The author of one of the earlier speeches[464](between 368 and 365BC) furnishes much more detail in connexion with estates of what was apparently a more ordinary type. Neighbours are quarrelling as usual, and we have of course onlyex partestatements. The farms, worked by slave-labour, produce vines and olives and probably some corn also. The enclosure and tending of valuable plants is represented as kept up to a high standard. Incidentally we learn that the staff used to contract[465]for the gathering of fruit (ὀπώραν) or the reaping and carrying of other crops (θέρος ἐκθερίσαι), clearly on other estates. The contract was always made by a person named, who is thereby proved to have been the real owner of these slaves,—a point in the case. According to his own account, the speaker had for some time been settled (κατῴκουν) on the estate. That is, he had a house there and would sometimes be in residence. The amenities of the place are indicated by the mention of his young rose-garden, which was ravaged by trespassers, as were his olives and vines. The house from which they carried off ‘all the furniture, worth more than 20 minas,’ seems to have been in Athens, and the mention of the lodging-house (συνοικία) that he mortgaged for 16 minas shews that his estate was a mixed one. Country houses were no exceptional thing. A mining speculator speaks of an opponent[466]as coming to his house in the country and intrudinginto the apartments of his wife and daughters. A party protesting against being struck off the deme-register says[467]that his enemies made a raid on his cottage in the country (οἰκίδιον ἐν ἀγρῷ). He is probably depreciating the house, in order not to have the dangerous appearance of a rich man.
We hear also of farms near Athens, the suburban position of which no doubt enhanced their value. In the large mixed estate inherited and wasted by Timarchus,Aeschines[468]mentions (344BC) a farm only about a mile and a half from the city wall. The spendthrift’s mother entreated him to keep this property at least: her wish was to be buried there. But even this he sold, for 2000 drachms (less than £80). In the speech against Euergus and Mnesibulus the plaintiff tells[469]how his opponents raided his farm and carried off 50 soft-wooled sheep at graze, and with them the shepherd and all the belongings of the flock, also a domestic slave, etc. This was not enough: they pushed on into the farm and tried to capture the slaves, who fled and escaped. Then they turned to the house, broke down the door that leads to the garden (κῆπον), burst in upon his wife and children, and went off with all the furniture that remained in the house. The speaker particularly points out[470]that he had lived on the place from childhood, and that it was near the race-course (πρὸς τῷ ἱπποδρόμῳ). It must then have been near Athens. The details given suggest that it was a fancy-farm, devoted to the production of stock valued for high quality and so commanding high prices. The garden seems to be a feature of an establishment more elegant than that of a mere peasant farmer. It corresponds to the rose-bed in a case referred to above:Hyperides[471]too mentions a man who had a κῆπος near the Academy, doubtless a pleasant spot. The farm in the plain (ὀ ἐν πεδίῳ ἀγρός)[472]belonging to Timotheus, and mortgaged by him to meet his debts, is only mentioned in passing (362BC) with no details: we can only suppose it to have been an average holding in the rich lowland.
