IX. THE ‘CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS’ OR ‘OLD OLIGARCH.’
One of the most remarkable documents that have come down to us bearing upon Athenian politics is the ‘Constitution[143] of Athens’ wrongly assigned to Xenophon. It is certainly the work of an earlier writer, and the date of its composition can be fixed as between 430 and 424 BC. Thus it refers to the first years of the Peloponnesian war, during which Attica was repeatedly invaded, its rural economy upset, and the manifold consequences of overcrowding in the city of refuge were beginning to shew themselves. Not a few of the ‘better classes’ of Athenian citizens (οἱ βέλτιστοι) were dissatisfied with the readiness of the Demos, under the guidance of Pericles, to carry out a maritime and aggressive policy abroad at the cost of sacrificing rural interests at home. For the sacrifice fell on the landowners, more particularly on the larger owners: the compensations[144] of state-pay and chances of plunder might suffice for the peasant farmer driven into Athens. At the same time it was undeniable that the astounding energy displayed by democratic Athens had surprised the Greek world; and the most discontented Athenian could hardly suppress an emotion of patriotic pride. The writer of the pamphlet before us—for a pamphlet it is—was under the influence of these conflicting feelings. Whether it is right to describe him as an Oligarch depends on what that term is taken to connote. That he would greatly prefer a system[145] under which the educated orderly and honest citizens should enjoy greater consideration and power, is evident: also that in his view these qualities are normal attributes of the wealthier classes. For he finds in poverty the main cause[146] of democratic misdeeds. That the masses are ill-informed and lack judgment and self-control, is the result of their preoccupation with necessities of daily life. But from this conviction to aiming at a serious oligarchic revolution is a long step. The democracy in its less aggressive form, before the recent developments owing to the presence of an idle refugee population, might conceivably have sufficed for his requirements. He is a prejudiced contemporary witness, frank and cynical in the extreme, praising the Demos for doing the very things that he hates and despises, because those things are in the interest of the democracy such as it appears to him: they would be fools to act otherwise. For convenience sake I follow Mr Zimmern[147] in calling him the Old Oligarch.
His disgust at the lack of discipline in the slaves at Athens, and his ingenious explanation[148] of the causes that have led to toleration of the nuisance, are very characteristic of his whole attitude. But the slaves of whom he speaks are those labourers whom their owners allowed to work for hire in the city and Peiraeus, taking a share of their pay as rent for their services. Perhaps the state slaves are meant also. He admits that you have to put up with the airs of these fellows, who often become men of substance (πλούσιοι δοῦλοι) and think themselves as good as the citizens. Truth is, the master depends on the return he gets from his investment: if the rent comes in regularly, he asks no questions and the slave is given[149] a free hand. No wonder the bondman jostles his betters in the public streets, a state of things inconceivable in orderly Sparta. Now on the face of it this picture has nothing to do with the agricultural situation. But let us look further. The stress of the great war had increased the city population. The increased demand for imported food-stuffs and for materials of war (such as ship-timber) had undoubtedly increased the demand for dock-labourers, boatmen, porters, carters, and other ‘hands.’ Male citizens had enough to do in services by land and sea. From what source was the extra force of rough able-bodied labour recruited? Is it likely that a number of raw barbarian slaves were imported for the purpose? I think not; time would be needed to make them efficient, and the available shipping had already a difficult task to keep up the supply of indispensable goods. Is it not much more likely that rustic slaves, brought into Athens by their owners, were turned to account[150] in another department of labour, thus earning wages for themselves while they maintained their masters? The probability of this view will depend largely on proof that rustic slaves were employed in Attica under normal conditions at this time. We shall presently see how the evidence of Aristophanes bears on the point.
Meanwhile let us see what references to agriculture are to be found in this pamphlet. In speaking of the nautical skill[151] now a common accomplishment among Athenians, the writer remarks that the possession of estates abroad, and the duties of offices concerned with external affairs, have something to do with it. Men have to cross the water: they and their attendants (ἀκόλουθοι) thus pick up skill by experience without intending it: for it happens time and again that both master and slave (καὶ αὐτὸν καὶ τὸν οἰκέτην) have to take a turn at the oar. The estates referred to are chiefly state-lands allotted to Athenian cleruchs in confiscated districts, but also private properties. The voyages to and fro are nothing exceptional. Whether a man resided on his estate and had need to visit Athens, or whether he resided in Athens and had to visit his estate from time to time, he must go to sea. It is to be borne in mind that allottees in cleruchies often let their lands to the former owners as tenants. In another passage[152] he points out the disadvantage to Athens, as a maritime power, of not being on an island and so secure from invasion. ‘As things are, those Athenians who farm land or are wealthy (οἱ γεωργοῦντες καὶ οἱ πλούσιοι) are more inclined to conciliate the enemy (ὑπέρχονται = cringe to), while the Demos, well aware that their own belongings are in no danger of destruction, is unconcerned and defiant.’ A notable admission, confirmed by other evidence, as we shall see. It is to be observed that farmers and wealthy men are coupled together. The class more especially meant are probably those represented in Aristophanes by the substantial farmers of the Peace. But capitalists with investments in land are also included, and small-holders or tenants; these last working the land themselves, but not necessarily without employing hired or slave labour.
X. ARISTOPHANES.
Aristophanes is a witness of great importance. Of eleven surviving plays the Acharnians appeared in 425 BC, the Plutus in 388. Thus we have from this prince of wit and humour a series of comments on the social and political life of Athens and Attica from the point of view of conservative admirers of good old times. The evidence of Comedy is liable to be suspect, on the ground of a tendency to exaggerate and distort facts: but to make allowances for this tendency is not a task of extreme difficulty. Nor can it fairly be said that the political bias of the poet is such as to deprive his evidence of all authority. If he seems at times to be singularly detached from the prejudices of the war-party, dominating Athens under the democratic leaders, and able to discern and boldly to declare that the right was not solely on their own side in the war; still he was a warm patriot, devoted to the Athens whose defects he could not ignore. Among the striking events of the time nothing seems to have impressed him more forcibly than the devastation of Attica and the consequent ruin of the agricultural interest. That the cooping-up of the rural population[153] within the walls month after month was a progressive calamity, could hardly escape the notice of any one then resident. It was not merely the squalor or the appalling sickness, though these were in themselves enough to produce a terrible strain. Discontent and recklessness took hold of the masses, and other observers beside Aristophanes remarked the degeneration of the democracy. Aristophanes was an opponent of the war-policy, and strove hard to rally the farmer-folk in favour of peace. He spared no pains to discredit the noisy demagogues, accusing them of prolonging the war in order to retain or increase their own importance at the cost of the soundest element in the civic body. But, while he turned the farmers’ grievances to account in political advocacy, he was no mere unscrupulous partisan. His frequent references to the homely joys of country life, sometimes in sympathetic rural vignettes, have the ring of sincerity. Like many another dweller in the unwholesome city, he sighed for the fresh air, the wholesome food, the peace and quiet of Attic farmsteads: no doubt he idealized the surroundings, though he did not depict them as scenes of spotless innocence. But the details that drop out casually are often very significant from the point of view of my inquiry, and very helpful as giving us a genuine picture of the time.
