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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Works and Days . . . possibly off topic

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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Works and Days . . . possibly off topic
  • Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 21:34:57 -0600


Very interesting actually, and on topic.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 6/3/2007 at 9:38 PM Norma Sutton wrote:

>I don't know whether this is pertainate to the Living on the Land group,
>but
>thought you might want to take a look at it. I thought it sort of
>paralleled some of the things that we have been discussing.
>
>Norma
> From the Bookshelf: Foreign trade and the local economy in Hesiod's
>*Works
>and
>Days*<http://montanaheadlines.blogspot.com/2007/06/from-bookshelf-foreign-t
rade-and-local.html>
>
><http://bp1.blogger.com/_SKNEd0OeKZw/RjP1RKYIVOI/AAAAAAAAAB8/JDL_LIKLERQ/s1
600-h/bookshelf+white+background.gif>
>
>
>Works and Days
>By Hesiod
>
>*Works and Days *is an intensely local work. As Victor David Hanson
pointed
>out in The Other Greeks, a work touched on in the last Montana Headlines
>post on
>Hesiod<http://montanaheadlines.blogspot.com/2007/05/from-bookshelf-hesiod-a
nd-early-greek.html>,
>the 8th c. B.C. saw the rising of a type of an agricultural model which if
>not completely new, was at least unusual.
>
>Agriculture, in Hanson's portrayal, had tended to be either the work of
>peasants engaged in subsistence farming or of what we would now call
>agribusiness -- large-scale estates run by wealthy absentee landowners.
The
>world that Hesiod portrays (and that his contemporary, Homer, touched on
in
>his approving mention of the nobleman Laertes working the soil on his
hands
>and knees) is rather one of "middling" farmers who own their own land and
>work it with a hope of creating a modicum of wealth.
>
>Wealth does not, of course, come from merely working to raise enough food
>to
>eat -- that is subsistence farming. The farmers of this era were engaged
in
>producing excess to sell to the growing towns and cities. Those towns and
>cities created a demand for a reliable and increasing source of food, and
>the efficiencies created by what was simple free enterprise -- men of some
>talent and ambition choosing to toil tirelessly with their own hands --
>provided that reliable
>source.<http://bp1.blogger.com/_SKNEd0OeKZw/RljpkOCjSuI/AAAAAAAAADE/5QErKOY
ibgQ/s1600-h/Works+and+Days.jpg>
>
>Hanson contends that this class of middle-class farmers, engaged
>overwhelmingly in meeting the direct needs of their city-state, were the
>source of much of Greece's rising wealth and power.
>
>So it should come as no surprise that Hesiod's exhortations cast a wary
eye
>on excessive attention to foreign trade, whether as a source of supply or
>of
>creating wealth:
>
>The earth supports them lavishly; and on the hills
>The oak bears acorns for them at the top
>And honey-bees below; their woolly sheep
>Bear heavy fleeces, and the their wives bear sons
>Just like their fathers. Since they always thrive,
>They have no need to go on ships, because
>The plenty-bringing land gives them her fruit.
>
>........
>
>Add to your stores, and Famine, burning-eyed,
>Will stay away. Even if your supply
>Is small, and if you add a little bit,
>And do it often, soon it will be big.
>Less worry comes from having wealth at home;
>Business abroad is always insecure.
>
>
>Hesiod certainly sees a place for such trade -- and the Greeks were never
>afraid of being men in ships, plying the seas. But again, there is a time
>and place for it in Hesiod:
>
>...keep in mind that all works have
>Their proper seasons: sailing, most of all.
>
>If you should turn your foolish mind to trade,
>Longing to flee from debts and painful want,,
>I'll teach the measures of the sounding sea...
>
>
>And although Hesiod, ever the entrepreneur, advises that one should
"admire
>small ships, but put your cargo in a big one, for a larger cargo brings a
>larger profit, if the storms hold off," he also makes clear that wisdom
>dictates that wise trade should involve the true excesses of a land's
>production:
>
>I ask, consider what I say: Do not
>Put all your fortune into hollow ships,
>Leave most of it behind, and load on board
>A smaller share, for it is terrible
>To meet catastrophe among the waves
>At sea, and terrible to load too great
>A weight upon your wagon, and to break
>An axle, and have all your cargo lost.
>Preserve a sense of right proportion, for
>Fitness is all-important, in all things.
>
>
>
>
> montanaheadlines@gmail.com
>







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