Chapter V: Appendix: Some Byzantine Authorities (4)

References to agriculture[228] are few and unimportant in the _Memorabilia_. The _Economicus_ deals directly with the subject. A significant passage throws light on the condition of rural Attica at the end of the fifth century BC. The speaker Ischomachus tells[229] how his father made money by judicious enterprise. He bought up farms that were let down or derelict, got them into good order, and sold them at a profit when improved. Clearly he was a citizen, able to deal in real estate, and a capitalist. There can hardly be a doubt that he operated by the use of slave-labour on a considerable scale. All through the _Economicus_ slavery is presupposed, but the attitude of Xenophon is characteristically genial and humane. The existence of a slave-market[230], where you may buy likely men, even skilled craftsmen, is assumed. But the most notable feature of the book is the seriousness with which the responsibility of the master[231] is asserted. There is no querulous evasion of the issue by laying the blame of failure on the incorrigible vices of slaves. Prosperity will depend on securing good service: good service cannot be secured by any amount of chains and punishments, if the master be slack and fitful: both in the house and on the farm, good sympathetic discipline, fairly and steadily enforced, is the secret of success. Carelessness malingering and desertion must be prevented or checked. And to achieve this is the function of the economic art, operating through the influence of hope rather than fear. The training of slaves[232] is a matter needing infinite pains on the part of the master and mistress. She must train her housekeeper (ταμία) as he trains his steward (ἐπίτροπος), and both are to act in a humane and kindly spirit. Yet the strictly animal view of slaves[233] appears clearly in a passage where the training of slaves is compared with that of horses or performing dogs. ‘But it is possible to make men more obedient by mere instruction (καὶ λόγῳ), pointing out that it is to their interest to obey: in dealing with slaves the system which is thought suitable for training beasts has much to recommend it as a way of teaching obedience. For by meeting their appetites with special indulgence to their bellies you may contrive to get much out of them.’ We gather that the better and more refined type of Athenian gentleman with a landed estate, while averse to inhumanity, and aware that slaves were human, still regarded his slaves as mere chattels. His humanity is prompted mainly by self-interest. As for rights, they have none.

The system of rewards and punishments on the estate of course rests wholly on the masters will. The whole success of the working depends on the efficiency of the steward or stewards. Accordingly the passage in which Ischomachus explains how he deals with these trusted slaves is of particular interest. Having carefully trained a man, he must judge him[234] according to a definite standard—does he or does he not honestly and zealously discharge his trust? ‘When I find that in spite of good treatment they still try to cheat me, I conclude that their greediness is past curing, and degrade them[235] from their charge.’ This seems to mean that they are reduced to the position of the ordinary hands. ‘But when I observe any induced to be honest[236] not merely because honesty pays best, but because they want to get a word of praise from me, these I treat as no longer slaves (ὥσπερ ἐλευθέροις ἤδη). I not only enrich them, but shew them respect as men of honour.’ One is tempted to interpret these last words as implying that actual manumission takes place, the services of the men being retained as freedmen. But the words do not say so plainly, and it is safer to read into them no technical sense. That the men are trusted and allowed to earn for themselves, is enough. The agriculture depicted in the _Economicus_ is that of a landowner with plenty of capital, not that of the peasant farmer. The note of it is superintendence[237] (ἐπιμέλεια), not bodily labour (αὐτουργία). In one place αὐτουργία is mentioned, when agriculture is praised, one of its merits being the bodily strength that those gain who work with their own hands. It is as well to repeat here that the fact of a farmer labouring himself does not prove that he employs no other labour. On the other hand there is good reason to infer that the other class, those who ‘do their farming by superintendence,’ are not manual labourers at all. The benefit to them is that agriculture ‘makes them early risers and smart in their movements.’ The master keeps a horse, and is thus enabled to ride out[238] early to the farm and stay there till late.

It is remarkable that in this book we hear nothing of hired labourers. There are two references[239] to the earning of pay, neither of them in connexion with agricultural labour. Yet the existence of a class of poor people who have to earn their daily bread[240] is not ignored. Socrates admires the economic skill[241] of Ischomachus. It has enabled him to be of service to his friends and to the state. This is a fine thing, and shews the man of substance. In contrast, ‘there are numbers of men who cannot live without depending on others: numbers too who are content if they can procure themselves the necessaries of life.’ The solid and strong men are those who contrive to make a surplus and use it as benefactors. I read this passage as indirect evidence of the depression of small-scale free industry and the increase of slaveowning capitalism in the Athens of Xenophon’s time. And I find another indication[242] of this in connexion with agriculture. In the course of the dialogue it appears that the chief points of agricultural knowledge are simple enough: Socrates knew them all along. Why then do some farmers succeed and others fail? The truth of the matter is, replies Ischomachus, that the cause of failure is not want of knowledge but want of careful superintendence. This criticism is in general terms, but it is surely inapplicable to the case of the working peasant farmer: he who puts his own labour into the land will not overlook the shortcomings of a hired man or a slave. In the agriculture of which this book treats it is the practical and intelligent self-interest of the master that rules everything. His appearance on the field[243] should cause all the slaves to brighten up and work with a will: but rather to win his favour than to escape his wrath. For in agriculture, as in other pursuits, the ultimate secret of success[244] is a divine gift, the power of inspiring a willing obedience.

