44 Labour employed on farms 



principal parties is disposed to haggle over details. The Athenian 

 breaks out 'I want to strip and work my land at once.' The Spartan 

 rejoijs 'and I want to be carting manure.' There is still no misgiving 

 expressed, and the poet is probably true to facts. The struggles of the 

 time were a fearful strain on Athenian resources, but it still seemed 

 possible that the empire would weather the storm. 



This brief sketch leads on to the inquiry, what do we gather as to 

 the labour employed on the farms? We have to consider three possi- 

 bilities (a) the farmer, including his family, (b) hired labourers, (c) slaves. 

 It is well to begin by remarking that frequency of reference to one of 

 these does not necessarily imply the same proportion in actual employ- 

 ment. Slavery being assumed as a fact in all departments of life (as it 

 is by all writers of the period), and the slave being an economic or 

 domestic appliance rather than a person, there was no need to call 

 special attention to his presence. Hence it is natural that the rustic 

 slave should, as such, be seldom referred to in the plays. He is in fact 

 mentioned several times, rather more often than the yoke of oxen. Nor 

 was it necessary to mention the wage-earner, the man employed for 

 the job under a temporary contract, and in connexion with agriculture 

 he hardly appears at all. But the working farmers were a class of 

 citizens. They had votes, and they were on political grounds a class 

 to whose sympathies the poet was anxious to appeal. Therefore he 

 had no choice but to lay stress upon their virtues and magnify their 

 importance. Any careful reader of Aristophanes will I think admit 

 that he does this consistently. In doing this with political aims he was 

 subject to the temptation of passing lightly over any considerations 

 that might, whether justly or unjustly, be turned against his case. This 

 may serve to explain why he refers almost solely to the small working 

 farmer, who himself labours on the land. We are not to infer that there 

 were no large estates worked by deputy, though probably there were 

 not many: to lay stress on the interested views of large landowners 

 was not likely to please the jealous Demos. Nor are we to infer that 

 the small farmer used no slaves : that he laboured himself is no proof, 

 for no man could get more out of a slave's labour than the working 

 owner, on whom the burden of making good his slave's neglect must 

 fall. I turn now to the passages from which the various details may 

 be gleaned. 



In the Acharnians the working farmer Dicaeopolis is delighted at 

 having made a separate peace on his own account. He holds it a fine 

 thing 1 that he should now be able to perform religious rites and 

 celebrate the festival of the rustic Dionysia with his slaves. He is back 

 at home 2 in his own rural deme, and he calls his slave Xanthias to 

 1 Ach 248-50, 259. 2 Ach 266> 



