Crops and dealers 1 1 1 



interests, but of private cases, in which the issue lay between clearly 

 defined adversaries. In default of direct and unquestionable authority, 

 I cannot suppose that an Athenian slaveowner could be called upon 

 to surrender his property (even with compensation for any damage 

 thereto) for the purposes of a case in which he was not directly con- 

 cerned. 



Stray references to matters of land-tenure, such as the letting of 

 sacred lands 1 (re^evrj) belonging to a deme, are too little connected 

 with our subject to need further mention here. And a curious story 2 

 of some hill-lands (opy) in the district of Oropus, divided by lot 

 among the ten Tribes, apparently as tribal property, is very obscure. 

 Such allotments would probably be let to tenants. What is more 

 interesting in connexion with agriculture is the references to farming 

 as a means of getting a livelihood, few and slight though they are. 

 Demosthenes 3 in 349 BC tells, the Assembly that their right policy is 

 to attack Philip on his own ground, not to mobilize and then await 

 him in Attica : such mobilization would be ruinous to ' those of you 

 who are engaged in farming.' The speech against Phaenippus 4 shews 

 us an establishment producing corn and wine and firewood and alleged 

 to be doing very well owing to the prices then ruling in the market. 

 We have also indications of the presence of dealers who bought up 

 crops, no doubt to resell at a profit. From the expressions 6 oTrwpav 

 TTpiaa-Oai and oTrcopwwr}*; it might seem that fruit-crops in particular 

 were disposed of in this way. Naturally a crop of this sort had to be 

 gathered quickly, and a field gang would be employed slaves or 

 freemen, according to circumstances. For that in these days poverty 

 was driving many a free citizen 6 to mean and servile occupations for 

 a livelihood, is not only a matter of certain inference but directly 

 affirmed by Demosthenes in 345 BC. Aeschines 7 in 344 also denies 

 that the practice of any trade to earn a bare living was any political 

 disqualification to a humble citizen of good repute. From such poor 

 freemen were no doubt drawn casual hands at critical moments of 

 farm life, analogues of the British hop-pickers 8 . But, with every 

 allowance for possible occasions of employing free labour, particularly 

 in special processes where servile apathy was plainly injurious, the 

 farm-picture in general as depicted in these speeches is one of slave- 

 Dem Eubulid% 63 p 1318. 



Hyperides/r0 Euxen, fragm 16, 17, col 12, 13. 

 Dem Olynth I 27 p 17. 



[Dem] c Phaenipp 5-7 pp 1040-1, 19-21 pp 1044-5. 

 dTrwpuisys, Dem de Cor 262 p 314. 

 Dem Eubulid $ 45 p 1313, speaking of an old woman. 



7 Aeschin Timarch 27 p 4. 



8 We have already seen the case of olive-pickers in Aristoph Vesp 712. 



