Download Untitled

Contents
Abstract
Introduction
1
Terms
2
Historiography
3
Athenian Economic Activity
9
The Distribution of Wealth
11
The Historical Problem
15
Athenian Society and Education
18
Athenian Identity
18
Athenian Education
19
Analysis Of Education’s Effect on Economic Activity
24
Birth Status
24
The Role of the Elite as Benefactors of Society
33
Final Thoughts
44
Bibliography
46
Abstract for Thesis
In the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, the Greek city-state of Athens was the wealthiest, besteducated and most politically equal society in the Mediterranean area, but over one third of
Athenian citizens lived at or below the subsistence level. For much of the Greek classical period,
Athens controlled a large empire, and gained tremendous wealth through tribute, trade, and the
mining of silver. Because a democratic society functions best when its citizens are well
informed, Athenians also saw the value of education. Literacy rates were relatively high in
Athens during the classical period, as evidenced by the amount of inscriptions found throughout
the city, and the use of post-boards for the announcement of public events. Even though the
Athenian society was the wealthiest in the classical world, over one third of the population lived
one bad harvest away from total destitution. Many historians, such as M.I. Finley and Darel Tai
Engen have written on the subject of how Greek values shaped Greek economic activity, but to
date, studies detailing the mechanism with which these values are learned, promoted and passed
on to future generations are surprisingly absent. This thesis submits that the literate education
young Athenians received instilled values in them (such as the importance of birth status as
Athenian citizens, and the notion of noblesse oblige) that influenced them to create a society
where subsistence farming was much more highly honored than trade of manufacturing, and thus
limited the lucrative economic activity Athenian citizens engaged in. While one third of the
citizens of Athens relied on state pay for political service (such as attending the assembly
meetings and jury duty) to survive, there were many occupations Athenians disdained. Athenians
used slaves and metics (resident aliens) to do the work they did not want to do, thus limiting their
own economic opportunities.
Key Words: Greek Education, Greek Economy, Classical Athens, Athenian Values
1
Introduction
Few scholars would disagree that Athens was a political and economic powerhouse in the
fifth and fourth centuries BCE and was also the center of education and culture in the classical
Greek world. By the middle of the fifth century BCE, Athens had a naval fleet larger than any
other Greek polis had and had enough accessible wealth to be able to pay each citizen a skilled
worker’s wage five days a week for over four years.1 It can also be argued that Athenian society
was the most literate society in the western world.2 Yet even with this relatively enormous
wealth and high literacy rate, 41-58% of Athens’ population lived at the subsistence level.3 Much
has been written concerning Athenian education, values, and economy, but scholarship on the
relationship between education and economic activity in classical Athens is surprisingly absent,
and thus the purpose of this thesis project is to examine this relationship in greater detail. I
submit that literate education in classical Athens promoted values that kept a majority of the
citizenry living at a much lower level of personal wealth than was necessary, creating a socioeconomic environment in which the Athenian people did not pursue greater economic prosperity
for themselves, either by pursuing more lucrative employment or by adopting political strategies
such as creating public economic policies that favored citizens, because they were more
concerned with the social stability and seeming political equality that these values fostered.
These values include the importance of birth status and the notion of noblesse oblige.
1
Based on numbers from Thucydides, 2.13 and Josiah Ober, “Wealthy Hellas,” Journal of Economic Asymmetries,
Vol. 8, No.1, (2011):1-38, Athens University of Economics and Business. Accessed Jan 28, 2011,
http://www.econ.uoa.gr.
2
Based on Thomas’ interpretation of a society’s literacy based on the extent writing was used within a society.
Rosalind Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1989.
3
Ober, “Wealthy Hellas.”15-17.
2
Terms
Because this topic deals with ancient Greece, the use of certain terms should be clarified,
as some terms are specific to the Greek language, and others are used with very specific
connotations. The Greek term demos refers to the citizen body as a whole. For this study, the
term citizen only applies to males who had reached the age of eighteen and whose father and
mother were Athenian citizens after 450 BCE.4 Women were often only considered citizens when
determining birth status, and never held full political rights.5 Only citizens held full franchise in
classical Athens; thus only citizens were allowed to own land and participate in political activity.
A significant amount of Athens’ population was resident aliens (known as metics), women, and
children, all of whom had no voice in the democracy of Athens.6 This study will focus on the
economic activity among citizens, but by necessity, will also discuss the metics’ role in Athenian
society and economy, as metics played a major function in forming the social and political
circumstances that allowed for the significant economic immobility among Athenian citizens.
Metics did much of the “dirty work” in Athens, such as manufacturing and trade jobs7 that were
looked down upon by many citizens, who seemed to prefer to make a living by farming if they
could.8 For the purpose of this thesis, the term literate education refers to the formal and
informal learning of reading and writing. This learning took place in either the student’s or
4
Susan Lape, Race and Citizen Identity in the Classical Athenian Democracy (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2010). xxii
5
Christopher W. Blackwell, “Athenian Democracy: a brief overview,” in Adriaan Lanni, ed., “Athenian Law in its
Democratic Context” (Center for Hellenic Studies On-line Discussion Series). Republished in C.W. Blackwell,
ed., Demos: Classical Athenian Democracy (A. Mahoney and R. Scaife, eds.., The Stoa: a consortium for electronic
publication in the humanities[www.stoa.org]) edition of February 28, 2003. Contact: [email protected].
6
Josiah Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the power of the people (New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1989), 5.
7
Whitehead, David, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Library, 1977), 116121.
8
Darel Tai Engen, Honor and Profit: Athenian Trade Policy and the Economy and Society of Greece, 415307B.C.E. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2010), 39.
3
teacher’s home, although there is some limited evidence for formal schools as early as the fifth
century. 9
Historiography
The historiography for this project is fairly diverse in that several issues must be
addressed. If one is to assert that literate education helped maintain and promote a culture in
which a majority of citizens seemed content to live at or near the subsistence level in one of the
wealthiest societies of the time by reinforcing certain values, one must examine the economy,
values, and education of the society in question.
In the economic sphere, two works are paramount to this study: M.I. Finley’s The Ancient
Economy, and Darel Tai Engen’s Honor and Profit: Athenian Trade Policy and the Economy
and Society of Greece, 415-307B.C.E. Finley’s The Ancient Economy tries to explain the
economy of the Greco-Roman world from 1000BCE to 500CE. While there are numerous
problems with Finley’s work, primarily his overgeneralizations over an enormous time period,
his work re-sparked debate about the size and type of economy present in the ancient and
classical world. Finley concluded that the economy of the ancient and classical world was nearly
non-existent, as exchange was mostly conducted on a small scale because of societal values that
restricted, or at least inhibited, the development of price-creating markets and profit-seeking
goals found in “modern” economic life. Finley is highly relevant to this study in that while his
hypothesis is most certainly overstated for the whole of the ancient world, it is quite relevant to
classical Athens, at least up through the Classical period. Classical Athenian citizens held
enormous political power within their democracy, yet it seems that societal values, learned
9
Herodotus, Histories Trans. A. D. Godley. (Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920), Perseus Project.
Accessed January 13, 2011, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, 6.27.
4
through literate education, heavily influenced the demos’ decision-making in regard to economic
activity to their own economic detriment.
Darel Tai Engen’s 2010 book, Honor and Profit: Athenian Trade Policy and the
Economy and Society of Greece, 415-307B.C.E., is a nuanced examination of the economy of
Classical Athens. Limiting the evidence examined to mainly honorific inscriptions for trade
related activity between 415 and 307BCE, Engen explores the intricacies of the honors bestowed
on traders for services rendered to Athens, primarily the shipment of grain to the city. One
interesting observation made by Engen, and extremely relevant to this study, is that until very
late in the period examined, none of the receivers of honorific inscriptions were Athenian
citizens. Engen explains this as being a reaction by the demos (the people of Athens) to the
philotimia (the love of honor) of the elite class. Engen asserts that the Athenians felt if they
honored Athenian citizens for anything other than required liturgical obligations, competition for
honor and status would have resulted in the elite dominating Athens, as they would have had an
extreme advantage in economic activity due to their superior access to resources (104-105). This
relates directly to a major argument of this paper. The demos of classical Athens not only
restricted whom it honored for trade and other economic activity, but also instituted the
Leitourgiai, a system of wealth redistribution, in which the wealthy were legislated to pay for
public events such as religious rituals and festivals, as well as pay for a portion of the outfitting
of the Athenian fleet. In this way it seems the demos created a novel system of wealth
redistribution. In fact, by legislating the Leitourgiai, the demos was adhering to values taught
through literate education, such as the role of the wealthy as benefactors of society, which in
turn, made the demos even more dependent upon the wealthy. The wealthy citizens who
preformed their liturgies well received high honor in Athens, and thus this legislated public
5
service only increased the prestige of the elite (something the demos sought otherwise to limit),
while only providing entertainment--and some small nourishment in the case of public sacrifices-for the masses.
In the sphere of Athenian values, two historians’ insights will be used as the spring board
for this thesis project. M.I. Finley has written what many consider the cornerstone monograph
regarding values found in the epic poems of Homer. His revised 1979 The world of Odysseus
describes a society dominated by elite values of kingship, and the responsibility of leaders as
benefactors to society in the ancient world. Finley believed that the heroes of the epics disdained
trade and other non-landed economic activity, aside from plundering and raiding. In Finley’s
view, these values created the economic atmosphere which he describes in his Ancient Economy.
This is very likely, and my thesis will assert that these same values were passed down to
Athenians in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, two and a half centuries after they were first
committed to writing, through formal literate education. These values created the economic
situation in classical Athens that this study addresses.
Josiah Ober’s 1989 Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens explores the complex, and most
often tense, relationship between the elite and common citizens of classical Athens. Ober asserts
that while there were clear divisions between the wealthy and the poor in some aspects of
Athenian life--mainly the access to resources--the line was often blurred between the elite and
the demos when it came to societal values. Ober feels, and Engen rightly points out, the demos
“democratized” many elite values in order to maintain its democratic equality while enduring
severe economic inequality. While Finley and Engen are most certainly on the right track, they
are looking at this change in the demos. In contrast, I submit that the demos, instead of
“democratizing” elite values, actually “elite-ized” themselves through the elite values of birth
6
status and the notion of noblesse oblige. Athenian citizens accepted their relative poverty because
they held themselves above non-citizens, adhering to elite values learned through literate
education. The elite belief that landed income is best, and thus non-landed income should be
disdained, was the main driving force that kept one third of the citizens of Athens content with
living at the subsistence level.
