above paragraphs, we should expect to find that agriculture on a small
scale was not prospering in this period. Unhappily there is hardly any
direct evidence on the point. Even indirect evidence is meagre and
sometimes far from clear. One notable symptom of the age is seen in the
rise of bucolic poetry. This is not a rustic growth, the rude utterance
of unlettered herdsmen, but an artificial product of town-dwelling
poets, who idealize the open-air life to amuse town-bred readers
somewhat weary of the everlasting streets. In the endeavour to lend an
air of reality to scenes of rural life, it was convenient to credit
the rustics (shepherds goatherds etc) with a grossness of amorosity
that may perhaps be exaggerated to suit the taste of urban readers. Of
this tendency the idylls of Theocritus furnish many instances. We need
not accept them as accurate pictures of the life of herds and hinds in
Sicily or elsewhere, but they give us some notion of the ideas of rural
life entertained by literary men of the Alexandrian school. Beside the
guardians of flocks and herds with their faithful dogs, their flutes
and pan-pipes, idling in the pleasant shade and relieving the tiresome
hours with musical competition, we have the hinds ploughing mowing or
busy with vintage and winepress. Some are evidently freemen, others are
slaves; and we hear of overseers. There is milking and making of cheese,
and woodmen[490] are not forgotten. The bloom of flowers, the murmur of
streams, the song of birds, the whisper of the refreshing breeze, form
the setting of these rural scenes, and might almost persuade us that we
are privileged spectators of a genuine golden age. But the sayings and
doings of the rustics undeceive us. And the artificiality of this poetry
is further betrayed by that of the panegyric and pseudo-epic poems of
the same author. His admiration of Hiero[491] of Syracuse may be mainly
sincere, but his praises of Ptolemy[492] Philadelphus are the utterances
of a courtier. His excursions into the region of mythology are brief,
for the reading public of his day could not stand long epics on the
adventures[493] of Heracles or the Dioscuri. And the literary apparatus
is antiquarian, a more or less direct imitation of the old Homeric
diction, but unable to reproduce the varied cadences. It is generally
remarked that the genius of Theocritus finds its happiest and liveliest
expression in the fifteenth idyll, which depicts urban scenes. In this
respect that idyll may be compared with the mimes of =Herodas=, which
illustrate, probably with truth, the shadier sides of urban life in
cities of the period, which Theocritus ignores.
It is in a miniature epic[494] of mythological setting that we find
the most direct references to tillage of the soil combined with the
keeping of live stock—general agriculture, in short. We read of the
plowman[495] in charge of the crops, of the hard-working diggers[496]
(φυτοσκάφοι οἱ πολυεργοί), of the herdsmen[497], of an overseer[498] or
steward (αἰσυμνήτης). The staff seems to consist entirely of slaves. But
it is not easy to say how far the picture is meant as a reproduction
of the primitive labour-conditions of the traditional Heroic age, how
far the details may be coloured by the conditions of Theocritus’ own
day. In the Idylls we find a shepherd, free presumably, in charge of
a flock the property[499] of his father. On the other hand ἐριθακὶς
in one passage[500] seems not to be a wage-earner, but a black slave.
The ἐργάτης of the tenth idyll[501] is probably a free man, but he
is enamoured of a slave girl. No conclusion can be drawn from a
reference[502] to coarse but filling food meant for labourers. Roughness
and a certain squalor are conventional rustic attributes: a town-bred
girl repulses the advances of a herdsman[503] with the remark ‘I’m not
used to kiss rustics, but to press town-bred lips,’ and adds further
detail. Nor is the mention of Thessalian[504] serfs (πενέσται) in the
panegyric of Hiero anything more than a part of the poet’s apparatus.
And the reference[505] to the visit of Augeas to his estate, followed
by a comment on the value of the master’s personal attention to his
own interests, is a touch of truism common to all peoples in every
age. To Theocritus, the one poet of learned Alexandria who had high
poetic genius, the life and labour of farmers was evidently a matter of
little or no concern. He could hardly idealize the Egyptian fellah. And
the one passage[506] in which he directly illustrates the position of
the Greek contemporary farmer is significant. Discontented owing to a
disappointment in love, the man is encouraged by his friend to enter the
service of the generous Ptolemy as a mercenary soldier.
