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- 7 Mr V J92< 
 119 >r 1S2? 
 
 I have spoiled the engraving of Mr. Jones's 
 design by my interference with it : and the 
 publication of this volume has been so long 
 delayed from the spring time, for which it was 
 prepared, that I have ordered the old stamp 
 of Fors to be employed instead, — Fors will 
 have it so. [ ■ *«, .• 
 
 v ' V V" j. RUSK IN. 
 
 Brantwood, 
 
 Ij>tt$ctf Jar, 1876. 
 
« «' NOV i:i 
 
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BIBLIOTHECA PASTORUM. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 THE ECONOMIST OF XENOPHON. 
 
BIBLIOTHECA PASTORUM. 
 
 / I 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 John Ruskin, 
 
 HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 THE ECONOMIST OF XENOPHON. 
 
 TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY 
 
 Alexander D. O. Wedderburn, 
 
 AND ... 
 
 WvGershom Collingwood. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 ELLIS AND WHITE, 29, NEW BOND STREET, LONDON ; 
 
 GEORGE ALLEN, SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT. 
 1876. 
 

 Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 EDITORS PREFACE vii 
 
 TRANSLATORS' PREFACE . xlv 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF ECONOMY ;— THE MANAGEMENT OF PROPERTY, THAT 
 IS WHATEVER IS OF USE TO A MAN, BUT IS OF NO 
 VALUE TO SUCH AS ARE SLAVES TO THEIR PASSIONS I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF TRUE WEALTH : — NOT THAT WHICH BRINGS WITH IT 
 TROUBLE AND TOIL, BUT THAT OF THE PROVIDENT 
 AND THRIFTY ECONOMIST :— WHERE SUCH IS TO BE 
 LEARNED 9 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE VIRTUES AND RESULTS OF ECONOMY ABROAD AND 
 
 AT HOME; AND THE SHARE OF THE WIFE THEREIN l6 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THAT THE TRUE GENTLEMAN SHOULD PRACTISE NO 
 MECHANICAL ARTS; BUT RATHER AGRICULTURE 
 AND WAR, AFTER THE EXAMPLE OF THE KINGS OF 
 PERSIA, AND OF CYRUS 22 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF THE VIRTUES OF AGRICULTURE AND THE PRAISE OF 
 IT. OF THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER IN ALL UNDER- 
 TAKINGS 30 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RECAPITULATION OF PRECEDING CONCLUSIONS. OF THE 
 TRUE GENTLEMAN, AND HOW SOCRATES FOUND SUCH 
 AN ONE 36 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOW SOCRATES FELL IN WITH ISCHOMACHUS, WHO TOLD 
 HIM OF HOW HE TAUGHT HIS WIFE HER DUTIES, AND 
 RECOUNTED HIS FIRST TALK WITH HER ; OF THE 
 DIVINE ORDERING OF THE WORLD, PARTICULARLY 
 AS REGARDS MAN AND WIFE ; AND OF THE IN- 
 CREASING HONOUR IN WHICH THE GOOD WIFE IS 
 HELD 41 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE VALUE AND BEAUTY OF ORDER, AND THE USE 
 OF THINGS, AS TAUGHT BY ISCHOMACHUS TO HIS 
 WIFE 53 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OF THE HOUSE OF ISCHOMACHUS AND ITS ORDERING. 
 HIS CHOICE OF A HOUSEKEEPER, AND ADVICE TO 
 HIS WIFE AS MISTRESS OF THE HOUSEHOLD . . 6l 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOW THE WIFE OF ISCHOMACHUS READILY OBEYED HER 
 HUSBAND, AND GAVE UP ALL FALSE ADORNMENTS, 
 SEEKING HOW SHE MIGHT BECOME A GOOD MISTRESS 
 AND WIFE 67 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF SOCRATES AND THE HORSE OF NICIAS. OF THE RIGHT 
 USE OF WEALTH. ALSO HOW ISCHOMACHUS SPENT 
 HIS DAY, SEEKING TO PROMOTE JUSTICE AT HOME 
 AND ABROAD 72 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW THAT STEWARDS MUST LEARN BOTH GOODWILL AND 
 CAREFULNESS. OF THOSE WHO CANNOT LEARN CARE- 
 FULNESS : ALSO OF THE FORCE OF THE MASTER'S 
 EXAMPLE ■ 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CONCERNING THE TRAINING OF STEWARDS 
 
 go 
 
 86 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HOW STEWARDS ARE TO BE TAUGHT JUSTICE . . . OO 
 
Vlii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OF PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IN STEWARDS : AND THE 
 
 GENTLE COURTESY OF AGRICULTURE ... 93 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HOW TO LEARN THE NATURE OF THE SOIL. OF FALLOW 
 
 LAND 97 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OF THE SEASONS AND MANNER OF SOWING . . . IOI 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OF REAPING, THRESHING AND WINNOWING . . . I07 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF PLANTING TREES, AND ESPECIALLY VINES, OLIVES, 
 AND FIGS. HOW THAT AGRICULTURE IS EASY TO 
 LEARN Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HOW THAT CAREFULNESS, RATHER THAN KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 IS THE SECRET OF TRUE SUCCESS . . . . 1 18 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 HOW THAT THE ART OF MANAGING MEN IS DIFFICULT 
 OF ATTAINMENT, AND IN SOME MEASURE GIVEN 
 OF GOD ... 126 
 
 INDEX 
 
 137 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 pHE Athenian writing, here presented to 
 Saxon readers, is the first of a series of 
 classic books which I hope to make the chief 
 domestic treasures of British peasants. But to 
 explain the tenor, and show the grounds, of this 
 hope, I must say in what sense the word ' classic' 
 may be rightly applied to Books, and the word 
 ' peasant' to Britons. 
 
 The word 'classic,' when justly applied to a 
 book, means" that it contains an unchanging truth, 
 expressed as clearly as it was possible for any 
 of the men living at the time when the book 
 was written, to express it. 
 
 'Unchanging' or 'eternal' truth, is that which 
 relates to constant, — or at least in our human 
 experience constant, — things ; and which, therefore, 
 
X editor's preface. 
 
 though foolish men may long lose sight of it, 
 remains the same through all their neglect, and 
 is again recognized as inevitable and unalterable, 
 when their fit of folly is past. 
 
 The books which in a beautiful manner, whether 
 enigmatic or direct, contain statements of such, 
 fact, are delighted in by all careful and honest 
 readers ; and the study of them is a necessary 
 element in the education of wise and good men, 
 in every age and country. 
 
 Every nation which has produced highly trained 
 Magi, or wise men, has discerned, at the time 
 when it most flourished, some part of the great 
 system of universal truth, which it was then, 
 and only then, in the condition to discern com- 
 pletely ; and the books in which it recorded that 
 part of truth remain established for ever ; and 
 cannot be superseded : so that the knowledge of 
 mankind, though continually increasing, is built, 
 pinnacle after pinnacle, on the foundation of these 
 adamant stones of ancient soul. And it is the law 
 of progressive human life that we shall not build 
 in the air : but on the already high-storied temple 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE. XI 
 
 of the thoughts of our ancestors ; in the crannies 
 
 and under the eaves of which we are meant, for 
 
 the most part, to nest ourselves like swallows ; 
 
 though the stronger of us sometimes may bring, 
 
 for increase of height, some small white stone, and 
 
 in the stone a new name written. Which is 
 
 indeed done, by those ordered to such masonry, 
 
 without vainly attempting the review of all that 
 
 has been known before ; but never without modest 
 
 submission to the scheme of the eternal wisdom ; 
 
 nor ever in any great degree, except by persons 
 
 trained reverently in some large portion of the 
 
 wisdom of the past. 
 
 The classical * scriptures and pictures hitherto 
 produced among men have been furnished mainly 
 by five cities, namely, Athens, Rome, Florence, 
 Venice, and London, — the history of which cities it 
 is therefore necessary for all well-trained scholars 
 to know. Hitherto, by all such scholars, it 
 has indeed been partially known ; but by help 
 
 * As distinct from inspired. I do not know, and much wiser 
 people than I do not know, what writings are inspired, and what 
 are not. But I know, of those I have read, which are classical, — 
 belonging to the e'ernal senate ; and which are not. 
 
xii editor's preface. 
 
 of recent discoveries we may now learn these 
 histories with greater precision, and to better 
 practical advantage ; such practical issue being 
 our first aim in the historical classes instituted in 
 the schools of the society called ' of St. George.' 
 
 These schools, as elsewhere explained, (see 
 Fors Clavigera for August 1871, page 14,) are 
 for the education of British peasants* in all know- 
 ledge proper to their life, distinguished from that 
 of the burger only as the office of each member 
 of the body is distinct from the others on which 
 it nevertheless vitally depends. The unloving 
 separation between country and town life is a 
 modern barbarism : in classic times, cities never 
 were, or will be, separate in interest from the 
 countries they rule ; but are their heart and 
 sanctifying force. 
 
 The Metropolis is properly the city in which 
 the chief temple of the nation's God is built ; 
 (cathedral cities being minor branches of the living 
 whole). Thither the tribes go up, and under the 
 
 * Or sailors : but it remains questionable with me at present how 
 far the occupation of entire life on the sea is desirable for any man : 
 and I do not here therefore make any distinction. 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE. xill 
 
 shield, and in the loving presence, of their Deity, the 
 men of highest power and truest honour are gathered 
 to frame the laws, and direct the acts, of State. 
 
 Modern theologians, with proud sense of enlighten- 
 ment, declare, in denial of these ancient imagina- 
 tions, that God is everywhere. David and Solomon, 
 even in their days of darkness, were not ignorant 
 of this ; yet designed and built a local temple 
 to the God who, if they went up into Heaven 
 was there ; if they made their bed in Hell, was 
 there also. And if the promise of the One who 
 was greater than the Temple be fulfilled; and, where 
 two or three are gathered in His name, there He 
 is in the midst of them, with a more than universal 
 Presence, — how much more must it be fulfilled where 
 many are gathered in His name ; and those gathered 
 always ; and those the mightiest of the people ; and 
 those mightiest, to judge its most solemn judgments, 
 and fulfil its fatefullest acts ; — how surely, I repeat, 
 must their God be always, with a more than uni- 
 versal Presence, in the midst of these ? 
 
 Nor is it difficult to show, not only that the 
 virtue and prosperity of these five great cities 
 
xiv editor's preface. 
 
 above named have been always dependent on, or at 
 least contemporary with, their unquestioning faith 
 that a protecting Deity had its abode in their 
 Acropolis, their Capitol, and their cathedral 
 churches of St. Mary, St. Mark, and St. Peter ; but 
 that the whole range of history keeps no record of 
 a city which has retained power after losing such 
 conviction. From that moment, its activities become 
 mischievous, — its acquisitions burdensome, — and the 
 multiplied swarms of . its inhabitants disgrace the 
 monuments of its majesty, like an ants' nest 
 built in a skull. 
 
 The following noble passage out of the Fourth 
 Book of the Laws of Plato expresses the ancient 
 faith, and, I myself doubt not, the eternal fact, in 
 the simplest terms. 
 
 (The Athenian speaks.) " As you say, shall it 
 be done. Well then, we have received the fame 
 of the blessed life of those then in being, how all 
 things were without stint to them, and all things 
 grew free. And the cause of these things is said 
 to have been this, that Kronos, knowing, (as we 
 before went through the story,) that no human 
 
editor's PREFACE. xv 
 
 nature was so strong but that, if appointed itself 
 alone to order human affairs, it must fill every- 
 thing with insolence and injustice ; — considering 
 these things, I say, the God gave for the kings 
 and rulers of cities, not men, but, of diviner and 
 better race than men, angels ; just as now we do 
 ourselves for the flocks, and the herds of all 
 creatures that are tame : for we make not the ox 
 lord of oxen, nor the goat of goats ; and so, in 
 like manner, the God, in His love to man, set a 
 better race than ours above us, — that of the 
 angels ; which, to its own great joy . and to ours, 
 taking care of us, and giving us peace, and shame, 
 and order, and full frankness of justice, made the 
 races of men free from sedition, living in gladness. 
 And this word, rich in usage of truth, goes on 
 « to say, that, for such cities as no angel, but a 
 mortal, governs, there is no possible avoidance of 
 evil and of pain." 
 
 Such being the state and sanctity of a city 
 built at unity with itself, and with its God, the 
 state and serenity of the peasant is in undivided 
 peace with it. Withdrawn, either for delight or 
 
xvi EDITOR'S preface. 
 
 for labour, from the concerns of policy, he lives 
 under his figtree and vine ; or in pastoral and 
 blossomed land, flowing with milk and honey : con- 
 fident in the guidance of his household gods, and 
 rejoicing in the love of the Father of all, satis- 
 fying him with blessings of the breast and of the 
 womb, and crowning him with fulness of the basket 
 and the store. 
 
 All which conditions and beliefs have been, are, 
 and will be to the end of this world, parts and 
 causes of each other. Whatsoever life is in man, 
 has arisen from them, consists in them, and 
 prolongs -them evermore. So far as these con- 
 ditions exist, the world lives ; so far as they 
 perish, it perishes. By faith, by love, by industry, 
 it endures : by infidelity, by hatred, and by idle- 
 ness, it dies ; and that, daily ; now around us, * 
 visibly, for the most part, lying in such dismal 
 death ; the temple of the city being changed into 
 a den of thieves, and the fields of the country 
 into a labouring ground of slaves. 
 
 How long the Holy and True Lord of Creation 
 will endure these things to be so, none of us 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE. xvil 
 
 can in anywise know. But the constant laws 
 of that Creation, and the written tenor of His 
 statutes, we can all of us", who will, both learn 
 and obey. And the first of all these statutes is 
 that by the sweat of the brow we shall eat 
 bread : and the economy of the field is the first 
 science, therefore, that we have in the course of 
 righteous education, to learn. Which economy 
 has been, in terms that cannot be mended, and 
 will receive no addition, stated by an Athenian 
 gentleman, a master at once of philosophy, of 
 war, and of agriculture ; and this statement two of 
 my youthful scholars at Oxford — one English, the 
 other Scottish, — in good love, and obedience to 
 my wish, have translated, with painful addition to 
 their own proper work at the University : and it 
 is published in this spring-time, 1876, for the per- 
 petual service of the peasantry of Britain, and of 
 all countries where their language is, or may here- 
 after be known, and into which the happiness 
 and honour of agricultural life may hereafter 
 extend. 
 
 What it is needful for us to know, or possible 
 
xviii editor's preface. 
 
 for us to conceive, of the life and mind of its 
 author, can be known or imagined only so far as 
 we recognize the offices of teaching entrusted to his 
 country. I do not know enough of Greek history 
 to be able to give any approach to a conclusive 
 abstract of the mental relations of Greek districts 
 to each other : but the scheme under which those 
 relations are mapped .out at present in my mind is 
 one of many, good for first tenure of them. For it 
 does not matter how many of the branches of any 
 richly-growing tree of knowledge are laid hold of 
 in the beginning, so only that you grasp what your 
 hand has first seized, securely. Other gatherers will 
 approach to bend more down from another side ; 
 all must be content to recognize that they touch, 
 to begin with, few out of many, and can only after 
 long patience trace the harmonious growth of all. 
 
 You will find, then, that it is useful in the 
 outset to conceive the whole of Greek living soul 
 as divided into three orders : the vocal, or 
 Apolline, centred, at Delphi ; the constructive, or 
 Athenian, centred at Athens ; and the domestic, 
 or Demetrian, centred at Sparta. These three 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xix 
 
 spiritual Powers taught the Greeks, (in brief 
 terms,) Speech, Art, and Conduct. 
 
 The Delphic Power is Truth ; its antagonist 
 is the Python, the corrupting or deceiving 
 Serpent* The Athenian Power is the Grace of 
 Deed ; its antagonists, the giants, are the con- 
 fusions of Deed. The Spartan Power is. the Grace 
 of Love ; its adversary is the Betrayer of Love. 
 The stories of Argos and Sparta contain the 
 myths of this betrayal, of its punishment, and 
 redemption. The ideal of simplest and happiest 
 domestic life, is given for all time, and recognized 
 as being so, in the later strength of the Peloponnese. 
 Brief of syllable, and narrow of range, the Doric 
 word and Arcadian reed remain measures of lowly 
 truth in the words and ways of men. 
 
 This being the spiritual relation of the three 
 great powers of Greece, their social relation, in 
 respect of forms of government, of course neces- 
 sarily follows from it. The Delphic power is the 
 Greek Theocracy : expressing so much as God 
 
 * Falsehood in the moral world being what corruption is in the 
 physical. Read Turner's picture of the death of the Python with 
 that clue to its meaning. 
 
XX editor's preface. 
 
 had appointed that the Greeks should know of 
 Him, by the mouths of Hesiod and Pindar. The 
 Ionian or Attic race express all the laws of 
 human government, developed in the highest 
 states of human art. These are first founded 
 on industry and justice in the dominion of 
 iEacus over the ant-made race at iEgina, and 
 on earth-born sagacity and humanity in the 
 kingship of Cecrops ; fulfilled in chivalric heroism 
 by Codrus and Theseus, whose crowning victory 
 is over the forms of evil involved and defended 
 by the skilfullest art ; and whose statue, the 
 central labour of that art itself, has been 
 appointed by Fate to remain the acknowledged 
 culmen and model of human labour, to our 
 own days : while, in their scriptures, the Ionian 
 race recorded the two ideals of kingly passion 
 and patience, in the stories of Achilles and 
 Ulysses, (both under the sweet guidance of their 
 own tutelar Goddess) ; the ideal of legal dis 
 cipline,* under the dominion of the Cretan king 
 
 * Here, and in the world to come. The analysis of the tjiree forms 
 of impiety, and of due relative punishment, in the tenth book of the 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xxi 
 
 Minos, whose daughter taught their hero the way 
 of victory ; and the final facts yet discovered by. 
 men respecting the connection of the state of the 
 soul \n future life, with its art and labour in 
 that o r che world. 
 
 To '.he hands of this race, in life, is entrusted 
 the delivery of their country* and to the work 
 of thei" hands, its material immortality. 
 
 The third race, of the Isle of Shade, f gave 
 example of such life as was best for uncultivated 
 and simple persons, rendering such untaught life 
 noble by the virtues of endurance and silence ; 
 their laws sanctified to them by the voluntary 
 death of their lawgiver ; and their authority 
 over conduct, ■ not vested in a single king, but in 
 a dual power, expressive of such mutual counsel 
 and restraint as must be wise in lowliness of 
 
 Laws, will be found to sum, or supersede, all later conclusions of 
 wise human legislature on such matters. 
 
 * Plato rightly makes all depend on Marathon ; but the opinions he 
 expresses of Salamis, and of oarsmen in general, though, it seems 
 to me, in great part unjust, ought yet to be carefully studied by the 
 University crews. 
 
 t 'Isle of the Dark-faced.' Pelops ; the key to the meaning of 
 all its myths is the dream of Demeter at the fea^t of Tantalus. 
 
XXli EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 estate and narrowness of instruction ; this dual 
 power being sanctified by the fraternal bond 
 in the persons of the Dioscuri ; and pro- 
 longed, in its consulting, or consular form, in 
 the government, of Rome, which is in Italy 
 the Spartan, as Etruria the Attic power. Finally, 
 both in Sparta and Rome the religion of all 
 men remains in uninformed simplicity, setting 
 example of the fulfilment of every domestic and 
 patriotic duty for the sake of earthly love, and 
 in obedience to the command of the dark, yet 
 kind, Demeter, who promises no reward of pain, 
 but honour, nor of labour, but peace. 
 
 Having fixed, then, clearly in our minds, the 
 conception of this triple division of Greece, consider 
 what measure of the perpetual or enduring know- 
 ledge of the earth has been written, or shown, 
 by these three powers. 
 
 The Oracular, by the mouths of Hesiod and 
 Pindar, set down the system of Theology which 
 thenceforward was to fill and form the entire 
 range of the scholarly intellect of man, as distin- 
 guished from the savage or pastoral. 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE. xxill 
 
 The general ideals of the twelve great Gods,* 
 of the Fates, Furies, Sibyls, and Muses, remain 
 commandant of all action of human intellect in 
 the spiritual world, down to the day when Michael 
 Angelo, painting the Delphic and Cumsean sibyls 
 in equal vaults with Zechariah and Isaiah on 
 the roof of the Sistine Chapel ; and Raphael, 
 painting the Parnassus and the Theology on equal 
 walls of the same chamber of the Vatican, so 
 wrote, under the Throne of the Apostolic power, 
 the harmony of the angelic teaching from the 
 rocks of Sinai and Delphi, f 
 
 Secondly. The Athenian, or Constructive, Power 
 determined the methods of art, and laws of ideal 
 beauty, for all generations ; so that, in their central 
 
 * Mr. Gladstone, in common with other passionately sentimenta 
 scholars, does not recognize the power ot Hesiod, thinking the 
 theology of Greece to have been determined by Homer. Whereas 
 Homer merely graces the faith of Greece with sweet legend, and 
 splendid fiction ; and though himself sincere, is the origin of wanton 
 idealism in the future. But Hesiod and Pindar wrote the Athanasian 
 Creed of the Greeks, not daring to dream what they did not wholly 
 believe. What they tell us, is the Faith by which the Greeks lived, 
 and prevailed, to this day, over all kingdoms of mind. 
 
 f Any reader acquainted with my former statements on this subject, 
 (as for instance in page 107, vol. iii. ' Stones of Venice ') will under- 
 
XXIV editor's preface. 
 
 code, they cannot be added to, nor diminished from. 
 From, the meanest earthen vessel to the statue 
 of the ruler of Olympus, the fiat of the Greek 
 artist is final; no poor, man's water-pitcher can 
 be shaped wisely otherwise than he bids ; and 
 the utmost raptures of imagination in the Chris- 
 tian labour of Giotto and Angelico are inflamed 
 by his virtue, and restrained by his discretion. 
 
 Thirdly. The Demetrian, or Moral, Power set 
 before men the standards of manly self-command, 
 patriotic self-sacrifice, and absolute noblesse in 
 scorn of pleasure, of wealth, and of life, for the 
 sake of duty ; and these in a type so high, 
 that of late, in degraded Christendom, it has 
 begun to be inconceivable. Even in her days of 
 honour, her best saints exchanged the pleasures 
 of the world for an equivalent, and died in the 
 hope of an eternal joy. But the Spartan disci- 
 stand now why I do not republish those earlier books without very 
 important modifications. I imagined, at that time, it had been the 
 honour given to classical tradition which had destroyed the schools 
 of Italy. But it was, on the contrary, the disbelief of it. She fell, 
 not by reverence for the Gods of the Heathen, but by infidelity 
 alike to them, and to her own. 
 
EDITORS PREFACE. xxv 
 
 plined his life without complaint, and surrendered 
 it without price. 
 
 Such being the classic authority of the three 
 
 states, it cannot but be wise for every statesman, 
 
 and every householder, in the present day, to know 
 
 the details of domestic life under this conclusive 
 
 authority in Art and Morals. And the account 
 
 of that domestic life is given in the following 
 
 pages by a simple-minded Athenian warrior, 
 
 philosopher, and, in the strictest sense of the 
 
 word, poet, who in the most practical light, 
 
 and plain language, exhibits especially the power 
 
 of domestic religion, or as we habitually term 
 
 it, ' family worship/ in a household of the 
 
 imaginative race of whom St. Paul said : " Ye 
 
 Athenians, I perceive that in all things ye are, 
 
 more than others, reverent of the angels of 
 
 God." * Respecting the sincerity of which family 
 
 worship, I beg the reader to be sparing of his 
 
 * I translate ' Sal/tow ' always by one word, ' angel,' in the sense of 
 a personal spirit delegated in this service of God. There is no need, 
 I hope, to vindicate the rejection of our vulgar translation of the 
 text, no less injurious to our conception of St. Paul's kindness of 
 address, than subversive of the power of his argument. 
 
xxvi editor's preface. 
 
 trust in the comments of modern historians ; for 
 all the studies which I have hitherto noticed of 
 Greek religion have been either by men partly- 
 cretinous, and born without the cerebral organs 
 necessary for receiving imaginative emotion ; or else 
 by persons whom the egotism of Judaic Christianity* 
 has prevented from understanding, as it was meant, 
 any single religious word which Egyptians, Greeks, 
 or Latins wrote, or so much as one sign or form 
 of their sculpture. 
 
 To take a quite simple instance in classic work ; 
 — When Horace says that a man of upright conduct 
 and stainless spirit needs no weapon ; and that he 
 himself proved this, because as he was walking in 
 the woods, thinking of his mistress,, a monstrous wolf 
 met him, and shrunk away, — the profanest order 
 of readers suppose the whole poem to be a pure 
 fiction, written by way of a graceful compliment to 
 Lalage. The next higher order of reader admires 
 and accepts, from the consent of former students, 
 the first verse, as a very grand and elevated 
 
 * I use the word 'Judaic' as expressing the habit of fancying that 
 we ourselves only know the true God, or possess the true faith. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xxvii 
 
 sentiment ; and the second, as very beautiful 
 poetry, written with sincere feeling under excited 
 imagination, but entirely without regard to facts. 
 
 A reader of the third order — (omitting of course 
 the crowds hazily intermediate in thought) — per- 
 ceives that Horace is stating an actual fact ; and 
 * * that he draws his corollary from it in the entirely 
 deliberate and confirmed temper of his religious 
 life : but proceeds to reason, from his own superior 
 knowledge, on the self-deception of Horace, and 
 the absurdity of the heathen religion. While only 
 the fourth and centrally powerful reader imagines 
 it to be possible that he may himself know no 
 more of God than Horace did ;■ — discovers and 
 acknowledges in his own mind the tendency to self- 
 deception, but with it also the capacity of divine 
 instruction, — and, feeling this teachableness in him- 
 self, admits it in others ; with the still more im- 
 portant admission, that the Divine Being, who in 
 all ages made the best men the most docile and 
 the most credulous, is not likely to have done so 
 that He might amuse Himself with their docility 
 by telling them lies. 
 
xxviii editor's preface. 
 