When discussing the effect of literate education on economic activity in classical Athens,
one must first determine if the literacy rate was sufficient to have an effect on the demos through
literate education. William V. Harris’ 1989 Ancient Literacy explores in an authoritive way how
widespread literacy was in classical Greece. Harris asserts that literacy levels were extremely
low, but concedes there were different levels of literacy according to class, and he admits that
writing had a major impact on Greek society. Harris bases his low literacy rate hypothesis on the
lack of hard evidence of widespread literacy, i.e. large amounts of written documents used by
common people. I take exception to this view of literacy, as the lack of physical evidence does
not necessarily constitute a solid foundation for forming a hypothesis. As the saying goes, the
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In contrast to Harris, Rosalind Thomas’ 1989
Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens offers a slightly different approach to the
question of literacy in classical Greece, and is the approach used in this thesis. Instead of basing
the literacy of a society on estimated literacy rates of citizens, Thomas proposes that an analysis
of how literacy was used, and how frequently, is the best determinant for the literacy of a society.
The extremely high number of inscriptions found in public spaces implies that Athens was
indeed a literate society. Thomas also asserts that literacy did not replace oral tradition, but
instead went hand in hand with it to support and solidify social customs. This approach is
extremely relevant to this study as it proposes that written documentation was used as a way to
7
memorialize the content of the writing, and thus values would often be memorialized and
solidified in Athenian society. These values included the notion of birth status, which directly
related to prestige held for land ownership and farming, as it was only citizens who could own
land in Attika, and the importance of noblesse oblige, which, through liturgies, supplemented the
Athenians’ lifestyle, affording them the ability to feel content living at the subsistence level in
terms of their own private, personal wealth. It was these values that allowed the demos of Athens
to accept fairly rampant poverty among citizens in a seemingly politically equal society.
The values found in Athenian literate education come primarily from the ancient Greek
poets, especially Homer, the Athenian Myths, and Aesop’s fables. Kevin Robb’s 1994 Literacy
and Paideia in Ancient Greece focuses on how Homeric language permeated Greek culture at the
inception of literacy, and that the teaching of literary education was practically the same as oral
education, relying heavily on Homeric verse and mimetic written recitation. Robb gives a
detailed account of oral traditions of the Greeks, then, like Thomas, examines the relationship
between oral tradition and the written word, laying emphasis on Homeric verse as the catalyst for
the transition from oral to written records. Robb’s conclusions are instrumental in supporting the
hypothesis of this study, i.e. Homeric values, promoted through literacy, permeated all spheres of
Greek life. Since Athens had a relatively high literacy rate, the effects were well pronounced
there, especially in the economic sphere.
Athenian Economic Activity
The debate about the economy of classical Athens is still ongoing, and the preceding
historiographical discussion in no way constitutes an exhaustive account of the scholarship to be
covered in this thesis project. These works are simply the building blocks for the question raised
in this project. In summary, Athenian society was wealthy. However, over one-third of Athenian
8
citizens lived at the subsistence level, and never managed to move beyond small scale trading
and manufacturing, or develop price-setting markets. Let us examine the historical findings that
lead to these conclusions.
Plainly put, Athens was one of--if not the-- wealthiest of the Greek city-states during the
fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Athenian wealth had begun to rise during the sixth century BCE.
Thucydides tells us that the soil of Attika--the portion of Greece controlled by Athens--was poor
and rocky, and for this reason during times of great migrations, migrants overlooked the small
rocky valleys of the region.10Olives and olive oil, honey and beeswax, grain, red clay pottery,
and the by-products of sheep and goat herding made up the majority of Athens’--for the lack of a
better term--Gross Domestic Production (GDP) before the fifth century BCE. That said, the
citizens of Athens from early on could not produce enough goods to meet their consumption
needs, especially grain and timber for shipbuilding.11 The overall poor agricultural and mineral
production of Attika forced the Athenians to learn to trade early in their history. David W. Tandy
explored the transition of Greek culture into a trading culture in his Warriors into Traders: The
Power of the Market in Early Greece. Tandy argues that before the Archaic period, the Greek
elite gained wealth through their status as warriors. With the introduction of trade, the correlation
between wealth and status reversed. In the Archaic period and later, the elite gained status
through wealth, even though they still pretended to adhere to and promote the traditional values
related to land ownership and physical prowess, especially military ones.12 By the end of the
sixth century BCE, elite status was based on wealth as much as birth. Also, for the first time, the
masses--in their newly created democracy--could claim a respected societal status based
10
Thucydides, 1.2
Engen, Honor and Profit, 55.
12
David W. Tandy, Warriors into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1997).
11
9
primarily on birth. No matter what a citizen’s economic status might be, he was part of an
exclusive citizenry that was elite in terms of its rights and privileges in a democratic political
system, elevating it above the citizens of other Greek poleis and non-citizens living in Athens.
Trade exploded in Athens in the fifth century BCE, and the main impetus for this
increase of trade--besides the need for raw materials and food goods-- was the discovery of large
veins of silver in the area. Approximately sixty miles south of Athens are the silver mines of
Laurium. These mines produced a vast amount of wealth for the Athenians. The mines produced
over “one million troy ounces [of silver] per year at Laurium during the height of production
(600 BCE to 300 BCE). In fact, for about 1,000 years ending around the 1st century A.D., the
Laurium mines were the largest individual source of world silver production.”13 Margaret
Crosby, in her article, “The Leases of the Laurium Mines,” examines the leases for the mines
inscribed on stone stelae found in the Agora of Athens. According to Crosby, these mines were
technically owned by Athens publicly, and were then leased to men who actually oversaw the
working of the mines.14 The silver acquired from these mines allowed the Athenians to attract
merchants and traders to the Piraeus, as Athenian silver was valued through out the Aegean Sea.
Traders coming to Athens to ply their goods did not have to worry about arranging barter for
other goods; they could take payment in Athenian silver and purchase whatever they needed,
wherever they wanted. Silver was especially important for the purchase of grain, of which
Athens was in chronic need.15
13
Silver Institute, The Old World Silver (4000 BC - 1500 AD). Accessed May 22, 2011.
http://www.silverinstitute.org.
14 Margaret Crosby, “The Leases of the Laureion Mines,” Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of
Classical Studies at Athens, Vol. 19, No. 3, The American Excavations in the Athenian Agora: Fortieth Report Jul. Sep., 1950, 189-297. 15 Engen, “’Ancient Greenbacks’: Athenian Owls, the Law of Nikophon, and the Greek Economy,"
Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Vol. 54, No. 4 (2005), 359-381.
10
The revenue brought in by these mines created the other impetus for the expansion of
trade in Athens; the Athenian fleet. The Athenians voted to build a fleet of triremes to protect
their city and trading ventures, and in a relatively short time used this fleet to acquire and
maintain a large empire.16 Trade developed quickly within this empire, as Athens’ navy could
effectively protect trading vessels throughout the Aegean Sea. Also, Athens was geographically
at the center of the empire, and had one of the best harbors in the region. This trade made Athens
one of, if not the wealthiest poleis in Greece.17 By the middle of the fifth century BCE, the Agora
of Athens was a prized market for sea traders of the Aegean Sea, and all manner of goods flowed
into Piraeus--the harbor of Athens.
Because of this trade, facilitated by the mining of silver in Attika and the Athenian fleet,
by the middle of the fifth century BCE classical Athens was a highly monetized society.
According to Engen, in his article, “’Ancient Greenbacks’: Athenian Owls, the Law of
Nikophon, and the Greek Economy," Athenian silver coinage was highly regarded by most
traders in the Aegean Sea.18 Engen relates that the Law of Nikophon of 374 was an attempt by
Athens to assure the high standards of their coinage, and thus maintain its high status, which
would help to insure its continued demand throughout the region. Silver coinage was also used
within Attika for day-to-day economic activity.19 Because most of the citizens of Athens lived in
the countryside of Attika, many miles from the city, farmers most often sold their surplus--if
indeed they were lucky enough to produce a surplus--to a merchant in the agora. They would
then purchase any goods needed with the silver gained in the exchange, and then head back to
their farms. If a poor farmer did not receive enough from his surplus, or if he had nothing to sell
16
Thucydides, 1.14
Ober, “Wealthy Hellas,” 15-17.
18
Engen, “’Ancient Greenbacks’ 359-381; Xenophon, Poroi, 1.5.
19
ibid.
17
11
to the merchants, he could register to sit on a jury and receive payment--in silver coinage-- for
public service.20 Many poor farmers would have timed their trips to the city so they could attend
one or more of the forty assembly meetings held a year, where they again received payment for
each meeting attended.21
The Distribution of Wealth
One way to gauge the relative economic prosperity of a society is by measuring the size-or even just the existence--of a “middle-class” of citizens. The larger the middle-class--meaning
a class of citizens living above the subsistence level, but lower than elite status--the greater
amount of wealth distributed through out the society. According to Ober in his article “Wealthy
Hellas,” Athens’ population lived at a higher economic level than that of any other Greek polis.
Ober gives two economic scenarios--one optimistic the other pessimistic--for the economic level
of the population of Athens. In his optimistic scenario, Ober assumes most citizens and metic
males, and even a small number of slaves (those who “dwelled apart” from their masters) would
be able to make at least one drachma/day on average and so would achieve “middling status.”22
Ober’s pessimistic scenario--which is more probable in my opinion for reasons discussed later -assumes “only about two-thirds of citizens, a minority of metics, and no slaves received regular
wages at or above the one-drachma/day level.”23 Ober uses a straight forward formula of
calculating subsistence levels, in which the price of grain is compared to the average daily
wage.24 Using this formula, Ober asserts that 1.3 percent of the citizens were of elite status
(income over 10 times the bare minimum subsistence level), 65 percent “middling” status
20
Aristotle, Athenian Politeia, 24.4.
ibid, 41.3.
22
Ober, “Wealthy Hellas,” 16.
23
ibid, 16.
24
Ober, “Wealthy Hellas,” 15.
21
12
(income of 2.4 times the bare minimum subsistence level) and 33 percent lived at the bare
minimum subsistence level.
While a middle class might have existed in classical Athens, it is not easy to pin down.
