ABSTRACT
Whilst the great gene were monopolizing the growing power of the city, what was happening to all those who by their birth were relegated to an inferior position ? The artisans “ worked for the public,” and the thetes, hardly distinguishable from slaves, could scarcely hope ever to better their lot. As for the peasants they saw their position grow worse from day to day. The patches of land which they cultivated in the sweat of their brow were swallowed up in the midst of great estates. The land of the nobles, protected against all alienation by the kinsman’s right of buying back an inheritance, was always being extended as a result of encroachments upon communal pasture grounds, the purchase of new territory, the realization of mortgages. Thus was formed in certain cities, above even the knights, an aristocracy of great land-owners such as the class of pentacosiomedimni in Attica. On the other hand, although the villeins yielded themselves to the stern law of labour, “ assigned to men by the gods,” 1 they could barely live. The wisest desired only one son in order that their land might not be split up and their children left poverty-stricken. 2 These succeeded, if circumstances were favourable, in forming a middle class of cultivators, possessing their yoke of oxen for ploughing and capable in case of war of arming themselves at their own expense. But the majority lived in privation. In bad years they were compelled to borrow from the neighbouring lord the few medimni of grain necessary for their subsistence and for their sowing; they had to return them with interest. Once caught in these toils they could not win free. The insolvent debtor fell into the hands of his creditors, himself, his wife and his children. And the most hopeless feature in the condition of the lower classes was that every man who did not form part of a privileged genos was delivered over without defence to the justice of grasping and irresponsible lords. For the “ de-vourers of gifts ” there was no more lucrative source of revenue than iniquity. 1 Hesiod, witness and victim of “ crooked ” sentences, could only call upon Zeus the protector of Dike 2 and recommend to the unhappy wretches who had fallen into the claws of the oppressors the resignation of the nightingale caught in the talons of the hawk. 3
