The most important are found in the remains[92] of Solon, illustrating
the land-question as he saw and faced it at the beginning of the sixth
century BC. The poets of the seventh and sixth centuries reflect the
problems of an age of unrest, among the causes of which the introduction
of metallic coinage, susceptible of hoarding and unaffected by weather,
played a great part. Poverty, debt and slavery of debtors, hardship,
begging, the insolence and oppression of rich and greedy creditors, are
common topics. The sale of free men into slavery abroad is lamented by
Solon, who claims to have restored many such victims by his measures of
reform. In particular, he removed encumbrances on land, thus setting
free the small farmers who were in desperate plight owing to debt. The
exact nature and scope of his famous reform is a matter of dispute.
Whether he relieved freeholders from a burden of debt, or emancipated
the clients[93] of landowning nobles from dependence closely akin to
serfdom, cannot be discussed here, and does not really bear on the matter
in hand. In either case the persons relieved were a class of working
farmers, and the economic reform was the main thing: political reform was
of value as tending to secure the economic boon. It is remarkable that
Solon, enumerating a number of trades (practically the old Homeric and
Hesiodic list), speaks of them merely as means of escaping the pressure
of poverty, adding ‘and another man[94] is yearly servant to those
interested in ploughing, and furrows land planted with fruit-trees.’ This
man seems to be a wage-earner (θὴς) working for a large farmer, probably
the owner of a landed estate in the rich lowland (πεδιάς) of Attica. The
small farmers were mostly confined to the rocky uplands. Evidently it is
not manual labour that is the hardship, but the dependent position of
the hired man working on another’s land. The hard-working independent
peasant, willing to till stony land for his own support, is the type that
Solon encouraged and Peisistratus[95] approved.
The life of such peasant farmers was at best a hard one, and little
desired by men living under easier conditions. Two fragments from Ionia
express views of dwellers in that rich and genial land. =Phocylides= of
Miletus in one of his wise counsels says ‘if you desire wealth, devote
your care to a fat farm (πίονος ἀγροῦ), for the saying is that a farm is
a horn of plenty.’ The bitter =Hipponax= of Ephesus describes a man as
having lived a gluttonous life and so eaten up his estate (τὸν κλῆρον):
the result is that he is driven to dig a rocky hillside and live on
common figs and barley bread—mere slave’s fodder (δούλιον χόρτον). Surely
the ‘fat farm’ was not meant to be worked by the owner singlehanded; and
the ‘slave’s fodder’ suggests the employment of slaves. Ionia was a home
of luxury and ease.
The oft-quoted scolion of the Cretan =Hybrias= illustrates the point
of view of the warrior class in more military communities. His wealth
is in sword spear and buckler. It is with these tools that he does his
ploughing reaping or vintage. That is, he has command of the labour of
others, and enjoys their produce. We shall speak below of the well-known
lords and serfs of Crete.
VI. TRACES OF SERFDOM IN GREEK STATES.
Before passing on to the times in which the merits of a free
farmer-class, from military and political points of view, became a
matter of general and conscious consideration, it is desirable to refer
briefly to the recorded cases of agricultural serfdom in Greek states.
For the rustic serf is a type quite distinct from the free farmer, the
hired labourer, or the slave; though the language of some writers is
loose, and does not clearly mark the distinction. Six well-known cases
present themselves, in connexion with Sparta, Crete, Argos, Thessaly,
Syracuse, and Heraclea on the Pontus. Into the details of these systems
it is not necessary to enter, interesting though many of them are. The
important feature common to them all is the delegation of agricultural
labour. A stronger or better-organized people become masters of a weaker
population, conquering their country by force of arms, and sparing the
conquered on certain terms. The normal effect of the compact is that the
conquerors are established as a ruling warrior class, whose subsistence
is provided by the labour of the subject people. These subjects remain
on the land as farmers, paying a fixed quota of their produce to their
masters. Some are serfs of the state, and pay their dues to the state
authorities: some are serfs of individuals, and pay to their lords.
