The ciypoiKos. Polybius 117 



get to the farm in the case 1 of the rustic boor (aypoitcos). His lack of 

 dignity and proper reserve is shewn in talking to his slaves on matters 

 of importance: he makes confidants of them, and so far forgets himself 

 as to lend a hand in grinding the corn. It has been remarked that 

 Greek manners allowed a certain familiarity 2 in the relations of master 

 and slave. But this person overdoes it: in Peripatetic language, he 

 transgresses the doctrine of the Mean. He employs also hired men 

 (fjuaQcoroi), and to them he recounts all the political gossip (ra airo 

 TT}? tctc\r}cria$), evidently a sign of his awkwardness and inability to 

 hold his tongue. I take these wage-earners to be poor freemen. They 

 might be slaves hired from another owner: this practice appears else- 

 where in connexion with town slaves. But the general impoverishment 

 of the old Greece, save in a few districts, is beyond doubt: and the 

 demand for slaves in new cities would raise the price of slaves and tend 

 to drive the free poor to manual labour. 



The exact dates of the birth and death of Polybius are uncertain, 

 but as an observer of events his range extended from about 190 or 189 

 to 122 or 121 BC. Though his references to agriculture are few and 

 separately of small importance, they have a cumulative value on certain 

 points. He wrote as historian of the fortunes of the civilized world of 

 his day, treated as a whole, in which a series of interconnected struggles 

 led up to the supremacy of Rome. His Greece is the Greece of the 

 Leagues. No leading state of the old models had been able to unite 

 the old Hellas effectively under its headship, but the Macedonian 

 conquest had plainly proved that in isolation 3 the little separate states 

 had no future open to them but slavery. The doings of Alexander's 

 Successors further inforced the lesson. It was clear that the only hope 

 of freedom lay in union so far as possible, for thus only could Greek 

 powers be created able to act with any sort of independence and 

 self-respect in their relations with the new great powers outside. 

 Accordingly there took place a revival of old local unions in districts- 

 where a community of interest between tribes or cities had in some 

 form or other long been recognized. Such were the tribal League of 

 Aetolia and the city League of Achaia. But these two were but notable 

 instances of a federative movement much wider. The attempt to unite 

 the scattered towns of Arcadia, with a federal centre at Megalopolis, 

 seems to have been less successful. But the general aim of the move- 

 ment towards federalism in Greece is clear. That it did not in the end 

 save Greek freedom was due to two defects: it was too partial and too 

 late. For no general union was achieved. Greek jealousy remained, 

 and Leagues fought with Leagues in internal strife: then they were 



1 Char iv (xiv Jebb). 2 See Plutarch de garrulitate 18. 



3 Plut Aratus 24, Philopoemen 8. 