I have kept back one passage which needs to be considered with reference to the steward[245]. Can we safely assume that an ἐπίτροπος was always, or at least normally, a slave? Of those who direct the labourers, the real treasure is the man who gets zealous and steady work out of the hands, whether he be steward or director (ἐπίτροπος or ἐπιστάτης). What difference is connoted by these terms? In the _Memorabilia_[246], Socrates meets an old friend who is impoverished by the results of the great war, and driven to earn his living by bodily labour. Socrates points out to him that this resource will fail with advancing age: he had better find some employment less dependent on bodily vigour. ‘Why not look out for some wealthy man who needs an assistant in superintendence of his property? Such a man would find it worth his while to employ you as director (or foreman, ἔργων ἐπιστατοῦντα), to help in getting in his crops and looking after his estate.’ He answers ‘it would gall me to put up with a servile position (δουλείαν).’ Clearly the position of ἐπιστάτης appears to him a meaner occupation than free wage-earning by manual labour. In another place[247] we hear of an ἐπιστάτης for a mine-gang being bought for a talent (£235). That superintendents, whatever their title, were at least normally slaves, seems certain. As to the difference between ‘steward’ and ‘director’ I can only guess that the former might be a slave promoted from the ranks, but might also be what the ‘director’ always was, a new importation. It seems a fair assumption that, as a free superintendent must have been a new importation, a specially bought slave ‘director’ would rank somewhat higher than an ordinary ‘steward,’ whose title ἐπίτροπος at once marked him as a slave. In relation to the general employment of slave-labour there is practically no difference: both are slave-driving ‘overseers.’ As the pamphlet on the Revenues has been thought by some critics not to be the work of Xenophon, I pass it by, only noting that it surely belongs to the same generation. It fully attests the tendency to rely[248] on slave-labour, but it is not concerned with agriculture.

The romance known as _Cyropaedia_ wanders far from fact. Its purpose is to expound or suggest Xenophon’s own views on the government of men: accordingly opportunities for drawing a moral are sought at the expense of historical truth. But from my present point of view the chief point to note is that it does not touch the labour-question with which we are concerned. True, we hear[249] of αὐτουργοί, and of the hardship and poverty of such cultivators, gaining a painful livelihood from an unkind soil. That the value of a territory depends on the presence of a population[250] able and willing to develop its resources, is fully insisted on by Cyrus. But this is in connexion with conquest. The inhabitants of a conquered district remain as tributary cultivators, merely changing their rulers. That the labour of the conquered is to provide the sustenance of the conquering race, is accepted as a fundamental principle. It is simply the right of the stronger: if he leaves anything to his subject, that is a voluntary act of grace. The reason why we hear little of slavery is that all are virtually slaves save the one autocrat. The fabric of Xenophon’s model government is a very simple one: first, an oriental Great King, possessed of all the virtues: second, a class of warrior nobles, specially trained and dependent on the King’s favour: third, a numerous subject population, whose labour supports the whole, and who are practically serfs. A cynical passage[251] describes the policy of Cyrus, meant to perpetuate the difference of the classes. After detailing minutely the liberal training enjoined on those whom he intended to employ in governing (οὓς ... ἄρχειν ᾤετο χρῆναι), Xenophon proceeds to those whom he intended to qualify for servitude (οὓς ... κατεσκεύαζεν εἰς τὸ δουλεύειν). These it was his practice not to urge to any of the liberal exercises, nor to allow them to possess arms. He took great care to spare them any privations: for instance at a hunt: the hunters had to take their chance of hunger and thirst, being freemen, but the beaters had ample supplies and halted for meals. They were delighted with this consideration, the design of which was to prevent their ever ceasing to be slaves (ἀνδράποδα). The whole scheme is frankly imperial. All initiative and power rests with the autocrat, and all depends on his virtues. That a succession of such faultless despots could not be ensured, and that the scheme was consequently utopian, did not trouble the simple Xenophon. Like many other thoughtful men of the time, he was impressed by the apparent efficiency of the rigid Spartan system, and distrusted the individual liberty enjoyed in democratic states, above all in Athens. In Persia, though he thought the Persians were no longer what Cyrus the Great had made them, he had seen how great was still the power arising from the control of all resources by a single will. These two impressions combined seem to account for the tone of the _Cyropaedia_, and the servile position of the cultivators explains why it has so very little bearing on the labour-question in agriculture.

XIII. THE COMIC FRAGMENTS.

In pursuing our subject from period to period, and keeping so far as possible to chronological order, it may seem inconsistent to take this collection[252] of scraps as a group. For Attic Comedy covers nearly two centuries, from the age of Cratinus to the age of Menander. Many changes happened in this time, and the evidence of the fragments must not be cited as though it were that of a single witness. But the relevant passages are few; for the writers, such as Athenaeus and Stobaeus, in whose works most of the extracts are preserved, seldom had their attention fixed on agriculture. The longer fragments[253] of Menander recently discovered are somewhat more helpful. The adaptations of Plautus and Terence must be dealt with separately.

