Waking up in the predawn dark, I rubbed my eyes and tried to get a look around the room. I had been pretty tired last night by the time I laid down. For some reason it’s a little hard to breath and feels as if a weight is pressing down on my stomach and lower half. There also seems to be a large lump underneath the covers. Lifting up the front edge and taking a peek, what do I find but my little sister sleeping on me in a skimpy nightgown that fails miserably at covering her up.
Insistently while jostling her, I prodded “Taygete... Sister wake up.”
Slowly, she sat up on my lap rubbing her eyes while blinking.
Bemused, I went to query “What are you doing here in my bed?”
Cracking a naughty grin, she chuckled, saying “Hehe, big brother, it’s a Little Sister’s job to wake you up properly first thing in the morning.” And started rubbing her hips backwards and forwards in my lap.
“Stop that nonsense, Ughh!” Sitting up and pushing her off “we’re brother and sister and can’t be doing that kind of stuff. Tomorrow, you’ll be starting at the Academy, and from now on you should be looking for your future husband to do this kind of stuff with.”
“But Big Brother, I’ve already found my future husband” Taygete said with a whine. “Where am I going to find a better husband than you?” while trying to wrap me up in hug.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going to be meeting all kinds of good-looking rich nobles and merchant sons, the sons of the rulers of other city states, even princes.”
Pushing her off, I moved to the side of the bed and put my slippers on “Do you have all your stuff packed yet to move in to the mansion in the city?”
“Yes brother, pretty much.”
“Alright then, I need to get going on my morning exercises” giving her a kiss on the forehead and getting out of bed and throwing on a jersey and some shorts for training.
Heading into the back of the estate and then to the South of the house, everything was coated in the usual heavy dew of the cool predawn, just like any other day. The South gardens were divided into a series of five sets of four raised beds that father and grandfather had been using for testing various four-year crop rotations. Each set of beds would go through rotations incorporating Nightshades, and other heavy feeders, like tomatoes, corn and peppers, the next growing Brassicaceae such as broccoli or cabbage, then another bed with Legumes with beans or peas, and then the last bed with Root Crops like carrots or beets. Mother and the mansion’s attendants maintained and harvested the beds, meticulously keeping records on the yields of the various combinations.
The fifth set of beds was spices and perennials that could be harvested year-round, such as asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, collard greens, rhubarb, artichoke, horseradish, spinach, kale, watercress, lovage, daylilies, scorzonera, sorrel and garlic. The other three beds were dedicated to growing every imaginable spice starting with chives, oregano, sage, thyme, parsley, and mint, then followed by basil, cilantro, rosemary, dill, fenugreek, turmeric, ginger, lavender, fennel, lemon balm, tarragon, bay, lemongrass, paprika, catnip, chervil, cummin and marjoram. It was pretty clear to me that father and grandfather intended to venture into the high value, high risk, high return business of selling spices into the consumer markets next.
Walking through the vegetable garden beds I stopped fifty paces from the target I’d left set up for archery practice, and started stretching out my muscles before beginning target practice drills. Nocking an arrow, aiming at the center of the target, I drew the string back to take my first shot, and noticed something from the periphery of my vision. A cute and fluffy, vegetable carnivore, destroyer of gardens, was stealthily hopping forth to claim its first victim in mother’s vegetable beds. Redirecting my arrow, I took aim and let loose. With a hearty, Cathunck, the evil long toothed, veggie patch villain was slain, never to threaten vegetable gardens again! Looks like mom and the maids would be making Hasenpfeffer stew for lunch today! So yummy, I could taste it already...!
Resuming archery practice I completed my archery drills focusing on good form at ranges of 50, 100, and 150 paces, performing target practice under the principal of quality over quantity, drilling the target. Afterwards heading to the back of the estate with my bow and the lunch I just caught to continue the last half of my exercise routine of short spear practice.
