6 Limitation of scope 



instructive in a very high degree, but only when we bear in mind the 

 existing state of things from observation of which their conclusions 

 were derived. And the changes of attitude in philosophic thought are 

 sometimes highly instructive. Take farm life and labour as it appears 

 to Plato and Aristotle and later to Musonius: a whole volume of 

 history, economic moral and political, lies in the interval of some 

 400 years. Inscriptions furnish little to the student of this subject, but 

 that little is worth having. To conclude this paragraph, I do not 

 apologize for putting my authorities in the witness-box and questioning 

 them one by one. For only thus do I see a possibility of giving a true 

 picture of the conditions with which I am concerned. It is a long 

 method, but perhaps not uninteresting, and I see no other. 



It may seem necessary to explain why I have not devoted special 

 chapters to rustic life and labour in Oriental countries, some of which 

 eventually became parts of the Roman empire. Such countries are for 

 instance Egypt, Palestine and Syria. One reason is that I could do 

 nothing more than compile conclusions of the inquirers who have lately 

 rescued a vast mass of detail, chiefly from the Egyptian papyri. Age 

 forbade me to undertake this task unless it seemed clear that my 

 inquiry really depended on it. But, inasmuch as I have not been trying 

 to produce a technical treatise upon ancient agriculture, I do not think 

 it necessary. That there is room for such a treatise, I have no doubt: 

 nor that its writer will need to have many years at his disposal and a good 

 knowledge of several sciences at his back. With regard to eastern 

 countries other than Egypt, practically the Seleucid empire, knowledge 

 is at present very scanty, as Rostowzew has to confess. Ancient India 

 lies quite beyond my range, as having never been a part of the Roman 

 empire: but there is evidently much of interest to be gathered in this 

 field. From these extensive and promising researches my limited effort 

 is divided by a clearly marked line. I am concerned with agriculture 

 and agricultural labour not as the occupation of passive populations 

 merely producing so much food year by year, peoples over whom 

 centuries might pass without ascertainable change of a moral social or 

 political character. Such peoples, in short, as do not get beyond the 

 conception of ruler and ruled to that of state and citizen, or at least have 

 not yet done so. For of all conclusions to be drawn from the history 

 of the Greco-Roman world none seems to me more certain than the 

 fact that, while political social and moral movements affected the con- 

 ditions of agriculture, agricultural changes reacted upon political social 

 and moral conditions. Thus the general history of the peoples, com- 

 prising the rise and fall of ancient efforts towards self-government, 

 must always be kept in view: the fluctuations of what I may call civic 

 values, and the position of farmers as labourers or employers of labour 



