Millett, Hesiod and His World PDF

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HESIOD AND HIS WORLD

Author(s): PAUL MILLETT
Source: Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society , 1984, NEW SERIES, No. 30
(210) (1984), pp. 84-115
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44698806
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HESIOD AND HIS WORLD*
Recent interest in Hesiod has tended to concentrate on three broad aspects of his
poems: their language, structure and myth. By contrast, their value as historical
documents has been persistently underrated. This is a striking omission, as by
general consent we have in the Works & Days a written source, giving detailed
information about life in the early archaic period, for which virtually no other
documentary evidence exists. Yet by comparison with the repeated and painstaking
investigation of Homer as history, or even the poetry of Solon, Hesiod has been
largely ignored. 1
Although it would be unrealistic to pretend that historians have never shown any
interest in the Works & Days (see section VI), the use they have made of the poem
has generally been either perfunctory and descriptive, or selective and focussing on
isolated points. Typical of the former category is the treatment of Hesiod in the
textbook on geometric Greece by Coldstream' (1977). In his introduction,
Coldstream warns the reader that the evidence for the ninth and eighth centuries is
predominantly archaeological, but he does add a qualification ( 18): 'On the other
hand, Hesiod's Works & Days offers an authentic picture of a farmer's life in
Boeotia at the close of the eighth century', and ina laterchapter(313): 'The hard life
of a geometric farmer is vividly described by the poet Hesiod.' In light of these
promising statements, it is disappointing to find that Coldstream's actual
discussion of this authentic account of geometric agriculture covers less than one
page (313-4), most of which is given over to a simple summary of Hesiod's
autobiography. Similarly false hopes are raised by Bum's book which is actually
called The World of Hesiod ( 1936). The title is misleading, because the book is in
reality a general study of what Burn labels 'The Greek Middle Ages' (900-700 B.C.),
and Hesiod is only a small part of the story. The position has admittedly improved
with the appearance of the textbook on early Greece by Murray ( 1980). Here, the
evidence of Homer and Hesiod is conflated to present a composite picture of society
at the very end of the Dark Age (38-68). It is, however, intended as no more than a
brief sketch, with the bulk of the material being taken from Homer. 2
What is missing from the literature is the systematic investigation of Hesiod as
history; that is, an attempt to identify and to reconstruct in detail the underlying
institutions of Hesiodic society. The obvious model for this type of exercise is

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HESIOD AND HIS WORLD 85
Finley's World of Odysseus ( 1977), described in its preface as being (9): 'a picture of
a society, based on a close reading of the Iliad and Odyssey, supported by study of
other societies to help elucidate obscure points in the poems.' This leads to chapter
headings which include: 'Wealth and labour', 'Household, kin, and community',
and 'Morals and values'. Finley's words bear repeating, because this is precisely the
kind of analysis from which the Works & Days can benefit, though on a necessarily
reduced scale and with differences of emphasis. Apart from the relative shortness of
the poem, the world of Hesiod is narrower in scope than the world of Odysseus.
Nevertheless, much of what Hesiod says is so concentrated and suggestive that it
cannot be covered adequately in a single paper. My study is therefore restricted to
what I consider to be the central problem of the world of Hesiod: what type of
society is the poet describing? After a brief but unavoidable consideration of some
preliminary problems, I will try to show that the Works & Days depicts a peasant
society. The paper then closes with a consideration of how this assessment affects
the status of the Works & Days as an historical source.
II
Before tackling the major issue of the nature of Hesiodic society, it is necessary at
least to consider a series of introductory questions. By analogy with Homeric
scholarship, these problems may be referred to collectively as the 'Hesiodic
Question'. For example, was Hesiod a real person and, if so, when did he live? Was
the author of the poems an oral poet, and did he use writing in the composition of
his poems - either directly, or indirectly by dictation? Was the same poet the author
of both the Works & Days and the Theogony, or just the Works & Days?3 In their
own right, these are no doubt important questions, but from the point of view of
this paper, most of them can be either sidestepped or dealt with summarily. Suffice
it to say that there appears to be general agreement that the two major poems
attributed to Hesiod are oral poetry after the manner of the Homeric epics
(Edwards (1971) 23-100; Nagy (1982) 69-72; Janka (1982) 44); the question of the
use of writing in the composition of the poems is more problematical. 4 There is also
widespread agreement that the two poems were composed in the decades on either
side of 700 B.C. This broad date is arrived at by what might be called, again by
Homeric analogy, 'objective dating criteria' within the poems (Walcot (1966) 104-
30; West (1966) 40-8; Edwards (1971) 190-208). It may be noted that although
scholars approximately agree over the date of Hesiod, they tend to disagree with the
validity of each others' dating criteria. Nevertheless, for reasons which will emerge
in due course, within reasonable limits the date of the Works & Days is irrelevant to
the purpose of this study. 5
At the opposite extreme is another aspect of the Hesiodic Question which does
have a direct bearing on my analysis. This involves the historicity of the society of
the Works & Days: does Hesiod describe a society that actually existed, or has he

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86 PAUL MILLETT
invented a poetic fantasy? It is necessary to distinguish here between two distinct

levels of historical reality, only one of which is material to my purpose. On the lower
level, there is the question of narrow, autobiographical reality: whether the Works
& Days describes people that actually existed and events that really happened.
From the point of view of this paper, this level of reality is irrelevant and does not in
any way affect my conclusions. For what it is worth, there again appears to be a
shift away from earlier scepticism (Beloch (1924) 312 n. I; Murray (1897) 53)
towards a consensus that the characters in the poem were real people, and that
Hesiod and his brother were involved in some kind of dispute over the division of
their patrimony (Will (1965) 550-5; Walcot (1966) 104-8; West (1978) 30-40). 6
As far as this study is concerned, the decisive issue is the wider one of whether the
overall picture of society in the Works & Days is an accurate representation of the
world the poet saw around him. In contrast to the Homeric epics which are focussed
backwards onto a heroic past, the outlook of the Works & Days is contemporary. It
is difficult to imagine any reason why the poet should want to confuse his audience
by deliberately archaizing or otherwise misrepresenting social institutions. For this
reason, I regard the Works & Days as a faithful formulation of Hesiod's world.
III
My identification of the Works & Days as a peasant society may at first appear
uncontroversial; traditionally, Hesiod has himself been seen as a peasant describing
the peasant community of Ascra. So, in his influential essay on Hesiod, Wade-Gery
( 1958) describes him as ( 12): 'a small landowner', having 'a narrowness which often
marks farmer or peasant.' Similarly, in his section on 'Boeotian culture' in the
original CAH (1929) III, Cary labels Hesiod as a 'Boeotian peasant'; he is (611), 'a
husbandman on the craggy slopes of Helicon. His general outlook upon life is that
of the boor as we find him in all countries and ages.' More recently, West's short
article on Hesiod in the OCIJ2 ( 1970) characterises the poet as: 'a surly, conservative
countryman, given to reflection, no lover of women or of life, who felt the gods'
presence heavy about him.' Hesiod also appears as one of the key figures in the
comparative study of ancient and modern Greek peasants by Walcot (1970).
This list of casual references to 'Hesiod the peasant' could be drawn out at
enormous length. As the traditional view, it was taken for granted, so that no
detailed justification of Hesiod's peasant status was thought to be necessary. 7 But
within recent years, this orthodox assessment of Hesiod has been independently
challenged by three historians: Bravo (1977) 10-13, Mele (1979) 18-27 and Starr
( 1977) 123-8. For Bravo and for Mele, Hesiod is an impoverished aristocrat and he
addresses the Works & Days to an audience of other aristocrats who have fallen on
hard times. Starr, on the other hand, sees in Hesiod an aspiring non-aristocrat,
typical of a group in society which he labels the 'semi-aristocrats'. Starr's view of
Hesiod has proved particularly influential, and enshrined in Starr's own chapter on

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early archaic society in the new CAJl2 (1982) III pt. 3, it threatens to become the
new orthodoxy. 8 For this reason alone, it is worth the effort of re-examining
Hesiod's status; and in trying to reassert the older view, that the world of Hesiod
was a peasant society, I also hope to say something positive about its structure and
organisation.
In assessing the proffered reasons for rejecting Hesiod's position as a peasant,
Bravo and Mele may be bracketed together. Their desire to associate Hesiod and
his audience with the aristocracy has a common purpose: they are both concerned
with the organisation of maritime trade in the early archaic period, and both wish to
show that the aristocracy were actively involved in trading. Although the precise
nature and degree of aristocratic involvement differs between Bravo and Mele, for
both of them Hesiod forms an important link in the chain of their argument. In a
famous passage in the Works & Days (618-94), Hesiod gives Perses advice about
engaging in sea-trading. If it can be demonstrated that Hesiod is really an
aristocrat, addressing other aristocrats, this serves to link the archaic aristocracy
with maritime trade. As Bravo defends this idea in the greater detail, I will
concentrate on his arguments. 9
Bravo has three pieces of evidence in support of his identification of Hesiod as an
aristocrat. The cornerstone of his hypothesis seems to be the fact that at one point in
the poem (299), Hesiod describes his brother Perses as being 'of divine birth' (01.ov
yevoc;). He says: 'But do you at any rate, always remembering my charge, work
Perses, 01.ov yevoc;, that hunger may hate you .. .' 10 Bravo argues that this phrase is
good evidence for Hesiod's aristocratic connexions on the grounds that in Homer
and the Homeric Hymns, the only characters to be styled 01.ov ytvoc; or 010yevtjc;
are either gods or heroes (Artemis in the lliad9.538 and Dionysius in the Homeric
Hymn to Dionysius I .2). From this, in conjunction with vv. 633-40, Bravo
concludes that Hesiod's father was an aristocrat from Aeolian Cyme who had
somehow fallen on hard times. He therefore turned to trading, though without
becoming a fully professional trader. So Hesiod, his father and his brother, and also
the people to whom he addresses his advice, are all impoverished aristocrats. The
Works & Days therefore has a polemical purpose, intended to persuade these
aristocrats to accept their lot, and make the best of a bad job.
In pressing this point, Bravo places too much trust in the literal interpretation of
the phrase 01.ov ytvoc;. He seems to ignore the possibility that the Works & Days is
an oral poem, and that 01.ov yevoc; may be a formula used within the oral tradition.
As such, it may owe its use as much to metrical convenience as to aptness of sense.
This is all the more likely, as earlier in the poem (213-6) Hesiod describes Perses as
oe1Mc; ('a man of no worth') as opposed to Ecr0Mc; ('noble'). It is only right to note
that Bravo is aware of this difficulty, but he tries to argue it away by what amounts
to special pleading.11
Bravo's second argument in favour of a non-peasant Works & Days is more
general. He suggests that because Hesiod impresses on Perses the value of typically

