Oikonomia: Ancient Greek Philosophers on the Meaning of Economic Life 9780226827353, 0226827356

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
Part I. Oikonomia as Knowledge
1. Oikonomia versus Economics
2. What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?
Part II. Organizing Human Beings
3. Marriage, Household, and Community
4. Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos
Part III. Putting Things in Their Place
5. Acquisition and Wealth
6. Preservation and Balance
7. Self-Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index locorum
General Index

Citation preview

Oi konom i a

Oikonomi a Ancient Greek Philosophers on the Meaning of Economic Life

•

Étienne Helmer T r a n s l a t e d b y Dav i d A . Au e r b a c h The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2024 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2024 Printed in the United States of America 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24   1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-­13: 978-­0-­226-­82734-­6 (cloth) ISBN-­13: 978-­0-­226-­82735-­3 (e-­book) DOI: https://​doi​.org/​10​.7208/​chicago/​9780226827353​.001​.0001 Originally published as Oikonomia. Philosophie grecque de l’économie © 2021. Classiques Garnier, Paris. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Helmer, Étienne, author. | Auerbach, David (David Andrew), translator. Title: Oikonomia : ancient Greek philosophers on the meaning of economic life / Étienne Helmer ; translated by David A. Auerbach. Other titles: Oikonomia. English Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023038994 | ISBN 9780226827346 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226827353 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Economics—Greece—Philosophy. | Economics—Philosophy. | Philosophy, Ancient. Classification: LCC HB108.A2 H4513 2021 | DDC 330.15/12—dc23/eng/20230922 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023038994 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-­1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Contents

Introduction  1 Pa rt I   Oikonomia as Knowledge  9

1 · Oikonomia versus Economics  11 2 · What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  28

◉

Pa rt II  Organizing Human Beings  51

3 · Marriage, Household, and Community  55 4 · Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  76

◉

Pa rt III  Putting Things in Their Place  95

5 · Acquisition and Wealth  97 6 · Preservation and Balance  120 7 · Self-­Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use  138 Conclusion  153 Acknow led gments  155 Note s  157 R efer ence s  167 Inde x lo corum  179 Gener a l Inde x  185

Introduction

When we think of classical Greece, we do not usually think of economics. The major themes we usually associate with this period are the city or polis, politics, democracy, and education, and it is to seek ancient answers to contemporary questions about these topics that we draw from Greek sources time and again. But few would think of turning to these texts—­written about an economy quite unlike our own (one that was based, among other things, on enslavement)—­to gain an understanding of economic modernity, let alone the very concept of economy. Quite reasonably, most would look to modern times, when political economy and the “science” of economics arose simultaneously. In this book, however, I ask a different question: What if, among the many subjects for which we seek their guidance, the Greeks had something to teach us about economics? And what if their understanding of economics and “the economy” were radically different from our own? After all, as one scholar notes, economics as a topic is “omnipresent among Greek authors of the archaic and classical period.”1 The question is: Which authors, and in which texts? Economics first appears in what we understand to be the inauguration of Greece as a universe of meaning, namely, in archaic and classical poetry. It occupies an important and often central place in this context, and for a long time it shaped the representation of practices, realities, and attitudes on the matter. This is evident in Hesiod’s Works and Days, one of the few fully preserved ancient texts “the main object of which is of an economic nature, whatever definition may be adopted.”2 This is also the case with Homer’s Odyssey, about which a recent study has argued that it could be read as a treatise on political

2  Introduction

economy aimed at replacing the archaic practices of plunder and the spoils of war with the recognition of agricultural work, task sharing, and generalized exchange. Similarly, certain passages of Theognis’s Elegies contain scattered but recurring reflections of an economic nature.3 A similar ­observation can be made about historians, too, and especially Thucydides, whose masterpiece, History of the Peloponnesian War, would anticipate certain features of what is now referred to as behavioral economics.4 However, it is neither the poets nor the historians who will hold our attention but the philosophers. The reason for this is simple yet of crucial importance: It is philosophers who have been reproached, from a modern perspective, for not having theorized economics, for leaving such an important aspect of reality in the shadows, for not having formulated an adequate concept of it. While this last criticism has some validity, it is also—­as we will see—­partly unfounded. By starting from the presupposition that modern science, with its analytical aims, has (and must have) a monopoly over legitimate discourse on economics, modern readers have prevented themselves from recognizing the specific nature of ancient Greek reflection on the topic. My argument in this book is that there is a corpus of Greek theoretical reflection on the subject of economics, the rationality of which is not scientific but philosophical and that, for this reason, has either gone unnoticed or has not been appreciated for its true value. A careful examination of the passages devoted to economic questions among classical Greek and Hellenistic philosophers—­mainly Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Pseudo-­Aristotle, Epicurus and Philodemus of Gadara, Diogenes the Cynic and some of his disciples, as well as fragments of the Pythagoreans Callicratidas and Bryson—­reveals a body of thought that has long remained invisible and that presents an alternative way of thinking about economics: a Greek philosophy of economics. I intend to examine this philosophy by retracing the major questions that guided these thinkers’ reflections and the main concepts that they formulated in the course of their writing, focusing on oikonomia or domestic and civic economic administration.5 A few words of caution are necessary. First, the use of the singular “Greek philosophy,” as opposed to the plurality of philosophical schools, does not mean that I will ignore the at times great differences between the reflections of authors from distinct philosophical schools

Introduction 3

or currents. It only indicates that all these thinkers engage with analogous or closely related questions and concepts concerning oikonomia, variations notwithstanding, a fact that one can interpret as a sign that these concepts and questions were being debated within a broadly defined theoretical framework. So defined, in fact, that the basic structure of different authors’ thinking on the topic remains relatively stable over the course of a few centuries, roughly from the fourth century BCE to the first century CE, though again, it is far from monolithic, as we will see. Finally, the decision not to include the pre-­Socratics and the Stoics is due to the fact that their concerns regarding oikonomia—­insofar as the surviving texts allow us to reach a conclusion—­do not make a great contribution to the topic that interests us here. For example, there is a fragment of Democritus that certainly indicates the close link between domestic order and happiness (Diels–­Kranz 68B140),6 and it is true that the economic treatise by the Stoic Hierocles examines the subject of marriage and the distribution of tasks between spouses. Yet neither of these authors reflects at any length on the acquisition, conservation, or the use of goods, which are central topics in the texts that concern us.7 As for the Sophists, they “seem to have actively contributed to the appearance of oikonomia”8—­consider Protagoras, for example, who promised to teach his readers how to deliberate “in affairs private as well as public [. . .] to order one’s own house in the best manner.”9 But because of lack of detailed testimony, it is difficult to say more about the effects of these teachings. And although the Anonymous of Iamblichus examines the link between the value of money and its circulation, he does not say much about specific practices relating to domestic or civic economic administration.10 Let’s begin by posing an essential question: What do we mean by economics when we speak of these texts? And if the Greeks did not have a concept of economics because at the time the institution of a financial market as we understand it did not exist,11 is it still possible to write a book about what ancient Greek philosophers thought of the topic? By seeking to locate or pinpoint the economics in oikonomia, is there a risk of forcing etymology to bear the burden of an illusory continuity between the Greek world and the modern one?12 Instead of the older position that on the basis of such objections concedes the existence of economic activities among the ancient Greeks while at

4  Introduction

the same time minimizing their importance or, more precisely, denying them any genuinely economic significance, recent historians have proposed a more qualified account based on epigraphic evidence and archaeological remains. They argue that whether or not the ancient Greeks had an understanding of the market, they nonetheless engaged in complex and diverse economic activities.13 And although it is through the prism of the categories of modern and contemporary political economy that these scholars have sought to understand the ancient  Greeks’  ­economic activities—­for example, by projecting back onto them the categories of production, distribution, and consumption14—­their work has made it possible to wrest the Greeks from the state of economic “innocence” many had ascribed to them until recently. However, this renewed approach to the Greek historical economic realities has not been paralleled regarding the ancient theoretical thinking about economics, especially in the ancient Greek context. No book has comprehensively examined how classical or Hellenistic philosophers approached this realm of reality, what questions they raised about it, or what concepts they developed to understand it. And for good reason. To analyze such a subject in the light of modern categories, instead of understanding it on its own terms, would lead to inevitable misunderstandings, not least of which that the Greeks had no concept of economics. This is, strictly speaking, because the Greeks did not “produce,” “consume,” or “distribute”: They “acquired,” “conserved,” and “made use of ”—­practices that can only be understood if one has first overcome the illusion that our modern categories of economics are the only valid ones. On the basis of this persistent misunderstanding, we have perpetuated the myth that the Greeks were disinterested in economic thinking, that they were purely political beings (homines politici). The most notable example of this misunderstanding, extended to the whole of Greek civilization, appears in Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition: Neither labor nor work was considered to possess sufficient dignity to constitute a bios at all, an autonomous and authentically human way of life; since they served and produced what was necessary and useful,  they could not be free, independent of human needs and wants. [. . .]

Introduction 5

Natural community in the household therefore was born of necessity, and necessity ruled over all activities performed in it. The realm of the polis, on the contrary, was the sphere of freedom. [. . .] The “good life,” as Aristotle called the life of the citizen, therefore was not merely better, more carefree or nobler than ordinary life, but of an altogether different quality. It was “good” to the extent that by having mastered the necessities of sheer life, by being freed from labor and work, and by overcoming the innate urge of all living creatures for their own survival, it was no longer bound to the biological life process.15

What this quote implies is a strict division between, on the one hand, being subjugated by the biological and the “economic” (which is barely mentioned) and, on the other, being free through one’s participation in politics, the reign of values and freedom. One could not better contribute to the myth of the nonexistence or infancy of economic thought among the Greeks than by relegating it to the netherworld of enslaving vital necessities. To undo this obfuscating division and restore a sense of richness to Greek philosophical reflection on economics, it is necessary first to entertain the possibility of an alternative way of thinking about economics than the one in which we currently engage, an alternative endowed with its own unique language, questions, and concepts. But how can one be certain that the object of such a study would be economics and not something else? The difficulty of defining our subject is twofold: One must begin from a sense of economics broad enough to include the Greeks, so that they can be appropriately situated and so that the analysis is a legitimate one, and then one must follow the path of a more specific meaning to do justice to the singularity of the Greek philosophers’ approach to the subject, avoiding the biases that we just mentioned. How do we achieve this? Regarding the first point, considering economic knowledge as the study of the nature and meaning of the collective human practices aimed at the satisfaction of their needs offers a sufficiently broad definition to embrace different modalities of this knowledge as well as a broad variety of practices and meanings for those modalities. As for pinpointing the specificity of Greek economic knowledge, we begin with Karl Polanyi’s reflections in his posthumously published work The Livelihood of Man.16 According to Polanyi, the concept of economics

6  Introduction

is not limited to its formal meaning, that is, to the calculated relations between a specific objective, the satisfaction of human appetites, and the means available to achieve that objective. Based on the “dogmatic assertion” of scarcity—­an assertion both historically constructed by as well as constructed for the institution of the market and that has become a nearly universally held credo—­this formal meaning posits the discrepancy between the limited character of supply on the one hand and the unlimited nature of needs, demands, and desires on the other, leading to individual and collective calculation of the optimization of earnings.17 Alongside this definition of economics, which goes hand in hand with the idea that there is only scientific knowledge of economics, there is another definition that is called substantive, which, Polanyi writes, “points to the elemental fact that human beings, like all other living things, cannot exist for any length of time without a physical environment that sustains them; this is the origin of the substantive definition of economic.”18 Man is envisioned as “an entity arising of nature, dependent for its existence on the favor of environmental conditions.”19 This substantive understanding of economics, detached from the idea of scarcity, escapes the grip of formal categories indexed to the idea of maximization of gain. It thus makes it possible to approach Greek philosophical reflection on its own terms. The authors that we will examine see in economics the problematic site of the social articulation of necessity and freedom, nature and convention, the starting (and, in part, determining) point of the complex inscription of humankind within ethical and political relationships, and, for some thinkers, the closed totality of the cosmos itself. More precisely, the same concern runs through all these reflections: to what extent is economics a domain for the expression and potential realization of the Good? How can individuals and communities make their practices in this domain into a legitimate form of fulfillment, transcending vital necessity while at the same time fulfilling themselves in and through it? As we will see, far from the mere prescription of effective techniques, Greek thinking on economic practices and phenomena tends to view them as a specific art of individual and collective realization, a praxis that is indexed to a higher moral or political value. Greek economic knowledge is neither the only nor the highest art from this standpoint—­ethics and politics remain paramount for the Greeks—­but it is certainly the most surpris-

