ANCIENT AGRICULTURAL LITERATURE. 141 



of a simile which is perfectly plain to those who under- 

 stand the proprieties of ploughing. In the agricultural 

 compartment of Achilles' shield, we see before us no poeti- 

 cal field, but a deep loamy fallow, the texture and colour 

 of which indicate that it is receiving its third farrow ; and 

 in the crop of grain which is falling before the sickle, we 

 have an accurate division of labour which a Norfolk farmer 

 might do well to imitate : 



"Sxrivrpev i%eiiv, itrrvxii if* oypou yw66<rvvos Ktjp. 



This must have been in the palmy days of protection. 

 Probably few of our living poets would be capable of giving, 

 and as few of their readers of appreciating, so detailed an 

 account of the simplest farming operations. These notices 

 of agriculture in Herodotus and Thucydides are only inci- 

 dental ; but a work by Theophrastus, which has descended 

 to us, is by no means, as Mr. Hoskyns intimates, a mere 

 " botanical catalogue of plants." It contains many useful 

 practical directions, and frequently discriminates, with much 

 accuracy, between the modes of husbandry suited to dif- 

 ferent countries and climates. 



Xenophon is said to have bought and occupied a farm 

 near Smyrna, where he wrote the agricultural treatise com- 

 monly called his CEconomicks, and which is frequently ap- 

 pended to the Memorabilia. It treats of farming, garden- 

 ing, and household management, under which last head it 

 gives valuable instructions for the government of wives. 

 Cicero praises this treatise highly. It contains the passage 

 in which Cyrus the younger exhibits himself to Lysander 

 as 'The Persian farmer;' " ut intelligatis," says Cicero, 

 " nihil ei tarn regale videri quam studium agricolendi." 



The few notices which we possess of Carthaginian agri- 

 culture are singular, and scarcely reconcilable with each 

 other. Heeren reckons the fertile provinces of Carthage 

 in Africa to have been about equal in area to Ireland ; and 

 divides the remainder of their African territory between 



