16 



DISCOVERY 



and baki'd. In tlii' summer, tlicn, you have the shep- 

 herds of the mountains taking up their flocks, as they 

 do to-day, to the cooler altitudes where pasture is to 

 be found, and in winter coming down below the snow- 

 level. Their flocks are sheep and goats which they 

 keep for milk, wool, and goats'-hair.' The ancient, 

 like the modern, shepherds were a wild and lawless 

 crowd. The mountains are natural hiding-places for 

 fugitives from justice ; thej' are also the no-man's 

 land between us and the enemy-state across the range * ; 

 and there are sheep-stealcrs, two-legged and four- 

 legged, to be dealt with. For there arc wild beasts in 

 the forest belt. Wolves were so predatory in Attica 

 that a reward was paid for each wolf destroyed, as it 

 was in early days in England. Boars, too, were to 

 be found and hunted in the forest.' 



Below the mountain and on its lower slopes, where 

 patches could be terraced into fields, lived the small 

 farmer. About his life and habits we know a good 

 deal from the poems of Hesiod (eighth century B.C.). 



The farmer, then as now, was a grumbler. The 

 climate of Ascra, where Hesiod lived, was " vile ; cold 

 in winter, hot in summer, never good." Of course 

 the winter in Greece is cold. Although the sun is 

 warmer than with us, the piercing winds sweep down 

 from the snow-clad hills. " Wretched days they 

 are," says Hesiod, " all of them fit to flay an ox, and 

 the frosts are cruel when the north wind blows over 

 the earth — then all the immense forest roars, and the 



• Cattle were kept, as in modern Greece, solely for draught 

 purposes. I remember failing to persuade a Cretan shepherd 

 that it was no traveller's tale, but true, that in England sheep 

 were not milked, but cows were. 



' Compare the life of the shepherds indicated in Sophocles' 

 (Edipus Tyrannus, of which Prof. Murray and more recently 

 Mr. J. T. Sheppard have published translations. 



' The brown bear was extinct in Attica in the fifth century, 

 but there is interesting evidence of its earlier existence in the 

 bear dance which all Athenian maidens had to perform in 

 honour of the bear goddess, Artemis Brauronia. Lions were 

 well known to Homer, who frequently makes poetical use of 

 their attacks upon flocks and herds. Herodotus gives the 

 rivers Achelous (in -Xcarnania) and Nestus (on the north coast 

 of the vEgean) as the limits of the distribution of the lion 

 in his day. They attacked Xcr.xes' sumpter-camels when he 

 was marching through Thrace to the invasion of Greece, and 

 so greatly did they appreciate this new delicacy that they 

 touched, so the historian assures us, neither man nor other 

 baggage animals (Herodotus, vii, pp. 125, 126). Lions were 

 still to be found in .Macedonia at the end of the first century 

 A.D. The saga of Mcleager and the story of the great boar 

 of Calydon will be familiar. Boar-hunting remained a popular 

 manly sport in Attica down to the fourth century, as references 

 in Aristophanes and the Orators testify. None of these wild 

 beasts arc to be met with in Modern Greece, though a few 

 wild goats survive in Crete, and wild pig is fairly common in 

 parts of Asia Minor. I have not myself seen the small brown 

 bear, but was assured that it was to be found in the mountains 

 of Anti-Taurus. 



beasts shudder and put their tails between their legs, 

 even those whose hide is covered with fur ; for with 

 his bitter blast he blows even through them, although 

 they are shaggy breasted. He goes even through an 

 ox's hide ; it docs not stop him. But it does not 

 blow through the tender maiden who stays indoors 

 with her dear mother." It was a great temptation 

 in this cold weather to spend the day gossiping by the 

 warmth of the forge in the village smithy, which in 

 ancient Greece, as in rural England to-day, was the 

 rustic club. Hesiod warns his pupil against the waste 

 of time. " Pass by the smithy and its crowded lounge 

 in winter-time when the cold keeps men from field 

 work, for then an industrious man can greatly prosper 

 his house " ; there is plenty to do indoors mending 

 and making gear. 



The other close time is the summer. The Greek 

 har\-est is in May. In July and August it is too hot 

 for work, and the ground gets baked as hard as brick.* 

 Even Hesiod countenances a rest in the summer. 

 " But when the artichoke flow-ers [June] and the 

 chirping cicada sits in a tree and pours his shrill song 

 continually from under his wings in the season of 

 wearisome heat, then goats are plumpest and wine 

 sweetest, but men are feeblest because the Dog Star 

 parches head and knees and the skin is dry through 

 heat. But at that time let me have a shady rock and 

 wine of Biblis, a clot of curds and milk of drained goats, 

 with the flesh of an heifer fed in the woods, that has 

 never calved, and of firstling kids ; then also let me 

 drink bright wine sitting in the shade, when my heart 

 is satisfied with food ; and so, turning my head to 

 face the fresh breeze, from the overflowing spring 

 which pours down unfouled, thrice pour an offering 

 of water, but make a fourth libation of wine."' 



Old Hesiod must have been a good companion to 

 sit with under the shady rock by the fountain. He 

 was a wise old man with the wisdom of those who live 

 patiently with nature. He knows all about the stars 

 and birds and beasts and flowers. It is they who 

 mark his calendar, and he trusts to the observation of 

 tlieir habits in place of the artificial division of months, 



* During the war it was necessary to construct a landing- 

 place for Handley-Page aeroplanes near Suda, in Crete. The 

 clods, where the ground was furrowed, were so hard that the 

 only available steam roller made no impression on them, and 

 they had to be broken by hand with picks. 



5 Greeks disliked water-drinkers. " They say," says Demos- 

 thenes, " that being a water-drinker, I am naturally a cross- 

 grained and ungenial fellow " (Demosthenes, Philip, ii. 30, 73 ; 

 cf. Aristophanes. Knights, ii. 89. 345). But they did not 

 drink their wine neat. The proportion of water to wine varied, 

 and might be decided by the president of the company, who 

 also prescribed the toasts.. The normal mixture in the fifth 

 century seems to have been three of water to two of wine 

 tVristophanes. Knighli, 1 187). The proportion five to two is also 

 mentioned as usual (Athenseus, x. 426). 