Introduction 7

ing and perhaps the most interesting because it is the one that most directly grapples with the element within us that can cause us to live to the detriment of the Good, namely, our appetites and all that they involve as they relate to ourselves and to others. This book, then, is not a historical study. In this sense it does not aspire to definitive conclusions about whether the Greeks of the classical and Hellenistic periods conceptualized something like a market, and it does not advance any claims about whether their economy shared or prefigured any of the features of modern capitalism. Similarly, the book does not venture into the historical economic mechanisms and institutions from which these thinkers may have drawn to power their thinking.20 Instead, by following the questions they raised and the concepts they forged in order to think about what we now designate economy and economics, we hope to clarify these notions, and we aim to depict the Greeks not only as homines politici (political beings) but also as homines oeconomici (economic beings) in their own sense of “economic,” which, as we see, departs radically from ours. A last point: we should acknowledge that the terms economy and economics as we use them—­which encompass the production, consumption, and exchange of goods as well as the study of the formation of value—­have no equivalent in Greek. Oikonomia, in the period that interests us, is concerned only with the administration of the household and sometimes that of the city or other civic entities, and there is no word or concept that subsumes all that might have to do with money or commercial activities. To speak of Greek economic knowledge is therefore to employ a convenient but inadequate term, to divide the study of practices in two in order to adhere as closely as possible to what seems to have been their own articulation of reality: Oikonomia, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the institutions and practices of commerce and money. As a result, this book is the first of two volumes. This volume deals with oikonomia, and the next, currently in progress, will be about the practices and institutions of commerce, the marketplace, and money in the writings of these same philosophers. The first part of this book is methodological. It outlines the reasons why ancient Greek theoretical reflection on economics was neglected for so long as well as the difficulties to be overcome and the paths to follow in order to gain an understanding of this topic and the matters most closely related to it. The following parts elaborate on this ground-

8  Introduction

work and present the philosophical questions and concepts developed by prominent Greek thinkers on the topic of the domestic economic space (and, at times, the civic economic space as well). In so doing, I attempt to restore what seems to me to be the general architecture of the thought of these philosophers on the subject, variations notwithstanding. This requires a close examination of the human beings who make up this domestic economic space as well as the material aspects and practices that lie at the heart of the activities that form oikonomia.

Pa rt I

Oikonomia as Knowledge

Taking ancient economic thinking seriously as economics and, more specifically, oikonomia as the science of administering the oikos or city is tantamount to resuscitating a phantom by understanding how that phantom was stripped of its attributes to the point of being made unrecognizable, like the heroes of the Underworld, who have become a shadow of themselves in Greek poetry. The next two chapters deal with the nature of this occult knowledge. The first chapter examines how it was ostracized from the field of legitimate science because it does not conform to a certain idea of economic science, and it proposes to find its true nature and meaning behind the curtain of modern misinterpretations. The second chapter examines the disputes among Greek philosophers regarding oikonomia and its epistemological status.

◉ 1 ◉ Oikonomia versus Economics

The status of the sciences can be unequal even when their objects of study are similar. Whereas the study of ancient economic realities constitutes a fertile field of research—­nourished by ongoing archaeological discoveries and approaches that have been renewed over the past thirty years or so with respect to the material aspects of economic activities or the domestic role of women, for example1—­this has not been the case with ancient economic thought, and especially not Greek economic thought. In this regard one scholar notes, “it is as if the fact that the Greeks did not know our modern concept of economy were sufficient reason to neglect what they have to tell us in this area.”2 This observation was first made in the 1990s, and nothing seems to have changed since. Although some monographs have been devoted to Aristotle, Xenophon, and to a lesser extent Plato and Philodemus of Gadara,3 most of the introductory books on the topic of ancient economic thought, whether they are general histories or more specific studies devoted to the ancient world, limit themselves to summarizing the ideas of certain thinkers or schools of thought regarding economics.4 They typically follow the same basic expository model, addressing similar sets of authors and texts. Barring recent exceptions,5 no study has offered a comprehensive approach to what economics might have actually meant in the Greek world. How does one explain this? The study of ancient Greek economic thought has come up against epistemological obstacles such that it has not been approached with renewed perspectives and approaches, unlike the historical study of economic phenomena. Two main reasons explain this: a restrictive epistemological framework and an ill-­fitting

12  Chapter One

concept of economics. An analysis of these issues will enable us to find our way around the so far invisible continent of the ancient Greek economic thought.

Ancien t Econom ic Th o u gh t ­U ndervalued and Mi sjud ge d The economic thinking of the Greeks has not always been undervalued. Their writing on the topic of agriculture, for example—­such as one finds in parts of the Works and Days or, in a more developed sense, in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus—­sparked vigorous interest in fifteenth-­ century and sixteenth-­century Europe, as can be seen in the many translations and reprints of this latter work and by the texts it inspired in that period, Leon Battista Alberti’s De Familia being arguably the most famous example.6 However, with the gradual emergence of capitalism, the epistemological frame of reference—­that is, the set of concepts, methods, and analytical tools defining the criteria for approaching economic realities—­underwent profound transformations. There took place, to use the philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis’s expression, a change in the “social imaginary”—­the original mechanism by which a society establishes itself by giving “a particular orientation not only to its institutional system and its specific practices, but also to its symbolic networks.”7 Indeed, with the emergence of capitalism, economic [i.e., scientific] analysis developed [. . .] both as a theoretical corpus and as a science of limited resources, with an objective inherited from political economy of producing means of acting upon men and upon social relations in keeping with the general interest, which was interpreted as the natural equilibrium of society—­and in congruence with the interests of the dominant groups. The Neoclassical rift was then constructed on the model of the natural sciences [. . .], of mechanical physics in a nomological claim to axiological neutrality and to an ahistorical and apolitical universalism.8

The sharing of all knowledge between “those who [were deemed] legitimate and the others”9—­i.e., those who became estranged from the epistemological model instituted in and by this new social

Oikonomia versus Economics 13

imaginary—­was reconfigured, with the latter then losing all their theoretical relevance.10 This is what occurred with the ancient science of economics. The most explicit formulation of this epistemological redistribution of economic knowledge is undoubtedly due to Joseph A. Schumpeter. The border he traced in his two works Economic Doctrine and Method: An Historical Sketch and History of Economic Analysis lies between, on the one hand, economic thought—­a simple collection of empirical observations—­and, on the other, economic analysis in the sense of reasoned and analytical reflection oriented toward knowledge and resulting in statements that go beyond mere common sense.11 The division is simple. For the Greeks, there was economic thought, and for modernity, there is the so-­called science of economics, especially since, according to Schumpeter, “the Greek philosopher was essentially a political philosopher,”12 little interested, according to the author, in economic questions. This, then, is a variant of the Weberian division between the ancient homo politicus and the medieval and modern homo oeconomicus.13 By asserting that the Greeks produced only an “exceedingly poor and above all pre-­scientific”14 reflection on economic matters, Schumpeter does not mean that they foreshadowed modern economic science by confusingly anticipating its discoveries. He means, on the contrary, that their observations are outside the field of science and that they only derive from semi-­instinctive empirical knowledge. At most, he concedes to Aristotle an “analytical intention,” which he denies to Plato.15 The Greeks, as we can see, do not deserve to be dwelled on, at least in terms of the passages in which they devote their thinking to economic questions. This framework of analysis imposed itself to the point of becoming commonplace,16 which the classicist M. I. Finley radicalized both by denying the little that Schumpeter had conceded to Aristotle17 and by considering Xenophon’s Oeconomicus and texts of a similar nature to be mere works of ethics.18 According to Finley, “what [the Ancients] did not do was to combine all these specific commercial activities into an overarching sub-­system.”19 This conceptual defect attributed to antiquity in economic matters, taken up by others in similar terms,20 is, as we will see, completely correct: no term in Greek corresponds to economics as we understand it, and certainly not oikonomia.21 But can we deduce from this that the Greeks had not produced any valuable

14  Chapter One

theoretical reflection on the topic? Certainly not. It is this logical inconsistency, nourished by the prejudice that there can be no economic theory except for “scientific” economic theory and no concept of economy except for one existing within the framework of the market, that led to a veil of silence being cast over the Greeks. This story would be incomplete without acknowledging those who might accept a more qualified version of the Schumpeterian thesis regarding the naive or nonexistent character of economic thought in ancient Greece and those who are more clearly opposed to that thesis. The former point to the obvious interest exhibited by several ancient philosophical schools in economic subjects.22 The latter go even further: They argue that modern economic theories are rooted in ancient economic thought and are, to this day, influenced by it. A proponent of this position, S. Todd Lowry, writes the following: “The ancient Greeks developed many of the analytical formulations basic to modern economic theory [. . .]. The discipline of economics is heavily indebted to them.”23 This debt is so heavy, according to Lowry, that there is “no doubt that oikonomia was an early predecessor of political economy.”24 Whether these authors qualify Schumpeter’s theses or vigorously attack them, these two approaches are, however, more aligned with him than their authors might admit. They certainly attack his conclusions, but they do not question his basic division between economic science and economic thought. They, in fact, endorse it. In so doing they make themselves vulnerable to four objections shared with Schumpeter’s original theory. The first is epistemological in nature. Schumpeter and his opponents measure ancient theoretical thinking about economics against modern economic science instead of trying to understand it on its own epistemological terms. However, whether it is denied its scientificity or whether it is granted a germ of scientificity, the rationality of ancient theoretical economic reflection is not scientific but, as we will see, philosophical. The second defect common to these two positions pertains to their subject of study. They seek out modern economics even when it comes to considering oikonomia on its own terms, as they do with all that relates to commerce and money. For example, Lowry has been rightly criticized for presenting domestic and civic oikonomia in terms of the market.25 As unjustified as it might seem, such an anachronism none-

Oikonomia versus Economics 15

theless reveals an important difficulty: how to avoid the assumption that ancient economics does not differ from modern economics in nature but in degree26 without denying a potential connection—­the nature of which remains to be defined—­between ancient and modern economics? Is it even possible to avoid starting from the modern notion of economics when approaching that of the past even if one’s goal is to mark out their differences? These questions are decisive, as they determine what counts as an appropriate interpretation of ancient texts devoted to oikonomia, commerce, and money. The third defect is methodological. Schumpeter and his detractors both examine the different authors or ancient schools of thought that dealt with economic questions by emphasizing their differences rather than their similarities.27 The resulting theoretical fragmentation prevents us from according Classical and Hellenistic Greece a substantive and comprehensive theoretical interest in economic phenomena and questions, and it prevents us from identifying their overall coherence, which consists—­as we will see in the following chapters—­of several central questions and concepts even if the way of articulating them varies depending on the authors and the schools. This flawed approach has led to a limited view of the extension of the relevant corpus and an overly limited interpretation thereof even by those who set out to take the matter seriously. Finally, neither Schumpeter nor his critics question the Weberian opposition between ancient homo politicus and modern homo oeconomicus. Yet this opposition is responsible, at least in part, for today’s silence surrounding ancient theoretical thought on economics and for the biased perspective from which it historically has been considered. To see the ancient philosophers as principally or exclusively political philosophers in the manner of Schumpeter and others in his wake (up to and including Arendt) has made it impossible from the start to credit them with any kind of economic thought whatsoever, or at least little of note. This would also prevent us from understanding, as has been argued only recently, that the Greeks could be both homines oeconomici with regard to the oikos and homines politici vis-­à-­vis the polis.28 This is a conclusion to which we would add that, counterintuitively, they could also be homines oeconomici with regard to the polis and homines politici vis-­à-­vis the oikos. These four limitations indicate, by contrast, the methodological

16  Chapter One

framework required to unearth ancient theoretical thought on economics and to reveal it in all its richness.

