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Farming in the ancient Greek world: how should the small free producers be
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Article  in  Studia Humaniora Tartuensia · January 2007

DOI: 10.12697/sht.2007.8.A.3 · Source: DOAJ

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 FARMING IN THE ANCIENT GREEK WORLD:
HOW SHOULD THE SMALL FREE PRODUCERS BE DEFINED?*

Julián Gallego

Abstract

In recent studies on the rural world in ancient Greece the application of the notion of peasant to the rural
homestead has received several objections. Some scholars have preferred to use the notion of farmer to
characterise the family smallholding. In this paper I first review these standpoints, and then reconsider
the evidence concerning the Greek words georgos and autourgos and also concerning the patterns of settle-
ment and agricultural systems produced by archaeological surveys. Finally, I offer my own view based
on a model of multiple social and economic situations in which Greek smallholders could be involved
along the family life cycle.

Introduction

In recent times, the study of the rural world in ancient Greece has acquired an extra-
ordinary relevance.1 This has allowed a more complete understanding of Greek agri-
culturalists.2 But the definition of their social situation has become a controversial sub-
ject. To some extent, the discussion of the agrarian basis of the polis has been linked to
this matter, especially in English-language studies. Several debates have finally pro-
gressed throughout the notions of peasant and of farmer. It is not a mere question of
names but a problem of definition of the social class and of the type of productive unit
being analysed. Starting from a review of different positions, in this article I will offer
an interpretation of Hellenic cultivators and of certain factors related to the working
of the rural oikos.3

Greek agriculturalists: peasants or farmers?

The peasant is often defined as a small self-sufficient producer who employs family
labour to work a mixed farm. Living in little rural communities and a specific tradi-
tional culture constitute other aspects of his specific situation. Agrarian societies
often present social differentiations and involve several rapports between cultivators
and the landed gentry. So, another important element is that peasants must transfer a

* A shorter previous version of this article was published in Spanish as: ‘¿Peasant o Farmer? Definiendo
a los antiguos labradores griegos,’ Ancient History Bulletin 15.4 (2001), 172–185.
1 See Cartledge 1993; 1995; Gallego 2001; 2003.

2 In this paper I only consider the agrarian units of production based fundamentally on family labour,

leaving aside the landed estates that could exploit different types of labour force. On the other hand, in
this article the notions of householder, small producer, small freeholder, smallholder, as well as those of
agriculturalist, countryman, cultivator, farmhand, grower, will be taken as equivalent with a merely de-
scriptive purpose. The conceptual attention will only be centred on the notions of farmer and of peasant.
3 On the oikos cf. Pesando 1987; Nevett 1999. See also Ault & Nevett 2005.

STUDIA HUMANIORA TARTUENSIA vol. 8.A.3 (2007)

ISSN 1406-6203 http://www.ut.ee/klassik/sht/
regular surplus to the ruling elite.4 This is partly the picture of ancient paysans by
Claude Mossé, who also maintains the idea that Hesiod’s Works and Days and Virgil’s
Georgics reflect the common characteristics of peasant life in classical antiquity.5
Moses Finley and Geoffrey de Ste. Croix seem to agree with this perspective
and conceptualise the small rural producers as peasants. But beyond this coincidence
both authors show substantial differences around a significant issue. In Finley’s view,
ancient peasants were generally free landowners who received effective protection
against exploitation by means of citizen rights. Their inclusion as full members of the
political body made them an exception with regard to other cultivators who were
broadly exploited.6 On the other hand, Ste. Croix proposes that citizen rights did not
constitute a significant obstacle against the extraction of surplus from ancient peasants.
Beyond different economic situations (freeholder, lessee, tenant, etc.), the common con-
dition was the exploitation of peasants through debts, taxes, military recruitment,
labour services, etc.7
In his research of ancient Roman peasants, Peter Garnsey compares the Greek
situation with the Roman one, remarking the “great exception” of Attic peasants. For
the Roman situation, the author has proposed the existence of an underlying mecha-
nism of the imperial expansion according to which peasant-soldiers were later in-
stalled in new lands as farmers. Besides this, he has pointed out that most of the
peasants lived in the countryside, not in town, and that owner-cultivators, tenant-
farmers and day-labourers constituted three overlapping categories, which provided
the necessary labour force to landed estates in combination with chattel-slaves.8
Although Garnsey uses the notions of peasant and of farmer, in fact he assimilates
the latter to the former. In later works on famine and food supply, Garnsey has re-
considered these questions, also adopting the ideas provided by peasant studies. In
his vision, the peasant is apart from the entrepreneurial farmer and from the primitive
cultivator.9 Despite noticing it is a pipedream to speak of a “typical ancient peasant,”
he adopts the most common definition: the peasant is a small rural producer with
simple equipment who utilises family labour to produce the stuffs for his own sub-
sistence as well as for those who hold the political and/or economic powers.10
So, one of the main contributions made by Finley, Garnsey and Ste. Croix con-
sisted in the adoption for ancient history of concepts such as peasant economy, elabo-
rated in the field of other social sciences.11 Thomas Gallant also assumes this notion
of peasant economy to analyse the small Greek householders: because they constituted
a part of a wider society, they employed domestic labour to produce their own sub-
sistence, and they transferred an important surplus to maintain other social statuses.
But the Greek peasantry was not a one-piece group: a fluctuating line separated the

4 Redfield 1956; Wolf 1966; Powell 1972; Shanin 1973–74; Worsley 1981.
5 Mossé 1966: Part II, Ch. 1.
6 Finley 1999 [1st ed. 1973]: Ch. 4.