Ober divides the population into both citizenship and economic status categories, and for the
purpose of this study, I will use his figures, as they seem as accurate as any other’s. Ober
estimates the population of Athenian citizens at approximately 29,900.25 This number seems
acceptable--though on the low side--as Engen, in his article “The Economy of Ancient Greece”
estimates the male citizenry at 40,000.26 Ober divides his 29,900 into three classes: 400 Elite,
19,500 Middling, and 10,000 Subsistence. One can immediately see that this is too general to be
of much help in determining how well people were actually living. Takeshi Amemiya, in his
book Economy and Economics of Ancient Greece, examines economic activity in classical
Athens, and he divides the citizenry into “rich farmers (32%),” poor farmers (48%),” and
“landless” citizens laboring in trade and manufacturing (20%). “Rich farmers” are defined as
those citizens who either owned enough land to produce a surplus to live above the subsistence
level or owned some kind of workshop that produced an income in addition to their farms, and
“poor farmers” are defined as those citizens living at or below the subsistence level, either
owning their own land or working as tenant farmers.27
These classifications help a little more. At first glance it would seem that classical Athens
did indeed have a substantial middle-class of 19,500 citizens. But if we apply Amemiya’s
categories, we see that 14,352 citizens would be living at or just above the subsistence level,
raising the actual percentage of citizens living at the subsistence level by 15 %. Living at or
25
ibid, 109.
Darel Tai Engen, “The Economy of Ancient Greece.” EH.net. Accessed 5 May, 2011.
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/engen.greece.
27
Amemiya, 107-109.
26
13
below the subsistence level, one or two bad harvests away from complete destitution, is not at all
that conducive to creating a strong or stable economic middle-class. Moreover, these subsistence
farmers seem to have engaged in very little commercial activity, as they were producing just
enough to provide for themselves. The category of “rich farmers” has more potential to include a
middle-class, as there was a vast discrepancy between those citizens who could afford the luxury
of not having to personally work to make a living and those who had to work, but whose income
was more than at the subsistence level.28 These citizens were most often the ones who
participated in the military as hoplites--heavily armored infantrymen. Armor was expensive, and
one had to provide all of one’s own equipment. High prestige came with defending one’s polis,
and thus social status and military service were linked. This hoplite middle-class was more about
status than economics, and would be even more unstable than one made up of the “poor
farmers.” Warfare is arbitrary in nature, and a lost battle could mean the extinction of a large part
of the existing landowning citizenry. An economic middle-class comprised of these citizens
would also not be strong or stable.
To add to the complexity of Athenian economic classifications, one must not leave out
the metics and slaves. Over 9% of Ober’s estimated 240,000 inhabitants of Athens were metics
and their families, while 33% of the population was slaves. Nearly all manufacturing labor was
conducted by the some 15,000 metics and 80,000 slaves in residence at Athens. From around the
beginning of the sixth century BCE, metics were invited to Athens to conduct trade, engage in
manufacturing, and provide services, so the Athenians could more easily participate in the
political processes of the polis.29 Many of these metics were wealthy businessmen or skilled
craftsmen. In fact, 33% of the elite population and nineteen percent of the “middling” class in
28
ibid.
Whitehead, 116-121.
29
14
Athens were metics. By the middle of the fifth century BCE, metics conducted--along with
slaves--nearly all of the 170 or so occupations thought to have existed in classical Athens.30 The
Metoikion, a tax imposed on all metics, as well as import/export taxes, became important to the
economy of Athens, and helped pay for public expenditures, such as infrastructure improvements
and payment for public service. However, since much of the trade and manufacturing in Athens
was conducted by metics, the wealth made on this economic activity mainly stayed with them,
and only trickled down to the demos through state pay, after being extracted through
import/export and Metoikion taxes.
This is not to say that citizens did not engage in trade or manufacturing. At least some of
the landless citizens most likely worked as laborers in the trade or manufacturing spheres, as well
as many of the rich farmers who owned some type of workshop in addition to their farms. Engen,
in his article “Democracy, Knowledge, and the Hidden Economy of Athens” explains that several
wealthy Athenians--including the orator Demosthenes’ father--hid their wealth and economic
activity by limiting the amount of real property they owned in order to keep up the façade that
non-landed economic activity was to be looked down upon, as well as to avoid their liturgical
duties. Because a citizen’s property assessment was the basis for assigning liturgies--the paying
for public festivals, rituals, plays, and naval expenses--the wealthy citizens often invested their
money in trade ventures. 31
However, in general, poor citizens did not benefit from these trading ventures. Even
though Athens had a vibrant economy during the fifth and forth centuries, over a third of citizens
lived at or near the subsistence level--unable to form a stable, citizen based economic middle-
30
ibid, 176.
Darel Tai Engen, “Democracy, Knowledge, and the Hidden Economy of Athens.” The Journal of Economic
Asymmetries, Co ed. for Europe, George C. Bitros, Vol. 8, No.1, 2011, 93-104.
31
15
class, while the wealthy citizens and metics gained ever more wealth. Metics and slaves did much
of the “dirty work” of Athens, including most trade, manufacturing, and manual labor. Of the
landless citizens, it is un-clear how many worked in the trade/manufacturing sphere. Many would
have worked as tenant farmers for wealthy land owners. What is clear is that individual members
of the demos in general personally received only a small portion of the wealth that flowed into
Athens. Athenian citizens most certainly shared in the benefits of a wealthy nation, such as the
use of public buildings, fountains, and roads, but the means to gain private, personal wealth were
limited by the values they learned through Athenian literate education regarding non-landed
income. Those born into wealthy elite families often kept, and increased their wealth, and those
born in poverty most often died in the same condition.
The Historical Problem
Even though the demos of Athens enjoyed one of the largest markets in Greece, and used
a currency that was accepted throughout the region, one third of citizens lived at or below the
subsistence level, seemingly unable--or unwilling--to create an economic environment conducive
to personal upward economic mobility.32 Why?
Some argue that it was the poor soil in Attika kept the poor citizens subsistence farming
instead of pursuing more lucrative income, as the poor agricultural production of Attika made it
difficult to produce a surplus that in turn could have been sold to increase their income. Others
argue it was the institution of slavery and the presence of metics in classical Athens, more than a
disdain for non-landed income that limited economic opportunities for citizens. According to this
argument, slaves and metics performed tasks that citizens could have performed for pay, thus
taking income-earning employment away from citizens. In most slave dependent societies wages
32
Takeshi Amemiya, Economy and Economics of Ancient Greece (New York: Rutledge, 2007), 107-109.
16
for labor were kept extremely low, as slave labor was often more cost effective than citizen labor.
While there is some validity to these arguments, they are unconvincing and incomplete
interpretations.
First, while it is true that the soil in Attika was poor, farming was not the only means of
earning an income. As described earlier, the Athenians were very familiar with overseas
commerce. In addition, there were means for poor traders to secure loans for trading ventures,
thus opening up opportunities for entrepreneurial activity.33 If a citizen did not wish to engage in
overseas commerce, he could have become a retailer in the agora of Athens, which was one of
the largest and most diverse in the classical Greek world. But Athenian citizens chose to continue
working as subsistence farmers instead of pursuing more lucrative economic activities.
Second, there is little evidence that slaves and metics actually displaced citizens in the
labor field. Athenians used slaves and metics to do tasks that they did not want to do. For
example, it has been widely argued that the poor could always have earned money by joining a
rowing crew on one of the Athenian triremes, but this assertion is over stated. Rowing on a
trireme was back-breaking, dangerous work. Athenians’ disdain for wage labor, learned through
their literate education, often caused the Athenian fleet to fall short of rowers, and thus slaves
and metics were used to fill the void. According to Peter Hunt, the crews of the triremes that
maintained Athens’ power were comprised of approximately twenty to forty percent slaves, as
well as a number of metics.34 In addition, all rowers on the triremes earned the same wage
33
Darel Tai Engen, “Democracy, Knowledge, and the Hidden Economy of Athens,” 93-104.
Peter Hunt, “Arming Slaves and Helots in Classical Athens.” in Arming Slave: From Classical times to the
Modern Age. Christopher Leslie Brown and Philip D. Morgan eds. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 2627.
34
17
regardless of civil status, which was only half of the five drachma-a-day wage paid to a slave
working on the Erechtheion.35
Metic and slave labor also comprised over seventy-six percent of the known labor force
that built the Erechtheion.36 According to the building records of the Erechtheion, pay was
determined by the kind of work done, regardless of social status.37 Thus, slaves and metics were
paid the same as citizens doing the same kind of work. Depending on how one looks at it, either
citizens were paid slave wages, or slaves and metics were paid as well as citizens. This
contradicts the notion that slave labor was always more cost effective than free labor. Similarly,
Athenians invited metics to come live in Athens to engage in trade and manufacturing,
theoretically freeing the citizens from these tasks, allowing them more time for political activity.
But as evidenced above, metics were also involved in manual labor, thus seemingly filling a void
left by citizens unwilling to do these tasks, not taking jobs away from them.
The majority of the demos did not seem to have a problem with one-third of Athenian
citizens living at or below the subsistence level, even while paying slaves and metics the same as
citizens for many labor tasks, including naval service. Similarly, there is little evidence to
suggest that many citizens engaged in trade and manufacturing, even though there were avenues
for citizens to borrow the capital to engage in such economic activity. Instead, they mainly left
trade and manufacturing to metics, many of whom became extremely wealthy. With the political
power the demos held, at any time they could have demanded economic reforms in the guise of
restrictions on the amount of metic and slave labor used in Attika, or state funded lending for
trade and manufacturing ventures, and thus opened up trade and manufacturing opportunities for
35
Edward Cohen. The Athenian Nation. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 2002. 180
IG I3 475-476. Gustave Glotz. Ancient Greece at Work: An Economic History of Greece the Homeric Period to
the Roman Conquest. (Philadelphia, PA: Coronet Books Inc, 1987), 180.
37
ibid.
36
18
the demos, creating more personal wealth for themselves. But they never did. Why not? The
most likely explanation is that societal values learned and promoted through literate education
stifled citizens’ desire for economic change. Values including birth status and the notion of
noblesse oblige helped the demos accept the high economic inequality within their seemingly
politically equal society.