 Whereupon the vitally practical question instantly 
 follows : Is it then true that a man upright and 
 holy leads a charmed life? that the wolf's path 
 and ' the lion's den shall be safe to him as his 
 own hearthside? that the angels of God have 
 charge over him, lest he dash his foot against a 
 stone ? and that he shall not be afraid of the 
 terror by night, nor of the arrow that flieth by 
 day ? 
 
 Of the arrow, — perhaps not, — thinks the cautious 
 Christian, who has even timidly reached so far in 
 faith as this ; but of a twenty-five-pounder shot,' — • 
 he does not know. The breast-plate of Providence, 
 and rib-armour of God, may perhaps not be quite 
 strong enough to resist our last inventions, in that 
 kind, at Shoebury ! " Wherepon let us vote again 
 our thirty millions of assurance money ; and so 
 keep the wolf from the door, without troubling 
 God for His assistance. His disagreeable condi- 
 tions of integrity of life, and purity of soul, may 
 then, it is to be hoped, be dispensed with." 
 
 It is not possible, I repeat, for men in this 
 diluted and poisoned condition of religious intellect 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xxix 
 
 to understand a word of any classic author on 
 this subject, but perhaps least of all, Xenophon, 
 who continually assumes, in his unpretending 
 accounts of himself and his master, the truth of 
 principles, and the existence of spiritual powers, 
 which existing philosophers have lost even the wit 
 to Imagine, and the taste to regret. Thus, it is 
 no question with Xenophon in the opening of the 
 Memorabilia, nor does he suppose it possible to 
 be a question with the reader, whether there are 
 gods or not ; but only whether Socrates served 
 them or not : it is no question with him, setting 
 out with the army of which he became the saviour, 
 whether the gods could protect him or not, but in 
 what manner it was fittest i;o ask Aeir protection. 
 Nevertheless, the Greek faith in the days of 
 Xenophon, retaining still this hold on the minds 
 of the noblest men, stood in confusion of face 
 before the scornful populace, led, in nearly every 
 mode of thought, by rationalists corresponding to 
 those now vociferous among ourselves ; and was 
 on the eve of perishing in the pollution of a 
 licentiousness which made the fabled virtues of the 
 
XXX editor's preface. 
 
 gods ridiculous, and their fabled faults exemplary. 
 That the reader may understand the significance 
 of this period in the history of Greece, he must 
 observe briefly the laws of life hitherto definable 
 among races inspired, or informed, by any force 
 rendering them notable in history. 
 
 The life of all such inspired nations, hitherto, 
 has been like that of sword-leaved lilies. First, 
 a cluster of swords, enclosing the strength of the 
 flower between its stern edges ; — the nation also 
 wrapped in swaddling bands of steel. This is 
 the time of the Kings, and of the first fiery 
 wars, the whole being of the people knit in 
 Draconian strength, and glittering in every serpent- 
 spartan limb. 
 
 The second era of the lily is the springing of 
 its stem, and branching into buds, hither and 
 thither, rich in hope. In like manner, the con- 
 strained force of a great nascent people springs 
 from among the sword-leaves, and rises into 
 a fountain of life. It is the time of coloniza- 
 tion; every bud beating warm from the central 
 heart. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xxxi 
 
 " First the blade, then the ear. After that the 
 full corn " ? Nay, but first, — and perhaps last, — 
 the full flower. For then comes the age of crown- 
 ing triumph, in labour of the hands, and song on 
 the lips. And if these be faithful and true, and 
 the grace and word of God be in them, then for 
 ever the full corn remains, immortal food for 
 immortals ; but if they be untrue, then the fair- 
 ness of the flower to-day is, and to-morrow is 
 cast into the oven. 
 
 Rapidly comparing the five cities, whose story 
 we have to learn ; for Athens, the Draconian time 
 reaches to the death of Codrus ; for Rome, to 
 the battle at the Lake Regillus ; for Florence, 
 to the death of Buondelmonte ; for Venice, to 
 the standard-planting on Byzantium by Henry 
 Dandolo ; for London, to the death of the Black 
 Prince. 
 
 Then for each comes the day of Manifesta- 
 tion ; — 
 
 For Athens, The Ionian migration, and Homer. 
 
 For Rome, The Tyrian war, and Regulus. 
 
 For Florence, The year of victories, and Giotto. 
 
xxxii editor's preface. 
 
 For Venice, Her towers on the JEgean Isles, 
 and Carpaccio. 
 
 For London, Her western sailors, and Chaucer. 
 
 And then, for each, their crowning work, and 
 noblest son, — 
 
 For Athens, Marathon, and Phidias. 
 
 For Rome, Her empire, and Virgil. 
 
 For Florence, The laws of commerce, and Dante. 
 
 For Venice, • The laws of state, and Tintoret. 
 
 For London, The laws of home life, and 
 Shakspeare. 
 And, of all these, we have only now to seek among 
 the shreds of their fallen purple leaves, what seed 
 is left for years to come. 
 
 I trace rapidly, into such broad map as I may,* 
 the root-fibres of the Athenian and Dorian powers, 
 so far as it is needed for the purposes of this 
 book. 
 
 The Athenian race is native, and essentially, 
 
 with the Etruscan, earth-born. How far or by 
 
 what links joined I know not, but their art work 
 
 * It would be hopeless to expand these notes within my present 
 limits, but as our Shepherd's Library increases, they will be illus- 
 trated piece by piece. 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. xxxiii 
 
 is visibly the same in origin ; entirely Dra- 
 conid, — Cecropian, rolled in spiral folds ; and it 
 is the root of the Draconian energy in the living 
 arts of Europe. 
 
 The kingly period of Attic power extends from 
 Erysichthon and Cecrops to Codrus. The myths of 
 it relate the birth of Athenian life from the bright- 
 ness of the dew, and from the strength of the rock, 
 partly breaking through the grass* as envious of it, 
 partly shading it. 'Io sono Aglauro, chi divenne 
 sasso.' Theseus, fifth from Erechtheus, destroys 
 the spirit of brutal pleasure ; human sacrifice is 
 abolished, in the divinest of sacrifices, that of the 
 patriot for his country, — Codrus being exemplary 
 of all future heroism in this kind ; — of Leonidas, 
 
 * Read the account of the former Acropolis in the end of the 
 Critias, and compare it with the incidental reference to the crocus 
 meadows under its rock, in the Ion ; and read both, if you can, among 
 high Alpine pastures. 
 
 The few words by which Plato introduces the story of the Acropolis 
 must find room here : — 
 
 " And they, the Gods, having thus divided the Earth for their pos- 
 session, nourished us their creatures as flocks for their pastures, taking 
 us for their treasures and their nurslings ; but not with bodily force 
 compelling our bodies, as shepherds ruling by the scourge, but in 
 the way by which a living thing may chiefly be well bent, as if from 
 
 C 
 
XXXIV EDITOR'S :PREFACE. 
 
 Curtius, Arnold of Sempach, and Sir Richard 
 Grenville. 
 
 Against which voice of the morning winds and 
 the sun's lyre, the leathern throat of modern death, 
 choked inch-thick with putrid dust, proclaims in 
 its manner, " Patriotism is, nationally, what selfish- 
 ness is individually." 
 
 The time comes at last for this faithful power 
 to receive the Dorian inspiration ; and then Ion, 
 (lovri Srj&ev on <rvvr)VTeTo, m ) leads the twelve tribes 
 of Athens to the East. There Homer crowns 
 their vision of the world, and its gods : while, 
 in their own city, practical life begins for them 
 under visible kings. For ^schylus, first historic 
 king of Athens, as for the first historic king 
 of Rome, take the same easily remembered date, 
 750. 
 
 the high deck directing it by the rudder ; thus they drove, and thus 
 helmed, all mortal beings. And Hephsestus and Athena, brother and 
 sister, and of one mind, in their love of wisdom and of art, both 
 received the same lot in this land, as a land homely and helpful to all 
 strength of art and prudence of deed. And they making good men thus 
 out of the earth, put the order of state into their mind, whose names 
 indeed are left us ; but of their story, little." 
 * Ion, 831. 
 
editor's PREFACE. XXXV 
 
 Give two hundred and fifty years, broadly, to 
 the labour of practical discipline under these 
 kings, beginning with the ninety years of Draco, 
 and consummated by Pisistratus and Solon, (the 
 functions of both these men being entirely glo- 
 rious and beneficial, though opposed in balance 
 to each other ; ) and then comes the great fifth 
 century. 
 
 Now note the dramas that divide and close 
 that century. In its tenth year, Marathon ; in 
 its twentieth, Salamis ; in its last, the Retreat of 
 the Ten Thousand ; and in the first of the fol- 
 lowing century, the death of Socrates. 
 
 And the purple flower of Athens is fallen, for 
 ever. 
 
 I next trace the Doric life. Not power of art, 
 but conduct, or harmony ; its music, passing away 
 as the voice of the stream and storm, beneficent, but 
 leaving no shape. Echo of Heaven, not foundation 
 of Earth, it builds the visionary walls of Thebes, 
 by voice of Amphion, and all the Theban religious 
 and tragic oracles belong to it. The Theban 
 Heracles, — essentially adverse to the serpent, not 
 
xxxvi editor's preface. 
 
 born of it : strangling it in his cradle in its 
 reality, not wrapt by it in gold* — fulfils his in- 
 spired; labour at Lerna. The fates and faults 
 of the triple Heracleid dynasties in the Pelopon- 
 nese are enough traced by Plato in the third 
 book of the Laws ; but he could not know the 
 infinite importance to the future of the rock and 
 isthmus of Corinth, no less than of the vale of 
 Sparta. 
 
 In 734, Archias of the Heracleidae founds 
 Syracuse from Corinth. And in 657, Byzantium 
 is founded from Megara. The whole Sicilian 
 and Magna Grsecian state on the one side, — 
 the Byzantine empire on the other, — virtually 
 spring from the isthmus of Corinth. Then, in 
 the twelfth century, the Normans learn their 
 religion in Sicily, the Venetians at Byzantium. 
 
 * Compare the opposite powers in the two passages : — 
 " 88ev "Epex9eLSais imt 
 
 Tpt<petv (sc. T^KVa)." 
 
 " Non te, rationis egentem 
 Eemseum turM capitum circumstetit anguis " — 
 
 ■ ratio ' meaning the law of conduct ; but the twisted serpents, the 
 inexplicable laws of art. 
 
editor's preface. xxxvii 
 
 And for ever, in the temple pillars of the 
 world, these races keep their sign. The Ionian 
 spiral from Erichthonius ; the Doric pillar-strength 
 from Heracles ; while the Corinthians, changing 
 the Doric ovolo into the wicker basket of the 
 Canephora, and putting the earth leaf of the 
 acanthus instead of the Erichthonian spiral, 
 found all Christian architecture. The tomb of 
 Frederick II. of Sicily is of Corinthian porphyry 
 and gold. 
 
 Then lastly. At Nemea the Heracleid power 
 becomes peasant, or Arcadian, and submits itself 
 to Demeter. The Evandrian emigration founds its 
 archaic throne in Italy. The swine, sacred to 
 Demeter, are seen through the woods of Tiber ; 
 the Demetrian kingdom becomes the Saturnian,* 
 and the Roman power, essentially of practical and 
 homely earth-life, extends itself into the German 
 Empire. 
 
 Now the especial interest of the Arcadian life 
 of Xenophon (presented in this book) to the English 
 
 * Remember the name Latium, and word Latin, as of the Seed 
 hidden in the ground. (/En. viii. 322.) 
 
xxxviii editor's preface. 
 
 reader, consists in its being precisely intermediate 
 between the warrior heroism of nascent Greece, 
 and the home-heroism of pacified Christendom in 
 its happiest days. 
 
 And his mind represents the Greek intellect a 
 the exact time when all fantastic and disordered 
 imagination had been chastised in its faith ; 
 leaving only a firm trust in the protection, belief 
 in the oracles, and joy in the presence, of justly 
 venerated Gods : no wantonly indulged rationalism 
 having yet degraded the nobles of the race of 
 ^Eschylus, into scornful mockers at the Fear of 
 their Fathers. And it represents the Greek moral 
 temper at the exact moment when keen thought, 
 and cruel experience, having alike taught to its 
 warrior pride the duty and the gladness of 
 peace, the soldier could lay down the helmet 
 that his children might play with its plume, 
 and harness his chariot-horses to the plough, 
 — without ceasing, himself, from the knightly 
 self-denials of his order ; or yielding for a 
 moment to the lascivious charms, and ignoble 
 terrors, with which peaceful life must be corrupted 
 
EDITORS PREFACE. xxxix 
 
 in those who .have never held frank companionship 
 with attendant Death. 
 
 Written towards the term of days past in this 
 majestic temperance, the book now in your hands 
 will be found to contain three statements of most 
 precious truths ; — statements complete and clear 
 beyond any others extant in classic literature. 
 
 It contains, first, a faultless definition of Wealth, 
 and explanation of its dependence for efficiency 
 on the • merits and faculties of its possessor ; — 
 definition which cannot be bettered ; and which 
 must be the foundation of all true Political 
 Economy among nations, as Euclid is to all 
 time the basis of Geometry. 
 
 This book contains, secondly, the most perfect 
 ideal of kingly character and kingly government 
 given in literature known to me, either by poet 
 or philosopher. For Ulysses is merely chief 
 Shepherd, his kingdom is too small to exhibit 
 any form of extended discipline : St. Louis is 
 merely chief Pilgrim, and abdicates his reign on 
 earth : Henry the Fifth is merely chief Captain, 
 and has scarcely any idea of inferior orders or 
 
xl editor's preface. 
 
 objects of authority. But this Cyrus of Persia, 
 himself faultless, conceives and commands a fault- 
 less order of State powers, widely extended, yet in- 
 capable in their very nature of lawless increase, or 
 extension too great for the organic and active power 
 of the sustaining life: — the State being one human 
 body, not a branched, coralline, semi-mortified mass. 
 
 And this ideal of government is not only the 
 best yet written, but, as far as may be judged, 
 the best conceivable ; all advance on it can only 
 be by filling in its details, or adapting it to local 
 accidents ; the form of it cannot be changed, 
 being one of dreadless Peace, inoffensive to others, 
 and at unity in itself. 
 
 Nor is there any visible image of modest and 
 mighty knighthood either painted or written since, 
 which can be set for an instant beside that of 
 Cyrus in his garden. It has the inherent 
 strength of Achilles, the external refinement of 
 Louis XIV., the simplicity of the household of 
 Jesse, and the magnificence of Haroun Alraschid, 
 all gathered into vital unison by the philosophy of 
 Lycurgus. 
 
editor's preface. xli. 
 
 Lastly and chiefly, this book contains the ideal 
 of domestic life ; describing in sweet detail the 
 loving help of two equal helpmates, lord and lady: 
 their 1 methods of dominion over their household ; 
 of instruction, after dominion is secure ; and of 
 laying up stores in due time for distribution in 
 due measure. Like the ideal of stately knighthood, 
 this ideal of domestic life cannot be changed ; nor 
 can it be amended, but in addition of more 
 variously applicable detail, and enlargement of 
 the range of the affections, by the Christian hope 
 of their eternal duration. 
 
 Such are the chief contents of the book, pre- 
 sented with extreme simplicity of language and 
 modesty of heart ; gentle qualities which in truth 
 add to its preciousness, yet have hitherto hindered 
 its proper influence in our schools, because pre- 
 senting no model of grace in style, or force in 
 rhetoric. It is simply the language of an educated 
 soldier and country gentleman, relating without 
 effort what he has seen, and without pride what 
 he has learned. But for the greater number of 
 us, this is indeed the most exemplary manner 
 
xlii editor's preface. 
 
 of writing. To emulate the intricate strength of 
 Thucydides, or visionary, calm of Plato, is insolent, 
 as vain, for men of ordinary minds : but any 
 sensible person may state what he has ascertained, 
 and describe what he has felt, in unpretending 
 terms, like these of Xenophon ; and will assuredly 
 waste his life, or impair its usefulness, in at- 
 tempting to write otherwise. Nor is it without 
 some proper and intentional grace that the art 
 of which the author boasts the universal facility 
 of attainment, should be taught in homely words, 
 and recommended by simple arguments. 
 
 A few words respecting the translators will put 
 the reader in possession of all that is necessary 
 to his use and judgment of the book. 
 
 When I returned to Oxford in the year 1870, 
 after thirty years' absence, I found the aim of 
 University education entirely changed ; and that, 
 for the ancient methods of quiet study, for dis- 
 cipline of intellect, — study of which the terminal 
 examination simply pronounced the less or more 
 success, — there had been substituted hurried 
 courses of instruction in knowledge supposed to 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE. xlii'i 
 
 be pecuniarily profitable ; stimulated by feverish 
 frequency of examination, of which the effect 
 was not to certify strength, or discern genius, 
 but to bribe immature effort with fortuitous dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 From this field of injurious toil, and dis- 
 honourable rivalry, I have endeavoured, with all 
 the influence I could obtain over any of the 
 more gifted students, to withdraw their thoughts : 
 and to set before them the nobler purpose of 
 their granted years of scholastic leisure, — initiation 
 in the sacred mysteries of the Loving Mother of 
 Knowledge and of Life ; and preparation for the 
 steady service of their country, alike through 
 applause or silence. 
 
 The two who have trusted me so far as to 
 devote no inconsiderable portion of their time, 
 and jeopardize in a measure their chances of pre- 
 eminence in the schools, that they might place 
 this piece of noble Greek thought within the 
 reach of English readers, will not, I believe, 
 eventually have cause to regret either their faith 
 or their kindness. 
 
xliv editor's preface. 
 
 Of the manner in which they have fulfilled 
 their task, I have not scholarship enough to 
 speak with entire decision : but, having revised 
 the whole with them sentence by sentence, I 
 know that the English rendering is free from 
 error which attention could avoid, — praiseworthy in 
 its occasional sacrifice of facility to explicitness, 
 and exemplary as an unselfish piece of youthful 
 labour devoted to an honourable end. 
 
TRANSLATORS' PREFACE. 
 
 ' I "HIS translation has been undertaken at the 
 suggestion and request of the Editor, who in 
 his Preface has sufficiently explained the objects 
 of the series of which it forms a part. In accord- 
 ance with his purpose we have aimed at a rendering 
 suited rather to the general reader than to the 
 student of Greek ; and indeed to deal at length 
 with the difficulties of a text sometimes corrupt, 
 and not seldom obscure, would have demanded 
 an edition distinctly critical and far more elaborate 
 than any which we could attempt. We have, 
 however, to all cases of doubt given our best con- 
 sideration, embodying, generally without comment, 
 in the translation the view on which we finally 
 decided. Should we at all succeed in setting 
 
xlvi translators' preface. 
 
 before the English reader, to whom the Greek 
 is inaccessible, the simple grace of the original, 
 we shall feel ourselves well content. To praise 
 the dialogue, or point out beauties, to which a 
 translation can never do full justice, seems at 
 once unnecessary and presumptuous. A work of 
 such interest, both as illustrative of Greek life and 
 manners, and as giving the mind of one of the 
 greatest practical philosophers of antiquity on 
 subjects of grave importance in the present day, 
 is assuredly worthy of a more fitting tribute than 
 any we could offer. 
 
 The few notes that have been added are, there- 
 fore, illustrative and explanatory rather than criti- 
 cal : — they are in fact notes to the translation, not 
 to the text. 
 
 The edition used has been that of Schneider 
 (Oxon. 1813,) and any deviations from its text, 
 have been noticed as they occur. 
 
 A. D. O. W. 
 W. G. C. 
 
 Oxford, Easter Term, 1876. 
 
THE ECONOMIST 
 
 XENOPHON 
 
 PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE : 
 
 SOCRATES, 
 CRITOBULUS, 
 
 AND OTHERS WHO ARE MUTE AUDITORS. 
 
 Also, in the Second Part, 
 ISCHOMACHUS. 
 
THE ECONOMIST 
 
 OF 
 
 XENOPHON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF ECONOMY; — THE MANAGEMENT OF PROPERTY, THAT IS 
 WHATEVER IS OF USE TO A MAN, BUT IS OF NO VALUE 
 TO SUCH AS ARE SLAVES TO THEIR PASSIONS. 
 
 "XT OW I once heard him * talk about economy f i 
 
 ' in this way. Tell me, Critobulus, said he, 
 is economy the name of some science, as medicine 
 is, and metallurgy and architecture ? 
 
 Yes, I think so, said Critobulus. 
 
 And might we assign its function to economy, 2 
 just as we can to each of these arts ? 
 
 At any rate, said Critobulus, it seems that a 
 
 * Socrates. 
 
 f ' Economy' — a now far narrower word than oUovo/da., which 
 means the whole management of house and estate : similarly 
 olxovdfios, ' economist. ' 
 
 1 
 
2 THE ECONOMIST. [CHAP. I. 
 
 good economist ought to manage his own house 
 well. 
 
 3 And if, asked Socrates, the house of another 
 were entrusted to him, should he not be able, if he 
 would, to manage that house well, just as though 
 it were his own ? For the architect can do equally 
 for another person what he can for himself, and so 
 too would it be with the economist ? 
 
 Yes, Socrates, I think so. 
 
 4 Is it possible, then, said Socrates, for an adept 
 in this art, who happens to have no property [of 
 his own, to earn money by managing the house 
 of another, just as he would were he building . 
 it? 
 
 Undoubtedly so ; and no little pay too would 
 he earn, said Critobulus, if, .after undertaking the 
 management of a house, he could both meet all 
 necessary expenses and further increase its wealth 
 and position. 
 
 5 But what do we mean by 'house' ? Do we mean 
 the mere building, or do" we include in it all a 
 man's possessions ? 
 
 Yes, said Critobulus, in my opinion everything 
 that a man possesses, all the world over, is part of 
 his house. 
 
 6 But do not some people possess enemies ? 
 Doubtless ; and some of them many. 
 
2—8.] THE PURPOSE OF ECONOMY. 3 
 
 Are we then to call a man's enemies also part 
 of his property ? 
 
 Indeed it would be absurd, said Critobulus, if 
 a man who increases one's enemies should further 
 be paid for so doing. 
 
 You know * we have decided that a man's house 7 
 meant all his possessions. 
 
 By Heaven, yes, said Critobulus ; we laid that 
 down about whatever a man has that is good ; but 
 of course I should not count as a possession 
 anything that does him harm. 
 
 You would, then, call a man's possessions all that ]/ 
 benefits him ? 
 
 Quite so, said he ; I call whatever hurts him loss, 
 and not property. 
 
 Well, then, suppose some one bought a horse, 8 
 and could not manage it, but fell off it and 
 hurt himself ; the horse is not property to him, is 
 it? 
 
 Certainly not, if property is only what benefits 
 him. 
 
 In the same way, one cannot call a piece of land 
 a man's property, if he cultivates it so as to lose 
 thereby ? 
 
 No ; no more is the land property if, instead 
 of supporting him, it reduces him to want. 
 * The text here is uncertain. 
 
4 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. £ 
 
 9 Well, then, if a man did not know what use to 
 make of sheep either, but lost by them, sheep would 
 not be property to him ?• 
 
 No, I do not think they would. 
 You, then, it seems, count as property only 
 what is useful to a man, but do not include under 
 the term anything that hurts him ? 
 Just so. 
 io Then the very same things are property to a 
 man who knows how to use them, and not property 
 to one who does not. For instance, a flute is 
 property to a man who can play on it fairly ; but 
 to one who is wholly unskilled in its use it is no 
 more property than mere useless stones would be, — 
 unless indeed he sold it. 
 II So it is clear to us that a flute in the hands 
 of a man who does not know how to use it, is not 
 property to him, unless he sell it. So long as he 
 keeps it, it is not property. And indeed, Socrates, 
 we shall thus have reasoned consistently, since we 
 before decided that a man's property must be some- 
 thing that benefits him. If the man does not 
 sell the flute, it is not property, for it is of no use; 
 but if he sell it, it becomes property. 
 12 To this Socrates answered, Yes, if he know how 
 to sell it. But if he, again, were to sell it to a 
 man who does not know how to use it, it would 
 
9— IS-] WHAT IS PROPERTY. 5 
 
 not be property even when sold, according to what 
 you say. 
 
 Your words, Socrates, seem to imply that not 
 even money would be property unless a man knew 
 how to use it. 
 
 Well, you seem to agree with me that a man's 1 3 
 property is only what benefits him. Suppose a man 
 were to make this use of his money, to buy, say, a 
 mistress, by whose influence his body would be worse, 
 his soul worse, his household worse ; how could we 
 then say that his money was any benefit to him.? 
 
 We could not, — unless, indeed, we are to count 
 as property henbane, the herb that drives mad 
 those who eat it. 
 
 We may, then, Critobulus, exclude money also 14 
 from being counted as property, if it is in the hands 
 of one who does not know how to use it. But 
 friends, — what shall we say they are, if a man knows 
 how to use them to his advantage ? 
 
 Why truly they are property, said Critobulus ; 
 and much more so than the oxen are, if only they 
 are more profitable than oxen. 
 
 Following that out, enemies are property to a 1 5 
 man who can gain benefit from them ? 
 
 Yes, I think so. 
 
 Then a good economist ought to know how to 
 use even his enemies to his own advantage ? 
 
6 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. I. 
 
 Most decidedly so. 
 
 True, Critobulus, said he ; for war, you see, 
 may bring increase to every one, — not to kings 
 only. 
 
 1 6 Well, so far our decision is satisfactory, 
 Socrates, said Critobulus. But what are we to 
 say when we see men endowed with knowledge, 
 and means of adding to -their position if they will 
 but exert themselves, quite careless of this, so that 
 thus we see that their knowledge is of no use to 
 them ? What can we say but that their knowledge 
 is to them neither property nor possession ? 
 
 1 7 But tell me, Critobulus, said Socrates ; is it of 
 slaves that you would say this ? 
 