7 Ste. Croix 1981: 208–26.

8 Garnsey 1976; 1979; 1980 = Garnsey 1998: 91–105, 107–31, 134–48, respectively.

9 Garnsey 1988: 43–48; cf. 1999: 23–28.

10 See Shanin 1972: Ch. 2.

11 See for instance Chayanov 1986 [1st ed. 1966]; Galeski 1972; Shanin (ed.) 1971; Shanin 1971.

2
rich peasant from the poor one, and in a while the former could become the latter
and vice versa.12
Another aspect is the relationship between agriculturalists and the market. In
his analysis of the world of Hesiod, Paul Millett has rigorously elaborated the link
between peasants and trade, appropriately criticising the interpretations that consider
the Boiotian poet as an aristocrat. He has also indicated that the definition of peasant
proposed by sociologists and anthropologists is based on the study of contemporary
or recent circumstances. In these cases, peasant communities appear as part-societies
in which market-oriented production has an essential role. But in ancient Greece, small
producers were not fully integrated into a developed market. In this sense, Hesiod
allows us to understand the working of a peasant village built on a coherent system
of values and institutions, such as oikos autonomy, autarky, and the obligatory nature
of reciprocity, which delimited concrete patterns of exchange within the village.13
About this point, Josiah Ober indicates that “most of Attica was farmed by
smallholders, families of peasants who worked plots averaging 9–13 acres (40–60
plethra) on a subsistence basis. A very limited amount of grain was produced for the
city market; the bulk of Attic grain was consumed by those who produced it.”14 In
this context, he can alternate the words farmer and peasant, although he only includes
the former but not the latter in the analytic index. Stephen Hodkinson, who makes a
repeated use of farmer, presents a similar fluctuation. But he characterises the polis as
a self-governed community in which the inclusion of peasants into the citizen body
gave them an undeniable political force. It was a world dominated by the ethics of
household autarky and inhabited thoroughly by citizen-peasants dedicated to a mixed
farming, in which the trade infrastructure beyond the local level was relatively under-
developed.15
Robin Osborne agrees with these descriptions but not with the conceptualisa-
tions. Farmers can coincide with peasants due to the low technological level, the link
between farm and family, an economy depending on agriculture, and probably the
immediate use of family labour. But farmers are neither exploited nor dominated by
external agents, nor are they in possession of a distinctive traditional culture. They
establish neither a clear separation between city and country, nor an explicit recogni-
tion of the division between small and large proprietors.16 However, in a later study
Osborne refers to the agrarian foundation of the polis using the expression “the peasant
basis of society.”17 In spite of this he has recently argued again, in relation to Hesiod,
that it makes no sense to classify his situation by means of modern categories like
that of peasant, since many of its defining features are absent.18 On the other hand,
Signe Isager and Jens Skydsgaard also adopt an ambiguous approach, albeit for other
reasons: the Greek world was a set of communities constituted by peasants. But there
were exceptional city-states that were not essentially populated by them, like Athens
or Corinth, where ways of earning a living other than agriculture did exist. So, the

12 Gallant 1991: 4–5.

13 Millett 1984; cf. 1991: 28–39, 45–52, 74–75.
14 Ober 1985: 21; cf. 1996: 135–38.

15 Hodkinson 1988: 57.

16 Osborne 1985a: 142 and n. 47.

17 Osborne 1987: 13.

18 Osborne 1996: 145–46.

3
peasant pattern can be applied to most of the small poleis, but it is incompatible with
the knowledge we have of the largest ones.19
Recently, Anthony Edwards has examined the nature of Hesiod’s village, pro-
posing that it cannot be defined as a peasant community due to its independence
with respect to external powers. The author agrees with Millett concerning agri-
culture, household autonomy and reciprocity, but dissents with him about the use of
the notion of peasant. To maintain this, Edwards specifically adopts the classical view
of peasant that we have seen before,20 and consequently states that Hesiod’s village
“is a world that remains unhierarchized and unregimented by the polis system, by the
need to supply a basileus or an elite with a surplus.”21 But as is known, Hesiod’s situa-
tion is often used to maintain that the development of the polis implied the subordi-
nation of smallholders to the city-state organisation and their exploitation by the
wealthy landlords,22 as David Tandy has suggested it in a recent work.23 Evidently, the
problem remains the same: what kind of concepts must we employ to explain the issue?
On the other hand, several scholars have fully accepted the concept of farmer,
although in different ways. Michael Jameson applies the notion of farmer because the
ancient Greek language had no term for “peasant”. Consequently, it should be con-
stantly amended when it is used for the Greco-Roman world to distinguish ancient
populations from those of the medieval and modern ages.24 But as Ellen Wood has
argued, the adjustment in the definition of peasant is a consequence of its application
to, for instance, the specific situation of agriculturalists in the Athenian democracy
compared with other peasant societies. Attic smallholders’ citizenship reduced the
necessity to intensify labour because it limited the surplus extraction in a way un-
known to other agrarian formations. Thus, it would be necessary to re-examine the
definition of peasant as a cultivator who depends on certain rights on land and on
family labour for his subsistence, but who is ruled and exploited by external powers
in the framework of a wider social system. Athenian peasants (and possibly most of
Greek agriculturalists) were exempt from payments and exactions which were com-
mon in most of peasant societies.25 But this debate between Jameson and Wood has
gone beyond the question of farmer or peasant categories. Indeed, a fundamental issue
in their arguments has been the use of slave labour inside the small farmsteads. For
Jameson, the employment of some slaves gave the Attic farmer the option of political
and military participation without neglecting production.26 For Wood, since the

19 Isager & Skydsgaard 1992: 113–14. Cartledge 1993: 132, 134, points out that the term “peasant” can be
useful if it refers to a countryman, since most ancient Greeks lived in and from the countryside. Cart-
ledge criticises Isager & Skydsgaard 1992 because they indicate that Athens was different from other
poleis concerning the economic importance of agriculture and landed wealth.
20 Edwards 2004: 5, 163. See Redfield 1956: 23–40.