On no point is information more to be desired than the relation of agriculture to wealth. Is the typical farmer of the period a man of large estate or not? We have seen that the ‘old oligarch’ classed together the wealthy and the farmers as favouring a peace-policy. That such a body of opinion, large or small, existed in Athens, is also suggested by passages in Aristophanes. In the Ecclesiazusae, the play in which the leader of the female politicians offers to cure distress by a communistic scheme, we are told[154] that a proposal to mobilize a fleet divides the Assembly: the poor man votes for it, but the wealthy and the farmers are against it. I take it that, as in the case of the Sicilian expedition, the man who wants to get paid for service (with a chance of profit) supports the motion; those who dislike having to pay for the enterprise, or see no way of profiting by it, are in opposition. This is a phenomenon normal in politics, and does not tell us whether the ‘farmers’ are cultivators on a large scale or small. Later in the play we find a protest[155] against the iniquity of the present juxtaposition of wealth and destitution, the state of things in which one man farms much land while another has not enough to afford him a grave. Even a comic poet would hardly put this into the mouth of one of his characters if there were not some section of the audience to whom it might appeal. It is probable that at the time (393-2 BC) communistic suggestions were among the currents of opinion in humbled and impoverished Athens. To squeeze the rich had long been the policy of the democrats, and a jealousy of wealth in any form became endemic in the distressful city. A few years later (388 BC) the poet gave in the Plutus a pointed discussion[156] of economic questions, ridiculing the notion that all could be rich at the same time: for nobody would work, and so civilization would come to an end. True, the individualistic bent of the average Athenian, grasping and litigious, prevented the establishment of downright communism: but Athens was henceforth never free from the jealous and hardly patriotic demands of the clamorous poor We must remember that military service, no longer offering prospects of profit in addition to pay, was becoming unpopular; that land-allotments[157] in conquered territories had ceased; and that agriculture in a large part of Attica was toilsome and unremunerative. Poverty was widespread, and commerce declined: this implies that the supply of slaves, and the money to buy them, would be reduced. Was there then much to attract the poor man to the lonely tillage of a patch of rocky land? The generation of small farmers before and during the great war had some outlook for themselves and their sons, serving in victorious armies or fleets, getting booty or allotments abroad. Hence they took a keen interest in politics. The fall of Athens had changed all this: the profits of empire had departed, and with them the buoyancy of an imperial pride. No wonder if there were signs of unwillingness to follow a hard rustic life. So the Informer in the Plutus[158], when asked ‘are you a husbandman?’ replies ‘do you take me for a madman?’ Earlier in the play[159] Chremylus, wishing to share with old cronies the profits of having captured the god of wealth, says to his slave ‘invite my fellow farmers: I fancy you’ll find them working themselves (αὐτοὺς) on their farms.’
I have taken this later picture first, in order to bring out more clearly the contrast presented by that given in the earlier plays. Naturally enough, many details are the same in both, but the general character of the farmers is different. The farmer class makes an important figure. They are sturdy rustics[160], old-fashioned and independent, rough in manners, fond of simple country life, and inclined (perhaps justly) to mistrust the city folk, who cheat them in business whenever they can, and take advantage of them in other ways, such as liability to military service at short notice. When driven to take refuge in Athens, their hearts are in their farms, and they have to make up their minds whether to support the war-party in hope of regaining their homes and property by force of arms, or to press for peace in order to end what is from their point of view an unnecessary war, kept going in the interest of demagogues and others who are profiting by the opportunities of offices and campaigns abroad. The issue appears in our earliest play, the Acharnians (425 BC). The farmers of the deme Acharnae, one of whose occupations was wood-cutting and charcoal-burning, at first come on as stubborn rustics, all for war and revenge on the enemy. But Dicaeopolis the chief character of the play, himself a farmer, and a sufferer in the same kind by the Spartan raids, succeeds in persuading[161] them that Athenian policy, provocative and grasping, is really to blame for their losses. In the end they come over to his views, and the play serves as a manifesto of the peace-party. Of course we are not to take it as history. But the conflict between the two sections of opinion is probably real enough. When Dicaeopolis describes[162] himself as ‘with my eyes ever turned to my farm, a lover of peace, detesting the city and hankering after my own deme, that never yet bade me buy charcoal or rough wine or olive oil,’ he is giving us a portrait of the rustic who is resolved not to part with cash for what can be produced on the farm.