 Surely not, said he ; but I meet with many 
 men who are skilled in the arts of war and of peace, 
 who yet will not make use of them, and that for 
 this reason, I think, — that they have no masters. 
 
 1 8 And yet, said Socrates, how can we say that 
 they have no masters, if, spite of all their desire 
 to be happy, and eagerness to do what will be to 
 their good, they are after all prevented from so 
 doing by their rulers ? 
 
 And pray, said Critobulus, who are these in- 
 visible rulers ? 
 
 19 By Heaven, said Socrates, they are not in- 
 visible, but very visible indeed ; nor do you fail to 
 
*5— 2 3-l THE TYRANNY OF THE PASSIONS. J. 
 
 see : that they are the worst of rulers, — if, that is, 
 you count as evil, sloth, effeminacy, and carelessness. 
 And moreover there are others, deceiving mistresses, 20 
 who pretend to be queens of pleasure, such as 
 gambling, and profitless assemblings of men 
 together, until, as time goes on, those whom they 
 deceived see what they really are, — pleasures glossing 
 over pain, getting the mastery over them, and 
 preventing their doing what is right and useful. 
 
 But, Socrates, said he, there are others also 2 1 
 whom . these do not prevent from exertion, but 
 who, on the contrary, do all they can to exert 
 themselves and increase their incomes ; yet they 
 too waste their substance and involve themselves 
 in difficulties. 
 
 That is because they too are slaves, said 2 2 
 Socrates, — slaves of mistresses entirely cruel, of 
 luxury, lust, and drunkenness ; or else of some 
 foolish and ruinous ambition, which so harshly 
 rules its subjects, that as long as it sees them 
 in the prime of life, and able to exert themselves, 
 it compels them to bring all the results of their 
 exertions, and spend them on their desires. But 
 no sooner does it see them grown old, and so 
 unable to work, than it leaves them to a miserable 
 dotage, and ever turns round again to look for 
 others to enslave. But against these mistresses, 23 
 
8 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. I. 
 
 §23- 
 
 Critobulus, we must fight for freedom as if ranged 
 against armed hosts seeking to enslave us. Earthly 
 enemies, however,, often ere now have been good 
 and noble, and have often by their control taught 
 those whom they have enslaved to be better, 
 and have made their life calmer for the future. 
 Not so mistresses such as these. While they 
 are in power, they never cease to torment the 
 households, the bodies, aye, and the souls of 
 men. 
 
Chap. II. OF RICHES. 
 
 §'■] 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF TRUE WEALTH : — NOT THAT WHICH BRINGS WITH 
 IT TROUBLE AND TOIL, BUT THAT OF THE PROVIDENT 
 AND THRIFTY ECONOMIST : — WHERE SUCH IS TO BE 
 LEARNED. 
 
 f~^ RITOBULUS then continued something in 
 ^^ this way : What you have told me about 
 such as these is, I think, quite sufficient ; but 
 on examining myself, I find that I have what I 
 consider a fair control* over them, so that if you 
 would advise me how to increase my position, 
 I do not think you would find that these mis- 
 tresses, as you call them, prevent me from following 
 your advice. With all assurance, then, give me 
 what good advice you can. Or do you charge 
 us, Socrates, with being rich enough, and consider 
 that we have no need of further wealth ? 
 
 * Gk. iytcparlis, on the full meaning of which, see Aristotle, (Eth. 
 vii. 9, 6, ) : — ' 8 re yi,p iyxpariis ofos pr/Sh irapa rbv \6rfov Sib. tAs 
 (runaTiK&s riSov&s Trote"? xal 6 auxppav, dXX' 6 piv (x av t <> 8" "'* Ixtcv 
 <pati\as bridvplas, (to! i piv toioOtos otos pi) Ijdeirffai iraph rbv \6yov, 
 i S' otos fiSeaOai dXXA pA) &ye<rSat,' i.e., the perfectly temperate man 
 does not even feel pleasure in acting contrary to right reason ; the 
 self-controlled feels it, but is not led astray. 
 
I O THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. II. 
 
 2 If it is of me that you are speaking, said 
 Socrates, I do not think that I have any need 
 of further wealth : I am rich enough. You, on 
 the contrary, Critobulus, I consider very poor, 
 — and, by Heaven, I heartily pity you some- 
 times. 
 
 3 To this Critobulus answered with a laugh : 
 By Heaven, Socrates, said he, how much, think 
 you, would your property fetch, and how much 
 mine ? 
 
 I think, said Socrates, that if I found a good 
 purchaser, I might quite easily get for my house 
 and all five minae. * But I am perfectly sure ' 
 that yours would fetch more than a hundred times 
 as much as that. 
 
 4 And yet, while you know this, do you think 
 that you have no need of further wealth, and 
 pity me for my poverty ? 
 
 I do, said he, for I have enough to satisfy 
 all my wants. But your style- of living, and the 
 reputation you enjoy, is such that I do not think 
 thrice as much again as you have at present would 
 suffice for it 
 
 What can you mean ? said Critobulus. 
 
 5 I mean, explained Socrates, that in the first 
 place I see you compelled to offer up many 
 
 * About £20, a mina being equivalent to £4 is. 3d. 
 
§§ 2—7-] THE POVERTY OF THE RICH. I I 
 
 great sacrifices ; indeed, if you were remiss in so 
 doing, both gods and men would, I think, put 
 up with you no longer. And again, you have 
 to entertain many strangers, and that in great 
 state ; while, besides this, you must either feast 
 and otherwise benefit your fellow-citizens, or else 
 be destitute of supporters. Nor is this all. I 6 
 know how the State already imposes on you 
 duties of no little importance, — -to breed horses 
 for its service, to pay the expenses of a chorus, 
 to superintend the gymnasia, or to be a foreign 
 consul. And if a war break out, I am well 
 aware that they will demand of you to take your 
 share in fitting out the navy, * and in other 
 special expenses, so large that even you will 
 find them no light burden. And if you should 7 
 be deficient in any of the above, the Athenians 
 would, I am sure, punish you no less than if 
 they caught you robbing them of their own . 
 property. But besides all this, you do, I see, 
 consider yourself rich, and thus do not care 
 to make money, but give yourself up to childish 
 
 * At Athens, special subscriptions were demanded of the 
 wealthy for State purposes. These were called Xeirovpylai, and 
 of them the rpitipapxia was specially important. In time of war 
 a. ' trieraich ' would have to equip a v ssel, and not unfrequently 
 command it in person. Other \etrovpylat are enumerated in the 
 preceding sentence. 
 
1 2 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. II. 
 
 pursuits, as if there were no harm in them. And 
 therefore I pity you, and fear for you lest you 
 should suffer some desperate disaster, and fall 
 into extreme poverty. But what is my case ? 
 
 8 You know as well as I do, that were I in want, 
 there are those who would help me, and by giving 
 me each a little, overwhelm me with a plenty 
 that I could not spend. But your friends, though 
 their means are far more adequate to their style 
 of living than are your means to yours, still look 
 to receive benefits at your hands. 
 
 9 What you say, Socrates, said Critobulus, I can- 
 not dispute. But it is now high time for you to 
 be my guardian, lest I really do become pitiable 
 indeed. 
 
 To this Socrates answered thus : Do you not 
 think, Critobulus, that it is somewhat strange that 
 you, who a little while ago, when I called myself 
 rich, laughed * at me for not knowing what wealth 
 was, and did not stop till you had convicted me 
 and made me confess that you had a hundred 
 times as much as I, should now bid me be your 
 master and guardian, to prevent your being really 
 and truly a beggar? 
 1 Yes, Socrates, said he ; for I see that there 
 is one thing about wealth that you know, and that 
 
 " §3- 
 
7— «3l THE USE OF EXPERIENCE. I 3 
 
 is how to keep a surplus ; and then I expect that 
 a man who does this on small means, would on a 
 large income have a large surplus. 
 
 Do not you remember that in our conversa- 1 1 
 tion just now, when you would hardly let me open 
 my mouth, you said * that neither horses, land, 
 sheep, money, nor anything else, were property to 
 a man who did not know how to use them ? Such, 
 however, are sources of income ; and how could 
 you think that I should know how to use any of 
 these things, when I never yet was possessed of 
 one of them ? 
 
 But we determined f that even a man who 1 2 
 had no property of his own, might yet have some 
 knowledge of economy. What, then, should hinder 
 you from having some ? 
 
 Just what hinders, of course, from playing on 
 the flute people who have never had flutes of their 
 own, nor other people's lent them to learn on. 
 And this is the way with me as to economy. 13 
 For I never had any property of my own to learn 
 it from,, nor have I ever had any one else's under 
 my charge, as you would now put yours. You 
 know men often spoil the harps on which they 
 learn their' first lessons ; and in the same way, 
 should I undertake to learn economy with your 
 * Chapter I., § 8. f Chapter I., § 4. 
 
1 4 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. II. 
 
 estate to practise on, I should no doubt seriously 
 damage it. 
 
 14 You are trying very hard, Socrates, replied 
 Critobulus, to avoid giving me any help towards 
 managing my necessary business with greater 
 care. 
 
 1 5 No, indeed, replied Socrates ; I will most 
 gladly tell whatever I can. But supposing you 
 were to come to me for firewood, and find that 
 I had none, you would not, I think, blame me 
 for directing you to where you could get it ; or 
 again, if you came to me for water, and I had 
 none, but took you to where you could get it, 
 you would not blame me for this either ; and if 
 you wished to learn music of me, and I pointed 
 out to you men who were at once better musicians 
 than myself, and who would thank you if you 
 would take lessons of them, could you find any 
 grounds for blaming me ? 
 
 None that were just, Socrates. 
 
 jg I will, then, Critobulus, direct you to far greater 
 adepts than myself in this which you are so anxious 
 to learn of me ; and I confess that it has interested 
 me to observe who in the city know most of their 
 
 j 7 several occupations. For I could not but feel sur- 
 prised, when I discovered that of those engaged in 
 the same pursuits, some were very poor and some 
 
13— 18.] HOW TO LEARN ECONOMY. I"5 
 
 very rich ; and I thought that the cause of this was 
 not unworthy of consideration. So I began to look 
 into it, and found it all very natural. For I saw 18 
 that those who managed their affairs recklessly 
 were losers ; whilst, on the other hand, an earnest 
 application made the business, as I observed, at 
 once prompter, easier, and more profitable. And 
 if you will take these for your masters, you will, 
 I think, (unless Heaven be against you,) turn out a '■■ 
 shrewd man of business. 
 
1 6 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. III. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE VIRTUES AND RESULTS OF ECONOMY ABROAD AND 
 AT HOME; AND THE SHARE OF THE WIFE THEREIN. 
 
 1 /^\N hearing this, Critobulus continued : Now, 
 ^^ Socrates, I will not let you go until you 
 have shown me what you have promised before 
 our friends here. 
 
 Well, Critobulus, said Socrates, what would you 
 say if I were to begin by showing you how some 
 men spend a good deal of money in building useless 
 houses, while others at a far smaller expense build 
 such as have every necessary advantage ? Would 
 you not think that I was showing you herein one 
 point in the matter of economy? 
 
 That I should, said Critobulus. 
 
 2 And what, if I were to show you the natural 
 consequence of this ? — namely, how some men have 
 plenty of goods and chattels of every kind, and 
 yet cannot get at them for use, when they want 
 them ; nor even, indeed, do they know if they have 
 them safe, thereby causing much annoyance both 
 to themselves and their servants : whilst others, 
 
-S-] THE VIRTUES OF ECONOMY. 17 
 
 though possessing much less than' they, have every 
 necessary at hand to make use of, when they want 
 it. 
 
 Is not this, Socrates, the sole cause of it, that 3 
 the former throw everything down anywhere at 
 random, while the latter have everything in its 
 place ? 
 
 Exactly so, said Socrates ; they have everything 
 well-arranged — not in the first place that Came, but 
 in the most convenient. 
 
 I suppose this that you are telling me, said 
 Critobulus, is another point in economy. 
 
 Again, what would you say, said Socrates, if I 4 
 were to show you, at one place slaves, who are, 
 one might say, all in bonds, constantly running 
 away ; and elsewhere others, who do not know the 
 chain, willingly doing their work and staying with 
 their masters ? Would you not think that I was 
 showing you in this a most noteworthy result of 
 economy ? 
 
 Yes, by Heaven, exclaimed Critobulus, a very 
 remarkable result. 
 
 And what if I were to show you men working 5 
 adjoining* farms, but some of them complaining 
 that their farming is a loss to them, and they 
 
 * And, consequently, of a like soil, and with like opportunities. 
 
 2 
 
1 8 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. III. 
 
 themselves are in poverty, and others getting from 
 their farming an unstinted and comfortable abund- 
 ance of every necessary ? 
 
 That is a very remarkable result also, said 
 Critobulus ; but perhaps the losers spend money 
 not only on what is necessary, but also on what 
 does harm to house and master alike. 
 
 6 There are perhaps some such too, said Socrates ; 
 but I am speaking, not of them, but of those who, 
 whilst their profession is farming, have no money to 
 spend on the necessaries of agriculture. 
 
 And what, Socrates, might the cause of this be ? 
 asked he. 
 
 I will take you, said Socrates, "to see these men, 
 for I, am sure you will be the wiser for observing 
 them. 
 
 Yes, by Heaven, said he ; I will try to be so. 
 
 7 Well, you must see them, and so try what you 
 can learn. Now I know that to go to a comedy 
 
 ' you sometimes rise very early, and walk a long 
 distance to get there ; and you do all you can 
 to persuade me to go with you. But to a task 
 like this you never summoned me. 
 
 And so now I seem to you somewhat ridiculous > 
 
 8 By Heaven, far more so to yourself, said he. 
 But what if I were to show you that of breeders 
 of horses, some have been so ruined as to need 
 
5— "•] THE RESULTS OF ECONOMY. 19 
 
 even the necessaries of life, while others have be- 
 come quite wealthy, and rejoiced in their riches ? 
 
 Why, I see such men myself, and know them, 
 rich and poor ; but I am not any the more one 
 of the rich men for that. 
 
 No, for they are to you but actors in a play ; 9 
 and you go, I think, to the theatre, ndt with the 
 intention of becoming a poet, but merely to find 
 pleasure for eye and ear. And this, perhaps, is 
 well enough, since you do not aim at being a poet : 
 but seeing that you are obliged to keep horses, do 
 not you think you are foolish in not looking to 
 learn some little of the matter, especially when the 
 same horses are good to use and profitable to sell ? 
 
 My dear Socrates, would you have me break 10 
 in horses ? 
 
 Of course not, any more than I would have you 
 buy children and bring them up as labourers. Still 
 I think that both with horses and men there are 
 certain ages immediately upon which they become 
 profitable, and keep on improving. But I can show 
 you men who so treat the wives they have married, 
 as to find in them fellow-workers in increasing their 
 position, whilst others find them a special source of 
 ruirt. 
 
 And are we, Socrates, to blame the husband or n 
 the wife for this ? 
 
20 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. III. 
 
 When a sheep is diseased, we generally blame 
 the shepherd, said Socrates ; and when a horse 
 is vicious, we generally blame the groom. But 
 as regards a wife, — if after being taught by her 
 husband to do right, she still does wrong, then 
 she is perhaps the one we might justly blame ; 
 but if, never teaching her what is right and 
 noble, he takes her ignorant service, is it not 
 
 1 2 with him that the blame would rest ? But come, 
 Critobulus, said he, we are all friends here ; so 
 tell us the whole truth ; — is there any one whom 
 you oftener trust with important matters than your 
 wife ? 
 
 No one, said he. 
 
 Is there any one with whom you have fewer 
 discussions ? 
 
 Few, if any, said he. 
 
 1 3 You married her when quite a young girl, or at 
 any rate when she could have seen and heard but 
 little ? 
 
 Quite so. 
 
 Well, then, it would be much more wonderful 
 if she did know how to speak and act, than if she 
 failed therein. 
 
 1 4 But, what, Socrates, of the wives you call good ? 
 Did their husbands teach them ? 
 
 Well, there is nothing like looking into it ; and 
 
n— 16.] A WIFE'S DUTIES. 2 1 
 
 more, I will introduce you to Aspasia,* who will 
 know how to show you all about such things 
 far better than I. But, in my opinion, a wife who 15 
 manages her share in the household matters well, 
 has as much influence as her husband on their 
 prosperity. For, as a rule, it is the labour of the 
 husband that brings in the money of the family, 
 but the judgment of the wife that regulates the 
 spending of most of it. And whilst houses in 
 which these matters are well managed increase, 
 those in which they are ill managed decrease in 
 prosperity. And moreover, I think that I can point 16 
 out to you men of remarkable power in all the other 
 sciences, if you consider it worth your while to 
 know them. 
 
 * Aspasia was a celebrated lady of Miletus who lived at Athens 
 in the time of Pericles, and had, it is said, the greatest influence 
 over that statesman. Remarkable at once for her beauty and her 
 wisdom, she attracted to her house politician and author, artist 
 and philosopher alike. Her teaching fascinating, — and novel, no 
 doubt, as well, — won high praise from Socrates. Being a foreigner, 
 it was against the law for any Athenian citizen to marry her ; to 
 Pericles, however, whose own wife did not make him happy, she 
 stood in a wife's position, and by him was the mother of a son, after- 
 wards specially legitimated by the Athenian people. Unfortunately, 
 we know but little of Aspasia : it may, however, be fairly questioned 
 whether the evidence we possess justifies the censures passed on her 
 by many critics, who are perhaps too apt to judge her by the standard 
 of modern, not Greek, morality. 
 
2 2 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THAT THE TRUE GENTLEMAN SHOULD PRACTISE NO ME- 
 CHANICAL ARTS J BUT RATHER AGRICULTURE AND 
 WAR, AFTER THE EXAMPLE OF THE KINGS OF PERSIA, 
 AND OF CYRUS. 
 
 1 T) UT why need you show me them all, Socrates ? 
 -^"^ said Critobulus : for neither do we want to get 
 men who are fair hands at all the arts alike, nor 
 can one man become an adept in all. No ; those 
 arts which are thought the noblest, and which would 
 be most suitable for me to engage in, are what I 
 would have you show me, together with those who 
 practise them ; and in this, as far as you can, let 
 me have the advantage of your teaching. 
 
 2 Well said, Critobulus ! exclaimed Socrates ; for 
 not only are the arts which we call mechanical * 
 generally held in bad repute, but States also have 
 a very low opinion of them, — and with justice. For 
 they are injurious to the bodily health of workmen 
 
 * 'Mechanical,' Pavavtrmbs. In a wider sense, such, as Socrates 
 goes on to define ; namely, the arts which deprive the artizan of his 
 fair measure of exercise, sunshine, and fresh air. 
 
I— 5.] OF MECHANICAL ARTS. 23 
 
 and overseers, in that they compel them to be 
 seated and indoors, and in some cases also all 
 the day before a fire. And when the body grows 
 effeminate, the mind also becomes weaker and 
 weaker. And the mechanical arts, as they are 3 
 called, will not let men unite with them care for 
 friends and State, so that men engaged in them 
 must ever appear to be both bad friends and poor 
 defenders of their country. And there are States, 
 but more particularly such as are most famous in 
 war, in which not a single citizen * is allowed to 
 engage in mechanical arts. 
 
 But in what kind of arts would you have us 4 
 engage, Socrates ? 
 
 Ought we to be ashamed, said Socrates, to 
 imitate the King of Persia ? For he, they say, 
 considers agriculture and the art of war to be 
 among the noblest and most essential occupa- 
 tions ; and interests himself heartily in both of 
 them. 
 
 At this Critobulus said, And do you believe, 5 
 Socrates, that the King of Persia takes a due share 
 of interest in agriculture ? 
 
 If we look at it in this light, Critobulus, said 
 Socrates, we may perhaps learn if he does, and 
 what is the interest he takes. For in matters 
 
 * Though slaves might. 
 
24 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 of war he takes confessedly a hearty interest, inas- 
 much as he has appointed governors over all the 
 nations who pay him tribute, to supply him with a 
 fixed support for so many cavalry, archers, slingers, 
 and targeteers, so that he may have enough men 
 to keep in subjection those over whom he rules, and 
 to defend the country from any hostile invasion ; 
 while without count of these he maintains garrisons 
 
 6 in his forts. And though they are paid and cared 
 for by an officer appointed for the purpose, yet 
 every year too the King reviews his mercenaries 
 and other forces under arms, collecting them all 
 together, except the garrisons in the forts, at a 
 fixed time, when the household troops pass before 
 the King, while trustworthy officers are sent to in- 
 
 7 spect those who are at a distance. And where he 
 finds garrison-officers, field-officers, and satraps, 
 with their due complements of men, and no- 
 thing to blame in their horses or their armour, he 
 gives honours and presents of great value ; but 
 where he finds governors neglecting their officers 
 of the garrisons, or making them an unjust source 
 of gain, he punishes them severely, taking away 
 their commissions and giving them to others.* So 
 that in matters of war he thus shows an undoubted 
 
 * May we not compare the Parable of the Talents? Matt. xxv. 
 28. 
 
5— io.] AGRICULTURE AND WAR IN PERSIA. 2$ 
 
 interest. And besides this, he rides through part 8 
 of his dominion in person, surveying and inspecting 
 it ; and where he does not go himself, he sends to 
 examine it men whom he can trust. And where 
 he finds a governor's province well inhabited, the 
 land well tilled, and planted with the trees and 
 crops best suited to it, there he adds to the 
 governor's territory, and, adorning him with gifts, 
 sets him on high. But where he sees the land 
 lying idle and thinly peopled, be it through hard 
 treatment, insolence, or neglect on their part, there 
 he punishes the governors, taking away their 
 governorships and giving them to others. Does 9 
 it not seem to you that in doing this he shows 
 an equal interest in the land being well worked by 
 its inhabitants, and well guarded by its garrisons ? 
 And he has also officers commissioned for either 
 purpose, — not the same for both ; for some are set 
 over the inhabitants and those who till the ground, 
 and from them collect tribute, whilst others are 
 set over the garrisons under arms. And if the 10 
 officer of a garrison is backward in protecting the 
 country, the master . of the inhabitants and over- 
 seer of the tillage brings a charge against him that 
 the people cannot work for want of proper pro- 
 tection. But if the officer of the garrison says 
 to him, "There is peace; work thou in it;" and 
 
26 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. IV. 
 
 yet he can only answer by showing land little 
 inhabited and little tilled, then the officer of the 
 
 1 1 garrison accuses him of this. For as a rule those 
 who cultivate the ground ill neither maintain their 
 garrisons, nor are able to pay their tribute. But 
 where a satrap is appointed, both these duties fall 
 under his charge. 
 
 12 If the King really does this, Socrates, answered 
 Critobulus, he pays, I think, no less attention to 
 agriculture than to war. 
 
 1 3 And more than this, continued Socrates, at all 
 the places which he dwells in or visits, he takes 
 especial care that there shall be gardens which 
 they call ' paradises,' filled with everything good 
 and beautiful that grows there naturally. And 
 it is in these gardens that he spends most of his 
 leisure, unless prevented from doing so by the 
 time of year. 
 
 14 By Heaven, Socrates, said Critobulus, if he 
 spends his time there himself, these ' paradises ' 
 must of course be as well kept as possible, and 
 planted out with trees, and every other goodly 
 thing native to the place. 
 
 15 It is said too by some, Critobulus, continued 
 Socrates, that when the King awards gifts, he 
 begins by calling up those who have distinguished 
 themselves in war, — because however much ground 
 
io— ig.] ■ CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 2J 
 
 you cultivate, it is no good unless you have men 
 to defend it. And next he summons those that 
 excel in keeping up estates and making them pro- 
 ductive, saying that not even your brave men could 
 live unless there were men to till the ground. And 16 
 once, too, they tell us, Cyrus, who was the most ■ 
 famous prince of his time, said to those who 
 were called up to receive gifts, that he too 
 might put in a fair claim to have gifts awarded 
 him on both scores ; inasmuch as he excelled at 
 once in keeping up an estate, and in defending 
 the same. 
 
 Cyrus, then, said Critobulus, in saying this, 17 
 prided himself no less in making an estate pro- 
 ductive and in keeping it up, than on his warlike 
 character. 
 
 Ay ; and, by Heaven, had Cyrus lived, continued 1 8 
 Socrates, he would, I think, have made a most 
 excellent ruler. And amongst all the proofs that 
 are given of this, we may note what happened 
 when he set forth to fight against his brother for 
 the throne. From Cyrus, it is said, not a man 
 deserted to the King, whilst from the King many 
 myriads deserted to Cyrus. And I think that a 19 
 commander's worth is well proved by his men 
 following him willingly, and by their standing by 
 him in time of langer. So was it with Cyrus : 
 
2 8 THE ECONOMIST. tCHAP. IV. 
 
 with him his friends fought, and with him fell, doing 
 battle round his body, every one of them, excepting 
 Ariaeus, who happened to be in command of the left 
 
 20 wing. It is said, too, of this same Cyrus, that when 
 Lysander came to him with presents from the allies, 
 he not only treated him with much kindness, but 
 further (as Lysander himself once told a stranger 
 he met in Megara) showed him over his ' paradise ' 
 
 21 at Sardis. And as Lysander wondered at the 
 beautiful trees planted therein with perfect sym- 
 metry, and at the straightness of their rows, and at 
 the fairness of all their angles, while many a sweet . 
 perfume met them as they went along, he said to 
 Cyrus, Much as I wonder, Cyrus, at the beauty 
 of all this, I feel far greater admiration for the 
 man who measured it out and arranged it all. 
 At these words Cyrus was much pleased, and said, 
 
 22 Well, then, Lysander, it was I who measured it 
 all out and arranged it ; nay, some of these trees, 
 he added, I even planted myself. 
 
 2 3 What, Cyrus, said Lysander, as he looked at 
 him, and saw the splendid raiment that he had 
 on, and smelt the perfume of it ; marking too the 
 beauty of the necklaces, bracelets, and other orna- 
 ments that he wore ; did you really plant any of 
 these trees with your own hands ? 
 