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88 PAUL MILLETT
peasant ideals, like hard work, Perses can therefore not be a peasant (12): 'Les
paysans n'avaient pas besoin d'apprendre d'Hesiode les regles de comportement
qu'il avait apprises d'eux.' Bravo concludes that only an impoverished aristocrat,
born to better things, would need to be told that there was nothing shameful about
hard work. But this reasoning is surely based on the incorrect assumption that
people never need reminding about that which they already ought to know. To look
no further than the Iliad (21.99-193), there is Achilles' advice to the undeniably
aristocratic Lycaon, son of Priam, about the right way for heroes to behave. 12
The final piece of evidence offered by Bravo does not lend itself to detailed
discussion, as it has to my knowledge not yet appeared in print in full form. My
comments are therefore based on a preliminary summary given in another of
Bravo's papers (1983) 24. The argument is based on the possible derivation of the
name 'Hcrioo01;, which Bravo sees as being a compound of T)crt (tEvat) and ooo (cf.
Hesychius s.v. ooa), signifying: 'celui qui envoie des cargaisons de marchandises'.
Bravo continues: 'le pere d'Hesiode, un noble 'pauvre' que la 'pauvrete' avait pousse
a faire du commerce, a choisi pour son fils ce nom pour lui souhaiter de pouvoir
mener un jour une vie noble.' In the absence of Bravo's full defence of his
hypothesis, I would simply add that it carries weight only if his earlier arguments
are accepted as persuasive. The established and, on the face of it, equally plausible
derivation of Hesiod's name gives it the meaning 'sender-forth of song' (West ( 1966)
on v. 22; Nagy (1979) 296-7); but it need not mean anything.
Like Bravo, Mele sees the Works & Days as having a polemical purpose,
designed to argue the case for non-professional trading, as opposed to fully
professional commerce. Although Mele shares Bravo's view of Perses and, by
extension, Hesiod as 'of divine birth' and therefore aristocrats, the idea is less than
central to his overall theory. He appears to see in Hesiod the representative of the
aristocracy, presenting on their behalf the case for aristocratic trading. But in view
of the sharply anti-aristocratic tone of other parts of the poem (3541, 202-24, 248-
73), I find it difficult to see Hesiod as a supporter of the aristocracy, and impossible
to see him as an aristocrat himself.
Starr's desire to upgrade Hesiod from his traditional peasant status stems from
his preoccupation with a group in archaic society which he terms the 'semi-
aristocrats'. He argues that although Hesiod is usually labelled a peasant (126), 'any
thoughtful reading of his Works and Days must demonstrate that he is from a
different level' (cf. CA Jf2 ( 1982) Ill pt. I 432). Starr correctly points out that the
impression gained from the poem is of a group of independent farmers wealthy
enough to afford slaves and oxen, to hire casual labour and to drink wine imported
from Byblos. 13 Accordingly, Starr discusses Hesiod under the subheading of'The
semi-aristocrats' and identifies him as a member of the KaKoi, of which he has his
own, narrow definition. They are a distinct social group, comparable to the
aristocrats, but (124), 'not so well-to-do, probably not so well-born.' He reasons
that because the aristocratic poets of the archaic age, like Solon, Theognis and

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Phocylides, see the KaKoi as a threat, they must therefore represent the most
powerful element among the non-aristocrats. The only significant source of wealth
and power in early archaic Greece was land and, according to Starr, this means that
the KaKoi must have been wealthy, non-aristocratic landowners, of whom Hesiod is
a prime example. The theory is apparently confirmed by the opposition of Hesiod
to the aristocratic pamAEi<;.
Under close analysis, Starr's whole conception of the KaKoi falls apart. For an
aristocrat, everyone who was not &:ya96c; was automatically KClKO<; and therefore a
potential threat. There is no hint in the archaic sources that the term KClKoi refers to
any distinct group of non-aristocrats, and the evidence collected by Starr (124),
which I briefly summarise, is unimpressive. Why should the Archilochusfragment,
'Enter because you are well born' suggest the existence of the 'middling, self-
sufficient range of the rural population'? Similarly, the Phocylides fragment: 'Of
what advantage is high birth to such as have no grace in either words or in counsel?'
tells us nothing directly about aristocrats being 'deliberately challenged by wealthy
upstarts'. 'To Solon the kakoiare men with some type of power', says Starr; but this
is hardly surprising, as Solon saw the aristocracy of Attica threatened with a civil
war waged by the poor. 'Theognis even fears lest they (the kakoi) win his beloved
Cyrnus'; but Theognis is simply imagining the worst thing that might happen - to
lose his boyfriend to a non-aristocrat. Finally, there is Starr's point that:
'Phocylides considers them (the kakoi) dangerous creditors.' This paraphrase
hardly squares with Starr's more accurate translation of the same Phocylides
fragment four pages later ( 128): 'Be not the debtor of a kakos or he will annoy you
(avttjcru) by asking to be paid before his time.' An annoying creditor is rather
different from a dangerous creditor. The sense of the fragment seems to be not that
aristocrats were in danger from KaKoi moneylenders, but that anyone who borrows
from a KClKO<; cannot expect him to behave like a gentleman. From the later fourth
century, Theophrastus ( Characters 4. l l) has the uncivilised country bumpkin
(liypotKo<;) call in his loans by knocking people up in the middle of the night. 14
More generally, Starr's argument that Hesiod cannot be called a peasant because
of his relative wealth is based on the misconception that all peasants must
necessarily be poverty-stricken. Historically, however, there have often been
significant groups of better-off peasants set apart from the mass of the poor
peasantry. The best-known example are the Russian kulaks who, in their capacities
as hirers of labour and lenders of grain and farm equipment, have obvious affinities
with the superior type of peasant encountered in the Works & Days (Baykov ( 1946)
15-23; Dobb (1966) 42-5). Other, similar groups are known from different peasant
societies. 15 Indeed, prosperous peasants are not unknown from the classical Greek
world: the most notable, though fictional, example being Strepsiades in
Aristophanes' Clouds (see Dover ( 1968) xxvii-iii). Likewise, Cnemon in
Menander's Dyscolus is (604), 'an Attic farmer, pure and simple' (i:U.. tKptvci>c;
yi:ropyoc; 'AtttK6<;), but with land worth two talents (327). Moving away from

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90 PAUL MILLETT
fiction, the detailed researches of Jameson (1977-8) suggest that slave ownership
was, in any case, widespread amongst the Attic peasantry. So a relative degree of
prosperity need not automatically rob Hesiod of his peasant status.
IV
Thus far, my arguments have been unavoidably negative: designed to show that
there is no reason why Hesiod should not be considered as a peasant. Positive
proofs that he was indeed a peasant, describing a peasant community, are not
immediately available. The deceptively simple solution of collecting definitions of
peasant society, then estimating the extent to which they tally with the world of
Hesiod, turns out on closer inspection to be a snare and a delusion. This is because
definitions of peasant economy and society have generally been framed with
reference to the wider world of which the peasant community forms a part. Almost
inevitably, these are modern socialist or capitalist economies, bearing little or no
resemblance to the Greco-Roman world. So in a frequently cited paper, Thorner
(1971) argues that according to his criteria (derived in turn from Chayanov), the
small size of Athens and the rest of the Greek states prevents them being classified
as 'peasant economies'. Without wishing to be distracted by this potentially
unhelpful debate over the defining of peasant societies, I summarise with all
possible brevity the reasons why modern definitions are inadequate when
considered from the point of view of the ancient world.
Although sociologists and anthropologists differ in their definition of peasants as
a group, the recurring characteristic seems to be that they make up a 'part society',
sharing in some wider community. Unlike more primitive communities of
cultivators, they are neither economically self-sufficient nor politically
autonomous (see Kroeber, cited by Foster in his introduction to Potter, Diaz &
Foster ( 1967) 2). Adding more detail, peasants are defined in their relation to cities,
subordination within the structure of political power, and markets. But a moment's
thought will show how little of this is appropriate to either the society of the Works
& Days, or to peasant life from the ancient world as a whole.
According to Redfield ( 1953), one of the originators of the discipline of 'peasant
studies' (31): 'There were no peasants before the first cities. And those surviving
primitive peoples who do not live in terms of the city are not peasants.' But this
criterion, if accepted, would effectively remove peasants from a large part of the
Greco-Roman world where proper cities did not exist. Certainly in the Works &
Days the 1t6Atc; comes across as peripheral to Hesiod's experience. The word occurs
five times in the poem(l89, 222,227,240,269), concentrated in Hesiod's warning to
the ~aotAEic; that Zeus punishes 'crooked judgements' by bringing suffering on
those who deliver them (222-4) and on their 1t6Atc; (238-47). So, far from living 'in
terms of the city', Hesiod has dealings with the 1t6Atc; only when things go wrong in
his own village community (Kcoµ11, 639). It is argued in the following section that

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links beyond the individual oi.Ko<; normally extended no further than the local
community. 16
Redfield's over-concentration on the city as the critical factor in identifying
peasant societies was challenged and modified by Wolf ( 1966), another major figure
in peasant studies (11):
Not the city, but the state is the decisive criterion of civilisation and it is the
appearance of the state which marks the threshold of transition between food
cultivators in general and peasants. Thus it is only when a cultivator is
integrated into a society with a state - that is, when the cultivators become
subject to the demands and sanctions of power-holders outside his social
culture - that we can appropriately speak of peasantry.
Other anthropologists follow Wolf in stressing the political subordination of the
peasantry. So Shan in ( 1971) 15 makes 'The underdog position - the domination of
peasantry by outsiders' one of his four 'facets' of peasant society. The point is
developed in greater detail by Foster (1967) 8, who cites as the 'critical common
denominator' the fact that peasants have little control over the conditions that
govern their lives. At a stretch, it might be possible to apply a part of this criterion to
the peasantry of the Works & Days with their obviously inferior position to the
~ao-11..Eic;; (39, 221, 264); but even here, it hardly seems appropriate to describe
Hesiod as 'subject to the demands and sanctions of power-holders'. The impression
given is that Hesiod and Perses are at liberty to settle their dispute between
themselves, without any reference to the 'gift-devouring' aristocrats (35-6). Also,
the aggressive tone in which Hesiod addresses the ~acrthic;; (37-41, 202-64) is not
appropriate for a person in a position of close dependence. 17 In any case, the Works
& Days is only part of the story: in later archaic and classical Attica, and in other
parts of the Greek world, the peasantry did have some direct control over decisions
affecting their lives. Peasants were entitled to attend the citizen assembly, and the
evidence suggests that they did, at least intermittently; the point is made by Garnsey
(1975-6) 222-3. It was one of the features of the classical rr61..1c;; that the peasants
were raised to the status of full citizens (Austin & Vidal-Naquet (1977) 151).
Finally, there is the question of peasant access to markets, which some
anthropologists see as a key characteristic of peasant farmers, serving to set them
apart from more primitive types of cultivators (see Diaz in Potter, Diaz & Foster
(1967) 51-5). It must be emphasised that these are fully-fledged commodity
markets, for which the peasants produce cash crops; Skinner( 1964) gives some idea
of the complexity of market systems with which modern Chinese peasants may be
involved. This particular aspect of peasant society merits a more detailed
discussion, as preoccupation with peasants' use of markets has given rise to
an unresolved ambiguity, arising out of an insufficiently rigorous definition of
the term 'market'.
Far from being producers of cash-crops for the market, peasants have