In either case they are strictly attached to the land, and cannot be
sold out of the country. This clearly marks off the serf from the slave
held in personal bondage. In some cases certainly, probably in all, the
warrior class (at least the wealthier of them) had also slaves for their
own personal service. The serf-system differs from a caste-system. Both,
it is true, are hereditary systems, or have a strong tendency to become
so. The ruling class do not easily admit deserving subjects into their
own ranks. And they take precautions to hinder the degradation of their
equals into lower conditions through poverty. The warrior’s land-lot
(κλᾶρος), the sale of which is forbidden, is a favourite institution
for the purpose. That such warrior aristocracies could not be kept up
in vigour for an indefinite time, was to be proved by experience. Their
duration depended on external as well as internal conditions. Hostile
invasion might destroy the efficiency of state regulations, however
well adapted to keep the serfs under control. Sparta always feared her
Helots, and it was essential to keep an enemy out of Laconia. Early in
the history of Syracuse the unprivileged masses were supported by the
serfs in their rising against the squatter-lords, the γαμόροι whose great
estates represented the allotments of the original settlers. In Crete
and Thessaly matters were complicated by lack of a central authority.
There were a number of cities: subordination and cooperation were alike
hard to secure, and the history of both groups is a story of jealousy,
collisions, and weakness. The Thessalian Penestae often rebelled. The two
classes of Cretan[96] serfs (public and private) were kept quiet partly
by rigid exclusion from all training of a military kind, partly by their
more favourable condition: but the insular position of Crete was perhaps
a factor of equal importance. The long control of indigenous barbarian
serfs by the city of Heraclea was probably the result of similar causes.
But in all these cases it is conquest that produces the relation between
the tiller of the soil and his overlord. Whether the serf is regarded
as a weaker Greek or as a Barbarian (non-Greek) is not at present the
main question from my point of view. The notion of castes, belonging
to the same society and influenced by the same racial and religious
traditions, but each performing a distinct function—priestly military
agricultural etc.—as in ancient India, is another thing altogether. Caste
separates functions, but the division is in essence collateral. Serfdom
is a delegation of functions, and is a compulsory subordination. That
the Greeks of the seventh and sixth centuries BC were already becoming
conscious of a vital difference between other races and themselves, is
fairly certain. It was soon to express itself in the common language.
Contact with Persia was soon to crystallize this feeling into a moral
antipathy, a disgust and contempt that found voice in the arrogant claim
that while nature’s law justifies the ruling of servile Barbarians by
free Greeks, a reversal of the relation is an unnatural monstrosity. Yet
I cannot discover that Greeks ever gave up enslaving brother Greeks.
Callicratidas in the field and Plato in his school might protest against
the practice; it still remained the custom in war to sell as slaves
those, Greek or Barbarian, whom the sword had spared. We shall also find
cases in which the remnant of the conquered were left in their homes but
reduced to the condition of cultivating serfs.
Among the little that is known of the ancient Etruscans, whose power was
once widely extended in Italy, is the fact that they dwelt in cities and
ruled a serf population who lived chiefly in the country. The ruling
race were apparently invaders not akin to any of the Italian stocks:
their subjects probably belonged to the old Ligurian race, in early times
spread over a large part of the peninsula. That the Etruscan cities
recognized a common interest, but in practice did not support each other
consistently, was the chief cause of their gradual weakening and final
fall. Noble lords with warlike traditions had little bent for farm life
or sympathy with the serfs who tilled the soil. The two classes seem to
have kept to their own[97] languages, and the Etruscan gradually died out
under the supremacy of Rome.