That country life and pursuits had their share of notice on the comic stage is indicated by the fact that Aristophanes produced a play[254] named Γεωργοί, and Menander a Γεωργός. That the slave-market was active is attested by references in all periods. So too is wage-earning labour of various kinds: but some of these passages certainly refer to wage-earning by slaves paying a rent (ἀποφορά) to their owners. Also the problems arising out of the relation between master and slave, with recognition of the necessity of wise management. The difference between the man who does know how to control slaves[255] and the man who does not (εὔδουλος and κακόδουλος) was early expressed, and indirectly alluded to throughout. The good and bad side of slaves, loyalty treachery honesty cheating etc, is a topic constantly handled. But these passages nearly always have in view the close relation of domestic slavery. I think we are justified in inferring that the general tone steadily becomes more humane. Common humanity gains recognition as a guide of conduct. Many of the fragments have been handed down as being neatly put moral sentences, and of these not a few[256] recognize the debt that a slave owes to a good master. These are utterances of slaves, for the slave as a character became more and more a regular figure of comedy, as comedy became more and more a drama of private life. Side by side with this tone is the frank recognition of the part played by chance[257] in the destinies of master and slave; a very natural reflexion in a state of things under which you had but to be captured and sold out of your own country, out of the protection of your own laws, to pass from the former condition to the latter. A few references to manumission also occur, and the Roman adaptations suggest that in the later Comedy they were frequent. On the other hand several fragments seem to imply that circumstances were working unfavourably to the individual free craftsmen, at least in some trades. The wisdom of learning a craft (τέχνη), as a resource[258] that cannot be lost like external possessions, is insisted on. But in other passages a more despairing view[259] appears; death is better than the painful struggle for life. No doubt different characters were made to speak from different points of view.

It is to be noted that two fragments of the earlier Comedy refer to the old tradition[260] of a golden age long past, in which there were no slaves (see under Herodotus), and in which the bounty of nature[261] provided an ample supply of food and all good things (see the passages cited from the _Odyssey_). Athenaeus, who has preserved[262] these extracts, remarks that the old poets were seeking by their descriptions to accustom mankind to do their own work with their own hands (αὐτουργοὺς εἶναι). But it is evident that the subject was treated in the broadest comic spirit, as his numerous quotations shew. When in the restoration of good old times the articles of food are to cook and serve themselves and ask to be eaten, we must not take the picture very seriously. These passages do however suggest that there was a food-question at the time when they were written, of sufficient importance to give point to them: possibly also a labour-question. Now Crates and Pherecrates flourished before the Peloponnesian war and during its earlier years, Nicophon was a late contemporary of Aristophanes. The evidence is too slight to justify a far-reaching conclusion, but it is consistent with the general inferences drawn from other authorities. In the fragments of the later Comedy we begin to find passages bearing on agriculture, and it is surely a mere accident that we do not have them in those of the earlier.

The contrast between life in town and life in the country is forcibly brought out[263] by Menander. The poor man has no chance in town, where he is despised and wronged: in the country he is spared the galling presence of witnesses, and can bear his ill fortune on a lonely farm. The farm then is represented as a sort of refuge from unsatisfactory surroundings in the city. When we remember that in Menander’s time Athens was a dependency of one or other of Alexander’s Successors, a community of servile rich and mean poor, fawning on its patrons and enjoying no real freedom of state-action, we need not wonder at the poet’s putting such a view into the mouths of some of his characters. The remains of the play Γεωργὸς are of particular interest. The old master is a tough obstinate old fellow, who persists in working[264] on the land himself, and even wounds himself by clumsy use of his mattock. But he has a staff of slaves, barbarians, on whom he is dependent. These paid no attention to the old man in his misfortune; a touch from which we may infer that the relations between master and slaves were not sympathetic. But a young free labourer in his employ comes to the rescue, nurses him, and sets him on his legs again. While laid up, the old man learns by inquiry that this youth is his own son, the fruit of a former amour, whom his mother has reared in struggling poverty. Enough of the play remains to shew that the trials of the free poor were placed in a strong light, and that, as pointed out above, the struggle for existence in the city was felt to be especially severe. In this case whether the old man is rich or not does not appear: at all events he has enough property to make amends for his youthful indiscretions by relieving the necessities of those who have a claim on him. He is probably the character in whose mouth[265] were put the words ‘I am a rustic (ἄγροικος); that I don’t deny; and not fully expert in affairs of city life (lawsuits etc?): but I was not born yesterday.’