One or two small references may be gleaned from the _Characters_ of
Aristotle’s successor =Theophrastus=. That the bulk of these typical
portraits are drawn from town-folk is only to be expected, but this
point is not to be pressed overmuch, for philosophers did not frequent
country districts. The general references to treatment of slaves, the
slave-market, and so forth, are merely interesting as illustrative of
the general prevalence of slavery, chiefly of course in Athens. But we
do get to the farm in the case[507] of the rustic boor (ἄγροικος). His
lack of dignity and proper reserve is shewn in talking to his slaves on
matters of importance: he makes confidants of them, and so far forgets
himself as to lend a hand in grinding the corn. It has been remarked that
Greek manners allowed a certain familiarity[508] in the relations of
master and slave. But this person overdoes it: in Peripatetic language,
he transgresses the doctrine of the Mean. He employs also hired men
(μισθωτοί), and to them he recounts all the political gossip (τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς
ἐκκλησίας), evidently a sign of his awkwardness and inability to hold
his tongue. I take these wage-earners to be poor freemen. They might
be slaves hired from another owner: this practice appears elsewhere in
connexion with town slaves. But the general impoverishment of the old
Greece, save in a few districts, is beyond doubt: and the demand for
slaves in new cities would raise the price of slaves and tend to drive
the free poor to manual labour.
The exact dates of the birth and death of =Polybius= are uncertain, but
as an observer of events his range extended from about 190 or 189 to 122
or 121 BC. Though his references to agriculture are few and separately
of small importance, they have a cumulative value on certain points. He
wrote as historian of the fortunes of the civilized world of his day,
treated as a whole, in which a series of interconnected struggles led up
to the supremacy of Rome. His Greece is the Greece of the Leagues. No
leading state of the old models had been able to unite the old Hellas
effectively under its headship, but the Macedonian conquest had plainly
proved that in isolation[509] the little separate states had no future
open to them but slavery. The doings of Alexander’s Successors further
inforced the lesson. It was clear that the only hope of freedom lay in
union so far as possible, for thus only could Greek powers be created
able to act with any sort of independence and self-respect in their
relations with the new great powers outside. Accordingly there took
place a revival of old local unions in districts where a community of
interest between tribes or cities had in some form or other long been
recognized. Such were the tribal League of Aetolia and the city League of
Achaia. But these two were but notable instances of a federative movement
much wider. The attempt to unite the scattered towns of Arcadia, with a
federal centre at Megalopolis, seems to have been less successful. But
the general aim of the movement towards federalism in Greece is clear.
That it did not in the end save Greek freedom was due to two defects: it
was too partial and too late. For no general union was achieved. Greek
jealousy remained, and Leagues fought with Leagues in internal strife:
then they were drawn into quarrels not their own, as allies of great
foreign powers. It was no longer possible to remain neutral with safety.
No League was strong enough to face the risk of compromising itself with
a victorious great power. Achaean statesmen did their best, but they too
could not save their country from ruin, once the League became entangled
in the diplomacy of Rome. Nor was it the old Hellas alone that thus
drifted to its doom. Between Rome and Carthage the western Greeks lost
whatever power and freedom their own disunion and quarrels had left them.
The Rhodian republic and its maritime League of islanders had to become
the subject allies of Rome.