But, whatever policy may seem best adapted to achieve their purpose, the purpose itself is clearly and consistently marked. The desire of the war-time farmers is simply to return to their farms[163] and to resume the life of toil and plenty, varied by occasional festivals, that had been interrupted by the war. They long to escape from the abominations of the crowding and unhealthiness prevailing in the city. Once they get back to their old surroundings, all will be well. Time and labour will even repair the damages caused by the enemy. No misgivings suggest that a change of circumstances may be found to have robbed Attic country life of some of its charm. Nothing like the loss of the empire, the fall of Athens, and the deadly depression of economic and political life, is foreboded: they face the sequel with undisturbed faith in the stability of the existing system. Nor indeed until the Sicilian disaster (413 BC) was there much to cause uneasiness. So we find the same spirit illustrated in the Peace (421 BC), which may be regarded as driving home the lesson of the Acharnians. The agricultural interests are now represented as solidly in favour of the peace of Nicias, unsatisfactory though it soon proved to be. While other interests are slack, indifferent or even hostile, farmers are whole-hearted[164] in determination to end the war and go home. Trygaeus their leader, according to the Greek sketch of the plot an elderly rustic, describes himself[165] as a ‘skilled vine-dresser, one who is no informer or fomenter of troubles (lawsuits).’ Needless to say, he carries his point, and the farmers march off triumphant[166] to their farms, eager to take up the old easygoing life once more. We must not take our comic poet too literally, but we have no reason to doubt that feelings such as he depicts in this play did prevail, and perhaps widely. And, though the peace was insincere, and warfare never really ceased, the immunity of Attica from invasion for several years gave time for agriculture to revive. When Agis occupied Deceleia in the winter of 413, his marauders would find on the Attic farms all manner of improvements and new plantations to destroy. And the destruction of the fruits of a laborious revival is to be reckoned among the depressing influences that weighed upon falling and desperate Athens. It was surely at work in the year 411, when Aristophanes was preaching a policy of concord at home and sympathetic treatment of the Allies in order to save the shaken empire. In the Lysistrata he represents the mad war-fury of the Greek states as due to the misguided men, whom the women coerce by privation into willingness for peace. This is strung up into a passionate longing, so that neither[167] of the principal parties is disposed to haggle over details. The Athenian breaks out ‘I want to strip and work my land at once.’ The Spartan rejoins ‘and I want to be carting manure.’ There is still no misgiving expressed, and the poet is probably true to facts. The struggles of the time were a fearful strain on Athenian resources, but it still seemed possible that the empire would weather the storm.
This brief sketch leads on to the inquiry, what do we gather as to the labour employed on the farms? We have to consider three possibilities (a) the farmer, including his family, (b) hired labourers, (c) slaves. It is well to begin by remarking that frequency of reference to one of these does not necessarily imply the same proportion in actual employment. Slavery being assumed as a fact in all departments of life (as it is by all writers of the period), and the slave being an economic or domestic appliance rather than a person, there was no need to call special attention to his presence. Hence it is natural that the rustic slave should, as such, be seldom referred to in the plays. He is in fact mentioned several times, rather more often than the yoke of oxen. Nor was it necessary to mention the wage-earner, the man employed for the job under a temporary contract, and in connexion with agriculture he hardly appears at all. But the working farmers were a class of citizens. They had votes, and they were on political grounds a class to whose sympathies the poet was anxious to appeal. Therefore he had no choice but to lay stress upon their virtues and magnify their importance. Any careful reader of Aristophanes will I think admit that he does this consistently. In doing this with political aims he was subject to the temptation of passing lightly over any considerations that might, whether justly or unjustly, be turned against his case. This may serve to explain why he refers almost solely to the small working farmer, who himself labours on the land. We are not to infer that there were no large estates worked by deputy, though probably there were not many: to lay stress on the interested views of large landowners was not likely to please the jealous Demos. Nor are we to infer that the small farmer used no slaves: that he laboured himself is no proof, for no man could get more out of a slave’s labour than the working owner, on whom the burden of making good his slave’s neglect must fall. I turn now to the passages from which the various details may be gleaned.
In the Acharnians the working farmer Dicaeopolis is delighted at having made a separate peace on his own account. He holds it a fine thing[168] that he should now be able to perform religious rites and celebrate the festival of the rustic Dionysia with his slaves. He is back at home[169] in his own rural deme, and he calls his slave Xanthias to carry the phallus in the procession. In the Clouds[170] old Strepsiades says that he lives in the heart of the country, and his preference for the easy and rather squalid life on a farm is plainly expressed. And the play opens with his complaint that in war-time a man has not a free hand to punish his slaves. It is however not clear that he is supposed to be at the time living on the farm. In the Wasps the chorus of old dicasts are indignant[171] that their old comrade Philocleon should be dragged off by his own slaves at the order of his son. The old man himself, struggling and protesting, reminds the leading slave of the time when he caught the rogue stealing grapes (obviously in his vineyard) and thrashed him soundly. In the Peace a rustic scene[172] is described. The weather being unfavourable for work on the land, but excellent for the seed just sown, it is proposed to make merry indoors. Country fare is made ready, and the female slave Syra is told to call in the man slave Manes from the farm. A little below Trygaeus is mocking the workers in war-trades. To the trumpet-maker he says, fit up your trumpet differently[173] and you can turn it into a weighing-machine: ‘it will then do for serving out rations of figs to your slaves on the farm.’ In the Lysistrata the chorus, being aware that an interval of distress will follow the conclusion of peace, offers[174] to tide over the crisis by helping the fathers of large families and owners of hungry slaves by doles of food. ‘Let them bring their bags and wallets for wheat: my Manes shall fill them.’ After these passages the announcement of the working of the communistic scheme[175] in the Ecclesiazusae carries us into a very different atmosphere. ‘But who is to till the soil under the new order?’ asks Blepyrus. ‘Our slaves,’ replies Praxagora, his typical better-half. We see that this amounts to basing society on a serf-system, for the slaves will be common property like the rest. In the Plutus old Chremylus is a farmer, apparently a working[176] farmer, but he has a slave, indeed more than one. Age has probably led him to do most of his work by deputy. When Poverty, in the course of her economic lecture, explains to him[177] that wealth for all means slaves for none and that he will have to plough and dig for his own proper sustenance, he is indignant. The weak points of the argument do not concern us here. The solution offered in the play, the cure of the Wealth-god’s blindness, enabling him to enrich only the deserving, is a mere piece of sportive nonsense, meant to amuse an audience, not to hold out a serious hope of better things.
Enough has been said to shew that the slave had a place in farm life as depicted by Aristophanes. It will be observed that in the earlier plays the references are all of a casual kind: that is to say, that slave-labour calls for no particular attention or remark. The consideration of slave-labour as such, in fact as an economic phenomenon, only appears later. This is, I repeat, significant of the change that had come upon Athens and Attica in consequence of exhaustion. In respect of hired labour it is obvious that pressure of poverty, as stated[178] in the Plutus, directly influences the supply. If the possession of a competency will deter men from professional industry in trades, even more will it deter them from the drudgery of rough labour. The hired men (μισθωτοί) were commonly employed in all departments, for instance in the building trades, to which there is a reference[179] in the Birds. But we may fairly assume that during the great war the number of such ‘hands’ available for civilian services was much reduced. In agriculture there would be little or no demand for them. And any able-bodied citizen could earn good pay from the state. Moreover rough labour was not much to the taste of the average Athenian,—above all, digging[180]. ‘I cannot dig’ was proverbial. On the other hand there were farm-duties in the performance of which sufficient care and intelligence could only be exacted through the medium of wage-paying. Such was that of olive-pickers, to whom and their wage we have a reference[181] in the Wasps. They are probably free persons, but it is possible that wage-earning slaves, paying rent to their owners, might be thus employed. That in some occupations free and slave-labour were both employed indifferently, is certain. The carriage of burdens[182] is a case in point. But employment in odd jobs would be far more frequent in the city, including Peiraeus, than in country places. I do not think it rash to conclude that hired free labourers were few on the farms of Attica in the time of Aristophanes.
