Note 261 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.
William Dansey translation
Ὅσοι τὴν γῆν ἐργάζονται. Every art and science had, in classic mythology, its divine guardian, from whom it first emanated, and by whose liberal condescension mankind were instructed in the rudiments of their several callings:
Oppian. Hal. L. ii. 15.
κεῖνοι καὶ τέχνας πολυκερδέας ἀνθρώποισιν δῶκαν ἔχειν, καὶ πᾶσαν ἐπιφροσόνην ἐνεήκαν. ἄλλος δ’ ἀλλοίοισιν ἐπώνυμος ἔπλετο δαίμων ἔργοις, οἷσιν ἕκαστος ἐπίσκοπον ᾔρατο τιμήν.
The tutelar deities of husbandmen were Ceres, Proserpine, and Bacchus. Hence, in the beginning of the first Georgic, amongst the “agrestum præsentia numina,” Virgil invokes conjointly “Liber et alma Ceres;” and Pindar designates Bacchus,
Isthm. L. vii. 3.
χαλκοκρότου πάρεδρον Δαμάτερος.
Artemidor. Oneirocrit. L. ii. c. 39.
Δημήτηρ δὲ καὶ Κόρη, καὶ ὁ λεγόμενος Ἴακχος, says the Ephesian visionary, γεωργοῖς καὶ τοῖς κτήσασθαι γῆν προῃρημένοις ἀγαθαί. The department of rural economy under the tutelage of Ceres is succinctly stated by Oppian in the second book of his Halieutics:
Oppian. Hal. L. ii. 19.
Δηὼ μὲν ζεύγλης τε βοῶν, ἀρότοιο τε γαίης πυρῶν τ’ εὐκάρποιο φέρει γέρας ἀμήτοιο.
The connexion of Proserpine with husbandry is not so clear; but as Nicomedia, our author’s native city, was sacred both to the mother and daughter, and he held the office of priest in the temple of the latter, we may suppose him fully acquainted with all her tutelary distinctions, of which the patronage of agriculture seems to have been one.
Bacchus’s presidency was principally confined, in his character of Vitisator, to the culture of vineyards:Artemidor. Oneirocrit. L. ii. c. 37. Διόνυσος τοῖς γεωργοῖς συμφέρει τοῖς τὸν ξυλικὸν καρπὸν γεωργοῦσι, μάλιστα ἀμπέλους. To the three deities of Arrian here mentioned, Virgil subjoins others, Georgic. L. i. 21.“studium quibus arva tueri,” whom the philosophic courser allows to extend their fostering care to venation—at least some of them, as Pan, the Nymphs, &c.