The farmers and the war 41 



as scenes of spotless innocence. But the details that drop out casually 

 are often very significant from the point of view of my inquiry, and 

 very helpful as giving us a genuine picture of the time. 



On no point is information more to be desired than the relation of 

 agriculture to wealth. Is the typical farmer of the period a man of 

 large estate or not? We have seen that the 'old oligarch' classed 

 together the wealthy and the farmers as favouring a peace-policy. That 

 such a body of opinion, large or small, existed in Athens, is also sug- 

 .gested by passages in Aristophanes. In the Ecclesiazusae, the play in 

 which the leader of the female politicians offers to cure distress by a 

 communistic scheme, we are told 1 that a proposal to mobilize a fleet 

 divides the Assembly: the poor man votes for it, but the wealthy and 

 the farmers are against it. I take it that, as in the case of the Sicilian 

 expedition, the man who wants to get paid for service (with a chance 

 of profit) supports the 'motiqn; those who dislike having to pay for the 

 enterprise, or see no way of profiting by it, are in opposition. This is 

 a phenomenon normal in politics, and does not tell us whether the 

 'farmers' are cultivators on a large scale or small. Later in the play 

 we find a protest 2 against the iniquity of the present juxtaposition of 

 wealth and destitution, the state of things in which one man farms 

 much land while another has not enough to afford him a grave. Even 

 a comic poet would hardly put this into the mouth of one of his charac- 

 ters if there were not some section of the audience to whom it might 

 appeal. It is probable that at the time (393-2 BC) communistic 

 suggestions were among the currents of opinion in humbled and im- 

 poverished Athens. To squeeze the rich had long been the policy of 

 the democrats, and a jealousy of wealth in any form became endemic 

 in the distressful city. A few years later (388 BC) the poet gave in the 

 Plutus a pointed discussion 3 of economic questions, ridiculing the notion 

 that all could be rich at the same time : for nobody would work, and 

 so civilization would come to an end. True, the individualistic bent of 

 the average Athenian, grasping and litigious, prevented the establish- 

 ment of downright communism : but Athens was henceforth never free 

 from the jealous and hardly patriotic demands of the clamorous poor 

 We must remember that military service, no longer offering prospects 

 of profit in addition to pay, was becoming unpopular; that land- 

 allotments 4 in conquered territories had ceased ; and that agriculture 

 in a large part of Attica was toilsome and unremunerative. Poverty 

 was widespread, and commerce declined : this implies that the supply 

 of slaves, and the money to buy them, would be reduced. Was there 

 then much to attract the poor man to the lonely tillage of a patch of 



197-8. 2 Ecd 59 1-2. 3 Plut 5 10-626. 



4 Old Strepsiades still has his thoughts fixed on these, Nubes 202-3. 