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92 PAUL MILLETT
traditionally been subsistence farmers, striving for economic self-sufficiency (see

Shanin ( 1971) 240). Of course, complete self-sufficiency was an impossibility for
even the larger holdings, so peasants would be compelled to sell or exchange a
limited amount of their produce to obtain that which they could not make for
themselves. But this subsidiary use of market exchange by peasants is both
quantitatively and qualitatively different from producing cash crops for sale in a
commodity market. For a modern analogy, there is the description of the peasantry
in pre-revolutionary Russia by Dobb ( 1966) 42. He draws a distinction between the
'middling and poorer peasantry' who were 'primarily subsistence farmers, selling
only so much of their produce as was necessary to procure money for the purpose of
taxation and the few bare essentials that had to be purchased from the village', and
the kulaks, 'who were responsible for most of the marketed produce.'
The crucial point here is that the development of peasant production for
commodity markets seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. This is the clear
impression given by Darling (1947) in his brilliant, first-hand account of peasant
prosperity and debt in British India. Darling argued that in contrast to western and
central Europe, the commercial spirit was only just beginning to grow in India
( 153): chiefly because of improvements in communications. The country as a whole
was still in the subsistence stage, growing for home consumption and not for the
market. As one peasant told Darling ( l 09): 'What do we know of prices? It is all we
can do to fill our bellies.' Given the sharpness of this distinction between peasants
occasionally and reluctantly exchanging produce, and peasants who cultivate cash
crops with the market in mind, it is unrealistic to regard access to markets as a
criterion of peasant status. Although the nature and extent of markets in the Greek
world has as yet been only imperfectly analysed (see, briefly, Polanyi (1960)), it
cannot be maintained that the peasants of classical Attica, let alone early archaic
Boeotia, were integrated into a system of commodity markets.
In light of the inadequacy of existing definitions, there seems to be some
justification for Firth's observation that the word 'peasant', 'is not a critical term,
capable of much theoretical handling, but is a broad descriptive term of an
empirical kind, suitable only for demarcating rough boundaries in categorization'
(Firth & Varney (1964) 17). 18 There is certainly the danger that a terminological
approach to the Works & Days will become trivialised into playing with words, and
proving that Hesiod was or was not a peasant becomes an end in itself. But the only
reason for bothering about the appropriate label for Hesiod and his society is if it in
some way adds to our understanding, as I believe that it does. The quotation from
Finley's World of Odysseus cited at the beginning of this paper contained the idea
of clarifying obscure aspects of Homeric society by drawing on the evidence of
other, comparable societies. In the same way, I would argue that there are certain
features of the world of the Works & Days that are comprehensible only when
compared with institutions that anthropologists identify as being characteristic of
other peasant societies. The Works & Days therefore presents a coherent system of

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values and institutions only if it is assumed that Hesiod is describing a peasant

community.
There is reluctance on the part of some scholars to associate peasants with
sophisticated poetry. In the past, the response has typically been to see in the
supposed stiffness and disorganisation of expression of the Works & Days a
reflection of Hesiod's rustic origins. For Murray (1897) 55-6, it is a 'slow, lowly,
simple poem; a little rough and hard ... There is no swing in the verses; they seem to
come from a tired, bent man at the end of his day's work .. .' More recently, it has
been implied that Hesiod was not necessarily a farmer at all, but a skilful poet who
could adjust his poetic persona to suit the work in hand. So Griffith (1983) 62-3
argues that although the qualities of misogyny, stinginess, self-reliance,
superstitition and so on that pervade the Works & Days are appropriate enough for
a farmer, they can easily be paralleled in other archaic Greek poetry. Against these
views, various arguments are possible. We are being made increasingly aware of the
types of sophistication possible in oral poetry, and how these qualities are present in
the Works & Days (see, for example, Walcot (1961); Kumaniecki (1963); Beye
(1972)). Also, comparative studies reveal that even skilled oral poets need not be
full-time professionals (Finnegan (1977) 170-201). Of the six examples of Yugoslav
singers cited by Lord ( 1960) 17-8, none were full professionals, and four were or had
been farmers. The outstanding singer, Avdo Mededovic, was throughout his life the
village butcher. 20 In any case, the standing of Hesiod himself is of secondary
-importance compared with the status of the society described in the poem.
Paradoxically, this is what makes it likely that Hesiod was himself a poet, as the
peasant outlook of the poem extends much further than the vague qualities singled
out by Griffith. As I try to show below, the institutions represented by Hesiod show
a consistency and a coherence that transcends poetic invention. 21
V
The community described in the Works & Days is a collection of independent
oi.Kot or households. 22 For Hesiod, the life of the peasant was inextricably bound
up with his oi.Ko<;: 'First of all', he says, 'get yourself an oi.Ko<;' ( oi.Kov µev 1tprottcrt-a,
405). It followed that the prosperity of the individual depended on the condition of
his 01.KO<; (321-6):
... for if a man take great wealth violently and perforce, or if he steal it through
his tongue, as often happens when gain deceives men's sense and dishonour
tramples down honour, the gods soon blot him out and send that man's o'tKo<;
into a decline, and wealth attends him only for a little time.
Ei yap tt<; Kill XEPOL ~iu µi:yav OA.~OV EA.fltat,
11 o y' a1to ylrocrcrric; lriicro-Etat, o\a. tE 1tolM
yiyvEtat, Eut' <iv 611 Ki:p6oc; v6ov A~a1tattjcru

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94 PAUL MILLETT
av0pcomov, aioco OE T' avatOEtT) Kai:o1ta~u·

pEia OE µiv µaupoucn 0wi, µivu0oucn oi: oi.Kov
avEpi TQ), 1taupov OE T' E7tt xpovov OAPoc; 07tT)OEi.
If the content of the Works & Days can be summed up in a single sentence, itis not
as a tract on justice or even a farmer's almanac, but as a sequence of instructions on
how best to keep an oi.Koc; prosperous, and even to increase its wealth (493-5):
Pass by the smithy and its crowded parlour in winter time when the cold keeps
men from field work, for then an industrious man can greatly prosper his
oi.Koc;.
1tap o' i0i XO.AKElOV 0ciiKOV Kai. E1taA.i:a AEOXTJV
©PU XEiµEpiu, 07tOTE Kpuoc; avEpa Epycov
lcrxavEi, i:v0a K' <'ioKvoc; &:VT)p µEya oi.Kov oq>EHot.
So the key to success is hard work, the need for which is reinforced by the inclusion
of the myths of Pandora (42-105) and the five races (106-201). 23
Close to the beginning of the poem, in an important passage, Hesiod stresses that
a driving-force behind the desire for hard work is rivalry between neighbouring
o'tKOi (l l-2 ... 20-6):
So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there
are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand
her ... She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work
when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant
and put his oi.Koc; in good order; and neighbour vies with his neighbour as he
hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry
with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar,
and minstrel of minstrel.
ouK cipa µouvov ETJV 'Epiocov yEvoc;, aAA • e1t1. yaiav
Etcrt Meo· TTJV µEv KEV E1tatvfocrEtE votjcrac;,
i'jTE Kat (l7t0.Aaµ6v 7tEp oµcoc; E7tl i:pyov EyEipEV.

Elc; ETEpov yap Tic; TE loc.ov Epyoto xaTi~Ei
7tAOUOlOV, oc; 07tEUOEi µi:v apcoµEvat T)OE q>UTEUEiv
oi.K6v T' EU 0fo0m· ~TJAOi OE TE yEi.i:ova yEii:cov
Elc; <'iq>Evoc; cr1tEuOOvT •· aya0iJ o • "Epic; i'jOE ppoi:oicriv.
Kat KE0aµEuc; KEpaµE1 KOTEEi Kat TEKWVi TEKTCOV,
Kai 7tTcoxoc; mcox<i> q,0ovi:Ei Kat aoiooc; aoio4>.
This crucial passage is open to misunderstanding by those who insist on
interpreting Eris as the personification of 'competition' in the technical sense of
modern economic theory. Taken in this narrow, neo-classical sense, competition

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between individuals is seen as advantageous, leading directly to economic growth.

This is how Starr views the passage in his study with the unambiguous title: The
economic & social growth of early Greece (1977). He closes the whole book by
quoting Hesiod on the anger between potters and between craftsmen. This is one of
three quotations supposed to be symbolic of how the Greeks of the early archaic
period ( 193) 'did desire to gain the fruits of economic progress' and also how their
rivalry 'did help promote the development of a more complicated economic
structure than the world had ever seen.' Starr is not alone in this interpretation. The
most detailed discussion of the Works & Days from a purely economic standpoint
is by Gordon ( 1975), an historian of economic thought. According to Gordon, the
first 338 verses of the Works & Days contain what he describes as (4): 'a well-
conceived treatment of the problems of scarcity, choice, and allocation of resource
at a micro-economic level'; he singles out the passage on Strife as being: 'Hesiod's
programme for growth.'24
By introducing the concept of growth into their analyses, both Starr and Gordon
are thinking in terms of an overall increase in wealth and prosperity: more for
everyone through economic progress. But this is surely an incorrect reading of
Hesiod, with the text being misinterpreted under the influence of modern ideologies
about economy and society. Certainly, Hesiod sees it as being in every man's
interest to get for himself as much wealth as possible; but he also assumes that the
stock of wealth - effectively the quantity of land - is finite and fixed. So what one
man gains, another must necessarily lose, and there is no scope for an overall
growth in prosperity. This is made clear in another long and important passage (vv.
298-341), in which Hesiod impresses on Perses the need for constant hard work
combined with a respectful attitude towards the gods. The advice ends with the
words to do all this (341): 'In order that you may buy another's land, and not
another yours' (o<pp' iiAACOV covu KAi;pov, µ11 'tOV 'tEOV c'iAAoc;.). 25 And that is
presumably why it is so important to work harder than your neighbour: it is a
guarantee that his and not your oi.Koc; will be the one to decline. A similar
combination of sentiments is expressed later in the poem (465-78), where Hesiod
exhorts his brother to combine prayers to the gods with good management (477-8):
And so you will have plenty till you come to bright springtime, and will not
look wistfully to others, but another shall be in need of your help.
EUOX,0&cov O, 'i~Eat 1t0Al0V fop, OUOE 1tpoc; (lA,AOU<; .
auyacrEat · crfo o' ClAAO<; av11 p KEJCPT)µ&voc; ECJ'tat.
This negative view of wealth and prosperity as being feasible only at the expense
of other people is apparently typical of peasant societies. The major work in this
area of peasant studies has been carried out by Foster (1965). In a classic paper,
drawing on empirical data derived from fieldwork in peasant communities, he
reaches the conclusion that peasants characteristically regard their environment as