21 Edwards 2004: 166.

22 E.g. Will 1957: 12–24; Detienne 1963: 15–27. See also Austin & Vidal-Naquet 1972: 74–77; Fernández

Ubiña 1977: 86–91; Gschnitzer 1981: 49–56; Mossé 1984: 97–99; Perysinakis 1986. Will had argued a line
of continuity between the Boiotian situation in Hesiod’s times and the situation of Athens before Solon
that he solved by means of his reforms. On this see Wood 1988: 89–98.
23 Tandy 2001; cf. 1997: 203–27.

24 Jameson 1992: 136 and n. 3; cf. 1994.

25 Wood 1983: 8–9; 1988: 51–63.

26 Jameson 1977/78; 1992: 142–45; see Hanson 1992; 1995: 63–70, 129–30.

4
Athenian peasant was neither subjected nor exploited, he could dedicate his extra time
to non-economic activities.27
Alison Burford also rejects the term peasant bearing in mind the arguments
previously examined. Nevertheless, she recognises that the idea of peasant can be help-
ful to describe psychological attitudes of different social groups in ancient Greece.28
On the other hand, Victor Hanson resolutely assumes the notion of farmer and
argues that the polis was essentially founded on free farmers, whose horizons were
hard work, competition, the ethos of an intensive agriculture, family needs and a valu-
able production to trade. Regarding landlords and peasants, farmers constituted a
new class of self-employed owners who were responsible for their own survival and
participated in sophisticated market systems. Hanson lists eleven reasons in favour
of the application of the notion of farmer to ancient Greek agriculturalists: 1) they did
not have debts with the rich; 2) they owned money; 3) they paid no rents or taxes; 4)
they marketed surpluses; 5) they had equal political rights; 6) they volunteered for
the army; 7) they were responsible for their own social status; 8) they possessed slaves;
9) they were not separated from the elite by the size or nature of their farms; 10) they
had clear rights on their farms, reserves, slaves and weapons; 11) they could carry
out changes in agricultural techniques. Finally, the author concludes that “it is nearly
impossible to envision Greek homestead farmers as systematically being exploited by
outsiders, or in possession of a distinct cultural tradition of victimization,” pointing
out two cardinal aspects of the usual definition of peasant that he believes inadequate
for the analysis of Greek growers.29
In a French context, Marie-Claire Amouretti indicates that the Greek model
does not fit into sociological categories such as primitive society, peasant society or
industrial society: “Ce qui caractérise l’insertion du mode de vie agricole dans la so-
ciété générale, c’est l’intermédiaire de la polis. Communauté de citoyens, celle-ci leur
réserve le droit de propriété comme le droit politique. Ces cités de petite taille ont
défendu leurs frontières et limité de ce fait la cohérence d’une société paysanne.”30
Once again, this leads us to the particular position of the ancient Greek agricultural-
ists compared with the usual subordination of most peasants. In this sense, it is not a
problem to adapt the analytical categories according to the Greek specific conditions,
and not only the notion of peasant but also that of farmer have to be revised for the
study of ancient Greece. Actually, the notion of farmer has acquired a precise meaning
in connection with the modern family farm which appears as a market-oriented econ-
omy rather than as a subsistence one.31 It is clear that analytic approaches adopted by
the scholars determine their explanations about Greek smallholders. If the operative

27 Wood 1983; 1988: 42–80.

28 Burford 1993: 85–86, 172. As Burford says (pp. 86–87), Hesiod can be considered as the one that most
thoroughly expresses the interest of all the householders that own land, while Homer on occasions can
show in his heroes some attitudes characteristic of a peasant mentality. See Finley 1999 [1st ed. 1973]:
108. But, in the historical context of fifth- and fourth-century Athens, these supposed “peasant” attitudes
of landlords have been correctly rejected by Osborne 1991: 136–42.
29 Hanson 1995: 95–108. The author is the most enthusiastic in the use of the notion of farmer for the ana-

lysis of Greek agriculturalists. He even compares (pp. 1–22) the Hellenic countrymen with the American
agriculturalists; see also Hanson 1996.
30 Amouretti 1986: 199.

31 On this issue see Galeski 1971: 122; cf. 1972: Ch. 1–3, and Ch. 6–7. For the ancient world, this question

has been pointed out by Finley 1999 [1st ed. 1973]: 105, as well as by Wood 1983: 8.