Spear practice with a short spear started with a two-handed grip of ten short thrusts with the right hand forward, and then ten more with the left hand forward. Form and accuracy being paramount, always trying to keep the spear tip at face level so as not to leave any openings, I cleanly executed each thrust. Next came 10 long range thrusts from the left and right sides each. At some point during the following short and long thrust combos on both sides, grandfather Ariphron Alcmaeonidae had come and sat down at the patio table, sipping a cup of coffee while he quietly watched my practice. Next came 10 left and right down slashes to recover the center line, each ending with the tip at face level. Spear practice finished with left and right handed spear slashes from each side followed by a long range thrust.
Grabbing my hand towel, I wiped my face and sat down across from grandfather who was from a branch of the Neleides who claimed descent from the mythological Alcmaeon, the great-grandson of Nestor of Gerenia, a legendary king of Pylos.
“Good morning Grandfather, have you been watching long?”
“Not long, I see you’ve kept up on your weapons practice. Are you going to take over for me as master at the village weapons training school when you graduate from Athena Academy?”
“Uhmm, I haven’t really thought about it. Won’t you be bored if I butt in on running the operation of the estate and the local businesses in town?”
“Not at all. It’s not like you haven’t been helping out for years and recently in the summers. Besides, if you take over, that will give me more time to give the village widows more attention, love and affection!”
“Grandfather you’re so bad! Lately I’ve been thinking that I’ve never traveled outside of Attica. I kind of want to travel and see the world after I graduate, and I don’t want to have to do it because of war.”
“Hmmm, that’s not a bad idea. I’ll have to give it some thought. Don’t you also have to find a wife in this coming year? Deinomache is great and all, but she can’t be your political wife. If you don’t find someone, your father and I will have to arrange something…”
“Ughh, don’t remind me. I’m really not looking forward to that this year coming up. Alright, I’m going to head in and get cleaned up for breakfast.” Taking my leave, I headed back inside to wash up, wipe the sweat off my body and dress for the day.
Going downstairs and into the dining area, Mother and the maids were once again working away at putting together breakfast in the adjacent kitchen dressed in their frilly white aprons. Grandfather was already sitting at the table sipping away on another cup of coffee. I plunked myself down in the chair next to him and poured myself a cup of juice.
“Good morning, Mother, did you ladies find that varmint I caught trying to poach your vegies out in the garden?”
“Yes, we already cleaned and skinned that little devil, and he is currently soaking in a spicy vinegar marinade to be made into a stew for lunchtime. He should taste pretty good with diced potatoes, carrots and finely chopped garlic and shallots seasoned with rosemary, thyme, and bay leaf when we simmer it in some water with red wine.”
Taygete and Ariphron Jr. came down and joined us at the table while the maids were setting the usual plate of Graviera and Feta cheese, bowls of fruit and fresh yogurt, along with the honey, crushed almond and fig condiments. Mother sat down to join us when the two main breakfast dishes were set out on the table.
First were several types of Bougatsa made with flaky layers of phyllo pastry and filled with creamy semolina custard. The other versions were made with meat or cheese fillings.
Next was Rizogalo; a Greek rice pudding that is sweet, creamy and oh-so delicious! The dish is made using just a few simple ingredients – rice, milk, sugar, and cinnamon. The rice is slowly cooked in the milk until it becomes tender and absorbs all the creamy goodness. Once cooked, the dish is allowed to cool and then topped with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
“Father won’t be joining us, so let’s go ahead and eat. He left early this morning in order to catch the farmers and discuss the fall harvest before they set out into the fields.”
After bowls of Rizogalo were passed out to everyone and the other breakfast items were passed around the table, the clinking of tableware began as everyone dug in.
“So, Taygete, are you excited about going to Athens for the first time? You’ll get to meet father’s mistresses, Alcyone and Peitho, as well as you’ll be starting at Athena Academy. I’m sure you’ll meet all kinds of new people and make many new friends.”
