The task, however, of determining the degree of culture which
the Indo-Germans had attained before the separation of the stocks
properly belongs to the general history of the ancient world. It
is on the other hand the special task of Italian history to ascertain,
so far as it is possible, what was the state of the Graeco-Italian
nation when the Hellenes and the Italians parted. Nor is this
a superfluous labour; we reach by means of it the stage at which
Italian civilization commenced, the starting-point of the national
history.


Agriculture


While it is probable that the Indo-Germans led a pastoral life
and were acquainted with the cereals, if at all, only in their wild
state, all indications point to the conclusion that the Graeco-Italians
were a grain-cultivating, perhaps even a vine-cultivating, people.
The evidence of this is not simply the knowledge of agriculture
itself common to both, for this does not upon the whole warrant
the inference of community of origin in the peoples who may exhibit
it. An historical connection between the Indo-Germanic agriculture
and that of the Chinese, Aramaean, and Egyptian stocks can hardly be
disputed; and yet these stocks are either alien to the Indo-Germans,
or at any rate became separated from them at a time when agriculture
was certainly still unknown. The truth is, that the more advanced
races in ancient times were, as at the present day, constantly
exchanging the implements and the plants employed in cultivation;