278 The moral value 



patible with manly excellence. Are not planting ploughing vine-dressing 

 honourable works ? And sowing reaping threshing, are not these all 

 liberal pursuits, suited to good men? Nay, the shepherd's life, if it did 

 not degrade Hesiod or hinder him from winning divine favour and 

 poetic renown, neither will it hinder others. For my part, I hold this 

 to be the best of all the tasks comprised in husbandry, inasmuch as it 

 affords the soul more leisure for pondering and investigating what con- 

 cerns mental culture. For all tasks that bend the body and keep it 

 fully on the strain do at the same time force the soul to give them its 

 whole attention, or nearly so, sharing as it does the strain of the body : 

 but all those that permit the body to escape excessive strain do not 

 prevent the soul from reasoning out important questions and from im- 

 proving its own wisdom by such reasonings, a result which is the special 

 aim of every philosopher. This is why I set such special value on the 

 art of shepherds. If however a man does 1 combine tillage with philo- 

 sophy, I hold no other life comparable with this, and no other means 

 of livelihood preferable to it. Surely it is more according to nature to 

 get your sustenance from Earth, our nurse and mother, than from some 

 other source. Surely it is more manly 2 to live on a farm than to sit 

 idle in a city. Surely out-of-door pursuits are healthier than sheltered 

 retirement. Which, pray, is the freeman's choice, to meet his needs by 

 receiving from others, or by contrivance of his own? Why, it is thought 

 far more dignified to be able to satisfy your own requirements unaided 

 than with aid of others. So true is it that to live by husbandry, of 

 course with due respect 3 to what is good and honourable, is beautiful 

 and conducive to happiness and divine favour. Hence it was that the 

 god (Delphic Apollo) proclaimed 4 that Myson of Chenae was a wise 

 man and greeted Aglaus of Psophis as a happy one; for these both led 

 rustic lives, working with their own hands and not spending their time 

 in cities. Surely then it is a worthy ambition to follow these men's 

 example and devote ourselves to husbandry in earnest. 



' Some may think it a monstrous notion that a man of educative 

 power, qualified to lead youths on to philosophy, should till the soil 

 and do bodily labour like a rustic. And, if it had been the fact that 

 tilling the soil hinders the pursuit of philosophy or the lending help to 

 others in that pursuit, the notion would have been monstrous indeed. 

 But, as things are, if young men could see their teacher at work in the 

 country, demonstrating in practice the principle to which reason guides 

 us, namely that bodily toil and suffering are preferable to dependence 

 on others for, our food, I think it would be more helpful to them than 



1 et ye /JL^V aaa 0iXo<ro0e? rts Kdl yewpyel. 



2 TOV KadrjffOai ev irtiXet rb rjv ev x<i)pi<p. 3 G&V ye ry Ka\OKaya6las pr) 6\iyupeiv. 



4 These are stock instances of happiness in rustic life. For references see notes in Frazer's 

 Pausanias vm 24 13, X 94 i. 



