32 THE PASTORAL BEES. 



Emperor Augustus one day inquired of a centena- 

 rian how he had kept his vigor of mind and body so 

 long ; to which the veteran replied that it was by 

 -' oil without and honey within." Cicero, in his " Old 

 Age," classes honey with meat and milk and cheese 

 as among the staple articles with which a well-kept 

 farm-house will be supplied. 



Italy and Greece, in fact all the Mediterranean 

 countries, appear to have been famous lands for 

 honey. Mount Hymettus, Mount Hybla, and Mount 

 Ida produced what may be called the classic honey of 

 antiquity, an article doubtless in no wise superior to 

 our best products. Leigh Hunt's " Jar of Honey " is 

 mainly distilled from Sicilian history and literature, 

 Theocritus furnishing the best yield. Sicily has always 

 been rich in bees. Swinburne (the traveler of a hun- 

 dred years ago) says the woods on this island abounded 

 in wild honey, and that the people also had many hives 

 near their houses. The idyls of Theocritus are native 

 to the island in this respect, and abound in bees 

 " flat-nosed bees " as he calls them in the Seventh 

 Idyl and comparisons in which comb-honey is the 

 standard of the most delectable of this world's goods. 

 His goatherds can think of no greater bliss than that 

 he mouth be filled with honey-combs, or to be in- 

 Josed in a chest like Daphnis and fed on the combs 

 f bees ; and among the delectables with which AT- 

 inoe cherishes Adonis are " honey-cakes," and other 

 tid-bits made of " sweet honey." In the country oi 

 Theocritus this custom is said still to prevail : when 



