
 national hero, Theseus, and his deeds and adventures, reappearea 
 in a transfigured light, he also was said to have broken oft' a 
 branch of the sacred olive-tree before sailing for Crete, to have 
 wrapped it in white wool, and uttering a prayer, to have laid it 
 before Apollo's statue in the Delphinium. In Sicyon too, which, 
 like Attica, had a soil favourable to the olive, and produced in 
 abundance the " Sicyonian berry," the old fabulous king, Epopeus, 
 had built a temple to Athena, and the goddess had shown her 
 favour by causing a spring of oil to flow in front of the temple — 
 thus directly bestowing on Epopeus the oil which the Athenians 
 and their descendants only procured by dint of planting, plucking, 
 and pressing the berries. In the first century of the Olympiads, 
 when the coast-lands of the west — Italy, Sicily, Gaul — became the 
 seat of innumerable and flourishing Greek colonies, a new and 
 more extensive field was opened fot the cultivation of the olive-tree, 
 in which it flourished almost as well as under its native skies. 
 
 In the course of the seventh, and certainly the sixth century 
 fe.C, the beautiful hill and coast districts of the islands and of 
 South Italy were gradually covered with evergreen and fruit- 
 bearing groves of olives. Possibly, however, it was not Greek but 
 Phosnician hands that sowed the first olive seed or planted the 
 first cutting in the soil of the distant west. A myth related of Aris- 
 tseus seems to contain a faint remembrance of such an occurrence. 
 Aristseus, an ancient Arcadian, Thessalian, and Boeotian pastoral 
 divinity, whom the first colonists had brought into Sicily, was 
 believed by their descendants to be the inventor of the olive and 
 
^(, THE OLIVE-TREE. 
 
 of oil. In this myth it is worthy of note, that Arist^us is not said, 
 like Athena, to have created the olive-tree, but to have invented 
 oil or the olive ; that he taught the preparation of oil, to which 
 belongs the use of the press ; and that for this reason he was 
 worshipped by the Sicilians during the olive harvest. But the 
 same Aristseus, before ever he came to Sicily, had been ruler of 
 Sardinia, which island was foreign to the Greeks ; had there intro- 
 duced agriculture and tree-culture — the island having till then 
 been inhabited only by very many large birds — and had begotten 
 two sons. From Sardinia he went to Sicily, civilized that island 
 also, and among other rural arts invented the process of gaining 
 oil from olives. Now, as Aristseus could not hold his ground 
 against the new overpowering and dazzling worship of Apollo and 
 Dionysus (though essentially kindred deities), but sank into the 
 position of their son or tutor, he was evidently one with a Libyo- 
 Phoenician god whom the Greek colonists had found in Sicily when 
 they came there, and had adopted as their own. This god, a son 
 of the nymph Gyrene, and the first planter of the silphion in 
 Cyrensea, could only have come to Sardinia from Africa; from 
 Sardinia he goes to Sicily, and his plant or invention must have 
 followed the same path. The myth says nothing about the time 
 of this occurrence, and it must remain doubtful whether or not 
 the Greeks found olive-groves in the vicinity of the Phosnician 
 commercial settlements of which they took forcible possession. 
 Afterwards, when oil had become an important article of com- 
 merce in the Grecian fatherland also, the two streams of civilization 
 met in Sicily : the Carthaginian, and that modelled on the type of 
 Attica, etc. 
 
 Turning to the mainland of Italy, we meet, at the first step, 
 with a kind of chronological notice ; a piece of good fortune that 
 is very rare in the ancient history of culture. Pliny, quoting the 
 annalist L. Fenestella, says that at the time of Tarquinius Priscus, 
 in 6i6 B.C., not an olive-tree existed in all Italy. If this report 
 be not a mere echo of the passage in Herodotus — and the addition 
 of " nor in Spain and Africa," leads to such a suspicion — we may 
 make a positive use of it to claim for the age of the Tarquins, an 
 age of lively intercourse with the Greeks of Campania, the fame 
 
THE OLIVE-TREE. 97 
 
 of having brought the oUve, together with other Greek arts, to 
 Latium. Perhaps the report originated from a Cumanian docu- 
 ment. At any rate, the Latin words diva and oleum, which are 
 derived from the Greek, prove that the tree was introduced by 
 Greeks and no others ; and many of the words relating to the 
 kinds of olive and the preparation of the oil aire also Greek terms 
 very little altered in the Latin tongue. When the apex of the 
 Flamen Dialis's hat consists of an olive branch bound up and 
 fastened with wool, it results that this very old custom was never- 
 theless younger than the date of the arrival of the Greeks in Italy 
 and their intercourse with the Latins. For what is the wool- 
 bound olive branch but the elpsaiiivri borrowed from the Greeks ? 
 A reminiscence of this may be contained in the statement that 
 Ascanius first instituted the Virga lanata at Alba ; it was therefore 
 neither Etruscan nor Sabine. Virgil indeed makes King Numa 
 and the priest pf Mars appear adorned with olive branches, but 
 his poetic fancy has here evidently bestowed on heroes of the 
 primitive age the later Grecian customs. In the triumphal pro- 
 cessions of victorious generals, even the servants who had not 
 been in the battle wore wreaths of olive, a Greek sign rather of 
 peaceful than of warlike enterprise. At the ovations, which were 
 an inferior kind of triumph, the crown of honour consisted of 
 olive leaves. At the feast celebrated July 15th in honour of 
 Castor and Pollux, crowns of olive were worn as ornaments ; and 
 the adoration paid to the said heroes originated in Magna Graecia. 
 These facts are all signs of an acquaintance with the olive in the 
 early days of the republic, but not a proof of its real cultivation. 
 The latter must have spread from the various Greek centres to 
 wherever the soil was favourable, first on the coasts and then in 
 the interior, in proportion as the natural prejudice against the use 
 of oil was overcome. Amphis, a comic poet who lived in the 
 latter half of the fourth century, about the time of Philip and 
 Alexander of Macedon, speaks in praise of the oil of Thurii, which 
 stood on the site of ancient Sybaris. Thence and from Tarentum 
 probably came the Calabrijin and Sallentine olives mentioned by 
 Cato ; and the celebrated Licinian olive of Campania, and that 
 from Mount Taburnus on the borders of Campania and Samnium, 
 
 7 
 
THE OLIVE-TKEE. 
 
 will have been first introduced by the Carapanian Greeks. The 
 Sabine mountains were covered with olives, but the kind called 
 Sergia, though a large tree, which endured the cold well and was 
 rich in oil, lacked fineness — it had therefore undergone the 
 changes observed in vines when transplanted to colder regions in 
 the north. At the other side of the Apennines, where the splendid 
 corn-fields commence, the climate, then as now, was unfavourable 
 to the cultivation of the olive, but the tree still flourished in ancient 
 Picenum, now the province of Ancona, which may be reckoned 
 as belonging to South Italy. In the first century B.C. Italy was 
 so rich in oil that it outrivalled all other countries in the quality 
 and cheapness of the product. 
 
 Favoured by the soil and climate of Provence, the olive, like 
 the vine, gradually spread from Massilia to the interior of Gaul, 
 though not like the vine as far as the Marne and Moselle. The 
 olive plantations on the Ligurian coast, which is still one immense 
 luxuriant olive-grove, were no doubt of Massiliote origin. Where 
 the mountains begin to rise at a short distance from the sea, the 
 olive-tree was no longer found, so that the wreaths and branches 
 worn or carried by the inhabitants when they went to meet Han- 
 nibal, cannot have been of olive, although the word used by 
 Polybius has generally that meaning. In Strabo's time Genoa 
 furnished these mountain-folk with oil, and received in exchange 
 cattle, skins, and honey. On the other side of Italy, near the 
 mouth of the Po, the low, marshy ground forbade the introduction 
 of the olive, though the trade of this district with the Ionian 
 islands, with Tarentum and afterwards Syracuse was both ancient 
 and brisk. On the other hand, the opposite coast — that of Istria 
 and Liburnia, with their sunny hills slanting towards the sea, and 
 protected at the back by high mountains — was extremely favourable 
 to the cultivation of the olive ; and, indeed, the oil from the west 
 coast of the peninsula of Istria was prized next to Italian oil, and 
 rivalled that of Spanish Bstica. The oil exported from Aquileia 
 to the lUyrians on the Danube in exchange for cattle, skins, and 
 slaves, must have been that received from Istria; and it is an 
 interesting fact that the Pannonians and Celts of the former 
 region, in Strabo's time, were eager not only for wine, welcome to 
 
THE OLIVE-TREE. 99 
 
 all barbarians, but also for oil, though it may be only for burning 
 in lamps. Even in the time of the Goths, after so many alarms 
 and disturbances, that region had a superabundance of oil. 
 Apicius, a celebrated gourmand of the time of Tiberius, and 
 other authors, give instructions for artificially producing Liburnian 
 oil, which must therefore have been still celebrated. Strabo says 
 that the above-mentioned province of B^tica exported not only 
 much, but the finest oil ; and Bstican Corduba excelled or 
 equalled the celebrated olive groves of Venafrum and Istria. It 
 was natural that Spain, being a southern land, and possessing great 
 variety of position and soil, should have adopted the new culture 
 in proportion as foreign civilization took root, first on the coasts, 
 then in the interior. 
 
 When the Roman Empire had reached its utmost extent, the 
 cultivated olive had also spread from its starting-point at the 
 south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean to all the countries in 
 which it is now found, and throve in many parts of the south of 
 Europe as if native there (note 34). According to popular belief 
 (entertained also by the ancients) the European olive bears fruit 
 only once in two years ; but this is only true in so far that 
 the tree, when exhausted by an extraordinary yield of fruit, 
 cannot produce the same quantity the following year, unless 
 assisted by the most favourable weather or extra culture. It is 
 also not quite true that the olive, as Theophrastus believed, is 
 never found farther from the sea than seven and a half geo- 
 graphical miles. This is only true in the sense that the tree loves 
 the breath of the Mediterranean; but the expanse of the Lake 
 of Garda, for example, is also sufficient for its well-being. Its 
 proper sphere of propagation, however, coincides almost exactly 
 with that of the oval formed by the coast-lands and bays of the. 
 Mediterranean. Beautiful, in a romantic sense, Minerva's tree 
 cannot be said to be, but nothing so readily excites a sense of 
 peaceful order and cultivation than the rows of trees in an olive 
 plantation, with their whispering leaves and twisted trunks softly 
 shading the slopes of the hills or the gently undulating plains; and, 
 hke Columella, we are fain to bestow upon the olive the epithet 
 prima omnium arborum, "chief of all trees.'' It is not every- 
 
THE OLIVE-TREE. 
 
 where that the oil produced can equal that of Provence, Genoa, 
 or Lucca. The oils from Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia, are 
 generally impure, and fit only to make soap, or be used in the 
 manufacture of cloth. The reason lies in the faulty method of 
 preparation, which, in its turn, is explained by the agrarian and 
 economic conditions prevalent there. Particular care is needed 
 in gathering the harvest; the fruit, as soon as ripe, should be 
 plucked by hand, berry by berry, and put into the oil-press without 
 loss of time ; rapidity and cleanliness are all-important. But in 
 most places there is a great want of capital, utensils, and hands. 
 The naturally tender fruit is knocked off the trees with sticks, or, 
 what is worse, is allowed to fall at its own time, over-ripe and 
 half-rotten (the ancients already complained of both these prac- 
 tices). Then the fruit remains lying on the ground, and begins 
 to ferment before an oil-press is at liberty. The latter is also 
 generally so ill-constructed that it causes a waste of labour, and a 
 considerable part of the oil is left in the press. Now as the 
 common man prefers this evil-smelling produce to the best 
 Provence table-oil on account of its stronger taste, he is naturally 
 not inclined to take any extra trouble to produce better oil. But 
 with all this, there is no denying the progress lately made. When 
 once the condition of the farmers is improved by a healthier cir- 
 culation of blood in the body politic, the cultivation of oil will be 
 a source of riches to all the mountainous southern regions of the 
 new kingdom. " There are two liquids,'' says Pliny, " that are 
 agreeable to the human body : inwardly wine, outwardly oil ; both 
 coming from trees, but oil the more necessary.'' 
 
 Democritus of Abdera, the celebrated philosopher, who attained 
 an age of more than a hundred years, when asked how a man 
 could preserve his health and prolong his days, answered, " Use 
 inwardly honey, outwardly oil." A similar reply was given by 
 Pollio Romilius, who also lived a hundred years, when the 
 Emperor Augustus asked him by what means he had remained 
 so robust : " By wine and honey inside, and oil outside.'' Now- 
 adays oil is no longer used as an external cosmetic, or only in the 
 form of soap ; but it is just the latter article, a northern invention 
 unknown to the ancients, that has entirely superseded the Oriental- 
 
THE OLIVE-TREE. 
 
 Greek custom of anointing the body, which in Italy, indeed, was 
 only usual among the upper classes. The anointing of Kings and 
 Kaisers, and extreme unction, still remain as faint echoes of the 
 old Roman time. 
 
DOMICILIA TION. TREE-CUL TV RE. 
 
 Wherever the cultivation of the three before-mentioned plants — 
 the vine, the fig, and the olive — was prosecuted on a large scale, 
 there the face of the country and the habits and manners of the 
 people were of necessity changed. Tree-culture was one step 
 more on the path to settled habitations ; with and by it men first 
 became permanently domiciled. The transition from a nomadic 
 to a settled life has nowhere been sudden ; it was always accom- 
 plished in many intermediate stages, at each one of which the 
 nations often remained stationary for centuries. The wandering 
 shepherd hastily sows a piece of ground, from which he as hastily 
 gathers the ensuing harvest ; next spring he chooses another and 
 fresh piece, which is no sooner stripped of its spoils than he 
 neglects it in turn. When a tribe has settled on some especially 
 fertile spot, building fragile huts, there too the soil is exhausted 
 in a few years ; the tribe breaks up its quarters, loads its animals 
 and waggons with its movable goods, and goes on to new ground. 
 Even when such a settlement has become more permanent, the 
 idea of individual right to the ground is not yet realized. The 
 cultivated land, of which there is an abundance in comparison to 
 the scanty population, is common property like the pastures, and 
 is divided anew among the people every year. Such was the con- 
 dition of the Germans in the time of Tacitus, and this is the plain 
 meaning of that historian's words, which have been carefully e.x- 
 plained in a contrary and more welcome sense by patriotic com- 
 mentators. The communistic, half-nomadic form of civilization, 
 which was closely connected with ancient patriarchal life, still 
 prevails in many parts of Russia, among the Tartars, Bedouins, 
 and other races. During this first stage of agriculture, cattle- 
 
DOMICILIATION. TREE-CULTURE. 103 
 
 breeding is still the principal occupation, milk and flesh are the 
 staple food, roving and plunder the ruling passion. The huts or 
 houses are lightly built of wood, and easily take fire ; the plough 
 is nothing but a pointed branch guided by slaves taken in war, 
 and only slightly scratches the ground ; the foresight of the com- 
 munity is very short, extending only from spring to autumn. The 
 sowing of seed in winter is a considerable advance, but the 
 decisive step is taken when the Culture of Trees commences. 
 Then only arises the feeling of a settled home and the idea of 
 property. For a tree requires nursing and watering for many 
 years before it will bear fruit, after which it yields a harvest every 
 year, while the covenant with the annual "grass " which Demeter 
 taught men to sow is at an end the moment the grain is gathered. 
 A hedge, the sign of complete possession, is raised to protect the 
 vineyard or the orchard ; for the mere husbandman a boundary 
 stone had been sufficient. The sown field must wait for dew and 
 rain, but the tree-planter teaches the mountain rivulet to wind 
 round his orchards, and in so doing gets involved in questions of 
 law and property with his neighbours — questions that can only be 
 solved by a fixed political organization. One of the oldest 
 political documents with which we are acquainted, the treaty 
 sworn to by the Delphic Amphictyons, contains a decree that 
 " running water shall not be cut off from any of the allied cities 
 either in peace or in war.'' 
 
 A house surrounded by fruit trees is intended, like them, to 
 last for many years ; it is therefore built of stone, and internally 
 decorated with hereditary property, and the acquisitions of pro- 
 gressive civilization. Iron is found, and gradually becomes a 
 more and more frequent, and at last the principal, material for all 
 implements. The gods themselves become nobler : the shepherd, 
 who is accustomed to slaughter animals, and whose poetry revels 
 in pictures of frightful gashes given with the stone-axe, will 
 offer to his deities raw and bleeding victims ; the husbandman 
 sacrifices to Ceres and Terminus with gentler offerings of bruised 
 spelt and salt, garlands and cakes ; but wine first attuned the 
 hardy peasant to mildness and mirth, and made him delight in 
 dramatic games; while it was the olive, the tree of Minerva, 
 
104 DOMICILTATION. TREE-CULTURE. 
 
 goddess of intellectual light, that first furnished a symbol for 
 peace and prayer and kindness. 
 
 The ancient epic poets already distinguish carefully between 
 the three methods of utilizing the ground — cattle-breeding, or 
 flesh, milk, and wool ; agriculture, or the sweet fruit of the halm, 
 the nourisher of mankind ; and lastly, tree-planting, or wine and 
 oil. For the last two stages (of which the third becomes the more 
 limited to the vine the older the passage is), the technical expres- 
 sions, aroo, I ear or till, aroura, ear-th, or til-th, are contrasted 
 with phyteus, I plant, phytalia, plantation. Diomed says that his 
 father dwelt in a rich house, and possessed many fertile fields, 
 orchards, and herds : 
 
 " There, rich in fortune's gifts, his acres till'd. 
 Beheld his vines their liquid harvest yield, 
 And numerous flocks that whitened all the field." — Iliad. 
 
 Sarpedon says to Glaucus : 
 
 " Why boast we, Glaucus, our extended reign, 
 Where Xanthus' streams enrich the Lycian plain. 
 Our numerous herds that range the fruitful field, 
 And hills where vines their purple harvest yield ? " 
 
 Achilles asks ^neas : 
 
 " Has Troy proposed some spacious tract of land 
 An ample forest, or a fair domain 
 Of hill for vines and arable for grain ?" 
 
 — namely, as the prize for killing him. The ^tolians offer 
 Meleager, if he will take part in the fight : 
 
 " Full fifty acres of the richest ground, 
 
 Half pasture green, and half with vineyards crowned." 
 
 In another Homeric passage, there is added to the description 
 of corn-fields, gardens, and pastures, in a remarkable manner, 
 the fishing on the sea : 
 
 " In wavy gold thy summer vales are dressed, 
 Thy autumns bend with copious fruit oppressed ; 
 With flocks and herds each grassy plain is stored, 
 And fish of every kind thy seas afford." — Odyssey. 
 
 Later prose writers also mention the corn-field and plantation 
 
DOMICILIATION. TREE-CULTURE. 105 
 
 together as the two integral parts of agriculture. In Xenophon's 
 "CEconomicus," Socrates converses with Ischomachus about agri- 
 culture, and asks whether plantations may be considered a part of 
 it " Certainly," replies Ischomachus ; and the dialogue goes on 
 to discuss the depth and width of ditches, irrigation, choice of 
 ground, eta, with exclusive reference to the vine, olive, and fig- 
 tree. As Demeter (Ceres) is the goddess of the fruits of the 
 field, so the half-Oriental Dionysus (Bacchus) is especially the 
 personification of the fruit of trees, and the blessings derived 
 from it ; though an inscription at Selinus seems to make Demeter 
 also a guardian of the orchard. 
 
 It was the same in Italy. There also corn-field and plantation 
 were co-ordiriated branches of culture. Dionysius of Halicar- 
 nassus praises Italy as excluding no kind of culture ; here it is 
 treeless, because it produces corn ; there poor in grain, because 
 planted with trees, etc. Appian tells us that when the Romans 
 were conquering Italy, they offered the waste land to all who 
 would cultivate it, " requiring only as yearly rent a tenth of the 
 produce of sown land, and a fifth of that of planted land." The 
 combination of purely arable cultivation with the planting of 
 vines and fruit-trees appeared so natural to Cn. Tremellius Scrofa, 
 an inhabitant of South Italy, and contemporary of Varro, that he 
 remarks the absence of the last kind of culture in Transalpine 
 Gaul and the Rhine districts, as well as the custom of manuring 
 with marl, and the use of ashes instead of salt. 
 
 It is interesting that the sacred books of the Zends also men- 
 tion the same threefold utilization of the ground. In the " Ven- 
 didid " the question is asked : " What is the third thing that is 
 most agreeable to this earth ? " And Ahura-mazda replies : " The 
 place, O holy Zarathustra, where cultivation produces most corn, 
 hay, and fruit-bearing trees." " Fourthly, Who is the fourth that 
 fills this earth with the greatest contentment ? " Ahura-mazda 
 answers : " He who cultivates most corn, grass, and trees that 
 afford nourishment, O holy Zarathustra." 
 
 Herodotus relates that Mardonius the Persian, when persua- 
 ding Xerxes to march against the Athenians, praised Europe as a 
 beautiful country where the soil was very fertile, and all kinds of 
 
io6 DOMICILTATION. TREE-CULTURE. 
 
 fruit-trees grew. On the other hand, Herodotus describes Baby- 
 lonia as rich in corn, but utterly devoid of fruit-trees. 
 
 In the Old Testament and in the Greek epics we find orchards 
 described as being surrounded with ditches, hedges, or walls, 
 while the sown field was open. Like the vineyard in the parable, 
 Isaiah v. : " My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruit- 
 ful hill ; and he fenced it, and gathered the stones thereof, and 
 planted it with the choicest vine ; " so the vineyard figured on 
 the shield of Achilles was also surrounded with a hedge and 
 ditch. Oineus, the ruler of Kalydon, killed his own son Toxeus 
 (archer) because he had dared to leap the ditch that surrounded the 
 vines. The material used for fencing is rather dubiously described 
 by an etymologically obscure name, ai^am'a — either thorns or 
 stones, or even both together, according to the character of the 
 district. At least we read in the Odyssey that the god-like 
 swineherd fenced his court with stones, and planted thorns upon 
 
 them : 
 
 " The wall was stone from neighbouring quarries borne, 
 Encircled with a fence of native thorn ; " 
 
 for "encircled" read "surmounted." Such enclosed orchards 
 and vineyards are still to be found all over South Italy, the lanes 
 winding between walls and hedges of prickly bushes that hide the 
 view from the dusty traveller. And in that part of the world, 
 even now, a piece of ground that is walled or hedged in is 
 universally considered more valuable than an open one. 
 
 In Homer's time, it is weak persons, especially old men, that 
 are entrusted with the care of trees, and who, bent to the earth, 
 plant, dig, and prune. Fighting, ploughing, and mowing was the 
 work of lusty youths and men. This is clearly seen in a passage 
 in the Odyssey ; Eurymachus, one of the suitors, laughs at 
 Ulysses' bald head, and proposes to hire him : 
 
 " To tend the rural trade, 
 To dress the walk, and form the embowering shade.'' 
 
 To which Ulysses angrily replies : 
 
 "Should we, O prince, engage 
 In rival tasks beneath the burning rage 
 
DOMICILIATION. TREE-CULTURE. 107 
 
 Of summer suns ; were both constrained to wield 
 
 Foodless the scythe along the burdened field ; 
 
 Or should we labour while the ploughshare wounds, 
 
 With steers of equal strength, th' allotted grounds : 
 
 Beneath my labours how thy wondering eyes 
 
 Might see the sable field at once arise ! 
 
 Should Jove dire war unloose, with spear and shield 
 
 And nodding helm, I tread the ensanguined field, 
 
 Fierce in the van : then wouldst thou, wouldst thou — say — 
 
 Misname me glutton on that glorious day ? " 
 
 So too Laertes, full of years, has retired to the gardens, where his 
 companion is the aged slave Dolios, whom Penelope had brought 
 from her father's house to that of her husband. The implement 
 used was either the one-bladed spade mentioned in the Iliad, 
 or the two-pronged rake named in contrast with the plough in a 
 fragment of ^schylus, with other tools of the same kind. 
 
 When men began to cultivate trees, wars became more disas- 
 trous, there being more objects to destroy. According to the 
 earliest custom — not wanting notice in Homer, and still existing 
 among the Bedouins — it was a common privilege of war and 
 punishment of the enemy to drive away the herds or steal the 
 horses. Frequently the owners pursued the retreating robbers, 
 and recovered their property ; at the worst, the lost cattle were 
 soon replaced by new. The Germans retreated into their forests 
 and swamps, and the Romans were unable to harass them. 
 " Why should we risk a pitched battle with you ? " said Idan- 
 thyrsus, king of the Scythians, to Darius j " we have no cities to 
 be taken and no plantations to be rooted up." In our own era, 
 in 1812, the Russians acted in a similar manner; they even burnt 
 their own capital which consisted mostly of wooden houses, re- 
 treated farther and farther into the inhospitable interior, leaving 
 their defence to distance, climate, and the wilderness. It is very 
 diflferent where men dwell in substantial houses surrounded by 
 vines, olives, and fig-trees ; there a cruel foe can cause a desola- 
 tion that will endure for a generation to come. The water-courses 
 are destroyed, and thereby the chief spring of life cut off; it costs 
 more time and money to restore them than can be obtained after 
 a disastrous war. The olive-trees are cut down, and grow again 
 
io8 DOMICILIATION. TREE-CULTURE. 
 
 but slowly ; the vine requires many years before it can bear fruit. 
 The Mosaic law indeed forbade the destruction of fruit-trees; 
 Deuteronomy xx. 19 : " When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, 
 in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees 
 thereof by forcing an axe against them ; for thou mayest eat of 
 them, and thou shalt not cut them down : " but the Old Testament 
 itself is a proof that this law was never observed in the fury of the 
 fight. For example, the national hero of the Hebrews, Samson, 
 not only burnt the corn in the enemy's country (which would grow 
 again next year), but also the vines and olives, not so easy to re- 
 place. When Alyattes, King of Lydia, was unable to take Miletus, 
 he wasted the district every year, destroying trees and corn. In 
 later times the East was repeatedly desolated by invading hordes 
 and has never recovered its former prosperity. The history of the 
 Greeks is full of similar barbarisms — both before and after Plato, 
 who would not sufifer them in his " Republic," at least between 
 Greeks. How often, while reading Thucydides, do we not meet 
 with the significant words, " They wasted Attica, both the districts 
 where the vegetation had been before destroyed and had sprouted 
 anew, and those which had been spared by former invasions " ! A 
 passage in a speech by Lysias clearly proves how the Peloponne- 
 sians treated the olive-groves of Attica : " Ye know that at that 
 time many regions were covered with olive-trees, most of which 
 are now destroyed; and the country has since then become 
 barren." During the first Messenian war the trees were spared, 
 but only because the Lacedsemonians regarded the country as their 
 own ; afterwards they wasted it all the more. During their wars 
 with the Eleans, as Herodotus relates, " When the army had 
 marched into the enemy's country and had already begun to cut 
 down the trees, an earthquake happened ; " and farther on, " he 
 marched against the city, devastating and burning the land." In 
 modern Greek wars of liberation, the common method of punish- 
 ing the enemy was to cut down and uproot ; and the medieval 
 chronicles of Southern Italy too frequently mention the same 
 manner of treating an enemy's country. Barbarossa decreed that 
 those who destroyed vineyards or orchards should be punished 
 like incendiaries. On the other hand, a rebel and evil-doer not 
 
DOMICILIATION. TREE-CULTURE. 109. 
 
 only forfeited his life, but his house was pulled down, his fruit-trees 
 felled, and his vines uprooted (note 35). 
 
 The French in Algiers have had an opportunity of learning 
 how different half agriculture is from full agriculture ; or agriculture 
 joined to nomadic customs from agriculture which includes tree- 
 culture. To get at the swift Arabs, the European columns 
 were obliged to rival them in rapidity and cunning, for if a rumour 
 of the approach of the enemy had reached a village only two 
 hours before his arrival, nothing was to be found in the place 
 where it was hoped that the Arabs might be overtaken but the still 
 warm ashes of their camp-fires. The tribe had retreated farther 
 into the interior, and when pursued went on retreating till they 
 gained the inaccessible desert. Their crops were mown down by 
 the French, their herds, when found, were driven away, and then 
 sometimes the tribe would humbly submit ; but the same scene 
 was probably repeated the following year. Very differently did 
 the Kabyles of the Djurdjur mountains behave when invaded. 
 These direct descendants of the ancient Libyans are a horticultural 
 people, with houses partly made of stone, possessing strictly divided 
 freeholds, marked off by hedges and walls over which hang boughs, 
 full of fruit, and with a strong sense of attachment to the place of 
 their birth. They live among the mountains where it is difficult to 
 reach them ; but when this is once accomplished, a small fortress, 
 with a scanty garrison is sufficient to hold them in check. They 
 pay tribute regularly, and are content if left undisturbed to practise 
 their own customs and communal government. A few roads are- 
 made through their mountains, the unaccustomed safety they enjoy 
 encourages them to visit the markets and exchange their wares ; 
 and imperceptibly, but surely, European civilization penetrates 
 among the hitherto seclusive and suspicious race. The density 
 of a population is also in exact proportion to its more or less, 
 complete conversion from a nomadic life. A Bedouin family 
 requires for its support a large space, of which it only partially 
 makes use ; the Kabyles cultivate the soil and elicit from it a ten- 
 fold produce ; in the one case square miles are indispensable, in the- 
 other a garden a few feet square is quite sufficient. 
 
ASSES, MULES, GOATS. 
 
 Contemporaneous with the adoption of the novel culture, be- 
 cause closely connected with it, were the introduction of the Ass, 
 the breeding of Mules, and the propagation of the Goat. 
 
 The patient, hardworking, and intelligent Ass, which obediently 
 fulfilled many domestic duties — driving the mill and the draw-well; 
 carrying baskets full of earth to the hills ; and accompanying its 
 master to market and feast, loaded with the produce of the soil — 
 had no need of fat meadows, shady trees, and ample space like the 
 ox; it was content with what came first, the way-side herb, the 
 refuse of the table, with straw, twigs, thistles, and brambles. That 
 the ass came to Greece from Semitic Asia Minor and Syria — though 
 its original home may have been Africa, where its relations still 
 live — is taught us by the history of language (note 36), and con- 
 firmed by the oldest known conditions of nations and culture. In 
 the epic time, when cattle-breeding and agriculture were the chief 
 occupations, the ass had not yet become a common domestic 
 animal ; it is only mentioned once in the Iliad, and that only in a 
 simile invented and inserted by a poet who was prejudiced against 
 the Salaminians and Athenians ; the simile is paradoxical and 
 awkwardly paired with the one preceding. In the Odyssey, the 
 second part of which afforded plenty of opportunity for noticing 
 such an animal, the ass is never named at all; nor is it spoken of 
 by Hesiod. As the Latin word asinus has an archaic form which 
 seems to reach back to a period preceding the Greek colonization, 
 the animal must have come into Italy overland through the lUyrian 
 tribes ; or must we suppose that the people of Cumse, when they 
 founded their first city on the present Isle of Ischia, still said 
 asnos ? Later on, in Italy the ass, besides being valued for the 
 
ASSES, MULES. 
 
 domestic duties he performed, was of great use in facilitating 
 import and export in the mountainous parts of the peninsula. 
 Oil and wine and even corn were carried on donkey-back from 
 the interior to the sea ; Varro tells us that merchants kept herds 
 of asses expressly for that purpose. The ass, and with it its name, 
 accompanied the progress of the culture of the vine and olive to 
 the north, not crossing the limits of that culture. In proportion 
 as the ure-ox, the bison, and the elk died out, the long-eared 
 foreign beast become domesticated in Gaul, receiving various 
 names, and living in the customs, jokes, proverbs, and fables of 
 the people. Germany, however, proved too cold for the animal. 
 
 The Muk, already frequently mentioned by Homer, came from 
 Pontic Asia Minor, or, as Homer expressly says, from the Henetians, 
 a Paphlagonian people : 
 
 "Where rich Henetia breeds her savage mules ; " — Iliad. 
 
 on which the Scholiast remarks, "The crossing of the ass with the 
 horse was first invented by the Henetians." In another passage 
 it is the Mysians who bring mules to Priam : 
 
 " Last to the yoke the well-matched mules they bring 
 (The gift of Mysia to the Trojan king)." 
 
 The Mysians and Paphlagonians were neighbours, and the way to 
 the latter led through the country of the former. In a fragment 
 by Anacreon the Mysians are directly named as the inventors of 
 mule-breeding. The mention in the Old Testament of Togarmah 
 — that is, Armenia or Cappadocia — as the place whence the best 
 mules came agrees with the above (Ezekiel xxvii. 14) ; the law 
 forbade the Israelites themselves to breed mules. Still later we 
 hear of Cappadocian and Galatian mules, it being reported of the 
 first that they had the power of reproduction ; they must there- 
 fore have enjoyed especially favourable natural conditions. 
 
 Very remarkable, because analogous to the religious ideas of 
 the Israelites (perhaps also to those of other Semitic and half- 
 Semitic races), is the old prohibition ascribed to the mythic 
 period against breeding mules in the land of the Eleans. King 
 CEnomaus, son of Neptune and father of Hippodameia, is said to 
 
ASSE.';, MULES, COATS. 
 
 have pronounced a curse against such breeding, and from that 
 time the Eleans took their mares out of the country to be put to 
 asses. Perhaps this Eleati custom was only a pious survival 
 from those early times, when the only mules in Greece were intro- 
 duced from the East, and national feeling was against the 
 unnatural mixture. In the Odyssey we are told that Naemon of 
 Ithaca possessed twelve mares in fertile Elis with their mule foals : 
 
 " For Elis I should sail with utmost speed, 
 T'import twelve mares which there luxurious feed, 
 And twelve young mules, a strong laborious race, 
 New to the' plough, unpractised in the trace. " 
 
 The mule, as represented in the epics, is already a hard-working 
 animal, used for field-labour, harnessed to the waggon, or carrying 
 loads, and it is frequently described as patient and laborious. 
 A well-known verse of Theognis says that the mule was preferred 
 to the ass as being the stronger animal. The abstract Greek 
 appellations /^ifOTZ-^«w (half-ass), and <7rf«j', £Par«^j- (mountain-animal, 
 found in Hesiod and throughout antiquity in this double form), are 
 striking. The last name is explained by the Iliad, where the 
 mule is described as bearing heavy loads of wood from the moun- 
 tains to the plains (Books xvii. and xxiii). 
 
 The mulus, or mule, was brought to Italy, as the name proves, 
 from Greece (note 37). The Latin name was afterwards used by 
 all the nations which adopted the animal. In Varro's time, just 
 as now, carts were drawn along the high-roads by mules, which 
 were not only strong, but pleased the eye by their handsome 
 appearance. The Greeks were equally delighted with the animal, 
 and Nausicaa's car is drawn to the sea-shore and back by mules. 
 
 The Goat was used as a domestic animal in the mountainous 
 districts of the south,. where cultivation more resembled that of 
 gardens than of fields. It feeds on the spicy herbs that grow on 
 sun-heated cliffs, is content with tough shrubs, and yields aromatic 
 milk. Stony Attica, which was rich in figs and olives, also 
 nourished innumerable goats ; and one of the four old Attic 
 phylffi was named after the goat. Even if the animal came into 
 Europe with the first Aryan immigrants, and accordingly the 
 
GOATS, BEES. 113 
 
 Hellenes and Italians had not to make its acquaintance after 
 reaching their new home, yet it was only there, and under the 
 Semitic mode of cultivation there adopted, that it found its proper 
 place and true use (note 38). 
 
 It is obvious, too, that the keeping of Bees could only have been 
 adopted after the rise of tree-culture. The man who planted his 
 own olives, for the fruit of which he had to wait for years, could 
 easily keep beehives within his enclosed ground, nursing the bees 
 through the winter, increasing their number by colonies derived 
 from the parent-stock, and in due season receiving the reward of 
 his exertions in the shape of honey and wax. Aristseus, the 
 inventor of oil, also invented apiculture, and Autuchos, i.e., the 
 self-possessing, is named as his brother. Homer knows nothing of 
 bee hives; the simile of the Achseans gathering together " like 
 bees flying out of a cleft in the rock," is derived from the swarm- 
 ing of wild bees. We first meet with an artificial beehive in a 
 not very old passage in Hesiod's Theogony; in it the working-bees 
 are distinguished from the drones, which latter are compared to 
 women/ In those days the shepherd robbed the wild honey-combs 
 which he found in the forest, and if the spoil was abundant he 
 made mead of the honey ; the husbandman fermented his flour 
 into a kind of raw beer; the vintner often mixed the honey from 
 his hives with his wine, which he then called mulsum, and believed 
 that the enjoyment of this beverage would lengthen his days 
 (note 39). 
 
STONE ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 It has already been hinted in the previous pages, that with the 
 increased stability of life resulting from the invention of horticul- 
 ture, the dwellings of men also acquired a more enduring character. 
 In fact, it was from the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean 
 coast, that stone architecture first gradually spread, like wine and 
 oil, to all the coasts and peninsulas of Southern Europe, and thence 
 to the whole civilized world. In very early times the Phoenicians 
 had taught the art of building walls and terraces to the Greeks ; 
 the Greeks imparted this knowledge to the Etruscans and Latins; 
 and from Italy, at a very late period, it spread to the nations north 
 of the Alps. 
 
 When the Indo-Europeans from the Sea of Aral and the 
 Caspian Sea (with the then shape of which we are not acquainted) 
 wandered westwards with their herds, what they came to was 
 either immeasurable steppe or continuous and endless forest. 
 In the former, so favourable for roving, there were no materials 
 to be found for building houses ; so the Scythians and Sarmatians 
 lived in their waggons covered with basket-work. These waggons 
 were very large, being often supported not on four, but on six 
 wheels. Hippocrates writes : " They are called Nomads because 
 they have no houses, but live in waggons ; the smallest of which 
 have four wheels, but the others six ; " so that the houses on 
 wheels mentioned by Pindar might be called movable houses. 
 And in fact, Hippocrates continues : " These waggons are roofed 
 with felt; they are built like houses, some twofold, some three- 
 fold ; they protect their occupants from rain, wind, and snow, and 
 are drawn sometimes by two, sometimes by three oxen." The 
 women lived in the waggons, the men rode. The Slavs, who were 
 
STONE ARCHITECTURE. 115 
 
 the northern neighbours of the Sarmatians, adopted many of 
 their customs, but they were not a riding or driving nation ; they 
 were robbers roaming through the forests, but yet they built 
 houses. What this oldest Slavo-Germano-Celtic house was like, 
 we learn even now from the similar dwellings of roving nations 
 on the borders of Europe and Asia ; for example, the Turkomans. 
 The framework and roof consist of poles, and the two united 
 form a kind of cylinder, rounded at the top. The whole is 
 covered with felt, and the rectangular opening which serves for a 
 door is also curtained with felt. In the sculptures on the column 
 of Antoninus this kind of house is represented in a probably 
 improved form, and it is so described by Greeks and Romans, 
 whose reports are not contradicted by the early Middle Ages. 
 In the sculptures above-mentioned the fortifications of the 
 Marcomanni and Quadi, stormed by Marcus Aurelius, are dis- 
 tinctly seen to consist of wicker-work bound by crossed and twisted 
 ropes ; the dwellings are circular with rounded roofs, no windows, 
 and square doors ; they seem to be interwoven with rushes or canes 
 and bound with ropes. The houses of the Celts are similarly 
 described by Strabo, and those of the remote Caledonians and 
 Mseotians were still constructed in this way in the time of 
 Jornandes, when their kinsmen on the continent had long adopted 
 the Roman fashion. The Slavs too are described by Procopius 
 as dwelling in such huts of wicker-work, which they could easily 
 forsake, and build others in another place. " The Suevi," says 
 Strabo, " and the neighbouring nations live in huts built only to 
 last a day." Seneca describes the houses and customs of the 
 Germans and nations on the Danube in the same way. Tacitus 
 afterwards reports that the Germans were ignorant of the use 
 of mortar and bricks. The huts above described had no foun- 
 dations, and a thief could enter them at night by digging a 
 passage under ground. The roof rested simply on the walls, 
 and there was no interior division, for the Alemannian law 
 declared that a new-born child had lived when it had opened its 
 eyes and seen the roof and the four walls ; such a house must 
 have been no longer round but square, like the Dacian houses 
 on Trajan's column, which besides have a window above the 
 
Ii6 STOME ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 door. How slight the whole structure was, is proved by a law 
 punishing any one who scatters to pieces another's house. It is 
 natural that such houses were constantly exposed to fire: the 
 enemy threw firebrands on the roof of rushes; the robber secretly 
 set fire to the wood-work ; an accidental flame rapidly consumed 
 the slender pillars and the dry osiers that bound them together. 
 The very hearth in the centre of the house, which sent its smoke 
 up to the roof and dried the wood-work, and the common 
 northern custom of lighting up the house in the long winter 
 evenings by means of a torch stuck in a crevice, must often have 
 been the cause of destruction. Not seldom may the occupants 
 sleeping on the ground have perished in the smoke and flame ; 
 but, if they escaped with their lives, a new house was speedily 
 built, impervious at first to the rain, unstained with soot, and 
 happily free of the vermin that had infested the old habitation. 
 The foremost in the great Indo-European march, the Celts, had 
 on moving towards the West come upon the Iberians, who, if 
 conjecture be right, were the outermost link of a great chain of 
 nations, reaching from the valley of the Nile and the north coast 
 of Africa, through modern Spain, to the Channel and the Atlantic 
 Ocean. Did the impulse to erect the stone monuments which 
 we find under different forms and names {nuragen, dolmen, crom- 
 lech, etc.) in Algiers as well as in Sardinia, Western France, and 
 the British Isles, belong to this race ? and had the Celts, in their 
 later erections, only inherited the custom from their predecessors ? 
 Was it the same impulse, arrested in the north-west at its rudest 
 stage, that prompted the building of the temples of Egypt, and rose 
 almost into the sphere of beauty and true art ? In consequence 
 of their geographical position, the Celts very early came in 
 contact with Phoenician, Grecian, and Roman civilization; they 
 learnt to sink a stone foundation into the ground, to hew stones, 
 fit them and cement them with mortar, and thus settle per- 
 manently on their native soil. The Germans learnt the art much 
 later ; the Slavs of the East have scarcely learnt it to this day. 
 Purely agricultural nations were still quite content with wooden 
 houses, wicker barns (Lith. Metis, and Old Slavic kUti, outhouse, 
 storeroom ; Gothic hleithra, tent, arbour ; while the Old Celtic 
 
STONE ARCHITECTURE. 117 
 
 cUta, Irish cliath, Cymric cluit, still retain the original mean- 
 ing of wicker-work, hurdle ; French claie, etc.), and with mere 
 hurdles for their horses and cattle. When the Vineyard carae, 
 and not till then, appeared the murus (Old Irish mur) that 
 enclosed it, the stone-paved street {via strata) that led past it, 
 and soon connected with one another the stone hamlets {villas), 
 markets {mercatus), wells {puteos), convents, churches, and ere- 
 long the cities. If we could doubt that real architecture origi- 
 nated in the countries around the Mediterranean, and slowly 
 advanced from south to north, and from west to east, the 
 history of the commonest words would prove it to be the fact. 
 Our word chalk was derived from the Latin calx, which in turn 
 was derived from the Greek. Our tile and mortar are from the 
 Latin tegula, mortarium ; our tower from turris ; our fenster 
 (window) and soller (attic), from the fenestra and solarium ; our 
 post and pillar from postis and pilarium ; our chimney from 
 caminata, and so on (note 40). When the Slavs migrated into the 
 regions of the Oder and Danube, they cannot have been acquainted 
 with any masonry, for all their expressions for such work are 
 derived partly from Byzantium, partly from Germany, and a few 
 from the Turkish language — as the science of philology proves. 
 Bohemian Prague on the Moldau is a city of splendid houses, for 
 it lies close to the European West, and was built with its assistance. 
 Russian Moscow was, and partly is, a mere wooden camp, like 
 the Budine settlements described by Herodotus ; and if the 
 popular songs bestowed the epithet "white-stoned" on their 
 imperial residence, on account of the few stone edifices it con- 
 tained (which were built by Italians fetched for the purpose), it 
 only proves that such another wonder was not to be found in their 
 sphere of experience. When the Roman-German West had once 
 mastered the southern mode of building, it reared its towers and 
 spires in longing aspiration to the skies, almost to the height 
 of the Egyptian pyramids — this, however, was a morbid barbaric 
 impulse, from which the balanced nature of the Greek had pre- 
 served him. The terraced horizontal architecture of the Medi- 
 terranean city, rising on all sides up to a castle-crowned hill, or 
 amphitheatrically surrounding some beautiful bay, is hardly met 
 
Ii8 STONE ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 with beyond the district of the olive ; from that point to the north 
 begins the pointed Gothic architecture of the mystic-minded 
 masters of the architectural guilds. We do not know exactly how 
 high were the Babylonian-Assyrian terraces of brick ; what is still 
 left standing is about as lofty as the tallest trees, the sequoia of 
 California, and the eucalyptus of Australia — from four to five 
 hundred feet : thus far it is possible for organic life and the art of 
 man to raise themselves above this planet. As once the Hamitic- 
 Semitic stone supplanted the primitive material, wood; so this in its 
 turn, is being supplanted, in our new technical and mechanical 
 civilization, by glass and iron — glass, an almost incorporeal thing • 
 and iron, found late and only intended for implements — the 
 materials of a demonic and magic art that would have seemed to 
 the ancients incomprehensible as an edifice of vapour, or else 
 an illusion of the senses, like the pearly bridge of Iris. 
 
BEER. 
 
 When the Roman Empire was complete, its limits closely cor- 
 responded with those of the vine and olive. Where in the north the 
 climate was too cold, or in the south too hot for the vine, or where 
 olive oil was no longer an article of daily consumption, there also 
 the Roman no longer ruled, or only temporarily; and there ended 
 the world of the ancients. Even modern Europe may be fairly 
 divided into a wine-and-oil land and a beer-and-butter land : the 
 region of the first is that part of Europe which leans towards the 
 Mediterranean Sea; the region of the last the part that slants 
 towards the North Sea and Baltic. In the most ancient times it was 
 far otherwise. On collecting the passages relating to the history of 
 beer and butter scattered through the writings of the Greeks and 
 Romans, we are astonished at the extent of the sphere in which 
 both these articles, now considered as especially belonging to the 
 north, were found ; and at the fact that whole countries and 
 nations have abandoned their use. The gift of Bacchus supplanted 
 the old native turbid drink boiled out of grain, and Minerva's boon 
 banished the fat that shepherds had churned out of the milk of 
 sheep, cows, and mares. It was like the victory of a new religion 
 and foreign manners over old barbaric ways, the attachment to 
 which was very slowly lost, first among the chiefs and nobles, and 
 at last among the mass of the people. We are informed by 
 Herodotus and others that the Egyptians — that primitive pre- 
 Semitic race, which perhaps had developed a peculiar civilization 
 ages before the Indo-Europeans invaded Europe — used a drink 
 made out of barley. In the poems of ^Eschylus, a King of Argos 
 cries to the Danaids, who had come from Egypt, that here they 
 will find a manly population and not drinkers of barley-wine. In 
 places where the soil would not permit the production of wine, the 
 god Osiris himself had taught the people to make a drink of 
 
120 BEER. 
 
 barley, almost equal to wine in pleasantness and strength. " The 
 Egyptians," says the Academician Dio, " who are a people much 
 inclined to drink, have invented a substitute for wine for those too 
 poor to buy it ; namely, wine made from barley : when this is 
 drunk, it makes men merry ; they sing and dance, and behave 
 exactly as if full of sweet wine." And in Strabo's time, the citizens 
 of Alexandria — a place only existing since the Macedonian period 
 with a very mixed population — generally drank the same old 
 Egyptian beverage. 
 
 Theophrastus is the first to mention its name, and under tliis 
 name zythos, Latin zytkurn, the drink is often alluded to by GreeK 
 and Latin authors. We can quite understand that the Egyptians 
 would try to vary the taste of the sweet slimy beverage by the 
 addition of pungent substances, and the fact is proved by a passage 
 in Columella, which speaks of the bitter lupine. Strabo says even 
 of the more distant Ethiopians that they lived on millet and barley, 
 and prepared a drink out of those products. The English travellers 
 who have lately penetrated to the sources of the Nile, found a 
 kind of raw intoxicating beer in use among the half-negro tribes, 
 who drink it out of gourds. Among the pre-Indo-European 
 Iberian race in Spain, which was genealogically or historically 
 connected with the Libyans in Africa, beer was drunk in the 
 earliest times. Pliny calls Spain an " excellent beer-land," where 
 the people knew how to keep and improve it. The customs 
 attributed by Strabo to the Iberian tribes living near the Atlantic 
 coast are so singular and wild, that when the same author says 
 the Lusitanians drank beer, we must suppose that this was an 
 ancient Lusitanian habit, and not derived from the Celts. " But 
 wine," adds Strabo, "is very rare among them," from which we 
 infer that at that early time the vine was at least beginning to be 
 cultivated in the land where now it rules alone. Polybius men- 
 tions a characteristic trait of attachment to the national drink 
 in a half-Grecianized, and so half-civilized, Iberian king. His 
 palace is in all respects a copy of that of the Phasacian king 
 in Homer — and even that was barbaric — with one exception ; in 
 the centre of the building stand gold and silver vessels filled with 
 barley-juice. It makes a similar impression when we read of the 
 
BEER. 121 
 
 heroic Numantians, that when on the point of engaging in battle, 
 they feasted on half-raw meat— like modern Englishmen — and 
 raised their spirits with the fermented juice of wheat or other grain. 
 Pliny first tells us the names of these Spanish drinks, calia and 
 cerea. Strabo relates that the Ligurians, probably a branch of the 
 Iberians, ate meat and drank beer. 
 
 Another set of originally beer-drinking nations in the south-east 
 of the continent belong however to the great Indo-European 
 family. Archilochus speaks of the nearly related Phrygians and 
 Thracians drinking briiton, barley-wine or beer, as early as 700 
 B.C. Hecataeus says that the Pseonians, a people of Thrace, 
 drank brUton made of barley, and parabia made from millet with 
 the admixture of a spicy root called konyze. East of the Phrygians 
 lived the Armenians, of whose use of a similar beverage Xenophon 
 was an eye-witness. The celebrated Ten Thousand, after coming 
 down from the Carduchian mountains, rested in some Armenian 
 villages on their way to the Chalybes. Among other things, they 
 found there large tubs of what we must call beer, still brimful of 
 the barley; the drink, which was sucked through straws, was 
 intoxicating when unmixed with water, but very pleasant to those 
 accustomed to it. Xenophon does not say what name the natives 
 gave their drink ; but that the taste for beer requires to be learnt 
 IS proved by what is even now observed in inhabitants of southern 
 countries, who at first dislike the brown drink, but after some 
 practice often become passionately fond of it (note 41). We learn 
 from authors of a later period, that the Illyrians and Pannonians 
 called beer sabaia or sabaium ; but by that time it had become a 
 poor and common beverage, only drunk by the vulgar, while the 
 better classes, who already spoke Latin and Greek, had long 
 since drunk wine instead. When the Emperor Valens besieged 
 Chalcedon, the men on the walls mocked at him, calling him a 
 sabaiarius, beer-drinker. Cassius Dio, who ought to know them, 
 having governed Dalmatia and Upper Pannonia, pictures the 
 Pannonians as a poor northern people, living in a wintry climate 
 which produced neither wine nor oil, and not only eating but 
 drinking their millet and barley. More than two centuries later, 
 the remarkable report of Prisons, who traversed the Pannonian 
 
122 BEER. 
 
 plains in 448 a.d., with the Greek embassy sent to King Attila, 
 furnishes a vivid picture of the country and the habits of its 
 mixed races. Instead of wheat the embassy were everywhere 
 supplied with millet, and instead of wine with mead — so-called by 
 the natives ; while the servants got millet and a drink prepared 
 from barley, which the barbarians called camum. But we are not 
 told which barbarians used this name; certainly not the Huns, 
 for the word is more ancient than the arrival of that horde in 
 Europe. In Ulpian's Digest (beginning of the third century) 
 camum is not to be reckoned in legacies as wine ; and in the so- 
 called edict of Diocletian of the year 301 the maximum price of 
 camum is prescribed among other things. The word seems to be 
 Celtic, and may have become domesticated in Pannonia during 
 the great Celtic migrations, or been brought there by Roman 
 soldiers. All this proves that in what is now Hungary, in lUyria 
 and Thrace, that is, in the larger northern half of the Greco-Turkish 
 peninsula ; in Phrygia, Armenia, Egypt, Spain and Portugal, and 
 down to the mountains of the Genoese coast, beer — now almost 
 unknown to the common people in those countries — was once in 
 general use. 
 
 Turning to the inhabitants of Central and Northern Europe, 
 the Celts, Germans, Lithuanians, and Slavs — all of them nations 
 of Indo-European blood — we get our oldest account of the food 
 and drink of the first-named people, the Celts, from Pytheas of 
 Massilia, who probably lived in the time of Aristotle, or soon after. 
 Strabo reports him as saying of the nations with whom he became 
 acquainted on his coasting voyage to the Northern Sea, that they 
 had " hardly any garden fruits or domestic animals, that they fed 
 on millet and other herbs, berries, and roots j while those who 
 cultivated corn and honey prepared their drink also out of those 
 substances " (therefore beer and mead). The winter of the 
 Scythians, that is, of northern peoples in general, the long nights, 
 the fur clothing, subterranean dwellings, and lastly the fermented 
 drink instead of wine, are described by Virgil (Georg. iii. 376-383) 
 in almost the same words as by Tacitus afterwards : 
 
 " Et pocula Iseti 
 Fermcnto atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis. " 
 
BEER. 123 
 
 At the beginning of the first century B.C. beer was the popular 
 beverage of the Celts in Central France, while the upper classes 
 already drank Massiliote wine. Celtic beer is not seldom men- 
 tioned by later authors ; in Northern France, Belgium, and the 
 British Isles it held its ground both under the Roman Empire and 
 through the Middle Ages, and does so to the present day. The 
 Emperor Julian, who had seen and no doubt tasted it, but who 
 clung to classical manners and recoiled from the barbaric, whether 
 east or north, ridicules the Parisian pseudo-Bacchus in a well- 
 known epigram, "Child of the bearded barley, wilt thou call thyself 
 Dionysus?" and so on. Ammianus knows the Gauls as a people 
 fond of wine, but forced to put up with beer and cider as substi- 
 tutes. The korma of Posidonius, kourmt of Dioscorides, still lives 
 in Celtic languages, with the usual change of m into v axi&f. The 
 word may be of the same origin as the Spanish cerea, in which 
 case both name and thing may either have come from Spain to 
 the Celts, or travelled with the Celts from Gaul to Celtiberia. In 
 a more developed form, as cervesia, cerevisia, it occurs first in Pliny, 
 then quite commonly in the Middle Ages, and still exists in the 
 Romance tongues, as French cervoise, etc. Another Celtic word, 
 brace, meaning first a kind of grain (spelt), then malt, beer-spice, 
 and beer itself, has, with its numerous offshoots and the general 
 sense of " fermentation " running through them, found its way 
 into Middle Latin, the N. Romance tongues, and even German 
 A proof of the deeply rooted custom of beer-drinking among the 
 British Celts is afforded by the life of St. Bridget. That saint re- 
 peated the miracle of the marriage at Cana, with the difference that 
 she changed the water into beer. She also increased the store of 
 beer, milk, and butter by a mere glance of the eye. 
 
 East of the Celts, the Germans became the more addicted to 
 beer-drinking the more they turned their attention to agriculture. 
 Caesar does not speak of beer as a German drink, but a century and 
 a half later Tacitus does ; though Pliny, when he mentions beer, is 
 silent as to the Germans. These, when pressing forward to the Lower 
 Rhine and the sources of the Danube, must have soon adopted the 
 use of beer from the Celts; those on the Lower Danube must 
 have found the beverage among the primitive Thracians and Pan- 
 
124 BEER. 
 
 nonians, and were probably till then unacquainted with it ; but it 
 is a well-known fact that barbarians adopt nothing more readily 
 than the means of intoxication. Grimm derives the German word 
 bier from the Latin bibere, and the North-German word ale (which 
 passed to the Finns and Lithuanians) from the Latin oleum. 
 Those who are startled by this, must remember that beer is a pro- 
 duct and a pleasure of the agriculturist, and that its manufacture, 
 even when rude, demands a knowledge of technics only possible 
 where agriculture is practised ; that there was a period when the 
 Germans roved through Europe as a pastoral nation ; that at the 
 period when we first become acquainted with them, they were only 
 beginning to adopt a settled mode of life, and that it is therefore 
 foolish to regard beer and beer-drinking as originally German, and 
 inseparable from the essence and idea of Germanism ; that, if the 
 use and brewing of beer had been the ruling characteristic custom 
 of the Germans, the ancients would not have been so chary of 
 mentioning it, and would not have withheld from us the names of 
 beer and ale, for they reported all the Thracian, Spanish, and Celtic 
 nariies of the things that struck them as strange ; that, finally, the 
 nearest neighbours of the Germans, the Prussians, in the time of 
 Wulfstan and King Alfred, drank only mead and fermented mares' 
 milk, and were ignorant of beer, which allows us to make certain 
 inferences as to the Germans in the earlier stages of their civiliza- 
 tion. In any case, the raw fermentum which was drunk in the 
 " subterranean dens " of the Germans of Tacitus, would be very 
 distasteful to their modern and fastidious descendants. To say 
 nothing else, let it be remembered that the hop-plant only reached 
 Germany (apparently from the east) in consequence of the German 
 movement against Rome, though it has now frequently run wild, 
 and that the mixing of this narcotic plant with beer only came inio 
 gradual use in the Middle Ages. It is true that St. Columban, 
 about the year 600, once found a cupa filled with beer, and hold- 
 ing about twenty-six modii, among the Suevians, who were about 
 to offer it to their god Wodan ; but in the course of the Middle 
 Ages beer went almost entirely out of use in South Germany, 
 owing to the same agencies as in South and Central France ; so 
 that Bavaria became entirely a wine-land, lill in recent times North- 
 
BEER. 
 
 125 
 
 German beer, by improved methods of preparation, especially the 
 art of making it keep, and by cheapness of price, again recovered 
 the ground lost. Beer, which at the beginning of European history 
 was chiefly a Celtic beverage, is now considered a distinguishing 
 mark of the German man and German manners ; so completely 
 do modes of civilization, in the course of long periods, shift from 
 land to land and from nation to nation, and so easily is he deceived 
 who has his eye on the present alone ! At the same time, we allow 
 that malt, that is, the melted, softened, is a true German word (so 
 the all-healing "extract of malt" can boast of being at least half 
 German) ; but brewing is a word whose origin cannot be decided 
 with any certainty : the Thracian briiton looks as though it must 
 mean the brewed ; the Lithuanian bruwele, brewer, is isolated, and 
 must have been borrowed from the German. The Gothic leithus 
 ( = sicera, intoxicating drink), which is also found in the other 
 Teutonic tongues, and has only lately died out in High German, 
 feems identical with the Old Irish lind, now linn, lionn, leann or 
 llyn, according to the dialect, so that leithus stands for linthus, and 
 is probably borrowed from the Celtic, especially as it is Tyanting in 
 the Slavic. 
 
 Still farther east, the Lithuanians have borrowed their alu^ 
 (beer) from their German neighbours, but the Slavs have formed 
 their own pivo quite in an abstract manner from the wtrb pitiy 
 to drink. The Old Slavic olii, olovina, sicera. New Slavic ol, 
 cerevisia, and Wallachian olovin, have the same origin as our 
 ale. Old Norse ol. Another Slavic word, braga, braha, braya 
 (a common drink similar to beer, Lithuanian, broga), points to- 
 the Celtic brace. As it is wanting in the Teutonic languages (a 
 sign of late and foreign derivation), and as it may have been bor- 
 rowed by the Lithuanians from the Slavic, perhaps after the in- 
 troduction of brandy, it may have reached the Slavs after the 
 time when Celtic races had wandered back again to Bohemia 
 and Pannonia, and into the Danubian districts. Of the twO' 
 Finnic and Esthonian expressions for the commonest small beer 
 (potus vilissimus ex hordeo), kalja, kalli s.nd. taari, taar, the first 
 resembles the Spanish ccelia; not that we would venture to deduce- 
 from it an Iberian-Finnish relationship or connexion. 
 
126 MEAD. 
 
 In the lime-tree forests of the east of Europe, among the 
 nomads and half-nomads of the Volga region, quite at the back 
 of the Slavs, the intoxicating drink made of honey played a 
 greater part than beer, and was certainly much older. It may be 
 presumed that mead was a primitive drink of the Indo-Germans 
 when they migrated into Europe, and that it only, like so many 
 other things, lasted longer in the east of the continent In 
 Greece, where beer-drinking was always considered a barbaric 
 custom, we find here and there some traces of a drink made 
 of honey having preceded the wine period. The Taulantians, an 
 Illyrian people, made wine from honey. "When the honey is 
 squeezed out of the combs," says Aristotle (besides other pro- 
 cesses), "an agreeable strong drink, like wine, is produced. 
 Some persons succeeded in producing the same in Greece, dif- 
 ferent in no way from old wine; but afterwards, with all their 
 exertions, they could not hit upon the right mixture." It is 
 perhaps a sign of the abundance of honey in the regions beyond 
 the Ister, that the Thracians in the time of Herodotus said the 
 country was so full of bees that it was impossible to penetrate 
 into it. The same thing was once believed of Liineburg Heath. 
 Mead is further distinguished as a Scythian beverage, made from 
 the honey of wild bees. The Byzantine envoy Priscus gives the 
 native Pannonian name medos, which is identical with the Old 
 Irish mid. Old Cambrian med, and the Slavic medu; the last being 
 not only honey and mead, but sometimes (in composition) standing 
 for wine, like the Greek methu. The modern Lithuanians dis- 
 tinguish medus, honey, from middus^ mead ; in the corresponding 
 German word the meaning of honey has entirely disappeared. 
 Even now in Slav countries beer is not the popular, indispensable, 
 traditional drink; it is true mead also has become rarer every 
 year in Russia and Poland, principally because sugar has put an 
 end to bee-keeping ; its place is taken by that devilish invention, 
 brandy, which decimates the present generation, and poisons the 
 life-springs of the next 
 
BUTTER. 
 
 The history of butter nins parallel to that of beer. Butter may 
 be termed a product of the art and habits of the shepherd, as 
 beer is of those of the husbandman. Milk kept in skins would 
 of course, when carried about on horseback or in a waggon — and 
 all northern nations rode in waggons — be churned into butter, 
 and the effect produced on cream when exposed to the warmth 
 of the stove was similar. The butter thus separated could be 
 used either for eating, for anointing the hair, or as salve for wounds. 
 The Greeks and Romans of the best period were ignorant of 
 butter, and there is no sign of their having been acquainted with 
 it before the introduction of olive oil. In spite of this, rather 
 early testimony describes the nations in the vicinity of the two 
 classic lands as making butter, which they must therefore have 
 learned to produce after the dispersion of the nations. That 
 great traveller, Solon, speaks of the fat obtained by stirring milk, 
 and uses it as a simile for the gain which selfish leaders know 
 how to extract from political disturbance. Before the time of 
 Herodotus, Hecatseus said that the Paeonians on the Strymon, 
 the same that lived in pile dwellings and brewed two kinds of 
 beer, "used salve made of the oil of milk.'' The comic poet 
 Anaxandrides, who flourished about the middle of the fourth 
 ■century b.c, speaks of rough-haired, butter-eating men sitting at 
 the table of the Thracian king Kotys, who married his daughter 
 to Iphicrates. Herodotus had heard a vague report of a Scythian 
 mode of treating the milk of mares ; after saying that the nomadic 
 Scythians used to blind their slaves, he continues, " they make 
 them sit round the hollow wooden milk-vessels and stir (or swing) 
 them round and round ; the stuff that rises to the top is skimmed, 
 
I2S BUTTER. 
 
 and considered more valuable than what sinks to the bottom." 
 Hippocrates describes the process more particularly. " The Scy- 
 thians," he says, "pour mares' milk into wooden vessels, which 
 they then shake; thereby the parts are separated, and the fat, 
 which they call bouiyron, being light, swims at the top, while the 
 heavier portion, sinking to the bottom, is taken out, dried, and 
 thickened, and is then called horse-cheese; in the middle is the 
 whey." This knowledge of the substance and the name was no 
 doubt obtained from Greek colonists on the Pontic coast (note 
 42). However, Aristotle seems either ignorant of, or not to have 
 noticed, the general use of butter, at least he never mentions the 
 name, production, or use of butter in his long description of the 
 milk of animals ; at the very most a few passing words might be 
 supposed to relate to butter. By the physicians hutyrum is now 
 and then mentioned as a medicament ; but Pliny, and even 
 Galen, still think it necessary to explain both the word and the 
 origin and use of the article to their readers. We may presume 
 that as the Thracians and Scythians made butter, the Phrygians 
 would do so too; and in fact Hippocrates has an expression, 
 pikerion, that seems to indicate Phrygian butter. A small quantity 
 of butter — very small compared with the other articles necessary 
 for the royal table — is mentioned as being daily furnished for the 
 Persian court. The butter is named along with sesam oil and tere- 
 binth oil, while the absence of olive oil from the list is characteristic. 
 A verse in the Old Testament shows that the Jews, at least at 
 a certain period, were acquainted with butter ; Proverbs xxx. 33 : 
 " Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter." The same 
 thmg seems true of the half-Semitic island of Cyprus, where butter 
 was called elphos (Hesychius), which Gesenius explains as Phoeni- 
 cian, but John Schmidt as the Sanskrit sarpis. In the "Periplus 
 maris Erythreei" (written under Titus and Domitian), it is said 
 that butter was brought from India to the ports of the Red Sea, 
 and that tropical land is spoken of as rich in rice, wool, sesam 
 oil, and butter ; wounded elephants were healed there by being 
 made to swallow butter, or by having their wounds smeared with 
 it. Strabo says that in Arabia, in the country of King Aretas, 
 the army of .^Elius Gallus could only get butter instead of oil. 
 
BUTTER. 129 
 
 From Strabo also we learn that the Ethiopians of the utmost 
 south used butter and fat, and the Lusitanians in the far west, 
 butter instead of oil. No doubt this Indian, Arabian, Ethiopian, 
 and Lusitanian butter was a liquid fat, just as, in the present 
 time, the Bedouin Arabs are greedy drinkers of the butter they 
 obtain from the milk of their sheep and goats. At the feast 
 held in Sicily in honour of the return of the Erycinian Venus, 
 the whole neighbourhood around her temple smelt of butter, 
 as a proof that the goddess had really returned from Africa. 
 The temple on the promontory of Eryx originally belonged 
 to the Elymians, a nation whose origin is doubtful and hidden 
 in legends. Whether they were a remnant of the Iberian race 
 spread through the islands of the western Mediterranean, or had 
 really immigrated from Asia, they are spoken of as a cow-keeping 
 race, and worshipped a corresponding deity, whose presence was 
 announced by the butter, whether used as ointment on the hair 
 and body or steaming in the pan. Pliny speaks of barbarians in 
 general, which from his point of view meant principally Germans, 
 as " delighting in butter, the possession of which distinguishes the 
 rich from the poor." The rich were able to keep butter, because 
 they did not immediately consume the milk of their large herds. 
 Pliny's description of the making of butter, however, is confused 
 and unpractical, another proof that the article was foreign to 
 the classic world. In another place he remarks that the more 
 civilized and half-Romanized races used butter, as well as milk 
 and eggs, in making pastry. At this time, then, appeared the 
 art of making cakes, which had remained undeveloped among 
 the Greeks and Romans for want of butter, and because of the 
 very slight use they made of yeast — the use of which is likewise a 
 Northern custom. It is remarkable enough that the word butter 
 came to most nations of Western and Central Europe in a round- 
 about way from the Pontus Euxinus across Greece and Italy — 
 two countries which scarcely knew and did not value the article 
 designated by that word. Perhaps a trace of its origin is pre- 
 served in the Magyar word vai ; Lapp, wuoi; Finnic and Esthc- 
 nian wot, woid, etc. 
 
 The art of rendering butter, by means of repeated washing, 
 
 9 
 
I30 BUTTER. 
 
 patting, and salting, as pure and firm as we now see it, seems to 
 have originated among the North- German races. Even now the 
 difference between the butter of North and of South Germany 
 consists in the mode of preparation ; in North Germany the butter 
 is salted, as in Scandinavia and England; in South Germany 
 butter is eaten fresh, and food is prepared with schmalz (the 
 smelted, melted), that is, liquid butter. In the Alemannian 
 districts (not in the Swabian) this butter-schmalz is called anke 
 (a word that Grimm considers akin to ungere), and also schmutz. 
 The Scandinavians call butter smear (Swedish smor, smSrj'a, etc., 
 like our O.H.Germ. anchun-smero, anc-stnero). Salbe, salve, may 
 also have been a primitive German word for butter. The Slavs 
 have the same word for butter as for oil ; maslo, literally a thing 
 to smear with {mdzati), thus agreeing with the above German 
 expressions. Both nations, Germans as well as Slavs, smeared 
 their hair, it would seem, with liquid butter, which when it turned 
 rank, would not diffuse the best of odours. That the Celts, at 
 least those of Galatia in Asia Minor, used to anoint themselves 
 with evil-smelling butter is proved by an anecdote in Plutarch. A 
 Lacedaemonian lady visited Berenice, the wife of King Deiotarus ; 
 when they came within smelling distance, they simultaneously 
 turned their backs on each other, the odour of ointment being 
 apparently repugnant to the one, and that of butter to the other. 
 In out-of-the-way villages of northern countries this custom has 
 not yet died out among the women and children, but elsewhere it 
 has been supplanted by the use of fomatum, in which, as the 
 name indicates, some sweet-scented fruit (Ital. fovw) is mixed. 
 Originally it was also a dye for the hair, and only in recent times 
 has it become a mere ointment. The invention, like that of 
 soap, seems to be an old Belgian one, for the ancient Gauls, like 
 their Parisian descendants of to-day, were artists of the toilette. 
 
 How can we more fittingly conclude our remarks on the three 
 primitive plants of the earliest higher civilization — the Vine, 
 OUve, and Fig-tree — than by quoting the significant parable in 
 the ninth chapter of Judges ? I will write it down, as I fear the 
 Book containing it nowadays is but seldom read : " The trees. 
 
VINE. OLIVE. fIG. 131 
 
 went forth on a time to anoint a king over them ; and they said 
 unto the Olive-tree, Reign thou over us. But the Olive-tree said 
 unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they 
 honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? 
 And the trees said to the Fig-tree, Come thou, and reign over us. 
 But the Fig-tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, 
 and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees ? Then 
 said the trees unto the Vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And 
 the Vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth 
 God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees ? Then said 
 all the trees unto the Bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. 
 And the Bramble said unto the trees. If in truth ye anoint me 
 king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow : and 
 if not, let fire come out of the Bramble, and devour the cedars of 
 Lebanon." What a picture of Syrian nature and Semitic life ! 
 Those monstrous thorns and prickly plants of the desert, the 
 acacia bushes — which a man cannot approach unless he be armed 
 with long iron prongs to grasp and cut — become as dry as 
 skeletons in the summer heat, and afford no " shade ; " if by 
 accident they catch fire, the conflagration spreads to the very 
 horizon, devouring the fruit-trees it finds on its way. So the 
 destructive fires of conquest and despotism raged all over Asia, 
 devouring all humble homes, all hives of peaceful industry. The 
 terrible majesty of the rulers of Nineveh and Babylon glowed 
 merciless, like the sun in summer, burning up nations as 
 the thornbush did the cedars of Lebanon; while the Olive, the 
 Fig-tree, the Vine, resembled the man who, within his small 
 province, accomplishes works of peace, and benefits mankind. 
 
 And to this day, politics and " music" — in the Greek sense — 
 are sworn enemies. Our great poet experienced it when be 
 attempted to " soar above the trees," and truth and love and, 
 above all, poetry, which cheereth God and man, threatened to 
 dry up within him. From that time he hated Revolution, which 
 seemed to him the flaming thornbush that destroyed both garden 
 and plantation. 
 
FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 (iJNuM USITATISSIMUM.) (CANNABIS SATIVA.) 
 
 In what part of the world flax originally appeared is one of the 
 many questions relating to cultivated plants that cannot yet be 
 answered decisively. The dry rocky soil of the Mediterranean 
 countries, the long summer drought and the sudden floods of 
 autumn, not being favourable to the growth of flax, its original 
 home has been sought in the colder and more humid regions of 
 Central Europe. But Egypt and Colchis show that it is not the 
 southern heat but the want of moisture that prevents the thriving 
 of the plant in the classic lands. When we hear of modern 
 travellers finding wild flax in Northern India, on the Altai moun- 
 tains, or at the foot of the Caucasus, and of its " growing 
 spontaneously all over Macedonia and Thrace," there is always 
 the possibility of a plant so long and extensively cultivated having 
 merely escaped the custody of man and gone wild in those places. 
 The twofold use to which both flax and hemp were put is another 
 important fact in their history ; namely, the use of their oily fruit 
 for food, and that of their fibre for ropes and tissues. The two uses 
 are not always found combined on the same soil and by the same 
 nation, and it is still a question which of the two first led to the 
 cultivation of the plant. In modern India linseed is pressed for 
 oil, but the plant itself is not utilized ; in Abyssinia, too, it only 
 serves for food. Herodotus says that the Scythians threw hemp 
 seed on hot stones at funeral ceremonies, at once purifying and 
 intoxicating themselves with the fumes ; it . is added immediately 
 after, that the Thracians moreover wove the plant into clothes 
 very similar to linen, implying that the Scythians did not. We 
 
FLAX. 133 
 
 find the Greeks very early baking linseed, as well as poppy and 
 sesam seeds, in honey, by way of pastry. During the Peloponne- 
 sian war, when the Athenians blockaded the Isle of Sphacteria, 
 divers brought to the besieged skins full of poppy-seed in honey 
 and pounded linseed. " In Italy, north of the Po," says Pliny, 
 " there was formerly a very sweet rustic food made of linseed, 
 which is now used only in sacrifices ;" — from the locality and the 
 sacrificial use we may conclude that this was an ancient Celtic or 
 Ligurian custom. 
 
 Far richer than the history of linseed as food is the history of 
 flax as a material for manufacture. The cultivation of flax in 
 Egypt and Western Asia goes back to the remotest antiquity. 
 Linen stuffs and clothes, napkins and fillets, tents and nets, ropes 
 and sails, are met with in universal use among the Egyptians, 
 among the Phoenicians, and in the Old Testament. The mural 
 paintings of ancient Egypt represent the whole process of pre- 
 paring the flax; the steeping, beetling, combing, bleaching, etc. 
 The microscope has proved that the mummies were wrapped in 
 linen (note 43), although assertions to the contrary have been 
 made. When we consider the length of the linen strips so used, 
 the number of the dead — it would have been an abomination to 
 bury a corpse in wool — and the universal use of linen as clothing 
 by the living ; when we hear that the only, costume of the priests 
 was of pure linen, they being only permitted to wear an upper 
 mantle of woollen when outside the temple ; and when we consider 
 the large exportation going on in those days, we are astonished 
 at the quantity of linen which must have been produced in the 
 regions of the Nile. The world-wide fame of the delicate and 
 arliitic fabrics which came from the Nile, and tlie quality of the 
 linen found on many mummies, jjrove that the Egyptian excelled 
 in this manufacture. King Amasis made gifts of linen corselets to 
 the Lacedamonians, and to the temple of Athena at Lindos in 
 the Island of Rhodes, interwoven with figures of animals and 
 embroidered with gold and cotton, the fibres being of such fine- 
 ness that each thread contained three hundred and sixty of them 
 (note 44). The identity of the Greek chiton, kithon (tunic) with 
 the Phoenician for linen, kitonet, ketonet, proves that the latter 
 
134 FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 bartered linen to the inhabitants of the Mediterranean coasts for 
 other wares. The Phoenicians, in their turn, procured the material 
 not only from Egypt, but from Palestine, where, as the Old Testa- 
 ment teaches us, flax was universally spun by the women, and 
 made into clothes, girdles, laces, lamp-wicks, etc. As the cotton 
 shrub [Gossypium herbaceuni) also grew in some of the warmer 
 parts of Palestine, it may be that cotton fabrics and fine linen 
 were not always distinguished in language or commerce. Phoe- 
 nician ships were not only impelled by means of oars, but also 
 by linen sails ; but what were the ropes used in the ships made 
 of? Perhaps of the Egyptian plant byblus, for flax seems hardly 
 strong enough. When Xerxes erected his great bridge of boats 
 over the Hellespont many centuries later, the Egyptians had to 
 furnish the necessary ropes of byblus, and the Phoenician ropes 
 of leuko-linon, white flax. Salmasius understood this to mean 
 macerated flax, in contrast to raw. But the whiteness of the ropes 
 that support a bridge is of no consequence, strength only is 
 required, and leuko-linon means no other than the leukea, leukaia 
 (spart-grass, Stipa tenacissimd), which Athenseus says was procured 
 from Spain by Hiero II. for his splendid ship. In Xerxes' time 
 the Phoenicians had long known and used this Spanish plant. 
 The Babylonians too, more in the interior of the Asian continent, 
 wore linen tunics. Strabo already praises the Babylonian town 
 Borsippa for its linen, and what was true of his time, will, in 
 such a stationary country, have been also true of a much earlier 
 period. Farther north the cultivation of flax flourished at Col- 
 chis, that is, in the marshy regions at the south-western foot of 
 the Caucasus, where it grew so abundantly and was of such good 
 quality that Herodotus thought it another proof of the identity of 
 race between the Colchians and Egyptians (note 45). This 
 Colchian flax and the fine flax of Carthage were used for all kinds 
 of nets. The whole of the East was acquainted with the art of 
 dyeing linen, interweaving it with lustrous threads, embroidering 
 it with arabesques or figures in gold-thread, etc. ; and linen gar- 
 ments, ornamented in this manner, and of an almost transparent 
 fineness, formed the gorgeous costume worn at the courts and 
 harems of tlie Great King and his satraps. The priests of Western 
 
FLAX. 13s 
 
 Asia, those of Jehovah not excepted, were clad, like the Egyptians, 
 in pure white linen, the symbol of light and innocence. When 
 the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, he put off his gay outer 
 garment, and assumed one woven of white hyssus. This Egyptian 
 and Asiatic custom was afterwards adopted in Europe by the 
 Pythagoreans, the Orphic priests, the priests of Isis, and by 
 penitents and pilgrims ; it is preserved to this day in the white 
 surplices used in Christian churches. 
 
 The gaily embroidered linen iatls and flags with gold and 
 purple borders, and the similar awnings used on the ships and 
 barks of the Oriental despots were famous ; and this half-barbarie 
 luxury was adopted by the Greek kings. Theseus, sailing home 
 from Crete, hoisted a purple sail as a sign of his safety ; and 
 Alcibiades, triumphantly returning to his native land from banish- 
 ment, ventured to run into harbour on a trireme with purple sails. 
 Cleopatra's ship at Actium had also such a sail, by the help of 
 which, towards the close of the battle, she made for the open sea. 
 
 Another certainly very ancient use of flax in Asia was to make it 
 into linen corselets, by which, in war or the chase, the sharp arrows 
 of the enemy, or the teeth and claws of lions and panthers, were 
 blunted. The Phoenician and Philistine crews in the armada of 
 Xerxes wore linen corselets ; so did the Assyrian warriors. Xeno- 
 phon says that the king of the Susians assumed the customary linen 
 armour; and the Ten Thousand found the same sort of war clothing 
 among the Chalybes in Armenia. The Mossynceci, a Pontic nation, 
 wore tunics down to the knee, as coarse as the sacks into which the 
 Greeks of that time used to stuff their bed-cushions when remov- 
 ing or travelling. In the Carthaginian army, which consisted of 
 mercenaries of many nations, the linen corselets was a common 
 piece of armour. 
 
 That the Greeks of the epic period could not be ignorant of a 
 product anciently known throughout Asia, goes without saying. 
 The only question is, whether the linen clothing mentioned by 
 Homer was imported, or whether the raw material was native, and 
 spun and woven into stuffs by the women ? It is evident from 
 the name, and probably from the connexion in which it occurs, 
 that otlwne, the fine white linen garment worn by women, that 
 
136 FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 a product of Asiatic and not of Grecian skill. In the Iliad, we 
 see Helen — a queen who was already acquainted with Semitic 
 and Phrygian luxury, and had just woven' a purple garment on 
 which the battles of the Trojans and Achseans were embroidered — 
 hurrying from her chamber wrapped in white linen. On Achilles' 
 shield there are figured — 
 
 " The maids in soft cymars of linen dress'd ; 
 The youths all graceful in the glossy vest." 
 
 In the wonderful Phseacian palace some fifty maidens, dressed in 
 close-woven garments that drip with oil, 
 
 " Form the household train; 
 Some turn the mill, or sift the golden grain ; 
 Some ply the loom ; their busy fingers move 
 Like poplar leaves when Zephyr fans the grove." 
 
 The fine bed-sheets for which Homer uses a European name, linon, 
 not to be found in the East, might still be of foreign make. 
 Linen, besides fleeces and woollen stuffs, was indispensable for a 
 well-prepared bed : 
 
 " Meantime, Achilles' slaves prepared a bed, 
 With fleeces, carpets, and soft linen spread." 
 
 The same description applies to the couch prepared for Ulysses 
 on board the Phaeacian ship. Of what material the sails of the 
 Homeric ships were made, the Odyssey teaches us by the 
 constant epithet of "white sails," that is, linen; and when Calypso 
 brings cloths {pharea) to Ulysses, of which to make sails for his 
 new ship, the adjectives used, being the same as those which 
 describes Calypso's own garment {ph&ros), show that these cloths 
 w ere also linen. Flax, however, could not have been the material 
 of the ropes. Of what these consisted is sufficiently shown by 
 passages in the Odyssey. The broken mast of Ulysses' ship was 
 bound with a rope of neafs leather, which is also described as 
 " well-twisted," therefore consisting of many smaller thongs twisted 
 together. But, besides straps of neat's leather, we find in the 
 Odyssey a rope of byblos, with which Philoetius causes the outer 
 gate to be fastened : 
 
FLAX. 137 
 
 " Secures the court and with a cable ties 
 The utmost gate (the cable strongly wrought 
 Of byblus reed, a ship from Egypt brought)." 
 
 Now, as these cables of Egyptian bast must have been brought to 
 the Greeks by Semitic sailors, the cloth of Calypso's dress, and 
 sail-cloth in general, may have been also imported from foreign 
 lands. Homer further uses the word linon for fishing-lines and 
 nets, and for the thread on the spindle. Patroclus thrusts his 
 sword into the jaws of Thestor, and drags him out of his chariot 
 as an angler draws out a fish with a flaxen line. Sarpedon calls 
 to Hector to beware of falling into the toils of the enemy, as if • 
 caught in the meshes of a linen-net. Linon appears in the symbol 
 of the Fates spinning the thread of life : Achilles is to suffer the 
 destiny spun for him by the Fates with linen thread at his birth. 
 
 When we remember that even now raw flax is sent by ship- 
 loads to the southern countries, there to be spun by the women 
 and girls sitting outside their houses, or while tending their sheep 
 and goats, we may well imagine the women of Homer (and, like 
 them, the Fates) spinning P^gyptian, Palestine, or Colchian flax 
 into thread and weaving it into nets. It is another question 
 whether the word linon be not a much older one in Europe, 
 known there before the introduction of flax, and signifying fibre 
 in general, and the stuffs knitted or woven from it. Fishing with 
 the line or the net is a very primitive occupation, and even 
 savages know how to tuist fibres and plait flexible matting from 
 all kinds of nettle-plants or from the bast of certain trees. And 
 why should the Fates in Homer spin specially flaxen, and not 
 woollen threads, as they do later? The linen corselets mentioned 
 twice in the Catalogue of Ships may have been Asiatic wares. In 
 one of these passages, which has quite the appearance of being a 
 late insertion, Ajax the leader of the Locrians is called lino-tJiorax 
 (linen-corse! eted) ; in the other, the same epithet is applied to the 
 son of Merops, an ally of the Trojans. It is not surprising that 
 the latter, a half barbarian Asiatic, should appear in the same dress 
 as the Chalybes described by Xenophon; but the adjective appUed 
 to the leader of the Locrians is evidently connected with the 
 manner of battle peculiar to that race of Greeks ; they did not 
 
138 FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 fight man to man, or hurl the -spear, nor" did they wear iron 
 helmets and shields, but used arrows and slings, shooting at the 
 enemy from a distance, and they wisely wore the lighter tunic, 
 quilted or woven. From that time the linen corselet is now and 
 then mentioned through the whole of Greek antiquity. In the 
 famous oracle, now become proverbial, which was given forth to 
 the .(Egians in the middle of the seventh century b.c, the 
 Argives are styled "linen-corseleted."' Alcseus (600 b.c.) mentions 
 breastplates of linon ; at Olympia were preserved three linen 
 corselets offered by Gelon and the Syracusans after their victories 
 by land and sea over the Carthaginians ; and Pausanias saw 
 corselets of the same description hanging in various sanctuaries 
 — for instance, in the temple of the Gryneian Apollo ; Iphicrates 
 furnished the Athenian warriors with linen corselets instead of the 
 former iron ones, to make them more nimble. Amidst the band 
 of the ^ginetes, Teucer the brother of Ajax wears over a sleeve- 
 less, richly-pleated under-shirt a linen corselet " double-winged," 
 the two ends of which fall forward over his shoulders ; Hercules, 
 over an under-garment with a pleated border, has a linen corselet, 
 but with only one end hanging over his left shoulder ; the Locrians 
 retained this kind of garment, both in accordance with Homeric 
 precedent and the ancient ci;stom of that partly pre-Hellenic race ; 
 and it was natural that Hercules the hero, armed with club and 
 bow, should wear with the lion's hide the oldest war-costume, not 
 the coat of mail or panoply of the Dorian chivalry. But woollen 
 clothing was the rule among the Greeks, for linen was considered 
 luxurious and effeminate, equally when white and lustrous, and 
 when ornamented by dyeing embroidery and fringes. The lonians 
 in Asia adopted the long flowing linen garment from their Carian 
 subjects and rich neighbours ; from the lonians the custom spread 
 to the kindred Athenians, who very early adopted Oriental civili- 
 zation. Herodotus relates as the occasion of it, that after an 
 unlucky battle with the ^ginetes, the only Athenian soldier that 
 escaped was pricked to death by the infuriated women, to whom 
 he brought the news of their husbands' loss, with the pins of their 
 brooches that fastened their dresses; it was therefore decreed 
 that they should lay aside the Dorian woollen robe, which was 
 
FLAX. 139 
 
 merely thrown on and fastened with pins, and adopt the Ionian, 
 or, as Herodotus adds, really Old-Carian linen tunic [kithon), 
 which was ready sewed and shaped, and required no brooch. 
 But this Ionian linen dress went out of use again at Athens, for 
 Thucydides says, in a much disputed passage, that towards the 
 time of the Peloponnesian war the ancient woollen garment was 
 once again worn by the Athenians, and only a few of the richer 
 conservative citizens refused to abandon their accustomed luxury. 
 Since that time only the women wore linen textures, the finer 
 kinds of which were procured from foreign countries. 
 
 There is no certain ancient testimony as to the cultivation 
 of the plant itself in Greece. In Hesiod's poems flax is never 
 mentioned ; and even later it is only once named by Theophras- 
 tus as requiring a fertile soil. At a very late period Pausanias 
 says that the inhabitants of Elis sowed hemp, linseed, and byssus, 
 according to the nature of the ground. Leake, in his " Morea," 
 says that flax grows in Elis even now, but is of a coarse kind. 
 It is certain that at no time did flax hold a prominent place in 
 Greek agriculture as it did in many parts of Asia. 
 
 Linen clothes and stuffs must have reached Italy at an early 
 period. If Diogenes of Laerte be right, linen was not yet known 
 in the cities of Magna Grsecia at the time of Pythagoras, i.e., the 
 latter half of the sixth century B.C., so that the philosopher, unlike 
 the later Pythagoreans, was obliged to dress in pure white wool ; 
 but probably what is meant is, that the Ionian linen dress was 
 not in use at Croton, and Pythagoras dressed like every one else. 
 The Latin word llnum does not agree in quantity with the Homeric 
 Itnon, but it does with the usage of the Athenian Comic poets ; 
 therefore, if it was a borrowed word, it had come from a district 
 whose dialect was nearly related to the Attic. At an early period 
 we hear of old Roman linen books, libri lintei, to whose authority 
 some annalists still refer ; from the name we may suppose that 
 they were written on bast; it could not be real linen, because the 
 ancients did not weave long pieces of stuff intended to be cut, as 
 we do, but single articles of apparel ready for immediate use. 
 I'rom Livy we learn that after tlie middle of the fifth century B.C. 
 the Etruscans of Veil wore Uiien armour; at least their king. 
 
140 FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 Tolumnius, wore a linen corselet when he rode to battle, for he 
 was killed by A. Cornelius Cossus, who dedicated the thorax 
 linteus of his vanquished enemy to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius 
 in the Capitol. When that temple, after falling into decay, was 
 restored by Augustus, he read the inscription on the thorax itself, 
 so that its genuineness could not be doubted. The Faliscans, 
 neighbours of the Veians, who had taken part in the same battle, 
 are described by the poet Silius Italicus as wearing linen. Another 
 Etruscan city, the ancient Tarquinii, not very far off, supplied 
 linen for sails to the Roman fleet towards the end of the second 
 Punic war, when all the allies were obliged to furnish whatever 
 material their several countries produced. The whole region ot 
 the Tiber, where it flowed to the sea through shrubby wildernesses, 
 is described by Gratius Faliscus as growing flax. That damp 
 region was not only peculiarly fitted for the plant, but was the 
 scene of a very early commerce. Livy tells us that the Samnites, 
 towards the end of the fourth century B.C., raised two armies, one 
 having shields overlaid with gold, and one with silver, and both 
 wearing plumes on their helmets ; the warriors with gilt shields 
 wore parti-coloured linen tunics, those with silvered shields white 
 tunics, the coloured ones being probably dyed and woven in the 
 distant East, for their possession of the precious metals of itself 
 implies commerce with foreign countries. Still more significant 
 is another event reported by Livy, which till now has scarcely 
 attracted the attention, of mythologists. In the year 293 B.C., 
 the Samnites with great difficulty collected an army of 40,000 
 men near Aquilonia. In the centre of the camp was a space two 
 hundred feet every way, surrounded with trellis-work and planks, 
 and roofed over with linen. There, in accordance with old 
 traditions and the text of a liber linteus, a sacrifice was offered 
 up, and then the nobles of the people were led in one by one. 
 The sight of the unusual form of sacrifice, the altar in the midst 
 , of the covered space, the newly-slaughtered animals lying around, 
 and the centurions standing with drawn swords, greatly impressed 
 the man who entered ; he felt more like a victim than like a 
 sacrificer. He first had to swear not to reveal what he saw and 
 heard, and then, in a horrible formula, invoking destruction 
 
FLAX. 
 
 141 
 
 on himself, his family, and his kindred, he made a solemn oath 
 to follow his leaders to battle, never to fly from the field, and 
 immediately to kill any one whom he saw attempting to do so. 
 When some men, at the beginning of the ceremony, refused to 
 take the oath, they were killed at the foot of the altar, and the 
 sight of their corpses made those who followed more compliant. 
 The nobles having thus bound themselves by oath, the general 
 singled out ten men, whom he ordered to choose each a com- 
 panion, and these again others, so that finally an army of 16,000 
 was assembled. This legion was called the legio linieata, from 
 the covering of the place where they had sworn to conquer or to 
 die. They received splendid weapons and plumed helmets ; 
 nevertheless they were completely destroyed by the Romans in 
 one bloody battle. But why was the place covered with linen, 
 and why was the legion named from that fact? Possibly under 
 the operation of Pythagorean religious ideas, by which the Sam- 
 nites, as other things prove, were not uninfluenced. When the 
 Romans entered upon the inheritance of the Samnites and Greeks, 
 linen garments, vestes lintece, were, as in the East and in Greece, 
 a costly and luxurious apparel : among luxuries of the East, such 
 as purple from Tyre, incense, sweet-smelling essences, fine wines, 
 gems, and pearls, Cicero mentions linen dresses, much as we say 
 " diamonds and lace." The boys who served at sumptuous 
 banquets wore tight-fitting linen, so as to be nimbler in their 
 movements. Beautiful freed-women revealed rather than hid 
 their charms by gauzy textures of the isles of Cos and Amorgos ; 
 rich magnates and emperors spread a linen roof over the theatre 
 or forum to protect the spectators, or the judges and the Judged, 
 from the rays of the sun. Amid the changes of fashion, of which 
 there were complaints as early as the Republican period, new 
 shapes in linen dresses, kerchiefs, fillets, etc., were frequent; 
 there were the supparus (originally the name of a small sail, then 
 of a woman's dress, like the later camisia, shirt or chemise), and 
 the sudarium, a kind of napkin or handkerchief, which— as Catullus 
 says that it came from a celebrated flax region in Spain, and 
 Vatinus calls it white — must have been made of linen. It was 
 afterwards called orarium, and formed part of the dress of Chris- 
 
142 
 
 FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 tian priests at mass. Linen thread was used for fishing lines, for 
 tying letters, for weaving stout bathing towels and table-cloths ; 
 the latter, under the name of mantelia, mantda, intended to 
 preserve the costly wood from being marked by the dishes. But 
 the plant itself could hardly, or only to a small extent, have been 
 cultivated in that part of Italy which lay south of Rome, although 
 that half of the peninsula was, in the early times of the Roman 
 dominion, the civilized part, that which gave and took, the high 
 road into the old world, the part to which one might say the eyes 
 of the capital were turned. Cato never alludes to flax, Varro 
 but slightly, and Columella names it once, together with pease, 
 beans, and lentils, as a thing that might possibly find a place in 
 some corner of the kitchen-garden. But a chapter on flax and 
 its culture in the nineteenth book of Pliny opens to us a very 
 different view, one that carries us outside of the Graeco-Roman 
 world. Here we learn that though on its introduction to Europe 
 the culture of flax, which had long flourished on the Nile and in 
 the heart of Asia, did not take kindly to the warm mountainous 
 regions of the two classic peninsulas, it soon throve luxuriantly 
 in the damp, foggy plains of the barbarians, in freshly broken 
 land still rich in the humus of the forest. Herodotus describes 
 a maiden of the Pseonian nation in Thrace with flax on her 
 spindle ; at the opposite end of Europe, Spain is celebrated both 
 in early and late times for its flax production ; at the battle of 
 Cannse the Iberians wore purple-bordered linen tunics; fine 
 sieves of linen-thread were originally a Spanish invention; the 
 Emporians manufactured linen; the fine product of Tarraco 
 (called there by the Phoenician name carbasus, itself supposed 
 to be the Indian word for cotton) and of Ssetabis, stood in high 
 repute, and is often mentioned ; and though this may not surprise 
 us with regard to places on the Mediterranean coast, which were 
 early open to various civilizing influences, we hear with astonish- 
 ment of flax being cultivated by the rude Asturians in the distant 
 city of Zoelse on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean ; and of linen, 
 armour being worn by the wild robber-tribes of Lusitanians in the 
 interior. But in Italy there had been, from the earliest times, a 
 zone of flax-culture in all the parts accessible from the Adriatic, 
 
FLAX. 14., 
 
 both in the well-watered plains, in the tract inhabited first by 
 Etruscans and then by Celts, and in the Ligurian and Venetian 
 districts. Pliny mentions different kinds of North-Italian flax as 
 the best in Europe after that of Spain ; namely that of Fanza in 
 the Romagna (even now highly valued), that of Retovium (near 
 Voghera), and that of the regio aliana between the Po and Ticino 
 (the two last being on Old Ligurian ground). We have already 
 seen that the Etruscans cultivated flax very early, another proof 
 of the connexion of that people with the north, and of the Tiber 
 being a border Une where two civilizations met. As for the other 
 side of the Alps, Pliny describes all the inhabitants of Gaul as 
 weaving linen, up to the Celtic inhabitants of the Netherlands, 
 the Morini, who were considered the outermost nation, so that 
 Belgian flax and Flemish linen can date their pedigree from the 
 first century a.d. There is a trace of this in the Italian word 
 renso, " fine flax,'' from the town of Rheims whence it came. Pliny 
 says, " This industry has spread even to the Germans at the other 
 side of the Rhine ; the German woman knows not a dress more 
 beautiful than the linen one ; they sit in subterranean chambers 
 and there spin and weave." Tacitus says much the same, i.e., 
 that the women dress like the men, but more frequently wrap 
 themselves in linen drapery ornamented with crimson. 
 
 While we thus find the flax industry early adopted by the 
 nations of Central Europe, because it suited their soil and 
 climate, by Celto-Iberians on the Bay of Biscay, by Ligurians on 
 the Upper Po, and by Thracians, Celts, and Germans ; the very 
 name of linen shows that they had all derived the plant from the 
 classic nations, for that name extends all over the Continent, from 
 the Basques at the foot of the Pyrenees, through all the Celtic 
 and Germanic races to the Lithuanians, Slavs, Albanians, Magyars, 
 and Finns ; and is found in languages of the most varied origin 
 (note 46). 
 
 And not only did linen become a common necessary of life and 
 find several new apphcations among the barbarians, but those 
 new uses made their way into the customs of the then declining 
 ancient world. Linen as an essential part of everybody's dress 
 is of northern origin. As the use of stuffed beds, bolsters, and 
 
'-'A 
 
 FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 pillows covered with linen, was introduced into Italy from Gaul 
 — for antiquity was content with mere stramenta, i.e., layers of 
 carpets and soft stuffs— so the linen under-garment, the true 
 shirt, with which the Greeks and Romans were unacquainted 
 in its present form, was introduced by the barbarians, under the 
 new Gallic name of camisia, "chemise," which occurs for the first 
 time in St. Jerome. Before that time, only women of high rank 
 wore linen next the skin. Pliny remarks that even in his time 
 the family of the Serrani would not tolerate the shift as an article 
 of female dress, doubtless from a conservative attachment to old 
 customs. It was not a southern and classic, but a northern and 
 barbarian taste, that made the Emperor Alexander Severus, as 
 his biographer ^lius Lampridius reports, delight in fresh white 
 linen because it was not rough like wool, and scorn the luxurious 
 Oriental garment, purple-striped or even embroidered with gold 
 thread. A few decades later, the Emperor Aurelian presented 
 the Roman populace with sleeved white tunics manufactured in 
 different provinces, and also undyed linen ones from Egypt and 
 Africa. We learn by an edict of 301, that the long-celebrated 
 Syrian looms already furnished coarse linen for the common 
 people and slaves, there being among the articles mantles of 
 Gallic cut, with hoods like those now worn by monks ; binders for 
 wrapping the feet in place of the modern stocking ; sheets, and 
 covers for mattrasses and pillows, and various other things copied 
 (we believe) from the Gauls, and which became common neces- 
 saries among the lower classes only during the Imperial period. 
 A century later, St. Augustine tells us in so many words that 
 " outer garments are of wool, inner garments of linen,'' which the 
 saintly Father, with the mystical wit of the Middle Ages, compares 
 to the carnal and the spiritual mind. 
 
 Neither Pliny nor Tacitus tells us whether the raw flax spun 
 by the German women was imported from Gaul, like the red dye, 
 or whether flax was already cultivated in the interior, or limited to 
 the country on the Rhine, which had been the first to share in 
 Gallic culture. The dress worn by Cimbrian prophetesses — whom 
 Strabo describes as going barefoot, dressed in mantles of fine 
 flax confined by iron girdles and brooches, can hardly point 
 
FLAX. 
 
 145 
 
 to SO early a cultivation of flax on the Lower Elbe; for the 
 Cimbrians, if really of Germanic race, had, before their destruc- 
 tion by the Romans, roamed through Celtic, and even Celto- 
 Iberian lands, and had certainly become somewhat mixed with 
 that race. A legendary event is reported in the pre-Italian 
 history of the Longobards, which might possibly allude to a 
 German cultivation of flax. The Herulians, overcome by the 
 Longobards, mistook in their flight a field of blooming flax for 
 a lake, threw themselves into it as if to swim, and so were 
 overtaken by the enemy and destroyed. But the scene of this 
 legend is the region of the Theiss in Pannonia, where flax had 
 long been cultivated; and the time is late, about 500 a.d. As 
 the movement of German tribes went on, linen clothing became 
 more and more widely spread among them, and towards the end 
 of that movement it is expressly called the national dress of the 
 Germans. When the Goths, under the Emperor Valens, crossed 
 the Danube, their linen dresses trimmed with tassels excited the 
 greed of the Greeks. The Franks wore hose, some of leather, 
 some of linen (Agathias), and the elders of the Visigoths dirty 
 linen and short fur coats (Sidon. Apollinaris). Formerly, a 
 shirt of glossy linen, with red linen hose, was the costume of 
 aristocratic Franks. But in the time of Charlemagne the young 
 princes already preferred the short, striped Gallic sagum, while 
 the emperor continued to use the old national costume. When 
 the Germans — who for many centuries had been quiet inhabitants 
 of the coasts, and had only dared to plunder the neighbouring 
 shores of Belgium in light boats or the hollowed trunks of trees — 
 suddenly began to undertake distant piratic voyages ; the result 
 may be due as much to the increasing extension of flax and 
 the production of sail-cloth, as to their growing acquaintance 
 with iron and Roman methods of shipbuilding. At all events, in 
 Csesar's time the Veneti of Brittany, who frequently crossed to 
 the kindred races in Britain, used sails of skin or leather and 
 iron cables ; " Either," says Caesar, " because they were ignorant 
 of the use of flax, or, what is more likely, because the storms are 
 so violent in those regions." But of what substance were the 
 Venetic sail ropes, which the Roman sailors cut in two with sharp 
 
 10 
 
,46 FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 sickles fixed on long poles, so that the ships became immovable, 
 and were obliged to surrender? Probably of leather thongs, for 
 not only the Greeks of Homer's time, but the lUyrian Liburnians 
 used such ropes. The Normans cut their cables out of the skins 
 of walruses and seals; and down to modern times the fishing-nets 
 in Iceland were made of strips of leather. Where hempen ropes 
 have been found, there probably the sails were hempen also. In 
 Pliny's time sailcloth was manufactured all over Gaul, and the 
 industry had spread to the districts at the mouth of the Rhine, 
 from which we may conclude that it was not known there before. 
 The Suiones, ancestors of the Normans, did not (according to 
 Tacitus) know the use of sails, or separate rows of oar-benches ; 
 both ends of their ships were alike, so that they could land any- 
 where without turning — an arrangement imitated by Germanicus 
 in part of his ships when he cruised in the North Sea in i6 a.d. 
 These ancient northern ships were no doubt exactly fitted for 
 threading the islands, belts, and fiords of the northern coasts ; 
 in the summer they probably even crossed from the Isle of Goth- 
 land to the Gulfs of Finland and Riga : but it was only after the 
 adoption of sails and iron from the south that the adventurous 
 voyages of the Vikings commenced. 
 
 The German word segel, sail (Anglo-Saxon segel. Old Norse segt), 
 was probably of Celtic origin (Old Irish seal, sbol) or came direct 
 from the Latin sagulum. The Lithuanians and Poles borrowed 
 the German word ; the Bohemians resorted to the phrases " piece 
 of linen," and "wind-catcher;" the South Slavs said "skirt" for 
 sail ; the Russians adopted the Greek ph&ros in the form pants 
 — all quite late productions. 
 
 Since those times flaxen textures have always been the favourite 
 clothing of the German. The southern nations, who lived more 
 in the open air, needed woollen clothes as a protection against 
 changes of temperature; but the Germans, especially in the 
 north, who were confined to the house in winter, and had an 
 inborn sense of cleanliness, preferred the smooth, light linen 
 which was pleasant to the skin in their close and heated huts, 
 which showed every spot of dirt, could easily be washed, and 
 Secame softer and more flexible the ofteuer the process was 
 
LINEN. 147 
 
 repeated. Plutarch praises these qualities: "Linen," he says, 
 " makes a smooth and always clean dress, does not oppress the 
 wearer by its weight, is suitable at every season, and harbours no 
 vermin;" and in fact the last-named torment, from which the 
 much-lauded primitive times suffered to an extent of which our 
 idealists have no idea, was and is a characteristic feature of all 
 fur-wearing nations. In an Old Norse legend, a merman is cap- 
 tured by a king, and of all the things he sees on land, three 
 please him the best : cold water for the eyes, flesh for the teeth, 
 and linen for the body. This legend comes from the very 
 bottom of the German heart The demonic Frau Berchta and 
 the synonymous Holla, who are represented spinning, and are 
 the patrons of flax-culture, are a proof of the value laid on that 
 industry and its products by national sentiment. At a time when 
 paper money and saving-boxes did not exist, linen, as well as 
 silver vessels, was the sign of wealth, the pride and delight of the 
 mother, and the dowry of the daughters. Jean Paul says some- 
 where that if the devil desired to seduce a German Haus-frau, he 
 would best succeed by making her a present of a roll of fine 
 linen. In Goethe's poem, Alexis exclaims : 
 
 " Nor such toys and trinkets only shall your lover win for you ; 
 What delights the heart of housewife, that he'll fetch you too, 
 Lengths of costly linen ! You shall sit and stitch and hem and fell, 
 Clothing you and me, and maybe some one else as well." 
 
 And the father in Hermann and Dorothea thus expresses 
 himself : 
 
 " Not in vain prepares the mother, for many a year and long, 
 Store of linen for the daughter, of texture fine and strong." 
 
 For, besides other excellent qualities, linen has that of keeping 
 unspoiled for years, while wool has many enemies. 
 
 The Western Slavs were acquainted with flax and linen early in 
 the Middle Ages. We are told that the Bishop of Aldenburg 
 received from the whole country of the Wagrians and Obodrites 
 forty bundles of flax as the tax for every plough ; so that those 
 neighbours of the Germans must have cultivated flax at a time 
 when the bishopric of Aldenburg was still in existence. Henry 
 
148 FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, in a deed dated 1158, ordains that 
 de unco (for every hook = plough) toppus lint unus shall go to the 
 see of Ratzeburg. At the beginning of the twelfth century the Rani 
 in the Isle of Riigen had no coined money : goods were paid for 
 with linen cloth. In like manner Old Norse codes value every- 
 thing by yards of linen, which stood at a much higher price than 
 the coarse native cloth — wadmal. Farther east, linen was for a 
 long time the general medium of exchange, and even in the 
 eighteenth century it was demanded as passage-toll by Caucasian 
 tribes: "The Dugors," says Giildenstadt, "wanted five shirts 
 or forty yards of linen for every man of my company, two 
 shirts per horse, and five more .per carrier in crossing : but my 
 stock of linen did not go so far." With advancing agriculture, 
 flax spread into the interior of the great East-European plain, 
 where the fresh soil of the lake and forest regions was very 
 favorable to its cultivation. Whole villages in the heart of 
 Russia took to weaving linen, and adorned their towels and 
 sheets with red borders, like the Germans of Tacitus. When the 
 country was opened to commerce, sail-cloth became an important 
 article of export, until the cotton manufacture, unnatural, dear 
 and sickly, yet backed by protective duties, drew capital away 
 from this ancient and national branch of industry. Flax throve 
 particularly well in the damp regions bordering the Baltic, and 
 for centuries the linen and tow of Riga, and the linseed shipped 
 from there, were much in request. 
 
 Leaving the history of flax among the modern European nations 
 to historians of technics and political economy, we will only 
 mention further the fact, that one of the most important inven- 
 tions, that of making Paper out of linen rags, was rendered pos- 
 sible by the general cultivation and use of flax throughout Europe. 
 It could never occur to the ancients, for in their time there was 
 no large accumulation of rags demanding further application. 
 Perhaps, if the rags of linen clothes, sheets, tablecloths, and the 
 like, had accumulated to the same extent as potsherds, which are 
 said to have formed a whole hill at Rome, this new kind of libri 
 lintei might have made their appearance even then ; for, in fact, 
 lint made of old linen was not unknown to the Greek and 
 
LINEN. PAPER. 149 
 
 Roman surgeons. With the cultivation of cotton in Western Asia, 
 the knowledge of the cotton-paper of China had also spread to 
 Samarkand, and thence by means of the Arabs to Mecca, and 
 from Mecca to Spain. It must have been in Spain then, that the 
 use of linen instead of cotton rags was first tried ; and it is an 
 interesting fact that the town Xativa, the ancient Saetabis so 
 celebrated for its flax under the Romans, produced in the twelfth 
 century a.d. the most excellent paper, which was exported to both 
 East and West. From Spain the art gradually extended to 
 France, Burgundy, Germany, and Italy. Now, as it was paper 
 made of linen that first made the later invention of printing a 
 fruitful one, as the general application of writing to every depart- 
 ment of life, and with it the whole of modern culture, rests on the 
 cheapness and excellence of that material — the historian of civili- 
 zation feels so impressed with the importance of the plant that 
 produces it, that he would fain, in antique fashion, bestow on it the 
 epithet holy or divine, which the ancients, knowing only half its 
 uses, neglected to do. And do not let us forget the art of painting 
 on canvas, nor the application of linseed oil to painting, which, if 
 not invented in the old home of flax, the Netherlands, was at least 
 brought to perfection there, and raised into a noble branch of art 
 The East in ancient times may have produced fine textures, and 
 bathed them in the brilliant hues engendered in those sunny 
 lands ; but they are outrivalled by our Brabant laces, our Flemish 
 table-linen, our cambrics and lawns, produced amid storm and 
 fog in the environs of the ocean. We also know how to wash our 
 white garments with alkaline soaps ; Nausicaa and early anti- 
 quity could only rinse them in running water, while the half- 
 superstitious, half-practical methods of the fullers at Rome had 
 only makeshifts to work with. Just as, in the Middle Ages, the 
 linen sail " that toils for all " (Goethe) had banished the banks of 
 oars, and set free the slaves chained to them ; so in these days 
 steam is more and more superseding the sail with its many ropes, 
 and lessening the number of the crew. Cotton, which the 
 ancients only knew from afar, has come and set a thousand 
 factories in motion, and clothed millions of men ; and its first 
 serious collision with the linen fibre led to the important discovery 
 
ISO FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 of spinning flax by machinery. Then there came a time of dearth, 
 when King Cotton seemed about to be deprived of his glory, and 
 wool and flax again to take the first rank. But the crisis passed, 
 and without letting cotton go, European industry draws more 
 every day upon the treasures of tropical lands and distant con- 
 tinents, while searching for new fibrous plants and utilizing them 
 by chemical and technical science. We need only refer to jute, 
 China-grass, and the New Zealand flax {Phormium tenax), and to 
 the importance these materials have already attained. — In the 
 classic countries, to come back to our point of departure, the 
 cultivation of flax has remained stationary since ancient times. 
 In Greece it is almost nil. The well-watered plains of Lombardy 
 and Venice produce valuable sorts of summer and winter flax, 
 which, by careful and peculiar processes, perhaps derived from 
 antiquity, yield a very white and durable ware. Tuscany (the land 
 of the old Etruscans), the Romagna, and the Marches still grow 
 a good deal of flax; but the farther south we go, the more 
 sporadic becomes the cultivation, being undertaken chiefly for the 
 sake of the seed and oil. Modern Italy on the whole, in spite 
 of the many looms of Lombardy, does not in the production of 
 linen come up to countries lying farther north : Hibernia hiding 
 in her fogs ; the land of the Batavians ; Westphalia, the seat of 
 the Cheruscans ; Silesia, the land of the Lygians. 
 
 As cotton first became a world-product by being transplanted 
 to America, so did flax when it reached the north of Europe, 
 which formed the colonial country of this Old-Egyptian and 
 Babylonian plant, as America was that of the East-Indian plant. 
 
 The twin brother of flax, the Cannabis sativa or Hemp, belongs 
 nevertheless to another family, that of the urticacem or nettles, 
 and has spread through the worid in other ways and much later. 
 It was unknown to the Eg)ptians— not a trace of the fibre of hemp 
 has been found in the wrappings of mummies— and also to the 
 Phoenicians (note 47). The Old Testament never mentions it. It 
 was not generally known in Greece at the time of Herodotus, for 
 that writer describes it to his readers as a strange plant. But the 
 Scythians cultivated hemp, and purified and intoxicated them- 
 
HEMP. 151 
 
 selves by means of the seed ; it was therefore in use among the 
 Medo-Persian races at the back of the Western Asiatics ; and 
 originally came from Bactria and Sogdiana, the regions of the 
 Aral and Caspian Seas, where it is said to grow luxuriantly in a 
 wild state to this day. The use of hashish, an intoxicating drug 
 made of the Cannabis indica, finds its parallel in the Scythian 
 custom at the time of Herodotus. The Thracians wove dresses 
 from the fibre of this plant, which did not come to them from 
 Asia Minor — else the Greeks would have been acquainted with it 
 also — but from their neighbours to the north-east on the Tyras 
 and Borysthenes. From the Pontus and Thrace this excellent 
 material for rope was exported to the Greeks, just as the Greek 
 navy now obtains its hemp from Russia. Under the unchanged 
 name of cannabis, cantiabus, the plant migrated in comparatively 
 recent times to Sicily and Italy. When Hiero of Syracuse built his 
 celebrated ship, in constructing which he drew upon all countries 
 for their best materials, the hemp and pitch were procured from the 
 R. Rhodanus in Gaul ; so that the hemp there must have been 
 uncommonly fine. Had it been transplanted there from Italy ? or 
 had it travelled along the great chain of Celtic nations that already 
 stretched from Gaul to Pannonia and the Hsemus ? The satirist 
 Lucilius, about 100 B.C., is the oldest Roman author that mentions 
 hemp. Cato speaks of neither flax nor hemp. When the Spanish 
 broom, spartwn or Stipa tenacissima, was introduced in the second 
 Punic war, it hindered the extension of hemp, which is seldom 
 mentioned, and was probably but little cultivated. Nevertheless 
 it grew luxuriantly in a few fertile regions ; for instance, in the 
 celebrated tract of country round Reate, in the land of the Sabines, 
 where it attained the height of a tree. The Greco-Roman name 
 for the plant, originally Median, but also found in the old Indian 
 languages (note 48), runs unchanged through all European 
 tongues, in proof of its origin, the Teutonic tongues making the 
 usual change of 3 into/ and/: A.-Saxon hsnep. Old Norse hanpr. 
 Old High German hanaf. The German names for the male and 
 female plants, /»?;««/ and mdschel, are of Latin or Italic origin; 
 fimrael =^;«(?//a, xs\is,(^€: = masculiis, but with a mistaken and 
 reversed application, for fimmel is really the male plant, which, 
 
152 FLAX. HEMP. 
 
 because it is shorter and weaker, popular prejudice took to be the 
 female. Hemp is now found all over Europe, and is so entirely 
 indifferent to climatic influences that the East Indies and the 
 Russian ports on the Baltic, nay. Archangel near the polar circle, 
 share the English market between them. In modern Italy hemp 
 is grown in large quantities in the districts south of the Lower Po, 
 reaching the height of a man ; the produce is partly consumed in 
 Italy for ropes and sail-cloth, and partly exported abroad. 
 
 Cultivation for the sake of the seed is unusual in the South, but 
 takes a prominent place in Russia, where, during the long and 
 strict fasts, hemp-oil is commonly used for food. We will finally 
 remark, that the well-known fibre sold in European markets under 
 the name of Canton or Manilla hemp is no hemp at all, but is 
 produced from the stalk of a tropical plant, a kind of banana ; it 
 is said to be much more flexible, more elastic, and lighter in 
 weight than the common hemp, having the property of floating on 
 the water, and of not freezing when in a wet state during voyages 
 in the northern regions. 
 
LEEK. ONION. 
 
 The primitive nations of the world, besides making use of and 
 cultivating nutritious plants, animals, and domestic fowls, greedily 
 sought for exciting spices and condiments, among which salt held, 
 and holds to this day, the foremost place. The vegetable kingdom 
 furnished many sharp and pungent juices, discovered at first by 
 accident, and afterwards eagerly looked for on the mountains. 
 According to natural disposition and the degree of culture, their 
 effect on the finer or coarser nerves of the succeeding races was 
 very different. Silphium — " a plant whereof comes benzoin," 
 says Pliny — and which the early Greeks thought the most delicious 
 of condiments, was afterwards quite forgotten ; either because it 
 was no longer forthcoming, or, as we believe, because tastes had 
 changed. The laserpitium, or master-wort, which, centuries later, 
 the Romans imported from Asia and believed to be the same 
 plant as the Greek silphium, was probably Ferula asafxtida, or 
 giant-fennel, the addition of which to his food agreeably tickled 
 the cloyed palate of the aristocratic rake. So, about the onion, 
 people hold very different opinions as regards it even now. The 
 odour of garlic about the Oriental is quite unbearable to the 
 German of Lower Saxony, and the onion-scented breath of the 
 Russian is a wall of separation permitting no approach. By this 
 criterion we might divide the nations into two groups : the garlic- 
 lovers and the garlic-haters ; which might be distinguished in 
 Europe as the nations of the Mediterranean, and the nations of 
 the North Sea and Baltic. 
 
 If it be true that the plants we are now examining were indi- 
 genous to the interior of Asia, where botanists say they have 
 found them growing wild in the steppes ; then migration and 
 
154 LEEK. ONION. 
 
 intercourse must have extended them very early towards the 
 south-west, in proof of the attraction which such strong condi- 
 ments have for the natural man. In Egypt we find onions and 
 garlic established articles of food from the very beginning, and the 
 customs of the Egyptians were fixed and settled at an epoch when 
 perhaps no Indo-Germans existed. The Israelites in the wilder- 
 ness longed for the leek-plants of the Nile-valley (Numb. xi. 5) : "We 
 remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely ; the cucum- 
 bers, and the melons, and the leeks {khatzir), and the onions 
 {betzalttn), and the garlic (shumim)." During the building of the 
 great pyramid of Cheops, says Herodotus, i ,600 talents of silver 
 were spent alone in radishes, onions, and garlic for the workmen, 
 as may be read on the pyramid itself in Egyptian characters. As 
 the Egyptians connected even the commonest things with the 
 mysteries of their religion, it was inevitable that these favourite 
 plants should be reverenced as sacred, worshipped as gods, and 
 therefore not touched by the pious or by priests. Pliny says that 
 the Egyptians swore by the garlic and the onion. Juvenal mocks 
 at this, saying that in that case the Egyptian gods grew in the 
 kitchen-garden. Plutarch reports that the priests declared the 
 reason why they would not eat onions or garlic was because those 
 plants only grew during the waning of the moon ; but adds his 
 own opinion that onions were neither good for fasters nor for 
 feasters, for in the first they awakened desire, and from the last 
 they drew tears. In another passage he limits this prohibition of 
 the onion to the priests of Pelusium, i.e., a locality immediately 
 adjoining the leek-loving Philistines and other Semites. And this 
 is confirmed by Lucian, and still more precisely by Sextus Em- 
 piricus, who says it was the worship of Zeus Kasios at Pelusium 
 that excluded the onion, just as that of the Libyan Aphrodite 
 excluded garlic. That Philistsea produced onions is proved by 
 the celebrated onion of Ascalon described by Theophrastus, after 
 which is named to this day the scallion or shalot, scalogno, 
 echalotte, which our people have Germanized into esch-lauch, as if 
 ash-leek. The Cretan onion was similar to, or the same as that of 
 Ascalon — perhaps the Philistines during their early wanderings 
 and voyages had transported this onion from one coast to the 
 
LEEK. ONION. 155 
 
 Other. The Mother of the Gods, too, Hke Libyan Aphrodite, 
 excluded garlic-eaters from her temple. For, when the witty and 
 impious philosopher Stilpo, after eating his fill of garlic, lay down 
 to sleep in the sanctuary of the goddess, she appeared to him in 
 a dream, and asked, "Art thou a philosopher, and fearest not 
 to transgress the law?" To which the sage replied, "Give me 
 something else to eat, and I will abstain from garlic.'' The 
 Israelites, ever since their regretful thoughts strayed from the 
 sandy waste around them to the garlic of Egypt, have remained 
 fast friends of that vegetable, both before and since the destruction 
 of Jerusalem, whether at home in their Holy Land or in the 
 Dispersion under Talmudic and Rabbinic rule. It is not at all 
 unlikely that the much-talked-of/^/c'r jfudaicus, which caused the 
 Jews to be despised and repelled by all ancient and modern 
 nations, originated in their general use of this strongly smelling 
 plant. A comical anecdote told by Ammianus shows that in his 
 time the Jews already stood in the same ill-repute. When Marcus 
 Aurelius, victorious over the Marcomanni and Quadi, was crossing 
 Palestine on his way to Egypt, the odour and tumult of the Jews 
 were so disagreeable to him that he exclaimed, " O Marcomanni, 
 Quadi, and Sarmatians ! I have found a people even worse than 
 you!" (When a part of the Locrians in Greece were named 
 Ozolae — the stinking — the nickname was probably due, not to 
 any food, but to their dress : they wore the old-fashioned goat- 
 skins, which exhaled an odour like that of Russia-leather.) 
 From a list of things daily provided for the head-cook of the 
 .Persian court, we find that there was a considerable consumption 
 of garlic and onions at the Great King's table : besides cummin, 
 silphium, etc., there is set down a talent's weight of garlic per 
 diem, and half a talent of onions of a strong kind. The high 
 antiquity of the onion is confirmed by Homer, who mentions it 
 by the name of kromyon both in the Iliad and Odyssey. In the 
 Iliad the onion appears as an addition to the drink offered by 
 the fair-haired Hecamede to old Nestor on his returning thirsty 
 from the battle ; and in the Odyssey the shining tunic of Ulysses 
 is compared to the thin peel of a dry onion. As old, or perhaps 
 older, than these Homeric passages is the name of a once Mega- 
 
156 LEEK. ONION. 
 
 rian and afterwards Corinthian township Kromyon, Kremyoti, a 
 name evidently derived from the onions grown there. In after 
 ages, Megaris was famed (or defamed) for its cultivation and vast 
 consumption of garlic ; a proverb calls crocodile's tears " Megarian 
 tears," such as he sheds who looks at a cut onion. In very old 
 times, when that little country was not yet Dorian or even Ionian, 
 it had been conquered or overrun, first by Carians and then by 
 Leleges, who perhaps introduced the Oriental kinds of allium. 
 