The functions of the rustic slaves may give us some notion of the kind of farms that Menander had in mind. In the Γεωργός, the slave Davus, coming in from his day’s labour, grumbles[266] at the land on which he has to work: shrubs and flowers of use only for festival decorations grow there as vigorous weeds, but when you sow seed you get back what you sowed with no increase. This savours of the disappointing tillage of an upland farm. In the Ἐπιτρέποντες[267], Davus is a shepherd, Syriscus a charcoal-burner, occupations also proper to the hill districts. We must not venture to infer that Attic agriculture was mainly of this type in the poet’s day. The favourite motive of plots in the later Comedy, the exposure of infants in remote spots, their rescue by casual herdsmen or other slaves, and their eventual identification as the very person wanted in each case to make all end happily, would of itself suggest that lonely hill-farms, rather than big estates in the fat lowland, should be the scene. From my point of view the fact of chief interest is that slave-labour appears as normal in such an establishment. Rustic clothing[268] and food served out in rations[269] are minor details of the picture, and the arrangement by which a slave can work as wage-earner[270] for another employer, paying over a share to his own master (the ἀποφορά), surely indicates that there was nothing exceptional about it. There are one or two other fragments directly bearing on agricultural labour. One of uncertain age[271] speaks of a tiresome hand who annoys his employer by chattering about some public news from the city, when he should be digging. I doubt whether a slave is meant: at least he is surely a hired one, but why not a poor freeman, reduced to wage-earning? Such is the position of Timon[272] in Lucian—μισθοῦ γεωργεῖ—a passage in which adaptations from Comedy are reasonably suspected. That rustic labour has a better side to it, that ‘the bitter of agriculture has a touch of sweet in it,’ is admitted[273] by one of Menander’s characters, but the passage which seems the most genuine expression of the prevalent opinion[274] is that in which we read that a man’s true part is to excel in war, ‘for agriculture is a bondman’s task’ (τὸ γὰρ γεωργεῖν ἔργον ἐστὶν οἰκέτου).

The nature and condition of the evidence must be my excuse for the unsatisfactory appearance of this section. The number of passages bearing on slavery in general, and the social and moral questions connected therewith, is large and remote from my subject. They are of great interest as illustrating the movement of thought on these matters, but their bearing on agricultural labour is very slight. To the virtues of agriculture as a pursuit tending to promote a sound and manly character Menander[275] bears witness. ‘A farm is for all men a trainer in virtue and a freeman’s life.’ Many a town-bred man has thought and said the same, but praise is not always followed by imitation. Even more striking is another[276] remark, ‘farms that yield but a poor living make brave men.’ For it was the hard-living rustics from the back-country parts of Greece that succeeded as soldiers of fortune, the famous Greek mercenaries whose services all contemporary kings were eager to secure. In short, to the onlooker it seemed a fine thing to be bred a healthy rustic, but the rustic himself was apt to prefer a less monotonous and more remunerative career.

XIV. EARLY LAWGIVERS AND THEORISTS.

The treatises of the two great philosophers on the state (and therefore on the position of agriculture in the state) did not spring suddenly out of nothing; nor was it solely the questionings of Socrates[277] that turned the attention of Plato and Aristotle to the subject. Various lawgivers had shewn in their systems a consciousness of its importance, and speculative thinkers outside[278] the ranks of practical statesmen had designed model constitutions in which a reformed land-system played a necessary part. It is to Aristotle, the great collector of experience, that we owe nearly all our information of these attempts. It is convenient to speak of them briefly together. All recognize much the same difficulties, and there is a striking similarity in the means by which they propose to overcome them. The lawgivers[279] referred to are =Pheidon= of Corinth and =Philolaus=, also a Corinthian though his laws were drafted for Thebes, and thirdly[280] =Solon=. The dates of the first two are uncertain, but they belong to early times. The two constitution-framers[281] are =Hippodamus= of Miletus, whose birth is placed about 475 BC, and =Phaleas= of Chalcedon, probably somewhat later. Both witnessed the growth of imperial Athens, and Phaleas at least is thought to have been an elder contemporary of Plato. Very little is known about them. If we say that the attempt to design ideal state systems shews that they were not satisfied with those existing, and that the failure of past legislation may have encouraged them to theorize, we have said about all that we are entitled to infer.

On one point there was general agreement among Greek states: all desired to be ‘free’ or independent of external control. For some special purpose one people might for a time be recognized as the Leaders (ἡγεμόνες) of a majority of states, or more permanently as Representatives or Patrons (προστάται). But these unofficial titles only stood for a position acquiesced in under pressure of necessity. Each community wanted to live its own life in its own way, and the extreme jealousy of interference remained. Side by side with this was an internal jealousy causing serious friction in most of the several states, at first between nobles and commons, later between rich and poor. The seditions (στάσεις) arising therefrom were causes, not only of inner weakness and other evils, but in particular of intervention from without Therefore it was often the policy of the victors in party strife to expel or exterminate their opponents, in order to secure to themselves undisputed control of their own state. This tendency operated to perpetuate the smallness of scale in Greek states, already favoured by the physical features of the land. That the Greeks with all their cleverness never invented what we call Representative Government is no wonder. Men’s views in general were directed to the independence of their own state under control of their own partisans. The smaller the state, the easier it was to organize the control: independence could only be maintained by military efficiency, and unanimous loyalty was something to set off against smallness of numbers. Moreover the Greek mind had an artistic bent, and the sense of proportion was more easily and visibly gratified on a smaller scale. The bulk of Persia did not appear favourable to human freedom and dignity as understood in Hellas. In the Persian empire there was nothing that a Greek would recognize as citizenship. The citizen of a Greek state expected to have some voice in his own government: the gulf between citizen and non-citizen was the line of division, but even in Sparta the full citizens were equals in legal status among themselves. We may fairly say that the principle of equality (τὸ ἴσον) was at the root of Greek notions of citizenship. Privilege did not become less odious as it ceased to rest on ancestral nobility and became more obviously an advantage claimed by wealth.

