go The farm-hand afloat 



adds 'The other faculties may exist combined in many separate in- 

 dividuals; for instance, the same man may be a soldier a cultivator and 

 a craftsman, or even a counsellor of state or a judge; but all men claim 

 to possess virtue, and think they are qualified to hold most offices. But 

 the same men cannot be at once rich and poor. The common view 

 therefore is that Rich and Poor are the true parts of a state.' That 

 is to say, practical analysis can go no further. In another passage 1 , 

 discussing the formation of the best kind of democracy, he says 'for 

 the best Demos is that of farmers (6 yewpyi/cos): so it is possible to 

 form (a corresponding?) democracy where the mass of the citizens gets 

 its living from tillage or pasturage (CLTTO ryeaypyias rj z/o//,???).' After con- 

 sidering the political merits of the cultivators, busy and moderate men, 

 he goes 2 on 'And after the Demos of cultivators the next best is that 

 where the citizens are graziers (voxels) and get their living from flocks 

 and herds (^oo-Krj^idrwv) : for the life in many respects resembles that 

 of the tillers of the soil, and for the purposes of military campaigning 

 these men are peculiarly hardened 3 by training, fit for active service, 

 and able to rough it in the open.' The adaptability of the rustic worker 

 is further admitted 4 in a remark let fall in a part of his treatise where 

 he is engaged in designing a model state. It is to the effect that, so 

 long as the state has a plentiful supply of farm-labourers, it must also 

 have plenty of seamen (yavr&v). Having just admitted that a certain 

 amount of maritime commerce will be necessary, and also a certain 

 naval power, he is touching on the manning of the fleet. The marine 

 soldiers will be freemen, but the seamen (oarsmen) can be taken from 

 unfree classes working on the land. Their social status does not at 

 this stage concern us: that such labourers could readily be made into 

 effective oarsmen is an admission to be noted. To the philosopher 

 himself it is a comfort to believe that he has found out a way of doing 

 without the turbulent 'seafaring rabble' (VCLVTIKOS 0^X09) that usually 

 throngs seaport towns and embarrasses orderly governments. In other 

 words, it is a relief to find that in a model state touching the sea it 

 will not be necessary to reproduce the Peiraeus. 



In considering the proposals of earlier theorists for the remedy of 

 political defects it is hardly possible and nowise needful to exhaust all 

 the indications of dissatisfaction with existing systems. Of Euripides 

 and Socrates, the two great questioners, enough has been said above. 

 The reactionary Isocrates was for many years a contemporary of 

 Aristotle. What we can no longer reproduce is the talk of active-minded 

 1 /Wvi 4 i, 2, 13. * Poi vi 4 u. 



3 Whether the tr^Qv^vri u (favourable to eugenic paternity) of Pol vn 16 n, 13, 

 may include this class, is not clear. In Roman opinion it certainly would. 



4 Pol VII 6 8. Xenophon (see p 53) records cases of seamen ashore and in straits work- 

 ing for hire on farms. 



