In Greece and Italy 267 



Strabo in his travels seems to have discovered favored 

 lands where the golden age still lingered, though it is to be 

 feared a vivid imagination helped color the picture. 



He tells us, — 



" Hyrcania is very fertile, and extensive, consisting for 

 the most part of plains, and has considerable cities dis- 

 persed throughout it. . . . 



" The following facts are narrated as indications of the 

 fertility of the country. The vine produces a metretes of 

 wine ; the fig-tree sixty medimni of fruit ; the corn grows 

 from the seed which falls out of the stalk ; bees make their 

 hives in the trees, and honey drops from among the leaves. 



" This is the case also in the territory of Matiane in 

 Media, and in the Sacasene, and Araxene of Armenia." 



The bees continued to find joy in the oaks even after the 

 golden age had passed, and Virgil sings thus of an enticing 

 spot, in his description of a poetical contest between the 

 shepherds Thyrsis and Corydon : — 



" Here Mincius hath fringed the verdant banks with ten- 

 der reed, and from the sacred oak swarms of bees resound." 



The story of the bees on Mount Ida is not the only account 

 given of their origin, for it is said that Melissa, a very beau- 

 tiful woman, was transformed into a bee by Zeus, and 

 that from her the bees received their classical name of 

 Melissa. 



Euhemerus, according to Columella, says that bees were 

 bred from hornets and the sun, and were educated by cer- 

 tain nymphs to become nurses of the young Zeus, and that 

 later the god gave them power to collect and store up for 

 themselves the same food they had provided for him in his 

 infancy. Still others say that Amalthea and Melissa were 

 the two daughters of Melisseus, king of Crete, and that they 

 took care of the young god, feeding him upon goat's-milk 

 and honey. 