A Philosophy of Econo m i c s To begin with, the ancient theoretical texts devoted to oikonomia and questions of economics were written either by philosophers or by writers who traveled in philosophical circles. That this readily observable fact has only rarely been taken into account is due to the boundaries that modern epistemological frameworks place on possible versions of rationality.29 Ancient thought about economics is not comparable to contemporary philosophy of economics—­which studies the conditions of rational choice within the framework of theories of action, institutions, and economic policies and the ontology of economic phenomena and how they come to be knowable by us 30—­nor is it comparable to the purported science of economics. It is philosophical in the sense that it elaborates, displaces, and reformulates the concepts and the fundamental questions by which humanity explores the nature of what exists, the meaning of humanity’s place within the universe, and what it means to live and act ethically. When it came to domestic economy and to the exploitation of the agricultural domain, these kinds of questions were certainly already at work in poetry. In the Odyssey, upon his return to Ithaca and confronted by the suitors who squander the resources of his oikos, covet Penelope, and dismiss Telemachus, Ulysses must reclaim his triple domestic role of husband, father, and administrator. Later, in Aristophanes’s The Frogs, Euripides declares that domestic affairs are one of the subjects of his plays, breaking with the tragic tradition of which Aeschylus was the guardian. Attentive to the democratic context of the city, Euripides gives voice to all members of the oikos regardless of gender and status (Ran. 947–­50). He thus claims to have foregrounded domestic affairs (οἰκεῖα πράγματ ̓ εἰσάγων, 960) to the degree that, thanks to him, his contemporaries are obliged to do a better job of tending to these affairs and care more about them (976–­79). Albeit in a comedic tone, Aristophanes echoes one of the subjects that so animated Athenian intellectual circles toward the end of the second half of the fifth century and the first half of the fourth century.

Oikonomia versus Economics 17

It was probably around that time, in fact, that oikonomia became a topic of theoretical discussion. The Sophists, as we have seen with Protagoras in Plato, certainly looked into the question. Were they the first to do so, and was Pericles’s role on this point decisive?31 Be that as it may, it is the texts of those we usually call philosophers that offer the most numerous and developed examples of an interest in economic subjects in general and oikonomia in particular. Thus, frequent demands that domestic affairs not be neglected would appear to demonstrate that economics was a concern of the philosopher or sage. For example, Xenophon’s Socrates, who appears to be quite interested in oikonomia,32 recommends to Nicomachides that he not “look down on men of business” (τῶν οἰκονομικῶν ἀνδρῶν), and he explains that the management of private concerns differs only in degree from that of public affairs (Mem. 3.4.12). Pseudo-­Aristotle recommends that the master of the house never leave his oikos unattended, which assumes that he is able to “rise even at night,” a practice that the author justifies in these terms: “This is in fact as beneficial to health as it is to oikonomia and philosophy” ([Oec.] 1345a16–­17). The master of the oikos is or should therefore be a philosopher, a term used here to designate the general capacity for reflection on the principles governing the different spheres of human activity.33 This remarkable reference to philosophy at the heart of advice that is otherwise practical comes from the idea that “the house should never remain without a guard [ἀφύλακτον], like the city” ([Oec.] 1345a14–­15). Whether or not this is an implicit reference to Plato’s Republic, where being the “guard of the city” is also the business of the philosophers, Pseudo-­Aristotle’s conviction is that philosophy begins in the oikos, thus with oikonomia, with making the world intelligible and practicable by making it stable and organized. The link between philosophy and oikonomia is even closer in the Epicurean thinker Philodemus of Gadara. In his treatise devoted to oikonomia, he explicitly limits the subject of his study “to the acquisition necessary for a philosopher, and not for simply anyone” (Vices 9.12.15–­17).34 Within the limits of the frugality that Epicurus defines as “wealth according to nature,”35 the art of acquisition and conservation in the oikos is compatible and profitable to achieve the sovereign Epicurean Good of pleasure regulated by prudence. So much so that oikonomia, despite all appearances, is regarded as a true philosophical practice: “One ought to dedicate some time to inspections, to giving

18  Chapter One

assistance to some [workers], and to preparing one’s account, without either feeling shame or believing that [by acting in that manner] one takes something away from philosophy” (Vices 9.26.9–­14).36 We also have a portrait of Diogenes the Cynic as a perfect domestic steward: Xeniades, who would make him his slave, “put into his hands [i.e., Diogenes] his entire household.” Diogenes organized everything, so Xeniades went everywhere saying: “A good spirit has entered my house.”37 The greatest coincidence between philosophy and economic activity, however, was articulated by the Stoics, according to whom only the wise man is a good oikonomos, since he alone is truly wealthy.38 In any event, as we can see, strong interest in the administration of the oikos is hardly foreign to Greek philosophy and philosophers. Are we justified, then, in using the expression “(Greek) philosophy of economics” without qualification? Various formulations seem equally valid: “economic epistemology,” “economic methodology,” and above all those of “Greek economic philosophy” or “Greek philosophical economics.” How is one to decide between them? The difficulty common to these expressions is that they are forged according to their modern usage; they are contemporary to the existence of an autonomous science of economics whose relation to philosophy raises specific hermeneutic and methodological issues. Each has its advantages and limitations,39 yet they are nonetheless dependent on the existence of this science, which was unknown to the ancient world. We cannot therefore use them in reference to antiquity without making this clarification: in these formulas, the words economic and economics do not refer to an autonomous science with economic phenomena and practices as its objects but rather to a set of practices and to the science that accompanies them as they are subjected to philosophical analysis. Given this, which expression should we choose? “Economic epistemology” and “economic methodology” must be discarded for two reasons. First, the second term of each of these formulas designates respectively a theory of scientific knowledge and the analysis of the theoretical tools of a given science. They can therefore only apply to knowledge relating to economics in a scientific sense. Second, they leave in the shadows the characteristically philosophical dimension of the authors and texts that are at the heart of our study. Three candidates remain. “Economic philosophy” offers the advantage of being faithful to the nature of the philosophical process, which

Oikonomia versus Economics 19

is to conduct a conceptual examination of the essence of a sector of reality and the phenomena pertaining to it. It is in this sense that Arnaud Berthoud uses it, in one of the rare works devoted, at least in part, to the question at hand: “The first theme of any economic philosophy is the economy itself. [. . .] The philosopher presupposes that under the multiple and transitory forms of human histories, there are universal forms or essences. The theme of all economic philosophy is the essence of economics.”40 However, this expression may also suggest that the philosophical approach in question consists of reflective work carried out by specialists in economics. Yet the reverse occurs in the sources that we will examine: philosophy remains there the most all-­encompassing and principled form of rationality. It is philosophy that reflects on economics, not the reverse. As for the expression “philosophical economy,” this tends to signify a kind of application or use of the results of philosophical thought to economic practices and activities. This is certainly what occurs in the advice that the philosopher—­for example Socrates in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus or, more theoretically, Pseudo-­Aristotle in the first book of his Oeconomicus—­gives to the heads of the oikoi. Yet this advice only forms the practical and derivative side of the object of theoretical study that concerns us, which relates to philosophical discourses about economic practices and phenomena, which the expression “philosophical economy” conceals. For all these reasons, “Greek philosophy of economy” would seem to be the most appropriate formula. In the absence of an autonomous economic science—­and given the idea that philosophy was, in antiquity, the guardian of rationality in the broadest sense of the term—­one can generalize about all Greek philosophical texts relating to economic activities and phenomena by applying the following words, written only about Aristotle: “A philosophy of economy could only be understood as an objective genitive, for economy therein is the object of a discourse that only philosophy is able to produce. Philosophy of economy is, from this standpoint, a philosophy about economy, a discourse defining the status and place of the latter.”41 That said, to assert the subordination of the economic sphere to a supreme form of rationality is not to deny its specificity. On the contrary, it is to signal, as we will see in detail, the meticulous attention the philosophers devote to its nature and the knowledge it involves as well as to the practices that consti-

20  Chapter One

tute it. It might arguably be more rigorous to use the plural expression “Greek philosophies of economy” given the variety of philosophical positions on the subject. Maintaining the singular, however, has the advantage of qualifying and singling out a particular way of thinking about economy. It remains to be seen what is meant by this last term, considering what gave rise to it.

Oikono mi a Is Not Econo m i c s Economy and economics: The Greeks certainly helped invent these terms, but did they invent the things these words refer to as we understand them? Certainly, oikonomia is not economics. It differs in at least three ways: By the nature and overall significance of the general practice it engages, by its segmented or partial nature compared to what economics encompasses in the modern sense, and by the type of rationality it mobilizes. Let us examine these three points. The term oikonomia designates, in a broad sense, the administration or management of any field of activity—­religious, political, military—­or even that of one’s own life and, in the restricted sense which interests us here, that of the household (oikos)—­sometimes the polis—­and of the material and human assets that constitute it.42 This is what the second part of the word -­nomia implies if one accepts to read not so much as nomos (law) but as the root nemo-­, which refers to the idea of dwelling through the appropriation and organization of a given space.43 With the object of oikos, the term oikonomia is not very common in classical prose before Pericles and then Aristotle, although the practice of domestic administration or management certainly predates the mid-­fifth century. Before the word appeared, there were circumlocutions that were employed, notably dioikein tèn oikian, in which the verb dioikein by itself designates the administration of the city, even of the world or universe.44 Oikonomia, therefore, broadly designates one’s way of inhabiting a domain, and, more specifically, the domestic domain, with the particular questions that it implies yet which cannot be entirely isolated from more global aspects concerning what it means to inhabit the world. Taken in its “economic” dimension, oikonomia should be under-

Oikonomia versus Economics 21

stood as a primarily though not exclusively domestic activity from which “economic” in its modern meaning has emancipated itself in the form of the “public menagerie,” to use the expression coined by Antoine de Montchrétien, or “political economy,” to use Rousseau’s term.45 This emancipation is inseparable from the advent of the market, a central institution of the modern economy and of economics as a scientific study. When the Greek philosophers speak of the market, they are evoking an urban physical space devoted to exchange and the ethical and political relations of those who inhabit and act within that space, not the institution or mechanism that determines the exchange value of a product or service given existing supply and demand relationships.46 For this reason, even if Plato, and in a sense Aristotle, deal with oikonomia at the level of the city and not only within the domestic realm (and thus more closely approach economics in the modern sense), there is no basis for claiming that they identify the former with the latter. Further, we need to take into account that practices and phenomena relating to economy in the modern sense, such as trade or currency, do not by definition fall within oikonomia, and they are no more represented in Greek than they are in Latin47 by a term and concept that would be the equivalent of our economy. On this point, Finley is quite right, and the fact that few ancient texts contemplate dividing the economy into sectors, even less so into three sectors as we might be accustomed,48 is further evidence of this. Finally, the realities designated by these two terms are distinguished by the types of reasoning they mobilize. The reasoning involved in modern economics, in its practical and theoretical dimensions, is instrumental in nature. It was constituted as the antithesis of “the aesthetic, ethical, or philosophical,”49 and it consists of making use (at the lowest cost) of the means available for the production and distribution of what is necessary in order to maximize gain and minimize loss. Economics thus understood—­involving the idea that economic agents, be they individual or collective, need to be “thrifty”—­is based on the hypothesis of the scarcity of resources, an idea that is notably absent from ancient sources. While we cannot exclude the possibility that reasoning of this kind could occasionally have been at work in antiquity and that it could have guided economic behavior in specific cases—­such as in the comparative calculation of earnings and risks in distant maritime commercial enterprises or the exploitation of silver

22  Chapter One

mining concessions50—­it would be difficult to arrive at a generalized description of what “scarcity of resources” meant for the ancients without anachronism. More generally, to disregard the fact that so-­called economic practices are inscribed within a given historical, social, and cultural context that gives them meaning is to refrain from understanding them as much as possible on their own terms. Oikonomia is not economics. Should we therefore give up studying ancient economic theoretical thought, since we would then apparently have “nothing” to study? Should we stop using the terms economy and economics in connection with ancient worlds except for the sake of convenience, or should we acknowledge that these terms are insufficient but that, in any event, they are the least insufficient terms we have?