Turning to citizen agriculturists, it must be mentioned that views differ as to the proportion of large estates held and worked by wealthy owners in this period. Such estates would almost certainly employ slave-labour. So far as the evidence of Aristophanes goes, I should infer that they were few. No doubt he had reasons for not making much of such cases; still I believe that the comfortable working farmer, homely and independent, the poet’s favourite character, was in fact the normal type. They were not paupers,—far from it: but their capital consisted in land, buildings, dead and live farm-stock, and the unexhausted value of previous cultivation. These items could not suddenly be converted into money without ruinous loss: most of them could not be carried away in the flight to Athens. Hence the dislike felt by such men to an adventurous policy, in which their interests were sacrificed. The passages in which agriculture is connected[183] with large property occur in a play produced 392 BC, at which time great changes had happened. It is highly probable that, among these changes, much Attic land had passed from the hands of ruined yeomen into those of rich men possessed of ready money and able to buy in a glutted market. In a later period we shall find γεωργεῖν used in the sense of acting the country landowner. To illustrate the life and ways of the peasant farmers of this period Aristophanes supplies endless references descriptive and allusive. The chief of these have been cited above. A few more may be added here. In the Clouds Strepsiades, urging his son to a rustic life, hopes to see him dressed in a leathern jerkin, like his father before him, driving in the goats[184] from the waste (φελλέως, the rocky hill-pasture). Here is a good instance of husbandry in the Attic highlands, in short a case of crofters. What a refugee might hope to save in his flight and take back to his farm on the return of peace—it amounts to a few implements[185]—is set out in the Peace. Loss of oxen, a yoke of two, driven off by Boeotian raiders, is pitifully bewailed[186] by a farmer in the Acharnians. But in general the farmers of the earlier plays are represented as tough elderly men. They are the ‘elder generation,’ and the poet genuinely admires them. For the younger generation he has a profound contempt. Evidently he thought that the soundest breed of Athenian citizens was dying out; and I am not sure that he was wrong.
I conclude that the evidence of Aristophanes on the whole points to an agriculture mainly carried on by working farmers with the help of slaves. This system was subjected to a very severe strain by the war-conditions prevailing for many years, and I do not think that it was possible to revive it on the same footing as before, even when Attica was no longer exposed to frequent raids. It was not merely the loss of fixed capital that told on the farmer class. Importation of corn was so developed and organized to meet the necessities of the crowded city, that it completely dominated the market, and in the production of cereals the home agriculture could now no longer compete with foreign harvests. There remained the culture of the olive and vine: but it needed years to restore plantations of these and other fruit-trees, and to wait for revival needed a capital possessed by few. The loss of imperial revenues impoverished Athens, and the struggle with financial difficulties runs through all her later history. It did not take the poorer citizens long to see that how to get daily bread was the coming problem. State-pay was no longer plentiful, and one aim of jealous franchise-regulations was to keep down the number of claimants. Had Aristophanes any inkling of the evil days to come? At all events he was aware that poverty works in two[187] ways: if it leads one man to practise a trade for his living, it tempts another to evildoing, perhaps to crime.
XI. THUCYDIDES.
Thucydides is a writer from whom it is extremely difficult to extract any evidence on the subject of agricultural labour. The preeminent importance of the problem of food-supply in the Greece of his day may be amply illustrated from his work; but mainly in casual utterances, the full significance of which is only to be gathered by thorough examination such as has been made[188] by Dr Grundy. The economic revolution in Attica that followed the reforms of Solon, the extended culture of the vine and olive, the reduced growth of cereal crops, the development of manufactures and sea-borne trade, the growing dependence on imported corn, and the influence of these changes on the public policy of Athens, are now seen more clearly as a whole than ever before. But to the great historian these things were part of the background of his picture. They are parts of a movement taken for granted rather than understood. And the same is true of the existence and application of slave-labour. In the time of Thucydides slavery was an economic and social fact, unchallenged. It may be that it affected unfavourably the position of the free handworker in the long run, and gave opportunities to slaveowning capitalists. But this effect came about slowly, and freeman and slave could and did labour[189] side by side, for instance in the great public works promoted by Pericles. How far slave-labour was really cheaper than free is a question beyond my subject. But it is important to note the attitude of the poor citizen towards the question of what we call a living wage. Once the great outlay on public works began to fall off, and industries on a larger scale to compete with the individual craftsman, how was the poor citizen to live? Directly or indirectly, the profits of empire supplied the answer. Now it was obvious that the fewer the beneficiaries the larger would be the average dividend of each. So the policy favoured by the poorer classes was a jealous restriction of the franchise. It was not the slave as labour-competitor against whom protection was desired, but the resident freeman of doubtful origin as a potential profit-sharer.
During nearly the whole of the period covered by the history of Thucydides the public policy of Athens was controlled by urban influences. Even before the rustic citizens were cooped up in the city, it was no doubt city residents that formed the normal majority in the Assembly, and to whom most of the paid offices and functions fell. Even allowing for the recent growth of ‘seafaring rabble’ in Peiraeus, these Athenians were not at all a mere necessitous mob. But it must be remembered that the commercial and industrial capitalists were interested in foreign trade. As Mr Cornford[190] points out, even metics of this class must have had considerable influence owing to wealth and connexions. Thus the urban rich as well as the urban poor were tempted to favour a policy of adventure, contrary to the wishes and interests of the Attic farmers. Now these latter were the truest representatives of the old Attic stock. Once they were crowded into the city and many of them diverted to state service, any sobering influence that they might at first exercise would become less and less marked, and they would tend to be lost in the mass. Therefore we hear only of the rustic life[191] from which they unwillingly tore themselves in 431 BC: we do not get any detailed picture of it, for the historian’s attention was otherwise occupied. In the passage[192] accounting for the unpopularity of Pericles in 430 BC we read that the Demos was irritated because ‘having less (than the rich) to start with, it had been deprived of that little,’ while the upper class (δυνατοὶ) had lost their fine establishments. Here the context seems to imply that the δῆμος referred to is especially the small farmers, still dwelling on their losses and not yet otherwise employed.
