Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/248

 232 HISTORY OF GREECE. omy universally prevalent, in which the women no: only carded and spun all the wool, but also wove out of it the clothing and bedding employed in the family. Weaving was then considered as much a woman's business as spinning, and the same feeling and habits still prevail to the present day in modern Greece, where the loom is constantly seen in the peasants' cottages, and always worked by women. 1 The climate of Greece appears to be generally described by modern travellers in more favorable terms than it was by the ancients, which is easily explicable from the classical interest, picturesque beauties, and transparent atmosphere, so vividly appreciated by an English or a German eye. Herodotus, 2 Hip- pocrates, and Aristotle, treat the climate of Asia as far more genial and favorable both to animal and vegetable life, but at the same time more enervating than that of Greece : the latter, they speak of chiefly in reference to its changeful character and diversi- ties of local temperature, which they consider as highly stimulant to the energies of the inhabitants. There is reason to conclude that ancient Greece was much more healthy than the same terri- tory is at present, inasmuch as it was more industriously culti- vated, and the towns both more carefully administered and better supplied with water. But the differences in respect of health- iness, between one portion of Greece and another, appear always to have been considerable, and this, as well as the diversities cf climate, affected the local habits and character of the particular sections. Not merely Avere there great differences between the mountaineers and the inhabitants of the plains, 3 between Lokrians, JEtolians, Phokians, Dorians, CEtaeans, and Arcadians, on one hand, and the inhabitants of Attica, Bceotia, and Elis, on 1 In Egypt, the men sat at home and wove, while the women did out-door business : both the one and the other excite the surprise of Herodotus and Sophokles (Herod, ii. 35 ; Soph. (Ed. Col. 340). For the spinning and weaving of the modern Greek peasant women, see Leake, Trav. Morea, vol. i. pp. 13, 18, 223, etc. ; Strong, Stat. p. 185. z Herodot. i. 142; Hippocrat. De Afire, Loc. et Aq. c. 12-13; Aristot Polit. vii. 6, 1. 3 The mountaineers of JEtolia are, at this tin 3, unable to come down into the marshy plain of Wrachori, without being taken ill after a few dayi (Fiedler, Reise in Griech. i. p. 184).