 24 Does it amaze you, Lysander ? said Cyrus ; why 
 
§§ 19—24.] A PRINCELY EXAMPLE. 29 
 
 I swear to you by Mithra that when I am in 
 good health I never sit down to dinner without 
 having first earned it in the sweat of my brow, 
 by exercising myself in some business of war or 
 agriculture, ever in the pursuit of some object of 
 my ambition. 
 
 At which, said Lysander, I took his hand, and 
 said, I think, Cyrus, that you are justly happy, 
 for you are happy because you are good. 
 
30 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. V. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF THE VIRTUES OF AGRICULTURE AND THE PRAISE OF IT. 
 OF THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER IN ALL UNDERTAKINGS. 
 
 1 "NT OW, I tell you this, Critobulus, continued 
 -^ ' Socrates, because I would have you know 
 that even the greatest and richest men cannot 
 be wholly neglectful of agriculture. For we see 
 that those who make it their care find it to be 
 both a pleasant pursuit, and a means of adding 
 to their wealth ; whilst it exercises the body, so 
 strengthening it to do all that a free man should. 
 
 2 For in the first place it is to those who culti- 
 vate it that the earth yields means of sustenance, 
 
 3 and of enjoyment as well. Next also it provides 
 them with decorations for altars and statues, as 
 well as for their own persons, and these very 
 sweet to smell and to see. And there is much 
 food too, some of which it produces, some of 
 which it rears, inasmuch as the art of tending 
 cattle comes into the province of agriculture. 
 And thus have men sufficient, both for giving 
 
§§ i—6.] THE VIRTUES OF AGRICULTURE. 3 I 
 
 Heaven the sacrifice that is its due honour and 
 for their own uses. But whilst the earth provides 4 
 this abundance of good things ungrudgingly,* it 
 does not suffer those who are effeminate to reap 
 it,f but accustoms them to endure with patience 
 winter cold and the heat of summer. And those 
 whom it makes work with their own hands, to 
 these it gives increase of strength, whilst it makes 
 the earnest labourer in the field very manly, by 
 rousing him up early, and compelling him to 
 journey to and fro. And, again, if any one 5 
 wishes to serve his state in the cavalry, then it 
 is agriculture that will best support his horse ; or 
 if in the infantry, agriculture in this too will keep 
 him sound and strong. The land also helps to 
 increase an interest in hunting, since it both pro- 
 vides easy means for the keeping of dogs, and 
 also supports the beasts of the chase. And to 6 
 
 * Virgil almost forgets the labour : but his epithet of the earth 
 is more perfect than i<p66vus : — 
 
 " O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, 
 Agricolas, quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis, 
 Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus." 
 
 Georgic ii., 458—560. 
 
 •f Compare Milton, Comus, lines 778 — 782 : 
 
 " Impostor ! do not charge most innocent Nature, 
 As if she would her children should be riotous 
 With her abundance ! she, good cateress, 
 Means her provisions only for the good. " 
 
32 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. V. 
 
 both the horses and dogs that owe their main- 
 tenance to farming, farming too owes much in 
 return : to the horse for carrying his master early 
 to his labour, and giving him power to come home 
 late ; and to the dog, for defending the crops 
 and cattle from the ravages of wild beasts, and 
 
 7 for making lonely places safe. And in some mea- 
 sure too the land prompts the agriculturist to 
 defend his own with arms, in that, bringing forth 
 its fruits, it leaves them for the strongest to take. 
 
 8 Again, what art more than agriculture makes 
 men better able to run and throw and leap ? 
 What art gives greater rewards to those who 
 engage in it ? What art has a sweeter welcome 
 for those occupied in it, bidding them draw nigh 
 and take all that they would ? What art, too, 
 
 g has a more generous welcome for a guest ? And 
 where in the winter-time can one enjoy more abun- 
 dantly the luxury of blazing fires and warm baths 
 than in the country ? Where in the summer is it 
 sweeter to be than in the meadows or by some 
 
 I o shaded stream where the breezes blow ? What 
 
 other art provides the gods with fairer first-fruits, 
 or sets forth fuller feasts ? What more loved of 
 servants, more pleasant to wife, more longed for by 
 
 I I children, more grateful to friends ? To me, indeed, 
 it is a marvel if any free-minded man possesses 
 
§§ 6 — 16.] THE PRAISE OF AGRICULTURE. 33 
 
 aught of more joy to him than some country 
 spot; or has found aught that is more gladdening 
 or that more generously supplies him with the 
 means of life, than the cultivation of it. And, 12 
 further, to those who can learn it, the land willingly 
 teaches justice, for it ever awards its highest prizes 
 to those who serve it best. And then those who 1 3 
 are engaged in agriculture, — if ever they are pre- 
 vented from working, even by some large invading 
 army, still their education has been vigorous and 
 manly, they have been well trained in mind and 
 body ; and thus, if Heaven prevent them not, 
 they are able to enter the country of those who 
 are hindering them from their work, and thence 
 take means of sustenance ; and often, indeed, in 
 time of war it is safer to seek a livelihood with 
 arms than with the implements of the field. 
 Agriculture, too, teaches us to help one another ; 1 4 
 for just as in facing their foes men must join to- 
 gether, so must they in agriculture. He, then, 15 
 that would be a good farmer must procure labourers 
 zealous to work, and ready to obey ; and so, too, 
 must he who is leading his men against an enemy ; 
 rewarding those who are the brave men they should 
 be, — punishing those who are disorderly. And 16 
 a farmer must encourage his labourers, no less 
 constantly than does a general his soldiers. For 
 
 3 
 
34 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. V. 
 
 slaves have no less need of fair hopes than have 
 free men ; nay, rather more need, that so they 
 
 1 7 may willingly remain with their masters. It was 
 once said, and finely too, that agriculture was the 
 mother and the nurse of all the other arts. For 
 while agriculture prospers, the other arts too are 
 strong ; but wherever the soil must lie barren, 
 there they are wellnigh being utterly quenched 
 by sea and by land. 
 
 1 8 On hearing this, Critobulus said, I think, Socrates, 
 that what you say is entirely right. But remember 
 that the greater part of agriculture is beyond our 
 foresight. For sometimes hail and frost, drought 
 and violent rain, blight, and often other causes, 
 are fatal to what has been excellently devised and 
 done ; or a pestilence may chance to come, and 
 kill cattle that have been reared to perfection. 
 
 19 To which Socrates replied thus : Nay, I thought 
 that you, Critobulus, knew that Heaven is lord as 
 much of agriculture as of war. And in war, I 
 think, you see men propitiating Heaven before 
 setting forth on any warlike enterprise, and in- 
 quiring there with sacrifices and oracles what they 
 
 20 must do and what avoid. And in agriculture 
 think you there is less necessity to win the favour 
 of Heaven ? For know this well, he added, that 
 good men offer prayer about every kind of pro- 
 
§| 16-20.] THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER. 35 
 
 duce ; * — about oxen and horses and sheep, — yes, 
 about all that they have. 
 
 * Gk. " virip vyp&v xol {tj/tok napirCiv." Literally, "wet and dry 
 fruits," i.e., for example, grapes and corn. 
 
36 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RECAPITULATION OF PRECEDING CONCLUSIONS. OF THE 
 TRUE GENTLEMAN, AND HOW SOCRATES FOUND SUCH 
 AN ONE. 
 
 1 "\ ^7 ELL, Socrates, said he, I heartily ap- 
 
 * " prove of all you say, in bidding us strive 
 to begin every undertaking with the favour of 
 Heaven to aid us, and that because Heaven is 
 lord no less of the things of peace than of those 
 of war. This we will make every effort to do. 
 But now do you continue from where you left 
 off telling me about economy, and endeavour 
 to go through everything about it for my benefit, 
 since even now, from what you have told me so 
 far, I think I already understand better than I did 
 how I ought to act in life. 
 
 2 What say you, then, said Socrates, to our first 
 going once more over all the points we have 
 successively agreed upon, that we may if possible, 
 as we proceed to what remains, still agree with 
 each other ? 
 
 3 Yes, said Critobulus, I shall be very glad : and 
 
§§ I— 7] RECAPITULATION. 37 
 
 just as where money is concerned partners in 
 business are glad at finishing off their accounts 
 agreeably to both, so shall we be, if in talking 
 together we finish off our conversation without 
 any disagreement arising. 
 
 Well, then, said Socrates, we decided that 4 
 economy was the name of some science ; * and 
 this science, as it appeared, was one that enabled 
 a man to add to his resources ; and his resources 
 were all his possessions ; and possessions, we said, 
 were everything that benefited a man for the 
 maintenance of life ; and we found that the things 
 which - benefited him were all such as he knew 
 how to use. We decided, however, that it was im- 5 
 possible to learn every science, and we agreed with 
 governments in condemning the merely mechan- 
 ical arts, as they are called, because they evidently 
 are injurious to both body and mind. And we said 6 
 that a most clear proof of this was, if when an 
 enemy invaded the country, one were to separate 
 the husbandmen from the artizans, and then put 
 the question to each class, " Will you defend your 
 house and home, or leave the fields and guard the 
 walls ? " For at this, we thought, those who tilled 7 
 the land would vote for defending theii country, 
 
 * For these and following references, see Chapter I., §§ 1, 5, 7, 9 ; 
 Chapter IV., §§ I, seqq. 
 
38 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 whilst the artizans would prefer not to fight, but 
 in the spirit of their education would rather sit 
 
 8 still, without trouble and without danger* We 
 went on to determine that for the true gentleman f 
 agriculture was the finest occupation and science 
 
 9 of all those by which men gain a living. For we 
 came to the conclusion that this occupation was 
 the easiest to learn and the most pleasant to be 
 occupied in, and that it, more than all others, made 
 the body fine and strong, whilst it allowed the 
 mind full leisure to have some care for both friend 
 
 10 and country. We decided also that agriculture in 
 some degree was an incentive to bravery, in that 
 it not only produces the necessaries of life, and 
 that, too, where there are no bulwarks of defence, 
 but also maintains those who occupy themselves 
 in it. Wherefore this manner of life was, we 
 noticed, that which governments held in highest 
 
 * This has not occurred in the foregoing chapters ; there is there- 
 fore, probably, a lacuna in the text. 
 
 f "The true gentleman." The Greek words raXcSs re Kdyaff6s, 
 as subsequently (§ 15) analysed, signify respectively the beauty of mind 
 and body. The translation of them by the word ' gentleman ' hat 
 been adopted as likely to impress itself on English readers. In this 
 sense they are used by Plato (Republic, viii. 569 A) ; whilst Aristotle 
 has the abstract KaKoK&yadla (Ethics, iv. 3, 16 ; x. 9, 3), It is dis- 
 tinctly opposed to the mob, as is shown by the following passage ot 
 Plutarch (Pericl., p. 158 b) : " oi yb.p etcure rois KaXois niyaBois 
 Ka\ovp{vovs . avtifieiuxffcLi irpbs rbv TsTtfxov." 
 
§§ 7—14] THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 39 
 
 esteem, because without doubt it provides the com- 
 monwealth with the best and most loyal citizens. 
 
 To which Critobulus : — I think, Socrates, that 1 1 
 I am sufficiently persuaded that the husbandman's 
 life is the noblest, the best, and the sweetest. But 
 you said that you understood how it is that some 
 husbandmen manage to get from their husbandry 
 an unstinted measure of what they want, while 
 others work so that their husbandry is no source 
 of profit to them. And about both these would 
 I gladly hear you, in order that I may do what 
 is profitable, and avoid what is to my harm. 
 
 What say you then, Critobulus, said Socrates, 12 
 to my telling you from beginning to end of how 
 I once fell in with a man who seemed to me 
 beyond all doubt one of those to whom the 
 name of ' gentleman ' was really and truly appli- 
 cable ? 
 
 I should very much like to hear it, said 
 Critobulus ; for I too desire to be worthy of that 
 name. 
 
 I will tell you, then, said Socrates, how I came 13 
 to see him. For as to those skilful in carpentry, 
 metallurgy, painting, sculpture, and all else of the 
 kind, I took but a very little time to have done 
 with them, and to inspect their works popularly 
 esteemed good. But in-order to consider those 14 
 
40 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VI. 
 
 §§ 14-17. 
 
 who bore the majestic name of 'gentleman,' and 
 
 to see what claim their conduct gave them to it, 
 
 I was particularly anxious to fall in with some 
 
 1 5 one of them. But to begin with, since ' gentleman ' 
 meant both virtuous and beautiful, I would address 
 myself to every beautiful persen I saw, and would 
 try to discover some instance of beauty and virtue 
 
 1 6 combined. Yet this was not always so. Nay, I 
 learnt very certainly that a beautiful figure was often 
 accompanied by a vicious mind, and I determined 
 therefore to give up looking at beauty, and to 
 visit some one who had the name of ' gentleman.' 
 
 1 7 So when I heard of Ischomachus, and that he was 
 approved gentleman by men and women, strangers 
 and fellow-citizens alike, I determined to try and 
 meet him. 
 
Chap. VII. SOCRATES AND ISCHOMACHUS. 4 1 
 
 §§ l, 2.] 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOW SOCRATES FELL IN WITH ISCHOMACHUS, WHO TOLD HIM 
 OF HOW HE TAUGHT HIS WIFE HER DUTIES, AND 
 RECOUNTED HIS FIRST TALK WITH HER; OF THE DIVINE 
 ORDERING OF THE WORLD, PARTICULARLY AS REGARDS 
 MAN AND WIFE ; AND OF THE INCREASING HONOUR IN 
 WHICH THE GOOD WIFE IS HELD. 
 
 /^\NE day, then, I saw him sitting in the porch 1 
 ^^ of Zeus " That giveth us Freedom ;" and as 
 he seemed at leisure, I went up to him, and sitting 
 me down beside him, Why, Ischomachus, said I, 
 you are generally anything but an idle man ; — 
 why are you sitting here ? For I almost always 
 see you busying yourself in something, or at any 
 rate not sitting quite idle in the market-place all 
 the day long. 
 
 Nor indeed had you seen me doing so now, 2 
 Socrates, said Ischomachus, had I not agreed to 
 wait here for some friends. 
 
 And, pray, said I, when you have nothing 
 of this kind to do, where do you spend, your 
 time, and what do you ? For I am very anxious to 
 learn of you what it may be that you do that 
 
4 2 THE ECONOMIST, [Chap. VII. 
 
 they call you ' gentleman ' : you certainly are not 
 a stay-at-home ; you look too healthy for that. 
 
 3 At this Ischomachus smiled, amused at my 
 " what do you do that they call you ' gentleman ' ? " 
 and I think he liked the notion. I do not know, 
 said he, whether you know any who in talking 
 to you 6Y me call me so or not Certainly when 
 they come to me for due subscription to navy or 
 theatre * it is not the ' gentleman ' whom they 
 ask for, but plain Ischomachus, and they just add 
 my father's name. In answer to your question, 
 Socrates, he added, I certainly am anything but 
 a stay-at-home ; indeed, why should I be, for my 
 wife is able to arrange all household matters 
 without help ? 
 
 4 Yes, Ischomachus, said I, and here is another 
 thing that I should be very pleased to hear from 
 you. Did you teach your wife her duties your- 
 self, or had she full knowledge of them when you 
 took her away from her father and mother ? 
 
 5 Was it likely, Socrates, said he, that she should 
 have such knowledge when I took her away, 
 seeing that she came to me before she was fifteen, 
 and after living under the most watchful care, 
 that she might see, hear, and say as little as 
 
 6 possible ? Surely it was more than enough, think 
 
 * This last was called xopTf^- Chapter II., § 6, and note. 
 
! 2— io.] THE WIFE OK ISCHOMACHUS. 43 
 
 you not, for me to find in her one who could 
 turn a fleece into a garment ; and one whose 
 eyes had taught her how to set her handmaidens 
 at their spindles ? For as far as concerned the 
 passions, she came to me well trained : which is, I 
 think, of the utmost importance for man and woman. 
 
 But in other matters, Ischomachus, said I, tell 7 
 me, did you teach your wife yourself, so as to fit 
 her to attend to all her duties ? 
 
 No, by Heaven, said Ischomachus, no ! For 
 first I offered sacrifice and prayer that I might 
 teach and she learn what was best for both of us. 
 
 Well, and did your wife join with you in this 8 
 sacrifice and prayer ? 
 
 Yes, surely, and solemnly vowed at the time 
 to do her duty ; showing very clearly that she 
 would not disregard anything taught her. 
 
 Nay, but by Heaven, Ischomachus, said I, tell 9 
 me, I beg of you, what you first set about 
 teaching her. I For I had far rather hear this of 
 you, than have you tell me any tale of grandest 
 wrestling bout or chariot race. ) 
 
 Why, Socrates, replied Ischomachus, when I 10 
 
 X 
 
 had at last ' got her in hand,' and when she was 
 fairly in subjection to me, so that we could talk 
 together, I put her a question something thus : 
 
 * H-iffcuretiero ; — tamed like a wild animal. 
 
44 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 Tell me, good wife, why, think you, did I 
 marry you, and why did your parents give you 
 
 1 1 in marriage to me ? For I know very well that 
 there were plenty of others for you to marry, and 
 for me, as you yourself too are well aware. How- 
 ever, when I was on the look-out for a wife for 
 myself, and your parents for a husband for you — 
 for the best partner of house and family, both 
 of us — you were my choice, and, as it seems, I 
 was the choice your parents made out of those 
 
 1 2 that were eligible.* Now, therefore, if Heaven 
 ever grant us children, we shall consider how we 
 may best bring them up. For in this we have 
 a common interest, that we find them the best 
 
 1 3 defence t and support of our old age. t But at 
 present, indeed, our common house and home is 
 this : all my fortune, which I put into the com- 
 mon stock, just as you put into it everything that 
 you brought with you. No reckoning as to which 
 
 * This rendering of in tup SwutCov has been preferred to " quantum 
 in ipsis fuit, '' also possible. 
 
 + Compare, " Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them : 
 they shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the 
 gate." — Psalm cxxvii. "J. 
 
 t yi)pofiocrKwv. The full meaning of this word is very noticeable. 
 It implies the duty of children in their days of strength to tend the 
 failing powers of the parents who once so carefully tended them ; 
 and, though wealth may render actual support unnecessary, that at 
 least of tenderness ever remaining. By Greek parents this fact of a 
 recompense due was strongly felt. Compare Sophocles, Ajax, 567, seqq., 
 
§§ 10—16.] THE HELPMEET. 45 
 
 of us has contributed the greater part, must enter 
 into our calculations ; let us rather be well assured 
 that it is the best partner in household management 
 who brings the most. 
 
 And the answer my wife made me, Socrates, was 14 
 this : But in what could I work with you ? What 
 power have I to do so ? You are lord and master : 
 my one duty, as my mother told me, is to keep 
 my honour. 
 
 Yes, good wife, said I ; and my father said the 1 5 
 same to me ; but do not ' honourable ' people, 
 both man and wife, also strive to manage their 
 property as best may be, and to add to it as 
 largely as possible by fair means and just ? 
 
 And what is there, said my wife, that you see, 16 
 by doing which I might add to our property ? 
 
 Most assuredly this, said I ; by using every 
 
 and Euripides, Supplices, 918, seqj., where the lament of the Chorus is 
 as follows : — 
 
 Id t£kvov Suarvxv a 
 
 Irpeipov, tyepov itp' ^iraroi 
 
 irbvovt ivtyxovo tv wo'ivi koX vvv 
 
 "AiSas rbv ifibv tyei 
 
 fidxffov a&\tas, iyoj 5£ 
 
 yripo(3o(TK6v oiiK ?x w 
 
 TfKova a TdXaiva iraiSa. 
 
 (" Alas, my child, to misery I brought thee up, and bare thee in the 
 womb, enduring the pangs of travail ; lo, and now Hades doth hold all 
 that I suffered for, whilst I am left a wretched mother with no child to 
 tend my failing years.") 
 
46 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 endeavour to do as best you can all those things 
 for which Heaven has fitted you, and. which the 
 law too sanctions. 
 
 1 7 And what are they all ? said she. 
 
 They are, I think, of no small moment, said I, 
 unless those things be of small moment over which 
 
 1 8 the queen bee in the hive presides. For to me, 
 good wife, it seems that it was of the keenest 
 insight that Heaven created them male and female, 
 binding them one to the other, that so united they 
 
 19 might do each other better and best service. For 
 first these two are coupled together to the end 
 they may have children, that so the creatures of 
 the earth shall not fail ; and moreover we men 
 find so provided those that will tend our de- 
 clining years. But, secondly, let us add this, that 
 men do not live, as do the beasts, under the open 
 vault of heaven, but evidently have need of shelter. 
 
 20 They must, however, if they are to have aught to 
 bring within that shelter, have also those that 
 shall do every business of the field, such as are 
 tillage and sowing, planting of tree, and tending 
 of flock, whence come the necessaries of life. 
 
 2 1 And, again, when those necessaries are brought 
 within, they must have some one to take care of 
 the same, as well as one to do the business of the 
 house. Shelter, too, is necessary for the rearing 
 
§§ i6— 26.] THE DIVINE ORDERING. 47 
 
 of young children, for the preparing of food from 
 the fruit of the earth, and for the working of 
 raiment from wool. But since all work, both in- 22 
 doors and out, demands labour and diligent atten- 
 tion, Heaven, I think, so ordered our nature 
 as to fit the woman for things demanding 
 labour and diligent attention within, and the man 
 for such things as demand them without For 23 
 Heaven so made their bodies, and set their lives, 
 as to render man strong to endure cold and heat, 
 journeyings and warfare, so laying on him the 
 works of the field ; but to the woman gave less 
 strength for such endurance, so laying, I think, 
 on her the works of the house. But in the know- 24 
 ledge that it had been put into the nature of 
 woman and made of her to rear young children, 
 Heaven made her love for infants just born to 
 exceed that of the man. And more : it was made 2 5 
 the duty of the woman to guard the things brought 
 into the house ; so Heaven, knowing that for guard- 
 ing of goods a fearful heart is nothing ill, gave 
 to the woman a larger share of fearfulness than 
 to the man ; whilst in the knowledge that he who 
 works in the field must defend himself against 
 all injury, there was given to the man the greater 
 share of courage. But in that both alike must 26 
 give and receive, Heaven bestowed on both powers 
 
48 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 of memory and attention in a like degree, so that 
 you could not determine whether of the two 
 
 27 excels therein. So also for the ruling of their 
 spirits, where so they should, they had equal 
 opportunity given them ; and it was granted to the 
 stronger therein, be it the man or the woman, to 
 inherit the greater portion of the good arising there- 
 
 28 from. But whereas they have not, both of them, 
 natures of like power and capacity, so are they the 
 more in need of each other, and their union the 
 more profitable, in that where the one is weak, the 
 
 29 other is strong. And so, good wife, said I, since 
 we know what has been given each of us to do, 
 it remains for us to make every effort to fulfil our 
 
 30 respective duties. And these divine appointments, 
 continued I, (as he went on to tell me) are 
 sanctioned by the law, which unites together man 
 and woman : and even as they have been made to 
 hold their children, so does the law give them their 
 home — in common. The law also shows how fair 
 is the heavenly ordering of their several powers : 
 it shows that for the woman it is fitter that she 
 should remain within the house rather than go 
 abroad, whilst for the man there were shame in 
 his doing so, to the neglect of works in the 
 
 3 1 field. But if any do things contrary to the nature 
 that has been given him, disturbing aught of the 
 
1 26-^36-] THE- QUEEN BEE. 49 
 
 divine order, then, may be, the eye of Heaven 
 shall light on him, and he shall be punished for 
 his fault, whether for failing of his own duties or 
 for meddling with those of his wife. I think, said 32 
 I, that the queen bee is an instance of a creature 
 fulfilling its divinely appointed duties. 
 
 The queen bee ! said my wife ; what has she 
 to do that makes her duties and mine alike ? 
 
 This, said I ; that she remains in the hive and 33 
 will not suffer the bees to be idle, but makes those 
 that have work abroad go forth to their labour ; 
 and notes as she receives it all that each brings 
 home, taking good care of the same till the time 
 for using it come, when she gives to each his due 
 portion. And she is set also over the fair and 34 
 speedy building of cells within the hive ; and cares 
 for rearing of the young bees, of whom, when 
 reared and fit for work, she sends out a colony 
 led by some one of her subjects.* 
 
 And must I, said my wife, act so ? 35 
 
 You must certainly, said I, stay at home, and 
 send out those of the servants who have outdoor 
 work to do. Those who have work indoors will 
 be under you ; and you will have to take charge 
 of everything that is brought into the house, dis- 
 tributing it when wanted, and providently taking 36 
 
 * Reading iiroiUtuv, not iinykvuiv. 
 
 4 
 
S O THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 care of the stores, so that we may not consume 
 in a month what was meant to last a year. Are 
 fleeces brought home to you ? — you must see that 
 those who want clothes have them. Have you 
 dried provisions in store ? — you must be sure that 
 3 7 they are in the best condition for eating. There 
 is, however, one of your duties, said I, which you 
 may find somewhat irksome : it is that if any one 
 of the servants fall ill, you will have to nurse him, 
 that so he may get well again. . 
 
 Nay, but surely, said my wife, this will be any- 
 thing but irksome, — at least, if those who get well 
 again are grateful, and show themselves all the 
 more loyal servants. 
 
 38 At this answer of hers, said Ischomachus, I was 
 much delighted, and said : Is it not, dear wife, 
 some such provident care as this that the queen 
 bee in the hive shows ; and are not the bees so 
 attached to her, that when she goes forth, there 
 is not one of them that thinks to leave her, but 
 they all follow after her ? * 
 
 39 But I wonder, answered my wife, if the duties 
 of the chief bee do not belong to you rather than 
 to me. For it would be rather absurd for me to 
 be taking care of the stores, and dealing them 
 
 * For this devotion of the bees to their leader, compare VirgiL 
 Georgic iv. 210 seqg. 
 
