ABSTRACT
EVERY nation, even when its life has become highly centralized in towns, has a hir number of industries which are carried on in the home. Such was at all times the custom of Oriental countries. This system was more or less in practice on the shores of the Ægean from the time when the cave-dwellers fashioned implements of stone to the age when the A thenians gloried in the Parthenon. In prehistoric times, from Crete to Mycenre and from Cyprus to Troy, the work of producing food, clothing, and certain other articles was generally carried on in the houses, in the king’s palace as well as in the peasant’s hut. But each family had to fill in the gaps in its own production from the surplus of others. Gradually the manufacture of certain obj ects, particularly those made of wood, bronze, and terra cotta, called for complicated apparatus or a technical training which made it perforce a specialized trade. Wherever there was a sufficiently dense population, the advantages offered to all by the division of labour led everyone to adopt a profession of his own. Only one person could retain the domestic organiza ion, while bringing together the most eminent workmen and artists under his roof. That was the king. Thus pre-Hellenic society presents, as in an epitome of economic history, very varied types of industry.