One passage is so important that it must be discussed by itself. Pericles is made to encourage[193] the Athenians in resistance to the Spartan demands by pointing out the superiority of their resources compared with those of the enemy. ‘The Peloponnesians’ he says ‘are working farmers (αὐτουργοί). They have no store of wealth (χρήματα) either private or public. Nor have they experience of protracted warfare with operations beyond the sea: for their own campaigns against each other are short, owing to poverty.’ After explaining how they must be hampered by lack of means, he resumes thus ‘And working farmers are more ready to do service in person than by payment. They trust that they may have the luck to survive the perils of war; but they have no assurance that their means will not be exhausted before it ends: for it may drag out to an unexpected length—and this is likely to happen.’ Two questions at once suggest themselves. Is this a fair sketch of agricultural conditions in Peloponnese? Does it imply that Attic farmers were not αὐτουργοί? To take the latter first, it is held by Professor Beloch[194] that the passage characterizes the Peloponnese as a land of free labour, in contrast with slave-holding Athens. To this view I cannot assent. I am convinced that the Attic farmer who worked with his own hands did often, if not always, employ slave-labour also. He would not have a large gang of slaves, like the large-scale cultivator: he could not afford to keep an overseer. But it might pay him to keep one or two slaves, not more than he could oversee himself. If the contrast be clearly limited, so as to compare the wealth of Athens, now largely industrial and commercial, with the wealth of a purely agricultural population, scattered over a wide area, and having little ready money, it is reasonable and true. But this does not raise the question of the Attic farmer at all. A little below[195] Pericles is made to urge that class to submit quietly to invasion and serious loss. They are not the people on whose resources he relies to wear out the enemy. That enemy finds it hard to combine for common action or to raise money by war-taxes. Athens is a compact community, able to act quickly, and has at disposal the forces and tribute of her subjects, secured by naval supremacy. To the other question, that of Peloponnesian agriculture, I see no simple answer. All the southern parts, the region of Spartan helotry, can hardly be called a land of free labour in any rational sense. Nor does it appear that Argolis, in spite of the various revolutions in local politics, could rightly be described thus. Elis and Achaia were hardly of sufficient importance to justify such a general description, even if it were certain that it would apply to them locally. Arcadia, mostly mountainous and backward, is the district to which the description would be most applicable. But that there were slaves in Arcadia is not only probable but attested by evidence, later in date but referring to an established[196] state of things. At festivals, we are told, slaves and masters shared the same table. This does not exclude rustic slaves: it rather seems to suggest them. The working farmer entertaining his slaves on a rural holiday is even a conventional tradition of ancient country life. Arcadia, a land of peasant farmers, where a living had to be won by hard work, a land whence already in the fifth century (and still more in the fourth) came numbers of mercenary soldiers, a land whence Sparta raised no small part of her ‘Peloponnesian’ armies, is what Pericles has chiefly in mind. And that Arcadians were normally αὐτουργοὶ did not imply that they had no slaves.
So far as Attica is concerned, Thucydides himself incidentally attests the presence of rustic slaves. He would probably have been, surprised to hear such an obvious fact questioned. In refusing to repeal the ‘Megarian decree’ the Athenians charged[197] the Megarians with various offences, one of which was the reception of their runaway slaves. In the winter 415-4 BC Alcibiades, urging the Spartans to occupy Deceleia, is made to state[198] the advantages of that move thus ‘For of all the farm-stock in the country the bulk will at once come into your possession, some by capture, and the rest of its own accord (αὐτόματα).’ I take the last words to refer especially to slaves,—rustic slaves. In recording the success of the plan, the historian tells[199] us that more than 20000 slaves, a large part of whom were artisans (χειροτέχναι), deserted to the enemy. We may guess that many or most of the artisan slaves had escaped from Athens. Their loss would be felt in the reduction of manufacturing output, so far as such enterprise was still possible at the time, and perhaps in the dockyards. But the rest would be rustic slaves, many of them (to judge by the map) from a district[200] in which there were probably many small farms. On the other hand, the slaves welcomed by the Megarians were probably from larger estates in the Thriasian plain. Turning from Attica, we find references to rustic slaves[201] in Corcyra (427 BC) and Chios (412 BC), where they were numerous and important in their effect on operations. And in other passages where the slaves belonging to the people of this or that place are mentioned we are not to assume that only urban slaves are meant. For to live in a town, and go out for the day’s work on the land, was and is a common usage in Mediterranean countries. An extreme case[202] is where people live on an island and cross water to cultivate farms elsewhere. It is perhaps hardly necessary to remark that rich slaveowners, who could afford overseers, did not need to reside permanently on their estates. Such a man might have more than one farm, and in more than one district, not necessarily in Attica at all, as Thucydides himself exploited a mining concession in Thrace. In any case a well-equipped ‘country place’ was a luxury, and is characterized as such[203] in words put into the mouth of Pericles, who as the democratic statesman was concerned to stifle discontent by insinuating that it was a mere expression of the selfishness of the rich.
