XVI. THE EARLIER ATTIC ORATORS.
It is convenient to take the speeches and pamphlets of the masters of Attic oratory in two sections, though there can be no exact chronological division between the two. The political background is different in the two cases. To Isocrates the urgent problem is how to compose Greek jealousies by uniting in an attack on the common enemy, Persia: to Demosthenes it is how to save the separate independence of the weary Greek states from the control of the encroaching king of Macedon. True, the disunion of Greece was not to be ended by either effort. But the difficulties of Isocrates lay largely outside Athens: the states did not want to have a leader; Philip, to whom he turned in his old age, was no more welcome to them than the rest of his proposed leaders. Demosthenes had to face the fact of a Macedonian party in Athens itself, as well as to overcome the apathy and inertia which had been growing continually since the fall of the Athenian empire. His opponents were not all mere corrupt partisans of the Macedonian king. Athens was now no longer a great power, and they knew it: Demosthenes is forgiven by historians for his splendid defiance of facts. Naturally enough, in the conflicts of political opinion from the time of the revolution of the Four Hundred to the death of Demosthenes (411-322 BC) we have few references to agriculture. Yet we know that the question of food-supply was still a pressing one for many Greek states, above all for Athens. Some of the references have a value as being contemporary. But a large part of these are references to litigation, and deal not with conditions of cultivation but with claims to property. Among the most significant facts are the importance attached to the control of the Hellespontine trade-route and the careful regulations affecting the import and distribution[349] of corn.
The period on which we get some little light from passages in the earlier orators is roughly about 410-350 BC. It includes the general abandonment of agricultural enterprises abroad, owing to the loss of empire and therewith of cleruchic properties. By this shrinkage the relative importance of home agriculture must surely have been increased. Yet I cannot find a single direct statement or reference to this effect. It seems reasonable to suppose that it was not necessary to assert what was only too obvious. Corn had to be imported, and imported it was from various[350] sources of supply. To guard against failure of this supply was a chief preoccupation of the Athenian government. But that some corn was still grown in Attica is clear. Isocrates says[351] that one act of hostility to the Thirty was the destruction of corn in the country by the democrats. And in another place[352] he lays stress upon the mythical legend of the earliest introduction of corn-growing, the civilizing gift of Demeter to her favoured Attica. Yet there are signs that the culture of the olive and vine was more and more displacing cereal crops: the fig tree, often a sacred thing, was, and had long been, a regular feature of the countryside. Live stock, goats sheep and cattle, were probably abundant, though there was seldom need for an orator to mention them. If we judge by the remaining references, it would seem that land was not generally cultivated by its owners. Letting to tenant farmers[353] was the plan adopted by the state in dealing with public lands, and the collection of the rents was farmed out in its turn to capitalist speculators by public auction. We have several specimens[354] of mixed estates, described by an orator in connexion with some litigation. From these we may fairly infer that the policy of not putting all their eggs into one basket found favour with Athenian capitalists. Landed estate is in such cases but one item, side by side with house-property, mortgages and money at interest on other securities, slaves and other stock employed or leased to employers, stock in hand, specie and other valuables, mentioned in more or less detail. Consistently with this picture of landlord and tenant is the statement[355] that formerly, in the good old times before Athens entered upon her ill-starred career of imperialism, the country houses and establishments of citizens were superior to those within the city walls; so much so, that even the attraction of festivals could not draw them to town from their comfortable country-seats. Evidently a great change had come over rural Attica, if the writer is to be trusted. We are not to suppose that personal direction of a farm by the owner of the land was altogether a thing of the past. Suburban farms at least were, as we learn from Xenophon, sometimes managed by men living in the city and riding out to superintend operations and give orders. The injured husband[356] defended by Lysias may even have gone to and fro on foot. He does not seem to have been a wealthy man, and he may have been a αὐτουργός, taking part in the labours of his farm: that he earned his night’s rest and slept sound seems suggested by the context of his curious story.
