Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

The Public Sphere 229
basis of the impact that the accused and the defendant had made
on them during the trial. Fourth, although the legal system was
intended to uphold the rule of law, in practice it continued to countenance,
if not actively encourage, the pursuit of a family vendetta.
This was particularly true in cases of homicide, because it was the
duty of the relatives of the murdered victim to take it upon themselves
to prosecute the killer. Many actions of lesser import are also
likely to have been motivated by revenge. In one trial, a prosecutor
admitted as much, confident that his transparency would not
count against him in the eyes of the jury.
WORK
Agriculture
Because of the importance attached to land ownership, the most
respected occupation was farming. Even in the late fifth century
b.c.e. , at least half the population of Athens was still engaged
in agriculture (see p. 46). The overwhelming majority of farmers
owned no more than two or three acres of land. Only a small
minority were wealthy landowners, whose estates occupied several
hundred acres. We learn most about farming from Hesiod,
whose Works and Days provides a vivid account of the agricultural
year. As the poet emphasizes, it was an extremely arduous occupation
even at the best of times, owing to the poor quality of the soil.
Although Hesiod is referring to Boiotia, this would have been true
of many parts of the Greek mainland, including Attica. The fact
that land had to be left fallow for a year after each season’s cultivation
in order not to exhaust its goodness made agriculture even
more laborious.
From the fifth century b.c.e. onward, crops were rotated and
manure was used. As a general rule, the cultivation of olives and
grapes, along with animal husbandry, was more profitable than
that of grain and vegetables. To economize on space, vines, planted
in rows, were interspersed with vegetables and fruit trees. Plowing
took place twice a year, in spring and in autumn. Wooden plows,
sometimes tipped with iron, were pulled by teams of oxen. Behind
them walked the farmer (or one of his slaves), breaking up the clods
with a hoe and covering the seeds with earth. In the harvest season
all available hands gathered in the ripe grain. The grain was
threshed on a stone threshing floor by driving oxen around in a
circle to separate the wheat from the chaff. Each agricultural procedure
was accompanied by religious ceremonies to ensure the favor