BEE MANUAL, 5 



hives deposited in the hollows of old trees and in the cavities 

 of rocks, and forming, even in that rude age, a valuable branch 

 of commerce, ... all displayed the liberality of nature 

 and tempted the industry of man." The same writer tells us 

 that in the time of Constantino the Great (a.d. 306 to 337) 

 the people of Chersonesus (the present Crimea) were supplied 

 from the Roman Provinces of the East, with corn and manu- 

 factures " which they purchased with their only productions, salt, 

 wax and hides." The ambassadors of Theodosius II. to Attila, 

 king of the Huns, when travelling through part of the country 

 now called Hungary (about a.d. 450) "received from the con- 

 tiguous villages a plentiful supply of provisions," amongst 

 which is noted " mead instead, of wine." But however 

 primitive niajr have been the mode of obtaining honey in 

 those unsettled countries, great progress, both in the art of 

 bee-keeping and in mercantile dealings in honey and wax, 

 must have been made in the civilised provinces, as it is 

 mentioned, on the authority of a writer named Synesius, 

 that when the Goths, under Alaric, sacked the city of Athens, 

 A.D. 396, that city " was at that time less famous for its 

 schools of philosophy than for its trade in honey." 



In the seventh century the Emperor Heraclius raised a sort 

 of forced loan from the churches at Constantinople to meet 

 some war expenses, and on that occasion it is related that 

 barrels of honey (ostensibly) packed away among the church 

 stores were found to be really filled with gold. This anecdote 

 serves to indicate how extensively honey was used, and how it 

 was kept in those times. About the same time, when Persia 

 was overrun by the Saracen Caliph, after the great battle of 

 Nehavend, the fugitive general of the Persians was stopped 

 and overtaken "in a crowd of camels and mules laden with 

 honey," an incident which, as Gibbon remarks, " however 

 slight or singular, will denote the luxurious impedimenta 

 of an Oriental army." It is also related that Mahomet, 

 who was very temperate and sparing in his diet, " delighted 

 in the taste of milk and honey;" and that this taste was 

 general among the Arabs we may conclude from the 

 circumstance mentioned by Gibbon, that with them " the 

 perfection of language out-stripped the refinements of 

 manners, and their speech could diversify the fourscore names 

 of honey." 



