ABSTRACT
THE precarious nature of Peisistratus’ hold on power is shown by the fact that he was twice ousted by his rivals; on the first occasion within a year of his original coup d’ état. Presumably the support he enjoyed from the city population was fitful and unreliable, since no dramatic solution of their economic disabilities was readily available to him. A possible, perhaps an obvious line of policy lay in confiscation of land, and resettlement on small allotments: whether Peisistratus tried to carry out such a policy during the early stages of his regime we do not know; it had, in any case, fatal drawbacks as far as the immediate future was concerned. While the Tyranny was still shaky there were obvious political disadvantages in sharpening opposition and welding disaffected sections of the community into a solid opposition: from the economic point of view such a policy was likely to do more harm than good for some time to come: it was hardly likely to increase the food supply of Attica, on which the city was still mainly dependent, and in its operation, was almost certain to decrease it by adding an element of uncertainty and chaos to an already delicate and difficult situation: the number of large estates was limited and their acreage comparatively small; a resettlement scheme, even if successfully carried out, would satisfy only an insignificant percentage of the landless, while it drove into destitution, and violence, those who had been dispossessed. On the other hand it was by no means certain that the majority of the urban poor wanted to go back to the country: after their experience of city life many of them probably preferred to stay, and were prepared to back any leader who, they believed, could make available to them a livelihood in the city; if Peisistratus could not do this for them, another Tyrant might be found who could. A resettlement scheme could perhaps help to reduce urban poverty in the long run, but in this case the really fatal objection to it was that it required time to make its effects felt: on the other hand, to raise living standards in the city by providing employment or welfare payments was a task which demanded both time and money, and in both of these commodities Peisistratus was, for the moment, deficient.