Since the light thrown on the subject[282] by Dr Grundy, no one will dispute the importance of economic considerations in Greek policy, and in particular of the ever-pressing question of the food-supply. The security of the land and crops was to most states a vital need, and necessitated constant readiness to maintain it in arms. Closely connected therewith was the question of distribution. Real property was not only the oldest and most permanent investment. Long before Aristotle[283] declared that ‘the country is a public thing’ (κοινόν), that is an interest of the community, that opinion was commonly held, whether formulated or instinctive. The position of the landless man was traditionally a dubious one. The general rule was that only a citizen could own land in the territory of the state. From this it was no great step to argue that every citizen ought to own a plot of land within the borders. This was doubtless not always possible. In such a state as Corinth or Megara or Miletus commercial growth in a narrow territory had led to extensive colonization from those centres. And the normal procedure in the foundation of Greek colonies was to divide the occupied territory into lots (κλῆροι) and assign them severally to settlers. In course of time the discontents generated by land-monopolizing in old Hellas were liable to reappear beyond the seas, particularly in colonial states of rapid growth: a notorious instance is found in the troubles arising at Syracuse out of the squatter-sovranty created by the original colonists. We meet with plans for confiscation and redistribution of land as a common phenomenon of Greek revolutions. The mischievous moral effects of so unsettling a process on political wellbeing did not escape the notice of thoughtful observers. But on one important point we have practically no evidence. Did the new allottees wish to be, and in fact normally become, working farmers (αὐτουργοί)? Or did they aim at providing for themselves an easy life, supported by the labour of slaves? I wish I could surely and rightly decide between these alternatives. As it is, I can only say that I believe the second to be nearer the truth.

Under such conditions Greek lawgivers and theorists alike seem to have looked to much the same measures for remedying evils that they could not ignore. The citizen as landholder is the human figure with which they are all concerned. To prevent destitution arising from the loss[284] of his land-lot is a prime object. Some therefore would forbid the sale of the lot. To keep land in the same hands it was necessary to regulate numbers of citizen households, and this was attempted[285] in the laws of Pheidon. Families may die out, so rules to provide for perpetuity by adoptions[286] were devised by Philolaus. Again, there is the question of the size of the lots, and this raises the further question of a limit to acquisition. Such a limitation is attributed[287] to certain early lawgivers not named, and with them apparently to Solon. Phaleas would insist on equality of landed estate[288] among his citizens: a proposal which Aristotle treats as unpractical, referring to only one form of wealth, and leaving out of account slaves, tame animals, coin, and the dead-stock tools etc. His exclusive attention to internal civic wellbeing is also blamed, for it is absurd to disregard the relations of a state to other states: there must be a foreign policy, therefore you must provide[289] military force. The fanciful scheme of Hippodamus, a strange doctrinaire genius, seems to have been in many points inconsistent from want of attention to practical detail. From Aristotle’s account he appears not to have troubled himself with the question of equal land-lots, but his fixing the number[290] of citizens (10,000) is evidence that his point of view necessitated a limit. He proceeds on a system of triads. The citizens are grouped in three classes, artisans (τεχνῖται), husbandmen (γεωργοί), and the military, possessors of arms. The land is either sacred (for service of religion, ἱερά), public (δημοσία or κοινή) or the property of the husbandmen (ἰδία). The three classes of land and citizens are to be assumed equal. The military are to be supported by the produce of the public land. But who cultivates it? Aristotle shews that the scheme is not fully thought out. If the soldiers, then the distinction, obviously intended, between soldier and farmer, is lost. If the farmers, then the distinction between the public and private land is meaningless. If neither, a fourth class, not allowed for in the plan, will be required. This last is probably what Hippodamus meant: but to particularize the employment of slaves may have appeared superfluous. Into the purely constitutional details I need not enter, but one criticism is so frankly expressive of Greek ideas that it can hardly be omitted. What, says Aristotle, is the use of political rights to the artisans and husbandmen? they are unarmed, and therefore will practically be slaves of the military class. This was the truth in Greek politics generally, and is one of the most significant facts to be borne in mind when considering the political failure of the Greeks.

