Farms. Produce. Labour 107 



a holding near 1 the frontier. It is stated to have been more than 40 

 stadia (about 5 miles) in circuit. The farmstead included granaries 

 (ol/ajfjuara) for storing the barley and wheat which were evidently the 

 chief crops on this particular farm. It included also a considerable 

 vineyard producing a good quantity of wine. Among the by-products 

 was brushwood (8X77, not timber fuXa) 2 . The faggots were carried to 

 market (Athens, I presume) on the backs of asses. The ass-drivers are 

 specially mentioned. The returns from the faggot-wood are stated at 

 over 12 drachms a day. The challenging speaker declares that this 

 estate was wholly unencumbered : not a mortgage-post (opo<s) was to 

 be seen. He contrasts his own position, a man who has lost most of 

 his property in a mining venture, though he has even toiled with his 

 own 3 hands, with that of the landlord (I presume not an avrovpyos) 

 enriched by the late rise of the prices of corn and wine. He may be 

 grossly exaggerating the profits of this border-farm : his opponent 

 would probably be able to cite very different facts from years when 

 the yield had been poor or prices low. Still, to impress an Athenian 

 jury, the picture drawn in this speech must at least have seemed a 

 possible one. The labour on the farm would be mainly that of slaves : 

 but to this I shall return below. In another speech 4 we hear of a farmer 

 in the far north, on the SE Crimean coast. The sea-carriage of 80 jars 

 of sour wine is accounted for by his wanting it for his farm-hands 

 (epydrat). Slaves are probably meant, but we cannot be sure of it in 

 that slave-exporting part of the world. At any rate he was clearly 

 farming on a large scale. If he was, as I suppose, a Greek settler, the 

 case is an interesting one. For it would seem to confirm the view of 

 Isocrates, that Greek expansion was a feasible solution of a felt need, 

 provided suitable territory for the purpose could be acquired; and that 

 of Xenophon, when he proposed to plant necessitous Greeks in Asiatic 

 lands taken from Persia. 



The type of farmer known to us from Aristophanes, who works a 

 holding of moderate size, a man not wealthy but comfortable, a well- 

 to-do peasant proprietor who lives among the slaves whose labour he 

 directs, is hardly referred to directly in the speeches of this period. 

 Demosthenes 5 in 355 BC makes the general remark ' You cannot deny 

 that farmers who live thrifty lives, and by reason of rearing children 

 and domestic expenses and other public services have fallen into arrear 



1 Aeschines mentions two ^crxetrtai in the estate of Timarchus. 



2 The lack of u\a in Attica made timber, like wheat, a leading article of commerce, and 

 dealing in it was a sign of a wealthy capitalist. Cf Dem F Leg 114 p 376, Mid 167 

 P568. 



3 I suspect this is an exaggeration. 



4 [Dem] Lacrit 31-3 p 933. 



6 Dem Androt 65 p 613, repeated in Timocr 172 p 753. 