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96 PAUL MILLETT
one in which all desired things exist only in finite quantities, and are always in short
supply. There is no possible way in which a peasant believes he can increase the
overall amount available. 'It follows', adds Foster (305), 'that an individual or
family can improve a position only at the expense of others.' Land and movable
wealth are prime examples of these 'Limited Goods' as Foster calls them, but he
extends the notion to abstract concepts including health, friendship, love and
honour. Although his generalisations are based on information drawn from
peasant communities in the New World, he feels justified in forming similar
conclusions about all 'classic' peasant societies, including those bordering the
Mediterranean. For confirmation, there is the influential study of values and
institutions in a modern Greek mountain community by Campbell (l 964). In a
striking passage describing 'hostility between unrelated families' (204), Campbell
explains how people believe that resources are insufficient to satisfy everyone's
needs, so that more prosperity for one family threatens the existence of the others.
'It follows that a man must rejoice when another suffers misfortune and "falls in the
mud".' Campbell pictures their life as a kind of see-saw: 'If one family goes up in the
world the others must necessarily come down.'26
Also in his study of the 'Limited Good', Foster makes a further general
observation about peasant society which again has a close bearing on the world
described by Hesiod (310):
People who see themselves in 'threatened' circumstances, which the Image of
the Limited Good implies, react normally in one of two ways: maximum co-
operation and sometimes communism, burying individual differences and
placing sanctions against individualism; or extreme individualism. Peasant
societies seem always to choose the second alternative.
In the Works & Days this 'extreme individualism' is apparent in the practical
measures recommended by Hesiod as part of his ideal of economic self-sufficiency
within the oiKoc;. His clothes are made in the oiKoc; from either homespun (779) or
from animal skins (536-46). His slaves build barns (502-3), and by and large his
simpler farming implements seem to be home-made (422-26). Although what looks
like a professional carpenter is brought in to make the plough (427-3 l ), the timber is
supplied from the oiKoc;. 27 Some economic co-operation between oiKot will be
unavoidable, but by a combination of foresight and hard work, the good farmer
will keep these contacts to a minimum (364-7):
What a man has by him in the oiKoc; does not trouble him: it is better to have
your stuff at home, for whatever is abroad may mean loss. It is a good thing to
draw on what you have; but it grieves your heart to need something and not to
have it, and I bid you mark this.
ou6E 'tO y' EV otKq> KU'tUKEtµEVOV avepa Ktj3Et.
OlKOl ~EA.n:pov EiVat; E7tE1 ~A.a~Epov 'tO 0upT)qnv.

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hr0Mv µEv 1tape6vto~ EAecr0at, 1tiiµa OE 0uµ<'p

XPTJil;etv &:1te6vto~. ii cre q>pal;ecr0m avroya.
It will not always be possible to borrow what is needed (407-9, 453-7):
Make everything ready in the 01.Ko~, so that you may not have to ask of
another and he refuse you, and so, because you are short, the season pass by
and your work come to nothing .
... it is easy to say: 'Give me a yoke of oxen and a wagon', and it is easy to
refuse: 'I have work for my oxen.' The man who is rich in fancy thinks his
wagon as good as built already - the fool! He does not know that there are a
hundred timbers to a wagon. Take care to lay these up beforehand in the
01.KO~.
xp,;µata o' EV o'iKq> 1t<ivt' apµeva 1t01,;cracr0at,
µ11 cru µEv ahfi~ (lA.A.OV, o o' &:pviitat, cru OE TT)t{i,
iJ o' ropTJ 1tapaµeiPTJtat, µtvu0u OE to tpyov.
pT)tOiov yap t1to~ ei1teiv· Poe oo~ Kai iiµa~av·
pT)tOiov o • &:1tav,;vacr0m· 1tapa tpya P6ecrmv.
q>T)Ol o· UVTIP q>peva~ <iq>VElO~ 1r,;~acr0at iiµa~av,
v,;mo~. OUOE to 010 •. tKatov OE TE ooupat' <iµa~T)~,
trov 1tp6cr0ev µeMtTJV txeµev oiK,;ta 0fo0m.
With this possibility of a refusal in mind, Hesiod advises the well-prepared farmer
to keep a prefabricated plough in reserve (432-4): 'For if you should break one of
them, you can put the oxen to the other.' The point behind these elaborate and time-
consuming precautions is to be independent of, and therefore have the advantage
over, one's neighbours (471-8):
... for good management is the best for mortal men as bad management is the
worst. In this way your corn-ears will bow to the ground with fullness if the
Olympian himself gives a good result at the last, and you will sweep the
cobwebs from your bins and you will be glad, I imagine, as you take of your
garnered substance. And so you will have plenty till you come to bright
springtime, and will not look wistfully to others, but another shall be in need
of your help.
EU0T)µOcrUVT) yap &:picrtT)
0VT)tol~ <iv0pro1tot~. KaK00T)µOcrt>VT) OE KaKtOtT).
rooe KEV Mpocruvu crtaxue~ VEUOlEV tpal;e,
ei tEAo~ auto~ omcr0ev 'OMµmo~ tcr0Mv <i1tal;ot,
EK o· &:yyerov EA.<lOEta~ <ipaxvia· Kai cre EOA.7ta
YTJ0iicretv Pt6tou aipeuµevov tvoov Mvto~.
euox0erov o' 'i~Eat 7tOA.lOV fop, OUOE 1tpo~ iiHou~
auyacreat· creo o' iiHo~ UVTIP KEXPT)µtvo~ fotat.

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98 PAUL MILLETT
This is the problem with Perses. Lack of preparation and of hard work have already
reduced him to a position of dependence on his brother, but Hesiod warns him that
in future, he will have to do his cadging from outside the family circle (394-404):
Else afterwards, you may chance to be in want, and go begging to other men's
oi.Kot, but without avail; as you have already come to me. But I will not loan
out any item, or lend you any grain in future. Foolish Perses! Work the work
which the gods ordained for men, lest in bitter anguish of spirit you with your
wife and children seek your livelihood amongst your neighbours, and they do
not heed you. Two or three times, may be, you will succeed, but if you trouble
them further, it will not avail you, and all your talk will be in vain, and your
word-play unprofitable. Nay, I bid you find a way to pay your debts and avoid
hunger.
µtj 1tCO~ ta µEta~E XUti.~COV
1ttC:OOCJU~ aHotpi.ou~ oiKOU~ Kat µTtOEV avuoou~-
c.i>~ Kat vuv E1t' TJA.0E~· tyro OE tot OUK tmoc:ooco
ouo • tmµEtptjoco· tpya~EU, vtjmE ITtpoll,
tpya, tat' av0pC:01tOlO"l 0EOt OlEtEKµtjpavto,
µtj 1tOtE ouv 1tai.oEOO"l yuvmKi tE 0uµov ClXEUCOV
~TttEUU~ pi.otov Kata yEitova~. di o' aµEA.ffiO"lV.
ol~ µi:v yap Kat tpl~ taxa tEU~Eat· 11v o • Etl A.U1tij~.
xp,;µa µi:v OU 1tptj~El~, OU o' EtC:OO"la 1t6H' ayopEUO"El~·
axpEio~ o • fotm l:1ttcov voµ6~. a:AM o' livcoya
q>pa~Eo0m XPElffiV tE A.UO"lV Atµou t' ClA.ECOptjv.
As already explained, Foster sees this emphasis on individualism as
characteristic of peasant societies. In his well-known reconstruction of the society
of the French village of Montaillou at the beginning of the fourteenth century, Le
Roy Ladurie (1975) presents a picture that confirms Foster's general theory, and
also parallels the Works & Days at several significant points. The village itself was a
collection of peasant households, and this basic social unit was called an ostal by
the peasants themselves, and a domus by the Latin-speaking church authorities. So
far as can be certain, this osta/ or domus was the almost exact equivalent of the
peasant oi.Ko~ of Ascra (24-52). Describing the collective structure of the domus,
Le Roy Ladurie stresses the Hesiodic motif mentioned above: the rivalry between
individual peasant families (354):
But the domus had marked tendencies towards autarchy and subsistence
economy. The lack of co-operation between the cellular economies of
individual houses in Montaillou is striking. This tendency produced a loyalty
to a house rather than a parish, and thus militated against the growth of a civic
sense of community.

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To complete the analogy with the model derived from the Works & Days, such
collaboration as there was between the domi of M ontaillou took the restricted form
of lending tools and utensils, with other minor acts of co-operation. Similarly, the
loans that Hesiod is so anxious to avoid are of two main types: loans of livestock
and equipment, and of grain. The distinction is made explicit when Hesiod warns
Perses (396-7): 'I will not loan out any item, or lend you any grain in future.' 28
Although Hesiod only once names the actual items being borrowed (453-4, wagon
and oxen), the context of other references (364-7, 407-8) makes it clear that loans of
farming implements are intended. Loans of tools and other utensils are a feature of
peasant societies. Again, Montaillou provides good evidence, where neighbours
lend one another grain, grass, hay, wood, fire, mules, axes, pots, cabbages, turnips,
sieves, wine-measures and hemp-combs (5, 42, 37, 198).
The Greeks never lost this peasant habit, and the post-Hesiodic sources have a
steady stream of references to small-scale borrowing between neighbours. To give
but one example in detail, Theophrastus' Characters has a predominantly urban
setting, but still contains references to loans of a plough, a basket, a sickle, .a bag
(4.11), barley, bran (9.7), salt, a lamp-wick, cummin, marjoram, garlands, cakes
( 10.13), a silver cup (18. 7), a horse (27 .10) and a cloak (30.10). Thatthis type ofloan
was commonplace in Athenian society may be inferred from the behaviour of the
'Penurious Man' (µtKpoMyo~). who forbids his wife to make these petty loans with
the words (10.13): 'these little things mount up over the year.' With loan
transactions like this there was no question of interest, witnesses or security; such
precautions were neither practicable nor necessary. This is the point behind a joke
in Aristophanes' Ecclesiazusae (446-50), where claims are being made for the
superiority of women over men. It is argued that when women lend items to each
other - dresses, jewellery, cash and drinking bowls - they do not insist on witnesses
being present, but the loans are still returned. This is supposed to be amusing,
because there was obviously no need for witnesses in such trivial transactions. The
same sort of joke is made at the expense of Theophrastus' 'Distrustful Man'
(limato~. 18.7). If it is merely a neighbour who wants to borrow some drinking
cups, he refuses outright. If it is a close relation, he will agree, but only after testing
the weight and quality of the metal beforehand and appointing a guarantor. 29
The search for detail and elucidation of the type ofloan referred to by Hesiod has
moved us away from the world of the Works & Days. Again, it is an empirical study
of modern peasant communities that points back in the right direction. I refer to an
important collection of essays edited by Firth & Yamey (1964), examining the
nature of capital, saving and credit in contemporary peasant societies. In his
introductory essay, Firth isolates some of the key themes of the essays in the
collection. He points out (30) how common are loans of implements and utensils,
and also how these loans are not normally interest-bearing. This is because they
tend to be frequent, of short duration and between the same sets of people: in the
long-run, they tend to cancel each other out. 'The security', says Firth, 'is personal

