AUTHORITIES IN DETAIL—GREEK
The Iliad.In a great war-poem we can hardly expect to find many references to the economic labours of peace. And an army fighting far from home in a foreign land would naturally be out of touch with the rustic life of Greece. Nor was the poet concerned to offer us the details of supply-service, though he represents the commissariat as efficient. Free labour appears[18]in various forms of handicraft, and the mention of pay (μισθός)[19]shews wage-earning as a recognized fact. We hear of serving for hire (θητεύειν)[20], and the ἔριθοι or farm-labourers[21]seem to be θῆτες under a special name. That labour is not viewed as a great degradation may fairly be inferred from the case of Hephaestus the smith-god, from the wage-service of Poseidon and Apollo under Laomedon, and from the herdsman-service of Apollo under Admetus. Agriculture is assumed, and in the Catalogue ‘works’ (ἔργα)[22]occurs in the sense of ‘tilled lands.’ But it is chiefly in similes or idyllic scenes that we get glimpses of farming[23]operations. Thus we have ploughing, reaping, binding, threshing, winnowing. Most striking of all is the passage in which the work of irrigation[24]is graphically described. There is no reason to suppose that any of the workers in these scenes are slaves: they would seem to be wage-earners. But I must admit that, if slaves were employed under the free workers, the poet would very likely not mention such a detail: that is, if slavery were a normal institution taken for granted. For the present I assume only free labour in these cases. We are made aware of a clear social difference between the rich and powerful employer and the employed labourer. The mowers are at work in the field of some rich man[25](ἀνδρὸς μάκαρος κατ’ ἄρουραν), who does not appear to lend a hand himself. Or again in the close of a ruler (τέμενος βασιλήιον)[26], with binders following them, a busy scene. The βασιλεὺς himself stands watching them in dignified silence, staff in hand. There is nothing here to suggest that the small working farmer was a typical figure in the portraiture of rural life. Flocks and herds are of great importance, indeed the ox is a normal standard of value. But the herdsmen are mean freemen. Achilles is disgusted[27]at the prospect of being drowned by Scamander ‘like ayoung swineherd swept away by a stream in flood.’ For the heroes of the poem are warrior-lords: the humble toilers of daily life are of no account beside them.
And yet the fact of slavery stands out clearly, and also its connexion with the fact of capture in war. The normal way of dealing with enemies is to slay the men and enslave the women. The wife of a great warrior has many handmaidens, captives of her lord’s prowess. A slave-trade exists, and we hear of males being spared[28]and ‘sold abroad’: for they are sent ‘to islands far away’ or ‘beyond the salt sea.’ We do not find male slaves with the army: perhaps we may guess that they were not wanted. A single reference to δμῶες (properly slave-captives) appears inXIX333, where Achilles, speaking of his property at home in Phthia, says κτῆσιν ἐμὴν δμῶάς τε. But we cannot be certain that these slaves are farm-hands. We can only reflect that a slave bought and paid for was not likely to be fed in idleness or put to the lightest work. In general it seems that what weighed upon the slave, male or female, was the pressure of constraint, the loss of freedom, not the fear of cruel treatment. What Hector keeps from the Trojans[29]is the ‘day of constraint,’ ἦμαρ ἀναγκαῖον, also expressed by δούλιον ἦμαρ. Viewed from the other side we find enslavement consisting in a taking away[30]the ‘day of freedom,’ ἐλεύθερον ἦμαρ. The words δούληνIII409 and ἀνδραπόδεσσιVII475 are isolated cases of substantives in passages the genuineness of which has been questioned. On the whole it is I think not an unfair guess that, if the poet had been depicting the life of this same Greek society in their homeland, and not under conditions of present war, we should have found more references to slavery as a working institution. As it is, we get a momentary glimpse[31]of neighbour landowners, evidently on a small scale, engaged in a dispute concerning their boundaries, measuring-rod in hand; and nothing to shew whether such persons supplied the whole of their own labour in tillage or supplemented it by employing hired men or slaves.