F r om Oi kono mi a to E co no m y and Econom i c s If the concept of what is economic does not coincide with oikonomia and can only be used with the aforementioned reservations, one can, however, read in this inadequacy less of an indication of the absence of what is properly economic in the ancient world than an occasion to wonder whether, like “being” for Aristotle, several meanings can be attributed to it. As Polanyi wrote, “The use of the term ‘economic’ is bedeviled by ambiguities. Economic theory has invested it with a time-­bound connotation that renders it ineffective outside of the narrow confines of our market-­dominated societies.”51 Yet why make the notions of economy as practice and of economics as knowledge dependent on the market? Are these concepts not susceptible to other modalities and forms that would shed light on their hidden aspects? These questions point in the same direction. The main challenge of any study of ancient philosophical reflections on economy and economics is to outline a universal definition that takes stock of the multiplicity of forms assumed by economic phenomena and institutions over the course of history as well as through the various ways in which they are conceptualized. Of course, it will be objected that such a project presupposes what it claims to demonstrate, namely, that economics exists outside of modern economics.

Oikonomia versus Economics 23

The answer to this objection is simple, however, as long as it is understood that the philosophical investigation in question is based on a logic of meaning and not just a logic of argument or demonstration. Beginning from the basic premise that economy designates the set of practices that human groups devise in order to meet their needs, we equip ourselves with a research tool that is both sufficiently delimited to channel our thinking toward its specific objective and at the same time that is open enough to accommodate varied manifestations, epistemological connections, and meanings. In this sense the Greeks could well change our representation of economy and economics even though—­or, rather, because—­the idea that they fashion is situated within the unique architecture of their relationship to the world. Thus, in spite of what could be described as the “absence” of economy and economics in Greece in relation to the place these terms occupy in modernity, their specific configuration and meaning in relation to other modalities of humanity’s presence within the world also indicates something about what they actually consist of. Using the words economy or economics in the context of this book neither imposes an anachronistic label that conceals the true nature of the object that we seek nor neatly provides us, in advance, with it. Using these terms merely helps presenting them with other faces within a nonmodern context. Specifically, wagering on an ancient philosophy of economy in the sense defined above makes it possible to reveal that the ways philosophers have treated the practices linked to oikonomia—­the administration and management of mainly domestic material and human issues—­are closely related to those thinkers’ political and ethical considerations. However, they do not limit themselves to those considerations, contrary to what Schumpeter, Finley, and others after them have argued.52 That oikonomia is, effectively, in Polanyi’s words, “embedded” in the social should not lead to its dissolution, to denying it any properly economic dimension, and to denying its epistemological specificity. It seems that we should rather read in this “embeddedness” the sign of its centrality for the polis, for the political or the social in all their aspects. The purpose of this book is not so much to write a chapter in the history of ideas as to contribute to a philosophical interrogation of what economy is by shedding light on the entirety of activities and phenomena that are specific to it in light of the reflections that the Greek

24  Chapter One

philosophers have given us on the subject. The question that remains is where to look for these reflections. In other words, what corpus can one assemble, and what texts make it up?

T he Lo gos Oi konom i kos and Its Subject By focusing on oikos from the late fifth century, ancient Greek thinkers—­with Antisthenes arguably being the first with his Περὶ νίκης οἰκονομικός (On Victory: An Economic Essay)53—­did not inaugurate a new theme so much as a new way of discussing it, to the point where we have been able to describe the appearance of ancient texts devoted to oikonomia as “a historical event: At a certain point, a new written genre was born: The logos oikonomikos, which spoke of oikonomia.”54 What was this new genre all about? If we rule out that it could have been a science of the market, should we believe that, as Raymond Descat wrote, “we are not distorting reality by saying that oikonomia is a science of profit”?55 This interpretation seems difficult to support because it restricts the meaning and the range of the texts that are considered as falling under the logos oikonomikos. These texts, in my view, do not consist solely of treatises and dialogues on domestic economy (peri oikonomias) and ones that propose strategies by which one can enrich oneself, such as the Socratic texts peri tou ergazesthai, peri tou ôphelimou, peri epimeleias, peri chrêmatôn, peri philokerdous, followed by the peri ploutou treatises from the Hellenistic period.56 The questions of the nature of wealth and the means of obtaining it are certainly present in the logos oikonomikos, but this fact is not sufficient to account for all the facets of the works that fall under it, in particular the peri oikonomias texts. In addition to examining many other subjects, the primary aim of these works is not so much material enrichment as it is successful activity in the economic field in general and domestic and agricultural administration and management in particular—­enrichment being only one aspect and only one possible version of “doing well.” This is what makes it possible to grasp the aforementioned shift in methodology regarding the study of these texts. Instead of a successive

Oikonomia versus Economics 25

enumeration of the positions held by the various authors or ancient philosophical currents on oikonomia—­a methodology which disperses and desiccates the philosophical content of these reflections by reducing them to a content detached from the questioning that gave rise to these reflections—­an approach that focuses on shared problems and concepts, and which meticulously studies the architecture of works on oikonomia would help paint a portrait of ancient theoretical thought on economics by attending to its properly philosophical dimension. The primary purpose of these texts is less to give advice on stewardship or agricultural techniques than to arouse reflection on the conceptual questions raised by economic phenomena and practices, including in those works that appear to be the least philosophical, such as one by Pseudo-­Aristotle, whose remarkable character Finley unjustly condemns for its “crashing banality.”57 Again, though these treatises might well contain various and contrasting positions, they nevertheless follow a relatively similar general plan and mobilize common questions and concepts, thus making the logos oikonomikos a philosophical genre in its own right.58 On the basis of this methodology, we can distinguish at least four kinds of texts belonging to the logos oikonomikos.59 The most obvious set is made up of those devoted to domestic oikonomia. They relate to the stewardship of the family domain in both its material and human dimensions. Treatises of this kind that have survived in their entirety are the Oikonomikos by Xenophon and the Oikonomika—­at least its first “book”—­by an unknown disciple of Aristotle, Pseudo-­Aristotle—­a figure whom Philodemus of Gadara considers to be Theophrastus, the successor to Aristotle at the head of the Lyceum.60 Five other treatises have survived in fragmentary form. The most extensive is book 9 of the treatise titled On Vices by Philodemus. Called the Peri oikonomias, it explicitly concerns oikonomia and opens with a criticism of the treatises by Xenophon and Theophrastus (or Pseudo-­Aristotle). The other fragmentary works are the Oikonomika and On the Happiness of the Oikos, attributed to the Pythagoreans Bryson and Callicratidas, respectively;61 the Oikonomikos treatise by the Stoic Hierocles;62 and the treatise of the same title by Dio Chrysostom, which was influenced by the Stoics and the Cynics.63 We also know of various lost works, such as the Oikonomikos by a pupil of Plato, Xenocrates, and the already cited Peri nikês oikonomikos by Antisthenes.64 All these texts

26  Chapter One

are the work of philosophers or thinkers who, at some point in their intellectual trajectory, worked within the orbit of a philosopher or a philosophical school. Another important source, which escapes those who limit the logos oikonomikos to peri oikonomias texts and to works on wealth and enrichment, which our methodology allows us to include, are certain works of political philosophy that address oikonomia and the oikos by articulating them within a reflection on the polis and questions of justice. By bringing the themes and concepts of the peri oikonomias treatises to the level of the city, they add a new scope, linking the domestic economy to the economic phenomena and institutions of the city as a whole, including money or commerce, as well as their political relevance. Therefore, while it is true that Aristotle did not write a separate treatise titled Oikonomikos, as Finley notes,65 and neither did Plato, both dealt with oikonomia, the former in his Politics and the latter in the Republic, Laws, and Statesman. In these works, oikonomia serves as the subject of extensive consideration not as a stand-­alone topic but as a localized one. It is also legitimate to include in the logos oikonomikos reflections on the conditions for ethical actions linked to the satisfaction of our appetites, reflections that often involve considerations of work, money, trade, wealth, and poverty. This is the case with the Epicureans and the Cynics: even if their elaborations on oikonomia and oikos are few, they do provide extensive thoughts on the relationship between happiness and the natural boundaries of our appetites. What we note, then, is the emergence of what would be an economics in accordance with ethical principles, an economics that becomes the diligent researcher’s task to reassemble.66 These are not thoughts that pertain to the “ethics of economics” properly speaking or to what is now known as “business ethics,”67 which would consist of questioning the value or ethical principles at work in actions or institutions of an economic nature. Here, conversely, we find the economic side of ethics that is underscored, for example, in works such as On Wealth by the Epicureans Metrodorus and Philodemus68 or in connection with a commercial practice as in the debate reported by Cicero between the Stoic philosopher Diogenes of Babylon and his disciple Antipater of Tarsus (Off. 3.51–­55).69 Finally, we often find among these philosophers formulations on institutions or other economic phenomena linked to the city that do not

Oikonomia versus Economics 27

always have a direct relationship with the theme of domestic oikonomia, unlike the second type of text mentioned above. For example, in Ways and Means (Poroi), Xenophon muses on how to provide a stable income in Athens. Meanwhile, the so-­called Anonymous of Iamblichus focuses on the importance of trust in the flow of money and its beneficial role for public wealth.70 As for book 2 of Pseudo-­Aristotle’s Oeconomicus, it evokes, alongside the particular domestic oikonomia, a “royal, a satrapic, a political” oikonomia ([Oec.] 1345b4–­5), and it presents a series of anecdotes on the ruses and schemes enacted by politicians to secure money in critical situations. All these phenomena have an economic character for us, as they undoubtedly had for the ancients, though this does not mean that this economic character in question is the same for us as it was for them. The corpus, as we can see, is quite extensive. Nonetheless, it is organized in a relatively clear way for those attempting to understand what the nameless economy of the Greeks could possibly mean: On the one hand, the mainly domestic oikonomia, and on the other, trade, commerce, money, and the market space. So, what is the ancient philosophy operative in the texts on oikonomia that are the subject of this volume? To better understand it, let us follow the order of the questions these texts raise. That is, before analyzing the constitutive operations of oikonomia, we shall follow the philosophers in first examining the type of knowledge that it constitutes, in other words, its epistemological status.

◉ 2 ◉ What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?