5
definitions contributed by sociologists, anthropologists and others are transformed
into canonical and rigid ones, probably little scope will be left to analyse Hellenic
cultivators with the category of peasant. But as Finley and Wood have pointed out,
the idea of peasants not submitted to exploitation because of their incorporation as
full citizens of the political community is an impressive alternative.
In sum, the problem of these debates is not only the conceptualisation of free
agriculturalists but also the explanation of their position in the social structure. Three
positions seem to stand out from the previous remarks. The first one ascertains the
existence of peasants in relation to landlords but maintains that in the Greek polis the
former were not exploited by the latter, and this constituted her differentia specifica.32
The second position also uses the category of peasant, but it points out that many
peasants had to pay rents or taxes to landlords or the state, as in many other agrarian
societies.33 In opposition to the first one, this vision is centred in the long durée process
that goes beyond the Greek polis period. The third perspective highlights that the small
Greek freeholders were farmers who constituted a separate class in relation to the
absentee landlords and the peasants who had to supply the former with a surplus.34
The choice of one category or another has possibly been affected by the politi-
cal situation as well as by intellectual guidelines. As is known, a series of Alexander
Chayanov’s works on peasant economy was published for the first time in the western
world during the 1960s (first in English, but soon after in other languages). This could
clarify why during the 1970s and until the middle 1980s the notion of peasant was
widely used as a means of renewing the methodological approaches to agrarian so-
cieties. But from the mid-1980s and during the 1990s the criticisms of this notion
resulted from the widespread use of the concept of farmer. This was perhaps an effect
of the abandonment of Marxist positions derived from the failure of the socialist world
and of the confinement of the notion of peasant to explain only the situation of rural
exploited populations.35

Greek smallholding’s rationality: towards a multiple model

What happens if we change the conceptual starting point that all the scholars have
assumed up to this moment? Indeed, in order to accept or to reject the notion of
peasant, and in consequence to adopt or to discard the notion of farmer, the common
starting point is the definition offered at the beginning of this paper. But new studies
and methodological contributions can lead us through new paths, such as Frank Ellis’
strictly economic definition.36 According to him, it is not necessary to think of the
peasantry as a class completely exploited by the landlords or the state. His definition
claims that peasants are a part of a wider economic system, and for that reason their
economic behaviour as small agricultural producers depends on how the wider system

32 Finley 1999 [1st ed. 1973]: 96; Wood 1983: 8–9; 1988: 53–54.
33 Ste. Croix 1981: 210–11; Garnsey 1988: 45–47; 1999: 25–26; Gallant 1991: 4.
34 Jameson 1992: 142–45; 1994; Burford 1993: 83–88, 167–72, 182–86; Hanson 1995: 105–20.

35 The use of the concept of peasant by Donlan 1973 and that of farmer by Donlan 1997 maybe could be

an example of these changes. But there are scholars who have continued using “peasant” from the mid-
1980s and during the 1990s, e.g. Morris 1987; 1991; 1994; 1996; 2000.
36 Ellis 1993 [1st ed. 1988]: 3–16, 276–77; see Netting 1993, with Martinez-Alier 1995.

6
works for them. It allows the peasants certain self-sufficiency for survival which can
on occasion be important to explain their economic behaviour. It emphasises that
peasant production takes place in a context of factor markets and of product markets
not fully formed; these “imperfect” markets will impact differently on the relative
autonomy of small rural producers, as well as on the type of economic choices they
make. It is useful to distinguish peasants from agricultural capitalist enterprises that
use wage labour, as well as from commercial family farms that operate in a context of
fully formed factor and product markets. It gives a strategic perspective to agricul-
tural policies often interested in accelerating the transition from peasant to commer-
cial family farms by improving the working of markets, increasing the use of bought
supplies and removing the social and economic restrictions that distinguish the peas-
ants from other economic actors in a market-driven system. But if it is only possible
to speak of farmer when the family agricultural economy is fully integrated into a
completely developed market, then this notion can only be used in the context of a
capitalist economy. In that case, the notion of farmer must be amended according to
the Greek agriculturalists’ situation. A way of advancing on this issue is to go back to
the available evidence, especially that which allows us to consider the small independ-
ent rural producer who possessed a farm based on family labour.
Burford has gathered an important part of the literary sources related to this
matter, and her analysis underlines a point to keep in mind.37 The Greek word
georgos — which she associates with the notion of farmer — presents ambiguous and
contrasting meanings: an agriculturalist that farms his own land, and a cultivator
that works for another. Sometimes the term georgos is applied also to the slaves.38 For
Burford, the term autourgos is the best to represent the citizen-farmer position in the
Greek world. Indeed, the word georgos could simply mean a farm property-owner, as
can be deduced from Aristotle’s Politics:39

“For the purpose of making the people an agricultural community (georgon ton demon),
not only were some of the laws that were enacted in many states in early times entirely
serviceable, prohibiting the ownership of more than a certain amount of land (gen me-
trou tinos) under any conditions or else of more than a certain amount lying between a
certain place and the citadel or city …”

Despite these ambiguities, Aristophanes uses the term georgos to identify a country-
man who cultivates the land by himself, albeit sometimes assisted by a slave, as
happens with Trygaeus in Peace and Chremylus in Wealth. But this did not take them
away from the group that had to work with their own hands; rather they belonged to
the same social class as those who, due to poverty, were only able to keep an ox that
functioned as a servant.40 In Peace, the virtue of these cultivators is openly glorified,

37 Burford 1993: 15, 167–72.

38 See Amouretti 1986: 212, 214, 216.
39 Aristotle, Politics 1319a 6–10 (Aristotle in 23 volumes. Vol. 21 translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge

MA: Harvard University Press, 1944 [Loeb Classical Library]). See also Demosthenes 18.41; 19.314; Finley
1985 [1st ed. 1952]: 258 (n. 98).
40 Such is the commentary to Hesiod (Works and Days 405) that can be read in Aristotle (Politics 1252b 12).

But the possession of an ox could on occasion be an inconvenience for the farmhand who depended on
himself for his subsistence.