One point stands out clearly enough. In the Greece of the third century
BC the question of food-supply was as pressing as it had ever been in the
past. The operations of King Philip were often conditioned by the ease or
difficulty of getting supplies[510] of corn for his troops: that is, he
had to work on an insufficient margin of such resources. In 219, after
driving the Dardani out of Macedonia, he had to dismiss his men[511] that
they might get in their harvest. In 218, the success of his Peloponnesian
campaign was largely dependent[512] on the supplies and booty captured in
Elis, in Cephallenia, in Laconia; and on the subsidies of corn and money
voted by his Achaean allies. The destruction of crops[513] was as of old
a principal means of warfare. And when he had to meet the Roman invasion
in 197, the race to secure what corn[514] was to be had was again a
leading feature of the war. It is true that the feeding of armies was a
difficulty elsewhere[515], as in Asia, and in all ages and countries:
also that difficulties of transport were a considerable part of it. But
the war-indemnities[516] fixed by treaties, including great quantities of
corn, shew the extreme importance attached to this item. And the gifts
of corn[517] to the Rhodian republic after the great earthquake (about
225 BC), and the leave granted them[518] in 169 by the Roman Senate to
import a large quantity from Sicily, tell the same story. Another article
in great demand, only to be got wholesale from certain countries, such
as Macedonia, was timber. It was wanted for domestic purposes and for
construction of military engines, which were greatly developed in the
wars of the Successors; but above all for shipbuilding, commercial and
naval. Rhodes in particular[519] needed a great supply; and the gifts
of her friends in 224 BC were largely in the form of timber. There was
no doubt a great demand for it at Alexandria, Syracuse, Corinth, and
generally in seaport towns. It is evident that in strictly Greek lands
the wood grown was chiefly of small size, suitable for fuel. There is
no sign of an advance on the conditions of an earlier time in the way of
afforestation: nor indeed was such a policy likely.
But food had to be found somehow. Agriculture therefore had to go on.
Outside the commercial centres, where food-stuffs could be imported
by sea, there was no alternative: the population had to depend on the
products of local tillage and pasturage. A few cities celebrated as
art-centres might contrive to live by the sale of their works, but this
hardly affects the general situation. We should therefore very much like
to know how things stood on the land. Was the tendency towards large
landed estates, or was the small-farm system reviving? Was farm-labour
chiefly that of freemen, or that of slaves? If of freemen, was it
chiefly that of small owners, or that of wage-earners? In default of any
authoritative statement, we have to draw what inferences we can from
slight casual indications. That the career of Alexander was directly and
indirectly the cause of great disturbances in Greek life, is certain.
Of the ways in which it operated, two are of special importance.
The compulsory restoration of exiles[520] whose properties had been
confiscated led to claims for restitution; and in the matter of real
estate the particular land in question was easily identified and made the
subject of a bitter contest. Now uncertainty of tenure is notoriously
a check on improvement, and the effect of the restorations was to make
tenures uncertain. At the same time the prospects of professional
soldiering in the East were a strong temptation to able-bodied husbandmen
who were not very prosperous. From the rural parts of Greece a swarm of
mercenaries went forth to join the host of Alexander, and the movement
continued long. In the stead of one Alexander, there arose the rival
Successor-kings, who competed in the military market for the intelligent
Greeks. It was worth their while, and they paid well for a good article.
So all through the third century there was a draining away of some of the
best blood of Greece. Some of these men had no doubt parted with farms
before setting out on the great venture. Of those who survived the wars,
some settled down abroad as favoured citizens in some of the new cities
founded by the kings. The few who returned to Greece with money saved
did not come home to labour on a small farm: they settled in some city
where they could see life and enjoy the ministrations of male and female
slaves. Now it is not likely that all lands disposed of by these men were
taken up by husbandmen exposed to the same temptations. Probably the
greater part were bought up by the wealthier residents at home, and so
went to increase large holdings.
How far do stray notices bear out this conclusion? At Athens in 322
BC a constitution was imposed by Antipater, deliberately framed for
the purpose of placing power in the hands of the richer classes. He
left 9000 citizens in possession of the full franchise, excluding
12000 poor. For the latter he offered to provide allotments of land in
Thrace. Accounts[521] vary, but it seems that some accepted the offer
and emigrated. It was not a compulsory deportation, but it was exile.
Economically it may have been a relief to Athens by reducing the number
of citizens who shared civic perquisites. But it had no tendency to bring
more citizens back on to Attic land: such a move would have implied
displacement of present landholders, whom it was Antipater’s policy to
conciliate. In the course of the third century we get a glimpse of the
agrarian situation at Sparta. It is clear that the movement, already
noted by Aristotle, towards land-monopoly[522] in the hands of a few
rich, had been steadily going on. It ended by provoking a communistic
reaction under the reforming kings Agis IV and Cleomenes III. Blood
was shed, and Sparta became a disorderly state, the cause of many
troubles in Greece down to the time of the Roman conquest. The growing
Achaean League, in the side of which revolutionary Sparta was a thorn,
was essentially a conservative federation. However democratic its
individual members might be, the constitution of the League worked[523]
very effectively in the interest of the rich. On the occasion of the
capture of Megalopolis by Cleomenes =Polybius= is at pains to warn his
readers[524] against believing stories of the immense booty taken there.