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PAUL MILLETT
knowledge, plus the potential need for reciprocal borrowing.' The phrase
'reciprocal borrowing' supplies the link back to Hesiod, for what we conventionally
call 'reciprocity' turns out to be one of the central institutions of the Works & Days.
The relevant passage (342-63) is at the heart of Hesiod's recipe for success.
Although it arguably forms a coherent whole, for the sake of clarity, I divide it into
three unequal sections with the following headings: reciprocity of services between
neighbours (342-8), reciprocity of credit operations between neighbours (349-51 ),
and reciprocity and gift-exchange (352-63). Some general comments on the first
section serve as an introduction to the passage as a whole:
Call your friend to a feast; but leave your enemy alone; and especially call him
who lives near you: for if any misfortune happen in the place, neighbours
come without making preparations, but relations stay to prepare themselves.
A bad neighbour is as great a plague as a good one is a great blessing; he who
enjoys a good neighbour has a precious possesion. Not even an ox would die
but for a bad neighbour.
tOV qnMovt' E7tt oaita KQA.f:lV, tOV 6' tx0pov Mcrm.
tOV ()f; µ<iAtcrta KaA.dV, oi; tti; cri:0sv eyyu0t vaist·
d yap tot Kal xp,;µ' eycoptov ciUo yi:v11tm,
ydrnvsi; cil;;rocrt0t EKtov, l;;cocravto St rr11oi.
rr,;µa KaKoi; yEttCOV, ocrcrov t' aya0oi; µi:y' OVEtap.
eµµopi: tOl nµ,;i;, oi; t' eµµopE ydt0voi; ecr0A.OU.
ouo' av ~oui; &1t6A.Ott', d µ11 ydtrov KaKoi; ii11.
These verses, with their emphasis on neighbourly co-operation, at first appear as a
marked contrast to the stress that Hesiod lays on self-sufficiency and rivalry
between neighbours in the remainder of the poem. Introducing their translation of
this passage, Austin & Vidal-Naquet ( 1977) comment that(204): 'The poet seems to
waver between the ideal of good neighbourliness ... and the invitation to self-
sufficiency.' But there is no need to diagnose wavering or inconsistency here,
because in the context of the Hesiodic oi.Koi;, the two concepts of co-operation and
self-sufficiency are complementary. Once again, clarification of this apparent
contradiction in the Works & Days comes from the comparative study of other
peasant societies. In a second paper on what he calls the 'dyadic contract', Foster
( 1967) examines some aspects of the social relations between Mexican peasants. He
concludes that for these peasants, the ideal of success is (214):
... to be able to live sin compromisos, to be strong, masculine, independent,
able to meet life's continuing challenges without help from others, to be able
to avoid entangling alliances. Yet, paradoxically, the struggle to reach this
goal can only be made by saddling oneself with a wide variety of obligations.
Strength and independence in fact always depend on the number and quality
of the ties one maintains.

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HESIOD AND HIS WORLD IOI
This seems to parallel precisely the position in the Works & Days, where the ideal is
also complete independence and self-sufficiency. But as this is impossible, it is
essential that relations between neighbours are of the right quality: that is, that you
are the equal or superior of your neighbour, and do not end up in a position of
dependence.
This is the burden of Hesiod's advice in the second, short section of the passage
(349-51):
Take fair measure from your neighbour and pay him back fairly with the same
measure, or better, if you can; so that if you are in need afterwards, you may
find him sure.
EU µev µE,pE1cr0at 1tapa y&l.rnvrn;, EU o· &1tooouvm,
m'.mi> ,cI> µe,pcp, Kal 1.ro1ov, a'i KE Mvrim,
roe; civ XPTJi~rov Kat sc; ucr,Epov iipKlOV EUplJc;.
The aim, then, is not merely to wipe out the original obligation, but if possible to
create a counter-obligation, thereby converting one's former creditor into a debtor.
This particular mechanism seems to be a recurrent feature of reciprocal gift-giving
in peasant and other primitive societies. According to Foster ( 1967) 217-9, a strict
requirement of the reciprocal relationships between modern Mexican peasants is
that an exactly even balance between the two partners should never be struck. This
ensures that contacts between pairs of individuals will continue into the future.
Only when a relationship is to be deliberately wound up is the debt settled with any
precision. Similar mechanisms are described by Sahlins ( 1965) 222-3, and by Mauss
in his classic study of gift-giving in archaic societies (1950) 35, 40.
The third and final section of the passage from the Works & Days gives more
detailed instructions for the conduct of reciprocal gift-giving (352-63):
Do not get base gain: base gain is bad as ruin. Be friends with the friendly, and
visit him who visits you. Give to one who gives, but do not give to one who
does not give. A man gives to the open-handed, but does not give to the tight-
fisted. Give is a good girl, but Take is bad and she brings death. For the man
who gives willingly, even though he gives a great thing, rejoices in his gift, and
is glad in his heart; but whoever gives way to shamelessness and takes
soinething for himself, even though it be a small thing, it freezes his heart; for
if you add only a little to a little and do this often, soon that little will become
great. But he who adds to what he already has, will keep off bright-eyed
hunger.
µiJ l(Ql((l KEpoaiVEtv· l(Ql((l KEpO&a icr' &ci,umv.
,ov q,11.fov,a q,11.Eiv, Kal ,Q> 1tpom6vn 1tpocrE1vm.
Kat ooµEv, oc; KEV OQ>, Kal µiJ ooµEv, oc; KEV µiJ OQ>.
oro,1J µev nc; EO(l)KEV, &oro-ru o' ounc; EO(l)KEV.

128.243.44.244 on Fri, 23 Oct 2020 20:44:34 UTC
102 PAUL MILLETT
Oco~ aya0}1, lip1ta~ Oi: KaKll, 0avatoto OOtEtpa.

0~ µi:v yap KEV avr'Jp E0Et,(J)V, o YE, Kd µi:ya 001.TJ,
xaipEt t<p Oropq> Kat tEp7tEtat ov Kata 0uµ6v·
0~ OE KEV auto~ EAT]tat avatOEI.TJ(j)l m011cra~.
Kai tE crµtKpov Mv, t6 y' i:1raxvrocri::v <ptAov litop.
d yap KEV Ka\ crµtKpov E7tl crµtKp<p Kata0Eio
Ka\ 0aµa tout' EpOot~. taxa KEV µi:ya Ka\ to yi:votto.
0~ o' E1t' EOVtl <pEpEt, o o' (lA.f:~Etat ai001ta Atµ6v·
These verses have consistently been misunderstood by commentators, both ancient
and modern, who have been unaware of the institution of gift-giving and all its
implications. Even in antiquity, Plutarch, according to Proclus, rejected as
spurious the verses dealing with the reciprocal basis of gift-giving (353-5). This was
on the grounds that the attitude towards giving implicit in this passage was based on
selfishness and obligation, to the exclusion of generosity (Paley (1861) 45). More
recent commentators have been misled by the last few lines of the passage. The
antithesis built into the passage seems to involve a contrast between the
unhappiness of the man who takes (359-60) with the happiness of the man who gives
(357-8). But commentators tend to shy away from this explanation; presumably on
the grounds that it goes against the grasping mentality that Hesiod appears to show
elsewhere. So instead, they take 359-60 as referring, not to the misery of the man
who takes, but the misery of the man from whom something is taken. So the person
having his heart frozen is not the robber, but the person who is being robbed (Paley
(1861) 45, following Moschopoulos; West (1978) ad loc.).
Nonetheless, the straightforward interpretation of these lines is fully consistent
with the institution of gift-giving as described by Mauss (1950). To be on the
receiving end of a gift is to be put at an immediate disadvantage: it freezes the heart
and places the taker in a position of dependence. The giver, by contrast, is placed in
a position of superiority. Such is the process that Hesiod warns against when he
explains how the frequent receipt of gifts - however small - soon adds up to a big
debt of obligation. This is in contrast to the man who does not take but concentrates
instead on adding to what he has, presumably by hard work. This notion then flows
naturally into a short section in praise of self-sufficiency (364-7), and there is no
need to adjust the order of the verses in the way proposed by Evelyn-White (1914),
with 363 immediately afte_r 360.
Discussing the passage as a whole (342-63), commentators tend to remark on its
lack of coherence. For Paley (1861) 44, it is: 'a collection of ancient maxims,
somewhat after the manner of Theognis, and strung together without any nearer
connexion than the general relations existing between neighbours.' No doubt, the
passage can be read as a sequence of unconnected aphorisms; but it is an important
and distinctive part of Hesiod's poetic technique to combine these aphoristic
elements as building blocks to make a coherent whole (see Havelock (1966) and

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Beye ( 1972)). As I have tried to show, the passage does have the strong connecting
theme of reciprocity, and is fully in agreement with Mauss's account of reciprocal
gift-giving in other archaic societies. 30
VI
Provided it is acceptable, the picture of the world of Hesiod presented above
affects our overall appreciation of the Works & Days as an historical document.
Because Hesiod is associated with the beginning of the archaic age, there is a
tendency to appropriate the poem as evidence for the social and political tensions of
early archaic society. In its most direct form, this transforms the Works & Days into
a 'tract for the times' - a manual specifically designed to instruct peasants in the
techniques necessary for a switch from pastoral to the more productive arable
farming (Howe (1958), elaborated by Snodgrass (1971) 378-80). But such a simple
explanation ignores the inclusion in the poem of all the other material which has
nothing to do with arable farming.
More commonly, Hesiod is presented as an early witness of the hostility towards
aristocratic domination which eventually resulted in O"t<im<; and the rise of tyranny.
Typical is the assessment of Luce (1978) 15:
In Hesiod, in particular, we catch glimpses of Greek society under
considerable pressure, partly from the rapid growth of population, and partly
from the unprincipled conduct of the nobility, whose greed, we may surmise,
was stimulated by the new opportunities for gain deriving from colonial
expansion.
Statements of this sort have been made many times, but their general effect is to
convert Hesiod into an archaic Greek version of the Old Testament prophets,
railing against the injustice of the J3amAE1<;; he has been identified specifically with
the prophet Amos (Detienne (1963) 9-14). This interpretation depends on
acceptance of Hesiod's complaints against the l3acr1Ad<; as a half-way-house
between the apparently unchallenged aristocratic rule of Homeric society, and the
overthrow of aristocracies in the later archaic period. This in turn depends on the
questionable assumption that there is sufficient common ground between the
worlds of Homer and of Hesiod to make the comparison valid.
The most recent attempt to trace the early development of aristocratic attitudes is
in a detailed study by Donlan ( 1980). Donlan is well aware that Homer and Hesiod
look at society from very different points of view, but he concludes that disparities
between their attitudes are more likely to be the result of structural changes in
Greek society (33-4). But the changes which Donlan claims to detect - social
differentiation, competition, craft specialization, private property, indebtedness
and social alienation - turn out to less obvious than he assumes. For example, there
is nothing necessarily new about Hesiod's hostile attitude towards the aristocracy,

