ABSTRACT
At Athens, men’s belief in the natural superiority of the Greek male provided ideological justification for a male-dominated culture and for a gender-based segregation of human functions.2 But a key aspect of the Athenian concept of masculinity (andreia) was ‘the obligation to maintain an independence of occupation . . . and at all costs to avoid seeming to work in a “slavish” way for another’ (Fisher 1998a: 70; similarly: Cartledge 1997: 148-9; Fisher 1993; cf. Lucian Apologia 10). Accordingly, Athenian men, although self-employed in a great variety of occupations, avoided work that required regular and repetitive service for a single employer on an ongoing basis over a continuing period – what we would term a ‘job’. Strengthened by an elite male idealization of leisurely dedication to cultural and social activities (Stocks 1936; de Ste. Croix 1981: 114-17; Fisher 1998b: 84-6), and exacerbated perhaps by the Athenians’ tendency to construe work not as an economic function but as a mechanism of self-definition (Vernant 1971: 2.17; cf. Schwimmer 1979; von Reden 1992; Loraux 1995: 44-58), this disdain for salaried employment prevented men from obtaining business experience and skills through employment outside their oikos (‘household’). As a result, businesses were largely dependent on the work and skills of household members; ‘ “firm” and private household’ became, in Moses Finley’s words, ‘one and the same’ (Finley 1999a: 69).
