The Economic Life of the Ancient World

J. Toutain

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136198465
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Weltgeschichte

Originally published between 1920-70, The History of Civilization was a landmark in early twentieth century publishing. It was published at a formative time within the social sciences, and during a period of decisive historical discovery. The aim of the general editor, C.K. Ogden, was to summarize the most up to date findings and theories of historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and sociologists. This reprinted material is available as a set or in the following groupings:
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Part I
The Economic Life of Greece and
Greek Lands to the Expedition
of Alexander

Chapter I
Homeric and Hesiodic Society

WHATEVER, may be the dates of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Hesiodic poems, these works all depict one same society, whose economic organization is marked by special features of its own. It is not easy to indicate the beginning of the period in which this society lived or to determine the circumstances in which it succeeded the society of the Ægean age, but it is at least certain that it is earlier than either the settlement of the Dorians in the Peloponnese or the expansion of the Greeks over the Mediterranean. Achæans still occupy the valleys of the Eurotas, Pamisos, and Alpheios, the mountains of Arcadia, the plains of Elis, and the peninsulas of Argolis. Crete, Rhodes, and some islands of the southern Ægean—Nisyros, Carpathos, Cos—have come into the Hellenic domain,¹ but the peoples dwelling in Thrace and on the western coasts of Asia Minor are included in the Iliad among the allies of the Trojans.² In the Odyssey, Alcinoos tells Odysseus that Eubœa is the furthest of the lands known to the Phæacians.³ It is true that Hesiod, in his Works and Days, relates that his father, after vainly seeking his fortune at Cyme in Æolis, took ship and settled in the small Bœotian town of Ascra.⁴ Even if we admit that the so-called Æolian colonization had by that time reached the coast of Asia Minor, we know that, according to Greek tradition, that settlement was earlier than the great movement of the Ionians.⁵ As for the countries of the West, Trinacria, that is Sicily, was still unknown to Greek mariners, and they regarded Italy as the abode of divine beings like Circe. Homeric and Hesiodic society, then, had for its geographical setting Greece Proper, and for its chronological setting the period extending from the end of the Ægean age to the great migrations by land and sea which gave the Hellenic world its final shape, constitution, and extent.

I
Agriculture and Fruit-Growing

In the economic life of this society, the growing of the fruits of the soil held a very important place. Every greal estate includes cornfields and vineyards. Corn and vines are frequently mentioned as the chief kind of agricultural wealth. The corn grown is wheat, barley, and millet. No banquet is compiece without wine, and no religious ceremony without a libation of wine. In his description of the shield of Achilles, the poet of the Iliad represents the harvest and the vintage, as typical of the work of the fields.

" And he made thereon a rich domain " (of a king). " There were reapers mowing, with sharp sickles in their hands, and along the swathes the sheaves fell thickly to the ground....

" And he made a vineyard, full of grapes, fair and golden. There were black bunches hanging, and it was set all over with vine-poles.... And merry lads and maidens bore the honey-sweet fruit in plaited baskets."¹

On leaving Ithaca for Pylos and Sparta, Telemachos takes as provisions for the voyage twelve jars of wine and twenty measures of the purest flour in well-sewn skins.² On the shield of Heracles, as on that of Achilles, harvesters and wine-gatherers personify rural life.³ In the Works and Days, the growing of corn and wine takes the first place.

Orchards and gardens are rich in fruit and vegetables. The olive, pear, apple, fig, and orange are the trees mentioned most often. They abound on the estates of Alcinoos and Odysseus.

II
Stock-Breeding

With agriculture, stock-breeding is one of the chief sources of wealth. Bulls, oxen, cows, and heifers, rams, ewes, and lambs, goats and kids, horses, mares, foals, and mules, hogs and sows, fill stables and byres or gambol in meadows, at the bottom of fertile valleys, on the slopes of untilled hills, and even in the undergrowth of forests. Some furnish man with their flesh for food and their hides or wool for clothing; others give him their milk as well; others lend him their strength, to draw chariots and carry loads. Swarms of bees produce honey and wax for him. Of poultry, only geese are mentioned.

III
Forests. Hunting and Fishing

Between or around the fields and pastures stretch vast forests. They contain oaks, pines, firs, poplars, alders, and beeches, and sometimes also laurels, cedars, and cypresses. Along the watercourses, willows and osier-beds appear.

There game is plentiful, and hunting is one of the chief pleasures of men. They hunt deer (stags, roes, fawns), wildgoat, boar, and hare. They also come upon wolves and bears, and even lions. In the air, thev try to hit thrushes and doves.

Fishing is done with the net or with the hook.