The Odysseyis generally held to be of later date than the Iliad. A far more important distinction is that its scenes are not episodes of war. A curious difference of terms[32]is seen in the case of the word οἰκῆες, which in the Iliad seems to mean ‘house-folk’ including both free and slave, in the Odyssey to mean slaves only. But as to the condition of slaves there is practically no difference. A conquered foe was spared on the battlefield by grace of the conqueror, whose ownership of his slave was unlimited: and this unlimited right could be conveyedby sale[33]to a third party. We find Odysseus ready to consign offending slaves[34]to torture mutilation or death. In the story of his visit to Troy[35]as a spy we hear that he passed for a slave, and that part of his disguise consisted in the marks of flogging. Yet the relations of master and mistress to their slaves are most kindly in ordinary circumstances. The faithful slave is a type glorified in the Odyssey: loyalty is the first virtue of a slave, and it is disloyalty, however shewn, that justifies the master’s vengeance. For they live on intimate terms[36]with their master and mistress and are trusted to a wonderful degree. In short we may say that the social atmosphere of the Odyssey is full of mild slavery, but that in the background there is always the grim possibility of atrocities committed by absolute power. And we have a trace even of secondary[37]slavery: for the swineherd, himself a slave, has an under-slave of his own, bought with his own goods from slave-dealers while his own master was abroad. Naturally enough we find slaves classed as a part of the lord’s estate. Odysseus hopes[38]that before he dies he may set eyes on his property, his slaves and his lofty mansion. But another and perhaps socially more marked distinction seems implied in the suitors’ question[39]about Telemachus—‘who were the lads that went with him on his journey? were they young nobles of Ithaca, or his own hired men and slaves (θῆτές τε δμῶές τε)?’ The answer is that they were ‘the pick of the community, present company excepted.’ The wage-earner and the slave do not seem to be parted by any broad social line. Indeed civilization had a long road yet to travel before levelling movement among the free classes drew a vital distinction between them on the one side and slaves on the other.
Free workers of various kinds are often referred to, and we are, owing to the circumstances of the story, brought more into touch with them than in the Iliad. Handicraftsmen[40]are a part of the life of the time, and we must assume the smith the carpenter and the rest of the males to be free: female slaves skilled in working wool do not justify us in supposing that the corresponding men are slaves. Beside these are other men who practise a trade useful to the community, ‘public-workers’ (δημιοεργοί)[41], but not necessarily handworkers. Thus we find the seer, the leech, the bard, classed with the carpenter as persons whom all men would readily entertain as guests; the wandering beggar none would invite. The last is a type of ‘mean freeman,’ evidently common in that society. He is too much akin to the suppliant, whom religion[42]protects, to be roughly shewn the door: he is αἰδοῖος ἀλήτης[43], and trades on the reverence felt for one who appeals as stranger to hospitable custom. Thus he picks up a living[44]from the scraps and offals of great houses. But he is despised, and, what concerns us here, despised[45]not only for his abject poverty but for his aversion to honest work. That the poet admires industry is clear, and is curiously illustrated by his contrasted pictures of civilization and barbarism. In Phaeacia are the fenced-in gardens[46]that supply Alcinous and his people with never-failing fruits: the excellence of their naval craftsmen is expressed in the ‘yarn’ of ships that navigate themselves. In the land of the Cyclopes, nature provides[47]them with corn and wine, but they neither sow nor plough. They have flocks of sheep and goats. They have no ships or men to build them. They live in caves, isolated savages with no rudiments of civil life. It is not too much to say that the poet is a believer in work and a contemner of idleness: the presence of slaves does not suggest that the free man is to be lazy. Odysseus boasts of his activities (δρηστοσύνη)[48]. He is ready to split wood and lay a fire, to prepare and serve a meal, and in short to wait on the insolent suitors as inferiors do on nobles. Of course he is still the unknown wanderer: but the contrast[49]between him and the genuine beggar Irus is an effective piece of by-play in the poem.