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104 PAUL MILLETT
which Donlan himself associates with the Homeric Thersites (27). Also
questionable is the way in which Donlan accepts Polanyi's theory of a pre-Hesiodic
decline in reciprocal links between rulers and ruled, resulting in the replacement of
tribal institutions with 'crude individualism' (29-32). I have tried to indicate above
that the individuality of Hesiod's peasants was combined with a strong
commitment to reciprocity. We simply do not know enough about the people at the
lower end of Homeric society to introduce the Works & Days as part of a dynamic
analysis.
Potentially more promising are attempts to relate Hesiod, not to any earlier
society, but to the so-called 'agrarian crisis' of the archaic age. Here, the most
persuasive reconstruction is that of Ed. Will (1957), who argues that the
information in the Works & Days on the division of patrimonies, debt and property
transfers serves to clarify some of the obscurities of the Solonic crisis in early
sixth-century Attica.
Ed. Will bases his interpretation on v. 341 of the Works and Days, where Hesiod
advises his brother to work hard and sacrifice to the gods,' Ainsi tu pourras essayer
d'acquerir le kleros des autres, et non un autre le tien' ( 12-15). According to Ed. Will,
the likely sequence of events was as follows. Successive divisions of the land (as
after the death of Hesiod's father, 37-41) made farming uneconomic, and peasants
were forced to borrow to make ends meet (349-51, 399-404). Religious and moral
scruples preveqted the full alienation of the family tcliipo~, and needy peasants
therefore preferred to become tenants on their own land, paying over a proportion
of their crops in return for the original loan. In this way it was possible to gain
control of another man's land without the ownership of the land having to change
hands, accounting for Ed. Will's deliberate avoidance of the word acheter in his
translation ofv. 341. This reconstruction is extended across to Attica in the period
immediately before the archonship of Solon, where Ed. Will sees it as the likeliest
explanation of the Attic opo1 and etc-rtjµop01. He also uses the Hesiodic material to
account for the debt-bondage abolished by Solon: although the peasants saw their
original loan agreements as temporary, they would tend to get deeper into debt.
Finally, they would be able to borrow only on the security of their own bodies. For
many peasants such a position would be intolerable, and the alternative was to
emigrate overseas.
At first sight Ed. Will's hypothesis looks plausible; it makes economical use of the
available evidence and it ties the Works & Days into a known historical context.
Not surprisingly, it has found favour with a number of scholars, including Detienne
(1963) 15-27. Nevertheless, apart from more detailed objections, there are good
reasons for rejecting Ed. Will's interpretation of the Hesiodic material, and denying
that the Works & Days depicts a society in a state of crisis. This is the theme of an
important paper by Ernest Will (1965); in what follows I summarise the substance
of this paper, adding other arguments of my own.
Ernest Will points out that if taken at face value, the dramatic background to the

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Works & Days says nothing at all about a general economic crisis. Hesiod has fallen
out with his brother over the division of his father's estate; he protests that the
~aotA.Eic; failed to give him a fair hearing and Perses therefore got the bigger share
(37-41). Even so, it is now Perses who is apparently in difficulties and needs
Hesiod's advice (396). There is nothing here to suggest that division of their father's
estate made the brothers' inherited holdings uneconomic; if anything, the evidence
argues the other way. Although Hesiod seems to have ended up with the lesser share
of the estate, he is succeeding, whereas Perses has failed. Also, the incidental
references to slaves, hired labour, oxen and imported wine are not appropriate to a
society supposed to be in the midst of an economic crisis (see n. 13). Although it
might be argued that Hesiod does harp on the danger and misery of falling into
debt, this is a part of his peasant outlook, and not necessarily an indication of an
agrarian crisis. Ernest Will notes that Hesiod offers equal opportunities for either
increasing one's wealth or losing it: hard work gives prosperity, laziness brings
poverty (298-302, 308-13; compare 32-4, 410-13):
But do you at any rate, always remembering my charge, work, high-born
Perses, that Hunger may hate you, and venerable Demeter richly crowned
may Jove you and fill your barn with food; for Hunger is altogether a meet
comrade for the sluggard.
Through work men grow rich in flocks and substance, and working they are
much better loved by the immortals. Work is no disgrace: it is idleness which
is a disgrace. But if you work, the idle will soon envy you as you grow rich, for
fame and renown attend on wealth.
a.AM cru y' T)µEi-tp11c; µEµv11µtvoc; aU:v &q>Ei-µflc;
&pya.~EU, IltpOT), otOV ytvoc;, Oq>pa OE A.tµoc;
i:x0atp1J, q>tA.ElJ ot o' i:uoi-tq>avoc; dT)µll't"T)P
a'tooi11, ~t6wu OE 't"ET)V mµ1tA.fjcrt KaA.tllV·
A.tµoc; yap 't"Ot 1ta.µ1tav O.Epycp ouµq>opoc; O.VOpt.
&~ epyrov O' li.vOpE<; 7tOA.UµT)A.Ol 't' O.q>VEtOl 'tE"
Kat &pya~6µEVOt 7t0A.U q>tA.'t"Epot a.0ava.wtcrtV.
epyov o' OUOEV OVEtooc;, a.EpytT) 0£ i-' OVEtOoc;.
Ei 0£ KE i:pya.~u. i-a.xa OE ~T)A.COOEt a.Epyoc;
r.:)..oui-Euvi-a· 7tA.OU'tQ> o • a.pE'tT) Ka\ Kuooc; 01t110E1.
Ernest Will aptly remarks on this passage: 'Le propre d'une crise, n'est-ce pas
precisement qu'il ne suffit pas de travailler?' Significantly, this same concept of hard
work and the right attitude of mind bringing its reward also forms the lead-in to the
warning about losing one's land (336-41):
... and as far as you are able, sacrifice to the deathless gods purely and cleanly,
and burn rich meats also, and at other times propitiate them with libations

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106 PAUL MILLETT
and incense, both when you go to bed and when the holy light has come back,
that they may be gracious to you in heart and spirit, and so you may buy
another's holding and not another yours.
IC(l0 Mvaµtv o' EpOElV Up' a0avatotcrt 0wimv
ayvroc; !Cal 1Ca0aproc;, btl o' ay1..aa µ11pia Kaii:tv·
llAAO'tE OE 07tOV0Ucrt 0ui:ooi 'tE lA.aOICE00at,
t'Jµtv eh' i:uv<i~U Kal at civ c:paoc; 'ti:pov i:A01J,
roe; KE tot 'iAaov Kpaoi11v Kal 0uµov i:xromv,
oc:pp' (lAA.(l)V covu ICAi;pov, µ11 'tOV 'tEOV ciUoc;.3 1
As for Ed. Will's interpretation of the Hesiodic material to shed light on the
obscurities of the Solonic crisis, there is nothing in the Works & Days to confirm
that the two situations were comparable in detail. After all, Solon and Hesiod were
probably separated by at least a century. An obvious difficulty is the absence of
anything resembling debt-bondage in the Works & Days. The ~am1..E1c; are
nowhere introduced as creditors or even potential creditors, and neither Hesiod nor
his brother look like clients or dependants. 32 The error of Ed. Will is to assume that
the debts mentioned in the Works & Days must be somehow analogous to the
indebtedness of the Attic peasantry at the time of the Solonic crisis. But as l have
tried to show, the Works & Days present a picture of reciprocal lending between
neighbours who were more-or-less equal in terms of wealth and social status. The
evidence, such as it is, is unanimous that the obligations culminating in the
Solonian crisis were contracted between rich and poor (Ath. Pol. 2.2, 5.1 );
according to Finley ( 1965) 153, that is the general rule in transactions leading to
debt-bondage.
In sharp contrast to Ed. Will, I would regard the loans between peasants
described in the Works & Days as evidence, not of a crisis, but of a society in
equilibrium. They constitute a mechanism whereby short-term deficiencies may be
remedied by temporary redistribution within the community, without turning to
external sources of credit. 33
VII
My argument that the Works & Days cannot be used as direct evidence for an
agrarian crisis or the decline of aristocratic power may seem to diminish its value to
the historian. But on the alternative reading I have offered, the poem appears as a
type of documentation that survives for nowhere else in the ancient Greek world: a
detailed account of the practical working of a peasant community. Apart from the
dubious testimony of Aristophanes (Ehrenberg (1951) 73-94), other sources have
nothing systematic to say about peasant society. Even the Attic Orators, our prime
source of information for the reconstruction of the economy and society of classical
Attica, are virtually silent on the subject of peasant lifestyle. 34 This is what makes

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the evidence of the Works & Days all the more valuable and explains why the date
of its composition need not be of overwhelming importance for the historian.
My analysis of the Works & Days is built on the assumption that there is
sufficient continuity in the peasant way of life to warrant the drawing of
comparisons and analogies across time and over a wide geographical area. The
classic text in support of the acceptance of peasant society as a common type is a
study by Redfield ( 1956) of various cultural values. Redfield's method is to examine
the attitudes of three widely separated peasant societies towards the land,
commerce and hard work. As it happens, one of the societies chosen for the purpose
of comparison is that of the Works & Days, which Redfield describes as (61): 'the
oldest book we have about peasant life'. The other communities discussed are those
of the Maya Indians of modern Yucatan, and the country people of nineteenth-
century Surrey. As a result of this study Redfield decided that there was a very
strong element of continuity between peasant societies in all places in all ages (62):
If a peasant from any one of these three widely separated communities could
have been transported by some convenient genie to any one of the others and
equipped with a knowledge of the language in the village to which he had
moved, he would very quickly come to feel at home. And this would be
because the fundamental orientation of life would be unchanged.
Not surprisingly, this extreme position has been opposed by some
anthropologists who question Redfield's methodology and point out that other
peasant societies do not necessarily conform to his model (see Lopreato ( 1965) 435-
6). It is now appreciated that peasant communities, once assumed to be the most
static type of society, are open to change, particularly under the impact of outside
influences. That is why the attempt to arrive at a narrow but all-embracing
definition of peasant society is bound to fail. Nevertheless, the most powerful single
factor in transforming peasant attitudes and institutions seems to be integration
into a capitalist economy. Without going so far as Redfield, I would argue that 'pre-
capitalist' peasant societies do have a sufficiently high degree of uniformity to
justify use of the comparative method. 35 By the same token, the analysis of the
world of Hesiod offered above may help the understanding of such other evidence
about peasants as survives from the ancient world; but that is beyond the scope of
the present paper.
DOWNING COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE PAUL MILLETT

