Swine-rearing, on the other hand, played a very small part, for it was not sufficiently remunerative. Although the flesh was used for food, yet, in the historic period it was not so popular a dish as in the age of Homer, and they did not understand how to draw a profit in other ways from swine. Cattle-rearing was conducted on tolerably rational principles. They were very careful in the choice of the animals used for breeding, and in very early times attempts were made to improve the race by importing foreign kinds from other countries. The cattle were chiefly fed on pasture; the herds were driven out not only in summer, but even in winter, when the climate permitted it; and in summer they were taken to the mountains and forests, in winter to the plains. The sheep got most attention, because the excellence of the wool depended on the care they received, and Diogenes is supposed to have said that it was better at Megara to be a ram than the son of a citizen, for the sheep were carefully covered up, but the children were allowed to run about naked. This custom of covering the sheep with skins to preserve the wool existed in other places too. As Greece was not rich in pasture land, there was a difficulty occasionally in providing sufficient pasture for the herds; sometimes they had to be sent to very distant parts, it even happened that states made treaties together, which permitted the citizens of one state to use the pasture land of another for a fixed period. During the Homeric age, handicraftsmen seem to have been in a position which, corresponding to the ideas entertained in ancient times about physical labour, was by no means despised. This is easily comprehensible, since even the gods were represented as undertaking the labour of artisans; Hephaestus working at a forge, Athene weaving; and we find even the heroes, the princes, and nobles sometimes themselves working as carpenters and joiners, and with their own hands constructing some object for their home; nowhere in Homer do we find a trace of contempt for hand-work. Of course, handicrafts were not much developed at that time, and there were only a small number of crafts which could be looked upon as actual trades, such as that of smiths, workers in gold, carpenters, stone masons, etc., while many occupations which afterwards formed a distinct trade were performed at home by the masters and slaves. In later times a very important change took place connected with the political and social revolutions already mentioned. Agriculture and cattle-rearing were still regarded as an occupation which a free citizen might carry on without degrading himself, since the more menial part of the work was performed by slaves or hired labourers, and the master only superintended; but the work of the handicraftsmen was designated by them with the word mechanical (βάναυσος), a word indicating a contempt that cannot be expressed in the translation. This