 The name of the mythic founder of the town, Kromos, the 
 son of Neptune, leads to the supposition of a shorter primitive 
 form of the word for onion {kromyon) which may be identified 
 with the name extending from Switzerland to Scandinavia, ramser, 
 ramsel, rams {Allium ursinum, wild garlic), and the A.-Saxon 
 hramsa ; Eng. ramsen, ramson, buckrams ; Irish creamh ; Lith. 
 kermusze ; Pol. trzemucha; Russ. ceremsa, etc. The Latin cepe, 
 ccepa, onion, has evidently its analogue in the Arcadian ^a/z'a, garlic : 
 but the supposition that the word contains the notion of head, 
 capa capitata, takes us to a far-distant stage of speech, when cap-ttt 
 and keph-ale had not yet developed their suffixes. And yet those 
 suffixes date from the time when the European nations were one, 
 for caput corresponds exactly to the Old Norse hqfuth (for hafuth), 
 and the Greek word to the A.-Saxon hafela, heafola ; but as the 
 suffixes-were still doubtful, the naked root itself may have held its 
 ground among certain tribes, and when the garlic or onion came 
 from the East, it may have been applied to those vegetables. A 
 legend relating to the origin of the Italian Locrians, shows that 
 among them the Greek kephale, head, could also mean an onion- 
 head. When these people first landed in Italy, they swore that 
 they would share the land with the original inhabitants, the Sicu- 
 lians, in peace and friendship, as long as they still trod the earth, 
 and wore their heads on their shoulders. But they poured earth 
 into their shoes, and carried heads of onions on their shoulders, 
 hidden under their garments ; and, having got rid of both, they 
 were released from their oath, and took sole possession of the 
 country. Thence came the proverb, " The oath of the Locrians ! " 
 (note 49). For a similar play on the words caput and cepa, see 
 Ovid's " Fasti," 3, 339. 
 
LEEK. ONION. 157 
 
 Among the different Greek names for onions, one, gethyllis, 
 has a peculiar interest, because connected with a religious custom, 
 and more likely to be ancient. At the festival of the Theoxenia 
 at Delphi, at which all the gods were Apollo's guests, whoever 
 brought the largest gethyllis (leek-onion) was entitled to a share of 
 the sacrificial feast, the reason being that Leto, when pregnant, 
 had craved for such an onion. 
 
 In Greece, after the date of Homer, as well as in Italy, onions 
 were the commonest and favourite food of the people. Nearly 
 every scene in the comedies of Aristophanes proves this to have 
 been the case at Athens ; so do many anecdotes and figures of 
 speech. With increased civilization and consequent polish of 
 manners, and with greater delicacy of the nerves, the former liking 
 changed in the higher classes to loathing. It then meant the 
 reverse of good to wish that any one " might eat onions ; " and 
 the smell of garlic was proof of a person's vulgarity, or was con- 
 sidered a remnant of barbarism. When Alyattes, King of Lydia, 
 invited the sage Bias of Priene to visit him, the latter dismissed 
 the messenger with the brief answer, " May the king eat onions ? " 
 — that is, shed tears. The same story is told by Plutarch of Pit- 
 tacus of Mitylene, with an addition : " May the king eat onions 
 and swallow hot bread ! " The Homeric custom of seasoning 
 wine with onions, more fitted for sailors than for kings, aroused 
 the astonishment of later generations, who, however, supposed 
 that the onion meant was the sweet onion, which is still eaten ia 
 the East, and has such a mild taste and smell that it can be eaten 
 raw, while another kind was termed the weeping onion. In a 
 Greek comedy the Athenians, " according to ancient custom," serve 
 the Dioscuri with cheese, olives, and leeks at breakfast ; and Varro 
 says: "The words of our forefathers, no doubt, were odorous of 
 garlic, but the breath of their spirit was all the nobler." Plautus 
 and Aristophanes speak of the smell of garlic as a sign of poverty, 
 and disgusting to the noble. In Horace's well-known Third 
 Epode, that delicately organized poet expresses, half in joke, his 
 intense dislike of garlic. " Hard is the stomach of the reapers," 
 he exclaims ; " to me garlic seems a poison given me by a wicked 
 witch ! In future let it be given to criminals instead of hemlock !. 
 
158 LEEK. ONION. 
 
 It scorches my limbs like the sun of Apulia, like the Nessus-gar- 
 ment of Hercules ! Should ever, O Msecenas, the whim take 
 thee to eat of this herb, may thy mistress refuse to kiss thee, and 
 fly from thy embrace to the farthest end of the couch ! " The 
 last idea is often repeated by Greek and Roman poets (to-day 
 one might say it of smoking or taking snufif) ; in a comedy by 
 Alexis or Antiphanes, the hero, when dining with boon-com- 
 panions, refuses to eat leeks, because his breath might be 
 disagreeable to his lady-love. Xenophon, in his " Symposium," 
 makes Charmides say in excuse of a husband who had a jealous 
 wife : " Worthy sirs, Niceratus likes to come home smelling of 
 onions, so that his wife may feel sure that no one has been kiss- 
 ing him." In the same way Aristophanes makes an unfaithful 
 wife chew garlic early in the morning, to prove her innocence to 
 her husband when he returns from his post as sentry. 
 
 On the other hand, the penetrating taste and smell of onions 
 and garlic caused people to imagine that those vegetables possessed 
 a magic power of breaking charms and neutralizing poison. This 
 power was supposed to pertain to all strong-smelling substances, 
 for instance, smoke of sulphur, which purified a hall stained with 
 murder. An essay on the healing-power of onion-bulbs was 
 attributed to Pythagoras. Garlic was also used in the composi- 
 tion of various medicines, especially among the peasantry, says 
 Pliny. It is said that Pythagoras taught people to fasten a squill 
 to their thresholds to ward off evil. Just as, in the Odyssey, the 
 herb moly — so-called by the gods, with a black root and milk- 
 white flower, difficult for men to dig up, but easily obtained by 
 the gods — makes Ulysses strong to frustrate the arts of Circe ; so 
 afterwards, in many parts of Greece, various herbs which served 
 as counter-charms, now one, now another, were called by the 
 same name, and among them all kinds of the allium or garlic 
 species. In certain districts of Arcadia, as Theophrastus tells us, 
 in the important isth chapter of the ninth book of his " History 
 of Plants," there grew a herb mdly, with a round, onion-shaped 
 root, and leaves like those of the squill, which served as an anti- 
 dote to poison and magic, but unlike the herb described by 
 Homer, in that it was quite easy to dig up. In the north of Asia 
 
LEEK. ONION. 159 
 
 Minor, and in the Pontus region, where all kinds of poisons and 
 antidotes, charms and counter-charms, styptics and roots sove 
 reign against a serpent's bite, were to be found, the mountain-rue 
 [Ruta graveolus or montand), bore the Homeric name of moly, and 
 was doubtless used in purifying corn-fields. This name had been 
 brought into that region by the Greek colonists with their Homer, 
 and had passed, like other Grecisms, into the Cappadocian and 
 Galatian languages. For even if mdly was originally a stranger, 
 it seems a hundred times less probable that the presumable parent 
 word should have been preserved for so many centuries among 
 the immigrating Galatians and the distant Cappadocians than that 
 Homer was in this, as in so many other cases, the common source. 
 The Germans became acquainted with the real onion through 
 the Italians, as is shown by the German names, Zwiehel and Bolle, 
 both derived from the Italian cipolla. But north of the Alps, 
 another remarkable word crosses Europe from east to west, 
 through the languages of the three great races, Celts, Germans, 
 and Slavs, with the primary meaning of " succulent herb," and 
 the more definite meanings of " leek, onion, garlic " : Old Irish 
 lus, Welsh llysian. Corn, les = herb, leek (s for x, as in dess = dexter, 
 ses = sex, ess = ox, etc.); Gothic lauk-s, Old Norse /a^/l-^-, A.-Saxon 
 hdc; and Slav, lukii, Lith. lukai. That the k remains unchanged 
 shows the word to be not a congener, but a borrowed word. 
 Whence came it, then, and in which direction did it travel? 
 Grimm derives lauk-r from lukan, to lock ; if so, it originated with 
 the Germans, and was borrowed by the Slavs and Celts right and 
 left ; but this looks unlikely. As the primary meaning of " herb " 
 is found chiefly in Celtic tongues, while the more limited sense of 
 " leek, onion," is apparently the only one in the Slavic ; and as 
 the Celts were in civilization centuries ahead of their neighbours 
 to the east, it seems most probable that it spread from Gaul to the 
 Germans, and thence to the Slavs. The final s in the Celtic word 
 might easily be taken by the Germans for a mere sign of the 
 nominative, and be left out. In the time of Herodotus the Alaz- 
 ones and Callipides, near Olbia on the Black Sea, cultivated leeks 
 or onions ; but these half-Grecianized Scythians were not nearer 
 in situation to the later Slavs than they soon became to the ap- 
 
i6o LEEK. ONION. 
 
 preaching Celts ; mentally they were much farther. Among the 
 Thracians the onion was an old-established and indispensable 
 article, if we may trust the description, by an ancient writer, of a 
 Thracian marriage custom. At the nuptials of Iphicrates with the 
 daughter of King Kotys, the newly- wedded pair received, among 
 other more costly gifts, a bowl of snow, a cellar full of millet, 
 and a pot of onions twelve cubits deep. Afterwards, when the 
 Slavs took possession of Thrace, they inherited the Thracian 
 millet and onion. Among Teutonic nations in the north the leek 
 seems to have possessed the same magic power attributed to it in 
 Asia Minor and Greece. It was thrown into the drinking cup 
 to protect the drinker from treachery. In the Lay of Sigurd-rifa, 
 it is said : " Bless the filling of the cup, to protect thee from 
 danger ; and put leek in the drink. Then I know well that never 
 for thee will the mead be mixed with perfidy." When Helgi was 
 born, his father Sigmundr returned from battle wearing the noble 
 leek, probably as a sign of victory : " The king himself left the 
 tumult of battle to bring the noble leek to the young hero." The 
 German knoUmcch, garlic, is a corruption of kloblauch, which 
 Grimm has explained as cloven-leek, from klieben, to split ; and 
 the Slav, cesnuku, from cesati, to comb, shows that he is right. 
 The Saxon g&rledc. Old Irish gairleog. Old Norse geir-laukr, means 
 literally, spear-leek. The opposite of the gar-X^ek is expressed by 
 the rustic Latin word unio, the single undivided onion, whence 
 the French oignon, onion ; the French dve, civette, chives, is only 
 the Latin capa. 
 
 To this day onions and garlic are as much used and avoided in 
 the south of Europe as they were in the time of Plautus and Aris- 
 tophanes. Not a peasant in Italy neglects, where possible, to 
 grow onions in his garden, and industriously eat them, while the 
 higher classes make very scanty use of them. The Spaniards are 
 still fonder of garlic than the Italians. We need scarcely remind our 
 readers of the amusing scene in " Don Quixote," when that noble 
 knight, seeing a peasant girl on the highroad, mistakes her for the 
 beautiful Dulcinea of Toboso, but is rather puzzled by the strong 
 smell of garlic which pervades the person of the supposed noble 
 dame, and explains it as a trick of the magicians who have so 
 
LEEK. ONION. i6i 
 
 long persecuted him and now spoil the sweetest moment of his 
 life. The consumption of onions at Byzantium was so enormous, 
 even at the royal table, that it disgusted Liudprand, Bishop of 
 Cremona, who was himself an Italian, and therefore accustomed 
 to that vegetable. " The ruler of the Greeks," he says in his 
 ambassadorial report of 968 a.d., "has long hair, and wears a 
 train, wide sleeves, and a cap like a woman's ; ... he eats gailic, 
 onions, and leeks, and swills bath-water " (that is, wine prepared 
 with resin and chalk). Another time the same author writes : 
 "He ordered me to come to dinner, the meats at which smelt 
 strongly of garlic and onions, and were spoiled with oil and fish- 
 brine." 
 
 At that very time an Oriental, the geographer, Ibn Hauqal, 
 made the same complaint of a western town, the capital of Sicily. 
 In his description of Palermo, he ascribes to the inhabitants every 
 kind of public vice and folly ; calls them stupid and impious, 
 lukewarm to everything good, and inclined to everything bad ; 
 " the habit of eating raw onions morning and evening, which dis- 
 turbs their brains and blunts their intellect, is at the root of their 
 sad condition. Their appearance and conduct proves this ; they 
 rather dririk stagnant than running water, are not afraid of stink- 
 ing food, and are dirty in their persons ; in the finest houses the 
 fowls run about unhindered," etc. A commentator, Yakut, ex- 
 plains this passage by the testimony of a medical book, accord- 
 ing to which onions so deaden the brain and the senses that he 
 who has eaten of them can no longer distinguish pure water from 
 stagnant. May not the old belief in the magic power of the onion 
 have had an influence on this opinion, the effect being only 
 reversed ? 
 
 IT 
 
CUMMIN. MUSTARD. 
 
 Two other spicy plants come also from the East — the cummm- 
 plant, cumtnum, cyminum ; and mustard, sinapis alba and nigra. 
 The Greek name for the first plant, kyminon, is a clear proof of this. 
 The Hebrew word kammon must have had a similar sound in the 
 other Semitic languages ; from one of these came the Greek form, 
 and passed into the Roman cumtnum ; from which again all the 
 present European names of the plant are derived, though we Ger- 
 mans give it a new suffix in kilmmel, and the Poles shorten it into 
 kmin, Russian tmin. The road traversed by spicy plants is there- 
 fore the same as that observed in many other objects of culture, 
 and is, so to speak, historically normal. Theophrastus reports 
 that to make cummin thrive it was necessary to utter curses and 
 blasphemies while sowing it. It might be possible to explain this 
 superstition, but, as far as we can see, it would throw no new light 
 on the history of the plant. Dioscorides says the Ethiopian cummin 
 was the best, and that Hippocrates called it " the royal ; " but no 
 such epithet is to be found applied to the plant in the works of Hip- 
 pocrates that we now possess, and perhaps the naturalist's memory 
 played him false. Polysnus reports that Ethiopian cummin was 
 used at the Persian court. The next best kind was the Egyptian, 
 which, according to Dioscorides, also grew in Galatia and Cilicia 
 in Asia Minor, and (by transplantation) in Tarentum ; in fact, 
 modern Greece still imports cummin from the harbours of the 
 Levant, especially from Smyrna, and it is largely cultivated in 
 Apulia in Italy. Among the Romans, says Pliny, the cummin of 
 Carpetania, in the heart of Spain, was most valued, and after it that 
 of Ethiopia, Africa, or even Egypt Throughout antiquity cummin 
 was valued as a mildly exciting and agreeable spice. A writer of 
 
CUMMIN. MUSTARD. 163 
 
 comedies mentions herbs, cummin, salt, water, and oil as the principal 
 requisites in cooking fish ; and Pliny says that cummin agreeably 
 excites a flagging appetite. As salt was a symbol of friendship, 
 " sharers of salt and cummin " meant intimate friends. It was an 
 aspiring herb, in sublime iendens, and possessed the power of blanch- 
 ing a too-blooming cheek. Such seeds as the Roman cummin, the 
 black cummin, nigella sadva, the coriander, and others, naturally 
 played a less important part after pepper was discovered. Of 
 these we single out the black cummin, because among the Romans 
 it went by the Eastern name oi git, gith, and thus bears on its face 
 the impress of its origin. It is mentioned first by Plautus ; later, 
 by Columella and Pliny, as something quite common. In Greece 
 it had quite a different name, and therefore cannot have reached 
 Italy from that country. Therefore it could only have been intro- 
 duced at such an early period by the Carthaginians from Africa. 
 Now the Africans called the coriander ^«^ (Diosc. iii. 64), which, 
 pronounced as in modern Greek, would be gidh, the same name 
 that the Roman applied to nigella saliva ; and we may add that 
 gad is the Hebrew for coriander. It is indifferent whether this 
 gad was originally Semitic or borrowed ; even the distinctness of 
 the two plants presents no difficulty, considering the inexactness 
 and fickleness of the popular speech of commerce. The cummin 
 really indigenous to Central Europe, carum carvi, is largely used 
 to this day; both on bread, and in cheese, cabbnge, etc., but 
 above all as " double-cummin " in brandy, it is much (often too 
 much) relished by the Hyperboreans. 
 
 Mustard is equally mentioned by the Attic comic dramatists 
 as a well-known biting substance, exciting tears and grimaces, but 
 excellently calculated to give a relish to insipid meats. The Athe- 
 nians called it n&py ; while the Hellenistic name was sindpi, or 
 sinapy, whence the Latin sinapi, or sinapis. The first form — which 
 is also seen in the extension, napeion — is remarkably like the Latin 
 ndpus {navew, turnip), to which the mustard-plant bears some re- 
 semblance, and the name of the one may have been given to the 
 other. The elder Greek writers all use ndpy for mustard ; it is only 
 in the Macedonian time, and with the Alexandrian poet Nicander, 
 asw sindpi became common, and then the older name went uot 
 
i64 CUMMIN. MUSTARD. 
 
 of use. In Italy the word sinapis, or sinapi, was exclusively 
 used ; while napus meant only the turnip. It seems improbable 
 that this similarity of sound can be accidental, but there is nothing 
 to show in what relation the two forms stood to each other. The 
 double form might have its foundation in the laws of the language 
 from which the word was derived ; but what language was that ? 
 At Athens the mustard of Cyprus was considered the best. 
 Benfey conjectures that the word was originally Sanskrit, but 
 altered first by the Persians, and then by the Greeks into sinapi. 
 The analogy of some Egyptian words of double form {sili or 
 seselis, sari or sisaron, etc.) would rather lead us to guess an 
 Egyptian origin for napy and sinapi The Italian mostarda, 
 French moutarde, etc., came from mustum, the must with which 
 the mustard was mixed ; but the German word sen/, like the 
 German names for vinegar, onion, cummin, oil, salad, lettuce, 
 endive, chicory, cress, celery, parsley, fennel, anise, and many 
 others, came from Italy. 
 
LENTILS AND PEAS. 
 
 The first cultivation of the pulses was very near in point of time 
 to that of the flour-yielding grasses. The pulses were almost 
 equal to the latter in value, either as affording nourishment for 
 men and animals, or seed for fallow ground ; and, like them, the 
 more valuable because the seeds can be kept a long time and 
 carried far. We have already, in passing (note 17), spoken of the 
 Bean as a very ancient article of food ; and Lentils and Peas, in 
 the countries where they grew wild, must have been very early 
 noticed by the shepherds on account of their edible seeds. From 
 that point to the artificial extension of the plants was but a step. 
 But where did they grow wild? As naturalists hitherto have 
 failed to tell us anything certain about the original home and first 
 cultivation of these plants, we are again obliged to have recourse 
 to the ancient testimony preserved in language, and handed down 
 till the dawn of history. But in the present case we find, even 
 there, very indecisive answers to our questions ; for, first, the names 
 of the plants under examination are of such a general character 
 that they may be very old, while the seed or grain of which they 
 speak may be very young ; secondly, while we rejoice to find a 
 corresponding individual nomenclature among different nations, 
 a doubt arises whether the agriculture of a much later age may 
 not have carried the word abroad ; and, thirdly, in the latter case, 
 which would still be instructive, it is often doubtful whether the 
 transmission was in this or in that direction — for instance, from 
 north to south, or the contrary. The only thing we can clearly 
 perceive is that the Lentil was a product of pre-Indo-Germanic 
 culture, and came to the European nations from the south-east ; 
 while the Pea — we mean all the species of that plant — belongs to 
 
l66 LENTILS AND PEAS. 
 
 Central Asia, and thence found its way past the Pontus into 
 Europe. 
 
 The fact that the lentil grew in Egypt — particularly in the half- 
 Semitic borderland of Pelusium and elsewhere in the Delta of the 
 Nile, where stood Phacussa, or Phacussse, the lentil-town — is 
 suflficiently proved. The tiny fragments of hewn stone which 
 Strabo saw lying in heaps at the foot of the pyramids in the shape 
 of lentils, were said by the people to be the petrified remains of 
 the meals eaten by the builders^which at least proves that those 
 most ancient of masons were thought of as lentil-eaters. Biblical 
 history shows us that the Israelites were fond of lentils, for a dish 
 of which the eldest son of , the patriarch sold his birthright. 
 David, when in the desert, is provided by his friends with lentils 
 among other things; (2 Sam. xvii. 28) they "brought beds and 
 basins, and earthenware vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, 
 and parched corn, and beans, and lentils, and parched pulse." 
 The old Hebrew name for lentils, adashim, is still used by the 
 Arabs, and has been adopted by the Persians. The Greeks, those 
 pupils of the Semites, must have soon become acquainted with 
 the fruit. It is true that Homer never mentions it ; but edting 
 lentils was a custom of the common people at Athens in the 
 middle of the fifth century B.C., and Aristophanes could write, 
 "Now that he is rich he will no longer eat lentils; formerly, when 
 he was poor, he ate what he could get." "No lentils, pray!" 
 cries one of Pherecrates' dramatic personages, " for the breath of 
 one who eats lentils smells ! " The Greeks called the lentil-bean 
 and the dish made of it phake, and the plant and its st&dphakos, 
 an obscure word that has no analogy with any other, and never 
 reached Italy. The Romans, who served lentils and salt at 
 funeral banquets, called the former lens, knits, a word not derived 
 from any Greek source. Nor can we guess whence it came ; even 
 the Latin gives no hint. In the usual way the lentil migrated 
 from Italy across the Alps to Germany, and to the Lithuanians 
 and Slavs. The German linsi, linse, the Lithuanian lenszis, the 
 Slavic lesta, etc., are simply the Latin lens, lentis, modified to suit 
 the barbarian tongue. The Slavs have also another expression, 
 socivo, Russian cecevica, Polish soczevica, etc. ; with these compare 
 
LENTILS AND PEAS. 167 
 
 the Old Prussian licutkekers (lentils), and keekers (peas). Like the 
 last, the assibilated Slavic forms are only an echo of the Latin 
 cicer, German kicher, Italian cece, and French chiche. 
 
 Among the different names for the Pea and its varieties the 
 most interesting, because one of the oldest, and still existing, is 
 the Greek erebinthos. It occurs in Homer side by side with the 
 bean. Helenus, the son of Priam, has shot an arrow at Menelaus, 
 which rebounds from his armour "as on some wide threshing- 
 floor the dark beans and erebinths leap from the winnower's fan 
 in a whistling wind." The passage does not inform us what kind 
 of pea is meant, whether the chick-pea, the flat, the common, or 
 what. Theophrastus, many centuries after, uses erebinthos in the 
 sense of chick-pea, for he speaks of its pod as being round. 
 Stript of the suffix inth, it seems the same as the other word for 
 pea, orobos; and the oldest form of the word seems to have been 
 vorvos, and to have come from Asia Minor. To Asia Minor it 
 could not have come from the tropical palm-lands towards India, 
 nor from Syria or Egypt, for none of these had the pea ; it must 
 therefore have come from the region of the Pontus and Caucasus. 
 When the Greeks brought the culture of the pea into Italy, the 
 Latins called it ervum, from which was derived the Anglo-Saxon 
 earfe; but, curiously, the other Teutonic tongues show the word 
 in an elongated form — Low German, ervet ; High German, arawiz, 
 now erbse. Did they develop this prolongation independently ? 
 If we look at the matter more closely, we may find that not the 
 Latin ervum, but the fuller Greek form exth-inth, was the real 
 source of araw-?^, and the rest ; and that the time when peas be- 
 came known to the Germans was that during which the Goths and 
 other German nations came into direct contact with the Greek 
 language, or with nations of half-Grecian culture on the lower 
 Danube. 
 
 Besides orobos and erebinthos, the Greeks had another very 
 old name for the common pea, ^isos, pison, which all etymologists 
 connect with the root to which belongs the Latin pinsere, pisere, 
 to pound, to stamp; but this gives us no hint as to the antiquity 
 of the fruit. By this name the pea is not described as something 
 fit to pound or grind, but as the sort of grains or crumbs produced 
 
i68 LENTILS AND PEAS. 
 
 by bruising or crushing, and may have been first appUed to gravel, 
 shingle, hail, etc. — Lithuanian/Ma (sand). Old '&\a.v'\cphuku (sand, 
 pebble), Russian pesbk, Polish piasek, and so on. So a long exist- 
 ing word was applied to the pea, and has stuck to it. The example 
 of the Greeks was followed by the Latins with ihm pisum ; it held 
 its ground in the Romance languages, and even passed to the 
 Celts and the English (who, mistaking their peas for a plural, have 
 dropt the s), but not to the Germans ; perhaps an additional hint 
 that the latter had formed their own ervet much earlier, before 
 the beginning of mediaeval influences from the south and west. 
 
 Like onions and lentils at Athens, onions and chick-peas formed 
 the frugal meal of the poorer classes in Italy ; so that during the 
 festival of the Floralia, beans and chick-peas were scattered 
 among the people, who laughingly picked them up. Every one 
 knows that Lentulus, Fabius, and Piso were named after the cor- 
 responding seeds, as well as Cicero from the chick-pea or cicer. 
 We mention this to show that such popular nick-names could 
 only be taken from things long known among the people. Many 
 names both old and new show that the different nations applied 
 the meaning of pebbles or hailstones to peas, either from an innate 
 similarity of fancy, or following the example of the people by 
 whom the plant was first introduced. 
 
 As the Vetch was only cultivated in the later times, as green 
 fodder, and food for pigeons, fowls, etc., the transition from the 
 Greek bikos, bikion, to the Latin vicia^ and from that to the 
 German wicke, etc., is quite normal. 
 
LAUREL. MYRTLE. 
 
 (laurus nobilis.) (myrtus communis.) 
 
 At a very early period were introduced the myrtle and the laurel — 
 the first dedicated to Aphrodite, the second to Apollo — and are 
 often mentioned together, not only in Mignon's Song, but by 
 Virgil, Horace, etc. Both plants accompanied the migrations of 
 various religions from place to place in Greece, and both were 
 planted around their respective sanctuaries. The Myrtle, called 
 so from its balsamic odour, came from the very region in which 
 the Oriental Goddess of Nature, Aphrodite, had her origin. In 
 the city of Temnos in Lydia, on the left bank of the R. Hermos, a 
 figure of Aphrodite carved from living myrtle had been already 
 made by Pelops, the son of Tantalus, to obtain the favour of the 
 goddess in his wooing of Hippodamia. In Cyprus, the seat of 
 the goddess Astarte, Myrrha, the daughter of the priest-king 
 Cinyras, was changed into a myrtle to protect her from the 
 persecution of her incestuous father ; and from that tree, in due 
 time, Adonis was born. The same legend is related by Panyasis, 
 with the difference that he calls the father Theias, an Assyrian 
 (that is, Syrian) king, and that the daughter is changed into a 
 myrrh-tree, Smyrna, the Arabian myrtle. At the festival of the 
 Hellotia, held at Crete and Corinth in honour of the Moon-goddess 
 Europa, an enormous wreath of myrtle was carried about, called 
 Hellotis after one of the names of the goddess herself. Both 
 Crete and Corinth were ancient seats of Semitic worship. The 
 names of the Amazons who were priestesses of the Moon-goddess 
 in Asia Minor — i.e., Myrina, whose tomb is mentioned in the Iliad, 
 and Smyrna, after whom the town of that name was called — point 
 
170 LAUREL, MYRTLE. 
 
 to the use of incense, anointing and crowning with myrrh and 
 myrtle, connected with the worship of the goddess. When the 
 three ancient towns opposite the Isle of Cythera — Side, called 
 after the daughter of Danaus ; Etis and Aphrodisias, both founded 
 by ^neas, son of Aphrodite — united in founding a new city, Boiai 
 (Bceae), they were shown the proper place by a hare, which hid 
 itself in a myrtle-bush ; the myrtle was used to make an idol, 
 which still existed at the time of Pausanias under the name of 
 Artemis Soteira. Polycharmus of Naucratis, in his work on 
 Aphrodite, relates that, in the twenty-third Olympiad, Herostratus 
 purchased a small figure of Aphrodite at Paphos in Cyprus, and 
 then set sail for Naucratis. Not far from the Egyptian coast he 
 was overtaken by a storm, during which the crew prayed to the 
 figure of Aphrodite for help. Suddenly the ship was covered 
 with green myrtle-branches and filled with a sweet scent, the sun 
 shone again, and the voyagers ran safely into their wished-for 
 haven. Herostratus placed the figure and the myrtle-branches 
 in the temple of Aphrodite, and gave a banquet in the sanctuary 
 itself, at which the guests wore wreaths of myrtles. Such wreaths 
 were afterwards called Naucratic. As this event happened before 
 the founding of the Greek Naucratis, the emporium of the Delta, 
 there must have been an older seaport there at which Aphrodite 
 was worshipped; and indeed the coast of Lower Egypt was 
 connected from the earliest times with Syria, Phoenicia, and 
 Cyprus, interchanging with those lands not only merchandise, but 
 religious customs and ideas. 
 
 The barbaric conception of Aphrodite as a power of nature to 
 be worshipped with licentious rites was gradually transformed, 
 among the Greeks, into a personification of feminine beauty and 
 of love ; and the myrtle, beloved on account of its sweet scent, 
 evergreen leaves, white blossoms, and aromatic berries, was every- 
 where to be seen near temples, in gardens, and soon even growing 
 freely on the rocky coasts of Greece, and was abundantiy used 
 for wreaths and decorations, even in rites with which the goddess 
 was not directly concerned. Only from the worship of the austere 
 goddess Hera, and of Artemis, was the myrtle banished ; and in 
 the rare cases where we do find the bridal plant connected with 
 
LAUREL. MYRTLE. 171 
 
 chaste Artemis, it is probable that the transformation of the armed 
 Ashera of Ascalon, the goddess of Cythera, into a Grecian form 
 had only taken another direction. 
 
 The Laurel, too, on account of its pungent aromatic scent and 
 taste, and its evergreen leaves and berries, was very early con- 
 sidered a sacred tree. The strong scent exhaled by its boughs 
 dispelled mould and decay ; and that god who, from a personi- 
 fication of the plague-producing and also plague-dispelling rays 
 of the sun, had gradually changed into the earnest god of expia- 
 tion for moral sickness and pollution — he, Apollo, son of Leto, 
 Apollo Katharsios (the cleanser), chose this tree as the symbol 
 and magical means of the purification accomplished by his power. 
 
 The laurel is mentioned in the legend of Orestes, the matricide 
 who was pursued by the Furies, and afterward healed from guilt 
 and madness by Apollo. At Troezen no citizen would receive the 
 murderer into his house, so Orestes was cleansed from blood- 
 guiltiness in a separate building named the Tent of Orestes ; and 
 when the katharsia had been buried in the ground, there sprang 
 out of them a laurel-tree that still stood before the Tent in the 
 time of Pausanias. Apollo himself, after killing the Python, had 
 need of expiation for the blood shed : at the command of Jupiter, 
 he hurried to a Thessalian temple in the vale of Tempe, crowned 
 himself with a laurel branch from the tree standing near the altar, 
 took another branch in his hand, and walked along the Pythian 
 highway into Delphi as the prince of oracles. This mythic event 
 was repeated every eight years by the people of Delphi in a 
 peculiar religious representation. A noble Delphian youth 
 marched with the bandof Daphnephori (laurel-bearers) to the altar 
 in the vale of Tempe, broke the bough of expiation from the tree, 
 and, following the sacred route from one shrine of Apollo to the 
 other pointed out by the legend, returned to the temple at Delphi. 
 As the sanctuaries of Apollo became more numerous, Greece 
 became more thickly covered with groves of laurel. The tree 
 having been dedicated to the god, it shared in all his sacred 
 preferences and performances. A laurel staff, aisakos, imparted 
 the power of divination to seers and prophets; the oracles of 
 Apollo were given forth from a laurel; and in the most holy place. 
 
172 LAUREL. MYRTLE. 
 
 laurel branches twined round and upon the tripod from which 
 the Pythia prophesied. Manto, the daughter of the seer Tiresias, 
 is also called Daphne, or the laurel ; when the Epigoni took 
 Thebes, they dedicated this Daphne to the temple at Delphi, and 
 from that time she prophesied in that city. Homer borrowed 
 many of her sayings and introduced them into his epics. And as 
 poets are also prophets, and Apollo, prince of the Muses, fills 
 them, a branch and crown of laurel became also the badge of the 
 minstrel, the magic means of poetic inspiration. Thus Hesiod 
 boasts that the Muses put a laurel branch from Helicon into his 
 hand, that he might reveal what was hidden, and prophesy the 
 future with the voice of a god. Laurel branches were carried in 
 all processions, sacrifices, games and charms connected with the 
 worship of Apollo. If the tree flourished in an unusual manner 
 in any particular spot, that spot was soon singled out by legend 
 as the birthplace of Daphne. Thus the Arcadians related that 
 Daphne was the daughter of their river Ladon and the Earth, and 
 was changed into a laurel-tree; but according to Python the laurel 
 was brought from Thessaly; the victor's crown in the Pythian 
 games was at first fetched from Tempe, or consisted of oak leaves, 
 there being as yet no laurels in that place. This would seem to 
 prove that the laurel was a Thessalian plant, and at present it 
 cannot be traced further. 
 
 Turning to Italy, we find that originally both Aphrodite and 
 Apollo were strangers to that country. Both these deities were 
 introduced by the Greek colonists, who also brought the myrtle 
 and the laurel into the western peninsula. The representations by 
 the Campanian Greeks of ^neas's wanderings and his settlement 
 in Italy, the fame and influence of the temple of Venus Urania at 
 Eryx in Sicily, founded by the Phoenicians and adopted by the 
 Greeks, and the new institutions proceeding thence, could not fail 
 to spread the goddess's favourite tree throughout the west. In 
 that part of the world the myrtle is said to have first appeared in 
 the Isle of Circe — the promontory south of the Pontine marshes — 
 on the grave of Elpenor, Ulysses' youthful companion, who fell 
 from the roof drunk with wine and sleep. Apollo was also the 
 object of ardent veneration in the cities of Magna GrKcia, and 
 
LAUREL. MYRTLE. i73 
 
 the founders of temples did not neglect to plant his favourite 
 tree. Italian legend made Rhegium the scene of Orestes being 
 cleansed from blood-guiltiness (as Greek legends made Athens 
 and Troezen); there he founded a temple of Apollo, from the 
 sacred groves of which the Rhegians used to take laurel boughs 
 with them on their pilgrimages to Delphi. The coins of the 
 Brettians, of Nola, etc., are stamped with a head of Apollo 
 crowned with laurel. A temple of Apollo stood in the Acropolis of 
 Cumse, the home of the Sibyl. Thence Grecian civilization poured, 
 not in a slender brook, but in a full stream, as Cicero says, over the 
 barbarians, inculcating the worship of the purest of 'Grecian gods 
 and his attributes. The laurel soon found a place in the numerous 
 purifying and atoning rites of the Latin-Sabine religion ; in the ser- 
 vice of the Lares ; at celebrations of the Palilia (in honour of the 
 goddess Pales, who was sacrificed to with cakes and milk), and the 
 Poplifugia (anniversary of the flight of the Romans from the 
 Etruscans) ; and at triumphal processions of victorious armies 
 and generals — for the laurel cleansed men from the blood shed in 
 battle, its name being derived from that quality (note 50), while 
 the myrtle, the emblem of reconciliation, adorned him who ended 
 a campaign without striking a blow. Thus about 300 b.c. Theo- 
 phrastus could say that the plain of Latiuni was full of laurel and 
 myrtle trees, and the hills were clothed with firs and pines. A century 
 and a half later we find three kinds of laurel mentioned by Cato 
 — the laurus Cypria, Delphica, and silvatica, of which names the 
 first two explain themselves, but the last probably meant the 
 Viburnum Tinus, just as the wild myrtle mentioned by Dioscorides 
 is nothing but the butcher's-broom or ruscus aculeatus. The analogy 
 of Corsica, in which within historic times the primitive wilderness 
 still existed, and no kind of laurel grew, proves that the laurel 
 was once not indigenous to Italy, for a continent always sees its 
 own former state mirrored in the neighbouring islands. In Italy 
 the laurel has always been a tree of the temple and garden, and 
 the northern pilgrim who dreams of Hesperian laurel-woods, will 
 be greatly disappointed. In Greece, too, the laurus nobilis in a 
 wild state is generally but a large shrub ; though under favourable 
 circumstances it will grow to a stately tree. Herr Fraas found it 
 
174 LAUREL. MYRTLE. 
 
 rare in Southern Greece, and in the form of groves only in the 
 north, especially in Phthiotic Thessaly, " that is, in the neighbour- 
 hood of monasteries, which make a point of cultivating them." 
 In Hesiod's time the tree cannot have been uncommon on Mount 
 Helicon in Boeotia, for that poet advises people to make their 
 plough-shafts of laurel or elm wood, neither being liable to become 
 worm-eaten. The cave of the Cyclop in the Odyssey is hidden by 
 laurels : 
 
 " When to the utmost verge of land we drew, 
 Fast by the sea a lonely cave we view, 
 ^igh, and witli darkening laurels covered o'er." 
 
 The tree, as we suppose, was brought to Europe from Asia 
 Minor, probably in connexion with a purifying religious rite, 
 whether of migrating Thracians or Carians or Cretans, etc. 
 Legend says that the seer Branchus, the mythic founder of the 
 Branchid-oracle near Miletus (which the first Ionian settlers 
 found already estabUshed among the Carians), sprinkled and 
 purified the Milesians with laurel-branches during a plague. 
 
 The mention of the laurel in the legend of the Argonauts brings 
 us to the Thracian Bosphorus. There, in prehistoric times, dwelt 
 the mythic Bebrycians, whose king, Amykos, son of Poseidon, 
 was slain in a boxing-match with Polydeukes, as Apollonius 
 Rhodius circumstantially relates at the beginning of the second 
 book of the Argonautica. The victor and his followers crowned 
 themselves with laurel from a tree growing on the shore, to which 
 they had fastened their ship, and sang their hymn accompanied 
 by Orpheus's lyre. Two ancient authors mention the tree, one 
 saying that a tall laurel- tree really grew near a place still inhabited 
 and called Amykos, and the other that there was a temple of 
 Amykos with a laurel-tree, and that he who broke a branch of it 
 immediately began to curse. Pliny says that a laurel grew on the 
 grave of Amykos, atid was called the " unreasonable," because if a 
 branch of it were brought on board a ship there immediately 
 ensued a quarrel until it was thrown away. Here, too, the laurel 
 is the symbol of expiation for bloodshed, but the idea that it led 
 to strife and was called insana is owing to its having grown 
 on the grave or near the temple of the bragging, quarrelsome 
 
LAUREL. MYRTLE. 175 
 
 giant. Attempts had been made, as Theophrastus relates, to 
 plant myrtles and laurels farther north, near PanticapKum (Kertch 
 in the Crimea), with a view to religious ceremonies ; but they did 
 not succeed, evidently owing to the rigour of the Scythian winter. 
 Pliny repeats this story, but curiously connects it with King 
 Mithridates. If Pliny was not mistaken in dragging in Mithri- 
 dates (note 51), if the planting of those trees really had to do 
 with the religion of the Pontic king, who was of Persian race ; we 
 already know from Herodotus and Strabo that the Persians made 
 use of the laurel and myrtle in certain sacred ceremonies, and 
 must therefore have possessed those trees. Both the coast-loving 
 myrtle {amantes litora myrtos) and the laurel are products of a mild 
 climate free from extremes. The myrtle is in this respect more 
 delicate than the laurel. The first, if we are not mistaken, spread 
 from the south-east along the rocky coasts of the Mediterranean. 
 The second — flourishing not only in Cilicia, where it ascends almost 
 to the celebrated Cilician Gates, and in Lycia, and up the coast 
 of Asia Minor as far as Troas, but also on the southern shores of 
 the Propontis and Euxine right away to Georgia, where it ceases — 
 was first introduced into the northern part of the Greek peninsula, 
 and then spread to the south and west ; though it never throve so 
 well in a free condition in Europe as it does in Western Asia, 
 either as regards the number of trees or their beauty. 
 
THE BOX-TREE. 
 
 Botanists will unhesitatingly afifirm that the evergreen box-tree, 
 the diminutive image of the myrtle, belongs by nature to the 
 flora of Southern Europe ; but the historian is not so sure of that. 
 At the first glance we are struck by the fact that its Latin name 
 buxus (or in the older and popular form buxum) is borrowed from 
 the Grtek pyxos — for no one will maintain that the two are simply 
 congeners ; and we are surprised that a shrub or tree indigenous 
 to Italy should bear a foreign name. From the earliest times the 
 wood of the box-tree was highly valued for its hard close grain, 
 its weight, its resistance to decay, and its faultless smoothness 
 when polished. It was the ebony of the north and west ; it was 
 used for tools of all kinds, for guitars and flutes, for jewel-boxes, 
 tables, doorposts, images of gods ; and to this day it is indispens- 
 able to the art of wood-engraving : reasons sufficient for a diligent 
 propagation of the little tree, which, moreover, as Theophrastussays, 
 is " one of the good growers ; " and which therefore, having been 
 introduced by man into various countries in an obscure period of 
 which we have no record, was easily mistaken in historic times for 
 a native of those countries. Now if Asia was its native home, 
 from what part of that continent did it commence its migrations ? 
 In that wonderful section of Theophrastus' history of plants, in 
 which he sketches a picture of the geography of plants, extending 
 far beyond the immense empire of Alexander the Great — I mean 
 the first few chapters of the fourth book — the author reckons the 
 box among the plants of cold climates; and in the preceding 
 chapter he says that the box and the lime were difficult to rear 
 in the gardens of Babylon on account of the too great mild- 
 ness of the climate. He says the same thing of the box and 
 
THE BOX-TREE. 177 
 
 the lime in countries where the date-palm flourishes. From 
 this it would appear that the box-tree was not indigenous to 
 the Semitic regions, and therefore the tree mentioned in the 
 Old Testament could not be the box, though translated so 
 in Isaiah and Ezekiel : " I will set in the desert the fir-tree 
 and the pine, and the box-tree together ; " and : " The glory 
 of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, 
 and the box together." But on the mountains . of Pontic Asia 
 Minor the tree flourished exceedingly, and attained a height and 
 thickness found nowhere in Greece. The Cytorus mountains 
 near Amastris in Paphlagonia, which approach very near the 
 Black Sea, were celebrated for their box-tree forests ; and as men 
 spoke of " carrying owls to Athens," or " fish to the Hellespont," 
 (that is, coals to Newcastle), there was also a proverb that ran, 
 " Thou hast brought box-trees to the Cytorus." To these Pliny 
 adds the mountains of Berecyntus in Phrygia. Now the Paphla- 
 gonians being, as we learn from Homer, allies of the Trojans, and 
 mules having originated among the Henetians there, we have an 
 explanation of the box-wood yoke of Priam's mule-drawn chariot : 
 
 " Box was the yoke, embossed with costly pains." — Iliad. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, Marco Polo writes, "In the province of 
 Georgia all the woods consist of box-trees ; " and his latest editor 
 adds, " The wood of the box-tree was so plentiful in the Abkhasian 
 forests, and formed such an important article of Genoese com- 
 merce, that the Bay of Bambor, north-west of Suchum Kaleh, 
 through which that commerce passed, received the name of Chao 
 de Bux, or, as we might say Box Bay." 
 
 The box-tree already grew on the Macedonian Olympus at the 
 date of Theophrastus, but it was of a low, degenerate, knotty, and 
 therefore useless kind. In the more southern parts of Greece, in 
 what is row the modern kingdom, the buxus sempervirens is not 
 common; but it was reported to Theophrastus of the western parts, 
 and especially of the Isle of Kyrnos (Corsica), that the finest, 
 tallest, and thickest of all box-trees grew there, and that in con- 
 sequence the honey obtained in that region had a disagreeable 
 smell. Although the Greeks very early colonized part of the coasts 
 
178 THE BOX-TREE. 
 
 of Italy, Gaul, and Spain, they remained almost ignorant of the 
 interior of those countries until a very late period. Even in 
 Theophrastus' day there hangs over those lands a veil, through 
 which the Greek writers only catch momentary glimpses. Corsica 
 in particular was then a half-mythic land ; and according to the 
 primitive notion of an identity between the extreme west and ex- 
 treme east, it would be quite according to rule that any products 
 of Pontus — in this case the valuable box-tree — should be trans- 
 ferred to that island. For the honey of Pontus also derived its 
 disagreeable smell from the box-tree ; and so late an author as 
 Diodorus (or rather the Sicilian historian Timseus, whom he 
 quotes) speaks of Corsica as a kind of fairyland, a land inhabited 
 by men virtuous and upright, and of simple pastoral habits. Now 
 whether fancy in the same way created the box-trees that grew in 
 the thick and awful forests of the island, or whether the kind 
 called buxus balearica, now peculiar to the Balearic Isles, was 
 formerly found in Corsica — in any case, the connexion between 
 the box-tree and bitter honey in that island is a fable. But the 
 name of the town Pyxous, Latin Buxentum, proves at least that 
 the box-tree grew on the Italian coast, near the modern town of 
 Policastro in Calabria, in the fifth century B.C., three or four 
 centuries after the first arrival of the Greeks in those parts ; for 
 that ancient town, founded in 467 b.c. by Mikythos, tyrant of 
 Messina, was undoubtedly named after the box-trees found in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Among the later Romans the living shrub served, as now with 
 us, for the borders of garden -paths and beds, and was dipt 
 into various forms of animals or even letters. Very instructive 
 in this connexion is the younger Pliny's description of his villa at 
 Tusculum. A plant so generally useful, a species of wood so 
 valuable, must surely, if slowly, have been propagated in suitable 
 localities. During the eighteen centuries since the time of Pliny, 
 who mentions three kinds of box-tree, the plant has been fully 
 acclimatized on the coasts of France, England, and even Ireland ; 
 and as it was certainly human traffic that brought it to these places, 
 it is not unreasonable to suppose that in ancient times migrations 
 from Cappadocia were the occasion of the tree being brought to 
 
THE BOX-TREE. 179 
 
 the Mediterranean countries. It is not surprising that the name 
 of the tree in all European languages is derived from the Latin ; 
 it is a more interesting fact that, since the Middle Ages, all objects 
 that were originally made of box -wood took their names from 
 the tree. Thus in German, biichse, in all its meanings, even that 
 of a fire-arm ; French, boite, and the verb boUer, to limp, that is, 
 to put or get out of the bolte (socket of a joint) ; boisseau, a 
 bushel ; boussole, the compass, Span, bruxula ; buisson, a bush, 
 Ital. busdone ; buste, Ital. busto, a bust; S\a.\. pushika, pushka, a 
 cannon ; pushkari, cannoneer ; Magyar puska, and many others 
 (note 52). 
 
THE POMEGRANATE-TREE. 
 
 (PUNICA GRANATUM.) 
 
 Religious intercourse first brought the beautiful pomegranate- 
 tree to Europe in ancient times. Its scarlet blossoras, its glitter- 
 ing foliage, its rosy-cheeked and kernelled fruit, must from the 
 first have strongly excited the mystically disposed imagination of 
 the nations of Western Asia. Two passages already quoted from 
 the Odyssey mention pomegranates, roiai (rcese), which name 
 alone would prove that the plant was derived from the Semitic 
 sphere of languages and cultivation (note 53). The tree held so 
 prominent a place in Syro-Phoenician worship, that the name of 
 its fruit, Rimmon, is the same as that of the Sun-god, Hadad- 
 Rimmon. According to the legend. Aphrodite herself had 
 planted the tree in Cyprus ; it was dedicated to Adonis, and is 
 intimately mixed up with the divine myth of the Phrygians. No 
 doubt the "apple" that Trojan Paris adjudged to the national 
 goddess Aphrodite, in her struggle with the intruding worships of 
 Athena and Hera, was first imagined as a pomegranate. The 
 tree and the fruit have another name in Greek, side, which 
 probably came from Asia Minor, and was a Carian or Phrygian 
 word. In literature the word appears first in a verse of Empe- 
 docles (middle of the fifth century b.c.) quoted by Plutarch. The 
 writings of Hippocrates contain mention of the localities and 
 dialects in which the word was common. The Boeotians called 
 the fruit side, the Athenians roa. Athenseus relates, that when the 
 Boeotians and Athenians quarrelled about a piece of borderland 
 called Sida, Epaminondas suddenly held up a pomegranate and 
 asked, " What do you call that ? " When the Athenians answered 
 
POMEGRANA TE. i8i 
 
 " roa," Epaminondas cried, " But we call it side^'' and he won his 
 cause. And in much older times there were places, both in 
 Greece and Asia Minor, whose names were derived from the word 
 side. On the coast of Laconia was a town Side, named after a 
 daughter of Danaus, and politically connected with the two places 
 Etis and Aphrodisias mentioned before under the article " Myrtle;" 
 in Troas itself Strabo names a city Sidene on the Granicus; 
 Stephen of Byzantium mentions another Sidene in Lycia ; Sidous, 
 a village near Corinth or a seaport in Megaris, had especially fine 
 mUa (Lat. mala), which, from the name of the place may be 
 understood as pomegranates ; Stephen of Byzantium knows of 
 villages with the same name on the coast of Asia Minor near 
 Klazomenae and Erythrse ; a town Sidoussa in Ionia is mentioned 
 by Hecatasus in his voyage round Asia, and is also spoken of 
 later. Side in Pamphylia, on whose coins is seen a pomegranate, 
 lies indeed on the southern and more Syrian coast, but it was 
 founded by .^olians from Kyme. Finally, far within Pontus, in 
 the beautiful district of Sidene, stood the lofty coast- town of Side; 
 whilst an older form of the name Sibde brings us back to Caria. 
 As in Asia, so in Greece, the tree and its fruit served in the 
 corresponding cults as the symbol of fructification and procreation, 
 and again of death and destruction. There is a Phrygian colour- 
 ing in the Theban legend which relates that a pomegranate-tree 
 planted by the Furies grew on the grave of Eteocles, from the 
 fruit of which, if plucked, blood flowed ; and in that other legend, 
 according to which a pomegranate with fruit as red as blood grew 
 on the tomb of Menoikeus, who, obeying the Delphic oracle, had 
 killed himself on the approach of Polynices. On the figured 
 chest of Cypselus in Hera's temple at Olympia, which was made 
 in the first century of the Olympiads, and was still found in its 
 place by Pausanias, the god Dionysus lay in a cave surrounded 
 by vines, apple-trees, and pomegranate-trees. The statue of 
 Hera by Polycletus, in her temple situated between Argos and 
 Mycene, held in one hand the sceptre with the cuckoo, and in 
 the other a pomegranate. Pausanias, describing this statue, refuses 
 to explain the latter symbol, saying that it cannot be expressed. 
 But it signified the earth-goddess, fructified by heaven and bear- 
 
iS2 THE POMEGRANATE-TREE. 
 
 ing fruit, as the cuckoo signified the rainy spring-time during 
 which the fructification takes place. The pomegranate is a 
 significant feature in the myth of Pluto and Proserpine; the 
 Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells how Persephone was forced in 
 the under world to taste the pip of a pomegranate, that is, to unite 
 sexually with Aidoneus, and thereby become subject to him. As 
 the pomegranate everywhere mystically symbolized the natural 
 life, it could not be dedicated to Pallas Athena the intellectual 
 goddess of chastity, the goddess of the state and city of Athens. 
 It is therefore all the more striking when we hear that in the 
 right hand of the unwinged statue of Athena Nike on the ascent 
 of the Acropolis at Athens was a pomegranate, while the left hand 
 held a helmet. But Cimon had erected the statue as a monument 
 of his double victory on the Eurymedon, in witness of which he 
 had caused the statue to be imitated from the Pallas of Side, a 
 town close to the Eurymedon, by Kalamis. So that the goddess 
 was a stranger, and her pomegranate was a symbol of the Asiatic 
 region whence she had come, and where the Asiatics had just 
 been defeated. 
 
 No doubt the symbol of the pomegranate was also used in the 
 worship of Hera in the Achaean cities of Italy, and the tree itself 
 cultivated near temples and in gardens ; this is also confirmed by 
 what is related of the statue of Milo of Kroton at Olympia ; the 
 Magna-Grsecian athlete who lived about 520 b.c. was represented 
 as a priest of Hera, bearing in his left hand a pomegranate. The 
 intercourse of the Romans with the Greeks of Campania, who 
 brought the Erycinian Aphrodite and the Sibylline books to 
 Rome, must also have imparted a knowledge of that frequent 
 symbol the pomegranate, and of the tree on which it grew. And, 
 in fact, we find a pomegranate mentioned in one of the oldest 
 portions of the Roman ritual ; the wife of the Flamen Dialis, who 
 in manner and dress was an image of the Roman matron of the 
 ancient time, wore on her head a branch of pomegranate, the ends 
 of which were tied together with a thread of white wool, evidently 
 as a sign of wedded fecundity; and her husband's head was 
 adorned at the top with an olive branch. Here the pomegranate 
 cannot be of younger date than the olive, whicli, as we have seen. 
 
POMEGRANATE. 183 
 
 was introduced into Italy about the time of the Tarquins. 
 "Pomegranates imitated in clay, together with other votive offer- 
 ings, have been found in quantities in the ancient tombs of South 
 Italy, especially at Nola," says Gerhard. It is therefore very 
 strange that the two Greek names of the fruit are not to be found 
 in Italy, but, instead of them, the generic term malum with a 
 defining adjective Punicum ox granatum. The first adjective is 
 very likely due to the fact that in the Carthaginian colonies, and 
 then in Africa itself, the Romans found the reddest, sweetest, and 
 juiciest fruit. On African soil, whither the tree had been trans- 
 planted direct from its native home Canaan, the best kinds 
 flourished, and there is no doubt that this product of Africa 
 became celebrated among the Romans. Martial writes, on send- 
 ing a basket of fruit to a friend : " Here there are no pipless (i.e., 
 soft-pipped) African pomegranates, but homegrown fruit from my 
 garden." And Rufus Festus Avienus, who lived towards the close 
 of the fourth century B.C., and had been to Africa, begs his friend, 
 in a little poem, to send him pomegranates from that country ; 
 "Not that my own garden," he adds, "is without that fruit, but it 
 is hard and sour, and not to be compared with the nectar produced 
 by the warm sun of Africa." 
 
 In the paradises of the Vandals in Africa, spoken of by Luxorius, 
 the beautiful tree could not fail to be cultivated, as it was after- 
 wards by the Arabs, the lovers of flowers and refreshing fruit-juices. 
 The Portuguese to this day use the Arab name for the pomegranate, 
 namely roma, romeira ; and from this Arab word is derived the 
 Italian and French name for the steelyard, namely romano, romaine, 
 because the Arab counter-balance had the form of a pomegranate. 
 The city of Granada, founded by the Moors in the tenth century, 
 is said to have been named after the pomegranate, the figure of 
 which was adopted in the arms of the city, and still adorns all the 
 streets and public buildings. 
 
 In Italy the tree is commonly mentioned by ancient authors, 
 from Cato downwards; Pliny in the Imperial period could 
 enumerate many kinds used in various ways. There are wild 
 pomegranate trees — that is, trees that have gone wild — both in 
 modern Greece and Italy, in the form of thorny hedges with 
 
THE POMEGRANATE-TREE. 
 
 uneatable fruit; in these countries even the cultivated kinds do 
 not grow so large nor produce fruit of such a rich flavour as the 
 pomegranates for which Asia is celebrated. In Italy the beautiful 
 red fruit is placed on the table more to please the eye than to be 
 eaten. And the lemon has robbed the pomegranate of the place it 
 once held in the estimation of the ancients. But even now, after 
 the lapse of so many centuries, popular fancy in Greece still con- 
 nects the pomegranate with the idea of abundance and incalculable 
 number (note 54), and a present of the scarlet blossom is a symbol 
 of the most ardent love. The fact that the word puntcum has not 
 been preserved in any of the modern Latin languages, is a proof 
 that it never became really popular. 
 
THE QUINCE. 
 (PYRUS CYDONIA. CYDONIA VULGARIS.) 
 
 Under the general name of apples the ancients included not only 
 the pomegranate but the quince ; which is our reason for speaking 
 of that fruit next. The " golden apples " of the Hesperides and 
 of Atalanta were idealized quinces ; and the apple dedicated to 
 Venus and used as a bridal gift, and in all kinds of girls' games 
 and love games, was also no other than the quince. Its colour, 
 like that of the pomegranate, made a lively impression on the 
 natural man when first seen. The quince could not be eaten raw, 
 but when preserved in wine, must, oil, and especially honey, it 
 gave a very fine aroma and taste to those materials. Its Greek 
 name of Cydonian apple, throws a welcome light on the history of 
 the tree. It proves that the quince first came to the Greeks from 
 Crete, the land of the Cydonians, who dwelt on the north-western 
 coast of that island near the river Jardanus, and — whether of 
 Semitic race or not — were some of the oldest and half-mythic 
 inhabitants. Their city, Cydonia, was the mater urbium of the 
 country, and the fact of the quince being named after it assigns a 
 very early date both to its introduction and to its extension to the 
 Greeks. The first written mention of the tree is to be found in 
 Alkman (middle of seventh century B.C.). Soon after, six hundred 
 years before Christ, it is named by the Siculian poet Stesichorus. 
 About that time Solon decreed that a bride, before entering the 
 bridal chamber, should eat a Cydonian apple, evidently to con- 
 secrate herself to the service of Aphrodite ; the decree being a 
 mere confirmation of an old Attic custom. The tree must also 
 have been cultivated by the Italiote Greeks about this time, for 
 
i86 THE. QUINCE. 
 
 Ibycus of Rhegium, a born Italiote (middle of sixth century b.c), 
 speaks of Cydonian apple-trees in well-watered gardens. The 
 golden apples could not fail to charm the surrounding barbarians. 
 The early existence of the fruit in Italy is proved not only by the 
 Latinizing of its name in the people's mouth, mala cotonea, instead 
 of Cydonia, but also by a passage in Propertius, where that poet 
 compares the simplicity of former times with later luxury : " Once," 
 he says, " the young people gave each other quinces shaken down 
 from the tree, and basketfuls of blackberries, but now it must be 
 gillyflowers and lustrous lilies," etc. Columella and Pliny men- 
 tion several kinds of quinces, among them the malum strutheiim, 
 literally sparrow-apple, which was already mentioned by Cato, and 
 was therefore older than the third Punic war. In Pliny's time 
 quinces were placed in rooms for the sake of their agreeable 
 perfume, just as they are now ; and the ancients made a sweet 
 confection from them like the modern Italian cotognata. The 
 melimela, literally honey-apples, mentioned by Varro, Horace, and 
 Martial, are explained by modern commentators as meaning 
 especially sweet apples; but that they were a variety of quince 
 suitable for cooking with must, and afterwards in honey, is proved 
 not only by the Schol. Cruq., but by the Spanish membyillo and 
 Portuguese marmelo, quince-jelly ; from the Portuguese word is 
 derived the European word marmalade. The above-named 
 Spanish marmalade was already exported to Rome in the time of 
 Galen. The quince-tree is not very common in Italy now, cer- 
 tainly much rarer than it was in ancient times, when the pineapple 
 and orange were still unknown. In the East, on the contrary, 
 and all over Eastern Europe, that region of preserves and confec- 
 tionery, the quince was through the Middle Ages, and is to the 
 present time, a cheap and common sweetmeat of loungers in the 
 bazaars ; of which we see a striking proof in the variety of names 
 bestowed on it by the different Slav nations, some of them being 
 Persian and Turkish words. 
 
THE ROSE THE I.IL Y. 
 
 (rOSA GALLICA, CENTIFOLIA.) (lILIUM CANDIDUM.) 
 
 The flowers of the East seemed no less wonderful and attractive 
 to the warriors, shepherds, and husbandmen of the West than the 
 golden and scarlet fruits of which we have spoken. In the East, 
 flowers were trained, improved, and made into ointments and 
 washes by the children of an effeminate civilization, who lived only 
 to please their despots and perform religious rites. Roses and 
 lilies were already known to the Greeks in the period of the 
 Epics : at first only by report as something splendid in shape and 
 colour, and then in the form of scented oils, till gradually the 
 plants themselves were introduced. Both flowers are employed 
 by Homer and Hesiod in figures of speech. Those poets call 
 Aurora (the dawn) rosy-fingered ; in a Homeric Hymn she is 
 rosy-armed, and the same epithet is applied to two daughters of 
 Nereus. Venus anoints the corpse of Hector with rose-scented 
 oil ; Hector threatens to mangle the lily-tender skin of Ajax with 
 his spear ; the voices of cicadas and of the Muses are termed lily- 
 voices. All these are mere comparisons, possibly taken from 
 things which the poet only knew by hearsay ; and indeed an 
 ancient critic asks how it is that Homer was acquainted with rose- 
 oil, but did not know the rose. The flowers themselves do appear 
 in the Hymn to Demeter — that venerable record of the ancient 
 Eleusinian worship of the goddess — but still in a strange fantastic 
 guise : Proserpine plays with her companions in a meadow, pluck- 
 ing roses (the flower being apparently scattered over an ideal 
 meadow, not plucked off a bush nor protected by thorns) ; then, 
 besides crocuses, violets, and irises, she picks the Narcissus, a 
 
i88 THE ROSE. THE LILY. 
 
 rewly-created wonder, at whose sight men and gods are astonished, 
 rearing its hundred heads from one root, rejoicing sea, earth, and 
 sky with its perfume — evidently a glorification of the symbol of the 
 Narcissus used in mysteries, which, as its name proves, was origin- 
 ally only the representative of intoxicating, exotic floral scents in 
 general. In a later part of the same hymn, Proserpine tells her 
 mother how she played in the charming meadow, and plucked 
 " cups of roses and lilies too, a marvel to look at " — expressing 
 the rarity and fabulous character of those splendid flowers. Some 
 of the names of the nymphs accompanying Proserpine are taken 
 from the rose : Rhodeia, Rhodope (the rosy), Okyroe kalykdpis 
 (O. with a face like a rose-cup) ; and the same adjective is ap- 
 plied to a nymph in the Hymn to Aphrodite. At last, in a frag- 
 ment of Archilochus — who lived a generation earlier, but whose 
 sphere was wider than that of the Eleusinian temple-poetry, and 
 included Thrace and Lydia as well as the Islands — we have the 
 rose-bush itself, whose blossoms, with sprays of myrtle, adorn a 
 maiden, doubtless Neobule, the beloved of the poet. A hundred 
 years after, the rose became Sappho's favourite flower; in her 
 poems she sings its praise, and uses it as a simile for beautiful 
 girls. From that time we find the rose and lily installed among 
 the festive decorations of the joyous Greeks, and everywhere inti- 
 mately connected with the life and customs of that nation. Now, 
 where did those plants come from ? In what part of the East, 
 and among what people had the Rosa gallica — itself a native of 
 Europe, and the parent form of the centifolia — been transformed 
 by cultivation into the sweet-scented rose of the sixty or hundred 
 leaves ? 
 
 It is not surprising to find the rose named in the apocryphal 
 books of the Old Testament, for those books belong to the 
 Grecian age ; but, if we follow Luther's translation, we find the 
 rose mentioned in the older parts of the Bible, for example by 
 Hosea (xiv. 5), who lived in the eighth century B.C. : "I will be 
 as the dew unto Israel; he shall bloom like the rose." So, in 
 Solomon's Song ii. i, 2 : " I am a flower in Sharon, and a 
 rose in the valley. As a rose among thorns, so is my love 
 among the daughters." [English readers will remember that 
 
THE ROSE. THE LH. Y. 189 
 
 their Bible changes "rose" every time into "lily," though 
 its "rose of Sharon" is a blunder similar to Luther's.] But 
 Luther, following the Rabbinical interpretation, has wrongly 
 translated the Hebrew susan, susannah, by rose ; it really 
 meant the lily, and not so much the white lily, Lilium can- 
 didum (Grk. leirion), as the coloured fire-lily (Grk. krinon, by 
 which the Septuaeint translates it), or even more probably a 
 species of the bell-shaped crown-imperial, fritillaria. It follows 
 that the Greeks were earlier acquainted with the cultivated gar- 
 den-rose than the Hebrews, and that it is consequently not a 
 Semitic plant. The absence of the rose in the sculptures and 
 paintings of ancient Egypt, in which floral ornamentation is not 
 wanting, is another proof of the above assertion; and Herodotus, 
 in his descriptions of Egyptian customs, only mentions the lotus 
 flower and the rose-like krinea (note 55). 
 
 Being now, in what relates to these two flowers, the rose and 
 the lily, directed to Central Asia, we are greatly assisted by 
 language, which so often reveals depths in the primitive world to 
 which no history can penetrate. The Greek rhodon, in an older 
 form brodon, the rose, and leirion, the lily, are originally Iranic 
 words (note 56) ; so that both the names and the plants came to 
 Greece from Media by way of Armenia and Phrygia. 
 
 Bright and glowing Persia is still the very land of flowers. The 
 geographer Ritter says of Teheran : " The rose flourishes here in 
 a perfection unknown in other regions of the world. Nowhere 
 else is it so extensively planted nor so highly valued. Gardens 
 and courts are filled with roses ; rooms are crowded with rose- 
 pots, and roses are strewn in the baths and constantly renewed 
 from the ever-blossoming bushes. Even the kalium (a kind of 
 hookah) of the poorest smoker in Persia is decorated with the 
 hundred-leaved rose, and a smell of roses pervades everything." 
 The poems of Hafiz have made all the reading world acquainted 
 with the roses of Shiraz, in South Persia. In the time of Hero- 
 dotus the Babylonians had ahready adopted the use of roses from 
 their Medo-Persian conquerors. "Every Babylonian," says Hero- 
 dotus, " has on his staff the figure of either an apple, a rose, a 
 krinon, an eagle, or some other object." But the rose migrated 
 
I go THE ROSE. THE LILY. 
 
 to Greece, as unmistakable traces in ancient fables prove, by way 
 of Phrygia, Thrace, and Macedonia. The Nyseian fields, where 
 Proserpine plucked roses and lilies, are to be imagined as lying 
 in Thrace, and the name of her nymph, jRhodope, is also the name 
 of the Thracian mountain into which that nymph was to be 
 transformed. According to Herodotus, the so-called garden of 
 Midas, son of Gordias, lay at the foot of Mount Bermion, in 
 Macedonia, where Strabo says the Brigians lived, who in Asia 
 were called Phrygians. In that garden the sixty-leaved rose, 
 whose scent was more delicious than that of any other, grew 
 spontaneously. The Alexandrian poet Nicander expresses him- 
 self still more clearly, only that he makes use of the learned 
 terminology of his time and school : Midas of Odonia (Edonia, 
 a district of Thrace), after leaving Asis (in Asia Minor), was 
 the first to plant in Emathian gardens (Emathia, a district 
 in Macedonia) the sixty-leaved rose. Here the Old Baby- 
 lonian number sixty is noticeable and of itself points to an 
 Asiatic origin. Theophrastus also mentions the neighbourhood 
 ■of Philippi, towards Macedonia, as the home of the full rose, 
 which he already calls " hundred-leaved ; " the inhabitants 
 are said to have found it on the neighbouring Mount Pan- 
 gaeus, which was rich in gold and silver. And a fragment of 
 Sappho, an ancient authority of great weight, points to the same 
 region. Again, in the myths that cluster round the rose, we hear 
 an echo of the Phrygian worship of nature. It is dedicated to 
 Aphrodite ; it is also the flower of Dionysus ; it is at once the 
 symbol of love and of death. How it came into being when 
 Attis (the Phrygian Adonis) died, is variously related. Aphrodite 
 creates it out of Adonis's blood ; or that goddess, on hearing of 
 her beloved's death, comes running through thorn-bushes, she 
 wounds her foot, and her blood turns the white rose red; or 
 again — and this seems the true Phrygian form of the myth — the 
 flower springs up spontaneously from the blood of Adonis, as the 
 pomegranate and almond do in similar cases : " For each red 
 drop she sheds a tear ; fall'n to the ground, both turn to flowers 
 — his blood to roses, to anemones her tears " (Bion). 
 
 It was fabled of the Lily, the rosa Junonis, that it was made of 
 
THE ROSE. THE LILY. 191 
 
 Hera's milk while she suckled Herakles in her sleep. The lily, 
 with its pure unspotted colour, was an eyesore to Aphrodite ; and 
 she, to put the chaste flower to the blush, inserted the yellow 
 pistil, suggestive of the wanton ass. 
 
 The garden-rose of the East was very early taken to Italy by the 
 Greek colonists, as is proved by the popular transformation of 
 rhodon into rosa ; and with it probably went the lily, lilium (note 
 57). From Italy, without any change of name, both flowers have 
 spread all over the world ; but the farther they go north, the more 
 they lose the strength and sweetness of the perfume that breathes 
 around them in their native home. However, the rose throve 
 well under the Italian skies ; it remained in bloom the greater 
 part of the year, according to its varieties, of which the rose of 
 Campania is said to have been the earliest, and that of Prseneste 
 the latest. Campania produced the centifolia, and the Paestum 
 roses were famed for blossoming twice a year. Rosa, mea rosa, is 
 already a term of endearment in the comedies of Plautus, and 
 Cicero associates the rose with a life of luxury : " The fortitude of 
 Regulus made him happier than Thorius swiUing amid roses." It 
 may have been only Oriental extravagance when Cleopatra caused 
 the floor of the hall at Tarsus, in which she feasted Antony, to be 
 covered three feet thick with roses ; and it was in imitation of 
 Bithynian kings that Verres, propraetor in Sicily, rode in a litter, 
 the cushions of which were stuffed with roses, and held to his 
 nose a net of fine lace filled with roses. But a glance at the 
 lyrical or elegiac poets shows how the rose was everywhere con- 
 nected with love and pleasure in Italy. The festive board is 
 hidden under roses ; lovers lie on roses ; the floor is strewn with 
 roses ; the dancer, the flute-player, the boy who serves the wine — 
 all wear wreaths of roses. The drinker crowns both himself and 
 his wine-cup with roses. Roses and the revel of the senses are 
 inseparable. And that the rose was also a flower of the tomb, 
 that roses as well as tears were sprinkled on the dead, is a very 
 ancient and psychologically not far-fetched idea and custom, one 
 that was common in Italy, and proved by numerous epitaphs. 
 For the rose that issued from the blood of the dying god of nature 
 is as fleeting as it is fair : " Tf thou hast passed by a rose, seek it 
 
192 THE ROSE. THE LILY. 
 
 not again," says a Greek proverb ; and the Italian saying runs •. 
 " There is no rose of a hundred days." The rose represents the 
 greatest, though but a momentary, fulness of life; and for the sake 
 of the former quality, it is thirsted for, like wine and blood, by the 
 pining shadows in the realms of the dead. 
 
 Roses were used in the composition of essences, sweet-waters, 
 and ointments, and, in the form of rose-wine and rose-water, in 
 pharmacy, and even, as ancient writers report, in the kitchens of 
 rich epicures. No wonder that rose-gardens were abundant, and 
 that their produce, as well as that of lily-beds, were offered for sale 
 by flower-sellers. Even before the fall of the Republic, Varro 
 advises persons who have property near the city to plant violets 
 and roses as a profitable speculation, and names the best season 
 for doing so. But far away, as far as Campania and Psestum, the 
 needs of the rich and enormous capital were provided for by 
 extensive flower-gardens. During the Imperial Age, when luxury 
 was constantly increasing and Oriental manners were imitated, a 
 senseless extravagance in the use of flowers was the fashion. To 
 possess roses in summer was too common by far, one must have 
 them in winter and early spring : " Do not those who desire 
 roses in winter live contrary to nature ? " complains the philosopher 
 Seneca ; and Macrobius names " snow in summer, and roses in 
 winter," as parallel requirements of luxury. Martial reports that 
 winter roses were brought in ships from Egypt, and that roses and 
 lilies were grown under glass in Rome. In all this the Orientals 
 had preceded the Romans. Florus relates of Antiochus the Great, 
 a true Greco- Oriental despot, that, after commencing the war with 
 the Romans, and taking the islands, he caused tents of silk 
 embroidered with gold to be erected on the Euripus, which is a 
 flowing water ; and there he enjoyed every luxury, even roses in 
 winter ; — the Romans soon drove him home again, " already con- 
 quered by his own luxury," adds the author. The later Roman 
 emperors were equally luxurious. L. .^Elius Verus, his biographer 
 tells us, invenf^ri a new kind of bed, stuffed with rose leaves, from 
 which the white parts had been taken away, covered with a carpet 
 of lily-leaves, the whole enclosed in a fine net. He lay at table on 
 cushions stuffed with 7vasfied roses and lilies. Still more extrava- 
 
THE ROSE. THE LILY. 193 
 
 gant things are related of Heliogabalus. This emperor of Syrian 
 origin not only caused all the rooms of his palace to be carpeted 
 with roses, lilies, violets, hyacinths, and narcissus, but his guests 
 were so deeply imbedded in flowers while reclining at table, that 
 some of them, being probably heavy with wine, were unable to 
 rise, and died of suffocation. 
 
 Through all the wars and destruction of the Middle Ages, the 
 rose and lily, easy to train, and appreciated by the rudest of men, 
 continued to be cultivated. The mediaeval poets, who have not 
 many colours at command, make abundant use of the rose and 
 lily in their descriptions. Both were taken into the service of 
 religion as favourite symbols. The beauty and graciousness of 
 the Virgin were emblemed by the rose, and heavenly purity by the 
 lily. Gothic churches adorned themselves with mystic roses of 
 stone; in pictures of the Annunciation the angel carries a lily-stalk, 
 sometimes — and this is characteristic — the cup being represented 
 ■without pistils. 
 
 Both flowers were employed in the heraldry of that figurative 
 period. Well known are the three lilies (said to have been originally 
 spear-heads) in the royal arms of France, which were appropriately 
 bestowed on the Maid of Orleans at her elevation to the peerage ; 
 and the Red and White Roses of the contending dynasties of 
 England. Among the innumerable particulars in connexion with 
 our subject that may be gathered from the religion, art, and 
 manners of the Middle Ages, we will mention two, both of which 
 were fundamentally derived from the same source : we mean the 
 so-called Golden Rose of the popes, and the mythical figure of the 
 Rusalka among part of the Slav nations. On the fourth Sunday 
 in Lent, which falls in spring, the pope, dressed in white, con- 
 secrated on the altar of a chapel adorned with roses, in the pre- 
 sence of the College of Cardinals, a golden rose, which was 
 afterwards presented as ensuring a blessing to princes and 
 princesses, and even to churches and towns. The pope dipped 
 the rose in balsam, sprinkled it with holy water and incense, and 
 prayed to Christ as the Flower of the field and the Lily of the 
 valley. Shortly before the Reformation, Frederic the Wise, 
 Elector of Saxony, received the Golden Rose ; and in our time it 
 
 13 
 
194 THE ROSE. THE LILY. 
 
 has been bestowed on the ill-fated Empress Charlotte of Mexico, 
 and the pious Isabella II. of Spain. Notes relating to this peculiar 
 custom may be found as far back as the eleventh century, when 
 Leo IX. was pope ; but its origin is evidently connected with the 
 ancient Roman conception of the rose as the symbol both of life 
 and of perishableness, which in the hand of a conqueror expressed 
 not only his glory and his joy, but also his mortality and humility. 
 Equally interesting is the Slavic Rusalka, as a living proof 
 that nations, still mere worshippers of nature, are apt to form 
 mythic personifications out of small circumstances, the sound of 
 a word, general ideas, and foreign influences. Rose-festivals, 
 rosaria, rosalia, were still celebrated in Rome shortly before the 
 fall of the Empire on certain days in May and June; and consisted 
 in decorating tombs with roses, and in social banquets at which 
 roses, the product of the season, were presented to the guests. So, 
 among the Romanized country-folk in the Illyrian peninsula and 
 on the Danube, such spring or summer festivals were held under 
 the Latin name of rousalia ; there, no doubt, in continuation of the 
 Dionysiac summer festivals traditional among the Thracian peoples, 
 and the enjoyment of roses inseparable from them. In the 
 Christian era, Whitsuntide, which occurred in May, inherited the 
 rosalia ; and was called the pascha rosata or rosarum (to this day 
 it is called by the Roman populace pasqua rosa or, by mistake, 
 pasgua rugiadd) ; and on Whitsunday, the so-called Domenica de 
 rosa, roses were let down to the people from the roofs of churches. 
 Afterwards, in the sixth century, when swarms of Slavs occupied 
 the countries on the Middle and Lower Danube, and east and south 
 of the Carpathians, halting between heathenism and Christianity, 
 the Christian Whitsuntide, or rose-feast, naturally became amalga- 
 mated with the heathen Spring-feast of the barbarians. Among 
 the Slovfens, Serbs, White and Little Russians, and Slovaks, this 
 Whitsun or Spring-festival was called rusaliya; and (7a/ of the feast 
 was developed, among the White and part of the Little Russians, 
 a belief in supernatural female beings who frequented the fields 
 and woods at that season, i.e., the Rusalkas, a mythic counterpart 
 of the gay and roving Slav maidens who bound wreaths and 
 interrogated self-invented oracles. Miklosich, in 1864, first gave 
 
THE VIOLET. 195 
 
 this explanation of the historical origin of that belief In Germany, 
 too, the southern rose and the Italian rose-festival became mingled 
 with the Old-German notion of a fight between Winter and 
 Summer ; as the Slavs received this form of the festival and this 
 dressing of the myth from the Lower Danube, so the Germans 
 received it from the Celtic-Roman Tyrol and Italy. 
 
 In modern times floriculture has produced innumerable varie- 
 ties of the Rose, of all shapes and colours, and provided them 
 with fancy names. Periods have not been wanting when the 
 rose was supplanted for a time by flowers brought from distant 
 countries, by dahlias, camellias, azaleas, etc. ; but in spite of 
 changes in fashion, the rose will always re-establish her reign as 
 queen of flowers. In countries north of the Alps, especially in 
 England, art may occasionally improve and perfect the flower; 
 but it will never be so intimately connected with life, nor blossom 
 almost all the year round in gardens and on walls, as it does 
 under the bright skies of Naples. The cultivation of the rose 
 has been well prosecuted in the East, so far as that part of the 
 world has not lapsed into barbarism. The rose was always 
 celebrated in Eastern poetry, and the loves of the rose and 
 nightingale were constantly sung ; even now the petals collected 
 from vast rose-fields are used in the preparation of costly essences 
 and confectionery. Old Busbequius in the sixteenth century tells 
 us in his first letter from Constantinople, that the Turks would 
 not allow a rose-leaf to lie on the ground, for they believed that 
 the rose sprang out of the drops of sweat that fell from Mahomet's 
 brow — still the same unextinguished legend of Adonis, only trans- 
 lated into prose and Islamite. On the so-called grave of Ali near 
 Messar, in the vicinity of modern Balkh and ancient Bactra, the 
 traveller Vambdry saw the wonder-working red roses (giili surkh), 
 which really seemed to him to excel all others in colour and 
 scent, and which have never been planted elsewhere, because the 
 local Islamite legend says they will thrive nowhere else. 
 
 The ancients, as some of our citations show, often mention the 
 Violet, or Pansy, together with the rose and lily, as an ornament 
 of the garden and of the person. Its history runs parallel with 
 that of the rose. As a garden-flower and in its improved forms, 
 
igS THE ROSE. THE LILY. 
 
 the viola also came from Asia Minor. Homer uses ion in making 
 descriptive adjectives {io-eides, io-dnephes, io-eis), but only with 
 reference to its dark colour, not to the scent. Once in the 
 Odyssey ion itself appears in the description of the wondrous 
 scenery around Calypso's cave, where it grows in moist meadows 
 with the parsley : " bad company for it," says Fraas ; but even 
 here it means any dark-coloured flower, whether scented or not. 
 Afterwards a distinction was made between the dark and the 
 variegated light-coloured violet, which latter generally meant both 
 the gillyflower {Matthiolaincana), and the wall-flower {Cheiranthus 
 cheiri). The Latin viola was doubtless derived from the Greek 
 ion (originally vion\ and we may therefore conclude that the 
 cultivation of the violet was introduced by way of Greece which 
 itself owed its knowledge of the plant to Asia. 
 
THE SAFFRON. 
 
 (crocus sativus.) 
 
 Another flower, early celebrated, equal to the rose in esteem, 
 and excelling it in practical utility, was the Oriental saffron 
 {^Crocus sativus), the dignified aristocratic cousin of the modest 
 European crocus of springtime. Crocus vernus. Besides its odour, 
 which enchanted the ancient peoples of the East, and later those 
 of Europe, a lasting yellow dye was obtained from the stigma of 
 the flower. Garments, veils, and shoes dipped in this dye seemed 
 to the eyes of the oldest founders of religion and culture in Asia 
 as glorious as purple, both in themselves and as expressing light 
 and majesty; for the fettered intellect of those dreamy times 
 could not separate reality from symbol. "You Phrygians love 
 garments dyed in saffron and gaudy purple, sleeved tunics, fillets 
 round the head, and inaction," cries Romulus to the Trojans 
 (jEneid, book 9, line 614). Saffron- yellow shoes formed part of the 
 dress of the Persian kings, which was copied from the older Baby- 
 lonio-Median costume. In ^schylus's "Persians," the chorus sum- 
 mons dead Darius from the nether-world with the words : " Rise, 
 ancient ruler, rise ; come with the saffron-dyed eumaris on thy 
 feet, the royal tiara on thy head ! " The oldest mythic-poetical 
 representations of the Greeks show traces of the sanctity attributed 
 by Eastern nations to pure bright saffron-yellow. When Jason 
 the Argonaut prepares to plough the field in Colchis with the 
 fire-breathing bulls, he throws off" the saffron-coloured garment 
 with which he is clothed. Bacchus, the Oriental god, wears the 
 krokotos, the saffron dress, and so do the reeling participators in 
 the joyous feasts celebrated in his service. The new-born 
 
igS THE SAFFRON. 
 
 Herakles is described by Pindar as swathed in crocus-yellow 
 cloths. 
 
 But especially goddesses, nymphs, queens, and vestals are 
 imagined clothed with saffron-yellow garments, or such as are 
 ornamented with that colour. The Attic virgins embroider with 
 many colours the crocus-dress of Pallas Athena. Antigone, in 
 her despair at the deaths of her mother and brothers, lets fall the 
 royal crocus-coloured stolis which adorned her in the days of her 
 pride and joy ; so does Iphigenia when preparing to be sacrificed 
 at Aulis. Venus clothes Medea in her own crocus-woven gar- 
 ment. Andromeda chained to the rocks (or rather Mnesilochus 
 disguised as such) has assumed the krokoeis. Helena takes with 
 her from Mycense her gold-embroidered j>ana and crocus-bor- 
 dered veil, the gifts of her mother Leda. In the Epics, Eos (the 
 dawn) is always krokopeplos, saffron-veiled ; so is the river-nymph 
 Telesto in Hesiod, and Enyo the daughter of Phorkys and Keto ; 
 so are the Muses in Alkman. The hair of the maidens in a 
 myth is commonly of saffron hue, as that of Ariadne at Naxos 
 (Ovid), and of the fair daughters of Keleos hurrying, with their 
 skirts tucked up, to the well by which Demeter sits (Hymn to 
 Dem.). 
 
 Thus an acquaintance with the saffron dye can be traced back 
 to the period when the heroic myth was developing ; that it was 
 obtained from the East, the word krokos itself would prove if the 
 fact were at all doubtful. The Hebrew form of the word was 
 karkdm, as is seen in Solomon's Song iv. 14; the form would 
 vary in other Semitic dialects, but the sound on the whole remain 
 the same. In Cilicia was a promontory Korykos, and not far 
 from it the Corycian Hollow, where, in a valley, grew the finest 
 of genuine saffron ; it is natural to suppose that both hill and 
 valley took their names from the plant. In so far as Greece is 
 concerned, it is indifferent whether the Semitic word was, or was 
 not, derived from an Indian word that had been introduced by 
 primitive traffic ; the Greeks, at all events, received the yellow or 
 yellow-broidered garments as costly wares from the Semites. 
 This must have happened during, and even before, the epic 
 period ; it is another question whether the Homeric singers had 
 
THE SAFl-KON. 199 
 
 ever seen the flower itself. It is true that Homer makes crocuses, 
 lotuses, and hyacinths spring from the earth at the union of 
 Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida ; 
 
 "And clustering lotus swell the rising bed. 
 And sudden hyacinths the turf bestrow, 
 And flaming crocus made the mountain glow " — Iliad ; 
 
 but no doubt the poet would adorn the ideal bridal-bed of Heaven 
 and Earth with the most glorious things he had ever heard of far 
 and near. Again, crocuses grow on those mythic meadows, the 
 scenes of the adventures of gods, as when Proserpine is carried 
 off by Pluto while '• picking roses, crocuses, and violets on the 
 tender mead." Creusa the daughter of Erechtheus is pictured by 
 Euripides as filling her lap with the golden crocus when surprised 
 by Apollo. The companions of Europa, when Jupiter approached 
 her in the form of a bull, are busy gathering the fragrant hair of 
 the golden crocus ; and when Pan and the nymphs pass singing 
 through the lush meadow, the crocus and hyacinth bloom fragrant 
 mid the tangled growth of grasses. When fancy invented these 
 scenes, attention can hardly have been awakened by the humble 
 native kinds of crocus ; the foreign Asiatic plant was always 
 meant In Sophocles' glorious song of triumph on Kolonos, the 
 actual spring-flowers growing on the spot were transformed in the 
 eyes of the enthusiastic poet into the golden Crocus sativus of the 
 East. 
 
 Theophrastus already distinguished the wild or " mountain " 
 crocus, i.e.. Crocus vernus, from the "tame" and scented. He 
 calls the former the white, and a third kind the thorny crocus ; 
 both without scent. But the flower lost part of its aroma in 
 colder Europe, where it easily degenerates. Of all the places 
 inhabited by Greeks, the crocus of Cyrene, on the African coast, 
 bore away the palm. 
 
 In the Roman gardens we find the crocus as well as the rose, 
 lily, and violet. But the flower was a stranger, and its cultivation 
 a triumph of the art of acclimatization, for Columella ranks it 
 with cassia and myrrh. Pliny said it was not worth while to 
 plant the saffron in Italy ; yet it must have been cultivated there, 
 for Sicilian saffron is praised, and compared with the Italian. 
 
THE SAFFRON. 
 
 At any rate, what cultivation there was did not suffice to supply 
 the market, and quantities of saffron, partly raw, partly in the 
 form of essences, salves, medicines, and dyed stuffs, were imported 
 from the sunnier East. Opinions were divided as to where the 
 best grew. Theophrastus praised that of Cyrene, Virgil that of 
 the Tmolus mountains in Lydia. The saffron from Mount 
 Corycus in Cilicia was generally esteemed the finest, that of the 
 Lycian Mount Olympus next, and lastly that of the ^olian town 
 of Algse in Asia Minor. Pliny gives the third place to the 
 saffron of Centurips in Sicily, a town at the foot of Etna. When 
 Roman luxury was at its height, crocus-scent and crocus-flowers 
 were used as lavishly as rose-leaves. Even under the Republic 
 it was customary to sprinkle saffron-water in the theatres for the 
 sake of the sweet smell ; and a banquet being given in honour 
 of Metellus Pius, the banqueting-hall was adorned like a temple, 
 and the floor strewed with crocus-flowers; therefore it is not 
 surprising when we learn that in the Imperial age the statues in 
 the theatre dropped with saffron-juice ; or that Heliogabalus 
 bathed in saffron-water, and made his guests lie on cushions 
 stuffed with crocus-leaves. Saffron was also largely used in 
 medicine and for cooking. It was a favourite spice in meats and 
 drinks, and it was rarely wanting in a medicinal recipe. The 
 estimation in which saffron was held by the ancients remained 
 undiminished or even increased during the childishly dependent 
 Middle Ages. The story goes, that in the reign of Edward III. 
 a pilgrim brought a saffron-bulb to England from the Holy Land 
 in the hollow of a stick, for the costliest things on earth were only 
 to be obtained secretly and at the risk of life. In reality it was 
 the Arabs who introduced the cultivation of saffron into Europe ; 
 they succeeded in accomplishing what had either been tried in 
 vain by the ancients or never attempted in earnest. From the 
 Spain of that time date the saffron-fields in the Mediterranean 
 countries, where the Arabic name of " saffron " (Ital. zqfferano. 
 Span, azafran) has quite supplanted the Greco-Latin " crocus," 
 which itself must have come from the confines of the same 
 Arabia some fifteen or twenty centuries before. The only thing 
 in which the times have changed is, that people have become 
 
THE SAFFRON. 20l 
 
 indifferent to the aroma of this flower ; they neither think the 
 taste and smell charming, nor depend on it exclusively for impart- 
 ing a bright yellow to stuff and leather ; and this is the case not 
 only in Europe, but, what is more remarkable, in the East also. 
 This decline of saffron in Asia proves that even in that stationary 
 part of the world, so fettered by immutable natural conditions, 
 slow changes do take place in long periods of time, and the 
 nerves acquire a new tone. 
 
 We will add that a similar but less important dye-yielding plant, 
 the Safilow or Zaffer ( Carthamus tincforius), a kind of thistle native 
 to the East Indies, had become known to the Greeks by way of 
 Egypt. Its Greek name knikos is somewhat like the Indian one, 
 and doubtless came through the intermediate country mentioned. 
 Theophrastus and Aristotle were acquainted with the name, and 
 Theocritus uses it as an adjective in the sense of yellowish. 
 Theophrastus does not mention the use of the plant as a dye, 
 though that must have been the sole reason of its propagation. 
 The seed is eaten in modern Egypt, and in Italy it is used for 
 curdling milk. But the Arabs were the first to teach its cultiva- 
 tion on a large scale, and its use as a red and yellow dye ; from 
 them too came its name, in Italian asforo, asfiori, in German 
 saflor, and in English safFlow or zaffer. etc. 
 
THE DATE-PALM. 
 
 (PHCENIX DACTYLIFERA.) 
 
 The date-palm is, according to Ritter, the true " representative of 
 the subtropical rainless zone of the Old World," a zone of which 
 Babylon, the palm-surrounded capital of the Semitic nations, may 
 be called the central point. The tree thrives best between the 
 1 9th and 3 sth degrees of north latitude ; south of the Indus 
 mouth, and equally in Darfour (i3°-is°) it no longer exists ; 
 more to the north it needs a mean annual temperature of from 
 21° to 23° Centigrade to bear edible fruit. It requires a sandy 
 soil and the scorching heat of the desert; while, on the other hand, 
 humidity is equally necessary to nourish its thirsty roots. " The 
 King of the Oasis," says the Arab, " bathes his feet in water and 
 his head in heaven's fire." No storm can break or uproot a date- 
 palm, for its trunk consists of the intertwined fibres of the leaf- 
 stalks, while the ramifications of its roots crossing one another 
 chain it to the ground. It attains a height of fifty feet and more, 
 and grows slowly, arriving at its full prime in about a hundred 
 years. From that time it begins to decay. No sunlight can 
 penetrate the sheltering roof formed by its drooping, whispering 
 leaves ; under it are shade and coolness and fresh-water springs, 
 and small fruit-trees and other plants cover the ground. All the 
 Arab villages or single huts are buried in a grove of palm-trees, 
 and the traveller in the desert rejoices when he sees their dark 
 outlines appear above the horizon, sure that he will there find a 
 human habitation and hospitality. " Honour the date-palm,'' the 
 Prophet is said to have taught, " for it is your aunt on your 
 father's side ; it is made of the same stuff as Adam, and is the 
 
THE DATE-PALM. 
 
 203 
 
 only tree that is artificially fructified.'' At the present time the 
 date is the daily bread of the Arab, and the most important 
 article of trade in Arabia. But the tree was not always so 
 valuable as it is now. It was the hand of man that made the 
 fruit sweet and fit to eat, so that whole tribes can now live almost 
 exclusively upon it. 
 
 The most ancient notices of the date-palm do not speak of it as 
 a fruit-bearing tree. The art of cultivating it was first discovered 
 and practised, according to Ritter, by the Nabatseans of Babylonia, 
 in the plains bordering the lower Euphrates and Tigris. In that 
 region forests of fruit-bearing palms stretched continuously for 
 miles ; there the tree almost suflSced for all the necessities of life. 
 Strabo mentions a Persian (Plutarch says a Babylonian) hymn, in 
 which 360 different uses of the palm-tree are enumerated (360 is 
 the mystic astrological number of the Egyptians, repeated in the 
 360 ladies of the Persian king who fell into the hands of the 
 Macedonians). From the region of the Euphrates and Tigris the 
 cultivated date-palm spread to Jericho, Phcsnicia, the ^lanitian 
 Gulf in the Red Sea, and elsewhere. This remarkable fact in the 
 history of cultivation can only be paralleled by another, i.e., that the 
 camel was first introduced into Africa as late as the third century 
 of the Christian era, although that animal seems expressly made 
 for the Libyan desert, and has opened that impenetrable region 
 to foreign nations, their trade, and their religion. Brugsch, in his 
 " Histoire d'Egypte,'' says : " Nous remarquons que le chameau, 
 r animal le plus utile aujourd''hui en Egypte, ne se rencontre jamais 
 sur les monuments " (note 58). The camel and the date-palm, 
 two organisms that are intrinsically akin, and subject to the same 
 conditions of existence, not only belong originally to the Semites of 
 the desert and oasis, the nation of bitter toil and dreamy leisure, but 
 were, so to speak, created by that nation, which tamed and bred 
 the camel, and cultivated the wild palm till it bore honeyed fruit, 
 thus rendering a whole region of the earth fit for human habitation. 
 
 The climatic conditions on which the date-palm depends natur- 
 ally forbid any introduction of it into Europe in the sense in which 
 we speak of the vine, the olive, and the cherry-tree having found a 
 second home there. The date-palm was indeed planted and lived 
 
204 THE DATE-PALM. 
 
 on the northern edge of the Mediterranean, but it no longer bore 
 fruit. It was a charming and strange ornament to the landscape, 
 lending to it a transient gleam of the sunny eastern lands that lay 
 beyond ; it was regarded as a marvel of nature by the inhabitant 
 of the northern mountains when he descended to the coast ; but 
 he could not, like the Oriental, securely link his destiny with it, 
 and dream away his time beneath its shadow, inventing and 
 listening to fairy-tales ; his was a more laborious lot under the 
 inclement sky of Europe. It is true that all tree-culture, though 
 demanding a thoughtful and connected course of action, is an 
 easier, and, in a sense, huraaner occupation ; but of life under the 
 date-palm this is so excessively true, that here Man, finding his 
 wants provided with little action of his own, lies for ever shackled 
 by a gloomy fatalism; and beneath the dignified repose that 
 seldom leaves him a ferocious passion slumbers. 
 
 From whom the Greeks obtained the knowledge of this wonder- 
 ful tree is shown at once by the name they gave it. As phxnix 
 (purple or crimson) meant the Phoenician dye, and phosnix, phceni- 
 kion (a sort of guitar), the Phoenician instrument, %o phxnix, date- 
 palm, is simply the Phoenician tree (note 59), which, as the 
 characteristic product, and, at the same time, symbol of that 
 country, is to be found figured on the Phoenician and, later, 
 Carthaginian coins struck in Sicily. The Iliad never mentions 
 the palm, which was as foreign on the Anatolian coast as in 
 Greece proper ; but in the oldest and most beautiful part of the 
 Odyssey, the palm at Delos is described in words that express the 
 admiration excited in the Greeks of the Epic period by a figure so 
 novel and strange in the vegetable world. Ulysses has approached 
 Nausicaa on the strand, and flatteringly beseeches her assistance : 
 
 " Never, I never viewed till this blest hour 
 Such finished grace ! I gaze, and I adore ! 
 Thus seems the palm, with stately honours crowned 
 By Phoebus' altars ; thus overlooks the ground ; 
 The pride of Delos. (By the Delian coast, 
 I voyaged, leader of a warrior-host ; 
 But ah, how changed ! from thence my sorrow flows ; 
 Oh fatal voyage, sum of all my woes.) 
 Raptured I stood, for earth ne'er knew to bear 
 A plant so stately, or a nymph so fair." 
 
THE DATE-PALM. 205 
 
 The far-travelled Ulysses had nowhere else on earth seen a tree 
 like this, to the slender form of which he compares the figure of 
 the royal maiden, just as Solomon does in his Song, " This thy 
 stature is like to a palm-tree," and as the daughters of kings in 
 the Old Testament bear the name of Tamar, the date-palm. 
 The palm-tree, the pride of Delos, is also mentioned in Homer's 
 hymn to the Delian Apollo j at its foot, clasping its stem with 
 her arms, Leto was said to have given birth to her glorious son. 
 The fame of the Delian palm grew with the increasing fame of 
 the island, both as a resort of Apollo's pilgrims and as an 
 emporium, especially because its fame had been echoed in the 
 Odyssey (note 60). In later times, palm leaves were used at the 
 four great festivals as symbols of victory. They were sometimes, 
 worn in wreaths on the head, sometimes carried in the hand. In 
 explanation of this custom, tradition relates that Theseus, on his 
 way home from Crete, instituted games at Delos in honour of 
 Apollo, and adorned the victors with palm-branches, an example 
 which was afterwards imitated. We take this to signify that not 
 only the palm as an attribute of the God of Day, but also the 
 palm-branch as a symbol of victory and joy, came from the Semites 
 by way of Crete and Delos ; for the palm and its branches were 
 used by the Semites in the same manner — witness the Jewish 
 Feast of Tabernacles ; and Theseus not only personifies the deeds, 
 of the Attic lonians and their voyages between Crete and Athens, 
 but appears as a zealous worshipper of the Semitic Aphrodite. 
 Instead of Theseus, a local legend related that the first thing seen 
 by Herakles on returning from the nether-world was a palm-tree, 
 with the branches of which he crowned himself. Here we cannot 
 mistake the God of Day, of whom the palm, the tree of light, is an 
 attribute. On that occasion the Arcadian hero lasius, the first 
 winner of a race, received the palm of victory from Herakles ; 
 his statue was seen by Pausanias at Tegea, which represented him 
 leading a horse with his right hand, and carrying a palm-branch 
 in his left. In the middle of the seventh century B.C., the tyrant 
 Kypselus, ruler of semi-oriental Corinth, dedicated a bronze palm- 
 tree to the temple at Delphi, where there were no living palms. 
 The frogs and watersnakes represented at the foot of this bronze 
 
2o6 THE DATE-PALM. 
 
 tree sadly puzzled later mythologists and commentators; probably 
 the artist only meant to express, in a realistic manner, that the 
 palm, the child of the desert, could not live without some 
 water, but preferred stagnant water — a fact which he had no 
 doubt learned in Corinth. The Athenians also erected a bronze 
 palm-tree at Delphi, in honour of their double victory on the 
 Eurymedon, and another at Delos through Nikias. Palms 
 are found figured on coins of Ephesus, of Hierapytna and 
 Priansus in Crete, of Karystos in Euboea, and on painted vases, 
 as attributes of Leto and Apollo, and palm-branches as the 
 reward of victory. A dithyrambus by Pindar proves that the 
 Argive Nemea possessed its palm in his day. Pausanias saw 
 palms growing in front of the Temple of Artemis at Aulis, which 
 did not bear such fine dates as those of Palestine, but sweeter 
 than those of Ionia. So, in spite of the Pythagorean prohibition 
 against planting date-palms (because the use of the branch in 
 sign of victory was considered impious by the sect), the tree 
 gradually came to surround some of the cities and sanctuaries of 
 Greece with its graceful groves, to the admiration of all who saw 
 that Babylonish-Libyan wonder for the first time. 
 
 Turning to the fortunes of the palm-tree in Sicily and Italy, 
 we must first of all draw attention to the difference between the 
 date-palm [Phxnix dadylifera) and the dwarf-palm {Chamcerops 
 humilis), the latter being a bluish-green bush, generally stunted in 
 form, that thrives in hot places in Spain, Sicily, and South Italy, 
 whose young leaves, roots, and fruit are eaten, and of whose 
 fan-shaped leaves brooms are made, ropes are twined, and 
 basket, mats, etc., are woven. 
 
 In consequence of the nsxazpalma being common to both plants, 
 the ancient references to the dwarf-palm have often been 
 erroneously applied to the history of the date-palm. But Theo- 
 phrastus already distinctly separates the two kinds : " The so- 
 called dwarf-palms {chamairipheis, groundling)," he says, " are 
 very different from the date-palms, although they bear the same 
 name ; they survive the extraction of the brain (the savoury leaf- 
 buds, whereas the date-palm dies when the cerebrum is taken away), 
 and when they are cut down, the root sprouts again, which is not 
 
THE DWARF-PALM. 2D7 
 
 the case with the date-palm. The fruit and leaves are also 
 different ; the latter are broad and soft (not unlike those of the 
 fan-palm) so that they are braided into baskets and mats (as is 
 the case in the present day). Dwarf-palms are frequent in Crete, 
 and still more in Sicily." Cicero relates that the sailors of 
 the fleet, deserted by its commander, nourished themselves on 
 the roots and sprouts of this Sicilian coast-palm. When Virgil 
 speaks ol palmosa Selinus he means the dwarf-palm, which still 
 covers the waste coast round the ruins of ancient Selinus near 
 Castelvetrano. The besoms with which the mosaic pavements 
 mentioned by Horace were swept were made of the same palm, 
 and so were the ropes, cords, and mats mentioned by Varro, and 
 the mats with which the vines of the province Baetica were 
 sheltered during the dog-days. Columella's Palma campestris is 
 evidently the Chamarops humilis, which is also alluded to in 
 his regio palma fceamda. The verb palmare, to tie up young 
 shoots, could not have been formed either from palma, the 
 palm of the hand, or from palm^s, palmitis, but only from 
 palma, the dwarf-palm. Even the planta palmarum or cephalo, 
 spoken of later by Palladius as covering the dry ground that 
 bears no other plant, can be no other than the Chammrops humilis 
 which is still called in Italy cefaglione (from encephalos, the edible 
 young shoots). The Isle of Palmaria, now Palmarola, took its 
 name from the palm-bushes with which it was once overgrown. 
 
 Still we meet pretty early with the date-palm, the palm as a 
 real tree, in Italy. It is true, when the legend relates that Rhea 
 Silvia, the mother of Romulus and Remus, saw in a dream two 
 palm-trees growing before the altar of Vesta, one of which shaded 
 the whole earth and touched the sky with its summit, such a 
 Greek legend could only have been invented when Rome was 
 already powerful and victorious ; it was imitated from the vine 
 that, springing from the lap of Mandane the daughter of 
 Astyages, grew till it covered all Asia ; or from the olive wreath 
 seen by Xerxes in a dream, which spread over all the earth. But 
 even in Rome's earlier time, when the city was still small, and 
 its name not far known, the tunica palmata, adopted like other 
 badges of magisterial pomp from the Etruscans, was already 
 
2o8 THE DATE-PALM. 
 
 embroidered with leaf-forms taken from the Oriental date-palm. 
 Palm branches, as a sign of victory in the Roman games, were 
 first used in the year of the city 459 (b.c. 293) in imitation of the 
 Grecian custom. From these two facts, it is true, we could not 
 with certainty conclude that the date-palm actually grew in Italy 
 at that time ; for the leaves used in the games might have been 
 brought by ship to Italy, just as they are now furnished for Jewish 
 and Christian festivals ; and the more as the leaves do not easily 
 fade. But about the same period, in 291 b.c, the following miracle 
 occurred in the grove of Apollo at Antium. The Romans, 
 during a plague, had fetched the snake of .^Esculapius from 
 Epidauros, and landed it at Antium. The snake, which so far 
 had willingly followed the messengers and guessed their intentions, 
 now escaped from the ship, twined itself round a tall palm-tree, 
 and after three days quietly returned to the ship, which then sailed 
 up the Tiber to Rome. Whatever we may think of this event, the 
 existence of a palm-tree at Antium must be taken for granted as 
 a point of departure ; and such existence in a busy seaport town, 
 and a place where Apollo was worshipped, is not at all improbable. 
 We know from Livy 24, 10, that, in b.c. 214, there were palm- 
 trees in Apulia. As at Antium, so in the Greek towns of South 
 Italy, date-palms no doubt adorned the beautiful coast as the 
 accompaniments of sanctuaries dedicated to Apollo. Varro's 
 remark, that " the palm-tree bears ripe fruit in Judaea, but not in 
 Italy," is a proof that there was no lack of palms in the Augustan 
 age. But by whom was it originally introduced ? Whence came 
 the non- Grecian name oi palma, if the use of the victor's wreath 
 and the embroidering with palm-leaves were derived from Greece ? 
 The word cannot be explained from the Latin ; and indeed how 
 could such an exotic have a Latin name ? Palma, we therefore 
 conclude, is a corruption of the Semitic tamar, tomer (as the 
 Greek tads, peacock, became pavo), or it was imitated from a 
 Semitic dialect in which the first letter of the word sounded like/. 
 We find an analogy to this in the Biblical Tadmor, and its Greco- 
 Latin name Palmyra, where translation is quite out of the question 
 (note 61). 
 
 Preceding the Greeks, or, as we may say, slipping past them, 
 
THE DA TE-PALM. 209 
 
 at a time when marine traffic was very active (as we see by tht 
 treaty of commerce preserved in Polybius), Tuscan or Latin 
 sailors must have actually seen the palm-tree and learnt its name 
 on the coasts of Libya, Sicily, and Sardinia; or, on- the other hand, 
 Punic merchants may have brought branches of it {termites, 
 spadikes, note 62) to Italy, either as curiosities, or to adorn 
 religious festivals, or as signs of homage to native princes and 
 chiefs. So, too, the Etruscans may have become acquainted with 
 the palm and its uses direct from the Carthaginians without the 
 intervention of the Greeks. As we have before remarked, there 
 was in those early times no question as yet of importing the fruit 
 of the date-palm as an article of trade. Thp word dactylus, 
 borrowed from Semitic, and having nothing to do with finger any 
 more than palma has to do with hand, is only met with very late, 
 in the time of the Antonines ; but it spread through all the Latin 
 languages (Ital. dattero, Span, datil, Fr. datte), and from these to 
 the Teutonic tongues. There is another and older name, caryota, 
 caryotis, which, first applied to a peculiar nut-shaped date, was 
 frequendy used in the first- century of the empire. Poets also 
 used the word palma for the fruit. But these expressions were 
 afterwards lost, and date became the name generally used in the 
 commercial language of Western Europe. 
 
 It is very easy to rear and propagate the date-palm, for the 
 stone soon sprouts when buried in the earth. If the tree bore 
 fruit in Europe as it does in Africa, there would soon be murmur- 
 ing palm-groves on all the European peninsulas that stretch into 
 the Mediterranean Sea; care would have been taken in those 
 early days to plant trees of both sexes near together, and the 
 Oriental method of artificially assisting the natural fructification 
 would have been resorted to. On the downfall of the ancient 
 world, when barbarism overwhelmed those regions, and the sense 
 of grace in life was extinguished, the palm-trees that had survived 
 antiquity gradually died out ; they were unprofitable, and in those 
 days a coarse and greedy self-interest was the only thing that 
 swayed men's minds, besides self-torment and a longing for the 
 other world. But the palm reappeared wherever Arabs settled 
 on the Mediterranean coast. In Spain, about the year a.d. 756, 
 
 14 
 
THE DATE-PALM. 
 
 the Caliph Abdurrahman I. planted with Lis own hand the first 
 date-palm in a garden near Cordova, from which tree all the 
 other palms in modern Spain are descended. The caliph often re- 
 garded this tree with a longing remembrance of the Arabian home 
 from which both caliph and tree were so far away. Palm-trees 
 were also planted by the Saracens in Sicily and Calabria, but this 
 Orientalism on European soU had but a short existence. A few 
 stray specimens of the tree had remained down to modern times, 
 as if by accident, to the joy and admiration of northern travellers, 
 whose enthusiasm first drew the attention of the inhabitants to 
 the picturesqueness and beauty of the tree. Meanwhile, in this 
 as in so many other cases, the Christian Church had faithfully 
 retained the imagery of heathenism and Judaism, and the same 
 branch which had figured at the feast of Osiris in Egypt, which 
 was used at the solemn entry of kings and heroes into Jerusalem, 
 which was worn as a badge of victory at the Olympic games, and 
 embroidered on the garments of Roman emperors, was now 
 consecrated at Rome on Palm Sunday by the Head of Christen- 
 dom, and distributed to all the churches of the eternal city. 
 This custom led to the planting of the largest palm-grove pos- 
 sessed by modern Italy, that of Bordighera on the glorious 
 coast-road from Genoa to Nice, between San Remo and Venti- 
 miglia, almost under the 44th degree of north latitude. For some 
 centuries (it is said since the erection of the obelisk in St. 
 Peter's Square), the inhabitants of Bordighera have enjoyed the 
 privilege of supplying Rome with palm-branches at Eastertide, 
 and this industry gradually led to the planting of more than four 
 thousand trees, which occupy many miles of country. The 
 manner of producing the more expensive and much-prized white 
 palms is this. From about the middle of summer the leaves of 
 the tree are bound together in a bunch, so that the inner ones, 
 deprived of light, can generate no chlorophyll, and thus in their 
 whiteness become not only a symbol of victory, like the green 
 leaves, but of heavenly purity, a thoroughly Christian thought, 
 which never occurred to the ancients. A traveller passing 
 through the Riviera di Ponente at Midsummer, sees the palms 
 rearing their heads in the shape of gigantic tulips, and does not 
 
THE DA TE-PALM. 
 
 understand at first what such a mutilation of the beautiful tree 
 can mean. From Bordighera, specimens of the palm have been 
 propagated here and there along the whole coast ; at Rome the 
 palm-tree in front of St. Pietro in vinculis is a model for painters 
 of Bible scenes ; whoever has visited the island of Capri has not 
 failed to notice the palm-tree in the garden of the hotel Pagano ; 
 and in the Villa Nazionale of Naples there are a few fine trees, 
 which, on dark summer nights, touched by the pale light from 
 the flaring gas-lamps, hover like ghosts above the heads of the 
 moving crowd below. The tree • is seen more frequently in the 
 still milder climates of Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia. It is said 
 that whole groves of date-palms used to flourish in the vicinity 
 of Reggio, but they were either destroyed by the Arabs them- 
 selves when expelled from that coast, or were uprooted by the 
 Christians as relics of those unbelievers. It is also related, that 
 the kings of the House of Anjou, when attempting to reconquer 
 Sicily during the fourteenth century, caused a whole forest of 
 palms south of Palermo to be rooted up. At Elche, in Spain, 
 to the south-west of Alicant, and near the border of hot Murcia, 
 between 39° and 40° N. latitude, stands a celebrated palm-forest 
 of 60,000 trees, which not only produce leaves for pious pilgrims, 
 but luscious fruit for boys and girls. The Arabs were conquered, 
 the Moriscoes exterminated or driven away ; the wood of Elche, 
 originally planted by unbelieving hands, remained as a sign of 
 weakness of faith even among the disciples of Loyola. In the 
 uttermost West, on the Isles of the Blest, in mid-ocean, the first 
 explorers found fruitful date-palms ; at least Pliny has preserved 
 a statement to that effect by the Numidian king Juba. Is it 
 possible that the sea had carried date-stones from distant Africa 
 to the shores of the Canaries? In the opposite direction the 
 early Arabs had profitably cultivated the date-palm even on the 
 southern shore of the Caspian Sea, so that in this quarter the 
 cold realm of the Russians has pushed its frontier almost to the 
 sub-tropical zone of the date-palm ; and if only a few unfruitful 
 specimens now survive. Von Baer is inclined to ascribe it rather 
 to the climate having cooled down than to the indolence of the 
 present inhabitants. 
 
THE CYPRESS. 
 
 (CUPRESSUS SEMPERVIRENS.) 
 
 Humboldt, in his " Kosmos," tells us that the native home of 
 the cypress is the mountains of Busih, west of Herat. Ritter, 
 speaking of the Asiatic distribution of the cypress, agrees that 
 the true home of the mountain cypress lies to the west of the 
 valley of the Indus, in the tablelands of Caboul and Afghanistan, 
 and particularly the above-named Busih, Bushank, or Fusheng, 
 where the tree attains an enormous height. From this home the 
 cypress migrated westward in company with the Iranian worship 
 of the sun. The Zends saw in the slender, heavenward-aspiring, 
 obelisk shape of the tree the image of the sacred flame. Accord- 
 ing to the SMh Nameh the tree came from Paradise. Zoroaster 
 himself had first planted it on earth ; it bore witness to the truth 
 of Ormuzd and the purity of his word ; and all over Iran, vener- 
 able specimens of it adorned the temples of fire, the courts of 
 palaces, and the centre of the Medo-Persian shrubberies or para- 
 dises. Following the path of the oldest Assyrio-Babylonian 
 migrations, the cypress very early arrived in the countries of the 
 Aramaeo-Canaanite tribes, the Lebanon, and the Island of Cyprus, 
 which took its name from the tree (note 63); and there, too, 
 became a holy tree, in which a goddess of nature was present ; 
 the same shown to us in the Troad by Virgil, who describes 
 her ancient deserted temple with the sacred cypress, in this case 
 calling the deity Ceres, while in another he calls her Diana. 
 
 The practical value placed on the cypress by the Phoenicians, 
 and which it continued to enjoy among the Greeks and Romans, 
 was intermixed in a remarkable manner with its religious signifi- 
 
THE CYPRESS. 213 
 
 cance. The wood of the cypress, scented and hard, and exhaling 
 an agreeable odour when burnt, was considered both imperishable 
 and indestructible. The land-lots of the citizens were ordered to 
 be inscribed upon tablets of cypress-wood, and deposited in the 
 temples to endure for posterity . Theophrastus speaks of cypress- 
 wood as lasting longer than many other hard woods, such as 
 cedar, eta The timber of the cypress was preferred to all other 
 kinds for building the Phoenician ships. Like Noah's ark, the 
 Euphrates fleet of Alexander the Great was built of cypress-wood, 
 which noble material he partly obtained in ready-hewn pieces 
 from Phoenicia and Cyprus ; and Antigonus caused the splendid 
 cypresses and cedars of Lebanon to be felled for constructing his 
 fleet against the allied generals. Cypress-wood was used to make 
 costly chests : for example, those in the temple of Diana at Ephe- 
 sus ; it was employed for coffins as an extremely durable material 
 At the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when there was public 
 interment of those who had fallen for their country, their remains 
 were enclosed in shrines of cypress-wood, on which occasion 
 Pericles pronounced his celebrated oration in praise of Athens. 
 On Hiero II. 's splendid grain-ship already mentioned, that " Great 
 Eastern " of antiquity, whose chief architect was Archimedes, the 
 walls and roof of the Aphrodisium were constructed of cypress, 
 and the doors of ivory and ebony. But cypress-wood, sweet- 
 scented and incorruptible, was chiefly used for making idols, of 
 which there was an incredible number in all the Grecian temples. 
 As Jupiter's sceptre was imagined to be of that material, it was 
 also considered particularly suitable for xoana, i.e., wooden 
 images (together with ebony, cedar, oak, yew, and lotus-wood). 
 The comic poet, Hermippus, who flourished at the beginning of 
 the Peloponnesian war, in a remarkable passage describing the 
 trade of the Mediterranean, mentions Cretan cypress-wood as 
 being brought by sea to Athens for making statues of the gods ; 
 and Xenophon relates how, on returning from Asia, he founded 
 a small temple at Olympia to the Ephesian Artemis, and placed 
 in it a statue of the goddess made of cypress-wood. The oldest 
 statue of an athlete seen by Pausanias at Olympia was likewise 
 made of cypress-wood, and was in better preservation than a 
 
214 THE CYPRESS. 
 
 newer one made of fig-wood. It is tb^ same thing in Italy. Pliny 
 speaks of a very ancient idol, representing Vejovis, on the arx in 
 Rome, made of cypress; and Livy relates that in b.c. 207, two 
 cypress figures of Juno Regina were carried in solemn procession 
 to the temple of that goddess on the Aventine. All precious 
 things that were to be preserved from worms and insects, such as 
 manuscripts, etc., were enclosed in boxes of cypress-wood. 
 
 No wonder, then, that the tree which yielded this wood, and 
 was so highly venerated, should have been propagated by the 
 Phoenicians and Philistines, wherever they settled and the climate 
 was favourable, from the very earliest times. In Crete, that early 
 Semitic island, the tree flourished so well and grew so high on the 
 mountains, that the island came to be considered its original 
 home. In Homer's Catalogue of Ships he mentions places in 
 continental Greece whose names are taken from the cypress; one 
 on Mount Parnassus in Phocis, the other in Triphylia, in the 
 kingdom of Nestor. On the coast of Laconia, an early scene of 
 Phoenician influence, there was a seaport town Cyparissia, and a 
 place in Messenia had the same, or a similar name, while in both 
 towns a goddess, Athena Cyparissia, was worshipped, whom we 
 may presume to have been a Semitic deity under a Greek name. 
 If we roam through later Greece in company with Pausanias, we 
 find here and there cypress groves, in which — what is notable — 
 deities of Asiatic origin were chiefly worshipped ; for example, 
 Ganymeda, in the Acropolis of Phlius, a goddess otherwise called 
 Dia, the breaker of chains ; liberated prisoners hung up their fet- 
 ters on the cypresses near her temple ; or Bellerophontes and 
 Aphrodite Melainis, whose temples stood in a cypress grove near 
 Corinth ; or the heaven-high cypress2s at Psophis in Arcadia, that 
 grew beside Alcmaeon's grave, and were called Virgins by the 
 inhabitants, who never dared to touch them (note 64). 
 
 The Greek word for cypress, kuparissos {in early Hebrew, ^,?/^r, 
 see Genesis vi. 14), puts it beyond all doubt that the tree migrated 
 to Greece from Semitic countries. As frequently happened, 
 Crete perhaps formed the intermediate station ; at least the legend 
 of the transformation of Cyparissus into a cypress-tree, points to 
 such a thing. According to that legend, Cyparissus was a Cretan 
 
THE CYPRESS. 
 
 215 
 
 youth beloved by Apollo or Zephyr ; to preserve his chastity he 
 fled to the river Orontes and to Mount Casius (the throne of Baal, 
 God of Heaven, who was anciently worshipped by both the Ara- 
 maeans and Philistaeans), and was there transformed into the tree 
 which took his name. As for the time when the cypress was intro- 
 duced into Greece, it must of course have been before the founda- 
 tion of the cities mentioned in the Iliad which bore its name. 
 
 In the oldest and most genuine part of the Odyssey, the fra- 
 grant cypress grows in the park around Calypso's cave — 
 
 " Poplars and alders ever quivering play'd, 
 And nodding cypress form'd a fragrant shade." 
 
 And in the second part of the poem, the scene of which is laid in 
 Ithaca, cypress-wood at least is mentioned as building material, 
 whether brought from a distance or found on the spot. Ulysses, 
 disguised as a beggar, leans against the cypress door-post of his 
 palace. In the more limited circle of Hesiod's poems, the cypress- 
 tree is never mentioned. 
 
 The cypress being no fruit-tree (for which reason chatterers 
 were likened to it), and its religious significance not greatly ex- 
 tended among the Greeks, its introduction to Italy can scarcely 
 have been accomplished during the first Greek colonization of the 
 country. Though Pliny speaks once of a cypress as old as the 
 city itself, existing at Rome in Nero's time, in another place he 
 more credibly informs us that the tree was foreign to Italy, and 
 difficult to acclimatize. In the idyls of Theocritus, the scenes of 
 which are laid in Sicily, we find the cypress frequently mentioned 
 with praise. From Sicily the tree seems to have spread to the 
 interior of Italy by way of Tarentum, for Cato calls it the Taren- 
 tine cypress. This may have been after the subjugation of Taren- 
 tum, when the influence of the Greek town made itself felt by 
 the Roman conquerors, who gradually acquired a taste for villas, 
 parks, monuments, and fine trees. The beauty and utility of the 
 wood as material for wood-carvers and cabinet-makers were soon 
 realized by the practical Romans, as is proved by Pliny's statement 
 that the ancients called a cypress plantation their daughter's 
 dowry. The trees planted at her birth grew up with the child. 
 
2i6 THE CYPRESS. 
 
 at once a living capital, and her image and emblem (note 65). 
 Rows of cypresses, as well as other trees, were used to mark out 
 boundaries of property. When the Roman Empire embraced both 
 Africa and Asia, the gloomy evergreen cypress also was in Oriental 
 fashion extensively planted as the symbol of the Chthonian or 
 subterranean deities, at first of course among the upper classes, 
 who soon adopted the mystic language of signs peculiar to the 
 East. The poets of the Augustan age regarded the cypress as 
 the symbol of mourning, and frequently use it in that sense. 
 From that time the splendid tree became naturalized in Italy, and, 
 together with the pine, it forms the characteristic vegetation of 
 South-European scenery. Where the cypress begins, there also 
 begins the realm of forms, the ideal style ; there we are on classic 
 ground. Nevertheless, true cypress-groves, cupresseta, are not to 
 be found in Italy ; the tree generally stands solitary, or in small 
 groups, or stretches away in a colonnade at once gloomy and 
 graceful. Cypresses are as frequent in the valley of the Arno as 
 pines in the Campagna Felice near Naples. The cypress never 
 crosses the Alps, and however tall and slender some few speci- 
 mens may be in Italy, for example in the Villa Este at Tivoli, it 
 never attains such majesty as in its native East, where, as Ritter 
 says, "imperishable, evergreen, and balmy groves of these pyra- 
 midal forms " spread their clear twilight over the white tombs of 
 the faithful, and awaken a feeling of aspiring, inexhaustible, ever- 
 renewed life, even in the presence of the dead. 
 
 A variety of the pyramidal cypress, the Cupressus horizontalis, 
 with branches spreading sideways instead of upwards, is very rare 
 in Italy and Greece, but is frequently met with in the warmer 
 regions of Asia Minor. 
 
THF PLANE-TREE. 
 
 (PLATANUS ORIENTALIS.) 
 
 The fame of the plane-tree fills all antiquity, east and west, and is 
 still echoed in the descriptions of ancient and modern travellers. 
 What can be more beautiful amid the sterile rocks of southern 
 lands, or what can turn the mind to greater reverence and 
 admiration than one of these magnificent trees, with its bright 
 foliage, its green-grey trunk, and its deeply-dented leaves, waving its 
 ample boughs above some clear spring or purling brook ? What 
 sight can be more delightful than, standing on some sunburnt 
 mountain top, to look down upon a group of plane-trees, certain 
 to find beneath them shade and a cool spring, where the traveller 
 may let loose and water his tired animal, quench his thirst, and 
 repose his limbs ? With what ecstasy Plato makes his Socrates 
 describe the plane-tree, near Athens, under which he lies down to 
 chat with Phsedrus ; the ice-cold water at their feet, the scented 
 blossoms overhead, the cooling breeze, the song of the cicadas, the 
 velvet turf — in words of such sweet fulness, that the far-fetched 
 compliment paid them by Cicero falls altogether flat ; namely, 
 that " the tree seems to have grown out of Plato's language rather 
 than out of the brook he describes.'' 
 
 Venerable plane-trees of immense height and great age are still 
 found here and there in Asia Minor and the Greek peninsula, 
 though these countries have been so denuded of forest by the 
 hand of man. Celebrated far and near is the immense plane-tree 
 of Vostizza, the ancient Aigion in Achaia, the trunk of which, 
 about three feet above the ground, measures more than forty feet 
 in circumference. The tree still possesses its noble crown of 
 
2l8 THE PLANE-TREE. 
 
 leaves, and would perhaps live for centuries to come, if the partly 
 hollow trunk had not been used as a kitchen during the Revolution, 
 and the tree itself half consumed by fire. Every one who has been 
 to Constantinople has seen the plane-trees of Buyukdere, called 
 the Seven Brothers, hollowed by age and the fires of shepherds, 
 yet still splendid and majestic. Near the te.nple of Apollo, at 
 Bassae, Stackelberg saw a plane-tree forty-eight feet in circumfer- 
 ence, with its hollow stem turned into a sheep-fold. The author of 
 "East and West,'' speaking of Stanchio in the Isle of Cos, says: 
 " In front of the mosqu.e stands a very ancient and magnificent 
 plane-tree, thirty feet in. circumference, surrounded and supported 
 by antique marble and granite pillars, for which no more beautiful 
 place of rest could be imagined." Prince Piickler said of the same 
 tree : " My first walk was to the celebrated plane-tree, said to be 
 the largest of the kind in the East. Its trunk only measures 
 thirty-five feet in circumference, but its boughs cover the whole of 
 the market-place of Stanchio. It is supported by marble columns, 
 which were taken long ago from the temple of ^sculapius, and 
 the tops of which are nearly all imbedded in the bark of the 
 immense boughs, so that they are completely amalgamated with 
 the tree. Two sarcophagi lying at the foot are used as water- 
 troughs." 
 
 Near the cave-monastery of Megaspelaeon in the Arcadian 
 mountains stands the plane-tree on which St. Luke painted the 
 miraculous picture of the Virgin ; " within its hollow, but still living 
 trunk,'' says Ulrichs, " is the little chapel of the Panagia Platanio- 
 tissa, roomy enough to hold ten persons." Mr. Dodwell, in his 
 "Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece," says that the 
 bazaars and market-places of most Greek towns are shaded by 
 plane-trees, Just as the Agora of Athens was planted by Cimon 
 with trees of the same species. Some trees were so old and large 
 that they were already the admiration of the ancients, for 
 Theophrastus tells of a plane-tree near the aqueduct in the 
 Lyceum at Athens, which, though young, had thrown out roots 
 about twenty-five yards long. At Pharae in Achaia, Pausanias saw 
 plane-trees, on the banks of the river Pieros, of such dimensions 
 that their hollow trunks could be used as a banqueting-hall or 
 
THE PLANE-TREE. 2iy 
 
 sleeping-chamber ; and at Kaphyse in Arcadia he saw the tall and 
 splendid Menelais, that is, the plane-tree of Menelaus, which the 
 inhabitants said had been planted by that hero before he de- 
 parted for Troy. Theophrastus thinks this tree was planted by 
 Agamemnon, to whom also the plane-tree near the Castalian 
 spring at Delphi is attributed. If we add to these the plane-tree 
 of Helen mentioned by Theocritus, we see that legend loves to 
 link this tree (which, as one of shade and enjoyment, always 
 belongs to kings, and to the high and mighty in general) specially 
 with the House of Pelops, as the line of rulers par excellence. In 
 the Iliad, when the heroes, led by the Pelopid», prepare to depart 
 from Aulis, they sacrifice beside a spring at the foot of a plane-tree, 
 and in its boughs see the sign which Calchas interprets as signifying 
 that the war will last ten years. The tree had been introduced 
 into Greece from Asia, where the plane-tree, like the cypress, had 
 for ages been an object of religious veneration to the tree-loving 
 Iranians, and the West-Iranian races of Asia Minor. Herodotus 
 has preserved for us a beautiful episode in the war undertaken by 
 Xerxes against the Greeks. While on his way to Sardis in Lydia, 
 the king saw a plane-tree, which so took his fancy that he adorned 
 its branches with golden bracelets and chains, as a lover does his 
 mistress, and set a watchman to guard it. Hamilton, travelling in 
 that region, found the half-decayed trunk of the most gigantic 
 plane-tree he had ever seen, and imagined it might be the very one 
 admired by Xerxes. There also used to be shown the tall plane- 
 tree on which Apollo hung his unfortunate rival Marsyas. Pliny 
 describes one of the largest plane-trees as growing in Lycia, where 
 it was no doubt sanctified by legend. It stood, as is always the 
 case, near a spring, and the hollow in its trunk measured eighty-one 
 feet, though the crown was still so verdant that it formed a roof 
 impenetrable to the rays of the sun. The Roman consul Licinius 
 Mutianus, who dined with eighteen guests in the hollow of this 
 plane-tree, confessed that it was more beautiful than any of the 
 gilded and marble halls of Rome. Homer only mentions the 
 plane-tree once, and the passage is perhaps a later insertion, for the 
 author of the splendid description of the poplar-shaded spring 
 in Ithaca (Od. 17, 204) can scarcely have been acquainted with 
 
THE PLANE-TREE. 
 
 the plane-tree. After Homer, we find the first notice of the 
 plane-tree in the writings of Theognis, who mentions a grove of 
 plane-trees in Laconia, standing near the cold spring from which 
 the vine-dresser watered his vines. The plane-tree is not a native 
 of Semitic countries, and could not therefore have been introduced 
 into Greece by the Phoenicians. It is true that there was a 
 supposed evergreen plane-tree at Gortyna in Crete, under which 
 Jupiter was united to Europa ; but the Phoenician cult of Europa 
 at Gortyna must have been largely penetrated by Lycian and 
 Carian elements. The plane-tree was held sacred by the Carians 
 as well as the Syrians ; Herodotus informs us that near Labraynda 
 there was a sacred grove of plane-trees dedicated to the native 
 Zeus Stratios, into which the Carians withdrew when beaten by the 
 Persians (an Iranian feature in the otherwise Semitic character of 
 the Carian religion). 
 
 Probably the true home of the plane-tree is the mountain 
 ranges of the steppes of Western Asia, where the tree grows on 
 the Taurus at a height of 5,000 feet above the sea. The Greek 
 name of the tree, platanistos, platanos, proves that it came from a 
 Phrygian, Lycian, or some other Iranian source, and not from the 
 Semites ; to a Phcenician product its Phoenician name would 
 have adhered; but platanistos — the broad-leaved, the widely 
 shading— was either formed within the Greek language itself 
 {platys, broad, etc.), or, what seems more probable, it had a 
 similar sound in the kindred Iranic idiom (Zendic frath, to 
 spread, perethu, broad ; and even the later Persic names of the 
 tree, dulb, dulbar, and tchin&r, tchan&l have passed into the 
 modern Semitic languages, showing their obligations to Iranian 
 culture in this matter). A beautiful picture of the Oriental plane- 
 tree is to be found in the edition of Marco Polo by H. Yule, 
 London, 1871. 
 
 On the extension of the plane-tree to the west of Europe, we 
 have the weighty evidence of Theophrastus : " The plane-tree is 
 said not to exist in the regions about the Adriatic Sea, except 
 round the temple of Diomed (on Diomed's Isle, now one of the 
 Tremiti group, north of the Garganus promontory). It is said to 
 be rare in Italy, although that country is not wanting in water ; at 
 
THE PLANE-TREE. 
 
 least the plane-trees planted by the elder Dionysius in his garden 
 at Rhegium, which now stand in the gymnasium, do not thrive in 
 spite of the utmost care." Pliny repeats all this, adding that the 
 plane-tree was first planted on the grave of Diomed in the island 
 called after that hero, then in Sicily, and was very early intro- 
 duced into Italy. With the Roman nobility of the last days of 
 the Republic it was a fashionable pastime to plant plane-trees 
 amongst other expensive adornments of villas and gardens, while 
 the common people preferred to plant fruit-trees, from which they 
 could gather a crop. Fond of exclusive luxury, the aristocracy 
 were pleased with the superstition that it was better to nourish 
 the roots of the plane-tree with wine than with water ; thus it is 
 related of the celebrated orator Hortensius, that he once requested 
 Cicero to take his turn in pleading at court, because he was 
 obliged to go to his villa at Tusculum, in order with his own 
 hands to moisten the roots of his plane-tree with wine. The 
 great Caesar, we are told in one of Martial's hymns, planted a 
 plane-tree on the bank of the Guadalquivir ; the growth of this 
 tree, in the eyes of the poet, was an image of the imperishable 
 glory of the Dictator and his house. In the Augustan poets, 
 those hangers-on of the court, it is a favourite habit to sit in the 
 thick shade of this aristocratic tree beside some cooling spring, 
 and give themselves up to the enjoyment of repose and wine. 
 Ovid calls the plane-tree genialis — that is, a tree that serves to 
 nourish genius and heighten the enjoyment of life. But again, in 
 true Roman fashion, conscience wakes up and protests against 
 desecrating the holy ground, the teeming Earth, by planting a 
 mere ornamental tree that does no one any good, much as chil- 
 dren are forbidden to play with bread. Hence the epithets, 
 "lonely, barren, bachelor," applied to it. "Soon," says Horace, 
 "the fishponds will be bigger than the Lucrine Lake, and the 
 bachelor plane drive out the elm," — the latter being a wedded 
 tree, for it supports the vine. "Who," asks Pliny, "would beheve 
 a tree had been fetched from the other end of the world for the 
 sake of shade ? Why, the plane has got as far as the Morini ; it 
 takes up some of their tributary soil, and they pay a tax for its 
 shadow.'' It is hardly credible that the true plane-tree, the Platanus 
 
THE PLANE-TREE. 
 
 orientalis, was planted on the Straits of Dover, and flourished 
 there ; it must have been a similar shady tree, perhaps the 
 northern maple, Acer plaianoides, called by Pliny himself the 
 Gallic or white maple, for which tree there is a remarkably similar 
 name running through the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, and Thracian 
 languages (note 66). It is generally believed that the American 
 maple {platanus Occidentalis), which is now largely used in Central 
 Europe for forming avenues, was brought from a still greater 
 distance than the plane-tree of the ancients, and equally for the 
 sake of its shade alone. Some consider it a mere variety of the 
 Oriental plane-tree, but the first opinion is by far the most probable. 
 
THE PINE TREE. 
 
 (PINUS PINEA.) 
 
 The history of the Pine-tree is beset with difficulties, because the 
 ancients, in mentioning the coniferous trees, do not carefully dis- 
 tinguish the various kinds, and have thus left a wide field open to 
 conjecture. However, two groups of these trees can be distin- 
 guished with sufficient certainty : one, called "elate," is 'Cae.pinus 
 pkea; the other has the two names of "pitys" and "peuke," 
 under which must be included the Pine, if it occurs at all. Homer 
 was acquainted with all three names : his " elate " is a tall aspiring 
 tree, with the epithets lofty, towering, heaven-high, therefore the 
 Fir; but that his "pitys" meant the Pine, pinus pinea, the tree 
 with the elegant parasol-like roof and edible almond-like kernels, 
 is by no means clear from the three, or rather two, passages in 
 which the word occurs. In the Iliad we read : 
 
 " Then, as the mountain oak, or poplar tall, 
 Or pine (fit mast for some great admiral). 
 Nods to the axe till, with a groaning sound, 
 It sinks, and spreads its honours on the ground : 
 Thus fell the king." 
 
 But here the adjective blothros (up-shooting), and the association 
 with oak and poplar, leads more naturally to the larch-fir, Pinus 
 laricio, or to the Pinus picea, elsewhere called " Slate," than to the 
 nut-bearing pine ; thus Ulysses on Calypso's Isle builds his ship 
 of elm, poplar, and fir (Slate). And the same remarks apply to 
 the second passage. As for " pitys " and " peuke," the funda- 
 mental meaning of both is that of pitch-tree, resin-tree. The 
 different names may have been used in different localities for the 
 
224 THE PINE-TREE. 
 
 same species, or vice versA, the same name for different kinds. 
 Theophrastus says that what he called " peuke " the Arcadians 
 called " pitys." Position, soil, climate, and age certainly produced 
 varieties of the tree in those times as well as later. The detailed 
 descriptions by Theophrastus in his " History of Plants " are not 
 sufficiently clear to make a fixed terminology of the coniferas 
 possible in our sense of the word ; and there is nothing to show 
 whether the cultivated pine had its wild representatives in the 
 Grecian mountains, or whether it was a foreign tree, and, in the 
 latter case, whence it had come, and when. 
 
 If we turn for information to the fruit of the pine, we find that 
 the name for the nuts in the cone was at first a general one, used 
 for all kinds of pips and berries ; but in later times it was confined 
 to pine-kernels. In an Attic inscription, which perhaps belongs to 
 the second century B.C., pine-cones are mentioned among other 
 dainties, but we are not informed whether they grew in Greece or 
 came from abroad, like dates and Egyptian beans. From these 
 and other testimonies too complicated to mention here, it results 
 that as we approach nearer to modern times the pine acquires 
 a more distinct form ; general names becomes more and more 
 limited to this fruit, and the latter appears more frequently as a 
 delicacy of common life. The comic poets of Athens never men- 
 tion thepignoli, or pine-nuts. Theocritus speaks of pine-nuts as 
 being a favourite dainty in Sicily ; he describes a pleasant resting- 
 place, where fountains spring, birds twitter, the trees spread a cool 
 shade, and the pines drop their nuts ; and, in fact, when the cone 
 has hung four years on the tree, the scales open naturally and 
 allow the nuts to fall out, which then only require to be cracked 
 open. Cato speaks of the pine in continental Italy, giving in- 
 structions how to sow the kernels. Pliny begins his enumeration 
 of tree-fruits with four sorts of edible cone-kernels, belonging to 
 four different kinds of trees, among which are the Picea sativa, and 
 the pinaster or wild pine, the nuts of which the Taurini boiled 
 with honey, and called the mixture aquicelos. When the younger 
 Pliny, in his celebrated second letter to Tacitus, compares the 
 smoke issuing from Vesuvius to a.pinus, we at once recognise our 
 pine with its umbrella-like crown resting on a tall and slender 
 
NUT-PINE. 225 
 
 shaft. The pine is not forgotten by the poets in their descriptions 
 of rural paradises ; it was not a forest, but a garden tree, therefore 
 most certainly of foreign origin : pinusin hortis (Virgil), culta pinus 
 (Ovid). Petronius uses words that distinctly paints its bare, 
 tapering trunk, and its rocking, rustling roof. Martial .warns the 
 traveller not to rest beneath a pine-tree, lest its heavy cones fall 
 upon his head. The pine-tree neither climbs high mountains nor 
 wanders far from the promontories and shores of the Mediterranean 
 Sea ; another proof that it was foreign to both Italy and Greece, 
 for the indigenous growths of those countries, where the cutting 
 north wind is still felt, have strength enougTi, when assisted by 
 cultivation, to surmount the Alps and find a footing in favourable 
 localities of Central Europe. But even the neighbourhood of 
 Turin is already too cold for the pine-tree. We do not know 
 whether and in what part of Asia it may still be found in a wild 
 state. Fiedler says it is rarely found in modern Greece, and then 
 generally in solitary examples. The pine-nuts sold in the large 
 bazaars usually come from Russia, and are the fruit of the Pinus 
 cemhra. According to Grisebach, the pine, mixed with larches, 
 grows in forests on the northern shore of the peninsula of Hagion- 
 Oros (which terminates in Mount Athos). In modern Italy the 
 pine-tree forms the picturesque adornment of most villas and 
 gardens, for example, in Rome. It has lately been extensively 
 planted in the rich Campagna of Naples, above which, far and 
 wide, rise its charming mushroom-shaped crowns of tufted 
 branches. Now and then it is met with in denser groups, but 
 nowhere so continuous as in the celebrated Pineta of Ravenna. 
 This famous pine-forest to wliich Ravenna, though surrounded by 
 marshes, owes its salubrious air, stretches for more than six geogra- 
 phical miles along the shore, with a breadth of about a league, stand- 
 ing on a former sea-bottom. It is well described by Karl Witte : 
 "Instead of the uniformity of a swaying baldachin, in which 
 form we are accustomed to see the pine, we here find many 
 hundreds of grand old trees with the strangest and most curiously 
 twisted branches ; and below their verdant roof a luxuriant growth 
 of shrubs and creepers covers the damp and fertile ground in 
 wonderful variety. An author of the last century counted almost 
 
 IS 
 
226 THE PINE-TREE. 
 
 three hundred kinds of plants in this Pineta ; and amongst them 
 sing and chirp and buzz innumerable birds and other winged 
 creatures ; while, far above, the breeze from the neighbouring sea 
 whispers unceasingly through the branches of the pines." This 
 Pineta annually yields about nine thousand bushels of pine- 
 kernels, while the empty resinous cones afford the best material 
 for hearth-fires. Now, as this forest for the greater part stands 
 upon newly formed land, which was still sea at the time of the 
 Romans, it can only have been planted during the Middle Ages, 
 certainly not before the time of Procopius. But the whole ter- 
 ritory was no doubt rich in pines at an earlier time. Faenza, 
 not far from Ravenna, possessed cultivated pines, which towered 
 above the sown fields, in the days of Silius Italicus. We do not, 
 however, believe that Augustus chose Ravenna as one of the two 
 stations for his fleet because of the existence of this tree, for a 
 naval station and a dockyard are two very different things, the choice 
 of the former depending on military and political reasons. At 
 the time of the Gothic invasion there already existed a place 
 called Pineta, near Ravenna, which however seems to have been 
 situated to the north-west of that city, not where the modern pine 
 forest stands. The latter was planted to protect Ravenna against 
 the encroachments of the sea, at a time when the whole of North 
 Italy was engaged in a struggle against nature by means of canals, 
 dams, and other marvels of technical skill. Dante saw the forest 
 and admired it ; he calls it that of Chiassi (classis, i.e., the old 
 harbour of Ravenna), and Boccaccio does the same. It was once 
 the property of several churches and monasteries, and afterwards, 
 until Italy was united, formed one of the estates of the Apostolic 
 exchequer; the latter, in the year i860, ceded it by treaty, or 
 the semblance of a treaty, to the canons of St. John Lateran, who 
 in their turn transferred their rights to a private person. Both 
 contracts were declared null and void by the Italian courts, 
 because the sovereignty of Italy having changed, the papal 
 exchequer could no longer be regarded as a proprietor. How- 
 ever, the Italian Government condescended to sign an agreement, 
 by virtue of which, for a relatively moderate sum, it took posses- 
 sion of the Pineta, the capital of which is valued at four to five 
 
NUT-PINE. 2:7 
 
 million francs. The citizens of Ravenna, according to an ancient 
 custom, have still extensive rights of use in the forest, and it has 
 been complained that the easy means of livelihood it affords 
 encourages idleness and attracts all sorts of vagabonds from far 
 and near. Notwithstanding, the Pineta is still considered the 
 palladium of Ravenna, shielding the city and the district from 
 poisonous exhalations and the tides of the sea, and is valued and 
 cherished accordingly. 
 
THE CANE. 
 
 (arundo donax.) 
 
 It is a surprise to the northern traveller when, after crossing the 
 Alps, he first comes in sight of a waving, rustling cane-field, the 
 knotty hollow tubes of which, clothed with leaves, are often an 
 inch thick or even more, and reach far above his head. The root 
 bulbs, the oculi of the ancients, are laid in deep trenches, in damp 
 fat soil, alongside the dams, on the banks of rivers and canals, 
 but also sometimes in dry fields ; in autumn the canes which have 
 sprung up are cut short, and the stumps remaining are burnt, the 
 ashes being left to manure the earth for the new growth of the 
 following year. One may frequently see from elevated points — 
 for example during an evening walk on one of the Seven Hills of 
 Rome — fire and smoke flickering and wreathing above the level 
 plains. This giant grass is not only a substitute for fire-wood in 
 the forestless south, but is used to prop vines, to hedge fields and 
 gardens, to form arbours, railings, and the frame-work of plaster 
 ceilings ; the canes serve instead of ropes for hanging wet linen 
 on to dry ; they are made into fishing-rods, into weaving-spools, 
 and a hundred other objects. In modern as in ancient times the 
 shepherdess uses a piece of cane for a spindle, which is light and 
 easy to carry as she follows her kids and lambs up the rocky path; 
 and the shepherd boy, now as then, cuts from the smooth cane 
 his shrilly pipe, the tibia, fistula, or syrinx. Southern people no 
 longer write with a reed, but an inkstand is still called calamajo, 
 as the magnet is called calamita, and the crisping-pin calamistro, 
 and boys ride about on a long cane just as they did in the days 
 of Horace. This cultivated plant, which must not be mistaken 
 
CANE. 229 
 
 for the European marsh reed, Phragmites communis, originated in 
 warmer Asia, and even now never leaves the neighbourhood of 
 the Mediterranean. Already in the Homeric age the Phoenicians 
 brought to Italy many articles made of the Arundo donax. As 
 we infer from several words that occur in the language of the 
 Epics, the word kanne, originally kane, which was derived from 
 the Semitic, and which the Romans borrowed from the Greeks 
 {canna, formerly cana, as is proved by canalis), produced the 
 Homeric kaneon, kaneion, bread-basket, and kanon, weaver's spool, 
 also the cross-bar of a shield, which served either to secure the 
 handle or to stretch the shield itself The basket, found also 
 later in the extended form, kanastron, kanistron, out of which 
 bread was served to the guests, was woven of split canes, and 
 therefore probably an article of Phoenician trade. The kanones of 
 a shield had to be both light and strong, and these two leading 
 qualities of a good shield were found united in the Asiatic cane. 
 The balance used by the ancient merchants when they spread 
 out their wares on the seashore was no doubt an evenly poised 
 cane (note 67) ; a straight cane formed the measure and the ruler, 
 for we find kanon afterwards used in both these senses [even now 
 the populace of Naples prefer to measure by the canna rather 
 than by the metre]. 
 
 The Cyclopean walls of Mycense were hewn with chisel and 
 measured with a phoinix kanon (reddened cord), which, drawn 
 tight and snapped, left a straight red line on the stone. We 
 very early read (in a fragment by Hipponax) of mats and covers 
 made from the kanna. That Greek word is rarely found in 
 antiquity, and when it is, means not the plant itself, but some 
 object made out of it. We must therefore inquire when the cane 
 was brought to Greece, and to what extent it was planted there. 
 The reedy thicket in the Odyssey, in which Menelaus and Ulysses 
 lay in ambush, may have consisted of the common marsh-reed ; 
 but the arrow with which Paris wounded Eurypylus in the thigh 
 must have been made of the Asiatic cane, for in this case the shaft 
 had to be both strong and light ; these arrows, however, may have 
 been an imported article, and of foreign material. The careful 
 description given by Theophrastus of the different kinds of canes 
 
230 THE CANE. 
 
 is not precise enough ; we cannot recognise in it with any cer- 
 tainty the Arundo donax. But when he finally says that all canes 
 grew better when the old stumps were burnt, he must have been 
 thinking of cultivated canes. Dioscorides more clearly describes 
 the true Asiatic cane when he says : " One kind of cane is thick 
 and hollow, it grows near rivers, and is called donax, and by some 
 persons Cyprian cane " — therefore it must have been brought 
 from the latter island. Another intermediate station may have 
 been the island of Crete, whose inhabitants were called by Pindar 
 Toxophoroi, and were celebrated through all antiquity for their 
 arrows. No place in Greece proper was better fitted to receive the 
 foreign cane than the shores of Lake Copais in Boeotia and of the 
 rivers that flow into it ; a district which was open to Eastern 
 influences at an early period. The flute-reed, kalamos auktikos, 
 which grew there later, can only have been the Arundo donax, of 
 which even now the Greek shepherds make their syrinxes. Perhaps 
 the Sicilian canes, with which Dionysius the elder set the Achra- 
 dinian gate of Syracuse on fire, had been cultivated by man— for 
 the Arundo donax still grows luxuriantly on the banks of the 
 Anapus. Cato gives directions for planting an arundinetum in 
 damp spots and on the shores of rivers; so do his successors, 
 Varro, Columella, Pliny, etc. ; and these methods, such as the 
 planting of the root-stocks, the burning, the use of the canes for 
 hurdles, for building houses, for supporting vines, and so on, are in 
 practice at the present day. But as in Greece, so in Italy the word 
 canna was a late arrival, and was indeed the name for the thinner 
 and weaker common cane in contrast to the true arundo. The 
 oldest author who uses it seems to be Vitruvius, who gives instruc- 
 tions how to nail canncB to the walls as a ground-work for the 
 plaster or stucco. Ovid, who has a liking for the word canna, dis- 
 tinguishes the smaller canna from the long arundo ; and Columella 
 expressly says that the common people called the degenerated 
 cane canfia, and believed that by age the fibres grow so close that 
 " the stalks get thinner, like those of the canna." Vitruvius,. 
 above quoted, advises people to make use of the thinner marsh- 
 cane if the Arundo Graca be not at hand ; thus calling the 
 Arundo donax after the country from which it came. And finally, 
 
CANE. 231 
 
 in the latest Imperial age, Palladius uses canna as the common 
 expression for the reed in general. That the word was used in 
 Italy long before Vitruvius is shown by the above-mentioned deri- 
 vative canalis ; and the celebrated town of Cannae on the Aufidus 
 in Apulia took its name, no doubt, from the canes growing there, 
 as did also the ^lEolian town of Kanai in Asia Minor. The 
 modern European languages possess numberless further deriva- 
 tives and applications of the word : can, channel, canon (in both 
 senses), cannon, canister, knaster ; in German, kanne, kannen- 
 giesser (pewterer, alehouse politician), kaneel (cinnamon) ; in 
 French, chanoine, cheneau (gutter), etc., all of which may finally 
 be traced to the Hebrew kaiieh, or its Phoenician representative. 
 
THE PAPYRUS. 
 
 The Papyrus-plant, one of the Cyperacea, or half-grasses, and 
 therefore only half related to the Arundo donax, excels the latter 
 in beauty and ancient fame. No one who has visited old Syracuse 
 in Sicily needs to be told that this plant has found its way even 
 into Europe. Near Syracuse is a small branch of the Anapus, 
 leading up to the fabulous spring of Cyane (now Testa di Pisbna), 
 and bordered on each side with papyrus, which rises straight out 
 of the shallow, clear, slowly-running water. In one particular 
 place, where the little river widens into a lake-like basin, the so- 
 called Camerone, the scene becomes fairy-like and truly tropical ; 
 the tall canes, from twelve to sixteen or eighteen feet high, with 
 their graceful feathery tops, encloses on every side like a thicket the 
 liquid mirror, on which their shadows peacefully float, and at which 
 their roots and stems are ever drinking. In ancient Egypt, as every 
 one knows, this plant grew in enormous quantities, and was used in 
 various ways ; the roots for foe."': the bast for ropes, baskets, mats, 
 and river-boats ; the fine skins for^ v,»''^ing paper. The Greeks 
 procured their byblos-material from the Valley of the Nile, and 
 called their books, writings, and letters, "bibles," after it. It is 
 very remarkable that the papyrus is now quite extinct in Egypt (for 
 though some travellers profess to have seen it there, they probably 
 mistook some other plant for it), and is only found again — and 
 then in vast quantities — on the White Nile and the Gazelle. The 
 papyrus disappeared from Egypt — where it was probably an exotic 
 introduced from the countries higher up — and therein it shared 
 the fate of the Egyptian bean, " Kyamos Aigyptios " {Nympheea 
 nelumbd), so often mentioned by ancient writers — a proof that cul- 
 ture, as it enriches a country or a whole hemisphere, will under 
 
PAPYRUS. 233 
 
 altered circumstances withdraw its gift. To both plants the com- 
 petition of other plants and of new inventions proved fatal ; they 
 were supplanted by parchment and rag-paper, by hemp and spart- 
 grass, by fruits containing more farina, etc. In Greece itself there 
 has never been found a trace of a papyrus plantation, which made 
 the presence of the plant in Sicily the more mysterious, till the 
 Florentine botanist P. Parlatore cleared up the history of the 
 Sicilian papyrus. Parlatore first distinguishes between two species 
 of the plant : the old Egyptian papyrus, still found in mummies, 
 and still living in Nubia and Abyssinia, which he calls Cyperus 
 papyrus ; and the Sicilian papyrus, growing much taller, spreading 
 at the top into a plume and not into a cup ; which was a native of 
 Syria, and to which therefore he gives the name of Cyperus Syriacus. 
 This distinction does not help us much, for Syria, after all, acquired 
 its papyrus only by transplantation from Egypt; and it is a historical 
 fact that the ancients knew nothing of the papyrus plant in Sicily, 
 so that it could not have existed in that island. It must have been 
 the Arabs that brought it from Syria shortly before the beginning 
 of the loth century. Ibn Hauqal, who wrote in 977-8, is the first 
 writer that mentions it. It was probably planted first on the little 
 river near Palermo, which was called Papireto after it ; there it 
 grew abundantly till the year 1591, when the then Viceroy caused 
 the whole district to be drained because of the malaria bred by the 
 Papireto, and the papyrus grove was of course destroyed. But 
 even now the place is called //a«^ del papireto, and the papyrus is 
 still cultivated in the public gardens there. At Syracuse it must 
 have been planted about the middle of the seventeenth century, 
 for a trustworthy author of the year 1624 is ignorant of its existence, 
 while another of 1674 is aware of it It is now found here and 
 there growing wild in the southern and eastern parts of the island, 
 and is a favourite ornament in the gardens of the rich aristocracy. 
 All the specimens in European hothouses seem to have been pro- 
 cured from Sicily. If the Arabs had extended their dominion to 
 Greece, and founded a brilliant court there, as they did at Palermo, 
 this graceful ornament of river-banks would probably meet our eye 
 in some of the waters of that warm country so much nearer to 
 Syria, as it did once on the Papireto, and does now on the Anapo. 
 
CUCURBITACEOUS PLANTS. 
 
 The fruits of this family, which are among the giants of the 
 vegetable kingdom, have all come from Asia, and most of them 
 from South Asia, especially India. Once spread in several varieties 
 throughout the countries of the ancient civilized world, they are 
 still the favourites of Southern and particularly of Eastern nations. 
 Protected by a thick rind, which prevents the evaporation of the 
 internal .moisture, they collect during the withering heats of 
 summer a quantity of ever-cold juice, by which the thirsty eater is 
 refreshed. The quantity and flavour of the fruit are very different, 
 according to the species : sometimes the flesh almost melts into 
 water, and drops from hand and mouth while being eaten, like the 
 Oriental water-melon ; sometimes it forms a sweet, aromatic mass, 
 as in the sugar-melon. While the above-named kinds are eaten 
 ripe after taking out the seeds, the cucumber species are now only 
 eaten in an unripe condition and with the seeds, or sometimes 
 pickled ; the pumpkin alone is never raw, but always cooked. The 
 feeble stems bear no sort of proportion to the often enormous size 
 of the fruit, which lies still on the ground, gradually swelling and 
 awaiting its maturity ; it cannot, like the cocoa-nut or any other 
 tree-fruit, hang temptingly on high, and fall when ripe, that its 
 seeds may be cast around. All this already amazed the ancients. 
 Matronius, the merry parodist, called the pumpkin " Son of holy 
 Earth," an epithet used before by Homer for the Titan, Tityos ; 
 and if Homer's Titan, when he lay on the ground, covered nine 
 pleihra, Matronius's pumpkin, lying in the garden, was as long 
 as nine tables in a row. Callimachus talks of the pumpkin 
 growing and growing on its dewy bed, and Heraklides calls it 
 "earth-loving;"' while Virgil describes the serpeut cucumber 
 
CUCUMBER. PUMPKIN. 235 
 
 coiling through the grass and swelling into belly-shape. In 
 no other plant are so many variations, degenerations, and trans- 
 formations observed as in the cucurbitaceae. The reason perhaps 
 lies in their excessive and therefore easily diverted creative power, 
 which is also the cause of the astonishing size of some of these 
 fruits. As even in ancient times the boundary-lines between 
 species were very undecided, and the names in common use 
 sometimes meant one kind, sometimes another, it is very difficult, 
 or even impossible, to make tjie ancient accounts agree with our 
 Ijresent knowledge of the subject, or to decide in any given case 
 whether a melon, a pumpkin, or a cucumber was meant, and if so, 
 which kind. 
 
 The oldest testimony to the existence of the gourd-kind in the 
 East, or rather in Egypt, is to be found in Numbers xi. 5. There 
 the Israelites, wandering through the arid desert, long for the 
 fruits they have left behind in Egypt : "We remember the fish 
 which we did eat in Egypt freely ; the cucumbers, and the melons," 
 etc. By the cucumber is most likely meant the Egyptian cucumis 
 Chate, a large oval fruit, still commonly eaten under that name in 
 the Levant, after it has ripened, and acquired something of the 
 melon in taste and effect. At the same time, it is possible that since 
 those early days some names have been shifted from one kind to 
 another, among Syrians, Arabs, and Jews, and remained the same 
 while one species vanished and another appeared. In the epic 
 poetry of Homer and Hesiod there is neither a name for this fruit, 
 nor an allusion that could lead us to suppose any knowledge of it. 
 A hint might be found in the name of Sicyon, that is, cucumber- 
 town, but it does not belong to a very ancient period. The fruit 
 is mentioned twice in the Iliad, but only in passages that are 
 later insertions. The former name of Sicyon was Mekong, the 
 l)oppy-town, and so it is called in Hesiod's works ; legend calls the 
 lather of Sikyon "Marathon," the fennel-man. According to 
 that, the fruitful plain of Sicyon, along the lower course of the 
 Asopus, first produced the fioppy (a very ancient weed, with a 
 beautiful flower and edible seed, which had come over from Asia 
 in company with grain), and fennel (a native umbelliferous plant, 
 whose spicy qualities had been early discovered by the inhabi- 
 
236 CUCURBITACEOUS PLANTS. 
 
 tants, and highly valued ever since), and then at last the cucumber 
 or pumpkin brought over the sea from the East, from which 
 latter culture the town on being re-founded received a new 
 name. But for the long and sad gap in Grecian literature that 
 separates the old epics from Pindar and ^schylus, we should 
 perhaps be able to fix precisely the epoch at which the Greeks 
 of Asia Minor and the Greeks of the European mother-land 
 began to cultivate cucumbers and pumpkins. But neither the 
 works of the elegiac and lyric poets, nor those of Archilochus, 
 the " second Homer," have come down to us, though they still 
 existed in Christian times, and only fell victims to the destructive 
 zeal of the Church and her bishops. We know by accident that 
 Alcaeus once used the word sikys, which, among other meanings, 
 has that of cucumber ; the plant, therefore, existed at the time of 
 Alcseus. But what did the poet mean by sikys ? That word, as 
 we believe, is but another form oi sCikon, a fig; as in the fig, so in 
 the cucumber and pumpkin, the Prcegnans cucurbita, it was the 
 exuberance of reproductive power, the wealth of seed, that arrested 
 the attention of the child of nature. Later on, a distinctive name 
 was found for the Pumpkin, kolokyntha, kolokente, of which Aris- 
 totle's pupil Phanias says the fruit was uneatable except when 
 boiled or fried, which can only apply to the pumpkin. The idea 
 at the bottom of the name is analogous to that in sikys, sikyos, 
 namely that of colossal size : kolok-ynte, from kolossos (i.e., kolokios), 
 and we find the same word in the surname of the Sicyonian 
 Athena, Kolokasia, the pumpkin goddess. The saying, " Healthier 
 than a pumpkin,'' used by Epicharmus, points to the same idea; 
 as well as another, " Within seven days I'll set him before you, 
 either as a cucumber or as a lily : " that is, alive or dead. 
 That the pumpkin was something new and extraordinary, not fit- 
 ting into the known order of nature, is seen from the laughable 
 disputation of the Academic philosophers in the Gymnasium, as 
 described by the comic poet Epicrates : it is asked, what sort of a 
 plant is the pumpkin ? the thinkers bend their heads in deep 
 meditation ; suddenly one says it is a round vegetable, another 
 that it is a herb, another a sort of tree — on which they are rudely 
 interrupted by a Sicilian physician present, after which Plato con- 
 
CUCUMBER. PUMPKIN. MELON. 237 
 
 tinues the inquiry with undisturbed gravity. But specially note- 
 worthy is the fact that the kolokynte, even at a late period, is now 
 and then called Indike, the Indian fruit, with the express addition 
 that it is so called because it came from India. — A third, and still 
 later name, pepon, is really the adjective ripe (the noun sikyos 
 being understood), meaning a fruit that must be mature before it 
 can be eaten. This name therefore excluded such cucumbers 
 as were eaten in the first tender stage of their growth, while the 
 other kinds that with ripeness attained a melon-like sweetness, and 
 were eaten fresh from the garden, might also be called pepones. 
 
 All these passages, and many others not mentioned, from 
 ancient authors, may equally apply to cucumber and to pumpkin, 
 while not one can with certainty be applied to the real Melon. 
 In none of them are the honey sweetness (boiled melon-juice is 
 still used by the Orientals instead of sugar), the melting pulp, the 
 golden or delicate white colour, the ambrosial odour, mentioned. 
 It is only during the later period of the Roman Empire that we 
 find the melo reckoned among delicacies ; in which melo we recog- 
 nize without difficulty our sugar-melon. Pliny relates that in 
 Campania there arose accidentally a cucumber of the nature and 
 golden colour of the quince, which was then propagated by sowing 
 the seeds ; that the wonderful thing about these melo-pepones, be- 
 sides their shape and odour, was that, as soon as they were ripe, 
 they detached themselves from the stalk. Here, for the first time, we 
 hear of the odour of this fruit ; its Greek name (from melon, quince) 
 originated in Grecian Campania ; and afterwards, when the fruit 
 became generally known, was popularly shortened into ptelo. No 
 one will believe that the melon was produced from the cucumber 
 in Campania by a freak of nature ; whence, then, did it come ? 
 Alphonse Decandolle, in his " Gdographie Botanique,'' says the 
 melon was originally a product of Tartary and the Caucasus. By 
 Tartary he probably meant only ancient Bactria and Sogdiana, 
 the oases on the Oxus and Jaxartes ; and thence the fruit may 
 have been brought to the gardens of Naples in the course of the first 
 Christian century. We have no positive historical notice of the 
 latter fact, but this kind of fruit is very easily carried to the most 
 distant regions by means of the seed, and the first attempts may^ 
 
238 ■ CUCURBITACEOUS PLANTS. 
 
 have passed unobserved or been forgotten. Marco Polo says of 
 the country west of Balkh : " Here grow the best melons in the 
 world. They are cut into round slices and dried in the sun. 
 Thus dried they are sweeter than honey, and are exported to all 
 countries.'' Vambdry praises the melons of Khiva :' " Khiva has 
 no rival in melons, either in Asia or in the whole world. No 
 European can imagine the sweet aromatic odour of this delicious 
 fruit. It melts in the mouth, and, eaten with bread, is the most 
 pleasant and refreshing food ever afforded by nature." Persia, 
 too, is an excellent country for melons ; there grow the finest 
 sorts, which are treated with great care and highly valued. Tie 
 varieties are innumerable, changing from village to village, and 
 among them are some of wide and well-deserved fame. " Melons," 
 says E. Polak, " are among the most important necessaries of life 
 in the Persian towns ; in the price-tariffs they are mentioned next 
 after bread, rice, meat, cheese, butter, and ice. They are so 
 sweet that a Persian laughs at the idea of Europeans eating their 
 melons with sugar." All this speaks in favour of the sugar-melon 
 being there an indigenous fruit ; but, as Polak adds, they are dan- 
 gerous food for a foreigner, and sometimes also for the natives, 
 who do not escape the consequences of indulging in them too 
 freely. 
 
 The Latin names for the cucumber and pumpkin, mannis and 
 cucurbita, reflect by the Reduplication (cu-cu) the impression of 
 exuberant growth made on the popular mind by these fruits ; at 
 the same time, cucurbita is so similar to corbis, a basket, vessel, 
 corbita, a ship of burden, and corbitare, to lade ; and also cucwnis 
 (Genit. cucumeris) to cumera, cutnerum, a covered vessel ; that it is 
 not easy to reject the connexion. The rind of the gourd or 
 pumpkin has from time immemorial been used as a vessel, and is 
 still so used under the name of calabash ; may it not be that the 
 inhabitants of the Italian coast first beheld these green rinds as 
 vessels in the hands of foreign sailors, before they had an oppor- 
 tunity of eating the fruit themselves, and afterwards even planting 
 it ? We learn from Pliny that pumpkin-^(7^//i»j were used to keep 
 wine in. 
 
 During the early Middle Ages there appeared in Byzantium a 
 
ivat/;k-:jelo.v. 239 
 
 new name for the cucumber which had come from the East, and 
 in course of time spread from nation to nation all through Europe. 
 This was a Persic- Aramaic word, angourion, and seems to have 
 been applied to those sorts of cucumbet that we now use for salads 
 and pickling. The cucumbers of antiquity seem to have been a 
 large kind, no longer cultivated in Europe, eaten as a refreshment, 
 and also boiled or baked according to its stage of maturity. From 
 Byzantium the cucumber, as the name proves, reached the Slavs 
 (Russ. ogurlts, ogurka, Pol. ogSrek, etc.), and became a favourite 
 and common food of all the nations of that race, as well as of the 
 neighbouring Tartars and Mongols. The Great and Little Rus- 
 sian cannot live without cucumbers ; he eats them salted through 
 the winter, and with their help endures the long and strict fasts of 
 the Eastern Church. From the Slavs the agurke, later shortened 
 to gurke, came to the Germans, but only in quite recent times, for 
 the name can only be traced back to the seventeenth century. It 
 is an interesting ethnographical fact that the so-called "saure 
 gurke,'' or salted cucumber, has only become common in those 
 parts of Germany which were formerly inhabited by Slavs, and 
 which afterwards became Germanized. Besides this, it is said 
 that the small, greenish, well-tasting Slavonian cucumber, com- 
 mon all over Russia, degenerates when transplanted to Germany ; 
 it seems, therefore, to need an extreme climate. 
 
 The juicy Water-melon {Cucumis citrullus) is likewise a plant 
 first known in the Middle Ages, for it cannot be proved that it 
 is the fepo of the ancients, as many believe. In Italian it bears 
 the Byzantine name atiguria (in some districts cocomero, from 
 cucumis), in French the Arabic na.mt pasteque. South of the Alps 
 it is greatly valued because of its refreshing qualities during the 
 summer heat, and everywhere one sees this fruit cut in halves, 
 with its blood-red pulp and black seeds, piled up in the markets 
 or at the corners of streets ; and the tables where it is sold in 
 slices for a small copper coin, are surrounded with a thirsty crowd 
 of workmen, soldiers, and others. It ripens in August, just when 
 the heat is greatest, and the drier and hotter the season has 
 been, the sweeter and juicier it is. 
 
 But it is far more important in the East, and among the half- 
 
240 CUCURBITACEOUi FLANTS. 
 
 Orientals in South-eastern Europe. There the glowing summer 
 and keen air are highly favourable to this annual. It is cultivated 
 in large fields, and sent to the towns at the proper time by waggon 
 loads. The water-melon is found throughout Western Asia, Persia, 
 and the countries of the Caucasus to the Lower Danube, Hungary, 
 and Wallachia, but particularly in the rich and dry plains of South 
 Russia and the neighbouring half-steppe, half-garden lands of Asia. 
 For at least two months in the year the Russian inhabitant of the 
 steppes lives entirely upon arbAzes — such is the Tartar-Slavic name 
 of the fruit — and a little bread. When the northern traveller in 
 his clumsy " tarantas " has gradually approached that region, one 
 look at the melon-fields and the tall sunflowers {Heltanthus annuus) 
 which generally stand beside them, and whose seeds yield a favourite 
 oil, assures him that he has crossed the threshold of the East. In the 
 countries of the Caucasus, so rich in splendid fruits, in grapes and 
 nuts, the natives, be they of what race they may, generally despise 
 all other delicacies as compared with the juice of the water-melon, 
 which tastes to us like cucumber water slightly sweetened. The 
 Mod. Persic name hindevcMe, " Indian fruit," throws a clear light 
 on the home of the fruit, and the Tartar name kharpuz, karpus, 
 taken with the modern Greek karpousia and the Slavic arbiiz, tells 
 us whence it came to the Greeks, Russians, and Poles. (A similar 
 change is seen in the Greek osteon and Slav, kosti, in Hypanis and 
 Kuban, and in the Alanic name Aspar and German Gaspar, Caspar.) 
 So the water-melon migrated to Persia when communication with 
 India was newly opened, either during the Arabian or Mongolian 
 dominion ; to Greece in company with the Turk, to Russia from 
 the Tartar kingdoms of Astrakhan and Kazan ; while its propaga- 
 tors in Little Russia were probably the Cossacks of the Dnieper. 
 The Polish name for water-melon, kawon, is also an Oriental word. 
 The old Slavic name of the pumpkin, iykva, we have already con- 
 nected {see art. Fig) with the Greek sikua, and the Polish banya 
 (water-melon) seems to be the same as banya (vessel, bath), a 
 terminology quite analogous to the ancient Greek and Roman. 
 The German words kiirbiss, pfebe, melone, come from Latin, as the 
 fruits they designate came from Italy ; not from Hungary there- 
 fore, or the Byz.antine Empire. 
 
THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 
 
 The domestic fowl made its appearance in Western Asia and in 
 Europe much later than one would imagine. The civilized Semitic 
 races cannot have been acquainted with the fowl, for it is nowhere 
 mentioned in the Old Testament. It is never seen on Egyptian 
 monuments, otherwise so full of the details of ancient housekeep- 
 ing on the Nile. There we see flocks of tame geese being driven 
 home from the pasture, we see them and their eggs being carefully 
 counted, but nowhere cocks and hens ; and when Aristotle and 
 Diodorus say that eggs were artificially hatched in Egypt by bury- 
 ing them in dung, they must mean the eggs of geese and ducks, 
 or refer to a period later than the Persian conquest, which Dio- 
 dorus seems to hint, for he commences his account of the hatch- 
 ing ovens with the words : "The Egyptians inherited many customs 
 relating to the breeding and rearing of animals from their fore- 
 fathers, but other things they have invented, among which the 
 most wonderful is the artificial hatching of eggs." The domestic 
 fowl is aboriginal in India, where its supposed parent species, the 
 Bankiva fowl, still exists from Further India and the Indian islands 
 to Cashmere. The domestic fowl first migrated to the West with 
 the Medo-Persian invaders. In a work on the Temple of the 
 Samian Hera, Menodotus says that as the cock spread from Persis, 
 so the sacred peacock spread from the Temple of Hera to the sur- 
 rounding districts. In the religion of Zoroaster the dog and the 
 cock were sacred animals ; the first as the faithful guardian of house 
 and flocks, the second as the herald of dawn and the symbol of 
 light and the sun. 
 
 The cock is specially dedicated to Craosha, the heavenly watch- 
 man, who, awakened by fire, awakens the cock in his turn ; he by 
 
 16 
 
242 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 
 
 his crowing drives away the dahjas, evil spirits of darkness, par- 
 ticularly the yellow, long-fingered Bflshyagta, the demon of sleep- 
 In the rSth Fargard of the Vendidad we read: "Then answered 
 Ahura-mazda, ' The bird that bears the name of Parodars, O holy 
 Zarathustra, but upon whom evil-speaking men inflict the name of 
 Kahrkatag, this bird raises his voice at each divine dawn.'" So 
 that Ormuzd himself had commended the bird to Zoroaster. A 
 passage in the Bundehesh runs : " Halka the cock is the 
 enemy of the Devs and Magicians. He assists the dog, as it is 
 written in the law. Among the earthly creatures that plague Daruj, 
 the cock and the dog unite their strength. He shall keep watch 
 over the world, even as if there were no dog to protect the flocks 
 (or houses). When the dog and the cock fight with Daruj, they 
 weaken him, who else would torment men and animals. There- 
 fore it is said. By him (the cock) shall all the enemies of good- 
 ness be overcome ; his voice scatters the evil." Wherever a 
 Persian settled, he took as much care to procure a cock as to pray 
 and wash before and during sunrise. As far as the limits of the 
 Persian dominion reached, there, no doubt, the tame and useful, 
 easily transported, and at the same time so peculiar creature, 
 found a welcome in the households even of non-believers. On the 
 so-called Harpies' monument from the Acropolis of Xanthus in 
 Lycia (now in London) there is the figure of a god to whom a 
 cock is brought as a gift or as a sacrifice. If this monument, as 
 archaeologists suppose, really belongs to a period before the taking 
 of Xanthus by the Persians, then the Lycians must indeed have 
 been acquainted with the cock before the spread of the Persian 
 dominion. But the archaic style of the scenes represented, though 
 in Greece it might point to a more or less fixed epoch, has no decided 
 chronological value as regards Lycia, for we are ignorant of the 
 development of art in that country. The Acropolis was burned 
 down by the inhabitants themselves before the city was taken by 
 the Persians, and no doubt the monuments were also destroyed. 
 That such a monument could not be erected during the Persian 
 rule, which was only a kind of suzerainty, and left the Lycians in 
 comparative independence, is an assertion that has no foundation. 
 If the domestic fowl had been familiar to the Lycians long before 
 
THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 243 
 
 the Persian time, the Greeks must have shared in the knowledge ; 
 but neither in the works of Homer and Hesiod, nor in the frag- 
 ments of the elder poets, is there any trace of cock or hen. Surely, 
 among people who had no clocks, the prophet that proclaimed the 
 hours by night, the proudly strutting, winking, crowing Sir Chan- 
 ticleer, the supremely jealous sultan (salax gallus) surrounded by 
 his harem, the hot vainglorious champion armed with his comb, 
 tassels, and spurs, and Dame Partlet announcing to the world 
 with a chuckle her last achievement : all this merry parody of a 
 human family and aristocratic manners could not fail to be a 
 frequent subject of description and comparison, had the poets had 
 any opportunity of observing it. It did not escape even the 
 ancients, that Homer, though he used the proper names Alektor 
 and Alektryon, seemed to know nothing of the fowl so-called. 
 
 The oldest mention of the cock is in Theognis, who wrote in 
 the latter half of the sixth century b.c, and no doubt lived to 
 witness the conquest of the lonians by Harpagus, and the occupa- 
 tion of Samos by the Persians. But the mixture of so much that 
 is spurious in our collection of his poems makes them no very 
 safe foundation to build chronology upon. As for the " Battle 
 of Frogs and Mice," in which the cock is mentioned, both the 
 condition of the text and the probably late origin of the work 
 make it still less possible to draw from it any conclusion. If, as 
 Pliny relates, the celebrated athlete Milo of Croton really made 
 use of the gemma alectoria, i.e., the jewel found in the stomach of 
 a cock, as an amulet which enabled him to conquer his opponents, 
 the period would agree with that of Theognis ; but this legend 
 was only applied to Milo by later authors. However, in the 
 writings of Epicharmus, who flourished during the Persian wars, 
 and in those of Simonides, .^schylus, and Pindar, we find the 
 cock already mentioned under the proud name of alektor as the 
 usual companion of man. Poets pretty early compare the quarrels 
 of men to the fights between cocks inhabiting the same yard. In 
 the " Eumenides " of .^schylus, Athena warns the Athenians 
 against civil war as resembling the combats of cocks. Pindar 
 compares the inglorious victories of civil war to the victories of a 
 barn-door fowl. Themistocles is said to have raised the courage 
 
244 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 
 
 of his army by reminding them how two fighting cocks risk their 
 lives, not for the hearth and its penates, but for fame alone. 
 When afterwards the public cock-fights, which are represented 
 on innumerable ancient monuments, were supposed to be derived 
 from the above speech of Themistocles, it proves at least that 
 cock-fighting was not thought of as older than the Persian wars. 
 The comic poets still call the cock the Persian bird. In the 
 " Birds " of Aristophanes he goes by the comical name of Medos, 
 the Mede, and Peithetairos wonders how, being a Mede, he could 
 have got there without his camel. In two respective passages 
 written by the tragic poet Ion, a flute in the form of a cock chants 
 the Lydian song, and the shepherd's pipe is called the Cock of 
 Mount Ida. — But whence came the word akktor, alektryon, which 
 bears such an eminently Greek stamp ? It must have arisen, or 
 rather beep invented (perhaps as an adaptation of the Iranic 
 halka, alka), in Ionia, when the cities there, on the overthrow of 
 Crcesus, fell into Persian hands, and opened their gates not only 
 to the garrisons, but to the religion of the victors and to their 
 sacred animals. The wonderful, light-announcing bird of the sun, 
 which bore the priestly name of parodars, was called — at a time 
 that was awaking out of the dreams of myth, and beginning to 
 rebel against epic legend and epic language — by the equally mystic 
 and significant name of alektor. Such names as elektor Hyperion 
 (the radiant traveller, the sun), elektron (shining metal, sun-coloured 
 amber), Elekira (goddess of the shining, watery mmor), Elektryon 
 (the son of Perseus, the Elektrian islands, the Elektrian gate at 
 Thebes, etc.), and also the forms with a, Alektryon, Alektor, were 
 familiar to every educated and pious man from Homer and the 
 heroic mythus ; and Empedocles, in a verse enumerating the 
 elements, calls fire elektor. It is true that afterwards, when the 
 original meaning of the old word was generally forgotten, it was 
 commonly derived from lektron, a bed, either with a- copulative, 
 giving the sense of bed-fellow, or with a- privative, meaning the 
 bed-lhs, unsleeping one, which seemed very suitable for a cock. 
 But the appearance of the new name in the two forms alektor and 
 alektryon— ^z first reserved for poetic, the other given up to every- 
 day use— is a telling proof that it was formed on the model of 
 
THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 245 
 
 those mythic hero-names. Again, the fact that as late as Aristo- 
 phanes there was no settled form for the feminine, so that he 
 makes fun of those who called a hen alektryaina, speaks strongly 
 for the novelty both of the name and of the thing. In this animal, 
 of all others, a clear distinction between the two sexes was an 
 imperative necessity ; it was Aristotle that first used the feminine 
 form alektoris, but in the generic sense of " fowl." As the cock 
 first appeared at a late period, when mythic production was just 
 dying out, it could never attain any prominent religious importance. 
 As a fighting-cock it was naturally sacred to Ares and to Pallas 
 Athena. Plutarch relates that at Sparta, on the close of a cam- 
 paign, two kinds of sacrifice were in use : he who had attained his 
 end by craft and persuasion sacrificed a bullock; he who had 
 gained it by fighting, a cock.' At Olympia the figure of a cock 
 from the hand of Onatas, announcing or signifying the sun, was to 
 be seen on the shield of Idomeneus, who was the grandson of 
 Pasiphae, and therefore a descendant of the Sun-god. Plutarch 
 speaks of an image of Apollo with a cock perched on one hand, 
 the symbol of the God of the Sun. On the coins of Phasstus in 
 Crete may be seen the figure of a youthful god, evidently a per- 
 sonification of the sun, holding with his right hand a cock which 
 sits in his lap. Pla,to's Phaedo has taught every one that the cock 
 was sacrificed to Asklepios the God of Healing. A superstition 
 peculiar to the rocky town of Methana, between Epidauros and 
 Troezen, mentioned by Pausanias, is likewise connected with the 
 worship of Apollo in that district. To avert the evil influence of 
 Lips, the south-east wind, on the vines, two men would cut a cock 
 in halves, and each run with one half in opposite directions round 
 the vineyard, and then bury the bird on the spot where they met. 
 Soon after the appearance of cocks and hens in Greece, whole 
 families of these fowls must have been transported to Sicily and 
 South Italy, and there, as in Greece, spread from house to house. 
 That the Sybarites would suffer no cocks near them for fear of 
 being disturbed in their sleep is one of those late-invented anec- 
 dotes by which people proved their wit. Sybaris was destroyed 
 in 510 B.C., when the cock was unknown in Italy, or only just 
 introduced. The figure of a cock may be seen on coins of Hiraera 
 
246 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 
 
 in Sicily, and sometimes the figure of a hen on the reverse side, 
 perhaps as an attribute of Asklepios, the genius of the healing 
 springs of the place. The oldest representations of the cock on 
 coins and vases in Greece, Sicily, and Italy, never go beyond the 
 date we have given, namely, the second half of the sixth century 
 
 B.C. 
 
 The Romans, to whom the bird was brought either directly or 
 indirectly from one of these Greek towns, made use of it with truly 
 Roman religious craft as a means of prophecy in war; as no 
 augur accompanied the march of the army, and auspicia ex avibus 
 were therefore impossible, the expedient was resorted to of taking 
 tame fowls in a cage so as to obtain auspicia ex tripudiis. If the 
 fowls ate greedily of the food thrown to them, so that pieces of it 
 fell from their beaks, it was a iripttdium solistimum, a sign favour- 
 able to the proposed undertaking; if the contrary happened, it 
 was understood as a warning against it. Of course the pullarius 
 or fowl-keeper had the issue of the experiment in his own power, 
 according as he fed or starved the fowls beforehand. That this 
 custom was of late origin is proved by the rather sceptical reception 
 it met with at a period when religion was no longer so ardent. Cicero 
 relates that a general in the first Punic war, P. Claudius Pulcher, 
 ordered the sacred fowls to be thrown into the water because they 
 would not touch the food given them. " If they will not eat," he 
 cried, "let them drink;" but he paid for this blasphemy with the 
 loss of his fleet. Cicero himself does not speak very respectfully of 
 divination by fowls, and Pliny is ironically astonished that the most 
 important affairs of state, decisive battles and victories, should be 
 determined by fowls, and the ruler of the world be ruled by them 
 in turn. Fowls play no great part in Cato's "Rural Economy"— 
 he only describes in one passage how fowls and geese should be 
 stuffed; but the ample directions as to the treatment of these 
 domestic birds given by Varro and Columella show how greatly 
 developed and extended was the breeding and care of fowls in 
 their time. 
 
 Large and improved varieties of the Asiatic fowl, especially of 
 fighting cocks, were procured from various places in Greece, 
 famous for particular breeds and races. In earlier times the Isle 
 
THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 247 
 
 of Delos had been thus celebrated, and Cicero relates that the 
 Delians could tell by looking at an egg which hen had laid it 
 (not such a very difficult thing either, for to say "as like as two 
 eggs" is not saying much); but now the fowls of Tanagra, Rhodes, 
 and Chalcis stood in the highest repute for strength and beauty. 
 Varro, Columella, and Pliny also mention the large so-called 
 Melic fowls {gallince melicce), which Varro (who was also a phi- 
 lologist) says ought really to be called Medicce, Median fowls. From 
 this we gather that Media, whence fowls were first brought into 
 Europe, still kept supplying fresh blood even in the Roman times; 
 but, for that very reason, the form melicce may be the more 
 correct one, representing the Old Bactrian meregka, bird, Persic 
 murgh, Kurdic mrishk, and Ossetic margh, hen, which would 
 also in that case be the original (distorted by popular etymology) 
 of the Greek mekagris. 
 
 There is no direct historical testimony as to the manner in which 
 domestic fowls were introduced into Central and Southern Europe. 
 They may have come straight from Asia to the kindred nations 
 of the South Russian steppes and the eastern slopes of the Car- 
 pathian mountains, whose religion agreed with that of the other 
 Iranian races, and some of whom already practised agriculture in 
 the time of Herodotus; or by way of the Greek colonies on the 
 Black Sea, the influence of which, as is well-known, spread far 
 and wide; or from Thrace to the tribes on the Danube ; or from 
 Italy by way of the ancient commercial roads across the Alps; 
 or through Massilia to the regions of the Rhone and Rhine; or, 
 finally, by several of these ways at once. The more a people of 
 nomadic habits accustomed themselves to a settled mode of life, 
 the more easily would the domestic fowl find shelter and accept- 
 ance among them. In the middle of the first century b.c. Caesar 
 found fowls among the Britons, though perhaps only among those 
 who tilled the ground near the south coast and had adopted the 
 culture of the Gauls. When we examine the different languages, we 
 are furnished with interesting results. We see several sets of names 
 running from nation to nation, sometimes crossing each other, 
 and throwing a faint light on the residences and intercourse of 
 those nations. As the domestic fowl was unknown in Greece 
 
248 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 
 
 before the latter half of the sixth century B.C., we dare not fix the 
 date of its arrival in Central Europe before the fifth century; 
 and that which was quickly accomplished in civilized Greece 
 could only gradually and slowly come to pass in the barbaric 
 North. At about that period — 
 
 (i) The Germans must already have formed a separate whole, 
 for they distinguished the bird by a name proper to them alone, 
 hana. 
 
 (2) They must have been living together in a circumscribed 
 space, for all the Germanic races alike have the name ; conse- 
 quently they were not yet divided into a Scandinavian and a Con- 
 tinental branch. 
 
 (3) The Germans must have been immediate neighbours to the 
 Finns, for the Gothic word is found again in Finnic (not in Lettic, 
 Lithuanian, etc.). 
 
 (4) The German consonant-change cannot yet have commenced, 
 for the German hana sounds in the Finnic Kana. 
 
 (5) The creative impulse in the language of the Germans of that 
 period was still so naturalistically fine and active that, with the 
 smallest possible vocal means, it formed separate names for the 
 male, female, and young of the animal, as it had done already in 
 " bull, cow, and calf," etc. From the Gothic hana — which itself 
 has a very archaic shape, being formed with no other assistance 
 than the n so frequent in noun-stems — there were derived, first, a 
 neuter noun (Old High Germ, huon, therefore Gothic hdn) 
 meaning a chicken of either sex, and latterly a fowl in general, like 
 our Germ, huhn ; secondly, by means of a j=y, a feminine noun 
 to signify the female sex (Old High Germ. hennA, therefore Gothic 
 hanjd) — both uncommonly primitive formations. 
 
 (6) Slavs and Lithuanians must have been already separated, 
 for they have different names for the cock. 
 
 (7) The Slav nation must even in their original home have 
 formed two groups, what is now the western, and what is now the 
 north-eastern and southern; for the name/w//«for a cock is found 
 only among the latter, and kogut, kohut, principally among the 
 former ; at the same time the first word, in its meaning of " the 
 singer," though not in its etymology, agrees with the Lithuanian 
 and perhaps the German word. 
 
THE DOMESTIC FUWJ^. 249 
 
 (8) The Slavs, after their separation from the Lithuanians, must 
 have had a connexion (of which there are other indications) with 
 the Medo-Persian races (Scythians, Sauromatians, Budini, Alani), 
 because the words kuru and kura (cock and hen), common to all 
 Slavs, are also Persic : churu, chuHch, churiis. 
 
 (9) The tik, tyuk (hen) of the Magyars agrees exactly with the 
 Kurdic dik (cock), which again is Arabic. Did they borrow it — 
 like their word for thousand— &\r.&c\. from an Iranian nation, while 
 they still dwelt beyond the Volga in the land of the present 
 Bashkirs ? 
 
 (10) A singular chain of names runs from the Channel to the 
 farthest corner of the Baltic, i.e., from the French (not Provengal) 
 and Armoric coq to the Finnic kukko, and extends to other Finnish 
 races j while as a diminutive word kuch-lein, chick-en, etc., the 
 same word prevails among the Low Germans, Anglo-Saxons, and 
 Scandinavians (not among the High Germans) ; in other words, 
 has stuck to the soil along the line we have mentioned. 
 
 (11) No trace points directly to Italy, but all more or less lead 
 to the south-east of the continent, which is only the case with 
 Iranian, not Semitic, acquisitions of culture. If the Old Thracian 
 and Old Illyrian or Pannonian languages had been preserved, 
 perhaps the similarity of sounds afforded by the Greek would 
 grow into full identity. 
 
 (12) The Old Bactrian kahrka, fowl (which we infer from 
 kahrk&fa, fowl-eater, i.e., vulture), entirely agrees with the Old Irish 
 cere, hen, cerc-dae, gallinaceus. Between these comes the Ossetic 
 kyark, hen, and the gloss in Hesychius, " kerkos, cock," a name 
 used somewhere in the Balkan peninsula; perhaps also the Gothic 
 hruk, cock-crow, and the corresponding verb hrukjan. The word 
 therefore goes straight across the European continent from the 
 Pontus to the Channel and beyond ; and it dates from the time 
 when Celtic races were partly roving, and had partly settled down, 
 from Gaul to the Black Sea. 
 
 (13) It was natural that the rehgious ideas connected with the 
 bird and its name should accompany them in their migrations from 
 land to land. - The phrase, "To set the red cock on his roof" 
 ( = set his house on fire) names — instead of the element itself — the 
 
250 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 
 
 bird sacred to it and related to it in idea. A passage in the 
 " Volumen decretorum'' of Bishop Burchard of Worms, which says 
 it is dangerous to leave the house at night before cock-crowing, 
 " for then foul spirits have more power to harm, and the cock by 
 his song can do more to scare and quiet them than the god-like 
 spirit in man by faith and the signing of the cross," sounds like a 
 faithful report of the old Persians' belief in the foul spirits they 
 called dakias, and in the power of the cock's voice to drive them 
 away. In Hamlet, Horatio says, in quite the same sense — 
 
 " I have heard 
 The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn. 
 Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat 
 Awake the god of day ; and, at his warning. 
 Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, 
 The extravagant and erring spirit hies 
 To his confine." 
 
 The sacrificing of the bird of day at night-time to the Goddess of 
 Night in Ovid belongs to the same circle of ideas. The Slavonian 
 Pomeranians also reverenced the cock, and worshipped it on 
 their knees ; among the Lithuanians, the cock and hen were 
 sacrificed to the Goddess Earth, and when a new house was 
 blessed those birds were let in first. The old Indian law-book 
 forbade the eating of the flesh of fowls ; and the priests of Eleusis 
 also denied themselves this food, for the birds were sacred to the 
 Chthonian goddess Persephone and to Demeter. Caesar surprises 
 us by saying of the Britons, " They think it unlawful to eat hares, 
 fowls, or geese ; " so that with the bird and its name they had also 
 taken over the dread of its divinity. As the Romans had recourse to 
 tame fowls for prophecy when wild birds and bird-gazers were not 
 to be had, so the heathen Danes in Zealand every ninth year 
 sacrificed cocks — together with men, horses, and dogs — because 
 they could find no birds of prey : " cocks instead of hawks," says 
 the chronicler Thietmar. As Plutarch informs us that a white 
 cock was sacrificed to Anubis, as the ruler of the upper world, and 
 a saffron or brimstone-coloured cock to the same god, under the 
 name of Hermanubis, as ruler of the under-world; so in the 
 Voluspa, the oldest part of the Edda, the golden-combed cock, 
 
THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 251 
 
 the symbol of light, chants in Valhalla, and the demonic black 
 cock in the halls of Hel; and popular legends make a similar 
 distinction between the white, red, and black cock. 
 
 The Russians under Sviatoslav sacrificed to the dead at night 
 near Dorostolum on the Ister, by strangling sucklings and cocks 
 and throwing them into the river ; and at the funeral of a Russian 
 chief, described by Ibn-Foszlan, cocks and hens are slaughtered 
 and thrown to the dead man in the boat. If it be true that the 
 cock was peculiarly sacred to the god Donar, Thunar, or Thor — 
 this German god must have been substituted for Craosha, or a 
 corresponding god of the intermediary nations. Now, as the 
 northern races, when this novel and strange animal first appeared 
 among them, were still in a quite elementary state of consciousness, 
 and could only utter the impressions they received in fumbling 
 figurative language, there is no doubt that many new superstitions 
 about the cock would spontaneously take root and spread amongst 
 them. And our comparative mythologists, who avail themselves 
 of the real or supposed agreement of mythic notions, names, 
 sayings, fairy tales, incantations, and customs among the ancient 
 and modern nations of Europe and Asia, to construct a copious 
 and highly imaginative "primitive mythology of the Indo-European 
 race," should remember three things at every step they take : 
 first, that, so far as our vision extends, there has also been an 
 immense deal of borrowing both in culture and religion ; secondly, 
 that the same circumstances and stages of life have called forth 
 similar movements at widely different points and at very different 
 times ; and thirdly, that, within certain limits, mere chance must 
 be allowed its due. 
 
 Instead of following the history of the cock through the Middle 
 Ages and all the five continents, for this useful fowl has penetrated 
 even to the negroes in the heart of Africa, we prefer to conclude 
 with the words of worthy old Thomas Hyde ( Veterum Persarum et 
 Parthorum et Medorum religionis historia, ed. 2, Oxonii, 1760, 
 4to, p. 22) : "To this day Media is so rich in fowls that travellers 
 in that country live almost entirely on fowls and their eggs, with 
 the addition of mutton. From this region came that most useful 
 bird, and is spreading all over the world. It is good to know 
 
2S2 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 
 
 this, because in the course of time foreign things have become, 
 as it were, indigenous amongst us, and we forget whence they 
 first came. And this is true of many plants and trees and not 
 a few animals " — words that we might have prefixed as a motto 
 to the whole of this book (note 68). 
 
THE PIGEON, 
 
 Homer frequently mentions doves under the names of peleiai, 
 peleiades, but nothing leads us to suppose that he meant the 
 domestic pigeon. Pigeons are to Homer the symbol of flight 
 and timidity ; thus Artemis, deprived of her bow and arrows by 
 Hera, flies the field — 
 
 " So when the falcon wings his way above, 
 To the cleft cavern speeds the gentle dove." 
 
 Hector flies before Achilles like a timid dove from the falcon — 
 
 " Thus at the panting dove a falcon flies 
 (The swiftest racer of the liquid skies) : 
 Just when he holds or thinks he holds his prey, 
 Obliquely wheeling through the aerial way," etc. 
 
 Therefore Homer's favourite adjective for the dove is treron 
 (shy, fleeting) ; and ^schylus calls it the "trembling dove." In the 
 legend of the Argonauts the dove is the swiftest of birds. The 
 ship Argo, as the name indicates, was wonderfully swift, and if 
 a dove had time to fly through between the clashing rocks, the 
 heroes' ship could hope to sail past unhurt. Circe's warning as 
 to the Symplegades in the Odyssey owes its origin to this legend 
 of the Argonauts — 
 
 " High o'er the main two rocks exalt their brow, 
 The boiling billows thundering roll below ; 
 Through the vast waves the dreadful wonders move, 
 Hence named Erratic by the gods above. 
 No bird of air, no dove of swiftest wing. 
 That bears ambrosia to the Ethereal King, 
 Shuns the dire rocks ; in vain she cuts the skies ; 
 The dire rocks meet, and crush her as she flies." 
 
254 THE PIGEON. 
 
 The tragic poets speak of the dove as being swift as the storm 
 wind, swift as rage or revenge. It is true that the falcon is still 
 swifter, being the very swiftest of all birds, for it hunts the dove, 
 and is only excelled by the Phasacian ship that carried the sleep- 
 ing Ulysses to Ithaca : " So fast she flew, that wheeling hawk, 
 fleetest of fowl, could not keep pace." 
 
 The rocks and woods of Greece were so peopled with doves, 
 ring-doves, rock-doves, turtle-doves, that the part these birds 
 play in poetry and legend cannot surprise us. The Catalogue of 
 Ships in the Iliad speaks of Boeotian Thisbe and Lacedaemonian 
 Messe as poly-treron, many-doved ; and ^schylus calls the Isle of 
 Salamis " dove-nourishing." Doves and thrushes were caught 
 in nets or snares fixed in the bushes, as is proved by a simile in 
 the Odyssey — 
 
 " Thus on some tree hung struggling in the snare. 
 The doves or thrushes flap their wings in air ; " 
 
 it is therefore not surprising that in the 23rd book of the Iliad 
 Achilles ties a living dove to the mast of a ship as a target in the 
 games held at the burial of Patroclus. The skilful Teucer shoots 
 first, but having neglected to make his vows to Apollo, he only 
 cuts the string, and the liberated dove wends her flight to heaven ; 
 then Meriones deftly grasps his bow, prays, and brings down the 
 circling dove. Hence the dove became the mythic symbol of 
 an escaped prisoner. The three daughters of Anius at Delos — 
 Oino, Spermo, and Elai's — who changed everything they touched 
 into wine, corn, and oil, and were therefore called Oinotropoi, 
 changed themselves into doves and flew away, when Agamemnon 
 was about to chain them and take them by force to Troy (Ovid's 
 " Metamorphoses "). The oracle of Dodona in Epirus proves that 
 the dove was considered a daemonic prophetic bird ; at that shrine 
 the ring-doves in the sacred oak announced the will of Zeus by 
 their flight and cooings, the noise of their wings, their coming 
 or going, rising or sinking ; while bird-oracles were also a very 
 ancient custom over Italy, a country that in many respects re- 
 sembled the Epirote lands of Greece. The ancient Veneti used 
 to scatter cakes in the fields for the crows, so that they might 
 /pare the seed. 
 
THE PIGEON. 255 
 
 In all the passages we have quoted from the epics the dove or 
 pigeon is called peleia ; only once in Homer does the later word 
 phassa occur as part of the adjective phasso-phonos, dove-killing, 
 an epithet of the hawk. A third name, phaps, Gen. phabos, is 
 first found in .^Eschylus, who describes a poor unhappy dove 
 pecking at the corn, and getting its bones crushed by the winnow- 
 ing-spade. Later and more scientific zoology (Aristotle) uses 
 these names to distinguish different kinds of doves, and adds 
 oinas, literally wine-dove, and trygon, the turtle-dove, named 
 from its cooing (tryzo), and first used by Aristophanes in "The 
 Birds." In the primitive time these names were probably given 
 without distinction, according to the speaker's locality, or some 
 quality of the bird that he happened to be thinking of, to wild 
 doves in general; for the Dodonian " peleia," which lived in trees, 
 columba palumbus, cannot possibly have been the same as the 
 " peleia " in Homer, which hides in the cleft of a rock, the columba 
 livia, or rock pigeon. The true name of the pigeon, and with 
 it the pigeon itself, appears only in the later Attic dialect ; first 
 in Sophocles, with the unmistakable epithets, oiketis (house-dove) 
 and ephestios (hearth-dove), then in the Comic poets and Plato ; 
 naxaAy, peristeros, peristera, the cock and hen, peristertdeus, etc., 
 the young, peristereon, the dove-cot — a new set of words never 
 accepted by the Doric dialect, which continued to say peleias. 
 From what region did this friendly domestic bird, which was 
 quite common in Athens towards the end of the fifth century 
 B.t, come to the Greeks ? And was the tame pigeon possibly 
 identical with one of the wild species living in Greece? To 
 answer this question, we must first, as usual, turn to the Semitic 
 world. 
 
 That the dove was sacred to the goddess of nature, who was 
 worshipped under various names in the cities of Syria, and whom 
 the Greeks called Aphrodite, and that large flocks of pigeons 
 were kept at her temples, are facts attested by several independent 
 authorities. When Xenophon accompanied the army of the 
 younger Cyrus, and passed through Syria, he found the inhabitants 
 worshipping fishes and pigeons. Pigeons, says the pseudo-Lucian 
 (De Syria Dea), were held so sacred at Hierapolis or Bambyce, 
 
256 THE PIGEON. 
 
 that none dared even to touch one, and if any one did so acciden- 
 tally, he was under a curse for the rest of the day ; so that pigeons, 
 says our informant, were quite -men's companions, entering the 
 houses, and taking possession of the land. The same thing is 
 said by Philo the Jew about Ascalon, the original seat of Aphro- 
 dite Ourania, i.e., Astaroth : "There I found an innumerable 
 quantity of pigeons in the streets and in every house, and when 
 I inquired the reason, I was told that an ancient religious com- 
 mandment forbade men to catch pigeons or use them for any 
 profane purpose. Hence the bird has become so tame that it 
 not only lives under the roof, but is the table-companion of man, 
 and is very bold and impudent." The pigeons that flew in and 
 out of the temple of the Paphian goddess in Cyprus, and even 
 perched on her sacred image, are so well known that no special 
 proof need be given. 
 
 Now as the Astarte of Ascalon was very early transplanted to 
 Cythera and Lacedsemon, and the Semitic Aphrodite in general 
 to Corinth and many other places on the coast of Greece, while 
 Cyprus early became the goal of Greek voyagers and colonists ; 
 one would think that the favourite bird and symbol of that god- 
 dess would have accompanied her to Greece, and become an 
 object of domestication in her temples at an equally early period. 
 But not one tradition points to such a thing. In Homer's Hymn 
 to Aphrodite her doves are never mentioned, though he describes 
 the goddess entering her perfumed temple, being anointed with 
 divine oil by the Graces, adorned with golden ornaments and 
 clothed in splendid garments; and even when she leaves the 
 temple she merely " soars up to windy heaven." In the shorter 
 hymns, not one of the many epithets given to the goddess alludes 
 to her doves. In an ode by Sappho, her chariot is drawn by 
 swift sparrows, not by doves or swans. A couplet quoted from 
 the same poetess speaks of doves letting their wings droop, but 
 without allusion to any goddess. In all the rest of lyric poetry, 
 down to Pindar, as far as it exists, the dove is never mentioned. 
 
 This late appearance of a bird that afterwards played so promi- 
 nent a part in art, religion, and human life, is evidently the result 
 of a similar course of events in Syria, Palestine, and Cyprus. 
 
THE PIGEON. 257 
 
 There too the tame pigeon is not very ancient, and only became 
 the symbol of Astarte and Ashera when invasions and commerce 
 had caused the worship of these goddesses to be incorporated 
 with that of the intrinsically similar Semiramis of Central Asia. 
 Semiramis was imagined as a dove, and the name signified a dove. 
 " In the Syrian language Semiramis is named after the dove, 
 which since that time has been worshipped as a goddess by all the 
 inhabitants of Syria," says Diodorus. Semiramis, immediately 
 after her birth at Ascalon, was exposed by her mother, the fish- 
 goddess Derketo ; she was fed by doves, and brought up by the 
 shepherd Simmas, who named her after himself. She then 
 appeared at Nineveh as a glorious female warrior, and finally 
 transformed herself into a dove and flew away with others of her 
 kind. Another legend says that an immense egg fell from heaven 
 into the Euphrates, that fish rolled it on shore, doves hatched it, 
 and out of it came forth Venus, who was afterwards called the dea 
 Syria; and that hence the Syrians held fish and doves sacred, 
 and would not eat them. We see, then, that the worship of 
 doves came from the Euphrates to Western Asia, and with it the 
 conception of the Goddess of Nature as a dove. 
 
 In the Old Testament the first tolerably reliable mention of the 
 tame pigeon is found in the pseudo-Isaiah Ix. 8 ; " Who are these 
 that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?" This part 
 of Isaiah was written during the Captivity ; and it is at this time, 
 after the Babylonian conquest, that the adoption of pigeon-breed- 
 ing in Western Asia, and of that gentle bird into the Syro-Phceni- 
 cian cult may have gradually taken place. If the allusions to the 
 dove in Solomon's Song can only refer to the tame pigeon, which 
 we leave undetermined, then that poem also, whose age is quite 
 uncertain, cannot have a higher date assigned to it. According 
 to Josephus (Wars, v. 4, 4) there were " many towers of tame 
 pigeons" in the later royal palace at Jerusalem, which was 
 destroyed in the general conflagration. 
 
 From the Syrian courts, in a roundabout way, the domestic 
 pigeon reached the Greeks about the beginning of the fifth century 
 B.C. This is proved by a remarkable statement, which, however, 
 must be rightly understood. Charon of Lampsacus, the precursor 
 
 17 
 
2S8 THE PIGEON. 
 
 of Herodotus, says, that at the time when the Persian fleet under 
 Mardonius was wrecked while rounding the promontory of Athos, 
 two years before the battle of Marathon, white doves appeared in 
 Greece, where until then they had been unknown. What is 
 meant by these " white doves " ? — nothing but domestic and temple 
 pigeons of superior race, for wild pigeons were distinguished by 
 being black, dun, grey, or ash-coloured, and named accordingly, 
 not only by the Greeks, but in the languages of the other Aryan 
 nations of Europe. Herodotus expressly calls the doves of 
 Dodona Mack; although he explains both the black feathers and 
 the whole mystery of the pigeon-oracle in the rationalistic manner 
 of the more modern time. The Greek nzxcis. peleia is derived from 
 the adjective felos, grey, as the ancients themselves say ; it is the 
 same word as the Latin palunibus, palumba. The Czech, Polish, 
 and Russian names for the wild dove, stwdk, sizidk, are derived in 
 the sas^e way from stwy, sizyi, grey, raven-grey ; the French biset, 
 stock-dove, from bis, blackish. In like manner the word dove 
 (Germ. Taube, Goth, dubo, A. -Saxon dedf, Old Norse daufr) is 
 connected with the adjective daubs, deaf, dumb, blind, dusky, 
 dark-coloured ; for which last meaning the Celtic language affords 
 a welcome confirmation in the Old Irish dubh, black, dub, ink, 
 Dubis, Daubs, the black river. On the other hand, the Asiatic 
 dove sacred to Aphrodite is always styled the white, leuke, alba, 
 Candida, because of its delicate white feathers. Martial, in an 
 epigram written on a toga which he had received as a present, 
 praises its whiteness and compares it to the lily, the privet-blossom, 
 ivory, the swan, the Paphian dove, and the pearl. Silius Italicus, 
 partly differing from Herodotus, and probably following Pindar, 
 relates that two doves sprang from the lap of Thebe, one of which 
 flew to Chaonia and prophesied from the top of the oak at 
 Dodona, while the other, -white with white wings (so the first 
 must have been black or grey), crossed the sea to Africa and there, 
 as Cytherea's bird, founded the Ammonian oracle. So the "white 
 doves " mentioned by Charon must have been tame pigeons that 
 escaped from the wrecked ships of the Persian fleet to the land at 
 Athos, and fell into the hands of the inhabitants. But as Hero- 
 dotus tells us that the Persians abominated the Assyrio-Babylonian 
 
THE ^•lUEVJM. 259 
 
 white doves as inimical to the sun, and would not suffer them in 
 their country, it must have been Phoenician, Cyprian, and Cilician 
 sailors that carried with them images of their goddess, and also 
 her sacred doves. Half a century later we find the pigeon under 
 the name oiperistera (which perhaps originated in that northern 
 region), completely domesticated among the Athenians, who had 
 active commercial and political relations with Thrace ; and, as in 
 the East, it is used as a swift messenger. The ^ginete Tauro- 
 sthenes, who lived at that time, sent the news of his victory at 
 Olympia to his father by means of a pigeon, which reached ^gina 
 the same day. From many passages in the works of the poets, 
 and from plastic representations, we know that from the above 
 period doves were inseparably connected with Aphrodite, being 
 kept in her temples, and offered, either alive or in marble, at her 
 shrine. There was also much significance in gifts of pigeons on 
 the part of lovers. ^ 
 
 It is probable that Italyfirst became acquainted with the domestic 
 pigeon by means of the temple at Eryx in Sicily. On that moun- 
 tain, an ancient seat of Phoenician and Carthaginian culture, there 
 lived flocks of white and coloured pigeons, sacred to the great 
 goddess there worshipped, and participating in the festivals cele- 
 brated in her honour. When the goddess departed for Africa on 
 the day of the Anagogia, her doves vanished also ; and when, 
 after nine days, the first dove re-appeared, the goddess was also 
 near, and the noisy joy-feast of the Katagogia commenced. During 
 the gloomy interval the pigeons were probably kept shut up. The 
 Sicilian Greeks, as we infer from the Latin name columba, 
 Columbus, called the bird, when they first saw it, kolymbos, 
 kolymba, diver, waterfowl j for the wild doves that inhabited the 
 cliffs, the rocks, and the summits of high trees were dark in com- 
 parison with the waterfowls, which were distinguished by the 
 adjective white ; for example, the swan — Old High Germ, alpiz, 
 A.-Sax. dlfet. Old Norse &lpt, Slav, lebedi, all identical with the 
 Latin albus, Greek alphas. The Greek Kolymbos has an analogon 
 in the Lithu. gulbe, and Old Irish gall, swan ; and as it meant the 
 white waterfowl, it was natural to call by it the white bird of 
 Aphrodite, who herself was a pelagian goddess and therefore 
 
26o THE PIGEON. 
 
 loved the swan also. In Italy the beautiful bird gradually became 
 familiar, and its propagation a common custom. " At first," says 
 Varro, " we used the name columbm without distinction for male 
 and female, and only later, when the bird had become common 
 in our houses, did we learn to distinguish the columbus from the 
 columba.'" He tells us that one species of native dove, the genus 
 saxatile, rock-dove (Italian sassajuolo), was kept half-tamed in the 
 villas ; these birds inhabited the highest towers and pinnacles of 
 the country-house, coming and going, and seeking their food in 
 the open country. " The other kind," adds Varro, " is tamer, and 
 lives only on the food given to it ; it is generally white, while the 
 wild pigeons are of mixed colour without any white." This com- 
 pletely domesticated white pigeon — evidently the Cyprio-Syrian 
 bird which came originally from Babylon — was often put together 
 with the native grey pigeons, and thus a cross-breed was formed, 
 mtscellum tertium genus, of which frequently as many as S,ooo 
 birds were kept in a large pigeon-house, called peristereon, or 
 feristero-tropheion. Galen was acquainted with the two kinds, the 
 house-pigeon and the field-pigeon, and adds that in his native 
 place, in the neighbourhood of Pergamus in Asia Minor, towers 
 were built in the country, into which the latter species were enticed, 
 and there maintained. This half domestication of the wild pigeon 
 probably existed in very early times, not only in Asia Minor, but 
 in the East in general. The Mosaic law relating to the sacrifice 
 of pigeons proves that in Canaan, where doves are so common, 
 places for keeping the columba livia, and also the turtle-dove, must 
 have existed very early, for the Hebrews never sacrificed wild 
 animals. In the legend of Noah's ark, the dove which returned 
 and the raven which stayed away seem meant not only to express 
 the difference in colour, but the contrast between wild and tame. 
 So in Egypt. It is true that in the coronation-scene (Wilkinson, 
 second series, pi. 76) the four pigeons that fly to the four quarters 
 of the globe as a symbol of universal dominion can only be 
 meant for wild birds ; but the domestic scene described by 
 Brugsch represents pigeons being actually fed. It must not be 
 forgotten that the accompanying inscriptions are said to mean 
 "the goose is fed;" "the duck receives food;" "the pigeon 
 
THE PIGEON. 261 
 
 fetches its food ; " the last expression being exactly suited to the 
 shy yet greedy field-pigeon. But the pigeon of Semiramis, that 
 of Ascalon, the coloured bird which is the parent of our common 
 species, cannot have existed in Egypt at such an early period, else 
 it would have appeared earlier than it did in the civilized countries 
 of Asia and Europe. 
 
 From Italy the domestic pigeon overspread Europe. The 
 Celtic names (Old Irish colum, Welsh and Old Cornish colom, 
 Breton koulm, kloiri), as well as the Slavic names {golqbi, etc.), 
 were all borrowed from the Latin. The image of the dove was 
 very early adopted by Christianity as a symbol; it was a pure 
 gentle bird, innocent and without guile; the Holy Ghost descended 
 in the shape of a dove ; and in that shape, when a true believer 
 died, his soul ascended to heaven. Figures of doves are fre- 
 quently seen in the most ancient Christian catacombs ; and in the 
 mediaeval legends of the saints the dove is the outward sign of 
 the influence of the Heavenly Spirit. When Chlodwig, King of the 
 Franks, was baptized at Rheims, the oil for anointing him was 
 brought to St Remigius by a dove from heaven. From the time 
 of the Fathers it was a common belief that pigeons had no galL 
 The Pope gave away images of the Dove as he did the Golden 
 Rose. In the eyes of the primitive European nations the grey 
 pigeon, which lived in wild solitudes, was a gloomy prophetic bird, 
 and perhaps a bird of death ; afterwards, a symbol of the contrast 
 between heathenism and Christianity, appeared the graceful, gentle, 
 white pigeon from abroad, living with men, and so tame that it 
 would eat from the hand. In the West, however, it was always a 
 domestic creature, whose droppings and feathers were made use 
 of, and whose flesh was eaten like that of geese, ducks, and fowls ; 
 but in the congregations of the Anatolian Church, in accordance 
 with old Eastern ideas, it was the object of religious reverence 
 and superstition. In Moscow and other Russian towns flocks of 
 tame pigeons are kept and fed by merchants and others ; and to 
 kill, pluck, and eat one of these sacred birds would be considered 
 a kind of sacrilege, just as it was at Hierapolis and Ascalon in 
 the time of Xenophon and Philo. At Venice, a half-Greek city, 
 swarms of pigeons still inhabit the cupolas of St. Mark's, and the 
 
262 THE PIGEON. 
 
 roof of the Doge's Palace. They fly down and strut about the 
 Piazza undisturbed, and at stated hours are fed at the public cost. 
 Our present European breed of pigeons is, indeed, still divided 
 into the two branches described by Varro; but in consequence 
 of cross-breeding the kinds and varieties of the true domestic 
 pigeon have multiplied immeasurably, as every pigeon-show and 
 zoological garden can prove. Travellers report that in the East, 
 even now, there are immense pigeon houses, the principal object 
 of which is the production of the pigeon dung so invaluable for 
 manure; it is possible that these pigeons are the same columba 
 livia, with the same form and size as those mentioned by Galen, 
 and which were supposed to have existed in Egypt and Palestine. 
 The Mohammedans are also fond of keeping pigeons in mosques 
 and sanctuaries at Mecca and elsewhere, for they, like the Oriental 
 Christians, look upon the dove as a sacred bird ; it was a dove 
 that whispered all that it had seen and heard into the ear of the 
 Prophet But at no time, either in the East or in the West, has 
 tlie pigeon ever attained such importance in life as the domestic 
 fowl (note 69). 
 
 There are three other domestic birds which came from Asia to 
 Greece in historic times; quite as novel to Euro))e as the two 
 already mentioned, and, like them, brought to the West in the 
 Greek age to satisfy the desire for wider and richer experience 
 excited by higher stages of civilization. They are the Peacock, 
 the Guinea-fowl, and the Pheasant. 
 
THE PEACOCK. 
 
 The peacock was less immediately useful tha» the pigeon, but 
 it was more calculated by the proud display of its magnificent 
 plumage to delight the multitude and increase the splendour of 
 rich houses and royal courts. Varro says it was considered the 
 most beautiful of all birds. The road along which it came to the 
 ancient civilized nations can still be recognised, at least in the 
 principal points. The peacock was a native of India, and — like 
 shining gold, glittering jewels, white ivory, and black ebony — 
 was one of the most admired and envied productions of that 
 distant land of wonders. There Alexander the Great found the 
 peacock in a wild state in a wood full of unknown trees, and, 
 struck by the beauty of the bird, threatened anybody who should 
 kill one for sacrifice with the heaviest punishment. In India, 
 then, the peacock lived wild in the woods, and thence by means 
 of Phcenician marine traffic it was brought to the Mediterranean, 
 as is proved not only by a particular passage pointing to the com- 
 mencement of the tenth century B.C., but also by a comparison of 
 names. The ships of King Solomon, equipped in the harbours 
 of Edom, brought peacocks on their voyage home from Ophir, 
 together with other valuables ; in the Hebrew text the birds are 
 called tukkiyim. This word is no other than the Sanskrit (ikki, 
 called in Old Tamulic togei. So Ophir was situated on the coast 
 of Malabar, or if it was only an intermediate emporium, the 
 costly wares mentioned came from Malabar to Ophir; and the 
 extraordinary peafowl, together with the gay-coloured parrots and 
 amusing apes, were thought not unworthy to adorn the court of 
 the wisest of kings. But the bird must have long remained a 
 rarity ; it was costly to obtain, and probably was not entirely 
 
264 THE PEACOCK. 
 
 tamed nor easy to keep and propagate in a new climate; as 
 we conclude from the slowness of its extension towards the West, 
 and the difficulty with which it was kept and bred at Athens, even 
 at the close of the iifth century. The Greek name tads (which 
 in Attica was quite exceptionally pronounced tahos) proves it to 
 have been introduced to the Greeks from Semitic Asia. Probably 
 the first place at which peafowls were kept on Greek soil was the 
 Heraeum of Samos, for the legend of that temple makes it the 
 spot where peacocks first originated, and whence they were in- 
 troduced into other countries. What caused the bird to be con- 
 sidered the favourite of Hera was the brilliant " eyes " on its tail 
 feathers : those eyes were stars, and Hera was the Goddess of 
 Heaven, not only in the borrowed Samian, but in the original 
 Argive cult. Beside her temple flowed the brook Asterion, the 
 star-brook, whose three daughters had been Hera's nurses ; on 
 its banks grew the herb Asterion, the star-wort, which was offered 
 up to the goddess ; and the peacock, the star-bird, when once it 
 became known, was very naturally adopted into the worship of 
 Hera. Quite as naturally arose the various forms of the myth : 
 how the all-seeing Argus, the spy upon the Moon-goddess lo, was 
 changed into a peacock after being killed by Argeiphontes ; or 
 else, how the peacock with its flowery plumage sprang out of the 
 crimson blood of the dead Argus, spreading its wings like the 
 oars of a ship ; or again, how Juno set the hundred eyes of Argus 
 on the feathers of the bird. Though legend thus derives the bird 
 from Samos and not from India, we cannot suppose that its adop- 
 tion into the worship of Hera took place in "immemorial times'' as 
 Movers will have it ; we know that it is in the nature of religious 
 institutions and the legends attached to them, to ascribe to them- 
 selves a life without a beginning. When the later temple in 
 Samos — which Herodotus declared to be the largest Greek temple 
 of his time — was completed, a gift of the first pair of peafowls 
 was perhaps made to the temple by some rich merchant who 
 traded with Syria and the Red Sea, or by some pious Samian who 
 had emigrated to a Syrian or Egyptian seaport. And if that pair 
 died, the priests would procure another, which would live and 
 multiply, attracting pilgrims by their novelty and swelling the 
 
THE PEACOCK. 265 
 
 revenues and reputation of the temple ; the island was so proud of 
 possessing the rare and beautiful birds, that the image of a pea- 
 cock was stamped on its coins. Yet the bird can scarcely have 
 reached Samos by the time of Polycrates (540 B.C.), for if the 
 poets Ibycus and Anacreon, who lived at the court of that tyrant, 
 had ever set eyes on a peacock, they would surely have men- 
 tioned it in their poems ; and later authors, like Athenaeus, would 
 not have neglected to cite them and preserve them for posterity 
 (note 70) ; and reports about the bird, and even the bird itself, would 
 certainly have reached Athens. But the fact is, that the peacock 
 is not found at Athens before the middle of the fifth century, and 
 even then it is a great curiosity and the object of extreme admir- 
 ation. Perhaps the revolt of Samos from the Athenian hegemony, 
 440 B.C., and the invasion and subjugation of the island by Pericles, 
 afforded the victors an opportunity of carrying peacocks from the 
 Temple of Hera to Athens ; though Thucydides only mentions the 
 surrender of the ships and payment of the war expenses. Many 
 passages from the Comic 'poets, and two epitomes of 3. logos hy 
 the orator Antiphon on peacocks, give a striking picture of the 
 excitement caused by the brilliant bird on its first appearance 
 among the curious, novelty-loving Athenians, and show how the 
 eagerness to see and possess it was only heightened by its great 
 price and the difficulty of breeding it. The above-named oration 
 informs us that there lived at Athens a rich bird-fancier named 
 Demos the son of Pyrilampes : he must have been rich, for he 
 equipped a trireme destined for Cyprus, and the Great King 
 presented him with a golden goblet, possibly because he had pre- 
 sented the monarch with a peacock. This Demos was so over- 
 run with curious visitors coming from distant parts, such as 
 Lacedseraon and Thessaly, to see his peafowl and if possible to 
 obtain some of their eggs, that he appointed one day every month, 
 the day of the new moon, on which every' one was admitted, on 
 other days he refused all visitors ; " and this," continues Antiphon, 
 " has gone on for more than thirty years " (note 71). In fact, his 
 father Pyrilampes had also kept an ornitho-irophia, and was said 
 to have assisted his friend the great Pericles in his love affairs by 
 secretly sending peacocks to the fair ones whom that statesman 
 
266 TBS- PEA CO CK. 
 
 was wooing. Antiphon goes on to say, that it was not possible to 
 propagate the birds in the city because they flew away, and to 
 clip their wings would spoil their beauty, which lay not in their 
 form but in their feathers. For this reason they long continued to 
 be so scarce that a pair of them was valued at 10,000 drachmas. 
 "Is it not madness," says Anaxandrides, one of the Comic 
 poets, " to keep peacocks, and spend on them sums that would 
 suffice to purchase works of art ? " And in a comedy by Eupolis 
 we read : " What, all that money ? Why, I should not spend 
 that if I had hares' milk and peacocks ! " The Comic poets do 
 not fail to attribute the value set on the possession of peacocks 
 to their rarity ; for in themselves, says a passage in Strattis, pea- 
 cocks and tomfooleries are equally worthless. In the course 
 of the fourth century, when Athens retained the hegemony, if 
 not in politics, yet in manners and taste, peacocks must have 
 spread more and more from that city among the other Greeks. 
 "Once," says Antiphanes, "it was something grand to possess 
 even one pair of peafowl, now they are commoner than quails ! " 
 which no doubt was an exaggeration. After Alexander the 
 Great, with the spread of Greek dominion and colonization, the 
 peacock penetrated to the cities and gardens of inland Asia. 
 Though Babylon was said to be rich in beautifully coloured 
 peafowls, and though in itself it is not improbable that a bird 
 which King Solomon had procured from distant lands should 
 have become frequent in a city so closely connected by war and 
 commerce with the Semitic coast-lands on the Mediterranean; 
 yet the circumstance that the Asiatic names for the peacock are 
 all borrowed from the Greek is in favour of the supposition that 
 the Greek dominion — by Re-migration, a thing that may be ob- 
 served in other cases — first rendered the bird popular in the wide 
 continent. That Suidas and Clement of Alexandria call it a 
 Median bird is as much to the purpose as our calling two 
 American products Indian-corn and Turkey-coc\i in England, 
 and Turkish-\v\ies.t and Calcutta-cocV. in Germany. 
 
 The Greeks had called the peacock tawds, tawSn, tahSs ; the 
 Romans called it pAvtis or pavo, pavonis. This substitution of 
 p for t reminds one of the similar change of tadmor into palma. 
 
THE PEACOCK. 267 
 
 which we explained by a supposed difference in Semitic dialects. 
 Is it possible that the peacock also passed to the Latin-speaking 
 races direct from Phcenician-Carthaginian hands ? A remark in 
 Eustathius, that " the peacock was sacred among the inhabitants 
 of Libya, and whoever hurt it was punished," is too isolated, and 
 of no value in so late an author ; natural history knows nothing 
 of peafowl in Africa, nor religious history of there being any at 
 the Temple of Ammon, or that of the Carthaginian Juno. The 
 eagle and peacock on the coins of Leptis Magna are nothing 
 but apotheoses of Augustus and Livia (or Julia), who are thus 
 deified into a Jupiter and Juno. However, the possibility that 
 this product of the voyages to Ophir (like eiur, barrus, palma) 
 reached the coast of Italy direct from Carthage, Sicily, and 
 Sardinia, cannot be denied. 
 
 Peacocks' feathers, and tufts and fans made of them, or hats 
 bedizened with them, are as welcome to primitive man as glass 
 and amber beads, and for them he will gladly exchange his sheep 
 and skins. When Ennius pretends that Homer appeared to him 
 in a dream and told him that he remembered having been 
 changed into a peacock, this was no doubt a Pythagorean idea 
 adopted by the poet when at Tarentum ; as the symbol of the 
 starry firmament and the Goddess of Heaven and Earth, the 
 peacock was the very bird to have housed the soul of Homer, 
 for he too was imagined to be a native of Samos, as Pythagoras 
 was. Favus, pavo, like other names of birds, appears as a 
 Roman cognomen in the Republican time, so that the bird itself 
 was then no novelty in Italy. Varro mentions one Fircellius 
 Pavo, in whom we should recognise a Sabine by his name Fir- 
 cellius {fircus = hircus), even if he had not also that of Reatinus. 
 A creature that had been an object of luxury in Athens must 
 have prospered among the later Romans in as much greater 
 measure as their luxury and wealth exceeded those of the Attic 
 Greeks. The orator Hortensius, the contemporary of Cicero, 
 who was at the head of Roman extravagance in other respects 
 also, was the first who regaled his guests with roasted peacock, 
 which happened at the magnificent banquet given by him on his 
 nomination as augur. Though the flesh of peafowl, especially 
 
268 THE PEACOCK. 
 
 that of an old bird, is not very eatable, his example was soon 
 generally imitated. Cicero writes in a letter, "Now mark the 
 impudence: I actually gave a dinner to Hirtius, and without 
 peacock, too ; " and Horace reproaches his contemporaries with 
 preferring peacock to capon, because the rare bird costs gold and 
 spreads a gorgeous tail, as if that made its flavour any better ; 
 the true motive of this " because" being the Romans' proud 
 consciousness of possessing unlimited means, and their consequent 
 self-indulgence. Fly-flaps made of peacocks' tails were as common 
 at rich men's tables as golden dishes and cups set with gems. 
 The peacock being thus generally desired, the breeding of the 
 bird in whole flocks soon became an object of industrial hus- 
 bandry, which at first was not practised without difi&culty. The 
 smaller islands surrounding Italy were arranged as peacock-islands, 
 probably imitating a Greek practice ; thus, in Varro's time, M. 
 Piso stocked the Isle of Planasia, now Pianosa, with his peacocks. 
 The advantages of such sea-surrounded peacock-farms are ex- 
 plained by Columella : the peacock, not being able to fly either 
 far or high, could not leave the island, yet lived there in perfect 
 freedom, and picked up the greater part of its own food ; the 
 hens, being free, brought up their young with natural care ; no 
 guard was necessary, no thief or dangerous animal to be feared ; 
 and the keeper needed only to collect the flocks around the farm 
 at stated hours by strewing a little food, in order to review and 
 count the birds. There being only a limited number of suitable 
 islands, peacock-farms were also laid out on the mainland at 
 great expense. The ancient authors describe minutely the whole 
 arrangement, the necessary care, and the various operations con- 
 nected with such breeding-places. Towa^rds the end of the second 
 century A.D., Rome was so full of peafowl that, as Antiphanes 
 had prophetically asserted, they really were commoner than quails ; 
 at the same time new specimens from India were furnished by 
 way of the Red Sea, and probably also by land across Persia. 
 In Lucian's dialogue " Navigium," one of the speaker's wishes, 
 supposing he suddenly became rich, was to have a peacock from 
 India for his table ; proving that the bird was still procured from 
 that country. 
 
THE PEACOCK. 269 
 
 In all the European languages the name of the peacock begins 
 with the Latin / and not with the Greek t, a clear proof that the 
 bird was introduced into barbaric Europe, not from Greece or 
 the East, but from the Apennine peninsula. Christianity adopted 
 the peacock, as it did the dove, into its symbolism ; partly as 
 an emblem of resurrection, because, according to the fantastic 
 natural history of the time, the flesh of the peacock was said 
 to be incorruptible, and partly as the image of heavenly glory, 
 on account of the beauty of its exterior. In the latter connexion 
 we need only remind our readers of the peacock-feathers in the 
 wings of the angels in Hans Memling's celebrated picture of 
 the Last Judgment, at Dantzig. On the other hand, that distrust 
 of all sensuous beauty, peculiar to the negative genius of Chris- 
 tianity, sharpened a sense of the gorgeous creature's imperfections : 
 
 " Peacock has thief's artfulness, 
 Devil's voice, and angel's dress," 
 
 says Freidank's " Modesty; " and its ugly naked feet were pointed 
 out as a warning to be humble. The name of Petitpas given to- 
 the peacock in the French "Renart," probably alludes to its. 
 stealthy thievish gait For the rest, peacock-feathers were as 
 exactly suited to barbaric taste as inlaid gems and everything 
 that was glittering and striking. 
 
 Peacocks' feathers were worn on the knight's helmet, and in 
 the fprm of wreaths on the necks of noble maidens ; and when 
 the splendid garments of the sick King Amfortas, or the majestic 
 costume of the terrible . Kundrie la Sorciere, or that of King- 
 Gramoflanz, are described in " Parcival," there is never wanting, 
 among other costly garments, the pfaewin or phawin huot, namely, 
 peacock-hat. That these peacock-hats came from England we 
 learn from the above-named and other poems, and there too 
 must have been bred the birds that produced the material. 
 Charlemagne had ordered peacocks and pheasants to be kept on 
 his estates, and the custom seems to have been kept up at the 
 castles of the Norman nobles in England. The ancient custom 
 of serving up a roasted peacock in all the splendour of its plumage 
 had not been lost, and was continued down to the sixteenth century.. 
 
270 THE PEACOCK. 
 
 Generally the lady of the house herself carried in the bird on a 
 gold or silver dish amid the sound of trumpets, and the host 
 carved it as King Arthur does at the Round Table in the " Lanzelot. " 
 The custom described in D'Aussy's " Histoire de la vie privde des 
 Frangais,'' of the half-mad vows sworn on the roasted peacock by 
 French knights, the so-called voeux diip&n, in which each tried to 
 outdo the other, is traced by Grimm (R.A., p. 901) to Scandi- 
 navian vows on the boar. This enthusiasm for the peacock began 
 to cool towards the time of the Renaissance, and the bird gra- 
 dually retired into the modest position which it holds to-day. It 
 disappeared from the table together with many other meaningless 
 shows in which a ruder age delighted ; for though the savage 
 covers himself with natural objects, such as feathers and tinsel, a 
 more educated taste despises all adornments that are not trans- 
 formed by the moderating and adjusting hand of art, and raised 
 above the sphere of the elementary. The peacock may yet strut 
 in parks among other gay birds, although its harsh voice and 
 the damage it causes are disproportionate to the pleasure de- 
 rived from its contemplation; but peacock feathers have been 
 driven farther and farther to the east, to the Tartars, the Russian 
 coachmen, and the Chinese, who use them as signs of the highest 
 rank; they are only fit for the red-and-blue tattooed chieftain 
 who girds them as a brilliant apron round his loins. 
 
THE GUINEA-FOWL. 
 
 The guinea-fowl, Numida meleagris, is, to our knowledge, first 
 mentioned by Sophocles, who said in his tragedy of Meleagros, 
 that on the other side of India electron (amber) flowed out of the 
 tears of the birds that wept at the death of Meleager and were called 
 by his name. The legend that the sisters of Meleager were 
 changed into birds at the death of their mother and brother and 
 the fall of their house may be very old, for Myth loves to express 
 unbearable sorrow by a transformation into birds; but it is 
 remarkable that so early as the time of Sophocles .these birds 
 were not spoken of as any native species, but as a distant and 
 fabulous one, and were supposed to weep electron in some fan- 
 tastic land lying beyond India. If we add that other legend, 
 which says that the Meleagrides lived in the Electrian islands at 
 the mouth of the Eridamus, which ^^schylus places among the 
 Iberians in the uttermost West, at the very spot where Phaethon 
 fell, and the precious golden gum distils from the poplars into 
 which his sisters the Heliades were changed ; it confirms our con- 
 jecture that the common cock received his name of alektor from 
 the sun, and from amber the stone of the sun ; and the guinea- 
 fowl, the nearest relations of the cock, were equally children of 
 the sun, and were imagined as dwelling in the far East where the 
 sun rises, and in the far West where he sets, or rather at the point 
 where east and west meet on the other side of India. Geographi- 
 cally more exact, though still in a half-mythic manner, Mnaseas 
 reports that there is in Africa a region called Sicyon, where the 
 river Crathis flows out of a lake into the Atlantic Ocean ; there 
 live the birds called meleagrides and penelopa (a gay-coloured, 
 equally foreign species of duck), and there also is electron 
 
272 THE GUINEA-FOWL. 
 
 made. The very same country, though under other names and 
 with omission of the fabulous origin of amber, is pointed out in the 
 "Periplus" of Scylax as the only place where guinea-fowls were 
 to be found. " If one sails through the Pillars of Hercules, keep- 
 ing Africa on his left hand, there opens, as far as the Cape of 
 Hermes, a wide gulf called Kotes ; in the middle of this gulf lies 
 the town of Pontion and a large reedy lake named Kephesias ; 
 there live the birds called meleagrides, and nowhere else, except 
 where they have been taken to from that place.'' And, in fact, 
 North-west Africa, the country about Sierra Leone, Cape Verd, 
 etc., is rich in guinea-fowl, though they are also not wanting in 
 the east of that continent. Strabo and Diodorus report that an. 
 island in the Red Sea was inhabited by guinea-fowls; Captain 
 Speke found them the " commonest of all feathered game " on his 
 journey from Zanzibar to the sources of the Nile ; and Niebuhr 
 says even of Arabia, "guinea-fowl are wild there, but at Tehania 
 in the mountainous region so frequent that the boys pelt them 
 with stones and bring them to the town to sell." We have no 
 certain knowledge of the route by which these birds were first 
 brought to Greece, whether from the west or the east of Africa, 
 or why they were named after Meleager. Perhaps the first 
 Greeks who actually saw these beautiful birds, near relations of 
 the cock, and sprinkled all over with pearls or tears, thought of 
 the blooming youth who had incurred his mother's curse as the 
 departing Sun-god slain by Winter, and of his sisters as transformed 
 into birds of the sun. Clytus of Miletus, a disciple of Aristotle, 
 says that at the temple of the Parthenos (that is, Artemis, called 
 by the Lerians lokallis), on the small island of Leros, colonized 
 by the Milesians, there were kept " ornithes meleagrides," which, 
 from the full description that follows, must have been African 
 guinea-fowls. It is not said how they came there, nor why they 
 were sacred to the virgin goddess. As guinea-fowl are even 
 braver and more quarrelsome than the Indian cock, mythical 
 fancy probably saw in these birds the warUke Amazons, the 
 hieroduli of chaste Artemis; they had been the companions of 
 lokallis. " The Lerians know well," says .(Elian, "why those who 
 worship the deity, but especially Artemis, deny themselves the flesh. 
 
THE GUINEA-FOWL. 273 
 
 of this bird." The pious legend of Leros asserted that no bird 
 of prey dared to attack the sacred fowls. lokallis may probably 
 be identical with the Arcadian nymph Kallisto, the daughter of 
 Artemis Kalliste, who stood together with lo in the Acropolis of 
 Athens ; and perhaps this explains the otherwise unheard-of state- 
 ment of Suidas that guinea-fowls were kept in the Acropolis. — 
 Italy, lying nearer to the West African home of the guinea-fowl, 
 might easily become acquainted with the bird by the marine traffic 
 of the West, without any intervention of the Greeks ; perhaps for 
 the first time during the Punic wars. The Latin names seem to 
 point to such a possibility : Numidiccs, AfriccR aves, gallince 
 Africance, Libycce, etc. 
 
 In Varro's time guinea-fowls were still rare and consequently 
 dear in Italy ; they were used for food because the Roman must 
 put everything into his mouth, and the more a dish cost the 
 greedier he was; there is no trace of religious reverence, or of 
 any peep into the world of fancy. With the fall of the Roman 
 Empire the ornamental bird also disappeared from the sphere of 
 European life — for, as far as we can make out, it was unknown in 
 the Middle Ages — till, after a thousand years, it reappeared among 
 Europeans with the revival of ancient culture and the discoveries 
 of the Portuguese along the coast of Africa. It was taken by the 
 Portuguese and Spaniards, those nearest neighbours of the Numi- 
 dians, to America, where it found a climate and scenery so 
 suitable to its wants, that it now inhabits the forests of Central 
 America in immense flocks which have altogether run wild. 
 
 18 
 
THE PHEASANT. 
 
 Judging from the name of the Pheasant — the bird of the river 
 Phasis so famed in legend, and flowing through that magic land of 
 Colchis to which in fabulous times the god-like heroes had sailed 
 in the swift Argo — it is not unlikely that the Greeks became ac- 
 quainted with it in the same century as with the cock and the guinea- 
 fowl. The name was given to the bird by men who still conceived 
 of the world no otherwise than as in mythic transformation, but 
 who already began to sport with the myth. The pheasant's native 
 home was probably the woods of Hyrcania, south of the Caspian 
 Sea, whence it became known to the Greek colonists on the Black 
 Sea, and later to the European Greeks. It is not alluded to in 
 literature before Aristophanes. For the reproof addressed by 
 Solon to Crcesus, when the latter displayed himself in all his royal 
 splendour, namely, that " cocks, />/ieasants, and peacocks were far 
 more beautiful, nature herself having adorned them,'' cannot be 
 accepted as a historic fact, and therefore we made no use of it in 
 speaking of the domestic fowl or of the pea-fowl. But a verse in 
 Aristophanes — 
 
 " Not if you gave me ihe phasians that Leogoras breeds ! " 
 
 shows that in that poet's lifetime pheasants were a costly luxury at 
 Athens. Aristotle in his Natural History now and then speaks of 
 the pheasant in a manner which shows that the sight of the bird 
 was not unfamiliar either to him or his readers. A passage in the 
 writings of the Egyptian king Ptolemy Euergetes II., preserved 
 in the works of Athenseus, affords further historico-geographical 
 explanation. That king, speaking of the animals kept in the palace 
 at Alexandria, says of the pheasants, " These birds, which are 
 called tetaroi, were not only introduced from Media, but have 
 
THE PHEASANT. 275 
 
 SO multiplied by breeding, that they are used for food, and 
 their flesh is considered delicious " (the text is corrupt, but the 
 sense is not to be mistaken). From this we see that Alexandria 
 also received its pheasants from Media, that is, from the South 
 Caspian countries, and their true name of tetaroi was identical 
 with that used in the Medic language, as is proved by the modern 
 Persic tedyrev, and the synonymous Old Slavic tetrevi, teterevt, tetria, 
 or tetere, adopted from the Persic. The word runs on through 
 Eastern Europe from nation to nation, but is there applied — there 
 being no pheasants — to one of the large native birds, the bustard, 
 heath-cock, grouse, and latterly the turkey. The Scandinavian 
 name, Swed. tjdder, Dan. iiiir, which is wanting in the other 
 Teutonic tongues, was borrowed from the Finnic tetri, and this 
 in turn from the Lithuano-Lettic, teterva, tettera. That the 
 Lithuanians and the Slavs had borrowed it from their ancient 
 neighbours to the south, the Scythian-Sarmatian Medes, is 
 rendered probable by the reasons and circumstances which cause 
 one language to borrow from another, such as conquest, hunting, 
 commerce, religion, and also the interchange of fables relating to 
 animals, in which the names as well as the story are repeated 
 from nation to nation. The Greek tetraon, tetrax, etc., can hardly 
 be a native word, but is derived from Asia, in the same way as 
 the Latins derived their tetrao from the Greek. It will be easily 
 understood, as the Romans practised the breeding of birds in 
 aviaries and parks to such an enormous extent, that the phastanus, 
 also called tetrao, played a chief part at Roman banquets ; in the 
 edict of Diocletian a fixed market price is set on the phastanus 
 pastus (fattened), th& phastanus agrestis (wild), and.the hen-pheasant 
 respectively. Pheasants were also kept in Charlemagne's villas, 
 and in consequence the beautiful, highly-valued bird was preserved, 
 not only in royal pheasantries, but generally all through the Middle 
 Ages, and now lives in many countries in a state of perfect 
 freedom ; so that Europe, into which the bird was introduced with 
 some difficulty, has become its second fatherland. < The two 
 magnificent varieties of the common Western Asiatic pheasant, the 
 gold and the silver pheasant, now admired in aristocratic parks 
 and zoological gardens, became known to us after the discovery of 
 
276 THE PHEASANT. 
 
 the sea-passage to India, and were brought to Europe in single 
 specimens from their native country, China. (Bureau de la Mails 
 imagines from Pliny's words : "Fhasianiz in Colchis geminas ex 
 pluma auris submittunt subriguntque " — that these birds existed 
 in Colchis at a much earlier period.) Cuvier believed that the 
 Egyptian Phoenix, which appeared every 500 years, was the 
 beautiful gold pheasant, — a coarse materializing of a mythic symbol 
 or cosmogonic-periodologic fancy, such as we often meet with 
 in works of rationalists and natural philosophers, when they try 
 to explain miracleSj primitive history, and the like. 
 
GOOSE. DUCK. 
 
 While the number of mammalia that man has tamed and made 
 companions of has only slightly increased in historical times, the 
 farms and settlements of men have become enriched, at a com- 
 paratively late period, with various tame birds, among which the 
 domestic fowl is the most important. Bird and cattle-breeding are 
 to a certain extent opposed to one another. It is not where wide 
 plains fertilized by copious droppings stretch in immeasurable 
 corn-fields and green meadows, and are bordered by thick forests, 
 but in the sunny districts of more restricted horticulture, where 
 farm stands close to farm, and hedge succeeds to hedge — it is here 
 that the winged tribe peck and flutter about the human habita- 
 tion, forming a not-to-be-undervalued source of sustenance and 
 income in the system of the household. Thus in Europe the 
 Romance nations are, in accordance with their habitat and tradi- 
 tion, the bird-breeding, bird-eating peoples ; the Germans, on the 
 contrary, feed principally on the flesh and milk of their cattle. 
 France, at a moderate calculation, possesses above a hundred 
 million fowls, and exports to England yearly above four hundred 
 million eggs. In southern countries the only meat that the traveller 
 tastes, often for months together, ana that the native peasant regales 
 himself with on feast-days, is a fowl roasted or boiled with polenta. 
 The taming of the Goose and the Duck is far more ancient than 
 that of the birds hitherto mentioned; and, what is more, they 
 were not introduced from Asia, but have been reclaimed from the 
 wild native species. The name of the duck was the same in all the 
 kindred races of Europe : Latin anas, anafis, Greek nhsa, Doric 
 nassa (for natia), A. -Saxon ened. Old Norse ond^ Old Cornish hoef, 
 Lith. antis, O. Slav, aty, Russ. ut-ka, etc. As for " goose, gander," 
 
278 GOOSE. DUCK. 
 
 it runs through the whole Indo-European group, from the Old Irish 
 geidh, ged (also goss) in the extreme West, to the Sanskrit hansas, 
 hansi in the extreme East. It would be rash to conclude from this 
 that the goose was a tatne domestic animal among the primitive 
 Aryan stock before the Great Migration ; it was doubtless well- 
 known and much sought after on the lakes and streams, and in the 
 swampy lowlands, as it is now among the nomads and half-nomads 
 of Central Asia. Where it was still abundant and easy to obtain, 
 there was no necessity for breeding it artificially in confinement ; 
 and so long as men's manner of life was unsettled, a bird that 
 takes thirty days to hatch, and a proportionate length of time to 
 rear its young, was unsuitable to the economy of a pastoral people. 
 But when comparatively stationary settlements were formed on 
 the shores of lakes, the young birds could easily be fetched down 
 from their nests by boys, have their wings dipt, and be brought 
 up in the household ; if they died the attempt was repeated, until 
 it finally succeeded, especially as the wild goose is, comparatively 
 speaking, one of the easiest birds to tame. As it does not breed 
 in the south of Europe, but only migrates into the Mediterra- 
 nean lands in autumn with its young ready-fledged, the process 
 was more practicable in Central Europe than in the classic lands ; 
 and as these have but few large sheets of water, the wild goose is 
 not nearly so frequent or accessible there as in the regions about 
 the mouth of the Rhine, in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Scan- 
 dinavia. By the Greeks the goose was considered a graceful bird, 
 admired for its beauty, and an elegapt present for favoured 
 friends. In the Odyssey, Penelope has a little flock of twenty 
 geese, in which she takes much pleasure, as we learn from the 
 beautiful passage in which she relates her dream to her disguised 
 husband. Here the geese appear as domestic animals, kept 
 more for the pleasure the sight of them affords than for any 
 profit they might bring. So, in the Edda, Gudrun keeps geese, 
 which scream when their mistress laments over the corpse of 
 Sigurd. At the same time, the Greeks valued geese as careful 
 guardians of the house ; on the grave of a good housewife was 
 placed the figure of a goose as a tender tribute to her quahty of 
 — vigilance 1 
 
GOOSE. 
 