A few passages require separate consideration in connexion with the labour-question. In the speech on the Crown (330BC) Demosthenes quotes[473]Aeschines as protesting against being reproached with the friendship (ξενίαν) of Alexander. He retorts ‘I am not so crazy as to call you Philip’s ξένος or Alexander’s φίλος, unless one is to speak of reapers or other wage-earners as the friends of those who hire them ... but on a former occasion I called you the hireling (μισθωτὸν) of Philip, and I now call you the hireling of Alexander.’ Here the reaper(θεριστής) is contemptuously referred to as a mere hireling. Such was the common attitude towards poor freemen who lived by wage-earning labour,—θῆτες in short. But is it clear that the μισθωτὸς is necessarily a freeman? The passage cited above from an earlier speech makes it doubtful. If a gang of slaves could contract to cut and carry a crop (θέρος μισθοῖντο ἐκθερίσαι), their owner acting for them, surely they were strictly μισθωτοὶ from the point of view of the farmer who hired them. They were ἀνδράποδα μισθοφοροῦντα, to use the exact Greek phrase. In the speech against Timotheus an even more notable passage[474](362BC) occurs. Speaking of some copper said to have been taken in pledge for a debt, the speaker asks ‘Who were the persons that brought the copper to my father’s house? Were they hired men (μισθωτοί), or slaves (οἰκέται)?’ Here, at first sight, we seem to have the hireling clearly marked off as free. For the argument[475]proceeds ‘or which of my slave-household (τῶν οἰκετῶν τῶν ἐμῶν) took delivery of the copper? If slaves brought it, then the defendant ought to have handed them over (for torture): if hired men, he should have demanded our slave who received and weighed it.’ Strictly speaking, slaves, in status δοῦλοι, are οἰκέται[476]in relation to their owner, of whose οἰκία they form a part. But ifAin a transaction withBemployed some slaves whom he hired for the purpose fromC(Cbeing in no way personally involved in the case), would not these[477]be μισθωτοί, in the sense that they were not his own οἰκέται, but procured by μισθὸς for the job? It is perhaps safer to assume that in the case before us the hirelings meant by the speaker are freemen, but I do not think it can be considered certain. Does not their exemption from liability to torture prove it? I think not, unless we are to assume that the slaves hired from a third person, not a party in the case, could be legally put to question. That this was so, I can find no evidence, nor is it probable. The regular practice was this: either a party offered his slaves for examination under torture, or he did not. If he did not, a challenge (πρόκλησις) was addressed to him by his opponent, demanding their surrender for the purpose. But to demand the slaves of any owner, not a party in the case, was a very different thing, and I cannot discover the existence of any such right. I am not speaking of state trials, in which the claims of the public safety might override privateinterests, but of private cases, in which the issue lay between clearly defined adversaries. In default of direct and unquestionable authority, I cannot suppose that an Athenian slaveowner could be called upon to surrender his property (even with compensation for any damage thereto) for the purposes of a case in which he was not directly concerned.
Stray references to matters of land-tenure, such as the letting of sacred lands[478](τεμένη) belonging to a deme, are too little connected with our subject to need further mention here. And a curious story[479]of some hill-lands (ὄρη) in the district of Oropus, divided by lot among the ten Tribes, apparently as tribal property, is very obscure. Such allotments would probably be let to tenants. What is more interesting in connexion with agriculture is the references to farming as a means of getting a livelihood, few and slight though they are. Demosthenes[480]in 349BCtells the Assembly that their right policy is to attack Philip on his own ground, not to mobilize and then await him in Attica: such mobilization would be ruinous to ‘those of you who are engaged in farming.’ The speech against Phaenippus[481]shews us an establishment producing corn and wine and firewood and alleged to be doing very well owing to the prices then ruling in the market. We have also indications of the presence of dealers who bought up crops, no doubt to resell at a profit. From the expressions[482]ὀπώραν πρίασθαι and ὀπωρώνης it might seem that fruit-crops in particular were disposed of in this way. Naturally a crop of this sort had to be gathered quickly, and a field gang would be employed—slaves or freemen, according to circumstances. For that in these days poverty was driving many a free citizen[483]to mean and servile occupations for a livelihood, is not only a matter of certain inference but directly affirmed by Demosthenes in 345BC. Aeschines[484]in 344 also denies that the practice of any trade to earn a bare living was any political disqualification to a humble citizen of good repute. From such poor freemen were no doubt drawn casual hands at critical moments of farm life, analogues of the British hop-pickers[485]. But, with every allowance for possible occasions of employing free labour, particularly in special processes where servile apathy was plainly injurious, the farm-picture in general as depicted in these speeches is one of slave-labour.And this suggests to me a question in reference to the disposal of Greek slaves. For the vast majority of slaves[486]in Greece, whether urban or rustic, were certainly Barbarians of several types for several purposes. The sale of the people of captured cities had become quite an ordinary thing. Sparta had sinned thus in her day of power, and the example was followed from time to time by others. The cases of Olynthus in 348BCand Thebes in 335 fall in the present period. Aeschines mentions[487]some captives working chained in Philip’s vineyard; but these can only have been few. The mass were sold, and a large sum of money realized thereby. At Thebes the captives sold are said to have numbered 30,000. What markets absorbed these unhappy victims? I can only guess that many found their way to Carthage and Etruria.