What is oikonomic knowledge, and what kind of knowledge is it? One could say that the answer to the first question is self-­evident: it is knowledge concerning the administration of the oikos or the oikia. As evidence, one might refer to these lines borrowed from Critobulus at the beginning of Xenophon’s Oeconomicus in response to the question Socrates asked him about the purpose of oikonomia: “I suppose,” Critobulus says, “that the business of a good estate manager is to manage his own estate well” (οἰκονόμου ἀγαθοῦ εἶναι εὖ οἰκεῖν τὸν ἑαυτοῦ οἶκον, Oec. 1.2). Or one might refer to when Pseudo-­Aristotle presents the function of oikonomia, which relates to the home or oikos, by analogy with that of statesmanship, which relates to the city or polis: “Statecraft on the other hand shows us how to build up a nation from its beginning, as well as how to order rightly a nation that already exists; from which we infer that Housecraft [oikonomic art] also tells us first how to acquire a household and then how to conduct its affairs” ([Oec.] 1343a7–­9).1 To accept this without further consideration would, however, be inaccurate for two reasons. On the one hand, it would overlook the fact that oikonomia sometimes concerns the polis rather than the oikos, as is the case to some extent with Plato and, in another sense, with Xenophon. On the other hand, while some have recognized, on the basis of testimonies relating to Pericles or borrowed from Pseudo-­Aristotle, that oikonomia could also relate to the city or any other political entity, it was most often by following a pattern that has never been properly scrutinized according to which oikonomia would have been first and foremost an exclusively domestic practice that would then have ex-

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  29

tended beyond the walls of the household to be applied to the city-­ state.2 This apparently chronological or temporal order has sometimes also been conceived as a logical sequence, as if, in going from oikos to polis, oikonomia “naturally” passed from the simplest to the most complex realm, from the smallest to the largest domain of application. Such a transition, which would reflect the supposed semantic evolution of the term oikonomia and its “extension to the public domain” beginning in the fourth century3—­an extension whose doubtful existence was encouraged by certain founders of modern political economy4—­certainly seems to be corroborated by certain ancient texts as well. For example, Xenophon has Socrates inform us that the successful administration of the oikos is a propaedeutic for political functions, the art of dominion being a unique art in “all forms of business alike—­agriculture, politics, estate management [οἰκονομικῇ], warfare.”5 Along the same lines, the first book of Pseudo-­Aristotle’s Oeconomicus, which is devoted to oikonomia in the sense of the administration of the oikos, is followed by a second book on oikonomia in the sense of the administration of various civic domains. In Politics, too, Aristotle begins by analyzing the administration of the oikos before discussing that of the city. That said, the evidence in favor of this historical extension of the domain of oikonomia is weak. In particular, the semantic evolution of the term is so uncertain that some scholars, after having nevertheless defended this idea of passage from the smallest unit to the largest, came to support the opposite idea, that oikonomia first applied to the management of the public resources of the polis and only after became used to refer to the private resources of a particular household.6 Whatever the real sequential order, focusing on this single question misses the point, which is that Greek philosophers debated, sometimes bitterly, about the question of what the proper subject of oikonomia might be, whether oikos or polis. When they choose one of these two terms, it is always against the background of a (sometimes implicit) discussion with their theoretical opponents, who adopt the opposite perspective. Far from being of a merely technical or terminological nature, this kind of debate involves antithetical visions of politics, “economics,” and humankind, because it has as its core a driving philosophical question: What is it that distinguishes the economic and the political? In other words, what is the difference between a political community and an

30  Chapter Two

oikonomic one? What disparities and connections can we identify between political competence and oikonomic competence? The debate, as we can see, is no less relevant now than it was then. As for the question of the epistemological status of oikonomia, it is conspicuously absent from modern academic literature for the reason given in the previous chapter; namely, that oikonomia is believed to be (at best) only an empirical knowledge or a form of know-­how, an accumulation of observations without rule or principle, that does not extend far beyond common sense. Yet here again, albeit on a smaller scale than in the previous case, we see that Greek philosophers were engaged in debates that still speak to us. It is two debates especially—­the first on the object of oikonomia and the relationship between oikonomic art and political art and the second on its epistemological status—­that need to be reexamined in order to grasp the philosophical dimensions of the Greek approach to economy and economics.

I s Oi kono mi a to Pol i t i c s Wh at Oikos Is to P ol i s ? The question of the similarity (even identity) or difference between oikos and polis as well as between the respective skills or “art” required to lead or rule these two communities, domestic and civic, is omnipresent in ancient economic literature, and its importance is underscored by the fact that it tends to arise mostly in the introductory sections of the relevant texts. Thus, a few lines after the beginning of Politics, Aristotle presents a position held in his time on this subject (in order to challenge it): Those then who think that the natures of the statesman, the royal ruler, the head of an estate and the master of a family [πολιτικὸν καὶ βασιλικὸν καὶ οἰκονομικὸν καὶ δεσποτικὸν] are the same, are mistaken, as they imagine that the difference between these various forms of authority is one of greater and smaller numbers, not a difference in the kind—­that is, that the ruler over a few people is a master, over more the head of an estate, over more still a statesman or royal ruler, as if there were no difference between a large household and a small

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  31

city [μεγάλην οἰκίαν ἢ μικρὰν πόλιν] [. . .] but these views are not true. (Pol. 1252a8–­16)7

Without explaining what their connection might be, Aristotle here announces his thesis: economics and politics, like oikos and polis, are two distinct things. He thus opposes those who see only a difference of scale or degree between the two. Who were his intended targets? It has been customary to think that they might be Xenophon and Plato.8 Regarding the latter, it is the following passage, at the beginning of the Statesman, that would be Aristotle’s target: S t r a n g e r : And will not he who possesses this science, whether he

happen to be a ruler or a private citizen, rightly be called “kingly,” when considered purely with reference to his art? You n g e r S o c r a t e s: At least he has a right to be. S t r a n g e r : And surely the householder and the master of a family are the same [καὶ μὴν οἰκονόμος γε καὶ δεσπότης ταὐτόν]. You n g e r S o c r a t e s: Yes, of course. S t r a n g e r : Well, so far as government is concerned, is there any difference between the grandeur of a large place of residence [οἰκήσεως] and the majesty of a small state? You n g e r S o c r a t e s: No. S t r a n g e r : Then as for the point we were just discussing, it is clear that all these are the objects of one science, and whether a man calls this the art of kingship or statesmanship or householding [ταύτην δὲ εἴτε βασιλικὴν εἴτε πολιτικὴν εἴτε οἰκονομικήν]. (Statesman 259b–­c)9

If we did not take into consideration the introductory placement of this passage in the dialogue as a whole, we might assume that it is Plato’s last word on the identification of the city and the oikos. We might be tempted to think these two communities are identical according to him, with the difference being one of scale, and we might conclude that he thinks economics and politics therefore involve two similar skills or “arts.” Ascribing this position to Plato, however, is untenable for several reasons, not all of which can be mentioned here.10 Let us just note that, in this passage, Plato does not use the term oikos but rather oikèsis, which more generally designates a place of residence, not necessarily a domestic one, but certainly not one that is “political” in the sense of a place organized according to the institutions of the

32  Chapter Two

polis.11 However, the central issue of Plato’s Statesman is precisely to distinguish the specific nature of political competence from all others, most notably from that of economic competence. And even though Plato’s characters mention the house and the city together in other dialogues, there is no reason to think that they conflate them or that Plato himself conflates them.12 More evidence for this claim will be provided below; however, let us merely observe for the moment that Plato, like many of his contemporaries, placed the question of the identity or difference between oikonomia and politics (and between oikos and polis) as an unavoidable preliminary step within the framework of his political philosophy. It is with good reason, however, that Xenophon is mentioned as the target of Aristotle’s text cited at the beginning of this section. The question of the respective natures of domestic and civic communities and of the skills or arts required to properly lead them, is formulated in a passage from Memorabilia (3.4.1–­12). Unlike the previous examples, however, this passage does not appear at the beginning of the work, perhaps because it does not specifically relate to the logos oikonomikos or because it evokes oikonomia without making it a central issue of reflection. Be that as it may, the question of the similarities and differences between domestic economics and politics is prompted by the surprise and disappointment of Nicomachides, an experienced soldier, upon seeing the Athenians prefer Antisthenes over himself as a strategist. According to Nicomachides, “Antisthenes never served as a hoplite, never did anything salient in the cavalry, and knows nothing but to amass money” (Mem. 3.4.2). His interlocutor Socrates then suggests that domestic economic competence, just like that of choreography, is quite relevant to being a good strategist, to which Nicomachides responds, Do you mean to say, Socrates, that the man who succeeds with a chorus will also succeed with an army? I mean that, whatever a man controls, if he knows what he wants and can get it he will be a good controller, whether he control a chorus, an estate, a city [εἴτε οἴκου εἴτε πόλεως] or an army. Really, Socrates, cried Nicomachides, I should never have thought to hear you say that good domestic stewards [οἰκονόμοι] would make good generals. Come then, let us review the duties of each that we may know whether they are the same or different. (Mem. 3.4.6–­7; emphasis added)13

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  33

Xenophon’s Socrates, as we will see below, draws together economic and political skill as well as the skills pertaining to both the household and the city. In the Economics, Pseudo-­Aristotle is faithful to Aristotle, at least to some extent. Like him, from the first lines of his treatise he tackles the distinction between oikonomia and politics and between oikos and polis: Between Housecraft [the art of governing a Household or Home] and Statecraft [the art of governing a city; ἡ οἰκονομικὴ καὶ πολιτικὴ] there are differences corresponding to those between the two kinds of community over which they severally preside [οἰκία καὶ πόλις]. There is, however, this further difference: That whereas the government of a nation is in many hands, a household has but a single ruler. Now some arts are divided into two separate branches, one concerned with the making of an object—­for example a lyre or a flute—­and the other with its use when made. Statecraft on the other hand shows us how to build up a city from its beginning, as well as how to order rightly a city that already exists; from which we infer that Housecraft also tells us first how to acquire a household and then how to conduct its affairs. ([Oec.] 1343a1–­9)

Even if, as in Aristotle, the first two lines of this passage suggest a difference in nature that has not yet been specified between oikia and polis, Pseudo-­Aristotle’s loyalty to his master stops there. Unlike Aristotle, Pseudo-­Aristotle not only foregrounds the quantitative or numerical difference by evoking the number of the respective heads of the city and the household but also inscribes this difference against a background of functional identity; both the economic art and the political art represent arts of acquisition and use, an idea Aristotle also refutes. Even the philosophers who are more inclined to leave politics aside in their analyses of oikonomia nonetheless devote a few words to it, specifically by raising the question of the extent to which it overlaps with politics. This is the case with Philodemus of Gadara a few paragraphs after the start of his Economics. In accordance with the Epicurean school, which, without rejecting politics, nevertheless assigns it a secondary place with respect to ethics,14 Philodemus mentions it briefly in his criticism of Theophrastus’s Economics15: “For it is

34  Chapter Two

irrelevant to the discipline of property management [οἰκονομικὴν], that it [sc. that discipline] is different from [politics], even if it is false that the government of the polis is invariably not the rule of one person whereas the government of the property [οἰκονομικὴν] is without exception the rule of one person, and [sc. it is false] that there is never an analogy between the two of them” (Vices 9.7.46–­9.8.1–­7). However fleeting the allusion may be, Philodemus seems to think that this point is important enough to be the subject of criticism, as if, once again, the relationship between oikonomia and politics needed to be clarified from the outset.16 Most Greek authors who reflect on oikonomia posit the question of its differences from or similarities with statesmanship as an essential preliminary stage of their reflections, which also generally engage similar questioning regarding the city and the oikos. It remains to be seen how they conceive of their relationships.

