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An ear of barley, symbol of wealth in the city of Metapontum in Magna Graecia (i.e. the Greek colonies of southern Italy), stamped stater, c. 530–510 BCE. During the early time of Greek history, as shown in the Odyssey, Greek agriculture - and diet - was based on cereals (sitos, though usually translated as wheat, could in fact designate any type of cereal grain).
In ancient Greece and Rome, the captive breeding of livestock, particularly the rearing of cattle, was an integral part of the economy. In both the Greek and Roman economies of antiquity, cattle were seen as a determiner of wealth, and herds often served as a dowry in certain arranged-marriage scenarios, as they still do today in many African ...
Agriculture in ancient Greece was hindered by the topography of mainland Greece that only allowed for roughly 10% of the land to be cultivated properly, necessitating the specialised exportation of oil and wine and importation of grains from Thrace (centered in what is now Bulgaria) and the Greek colonies of Pontic Greeks near the Black Sea.
Helios, who in Greek mythology is the god of the Sun, is said to have had seven herds of oxen and seven flocks of sheep, each numbering fifty head. [3] In the Odyssey, Homer describes these immortal cattle as handsome (ἄριστος), wide-browed (εὐρυμέτωπος), fat, and straight-horned (ὀρθόκραιρος). [4]
In ancient Greece, a hecatomb (UK: / ˈ h ɛ k ə t uː m /; US: / ˈ h ɛ k ə t oʊ m /; Ancient Greek: ἑκατόμβη hekatómbē) was a sacrifice of 100 cattle (hekaton "one hundred", bous "bull") to the Greek gods. In practice, as few as 12 could make up a hecatomb. [1]
Some ancient authors say that Augeas was one of the Argonauts. [1] He is known for his stables, which housed the single greatest number of cattle in the country and had never been cleaned, until the time of the great hero Heracles .
The economy of ancient Greece was defined largely by the region's dependence on imported goods. As a result of the poor quality of Greece 's soil , agricultural trade was of particular importance. The impact of limited crop production was somewhat offset by Greece's paramount location, as its position in the Mediterranean gave its provinces ...
Cyrene and Cattle by Edward Calvert, 1830s or 1840s. Cyrene (/ s aɪ ˈ r iː n i /, sy-REE-nee), also spelled Kyrene (/ k aɪ ˈ r iː n i /, ky-REE-nee; Ancient Greek: Κυρήνη, romanized: Kurḗnē) is a figure in Greek mythology considered the etymon of the Greek colony of Cyrene in eastern Libya in North Africa.