Part 28
The sculptures of the tombs frequently represent canals conveying the water of the inundation into the fields, and the proprietor of the estate is seen, as described by Virgil, plying in a light painted skiff or papyrus punt, and superintending the maintenance of the dykes, or other important matters connected with the land. Boats carry the grain to the granary, or remove the flocks from the lowlands; as the water subsides the husbandman plows the soft earth with a pair of oxen, and the same subjects introduce the offering of first-fruits of the gods in acknowledgment of the benefits conferred by "a favorable Nile." The main canal was usually carried to the upper or southern side of the land, and small branches, leading from it at intervals, traversed the fields in straight or curving lines, according to the nature or elevation of the soil.
Guards were placed to watch the dykes which protected the lowlands, and the utmost care was taken to prevent any sudden influx of water which might endanger the produce still growing there, the cattle, or the villages. And of such importance was the preservation of the dykes that a strong guard of cavalry and infantry was always in attendance for their protection; certain officers of responsibility were appointed to superintend them, being furnished with large sums of money for their maintenance and repairs, and in the time of Romans any person found destroying a dyke was condemned to hard labor in the public works or in the mines, or was branded and transported to the Oasis. According to Strabo, the system was so admirably managed, "that art contrived sometimes to supply what nature denied, and, by means of canals and embankments, there was little difference in the quantity of land irrigated, whether the inundation was deficient or abundant." "If," continues the geographer, "it rose only to the height of eight cubits, the usual idea was that a famine would ensue, fourteen being required for a plentiful harvest; but when Petronius was præfect of Egypt twelve cubits gave the same abundance, nor did they suffer from want even at eight;" and it may be supposed that long experience had taught the ancient Egyptians to obtain similar results from the same means, which, neglected at a subsequent period, were revived, rather than, as Strabo thinks, first introduced, by the Romans.
In some parts of Egypt the villages were liable to be overflowed when the Nile rose to more than an ordinary height, by which the lives and property of the inhabitants were endangered, and when their crude brick houses had been long exposed to the damp the foundations gave way, and the fallen walls, saturated with water, were once more mixed with the mud from which they had been extracted. On these occasions the blessings of the Nile entailed heavy losses on the inhabitants, for, according to Pliny, "if the rise of water exceeded sixteen cubits famine was the result, as when it only reached the height of twelve." In another place he says, "a proper inundation is of sixteen cubits * * * * in twelve cubits the country suffers from famine, and feels a deficiency even in thirteen; fourteen cause joy, fifteen security, sixteen delight; the greatest rise of the river to this period being of eighteen cubits, in the reign of Claudius; the least during the Pharsalic war."
The land being cleared of the water, and presenting in some places a surface of liquid mud, in others nearly dried by the sun and the strong northwest winds (that continue at intervals to the end of Autumn and commencement of Winter), the husbandman prepared the ground to receive the seed, which was either done by the plow and hoe, or by more simple means, according to the nature of the soil, the quality of the produce they intended to cultivate, or the time the land had remained under water.
When the levels were low and the water had continued long upon the land they often dispensed with the plow, and, like their successors, broke up the ground with hoes, or simply dragged the moist mud with bushes after the seed had been thrown upon the surface, and then merely drove a number of cattle, asses, pigs, sheep, or goats into the field to tread in the grain. "In no country," says Herodotus, "do they gather their seed with so little labor. They are not obliged to trace deep furrows with the plow and break the clods, nor to partition out their fields into numerous forms as other people do, but when the river of itself overflows the land, and the water retires again, they sow their fields, driving the pigs over them to tread in the seed, and this being done every one patiently awaits the harvest." On other occasions they used to plow, but were contented, as we are told by Diodorus and Columella, with "tracing slight furrows with light plows on the surface of the land," and others followed with wooden hoes to break the clods of the rich and tenacious soil.
The modern Egyptians sometimes substitute for the hoe a machine called _khonfud_, "hedgehog," which consists of a cylinder studded with projecting iron pins, to break the clods after the land has been plowed, but this is only used when great care is required in the tillage of the land, and they frequently dispense with the hoe, contenting themselves, also, with the same slight furrows as their predecessors, which do not exceed the depth of a few inches, measuring from the lowest part to the summit of the ridge. It is difficult to say if the modern Egyptians derived the hint of the "_hedgehog_" from their predecessors, but it is a curious fact that a clod-crushing machine, not very unlike that of Egypt, has only lately been invented in England, which was shown at the Great Exhibition.
