Self-disposal. Trades 441 



the record is less authentic and clear. Now, beyond the loyal obedience 

 due from citizen to state, any sort of constraint determining the action 

 of one free man by the will of others was feared and resented to a 

 degree of which we cannot easily form an adequate notion. In the 

 gradual emancipation of the commons from the dominion of privileged 

 nobles, the long struggle gave a passionate intensity to the natural 

 appetite for freedom. And the essence of freedom was the power of 

 self-disposal. This power was liable to be lost permanently by sale 

 into slavery, but also from time to time by the effect of temporary 

 engagements. The most obvious instance of the latter condition was 

 the bondage created by unpaid debt. Hence the persistent and even- 

 tually successful fight to make it illegal to take a borrower's person as 

 security for his debt. But, suppose the debt cancelled by the seizure 

 of his goods, the man was left a pauper. His only resource was to 

 work for wages, and this placepl him for the time of his engagement at 

 the full disposal 1 of his employer. If he was not a master's slave for 

 good and all, he would be passing from master to master, ever freshly 

 reminded of the fact that his daily necessities subjected him to the 

 will of others, nullifying his freeman's power of self-disposal. If he 

 worked side by side with slaves, there was a further grievance. For 

 the slave, in whom his owner had sunk capital, had to be kept fed and 

 housed to retard his depreciation: the free labourer depended 2 on his 

 wage, liable to fail. The situation, thus crudely stated, was intolerable. 

 In practice it was met, first by devotion to handicrafts as a means of 

 livelihood in which the winning of custom by skill relieved the worker 

 from direct dependence on a single master; but also by allotments of 

 land in annexed territory, and sometimes (as at Athens) by multipli- 

 cation of paid state-employments. 



Of ordinary artisans, as distinct from artists, it may be said that 

 their position varied according as their special trades were more or less 

 esteemed by contemporary sentiment. The successful could and did 

 employ 3 helpers, usually slaves. In urban populations they were an 

 important element, particularly in those where military considerations 

 were not predominant. The accumulation of capital, and the introduc- 

 tion of industries on a larger scale in factory-workshops with staffs of 

 slaves, may have affected some trades to their disadvantage, but on 

 the whole the small-scale craftsmen seem generally 4 to have held their 



1 Mr Zimmern, The Greek Commonwealth pp 265 foil, has some interesting remarks on 

 craftsmen as wage-earners, and points out their preference for serving the state rather than 

 private employers. The latter plan would have put them almost in the position of slaves. 



2 When food was provided, we must reckon it as part of his wage. 



3 A vast number of Greek records of manumission refer to such cases. 



4 See Francotte, L * Industrie dans la Grece ancienne book II chap 5, La concurrence 

 servile. I cannot follow E Meyer Kl Schr pp 198-201. And the oft-cited passage of Timaeus 