36-4I-] THE PLEASURE OF DUTY. 5 I 
 
 out indoors, unless you took good care to have 
 supplies brought in from outdoors. 
 
 But it would be equally absurd, said I, for me 40 
 to be bringing in supplies, unless there were some 
 one to take care of them indoors. You know, 
 do you not, how we pity the people in the story 
 who drew water in" a bucket with holes in it, 
 because their labour was vain ? * 
 
 Yes, said my wife, for that was such altogether 
 wretched labour. 
 
 But you will have other duties, dear wife, said 41 
 I, that you will like ; when, for instance, you 
 teach some handmaiden, who came to you quite 
 ignorant of spinning, how to spin, so that you 
 end by valuing her doubly. So, too; with any 
 one who comes to you ignorant of housekeeping 
 and management, you will like teaching her to be 
 a clever and faithful housekeeper, a thoroughly 
 valuable servant. Or, again, you will find pleasure 
 in rewarding those servants that are steady and 
 profitable to your house, whilst you will punish 
 
 * Danaiis, king of Argos, being forewarned by an oracle that he 
 should die at the hands of one of his sons-in-law, bade his daughters, 
 the fifty Danaides, who were betrothed to their cousins, the fifty sons of 
 ^Egyptus, king of Egypt, slay each her bridegroom on the first night 
 of her marriage. For this crime, which all, except Hypermnestra, 
 consummated, they were doomed in hell to the everlasting toil of filling 
 a sieve with water. 
 
5 2 . THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VII. 
 
 §§ 4». 43- 
 
 42 those that fail of their duties. But pleasure more 
 
 than all shall you find, if you prove yourself my 
 
 superior, and set me under you, having no cause 
 
 to fear that, as years go on, the household shall 
 
 hold you in less honour ; nay, rather having full 
 
 assurance that, as you grow older, the better wife 
 
 and mistress and mother you prove yourself, the 
 
 greater shall be the honour in which you shall be 
 
 43 held. For fair deeds and noble, said I, are held 
 in admiration, not for any outward beauty in the 
 
 - doer of them, but rather for that beauty of the 
 heart which aims at profiting the life of man. 
 
 Such, Socrates, (he concluded) as far as I 
 remember, was my first talk with her. 
 
OF REAL POVERTY. 53 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE VALUE AND BEAUTY OF ORDER, AND THE USE OF 
 THINGS, AS TAUGHT BY ISCHOMACHUS TO HIS WIFE. 
 
 A ND did you observe, Ischomachus, said I, that 1 
 ■*■ these words of yours stirred your wife to 
 greater earnestness ? 
 
 Yes, said he, most assuredly so ; indeed, I 
 well remember the pain and blushes it cost her, 
 when once I asked for something that had been 
 brought into the house, and she could not find 
 it. However, when I saw her annoyance, I said, 
 Never mind, good wife, this is nothing, your not 2 
 being able to give me what I happen to ask you 
 for. It is, of course, " poverty indeed, not to have 
 what you need ; " but to need a thing, and just 
 not to be able to find it, which is your case now, 
 is not' nearly so bad as never to think of looking * 
 for it, because you are sure that it is nowhere to 
 look for. Now, however, you are not to blame, 
 but I am, for not having . told you as I gave you 
 
54 THE ECONOMIST. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 everything, to put this here and that there, that 
 so you may know where to place it and whence 
 
 3 to take it again. For nothing is more useful, 
 nothing more fair for men than this — Order. For 
 suppose a chorus * of so many men ; if they all do 
 just what each likes, the result is utter confusion, 
 ugly to see ; but let Order rule their every word 
 and gesture, and that same chorus may well 
 
 4 demand attention from eye and ear alike. And 
 so too with an army : without Order, it is all 
 confusion ; its foes can easily master it ; its friends 
 find grief in the sight of it ; it is a thing that 
 cumbers the ground, a mass of troopers, pack-asses, 
 and light infantry, carriers, cavalry, and carriages, 
 all thrown together. For how can a march be 
 made with men like this, each in the other's way ; 
 those going slow in that of those going quick, 
 and they in that of the halting : carriage and 
 cavalry, pack-ass and carriage, carrier and trooper, 
 
 5 each in the way of the other ? And how, if fight 
 they must, can they possibly do so in such dis- 
 order ? For in all probability those who have to 
 retreat before the advancing foe will in so doing 
 
 6 trample under foot their fighting comrades. But 
 
 * The English reader is reminded that the chorus here spoken of is 
 that of the ancient Greek drama ; its part included both dance and 
 song, and thus has no parallel in the modern theatre. 
 
-io.] THE VALUE OF ORDER. 5 5 
 
 let Order hold sway, and that army is a sight of 
 joy to friend ; to foe, of wonder and dismay. For 
 who of friends would not gaze with joy on an 
 armed host marching in perfect order ? who not 
 look with admiration at cavalry riding on in set 
 array ? who of foes not fear, when his eye be- 
 holds troopers and cavalry, targeteers, archers, and 
 slingers, all in their ranks, all duly following those 
 that lead them ? And as they move along, though 7 
 they number tens of thousands, still are they all as 
 one man in the perfect quiet of their march, as 
 one from behind ever comes up and fills the 
 vacant ground. Or, again, what is it that makes 8 
 a well-manned galley a thing of fear to foes, to 
 friends of great joy ? Is it not the way in which 
 it swiftly voyages along ? And what is it that 
 enables the crew to sit there on their benches, 
 moving backwards and forwards ; or to embark 
 and disembark, all without troubling each other, 
 if it be not Order ? But look you now at Dis- 9 
 order : it is, I think, like unto a husbandman 
 that throws into his granary barley and corn and 
 pease all together ; so when in due time he has 
 need of barley or of corn for bread, and of pease 
 for pottage, he is driven to plucking out grain by 
 grain, since they are not carefully set apart, that 
 he should take of them. And so, good wife, if io 
 
56 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 you would avoid such confusion, and strive after 
 an accurate knowledge whereby to arrange our 
 possessions, readily taking of them for any need, 
 and gratifying me by giving me that which I 
 may ask of you, let us now think on some suit- 
 able place for everything, and putting our goods 
 into it, show our housekeeper whence everything 
 may be taken, and where put back again. In 
 this way we shall know what is used and what 
 is left : the very emptiness of a place will show 
 us what is gone, and a single glance tell us what 
 needs attention ; whilst knowing where everything 
 is, we shall never be at a loss when we want it 
 for use. 
 \ I The most beautiful and accurate piece of arrange- 
 ment, Socrates, that I ever remember seeing, was 
 when I went on board the great Phoenician 
 merchantman to look over her. For there I saw 
 the largest number of things arranged in the 
 12 smallest possible space. Now it requires a great 
 many things — oars and cordage — to put a ship 
 into harbour and to take her out again ; and a 
 great deal of tackle too, as they call it, before 
 she can sail along ; she is equipped with many 
 instruments of war against hostile vessels, and 
 carries about many weapons for the men, having 
 ; : in her also for each,- mess .. all such, appliances as 
 
• §§ io— 16.] THE PHOENICIAN MERCHANTMAN. 5 7 
 
 are used in a house ; whilst beside all this she 
 has a heavy cargo, which the shipmaster takes 
 with him to make profit on. And all these 13 
 things that I am telling you of, said he, were 
 stowed in a place not much bigger than a room 
 in which ten dinner-couches could be comfortably 
 set. And I observed that they were all so 
 arranged that they did not get confused together^ 
 nor was there any need to hunt for them, since 
 they were quite ready to hand and easily got 
 at, so as to cause no delay when any one had 
 sudden need of them. And then I found that 14 
 the steersman's mate, the man at the prow, as 
 they call him, knew where everything was so well, 
 that even when not on the spot he could tell 
 where each thing was, and how many of every- 
 thing the ship had, as easily as a man who 
 knows his alphabet can tell you the number of, 
 letters in ' Socrates,' and what their different 
 places in the word are. And I saw, Ischomachus 1 5 
 went on, this same man inspecting at his leisure 
 everything ever used in the ship : and in some 
 wonder at it, I asked him what he was doing ; I, 
 sir, said he, am inspecting the state of everything 
 on board in case of an accident, to see if there 
 is anything missing or not handy. For when 16 
 Heaven raises a storm on the sea, sajd he there 
 
58 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 is no time to look about for what you want, or 
 to hunt for what is not at hand. For the Deity- 
 threatens the foolish-hearted, and punishes them ; 
 and if He refrain from destroying those that do 
 no wrong, we must fain be content ; while if He 
 keep those that serve Him aright, we must render 
 Heaven great thanks. 
 i J So then, after observing his accurate arrange- 
 ment, I said to my wife : We should be very 
 foolish-hearted (should we not ?) if while people 
 in ships, that are so small, find room for their 
 goods, and keep them in order, despite all the 
 tossing they get, — knowing too where to find 
 what they want even in moments of the 
 greatest panic, — yet we, in our house with its 
 large and separate store-rooms, itself too on a 
 firm foundation, do not find out for everything 
 
 1 8 good places and convenient. So far, I have 
 said enough to you about how good a thing 
 accurate Order is, and how easy it is to find a 
 
 19 place for everything in a house. And then, how 
 fair a sight it is to see an orderly arrangement 
 of even any kind of shoes, or garments, or bed 
 linen, or vessels of brass, or table-gear ; fair too, 
 and graceful, (though this might seem especially 
 ridiculous to some wit, not to a man of sober 
 sense,) even pots and pans when arranged in 
 
16-23.] THE BEAUTY OF ORDER. 59 
 
 order.* And thus, too, does all else seem fairer 20 
 for being set in order ; for the < kinds of vessels 
 seem like some chorus ; and fair is the space 
 between them, as each stands out clear ; just as 
 a chorus moving in measured circles is not only 
 a fair sight in itself, but the space in the midst 
 of it also is fair and clear to view. That all this 2 1 
 is true, good wife, said I, we may test without 
 any great loss or trouble. But we need not either 
 have any fear but that we shall find some one 
 who will learn where everything is, and remember 
 to keep all separate. For we know, of course, 22 
 that in the whole city there is ten thousand 
 times as much as we have ; and yet whatever 
 you bid a servant go and fetch from the market- 
 place, he is never at a loss, but always knows 
 whither to go and get it, and that only because 
 everything has its proper place. But often when 23 
 looking out for a man, who is himself, too, 
 looking out for you, you might grow weary of 
 
 * eipvdy.o%. A remarkable word as significant of the complete 
 rhythm (pv$iibs) whether of sound or motion, that was so great a 
 characteristic of the Greek ideal (cf. xi. 16, fiera/ifiuBfilfa). The 
 statement here that even pots and pans may look fair and graceful 
 when arranged in order, finds certain verification in one of the bas- 
 reliefs at the base of Giotto's Tower. They represent the various 
 trades of Florence, the subject of the one in question being pottery, 
 and exhibiting the potter with all his wares set out in the true beauty 
 of perfect order. 
 
60 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. VIII. 
 
 § 23- 
 
 waiting before you find him, and that just 
 
 through not having agreed on some meeting-place 
 
 to wait in. 
 
 Such, as far as I remember, was my talk with 
 
 her about the arrangement and use of things. 
 
 4 4 14* 
 
Chap. IX. THE HOUSE OF ISCHOMACHUS. 6 i 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF THE HOUSE OF ISCHOMACHUS AND ITS ORDERING. HIS 
 CHOICE OF A HOUSEKEEPER, AND ADVICE TO HIS WIFE 
 AS MISTRESS OF THE HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 A ND how did it end ? said I. Did you find i 
 ■^ *" that your wife paid any attention to what 
 you so earnestly taught her ? 
 
 Why, it ended thus ; she promised to apply 
 herself to it, and was evidently mightily pleased, 
 just as if she had now left doubt behind her, and 
 found all plain and straightforward. And so she 
 begged me to lose no time in arranging every- 
 thing in the way I had mentioned. 
 
 And what was the arrangement, Ischomachus, 2 
 said I, that you made for her ? 
 
 Of course I thought it best to begin by showing 
 her over the house : for it had no decorations, 
 Socrates, -but all its rooms were built with a view 
 to containing,- with all possible convenience, every- 
 thing that we were going to put in them ; and so 
 they suggested of themselves what they were most 
 
62 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. IX. 
 
 3 suited to be used for. First there was the store- 
 room. This was in a safe part of the house, and 
 so invited us to place in it our most valuable 
 bedding and vessels ; and then the corn must be 
 put where it was driest ; the wine where it was 
 coolest ; and the vessels and pieces of fine work- 
 manship that wanted a good light, where they 
 
 4 would get a good light upon them. I next 
 showed her how the rooms of the house, 
 which are well ornamented, are cool in the 
 summer, whilst in winter they have the sun upon 
 them ; and then I let her see how the whole 
 house faced the south, and thus, of course, is 
 well in the* sun in winter, and in summer well in 
 
 5 the shade. And then I showed her the women's 
 quarters, separated by a bolted door * from 
 the men's, to prevent anything being wrongly 
 removed, and in order that the servants might not 
 have children without our knowing of it. For 
 good servants are, as a rule, all the more loyal 
 when children are born to them, but it makes 
 those that are bad all the more prone to mischief. 
 
 6 After going through all this, we now went on to 
 set apart our goods and chattels after their various 
 kinds. And first, we began by collecting together 
 everything used in sacrifice ; then we set aside 
 
 * Reading Bipif xal /3aXcb»w. 
 
.2— io.] HOUSEHOLD ARRANGEMENTS. 63 
 
 the women's holyday clothes, and those of the 
 men, with their armour as well, ending by arranging 
 the bedding in both their quarters, and the shoes 
 • belonging to each of them. We had all kinds of 7 
 appliances : some for spinning, some for grinding 
 corn, some for cooking bread, others for washing, 
 kneading, and the table ; and we divided them 
 all into two sets, — one for every-day use, and the 
 other for state occasions. We set aside such 8 
 things as we always consume in a month, storing 
 elsewhere those reckoned to last a year ; since 
 so we are more certain how everything is finally 
 spent. After setting all our goods and chattels 
 properly apart, we next put them in the several 
 places meant for them ; after which we took such -9 
 things as the servants use every day for making 
 bread, cooking, spinning, and everything else there 
 might be of the kind ; and after showing those 
 who use them where to put them, we handed 
 them into their charge and bade them take good 
 care of them. Such, however, as we use for 10 
 festivals or entertainments, or only on rare 
 occasions, we gave into the housekeeper's charge, 
 after showing her where they should be kept, 
 counting them over and making a list of them ; 
 we bade her give any one of them to such as 
 had need of it, remembering to whom she gave 
 
64 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. IX. 
 
 it, and putting it back again in its place when 
 returned to her. 
 
 1 1 And the way we appointed our housekeeper 
 was this. We sought out her who had, we 
 thought, the greatest self-restraint * where eating, 
 wine, sleep, or the passions were concerned. Nor 
 did we omit to take into our consideration the 
 best memory and foresight, which aimed at 
 avoiding punishment for neglect, and at looking 
 how she might give us satisfaction, and be by us 
 
 1 2 duly remembered for it. We further inspired her 
 with feelings of loyalty towards us, making her 
 to rejoice with us when we rejoiced, and calling 
 her to help us in any time of grief or trouble. 
 And we set about teaching her to feel a zealous 
 interest in increasing the prosperity of the house, 
 by acquainting her with all its concerns, and 
 
 1 3 letting her have a share in its welfare, f And 
 further, we instilled into her a notion of justice 
 by honouring the just beyond the unjust, and 
 showing her that they enjoyed a life of greater 
 luxury and liberty than the latter. And so we 
 made her our housekeeper. 
 
 14 But more than this, Socrates, said he, I told 
 
 * On the Greek word iy/cpar^, see note on Chapter II., § 1. 
 f Probably by the addition of small luxuries, as they grew richer 
 themselves.— Cf. XII., % 6. 
 
§§ io— 16.] THE HOUSEKEEPER. 6$ 
 
 my wife that all this was of no use unless she 
 too attended in person to the proper order being 
 kept : and I showed her that in well-ordered 
 states the people are not satisfied with a code of 
 good laws merely, but, further, appoint guardians 
 of the laws,* who are overseers, and give praise 
 to him that acts lawfully, but to the transgressor 
 of the laws punishment. So I bade my wife, J 5 
 said he, look on herself as guardian of the laws 
 of our household, and go over the furniture from 
 time to time at her discretion, just as the officer 
 of a garrison reviews his guards ; to give her 
 approval if all is well, like the Senate in the 
 case of the horses and cavalry, in royal fashion 
 bestowing praise and honour on him who has done 
 well according to his power ; but letting disgrace 
 and punishment fall on him who has failed 
 of the right. But moreover, said he, she could l & 
 feel no just annoyance, I told her, at my setting 
 her more to do than the servants had, giving 
 her for reason that the only concern of servants 
 
 * vo/ju>(pi\aKas. This office of "guardian of the laws" existed at 
 Sparta and in some other states.. At Athens it was established in 
 the time of Pericles, but held of no high account, its function being 
 to prevent the passing of any measure inconsistent with existing laws. 
 It is mentioned in Plato, Laws, 755, 770, and in Aristotle, Pol. vi. 
 8, 24, where it is stated to be an institution especially suited to an 
 aristocratical government. 
 
 5 
 
66 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. IX. 
 
 §§ 16-19. 
 
 in their master's possessions is just to carry or 
 
 look to or guard them ; since they may never 
 
 use any of them, unless their master gives them 
 
 leave : but everything is his, to use what he 
 
 1 7 will. It is, then, as I pointed out to her, to 
 him who gains most by its safety and loses most 
 by its damage, that the care of property most 
 fitly belongs. 
 
 18 Well, Ischomachus, said I, and what answer 
 did your wife make in obedience to all this ? 
 
 What but this, Socrates, said he, that I greatly 
 misjudged her if I thought that in bidding her 
 look after our property I was setting her to do 
 a hard thing. It had been surely harder, said 
 she, to set me to neglect my property, than to 
 bid me take good care of what was my own. 
 ig For it seems, he concluded, that Nature has so 
 ordered things, that just as a good woman finds 
 it easier to care for her own children than to be 
 careless of them, so too (in my opinion, at least) 
 she finds it of more joy to take care of her 
 property, in the possession of which she finds so 
 much delight, than to be careless of it. 
 
Chap. X. WIFELY OBEDIENCE. 6? 
 
 §§ i. 2.] 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOW THE WIFE OF ISCHOMACHUS READILY OBEYED HER 
 HUSBAND, AND GAVE UP ALL FALSE ADORNMENTS, 
 SEEKING HOW SHE MIGHT BECOME A GOOD MISTRESS 
 AND WIFE. 
 
 /^\N hearing, said Socrates, that this was the i 
 ^-* answer his wife made him, Marry, Ischo- 
 machus, cried I ; you imply that your wife has 
 a brave soul. 
 
 Yes, said Ischomachus ; and I wish to give 
 you further proofs of her magnanimity, by telling 
 you of certain cases where she obeyed me at 
 once, without my having to repeat the advice I 
 gave her. 
 
 Indeed ! said I, then tell me about them ; for 
 I would far more gladly hear of some living 
 woman endowed with that beauty of the heart, 
 than have Zeuxis show me some portrait of a 
 woman passing fair. 
 
 Well then, Socrates, said Ischomachus, I one 2 
 day saw that she had a quantity of white lead 
 rubbed into her skin, to make her look whiter 
 
68 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. X. 
 
 than she really was, as well as a quantity of 
 alkanet * to make her redder than she really 
 was, while she had on high-heeled shoes to 
 make her look taller than she really was ; and 
 
 3 so I said to her, Tell me, wife, in which of these 
 cases would you think the partner in your pro- 
 perty the more worthy of your love : if I were 
 to show you all that I really have, with no vain 
 boasting that I am richer than I am, and no 
 concealment of any deficiency, or if I set about 
 deceiving you, and told you that I am richer 
 than is true, bidding you look at money that 
 was false, and at golden necklaces that were of 
 wood, and at garments of purple whose colour 
 could not last, but which I told you were 
 genuine and real ? 
 
 4 And she caught me up at once. Nay, nay, 
 talk not so, she said ; Heaven forbid you should 
 ever act thus, for were you to do so, I could 
 never feel any real love for you. 
 
 Well then, I asked, did we not marry, good wife, 
 that I might be yours and you mine ? 
 Yes, said she, at least so the world says. 
 
 5 And would you think me more worthy of your' 
 
 * Alkanet, lyxovoa, or tyxov<ra (Lat. anchusa), a plant whose root 
 yields a red dye, used for rouge. It is the wild bugloss {Anchusa 
 Alcibiadion or lubra), a full account of which may be found in 
 Gerarde's Herbal, chap. 271. 
 
,2—8.] OF FALSE BEAUTY. 69 
 
 love, more fit to hold you mine, if I set about 
 being careful of myself, trying to keep myself for 
 you healthy and strong, so having a really good 
 complexion ; or if colouring my face with ver- 
 milion, and daintily painting my eyes, I came 
 forward and lived with you a life of deceit, pre- 
 senting to your sight and touch, not Ischomachus, 
 but only paste and paint ? 
 
 As far as I am concerned, she answered, I 6 
 should not find more pleasure for touch or sight 
 in the fine fellow with his paste and paint than 
 in you ; nor would I rather see your eyes painted 
 than have them look healthy and strong. 
 
 So also be sure that I, good wife, replied 7 
 Ischomachus, (as he told me) find no more plea- 
 sure in a complexion of white lead and alkanet 
 than in that which is your own. But just as 
 Heaven made horses and oxen and sheep to find 
 most delight each in its own kind, so too do 
 men think that there is most delight in the 
 natural form and colour of man. And though 8 
 these deceits may possibly escape the passing 
 stranger, and he be deceived by them, still those 
 whose life is spent together, must, if they attempt 
 to deceive one another, ever be caught in so 
 doing : either when they rise in the morning 
 before the deceit is renewed, or, if not so, the 
 
JO THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. X. 
 
 sweat of their brow convicts them, or tears put 
 them to the test, or again whilst bathing some 
 eye is upon them, and they are unmasked and 
 seen. 
 9 And in the name of Heaven, said I, what 
 answer made she to this ? 
 
 What but this, said he, that from that time 
 forward she never did anything of the kind, but 
 : rather all she could to make herself fair and 
 natural to see ; nay, she once asked me if I could 
 give her any advice how to become really beau- 
 10 tiful, and not merely to seem so. And, Socrates, 
 said he, I did give her some advice. I told her 
 not to be ever sitting down like a slave, but to 
 try with Heaven's help to be a true mistress, 
 standing by the loom, teaching in aught where ' 
 she was the wiser, and learning where others 
 were wiser than she. I told her to look after the 
 baking, and watch the housekeeper dealing out 
 the stores ; going her rounds too, and seeing if 
 everything was in its proper place : which would, 
 I thought, give her employment, and a walk as 
 1 1 well. I told her too that she would find good 
 exercise in making the dough and kneading it ; 
 as also in shaking out the clothes and bed- 
 linen, and folding them up. And this exercise, 
 I continued, would make, her appetite better, her 
 
,8—13.] A W1FES NOBILITY. 71 
 
 body more healthy, and her complexion fairer 
 yet not false. Let a husband look from a 12 
 servant to his wife, and if he sees his wife 
 more really fair, her dress too more becoming, 
 his love for her grows warm ; and that above all 
 when she gives him pleasure of her own accord, 
 instead of only doing his compulsory service. 
 But women who in a pompous dignity never 13 
 rise from their seats, force us to consider them 
 amongst such as are decked out with deceit. 
 And now, Socrates, do not doubt, said he, that 
 my wife is circumspect in all she does, living 
 after the teaching I gave her, as you have just 
 heard. 
 
72 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XI. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF SOCRATES AND THE HORSE OF NICIAS. OF THE RIGHT 
 USE OF WEALTH. ALSO HOW ISCHOMACHUS SPENT 
 HIS DAY, SEEKING TO PROMOTE JUSTICE AT HOME 
 AND ABROAD. 
 
 j * I ''HERE, Ischomachus, said I, about what your 
 wife does I think I have heard enough to 
 begin with, and very creditable it is to both of 
 you. But now, I continued, let me hear what 
 you do, so that you may have the pleasure of 
 recounting the causes of your good report, and I 
 an opportunity of gratitude to you for describing 
 to me thoroughly what the duties of the true 
 gentleman are, and helping me to learn them, if 
 so I can. 
 
 2 Nay, Socrates, .exclaimed Ischomachus, I shall 
 be quite" delighted to give you an account of 
 my daily duties ; and to look too for your cor- 
 rection, wherever you may think me wrong. 
 
 3 What, I ! was my answer, how could I have 
 the right to correct a finished gentleman ; and 
 that when they call me a prating and specula- 
 
|| ,_ 7 .] THE HORSE OF NICIAS. 73 
 
 tive fellow,* and charge me moreover with what 
 is, it seems, the most monstrous crime of all — 
 my poverty. And I should have been quite dis- 4 
 heartened, Ischomachus, at this reproach ; but the 
 day before yesterday I met the horse of Nicias 
 the foreigner, followed by a crowd of spectators, 
 some of them talking quite eagerly about him : 
 and I went up to the groom, and actually asked 
 if the horse was very wealthy. He stared at 5 
 me as though I must be utterly insane to ask 
 such a question, and answered, How on earth 
 could a horse be wealthy ? These words gave 
 me great relief ; so then a horse need not be 
 wealthy to become good, if only it was naturally 
 of good mettle. Even I, then, may become a 6 
 good man ; so give me a full account of what 
 you do, in order that I may learn what I can 
 from you, and to-morrow make my first efforts to 
 imitate you. For a favourable day, I continued, 
 for the beginning of virtue will be — to-morrow. 
 