The settlement of Athenians in colonies (ἀποικίαι) or on allotments of conquered land (κληρουχίαι), in the islands or on the seaboard has been fully treated[204] by Dr Grundy. He shews that this movement had two aims, the occupation of strategic points as an imperial measure of security, and the provision of land-lots for poorer citizens as a measure of economic relief. The latter purpose is part of a general plan for reducing the financial liabilities of the state with respect to its citizen population, the necessity for which Dr Grundy explains. By these settlements abroad some surplus population was removed and provided with means of livelihood. If the assumption of a surplus citizen population be sound (and I am not in a position to challenge it), we must also assume a certain degree of genuine land-hunger, at least more than the Attic territory could satisfy. If there was such land-hunger, it is perhaps not unreasonable to connect it with the survival of old Attic traditions of country life. And it would seem that the settlers, cleruchs or colonists, did as a rule[205] stay and live in their settlements. They would probably work their lands on much the same general plan as their brethren in Attica, and their labour-arrangements would be much the same. But in 427 BC, when Pericles was dead and there was surely no surplus population, at least of able-bodied men, owing to the war, we find a curious record. Reconquered Lesbos[206] had to be dealt with. It was not subjected to an assessed tribute (φόρος), but parcelled into 3000 allotments, 2700 of which were reserved for 2700 Athenian citizens, those who drew the lucky lots (τοὺς λαχόντας), and these 2700 were sent out. But they did not stay[207] there. They let their shares to the old inhabitants as cultivating tenants, at a rent of two minae per share per annum, and evidently returned to Athens. By this arrangement a sum of about £21000 a year would come in to the shareholders in Athens, who would have a personal interest in seeing that it was punctually paid. Whether these non-resident landlords were chosen by lot from all citizens, rich or poor, is not stated. We know that in some cases[208] at least the choice of settlers was confined to members of the two lowest property-classes; and it may well be that on this occasion the opportunity[209] was taken to compensate to some extent members of rural families, who had suffered loss from the invasions of Attica, but did not wish to go abroad. In any case their tenants would farm as they had done before, employing or not employing slave labour according to their means and the circumstances of the several farms. So too in cases of lands let on lease, and in the confiscations and redistributions of lands, proposed or carried out, it was simply their own profit and comfort that attracted the lessees or beneficiaries. We are entitled to assume that if it paid to employ slaves, and slaves were to be had, then slaves were employed. In short, the scraps of evidence furnished by Thucydides leave us pretty much where we were.
XII. XENOPHON.
Xenophon, who lived somewhere between 440 and 350 BC, introduces us to a great change in the conditions of the Greek world. The uneasiness and sufferings of the Greek states from the fall of Athens in 404 to the time of exhaustion resulting from the battle of Mantinea in 362 do not concern us here. Of such matters we hear much, but very little directly of the economic changes that were undoubtedly going on. Poverty was as before a standing trouble in Greece. In the more backward parts[210] able-bodied men left their homes to serve as hired soldiers. The age of professional mercenaries was in full swing. Arcadians Achaeans Aetolians Acarnanians Thessalians and other seekers after fortune became more and more the staple material of armies. Athens could no longer support imperial ambitions on imperial tributes, and had to depend on the sale of her products to procure her supplies of food. These products were chiefly oil and wine and urban manufactures, and there is reason to think that in general the most economical method of production was by slave labour under close and skilful superintendence. Slaves were supplied by kidnappers from the Euxine and elsewhere, but prisoners captured by armies were another source of supply. This living loot was one of the perquisites that made military life attractive, and the captives found their way to such markets as the industrial centres of Athens and Corinth. What happened in the rural districts of Attica, how far there was a revival of the small farmer class, is a point on which we are very much in the dark. The indirect evidence of Xenophon is interesting but not wholly conclusive.
It is perhaps important to consider what significance should be attached to the mention of agricultural work done by men of military forces on land or sea. In 406 BC we hear of hardships[211] endured by the force under the Spartan Eteonicus who were cut off in Chios after the defeat of Arginusae. During the summer months they ‘supported themselves on the fruits of the season and by working for hire in the country.’ This is meant to shew that they were in sad straits, as the sequel clearly proves. Again, in 372 BC Iphicrates was with a force in Corcyra, and naval operations were for the time over. So he ‘managed[212] to provide for his oarsmen (νάυτας) chiefly by employing them in farm-work for the Corcyraeans,’ while he undertook an expedition on the mainland with his soldiers. In both these cases want of pay was no doubt one reason for emergency-labour. In the earlier case the destitution of the men led them to look for any paid work: in the second the general had to do his best in spite of irregular and insufficient supplies from home. In both cases it is the exceptional nature of the arrangement that makes it worth mentioning. It can hardly be viewed as having any economic significance. But it is of some interest in connexion with a passage of Aristotle[213] that will require notice below.
In the Anabasis Xenophon reports his own arguments, urging the Greek army to fight their way out of the Persian empire. He feared that, now Cyrus was dead, and they were cut off far from home in an enemy’s country, they might in despair surrender to the King and take service under him. At best this meant giving up Greece and settling in Persia on the King’s terms. This he begged them not to do: that they could under Greek discipline cut their way out was evident from the independence of many peoples of Asia Minor, who lived and raided as they chose in defiance of the Persian power. He added ‘Therefore I hold[214] that our right and proper course is first to make a push to reach Hellas and our own kinsmen, and to demonstrate to the Greeks that their poverty is their own fault: for, if they would only convey to these parts those of their citizens who are now living in want at home, they could see them in plenty (πλουσίους).’ But he reminds them that the good things of Asia are only to be had as the reward of victory. For my present purpose the one important point is that a mixed host of Greek mercenaries are said to have been appealed to by a reference to the fact of poverty and land-hunger among their folks at home, and that this reference is said to have been made by an Athenian. Writing this in later life, Xenophon would hardly have set down such an argument had it not then, as on the occasion recorded, had considerable force. In another passage[215] he gives an interesting account of the motives that had induced most of the men to join the expedition. He is explaining why they were irritated at a rumour that they were to be pressed to settle down at a spot on the Euxine coast. ‘It was not lack of subsistence that had led most of the soldiers to go abroad on this paid service: they had been told of the generosity of Cyrus. Some had other men following them, some had even spent money for the cause: others had run away from their parents, or left children behind, meaning to win money and return to them, on the faith of the reported prosperity of those already in the service of Cyrus. Such was the character of the men, and they were longing to get safe home to Greece.’ In short, full-blooded men were not content to drag on poor ill-found stagnant lives in corners of Greece. And we may add that nothing stimulated the enterprises of Greek adventurers in the East, and led up to the conquests of Alexander, more effectually than the experiences of the Ten Thousand.