Turning to agriculture, we may note that it fills no small place. Wheat and barley, pounded or ground to meal, seem to furnish the basis of civilized diet. The Cyclops[50]does not look like a ‘bread-eating man,’ and wine completely upsets him to his ruin. Evidently the bounty of nature has been wasted on such a savage. But the cultivation of cereal crops is rather assumed than emphasized in the pictures of Greek life. We hear of tilled lands (ἔργα)[51], and farm-labour (ἔργον)[52]is mentioned as too wearisome for a high-spirited warrior noble. The tired and hungry plowman[53]appears in a simile. But the favourite culture is that of the vine and olive and other fruits in orchards carefully fenced and tended. One of the suitors makes a jesting offer[54]to the unknown Odysseus ‘Stranger, would you be willing to serve for hire (θητευέμεν), if I took you on, in an outlying field—you shall have a sufficient wage—gathering stuff for fences and planting tall trees? I would see that you were regularly fed clothed and shod. No, you are a ne’er-do-weel (ἔργα κάκ’ ἔμμαθες) and will not do farm-work (ἔργον): you prefer to go round cringing for food to fill your insatiate belly.’ This scornful proposal sets the noble’s contempt for wage-earning labour in a clear light.And the shade of Achilles, repudiating[55]the suggestion that it is a great thing to be a ruler among the dead in the ghostly world, says ‘I had rather be one bound to the soil, serving another for hire, employed by some landless man of little property, than be king of all the dead.’ He is speaking strongly: to work for hire, a mean destiny at best, is at its meanest when the employer is a man with no land-lot of his own (ἄκληρος), presumably occupying on precarious tenure a bit of some lord’s estate. After such utterances we cannot wonder that as we saw above, θῆτες and δμῶες are mentioned[56]in the same breath.
That slaves are employed on the farm is clear enough. When Penelope sends for old Dolius[57], aservus dotalisof hers (to use the Roman expression) she adds ‘who is in charge of my fruit-garden,’ So too the aged Laertes, living a hard life on his farm, has a staff of slaves[58]to do his will, and their quarters and farm duties are a marked detail of the picture. The old man, in dirty rags like a slave, is a contrast[59]to the garden, in which every plant and tree attests the devoted toil of his gardeners under his own skilled direction. Odysseus, as yet unrecognized by his father, asks him how he comes to be in such a mean attire, though under it he has the look of a king. Then he drops this tone and says ‘but tell me, whose slave[60]are you, and who owns the orchard you are tending?’ The hero knows his father, but to preserve for the present his own incognito he addresses him as the slave that he appears to be. Now if garden work was done by slaves, surely the rougher operations of corn-growing were not confined to free labour, and slaves pass unmentioned as a matter of course. Or are we to suppose that free labour had been found more economical in the long run, and so was employed for the production of a staple food? I can hardly venture to attribute so mature a view to the society of the Odyssey. We must not forget that animal food, flesh and milk, was an important element of diet, and that the management of flocks and herds was therefore a great part of rustic economy. But the herdsmen in charge are slaves, such as Eumaeus, bought in his youth by Laertes[61]of Phoenician kidnappers. In romancing about his own past experiences Odysseus describes a raid in Egypt, and how the natives rallied[62]and took their revenge. ‘Many of our company they slew: others they took alive into the country, to serve them in forced labour.’ As the ravaging of their ‘beautiful farms’ was a chief part of the raiders’ offence, the labour exacted from these captives seems most probably agricultural.
An interesting question arises in reference to the faithful slaves, the swineherd and the goatherd. When Odysseus promises themrewards in the event of his destroying the suitors with their help, does this include an offer of freedom? Have we here, as some have thought, a case of manumission—of course in primitive form, without the legal refinements of later times? The promise is made[63]so to speak in the character of a father-in-law: ‘I will provide you both with wives and give you possessions and well-built houses near to me, and you shall in future be to me comrades and brothers of Telemachus.’ The ‘brotherhood’ suggested sounds as if it must imply freedom. But does it? Eumaeus had been brought up[64]by Laertes as the playmate of his daughter Ctimene; yet he remained nevertheless a slave. Earlier in the poem Eumaeus, excusing the poor entertainment that he can offer the stranger (Odysseus), laments the absence[65]of his lord, ‘who’ he says ‘would have shewn me hearty affection and given me possessions such as a kindly lord gives his slave (οἰκῆι), a house and a land-lot (κλῆρον) and a wife of recognized worth (πολυμνήστην), as a reward for laborious and profitable service.’ Here also there is no direct reference to an expected grant of freedom: nor do I think that it is indirectly implied. It is no doubt tempting to detect in these passages the germ of the later manumission. But it is not easy to say why, in a world of little groups ruled by noble chiefs, the gift of freedom should have been a longed-for boon. However high-born the slave might have been in his native land, in Ithaca he was simply a slave. If by belonging to a lord he got material comfort and protection, what had he to gain by becoming a mere wage-earner? surely nothing. I can see no ground for believing that in the society of the ‘heroic’ age the bare name of freedom was greatly coveted. It was high birth that really mattered, but the effect of this would be local: nothing would make Eumaeus, though son of a king, noble in Ithaca. No doubt the slave might be at the mercy of a cruel lord. Such a slave would long for freedom, but such a lord was not likely to grant it. On the whole, it is rash to read manumission into the poet’s words.