 All your jesting, Socrates, replied Ischomachus, 7 
 will not prevent my telling you how, as far as I 
 
 * iepofUTpe'tv, ' to measure the air, ' hence ' to lose oneself in vague 
 speculations.' Part of the charge against Socrates, on which he 
 was condemned and put to death, is given in Plato's ' Apology ' 
 (p. 19); — "Socrates is * doer of evil, and a speculative person, 
 searching into things under earth and in heaven, and making the 
 worse appear the better reason." (Compare below, § 25.) 
 
74 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XI. 
 
 8 am able, I try to spend my life. I have thoroughly 
 learnt, as I believe, that Heaven has made it un- 
 lawful for men to succeed unless they recognize their 
 duty, and are diligent in accomplishing it ; while 
 to the wise and diligent it has given sometimes 
 happiness, sometimes misfortune : so then, though 
 I begin by doing worship to Heaven, I endeavour 
 to act in such a way that it may be meet and 
 right that my prayer be heard both for health 
 and strength, for high position in the State and the 
 goodwill of my friends, for an honourable safety 
 in war and an honourable increase of wealth. 
 
 9 At this, I asked, What ! do you really care, 
 Ischomachus, for wealth and many possessions, 
 with the many troubles that the care of them 
 brings ? 
 
 I care very much, replied Ischomachus, for all 
 those things of which you ask ; for I think it 
 is pleasant, Socrates, both to worship Heaven 
 with all due honour, to help friends when they 
 have need of anything, and to see that where I 
 am rich, the State shall never lack adornment 
 from me. 
 io Yes, Ischomachus, said I, for here honour is con- 
 cerned, and the duty assuredly of a man of high 
 position. How can it be otherwise, when there are 
 many men who are not able to live without de- 
 
7— 13- ] THE RIGHT USE OF WEALTH. j$ 
 
 pendence on others, while many are glad if they 
 be able to get the necessaries of life ? But those 
 who are able not only to support their own houses, 
 but also have a superabundance, so that they can 
 even spare money to adorn the State and to re- 
 lieve their friends — what should we call these but 
 men of substance and power ? But praise of these 1 1 
 men, I continued, is an easy matter for all of us : 
 do you rather go on telling me as you began, 
 what attention do you pay to your health, and 
 to your strength ; and how you make it meet 
 and right that you should find an honourable 
 safety even in war. It will be time enough to 
 hear about your business after all this. 
 
 Well, said Ischomachus, as I take it, Socrates, 12 
 all these depend upon one another. For after one 
 has had enough to eat, I think that health is 
 best kept by working it off properly ; and work 
 is the best means to strength ; and practice in 
 military exercises the best means to safety ; and 
 proper diligence, together with all avoidance of 
 effeminacy, the most likely means to increase one's 
 estate. 
 
 Well, I follow you so far, Ischomachus, said I, 1 3 
 that in your opinion work and diligence and prac- 
 tice are most likely to bring good to a man ; 
 but I should be glad to learn, I continued, how 
 
y6 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XI. 
 
 you labour after health and strength, and how 
 you practise military exercises, and are diligent 
 to get abundance, so that you may even help 
 your friends, and contribute to the support of the 
 State. 
 
 14 Well then, Socrates, said Ischomachus, I am 
 accustomed to rise from bed in time to find at 
 home any one whom I may wish to see. And if 
 I have any business in town, I make use of this 
 
 1 5 walk to transact it ; but if there be no need to 
 go into town, my servant takes the horse out on 
 to the estate, while I perhaps gain more benefit 
 from a walk through the country lanes, Socrates, 
 than I should from pacing up and down in 
 
 1 6 the Arcade. And when I arrive at the estate, 
 whether I find them planting, or ploughing up 
 fallow land, or sowing, or harvesting, I always 
 look at the way they are doing it, and make any 
 improvements I can upon what is being done. 
 
 1 7 After that, I generally mount my horse, and 
 practise riding, as like as I can to that re- 
 quired in war, and shirk neither downhill, nor 
 ditch, nor stream ; taking, however, all possible 
 
 18 care not to lame my horse. This done, my 
 ■ servant gives him a roll on the grass, and takes 
 
 him home, at the same time carrying anything 
 wanted from the estate into town. Meanwhile 
 
i 3 —22.] A WELL-SPENT DAY. "JJ 
 
 I go home, partly walking, partly running, and 
 then rub myself down ; * after which I take my 
 morning meal,t Socrates, enough to last me 
 through the day, without over-eating myself. 
 
 Marry, Ischomachus ! cried I, how pleased I 19 
 am at your doing all this ! For at the same 
 time to busy yourself in arrangements contrived 
 for your health and strength, and in military exer- 
 cises, and diligently to further your fortunes, is I 
 think all admirable. For you give proof enough 20 
 that you are rightly diligent in each of these 
 matters ; for, Heaven helping you, we generally 
 see you well and strong, and we know that you 
 are accounted a most excellent rider and a very 
 wealthy man. 
 
 Yet though my life is such, Socrates, he con- 2 1 
 tinued, I am greatly calumniated in many quarters ; 
 but you perhaps thought I was going to say how 
 it is that many have given me the name of 
 ' gentleman' ? 
 
 Yes ; but here is another thing, Ischomachus, 22 
 about which I was going to ask you, said I. Do 
 you ever take any pains to be able to render 
 
 * i.e. with the 'strigil,' or ' <TT\cyyts,' an instrument used by 
 both Greeks and Romans after the bath or exercise in the Gym- 
 nasium, to scrape and clean the skin. 
 ' f Gr. ipurrov, the first regular meal of the day, but '.ater than 
 our breakfast. 
 
/8 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XI. 
 
 account of yourself, and require it of another, 
 should it chance to be necessary ? 
 
 What ! do you not see, Socrates, he replied, that 
 this is just what I spend my life in practising, to 
 defend myself from all charge of injustice to any 
 one, and to do good as widely as I can ? Do 
 you not see that I practise myself in accusation, 
 and so find out many who wrong both individuals 
 and the state, but do good to none ? 
 
 23 Well, Ischomachus, said I, if you make a habit 
 of interpreting all this, I should be glad of some 
 farther explanation. 
 
 Well then, Socrates, said he, I never cease to 
 practise speaking. For I am always either trying 
 to sift the accusations and excuses I hear from 
 my servants, or praising and blaming some one to 
 my friends, or endeavouring to reconcile some of 
 my acquaintances, and to show them their own ad- 
 
 24 vantage in friendship rather than in enmity. When 
 we are on service under a general, we are always 
 bringing a charge against some one, or defending 
 any one against whom an unjust charge is 
 brought ; or accusing amongst ourselves any that 
 have been unjustly promoted to honour. And very 
 often also we have debates together, where we 
 always praise the course we are anxious to take, 
 and blame that which we wish to avoid. But as 
 
,22—25.] A SERIOUS ARREST. 79 
 
 it is, Socrates, he continued, I myself am often 2 5 
 arrested and brought to the bar on charges in- 
 volving punishment or fine. 
 
 By whom, Ischomachus ? I cried ; for I never 
 heard of this. 
 
 By my wife, he replied. 
 
 And pray how do you defend yourself ? I 
 asked. 
 
 Quite fairly, when it is my interest to tell the 
 truth ; though when a lie would help me, Socrates, 
 upon my word I never can make the worse 
 appear the better reason ! 
 
 Yes, Ischomachus, I replied, perhaps you can- 
 not make falsehood true. 
 
80 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XH. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW THAT STEWARDS MUST LEARN BOTH GOODWILL AND 
 CAREFULNESS. OF THOSE WHO CANNOT LEARN CARE- 
 FULNESS : ALSO OF THE FORCE OF THE MASTER'S 
 EXAMPLE. 
 
 1 "^TAY, but Ischomachus, said I, do not let me 
 
 keep you, if you would go away now. 
 Not at all, Socrates, said he, for I would not 
 leave before the court is finally dismissed. 
 
 2 Verily, said I, you are taking wondrous care 
 not to lose your surname of ' gentleman ' ! For 
 just now, notwithstanding the many cares that 
 no doubt call you away, yet since you agreed 
 to meet those friends, you wait for them, that 
 your word may not be broken. 
 
 And you know, Socrates, said Ischomachus, I 
 do not neglect the matters you speak of either : 
 for I have stewards over my estate. 
 
 3 And when you are in need of a steward, Is- 
 chomachus, I said, do you ascertain where a 
 
 " man with stewardship in him is to be found, 
 and then endeavour to buy him — just as when 
 
§§ i— 6.] OF GOODWILL. 8 1 
 
 you are in need of a carpenter you ascertain, I 
 am sure, where such a man is to be found, and 
 then endeavour to buy him ; — or do you train 
 up your stewards yourself? 
 
 I endeavour, Socrates, said he, to train them up 4 
 from childhood myself. For why need the man 
 whose care is to suffice in my place when I am 
 absent know anything that I do not ? For if I 
 am able to manage the business, then surely I 
 might teach others what I know myself. 
 
 Goodwill, then, toward you and yours is the 5 
 first thing, said I, that he will require to have, 
 if he is to suffice in your place when you are 
 absent. For without this goodwill, what would 
 be the use of a steward's having ever so much 
 knowledge ? 
 
 None at all, certainly, said Ischomachus ; so 
 goodwill toward me and mine is the first- thing 
 I try to teach him. 
 
 And how, I asked, how in Heaven's name do 6 
 you teach this goodwill toward you and yours 
 to whomsoever you may wish ? 
 
 By good treatment,* said Ischomachus, when- 
 ever Heaven bestows upon us any abundant and 
 ungrudged good. 
 
 * Compare Chapter IX., § 12. 
 
82 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XII. 
 
 7 Do you say then, asked I, that those who 
 enjoy a share in your good things bear goodwill 
 toward you, and wish you good success ? 
 
 Yes, Socrates, for I see that this is the best 
 means of producing goodwill. 
 
 8 Well, suppose a man bears goodwill toward 
 you, Ischomachus, said I, is he therefore fit to 
 be your steward ? Do you not see that almost 
 all men bear goodwill toward themselves, yet 
 there are many of them who will not take the 
 care necessary to obtain those good things they 
 would ? 
 
 9 Yes, indeed, said Ischomachus ; so whenever I 
 wish to appoint such men stewards, I teach them 
 to be careful too. 
 
 io How, in Heaven's name? cried I; for this I 
 always thought utterly impossible — to teach care- 
 fulness. 
 
 Well, it certainly is not possible, Socrates, said 
 he, to. teach every one carefulness straight away. 
 
 1 1 What kind of men can be taught ? I asked ; 
 by all means point them out to me clearly. 
 
 In the first place, Socrates, said he, those 
 who are intemperate in their use of wine you 
 could not make careful. For drunkenness makes 
 one forget everything that needs doing. 
 
 12 Is it then the intemperate in wine only, I 
 
§§ 7— IS-] OF CAREFULNESS. 83 
 
 asked, that are unable to become careful, or are 
 there others also ? 
 
 Yes, indeed, said Ischomachus, there are slug- 
 gards too. For when one is asleep, one can 
 neither do what should be done, nor get others 
 to do it. 
 
 Well, said I, and are these the only ones we 1 3 
 have that will be unable to learn this lesson of 
 carefulness, or are there still some others ? 
 
 I certainly think, said Ischomachus, that those 
 also who are lovesick are incapable of learning 
 to take care of anything beside their passion. 
 For it would be hard to find any hope or care 14 
 more to their mind than that which they take 
 about their passion ; nor, indeed, is it easy to _ 
 inflict on them any harsher punishment, whenever 
 business interferes, than to separate them from the 
 object of their affections. So I pass by all those, 
 too, whom I know to be of this disposition, and 
 I never attempt to appoint any of them as 
 stewards. 
 
 Rut what, said I, of such as are in love with 15 
 gain ? Are they, too, incapable of being trained 
 to carefulness in farm-work ? 
 
 No, indeed, said Ischomachus, by no means ; 
 but they with extreme ease may be led to care 
 for such things : for nothing is needed but just 
 
84- THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XII, 
 
 to show them that their carefulness is profit- 
 able. 
 
 1 6 But other men, said I, — supposing they are 
 self-restrained in the points you require, and are 
 moderately fond of gain, — how do you train such 
 to be careful in your affairs ? 
 
 That is simple enough, Socrates, said he ; for 
 when I see them taking care, I praise them and 
 give them credit for it ; but when they are 
 careless I say and do all I can to make them 
 feel it. 
 
 17 Come, Ischomachus, continued I, let us turn 
 the conversation from education to the subject 
 of carefulness ; and explain to me also if it is 
 possible for a matn who is himself careless to 
 make others careful. 
 
 18 No, indeed, replied Ischomachus, no more than 
 it is for a man who is himself illiterate to teach 
 others the grace of letters. For it is hard when 
 the teacher sets a bad example of a thing, to 
 do it well ; and as hard when the master sets 
 an example of carelessness, for the servant to 
 
 19 become careful. In a word, I do not think 
 that the servants of a bad master have ever 
 learnt to be good ; I have, however, before now 
 seen those of a good master do badly, but never 
 without suffering for it. But he who would make 
 
§§ is—20.] " THE MASTER'S EYE." 85 
 
 any careful ought also himself to be watchful and 
 able to examine their work ; he should be willing 
 to reward those who do well, nor shrink from 
 inflicting on neglect the punishment it deserves. 
 There is related, said Ischomachus, an answer 20 
 made by a Persian to his king, which I have 
 ever admired. The king had lately become 
 possessed of a fine horse, which he was anxious 
 to make sleek and strong, as soon as might be. 
 And thereunto he made inquiry of one who was 
 reputed to be skilful in such matters, what would 
 soonest make the horse sleek and strong ; and 
 to this he replied, " His master's eye." Even so, 
 Socrates, he concluded, in all else I think the • 
 master's eye best able to make things fair and 
 good. 
 
86 THE ECONOMIST. 
 
 [Chap. XIII. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CONCERNING THE TRAINING OF STEWARDS. 
 
 1 T3UT when you have ever so firmly im- 
 ' ■ J -^ pressed on any one, said I, that he must 
 
 needs be careful wherever you would have him 
 be so, will such an one be able then and there to 
 act as steward ; or will he have to learn some- 
 thing besides, if he is to be an able steward ? 
 
 2 Yes, indeed, said Ischomachus ; there is still 
 something left for him to understand — both what 
 is to be done, and when and how to do it ; if 
 not, how is a steward without this knowledge of 
 more use than a physician who would care for a 
 patient, attending him early and late, yet was 
 ignorant as to what treatment would be for his 
 patient's good ? 
 
 3 But if he have also learnt how farm-work is 
 to be done, said I, will he need anything besides, 
 or will your steward now be perfect ? 
 
 I think he should learn, said he, to manage 
 the labourers. 
 
§ 1—8.] OF MANAGING MEN; 87 
 
 What ! exclaimed I ; do you also train up your 4 
 stewards to be capable of managing men ? 
 Well, I try, said Ischomachus. 
 And how, in Heaven's name, said I, do you 
 teach them to be managers of men ? 
 
 In so simple a way, said he, that perhaps you 
 would even ridicule it when you heard it. 
 
 Nay, it is no matter for ridicule, Ischomachus, S 
 said I ; for any one that can create skilful managers 
 of men, is no doubt able to create masters over 
 men too ; but he that can create masters can 
 also create kings. So that not ridicule but great ' 
 praise is meet, I think, for one who can do 
 this. 
 
 Well then, Socrates, said he, the lower animals 6 
 learn obedience from two things : they are always 
 punished if they attempt to disobey ; and well- 
 treated for zealous service. At any rate, colts 7 
 learn thorough obedience to the horsebreakers by 
 receiving some pleasant reward whenever they 
 obey, and suffering punishment whenever they are 
 restive, until they submit to the mind of the 
 horsebreaker. And in the same way also little 8 
 dogs, though they have not the mind and language 
 of man, yet learn to scamper round and round, 
 and gambol, and do many other tricks : for when- 
 ever they obey they get something that they 
 
88 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XIII. 
 
 want; but whenever they will not attend, they 
 9 are punished. But men can be taught to be far 
 more obedient, and that by word only, when 
 they are shown that obedience is to their profit ; 
 while as for slaves, in teaching them obedience 
 we may even have to use a training which 
 seems fit only for beasts : gratify their appetite 
 in its desires, and you might do much with 
 them ; whilst to natures desirous of honour, praise 
 is the keenest spur. For there is a hunger 
 and thirst after praise in some natures, no less 
 
 I o than after meat and drink in others. Such then 
 
 are the means I use, and which, I think, make 
 my servants more obedient ; and these I teach 
 to any that I would appoint my stewards. But 
 I have other plans besides. The garments and 
 shoes with which I have to furnish my labourers 
 I do not provide all alike, but some worse and 
 some better, in order that I may be able to honour 
 the more diligent with the better, and to the more 
 
 I I idle give the worse. For I am quite sure, Socrates, 
 said he, that good workmen become disheartened, 
 whenever they see that, whilst they do all the 
 work, a like reward is given to those who never 
 
 1 2 will undergo necessary toil or risk. And so in 
 my opinion the worse ought in nowise to receive 
 equal shares with the better ; and I praise my 
 
§§8— 12.] REWARD AND PUNISHMENT. 89 
 
 stewards whenever I see that they have distributed 
 the best things among those who deserve most ; 
 but if ever I see preferment won either by flattery, 
 or by any other profitless means of favour, I do 
 not pass it over, but rebuke it ; and thus I try, 
 Socrates, to show that, even to him who does 
 them, such things are both vain and void. 
 
90 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HOW STEWARDS ARE TO BE TAUGHT JUSTICE. 
 
 x T It 7 ELL, Ischomachus, said I, suppose that 
 * " your steward has now become able to 
 manage men, so that he can bring them to obey 
 him, do you consider him by this time perfect, 
 or does he still need something beside the 
 qualities of which you have been speaking? 
 
 2 Yes, indeed, said Ischomachus ; to keep his 
 hands from his master's goods, and from all 
 manner of theft. For if he who has the manage- 
 ment of the harvest should dare to make away 
 with so much as would leave no profit on the 
 labour, what advantage would there be in farming 
 carried on under his care ? 
 
 3 Do you then undertake, asked I, to teach jus- 
 tice as well ? 
 
 Certainly, said Ischomachus, though I do not 
 find that all readily submit to that teaching. 
 
 4 And yet by adopting some of the laws of Draco, 
 and others from the code of Solon, I try, said 
 
,_io.] OF JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE. 9 1 
 
 he, to lead my servants into the path of justice. 
 For these great men .too, I think, continued he, 
 made justice the foundation of many of their 
 laws. For there is a law of fine for theft, of 5 
 bonds for him that is caught in the act ; and 
 for assault, of death. These laws, then, they no 
 doubt enacted in the wish to make the unjust 
 love of gain a vice that profits nothing. I there- 6 
 fore, he went on, by quoting some of these, as 
 well as others from those of the kings of Persia, 
 try to render my servants just in all that they 
 have in hand. For the laws first mentioned treat 7 
 of no more than penalties for wrong-doers ; while 
 those of the kings of Persia not only punish the 
 unjust, but reward the just ; so that when they 
 see the just becoming richer than the unjust, 
 many men — with all their love of gain — will 
 steadfastly persist in shunning injustice. But 8 
 wherever I perceive men trying to do injustice, 
 said he, in spite of all good treatment, I count 
 them as incurably grasping, and straightway dis- 
 charge them from their place of trust. And again, 9 
 whenever I see men that are just, not only from 
 a desire to be benefited by their justice, but also 
 in anxiety to win my praise, I at once treat all 
 such as freemen, and not only enrich them, but 
 do them honour as gentlemen. For in this I 10 
 
92 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XIV. 
 
 §io. 
 
 think, Socrates, he concluded, lies the difference 
 
 between a man that loves honour and one that 
 
 loves gain — in the willingness of the one, for the 
 
 sake of praise and honour, to undergo labour, if 
 
 need be, and danger ; and to keep his hands from 
 
 dishonourable gain. 
 
Ciia" XV. OF PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE. 93 
 
 §§ h 2-1 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OF PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE IN STEWARDS : AND THE 
 GENTLE COURTESY OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 I WILL no longer ask you, said I, whether i 
 "*" anything more is required in a man with 
 such qualities as these. For any one in whom you 
 create not only a wish for your prosperity, but a 
 careful desire that your business be fully accom- 
 plished ; to whom you give the gain of knowledge 
 how each part of the farm-work might prove ever 
 more profitable ; who, further, has learnt from you 
 how to manage the men under him, and more 
 than all, in showing you that of the fruit of the 
 earth there is in its season all possible abundance, 
 feels a pleasure which is altogether equal to your 
 joy at the sight, — such an one would, I am sure, 
 be already a steward of no insignificant value. 
 And yet, Ischomachus, continued I, do not leave 
 unexplained that part of our subject which has 
 been most slightly touched upon. 
 
 What may that be ? asked Ischomachus. 2 
 
94 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XV. 
 
 You said, — did you not ? — replied I, that a most 
 important thing for a steward to learn was how 
 everything should be wrought out ; if not, even of 
 his carefulness, you said,* no profit would come, 
 unless he were to understand what was to be 
 
 3 done, and how to do it. . Well, Ischomachus, said 
 I, from what you told me I think I have learnt 
 thoroughly enough how to train a steward ; for 
 I believe I have learnt from what you said how 
 he must be taught goodwill and carefulness, and 
 
 4 management of men, and justice ; but as to what 
 you said, that he who is to have the care of 
 farm-work in a right way must learn both what 
 to do and how and when each thing is to be 
 done, — all this, I think, has been too slightly 
 
 5 touched upon in our talk. It is as though you 
 were to say that one must understand letters to 
 be able to write from dictation, and read writing ; 
 for this would tell me that it is necessary to under- 
 stand letters ; yet this knowledge would not, I 
 fancy, give me any further understanding of them. 
 
 6 So too in this case, I am easily persuaded that 
 one must understand farm-work to take care of it 
 in a right way : but this does not give me any 
 further understanding of how one should farm an 
 
 7 estate. But if I were to take it into my head 
 
 * Chapter XIII., § 2. 
 
, 2—ia] THE COURTESY OF AGRICULTURE. 95 
 
 forthwith to set about farming, I fancy I should 
 be like a physician who makes his rounds and 
 looks at his patients, but knows nothing of the 
 right treatment for them. To save me from such 
 ignorance, I concluded, teach me the actual details 
 of farm-work. 
 
 You ask me nothing less, Socrates, said Ischo- 8 
 machus, than to teach you the whole art of hus- 
 bandry ? 
 
 Yes, replied I, for this -same art is probably the 
 one that most enriches those who understand it, 
 while, labour as they will, it condemns the igno- 
 rant to a life of poverty. 
 
 Well, then, Socrates, said he, you shall now hear 9 
 the courtesy* also of this art. For being as it is 
 most profitable and pleasant to work, and fairest 
 and most beloved by gods and men, — moreover 
 the easiest to learn, — how can it help being gentle ? 
 And ' gentle ' is a word we apply even to beasts, 
 such as being fair and great and serviceable are 
 obedient to the hand of man. Nay more, Socrates, 10 
 continued he, in that it does not, like other arts, 
 require its learners to labour and toil, before their 
 work is worth their daily bread — husbandry is not 
 so irksome to learn ; but after seeing some details 
 
 * <t>CKav0pairla, translated 'courtesy' rather than 'philanthropy,' 
 as the latter is open to misunderstanding. 
 
96 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XV. 
 
 §§ 10-13. 
 
 in practice, and hearing others from precept, the 
 
 learner would at once understand them well enough 
 
 1 1 even to teach others, if so he wished. And I 
 think, said he, that you are very little aware how 
 much you understand about it. For somehow, all 
 other artists hide the most important processes of 
 their arts. Not so with farmers. For those who 
 excel both in planting and sowing would find 
 especial pleasure in being watched at work : ask 
 what you will about any good piece of work, and 
 a farmer would always tell you how he did it. 
 
 12 So too, Socrates, he concluded, does husbandry 
 seem to adorn its votaries with peculiar gentleness 
 of character. 
 
 1 3 Well, your beginning, said I, is fine ; and after 
 hearing so much, one cannot turn away from the 
 question. And its being so easy to learn is all 
 the more reason why you should go through it 
 with me thoroughly. For you need feel no shame 
 in teaching me an easy lesson ; — far greater shame 
 were mine not to understand it, especially when it 
 happens to be so much to my profit. 
 
Chap. XVI. THE NATURE OF THE SOIL. 97 
 
 §§ i-3.] 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HOW TO LEARN THE NATURE OF THE SOIL. OF FALLOW 
 LAND. 
 
 1" N the first place, then, Socrates, said he, I would 1 
 
 show you that there is no real difficulty in 
 what is called the great riddle of husbandry by 
 people who, though they possess the most thorough 
 and accurate knowledge in theory, have absolutely 
 no practical experience of it. For it is said that 
 he who would set about farming in the right way 
 ought first to know the nature of the soil. 
 
 And rightly said too, replied I. For he who 2 
 does not know what the soil can bear, would not, 
 I imagine, know either what to sow, or what to 
 plant. 
 
 Well then, said Ischomachus, by observing their 3 
 crops and trees, we can learn from the lands of 
 other men what soils can and what they cannot 
 bear. And when one knows this, there is no longer 
 any use in fighting against Providence. For a 
 man would not obtain the necessaries of life by 
 
 7 
 
9 8 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XVI. 
 
 sowing and planting whatever he might want him- 
 self, rather than what the soil willingly bore and 
 
 4 nourished. But if, through the sloth of its pos- 
 sessors, it have no chance of showing its power, 
 from a neighbour's estate one may learn many 
 times more truly about it than from a neighbour's 
 
 5 advice. Even when lying waste it shows its nature 
 all the same. For cultivate the soil which brings 
 forth wild things in beauty, and you will find it 
 yield in their beauty things no longer wild. The 
 nature of the soil, therefore, even those who are 
 not very experienced in husbandry can nevertheless 
 learn by these means. 
 