Sim il arit y or Ide n t i t y ? In the texts analyzed here, we find the relationship between the oikos and the city to be either one of close similarity or one of marked difference. The Pythagorean thinker Callicratidas and Xenophon are good representatives of the first tendency. In a fragment of On the Happiness of the Oikos, Callicratidas establishes an analogous relationship between, on the one hand, the city and the oikos and, on the other, the cosmos: “It is on the same principle that the household and the city are organized in human affairs, and in divine affairs the cosmos; for the house and the city are analogous imitations of the organization of the cosmos” (On the Happiness of the Oikos, Stob. 4.28.17, 685; Hense [Mullach 2, 31]; Thesleff 1965, 105).17 The adjective analogous is used in this passage because the resemblance between the household and the city exists and because they are based on a common model—­that of the universe, of which they “are an imitation, in keeping with proportion.”18 A few lines before this passage Callicratidas presents the universe as a harmonious set of disparate elements, akin to a musical choir or to the construction plan of a ship whose components fit together in order to serve a unique purpose

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  35

focused on what is best in each case—­the beauty of the song in the former, and safety and speed in the latter. The harmony of the universe is nevertheless superior to any other since it is of divine origin. It is therefore the most excellent, and it is perfectly “political” (πολιτικά) in the sense that it is in view of the whole of the world, of all its parts, both those that govern and those that are governed. According to a pattern of thought common among the Pythagoreans,19 the oikos and the polis are both adaptations of this cosmic model that Callicratidas employs to present the marital relationship in the oikos in a similar fashion as what occurs (or should occur) in the city. According to him, the husband must be able to order his wife not only in his own interest or only in hers but in the interest of their community. The remainder of the text evokes a condition of possibility of this domestic community, namely, equal economic and social power between spouses without which the husband would be in conflict with his wife if she were richer—­she seeking to rule, refusing to obey him—­or without which the reputation of the husband and his family would be tarnished if his wife were of lesser extraction than he was.20 This brief passage from Callicratidas does not, however, allow for further conclusions to be drawn regarding the connection between oikos and polis. At most, one can say that he establishes a similarity between the general purpose of the oikos and the polis—­namely, that they both aim at the formation of a harmonious whole—­without necessarily implying that they share the same specific purpose—­to provide what is necessary in the former case and to rule over men in the latter. It is, however, to Xenophon that we should turn to find a more detailed representation of the close similarities between the domains of politics and economics. These similarities can be organized according to five points. (1) For Xenophon’s Socrates, household and city differ only in size, not in kind. The household is not a metaphorical version of the city21 but rather a miniature city: Don’t look down on domestic stewards [τῶν οἰκονομικῶν ἀνδρῶν], Nicomachides. For the management of private concerns differs only in point of number [πλήθει] from that of public affairs. In other respects, they are much alike [τὰ δὲ ἄλλα παραπλήσια ἔχει], and particularly in this, that neither can be carried on without men, and the men

36  Chapter Two

employed in private and public transactions are the same. For those who take charge of public affairs employ just the same men when they attend to their own; and those who understand how to employ them are successful directors of public and private concerns [οἷσπερ τὰ ἴδια οἰκονομοῦντες], and those who do not, fail in both. (Mem. 3.4.12)

(2) That the household is similar to the city is confirmed by the fact that, in Xenophon’s Economics, to teach justice to the staff of his household, particularly the person in charge of agricultural work, Ischomachus borrows “sometimes from the laws of Dracon, sometimes to the laws of Solon” (Oec. 14.4), as well as those of the Great King (Oec. 14.6), and he invites his wife to think of her domestic function by analogy with the guardian of the laws in the city: “I explained that in well-­ordered cities [ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν] the citizens are not satisfied with passing good laws; they go further, and choose guardians of the laws, who act as overseers, commending the law-­abiding and punishing law-­ breakers. So, I charged my wife to consider herself guardian of the laws to our household [τῶν ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ]” (Oec. 9.14–­15).22 This passage does not conclude, of course, that the household and the city are absolutely identical, but it does clearly indicate that they are based on similar guiding principles, ones that are political in origin. This similarity explains why the direction of both political and economic affairs is the business of the same individuals, not of different specialists, as Socrates explains to Nicomachides at the end of the passage from the Memorabilia cited above. (3) The oikos and the polis have a common objective: growth. With regard to the oikos, growth is cited in the definition of oikonomia that Socrates and Critobulus arrive at in the Economics: “Well now, [says Socrates], we thought that estate management is the name of a branch of knowledge, and this knowledge appeared to be that by which men can increase estates [οἴκους . . . αὔξειν]” (Oec. 6.4). We also find this indication in Ischomachus’s words to his wife: “But moderation both in a man and a woman, means acting in such a manner that their possessions shall be in the best condition possible, and that as much as possible shall be added to them [ὅτι πλεῖστα] by fair and honourable means” (Oec. 7.15). To his wife who then asks him how she herself can contribute to this growth (ἂν [. . .] συναύξοιμι τὸν οἶκον, Oec. 7.16), Ischomachus responds by indicating the tasks that nature has entrusted

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  37

to women in the oikos (Oec. 7.17–­32) and by pointing out to her, in particular, the importance of the conservation of acquisitions (Oec. 7.33, 7.39–­40), most notably by the orderly arrangement of everything that enters the household (Oec. 8.1–­9.10).23 Regarding the city, Xenophon’s Socrates explains to the ambitious Glaucon that political skill consists, among other things, in making the city grow, whether this growth is material or, more broadly, in terms of an increase in power and symbolic strength: “Glaucon, have you made up your mind to be our chief man in the state? I have, Socrates. Well, upon my word there’s no more honorable ambition in the world; for obviously, if you gain your object, you will be able to get whatever you want, and you will have the means of helping your friends: You will lift up your father’s house and exalt your fatherland [αὐξήσεις δὲ τὴν πατρίδα]” (Mem. 3.6.2). The last expression of this passage, parallel to what has been said about the household in the preceding excerpts from the Economics, would confirm that the oikos and the polis share a common objective. (4) The accounting model presented by Xenophon for the household and the city is largely the same—­in both cases, it is a question of seeking out the most lucrative activity (κερδαλεωτάτη, κερδαλεώτερον, Vect. 3.1, 5.11), the gain being calculated either in absolute value or in a relative manner due to a reduction in expenditures.24 The latter, according to an accounting model that Pericles would have applied to the city and to his own household, must be based in both cases not on capital—­as insatiable tyrants might do—­but on the surpluses generated.25 The growth (or exaltation) mentioned in the previous point is therefore to be understood both as absolute growth as well as relative growth obtained by controlling or reducing expenditures. According to Xenophon, the city-­state has two main ways of achieving growth from its own resources, thereby excluding the use of war and conquest. The first consists of an attractive commercial policy aimed at foreigners. Encouraging merchants to come and trade in Athens by granting distinctions “when the high quality of their ships and merchandise entitles them to be considered benefactors of the state” (Vect. 3.4)26 should result in automatic growth in the volume of trade handled in Athens with great economic repercussions since, he writes, “such additions to our revenues as these need cost us nothing whatever beyond benevolent legislation and measures of control” (εἰς

38  Chapter Two

μὲν οὖν τὰς τοιαύτας αὐξήσεις τῶν προσόδων οὐδὲ προδαπανῆσι δεῖ οὐδὲν ον τὰς τοιαύτας αὐξήσεις τῶν προσόδων οὐδὲ προδαπανῆσι δεῖ οὐδὲν, Vect. 3.6). In short, more foreign traders subject to taxation and exempt from military service “would increase our revenues” (τὰς προσόδους ἂν αὔξοιεν, Vect. 2.7). The second engine of growth would be derived from an industrial project—­for example, the exploitation of silver mines—­regarding which Xenophon advocates a progressive method of investment meant to reassure those who might consider it otherwise economically unfeasible: In fact, in one respect it will be even more profitable to proceed gradually [κατὰ μέρος] than to do everything at once [ἅμα πάντα]. For if everybody begins building, we shall pay more for worse work than if we carry out the undertaking gradually; and if we try to find an enormous number of slaves, we shall be forced to buy inferior men at a high price. [37] By proceeding as our means allow, we can repeat whatever is well conceived and avoid the repetition of mistakes. [38] Besides, were the whole scheme put in hand at once, we should have to find the whole of the money; but if some parts were proceeded with and others postponed, the income realized would help to provide the amount still required. (Vect. 4.36–­38)

At the end of this passage, judicious oversight of expenditures is compounded by the idea that the income generated can become productive in turn without having to touch capital. Such projects could only be carried out under general conditions of peace, the benefits of which Xenophon underscores since it fits into the accounting model of growth mentioned above: “An opportunity, I think, has fallen to the state to win back the Greeks without trouble, without danger, and without expense [ἄνευ δαπάνης]” (Vect. 5.8). This control over expenditures also applies to the oikos. In Xenophon’s Economics, Critobulus understands that, for Socrates, the way to become wealthy is to create a surplus (περιουσίαν ποιεῖν, Oec. 2.10),27 and it is this skill that Socrates asks Ischomachus to impart to him (τοῦ περιουσίαν ποιεῖν, Oec. 11.13). Two methods are available: the accumulation of goods, an option that attracts Critobulus, and the control of expenditures based on the control of appetites, which is what Socrates advocates. It is this same control over expenditures that Ischomachus expects from his wife: “Your duty will be [. . .] to receive the incomings

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  39

and distribute so much of them as must be spent, and watch over so much as is to be kept in store, and take care that the sum laid by for a year be not spent in a month” (Oec. 7.35–­36). Failure to rein in spending, thus eating into capital, would result in exposing oneself to misery with the subsequent negative effects on growth within the oikos: “These, then, are the evils that crush estates far more than sheer lack of knowledge. For the outgoing expenses of the estate are not a penny less; but the work done is insufficient to show a profit on the expenditure; after that there’s no need to wonder if the expected surplus is converted into a loss [ἀντὶ τῆς περιουσίας ἔνδειαν]” (Oec. 20.21). In the polis or oikos, the key objective is growth, in both cases with the concern that this expansion be achieved by socially and ethically legitimate means. With regard to the oikos, Socrates analyzes what the oikonomia is for the honest man (ἀνδρὶ καλῷ τε κἀγαθῷ, Oec. 6.8), that is, a man who respects traditional moral and civic values. Ischomachus also explains to his wife that this growth must be obtained by means that are “fair and honorable” (ἐκ τοῦ καλοῦ τε καὶ δικαίου, Oec. 7.15). Finally, as we have seen, Socrates incites Critobulus, following the example of Ischomachus, to enrich himself not by means of unlimited accumulation but rather by controlling his own appetites. As for the city, Xenophon stresses that the methods he suggests to augment its revenues will have to be approved by the gods in the sanctuaries of Dodona and Delphi (Vect. 6.1–­2). (5) Finally, for Xenophon it is the land and its “upkeep” that ensure the material and functional link between oikonomia and statesmanship, land being the support for agricultural production as well as the material and symbolic basis of territory, the integrity of which must be ensured. In the extensive section of the Economics Xenophon devotes to praising agriculture (Oec. 5.1–­17), Socrates begins by addressing its benefits for the oikos: in addition to being a source of pleasure and providing the free man the opportunity to develop all his faculties, it is also a means for “increasing one’s estate” (οἴκου αὔξησις, Oec. 5.1). Yet Socrates quickly moves on to the military advantages of this domestic practice of agriculture: “Again, if a man wants to serve in the cavalry, farming is his most efficient partner in furnishing keep for his horse; if on foot, it makes his body brisk” (Oec. 5.5). Agricultural work is, in short, excellent military preparation. It develops physical strength and skills among those who cultivate the land as well as those who supervise

40  Chapter Two

work in the fields; it makes them steadfast, strong, and vigorous (Oec. 5.4), and it teaches them to run, throw the javelin, and jump (Oec. 5.8). It also develops in them moral qualities, beginning with concern for one’s own property, which then becomes in political terms defense of one’s territory in a more extended sense. Socrates points this out as one of the many merits of “the land, [which] also stimulates armed protection of the country on the part of the husbandmen, by nourishing her crops in the open for the strongest to take” (Oec. 5.7). Above all, agriculture is a school for righteousness and justice through the divine nature of the earth (Oec. 5.12). This justice or honesty, which is also evoked by Pseudo-­Aristotle—­“Agriculture is the most honest of all such occupations” ([Oec.] 1343a28)—­is based on reciprocity: “Yet again, the earth willingly teaches righteousness to those who can learn; for the better she is served, the more good things she gives in return [ἀντιποιεῖ]” (Oec. 5.12), of which Socrates provides various examples in a previous passage (Oec. 5.6, 5.8).28 This brief synopsis of the advantages of agriculture explains why the King of the Persians “pays close attention to husbandry and the art of war, holding that these are two of the noblest and most necessary pursuits” (Oec. 4.4; the same idea is also found in 4.12). If domestic agriculture, as we have seen, also serves to hone military skills, the latter must in turn be deployed to protect agriculture. The army must indeed ensure the integrity of the territory against any possible external enemy so that the work of the fields, supervised by a civil administration, can be carried out, and so that, in addition to the fruits it produces, the tributes to which it gives rise can be taken (Oec. 4.9–­11).29 Aside from their complementarity, agriculture and military prowess are also based on a parallel conception of power. The military leader and the steward of agricultural work must both know how to command men (Oec. 5.14) by making them zealous in work and obedient through a system of punishment, rewards, and encouragement (Oec. 5.15–­16). These are also the virtues that make agricultural laborers suitable, if necessary, to assume the role of soldiers. This idea echoes the passage from the Memorabilia cited above in point 1, in which Socrates explains that the same men are competent for politics and for oikonomia. These passages reveal how much agriculture as an oikonomic practice, far from being only a technique with an economic or utilitarian purpose, is invested by Xenophon with a strong political function of

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  41

which Cyrus the Younger represents the most perfect embodiment.30 This similarity of and close association between oikos and polis as well as between the arts of oikonomia and politics are not, however, exempt from contradiction. How can we reconcile, on the one hand, an encouragement toward increased revenue (Oec. 5.11–­13), which is associated with peace more than with war, in order to ensure an expansion in resources and, on the other hand, an ideal of domestic and civic growth that finds its model in Cyrus the Younger, and which would be difficult to imagine without war and conquest? The solution to this quandary is perhaps that for Xenophon, war is the best way to achieve growth when the balance of power is favorable, and otherwise we must prefer peace, not so much for political reasons as for reasons of economic efficiency.31 Either way, it is such an ideal of growth for which Aristotle and (even more so) Plato contest, for ethical as well as political reasons. Although both also ascribe a central role to economics in the task of politics, their economic proposals and their conception of oikos are quite distinct from Xenophon’s; it is inconceivable for them to equate household and city, similarly oikonomia and politics.