7
and it is clearly highlighted that their virtue derives from their dedication to work.41
Aristophanes also shows that the smallholders carried out the farming tasks by them-
selves (orchards, vineyards and figs in this case) using their own farm implements.42
This representation allows us to associate the georgos with another figure that
defines more clearly the class position of the Hellenic agriculturalists. The term aut-
ourgos applied to the independent producer undoubtedly indicates that he subsists by
his own work. The Greek sources present us several indications about this, even though
at times the description of the autourgos acquires a negative connotation. Xenophon
sets the autourgos together with the georgos (who could be a landed knight, as it hap-
pens with Ischomachus) because both combine the best conditions for being a citizen
and a soldier, due to the physical strength they acquire labouring the land with their
own hands.43 The rural autourgos faces permanent difficulties that he has to solve
adding more and more of his own work. In this sense, the autourgos appears as a para-
digmatic character that confronts the poverty with dignity, a kind of austerity that
tempers the spirit of the best soldiers. This is clearly what derives from the picture
we find in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. Although in this case the term is applied to the
Persians, it is evident that what is being reflected is the Greek mental image regarding
the autourgos. In Cyrus’ words, those who cultivate the land by themselves are the
best bodyguards, since they have to struggle with an inclement land and their own
poverty.44 Pheraulus reaffirms these conditions when he describes his father’s way of
life, which he has had to adopt:45

“Rich, indeed!; nay rather, as everybody knows, one of those who lived by the labour
of their hands. To be sure, my father, who supported us by hard labour and close
economy on his own part (autos ergazomenos), managed to give me the education of
the boys; but when I became a young man, he could not support me in idleness, and
so he took me off to the farm and put me to work. And there, as long as he lived, I, in
turn, supported him by digging and planting a very little plot of ground. It was really
not such a very bad plot of ground, but, on the contrary, the most honest; for all the
seed that it received it returned fairly and honestly, and yet with no very great amount
of interest. And sometimes, in a fit of generosity, it would even return to me twice as
much as it received.”

Euripides has a high respect for the autourgos, since he is the only one disposed to de-
fend the land, is sensible in political affairs and practises an irreproachable way of
life.46 Aristotle also offers us a positive image of this group, which he locates among
those who are appreciated for their generosity, courage and equity; this would be the

41 Aristophanes, Peace 508, 511, 588, 603.

42 Ibid. 550–59. See also Aristophanes, Wealth 223, 903; Lysias 20.33; Isaeus 9.18.
43 Xenophon, Oeconomicus 5.4.

44 Xenophon, Cyropaedia 7.5.67–68.

45 Ibid. 8.3.37–38 (Xenophon. Cyropaedia. Books V–VIII, translated by Walter Miller. Cambridge MA: Har-

vard University Press, 1914 [Loeb Classical Library]). Menander (Georgos 34–39) points out a similar point:
“I don’t think anyone at all farms land more pious than this is! Myrtle it bears, and splendid ivy and so
many flowers. And if it’s sown with other crops, it gives a true and fair return — not in excess, but just
the right amount.” (Menander. The plays and fragments, translated with notes by Maurice Balme with an
introduction by Peter Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001 [Oxford World’s Classics]); see also
Menander, Dyscolus 369–70. Polybius (4.21.1) is in accord with Xenophon about the characteristics of
autourgia.
46 Euripides, Orestes 918–22; cf. Electra 35–38.

8
distinctiveness of all those who do not live at the expense of others but by their own
work, especially people who farm the land by the labour of their hands.47 For Plato,
the people (demos) are also identified with those who survive on their own labour (aut-
ourgoi) and who are politically quiet (apragmones) without possessing much property.
But when the people are assembled, it is the most numerous and sovereign in the demo-
cracy.48
In Pericles’ words, according to Thucydides, the concept of autourgos applied
to the Peloponnesians acquires a pejorative connotation.49 However, the features at-
tributed to the Peloponnesian autourgoi are coincident with the characterisation that
we have already seen: people with scarce wealth who live by the labour of their hands
and whose capacity to serve in the army and participate in military operations is
subordinated to the agrarian economic logic; infantrymen who are not very willing to
be absent from their territory, who prefer to develop brief campaigns, who contribute
their own resources for the war (the hoplite’s weapons) and who combat committing
their own bodies.50
How should the class position of these georgoi autourgoi be interpreted from a
conceptual point of view? Although the testimonies underline the farm’s autonomous
character and the value of the cultivator’s own labour, this says nothing about a mar-
ketable surplus production. Rather, it seems to insinuate that we are dealing with a
subsistence agricultural system. However, Hesiod51 and Aristophanes52 pointed out
that growers regularly exchanged products in the market.53 In view of this question,
it is now convenient to return to the explanations of the scholars and to examine some
of their arguments.
Leaving aside all those who underline the exploitation of ancient householders,
the most remarkable fact is the coincident statement on the existence of a large class
of independent growers not obliged to supply a regular surplus. At first, this idea
has been developed for the Athenian case, but it is now being applied to the Greek
world during the late Archaic and Classical period.54 In this framework, as we have

47 Aristotle, Rhetoric 1381a 21–25.

48 Plato, Republic 565a. On the autourgos and democratic polis, see Carter 1986: 76–98.
49 Thucydides 1.141.3–5.

50 For Burford 1993: 170, the statement should be limited with reference to the Spartans, because accord-

ing to another passage of Thucydides (3.15.2), they made the preparations for the war with great decision,
while their allies acted with more parsimony because they were not interested or because they were in
the harvest. The situation of the Peloponnesian autourgoi was perhaps a result of their dependency on
the resources of their own land, while, according to what Pericles points out soon after in the same speech,
the Athenians had abundant lands in the islands and in the continent (under the cleruchy system). See
Thucydides 1.143.4–5, with the remarks of Burford 1993: 258 (n. 5), and of Strauss 1987: 52 and n. 59,
who sees the autourgoi as “farmers of their own land.” On cleruchies, see Salomon 1997.
51 Hesiod, Works and Days 618–32, 643–94.

