38 Athens from within 



rural interests at home. For the sacrifice fell on the landowners, 

 more particularly on the larger owners: the compensations 1 of state- 

 pay and chances of plunder might suffice for the peasant farmer 

 driven into Athens. At the same time it was undeniable that the 

 astounding energy displayed by democratic Athens had surprised 

 the Greek world ; and the most discontented Athenian could hardly 

 suppress an emotion of patriotic pride. The writer of the pamphlet 

 before us for a pamphlet it is was under the influence of these 

 conflicting feelings. Whether it is right to describe him as an Oligarch 

 depends on what that term is taken to connote. That he would 

 greatly prefer a system 2 under which the educated orderly and honest 

 citizens should enjoy greater consideration and power, is evident: 

 also that in his view these qualities are normal attributes of the 

 wealthier classes. For he finds in poverty the main cause 3 of demo- 

 cratic misdeeds. That the masses are ill-informed and lack judgment 

 and self-control, is the result of their preoccupation with necessities 

 of daily life. But from this conviction to aiming at a serious oli- 

 garchic revolution is a long step. The democracy in its less aggressive 

 form, before the recent developments owing to the presence of an idle 

 refugee population, might conceivably have sufficed for his require- 

 ments. He is a prejudiced contemporary witness, frank and cynical 

 in the extreme, praising the Demos for doing the very things that he 

 hates and despises, because those things are in the interest of the 

 democracy such as it appears to him : they would be fools to act 

 otherwise. For convenience sake I follow Mr Zimmern 4 in calling him 

 the Old Oligarch. 



His disgust at the lack of discipline in the slaves at Athens, and 

 his ingenious explanation 5 of the causes that have led to toleration 

 of the nuisance, are very characteristic of his whole attitude. But 

 the slaves of whom he speaks are those labourers whom their owners 

 allowed to work for hire in the city and Peiraeus, taking a share of 

 their pay as rent for their services. Perhaps the state slaves are meant 

 also. He admits that you have to put up with the airs of these 

 fellows, who often become men of substance (TT\OVO-LOL Bov\oi) and 

 think themselves as good as the citizens. Truth is, the master depends 

 on the return he gets from his investment : if the rent comes in 

 regularly, he asks no questions and the slave is given 6 a free hand. 

 No wonder the bondman jostles his betters in the public streets, a 

 state of things inconceivable in orderly Sparta. Now on the face of 

 it this picture has nothing to do with the agricultural situation. But 



1 3- J 5 etc. 3 This view reappears later in Isocrates. 



4 In his book The Greek Commonwealth. 5 i 10-12. 



6 Kalinka well points out that in i n i\cv8tpovs ctytfrat is not technical = manumit. 



