Ancient Greece to the End of the Peloponnesian Wars31city for ten years without a formal trial. Magistrates
were chosen by lot, though the city’s military comman-
der or strategoscontinued to be elected, presumably on
the basis of merit. Plato and others who sympathized
with aristocracy found this system, which was liberal-
ized even further after 461 B.C., absurd, but compe-
tence was at least partially ensured because candidates
had to volunteer and were subjected to a stringent re-
view of their actions at the end of the year.
Athens represented an extreme of democratic gov-
ernment, but its level of public participation was not
unique. The system worked remarkably well for almost
two hundred years and provided the basis for local gov-
ernment even after the city lost its freedom to the
Macedonians. At the very least, it guaranteed intense
involvement by the entire population of male citizens
in the life of the polis, any one of whom could be part
of its political, military, and judicial processes. Democ-
ratic theorists have held that this level of participation
helps to account for the extraordinary intellectual and
artistic achievements of the Athenians. Furthermore,
Athens, its institutions, and its way of life became an in-
spiration to many throughout the later history of the
West. While it fostered slavery and excluded women
from public life, Athens was the first and perhaps the
greatest of the early democracies.DOCUMENT 2.3
The Life of a Greek Landowner
Hesiod (fl. late eighth century B.C.) was one of the first Greek poets
and a landowner from Boeotia. His Works and Daysis a long di-
dactic poem addressed to his ne’er-do-well brother, Perses. It provides an
unforgettable description of rural life in an age when farmers still went
to sea to sell their goods abroad.When the thistle blooms and the chirping cicada
sits on trees and pours down shrill song
from frenziedly quivering wings in the toilsome summer
then goats are fatter than ever and wine is at its best
women’s lust knows no bounds and men are all dried up,
because the dog star parches their heads and knees
and the heat sears their skin. Then, ah then,
I wish you a shady ledge and your choice wine,
bread baked in the dusk and mid-August goat milk
and meat from a free-roving heifer that has never calved—
and from firstling kids. Drink sparkling wine,
sitting in the shade with your appetite sated,
and face Zephyr’s breeze as it blows from mountain peaks.
Pour three measures of water fetched from a clear spring,
One that flows unchecked, and a fourth of wine.
As soon as mighty Orion rises above the horizon
exhort your slaves to thresh Demeter’s holy grain
in a windy, well-rounded threshing floor.
Measure it first and then store it in bins.
But when your grain is tightly stored inside the house
then hire an unmarried worker and look for a female
servant with no children—nursing women are a burden.
Keep a dog with sharp teeth and feed it well,
wary of the day-sleepers who might rob you.Bring in a lasting supply of hay and fodder
for your oxen and your mules. Once this is done let your
slaves rest their weary knees and unyoke the oxen.
When Orion and the dog star rise to the middle of the
sky and rosy-fingered dawn looks upon Arcturus,
then Perses, gather your grapes and bring them home
and leave them in the sun for ten days and nights,
in the shade for five, and on the sixth day
draw the gift of joyous Dionysos into your vats.
When the Pleiades, the Hyades, and mighty Orion set,
remember the time has come to plow again—
and may the earth nurse for you a full year’s supply,
And if longing seizes you for sailing the stormy seas,
when the Pleiades flee mighty Orion
and plunge into the misty deep
and all the gusty winds are raging,
then do not take your ship on the wine-dark sea
but, as I bid you, remember to work the land.
Haul your ship onto land and secure it to the ground
with stones on all sides to stay the blast of rain and wind,
and pull the plug to avoid rotting caused by rain water.
Store up the tackle compactly inside your house
and neatly fold the sails, the wings of a seafaring ship.
Hang your rudder above the fireplace
and wait until the time to sail comes again.
Hesiod. Theogony, Works and Days, Shield,ed. and trans. A. N.
Athanassakis. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1983. Copy-
right © 1983 Johns Hopkins University Press. Used by permission.