Among these experiences was of course the capture of booty, more particularly[216] in the form of marketable prisoners. So many of these were sometimes in hand that they were a drag on the march: in a moment of peril[217] they had to be abandoned. Even so, a considerable sum had been raised by sales[218] and was shared out at Cerasus. The Greek cities on the Pontic seaboard would all no doubt be resorts of slave-dealers. One of the Ten Thousand himself, formerly a slave[219] at Athens, recognized as kinsmen by their speech the people of a mountain tribe in Armenia. In Thrace too we hear of the chieftain Seuthes, when short of cash, offering[220] to make a payment partly in slaves. Nor was selling into slavery a fate reserved for barbarians alone. Greeks[221] had been treated thus in the great war lately ended; and now the Spartan harmost, anxious to clear the remainder of the Ten Thousand[222] out of Byzantium safely, made them an offer of facilities for a raid in Thrace: any that stayed behind in the town were to be sold as slaves. And more than 400 were accordingly sold. It seems reasonable to infer that at this time the slave-markets were as busy as ever, perhaps more so than had been the case during the great war. It may be going too far to say that in some parts of Greece people were now trying to restore a broken prosperity by industrial exploitation of slave-labour, while from other parts soldiers of fortune and kidnappers went forth to enlarge the supply of slaves. But that there is some truth in such a statement I do not doubt. It was evidently no easy matter for persons of small means to live in any sort of comfort at Athens. We hear of Socrates[223] discussing with a friend the embarrassments of a genteel household. The late civil disorders have driven a number of this man’s sisters cousins and aunts to take refuge in his house. In the present state of things neither land nor house property are bringing in anything, and nobody will lend. How is he to maintain a party of 14 free persons in all? Socrates points to the case of a neighbour who provides for a still larger household without difficulty. Questions elicit the fact that this household consists of slave-artisans trained to useful trades. The distressed party have been brought up as ladies, to do nothing. Socrates suggests that they had better work for bread than starve. The adoption of this suggestion produced the happiest results in every way. Such was the way in which Socrates led his friend. He drew from him the assertion that free people are superior to slaves, and so brought him round to the conviction that superiority could not be shewn by mere incapacity for work.
In this conversation of Socrates may be detected the germ of a complete revolution in thought on labour-subjects. It avoids the topic of common humanity. That the slave is a man and brother, only the victim of misfortune, had been hinted by Euripides and was to become a theme of comic poets. But Socrates lets this point alone, and argues from natural economic necessity. Elsewhere he denounces[224] idleness and proclaims that useful labour is good for the labourer, taking a moral point of view. Again, he suggests[225] that the shortcomings of slaves are largely due to their masters’ slackness or mismanagement. But he accepts slavery as a social and economic fact. All the same he makes play at times with the notion of moral worthlessness, which many people regarded as characteristic of slaves in general. It is the knowledge of the true qualities[226] of conduct, in short of the moral and political virtues, that makes men honourable gentlemen (καλοὺς κἀγαθούς), and the lack of this knowledge that makes them slavish (ἀνδραποδώδεις). But, if the difference between a liberal and an illiberal training, expressed in resulting habits of mind, is thus great, the slavish must surely include many of those legally free. Hence he even goes so far as to say ‘Therefore we ought to spare no exertions to escape being slaves (ἀνδράποδα).’ And he lays stress on the need of moral qualities[227] in slaves as well as freemen: we should never be willing to entrust our cattle or our store-houses or the direction of our works to a slave devoid of self-control. His position suggests two things: first, that the importance of the slave in the economic and social system was a striking fact now recognized: second, that the unavoidable moral degradation generally assumed to accompany the condition of slavery was either wrongfully assumed or largely due to the shortcomings of masters. The conception of the slave as a mere chattel, injury to which is simply a damage to its owner, was proving defective in practice, and the philosopher was inclined to doubt its soundness in principle. Xenophon had been brought into touch with such questionings by his intercourse with Socrates. It remains to see how far he shews traces of their influence when he comes to treat labour-problems in connexion with agriculture.
References to agriculture[228] are few and unimportant in the Memorabilia. The Economicus deals directly with the subject. A significant passage throws light on the condition of rural Attica at the end of the fifth century BC. The speaker Ischomachus tells[229] how his father made money by judicious enterprise. He bought up farms that were let down or derelict, got them into good order, and sold them at a profit when improved. Clearly he was a citizen, able to deal in real estate, and a capitalist. There can hardly be a doubt that he operated by the use of slave-labour on a considerable scale. All through the Economicus slavery is presupposed, but the attitude of Xenophon is characteristically genial and humane. The existence of a slave-market[230], where you may buy likely men, even skilled craftsmen, is assumed. But the most notable feature of the book is the seriousness with which the responsibility of the master[231] is asserted. There is no querulous evasion of the issue by laying the blame of failure on the incorrigible vices of slaves. Prosperity will depend on securing good service: good service cannot be secured by any amount of chains and punishments, if the master be slack and fitful: both in the house and on the farm, good sympathetic discipline, fairly and steadily enforced, is the secret of success. Carelessness malingering and desertion must be prevented or checked. And to achieve this is the function of the economic art, operating through the influence of hope rather than fear. The training of slaves[232] is a matter needing infinite pains on the part of the master and mistress. She must train her housekeeper (ταμία) as he trains his steward (ἐπίτροπος), and both are to act in a humane and kindly spirit. Yet the strictly animal view of slaves[233] appears clearly in a passage where the training of slaves is compared with that of horses or performing dogs. ‘But it is possible to make men more obedient by mere instruction (καὶ λόγῳ), pointing out that it is to their interest to obey: in dealing with slaves the system which is thought suitable for training beasts has much to recommend it as a way of teaching obedience. For by meeting their appetites with special indulgence to their bellies you may contrive to get much out of them.’ We gather that the better and more refined type of Athenian gentleman with a landed estate, while averse to inhumanity, and aware that slaves were human, still regarded his slaves as mere chattels. His humanity is prompted mainly by self-interest. As for rights, they have none.
The system of rewards and punishments on the estate of course rests wholly on the masters will. The whole success of the working depends on the efficiency of the steward or stewards. Accordingly the passage in which Ischomachus explains how he deals with these trusted slaves is of particular interest. Having carefully trained a man, he must judge him[234] according to a definite standard—does he or does he not honestly and zealously discharge his trust? ‘When I find that in spite of good treatment they still try to cheat me, I conclude that their greediness is past curing, and degrade them[235] from their charge.’ This seems to mean that they are reduced to the position of the ordinary hands. ‘But when I observe any induced to be honest[236] not merely because honesty pays best, but because they want to get a word of praise from me, these I treat as no longer slaves (ὥσπερ ἐλευθέροις ἤδη). I not only enrich them, but shew them respect as men of honour.’ One is tempted to interpret these last words as implying that actual manumission takes place, the services of the men being retained as freedmen. But the words do not say so plainly, and it is safer to read into them no technical sense. That the men are trusted and allowed to earn for themselves, is enough. The agriculture depicted in the Economicus is that of a landowner with plenty of capital, not that of the peasant farmer. The note of it is superintendence[237] (ἐπιμέλεια), not bodily labour (αὐτουργία). In one place αὐτουργία is mentioned, when agriculture is praised, one of its merits being the bodily strength that those gain who work with their own hands. It is as well to repeat here that the fact of a farmer labouring himself does not prove that he employs no other labour. On the other hand there is good reason to infer that the other class, those who ‘do their farming by superintendence,’ are not manual labourers at all. The benefit to them is that agriculture ‘makes them early risers and smart in their movements.’ The master keeps a horse, and is thus enabled to ride out[238] early to the farm and stay there till late.
