The Economist

Such, Socrates, are the ills which cause a house to crumble far more than lack of scientific knowledge, however rude it be. (28) For if you will consider; on the one hand, there is a steady outflow (29) of expenses from the house, and, on the other, a lack of profitable works outside to meet expenses; need you longer wonder if the field-works create a deficit and not a surplus? In proof, however, that the man who can give the requisite heed, while straining every nerve in the pursuit of agriculture, has speedy (30) and effective means of making money, I may cite the instance of my father, who had practised what he preached. (31)

 (28) Cf.  Thuc.  v.  7; Plat.  "Rep."  350 A; "Theaet."  200 B.  (29) Or, "the expenses from the house are going on at the full rate,"     {enteleis}.  Holden cf.  Aristoph.  "Knights," 1367: {ton misthon     apodoso 'ntele}, "I'll have the arrears of seamen's wages paid to     a penny" (Frere).  (30) {anutikotaten}.  Cf.  "Hipparch," ii.  6.  (31) Or, "who merely taught me what he had himself carried out in     practice."   

Now, my father would never suffer me to purchase an estate already under cultivation, but if he chanced upon a plot of land which, owing to the neglect or incapacity of the owner, was neither tilled nor planted, (32) nothing would satisfy him but I must purchase it. He had a saying that estates already under cultivation cost a deal of money and allowed of no improvement; and where there is no prospect of improvement, more than half the pleasure to be got from the possession vanishes. The height of happiness was, he maintained, to see your purchase, be it dead chattel or live animal, (33) go on improving daily under your own eyes. (34) Now, nothing shows a larger increase (35) than a piece of land reclaimed from barren waste and bearing fruit a hundredfold. I can assure you, Socrates, many is the farm which my father and I made worth I do not know how many times more than its original value. And then, Socrates, this valuable invention (36) is so easy to learn that you who have but heard it know and understand it as well as I myself do, and can go away and teach it to another if you choose. Yet my father did not learn it of another, nor did he discover it by a painful mental process; (37) but, as he has often told me, through pure love of husbandry and fondness of toil, he would become enamoured of such a spot as I describe, (38) and then nothing would content him but he must own it, in order to have something to do, and at the same time, to derive pleasure along with profit from the purchase. For you must know, Socrates, of all Athenians I have ever heard of, my father, as it seems to me, had the greatest love for agricultural pursuits.

 (32) i.e.  out of cultivation, whether as corn land or for fruit trees,     viz.  olive, fig, vine, etc.   (33) Or, "be it a dead thing or a live pet."  Cf.  Plat.  "Theaet."  174     B; "Laws," 789 B, 790 D, 819 B; "C.  I."  1709.  (34) Cf.  "Horsem."  iii.  1; and see Cowley's Essay above referred to.  (35) Or, "is susceptible of greater improvement."  (36) Or, "discovery."  See "Anab."  III.  v.  12; "Hell."  IV.  v.  4;     "Hunting," xiii.  13.  (37) Or, "nor did he rack his brains to discover it."  See "Mem."  III.  v.  23.  Cf.  Aristoph.  "Clouds," 102, {merimnophrontistai}, minute     philosophers.  (38) "He could not see an estate of the sort described but he must     fall over head and ears in love with it at first sight; have it he     must."   

When I heard this, I could not resist asking a question; Ischomachus (I said), did your father retain possession of all the farms he put under cultivation, or did he part with them whenever he was offered a good price?

He parted with them, without a doubt (replied Ischomachus), but then at once he bought another in the place of what he sold, and in every case an untilled farm, in order to gratify his love for work.

As you describe him (I proceeded), your father must truly have been formed by nature with a passion for husbandry, not unlike that corn-hunger which merchants suffer from. You know their habits: by reason of this craving after corn, (39) whenever they hear that corn is to be got, they go sailing off to find it, even if they must cross the Aegean, or the Euxine, or the Sicilian seas. And when they have got as much as ever they can get, they will not let it out of their sight, but store it in the vessel on which they sail themselves, and off they go across the seas again. (40) Whenever they stand in need of money, they will not discharge their precious cargo, (41) at least not in haphazard fashion, wherever they may chance to be; but first they find out where corn is at the highest value, and where the inhabitants will set the greatest store by it, and there they take and deliver the dear article. Your father's fondness for agriculture seems to bear a certain family resemblance to this passion.

