analogous to modern Abolitionism? If the slave was confessedly a man,
had he not the rights of a man? The answer is plain. That a man, simply
as a man, had any rights, was a doctrine not yet formulated or clearly
conceived. The antipathy[125] between Greek and Barbarian was a practical
bar to its recognition. The Persian was not likely to moderate his
treatment of Greeks in his power from any such consideration: superior
force, nothing less, would induce him to conform to Greek notions of
humanity. While force was recognized as the sole foundation of right
as against free enemies, there could not be much serious doubt as to
the right of holding aliens in slavery. But in this questioning age
another theoretical basis of discussion had been found. Men were testing
institutions by asking in reference to each ‘is it a natural[126] growth?
does it exist by nature (φύσει)? or is it a conventional status? does it
exist by law (νόμῳ)?’ Here was one of the most unsettling inquiries of
the period. In reference to slavery we find two conflicting doctrines
beginning to emerge. One is[127] that all men are born free (φύσει) and
that slavery is therefore a creation of man’s device (νόμῳ). The other is
that superior strength is a gift of nature, and therefore the rule of the
weaker[128] by the stronger is according to nature. The conflict between
these two views was destined to engage some of the greatest minds of
Greece in later years, when the political failure of the Greek states
had diverted men’s thoughts to problems concerning the individual. For
the present slavery was taken for granted, but it is evident that the
seeds of future doubt had been sown. Among the stray utterances betraying
uneasiness is the oft-quoted saying[129] of the sophist Alcidamas ‘god
leaves all men free: nature makes no man a slave.’ The speaker was
contemporary with Euripides, whose sayings are often in much the same
tone, if less direct. A remarkable passage is that in which he makes
Heracles repudiate[130] the myths that represent slavery as existing
among the gods. No god that is a real god has any needs, and such tales
are rubbish—an argument that was destined to reappear later as bearing
upon slavery among men, particularly in connexion with the principles of
the Cynic school.
I have said enough as to the point of view from which the questioners,
such as Euripides, regarded slavery. It is somewhat surprising that
the poet’s references to hired labour[131] are very few, and all of a
depressing kind, treating θητεύειν as almost or quite equivalent to
δουλεύειν. The references or allusions to handicrafts are hardly to
the point: such men are doubtless conceived as θῆτες, but they would
generally direct themselves in virtue of their trade-skill: they are not
hired ‘hands.’ Herdsmen often appear, but generally if not always they
seem to be slaves or serfs. Nor is it clear that the digger (σκαφεύς)
is free; he is referred to[132] as a specimen of the meanest class
of labourer. But in three of the plays there occur passages directly
descriptive of the poor working farmer, the αὐτουργὸς of whom I have
spoken above. In the _Electra_, the prologue is put in the mouth of
the poor but well-born αὐτουργὸς to whom the crafty Aegisthus has
given Electra in marriage. The scene between husband and wife is one
of peculiar delicacy and interest. The points that concern us here
are these. The princess has been united[133] to a poor and powerless
freeman. He is fully occupied[134] with the hard labour of his farm,
which he apparently cultivates singlehanded. He understands the motive of
Aegisthus, and shews his respect for Electra by refraining from conjugal
rights. She in turn respects his nobility, and shews her appreciation by
cheerfully performing[135] the humble duties of a cottar’s wife. When
the breadwinner (ἐργάτης) comes home from toil, he should find all ready
for his comfort. He is shocked to see her, a lady of gentle breeding (εὖ
τεθραμμένη) fetch water from the spring and wait upon his needs. But he
has to accept the situation: the morrow’s dawn[136] shall see him at his
labour on the land: it is all very well to pray for divine aid, but
to get a living the first thing needful is to work. Now here we have a
picture of the free farmer on a small scale, who lives in a hovel and
depends on the labour of his own hands. He is the ancient analogue of
the French peasant, who works harder than any slave, and whose views
are apt to be limited by the circumstances of his daily life. He has no
slaves[137]. Again, the Theban herald in the _Supplices_[138], speaking
of the incapacity of a Demos for the function of government, says ‘but
a poor husbandman (γαπόνος ἀνὴρ πένης), even if not stupid, will be
too busy to attend to state affairs.’ Here is our toiling rustic, the
ideal citizen of statesmen who desire to keep free from popular control.
The same character appears again in the _Orestes_, on the occasion of
a debate in the Argive Assembly (modelled on Athens), as defender of
Orestes. He is described[139] as ‘not of graceful mien, but a manly
fellow, one who seldom visits the city and the market-place, a toiler
with his hands (αὐτουργός), of the class on whom alone the safety of the
country depends; but intelligent and prepared to face the conflict of
debate, a guileless being of blameless life.’ So vivid is this portrait,
that the sympathy of the poet with the rustic type of citizen can hardly
be ignored. Now, why did Euripides take pains to shew this sympathy? I
take it to be a sign that he saw with regret the declining influence of
the farmer class in Attic politics.
Can we go a step further, and detect in these passages any sort of
protest against a decline in the number of small working farmers, and
a growth of exploitation-farming, carried on by stewards directing the
labour of slaves or hired hands? In the next generation we find this
system in use, as indeed it most likely always had been to some extent
on the richer soils of lowland Attica. The concentration of the country
folk in the city during the great war would tend to promote agriculture
by deputy after the return of peace. Deaths, and the diversion of some
farmers to other pursuits, were likely to leave vacancies in the rural
demes. Speculators who took advantage of such chances to buy land
would not as a rule do so with intent to live on the land and work it
themselves; and aliens were not allowed to hold real estate. It seems
fairly certain that landlords resident in Athens, to whom land was
only one of many forms of investment, and who either let their land to
tenant-farmers or exploited its cultivation under stewards, were a class
increased considerably by the effects of the war. We shall see further
reasons below for believing this. Whether Euripides in the passages cited
above is actually warning or protesting, I do not venture to say: that
he grasped the significance of a movement beginning under his very eyes,
is surely a probable conjecture.
That we should hear little of the employment of slaves in the hard
work of agriculture, even if the practice were common, is not to be
wondered at. Assuming the existence of slavery, there was no need for
any writer other than a specialist to refer to them. But we have in
the _Rhesus_ a passage[140] in which Hector forecasts the result of an
attack on the Greeks while embarking: some of them will be slain, and
the rest, captured and made fast in bonds, will be taught to cultivate
(γαπονεῖν) the fields of the Phrygians. That this use of captives is
nothing extraordinary appears below, when Dolon the spy is bargaining
for a reward in case of success. To a suggestion that one of the Greek
chiefs should be assigned to him he replies ‘No, hands gently nurtured
(εὖ ’τεθραμμέναι)[141] are unfit for farm-work (γεωργεῖν).’ The notion
of captive Greeks slaving on the land for Asiatic lords is a touch meant
to be provocative of patriotic indignation. And the remark of Dolon
would surely fall more meaningly on the ears of men acquainted with the
presence of rustic slavery in their own country. To serfage we have a
reference[142] in the _Heraclidae_, but the retainer (πενέστης) is under
arms, ‘mobilized,’ not at the time working on the land. His reward, when
he brings the news of victory, is to be freedom.
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.