The deficiency of contemporary evidence illustrating the agricultural conditions of this troubled age in the Greek world makes it necessary to combine the various scraps of information in a general sketch. Hellas had now seen its best days. The break-up of the great empire of Alexander did not restore to the little Greek states the freedom of action which had been their pride and which had been a main influence in keeping up their vitality. The outward and visible sign of their failure was the impossibility of an independent foreign policy. The kingdoms of Alexander’s Successors might rise and fall, but Greek states could do little to affect the results. A new world was opened to Greek enterprise in the East, and Greek mercenaries and Greek secretaries traders and officials were carrying the Greek language and civilization into wide lands ruled by Macedonian kings. But these were individuals, attracted by the prospect of a gainful military or civil career. Either they settled abroad, and drained Greece of some of her ablest sons; or they returned home enriched, and formed an element of the population contrasting painfully with those who had stayed behind. In either case it seems certain that the movement tended to lower the standard of efficiency and patriotism in their native states. Citizen armies became more and more difficult to maintain. The influx of money no longer locked up in Oriental treasuries only served to accentuate the old social distinction[488]of Rich and Poor. Men who came back with fortunes meant to enjoy themselves, and theydid: the doings of the returned soldier of fortune were proverbial, and a fruitful theme for comic poets. But the spectacle of wanton luxury was more likely to lure enterprising individuals into ventures abroad than to encourage patient industry at home. And there is little doubt that such was the general result. The less vigorous of the poor citizens remained, a servile mob, ever ready by grovelling compliments to earn the bounties of kings.
Political decay and changes of social circumstance were accompanied by new movements in the sphere of thought. It is generally observed that in this period philosophy more and more appeals to the individual man, regardless of whether he be a citizen or not. How far this movement arose out of changed conditions may be open to difference of opinion: but, as usual in human affairs, what began as an effect continued to operate as a cause. The rapid spread of the Greek tongue and Greek civilization eastwards, known as Hellenizing, was a powerful influence promoting cosmopolitan views. Alien blood could no longer form an unsurmountable barrier: the Barbarian who spoke Greek and followed Greek ways had won a claim to recognition, as had already been foreseen by the mild sincerity[489]of Isocrates. But these half-Greeks, some of them even of mixed blood, were now very numerous. They competed with genuine Hellenes at a time when the pride of the genuine Hellene was ebbing: even in intellectual pursuits, in which the Hellene still claimed preeminence, they were serious and eventually successful rivals. It is no wonder that earlier questionings took new life, and that consciousness of common humanity tended to modify old-established sentiment, even on such subjects as the relation of master and slave. It was not merely that the philosophic schools from different points of view, Cynic Cyrenaic Stoic Epicurean, persistently regarded man as a mental and moral unit, whatever his political or social condition might be. The fragments and echoes of the later Comedy suffice to shew how frankly the slave could be presented on the public stage as the equal, or more than equal, of his master.