T wo Com munitie s a nd T wo Distinct Art s Aristotle and Plato also pondered the similarities and distinctions between oikos and polis, oikonomic art and political art. Although the terms of their respective answers differ, both are nonetheless in substantial agreement: A city is not a great oikos, and to govern free citizens is not the same as administering the members and property of the house. It is in book 1 of Politics that Aristotle most clearly analyzes this double difference in that he unambiguously delineates the respective functions and attributes of the oikos and the polis. The household aims at sustaining life, whereas the city aims at living well in an ethical sense, that is, in the pursuit of happiness. Contributing to this delineation is the fact that the economic function of citizens in the best city is not a legitimate criterion of citizenship; it is even an obstacle to its exercise. For “one is not likely to practice virtue when one leads the life of a

42  Chapter Two

craftsman or a laborer [βίον βάναυσον ἢ θητικόν]” (Pol. 1278a20), even if, as Aristotle acknowledges, it is commonplace for citizens to work. Thus, in this case, excellence among citizens pertains only to “those who are freed from indispensable tasks” (Pol. 1278a10–­11). Admittedly, Aristotle’s distinction between economic and political planes does not mark a radical break: He does not exclude all inclinations toward ethical fulfillment from the economic domain. This achievement takes the form of a concern for limiting the acquisition of goods in view of the expected autarky resulting from the correct exercise of political art in the city.32 In the same sense, he distinguishes the “political” oikoi—­ those which, as much by their human and material arrangement as by their ethical dimension, present possible conditions of a just polis—­ from the “nonpolitical” oikoi—­which are either tyrannical or isolated and not integrated into higher forms of community, like that of the Cyclops, for example.33 In short, oikoi and polis are articulated according to a dual criterion of difference and continuity: the so-­called political oikoi are only political in the sense that they ensure the ethical training of their members, the possession of the land, and the work of slaves that makes the leisure of the master possible.34 These are the necessary but insufficient conditions of the political sphere without the exercise of economic functions being a direct factor of political fulfillment and without the possibility of assimilating the oikos to a small polis or the polis to a large oikos. Because he ascribes a more central role to the economic sphere than Aristotle in the domain of politics, Plato also pays far greater attention to what links oikos and polis, economics and politics, and, above all, to what sets them apart. This is what appears most notably in the Republic and in two passages of the Statesman. The Republic represents an innovation in the logos oikonomikos, for it subordinates oikonomia, in the sense of the management of the oikos, to a more global reflection on the relationship between the economic sphere and the political sphere in which Plato perceives two distinct modes of realization of the “common” on the scale of the entire city. At the origin of the polis, in fact, Socrates places the economic bonds that are born from the necessity in which individuals find themselves to satisfy “many needs” (Resp. 2.369b–­c). Unable to provide for these needs on their own, they are therefore compelled to come together. But from this meeting of individuals a strong tension arises between

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  43

the individual and the common or mutual good. On the one hand, in effect, everyone agrees to enter into a cycle of exchanges in which they give and receive because they believe that it is better for themselves (οἰόμενος αὑτῷ ἄμεινον εἶναι, Resp. 2.369c). The economic partner is thus only the instrument for our own needs, the emphasis here being on the individual or private good. On the other hand, at the scale of the city, the spontaneous organization of the economy is such that everyone intends the product of their work “to be common to all” (τὸ αὑτοῦ ἔργον ἅπασι κοινὸν κατατιθέναι, Resp. 2.369e)—­everyone engages in specialized production, the fruits of which are “pooled” in the sense that they will be exchanged for products of another technical specialization. And shortly afterward, Socrates recalls that the primary function of commerce is to make possible the “community” (κοινωνίαν, Resp. 2.371b) of men gathered in the city to provide for their own needs. Nonetheless, such a mixture or pooling of special or private interests makes the polis unstable. Self-­interest constantly threatens to prevail over mutual interest, goaded as it is by a propensity among appetites to multiply and become insatiable (Resp. 2.372e–­373e). Even the best city, entrusted to the guardianship of philosopher-­kings or philosopher-­queens, will also deteriorate as soon as rulers begin to behave like oikonomoi concerned above all, or exclusively, with their own private property (Resp. 8.547a–­c) to the detriment of the common good—­a pattern that will worsen in more ordinary city-­states.35 The economic sphere is therefore not enough to make the city a truly common order; in the absence of any extra-­or supra-­economic regulatory body, the city can only become a vast battlefield between individual self-­interests. To counteract this trend, Socrates singles out statesmanship by making it the supreme principle of practical rationality that, in turn, gives its laws to the economic sphere. Two additional measures testify to this. On the one hand, he establishes a strict separation and a functional relationship of exchange between political agents and economic agents. The guardians are distinguished from the producers with the dual result that the former are unable to enrich themselves and the latter are unable to exercise power and that the producers provide their “wages” or “food” to the guardians who, in return, bring them political “salvation” (Resp. 5.463a–­b). On the other hand, Socrates places the life of the guardians under the sign of an entire community of goods and people (Resp. 3.416d–­417b, 4.423e–­424a, 5.464b–­e, 8.543b). This is not,

44  Chapter Two

as we can see, to ignore the economy but on the contrary to assign it its rightful place in the city so that it works for its unity and community rather than against them. In The Statesman, the reflection on the distinction between the oikonomic—­and more generally the economic—­and the political is further developed. Who, Plato asks, really makes the city? The economic agents, apparently legitimate claimants to the title of “statesmen,” since they materially create the polis? Or the politicians/ statesmen, whose expertise would therefore be irreducible to the economic administration of society and who cannot be identified as being experts in oikonomia? In favor of the latter hypothesis, the main character of the dialogue, the Stranger, proceeds by successively identifying potential candidates for the role of statesman, which he disqualifies one by one until he finds the true answer. In this process, two candidates from the economic sphere are examined. The first appears after the distinction the Stranger offers between causes and contingent causes: “Those arts which do not produce the actual thing in question, but which supply to the arts which do produce it the tools without which no art could ever perform its prescribed work, may be called contingent causes, and those which produce the actual thing are causes” (Plt. 281e1–­3). When applied to the city, this distinction results in classifying under contingent causes everything without which the city could not exist but that does not really make it up—­objects and activities, on the one hand, technology or related “arts” on the other—­and to reserve for the art of politics the status of the true cause of the city (Plt. 287d1–­3). The end of the dialogue will teach the reader that its proper function is to ensure the homogeneous mixture of characters by legislating on marriages and unifying souls around the values specific to the city and its laws.36 Necessary but insufficient causes for the city, these contingent causes are its “possessions” (κτημάτων, Plt. 287e1), in the broad sense of things found in the city: They fall under what we would now call the economic sector in its productive dimension. Too lengthy to be cited in full, the passage in question (Plt. 287c7–­289c3) enumerates these possessions and the arts that correspond to them, of which the Stranger seeks to show that none perform the function of political art per se. After the first category of possessions, that of “instruments” (to which no specific art corresponds), the list goes on as follows: vessels and the art of making

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  45

vases; vehicles and the arts of the carpenter, potter, and blacksmith; clothing, stone or earthen shelter, weapons, walls, and the arts of the weaver and architect; entertainment and the arts of ornamentation and painting; gold, silver, ores, pieces of wood, animal skins, plant fibers, cork, papyrus, chains, objects that the “firstborn” species encompasses (ready-­to-­use raw materials), and the arts of woodcutting, material shelling, and mining; the maintenance and nourishment of the body and its parts, and the arts of agriculture, hunting, medicine, cooking, and gymnastics. This passage outlines an anthropology of homo faber and homo oeconomicus by reducing the operations involved in and the products created by technology and art to a few elementary functions and by grouping the diversity of objects into a few everyday categories—­as Socrates does in the Republic (2.369d–­373d)—­to better isolate the art of politics and its own endeavors. The Stranger, in fact, prudently specifies almost every time that the function of the art corresponding to the object or activity mentioned does not fall under the category of politics despite certain terminological and semantic proximities that could underpin the claims that economic agents may in fact be the real statesmen. Let us consider two examples. The container category (ἀγγεῖον, Plt. 287e9) has the function of preserving or “safeguarding” (σωτηρίας, Plt. 287e6) various products. Now this is precisely the function accorded to men and political institutions in all of Plato’s dialogues: In the Republic, the guardians are qualified as “saviors and helpers” (σωτῆράς τε καὶ ἐπικούρους, Resp. 5.463b1), and proper education must train men to be the “preservers” (οἱ σωτῆρες, Resp. 6.502d1) of the political regime. Similarly, the right measure between wealth and poverty, determined by politics, must guarantee the “preservation” (σωτηρίας) of the city (Leg. 5.736e4). Thus, the Stranger specifies, “That very various class which is made with dry and wet materials and such as are wrought by fire and without fire. It is called collectively the class of receptacles. It is a very large class and, so far as I can see has nothing at all to do with the art we are studying [i.e., politics]” (Plt. 287e8–­288a2). The second example is that the class of shelter structures (πρόβλημα, Plt. 288b6) in turn makes it possible to rule out a conception of politics as protective or defensive. In modern terms its task is not to ensure the safety of goods and people by building ramparts or weapons. For Plato, the internal organization of the city and the pax civilis are what politically

46  Chapter Two

ensure safety and security. This is why, as the Stranger concludes, “Since they are all made for defense, they may most rightly be called by the collective name of defense, and this may much more properly be considered for the most part the work of the art of building or of weaving than of statesmanship” (Plt. 288b6–­8; emphasis added). The art of politics or statesmanship cannot therefore be identified with the productive arts of the economic sector, but neither can it be categorized under those pertaining to services and commerce, which the Stranger identifies (and rejects) in a different passage as potential candidates for the exercise of political functions: Slaves, merchants, and servants (Pol. 289c4–­290a7). These three categories cannot all claim political skill to the same degree. The slaves, in fact, claim “very little” (ἥκιστα, Plt. 289e1). Their identification under this rubric is undoubtedly based on the fact that, whatever their task, it is they and not their masters who carry it out. They therefore act more directly and immediately than the latter in the city insofar as it is considered only in its material reality. However, their claim cannot extend very far since their condition of slavery deprives them of any political prerogative. The degree of this claim increases with the merchants. Plato uses many terms connoting exchange and movement (Plt. 289e4–­290a2), no doubt because, much like the politician achieving the unification of the city among compliant, vigorous inhabitants, merchants also deal with distinct individuals whose relations they “equalize” through commercial transactions. Armed with this arithmetical equality they achieve and aware that they are absolutely necessary to provide for the needs of the members of the city, the merchants tend to introduce a form of justice into the city that the statesman may be powerless to achieve. In their eyes, trade could therefore take the place of politics altogether. Against this, the Stranger shows that commercial exchange is no substitute for the true political bond. This cannot be reduced to the arithmetic equality of a commodity transaction even if the merchant forges bonds in the cities. Finally, wage earners and laborers—­the “thetes” located at the bottom of the social scale, close to servitude but whose fate Achilles would prefer to share rather than being the king of the land of the dead37—­are excluded from the outset of this contest toward political power. Because what they sell is essentially their physical strength, the Republic (2.371e) mentions nothing else about them. And in the Statesman, the

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  47

politician is seen as governing less by the brute strength of his body than by the power of his soul (Plt. 259c6–­9). Nevertheless, if their contributions cannot be entirely ruled out, it is because they, too, are directly involved in the material achievements of the city. In short, the purpose of these passages from the Statesman is to underscore how the causality for political art is not of the same nature as that for the economic arts—­including oikonomia. Although both contribute to making the city, they do not operate on the same level or in the same direction. The economic arts must be subordinated to statesmanship for them to function well at all. The debate on the purpose and nature of oikonomia in its relationship with the city and political art occupies, if we examine it closely, an important space of the logos oikonomikos and gives rise to various positions, all of which underline its richness. Of similar importance is the debate over classifying the knowledge of oikonomia.