 (39) Lit.  "of their excessive love for corn."  (40) Lit.  "they carry it across the seas again, and that, too, after     having stored it in the hold of the very vessel in which they sail     themselves."  (41) Or, "their treasure."  {auton} throughout, which indeed is the     humour of the passage.  The love of John Barleycorn is their master     passion.   

To these remarks Ischomachus replied: You jest, Socrates; but still I hold to my belief: that man is fond of bricks and mortar who no sooner has built one house than he must needs sell it and proceed to build another.

To be sure, Ischomachus (I answered), and for my part I assure you, upon oath, I, Socrates, do verily and indeed believe (42) you that all men by nature love (or hold they ought to love) those things wherebysoever they believe they will be benefited.

 (32) Reading {e men pisteuein soi phusei (nomizein) philein tauta     pantas...}  ; and for the "belief" propounded with so much     humorous emphasis, see Adam Smith, "Moral Sentiments."  Hartman,     "An.  Xen."  180, cf.  Plat.  "Lysis."   

XXI

After a pause, I added: I am turning over in my mind how cleverly you have presented the whole argument to support your thesis: which was, that of all arts the art of husbandry is the easiest to learn. And now, as the result of all that has been stated, I am entirely persuaded that this is so.

Isch. Yes, Socrates, indeed it is. But I, on my side, must in turn admit that as regards that faculty which is common alike to every kind of conduct (tillage, or politics, the art of managing a house, or of conducting war), the power, namely, of command (1)—I do subscribe to your opinion, that on this score one set of people differ largely from another both in point of wit and judgement. On a ship of war, for instance, (2) the ship is on the high seas, and the crew must row whole days together to reach moorings. (3) Now note the difference. Here you may find a captain (4) able by dint of speech and conduct to whet the souls of those he leads, and sharpen them to voluntary toils; and there another so dull of wit and destitute of feeling that it will take his crew just twice the time to finish the same voyage. See them step on shore. The first ship's company are drenched in sweat; but listen, they are loud in praise of one another, the captain and his merry men alike. And the others? They are come at last; they have not turned a hair, the lazy fellows, but for all that they hate their officer and by him are hated.

 (1) See "Mem."  I.  i.  7.  (2) Or, "the crew must row the livelong day..."  (3) For an instance see "Hell."  VI.  ii.  27, Iphicrates' periplus.  (4) Or, "one set of boatswains."  See Thuc.  ii.  84.  For the duties of     the Keleustes see "Dict.  Gk.  Rom.  Ant."  s.  v.  portisculus; and for     the type of captain see "Hell."  V.  i.  3, Teleutias.   

Generals, too, will differ (he proceeded), the one sort from the other, in this very quality. Here you have a leader who, incapable of kindling a zest for toil and love of hairbreadth 'scapes, is apt to engender in his followers that base spirit which neither deigns nor chooses to obey, except under compulsion. They even pride and plume themselves, (5) the cowards, on their opposition to their leader; this same leader who, in the end, will make his men insensible to shame even in presence of most foul mishap. On the other hand, put at their head another stamp of general: one who is by right divine (6) a leader, good and brave, a man of scientific knowledge. Let him take over to his charge those malcontents, or others even of worse character, and he will have them presently ashamed of doing a disgraceful deed. "It is nobler to obey" will be their maxim. They will exult in personal obedience and in common toil, where toil is needed, cheerily performed. For just as an unurged zeal for voluntary service (7) may at times invade, we know, the breasts of private soldiers, so may like love of toil with emulous longing to achieve great deeds of valour under the eyes of their commander, be implanted in whole armies by good officers.

 (5) Lit.  "magnify themselves."  See "Ages."  x.  2; "Pol.  Lac."  viii.  2.  (6) Or, "god-like," "with something more than human in him."  See Hom.  "Il."  xxiv.  259: 

{oude eokei andros ge thnetou pais emmenai alla theoio.}

"Od." iv. 691; {theioi basilees}. Cf. Carlyle, "Heroes"; Plat. "Meno," 99 D: Soc. "And may we not, Meno, truly call those men divine who, having no understanding, yet succeed in many a grand deed and word?" And below: Soc. "And the women too, Meno, call good men divine; and the Spartans, when they praise a good man, say, 'that he is a divine man'" (Jowett). Arist. "Eth. N." vii. 1: "That virtue which transcends the human, and which is of an heroic or godlike type, such as Priam, in the poems of Homer, ascribes to Hector, when wishing to speak of his great goodness:

     Not woman-born seemed he, but sprung from gods."       

