Hesiod, Farmers, <i>basilēes</i> and <i>polis</i>: a Reconsideration

Summary The article scrutinises the status of farmers addressed by Hesiod in his “Works and Days”, their relationship to polis , and the place of the society reflected in the poem in the general line of early Greek socio-political development. As Hesiod was not describing any particular farm but was advising an ‘ideal farmer’ it would be hopeless to establish the economic and social status of the poet by mechanically summarising everything concerning householding he mentions in his instructions. A critical reading of the poem shows that Hesiod represents neither ‘gentlemen farmers’ nearly equal to the basilēes , nor peasants indebted to and oppressed by them, but economically independent smallholders who formed a broad social stratum beneath the relatively modest elite, were in constant need to work hard to avoid poverty, but had the chance to acquire wealth and rise into the elite. Hesiod emphasised the farmers’ responsibility for the just order of their polis, addressing the admonishments for justice in polis to his brother presented as a failed farmer, thus showing the smallholders as rightful members of the political community. Such a society with shallow hierarchies, fluid status differences, and a feeling of common responsibility was, on the one hand, clearly different from the oppressive social conditions in Solonian Athens, while on the other hand anticipates the polis ideology expressed by Solon. The inclusionary attitude regarding the smallholders as responsible members of polis community was already established at Hesiod’s time, was threatened by the subsequent growth of social hierarchies and had to be legally confirmed, as exemplified by Solon.