The ancient plow was entirely of wood, and of as simple a form as that of modern Egypt. It consisted of a share, two handles, and the pole or beam, which last was inserted into the lower end of the stilt, or the base of the handles, and was strengthened by a rope connecting it with the heel. It had no coulter, nor were wheels applied to any Egyptian plow, but it is probable that the point was shod with a metal sock, either of bronze or iron. It was drawn by two oxen, and the plowman guided and drove them with a long goad, without the assistance of reins, which are used by modern Egyptians. He was sometimes accompanied by another man, who drove the animals, while he managed the two handles of the plow, and sometimes the whip was substituted for the more usual goad.
Cows were occasionally put to the plow, and it may not have been unknown to them that the cow plows quicker than the ox.
The mode of yoking the beasts was exceedingly simple. Across the extremity of the pole, a wooden yoke or cross-bar, about fifty-five inches, or five feet, in length was fastened by a strap lashed backwards and forwards over a prominence projecting from the centre of the yoke, which corresponded to a similar peg, or knob, at the end of the pole, and, occasionally, in addition to these, was a ring passing over them as in some Greek chariots. At either end of the yoke was a flat or slightly concave projection, of semi-circular form, which rested on a pad placed upon the withers of the animal, and through a hole on either side of it passed a thong for suspending the shoulder-pieces which formed the collar. These were two wooden bars, forked at about half their length, padded so as to protect the shoulder from friction, and connected at the lower end by a strong broad band passing under the throat.
Sometimes the draught, instead of being from the withers, was from the head, the yoke being tied to the base of the horns, and in religious ceremonies oxen frequently drew the bier, or the sacred shrine, by a rope fastened to the upper part of the horns, without either yoke or pole.
From a passage in Deuteronomy, "Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together," it might be inferred that the custom of yoking two different animals to the plow was common in Egypt; but it was evidently not so, and the Hebrew lawgiver had probably in view a practice adopted by some of the people of Syria, whose country the Israelites were about to occupy.
The hoe was of wood, like the fork, and many other implements of husbandry, and in form was not unlike the letter A, with one limb shorter than the other, and curving inwards. The longer limb, or handle, was of uniform thickness, round and smooth, sometimes with a knob at the end, and the lower extremity of the blade was of increased breadth, and either terminated in a sharp point, or was rounded at the end. The blade was frequently inserted into the handle, and they were bound together, about the centre, with twisted rope. Being the most common tool, answering for hoe, spade, and pick, it is frequently represented in the sculptures, and several, which were found in the tombs of Thebes, are preserved in the museums of Europe.
The hoe in hieroglyphics stands for the letter M, though the name of this instrument was in Egyptian, as in Arabic, _Tore_. It forms the commencement of the word _Mai_, "_beloved_," and enters into numerous other combinations.
There are no instances of hoes with metal blades, except of very late time, nor is there any proof of the plowshare having been sheathed with metal.
The ax had a metal blade, either bronze or iron, and the peasants are sometimes represented felling trees with this implement, while others are employed in hoeing the field preparatory to its being sown--confirming what we have observed, that the ancient, as well as the modern, Egyptians frequently dispensed with the use of the plow.
The admission of swine into the fields, mentioned by Herodotus, should rather have been before than after they had sown the land, since their habits would do little good to the farmer, and other animals would answer as well for "treading in the grain;" but they may have been used before for clearing the fields of the roots and weeds encouraged by the inundation; and this seems to be confirmed by the herd of pigs with water plants represented in the tombs.
They sometimes used a top dressing of nitrous soil, which was spread over the surface; a custom continued to the present day; but this was confined to certain crops, and principally to those reared late in the year, the fertilizing properties of the alluvial deposit answering all the purposes of the richest manure.
Besides the admixture of nitrous earth the Egyptians made use of other kinds of dressing, and sought for different productions the soils best suited to them. They even took advantage of the edge of the desert for growing the vine and some other plants, which, being composed of clay and sand, was peculiarly adapted to such as required a light soil, and the cultivation of this additional tract, which only stood in need of proper irrigation to become highly productive, had the advantage of increasing considerably the extent of the arable land of Egypt. In many places we still find evidence of its having been tilled by the ancient inhabitants, even to the late time of the Roman empire; and in some parts of the Fyoom the vestiges of beds and channels for irrigation, as well as the roots of vines, are found in sites lying far above the level of the rest of the country.
