50 FOOD OF THE ANCIENTS. 



cessarily succeeded the savage and pastoral life ; and the cereal grains, 

 leguminous plants, tubers, bulbs and various fruits were cultivated, 

 and in such quantities as to be stored up for winter's use. 



These improvements in the social condition of man have been intro- 

 duced by conquests, but more especially as the result of commercial 

 intercourse. There are, however, still those in the East, removed 

 from such intercourse, who yet follow a pastoral life, but compara- 

 tively few who hunt wild game. The regimen among the most an- 

 cient people of the East, from the days of the patriarchs, has been lit- 

 tle changed. It is now, as then, almost exclusively vegetable. Rice 

 was cultivated among the early Egyptians and has continued the chief 

 food to the present time. To this is added a variety of agreeable and 

 nutritive fruits. 



There have been those, however, who were far advanced in agricul- 

 ture without intercourse with other people, as with the ancient Mexi- 

 cans, the Chinese, &c. It is a remarkable fact in this connection that 

 where vegetable substances are mostly cultivated and eaten, there 

 population is most redundant, as in India, China, and the most popu- 

 lous parts of the south of Europe. As the arts of agriculture advan- 

 ced in particular parts, population has increased ; and, as we have be- 

 fore said, such have become most populous and happy. All history 

 shows the truth of this and the evils resulting from an opposite state 

 of things. 



Among the improvements introduced in the progress of agriculture, 

 was that of the aid of animal power. This, it has been said, is equal 

 to five times that of man in France, and twelves times that of man in 

 England and the United States. 



For 30 on either side of the equator, vegetable substances may be 

 said every where to be the chief, and in many parts the exclusive food. 

 Beyond this, particularly towards the north, the proportion of animal 

 food increases to near the arctic regions. But the great body of man- 

 kind have heretofore subsisted and now subsist on vegetable aliment. 

 The most renowned people of antiquity, as the Egyptians, Greeks, etc. 

 have subsisted almost entirely on vegetables. 



The chief food of the heroic age, it is said, was barley, and barley 

 meal-porridge, with oil. Wheat bread, olives and figs, with cheese and 

 eggs, were the principal food of the Athenians in their best days. 

 Onions, garlics and honey, were also much eaten ; and animal food, 

 fresh and salted fish, poultry and game, were eaten by the higher, yet 

 little by the lower classes. The food of the Spartans was chiefly meal, 

 eggs, cheese and occasionally meat. Wine was occasionally drank as 

 with the Greeks generally. 



The first animal eaten was swine, because otherwise the least use- 

 ful, probably, while it was deemed wrong and unlawful to destroy the 

 ox, one of the most useful animals, particularly in cultivating the soil. 