Reviewing the evidence presented by these ‘Homeric’ poems, it may be well to insist on the obvious truism that we are not dealing with formal treatises, charged with precise definitions and accurate statistics. The information given by the poet drops out incidentally while he is telling his tale and making his characters live. It is all the more genuine because it is not furnished in support of a particular argument: but it is at the same time all the less complete. And it is not possible to say how far this or that detail may have been coloured by imagination. Still, allowing freely for the difficulty suggested by these considerations, I think we are justified in drawing a general inference as to the position of handworkers, particularly on the land, in Greek ‘heroic’ society asconceived by the poet. If the men who practise handicrafts are freemen, and their presence welcome, this does not exalt them to anything like equality with the warrior nobles and chiefs. And in agriculture the labourer is either a slave or a wage-earner of a very dependent kind. The lord shews no inclination to set his own hand to the plough. When one of the suitors derisively invites the supposed beggar to abandon his idle vagrancy for a wage-earning ‘job on the land,’ the disguised Odysseus retorts[66]‘Ah, if only you and I could compete in a match as reapers hard at work fasting from dawn to dark, or at ploughing a big field with a pair of full-fed spirited oxen,—you would soon see what I could do.’ He adds that, if it came to war, his prowess would soon silence the sneer at his begging for food instead of working. Now, does the hero imply that he would really be willing to reap or plough? I do not think so: what he means is that he is conscious of that reserve of bodily strength which appears later in the poem, dramatically shewn in the bending of the famous bow.
Hesiod, Works and Days.Whether this curious poem belongs in its present shape to the seventh centuryBC, or not, I need not attempt to decide. It seems certain that it is later than the great Homeric poems, but is an early work, perhaps somewhat recast and interpolated, yet in its main features representing conditions and views of a society rural, half-primitive, aristocratic. I see no reason to doubt that it may fairly be cited in evidence for my present purpose. The scene of the ‘Works’ is in Boeotia: the works (ἔργα) are operations of farming, and the precepts chiefly saws of rustic wisdom. Poverty[67]is the grim spectre that haunts the writer, conscious of the oppressions of the proud and the hardness of a greedy world. Debt, want, beggary, must be avoided at all costs. They can only be avoided[68]by thrift, forethought, watchfulness, promptitude that never procrastinates, and toil that never ceases. And the mere appeal to self-interest is reinforced by recognizing the stimulus of competition (ἔρις)[69]which in the form of honest rivalry is a good influence. The poet represents himself as owner of a land-lot (κλῆρος)[70], part of a larger estate, the joint patrimony of his brother Perses and himself: this estate has already been divided, but points of dispute still remain. Hesiod suggests that Perses has been wronging him with the help of bribed ‘kings.’ But wrongdoing is not the true road to wellbeing. A dinner of herbs and a clear conscience are thebetter way. As the proverb says ‘half is more than the whole.’ Perses is treated to much good advice, the gist of which is first and foremost an exhortation[71]to work (ἐργάζευ), that is, work on the land, in which is the source of honourable wealth. Personal labour is clearly meant: it is in the sweat[72]of his brow that the farmer is to thrive. Such is the ordinance of the gods. Man is meant to resemble[73]the worker bee, not the worthless drone. It is not ἔργον but idleness (ἀεργίη) that is a reproach. Get wealth[74]by working, and the idler will want to rival you: honour and glory attend on wealth. Avoid delays[75]and vain talk: the procrastinator is never sure of a living; for he is always hoping, when he should act. Whether sowing or ploughing or mowing, off with your outer[76]garment, if you mean to get your farm-duties done in due season. The farmer must rise early, and never get behindhand with his work: to be in time, and never caught napping by changes of weather, is his duty.