Athenian Society and Education
In order to understand how values learned through literate education affected economic
activity in classical Athens, it is imperative first to examine briefly the Athenians themselves and
the democracy they created. Before starting it is also imperative to understand that even though
scholars have studied classical Athens in depth for over a century, the sources are limited, and
few absolute figures for population and economic activity exist. Population and economic
estimates are just that--estimates--and opinions differ greatly. I have used the scholarship from
some of the finest classicists to make my assertions, but as with all studies of the classical world,
many figures can--and will be--contested. That said, I believe the evidence is sufficient to
support the claim this project makes.
Athenian Identity
The Athenians believed they were autochthonic--meaning their ancestors came from the
earth; thus, Athenians traced their origins to the land of Attika itself.38 In the minds of the
Athenians, this made them different from other Greeks, all of whom had been involved in
massive migrations.39 Whether or not this is true is irrelevant; Athenians believed they were
different, and this fact is important for this study, as will be discussed later in this paper.
38
39
Barry B Powell, Classical Myth 5th Ed. (New Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007), 409.
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910), 1.2.
19
According to legend, Athens first came to power in Attika when the hero Theseus
became King of Athens, and abolished all of the town councils of the villages in Attika, making
Athens the central authoritive urban center in the region.40 Athens’ form of government changed
over the next several centuries, moving from a monarchy to an oligarchy, through a period of
tyranny, and finally to the democracy she is known for. By 440BCE, Athens was effectively
governed by several magistrates--many selected by lot--a council of 500 hundred citizens--who
set the agenda for the assembly--and the assembly, consisting of all registered citizens.41
Athenian citizens enjoyed a society in which the privileges of citizenship were:
§ The exclusive right to own farm land
§ Prohibition against debt slavery
§ Eligibility for public office, regardless of economic status
§ Payment for public service (military and civic)
§ No regular direct taxation
§ Welfare for the poor and disabled
§ State care for orphans caused by war
§ The right to a trial and appeal by jury,
and perhaps most important to Athenians,
§ Freedom of speech and a vote in the assembly, regardless of economic status.
42
Athenian Education
If one is to make the claim that the literate education Athenians citizens received helped
inhibit them from pursuing more lucrative economic activities than subsistence farming
(subsidized with pay for public service, such as jury duty and attending assembly meetings), one
must first establish that the literacy rate was high enough to cause such an effect. As stated in the
historiography section, Harris claims the literacy rate in Athens was fairly low in the classical
40
Powell, 408-440.
Aristotle, Athenian Politeia ed. Kenyon. (Oxford. 1920), Perseus Project. Accessed http://www.perseus.tufts.edu,
1.1-27.4.
41
42
Ober, Mass and Elite, 60-81.
20
period. Harris bases his hypothesis on the fact that there is scarce hard evidence of mass literacy.
But this should not be surprising to anyone who has studied the classical period. Sources for
daily life are extremely scarce. Literacy was a tool that most elites would have used daily, and in
doing so most likely would not have thought to write about how many people were actually
literate. The amount of inscriptions found in the Agora of Athens, the most public place in the
city, along with the fact that there was also a news posting board,43 implies that Athenian society
was indeed a literate one.
According to T. J. Morgan, in the article “Literate Education in Classical Athens,” by the
time Plato was writing in the 390s BCE early education had been formalized and divided into
three distinct categories: gymnastike, mousike, and grammata.44 For the purpose of this study,
grammata will be examined, as it is through this form of education that classical Athenians
learned many of their values and morals, as well as being the only portion of education common
citizens could afford for their children. According to Yun Lee Too, in her 2000 book The
Pedagogical Contract, Athenian education relied mainly on mimicking the writings of the great
poets, and the values and morals of the teachers.45 Plato wrote:
…parents send their children to teachers and instruct them to pay
closer attention to their children’s good behavior than to letters and
the lyre. These are the things on which their teachers concentrate.
When they have learned their letters and are at the stage of
understanding the written word as they earlier did the spoken, the
teachers set on the benches before them the works of the good poets
which they have them read aloud. They compel their students to learn
by heart many passages which contain words of warning, and which
describe in great detail and praise fulsomely virtuous men of the past.
43
Aristotle, Athenian Politeia, 7.1.
Morgan, “Literate Education in Classical Athens,” The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 49, No. 1
(1999), pp. 46-61
45
Yun Lee Too, The Pedagogical Contract: The Economies of Teaching and Learning in the Ancient World. (Ann
Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2003).
44 T.J.
21
Their objective is that the child may emulate and imitate them and
make it his goal to become like them.46
This quotation is very important to this study in two ways. First, it supports the assertion that
Athenians sent their children to teachers to be taught to read and write. More importantly, it
epitomizes the main impetus for the continuation of traditional values in Athenian society. The
main purpose of education was to create a good citizen, someone like the virtuous men found in
the epic poems. As the teachers concerned themselves with the good behavior of their students,
they re-enforced values that affected society, including those concerning economic activity.
From birth to the age of six or seven, children were taught their letters and basic reading
skills, usually by a family member or slave.47 Formal education started at age six or seven for
those whose parents could afford the modest fees.48 From seven to thirteen or fourteen, an
Athenian boy received an education through pre-rhetoric exercises called the Progymnasmata.49
This training would prepare the youth for the pinnacle of Greek higher education: rhetoric.
Famed and influential Swiss biologist and psychologist Jean Piaget believed that children
develop their concrete operational values between the age of seven and twelve.50 This is the same
period in which many Athenian citizens would have learned to read and write, using the myths,
the Poets, and Aesop. According to Kevin Robb, in his monograph Literacy and Paideia in
Ancient Greece, Athens, during the first half of the fifth century BCE, transformed from a
society that passed its knowledge, both civic and private, through oral traditions such as
46
Plato. Protagoras. 325d7-326a.; Joyal, Mark, Iain McDougall, and J. C. Yardley, Greek and Roman Education: A
Sourcebook. Rutledge Sourcebooks for the Ancient World. (London/New York: Rutledge, 2009), 48-49.
47
H.I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity George Lamb, Tans. (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1982),
70.
48
Adkins, 254
49
Ruth Webb, “The Progymnasmata as Practice,” in Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Trans. Yun Lee Too.
(Leiden: Brill, 2001), 251.
50
“Stage Theory of Cognitive Development (Piaget).” Learning-theroies.com. Accessed February 13, 2012. http://www.learningtheories.com/piagets-stage-theory-of-cognitive-development.html
22
storytelling, recited oral poetry, and musical performance, into a society dominated by the
written word. Robb uses several types of sources to support his claim that literacy overtook oral
traditions in Classical Athens during the fifth century BCE. One such source type is unique to
Athens: red figure pottery. Robb cites several red figure vases from the fifth century that clearly
depict boys reading scrolls under the supervision of older males. One such shard, a fragment of a
cup by the Akestorides painter, depicts a youth studying a poem for recital, with a portion of the
scroll he is studying visible. The letters on the scroll contain the name of Herakles, the Greek
hero. Robb uses this type of source to depict the type of material that was being recited by
Athenian youth, arguing that heroic, Homeric language permeated Greek society. He also argues
that before literacy, aristocratic youths were taught to recite the great poets such as Homer and
Hesiod for recital at festivals. Robb goes further to argue that the introduction of the alphabet
and literacy was an intrusion into the aristocratic institution of oral performance, and thus
bonded oral traditions with literacy.51 Robb’s conclusions not only confirm that the great poets
were indeed important in literate education in Athens, but also that many of the values learned
from the poets were elitist in origin. As more and more people learned to read and write, they
had the values found in the epic poems instilled in them. One could say the demos was being
“elite-ized,” if you will.
According to Ruth Webb in the article, “The Progymnasmata as Practice,” the first step
between the learning of grammar and rhetoric was often a set of exercises called the
Progymnasmata. The word Progymnasmata comes from the Greek verb gymnazo, meaning “to
shape, to train” and the prefix pro meaning “before,” making the meaning “before the
shaping/training,” in this case, of the mind. These exercises would take the student through
51
Kevin Robb, Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 183-213.
23
several steps in writing, introducing different concepts of composition in a progressive fashion.52
There is debate as to whether the grammarian or the rhetor was to teach these exercises, but
Suetonius states that by his time, the Progymnasmata was taught by the grammarian before the
student officially started the study of rhetoric.53 Starting with simple written recitation of
mythological stories--such as the Homeric epics and Greek origin myths--the student progressed
in a series of exercises including narration, confirmation and refutation, and encomium and
thesis.54
The first exercise in the Progymnasmata, was the Mythos. This was the written recitation
of the famous Greek myths and Aesop’s fables, and was perhaps the most influential in instilling
values in students. The student would write the stories of the Greek heroes or fables, first
copying, and then reciting from memory.55 The overall goal of Athenian education was to create
an informed citizen capable of making rational decisions for the good of the community. The
farther one went with his education, the more narrowly focused on rhetoric the education
became. The pinnacle of Athenian education was to be able to speak well enough to speak in the
assembly or courts. But this lofty goal was for the elite. The demos had to be content with
enough education to read well enough to help them with their everyday business and political
dealings, for this was often all they could afford. But this basic literate education was enough to
instill values that helped limit the opportunity for upward economic mobility for most citizens of
classical Athens.
52
Suetonius, De grammaticis et rhetoribus 25.4; Webb, 295.
ibid, 294
54
ibid.
55
ibid.
53
24
Analysis of Athenian Education’s Effect on Economic Activity
So if Athens was one of the wealthiest poleis in Greece during the classical period, with
one of the largest markets and most accepted currency in the Aegean, the question must be
asked, why did over a third of the citizens of classical Athens live at or near the subsistence level,
and why did they allow rampant poverty among the citizenry with the wealth of the polis and the
political power held by the demos? Sociologist Max Weber in his Economy and Society: an
outline of interpretive sociology argues that economic activity is directly related to societal
customs and ideology.56 For Weber, values such as birth status--with which comes prestige from
landownership and an income derived from the land--and the role of the wealthy as benefactors
to society would have affected the way Athenians conducted themselves economically. This was
apparently the case.
Birth Status
Classical Athenians cherished their birth status as citizens. Citizenship of Athens in the
fifth and fourth centuries meant more political rights for the masses than in any other polis in the
Aegean. It meant a claim to belonging to the wealthiest, most powerful political unit of the
period. It meant that you were important. An example of what Athenians thought of themselves
can be found in the following fable:
“An Athenian man was conversing with a man from Thebes, as is
reasonable, as they journeyed together. The speech was flowing
until it came to heroes, both men making long declarations without
constraint. The man from Thebes determined Alcmena’s son
[Herakles] was the greatest man for he was celebrated among the
gods. The man from Athens said that Theseus was much mightier, for
Theseus had never been a slave, and he prevailed, for he was a glib
speaker. The other man, being not equal in a contest of words, for he was
56
Max Weber, Economy and Society: an outline of interpretive sociology. (Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1978).
