eir
special property, but in the time of Servius there was a distribution.
Attention was chiefly given to cereals, but roots and vegetables were also
diligently cultivated. Vineyards were introduced before the Greeks made
settlements in Italy, but the olive was brought to Italy by the Greeks.
The fig-tree is a native of Italy. The plow was drawn by oxen, while
horses, asses, and mules were used as beasts of burden. The farm was
stocked with swine and poultry, especially geese. The plow was a rude
instrument, but no field was reckoned perfectly tilled unless the furrows
were so close that harrowing was deemed unnecessary. Farming on a large
scale was not usual, and the proprietor of land worked on the soil with
his sons. The use of slaves was a later custom, when large estates arose.

(M784) Trades scarcely kept pace with agriculture, although in the time of
Numa eight guilds of craftsmen were numbered among the institutions of
Rome--flute-blowers, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, carpenters, fullers, dyers,
potters, and shoemakers. There was no yield for workers in iron, which
shows that iron was a later introduction than copper.

(M785) Commerce was limited to the mutual dealings of the Italians
themselves. Fairs are of great antiquity, distinguished from ordinary
markets, and barter and traffic were carried on in them, especially that
of Soracte, being before Greek or Phoenicians entered from the sea. Oxen
and sheep, grain and slaves, were the common mediums of exchange. Latium
was, however, deficient of articles of export, and was pre-eminently an
agricultural country.

(M786) The use of measures and weights was earlier than the art of
writing, although the latter is of high antiquity. Latin poetry began in
the lyrical form. Dancing was a common trade, and this was accompanied
with pipers, and religious litanies were sung from the remotest antiquity.
Comic songs were sung in Saturnian metre, accompanied by the pipe. The art
of dancing was a public care, and a powerful impulse was early given by
Hellenic games. But in all the arts of music and poetry there was not the
easy development as in Greece. Architecture owed its first impulse to the
Etruscans, who borrowed from the Greeks, and was not of much account till
the reigns of the Tuscan kings.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC TILL THE INVASION OF THE GAULS.

(M787) The Tarquins being expelled, political power fell into the han