And below: "And exactly as it is a rare thing to find a man of godlike nature—to use the expression of the Spartans, 'a godlike man,' which they apply to those whom they expressively admire—so, too, brutality is a type of character rarely found among men" (Robert Williams).

 (7) Reading {etheloponia tis}, or if {philoponia}, transl.  "just as     some strange delight in labour may quicken in the heart of many an     individual soldier."  See "Anab."  IV.  vii.  11.   

Happy must that leader be whose followers are thus attached to him: beyond all others he will prove a stout and strong commander. And by strong, I mean, not one so hale of body as to tower above the stoutest of the soldiery themselves; no, nor him whose skill to hurl a javelin or shoot an arrow will outshine the skilfullest; nor yet that mounted on the fleetest charger it shall be his to bear the brunt of danger foremost amid the knightliest horsemen, the nimblest of light infantry. No, not these, but who is able to implant a firm persuasion in the minds of all his soldiers: follow him they must and will through fire, if need be, or into the jaws of death. (8)

 (8) Or, "through flood and fire or other desperate strait."  Cf.  "Anab."  II.  vi.  8.   

Lofty of soul and large of judgment (9) may he be designated justly, at whose back there steps a multitude stirred by his sole sentiment; not unreasonably may he be said to march "with a mighty arm," (10) to whose will a thousand willing hands are prompt to minister; a great man in every deed he is who can achieve great ends by resolution rather than brute force.

 (9) See "Ages."  ix.  6, "of how lofty a sentiment."  (10) See Herod.  vii.  20, 157; Thuc.  iii.  96.   

So, too, within the field of private industry, the person in authority, be it the bailiff, be it the overseer, (11) provided he is able to produce unflinching energy, intense and eager, for the work, belongs to those who haste to overtake good things (12) and reap great plenty. Should the master (he proceeded), being a man possessed of so much power, Socrates, to injure the bad workman and reward the zealous—should he suddenly appear, and should his appearance in the labour field produce no visible effect upon his workpeople, I cannot say I envy or admire him. But if the sight of him is followed by a stir of movement, if there come upon (13) each labourer fresh spirit, with mutual rivalry and keen ambition, drawing out the finest qualities of each, (14) of him I should say, Behold a man of kingly disposition. And this, if I mistake not, is the quality of greatest import in every operation which needs the instrumentality of man; but most of all, perhaps, in agriculture. Not that I would maintain that it is a thing to be lightly learnt by a glance of the eye, or hearsay fashion, as a tale that is told. Far from it, I assert that he who is to have this power has need of education; he must have at bottom a good natural disposition; and, what is greatest of all, he must be himself a god-like being. (15) For if I rightly understand this blessed gift, this faculty of command over willing followers, by no means is it, in its entirety, a merely human quality, but it is in part divine. It is a gift plainly given to those truly initiated (16) in the mystery of self-command. Whereas despotism over unwilling slaves, the heavenly ones give, as it seems to me, to those whom they deem worthy to live the life of Tantalus in Hades, of whom it is written (17) "he consumes unending days in apprehension of a second death."

 (11) According to Sturz, "Lex."  s.  v.  , the {epitropos} is (as a rule,     see "Mem."  II.  viii.)  a slave or freedman, the {epistates} a free     man.  See "Mem."  III.  v.  18.  (12) Apparently a homely formula, like "make hay whilst the sun     shines," "a stitch in time saves nine."  (13) Cf.  Hom.  "Il."  ix.  436, xvii.  625; "Hell."  VII.  i.  31.  (14) Reading {kratiste ousa}, or if with Heindorf, {kratisteusai},     transl.  "to prove himself the best."  (15) See "Cyrop."  I.  i.  3; Grote, "Plato," vol.  iii.  571.  (16) See Plat.  "Phaed."  69 C; Xen.  "Symp."  i.  10.  (17) Or, "it is said."  See Eur.  "Orest."  5, and Porson ad loc.