Taking a natural arrangement of our subject, into food, clothing, dwellings, traveling, and so forth, we must first glance at those arts which supply the merely animal wants of man. Agriculture was highly valued and skillfully pursued among both nations, though the Romans appear to have estimated the art even more highly than the Greeks. In both countries the soil was fertile, and the productions very similar. Wheat, barley, the olive, the vine, flax, and the fig-tree, with a great variety of garden products, may be enumerated. With regard to the live-stock, horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, and swine were reared for the ends of labor or for consumption; but the first-mentioned appear to have been scarce in Greece. The flesh of the kid and pork were the meats in most general use; but animal food, especially among the Greeks, was not so generally consumed as in our own day. Details of production and consumption cannot here be gone into; and we will therefore take the two main productions of both countries--their bread and wine--as examples in this respect.
The plough in use among the ancients differs very little from that still employed in modern times; in all important points, a close similarity is visible. The fashion and combination of these parts varied with them as with us, in order to fit the instrument for different soils. The Greeks and Romans usually ploughed their land three times before sowing; namely, in the spring, summer, and autumn of the year. But in some soils of great tenacity there were nine different ploughings, as mentioned by the younger Pliny in the description of his villa and lands in Tuscany. The harrows, rakes, hoes, spades, and agricultural implements, scarcely demand more than to be mentioned. We need only say, that the general processes of agriculture, including systems of manuring and irrigation, furnished materials for copious dissertations, and were not in Rome considered beneath the notice of the highest citizens.
Grain, when trodden out, shaken, or beaten by the flail from the straw, was, in very early times, pounded in mortars. But a simple form of mill, generally worked by hand, soon superseded the first rough contrivance. In its best form, this consisted of a cone of rough stone, on which was applied a hollow cone of the same material, which revolved in contact with the first. The upper mill-stone was furnished with levers, and turned either by slaves, by mules, or asses. It was hollowed out above into a cup-like shape, to receive the corn, which fell in a stream into a space between the two surfaces, and was reduced to flour before its escape below. Each country family had one or more mills, to grind for its own consumption; and thus the want of public machine mills was supplied. Water-mills were an invention of comparatively late date. They were of simple construction, consisting merely of a cogged wheel, which turned a second connected with the upper mill-stone.