25
just a Boiotian, said in coarse prose, “You can stop; victory! So then may
we provoke Theseus, the Athenians Herakles.”57
(Author’s Translation)
The first hint of ethnocentric arrogance comes in the first line where the narrator feels the need to
explain why an Athenian would be talking with a man from Thebes. The Athenian later asserts
that Theseus, the legendary first king of Attika, was the greater hero than the Theban Herakles
because he had good fortune and was never a slave, as Herakles had been. This would have
struck a chord with Athenians, as they in fact had better fortunes than many other Greeks during
the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, and Athenian citizens could not enslave one another, not even
for debts. Both of these traits played heavily into Athenian thought on birth status. But the reality
of being born an Athenian also meant that unless you were born into an affluent family, you
would most likely spend your life living at or near the subsistence level, working extremely hard
just to make ends meet. It meant that as part of the demos, you would most likely have to rely on
state pay for civic and military service to acquire the silver coinage needed to survive, while
members of elite families and metics could take full advantage of the more lucrative avenues of
economic gain such as manufacturing and trade. It meant that you most likely would not enjoy
many of the benefits of the wealth that flowed into Athens, aside from the public festivals and
entertainment provided by the wealthy. So why did the demos--who wielded considerable
political power--create a society in which poverty among the citizenry was so prevalent? The
values learned through literate education were partially responsible for this phenomenon.
As stated earlier, the Mythos was the first exercise in the progymnasmata, and perhaps
the most influential in helping shape Athenian values. The Greek poleis were fiercely
independent, and each polis had its own origin myth, as well as specific gods in the Greek
57
Aesop, Fables: Babrius and Phaedrus Ed. Ben Perry. (Suffolk: St Edmundsbury: Press Ltd, 1990), Accessed
March 13, 2011, http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/babrius/index.htm.
26
Pantheon they preferred. In Athens, the myths of Theseus and their patron goddess, Athena,
would have been very popular; so it is reasonable to assert that in Athens the origin myths of
Attika--and more specifically Athens--would have been used to help students learn to read and
write. Students would have copied passages from the myths of Athens over and over, until they
had learned not only the correct spelling and grammar of the passages, but also the values found
in the passages themselves. The origin myth of Attika asserts that the inhabitants of Attika have
always lived there, having sprung from the earth itself.58 Thucydides confirms this line of
thought in Book I.2, stating, “It is interesting to observe that Attika…has always been inhabited
by the same race of people.”59 This singular notion had an enormous effect on the demos’
acceptance of their relative poverty. The fact that only those whose parents were both citizens
could obtain citizenship made anyone belonging to the citizenry special. They belonged to the
land; they could not be sold into slavery by another citizen; they had the exclusive right to own
farmland in Attika, and perhaps most important, they had a say in their government. No matter
what their economic status, members of the demos were born with what metics, freedmen, and
slaves could only dream of, citizenship in a polis where they could rule themselves.
As stated above, Athenian citizens had many rights under the law, and at first glance it
would seem that the exclusive right to own farmland, owing to their birth status as Athenian
citizens, and to be self-sufficient from that land, was the main reason why Athenians preferred to
farm rather than work for wages. Much has been written about Athenian attitudes towards nonlanded economic activity--mainly quoting Homer, Hesiod, Aristotle, and Aristophanes--stating
that Athenians looked down on those who worked for another person for wages or engaged in
58
59
Powell, 408.
Thucydides, 1.2,
60
trade to make a living.
27
For example, in the Odyssey, Odysseus was highly offended when
Euryalus, a young warrior in the service of King Alkinoos, said to him:
“I do not liken thee to a man that is skilled in contests, such as
abound among men, but to one who, faring to and fro with his benched
ship, is a captain of sailors who are merchantmen, one who is mindful
of his freight, and has charge of a home-borne cargo, and the gains of
his greed. Thou dost not look like an athlete.”61
Taken on its own, the above passage could be interpreted that Odysseus was more offended by
having his athletic prowess insulted than anything else, but in lines 237-340, King Alkinoos says.
“…in anger that yonder man came up to thee in the lists and taunted thee in a way in which no
mortal would make light of thy prowess…”62 This passage puts the emphasis on the insult with
the phrase “…taunted thee in a way in which no mortal…”. It seems that the insult of being
called a merchant was worse than being non-athletic. This attitude towards traders, and perhaps
all non-landed income, could have easily transferred from the pages of Homer into Athenian
thought through literate education.
Homer’s epics stress the importance of landed wealth, and thus could explain why the
demos would choose subsistence farming over a more lucrative occupation. All of the heroes of
the Iliad are at the very least land owners, men who could afford to leave Greece to besiege Troy
for ten years. Achilles, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Hector, and Priam were all royalty, with
incredible amounts of resources at their disposal. Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey, was king of
Ithaca. When Eumaeus, Odysseus’ swineherd, describes Odysseus’ wealth, he lists herds of
60
Aristotle, “Economics.” Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 18. (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., London.
1935), Perseus Project. Accessed January 13, 2011 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, 1343a
61
Homer, Odyssey 8.159-165.
62
ibid, 8.237-240.
63
sheep, pigs and cattle; all the product of a wealthy land owner.
28
Indeed, Eumaeus states, “Not
twenty heroes in the whole world were as rich as he.”64 Men such as these were the epitome of
the ideal Greek: free, independent, strong, cunning, and self-sufficient. Stories about men such as
these would have given justification to strive to be self-sufficient through landed income; though
most Athenian farmers could never rise above subsistence farming. In the end of the Odyssey,
Odysseus returned home after his long journey and reclaimed his rural kingdom through his
courage, perseverance through difficult trials, and intelligence. These virtues would have
resonated with the common Athenian, and the latter virtue would also have been an incentive for
poorer citizens to obtain at least a basic literate education for their sons.
While the demos were always suspicious of a cunning speaker, classical Athenian society
was driven by rhetoric and literacy. Even if a citizen wanted to stay on the farm, a basic literate
education would have most certainly aided him in his endeavors. It was unlikely that a poor
farmer could ever produce enough surpluses to increase his holdings given the poor quality of
the soil in Attika; but Athenian citizens chose subsistence farming instead of finding more
lucrative means to make a living. It can be reasonably asserted that the values found in Homer,
transmitted at least in part through literate education, helped form the ideology of Athenian
citizens which kept them subsistence farmers.
Homer was not the only poet that praised landed wealth. Hesiod wrote in his Works and
Days:
…a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbor, a rich
man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order;
63
Homer, The Odyssey Samuel Butler, trans. Perseus Project. Accessed May 4, 2011. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu
14.120-130.
64
Ibid, 14.119-20.
29
and neighbor vies with his neighbor as he hurries after wealth. This
Strife is wholesome for men.65
Hesiod often used agricultural success as the standard and reward for correct behavior. The poet
states:
Neither famine nor disaster ever haunt men who do true justice; but
light-heartedly they tend the fields which are all their care. The earth
bears them victual in plenty, and on the mountains the oak bears
acorns upon the top and bees in the midst. Their woolly sheep are
laden with fleeces; their women bear children like their parents. They flourish
continually with good things, and do not travel on ships, for the grain-giving earth
bears them fruit.66
The poet also gives this advice:
Work, high-born Perses, that Hunger may hate you, and
venerable Demeter richly crowned may love you and fill your barn
Hunger is altogether a meet comrade for the sluggard. Both gods and
men are angry with a man who lives idle for in nature he is like the
stingless drones who waste the labor of the bees, eating without working; but let it
be your care to order your work properly, that in the right season your barns may
be full of victual. Through work men grow rich in flocks and substance, and
working they are much better loved by the immortals. Work is
no disgrace: it is idleness which is a disgrace. But if you work, the idle
will soon envy you as you grow rich, for fame and renown attend on
wealth. And whatever be your lot, work is best for you…67
While Hesiod was writing about healthy competition between men, he seems to have had a bias
towards agricultural work, as he heaped honor and status on the successful farmer, but when
referring to unhealthy competition, the poet singles out non-agricultural professions. The poet
wrote:
…potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and
beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel. Perses, lay up
65
Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Works and
Days. (Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914). Perseus Project.
Accessed January 12, 2011, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu. 20-24.
66
Hesiod, 230-234.
67
ibid, 299-314
30
these things in your heart, and do not let that Strife who delights in
mischief hold your heart back from work…68
The values Hesiod was trying to convey are only slightly veiled. Students reciting and re-writing
these passages would have had these values embedded in them, and thus these values would have
been key in keeping the common Athenian subsistence farming instead of seeking wealth
through manufacturing or trade.
One problem with this disdain for non-landed income is obvious; Athens needed trade
and manufacturing for its very survival. One way in which the Athenians dealt with this seeming
disdain for the trader and manufacturer was to use metics as the main agents for commerce in
Athens. The use of foreigners as traders was not a novel idea, as many of the mentions of traders
in Homer’s epics state that they were either non-Greeks or islanders.69 This would allow for the
Athenians to import and export goods into the city without many of the citizens having to be
involved directly. The use of metics in trade and manufacturing allowed the Athenians to
maintain this attitude towards the trader and manufacturer without actually harming trade, which
was so vital to Athens’ well-being. One can see that the disdain for trade and manufacturing,
resulting in the use of metics and slaves in these fields severely limited the entrepreneurial sprit
on the demos.
The classical Athenians seemed content to stay subsistence farmers. While distain for
non-landed income, reinforced through literate education, most certainly was the main reason
why Athenians chose to subsistence farm rather than pursue more lucrative economic
opportunity for themselves, it is not the only reason. Athenian literate education also promoted
68
69
ibid, 24-30.
Homer. Odyssey 1.184; 7.467; 13.256; 14.452; 21.40; 23.747; 24.75314.199; 16.62; 19.172.
31
values that would have convinced the demos it was best to stay where they were in society. The
following fable is one example:
A fisherman was gathering his net, and it happened that it was full of a
diversity of fish. Although the small fish escaped from the porous
bottom of the net, the large fish were brought into the
floating boat. By all means to be small is both a
saving and a badness, but whosoever you perceive with a great
reputation seldom escapes danger.
