The farmers merged in the city Demos 49 



was no doubt city residents that formed the normal majority in the 

 Assembly, and to whom most of the paid offices and functions fell. 

 Even allowing for the recent growth of ( seafaring rabble ' in Peiraeus, 

 these Athenians were not at all a mere necessitous mob. But it must 

 be remembered that the commercial and industrial capitalists were 

 interested in foreign trade. As Mr Cornford 1 points out, even metics of 

 this class must have had considerable influence owing to wealth and 

 connexions. Thus the urban rich as well as the urban poor were 

 tempted to favour a policy of adventure, contrary to the wishes and 

 interests of the Attic farmers. Now these latter were the truest repre- 

 sentatives of the old Attic stock. Once they were crowded into the 

 city and many of them diverted to state service, any sobering influence 

 that they might at first exercise would become less and less marked, 

 and they would tend to be lost in the mass. Therefore we hear only 

 of the rustic life 2 from which they unwillingly tore themselves in 43 1 BC: 

 we do not get any detailed picture of it, for the historian's attention 

 was otherwise occupied. In the passage 3 accounting for the unpopu- 

 larity of Pericles in 430 BC we read that the Demos was irritated because 

 ' having less (than the rich) to start with, it had been deprived of that 

 little,' while the upper class (bwaroi) had lost their fine establishments. 

 Here the context seems to imply that the 8^09 referred to is especially 

 the small farmers, still dwelling on their losses and not yet otherwise 

 employed. 



One passage is so important that it must be discussed by itself. 

 Pericles is made to encourage 4 the Athenians in resistance to the 

 Spartan demands by pointing out the superiority of their resources 

 compared with those of the enemy. 'The Peloponnesians' he says 'are 

 working farmers (avrovpjoi). 1 hey have no store of wealth (^p^ara) 

 either private or public. Nor have they experience of protracted war- 

 fare with operations beyond the sea: for their own campaigns against 

 each other are short, owing to poverty.' After explaining how they 

 must be hampered by lack of means, he resumes thus 'And working 

 farmers are more ready to do service in person than by payment. They 

 trust that they may have the luck to survive the perils of war; but 

 they have no assurance that their means will not be exhausted before 

 it ends : for it may drag out to an unexpected length and this is likely 

 to happen.' Two questions at once suggest themselves. Is this a fair 

 sketch of agricultural conditions in Peloponnese? Does it imply that 

 Attic farmers were not avrovpyol? To take the latter first, it is held 

 by Professor Beloch 5 that the passage characterizes the Peloponnese 



1 Thucydides mythistoricus chapter II. 



8 II 14, 16. An earlier period is referred to in I 126 7, 8. 8 II 65 2. 



4 I 14*- 5 Die Bevolkerung der Griechisch-Rom Welt p 150. 



H.A. 4. 