Here is a picture of humble and strenuous life, very different from the scenes portrayed in the ‘heroic’ epics. It seems to belong to a later and less warlike age. But the economic and social side of life is in many respects little changed. The free handicraftsmen seem much the same. Jealousy of rivals[77]in the same trade—potter, carpenter, beggar, or bard—is a touch that attests their freedom. The smith, the weaver, the shoemaker, and the shipwright, are mentioned[78]also. Seafaring[79]for purposes of gain illustrates what men will dare in quest of wealth. You should not cast a man’s poverty[80]in his teeth: but do not fancy that men will give you[81]of their store, if you and your family fall into poverty. Clearly the beggar is not more welcome than he was in the world of the Odyssey. Suppliant and stranger are protected[82]by religion, and a man should honour his aged father, if he would see good days. A motive suggested for careful service of the gods is ‘that you may buy another’s estate[83]and not another buy yours’—that is, that the gods may give you increase. Just so you should keep a watch-dog, that thieves[84]may not steal your goods by night. Hesiod’s farmer is to keep the social and religious rules and usages—but he is before all things a keen man of business, no Roman more so.
The labour employed by this close-fisted countryman is partly free partly slave. In a passage[85]of which the exact rendering is disputed the hired man (θῆτα) and woman (ἔριθον) are mentioned as a matter of course. For a helper (ἀνδρὶ φίλῳ)[86]his wage must be secure (ἄρκιος) as stipulated. References to slaves (δμῶες)[87]are more frequent, andthe need of constant watchfulness, to see that they are not lazy and are properly fed housed and rested, is insisted on. The feeding of cattle and slaves is regulated according to their requirements in different seasons of the year: efficiency is the object, and evidently experience is the guide. Of female slaves there is no certain[88]mention: indeed there could be little demand for domestic attendants in the farmer’s simple home. Such work as weaving[89]is to be done by his wife. For the farmer is to marry, though the risks[90]of that venture are not hidden from the poet, who gives plain warnings as to the exercise of extreme care in making a suitable choice. The operations of agriculture are the usual ploughing sowing reaping threshing and the processes of the vineyard and the winepress. Oxen sheep and mules form the live-stock. Corn is the staple[91]diet, with hay as fodder for beasts.
Looking on the picture as a whole, we see that the Hesiodic farmer is to be a model of industry and thrift. Business, not sentiment, is the note of his character. His function is to survive in his actual circumstances; that is, in a social and economic environment of normal selfishness. If his world is not a very noble one, it is at least eminently practical. He is a true αὐτουργός, setting his own hand to the plough, toiling for himself on his own land, with slaves and other cattle obedient to his will. It is perhaps not too much to say that he illustrates a great truth bearing on the labour-question,—that successful exploitation of other men’s labour is, at least in semi-primitive societies, only to be achieved by the man who shares the labour himself. And it is to be noted that he attests the existence of wage-earning hands as well as slaves. I take this to mean that there were in his rustic world a number of landless freemen compelled to make a living as mere farm labourers. That we hear so much less of this class in later times is probably to be accounted for by the growth of cities and the absorption of such persons in urban occupations and trades.
A few fragments may be cited as of interest, bearing on our subject. 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 centuryBC. The poets of the seventh and sixth centuries reflect theproblems 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.Phocylidesof 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 bitterHipponaxof 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 CretanHybriasillustrates 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.
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 stateregulations, 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 centuriesBCwere 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. Theruling 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.
Herodotus, writing in the first half of the fifth centuryBC, 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 fromthe 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 respectof 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.
The lives ofAeschylus(died 456BC)SophoclesandEuripides(both died 406BC) cover a period of stirring events in the history of Greece, particularly of Athens.Aeschylushad 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.
Aeschylusindeed 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 thePersae[114]he makes Persian speakers refer to their own people as βάρβαροι, and that in a bitter passage of theEumenideshe 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]isuseful 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 theEumenidesas 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.
Sophoclesalso 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 inSophocles 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 theTrachiniaethe 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.
Euripidestakes 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 itsdisadvantages, 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.
In such circumstances how came it that there was no sign of a movement 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 greatestminds 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 theElectra, 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 theland: 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 theSupplices[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 theOrestes, 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 actuallywarning 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 theRhesusa 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 theHeraclidae, 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.