CHAPTER XII. The Greek System.

read Horace remember the fame of the wines of Chios, and accordingly the wine-jar is a regular adjunct of the mintage of that island. Now there is proof that the trade in wine was of extreme antiquity, if not in the islands just mentioned, at least in Lemnos, and that that trade was carried on by barter, for we read in Homer how “many ships stood in from Lemnos bringing wine, which Euneos the son of Jason had sent forward, whom Hypsipyle had borne to Jason shepherd of the folk, but separately for the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, the son of Jason gave wine to be fetched, a thousand measures. From thence used the flowing-haired Achaeans to buy their wine, some with copper, some with glittering iron, some with hides, others with the kine themselves, others again with slaves²⁶.” From what we