“Uhmm, I don’t know if I’m so much as excited. I’d say I’m more anxious than anything else Mother.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll have both of your big brothers looking out for you. You’ll still have to be careful considering Athens is the big city and can be a far more dangerous place than out here in the countryside where you are surrounded by our Acamantis phyle (tribe). Remember, too, that you’ll also have Alcyone there to take care of you, keep you safe and who will always be there to help. You can think of her as your second Mother.”
“Mom, doesn’t it bother you?”
“What?”
“Doesn’t it bother you that father has a couple mistresses?”
“Well, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make my jealous from time to time. After all, every woman wants to be her man’s only one. But when it gets right down to it, I can’t be in three places at once; our family’s country estate, the mansion in the city, or at the family business in Athens. All three of us women fill important roles in father’s life.
“Peitho, Xanthippus’s secretary and right-hand woman in business, has been instrumental in helping him grow and run our family businesses all these years. In business deals, the woman is the embodiment of the power of persuasion and winning eloquence, helping to bring many agreements to a successful, mutually beneficial agreement. She has also always been very persuasive in debates, emphasizing the importance of unifying society, undoubtedly assisting father in the Athenian political arena, the elitist Council of the Aeropagus, and championing the aristocratic party. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that she was instrumental in helping him become the chief magistrate and Eponymous Archon of Athens. On a personal note, she is very seductive and charming, and would be a very good person to consult about love affairs and matters of the heart.
“As for Alcyone she is about the strongest woman I know. I once saw her send a pack of hooligans fleeing. Wielding a cast iron skillet in her fist, it was like watching a woman possessed by a demon, her long hair whipping in the breeze, and her glowing red eyes, as she smacked them around. Sigh, the memories. Alcyone, besides being a beauty herself, possesses traits that Peitho is sorely lacking: she can cook and manage the household. Without her Honey would probably starve to death. Frankly, I don’t see how Peitho doesn’t starve to death herself.
“I get along well with both Peitho and Alcyone, who are both dear friends, and if they weren’t there some skanky, noble wench would undoubtedly sneak in to sink her fangs and claws into my love and steal him away from us. Better to share than to have nothing. I’m fine as long as Honey follows the rules and comes home to the country estate every weekend, which he agreed to in order to conduct his political and business affairs in Athens during the week. All will be fine as long as he does. If he doesn’t come home, there better be a damn good excuse… and apology presents, otherwise, there will be Hades to pay! Besides, if Honey needs me to come to Athens to take part in state or political affairs, I’ll bring my fancy dresses and makeup to Athens and put my armor on to stand by my husband as the beautiful and charming, noble aristocratic wife of an Archon.”
With that everybody seemed to be lost in thought as we all quietly finished up our breakfasts.
After breakfast I put on my running shoes and went for a run through the countryside on the road into the nearby country village. The route was through mostly forests of oaks, maples, beeches, hickory and chestnuts. Beneath the canopy of the deciduous trees, the forest floor was interspersed with a diverse mix of plants, including mosses, ferns, wildflowers, and other herbaceous plants, along with shrubs and small trees growing beneath in the shade of the taller trees.[i] Every once in a while, I would pass a small farm cut out of the forest before arriving in the picturesque village of Kalyvia Thorikou.
The village had its own quaint charm and beauty with mostly white, beige and light-yellow stucco one- and two-story buildings. The two-story buildings all had second story balconies and predominated on main street where every building had a store on the first floor and the living quarters of the proprietor on the second. The town had several good restaurants The Triangle, Kollias, O Christoforos, Psaraki, the pastry shop Pallis Dimitrios and a bakery Papageorgiou.
Running through the narrow cobble stone streets of the town I eventually came to the industrial lane next to the creek where the runoff from Mount Oros Gidotopi flowed through. Father and Grandfather had built a retention pond with an overflow and a sluice, with its sliding gate for controlling the flow of water down an elevated channel for conveying water, essentially an aqueduct, in order to provide water on demand to the series of family businesses along the creek side.