A curious difference of economic view is shewn in the position assigned to the artisan[291] or craftsman element by Hippodamus and Phaleas respectively. Phaleas would have them state-slaves (δημόσιοι), Hippodamus makes them citizens, though unarmed. On the former plan the state would no doubt feed them and use their produce, as we do with machinery. Of the latter plan Aristotle remarks that τεχνῖται are indispensable: all states need them, and they can live of the earnings of their crafts, but the γεωργοὶ as a distinct class are superfluous. We may reply that, if the craftsmen live of their earnings and stick to their several crafts, they will need to buy food, and the farmers are surely there to supply it. The reply is so obvious that one feels as if Aristotle’s meaning had been obscured through some mishap to the text. For the present purpose it suffices that the professional craftsmen in these two Utopias are to be either actual slaves or citizens _de iure_ who are _de facto_ as helpless as slaves. In the scheme of Hippodamus the farmer-class also are virtually the slaves of the military. Another notable point, apparently neglected by Hippodamus, is the trust reposed in education[292] or training by both Phaleas and his critic. How to implant in your citizens the qualities needed for making your institutions work well in practice, is the problem. Phaleas would give all the same training, on the same principle as he gives equal land-lots. To Aristotle this seems crude nonsense: the problem to him is the discovery of the appropriate training, whether the same for all or not. This insistence on training as the main thing in citizen-making is, as we shall see, a common feature of Greek political speculation. But in the artistic desire to produce the ‘complete citizen,’ and thereby make possible a model state, the specializing mania outruns the humbler considerations of everyday human society, and agriculture, for all its confessed importance, is apt to be treated with something very like contempt. The tendency to regard farmer and warrior as distinct classes is unmistakeable. The peasant-soldier of Roman tradition is not an ordinary Greek figure. How far the small scale of Greek states may have favoured this differentiation is very hard to say. But Greek admiration for the athlete type had probably something to do with the growth of military professionalism.

The recognition of a land-question and attempts to find a solution were probably stimulated by observation of contemporary phenomena, especially in the two leading states of the fifth century. Sparta had long held the first place, and even the rise of Athens had not utterly destroyed her ancient prestige. That her military system was effective, seemed proved by the inviolability of Laconian territory and the successes of her armies in external wars. That it was supported by the labour of a Greek population reduced to serfdom, was perhaps a weak point in her institutions; but that Greek opinion was seriously shocked by the fact can hardly be maintained. It was now and then convenient to use it as a passing reproach, but even Athens did not refuse to aid in putting down Helot rebellions. And this weak point was set off by a strong one. Whatever the reasons[293] for her policy, she interfered very little in the internal affairs of her allies and did not tax them. To be content with the leadership of confederates, and not to convert it into an empire of subjects, assured to her a certain amount of respectful sympathy in the jealous Greek world. Thus she afforded an object-lesson in the advantages of rigid specialization. She provided her own food in time of peace, and took her opponents’ food in time of war. The disadvantages of her system were yet to appear. Athens on the other hand was becoming more and more dependent on imported food. She was the leader of the maritime states and islands: she had become their imperial mistress. However easy her yoke might be in practice, it left no room for independent action on the part of her subject allies: what had been contributions from members of a league had become virtually imperial taxation, and to Greek prejudices such taxation appeared tyranny. Nor was this prejudice allowed to die out. The rival interests of commercial Corinth saw to it that the enslavement, not of Greeks but of Greek states, should be continually borne in mind. The contrast between the two leading powers was striking. But, if many Greek states feared in Athens a menace to their several independence, on the other hand they shrank from copying the rigid discipline of Sparta. No wonder that some of the more imaginative minds had dreams of a system more congenial to Greek aspirations. But the land-question was a stumbling-block. That a citizen should take an active personal share in politics was assumed, and that he should do this tended to make him depute non-political duties to others. Thus the notion that all citizens should be equal in the eye of the law and share in government—democracy in short—was not favourable to personal labour on the land. No distribution of land-lots could convert the city politician into a real working farmer. Therefore either there must be a decline in agriculture or an increase of slave-labour, or both. From these alternatives there was no escape: but ingenious schemers long strove to find a way. And from those days to these no one has succeeded in constructing a sound and lasting civilization on a basis of slavery.

XV. PLATO.

An Athenian who died in 347 BC at the age of 80 or 82 years had witnessed extraordinary changes in the Hellenic world, more particularly in the position of Athens. With the political changes we are not here directly concerned. But they were closely connected with economic changes, both as cause and as effect. The loss of empire[294] entailed loss of revenue. The amounts available as state-pay being reduced, the poorer citizens lost a steady source of income: that their imperial pride had departed did not tend to make them less sensitive to the pinch of poverty. Athens, thrown back upon her own limited resources, had to produce what she could in order to buy what she needed, and capital, employing slave-labour, found its opportunity. In this atmosphere discontent and jealousy grew fast: conflicting interests of rich and poor were at the back of all the disputes of political life. Athens it is true avoided the crude revolutionary methods adopted in some less civilized states. The Demos did not massacre or banish the wealthy Few, and share out their lands and other properties among the poor Many. But they consistently regarded the estates of the rich as the source from which the public outlay should as far as possible be drawn. They left the capitalist free to make money in his own way, and squeezed him when he had made it. Whether he were citizen or metic[295] mattered not from the economic point of view. Capitalistic industry was really slave-industry. The ‘small man’ had the choice of either competing, perhaps vainly, with the ‘big man’ on the land or in the workshop, or of giving up the struggle and using his political power to make the ‘big man’ disgorge some of his profits. Moreover military life no longer offered the prospects of conquest and gain that had made it attractive. The tendency was to treat the citizen army as a defensive force, and to employ professional mercenaries (of whom there was now[296] no lack) on foreign service. To a thoughtful observer these phenomena suggested uneasy reflexions. Demos in Assembly was a dispiriting spectacle. Selfish[297] and shortsighted, he cared more for his own belly and his amusements than for permanent interests of state. Perhaps this was no new story. But times had changed, and the wealthy imperial Athens, able to support the burden of her own defects, had passed away. Bad government in reduced circumstances might well be productive of fatal results.