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108 PAUL MILLETT
NOTES
*What follows is an extended version of a paper read to the Cambridge Philological Society on 26 April
1984. I am grateful to the members present for its kindly ifnot uncritical reception, and in particular to
Prof. M. I. Finley for his subsequent comments. I am also indebted to the editors of the Proceedings for
allowing me the space to develop my views. All passages in Greek are translated in the hope that this will
make the study more easily accessible to non-specialists. For the same reason, detailed argumentation is
relegated to the footnotes. By gathering all references to secondary literature in a separate section
following the footnotes, I have tried to provide a select bibliography of recent work on Hesiod.
I. The orientation of recent research is accurately reflected by the two widely praised commentaries by
West on the Theogony(I966)and the Works & Days(l978). Whatevertheirotherqualities(see Renehan
(1980), Solmsen (1980)), they are generally unhelpful on the historical side, for which the older
commentary by Sinclair ( 1932) is still useful. The samplings of papers in the relevant Fondation Hardt
(1962) and Wege der Forschung (1966) volumes show a similar bias of interest.
2. Amongst older works, Trever( 1924) and Hasebroek ( 1931) have most to say about Hesiod as a source
for historians, but they are both short on analysis.
3. Or, indeed, author of just the Works and notthe Days?(see West ( 1978) 346-7). Againstthe inclusion
of the Days: Solmsen (1963); reasserting their place in the poem: Beye (1972).
4. The most recent discussion is by West (1981). Introducing his commentary on the 7heogon_r(l966)
40-8, West argues in favour of writing or dictation on the grounds that it is unrealistic to see an
autobiographical poem like the Works & Days being recited by poets who had no connexion with the
people and events described therein (compare Jensen (1966) 2-3). West also suggests that the 'laboured
quality' of much of the composition of the Hesiodic poems is indicative of 'painful written rather than
unencumbered oral creation.' Neither of these arguments are decisive. I see no reason why an audience
should be unwilling to suspend disbelief and allow a poet to assume temporarily the persona of Hesiod;
for a similar view, see Edwards (1971) 190-3. As for West's point about the 'laboured quality' of the
composition, Walcot (1961) seems to argue in favour of Hesiod's literacy on precisely the opposite
grounds; namely, the conciseness and directness of Hesiod's narrative, coupled with the delicately
balanced judgement of his expression (16).
5. The term 'objective dating criteria' is taken over from Kirk ( 1960). Most recently, Janko( 1982)94-8,
228-31 has argued on linguistic grounds for a date of c. 670 for the Works & Days making Hesiod the
approximate contemporary of Archilochus.
6. For a more sceptical view of the 'autobiographical' element in the Works & Days, see Griffith ( 1983).
The later biographical traditions on Hesiod are collected by Lefkowitz(I981) and Scodel (1980). There
is a long-running debate on the probably insoluble question of the relationship between Works & Days
and the law-court speech that Hesiod is presumed to have delivered against Perses; earlier literature is
cited by Gagarin (1974).
7. The fullest discussion known to me is by Walcot (1970) 13-15.
8. Already, Starr's treatment has been cited with tacit approval by Drews ( 1983) 105 and Frazer ( 1983)
7.
9. See also the preliminary study by Bravo (1974). Both Bravo and Mele offer detailed and complex
analyses to which it is impossible to do full justice in a brief and necessarily negative discussion. Their
respective theories are subjected to a lengthier critique by Cartledge (1983).
10. Here, as elsewhere, I use the Loeb translation by Evelyn-White (1914), occasionally with slight
adaptions.

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11. On the difficulty of translating traditional epithets see Parry( 1971) 1-190, especially the sub-section:
'Can the fixed epithet be translated' ( 171-2). The weakness of the general idea of nobility in formulaic
expressions may be seen in the Od_r.ue_r, where even the swineherd can be described as 6io~. A similar
point is made by Renehan (1980) 351 against West's acceptance of Wilamowitz's amazing theory that
Hesiod's father fooled the Boeotians by pretending to be an aristocrat! It may be noted that some ancient
commentators chose to solve the problem by assuming that 6iov ycvo~ gave the name of Hesiod's father,
Dios (West (1978) ad loc.).
12. A similar argument. also jn support of seeing Hesiod and Perses as depressed o:ya0oi is used by
Adkins ( 1972) 24. He argues that Hesiod's advice to his brother (27-41) to stop wasting time in the o:yopa
and occupy himself with the work of his farm: 'suggests that Perses, and Hesiod, belong to a family
which has previously enjoyed much greater leisure, has been in fact a family of agathoi, and that whereas
Hesiod himself has come to terms with the new life of practical farming enjoined upon them by their
failing fortunes, Perses himself still longs for the leisure of the town.' But surely this is reading too much
into the text?
13. A slave or slaves: 441,459,470,502,573,597,608, 766; hired labour: 602-3; oxen: 405-6; wine from
Byblos: 589. There is a detailed discussion of the composition of the Hesiodic labour force by Nussbaum
(1960).
14. There is a "further inconsistency in Starr's citation of Phocylides for the o:ya06~ point of view. Three
pages later ( 127). he quotes another fragment of Phocylides: 'Midmost in a po/is would I be', with the
obvious implication that Phocylides speaks as a non-aristocrat. Further examples of'anti-aristocratic'
sentiments from early Greek poets, including Phocylides and Solon, are collected by Donlan ( 1973). In
his earlier, exhaustive study of the use of the terms o:ya06~ and KaK6~ in archaic Greek literature,
Donlan ( 1968) has nothing to say which might support Starr's narrow conception of the KaKoi. If
anything, the evidence is all the other way. Of the poetry ofTheognis, Donlan writes (221 ): 'the agathos-
kako.1· groups of words express moral judgements in which only the aristocrats are "good", and anyone
else outside the small group is "bad".' A similar sentiment is applied to Hesiod by Forrest in his chapter
on 'Central Greece and Thessaly' in the new CA ff2 ( 1982) Ill pt. 1287: 'what mattered in society was the
line between noble and commoner. not that between richer and poorer, and Hesiod was of the
commons.'
15. When Engels (1894) wished to analyse the peasantry of late nineteenth-century France and
Germany, he divided them into three groups on the basis of whether or not they employed wage labour,
and how they employed it.
16. As opposed to Luce ( 1978) 14, who sees the 1t6A1~as 'the social unit' for Hesiod. It is Luce's intention
to show how both Homer and Hesiod have a conception of the 1t6A1~ that foreshadows the classical
1t6A1~ ( 15): 'first. as constituting a centre of government protected by fortifications; and secondly. as
forming the main focus of habitation and loyalty for the people of a distinct and circumscribed region.'
The key to this so far as Hesiod is concerned is the verse (240): 'Often a whole 1t6}..1~ has suffered
misfortune from one evil man', which Luce describes as 'the famous line quoted by Aeschines in his
attack on Demosthenes' (Against Ctesiphon 3.135). But Aeschines' appropriation oflines from Hesiod
does not automatically mean that they shared the same conception of the 1t6A1~. For Aeschines, the
1t6}..1~ was undoubtedly the city of Athens with all the hinterland of Attica, conceived of as a single
community embracing both the urban and the rural population. For Hesiod, the 1t6A1~ seems to have
been a place set apart: the town. as opposed to the Kroµai of the countryside. This is clearest in v. 189,
where Hesiod thinks of a 1t6A1~ being sacked: l:-rEpo~ 6' i:ti:pou 1t6A1v E~aAa1ta~E1 - surely not
appropriate for a 1t6A1~ in the classical sense. Elsewhere, Hesiod's use of the term 1t6A1~ is entirely
consistent with the idea that the 1t6A1~ is a separate place where the ~aatAEi~ live and dispense their
judgements (222,227, 240, 269). The fate that Zeus bestows on their 1t6A1~ is dependent on the quality of
their justice. Were Hesiod to think of himself as a member of the 1t6}..1~. he would effectively be
condemning himself to suffer the same fate he expects to fall on those who have treated him unjustly. For
what it is worth, it may be noted that whereas Hesiod names his village of Ascra (640), the 1t6A1~ is left
unnamed and is only assumed, no doubt correctly, to have been Thespiae. On the topography of

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110 PAUL MILLETT
Hesiod's poetry, see Wallace (1974). A similar conclusion. that Hesiod's orientation was purely local,
away from the 1t6),1~ is reached by Spahn (1980).
17. The non-existence of dependent relationships in the Works & Days is further discussed in the
following section.
18. As an alternative to a narrow definition, it may be more helpful to think in terms of a typology of
peasant society: a selection of the salient features of peasant societies which, when combined together,
serve to set them apart from other types of society. In order to qualify. a society need partake of only an
appropriate selection of these characteristics. There is an attempt at a typology by de Ste Croix ( 1981)
210-11, actually adapted from Hilton's study of the English peasantry of the later middle ages (1975).
Characteristics listed by de Ste Croix include: peasants' possession (though not necessarily ownership)
of the means of agricultural production by which they subsist; the non-slave status of peasants, though
they may be subject to other forms of compulsory labour; the working of the land as family units,
occasionally with the use of slaves or wage-labour; the tendency of peasant families to group together,
usually in villages; the treatment as peasants of ancillary workers, associated with peasants; the
supporting by peasants of groups by which they are exploited to a greater or lesser degree; the possible
possession of political rights. So much is unexceptionable, but in the analysis that follows, de Ste Croix
chooses to exclude 'big' peasants on the grounds that they are better thought ofas part of the 'propertied
class'; he explicitly rejects the peasant status ofStrepsiades (540 n. 14). This is unfortunate, as it obscures
the fact that groups like the kulaks were customarily regarded as part of the peasantry.
19. The assumption is central to much of Walcot's comparative study of social and moral values among
ancient and modern Greek peasants ( 1970). I am, however, unconvinced by his argument (15-20) that the
Iliad and Odyssey may also be used as a store of information about peasant values.
20. Eisenberger ( 1982) argues on internal grounds that Hesiod was not a rhapsode, making his living by
public performance of his poems, but rather a farmer first and a poet only second.
21. A convenient control is provided by Virgil's Georgics. Superficially the poem is an imitation of the
Works & Days: Virgil claims to be singing'the song of Ascra through Roman towns'(2.176), and it is his
intention to help 'peasants who are ignorant of the way' ( 1.41 ). It has, however, long been recognised that
Virgil 'did not wish to instruct farmers, but to delight readers' (Seneca, Ep. Mor. 86.15). Whatever the
artistic unity of the poem, as a purely literary composition it cannot be used after the manner of the
Works & Days to recreate a realistic picture of Italian peasant society. Some of the practical
inconsistencies in the poem are indicated by Heitland (1921) 221-32; notably, Virgil's silence on the
status of his agricultural workforce.
22. On the composition of the oiKo~ in the sense of'household', see Finley ( 1977) 57-63, Lacey ( 1968) I5-
32, 71-2. The word oiKo~ is ambiguous in that it can refer to the farmhouse itselfrather than the whole
estate (Xenophon, Oec. 1.5). oiKo~ is probably used in this narrower sense in vv. 131,150,523,554,601,
627, 695, 733.
23. Gagarin ( 1973) argues in detail that the liiKTJ of the Works & Days does not have any general moral
sense, but refers to the legal process of settling disputes. This is an important element in the search for a
more prosperous existence. The connexion between the need for hard work and Hesiod's myth of the
ages is demonstrated by Fontenrose (1974).
24. 'Hesiod affirms that rational allocative activity is not relevant in extremes of either poverty or
plenty', says Gordon (5), taking as his text the lines (368-9): 'Take your fill when the cask is first opened
and when it is nearly spent, but mid ways be sparing: it is poor saving when you come to the lees.' Here
and elsewhere, Gordon is ignoring the warning of Schumpeter (1954) 54 that: 'most statements of
fundamental facts acquire importance only by the superstructures they are made to bear and are
commonplaces in the absence of such superstructures.' The whole of Gordon's analysis of Greek
'economic thought' is vitiated by a second-hand knowledge of Greek economy and society, derived from
unreliable sources. We are told, for example, that in Periclean Athens, almost all the phenomena