(Author’s translation)70
The message found in this fable is quite obvious; “stay small; it’s not great, but at least
you are alive.” As a large part of the Athenian citizenry was small farmers, this message justified
their lack of success in gaining greater wealth. This fable would have also touched the small
fishermen and those whose living came from the produce of the sea. Another fable to which
landed citizens could perhaps relate better goes as follows:
A young steer let loose in a field, not rubbed by the yoke, said to a bull toiling and
dragging a plow, “To suffer hard work would be
wretched.” The bull remained silent, cutting the earth. When the
countrymen were about to sacrifice to the gods, the old bull went to
grazing, but the untamed one was drug by the horns and bound to the
alter full of blood with a rope. The old bull said, calling such as this to
the young steer, “While your flesh is sacrificed in burnt offerings,
your tendons the sacrificial axe, you will not be rubbed by the yoke!
[Labor is a praise, leisure a danger]
(Author’s translation)71
In this fable, the words used give deeper meaning than what lies on the surface. The first word of
the passage is Δαµάλης, meaning young steer. The first word of the second sentence is ὁ βοῦς,
meaning bull. The difference is that the word “steer” refers to castrated male cattle, while the
word “bull” is more ambiguous, but implies male cattle “intact,” if you will. While the overall
70
Aesop, Fables: Babrius and Phaedrus Ed. Ben Perry. (Suffolk: St Edmundsbury: Press Ltd, 1990), Accessed
February 2, 2011, Retrieved from http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/babrius/index.htm. #4.
71
ibid, #37.
32
message is straight forward--indeed it is bracketed at the end of the passage--there are deeper
implications at work here. Only the best cattle were selected for sacrifice in classical societies, so
Δαµάλης represents the elite of society. But Δαµάλης refers to castrated cattle, and castration
could also be a symbol for the loss of masculinity, and thus not only does the passage remind the
reader that the elite in society are the ones who are picked to be sacrificed--often through
military activity--but also implies that the leisurely life makes one less masculine. This at first
seems like a contradictory interpretation, as it implies that the elite are fit to be soldiers, but are
less masculine because they do not work for a living. I believe that the contradiction is not so
great. In democratic Athens, all citizens had the “opportunity” to serve the state militarily by
rowing on a trireme. Fighting in a phalanx was difficult indeed, but rowing a trireme was
backbreaking work. Yet aside from the public funeral at the beginning of the war season, only
the elite were memorialized with lavish funerals and tombs. Since warfare was conducted in a
yearly, almost ritualistic fashion, the sacrifice of the steer in the above fable is highly metaphoric
to the death and consequential funerals of the wealthy caused by warfare, This would have
appealed to poor farmers, implying that not only were they safer by being non-elite, but they
were in fact more masculine than their rich counterparts. One more fable helpful in
understanding why citizens would accept subsistence farming--which severely limited their
economic mobility--as their primary source of livelihood over more lucrative endeavors follows:
They say a lizard bursts from the middle of the back making himself
equal in size to a dragon. You harm yourself and help no one else if
you imitate the one held exceedingly above.
(Author’s translation)72
72
Aesop, # 21.
33
Again, the message learned through this fable would have made it easier for the demos to accept
their place in Athenian society. First, it plays on the importance of birth status. One is what one
is born as. To try to be something one is not is to invite disaster. Some are born with certain
attributes, while others lack them. Aristotle would have agreed with this statement. According to
the philosopher, some men were born to be slaves, while others free.73 Second, the short phrase
“…and help no one else …” implies the democratic view that one’s hubris hurts not only one’s
self, but the community as a whole. Thus, to stay in one’s station was to help maintain social
order and the democratic ideal. This is easily applied to economic activity, as often a source of
one’s hubris is one’s wealth. Athenians lived in a unique, fragile society in which the masses
had gained an extraordinary amount of political clout for the period. It was important to them to
keep the dream of democracy alive, so values promoting political equality, and down playing the
extreme economic variation, would have been favorable. Birth status was one such value. No
matter what a citizen’s economic status was, he was still a citizen. Metics and slaves
automatically fell beneath them in the political hierarchy. A citizen might not be rich, but at least
he wasn’t a slave. Subsistence farming might be a hard, poor living, but at least it was thought
honorable, and it was one of the few spheres in Athenian society in which there was no
competition from metics or slaves.
The Role of the Elite as Benefactors of Society
Another important value promoted and reinforced through Athenian literate education
was the role the elite should play in regard to benefiting the society as a whole. Greeks from the
archaic period forward seemed to have felt it was the role of the wealthy elite to help take care of
73
Aristotle, “Politics.” Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 21, translated by H. Rackham. (Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1944), Perseus Project. Accessed January 13, 2011
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, 1.1254a.
34
the demos. For example, the wealthiest Athenian citizens were required periodically to perform
leitourgiai, or public services, for the good of the people, spending large sums of money on
religious festivals, theatrical competitions, and naval maintenance.74
Leitourgiai were extremely expensive, and only the wealthiest of citizens could afford to
perform them. In fact, during the whole of the fourth century BCE only 400 citizens were
thought wealthy enough at any one time to perform liturgies.75 If a citizen performed a choregia
he was responsible for sponsoring a dramatic or dithyrambic chorus entered in a competition at a
religious festival such as the Dionysia, the city’s festival to the god Dionysus.76 Three choregoi
would usually compete against each other to provide the best chorus. These choregoi would
often spend much more than they needed to fulfill their obligation in order to receive the honor
of winning the competition, and in theory redistributed large sums of money back into the
economy.77 If a citizen performed a trierarchy, he was responsible for commanding and
maintaining a trireme for one year. A trierarchy would often cost the citizen as much as 6,000
drachmas a year. The state provided the hull and main rigging of the trireme, but the trierarch
was responsible for the cost of repairs, maintenance, and at least half the cost of manning the
vessel.78 An example of how much a citizen might contribute in liturgies is found in Lysias XXI,
1-5, in which the speaker spent 5,000 drachmas on tragedies, 5,300 on choruses and tripod,1,500
on a children’s chorus, 1,600 on a comedy and 3,000 on various religious services.79 This is a
total of 16,400 drachmas over seven years, from the time the speaker turned eighteen years of
74 Peter Wilson,
The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 11-49.
Ober, “Wealthy Hellas.”
76
Wilson, 11-49.
77
ibid.
78
Vincent Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet: Public Taxation and Social Relations. (Baltimore, The John
Hopkins University Press: 1994), 114-118.
79
Lysias XXI, 1-5.
75
age until the age of twenty-six.
80
35
Lysias’ speaker also paid 36,000 drachmas for seven
trierachies. Along with other liturgies, this young citizen contributed some 63,600 drachmas for
liturgies. To put this into context, the deeds in which the speaker describes himself doing took
place between 411 and 404BCE.81400 people could afford 6000 drachmae a year for liturgies in
420BCE.82 The average wage for a skilled laborer between 432-412BCE was one drachma a day,
or 200 drachmae a year.83 In 408BCE citizens, metics and slaves building the Erechtheion were
all paid one and a half drachmas a day.84 By these figures, the speaker in Lysias’ speech paid
over forty-five times the average skilled laborer’s wages a year for liturgies.
In Homer’s epics, the wealthy men were almost all kings who provided for their
subjects. Kings provided protection and security, as well as nourishment and material goods. But
Athens had no kings, and so whatever the wealthy citizens did not provide for the demos, the
state had to provide as the benefactor of society. In a highly monetized society like classical
Athens, security, nourishment, and material goods were mainly obtained through exchanges
involving coinage. Since many citizens lived at or near the subsistence level, the state had to
develop means for those citizens without access to capital to gain the coinage needed to survive
in Attika. In the fourth century BCE, it would cost the most modest landless family of four 336
drachmas a year to live.85 A subsistence farmer would need less, as he could provide most of his
family’s food needs. The means the demos came up with for the poor to obtain the necessary
coinage for survival was not far from alms given by a wealthy benefactor to the poor.
80
ibid.
ibid
82
ibid.
83
Loomis, 253-254.
84
Austin and Vidal-Naqet, 303.
85
Amemiya, 68-78
81
36
The installment of payment for public service allowed poorer citizens to gain needed
capital for participating in their government or military. In 392BCE citizens received three obols-or one-half a drachma--for each assembly meeting attended.86 If a citizen was a member of the
council of 500 he was paid five obols a day in the fourth century BCE. In the 420sBCE, sitting
on a jury in the courts of Athens would earn a citizen three obols per session. A citizen would
receive two obols for attending the theater, and citizens who possessed fewer than 300 drachmas
and were unable to work received a welfare payment of two obols a day. Hoplites were paid one
drachma a day while on campaign, and regular foot soldiers received two obols a day.87 While it
was a novel idea to pay citizens for public service, the pay received was a trifle relative to the
income of the wealthy citizens and affluent metics. But it was enough to survive, and this was
another sphere of society in which metics afforded no competition; for while metics could serve
in the military or navy, they could not attend the assemblies, sit on juries, or receive welfare from
the state.
Citizens relying on public pay to make ends meet were as dependent on the state as the
common men were on the elite in the Iliad and Odyssey. Athenian citizens bought into this
ideology, and relied on the wealthy to redistribute their wealth through liturgies and the state to
pay them below working wages for political participation instead of using their political power to
create more economic opportunity for citizens. The demos could have legislated to limit the
amount of slave labor and metic economic activity used in Attika, thus creating more trade and
manufacturing opportunities, and in turn, more personal wealth for Athenian citizens. Of course,
it is not realistic to believe that the Athenians could have replaced slave labor with citizen labor,
86
Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae, The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (New York. Random House.
1938), 290. Amemiya, 72-74.
87
Thucydides, 3.17.4. Aristophanes, Wasps. The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (New York.
Random House, 1938).
37
but the Athenians never even made a move in that direction. Instead, they chose to be content
with subsistence farming and living off of state pay for political activity. Literate education, with
its heavy use of the Homeric epics, helped promote and reinforce the ideology that expecting the
wealthy of society to provide for the masses was preferable to policies that would create more
opportunities for citizens to obtain the kinds of jobs that would enhance their personal wealth
and allow for economic mobility.
