Corn, home-grown and imported 81 



effort. But the difficulties of Isocrates lay largely outside Athens : the 

 states did not want to have a leader; Philip, to whom he turned in his 

 old age, was no more welcome to them than the rest of his proposed 

 leaders. Demosthenes had to face the fact of a Macedonian party in 

 Athens itself, as well as to overcome the apathy and inertia which had 

 been growing continually since the fall of the Athenian empire. His 

 opponents were not all mere corrupt partisans of the Macedonian king. 

 Athens was now no longer a great power, and they knew it: Demos- 

 thenes is forgiven by historians for his splendid defiance of facts. 

 Naturally enough, in the conflicts of political opinion from the time of 

 the revolution of the Four Hundred to the death of Demosthenes 

 (411-322 BC) we have few references to agriculture. Yet we know that 

 the question of food-supply was still a pressing one for many Greek 

 states, above all for Athens. Some of the references have a value as 

 being contemporary. But a large part of these are references to litiga- 

 tion, and deal not with conditions of cultivation but with claims to 

 property. Among the most significant facts are the importance attached 

 to the control of the Hellespontine trade-route and the careful regula- 

 tions affecting the import and distribution 1 of corn. 



The period on which we get some little light from passages in the 

 earlier orators is roughly about 410-350 BC. It includes the general 

 abandonment of agricultural enterprises abroad, owing to the loss of 

 empire and therewith of cleruchic properties. By this shrinkage the 

 relative importance of home agriculture must surely have been increased. 

 Yet I cannot find a single direct statement or reference to this effect, 

 It seems reasonable to suppose that it was not necessary to assert 

 what was only too obvious. Corn had to be imported, and imported 

 it was from various 2 sources of supply. To guard against failure of 

 this supply was a chief preoccupation of the Athenian government. 

 But that some corn was still grown in Attica is clear. Isocrates says 3 

 that one act of hostility to the Thirty was the destruction of corn in 

 the country by the democrats. And in another place 4 he lays stress 

 upon the mythical legend of the earliest introduction of corn-growing, 

 the civilizing gift of Demeter to her favoured Attica. Yet there are 

 signs that the culture of the olive and vine was more and more dis- 

 placing cereal crops : the fig tree, often a sacred thing, was, and had 

 long been, a regular feature of the country-side. Live stock, goats sheep 

 and cattle, were probably abundant, though there was seldom need 

 for an orator to mention them. If we judge by the remaining references, 



1 See Lysias xxn, speech against the corn-dealers. 



2 See for instance Andocides de reditu 20-1 p 22 (Cyprus), Isocrates Trapeziticus 57 

 p 370 (Bosporus). 



3 Isocr de bigis 13 p 349. 



4 Isocr Panegyricus 28 p 46, cf Plato Menex 237 e. 



H. A. 6 