 279 
 
 Among the Romans perfectly white geese were carefully 
 selected and used for breeding, so that in course of time a white 
 and tamer species was produced, which differed considerably from 
 the grey wild goose and its direct descendants. In ancient as in 
 modern Italy the goose was not so commonly found on small farms 
 as in the North, partly because the necessary water was scarce, and 
 partly because of the damage she caused to the young vegeta- 
 tion. But numerous flocks of this bird cackled in the huge goose- 
 pens (chenoboscd) of breeders and proprietors of villas ; there the 
 enormous liver that made the mouth of the gourmand water 
 was produced by forced fattening — an artificial disease which was 
 poor thanks for their saving of the Capitol. The use of goose 
 feathers for stuffing beds or cushions was foreign to early anti- 
 quity ; the later Romans first learned the practice from the Celts 
 and Germans. In Pliny's time whole flocks of geese were driven 
 from Belgium to Italy, particularly from the land of the Morini, 
 who inhabited the Belgian coasts; the delicate white feathers 
 which came from that country were celebrated, and are said to 
 have belonged to a species of goose called gantce (the dental in 
 the word is specifically Celtic, though it is also found in the 
 neighbouring Low German dialects, as gander, etc., as well as in 
 the O. H. Germ, ganzo). This species was no domestic bird, 
 but a wild kind, and the feathers procured from it fetched so 
 high a price, that in distant military stations whole cohorts of 
 Roman soldiers would disperse over the country in quest of it. 
 Pillows stuffed with goose feathers were an innovation at which 
 true Romans shook their heads : " We have now arrived at such 
 a pitch of effeminacy," adds Pliny, " that even men cannot lie 
 down to rest without such an apparatus.'' Even to the present 
 day, feather-beds are more characteristic of the North, being un- 
 suitable to the warm South. The ancients were also unacquainted 
 with another use of the goose-feather, that of an instrument for 
 writing. The first quill-pens were used at the commencement of 
 the Middle Ages, in the time of the Ostrogoth Theoderic. It is 
 now ' supplanted by the steel-pen, so that there are three great 
 periods of such instruments — the earliest lasting from the begin- 
 ning of the art of writing among the Egyptians to the fall of the 
 
28o GOOSE. DUCK. 
 
 Roman Empire, being that of the split reed, used by Thucydides 
 and Tacitus ; the second, that of the quill-pen, with which Dante 
 and Voltaire, Goethe, Hegel, and Humboldt wrote ; and the third, 
 that of the steel-pen of the nineteenth century, with which leading 
 articles s.n.A. feuilletons are rapidly thrown off, to be sent to press 
 before the ink is dry, and printed by steam. As will be seen, the 
 periods of the instruments of writing do not coincide with those 
 of the material upon which men wrote and do write 
 
 In the domestication of birds, antiquity struck out paths in 
 different directions, which have not been followed up since, and 
 arrived at results which the modern world has allowed to fall into 
 neglect. In Egypt, as the monuments show, a large water-bird, 
 which we indefinitely call a heron, had become the tame com- 
 panion of man ; in Rome the crane, stork, swan, and, of smaller 
 birds, the turdus, perdix, and coturnix (thrush, partridge, quail), 
 etc., had become objects of breeding and taming, and, according 
 to the fashion, were now valued, now despised, as a dish for the 
 table. And in the "Leges Barbarorum " (the Salic, Alamannic, etc), 
 the birds above named, and others whose names are difficult to 
 explain, are still reckoned as domestic poultry, and penalties 
 imposed on stealing them. But the Church forbade the eating of 
 storks, (as well as of beavers, hares, and wild horses ; see Pope 
 Zachary's letter to St. Boniface, 751), so that in the latter part of 
 the Middle Ages the domestication of birds was limited to geese, 
 ducks, and hens, and it was left to the hunter, who found a grand 
 field in the immense and thinly peopled forests of Central Europe, 
 to provide the kitchen with game. In the Roman period abun- 
 dance of game was not to be thought of in Italy ; distance and 
 the warm climate forbade the importation of the large game that 
 kept the German forests lively, or of the feathered game that 
 covered the northern moors. So the Romans were driven to the 
 artificial breeding of savoury wild fowl, and this they did often in 
 colossal establishments, which practice led to a more or less com- 
 plete domestication. These attempts, as we said before, have not 
 been repeated in modern times, and though in Europe the wilder- 
 
BIRD-BREEDING. 281 
 
 ness has receded farther and farther, railways now carry the game 
 there killed with lightning speed from the most distant deserts to 
 the centres of consumption. The Paris market fetches its par- 
 tridges from Algiers and the north of Russia. On the other hand, 
 varieties of the existing poultry, especially of hens and pigeons, 
 are infinitely multiplied in consequence of the ever-expanding 
 and ever-accelerated communication between countries, and those 
 breeds that are most profitable or most beautiful gradually super- 
 sede the races handed down to us from antiquity. 
 
HA WKING. 
 
 One class of tamed birds, which early antiquity had only heard 
 of as a distant wonder, was introduced all over Europe with the 
 dominion of the Barbarians, and slowly vanished again after the 
 dawn of modern civilization. We mean the birds of prey which 
 were trained to chase other birds : the Kite, the Hawk, and the 
 Falcon, those favourites of the knight, that perched so proudly on 
 their master's wrist, and for which he often entertained a pas- 
 sionate affection. Jacob Grimm has devoted a whole chapter of 
 his " History of the German Language " to hawking, setting forth 
 the ruling passion for this kind of chase in passages from the poets 
 and other authors of the Middle Ages, and placing the origin of 
 the custom in the earliest pre-historic times of the German race. 
 But here, as in some other cases, he has taken what was borrowed 
 late as belonging to the earliest period : hawking is no Teutonic 
 invention, but was learnt by the Germans from the Celts, and 
 at no very distant period either. 
 
 Hunting as an art is a national feature of the Celts, explained 
 by the existence of a rich and powerful aristocracy in Gaul, which 
 country was already highly civilized in the time of Csesar, and had 
 cities, roads, bridges, tol's, etc. The Romans learnt from the 
 Celts the practice of coursing in the open, the chasse au courre, 
 as distinguished from shooting (with dog, crossbow and bolt, in 
 the woods ; the German birsch, birschen, is from the old French 
 berser) ; from them they derived the cams Gallictts (mentioned 
 already by Ovid and Martial, and preserved in the modern 
 Spanish galgo), the canis vertragus (popularized by German lips 
 into wind-hxmd, greyhound), and the segusitts, a peculiar sort of 
 hound named after a Gallic tribe on the Loire. The last two ex- 
 
HA WKING, 283 
 
 pressions are found in old German codes of laws, and though the 
 falcon is there mentioned as a tame hunting-bird, that does not 
 prove its Old German origin. The name of the true German 
 hunting-bird habicht (havoc, hawk), proves on the contrary that it 
 came from Gaul; in Old Irish it is sehcc, and must have had 
 that or a similar sound in the oldest Celtic. In one of the two 
 branches of Celtic, namely, the British, the s of many words was 
 transformed into h ; in the Cambro-Cornish dialect sebocc became 
 hebauc, and the word passed to the Germans in this secondary 
 form. Old High German hapuh. Old Norse haukr, etc. The 
 Germans of the very earliest times fought the bear and wolf, 
 and hunted the auer-ox and bison, the elk, the schelch, and 
 the wild-boar ; but they became acquainted with the art of hawk- 
 ing much later from over the Rhine and the Danube. It cannot 
 be affirmed that this kind of hunting ever became national in 
 Germany : it was practised by noble knights and ladies on horse- 
 back, followed by a troop of servitors ; the peasant never went 
 hawking ; he stared at the outlandish pastime of the gentles, as he 
 marvelled at the knight's weapons and manner of fighting, and 
 gradually learnt to pronounce the Romance names of these things. 
 It is another question whether the Celtic nations that surrounded 
 the Germanic world to the south and west, invented hawking or 
 only developed the art, and, in the last case, whence they originally 
 derived it. The most ancient mention of hawking or hunting 
 with trained birds is found in Aristotle : " In the district once 
 called Kedreipolis in Thrace, the small birds in the marshes are 
 hunted by men in company with hawks ; the men beat the reeds 
 and bushes to drive out the birds, which fly up, but are pursued 
 by the hawks, and fly down again in alarm, whereupon they are 
 beaten with sticks and picked up by the men, who give the hawks 
 a share of the booty." Certain Thracians, therefore, used a tame 
 bird of prey to frighten the game down in marshy districts ; these 
 birds of prey did not catch the game themselves, but received 
 their portion of the booty, just as in the later European falconry. 
 Philo the Jew repeats the above account in a dialogue preserved 
 in an Armenian translation, but adds: "The history of the 
 Thracian hawk seemed doubtful to me till I questioned several 
 
284 ffA WKING. 
 
 natives, honest men, who confirmed the report." Was hawking, 
 then, a Thracian invention ? We cannot tell ; for though some- 
 thing similar is related of India, and the Egyptians trained a par- 
 ticular bird of prey to obey the human voice, those two countries 
 are separated from Thrace by the whole of Western Asia, and if 
 such a striking mode of hunting had existed in the latter region, 
 we should have heard of it from the Greeks. Ktesias speaks 
 of hawking as a curiosity of India, so that it must have been 
 unknown at the Persian Court where he lived. Neither can the 
 practice have existed among the nations of Asia Minor that were 
 nearest the Thracians, for the Greeks never allude to it. There 
 may have been some connexion which we can no longer trace 
 between some race that practised this kind of chase on the 
 borderland of India, and the Thracians ; the intermediate links 
 being possibly Khorasmians, Massagetians, Sarmatians, and Scy- 
 thians. In Layard's " Nineveh " we read that on a bas-relief which 
 he saw at Khorsabad there seemed to be a figure of a falconer with 
 a hawk on his wrist. Unfortunately the word "seemed'' renders 
 the matter doubtful ; but if the rule of the great Euphrates and 
 Tigris Empire extended at times to the borders of India, might 
 not a mode of hunting that was common in the latter country be 
 pictured for once on a wall of the royal palace in the capital ? 
 The Celts, whose war-like marches and migrations often took 
 them to the Balkan peninsula, may have brought thence the not 
 easy art of training birds of prey for the hunt. At a certain stage 
 of civilization there is nothing that nations more willingly adopt 
 from their neighbours than a new and easy method of getting at 
 the game which is the object of their desires. Those Celts, at 
 least, who invaded Italy and burned Rome, cannot yet have been 
 acquainted with hawking, for there is not a trace of such a thing to 
 be found among the old Romans. Hints of it first appear now and 
 then during the Imperial period, but in a very uncertain way, until 
 suddenly, during the final migrations of the nations, we find it 
 mentioned by all authors and assumed to be generally practised. 
 One of Martial's epigrams, which speaks of the hawk "being a 
 servant of the fowler, and catching birds not for himself," stems a 
 clear proof of the use of hawks for the chase ; but, at the same 
 
HA WKTMG. 2S5 
 
 time, Pliny tells of the newly published and highly remarkable 
 report, that in the neighbourhood of Eriza in Asia (which was a 
 town in Caria on the borders of Lycia and Phrygia), one Craterus 
 Monoceros hunted with the help of ravens, which found and drove 
 out the game for him, and that when he rode out with them, 
 even wild ravens joined him. A passage in Apuleius, in the 
 latter half of the succeeding century, seems to point to hawking ; 
 but in the following description of a kind of hawking we have 
 perhaps an explanation both of Martial's epigram and of Apuleius's 
 words. This description, from the paraphrase of Oppian, runs 
 thus : " An agreeable way of hunting is to take a falcon and 
 place it under a bush ; the little birds are afraid, and try to hide 
 among the branches, but still they gaze at the falcon as if fascinated, 
 like a traveller who suddenly sees a robber ; and so the bird- 
 catcher can take the birds from the trees at his leisure." Here we 
 have the beginning of a still very imperfect mode of hunting with 
 birds of prey. But in the fourth and fifth centuries hawking is 
 mentioned by various authors as a completely developed, favourite, 
 and wide-spread sport, which without doubt was derived from the 
 barbarians. In the half-fabulous " History of the Saxons " by Widu- 
 kind, we find a hunter with a hawk : A Thuringian went with his 
 hawk out of the besieged town of Scheidungen on the Unstrut, 
 which, trusting in the promise of peace, believed itself safe. He 
 went to the river's bank in search of food ; but having let his bird 
 fly, one of the Saxons on the opposite bank presently caught it and 
 refused to return it. The Thuringian said, ' Give me the bird, and 
 I will tell you an important secret ; ' and the telling of this secret 
 leads to the fall of the town— a kind of incident not uncommon 
 in fairy tales. 
 
 During the Middle Ages hawking flourished all over feudal 
 Europe ; it spread from Germany and Byzantium to the East and 
 to the nations of Asia, and was practised by Electors and Emperors^ 
 Emirs, Sheiks, and Shahs, down to the Nomads of the Steppe 
 and the Bedouins of the Desert. Marco Polo found hawking the 
 fashion in the capitals of Mongolian princes as far as China, as 
 later travellers did in Mohammedan countries in the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries. In Europe it began to fall into disuse 
 
286 HA WKING. 
 
 as the gun became common, and it was at last forgotten ; but it is 
 characteristic that the names of the newly invented weapons were 
 so often copied from those of the birds of prey which they had 
 superseded ; for example, the falconetto, the moschetto, musket 
 (properly sparrow-hawk), the terzeruolo (properly male-hawk), the 
 sagro (properly saker-falcon). In France, down to the Revolution, 
 the king's falconers headed all ceremonial court processions, or 
 rather persons bearing their insignia, for in reality there was no 
 longer axiy fauconnerie du Hoi. In England some few squires still 
 go hawking in honour of venerable traditions, and procure the 
 necessary trained birds from Belgium ; while in Asia hawking is 
 still a favourite sport in many districts (note 72). 
 
THE PLUM-TREE. 
 
 (PRUNUS DOMKSTICA, PRUNUS INSITITIA.) 
 
 The plum-tree, prunus, is only once mentioned by Cato. At that 
 time, therefore, there could be no common cultivation of the tree 
 in orchards, or any consequent variety of kinds. On the other 
 hand, the fruit is quite familiar to the poets of the golden age. 
 Virgil speaks of Cerea pruna, waxen plums, and Ovid explains 
 what they were : " Not only the black, but the nobler kind that 
 borrow the hue of fresh wax." Virgil alludes to grafting the 
 cultivated plum on the sloe-tree. At Horace's villa plums were 
 to be seen on thorn-trees. Columella is acquainted with three 
 kinds, while Pliny mentions a bewildering multitude of varieties. 
 He speaks of Damascene plums as the finest, and this plum pro- 
 vided the Byzantines and modern Greeks with a general name for 
 cultivated plum-trees. The name prunus accompanied the tree 
 and the fruit from Italy to all the countries of West and Central 
 Europe. The Romans, on their side, had borrowed the name 
 from the Greeks, though Galen says the Greek proumnon meant 
 by rights the wild plum ; yet, as often happens in similar cases, it 
 was also applied to the Primus domestica. The usual name in 
 Greek is kokkyjnelon (the first half of which is an Oriental word), 
 while the sloe on its native thorn was brabylon. The oldest 
 authorities for the former are, first, a quotation by Pollux from 
 Archilochus (700 B.C.) ; next, a fragment of Hipponax (middle of 
 sixth century). In a treatise on plums, Athenseus informs us that 
 the Rhodians and Sikeliotes called plums also brdbyla. Theocritus 
 does not confirm this. In one of the two passages of that poet 
 in which the word occurs, the arrival of the beloved one is said to 
 
288 • THE PLUM-TREE. 
 
 be sweet as spring compared with winter, or the melon with the 
 brabylon; the last word can scarcely mean the delicious plum; 
 more likely melon is an abbreviation for kokkymelon. In the other 
 passage apples, pears, and braiyla are mentioned together, and 
 nothing hinders us from supposing that the native sloes were 
 meant. For the sloe the modern Romance languages us6 the 
 diminutive of plum, prugnola, prunelle ; the EngL bullace is said 
 to be derived from Celtic ; sloe, Germ, schlehe. Old Germ, sleha. 
 Mid. Germ. sUhe, agree letter for letter with the Slavic sliva, a 
 plum ; the French creque, or perhaps the Latin grescum itself, is 
 the original of the German krieche, and Old Pruss. krichaytos ; the 
 German zwetsche, which has a Slavic sound, but is not found in 
 those languages, is perhaps a corruption of damaskenon, as the 
 English, too, have made their damson out of the same Greek 
 word. The Italian susina, Spanish endrina, perhaps named after 
 places or persons, agree in their endings with Pliny's onychina, 
 malina, etc. The name mirabelle, Ital. mirdbella, is said to be 
 derived from myro-balanos, originally an Indian name of a fruit 
 that was used for making an ointment, and then applied in Greece 
 to a native kind of small yellowish plum. The Tyrolian zeiber is 
 the cibara of the neighbouring Slovfens. 
 
 The Prunus insititia, with round fruit, and inured to the 
 northern winter, may have been indigenous in Europe, but in its 
 present improved form it comes, like the true plum, from Asia. 
 Among the ancients the two plum-trees were the less accurately 
 distinguished, as even the first bore, and still bears under cultiva- 
 tion, the finest of fruit ; for example, the green-gage. Our French 
 name for this plum, Heine- Claude, shows that in this branch also of 
 orchard-culture France is the real classic land, either by reason of 
 its climate, or the industrial labours of its inhabitants. If we go 
 farther south, to the Mediterranean coasts, we find that the plum 
 loses much of its delicious aroma. But the European region 
 where the cultivation of plum-trees is carried on on a large scale, 
 and is an integral factor in production, is the borderland of 
 Austria and Turkey (see Thoemmel's " Bosnia," and Kanitz's 
 " Servia "). There one meets with whole forests of plum-trees, the 
 fruit of which, newly plucked, forms for four or six weeks the 
 
THE PLUM-TREE. 289 
 
 principal food of the population, and, when dried, is sent in great 
 quantities to Germany and even America. Pigs and plums are 
 almost the only equivalents with which these countries pay for 
 their foreign necessaries. But the chief use to which the abundant 
 produce is put is the making of plum-brandy, the favourite slivovica. 
 Though imrnense quantities of this article are consumed on the 
 spot — for to what are those races more predestined than to the 
 consumption of raki ? — the exportation is also considerable. We 
 do not know how old the culture of the plum-tree is in those 
 countries, nor whether it goes back beyond the time of the Slav 
 immigrations. But to make a drink from berries, in which the 
 north-east of Europe is rich, is an Old Slavonian or East European 
 national trait, that was already hinted at by Herodotus in his 
 description of the countries beyond Scythia. 
 
 19 
 
THE MULBERRY-TREE. 
 (morus nigra.) 
 
 This Medo-Persian tree was rather early transplanted to the West 
 on account of its pleasantly sourish-sweet and purple fruit. It 
 attains a considerable height, and its dark green foliage comes out 
 late in spring, on which account, Pliny tells us, it was surnamed 
 Sapientissima arborum, the prudent tree, that ventures out only 
 when frost is no longer to be feared. The berries, which resemble 
 raspberries, and in their native country are often an inch long, 
 are wholesome and pleasant only when they are fully ripe ; and 
 then they must be eaten without delay, for the juice easily 
 ferments and turns to vinegar. They are therefore plucked early 
 in the morning, as they were in the time of Horace, and are 
 bought and consumed before the heat of the day has spoiled 
 them. The ancients were struck most with their dark purple 
 colour ; Horace and Martial call them Mack, Virgil and Columella 
 blood-red ; the Dictator Sulla had a very red face spotted with 
 white, which a satirical Athenian poet compared to a mulberry 
 sprinkled with meal. It was said that elephants whose trunks 
 were smeared with mulberries before a battle became very eager 
 for the fight, evidently because of the resemblance of the juice to 
 blood, (i Maccab. vi. 34: "And to provoke the elephants to 
 fight, they showed them the blood of grapes and mulberries.") 
 Luxurious ladies, and gay people who went masquerading, painted 
 their temples and cheeks with the juice of mulberries; and the 
 wine they drank, when too pale, was very likely also darkened 
 with the red juice, as is even now the custom in the South. 
 If we inquire when the mulberry-tree was first introduced into 
 
MULBERRY. 291 
 
 Europe from its Asiatic home, some accidently preserved poetical 
 passages refer us to the time of the Attic Tragedy ; others, a 
 century later, to that of the Middle and New Comedy. But the 
 confounding of the true mulberry with the sycamore, the Egyptian 
 mulberry-fig, and, on the other hand, with the blackberry and 
 raspberry, throws some doubt on the meaning of this testimony. 
 The sycamore, a wide-spreading, shady tree with fig-like fruit, 
 indigenous to Egypt, but also, where the soil allowed it, frequently 
 planted in Semitic countries, such as Palestine and Cyprus, had 
 not remained unknown to the Greeks in their intercourse with 
 those regions. The tree was valued not only for its cooling shade, 
 but for its fruit, which was an article of food among the lower 
 classes, and also for its excellent timber, which was said to be 
 both strong and light. In the Hebrew Scriptures the sycamore 
 appears only in the two plural forms shikmim and shikmot ; and 
 if we compare with these the two Greek names, the earlier syka- 
 minos, and the later sykomoros, it is at once apparent that these 
 last were formed from the above Hebrew words, or rather from 
 the corresponding ones in Syria or Lower Egypt. 
 
 Rightly or wrongly, the true mulberry-tree was thought very 
 like this sykomore, and also borrowed its name. Theophrastus, 
 and after him Pliny and Dioscorides, said, " The mulberry-tree 
 is very like the sycamore, for it has a similar leaf, and resembles 
 it in size and form." And Diodorus says distinctly, " There are 
 two sorts of sycamines, one of which bears mulberries, and the 
 other a fruit like figs." But the fruit of the mulberry also 
 resembled that of the bramble-bush, batos, and the primitive 
 name of this latter (Gr. mora, Lat. mora), could easily be extended 
 to the former. Phanias the Eresian, a pupil of Aristotle, wished 
 to limit the name moron to the fruit of the wild sycamine, that is, 
 to the blackberry, which was also very sweet ; but the extension 
 of name was too firmly rooted. Nay, the Alexandrians, as 
 Athenseus reports, used mora exclusively for mulberries, probably 
 because sycamina was already the fixed name for the fruit of the 
 Egyptian sycamore, which was common among them. Even the 
 word batia, which is quite literally the berries of the bramble, 
 was now and then applied to mulberries. So that when ^schylus 
 
292 THE MULBERRY-TREE. 
 
 in his tragedy " The Phrygians," says Hector was riper than the 
 mora, we cannot be sure whether the poet was thinking of 
 mulberries, and must therefore have known that fruit, or whether 
 he did not more likely mean the native blackberry. When we 
 remember that the mulberry is uneatable before it is fully ripe, 
 and must then be rapidly plucked and devoured, an allusion to 
 that fruit might perhaps be more suitable to Hector's fate. But 
 another fragment of ^schylus, descnbmg both white, red, and 
 black tnora all growing at once on the same bush (where Athe- 
 nseus, who knew the context, tells us he was speaking of the batos, 
 bramble), shows unmistakably that he meant blackberries. There 
 are similar doubts about a fragment from a lost tragedy of 
 Sophocles, and in a quotation from Epicharmus ; but in 
 poets of the New Comedy (from 350 b.c.) we at last find the 
 mulberry clearly and unmistakably referred to : " You dye your 
 cheeks with sycamines instead of paint," etc. Theophrastus, 
 with more exactitude, distinguishes the sykaminos (mulberry-tree) 
 from the sykaminos ^gyptia (sycamore) ; and the first, under 
 the name of morea, is clearly to be recognised in a couplet of 
 Nicander preserved in Athenaeus, which calls it " the delight of 
 the young, and the first herald of the happy fruit-time." And, in 
 fact, the Moms nigra, while the last to bud in spring, is the first 
 to bear fruit in summer. At the time of Galen moron was already 
 the name in general use, and sykaviinon nothing but a classical 
 archaism: "I would rather s&y moron,'' he remarks, "which is 
 familiar to all, than sykaminon, like the Attic writers of six 
 hundred years ago ; he is a fool who thinks more of so-called 
 correct language, than of a healthy life." The more singular is 
 the fact that the modern Greeks say sykamenea as well as morea. 
 
 When the tree was introduced into Italy, the name sykaminos 
 was already obsolete ; thenceforward it was called 7nora, like the 
 raspberry and blackberry bush. If moron was a Doric word, 
 and used by Epicharmus in Sicily, both tree and name must 
 have reached the Latins through Magna Grsecia; the name in 
 this sense, that the example of the Greeks led the Latin-speaking 
 nations to extend their own undoubtedly ancient word morttm ta 
 the new fruit. Where any mistake was possible, they would very 
 
MULBERRY. SILK. 293 
 
 likely say morum celscB arboris (the m. of the tall tree), and call 
 the tree itself morus celsa, whence probably its Italian name of gelso. 
 The ancient poets often mention the fruit ; Ovid, in the fourth 
 book of his " Metamorphoses," tells us how the red colour of the 
 mulberry originated, namely, in the blood of Pyramus, when he 
 killed himself under a mulberry-tree for the love of Thisbe, quite 
 an Asiatic legend, which we find repeated about other plants, 
 and the scene of which, this time, is laid in Babylon, thus pre- 
 serving a recollection of the tree having come from the far East. 
 The mulberry-tree was never very delicate ; for since that time 
 it has crossed the Alps, and thrives not only in France but in 
 England, Germany, and even Scandinavia, though sometimes in 
 a hard winter it dies of frost. A thousand years later, it became 
 more important for its foliage than on account of its fruit ; for 
 it made the immigration of the Indian-Chinese silkworm possible. 
 Its first planters, who thought of nothing but the dark berries, 
 little dreamt that one day the rough leaves would, by a manifold 
 metamorphosis through a small caterpillar, be changed into a 
 soft, glistening, costly tissue. It is true that the Romans had 
 gradually become acquainted with silken robes worth their weiglit 
 in gold, but they had not the least idea that the wonderful threads 
 were nothing but spun mulberry-leaves. In course of time the 
 Morus nigra transferred its office of feeding silkworms to a still 
 later arrival from Central and Eastern Asia, the Morus alba, a 
 sister-tree of smaller size, with smoother and tenderer leaves and 
 white, honey-sweet fruit, which appeared in Europe to«'ards the 
 end of the Middle Ages. The Persian provinces on the Caspian 
 Sea, and Italy and France in Europe, those silk-countries of the 
 West, are now, in the districts where the industry flourishes, 
 covered all over with cut and despoiled white mulberry-trees; 
 it is only here and there in remote, lag-behind districts that the 
 mulberry-tree of the ancients is still found nourishing a spinning- 
 worm that produces a coarser kind of silk. A still more service- 
 able kind of morus than the usual white mulberry-tree, the Morus 
 alba multicaulis, has been brought into Europe from Manilla, where 
 it had been introduced from China, and is said to thrive well 
 when properly treated (note 73). 
 
ALMONDS. WALNUTS. CHESTNUTS. 
 
 In the Imperial age of Rome the three above-named fruits were 
 clearly distinguished as juglandes, walnuts ; amygdalae, almonds j 
 and mices castanem, chestnuts ; but the farther back we go, the 
 more these names become confused. So long as the trees them- 
 selves, which are so different in nature and appearance that it 
 is impossible to confound them, were not generally known, their 
 fruits being only brought by sea, in sacks or earthen vessels, to 
 the market, say, of Athens, native words like nut or acorn were 
 applied to the foreign fruits, with the addition of some epithet to 
 signify the nature of the shell, or the country where the fruit was 
 said to grow, or, lastly, the seaport that supplied them. But the 
 application of these names was so variable, that the popular 
 name of Jupiter's acorn, Dios balanos, which in Greece generally 
 meant the chestnut, has in the corresponding Latin form juglans 
 (Jovi-glans) the meaning of walnut. We find the almond men- 
 tioned earliest ; under the name of amygdale, it is already common 
 in the Comic poets ; but the names of the walnut, chestnut, and 
 some better kinds of hazelnut, are jumbled together for a long 
 time after. 
 
 If we compare the chief passages, we recognise at least one 
 indubitable geographical fact, namely, that all these fruits came from 
 the middle parts of Asia Minor, particularly from the regions of the 
 Pontus, and at a comparatively late period. All the names used 
 by the ancient authors point to that part of the world, and signify 
 nuts or acorns named after Sardes in Lydia, or a district on 
 Mount Ida, or Sinope and Heraklea, the two ports on the Black 
 Sea ; and brought from Paphlagonia, lying on the same sea. The 
 district name of Pontic mils is quite common, and is chiefly, but 
 
CHESTNUT. 295 
 
 not exclusively, used for a large kind of hazel-nut, as is also the 
 name of Persian or royal nuts, because they came from a district 
 subject to the Persian kings. 
 
 But whence came the word castanea (chest-nut), and when does 
 it first occur? Xenophon with the Ten Thousand came to the 
 Mosynoikoi, a Pontic nation, and there found a quantity of broad 
 nuts stored up in lofts — intended therefore for the people's food — 
 which later writers took to be chestnuts. More likely they were a 
 large kind of corylus (hazel) which does grow in that region ; at 
 any rate, he does not use the word chestnut. In Theophrastus the 
 words " similar to the Kastanaic nut" look very like a later gloss, 
 as that is not his usual name for the chestnut. The poet Nicander, 
 in the second century B.C., is the first who speaks plainly of the 
 nut produced by the land of Kastanis. But where was that coun- 
 try ? The Scholiast says : " Kastanis, a town of Thessaly." Now 
 on the coast of Thessaly, at the foot of Pelion, in Magnesia, there 
 really was a small harbour, or village as Strabo calls it, named 
 Kasthanaia, Kastanaia, mentioned first by Herodotus. Theophras- 
 tus also says that in Magnesia and on the opposite island of 
 Eubcea there grew many Euboean nuts, that is, chestnuts. Must 
 we suppose that the fruit took its name from that little-known spot, 
 or rather did not people catch at any geographical name to ex- 
 plain it by ? But our Scholiast adds a second explanation : " Or 
 Kastanis, a city of Pontus, where chestnuts abound " — which is a 
 great deal more likely in itself, if only we could find any trace of 
 such a city in Pontus. Or have we here a hint of that mysterious 
 Kastamon, south-west of Sinope, which was known as an impor- 
 tant place at the Byzantine period, though the ancients did not 
 mention it ? That inscription in Boeckh, which he says contains 
 no Roman traces, can at all events not be so very far off the 
 Roman times, as it contains the word Kastanaia. The fact that 
 the names glans regia, Dios balanos, and juglans for the chestnut 
 are found in different Oriental languages would be significant, if 
 such names as bendak, pandek for nux Pontica, the Arabic mitkon 
 for malum Medicum, and the like, did not prove that Western 
 names of fruits often found their way back to the East. Though not 
 in the Semitic, yet in Iranic dialects, especially Old Armenian, 
 
296 ALMONDS. WALNUTS. CHESTNUTS. 
 
 Students of those languages would, we believe, discover the origin 
 and an explanation of the word "chestnut." — In Italy towards the 
 middle of the second century B.a CatO never mentions either 
 juglandes, or castanece, or amygdalcz; but he urges the planting of 
 the following nuts : the calva, Avellana, Pranestina, and Grceca. 
 The " nuts of Avella " are the finer hazel-nuts transplanted from 
 the Grecian coast towns to Campania, which we call filberts, and 
 which the Greeks had derived from the Pontus ; but how are we to 
 explain the nux GrcRca ? Ernst Meyer, in his "History of Botany," 
 guessed that it might be the chestnut ; but the later Roman writers 
 invariably mean by it the almond. Columella calls the tree 
 amygdala, the fruit nux Grceca. Pliny " doubts if the almond 
 could have existed in Italy in Cato's time, because he called it 
 Greek nut" If then, as we cannot doubt, Cato's nux Gmca was 
 the almond, we have to choose between the walnut and the 
 chestnut for the nux calva. Now the Scholiast on Nicander Alex. 
 271, divides chestnuts into four kinds, one of them the gymno-lopos 
 or naked-shelled ; calvus (bald, bare) might well mean the same 
 thing ; and nux calva may therefore be the chestnut. Again, in 
 Plautus's " Calceolus " some one speaks of a nux mollusca hang- 
 ing over his roof. Comparing this with the same Scholiast's 
 " soft " chestnut, and Virgil's castanece molles (soft shelled), we may 
 fairly suppose it was a chestnut-tree that shaded the house. In 
 any case, the want of settled names proves that there was no 
 general cultivation of these trees in Italy at the time of Cato and 
 Plautus. — Walnuts under the name oi juglandes are often men- 
 tioned by Varro, and once by Cicero, who relates that the elder 
 Dionysius's daughters singed that tyrant's beard off with red-hot 
 nut-shells; Virgil is the first to speak of chestnuts as castanece 
 nuces ; and a medical book of the beginning of the first century 
 A.D. mentions sweet and hitter almonds for the first time. From 
 that period the trees, as well as the names, were as common in 
 Italy as the noci, mandorle, and castagne (walnuts, almonds, and 
 chestnuts) are to-day. Early in January, if the weather be mild, 
 otherwise in February or March, the almond-trees in every gar- 
 den are white with blossom before the leaves appear ; walnut-trees 
 with their thick aromatic foliage shade the roads even in the 
 
CHESTNUT. 297 
 
 north ; and in Italy, Spain, and part of France, chestnuts have so 
 multiplied as to become real woods, which according to the lati- 
 tude, belt the mountains at a higher or lower elevation ; for exam- 
 ple, the splendid chestnuts round the volcanic cone of Etna. The 
 fruit of this latter tree has become such a popular food, that in 
 France the idleness of the Corsicans is attributed to their chest- 
 nuts, and the destruction of those trees has been thought desir- 
 able — a similar thing to the idleness caused by the tropical banana. 
 In fact, if a Corsican family possesses but two dozen chestnut- 
 trees, and a flock of goats, which find their own pasture all the year 
 round, their wants are fully provided for, and the father and each 
 of the sons only desire to save up a small sum to purchase a — rifle. 
 In the wild Italian Apennines the inhabitants also live for a great 
 part of the year on chestnuts and chestnut-meal, and suffer greatly 
 if a bad season brings a scanty crop. The shade of the chestnut- 
 tree is welcome in the heats of summer, and, besides its fruit, it is 
 valuable on account of its timber, which is used not only for fuel, 
 but for tools and utensils of every kind. Therefore the tree is one 
 of the most important acquisitions of culture that we have inherited 
 from antiquity. It is true that the chestnuts of South Italy give 
 the botanist an impression of their having been indigenous there 
 from the very first ; and Link, who is said to have thoroughly 
 studied the south of Europe, informs us in his "Urwelt und 
 Alterthum," that the primitive races in Europe, even before the 
 pastoral period, fed chiefly on chestnuts. But this assertion is 
 contradicted by the fact that neither Greeks nor Romans had an 
 individual name for the chestnut-tree and its fruit. The truth is, 
 that the climate and soil of the mountains of Southern and part 
 of Central Europe were so favourable to the tree that it spread 
 rapidly, escaped the tutelage of man, and has in whole districts 
 become a real forest-tree. 
 
 It is not the only case of the kind. After the conquest of 
 Teneriffe by the Spaniards at the end of the fifteenth century, 
 chestnuts were planted in that island, "and now form a forest, 
 the European origin of which is only betrayed by the European 
 flowers that it shelters," as L. von Buch tells us in his treatise on 
 the flora of the Canary Isles. We must not forget that two 
 
298 ALMONDS. WALNUTS. CHESTNUTS. 
 
 thousand years and more have elapsed since the presumed intro- 
 duction of this tree. Wait as long, and America will offer similar 
 phenomena on a much larger scale. If the Greeks had found the 
 chestnut-tree existing in their future country when they first arrived, 
 they would certainly have mentioned its fruit in their legends. 
 But we only hear of the acorns of the dr^s, the esculent oak ; and 
 the aborigines, such as the wild Arcadians in their mountains and 
 woods, are always called acorn-eaters {balanephagot), even by the 
 oracles. When Hesiod describes the blessings of peace and justice, 
 the earth bringing forth fruits, the oak bearing acorns, the bees 
 furnishing honey, and the sheep yielding its fleece — would he 
 have forgotten to mention the chestnut, if it had then grown on 
 the mountains, bestowing sweet fruit on mankind? And would 
 the Latin poets, when describing the Golden Age, have limited 
 themselves to mentioning arbutus-fruit, strawberries, cornel-cherries, 
 blackberries, and acorns? That the regions south of the Cau- 
 casus, and the northern seaboard of x\sia Minor, bring forth all 
 kinds of nuts and chestnuts in great abundance and perfection, is 
 proved by the unanimous testimony of travellers ancient and 
 modern. Kolenati saw hazels in Armenia, whose trunks measured 
 from two to three feet in diameter ; Wutzer, during his travels in 
 the East, found chestnut and plane-trees on his way from Nicsea 
 to Brussa, the size of which amazed him : "These two are the giants 
 of Western Asiatic vegetation, the plane-tree taking the first place, 
 the chestnut the second. ... It was chestnut-gathering time, and 
 numbers of asses laden with sacks stood ready to carry the fruit, 
 which was knocked down by men and boys, while women 
 picked it up and packed it. The glowing sunbeams tried in vain 
 to penetrate the thick foliage." From these regions chestnuts 
 came overland through Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly to 
 Euboea, after which island they were called " Eubcean nuts '' at 
 Athens. In the present day the Greek chestnuts are small and the 
 bitter shell is generally intergrown with the kernel ; they are 
 therefore not pleasant to eat. Of European lands,,the best chest- 
 nuts, improved by culture, are furnished by the South of France 
 (note 74). 
 The wild or so-called Horse-chestnut {y^scuhis hippocastanmri) 
 
HORSE-CHESTNUT. 299 
 
 is one of those trees that Europe owes to the Turks. This beauti- 
 ful, shady, early-budding tree came from Constantinople by way of 
 Vienna towards the end of the sixteenth century, and very soon 
 became a favourite ornament of gardens and public promenades 
 —witness the chestnuts of the Tuileries Garden, and among them 
 the celebrated Napoleon tree. The showy, upright blossom suited 
 the Turkish taste, like the tulip ; the prosaic, name of Horse-chest- 
 nut is said to be derived from the Turkish custom of curing the 
 cough in horses by means of its fruit. 
 
THE CHERRY-TREE. 
 
 (PRUNUS CERASUS.) 
 
 That ilie cherry was brought to Europe by rich Luculkis, the 
 conqueror of Mithridates, is known to every boy who has learnt 
 anything of Roman history ; though with a basketful of the sweet 
 ripe berries before him the fact may be as indifferent to him as 
 to the pilfering sparrow on the tree. Many ancient writers, from 
 Pliny downwards, relate that after destroying the city of Cerasus, 
 which stood on the Pontic coast between Sinope and Trapezunt, 
 the Roman general, L. Lucullus, transplanted cherry-trees from that 
 neighbourhood to Italy — at any rate, a more valuable and lasting 
 spoil-of-war than the colossal gold statue of Mithridates, the 
 jewelled shield, or the many gold and silver vessels paraded at 
 LucuUus's triumphal entry into Rome. We do not know whence 
 Pliny got his account ; Plutarch, who in his " Life of Lucullus " has 
 collected a great number of details, is silent about the intro- 
 duction of a new kind of fruit-tree by his hero. However, Pliny's 
 story is supported by the fact that Cato never mentions cherries, 
 Varro only once, but later authors fregticntly. The fruit, however, 
 was not entirely unknown in the time of Lucullus; for, 
 firstly, Athenaeus quotes a passage from Diphilus of Siphnus, a 
 contemporary of Lysimachus, whose kingdom extended to 
 Western Asia, in which the dietetic qualities of cherries {kerasia) 
 are explained, the preference being given to red and Milesian 
 cherries ; secondly, there was an indigenous Italian species {Prtinm 
 avium) not distinguished by the ancients from the Cornelian 
 cherry-tree (Cornus masculd), the fruit of which had never been 
 improved, and perhaps could not be. This sweet wild cherry, 
 
CHERRY. 301 
 
 together with the cornel-cherry and privet, are described by 
 Theophrastus under the names of the male and female kraneia ; 
 the male tree had very hard, the female a softer wood. The 
 inhabitants of Mount Ida said the female-tree bore fruit that was 
 sweef, fragrant, anAfit to eat; the Macedonians, on the contrary, 
 said that both trees were fruitful, but the fruit of the female was 
 uneatable. These sweet cherries of Mount Ida and Miletus were 
 already improved at the time of Lysimachus, and may have been 
 the kerasia meant by Diphilus ; but those that Lucullus first saw 
 in the Pontic kingdom, and bestowed upon Italy, must have been 
 a more cultivated, larger, juicier kind of sour cherry. So soon as 
 the fruit was known and appreciated, both kinds of tree were 
 widely propagated, largely imported from Asia (which was fully 
 opened soon after), and being grafted on the wild Italian species, 
 produced a vast number of varieties, including the finest and 
 most delicious. It was a special advantage in the cherry that it 
 ripened so early in summer, affording the refreshment of its rich 
 juice when other fruits were still backward. Coming from the 
 Pontus, a region with hard winters, and being already in its 
 commoner kinds indigenous to Southern Europe, the cherry-tree 
 could go on advancing all through the middle and even some 
 way into the north of the continent. In fact, at the time of 
 Pliny, a hundred and twenty years after it first appeared in Italy, 
 the cherry-tree had aheady crossed the sea into Britain ; it grew on 
 the banks of the Rhine; in Belgium people prized the "Lusi- 
 tanian " cherries, so that the tree must have reached Portugal too, 
 and formed a new variety there. Nay, in the Alps, and in the 
 once barbarous countries beyond the Alps, the cherry-tree bears 
 more aromatic fruit than near the Mediterranean, where the 
 neighbourhood of the sea makes the climate too uniformly mild. 
 At the present day, Tyrol, Switzeriand, and the Upper Rhine are 
 a fine cherry country, where the plant ■ thrives particulariy well. 
 As the well-known kirschwasser (Swiss cherry-brandy) is made 
 from the surplus of the cherry-harvest in Switzeriand, so in 
 Dalmatia, Trieste, and Venetia, the maraschino rosolio is made 
 of the marasca (sour cherry), and in dehcacy of flavour excels, 
 its Hungarian and Servian neighbour, the plum-slivovica. 
 
302 THE CHERRY-TREE. 
 
 Corresponding to the two principal European species of cherry, 
 the sweet and the sour, we find two principal names running 
 through the European languages. The Latin cerasus, Greek 
 kerasos, cannot be derived from the Sinopean colony Kerasous ; 
 the town, on the contrary, took its name from the tree growing 
 there. Kerasos seems to be only the Asia Minor form of the 
 really Greek word kraneia, found even in Homer, Latin comus 
 (cornel-tree), the two words being closely related to keras, Latin 
 cornu (horn), and descriptive of the horny hardness of the wood, 
 which made it particularly suitable for javelins. Mark Theo- 
 phrastus's description : "The wood of the kraneia is without pith, 
 quite solid, resembling horn in closeness of grain and in strength ; 
 but that of the female kraneia has an internal pith, is softer and 
 hollow, and is therefore unsuitable for spears." In the Homeric 
 Hymn to Hermes, a spear has the adjective epithet kraneion ; and 
 later, even kraneia by itself meant a lance. It is remarkable that 
 in Lithuanian ragotine (spear) is, in like manner, derived from 
 ragas (horn), so that the spear of hornbeam or privet must be a 
 very old European weapon. Again, the German Hornung axiA Lith. 
 Raguttis (February) are named after the hard-frozen earth during 
 that month. Theophrastus mentions the word kerasos too, but it 
 is clear from his description that he meant a forest tree, of which 
 the bast was used for making ropes, and the red fruit, the size of 
 a bean, with a soft kernel, was uneatable. It is the improved 
 cherry, which was likewise a tree with red fruit, that the Greeks 
 on the Pontus called kerasos, a name that passed into Italy with 
 the tree, and from Italy to all Transalpine Europe. The Romance 
 languages, as usual, formed their word from the adjective ceraseus; 
 the German kirsche was taken not from them, but directly from 
 the Latin, therefore at the time of the Teutonic Migration, or 
 shortly after. The Slavic criesnia was borrowed from the German 
 after the migration of the Slavs into the Danubian lands; the 
 Magyar tseresznye was derived from the Slavic; and the By- 
 zantian kerasos has passed into the Turkish, Persic, and Kurd 
 languages, etc. — The origin of the other name, which is spread 
 throughout Europe, and generally signifies the sour cherry, is 
 more obscure ; Ital. visciola, Old French guisne, now guigne, Span. 
 
CHERRY. 303 
 
 guinda. Germ, weichsel, Old Germ, wihsela, Slav, vishnia, vishni, 
 Lith. vyszna, Mod. Greek bisenon, bisinon (also in Wallachian, 
 Albanian, and Turkish) — all different forms of the same word 
 without the Consonant-change that unborrowed congeners would 
 exhibit. If we could find any connexion of meaning between 
 the cherry and the fruit of the mistletoe, or rather — as that would 
 probably be easy — if any fact assured us of its reality, then 
 the word would not only be explained by the Greek vixos, 
 Latin viscus, viscum, but our natural derivation of the fruit 
 from Italy would be confirmed by the name. But if we must 
 suppose the German word to come first — to which we are led by 
 the French and Spanish initial gu — we have first to remove our 
 guttural h, ch, which has here crept in before si, as it has in the 
 name of the river Wei^,4sel, (Vistula, Slav. Visla) ; while in the 
 Low German wispel tree (bird-cherry), a German sound was 
 procured by the addition of a / (note 75). In a fragment of 
 the Comic poet Amphis the fruit of the kraneia, the cornel-cherry, 
 is called mespilon : we do not know whether this might not furnish 
 n clue. 
 
ARBUTUS. MEDICA. CYTISUS. 
 
 (strawberry-tree.) (lucerne.) (laburnum.) 
 
 To the hot and mountainous South are denied the flowery 
 fields of the North, and the green meadows of the high Alps ; 
 the place of the latter is supplied by the evergreen herbs and 
 shrubs which, long after the woods have retired before advancing 
 culture, clothe promontories, rocky coasts, and the edges of 
 ravines and water-courses. Of one of the most beautiful little 
 trees of those regions, the strawberry-tree (Arbutus unedd), we 
 do not know whether it always existed there, or migrated from the 
 south-east in company with man. This tree — with its laurel-like 
 leaves ; its strawberry-shaped fruit, first green, then yellow, and 
 then bright red ; its branches clothed with fruit and blossom at 
 the same time, like the lemon-tree ; and its ever-renewed foliage^ 
 whose regular disappearing and appearing was correctly observed 
 by Theophrastus — this tree is scarcely ever seen farther north than 
 Central Italy ; but in Arabia, as Juba (quoted by Pliny) exagger- 
 atingly asserts, it attains a height of nearly loo feet Varro 
 reckons the fruit of the arbutus — like acorns, blackberries, and 
 apples — among the fruits of the primitive world, those offered 
 spontaneously by the virgin soil, and consequently not produced 
 and propagated by culture ; and Ovid says the same. In the pre- 
 sent day, both in Greece and Italy, the arbutus fruit is considered 
 unwholesome, having a numbing effect, and is left to the birds, with 
 whom it is a favourite tit-bit. This popular prejudice already 
 prevailed among the ancients of the later period, as we learn 
 from Dioscorides. Theophrastus, on the contrary, says that it may 
 be fearlessly eaten ; Galen tells us it was enjoyed by the country 
 
THE STRA WBERR Y- TREE. 
 
 305 
 
 people; and in modern times, northern travellers have eaten it 
 with impunity. Petter, in his book on Damatia, says, " I and my 
 family have often eaten the beautiful red berries of the strawberry- 
 tree with wine, sugar, and cinnamon, and felt no benumbing 
 effects." 
 
 From the difference in the names used by the Greeks and the 
 Romans, we may conclude that the strawberry-tree did not grow 
 in the country whence the original stock of the Greeks and Italians 
 set out to wander in different directions. The Latin arbutus, 
 arbutum, is evidently connected with arbos, arbustum; Benfey 
 explains the Greek komarosas "tavisted, creeping," which does not 
 agree with the nature of the tree ; Fick considers it a primitive 
 Indo-European name. The Greek name for the fruit, mimaikylon, 
 is first used by Aristophanes, and then by Theophrastus. (Benfey 
 thinks it a combination of mim- with akylos, the edible acorn ; but 
 we might explain it as winter fruit, maimasso.) The arbutus 
 andrachne, andrachle, was also known to the ancients — probably 
 signifying the bush which yields good charcoal, anthrax. 
 
 In these evergreen bushes the flocks of the peasant found suffi- 
 cient nourishment for their wants; but as they were not always to 
 be found near home, the ancients hit upon the plan of stripping 
 the trees planted in their gardens, and using the leaves, in addition 
 to the expensive corn and flour, for feeding domestic animals. 
 The ass and the goat, we may say, had set the example ; the ass 
 devoured anything, were it never so prickly, hard, or sticky, and 
 the goat showed a strong partiality for the young leaves of bushes 
 and small trees. The branches that fell during the pruning of the 
 olives and vines were given to the animals, and in autumn the 
 withered leaves were collected for the same purpose. This not 
 proving sufficient, people began to plant the borders of the fields, 
 ditches, and paths with single or double rows of trees, which 
 furnished wood for firing and rural tools, and leaves for fodder 
 and litter. Thus the southern modes of agriculture led to leaf- 
 forage and forest-gardening. Cato already gives the following 
 advice, which sounds strange to a northern farmer: "As long as 
 you have it, give your oxen the foliage of elms, poplars, oaks, and 
 fig-trees ; and to the sheep green leaves ;" and in another place he 
 
 20 
 
3o6 ARBUTUS. MEDICA. CYTISUS. 
 
 repeats : " If you have no hay, give the oxen oak and ivy leaves." 
 This sort of fodder is so often mentioned by the later agricultural 
 authors, that its general use cannot be doubted. 
 
 In this feature we see clearly how much southern and antique 
 husbandry differed, and still differs, from the modern husbandry 
 of northern latitudes : the latter, which has larger space, receives 
 its gifts more directly from the hand of nature ; the former owes 
 everything to itself, and lives as if in a second, self-created world, 
 from which rude nature seems to be infinitely distant. But even 
 the ancients must have found that not every kind of leaf was 
 calculated to render the plough-ox strong, the butcher's-ox fat, 
 and the milch-cow generous in her yield ; and this gave occasion 
 to introduce from the East those forage-plants which were better 
 suited for the purpose. Such acquisitions were the medico, or 
 lucerne and the cytisus, both of which were unknown to Cato, but 
 are mentioned by Varro, and therefore must have been introduced 
 into Italy in the interval between the middle of the second and 
 the middle of the first centuries, B.C. The Medike poa (Median 
 grass), Latin Medica, Medicago saiiva, came, as the name indicates, 
 from Media, from the well-watered, verdant districts south-east of 
 the Caucasus, which Strabo describes as so charming, and in 
 which he expressly says that the highly-valued lucerne grew. It 
 was said to be especially beneficial to horses, and its extension is 
 attributed to the horse-breeding Persians, more particularly to the 
 wars of King Darius. This report is confirmed by the Persian 
 name for the lucerne-clover, aspest, literally horse-fodder, as well as 
 by the high tax laid upon the cultivation of the plant by the 
 Sassanid King Chosroes I. about the middle of the sixth century. 
 Noldeke, in his history of the Persians and Arabians at the time 
 of the Sassanides, translated from the Arabic chronicle of the 
 Tabari, says that in considering the fiscal treatment of the lucerne, 
 the immense importance of horse-breeding in the true Iran must be 
 remembered. Among the Greek authors, lucerne is first named 
 by Aristophanes, and then as horse-fodder ; Aristotle mentions it 
 repeatedly, but rather in a disparaging way : it was good for bees, 
 but the first cuttings were worth nothing, and it deprived animals, 
 particularly the ruminants, of their milk. The opinion held in 
 
LUCERNE. CYTISUS. 307 
 
 Italy differed from the above in so far that it was thought feeding 
 with lucerne caused sheep at least to give more milk (Varro). In 
 the following century Columella is full of praise of the lucerne : 
 "Once sown, it lasts ten years; it is mown four times a year 
 regularly, sometimes even six ; it does not exhaust the soil, but 
 rather enriches it ; it makes lean cattle fat, and heals the sick ; 
 one acre of it will keep three horses the whole year." Possessing 
 all these qualities, it could not but be industriously planted, 
 particularly in sunburnt districts that were dry in summer, and 
 which, though producing fresh fodder sufficient for the climbing 
 sheep, were barren for the horse and ox. The lucerne, having 
 very deep roots, is not afraid of drought ; it is even now planted 
 in Italy, though much more rarely than it was in ancient times ; 
 the names given to it in different districts, besides medica, such 
 as erba spagna,fieno d' Utigheria, seem to imply fresh importations 
 in modern times. The Spanish mielga is only a corruption of 
 Medica ; the equally Spanish alfalfa is derived from the Arabic, 
 but perhaps means another plant. The French luzerne, which 
 has been adopted in English and German (Provengal lauzerdo), is 
 etymologically obscure, for a derivation from the Swiss canton 
 Lucern, or the little Piedmontese town and river Luzerna, is not, 
 as far as we know, historically confirmed. Probably the cultiva- 
 tion of clover, which seems to have originated in Belgium, has 
 interfered with that of Medicago sativa in the north of Europe. 
 
 The cytisus, Medicago arborea, is a shrub whose foliage is 
 unanimously praised by ancient poets and technical authors as 
 both wholesome and pleasant to domestic animals. Like the 
 mulberry-tree in silk districts and the tea-plant in China, it was 
 cultivated solely on account of its leaves, and had to submit to 
 being ruthlessly robbed of them at stated times. It was polled 
 and kept low, the ever-plentiful new sprouts being principally 
 used. It was good not only for animals, but for fowls and bees ; 
 and its specific effect in increasing the quantity of milk was so 
 striking, that even human nursing-mothers drank a decoction of 
 the leaves, mixed with wine, to strengthen and further the growth 
 of their offspring. It supplied green fodder for eight months in 
 the year, and the dried leaves gave good nourishment during the 
 
3o8 ARBUTUS. MEDIC A. CYTISUS. 
 
 Other four. At the same time the cultivation cost little, for the 
 tree throve on the poorest soil, and was insensible to bad weather 
 and climatic extremes. Columella and Pliny express themselves 
 much in the above manner, and the latter adds, that it was all the 
 more surprising that the cytisus was not more frequent in Italy. 
 The plant is said to have appeared first in Kythnos, one of the 
 Cyclades, and thence to have gained the other islands, and finally 
 continental Greece and Italy. There is no report of its having 
 reached Kythnos from any other place, nor at what time the first 
 utilization and extension of the plant occurred. The word kytisos 
 is found in one of the pseudo-Hippocratian writings, the period of 
 which we cannot determine ; it then occurs in a fragment mention- 
 ing the flowers used in a wreath, by the Comic poet Cratinus; and 
 in the celebrated goat-chorus by the poet Eupolis. Aristotle and 
 Theophrastus both mention the cytisus ; and an Athenian named 
 Amphilochus wrote a treatise on that plant and the Medica, but 
 we do not know when he lived. Some mention of the cytisus by 
 Democritus does not prove a greater age, for the agricultural 
 works that bore the name of that celebrated philosopher were 
 later counterfeits. Perhaps the Isle of Kythnos acquired the 
 name of being the first home of the cytisus or of its cultivation 
 from a kind of etymological legend. The Greek kytisos looks like 
 a native word, and may be akin to kotinos, the wild olive, and 
 Latin cotinus, rhus cotinus ; but it may be derived from one of 
 the languages or dialects of Asia Minor, perhaps like kerasos in 
 relation to kraneia and cornus. In modern husbandry, as far as 
 we know, the cytisus no longer plays any part, but it is an orna- 
 mental garden-tree. The praises lavished on the tree by the 
 Romans, who therein imitated the Greeks, perhaps merely express 
 their pleasure at the newly invented fodder- culture in general, and 
 its surprisingly beneficial and lasting effect on the prosperity of 
 agriculture. 
 
THE OLEANDER. 
 
 (nerium oleander.") 
 
 In Greece and Italy, the oleander, or rose-laurel, not only adorns 
 gardens, but fringes the roads and the dry beds of rivers with its 
 fragrant rose-like blossoms and the faint brilliancy of its long 
 evergreen leaves. Like many other plants of those countries, it 
 halts midway between a cultivated and a wild state ; that is, when 
 once introduced, it was able to help itself and adopt the appear- 
 ance of a free child of nature. In such a state it was found by 
 Pliny, who at first sight believed the little tree to be indigenous to 
 Italy, but remembering its name, which is Greek, rhododetidron, 
 rose-tree, or rhododaphne, rose-laurel, he recognised that he had 
 before him a stranger come straight from Greece. A contem- 
 porary of Pliny, the physician Dioscorides, also knows and exactly 
 describes the tree, which, while poisonous, yielded an effective 
 medicine, and like the true laurel, and especially the rue, was an anti- 
 dote against the bite of a serpent. " A well-known bush," continues 
 the description, "which has longer and thicker leaves than the 
 almond-tree. It grows in gardens, on coast-lands, and beside rivers ; 
 its blossoms and leaves have a bad effect on dogs, asses, mules, and 
 most quadrupeds J but, taken with wine, they are wholesome for men 
 against the bite of animals, especially if mixed with rue ; but when 
 the smaller animals, like goats and sheep, drink of this, they die." 
 It was the general opinion, which is even now prevalent, that the 
 oleander was hurtful to animals. Palladius even mentions a means 
 of destroying mice by stopping up their holes and passages with 
 oleander leaves ; and Lucian's laughable story of the transformed 
 ass, who breaks hungry into a garden and is afraid of the oleanders 
 
310 THE OLEANDER. 
 
 growing there, is the origin of the name amazza Vasino (kill-ass), 
 still used in South Italy. So in the Roman Imperial time the 
 rose-laurel was as well-known and common as it is now. If we 
 turn to the older Greeks, from whose language the names of the 
 tree had come, we find not a hint of acquaintance with this very 
 noticeable plant. In the long lists of plants observed or only 
 casually mentioned by Theophrastus there is not one that re- 
 sembles the oleander, for the plant growing on the Isle of Lesbos 
 and elsewhere, and called euonymos, which is also deadly to sheep 
 and goats, but has flowers like the white violet that " smell of 
 murder" (which Pliny translates, /^/^we denuntians), is no other 
 than the Euonymus latifolius, or spindle-tree. As little do we 
 meet with any remark that could apply to the oleander in Aristotle, 
 in the Comic poets, or any of the early poets and prose writers. 
 The other Greek name, first used by Pliny and Dioscorides, 
 tierion, might induce us nevertheless to attribute a great age to the 
 plant in Greece ; for if it is connected with the tragic ndros, neros 
 (flowing), with Nereus the water-god, and with the Nereids, 
 goddesses of the wet element, and therefore signifies water-plant, 
 it must belong to the early period of word-building out of which 
 those antiquated witnesses in the shape of word and fable were 
 transmitted to posterity. But though the oleander loves to weave 
 its long flowery fringe on both sides of the brook, or of the pebbly 
 ravine down which the torrent rushes perhaps only for a few hours, 
 it is no real water-plant, but also climbs the mountains ; and is it 
 possible that the pretty tree, with its almond-scented blossoms and 
 its deadly leaves, should have been common in Greece so long 
 without leaving a trace in literature and legend ? We learn from 
 a late author, Ptolemseus Chemius of Alexandria, who lived in the 
 latter half of the first century a.d., and collected all kinds of 
 legends, personal anecdotes, and curious traits (fragmentally kept 
 in the library of Photius), that a rhododaphne grew on the grave of 
 Araycus, and whoever ate of it became very handy with his fists,. 
 It is the same Amycus and the same grave mentioned before in 
 connexion with the laurel. What was attributed there to the 
 laurel, the quality of confusing the senses and stirring up strife, is 
 here attributed to the oleander ; but we do not know how old this 
 
THE OLEANDER. 311 
 
 variation may be, nor from what obscure source Ptolemseus may 
 have derived it. All this makes it not improbable that the oleander 
 migrated to Greece from Asia Minor, and especially from the 
 Pontus, the fatherland of poisons and antidotes. There, for 
 example, lived the Sanni, a people whose honey had a stupefying 
 effect, the cause of which was believed to be the blossoms of the 
 oleander bush, of which all the woods were full (note 76). — The 
 oleander still grows luxuriantly in Asia Minor alongside the brooks 
 and on the mountains. Further south, in the sphere of the Semitic 
 races, the Arabs call it by names evidently derived from the Greek 
 daphne, difna, difleh, defle, so that it cannot have been introduced 
 there till they became acquainted with the Greeks. 
 
 From all that has gone before, we may conclude that the oleander 
 first came to Greece during the period between the time of Theo- 
 phrastus and perhaps the last years of the Roman republic ; and 
 proportionately later into Italy. The oldest literary mention 
 would be that in the Virgilian " Culex," if we could be sure that 
 that poem was a youthful production of him to whom it is ascribed 
 (note 77). Leaving this aside, the name of the oleander first 
 appears a century later in Scribonius Largus, while it is still wanting 
 in Celsus ; soon after, as already remarked, the plant is known to 
 every one in Italy ; it was first planted in gardens as an ornament, 
 then it propagated itself in the open country, and the more rapidly 
 as it was spared by the goats and asses, those enemies to all young 
 saplings ; and from that time the light-red oleander roses, mixed 
 with the soft blue blossoms of the Vitex agnus, gleam like winding 
 reddish ribbons on the twin banks of the mountain torrents of 
 Southern Europe. But the people in Italy gradually changed the 
 difficult Greek word rhododendron, with a leaning to laurtis, into 
 the modern oleandro, leandro, which passes current in all languages 
 and even in scientific botany ] only the modern Greeks usually 
 say pikrodaphne, bitter laurel. 
 
THE PISTACHIO. 
 
 (^PISTACIA VERA.} 
 
 The delicious pistachio nut, which serves the confectioners and 
 ice-cream makers, even in northern countries, as one of their finest 
 ingredients, grows on a small tree with spicy-smelling leaves, and 
 belonging to the family of the terebinthaceae. The nut is about 
 the size of a hazel-nut, of an oval, three-sided figure, and contains 
 a green, tight-fitting, almond-like kernel. The original home of 
 the tree is the warmer part of Central Asia ; its name seems to be 
 Persian (note 78). If we are not deceived, it was highly valued 
 for its fruit in Semitic Syria in the time of the patriarchs, and 
 again quite late, when the Roman republic was changed into an 
 empire. But as the elder Greeks know nothing of the pistachio, 
 commerce cannot have brought the fruit out of Asia in those early 
 times. Only after Alexander the Great had opened the heart of 
 that continent do we find the first notice in Europe of the tree and 
 its nuts, which some compare to the almond, others to the pine- 
 nut ; and it is not till the beginning of the first century a.d., that 
 we hear of one Roman bringing the plant itself from Syria to Italy, 
 and another at the same time to Spain. 
 
 When Joseph's brethren, driven by famine, went for the second 
 time to Egypt, they took with them costly presents to gain the 
 favour of the vizier, whom they little suspected of being their 
 brother. Among the "choice fruit of the land" mentioned on 
 this occasion, there stand, side by side with almonds, batnim, 
 translated in the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Arabic and 
 Syriac versions, terebinth-berries; but as these berries, though 
 eaten in some districts, cannot be reckoned as dainties worth 
 offering, Bochart tried to prove that what was meant was the 
 
THE PISTACHIO. 313 
 
 pistachio-nut. Olaus Celsius agreed with him, and since then 
 the matter appears settled. But one circumstance looks suspicious, 
 namely, that after the time of Jacob and Joseph the tree seems to 
 have vanished, the Greeks being unacquainted with it ; and that 
 Theophrastus, evidently in consequence of Alexander's conquests, 
 is the first to hear of this new and wonderful species of terebinth, 
 and that too not from Syria, but from Bactria. Thus we cannot 
 avoid speculating whether the tree was not first brought by the 
 Persian, or even the Greek dominion into the neighbourhood of 
 the town newly-founded by the Greco-Syrian kings, Bercea or 
 Chalybon, now Haleb (Aleppo). The passage in Theophrastus 
 runs as follows : " But it is said that there exists a terebinth, or a 
 tree resembling the terebinth, which is exactly like the latter except 
 that the fruit is different, being like the almond. This terebinth 
 is found in Bactria, and bears nuts like almonds, only that the 
 shells are not rough, and the kernels taste far better than almonds, 
 so that the natives make a greater use of them." The description 
 is correct, but the name is wanting. This does not appear till the 
 following century, when it is mentioned by Nicander ; but still he 
 makes the plant grow on the Indian river Choaspes, near Susa. 
 The first person who mentions the Syrian pistachio, a century 
 later still, is the stoic and historian Posidonius of Apamea in Syria, 
 therefore a native : " In Arabia and Syria there also grow the 
 persea and the so-called bistakion (therefore a new name), which 
 bears a grape-shaped fruit, white-shelled and long, similar to 
 tears (?), which hang one over another like grapes ; inside they 
 are green, and, though inferior in taste to pine-kernels, have a 
 finer smell." 
 
 Later authors, such as Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen, etc., all know 
 that Syria, and especially Aleppo, produces the fruit in perfection. 
 Vitellius brought the tree to Italy, and the Roman knight Flaccus 
 Pompeius at the same time to Spain. Lucius Vitellius, who was 
 afterwards censor, was legate in Syria under Tiberius, and made 
 use of his stay in that provmce to transport many of the native 
 garden plants to his estate near Alba Fucensis. We are not told 
 whether the pistachios flourished there ; but as Alba is not far 
 from Lake Fucinus (the Lago Celano lately drained) amidst the 
 
314 THE PISTACHIO. 
 
 rugged Marsian mountains, and as Northern and Central Italy are 
 to this day too cold for the pistachio, Vitellius probably had but 
 little joy of his importation. The tree could be more easily 
 naturalized in Calabria and Sicily, which actually export the fruit, 
 but it is not considered so aromatic as that of the East. As the 
 pistachio, like all the terebinthaces, is a dioecious plant, the hand 
 of the gardener secures its fructification by bringing the panicle of 
 the male tree in contact with that of the female. It is very usual 
 to improve the common turpentine-tree with a graft of the pistachio. 
 Whether the Sicilian pistachios are derived from the time of 
 Vitellius, or from Roman times at all, and whether they are due 
 to the Arabian period, might be open questions, especially as the 
 Sicilian fastuca resembles the Arabic name, were it not that 
 Palladius in his books De Re Rusiica repeatedly gives directions 
 about the planting and cultivation of pistachios. He possessed, 
 as he himself says, estates in Sardinia ; and the delicate Median- 
 Syrian tree might well find a second home on that warm island. 
 If the East had not so completely degenerated in horticulture, as 
 in everything else, the planting of pistachio trees might be ex- 
 tremely profitable among a people so passionately fond of sherbet 
 and all kinds of sweets. The pistachio plantation of Aleppo is 
 still celebrated far and wide. Polak says of Persia, " The inhabi- 
 tants of Kaswin and Damgan exclusively cultivate pistachios, of a 
 quality not to be excelled." In that country, therefore, we must 
 seek for the home of the tree. 
 
 The nearer and more distant relations of the pistachio belong 
 to the characteristic vegetation of the Mediterranean ; there is the 
 pistacia lentiscus, the so-called Mastich-tree, which is frequent in 
 the shape of evergreen bushes on the coasts of South Italy ; there 
 it produces no mastich, but only a coarse oil, at best fit for 
 burning; the pistacia terebinihus or Turpentine-tree, which in 
 Italy often sheds its leaves, and is only a true evergreen in the 
 South, producing while in Europe neither turpentine nor edible 
 berries ; the rhus cotinus or Periwig-tree (any one who has seen it 
 after blossoming, when it looks like a tumbled head of hair, will 
 know why it is so called) ; and lastly, the rhus coriaria, the true 
 Sumach, whose leaves, dried and powdered, afford the best tan for 
 
TEREBINTH OR TURPENTINE. 315 
 
 the fine dyed goat-skin leathers, morocco, and cordovan, now so 
 largely manufactured in Sicily, and forming one of its most con- 
 siderable exports. 
 
 Whether these balsamic, evergreen, tan-containing trees or 
 bushes, the ornaments of southern rocky coasts, belonged to the 
 European flora from the very beginning, or whether, like the 
 myrtle, they were first brought from Asia by the hand of man, and 
 then went wild, is a matter of doubt. In Europe they cling to the 
 warm southern seaboard of that continent, and do not venture far 
 north as true Italian plants are wont to do ; they appear in the 
 form of bushes, while their brothers in Asia grow into stately 
 trees ; they produce no balmy resin, no edible fruit, no fragrant 
 oil, or only in proportion as they approach the warmth of Asia ; 
 sufficient reason for their introduction may be found in their 
 medicinal virtues, their technical uses, the aromatic scent and 
 taste of their resin and berries, and finally, religious superstition. 
 Among them the sumach is technically the most important ; the 
 terebinth historically the most interesting. The Turpentine-tree 
 takes us back to the oldest times of Persia. The Persians are 
 terebinth-eaters ; when Astyages, King of the Medes, sitting on his 
 throne, witnessed the overthrow of his army by that of Cyrus, he 
 cried, "Alas, how brave are these terebinth-eating Persians!" 
 ^lian says, "The Arcadians eat acorns, the Persians terebinths." 
 Among other laws engraved on a bronze column in the palace of 
 the Persian kings was a list pi the articles to be furnished daily 
 for the royal table ; it includes terebinth-oil. The Persian youth 
 were constrained to live in the open country and feed on terebinth- 
 berries, acorns, and wild pears. Terebinths grew on the Paropa- 
 misus. When Alexander marched to Bactriana, he passed through 
 a terrible mountain wilderness, where no trees grew except tere- 
 binth-bushes. In the time of Dioscorides, the tree, especially in 
 the regions that form the dwelling-place of the Semitic races, 
 furnished the highly-valued turpentine resin : " The resin of this 
 tree comes from Arabia Petrseaj but it also grows in Judaea, 
 Syria, Cyprus, Libya, and the Cyclades ; " and still earlier Theo- 
 phrastus had compared the strong, tall terebinth-trees near 
 Damascus with the low terebinth-bushes of Mount Ida and 
 
3i6 THE PISTACHIO. 
 
 Macedonia : " The terebinth is small on Mount Ida, and in Mace- 
 donia twisted and like a bush, but near Damascus in Syria it is 
 tall, stately, and frequent; it is said that in that place is a mountain 
 covered with terebinths, near which nothing else will grow." In 
 the Old Testament the tree has a religious significance, whicli 
 increases the more the older the period in question. The berry- 
 bearing terebinth, like the acorn-bearing oak, from which it cannot 
 always be distinguished, is the primitive tree under which the 
 Divine presence was revealed, the altar erected, and the sacrifice 
 offered. Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt under the 
 terebinths of the plain of Mamre which is in Hebron, and built 
 there an altar unto the Lord (Genesis xiii. i8). And there the 
 Lord appeared unto him, and gave him His promise (Genesis 
 xviii. i). The spot where Abram's tree had stood was sacred for 
 many centuries after ; the terebinth there was said to be as old 
 as the world; Josephus says, "But six stadia from the town a 
 very great terebinth was shown, which is said to have stood there 
 since the creation of the world;" and Eusebius, "Therefore 
 to the present day, the place is held sacred by the surrounding 
 inhabitants, because of the vision beheld there by Abraham; 
 and the terebinth is also still to be seen.'' Even Gentiles from a 
 distance, Phoenicians and Arabs, gathered there and sacrificed 
 animals, offered wine, and cast gifts into the spring; and, as usual, 
 trade and barter were combined with the religious ceremonies. 
 This worship of tree and spring was such an abomination, 
 that the Emperor Constantine the Great, at the instance of 
 his mother, St. Helena, caused the altar to be destroyed, the 
 statues to be burnt, and a Christian chapel to be erected on the 
 spot. Another sacred terebinth was that of Jacob at Shechem 
 (Gen. XXXV. 4), under which, in Joshua's time, stood the ark of 
 the covenant, and a stone altar Avas erected by that hero (Joshua 
 xxiv. 26) ; there in the time of the Judges all the men of Shechem 
 gathered together and made Abimelech king (Judges ix. 6). 
 Again, the angel of the Lord came and sat under a terebinth- 
 oak at Ophrah, and Gideon built there an altar, after he had cast 
 down the Ashera of the Midianites (Judges vi. 11-27). The 
 dead were buried under terebinth-oaks (Gen. xxxv. 8) : " But 
 
TEREBINTH. MASTIC ff. 317 
 
 Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried beneath 
 Beth-El under an oak (terebinth), and the name of it was called 
 AUon-bachuth (the oak of lamentation)." In later times, when 
 the worship of Jehovah had become more spiritual, the prophets 
 are especially indignant that trees, among them the terebinth-oaks, 
 are sacred in the eyes of the heathen, Hosea iv. 13: "They 
 sacrifice upon the tops of mountains, and burn incense upon the 
 hills, under oaks, and poplars, and elms (terebinths), because the 
 shadow thereof is good;" and Ezekiel vi. 13 : "Then shall ye 
 know that I am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among 
 their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, 
 in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, 
 and under every thick oak (terebinth)." This very veneration 
 may have early contributed to the propagation of the tree on 
 the coasts of Europe. But if, even in Asia, it yielded the costly, 
 healing, pure turpentine in small quantities only, in Europe it 
 altogether lost the power of secreting it, and was stunted in 
 growth, except perhaps in some of the Greek islands, such as 
 Chios. What was understood by the Romans, and now also, 
 under the name of turpentine, is gained from the pinus picea or 
 the larix, and of course does not come up to the genuine terebinth. 
 The resin for violins, called Colophonium, bore the same name in 
 antiquity, Kolophonia pissa, because, as Dioscorides reports, it was 
 procured from Kolophon in Asia Minor. 
 
 The Mastich-tree is first mentioned by Herodotus under the 
 name of schinos. Its resin, mastiche, derived its name from the 
 custom of chewing it {mastazo, to chew ; mastax, mouth), and the 
 favourite tooth-picks were made of its wood. The inhabitants of 
 Chio, where much mastich is produced, are constantly chewing 
 this resin, which, they believe, not only sweetens their breath, but 
 improves their health. The custom, like that of chewing betel- 
 nuts, is part of the system of Eastern laziness, but may be honour- 
 ably contrasted with the originally American but now world-wide 
 habit of smoking tobacco. The Latin name of the tree lentiscus 
 (from lentus) comes either from the tough and sticky quality of 
 the resin, or from the flexibility of the branches, which are much 
 used for riding-whips. 
 
3i8 THE PISTACHIO. 
 
 The Periwig-tree, rhus cotinus, we find mentioned by Theo- 
 phrastus under the name of kokkygea, a tree that furnished a red 
 dye, and whose identity with rhus cotinus is seen by his mentioning 
 'tis pampas, the large reddish tuft of the fruit-panicles, from which 
 the tree takes its modern name. 
 
 The Sumach, rhus coriaria, is very early mentioned under the 
 name of rhous ; for instance, by Solon at the beginning of the 
 sixth century. The berries formed a spice, hedysma, which im- 
 proved the taste of food, like myrtle-berries, or like pepper and 
 lemon in modern times. Erythros, red, is a frequent epithet of 
 this fruit, and perhaps the name rhous is derived from the same 
 root, and was formed either in Greece or in some kindred language 
 of Asia Minor. Then the meaning would correspond to that of 
 kokkygea, for the trees are nearly related. The leaves of the tree 
 (which, from its native country is called by Celsus the rhus Syriacus) 
 were used even by the ancients for tanning; but that it was jjlanted 
 in Sicily, where it now yields the finest crop, only after the 
 Arab or Middle Greek period, is betrayed by the name sotnmaco, 
 sumach, being exactly the same as the Arabic somm&g and 
 Byzantine soumaki. The islands of Sicily and Sardinia, as well as 
 many provinces of the Pyrenees peninsula, seem as if created for 
 the cultivation of the sumach-tree ; for, like the Opuntia-cactus, it 
 prefers barren rubble, and a dry rocky bottom to any other soil, 
 and therefore finds in those regions almost unlimited space for 
 propagation. Indeed, its cultivation has made enormous progress 
 during the last generation; in the year 1875 Palermo exported 
 sumach to the value of more than 17,000,000 lire. 
 
 Among the means of fumigation, the thyijtiamata and aromata 
 of the warmer parts of Asia, the ancients often mention the 
 storax-resin (Greek styrax), which the Phoenicians of Herodotus's 
 time exported to Greece. But perhaps the Phoenicians had also 
 attempted in early times to plant this Syrian tree around their 
 European colonies. It is true that Theophrastus, after mentioning 
 the storax in his long list of Asiatic aromatic substances, adds 
 directly after, that with the exception of the iris, none of them 
 belonged to Europe. But near the Bceotian town of Haliartus, in 
 a district about which there hang traditions of early Phoenician 
 
PERIWIG-TREE. SUMACH. STORAX. 319 
 
 culture and religious intercourse with Crete, there grew Cretan 
 storax-trees (Plat. Lys. 28, 7), not far from the spring Kissousa, 
 in which his nurses bathed the new-born Bacchus ; and by this 
 fact the Haliartians proved that Rhadamanthys had dwelt among 
 them, and they could still point out his grave. Later on, storax 
 still came from Crete, but was of course not considered the best 
 kihd. Probably the little trees of Haliartus produced no gum at 
 all, but the wood may have served for lance-shafts. The Latinized 
 form storax proves that this favourite incense for sacrifices came 
 early to Italy, exactly as we drew the same inference from the 
 Latin name for the quince-tree, which, according to the ancients, 
 resembled the storax-tree. 
 
PEACH. APRICOT. 
 
 (amygdalus persica.) (prunus armeniaca.) 
 
 These two trees, as their names tell us, originated in the interior 
 of Asia, beyond even the cherry-land, and became known in Italy 
 during the first century of the Roman Empire. Neither Cato, 
 Varro, Cicero, or any other author of the Republican period, nor 
 any poet of the Augustan age, knew anything about them ; and 
 the elder Greeks, so far as their writings are preserved, were just as 
 ignorant. It was only when the Roman Empire, after the over- 
 throw of Mithridates, began to extend, directly or indirectly, to 
 the valleys of Armenia and the southern margin of the Caspian 
 Sea ; and when the frontier between it and the Parthian kingdom 
 began to fluctuate, and there was an exchange of warlike or 
 peaceful relations, — then it was that the natural treasures of these 
 strange and fertile regions were gradually disclosed, and bit by 
 bit conveyed to Italy. The lemon, " which heavily lies like a 
 golden ball," could be admired in the West before a European 
 had ever beheld the tree as the bearded merchant at Archangel, 
 next neighbour to the eternal snow, cuts fresh slices of lemon into 
 his Chinese tea ; — not so the soft apricot and melting peach, for, 
 as Pliny says, non aliud fugacius (nothing decays so rapidly). 
 However, towards the middle of the first century a.d., gardeners 
 with an eye tp business had planted these fruit-trees in Italy, and 
 took high prices for the first " Persian apples " and " Armenian 
 plums " they produced'. 
 
 In the case of such rare, unknown, aristocratic fruits, which 
 only gradually became familiar to the eye and tongue of the 
 masses, and in the absence of a regular scientific system, it is not 
 
FEACII. APRICOT. 321 
 
 surprising that the names should at first be very fluctuating, and 
 not become fixed till later. At first it was only known that the 
 peach and apricot came from beyond the Asia (in the narrower 
 sense) of that time, and they were therefore called Persian fruits ; 
 and apricots, which are similar and akin to plums, Armenian 
 fruits as well. The name Persian gave rise to some confounding 
 with the Egyptian Persea, and probably with the Median apple or 
 lemon, and later authors had to contradict the superstitious or 
 incorrect ideas caused by such mistakes. Then varieties were 
 produced, the peculiar qualities of which were expressed by suit- 
 able surnames ; thus the growers of the finest sort of peaches 
 called them duracina, because they had a thicker skin, or firmer 
 pulp J and another kind, which ripened early, was nsxa^A. prce-coqua, 
 oxprce-cocia. This last, a technical expression applied to many other 
 things besides, the first portion of which exactly corresponds to the 
 Greek proi, early, was especially suited to the Apricot-tree, which 
 not only blossoms early like the almond, and is therefore pro'i- 
 anthes, but also ripens its fruits early, proi-karpos (like the French 
 hativeau, hasty pear) ; so the word became at last the regular 
 name of the Apricot, and Dioscorides (60 a.d.) could say: "We 
 Greeks call them Armeniaca, but the Romans prai-koMa." But, 
 further, the Greeks took to borrowing some of these names that 
 had become fixed in Italy ; for in the revolutions of time the 
 movement had become retrograde, and Oriental products could 
 come to Greece from the West, and then they passed them on to 
 the East, which had originally itself possessed the things so dis- 
 tinguished, but had become unconscious of the fact. (Peaches, 
 for instance, of which the Romans had named the best kind 
 duracina, were now called in Middle and Modern Greek rhodakina, 
 doubtless a mere transposition of the Latin duracina, to which 
 there was a further inducement in its resemblance to rhodon, rose.) 
 Frce-coqua, then, was changed by the Middle Greeks vcAo prekykkia, 
 prokokkia, berekoka, etc. ; and, as the latter half of the word sounded 
 like kokkos (berry), or kokkyx (cuckoo), it was even changed into 
 kokko-melon (berry-apple), and melon kokkygos (cuckoo's apple), the 
 old name of the plum. But out of one of those distorted forms 
 of prcecoqua, the Arabs made, with the help of the article, their 
 
322 PEACH. APRICOT. 
 
 al-barqAq; and when that sherbet-sipping, refreshment-loving 
 people began to lay out gardens in Spain, in the islands of the 
 Mediterranean, and in South Italy, and to unload its wares in the 
 harbours, the word came bade to the Occidentals in its Arabic 
 form, and thus completed its circle f.om West to East and back 
 again: \\s\..albercocco, alMcocco, bacocco. Span. albaricoque,ixoxa. which 
 the French abricot, from that again the German aprikose, etc. The 
 word armeniacum has also been preserved in the Italian meliaca, 
 muliaca, just as the oldpersicum in the modern iorms persica, pesca, 
 pkhe, peach, pfirsich, and in the Slavic dialects, breskva, praskva, 
 broskvina, etc. 
 
 In the time of Pliny and Columella, there was already a kind 
 of peach called the Gallic. It being rather remarkable that, in the 
 very youth of the fruit, Gaul should have already produced a variety, 
 it might be supposed that Gallo-Grsecia in Asia Minor was meant ; 
 but then it would surely have been called Galaticus, and not 
 merely Gallicus. The peach is a fruit that easily changes ; accor- 
 dingly a large kind of early peach had actually been produced in 
 Provence, which the Italians named after the land of its birth. 
 At present the fruit has divided into innumerable varieties, of which 
 we will only mention the so-called Nectarines, pescanoci; which, 
 as the ancients fabled, originated in the grafting of the peach on 
 the walnut. Of all popular names for apricots the most interesting 
 is the Neapolitan crisuommolo, derived from the Greek chryso-melon, 
 golden apple. According to Pliny chrysomela was originally the 
 name of a kind of quince ; when that fruit became rare and the 
 apricot frequent and a favourite, the poetical name was transferred 
 by the imaginative Neapolitans to a variety of the latter fruit, 
 namely, the so-called almond-apricot. 
 
FRUIT-CULTURE. IMPING, GRAFTING. 
 
 If we look back on the long series of fruit-bearing trees with 
 which Italy was enriched during the period of its greatest power 
 and glory — improved apples and pears, figs and pomegranates, 
 quinces and almonds, cherries, peaches, mulberries, plums, 
 pistachios, etc. — we are not astonished that Varro should call Italy 
 a great fruit-garden. This transformation was accomplished during 
 the time when Rome rose to be the centre of Italy, and Italy the 
 ruler of the world. The older Greeks were only acquainted with 
 Italy as a country which, compared with their own and with the 
 East, still bore a primitive character, and whose products 
 consisted chiefly of corn, wood, and cattle. The Comic poet 
 Hermippus, who wrote at the beginning of the Peloponnesian 
 war, could only mention barley and beef as Italian exports. In 
 Thucydides vi. 90, where Alcibiades points out to the Lacedae- 
 monians the advantages of an expedition to Sicily and Magna 
 Grsecia, he appeals to Italy's wealth in corn and in timber for 
 ship-building A century and a half later, Theophrastus counts 
 Italy among the few countries that supply such timber. When 
 Hiero II. of Syracuse launched the monster grain-ship so often 
 mentioned in this book, no tree could be found suitable for the 
 main-mast except in the mountains of Brettium (that is, in the 
 forest of Sila, which now consists of larch-pines ; but, as the 
 finder of the tree was a swineherd, the larches must have been 
 mixed with oaks or beeches). The wood is minutely described by 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus. In all Roman legends and traditions 
 we hear of vast, inhospitable woods. The Ciminian forest near 
 modern Viterbo, north of the Roman Campagna, in the South 
 Etruscan region, is described by Livy as being in the year 308 
 
324 FRUIT-CULTURE, IMPING, GRAFTING. 
 
 B.C. — therefore after the time of Alexander the Great — more ter- 
 rible and impassable than the German forests afterwards trod by 
 the Romans. At the beginning of the Second Punic War, when the 
 praetor C. Manlius marched to the relief of Mutina (Modena), 
 which the Boii were besieging, his army was almost annihilated in 
 the pathless woods. 
 
 And now, on the very site of these wildernesses with their produce 
 in timber, pitch, game, and pasture, stood plantations of Oriental 
 fruit-trees ; in the place of the flesh and pulse diet of the ancients, 
 men sucked the juices of refreshing fruits as in the South and the 
 East. Those who contributed to this transformation were chiefly 
 Asiatics themselves, that is slaves and freedmen native to Asia ; 
 Syrians, Jews, Phoenicians, and Cilicians. Italy was crowded with 
 them long before Juvenal, who figuratively complained that things 
 had got so far that the Syrian Orontes flowed into the Tiber. The 
 Semitic slaves, with their industry, endurance, and patient resig- 
 nation, seemed to be created for their condition. Plautus already 
 speaks of Syrians as " the most patient race of men. " Rude warfare 
 was not in their nature; but skill in gardening, a delight in the quiet, 
 loving occupation of training and tending plants, were a birthright 
 of the Aramaic race, or rather the result of a world-old culture, and 
 of the soil on which it had been developed. When the Roman 
 aristocrats, returning home after their year's stay in those Eastern 
 provinces, wished to have any of the fine fruits they had always 
 had on their tables there brought over to Italy and their own 
 villas, they found experienced gardeners enough, who assisted in 
 transporting and planting them, and received their freedom, or 
 at least a milder treatment, in return. The same talent in the 
 Cilicians was in every one's moutb, after Virgil — in the beautiful 
 and much-admired episode in the fourth book of his Georgics — had 
 praised the garden of the old Corycian near Tarentum, and the 
 quantity of fruit and vegetables he had enticed out of the sterile 
 soil. 
 
 But the Syrian slaves brought with them, besides other sensual 
 perversions of the East, the Oriental subtleties in the treatment 
 of animals and plants. Not only castration, circumcision, and 
 the breeding of mongrel beasts, but the lopping and dwarfing of 
 
TAMPERING WITH NATURE. 325 
 
 trees, and crossing of species by imping and grafting, had been early 
 practised in Syria. Purposely produced monstrosities, a careful 
 perpetuation of freaks of nature, an artful sporting with the power 
 of growth — all this was indeed only the same impulse in a 
 depraved form as that which originally made the olive and the 
 date-palm fruitful, invented the caprification of the fig, produced 
 double roses and violets, and so on. In the gardens of Italy, 
 from the time of Cato to the period wUen trees were deformed by 
 being dipt into the shapes of animals, etc., persistent attempts 
 were made, not so much to express the pure feeling of Nature, 
 as to cunningly seduce her, by strange and foreign ways, into 
 producing forms and ends which she never intended. Tall trees 
 were dwarfed, delicate fruits grown in monstrous size, and what 
 could not be actually accomplished was at least pretended, and 
 represented as possible. The gradual increase of this tendency 
 is clearly shown in ancient works on' the subject. Varro only 
 went so far as to beUeve that pear and apple trees could be grafted 
 on each other, but not that a pear could grow on an oak. In 
 Virgil the strawberry-tree already bears nuts, the plane-tree apples, 
 the chestnut beech-nuts, the ash pears, and the elm acorns. 
 Columella says, first, that grafting is only possible where the bark 
 of both trees is similar ; yet presently he blames the ancients for 
 limiting the possibility of success to trees of a similar kind : rather 
 might any sprig be grafted on any tree; and then comes the descrip- 
 tion of a trick by which a fig-tree could be made to produce a branch 
 of olive. Pliny professes to have seen a tree that bore on its different 
 branches nuts, olives IJxucb), grapes, pears, figs, pomegranates, and 
 several sorts of apples, all at once. Lastly, there is scarcely a tree 
 mentioned by Palladius or in the collection of the Geoponica, of 
 which it is not said that it can be made to bear such and such 
 alien fruits. ?liny is quite shocked at this misleading and misusing 
 of nature, as a kind of sacrilege. It is true, he was only a compiler ; 
 burdened by his task and the immense quantity of his material, 
 he could not always be exact ; his style is affected, and hence 
 often obscure ; still he not rarely shows a lofty spirit, and in the 
 present case expresses the tragic feeling of a life completed on all 
 sides and thoro-ghly exhausted of its contents. Italy, he means 
 
326 FRUIT-CULTURE. IMPING, GRAFTING. 
 
 to say, has gathered to herself all the plants of the world and tried 
 upon them, with the utmost exertion of skill, all the formative and 
 creative powers of nature ; — What is there to expect ? what more 
 can come but nothingness ? And, in fact, there came the thousand 
 years of the Middle Ages, and in Syria the man had already arisen, 
 whose teaching poured like a destructive foreign substance through 
 all the veins of the Greco-Roman world, the true ex ossibus idtor, 
 and not only for the burning of Carthage, Syria's daughter. So 
 far as the old religion still survived, it also opposed this sporting 
 with organic nature : trees that bore two kinds of boughs brought 
 errors into the ritual for exorcizing and appeasing the lightning; 
 and this scruple may have deterred nany from such attempts. In 
 the same spirit the Mosaic Law had once forbidden the pairing of 
 what was dissimilar, the breeding of mongrels, the mixing of 
 woollen and linen in one garment, the yoking together of ox and 
 ass, and the sowing of a field with two kind of seed (Leviticus 
 xix. 19). — Nevertheless, the eager effort at grafting and inocula- 
 tion, crazy though it might be when it exceeded natural limits, 
 contributed to increase the manifold variety and perfection of the 
 now naturalized fruits. Fruit, that original ready-made food of 
 man, who is beautifully developed only in zones where fruit trees 
 flourish, was not only propagated and improved throughout Italy, 
 and became what it is to the present day, a necessary part of even 
 the poor man's daily meal ; but also crossed the Alps to Central 
 and Western Europe, wherever the climate, assisted by the fore- 
 sight and industry of civilized men, permitted and even favoured 
 its culture. The soil and climate of France now produce the 
 finest fruit ; England has carried this branch of cultivation also to 
 the highest degree, and Germany follows at some distance the 
 example of those two countries. 
 
 Tacitus found Germany too cold for fruit growing, and says that 
 its inhabitants nourished themselves on wild berries, fresh game, 
 and curdled milk ; and, in fact, to this day North Germany cannot 
 produce Italian figs, almonds, and peaches in the open air. In 
 the Danube region most kinds of fruit thrive well, and the 
 exportation thence of fresh and dried fruits to the German 
 Empiie already amounted, some years ago, to about 300,000 
 
GRAFTING. 327 
 
 cwt., of the value of at least nine million marks. But the 
 farther it travels north-east into the region of extremes of climate, 
 with rigid winters and spring frosts, the more the fruit tree 
 dwindles. In the villages of Muscovy Proper it never occurs to 
 the peasants to plant a tree, or hope to celebrate a joyful pear or 
 apple-harvest in autumn. Modern Europe has given up the 
 attempt to graft nuts on oaks and the like ; it also does not try to 
 improve vines by inoculation as Cato did ; it operates by judicious 
 selection and tendance, and picks out the proper fruit for each 
 locality. In speaking of each kind of fruit, we saw that those of 
 Central Europe derived their names from Italy ; and the same is 
 true, for the most part, of the nomenclature of improving pro- 
 cesses. The word impotus in the " Lex Salica," for imp or graft. 
 Old High Germ, impiton. Middle High Germ, impfeten. Modern 
 Germ, impfen, French ente, enter, Provengal entar, are all derived 
 from the Greek em-phytos, em-phyteuo, in-plant. If we notice the 
 regions over which this word extends — among Italian dialects it 
 occurs in those of Piedmont, Parma, and Modena — we can easily 
 believe that the invention it designates came to the Celtic inhabi- 
 tants of Western Upper Italy and of the Rhone, and thence to the 
 districts of the Upper and Lower Rhine, from some Greek seaport 
 — and who can help thinking, first and foremost, of Massilia? 
 The French and English greffe, greffer, graff, graft, seem also to 
 have come from a Greek source (Diez). A second German word, 
 pfropfen, to graft, pfropf-reis, a graft, leads direct to Italy and the 
 'LzXin propago ; and a \h\rd, pelzen, is from the Provencal empeliar, 
 which itself is formed from pellis, the skin, i.e., the rind of the 
 tree. Not less interesting than these living witnesses to the in- 
 fluence of the classic South on cultivation, is a native Gothic word 
 used several times by Ulfilas, in the eleventh chapter of the 
 Episde to the Romans, for the Greek enkentrizein, namely, in- 
 trisgan, intrusgjan. It is wanting in all the other German dialects, 
 but is found again in Slav countries, and is thus one of the signifi- 
 cant instances of borrowing from the Slavic by an East German 
 language. The meaning of trisgan was to slit, and of in-trisgan 
 to insert in a slit. In the Slavic language there is developed, from 
 this idea of splitting or bursting, that of crashing, also that of 
 
328 FRUIT-CULTURE. IMPING, GRAFTING. 
 
 lightning, as the splitting thunderbolt — New Slav, tresnoti, Russ. 
 tresnuti, Bulg. tresk, Croat, triskati, etc. ; and the Lithuanian 
 trukis, trukti, seems to be the same word ; perhaps also the Greek 
 terchnos, trechnos, a branch. The same change of meaning from 
 splitting to grafting is seen in another Slavo-Lithuanian root — 
 Slav, cepati, ceputi, to split, cep, a graft ; Lithu. czepitt, to graft, etc. 
 
THE AGRUMI, OR ORANGE GROUP. 
 
 The fancy of the Northerner, who, like all Hyperboreans for these 
 two thousand years and more, longs for the beautiful South, is 
 chiefly attracted by the golden fruit hanging on the Hesperian 
 trees, a fruit which in his own foggy land he only receives wrapped 
 up in paper at the mariner's or merchant's hand. And, in fact, 
 what garden-tree can rival the orange in beauty and nobility? 
 Tall and stately where the climate is mild enough and the 
 soil rich, with dark, shining evergreen leaves, with snow-white 
 flowers that smell like lilies, and blossom the whole year long ; 
 hung with fruits greenish at first, then ripening by degrees to 
 brightest gold ; whose rind, filled with volatile oil, has a penetrating 
 odour, and whose taste varies according to the kind, from balsamic 
 bitterness and strong but fine acidity to the sweetest nectar ; 
 with close, firm wood, and a length of life that far exceeds that of 
 man — in what other tree of the South is the power of the sun, the 
 soft breath of Zephyr, and the splendour of the sky, so concen- 
 trated and vegetatively represented, as in the Aurantiaceae ? 
 
 Every traveller who is happy enough to have seen the lemon- 
 grove in the neighbourhood of Poros in the Peloponnesus, the 
 agrumi of Messina at the foot of Etna, and those of Reggio on the 
 opposite coast of Calabria, the gardens of Sorrento near Naples, 
 and the enchanting orange-woods of Milis in the island of 
 Sardinia, thinks of them ever after with delight. 
 
 The agrumi grove of Poros, about four miles square, stretches 
 down the gentle slope of the mountains to the plain below, and 
 from its lofty edge affords a splendid view over land and sea and 
 towery cliffs ; it is watered by springs from the mountains, divided 
 into innumerable rills ; the trees stand close enough for the 
 boughs to touch, and they number about thirty thousand. The 
 
330 THE AGRUMI, OR ORANGE GROUP. 
 
 orange trees of Milis are briefly but charmingly described by 
 Alfred Meissner, in his " Durch Sardinien " : " There are above 
 three hundred orange gardens around Milis ; the two largest 
 belong to the Cathedral Chapter of Oristano and the Marquis of 
 Boyle. I was taken first to one and Ihen to the other. Both are 
 small forests formed entirely of orange trees. Freely left to nature 
 the tree has lost its stifif globular form ; it stretches its boughs on 
 all sides, and on its crown shine the golden fruit, the silvery 
 blossoms. One walks under an uninterrupted, shadowy, glimmer- 
 ing roof of leaves. A thick carpet of fallen orange blossoms 
 covers the ground; little brooks are led past the mighty black 
 roots, and their murmur mingles with the song of the birds that 
 dwell in the boughs. In this grove of the Hesperides you can 
 walk freely, bending the boughs aside, which, rebounding, shower 
 their blossoms in your face, or envelope you in an intoxicating 
 cloud of perfume as you lie beneath in the shade of orange trees 
 as grand as their brethren of the forest. The orange groves of 
 Milis, possessed by different owners, contain altogether 500,000 
 trees. They yield on the average twelve million oranges a year. 
 In the garden of the Chapter there is a tree which alone is said to 
 bear annually more than five thousand oranges. The gardener, a 
 priest, assured me that there were many trees whose age was 
 proved to be above seven centuries. The patriarch of them all 
 stands in the Marquis of Boyle's garden. Its trunk is so thick that 
 a man cannot encircle it in his arms ; its crown is as majestic as 
 that of an oak. The walk through the orange woods of Milis 
 seemed alone worth the journey to Sardinia. Sitting in a pavilion 
 in the highest garden, I saw the most glorious of Campagnas 
 stretching out for miles ; the pleasant scene was magically illu- 
 minated by a beautiful sunset." The charming Puerto de SoUer 
 in the island of Majorca is said to equal Milis in the beauty and 
 richness of its orange culture. There the gardens are situated on 
 terraces, cut in the hot debris of the precipices, over which rush 
 winter torrents. The towering rocks around reflect the heat, and 
 the sun can penetrate the bottom of the valley, while a small river 
 sends its threads of water to all sides through little water-channels 
 and aqueducts. The annual exportation from the port of Seller is 
 
ORANGE. LEMON. 331 
 
 said to amount to more than fifty millions of extraordinarily sweet 
 oranges, which in 1867 were worth about a million francs when 
 placed on shipboard, and about four millions when arrived at their 
 destination. Unfortunately the gum-sickness has made great 
 havoc among the oranges of Majorca during the last few years. 
 
 However, all these are only oases in Southern Europe, which is 
 far from being a true orange country. The tourist must distinctly 
 aim at it if he desires to indulge in the momentary enjoyment or 
 enchanting illusion of a natural Hesperian forest. In Greece 
 orange and lemon culture is neither carried on to any extent worth 
 speaking of, nor is the fruit of any particular excellence ; on the 
 contrary, it is sometimes very dry, with a thick rind, sometimes 
 sour or bitter. In North Italy, on the riviera di Salo, or west 
 shore of the Lake of Garda, the so-called giardini, so pretty in 
 summer, are after all protected by walls, and at the beginning of 
 winter are further sheltered by a tile roof and side-walls of planks. 
 It is true that the lemon-tree is frequently met with in the gardens 
 of North and Central Italy, but always planted in large earthen- 
 ware pots. In Sicily, though so warm, the dry summers and 
 stormy winters are hurtful to the orange-tree, which therefore, 
 except in a few favoured spots, is entirely wanting on the western 
 and southern coasts. As this natural scarcity is apt to disappoint 
 the expectant traveller, so is the historical youth of the tree in 
 Europe, for it was quite unknown to the ancients in their best 
 period, and only half known to later antiquity. The golden 
 apples that Hercules received from Atlas, and those other Aphro- 
 disian apples that made Atalanta halt in the race with her beauti- 
 ful lover, were not mala citria as the ancients afterwards believed, 
 still less were they oranges as we moderns have often dreamed. 
 At the time of the introduction of such Oriental nature-myths, they 
 were thought of as real — though idealized — apples, quinces, or 
 pomegranates. Only when Alexander the Great, by his invasions 
 and by setting up a Greek empire in the heart of Asia, had lifted 
 the veil which hid the interior of that continent, did the European 
 Greeks hear of a wondrous tree with golden fruit growing in 
 Persia and Media. Then Theophrastus wrote his celebrated 
 description of the tree, which was repeated, imitated, and made 
 
333 THE AGRUMI, OR ORANGE GROUP. 
 
 an authority for five hundred years. "The East and South," 
 says he, " possess pecuhar animals and plants ; Media and Persia, 
 among other things, the so-called Median or Persian apple-tree. 
 It has leaves like those of the andrachle, and sharp thorns ; the 
 apples are not eaten but smell sweet, as do the leaves also ; if 
 the fruit is laid among clothes, it protects them from moths ; if 
 any one has taken poison, it is an antidote ; if you boil it and 
 squeeze out the flesh into your mouth and swallow it, it improves 
 the breath; the pips are planted in carefully dug beds, and 
 watered every four or five days ; when the plants are grown, they 
 are moved in spring to a soft, damp, and not too light soil ; the 
 tree bears fruit all the year round, and is adorned with blossom, 
 ripe fruit and unripe, all at the same time ; those blossoms that 
 have a kind of spindle in the centre are fruitful, the others not ; 
 the tree is also planted in earthenware vessels with holes, as palms 
 are." — The only thing that strikes one in this careful description, 
 written however at a distance, is, that the size, form, colour, and 
 nature of the fruit itself is not more exactly described. Had 
 Median apples been brought to Athens, and were they already 
 familiar to Theophrastus's readers ? Such a thing is hinted at in 
 a fragment by the poet Antiphanes, whose date is somewhat 
 doubtful ; probably about the time of Alexander the Great. 
 
 A. Here, maiden, take these apples. 
 
 B. Beauties, too ! 
 
 A. The seeds came lately from the Great King's land. 
 
 B, Nay, from the Hesperides ! 
 
 A. Well, they do say 
 These are the "golden apples." 
 
 B. Only three! 
 A. The beautiful is always scarce and dear. 
 
 As the Persian Empire is thought of as still standing, and as during 
 Alexander's expedition there was constant communication between 
 Greece and the army in Asia, it is quite possible that Persian 
 apples may have found their way to Athens in those very years. 
 They are still a i.jvelty exciting admiration, and compared to the 
 fruit of the Hesperides. After the foundation of the Greek 
 kingdoms in the heart of Asia, the Hesperian fruit no doubt 
 
LEMON. ORANGE. 333 
 
 frequently appeared in the European markets; but still it was 
 thought unfit to be eaten, and beautiful as it looked outside, the 
 juice was disagreeable to the taste. The belief in its quality of 
 destroying vermin, improving the breath, and rendering poison 
 ineffectual, was also general in the West, as it had been in the 
 East. Virgil's description of the tree and the fruit (Georg. 2, 126) 
 is only a poetical imitation of Theophrastus : he calls the Median 
 apple ^//a;, lucky, because it counteracts the creatures of the Evil 
 Spirit, such as poison, vermin, and impure breath ; but its juice 
 is tristis, i.e., biting, and its taste tardus, i.e., long retained. 
 Where a superstition is strongly held, all experiments will of 
 course confirm it. At Athenseus's imaginary "Banquet" of 
 Deipnosophists (kitchen-connoisseurs), it is asserted "on good 
 authority " that in Egypt criminals who happened to have tasted 
 such fruit became impervious to the attacks of wild animals and 
 poisonous snakes; that of two criminals condemned to death, 
 one was provided with the antidote and the other not, and that 
 the latter was killed on the spot by the bite of a snake, while the 
 former escaped unhurt ; and that the same experiment had been 
 frequently made with the same result. When the Deipnosophists 
 heard that, they applied themselves dihgently to the Median 
 apples on the table, scarcely, we may add, for the sake of the 
 taste, and probably with many grimaces. 
 
 The second property of the fruit, that of driving away vermin, 
 gave rise to the Latin name citrus, malum citreum, etc. The 
 Greek word kedros, signifying the scented wood of the coniferae 
 (cedar, arbor-vitse, etc.), which was not only itself impervious to 
 worms, but protected clothes from them — this kedros was changed 
 in Italy by popular corruption into citrus (as kydonia was into 
 cotonea, quince, Eurydike into Euretice, dada into tceda, eta). 
 Citrus meant especially the wood of the Arbor vitrn, or Thuja 
 articulata, which had from olden times been imported from Africa, 
 and of which, in later days of wealth and luxury, costly tables 
 were made. This wood, with its aromatic scent, preserved the 
 clothes-chests of the wool-wearing ancients from their hereditary 
 enemy, the moth. From this custom of laying bits of thuja and 
 ot'ier woods among woollen tunics is possibly derived the expres- 
 
334 THE AGRUMI, OR ORANGE GROUP. 
 
 sion citrosa vestis, i.e., citrus-smelling dress, used already by Nsevius 
 in his epic of the Second Punic War. As the golden Median 
 apple was laid among clothes for the same purpose — and the 
 custom was continued into the beginning of the second century a.d. 
 — and as the smell of the rind was similar to that of cedar-resin, the 
 common people imagined it to be the fruit of the citrus-tree, and 
 gave it that name, which was gradually adopted by educated 
 people and even by the Greeks. Galen laughs at the learned 
 affectation of saying " Medicon melon," instead of the universally 
 intelligible " kitrion.'' His contemporary, the African Apuleius, 
 who wrote a work "De Arboribus,'' still protested against the custom 
 of calling the tree with the Median apples a citrus, the two trees 
 being essentially different. But the name had become too fixed 
 in popular language to be abolished, especially at a time which 
 was characterized by a reaction from the pedantic to the popular. 
 
 But since when was the tree itself cultivated in Italy, and what 
 species of the genus citrus was it to which belonged the fruit that 
 was looked upon as the Hesperian apple, first in Athens, then in 
 Italy, and, as Juba of Mauritania says, also in Libya? 
 
 If the elder Greek and Roman writers had ever seen the tree 
 with their own eyes in Europe, they would not have held so Ions; 
 and so exclusively by Theophrastus's description of it ; and still 
 less would the name citrus ever have been applied to it Pliny 
 repeats the whole description of Theophrastus, with some additions, 
 from which it appears that attempts had been made to cultivate 
 the tree, but, as is often the case with first attempts, they had 
 failed. Little trees had been planted in earthenware pots, but 
 they had not thriven, or, at least, had borne no fruit. Another 
 passage in Phny speaks of it as dotnos etiam decorans. In what 
 manner was this Median tree used to adorn the houses ? Was it 
 grown in tubs between the pillars of the hall, or was it only the 
 fruit that was placed as an ornament on tables and cornices, and 
 as felix malum to keep off the demons of destruction ? We find 
 that, a century or a century and a half after Pliny, the tree must, 
 at least, have been planted in the villas and gardens of favoured 
 districts. Florentinus, who lived in the begl.ining of the third 
 century a.d., describes the cultivation of the kitreai in a manner 
 
ORANGE. LEMON. 335 
 
 that shows it to have been exactly similar to that practised nowa- 
 days in North Italy, for example, in the giardini on the Lake of 
 Garda : the trees were planted on the south side of walls running 
 east and west, they were covered in winter with mats {psiathoi), etc. 
 " Rich people," he adds, " who can afford the expense, plant 
 them under colonnades, along walls that are exposed to the sun ; 
 water them well, let the heat of the sun have full effect, and cover 
 them up when winter approaches." This was only hot-house 
 cultivation. Palladius, who lived in the fourth or perhaps the fifth 
 century a.d., speaks of lemon-trees in Sardinia and near Naples, 
 that is, in warm districts, where the air was tempered by the sea, 
 and where the ground was fertile and well-watered ; there the 
 trees grew winter and summer in the open air, and the hitherto 
 merely traditional, semi-legendary conception of the tree could 
 be corrected by actual sight. It was then found that it really 
 brought forth blossom and fruit continually, as Theophrastus had 
 asserted. Thus, in the course of the first Christian centuries, the 
 evergreen tree which bore the golden apple was naturalized com- 
 pletely in Italy — first in pots, with doubtful success j then protected 
 by walls on the north, and covered up in winter ; and, finally, 
 in the open air — proving by one more example that the Imperial 
 epoch of rapid and irrevocable decay had, nevertheless, in some 
 branches of human development that are less generally regarded, 
 contributed to progressive development, and to the exchange and 
 technical utilization of the natural products of the most various 
 countries. 
 
 Now if it be asked, what kind of Aurantiacese are to be 
 understood by the Median apple and the arbor citri? we may con- 
 fidently reply, the real Citron, citrus Medica cedra ; and this for 
 many reasons. First of all, this immense thick-rinded fruit, with only 
 slightly sour, and, in some varieties, rather sweet pulp or juice, is 
 still called cedro in Italy. Secondly, the citron-tree is still found in 
 the Persian province of Gilan, a part of ancient Media, bearing 
 the characteristics mentioned by Theophrastus, i.e., provided with 
 many sharp thorns. Thirdly, accidental allusions in the ancients 
 to the shape, consistency, and eatableness of the Median apple 
 correspond only to the true citron : Dioscorides calls it e^imekes. 
 
336 TJJE AGRUMI, OR ORANGE GROUP. 
 
 oblong, and errhytidommon, wrinkled ; the fruit is boiled with 
 wine or honey, it is edible and is not edible ; it is so large that 
 Apicius says each single fruit is put into a separate pot ; in vas 
 citrium mitte, gypso suspende (some think that a kind of pumpkin 
 is meant) ; while yet unripe, it is surrounded with an earthen- 
 ware cover, into which it grows and the shape of which it takes; 
 the flesh, that is, the thick white rind, of which almost the whole 
 fruit consists, is spoken of as the chief part — all features that 
 exactly correspond to the citrus Medica cedra. And, lastly, all the 
 other kinds of Hesperides' fruit have names that exclude any 
 doubt as to their having been introduced much later. The Lemon 
 — which the Germans wrongly call citrone — a smaller and rather 
 roundish fruit, with a thin aromatic rind and abundance of sour 
 juice, is so called after the Arabic limAn, which word is derived 
 from the Persic, and the Persian word from the Indian, which 
 sufficiently indicates its origin, the road it travelled, and the period. 
 In the time of Charlemagne there grew on the shores of Lake 
 Como — past which at that time a high-road led from Italy to Chur 
 and the Valley of the Rhine — besides olives, pomegranates, laurels, 
 and myrtles, also the Persian apple, called citreon; Paulus Diaconus 
 said that it excelled them all in its perfume, and this quality, as 
 well as its name, points it out as having been the thick-nndcd 
 citrus Medica cedra. Two hundred years later, about looo A.D., 
 when the Prince of Salerno was besieged by Arabs, and relieved 
 by forty Normans who were returning from the Holy Land, he 
 sent ambassadors to Normandy with "-poma cedritia, amigdalas 
 quoque, et deauratas nuces," to induce the Normans to come and 
 help to defend such a beautiful and fertile country {chronica Montis 
 Cassiniensis ; in the Old French translation, by Amatus of Monte 
 Cassino, the poma cedrina are called citre). At that time, then, 
 only the citron of the ancients grew in South Italy. When Jacobus 
 de Vitriaco — Bishop of Accon, a!fterwards of Tusculum, and a 
 cardinal, who died at Rome 1240 — described the wonderful pro- 
 ductions of the Holy Land, the lemon-tree cannot yet have existed 
 in Europe, for he expressly includes it among the Palestinian 
 plants that were foreign to Europe. The same author found 
 the paradise-apple tree— French pamplemoiisse, Italian poma di 
 
LEMON. ORANGE. 337 
 
 Paradiso or d'Adamo — under this last name in Palestine. The 
 
 fruit of this tree is the same as that still used by the Jews of all 
 
 countries at their Feast of Tabernacles, and in many parts of Italy 
 
 it was cultivated solely for that purpose. So it was the Crusaders, 
 
 or the traders to Italian ports, or the Arabs during their invasions, 
 
 or in their colonies on the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, 
 
 that brought over the lemon, whose intense acidity was valued both 
 
 in Europe and the East as a piquant addition to many dishes ; 
 
 which rendered foul water drinkable, and, when mixed with 
 
 sugar, which just then made its appearance, formed the delicious 
 
 Ihnonata, or lemonade. — To the same Arab period Europe owes 
 
 the Orange, citrus aurantmm amarum; Italian arancio, melarancio; 
 
 French orange. Originally this tree, with its glowing red-golden 
 
 and bitterly aromatic fruit, and its wonderfully fragrant blossoms, 
 
 had migrated to Persia from its native home, India (Persic n&reng) ; 
 
 thence to the Arabs (Arabic ndran£); then farther to Europe 
 
 (Byzantine nerantzion). In the little essay by Silvestre de Sacy, on 
 
 the history of the Aurantiacece among the Arabs, there is the 
 
 following important historic testimony of Masoudi as quoted 
 
 by Makrizi : Makrizi dit, " Masoudi rapporte dans son histoire, 
 
 que le citron rond (the orange) a ttt apporte de I'Inde poste- 
 
 rieurement a Pan 300 de VMgire (August, 912 a.d.); qiiil fut 
 
 d'abord sem'e dans I'Oman. De Id,, ajoute-t-il, ilfut parte ct Basra 
 
 en Irak et en Syrie, et il devint trls commun dans les maisons 
 
 des habitants de Tarse et autres villes frontiires de la Syrie, ct 
 
 Antioche, sur les cotes de Syrie, dans la Palestine et en Egypte. 
 
 On ne le connaissait point auparavant. Mais il perdit beaucoup de 
 
 I'odeur suave et de la belle couleur qu'il avait dans I'Inde, parcequHl 
 
 n' avail plus ni le mime climat, ni la mhne terre, ni tout ce qui est 
 
 particulier ct, ce pays." During its further migration to Europe 
 
 it must of course have lost still more of its sweet perfume and 
 
 beautiful colour, which the Arabs already missed in it in Western 
 
 Asia. In some Italian dialects, and in Spanish, the initial n of 
 
 the Arabic word is still preserved ; the idea of or, aurum, gave to 
 
 the French word orange its somewhat deviating form ; in orange 
 
 already lies the gold-orange of Goethe. Jacobus has the word 
 
 already in a French form, orenges. Albertus Magnus, in his book 
 
338 THE AGRUMI, OR ORANGE GROUP. 
 
 " De Vegetabilibus," written shortly before 1256, not long after the 
 time of Jacobus, blames those who use the name arangus for the 
 cedrus (the citron-tree of the ancients).' According to Amari's 
 "Storiadei Musulmani di Sicilia,"the via de Arangerits in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Patti, mentioned in a diploma of 1094, was an avenue 
 of orange-trees : so the name and the fruit must have been already 
 introduced into Sicily by the Arabs before the Crusades. 
 
 The sweet orange, citrus aurantium duke, is still younger in 
 Europe. Here, too, its history and course of migration is shown 
 by the German name apfelsina, i.e., apple of China, and by the 
 Italian portugallo. It was the Portuguese who, when their com- 
 merce had extended to the seas of Eastern Asia, brought the 
 sweet orange from Southern China to Europe, it is said in the 
 year 1548, and the first European specimen stood long after in the 
 house of Count de St. Laurent, at Lisbon. The Jesuit Le Comte, 
 who had lived a long time in China, alludes to this in his "Nouveaux 
 m^noires sur I'dtat present de la Chine," Paris, 1679 : "On les 
 nomme en France orange de la Chine, parceque celles que nous 
 vlmes pour la premiere fois en avaient ete apportkes. Le premier et 
 unique Granger, duquel on dit qu'elles sont toutes venues, se conserve 
 encore a Lisbonne dans la maison du Comte S. Laurent, et tfest aux 
 Portugais que nous sommes redevables d'un si excellent fruit." 
 Ferrari (Hesperides, Romse, 1646) still calls the orange Auran- 
 tium Olysiponense, orange of Lisbon, and adds that it was sent 
 from thence to Rome ad Pios et Barberinos hortos. The last words 
 are a compliment to Pope Urban VIII., Barberini, in whose 
 pontificate Ferrari wrote his book ; the gardens of the Pii could 
 only be those of popes Pius IV. and Pius V., who occupied the 
 papal chair from 1555 to 1572. The deliciousness of the fruit 
 soon procured for the tree a wide propagation around the coasts 
 of the Mediterranean and deep into Western Asia, and not only 
 do the Italians say portugallo, but the modern Greeks say por- 
 toghalea, the Albanians protokale, and even the Kurds portoghal ; 
 while in the north the Russians, though neighbours of the Chinese, 
 have adopted the German name appelsin — all signs of a com- 
 plete revolution in the world's traffic, which no longer passed 
 through Asia from East to West, as in the time of Hellenism and 
 
ORANGE. 339 
 
 the Roman emperors, and afterwards of the Islamite Arabs, but 
 from the time of Vasco de Gamahad taken the opposite direction, 
 and made the ocean its highway. Portuguese and Spaniards 
 introduced the tree into America, where it throve wonderfully in 
 the tropical regions of that new world. Another and late variety, 
 the so-called Mandarines ( Citrus madurensis), smaller, sweeter, and 
 more aromatic than the orange, appeared in the nineteenth century, 
 and occupies more ground every year. It is said to have come to 
 Sicily from Malta. — Altogether, the orange group is very sus- 
 ceptible of change ; situation, grafting, and mode of treatment 
 have already produced innumerable varieties. It was once the 
 gardener's pride to produce such varieties at the time when, from 
 the Tuileries and afterwards from Versailles, together with the 
 opera, gilding, and porcelain, large orangeries of round trees in 
 splendid tubs and vases, forming long avenues, were a costly but 
 indispensable part of every court or nobleman's house. Later on, 
 with rising culture, these orangeries changed into more botanical 
 conservatories, and, as aesthetic Humanism progressed, young 
 enthusiasts began to turn their backs on the court gardens, with 
 their spirals and voluted cornices, and rush to the land of blue 
 skies, golden fruit, and pure Doric architecture. But they had to 
 travel far before they trod a Hesperian grove, and even there the 
 poetic tree and fruit were subjected to the aims of production and 
 profit ; the blossoms were ruthlessly shaken down to make Cologne 
 water of; the lemons were squeezed and the flowing juice poured 
 into wooden tubs ; the ripe fruit was sugared by confectioners for 
 the markets of the world, and from the rinds distillers manu- 
 factured Bergamot oil. — When Psestum built its famous temples, 
 when the Tauromenians sat in their theatre, when Pindar, ^Eschylus, 
 and Plato were the guests of the kings of Syracuse, there was not 
 a blossoming lemon-tree to be seen far and wide ; nay, those 
 ancient heroes, poets, and sages had never so much as heard of 
 one. The villas in which the Humanists of the fifteenth century 
 and the members of the Platonic Academy strolled were the first 
 to be adorned with orange trees, and sweet otanges were first 
 plucked from the evergreen boughs by the Jesuit fathers, and 
 handed to smiling dames in hoops and powder, for the refreshment 
 of their beautiful rouged and thirsty lips (note 79). 
 
THE CAROB-TREE . 
 
 (CERATONIA SILIQUA.) 
 
 The Carob-tree is an evergreen, not very tall, but wide-spreading 
 and shady ; it loves best to grasp with its roots the hot, sun-warmed 
 precipices in the neighbourhood of the sea, that shelter it from 
 cold north winds. It grows slowly, does not bear fruit till after its 
 twentieth year, and lives for centuries. Its fruit— flat brown pods 
 an inch broad, six or even twelve inches long, curved like a horn 
 or sickle, and filled with dark, glossy, bean-hke seeds and sweet 
 nourishing pulp — are eaten by men and animals, and form a 
 considerable article of trade. Until these pods are quite ripe and 
 brown, they are considered unwholesome or even poisonous, but 
 afterwards they are eaten by swine, horses, and asses, and even the 
 swineherd and donkey-driver will not despise them when baked or 
 roasted. If the tree be intended not merely to afford shade, but 
 also to bear a rich crop of fruit, it is necessary to prune it from 
 time to time, like the olive and the vine. Its northern limit is 
 about that of the lemons and oranges. The carob is widely 
 diffused in the East, and no market till far into Russia is without 
 this cheap dainty ; it is largely found in North Italy, costs little, 
 and is a special favourite with boys. The tree did not grow in 
 ancient Greece, but the sweet pods were brought to the Greek 
 markets from the East ; they were incorrectly called Egyptian figs, 
 for Theophrastus expressly declares that "the keronion did not 
 grow in Egypt at all, but in Syria and Ionia, and about Cnidos 
 and Rhodes." It was therefore a plant of Syria and Ionia, which 
 had spread as far as Cnidos in the south-west of .\sia Minor, and 
 to Rhodes. Theophrastus describes the tree correctly enough. 
 
