Note 282 — Chapter XI · - THE ROMAN GENS.

“During the period when the Indo-Germanic nations which are now separated still formed one stock speaking the same language, they attained a certain stage of culture, and they had a vocabulary corresponding to it. This vocabulary the several nations carried along with them, in its conventionally established use, as a common dowry and a foundation for further structures of their own.... In this way we possess evidence of the development of pastoral life at that remote epoch in the unalterably fixed names of domestic animals; the Sanskrit gâus is the Latin bos, the Greek [βοῦς Greek: bous]; Sanskrit avis, is the Latin ovis, the Greek ὄϊς; Sanskrit açvas, Latin equus, Greek ἵππος; Sanskrit hañsas, Latin anser, Greek [χήν Greek: chên]; ... on the other hand, we have as yet no certain proofs of the existence of agriculture at this period. Language rather favors the negative view.”—Mommsen’s History of Rome, Dickson’s Trans., Scribner’s ed., 1871, i, 37. In a note he remarks that “barley, wheat, and spelt were found growing together in a wild state on the right bank of the Euphrates, northwest from Anah. The growth of barley and wheat in a wild state in Mesopotamia had already been mentioned by the Babylonian historian, Berosus.”

Fick remarks upon the same subject as follows: “While pasturage evidently formed the foundation of primitive social life we can find in it but very slight beginnings of agriculture. They were acquainted to be sure with a few of the grains, but the cultivation of these was carried on very incidentally in order to gain a supply of milk and flesh. The material existence of the people rested in no way upon agriculture. This becomes entirely clear from the small number of primitive words which have reference to agriculture. These words are yava, wild fruit, varka, hoe, or plow, rava, sickle, together with pio, pinsere [to bake] and mak, Gk. μάσσω, which give indications of threshing out and grinding of grain.”—Fick’s Primitive Unity of Indo-European Languages, Göttingen, 1873, p. 280. See also Chips From a German Workshop, ii, 42.

With reference to the possession of agriculture by the Graeco-Italic people, see Mommsen, i, p. 47, et seq.