The occupation of the husbandman depended much on the produce he had determined on rearing. Those who solely cultivated corn had little more to do than to await the time of harvest, but many crops required constant attention, and some stood in need of frequent artificial irrigation.
[Page Decoration]
[Page Decoration]
BAKING, DYEING AND PAINTING.
The fame of an actor has been justly said to be of all fame the most perishable, because he leaves no memorial of his powers, except in the fading memories of the generation which has beheld him. An analogous proposition might be made with respect to the mechanical arts: of all sorts of knowledge they are the most perishable, because the knowledge of them can not be transmitted by mere description. Let any great convulsion of nature put an end to their practice for a generation or two, and though the scientific part of them may be preserved in books, the skill in manipulation, acquired by a long series of improvements, is lost. If the United States be destined to relapse into such a state of barbarism as Italy passed through in the period which divides ancient and modern history, its inhabitants a thousand years hence will know little more of the manual process of printing, dyeing, and the other arts which minister to our daily comfort, in spite of all the books which have been and shall be written, than we know of the manual processes of ancient Italy. We reckon, therefore, among the most interesting discoveries of Pompeii, those which relate to the manner of conducting handicrafts, of which it is not too much to say that we know nothing except through this medium. It is to be regretted, that as far as our information goes, there are but two trades on which any light has yet been thrown, those, namely, of the baker and the dyer. We shall devote this chapter to collecting what is known upon these subjects, and probably also speak some on painting.
Several bakers' shops have been found, all in a tolerable state of preservation. The mills, the oven, the kneading-troughs, the vessels for containing flour, water, leaven, have all been discovered, and seem to leave nothing wanting to our knowledge; in some of the vessels the very flour remained, still capable of being identified, though reduced almost to a cinder. But in the centre some lumps of whitish matter resembling chalk remained, which, when wetted and placed on a red-hot iron, gave out the peculiar color which flour thus treated emits. Even the very bread, in a perfect though carbonized form, has in some instances been found in the oven. One of these bakers' shops was attached to the House of Sallust, another to the House of Pansa: probably they were worth a handsome rent. A third, which we select for description, for one will serve perfectly as a type for the whole, seems to have belonged to a man of higher class, a sort of capitalist; for, instead of renting a mere dependency of another man's house, he lived in a tolerably good house of his own, of which the bakery forms a part. It stands next to the House of Sallust, on the south side, being divided from it only by a narrow street. Its front is in the main street or Via Consularis, leading from the gate of Herculaneum to the Forum. Entering by a small vestibule, the visitor finds himself in a tetrastyle atrium (a thing not common at Pompeii), of ample dimensions, considering the character of the house, being about thirty-six feet by thirty. The pillars which supported the ceiling are square and solid, and their size, combined with indications observed in a fragment of the entablature, led Mazois to suppose that, instead of a roof, they had been surmounted by a terrace. The impluvium is marble. At the end of the atrium is what would be called a tablinum in the house of a man of family, through which we enter the bake-house, which is at the back of the house, and opens into the smaller street, which, diverging from the main street at the fountain by Pansa's house, runs up straight to the city walls. The atrium is surrounded by different apartments, offering abundant accommodation, but such as we need not stop to describe.
[Illustration: MILL AND BAKERY AT POMPEII.]
The work-room is about thirty-three feet long by twenty-six. The centre is occupied by four stone mills, exactly like those found in the other two stores, for all the bakers ground their own flour. To give more room they are placed diagonally, so as to form, not a square, but a lozenge. Mazois was present at the excavation of this house, and saw the mills at the moment of their discovery, when the iron-work, though entirely rust-eaten, was yet perfect enough to explain satisfactorily the method of construction. This will be best understood from the following representation, one half of which is an elevation, the other half a section. The cut on page 365 gives some idea of them.