CAROBS. 341 
 
 but he does describe it, and that minutely, proving that his readers 
 were unacquainted with the tree and had no opportunity of 
 observing it. Strabo also knew nothing of the tree in Egypt, but 
 is aware of its existence in Ethiopia, or the country where Meroe 
 was situated. Theophrastus pointed out the evil effect of the 
 blossoms, and he might have added of the unripe pods. Galen 
 extends the hurtful quality even to the ripe fruit, and thinks it 
 would have been better if the tree had never been brought to 
 Europe from the East. The true fatherland of the tree was fertile 
 Canaan ; and as it must be grafted before it will produce edible 
 fruit, it was, like the olive and date-palm, a product of human and 
 especially of Semitic art and industry. Anciently, as now, the 
 sweet carob-pods were a common article of food in Palestine. 
 John the Baptist in the wilderness had eked out his life with them, 
 and modern travellers have been shown the very tree that furnished 
 the forerunner of the Messiah with " St. John's bread." In the 
 parable (Luke xv.) the Prodigal Son, who had sunk so low as to 
 herd swine, would fain have filled his belly with the keratia 
 hornlets, i.e., carob-pods) " that the swine did eat, and no man gave 
 unto him.'' Carat, the name of the small weight for gold and 
 diamonds, which is taken from the beans of the keratia (called by 
 Isidore cerates, adopted later by the Arabs, and communicated by 
 them to other languages, also called siligua) shows how widely 
 spread and how common the fruit must have been in the Greek 
 Orient. In the Roman authors we find a few passages that hint 
 at attempts made even then to plant the Carob in the West 
 According to Columella the swine in the forests fed on Grcecce 
 siliqua, besides other wild fruits. But as it is impossible that 
 carob-trees grew wild in Europe in Columella's time, the state- 
 ment may have "been copied from some Greek-Oriental writer on 
 agriculture. In another passage Columella advises that the tree 
 should be sown in autumn, probably another adopted foreign 
 maxim ; Pliny repeats it, but he calls the fruit pmdulces siliqua or 
 siliquce SyriaccE, and does not treat it as a native production. A 
 generation earlier, Scribonius Largus also called the pods Syriacce. 
 Where siliquce are elsewhere mentioned as forming the food of the 
 poor and contented, there is no reason to suppose that anything 
 
342 THE CAROB.TREE. 
 
 was meant but beans or peas. Towards the end of the second 
 century Galen, as we have seen, only mentions the carob fruit as 
 an import from the East. But in the last days of the Roman 
 Enipire, Palladius gives full instructions about propagating the tree, 
 and speaks of his own experience in it There is some doubt 
 v.hether the passage be not a later insertion ; but even if the 
 naturalization of the tree began in Roman times, the Arabic 
 names — Italian carrobo, carniba, Spanish garrobo, algarrobo, 
 Portuguese alfarroba, French carotibe, carouge — teach us that it 
 was the Arabs who either revived the culture when extinct, or, if 
 they found it still existing, gave it its present extension. In the 
 southern half of the Italian peninsula, carob-trees are now more 
 common, and the harvest richer, than those travellers would 
 suppose who follow the common route, and perhaps have only 
 seen the Syrian tree on the rocky highway near Amalfi. Sicily, 
 that Arabic island, produces and ships a great quantity of carob- 
 fruit; the Ceratomm are also not wanting in Sardinia, where they 
 are often planted singly in the fields to afford shelter for the 
 midday siesta ; but the finest trees of the kind grow on Apulian 
 Gargano, that seldom-visited, grand, isojated limestone promontory, 
 so remarkable both from a picturesque and from a scientific (in- 
 cluding botanical) point of view. In modern Greece, carob-trees 
 are found scattered here and there on the mainland and in the 
 islands, some being of venerable age, like that under which Fiedler 
 stopped to dine on the Skironian road, and whose trunk measured 
 several feet in diameter. In Asia Minor, Syria, etc., the tree is an 
 object of religious veneration, to the Mussulman as well as the 
 Christian. It is dedicated to St. George, and it is not uncommon 
 to find chapels built among its boughs. As in all cultivated plants, 
 varieties have been introduced in the carob-tree, which differ in 
 the comparative sweetness and capacity of keeping, as well as the 
 shape and size of their pods. In the East, where the fruit possibly 
 developed more sugar — and sometimes also in Europe — they 
 squeeze out of the pods a kind of honey to boil other fruits in, the 
 refuse being thrown to the pigs. The hard wood is also prized, 
 and the bark is used for tanning. 
 
T?IE RABBIT. 
 
 (lepus cuniculus.) 
 
 The Romans acquired from Spain their knowledge of a domestic 
 animal resembling the hare, which the Greeks in the east of the 
 Mediterranean had never seen ; this animal was the Rabbit. Like 
 Stipa tenacissima and the cork-oak, it was peculiar to Spain, and 
 closely connected with the Iberian race, with whom it seems to 
 have come to Western Europe by way of Africa. The Romans 
 called it cuniculus, a word possibly rooted in the Iberian language, 
 and only provided with a Latin ending (note 80). As far back 
 as Cicero and Caesar, the same word also meant subterranean 
 passages, and it was a matter of dispute whether these were called 
 after the animal, or the animal after them. The ancients generally 
 adopted the latter opinion, for no other reason than that they 
 more often met with the thing and word in that sense than with 
 the little-known animal; while we think the first opinion more 
 natural, though the Roman sappers and miners may not exacdy 
 have learnt their art from the rabbit, as Martial supposes : 
 
 "Monstravit tacitas hostibus ille vias." 
 
 In literature we find the rabbit first mentioned by Polybius, about 
 the middle of the second century B.C., in the form kyniklos taken 
 from the Latin, which Athengeus spells kouniklos. The word is also 
 found in Posidonius of Apamea, an historian and philosopher of the 
 beginning of the first century B.C. Catullus knows Spain as a 
 country rich in rabbits or rabbit-holes — Tu cuniculosm Celtiberia 
 fili Egnati. Varro, Strabo, and Pliny discourse more at length on 
 the animal, its adoption and propagation, and the method of 
 catching it. The Iberians must have been specially devoted to 
 
344 
 
 THE RABBIT. 
 
 breeding rabbits and eating their flesh; they had brought the 
 animal with them across the sea to the Spanish-Itahan islands, not 
 only to Corsica, where Polybius found them, but also to the 
 Baleares. They regarded as the greatest dainties the unborn 
 fffitus, or the new-born suckling, which were devoured intestines 
 and all ; these unborn or new-born rabbits were called laurices, 
 probably another Iberian word. But the excessive fecundity of 
 the hare species — a rabbit will produce from four to twelve young 
 ones six or seven times a year, and begins the business a few 
 months after birth — soon rendered the animal a plague both on 
 the Spanish continent and in the islands ; it mined the cultivated 
 land with its burrows, it gnawed the roots and young shoots, it 
 undermined trees and even human dwellings. Strabo tells 
 us that the inhabitants of the Gymnesiae (Majorca and Minorca) 
 once sent an embassy to the Romans, begging that they would 
 assign them another land to dwell in, as they could no longer hold 
 their own against the multitude of rabbits. Pliny reports it as 
 certain that they petitioned the Emperor Augustus for military help, 
 as they could not manage the animals alone. And this trouble 
 was not only felt throughout Spain, but extended to Massilia — 
 perhaps another sign of the ethnographical position of the 
 Ligurians, who, before the arrival of the Celts from the north, had 
 occupied the whole coast on which Marseilles is situated. Mean- 
 while the Iberians recognised in another half-wild and half-domesti- 
 cated animal, which they had procured from Africa, a sturdy enemy 
 of the rabbit, and a very zealous companion in the chase. This was 
 the Ferret, a kind of fitchet or foulmart — Latin viverra. Span. 
 huron, Ital. furetto, French furet. It crept into the rabbit-hole, 
 and drove the inhabitants out at its mouth, where the hunter in- 
 tercepted and killed them. The Greeks called this ferret by the 
 general name for all of the weasel kind, gaU^ to which they added 
 for distinction the adjective Tartessia. Herodotus is already cog- 
 nisant of such Tartessian, i.e., Spanish weasels; in describing the 
 north coast of Africa, he says that there, under the Silphium-bushes, 
 lived galeai exactly similar to the Tartessian, which last were 
 therefore used in Spain for hunting 500 years before Christ. We 
 learn from Varro that rabbits were kept by the Romans in so-called 
 
THE RABBIT. 343 
 
 leporaria (warrens) at the time of the Repubhc ; one of the 
 speakers at Athenseus's Banquet, during a voyage from Dicae- 
 archia (now Pozzuoli) to Naples, had found the small island at the 
 extreme point of land (Nisida) inhabited by few men and many 
 rabbits — which is even now true of the Italian islands in com- 
 parison with the mainland. But the animal was always considered 
 by the Romans the characteristic sign of Spain ; we see this, for 
 example, in the gold and silver coins of the Emperor Hadrian, 
 where, on the reverse with the legend Hispania, there is seen a 
 rabbit in front of a reclining female figure holding a branch of 
 olive and resting its left arm on the rock Calpe. 
 
 Now-a-days the pretty, and so peculiar, little animal is spread 
 over a great part of Europe, and is a favourite and common article 
 of food, especially in France and Belgium, under the name of 
 lapin. This must have already been the case at the period 
 described by Gregory of Tours, for he reports of Roccolenus, that 
 he frequently ate laurices at Quadragesima. Petrus Crescentius, a 
 contemporary of Dante, says that rabbits lived in a continuous tract 
 extending from Spain through Provence to Lombardy — therefore 
 always on primitive Iberian ground. It is now well known, not only 
 to the people of Provence, but to the Parisians ; it has not only 
 overrun the islands of the Western Mediterranean, but the Greek 
 islands. In France, England, and the Netherlands it has been 
 considerably changed and improved by domestication and cross- 
 breeding, not only in delicacy of flesh, size, fecundity, and endur- 
 ance of a cold climate, but also as rc^^ards the silky softness of 
 its fur (note 81). 
 
THE CAT. 
 
 The dog is a very ancient companion of man; certainly the earliest 
 of all animals that man associated with himself. Who, that did 
 not know the fact, would believe that that comical enemy of the 
 dog, the Cat, now hardly absent from any house inhabited by 
 civilized or uncivilized people, is quite a modern acquisition ? We 
 inust except the inhabitants of the Nile Valley. The reports of 
 ancient writers, and the monuments and remains of ancient Egypt, 
 equally prove that the Egyptians, that mysterious people, alike 
 attractive and repulsive, whose doings go back into the night of 
 Time, reared multitudes of cats, held them sacred, and embalmed 
 them after death. Diodorus relates an occurrence of which he 
 was an eye-witness, and which, he adds, proves the deep religious 
 reverence that the Egyptians entertained for the animal. It was 
 the time when the supremacy of Rome was greatly feared, and 
 everything was done to please such Romans as were then in Egypt, 
 and to avoid all quarrels with them. It happened that a Roman 
 involuntarily killed a cat ; the populace rose in anger, and attacked 
 the house in which the deed had been perpetrated ; no efforts of 
 King Ptolemy and his officers, no dread of Rome and the Romans, 
 could save the criminal's life. The species of cat tamed by the 
 Egyptians was the/elis maniculata. The mute reserve and there- 
 fore mysteriousness which Hegel says is common to all animals, is 
 especially observable in the cat and its peculiar secret ways. It 
 has still, for those who leave it to its own devices and attentively 
 observe it, something Egyptian, which inspires some people with 
 fondness and others with dislike. To tame this animal so com- 
 pletely and accustom it to mankind— for the domestic cat never 
 runs wild again, and always returns to the house — was only possible 
 
CAT. WEASEL. 347 
 
 to the Egyptians, and was the work of centuries. Only after 
 many, very many generations of cats had been treated in the same 
 kind, careful, and tender manner, so that during the long period 
 every experience of pain or hurt had been extinguished from the 
 memory of that shy creature, was it possible that our present 
 snuggling house-cat could be produced out of the wild animal, 
 \> hich seems the least adapted of all for the process of taming. 
 Here, as in so many cases, religious superstition worked wonders, 
 and for once was serviceable, instead of detrimental, to culture. 
 F. Lenormant asserts that the cat has been represented in Egyptian 
 works since the 1 2th dynasty : if this be correct, the merit of the 
 first taming would belong to the inhabitants of the Upper Nile 
 countries, and Egypt could have only continued the work there 
 commenced. It is fortunate that the diffusion of the Egyptian 
 cat to other countries took place at the time of the Roman Empire, 
 before Christian asceticism had reached its lowest depth, and 
 before the Islamite invasion ; else this domestic animal might have 
 disappeared with the destruction of all ancient Egypt and its 
 religious ideas and customs, and the loss would perhaps never 
 again have been made good. Indeed, many an animal which once 
 served mankind has suffered such a fate ; above all, the African 
 elephant, which carried Hannibal's soldiers, crossed the Alps 
 through snow and ice, and is now only found in the wildernesses 
 of the interior of Africa, where it is being slowly exterminated by 
 reckless and cruel hunters. 
 
 The Greeks and Romans not seldom suffered from the plague 
 of an abnormal multiplication of mice, and now and then we hear 
 of some miraculous deliverance of a district from the mice which 
 overran it, or of a wholesale emigration in consequence of the 
 impossibility of protection from those rodents. 
 
 The pre-European language already knew the Mouse as a 
 domestic thief, for its name, which is found alike in Greece and 
 Italy, on the Elbe as on the Indus, is known to be derived from a 
 verb which means to steal. As enemies of the mouse — and it has 
 many — all the animals that stealthily prowled round the houses of 
 men — the weasel and its sub-varieties (note 82), the foulmart, 
 marten, and wild cat, must have been very early noticed ; some of 
 
348 THE CAT. 
 
 these animals were on that account cherished and taken into a 
 kind of partnership with man ; weasels and martens can be tamed, 
 and before the introduction of the cat they were tamed much more 
 frequently than now. On the other hand, poultry, and especially 
 their young, suffered at the hand of these robbers, so that their 
 increase was checked again. In Greek these animals were called 
 galee, ktis, iktis, ailouros ; in Latin mustela, felts, melts. The 
 animals were not strictly distinguished, and their names also 
 fluctuate both in popular language and in literature. But there is 
 no passage containing one of these names, which we are obliged 
 to interpret of the tame domestic cat. The weasel in particular, 
 galee, is named, together with the mouse, as its superior enemy and 
 great object of fear, just as we associate the cat and mouse in 
 fables, games, and figures of speech. 
 
 " Two beings," says the Mouse to the Frog, in the beginning of 
 the Batrachomyomachia, " I fear above all things on earth, the 
 Hawk (kirkos), and the Weasel {galee), which have done my species 
 much harm; yes, and that painful, fatal, deceitful Trap; but most 
 of all the Weasel, which is the strongest, and even comes creeping 
 after me into my holes." In "The Wasps" of Aristophanes one 
 replies to another who asks for a domestic story, " Oh, anything to 
 oblige ; well then : Once upon a time there was a mouse and a 
 weasel " — ^just as we say to children, " There was once a cat and a 
 mouse." In one of Plautus's plays a weasel has caught a mouse 
 at the very feet of a speaker. The Egyptian domestic cat is called 
 by the Greek describers ailouros; when the word, which is not 
 often met with, refers to a Greek animal, there is nothing to prevent 
 our supposing it to mean the marten or the wild cat. In a passage 
 by Callimachus, who wrote it at Alexandria, we might naturally 
 think the Egyptian cat was meant : a man in dog-hunger devours 
 the cow, the horse, and the ailouros, " the terror of small beasts." 
 But the description is even more characteristic of the house-marten 
 than of the equally rapacious, but softer and more gentle, domestic 
 cat, for which the poet would surely have found a more appropriate 
 epithet. The same thing applies to a verse in the fifteenth idyll of 
 Theocritus, the scene being also laid in Alexandria. Here the 
 impatient mistress scolds a lazy maid in the words, " What, again 
 
WEASEL. MARTEN. WILD CAT. 349 
 
 these weasels wanting to sleep soft?" The poet might indeed 
 have been thinking of Egyptian house-cats, but tame martens and 
 weasels would not have disdained a soft bed either. In a frag- 
 ment by the Comic poet Anaxaitdrides, the speaker sneers at an 
 Egyptian on account of the Egyptian customs, which he, imitating 
 Herodotus, describes as diametrically opposed to the Greek : "If 
 you see a cat in pain, you weep ; I should like best to kill it and 
 skin it" — where the Greek may have had in his mind the Greek 
 (wild) animal, yrhich answered to the cat in Egypt The Latin 
 mustela is exactly our weasel ; but Qvtvi. felts is nowhere the tame 
 cat, but either the foulmart and marten, or the wild cat. The 
 agricultural authors Varro and Columella give instructions for con- 
 triving duck-houses and hare-parks, so that no feles or meles may 
 enter; they cannot possibly have meant domestic cats. The 
 manner in which Horace relates the well-known fable of the Town 
 and Country Mouse, at once shows that in his time no cats were 
 yet kept in the houses of the capital : " A city mouse paid a visit 
 to the field mouse, and was entertained by him to the best of his 
 ability with peas, oats, wild berries, and pieces of bacon. But the 
 spoilt guest despised the common fare, and said, ' What's the good 
 of living all alone here in the fields and woods, far from men ? Come 
 with me to the city, there you will find better food.' They set off; 
 it was late at night, they crept through a hole in the wall and into 
 the urban house. There stood the dishes and baskets left from 
 the banquet over-night ; they feasted well and slept on a crimson 
 carpet. Suddenly " — they see the cat come creeping ? and have 
 barely time to save themselves? — no such thing — "the doors 
 opened noisily, a loud barking shook the house, the two mice ran 
 hither and thither and were almost frightened to death. Then the 
 field mouse said, 'Thank you, I would rather not have your 
 luxurious life ; my hole in the earth, where I lie safe and undis- 
 turbed, pleases me better, though there be nothing to gnaw but 
 peas.' " In such a fable, instead of the servants coming in early in 
 the morning to clean the banqueting-hall, a modern story-teller 
 would certainly have given the cat her part, and would have said 
 nothing about barking dogs. Pliny seems to have some acquaint- 
 ance with the peculiarities of the ca.t., felts, but even he does not 
 
350 TUE CAT. 
 
 describe it as the tame companion of man ; and what he does say 
 would equally fit the European wild cat. A Pompeian mosaic, 
 now in the National Museum at Naples, represents " a cat mangling 
 a quail ; " but the striped lynx-like fur, as well as the expression of 
 the head, are far more like those of the wild cat, although a similar 
 form may now and then be found among our present domestic 
 cats. In the excavations at Pompeii no remains of a cat have ever 
 turned up. Horses, dogs, goats, and other domestic animals were 
 buried, and their remains have been discovered, but " very remark- 
 ably all the cats had disappeared in time." The wonder ceases, if 
 at that time there were no cats in the town. The little animals 
 seen on early coins of Tarentum and Rhegium, which some have 
 taken for cats, are so small and indistinct, that they might be 
 explained in any other wky — as any one will allow who has ever 
 had such a coin in his hand. 
 
 If we search the literature of Fable, it' unfortunately gives us no 
 sure chronological data. In the popular ancient fables of ^sop, as 
 far as they are preserved in fragments and hints by authors of the 
 classic period, the cat is nowhere found. In two fables of Babrios, 
 whose date is doubtful, the ailouros appears, but each time it is 
 distinctly the marten trying to entrap fowls ; in one he hangs on a 
 peg in the shape of a pouch (of marten-skin), but the cock knows 
 him by the teeth remaining on ; in the other the hen is sick, and 
 the ailouros creeps up to her to sympathize, upon which the hen 
 says, "You be off! that is the best way to keep me from dying.'' 
 Babrios also looks upon the weasel as the enemy of the mouse : 
 in fable 32 the weasel is transformed into a beautiful woman, and 
 betrays itself during the wedding by pursuing a mouse ; and in 
 fable 31, the weasels and the mice go to war. In the fables of 
 Phsedrus the same thing is seen. In fables 4 and 6, the mice and 
 the weasels go to war, and a weasel caught by a man cries out, 
 " Spare me, for I clear your house of troublesome mice." But in 
 Palladius, when the days of the Western Empire were already 
 numbered, we recognise our tame cat under a name used for this 
 new domestic animal alone, catus, which, like the Egyptian animal 
 itself, has since spread from Italy to all peoples, not only those 
 of Europe, Basques, Finns, Albanians, and modern Greeks, but also 
 
CAT. RAT. 351 
 
 in the far East to Asiatics of the most different race (note 83). 
 After Palladius we find the word again in the ecclesiastical historian 
 Evagrius Scholasticus, who wrote in Greek : " ailouros, commonly 
 called katta." He lived at Epiphania in Coelesyria, and wrote till 
 the year 594; so the expression katta was already a common one 
 in Western Asia towards the year 600. About the same time 
 Isidore in the extreme West says in Latin : " him (the mouser) 
 the vulgar call catus because he catches." The word is also found 
 elsewhere in those times, and becomes more frequent with every 
 generation. It was a popular appellation formed in Italy, meaning 
 really the little animal, the young, just as auca (little bird) was 
 said for goose, la pecora for sheep, etc. At least this is the most 
 probable derivation. 
 
 Was there any particular circumstance just then, that caused 
 an Egyptian animal, which the Greeks and Romans had never 
 thought of before, to become more frequent in houses than 
 formerly? History is silent; but the following conjecture presses 
 itself upon us. At the time of the Migration of Nations, the 
 ■dwellings, granaries, and cellars of the European world were over- 
 run by a hitherto unknown voracious rodent coming from Asia, 
 the Rat, mus rattus. Tradition does not tell us the moment of 
 its appearance nor the direction it took, but the name rat is already 
 to be found in early Old High German glossaries, as well as in 
 the Anglo-Saxon one of ^Ifric in England ; it is therefore con- 
 siderably older than Albertus Magnus, in whose writings the 
 animal was first described by natural historians. Did the rat 
 come into Europe in the wake of the immigrant nations? Was. 
 it disturbed in the heart of Asia by the setting-out of Turkish 
 nations, say, the Huns ? When it reached the east of Europe, the 
 .Slavs must have been already divided into sections, for they call it 
 by different names ; the Pole uses szczur, the Russian krysa, and 
 the Danubian Slavs another word again. The German name 
 ratte, ratz, Old High German rato, has no doubt lost an h and is 
 identical with the Old Slavic krUiu, Russ. krot, the mole, Lith. 
 kertus, the shrew-mouse. In Old Irish the rat was called Frankish 
 mouse ; it had therefore reached Ireland from the land of the 
 Franks. Europe has experienced a second and still more terrible 
 
J52 THE CAT. 
 
 invasion of the kind since the first thirty years of the eighteenth 
 century ; then the great travelling rat, mus decumanus, appeared on 
 the Lower Volga, overran in curious starts and pauses one town 
 and district after another, spread itself by means of river-boats and 
 ocean-ships — for it delights in voyages — with the magazines of 
 the Austrian and Russian armies, and during the revolutionary 
 wars all over Germany and the west of Europe; and has long 
 since not only taken possession of Paris and London (perhaps by 
 ship direct from the East Indies), but has followed commerce across 
 the Atlantic to the New World, everywhere exterminating its weaker 
 ')redecessor, the house rat of the Middle Ages. In a similar 
 manner must the pretty little nibbling house mouse have come to 
 us from Southern Asia — was its arrival contemporaneous, say, with 
 the immigration of the Indo-Europeans ? Other animals that 
 were unknown to antiquity seem to have made their appearance 
 among the civilized nations of the West at the time of the Teutonic 
 Migration, or with the introduction of culture and roads into the 
 dark East of Europe ; for example, the Badger and the Hamster. 
 The German name of the first, dachs, has spread all over the 
 Romance countries, to which the animal seems to have been a 
 stranger before ; the German name of the second, unknown in 
 Italy, taken over bodily by the French, le hamster, and copied by 
 the Germans from a Slavic word, argues an inhabitant of the earth 
 that came from the East, and for which a path was prepared by 
 the agriculture that thinned the woods (note 84). 
 
 The cat reached the Germans at a time when the myth-pro- 
 ducing power, though enfeebled, was not wholly extinct (note 85). 
 The cat became the favourite animal of Freya, the Goddess of 
 Love, perhaps supplanting the weasel. Grimm says : " Freya's 
 car was drawn by two cats. The cat and weasel were considered 
 wise animals, skilled in magic, whom men had good reason for 
 humouring." In the later Middle Ages, witches change into 
 cats : to which superstition the creature's stealthy night-walking 
 ways, her dark fur, and her eyes gleaming ghost-like in the gloom, 
 might give occasion, even without any reminiscences of heathenism. 
 One story may serve for all otherS of the kind. " On the last day 
 of April a miller's boy was busy in the mill very late in tlie even- 
 
THE CAT. 
 
 353 
 
 ing, when a black cat entered ; the boy gave it a blow on its fore- 
 foot, so that it ran away howling. The next day, when the youth 
 went to the miller's house, he noticed that his wife lay in bed with 
 a crushed arm, and learned that it had been hurt the evening be- 
 fore, no one knew how. So he guessed that the miller's wife was 
 a witch, and that she must have been to the Blocksberg in the 
 shape of a cat on the evening in question." That noble ladies and 
 princesses of the eleventh century already held favourite cats in 
 their lap, and fed them with dainties, is shown by the example of 
 the wife of Emperor Constantine Monomachus. Even now the 
 animal is a greater favourite with the Easterns, and in the south 
 and east of Europe, than with nations of German origin. In 
 Russia there is not a shop on the threshold of which a well- 
 nourished cat does not lie blinking half in sleep. In France the 
 cat is the friend of the household, and in Italy there is a universal 
 partiality for this fine, clean, and graceful creature. " In many a 
 church from Venice to Rome,'' says Fridolin Hoffmann, " I saw 
 a well-fed sacristy cat sitting on the balustrades of side-altars, or 
 even on the communion bench ; the service did not disturb the 
 creature's equanimity. It quietly walked along the front of the 
 pews amid the pealing of the organ, and the people were polite 
 enough to lift up their prayer-books to let it pass unhindered. 
 Being thus privileged, it is no wonder that even in very decent 
 restaurants you suddenly find two or three cats sitting near 
 you on the cushioned seat or the next chair, comfortably pur- 
 ring or magnetically rubbing their sides with their noses." An 
 example of the peculiar manner in which individuals are some- 
 times attracted by this animal is afforded by a day-labourer at 
 Berne, one Gottfried Mind, the Raphael of Cats. Both as a boy 
 and as a man he was indifferent to everything, and almost idiotic, 
 but he observed the life and manners of the cat with intelligence 
 and love, and depicted them in a masterly manner in water-colours 
 (he died in 1814). 
 
 23 
 
THE BUFFALO. 
 
 It was also in consequence of the Migration of Nations that the 
 Bos family — that first friend of man when emerging out of bar- 
 barism — was enriched by the addition of a kinsman from the 
 South, endowed with tremendous pulling power, the black and 
 scowling Buffalo. He now lives in the moist, hot malaria plains 
 of Italy, enjoying their slime, and defying their venomous vapours ; 
 the maremmas of Tuscany, the bottom-lands about the Tiber's 
 mouth, the Pontine marshes, the swamps of Psestum, the Basili- 
 cata ; also in the landes of Gascony, in many parts of Hungary, 
 etc. The Pontine buffaloes wallow like immense swine in the 
 high reeds of the swamps, standing still at the sound of a carriage 
 on the high road, and stupidly staring at the traveller ; or, when 
 teased by gad-flies, hiding up to the muzzle in the water. The 
 buffalo is employed, like the ox, in dragging the heavy plough, or 
 the loaded harvest waggon ; its milk is made into highly valued 
 cheese (called in Naples muzzarello), and, after death, its thick, 
 heavy skin forms the strongest leather. Niebuhr found the 
 animal widely diffused in the East. In his description of Arabia, 
 1772, he writes : " In the East buffaloes are found in almost ever}' 
 marshy district and near large rivers in greater numbers than 
 common cattle. The buffalo-cow gives more milk, and the 
 buffalo-ox is quite as well adapted for labour as the common ox. 
 I have seen buffaloes in Egypt, on the Isle of Bombay, near 
 Surat, on the Euphrates, Tigris, and Orontes, at Scanderoon, and 
 elsewhere. I do not remember to have seen any in Arabia, and 
 indeed there is not sufficient water for the animal in that country. 
 The flesh of the buffalo does not seem to me so good as other 
 beef J it is coarse and hard." While progressive culture has 
 almost exterminated those savage, obstinate, and kingly inhabi- 
 
THE BUFFALO. 355 
 
 tants of the European forests, the ure-ox and the bison, the buf- 
 falo was brought by immigrating nations from the borders of 
 India to the southern coasts of Italy. Aristotle describes a wild 
 ox living in Arachosia, near modern Kabool, which can be no 
 other than our present buffalo. During the succeeding centuries 
 that animal must have migrated farther west. It was first seen in 
 Italy about the year 600 a.d., in the reign of the Longobardian 
 king, Agilulf — Paul. Diac. 4, 11: " Then for the first time wild 
 horses and buffaloes were brought to Italy, and regarded as won- 
 ders by the Italian people " (note 86). We must be grateful to 
 the Longobardian monk for this report, for how seldom do the 
 historians, who have enough to do with questions of war and 
 government, throw us a crumb of what relates to culture ; but we 
 should have liked something still more exact. Were these bubali, 
 we ask, the uri and bisontes of the European forests ? That can 
 hardly be, for those animals must have been often seen in Italy, 
 and therefore would not have excited the astonishment of the 
 Romans or Longobardians. But if the bubali were real buffaloes, 
 whence and along what route had those inhabitants of a warmer 
 region reached cold and distant Europe ? They could not have 
 been brought by sea. It seems probable, as they appear in com- 
 pany with wild horses, that they were a present to the Longobar- 
 dian kings from the Khan of the Avars, for this Turkish race of 
 nomads, who at that time dwelt near the Danube and scourged 
 the Roman Empire with fearful devastations, were on friendly 
 terms with the Longobardian Court. If King Agilulf sent ship- 
 builders to the Avarian Khan to supply the vessels necessary for 
 taking an island in Thrace, that Khan may well have sent pro- 
 ducts from the heart of Asia in return. So the black, naked, 
 heavy-footed buffaloes, which are kept in order in such a charac- 
 teristically Asiatic manner by men on horseback, armed with long 
 spears, are living witnesses of the terrible times when the immea- 
 surable mass of land in the East, with which the peninsula we 
 call Europe lies conterminous, without any means of defence 
 but distance, kept disgorging savage hordes, bent, wherever it was 
 possible, on tearing up by the roots all that was human, the acqui- 
 sitions of long-continued and ennobling culture. 
 
3S6 THE BUFFALO. 
 
 That the wholly or partially Nomadic races, which by turns 
 encamped in and drove each other out of beautiful, fruitful, and 
 once highly-cultivated Pannonia, should bring new races of cattle 
 with them, and perhaps better ones than those inherited by 
 antiquity from the primitive world, lay in the nature of things ; 
 and also that such cattle should find their way into Italy, and 
 tliere maintain their breed when the wave of invaders that intro- 
 duced them had long passed away. The three races of the 
 South Russian steppes, a classic cattle region, are the deposit 
 left by as many Nomadic invasions. The so-called Ukraine, or 
 Podolian, or Hungarian ox, large and greyish-white, long-legged 
 and long-horned, fat and fleshy, the draught-animal of the 
 waggons and vans that traverse the steppe for hundreds of versts, 
 is akin to the large whitish oxen, with long horns wide apart, that 
 are found in Italy south of the Po, and have also passed over 
 into Spain and Algiers. As Varro already remarked that white 
 oxen were rare in Italy, but the rule in Thrace, these may have 
 been the Scythian cattle brought by the Iranian pastoral tribes, 
 and afterwards introduced into Italy by Goths or Longobards. 
 And the Euboean breed, which was also white (" whence our 
 poets say, white-cowed Euboea" — ^lian), would probably have 
 the same origin ; for Euboea was very early connected with 
 Thrace and the North. The Scythian cattle, however, are said 
 by Herodotus to be kolon, stumpy-horned, and by Hippocrates 
 kereos ater, hornless, therefore resembling the small German 
 cattle which, Tacitus says, " lacked the glory of the brow." Per- 
 haps the second South Russian species, smaller and red, the true 
 steppe-cattle, are descendants of that Old Scythian breed ; while 
 the third species, the so-called Kalmuck cattle, came to the West, 
 as the name indicates, only with the Tartar, or even the Mongol 
 hordes. In Italy, Varro mentions the Gallic breed (had it come 
 in with the Gauls?) as peculiarly adapted to field-work; while 
 Pliny says the small, insignificant-looking Alpine cattle gave the 
 most milk ; and Columella says the same thing of the Altinian 
 cows in Venetia. At the time of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, the 
 Tyrolese cattle were small, but powerful ; for when the Alemanni, 
 shattered by Chlodwig, king of the Franks, seek shelter on Gothic 
 
OXEN. 357 
 
 ground, and are some of them to be settled in Italy, their cattle 
 are knocked up by the long and hurried march, and can go no 
 farther; the king then orders the provincials of Noricum to 
 barter their own small animals for the large Alemannian cattle ; 
 which proves an accammodation to both parties : " Ut illi acqui- 
 rant viribus robustos, vos forma conspicuos." The big Aleman- 
 nian breed may have come from the Gallic-Roman settlers within 
 the limes, whose towns and farms had been first sacked and after- 
 wards occupied by the Alemanni. The hornless cattle have now 
 entirely disappeared in Germany under the influence of culture, 
 but are still to be met with in Scandinavia, whence, during the 
 Middle Ages, they spread to the White Sea. The oldest Euro- 
 pean cattle may still have existed during the Roman age in the 
 Ligurian species, which was considered weak and miserable, and 
 the remains of which are perhaps revealed to us in the bones 
 found under lake-habitations. About the different races of cattle, 
 their distribution and arrival in Europe, there is much left to 
 explore, and perhaps to discover. There is no doubt that our 
 tame Ox is descended from the Ure ox of primitive times, but its 
 domestication was scarcely accomplished in Europe. 
 
THE HOP. 
 
 (humulus lupulus.) 
 
 In the year 1766 the great Linnaeus asserted that the hop mi- 
 grated into Europe from distant Russia at the time of the Migration 
 of Nations. The fact that the hop now grows wild on hedges 
 and in woods would in no wise invalidate that assertion, for a 
 plant so widely-cultivated, supposing that the soil and climate 
 were favourable, would easily run wild and find its way into 
 places where it had never been planted by the hand of man. 
 But we are certain of three things only : first, that the ancients 
 had never heard of such a plant, the flowers of which are an 
 agreeable addition to beer ; secondly, that accounts of the earliest 
 Middle Ages, which often mention beer and the products of 
 southern gardens, never say a word about hops, which afterwards 
 became so indispensable ; and, thirdly, that in many European 
 countries, like England and Sweden, the use of hops for making 
 beer is first heard of towards the end of the Middle Ages, or even 
 in the course of the sixteenth century, and then gradually becomes 
 more common. 
 
 In the Lex Salica and the decrees of Charlemagne we search 
 in vain for a hint of this plant and its cultivation ; neither is it 
 mentioned towards the middle of the ninth century by Walafredus 
 Suabo, a North German, in his " Hortulus." But about that time 
 we find traces of the hop in other regions. In a deed of gift of 
 King Pipin the father of Charlemagne to the Abbey of St. Denys, 
 dated the seventeenth year of his reign, the king bestows on that 
 monastery Humlonarias cum integritate, in which we may find a 
 resemblance to hujulo, Mid. Latin for hop ; but here it occurs 
 
THE HOP. 359 
 
 amongst other proper names, as that of a place or estate, and the 
 similarity of sound may be purely accidental. But the polyptych 
 of Irmino, Abbot of St. Germain-des-Prds, composed in the first 
 years of the ninth century, before the death of Charlemagne, 
 often mentions the payment of hop-dues, the plant being called 
 humolo, humelo, umlo, and twice fumlo. Only a few years later, 
 a statute of the Abbot Adalhardus of Corvey, in 822, absolves 
 the millers from all work connected with malt and hops, and from 
 the obligation to furnish the latter material. In the monastic 
 documents of Freisingen, of the time of Louis the German, 
 towards the middle and end of the ninth century, we find 
 humularia, or hop-gardens, frequently mentioned, so that hops 
 must already have been common in North Germany. During 
 the succeeding centuries the cultivation of hops must have become 
 still more general in that country, and the later the period the 
 more frequent is the mention of hop-dues and hop-fields. The 
 plant was so largely cultivated in the time of Albertus Magnus 
 that it gave rise to express decrees, and hop-dues were afterwards 
 quite general in districts with a Slav population, like Silesia, 
 Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg. The first mention of hops 
 being cultivated in Silesia is in 1224. In consequence of being 
 mixed with this bitter plant, beer could be kept longer and 
 transported farther, and gradually became an object of active 
 trade. Flanders and North Germany had towns that grew rich 
 and renowned because of their hop-beer. Of those in Flanders, 
 Ghent was the most famous ; and two of its brewer-citizens, 
 the Arteveldts, father and son, could treat on equal terms with 
 kings. In Germany, Eimbeck was celebrated, and its fame is 
 still preserved in the Bavarian " Bock-beer," a corruption of 
 Eimbeck-beer. Schmeller tells of an amusing propagation of 
 the blunder: "As a counterpart to the too-vigorous butting of 
 this Bock (he-goat), there was brought out a milder Gaiss (she- 
 goat), chiefly in the Jesuits' breweries." It was relatively long 
 before hops reached the neighbouring countries. In England 
 they were not known before the reigns of Henry VIII. and 
 Edward VI. Other additions to beer had long been customaiy : 
 oak-bark, leaves of trees, bitter roots, various wild herbs, and in 
 
36o THE HOP. 
 
 Sweden milfoil, Achillea millefolium, or the plant there called 
 pors, ledum paliistre, or wild rosemary. We have already re- 
 marked that the Paeonians in Thrace brewed beer with the 
 addition of konyze ; but what they meant by konyza is hard to 
 say — ^at a later period the name is supposed to have meant the 
 erigeron viscosum, inula viscosa, or graveolens, etc. 
 
 But was it really the great Migration that introduced this 
 plant into Western Europe ? and where was it first used as an 
 ingredient of beer? History refuses to answer, and we are 
 obliged to have recourse to a comparison of the names in 
 different languages. But this time they seem only to mock and 
 bewilder us. Half-agreements, possible transitions, tempt us to 
 form a combination ; their doubtfulness induces us to drop it 
 again ; if we decide upon one word as a point of departure, we 
 can spin a thread from it with tolerable ease, but we could quite 
 as well make the last link the first, and give the progress and 
 development of the word a reverse direction. 
 
 We are therefore inclined to place the simplest form of word 
 at the head, which is the Low German and Low Countries word 
 hoppe, hop. It is already found in the Glosses of Junius, which 
 Graif assigns to the eighth or ninth century : " hoppe = timalus '' 
 (mis-copied for humalusl); " feld-hoppe = i5;-aif2^a/(7 " (priadela 
 was Dacian for briony). It is most unlikely that this hoppe itself 
 came from the Mid. Latin hupa; the latter is only found in one 
 authority, and that a Netherlands one; hupa, no doubt, is merely 
 the German word Latinized. An etymology might be found in 
 the verb hiipfen, happen, to hop, only it does not seem natural to 
 describe a plant that climbs from bough to bough as a hopper or 
 jumper. But whatever be its derivation, there arose a diminutive 
 form out of this hoppe by the addition of an /, which explains the 
 French houblon for houbelon, as well as the Mid. Latin hubaliis. 
 Farther on, in Italy, where the plant was neither cultivated nor 
 used, the foreign word coalescing with the Article became lupolo, 
 luppolo ; out of which popular name arose the later Mid. Latin 
 lupidus, used by Italian authors. The botany of the Middle Ages 
 was so slavishly dependent on the Grseco-Roman literature, that 
 a similar-sounding name of a plant was hunted for and happily 
 
THE HOP. 361 
 
 found in Pliny, who says: "There are few wild plants in Italy 
 that are used for food : there is one growing among willow-bushes, 
 the lupus, but it is more a sweetmeat or a delicacy than food." 
 There is not a word about its being a climbing plant, and if the 
 name had not resembled the Mid. Latin lupulus, no one would 
 have thought of its meaning the hop. By the easy conversion 
 of a ^ or / into m, especially before a /, there was also developed 
 from liupa, hubalus, hubelo, a Mid. Latin humlo, humulus ; and 
 from the end of the eighth century this was the commonest and 
 most widely diffused name for the hop, and accompanied the 
 plant itself to the North and East. In Old Norse it became 
 humall, in Finnic and Esthonian humala, humal, in all the Slavic 
 tongues khfneli, in Magyar komlo, in Modern Greek choumeli, etc. 
 Thus the word, even in its transformations, would point to the 
 custom having originated on the Lower Rhine ; the German 
 Franks, or even the Celtic Belgians would be the inventors of 
 the bitter drink, and the hypothesis of Linnsus would fall to 
 the ground. 
 
 But may not the Slavic khmeli be the ancestor of all the other 
 names for the hop ? May it not be the Slavic form of the Greek 
 smilax, smilos, which, though not our hop, was a rough and 
 climbing plant ? It is worthy of note that among the Slavs the 
 word has the general sense of intoxication, all its derivatives 
 meaning " tipsy, to get drunk,'' and the like. This meaning is 
 very ancient, as is seen by a passage in Zonaras of the year 1120, 
 where humeli is "a drink that without wine intoxicates," just as 
 the same Slavic word is now used for brandy and its effects. A 
 proverbial formula in the Russian chronicler Nestor points to 
 a period still older When, in the year 6493 a.m. (985 a.d.), 
 Vladimir marched against and conquered the Bolgars on the 
 Volga, who wore boots, he was advised by Dobrynia to leave the 
 boot-wearers alone, for he could get no tribute out of them, and 
 turn to those who wore shoes of bast. Then Vladimir made 
 peace with the Bolgars, which they promised to keep "till the 
 stone shall float and the hop-leaf sink." 
 
 TJie hop still plays a part in Russian marriage ceremonies as it 
 did in the fifteenth century, and no doubt long before. When 
 
362 THE HOP. 
 
 Helena, the daughter of Ivan UI. (Vasilievitch), was married to 
 the Grand Duke Alexander of Lithuania, at Wilna, the Boykr 
 maidens unbraided her hair in the Church of the Virgin, put the 
 kika (a head-dress in the shape of a magpie) on her head, and 
 covered her with hops. Here also the hop symbolizes feasting, 
 merry-making, and abundance. If, then, the Slavs introduced 
 their plant into Germany, and the Germans adopted its Slavic 
 name, then the Latin humulus and all the forms with b and p 
 must have come from that name. 
 
 According to another derivation, Pliny's lupus may have lost 
 its / in France (that being taken for the Def. Art.), and then, 
 by confusion with the verb to hop, have been changed into hoppe 
 (as upupa has become hop-hop and wiede-hopf). In support of 
 this would be the fact that lupus, from its very name, must have 
 been a Miter plant like lupinus, the wolf-bean, which is named 
 from that quality, and which even the ancient Egyptians mixed 
 with their beer. 
 
 Whichever of these derivations may be considered most probable, 
 it cannot be denied that hop, humulus, and khmeli are only varie- 
 ties of the same word, which were formed in passing from mouth 
 to mouth. It was the Middle Ages that propagated the plant, 
 and thereby created the true modern European beer, which is 
 very different from the beer that used to be drunk out of cow- 
 horns. At present Bohemia and Bavaria on the continent, then 
 especially England, and, across the ocean, America, are the 
 countries where not only the most but also the finest hops are 
 cultivated ; in the east of Europe, where this vine of the north 
 was perhaps indigenous, there are now produced very few and 
 coarse hops. In this case also is repeated the frequently observed 
 fact, that a plant under human cultivation develops nobler qualities 
 on a new soil than it ever possessed in a wild condition in its 
 native land (note 87). 
 
RETROSPECT. 
 
 We have now crossed the threshold of the Mfddle Ages, and it 
 behoves us, at this point, to look both backward and forward at 
 some general facts. 
 
 The result of the long process of assimilation, whose separate 
 factors we have been trying to realize, was a homogeneity of 
 culture in all the seaboard countries of the Mediterranean. And 
 this homogeneity was exhibited outwardly in the unity of the 
 Roman Empire, which was intrinsically a compendium of the 
 countries lying round that inland sea. The garden-like culture 
 and the most important cultivated plants of that region were of 
 Semitic origin, and, like Christianity, had issued from its south- 
 eastern corner. The once barbarous countries of Greece, Italy, 
 Provence, and Spain, forest-regions with raw products, now pre- 
 sented a picture of blooming, and in some respects, degenerated 
 culture in little, with pruning-hook, mattock, and spades, water- 
 courses and cisterns, shorn trees, fish-ponds, and trellised aviaries, 
 just as in Canaan or Cilicia. The summer foliage and swelling 
 outlines of the northern flora had given place to the stiff forms 
 of/ a plastic, motionless, evergreen, and dark-coloured vegetation. 
 Cypresses, laurels, pines, myrtles, pomegranates, and strawberry- 
 trees, etc., encircled the homesteads of men, or, running wild, 
 clothed the rocks and promontories of the coast. Greece and 
 Italy left the forming hand of history as essentially evergreen 
 countries without summer rains, and with irrigation as the prime 
 condition of prosperity and the greatest care of the planter. They 
 had orientalized — or, more strictly, semitized — themselves in the 
 course of antiquity, and even the date-palm was not wanting as a 
 living proof of this remarkable metamorphosis. 
 
364 RETROSPECT. 
 
 Meanwhile, another and later influence of culture accompanies 
 the Semitic stream from the countries south of the Caucasus. We 
 may distinguish the two main constituents of the cultivated flora 
 of the Mediterranean as the Syrian and the Artnenian—tz!iiva.g 
 the two words in the widest sense. The Armenian trees, while 
 richer in fruit and more luxuriant than the primitive vegetation of 
 Southern Europe, can stand the cold of winter better than the 
 offspring of Syria ; and when we are in doubt as to the origin of 
 one of these foreign plants, we need only examine whether it keeps 
 strictly south of the Alps, and perhaps of the Cevennes, or ventures 
 under cultivation to cross, though may be in rare and degenerate 
 specimens, that climatic wall of partition. The non-existence of 
 the nut-pine in Germany, and even in France, teaches us that that 
 tree cannot have come from Asia Minor. That the vine belonged 
 originally to the South Caspian countries, but was brought to us 
 by the Syrians, we recognise by its behaviour in Europe : it is only 
 in the south of this continent that the vine bears abundantly and 
 naturally, that it spreads itself comfortably out, and leads, so to 
 speak, a careless life. But still it can be cultivated in Silesia ; it 
 has here and there strayed into the German woods; and on 
 favourable soil, like that of Champagne ; in sheltered valleys, as on 
 the Rhine; on volcanic hills, like those of Hungary — it yields, with 
 the help of culture, very fine fruit. The fig is a Semitic tree ; and 
 such, above all, is the olive, the queen of the Midland Sea, which 
 founded its moderately large and strictly limited kingdom, not 
 from Cyzicus or Sinope, but from Byblus and Gaza. On the 
 contrary, the nut-trees, both walnut and chestnut, are eminently 
 Pontic and Caspian plants. The chestnut scales the mountains 
 of the Hesperian peninsula in dense broad columns, heedless of 
 the cool breath of the heights, and has driven in the beeches to 
 the upper slopes ; and even in the west of Central Germany the 
 walnut-tree skirts the roads, and the chestnuts cluster in modest 
 little woods. With an intelligent delight in nature, Josephus 
 described this mingling of different trees from dissimilar climatic 
 zones in the Mediterranean flora, with special reference to the 
 district around the Lake of Genezareth : " There the grape and fig, 
 those kings of fruits, ripen almost uninterruptedly ; side by side 
 
RETROSPECT. 365 
 
 with the fig and olive-trees, which delight in a milder air, stand an 
 infinitude of walnut-trees, which are the most winterly plants {i.e., 
 of northern origin), and of date-palms, the hottest, nourish them- 
 selves on heat. It seems as if Nature were ambitious to make 
 the fruit-plants of opposite climates vie with each other here." 
 Columella says much the same thing of Italy. That many plants 
 which lived in warm Persia beyond Armenia and Syria, and even 
 originally in tropical India, could be naturalized in South Europe, 
 was, among others, proved most brilliantly by the orange ; and as 
 one of the most useful of domestic animals, the fowl, had come 
 from the countries of the Indus and Ganges about 600 years 
 before Christ, so, about 600 years after Christ, as in proof that the 
 movement of exchange had not fully subsided, came the Arachosian 
 ox or buffalo. 
 
 In the first century B.C., the wide empire of which Italy was the 
 centre — that is, the geographical region of antique culture — had 
 attained its completion ; as one immense colony of the East it 
 surrounded the Mediterranean on all sides. The frontier pro- 
 vinces on the Euphrates to the East, and on the Rhine and 
 Danube to the North, formed extreme and fluctuating acquisitions, 
 with a different character; appendages too remote from the 
 inland sea round which the classic world was grouped. But within 
 these natural limits and the correspondingly fixed unbending 
 framework of customs and of life, culture began to be stifled. 
 During the first centuries of the Christian era there was visibly 
 going on a continuous and rapid process of decay, which, like an 
 incurable disease, finally led to dissolution. It is easy to com- 
 pare this at first sight enigmatical fact, which had no externally 
 constraining causes, to the ageing and dying of an individual 
 organism; but as nations and epochs are neither plants nor 
 animals, this favourite image gives no direct information about the 
 process itself and its real operating causes. Perhaps some of these 
 may be found in the following considerations. 
 
 A fundamental fault, and perhaps the true seat of disease, in 
 antique civilization was the uneconomical construction of society and 
 the State, and the accompanying absence of all realistic-technical 
 sense in men. Under the Roman emperors the world became 
 
366 RETROSPECT. 
 
 poorer and poorer, and therefore more and more disheartened and 
 oppressed. The taxes rose reign after reign, and still did not bring 
 in what was wanted ; it became harder and harder, and at last 
 impossible to collect them. The means were resorted to of 
 farming them out to the highest bidder ; and these publicani 
 compensated themselves by merciless extortion, just as in France 
 before the Revolution. In the cities a few rich citizens, invested 
 with high but honorary office, had to answer for the commune, 
 and they and their fortunes fell a prey to the fiscus. In this distress 
 the emperors had recourse to debasement of the coinage — a paper 
 currency as legal tender had not yet been invented — the conse- 
 quence of which was that prices rose and living became dearer 
 and dearer. The latter fact was then attributed to the selfishness 
 and malice of the vendors and merchants, and accordingly the 
 celebrated edict was promulgated by the Emperor Diocletian, fixing 
 the maximum price of all provisions, raw materials, wages, and 
 common manufactures ; a striking proof of the rudeness of the 
 prevailing ideas on national economy — which, however, was exactly 
 reproduced in the so-called Law of the Maximum of 1793. Any- 
 thing beyond curing the symptoms, particularly any thought of 
 meeting the increased demands of the State by unfettering 
 production, and setting economic action free, never occurred to 
 anybody. It is true, the Romans had built roads and bridges that 
 still excite our admiration, but these rather served to increase the 
 glory and grandeur of the rulers of the world, and the facility of 
 military and administrative operations, than to further the aims of 
 trade and intercourse. They were blocked by inland tolls, and 
 these again were in the hands of governmental farmers, with all 
 the evils and vexatious practices of such a system. Export and 
 import prohibitions on the frontiers, unnatural corn-laws, etc., 
 stopped the circulation of goods, and consequently the growth of 
 capital and wealth. Added to this were the State monopolies, the 
 number of which was continually increasing, and the Imperial 
 factories, that worked with only seeming advantage. The in- 
 satiable greed of the millitary State, which was kept almost 
 constantly on a war-footing, could not be appeased by any amount 
 of production on the part of the agricultural and manufacturing 
 
RETROSPECT. 367 
 
 population ; what the taxes left was consumed in the quartering 
 and provisioning of the troops. The soldiers, to whom, even 
 before the end of the Republic, lands in Italy had been forcibly 
 and arbitrarily apportioned, now played the first role. They 
 were for the most part unmarried, they squandered in sensual 
 pleasures what they had collected in war, and were lazy and 
 inclined to excesses (note 88). In the undeveloped condition of 
 finance, and ignorance of the natural laws that govern it, money- 
 dealing and the easy circulation of capital could be no element of 
 increasing wealth. The rate of interest rose to an unheard-of 
 height, and the prohibitions intended to limit usury only made the 
 matter worse. 
 
 As the taking of interest at all was in ancient times considered 
 despicable and indeed unlawful, so also the principle of the 
 division of labour was not comprehended. Cato and Varro 
 positively warn men against it : the former says the landlord ought 
 to be a seller and no buyer ; the latter, that whatever can be made 
 by the people on the estate should not be purchased elsewhere. 
 So home-work was not reckoned as money expended ; and the 
 larger households kept their own smiths, joiners, shoemakers, 
 coopers, etc., while in the cities there was no class of working 
 tradesmen and artisans. No wonder that technics remained im- 
 perfect, for, besides all this, the ancients were not naturally addicted 
 to handicraft. To observe, without prejudice, the naked reality 
 of things, to adapt means to ends, and so emancipate themselves, 
 were not a characteristic feature of the ancients. They lived, an 
 aristocratic race, in a dream of religious fancy, in an ideal show, 
 swayed by a passion for artistic representation, and spellbound 
 by the Beautiful. If we examine the remains of Pompeian tools 
 and utensils, how tastefully and elegantly they are designed, 
 though wrought, perhaps, by the hand of a slave ; but, for the 
 most part, how childishly ! The rational technics that do please 
 us in them were not the result of sober observation and sensible 
 calculation, but an old tradition, beyond which they did not go, 
 and which could not but deteriorate from generation to generation. 
 And, as technics sank, so did taste, so did the grace and purity of 
 forms and nobility of thought. For these are not absolutely 
 
368 RETROSPECT. 
 
 separated ; what is gained by technics also serves the intellect ; 
 every extension of its limits gained by the former allows the latter 
 a higher flight into a hitherto unknown world. If, for example, 
 the ancients had been able to develop in a more varied manner 
 their scanty musical instruments, and to invent, say, the organ 
 and the fiddle — which is first found among the Arabs — there is no 
 doubt they would also have put a new soul into their music. 
 
 How stationary the mechanical arts remained among the 
 Romans, and how far they were from regarding nature as an 
 object of intelligent inquiry, is particularly shown by the history 
 of Roman navigation and Roman agriculture. The size and 
 limits of the immense empire afforded occasion enough for ventur- 
 ing on the high seas. The rulers of the world were in possession 
 of the Iberian, Lusitanian, and Mauritanian coasts ; yet Pliny was 
 obliged to describe the not distant Canary Isles from the jottings- 
 down of King Jubaj it never occurred to Roman seamen or 
 traders to venture so far. The island of Hibernia, on which, 
 perhaps, Pytheas had landed three centuries before Christ, re- 
 mained a sort of cloud-land to the Romans ; it lay hidden some- 
 where behind the dangerous Bay of Biscay and the stormy rock- 
 bound Irish Channel. The Roman ships were nothing but coast- 
 ing vessels, which feared every foam-whipped promontory and 
 ran into harbour on the approach of winter. The winds, waves, 
 and seasons were regarded .in a mythic sense; the ship's beak was 
 artistically carved and the ship itself imperfectly constructed. 
 The Red Sea had long carried on a brisk trade with India, and 
 Strabo learned that one hundred and twenty ships annually left 
 the port of Myos Hormos for that distant land ; but neither the 
 ■ Indian numeral system nor the magnet-needle reached the Roman 
 West, which, tethered in its own narrow circle, was indifferent to 
 anything new, and derived no enrichment or incitement from the 
 East, as Europe did in the Arab period. To the north-east, or. 
 the Pontus Euxinus, it was the same as on the Red Sea. The 
 Romans possessed a number of fortified places on the shores of 
 the Pontus, but the trade that passed through those districts was 
 all in the hands of Asiatics, and no progress was made in the 
 geography of the Caspian Sea. How different the activity of the 
 
RETROSPECT. 369 
 
 Genoese there during the Middle Ages, citizens as they were of 
 a small town, and not protected, like the civis Romanus, by the 
 awe and majesty of the Roman name ! When they had firmly 
 planted themselves in the Crimea, they explored the Caspian in 
 their own ships, and their merchants settled in numbers at Tauris 
 (Tavriz), in Persia. There they were found by another Italian, 
 the Venetian Marco Pftlo; when he passed that way, both to 
 traverse the whole enormous continent and then, like a Herodotus 
 of the Middle Ages, to describe it. The Roman was not the man 
 to do either ; he had not a mind open to the outside world ; where 
 he could not conquer, nor lay down his own political, social, legal, 
 and military forms in regular lines like a piece of masonry, there 
 was no fascination for him ; that was not the atmosphere in which 
 he could live and move. 
 
 Roman agriculture resembled Roman seafaring ; in it, also, there 
 was no developing impulse. The tools were still the imperfect 
 ones handed down by their forefathers ; the methods were the 
 traditional ones, or at best increased by others just as unscientific, 
 forming a medley of purely practical experiences, real or supposed, 
 and of superstitious fancy. Manuring and the rotation of crops 
 were known, but not duly valued nor carried out to their conse- 
 quences. At last the soil was exhausted, cornfields were changed 
 into pastures, famines were frequent, and the importation of grain 
 became a principal care of the Government. Italy produced on 
 an average only the fourth part of the corn consumed. The true 
 reason of this want of success lay in the high price of labour, 
 which, in turn, was the result of economical and technical in- 
 aptitude and indifference to natural science. 
 
 Among the reasons that led to the destruction of ancient society, 
 it is common to give the first rank to the practice of slavery. It 
 is certainly one of the things that are incompatible with the highest 
 industrial development, but at certain stages of civilization — leaving 
 out of consideration the quality of race and the difficult political 
 and social problems therewith connected— it is a natural, and even 
 sometimes a beneficent, institution. It existed, also, among the 
 barbarians, who put an end to the antique life ; it was continued 
 with undiminished force in Germanic-Romance Europe, where ii- 
 
 24 
 
370 RETROSPECT. 
 
 naturally and gradually disappeared, passing through several stages, 
 in consequence of the progress of economical culture. In most 
 respects the condition of the slaves and coloni of Rome differed 
 only in name from the severe domestic servitude and feudal con- 
 stitution of property that prevailed in modern Europe until not 
 very long ago. Nay, in the condition of slavery there was often 
 preserved a remnant of popular rights. At all events, the slave 
 could not be dragged from the plough to the camp of the legions, 
 while the free population was decimated by conscription and only 
 gradually recruited itself by the frequent manumissions. Even in 
 Rome, if the times had not otherwise been so hopelessly retro- 
 grade, slavery could not always have maintained itself in face of 
 the growth of economical and political power. 
 
 One result of this general misery was the unchecked spread of 
 the new and visionary religion from the East, which opened to the 
 despairing race of men a saving retreat into the innermost recesses 
 t)f the soul. Christianity, while it " dissolved the depths of the 
 heart " and placed the one thing needful in the inner man, by 
 that very means undermined the foundations on which rested the 
 ancient world. The Christian, to whom the poor were the blessed, 
 and to die was gain, cared little for the acquisition and increase of 
 earthly goods ; his spirit lived in another world beheld by faith, 
 ''and he laid up for himself treasures in heaven. We know that 
 amid the general decay of intellectual production, Jurisprudence, 
 that root and core of the Roman nature, not only held its ground, 
 but went on flourishing. Yet in the long series of successive 
 jurists there is scarcely one Christian; what should such care 
 about regulating the conditions of this brief pilgrimage ? His 
 life was given him to save his soul, not to settle legal^claims. He 
 was even indifferent to a knowledge of nature and every kind of 
 science ; in believing he possessed all truth, and in any case the 
 end of things present was to be expected daily. Also in the 
 Roman camp the convert to the new religion faced the enemy 
 with very different feelings from those of the true Roman of the 
 old time. Victory was no Joy to him, and defeat and death only 
 set him free from earthly tribulation, or served as a wholesome 
 trial. His real enemy was the heathen, with his worship of beauty 
 
RETROSPECT. 371 
 
 and his self-content. Thus war and law, those pillars of Rome, 
 were deprived by the breath of the new Christian spirit of their 
 hold and their supporting power. 
 
 Another slowly operating destructive force, identical at bottom 
 with that of Christianity, was the mixture of races, the intrusion 
 of Oriental blood into the population of the West. The Roman 
 Empire comprised, in one general political framework, very diverse 
 elements of very unequal cultural value. Rome was a pande- 
 monium of diverse National minds, some unripe and crude, others 
 hardened and fettered in world-old traditions. Inflexibly as the 
 Roman State might subject these dim forces of nature to the rule 
 of common sense, it was still being gradually destroyed by their 
 secret action. The rapid fall was only a consequence of the 
 transformation of race. Natives of Africa and Egypt, Orientals 
 of every type, European and Asiatic Greeks, Spanish Iberians, 
 lUyrians, and Thracians, deluged Italy, intermarried with each 
 other, took possession of the organs of the State, of education, 
 and of literature, and not seldom even mounted the Imperial 
 throne. As early as the time of Cicero and Csesar, all the cities, 
 and Rome among them, were crowded with the circumcised, who' 
 were agreed among themselves ; and however senseless and anti- 
 human their opinions seemed to the Romans, yet with their stub- 
 born bent of mind they imperceptibly revolutionized the general 
 consciousness. It was the Jewish communities that in the first 
 instance paved the way for Christianity, and scattered the germs 
 of it, not only in outlying quarters of the capital, but in all the 
 provinces. Any one who should nakedly assert that it was not the 
 Germans, but the Jews, that destroyed the Roman Empire, would 
 be saying too much, and yet would be nearer the truth than the 
 ignorant might imagine. 
 
 " Oh that Judea had never been subdued, by Pompey and 
 Titus ! " complains Rutilius Numatianus, in his " Itinerarium." 
 "Thence comes, and now spreads far and wide, the infective 
 matter, and those who were once conquered fasten the yoke on 
 the necks of their conquerors ! " 
 
MODERN EUROPE. 
 
 The limits of ancient culture were burst open in anotner and 
 brighter direction by the entrance of North-Western and Central 
 Europe into the history of mankind. This breach was first 
 effected by the great Caesar, when he conquered Gaul and Bel- 
 gium, and set foot in Britain and Germany. Over those new 
 territories blew the breath of the ocean, and endless forests of 
 gigantic trees shaded the virgin soil. Frequent rains and mists 
 kept the land moist even in summer ; the trees shed their leaves 
 in autumn, and in winter the fen-lands froze into firm ground. 
 In contrast to the limited scenes of the mountainous South 
 European peninsulas, and the crowded horticulture of the East 
 and South, the Northern plains stretched on all sides in vast 
 unenclosed expanses, and the life within them bore the stamp of 
 these larger proportions, as the wave of the ocean is broader than 
 that of the inland sea. Where the ground was cultivated, as in 
 Gaul, the corn grew in innumerable fields ; but everywhere 
 beyond was the forest-region, the home of large game and beasts 
 of prey — the farther east from the Rhine the more rarely inter- 
 rupted by sporadic culture. 
 
 Civilization was at its commencement, especially among the 
 Britons, Belgians, and Germans ; it was already more advanced 
 among the Gauls, but still in its infancy compared with Italy, the 
 heiress of Greece and the East. Nevertheless, the Central Euro- 
 pean and Transalpine technics of life, though undeveloped, had 
 many advantages arising spontaneously out of the climate, vegeta- 
 tion, and soil, or the totally different point of departure. We 
 could count up a whole series of inventions that came to the 
 
MODERN EUROPE. 373 
 
 Romans from Gaul, but which they rather noted down than made 
 a practical use of; we will only mention, as examples, the wheeled 
 plough/'lthe carriage called rheday'%odc^, the linen shirt,, and 
 manuring with marl. 
 
 In the religious, moral, and juridical conceptions of Britons 
 and Germans, the Romans found their own long-forgotten in- 
 fancy again : they had developed this primitive condition by a 
 long succession of stages, into a firmly fixed and variously accom- 
 modated system, carried out in detail, and everywhere penetrated 
 by shrewd intelligence, and rich experience of human life ; but 
 this invaluable acquisition of culture had stiffened into conven- 
 tion, and was felt as a fetter; among the Germans there still 
 existed a direct, rude, but fresh natural sentiment ; and thoughtful 
 Romans, like Tacitus, longed for these beginnings of life, which 
 they describe with unmistakable partiality, and which, in a kindly 
 illusion, fanned them like the breath of freedom. 
 
 To elucidate this attitude of the old civilized nations towards 
 the Northern inhabitants of the forest, compare the popular epics 
 and lyrics of the Germans to the tragedies of Seneca : the former 
 are elementary, but penetrated with inherent poetry ; the latter 
 belong to a higher class of art (to which the whole of the Middle 
 Ages was not able to rise), and bear the stamp of exquisite taste, 
 but the spirit has fled — in the one, we have fancy and feeling far 
 in excess of the power of expression ; in the other, a frosty appli- 
 cation of once inspired but now hollow forms. The ancient 
 Greeks saw, often with wondering sympathy, a similar but more 
 glaring contrast between themselves and the Pontus regions, 
 which were so poor and wretched, and yet again so rich. Thither 
 the Greek ships took wine and oil, the twofold symbol of antique 
 culture, "and whatever else civilized life has to offer," says 
 Strabo ; and received in return corn, skins, cattle, honey, and— 
 powerful human bodies for service and labour (Polybius). Very 
 early the Greeks had found in that northern land a race of tl'.e 
 justest men ; and even a wise philosopher, Anacharsjs, the far- 
 travelled author of beneficial inventions, had there his home 
 Greeks had settled in the heart of Scythia, as Roman tradesmen 
 did in the capital of Maroboduus. But no new creation resulted 
 
374 MODERN EUROPE. 
 
 from the contact of Hellenes with the peasants and nomads north 
 of the Pontus, and still less a new epoch : one national wave after 
 another washed away all that had gone before ; Turkish tribes 
 rode forth from the wilds of Asia, trampling down harvests and 
 men; Slavs from the north poured over the Danube to the 
 Adriatic Sea, and deep into the Greek peninsula; and lastly, 
 following these, a Finnish race from the Ural pushed its way 
 through the midst of them, and occupied the beautiful Pannonia, 
 once inhabited by civilized men of noble race, but now become a 
 horse-pasture. 
 
 It was otherwise in the West. There, even when Rome 
 politically was fallen, Italy, Spain, Gaul, the British Isles, and 
 Germany still formed an internally united whole, the European 
 community of nations, whose ideal centre was the Eternal City. 
 To this scene of action of the Middle Ages the Byzantine Empire 
 in the East stood related very much as Western Asia had once 
 been to the Greeks : in many respects more cultivated, but 
 enslaved and deeply degenerate, with barbarians encamped around 
 it. In the intercourse between the North and South, between 
 the Teutons and Rome, lies the sum and substance of Mediasval 
 history. From Germany had come the hosts that reduced the 
 proud military-administrative edifice of the empire to ruins ; they 
 worked as liberators, because they substituted individual life 
 for a closely dovetailed, iron-bound unity. On the other hand, 
 Germany, even before the great Migration, had not been able to 
 resist the seductions of Southern culture ; and now, during the 
 Middle Ages, experienced a constant Romanizing process that 
 gradually penetrated all its veins ; its woods were rooted up, 
 settlements, and very soon towns, were founded, and the customs, 
 modes of government, and laws invented by antiquity were applied 
 on the new ground. An important centre of the fluctuating move- 
 ment of civilization was Belgium. There, at the time of Ctesar, 
 dwelt warlike Celts, who still retained the sound freshness of 
 nature ; resembling the Germans, oppressed by them, but finally 
 mixing with them ; afterwards becoming a model to the Germans 
 of advanced civilization, of agriculture, industry, and freedom, and 
 to the old Roman countries a source of youth. Belgium, North- 
 
MODERN EUROPE. 375 
 
 east France, and the Rhineland on both sides of the river, 
 seemed destined to become a peculiar kingdom with an individual 
 stamp, a link between the two halves of Europe ; but this ten- 
 dency was not fulfilled, and that region remained an uncertain 
 border-land, sometimes falling to the one, sometimes to the other , 
 part. But it was colonists from Flanders who taught the Germans 
 the higher forms of agriculture ; from Burgundy proceeded cloth 
 and linen weaving; there, too (in St. Denys, Rheims, etc.), Gothic 
 architecture was invented, and a thick crop of cities and cathe- 
 drals, each mightier than the other, was sown abroad. There the 
 fables of Reineke Fuchs circulated, and the fanatic fantastic idea 
 of the Crusades was first engendered; there the most modern of 
 arts, music, had its birthplace, and oil-painting, if not invented, 
 was at least applied and perfected. But while Germany was being 
 educated and instructed by antique culture, it was also enlarging 
 the circuit of Europe by unflagging colonization towards the East 
 — one of the greatest and never too highly to be estimated pheno- 
 mena of the Middle Ages. In the South this Germanic expan- 
 sion proceeded from the Bavarians, following the course of the 
 Danube; in the North from the Saxons, crossing the Elbe, the 
 Oder, and the Vistula, and reaching far up the coast of the Baltic : 
 in the former set of Germanized countries the Nibelungen legends 
 at least received their last form, and the colonial town of Vienna 
 rose to be an imperial capital ; in the latter, Copernicus made his 
 appearance, and, centuries after, Kant, Fichte, Winckelmann, 
 and Humboldt were born ; and while in the South the kingdom 
 of St. Stephen was drawn within the circle of the New European 
 civilization, in the North the wide territory of the Piasts and 
 Jagellons was opened to the intellectual life of the West. 
 
 When Germans had thus inundated the Western Empire, and 
 Turks and Slavs the northern half of the Greek Empire ; on the 
 other hand, from the seventh century, to complete the destruction 
 of the ancient world, the storm of Arabs broke loose over Syria 
 and the still blooming north coast of Africa. In the first rage of 
 Islam the destruction was fearful, and has never to this day been 
 made good— " when buds a new belief," the work of manypast gene- 
 rations is " uprooted like an evil weed ;" but after the first fanatic 
 
376 MODERN EUROPE. 
 
 paroxysm was over, the Arabs increased the capital of culture in- 
 herited from antiquity by many valuable contributions — for example, 
 the compass, the so-called Arabic numerals, the beginnings of 
 chemistry and pharmacy, of commercial and harbour praxis, many 
 new plants, and so on. Arabian culture itself passed away as a 
 mere episode, but what it had brought with it was farther de- 
 veloped in the West ; and when the Italian seaports flourished and 
 instituted banks and exchange, when gunpowder and linen-paper 
 were invented and more generally employed, then, after long 
 centuries of barbarism and superstition, a turning-point was 
 reached, from which life began again to rise. If the Romans had 
 been able to make the last two discoveries, perhaps the enormous 
 break in the steady advance of culture, which we call the Middle 
 Ages, would have been avoided. At the sound of gunpowder the 
 Huns would perhaps have fled back into their steppes, and paper 
 might have prevented the destruction of Grseco-Roman literature 
 — for what we possess are only miserable and scattered fragments. 
 In the fifteenth century Italy had become so much stronger again, 
 that Humanism, not only literary, but moral and political, could 
 pick up the thread which antiquity in its exhaustion had dropped- 
 The world opened itself to the eye which had recovered its sight ; 
 men felt once more the joy of existing in the midst of Nature, and 
 began to long for a knowledge of her laws and her mysterious 
 being. Armed with the magnet, bold seamen sailed from Lusitania 
 and Iberia to America, the East Indies and China ; before them 
 spread, in thousandfold abundance, the natural wonders of the 
 New World that Seneca had once foreboded — for it was not given 
 to the Roman to do more than forebode. Mathematics, physics, 
 mechanics, astronomy, anatomy, and botany, bestirred themselves 
 with youthful zeal— the Church observed them mistrustfully, but 
 could no longer stifle them ; by help of knife and balance, crucible 
 and retort, lever and pump, thermometer and barometer, telescope 
 and microscope, pendulum, logarithms, and infinitesimal calcula- 
 tion, the ever fuller and more comprehensive liberation of humanity 
 was^ prepared. That which distinguishes the modern from the 
 ancient world is natural science, technics, and political economy. 
 Turnmg from these general observations to our immediate 
 
MODERN EUROPE. 377 
 
 theme, the nomenclature of the German language teaches us that, 
 from the Migration of Nations till far into the Middle Ages, all^ 
 the produce of German gardens and a great part of agricultural 
 practices were introduced from Italy and Gaul or South France. 
 As far as the climate permitted, whatever Italy had either possessed 
 from the first, or had acquired from Greece and Asia, was natura- 
 lized by a continued migration of culture. Not only the tree- 
 fruits — pears, cherries, plums, mulberries, grapes, and all the 
 manipulations of pressing, wine-making, including the keller 
 (cellar), the tonne and kufe (tun, coop), the flasche (bottle), becher 
 (beaker), kelch (chalice), krug (crock, a Celtic word) — but also 
 flowers, vegetables, kitchen and medicinal herbs, like kohl {caulis, 
 cabbage) and kabes, kappas (caputium), erbse (ervum, pea), vicia 
 (vetch), linse {lens, lentil), petersilie (parsley), zwiebel (onion), 
 kiimmel (cummin), beete (beet-root, Slavic sveklu, a corruption of 
 seutlon), rettich (radish, which the Romans themselves got from 
 Syria under the first emperors as radix Syria), meer-rettich (quasi 
 mare-radish, corrupted from armoracia), miinze (inentha, mint), 
 coriander, kerbel (chervil), liebstdckel (libisticum for ligusticum, 
 lovage), lavender, melisse (balm), polei {pulegiwii, penny-royal), 
 fenchel (fennel), anise, karde (teasel), lattich (ladiica, lettuce), 
 spargel (asparagus), and many others — have names derived from 
 Latin ; sichel (sickle) is the Latin secula ; flegel (flail), flagellum ; 
 mergel (marl), marga, margila; speicher (granary), spicarium ; 
 butter and cheese (kase), horse and ambling palfrey (pferd, zelter) 
 are Latin ; so are the weights and measures : meile, centner (cwt.), 
 pfund, scheffel (bushel, from scaphum, scapilus), seidel (pint, from 
 situla), etc. Charlemagne's " Capitulare de villis " and the "Speci- 
 men breviarii rerum fiscalium " give a distinct picture of how the 
 Italian or Gallic villa, with all its belongings, plants, animals, and 
 the necessary utensils and modes of labour, was transferred to 
 German soil. In Italy itself, in spite of the Migration and the 
 chaotic dissolution, the number of cultivated plants and of useful 
 domestic animals had not as a whole diminished, so tough is pri- 
 vate life, and so unweariedly in its small circles do healing and 
 restoration go side by side with destruction. During the thousand 
 years of the Middle Ages down to the discovery of America, we 
 
378 MODERN EUROPE. 
 
 have not one tame animal more to record ; the number remained 
 stationary in spite of the movements in Inner Asia, the great 
 Arabic dominion from the Indus to the Tagus, and the incursions 
 of Turks and Mongols. But these events enriched the Western 
 flora with some integral members, among which, as is only right, 
 we will first consider the fruits of the field. 
 
THE RICE-PLANT. 
 (ORYZA SATIVA.) 
 
 The rice-plant, which grows on damp rich bottoms in tropical and 
 and sub-tropical climates, was everywhere cultivated in India from 
 ancient times. The marshy nature of the soil at the mouth of the 
 Indus must have been particularly favourable to this kind of 
 grain ; but even in dry and more elevated lands the sowing could 
 be so timed, that the tropical rain falling at stated periods should 
 nourish the springing plants. Though poorer in real nourishment 
 than wheat, rice was and is the food of greater masses of people 
 than wheat, not only iri India proper, but in the peninsula beyond 
 the Ganges, in the South of China, and the islands of the Indian 
 Ocean, till in the extreme East the sago-palm takes the place of 
 this cultivated grass. In the region thus described, rice is only 
 wanting in mountainous places where there is not sufficient warmth, 
 or where the monsoon rains cease, and artificial irrigation is im- 
 possible. Rice is in so far no real bread-material, that it is seldom 
 ground and baked ; it is generally eaten as a kind of porridge 
 consisting of white and swollen grains, often mixed with fat of 
 some kind or other, called by the ancient Greeks chondros, or grain- 
 porridge, and by the Latins alica, or frumenty. The art of pre- 
 paring an alcoholic drink, arrac, from rice, is an old Indian one, 
 for the Greeks had already heard of it ; although what Strabo and 
 .(Elian speak of could not have been the strong distilled waters 
 that we now call arrac and rum, but rather a kind of beer or wine. 
 The Sanskrit name of rice was vrlhi (not yet in the Rig-veda but 
 in the Atharva-veda) ; this, passing into the Iranic languages 
 would become br'izi ; and out of this Old Persic form the Greeks 
 
38o THE RICE-PLANT. 
 
 made their oryza^ oryzon, whence came, through the Latin, the 
 name used by all the nations of modern Europe. 
 
 The West first made acquaintance with rice during the wars 
 of Alexander the Great, though some doubtful traces point to 
 the middle of the fifth century B.C. Athenseus says that Sophocles 
 had spoken of an orindes artos, which later authors explained as 
 bread either made of rice, or of an Ethiopian grain like sesame. 
 If Sophocles himself connected this aiindes artos with the Ethio- 
 pians, he might mean Homer's Ethiopians, who " dwelt towards 
 the rising of the sun," or the Ethiopians of his friend Herodotus, 
 i.e., the inhabitants of the countries of the Lower Indus and the 
 neighbouririg coasts ; and then both meanings would have agreed. 
 The nasalized form orinda, orindion, agrees remarkably with the 
 Armenian brim, Persic hiring or birang. 
 
 Herodotus himself, who had already heard of the wool which 
 grew on trees (cotton), mentions a tribe of Indians who fed on a 
 wild plant, the grains of which, about the size of millet, were 
 enclosed in a husk, together with which they were boiled and 
 eaten. This also may be rice ; the faults in the description — for 
 example, that rice, which at the time of Herodotus had long 
 been a cultivated plant, is called 7mld— may be explained by the 
 uncertainty arising from the distance at which the marvellous 
 land of India was observed. Herodotus does not seem to 
 have known of any name for the grain he described. When the 
 Macedonians conquered Asia, the Indian rice became fully known 
 to the Greeks. Theophrastus correctly describes the plant, and 
 the use made of it. Aristobulus, who had accompanied Alex- 
 ander on his Asiatic campaigns, and who, when very aged, wrote 
 a history of the king, and a description of the countries he had 
 traversed ; not only describes with surprising correctness (as 
 quoted by Strabo), the mode of cultivating rice ; but mentions 
 Bactriana (on the Upper Oxus), Babylonia and Susis (both Semitic 
 regions on the Lower Euphrates and Tigris), as lands where rice 
 was cultivated. The last item is confirmed by Diodorus, who, 
 describing the battles between Eumenes and Seleucus, says that 
 the first, havin; no corn, fed his troops in Susiana on rice, sesame, 
 and dates, in which products that district was uncommonly rich 
 
RICE. 381 
 
 So that, during the Persian dominion, and no doubt as a con- 
 sequence of it, the cultivation of rice had advanced from the 
 Indus to the Oxus and Euphrates, and thence also was derived 
 the name oryza. (The words, "and Lower Syria produces it too," 
 may be an addition of Strabo's own, in whose time the circle of 
 this culture had widened.) A third informant, Megasthenes (an 
 agent of King Seleucus in the far East about 300 B.C.), had seen 
 how rice was eaten at Indian courts, and no doubt himself shared 
 in such meals : each of the guests had a kind of table in the 
 shape of a stand set before him, on which was a golden dish ; 
 into this dish boiled rice was poured, and then mixed with 
 various ingredients of Indian manufacture. So in that ancient 
 time the pilav, now common all over the East, was in general 
 use. After the founding of the Greek kingdom in Egypt, there 
 was a brisk trade carried on in rice, as well as other Indian 
 products, to the ports of that country by way of the Persian Gulf 
 and Red Sea. The Greek and Roman physicians used rice for 
 making a glutinous drink, and rice is now and then mentioned as 
 serving that purpose. From a passage in Horace, where a miser 
 is prescribed such a beverage and is shocked at the price, we 
 learn that rice was then dear : the distance from which it came, 
 and the fact that it easily spoiled, must have increased its price. 
 It was not yet used as a common food — Apicius mentions it only 
 once as an ingredient — and still less was any attempt made to 
 cultivate the plant in the West. 
 
 The merit of introducing rice into Europe is due to the Arabs 
 in Spain. Being long acquainted with the grain through the 
 Indo-Ethiopian trade which passed through their hands, and 
 accustomed to rice as food, the Arabs, after conquering Egypt, 
 had naturalized its cultivation in the Delta of the Nile, and in the 
 Oases. In their endeavour to arrange their newly conquered lands, 
 on the model of those from which they came, the Moors would 
 of course plant the watery lowlands of Spain with the favourite 
 grain-bearing grass which is still so dear to the Orientals. For 
 this purpose, besides the basins of the Guadiana and Guadalquivir, 
 the fat marsh-lands of the province of Valencia were especially 
 calculated, and then the Arabs, who were masters of irrigation,. 
 
382 THE SICE-PLANT. 
 
 soon won from the soil the desired harvests, the surplus of which 
 even reached the coasts of other European countries. After the 
 gradual conquest of the Moorish kingdoms by the Christians, the 
 Arabian rice-fields became the property of the latter, whose 
 religion fortunately did not forbid them to continue the work of 
 the infidels. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, and in 
 the beginning of the sixteenth, when the world was bent upon 
 renewing itself, and had not ceased to wonder at everything that 
 came from Africa, India, and America ; when Spanish rule was 
 established in Naples and then in Milan, while Italian commerce 
 with the Levant still flourished; — the cultivation of rice was brought 
 to Italy either from Spain or, after the example of the Spaniards, 
 direct from Egypt, and was first carried out in the places where 
 canalization and irrigation had been practised from of old, that 
 is, in the Milanese and the Venetian republic. A source of wealth 
 seemed thereby opened to the countryman, and every one applied 
 himself with eagerness to the new culture, much as was the case 
 with cotton in South Italy at the time of the Civil War in 
 America. Pasture and wheat-lands, far and near, were turned 
 into rice-fields; and from the mouths of the Alpine rivers, Po, 
 Adige, etc., from the lowlands about Mantua, Ravenna, Ferrara, 
 etc., the cultivation of that plant, which was in fact more profitable 
 than the usual cereals, spread even to the upper districts, to the 
 Romagna, Piedmont, and so on. But it was soon found that the 
 whole country was thereby changed into an artificial swamp, and 
 that fever and malaria increased to a fearful degree ; and though 
 the greed of gain is great in that southern land, the fear of bad 
 air and the evil effects of stagnant water is quite as potent. There 
 began an opposition on the part of all the governments, which 
 resulted, from the first half of the sixteenth until the present 
 century, in a series of statutory limitations and prohibitions. 
 Everywhere the rice-fields had to be so many miles distant from a 
 large, and so many from a small town. Then followed still more 
 rigorous ordinances, according to which only such land should be 
 planted with rice as was too swampy for any other cultivation, 
 and in the neighbourhood of which was no inhabited house or 
 frequented high-road. A special commission of inspection, with 
 
RICE. 383 
 
 out whose permission not a grain of rice could be sown, watched 
 over the maintenance of the legal regulations. Though these 
 limitations are still in force, the cultivation of rice is in a flourish- 
 ing state in Venetia and Lombardy, and yields a considerable 
 surplus for exportation. The cultivation itself demands much 
 care and labour, no less in the first preparation of the level fields 
 surrounded \^^th dams and ditches, and the subsequent inlet and 
 outlet of water, than during the harvest, and the thrashing, 
 pounding, and cleansing of the grain. And then the constant 
 wading and dabbling in mud and water, the hoeing, etc., have not 
 the best effect on the health of the labourers and their children. 
 
 In South Italy, where the heat and danger are still greater, the 
 interference of the authorities was more active in proportion, so 
 that whenever rice threatened to get the upper hand it was regu- 
 larly put down, and is now limited to a few uninhabited districts. 
 The produce of the whole peninsula in rice is calculated at more 
 than two milhon hectolitres, of the value of about 70 to 100 
 million lire. In Spain, this old Arabian culture has very much de- 
 clined, probably in consequence of sanitary prohibitions ; it has 
 quite disappeared from South France; in European Turkey, Busbe- 
 quius in the sixteenth century saw rice-fields near Philippopolis. 
 Though the quality of South European rice is generally excellent, 
 the trade of that region is insignificant in comparison with the 
 quantities that are brought to market from the East Indies, Java, 
 and especially America. It happened with rice as it did with 
 sugar, coffee, and cotton ; it was its introduction into the New 
 World that first made it a world-product. The Southern States of 
 the Union, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and 
 especially South Carolina, produce rice to the value of millions of 
 pounds, and, in spite of the great distance, the prices compete 
 with those of Italy. Europe was the half-way station for this 
 produce, to which the Arabs, those old intermediaries between 
 East and West, brought it, and from which others transported it 
 further to the New Indies beyond the ocean. 
 
MAIZE. 
 
 (ZEA MAIS.) 
 
 America, in its turn, made a still more important present to the 
 Old World in its maize, which now feeds a large part of South 
 Europe and the Levant, and has penetrated to China and Japan, 
 and to negro tribes in the very heart of Africa, who have never 
 seen a European. Columbus already found this grain in His- 
 paniola, and it was grown all over America as far as agriculture 
 was practised and the climate permitted. From the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century grains of it were sown in Spanish, Italian, 
 French, German, and English gardens, and soon the plant was 
 cultivated on a larger scale in the fields. The Venetians propa- 
 gated it in the East; under the name of kukuruz it became 
 naturalized in Turkey, the Danubian countries, and Hungary, 
 furnishing material for a favourite dish ; for example, the manialiga 
 of the Wallachians, in which plum-brandy, the so-called ichuka, 
 must not be wanting. It came to Germany as Turkish wheat or 
 wdlsch-korn from Italy. " Our Germany," says Hieronymus Bock 
 (Tragus) in his "New Kreiiterbuch," Strasburg, 1539, " will soon 
 be called felix Arabia, because we accustom so many foreign 
 plants to our soil from day to day, among which the large walsch- 
 korn is not the least important." In North Italy polenta, that is, 
 maize-porridge, is the usual food of the peasant ; and maize, 
 especially in the fertile plains of the northern part of the peninsula, 
 rivals wheat. Though the latter produces a better grain and finer 
 flour, as well as more wholesome nourishment, it does not give so 
 large a yield as the first, and has therefore been obliged to retreat 
 step by step from the best soil (note 89). 
 
BLACK MILLET. 
 
 (SORGUM VULGARE.) 
 
 It must have been still easier to transplant the Black Millet, the 
 dhorra and dokhn of the Arabs, from India to Europe, for it 
 appeared in Italy shortly before the time of Pliny. He describes 
 the plant exactly, and is also correct when he says that the sorgo 
 is the most fruitful of all cereals. Unfortunately the value of this 
 grain bears no proportion to its richness of production, and as 
 it is not much recommended by its colour and taste, its culti- 
 vation was very likely abandoned again. At least we hear no 
 more of the dhorra after Pliny, and it was the Arabs that intro- 
 duced the grain so common in the countries about the Red Sea 
 and in the interior of Africa, to the Mediterranean lands for the 
 second time. Peter de Crescentiis, about 1300 a.d., knows it 
 under the name of milica (now melga, melica, and in other districts 
 saggina, sorgo), and describes it as being used for fodder, and, in 
 time of scarcity, as being mixed with other flour. The different 
 species and varieties of the plant are still found in Italy, but their 
 cultivation is limited ; in a green state it is used as fodder, the 
 grain serves to feed swine, for it is hurtful to birds, the beard 
 for brooms or brushes according to size, and the straw for 
 the plaited walls of simple huts. As rye is a too northern, so 
 black millet is a too southern plant, a negro corn ; both of them, 
 despised for their darkish flour, only straggle into Italy to each 
 other's astonishment when they happen to meet (note 90). 
 
 ZS 
 
BUCKWHEAT. 
 
 (polygonum fagopyrum.) 
 
 As if in compensation for the maize it bestowed on the South, 
 Northern Europe, at the same time or a little earlier, acquired 
 from the interior of Asia a grain hitherto unknown to the civilized 
 world, namely, Buckwheat. The fatherland of the dicotyledonous 
 plant — for it is not a kind of grass like the other cereals — is North 
 China, South Siberia, and the steppes of Turkestan, and it must 
 have commenced its migration to the West in company with the 
 nations that issued forth of those immeasurable expanses. As 
 Piano Carpini, Rubruquis, and above all Marco Polo, forced their 
 way, for the first time since there was an historical Europe, to those 
 deserts of summer heat and winter ice, and to the barbaric courts 
 of small-eyed yellow men ; so in the contrary direction, together 
 with the unspeakable harm caused by those terrible races, there 
 came some stray habitudes, aptitudes, plants, which might be 
 regarded as acquisitions ; these were first introduced to the 
 Eastern neighbours of the civilized nations, and then by slow 
 advances to those nations themselves. Marco Polo himself, who 
 actually saw the true rhubarb in its original home and describes 
 that wonderful root, is silent as to buckwheat. But the first 
 botanical authors after the beginning of the sixteenth century are 
 already acquainted with that grain as introduced from abroad 
 within the memory of man. Ruellius writing in 1536, and the 
 younger Champier apparently about 1530, speak of " fields in 
 France ruddy with Turkish wheat, which came from Greece or 
 Asia in the time of our grandfathers ; " this would mean for 
 France the latter end of the fifteenth century, and for Germany 
 
BUCKWHEAT. jg; 
 
 some fifty years earlier. We are told nothing definite about the 
 route by which it came. The name Turcicum frumentum, early 
 replaced by another, ble sarrazin, grano saraceno, only dubiously 
 hints at the heathen world beyond Christendom. The names 
 used in North and South Germany are different, and therefore 
 those regions cannot have got the plant in the same way. The 
 Low German name, buch-weizen, was plainly given on the spot, 
 and refers to the resemblance of the grains to beech-nuts ; the 
 Netherlands boek-weyt passed to North-eastern France in the form 
 of bouquette, bitcail, etc., and therefore that part of France acquired 
 buckwheat from Brabant. The Low German Bibles (of Cologne 
 1470, of Lubeck 1494, etc.) use boekivete for the word which 
 Luther afterwards translated by spelt, and the High German 
 Bibles before Luther by vetch. The oldest mention of the North 
 German buckwheat is said to be contained in a register of the 
 Mecklenburg bailiwick Gadebusch, of 1436. The other name, 
 used in South Germany, heiden-korn (heathen-corn, now commonly 
 heide-korn, as if it were corn that grew on heaths), which is already 
 found in the second half of the fifteenth century, has the same 
 meaning as the Czech pohanka, pohanina, Polish pogarika, Magyar 
 pohdnka — i.e., corn acquired from the pagans ; but as other Slavs 
 of the same part of the world say also aida, haida, haidina, which 
 are evidently borrowed from the German, it is doubtful whether 
 the Bohemian pohanka be not also heiden-korn translated. A 
 third German name tater-korn, tatel-korn mtsms frumentum Tatar- 
 orum, and has its analogy in the Czech and Little Russian tatarka, 
 Magyar tatdrka, Finnish tattari, and Esthonian tatri. In this 
 word there would lie a clear hint from what nation East Europe 
 derived buckwheat, i.e., from the Tartars, by which name was 
 understood, not only the true Volga and Crimean Tartars, but also 
 the tribes of Mongolian race. But it is strange that the Russians 
 are unacquainted with this name, and therefore it seems more 
 probable that what was meant was gipsy-corn, as that wandering 
 tribe were, and still are in some parts, called Tartars or Heathen, 
 and it is very possible that they propagated buckwheat during 
 their wanderings in Western Europe, which were very frequent in 
 the fifteenth century. The Russian names grecha, grechukha. 
 
388 BUCKWHEAT. 
 
 grechikha, etc., also in German dialects grikken, means Greek 
 corn, that is, corn from the South, from foreign lands, in the same 
 way as the adjective wdlsch (Italian) is used among the Germans. 
 Then there is a name in Russia, in the districts of the Lower 
 Volga, diktcsha, wild corn — that is, either corn that grows wild, or 
 that came from the savages, the nomads on the other side ; besides 
 which the Tartar word kurluk is also used. Pallas often saw, 
 during his travels, how some of those nomads, in their passing 
 attempts at agriculture, planted the Tartar buckwheat, polygonum 
 tataricum, and others could not defend their land from it in the 
 shape of a weed. Linde, in his dictionary, says that the word and 
 plant are not to be found in Polish inventories before the reign of 
 Sigismund August, therefore not before the second half of the 
 sixteenth century. But the gryka may only have been rarer 
 then than afterwards. Taking all in all, it was the Turkish and 
 Mongolian races that introduced this new grain into the district 
 of the Black Sea, whence (if we leave the gipsies aside) it came 
 through maritime commerce vi& Venice and Antwerp to Germany 
 and France, and of course to the Netherlands ; there is no clear 
 trace of its having reached the Germans from the Slavs. It was 
 recommended by its agreeable taste and short period of growth, 
 which last is a confirmation of its origin in the severe North 
 Asiatic climate. Now vast Russia, agreeably to its geographical 
 and historical situation, is very productive of this corn ; and the 
 so-called kasha, a pap or pudding of buckwheat flour, is an indis- 
 pensable national dish which has not, like so many other things, 
 been forced upon the Russians from Europe. 
 
 In North Germany — Holstein, for instance — the common man 
 is greatly attached to his groats of buckwheat, which forms an 
 important country-article, even in the Netherlands. In the South 
 it becomes rarer and rarer, and disappears altogether in the 
 Mediterranean countries ; but in the wilder Austrian and Tyrolese 
 Alps, where maize will not ripen, one often meets in autumn with 
 the pretty fields full of the red stems and white blossom of the 
 buckwheat. It is there called plent (from polenta), and the dish 
 made of it sterz. 
 
THE ARABS. 389 
 
 During the above contemplation of many of the single culti- 
 vated plants of Asia — the citron and orange, the date-palm, 
 saffron, millet, ceratonia siliqua, etc. — it has often been remarked 
 that, although their migrations may have already taken place in 
 ancient times, they first became a lasting acquisition of the Medi- 
 terranean coasts through the Arabs. The Arabs energetically 
 took up the work of antiquity, and gave a new and mighty impulse 
 to its movement. There was a time when that Midland sea 
 might have been called an Arabian lake. It is true that this 
 warlike nation did not succeed in taking Constantinople, though 
 such an event perhaps would not have been disadvantageous to 
 that decayed capital ; and to settle on the Loire, in cold Central 
 Europe, was against their nature, and could not have lasted long, 
 whatever had been the result of their battle with Charles Martel. 
 But Arabs ruled in Egypt and the whole of North Africa, in 
 Spain, Sardinia, and the Baleares, in Sicily, Apulia, Calabria, and 
 on the coasts of the Levant. There they cultivated the land 
 and loaded ships, and in a time of general barbarism, arts and 
 polished manners flourished at the brilliant courts of the caliphs 
 and their viceroys. Nay, the impulse to transplant the vegetation 
 of Asia into Europe was deeper and of more extended influence 
 than it ever was under the Romans, whose dominion had reached 
 the heart of Asia too. Through the Arabs the Mediterranean 
 countries saw Indian products alive and growing, of which the 
 fag-end of antiquity had barely heard, or which it had received as 
 costly wares at the hands of commerce. It is true it was impos- 
 sible to transplant the pepper shrub, and nothing was yet heard 
 of coffee ; but the Silkworm was naturalized in Spain and Sicily, 
 and Moorish silks from Palermo furnished splendid coronation- 
 robes for the imperial Lord of Christendom ; Papyrus thickets 
 rustled on the borders of still waters, and Cotton and the Sugar- 
 cane tried to thrive in warm places on European soil — tlie last a 
 circumstance of incalculable importance. For, though the culti- 
 vation of sugar and cotton could not be carried on to any extent 
 in Europe itself, it became the occasion of the immense produc- 
 tion of those East Indian plants in the West Indies, of the corre- 
 sponding consumption among all the nations of the earth, and of 
 
39° BUCKWHEAT. 
 
 the world-trade that connects the two, and fills the oceans and 
 all seaports with busy life. Whoever now issues from the gate 
 of buried Pompeii — on whose roofless walls are seen hastily 
 sketched landscapes bearing witness to the successful appropria- 
 tion of so many sub-tropical trees even in ancient times — can 
 realize by the cotton-fields that lie before him, how the Moorisli 
 epoch rivals antiquity in this respect. This is proved not onl) 
 by the names zucchero and cotone, but by others derived from the 
 Arabic, or introduced by the Arabs, such as ittelia azedarakh, 
 a tree which is propagated on all the coasts of the Mediterranean, 
 the lazzeruolo or Azerolia-tree, with edible fruits, and the gesntmo, 
 gelsomino, the true jasmine, which has almost run wild in the 
 above-named region (note 91). 
 
THE TULIP. 
 
 When the Arabs fell asunder, and gradually went down, the 
 maritime commerce of the Italian cities had meanwhile shot up 
 during the period of the Crusades : Venice and Genoa ruled the 
 markets of the Levant, and conquered islands and territories. 
 This connexion with Asia helped to bring into Europe a part of 
 the wealth of those favoured Eastern regions ; and when the Turks 
 pressed forward as conquerors, even that turned out to the profit 
 of universal cultivation. For the Turks were not a merely 
 destructive nation like the Mongols ; they provided Europe with 
 much that was new and unheard-of from the treasures of their 
 native home, which enlarged the limits of custom and the circle 
 of ideas. They were lovers of trees, and especially ol flowers. 
 During the short fierce summers of Turkestan, innumerable 
 flowers of gorgeous hue bloom on dry heaths, which are exposed 
 almost uninterruptedly to the rays of the sun ; and the Turk, even 
 after his migration to the South-West, desired to see his favourites 
 in his garden, and added to them other plants unknown before 
 from the many lands united under his dominion. Thus Stamboul 
 and the Turkish Empire in general became the storehouse of a 
 new and splendid garden-flora, which migrated to Europe by two 
 main roads, those of Vienna and Venice. Of these Turkish 
 flowers the most celebrated, and most remarkable on account of 
 its further destinies, was the tulipano, so named in Italy after the 
 Persian dulbend, turban ; the wonder and admiration of the then 
 still very naive children of the West. The history of this gay, 
 showy, and most variable bulbous plant has been told by J. Beck- 
 mann with his usual thoroughness in his " Beitrage." Conrad 
 Gesner, the Linnaeus of the sixteenth century, saw his first tulip in 
 
392 THE TULIP. 
 
 the garden of an Augsburg patrician in 1559 ; and we also hear of 
 tulips blooming in the garden of the rich Fugger family in 1565. 
 The seed of the first-named plant came, some say, from Constan- 
 tinople, others from Cappadocia ; according to Clusius, Kaffa in 
 the Crimea was its home ; that is, the Crimean Tartars, kinsmen 
 of the Turks, having brought the plant with them and propagated 
 it, supplied the bulbs ; while the Italians independently imported 
 another kind, and called it tulipano. The Imperial Ambassador 
 Busbeck, who occupied himself much with this flower, is said to 
 have brought the first German tulip to Prague. From Vienna the 
 tulip reached Northern Europe, and especially England ; but the 
 flower found its most ardent lovers among the free, rich, and 
 unimaginative Dutch. In Holland there sprang up a rivalry in 
 producing new, rare, and curious varieties, which finally led to 
 the famous tulip-swindle in the first half of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, the buying and selling of samples that had never existed, a 
 bubble-trade that was the model of the scenes enacted on the 
 Paris Exchange a century later, and of modern speculations. His- 
 tory does not say whether it was even then speculative Children 
 of Israel that paid the price of a house or estate for a fancy-tulip, 
 and whether they were in the end the only winners, while all the 
 other gamesters found their imagined riches melting away in their 
 hand. Other flowers and ornamental plants that Europe owes to 
 the Crescent are the now universally propagated, sweet-scented 
 lilac, Syringa vulgaris, Ital. and Span, lilac, French lilas (an 
 Oriental name), which Busbequius brought from Stamboul ; the 
 Hibiscus Syriacus with its splendid rose-like flowers ; the aromatic 
 Oriental hyacinth, Hyacinthus Orientalis, brought from Bagdad 
 and Aleppo to Venice and Italy, which afterwards became a rival 
 to the tulip in Dutch gardens, and like it was produced in innu- 
 merable colours and varieties ; the crown-imperial, Fritillaria 
 imperialis, a Persian flower with which Europeans became 
 acquainted in the gardens of Constantinople ; the garden-ranim- 
 culus. Ranunculus Asiaticus, the favourite flower of Mohammed 
 the Fourth, who collected every variety of it, from all the pro- 
 vinces of his wide realm, in the gardens of his capital, whence 
 it spread to Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. A passion 
 
THE TURKS. 393 
 
 for flowers having been once aroused, others from different coun- 
 tries were added to the above, and other Turkish flowers — for 
 instance, the beautiful balsamine, impaiiens Balsamina, brought 
 by the Portuguese from the East Indies in the sixteenth century, 
 and still blooming everywhere in Italy ; and the carnation or gilli- 
 flower (Ital. garofolo, garofano, French millet, little eye), the 
 dianthus caryophylltis, the flower of the Italian Renaissance — for at 
 the epoch of the revival of cities and commerce, it had been found 
 growing wild in South Italy, and art and care enticed from it an 
 increase of scent and leaves, and all shades of colour. It is still — 
 
 Im scho7ien Kreis der Blatter Diang 
 Und Wohlgentch das Lelen long 
 Und alle tanscnd Farhen — 
 
 the favourite of the Transalpine nations, though the ancients never 
 noticed it. — That trees as well as flowers were spread through the 
 world by the Turks, is proved by the already mentioned beautiful 
 Horse-chestnut, with its pyramidal blossoms, and early mass of 
 foliage ; the Cherry-bay, brought from Trebizond to Vienna by 
 Clusius in the second half of the sixteenth century ; and, finally, 
 the charming, delicate, sweet-scented Albizzia Julibrissin, whose 
 Italian name gaggia di Costantinopoli betrays at what point it 
 first touched Europe. — Of cereals, we have already mentioned 
 Buckwheat as a Turkish-Mongolian grain from Upper Asia. 
 
AMERICA. 
 
 IJ'JT what mattered these belated arrivals from the East, in 
 comparison with the enormous exchange that began with the 
 Discovery of America? "America," says Kohl, very finely, 
 "emerged like a new star attached to our planet." What the 
 tropic and temperate zones of America had to bestow was no 
 mere supplement that had been accidentally neglected by 
 Phoenicians, Iranians, Greeks, and Romans, but the gifts and 
 ])roduce of quite a new world. Then commenced the second 
 great period of history, that of the connexion of both hemis- 
 pheres, for the first period had only been the development of one 
 hemisphere within itself We are still at the beginning of this 
 epoch, inaugurated by the great Genoese discoverer; and trans- 
 plantation and acclimatization have hitherto been only accidental 
 accompaniments of commerce and navigation. And yet every 
 walk we take through European parks and gardens, every drive 
 on the roads and railways, already leads us past some American 
 plants : the vitis Labf/sra, the so-called " wild vine" (Virginia 
 creeper) from North America, covers columns and walls with its 
 crimsoned autumn leaves, though it yields no grape-juice like its 
 Eastern sister from the Caucasus and Demavend; beside it 
 climbs the bright yellow blossom of the Tropxolum maj'us ; the 
 pyramidal poplar, Populus dilatata, stretches like a green colon- 
 nade, in single or double file, along our highways (a native of the 
 Mississippi, but brought to us by way of Italy, and therefore mis- 
 called " Lombardy poplar'') — the only regular-shaped tree in the 
 North, and therefore despised by the romantic and sentimental 
 school ; the American plane-tree, Platanus occidentalis, throws a 
 thick broad shade; hedges of North American acacias, the 
 
AMERICA. 395 
 
 Robinia pseudacada, surround the public gardens, in which the 
 spectator finds the Pinus Strobus, the Weymouth pine ; the 
 Bignonia Catalpa; the tulip-tree, Liriodendron tulipiferum ; the 
 magnificent Magnolia grandiflora, now universally propagated 
 south of the Alps ; the sweet violet-scented Acacia Farnesiana 
 from tropical America; the Australian Eucalyptus globulus, with 
 which the Roman Campagna is being planted; the Japanese 
 Ligusta-tree ; the beautiful Japanese medlar, Eriopothrya yaponica, 
 with its fragrant blossoms in autumn, and golden bunches of fruit 
 in spring, which is now an important cultivated plant in South 
 Italy and Sicily; the delicate pepper-tree, Schinus molle ; the 
 splendid coral-tree, Erythrina corallodendron, and many others. 
 In return for wheat, cattle, and horses — Eastern gifts of in- 
 calculable worth — we have received the Turkey-cock, maize, 
 potato, and the Opuntian cactus, or Indian fig, opuntiaficus Indica. 
 Everybody knows what the potato is to the North — and this also 
 came to us through Italy, as the name kartoffel (tartufo) proves ; 
 but it is not so widely understood that the Indian fig is almost as 
 important to the waste lands and rocks of the Mediterranean as 
 that tuber to the heaths of the North. On all the coasts of the 
 South, from the Atlas mountains and the Sierra Morena past 
 Etna, to the Taurus and Sinai, this bluish-green, prickly plant of 
 South America, producing in its strange vegetation one fleshy 
 leaf at the end of another, has covered the driest and barrenest 
 cliffs and shelves of rock, and restored them to cultivation by 
 humus soil. This cactus is planted in the lava fields of Etna, 
 and the neighbourhood of Naples, to make them more quickly 
 susceptible of cultivation ; hedges of the spine-covered plant 
 protect the fields and orchards; the leaves nourish cattle and 
 goats, and the juicy fruit forms the nourishment and refreshment 
 of the population during the late autumn and winter months. 
 Beside it grows its companion and physiognomical relative, the 
 Aloe, Agave Americana, with its enormous rosette of leaves, out 
 of which springs a tall flower stalk, like a tree or chandelier ; the 
 two plants together have gone far to complete the type of the 
 Mediterranean landscape, which had long before received its sober, 
 quiet colouring from the East, by adding a new and perfectly 
 
396 AMERICA. 
 
 harmonious element. The potato has' not become a favourite 
 among the Southerners (note 92), like the tomato, another 
 American fruit akin to the potato, and originally poisonous, the 
 Solanum Lycopersicuin, called in Italy pomi d'oro, which is used 
 whenever it can be, in the Italian kitchen. 
 
 That some shade may not be wanting to the picture of inter- 
 change with the New World, we have yet to mention Tobacco. As 
 the Europeans not only carried the beneficial results of three 
 thousand years of culture to the virgin land across the Atlantic, 
 but landed negroes and Jesuits in the South, and brandy and 
 small-pox in the North; so we owe to America not only the 
 potato and precious metals, and the example of republican free- 
 dom, but also the poisonous narcotic plant, which it now seems 
 impossible to extirpate. That a barbaric custom of drawing 
 into the mouth through a tube and again expelling the smoke ot' 
 the dried leaves of a stupefying plant, of stuffing the same leaves 
 when powdered into the nose, could ever have been adopted from 
 the Redskins by white, yellow, and black races all over the world, 
 and become so deeply rooted among them, is a fact that gives one 
 much to think about. As the pauper and the criminal in Europe 
 beg a small piece of money to buy tobacco with, so the traveller 
 or the merchant cannot more easily win the favour of a negro in 
 the heart of Africa, of a Samoyed, a Malay, etc., than by the gift 
 of a handful of tobacco. Turks, Arabs, and Persians sit still and 
 puff the smoke of this weed : a picture of their own useless, 
 apathetic, dreamy lives (note 93). During these two centuries 
 hundreds of millions have been spent on this nasty habit ; sums, 
 which, if accumulated, or productively laid out, might have made 
 all the nations wealthy ; and even now many a thousand acres of 
 \aluable land, which might grow wheat or wine, are planted with this 
 species of noxious night-shade. Perhaps the coming centuries 
 will furnish more examples of the kind. For as the Hellenes, 
 *he aristocracy of mankind, were' surrounded by barbarians — by 
 superstitious Egyptians, slavish Asiatics, drunken Thracians, and 
 Lhe like — so the European hitherto lives encompassed by inferior, 
 coloured races. The traffic that is more and more tightly be- 
 girdling the earth will bring the white man into ever-closer 
 
TOBACCO. 397 
 
 contact and community with those masses, and their crossing may 
 be the parent of many a monstrous progeny. Even then the 
 ennobling process of humanity will go on, and that immense 
 problem too be solved ; but who can tell in what long periods, 
 through what intervals of barbarism, at the expense of what 
 sacrifices, retrogressions, and ruins ! 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 In more than one lespect — apart from the errors of omission 
 which the author may have committed, and for the consequences 
 of which he must be responsible — the above sketches bear a 
 fragmentary and isolated character. For agriculture, horticulture, 
 and domestic economy are only parts of a whole, a mere extract 
 from the history of human culture which accomplishes itself in 
 every part at once. Nevertheless the universal is mirrored back 
 in the particular ; and as cultivated plants migrated from nation 
 to nation, from East to West, from South to North, so migrated 
 in the same direction, and at the same time, freedom and culture 
 in every shape. Our field-fruits and tree-fruits come from India 
 and Persia, from Syria and Armenia ; and so do our fairy tales 
 and legends, our religious systems, all primitive inventions, and 
 fundamental technical arts. Greece and Italy furnished us with 
 the nourishing and useful plants with which we surround our 
 dwellings in Central and Northern Europe ; and in the same 
 succession, those classic lands taught us nobler customs, deeper 
 thought, ideal arts, human aims, and the higher forms of political 
 and social fellowship. What is proved by the history of plants, 
 would not be otherwise expressed by the history of cultivation in 
 a wider sense. The last, also, is only a history of intercourse, and 
 as the individual man can only fulfil his destiny, i.e., the highest 
 development of his powers, in society, so nations, in proportion 
 as they rise in culture, are but the pupils and heirs of other and 
 superior nations that live round them. Therefore at all times the 
 greatest patriotism has been exhibited, not by those national 
 leaders who clung the most obstinately to native peculiarities, but 
 by those who the most frankly and readily accepted foreign 
 
CONCLUSION/. 309 
 
 teachings, and conquests of culture achieved in other lands and 
 earlier times. 
 
 This book contains a number of monographic sketches of the 
 manner in which plants and domestic animals passed from hand to 
 hand ; it would be another task, completing the first, to ascertain 
 which of its own wild native plants the West has reclaimed and 
 improved in the same way, whether spontaneously or following 
 the example of the East and South. A few instances of it have 
 been pointed out in passing, the rest must be left for a separate 
 examination. Thus, no doubt, the cabbage, now one of the 
 commonest and most useful of vegetables, grows, or did grow, 
 wild in Europe ; but when and where did men begin to plant it 
 in gardens, to transform it and make it more agreeable, and to 
 produce countless varieties, each finer and better liked than the 
 preceding, and farther removed from the parent type? Much 
 relating to this is scattered in an immeasurable literature ; much 
 must remain obscure ; something is taught by the names now in 
 use, or which were formerly common. Where the Savoy and 
 Wirsing (crisped cabbage) came from is indicated in these names, 
 for the last is simply the green cabbage, verza, of Upper Italy. 
 That Italy first taught the Germans to plant and eat any cabbage 
 at all is shown by the name "kohl," from Latin caulis; also by 
 "kabes," Slavic kapus, kapusta, from caputium and capuccio. The 
 rape-cole, " kohl-rabi," and rape-seed, "raps, riibsen," are named 
 after the Latin caulorapa, caulis rapi, and rapicium, and are 
 of recent date in Germany ; the delicate and curiously shaped 
 cauliflower is of Eastern origin, and came to Europe vi&, Venice 
 and Antwerp, to Germany only just before the Thirty Years' War ; 
 Sauer-kraut seems to be a Tartar invention adopted by the Slavs, 
 which spread from these to Germany. Like the cabbage, the 
 artichoke was a native of Europe, and is an improved thistle ; the 
 turnip and carrot, daucus carota, are also European plants. Though 
 the apple-tree may have originally grown wild in our woods, the 
 noble fruit-trees of our gardens are not directly its descendants, 
 but are derived from slips brought from beyond the Alps and 
 grafted on the native tree — an emblem of many similar and now 
 obscure titles of possession in the intellectual province (note 
 
400 CONCL US/ON. 
 
 94). On the whole, there is but little of what Europe naturally 
 possessed, that she has spontaneously raised from a wild con- 
 dition and made useful by cultivation ; she had to be prompted 
 to it, on the Mediterranean coasts by Asia, and in Central Europe 
 by the South, where all the sources of our culture lie. 
 
 For centuries, nay, for thousands of years, the cultivated plants 
 have lived with mankind under artificial conditions ; it remains to 
 be asked. How far their nature has been altered thereby ? Man, 
 by partial choice, and calculating care, produces an accumulation 
 of certain organic tendencies and aberrations; thence proceed 
 varieties, which in turn produce others ; when the intermediate 
 links have been dropt, as less susceptible of culture, we are 
 puzzled to recognise in the garden-plant the wilding from which 
 it was derived. This is a subject which now considerably occupies 
 the naturalist and in its treatment it would be of use to him to 
 have a wider acquaintance with the history, language, and litera- 
 ture of the ancients, of their pictorial and sculptural remains, etc. 
 The question seems of still more significance when applied to 
 domestic animals. But as this part of our subject, since Darwin, 
 has become the daily theme of naturalists, we will limit ourselves 
 to the following remarks on the connexion of the physiological 
 problem with the history of man. 
 
 It is, we think, an indisputable fact that not only native but 
 individually acquired characteristics are inheritable ; in other 
 words, that the fates and experiences of earlier generations be- 
 come, in later generations, fixed natural tendencies. What the 
 forefathers had once learned, often against their will, appears 
 innate in their progeny; and what was there a result is here a 
 point of departure. And the longer any condition prevailed 
 among the parents by force of circumstances, the more certainly 
 it appears as an instinct in the grandchildren. Mental move- 
 ments produce bodily changes; and while the latter are trans- 
 mitted to the progeny, they of necessity reproduce the former, 
 which are then forthcoming as intellectual tendency, born endow- 
 ment, racial characteristic, and innate skill. What we call history is 
 nothing but this slow physico-mental transformation of the younger 
 generations through the impressions received by elder ones ; and 
 
CONCLUSION. 401 
 
 the so-called Spirit of the Age is nothing but a general sense, 
 working unconsciously in the children, of the experiences endured 
 by their ancestors. If — on occasion of some sudden and seemingly 
 unaccountable new historical epoch, whose unexpected outbreak 
 and wealth of ideas surprise us — we could survey the quiet pre- 
 paration that has been going on in the generations immediately 
 preceding, all wonder would cease. Because of the slowness of 
 physiological metamorphosis, a sudden leap has at no time and 
 in no nation been possible. Should a race be suddenly plunged, 
 by a historical " constellation,'' amidst a civilization of which their 
 earlier fortunes have not rendered them capable, there inevitably 
 ensues a chaos of superficial culture, relapses, incongruous im- 
 pulses, barbaric subtlety, coarseness, and decay ; until, after 
 centuries of a stormy process, everything at last finds its equili- 
 brium. This was, for example, the case with the Germans on 
 Roman soil : they, who had scarcely yet adopted the beginnings 
 of agriculture, were obliged to live in walled towns, to submit to 
 a system of law adjusted to the most complicated relations of 
 life and the most refined necessities, and to feel at home in the 
 subtle distinctions of church dogma and the symbolic old Oriental 
 pomp of ritual ! While before they had delighted for a thousand 
 years in warlike marches, and been contented in the silence of 
 their forests with an entirely primitive worship of nature, not ex- 
 clusive of cruel sacrifices, another thousand years of a new life was 
 necessary before new nerves, muscle-fibres, brain-fibres, and diffe- 
 rently constituted blood-atoms, and, with these, other mental 
 emotions, could take the place of the bodily conformation of 
 that first period, and the inclinations rooted therein. 
 
 Therefore we cannot sufficiently estimate the slowness and 
 difficulty of the transition from a wandering hunter's-life to the 
 tjming and tending of cattle, nor of that from nomadic freedom 
 to a settled domicile. Necessity must have been very pressing be- 
 fore the Shepherd could resolve to dig up his pasture-land, to sow 
 grain, to wait for its growing, to hoard up the harvest for a whole 
 year, and so tie himself down to one spot like a prisoner and a 
 blave. As soon as the outward pressure was removed, he obeyed the 
 voice within, and returned, like a liberated captive, to his former 
 
402 CONCLUSION. 
 
 roving life. In the same way the Hunter felt cattle-breeding a kind 
 of slavery. Armed with bow and arrow, his ashen shaft tipt with the 
 sharpened stone, he freely roamed the woods, and the preparation 
 of those weapons was his only care and occupation. If he had 
 the luck to kill a wild bull, he could feast for days together. What 
 a series of tiresome, hampering, humdrum arrangements would be 
 necessary to catch that same bull or wild-cow, shut it up, accustom 
 it to ohev and follow, bring up the calf, watch the herd at the 
 pasture, and persuade the cow to let herself be milked ! Be- 
 fore all this would be submitted to, hunting must have become 
 unprofitable, and escape in any direction impossible. And the 
 moment a refuge presented itself, a relapse into the free life was 
 inevitable (note 95). But the longer the new life was forcibly 
 maintained, the more it became natural ; in the grandchildren's 
 grandchildren the old instinct of freedom began to decline, and 
 a feeling for civilization took root. 
 
 That all this is not mere fancy, but really happened, and is 
 happening still, can be distinctly observed in animals. In them 
 also the Experience of ancestors becomes Instinct in the progeny. 
 Grazing cattle will not touch plants that would be deadly or 
 hurtful to them ; but if taken to a distant land, to another 
 continent where unknown herbs grow, they are unable to dis- 
 tinguish, they sicken or die of the poison they have eaten. Birds 
 have an instinctive dread of the bird of prey that pursues them, 
 because former generations have been persecuted by the same 
 enemy, and some individuals have escaped it. Where man makes 
 war upon birds, they are extremely shy of him; but where from 
 any cause he spares them, they are familiar and bold, even without 
 individual experience, and without the example of parents. Dogs 
 that for ages have been trained to a particular kind of chase are 
 born with a decided bent for just that chase ; young sheep-dogs, 
 ■whose forefathers have been used to watching flocks for centuries, 
 bring into the world with them an unmistakable aptitude and 
 inclination for the office of guardian. Where oxen have not 
 been used as draught-cattle, it is a hard matter to yoke the young, 
 and the reverse in the contrary case. So cows, whose female 
 ancestors have not been milked, are very difficult to keep still 
 
CONCLUSION. 403 
 
 at milking-time. We have already seen that the domestic pigeon 
 became so entirely tame, because it had been for centuries a 
 sacred bird whom no one molested ; the cock, because it was 
 dedicated to the God of Day by the Persians, British Celts, Slavs, 
 Hungarians, etc. ; and the cat, because Egyptian superstition, 
 combined with Egyptian patience, had for long periods spared 
 and cherished that shy beast of prey. The summed-up expe- 
 riences of all the single individuals became at last a change of 
 nature. 
 
 The application of all this to man follows naturally. In him 
 also the process of humanizing is a slow work of time, and here 
 too the success is only sure when the same favourable influences 
 have been long at work. A thousand years of slavery, for in- 
 stance, are not to be wiped out by one Act of Emancipation ; a 
 race accustomed to other conditions of life cannot be made a 
 member of the civilized family overnight by the promulgation of 
 European laws. The greater the original difference, the longer 
 must be the necessary series of generations, and the quiet work 
 of change — so long that one is often inclined to doubt the 
 possibility of the task being accomplished. To introduce the 
 code Napoleon among some barbarous or semi-barbarous race, to 
 give the soldiers European uniforms and drill-sergeants, to lay 
 down gas-pipes, run a railway through the country, and set 
 European officials to superintend them, to forward diplomatic 
 notes in French, written by a European secretary behind the 
 scenes — all this is as easy as putting any other varnish on, but 
 only the crude, vague notions of the crowd will consider it any 
 great gain. More likely, as it disturbs quiet growth from within 
 and from below, the only result would be everlasting impotence. 
 