The foundation of new cities by the Successor-kings was another influence acting in the same direction. These were either royal capitals or commercial centres, or both, like Alexandria. Others were important from their situation as strategic posts, such as Lysimacheia by the Hellespont or Demetrias commanding the Pagasaean gulf. Competing powers could not afford to wait for gradual growth; so great efforts were made to provide populations for the new cities without delay. Sometimes multitudes were transplanted wholesale from older communities. In any case no strict inquiry into the past condition of transplanted persons can have taken place. In Sicily we know thatSyracuse had become the one great centre of what remained of Greek power in that island. But, what with incorporation of foreign mercenaries and enfranchisement of slaves, what with massacres of Greek citizens, the population of Syracuse was a mongrel mob. Such, if in a less degree, were the populations of the new cities of the kings. There was nothing national about them. In some, for instance Alexandria, a rabble wavering between apathy and ferocity was a subject of concern to the government. Others were more noted as centres of industry: such were some of those in Asia Minor. But common to them all was the condition, a momentous change from a Greek point of view, of dependence. They were not states, with a policy of their own, but parts of this or that kingdom. However little their overlord might interfere with their internal affairs, still it was he, not they, that stood in relation to the world outside. They were not independent: but as a rule they were prosperous. In the new world of great state-units they filled a necessary place, and beside them the remaining state-cities of the older Greek world were for the most part decaying. These for their own protection had to conform their policy to that of some greater power. Patriotism had little material in which to find expression: apathy and cosmopolitan sentiment were the inevitable result. Such was in particular the case at Athens, which remained eminent as a centre of philosophic speculation, attracting inquirers and students from all parts. But the ‘fierce democraty’ of her imperial days was a thing of the past, and she lived upon her former glories and present subservience.
If academic distinction and cosmopolitanism went easily together, commercial activity was hardly likely to foster jealous state-patriotism of the old sort. The leading centre of commerce in the eastern Mediterranean was Rhodes. The island city was still a state. Its convenient position as a port of call on the main trade routes gave it wealth. Its usefulness to merchants from all parts enabled it to play off the kings against one another, and to enjoy thereby much freedom of action. Its steady conservative government and its efficient navy made it a welcome check on piracy in time of peace, and a valued ally in war. It was also a considerable intellectual centre. No power was so closely in touch with international questions generally, or so often employed as umpire in disputes. Till an unfortunate blunder at the time of the war with Perseus (168BC) put an end to their old friendship with Rome, and led to their humiliation, the wise policy of the Rhodians preserved their independence and earned them general goodwill. But it was surely not in a state thriving on trade and traffic that the old narrow Greek patriotism could find a refuge. It is not necessary to refer to more cases in particular. The main point of interest is that inthis age of cities and extensive maritime intercourse urban life was generally developing and rural life shrinking. Now it had been, and still was, the case that mixture of population normally took place in active cities, especially in seaport towns. It was in quiet country towns and hamlets that native purity of blood was most easily preserved.
If the general outline of circumstances has been fairly sketched in the 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 ofHerodas, 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 theCharactersof Aristotle’s successorTheophrastus. 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 doget 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 ofPolybiusare uncertain, but as an observer of events his range extended from about 190 or 189 to 122 or 121BC. 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 weredrawn 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 centuryBCthe 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 225BC), 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 224BCwere 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 isno 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 in322BCa 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 CleomenesPolybiusis 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 centuryBC) 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 byPolybius. 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 centuryBCoccurs in a fragment ofHeraclides 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 ofPolybius. 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 183BCagainst 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]ofPolybiuswhen speaking of Arcadia must not be overlooked. In 220BCan 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 areputation 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 byPolybius[537]to refute an assertion ofTimaeus, 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]ofMegasthenes, 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 140BCthese 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.