Though the Peloponnese had enjoyed a period of prosperity, still these
stories are gross exaggerations. Megalopolis, an important member of
the League, had been from the first laid out on too ambitious[525] a
scale. That the ‘Great City’ was a great desert, had found proverbial
expression in a verse. A little later, when Philip was campaigning in
Peloponnesus, we hear of the great prosperity[526] of Elis, especially in
agriculture. The Eleans had enjoyed a great advantage in the protection
afforded them by religion as guardians of Olympia. We may add that they
were allied with the Aetolian League, whose hostility other Greek states
were not forward to provoke. A class of wealthy resident landlords
existed in Elis, and much of the country was good farming land under
tillage. But in most of the Achaean and Arcadian[527] districts pastoral
industry, and therefore sparse population, was the rule, owing to the
mountainous nature of those parts. In central Greece we need only refer
to the restored Thebes, centre once more of a Boeotian confederacy. The
fertile lowland of Boeotia supplied plenty of victual; and among Greek
delicacies the eels of the lake Copais were famous. Boeotians were known
as a well-nourished folk. In the fragments of the comic poet Eubulus[528]
(assigned to the fourth century BC) we have them depicted as gluttonous,
with some grossness of detail. Such being their tradition, I can see
nothing strange in the picture[529] given of the Boeotians in his own
day by =Polybius=. The ceaseless guzzling, the idleness and political
corruption of the people, may be overdrawn. I admit that such qualities
were not favourable to lasting prosperity; but their prosperity was not
lasting. In the view of Polybius the subjection of Greece by the Romans
was rather an effect than a cause of Greek degeneracy, and I dare not
contradict him. Moreover a piece of confirmatory evidence relative to
the third century BC occurs in a fragment of =Heraclides Ponticus=. In
a traveller’s description[530] of Greece Boeotia is thus referred to.
Round Tanagra the land is not very rich in corn-crops, but stands at
the head of Boeotian wine-production. The people are well-to-do, but
live simply: they are all farmers (γεωργοί), not labourers (ἐργάται). At
Anthedon on the coast the people are all fishermen ferrymen etc: they do
not cultivate the land, indeed they have none. Of Thebes he remarks that
the territory is good for horse-breeding, a green well-watered rolling
country, with more gardens than any other Greek city owns. But, he adds,
the people are violent undisciplined and quarrelsome. I think we may see
here an earlier stage in the degeneracy that disgusted Polybius.
In all this there is nothing to suggest that small farming was common and
prosperous during the Macedonian period in Greece. The natural, inference
is rather that agriculture in certain favoured districts was carried
on by a limited number of large landowners on a large scale, pastoral
industry varying locally according to circumstances. The development of
urban life and luxury, and the agrarian troubles in the Peloponnese, are
both characteristic phenomena of the age. In town and country alike the
vital fact of civilization was the conflict of interests between rich
and poor. Macedonia presents a contrast. There no great cities drew the
people away from the country. A hardy and numerous population supplied
the material for national armies whenever needed, and loyalty to the
reigning king gave unity to national action. Hence the long domination of
Macedon in Greece; the only serious opposition being that of the Aetolian
League. Of all the Successor-kingdoms, Macedon alone was able to make any
stand against the advance of Rome.
It remains to consider the few indications—I can hardly call them
references—from which we can get a little light on the labour-question.
