Work and Agriculture

Sources on agriculture - early poetry

• In sources, men reared and worked with domestic animals.
• Homer: mentions ploughing, winnowing and threshing in the Iliad. In Odyssey, have description of Laertes' development of a farmstead.
• Hesiod's poem Works and Days contains important ideas:
  • Farming is main work and is done by men.
  • Women are 'naturally' fitted to work in the house e.g. textiles.
  • Work, particularly farming, is hard and is result of the end of the Golden Age and punishment by Zeus (nature no longer spontaneously produces food).
  • Religious and social calendars of city-states are closely linked to the patterns of the agricultural year.
• Hard work is seen as an unwelcome necessity imposed by Zeus.

Agriculture

• Land economically of greatest value and status in terms of political, social and symbolic power.
• Commonest cause of small scale warfare was territory.
• Most Greeks in most states actively involved in agriculture - most were small farmers, 'peasants'.
• Much of the land was owned by the propertied rich.
• Farming strategies included:
  • Fallowing
  • Alternating cereals and legumes
  • Multi-cropping on same field.
  • Owning a number of small farms in different parts of a territory.
• The 3 most important products were cereals, olives and the vine.
• Hilly ground was terraced.
• Kept grazing and working animals - used to work land, produce manure and for food, sometimes for leather.
• Pigs were an important part of animal husbandry.
• Workforce for farms included many slaves in Athens, Corinth, Chios and other major city-states.
• In Sparta, subject Greeks, the helots, formed major labour force for farming.
• In Athens, seems most farmland was controlled by the propertied rich, managed in separate units. Sometimes leased land to tenants but all made use of slaves.
• The olive was fundamental to Greek agriculture and became symbol of the identity of Athens.

Trade

• Surplus agricultural produce was exchanged for imported necessities e.g. metals.
• When there was a poor harvest, staple cereals may be imported.
• From early 6th century coinage was introduced making exchanges easier.
• Money changers/bankers exchanged between the many coinages used by different city-states.
• Markets were held in the agorai.
• Most traders operated on a small scale, owning one ship.
• A gulf existed between the economic worlds of farming and trade, as traders were mostly metics so couldn't own land.
• Quarrying and mining were found in abundance in some city states.

Crafts and manufacturing

• Craft industries seem to have involved smaller working groups - often a craftsman with a few slaves producing sculpture and pottery.
• Cottage industries - owner and slaves living in the house where work was done.
• Textile production mostly done by women in the household - either do themselves or supervise slaves.
• Poorer women might work in the fields or sell their husband's produce in a shop or market stall.
• Some manufacturing workshops were on a larger scale: many manufacturing slaves (particularly in Athens) lived and worked independently in shops/houses.
• Many slaves involved in trade also lived and worked independently.

Slavery and work ideology

• Slave or serf labour in nearly all sectors of city-state economies - affected attitudes to work of free population.
• Poorer farmers, craftsmen and retailers hoped to buy their own slaves.
• The groups above would not wish to engage in slavish work i.e. working for another person long term.
• Farmers looked down on craftsmen and traders (weren't land owners)
• Wealthy looked down more on those in manufacture/trade than on poor farmers.
• Only the very poor would undertake wage labour as this had slave connotations.