 6 Well, Ischomachus, said I, perhaps I have already 
 courage enough to forbid my refraining from hus- 
 bandry through any fear of my ignorance of the 
 
 7 nature of the soil. For I cannot help thinking, 
 continued I, how fishermen — though all their work 
 is at sea, and they must neither stand still, nor 
 sail leisurely along, to observe the corn-fields 
 minutely — yet at the instant they scud past them, 
 and glance at their crops, conclude at once 
 whether the soil is good or bad ; blaming some 
 parts and praising others. And I see that the 
 adepts in' husbandry for the most part form their 
 conclusions about good soil in the same manner. 
 
 8 At what point, Socrates, said he, would you have 
 
,3—13-] OF FALLOW LAND. 99 
 
 me begin putting you in mind of husbandry ? For 
 I am quite sure that you know already many of 
 the precepts for farming that I shall give you. 
 
 I think, Ischomachus, said I, that in the first 9 
 place I should be glad to hear what a philo- 
 sopher more than all . men ought to know, how, 
 if I wished, I could so till the ground as to raise 
 most barley and wheat. 
 
 Well, you know that you must plough up the 10 
 fallow land for sowing ? 
 
 Yes, I know that, replied I. 
 
 Suppose, then, said he, we were to begin 1 1 
 ploughing the land in winter ? 
 
 Nay, it would be all mud, said I. 
 Well, what think you of the summer ? 
 The. soil would be hard, I replied, to break with 
 the plough. * 
 
 It seems, then, said he, that we ought to begin 1 2 
 work in the spring. 
 
 Yes, for it is likely, I replied, that the soil would 
 be most easily broken up, if ploughed then. 
 
 Yes, and the weeds being ploughed in at that 
 season, Socrates, said he, will afford a ready manure 
 for the soil, nor can they any longer shed their 
 seeds, and so spring up again. For I suppose 13 
 you know also that if the fallow land is to re- 
 ward you with success, it should be both clear of 
 
IOO THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XVI. 
 
 §§ 13-15- 
 
 weeds, and as much as possible open to the warmth 
 
 of the sun. 
 
 Certainly, I replied, for so I think. 
 
 14 Do you then think, asked he, that this could 
 be done in any better way than by turning the soil 
 as often as possible in the summer ? 
 
 I am quite sure, I replied, that in no way would 
 the weeds come to the top, and be withered by 
 the sun's heat, and the soil be mellowed by the 
 sun, better than by turning it with the plough in 
 midsummer and at midday. 
 
 1 5 But is it not quite clear, said he, that if men 
 were to work the fallow land with the spade, they 
 would have to deal separately with soil and with 
 weeds ? 
 
 Yes, said I, they would have to throw the 
 weeds down oh the ground for the sun to scorch 
 them, but turn up the soil, that so its crudeness 
 might mellow. 
 
Chap. XVII. THE TIME OF SOWING. IOI 
 
 §§ I-3-] 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OF THE SEASONS AND MANNER OF SOWING. 
 
 A BOUT fallow land, said he, you see, Socrates, i 
 - we are both of the same opinion. 
 
 Yes, it seems so, said I. 
 
 Well, he continued, have you any opinion on 
 the season for sowing, other than that which all 
 our forefathers from experiment, and all the pre- 
 sent generation from tradition, agree to be the 
 best ? For when the end of autumn is come, all 2 
 men, I suppose, look up to Heaven for the time 
 when It shall water the earth and send them 
 forth to sow. 
 
 Yes, Ischomachus, said I, all men have learnt 
 that they must not sow while the ground is dry, 
 if they can avoid it, since they see that those who 
 sow before the signal has been made to them by 
 Heaven, have to struggle with many penalties for 
 so doing. 
 
 Then on this point, said Ischomachus, we are 3 
 agreed with all men. 
 
102 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XVII. 
 
 Yes, replied I, for thus are all men in perfect 
 agreement about the teaching of Heaven. For 
 instance, every one thinks it better to dress in 
 warm clothes and light a fire, in winter, if he have 
 warm clothes, and firewood. 
 
 4 But in this next matter, said Ischomachus, we 
 at once find much difference of opinion, Socrates, 
 concerning sowing, — whether it is best done early, 
 or late, or in the mid season. 
 
 But Heaven, I replied, does not ordain the 
 weather of every year according to a fixed rule ; 
 but at one time it is best to take the earliest 
 season, at another the middle, at another the 
 latest. 
 
 5 Then which, Socrates, asked he, do you think 
 is better, to make choice of one of these sowing 
 times, and sow your seed, be it much or be it 
 little, or to begin at the earliest opportunity, and 
 keep on sowing till the last ? 
 
 6 My opinion, Ischomachus, I replied, is that it 
 is best to share in all seasons for sowing.* I am 
 sure it is much better ever to reap a sufficient 
 harvest, than one year a very great deal, and 
 another year not even enough to live on. 
 
 * Compare, " In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening 
 withhold not thine hand ; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, 
 either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good." — 
 Ecclesiastes xi. 6. 
 
3—9.] THE MANNER OF SOWING. 1 05 
 
 Then on this point too, Socrates, said he, we 
 agree — -master and scholar ; and you are before- 
 hand with me in declaring your views. 
 
 To proceed, said I. Is there not much cunning 7 
 needed in the art of casting the seed into the 
 ground ? 
 
 By all means, Socrates, said he, let us consider 
 this subject too. I suppose you know that the 
 seed has to be cast from the hand ? said he. 
 
 Yes, said I, for I have seen it done. 
 
 But some persons, said he, are able to cast it 
 evenly, whilst others cannot. 
 
 Well, then, we have already something that 
 needs practice, said I, like lyre-playing, that the 
 hand may be able to do the mind's bidding. 
 
 Certainly, he replied, but suppose some ground 8 
 lighter and some richer. 
 
 Why, what do you mean ? asked I. Does lighter 
 mean weaker, and richer stronger ? 
 
 That is what I mean, he replied ; and I should 
 like you to tell me if you would allow the same 
 amount of seed to each kind of soil, or to which 
 would you allow most ? 
 
 The stronger the wine, I answered, the more 9 
 water, I believe, can be mixed with it ; and in 
 carrying weights the stronger the man the heavier 
 the burden we may lay upon him ; and so, too, 
 
104 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XVII. 
 
 when men have to be fed, to the richer I should 
 give the greater number to feed. But whether 
 weak land, like beasts of burden, becomes stronger 
 by putting more corn into it — this you must tell 
 me. 
 
 10 Ischomachus answered with a laugh. Nay, 
 you are jesting, Socrates, said he ; be assured, 
 however, that after sowing, — when the soil has, 
 plenty of nourishment from the rain, and a green 
 blade has sprung up from the seed, — if you plough 
 this into the soil, it will enrich the land, and like 
 manure will give it strength. If, however, you 
 allow the land to go on ripening seed, it will be 
 as difficult for a weak soil to bring much corn to 
 perfection, as it is for a worn-out sow to suckle 
 to maturity a large litter of pigs. 
 
 1 1 You mean, Ischomachus, said I, that in weaker 
 soil, less seed should be sown ? 
 
 Yes, certainly, he replied, and you yourself 
 agreed with me in saying that to the weaker 
 should always be given a lesser task. 
 
 1 2 But why do you hoe the corn, Ischomachus ? 
 I asked. 
 
 You know, doubtless, said he, that heavy rains 
 fall in winter. 
 
 Of course, I replied. 
 
 Well, then, let us remember that some part 
 
19— IS-]' ov HOEING. I05 
 
 of the corn will often be even covered by it, 
 and smothered in mud,- and the roots in some 
 parts laid bare. Weeds, too, nourished by the 
 moisture, often spring up with the corn, and 
 choke it. 
 
 All this, said I, is likely to happen. 
 
 Do you not think, then, said he, that in this 1 3 
 case our corn already needs some assistance ? 
 
 Certainly, said I. 
 
 What could be done then, do you think, to 
 save it in this deluge of mud ? 
 
 Relieve the soil of the water, said I. 
 
 And what, asked he, for the unearthing of 
 the roots ? 
 
 Fresh earth could be heaped up about them, I 
 replied. 
 
 Well, and what, he asked, if weeds spring up 14 
 with the corn and choke it, by robbing it of its 
 nourishment, just as drones, useless mouths as 
 they are, rob bees of the honey they have toiled 
 for, and laid up as nourishment ? 
 
 Cut down the weeds, by Heaven ! cried I ; just 
 as drones are destroyed out of the hive. 
 
 Well, then, said he, do not we seem to have 1 5 
 good reason for using the hoe ? 
 
 By all means; and I begin to see, Ischomachus, 
 said I, how useful it is to draw your illustrations 
 
Io6 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XVII 
 
 well. For you have quite enraged me against 
 
 the weeds, by mentioning the drones, — far more 
 
 than when you were talking only of the weeds 
 themselves. 
 
Chap. XVIII. OF REAPING. 107 
 
 §§ 1, 2-] 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OF REAPING, THRESHING, AND WINNOWING. 
 
 T ^7ELL then, continued I, after this it is likely 1 
 
 we shall have a harvest : so teach me, 
 if you can, something about this too. 
 
 Yes, said he, unless you show yourself about *' 
 this too quite as learned as I. Well, the corn has 
 to be reaped, — you know that ? 
 
 Of course, replied I. 
 
 When you are reaping it, he asked, would you 
 stand with your back or your face to the wind ? 
 
 I should not face the wind, I replied, for it 
 would be troublesome, both for eye and hand, to 
 reap with chaff and sharp ears of corn flying into 
 one's face. 
 
 And would you only cut off the tops, he asked, 2 
 or crop it close to the ground ? 
 
 If the stalks were short, I answered, I should 
 cut it near the ground, that the. straw may the 
 rather be sufficient. But if long, I believe I 
 
108 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XVIII. 
 
 should do right in cutting it at the middle, that 
 neither threshers nor winnowers may have more 
 trouble than is necessary. But what is left in 
 the earth when burnt will, I believe, enrich the 
 soil ; and if mixed with the manure will increase 
 it. 
 
 3 Do you not see, Socrates, cried he, that you 
 are caught in the act ? You know, even about 
 reaping, as much as I ? 
 
 Perhaps so, said I; and I should like to find 
 put if I understand anything about threshing 
 too. 
 
 4 Well, said he, at any rate you know that beasts 
 of burden thresh out the corn ? 
 
 Of course, replied I. 
 
 You know, too, that all that go by the name 
 of beasts of burden — oxen, mules, and horses — 
 are used alike for this. Well then, continued 
 he, do you think that they know nothing beyond 
 this, to tread out the corn, as they are driven 
 over it ? 
 
 Yes, said I, for what more could beasts under- 
 stand ? 
 
 5 But whose business is it to see that they tread 
 out what is wanted, Socrates, he asked, and that 
 the threshing is the same all the floor over ? 
 
 The drivers' business, of course, said I. For 
 
, i_8.] OF THRESHING AND WINNOWING. IO§ 
 
 always turning and throwing under the beasts' feet 
 what remains untrodden, it is clear that they would 
 keep the floor* levelled best, and get the work 
 done soonest. 
 
 On this point, then, said he, your knowledge is 
 equal to mine. 
 
 Well then, Ischomachus, said I, we must clear 6 
 the corn by winnowing. 
 
 Tell me, Socrates, said Ischomachus, do you 
 not know that if you begin on the windward side, 
 your chaff will be blown all over the floor ? 
 
 That stands to reason, I replied. 
 
 Well then, it is likely, said he, that it will also 7 
 fall on to the corn. 
 
 Yes, I replied; for this is much more likely 
 than that the chaff will fly across the corn to 
 where the floor is empty. 
 
 But suppose one begins Winnowing from the 
 leeward side ? said he. 
 
 It is clear, said I, that the chaff will fly straight 
 into the chaff-bin. 
 
 But when you have cleared the corn, said he, 8 
 as far as the middle of the floor, will you go 
 straight on winnowing the rest of it while the 
 grain is still lying there, or first heap together the 
 
 * Adopting the reading 'rbv Stvov,' the circular threshing-floor 
 around which the beasts went, in treading out the corn. 
 
I IO THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XVIII 
 
 §§ 8-10. 
 
 cleared grain towards the centre,* in the smallest 
 
 possible space ? 
 
 By Heaven ! I exclaimed, I should heap the 
 cleared grain together, that the chaff may fly over 
 to where the floor is empty, and that the same 
 might not have to be winnowed twice over. 
 9 It seems then, Socrates, said he, you could 
 even teach others the quickest way to clear 
 corn ! 
 
 All this, then, I replied, I understood years ago, 
 and never knew it I wonder whether I under- 
 stand working in gold as well, and flute-playing, 
 and painting, — and do not know it. For nobody 
 taught me these arts any more than husbandry ; 
 but I take as much pains in watching men em- 
 ployed in them as in it. 
 10 That was why I told you at first, returned 
 Ischomachus, that even for this reason husbandry 
 is the most gentle art, because it is also easiest 
 to learn. 
 
 Come then, Ischomachus, said I, surely I under- 
 stood all about sowing — though I never knew it. 
 
 * Some translate t6\os ' ploughed land,' — it is difficult to see with 
 what sense 'in reference to the context. Why should it not mean the 
 pivot or centre round which the oxen rotate in the threshing-floor, 
 where also the corn was winnowed ? 
 
Chap. XIX. OF PLANTING TREES. 1 1 1 
 
 §§ I-3-] 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF PLANTING TREES, AND ESPECIALLY VINES, OLIVES, AND 
 FIGS. HOW THAT AGRICULTURE IS EASY TO LEARN. 
 
 r~\OES the planting of trees also, I asked, I 
 "^"^ belong to the art of husbandry ? 
 
 Yes, it does, replied Ischomachus. 
 
 How then, said I, could I understand the de- 
 tails of sowing, and yet understand nothing about 
 planting trees ? 
 
 Well, do not you understand anything about 2 
 it ? asked Ischomachus. 
 
 How should I ? was my answer ; I who do not 
 know either in what kind of soil one ought to 
 plant, nor what depth and breadth and length the 
 holes should be dug ; nor how to set the plant 
 in the earth so that it might grow best ? 
 
 Come, then, said Ischomachus, and learn what- 3 
 ever you do not understand. The sort of pits 
 they dig for plants I am sure you have seen, 
 said he. 
 
112 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XIX. 
 
 Yes, often, I replied. 
 
 Well, did you ever see one deeper than three 
 feet ? 
 
 No, indeed, I replied ; nor deeper than two and 
 a half. 
 
 Well, did you ever see the breadth more than 
 three feet ? 
 
 No, indeed, said I ; nor more than two. 
 
 4 Come, then, said he, answer me this too : Did 
 you ever see their depth less than a foot ? 
 
 No, indeed ; nor less than a foot and a half ; 
 for digging round the plants would root them up, 
 if they had been set so near the surface. 
 
 5 Then, Socrates, said he, you know well enough 
 that they do not dig the pit deeper than two and 
 a half feet, nor shallower than one and a half? 
 
 Yes, replied I, for that is too evident not to 
 be seen. 
 
 6 Well, he resumed, can you tell dryer or moister 
 soil when you see it ? 
 
 I suppose the soil about Mount Lycabettus, and 
 such-like, is dry, I replied ; and the Phaleric Marsh, 
 and soil like it, is wet. 
 
 7 Then would you dig your pit for planting, he 
 asked, deeper in dry or moist ground ? 
 
 In dry, by Heaven ! cried I ; since if you dig 
 deep in wet ground, you would find water ; and 
 
2— io.] OF PLANTING TREES. I I 3 
 
 when once the water came, there would be an end 
 of your planting ! 
 
 I think you are right, he said. 
 
 Well then, suppose your pits have been dug, do 
 you know when to plant each kind of tree ? 
 
 Certainly, said I* 
 
 Then since you wish them to grow as quickly 8 
 as possible, do you think that, if you plant in soil 
 loosened by working, the shoots of the slip will 
 strike sooner into the soft earth, than into hard 
 and unbroken clods ? 
 
 Of course, I replied, they would sprout more 
 quickly through loosened than through unbroken 
 earth. 
 
 Then we ought to plant in soil that has been 9 
 tilled ? 
 
 Undoubtedly, said I. 
 
 And do you think that the slip would take 
 root better if the whole of it were placed standing 
 upright ; or would you place part of it bent in 
 the earth, so as to lie like the letter L ? t 
 
 In this last way, certainly ; for so there would be 10 
 more buds in the earth : it is from the buds that 
 I observe shoots come even when above-ground, 
 
 * The passage discussing this subject has evidently been lost from 
 the text, 
 f i.e., T Utttiov, or a reversed I\ 
 
I 1 4 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XIX. 
 
 and I suppose when below-ground the buds do 
 likewise. For if a great number of shoots strike 
 in the earth, I suppose the plant will grow 
 speedily to strength. 
 
 1 1 So, said he, I find you know all about this 
 too. But would you, he continued, merely heap 
 up earth round the plant, or stamp it down very 
 hard, as well ? 
 
 I should certainly stamp it down, I said ; for 
 were it not stamped down, I know very well that 
 such loose earth would be turned into mud by 
 the rain ; while by the sun it would be parched 
 right through to the bottom ; so that the plants 
 would be in danger of either rotting away from 
 the moisture, or being withered owing to the 
 dryness and consequent looseness of the soil, 
 which would suffer the roots to be scorched. 
 
 1 2 About planting vines, too, Socrates, said he, I 
 find "that we think alike. 
 
 Ought one to plant a fig tree also, I asked, in 
 this way ? 
 
 Yes, I suppose so, said Ischomachus, and all 
 other fruit trees : for do you find any method 
 which answers in vine-planting fail in other 
 cases ? 
 
 13 But how, I asked, are we to plant an olive, 
 Ischomachus ? 
 
§§ 10 — IS-] OF VINES AND OLIVES. I 15 
 
 In this too you are but proving me, said he, 
 for I know you understand it better than any one. 
 Well, pits for olives are dug deeper, as of 
 course you see, for they are generally by the 
 roadsides. You see too that stakes are set by 
 every shoot, and that there is a coating of clay 
 over the tops and upper parts of all the plants. 
 Yes, I see all that, I replied. 
 
 Well, if so, said he, what is there about it 14 
 you do not understand ? You know well enough, 
 Socrates, continued he, how you would place the 
 •potsherd on the clay ? 
 
 Why really, Ischomachus, I cried, I know well 
 enough everything you are telling me ; but I 
 recollect why when at the first you put it all in 
 a single question and asked me if I understood 
 planting, I said No. It was that I did not think 
 I could give any directions for planting ; but when 
 you began to question me on each point separately, 
 my answers are, as you tell me, just your own 
 opinions, clever farmer though they call you. Is 1 5 
 questioning, then, the same thing as teaching? I 
 have only just learnt each thing about which you 
 have been questioning me : for it is by leading 
 me on through what I do know, and by pointing 
 out things that are similar, but which I used to 
 think I did not understand, that you persuade 
 
I 1 6 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XIX. 
 
 me, I suppose, that I really understand these as 
 well. 
 
 1 6 Well then, said Ischomachus, if I were to question 
 you about a piece of silver, and say, Is this pure 
 or not ? could I persuade you that you understand 
 how to test it, and find out whether it is pure or 
 base ? And in flute-playing, I could not persuade 
 you — could I ? — that you understand playing the 
 flute : and so on through painting and all other 
 arts of the kind ? 
 
 Perhaps you could, said I ; since you have per- 
 suaded me that I am an adept even in farming] 
 although I am sure no one ever' taught me this 
 art. 
 
 17 No, Socrates, said he, but I told you at the 
 very outset that husbandry is an art so courteous 
 and so gentle, that she straightway makes those 
 who" have eyes and ears thoroughly intimate 
 
 1 8 with herself. For in many- cases, he continued, 
 she herself teaches how one may find in her the 
 greatest profit. A vine, whenever there are trees 
 near at hand, will climb them ; and so we learn 
 
 ' to support it. , It spreads out its leaves, while the 
 clusters are still tender ; and we learn that at that 
 season they must ever be shaded from the sun. 
 And when the time has come for the clusters to 
 be ripened by the sunshine, it sheds its leaves ; and 
 
§§ IS— 18.] AGRICULTURE EASY TO LEARN. WJ 
 
 we learn to strip it of them, so that the autumn 
 warmth may mellow it. And then its branches 
 are loaded with clusters, some mellowed, others 
 yet unripe : and once again we learn to pluck them 
 from it, just as figs, as they swell to ripeness, are 
 gathered from the fig tree. 
 
I I 8 THE ECONOMIST. 
 
 [Chap. XX. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HOW THAT CAREFULNESS RATHER THAN KNOWLEDGE IS 
 THE SECRET OF TRUE SUCCESS. 
 
 1 A "*" ^ S * as ked, How is it, Ischomachus, if the 
 
 details of farming are so easy to learn, and 
 every man knows as well as his neighbour what 
 has to be done, — how is it that all farmers do not 
 meet with the same success, but some of them 
 live in plenty, and have enough and to spare, 
 while others are not only unable to provide them- 
 selves with the necessaries of life, but are even in 
 debt ? 
 
 2 I will tell you, Socrates, said Ischomachus. It 
 is not knowledge, nor the want of it, that makes 
 a farmer rich or poor ; you would never hear, he 
 
 3 continued, such a report as this — that an estate 
 has gone to ruin because the sower did not scatter 
 the seed evenly ; nor because the rows of trees 
 were not planted straight ; nor because the farmer 
 did not know the right soil for vines, and planted 
 
§§ I— 8.] THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 119 
 
 them in an unfruitful place ; nor because he did 
 not know that it was good for sowing to plough up 
 fallow land more than once ; nor because he did 
 not know that it improved the earth to manure it. 4 
 Nay, but you would rather hear it said that a man 
 has got no harvest from his estate because he is 
 careless about his sowing and manuring ; or that 
 a man's vineyard has failed, because he does not 
 take care in planting his vines, nor in seeing 
 that those he has are in fit state to bear ; or that 
 a man's olives and figs have failed because he does 
 not take care or trouble to make them succeed. 
 This it is, Socrates, he continued, that makes the 5 
 success of different farmers different, much more 
 than a fancied discovery of some clever improve- 
 ment in working. So among generals, it is usually 6 
 not through a greater or less knowledge of tactics 
 that some are better and others worse, but un- 
 doubtedly through greater or less carefulness. For 7 
 what all generals and even most private persons 
 recognize, is fully acted upon by but few com- 
 manders. For example, they all recognize that 
 while marching through an enemy's country, their 
 army should be arranged so as best to fight, if 
 need be. Well, though they all recognize this, 
 some act accordingly, and others do not. They 8 
 all know that it is most important to set sentinels 
 
120 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XX. 
 
 before their camp both by day and night ; but 
 some take care to have it so, while others take 
 9 no care at all. Again, in passing through a 
 defile, it would be very hard to find any one 
 who did not recognize the fact that it is better 
 to seize strong positions beforehand : but here, 
 i o too, some are careful, and others careless. And 
 so every one tells you that manure is most useful 
 for farming, and sees that it can be got naturally : 
 and yet, while they draw clever distinctions as to 
 how it is got, and are able easily to make plenty 
 of it, even in this case it is only some who take 
 care to collect it, while many take no care about 
 
 1 1 it at all. Again, Heaven sends down rain, and 
 all the hollow spots become standing pools, and 
 the soil brings forth weeds of all kinds, which 
 must be cleared away before sowing. Now if what 
 is thus cleared out of the way be cast into the 
 pools, time itself would make it such as to enrich 
 the soil. For what is there, vegetable or earth, 
 that is not turned to manure by soaking in stag- 
 
 1 2 nant water ? Again, when land is too moist for 
 seed, and too bitter for plan-ting, everybody knows 
 
 . the treatment that is needed ; — how the water is 
 carried off in ditches, and how the bitterness is 
 tempered by a mixture of all manner of correctives 
 both moist and dry ; yet about this, too, some 
 
§§ 8 — 16.] THE NEED OF CAREFULNESS. 121 
 
 farmers are utterly careless. But if any one be 1 3 
 altogether ignorant of what his land can bear, 
 and if there be neither fruit nor plant to be seen 
 upon it, and if he have nobody from whom to 
 learn the truth about it, — is it not much easier 
 for him to make experiment upon soil than upon 
 a horse, — and far easier than upon a man ? For 
 the soil can in nowise dissemble ; but with all 
 simplicity it shows truly what it can and what it 
 cannot do ; whilst it very clearly points out, I fancy, 1 4 
 the bad farmers and the good, by presenting every- 
 thing so that it may be easily known and learned. 
 For husbandry is not like all other arts, in which 
 those who do no work can excuse themselves on 
 the ground of their ignorance ; all know that the 
 Earth treats well those who treat her well. No ; 
 in husbandry there is sure betrayal of a base mind. 
 For that a man could live without the necessaries 15 
 of life, no one persuades himself; but one who 
 knows no other profitable art, and will not dig, 
 evidently intends to live as a thief, a robber, or 
 a beggar, — unless he is an utter fool. 
 
 It makes a great difference in the profits of 1 6 
 farming, he continued, where there are even a great • 
 number of workmen, for one master to take some 
 care that his labourers be at their work in good 
 time, whilst another neglects this. For generally 
 
122 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XX. 
 
 one man in the gang* is marked by being at 
 work in good time, another by leaving off work 
 
 17 too early. But if you let men work lazily on, you 
 will find in the whole day's work a full half day's 
 
 18 difference made. It is as in making a journey of 
 twenty-five miles, one man will sometimes outstrip 
 another by half the distance, though both are 
 young and strong : — but one perseveres in the 
 walk on which he has started ; while the other, 
 in the slothfulness of his heart, is ever resting and 
 looking about him by fountains and under the 
 
 19 shade, courting the gentle breeze. So in farm 
 work, there is great difference in the amount 
 done by those who do the work that has been 
 set them, and those who do not, but are always 
 finding excuses for not working, and are allowed 
 
 20 to be lazy. There is as much difference between 
 a good workman and an inattentive one as there 
 is between industry and utter idleness. For 
 instance, when, in digging to clear vines from 
 weeds, your workmen so dig that the weeds after- 
 wards grow all the more rankly, how could you say 
 
 2 1 that such labour was not vain ? Estates then are 
 far more often ruined by this kind of thing than 
 by extreme ignorance. For if, when all the 
 
 * " 7rapa rods SckA.." Greek and Roman slaves worked in gangs 
 of ten. 
 