52 Aristophanes, Acharnians 32–36, 723–25, 818–19, 836–41, 909–25; Wasps 170; Knights 316–18; Assembly-

women 817–21.
53 As Thorner 1971: 207, says: “We are sure to go astray if we try to conceive of peasant economies as ex-

clusively ‘subsistence’-oriented and suspect capitalism wherever the peasants show evidence of being
‘market’-oriented. It is much sounder to take it for granted, as a starting point, that for ages peasant
economies have had a double orientation towards both. In this way, much fruitless discussion about the
nature of so-called ‘subsistence’ economies can be avoided.”
54 See for instance Hanson 1995. Even Ste. Croix 1981: 213, 225, 285–89, who set peasants inside the

exploited class, should recognise that Greek democracy meant for the small producer a true protection
against exploitation. For Garnsey 1976: 222 = 1998: 93, this was a “great exception.”

9
already seen, the relative austerity of the Attic countrymen who worked for them-
selves has led to the notion that they were peasants depending on subsistence agri-
culture. On the contrary, it has been also affirmed that they would not be peasants but
farmers, since they lacked a specific traditional culture. But their relative austerity
should not deceive us. The testimonies of Aristophanes already examined point out
that the Attic georgos could combine various kinds of cultivation, which supposes a
way of intensifying production. In agreement with this Aristophanic representation we
find in the Palatine Anthology the following description of different agrarian tasks:55

“Dear Earth, take to your breast the old Amyntichus, and remember his many toils for
your sake. In you he always firmly set the stem of the olive tree, and decorated you
with the vines of Bacchus. He made you abundantly fruitful with grain, and drawing
out the channels of water he made you rich in vegetables and fruit. So in return lie
gently round his aged head, and dress yourself in flowers of spring.”

Some authors have pointed out that this farming strategy was in fact able to produce
beyond family subsistence needs, that is, to produce for the markets.56 It would be an
intensive cultivation system combining crops of cereals, olive trees, vines, pulses,
vegetables and fruit trees, with less time devoted to fallow and more attention to soil
improvement (manure, weeding, terraces building and maintenance), with a few
animals, a high input of hand labour, and good water supply.57 This system would
imply a profit-maximisation logic but in a context of “incomplete or imperfect mar-
kets.”58 However, other authors have proposed that the intensive agriculture based
on polycropping and intercropping was the result of a risk-minimisation strategy of
the small agrarian producers.59 But as Ellis demonstrates, risk aversion and profit-
maximisation are twin logics based on decision-making process, that is, individual
choices with the objective of maximising personal “welfare” or “happiness.”60
Archaeological survey of the agrarian landscapes and settlement patterns in
ancient Greece has allowed reviewing different aspects of these ancient agricultural
practices.61 This has made possible a reconsideration of literary and epigraphic evi-
dence. In my view, there are three main factors to consider. In the first place, the dis-
tribution of the land in regular and relatively equal plots has been verified throughout
the Greek world (and especially in colonial regions).62 Secondly, the fragmentation of
land holdings would have made possible the control of several ecological niches and

55 Palatine Anthology 7.321 (I quote the English translation from Burford 1993: 14). The account of Laertes’
farm (Homer, Odyssey 1.188–93; 24.205–12) presents several coincidences. See also the list of products
cultivated in the Alkinoos’ farm (ibid. 7.112–30).
56 Jameson 1994: 56–58; Hanson 1995: 47–89.

57 On orchards with water supply see Homer, Iliad 5.87–92; 21.257–62, 346–47.

58 Ellis 1993 [1st ed. 1988]: 10, 76, 153–56; Netting 1993: 155–56, 261–94.

59 Garnsey 1988: 48–55; 1999: 22–42; Gallant 1991: 34–59.

60 Ellis 1993 [1st ed. 1988]: 90, 279; cf. 65–145.

61 The following pages are based on Gallego 2004; 2005: 34–41; 2007.

62 On the distribution of the land throughout the Greek world see Finley 1985 [1st ed. 1952]: 58–59;

Graham 1964: 59; Asheri 1971; Lepore 1973: 25; Martin 1973: 103; Pečirka 1973; Andreyev 1974; Burford
1977/78: 168–70; 1993: 67–69; Boyd & Jameson 1981: 327, 336; Carter 1981; 1990: 425–30; Saprykin 1994:
73–94; Hanson 1995: 186–89, 194–95. Now see McInerney 2004: 22–26.

10
a better organisation to deal with subsistence risks.63 Thirdly, the operation of an inten-
sive agro-pastoral family farm would be based on the Mediterranean triad crops
(cereal, vine, olive) supplemented by pulses, garden vegetables, fruit trees and animal
husbandry.64 All this would allow obtaining a higher productivity to feed a larger po-
pulation in territories that could often require the construction of terraces or trenches.65
This characterisation of the agro-pastoral farm would seem to show the auto-
nomy of the domestic economy, which could be related to certain patterns of residence
of the Greek cultivators. The buildings that archaeological surveys have found in the
Greek countryside have been considered a possible indication of these patterns. Were
those buildings applied only to storage? Or did the agriculturalists use them to live
in their own farms? The problem is to establish if farmers lived scattered in isolated
farms or grouped in villages — or in the urban centres of small cities — from where
they walked each morning to their farms.
The sources are not conclusive, which has made it possible to maintain two
conflicting explanations from the same case. In effect, the study of Attic patterns of
residence has been used to suggest that nucleated settlements were an essential
feature, with the exception of the deme of Atene where isolated farmhouses were the
rule.66 On the contrary, this case has been used to indicate the relevance of isolated
rural dwellings.67 The epigraphic and literary texts, many of them referred to Athens,
have also been analysed to affirm the primacy of isolated homesteads in the Attic
countryside and to establish in this context the exact meaning of terms like khorion,
oikia and agros.68 Nicholas Jones has reviewed the Attic case, underlining that patterns
of settlement were focused on scattered farmhouses and associated with an individu-
alistic behaviour, a higher productivity and production for the market.69 He has ana-
lysed the specific meaning of the words khorion and oikia, land and building, consid-
ering for this the evidence provided by the poletai records of public sales, the rationes
centesimarum, leases, security horoi, which would prove this pattern of isolated resi-
dence.70
On the other hand, the presence of a tower (pyrgos) has occasionally been con-
sidered as evidence of an isolated farmstead, but it could only be interpreted in this
way if it is possible to verify the function and location of the house: the tower could
be used to protect agricultural supplies, farming equipment, and even people.71
Besides this, archaeological surveys of different Greek regions have expanded our

