By the standards of modern commercial agriculture, archaic Greek cultivation was far from intensive, but in comparison with the practices of cultivation prevailing in the Mediterranean before the twentieth century it was quite demanding. Biennial fallow was the norm, i. e. agricultural land was left bare every other year, but archaic farmers adopted the most intensive form of these low-intensity regimes.18 Repeated ploughing in spring and summer, a long ploughing and sowing season in autumn, and careful manuring improved moisture-levels, fertility and friability, and allowed a farmer with a single span of oxen to cultivate some 10-15 ha (25-40 acres), when his modern counterpart could only manage 4-6 ha (10-15 acres).19 Viticulture, the other main activity mentioned by Hesiod, is inherently labor-intensive, especially when it relies on artificial irrigation, as according to Homer it did. The construction of terraces and enclosure walls placed considerable additional demands on the workforce.20
On the other hand, animal husbandry, a low-intensity element of the agricultural regime, was practiced on a notably large scale in early Greece, at least by the elite. Hesiod frequently alludes to the rearing of sheep and goats, and occasionally cows and pigs.21 Homer’s Odysseus owns thousands of animals, and it is these rather than his farms which are cited as proof of exceptional wealth. Livestock were a major prestige symbol, and were therefore reared in the greatest possible numbers: when they exceeded the limits of what local resources could sustain, arrangements were made for the animals to be pastured abroad.22
Some scholars argue that the economy of Greece in the “Dark Age” was mainly pastoral, and that a fundamental shift to a predominantly agricultural regime occurred in the eighth century. The much greater emphasis on livestock in Homer than in Hesiod is cited as evidence for this, but the contrast is a matter of poetic emphasis rather than historical reality: Homer conjures up a picture of wealth on a “heroic” scale by describing vast herds and constant feasts of meat, but leaves no doubt that the staple foods are grain and wine rather than meat; Hesiod preaches his gospel of work by concentrating on cereals and vines as the most labor-intensive crops, but reveals that livestock are reared and eaten as well. There is some archaeological evidence that cattle grew in importance in the early Dark Age and had declined again by 800 bc, but this is hardly enough to support the idea of a fundamental economic change.23 The tradition that “the livestock of the rich” were resented by the population of Megara and slaughtered by the popular leader Theagenes, ca. 630 bc (Aristotle, Politics 1305a8-28), suggests that large-scale animal husbandry was a prestige enterprise which continued well into the archaic period.
The bulk of the labor force employed by the rich consisted of slaves. Homer and Hesiod poetically call the workers dmoes rather than douloi, the usual term for slaves, and Homer credits them with considerable independence in managing farms and herds, which has led some scholars to argue that they were dependants rather than outright slaves. Yet dmoes were bought and sold, and generally treated as chattels (Fisher 1993: 10-14). In the classical period Sparta, Thessaly, and Crete drew their main labor force from “enslaved” local populations, rather than from imported chattel slaves, and there are hints that in the archaic period this type of forced labor - whether imposed on the vulnerable poor or on defeated enemy populations - was more widespread, an important alternative to chattel slavery (van Wees 2003).
Hired laborers on annual contracts formed a smaller but common part of the work force. They received food and clothes, and at the end of their term of employment a wage (misthos) in kind, later perhaps in cash. For Homer, the lot of the hired laborer was particularly miserable, at the mercy of unscrupulous employers who might resort to threats and violence and send him away without payment.24 Tenancy and sharecropping were probably additional ways to raise a labor force. The hektemoroi, “sixth-parters,” attested in Attica are best explained as free men who cultivated other men’s land in exchange for a mere one-sixth of the harvest, as opposed to a half share as is common in other share-cropping regimes (van Wees 1999a: 18-24): another example of extreme exploitation of labor, slave or free.
The practice of forcing debtors to “work off” their obligations, so common throughout history, may also have existed in archaic Greece, although it is barely attested. For all its warnings about avoiding debt, there is no sign in Works and Days that the repayment of loans, let alone the payment of interest, could be enforced by any sanction other than the refusal of further credit (349-51, 448-57). By about 600 bc, however, the situation had changed dramatically. In Megara, people protested against paying interest, while in Athens and elsewhere, non-repayment of loans was punished by selling the debtor or his family as slaves.25 One would expect many debtors to avoid this ultimate sanction by agreeing to work for their creditors as “debt-bondsmen,” but the sources make no explicit mention of this type of labor.26
The idea that loans could carry interest and that (re)payment could be legally enforced evidently only emerged in the course of the seventh century and is tangible evidence that competition for wealth was rapidly escalating at the time. Rather than remain content with the gratitude of their borrowing neighbors, the rich increasingly sought to make a profit from the extension of credit. The same process would account for more severe exploitation of labor through the creation of serf-like statuses in some parts of Greece and the creation of new kinds of dependent and free labor in others, including Athens’ sixth-parters and perhaps debt-bondsmen. The influential thesis that a spectrum of dependent statuses, including debt-bondage, was a legacy of the Dark Age, which declined in the course of the archaic period to be replaced by a sharp division between free men and slaves - as argued by Moses Finley in the 1960s - is thus probably wrong, and certainly has little basis in the ancient evidence.27
World History