Mention of the comic poets may remind us that most of the surviving matter of the later Comedy has reached us in the Latin versions and adaptations ofPlautusandTerence. It is necessary to speak of their evidence separately, in particular where slavery is in question, for the relative passages are liable to be touched with Roman colouring. In the case of manumission this is especially clear, but to pursue the topic in detail is beyond my present purpose. The passages ofPlautusbearing on rustic life are not many, but the picture so far as it goes is clear and consistent. In general the master is represented as a man of means with a house in town and a country estate outside. The latter is worked by slaves under a slave-bailiff or steward (vilicus). The town-house is staffed by slaves, but the headman is less absolute than the steward on the farm: departmental chiefs, such as the cook, are important parts of the household. This is natural enough, for the master generally resides there himself, and only pays occasional[545]visits to the farm. The two sets of slaves are kept apart. If the steward[546]or some other trusted farm-slave has to come to town, he is practically a stranger, and a quarrel is apt to arise with leading domestics: for his rustic appearance and manners are despised by the pampered menials. But he is aware that his turn may come: some day the master in wrath may consign the offending town-slave to farm-labour, and then—. Apart from slavery, rustic life is regarded[547]as favourable to good morals: honest labour, frugal habits, freedom from urban temptations, commend it to fathers who desire to preserve their sons from corrupting debauchery. In short, the urban moralist idealizes the farm. Whether he would by choice reside there, is quite another thing. Clearly the average young citizen would not. That the farm is occasionally used[548]as a retreat, is no more than a point of dramatic convenience. In one passage[549]we have a picture of a small farm, with slave-labour employed on it. Freemen as agricultural labourers hardly appear at all. But a significant dialogue[550]between an old freeman and a young one runs thus: ‘Country life is a life of toil.’ ‘Aye, but city indigence is far more so.’ The youth, who has offered to do farm-work, is representative of that class of urban poor, whose lot was doubtless a very miserable one. Very seldom do we hear anything of them, for our records in general only take account of the master and the slave. In the play just referred to[551]there occur certain terms more or less technical. The neutraloperariusseems equivalent to ἐργάτης, andmercennariusto μισθωτός, distinct from[552]servus. But these terms are not specially connected with agriculture.
The references inTerencegive us the same picture. An old man of 60 or more is blamed[553]by a friend. ‘You have a first-rate farm and a number of slaves: why will you persist in working yourself to make up for their laziness? Your labour would be better spent in keeping them to their tasks.’ The old man explains[554]that he is punishing himself for his treatment of his only son. In order to detach the youth from an undesirable amour, he had used the stock reproaches of fathers to erring sons. He had said ‘At your time of life I wasn’t hanging about a mistress: I went soldiering in Asia for a living, and there I won both money and glory.’ At length the young man could stand it no longer: he went off to Asia and entered the service of one of the kings. The old man cannot forgive himself, and is now busy tormenting himself for his conduct. He has sold off[555]all his slaves, male or female, save those whose labour on the farm pays for its cost, and is wearing himself out as a mere farm hand. Another[556]old farmer, a man of small means who makes his living by farming, is evidently not the owner but a tenant. Another[557]has gone to reside on his farm, to make it pay; otherwise the expenses at home cannot be met. In general country life is held up as a model[558]of frugality and industry. In one passage[559]we hear of a hired wage-earner employed on a farm (a villa mercennarium) whom I take to be a free man, probably employed for some special service. Such are the gleanings to be got from these Roman echoes of the later Attic comedy. I see no reason to believe that they are modified by intrusion of details drawn from Italy. The period in which Plautus and Terence wrote (about 230-160BC)included many changes in Roman life, particularly in agriculture. In large parts of Italy the peasant farmers were being superseded by great landlords whose estates were worked by slave-labour, and the conditions of farm life as shewn by the Attic playwrights were not so strange to a Roman audience as to need recasting. And we can only remark that the evidence drawn from the passages above referred to is in full agreement with that taken from other sources.