VII. HERODOTUS.
=Herodotus=, writing in the first half of the fifth century BC, partly
recording the results of his own travels, partly dependent on the
work of his predecessors, is a witness of great value. In him we find
the contrast and antipathy[98] of Greek and Barbarian an acknowledged
fact, guiding and dominating Greek sentiment. Unhappily he yields us
very little evidence bearing on the present subject. To slavery and
slave-trade he often refers without comment: these are matters of
course. The servile character of oriental peoples subject to Persia is
contemptuously described[99] through the mouth of the Greek queen of
Halicarnassus. Nor does he spare the Ionian Greeks, whose jealousies and
consequent inefficiency made them the unworthy tools of Persian ambition;
a sad contrast to those patriotic Greeks of old Hellas who, fired by
the grand example of Athens, fought for their freedom and won it in the
face of terrible odds. The disgust—a sort of physical loathing—with
which the free Greek, proud of training his body to perfection, regarded
corporal mutilation as practised in the East, is illustrated by such
passages[100] as that in which the Persians are astounded at the Greek
athletic competitions for a wreath of olive leaves, and that in which he
coolly tells the story of the eunuch’s revenge. But all this, interesting
as giving us his point of view, does not help us in clearing up the
relations of free and slave labour. As for handicrafts, it is enough
to refer to the well-known passage[101] in which, while speaking of
Egypt, he will not decide whether the Greeks got their contempt for
manual trades from the Egyptians or not. That the Greeks, above all the
Spartans, do despise χειρωναξίαι, is certain; but least true of the
Corinthians. Barbarians in general respect the warrior class among their
own folk and regard manual trades as ignoble. So the source of Greek
prejudice is doubtful. That the craftsmen are free is clear from the
whole context. It is remarkable that in enumerating seven classes of the
Egyptian population he mentions no class[102] as devoted to the tillage
of the soil, but two of herdsmen, in charge of cattle and swine. Later
authorities mention[103] the γεωργοί, and connect them with the military
class, rightly, it would seem: for Herodotus[104] refers to the farms
granted by the kings to this class. They are farmer-soldiers. It would
seem that they were free, so far as any Egyptian could be called free,
and worked their land themselves. If this inference be just, we may
observe that a Greek thought it a fact worth noting. Was this owing to
the contrast[105] offered by systems of serfage in the Greek world?
It is curious that wage-labour is hardly ever directly mentioned. In
describing[106] the origin of the Macedonian kings, who claimed descent
from an Argive stock, he says that three brothers, exiles from Argos,
came to Macedon. There they served the king for wages as herdsmen in
charge of his horses cattle sheep and goats. The simplicity of the royal
household is emphasized as illustrating the humble scale of ancient
monarchies. Alarmed by a prodigy, the king calls his servants (τοὺς
θῆτας) and tells them to leave his country. The sequel does not concern
us here: we need only note that work for wages is referred to as a
matter of course. The same relation is probably meant in the case of the
Arcadian deserters[107] who came to Xerxes after Thermopylae, in need of
sustenance (βίου) and wishing to get work (ἐνεργοὶ εἶναι). But the term
θητεύειν is not used. And the few Athenians who stayed behind[108] in the
Acropolis when Athens was evacuated, partly through sheer poverty (ὑπ’
ἀσθενείης βίου), would seem to be θῆτες. It is fair to infer that hired
labour is assumed as a normal fact in Greek life. For the insistence on
poverty[109] as naturally endemic (σύντροφος) in Hellas, only overcome by
the manly qualities (ἀρετὴ) developed in the conquest of hard conditions
by human resourcefulness (σοφίη), shews us the background of the picture
present to the writer’s mind. It is his way of telling us that the
question of food-supply was a serious one. Out of her own soil Hellas was
only able to support a thin population. Hence Greek forces were absurdly
small compared with the myriads of Persia: but the struggle for existence
had strung them up to such efficiency and resolute love of freedom that
they were ready to face fearful odds.
The passage occurs in the reply of Demaratus the Spartan to a question of
Xerxes, and refers more particularly to Sparta. In respect of courage
and military efficiency the claim is appropriate: but poverty was surely
characteristic of nearly all the European Hellas, and the language on
that point is strictly correct, probably representing the writer’s
own view. It is also quite consistent with the statement[110] that in
early times, before the Athenians had as yet driven all the indigenous
population out of Attica, neither the Athenians nor the Greeks generally
had slaves (οἰκέτας). The context seems to indicate that domestic slaves
are specially meant. I do not lay much stress on this allegation, urged
as it is in support of a case by one party to the dispute: but it is a
genuine tradition, which appears again in the later literature. In the
time of Herodotus there were plenty of domestic slaves. Accordingly he
finds it worth while to mention[111] that Scythian kings are attended by
persons of their own race, there being no bought servants employed.