It was not Athens alone that had failed. Fifteen years before Plato’s death the failure of both Sparta and Thebes had left Hellas exhausted[298] and without a leading state to give some sort of unity to Greek policy. There was still a common Hellenic feeling, but it was weak compared with separatist jealousy. Antipathy to the Barbarian remained: but the Persian power had been called in by Greeks to aid them against other Greeks, and this was a serious danger to the Greek world. Things were even worse in the West. How anarchic democracy had paved the way for military tyranny at Syracuse, how the tyranny had lowered the standard of Greek civilization in Sicily and Italy, and had been the ruin of Greek cities, no man of that age knew better than Plato. Plato was not singular in his distrust of democracy: that attitude was common enough. Among the companions of Socrates I need only refer to Xenophon and Critias. Socrates had insisted that government is a difficult art, for success in which a thorough training is required. Now, whatever might be the case in respect of tyrannies or oligarchies, democracy was manifestly an assertion of the principle that all citizens were alike qualified for a share in the work of government. Yet no craftsman would dream of submitting the work of his own trade to the direction of amateurs. Why then should the amateur element, led by amateurs, dominate in the sphere of politics? It was easy to find instances of the evil effects of amateurism in public affairs. It is true that this line of argument contained a fallacy, as arguments from analogy very often do. But it had a profound influence on Plato, and it underlay all his political speculations. It was reinforced by an influence that affected many of his contemporaries, admiration of Sparta on the score of the permanence[299] of her system of government. That this admiration was misguided, and the permanence more apparent than real, matters not: to a Greek thinker it was necessarily attractive, seeking for some possibly permanent principle of government, and disgusted with the everlasting flux of Hellenic politics. Nor was there anything strange in imagining an ideal state in which sound principles might be carried into effect. The foundation of colonies, in which the settlers made a fresh start as new communities, was traditionally a Greek custom. Such was the foundation, logical and apparently consistent with experience, on which Plato designed to build an Utopia. Avoiding the unscientific _laisser-faire_ of democratic politics, functions were to be divided on a rational system, and government placed in the hands of trained specialists.

It is well to note some of the defects of Greek civilization as Plato saw it, particularly in Athens. The confusion and weakness of democratic government, largely the fruit of ignorance haste and prejudice, has been referred to above. In most states the free citizen population were born and bred at the will of their fathers under no scientific state-regulation, not sifted out in youth by scientific selection, and only trained up to the average standard locally approved. Something better was needed, if more was to be got out of human capacity. But it seems certain that Plato found the chief and most deep-seated source of social and political evils in the economic situation. The unequal distribution of wealth and the ceaseless struggle between rich and poor lay at the root of that lack of harmonious unity in which he saw the cause of the weakness and unhappiness of states. To get rid of the plutocrat and the beggar[300] was a prime object. Confiscation and redistribution[301] offered no lasting remedy, so long as men remained what they were. A complete moral change was necessary, and this could only be effected by an education that should train all citizens cheerfully and automatically to bear their several parts in promoting the happiness of all. There must be no more party-strivings after the advantage of this or that section: the guiding principle must be diversity of individual functions combined with unity of aim. An ideal state must be the Happy Land of the Expert, and each specialist must mind his own business. Thus each will enjoy his own proper happiness: friction competition and jealousy will pass away. There will be no more hindrance to the efficiency of craftsmen: we shall not see one tempted by wealth[302] to neglect his trade, while another is too poor to buy the appliances needed for turning out good work. The expert governors or Guardians must be supplied with all necessaries[303] by the classes engaged in the various forms of production. Thus only can they be removed from the corruptions that now pervert politicians. To them at least all private property must be denied. And, in order that they may be as expert in their own function of government as other craftsmen are in their several trades, they must be bred selected and educated on a strictly scientific system the very opposite of the haphazard methods now in vogue.

This brief sketch of the critical and constructive scope of the _Republic_ must suffice for my purpose. Plato laid his finger on grave defects, but his remedies seem fantastic in the light of our longer and more varied experience. Any reform of society had to be carried out by human agency, and for the difficulty of adapting this no adequate allowance is made. He recognizes the difficulty of starting an ideal community on his model. Old prejudices will be hard to overcome. So he suggests[304] that it will be necessary for the philosophical rulers to clear the ground by sending all the adult inhabitants out into the country, keeping in the city only the children of ten years and under: these they will train up on their system. He implies that with the younger generation growing up under properly regulated conditions the problems of establishment will solve themselves by the effect of time. This grotesque proposal may indicate that Plato did not mean his constructive design to be taken very seriously. But a more notable weakness appears in the narrowness of outlook. It was natural that a Greek should think and write as a Greek for Greeks, and seek lessons in Greek experience. But the blight of disunion and failure was already on the little Greek states; and their experience, not likely to recur, has in fact never really recurred. Hence the practical value of Plato’s stimulating criticism and construction is small. In the labour-question we find no advance. Slavery is assumed as usual, but against the enslavement of Greeks, of which recent warfare supplied many examples, he makes[305] a vigorous protest. Euripides had gone further than this, and questionings of slavery had not been lacking. Another very Greek limitation of view comes out in the contempt[306] for βαναυσία, the assumed physical and moral inferiority of persons occupied in sedentary trades. That such men were unfitted for the rough work of war, and therefore unfitted to take part in ruling an independent Greek state, was an opinion not peculiar to Plato. But this objection could not well be raised against the working farmer. Why then does Plato exclude the farmer-class from a share in the government of his ideal state? I think we may detect three reasons. First, the husbandman, though necessary to the state’s existence, has not the special training required for government, nor the leisure to acquire it. Second, it is his intense occupation that alone secures to the ruling class the leisure needful for their responsible duties. Third, the belief[307] that a man cannot be at the same time a good husbandman and a good soldier. These three may be regarded as one: the philosopher would get rid of haphazard amateurism by making the expert specialist dominant in all departments of civil and military life. The influence of the Spartan system (much idealized), and the growth of professional soldiering, on his theories is too obvious to need further comment.

Reading the _Republic_ from the labour-question point of view, one is struck by the lack of detail as to the condition of the classes whose labour feeds and clothes the whole community. We must remember that the dialogue starts with an attempt to define Justice, in the course of which a wider field of inquiry is opened up by assuming an analogy[308] between the individual and the state. As the dominance of his nobler element over his baser elements is the one sure means of ensuring the individual’s lasting happiness, so the dominance of the nobler element in the state alone offers a like guarantee. On these lines the argument proceeds, using an arbitrary psychology, and a fanciful political criticism to correspond. The construction of a model state is rather incidental than essential to the discussion. No wonder that, while we have much detail as to the bodily and mental equipment of the ‘Guardians’ (both the governing elders and the warrior youths) we get no information as to the training of husbandmen and craftsmen. Like slaves, they are assumed to exist: how they become and remain what they are assumed to be, we are not told. We are driven to guess that at this stage of his speculations Plato was content to take over these classes just as he found them in the civilization of his day. But he can hardly have imagined that they would acquiesce in any system by which they would be excluded from all political power. The hopeless inferiority of the husbandman is most clearly marked when contrasted with the young warriors of the ‘Guardian’ class. Duties are so highly specialized that men are differentiated for life. The γεωργὸς cannot be a good soldier. But if a soldier shews cowardice he is to be punished[309] by being made a γεωργὸς or δημιουργός—a degradation in itself, and accompanied by no suggestion of a special training being required to fit him for his new function. It is unnecessary to enlarge on such points: constructors of Utopias cannot avoid some inconsistencies and omissions. The simple fact is that the arrangements for differentiation of classes in the model state are not fully worked out in detail.

Plato’s Guardians are to have no private property; for it is private property[310] that seems to him the cause of sectional and personal interests which divide and weaken the state and lead to unhappiness. But the other classes are not so restricted. They can own land and houses etc; on exactly what tenure, is less clear. Meanwhile, what is it that the Guardians have in common? It is the sustenance (τροφὴ) provided as pay (μισθὸς) for their services by the mass of workers over whom they rule. It is expressly stated[311] that in the model state the Demos will call the Rulers their Preservers and Protectors, and the Rulers call the Demos their Paymasters and Sustainers. In existing states other than democracies their mutual relation is too often expressed as that of Masters and Slaves. I cannot refrain from noting that, if the pay of the Guardians consists in their sustenance, this is so far exactly the case of slaves. That power and honour should be reserved for men maintained thus, without private emoluments, is remarkable. The Spartiates, however much an idealizing of their system may have suggested the arrangement, were maintained by the sulky labour of Helot serfs. Are the husbandmen in Plato’s scheme really any better than Helots? In describing the origin of states in general, Plato finds the cause[312] of that development in the insufficiency of individuals to meet their own needs. But in tracing the process of the division of labour, and increasing complexity of civilization, he ignores slavery, though slavery is often referred to in various parts of the book. Now, if the husbandman has under him no slaves, and is charged with the food-supply of his rulers, he comes very near to the economic status of a serf. He works with his own hands, but not entirely at his own will or for his own profit. And in one respect he would, to Greek critics, seem inferior to a Spartan[313] Helot: he is, by the extreme specializing system, denied all share in military service, and so can hardly be reckoned a citizen at all. How came Plato to imagine for a single moment that a free Greek would acquiesce in such a position? I can only guess that the present position of working farmers and craftsmen in trades seemed to him an intolerable one. If, as I believe from the indications in Xenophon and other authorities, agriculture and the various industries of Attica were now steadily passing into the hands of slaveowning capitalists, and small men going to the wall, there would be much to set a philosopher thinking and seeking some way of establishing a wholesomer state of things. On this supposition speculations, however fantastic and incapable of realization in fact, might call attention to practical evils and at least prepare men’s minds for practical remedies. In admitting the difficulty of making a fresh start, and the certainty that even his model state would in time lose its purity[314] and pass through successive phases of decay, Plato surely warns us not to take his constructive scheme seriously. But whether he really believed that free handworkers could (save in an oligarchy, which[315] he detests,) be induced to submit to a ruling class, and be themselves excluded on principle from political interests of any kind, is more than I can divine.