The passages cited from Theophrastus and Theocritus point to the
prevalence of slave-labour. And the same may be said of =Polybius=. In
speaking[531] of the blunder in exaggerating the value of the booty
taken at Megalopolis, he says ‘Why, even in these more peaceful and
prosperous days you could not raise so great a sum of money in all the
Peloponnese out of the mere movables (ἐπίπλων) unless you took slaves
into account (χωρὶς σωμάτων).’ His word for live-stock not human is
θρέμματα. Evidently to him slave-property is a large item in the value
of estates. Again, speaking of the importance of Byzantium[532] on the
Pontic trade-route, he insists on the plentiful and useful supply of
bestial and human stock to Greece by this traffic. The high farming of
rural Elis[533] is shewn in its being full of σώματα and farm-stock
(κατασκευῆς). Hence these ‘bodies’ formed a considerable part of the
booty taken there by Philip. And in the claims[534] made at Rome in 183
BC against Philip a part related to slave-property. References to the
sale of prisoners of war, to piracy and kidnapping, are frequent: but
they only concern us as indicating time-honoured means of supplying the
slave-market. As for rowing ships, so for heavy farm-work, able-bodied
men were wanted. At a pinch such slaves could be, and were, employed
in war[535], with grant or promise of manumission: but this was a step
only taken in the last resort. A curious remark[536] of =Polybius= when
speaking of Arcadia must not be overlooked. In 220 BC an Aetolian force
invaded Achaia and penetrated into northern Arcadia, where they took
the border town of Cynaetha, and after wholesale massacre and pillage
burnt it on their retreat. The city had for years suffered terribly
from internal strife, in which the doings of restored exiles had played
a great part. Polybius says that the Cynaethans were thought to have
deserved the disaster that had now fallen upon them. Why? Because of
their savagery (ἀγριότητος). They were Arcadians. The Arcadians as a
race-unit (ἔθνος) enjoy a reputation for virtue throughout Greece,
as a kindly hospitable and religious folk. But the Cynaethans outdid
all Greeks in cruelty and lawlessness. This is to be traced to their
neglect of the time-honoured Arcadian tradition, the general practice
of vocal and instrumental music. This practice was deliberately adopted
as a refining agency, to relieve and temper the roughness and harshness
incidental to men living toilsome lives in an inclement climate. Such was
the design of the old Arcadians, on consideration of the circumstances,
one point in which was that their people generally worked in person (τὴν
ἑκάστων αὐτουργίαν). On this I need only remark that he is referring to
the past, but may or may not include the Arcadians of his own day: and
repeat what I have said before, that to be αὐτουργὸς does not exclude
employment of slaves as well. That there was still more personal labour
in rural Arcadia than in many other parts of Greece, is probable. But
that is all.
That the slavery-question was a matter of some interest in Greece may be
inferred from the pains taken by =Polybius=[537] to refute an assertion
of =Timaeus=, that to acquire slaves was not a Greek custom. The context
is lost, and we cannot tell whether it was a general assertion or not. If
general, it was no doubt nonsense. A more effective piece of evidence is
the report[538] of =Megasthenes=, who visited India early in the third
century. He told his Greek readers that in India slavery was unknown.
The contrast to Greece was of course the interesting point. It is also
affirmed[539] that in this period manumissions became more common, as
a result of the economic decline of Greece combined with the moral
evolution to be traced in the philosophic schools. Calderini, from whom
I take this, is the leading authority on Greek manumission. And, so far
as the records are concerned, the number of inscribed ‘acts’ recovered
from the important centre of Delphi[540] confirms the assertion. From
201 to 140 BC these documents are exceptionally numerous. But the not
unfrequent stipulation found in them, that the freed man or woman shall
remain in attendance[541] on his or her late owner for the owner’s life
or for some fixed period, or shall continue to practise a trade (or even
learn a trade) on the profits of which the late owner or his heirs shall
have a claim, suggest strongly that these manumissions were the rewards
of domestic service or technical skill. I do not believe that they have
any connexion with rustic[542] slavery. Calderini also holds that as
Greek industries and commerce declined free labour competed more and
more with slave-labour. So far as urban trades are concerned, this is
probably true: and likewise a certain decline in domestic slavery due to
the straitened circumstances of families and experience of the waste and
nuisance of large slave-households. This last point, already noticed[543]
e.g. by Aristotle, is to be found expressed in utterances of the comic
poets. Rustic slavery appears in the fragments of Menander’s Γεωργός, but
the old farmer’s slaves are Barbarians, who will do nothing to help him
when accidentally hurt, and who are hardly likely to receive favours.
The ordinary view of agriculture in Menander’s time seems most truly
expressed in his saying[544] that it is a slave’s business.