The raised aqueduct led first to a diverter that could redirect the stream to the waterwheel of a Gristmill used to grind cereal grains like corn, rye, barley and wheat into flour or meal. The current from the aqueduct turning the wheel powered the heavy, rotating grinding stones, through a series of gears and shafts, to grind grains. The milling process involved a fixed "bed" stone and a rotating "runner" stone with grooves that sheared the grain between them. The ground grain, or meal, would then be collected and either sifted for flour or used directly.
Harvesting wheat, rye and barley involved several steps, starting with carefully cutting the ripe grain with a sickle or scythe at the ground, binding the cut stalks into sheaves, and then threshing the grain to separate the kernels from the stalks by dragging the sheave heads through a fine-toothed metal comb mounted in the back of the wagon. The grain kernels would drop into baskets below the comb and the sheaves would be left to dry in the field, either to eventually be used as straw or forage for livestock. The grain was winnowed to remove the chaff and other debris by pouring the kernels back and forth between baskets in the back of the wagon with the wind performing the separation.
When the wagon became full the barley and rye would be brought to the warehouse in town to eventually be sent to the brewery in Athens, while the wheat kernels would be brought to the gristmill.
At the gristmill the grain would be poured into the hopper on top which regulates the flow of grain to the millstones, the heart of the grist mill. The pair of millstones consisted of a fixed "bed" stone and a rotating "runner" stone. The runner stone is connected to the power source and rotates rapidly. The bed stone is fixed in place and has grooves cut into its surface. The runner stone also has grooves cut into its surface, and the two sets of grooves work together to shear and grind the grain.
Grain is fed into a hole in the center of the runner stone from the hopper. As the runner stone rotates, it shears the grain between the grooves of the two stones. The ground grain, or meal, is then moved outwards by centrifugal force. The meal passes through grooves in the bed stone and is collected in a spout. The ground grain, or meal, is then either sifted for flour or used directly. Sifters refine the flour by separating the finer flour from the bran and coarser particles. The flour is then stored in burlap sacks while the leftover bran and germ, which are rich in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, would be used as animal feed.
The other parts of the year, when the gristmill wasn’t grinding grain, it would be repurposed as a sawmill. The waterwheel's rotation would be converted into a back-and-forth motion of a saw blade by using a connecting rod known as a "pitman arm". The saw was set up to move up and down, cutting through logs pushed towards it by a carriage system which would move the log back and forth, ensuring it was positioned correctly for each cut.
Across the street from the Gristmill was the Cooper’s shop which father owned. A cooper is a tradesperson who traditionally makes and repairs wooden barrels and casks, as well as other wooden containers like buckets and tubs. Coopers craft barrels and casks from oaken wooden staves, along with metal hoops to bind the staves together. All of the barrels used in wine making, the Athens brewery and process containers along with the bushel baskets were made there.
Next building along the creek from the Gristmill was the food processing plant where the fruit and vegetables would be taken to be washed to remove dirt and debris. Then sorted by size, color, or other characteristics. The raised aqueduct continued past the diverter at the Gristmill and down the row of industrial buildings as each one used a lot of fresh water in their processes, each with its own diverter.
The majority of fruits and vegetables would be simply cleaned here, with a certain amount being sent to the local village company store, and the rest being transported by wagon to Athens. Other fruits and vegetables had to go through further processing before heading to market. Before bringing them to market, apples would have to be sorted based on suitability for retail sale, olives would have to be sorted based on size and suitable sales route, and sugar beets would have to go through processing.
Father was adamant about catering to the Attic phyle[ii], only marking up produce 100 to 150% for the local market. He would even accept a certain amount of goods from the local farmers at 70% of retail price on consignment to be paid upon sale. It was no big deal for him, as he wouldn’t have to put up any money until the consumer paid for the goods and he bore little responsibility. Any real volume though, he would demand normal wholesale prices at 50% of retail, with the intent to transport the goods to Athens and sale into the consumer market. Risking the capital, transportation and selling costs, and the potential of spoilage, if the product didn’t sale was certainly worth it. After all, he would generally receive 200% and 300% markups at the Alcmaeonidae general stores selling into the bottomless hole of demand that was the city of Athens.
