Boeotian degeneracy 121 



But in most of the Achaean and Arcadian 1 districts pastoral industry, 

 and therefore sparse population, was the rule, owing to the mountainous 

 nature of those parts. In central Greece we need only refer to the 

 restored Thebes, centre once more of a Boeotian confederacy. The 

 fertile lowland of Boeotia supplied plenty of victual; and among Greek 

 delicacies the eels of the lake Copais were famous. Boeotians were 

 known as a well-nourished folk. In the fragments of the comic poet 

 Eubulus 2 (assigned to the fourth century BC) we have them depicted 

 as gluttonous, with some grossness of detail. Such being their tradition, 

 I can see nothing strange in the picture 3 given of the Boeotians in his 

 own day by Polybius. The ceaseless guzzling, the idleness and political 

 corruption of the people, may be overdrawn. I admit that such qualities 

 were not favourable to lasting prosperity; but their prosperity was 

 not lasting. In the view of Polybius the subjection of Greece by the 

 Romans was rather an effect than a cause of Greek degeneracy, and I 

 dare not contradict him. Moreover a piece of confirmatory evidence 

 relative to the third century BC occurs in a fragment of Heraclides 

 Ponticus. In a traveller's description 4 of Greece Boeotia is thus 

 referred to. Round Tanagra the land is not very rich in corn-crops, 

 but stands at the head of Boeotian wine- production. The people are 

 well-to-do, but live simply : they are all farmers (yecopyoi), not labourers 

 (epydraL). At Anthedon on the coast the people are all fishermen 

 ferrymen etc : they do not cultivate the land, indeed they have none. 

 Of Thebes he remarks that the territory is good for horse-breeding, a 

 green well-watered rolling country, with more gardens than any other 

 Greek city owns. But, he adds, the people are violent undisciplined 

 and quarrelsome. I think we may see here an earlier stage in the 

 degeneracy that disgusted Polybius. 



In all this there is nothing to suggest that small farming was 

 common and prosperous during the Macedonian period in Greece. 

 The natural inference is rather that agriculture in certain favoured 

 districts was carried on by a limited number of large landowners on a 

 large scale, pastoral industry varying locally according to circumstances. 

 The development of urban life and luxury, and the agrarian troubles 

 in the Peloponnese, are both characteristic phenomena of the age. In 

 town and country alike the vital fact of civilization was the conflict 

 of interests between rich and poor. Macedonia presents a contrast. 



1 Theocritus XXII 157 'ApKadla r etf/xaAos 'Axatwj/ re TrroXledpa. Polyb IX 17, and IV 3 

 (Messenia). 



2 Eubulus fragm 12, 34, 39, 53, 66, Kock. Also other references in Athenaeus x 

 pp 4 1 7- foil. 



3 Polyb XX 6. Otherwise Mahaffy in Gk Life and Thought chapter xiil. 



4 FHG ii pp 254-64, formerly attributed to Dicaearchus. Cited by E Meyer Kleine 

 Schriften p 137. 