It is remarkable that in this book we hear nothing of hired labourers. There are two references[239] to the earning of pay, neither of them in connexion with agricultural labour. Yet the existence of a class of poor people who have to earn their daily bread[240] is not ignored. Socrates admires the economic skill[241] of Ischomachus. It has enabled him to be of service to his friends and to the state. This is a fine thing, and shews the man of substance. In contrast, ‘there are numbers of men who cannot live without depending on others: numbers too who are content if they can procure themselves the necessaries of life.’ The solid and strong men are those who contrive to make a surplus and use it as benefactors. I read this passage as indirect evidence of the depression of small-scale free industry and the increase of slaveowning capitalism in the Athens of Xenophon’s time. And I find another indication[242] of this in connexion with agriculture. In the course of the dialogue it appears that the chief points of agricultural knowledge are simple enough: Socrates knew them all along. Why then do some farmers succeed and others fail? The truth of the matter is, replies Ischomachus, that the cause of failure is not want of knowledge but want of careful superintendence. This criticism is in general terms, but it is surely inapplicable to the case of the working peasant farmer: he who puts his own labour into the land will not overlook the shortcomings of a hired man or a slave. In the agriculture of which this book treats it is the practical and intelligent self-interest of the master that rules everything. His appearance on the field[243] should cause all the slaves to brighten up and work with a will: but rather to win his favour than to escape his wrath. For in agriculture, as in other pursuits, the ultimate secret of success[244] is a divine gift, the power of inspiring a willing obedience.
I have kept back one passage which needs to be considered with reference to the steward[245]. Can we safely assume that an ἐπίτροπος was always, or at least normally, a slave? Of those who direct the labourers, the real treasure is the man who gets zealous and steady work out of the hands, whether he be steward or director (ἐπίτροπος or ἐπιστάτης). What difference is connoted by these terms? In the Memorabilia[246], Socrates meets an old friend who is impoverished by the results of the great war, and driven to earn his living by bodily labour. Socrates points out to him that this resource will fail with advancing age: he had better find some employment less dependent on bodily vigour. ‘Why not look out for some wealthy man who needs an assistant in superintendence of his property? Such a man would find it worth his while to employ you as director (or foreman, ἔργων ἐπιστατοῦντα), to help in getting in his crops and looking after his estate.’ He answers ‘it would gall me to put up with a servile position (δουλείαν).’ Clearly the position of ἐπιστάτης appears to him a meaner occupation than free wage-earning by manual labour. In another place[247] we hear of an ἐπιστάτης for a mine-gang being bought for a talent (£235). That superintendents, whatever their title, were at least normally slaves, seems certain. As to the difference between ‘steward’ and ‘director’ I can only guess that the former might be a slave promoted from the ranks, but might also be what the ‘director’ always was, a new importation. It seems a fair assumption that, as a free superintendent must have been a new importation, a specially bought slave ‘director’ would rank somewhat higher than an ordinary ‘steward,’ whose title ἐπίτροπος at once marked him as a slave. In relation to the general employment of slave-labour there is practically no difference: both are slave-driving ‘overseers.’ As the pamphlet on the Revenues has been thought by some critics not to be the work of Xenophon, I pass it by, only noting that it surely belongs to the same generation. It fully attests the tendency to rely[248] on slave-labour, but it is not concerned with agriculture.
The romance known as Cyropaedia wanders far from fact. Its purpose is to expound or suggest Xenophon’s own views on the government of men: accordingly opportunities for drawing a moral are sought at the expense of historical truth. But from my present point of view the chief point to note is that it does not touch the labour-question with which we are concerned. True, we hear[249] of αὐτουργοί, and of the hardship and poverty of such cultivators, gaining a painful livelihood from an unkind soil. That the value of a territory depends on the presence of a population[250] able and willing to develop its resources, is fully insisted on by Cyrus. But this is in connexion with conquest. The inhabitants of a conquered district remain as tributary cultivators, merely changing their rulers. That the labour of the conquered is to provide the sustenance of the conquering race, is accepted as a fundamental principle. It is simply the right of the stronger: if he leaves anything to his subject, that is a voluntary act of grace. The reason why we hear little of slavery is that all are virtually slaves save the one autocrat. The fabric of Xenophon’s model government is a very simple one: first, an oriental Great King, possessed of all the virtues: second, a class of warrior nobles, specially trained and dependent on the King’s favour: third, a numerous subject population, whose labour supports the whole, and who are practically serfs. A cynical passage[251] describes the policy of Cyrus, meant to perpetuate the difference of the classes. After detailing minutely the liberal training enjoined on those whom he intended to employ in governing (οὓς ... ἄρχειν ᾤετο χρῆναι), Xenophon proceeds to those whom he intended to qualify for servitude (οὓς ... κατεσκεύαζεν εἰς τὸ δουλεύειν). These it was his practice not to urge to any of the liberal exercises, nor to allow them to possess arms. He took great care to spare them any privations: for instance at a hunt: the hunters had to take their chance of hunger and thirst, being freemen, but the beaters had ample supplies and halted for meals. They were delighted with this consideration, the design of which was to prevent their ever ceasing to be slaves (ἀνδράποδα). The whole scheme is frankly imperial. All initiative and power rests with the autocrat, and all depends on his virtues. That a succession of such faultless despots could not be ensured, and that the scheme was consequently utopian, did not trouble the simple Xenophon. Like many other thoughtful men of the time, he was impressed by the apparent efficiency of the rigid Spartan system, and distrusted the individual liberty enjoyed in democratic states, above all in Athens. In Persia, though he thought the Persians were no longer what Cyrus the Great had made them, he had seen how great was still the power arising from the control of all resources by a single will. These two impressions combined seem to account for the tone of the Cyropaedia, and the servile position of the cultivators explains why it has so very little bearing on the labour-question in agriculture.