Xenophon and the great change 53 



XII. XENOPHON. 



Xenophon, who lived somewhere between 440 and 350 BC, intro- 

 duces us to a great change in the conditions of the Greek world. The 

 uneasiness and sufferings of the Greek states from the fall of Athens 

 in 404 to the time of exhaustion resulting from the battle of Mantinea 

 in 362 do not concern us here. Of such matters we hear much, but 

 very little directly of the economic changes that were undoubtedly 

 going on. Poverty was as before a standing trouble in Greece. In the 

 more backward parts 1 able-bodied men left their homes to serve as 

 hired soldiers. The age of professional mercenaries was in full swing. 

 Arcadians Achaeans Aetolians Acarnanians Thessalians and other 

 seekers after fortune became more and more the staple material of 

 armies. Athens could no longer support imperial ambitions on im- 

 perial tributes, and had to depend on the sale of her products to pro- 

 cure her supplies of food. These products were chiefly oil and wine 

 and urban manufactures, and there is reason to think that in general 

 the most economical method of production was by slave labour under 

 close and skilful superintendence. Slaves were supplied by kidnappers 

 from the Euxine and elsewhere, but prisoners captured by armies were 

 another source of supply. This living loot was one of the perquisites 

 that made military life attractive, and the captives found their way to 

 such markets as the industrial centres of Athens and Corinth. What 

 happened in the rural districts of Attica, how far there was a revival 

 of the small farmer class, is a point on which we are very much in the 

 dark. The indirect evidence of Xenophon is interesting but not wholly 

 conclusive. 



It is perhaps important to consider what significance should be 

 attached to the mention of agricultural work done by men of military 

 forces on land or sea. In 406 BC we hear of hardships 2 endured by 

 the force under the Spartan Eteonicus who were cut off in Chios after 

 the defeat of Arginusae. During the summer months they 'supported 

 themselves on the fruits of the season and by working for hire in the 

 country.' This is meant to shew that they were in sad straits, as the 

 sequel clearly proves. Again, in 372 BC Iphicrates was with a force 

 in Corcyra, and naval operations were for the time over. So he 

 'managed 3 to provide for his oarsmen (vcwTas) chiefly by employing 

 them in farm-work for the Corcyraeans/ while he undertook an ex- 

 pedition on the mainland with his soldiers. In both these cases want 



1 That there was normally much insecurity in rustic life in some parts of Greece, may be 

 inferred from the dance-scene of the farmer and the robber, acted by men from north central 

 Greece in Anabasis VI i 7, 8. Daubeny's Lectures pp 17, 18. 



2 Hellcnica II i I. 3 Hellenica vi 37. 