Herodotus is a difficult witness to appraise justly, partly from the
occasional uncertainty as to whether he is really pledging his own
authority on a point, partly because the value of his authority varies
greatly on different points. But on the whole I take his evidence
to suggest that agriculture was carried on in Greece either by free
labouring farmers employing hired men when needed, or by serfs. I do not
see any evidence to shew that no slaves were employed. The subject of his
book placed him under no necessity of mentioning them: and I can hardly
believe that farm-slavery on a small scale had died out all over Greece
since the days of Hesiod. Nor do I feel convinced on his authority that
the poverty of Greece was, so far as mere food is concerned, as extreme
as he makes Demaratus represent it. When the Spartans heard that Xerxes
was offering the Athenians a separate peace, they were uneasy, and sent
a counter-offer[112] on their own behalf. Not content with appealing to
the Hellenic patriotism of Athens, they said ‘We feel for you in your
loss of two crops and the distress that will last some while yet. But
you shall have all this made good. We, Spartans and confederates, will
find food for your wives and your helpless families[113] so long as this
war lasts.’ Supposing this offer to have been actually made, and to have
been capable of execution, surely it implies that there were food-stuffs
to spare in the Peloponnese. It may be that I am making too much of this
passage, and of the one about poverty. The dramatic touch of Herodotus
is present in both, and I must leave the apparent inconsistency between
them as it stands. The question of Peloponnesian agriculture will come up
again in connexion with a passage of Thucydides.
VIII. THE TRAGEDIANS.
The lives of =Aeschylus= (died 456 BC) =Sophocles= and =Euripides= (both
died 406 BC) cover a period of stirring events in the history of Greece,
particularly of Athens. =Aeschylus= had borne his part in the Persian
wars: he was a fighting man when Herodotus was born, and Sophocles a
boy. Euripides saw the rise of Athenian power to its greatest height,
and died with Sophocles on the eve of its fall. These men had seen
strange and terrible things. Hellas had only beaten off the Persian to
ruin herself by her own internecine conflicts. While the hatred and
contempt for ‘barbarians’ grew from sentiment into something very like
a moral principle, Greeks butchered or enslaved brother Greeks on an
unprecedented scale. Greek lands were laid waste by Greek armies: the
devastation of Attica in particular had serious effects on the politics
and policy of Athens. Athens at length lost her control of the Euxine
corn trade and was starved out. For the moment a decision was reached:
the reactionary rural powers, backed by the commercial jealousy of
Corinth, had triumphed. No thoughtful man in Athens during the time when
the rustic population were crowded into the city, idle and plagued with
sickness, could be indifferent to the strain on democratic institutions.
This spectacle suggested reflexions that permanently influenced Greek
thought on political subjects. The tendency was to accept democracy
in some form and degree as inevitable in most states, and to seek
salvation in means of checking the foolish extravagancies of mob-rule.
The best of these means was the encouragement of farmer-citizens: but
the circumstances of Greek history made practical success on these lines
impossible. In practice, oligarchy meant privilege, to which a scattered
farming population would submit; democracy meant mob-rule sooner or
later, and the dominance of urban interests. The problem which Plato and
Aristotle could not solve was already present in the latter part of the
Peloponnesian war. Aristophanes might ridicule Euripides, but on the
country-and-town issue the two were agreed.
=Aeschylus= indeed furnishes very little to my purpose directly.
The Greek antipathy to the Barbarian is very clearly marked; but
the only points worth noting are that in the _Persae_[114] he makes
Persian speakers refer to their own people as βάρβαροι, and that in a
bitter passage of the _Eumenides_ he expresses[115] his loathing of
mutilations and tortures, referring no doubt to Persian cruelties.
Agriculture can hardly be said to be mentioned at all, for the gift
of weather-wisdom[116] is useful to others than the farmer, and the
Scythian steppes are untilled land. A fragment, telling of a happy
land[117] where all things grow in plenty unsown without ploughing or
digging, reminds us of the Odyssey, minus the savages: another, referring
to the advance made in domestication of beasts to relieve men of toil,
make up the meagre list. All are in connexion with Prometheus. There are
two interesting passages[118] in which the word γαμόρος (landholder)
occurs, but merely as an expression for a man with the rights and
responsibilities of a citizen. There is nothing of tillage. It was
natural for the champion of the power of the Areopagus to view the
citizen from the landholding side. He is a respecter of authority, but at
the same time lays great stress on the duty and importance of deference
to public opinion. This tone runs through the surviving plays, wherever
the scene of a particular drama may be laid. Athenian conditions are
always in his mind, and his final judgment appears in the _Eumenides_
as an appeal to all true citizens to combine freedom with order. Ties
of blood, community of religious observances, the relation between
citizens and aliens, are topics on which he dwells again and again. In
general it is fair to conclude that, while he cheerfully accepted the
free constitution of Athens as it stood since the democratic reform
of Cleisthenes, he thought that it was quite democratic enough, and
regarded more recent tendencies with some alarm. Now these tendencies, in
particular the reforms of Ephialtes and Pericles, were certainly in the
direction of lessening the influence of the Attic farmers and increasing
that of the urban citizens, who were on the spot to take advantage of
them. To put it in the briefest form, Aeschylus must be reckoned an
admirer of the solid and responsible citizens of the old school, men with
a stake in the country.