63 Garnsey 1988: 48–49; Gallant 1991: 41–45. See for instance Sophocles, Trachiniai 32–33; Aristotle, Poli-
tics 1330a 9–18. For comparative perspectives see Forbes 1976; cf. Bentley 1987.
64 On the intensive mixed farming see Jameson 1977/78; Halstead 1981; 1987; 1989; Halstead & Jones 1989;

Gallant 1982; 1991: 46–57; Garnsey 1988: 49–50, 93–94; Hodkinson 1988; Burford 1993: 67–77; Hanson
1995: 50, 91–126. For criticisms see Isager & Skydsgaard 1992: 108–14; Edwards 2004: 127–56.
65 Foxhall 1996; see also Provansal 1990.

66 Osborne 1985a: 17–42, 190–95; 1985b; 1992. See for instance Lysias 12. Cf. Semple 1931: 539; Finley 1985

[1st ed. 1952]: 62; 1983: 82, 85 (n. 39); Pečirka 1973: 133–37; Humphreys 1978: 130–35; Gallant 1982: 118–
19; Donlan 1985: 301–302; Morris 1987: 5; Wood 1988: 102.
67 Lohmann 1992.

68 Roy 1988; 1996; Langdon 1991. See for instance Demosthenes 55; Euripides, Electra.

69 Jones 2004: 17–47. See also Nevett 2005; Nagle 2006: 68 (n. 97), 71–72 and nn. 112–113.

70 On rationes centesimarum see Lewis 1973, and especially the commented edition by Lambert 1997. On

leases see Brunet, Rougemont & Rousset 1998, with examples and commentaries. On horoi see Finley (1985
[1st ed. 1952]), with a new introduction by Millett 1985.
71 Jameson 1990: 101–103; Jameson, Runnels & van Andel 1994: 248; cf. Morris 2001; 2005.

11
perspective on rural settlements. Many of these sites have been judged as isolated farm-
houses which would be derived from a demographic growth and would be associ-
ated with an intensive farming linked to the market.72 But also in these cases scholarly
visions have been controversial.73
All these issues are significant because they are related to the working of agri-
cultural systems. As Osborne has pointed out, residence on isolated farms allowed
exploiting compact land plots with a more varied labour force, but it could be more
risky. On the other hand, living in nucleated villages supposed a fragmented holding
in which the landscape was worked less efficiently, since the closest lots received
more attention than the distant ones, but with a more regular yield in most years.74
But once again, the evidence is not conclusive. As Garnsey has said: “The pattern of
rural settlement is relevant to land use but thus far has proved difficult to recover.
Farmers cannot be pinned down in the archaeological record to dispersed farmsteads.
Recent archaeological surveys have uncovered evidence of scattered buildings, but
their function is disputed. They are unlikely to include many ordinary peasant farm-
houses, which would not have survived the ravages of time. In any case, the argu-
ment for the prevalence of intensive farming does not depend on farmers residing on
their properties rather than in nearby nucleated settlements.”75
So, the question is not to privilege one rural settlement pattern over another,
even though there were examples in which the nucleated residence was more ex-
tended than the isolated one, and vice versa. It is clear that the information for each
case is essential; but even so it is necessary to recognise the significance of the inter-
pretations and hypotheses proposed by researchers. Therefore, in a general view, a
mix of both isolated and nucleated models seems to better explain the testimonies
and the different explanations suggested.76 And it seems clear to me that intensive
agriculture was possible in both contexts.

72 On Metapontum see Adamesteanu 1973; Carter 1981; cf. 1990: 408–12; on Melos, Renfrew & Wagstaff
1982: 246–63; on Boeotia, Bintliff & Snodgrass 1985: 139–45; 1988: 60–68; on Chios, Lambrinoudakis 1986;
on Thasos, Osborne 1986; on the Argolid, van Andel & Runnels 1987: 158–65; Jameson, Runnels & van
Andel 1994: 248–52, 375–94; cf. Acheson 1997: 171–78; on Karytsia, Keller & Wallace 1988; on Delos, Brunet
1990; on northern Keos, Cherry, Davis & Mantzourani 1991: 285–98; on Leukas, Dousougli & Morris 1994;
Morris 2001; 2005; on Olynthus, Nevett 1999: 36–37, 83–85, 95–98, 151–52. See also Jameson 1990: 94–95;
Bintliff 1994; 1997; Hanson 1995: 50–60, 127–78; and recently Whitley 2001: 376–99; Corvisier 2004;
Hansen 2004; Bintliff 2006a; 2006b.
73 See Osborne 1987: 53–74, who has proposed that the settlement in nucleated villages was the wide-

spread pattern in mainland Greece, whereas the residence on isolated farms was the prevalent feature in
Aegean islands. But as has been stated by Cherry, Davis & Mantzourani 1991: 327–47, the isolated re-
sidence on the farm was not the main pattern in the small polis of Koressos in northern Keos, but the nu-
cleated dwelling in the urban centre. And the same affirmation is made by Osborne himself, in Cherry,
Davis & Mantzourani 1991: 319–25, in his analysis of the epigraphic evidence from the polis of Kartheia,
also located in the Cycladic island of Keos.
74 Osborne 1987: 68–70.