A very interesting sidelight on conditions in Greece, agriculture included, towards the end of the third centuryBC, is thrown by the correspondence[560]ofPhilip V of Macedonwith the authorities of Larisa. An inscription found at Larisa preserves this important record. Two points must first be noted, to give the historical setting of the whole affair. Thessaly was under Macedonian overlordship, and its economic and military strength a matter of concern to Philip, who had succeeded to the throne of Macedon in 220BC. Moreover, the defeat of Carthage in the first Punic war (264-41), the Roman occupation of the greater part of Sicily and Sardinia, the Gallic wars and extension of Roman dominion in Italy, the Illyrian war (230-29) and intervention of Rome beyond the Adriatic, had attracted the attention of all the Greek powers. The western Republic had for some years been carefully watched, and the admission of Corcyra Epidamnus and Apollonia to the Roman alliance was especially disquieting to the Macedonian king. So in 219BC, just before the second Punic war, Philip senta letter to Larisa, pointing out that the number of their citizens had been reduced by losses in recent wars and urging them to include in their franchise the Thessalians and other Greeks resident in the city. Among other advantages, the country[561]would be more fully cultivated. The Larisaeans obeyed his injunctions. In 217 the war in Greece was ended by his concluding peace with the Aetolians, his chief antagonists. Hannibal was now in Italy, and the victory of Cannae in 216 raised hopes in Philip of using the disasters of the Romans to drive them out of Illyria. In 215 he concluded an alliance with Hannibal. The Romans replied by naval activity in the Adriatic and later by stirring up Greek powers, above all the Aetolians, to renew the war against him. Meanwhile things had not gone on quietly at Larisa. The old Thessalian noble families had given way to the king’s pressure unwillingly for the moment, but internal troubles soon broke out. The nobles regained control and annulled the recent concessions. Philip therefore addressed to them asecond letterin 214, censuring their conduct, and calling upon them to give effect to the enfranchisement-policy previously agreed to. Thus they would not only conform to hisdecision as their overlord, but would best serve their own interests. Their city would gain strength by increasing the number of citizens, and they would not have their territory disgracefully[562]lying waste (καὶ τὴν χώραν μὴ ὥσπερ νῦν αἰσχρῶς χερσεύεσθαι). He went on to refer to the advantageous results of such incorporations elsewhere: citing in particular the experience of Rome, whose growth and colonial expansion were the fruits of a franchise-policy so generous as to grant citizenship even to manumitted slaves. He called upon the Larisaeans to face the question without aristocratic prejudice (ἀφιλοτίμως). And the Larisaeans again complied.
Now here we have a glimpse of agricultural decline in one of the most fertile parts of Greece. The stress laid upon it by Philip shews that to him it seemed a very serious matter. He saw trouble coming, and wished to keep his dependent allies strong. That his difficulty lay in controlling the aristocratic families, who still retained much of their former power, is clear. After his defeat in 197 the Romans restored[563]the aristocratic governments in Thessalian cities; indeed all through the wars of this period in Greece the popular parties inclined to Macedon, while the propertied classes favoured Rome. In Thessaly the private estates of the nobles were cultivated by serfs. How would an incorporation of more citizens tend to promote a fuller cultivation of the land? I think we may take it for granted that the new citizens were not expected to till the soil in person. That they were to have unemployed serfs assigned to them, and so to enter the ranks of cultivating landlords, is a bold assumption: for we do not know that there were any unemployed serfs or that any distribution of land was contemplated. I can only suggest that the effect of receiving citizenship would be to acquire the right of holding real estate. Then, if we suppose that there were at the time landed estates left vacant by the war-casualties to which the king refers, and that each of these carried with it a right to a certain supply of serf labour, we do get some sort of answer to the question. But so far as I know this is nothing but guesswork. More owners interested in the profits of farming would tend, if labour were available, to employ more labour on the farms. In short, we have evidence of the decay of agriculture in a particular district and period, but as to the exact causes of this decay, and the exact nature of the means proposed for checking it, we are sadly in the dark.
