Much of the wine, however, exported by the Athenians into foreign countries was the produce of the islands. Demosth. cont. Lacrit. § 8. Footnote 1778: Schol. Aristoph. Plut. 720. Athen. ii. 76. Footnote 1779: Plat. De Rep. iii. t. vi. p. 142. Sweetmeats seem in Greece to have been exported exactly as at present, in boxes of peculiar construction in which they were afterwards kept till eaten. This I think may be inferred from the following passage of the letter from Hippolochos to Lynceus: καὶ τελευταῖαι ἐπεισῆλθον ἐπιδορπίαι τράπεζαι· τραγήματα τ᾽ ἐν πλεκτοῖς ἐλεφαντίνοις ἐπεδόθη πᾶσι, καὶ πλακοῦντες ἕκαστα γένη, Κρητικῶν, καὶ τῶν σῶν, ἑταῖρε Λυγκεῦ, Σαμιακῶν, καὶ Ἀττικῶν, αὐταῖς ταῖς ιδίαις τῶν πεμμάτων θήκαις. Athen. iv. 5. Footnote 1780: Athen. vii. 24. Footnote 1781: Aristoph. Acharn. 901, sqq. Athen. vii. 22. Footnote 1782: Athen. xii. 57. Footnote 1783: Athen. vii. 23. Footnote 1784: Strab. ix. 1. t. ii. p. 246. Footnote 1785: Lucian. Jup. Tragœd. § 10. Chandler, ii. 280. Footnote 1786: Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, ii. 434. Footnote 1787: Dioscor. v. 108. Plin. xxxiii. 56. Footnote 1788: Theophrast. De Lapid. § 59. Plin. Nat. Hist. iii. 37. ----- Another class of exports consisted of statues and works of arts of all kinds, in gold, marble, bronze, and ivory, jewellery, and engraved gems. But the most valuable and commodious of all her merchandise was that silver[1789] of unrivalled purity and fineness which so long placed her foremost among the commercial states of antiquity, and was one of the great props of her empire both by sea and land. ----- Footnote 1789: Strab. ix. 1. t. ii. p. 246. Suid. v. ἀργυροῦν, t. i. p. 415. e. Thucyd. ii. 55. vi. 91. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 361, 1091. Pausan. i. 1. 1. ----- In the matter of imports we shall consider Athens in a double point of view; first as the purchaser of the surplus produce of the other Grecian states,[1790] and second as the representative of Greece in general, collecting together in her ports the commodities of the rest of the world, and afterwards distributing them among her neighbours. With the Megaris, which once formed part of her own territory, Athens, at particular periods of her history, carried on an active traffic in the common necessaries of life,—as groats,[1791] fish,[1792] salt,[1793] goats, vegetables,[1794] leverets, poultry, pigs, and cattle.[1795] Hemlock was likewise numbered among the exports of Megara,[1796] together with jars,[1797] and rough upper garments.[1798] It seems probable moreover that, as numerous sheep were reared in this territory, fine wool was likewise on occasions imported thence into Attica,[1799] together with the rich sweet wine made at Ægosthena.[1800] ----- Footnote 1790: