nomic system, no one was “employed” in the modern sense of
the word, though daily life demanded “labor” just to ensure
survival and protection from the elements.
In was not until the advent of agriculture, with the more
settled communities that could support it, that anything like
employment and labor began to emerge. Even then, however,
the concept of hiring a worker to perform labor in exchange
for a wage was largely unknown. Most people were farmers,
growing their own crops or tending their own livestock, and
again the family was the basic economic unit, with most goods
being produced in the home. Th e development of agriculture,
though, enabled communities to produce food surpluses that
could be stored for the future. Th is enabled communities to
begin to support a class of nonagricultural workers, including
civil servants, priests, artisans, and the like.
Meanwhile, the work of the community proceeded.
Ground had to be tilled; ditches dug; swamps drained; grain
stored; livestock tended; fabrics woven, dyed, and turned into
clothing; salt and ore mined, shoes sewn, barrels manufac-
tured, the dead buried, and primitive roads built. By about
the second century b.c.e. coinage was introduced, creating
the beginnings of a money economy. But until then and even
aft erward, the economy was based on barter and in-kind
transactions.
Roughly several hundred years before the beginning of
the Common Era, further specialization began to take place.
Th e Celts, in particular, began to develop an economic sys-
tem and to engage in trade, primarily with the Roman Em-
pire and the civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea.
Accordingly, there emerged a more specialized class of craft s
workers, who produced pottery, glasswork, and particularly
metalwork, some of it for trade. Archaeological remains from
northern and north-central Europe include a large number of
metal objects—not just domestic goods, such as wine fl agons
and bowls, but also swords, scabbards, helmets, and other ob-
jects used in war. Th ese metalworkers were adept at using not
only bronze and iron but also gold and silver. A highly val-
ued artisan was one who could make “prestige goods” for the
nobility, allowing them to enhance their power and status.
Th ese goods included clothing and weapons. One highly val-
ued craft was that of the wheelwright. Th e Celts were skilled
carriage makers, and their wheelwrights produced wooden
wheels bound with a hooped iron “tire” that were highly du-
rable, making transport much easier.
In some parts of ancient Europe communities were a bee-
hive of economic activity. Particularly in the Celtic Hallstatt
community, in and around modern-day Austria, archaeolog-
ical fi ndings show that communities would have been alive
with the hammering of smiths, the grinding of grain on mill-
stones, the clatter of looms, and the mining of salt (a valu-
able commodity used for food preservation). Not only did the
salt have to be mined from deep within the earth, but it also
had to be stored, brought to a usable degree of concentration,
baked in oven, packaged, and shipped. All of this shows a
high degree of organization, with large numbers of laborers
carrying out the necessary tasks. In the same region nearly
every Celtic town was the site of a metal foundry and smelt-
ing forge, as well as slag heaps, suggesting the mining of ore
and the production of metal was a widespread activity.
In some areas of ancient Europe land was regarded as
communal property, so farmers could, for example, graze
their livestock anywhere. No one person was regarded as the
owner of the land. In much of early Europe, however, there
emerged something like the feudal system of the Middle
Ages. Historians oft en use the phrase “embedded economy”
to refer to the system of production and land ownership that
prevailed among the ancient Celts. In Celtic civilization a
class structure emerged, consisting at the top of tribal chiefs,
followed by the warrior nobility and then a class of craft smen
and artisans and, fi nally, the peasantry. While the aristocracy
did not own the land, livestock, and so forth, they were en-
titled to receive a share of the community’s production. In
return, the aristocracy provided common people with pro-
tection, primarily from neighboring tribes.
Th e closest institution to employment is referred to as
clientage. Th e source of wealth in ancient Europe came from
warfare (and seizure of an enemy’s goods and means of pro-
duction), trade, and agriculture. One way that the aristocracy
accumulated wealth was by acquiring clients. Th ese clients
were obligated to provide services for their noble patrons.
Th ese services could include fi ghting or the production of
prestige goods, either through manufacture or trade; wine
was such a valuable prestige good that a slave would some-
times be exchanged for a single fl agon of wine. In exchange,
nobles provided their clients with protection. Sometimes a
noble could gain a client from another tribe, oft en by forging
personal alliances with nobles in the tribe. In eff ect, the pa-
tron-client relationship was a sort of barter system in which
labor and other services were provided in exchange for pro-
tection. Th ese patron-client relationships were oft en more
powerful than the ties of kinship and clan. In some instances,
entire communities became clients, under the patronage of
other, more powerful communities.GREECE
BY CHRISTOPHER BLACKWELL
In the mythological history of ancient Greece, labor was ac-
complished by gods. Homer reports that the walls of Troy were
built by the god Poseidon, and the Greeks assumed that the
massive walls of Mycenae, whose blocks of stone measured 10
feet on a side, were constructed by the work of Cyclopes. In
the historical period, the period for which we have evidence
about real people doing real work, beginning (perhaps) with
Hesiod’s epic poem Works and Days, from the seventh cen-
tury b.c.e., we can see evidence that ancient attitudes toward
labor had very little in common with “labor” as discussed by
modern economists.
Th ere is no evidence for anything like modern unions
or guilds. We do not hear of labor strikes, and for the mostemployment and labor: Greece 431