The garden or orchard had always been a favourite institution inGreek life, and the growth of cities did not make it less popular. The land immediately beyond the city walls was often laid out in this manner. When Aratus in 251BCtook Sicyon and attached it to the Achaean League, the surprise was effected by way of a suburban[564]garden. And we have no reason to suppose that holdings near a city lacked cultivators. Even in the horrible period of confusion and bloodshed at Syracuse, from the death of Dionysius the elder to the victory of Timoleon, we hear[565]of Syracusans living in the country, and of the usual clamour for redistribution of lands. In the endeavour to repopulate the city an invitation to settlers was issued, with offer[566]of land-allotments, and apparently the promise was kept. These notices suggest that there was a demand for suburban holdings, but tell us nothing as to the state of things in the districts further afield, or as to the class of labour employed on the land. In any case Syracuse was a seaport, and accustomed to get a good part of its supplies by sea. Very different was the situation in Peloponnesus, where the up-country towns had to depend chiefly on the produce of their own territories. There land-hunger was ever present. The estates of men driven out in civil broils were seized by the victorious party, and restoration of exiles at once led to a fresh conflict over claims to restitution of estates. One of the most difficult problems[567]with which Aratus had to deal at Sicyon was this; and in the end he only solved it by the use of a large sum of money, the gift of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The restored exiles on this occasion are said to have been not less than 580 in all. They had been expelled by tyrants who had in recent years ruled the city, and whose policy it had evidently been to drive out the men of property—sworn foes of tyrants—and to reward their own adherents out of confiscated lands. To reverse this policy was the lifelong aim of Aratus. In the generation following, the life of his successor Philopoemen gives us a little light on agriculture from another point of view, that of the soldier. He was resolved to make the army of the Achaean League an efficient force. As a young man he concluded[568]that the Greek athletic training was not consistent with military life, in which the endurance of hardship and ability to subsist on any diet were primary necessities. Therefore he devoted his spare time to agriculture, working[569]in person on his farm, about 2½ miles from Megalopolis, sharing the labour and habits of the labourers (ἐργατῶν). The use of the neutral word leaves a doubt as to whether freemen or slaves are meant: taken in connexion with the passages cited from Polybius, it is perhaps more likely that the reference is to slaves. But the chief interest of the story as preservedbyPlutarchlies in the discovery that, compared with athletes, husbandmen are better military material.
The conclusions of Beloch[570]as to the population of Peloponnesus in this period call for serious consideration. His opinion is that the number capable of bearing arms declined somewhat since the middle of the fourth century, though the wholesale emancipation of Spartan Helots must be reckoned as an addition. But on the whole the free population was at the beginning of the second century about equal to the joint total of free and Helot population at the end of the fifth century. On the other hand, the slave population had in the interval greatly increased. He points to the importance of a slave corps[571]in the defence of Megalopolis when besieged in 318BC: to the Roman and Italian[572]slaves (prisoners sold by Hannibal) in Achaean territory, found and released in 194BC, some 1200 in number: and to the levy[573]of manumitted home-born slaves in the last struggle of the League against Rome. I must say that this evidence, taken by itself, hardly seems enough to sustain the great historian’s broad conclusion. But many of the passages cited in preceding sections lend it support, and I am therefore not disposed to challenge its general probability. It may be added that increase in the number of slaves suggests an increase of large holdings cultivated by slave labour; and that the breeding of home-born (οἰκογενεῖς) slaves could be more easily practised by owners of a large staff than on a small scale. Moreover the loss of slaves levied for war purposes would fall chiefly on their wealthy owners. The men of property were rightly or wrongly suspected of leaning to Rome, and were not likely to be spared by the demagogues who presided over the last frantic efforts of ‘freedom’ in Greece. The truth seems to be that circumstances were more and more unfavourable to the existence of free husbandmen on small farms, the very class of whose solid merits statesmen and philosophers had shewn warm appreciation. The division between the Rich, who wanted to keep what they had and get more, and the Poor, who wanted to take the property of the Rich, was the one ever-significant fact. And the establishment of Roman supremacy settled the question for centuries to come. Roman capitalism, hastening to exploit the world for its own ends, had no mercy for the small independent worker in any department of life. In Greece under the sway of Rome there is no doubt that free population declined, and the state of agriculture went from bad to worse.
At this point, when the Greek world passes under the sway of Rome, it is necessary to pause and turn back to consider the fragmentaryrecord of early Italian agriculture. This one great staple industry is represented as the economic foundation of Roman political and military greatness. No small part of the surviving Latin literature glorifies the soundness of the Roman farmer-folk and the exploits of farmer-heroes in the good old days, and laments the rottenness that attended their decay. How far this tradition is to be accepted as it stands, or what reservations on its acceptance should be made, and in particular the introduction or extension of slave-labour, are the questions with which it will be our main business to deal.