ascertain,
so far as it is possible, what was the state of the Graeco-Italian
nation when the Hellenes and the Italians parted. Nor is this
a superfluous labour; we reach by means of it the stage at which
Italian civilization commenced, the starting-point of the national
history.

Agriculture

While it is probable that the Indo-Germans led a pastoral life
and were acquainted with the cereals, if at all, only in their wild
state, all indications point to the conclusion that the Graeco-Italians
were a grain-cultivating, perhaps even a vine-cultivating, people.
The evidence of this is not simply the knowledge of agriculture
itself common to both, for this does not upon the whole warrant
the inference of community of origin in the peoples who may exhibit
it. An historical connection between the Indo-Germanic agriculture
and that of the Chinese, Aramaean, and Egyptian stocks can hardly be
disputed; and yet these stocks are either alien to the Indo-Germans,
or at any rate became separated from them at a time when agriculture
was certainly still unknown. The truth is, that the more advanced
races in ancient times were, as at the present day, constantly
exchanging the implements and the plants employed in cultivation;
and when the annals of China refer the origin of Chinese agriculture
to the introduction of five species of grain that took place under
a particular king in a particular year, the story undoubtedly depicts
correctly, at least in a general way, the relations subsisting in
the earliest epochs of civilization. A common knowledge of agriculture,
like a common knowledge of the alphabet, of war chariots, of purple,
and other implements and ornaments, far more frequently warrants the
inference of an ancient intercourse between nations than of their
original unity. But as regards the Greeks and Italians, whose
mutual relations are comparatively well known, the hypothesis that
agriculture as well as writing and coinage first came to Italy by
means of the Hellenes may be characterized as wholly inadmissible.
On the other hand, the existence of a most intimate connection
between the agriculture of the one country and that of the other is
attested by their possessing in common all the oldest expressions
relating to it; -ager-, --agros--; -aro aratrum-, --aroo arotron--;
-ligo-alongside of --lachaino--; -hortus-, --chortos--; -hordeum-,
--krithei--; -milium-, --melinei--; -rapa-, --raphanis-; -malva-,
--malachei-