ments and ornaments, far more frequently warrants the inference of an ancient intercourse between nations than of their original unity. But as regards the Greeks and Italians, whose mutual relations are comparatively well known, the hypothesis that agriculture as well as writing and coinage first came to Italy by means of the Hellenes, may be characterized as wholly inadmissible. On the other hand, the existence of a most intimate connection between the agriculture of the one country and that of the other, is attested by their possessing in common all the oldest expressions relating to it; ager, ἀγρός; aro aratrum, ἀγόω ἄροτρον; ligo alongside of λαχαίνω; hortus, χόρτος; hordeum, κριθή; milium, μελίνη; rapa, ῥαφανίς; malva, μαλάχη; vinum, οἶνος. It is likewise attested by the agreement of Greek and Italian agriculture in the form of the plough, which appears of the same shape on the old Attic and the old Roman monuments; in the choice of the most ancient kinds of gram, millet, barley, spelt; in the custom of cutting the ears with the sickle, and having them trodden out by cattle on the smooth-beaten threshing-floor; lastly, in the mode of preparing the grain; puls, πόλτος; pinso, πτίσσω; mola, μύλη; for baking was of more recent origin, and on that account dough or pap was always used in the Roman ritual instead of bread. That the culture of the vine too in Italy was anterior to the earliest Greek immigration is shown by the appellation "Wine-land" (Οἰνωτρία), which appears to be as old as the earliest Greek settlements. It would thus appear that the transition from pastoral life to agriculture, or, to speak more correctly, the combination of agriculture with the earlier pastoral economy, must have taken place after the Indians had departed from the common cradle of the nations, but before the Hellenes and Italians dissolved their ancient communion. Moreover, at the time when agriculture originated, the Hellenes and Italians appear to have been united, as one national whole, not merely with each other, but with other members of the great family; at least, it is a fact, that the most important of those terms of cultivation, while they are foreign to the Asiatic members of the Indo-Germanic family, are used by the Romans and Greeks in common with the Celtic as well as the Germanic, Slavonic, and Lithuanian stocks.[1]
- ↑ Thus aro aratrum reappear in the old German aran (to plough, dialectically, eren), erida, in Slavonian orati, oradlo, in Lithuanian arti, arimnas,
