Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 5, November 1852Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 5, November 1852
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
But the identity of these laws we need only suggest to the reader; his
own mind will gather them from the scenes of daily life, and more
especially from the great collection of the results of industry, open to
his view. The influence and connection of religious feeling with the
arts of the old world must, however, receive a word of notice. The vast
variety of forms into which the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans
expanded--forms often beautiful, sometimes grotesque, but always
powerful--did not fail to include, in one mode or another, every
province of art. Sometimes this influence might retard, sometimes
accelerate progress; but, whether to aid or to hinder, it was ever
present. Not only in their pillared temples--not only in the gorgeous
and elaborate products of their high art, but by the household hearth,
in the simple labors of the field, and in the operations of the
artificer, religion was a companion and guide. The plough and the loom,
no less than the sacred shrine, were under Divine protection; the
workers in metal and the potters would look to the god of fire as their
patron; rustics to the mighty Pan; the gatherer of the grape to Bacchus;
indeed, to such a point was the feeling carried, that the very sewers in
Rome were supposed to be under the guardian care of a goddess.
I. _Agriculture--Bread and Wine._
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.
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