The idea of expecting the wealthy elite to provide public services such as liturgies was
not new to the Athenians in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. In fact, the idea is found
throughout the Iliad and Odyssey. For example, in book VII of the Odyssey, Odysseus arrives at
the land of king Alkinoos, lost and destitute. The king abides by the laws of hospitality and
harbors Odysseus, giving him food and clothing, even though he does not yet know who
Odysseus is. Alkinoos sees something noble in Odysseus, and not only gives him food, but also
provides a feast for all of his nobles--men who could afford their own feasts, but it was the role
of the wealthiest--the king--to provide the nourishment and entertainment on such occasions.
Alkinoos sacrifices twelve sheep for the feast, costly to say the least. After eating, Alkinoos’
bard recites tales of the Trojan War, making Odysseus weep. Alkinoos sees Odysseus’ tears, and
to lift his spirits sponsors an athletic competition.88 When things get heated during the
competition, Alkinoos again steps in to calm the situation and brings forth his best bard to
entertain the crowd.89 By the end of the episode, Odysseus has revealed his true identity, and
Alkinoos swears to send Odysseus home, but not before he commands his nobles--the elite of his
country--to go home and bring back some valuable gift so that Odysseus might return home
88
89
Odyssey, 8.1-110. Also see Finley’s World of Odysseus for more discussion on noblesse oblige.
Ibid, 8.247-268.
38
surrounded by riches. In these passages, king Alkinoos plays the role of benefactor not only to
90
Odysseus, but to his people as well. He supplies the feast. He supplies the after-dinner
entertainment. When his guest needs his spirit lifted, he sponsors games for diversion. When the
competition between what the king thinks is a poor man--Odysseus--and a wealthy man--his own
subject named Seasearch--he again steps in and calms the situation with the diversion of
entertainment. When it was time to bestow gifts upon Odysseus, the king called upon his elite to
help increase the size of the gift. This seems highly metaphorical of how the Athenians balanced
the tension between the wealthy minority and the poor majority. In Athens, the state--in the stead
of a king--supplied the masses the means for nourishment and security through payment for
public service and welfare. Sacrifices, games, and entertainment were provided for all citizens,
and the wealthy were asked to help supply the needed material wealth for these expenditures.
Although the Homeric epics were written down 250 years before the formation of the Athenian
democracy, such traditional values continued to be reinforced even in Classical Athens through
literate education, in which the works of Homer played a central role.
Most scholars believe the demos felt that by forcing the wealthy to pay for entertainment
and war efforts, the demos was somehow exhibiting power over the wealthy.91 But this was not
the case. The demos was simply adhering to the values found in Homer and Aesop, including the
idea that the wealthy and powerful must take care of those of lesser status as an obligation of
their higher status. Of course in the Epics, the wealthy provided for the masses out of tradition,
whereas in Athens the demos legislated it. This is an important fact, as the demos chose to
enforce this custom by law, instead of legislating a more equitable economic environment. It was
not beyond the Athenians to create new forms of societal institutions. Indeed, the notion of a
90
91
Ibid, 13.1-28.
Finley, Ancient Economy,152; Engen Honor and Profit, 46-47; Ober, Mass and Elite, 199.
39
democracy was revolutionary in the period. The demos could have passed laws limiting slave
labor, prohibiting monopolies, or even more providing for public works projects in order to
create more personal wealth among the citizenry. Instead, they chose to adhere to long standing
values, learned and promoted though literate education, to redistribute the enormous wealth of
the elite. A rather cynical view of the relationship between the elite and the demos is found in the
following Aesop fable:
Once, oxen were looking to kill the butchers, holding the skill hostile to them; and so
they were gathering for battle, already sharpening their horns. A very old one of them,
having plowed much earth, said, “On one hand, these ones kill and slaughter us with a
skilled hand and without injurious treatment, but on the other hand, if we should fall unto
unskilled men, it will be a double death. For the slaughter will not be lacking, but you
will wish for a butcher!”[The one who hastens to flee the hostile existence might not see
advancement, but might discover something worse.]
(Author’s translation)92
The relationship between the Oxen and the butchers seems highly metaphorical of the
relationship between the wealthy and the masses. “The elite might harm the demos overall, but it
could be worse” seems to be what is implied in this passage. The poor masses needed the
wealthy to provide what they could not provide for themselves. By performing liturgies, the
wealthy made life for the masses more tolerable. They gave the demos distraction from the toils
of everyday life through the presentations of public and religious festivals. Thus, the demos
realized the elite were in control of economic activity, but as long as they provided enough
distraction and welfare for the masses, they would not upset the balance. The above fable by
Aesop could have had a hand in creating this mindset.
Many wealthy citizens performed their liturgies without resistance; many others tried to
get out of their liturgical duties. The demos would not be denied the right to insist that the
92
Aesop, #41.
40
wealthy pay for important functions of the polis and developed the notion of antidosis, in which
one citizen could challenge another citizen’s claim to be too poor to perform his liturgical duty.
Through antidosis the challenger exchanged all property with the defendant, and whoever was
found to have the larger estate after the trade had to pay for the liturgy.93 This was a strong
deterrent to avoiding one’s liturgical duty, but it is not clear how much the wealthy elite really
wanted to avoid these public services. These liturgies allowed the wealthy to maintain their
wealth without strident opposition from the demos, so long as they performed their liturgical
obligations.94 In addition, these liturgies promoted the same elitist values taught through
elementary education, as they were paid for, and produced by the wealthy citizens of Athens.
These men were educated in the Athenian manner, and thus elitist values dominate the content of
the plays and rituals performed. In effect, the demos forced the wealthy to pay for public events
that further promoted the very values that limited the Athenian citizenry’s opportunity for
upward economic mobility. For example, many of the characters of the Greek tragedies come
from Greek legend, such as Jason, the famous Greek adventurer. In Euripides’ Medea, Jason puts
aside his barbarian wife in favor of raising his social status by marrying the princess of Corinth.
Medea retaliates in a brutal fashion, and thus epitomizes Athenian attitudes in regards to societal
values. Jason feels he must make a marriage bond with a wealthy Greek woman in order to have
any status in Greek society. He will receive the benefits of citizenship in Corinth, and his sons
will not grow up exiles. Thus, he justifies the putting aside of his wife.95 These are very elitist
values, and show the importance of birth status in Greek society. While the play is set in Corinth,
the play was written and performed for an Athenian audience, and thus expresses values that
93
Christ, 148-169.
Ober, Mass and Elite, 200.
95
Euripides. Medea Diane Arnson Svarlien Trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2008), 533-595.
94
41
would have related to Athenian society. The racist values found in the singling out of Medea as a
barbarian speak directly to how superior Athenian citizens felt they were over foreigners. Again
values such as these affected economic activity in that they allowed citizens to believe it was
better to be Athenian than non-Athenian, no matter how poor they were.
In addition to reinforcing values that helped distract the demos from taking advantage of
more lucrative economic opportunities, the liturgical system more than likely did not benefit the
demos economically at all. While the demos might have received needed distraction and nutrition
through the liturgical system, the economic activity generated did not help the average citizen in
his day-to-day economic life. Some might argue that with the food and entertainment provided
through liturgies, the demos was actually gaining wealth in the guise of needed nutrition and
entertainment, as the common citizen would not have had to pay for the food and entertainment
provided. But I believe this opinion is overstated, for one must assume that entertainment always
has a cost involved. This is a modern notion, and should be viewed with caution. Of course the
large public theater productions were extremely costly, but these were more of a sign of power
than a necessity for human entertainment. The portion of food provided at religious festivals
would most likely have been small, as there were many to feed. Trying to live off of state pay for
political activity and the benefits of liturgies would have been a meager existence. The demos
might have felt “richer” for having a society so rich in cultural activity, but at the end of the day,
over one third of the citizenry lived one bad harvest away from destitution. Yet the demos
seemed content with this socio-economic environment. The values learned through literate
education created an ideology that promoted a disdain for trade and wage labor, while preferring
the hard, poor life of subsistence farming subsidized by state pay for political activity and the
benefits of noblesse oblige.
42
An excellent example of the contradictory economic musings of an Athenian who was
educated in the Athenian manner is the historian Xenophon. Born around 430BCE Xenophon
would have learned to read and write in the manner described previously, thus many of his
values and ideas would have come from Homer and Aesop. In his Ways and Means, written in
354BCE, Xenophon explores different ways in which the state could raise revenues without
exacting tribute from other poleis. Tribute was very important to the Athenian economy. In
478BCE Athens collected 2,760,000 drachmas from her allies in tribute. In 431BCE--at the start
of the Peloponnesian War--that tribute was up to 3,600,000 drachmas. The highest amount of
tribute came in 425BCE when Athens collected 4,656,000 drachmas from her allies.96 Athens
lost the Peloponnesian War, and from 405 to 378BCE tribute was abolished. This obviously
would have had a major affect on the Athenian economy, but after twenty-seven years of
rebuilding, instead of trying something different, Athens decided to resume collecting tribute
from her allies, veiled as war contributions. Because Athens never collected the same amount of
tribute as she did in the fifth century BCE, the Athenians needed to find new means to maintain
their economy. Xenophon introduced ideas such as building houses within the city walls and
inviting wealthy men from other poleis to come to Athens to live as metics in them, publicly
honoring metics and xenoi (foreigners that Athens recognize as “friends” of the state) for good
deeds done for the state, and the purchase of slaves by the state to work silver mines, from which
all of the proceeds would go to the state treasury. He also suggests that different kinds of crops
be brought to Attika to be grown, as the climate was well suited for all manner of agriculture. In
96
A.M. Andreades, History of Greek Public Finance, Vol.1, (Harvard University Press: 1933), 309. Amemiya, 92.
43
addition to farming, Xenophon suggests the land could produce revenue by quarrying stone from
the rocky soil.97
As one can see, all of Xenophon’s ideas reflect the values discussed in this paper. The
importance of birth status comes out in his ideas about using the land to gain revenue. Only
citizens could own land in Attika, and so the idea of gaining revenue from the land would have
appealed to the poorer landowners. But while his ideas have merit, none of them would have
been achievable for the majority of the demos. To import crops from other locations would have
had a considerable cost, and quarrying stone in the classical world would have taken a
considerable amount of human labor. Only the wealthy citizens would have been able to afford
to import new crops or supply the labor needed for stone quarrying--slave or otherwise. While
the Athenians had always quarried stone in Attica, the financial outlay to expand this enterprise
would have been extremely costly, and thus, would have limited who could have entered into
this economic activity. His other ideas completely restrict citizens from helping improve Athens’
economic situation from the nature of the suggestions. Enticing wealthy metics to Athens in
order to tax them and buying slaves to work the silver mines only helps the poorer citizens by
collecting revenue so it can be redistributed through payment for public service. Because of his
education, Xenophon could not get past the notion that the wealthiest in a society, in this case the
state itself, should act as benefactor to the poor. It was this particular notion that allowed the
demos to be content with subsistence farming and small payments from the state for public
service.