The contract farmers on the family’s country estate were also apprehensive at first following the intensive crop rotation plan father and grandfather had engineered. The agreement was that they would be provided a house with some land for a vegetable garden along with access to the estate forest to procure firewood. In exchange for farming their 50+ acre plot of land, with tools and seeds provided, all produce would be split 50/50 with their share purchased at wholesale prices minus any supporting planting and harvesting labor provided, expenses such as tool repair and milling, and other material costs like burlap sacks.
The first year was an eye opener for the contract farmers as they were farming 50+ acres of wheat and rye in the winter, rather than only 16 to 20 total. Then they doubled their profits by planting 50+ acres of spring barley over the Summer growing season. The following two years of planting root vegetable, heavy feeders and legumes were even more profitable than the small grain crops of the first year. By the end of the third year of the crop rotation cycle, the small grain crops of wheat, rye and barley were being looked down upon as a loss of potential profit!
After being washed the apples were one of the fruits that had to be sorted. The best-looking apples would go to market in bushel baskets, while the strange sized, bruised, damaged, or just plain ugly ones would be processed into apple cider vinegar which is produced through a two-stage fermentation process.
First apples are chopped up into small pieces cores and all. Then they are crushed and juiced to extract the liquid containing sugars, which are the raw material for fermentation, and put into big barrels which are then filled with fresh water. Naturally occurring yeast converts the sugars in the apple juice into alcohol through a process called fermentation. The barrels are covered with a breathable cloth and secured with a tied rope. Then they are moved to a warm, dark place for several weeks allowing the mixture to bubble and froth as it ferments.
The next step is turning the alcohol in the apple cider into vinegar through acetic acid fermentation. At this point the apple scraps are strained from the barrels and discarded as another source of livestock feed. The liquid is then poured into a clean barrel where a "mother" (a thick, gelatinous substance containing cellulose, enzymes, bacteria and yeast) from a previous batch is added to jumpstart the fermentation process. These bacteria oxidize the ethanol in the presence of oxygen, converting it into acetic acid, the primary component of vinegar. The apple cider vinegar is then aged for several months, covered with a breathable cloth, allowing the liquid to mellow and develop a tangy, vinegary flavor. The fermented vinegar is then filtered, clarified, diluted with fresh water and finally poured into sealed jars.
The next major crop that needed special processing was the sugar beets. After being scrubbed and soaked to be cleaned of soil and debris, the beets were then chopped into smaller pieces, called cossettes, to maximize surface area for sugar extraction. The cossettes were then placed in a heated large kettle to soften and leach out the raw sugar juice from the beet pulp. The rest of the juices from the beet pulp were then extracted with the mechanical screw press in order to squeeze out the last of the sugar juice. The beet pulp remaining after the sugar extraction process was then used as yet another source of animal feed.
The raw sugar juice was then filtered to remove any solid impurities and further clarified to remove other non-sugar compounds. The clarified juice was then heated and seeded with small sugar crystals, which grew in size as the water evaporated and the sugar concentration increased. Once the sugar crystals had formed, they were then separated from the molasses through a process of draining and filtering. This involved carefully pouring the mixture between vessels through a filter to allow the molasses to pass through while leaving the sugar crystals behind. The resulting sugar crystals were then put into a tall column with small holes at the bottom that were too small for the sugar crystals to pass through. Fresh water would be added daily to the top of the column and the liquid molasses sticking to the sugar crystals would steadily dissolve, over the course of weeks, slowly dripping out of the bottom of the column, purifying the sugar.
Once separation was complete the refined sugar was put in 50-pound burlap sacks to be sent to Athens for sale. The barrels of molasses that had been accumulated from filtering and leaching the sugar on the other hand were to be sent to the brewery in Athens to be distilled into beet rum.