 We have seen how the flora of the Italian peninsula has in 
 the course of history acquired more and more of the southern 
 character. When the first Greeks landed in South Italy, the 
 woods still consisted mainly of deciduous trees; the beeches 
 grew at a lower level than now, when they are confined to the 
 highest mountain regions. Some centuries later we see in the 
 landscapes of the Pompeian frescoes nothing but evergreen trees, 
 the laurus nobilis, the olive, cypress, and oleander; under the 
 
404 CONCLUSION. 
 
 latest emperors, and in the Middle Ages, the lemon and orange 
 trees make their appearance ; and after the discovery of America 
 the magnolia, agave, and Indian fig. There can be no doubt that 
 this transformation was chiefly brought about by the hand of man ; 
 but did not — in countries like the South European peninsulas, 
 where two types of vegetation, the subtropical and evergreen,' and 
 that of the temperate zone, met together — did not the tendency 
 and impulse of Nature itself assist the efforts of man ? Did not 
 those more southern plants, with leathery leaves, strong bark, and 
 manifold armour, win the victory in the struggle for existence by 
 their tougher vitality, i.e., did they not gradually press forward to 
 where, first the Apennines, and then the Alps, form a rampart 
 against the present flora of the Mediterranean? Germany, 
 France, and England have also considerably changed in a southern 
 sense within historic times ; but the two or three thousand years 
 over which our historical knowledge extends furnish no evidence 
 of a reverse process, namely, that northern cultivated plants have 
 ever crossed the mountains, and spread over Northern and then 
 over Southern Italy. Is it not just the same with Man, and does 
 not the dark-haired always conquer the blonde ? Does it not lie 
 in the nature of the latter to approximate the former ? We have 
 no direct means of knowing what was the complexion of the 
 primitive Indo-Germanic people. At the epoch when we become 
 acquainted with it, it has long been split into branches, the colour 
 of whose hair, skin, and eyes shows two difterent types. Asiatics, 
 Greeks, and Romans are dark, Celts and Germans fair-haired, 
 blue-eyed, and of light complexion ; the former are at the same 
 time of shorter, slighter build, with lively gestures, expert, 
 sagacious, brown dwarfs, the Celts and Germans tall, red-cheeked 
 giants, with flowing hair (note 96). Fair hair seemed to the 
 Greek, as it does now to the southerner, particularly beautiful and 
 noble, and he loved to bestow it on his ideal heroes and 
 goddesses. In Eastern Europe, north of Greece, the scene of an 
 eariy mixture of nations, we do now and then find a blonde or 
 reddish complexion dwelt upon, but nothing like so decidedly as 
 in the West. Herodotus describes the Budini as fair, but rather 
 by way of distinction from the other tribes. Later, Procopius 
 
CONCLUSION. 405 
 
 speaks of the Slavs as neither dark nor fair, but inclining to 
 a light complexion; while Ammianus gives the Iranian Alani 
 moderately fair hair. The hair of the Thracians and Scythians 
 was distinguished from that of the Greeks by a lighter hue, and 
 this accounts for their being sometimes expressly described as 
 white, ruddy, and soft haired, but in most cases their essential 
 similarity to the Greeks is tacitly taken for granted. On the other 
 hand, the Egyptians are considered particularly dark, and also 
 woolly-haired, therefore approaching to thenegro type ; likewise the 
 Colchians (pre-Semitic aborigines) ; — so that we have to imagine 
 the Greeks themselves as of a warm southern tint, but by no means 
 very black. But in which of these two types, the dark or the 
 light, may we with the greater probability recognise a faithful 
 copy of the primitive time ? Everything is in favour of the 
 presumption, that that race which in its historic isolation had 
 departed least from the original manner of life, namely, the 
 northern race, had also most faithfully preserved the physical 
 signs of the parent type. Wherever, in later times, they have 
 approached the southern nature and form of life,' or mixed with 
 the darker race, there the latter have always gained the upper 
 hand. The Gauls of the later Roman period are already less fair 
 than the Germans ; so that they have to dye themselves to be 
 able to represent German captives in Caligula's triumphal pro- 
 cession ; while their kinsmen in the British Islands, the Cale- 
 donians, are still so red-haired and long-limbed, that Tacitus is 
 inclined to class them as Germans. Through the whole of Gaul, 
 the northern type, in contact with the Romans, passed over into 
 the Italian type ; who would recognise in the nervous, sinewy, 
 brown, active, under-sized inhabitant of modern France, the tall, 
 raw-boned Albino nature of the ancient Celts, who, as Caesar 
 remarks, despised the Reman for his small size ? The inhabitants 
 of South Germany, i.e., the districts along the Alpine slopes, the 
 Danube, the Upper Rhine, and even the Maine, etc., have at 
 least chestnut coloured hair, and are akin to the Romance type ; in 
 North Germany, on the North Sea and Baltic, it is far from being 
 everybody that resembles now the picture drawn of them by the 
 Romans. Goethe, whom we like to think of as the archegetes of 
 
4o5 CONCLUSIOh\ 
 
 his nation, had brown eyes and brown hair, and his copy, VVilhelm 
 Meister, was not fair; Dorothea, the beloved of Herrmann, had 
 black eyes — it is true she came from the borders of France. 
 In mixed marriages, as those of Jews or Greeks with Germans, 
 we see in the habitus of the progeny the greater energy of the 
 southern complexion, the lesser power of resistance of the 
 northern. No wonder that so little of the Goths, Longobards, etc. 
 in Italy, of the Franks, Burgundians, and Visigoths in France 
 and Spain, is now to be seen in the external appearance of men. 
 The Wallachians, an outcome of the most confused mixture of 
 north and south, are a very dark-haired, brown-coloured race. 
 Whether in these, as in many other cases that we have over- 
 looked, it is more the food, therefore the assimilation of matter, 
 or the more civilized customs, or, lastly, the mixing of races, that 
 has caused this change of complexion — in any case, the process is 
 analogous to that other, by which, from the most ancient times, 
 partly by natural ways, but mainly and indisputably by that of 
 human culture, the vegetable forms of the South-east pressed 
 forward into the West and North, and there created a different, 
 an evergreen, more ideal landscape, and gave to the groups and 
 figures in human settlements other, brighter, distincter, and purer 
 outlines. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note i, page 31. 
 
 The Yew {taxus baccatd) was already shunned as poisonous in ancient 
 times, and was believed to be a demonic tree dedicated to the gods of 
 death. Catuvolcus, a king of the Eburones, being in a desperate 
 condition, killed himself with taxus poison. During the Middle Ages 
 the yew was planted in graveyards, and as the tree is also distinguished 
 by an extraordinarily long life, splendid examples are still to be met 
 with in such places, especially in England and Ireland. C»sar, in 
 speaking of Catuvolcus, says that the yew was very abundant in Cen- 
 tral Europe ; but the beauty of its wood, which was as valuable to 
 turners and carvers as box became afterwards, led to whole districts 
 being stript of it. In ancient times it was used for making bows so 
 exclusively that, for example, its Old Norse name ?^, jr, also means a 
 bow (just as Homer's melia, an ash, is also a lance) ; and the K-rune ■ 
 has the shape of a bow. So the Greek toxon, a bow, is nearly 
 related to the Latin taxus and Slav, tisii, the yew ; and these words 
 fall into their places in the large word-family. No. 235 in Curtius. 
 Taxusyiss the material for the wood-carver, as the Gothic thaho,argiUa, 
 for the moulder in clay ; and each might have been called Tychios as 
 well as he who in the Iliad makes Ajax's shield of seven ox hides ; or 
 even Teukros, who, though not a master-workman, always hits upon 
 the right thing. — Another interesting name for the yew runs through 
 the series of nations from West to East, but so that it gradually dies 
 out in the latter direction with the tree itself. Old Ir. do {=:zvus, as 
 bSo=vivus), Cymr. yw. Corn. hiven,Bret. ivin — in extended form Old 
 Ir. ibhar, ibar, yubar, which last still means both yew and bow, and, 
 according to Zeuss, is the root of the tribe-name Eburones — Span, 
 and Port, iva, Fr. if, Mid.-Lat. ivus, Old High Germ, iva, iga, A. S. 
 tiv, edw, Engl, yew, Dan. ibe, Swed. id, Old Pruss. invis, yew ; but 
 Lith._j'^z/a and Lett, eva, lazy-tree, Slav, iva, willow. In Lithuanian 
 
4o8 NOTES. 
 
 the yew is called e^^lus or oglus, which is like the Sizs. yeli,ygla, fir. 
 In the homeland of the Slavs, between the sources of the Dnieper 
 and Volga, the taxus tree grew no longer (nor the beech, and for tlie 
 same reason the Finns have formed their tammi, oak, out of the Slav. 
 dabti, oak, or the German timbr) ; and so in their language the names 
 zva and iisu, tisa, etc., have come to mean the sallow and pine. 
 But commerce very early conveyed yew-wood, and buckets, bows, 
 etc., of yew from the Rhine country to the Baltic, where the tree was 
 scarcer, and thence to the Aists (Esths) and Wends, where it alto- 
 gether ceased. — That horn-bows were used as well as those of yew, 
 we have evidence from early antiquity and the distant East. In the 
 ' Odyssey Ulysses turns his bow about to see if during his long absence 
 the worms have not bored through the horn ; and in the Iliad Pan- 
 darus the Trojan possesses a bow which the keraoxoos tekton has 
 made for him out of the horns of a wild goat. The Hungarians, on 
 their appearance in the West, are also described as being armed with 
 horn-bows ; sitting on their swift steeds and gnashing their teeth, they 
 shot from these bows their well-aimed and poisoned arrows. In the 
 Nibelungeti-Lied one of Etzel's men is significantly called Hornboge, 
 horn-bow. 
 
 Note 2, page 31. 
 
 To this very day the carts of the Nogais, the so-called arbas, 
 give us a picture of these ancient waggons. The wheels and axle 
 turn together, and as they are never greased, they cause a frightful 
 screeching that is heard far over the steppes. The Nogais are 
 proud of this noise and say, " We are no thieves ; we can be 
 heard from afar" (J. von Blaramberg, Erinnerimgen, vol. i. p. 
 loi. Berlin, 1872). Similar waggons, whose ancient origin is 
 evident, exist elsewhere. When the Austrians marched into Bosnia 
 in the autumn of 1878 an eye-witness wrote : " No Bosnian peasant 
 has a cart in which even an ounce of iron is to be found. Wheels, 
 axles, nails, are all of wood. A tire or clamp is a thing unknown ; a 
 Bosnian waggon with six horses makes a screeching that goes through 
 one half a mile away. It has never entered a Bosnian's head to 
 grease a cart-wheel." It is certain that the waggons of the Cimbri at 
 Verona in the year loi B.C. exactly resembled these Bosnian carts. 
 
 Note 3, page 31. 
 
 The sheep has been a domestic animal from time immemorial, but 
 the art of shearing it was unknown to primitive nations ; the wool 
 was plucked out by hand. Even in our nineteenth century C. J. 
 
AO'JES. 409 
 
 Graba found this custom practised in the distant Faroe Isles ("Journal 
 of a Voyage to Faroe in 1828." Hamburg, 1830). After circumstan- 
 tially describing the process, the author continues : " It looks more 
 cruel than it really is, for only the wool that is near falling of its own 
 accord is torn off; the rest is left and taken a fortnight later." In 
 Italy this plucking of wool was still practised in some places as late 
 as the date of Varro and Pliny. Pliny, 8, 73 : " Oves non ubique 
 tondentur, durat quibusdam in locis vellendi mos ;" according to Varro, 
 De r. r., 2, 1 1, 9, those who stuck to the older method kept the animals 
 fasting for three days, so that the wool might come out more easily. 
 Varro can even fix the date when the first shearers (and shears, of 
 course) came from Sicily to Italy, 2, 11, 10: " Omtiino tonsores in 
 Italia priinum venisse ex Sicilia diciint post R. c. a. CCCCLIIII, itt 
 scrip turn in publico Ardece in Uteris extat, eosque adduxisse P. 
 Ticinium Menam." They came from Sicily ; that is, in this case also, 
 Greeks were the teachers. From a passage on the subject in Homer 
 it may appear doubtful whether in the epic period sheep were shorn, 
 or the wool was still plucked out. Iliad, 12, 451 : 
 
 big d' on Troifi7)v psia ipkpu iroKov apatvog oibg, 
 Xeipi Xa^iyv Mpy, Hkiyov dk fiiv d\SfO£ lirtiyti. 
 
 That is, Hector lifted the heavy stone as easily as the shepherd — 
 either the sheared fleece or the bundle of plucked-out wool. But the 
 word TTOKog is in favour of the latter meaning. rtoKof, as well as the 
 verb viiKuv in Hesiod, Op. et D., 775, dtg ttukuv, and in Theocritus, 5, 
 98: 
 
 dW iyih is xXaivav fioKaKbv ttokov, oiriroica vt^d 
 rav div tclv TriSXav, KpartSg. Siapriao/iai airog — 
 
 is the specific expression for carpere lanam, in contrast to Ktipeiv, 
 Kapfjvai, to shear, to cut off. In the Odyssey, 18, 314, Ulysses calls to 
 the maids : " Go into the house to your mistress and entertain her ; 
 sit by her and turn the spindle or pluck the wool with your hands : v 
 tipia TTEiKET-s xEpo-iv — puUlng and plucking is very similar to combing 
 {ir'iKTtiv, pectere, pecten), which has nothing to do with shearing. This 
 primitive meaning of ■n'tRav is well confirmed by the identical Lithu- 
 anian verb, pdszti {sz=k), which still means to pull, to tear. In the 
 same way the Slavic runo, fleece, is formed from ruvati, to pluck. 
 Varro, who frequently recurs to the subject, thinks it indubitable that 
 vellus, fleece, was also derived from vellere, to pluck. Modern exposi- 
 tors, like Corssen, separate the two words, connecting vellus with ipiov, 
 nvXog, and vellere with the Gothic vilvan, to rob (properly rend). 
 Varro, De 1. 1., 5, 8, also quotes the opinion that the Velia, the next hill 
 
4IO NOTES. 
 
 to the Palatine, was called so from the Palatine shepherds plucking 
 the wool off their sheep in that place ; from which we at least gather 
 that those earliest shepherds were not thought to have used the shears. 
 — It was the case with sheep's wool as with the human hair in time of 
 mourning. To tear out the hair when in affliction was natural to the 
 passionate gestures of the South and of antiquity ; and Homer, in such 
 cases, uses the verb t'OCKuv, riWea^ai, which expresses the action of 
 tearing out. In later times, when a man's hair was no longer his pride, 
 and mourners shaved their heads and beards, the custom was a mere 
 form ; and so, in other parts of the epic and in later poetical speech, 
 another word, mpav, KelpeirSrai, is used. — We do not know exactly how 
 early the custom of shearing was practised in the East ; at any rate, 
 it was earlier than in Greece. As " the sheep-shearing " is spoken of 
 as a country feast in the oldest portions of the Bible, modern com- 
 mentators have supposed that a general shearing took place at a fixed 
 time. But there is not much force in the argument. It must be 
 remembered that the flocks of the patriarchs were not kept merely or 
 mainly for the sake of the wool ; that the sheep, besides the use of 
 their milk, were principally destined to be killed and eaten, and their 
 skins to be used for clothing and bedding. 
 
 Note 4, page 31. 
 
 See Hehn's treatise, Das Salz. Eine Kulturhistorische Studie, 
 Berlin, 1873. Still more copious is the book by M. J. Schleiden, Das 
 Salz. Seine Geschiclde, seine Symbolik und seine Bedeutung im 
 Menschenleben. Eine Monographische Skizze, Leipzig, 1875, which 
 attempts to handle the subject from all points of view. This oppor- 
 tunity is used to add a few notes to the first-mentioned study. 
 
 According to an essay by R. Ludwig, in the Archiv fiir Hessische 
 Geschichte und Alterthumskunde,yo\. xi. p. 46 seq., Darmstadt, 1867, 
 the bathing-place Nauheim, between Frankfort and Giessen, was 
 an old Celtic salt mine. In that place, besides Celtic coins and 
 bronze vessels, there have been found earthenware vessels for making 
 salt. To what Celtic nation did this salt-pit belong ? Perhaps to the 
 Boii, for though Helvetians of the early time may have dwelt near the 
 Main, they can hardly have crossed that river. Or was there here, in 
 the Germanic land, a salt work carried on by Celts under compulsion 
 or for hire ? To refer the name of the 'AXauvoi used by Ptolemy to 
 the Celtic word haloin, as we have done in agreement with Zeuss, is 
 hazardous, because the change of j into h is only found sporadically 
 in early times, and first becomes general towards the end of the 
 Roman Empire. But in the name of the Celtic Salassi, who dwelt in 
 
NOT£S. 411 
 
 the highest Alps, there may well be contained the idea of salt, in 
 which case the account of these people by Appian, Illyr., 17, would 
 contain a legendary motive that had some sort of connection with the 
 name. We are told that they had been obliged to submit to the 
 Romans because they had no salt. Afterwards, when they revolted, 
 they stored up a quantity of salt in their mountains for purposes of 
 defence. My conjecture on page 49 of the treatise on salt, about the 
 origin of the name Heilsbronn, has been refuted in Zeitschrift fiir 
 deutsches Alterthum, Neue Folge, vol. vi. p. 153 seq. — The salt- 
 pit of Salzungen on the Werra is already mentioned in a diploma of 
 Charlemagne, year 775 (Wenck, Hessische Landesgeschichte, vol. iii., 
 Urkunden, book No. 5): "' Ad Salsunga super fluvium Uuisera . . . 
 ubipatellas ad sale facere ponuntur" — The river Halys (first mentioned 
 by Herodotus, and named, according to Strabo, 12, 3, 12, from the 
 salt springs past which it flowed) owes the Greek form of its name to 
 the Hellenic colonists on the Pontic coast. If in the Armenian agh, 
 salt, the gh is equal to /, and the s, after the Iranic and Greek manner, 
 has passed into an aspirate, and then entirely disappeared, it would 
 prove that the Armenian language, which already leans to Europe, 
 possessed the European word sal, and that possibly the name of the 
 river was originally a Phrygio-Armenian one. — Harinc, herinc, herring, 
 is very aptly explained by Mullenhof, from the German, as meaning 
 Aeer-dsch, fish that come in hosts (V. Rose, in the Hermes, viii. 
 p. 226, 1874). With this a part of the difficulty ceases, but there 
 remains the Old Norse sild, Lith. silke, Slav, seldi, which can only 
 mean the salt-fish. And we do not yet see how the problem of Saale 
 =salt-river, //a//=salt-pit, can be explained, except by supposing the 
 latter to be a Celtic form of the word. 
 
 Note 5, page 32. 
 
 These subterranean dwellings are found in the most different regions :\, 
 they are the oIkoi. 'itravrpoi. koX Karaaxiai of the Sacas in ^lian ; the oIkmi 
 Karayuoi of the Armenians described by Xenophon ; the demersae in 
 hitmicm sedes and specus aut sub/ossa of the Satarchs in Mela ; the 
 defossi specus of the Scythians ; the subterranei specus of the Germans, 
 which were covered with dung to keep out the cold. Old High Germ, 
 and Mid. High Germ, tunc, whence is derived the German Dung, 
 Dilnger, duag,screana in the Lex Salica, Old French escregne, etc. (see 
 Wackernagel in Binding's Geschichte des burgundisch - roinanischen 
 Konigreichs, i. p. 333, who thinks the word German, and connects it 
 with the A. Saxon scraf, antrum). Greek expressions for such caves 
 are yim;, yvjrapiov (used by Hesychius and Suidas, Aristoph., Hgu., 
 
412 NOTES. 
 
 790, Old Slav. zupiste,zufiiliste—cam\i\ns, sepulcrum, Pol. zupa=sa.\i& 
 fodina), (puiXtog, to. (puXid (also in the form yaiKeoo), TpiiyXt], whence the 
 name of the Troglodytes on the Arabian Gulf, in the Caucasus, etc. 
 Gradually the ^offrooJf rose higher, and the cave under the house 
 served only for a winter-dwelling and for women. But the ancient 
 custom is preserved here and there to the present day, and a stranger 
 approaching such a village thinks the slightly elevated roofs are 
 natural risings in the ground. In Russia, wherever any earthworks 
 are undertaken, for example, in making a railway, the first thing done 
 is to form such caves : a funnel-shaped hole, steps on one side, and 
 some logs above covered with turf, and the dwelling is complete. The 
 huts of the Wallachian peasants, the so-called bordeitz, have a slanting 
 entrance ; in the interior there is sometimes, but rarely, a window, 
 which is pasted over with paper and lets in very little light. Towards 
 the end of autumn all cracks are stopped up, doors of hurdle-work 
 are fixed, and underground stables dug (see the instructive book by 
 C. Allard, La Bulgarie Orientals, Paris, 1864). The want of air 
 makes these troglodyte dwellings insufferable ; the stench and suffo- 
 cating atmosphere sometimes drives even the seasoned inhabitants 
 out into the winter cold. Then there is the plague of fleas, of whicfc 
 all travellers here and throughout Siberia complain. The fleas abso 
 lutely force the natives to sleep out of doors whenever the season 
 allows, which is the principal cause of the frequent ague. The insects 
 cover the subte. ranean wall so thickly that it seems black. In 
 primitive times, and more to the north, where the winters are long 
 (for example, in Scandinavia before it was reached by Southern 
 culture), the same conditions must have prevailed in as great or a 
 higher degree, and whoever wishes to realize those times, will do well 
 not to forget this feature of the picture. And here let us call to mind 
 another boon of civilization. Travellers in Siberia, from Pallas and 
 Humboldt down to the latest, are unanimous in their descriptions of 
 the torments endured in summer from gnats, midges, spiders, gad- 
 flies, stinging-flies, etc., that fill the air and attack man and beast 
 (see Sibirische Reise, by Middendorff", vol. iv. p. 830). It is impos- 
 sible to defend one's self from these blood-suckers ; there is only one 
 means, to deprive them of their habitat by draining and cutting down 
 the forests. In this respect Germany, before the Roman age, was 
 exactly like Siberia (Middendorff: "There is no doubt that our fore- 
 fathers in the heart of Europe were also exposed to the same torments 
 that are now suffered by travellers in all primitive regions. . . . Send 
 the man who doubts the benefits of culture into primitive nature among 
 the mosquitoes. . . . The plague of mosquitoes is undoubtedly the 
 principal cause of the migrations of deer and reindeer.") It is true 
 
NOTES. 413 
 
 that the skin of the ancient German must have been far more im- 
 pervious to the stings of insects than that of the educated modern 
 European ; but where the skin is insensible, so are also mind and soul. 
 
 Note 6, page 32. 
 
 That the German custom of making drinking vessels out of the 
 skulls of slaughtered enemies was not derived from their Scythian or, 
 later, Turkish neighbours in the East, is proved by the existence of 
 the same custom among the Celts at a very early pre- Germanic period. 
 The Boii in Upper Italy did the same with the head of the fallen Roman 
 consul, Postumius (Livy, 23, 24 : " Purgato inde capite, ut 7nos its est, 
 calvajn auro caelavere, idque sacrum vas Us erat quo sollemnibus 
 libarent, poculuinqice idem sacerdoti esset ac templi antisiibus") ; and 
 Ammianus Marcell., 27, 4, in describing the primitive times of the 
 Celtic Scordiscans in Illyria, uses the words : " htimanum saiiguineTii 
 in ossibus capitum cavis bibentes avidius." 
 
 Note 7, page 32. 
 
 The custom of getting rid of old people was prevalent among the 
 Teutons of Germany and Scandinavia, among the Wends, Lithu- 
 anians, and Romans (see Grimm, RA., chapter 4, at the end of the 
 1st volume). The same is related of Iranian nations : of the Bactrians 
 (Strabo, 11, 11, 3), the Caspians (11, 11, 8), the Massagetse (11,8, 6), 
 etc. Old age is unbearable, and even the gods hate it {Hymn to 
 Ven., 247 : 
 
 oiXontvov, KafiaTripbv. re uTvysovffi Bsoi irep). 
 
 The aged man himself wishes that he were dead, and begs his family 
 to kill him. People in a state of nature, like the peasantry now, are 
 not sentimental, they are indifferent to the death of a relation, or to 
 the thought of their own. What Herodotus, 5, 4, tells of a Thracian 
 people, the Trausians, that they pitied the new-bom child because the 
 sufferings of life awaited him, and praised his death as a release, 
 what Theognis says v. 425 f., and what Euripides expresses in the 
 celebrated passage in the Cresphontes (Nauck, Eunpidis /ra^vimita, 
 Lipsiae, 1869, No. 452) ; 
 
 *XP^'' ydp yjfiaQ avWoyov n'oiovfisvovg 
 Tov (pvvra Bprjvilv tig off' ipxiTii Kaicd, 
 rbv S'aS Savovra Kai mvuiv ireTravpivnv 
 j^aipovrag iv^TJiwvVTag iKTrspirsLV doptuv — 
 
414 NOTES. 
 
 this is at bottom the view taken by all nations at a certain stage of 
 awakened reflection. It is a step farther in development, to comfort 
 one's self with the hope of a life after death, free from mortal limita- 
 tions, as the Getas did, whom Herodotus calls ol aSava.TiX,ovTiq, the 
 immortalizers. 
 
 Note 8, page 32. 
 Among all the Indo-European races we find, in the obscurity of 
 primitive times, traces of human sacrifice and cruel burial-ceremonies ; 
 gradually disappearing, like all religious delusions, according to the 
 stage of humanity or connection with more civilized nations. For 
 the customs of the Greeks and Romans, we refer our reader to the 
 copious information contained in E. von Lasaulx's Suhnopfer der 
 Griechen und Renter, in the " Studien des Klassichen Alterthums," 
 Regensburg, 1854, and to Welcker's "Griechische Gotterlehre." There 
 are many proofs of such customs having prevailed among Northern 
 nations, lasting the longer the more they approach the north-east. 
 When Alexander the Great marched against the Taulentians, an 
 lUyrian people, they and their neighbours sacrificed three boys and as 
 many girls, and three black goats, before they went to war (Arrian, 
 I, 5, 11). The Celtic Scordiscans sacrificed their prisoners to their 
 barbaric gods (Amm. Marcell., 2,7,4: "Scordisci, saevi gtwnriam et 
 truces, hostiis captivorum Bellonae Utantes et Marti"). The Gala- 
 tians of Asia Minor did the same : the pro-consul Cn. Manlius, in a 
 speech before the senate (Livy, 38, 47), says that the surrounding 
 nations were exposed to their disastrous incursions, " Quum vix redi- 
 mendi captives copia esset, et tnactatas humanas hostias immolatosque 
 liberos sues audirent." Caesar, a century and a half later, reports of 
 the Gauls, in Gaul proper {De B. Gall., 6, 16) : "Qui sunt affecti 
 gravioribus morbis, quique in proeliis periculisque versantur, aut pro 
 victimis homines immolant aut se immolaturos vovent, administrisqtte 
 ad ea sacrijicia Druidibus utuntur, quod, pro vita hominis nisi 
 hominis vita reddatur,non posse deorum immortalium numen placari 
 arbitranttir,publiceque ejtisdem generis habent instituta sacrificiaj" and 
 Mela confirms this with an expression of horror (3, 2, 3) : " Gentes 
 superbae, superstitiosae, aliquando etiam immanes adeo, ut hominem 
 optimam et gratissimam Diis victimam caederent." We find the same 
 murderous belief among the Germans, Tac, Germ., 9 : " Deorum 
 maxime Mercurium colunt, cui certis diebus humanis quoque hostiis 
 litare fas habent:" 2,^: " Staio temporein silvam . . . coetmt, caesoque 
 publice homine celebrant barbari ritus horrenda printordia." Jorn. 5 : 
 " Quern Martem Gothi semper asperrima placavere cultura (nam 
 victimae ejus mortes fuere captornm), opinantes, bellorum praesulem 
 
XOTES. 413 
 
 apte huviani sanguinis effiisione placandum.'' Procop., De B. Goth., 2, 
 15 : TSiV Ss tCjOEf'fo]/ aipiai ro KaWtaTov dvOptairoQ itSTiv, ovit^p av Soptd\turov 
 •Koir]aavTO wptorov ' tovtov yap ti^ "Apti 6vov<nv, Inti Bsbv avrbv vo^iKovai 
 jikyiaTov Hvai (oi QovXirai). When the Romans under Germanicus 
 entered the field on which the legions of Varus had been surrounded 
 by the barbarians, the ground was strewn with the limbs of horses, on 
 the boughs were stuck their heads, and in the neighbouring groves 
 the altars were still standing, on which the tribunes and centurions of 
 higher rank had been sacrificed ; a few survivors pointed out the 
 gallows on which the common soldiers had been hanged, and the 
 ditches into which the corpses had been thrown, etc. (Tac, Ann., 
 I, 61). After the furious battle between the Chatti and Hermunduri, 
 of which Tacitus speaks in Ann., 13, 57, and in which the Chatti were 
 beaten, all that were taken alive were devoted to destruction, occisioni 
 dantur. The prophetesses foretold future events from the movement 
 of the victims' muscles, the splashing of their blood in the sacrificial 
 cauldrons, and the position of their intestines. It was the same 
 among the Cimbri (Strabo, 7, 2, 3). Among their women were holy 
 prophetesses, bare-footed, grey-haired, and clothed in white linen 
 mantles fastened with brooches and confined with iron girdles ; these, 
 sword in hand, seized the prisoners in the camp, and led them, 
 covered with the sacrificial garment, to a large iron cauldron, containing 
 about twenty amphorae ; then they mounted the steps which led up to 
 it, and bending over, cut the throat of each prisoner. Some prophet- 
 esses prophesied from the blood which streamed into the cauldron, 
 while others cut open the bodies, and examining the intestines fore- 
 told a victory. Human sacrifice on a large scale was also customary 
 among the Scandinavians. Thietmar of Merseburg relates that the 
 Danes celebrated every nine years, in their capital city, Lethra, a 
 great festival, at which 99 men and as many horses were slaughtered. 
 Thietmar explains that they did this to clear themselves of all guilt 
 before the gods of vengeance: "Putantes, hos eisdem erga inferos senji- 
 turos et commissa crimina apud eosdem placaiuros." Probably the 
 same meaning of a propitiatory sacrifice prevailed in the similar great 
 festival celebrated, according to Adam of Bremen, 4, 27, by the 
 Swedes every nine years, at Upsala. There nine heads of every male 
 creature were offered up, the bodies were hung on trees in the neigh- 
 bouring grove, and left to decay ; men and dogs hung there together. 
 The Scholiast, 137, adds in completion, or correction : " for nine days 
 together they sacrificed every day one man, together with other 
 creatures, so that in nine days there were sacrificed seventy-two 
 creatures ; this sacrifice took place in spring, when day and night 
 are of equal length." In times of national calamity, or as an expres 
 
4i6 NOTES. 
 
 sion of special gratitude, men were sacrificed to the gods in an 
 exceptional manner, as we are informed by old Northern legends 
 (Grimm's "Teutonic Mythology," chapter on Worship.) So on the 
 opposite coast of the Baltic, in Esthonia, that is, among the Prussians, 
 Adam of Bremen (De situ Daniae, 224) : ''Dracones adorant cum volu- 
 cribus, quibus etiam vivos litaiit homi?t€s, quos a mercatoribus emunt, 
 diligenter omnino probatos, ne maculam in corpora habeant." — As 
 general as this religious custom was that of slaughtering women, slaves, 
 prisoners, and horses at the funeral pile of a dead man. Achilles, in 
 the 23rd book of the Iliad, sacrifices to the shade of Patroclus, horses, 
 dogs, and twelve young Trojans, whom he himself had caught alive 
 for that purpose ; and on his own tomb Polyxena was sacrificed, as 
 we read in the 'IXiou Tilpuit; of Arctinus. Among the Gaiils, shortly 
 before the time of Caesar, servants and prot^gds who had been 
 favourites with their masters were burned with his corpse (i?« 5. Gall., 
 6, 19 : '■'Paulo supra hancmemoriaTnservi etclienies, quos ab lis dilectos 
 esse constabat,jusiisfuneribus confectis, una cremabantur") ; and relations 
 jumped into the burning pyre in order to be united with the dead (Mela, 
 3, 2, 3 : " Olim . . . erant qui se in rogos suorum, velut una victuri, 
 libenter immiiterent"). Among certain Thracian peoples, the wives of a 
 dead man contended for the honour of being slaughtered athis grave — as 
 H erodotus, 5,5, relates : She that succeeds in being thus considered the 
 most beloved, is applauded by every one, and buried with her husband ; 
 the others are despised, and bewail their lot." The same thing is 
 reported, in a longer description by Mela, 2, 2, 4, as being a universal 
 Thracian custom. Among the Herulians (and probably also among 
 the neighbouring and kindred nations on the Baltic) the wife hanged 
 herself at the grave of her husband ; whoever neglected to do so 
 would expose herself to eternal shame, and the hatred of her hus- 
 band's relations (Procop., De B. Goth., 2, 14). Well-known are the 
 cruel burials of the Scythians described by Herodotus, 4, 71 and 72 : 
 " When the king is dead, one of his concubines is strangled and 
 buried with him, as well as his cupbearer, his cook, marshal, body- 
 servant, messenger, horses, etc. ; and a year after, fifty servants, 
 whom the king had chosen out of his subjects — for there are no 
 bought servants — are strangled, likewise fifty of the finest horses." 
 Among the Slavs, as is unanimously reported by St. Boniface and 
 afterwards Thietmar, the wife was burnt with her deceased husband- 
 Epistle of Boniface and other bishops to King /Ethelbald of Mercia 
 (between 744 and 747, Jaffe's Monumenta Moguntina, p. 172) : 
 " Winedi, quod est foedissimum et deterrimum genus hominum, tarn 
 magna zelo matrimonii amorem mutmini observant, ut mulier, viro 
 propria mortuo, vivere recuset. Et laudabilis mulier inter illos esse 
 
NOTES. 
 
 417 
 
 judicatur, quae propria inanu sibi mortem, intulit, et in una stru/> 
 pariter ardeat cum viro suoj" Thietmar of Merseburg, 8, 2, says of 
 the Poles : " In tempore patris sui (that is, of the father of Boleslav 
 Khrabry), cum is jam gentilis esset, unaqtiaeque mulier post viri 
 excquias sui igne cremaii decollata subsequitur." The Prussians also 
 buried horses, servants and maids, hounds, etc., with the dead — Peter 
 of Dusburg, 3, 5 {Scriptores rerum prussicarum, i. p. 54) : " Unde con- 
 tingebat quod cum nobilibus mortuis arma, equi, servi et ancillae, 
 vestes, canes venatici et aves rapaces et alia quae spectant ad miliiem 
 urerenturj" and when they were converted they had to promise 
 that they would no longer burn or bury men and horses with the dead 
 at a funeral — Dreger Cod. Pomeran. diplom.. No. 191, of the year 
 1249 (treaty between the Teutonic Knights and the Prussians) : " Pro- 
 miserunt, quod ipsi et heredes eortim, in mortuis comburendis vel sub- 
 terrandis cum equis sive hominibus, vel cum armis seu vestibus vel 
 quibuscumque aliis preciosis rebus, vel etiam in aliis quibuscumque , 
 ritus gentilium de cetero non servabunt." Gedimin, the Grand Duke 
 of Lithuania, farther east, where heathenism and old ways lingered 
 longest, was buried in the following manner as late as 1341, at the time 
 of Petrarch and the commencement of the Renaissance (Stryjkowski, 
 Kronika polska, end of book xi.) : " A pyre was erected of fir-wood, 
 and the dead man, dressed in the clothes he had liked best when 
 living, was laid upon it, as well as his sword, spear, bow and arrows. 
 Then, amid the lamentations of the surrounding warriors, two falcons, 
 two hounds, a living saddled horse, and the favourite servant were 
 burnt with the corpse. Claws of the lynx and bear were thrown into 
 the flames, as well as a portion of the booty taken from the enemy, 
 and finally three captive German knights were burnt alive. When 
 the flames were extinguished, the bones and ashes of the prince, the 
 servant, the horse, and the dogs, etc., were collected together and put 
 into a grave at the place where the rivulets Wilna and Wilia meet, 
 and there covered with earth." The Edda, in the third song of 
 Sigurd the slayer of Fafnir, informs us of the funeral customs of the 
 Scandinavian Teutons. After Sigurd is murdered, Brunhild kills 
 herself, and while dying, gives the following directions (we follow Sim- 
 rock's translation) : "Burn at the side of the Lord of Hunes my 
 henchmen adorned with costly chains, two at his head and two at his 
 feet, also two hounds and two hawks. Thus all is evenly arranged." 
 ■So much for Sigurd's following ; for herself she desired : " With me 
 shall follow him five of my maids, also eight henchmen of gentle 
 birth, my foster-brothers grown up with me, whom Budli gave to his 
 child." 
 What were the ci.stoms of the East Scandinavians, who, under the 
 
 27 
 
4i8 NOTES. 
 
 name of Russians, invaded and subdued the East of Europe, as war- 
 riors, robbers, and rulers, we see from two notices, one by a Byzan- 
 tine and the other by an Arab, both all the more important as they 
 belong to the tenth century, and our other authorities do not reach so 
 far back. Leo Diaconus (ed. Hase, 9, 6, p. 92) : The Russians, 
 shut up in Dorostolum under Svietoslav, engage in frequent battles 
 with the Greeks in the open field before the walls. Once, when such 
 a battle had taken place, in which Ikmor, the second m rank after 
 Svietoslav, was killed, the barbarians collected the corpses by night at 
 full moon, and burned them on funeral piles ; on which also, according 
 to ancestral custom {Kara rbv Ttarpiov vofiov), most of the prisoners, men 
 and women, were slaughtered. And they offer sacrifices to the dead 
 {ivayiaftovQ), sucklings and cocks being strangled on the Danube, and 
 then sunk in the stream. Still more explicit is the description given 
 of a Russian burial by the Arab Ibn-Foszlan (Frahn, p. 131 seq.), who 
 was an eye-witness of it in 921 or 922. A chief had died, and a girl in 
 his service offered to die with him. The deceased was placed in 
 a half-sitting posture on a couch in a boat ; a dog was cut in two and 
 thrown into the boat ; all the dead man's weapons were laid beside 
 him ; two horses were hewn asunder and the pieces thrown into the 
 boat, as well as two oxen, etc. The girl was strangled with a rope by 
 the men, while at the same time an old woman called the " Angel of 
 Death " stabbed her to the heart with a knife ; after which the two 
 corpses, with all the other things, were burnt. During the slaughter 
 the men kept up a great clashing with their shields to drown the 
 death-cry of the girl, which might have disinclined other girls to seek 
 a similar reunion with their masters. Before being killed, the girl had 
 taken off her armlets and given them to the Angel of Death (whom 
 the Arab calls " a devil with cruel gloomy eyes "), and had presented 
 two girls who served her, the daughters of the old murderess, with 
 her anklets. We pass over the remaining details, which make this 
 account one of the most precious monuments of early northern anti- 
 quity. J. Grimm (treatise on Cremation) passes it over in disgust, 
 because it disturbs his plan ; the founder of German archaeology was 
 after all a pupil of the Romantic period, and his chief design was, in 
 contrast to the eighteenth century, to discover traces of a deep mean- 
 mg in the childhood of a nation. — It would be easy to add to the 
 above quotations, but they are sufficient to prove the universality and 
 high antiquity of such customs. When we now dig up the stone or 
 earth-tombs of the primitive European ages, we do not often think 
 what cruelties, what pangs, what horrors may be linked with each 
 atom of dust ! But nothing more clearly shows the nature of those 
 early races, and the gloomy narrowness of their spirit, than this pic- 
 
NOTES. 419 
 
 ture of women obliged to rival each other in pressing forward to a fiery 
 death, of servants immolated by the dozen, of prisoners butchered in 
 the gloomy forest or over the great cauldron. In Gaul, murders in 
 honour of the dead had gone out of use before the arrival of the 
 Romans— a result of increasing civilization ; but human sacrifices to 
 the gods had to be rooted out by strict prohibitions of the Roman 
 emperors (Sueton. Claud. 25 : " Druidarum religionem apud Gallos 
 diraeimmattiiatis . . . penitusabolevif"). Tacitus paints a fascinating 
 picture of the scene at the conquest of the Isle of Mona (Anglesey), 
 in whose sacred groves prisoners were killed, just as they were at the 
 sanctuary of Nerthus, or in the Teutoburg forest after the defeat of 
 Varus. The shore of the island was held by an armed multitude ; female 
 furies, clad in the colour of death, with streaming hair, waved their 
 torches, while the Druids lifted their arms to heaven and cried aloud 
 —all in vain, for the Romans forced a landing and felled the sacred 
 trees, the witnesses of centuries of bloody mysteries {Ann. 14, 30: 
 " Excisique luci, saevis superstitionibus sacri, nam cruore captivo 
 adolere aras et hominum fibris consulere deos fas habebant"). 
 
 The fact that bloody burials ceased spontaneously in Gaul, while 
 religious human sacrifices only yielded to force, proves how much 
 more easily mere popular tradition melts away before the rising light 
 than the maddest religious ordinances guarded by a priesthood. The 
 hold of the latter upon the Germans, Lithuanians, and Wends was 
 first loosened by Christianity ; and if we are sometimes tempted to 
 regret the sudden break in the organic development of a naive race, 
 caused by its conversion to Semitic Christianism, we need only recall 
 such features of heathen life to be reconciled to its immediate fall. We 
 will also add, that every first beginning, every undertaking and founda- 
 tion, demanded human blood as the warrant of its success or duration ; 
 likewise every secret, for only death is completely dumb. When the 
 Saxons found themselves forced to leave the west coast of Gaul and 
 sail homeward, custom demanded that every tenth prisoner should 
 be cruelly slaughtered before weighing anchor (Sidon. ApoU. Ep. 8, 6 : 
 "Mos esiremeaturis decimttm qtcemque per aequales et cruciarias poenas 
 —plus ob hoc tristi, quod superstiiioso, ritu — necare "). The converted 
 Franks marched to Italy under their king, Theudebert, to fight against 
 the Goths under Witigis ; on the point of crossing the Po and begin- 
 ning actual war, they there sacrificed what children and wives of 
 Goths they found, and threw their corpses into the river as the first- 
 fruits of the enterprise(Procop., D. B. Goth., 2, 25 : wmSas n rai yuraj/cae 
 
 TitiV VorGiiiV^olbpntp ivravQa lipoVjUpiVoi'TeKai auTutv ra ffoifiara t^TOV ttotci^ov 
 aapoOivia tov iroXipov ippiiTTovv). When a fort or bridge was built, a 
 living person was walled up (Grimm's "Teut. Myth." p. 114-14); 
 
420 NOTES. 
 
 and when a town was founded, its safety and solidity were secured by 
 human sacrifices. When, for example, Seleucus Nicator founded 
 Antioch on the Orontes, the high priest sacrificed a virgin (kojji) 
 •wapQivof,) exactly between the future town and the river, and this was 
 considered to secure the good fortune of the city (Joh. Malalas, 8, 
 p. 256, ed. Oxon.). So, when Moscow was about to be built in 1147, 
 the proprietor of the land, one Kutschko, was drowned in a pond ; 
 and Cracow, according to the legend of its founding related by Kad- 
 lubek, was built on the rock of the dragon slain by the two sons of 
 Kraku, but not till the younger brother had killed the elder, as Romulus 
 did Remus, etc. When a treasure is buried, when an action of the 
 utmost secrecy is going on, of which no one must hear, all the work- 
 men employed in it have to die. The chariot, clothes, and image of 
 Nerthus (Mother Earth) were washed in a hidden lake, and the ser- 
 vants who had assisted were drowned in the same. When King 
 Alaric suddenly died in South Italy, his Goths diverted the course of a 
 river, buried him in its bed, then allowed the water to return and cover 
 the grave ; but lest any one should find the place, the captives who 
 had been made to do the work were killed Qorn., 29 : " Collecto capti- 
 vorum. agmine, sepuliurae locum effodiunt . . . ne a quoquam qiian- 
 doque locus cognosceretur, fossores oinnes interemerunt "). Long before 
 that, Decebalus, king of the Dacians, had tried to hide his treasures 
 from the Emperor Trajan in an exactly similar manner as Cassius Dio 
 relates (68, 14) : he turned aside the river Sargetias that flowed past 
 his castle, buried his gold and silver in its bed, and turned the water 
 back again ; his splendid garments, which might have suffered from 
 the damp, were hidden in a cave, and the prisoners of war, who had 
 done the work in both cases, were killed. But it was all in vain, for, 
 as Dio goes on to tell us, the king's confidant, Bikilis, was taken by 
 the Romans and told them what had happened. — It was the constant 
 care of all ancient nations to hide their treasures from the enemy, and 
 no doubt we owe to this circumstance many an antiquarian discovery 
 already made or awaiting us in the future. 
 
 In what has been said above, we have confined ourselves to the 
 Indo-European nations ; but that the customs described extended 
 beyond that circle is proved by the following passage in Livy, 
 Epit., 49 : " Extant tres orationes ejus (Servii Stdpicii Galbae) — una in 
 qua Lusitanos propter sese castra habentes caesos fatetur, quod comper- 
 tum habuerit, equo atque honiine suo ritu inimolatis, per speciem pacts 
 adoriri exercitum suum in animo habuisse." So that the Lusitanians, 
 an Iberian nation, also sacrificed a man and a horse at the commence- 
 ment of a military enterprise ! And this happened between 1 50 and 
 200 B.C., earlier than any similar transaction that we know of among 
 Celts or Germans. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 421 
 
 To close this gloomy picture with a more cheerful trait, we will 
 remind our readers of an occurrence that took place in modern times. 
 When Friedrich Wilhelm, the last Elector of Hesse, died at Prague, in 
 January, 1874, the funeral car, both at Prague and afterwards at Cassel, 
 where he was buried, was drawn by the eight cream-coloured horses 
 of which he had been so fond ; and which, as a newspaper report 
 asserted, were to be shot after performing their last service ; 
 apparently for the prince to take to the heavenly regions with him, 
 just as the Scythian kings had their horses sent after them. 
 
 Note 9, page 32. 
 Among the numerous vouchers for the ancient custom of casting 
 lots, we will only mention here the striking occurrence which Csesar 
 relates towards the close of his first book. Caesar had sent two mes- 
 sengers to the camp of Ariovistus to hear his proposals. One was 
 CcBsar's friend, Gaius Valerius Procillus, a young man distinguished for 
 virtue and culture, and acquainted with the Gallic tongue ; and the 
 other, M. Metius, who stood on the footing of guest-friendship with 
 Ariovistus. Scarcely had that king perceived the two Romans whqn 
 he cried out, "You are spies !" refused to hear them, and ordered 
 them to be put in chains. Then came the battle which ended in the 
 flight of the Germans ; during the pursuit, Casar himself came up 
 with the trebly fettered Valerius Procillus, and rescued him from the 
 guards who were dragging him away. The liberated captive related 
 that accident alone had saved him : three times before his very eyes 
 the lot had been cast whether he should be burned immediately or 
 spared for a later opportunity ; three times the lot had been in his 
 favour, and thus he had remained alive. Caasar, as he says himself, 
 was not more rejoiced at the battle he had won than at this stroke of 
 good fortune, for his victory would have been dimmed if his beloved 
 friend had remained in the hands of the barbarians. M. Metius was 
 also found, and brought back to Caesar. 
 
 Note 10, page 33. 
 ndXif and fopulus contain the idea of fulness, multitude. Thiuda 
 (whence thiuiHsk, our deutsch and DeutschUmd) is also found in the 
 Italic, Celtic, and Lithuanian languages, and comes from the root iu, 
 to swell or grow. The German leute; Slav, liudu, a people ; Old 
 Prussian ludis, the master, the host, the man ; Lettish lattdis, people, 
 folk, has its root in the Gothic verb liudan, to bud ; the Slavic naridii, 
 race, people, world, in roditi, to beget or bring forth, etc. We will 
 not here enter into this rich theme which would lead us too far, and 
 
422 NOTES. 
 
 will only mention the celebrated old name of Goths. For there is no 
 doubt that that name is to be explained by the verb giutan, to pour, 
 Greek x™) Latin fundo, fudi. The Goths are effusi, profusi, like 
 mankind in general ; like the leaves of the forest which the wind blows 
 down and spring causes to bud ; like the swarming of fish, and the 
 seeds of life everywhere. Jesus Sir., 14, 19 : " Like the green leaves 
 on a beautiful tree, of which some fall and others grow again ; so it is 
 with the people, some die and some are born." Homer, IL 6, 181 : 
 
 •' Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
 Now green in youth, now shed (xs«) upon the ground ; 
 Another race the following spring supplies ; 
 They fall successive, and successive rise : 
 So generations in their course decay ; 
 So flourish these, when those are past away." 
 
 " Shall I fight with thee," says Apollo (II. 21, 535), " on account of 
 poor mortals who owe their life and nourishment to earth ; like yearly 
 leaves that now smile on the sun, now wither on the ground ? " The 
 Ciconians (Od. 9, 55) : 
 
 " Thick as the budding leaves or rising flowers 
 O'erspread the land, when spring descends in showers." 
 
 The Achasans, too, are like leaves or grains of sand (II. 2, 800). 
 Homer speaks of ^uXXiuv x""'?! a pouring of leaves (Hesiod, Op. et 
 -C-.42I): 
 
 UXi/, 0u\\« 5' CjOa^E x"*« 
 
 And Pindar of the corn (Pyth. 4, 42) : 
 
 iv TfO d^BiTOV vdaifi KixvTm AifSvag 
 eipvxopov OTTipfia Trpiv iipaQ, 
 
 The same verb in Homer is used for crowds of men or animals, as in 
 II. 5, 141 : of the sheep that crowd together {Kixwrm) as tliey fly ; II. 
 16, 259, of the myrmidons who pour forth like wasps under the leader- 
 ship of Patroclus ; II. 2, 447, of the Achaans who " crowd Scaman- 
 der's flowery side" (TrpoxkovTu) ; II. 15, 345, of the Trojans streaming 
 to the fight (vpoxiovTo) ; II. 19, 222, of the bloody harvest mown down 
 by steel {ixiviv) ; Od. 22, 425, of the fish that flounder panting on the 
 sands (Kixwrai), etc. In Aristotle {Hist. anim. 5, 9, 32), x"i-oi 
 Ix^vtQ are swarming fish that go in shoals and are caught in nets ; 
 Hesychius has areduplicateicoxw, with the meaning many, sufficient ; the 
 Scholion to Theocritus, 2, 107, has an else unknown substantive k&xoq, 
 a full current. Still nearer to the Latin, Gothic, and Albanian words 
 (Alban. heth, huth, I pour, throw), are the forms Koxw^iu, to flow abun- 
 
NOTES. 423 
 
 dantly (in Theocritus), x"^")"! abundantly, in heaps, x"^"'?", x"^"'"?, 
 yvSciiaTi, xw^a'ow, x"^"'"'"')? — ^ referring to what is popular, common, 
 vulgar. That the Latin /undo was also used of the generative 
 power of the earth is proved by passages like that in Lucretius, 5, 917 : 
 " Tempore quo primutn tellus animaliafudit ; " Cic, " terra fruges fun- 
 dilj" Virg., "funditvictuvi tellus, fundit humus flores" eXc. Just so the 
 Old Norse gjdta is to beget ; got or gota, fetura piscium ; while the 
 meaning, " to pour," is almost lost in that dialect. So the Goths, both 
 of Germany {Gutos, Guians) and of Scandinavia (Gauiar, Gotar), are 
 simply those poured out, teemed from the bosom of the earth, the 
 mass of living men (as the Gothic name for the world is mana-seths, 
 men-seed), a name that is far more ancient than the proud compounds 
 with which Celtic and also German nations adorned themselves in 
 later and historic times. — In the Lithuano-Slavic languages giutan is 
 altogether lost, and is replaced by Slav. Hyatt, liti, to pour ; Lith. 
 IHif to pour ; letas, pouring ; lyti, to rain ; lytus or letus, rain. It is 
 not at all far-fetched to find in this word the root of the names 
 Lithuania and Lithuanian, Lituva and Lituvis, as well as that of their 
 neighbours and fellows in culture, the Goths, in giutan. 
 
 Note ii, page 33. 
 
 The Greek x<'^"") -^olic xiKKwi, has lately been identified with the 
 Sansk. sahasra, Zend, hazanra. If this be correct— which we leave 
 undecided — the Greeks have borrowed their word for thousand — as 
 mille and thusundi show — from Asia, the home of high numbers 
 and giant periods, just as they formed their /iipwi, with the usual 
 change of d into m, from the Zendic baevare, or one of the correspond- 
 ing West Iranic forms. Benfey thinks that all the other European 
 nations had lost their common designation of the number thousand, 
 as well as their ancient culture, during their long migrations, and had 
 afterwards to re-invent them. But this is contrary to the nature of 
 the human mind. A people that moves into new places might forget 
 many natural objects to which they had been accustomed in their 
 former home, but if they had once been able to grasp the idea of 
 thousand they could never again deteriorate from that stage of 
 psychical^development. The conception of such a quantity as thou- 
 sand is nothing like so easy to the child of nature as one would think, 
 and it is not at all surprising that the immigrating Indo-Europeans 
 should not yet have known how to express it. The Finns first learnt 
 from the Slavs to think and say a hundred, and the common Russian 
 still calls ten thousand //«a— obscurity. 
 
424 NOTES. 
 
 Note 12, page 60. 
 
 Since the above sketch of the Horse was finished, two writings 
 important to the theme have appeared, the contents of which are not 
 in general contradictory to our deductions, but rather, from an 
 archEeological point of view, confirm- them. We mean the Silbervase 
 von Nicopol, by L. Stephani, which vase the author refers to the fourth 
 century B.C., the best period of Greek- art ; and the Sepulchral 
 Chamber of Kertch described by W. I. S>t3.%soS {Chambre SdpukraU 
 avec Fresques, dicouverte en 1872 prh de Kertsch, St. Petersburg, 
 1875, gr. 4°.) As the acute and erudite author of the latter treatise 
 was assisted in his work by the celebrated traveller and hippologist 
 A. von Middendorff, and frequently refers to the Vase of Nicopolis, 
 we believe our readers will be grateful if we here give a concise 
 account of what the said inquirers have gained for the history of the 
 horse by the archseological method. My own brief remarks are 
 inserted in brackets. 
 
 The monuments of Oriental and classical antiquity show us three 
 types of horses : the horse of the steppe, the half-draught horse (more 
 fitted for drawing than for riding (demi-cheval de trait), and the 
 saddle-horse {cheval de selle). On the Vase of Nicopolis the first two 
 kinds are faithfully portrayed. The horse ridden by the herdsman is 
 a saddled, pure steppe horse, resembling the modern Calmuck horses ; 
 while the horses of the herd itself are no longer of the primitive breed 
 of the steppes, but rather draught than saddle horses, and seem 
 reared on fertile bottom lands. They are similar to the Assyrian 
 horses depicted on the walls of Khorsabad. The Assyrian horse is 
 also a half-draught animal, and points to still richer grass lands. (It 
 does not seem to me that the improved Scythian horse can be derived 
 from the Assyrian animal ; their resemblance is probably explained 
 by their common origin in Media.) An older Assyrian breed, with 
 which we are made familiar by the Nineveh sculptures, rather 
 resembles the archaic Greek horses depicted on vases. This latter 
 animal is described as follows — very slender legs, stout croup, long 
 round neck ; joining of the neck to the breast like that of a stag ; 
 hair of the tail, mane, and forehead, short ; the tail standing off. The 
 same features are found in the Egyptian horse, and the Greek horse 
 gained its shape under Egyptian influence (historically I think it 
 hardly possible ; both kinds may have come from the same region, 
 Western Asia, and much about the same period). In contrast to the 
 above-named two types is the third, the thorough riding horse seen 
 on the monuments of the Sassanides and those of the Romans ; for 
 example, in the bas-reliefs of Trajan's column. It is not tall, has a 
 short body and legs, is strong, sinewy, broad-chested, and rather 
 
NOTES. 425 
 
 short-necked ; it must have been developed from the Arabian horse ; 
 its ancestor may be seen in the sculptures of Persepolis. From this 
 horse or its relations the Sassanide and Roman horse derived its 
 compact form and noble head. (When first the Persian Empire, then 
 the Macedonian, Greek, and lastly the Roman, rendered general 
 exchange and traffic possible, an increasingly beautiful breed of horses 
 spread farther and farther, from the Euphrates to the Tiber, and 
 from the Tigris to the Nile. Hence the similarity of race in the later 
 representations of the Iranic East and European West. The same 
 times and circumstances created the Arab, which since then has 
 become the noblest of its kind, as the Median had been before.) In 
 the frescoes of the sepulchral chamber at Kertch, which belong to the 
 period between the beginning of the second and end of the fourth 
 century A.D., and which have nothing Greek or Roman about them, 
 we find the inhabitants of Panticapaeum in possession of the im- 
 proved Arabian horse ; the only animal tliere that is at all like the 
 primitive race of the steppes being that in picture 6 ; at the same 
 time all the accompaniments, ornaments, weapons, costumes, etc., are 
 Iranian in character. Another striking proof of the hypothesis that 
 the primitive inhabitants of the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of 
 Azov, among whom the Greeks planted colonies, were of Iranian blood, 
 which afterwards got mixed with, or was supplanted by, the Turkish. 
 
 All this presupposes that the authors of the drawings and reliefs 
 went to work in a naturalistic way, and did their best to seize and 
 reproduce the features of the living object before them. But how if 
 they lived in an age of religious and artistic conventionalism, and 
 merely imitated the stiff forms of a, given style ? Or if, living in a 
 freer time, they obeyed the laws of ideal beauty such as they were 
 capable of conceiving? In the oldest Greek sculptures the men look 
 like Egyptians — must we therefore conclude that nature bestowed 
 Egyptian faces on the old Greeks, and that the latter were even 
 descended from Egyptians? It will be seen that in this case the 
 history of art has a word to say, but the result is only to make inquiiy 
 into the dates of the monuments preserved to us still more doubtful 
 and complicated. 
 
 Thus much as regards the above-named essay. The present writer 
 does not in the least imagine that he has exhausted the subject by his 
 more historic treatment, or that all questions relating to it are solved. 
 Still he believes that he has established the principal points of view, 
 and quoted the weightiest authorities ; arranging the latter according 
 to the former. Many interesting facts, such as Castration, which ori- 
 ginated with the Scythians, Sarmatians, etc., in the east of Europe 
 (Strabo 7, 4, 8) ; and Shoeing, which was unknown to antiquity, and 
 
426 NOTES. 
 
 is first proved with certainty to have existed among the Byzantines in 
 the ninth century (Beckmann's Beitrdge, 3, 122), have been passed over 
 because they seemed irrelevant to primitive history. 
 
 "^ Note 13, page 61. 
 The formation of the word rftXaayoi is not yet satisfactorily 
 explained, but its meaning seems to be that given in the text. 
 Strabo 7, Exc. I and 2 ; ^aal liKai Karirfiv rSivtAoKoTTuiv Km QtcirpitiTwv 
 yXwrrav rag ypaiac weXi'af KoKtlaSrai Kal rovg yipovrae viXiovs. The 
 same immediately afterwards, with the addition : KaBajrcp Kai irapi 
 MuKidoai' jreXiyovaf yoiv KaXoviriv iKcivoi rave iv ri/tdig, Ka9a vapa AaKwirt 
 Kal MaaaaXliorais rovg yipovrag. To this may be added the Albanian 
 pliai=senex, vetus. ^schylus makes Pelasgus call himself the son 
 of the earth-born Patechthon, Suppl. 250 : 
 
 Tou yjjyivovg yap eifi' iyut IlaXaixBovog 
 Ivig TJiXaayog, rijg otyijg apxriyirrig. 
 
 In Homer-JrotnEXa(77oi'=the venerable. The name rpaiKoi, Graeci,has- 
 the same meaning, and 'laovig probably the contrary one. 
 
 Note 14, page 61. 
 
 Some modem philologists, such as Deimling (Die Leleger, Leipzig, 
 1862), consider the Lelegian nations and tribes to be early immigrants 
 from Asia Minor ; in which case they would have had no right to be 
 called Greeks and near relations of the Pelasgo-Hellenes. If they 
 were such by religion and speech, they could have had no other origin 
 than that of the European Indo-Germans in general, and the Greco- 
 Italians in particular. Asia Minor was peopled (l) in the north by 
 western offshoots of the great Iranian race, which already formed a 
 connecting link with Europe, viz., the Armenians and their kinsmen 
 by blood and language, the Phrygians (see the express testimony of 
 Eudoxus and Strabo) ; (2) in the south-east, by branches of the 
 Semitic family ; (3) in the middle, by races which in blood and 
 culture were a mixture of the two. Thracians, pressing forward from 
 the Danube, may have early reached the south coast of the Propontis 
 by way of the Hellespont ; and Pelasgians and Leleges the western 
 shore, by one of the numerous chains of islands that almost bridge 
 the sea. They were then penetrated in the north with Lydian and 
 Phrygian elements, and in the south absorbed or governed by the 
 Semites. But in return, the Carians — a nation which in Herodotus's 
 time considered itself aboriginal to Asia Minor — went over into the 
 
NO'/'SS. 427 
 
 islands, where they made slaves of the Leleges, and here and there 
 occupied points on the continent — for example, Epidaurus. In the 
 same east-and-west direction Phrygian tribes passed over into Thrace, 
 and introduced Oriental culture, so far as they possessed it, into 
 Europe. Herodotus once mentions, in passing (7, 20), a great migra- 
 tion of the Mysians and Teucrians over the Bosphorus, which took 
 place in pre-Trojan times. They are said to have subjugated all the 
 Thracians, and penetrated to the Adriatic Sea, and southward to the 
 river Peneus. Our Giseke {Thrakischpelasgische Stdmme der Balkan- 
 halbinsel, Leipzic, 1858) has built a whole book on the passage, 
 and reconstructed a large part of the primitive history of Greece on 
 that basis. The two straits that close in the Propontis may have 
 often witnessed such and counter-migrations. The Pasonians on the 
 Strymon may have been the remains of one, though the assertion 
 of the two Pasonians in Herodotus (5, 12, 13) that they were descen- 
 dants of the Trojan Teucrians may be only an echo from the Iliad, 
 where the Paeonians are allies of the Trojans, and though the 
 manners of the Paeonian maiden struck Darius as particularly un- 
 Asiatic ; but the Great Migration, which gave Greece and Italy their 
 similar population, and further away comprises the Celts, and north- 
 ward the Germans, Slavs, and Lithuanians, certainly did not take 
 place from Asia Minor. 
 
 Note 15, page 62. 
 However thankful we may Jse to the late Von Hahn for his com- 
 munications relating to the Albanian language and customs, his 
 speculations on their primitive history cannot be accepted. The 
 attempt to explain the old Lycian inscriptions by means of modern 
 Albanian, and to stamp that idiom as specifically Iranian (O. Blau in 
 the Zeitschrift der D. M. G., xvii. 649) was undertaken with such 
 scanty materials that it necessarily fell through. We may, therefore, 
 feel astonished that Justi, in the preface to his handbook of the Zend 
 language, is inclined to entertain such an airy hypothesis, and to con- 
 sider the Albanian dialect " an offshoot of the Aryan languages, and 
 especially a descendant of the Lycian speech." There is nothing as 
 yet to prove that the Thracians were a pure Iranian race, as P. de 
 Lagarde (Gesammelte Abhandltmgen, p. 281), and, after him, Roesler 
 (Dader und Romdnen, p. 81, in the Reports of the Academy of Vienna, 
 1866) are inclined to assert. The only Thracian gloss which has an 
 undeniably Iranian stamp is the name of the so-called Thracian tribe 
 of the Saraparai, or beheaders, in Strabo (11, l\, 14) ; but this will 
 people lived beyond Armenia, in the heart of Asia, in the vicinity of 
 the Guranians and Medians, and it was there that they acquired that 
 
428 NOTES. 
 
 nick-name. Examine Strabo's woras : (paal Si (mind, only " th&y say") 
 Kal epaicuiv Tivag, rovQ 7rpo<jayopivoii.ivove (by the surrounding nations ?) 
 ^apaTtapae, oTov KefaXoTO/iovg, olicrjaai. vwip Ttjg 'Ap^tvlag, TrXjjtri'ov Tovpaviuiv 
 Kai MriSuv, QtipMag ivBpdjTTOvg xal AireiSElg, optivovg, mpiaKvdiaTag re Kal 
 aTTOKtipaXuTrae. If the Thracian Ppll^a be really connected with vrtAi, 
 rice, it was very likely a foreign word that had travelled from India by 
 way of Iran and Asia Minor to the Thracians, and therefore proves 
 nothing. The Thracian demon Zalmoxis, or Zamolxis, says Porphyrias 
 in the Life of Pythagoras, was so called because directly after his 
 birth a bear's skin was thrown over him — ti)v yap Sopdv Op^ictg ZaX/ibv 
 KaXoviriv, If oX?if here means bear, it would certainly agree with the 
 Aryan, but not less with the European words : Greek dpKTog, Latin 
 ursus for urctus. If we join the p. to the second half, as /io?if , we have 
 the Lithuanian meszka, Slavic mdcika, the bear. But as skin-bear 
 cannot be said for bear-skin, P. de Lagarde thinks of explaining 
 ?aX;tto5ie as meaning the brown skin; but even this results in nothing 
 specifically Iranian ; polig would have its analogue in Europe in the 
 Slavic mechii, fur, fell, and the Slavs are no Iranians ; ZaX is also 
 quite common in Europe ; for example, Lith. zalas, green, zelti, to 
 grow green, zole, grass ; Slav, ziliye herb, zeUnyi green, etc. ISut 
 the explanation brown skin has two important faults. First, no god 
 or man can be simply called skin, and the only thing that is probable, 
 or in accordance with the thought of the Northern nations, is that the 
 Thracians imagined their god in xh^fortn of a bear, or as clothed in a 
 bear-skin, and styled him accordingly ; secondly, the word which is 
 said to form the first part of the compound never means brown or 
 dark yellow, but always green, or greenish yellow, and is therefore 
 unsuitable for a bear-skin. So there is nothing to be gained for the 
 Iranian origin of the Thracians from the name Zamolxis ; and either 
 — as was common with the ancients after Herodotus — Porphyrins 
 coined his !;a\p.6g = skin, out of the name of Zalmoxis ; or that word, if 
 correctly quoted, corresponds to the Greek xXa/it's, cloak (as Fick pro- 
 posed) ; in which case the latter half of the word would mean some- 
 thing like -dad or -ed in fur-clad, furred. On the other hand, the con- 
 nexion of the Thracians and the kindred Dacians and Getse — they all 
 spoke one language, as Strabo expressly asserts — with the nations of the 
 north is manifold. Grimm, while pursuing his unfortunate hypothesis, 
 proved many kindred features between the Getaa and Germans; an 
 analogy between the Getic and Slavic tongues was acutely recog- 
 nised by Miillenhof (see the article "Geten" in the Encyclopedia of 
 Ersch and Gruber). Among the Dacian names of plants the only 
 two that can be explained, propedula, cinquefoil, and rfy«, nettle, are 
 pure Celtic. Similar things turn up as regards the lUyrians. In 
 
NOTES. 4:9 
 
 modern Albanian tnally is mountain, and di two. Niebuhr ( Vortrdge. 
 iiber alte Ldnder-und Volkerkutide, p. 305, Berlin, 185 1) pointed out 
 that these two words exactly make up the name of the old lllyrian 
 city Dimallum, which stood on a two-peaked mountain ; and that 
 Albanian must be a sprout from the ancient lllyrian. But, surprising to 
 say, there is an Old Irish word, meall = hill, height, and the Gallic 
 names Mellosecttim, Mellodfmum (literally hill-fortress, now Meluri], 
 contain the same word (see Gluck, on the Celtic names in Ctesar, p. 
 138). The Altinian, that is, Venetic, and therefore Illyric, ceva = cow 
 (in Columella) — now in Albanian ka, kau = ox — curiously agrees 
 with the German in sharpening the consonant, whilst other Aryan 
 languages retain the media g, as in Sansk. gau, gd, Slav, gov-yddo, 
 etc. (may not icax\a = ox-eye, in Dioscorides, 3, 146, contain the same 
 Albanian word, prefixed to the Lith. aits, Slav, oio, Latin- ocuhes, 
 etc ?) The Albanian lyope, lyopa = cow, goes westward through the 
 Alps and Switzerland to the Romance dialects on the Lake of Geneva 
 (Bridel, Glossaire du Patois de la Suisse romande, p. 266, Lausanne, 
 1866). Was it a Venetic or Euganean word found among the inhabi- 
 tants of the Alps by the conquering Celts, which, as often happens with 
 the names of primitive human occupations, especially in the mountains, 
 has been preserved down to the present day ? The Messapic PphSog, 
 stag (Mommsen, Unteritalische Dial., p. 70) in modern Albanian dren 
 (with d for b ?), is found again in the Old Pruss. braydis, elk ; Lith. 
 bredis, elk and stag ; Lettish breedis. The longer and more attentively 
 we observe the Thracians and lUyrians, the more we are convinced 
 that this double race — the one-half of which Herodotus thought to be 
 the most numerous after the Indians — held, not only geographically, but 
 ethnologically, and as regards religion and language, a central position 
 from which branches proceeded not only to the Iranians, but also to- 
 the north and south, west and east, of the continent. 
 
 Note 16, page 64. 
 In the text, speaking of a subject that only allows of doubtful con- 
 jectures, and can only be judged by the general impression made one 
 way or the other on different minds, we have admitted that some 
 kind of agriculture may have existed before the end of the Aryan 
 Migrations ; but personally we incline to the contrary view. The 
 commonest opinion is, that though the primitive Indo-European people 
 was not yet agricultural, for no cognate terms for the art can be 
 decisively shown in Sanskrit ; yet that such words as arare, molere, 
 etc., which are found among the European members of that family, 
 prove the existence of an agricultural European mother-nation. We 
 
430 NOTES. 
 
 must first remark that those who assert this, accompanying that asser- 
 tion with considerations as to the earlier or later separation of one or 
 the other branch from the parent stock, and setting up pedigrees 
 founded on that idea, are guilty of evident inconsequence. For if all 
 the European races did not migrate as an undivided whole, and at the 
 same time, into Europe ; then arotron, aratrum, Slavic radio, etc., 
 can only have been taken over by one race from another, or been 
 analogously formed by the several races, perhaps at widely distant 
 periods. It must be remembered, that in those early times the 
 languages were still very closely related, and that when some technical 
 process, some tool, etc., was adopted from a neighbouring nation, the 
 name it went by in that nation would quickly and easily find its place 
 in the dialect of the borrowing nation. If, for example, a verb molere, 
 in the sense of to crush, to crumble, and another, serere to strew, 
 existed in all languages of the formerly pastoral races, and one of these 
 gradually learnt from another the arts of sowing and grinding, it 
 would be sure to select out of the various word-roots of similar but 
 more general meaning just the one by which the teaching nation had 
 designated the new operation. Thus an identity of names, say for 
 the plough, would only prove that the knowledge of it had spread 
 from member to member of the Indo-European family in Europe ; 
 that one portion had not received it, say from Asia, or through the 
 Semites from Egypt, another from the Iberians in the Pyrenees 
 and on the Rhone, a third from some unknown people, and so on. 
 And the additions by which A. Fick {Die ehemalige Spracheinheit 
 der Indogermanen Europas, p. 289) has tried to increase our old 
 stock of arguments cannot alter this state of things. If you attach 
 modern ideas to the ancient words, you will easily find the whole of 
 our present life reflected in the time of the earliest beginnings. What, 
 for example, can be made out of lira, a furrow ? In Germanic lan- 
 guages this word means track, rut (as in gleise, i.e., ge-leisi), which 
 was evidently the true and original meaning, which still peeps out in 
 the Latin delirare, to deviate from the track. After their adoption of 
 agriculture, perhaps at very different periods, the Lithuanians and Slavs 
 used the same word in the sense of ploughed field, the Latins in that 
 of furrow, while the Germans retained the meaning of track. Such 
 words as culmtcs, stipula, pinsere, etc., prove still less. A halm, or 
 stalk, need not have meant a stalk of corn in particular ; the Slavic 
 stiblo and its congeners mean stalk in general, and the German 
 stoppel, stubble, is a recent loan from Middle Latin. Pinsere meant 
 pounding or bruising in general ; when corn was no longer eaten 
 directly from the roasted ear in primitive fashion, but was first freed 
 from the husk by pounding, and reduced to a kind of rough meal, llie 
 
NOTES. 
 
 431 
 
 verb either existed already and offered itself as a name for that opera- 
 tion, or accompanied the operation from district to district. In quite 
 historic times the North-European nations had scarcely adopted the 
 most necessary beginnings of agriculture. The Celts in the interior 
 of Britain and Ireland, as described by Strabo, Tacitus, Cassius Dio, 
 etc. — or the Wends of Tacitus, who latrociniis pererrant the woods of 
 Eastern Europe — cannot possibly be imagined as industrious husband- 
 men. 
 
 Fick says of ancient Germany, p. 289 : " It must have been a well- 
 cultivated land, for without assiduous tilling of the ground it could not 
 have sent forth the enormous masses of nations that shattered the 
 Roman Empire." Roscher has proved the fallacy of this oft-repeated 
 argument. The very contrary is the truth ; the higher the form of life 
 to which a nation has attained, the smaller is the percentage employed 
 in war-like enterprises ; while in unsettled nations every grown man 
 will migrate and fight. If the Germans had tilled the ground, they 
 would not have gone forth at all to shatter the Roman Empire ; more 
 likely their own country would, like Gaul, have become a Roman 
 province. 
 
 In what follows we add a few scattered contributions to the ancient 
 agricultural language, which, if completely and above all critically 
 expounded, would be no contemptible aid to the researches of natura- 
 lists into the origin and fatherland of the various kinds of corn, etc. 
 
 Gothic hvaiteis, wheat, is white corn, therefore, as the epithet 
 implies, a later kind, for the name presupposes a knowledge of some 
 darker grain. Wheat is not found so far north as other cereals, but 
 appeared and was acclimatized in Central Europe at a late period. 
 The Lithuanian kweiys, plural kweczei, Prussian gaydis, is not found 
 in the Slavic languages, and must therefore have been adopted after 
 the separation of the two branches. Now as Celtic languages also get 
 their white and wheat from one root (Breton gwenn, white, gwiniz 
 wheat, etc., from the Old Gallic vindos, white — as in Vindobona, 
 Vienna — which again is founded on cvind), it follows that this grain 
 came from the Gauls to the Germans, and from these to the 
 Lithuanians (jCstyans). The Greek alphi, alphiton, barley meal, 
 literally white corn again, may have taken its name from a new 
 method of bruising or grinding, which produced a cleaner flour. 
 Greek ^/raj, wheat, as old as Homer, is found again in the Old Slavic 
 pyro, wheat, peas or lentils, and in the Lithuanian /z/^az, winter-wheat 
 (dialectic). But its first and oldest meanings, no doubt, are preserved 
 in the Northern tongues : Russian pyrei, Czech, pyr, etc., quitch-grass ; 
 Prussian /«r^, tare ; A. Saxon ^rj, lolium, ruscus, Engl, furze. So 
 it was a name for a kind of grass, and was afterwards applied to wheat 
 
412 NOTES. 
 
 and other corn. The Thracians and the Skythai georgoi may have 
 thus named the wheat grown by them and preserved in subterranean 
 caves. The Slavic zhito, grain, is clearly a formation from zhi-ti, to 
 live (Root zhiv) ; the already Homeric sitos can only be connected 
 with it if it was a foreign word from the Myso-Thracian North, which 
 is not at all impossible. 
 
 If wheat be a southern corn, Oats on the contrary are a northern 
 growth. The ancients looked upon the Oat as a weed that mixed with 
 the corn, or into which the corn degenerated, in both cases lessening or 
 destroying the harvest. Theophrastus, h. pi., 8, 92 : 6 5* alyiX<i>\p xal 
 6 PponoQ, iiairip ayp' arra xat avrj/iepa. CatO, De re rust., 37, 5 : " Frumenta 
 face bis sarias runcesque avenamque destringas'' Cicero, Defin., 5, 30, 
 9 : " Ne seges quidem igitur spicis uberibus et crebris, si avenain uspiaiii 
 videris^' Virg., Georg., i, 154 : 
 
 " iHfelix loliunt et steriles dominantur avenae!' 
 
 Ovid, Fast, i, 691 : 
 
 " Et careant loliis oculos vitiantibus agri, 
 Nee sterilis culto surgat avena loco" 
 
 Plin. 18, 149 : " Primum omnium frumenti vitium avena est: et hor- 
 deum in earn degenerat" However, men learned later to distinguish a 
 grain-bearing sort of oats from the avena fatua. Pliny believed that 
 as precious corn changed into oats, so oats could turn into a kind of 
 corn, frumenti instar, and adds that the Germans even sowed oats 
 and lived exclusively on the kind of porridge made of them : quippe 
 quum Germaniae populi serant earn, neque alia pulte vivant. In the 
 Middle Ages the same thing is still reported of the British Celts 
 (Girald. Cambr., Descr., 40 : " Totus propemodtim populus armentis 
 pascitur et avenis, lacte, caseo et butyro ; carne plenius, pane parcius 
 vesci solet"). The Scotchman can still live on oatmeal porridge, and 
 oat-porridge with lard is a favourite dish of Swabian and Alemannian 
 peasants. The later Greeks at least knew of oats as fodder (Galen, De 
 alimentorum facultaiibus, i, 14) ; in Asia, especially in Mysia, oats 
 are very frequent : rpoipri d" ianv iiroKvyiwv, ovk avOpiliwuv, ei pri irore dpa 
 XipuiTTOvns iax^'T'^e avayKaadnev Ik tovtov tov awepparog apToirottiffBai. 
 As to the names of this grain, Grimm has made the fine discovery 
 {Gesch. d. d. Spr., 66) that they are indeed all different, but that they 
 all come from that of the sheep or goat; "be it," he adds, "that the 
 animal looks out for the wild oat (perhaps a weed similar to it), or used 
 formerly to be fed with oats." The last supposition is incorrect, and 
 the reason must be different. In contrast to ficus, the fruit-bearing 
 fig-tree, caprificus or goat's-fig-tree is the wild unfruitful kind which the 
 
NOTES. 433 
 
 Messenians called rpayos, or goat (Pausanias,4,20, i). Tpayarwas said of 
 sterile vines (Suid. sub. v. : xal rpaydv faai tovq ajiirtKovg, orav fifi Kapirbv 
 liipuaiv). Theophrastus ascribed this sterility to over-rank growth (De 
 caus.pl.^ 5j 9j ^^ • ^? vTTeplSoKiic Sk kuI rb rpayav Tijg dfnrsXov, xai otroig aXKois 
 aKapTriiv av/iPatvii, did ryv iv^XaaTtiav), Here also belongs capreolus, 
 the vine-shoot, Italian capriuolo, as well as the obsolete hirquitallus, 
 Mrquiiallare (to put forth as it were a wanton goat's-branch, afterwards 
 only said of boys when their voices broice on arriving at puberty). If 
 (says Theophrastus, h. pi., 8, 7, j) a wheat-field is quite trodden down, 
 for example, by the march of an army, the next year only small ears 
 grow, such as are called apvtg, lambs, rams (that is, unfruitful, de- 
 generated). To the Greek names of plants already quoted by Grimm 
 — atyiXa^p, spurious oats, aiyivvpoQ (with a short V in Theocritus, yet 
 evidently from Trvpos, wheat, and not from Trip) and ^pojioQ, oats (con- 
 nected with PpCJfioe, goat-smell, jSpimfidiStie, ^po/uiSris, smelling like a 
 goat, though grammarians afterwards tried to distinguish the two 
 words by a short and a long vowel) — there may be added Ko\6Kvv9a 
 aiyog (for cucurbita silvatica in Dioscor., 4, 175) and Apa, darnel, 
 i?aipo5(r9ai, to change into darnel (compared with Latin aries, Lithua- 
 nian eris). All this shows, that when oats were called " goat's-weed," 
 it was intended to describe them as empty and without value, as a 
 corn-like weed ; the name presupposes an acquaintance with cereals, 
 and though the species was first used for human, food in the North, it 
 must have come, together with its name, from the South, perhaps by 
 way of Thrace. 
 
 Rye, which only just grazes the northern frontier of the two classical 
 countries, was considered by the later Romans, when they came to 
 know it, as a nasty, black, distasteful, and indigestible grain. It is 
 still disliked by the Romance nations, and Goethe justly remarks 
 (" Campaign in France, Sept. 24, 1792 ") that " white bread and black 
 are really the shibboleth, the battle-cry between Germans and French- 
 men." Where the girls are black, the bread is white, and vice versd. 
 
 Soldaten-Trost. 
 Nein, hier hat es keine Noth, 
 Schwarze Mddchen, weisses Brod; 
 Morgen in ein ander Stddtchen, 
 Schwarzes Brod und weisse Mddchen. — GOETHE. 
 
 By frumenium, corn, the Romance nations mean chiefly wheat (/or- 
 mento,froment) ; by kom the North German means chiefly rye, as the 
 . Swede means barley. In the Alps however, a cold region, the 
 Taurini, a branch of the Ligurians, cultivated rye, which they called 
 asia (Pliny, 18, 141). In Latin we first find the name secale in Pliny, 
 
 28 
 
434 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 in Diocletian's Edict sicale (meaning perhaps sickle-corn), which now 
 runs through the Romance tongues, including the Wallachian, and 
 has intruded also into Celtic languages, into Albanian and modern 
 Greek (Alb. Mkere, Wal. secare. Mod. Greek sikaU), with a striking 
 removal of the accent to the first syllable ; Italian sdgola, sdgala, 
 French seigle, etc. This was the name within the boundaries of the 
 Roman Empire ; among the Hyperborean nations, in the true rye- 
 region, we find another wide-spread nomenclature : Old High German 
 rocco. Old Norse rugr, A. Saxon ryge, Pruss. rugis, Lith. ruggys 
 (pi. ruggei), Russ. rozh, Czech, rezh, etc., Magyar rosz ; among the 
 West Finns the same word with the more antiquated^, kj among the 
 East Finns, Tartars, etc., with the Slavic assibilation. This last fact, 
 as well as the agreement between the Germans, Lithuanians, and 
 Baltic Finns, comes of the word having travelled from one nation to 
 another ; but to which nation did it first belong ? Benfey {Griech. 
 Wurzellexicon, 2, 125) thinks that rye meant red corn, and came to 
 the Germans from Slav-land ; but the words that signify red, rust, etc., 
 have in the Slavic tongues a radical d, from which, and not icoxa g, 
 their ambiguous zh has arisen. The isolated Cambrian rhygen, rhyg, 
 seems to have been borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon, as the absence of 
 consonant-change shows ; and the equally isolated provincial French 
 riguet (in Dauphin^, see De Belloguet, Ethnogdnie Gauloise, i, 
 p. 148) may have been casually dropped there in the course of the 
 Teutonic Migration. Another significant form of name is handed 
 down to us by Galen {De alim. facult. i, 13) from Macedonia and 
 Thrace. There he found a kind of corn, which was ground into an 
 evil-smelling black flour, evidently rye ; it was cultivated by the abori- 
 gines, and called by the native name /3p(?a. The ? of the second 
 syllable is easily recognised as a ^ soft, which is also found in the 
 Slavic rozh, etc., and was to be expected among Scythians, an 
 Iranian race. Now, has the v before the r been lost in going north- 
 wards — which often happens — and must we look for the root of the 
 word among those that begin with vr f or is /3pi?a identical with the 
 Greek opvKa, rice, which came to the Greeks from India (Sanskrit 
 vrihi) through Persia? To what nation then is due the change of the 
 vowel to a deeper u, and of the h into g,, with quite the Teutonic 
 " shifting of sound," though we know the Germans dwelt north and 
 west of the Tbracians, Scythians, and Slavs, and thus were the last to 
 receive the word ? or must we suppose that they adopted the word at 
 a time when the assibilation of the guttural had not yet appeared 
 among those mediating nations ? De Candolle {Giographie Botanique, 
 p. 938), believes the district between the Alps and the Black Sea, the 
 present Austrian Empire, to be the home of the rye, certainly on not 
 
NOTES. 435 
 
 very weighty grounds. As to the origin of the cereals in general, we 
 refer our readers to Humboldt {Ansichten der Natur, i. p. 206, etc., 
 ed. 3, Stuttgart, 1871) ; at present nothing more can be said on the 
 subject than what is contained there. 
 
 The ancient name for the primitive plough, vv-hich consisted of a 
 pointed, crooked piece of wood, is in Lithuanian szaka, bough, tooth, 
 prong, the end of a stag's antlers ; Old Slavic sokha, piece of wood, 
 stake ; and in the modem languages sometimes fork, gallows, but 
 principally hook. Now as the Slavic s, Lithuanian sz, is sometimes 
 derived from an original k, German h, we may be allowed to identify 
 the Gothic hoha, plough. Old High German huohili, with the Lithu- 
 anian szaka and Slavic sokha. But hoha itself evidently belongs to 
 the verb hahan, with a nasalized sub-form hangan (perhaps the long o 
 arose from the suppression of the «), from which verb a multitude of 
 expressions for the ideas " crooked, angular, bend, joint," etc., are 
 derived : for example, the German haken, hook, hacke, heel, henge, 
 hinge, henkel, handle, Old High Germ, hahhila, pot-hook, Greek 
 Koxi!>vri, KOKKuJ, OS sacrum ; further developed with s: German hachse, 
 hough, knee-cap, Latin coxa, huckle-bone, corner of the field-fence, 
 Old Irish cos, Cambrian coes, with guttural dropped, hip or thigh, etc. 
 With this agree several West-Finnish words, all indeed borrowed 
 from Teutonic, but some of them — a fact observable in several other 
 cases — before our Teutonic consonant-change took place ; Esthonian 
 konks, hook, kook, tooth of a harrow, hook on a well, pot-hook ; 
 letter for letter the Gothic hoha, etc. That the Greek yvni at first 
 meant nothing but a crooked piece of wood, a bent bone, we learn 
 from the kindred words to. yvla, the knees, later, any limb ; yvtog 
 crooked ; yvioio, to lame ; yiakov, crookedness ; ' Xii^iyvntig, limping 
 with both legs, the lame Hephsstos (not correctly explained by 
 Welcker, Gr. Gdtterl., i, 633), etc. So hoha was originally a crooked 
 antler, a bent bough or bone, with which the soil was torn up. Ac- 
 cordingly the Celtic words suh, soch, ploughshare, Old High Germ. 
 sSh, sich, French soc, cannot be related to the Slavic sokha. 
 
 To the Slavo-German circle of culture belong also the Gothic hlaifs, 
 bread, and quairnus, mill, millstone. Hlaifs, hlaibs (in all Teutonic 
 dialects), Lithu. klepas, 'LtXX.klaips, Slav, khlebu. (in all Slavic languages) 
 are the same as the Latin libum (" undoubtedly for clibum," Corssen, 
 Kritische Nachtrdge zur lateinischen Formenlehre, p. 36) and Greek 
 K\i^avov, Kpiflavov. That the word, and therefore the art of baking 
 bread, a late one everywhere, came to the Slavs from the Germans, is 
 proved by the initial having suffered consonant-change in German 
 fashion ; the Lithuanians, with whom the guttural aspirate is wanting, 
 replaced it, as in similar cases, by the corresponding (enuzs. The 
 
436 NOTEi>. 
 
 original meaning was that of a round cake made of dough and baked 
 in the oven, in contrast to the older porridge. In Greece the word 
 was very old, for Alkman already uses KpijSavioros, Koipuvri, and Kpipavov 
 for wXaxovQ {Fragm. 62, Bergk., with the words quoted from Athenaeus), 
 but it mav have migrated to Greece from Asia Minor (Alkman himself 
 was born at Sardis). From Greece or itaiy it was propagated through 
 intermediate nations to the Germans, who handed it on to the 
 Lithuanians and Slavs. We believe that libum was borrowed from 
 the Greek, like ptils (irdXros, already used by Alkman), massa {ficU^a), 
 ■placenta {irXaicovvTa), etc. The later expressions, " a laa/ofhread," i.e., a 
 bread of bread, Old Norse, oj/-^/^^, a bread of cheese, are only instances 
 of metonymy, like the Italian and French^a«^ di zucchero,pain de sucre, 
 and in salt mines, " a bread of salt," etc. As hlaifs was named from 
 the oven, so the far-spread Italian focaccia, already used by Isidore, 
 and found again in Old and Middle German, Servian, Bulgarian, 
 Russian, Magyar, Wallachian, Turkish, and Modern Greek, was 
 called after focus, being a cake of bread baked hard in the hot ashes 
 of the hearth (see Diez, Worterb. sub. v., and Miklosich, Fremdworter, 
 p. 118). We believe that in our brod, bread, there lies the idea of 
 leavened bread, of the apros X,v]iiTr\Q, such as, tied to the meat, was set 
 before the guests at the banquet given by the Thracian king Seuthes 
 to Xenophon {Anab. 7, 3). 
 
 Quairnus, quern or hand-mill (in all Teutonic languages), Lith.^zVwa, 
 millstone, pi. girnos, mill, Slav, zhrunuvu (in all Slavic languages), 
 also Old- Irish broon, brio, brd {b ior g),\s called after a circular move- 
 ment, if we compare the Greek words : yvpoQ, crooked, bent (Odyss. 
 19, 246), yvpoQ, circle, yvpciia, to gyrate, yiptoc, round, ytipic, fine wheat- 
 flour, Fvpai Trirpai (round sea-rocks like millstones) . The long v after the 
 7 is reflected in the German gte ; quairnus and yvpie can have nothing 
 to do with German korn, kern, Slav. zrHno, Lith. zimis, as the initial 
 of these Slavic and Lithuanian words and the short vowel of the first 
 syllable show. It was the heavy task of slaves, who could never be 
 wanting among rude and warlike pastoral nations, to turn the primitive 
 hand-mill. For this work there is a word common to the Germans 
 and Slavs : Goth, arbaiths, Slav, rahota; which, though it may have 
 the same root as the Latin labos, yet in German and Slavic shows the 
 same derivative sufSx ; and perhaps the root itself is still preserved 
 in the Slavic languages — rab, rob, slave. Men and maids, while they 
 sat turning the upper millstone, accompanied their work with mill- 
 songs ; the primitive custom of singing during all work that admits of 
 it, still prevails among Russians, Bedouins, etc. The modern words, 
 miihle, miiller, are in German, as in the other European languages, not 
 derived from the native verb malan, to grind, but are borrowed from 
 
NOTES. 437 
 
 the Latin ; in company with water-mills, and improved mechanical 
 arrangements for grinding and cleaning corn, they spread from Italy 
 throughout Europe. The flour produced from the primitive hand-mill 
 was impure, and mixed with earth, and grated between the teeth ; and 
 in this state the European traveller still finds it among distant bar- 
 barians. 
 
 The real Plough — constructed of several pieces, with an iron share, 
 and after further development furnished with wheels — first became 
 a necessity when, in the course of centuries, the ground became freer 
 from stones and roots, and agriculture lost its nomadic and merely 
 accessory character. From that period, when the north-eastern 
 nations had partly advanced from their woods and pastures to the 
 south-west, and partly received from that quarter many elements of 
 culture, dates the Germano-Slavic word plough, Slav. plugU. The 
 history of this word is pretty clear. In Pliny, i8, 172, we find the 
 notice: "Id non priclem inventum in Raeiia Galliae, ut duas adderent 
 tali rotulas, quod genus vacant plau>norati." By the inhabitants of 
 Gallic Rhaetia we must understand sub-Alpine husbandmen originally 
 of Celtic origin, and the above appellation, though the reading is 
 uncertain, and the form of word obscure, we may suppose to be the 
 oldest name of the later plough. The Anglo-Saxons, who crossed to 
 Britain in the fifth century, did not yet possess the word, which was 
 first known in those islands in the eleventh century. But about the 
 middle of the seventh century we find in the Longobardian Law — ed. 
 Roth. 288 (293) — the following words : " De plovum. Si quis plovum 
 {plobum) aut aratru?n" etc. From Germany the word passed to the 
 Slavs, when they, following as usual the example of the Germans, 
 began to adopt the higher forms of agriculture. At the present time 
 we find the plough in use among the Little Russians, but Great 
 Russia still has the old hook-plough. How tough " natural " nations 
 are, whose morals are formed by tradition, and whose whole thought 
 consists of religious superstition, and what a hard matter it is to raise 
 them but one step in civilization, we learn from the following notice 
 in Herberstein's Rerum Moscoviticarum commentarii, de Lithuania : 
 " The Lithuanians only cultivate their land with wooden ploughs, 
 though the soil is rich and not sandy. When they go to work, they 
 take several plough-beams with them, so that if one breaks, another 
 may be at hand (Old Hesiod advises the same thing : ei % 'inpov y 
 aXaiQ, tTtpov K i-iri l3ov(7i jiaKoio). A certain governor of the province 
 wished to teach them better methods, and sent for a large stock of 
 iron ploughs. But as the harvest was bad the following year, the 
 peasants attributed its failure to the iron implements, and were on 
 the point of revolting ; the governor was obliged to withdraw his 
 ploughs and consent to the rude old fashion again." 
 
438 NOTES. 
 
 The Greek and the Roman names for the same grains are singularly 
 unlike each other. Compare oItoq, irvpos, Ktia, r't<pt), oKvpa, aXfira, 
 aXiiara, xiSpa, xovSpoe, Kplfivov, mrvpa, KaxpvQ, etc., with triticum, ador 
 (adj. adoreus for adoseus),far {gen. /arris {or faresis, farina {or farrina, 
 farrago), panicum, siligo, pollen, alica, acus (gen. aceris for acesis), 
 palea,furfur, etc. The same with the tools and apparatus; for example, 
 the parts of a plough : iaro^oivc, ix^rXri, vvvii;, iXviia, compared with 
 temo, stiva, bura, vomers or XiK/iof, XiKfirirrip, nrvov, winnowing-shovel 
 (all Homeric), Xikvov corn-fan {Hymn, in Merc, 21, 63, in the sense of 
 cradle), aKm\ (Homeric), 'oKp.oq, mortar for pounding grain, virtpoq, pestle 
 (both in Hesiod, Op. et D., 423 : 
 
 'oKp.ov jiiv rpivoSriv rafivuv, vwepov Si Tpiirtjxvv), 
 
 with vanniis, evallere, area, pila, pilum, etc. The Latin expressions 
 sarire, or sarrire, runcare, strigare, lira, porca, elix, colliciae, metere, 
 messis, rallum, rastrum, ligo, occa, ir^pex, crates, etc., are either 
 wanting entirely in the Greek, or, at least, in this special shape and 
 meaning. The Latin sarpere, sarmentutn, agree with the Greek apmj 
 (und the Slavic srHpii), but point to a tool which may be older than 
 agriculture ; how fftfiiSaXie and simila, similago, are related to each 
 other, is obscure ; -KTlaauv may be the same as pinsere, but it proves 
 little : that 0,0705 a.r\.6Lpanis (older {orrapane) do not agree is not to be 
 wondered at in so late an invention as bread. It seems to us vain to 
 try to deduce the original identity of Greek and Italian cultivation 
 of the soil from their land-measuring. It has indeed been asserted 
 that the vorsus of the Oscans and Umbrians, 100 feet square, corre- 
 sponds to the Greek plethron (Mommsen, Die Unterital. Dialekte, 
 p. 260); but iheple/Aron, like the foot and the stadion, was of Babylonian 
 origin, and we do not know the original length of the Umbrian vorsus. 
 If it was identical with that of \h& plethron, the measure can only have 
 been derived from the Greeks or from the common Oriental source, 
 liut if the agreement only consists in the similar division into a hundred 
 feet, it is clear that this, among nations in whose languages the decimal 
 system prevailed, amounts to nothing. The Gallic candetuj7t, as the 
 name shows, was also measured by the number 100. Much more 
 significant is the difference between the Roman and the Greek division 
 of land. The Roman arf«j measures 120 feet, the acwatz 120 square 
 feet (Varro, De r. r., I, 10, 2), a measurement on the duodecimal system, 
 which was also Etruscan and perhaps Iberian. On the tablets of 
 Heraklea on the Siris the customary land-measure, uxoTvoc, contains 
 30 6peyp.aTa of 4 feet each, therefore again 120 feet (Corp. Inscr. 
 III. No. 5774>5775)- 
 
NOTES. 439 
 
 Note 17, page 65. 
 
 li fiiKivri, milium, was literally honey-fruit (Plin. 22, 131 : " Panicum 
 Diodes vtedicus mel frugum appellavit"), it must have meant sweet 
 fruit of ears, mild vegetable food in general, in contrast with the 
 bloody animal food of the Nomad. Call to mind the Homeric expres- 
 sions : e'lTov Tt yKvKepoIo, atroio fiiki^povoQ, fiiKiriSka, or fiiXt^pova irupov, 
 XiDToTo iic\a]cka Kapvov, rpuiytiv dypuariv fiiKiriSia. If it be SO, the Lith. 
 malnos must be a borrowed word, for that is one of the languages that 
 express honey with a ^ in the place of /. Millet — in what follows we 
 do not distinguish milium from panicum, or KsyxP°s from IKv/iog — is 
 the food of the Iberian nations in the extreme west, and of Celts. In 
 Aquitania — the land between the Pyrenees and the Garonne, inhabited 
 by Iberians — there grew, as Strabo (4, 2, i) assures us, hardly anything 
 but millet. Pliny, 18, loi : " Panicoet Galliae quidem,praecipue Aqui- 
 tania utitur. Sed et Circumpadana Italia, addita faba, sine qua nihil 
 conficiunt." Pytheas (in Strabo, 4, 5, 5) found that some inhabitants of 
 the (Celtic) coasts visited by him fed on millet, others on vegetables 
 (Xaxavoic, beans ?) and roots (turnips?). When Caesar besieged 
 Massilia, the inhabitants lived on old millet and spoilt barley, which 
 had been kept a long time in the State magazines {J)e Bella Civ., 2, 22 : 
 " Panico enim vetere atque ordeo corrupto omnes alebantur, quod ad 
 hujusmodi casus antiquitus paratum in publicum contulerant"). Poly- 
 bius reports of Gallic Italy, that he had seen with his own eyes an 
 immense wealth of both kinds of millet (2, 15, 2 : 'EXil/*ov ye p-nv koI 
 Keyxpov TeXiujg innp^aXKovaa Sa)ptXsia yiyvirai Trap' avTolg) ; and Strabo 
 says that, being well watered, the country was rich in millet, and could 
 never suffer from famine, as that grain never failed (5, i, 12 : ian 
 Si Kai Keyxpo^opog StatpepovrttJC Sid Trjv ivvSp'iav' rovro Si Xiftov piyiarov 
 itJTiV aKov, Trpbg UTravTag yap Kaipovg aiptav avrix^i, Kai ouSsttot l-jrikitTTHV 
 cvvarai, icdv tcv dXKov airov yevrjTai airavig) ; and also quite late, at the end 
 of the Gothic kingdom in Italy, an order is issued during a famine that 
 panicum shall be divided among the people out of the magazines of Tici- 
 num and Dertona at a small price (Cassiod. Var. 12, 27). Farther to 
 the east, the Alazones, a Scythian people on the Hypanis, sowed wheat, 
 onions, garlic, beans and millet (Herod. 4, 17). In Thrace, the Ten 
 Thousand, returning with Xenophon, marched along the Pontus to 
 Salmydessus through the country of the millet-eaters, ME\ivo0ayoi, and 
 in Demosthenes's time the subterranean granaries contained millet 
 and oXupa (Demosth. de Chersoneso, p. 100, ex. Phil. 4, 16). Pliny, 18, 
 100, declares that millet porridge is the chief nourishment of the 
 Sarmatians : '■'■ Sarmatarum quoque gentes hac maxumepidte alunturj' 
 and that panicum is the favourite food of the Pontic peoples (loi : 
 
440 NO TES. 
 
 "Ponticaegentes nullum panicoprae/eruntcibum"). The Mseotians and 
 Sarmatians live on millet, as the Athenians do on figs, and other folk 
 on other things (^EL V. H. 3, 39 : 'SaXavovg 'kpK&cis, 'ApytTot f aniovg, 
 'XBrivatot Si mica, TipivBioi Sk axpaSag SCnrvov t^x"")'!"^"' KoKa/iovg, Kapfiavol 
 ipoiviKag, iciyxpov Se Maiuirai Kai Savpo/iaTai, rkp/uvBov Se Kat K&pSa/iov 
 nipaai). In Pannonia, according to Cassius Dio, 49, 36, who was born 
 there, millet and barley were the popular food, and Priscus, while on 
 an embassy to Attila, was entertained exclusively with this grain 
 (Miiller, Fragm. 4, p. 83). The Japodes, a mixed Celtic lUyrian race 
 on the mountains of the lUyrian coast, lived on spelt and millet (Strabo 
 7, 5, 4 : ffij" Koi Ktyxpv ^ci sroXXa TpcjiS/itvov) . Among the classic nations, 
 the millet, if indeed they had been acquainted with it before their 
 separation in Pannonia and lUyria, fell into the background before 
 other cereals ; only the Lacedaemonians, conservative in everything, 
 were still called millet-eaters (Hesych. iKv/xog avip/ia 8 si/^ovrst' ol AaKuives 
 iaQiovaiv). The Germans, Lithuanians, and Slavs lived too far to the 
 north for us to suppose that the cultivation of millet originated with 
 them. And they had quite different names for it, Old High Germ. 
 hirsi, Slav, ptoso, Lith. soros, plur. of sora, millet-corn. When the 
 Slavs moved into the region of the Danube, millet became a favourite 
 with them, which it has never been with the Germans ; in modern 
 North Italy it has been supplanted by rice and maize. From the above 
 passages it will be seen that the bean (Lat. faba, Slav, bobie, Pruss. 
 babo, hith. pupa, Old Irish seib, where j has replaced/, Czxahx.ffa for 
 fab J see Grimm's Dictionary for the German bohne) accompanies 
 millet ; as to the turnip (Gr. pairuQ, Lat. rdpa, rapum, Old Norse ro/a, 
 Slav, repa, Lith. rope) we will add what Pliny says 18, 127 : "A vino 
 atque messe tertius hie (the turnip) Transpadanis fructus'' The high 
 antiquity of the bean, especially of the field-bean, Vicia Faba, L., which 
 is already mentioned in the Iliad (13, 589) under the name of Kvapog, 
 which stands related to the collat. form -n-iavos, Truafioc, as the Old 
 Latin, Sabine, and Faliscan haba to/aba (Mommsen, Unterital. Dial,, 
 p. 358), is rendered probable by many circumstances ; for example, the 
 part it played in antique worship ; but that it is nevertheless younger 
 than the contented turnip, which thrives in the ashes of burnt brush- 
 wood, seems to be proved by the language of the West Finns, in which 
 the bean (Finn, papu, Esthon. ubbd) has, like almost all objects of 
 culture, borrowed an Indo-E>iropean name, while the turnip has a 
 native word to itself (Finn, nauris, Esthon. naris, nairis, Carelian 
 nagris). 
 
 Note 18, page 67. 
 The Potter's- Wheel is said to have been invented by Anacharsis the 
 
NOTES. 44, 
 
 Scythian, or, according to Theophrastus, by Hyperbios the Corinthian 
 (Schol. to Find. 01. 13, 27). As Corinth was a chief seat of Phoe- 
 nician culture, there may be in the latter statement a hint as to the 
 origin of the potter's art among the Greeks ; but the report, like almost 
 everything in the Greek writings " concerning inventions," has very 
 little historical value. The tyrant Kritias praises Kspa/xog (pottery), 
 the son of wheel and earth and kiln, as an invention of his native city 
 Athens {J^ragm. I, 12, Bergk. : 
 
 rov Si rpoxov yaine ''£ Kajiivov t tcyovoj' iipev, 
 
 KkuVOTarOV KEpaflOVj %jO/?CT£^OV OlKOVOfiOVj 
 
 rj TO KoXbv MapaQutVL Karaffrriaaira TpoiraLov), 
 
 There was also an Attic demos, Kspafiels, whose members sacrificed 
 to the hero Keramos. As earthen vessels, the burnt and the unburnt, 
 those made by hand and those turned on the potter's wheel, are dis- 
 tinguishable at the first glance, we must on this point refer our readers 
 to the antiquarian excavators. 
 
 The testimony of ancient languages seems to point to the practice"" 
 of Weaving having existed iefore the separation and migration of the 
 nations ; Greek hyphaino and our weave, Latin texere and Slav, tiikati, 
 etc. If we were only certain that these words meant in primitive 
 times the twistings of thread on the spindle, and real weaving on 
 looms, and not merely a, skilful knitting, plaiting, or sewing ! In 
 plaiting mats out of the bast of lime-trees, with long and cross 
 strips, a bone needle, to which the cross-strip was fastened, or a hollow 
 bone through which it ran, etc., expressions might exist which were 
 easily transferred to the warp, woof, shuttle, etc., when invented at a 
 later period. Even now, in distant corners of Europe inhabited by a 
 conservative people, weaving is carried on after the fashion of this 
 primitive plaiting or knitting. It was witnessed by C. J. Graba in 
 1828 among the inhabitants of the Faroe Isles, and lately by Franz 
 Maurer among the Bosnians, Reise durch Bosnien, p. 266 : " They 
 weave by hand without a shuttle, the cross-thread being passed through 
 those that are stretched parallel by means of a long wooden needle, 
 and then pressed home with a stick." 
 
 Whoever is tempted to ascribe the knowledge of weaving to the 
 primitive nations should remember that this art passed from very rude 
 beginnings through a number of stages up to its perfection in historical 
 times. How naturally does a modern loom, a flying shuttle, insinuate 
 itself into the fancy of the comparative philologist ! For the rest, the 
 Greek and the Latin words for the spindle, the loom, and the operations 
 performed by them, are very dissimilar. On the one hand : drpaKToe, 
 ^Xaxdrri, kXw9u, {jrpiov, favuiv, /lirog (Horn. II. 23, 760 : 
 
442 JVOT£S. 
 
 iig 'oTE Tie Ti yvvambs ivZdivoio 
 ar>i9t6s tan Kavuv, ovt' eB /idXa xfpffi raviaay, 
 Tn'iviov i^kXKOvaa iraptK fiirov, ayxo^' ^' '"X" 
 arfiStoe)) 
 
 KipKig, KpUuv (in Sappho, Fr. 90, Brgk. : Kpkniv t6v "iotov), Kpoxi), Accu- 
 sative, KpoKa (Hesiod, Op. et. D., 538 : 
 
 arfinovi S" iv Travpqi voXXi^v KpoKa firipvaaaOai), 
 
 iarSg, arJifioiv (Lat. stamen, probably a Doric word borrowed), ffs-a^ij 
 (La.t. spatka, borrowed late), avriav (in Aristophanes), ayvvQig (stone- 
 weights). On the other : Colus,fusus, filum, glomus, jugum, radius, 
 tela, trama, licittm, etc. In Slavic the language of weaving has much 
 that is remarkable : Krosno, loom, web (the same as Kp'tKuv, xpoKr), 
 with the Slavic change of i into s), atuku, Russ. utok, woof, weft (from 
 the verb tukati), niti, thread (belongs to viti, viiBto, etc.), navoi (Lat. 
 liciatorium), presti (nere), predeno (tela), preslica (fuscus), predivo 
 (filum), vratilo, vreteno (quite the same as verticillus), brudo, Russ. 
 berdo, South-Slav, brdo (pecten textorius, licium), etc. The absence 
 of these expressions in Lithuanian, proves that they cannot be very 
 old, for the Lithuanian has independent names : udis, web, austi, to 
 weave, szeiwa, shuttle, giga, thread, mesh {nytis means the shaft of 
 the loom), stdkles, the loom (a plural t, Slav. stanH), werpti, to spin, 
 warpste, spool, spindle, drobe, linen, etc. The Old Slav, kadeli is 
 perhaps only a corruption of the German kitnkel, which itself is derived 
 from the Latin colus. Everything shows that here we are on more 
 modern ground. 
 
 Note 19, page 67. 
 That the names for Gold were different among the Greeks and 
 Romans, and among the Lithuanians and Slavs respectively, is a proof 
 of the late appearance of that metal in Europe. The Latin aw-um, 
 gold, and aurora, dawn, etc., were originally austim, ausosa; the 
 Etruscan Sun-god Usil makes it probable that the Etruscans had a 
 name for gold similar to the Latin one. Strange to say, we find the 
 same name at the other end of Europe ; Prussian ausis, Lithuanian 
 auksas (with the frequent Lithuanian strengthening of the sound by 
 placing a k before the s). How could the Italian name have reached 
 the far northern sea but along the same route as the amber trade, 
 which travelled the sacred road of the Etruscans from the Heliades 
 and the Eridanus, at the head of the Adriatic, to the haffs and low- 
 grounds of Prussia ? Instead of that name the Lettons use the Slavic 
 word sells ; so at that time they already lived apart, in a place where 
 
NOJ£S. 443 
 
 there was no amber, and which was not reached by Italian influences. 
 The Celts also received gold from Italy, but later than the Prussians, 
 namely, at a time when atisum had already changed its j into r (Old 
 Irish 6r, in the younger dialects our, eur, owr), great as was the 
 delight that family of nations afterwards took in the glitter of gold 
 ornaments. The Slavs and Germans have a common word : Gothic 
 gulth, Slav, zlato, Russ. zoloto, which is of late origin, for the 
 Lithuanians do not possess it, and it points, not to Italy, but to the 
 Iranian world in the south-east. The Greek x!""''of) which may 
 certainly be classed with the above forms, was more than a generation 
 ago declared by Pott to be borrowed from the Phoenician, and Renan 
 holds the same opinion (Max Muller's Mythologie comparh, p. 36 : 
 " xpvTos me para' t le semitiqiie kharous, qui aurait passi en Grice par 
 h commerce des Phiniciens, comme le mot fiiraWov." In fact, later 
 discoveries of inscriptions have shown that kharAs, which is only 
 poetical in Hebrew, was the common Phoenician expression for gold. 
 It was by slow degrees that gold found its way into the wildernesses 
 of Europe and Turanian Asia ; their cupidity once awakened, led to 
 digging up the native soil for hidden treasure. The Western Finns 
 call gold by its German name ; the tribes of the Volga and Ural, 
 among them the Magyars, use none but Iranian (Massagetian, Herod. 
 1,215) words ; so young and misleading is the legend of the far North- 
 east being the land of gold. 
 
 With regard to Silver, the European nations are also divided into 
 groups : Germans, Lithuanians, and Slavs have one name for the 
 metal, Greeks and Romans another ; which last sounds like an echo 
 from Asiaij while the former (Goth, silubr, Slav, srebro, Pruss. siraplis) 
 reminds one vividly of the Homeric Alybe in the Pontus (for Halybe, 
 and this for Salybef), b9tv apyipov lori ytvkSKii. The Semitic languages 
 also differ greatly in the names of silver ; it is singular that the 
 Syrians, and then the Persian's, altogether ceased to use them, adopt- 
 ing instead the Greek da-ii/ioe (uncoined) in the form sh/i, stm. 
 
 Note 20, page 67. 
 
 As the knowledge of metal usually affords a principal basis for 
 classification in theories about the so-called Lake Dwellings, we take 
 this opportunity to say a few words on these remains of ancient human 
 existence. And first of all let me remark, that it is not well to try 
 and guess the primitive history of European mankind from any isolated 
 point of view ; it only leads to baseless fancies. But our grave- 
 searchers, with their " three periods," often knew very little of ancient 
 ethnography and traditional history ; on the pure ethnologists, with 
 
4.(4 NOTES. 
 
 their "races of man," the light of comparative philology had not 
 dawned ; comparative philologists have not alvifays taken into account 
 the facts and possibilities of the history of culture ; theologizing 
 primitive historians did not take the trouble, or did not dare, to ascer- 
 tain critically the historical value of the documents they quoted. 
 Now, as to the pile-dwellings in lakes and marshes, it is not true that 
 history is altogether silent about them. Hippocrates (JDe aire, locis 
 etc, 22, p. 268, Ermerius) reports of the Colchians, that they had erected 
 their dwellings of wood and rushes in the midst of the waters : to. n 
 o'lKriiiaTa ^iSiva Kai KaXa/iwa iv toIol vSaai fiijirixci-viifuva. These Col- 
 chians are the people called by others Moovy-oiKoi, i.e., dwellers in 
 wooden towers (lioawoi, jioavvis, also with double a). It is true that we 
 are not certain to which family of nations these Colchians belonged. 
 But that Indo-European races were no strangers to this kind of archi- 
 tecture is proved by the remarkable report of Herodotus, 5, 16, on the 
 Paonians in Thrace, a passage which the world had had before it more 
 than two thousand years before old piles at Meilen on Lake Zurich, 
 together with new " strata of culture," were disclosed to our astonished 
 eyes. "The Pasonians," says the father of history, "live on piles 
 in Lake Prasias ; whoever takes a wife — and they marry more than 
 one — has to drive in three piles, for which the neighbouring mountain 
 forest furnishes the material ; the piles support a deck ; on this deck 
 every one has his hut {icaKvpr)), trap-doors open on to the lake, and a 
 narrow bridge leads to the land ; the little children are tied by the 
 foot, so as not to fall into the water ; horses and domestic animals are 
 fed with fish, for the lake has such an abundance that you need only 
 let a bucket down through the trap-door to pull it up again full of 
 fish " — evidently because of the plentiful nourishment afforded by the 
 offal. Now, as the Thracians in many of their customs have a 
 decidedly northern look, why should not the lakes in Central Europe 
 also have been inhabited in a similar manner at that time ? All the 
 more because, at a time when Europe was hardly anything but one 
 great forest, and rivers and lakes offered natural highways and 
 halting-places, such pile-dwellings, with approaches that could easily 
 be cut, offered to the men of that day something like the security 
 that the fortresses of Mantua and Comorn do now. It is certain 
 that the very ancient towns of Spina and Atria in the district about 
 the mouths of the Po, as well as the habitations of the Veneti, which 
 rose in the midst of waters and marshes (Strabo, 5, i, 5 : twv U 
 ■jroKiav a\ fiiv vriai^ovn, aX S" k fiipovg KXvZovTai), were in the same way 
 built upon piles. Ravenna, in quite historical times, gives us a picture 
 of this condition of things. It was built entirely of wood, and pene- 
 trated with canals ; traffic took place by means of bridges and 
 
NOTES. 445 
 
 gondolas (Strabo, I, I,6 : ^uXoTray^g oXjj koX SidppVTog, ■yffvpais Kai Tropdfitioig 
 olivofiivTi) ; all the dwellings rested on piles (Vitruv. 2, 9, 1 1 : " £si 
 autem maxime id considerare Ravennae, quod ibi omnia opera et 
 publica et frivata sub fundamentis ejus generis habentpalos "), namely, 
 of alder-wood, which was indestructible under ground ; the buildings 
 themselves were of larch-wood, which was brought down the river 
 Po, and was said to defy fire. Like Ravenna, Altinum was also 
 nothing but an improved pile-village ; and the same art and habitude 
 caused at first small settlements, and then the splendours of Venice, 
 to rise in the lagoons at the mouth of the Brenta. Caesar found the 
 banks of the Thames guarded by pointed stakes, and the same kind 
 of stakes stuck in the river, covered by the water (/?« B. Gall., 12, 18: 
 " Ejusdemque generis sub aqua defixae sudes flumine tegebantur "). 
 
 It is not surprising that, among the remains of these edifices be- 
 longing to the most different points of the Indo-European region, there 
 should be found some that contain only stone tools. Though the 
 immigrant shepherds were acquainted with metal in the form of 
 copper, as is proved by comparing the Sansk. ayas, Zend, ayanh, 
 Latin aes, Goth, aiz. Old Irish iarn for isarn, they certainly did not 
 manufacture it into tools, but used stone weapons ; this is confirmed, 
 among other things, by words like hamar and sahs (Grimm, " Teut. 
 Myth.," 181). Then, according to their position in the long string of 
 nations, the different races sooner or later received from the South 
 knives and swords of bronze— that is, mixed copper and tin ; but it 
 would be altogether contrary to experience and nature to suppose 
 that this change took place suddenly. It must have been centuries 
 before the stone axe gave way to the bronze knife in war and hunting, 
 in the felling and splitting of trees, in the slaughtering of animals, etc., 
 and at last became entirely obsolete. Custom, inherited skill and 
 practice, the example of ancestors, myths and religious superstition, 
 and the natural dulness of primitive folk, were all in favour of stone 
 and bone implements ; and the few bronze swords that found their 
 way into the interior must have been for a long time only toys and 
 ornaments of single chiefs. When Caesar landed in Britain he found 
 bronze and iron bars of a certain weight used instead of money (5, 12 : 
 " Utuntur aut aere aut ialeis ferreis ad cerium pondus examinatis pr» 
 nummo") — that is, a period still surviving there, which was extinct in 
 continental Gaul, where money had long been coined ; the island, 
 though rich in tin and other metals, received its iron from abroad 
 [aere utuntur importato) ; and the tribes in the interior, having for the 
 most part no agriculture, feeding on flesh and milk, and clothed in 
 skins, would probably make no use of metal. In the north of Ger- 
 many and Slav-land the stone age reached far into really historical 
 
446 NOTES. 
 
 times, and, in single cases, even touched on the age of gunpowder. 
 Considering all this, it seems not too venturesome to suppose that the 
 inhabitants, even of those Swiss lake-dwellings which have hitherto 
 yielded only stone implements, but at the same time proofs of agricul- 
 ture being practised, were of Celtic — nay, of specially Helvetic race ; 
 that the inhabitants of the lake-dwellings in the Emilia were Umbrians, 
 either independent or subject to the Etruscans ; that those of the 
 Mecklenburg lake-dwellings were Goths, and so on. The only new 
 thing that has been brought out by the discovery of the lake-dwellings 
 — that is, the only circumstance that could not perhaps have been 
 established with such certainty by history alone — is the priority of 
 agriculture to the metals, and indeed of a tolerably advanced agricul- 
 ture, with several varieties of barley and wheat, with flax harvested 
 and neatly tied up in bundles, fruit of trees, etc. If we have made 
 no mistakes in observation, and if later discoveries do not upset the 
 results hitherto obtained, it would stand proved that the metallurgy 
 of the civilized world of the Mediterranean penetrated very late into the 
 region of L. Constance, at any rate later than settled abodes and the 
 cultivation of corn and flax. A significant legend related by Pliny, 
 12, 5, seems to indicate that the art of forging metals came to the 
 Gauls from Italy, at the same time with the knowledge of wine and 
 oil, or not long before the great invasions of Bellovesus and Sigovesus. 
 A Helvetian citizen named Helico (evidently a representative name), 
 after residing at Rome to learn the art of forging ra.tX3S.%—fabrilem ob 
 ar/^;«— brought home from there a dried grape and fig, as well as a 
 quantity of the best oil and wine ; and this incident impelled the 
 Gauls to cross the Alps and invade Italy. As the invasion took place 
 towards the year 400 B.C. (Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 165. Contzen, 
 Die Wanderungen der Kelten, p. 102, etc. ; the earlier dating of Livy, 
 whom Ottfried Miiller and M. Duncker, Origines Gennajiicae, p. 14, 
 were inclined to believe, is contradicted by Herodotus, who knows 
 nothing yet of any Celts in Italy), the introduction of Italian metal- 
 work would fall somewhere in the preceding one hundred years— say 
 about a century after the founding of Massilia— the corn-cultivating 
 stone age would lie beyond that. We know of nothing that history or 
 the history of culture can say against that. Anyhow, when the Celts, 
 after their great warlike migration to the East, gained settled habita- 
 tions along the Alps, they became masters in smith-work ; they were 
 the forging " dwarfs " who provided the Germans and the whole North 
 -with swords, kettles, etc. The Noric iron was celebrated, and it is 
 not surprising that several Teutonic words seem to betray a Celtic 
 origin— words such as eisen, iron (Goth, eisarn, with the Celtic suffix 
 -arna, see Schleicher in Hildebrand's Jahrbucher, i, p. 410) ; as beil, 
 
NOTES. 447 
 
 bill, axe (Old Irish biail, Old Cornish bahell, see Zeuss, ed. 2, io6l) ; 
 as the Old High German g^r, spear, consequently Goth, gats (the 
 Celtic ratiraroi, spearmen, see Zeuss, ed. 2, 53 ; the word is also Iranic, 
 see Justi, p. 98, and perhaps came from an Iranian people) ; as briinne 
 (Goth, brunjo, Slav, brtinya, from the Old Irish bruinne, breast, belly, 
 see Zeuss, ed. 2, 1058, brA, gen. bronn, see Stockes, Ir. Gl., No. 647, like 
 panzer, coat of mail, Ital. panciera, from pantex, paunch). Nothing 
 roams so easily as weapons and the names of weapons. 
 
 Note 21, page 69. 
 
 A beautiful passage in Euripides' Bacchcz, 274, praises the gifts of 
 Demeter and Bacchus, i.e., bread and wine, as the best possessions of 
 the human race. 
 
 Note 22, page 70. 
 
 We can build very little on the passage in the Iliad, 7, 467, where 
 Euneos — that is, the good sailor, the son of Jason — sends ships laden 
 with wine from the Isle of Lemnos to the Greek camp, which take in 
 exchange for their dlvog bronze and iron, skins, oxen, and slaves, while 
 the two Atridae receive for their own share a thousand measures of 
 Iii9v, because the later origin of this passage is evident. The word- 
 ivdpavoSov belongs to Attic prose ; Euneos, the Jasonid, is taken 
 from Iliad 23, 747, etc. The distinction therefore between olvos and 
 likOv is also without value. 
 
 Note 23, page 70. 
 
 Maron himself is nothing but a mythic personification of the 
 Ciconian town of Ismaros, which, with the omission of the J before m, 
 and the addition of a suffix, was also called Maroneia, while a neigh- 
 bouring lake bore the name of Ismaris (Herod. 7, 109). The son of 
 the Thracian Eumolpus — culturam vitium et arborum {invenif) 
 Eumolpus Atheniensis, Pliny 7, 199 — was called Ismarus or, with 
 assimilated j and a genealogical suffix, Immaradus. The names 
 Ismaros, Ismaris, Immaradus, Maron, and Maroneia, contain inte- 
 resting hints as to the laws of sound and of word-formation among the 
 Thracians, and particularly the Ciconians. 
 
 Note 24, page 71. 
 
 So we interpret /Sown-X^l here, and not as a goad for driving oxen 
 The bill, that primitive weapon derived from the ston»-axe, and still 
 
448 NOTES. 
 
 bearing its form, is in a fighting sense always the attribute of a 
 barbarian {Annali dell' instituto arch., pp. 339, 340, 1863). It is rare 
 as a weapon in Homer; certainly in Book 15 of the Iliad the Trojans 
 and Achaeans fight — 
 
 5?£(ri 5r) iriKiKinai kcu aX,ivr\ai (v. 71O > 
 
 but that is at the ship, which Hector has already grasped and hopes 
 to set on fire, therefore man to man, hacking at each other as they 
 would at timber or a sacrificial animal. And the Trojan Pisander 
 once makes a stroke at Menelaus with the d?i'»')j, but is killed by him 
 with the sword (II. 13, 611). 
 
 Note 25, page 72. 
 
 It is not venturing too much to suppose that Semele, as a Thracian 
 word, meant Earth, Earth-goddess. The root to which x"M"') 'he 
 Latin humus, etc., belong, begins with a sibilant in Zendic, Lithuanian, 
 and Slavic (zemi, zemlia, etc.). In the same way the Thracian and 
 Phrygian Sabos, Sabazios, the Macedonian Itova^ai in Hesychius, etc., 
 reappear in a surname of Dionysus,."Y))f or "^tvg, the humid, fruit- 
 bri7iging, whose nurses too are the Hyades. There exists a Sabazios 
 Hyes ; and Semele herself is called Hye by Pherecydes. Sabos and 
 "Tijf are letter for letter the same word. 
 