97
Xenophon. Economics Xenophontis opera omnia, vol. 2, 2nd ed. (Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1921 repr. 1971).
Perseus Project. Accessed January 13, 2011. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
44
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, throughout the history of the Democracy of Athens one thing remained
consistent: no matter how much wealth flowed into Athens, the majority of the citizenry
remained living at or near the subsistence level. In other classical civilizations this would not be
surprising, but the demos of Athens held considerable power. At any time they could have
demanded economic reforms in the guise of land redistribution, permanent taxation on the
income of the wealthy, restrictions on the amount of metic and slave labor used in Attika, and so
on. But they never did. Even when forced to find new avenues of revenue, the demos seemed
limited by traditional economic values taught through literate education. This paper has
attempted to support the hypothesis that the literate education that classical Athenians received
helped keep the majority of them poor. While literacy rates were undoubtedly lower than in
modern societies, literacy--and by extension literate education--had a major impact on Athenian
economic activity. The poor citizens of Athens were made to feel content with their lots in life
through the values learned from their origin myths, Homer, and Aesop. The notion of birth
status--justified through the origin myth of the Athenian people and Homer’s epics--helped keep
Athenians as subsistence farmers to their own detriment by convincing them that they were
special by fact of birth, and that landed wealth is best. Aesop’s fables helped poor Athenians
accept their poverty by promoting the value of knowing one’s place in society, and the disastrous
results if one over-reaches one’s limits. Athenians seemed to have taken these lessons to heart,
for even as Athens was the most powerful and wealthiest polis in the Aegean Sea, one third of
common citizens lived day-to-day just as poor as other Greeks in other poleis, though they did
benefit from social institutions such as state pay for political activity and welfare for the
extremely poor and orphans. The high rate of literate education in Athens seemed to have hurt
45
the demos economically more than it helped it. The more literate education the demos received,
the less creative and democratic their political decisions became.
This is not to say that education is undesirable. On the contrary, if anything this study
should help prove that literate education indeed does have a significant impact on economic
activity. By studying classical Athenian education--and the values learned through it--modern
scholars can assess the values taught in modern schools, and perhaps have some insight into the
correlation between education and economy. One further line of investigation that could make a
significant contribution to this discussion would be how the actual method of classical Athenian
literate education--the copying and re-copying of texts--could have affected the critical thinking
skills of the demos. Rote memorization has become taboo in American education because it does
not teach the student how to problem-solve. Perhaps this could also have been the case in
classical Athens. But whether or not the method used to teach reading and writing affected
problem-solving skills in classical Athens is a topic too large to tackle in the scope of this thesis
project. It must suffice to say that the values learned through literate education--such as the
importance of birth status, the role of the wealthy as benefactors of society, and the primacy of
farming as the noblest profession--helped limit the lucrative economic activity of the majority of
classical Athenian citizens.
46
Bibliography
Primary Documents
Aesop. Babrius and Phaedrus. Fables: Babrius and Phaedrus Ed. Ben Perry. Suffolk: St
Edmundsbury: Press Ltd, 1990, retrieved from
http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/babrius/index.htm.
Aristophanes. Acharnians. The Eleven Comedies. Anonymous. New York. Liveright. 192?.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu..
---Ecclesiazusae. The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. New York. Random
House. 1938. Perseus Project. Web http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
--- Wasps. The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. New York. Random House.
1938Aristotle. Athenian Politeia, ed. Kenyon. Oxford. 1920. Perseus Project. Web
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
Aristotle. “Economics.” Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 18. translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge,
MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1944. Perseus Project.
Web http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
---“Politics.” Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 21, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA,
Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1944. Perseus Project. Web
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
Demosthenes. Demosthenis.Orationes. ed. S. H. Butcher. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1903.
Euripides. Medea. Diane Arnson Svarlien. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2008.
Herodotus, Histories. Trans. A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
Hesiod. Works and Days. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by
Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Works and Days. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press;
London,
William
Heinemann
Ltd.
1914.
Perseus
47
Web
Project.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
Homer. The Iliad. Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920.
Perseus Project. Web http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
--- The Odyssey. Samuel Butler, trans. Persus Project. Web. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, trans. George Norlin.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Plato. “Republic.” Platonis Opera, ed. John Burnet. Oxford University Press. 1903. Perseus
Project. Web http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
--- “Laws.” Platonis Opera, ed. John Burnet. Oxford University Press. 1903. Perseus Project.
Web http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
Plutarch. The Parallel Lives by Plutarch published in Vol. II of the Loeb Classical Library
edition, 1914.
Perseus
Project.
Web.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Themistocles*.html
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.
Xenophon. Economics. Xenophontis opera omnia, vol. 2, 2nd ed. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1921
(repr. 1971). Perseus Project. Web. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu
Secondary Sources
Adkins, Lesley and Roy A. Adkins. Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece. New York:
Facts
on File Inc., 1997.
Amemiya, Takeshi. Economy and Economics of Ancient Greece. New York:
2007.
Routledge,
48
Blackwell, Christopher W. “Athenian Democracy: a brief overview,” in Adriaan Lanni, ed.,
“Athenian Law in its Democratic Context” (Center for Hellenic Studies On-line
Discussion Series). Republished in C.W. Blackwell, ed., Dēmos: Classical Athenian
Democracy (A. Mahoney and R. Scaife, edd., The Stoa: a consortium for electronic
publication in the humanities[www.stoa.org]) edition of February 28, 2003. Contact:
[email protected].
Cohen, Edward. Athenian Economy and Society: A Banking Perspective. New ed. New Jersey:
Princeton University Press. 1997.
--- The Athenian Nation. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 2002.
Christ, Matthew R. “Liturgy Avoidance and Antidosis in Classical Athens” Transactions of the
American
Philological
Association
(1974-),
Vol.
120
(1990),
pp.
147-169.
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.csusm.edu
Crosby, Margaret. “The Leases of the Laureion Mines.”
Hesperia: The Journal of the
American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Vol. 19,No. 3, The American
Excavations in the Athenian Agora: Fortieth Report (Jul. - Sep., 1950),pp. 189-297
Depew, David and Takis Poulakos, Isocrates and Civic Education. Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2004.
Dover, Kenneth James. Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle. Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1974.
Ehrenberg, Victor. The People of Aristophanes. New York: Schocken Books, 1962.
Engen, Darel Tai. ‘Ancient Greenbacks’: Athenian Owls, the Law of Nikophon, and
Greek Economy." Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Vol. 54, No.
4 (2005).
the
49
--- “Democracy, Knowledge, and the Hidden Economy of Athens.” The Journal of Economic
Asymmetries. Co ed. for Europe, GeorgeC. Bitros. Vol.
8 No.1,
2011. 93-104.
--- Honor and Profit: Athenian Trade Policy and the Economy and Society of
Greece,
415-
May,
2011.
307B.C.E. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2010.
---
“The
Economy
of
Ancient
Greece.”
EH.net.
Accessed
5
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/engen.greece
Finley, M.I. The Ancient Economy. Berkley: University of California Press, 1999
--- The World of Odysseus. New York: Penguin Books, 1991
Gabrielsen, Vincent. Financing the Athenian Fleet: Public Taxation and Social Relations.
Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Glotz, Gustave Ancient Greece at Work: An Economic History of Greece the Homeric Period to
the Roman Conquest. Philadelphia, PA :Coronet Books Inc, 1987
Harris, William V. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Hunt, Peter. “Arming Slaves and Helots in Classical Athens.” in Arming Slave: From Classical
times to the Modern Age. Christopher Leslie Brown and Philip D. Morgan eds. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Joyal, Mark, Iain McDougall, and J. C. Yardley, Greek and Roman Education: A Sourcebook.
Routledge Sourcebooks for the Ancient World. London/New York: Routledge, 2009.
Lape, Susan. Race and Citizen Identity in the Classical Athenian Democracy. Cambridge/New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Loomis, William T. Wages, Welfare Costs, and Inflation in classical Athens. Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press, 1998
50
Marrou, H.I. A History of Education in Antiquity George Lamb, Tans. Madison: University of
Wisconsin, 1982.
Morgan ,T.J. “Literate Education in Classical Athens.” The Classical Quarterly, New Series,
Vol. 49, No. 1 (1999).
Morris, Ian. “The Athenian Economy Twenty Years after The Ancient Economy,” Classical
Philology Vol. 89, No. 4, Oct., 1994
--- “The Community against the Market in Classical Athens,” in Duncan and Tandy, From
Political Economy to Athropology. New York: Blackrose Books, 1994.
Naquet, Austin and Vidal. Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece: An Introduction Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1977.
Ober, Josiah. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Retoric, Ideology, and the power of the
people. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989.
--- “Wealthy Hellas,” Journal of Economic Asymmetries Vol. 8 No.1 pp.1-38., 2011. Athens
University of Economics and Business. http://www.econ.uoa.gr.
Pickard-Cambridge, Sir Arthur. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. New York: Claredon Press,
1988.
Powell, Barry, B. Classical Myth. 5th Ed. New Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007.
Robb, Kevin. Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece. New York: Oxford University Press,
1994.
Silver Institute, The. Old World Silver (4000 BC - 1500 AD). Web May 22, 2011.
http://www.silverinstitute.org
“Stage Theory of Cognitive Development (Piaget).” Learning-theroies.com. Feb. 2012. Feb. 13, 2012. Web.
http://www.learning-theories.com/piagets-stage-theory-of-cognitive-development.html
51
Tandy, David W. Warriors into Traders. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997.
Thomas, Rosalind. Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Too, Yun Lee. The Pedagogical Contract: The Economies of Teaching and Learning in the
Ancient World. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2003.
Webb, Ruth. “The Progymnasmata as Practice.” Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity.
Trans. Yun Lee Too. Leiden: Brill, 2001.
Weber, Max. Economy and Society: an outline of interpretive sociology. Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1978.
Whitehead, David. The Ideology of the Athenian Metic. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Library, 1977.
Wilson, Peter. The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia. Cambridge; Cambridge University
Press, 2000.