[174] Odyss. xiv. 64.
[175] Compare Odyss. xi. 490, with xviii. 358. Klytæmnêstra, in the Agamemnôn of Æschylus, preaches a something similar doctrine to Kassandra,—how much kinder the ἀρχαιόπλουτοι δεσποταὶ were towards their slaves, than masters who had risen by unexpected prosperity (Agamemn. 1042).
[176] Thucydid. i. 5, ἐτράποντο πρὸς λῄστειαν, ἡγουμένων ἀνδρῶν οὐ τῶν ἀδυνατωτάτων, κέρδους τοῦ σφετέρου αὐτῶν ἕνεκα, καὶ τοῖς ἀσθενέσι τροφῆς.
[177] Hesiod, Opp. Di. 459—ἐφορμηθῆναι, ὁμῶς δμῶές τε καὶ αὐτὸς—and 603:—
... Αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν δὴ
Πάντα βίον κατάθηαι ἐπήρμενον ἔνδοθι οἴκου,
Θῆτά τ᾽ ἄοικον ποιεῖσθαι, καὶ ἄτεκνον ἔριθον
Δίζεσθαι κέλομαι· χαλεπὴ δ᾽ ὑπόπορτις ἔριθος.
The two words ἄοικον ποιεῖσθαι seem here to be taken together in the sense of “dismiss the Thête,” or “make him houseless;” for when put out of his employer’s house, he had no residence of his own. Göttling (ad loc.), Nitzsch (ad Odyss. iv. 643), and Lehrs (Quæst. Epic. p. 205) all construe ἄοικον with θῆτα, and represent Hesiod as advising that the houseless Thête should be at that moment taken on, just at the time when the summer’s work was finished. Lehrs (and seemingly Göttling also), sensible that this can never have been the real meaning of the poet, would throw out the two lines as spurious. I may remark farther that the translation of θὴς given by Göttling—villicus—is inappropriate: it includes the idea of superintendence over other laborers, which does not seem to have belonged to the Thête in any case.
There were a class of poor free women who made their living by taking in wool to spin and perhaps to weave: the exactness of their dealing, as well as the poor profit which they made, are attested by a touching Homeric simile (Iliad, xiii. 434). See Iliad, vi. 289; xxiii. 742. Odyss. xv. 414.