 Note 26, page 72. 
 
 The pipXivoQ olvoe in Hesiod, Op. et D., 589, would lead to the same 
 conclusion, in so far as it is derived now from Thrace, now from 
 Naxos ; Steph. Byz. : BijSXij't), \'aipa Qpaajs' dnb ravrriQ 6 BijSXu'oe olvoe, 
 ji Si ciTi:^ Bi/3Xiaj afiirkXov, ^rijiOQ S" 6 AriXiog t6v Na^iov fi]nv, iwuSi) Na?oi 
 TTOTafios Bi/3Xoc. If the name is derived from the Phoenician town of 
 Byblus (Phoenician Gybl, that is, height, Hebrew Gobel, the town of 
 the Giblites), as is indicated by a verse of Archestratus in Athen., i. 
 p. 28 : 
 
 Tbv S' avd 4>oiviK))s Ipag, tov Pu^Xivov, aivS, 
 
 then the variants (3vl3\ivoe and pij3\ivoQ are both correct, as the Phoenician 
 vowel can be rendered either way ; not far lies the nasalized form 
 l3lfij3\ivog (in Hesychius). It is remarkable that we come across this 
 wine afterwards in Sicily and South Italy ; it occurred in Epicharmus ; 
 Theocritus mentions it (14, 15); the historian Hippys of Rhegium 
 related that it was transplanted from Italy to Syracuse {Athen., i. p. 8l) ; 
 and finally it is found on the first of the two Herakleote tables, if the 
 
NOTES. 449 
 
 expressions a. jiv^Xia and rdy pvpxivav fiaaxoKav are correctly explained 
 by Mazochi, the editor and explainer of the inscription, as meaning 
 "Byblic vine-plantation" (the Corp. Inscr. III., Nos. 5774 and 5775 
 agrees with him : " Recte videtur MazocMus a vitis genere ex Byblo 
 Phxnicia repetendo derivare, unde etiant pipXivog olvoe "). However it 
 does not seem to us probable that this name goes back to such a 
 remote, long-vanished antiquity, or that it contains a reminiscence of 
 the Byblian, which were the earliest of all the Phoenician colonies. It 
 might be less fanciful to suppose a reference to the Byblus material, 
 for Homer is acquainted with the same adjective pipXivog ; he applies 
 it (Od. 21, 391) to a ship's rope, which was therefore made of papyrus- 
 bast. It remains to be asked, how a kind of wine could be named 
 from that material ? Were the grapes dried on byblus mats and then 
 pressed, yielding a kind of straw- wine, vinum possum? or did the vines 
 climb up ropes of byblus, as in the neighbourhood of Brundusium in 
 Italy at the time of Varro ? The latter supposition would be supported 
 by the words of Hippys of Rhegium, in Athen. i. p. 31 : 'Ittvia^ (so he 
 is called here) II 6 'Pijylvoe njv UXibv KoXovfiiviiv afiinXov Bi/JXtdv ^ijiri 
 KaXciaBai. Or were the vines tied to their props with byblus bands, so 
 that the grapes could develop more freely ? Grotefend, in the Annali 
 dell' inst., vii. p. 275, and after him Gottling, derive also the Etruscan 
 name of Bacchus, Fufluns, from pi^Xivog ; Corssen, in his Sprache der 
 Etrusker, I, 314, rejects this combination, as a Greek and Latin initial 
 b is represented by p, never \>yf. What the real facts were about the 
 Pramnian wine, which served for mixing, and is twice mentioned by 
 Homer (II. 11, 638 ; Od. 10, 235), and whether that name signified a 
 species of grape, or a mode of preparation, or a district, and if so, what 
 district ? was evidently as little known by later expositors as what the 
 jSi/SXivof really was — although there is no want of conjectures and 
 assertions (see particularly, Athen. i. p. 30), and this Pramnian wine 
 is now and then mentioned in the post-Homeric time, for example, by 
 the Comic poet Ephippus : 
 
 0tXi3 yi npanviov dlvov Xka^iov 
 
 [Athen. i. p. 28). In remembering the Thracian, or properly Paeonian, 
 mixed drink Tzapapiri, brewed from millet with the addition of Kovii^ti, 
 mentioned by Hecataeus, we are tei.ipted to suppose that the adjective 
 Pramnian was only another form of the same Thracian or Phrygian 
 word. 
 
 Note 27, page 74. 
 If otvoc, vinum, belonged, as Pott supposed, to the same root as 
 viere, vitis, vitex, vimen, vilta, Ma, 'itvq, etc., the Greeks and Latins 
 
 2Q 
 
450 /fOTES. 
 
 must have formed their name for wine out of a native root meaning to 
 twine, by means of a participial n. But when we consider (i) that the 
 beverage, both by the many processes of which it is the final result, 
 and in its effects and properties, stands too far away from the plant 
 itself to be named from its climbing nature ; (2) that in the spread of 
 this culture from one nation to another, the finished product is always 
 introduced first and called by its foreign name, and the cultivation is 
 not learnt till later — after which such words as olvt], otvag, o'vapov, etc., 
 can be formed easily enough ; (3) that the similarity of the Semitic 
 name (yain, wain) can only be explained by supposing that the Greeks 
 received the name together with the thing ; it is more than probable 
 that vinum only accidentally resembles vitis, that the former is a 
 foreign word, the latter a native one with the meaning of " flexible 
 plant" (see below, note 46). The Germans also borrowed the word 
 for wine, but called the vine by a German word (O. H. G. repd). 
 Curtius, No. 594, says : "Why the fruit of the vine should not originally 
 have been called after the vine, is more than I can make out. The 
 Lithuanian word offers a most striking analogy " (namely, apvynys, 
 hop-tendril, plu. apvynei, hops). The analogy would be striking if in 
 any language beer was named from the prickly nature of the barley- 
 ear ; as it is, that Lithuanian transition of meaning is much the same 
 as is seen in avizas, oat-corn, plu. avisos, oats, and a hundred similar 
 cases. Besides, vinum is not even alleged to be derived from vitis, 
 vine, which might be thought possible, but immediately from a root 
 meaning simply to twine. 
 
 Mommsen also, founding on a supposed affinity in the Sanskrit, 
 thinks it probable that the primitive race migrating into Italy brought 
 the vine with them (in several parts of his Roman History, especially 
 I, 173, of the second edition). But, as the cultivation of vines pre- 
 supposes a very high degree of domiciliation, it is not reconcilable 
 with the habits of a wandering horde. At the stage of warlike pastoral 
 life, migration in mass is natural ; at an advanced stage of agriculture, 
 with property in the soil, and durable houses, it is extremely rare and 
 only possible under very special circumstances ; where trees and vines 
 are cultivated, it is wholly inconceivable. Regard the Britons or 
 Germans of Casar, their breeding of cattle, their incipient, half-nomadic 
 agriculture, their food consisting of milk and flesh, their clothing of 
 skins, etc. Can it be imagined that they could have cultivated vines, 
 which need so much provident care, and so many appliances of civili- 
 zation? They, who probably planted only spring-corn, for winter- 
 sowing supposes too much of plan and calculation (Roscher, Ansichten 
 der Volkswirthschaft, Leipzig and Heidelberg, 1861 ; Ueber die Land- 
 wirthschaft der dltesten Deutschen, p. 75. Von Sybel, Kleine historische 
 
NOTES. 451 
 
 Schriften, p. 35, 1863), could they have meddled with vine-shoots, that 
 only bear fruit after many years ? And surely the wandering folk that 
 invaded Italy had reached no higher stage of culture than the earliest 
 Germans of history, but rather a lower ; they brought with them cattle, 
 swine, and stone axes, but assuredly no vines. The difference in the 
 development of the great national groups of Europe only consists in 
 their earlier or later entrance on particular phases of culture ; the 
 Greeks received their impulse from the East, the Italians from the 
 Greeks ; the Celts turned their attention to agriculture, and the building 
 of towns, roads, and bridges, centuries later than the Graaco- Italian 
 nations, from whom they learnt much ; again centuries afterwards, the 
 Germans did the same, having meanwhile experienced the civilizing 
 influence of the Celts ; still later the Slavs, under the constant educating 
 influence of the Germanic West. Make every allowance for difference 
 of race and climate ; yet climate itself imposes a gradual advance of 
 the vine from the south-east, and forbids any idea of its having come 
 down from beyond the Alps. We admit that, from the point of view 
 of Roman documents and traditions, the cultivation of the vine in Italy 
 looks very old ; the only question is, how old .-' For the establishment 
 of the Roman ritual, and for Italy in general — as seen from Rome — 
 the period of Greek influence is quite an ancient, indeed a primitive, 
 period. If the ancestral god of the Sabines, Sancus, was imagined as 
 a vine-dresser, viti-sator, with a bent sickle, yet these same Sabines 
 professed to be descended from Sabus the Lacedaemonian ! 
 
 Note 28, page 75. 
 
 The Greek word ica/ia? (already used by Homer and Hesiod) only 
 meant the light, reed-like rod or pole along which the vines climbed, 
 or were led from tree to tree ; the vineyard on the shield of Herakles 
 in Hesiod (v. 897) swings, with leaves and KafiaxtQ, hither and thither : 
 
 ffeiofievoQ ^vXXouTi kul apyvpiyai Ktxfia^i' 
 
 and the kariiKu in the corresponding verse of the Iliad 18, 563 : 
 
 hrrjKti Si Ka/ia^i Sia/i'irspkg apyvpi-gaiv — 
 
 only means that canes were siuci in the ground in continuous rows to 
 sup-port the vines. And the later name x«p«5 (from which Diaz thinks 
 the French ichalas is derived), really a pointed cutting of a plant, was 
 used originally in the sense of cane or shoot ; the xapas^i, for 
 example, which the five rich Corcyrseans in Thucydides (3, 70) are said 
 to have cut from the grove of Zeus and Alcinous, can only have been 
 twigs, for when the culprits had to pay a stater for each, the fine was 
 
452 NOTES. 
 
 thought excessive ; and not many poles could have been cut dowrn un- 
 observed in a consecrated grove. The true Greek name for vine-pole 
 would be Tn\ioq or jnjJo)/ (corresponding to the Lat. pedare vineam, 
 pedamenlum, ■pedum, the shepherd's-staSff, etc., only with a lengthened 
 root-vowel, like the Goth, fitus, foot), but this word never became 
 developed ; it appears in Homer with the meaning, foot-end (blade) 
 of an oar ; in the passage (II. 5, 838) where the beech-wood axle is 
 spoken of, there is an old reading nriSivoe instead of iprjyivoQ (see 
 Eustath. on the passage) ; and in Theophrastus, k.pl., 5, 7, 6, Schnei- 
 der has from manuscripts restored mjSos for the tree that axles and 
 ploughs are made of (see Schneider on Theophrastus, k. pi., 4, i, 3). 
 
 If the CEnotrians were named after the vine-poles, the name of the 
 oldest grape in Italy, the viits Amincea or Aminea, points in a singu- 
 lar manner to the Peucetians, a kindred nation to the CEnotrians. 
 Philargyr. ad Virg. G. 2, 97 : " Aristoteles in Politiis scribit Amineos 
 Thessalios fuisse, qui suae regionis vites in lialiam transtulerint, atque 
 Hits inde nomen impositum." To this we add the gloss of Hesychius : 
 j; yap Uivxtria 'Afuvaia Xsyerai. Also, according to Macrobius (Sai. 3, 
 20, 7), the Aminean grape was called after a certain district : "Aminea, 
 scilicet e regione, nam Aminei fuerunt ubi nunc Falerniim, est." Galen 
 in two passages places the Aminean wine, which he calls watery, i^arwJi;s, 
 and light, XETrrof, in the neighbourhood of Naples [De methodo medendi, 
 12, 4 : TE NeaTToXiTT^f 6 'A^tvalog, kv toIq Tspi NeaTroXtv xwptote ytvofisvog' 
 De antid., I, 3 : o rt Iv Nea?roX£i xardi roig viroKu/Kvove airy Xo0o«f, 
 'Ajuivalof /iiv SvofiaZofiivos t. t. X.). Accordingly Voss, in the passage 
 just quoted from Macrobius, corrected Falernum into Salernum (in 
 which Val. Rose, Arist. pseudepigr., p. 467, seems to agree with him), 
 and supposed that the Peucetia of Hesychius meant the country of the 
 Picentines south-east of Naples. But the Aminean grape was quite 
 at home in Campania proper. When Varro calls the vitis Aminea also- 
 Scantiana {De r. r., 1,58, Pliny 14, 47), this word must be derived from 
 the silva Scantia, which lay in Campania. In ancient as in modern 
 times the vine in Campania was trained high on the trees, and the 
 Aminean vine was a decided ijitis arbustiva. This is plainly proved 
 by the descriptions of Columella, 3, 2, 8-14, and Pliny, 14, 21, and by 
 directions in the Geoponica, 4, 13, 5, 17, 2, 5, 27, 2. So the Aminean 
 grape might originally belong to the district in which Aminean wine 
 grew in Galen's time. Afterwards, it is true, the Peucetians, the fir- 
 folk, were imagined as living in another place ; but the name is an 
 appellative, with which the idea of woods and trees was associated, 
 and in Cicero's time Campania did not want for woods, as is proved, 
 not only by the above-mentioned Scantia, but by the silva Gallinaria 
 on the R. Volturnus, a wood of firs that still exists. Its Thessalian 
 
NOTES. 453 
 
 origin means no more than that this grape goes back to the oldest 
 time of the Greek settlement. Again, when we read in Hesychius 
 /lopytov' ilSog aftmXov, and call to mind the kind of grape named Mur- 
 gentinum by Cato, we find the Morgetes, whose name seems formed 
 from the measure of land apportioned (fieipo/iaL, fioXpa, with the i 
 thickened into g), connected with the cultivation of the vine. Much 
 antiquity is to be found in the numerous names for different kinds of 
 grapes. The name of the visula, for example, is probably founded on the 
 Greek o7<rof, oio-os, dlaov, olaiia (the Adj. oimivoQ already used by Homer), 
 Fr. osier, Bret, oazil. Might the spionia or spinea, which was native 
 to the district about the mouths of the Po, be derived from the Greek 
 ^Ivoiiat, \pivae, as it would be too bold to think of the time-honoured 
 city of Spina ? 
 
 It is remarkable how the various methods of planting and nursing 
 the vine according to the district have been retained from early anti- 
 i^uity down to the present day. In Provence the vine is trained now 
 just as it was by the Phocaeans ; the similar Catalonian method is 
 derived from the settlements of the Massaliotes ; in Tuscany and the 
 Campagna of Naples, south of the Volturno, the vine grows on tall 
 elms and poplars ; in Lombardy it twines in festoons [rumpi, traduces) 
 on small elder-trees {opulus, the same as populus in the Celtic pro- 
 nunciation, with initial/ dropped, as in a/'/4z>'= pater, /■aj^=piscis, etc.) ; 
 in the Alpine valleys it forms wide bowers upborne by columns — all 
 just as it was in the time of Varro, Pliny, and Columella. Unger and 
 Kotschy, in Die Insel Cypem, p. 449, describe the cultivation of the 
 vine in the Levant : " The young vine has to live, bear grapes, and 
 ripen them, without support, for whence are the wooden props to come 
 which lighten the weight of the fruit in our vineyards ? There is no 
 material for such support, either in the Ionian Isles, in all Greece, 
 Syria, and Palestine, or in this island (Cyprus). Whoever travels in the 
 East where the vine cannot obey its natural impulse and crown the 
 tree-tops, gets used to seeing it a planta hutnifusa in the deepest 
 dejection and slavery." 
 
 Note 29, page 79. 
 Portugal experienced something very similar as late as the second 
 half of the eighteenth century. That country, fallen into the deepest 
 economical distress, had no source of profit save in the production of 
 wine ; and vine plantations, on favourable soil and on unfavourable, 
 had supplanted agriculture throughout the land. The minister 
 Pombal gave orders to uproot the vines and sow corn in whole districts, 
 especially in the valley of the Tagus. The order was executed, for 
 the masterful reformer brooked no contradiction. Other paternal 
 
454 NOTES. 
 
 governments have aimed at the same objects by less startling methods,' 
 by screwing up taxes, by bounties, prohibitions, and differential duties. 
 How young after all are the elementary notions of National Economy; 
 which will one day be extolled as the greatest benefactress of mankind ! 
 
 Note 30, page 80. 
 
 Strabo tells us of a singular precursor of Islam among the Getse (7, 
 3, 11). This people, like the Scythians and Thracians, and afterwards 
 the Slavs, was notorious for its drunken habits, which prevented all 
 political or warlike development. But, not long before the time of 
 Strabo (or, as Jornandes 11 reports after Dio Chrysostomus, during 
 the dictatorship of Sulla), there arose among them a magician of the 
 name of Decaeneus, who had travelled much in Egypt and there learnt 
 the art of prophecy, and who gained an extraordinary influence over 
 his countrymen. They obeyed him so blindly that, at his behest, they 
 u]irooted all the vines in the country and thenceforward lived without 
 wine. This occurred during the reign of King Boerebista, who, with 
 the intention of making his people brave, followed the same method, 
 and, victorious on all sides, actually founded a mighty Getic empire, 
 until parties rebelled against him and the Getic power again declined. 
 Whether the virtue of temperance endured longer, and whether 
 Decaaneus, like Mohammed afterwards, allowed or even favoured 
 polygamy in compensation for the prohibited wine, is not stated. 
 The Thracians, Getse, and Dacians were a race of unbridled sensuality, 
 which, however, as MuUenhofif remarks (article GeTjE in the Encyclo- 
 paedia), was checked from time to time by an ascetic reaction nourished 
 by a belief in ghosts. 
 
 Note 31, page 82. 
 
 The Provenfal and French word iona, tonne, which is also found in 
 the Wallachian, and has passed into all the Celtic and Germanic 
 tongues, but is characteristically wanting in Italian, must be derived 
 from one of the Alpine languages, either the Ligurian or the Rhaetian. 
 In Latin and Italian there is a word with another root-vowel — Una, 
 wine-tub. Strabo says, that in Cisalpine Gaul, besides pitch-boileries 
 (in the wooded spurs of the Alps), there were used immense wooden 
 casks, as big as houses, to hold the wine (5, i, 12 : rh SoXvov to Tr\rj9os 
 firivvovaiv ol vi^oi' ol ^vXivoi yip /iil^ovQ o'lKuiv tlm). Further (5, 1, 8), that 
 the Illyrians brought their wine from Aquileia in wooden casks, M 
 ^v\iv(i}V iriQoiv. 
 
 With the wooden vessels appeared another far-spread word, daube, 
 stave, dattge, etc., which runs through all the Romance and Slavic 
 
NOTES. 
 
 45S 
 
 languages, and is not wanting in the Magyar, Albanian, Wallachian, 
 and Modern Greek. Diaz trace? all existing forms of the word to a 
 Low- Latin doga, which itself was derived from the Greek ioxi\. The 
 word has passed into the Germanic languages only here and there, 
 but flourishes abundantly in the Slavic both as to forms and meanings ; 
 being, for instance, applied to the rainbow (see Miklosich, Die Fremd- 
 wbrter in den Slav. Spr., p. 83), whence, as a derivative adjective, it 
 gets the meaning of many-coloured. The centre of diffusion for this 
 word is the wooded regions of the Danube, and there too the thing 
 was native ; but it is quite possible that it was derived from a Grseco- 
 Latin expression, perhaps used in the technical and commercial 
 language of Aquileia. To this day the wood that is used for the 
 barrels sent to the East comes mostly from Hungary, and the hoops 
 made of corylus Pontica are imported by way of Constantinople. 
 
 A third expression, much used in the richly-wooded Romance 
 countries, and far-spread on every side, is cupa, originally a Greek 
 word {ku-ki]). When Maximin, in the year 238, was about to besiege 
 Aquileia, but could not get his army over a tearing rain-swollen river, 
 he was assisted by the extensive wine-trade of the place, for he found 
 a quantity of large empty wine barrels, of which he built a bridge 
 (Herodiail, 8, 4? 9 ^ virkl3a\6v nvig riov rexvLKuiv, ttoWcl alvai Kevd. olvofopa 
 tTKevrj TTi-pi^spovQ X^Xov iv Toig EprjfiOiQ aypoiQy cIq kxpZvro fiev irpoTEpov oi 
 KaTOLKOvvTEQ iLQ VTTTjpiaiav EavTutv Kai TTapaTTijX'KHV Tov dlvov dfffaXidg TOtg 
 Seojikvoie). Jul. Capitolinus, reporting the same event, calls these 
 enormous casks cupcz (Maximin. 22 : " Ponte Hague cupis facto, Maxi- 
 minus fluvium transivit, et de proximo Aquileiam obsidere coepit"). 
 The Massilians must also have possessed such barrels, for when 
 Caesar besieged their town, they rolled them, filled with burning tar 
 and pitch, down from the walls upon the enemy's trenches {De B. Civ., 
 2, 1 1 : " Cupas taeda acpice refertas incendunt, easque de muro in mus- 
 culumdevolvuni"),yast as the inhabitants of Uxellodunumin Aquitania 
 had done before in a smaller case {De B. Gall., 8, 42 : " Cupas sevo, 
 pice, scandulis complent; eas ardentes in opera provolvunt"). From the 
 island near Salona, where the poet Lucan makes the Caesarians to be 
 blockaded, these try to get away to the Illyrian mainland by night on 
 rafts made of empty wine-barrels (4, 420 : " Namque ratem vacuae 
 sustentant undique cupae"); of which, in that vine-country, where the 
 mountains were still covered with forest, there must have been plenty. 
 The workman who furnished the vine-dressers and merchants with 
 such cupae was a cuparius, as we see, for example, from an inscription 
 at Treves — Orelli, No. 4176 ; " Cuparius ei saccarius" (a man who also 
 made sacks, and therefore worked for the freight-trade in general). 
 Among the barbarians the cupa was also used for beer ; and we leam 
 
456 NOTES. 
 
 from various passages in the Roman law-books that it was also used to 
 hold com and flour. The article coppa in Diez gives a brief picture 
 of what became of the word during the Middle Ages and in the 
 modern Latin languages : what had originally meant coop or vat took 
 the meaning of cup and bowl, head and tuft, mountain-top and 
 vaulted dome. In German not only kiibel and kuppel (tub and 
 dome) are derived from this word, but also kopf, for in primitive 
 fashion bowl and head or skull are similarly named, and the name of 
 the vessel passes to ship and boat, cabin and cofKn. The Greek ^owrie, 
 fiovnov, fiine, fivrivn, corresponding to the Latin cupa, cuppa, has a 
 similarly varied application and extent throughout North Europe, and 
 is still heard in the German bUtte, tub, boHcher, cooper, in the French 
 boite, boot, bouteille, bottle, etc. From the same root probably comes 
 Old Irish bothan, hut, both, house, Pruss. buitan,axiA Lith. buttas, house, 
 and even the German and Slavic bude, booth. 
 
 Our ohm, formerly ahm, awme, is the borrowed Greek a/jij, Latin 
 hamaj our seidel, pint, is the Latin situla; omx flasche, bottle, prob- 
 ably, in the last instance, the Latin vasculum, though now it generally 
 means a glass vessel. Glass also, like wood, is a substance that first 
 became an article of universal daily use in the North, and in post- 
 Roman times ; from the wooden cask we tap the wine into glass 
 bottles, which we close with cork stoppers. The first, the bottles, are 
 scarcely older than the fifteenth century (see Beckmann, Beitrdge, ii. 
 p. 485) ; the art of closing the narrow mouth of a vessel with the 
 elastic bark of the cork-oak cannot be very ancient, and only became 
 common during the last few centuries, and that very slowly. The 
 cork-oak, quercus suber, probably exists no longer in Greece ; it was 
 rare there even in the olden time ; it is a tree belonging to South- 
 Western Europe and the opposite shores of Africa. It cannot with 
 certainty be recognised among the varieties of oak mentioned by 
 Theophrastus : the tree that when stripped of its bark thrives all the 
 better, he places in Tyrrhenia, i.e., towards the west ; but, at the same 
 time, he observes that it sheds its leaves in winter, which is calculated 
 to puzzle us again {H.pl., 3, 17, 1). Pausanias (8, 12, i) mentions 
 among the oaks of Arcadia, one whose rind is so light and loose that it 
 is used as floats for anchors and nets — evidently the cork-oak ; but his 
 description shows that it was a natural wonder with which his readers 
 were unacquainted. The Romans had an individual name for the 
 cork-oak, suber, which distinguished it clearly from all other forest- 
 trees. We already hear of the bark in the story of Camillus. Camillus 
 was to be named dictator, but a decree of the Senate, then shut up in 
 the Capitol by the Gauls, was necessary. A youth called Pontius 
 Cominius undertook to carry the message. As the bridge over 
 
NOTES. 
 
 457 
 
 the Tiber was watched by the enemy, he swam at night across 
 the river, supported by pieces of cork (Plut. Catti. 25, 3 : roij ^eXXoTf 
 i^ti's rh aHjia koX avvf7riKov<piZ(^v Tif v^paiovadai wp&g rf/v iroXiv i^ifirj). The 
 custom of closing vessels with resined cork was derived, it seems, from 
 the Gauls. Colum. 12, 23 : " Corticata pix qua utuniur ad condituras 
 Allobroges." Cato, 120, prescribes : " Musium si voles toium annum 
 habere, in amphoram mustum indito et corticem oppicato, detnittito in 
 piscinam; that is, to keep the must fresh the whole year, the mouth 
 of the amphora is to be closed with cork and pitch, and the vessel 
 then kept at the bottom of the tank. In Horace, the wine-containing 
 amphora is secured with a " cork made tight with pitch." Od. 3, 8, 9 : 
 
 ^'' Hie dies anno redeunte festus 
 Corticem adstrictum pice demovebit 
 Amphorae fumum bibere institutae 
 Consule Tullo." 
 
 Pliny speaks more plainly as to the use and utility of the rind of the 
 cork-tree : 16, 34 : "Usus ejus {suberis) ancoralibus maxume naviu/n 
 (buoys, for which light wood is now generally nstd), piscantiumque 
 tragulis (floats for fishing-nets), et cadorum opt'uramentis (bungs for 
 casks), praeterea in hiberno feminarum calciatu (soles to put in 
 slippers, such as are still used)." Notwithstanding all this, what we 
 understand by corking was rare among the Romans, who generally 
 used pitch, plaster, wax, etc., and poured oil on the top of that, still a 
 frequent practice in Italy, to preserve the liquid from the air ; the 
 shape of the earthenware vessels, their larger size and wider opening 
 were not well suited for closure by a cork. This state of things 
 remained much the same during the Middle Ages. Barrels were 
 bunged with wooden plugs ; smaller vessels of earthenware, tin, or 
 wood, to be slung round the neck or waist when hunting or travelling, 
 and the silver or gold bottles of the higher classes were plugged or 
 screwed tight with stoppers of the same material, or with wax, etc. 
 The invention of the narrow-necked and cheap glass bottle, and the 
 extension of trade first caused the cork (from cortex, but probably 
 through the Spanish corcha ; the French liige, the light material, is 
 from levis) to come into general use, and it now seems to us indis- 
 pensable in the preservation of fine wines. 
 
 Note 32, page 86. 
 
 At another festival, held about the same time, the Thargelia, the 
 two fap/idKoi, who were led to death as an expiatory sacrifice, were 
 hung one with white and the other with black figs, and were scourged 
 
4S8 NOT£S. 
 
 with fig-rods (A. Mommsen, Heortologie, p. 417)- It was an ancient 
 Ionic festival, but what was meant by the fig is doubtful 
 
 Note 33, page 87- 
 The Ficiis Ruminalis, so called after Jupiter Ruminus and the Diva 
 Rumina, whose names again were derived from ruma— mamma, sym- 
 bolizing fertility and procreation ; see Preller, Riim. MythoL, p. 368, 
 and Corssen, Kritische Beitrdge, p. 429. The custom of making 
 figures of Priapus out of the wood of the fig-tree belongs to the same 
 circle of ideas. A variation of an old legend in Strabo (Hesiod, 
 Fragm. clxix., Gottling) shows how ihA fig-tree and the swine had the 
 same value as images of exuberant creation. Hesiod related that 
 Calchas at Colophon asked Mopsus, the grandson of Tiresias, how 
 many figs there were on a fig-tree standing before them ; Mopsus 
 having stated the number and measure correctly, Calchas died with 
 the painful impression of having met with a more excellent seer than 
 himself. Pherecydes told the same story, only that instead of the 
 quantity of fruit on a fig-tree, the question was about the number of 
 pigs to which a sow that lay before them would give birth. From 
 this it has been supposed that avsov and (tDc, a sow, were derived from 
 the same hypothetical root su, to generate ; and that ficus, too, was 
 analogous to fieri, ipvciv. But this etymology cannot be trusted, 
 because the date of the introduction of the fig among the Greeks and 
 Romans is too late to admit of such primitive formations. Benfey 
 (i, 442) presumes that the Greek word was borrowed from, the East, 
 and appeals in proof to avKa/uvoe. The Latin form shows that a 
 digamma had stood after the o-, from which proceeded the long vowel 
 V ; ficus arose out of afxav, V^t fides from c<i>iSig, and asfiaiiere is the 
 same as atpiXKiiv, fungus as (7<p6yyos, etc. As the Thebans said rvica 
 for avKa, and the Syracusan quarter ^vk!j seems also to have been 
 called TuK^, from which arose by a misunderstanding the later TiixVt 
 as though it meant " fortune " ; Ahrens (£>e Dial. Dorica, p. 64) thinks 
 the original form was tFikov. Or did the Greeks pronounce the foreign 
 consonant sometimes as s, and sometimes as /,like Sor, Sar, and Tufjof, 
 Tyre ? That in the north of the Greek peninsula the first letter of the 
 kindred word ancia (for avxia, auKta ?) was also pronounced t, may be 
 concluded from the Slavic tykva, pumpkin, which the Slavs doubtless 
 got from the region of the Danube. The Gothic name for fig, smakka 
 and the Slavic smokva — on the strength of which Kuhn {Zeitschr., 4, 
 17) assumes a primitive form sfakva for the Greek also — is probably 
 only a corruption, as the long 5 did not fit into the Gothic system of 
 vowels, unless the change had already taken place in the language of 
 
NOTES. 
 
 459 
 
 the northern tribes of the Balkan peninsula, which passed the word 
 on to them. To say m for b was a barbarism (Steph. Byz. : 'AjSavTig- 
 rb A^avria 9ti\vK6v, 'dvap Kari PapPapiKrjv Tpovfiv Tov /S sig p. 'Apavrta IM^Sj) 
 Trapa 'AvTiyovqi iv MaKtSovucy Trspiijyiiaei) . So 'Apvdiiv (a town of the 
 Pseonians already in Homer) alternated with AjSuSiiv, the 'AXprivri 
 in Ptolemy is perhaps for Albania, the river Soyypoc in Herodotus 
 is afterwards called Margus, now Morawa, Bellerophontes in 
 Italian becomes Melerpanta, etc. Also fi and v become m : 
 awdkog was called in Macedonian apa\6s, the river Tilaventum 
 is the modern Tagliamento, etc. So the original digamma in 
 avKov might meet the Goths when they came to the Danube in 
 the shape of an m, with the auxiliary vowel a. The Wends, who 
 lived next behind the Goths, could have only received the fig, in 
 a dried state of course, from the Goths ; therefore the Slavic name 
 (Old Slav. smokHvl, smoky, smokvd) was merely borrowed from the 
 Gothic at a time when the assimilation of kv into kk had not yet 
 taken place. We must add that the ra/z'/i^ fig-tree Ipivioq, from which 
 the cultivated fig cannot be derived, is heard of already in Homer, 
 and that its name is perhaps etymologically identical with that of the 
 fruit, oXvvBue. 
 
 Note 34, page 99. 
 
 A. de la Marmora {Jtin^raire de I'tle de Sardaigne, 2, p. 353, Turin, 
 i860) says of the Sardinian olive : " Un ^exprimerait mal, d. man avis, 
 si Ton vozilait parler de V introduction gu'on y aurait faite de cette 
 plante, puisque ce pays est visibleinciit sa patrie naturelle." This 
 remark of the eminent naturalist, though historically incorrect, proves 
 how luxuriantly the tree thrives in its newly-conquered European 
 sphere of culture. In Corsica too there are splendid groves of olives 
 now, and yet the Romans had much trouble in transplanting the tree 
 thither. Nay, if we may believe Seneca's rhetoric, there was no cul- 
 tivation of it at all in the wild island in his time {Epigr. super exilia, 
 2, 3, 4 : 
 
 " Non poma auctumnus, segetes non educat aestas, 
 Canague Palladio inunere brutna caret"). 
 
 Even in Sardinia the government found it advisable to promise a title 
 to any one who should cultivate a number of olive-trees, just as the 
 Venetians were obliged to encourage the same cultivation in their 
 Greek possessions by rewards. The wild olive-tree, says La Marmora 
 in another place {Voyage en Sardaigne, i, 164, ed. 2), covers immense 
 spaces in the hilly region of the island, and only awaits inoculation to 
 bear splendid fruit. But, we may ask, Is the tree really wild there, or 
 
46o NOTES. 
 
 only gone wild ? After two and a half millenniums and the unspeak- 
 able miseries of war that filled them, the latter supposition is certainly 
 not too bold. 
 
 Note 35, page 109. 
 Among the Arabs in Africa the date-palm is spared during devas- 
 tating inroads into the enemy's country. G. Rohlfs {Afrikanische 
 Reisen, p. 70, Bremen, 1869, ed. 2): "The fields were wasted, the 
 water-channels destroyed, the ksors (villages) everywhere strongly 
 barricaded from without, the fruit-trees felled ; only the olive, which 
 is always respected, lifted its crown sorrowfully above the deserted 
 fields, where for two months men had daily murdered each other for 
 nothing" (p. 186) ; " Mussulmen think it one of the greatest crimes to 
 cut down a palm-tree. When the Hadji Abd-el-Kader related his 
 heroic deeds, he asked me. Was I right to fell the palm-trees of my 
 enemies ? I answered, No ; for here in the desert the palm is the 
 only sustenance of man. This answer pleased him ; he said that until 
 then every one, even the Tholbas, had told him he was right, while an 
 inner voice upbraided him with having done a great wrong." 
 
 Note 36, page iio. 
 
 The Greek ivof, Lat. asinus, we agree with Beiifey in deriving from 
 a Semitic word corresponding to the Hebrew athSn, she-ass ; where, 
 in the Greek word, the sibilant arisen out of the dental th is supposed 
 to have dropped out before the n. From the Latin are further derived 
 the Gothic asilus, Lithuanian asilas, and Slavic osilic. Herodotus 
 expressly says that there were neither asses nor mules in Scythia, the 
 country being too cold for those animals (4, 129 : 5ia to. ^^vxm), and he 
 adds that the Scythian cavalry were repeatedly forced to retreat by 
 the voices of the asses in Darius's army. Aristotle confirms this, 
 with the addition, that it was also too cold for the ass among the 
 Celts beyond Iberia — De animal, generat., 2, 8 : Swmp iv rols x^'/'^P'^o'^f 
 ov 9k\ti yiveaOai TOirotQ SiA to Svapiyov etvai rrjv ^viriv, oiiov Ttpi ^kuQuq xat 
 rrjv ofiopov ^i^pav, ovot nspl KtXrovf ToiQ v-irip rfig 'I^rjpiag' ^pvxpci ydp Kat 
 iivrij 1) xutpa. So in Hist, anitn.^ 8, 25 : Svapiyorarov S" kari twv tolovtiov 
 ZifiuV Iw Kal TTipl IlovTov KOI T7)v 'SkvBiki^v OV ytvovTai ovoi. Not otherwise 
 Strabo, 7, 4, l8 : ovovs n yap ov rpl^ouat {Smpiyov yap to Zvov) ; and 
 Pliny, 8, 167 : " Ipsum anijnal {asinus) frigoris maxume impatiens, 
 idea non generatur in Ponto." As the ass is not so much a gregarious 
 as a domestic animal, and his business chiefly consists in carrying 
 burdens hither and thither within the limits of human settlements 
 (hence Italian somaro, ass, literally sumpter-beast ; Mod. Greek yopapi 
 
NOTES. 461 
 
 from yo/tos, burden, load), he cannot have taken any part in the earliest 
 migrations of Indo-European pastoral tribes. The word will have 
 reached the Lithuanians through neighbouring German tribes, perhaps 
 at an early time, for instance, that of the Gothic king Ermanarich, for, 
 like the pedlars from the South, mountebanks with asses bestridden 
 by apes wandered through the barbarous countries ; the first Christian 
 missionaries may also have spread the knowledge of the animal, for 
 the ass was frequently mentioned in the Bible stories, and may have 
 been represented in rude pictures illustrating the sacred history. The 
 Slavic name is also of Gothic origin. But the Gothic asiltts itself is' 
 directly derived from the Latin, not from asellus, which form is want- 
 ing in the Romance tongues, showing it was not popular, and is also 
 accented contradictorily ; but from asinus with the very common 
 change of n into the / more facile to the German tongue. So out of 
 the Latin catinus was made the Gothic katils, Slav. kotllU, kettle ; 
 from lagena the O. H. Germ, lagella. Mid. H. Germ. Idgel, little pot ; 
 from organum the German orgel, organ ; from cuminum the O. H. 
 Germ, chumil, cummin. Some Teutonic languages have a by-form in 
 which the Latin n is retained. Of the Celtic assal, Stockes (Irish 
 Glosses, 296) also thinks that according to the laws of sound it can be 
 no native word, but must be derived from the Latin ; in a later passage 
 (p. 159) he adds that even avaq and asinus seem to be of Oriental and 
 not of Indo-European origin. In the so-called Terramara-beds of 
 Parma, which belong to the bronze age, none but doubtful bones of 
 asses were met with, and those only in the upper strata {Mittheilungen 
 der Antiquarischen Gesellsch. in Ziirich, vol. xiv. p. 136). Therefore 
 the ass appeared later than bronze in that part of Italy. 
 
 Note 37, page 112. 
 
 The Homeric ij/jiovwi' aypoTtpauv can only mean — reared on th& 
 pasture, in free herds, not yet tamed. Such young animals came from 
 the Eneti, and were then broken in by the owner, just like horses. 
 Modern exponents of Homer consider the mule, that mongrel between 
 horse and ass, to be a natural wild race of animals ; or they remind 
 us of the eguus hemionus of the zoologists, the jiggetai in the deserts, 
 of Asia, which must have been imported, I suppose, to adorn the zoo- 
 logical gardens of the Trojans ! But the onagri which Liudpraud, oa 
 his embassy of the year 968, saw on a marsh at Constantinople, may 
 have been real jiggetais. Unfortunately, Liudpraud had not enough 
 interest in the matter to inquire of the keepers whence these wild 
 asses came, or to describe them more closely. 
 
 The Latin mitlus is probably derived from the Greek /twxXof, breeding- 
 
462 NOTES. 
 
 ass, where the omission of the x is reflected in the length of the vowel. 
 MuxXos was, according to Hesychius, a Phocaean word, and the Pho- 
 casans were the mariners and colonizers of the West. The Albanian 
 (also Wallachian) viushke, and the Slavic miskii, misgH, mishte, which 
 cannot be derived from mesiii, meshaii, to mix, must come from jiv)^6q ; 
 it is wanting in Polish and Lithuanian, and will be a Thracian form 
 of word. The modern Russians have derived both their expressions 
 for mule, ishak and loshak, as well as their name for horse, from the 
 Tartars. If the language of the great Thraco-IUyrian race — which 
 must very early have introduced a great many ideas of culture into 
 the North — had been preserved to us, we should have a far clearer 
 insight into the primitive history of Europe. Much that now deceives 
 us with the semblance of original affinity would prove, we believe, to 
 be the migration of culture. The two names for ass, horse, or mule, 
 mannus and buricus, whose varied forms Diefenbach (flrigines Euro- 
 paeae, p. 378) has collected, seem to be of Celtic or Iberian origin. 
 What if they be simply popular corruptions of iifuovog and opeije (with 
 digamma represented by b'), and had penetrated into the Ligurian and 
 Iberian west, by way of Massiha and the Spanish-Greek towns, 
 together with the animal itself.' The Latin hinnus for the offspring 
 of a stallion and she-ass (Varro, De r. r., 2, 8 1 : '^Ex equa enim et asino 
 fit mulus, contra ex equo et asina hinnus ") is likewise of Greek origin 
 — "ivvoi, "ivvoQ, yivvog. If the 7 here answers to an old digamma, the 
 migration of the word to Italy must be ascribed to a comparatively 
 late period, which is likely enough from the nature of the case, as this 
 kind of coupling was less common. 
 
 Note 38, page 113 
 
 The Greek ai5, aiyog, goat, is found again in Sanskrit and Lithua- 
 nian, and therefore goes back to the time before the separation of the 
 nations. It does not necessarily follow that the primitive race already 
 possessed the goat as a domestic animal ; it might call any leaping 
 animal of the chase by a name that afterwards passed to the tame 
 goat when that became known — a possibility which should be more 
 frequently considered in similar cases by those who so boldly infer the 
 state of culture of the primitive stock from the existence of certain 
 words common to all races. Movers, following very different traces 
 and combinations, tries to prove the origin of the goat in the moun- 
 tainous part of North Africa (ii., 2, p. 366). The ancients now and 
 then mention wild goats in Greece and Italy. But goats easily run 
 wild, and then multiply rapidly. In the seventeenth century all the 
 inhabitants of the Isle of Cerigo were either murdered or carried off 
 
NOTES. 463 
 
 by the Turks, and their dwellings burnt down. Only a few goats 
 escaped. Fifteen years later these had increased to many thousands, 
 but had become as wild as chamois (Beckmann, Literatur der dlteren 
 Reise-beschreibungen, i, 547). La Marmora had heard a great deal 
 about the wild goats on the little island of Tavolara, near Sardinia, an 
 island which is nothing but an immense block of limestone. When, 
 not without trouble and danger, he had killed a few of these animals, 
 examination proved that the so-called wild goats were nothing but 
 tame animals run wild iyoyage en Sardaigne, i. p. 174, ed. 2.). But 
 it is certain that on the rocky labyrinths of the Greek islands, and of 
 Sicily, Sardinia, and Calabria, as well as in Palestine and on the 
 Atlas, the goat feels more at home, yields more milk, and is better 
 grown than in the foggy, grassy, and woody lowlands, on which in 
 the primitive time the Germanic and Lithuano-Slavic races pastured 
 their oxen. 
 
 Note 39, page 113. 
 
 The South-east of Europe, the slopes of the Carpathians and the 
 neighbouring plains were from the very beginning one immense forest 
 of lime-trees, which furnished even in historic times an immeasurable 
 quantity of honey, and in which the Slavs, who moved into them, 
 dwelt and feasted. As the culture of the soil advanced, every bee- 
 master had his fixed portion of the wood, and the honey-trees were 
 marked. Only at a late period did bee-hives, alvei, alvearia (Middle 
 Latin apile, Lithu. avilys, Slav, ulei, in Hesychius dir£XXai=(n;K04) be- 
 come common near the houses and in the gardens, while the forest 
 retreated. In Lithuania and Russia the collecting of honey in the 
 woods continued to be the rule down to a late period. Strahlenberg 
 (JDas tiord- und ostliche Theil von Europa undAsia, p. 333, 4°, Stock- 
 holm, 1730) : " In Lithuania and in many parts of Russia bees are not 
 so often kept near the house in baskets, or in hewn blocks of wood or 
 hives, as out in the woods on the highest and straightest fir-trees, near 
 the tops of them,'' etc.; after which the author relates that the Dorpat 
 peasants (in Livonia) had in old times made a contract with the 
 citizens of Pleskau " that they might keep their stock of bees in the 
 woods of Pleskau;" " but when these woods were ruined and cut down, 
 the practice ceased." This keeping of forest-bees was the business of 
 the bee-master (Russian bortnik, Polish bartnik) ; in the course 
 of centuries it had retired from Gaul, where it must once have 
 flourished, to Germany, where the bees belonged to the Mark, and 
 the law-books give decisions on the bee-pasture ; and then farther to 
 North-eastern Europe, where it was preserved the longest. 
 
464 NOTES. 
 
 Note 40, page 117. 
 
 Bacmeister, Alemann. Wander, i, 61 : '^ Mauer and Zimmer in 
 names of places show the same antithesis of Roman and German. 
 The German raised no muri of stone, he timbered. The word mauer 
 (O. H. G. mAra, M. H. G. miire) he learnt, with the mason's art, from 
 the Romans ; and in many names, though not in all, it takes us back 
 to real Roman works. The Gothic Bible renders ' foundation ' and 
 ' town-wall ' by grundu-vaddjus and baurgs-vaddjus. This vaddjus 
 (fem.) is our Wand, connected with Goth, -vidan {vadjari) to bind, and 
 must have meant a wattled fence (Tac. Germ. 16). To build is in 
 Gothic timrjan." 
 
 In the text we could only touch in passing upon the Art of 
 Building, though the most fruitful points of view would be opened 
 out by a closer examination. Whence, for example, is derived the 
 Gothic razn, domus ? Another unsolved riddle is hUs, house (Fick, 
 247, says the Old Norse h^s, domus, is identical with Old Norse haus, 
 cranium ; Grimm, that it corresponds to Lat. ciiriaj the Dictionary, 
 that it is from the root ku, sku, to cover : the Slavic khizha, hut, must 
 be borrowed) ; we believe it to be a word borrowed from an Iranian 
 language (compare Lerch, Forschungen, pp. 88 and 103), as the much- 
 debated god, Gothic guth, must also be derived from the same source. 
 The Iranian races on European soil must have had a greater influence 
 on culture and religion, and have left more traces in the languages, 
 than has hitherto been noticed. As, according to Tacitus, the Slavs 
 had adopted many Sarmatian customs, and, for example, exchanged 
 their old name for God for that of the Iranian one, it is improbable 
 that the Germans could remain uninfluenced. Not all Scythians 
 were Nomads ; some among their divisions, the 7:Ku6ai apoTrjpis and 
 yiuipyoi, Cultivated the ground and traded in corn. The early colonies 
 on the Pontus must have had as educating an influence upon them 
 as Massilia had on the Celts ; and it is clear enough from what 
 Herodotus says that the countrymen of Anacharsis had at least a 
 developed system of deities. Later on the Quadi and Jazyges, the 
 Goths and Alani,were comrades in war, and are often named together 
 (Amm. Marc, 17, 12 : " Permistos Sarmaias et Quados, vidnitate et 
 dmilitudine morum armaturaeque Concordes "). And Vannius, king of 
 the Suevi, who ruled under the Roman Senate for thirty years, kept a 
 Sarmatian and Jazygian cavalry. 
 
 Note 41, page 121. 
 
 Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, p. 57, 4°, Copenhagen, 1772 : 
 " They have a thick white drink, busa, which is prepared from flour. 
 
NOTES. 465 
 
 ... In Armenia it is a drink universally known. There it is kept in 
 large pots in the earth, and is commonly drunk out of these pots by 
 means of a reed." Then in a note : " Busa seems to resemble the 
 drink called by the Russians kisly-shchi, or that which they call kvass." 
 But the latter are not intoxicating, as the drink described by Xenophon 
 was. 
 
 Note 42, page 128. 
 
 The Soviovai of Herodotus is still found in the interior of Asia Minor. 
 A trunk of a.tree hollowed out like a tube is closed at each end with a 
 board, and has a hole at the top. This vessel hangs by two strings, 
 and is swung backwards and forwards by a young girl till the butter 
 comes. See the picture in Van Lennep's " Travels in Little Known 
 Parts of Asia Minor," i, p. 131, London, 1870. 
 
 Note 43, page 133. 
 
 If Parthey's assertion (in his edition of Plut. De hide et Os., p. 158) 
 is correct, that on the oldest mummies of all, the wrappages are of 
 sheep's wool, and that linen bands only come in with the twelfth 
 dynasty, after which they become universal, it proves that even in 
 Egypt flax was a comparatively young product of culture. This we 
 should be obliged to assume even without direct historical evidence, 
 for Egypt, when first taken possession of, was certainly a pastoral 
 land, a land of vojioi, for which it was destined by nature ; the only 
 thing to be remarked is, that according to that the practice of 
 embalming, the development of a higher political order, etc., preceded 
 a knowledge of the flax plant. We are told that pieces of linen were 
 found in an Old Chaldaean grave, therefore of a time that is supposed 
 to have preceded the kingdom of Babylon (fournal of the R. Asiatic 
 Society, vol. xv. p. 271 : "Pieces of linen are observed about the 
 bones, and the whole skeleton seems to have been bound with a 
 species of thong"). But was it really linen, and not a web made of 
 some bast-like plant .' 
 
 Note 44, page 133. 
 
 The number of threads, 360, evidently answered to the number of 
 days in the oldest year (Peter von Bohlen, Das alte Indien, 2, p. 270). 
 The Egyptian was buried so deep in symbolism, that to him nothing 
 was unconnected with religion ; the realest thing that can be, the 
 practical technics of handiwork, he sanctified by mysticism, and 
 linked it with heaven. What the political and scientific romanticists 
 
 30 
 
466 NOTES. 
 
 of the nineteenth century have sought for and demanded, "a Chris- 
 tian State, Christian national economy, Christian astronomy," etc., 
 actually existed in ancient Egypt. Goethe {Farbenlehre, Zur Geschichte 
 der Urzeit) : " Stationary nations handle their technics with religion." 
 But it is interesting that in Pliny's report, five hundred years after 
 Herodotus, the number 365 already appears instead of 360, a silent 
 correction of the legend, which at the same time confirms the above 
 explanation. The two Egyptian measures, called hinn and kiti, 
 were also each divided into 360 parts (Lepsius in the Zeitschrift fur 
 j^gvptische Sprache, p. 109, 1865), a mystico-religious arrangement, 
 as the subdivisions were too small for practical use. The art of 
 weaving, where two opposite movements by intercrossing beget a 
 third thing, afforded to the mythic phantasy of the oldest times a 
 picture of two natural powers, one conceptive, the other generative, 
 and their fruitful combination. 
 
 Note 45, page 134. 
 If the Colchian linen had come by way of the Lydian capital 
 Sardis, the adjective must rather have been ^apStrivov, ^apSttjvu-ov. 
 As Herodotus says that the Colchians and Egyptians wove in the 
 same manner, xard ravTcc, was there in Colchis also a fabric whose 
 threads consisted of 360 finer fibres, and which was called Sardonic 
 after the Lydian and universally Iranic word (raplts, a year? Like 
 Herodotus, a modern naturalist also brings Egyptian and Colchian 
 flax into connexion with each other. Unger {Botanische Streifziige 
 auf dem Gebiet der Kulturgeschichte, Wiener Sitzungsberichte, vol. 
 xxxviii. p. 130) says : "The flax-plant is not indigenous in Egypt, but 
 was introduced there, and indeed, to judge by the nature of the plant, 
 from far more northern lands, probably from Colchis." Surely not 
 straight from Colchis, but by way of Babylon. 
 
 Note 46, page 143. 
 A passage in the Odyssey (10, 156) gives us a distinct picture of how 
 the primitive European world procured ropes during the forest-epoch. 
 Ulysses has killed an unusually large stag on Circe's island, and the 
 question is, how to carry the booty to his companions on the shore. 
 He gathers branches and twigs, pSmaq re Xvyovg re, spins them into 
 a rope a fathom long, well twisted at both ends, irfKr/ia iiJaTpi^k 
 i/KponpuGev, with which he ties the animal's feet together, hangs the 
 latter round his neck, and so carries it down to the black ship. 
 Compare with this the following description of Nesselmann, in 
 his Dictionary of the Lithuanian language, p. 180: " ICardelus or 
 
NO'JES. 467 
 
 kardSlis, a strong rope for binding wooden rafts and wittinnen (a 
 kind of river-boats), generally twisted of bast or twigs j the cable in 
 larger ships ; the third-pole of a waggon, a young birch-tree provided 
 with a twisted loop, or also a rope, to which the third horse is 
 fastened." What is still the custom in undeveloped Lithuania was 
 practised by the Germans in ancient times. Grimm, RA., 683 : 
 " Simple antiquity instead of hempen ropes, twisted branches of fresh, 
 tough wood," O. H. Germ., wit, Mid. H. Germ., wide, lancwit, widen, 
 to bind, our wiede, langwiede, also in the other Teutonic tongues 
 [Samson's " seven green withs "] as well as in the Celtic and Slavic 
 (the various forms in Diefenbach, G. W. i, 146). The with served to 
 bind together roofs or rafts, waggons and yokes, for the leashing of 
 animals, for scourging and for hanging criminals, etc. In every 
 respect the Latin vitis corresponds with this description. That word 
 does not mean a plant climbing up a tree or trunk, but, like vitex, 
 vimen, and the Greek irka, a flexible plant that served men for 
 winding and plaiting. Virgil says lentae vites, like lenta salix. As 
 the slave and malefactor are beaten with the plaited with, and the 
 Mid. H. Germ, verb widen actually means to flog ; so among the 
 Romans the vitis in the hand of the centurion was the tool for 
 punishing disobedient soldiers, for example, Livy, Epit., 57 : " Quein 
 militem extra ordinem deprehendit, si Romanus esset, vitibus, si 
 extraneus, fustibus cecidit." A climbing plant resembling the vine, 
 namely, the Bryony, Latin vitis alba, the name of which probably 
 passed over to the vine, is expressly named together with the willow 
 by Ovid [Met., 13, 800 : 
 
 " Lentior et salicis virgis et vitibus albis "), 
 
 and served like the broom and rush for plaiting baskets (Serv. ad 
 Virg. G. I, 165 : " Quoniam de genistis vel junco vel alba vite solent 
 fieri"). Compare the Old Norse sneis, branch, and Mid. H. Germ. 
 sneise, string. Probably in the same way the O. H. Germ, repa, vine, 
 is related to the Gothic skauda-raip, shoe-string, and O. H. Germ, 
 reif, rope ; signifying therefore a plant used for plaiting and ropes, a 
 shrub with flexible twigs, in which the partridge nestles [reb-huhn, 
 vine-hen) ; and afterwards, when the grape-vine became known, was 
 applied to that. In French the with was and is called hard, hart, 
 the osier that serves for binding harcelle, which, as compared with 
 the Lith. kardelus, show the German consonant-change, and are 
 therefore derived from German. 
 
 It was a stride forwards when the bast of trees, and a still longer 
 stride when the fibres of the nettle were worked into ropes, bridles, 
 girdles, stuffs, clothes, shields, etc. The Massagetas clothe themselves 
 
46S NOTES. 
 
 in bast, says Strabo (ll, 8, 7 : d/jmexovTm Sk (ol Maaaayhai) Toig rw* 
 SsvSpiDv ^Xoioig) ; SO do the Germani (Mela, 3, 3, 2 : " Vi'ri sagis 
 velantur aut libris arborum, guamvis saeva hieme"), and carry shields 
 made of the raw bark of trees (Val. Flacc. 6, 97, of the Bastarnae : 
 
 " Quos, duce Teutogono, crudi jiiora corticis armat "). 
 
 For such bast fabrics the linden-tree was commonly used, and is 
 named from this property in all languages. The Greek ^iXipa is 
 both linden and bast, and is certainly related to (pXoioe, bark, and 
 ipeKKoe, cork. Theophrastus, h. pi., 5, 7, 5 • 'X" ^f "<'■<■ W 0i^"P«) tov 
 ^Xoihv xfii]i!ifiov vpog re rd axotvia xal Trpog rdj Kiarag. So Theophrastus 
 Still knows of the bast of lindens being used for ropes and chests. In 
 the great linden-region of Europe, in White and Little Russia, and 
 the districts bordering the Carpathians, linden-bark is to this day in 
 common use, and serves, according to the age of the tree, for waggon- 
 baskets and river-boats, for mats, ropes, shoes, sacks, sieves, etc. 
 The number of trees yearly felled in those districts and in the well- 
 wooded north-eastern part of Russia for the sake of their rind is 
 reckoned at about a million ; the bast is softened in water and the 
 material is ready. O. H. Germ, linta, A. Saxon and Old Norse lind, 
 the linden-tree, Old Norse, Izndi, the girdle. Lznd in German dialects 
 means bast, Lind-schleisser was an old word for rope-maker (see 
 Grimm, RA., p. 261 and 520). The Latin Unteuin cannot be 
 separated from the German lindj Wackernagel would derive the 
 Romance barca, a bark, from the Low-German borke, Old Norse 
 bbrkr, though the Greek ^dpig, flat boat, which perhaps comes from 
 Egypt, the Messapian /Saptg and Latin baris seem to have the better 
 claim. The Homeric Xtri, XTra (for Xivn XiVra), which is only found 
 in the dative and accusative, we agree with Pott in bringing into 
 this connexion ; it signified a coarse cloth, probably at first a mat of 
 lime-bast : the chariot, when put aside, is covered with it ; it is spread 
 over seats under the beautiful purple cover ; the corpse of Patrodus is 
 wrapt in it, and over that is thrown the white shroud. It is uncertain 
 whether we are to consider it a real bast-mat, or a coarse linen-cloth. 
 Latin tilia, linden, tiliae, bast ; French teiller, to beat hemp ; Italian: 
 tiglio, the rind of hemp. To the Slavic Ufa, and Lith. ISpa, lime-tree> 
 answers the Greek Xk-nuv, to peel, Xsirrog, tender (constantly used of 
 flaxen stuffs, XtTrrd i^diT;uara=linen fabrics), Lith. Itipti, to peel, O. H. 
 Germ, louft, ISfi, tree-rind. In the same way the Latin Itcium doubt- 
 less belongs to the same series as Lith. lunkas, Russ., Polish, and 
 Czech, lyko, bast. As the Latin liber proves, bast was also the most 
 ancient writing-material. (Ulp. Dig., 32, 52 : " Librorum appellaiione 
 continetxtur omnia volumina, sive in charta, sive in menibrana sinty 
 
XOTES. 469 
 
 sive ill quavis alia materia: sed et si in philyra aut in Hlia, ut 
 nonnulli conficiunt, aut in quo alio corio, idem erit dicendum "). At the 
 dawn of historical times, this much-used material is everywhere dis- 
 appearing, but many names used for it passed over to the new plants 
 that took its place. 
 
 Still more like flax were the fabrics made out of the fibres of the 
 common wild nettle. They are still quite common among the half- 
 nomads on the borders of Asia and Europe, a district that, in the 
 gradual retreat of the ancient epochs of culture towards the East, 
 often reveals a surprising picture of primitive Europe. The women of 
 the Bashkirs, the Koibals, Sagai-Tartars, etc., work the urtica dioeca 
 not only into nets and yarn, but into a sort of linen (see Storch's 
 Tableau Historique et Statistique de PEmpire de Kussie, ii., 249, 
 1801). Pallas, in his " Journey through Different Provinces of the Rus- 
 sian Empire " (I. p. 448, St. Petersburg, 1801), says of the Bashkirs : 
 " They mostly manufacture for themselves a coarse linen stuff for 
 clothing, . . . spinning the yarn out of the common great-nettle. These 
 nettles grow in heaps on the rich soil around their dwellings, and, like 
 hemp, are pulled up in autumn, dried, then soaked a little, and the 
 bast usually taken off with the hand by crushing the stalks, and 
 pounded in wooden mortars, till nothing but the tow remains." A 
 fraud frequent in Turkestan is to weave nettle-fibres in with the silks 
 and then pass off the stuffs for pure damask. Nestor relates in a 
 remarkable passage that Oleg, sailing from Constantinople, provided 
 the ships of the Russians with sails oi povoloka,axi6i those of the Slavs 
 with sails made of nettle, kropiva (see Schlozer, Nestor, iii. p. 295). 
 The first word is explained by Krug in his Zur Miinzkunde Russ- 
 lands, p. 109, St. Petersb., 1805, as a corruption of Babylonian stuff, 
 that is, silk ; perhaps the " nettle " sails were linen ones, which had 
 retained the old name, only a finer kind, for the Slavs complained that 
 they had not got their usual coarse sails which could better resist a 
 storm. That the Germans also made nets of nettle-yarn is proved by 
 the etymological affinity of the two words, Gothic nati, A. Saxon net, 
 net, A. Saxon netele, nettle, etc. ; and the nettle itself, Pruss. noatis, 
 Lith. noiere, Lettish ndtra, Old Irish nenaid (reduplicated, Cormac, 
 p. 126), seems to have taken its name from ndhen, to sew. Albertus 
 Magnus still knows of the urtica being used for weaving {De Vegeta- 
 bilibus, edit. Jessen, 6, 462 : " Duas autem habet pelles {urtica), interi- 
 orem et exteriorem ; et illae sunt, ex quibus est operatio, sicut ex lino et 
 f3«rt^(?y" and directly after: "Sedpannusurticaepruritumexcitat,quod 
 nonfacit lini vel canabi"). The China-grass, which we now get from 
 India, Java, and China, is nothing but the stinging nettle, or one of its 
 varieties, and furnishes stuffs that are in every way superior to cotton. 
 
+70 NOTES. 
 
 When flax reached the European nations, it was natural that the 
 existing names for bast and nettle and their products should be ap- 
 plied to the new plant. Thus the Latin linteum acquired the meaning 
 of linen, while in German lind retained the meaning of bast, and linde 
 that of the tree that supplied it. A Celtic name for nettle is the Cym- 
 ric dynat, danad, in Old Cornish linhaden, Armoric linad, lenad, lin- 
 aden (Zeuss, ed. 2, 1076). The primitive form seems to be the Dacian 
 " Siv=icviSri," nettle, preserved in Dioscorides (Diefenbach, O. E. S. 
 329), and the Greek \ivov with the same change of d into / as in dynad 
 and linad. If this conjecture be well founded, then the Greeks, when 
 they received flax and linen from Asia in the pre-Homeric time, must 
 have applied their names for the nettle and nettle-fabrics to the 
 similar though far superior texture made of flax. The originally short 
 vowel became in time, and in some districts, long : XTvov (the contrary 
 process is less probable according to the laws of the development of 
 speech) and that is how the word sounds in Aristophanes {Pac. 1178), 
 and the Comic poet Antiphanes (Athen. 10, p. 455) — the last passage 
 has been wrongly changed by Meineke. In this latter form we find 
 the word in Italy, linumj thence it passed to the transalpine nations, 
 Gothic lein, etc. — The German language has still two names for the 
 plant itself, both evidently derived from plaiting and weaving, and 
 touching on words with the meaning of hair : O. H. Germ, flahs 
 and haru, genitive harawes. The first has in the Lith. flaukas and 
 Slav, vlasii the meaning of " hair ; " in the Lith. flauszas that of " fine 
 bast ;" fahs, hair, a by-form oi flahs, is identical with the Greek ttskoe, 
 TTEffKos (which last is explained by the Scholiast to Nic. Ther., S49 : 
 TTSffKoe Si rhv (fKoiov r^e fSoTavrie, z'.e., bast), ttIkw, I comb, Latin peclo. 
 Haru, haraw. Old Norse hbr, flax, we hold to be identical with the 
 .Slavic kropiva, krapiva, nettle, and Albanian kerp, hemp. 
 
 Among the things fished up from the Swiss lakes were found bundles 
 of fiax, pieces of linen stuff, mats plaited of flax, etc. As eminent 
 naturalists have recognised the real fibres of flax in the above-named 
 remains we cannot doubt the fact, although Garrigou and Filhol {Age 
 de la Pierre Polie, p. 51, Paris et Toulouse, s.a., 4to) cautiously say : 
 " Le lin leur Halt probablement connu, d. mains gu' une autre plante cL 
 Scarce filamenteuse (the great nettle ?) ait pti leur fournir de quoi 
 faire des vetements." At any rate, the flax was not that we now use, 
 but a particular variety. O. Heer says {Mittheilungen der Antiquari- 
 schen Gesellschaft in Zurich, 15, 312) : "The lake-dwellings linen is 
 not the common flax. The small-leaved flax, linum angusti/olium 
 Huds., which is native to the Mediterranean countries from Greece 
 and Dalmatia to the Pyrenees, may be called the mother-plant of the 
 cultivated lake-dwellings linen. The Cretan catch-fly proves that the 
 
NOTES. 471 
 
 inhabitants of the lake-dwellings procured their flax-seeds from 
 Southern Europe " — the catch-fly being found as a weed among the 
 remains of the flax. According to that, the Swiss cultivation of flax 
 was derived from the Italian. The more developed we conceive the 
 agriculture and fruit-culture of these lake-dwellers to have been, the 
 lower we must place them in point of time. Let us bear in mind that 
 the objects hauled up from the bottom of the lakes, however interest- 
 ing the sight of them maybe, cannot prove anything chronologically ; 
 and that all the guesses made as to the age of this culture have been 
 founded, not on an examination of its remains, but on other, and often 
 very airy, considerations and assumptions. If we were fortunate 
 enough to find a Massaliote coin in the middle of one of these bundles 
 of flax, or if some good fairy would confide to us a few words of the 
 language of these pile-dwellers — such as their names for flax, wheat, 
 plough, etc. — what a flash of light would suddenly dart into that dim 
 world ! We should not wonder if it then turned out that these mys- 
 terious primitive men, with their stone weapons and tools, were no 
 other than the ancestors of the Helvetians, whom we have known so 
 well since Caesar's time, and that the higher culture of which we find 
 traces among them was derived from the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean. 
 
 Note 47, page 150. 
 Movers [Phomzier, 2, 3, 157) altogether groundlessly asserts that, 
 " hemp for ships' ropes and sails, of the most excellent quality, was 
 procured from Phoenicia." This could at most be true of the Roman 
 time, when the hemp of the Carian town Alabanda was also greatly 
 valued. The expression airapra for ships' ropes, which occurs in a 
 single passage in the Iliad 2, 135 : 
 
 Kai Srj Sovpa akariin veZv Kai airapra XsKwrai — 
 
 leaves us in the dark as to what they were made of. If, however, we 
 compare the kindred word anvpig, Latin sporta, basket, it becomes 
 credible that airdprov too was spun out of a kind of rush or broom. 
 But the (nrapra miKvi karpa/i/ikva on the linen corslets of the Chalybes 
 in Xenophon {Anab. 4, 7, 15) may have been of hempen stuff, as the 
 Chalybes dwelt near those districts and nations where hemp first 
 appears. 
 
 Note 48, page 151. 
 
 Besides the common European expression, the Slavs have also a 
 
 peculiar word for hemp : Russian penka, PoWsh pienia, Czech, penei, 
 
 penka. They may have borrowed these, like so many other things, 
 
 from the Scythians or Sarmatians, for we have in Persic and Afghan 
 
472 NOTES. 
 
 beng and bang, and even Zendic banha, drunkenness, Banga, the name 
 of the da6va of drunkenness (see Justi, Handbuch, p. 209). A second 
 Slavic word for htm-ppiskoni {Russ. and Czech.) answers to O. H. Germ. 
 fahs, Greek nioKoq ; and its Polish iorm, ploskon, to O. H. Germ, flahs 
 —a remarkable parallelism in the two groups of languages. Bishop 
 Otto of Bamberg found among the heathen Slavs in Pomerania much 
 canapum (see Herbordi vita Ottonis, in Pertz, Scr. 20, p. 745). 
 
 Note 49, page 156. 
 Just as the Locrians treated the Sicilians, the Attic General Hagnon 
 is said to have treated the barbarians on the Strymon : he swore to 
 them an oath that he would do nothing for three days ; but by night 
 he threw up his fortifications, and so founded Amphipolis {Polyan. 
 6| 53). When the Persians vainly besieged Barce, in Africa, they 
 swore to raise the siege on payment of a tribute by the Barcasans. 
 This promise was to remain valid as long as the earth upon which 
 they stood remained firm. But the ground was artificially undermined, 
 the earth sank, and the town was attacked and taken (Herod. 4, 201). 
 Dido also acquired the site for the foundation of Carthage by a literal 
 interpretation of words. The monk of Corvey, Widukind, relates how 
 the race of Saxons landed first at Hadeln. One of their young men 
 buys a heap of earth from the Thuringians for much gold, and is 
 laughed at for being taken in. But he scatters the purchased dust 
 all over the country, and thus the land becomes the property of the 
 Saxons, whose pretensions are confirmed by a bloody battle and the 
 defeat of the Thuringians. The Wartburg came into the possession 
 of the Landgrave of Thuringia in a similar manner. Twelve knights, 
 standing in the castle-court, swore by their swords that they stood on 
 ground belonging to the Landgrave ; but they had brought earth from 
 Thuringia into the courtyard with them. Natural nations with unde- 
 veloped moral feeling admire cunning as much as valour. An oath 
 is feared, but only as a magic spell, and right is still inseparable from 
 symbol. Even yet uneducated people make an oath lose its effect by 
 using a sort of counter-charm : thus, while they lift the right hand 
 up to swear, they hold the left hand behind their back, with three 
 fingers pointing down, etc. 
 
 Note 50, page 173. 
 
 Laurus, derived from luo, lavo. Of the same origm are Lavinia, 
 
 Lavinium, Laurentium, the town of atonement, said to have been 
 
 planted round with laurel, etc. (see Schwegler, Romische Geschichte, i. 
 
 p. 319). This derivation .would be still more certain if, like Benfey, 
 
NOTES. 473 
 
 we durst connect the Greek ta^vi\ with ii^u, Si}j/iui, Siypu), in the original 
 sense of to moisten, to soak. But against this is the Thessalian Savxva 
 in the compound viord apxi-Sauxya-ipopdaas, in Boeckh, C. I., No. 1766, 
 as well as the Savxvos for laurel now restored in two passages of 
 Nicander (Then 94, and Alexiph. 199). Hence some would derive 
 the word from a root meaning io burn (Legerlotz in Kuhn's Zeitschr., 
 7, 293), so that the laurel would still be a tree used for purifying, only 
 not by rinsing but by axomaxic fumtgaiion (Paul., Epit., ed. O. Miiller 
 p. 117:" Hague eandem laurum omnibus suffitionibus adhiberi solitum 
 erat"). In that case would the / in laurus stand for d, as in several 
 other Latin words? According to Hesychius, the Pergsans in Asia 
 Minor said \a.(^vr\ for iat^vq, and he gives another wojrd which, because 
 of its derivation with r, nearly approaches the Latin : Svapsia' t/ iv toXq 
 Tifi-n-KTi Sd^i'Ti. If the Greek word is derived from an Asiatic language, 
 then, of course, any attempt to explain it etymologically from the 
 Greek is vain. Mprog {/ivprnvri, fivppivri, pvpivrj) is also an Oriental 
 word, for it cannot be separated from prnpov, iti'ppa, apipva. In the 
 oldest times, the shrubs whose leaves or exuding gum served for per- 
 fumes were not strictly distinguished. To the passages quoted in the 
 text we may add Serv. ad. Virg. JEn., 3, 23, where Myrene, a beautiful 
 girl, and priestess of Venus, wishing to marry a youth, is changed by 
 the goddess into a myrtus. That the idea of sorrow, as Movers, i, 
 243, has it, is contained in the name of Myrrha, the daughter of 
 Cinyras, is from what has been noticed above impossible. 
 
 Note 51, page 175. 
 
 Schneider remarks on the passage quoted from Theophrastus : "Is 
 {Plinius) igiturautplura in suo libra scripta legit, aut aliunde inseruit 
 Mithridatis nomen" Pliny could not well find the name of Mithridates 
 in his copy of Theophrastus, who lived 200 years before Mithridates. 
 An example of learned absence of mind ! 
 
 Note 52, pack 179. 
 
 Must not the tree, on the contrary, have first acquired its Greek 
 name irvt.oQ, from its use in the finer kinds of wood-carving and 
 cabinet-making ? There can be no doubt that the word belongs to 
 irrbaaiii ; but the fundamental idea cannot be flexible, as Benfey sup- 
 poses in his Dictionary of Roots, for the box-tree has exactly the oppo- 
 site quality ; as little can it mean the crumpled, crooked shrub, as 
 Grimm supposed, for ■Kruacrui means just the contrary ; to fold, to dispose 
 in layers, to splice, to fit boards together. Homer has already irrixig 
 
4-74 -NOTES. 
 
 for the layers of a shield, iv wivaKi vrvicriji for a folded tablet, 
 on whose inner surface signs were engraved. Pindar has vfivmv 
 nrvxalQ for the parts of a song fitting into each other, as in cunningly 
 wrought vessels, etc. If the tree took its name from such boxes and 
 tablets made of its wood, it follows that trade introduced such objects, 
 as well perhaps as blocks of the raw material, to the Greeks before 
 they had ever seen the tree itself — a confirmation of the views expressed 
 in the text. The name Kurwpoj, Kirupov, might be Greek and not 
 barbaric, if it contains in jEolic form the very old word, which, as 
 Konvoc, meant to the later Greeks the oleaster ; to the Latins, as 
 coHnus, some shrub native to the Apennines ; and to the Sinopeans 
 perhaps the buxus growing on their mountains. 
 
 Note 53, page 180. 
 
 Benfey, 2, 373. The m of the Semitic riinmon changed "by a very 
 natural transformation " into the Greek digamma. Hesychius is still 
 acquainted with the name pi>^ai for a sort of large pomegranates. (If, 
 as he adds, the word was more correctly ?i/i/8ai, and the preceding 
 gloss : fi>^pai' poiai Ai'oXeTs, were certain, other suppositions would 
 arise.) The same Semitic word is to be found perhaps in the first 
 part of 6p6l3aKxoe (Schol. ad Nic. Ther. 869 : Xeysrai dk oiioitae n i^dvOriaie 
 Tuv poidv opofiaRxoe), or opojSaKxn (Hesych. : opo^aKxn' fSoravri tie' o't Sk rije 
 poidg Tovs Kapiroig, oiif iviot nvrivovg). Kvtivoq is also used for the blossom 
 from which the fruit is developed (Schol. ad Nic. Alex. 610 : kvtivov 
 (paai TO avdog Trig poiag, ovtp ailridkv pota yiveTai). On the verses of 
 Nicander, Alex. 489 : 
 
 ppvKoi S' aXkoTe Kapjrbv SXtg ipoiviiSea ijiSrjg 
 KpriatSog, olvunrijg te xai ijv Upo/iivnov eirovai — 
 
 the Scholiast remarks : oiviuirijg- tlSog poiag xai oivaSog xal Trpofuviiov 
 S' eTSog poiag, iivofiaas d' airnv avd nvog Jlpofikvov Kptjrog. With regard tO 
 aijSSv, Pott (E. F.,ed. 2, 4, 81) calls attention to the Persic sib=pomum 
 malum. From the name of the blossom, ^oKavanov (probably also an 
 Oriental importation), it is well known that the Italian balaustro, 
 balaustrata, and our balustrade are derived. 
 
 Note 54, page 184. 
 
 Fiedler {Reise, i, 625), relates as follows : "When King Otto visited 
 
 Thermopyte in 1834, an old woman brought him a fine pomegranate, 
 
 and wished him as many happy years as there were pips inside it." 
 
 This reminds one of Herodotus, 4, 143 : " When Darius opened a 
 
NOTES. 475 
 
 pomegranate, and was asked of what things he would hke to have 
 as great a number as there were seeds in the fruit, he answered, as 
 many true men like Megabazus, which he would value more highly 
 than the conquest of Greece." Plutarch relates the same story 
 {Regum et Imp. apophthegin. in.), but of Zopyrus. 
 
 Note 55, page 189. 
 
 The lilies said to have been found in Assyrian bas-reliefs (O. 
 Rawlinson, "The Five Great Monarchies," i, 440), were no doubt such 
 Kpiva, as well as those from which the chapiters of the columns in 
 Solomon's temple were copied. Also the Kpiva that Phidias made on 
 the mantle of the Olympian Zeus (Pausan., 5, 11, i, if the text be 
 correct) are not to be regarded as lilia Candida, but as conventional 
 flower forms. The Egyptian rose-like Kpivia which grew in the river 
 are explained to be Nymphaa nelumbo, L. 
 
 Note 56, page 189. 
 
 About po^oj/, Ppodov and the identical words in Armenian, Kurdic, 
 etc., see the quotations in Pott, E. F., ed. 2, 2, 817. According to 
 Spiegel (Beitrdge, 1, 317), the Armenian z/arafleads to an Old Persian 
 vareda, from which, with the loss of the final d, the present gul (rose, 
 already found in the Huzviresh) was formed in the regular way. 
 Spiegel also disputes the Semitic origin of the word. AEi|Otoi/= Persic 
 l&leh, lily, must undoubtedly be considered of Persian origin (Benfey, 
 2, 137). Susa or Shushan, the winter capital of the Persian kings, 
 was said to derive its name from the abundance of lilies in the 
 neighbourhood ; for Persic (Touffoi'=Greek xpivov. 
 
 Note 57, page 191. 
 Rdsa, according to Pott, from poika, rosebush, as the Italian popular 
 language made Clausus out of Claudius, etc. Only instead of deriving 
 it from the noun poika, which would include a change of meaning, we 
 would rather say that it came from the adjective poika, podia. The 
 rose is called from ancient times poSka koKv^, rosy cup, already in the 
 Hymn to Demeter ; koKvI being to distinguish the improved full rose 
 from the wild. This was so common, that even koKv^ by itself was 
 understood to mean rose ; hence KaKvKuiiriq Ni^^ij or xovpri, nymph or 
 maiden with rosy cheeks. And popular speech might, on the other 
 hand, leave out the substantive, and say merely ri poSia=rosa. Accord- 
 ing to Hesychius the Macedonians had a peculiar wordfor rose : a^ayva' 
 
476 NOTES. 
 
 {,6Sa ; Macedonia, indeed, was the fatherland of this cultivated plant 
 as regards Europe. In Zeuss, p. 1076, ed. 2, there is for rosa an Old 
 Cornish word breilu (Cambr. breila, breilw), the explanation and 
 utilizing of which for the history of culture we must leave to experts 
 in that language. Just as obscure is p. 163 the Cambrian gloss : 
 ffaow {rosae). 
 
 Lilium instead of lirmm arose from the tendency to assimilation ; 
 the modern Latin languages felt, on the contrary, the need of dis- 
 similation, and said giglio, lirio, etc. The Spanish and Portuguese 
 azucena for white lily is from the Arabic, and therefore identical with 
 the Old Testament Susan, Susannah, the word from which Stephen 
 of Byzantium derives the name of the Persian capital Susa. The 
 Arabs were fond of gardens and flowers. The modern Greeks have 
 abandoned the word foiov, and say the thirty leaved rpiavTa^vWta 
 (Fraas, Synopsis, p. 76 ; so did latterly even the ancient Greeks, 
 see Langkavel, Botanik der spat. Gr., p. 7), which word has also 
 passed into Albanian ; the lily, lepivoe, keeps pretty much its old name, 
 which is used by the Wallachians, and was likewise adopted by the 
 Old Slavic ecclesiastical language. 
 
 Note 58, page 203. 
 
 Latterly Hartmann, in the Zeitschrift fiir dgyptische Sprache,'^. 21, 
 1864, and Ebers {Aegypten und die Biicher Mosis, i, p. 267) have 
 supposed that, for some reason unknown to us, the Egyptian painters 
 may have been forbidden to copy camels ; but if the camel had 
 existed in Egypt, it would not have been absent in the whole of North 
 Africa down to the Roman time (see Earth, Wanderungen, p. 3-7). 
 And fowls, to which Ebers appeals, were also a late importation ; see 
 below, the section on the Domestic Fowl. Nothing can be determined 
 from the dromedary bones said to have been found among other 
 animal remains by borings made in Egyptian soil, this being an argu- 
 ment much too vague and subject to a thousand possibilities. So we 
 must continue to believe, that at the time specified Pharaoh cannot 
 have given Abraham any camels, and probably, for other reasons, no 
 asses (Gen. xii. 16) ; while the horse, which was also introduced into 
 Egypt, but at a time that long preceded the Jewish recollections and 
 writings, could not fail to be among the gifts. 
 
 Note 59, page 204. 
 
 Movers, in his Phonizier, Th. ii., at the beginning, is of the contrary 
 opinion, and derives the Grecian name of the country, 1} ^oti/iKij, from 
 
NOTES. 477 
 
 ^oiviX, the date-palm, because the ancients considered Phoenicia, 
 Palestine, Idumaa, and Syria, to be countries rich in palms. But then 
 what becomes of ^otVi?, scarlet, which has evidently the same origin ? 
 Gesenius, who was inclined to take tjmivi^, purple, for the point of 
 departure {Momim. Phoen., p. 338), could at least support his 
 opinion by a tolerable Greek etymology (0o»/)}, ijioivSg, etc.). But how 
 is ^oiviK, palm, to be explained from the Greek? Besides this, we 
 have a decided reason in the fact that Homer knows the Phoenicians 
 from of old, as a trading, sea-faring, and piratical people — we need 
 only recall the history of the godlike swineherd Eumseus — but he is 
 still quite full of fresh admiration for the palm in Delos. $oivif, a 
 Phoenician, can have arisen in no other way than from the native name 
 of the country, which is handed down to us in the Hebrew form as 
 Kanaan, Kenaan, and in the later Phoenician as Xva, 'Oxva. The 
 initial letter, about whose pronunciation, at a time so far beyond all 
 written documents, we know nothing, either changed from a guttural 
 to a labial aspirate on the Greek tongue ; or, in some antique Semitic 
 or semi-Semitic dialect, for example, that of the Philistines or Carians, 
 if these were of Semitic race, the word began with a sound which in 
 Europe was represented by <p. In the same way, at the media stage^ 
 was formed from the Hebrew Gobel and Phoenician Gybl, the Greek 
 BifBXog. That a shorter form was also used in ancient times is showa 
 by the borrowed Latin Poenus, which in Greek would be ^o'lvog. 
 
 Note 60, page 205. 
 Plin. 16, 240 : " Palma Deli ab ejusdem dei [Afiollinis] aetate con- 
 spicitur;'' that is, the palm of Delos was still standing in the time of 
 Pliny ! As the natural life of the date-palm is not so long, and the old 
 tree must have been replaced by more than one successor after the 
 time of Ulysses, this may well make us cautious about other cases^ 
 where long-lived trees are said to have lived from the mythic and 
 heroic ages. 
 
 Note 61, page 208. 
 Gesenius in the Thesnur., p. 345, finds in the Greco-Latin Palmyra 
 a reproduction of the original, half according to sense and half 
 according to sound, but without giving any likely reason for such a 
 half-and-half proceeding. The Romans no doubt found the name 
 already when they conquered Asia, and the Greeks of the Seleucid 
 kingdom, if they were half-translating, would not have lugged-in a 
 Latin word palma. Movers (2, 3, p. 253) says : " I consider the name 
 Palmyra a corruption of Tadmor." But as exactly the same " corrup- 
 
478 NOTES. 
 
 tion" took place with the old Latin v/ord palma, we must find another 
 name for the process. As for the change oidort into / before an m, 
 that is a very likely thing to happen ; witness KaSfiia, KaS/isia, and the 
 Romance calamine, giallamina, Germ.galmei; Patmos,xioyf Palmosa; 
 Arabic and Persic elmds, Russian almaz, diamond, from aSafia^ ; the 
 Zendic Haitumant, Greek Etymander, now the River Helmand, etc. 
 
 Note 62, page 209. 
 
 This (TwoJi?, (TwaJiKoj — both vowels are long — is in so far a remark- 
 able word, that it exactly corresponds to the meaning of ipoivi^. It 
 signifies a palm-branch with the fruit attached, then a red or reddish- 
 brown colour, and lastly a musical instrument. Gellius (2, 26) declares 
 the word to be Doric. " Spadica enim Dorici vacant avulsum expalma 
 termitem cumfructu '' — therefore not the male stigma, the anadri, but 
 ratherthe cluster of dates. Accordingto Plutarch {Symp. 8, 4, 3) it meant 
 the palm-branch, that is, the leaf with which the victor was crowned : 
 Kuiroi SoKut fioL fivrjfiuvsvuv Iv toXq *Xttikoiq dvEyvwKug svayxog, on irpwrog tv 
 AriXtp Qijaiig dyiova Troiixtv d-jrsairaff£ KKdSov tov upov ^oiviKog' y Kal ffirddtX 
 (tvo/iaaSri. A shorter form is seen in Hesychius : (nra' rb fvrbv tov 
 (poiviKog. Among Latin writers Virgil uses the word for the brown 
 colour of horses, otherwise designated badius, Ital. bajo, French 
 bat {Georg. 3, 82 : 
 
 " Honesti 
 Spadices glaucique : color deterrimus albi"). 
 
 The ancients, as is shown by the above passages from Gellius and 
 Plutarch, derived it from airdia ; but it cannot be doubted that it is a 
 word borrowed from the Semitic language. A later name for palm- 
 branch, /3aif, /Safov, used in the New Testament, comes from Egypt ; 
 Old Egyptian bd, Coptic /3i;r (see ChampoUion, Gramm. ^gypt. i. 
 p. 59 ; Benfey 2, 369). The proper Latin expression is that used by 
 Gellius, termes, as the passage in Ammian. Marcell. (24, 3, 12) shows : 
 "£■/ quaqua incesserit qwisquam, termites et spadica cernit adsidua, 
 quorum ex fructu mellis et vini conficitur abundaniia." It was pro- 
 bably formed from the Greek ripjia, and meant the branch set up at 
 the goal as the prize of victory. 
 
 Note 63, page 212. 
 
 Cyprus, the old station of the sea-farers, took its name from the 
 cypresses that hailed the approaching mariner from afar, and whose 
 timber was exported from the island. We know that other islands 
 
NOTES. 479 
 
 have been named after trees ; for example, the Pityusa: near Spain, 
 from the fir-tree irirvg, or Madeira from its building material, a 
 materie. Ritter — who at the beginning of his beautiful monograph 
 assumes that cypresses were aboriginal in Afghanistan, and that they 
 migrated thence with the ancient religion — is afterwards inclined to 
 think that the tree was also native to Phoenicia, Canaan, and even the 
 yEgaean islands (p. 577). But in that case would their naturalization 
 in the similar climate of South Italy (see below in text) have been so 
 difficult, and would the tree be there so plainly reduced in size and 
 strength ? The latter fact is easily explained if we suppose a long 
 and gradually declining series of climates, beginning with Afghanis- 
 tan and ending to the north-west with the Apennines. Again, that 
 the island of Crete can have been included in the original sphere of 
 propagation of a tree that did not exist in Greece itself is hardly 
 credible when we consider the similarity of natural conditions in the 
 two. The cypresses on Lebanon may have been imposing, but as 
 they cannot be compared to the giants in the western region of the 
 Indus, they declare themselves but secondary and derived from the 
 latter. 
 
 Note 64, page 214. 
 
 In other ways also the legends of the founding of Psophis (.in 
 Pausan. as above ; Steph. Byz. under ^yna. and *-w^i's) are signi- 
 ficant. The reported change of name, as in the case of Kyparissia in 
 Phocis, points to the commencement of a new epoch of culture ; the 
 place once called Phegeia, Phegia, oak or beech-town, where Alphesi- 
 boia, the bringer of oxen, had ruled, was now, on passing to the higher 
 stage of tree-culture, named Psophis ; and who was Psophis ? The 
 daughter of the Sikanian king Eryx, who bore to Herakles, the wan- 
 dering fulfiUer of works of culture, Echephron and Promachus. Here 
 also, as in the legend of Meleager, a rude outbreak of the old forest 
 life appears in the shape of a wild boar that devastates the gardens, 
 and is overcome by Herakles. The necklace and peplos of Har- 
 monia (Movers, I, 509) ; Psophis as daughter of Eryx ; the worship 
 of Aphrodite Erycina by the Psophidians ; and, lastly, the cypresses 
 or virgins at the grave of Alcmseon, all evidently point to Phoenician 
 influence. Along what route this had come is taught by the con- 
 nexion with Akarnania (where there was another Psophis ; Alcmson 
 went to Akarnia, gave the country its name, and then returned), and 
 with Zakynthos (where the castle was called Psophis, and was said to 
 have been founded by Zakynthos, a Psophidian, and son of Dar- 
 danos) ; that is, with seats of the Teleboeans and Taphians, both 
 of the Leleges kindred, who, as it seems, first sailed from Greece to 
 
48o NOTES. 
 
 Sicily. The place Psophis must very early have invited men to the 
 working of mines from the peculiar position of the mountain, which is 
 exactly described by Polybius, 4, 70. E. Curtius {Peloponn., 1, 400) 
 supposes that a legend of metamorphosis had attached itself to the 
 Psophidian cypresses. It is a religious and poetical custom in the 
 East, from the earliest to the latest times, to represent the cypress as 
 inhabited by a female divinity, and to compare a virgin to the cypress. 
 Goethe in the Westostlicher Divan : 
 
 " Verzeihe, Meister, wie du weissf, 
 Dass ich ntich oft vergesse, 
 
 Wenn sie das Auge nach sich reisst, 
 Diewandebide Cypresse, — 
 
 An der Cypresse reinstem,jungem Streben, 
 Allschongewachsne, gleich erkenri ich dich." 
 
 A work by Lajard treats of the cypress as a mystic attribute from the 
 artistic-archaeological point of view, after the manner of Creuzer : 
 Recherches sur le culte du cypris pyramidal chez les peuples civilisis de 
 Vantiquite, Paris, 1854, in 4°. The various incidents in the myth of 
 Kyparissos, the favourite of Apollo, scattered through the writings of 
 the ancients were collected by Avellino (// Mito di Ciparisso, Naples 
 1841, 4°), to illustrate a Pompeian painting. 
 
 Note 65, page 216. 
 
 We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of adding to Pliny's expres- 
 sion : " Doiem filiae antiqui plantaria appellabani," the following 
 passages from Hebel's Schatzkdstlein : " If I had the choice between 
 having a cow of my own, or a cherry or walnut tree, I would rather have 
 the tree. . . . Such a tree eats neither clover nor oats. No, it quietly 
 drinks like a child the nourishing juices of the earth, and imbibes 
 warm life from the sunshine and freshness from the air, and shakes 
 its locks in the storm. Besides, my cow might die early ; but a tree 
 like that keeps its blossoms, its birds'-nests, and its bounty for child and 
 grandchild. ... As soon as I have earned enough to buy a bit of 
 land of my own, and marry the daughter of my mother-in-law, and 
 God blesses me with offspring, I will plant for every child a little tree 
 of its own ; and it must be called after the child, Louis, John, or 
 Henrietta, and be its own first capital and fortune ; and I shall watch 
 how they grow up and thrive together, and become more and more 
 beautiful ; and how, in a few years, my little boy climbs up his capital, 
 and draws his interest." Among the Arabs in Spain it was the custom 
 on the birth of a child to dig a so-called silo in the ground, fill it with 
 
NOTES. 4S1 
 
 com, and cover it up air-tight. In this subterranean bin the corn lay 
 for many years, and became the child's property when he grew up 
 (see Murphy's " History of the Mahometan Empire in Spain," p. 262, 
 where the author refers to Jacob's " Travels in the South of Spain "). 
 The same custom, but of course barbarized, prevailed among the Little 
 Russians on the Dnieper. At the birth of a daughter a keg of brandy 
 was buried in the earth, and when the girl was married it was taken 
 up again, and emptied by the guests with glee ; and of course many 
 another cask or pail filled with newer spirit was in readiness to keep 
 up the enthusiasm. 
 
 Note 66, page 222. 
 Russian klen, Polish klon, Czech, klen, Lith. kUvas, the maple ; O. 
 Norse hfynr, hlinr (Schmeller, 2, 465), Mid. H. Germ. Itnboum, Mm- 
 bourn, now lehnej O. Corn, kelin, Cambr. kelyn, Armoric kelen, 
 kelennen (Zeuss. ed. 2, p. 1077) ; Mid. Latin clenus. With this northern 
 word compare a passage in Theophrastus, H. PL, 3, 1 1, i : tv fiiv 5i) 
 (yivog) Tifi KOiv^ irpoQayopivovm apii'Saiivov, 'drtpov Si Zvy'tav, rpiTOV ok 
 
 nXivorpoxov, <3e ol Trepi Sraytipa. This klino-trochos was the name among 
 the country-folk about Stagira, as Theophrastus had probably heard 
 from his master ; perhaps the second half of the word, to judge by its 
 first letters tr, expressed the notion of tree. Another Macedonian 
 word yXavov, yXIj/ov (or yXEivoff?), (Theophr. 3, 3) I • o^ivScifivog, !^v iv/iiv 
 Ti^ bpii Tre^vKviav Z,vyiav KtxKovaiv, kv St t(^ 7r£6lq) yXuvov ; 3, II, 2 : KoKovat 
 S" airfiv ivioi yXiivov, oil afkvSafivov), must be related to the above. 
 The Latin acer, aceris (for acesis), seems identical with the " axatsTOQ' ri 
 aijihSaiivog" in Hesychius. It is known that the German Ahorn {p be- 
 cause it sounded like horn) was formed from the Latin acer, or rather 
 from the adjective acernusj and from the German is derived the Slavic 
 yavor. A native Slavic word for maple, repina (also Albanian), is 
 formed from repiy, thorn, like Latin acer and Greek ofua from the root 
 ak, sharp (see W. Tomaschek in the Zeitschrift f. d. oesterr. Gymn., 
 187s, P- 529)- 
 
 Note ^7, page 229. 
 Or was only the tongue of the scales made of a piece of cane .■■ or 
 did measuring by the cane come first, and its name then, in the sense 
 of rule, standard, get transferred to the scales ? The obscure rpvTavn, 
 Latin trutina, is explained by the Slavic triistt, arundo, where the s 
 arose regularly out of the // therefore TpvTdvi] also originally meant 
 cane. 
 
 Note 68, page 252. 
 To illustrate more fully what has been said in the text, we add some 
 
 31 
 
482 NOTES. 
 
 philological remarks that have occurred to us. Fr. Beckmann, in a 
 learned essay on the origin and meaning of the name Elektron for 
 Amber (in Zeitschr. fiirdie Gesch. und Alterth. Ermlands, I. pp. 201, 
 and 633, Mainz, i860), would derive both riXixTuip 'Y Trifiiwv, and rjXtKrpov 
 and aXiKTpviov from dXkw, aXIJu, so that the notion of averting, ward- 
 ing off, would lie at the bottom of all three. Now it is indifferent to 
 our purpose, whether by the term iJXiKTwp the god was originally 
 represented as beaming or as averting (something hke 'A;r£\XMj') ; the 
 name for amber was certainly formed after that of the Sun-god. It 
 proves nothing that in later times the elektron was used as a magic 
 talisman and fantastic remedy, lor that was the case with a thousand 
 other objects, and especially with all precious stones. Nor had the 
 gemma alectoria any defensive or averting power ; it was serviceable 
 to athletes only because it was said to be found in the stomach of the 
 cock, and the latter is a pugnacious creature, akiXTpviiv /iaxiiiog. 
 
 The Latin gallus, gallina, are connected by Pott and Leo Meyer 
 with the Greek dyyeWw, ayytKoq, which obscure word appears even in 
 Greek as only the remains of an obsolete root. It is difficult to believe 
 that so late as 500 B.C. the word gallus was suddenly formed in Italy 
 from a similar verb not otherwise known there. Curtius has supposed, 
 with more probability, that gallus is an assimilation of gar-lus from 
 garrio, yripioi. But gar-lus would also be a too antiquated form, as the 
 root would here appear without the suffix which had long grown to it, 
 as in garrulus. Besides, neither garrire nor ytipvtiv is ever used of 
 the voice of the cock ; and the corresponding but reduplicated Slavic 
 glagolati, to speak, goes to form quite a different bird's name ; galica, 
 galka, jackdaw, the chattering bird. If we compare the Latin galla, 
 and the Greek (ojkic, both meaning gall-nut, we cannot help supposing 
 that in gallus also there is hidden an assimilated guttural, and that the 
 cock was so called mimetically, as the cackling bird. Hesych. Koxa- 
 Kama ff opveov. 
 
 The German hana is generally compared to the Latin cano, ce-cin-i, 
 which verb is used exactly for the crowing of the cock {galli-cinium, 
 cock-crowing, canorum animal gallus gallinaceus). The same verb is 
 also extant in Old Celtic, and, reduplicated as in Latin. The same 
 root is found in Greek in extended form : Kavaxv, KavaZ(^, kSvu- 
 ^oQ, and in the verse of Cratinus it is used of the cock : Kavax^iv 
 oK6(pmioQ aKsKTiop. But it is suspicious that of the verb hanan, here 
 presumed, there is no trace either in the Germanic, Lithuanian, or 
 Slavic languages ; and further, that the oldest and most genuine 
 German word for the crowing of a cock is hntk, hrukjan, still used 
 by Goethe of the cooing of the pigeon: 
 
NOTES. 483 
 
 " Da hoimnt 
 Dahergerauscht ein Taubenpaar 
 Und ruckt einander an.'' 
 
 So that the doubt remains, whether the German hana be not some 
 borrowed Southern name. If a word was extant anywhere, like that in 
 the gloss of Hesychius : rnKavoQ- b aktKrpvuv (explained by Gerland as 
 early-chanter, Pott, E. F., ed. 2, 4, 283), the German word would not 
 be so strikingly isolated. 
 
 With the Armoric, North-French and A. Saxon cog, cocc, Finnish 
 and Esth. kukko, kuk, agrees the North-German word for the young 
 brood, O. Norse kykltngr, A. Saxon cicen, cycen, frequent in Low 
 German, whence, in the form kiichlein, it has now passed into High 
 German. This word strictly stands aloof from the Gothic qitts, our 
 quick, and all that holds of these, by its different initial and different 
 vowel, though, from the similarity of the sounds, they may now and 
 then have been confounded. But the same word appears in old 
 Greece as the true popular expression for the chanting and crowing of 
 the cock. Sophocles called the cock KOKuvpoae opvte (Fr. 718, Nauck.) ; 
 in Aristophanes, Cratinus (Meineke 2, I, 186 : kokkvIuv rbv aXtKTpvov 
 oiiK dvExovrai), and Theocritus, popular poets, KOKKviui, kokkvsSw, is the 
 unforced expression for the crow of the cock, and was also used by 
 the orators Hyperides and Demosthenes {Pali. 5, 89). The g'ockel- 
 hahn, etc., of Upper Germany, may be derived from the French. 
 
 A similar, but not identical, name is spread through another region, 
 namely, the wide Slavo-Byzantine world : Slav. kokotH, gallus, kokosha, 
 kokosM, gallina, Wallach. cocSs, Magyar kakas, Albanian kokos, Mod. 
 Greek kokotos (with corrupt by-forms, Russ. kStchet, Albanian kapds). 
 The Sanskrit kukkuta, gallus, is too distant, both in time and space 
 to be taken into account. 
 
 Only among a portion of the Slav nations, which also form a sepa- 
 rate group in point of language, do we find the O. Slav, pietlii, 
 Servian piyetao, Croat, petelin, Eussian (with another suffix) pltukh. 
 Agreeing with it in sense are the Lith. gaidys (singers from ged6ti, to 
 sing, whence also gqsH, the well-known stringed instrument gusli), and 
 the Albanian kendees (from the verb kendoig, I sing, which is probably 
 the Latin cantare borrowed). 
 
 An Old Celtic name for the cock, besides cere, is furnished by 
 Zeuss's " Cornish Vocabulaiy," p. 1074 : ehelioc, eolyek, O. Irish 
 coileachj Zeuss doubtingly explains it as salax, pp. 849 and 816. The 
 " calocatanos=papaver silvestre," occurring in Marcellus Empiricus 
 (E. Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, 11, p. 312), would here find its 
 desired explanation, as cock-flower, like coquelicot, see Diez sub v. ; 
 
484 NOTES. 
 
 Von Martens' (Italien 2, 40) says the purple-violet flowers of the 
 Campanula speculum, L., are called in the district of Verona cantaga- 
 letti or cucheiti. 
 
 There is also no want of obscure and isolated names in Europe ; as 
 the Old Cambrian, Cornish, and Breton tar, yar, hen ; and with the 
 same meaning the Lith. visztd,, Lettish vista. In O. Prussian the cock 
 was called gertis, the hen gerto, and the hawk gertoanax. 
 
 Certainly many of the above expressions are only onomatopoeia. 
 But the explanation by independent imitations of sound is not alone 
 sufficient. It is contradicted by the circumstance that these names 
 appear evidently in sequence and in zones, and by their too close 
 agreement. If they had not migrated, but had arisen spontaneously 
 in each place, there would be found a much greater variety, for every 
 nation hears differently, and loves different combinations of sounds. 
 On the other hand, nothing is more easily picTced up by one nation 
 from another than onomatopoeia, interjections, ejaculations, emphatic 
 and elementary expressions of every kind. And if the wandering 
 trader or physician — those two great missionaries of culture among 
 unfriendly barbarians — if the captured slave or abducted maiden had 
 been used to designate the cock in their mother tongue, as, for example, 
 the singer, they would name it and interpret it no otherwise to the 
 barbarians, as soon as they got a smattering of their language. So 
 the Greek (cXw^eti/, Latin glocire, glocitare, to cluck (Columella, 5, 4 : 
 " Glocientibus J sic enim appellant rustici aves eas quae volunt incu- 
 bare"), cannot have spread so far through all European languages, 
 even the Slavic, without the help of borrowing. 
 
 Note 69, page 262. 
 In the word mpia-zpa, tame pigeon, which appeared late, Benfey (2, 
 106) discovered a superlative and comparative form of pri, to love, so 
 that it meant "much enamoured." We prefer to connect it with 
 Slav, pero, penna, prati, pariti, volare ; Zend, paretia, perena, feather, 
 wing. Mod. Persic parj Kurd, per; O. H. Germ, farn or farm, 
 A. Saxon /earn (fern being the feathery plant ; reduplicated in Lith. 
 and Slavic : Lith. papartis, Polish paproc, Russian paporot ; Old 
 Gallic ratis, in Celtic fashion for pratis, O. Irish rath, raith, O. 
 Corn, reden, Cambr. rhedyn). Pott, in his first E. F., explained ^a-^ 
 fafioe, by ^ipoiiai, to fear ; an assimilated guttural must be hidden in 
 faam, to which then the Mid. Greek ^dxnrf ri ali^a rfjc fdatrt]!;, the 
 Mid. 'Lz.'Cm facha, facheta, fakecha, and even Oriental names, would 
 have a resemblance (see Pott in Lassen's Zeitschr. iv. 28— Diefenbach 
 G. W. sub V. ahaks). An O. Russ. faza, palumbes, is thought by 
 
NOTES. 48s 
 
 Miklosich [Fremdworter in der Slavischen Spr. p. 87) to be the Greel; 
 ^oo-fftt borrowed. With the Prussian keutaris, ring-dove, agree thu 
 O. Cornish cudon, Cambr. ysguthan, O. Irish ciadcholum=-p?L\\im)m 
 (Zeuss, ed. 2, 1074) ; also, to our surprise, the Prussian /oa/w, pigeorn 
 with the Greek TrlXtuz, paluinbus. The Slavic golabl looks too like the 
 Latin not to be borrowed from the language of the rulers of the world 
 and Christendom, especially as in the Lithuanian gulbe, swan, we have 
 the form and sense in which alone the word could be original in those 
 Eastern parts. The softening of c into g, not unheard of in other 
 cases, is of little weight against the historical reasons that speak for the 
 word being borrowed. We cannot yet determine whether the Goths 
 received their enigmatic ahaks (mpurrepa) from the European West, or 
 from the Asiatic East (Diefenbach sub. v. ; compare also O. Irish caog, 
 jackdaw (St., Ir. Gl. 201), and Lith. kogas, carrion crow). The Lithua- 
 nian has two other names for a pigeon, both it seems of merely local 
 use : karvMis and baldndis. I do not know if the latter can be identi- 
 fied with the Ossetic baldn (in the other dialect baUn, baluori) ; it has 
 also passed into Livonian (Wiedemann in the Bulletin der Petersburger 
 Akademie, p. 694, 1859), while the Lettic and Esthonian names for the 
 tame pigeon are derived from the German. The Lithuanians and 
 Slavs, name the heath-cock from its deafness : Lith. kurtinys, deaf 
 and heath-cock ; from Slayic glukhH, deaf, come the Russ. glukhari, 
 Pol. gluszec, Slovfen hluchan, etc., heath-cock. But as this bird in 
 breeding time really seems as if deaf, the relation of taub, deaf, to 
 taube, dove, must be different. 
 
 Note 70, page 265. 
 
 When Clytus the Aristotelian, in his work on Miletus (in Athen. 
 12, p. 540), relates that Polycrates brought together in Samos the pro- 
 ducts of all countries {^irb rpv^ije to. iravraxoStv avvaytiV Kvvag fiiv it 
 'HTTf/jOou, diyag Sk tK SkvjOov, £k 5e MtXjjrou TrpofSara, {ig Se fc/c 2i/CEXiaf), we 
 see that the tyrant was bent upon improving the breeds of animals, 
 though it was set down to mere luxury (rpv^^) ; but there is nothing 
 about the peacock to be inferred from the report. It may have been 
 passed over for one of two opposite reasons, either because it already 
 existed in the island, or because it was still unknown to Polycrates and 
 the Samians ; it is also a mere creature of luxury, which might indeed 
 have suited Tpv(pn, but had nothing to do with the really economic 
 labours of the tyrant. 
 
 Note 71, page 265. 
 As Antiphon was executed in the year 411, the "thirty years 
 
486 NOTES. 
 
 and more " would take us back to an earlier date than we have sup- 
 posed (440) for Athens's first acquaintance with the peacock. But the 
 oration on peafowls can hardly be by Antiphon himself ; it was more 
 likely made after his death, though not long after. 
 
 Note 72, page 286. 
 
 It is interesting to observe how new and popular names were 
 created for the falcon in the earliest Middle Ages, when falconry became 
 a favourite pastime. These names then migrated from land to land. 
 One of the Mid. Latin names, which is first met with in Servius, was 
 falco, which passed into most European languages \ its model was 
 the Greek apirri, which signified both a bird of prey and a sickle. 
 Accipiter was traced to accipere, and therefore used also in the form 
 acceptor, as though it meant the receiver of the bird when it flew up ; 
 and in the same way habich, hawk, was supposed to come from 
 haben, to have. From capere was formed a short name quite common 
 in Mid. Latin, capus; the note in Servius declaring that it was an 
 old Etruscan word — in which case it must have suddenly reappeared 
 after centuries of disuse — and that Capua was named after it, can only 
 be received with a shake of the head. For the Spanish gavilan, 
 perhaps derived from capus, see Diez in the Dictionary. The Mid. 
 Latin gyro falco, so called from circling (gyrus, gyrare), Italian 
 girfalco, French ger/aut, gave the Germans their geier (see Diez). A 
 very widespread European word, sacer—a.nd probably also the German 
 ■wethe, O. H. Germ, mlo, wigo, iviho — is simply a mistranslation of 
 the Greek iipa? (quasi Upoi) : Mid. Latin sacer, Italian sagro, French 
 and Span, sacre. Mid. H. Germ, sackerfalk. Mid. Greek aaKpi. The 
 same word penetrated the East : Arabic sakr, Persic sonkor, Kurd. 
 sakkar, Slav. sokolU, Lith. sakalas. In Aristotle aanpiaQ, starred, 
 spotted, is a mere attributive to lipal, but it is also used substantively 
 as the name of a kind of bird of prey. The same word appears quite 
 late in Latin in the form astur (the ending probably occasioned by 
 vulhir, or the national name Astur, an Asturian) ; from this is formed 
 in an irregular manner, to avoid the similarity of sound with astro, 
 star, the Italian astore, Provengal austor, O. French ostor, now autour 
 (which Diez prefers to derive from acceptor, in which case also the 
 words would not be according to rule), and the Slavic words for 
 hawk ; Slav, yastrqbii, Serv. yastreb, yastrob, Russ. yastreb, Pol. 
 jastrzqb, etc. The Lithuanian and Lettish name wannagus, wan- 
 nags, for falcon, is evidently borrowed from the Germanic languages ; 
 it is a sacred bird of prey, " for whom wannen (tubs) used to be hung 
 outside the houses to build his nest in " (Grimm, p. 50), O. H. Germ. 
 
l,'OTES. 4«7 
 
 wannoweho, wannunwechel, Latin tinunculus from tina, vessel. 
 Wanne itself is borrowed from the Latin vannus : word and custom 
 were Italian. In Layard's book, mentioned in the text, we find on 
 p. 366 and following, not only full and very interesting accounts of 
 falconry as now practised in the East, but also a number of names 
 for the species and varieties used there. Among these, tchark is 
 probably the Greek mpKoe, Slavic kretchet. This tchark, the common 
 falcon of the Bedouins, " seizes his prey on the ground, except the 
 eagle, at which he is flown in the air. It chases principally gazelles 
 and trappes, but also hares and other game." This, then, is hunting 
 hares with falcons, just as Ktesias relates ; when gazelles are hunted, 
 greyhound and falcon usually work together. 
 
 Note 73, page 293. 
 
 In his Synopsis Flora classicae, Fraas incorrectly states that the 
 ancients were already acquainted with the white mulberry. .lEschylus 
 only speaks of white, reddish, and dark-red berries hanging in diffe- 
 rent stages of maturity at the same time on the tree : tcAtov xpmiov ; 
 Ovid in his fable only explains the origin of the red colour, just as 
 he makes the black feathers of the raven proceed by metamorphosis 
 from the former white ones ; the Geoponica, 10, 69, only tells how to 
 give mulberries a white colour by grafting on a XtuKij, that is, a white 
 poplar, one of the tricks of which that collection is full. Throughout 
 the Middle Ages there is no certain trace of the Morus alba to be 
 found in Europe — see Ritter, Erdkunde, 17, 495, who in vain sought 
 for such. Also in Albertus Magnus, £>« Vegetabilibus, 6, 143, only the 
 Morus nigra is described, not the Morus alba, as the latest editor 
 supposes. 
 
 Note 74, page 298. 
 
 If corylus, corulus, arose in Latin fashion from cosilus, and is there- 
 fore the O. H. Germ, hasal, hazel, and the O. Gallic coj-/(Zeuss, ed. 2, 
 p. 1077), KauTavov might be the same word in a Pontic language, only 
 with another suffix. The Albanian arre, nut, nut-tree, reminds us of 
 the glosses in Hesychius : apva' t6l r/paicXtiiiTiK xdpva, and aiapa' ra 
 irovTixa xapva. As there is a dialectic by-form kharre, arre must have 
 dropped its k, and is therefore the same word as xipvov. The Slav. 
 oracha, orechU, Lith. reszutas, reszutys, nut, carries us back to Persia : 
 aragh, nut. Even Diez knows nothing certain about the Romance 
 expressions, Italian marrone, French marron. According to Movers, 
 I, 578, 586, aiivySaXji was the Semitic name of the Phrygian Cybele, 
 
488 NOTES. 
 
 and meant great mother; in fact, the wakeful almond tree, that is, 
 the early-blooming, the first to wake from the winter's sleep, sprang 
 from the blood of the mother of the gods. The Laconic /iiicripog, 
 fiovKripoe, nut almond, which seems to be identical with the rare Latin 
 nuceres, nucerum (gen. pi., Ccelius in Charis, I, 40), points to a native 
 Greek derivation. If we compare it with /ivaaui, nv^a, Latin mucus, 
 the meaning would be soft, shiny fruit, just as a kind of plum was 
 called myxa, myxum. 
 
 Note 75, page 303. 
 The mistletoe, O. H. Germ. 7nistil, was a very sacred Druidical 
 plant, and the very slight traces in the German myth of a similar 
 regard for it can only be a reflex from the Celtic land, especially as 
 the Slavonian popular religion altogether disregards the mistletoe. 
 The word also is probably a stranger in Germany, and the same as 
 viscus, visculus; but we will not decide where the change of the v 
 into in took place. Another plant used by the Druids for superstitious 
 healing was called samolus (Diefenbach O. E. 416) ; if we imagine 
 this word afterwards stripped of its initial s (by transition into K), it will 
 agree with the Lithuano-Slavic names of the mistletoe : Lith. amalis, 
 emalas, Lett, dmuls, Pruss. emelno, Slav, omela. The French griotte, 
 sour cherry, is agriotta in Italian, and therefore derived from acer; 
 merise, bird-cherry, seems, like the Italian amarzna, amarasca, 
 marasca, to refer to amarus, bitter. In the Magyar language the 
 sour cherry is tnedgy, the cherry-tree medgyfa — whence comes this 1 
 
 Note 76, page 311. 
 Late writers have supposed that this rhododendron of Pliny was 
 one of our kinds of rhododendron, as Tournefort thought, or the 
 Azalea Pontica (see E. Meyer, Botanische Erlduterungen zu Strata's 
 Geographie, p. 59 ; and Langkavel, Botanik der spateren Griechen, 
 p. 65). One may ascribe the bad effects of the Pontic honey as a 
 fact to whatever plant one likes ; but by rhododendron the ancients 
 always meant the Nerium oleander, and one has no right to substitute 
 any other plant of which they did not mean to speak and could not 
 have spoken. 
 
 Note 77, page 311. 
 We are prevented from believing with the latest editor, O. Ribbeck, 
 in the authenticity of the " Culex," by the character of the poem, 
 which evinces rather conceited over-ripeness than youthful immaturity. 
 The very first verses could only be written by one who had already 
 seen the Georgics and .lEneid, or at least the Eclogues ; 
 
NOTES. 489 
 
 " Posterius graviore so/to tibi mttsa loquetur 
 Nostra, dabwit quom maturos mihi iempora Jrucius, 
 Ut tibi digna tuo poliantur carmina sensu; " 
 
 and remind us of Frederick the Great's speech to his generals at the 
 beginning of the Seven Years' War : " Now we open the Seven Years' 
 War ! " The very word rhododaphne is suspicious ; if the young Virgil 
 had known it, we should have read it in later poets, for example, in 
 Ovid, especially as it fits hexameter verse. 
 
 Note 78, page 312. 
 
 So thinks Benfey, 2, 79, who explains irwrasri, vurrdKiov as ricA 
 in flour. From the gloss in Hesychius : ^'wraX; 6 PatriKcie irapa TlkpaaiQ, 
 early writers thought the word meant as much as regiae nuces, as Kapva 
 fiaaiXiKo. was used for a kind of nut or walnut (Persic pishd&d, Pehlvi 
 pdshddt, Zend, paradhdta). The first letter is by turns it, <p, ji, and 
 even * ; according to Steph. Byz. there stood on the Tigris a town 
 'iriTTaKT], so-called from the Pistacios that grew there. Tipi^ivBoc, 
 ripnivBog, is probably also a Persian word, to which the change of b 
 into m points, a change that commonly took place in transferring 
 Persian names to Greek. See Pott, Kurdische Studien, in Lassen's 
 Zeitschr., 6, p. 63. The Kurdic dariben there quoted can hardly be 
 borrowed from the Greek, for it is a mighty forest-tree native in 
 Kurdistan. Polak, Persien, 2, 155, says: "Besides numerous 
 terebinth-trees, which furnish the well-known sakkes-resin, Kurdistan 
 possesses large oak-forests. 
 
 Note 79, page 339. 
 
 The cultivation of oranges has now become an important branch of 
 production in Italy. According to Langenbach's lecture before the 
 Berlin Geographical Society, Nov. 2, 1872, Palermo exported twenty- 
 two million kilogrammes of fruit in 1864, and thirty-seven millions in 
 1867 ; the present quantity is about sixty million kilogrammes. Two- 
 thirds of this fruit is sent to the United States. 
 
 Note 80, page 343. 
 
 jElian — no great authority, it is true — declares the word to be 
 Iberian, N. A., 13, 15 : kovikKoq ovofia airif' om et/ii Si noiiir>)s ovo/iaTuiv, 
 o9iv Kai ev rySt Ty avyypa^y (pvKarTij) ti)v iirinwiiiav rfiv t5 apx>;s, ijvTrep o5j/ 
 "I^rjptg 01 "EtTTTEptot tOtvTO olj nap' oig Kal ylviToi rfi Kal tart irdffjroXvg. The 
 Iberian race, its branches and their distribution, its language in its 
 
490 -MSXES. 
 
 oldest remains and in its present modern condition, are still awaiting 
 a Caspar Zeuss who shall raise them, by the means and methods of 
 modern science, out of the obscurity in which they are hidden, as Zeuss 
 did the origin of the Central European nations, and the language of 
 the Celts. But since W. Humboldt the Basque language has been left 
 in the hands of French and Spanish dilettanti ; in Germany, where 
 formal preparation might be expected, only the primitive history of the 
 Germans has flourished much since Zeuss, yet the boundaries marked 
 out by that great inquirer more than forty years ago have scarcely 
 anywhere been shiftedpr overthrown. From out the flood of opposing 
 hypotheses and corrections, his " Germans and the neighbouring 
 races " has always re-emerged. One example may serve ; what is 
 become of our Mongolian Scythians ? have they not become Iranians 
 again, as Zeuss, with a few master-strokes, made them out to be.' 
 The Orphic verse, which Stockes applied to his Celtic grammar : 
 
 Zeuff apxV) Zevg ^kaaay Aibg ^ sk navra TtrvKraij 
 
 is applicable also to that ethnographic work, which was left in the 
 background, while the rival " History of the German Language " passed 
 through several editions, and its contents into popular hand-books — no 
 good sign ! Would that part of the busy and generally vain efforts 
 thus expended had been bestowed upon the Iberians or Albanians, a 
 field where the piled-up and half-buried ruins promise the richest 
 discoveries ! 
 
 Note 8i, page 345. 
 
 All that zoology can at present tell us regarding the original distri- 
 bution of the /epus cumculus is to be found complete in the learned 
 monograph by J. F. Brandt : Researches on the Rabbit, etc. {Melanges 
 Biologiques of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences, T., 9, 1875). As 
 the rabbit easily runs wild, and then becomes so like the really wild 
 animal that no difference can be discovered (p. 481), it is impossible 
 to draw any conclusions from its present distribution. It is true that 
 fossil remains of the rabbit from the diluvial time are said to be found 
 in Western Europe from Portugal to England and Germany ; but that 
 is long ago, and the increasing cold in the North meanwhile destroyed 
 the animal, which is very sensitive to a low temperature. It cannot 
 have existed in a wild state in Greece and Italy within historic times, 
 because in that case the Greeks and Romans would not have passed 
 it over in silence ; on the other hand, it is present in all Iberian 
 countries, and closely connected with the Iberian race. 
 
 It is related of the tyrant Anaxilas of Rhegium, who also conquered 
 the town of Zankle (afterwards called Messana) that he naturalized the 
 
NOT£S. 
 
 491 
 
 hare in Sicily, and therefore had his coins stamped with the figure of 
 that animal. Was the hare wanting in the island until that time? 
 One might suppose that rabbits were meant, which the tyrant had 
 colonized near Messina, but the coins distinctly show a hare in full 
 career. 
 
 A Greek name for the rabbit, Xt/Sijpi'c, which Strabo does not limit to 
 any district [tSiv yiuipvxwv XayiSkuv ovq tvioi XtPijpiSag wpogayopivovin), is 
 declared by Erotianus, following Polemarchus, to be Massaliote : 3 
 "PiDjiaioi fiiv kovvikKov koXoviti, MaaaaXiuirai Si XefiriplSa. If there really 
 was an jEolic, that is. Old Greek word XkTropie for hare, there might 
 grow up out of it, among the early Greek colonists on the coasts of 
 Spain and Provence, a Xf/Sijpi'c, with a soft labial, as Xi^pig, in the 
 other sense of skin, slough, is related to XiirtLv, to peel, Xoiroe, husk, 
 shell. But if the Latin ie^us was the only root, we should have here 
 one of those words which appeared in the Sicilian-Italiote colonial 
 language, namely, & Grecianized Latin term, whose form was deter- 
 mined by Xt/Sijptc, skin ; but then it would not be exclusively Massaliote. 
 It is very remarkable that laurix, which disappeared in the Romance 
 languages and in Middle Latin, is found again in O. H. German 
 glosses : lorichi, lorichin, with the meaning of cuniculus. If laurix 
 was only another form or pronunciation of Xt^r\pi.q — and ground enough 
 for such a supposition might be found in the dialects, unknown to us, 
 spoken between Gades and Massilia — then either laurix must also be 
 a Grseco-Roman, or Xc^ripie also an Iberian word. The English rabbit, 
 and French rabouillire, rabbit-hedge, are derived from a Celtic name 
 (see Miiller, Etymol. Worterb. der Englischen Sprache). The distor- 
 tion of cuniculus in the Lithuano-Slavic languages makes a pretty 
 contribution to Folk-etymology : Lith. kralikkas ; Russ. korolek, 
 krolik ; Pol. krolik, etc., that is, little king. Charlemagne surely 
 never dreamt that his name would serve to distinguish the rabbit on 
 the other side of the Oder ! But perhaps these expressions are only 
 translations of the kiiniglein, common in older German, Mid. H. 
 Germ, kiinolt (see Pott, Doppelung, p. 82), forms that also owe their 
 existence to Folk-etymology. 
 
 Note 82, page 347. 
 
 "When Alkmena,'' relates Antoninus Libeialis, 29, "could not give 
 birth to Herakles because the Moirai and Eileithyia hindered the birth, 
 Galinthias (in Ovid, Met., 9, 306, she is called Galanthis) tricked the 
 goddesses so that the child was born ; for which she was punished, by 
 being changed into a weasel, yaKv\. But Hekate pitied her, and made 
 her her own sacred servant. And when Herakles was grown up, he 
 
492 NOTES. 
 
 remembered her help, erected a sanctuary to her, and sacrificed to 
 her. The Thebans observe the custom to this day, and before the 
 feast of Herakles they first sacrifice to Galinthias." MX\2S\, N.A., 
 15, II, on the other hand, relates : " I have heard that the weasel was 
 once a woman, practised magic and poisonings, and was unbridled in 
 illicit love ; the anger of the goddess Hekate changed her into this 
 wicked animal. This I have heard tell." Contrariwise, in the 32nd 
 Fable of Babrius, the weasel is changed by Aphrodite into a beautiful 
 girl, who, on her wedding day, betrays what she really is — a weasel. 
 The Comic poet, Strattis, who exhibited plays from 01. 92 to 01. 99, 
 alludes to this fable. (Meineke, Fr. con. gr., 2, 2, 790.) 
 