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associated with modern market economies were present, including banking companies which undertook
debt recovery, issued letters of credit, and invested in business ventures ( 11 ). None of this is true.
25. This passage is discussed in greater detail in the following section.
26. Campbell's study also provides evidence for the practical basis of this belief (204): 'If the village
President allots one man an area of good summer grass, another must receive an area of indifferent
grazing. Again, in the winter, pasture is scarce, and every family that has successfully negotiated for its
requirements of winter grass leaves less for the others.' So Hesiod presumably sees hard work as a
guarantee of prosperity, but only up to a certain point. This would be the limit set by the area of good
land available and the low, static level of technology. Gordon ( 1975) tries to modify Hesiod's pessimistic
outlook as embodied in the myth of the ages by suggesting that men in the Age of Iron were actually ina
better position than their ancestors (6 ):
... when the race was first conceived by the gods it was formed to exist without even rudimentary
technical aids. A decisive break came when the hero Prometheus (Forethought) stole fire and
passed it on to man. From this point development was a possibility.
But what Hesiod actually says is that in earlier ages, men did not need 'technical aids'. The men of the
fourth generation were (172-3, compare 42-4): 'Happy heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears
honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year.' Prometheus' gift of fire only alleviated men's miserable
condition, and brought no promise of further developments.
27. Presuming the phrase •A8T)vaiT)~ oµcjio~ ('slave of Athena') refers to a specialist 0T)µtoepy6~ rather
than a slave belonging to the oiKo~: Walcot (1967).
28. ouK bnooicrw ouo' bnµetpticrw - Korver (1934) 74 interprets the contrast as between giving and
lending on the grounds that, 'wat je geeft behoef je niet te meten.' But elsewhere in the Works & Days
oiowµt does definitely have the sense of 'lend' (453).
29. A list of these loans could be drawn up at considerable length: examples are commonest in Comedy.
Aristophanes: mirror (Frogs 1159-60), razor and dress ( Thesmophoriazusae 219, 250), pestle
(metaphorically for Brasidas, Peace 283-4); Plato the comic poet: cloak (FAC 1555 fr. 205); Menander:
wig, cloak and stick (Aspis 377-8). In Menander's D,rscolus the plaguing of neighbours with requests for
household utensils is a comic motif of some importance: stew pot (456-9), cooking pot (505), stewing pot
and basins (914), seven tripods and twelve small tables (916), nine rugs (922), a curtain one hundred feet
long(923-4)and a large bronze mixing bowl (928). Appropriately, the cook Sicon boasts of his technique
in cadging from neighbours, 'helping millions in the town, pestering their neighbours, borrowing pans
from all of them' (487-93). There is even the occasional non-monetary loan in the more socially elevated
world of the Orators: horse (Lysias 24.11), bronze pitcher (Dern. 47.52), plate (Lysias 19.21).
Humphreys ( 1970) 151 cites Thucydides 6.64, Demosthenes 49 .22, and interprets these loans of plate as a
surviving trace of competitive gift-giving. But they resemble more closely the non-monetary loans
between neighbours described above.
30. On the face of it, there appears to be no common purpose behind these mechanisms as described by
Hesiod and Mauss. The peasant Hesiod has the practical end of making sure that his neighbours
continue to offer help; the Indian chiefs introduced by Mauss return gifts with additional payment for
the sake of honour and prestige. In fact, both examples have a practical end in view. As noted by Mauss
(37-41 ), the chiers right to authority over his tribe and his relations with other chiefs are regulated by the
evidence he gives of his own good fortune. The only way a chief can prove he is wealthy, and therefore
blessed by the spirits, is by expending his fortune in such a way as to humiliate others. In extreme cases, a
man who cannot make adequate return for a gift loses not only his rank, but even his status as a free man.
31. More detailed criticisms of Ed. Will's theory are also possible. He argues at length against
translating wvu of v. 431 as 'sell', basing his objections on philological and historical grounds. Suffice it
to say that the validity of his philological arguments has been questioned by Bravo (1977) 7. On the
historical side, Ed. Will suggests that religious convention made it difficult to hand over to another

128.243.44.244 on Fri, 23 Oct 2020 20:44:34 UTC
112 PAUL MILLETT
person the ownership of the family KAijpo~. In any case, peasants would want to retain for as long as
possible some sort of control over their land. Both these points are uncontroversial. But Ed. Will also
argues that an outright sale of land is hard to conceive in the economie premonetaire of the Works &
Days. How could a piece of land be valued when there was no land market, and how could the value be
expressed anyway? Strange to say, it appears that Ed. Will is here confusing a pre-monetary with a pre-
coinage economy; grain may well have acted as a currency in the society of the Works & Days. As for the
impossibility of valuing land without a land market, this apparently ignores the point that some notion
of valuation is implicit in the negotiation of a loan where control of the debtor's land acts as a substitute
for real security. I do not believe that there was a land market in classical Athens, but that did not prevent
land changing hands at a price.
Apart from these institutional objections, I am uneasy about the whole thrust of Ed. Will's argument.
If sale and purchase of land was impossible in the society described by Hesiod, how was his father - an
immigrant from Aeolian Cyme (633-40) - able to gain control of the estate over which his sons quarrel?
The suggestion of West ( 1978) 30, that he simply travelled around until he found a piece of promising but
uncultivated land, is empty speculation. It is also inconsistent with Ed. Will's picture ofa society in the
midst of an agrarian crisis connected with a land shortage. In fact, Ed. Will's evidence for Hesiod's pre-
occupation with problems arising out of repeated divisions of the family KAijpo~ is less than decisive. He
cites vv. 376-7:
µouvoy&v1'~ 6& mil~ &iri 1tatpro1ov o\Kov
q,&pj3tµ&v· ro~ yap !tAOUTO~ cit!;&tat i:v µ&yapOICJIV.
There should be an only son, to feed his father's house, for so wealth can increase in the home.
But his interpretation is directly contradicted by the lines immediately following (378-80):
yripaio~ 6& 8av01~ h&pov na16' l:yKataA&inrov.
~&1a 6t K&V !tA&6V&CJCJI 1t6po1 Z&u~ QCJ!t&TOV c5Aflov.
1tA&irov µ&v 1tA&6vrov µ&AETTI, µ&i~rov ll' l:m811KT1.
But if you leave a second son you should die old. Yet Zeus can easily give great wealth to a greater
number. More hands mean more work and more increase.
For comparative evidence in support of both Ed. Will's reading of 376-7, and (unintentionally) the
alternative interpretation suggested by 378-80, see de Ste Croix (1981) 278 with nn. 6-7.
32. Detienne (1963) speculates on whether the gifts that the l3acr1A&1~ 'devour' might not be (27): 'des
souvenirs de dependances, des traces d'une sorte de clienteler But the range of meanings of the archaic
concept of the gift is too wide to make this any more than the vaguest of possibilities.
33. This is not to deny that a scenario can be devised in which the community's coping mechanisms
would break down, resulting in dependence on outside creditors and a possible debt crisis (Carriere
(1979)). A sequence of harvest failures over a single region could overwhelm the peasants' own
redistributive mechanisms. On the other hand, comparative material suggests that peasant societies are
able to absorb a surprisingly high level of debt without a crisis developing. I cite only two examples. In
his account ofa modern Greek peasant community, Campbell ( 1964) 248 estimated that out ofa total of
42 households, no more than three were able to clear themselves of debt, and then only once a year: 'Only
when a family of man, wife, and small children has at least 200 sheep is there generally the possibility of
being relatively free from debt.' Some revealing statistics are supplied by Darling (1947), in his study of
the Punjab peasantry. Darling estimated that by 1940, there were approximately 55,000 rural money-
lenders in the Punjab alone (xxviii); out of a sample of 44,000 peasants, only 17% were found to be free
from debt. There was hardly a single district of the Punjab in which more than a third of the peasantry
was clear of debt, and in some cases the percentage was less than ten, or even five ( 102). And yet apart
from the occasional outburst against a particularly vicious money-lender, indebtedness was accepted as
a fact of life (xx): 'millions of cultivators are "born in debt, live in debt, and die in debt".'
34. The Orators have a built-in bias, inasmuch as only better-off citizens would be able to afford the
services of a skilled speech-writer such as Demosthenes, Lysias or Isaeus. The friends, relatives,
opponents and all the other people described in the Orators will tend to have the same sort of status. The

128.243.44.244 on Fri, 23 Oct 2020 20:44:34 UTC
poverty of our sources on the condition of the Attic peasantry in the fourth century is sufficiently
indicated by Mosse (1973).
35. By way of illustration, contemporary peasant societies which are integrated into a market economy
may have available to them a wide range of sources of credit. Apart from the institutionalised credit of
rural banks and government agencies, there are also merchants and middlemen who mediate between
peasants and retailers (Campbell ( 1964) 249-53). Nevertheless, there is good evidence that - like access to
markets - peasant borrowing from banks and state agencies is a comparatively recent development. By
and large, the conventional type of bank is not interested in peasant credit, and the peasants themselves
prefer to rely on the local sources of credit with which they are familiar - relatives and neighbours, as in
the Works & Days (Darling (1947) xx-xxiii).
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U · . · VERS ITY PRE .· . S

HESIOD AND HIS WORLD

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44698806

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invented a poetic fantasy? It is necessary to distinguish here between two distinct

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traditionally been subsistence farmers, striving for economic self-sufficiency (see

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values and institutions only if it is assumed that Hesiod is describing a peasant

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i'jTE Kat (l7t0.Aaµ6v 7tEp oµcoc; E7tl i:pyov EyEipEV.

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between individuals is seen as advantageous, leading directly to economic growth.

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Oco~ aya0}1, lip1ta~ Oi: KaKll, 0avatoto OOtEtpa.

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DOWNING COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE PAUL MILLETT

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7. The fullest discussion known to me is by Walcot (1970) 13-15.

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25. This passage is discussed in greater detail in the following section.

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A. W. H. Adkins (1972), Moral values and political behaviour in ancient Greece

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J. Fontenrose (1974), 'Work, justice, and Hesiod's five ages', CP 69 1-16

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P. Schumpeter (1954), A history of economic ana~vsis

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