ABSTRACT
COMPULSORY CULTIVATION In Athens you could receive a summons to appear in court charged with argia, often translated by 'laziness'. In ancient days this crime was punished by death, but in the Classical period there was a fine of 100 drachmas for the first two offences; in the case of a third ruling by the court the penalty of atimia was incurred. It is uncertain what constituted the crime, as the word argia is ambiguous, and no speech made before a court dealing with this type of trial has been preserved. According to the way the law was interpreted by an orator of the fourth century, the issue was the fact that idleness was forbidden (Demosthenes 57.32), but since this does not tally with what we otherwise know about the Athenian attitude towards work, it has been suggested that to omit trying to bring oneself out of poverty was prohibited.196 But it seems that we are in fact dealing with an old law stipulating that it was everyone's duty to cultivate his land. This is the interpretation favoured by Theophrastus who thought that it was introduced by Peisistratos with a dual purpose, partly for the purpose of having land cultivated to a greater extent or more intensively, and partly so as to get people away from the city (Plutarch, Solon 31.5). Others ascribed the law to Dracon or Solon (Plutarch, Solon 31.5. Harpocration, s.v. eranizontes). Either would be understandable. The law may be viewed as a parallel to that which stipulated that it was not allowed to squander one's paternal inheritance (Aischines 1.94-105). Or it could be a codicil to Peisistratos' law which stipulated a duty of a fixed fraction of the agricultural produce (Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 16.4).