§§ 16 — 25.] THE EVILS OF SLOTH. 1 2 3. 
 
 household expenses are going on in full, the 
 labour done brings in no profit to defray them, 
 it is no longer any wonder if want takes the 
 place of plenty. Those however who can be 22 
 careful, and who diligently attend to farming, 
 make most effectual profit out of it ; and this was 
 my father's constant aim and lesson to me. For 
 he would never let me buy a well-tilled parcel of 
 ground ; but advised me to buy one which through 
 neglect or through its possessor's want of means 
 was lying unproductive and untilled. For well- 23 
 tilled estates, he would say, are both dear to buy, 
 and incapable of increasing value ; and without 
 this increase in value, they did not give so much 
 pleasure in their cultivation ; indeed our greatest 
 delight, he thought, in everything that we have 
 or hold, is in its continual improvement. Nothing 
 then is capable of such increase as a piece of 
 land, which, after long lying idle, is reclaimed 
 to fertility. For be assured, Socrates, continued 24 
 he, that I have often before now made a plot of 
 land worth many times its original value. This 
 device, Socrates, he said, is of so great worth, 
 and yet so easy to learn, that after hearing it 
 this once you will go away as wise about it as 
 I am ; and able, if you desire, to teach it to 
 others also. Mv father did not learn it from 25 
 
124 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XX. 
 
 any one, nor did it even take much reflection to 
 discover it ; but it was through his love of farming 
 and of work, as he said, that he set his heart upon 
 such a plot of ground, that he might at the same 
 
 26 time have occupation, profit, and pleasure. For, 
 I believe, Socrates, he concluded, that my father 
 had a greater natural bent for farming than any 
 man in Athens. 
 
 On hearing this, I asked him, Did your father, 
 Ischomachus, keep all the plots of land that he 
 improved, or sell them, if a good price were 
 offered him ? 
 
 Why truly he sold them, replied Ischomachus ; 
 but he would at once buy more land, and that 
 untilled, just for the pleasure of work. 
 
 27 From what you say, Ischomachus, said I, your 
 father was in reality just as fond of farming as 
 merchants are of corn. For it is their exceeding 
 love of corn that makes merchants sail to wherever 
 they hear there is most of it ; and cross the ^Egean, 
 
 2 8 Euxine, and Sicilian seas ; and then when they 
 have got as much as they can, they bring it across 
 the sea, stored in the very ship in which they 
 themselves sail. And whenever they want money, 
 they are not likely to throw away their corn 
 at the first opportunity ; but wherever they hear 
 that corn is dearest and most thought of by the 
 
§§25—29] LOVE OF WORK. I2J 
 
 inhabitants, thither they carry it, and sell it there. 
 And this, perhaps, was the way in which your 
 father loved farming. 
 
 Ah, Socrates, replied Ischomachus, you are but 29 
 jesting ! but I think we ought quite as much to 
 call those lovers of building who build houses 
 and sell them, only to build others. 
 
 By Heaven, Ischomachus, I replied, I swear I 
 heartily believe you that all men naturally love 
 whatever they think to their profit ! 
 
126 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XXI. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 HOW THAT THE ART OF MANAGING MEN IS DIFFICULT OF 
 ATTAINMENT, AND IN SOME MEASURE GIVEN OF GOD. 
 
 i T AM thinking, Ischomachus, said" I, how well 
 A you have brought up the whole train of your 
 argument to support your statements. For you 
 stated that the art of husbandry was the easiest of 
 all to learn ; ancf now I have been quite persuaded 
 by all you have said that it is undoubtedly so. 
 
 2 But really, Socrates, said Ischomachus, I quite 
 agree with you that in the one thing common to 
 all these pursuits, to husbandry, and state govern- 
 ment, economy, and war, — that is, in the manage- 
 
 3 ment of men, some have more wit than others. It 
 is so in a galley at sea, he continued ; whenever 
 the crew are obliged to make voyages of whole 
 days over the ocean, some coxswains * can do and 
 say just what spurs the spirits of their men to 
 
 * KeXewrfy. ' Coxswain ' is scarcely an equivalent for this word, 
 the duty of the Greek KeXeuflTiJs being to mark time for the rowers 
 by shouting or by signs. 
 
I— 7] OF MANAGING MEN. I 27 
 
 willing labour ; while others are so dull that they 
 take more than double the time to accomplish 
 the same voyage. And the first crew, coxswain 
 and men, go ashore all in a sweat, congratulating 
 each other : while the second come lazily in, 
 hating their officer as much as he hates them. 
 Among generals too, he continued, there is the 4 
 same difference : for some can only show troops 
 unready either for labour or for danger, careless 
 of discipline and unwilling to obey it, except 
 when forced to do so ; nay, even proud of 
 thwarting their commanders' wishes : such are 
 the officers that produce soldiers, who, whatever 
 disgrace befall them, feel no sense of shame. 
 On the other hand, noble, good, and wise officers 5 
 will make those very troops, with many more, 
 ashamed to do anything disgraceful ; convinced 
 that discipline is best for them ; delighted to 
 show obedience individually ; and when they must 
 all work together, working with thorough good- 
 will. But just as we sometimes see in individuals 6 
 an unwonted willingness to work, so too may 
 we see in a whole army also, when under the 
 command of good officers, a love of work pro- 
 duced, and an ambition among the men that 
 they may be seen by their officers doing some 
 deed of honour. And officers whose men are so 7 
 
128 THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XXI. 
 
 disposed toward them, they at all events get great 
 power ; not those indeed, by Heaven, who of all 
 their soldiers are most careful of their strength ; 
 not those who hurl the javelin, or shoot i>est of all, 
 nor those who have the best horse, so that they 
 can lead cavalry or targeteers to the charge ; but 
 those who can make their troops feel that they 
 must follow their leader through fire and flood and 
 
 8 every kind of danger. Officers, then, such as these 
 whom great numbers follow in this conviction, we 
 should be right in calling powerful minds ; he may 
 truly be said to march with a strong arm, whose 
 mind so many arms are ready to obey; and really 
 great is that man who can do grander deeds by 
 might of mind than by any strength of body. 
 
 9 And so too in the duties of private life, if rule be 
 in the hands of steward or overseer, it is he who 
 is able to make the labourers willing and diligent 
 at their work, and to keep them to it, — he, and 
 such as he, are the men who bring every duty 
 to a happy completion, and make the profit of 
 
 I o it great. And when the master comes afield, 
 Socrates, he continued, with his. absolute power to 
 punish bad workmen and to reward the diligent, 
 if they do not show unwonted exertions, I should 
 have no high opinion of him : but if his coming 
 urge them on work, and instil into each of them 
 
§7—12-] THE EVIL PLIGHT OF TYRANTS. I 29 
 
 spirit and emulation and ambition, which is the 
 most powerful spur to every one, I should say that 
 there was about him some character of true royalty. 
 And this is most important, as I believe, in every 1 1 
 work in which men. are engaged, and not least 
 in agriculture. But verily I no longer say that this 
 power can be learnt from seeing it once exercised 
 or from hearing it once described ; nay, I assure you 
 that one who desires.it has need of long training and 
 of a noble nature from the first his own, — yes, and 
 of that greatest gift, a spark of Inspiration. And 1 2 
 this power of managing men so that they are 
 willing to be ruled, is, I think, a blessing not human, 
 but divine ; nor can we doubt that it is given to 
 those alone that have been perfected in true good- 
 ness. But lordship over rebel subjects, as it seems 
 to me, Heaven gives to none but those whom it 
 thinks deserving to live in constant fear of their 
 end ; — a life like that which Tantalus, with the 
 terror of a second death hanging over him, is fabled 
 to drag out in Hades' realms for ever.* 
 
 * Compare Pindar (Ol. i. 98), who states that Tantalus, having stolen 
 nectar and ambrosia from, the tables of the gods, was by them con- 
 demned in Hades to the terror of a rock suspended over his head, ever 
 threatening to crush him by its fall. The better-known story of his 
 punishment is given in Homer, Odyssey xi. 581 (Pope): — 
 
 ' ' There Tantalus along the Stygian bounds 
 Pours out deep groans (with groans all hell resounds) .... 
 
 9 
 
13° THE ECONOMIST. [Chap. XXI. 
 
 § 12. 
 
 When to the water he his lips applies, 
 
 Back from his lips the treacherous water flies ; 
 
 Above, beneath, around his hapless head 
 
 Trees of all kinds delicious fruitage spread 
 
 • The fruit he strives to seize, but blasts arise, 
 Toss it on high, and waft it to the skies." 
 
INDEX. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ^Egean Sea, xx. 27. 
 
 1 ' hepopeTpelv, to measure the air, engage in die speculation ; — 
 part of the charge against Socrates, xi. 3 (note). 
 
 Agriculture: — all the other arts dependent on it, v. 17; 
 courtesy of, xv. 9; easy to learn, xix. 17; enjoyable and 
 honourable, v. 1 ; excellences of, xv. 9 ; demands labour, 
 v. 4 ; makes men healthy, v. 4 ; courageous, vi. 10, and 
 generous, xv. 12; panegyric on, v. 7-12 (and passim); 
 patriotic, v. 5 ; results of, beyond our foresight, v. 1 8 ; 
 connection with war, v. 13 ; details of, discussed, xvi.-xx. 
 
 Alkanet, x. 2 (note). 
 
 Arcade, a favourite promenade at Athens, xi. 15. 
 
 Architect, i. 3. 
 
 Ariasus, general of Cyrus the younger, iv. 19. 
 
 Apio-Tov, the morning meal, xi. 18 (note). 
 
 Aristotle ; — Ethics, quoted on cynpaTris, ii. 1 ; referred to, vi. £ 
 (note) ; Politics quoted, ix. 8 (note). 
 
 Army, in order and disorder contrasted, viii. 4, 5 ; xxi. 5 — 8. 
 
 Artizans, mean-spirited, vi. 7. 
 
 Arts, one man cannot excel in all, iv. 1 ; mechanical, rightly 
 despised, and why, iv. 2. 
 
 Aspasia, iii. 14 (note). 
 
 Bavava-tKos, or mechanical, iv. 2 (note). 
 
 Beauty and virtue not always combined, vi. 16 ; of the 
 heart, vii. 43. 
 
134 INDEX. 
 
 Bee, the queen, and her duties, compared to those of a wife, 
 
 vii. 32. 
 Buds of vine-plant, xix. 10. 
 Bugloss, x. 2 (note). 
 Builders, xx. 28. 
 
 Carefulness, necessary to a steward, xii. 9 ; how to teach, ib. 
 
 16, seqq. ; who is capable of learning it and who not, ib. 
 
 1 1, seqq. ; importance of it to farmers as to generals, xx. 
 
 4, seqq. 
 Carpenters, xii. 3. 
 Chaff, xviii. 6. 
 
 Charge against Socrates, xi. 3 (note). 
 Children a support to their parents, vii. 12 (and note), 19. 
 Chorus, in order and disorder contrasted, viii. 3, 20. 
 Colts, training of, xiii. 7. 
 
 Conquerors, benefiting those they conquer, i. 23, 
 Corn merchants, xx. 27. 
 Cosmetics, x. 2, seqq. 
 Courtesy of agriculture, xv. 9. 
 Coxswain, xxi, 3. 
 
 Craftsmen, secret about their processes, xv. 11. 
 Critobulus, poor, and why, ii. 2 ; state claims on, ii. 6 ; his 
 
 wife, iii. 12 ; goes to the theatre betimes, iii. 7, 9. 
 Cyrus (the younger) excelled in agriculture- and war, iv. 6; 
 
 deservedly happy, iv. 24 ; his war with his brother, iv. 
 
 18 ; his death, iv. 19 ; planted trees with his own hands, 
 
 iv. 22 ; his conversation with Lysander, iv. 20. 
 
 Deceit, the vanity of, x. 8. 
 
 Ae/cd (gang), xx. 16. 
 
 Divine appointments sanctioned by human law, vii. 30. 
 
 Dogs, their use to man, v. 6 ; their training, xiii. 8. 
 
 Draco, laws of, xiv. 4. 
 
 Drainage of corn land, xvii. 12. 
 
INDEX. I 3 5 
 
 Drones, xvii. 14. 
 
 Drunkards cannot learn carefulness, xii. 12. 
 
 Earth, various kinds of, xvi. xvii. 8 ; xix. 6. 
 
 Economist, duties of, i. 2, 3, 15. 
 
 Economy, i. 1 (note) ; how learnt, ii. 17, 18. 
 
 "EyXovo-a, x. 2 (note). 
 
 Enemies, how they are a kind of property, i. 14 ; may benefit 
 
 those they conquer, i. 23. 
 Euripides' 'Supplices' quoted, vii. 12 (note). 
 'EvpvBfxos, note on, viii. 19 (note). 
 Euxine Sea, xx. 27. 
 
 Example, influence of master's, xii. 18, seqq. 
 Exercise, recommended to his wife by Ischomachus, x. 11 ; 
 
 military, xi. 15, seqq. 
 Experience, value of, ii. 13.' 
 Eye, the master's, xii. 20. 
 
 Failure and success, causes of, ii. 17, 18; xx. I, seqq. 
 
 Fallow ground, xvi. 10, seqq. 
 
 Falsification of argument charged against Socrates, xi. 3 
 
 (note) ; declared impossible, xi. 25. 
 Farming, details of, xvi. — xx. 
 Farms, varied success on adjoining, iii. 15. 
 Fig-trees, planting of, xix. 12. 
 Fishermen, xvi. 7. 
 Floor, threshing, xviii. 6. 
 Friends, a kind of property, i. 14. 
 
 Galley, value of order in, viii. 8 ; function of the KcXivarr)! in 
 
 xxi. 3. 
 Gang of labourers, xx. 16. 
 Generals, their worth proved by the faithfulness of their men, 
 
 iv. 19 ; need carefulness, xx. 6, seqq. ; tact in managing 
 
 men, xxi. 4, seqq. 
 Gerarde's Herbal referred to, x. 2 (note). 
 
136 INDEX. 
 
 rrjpo^oa-Kos, vii. 12 (note). 
 
 Giotto's Tower, bas-relief on, viii. 19 (note). 
 
 Gods, lords of all, v. 19. 
 
 Goodwill toward the master necessary to a steward, xii. 5 ; 
 
 how to teach, xii. 6, seqq. 
 Government, art of, xxi. 
 Granary, value of order in a, viii. 9. 
 Ground, how to find the nature of, xvi. 1, seqq. 
 
 Hades, xxi. 12. 
 
 Hair, use of false, condemned, x. 2. 
 
 Harmony, part of the Greek ideal, viii. 19 (note). 
 
 Harp-playing, xvii. 7. 
 
 Henbane, i. 13. 
 
 Hoeing, xvii. 12. 
 
 Homer, referred to, xxi. 12 (note). 
 
 Honesty necessary to stewards, xiv. 2 ; how taught, id. 3, 
 
 seqq. 
 Horses, their use to man, v. 6 ; horse of Nicias the foreigner, 
 
 xi. 4 ; horse exercise, xi. 17 ; horse of the king of Persia, 
 
 xii. 20 ; their training, xiii. 7. 
 House, definition of, i. 5 ; building of useless houses, iii. 1. 
 Housekeeper pf Ischomachus, ix. 11. 
 Husband provides the money, iii. 15 ; supplies the household, 
 
 vii. 39 ; his duties, vii. 12, seqq. ; ought to teach his wife 
 
 her duties, iii. 11. (See also s.v. Man.) 
 
 Idleness, its results, xx. 20. 
 
 Illustration, use of, xvii. 15. 
 
 Improvement of land, xx. 23, seqq. 
 
 Inexperience, danger of, ii. 13. 
 
 Ischomachus, arrangement of his house, ix. 3, seqq. ; a busy 
 man, vii, 1 ; reputation of, as gentleman, vi. 1 7, xi. 20 ; 
 his object in life, xi. 7, seqq. ; how he passes his day, 
 xi. 14, seqq. ; his father's character, xx. 22, seqq. ; — his 
 
INDEX. 137 
 
 wife, vii. 3, seqq. ; married at fifteen, ib. 5 ; strictly brought 
 up, ib. ; taught by her husband, vii. 9, seqq., viii., ix., x. 
 
 Justice, taught men by the Earth, v. 12. 
 
 KaXdr t€ naya06s, or ' gentleman,' vi. 2 (note). Slaves some- 
 times treated as, xiv. 9. 
 
 KeXevorqs, xxi. 3 (note). 
 
 Knowledge not property to the idle, i. 16 ; without carefulness 
 will not ensure success, xx. 2, seqq. 
 
 L, the letter, or r virnov, xix. 9. 
 
 Law, sanction of divine ordering by, vii. 30. 
 
 Afirovpyla, or ' liturgy,' ii. 6 (note). 
 
 Lead, use of white, as a pigment, x. 2. 
 
 Loss, defined, i. 7. 
 
 Lovers cannot learn carefulness, xii. 13. 
 
 Loyalty of servant to master, how created, ix. 12 ; xii. 16. 
 
 Lycabettus, xix. 6. 
 
 Lysander and Cyrus, iv. 20. 
 
 Man and woman, God's design in uniting, vii. 18 ; man the 
 bolder, and why, vii. 25 ; his strength, ib. 23, 28 ; has the 
 same opportunities for self-restraint as woman, ib. 39 ; his 
 work, ib. 22, seqq., 30. (See s.v. Husband.) 
 
 Management of men necessary to stewards, xiii. 3 ; how 
 learnt, ib. ; 10, 11; xxi. 2, seqq. 
 
 Manure, xvi. 12 ; xviii. 2. 
 
 Masters' influence over servants, xii. 17, seqq., xxi. 10 ; the 
 ' master's eye,' xii. 20. 
 
 Mechanical arts, iv. 2. 
 
 Megara, iv. 20. 
 
 Methodical habits, xi. 13, seqq. 
 
 Milton's ' Comus ' quoted, v. 4. 
 
 Mina, value of a, ii. 3. 
 
 Mistresses, the deceiving, — the passions so called, i. 20. 
 
 Money not always property, i. 13, 14. 
 
I3 8 INDEX. 
 
 Nature, teaching of, xix. 17. 
 Nicias 'the foreigner,' xi. 4. 
 Nofj.o(pv\aK(s, ix. 14 (note). 
 
 Obedience, value of, xxi. 5, 10. 
 
 OiKovofiia, oIkovo(hk6s, i. I (note). 
 
 Olives, planting of, xix. 13, seqq. 
 
 Order, use of, iii. 3, viii. 10, seqq. ; beauty of, viii. 3, seqq. ; a 
 
 characteristic of the Greek ideal, viii. 19 (note). 
 Ordering of the world by Heaven, vii. 18, seqq. 
 
 Parable of Ten Talents, iv. 7 (note). 
 
 Paradise, iv. 13. 
 
 Partners in business, vi. 3. 
 
 Passions, restraint of, i. 19, seqq. ; vii. 6. 
 
 Pericles, his connection with Aspasia, iii. 14 (note). 
 
 Persia, king of, his interest in agriculture and war, iv. 4, 
 
 seqq. ; his paradises, iv. 13 ; laws of, xiv. 6 ; a king of 
 
 Persia's horse, xii. 20; military affairs of Persia, iv. 5, 
 
 seqq. 
 Philosopher's interest in agriculture, xvi. 19. 
 Phoenician vessel, viii. n, seqq.; pilot of, ib. 14. 
 Physicians, similes from, xiii. 2, xv. 7. 
 Pilot of Phoenician vessel, viii. 14. 
 Pindar, his story of Tantalus, xxi. 12 (note). 
 Pits for planting vines, xix. 3, seqq. ; for olive-planting, ib. 13, 
 Planting of vines, xix. 1, seqq. ; fig trees, ib. 12 ; olives, ib. 13. 
 
 seqq. 
 Plato'S Apology quoted, xi. 3 (note) ; his Laws referred to, 
 
 ix. 8 (note) ; his Republic referred to, vi. 8 (note). 
 Pleading in law-courts, xi. 23, seqq. ; special, ib. 25. 
 Pleasure, final pain of wrongful, i. 20. 
 Ploughing, season for, xvi. 11, seqq. 
 Plutarch's ' Pericles ' quoted, vi. 8 (note). 
 Potsherd used in olive planting, xix. 14. 
 
INDEX. 139 
 
 Poverty of Socrates, xi. 3 ; not incompatible with goodness, 
 
 xi. 5 ; of Critobulus, ii. 2. 
 Prayer in all undertakings, v. 20 ; subjects for, xi. 8. 
 Property defined, i. 7, seqq. 
 Proverbs quoted, xi. 25. 
 Public speaking, exercise in, xi. 23. 
 Puppies, their training, xiii. 8. 
 
 Queen bee, vii. 32. 
 
 Rains, winter, xvii. 12. 
 
 Rank, its duties, xi. 10. 
 
 Reaping, xviii. 1, seqq. 
 
 Recapitulation of conclusions about agriculture, vi. 4, seqq. 
 
 Riches, the advantage of, xi. 9. 
 
 Rising, Ischomachus' hour of, xi. 14. 
 
 Rulers, 'the invisible,' — -passions so called, i. 18. 
 
 Sardis, paradises of Cyrus (the younger) at, iv. 20. 
 
 Secrecy of craftsmen about their processes, xv. 11. 
 
 Servants, their share in their masters' property, ix. 16 ; how 
 made loyal, ix. 12, xii. 6 ; effect on, of their masters, 
 example, xii. 18 ; of having children, ix. 5. (See also s.v. 
 Slaves.) 
 
 Shelter, necessary to man, vii. 20, seqq. 
 
 Shoes, high-heeled, x. 2. 
 
 Sicilian Sea, xx. 27. 
 
 Slaves (see also s.v. Servants), effect of restraint and liberty 
 upon, iii. 4 ; have need of fair hopes, v. 16 ; treatment 
 suitable to, xiii. 9 ; sometimes treated as gentlemen, xiv. 
 9 ; of passion, i. 22. 
 
 Sluggards cannot learn carefulness, xii. 12. 
 
 Socrates, charge against, xi. 3 (note) ; his search for a true 
 gentleman, vi. 13, seqq. ; how he learnt economy; ii. 17, 
 18 ; rich, and why, ii. 2 — 4, 8 ; story of him and the horse 
 of Nicias, xi. 4. 
 
HO INDEX. 
 
 Soil, various kinds of, xvi. i, seqq., xvii: 8 ; how to learn, xvi. 
 
 3 ; for planting, xix. 6. 
 Solon, laws of, xiv. 4. 
 
 Sophocles' 'Ajax' referred to, vii. 12 (note). 
 Sowing, time for, xvii. 1, seqq. ; manner of, ii. 7, seqq. 
 Stakes used in planting olives, xix. 13. 
 Steward, duties of, xii. 3, seqq. ; xiii., xiv. 
 SrXeyyis, or strigil, its use, xi. 18 (note). 
 Story of king of Persia and his horse, xii. 20 ; of Cyrus and 
 
 Lysander, iv. 20 ; of Socrates and the horse of Nicias, 
 
 xi. 4. 
 Straw, xviii. 2. 
 Success, and failure, causes of, ii. 17, 18 ; xx. 1, seqq. ; sense 
 
 of duty essential to, xi. 8. 
 Sun's influence on soil, xvi. 14. 
 Surplus should be kept in hand, ii. 10. 
 
 Tantalus, xxi. 12 (note). 
 
 Threshing, xviii. 3 — 5. 
 
 Training of servants, xii. 3 ; of children, vii. 24. 
 
 Travellers, simile from, xx. 18. 
 
 Tpirjpapxla, ii. 6 (note). 
 
 Tyranny of evil .passions, i. 20. 
 
 Tyrants, the wretched state of, xxi. 12. 
 
 'Yypa (cai %qpa, v. 20 (note). 
 
 Vessel, the great Phoenician, viii. 11, seqq. 
 
 Vines, planting of, xix. 1, seqq. 
 
 Virgil, quoted, v. 4 (note) ; on bees, vii. 38 (note). 
 
 Virtue and beauty not always combined, vi. 15, seqq. 
 
 War, the benefits of, i. 15 ; and agriculture, v. 13. 
 Wealth, the advantage of, xi. 9; readily praised by all, xi. 11. 
 Weeds, how utilized, xvi. 12 ; choke the corn, xvii. 14. 
 White lead, used as a pigment, x. 2. 
 
INDKX. 141 
 
 Wife, a help or hindrance, iii. 10 ; taught by her husband, 
 iii. 11 ; regulates expenditure, ib. 15 ; duties of compared 
 to those of queen bee, vii. 32, seqq. ; stores under her 
 charge, ib. 36 ; tends her servants when sick, ib. 37 ; the 
 good wife held in increasing honour, ib. 42 ; is ' the 
 guardian of the laws ' (voficxpvXag) in her household, ix. 
 15 ; care of the good wife for her property, ix. 19. (See 
 also s.v. Woman) ; — wife of Critobulus, iii. 12 ; of Ischo- 
 machus, see s.v. 
 
 Winnowing, xviii. 6 — 9. 
 
 Winter rains, xvii. 12. 
 
 Woman and man, God's design in uniting, vii. 18 ; her- duties, 
 vii. 31, seqq. ; her work indoors, vii. 22, 30 ; weak, ib. 23 
 28 ; her love -of young children, ib. 24 ; her fearfulness 
 of heart, ib. 25 ; has the same powers of self-restraint 
 as man, ib. 27 ; teaches her servants and learns of them, 
 vii. 41. (See also s.v. Wife.) 
 
 Srjpd, v. 20 (note). 
 
 Zeuxis the painter, x. 1. 
 
 Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury.