76 THEFARMERS III
sowing or fencing the fields*.1 Here again, the activities named
refer to the tilling of the soil, and it was only in the dreamland
of fairy-tale that ample crops would grow without hard labour
When ploughing and tilling the peasant used oxen or cows
The name and cult of one of the oldest Athenian families, the
Bouxygdi^ symbolized this, especially in the plain of Athens
Various breeds of cattle were known in Attica.2 'The ox in
the stable' was a proverbial phrase for something useless 3 In
the early morning the poor peasant drives out his oxen to sow
his fields.4 The farmer who looks forward to peace and work,
remembers above all his yoke of oxen. This 'yoke of two oxen'
was a fixed and much-used expression, and represented the
usual modest number of cattle the farmer owned (see Plate
IV ay £).5 Euelpides was the owner of a 'puny pair', a two-oxen
man 6 A peasant from the mountainous district of Phyle,
where ploughing and tilling were especially hard, has lost his
two oxen and with them the support of his farm 7 We never
hear of larger numbers of cattle, although they must have
existed; the property of a rich man could be described as fields,
sheep and goats and cattle.8
The peasant, who did some corn-growing, needed his two
oxen. Milk and cheese, however, were usually taken from
goats and sheep, not from cows, and the farmer from the
Mycenaean mountains — where, as on those of Attica, few
cattle could be kept — is expressly called 'milk-drinking' 9 It
can be said as a general rule that cattle were of little importance
in the holding of the average farmer.10 'Ox-loosing time' as an
hour of the day was certainly a Homeric reminiscence rather
than a practical expression of time used in Attica, and in
1 Plierekr 130
2 Eupolis 49 speaks of KQCIVOV TI 9iTU TCOV (3ocov
3 Kratinos 32 * Eur El y8f
5 3euyo$ poi6ccpicov, or similar, frg 82,109,387, Alkaios 14. ^eOyos or juyov
therefore can take simply the meaning of a 'pair', e g, of horses (Isokr XVI,
Andok IV, 26) or even of human beings like the brothers Agamemnon and Mene-
laos (Eur. Hel. 392); exceptions are ^sOyog TpiSouAov (frg 576) and 3£uyo$
Tpmocp0evov (Eur.yr^ 357)
•8582,585 7Al022ff
8 Eupolis 153. d Eur EL i6$f
10 It is, however, an exaggeration to say that 'in historical times cattle
became more or less the^sacred animals of the temples, bred for sacrifice' (Michell,
60). Cattle, of course3 as well as pigs and lambs were often used for sacrifices
(cf P.9a5ff),