Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction

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作者：Signe Isager, Jens Erik Skydsgaard
文件大小：4.29MB
文件类型：文字PDF
语言：英语
出版：Routledge，1995年
页数：244
书签：有

内容简介：
Ancient agriculture was first systematically discussed by a competent array of (largely French) scholars at the turn of the century, but their excellent discoveries did not always find their way into the general histories of Greece unfortunate when at nearly every polis 75-90 percent of the citizenry farmed. However, the renewed work of Amouretti, Foxhall, Forbes, Gallant, Halstead, Hodkinson, Jameson, Osborne, and Sallares has drawn on recent field surveys in Greece, reexamination of leases and calendars, and systematic use of the TLG to illustrate Greek country life. Because many of these rural historians had profound knowledge of anthropology and natural sciences, the critical role of Greek agriculture in Greek life and thought was finally appreciated, as many of the institutions of the polis (inheritance laws, constitutions, political strife, slavery, warfare, and religion) were at last seen in their proper agrarian role. Together with the recent compendium published by Berit Wells (Agriculture in Ancient Greece, Stockholm 1992), there appear now our first comprehensive summaries of this recent work.

This book is well researched, competent, and extremely useful. The books covers differing aspects of agricultural technique (e.g., animal husbandry, viticulture, arboriculture, cereals), issues of land tenure, public/private ownership of territory, and the role of agriculture in the festive and religious life of the entire citizenry of the polis. Although the social and cultural issues are of interest, questions of agronomy and agriculture per se are discussed in more detail by Isager and Skydsgaard. The authors advance no novel interpretation about either agriculture in particular or Greek history in general; they instead provide a sober and judicious summary of recent research, much of it little known and difficult to access, and omit little if any major evidence, be it archaeological, epigraphic, or literary.

The Danish authors compensate for their occasional dryness and added cost with 45 photographs and drawings, short, well-titled subsections, and a longer bibliography. Plentiful statistical data and concordance of ancient passages cited make their book the more valuable reference tool.

I end with a question, not a criticism of the book. The authors seem to see a static agricultural practice from Mycenean times through the Hellenistic world, with no real agrarian renaissance at the dawn of the polis, no dynamism inherent in Greek agriculture, no constant struggle to improve farming technique and increase production. But if it is agreed that (1) the vast majority of the ancient Greeks were always rural and drew their living from the soil, and (2) the eighth-century BC rise of the polis was essentially a new social and political phenomenon in the Greek-speaking world, essentially unseen in either Mycenean or Dark-Age times, then (3) should not the city-states be reflections of fundamental changes in the way the Greeks grew food and held property? Otherwise neither (1) nor (2) can be an accurate generalization, and we must confess either that the Greeks were not a rural people or that their polis was not novel.

It can be argued that private ownership of land, land-holding egalitarianism, intensive technique, diversified farming of improved domesticated species of trees and vines, greater use of adult male slaves, abstract interest in plant nutrition and pathology, homestead residence, and on-the-farm storage and processing all became known or at least more common between 700 and 300, rarer before (and often after) the autonomous city-state. Moreover, these practices were roughly contemporaneous with the existence of hoplite warfare, constitutional government, a broad class of yeoman mesoi, Panhellenism, and the life of the free city-state itself. Surely there is a connection? In any case, the three authors have accomplished a very difficult task, with good sense, sound judgment, and scholarly integrity. Purchase both accounts, and seek to understand that the Greeks really were a rural, agrarian people, not a sophisticated urban elite.

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