75 Garnsey 1988: 94.

76 On the coexistence of different patterns of settlement see van Andel & Runnels 1987: 164–68; Jameson

1990: 93–95, 103; 1994: 61 (n. 33); Isager & Skydsgaard 1992: 67–82.

12
Conclusions

What conclusions can we draw from the issues previously examined? Initially, no
model can be assumed to be exhaustive when it is applied to the rural structure of
the Greek polis, because it is a fantasy to establish a typical Greek peasant or farmer.77
Hence, from the eighth to the fourth centuries B.C. it is necessary to consider a range
of situations from the small poor freeholder, who produced for his family needs and
could employ himself as a day-labourer,78 to the relatively prosperous cultivator with
a few slaves who produced some specialised goods and could usually be integrated
into a market system.79 However, throughout this spectrum, the distinctive feature
was the absence of a recurrent exploitation because of the incorporation of the Greek
georgoi into the civic community with full political, institutional and military rights:
the agriculturalists did not have to produce a regular surplus for the social and/or
political elites.
Finally, I would like to suggest a model based on Shanin’s study on the twen-
tieth-century Russian peasantry.80 But this model is also based on the contributions
on the rural world in ancient Greece that we have analysed in this article. First of all,
it is possible to point out a difference between larger and smaller households in ac-
cordance with the farm size and the number of family members, namely all those
who eat or have eaten from the same food.81 The owners of a few slaves who worked
together with family members considered their slaves as parts of the household, even
though they had sometimes to sell them.82 Secondly, the differentiation between larger
and smaller households is not a fixed and irreversible situation but a function of the
domestic life cycle: formation with the marriage, children’s birth, maturity of the de-
scendants and the death of the older members. More lands can be worked when the
family is growing up, and the opposite occurs when it declines.83 But this should not
be interpreted as the absence of disparities between rich and poor cultivators. In a
larger context, those differences were related to, on the one hand, centrifugal forces
caused by partition of the prosperous households and, on the other hand, the fusion
or extinction of the poor ones. So, the differentiation and levelling of farmsteads were
tendencies which were balanced through multidirectional and cyclical household
movements. These phases lead us to modify the fixed image that only explains the
extremes of the social spectrum; that is, the poor cultivator that supplemented his

77 See Garnsey 1988: 47.

78 Jameson 1994: 61–62, quoting the statement made by Osborne 1985b: 127: “for the poor we simply
have no evidence.” See also Hodkinson 1988: 39; Foxhall 1992: 157.
79 As Jameson 1994: 58, has pointed out: “The impression one receives at present, and so far we cannot go

much beyond impressions, is of more substantial farmers who aim at producing significantly more than
their families’ subsistence needs.”
80 Shanin 1972: Ch. 4–6.

81 Aristotle, Politics 1252b 12–14. See also Chayanov 1986 [1st ed. 1966]: 54. Gallant 1991 outlines that life

cycle depends on the different ages that the domestic unit goes through: the farm can be bigger or
smaller according to these stages. But since in ancient Greece there was not a redistributive commune
like the Russian mir, parcelling, fragmentation, gift, dowry, sale or lease became the mechanisms by means
of which households were able to incorporate the necessary lands to achieve a balance between means
and needs.
82 Gallant 1991: 11–12, 30–33, 127–28.

83 See Chayanov 1986 [1st ed. 1966]: Ch. 1; Gallant 1991: 17–30.

13
income employing himself as a day-labourer and the wealthy smallholder that owned
some slaves and produced for the market.84
Under these conditions, risk-minimisation concerning family subsistence needs
does not have to be opposed to profit-maximisation by means of a lucrative produc-
tion. Indeed, the small producers could sometimes obtain a marketable surplus con-
sistent with the cycles already mentioned, or could reserve it to deal with the risk of
famine. So, poor households might adopt an intensive cultivation to assure their sub-
sistence, while the rich ones might develop an intensive farming to get a profit. Be-
tween both behaviours, there was a range of possibilities derived from the cyclical
tendencies and those circumstances that rural economies could not control (nature,
markets, political situation, etc.). This does not imply that we must define as farmer
the cultivator who was able to make money, and as peasant the one who was not
able to do so, but rather the existence of two patterns of behaviour derived from the
adaptation strategies.
Accordingly, it is acceptable to use one category or another, or even to propose
conjunctions such as peasant-farmer or farmer-peasant. But the important question is
to think through dynamic models that allow taking into account the social and eco-
nomic mobility that the family units could develop.85

Dr. Julián Gallego

Universidad de Buenos Aires-CONICET, Argentina
E-mail: [email protected]

84 The complete working pattern is that proposed by Hanson 1995, who compares ancient Greek small-
holders with American farmers and suggests that both are small entrepreneurs exploiting themselves and
achieving this way a profit in the market.
85 I am grateful to Carlos Miranda for his reading of an earlier draft. I would also like to thank the anony-

mous reviewers for many useful suggestions.

14
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