36 The model peasant 



land : it is all very well to pray for divine aid, but to get a living the 

 first thing needful is to work. Now here we have a picture of the 

 free farmer on a small scale, who lives in a hovel and depends on the 

 labour of his own hands. He is the ancient analogue of the French 

 peasant, who works harder than any slave, and whose views are apt 

 to be limited by the circumstances of his daily life. He has no slaves 1 . 

 Again, the Theban herald in the Supplices*, speaking of the incapacity 

 of a Demos for the function of government, says 'but 'a poor husband- 

 man (yairovos avr)p TreV???), even if not stupid, will be too busy to 

 attend to state affairs.' Here is our toiling rustic, the ideal citizen of 

 statesmen who desire to keep free from popular control. The same 

 character appears again in the Orestes, on the occasion of a debate in 

 the Argive Assembly (modelled on Athens), as defender of Orestes. 

 He is described 3 as ' not of graceful mien, but a manly fellow, one 

 who seldom visits the city and the market-place, a toiler with his 

 hands (avrovpyos), of the class on whom alone the safety of the 

 country depends ; but intelligent and prepared to face the conflict of 

 debate, a guileless being of blameless life.' So vivid is this portrait, 

 that the sympathy of the poet with the rustic type of citizen can 

 hardly be ignored. Now, why did Euripides take pains to shew this 

 sympathy ? I take it to be a sign that he saw with regret the declining 

 influence of the farmer class in Attic politics. 



Can we go a step further, and detect in these passages any sort of 

 protest against a decline in the number of small working farmers, 

 and a growth of exploitation-farming, carried on by stewards directing 

 the labour of slaves or hired hands? In the next generation we find 

 this system in use, as indeed it most likely always had been to some 

 extent on the richer soils of lowland Attica. The concentration of 

 the country folk in the city during the great war would tend to pro- 

 mote agriculture by deputy after the return of peace. Deaths, and 

 the diversion of some farmers to other pursuits, were likely to leave 

 vacancies in the rural demes. Speculators who took advantage of 

 such chances to buy land would not as a rule do so with intent to 

 live on the land and work it themselves ; and aliens were not allowed 

 to hold real estate. It seems fairly certain that landlords resident in 

 Athens, to whom land was only one of many forms of investment, 

 and who either let their land to tenant-farmers or exploited its culti- 

 vation under stewards, were a class increased considerably by the 

 effects of the war. We shall see further reasons below for believing 

 this. Whether Euripides in the passages cited above is actually 



1 The slaves in 360 and 394 are attendants of Orestes. 2 Suppl 420-2. 



3 Orest 918-20. Cf fragm 188 Bind where the virtue of rustic life is sketched /cat 6ets 

 fiv ffKairruv &puv yrjv Trot/wuois - 