The biggest crop that came through the food processing plant was the olive harvest, starting in the fall, with a hundred acres of olive trees with each acre producing up to 15 tons of olives each. Like the other fruits and vegetables, the picked olives were washed to remove unwanted leaves, dirt, stones and other debris. Then the olives were sorted by size and quality in order to remove any damaged or defective fruits, with those being tossed into the stone mill crusher along with any medium or small olives. The large olives were then pitted and put in one of the large barrels for the day while the pits were also tossed in the crusher.
The next step was to remove the bitter taste of the olives caused by tannins, or more accurately the compound oleuropein, by soaking them in a brine solution for two weeks. Lined up along the side of the building underneath a raised water gutter off the aqueduct were a series of 14 rows of large barrels with one day’s worth of pitted large olives in each row. The olives in each barrel were cured by soaking them in a brine solution of water with a 10% salt concentration, allowing lactic acid bacteria to ferment and break down oleuropein, with a small pot of apple cider vinegar added, which kept bad bacteria from growing. The barrels were covered with a breathable cloth and secured with a tied rope with the brine solution getting changed every other day in order to leach out the tannins and achieve the desired taste and texture.
On the fourteenth day the barrels would be drained of brine solution and then given a final rinse before the cured olives would be packed into 10-gallon sterilized amphorae ceramic jars and filled with a hot brine solution to preserve their flavor and texture, and help seal the jar as the brine solution cooled. The amphorae would then be sent to market and the now empty barrels would then be ready to receive that day’s harvest of pitted large olives.
Every day of the harvesting season the smaller and rejected olives along with the removed pits would be crushed into a paste using a stone mill roller on a wooden shaft manually rotated in a circle in a large vat. The paste would then be kneaded with a stirring oar to break down oil droplets and facilitate separation. The olive paste would next get spread on woven circular mats stacked in a pile and pressed using a mechanical screw press. The extracted oil would then be separated from the remaining solid matter and water with a cloth filter and by draining off the olive oil on top, which is less dense than water, the remnants would be yet another source of animal fodder. The resulting cold pressed extra virgin olive oil produced would next be put in a large 900-gallon tonneau storage barrel of which there were many. With 30-50 gallons of olive oil being produced per ton of olives, and potentially 1500 tons total, that meant every harvest could ultimately result in 45,000 to 75,000 gallons of olive oil being produced.
[i] What I am describing here is a temperate deciduous forest. A temperate climate generally receives moderate amounts of rainfall, averaging between 30 and 60 inches (750 to 1,500 mm) per year. This precipitation is spread throughout the year, with varying intensities depending on the specific location within the temperate zone. We’ll peg it at the median of 45 inches (1143 mm) for this story because that’s the kind of climate I live in. For historical purposes, the climate would be more accurately that of a temperate deciduous forest locked in a perpetual springtime due to the Earth’s perpendicular rotation while orbiting around the Sun. Though truly, the ‘Winters’ would be cooler than the ‘Summers’ due to the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun varying by about 3 million miles (5 million km) between its closest and farthest points.
I would label the current climate of Attica Greece as bone dry, though they would describe it as temperate Mediterranean. In a temperate Mediterranean climate, the average annual rainfall typically ranges from 30 to 45 inches (750 to 1,143 mm). This precipitation is concentrated during the cooler winter months, with summers generally being dry. The climate is characterized by mild winters and hot, dry summers.
The average annual rainfall in Attica, Greece is approximately 16.3 inches (415 mm). This total is spread throughout the year, with the winter months (October through March) typically receiving about 80% of the annual precipitation. It would be more accurate to describe their climate as semi-arid, which is known for supporting grasses and scrubby vegetation like shrubs and small trees due to the limited water availability. Such a climate is often found transitioning between arid deserts and more humid regions.
Additionally, the types of trees and vegetation in Attica, Greece have changed over time, with pine trees becoming more prevalent, and they are also smaller in part due to a combination of historical land use practices, climate change, and forest management issues. As Greek civilization expanded, forests were cleared in order to create pastureland and for various purposes, including producing firewood, charcoal (used in pottery and industrial processes), and timber. This resulted in a significant reduction of large, mature trees.
[ii] Tribal clan.