That there was no lack of interest in the prospects of agriculture generally may be inferred from various references to the different qualities of soils not only in Attica but in other parts of Greece and abroad. The smallness of the cultivable area in rocky Samothrace[357] was noted by Antiphon. Isocrates remarked[358] that in Laconia the Dorian conquerors appropriated not only the greater part of the land but the most fertile. The results of their greed and oppression had not been wholly satisfactory in the long run: adversity carried with it the peril[359] of Helot risings. No fertility of soil can compensate for the ill effects of bad policy and lack of moderation: the independence and wellbeing of cramped rocky Megara, contrasted[360] with the embarrassments of wide fruitful Thessaly, is an object-lesson. The Greek race needs to expand[361], as it did of old, when Athens led the colonization of the Asiatic seaboard. It is monstrous to try and wring contributions from (δασμολογεῖν)[362] the islanders, who have to till mountain sides for lack of room. It is in Asia that the new Greece must find relief, at the expense of Persia, whose subjects let vast areas lie idle, while the parts that they do cultivate keep them in great plenty; so fertile is the land. Attica itself was once a prosperous farming country. In the good old days, before the unhappy dissension between selfish rich and grudging poor, agriculture was one of the chief means[363] used to avert poverty and distress. Farms let at fair rents kept the people profitably employed, and so out of mischief. Men could and did[364] live well in the country: they were not jostling each other in the city to earn a bare subsistence by pitiful state-fees—beggars all—as they are doing now. The great pamphleteer may be overdrawing his picture, but that it contains much truth is certain, and it seems pretty clear that he saw no prospect of a local revival. Athens had run her course of ambitious imperialism, and the old country life, developed in long security, could not be restored. Any man who felt inclined to live a farmer’s life would, if I read the situation aright, prefer some cheap and profitable venture abroad to the heavy and unremunerative struggles of a crofter in upland Attica. Small farms in the rich lowland were I take it very seldom to be had. And, if he had the capital to work a large farm, he was under strong temptation to employ his capital in urban industries, state-contracts, loans at interest, etc, and so to distribute his risks while increasing his returns. For his main object was to make money, not to provide himself and his family with a healthy and comfortable home. The land-question in Attica is illustrated by a passage of Isaeus in which he refers to the fraud of a guardian. The scoundrel, he says, has robbed his nephew of the estate: he is sticking to the farm (τὸν ἀγρόν) and has given him a hill pasture[365] (φελλέα).
Farming enterprise abroad had been a product of the Athenian empire with its cleruchies and colonies, and probably private ventures of individuals, unofficial but practically resting on imperial protection. The collapse of this system would ruin some settlers and speculators, and impoverish more. Even those who returned to Athens still possessed of considerable capital would not in all cases take to Attic farming, even supposing that they were willing to face its risks and that suitable farms were available. It was to Athens a most important object to retain or recover all she could of her island territories, partly no doubt in order to control the cultivable lands in them. In the peace-negotiations of 390 BC the extreme opposition party at Athens were not content[366] with the proposals by which she was to recover the islands of Lemnos Imbros and Scyros: they demanded also the restitution of the Thracian Chersonese and estates and debts elsewhere. So strong was the feeling of dependence on these investments abroad. And Isocrates, in depicting the evil results of imperial ambition, recalls[367] to the citizens that, instead of farming the lands of others, the Peloponnesian war had for years prevented them from setting eyes upon their own.
Thus far I have said nothing of the labour-question. Orators and pamphleteers were not likely to concern themselves much with this topic, for there was nothing in the nature of an Abolitionist controversy to bring them into discussion of the subject. Slavery is in this department of Greek literature more a fundamental assumption than ever. The frequent arguments on the torture of slave witnesses and the moral value of evidence so extracted are plain proof of this. But what about agricultural labour? In the case of the sacred olive-stump we hear from Lysias[368] that the farm in question several times changed hands by sale. Some of the purchasers let it to tenants. The words used of the persons who actually farmed it from time to time are the usual ones, ἐγεώργει, εἰργάσατο etc. That these tenants were not merely αὐτουργοί, but employers of labour, may fairly be guessed from the case of the present tenant, accused of sacrilege. He at least is an owner of slaves, and argues[369] that he could never have been so mad as to put himself at their mercy. They would have witnessed his sacrilege, and could have won their freedom by informing against their master. Isocrates[370] draws no real distinction between serfs and slaves in the case of Sparta. Here too the slave was dangerous, though in a different way: but he was on the land. A fragment of Isaeus[371] runs ‘he left on the farm old men and cripples.’ The context is lost, but the persons referred to must surely be slaves: no one would employ wage-labour of this quality. In another place he casually mentions[372] the sale of a flock of goats with the goatherd. These little scraps of evidence all serve to strengthen the impression, derived from other sources, of slave-labour as the backbone of Attic agriculture in this period. To free labour there are very few references, and none of these seem to have any connexion with agriculture. This does not prove that no hired freemen were employed on farms. For special jobs, as we shall see later, they were called in: but this was only temporary employment. The μισθτοὶ or θῆτες were a despised[373] class: some of them were freedmen. The competition with slave-labour doubtless had something to do with this, and to be driven by necessity to such labour was galling to a citizen, as we have already learnt from Xenophon.