The humble establishment of Hesiod’s farmer does not possess a mill; he has nothing better than a wooden pestle and mortar for grinding or bruising the corn; both are constructed, and the wood cut from the trees, by his own hand (Opp. Di. 423), though it seems that a professional carpenter (“the servant of Athênê,”) is required to put together the plough (v. 430). The Virgilian poem _Moretum_, (v. 24,) assigns a hand-mill even to the humblest rural establishment. The instructive article “Corn Mills,” in Beckmann’s Hist. of Inventions (vol. i. p. 227, Eng. transl.), collects all the information available about this subject. [169] See Lysias, Or. 1, p. 93 (De Cæde Eratosthenis). Plutarch (Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, c. 21, p. 1101),—~Παχυσκελὴς~ ἀλετρὶς πρὸς μύλην κινουμένη,—and Kallimachus, (Hymn. ad Delum, 242,)—μηδ᾽ ὅθι δειλαὶ Δυστοκέες μογέουσιν ἀλετρίδες,—notice the overworked condition of these women. The “grinding slaves” (ἀλετρίδες) are expressly named in one of the Laws of Ethelbert, king of Kent, and constitute the second class in point of value among the female slaves (Law xi. Thorpe’s Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, vol. i. p. 7). [170] Odyss. iv. 131; xix. 235. [171] Odyss. vi. 96; Hymn, ad Dêmêtr. 105. [172] Herodot. viii. 137. We obtain no particulars respecting either the common freemen generally, or the particular class of them called Thêtes. These latter, engaged for special jobs, or at the harvest and other busy seasons of field labor, seem to have given their labor in exchange for board and clothing: they are mentioned in the same line with the slaves,[173] and were (as has been just observed) probably on the whole little better off. The condition of a poor freeman in those days, without a lot of land of his own, going about from one temporary job to another, and having no powerful family and no social authority to look up to for protection, must have been sufficiently miserable. When Eumæus indulged his expectation of being manumitted by his masters, he thought at the same time that they would give him a wife, a house, and a lot of land near to themselves;[174] without which collateral advantages, simple manumission might perhaps have been no improvement in his condition. To be Thête in the service of a very poor farmer is selected by Achilles as the maximum of human hardship: such a person could not give to his Thête the same ample food, and good shoes and clothing, as the wealthy chief Eurymachus, while he would exact more severe labor.[175] It was probably among such smaller occupants, who could not advance the price necessary to purchase slaves, and were glad to save the cost of keep when they did not need service, that the Thêtes found employment: though we may conclude that the brave and strong amongst these poor freemen found it preferable to accompany some freebooting chief and to live