 This tale of transformation has travelled far, and is echoed in the 
 names borne by the weasel in many European languages. It is called 
 the little maiden; Ital. donnolaj Mod. Greek vvfu^ma ; Germ, schon- 
 thierlein, pretty beastie, schbndinglein, pretty little thing ; Danish 
 den kjonne, the beauty ; O. Eng. fairy; Span, comadreja, cummer 
 gossip {=commatercula) ; Basque andereigerra (andrea=wonian), 
 Albanian " the brother's wife," Slav, lastotchka, the friendly or de- 
 ceitful (from laskati, to flatter, listiti to deceive ; the swallow is called 
 so too), Slav, nevestaka, bride or maiden, etc. In many Italian 
 dialects the names are derived from the Latin bellula (see Flechia in 
 the Archivio glottologico Italiano 1 1, p. 47). Ness (Zeuss, ed. 2, 49), and 
 eds (St., I. Gl., 259) are Celtic words, the latter, if it has lost an initial 
 V (Zeuss, ed. 2, 55), is perhaps identical with O. H. Germ, wisula, wisala. 
 The Cornish-Breton names quoted by Zeuss, ed. 2, 1075, seem to contain 
 the notion of merry, quick. Very obscure names are the Portug. 
 toura.0; Span, garduna, Lith. zttinksztis (rather the brown weasel), 
 szarmonys, szermonys (rather the white, identical with Germ, hermelin, 
 ermine, from harm) ; O. Pruss. mosuco (Germ, mbsch, miisch, perhaps 
 like Mus Moscoviticus) Albanian bukljeza. They may contain euphe- 
 mistic circumlocutions ; for the weasel, because of its swiftness and 
 subterranean habits, is imagined as a daemonic animal, and such a one 
 must not be 7iamed, or it will appear. The Latin felis appears in the 
 Cymric bele, martin, from which comes the French belette, weasel (see 
 Diez, sub v., and Diefenbach, O. E., p. 259) ; Germ, bille, bilchmaus, 
 O. H. Germ, pilihj Lith. pelej Old Pruss. peles. mouse ; S\a.v. plUchU, 
 dormouse, etc. 
 
 Note 83, page 351. 
 
 Fr. Miiller, in the Sitzungsber. der PhilosopMsch-Mstor. Klasse der 
 Wiener Acad., vol. xlii., p. 250, 1863, translates the Zendic gadliwa, 
 which often occurs in the Vendidad, by " cat ; " and Spiegel, in Kuhn's 
 Zeitschrift, 13, 369, agrees with him. To this Justi objects, that the 
 
NOTES. 493 
 
 Huzvaresh translation gives " dog " for gadhwa, and that the cat first 
 appeared in Asia during the MitK.Ie Ages. And, in fact, all the Asiatic 
 names of the animal, both in the Semitic languages and in Armenian, 
 Ossetic, Persic, Turkish, etc., are in the last instance derived from 
 Byzantine Greek, which itself borrowed its name from the Latin. It 
 is significant for the chronology (if the word, that catus exists in all 
 the Romance languages except W'allachian alone : it came up when 
 Dacia was already the prey of the barbarians, and the Latin spoken 
 there was isolated. On other forms that are pretty widely diffused, 
 Ital. micio. Germ, mieze, Slav. matcMka; etc., see Diez, Weigand, and 
 Miklosich under the words. As the meaning of "little Mary" is 
 hidden in the German miezchen, and " little Matthias " in the Bohemian 
 macek, so in Russia the cat is called vasika, little Basil, or mishka, 
 Httle Michael. (See also Albert Hofer, Deutsche Nanten des Katers, 
 in the Germania, 2, i68 ; and Grimm's Dictionary, with regard to the 
 name buse, bise, widely spread aniong Germans and Celts). 
 
 Note 84, page 352. 
 
 Here we follow the common opinion, namely, that tasso, taxo, taxus^ 
 badger, came from the German into the Romance and Middle Latin lan- 
 guages. Grimm, in his Grammatik, 2, 40, derives the word dacks, badger,, 
 from the Mid. H. Germ, verb dehsen, to swingle flax, linum vertere, cir- 
 cumagere. This dehsen, with the frequent Teutonic addition of an 
 r, is identical with Lith. tekinti, to turn, Slav, totchiti circumvolvere,. 
 tokari, turner ; and, like deichsel, A. Sax. thisl, thill or pole of a waggon^ 
 and Gothic thaho, clay — that is, stuff' to be formed or turned ; it runs 
 into the large many-branched stem to which rlxvij, t'iktiiiv, nvxi^, tvkoq, 
 etc., belong. The badger was called the turner because he digs his. 
 house in the earth, and is therefore an artist, an architect. This ex- 
 planation is supported by the Greek rpoxoe in Aristotle, De Gener. 
 Anim., 3, 6, in which word lies, not only the simple meaning of 
 runner, but also of turner, one who runs round (compare rpoxoe wheel, 
 potter's- wheel ; the Idufer runner, in the mill, t.e.., upper stone, and 
 among rope-makers, etc.) 
 
 But there is a doubt whether dachs was not rather Celtic, and the 
 animal already popular among that people. The fat of the badger, to- 
 which popular superstition attributed particular effects, is already 
 praised by Serenus Sammonicus : 
 
 " Nee speriiendus adeps, dederit quern bestia fneles" 
 
 where meles can only mean the badger. Marcellus Empiricus also- 
 prescribes a dose of badger-fat, adipis iaxoninae; at that rate, the 
 
494 NOTES. 
 
 German word must have found its way into Latin by the fourth century. 
 Still farther back, about loo B.C., is the quotation from Afranius in 
 Isidore, 20, 2 : " Taxea lardum est Gallice dictum; unde et Afranius 
 in Rosa: 'Galium sagatum pingiii pastum taxea!" Nourished on 
 badger's fat ? 
 
 Other names for this animal lead us no farther. The English say 
 badger — that is, corn-trader ; the French likewise blaireau — that is, 
 bladarius; the Italians say grajo (perhaps the same as agrarius) ; 
 the Scandinavians and Netherlanders grdvling, grevinc — that is, 
 digger, all euphemisms. The Danish-Swedish brock is the same in 
 English, and broch in Cambrian and Cornish ; if this be a case of 
 borrowing, did the word run with the parallels of latitude from east to 
 west — that is, from Scandinavia to Britain, say, with the incursions of 
 the Danes ; or in the opposite direction, from the ancient Britons to 
 the North Germans ? The Russian barsuk, Polish borsuk, seems of 
 Persian or Turkish origin, as bars (leopard) is an Asiatic word ; with 
 the latter agrees the Magyar borz, badger. The Slavic j/a^wz? and the 
 Lithuanian words : O. Pruss. wobsdus, Lith. obszrus, Lett, dpsis, are 
 obscure, though they certainly were full of meaning once. 
 
 The late arrival of the Hamster from the East is unmistakable. It 
 is still wanting in many parts of Germany, but is frequent in the corn ■ 
 growing countries of Eastern Europe. From the Russian khomiak, 
 Polish chomik, and still more closely from the " chomestaru, animal 
 quoddam," noted by Miklosich, is derived from the German hamster, 
 O. H. Germ, hamastro, hamistro. Also the Russian karbysch, hamster, 
 sounds as if derived from a Tartar source. The O. Pruss. dutkis, and 
 Lith. balesas, cannot be understood. 
 
 Note 85, page 352. 
 The same is true of the productions of language : our language availed 
 itself of the difference between the High German and the Low German 
 stage of consonant to distinguish between katze, female cat, and kater, 
 male cat ; and added, by a kind of vowel-change, Die Katze kiezt, hat 
 gekiezt, the cat has kittened. 
 
 Note 86, page 355. 
 The Greek ^oi^akv-, ;3ou/3aXof, is undoubtedly roe, antelope, gazelle, 
 and not an animal of the Neat kind. We find already in ./Eschylus, 
 Fr. 322, Nauck : 
 
 XioVTOX&^Tav PoipaXiv viaircpov, 
 the young antelope which serves as food for the lion. To those 
 
NOTES. 495 
 
 animals, says Aristotle, De Part. Anim., 3, 2, whose horns are useless 
 for defence, Nature gave another means of safety, speed — thus to 
 stags, antelopes, /3ou/3aXoie, roes, SopKatrt, which last occasionally stand 
 at bay and threaten with their horns, but take flight before strong 
 beasts of prey. These animals are especially native to Africa. There, 
 according to Herodotus, 4, 192, live niyapyot Kal ^opKaSsg teal ^ovIiaXuQ 
 mi ovoi, and Polybius, 12, 3, 5, adds : "Who has not told us of the 
 great cats of Africa, and the beauty of the antelopes (giraffes ?), fSov- 
 ^oKuiv I aXXoc, and the size of the ostriches ?" In Italy the people began 
 to distinguish by this Greek word the ure-ox and wisent of the German 
 forests, which have nothing in common with the nimble roe, Mart., 
 Epigr., 23. 4 : 
 
 " Illi cessit atrox bubalus atque bison" 
 
 Pliny blames this as a misuse of names, remarking that the bubali 
 are rather African animals, more like the calf and stag (8, 38 : " Quibus 
 (uris) imperitum valgus bubalorum nomen inponit, cum id gignat 
 Africa vituli potius cervique quadam similitudine"). This confound- 
 ing of names, which probably arose from the similarity of the first part 
 of the word to bos, bovis, was retained, in spite of Pliny, in the follow- 
 ing century, as we learn from passages in later authors ; and when the 
 buffalo appeared in Italy under the Longobards, it found the name 
 ready made. The history of the word would in this way run a natural 
 course, if the Slavic languages did not interfere and make us doubtful ; 
 Slav, byvoia, Russ. buyvol, the ure-ox ; Pol. baviol, Bulgar. bivol, 
 Magyar bival, Alban. bual, Greek PovPaXos. " It is not to be doubted 
 that these words belong together ; but it is difficult to decide whether 
 and on whose part there was borrowing" (Miklosich). The Slavs, in 
 the primitive time, must certainly have known and named both kinds 
 of wild bulls in their native woods ; but when they moved into the 
 Danube-lands, the ure-ox was very scarce there, and became more and 
 more so in the course of the Middle Ages, not only there, but in 
 the original home of the race. They forgot the old names, and after- 
 wards adopted the Graeco- Latin ones, just as, among the Germans, the 
 old word eM, elk, had quite disappeared, and has since been 
 replaced by the Slavo-Lithuanian clen. The resemblance of sound 
 to voiH, bull, probably had an effect in the form of the word (see other 
 names and compounds in Pott, E. F., ed. 2, II., i, 808). We will add 
 that those who may be inclined to understand the bubali of Paulus 
 Draconius as meaning North European ure-oxen, because he also 
 mentions equi silvatici, must put off the arrival of the buffalo in Italy 
 till the time of the Arabs or the Crusades. Humboldt adopted the 
 latter view : Kosmos, 2, 191 : " Of the Indian buffalo, which was not 
 
496 A'O TES. 
 
 introduced into Europe till the time of the Crusades." Link makes 
 the buffalo come in with the hordes of Attila. 
 
 Note 87, page 362. 
 
 For some years there has been published at Niirnberg an Allge- 
 meine Hopfenzeituug, in 4°. Unfortunately we have never set eyes 
 on this doubtless very interesting journal. It will surely contain a 
 full explanation of the difificult questions treated in the text — as one 
 cannot suppose that the editors notice only the most profitable fields 
 of production, and the prices in the various markets, and have never 
 inquired whence the herb that gives them employment and sustenance 
 was originally derived, by whom it was named, and who first mixed it 
 with beer. 
 
 Note 88, page 367. 
 
 The following little scene in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius 
 (towards the end of the gth book) throws a light on the military 
 system of the Roman Empire. A hortularius is walking home along 
 the highway with his unladen ass. There meets him a stalwart 
 soldier, miles e legione, and imperiously demands where he is taking 
 the donkey to. The peasant, ignorant of Latin (for the scene is in a 
 Greek country), answers nothing, but quietly goes on his way. Angry 
 at his silence, the soldier applies the vitis which he carries in his hand, 
 to the backs of the ass and its master. Then the peasant piteously 
 excuses himself, that, not knowing the language, he had not under- 
 stood what his honour had said. The soldier then says in Greek : 
 " Where are you taking that ass to ? " The peasant replies, " To the 
 next village." " But," answers the soldier, " I require the ass ; it must 
 help to carry the baggage of our commandant, praesidis nostri, to the 
 fort." And he seizes the animal's bridle to lead it away. Prayers are 
 of no avail ; on the contrary, the soldier turns his vitis round to break 
 the peasant's skull with its thick, knobby end. Then it is related how 
 the peasant takes courage from despair, thrashes the soldier, takes 
 away his spatha, leaves him lying black and blue with blows, and flies 
 to hide himself at the house of a friend in the village. But other 
 soldiers have come to the help of their half-dead comrade, the magis- 
 trates are roused, the criminal's hiding-place is discovered, and he 
 thrown into the ■publicus career io await his execution. Our "New-Ger- 
 man militarism," as it is called, does not come up to this by a long 
 way yet. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 497 
 
 Note 89, page 384. 
 
 The name of Turkish wheat and the extensive propagation of maize, 
 not only in the Levant, but in Eastern Asia and the interior of Africa, 
 have often provoked the heretical assertion that this corn did not 
 originally come from America, but was an old possession of the 
 Eastern hemisphere. Fraas, in his Synopsis Floj^a class., brings 
 forward all sorts of insufficient arguments in favour of it ; and the 
 same view held by Bonafous is triumphantly refuted by Alph. de 
 Candolle, in the GJographie Botanique, p. 943. At the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century, Turkish only meant foreign, or come from over 
 the sea ; at that time geographical ideas were too indefinite to distin- 
 guish exactly the West from the East Indies, and both from the land 
 of the Turks. To this day the English call a bird that undoubtedly 
 came from America turkey-cock, (as they call maize Indian-corn) ; to 
 the Germans he is kalkutischer-cock., as if he had come from Kalekut, 
 while the Turks calls him Egyptian-cock (Pott, Beitrdge, 6, 323). 
 
 Note 90, page 385. 
 
 If it be true that holcus sorgutn can be recognised in an ancient 
 Egyptian painting (A. Thaer, Die Alt. Egyptische Landwirthschaft, 
 p. 19, Berlin, 1881), and that grains of it have been found in the graves 
 of mummies, this fruit must in the course of time have withdrawn 
 from Egypt to the regions of the Upper Nile. For the Arabian 
 physician, Abd-AUatif, of Bagdad, who was born in 1161, and whose 
 description of Egypt has been published by S. de Sacy, says expressly, 
 page 32, that neither of the two kinds of black millet existed in Egypt, 
 except in the upper district of the Said, where the dochn was parti- 
 cularly cultivated. And, what is still more striking, even Prosper 
 Alpinus, towards the end of the sixteenth century, found there no 
 other bread than that made of wheat : ibi enim nulla alia panis 
 genera cognoscuntur guatn ex tritico parata. It would also not have 
 been necessary to resort to India in the time of Pliny, if sorgum was 
 to be found in Egypt. But as the commerce of the Red Sea ports 
 with India was far from being unimportant under the rule of the 
 Romans, corn that came from Upper Egypt might be erroneously 
 supposed to have been introduced through Egypt from India 
 
 Note 91, page 390. 
 
 O. Hartwig, in his beautiful " Pictures of Culture and History from 
 Sicily," remarks, with reference to Arabian cultivation in Sicily, that 
 produce must necessarily increase where new plants are introduced. 
 
 32 
 
498 NOTES. 
 
 If this were altogether true, it would be of the utmost importance to 
 the general history of culture. But it is subject to many limitations. 
 Immigrants may bring with them their favourite plants, which per- 
 haps were the most profitable in their own country ; they continue 
 traditionally the culture they were accustomed to. A certain culture 
 may for the moment, at a favourable juncture, yield a profit ; then it 
 is continued from sheer inertia, long after the circumstances have 
 passed away that led to its introduction. Again, the laws regulating 
 trade and commerce, the manner and scale of taxation, acts of govern- 
 ment of all kinds, give directions to agriculture that are not always in 
 harmony with the natural vocation of the soil. It will be seen that a 
 separate calculation must be made in each particular case. 
 
 Note 92, page 396. 
 
 When Arthur Young travelled in France, shortly before the Revo- 
 lution, the potato was a vegetable almost unknown in that country ; 
 ninety-nine out of a hundred peasants, he says, would certainly have 
 refused to taste one. 
 
 Note 93, page 396. 
 
 Moltke, in his letters from Turkey, shrewdly observes that the 
 tobacco-pipe was the magic wand that changed the Turks from one 
 of the most turbulent nations into one of the quietest. Violence done 
 to nature is certainly the first rude form in which man emancipates 
 himself from blind impulse ; and on that ground we may hail all the 
 horrors and abominations that savage peoples commit against their 
 own bodies as a movement towards freedom. Opium, tobacco, 
 brandy, hemp, toad-stool, etc., break the wildness, but replace it by 
 dulness. If Moltke's observation be correct, our social democrats 
 will shortly become tame also, for they are seldom seen without a 
 cigar-stump in their mouths. 
 
 Note 94, page 399. 
 Link, Urwelt, 1, 428, was also of opinion that the apple-tree of our 
 gardens was not descended from the European wild apple. The 
 name of the apple-tree is particularly interesting, because it is the same 
 among the Celts, Germans, Lithuanians, and Slavs, and therefore 
 tends to prove a closer connexion on the part of the extreme western 
 branch, the Celtic, with the Germano-Slavic branch than with the 
 Italian. O. Celtic aball {all is a derivative element), A. Saxon adpel 
 O. Norse epli (apaldr, apple-tree), O. H. Germ, aphul, Lith. oboly's, 
 
NOTES. 
 
 499 
 
 abolis, and O. Pruss. woble, apple ; Lith. obelis, abelis, and O. 
 Pruss. ivobalne, apple-tree ; O. Slav. yablUko, ablUko, apple, and 
 yablanl, ablant, apple-tree. If the swarms of Indo-Germans that 
 broke into Central Europe from the East, of whom the nations after- 
 wards called Celtic formed the vanguard, found the tree existiiig 
 in the newly conquered countries, and regaled their rude palate 
 with its sour astringent fruit, they might easily adopt the name given 
 it by the hunting and fishing nation which they first encountered on 
 European soil- — the Finns. Of course that name is only known to us 
 in its latest form, and we do not know what changes it has gone 
 through ; Esth. ubin, uvin, and in the other dialect aun, oun ; Livon. 
 umars, Finnish omena, Magyar alma (same in Turkish). When the 
 study of the Finnic idioms is so far advanced, that by comparing the 
 different branches of the stock we shall have obtained fixed laws of 
 sound, from which conclusions can be drawn as to the primitive form 
 of a given word, then also it can be decided whether the resemblances 
 in the above forms of names are only accidental or prove a real con- 
 nexion. In Greek and Latin the apple has really no individual name, 
 for the Greek /iSXov, Latin ma/um, meant large tree, fruit in general, 
 and only gradually became confined to the apple ; and the same holds 
 good of the Latin pomumy malum has also the appearance of being 
 borrowed from the Greek. 
 
 The wild Pear-tree native to the southern peninsulas — the Arcadians 
 are said to have fed on pears as well as acorns — was called axP"C) 
 axepSog ; the cultivated was oyxvri (already in Homer), Koyxfri (Hesy- 
 chius), also amog, and the fruit awiov. Comparing the last word with 
 the Latin pirus, pirum, we see that an s had dropped out of the 
 Greek word (just as log, i.e., FXmg, poison, is vines in Latin), and the 
 a is only the non-significant prefix that the Greek is so fond of The 
 Latin word passed over to the Celts and Germans, proving that the 
 pear-tree did not originally grow in the home of either nation. But 
 the Lithuanians and Slavs have a word of their own for the pear. 
 Lith. krausze, O. Pruss. crausios, Slav, griisha, chrusa. As it is not 
 to be supposed that the Slavs can have known and named a tree that 
 did not exist in the milder abodes of the Celts and Germans, this 
 grusha must be a borrowed word — but whence .'' probably from one of 
 the Pontic or Caspian languages, for it surely cannot be connected 
 with axpag, dxpdSog. The Albanians have also their own word for the 
 pear, darde. 
 
 In modern Europe we look upon North France, and especially 
 Normandy, as the true apple and pear country, which not only bears 
 the most, but the finest fruit, and where cider (cidre, Ital. sidro^ cidro, 
 from sicera, aiicipa, itself an old Semitic word) takes the place of wine 
 
500 NOTES. 
 
 as a common beverage. Farther south, though that is where they 
 came from, these fruit-trees do not thrive so well — a phenomenon by- 
 no means rare, but none the less remarkable. 
 
 Note 95, page 402. 
 
 The hunter, silent and shy (" Im Felde schleich ich still unci wild "), 
 has still much of the beast of prey in him. But the breeding of animals 
 is already full of humanity ; look at H. Biirkel's painting in the New 
 Pinakothek, at Munich : A flock of sheep in the Roman campagna. 
 The shepherd walks before, the flock follows ; he carefully holds a 
 new-born lamb in his arms, others lie in baskets slung across the 
 horse's back ; their mothers run bleating on both sides. How human 
 and idyllic ! 
 
 Note 96, page 404. 
 
 Besides complexion, the oculi truces, the torvitas luminum, are 
 spoken of as marks of the Germanic and other barbarians of the North. 
 It is culture that awakens the inner life, and first gives soul to the 
 eye, which, in the inhabitants of woods and steppes, has still the 
 peculiar wide-awake look of the hunted animal, or the keen glance of 
 the bird-of-prey. Vambdry, Globus, 1870, p. 29, says of the Kurd: 
 " It is especially the eyes, those ever-sparkling lights, meditating mis- 
 chief or fraud, that you may know him by among hundreds of Asiatics. 
 It is remarkable that both the Bedouin and the Turkoman may like- 
 wise be distinguished by these signs from kindred races that lead a 
 settled life. Is it the insuperable hatred of four walls, or the bound- 
 less horizon, or a life in the open air, that conjures this glitter into the 
 eyes of Nomads ? " ' 
 
 end of the notes. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbreviations. 
 
 AS-, Anglo-Saxon; conn., connected ; fr., from; G., German; OG., Old 
 German ; ON., Old Norse; SI., Slavic; Ssk., Sanskrit. 
 
 'AjSayva (rose) . . . 475-6 
 
 Aball, abolis, woble, abluko 
 
 (apple) .... 498-9 
 
 Abantis, Amantia ; Abydon, 
 
 Amydon. .... 459 
 Acacia : Jotham's "bramble," 
 
 131 ; American acacia . 394-5 
 
 Acarnanians : half-Hellenic . 61 
 Accipiter, acceptor (hawk) . . 486 
 Acer, acernus, ahom, yavor 
 
 (maple) 481 
 
 Acetum (vinegar) : akeit, oced, 
 
 G. ehiz, ezih . . , -79 
 'Axpag, axipSos (wild pear). . 499 
 Acnua, actus (120ft.) . . . 438 
 'kSafUtt, adamant, diamond ; el- 
 mas, almaz .... 478 
 Aes, aiz, tarn, Ssk. ayas . . 445 
 .iEtolians : half Hellenic . . 61 
 Africae aves (guinea-fowl) . . 273 
 Agathyrsi : tattooed ... 33 
 Agave Americana (Indian fig) 18, 395 
 Ager : (l) arvus; (2) arbustus; 
 
 (3) pascuus .... 104 
 Agricultural terms unlike in Latin 
 
 and Greek .... 438 
 Agrios (wild) = shepherd . . 70 
 Ahaks (pigeon) : conn, with caog, 
 
 kogas? 485 
 
 Ahorn (maple) : fr. acernus . 481 
 
 Aiyi-\tiii\/, aiyi-trvpOQ, alybg jcoXo' 
 
 KvvBa 
 Alpa (darnel), l^mpov/iai 
 AiJ, aiyos (goat) : common to 
 
 Aryans . 
 Akva (horse) : a9va, equus, ech, 
 
 eoh, 48 ; a9pa , 
 Alani : nomad Iranians, 27-S 
 
 rather fair 
 'A\avvoi : fr. haloin (salt) ? 
 Alba, aube (surplice) . 
 Albanians : settled in Greece, 30 
 
 of lUyrian race . 
 Albizzia julibrissin : fr. Turkey 
 Albus (white), alpt, selfet, lebed 
 
 (swan) .... 
 Ale, alus, olu, 61 : fr. oleum 
 'AXtKTwp, — rpvuv (cock), gemma 
 
 alectoria. ■ 243-4, 271 
 
 'AXEjcrwp, — Tpvuiv 
 ' AXeKTpvaiva^ — ropiq (hen) . 
 Aleuads (grinders ?) in Larissa 
 Alica (gruel) 
 Allium (garlic) . 
 Almond : came fr. W. Asia to 
 
 Greece [ajivyiakri), 294 ; to 
 
 Italy (nux graeca) . 
 Aloe (agave Am.) ; came fr. 
 
 America, spread round Medi- 
 terranean . . . .18, 395 
 
 433 
 433 
 
 462 
 
 45 
 
 405 
 410 
 135 
 
 62, 429 
 393 
 
 259 
 124 
 
 482 
 
 • 244 
 ■ 245 
 
 • 6s 
 379. 438 
 
 . 156 
 
 2.6 
 
502 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 "A\^i, dX^iToj' (barley-meal), 431; 
 
 unlike Latin .... 438 
 Amalis, amuls, omela (mistletoe). 488 
 "A/ii), hama, ahm, ohm, awme . 456 
 America : Old World products 
 took new start in, 383 ; A. gave 
 us turkey, maize, potato, Indian 
 
 fig, &c 394-5-6 
 
 Ammazzo I'asino (oleander). . 310 
 'AiKpiyvque (Hephaestus) . . 435 
 'A/i«y5d\j) (almond) =Cybele? 487-8 
 Anas, vaaaa, antis, bnd, hoet, 
 
 ut-ka (duck) .... 277 
 Andereigerra (weasel) . . 492 
 
 'Av(pdx^r) (arbutus) : fr. dvBpa^ . 305 
 'AvSpcLTToSov (slave) : not Homeric 447 
 Angles : ' ' had no horses " . . 56 
 Angoiirion, ogurets, agurke, gher- 
 kin ..... 239 
 Anke, anc-smero (butter) . . 130 
 Anser,. hansa, xav, G. gans, g^ss, 
 
 goose, gander, g^d . . . 278 
 Apfel-sine (sweet orange) . . 338 
 Apile, avilys, uley (beehive) . 463 
 "Airiog (pear) : for a-inaoQ =■ pirus 499 
 Apple : native to Europe, but not 
 reclaimed here, 399 ; aball, 
 abolis, yabliiko, seppel, aphul 498-9 
 Apricot : came fr. Central Asia 
 (Armeniaca), 320 ; to Italy 
 (praecoqua), 321 ; to Spain 
 (al-barquq, albaricoque) . . 322 
 Apvynys (hop-vine), — nei (hops) 450 
 Aquicelos (pine-nuts in honey) , 224 
 Arabs : as destroyers, 27-8 ; of 
 old had no horses, 42-3 ; dis- 
 couraged vine-growing, 79, 80 ; 
 still half-nomadic, 109 ; drink 
 butter, 129. Introd. pome- 
 granate, 183 ; saifron, 200 ; 
 safflow, 201; date-palm, 202-3, 
 210-1 ; papyrus, 233 ; lemon, 
 336; orange, 337-8; carobs, 
 342; millet, 385; silkworm, 
 cotton, sugar-cane, &c., 389, 
 
 390, 497-8 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Aragh, or^khii, reszutas (nut) . 487 
 Arare, apoeiv, arjan, arti, orati 
 
 (to ear); arvum, apovpa (ear-th), 
 
 64, 104 
 Aratrum, aporpov, oralo, radio 
 
 (plough) . . . .430 
 
 Arbaiths, arbeit, rabota (labos ?) . 436 
 Arbutus (strawberry-tree) . . 305 
 Area (threshing-floor) . . . 438 
 
 Argos 65 
 
 Aries, eris (ram) . . . 433 
 
 Aristseus invents oil . . . 95-6 
 Armenia ; rich in horses, 46 ; 
 
 bred mules . . . .Ill 
 Armenians : an Iranian people, 
 
 62, 426 ; drank beer through 
 
 pipes . . . 121, 464-S 
 
 322 
 
 433 
 
 487 
 399 
 
 Armeniaca, meliaca (apricot) 
 
 'Apveg (rams ; degenerate wheat) 
 
 Arre, kharre (n\it) = xapva, apva, 
 aiiapd ..... 
 
 Artichoke : reclaimed in Europe. 
 C-^ryans : condition on reaching 
 Europe, 30-34 ; had a common 
 word for horse, 48, for plough- 
 ing (?), 64, 429, 430-1-8, for 
 copper, 445 ; lived in wicker- 
 houses, 114-116, or under — 
 ground, 32, 411-2 ; drank 
 mead 
 
 Ash : for spear-shafts . 
 
 Asia (rye) in the Alps 
 
 Asia Minor : Iranian 
 Semitic in S.E. 
 
 Asilus, esel, asilas, osilu 
 nus, not asellus 
 
 Asinus, ovo£ : fr. Heb. ath6n, &c. 
 
 Ass : came fr. S.W. Asia to 
 Greece, Italy, no, Gaul 
 
 Assyrians : invented war-chariot 
 
 43-4, 
 'AarepiaQ (Egyp. hawk), astur, 
 
 austor, autour, yastreb . . 486 
 Auca (goose): for avica . . 351 
 Aurantium Olysiponense (sweet 
 
 orange) 351 
 
 in N., 
 
 fr. asi- 
 
 126 
 31 
 
 433 
 
 426 
 
 461 
 
 460 
 
 59 
 
INDEX. 
 
 503 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Aurora, aurum : r for j . . 442 
 Ausis, auksas (gold) : borr. while 
 
 aurum was ausum . . . 442 
 
 Auspicia ex avibus, ex tripudiis . 247 
 
 Austi (weave), udis (web) . . 442 
 
 Avars (Turkish) : ravaged Greece 29 
 
 Awme : fr. a^T), hama . . 456 
 
 A-zucena (lily) : Heb. susan . 476 
 
 Badger : reached W. Europe 
 about fall of Rome, 352 ; 
 names .... 493'4 
 
 Bad-ius, bajo, bai=spad-ix . 478 
 t Bate, ;8afov (palm-branch) : fr. 
 
 ba, ^ijr 478 
 
 Baking : a late art ; came from 
 
 S. Europe . . . 43S-6 
 
 Balandis, balan, balon (pigeon) . 485 
 BrtXaiuTiov (pomegr. flower), 
 
 balaustro, balustrade . . 474 
 Balkh, Bactra .... 29 
 Balsamine : came fr. India with 
 
 Portuguese .... 393 
 Bang, beng, banha, Banga . . 472 
 Barca (a bark) : fr. tree- bark . 468 
 Barley : icpi9j), hordeum, G. 
 
 gerst ..... 62 
 Barrel verstts wine-skin, 82 ; 
 
 names for . . . 454-5-6 
 Barsuk, borz (badger) . . 494 
 
 Bast-ropes : esp. of lime . 467-8 
 
 Bastarnse : mixed horse and foot 57 
 Batavians : as riders ... 56 
 Batnim, Gen. xliii. II: pistachios? 312 
 Bean : early cultiv., 65, 440 ; 
 Egyptian bean extinct in 
 Egypt .... 232-3 
 
 Beaver, beber, biber, fiber . . 31 
 •" Beer : once common in Egypt 
 (zythos), Spain (cerea), Thrace 
 (br^ton), Armenia, lUyria, Pan- 
 nonia (sebaia, camum), 119- 
 122; then among Celts (korma, 
 cerevisia, brace), Germans, 
 Lithuanians, Slavs, Finns, 
 122-5 > ^'^'■^ ''■ bibfire, 124 ; 
 
 He and She-goat b., 359 ; addi- 
 tions to b. before hops . 359, 360 
 Beer-and-butter Europe, Wine- 
 
 and-oil Europe . . .119 
 Bees : only wild in Homer, 113 ; 
 
 kept on trees in E. Europe . 463 
 Bellerophontes, Melerpanta . 459 
 Bellula (weasel) .... 492 
 Beng, bang (intoxication) . . 472 
 Beo, O. Ir. :=viv-us . . . 407 
 BipKivoQ olvog . . , 448-9 
 
 Bibracte, Bibrax : fr. beaver . 31 
 Biire, G. bier, beer : fr. bib&e . 124 
 Bignonia catalpa : fr. America . 395 
 BiKos, jSucioj', vicia, G. wicke, 
 
 vetch 168 
 
 Bill, G. beil : fr. Celtic biail 446-7 
 
 Bird-breeding : characteristic of 
 
 Latins, 277 ; declined in Mid. 
 
 Ages 280 
 
 Birinj, brinz (rice) . . . 380 
 Birschen (coursing) : fr. O. Fr. 
 
 berser ..... 282 
 Biset (stockdove) : fr. bis . . 258 
 Biorai (Pers. King ?) . . 489 
 
 Black millet : came fr. India to 
 
 Italy before Pliny, again with 
 
 Arabs ; despised . . . 385 
 Blaireau (badger) : fr. bladarius 
 
 (comdealer), biada, ble . . 494 
 Boek-weyt, bouquette, bucail . 387 
 Bdyypoc, Margus, Morava . . 459 
 Boghu (God) : fr. Iranic . . 55 
 Boisseau, bushel, bolte, boiter : 
 
 fr. buxus . . . -179 
 BoUe (onion) : fr. cipoUa . .159 
 Boot, booth : fr. /3oSrig . . 456 
 Bortnik, bartnik (bee-master) . 463 
 Both, bothan, bothie ; botte, 
 
 bottle : fr. ^ovTie . . . 456 
 Boii/SaXiE, — \oQ : not buffalo 494-5 
 
 Bou-7rX^5 (axe ?) . . 447-8 
 
 Boussole, bruxula : fr. buxus . 179 
 Boi;-96i) in Illyria= ox-run . . 50 
 BoDrie,;3wrie,butt, botte, bouteille; 
 
 booth, bothie, &c. . . 456 
 
S04 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 BowrujOoi;, butyrus, butter, 12S; fr. 
 
 Finn, woid? . . . .129 
 Bows : of yew, 31, 407; horn . 408 
 Box-tree : its value, 176; came 
 fr. W. Central Asia, 176-7-8; 
 things made of it named after 
 
 't 179 
 
 Bpa;3)Aov (sloe) . . 287-8 
 
 Brace, braga (beer) , . 123-5 
 
 Bradigalo (hops) . , . 360 
 
 Bramble: "fire out of" . . 131 
 Brandy: a curse . . .126 
 
 Braydis, bredis, fSphSog (elk, stag) 429 
 Bread, G. br6t (= leavened) ; a 
 
 late invention . . 4356-8 
 
 Breilu, breila (rose) . . . 476 
 Brewing, Old G. briuwan . .125 
 Britons : fr. brit, breith (tattooed) 
 
 33 ; had war-chariots . . 58 
 BpiZa (rye) . . . 428, 434 
 
 Bro, broo, broon (quern) , . 436 
 Broch, brock (badger) . , 494 
 
 BpSiiog (oats), ^puifiog (goat-smell) 433 
 Briinne, brunjo, SI. brfinia (coat 
 
 of mail) : fr. Celtic bni (belly) 447 
 BpvTov, bruw^le (beer, brewer) 121-5 
 Bubalus (buffalo), 355 ; pov^a- 
 
 \ig, — Xoe (antelope) . 494-5 
 
 BUchse, box, &c. : fr. buxus . 179 
 Buckwheat : came fr. Mongolia ; 
 to N. Germany and France by 
 sea (boekweyt, bouquette), to 
 S. Germany by land (he'iden- 
 korn = Sl. poganka ?), 386-7-8 ; 
 called Turk, Saracen, heathen, 
 Tartar, Greek . . . 387 
 
 Budini : comparatively fair . 404 
 
 Buffalo : came fr. S. Asia to Hun- 
 gary, Italy, S. France . 354-5 
 Bukliiza (weasel) . . . 492 
 Bulgarians (Turkish) : ravaged 
 
 Greece 29 
 
 Bullace : fr. Celtic . . .288 
 Bullock-cart . . . .50 
 Burgundy (ancient) : made with 
 resin and pitch ... 78 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Buricus (ass, horse, mule) . . 462 
 Busa (Armenian beer) . 46 1-5 
 
 Buscione, buisson : fr. buxus . 1 79 
 Butter : unknown in Greece, 127 ; 
 churned by swinging, 127-8, 
 465 ; used as ointment, 128, 
 130 ; drunk by Arabs, &c., 129 ; 
 used by Germans in pastry, 
 129; preserved by salting, 130; 
 fr. povTvpov, butyrus , . 377 
 Buxus, TTufoe (box-tree) . .176 
 Bv(3\ivog olvos ■ ■ . 448-9 
 
 Byblus (papyrus) : ship's tackle 
 
 made of ... 134-6-7 
 
 Bu/SXoe : Phoen. gj'bl, Heb. gobel 
 
 (hill),448, 477 ; Byblian colonies 449 
 Byvolii, buyvol (ure-ox) ; bawol, 
 bivol (PovPaXog) . . .495 
 
 Cabbage : grew wild in Europe ; 
 
 reclaimed here (?) . . . 399 
 Cactus Opuntia (Indian fig) 18, 395 
 Csecuban wine .... 82 
 Cslia (beer) . . . 121-5 
 
 Calamine, giallamina, G. galmei : 
 
 fr. Kaliiela .... 478 
 Calamus (reed), calamajo,— mita, 
 
 — mistro . . . .228 
 
 Caledonians ; had small horses . 56 
 Calix, G. kelch, chalice . . 377 
 Calx, G. kalk (lime), chalk . 117 
 
 Camel : reached Africa (after a.d. 
 
 200) .... 203, 476 
 Caminus (chimney): caminata, G. 
 
 kemenate (warmed room), SI. 
 
 komnata (room) . . .117 
 Camisia, chemise : borr. fr. Gaul 144 
 Camum (beer) .... 122 
 Canaan, Kenaan : Phcen. Xva, 
 
 'OX"" 477 
 
 Candetum ( too ft. ?) . . . 438 
 Cane, canna, xavvt), Heb. kaneh : 
 
 came fr. Asia to Greece, Italy, 
 
 228-230 ; can, canister, knaster, 
 
 canal, channel, canon, cannon 
 
 229, 231 
 
INDEX. 
 
 S°5 
 
 Cannabis, chanvre ; hasnep, hanaf ; 
 
 konopeli (hemp) . . .151 
 Cannae . . . 231 
 
 Cappadocians : bred reproductive 
 
 mules Ill 
 
 Capri-ficus (wild fig), capreolus 432-3 
 Capus (falcon) : fr. capdre . . 486 
 Cap-ut, K£0-a\q, AS. heaf-od, 
 
 heaf-ola, ON. hbf-uth . .156 
 Caputiuni,kapusta, kabes, cabbage 377 
 Carat : fr. wparta (carob-beans) 341 
 Carbasus, KapTranog (fine flax) : fr. 
 
 Ssk. karpasa (cotton) . . 142 
 Cardo (N. and S. line) . . 73 
 Carians : took yEgean Isles, 66 ; 
 cult, plane-tree, 220 ; reached 
 Greece .... 426-7 
 
 Carnation, pink : favourite of 
 
 Italians .... 393 
 
 Carob-tree; fr. Palestine (" husks,'' 
 Luke XV. 16; "St. John's 
 bread"), 340-1 ; Arab, kharub 342 
 Carrot : reclaimed in Europe . 399 
 Caryota (nut-shaped date) . . 209 
 Caseus, G. kase, cheese . -377 
 Caspar, Caspar, Asper . . 240 
 Castanea (chestnut) : whence the 
 
 name? .... 295, 487 
 Castration ..... 425 
 Cat, the domestic ; in Egypt, 
 346-7 ; came late to Europe, 
 348-350 ; followed the rat ? 351 ; 
 euphemistic names . . 493 
 
 C&i-inus, kat-!7j, kettle, kotilu . 461 
 Cattle introd. by Nomads . 356 
 
 Catus, KUTTa . , . 350-1, 493 
 Caulis, G. kohl ; caulis rapi, G. 
 
 kohlrabi 399 
 
 Cedro : citron, not cedar . 335 
 
 Celto-Iberians : mixed horseandft. 57 
 Celts : had war-chariots, 58 ; in 
 N. Italy, 64 ; made hunting an 
 art, 282 ; did smith-work for 
 Germans, 446-7 ; nearer to 
 Germano-Slavs than to Greco- 
 Latins . . 498-9 
 
 . PAGE- 
 
 Cepe, csepa, Kama (onion) . 156 
 
 Cephalo, cefaglione : fr. encephalos 207 
 Cepulla, cipolla, G. zwiebel, boUe 159 
 Cerasus, xipaaog, G. kirsche, 81. 
 chereshnia (cherry), coriius, xpa- 
 veia (cornel-cherry) : fr. cornu, 
 tipag (horn), not fr, KepaaovQ, 
 — ovvTOQ .... 302 
 
 Cerea, terevisia (beer) . 121-3 
 
 Ceva (cow) .... 429 
 
 Chalk : fr. cabc (lime) . . "7 
 
 Chao de Bux . . . .177 
 Xapai, (vine-pole) . . .451 
 Chechevitsa, Russ. (lentil) : fr. 
 
 cicer .... 166-7 
 
 Cheese, G. kase, fr. caseus . 377 
 
 XliD, x^^V' Koyvdim, fundo (pour) 422-3 
 Cherry : fr. Asia Minor, 300 ; the 
 sour juicy grafted on the sweet, 
 301 ; origin of names cerasus, 
 visciola . . . 302-3 
 
 Cherry-bay : fr. Trebizond . 393 
 
 Chervil, G. kerbel : fr. caerifo- 
 
 lium, cerfeuil . . . 377 
 
 Chestnut : came fr. Asia Minor to 
 Greece, 294-5, Italy, Spain, S. 
 France, 296-7 ; abundance no 
 proof of being native . 297-8 
 
 Chick-peas : fr. cicer, by folk- 
 etymology . . . 167-8 
 XiXiot=Ssk. sahasra, Zend, haz- 
 
 anra(?) . . . .423 
 
 China-grass, 150 ; beats cotton 469 
 XiTiov, KiSiiv (tunic) : fr. Phoen. 
 
 kitonet (linen) . 66, 133-4, 139 
 
 Xva, 'Oxva, Canaan . . . 477 
 XovSpog (gruel), 379 ; unlike Latin 438 
 Chorasmians : equestrian nomads 47 
 Xpvang (gold) : Heb. and Phcen. 
 
 khariis . . . 443 
 
 Churning .... 127-8, 465 
 Cicer, cece, chiche, G. kicher, 
 
 chick-pea . . 166-7 
 
 Ciconians in Thrace ; mixed horse 
 and foot (?), 58 ; gave Ulysses 
 wine . . . 71-2, 447 
 
5o6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cider, 123; cidre, sidro, fr. sicera 
 
 Heb. shSkar (to be tipsy) . 499 
 Cipolla, ciboule, zwiebel, bolle 1 57' 377 
 Citron : unknown bef. Alexander, 
 331-Z ; slowly naturalized in 
 Italy . . . . 334-5-6 
 Citrus : prop, ra^poc, cedar (citrosa 
 vestis) ; then citron-tree, and so 
 malum citreum (citron) and kit- 
 piai. .... 333-4 
 
 Give, civette, chives : fr. caepa . i6o 
 Claie, cl^tEi, cliath, cluit (wattle) 117 
 Claret : vinum claratum, moratum 81 
 Cock : unknown in Europe and 
 W. Asia till Pars, conquests, 
 241-2 ; name aXiKriop conn, 
 with fire-worship, 244-5 > i"- 
 ferences fr. names — kana, hana, 
 henna ; kogut,kukko,coq, chick ; 
 kur, kura, &c. . 248-9, 482-3-4 
 
 Coileach, chelioc (cock), caloca- 
 
 tanos (wild poppy) . . 483 
 
 Colophonium (violin resin) . . 317 
 Columba (pigeon) : fr. KoXvufiog 
 (diver, waterfowl, white fowl?) 
 259 ; hence colum, koulm, 
 golubi .... 261, 485 
 Comadreja (weasel) . . . ^"- 
 Complexion ; dark absorbs fair 40^; 5-6 
 Coniglio, cony, G. kaninchen, 
 
 kUniglein : fr. cuniculus . 343 
 
 Copper : known to Aryans (ayas, 
 
 aes, aiz, iarn) . . . 445 
 
 Coq (cock),coquelicot (wild poppy) 483 
 Coral-tree .... 394 
 
 Coriander : Heb. gad, Afr. gold 163 
 Cork stoppers .... 457 
 Cortex (bark), corcha, cork . 457 
 
 Corylus for cosilus, cosl, hazel = 
 
 Kaaravovf . . . 295,487 
 Costa (rib), kosti, Airreoi/ (bone) 240 
 Cbtognata, cotignac (quince-jelly) 186 
 Cotonea mala (quinces) . 186,333 
 Cotton: versuslinen, 148-9, 150; 
 introduced by Arabs to Italy 
 (cotone) 390 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Coxa (hucklebone), cos, coes . 435 
 Crisuommolo (apricot) : fr. xpiwo- 
 
 fiTjXov ..... 322 
 Crocus : see Saffron. 
 
 Cromlech 116 
 
 Crown-imperial : fr. Persia . 392 
 
 Cucumber : in Egypt . . 234-5-6 
 Cucurbita, courge, G. kiirbiss 
 
 (gourd, pumpkin) . . 238, 240 
 Cudon, ys-guthan, ciad-cholum, 
 
 keutaris (ringdove) . . . 4S5 
 Culmus, halm (any stalk) . . 430 
 Culture : exhaustion of soil by, 
 not irremediable, 19-26; causes 
 of decline in East, 26-30 ; effects 
 of, on plants and animals, 400, 
 402-3 ; on man . . 400-403 
 
 Cuminum, G. chumil, kiimmel . 461 
 Cummin, Heb. kammon : fr. SW. 
 
 Asia, 162; black c, git, gith . 163 
 Cuniculus (rabbit, mine) . . 343 
 Cupa, KUTTi), G. kufe (cask) ; coppa, 
 cup ; cupola, G. kopf ; cuparius, 
 cooper . . . .455-6 
 
 Currants .... 80-1 
 
 Cydonian apple (quince) . 185, 333 
 Cypress, 18, 20 ; came fr. Afghan- 
 istan to Palestine, Cyprus, 212, 
 478-9, Crete, Greece, 213-4- 
 5, Italy, 215-6; its symbolism, 
 212-6, 479, 480; use in ship- 
 building, statuary, joinery . 213-5 
 Cyprus : named from cypress . 478 
 Cytisus (tree-clover) : fr. East ; 
 
 good for cattle, made milk 306-7-8 
 Cytorus Mts. ; grew boxwood, 177, 474 
 
 Dachs, taxus, tasso (badger) : fr. 
 
 dehsen 493 
 
 Dacians : tattooed, 33 ; akin to 
 
 Thracians and Getse . 62, 428 
 Daktylos, datil, dattero, G. dattel, 
 
 Fr. datte (date) 
 Dahse : equestrian nomads . 
 Damascene, damson, G. zwet 
 
 sche (?) 
 
 209 
 47 
 
 288 
 
INDEX. 
 
 507 
 
 &a(pvt] fr. ie^w, as laurus fr. lavo, 472-3 
 Darde (pear) . . . -499 
 Dariben (terebinth) : native to 
 
 Kurdistan .... 489 
 Date-palm, 18 ; came fr. Baby 
 Ionia to Arabia, Palestine, 203, 
 Greece (as symbol of Apollo, • 
 
 &c.), 204-5-6, Italy, 206-7-8, 
 . 210-1, Spain, 210-1 ; training 
 
 of white palm. . . . 210 
 Daiibe, douve (stave of cask) : fr. 
 
 doga, doxri ■ ■ ■ 454-5 
 
 ^aixva, Savxvog (laurel) . . 473 
 Dehsen (turn, swingle), deichsel, 
 
 thisl (thill of waggon) . . 493 
 Deus (god); Lith. devas, Finn. 
 
 taivas (sky) .... 32 
 Dhorra (black millet) . . 3^5 
 
 Difna, defle, Arab, (oleander) . 311 
 Dik (cock), tik, tyuk (hen), Mong. 
 
 takia 249 
 
 Dikusha (buckwheat) . . 38S 
 
 Di-mallum= two-peaked . . 429 
 Dodona in Epirus, 60 ; in Thessaly 61 
 Doga, dauge (stave), SI. duga 
 
 (bow) : fr. Soxh ■ ■ 454" S 
 
 Dokhn (black millet) . 385, 497 
 
 Dolmen 116 
 
 Domiciliation : promoted by tree- 
 culture .... 102-109 
 Donnola (weasel) . . . 492 
 Dorian migration, the last . . 61 
 Dove, the wild, 253-4-5 : deaf, 
 dubo, taube, fr. dark hue ; so 
 Trk\-eia, pal-umba, siz-iak, bis- 
 et, &c., 258; half-tamed . 260 
 
 Dubh (black) : R. Dubis, Doubs 258 
 Duck : native to Europe . . 277 
 Dulbend (turban), tulipano, tulip 391 
 Dwarf-palm .... 206 
 Dyn, dynat, danad, linad, lenad 
 (nettle) . 428, 470 
 
 Ear, ear-th . . 64, 104 
 
 Eas, for veas ? (weasel) . 492 
 
 Eburones : fr. ibhar (bow) ? 407 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 Echalas (vine-pole) : fr. xapa% ? 451 
 Echalotte, shalot, scallion . .154 
 Eglus, oglus (yew) . . . 408 
 EipEffiui^^virgalanata . . 95-7 
 'EKaia (olive-tree) . . 91-2 
 
 Elch (elk) : replaced by SI. elen 495 
 ■Elder: for spear-shafts . . 31 
 'H\£ic7-wp (sun, fire), rjKtKrpov 
 
 (amber) .... 244 
 
 'HXEKrpa, 'HXeKrpuwv . . 244 
 
 'EKipoQ (butter) . . . .128 
 Emalas, emelmo (mistletoe) . 488 
 
 "E^-^urof, inpotus (graft) ; in^v- 
 
 Ttvui, impiton, impfenj Fr. enter 
 
 (imp, graff) " . . . .327 
 Eneti, Heneti, Veneti . . 63 
 
 England : future of . . .24 
 Ephyra (watch-tower) : towns so 
 
 called 65 
 
 Epopeus : his oil-fountain . . 95 
 Erba spagna (lucerne) . . 306 
 
 Erbse, arawtz, ipk^ivBoq (pea) 167, 377 
 
 'EpiVEOQ oKvvdoQ (wild fig) 
 
 Ermine, hermelin : fr. harm 
 
 Ervum, earfe, opo/3oc (pea) 
 
 Esparto (Span, broom) : in Punic 
 Wars .... 134. 
 
 Ests, Esthonians : drank mead 
 and mare's milk 
 
 Etruscans : in N. Italy . 63, 74 
 
 Eucalyptus globulus : fr. Australia 395 
 
 Euonymus (spindle-tree) 
 
 Europe: half 'Wine-and-oil, half 
 Beer-and-butter 
 
 Eiuropean wild plants reclaimed, 
 very few : perhaps cabbage, ar- 
 tichoke, turnip, carrot ; not 
 apple 
 
 Exhaustion of soil by culture : 
 not irremediable 
 
 459 
 492 
 167 
 
 151 
 
 55 
 
 310 
 
 119 
 
 399 
 
 19-26 
 
 Faba (bean) : bobii ; babo, pupa ; 
 
 papu, ubba ; ffa, seib 
 Fahs (hair), ttekoc (fleece), iridKOQ 
 
 (bast) 
 Fairy (weasel) . 
 
 440 
 
 470-2 
 492 
 
5o8 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 286 
 
 438 
 
 492 
 
 Falco (falcon), falx (sickle) 486 ; 
 
 of. upTrrj. 
 Falconet (gun) : prop, little fal- 
 con 
 
 Far, farina, farrago 
 
 Fauna : subject to change 17 ei 
 
 passim. 
 Felis (wild cat) 348-9 ; bele 
 (marten), belette (weasel), bilch 
 (rellmouse) .... 
 Felt, G. filz, SI. polsti . .31 
 Fennel .... 235-6 
 
 Fern, G. fam, 484 ; see Pari-ti. 
 Ferret, furetto : brought fr. Africa 
 to Spain (to hunt the rabbit ?) 
 Ficus, avKiyv : fr. nftKov 
 
 duplex ; bifera ; Carica, 
 
 Caunea (Smyrna) . 
 
 Ruminalis 
 
 Fieno d'Ungheria (lucerne) 
 Fig-tree : native to Syria, 85 ; 
 came to Greece after Hesiod, 
 85-6, to Italy, 86-7; varieties, 
 87, 457-8 ; type of higher life, 
 86, 
 Fimmel, maschel (hemp) 
 Finns : in Europe bef. Aryans 
 Fir-tree : pinus picea, iKarr) 
 Flagellum, G. flegel, flail . 
 Flagon, flask : fr. vasculum 
 Flahs (flax), plaukas (hair), plau- 
 
 szas (bast) . . . 470-2 
 
 Flax : seed used bef. fibre (?) 
 132-3 ; cultiv. in Egypt, 133, 
 Palestine, Colchis, &c., 134; 
 less in Greece, 139, more in 
 N. Italy, Spain, Gaul . 140-2-3 
 Flora: subject to change 17 et passim. 
 Flowers : first trained in Asia . 187 
 Focaccia (cake) : fr. focus (hearth) 436 
 Foeniculum, G. fenchel, fennel . 377 
 Forests: destruction of . 19, 20-1 
 Formento, froment (wheat) . 433 
 
 Fruit-culture . . . 323-32S 
 Fufluns (Bacchus) =j3ii/3\ii/oe ? . 449 
 Fyrs, furze : akin to irupos (wheat) 431 
 
 476 
 456 
 
 ■ 87 
 
 87, 458 
 
 • 306 
 
 131 
 151-2 
 
 • 34 
 , 223 
 
 • 377 
 - 456 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gadhva (cat ? dog ?) , . 492 
 
 Gaggia di Co>tantinopoli . . 393 
 
 Gaidys (cock), gasli (psaltery) . 483 
 
 raia-ciToi (spearmen) . . 447 
 
 TaXkri (weasel) .... 348 
 
 "Xapnjaaia (ferret) . . 344 
 
 Galgo : fr. canis Gallicus . . 282 
 
 Galica, galka (daw) . . . 482 
 
 Galla (gall nut) : for gac-la = KTjK-i'e 482 
 
 Gallinaria silva . . . . 45^ 
 
 Gallus (cock): for gac-lus = ra/cn 482 
 
 Gar, ger, geir (spear) : fr. Celtic 447 
 
 Garduna (weasel) . . . 492 
 
 Garlic, gir-leac, geir-laukr . 160 
 
 Garofolo, — fano (pink, gilliflower) 393 
 
 Garrio, yi/piw, gla-gola-ti . . 482 
 Gauls : mixed horse and foot, 57 ; 
 
 made hunting an art . . 282 
 Gautar, Gotar (Scand. Goths) : fr. 
 
 gjota (pour) . . . 422-3 
 
 Geloni : tattooed • • ■ 33 
 
 Gelso (mulberry) : fr. morus celsa 293 
 German terms of building borr. 
 fr. Latin, 117; of gardening 
 
 and farming .... 377 
 Gertis (cock), gerto (hen), ger- 
 
 toanax (hawk) . . . 484 
 
 Gesmino, gelsomino, jessamine . 390 
 GStas: akin to Thracians 62, 428 ; 
 
 turned teetotalers . . . 454 
 TrjTeiov, y?;9u\Xif (leek) . -157 
 
 Giglio, lirio (lily) : for lilio . 476 
 
 Girna (millstone), girnos (quern) , 436 
 
 Git, gith (black cummin) . . 163 
 Giutan, gj(5ta (pour) . . 422-3 
 
 Glass bottles : modern . . 456 
 
 Glocio, kXoi^iii (cluck) . . . 484 
 Glukhu (deaf) : glukharl, gluszec, 
 hlukhan (heathcock), 485 ; cf. 
 KURTINYS. 
 Goat : enemy to young trees, 23 ; 
 in Greece and Italy, 1 12-3; has 
 
 a common Aryan name . . 462 
 Goat's, sheep's = wild, unfruitful 432-3 
 
 Gobel, Gybl (hill), Byblos . 448, 477 
 
 Gold (coriander) . . 163 
 
INDEX. 
 
 SO? 
 
 Gold : two names, (l) aurum, 
 ausis, owr, &c. ; (2) gulth, 
 z61oto, sells (xpuffos ? ) . 442-3 
 
 " Golden apples " : not orange or 
 
 lemon .... 185, 331 
 Tofiapi (ass) : fr. yofioq (load) . 461 
 Goose : native to Europe, 277 ; 
 easy to tame, 278 ; its down, 
 
 quills 279 
 
 Gopher, icvTrap-inaog, cupr-essus . 214 
 Goths : ravaged Greece, 29, 30 5 
 
 named from giutan (pour) 422-3 
 
 Grseci, TpaiKoi (=old?) . . 426 
 Grsecum, cr^que, G. krieche (sloe) 288 
 Grafting : carried to excess, 325-6; 
 
 but beneficial . . . 326 
 
 Grajo (gray, badger) : fr. agrario ? 494 
 Granada : fr. malum granatum . 183 
 Gravling, greving (badger) . . 494 
 Grfecha, grechikha, gryka, grUcken 
 
 (buckwheat) . . . 387-8 
 
 Greeks : enter Greece, 6o-I ; be- 
 come farmers, 64-5; influenced 
 by Phoenicians . . . 66-7 
 Greffe, graff . . . .327 
 Griotte, agriotta (wild cherry) . 488 
 Grusha, khrusha = dxpae ? (pear) 499 
 Guinea-fowl : came fr. Africa to 
 Greece, and Italy, 271-2-3; 
 see Meleacris 
 Gul (rose) : fr. yareda . -475 
 
 Gurke, gherkin . . . . 239 
 Gutans, Gut6s (Germ. Goths) : fr. 
 
 giutan (pour) . . . 422 3 
 
 Guth, God : Iranic . . .464 
 Gwiniz (wheat) : fr. gwenn, 
 
 cvind (white) . , . . 431 
 ririg (plough), yviog (bent) yula 
 
 (knees, joints) . . . 43S 
 
 riirri, yvtraptov, iapa, zhupishte 
 
 (cave) .... 411-2 
 
 Gyro-falco, ger-falcon, G. geier . 486 
 rvpoQj yvpog, '^vptvui (round, go 
 round) ; girna, zhernov, quair- 
 nus (millstone) ; yvpie (meal) ; 
 Tiipai irlrpai .... 436 
 
 H^ffiNEP.hahpr, hanaf : fr. Kawa^ig 151 
 Haetnmant, Etymander, Helmand 47S 
 Hahan, hahhila, haken, hacke, 
 
 hachse, hough . . . 435 
 
 Haida, haidina (millet) : fr. heiden- 
 
 korn 387 
 
 Ajixaaia (fence) : of thorn, stone, 
 
 or both 106 
 
 Half-Hellenes .... 61 
 Halka, alka (cock) = oXEKrwp ? 242-4 
 Halle (salt-pit), Halys, &c. 410-1 
 
 Hammer : OG. hamar (stone) . 445 
 Hamster : reached W. Europe 
 
 about fall of Rome, 352 ; SI. 
 
 khomiak, khomestarii . . 494 
 Hana (cock), hanj6 (hen), h6n 
 
 (chick), 248 ; cano, Kavajff) , 482, 
 Hangan, henge, henkel . . 435 
 AiraXdg, d/iaXog (mollis) . . 459 
 Harinc, herring = shoal-fish . 411 
 
 "Apm) (sickle) 438; (falcon) . 486. 
 Hart, harcelle (withe, osier-band) 467 
 Haru, haraw (flax), kerp (hemp) 
 
 =kropiva (nettle) . . . 470- 
 
 Hashish 151 
 
 Hawk .... 283, 486. 
 Hawking: in Gaul, 282; Thrace, 
 
 283 ; India, 284 ; firearms named 
 
 from ..... 286' 
 'Hyq7-7)pia (leading, guiding) : lump 
 
 of figs at Plynteria . . .86- 
 Heidenkorn (buckwheat) . . 387 
 Helico: brings smith-work from 
 
 Italy to Gaul .... 446 
 Hellenes, Graikoi . . .60. 
 Helvennaca (kind of grape) . 78. 
 'Kfii-ovos (mule) . . . 112, 461 
 Hemp : seed used before fibre (?), 
 
 132 ; came from Turkestan to 
 
 Thrace, woven into clothes, 
 
 exported to Greece, 151 ; its oil 
 
 eaten . . . • . 152: 
 Hen, hennS, hanj6 : fr. hana 
 
 (cock) 248. 
 
 Heneti : (l) of Italy (=Veneti), 
 
 63 ; (2) of Asia, bred mules. III, 461. 
 
510 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Heth, huth (pout) . . . 422 
 'lepog (sacred), XipaS, (falcon) : 
 
 saker-falcon, G. weihe . . 4S6 
 Hinn (Egyptian measure) . . 466 
 Hinnus, iVvos, "wvoq, yiwog (mule) 462 
 Hippobotos in Armenia . . 46 
 Hippotades (horseman's son) = 
 
 ^olus 49 
 
 Hirquitallus,^ — llio : fr. hircus 
 
 (goat) 433 
 
 History : second period . . 394 
 Hlaibs, hlaifs (bread) : from 
 
 Kki^avov, 435 ; ost-hleifr . 436 
 
 HIeithra (tent), kletis (barn) . 116 
 
 Hoha, huohili (hook, plough) . 435 
 
 "OX/jo£, virepoQ (mortar, pestle) : 
 
 unlike Latin .... 438 
 
 Honey 126 
 
 Hoppe, hub-alus, houblon, I'up- 
 polo, lupulus ; hum-elo, ^of/^f^', 
 khmeli, komlo (hops) 359, 360-1 
 Hops: unknown to ancients, 358; 
 first mention of, in France, Ger- 
 many, England, 359 ; in Russia 
 a symbol of joy . . 361-2 
 
 Horn : made into bows . . 408 
 Hornung (February) . . . 302 
 Horse : known to Aryans, but 
 whether used by them, 34-60 ; 
 native in Mongolia, 35-6 ; came 
 to Turkestan 36, Egypt 40, 
 Syria 41, Arabia 42-3, Assyria 
 43-4, Media, &c., 45-48; its 
 Aryan name akva, 48 ; its use 
 in religion 48-9, among Per- 
 sians, Greeks, 53-4-5; Slavs, 
 Lithuanians, Germans, Celts, 
 55-6; horse and foot coinbined, 
 57-8 ; three ancient types of, 
 424 ; castration, shoeing 425-6 
 
 Horse-chestnut : came from Tur- 
 key ... 298-9,393 
 Hruk, hrukjan (crowing) . . 482 
 Hubalus, houblon (hops) . . 360 
 Human sacrifices . 32, 414-420 
 Humboldt on Migrations . . 34 
 
 Humelo, umlo, fumlo (hops) 
 Humulus, humala, humall (hops) 
 Humus, xo/iai, zemi, zemlik, 
 
 Semele ? . ■ . 
 Humus-soil created by Indian fig 
 Huns : as destroyers, 26 ; horsemen 
 Hfls, house, kh?zha= curia? perh 
 
 Iranic .... 
 Hvaiteis, wheat : fr. white . 
 Hyacinth : fr. Bagdad . 
 Hyes (Bacchus), Hyades (his 
 
 nurses) = Sabos, Savadse . 
 Hyksos, shepherd kings of Egypt 
 'Xfaivo), weave . 
 Hyrcanians : horsemen 
 
 359 
 361 
 
 395 
 60 
 
 464 
 431 
 392 
 
 448 
 40 
 
 441 
 45 
 
 407 
 
 126 
 
 Iar, yar (hen) .... 484 
 larn for lz-arn=aes (copper) . 445 
 Ibe, eibe (yew) .... 407 
 Iberians : in Europe bef. Aryans, 
 
 34 ; mixed horse and foot, 57 ; 
 
 perh. built dolmens, 116; made 
 
 beer, 120; hunted rabbit with 
 
 ferret . . . 343-4 
 
 Ibhar, yubar (yew, bow) 
 Illyrians : important link, 62-3 ; 
 
 made beer, 121, mead . 
 Indian corn, 497 ; see Maize. 
 Indian fig (Opuntian cactus) : fr. 
 
 America ; makes humus round 
 
 Mediterranean . . .18, 395 
 Insects, noxious : in barbarous 
 
 lands 
 Intrisgan, intrusgjan (graft) 
 lonians, ItiovEf (=young?) 
 Ir, yr (yew, bow) 
 Iran and Turan . 
 Iranians : as destroyers, 27 ; horse 
 
 men, 42, 44-48 ; influenced 
 
 Slavs, prob. Germans 
 Iron, eisen, eisam : fr. Celtic 
 Irrigation : remedy for exhaustion 
 Ismaros : wine of . . 70-1 
 
 27, 
 
 412 
 
 327 
 426 
 407 
 46-8 
 
 464 
 446 
 25-6 
 447 
 
 Italians : enter Italy, 63 ; become 
 farmers, 64-5; influenced by 
 Phcenicians .... 66-7 
 
INDEX. 
 
 S" 
 
 Italy : first Aryan settlers in, 63 ; 
 how changed into a ",fruit- 
 garden,"323; employed Asiatics 
 to transplant 324 
 
 Iria for Ft-rka, vitex, withy, waide : 
 fr. vieo (twine) . . . 449 
 
 Iva, tga, Iwa, ivin (yew) . . 407 
 
 Japanese medlar : in S. Italy . 395 
 Japygians : of lUyrian race. . 63 
 Jaxartes : an Iranian word . . 47 
 Jazyges : nomad Iranians . . 27 
 Jotham's parable . . 130-1 
 Jove's acorn : (l) Ju-glans, wal- 
 nut; (2) At6£ jiaKavos, chestnut 294 
 Jute ... . . 150 
 
 Ka, kau (ox) ; Kax^a (ox-eye) . 429 
 Kabyles : not nomadic . . 109 
 KaS/ieia, calamine, G. galmei . 478 
 Kahrka (fowl), KspKog (cock), 
 
 kyark, cere (hen) . . . 249 
 Kalmuk-Turgut migration . . 34 
 MAfia^ (vine-pole) . . -45' 
 Kana.(cock), Kavaxn, iji-kovos 248, 482-3 
 Karbysh (hamster) . . . 494 
 Karde (teasle) : fr. carduus (thistle) 377 
 Kardelus, — lis (rope of bast or 
 
 osier) .... 466-7 
 
 Kartoffel (potato) : fr. tartufo 
 
 bianco 395 
 
 Kasha (buckwheat gruel) . . 388 
 Katils, kotilii, kettle : fr. catinus 461 
 Keekers, Ucutkekers (peas, lentils) 167 
 Keipw (shear, shave) . . 409, 410 
 Kelyn, klen, Kkivo-rpoxoe, yXfTi/oc, 
 
 hlinr, lin-boum, lehne (white 
 
 maple) 4^1 
 
 KemenSte (warmed room) : fr. 
 
 caminata II7 
 
 Kendees (cock) : fr. canto ? . 483 
 
 KipaiioQ (pottery), K-tpafieXg . 441 
 Kepdria '(carob pods) ; cerates 
 
 (carats) . . . . •34' 
 Kharus, xpv-oe (gold) . . 443 
 
 KhlJibu, klepas, klaips (bread) : 
 
 fr. hlaifs 435 
 
 Khmeli, SI. (hops) . . 361-2 
 
 Khomiak, khomestaru (hamster) 494 
 Kirghizes : as horsemen . . 36-7 
 KtpKog, chark, krechet (falcon) . 487 
 Kieiiv, x^Tiav (tunic) : fr. Phcen. 
 
 kitonet (linen) . . . 66, 133-9 
 Kiti (Egyp. measure) . . . 466 
 Kjonne, den kj. (weasel) . . 492 
 Kleti, kletis (shed, barn) . .116 
 KKijSavog, KplfS. (earthen oven), 
 
 KKi^avov (cake) . . 435'^ 
 
 VXivoTpoxog (white maple) . . 48 1 
 Knoblauch (garlic) : for kloblauch 160 
 Ko^cuvij, KOKKvS, (os sacrum) . . 435 
 ILoKKo-HTiKa't KOKKvyoQ fiiiKa (apri- 
 cots) : fr. prae-coqua . .321 
 KoKKwyta (periwig-tree) . .318 
 KoKKv-iitiXov (plum) . . . 287 
 Kokotu, kogut, kohut (cock), 
 
 kokoshi (hen) . . . 248, 483 
 Kolokyntha (pumpkin) . . 236 
 KoXoffffoe : for KoKoiaoq . . 236 
 K6p.apoe (arbutus) . . . 305 
 Komnata, SI. (room): fr. caminata 
 
 (chimneyed) . . . -117 
 Konks, kook (hook) . . . 43s 
 Kovir^ij in beer . . 121, 360, 449 
 Korma, kourmi (beer) . . .123 
 Konvog (wild olive) : cotinus 308, 474 
 Kralikkas, krolik (rabbit) . . 491 
 KpavEia, cornus : fr. dpag, cornu 302-3 
 Krausze, khrusha =axpdf? (pear) 499 
 KpiKii) (weave), KcpKic (shuttle), 
 KpoKri (woof), SI. krosno : unlike 
 
 Latin 442 
 
 Kpivov (fire-lily) . ■ ■ 189, 475 
 Kpo/ivov (onion), creamh, Icer- 
 musze, cheremsha, hramsa, ram- 
 son, buck-rams (wild garlic) . 156 
 Kropiva (nettle) : sails made of . 469 
 Kuban, Hypanis . . . . 240 
 Kuk, kukko, cocc, coq, gbckel- 
 hahn; kyklingr, kiichlein, cycen; 
 KOKiciSw .... 249, 483 
 
SI2 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Kukuriiz (maize) .... 385 
 
 Kurluk (buckwheat) . . . 38S 
 
 Kurtinys (deaf; heathcock). . 48<; 
 7Curii, kura (cock, hen), churu, 
 
 churuh, churus . . . 248 
 Kwetys, gaidys (wheat) . .431 
 Kua/iiof, iriiaftos — haba, faba 
 
 (bean) 440 
 
 ICufui/ia fnih.a, cotonea, coing, 
 
 cognasse, quince . .185, 333 
 Kiiirdp-KTffof, cupr-essus, Heb. 
 
 gopher 214 
 
 Kinvos (pomegranate) . . 474 
 
 Kurwpoe : Konvog (box ?) . . 474 
 
 L for D : linad, \dpvt], laurus 470-3 
 L final in Germ, for N . . 461 
 LM for DM, TM : Palmyra, Pal- 
 
 mosa, Helmand, &c. . 477-8 
 
 Labos, rabota, arbeit . . 436 
 
 Lactuca, G. lattich, lettuce . 377 
 
 Lagena, G. lagel (pot) . .461 
 
 Lake-dwellings : later than sup- 
 
 posed .... 443-446 
 Llleh, lily .... 475 
 
 Land used in three ways : pasture, 
 
 ploughing, planting . . 104 
 Land-measures unlike in Greece 
 
 and Italy .... 438 , 
 Aa(pi/rj {Sd(pvri) ^lnv-ias . . 473 
 Lapin (rabbit) : fr. clapin (stooper) 345 
 Larissa (fat-soiled) : towns so called 65 
 Laserpitium (a spice) . . .153 
 Lastka, lastochka (weasel, swal- 
 low) 492 
 
 Latins ..... 63 
 Latona, At)rui . . . 93, 157 
 Laurel : followed Apollo-worship 
 fr. W. Asia to Greece, 169, 
 171-174; to Italy, 172-3; its 
 geographicallimits. . . 175 
 
 Laurix, lorichi (rabbit) 344-5, 491 
 
 Laurus insana , . . .174 
 
 , Laurentum, Lavinium : fr. 
 
 lavo .... 472-3 
 tinus ..... 173 
 
 Lavender, laundry : fr. lavo, lavan- 
 
 dula 377 
 
 Lazzeruolo (azerolia-tree) . . 390 
 Af/Sijpi'e (rabbit) : \E7r0pif =lepus? 491 
 
 (skin) : fr. Xiirai (peel) . 491 
 
 Leek, onion : loved or loathed, 
 l53-5"7» 160-1 ; magic powers, 
 158, l6o; leac, lauks, liiku, lus, 
 llysian, 159; the cloven is kloh- 
 lauch, gJr-leac, chesnok ; the 
 single, unio, oignon . . 160 
 Leithus (strong drink) . -125 
 
 Leleges : pre-Hellenic . 61, 426-7 
 Lemon : came with Arabs (limfln) 336 
 Lentil : fr. Egypt (^a/cde, Pha- 
 cussa); or Palestine (adashim), 
 165-6 ; European names fr. 
 lens, exc. Slavic fr. cicer (chick- 
 pea) .... 166-7 
 AfTTo) (peel), XeirrSe (tender) 468, 491 
 AevKaia, XcuKo-Xivov (esparto) 134, 151 
 Leute, liudu (people) : fr. liudan 
 
 (to bud) .... 421 
 
 Liber, louft (bast) ; Mjrio, lup-ti 
 
 (peel) ; lipa, lepa (linden) . 468 
 
 Liber, Libera .... 74-5 
 Libum (cake) : for clibum, KXi/3a- 
 
 vov .... 435-6 
 
 Libyans : in SW. Europe ? . 34 
 
 Licium (woof), 442 ; lyko, lunkas 
 
 (bast) 468 
 
 Liebstockel (lovage) : fr. libisticum 477 
 Liige (cork) : fr. levis . . 457 
 
 Ligurians, Ligyans . . 63, 344. 
 Lilac : fr. Turkey . . . 392 
 Lilium, XEi'pior, lirio (white lily) : 
 
 fr. laleh .... 189, 475, 
 Lily : unknown to Homer, 187 ; 
 came fr. Central Asia to Greece, 
 189, Italy, 191 ; as symbol . 193. 
 Lime-bast : plaited . . .31 
 Limes decumanus (E. andW. line) 73 
 Linad, lenad, linhaden (nettle) = 
 
 dyn, dynat .... 470- 
 Linboum, lehne (white maple) . 481 
 Lind, linn, Uonn, leann, llyn (beer) 125. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 513 
 
 Lind (lithe, bast), linde (linden), 
 
 lindi (sash) .... 468 
 Linen : woven in Egypt, 133, 
 Palestine, Babylonia, Colchis 
 (sardonicon), 134, 466 ; white 
 worn by priests, 135 ; 1- sails, 
 nets, armour, 135-138, 140-1 ; 
 worn by lonians, Athenians, 
 138-9; woveninN. Italy, Spain, 
 Gaul, Germany, 143 ; Germans 
 love it, 146-7 ; used as money, 
 148; 1. versus cotton, 148-9, 
 150; rag-paper invented, 149; 
 1. found in Lake-dwellings . 470 
 Kivov, Knum, 136-139 ; name 
 
 spread over Europe, 143 ; = dyn ? 470 
 Aivo-0<ipa| (linen-corsleted) . 137 
 
 Linse, G. (lentil) : fr. lens . . 377 
 Lint : used by Greeks . . I49 
 Linteata legio .... 141 
 Linteum (bast, linen) . 468, 470 
 
 Linteus liber . . .139. 14° 
 Llpa, lepa (lime-tree) . . • 468 
 Lira, ge-leise (rut), de-liro 
 
 (swerve) . . . 430'8 
 
 Lithuanian, Letuvis : fr. leti (pour) 423 
 
 s : bred horses . . 55 
 
 Ain, Xira (linen cloth) : for "Kivn, 
 
 Xivra 468 
 
 Loaf, G. leib : fr. KKi^avov, 
 (c)llbum, hlaifs, 435 ; 1. of sugar, 
 salt, cheese .... 43^ 
 Locrians : pre-Hellenic, 61 ; re- 
 tained linen armour, 137-8 ; 
 oath of .... 156.472 
 Lombardy poplar : fr. America 
 
 thro' Italy . . • -394 
 Loom : how old ... 67 
 
 Loshak, ishak (mule) . • 462 
 
 Lot-casting . . . 32. 421 
 Lucerne, medica : came fr. Media 
 
 to Greece, 306 ; to Italy . . 3°7 
 Luppolo, lupulus (hops) : fr. 
 
 lupus? .... 360-1-2 
 Lus, llysian, les (leek) . -159 
 Lycians : an Iranian people . 27 
 
 Lyopa, lyope (cow) 
 
 -Macedonians (long men) : hall 
 
 Hellenic 61 
 
 Madeira : fr. materia (timber) . 479 
 Magnolia : fr. America . . 395 
 Maira (twinkler) = Sirius . . 70 
 Maize (Indian corn, walsch-korn, 
 &c.) : fr. America ; its rapid 
 spread . . . 384, 395, 497 
 
 PAGE 
 , 429 
 
 Malan (grind) : mehl, meal 436-7 
 
 Malli (hill), Di-mallum . . 429 
 Malt : fr. melt . . . .125 
 Malum, fioXov : any large tree- 
 fruit ..... 499 
 
 citreum : fr. mSpos . 333-4 
 
 Mamaliga : made of maize . . 384 
 Mana-sSths (men-seed, world) . 423 
 Mandarin orange . . . 339 
 Mannus (ass, horse, mule) . . 462 
 Mantela,— lia (table-cloths) . 142 
 
 Maple .... 222, 481 
 Marasca, merise (sour cherry) 301, 488 
 Marga, margila, G. mergel, marl 377 
 Marmalade, marmelo : fr. mSi- 
 
 mela ..... 186 
 Maron, Maroneia . 70-1-2, 447 
 Marten: tamed . . . 347-8 
 
 Maschel, fimmel(hemp) . 151-2 
 
 Maslo (oil, butter) . . .13° 
 Massa (lump of dough) : fr. fia?a 436 
 Massaggtse : nomad Iranians, 27, 
 
 28 ; had horses, 47 ; sacrif. them 
 
 to Sun 48 
 
 Massic wine . ■ ■ .82 
 Mastich-tree, 314 ; its resin chewed 317 
 Mattock : single-blade /id-KeWa, 
 
 two-pronged Si-iaWa . . 107 
 Mead : in Pannonia iiiiSog), 122, 
 
 126 ; drunk by Aryans . .126 
 Meall (hill) : Mello-dunum, — sec- 
 
 tum 429 
 
 Mechanical terms unlike in Greek 
 
 and Latin . . • 441-2 
 
 M^chika, meszka (she-bear) . 428 
 Medgy, Medgyfa (cherry) . . 488 
 
 33 
 
SH 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Median horses . . . . 45-8, 60 
 Medica, mielga (lucerne) . 306-7 
 
 yiiSoQ, medfl, mid, middus (mead, 
 
 honey) ..... 126 
 Meer-rettich (horse-radish) : fr. 
 
 armoracia .... 377 
 Megarian tears . . . .156 
 Mekhii (fur, fell) . . .428 
 
 Melarancio (bitter orange) . . 337 
 Melas, Melantheus (black) =goat- 
 
 herd 70 
 
 Meleagris fguinea-hen, G. ^erl- 
 huhn) : fr. Meleager,. 2J1-2, or 
 meregha (hen) . . . 247 
 
 [or margarita, pearl ?] 
 Melga, melica (black millet) . 385 
 Melia azedarach .... 390 
 Meliaca, muliaca (apricot) : fr. 
 
 armeniaca .... 322 
 MSli-mela (quinces for jelly) . 186 
 MeXii/i), milium, malnos (millet) ; 
 
 MeXivo-^dyoi in Thrace . . 439 
 Melis (badger) . . . 348, 493 
 Mello-dunum, — sectum (hill-fort) 429 
 Melon : in Egypt, 235 ; Italy, 237 ; 
 
 came fr. S. Asip. . . . 238 
 Mentha, mint, G. miinze . . 377 
 Mercatus, market, G. markt . 117 
 Messapians : of lUyrian race . 63 
 Metal i a Phoenician word . . 443 
 Metals . . . 442-3, 44-5-6-7 
 M.e9v (wine) . . . 126, 447 
 Micio, mieze, mishka (puss) . 493 
 Migrations : ancient and modern 34 
 Milica (black millet) . . -385 
 Militarism under Rome 366-7, 496 
 
 Mille passus, mile, G. meile . 377 
 Millet : early cultiv. in all agri- 
 cultural Europe, 64-5, 439 ; re- 
 tired first fr. Greece and Italy, 
 never liked by Germans . . 440 
 Mi^iaiKvXov : akin to fimnaxTqe 
 
 (stormy)? . . . .305 
 Minyans (little men) . .61 
 
 Mirabelle (a plum) : fr. jutipo- 
 
 jiaXavos .... 288 
 
 pAf:E 
 MiskiS, mishte, mushke (mule) . 462 
 Mistil, mistletoe : for visculus 303, 488 
 Mixing of species disapproved 325-6 
 Moiere (grind), 429, 430 ; mola 
 
 (mill): whence G.miihle, mliller 436-7 
 Molossians : half-Hellenic . . 61 
 M61y .... 158-9 
 
 Mongols : as destroyers, 29 : 
 
 horsemen . . . 35-6, 60 
 Mopyiov, Morgetes, Murgentinum 453 
 Morise (sacred olives) ... 94 
 Morum, /lopov (blackberry ; mul- 
 berry) 291 
 
 Moschetto, musket : prop, spar- 
 
 rowhawk .... 286 
 Mosuco, mosch, miisch (weasel) . 492 
 MoiTvi<-oi/coi : built on piles . 444 
 
 Mouse : a plague ; its enemies . 347 
 Mulberry : fr. Media, 290-1 ; 
 confounded with sycamore and 
 blackberry, 291 ; home of silk- 
 worm, esp. the white m. . 293, 487 
 Mule: its breeding forbidden 11 1-2 
 Mulsum (honey-wine) . .113 
 
 Miilus (mule) : fr. iivj(K6£ . 461-2 
 
 Miir, mflra, G. mauer : fr. murus 
 
 117, 464 
 Mustard, mostarda: fr. mustum 163-4 
 Mus-tela (weasel) = mouse-taker 
 
 348, 492 
 Mu^Xof, mushke, misku (mule) . 462 
 Mi'wijpog (nut-almond) =nuceres? 488 
 
 Myrene 473 
 
 Myriad, /ivpioi, ba^vare. . . 423 
 Mupov, fiyppa^ apvpva , , 473 
 
 Myrrh-tree 169 
 
 Myrtle : followed Venus-worship 
 fr. W. Asia to Greece, 169, 
 170-1, Italy, 172; its geograph. 
 
 limits 175 
 
 Mi'ipros, iivpaivri, fiyppivti . . 473 
 Mysians : had vines, 71, mules, 
 III; invaded Thrace . . 427 
 
 NABATH^l.in Arabia ; had no 
 horses 42 
 
INDEX. 
 
 515 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Nagris, nauris, nairis (turnip) . 440 
 Napus (turnip), voucv (mustard) 163-4 
 Narenj, VEpdirStov, arancio, mel- 
 arancio, pom-eranze, aurantium, 
 orange (bitter orange) . . 337 
 Narodu (people) : fr. rodi-ti (bring 
 
 Torth) 421 
 
 Nati, net : hence nettle . . 469 
 Nations named fr. teeming . 421-2-3 
 
 Nectarine 322 
 
 N/;pioj/ (oleander) : not akin to 
 
 KijpEUE 310 
 
 Nesaion, Nissea : horses of . 46 
 
 Nettle-fibre : plaited, 31 ; woven 
 
 into clothes, sails . . . 469 
 Nevistka (weasel) . . . 492 
 New Zealand flax . . . 150 
 Noatis, notere, nStra (net) . . 469 
 Nomads : have a far-away look 36, 500 
 Nuceres=;uiKi;po(;? . . . 488 
 Nuragen . . . . .116 
 Nuts, 224-5, 294 ; for Joseph . 312 
 Nux : Pontica, Avellana (filbert) ; 
 Grffica (almond) ; calva (chest- 
 nut?) .... 294-5-6 
 
 Oaths nullified by trick . 156, 472 
 Oats : despised, named fr. goat 
 (jSpoftOf, aiyiKiD'i/) or sheep 
 (avena, oves) . . . 432-3 
 Obolys, woble, yabluko (apple) ; 
 obelis, wobalne, yablani (apple- 
 tree) .... 498-9 
 Oculi (bulbs), 225 ; oculus (eye) . 429 
 CEnotria : named fr. oiviDrpov 7Si 45^ 
 Oil . . 89, 90, 94, 98-9, 100 
 Oipae, oivapov, olvt) . . 255, 45° 
 Oineus (wine-man) ... 70 
 Olvos (wine) . . 72, 447-9, 450 
 Oinotropoi at Delos . . . 254 
 OlvioTpov (vine-pole) . . 75, 452 
 Olu, olovin, bl (ale) . . .125 
 Old folks got rid of . . 32. 413 
 Oleander : its native look in S. 
 Europe deceptive, 309 ; fr. Asia 
 Minor .... 310-1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Oleaster (vrild olive) . . 89, 91-2 
 Oleum (oil) : fr. IXaiov, 97 ; ol. 
 
 Liburnicum . . -99 
 
 Oliva (olive) •: fr. iXaia, 97 ; felix 
 ol., 94; vivax ol., 95 ; ol. Lici- 
 niana, Sallentina, 97 ; Sergia . 98 
 Olive-tree : native in S.W. Asia, 
 18 ; only the wild o. in Greece 
 till after Hesiod, 88-93 5 cult, 
 in Attica before Solon, 94 ; in- 
 trod. into Sicily 95-6, Italy 
 96-100, Gaul 98, Spain 99, 
 Sardinia, Corsica 459 ; its oil, 
 100 ; type of higher life . . 131 
 Onager (wild horse ?) . . . 37 
 Onion : see Leek. 
 
 Opulus (witch-hazel) : for populus 453 
 Orange: (i) the bitter, came fr. 
 India by Persia (nSrcnj, Arab, 
 n^ranj, Byz. vEpdirSioj'), 337-8; 
 (2) the sweet, brought fr. China 
 (apfel-sine) by Portuguese (por- 
 
 togallo) 338 
 
 Orarium, sudarium . . 141-2 
 
 Orestheus (mountaineer) . . 70 
 'OpetJc, ovpevg (mule) . . ' .112 
 Organum, G. orgel . . .461 
 'OpivSa, opivStov (rice ?) . . 380 
 'Op6l3aKxos,—aKxn (pomegr.) . 474 
 'Opu?a,— Jov (rice) . . 380, 434 
 Osmans : ravaged Greece . . 29 
 'Ofloj'T) (linen robe, aft. cotton) 135-6 
 Overrun by rabbits 344 ; mice 
 
 347 ; rats . . . . 351 
 'OJue (sharp), oSof, uksus, uksosas 
 
 (vinegar) 79 
 
 Ozolas in Locris . , 70, 155 
 
 P for T : palma. Palmyra, 208 ; 
 pavo .... 264-8 
 
 P initial dropped in Celtic : athir, 
 iasg 453 
 
 Pseonians in Macedonia, 427; 
 lake-dwellers .... 444 
 
 Palm (Heb. taraar) ; see Date- 
 palm. 
 
5i6 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 2IO 
 
 Palm Sunday at Rome 
 
 Palma (date-palm ; dwarf-palm) 
 
 206-208, 477-8 
 Palmare, tunica palmata . 207-8 
 
 Palmyra : fr. Tadmor . 208, 477-8 
 
 Palumba (ringdove) . . . 258 
 Pamplemousse (Paradise apple) 336-7 
 Panciera, G. panzer (coat of 
 
 mail) ; fr. pantex (paunch) . 447 
 Pannonians : an lUyrian people . 62 
 Pa-partis, pa-porotnik (fern) . 484 
 Paper : invented in Spain . . 149 
 Paphlagonians : bred mules . Ill 
 'Xiajriroq : tuft of periwig-tree . 318 
 Papyrus : extinct in Egypt, 23Z ; 
 
 p. of Sicily, of White Nile . 233 
 Parabia : brewed in Thrace 121, 449 
 Paraveredus, palfrey, G. pferd . 377 
 Parena (feather) ; par, per (fern) 484 
 Pari-ti (to fly), pero (feather), pa- 
 
 poroti (wing), — tnik (male fern) 484 
 Parthians : nomad Iranians 27, 47 
 
 Parus (sail) : fr. ^apoQ . , 146 
 Pasteque (water-melon) . . 237 
 Patmos, Palmosa . . . 478 
 Pavo, paon, G. pfau, AS. pawa . 269 
 Pea : fr. Central Asia . 165-168 
 
 Peach : came fr. Central Asia 
 (persica), 320 ; to Italy (dur- 
 acina, poS-aKiva), 321 ; Pro- 
 vence (gallica) . . . 322 
 Peacock : came fr. India (9ikkt, 
 togei, Mong. toghos) to Pales- 
 tine (tukkt), 263 ; to Samos, 
 Greece (tahos, tavos), 264 ; to 
 Italy (pavus, pavo), 266-7 ; 
 roast p., 267-270 ; p. isles, 268 ; 
 symbol of immortality, 269 ; p. 
 hats fr. England, 362 ; p. vows 270 
 Pear : native to S. Europe ; the 
 wild, a^pas ; the cultiv., oy^vij, 
 amoe, pirus, krausze, grusha, 
 darde ..... 499 
 
 Peat-pig 32 
 
 Pecora, la (sheep) , . .351 
 PMare, pfidamen, mjidv (prop) . 452 
 
 IIe/cw (comb, orig. pluck, pesz-ti), 
 409 ; Trkos (fleece), iritrKoe 
 (rind, bast), 470 ; cf. Vellus, 
 Rung. 
 
 Pelasgians (=old ?) : pre-Hel- 
 lenic . . . .61, 426 
 
 TliXeut (dove), iripiarepa (pigeon) 
 
 253-4-5. 258-9 
 Pelzen, G., empeltar (graft) : fr. 
 
 pellis 327 
 
 Penka, pienka (hemp) : fr. bang 
 
 (intoxication?) . . 471 -z 
 
 Utviiip, pSpo, G. pfebe (pumpkin) 
 
 237, 240 
 Pepper-tree .... 395 
 IlEfjttrrEpa (pigeon) : fr. pri (love) ? 
 
 or parena (wing) ? . . 255, 484 
 Periwig-tree . . . 314-8 
 
 Persian nuts .... 295 
 Persica, pesca, peche, peach, G. 
 
 pfirsich, 31. breskva, broskvina 322 
 Pesca noce (nectarine) . . 322 
 
 PeshdSd : a Pers. nut (pistachio ?) 489 
 Peska, pes6k (sand, grit, gravel) 168 
 Petitpas (peacock) . . . 269 
 Petlii, petukh (cock) . . 248, 4S3 
 Petrosilium, G. Petersilie, parsley 377 
 Peucetians, Picentines . . 452 
 Pferd, G. (horse) : fr. paraveredus 377 
 <^aK>j, faicoQ (lentil) . . , 166 
 4>ai//, ^aaaa, facha, faza (dove) 
 
 255, 484 
 ^ap/iaKOS (poisoner, scapegifet) 457-8 
 Pheasant : fr. Colchis (phasianus) ? 
 
 prob. fr. Media (tetarus), 274-5 ! 
 
 gold and silver ph. fr. China . 276 
 Phegeia became Psophis . . 479 
 $i\i')pa (bast, linden), ^iWoc 
 
 (bark), ^Xoidf (cork) . . 46S 
 Phoenicians : civilize Europe, 
 
 66-7 ; introd. wine, 72-3 ; perh. 
 
 oil, 95-6; &c., &c. 
 Phoenix (palm) : fr. Canaan, Chn^ 
 
 (Phnaa) .... 204, 477 
 Phrygians : an Iranian people 
 
 27, 62, 426 
 
INDEX. 
 
 S17 
 
 PAGE 
 
 $uXi'a (olive-tree ?) . . 91 
 
 *ur£«u (I plant), ^uraXio, Phytios 
 
 70, 104 
 Pict : Latin for brit (tattooed) ? . 33 
 Pigeon, the tame white : unknown 
 in Greece till Pers. invasion, 
 253-4-5 ; came fr. Babylonia 
 to Syria, Cyprus, . 255-6-7, 
 Greece, 257-8-9, Sicily, Italy, 
 259 ; Trtpiarepd, columba, 
 255-9 ; symbol of Nature- 
 goddess, then of Venus, 257, 
 of Holy Ghost . . .261 
 HiKipiov (butter) : pinguis, itaxve ? 128 
 TliKpoSd^vri (oleander) . • 311 
 
 Pna, pilum (mortar, pestle) : fr. 
 
 pinso 438 
 
 Pilarium, pillar, G. pfeiler . .117 
 Pilus (hair), 7-i\of, pileus (felt, 
 
 felt hat), G. filz . . . 31 
 Pine-tree, pinus pinea, Z., tItvq 
 (nut-pine) : prob. not native to 
 Greece or Italy, 225 ; Pitieta of 
 Ravenna . . . 225-6-7 
 
 Pink, gilliflower : garofano, oeillet 393 
 Pinso, piso (bruise), 167, 430; 
 
 = 7rrtff(Tw? .... 438 
 Pistachio : came fr. Persia and 
 Syria to Italy, Sicily, 312-3 ; 
 grafted on turpentine-tree, 314 ; 
 its brothers terebinth, mastich, 
 periwig, sumach . . 314-319 
 PIsum, TTwoE (peas) . . 167-8 
 
 Pityusas (Yviza) : fr. mrvg . . 479 
 Pivo (beer) : fr. pi-ti (drink) . 1 25 
 Plane-tree : beauty, shade, 217, 
 221 ; size, age, 217-8-9 ; came 
 fr. W. Asia to Greece, 219, 
 220, Italy, 220-1 ; American 
 plane . . , 222, 394 
 
 Plants fr. Semitic lands cling to 
 S. Europe ; those fr. Iranic 
 reach Central or N. Europe 
 
 363-4. 479 
 Plants, the track of: is that of 
 culture in general . . . 398 
 
 PAGE 
 
 220 
 
 Platanus, irXaTaviaroQ (plane) 
 Plaumorati (first wheeled plough) 437 
 Plent (buckwheat) . . .388 
 Ploskon, poskoni (hemp) = flahs, 
 
 fahs .... 472 
 
 Plough : early names = hook : 
 yvtis, hoha, szaka, 435 ; wheeled 
 plougji invented by Gauls i plau- 
 mora'tl, plovum, plugii . ". 437 
 Ploughing, 64 ; plough-ox . .50-1 
 Plum - brandy : slivovica, 289, 
 
 tchuka 384 
 
 Plum-tree : came fr. Asia to 
 Greece (/i:oKKu-;[j);Xoc), and Italy, 
 277-8 ; plum forests in Bosnia, 
 
 Servia 2S9 
 
 Podarge : a harpy ... 49 
 Poenus, Phoenice : fr. Canaan, 
 
 ChnS, 477 
 
 Poganka (buckwheat). . . 387 
 Polenta of maize, buckwheat 384-S 
 IloXif, populus . . .33, 421 
 Pomatum: fr. pomum . .130 
 Pomegranate : followed Venus- 
 worship fr. SW. Asia to Greece, 
 180-2; Italy, 182-3; i's sym- 
 bolism, 181-2-4 . . 474-5 
 Pomeranze (bitter orange) . -337 
 Pomo di paradiso, d'Adamo 33^-7 
 Pomum : any large tree-fruit . 499 
 Pondus, pound, G. pfund . . 377 
 Pontic nut (filbert ?) . . 294-5 
 Poppy .... 235-6 
 Portogallo, protokale (sweet 
 
 orange) 338 
 
 Potato : fr. America thro' Italy, 
 
 liked in N. Europe . . 395-6, 498 
 Potter's wheel : how old . 67,440-1 
 Povoloka (alk ?) . . . 469 
 Prsecoqua (early ripe) : corrup. to 
 ^sp'aeovKa, al-barquq, " apri- 
 cock," abricot, G. aprikose 321-2 
 Pramnian wine ( = irapafitt) ?) . 449 
 Pres-ti, root prjd- (spin) . . 442 
 TlpiaiiiKa, Dae. (briony) . . 360 
 Privet : for spear-shafts . . 31 
 
5i8 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Propago : G. propfen (graft) . 327 
 Propedula (cinquefoil) . . 428 
 
 •Prunum, Trpovfivov (orig. sloe, 
 then plum) 287 ; prugnola, 
 prunelle (sloe) . . . 288 
 
 Psittake on Tigris (fr. maraKiov ?) 489 
 Psophis : its "virgins" . 214, 479 
 ririWu (=pinso, piso?) . . 438 
 TlTvaaut (fold), nrvxeg (layers), 
 7ri;Kj'oe(compact), iri?of, buxus, 
 box ..... 473.4 
 
 Puis, pultis (porridge) : fr. voKtoq 436 
 Pumpkin : aucua, tykva 234-6, 240, 458 
 Punicum malum (pomegr.) . 183-4 
 
 Piishka, SI. (cannon) ; fr. buxus. 179 
 Puss, buse, bise .... 493 
 Xlvpos, pyro, purai (wheat) : akin 
 to pyrei (quitch), pure (tare), 
 fyrs, furze, 431 ; unlike Latin . 438 
 Tiv%oQ, buxus, box : fr. TrTvaata 473-4 
 
 QUAIRNUS, quern : akin to yvooe 436 
 Quince : fr. Cydoniain Crete 185-6,333 
 Quius, quick (alive) . . . 483 
 
 R for S : aurum, aurora . . 436 
 Rab (slave), rabota (labour) . 436 
 
 Rabbit; came (fr. Africa?) to 
 Spain, S. Gaul, Italy, 343-4-5; 
 bred too fast, 344 ; rabouillire 491 
 Radix Syria, radish, G. rettich , 377 
 Ragas (horn) ; ragotine (horn- 
 beam ? spear); Raguttis, G. 
 Hornung (February) . . 302 
 Raip, reif, rope : orig. osier . 467 
 Rams, ramsen, buck-rams . .156 
 Ranunculus : fr. Turkey . . 392 
 Rape-cole, G. kohl-rabi : fr. caulis 
 
 rapi • . . . . 399 
 Rape-seed, G. raps, riibsen : fr. 
 
 rapicium . . . .399 
 
 'Paws, rapum, ripa, rope, rofa, 
 
 G. rube (turnip) . , , ^^ 
 Rat (hrat = krot, kertus) ; reached 
 Europe about fall of Rome (?) 
 35' ; greater rat in last century 352 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ratis (for pratis), raith, reden, 
 
 rhedyn (fern) .... 484 
 Razn (house) .... 464 
 Receptivity a condition of progress 398 
 Renzo (lawn) : fr. Rheims . . 143 
 Repa, rebe (vine), reb-huhn (part- 
 ridge) 467 
 
 Repina (maple); reply (thorn); 
 
 so acer ..... 4S1 
 Rhodeia, Rhodope . . .188 
 Uhodo - daphne, — dendron (ole- 
 ander) .... 309,488 
 'P6Sov,l3p6Sov{iose)i8g; fr.vareda 475 
 Rhoeas, poiai (pomegranates) . 180 
 Rhiis, pove (sumach), &c.) . . 318 
 Rbyg. riguet (r>-e) : borr. fr. Teut. 434 
 Rice : came fr. India (vrihi) to 
 Persia (brtzi, hence opiija ; bir- 
 inj, hence dpivSa ?) 379, 380 ; 
 to Baclria, Babylonia, 380-1 ; 
 to Spain with Arabs, 381 ; 
 Italy, 382 ; America . . 383 
 Rimmon, pi>/3ai, potai (pomegr.) 474 
 Rimmon, Hadad-R. (sun-god) . iSo 
 Roma, romeira (pomegr.), romano, 
 
 romaine (steelyard) . . .183 
 Roman culture extended to Cen- 
 tral, N. and E. Europe, 
 373-4-5; attitude of Romans 
 and Greeks towards these . 373 
 Rome fell (l) by stupidity in eco- 
 nomics, .366, mechanics, 367, 
 navigation, 368, agriculture, 
 369; (2) by intrusion of Oriental 
 ideas, 370, and blood . . 371 
 Ropes : of twisted hide, byblus, 
 
 136-7; osier, 466-7; lime-bast 467-8 
 Rosa : fr. podia, poSia . 475 
 
 Rose, the double : unknown to 
 Homer, 187, and in Old Test., 
 188 ; came fr. Central Asia to 
 Greece, 189, Italy, 191; win- 
 ter roses. 192 ; rose as symliol, 
 188, 190-3-4; rosalia, Pascha 
 ■•"s^i'^i •• ... 194 
 Rossi, wild horses on the . 38.9 
 
INDEX. 
 
 519 
 
 Rozh, rezh, rosz (rye) . 
 
 Rugis, ruggys, rugr, ryge, rye . 
 
 Ruma (teat), Ruminus, — na, ficus 
 Ruminalis .... 
 
 Rumpi (festoons for vines) . 
 
 Runo (fleece) : fr. riiv-ati (pluck) 
 
 Rusalka (nymph) : fr. rosalia 
 
 Rye : despised by Romance na- 
 tions, 433 ; has two names : 
 (l) secale, segola, seigle, oixaXi, 
 secare, thekere; (2) SI. rozh, 
 rezh, rosh ; Lith. rugis, ruggys ; 
 Teut. roggen, rugr, ryge, (rhyg, 
 riguet) 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 434 
 434 
 
 458 
 453 
 409 
 194 
 
 434 
 
 S in Celtic for X : ess, dess, les, 
 
 ses 159 
 
 Saale (salt river), Salassi, &c. . 411 
 
 Sabaia, — ium (beer) . . . 121 
 
 Sabellians in Italy ... 63 
 
 Sabos, Savadae="T))c, Hyades 71, 448 
 
 Sabus, " ancestor of Sabines " . 451 
 Sacse : an Iranian people, 27 ; 
 equestrian nomads fr. Oxus to 
 
 Danube 47 
 
 Sacer, sacre, sagro, sakalas, sokol 
 (saker-falcon) : mis-transl. of 
 
 ikpaX, ..... 486 
 Ssetabis (Xativa) : linen, 142 ; 
 
 rag-paper .... 149 
 
 Safflow, zafFer, asforo : fr. India 2oi 
 Saffron, xpsKog : fr. SW. Asia 
 (karkOm) 198 ; acclimat. by 
 
 Arabs in Spain (azafran) . 200 
 
 Saggina (black millet) . . 3^5 
 
 Sagro (gun) : prop, saker-falcon . 286 
 
 Sagum (mantle) .... 145 
 
 Sahs, seax (sword) =saxum (stone) 445 
 .Sal-, Hal, in Germ, names = salt : 
 
 is Hal- Celtic ? . . 410-1 
 
 .Salbe, salve (butter?) . .130 
 
 Samolus (mistletoe?) . . . 488 
 Sancus, god of Sabines . -451 
 
 Saracen horses and camels . . 43 
 
 Saraceno, grano ; ble sarrasin . 387 
 
 Saraparai (beheaders) . 427-8 
 
 S-rpJtc (year) .... 466 
 SapSoviKov (Colchian linen) 134, 466 
 2api, ai-irapov . . . . 164 
 
 Sarmatians : nomad Iranians, 27, 
 
 62 ; tattooed, 33 ; rode horses 47 
 Sarpo (I lop), sarmentum (twig) 
 
 438 ; cf. lipini, srupu. 
 Satres : had oracle of Bacchus . 71 
 Sauer-kraut : came fr. Tartars (?) 
 
 to Slavs and Germans . . 399 
 Savoy, Chou de Milan, G. wirsing . 399 
 Scalogno, scallion, shalot . .154 
 Scheffel (bushel) : fr. scapilus . 377 
 Xxivog (mastich-tree) ,. . .317 
 Schmalz (liquid butter) . . 130 
 Sxo'i'Of (120 ft.) . . . 438 
 
 Schon-dinglein, — thierlein(weasel) 492 
 Scr«f, screona, escregne (under- 
 ground dwelling) . . . 411 
 Scythians : nomad Iranians, 27, 
 62 ; had horses, 47 ; bullock- 
 carts, 49, 50 ; made mead, 126 ; 
 butter .... 127-8 
 
 Sebocc, hebauc, G. habicht, 
 
 havoc, hawk .... 283 
 Secale, segola, seigle, secare, 
 
 thekere (rye) . . . 433-4 
 
 Segel, segl, sail : fr. O. Ir. seol 
 
 (or sagulum ?) . . .146 
 
 Seidel (pint) : fr. situla . . 456 
 SSm, stm (silver) : fr. d-aijfinQ 
 
 (bullion) .... 443 
 
 Semele = zemlia (earth) . 72, 449 
 Semiramis, worshipped as dove . 257 
 Semites, 27 ; use horses, 43-4 ; 
 civilize Europe, 66-7-8; in- 
 troduce wine, money, alphabet, 
 72-3 ; transplant trees to Italy 324 
 Seol, sool (sail) . . . .146 
 SerSre (to sow) .... 430 
 Shalot, echalotte : fr. Ascalon . 154 
 Sheep plucked, not shorn . . 409 
 Shikmim, shikmOth (sycamore) . 291 
 Shirt : a Northern invention . 144 
 Shoeing of horses : unknown 425-6 
 
S20 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Shushan, Susa : fr. susan (lily) . 475 
 Si'^St) (pomegr.) 181 ; seb . . 474 
 Sicera, aiicepa : fr. Heb. shakar - 499 
 Sickle, G. sichel : ft. secula . 377 
 Sicyonian berry (olive) . . 95 
 Wri (pomegr.) 180 ; Side, Sidene, 
 
 &c 181 
 
 Sieves : of linen , . . 142 
 
 Si'/cue, Sicyon, aiKvos,aiKia, 235-6 ; 
 
 avKva, TVKva, SI. tykva , . 458 
 
 Slid, selidi, sil-ke (herring) : fr. 
 
 salt 4" 
 
 SiXt, ai-diKiQ .... 164 
 Siliqua Syriaca (carob) . .241 
 Silo [asylum?] .... 480 
 Silphium, ai\^iov (a spice) . 96, 153 
 Silver : two names, (l) dpyupog, 
 argentum, (2) silubr, srebr6, 
 
 siraplis 443 
 
 Sinapis, aivam, G. senf (mustard) 
 
 163, 377 
 Sij-og, zhito (com) : unlike Latin 432-8 
 Skauda-raip (shoe-string) . . 467 
 Skulls made drinking bowls 32, 413 
 Slavs : settled in Greece, 30 ; wor- 
 shipped horses . . .54-5 
 Sliva (plum), sloe, schlehe . . 288 
 Slivovica (plum-brandy) . . 289 
 Smakka, sraokva : fr. avsav 4S6-7 
 Smells, strong : a counter-charm 158 
 'SfuKa%, — Xoe (acreeper) =khmeli? 361 
 Smbr (butter) .... 130 
 Sneis (twig), sneise (string) . 467 
 Soap : a Northern invention. loo-i 
 Soc, soch, sech (ploughshare) . 435 
 Sochivo, chechevitsa, SI. (lentils) 166-7 
 Sokha, szaka (hook, plough) . 435 
 Solarium, soUar, G. soUer . .117 
 Somaro (ass) . . . 460-1 
 Sorgo (black millet) . . . 385 
 Sn-aJi? (palm branch, &c.) . 209, 478 
 Spargel : fr. asparagus . . 377 
 DTrdpra, airvpig, sporta (broom, 
 
 hemp) 471 
 
 Spartum, esparto . . 134, 151 
 Spatha, airddi) . . . 442, 478 
 
 Spelt : ?£ta, yavas, 62 ; unlike Latin 438 
 
 Spicarium, G. speicher (granary). 377 
 
 Spindle : how old ... 67 
 Spinea, spionia (kind of vine) : 
 
 ^l/lvofiaif il^ivdg? . . , 453 
 
 Srupii, serp, SI. (sickle) . . 438 
 
 Stakles, stanii (loom) . . . 442 
 
 Stamen, arijfuav (warp) . . 442 
 
 Stipula, stiblo (any stalk) . . 430 
 Stone-building : came fr. S. Asia 
 
 to Greece, Italy, 114; unknown 
 
 to early Celts, Germans, Slavs. 
 
 11S-117 
 Stone-tools : lasted far into metal 
 
 age .... 44S-6 
 
 Storax-tree in Syria ; yields in- 
 cense .... 318-9 
 
 Stramenta : for beds . . . 144 
 
 Strata via, street, G. strasze . 117 
 Strawberry-tree (arbutus) : used 
 
 for fodder . . . 304-5 
 
 Strutheum malum (quince) . .186 
 
 Suber (cork oaki . . . 457 
 
 Sudarium (napkin) . . . 141 
 Sugar-cane : introd. by Arabs 
 
 (zucchero) .... 390 
 Sumach : in 
 
 tan, 314-S! 
 
 (sommaq) .... 318 
 
 Sunflower : in the steppes . , 240 
 
 Supparus (sail, veil) . . . 141 
 
 Sus (horse) : Semitic ... 40 
 Susan (lily) 189 ; Shushan, Susa, 
 
 475 ; a-zucena . . . 476 
 
 Susina, endrina (plum) . , 288 
 
 Svatovit : god of light . . 55 
 
 Sveklu (beet) : fr. aevrkov . . 377 
 Sycamore, sycamine : fr. Egypt 
 
 or Syria (shikmim, — mOt) . 291 
 
 Sycophant .... 86 
 SvKaiiivos, <rvK6nopoQ (sycamore, 
 
 mulberry), avKanrivea . 291-2, 458 
 avKOv (fig), 236 ; for apiKOV = ficus, 
 
 smakka, smokva . . 458-9 
 
 Szarmonys, szerm., G. hermelin, 
 
 ermine 492 
 
 Sicily yields fine 
 introd. by Arabs 
 
INDEX. 
 
 521 
 
 T for D : citrus, cotonea, Euretice, 
 
 t£Eda 333 
 
 Tadmor, Palmyra . 208, 477-8 
 
 Tamar, tomer (date-palm) 205-8 
 
 Tanais(=Jaxartes): Iranian word 47 
 "XauiQ, Attic rac5sfor raf <i)£=pavo 
 
 264-6-7 
 Tarantas (steppe vehicle) . • 240 
 Taterkorn, Tatarka (buckwheat) 387 
 Tattooing : sign of high birth . 33 
 Taxo, taxus, tasso (badger) : fr. 
 
 G. dachs .... 493 
 Taxus, tasso, tIsS(yew),Tc5?ov (bow) 407 
 Tchuka (plum-brandy) . ; 384 
 Tegula, tuile, G. ziegel . -117 
 Tekin-ti, tochi-ti (turn), tokari 
 
 (turner) ... . 493 
 
 Tektwj', Tiyyr\, tvkoq, t6ux<^ • 493 
 Terebinth : native to Persia, 312, 
 
 314-317, 489 
 Termes (palm-branch) . . 478 
 
 Terzeruolo (horse-pistol) : prop. 
 
 male hawk .... 286 
 Tirapoe, Pers. tedzrev, SI. teterev 
 (pheasant) ; Fin. tetri, Sw. 
 tjader (bustard, quail, &c.) . 275 
 Teucrians : had vines, 71 ; in- 
 vaded Thrace .... 427 
 Teukros, Tychios : (n«x" ?) • 407 
 TexSre, tiik-ati (weave) 441 ; tela 
 
 (web) 442 
 
 Thaho (clay) . . . 4°7. 493 
 Thales : falls on his feet . . 92 
 Thesprotians : half-Hellenic . 61 
 Thiuda, thiudisk, deutsch : fr. tu 
 
 (swell) 421 
 
 Thousand : no common Aryan 
 
 word for . . . 33. 423 
 Thracians : tattooed, 33 ; horse- 
 men, 54 ; important link, 62-3, 
 429 ; worshipped Bacchus, 70, 
 71-2; brewed j3pvTOV, irapa^iii, 
 121 ; wove hemp, 132; Aryan, 
 but not Iranian . . 427-8 
 
 Thread : of 360 (aft 365) strands, 
 
 133. 465-6 
 
 Tik, tyuk (hen), dik (cock), 
 
 Mong. takia .... 249 
 Tilaventum, now Tagliamento . 459 
 Tilia (linden), tilias (bast), tiglio 
 
 (hemp rind),lteiller (crush hemp) 468 
 Timrjan (build) .... 464 
 Tina (tub), 454 ; tinunculus (kes- 
 trel) 487 
 
 Tma (darkness, ten thousand) . 423 
 Tobacco : fr. America, a curse, 
 
 396 ; tames the wild . ■ 498 
 Togarmah : bred horses, 44; mules 1 1 1 
 Tomato : came fr. America to 
 
 Italy (pomi d'oro) . . . 396 
 Tona, G. tonne, tun, &c. . . 454 
 Tourao (weasel) .... 492 
 To^ov (bow) : akin to taxus (yew) 407 
 Traduces (festoons for vines) . 453 
 Tpayoe (goat, wild hg), rpaydia 
 
 (not bear) . . . .433 
 Tree-culture : elevates man, 102- 
 109 ; protected by laws, 108, 
 460 ; daughter's dowry 215-6,480 
 Tree-fodder in S. Europe 304-308 
 
 TpLavra-fvWed (rose) . . . 476 
 Tri-glav (three-headed) : Evil One 55 
 Tpoxoe (badger), rpoxos (potter's 
 
 wheel) .... 68, 493 
 Troglodytes . . . .412 
 Tropseolum majus (capuchin 
 
 cress) : fr. America . . 394 
 
 Trutina, TpvTavr) (balance) = SI. 
 
 triisti (cane) . . . .481 
 Tuk-ati (weave), a-tukati (in- 
 
 texSre), 5-tiiku, u-tok (wooQ 441-2 
 Tulip : came fr. Turkestan with 
 
 Turks, Crira-Tartars . 391-2 
 
 Tulipano (tulip) : fr. turban . 391 
 Tulip-tree : fr. America . . 395 
 Tunica : a Phoenician word . 65 
 Turcicum frumentura (buckwheat) 387 
 Turkomans : as horsemen . . 36 
 Turkey-cock : fr. America . 395, 497 
 Turks : as destroyers, 28 ; horse- 
 men, 34, 60 ; introduce trees, 
 298-9, flowers . . -391 
 
 34 
 
523 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Turnip : early cultiv., 65 ; re- 
 claimed in Europe . . 399 
 Turpentine - tree : in Persia, 
 
 Arabia, Syria, Palestine . 314-317 
 Turris, tower, G. thurm . .117 
 TCKa = ffSKa (figs) ; Ti/Kij, Tj);^ • 45^ 
 Tykva (pumpkin) : fr. aixlia, rvKva 456 
 
 Umbrians in Italy ... 63 
 Under the Olives, Tir-iXaios . 93 
 Underground dwellings in winter, 
 32 ; tunc, screona, yinrti, zhu- 
 pishte, fuiKEog, rpuiyXr), bor- 
 deitr . . . . 41 1-2 
 
 Unio (onion) . . . .160 
 Uranos, Varunas : sky personified 32 
 Ursus : for urctus, apKTog . . 428 
 Usil (sun-god) = Aurora ? . . 442 
 
 Vaddjus, G. wand (wall) : orig. 
 wattle 
 
 Vard, vareda, Ppodov, podov (rose) 
 
 Varunas = Uranos 
 
 Vasculum, flask, fiasco, flacon, 
 flagon. .... 
 
 Vellus (fleece) : fr. vello (pluck) . 
 
 Venetl : of lUyrian race, 62 ; 
 occupied E. Italy, 63 ; lake- 
 dwellers .... 444-5 
 
 Verp-ti (spin), varpste (spindle) . 442 
 
 Vetch, vicia, PUOQ, Ptxiov 168, 
 
 Vieo, vimen, vitis, vitex, vitta 
 
 Vilvan (pluck, rob) 
 
 Vindobona : fr. vindos (white) . 
 
 Vine : legends of origin in Greece, 
 Thrace, &c. , point to Syria, 70- 
 73 ; its true home, 73 ; methods 
 of training, 75, 453 ; in Italy, 
 75-6 ; in Gaul, &c., 76-78 ; 
 checked by Domitian, Pombal, 
 79) 453 ; suppressed by Arabs in 
 Asia, Africa, 79, 80; declined 
 in Greece, Italy, 80-82; best 
 in France, 82-3 ; prospects, 
 83 ; Madeira, Canaries 84 ; 
 type of higher life . . .131 
 
 464 
 
 475 
 
 32 
 
 456 
 409 
 
 377 
 449 
 409 
 
 431 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Vinegar, vin-aigre ... 79 
 Vinum : not fr. vieo, vitis . 449, 450 
 
 moratum, claratum . . 81 
 
 passum .... 449 
 
 Prsetutianum, Pucinum . 75-6 
 
 Viola, Fiov, lov : fr. Asia Minor 1^5-6 
 
 Virga lanata : copied fr. dpmiiiivr) 95-7 
 
 Virginia creeper : fr. America . 394 
 Viscus (mistletoe), visciola (bird 
 
 cherry) .... 303, 488 
 
 Visla, G. Weichsel, Vistula . 303 
 Visula (kind of vine), oZiroe, 
 
 oiava (osier) .... 453 
 
 Viszta, vista (hen) . . . 484 
 Vitis (vine), 449, 450 = withe, 
 
 G. weide .... 467 
 
 alba (briony) . . . 467 
 
 ArainEea, Scantiana . . 452 
 
 Vlasvi, volos (hair) = flahs 
 
 [vellus ?] 470 
 
 Vorsus, versus ( 100 ft. square) . 438 
 Vratilo (weaver's beam), vreteno 
 
 (spindle) 442 
 
 Vrihi, brizi, oryza, rice 379, 428, 434 
 
 Wadmal (Scandinav. cloth) . 148 
 Wain (wine), Ethiop., Arabic . 72 
 Walnut : fr. Asia Minor . 294-6 
 
 Wanne (tub) ; wannen-weho, wan- 
 
 nagas (falcon) . . . 486-7 
 
 War-chariot, 40-1, 51-2; in- 
 vented by Assyrians ? . . 43-4 
 Warnes : " no riders " . .56 
 Water-melon, 239; fr. India 
 
 (hindevane, kharpuz, arbiiz) . 240 
 Weasel-kind, 347-8; tamed, 348; 
 
 euphemistic names . . . 492 
 Weaving : how old, 67 ; orig. 
 m- darning across a warp, 441 ; 
 terms unlike in Greek and 
 Latin, in Slavic and Lithuanian 442 
 Weihe (kite) : mistransl. of lipai, 486 
 Weiler, wyl (hamlet) : fr. villa . 117 
 Weymouth-pine : fr. America . 395 
 Wihsela, visciola, vishnia, gaisne 
 (cherry) . . . . ^03 
 
INDEX. 
 
 523 
 
 Wilder wein (Virginia creeper) 
 
 Willow for shields 
 
 Windhund (greyhound) : fr. vert- 
 
 ragus 
 
 Wine : general in Homer, 69 ; 
 
 name Semitic, 72 5 came fr. 
 
 Greece to Italy, 74, 450-1 ; 
 
 cheaper than water, 75 ; horses 
 
 washed with, 76 ; in Germany, 
 
 Norway, 78 ; claret 
 Wine-and-oil Europe ; Beer-and 
 
 butter Europe 
 Wirsing (savoy) : fr. verza (green) 
 Wispel (bird-cherry) . 
 Woi, wuoy, vay (butter) ; woidma, 
 
 wuoitet, woitelee (anoint) : 
 
 hence fSovrvpov ? 
 Wool : plucked, not shorn . 
 
 ^iH^ai, 5t/jj3pai (pomegranate?) 
 
 Yabluko (apple), yablani (apple^ 
 tree) .... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 394 
 3' 
 
 2S2 
 
 81 
 
 119 
 
 399 
 303 
 
 129 
 409 
 
 474 
 
 499 
 
 Yain, Heb. (wine) 
 
 Yavor (maple) : fr. ahorn . 
 
 Yell, yelia (fir) . 
 
 Yeva (bird-cherry, orig. yew) 
 
 Yew (Celt, yw, e6, ivin, ibhar 
 Rom. iva, if; Teut. tva, iga. 
 iw, eow) : used for bows, turn 
 ing, carving, poison . 31, 
 
 Zalas (green), zole (grass) . 
 Zalmoxis : fr. JaXjuoe = xAoM^C ? • 
 Zebenksztis (brown weasel) . 
 Zeiber, cibara (plum) . 
 Zelenyi (green), zheltyi (yellow) . 
 Zelter (ambler) : fr. toluto . 
 Zhi'to (ffiTOE, corn) : fr. zhi-ti (live) 
 Zhrunuvu, zhernov (girna, quern) : 
 
 distinct fr. zruno 
 Zruno, zerno, zirnis (granum, 
 
 corn) . . . . • 
 Zucchero (sugar) 
 Zwiebel (onion) : not fr. zwei 
 Zythum, ?w9oe (Egyp. beer) 
 
 PAGE 
 72 
 481 
 408 
 407 
 
 407-K 
 
 428 
 428 
 
 492 
 288 
 428 
 
 377 
 432 
 
 436 
 
 436 
 390 
 159 
 120 
 
 ABEKUEEN UNIVERSITY PRKSS : JOHN THOMSON AND ]. F. THOMSON, 
 
v^-.-