=Sophocles= also supplies very little. The antipathy of Greeks to
Barbarians appears in a milder form: Aeschylus was naturally more
bitter, having fought against the Persian invader. The doctrine that
public opinion (of citizens) ought to be respected, that obedience to
constituted authorities is a duty, in short the principle that freedom
should be combined with order, is set forth in various passages of
dramatic debate. Yet the scenes of the plays, as those of Aeschylus, are
laid in legendary ages that knew not democracy. The awful potency of ties
of blood, and the relations of citizen and alien, are topics common to
both. But I think it may fairly be said that political feeling is less
evident in Sophocles. This is consistent with his traditional character.
In their attitude towards slavery there is no striking difference: both
treat it as a matter of course. But in Sophocles there are already
signs[119] of the questioning that was soon to become outspoken, as to
the justice of the relation of master and slave. Agriculture is hardly
mentioned. The words γεωργός, γεωργεῖν, γεωργία, are (as in Aeschylus)
not used. A reference to ploughing occurs in a famous passage[120]
celebrating the resourcefulness of Man. The herdsman, usually a slave, is
once[121] spoken of as perhaps a hired servant. One curious passage[122]
calls for notice. In the _Trachiniae_ the indifference of Heracles to
his children is compared by his wife Deianira to the conduct of a farmer
(γῄτης) who has got a farm at a distance (ἄρουραν ἔκτοπον) and only
visits it at seed-time and harvest. The man is apparently a non-resident
landowner, living presumably in the city (surely Athens is in the poet’s
mind) and working his farm by deputy—a steward—and only inspecting it at
important seasons. Whether the labour employed is slave or free, there
is nothing to shew. It is of interest to find the situation sufficiently
real to be used in a simile. But I infer that the situation, like the
conduct of Heracles, is regarded as exceptional.
=Euripides= takes us into a very different atmosphere. An age of movement
was also an age of criticism and inquiry, social religious political
ethical. The intellectual leaders came from various parts of the Greek
world, but the intellectual centre of ‘obstinate questionings’ was
Athens, and their poet Euripides. The use of drama, with plots drawn
from ancient legend, as a vehicle for reflexions on human problems,
addressed to a contemporary audience and certain to evoke assent and
dissent, is the regular practice of Euripides. His plays give us a mass
of information as to the questions exercising the minds of thoughtful men
in a stirring period. The point of view is that of the new school, the
enlightened ‘thinkers’ who claimed the right to challenge traditional
principles, opinions, prejudices, and institutions, testing them by the
canons of human reason fearlessly applied. This attitude was naturally
resented by men of the old school, averse to any disturbing influence
tending to undermine the traditional morality, and certain to react
upon politics. Their opposition can still be traced in the comedies of
Aristophanes and in various political movements during the Peloponnesian
war. Among the topics to which the new school turned their attention were
two of special interest to Euripides. The power of wealth was shewing
itself in the growth of capitalistic enterprise, an illustration of
which is seen in the case of the rich slaveowner Nicias. Poverty[123]
and its disadvantages, sometimes amounting to sheer degradation, was as
ever a subject of discontent: and this was closely connected with the
position of free wage-earning labour. At Athens political action took a
strong line in the direction of utilizing the wealth of the rich in the
service of the state: for the poor, its dominant tendency was to provide
opportunities of drawing state pay (μισθός), generally a bare living
wage, for the performance of various public duties. The other topic, that
of slavery, had as yet hardly reached the stage of questioning the right
or wrong of that institution as such. But the consciousness that the
slave, like his master, was a blend of human virtues and human vices,—was
a man, in short,—was evidently becoming clearer, and suggesting the
conclusion that he must be judged as a man and not as a mere chattel.
Otherwise Euripides would hardly have ventured to bring slaves on the
stage[124] in so sympathetic a spirit, or to utter numerous sayings,
bearing on their merits and failings, in a tone of broad humanity.