Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/247

 VEGETATION. - DIET. 2. f .> other ol' them, together with vegetables and fish, (sometimes fresh, but more frequently salt,) was the common food of the population ; the Arcadians fed much upon pork, and the Spartans also con- sumed animal food ; but by the Greeks, generally, fresh meat seems to have been little eaten, except at festivals and sacrifices. The Athenians, the most commercial people in Greece proper, though their light, dry, and comparatively poor soil produced excellent barley, nevertheless, did not grow enough corn for their own consumption : they imported considerable supplies of corn from Sicily, from the coast of the Euxine, and the Tauric Cher- sonese, and salt-fish both from the Propontis and even from Gades :' the distance from whence these supplies came, when we take into consideration the extent of fine corn-land in Bceotia and Thessaly, proves how little internal trade existed between the various regions of Greece proper. The exports of Athens consisted in her figs and other fruit, olives, oil, for all of which she was distinguished, together with pottery, ornamental man- ufactures, and the silver from her mines at Laureion. Salt-fish, doubtless, found its way more or less throughout all Greece ; 2 but the population of other states in Greece lived more exclusively upon their own produce than the Athenians, with less of purchase and sale, 3 a mode of life assisted by the simple domestic econ- 1 Theophrast. Caus. PI. ix. 2 ; Demosthen. adv. Leptin. c. 9. That salt- fish from the Propontis and from Gades was sold in the markets of Athens during the Peloponnesian war, appears from a fragment of the Marikas of Eupolis (Fr. 23, ed. Meineke ; Stephan. Byz. v. Tdtieipa) : TLorep 1 fyv rb rupt^oc, ' u[j.oiaiv t^w Tprj^slav uauJ.uv 'Ix&vf it; 'Apyovf elf leyeav tyspov, etc. The Odyssey mentions certain inland people, who knew nothing either of the sea, or of ships, or the taste of salt : Pausanias looks for them in Epirus (Odyss. xi. 121 ; Pausan. i. 12, 3). 3 A.i)TOVpyoi re yap elffi TlehoTTOvvrjaioi (says Penkles, in his speech to the Athenians, at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, Thncyd. i. 141) Kot OVTE idia OVTE kv KOIV& ^pjy/iara iariv avroif, etc, u>6pff yeupyol xai i, etc. (ib. c. 142.)
 * Simonides, Fragm. 109, Gaisford.