IV
Farming Methods and Equipment

The technical methods of agriculture and stock-breeding were already fairly developed, and an equipment existed, still very simple, but adequate.

To meet the exhaustion of the soil, it was allowed to lie fallow every other year, each piece of land being divided into two breaks, one of which rested while the other was sown.¹

Corn-growing required two ploughings, and perhaps three, the third being done after the sowing, to bury the seed. The furrows were cut straight, with a plough made all of wood, usually drawn by two oxen, or sometimes two mules, which the ploughman urged on with a goad. After the ploughing which followed the sowing, the ground was gone over with the mattock, to cover any seed which the plough might have left on the surface. The bigger clods were broken up with a beetle.¹

The harvesters used the sickle. When mown, the ears were collected in sheaves, and these were carried away on carts, probably like that described by Hesiod, a sort of waggon consisting of wide, low body on two wheels. The corn was threshed on a round threshing-floor, well exposed to the wind. Oxen and mules went round the floor, trampling on the sheaves. The straw was lifted frequently, that no ear might escape the treading of the beasts. Beating was also done with the flail. When the grain was collected it was put in jars, and then shut up in the barn.² Flour was ground either with a pestle and mortar or with a quern, and was stored in skin bags.

Vine-growers sometimes—if not always—trained the branches on props, so that the grapes did not lie on the ground, but hung from the shoots at some height. The chief operations of vine-growing were the pruning, the second dressing, and the vintage. The grapes were gathered in baskets, and then left exposed to the air for fifteen days, first ten days in the sun and then five in the shade. Then came the treading and the vatting. From the vat the wine was poured into jars, where it was kept.³

Fruit-growing and vegetable-gardening were practised in an equally intelligent fashion. In the orchards, the soil at the foot of the trees was turned up. Irrigation provided the gardens with the water which they needed. The use of manure seems to have been known.

Livestock was raised chiefly on natural prairies and uncultivated land, and beasts were also led into the forests. It is not impossible that artificial meadows existed, kept green and fertile by irrigation. These doubtless provided fodder and bedding, which were stored in the barns as soon as the harvest was in.⁴ During the good weather the flocks and herds remained out-of-doors, but when winter came they were taken to the byres, which were an indispensable appendage of the farms in a society in which livestock was one of the chief forms of wealth. On the estate of Odysseus, there were twelve pigsties round the house of Eumæos.¹ The farms possessed dairies for milk and cheese. The author of the Odyssey stocks the cave of Polyphemos with all the material needed—pots, pails, tubs of whey, and crates laden with cheeses.²

The axe, the saw, and the wedge served for dealing with the trees of the forest. The hunter's weapons were the boar-spear and the long spear. Game, furred or feathered, was also taken in the net, and hounds were used for starting hares and attacking boars and other savage beasts.

Who supplied the labour for all these operations? There is no doubt that the owners of estates, large and small, worked their land themselves when necessary, or were at least able to guide a plough and handle spade, sickle, and scythe. Old Laërtes works in his garden and tends the trees of his orchard. Odysseus challenges the suitor Eurymachos as follows:

" If we should vie, which of us could do the more work in the grass, in the spring season, when the days are long, I should have my well-curved sickle and you would have the like, and we should mow without eating till the dusk, so long as there was any grass. And if we had oxen to drive, big, fair, and well-fed, equal in age and strength and of the same size, and a field of the same size and kind to plough, you would see whether I could drive a straight furrow!"³

When Odysseus utters this challenge he is, no doubt, disguised as a beggar; but would he utter it if he were not really able to stand the test as a reaper and as a ploughman? In any case, Eurymachos, to whom the challenge is addressed, is a landowner. In the Works and Days, the poet is speaking to the owner of a small farm, who toils in person on his fields, among his vines, and in his barn and byre.

But the work of the master alone was not sufficient for the exploitation of the soil. Many men were needed on the big estates. Some of these, at least, were slaves, men and women (

). But there were also agricultural labourers of free condition, thetes, who were taken on for special work—harvest, vintage, olive-picking—or for stated periods, short or long. Hesiod advises his brother Perses to engage a thes to look after his barn when the harvest has been ingathered.¹

As a rule, the beasts were entrusted to the keeping of slaves. Might one not, however, infer from the story of Polyphemos that the owner of a herd or flock sometimes led it to the pasture himself? True, it may be objected that Polyphemos is not a typical member of Greek society, but surely the poet has invested the imaginary world of the Cyclopes with habits taken from the society in which he himself lived.

V
The Organization and Character of Landed Property

What was the true character of rural landed property, and how was ...