The base is a cylindrical stone, about five feet in diameter and two feet high. Upon this, forming part of the same block, or else firmly fixed into it, is a conical projection about two feet high, the sides slightly curving inwards. Upon this there rests another block, externally resembling a dice-box, internally an hour-glass, being shaped into two hollow cones with their vertices towards each other, the lower one fitting the conical surface on which it rests, though not with any degree of accuracy. To diminish friction, however, a strong iron pivot was inserted in the top of the solid cone, and a corresponding socket let into the narrow part of the hour-glass. Four holes were cut through the stone parallel to this pivot. The narrow part was hooped on the outside with iron, into which wooden bars were inserted, by means of which the upper stone was turned upon its pivot, by the labor of men or asses. The upper hollow cone served as a hopper, and was filled with corn, which fell by degrees through the four holes upon the solid cone, and was reduced to powder by friction between the two rough surfaces. Of course it worked its way to the bottom by degrees, and fell out on the cylindrical base, round which a channel was cut to facilitate the collection. These machines are about six feet high in the whole, made of a rough gray volcanic stone, full of large crystals of leucite. Thus rude, in a period of high refinement and luxury, was one of the commonest and most necessary machines--thus careless were the Romans of the amount of labor wasted in preparing an article of daily and universal consumption. This, probably, arose in chief from the employment of slaves, the hardness of whose task was little cared for; while the profit and encouragement to enterprise on the part of the professional baker was proportionately diminished, since every family of wealth probably prepared its bread at home. But the same inattention to the useful arts runs through everything that they did. Their skill in working metals was equal to ours; nothing can be more beautiful than the execution of tripods, lamps, and vases, nothing coarser than their locks; while at the same time the door-handles, bolts, etc., which were seen, are often exquisitely wrought. To what cause can this sluggishness be referred? At present we see that a material improvement in any article, though so trifling as a corkscrew or pencil-case, is pretty sure to make the fortune of some man, though unfortunately that man is very often not the inventor. Had the encouragement to industry been the same, the result would have been the same. Articles of luxury were in high request, and of them the supply was first-rate. But the demands of a luxurious nobility would never have repaid any man for devoting his attention to the improvement of mills or perfecting smith's work, and there was little general commerce to set ingenuity at work. Italy imported largely both agricultural produce and manufactures in the shape of tribute from a conquered world, and probably exported part of her peculiar productions; but we are not aware that there is any ground for supposing that she manufactured goods for exportation to any extent.
Originally mills were turned by hand, (many establishments may still be seen in the streets of Naples for grinding corn by means of a hand-mill, turned by a man. Such flour-shops have always a picture of the Madonna inside,) and this severe labor seems, in all half-savage times, to have been conducted by women. It was so in Egypt; it was so in Greece in the time of Homer, who employs fifty females in the house of Alcinous upon this service. It was so in Palestine in the time of the Evangelists, and in England in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. We find a passage of St. Matthew thus rendered by Wicliffe: "Two wymmen schulen (shall) be grinding in one querne," or hand-mill; and Harrison the historian, two centuries later, says that his wife ground her malt at home upon her quern. Among the Romans poor freemen used sometimes to hire themselves out to the service of the mill when all other resources failed; and Plautus is said to have done so, being reduced to the extreme of poverty, and to have composed his comedies while thus employed. This labor, however, fell chiefly upon slaves, and is represented as being the severest drudgery which they had to undergo. Those who had been guilty of any offense were sent to the mill as a punishment, and sometimes forced to work in chains. Asses, however, were used by those who could afford it. That useful animal seems to have been employed in the establishment we are describing, for the fragment of a jaw-bone, with several teeth in it, was found in a room which seems to have been the stable; and the floor about the mill is paved with rough pieces of stone, while in the rest of the rooms it is made of stucco or compost. The use of water-mills, however, was not unknown to the Romans. Vitruvius describes their construction in terms not inapplicable to the mechanism of a common mill of the present day, and other ancient authors refer to them. "Set not your hands to the mill, O women that turn the millstone! sleep sound though the cock's crow announce the dawn, for Ceres has charged the nymphs with the labors which employed your arms. These, dashing from the summit of a wheel, make its axle revolve, which, by the help of moving radii, sets in action the weight of four hollow mills. We taste anew the life of the first men, since we have learnt to enjoy, without fatigue, the produce of Ceres."
In the centre of the pier, at the back, is the aperture to the cistern by which the water used in making bread was supplied. On each side are vessels to hold the water. On the pier above is a painting, divided horizontally into two compartments. The figures in the upper ones are said to represent the worship of the goddess Fornax, the goddess of the oven, which seems to have been deified solely for the advantages which it possessed over the old method of baking on the hearth. Below, two guardian serpents roll towards an altar crowned with a fruit very much like a pine-apple; while above, two little birds are in chase of large flies. These birds, thus placed in a symbolical picture, may be considered, in perfect accordance with the spirit of ancient mythology, as emblems of the genii of the place, employed in driving those troublesome insects from the bread.