The farmer as citizen 89 



there is no reason to think that measures of this kind had much success. 

 Nor were vague traditions 1 of the equality of original land-lots in some 

 Greek states of any great importance. Some theoretical reformers 

 might aim at such an arrangement, but it was a vain aspiration. Indeed, 

 regarded from the food -producing point of view, nothing like a true 

 equality was possible in practice. Confiscation and redistribution were 

 only to be effected at the cost of civil war, and the revered wisdom of 

 Solon 2 had rejected such a proceeding. Communistic schemes had 

 little attraction for the average Greek, so far as his own labour or 

 interests might be involved: even the dream of Plato was far from a 

 thoroughgoing communism. 



Of the farmer in his character of citizen 3 Aristotle had a favourable 

 impression formed from the experience of the past. The restless activity 

 of Assemblies frequently meeting, and with fees for attendance, was 

 both a cause and an effect of the degeneration of democracies in his 

 day. It meant that political issues were now at the mercy of the 

 ignorant and fickle city-dwellers, a rabble swayed by the flattery of self- 

 seeking demagogues. Athens was the notable instance. Yet tradition 

 alleged (and it can hardly be doubted) that in earlier times, when a 

 larger part of the civic body lived and worked in the country, a soberer 

 and steadier policy 4 prevailed. The farmers, never free from respon- 

 sibilities and cares, were opposed to frequent Assemblies, to attend 

 which involved no small sacrifice of valuable time. For this sacrifice 

 a small fee would have been no adequate compensation, and in fact 

 they had none at all. Naturally enough Aristotle, admitting 5 that in 

 the states of his day democratic governments were mostly inevitable, 

 insists on the merits of the farmer-democracies of the good old times, 

 and would welcome their revival. But the day for this was gone by, 

 never to return. Another important point arises in connexion with 

 the capacity of the state for war, a point seldom overlooked in Greek 

 political speculation. In discussing the several classes out of which the 

 state is made up, Aristotle observes 6 that individuals may and will 

 unite in their own persons the qualifications of more than one class. 

 So the same individuals may perform various functions: but this does 

 not affect his argument, for the same persons may be, and often are, 

 both hoplites and cultivators, who yet are functionally distinct parts 

 of the state. Just below, speaking of the necessity of 'virtue' (aperrj) 

 for the discharge of certain public duties (deliberative and judicial), he 



1 See note on Plato, p 75. 2 'Adrjv iro\ cc ir, 12. 



3 A most interesting treatment of this topic is to be found in Bryce's South America (1912) 

 PP 33-i 533> where we get it from the modern point of view, under representative systems. 



4 See the general remarks Pol IV 6 2, VI 4 i, 2, 13, 14. For historical points 'A6r)v 

 vo\ cc 1 6, 24. 



5 Pol in 15 13. 6 Pol iv 4 15, 18, cf vn 9. 



