Fig. 202.
In the eyes of the Greeks, tradesmen stood on the same footing as mechanical labourers. There was, of course, a distinction; if the cultured Greek, who occupied himself only with higher intellectual pursuits, despised the artisan because he regarded his bodily activity as unworthy of a free man, the tradesman seemed to him contemptible because he was influenced only by desire for gain, and all his striving was to get the advantage over others. The
Fig. 203.
profit and wealth accruing to so many Greek states from trade was not sufficient to decrease the prejudice against money-making occupations, even the common people were not able to understand that the merchant, on account of the risk of injury, or even loss of his goods, changing conditions of price, and all his own trouble involved, was obliged to demand a higher price for his wares than what had been originally paid by himself; and the opinion that the merchant’s business was based on love of gain and deceit was so common that even a philosophical intellect like Aristotle’s was under the influence of this prejudice. It is possible that the Greek merchants often deserved the reputation of dishonesty which they bore; their predecessors, the Phoenicians, who had formerly carried on the whole trade of Greece, had not unduly been reproached with deceit and even robbery and piracy, and it is possible that there were traces of this still visible in the Greek merchants. Still the contempt for the merchant class was not equally directed at all; the wholesale dealer who imported his wares from a distance, and had little personal contact with the public, was less affected by it; in trading cities, such as Aegina and Athens, a great number of the rich citizens belonged to this class. But the small trader was the more exposed to the reproach of false weights and measures, adulteration of goods, especially food, and all manner of deceitful tricks. Some complaints were made that are still heard at the present day, that the wine dealers mixed water with their wine, that the cloth-workers used artificial dressing to make their materials look thicker, that the poulterers blew out the birds to make them seem fatter, etc. Worst of all was the reputation of the corn dealers. The division between