Wh at Episte m olo gica l Stat u s S h oul d Be Accor ded to Oi kon om i a ? The epistemological status of oikonomia seems to present dimensions so heterogeneous, and at first glance not entirely compatible, that it seems as though it would be difficult to identify. The debate revolves around two closely related questions, ones that are often treated together: Does oikonomia refer to specialized knowledge, and to what extent? and Is it then a “material” knowledge, one that is only interested in the acquisition of goods, or is it a practical form of knowledge, centered on the examination of the ethical or political implications of the values with which it engages—­and if it simultaneously presents these two facets, how can we think about their articulation? Thus, in a passage from his Politics, Aristotle evokes different techniques for acquiring wealth—­one of the operative elements of oikonomia38—­and also indicates the existence of specialized treatises on the subject, such as those of the agronomists Charetides of Paros and Apollodorus of Lemnos (Pol. 1259a1).39 Yet he specifies that “these subjects may be studied from these authors by anybody concerned to do so” (Pol. 1259a4–­5), as if oikonomia were not reducible to a simple

48  Chapter Two

acquisitive technique. Shortly before this, Aristotle in effect underlines the importance of the ethical or political implications of oikonomia by distinguishing true wealth, which is useful to a political or familial community (Pol. 1256b26–­31), from unlimited wealth, which is useless and which only serves as an obstacle to happiness because it is based on a confusion between the desire to live well and the acquisition of wealth (Pol. 1256b40–­1258a18). As a pragmatic or material knowledge of acquisition, oikonomia is also practical knowledge indexed to moral values, a dual dimension the contours of which are mentioned without really being examined.40 This debate over the dual epistemological status of oikonomia is even clearer in Xenophon. His character Ischomachus refuses to present oikonomia to Socrates in the manner of “the authors who write most accurately on the theory of the subject” of the care and skills required for agriculture (Oec. 16.1; emphasis added), that is to say, in the manner of those who write purely technical works. However, besides seeing in oikonomia, like Aristotle and Pseudo-­Aristotle, an episteme or techne (and thus a rule-­following kind of knowledge), his presentation of agricultural work includes certain technical passages. The latter, however, are of a moderate degree of technical knowledge41 and are involved in considerations clearly oriented toward the ethical and political benefits of this activity. Xenophon and his character therefore wish to present the two aspects of oikonomia together. The same is true of Philodemus, although at first glance he seems to reduce oikonomia to only its practical dimension to the detriment of its technical or material aspect. This is what emerges from the criticism that he addresses to Xenophon, whom he reproaches for treating agriculture as too much of an art, which, according to Philodemus, “derives from particular experience [idias empeirias], not from philosophy” (Vices 9.7.26–­33). For him, the “particular”—­that is, the specialized character of agricultural knowledge expounded on by Xenophon—­ contradicts the generality of an economic knowledge that is founded on universal notions, which alone can put the good that is pleasure within everyone’s reach, in accordance with the purpose of Epicurean ethics. Thus, he attacks those who, in terms of acquisition, mobilize specialized “know-­how and capacity” (empeiria kai dunamis, Vices 9.17.7), serving only to appease their greediness. However, Philodemus does not reduce oikonomia to pure ethical knowledge. Like Xenophon,

What Kind of Knowledge Is Oikonomia?  49

he restores to it its technical-­practical duality. The general oikonomic knowledge that it offers results in the fact that everyone, “at least for what is sufficient for our needs,” does not fare too badly, as in “the production of bread or in the preparation of food. For everybody is able to make such thing for himself to the point of meeting sufficient needs, although there is an empirical practice involving expertise [about] them [enpeirias (sic) entekhnou]” (Vices 9.17.21–­27). For Philodemus, the generality and the simplicity of oikonomic know-­how ensure that it will be useful (to sumpheron, Vices 9.18.41, 9.19.41, 45) in the sense that it will not simply be effective for satisfying needs but consistent with the search for the Epicurean ideal of prudent pleasure while also being subject to the limitations that would ensure a happy life. This general nature of oikonomia, which prohibits the wise Epicurean from becoming a “specialized craftsman” (technites) of acquisition (Vices 9.17.2–­3), does not exclude its necessary technical aspect—­Philodemus even provides management and accounting advice (Vices 9.25.31–­36)42—­it only limits the degree of this technical aspect within the framework of the Epicurean version of happiness. Like Xenophon, oikonomia thus remains for Philodemus a dual skill, the technical nature of which must, however, be very low to remain consistent with his idea of Good and happiness. • Far from being a field of knowledge neglected by the Greek philosophers, oikonomia, as we have seen, elicited great interest within the framework of various theoretical debates on well-­defined issues that reflected a range of positions. This is also the case with the very content of oikonomia and its own operations, which we will now examine.

Pa rt I I

Organizing Human Beings

In terms of class and categorization, oikonomia is principally concerned with the oikos. But what does this term designate? Most authors would agree that an oikos—­which is generally translated in different contexts as “household,” “family,” or “domain”—­centers on human beings and material possessions. The following quotes would attest to this: The component parts of a household are (l) human beings, and (2) goods and chattels [μέρη δὲ οἰκίας ἄνθρωπός τε καὶ κτῆσίς ἐστιν]. (Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1343a19) The two parts, first and most important, are man and possessions [ἄνθρωπός τε καὶ κτᾶσίς]. (Callicratidas, On the Happiness of the Oikos, Stob. 4.28.16, 682; Hense [Mullach 2, 28]; Thesleff 1965, 104) The household in its perfect form consists of slaves and free men [οἰκία δὲ τέλειος ἐκ δούλων καὶ ἐλευθέρων]. (Aristotle, Pol. 1253b5) Property is a part of a household [ἡ κτῆσις μέρος τῆς οἰκίας ἐστὶ]. (Aristotle, Pol. 1253b24)1

The boundaries separating these two components can fluctuate from one author to another and sometimes within the work of the same author. Thus, Xenophon considers slaves to be possessions (Oec. 3.3–­10, 6.4), while Pseudo-­Aristotle categorizes them as men ([Oec.] 1344a25). And though Aristotle sees them as men on the grounds that they have reason (Pol. 1254b22, 1259b28), he also considers them to be acquisitions gained either by purchase or capture manhunt (Pol. 1254a9–­17, 1255b38).2 Furthermore, the importance given to each of

52  Part Two

them varies greatly, usually to the benefit of men. For Aristotle, “household management takes more interest in the human members of the household than in its inanimate property” (Pol. 1259b18–­21), and the same goes for Pseudo-­Aristotle: “Of property, the first and most indispensable kind is that which is also best and most amenable to housecraft [οἰκονομικώτατον] and this is the human chattel” ([Oec.] 1344a23–­ 25). On the other hand, the topic of the management of goods takes up the main part of Philodemus of Gadara’s treatise on oikonomia; however, this management occurs in interactions that the Epicurean carries out between himself and the members of his community. Xenophon is perhaps the only one who places so much importance on both components. This emphasis—­more often on people rather than goods—­explains why contemporary commentators have generally neglected the material side of oikos and oikonomia—­as an enumeration of objects or domestic and technical activities deemed primarily of an agricultural nature—­privileging instead the human element,3 usually analyzed from the sole perspective of marriage, without a word concerning the relationships between master and slave.4 However, these two poles, human and material, are the subject of one and the same concern in oikonomic literature: How, in theory and in practice, are the two reconciled? The two chapters that follow concern the organization of human beings. “Who should do what?” our authors ask, in a context in which, as Aristotle wrote, “the primary and smallest parts of the household are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children” (Pol. 1253b4–­ 6). What these distinctions have in common is that they are all unequal in terms of sex, age, and status. Contrary to some common misconceptions,5 the distribution of tasks is not the predecessor of the division of labor. While this supposes, in response to mercantile concerns, an economy centered on production and output for profitability and the distribution of tasks or functions,6 the aim of said distribution is to ascribe organization to the oikos, sometimes the city, in a practicable and intelligible human order. It is a social and anthropological principle that has significant repercussions for the forms of economic organization, but it is not an autonomous economic tool or principle. The philosophical interest of the passages concerned with these questions resides less in their differences regarding the distribution of tasks than in the questions they raise about the boundaries of the

Organizing Human Beings 53

human categories within the oikos, in particular between woman and slave, or between slave and free person. These philosophers reflect on the organization of a single institution—­the oikos—­in order to make a world of it, a kosmos, and thereby derive answers to larger human questions (however imperfect or even troubling those answers might seem to us today) regarding the relations between men and women, spouses, parents and children, and heads of household and those who are subjugated to them.

◉ 3 ◉ Marriage, Household, and Community

The marital bond between free men and free women is the subject of heated discussions among ancient philosophers within the framework of their reflections on oikonomia. Their approach to marriage is not limited to the sole ethical theme of sexuality, as Michel Foucault seems to believe in his careful examination of certain sections of Xenophon’s Economics.1 On the contrary, it also concerns the connections between marriage and reproduction as well as the importance of the bodies of spouses and children. Several comments are necessary before delving further into the matter. First, the strong ideological content of passages like these might rightly appear reprehensible to contemporary readers. The arguments they use are often intended to justify—­for example, on the basis of “nature”—­the supposed inferiority of women as compared to men, especially in discussing the distribution of tasks. This is evidently the case with Xenophon, Aristotle, and Pseudo-­Aristotle. And while Plato is undoubtedly the thinker most critical of this ideological framework, the machinery and violence of which he lays bare suggest that he is not totally immune to these blind spots either. We will therefore set aside the question of the marriage of philosophers or sages,2 the reason being that the texts devoted to this subject often suggest that they are emancipated from the framework of the oikos or that they argue that it be reformed to the point that it no longer has much in common with what is presented in the works on oikonomia. This is what occurs with the reform of the family—­rather than its abolition—­among the philosophical guardians of the Republic within the framework of the community of women and children.3 This is also

56  Chapter Three

the case with the treatment that the Cynics reserve for marriage and the family; they, too, would rather reform than abolish these institutions. The union and parenthood of Crates and Hipparchia serve as an apt example in this regard (Diog. Laert. 6.88, 6.96–­97).4 Examples such as these propose such radical changes to the usual practices relating to material goods that to speak of oikos and oikonomia in this context proves not impossible but at least controversial. The interest of these passages from Plato and the Cynics is undeniable: They stretch the logos oikonomikos to its limits by shifting the meaning of the activities usually studied in treatises on oikonomia. Yet precisely for this reason, they would be better suited to examination of alternative philosophical forms of the logos oikonomikos than what will be provided in this chapter. A final preliminary point: rather than explore the topic author by author, the approach adopted here, as in the rest of this book, consists of comparing different thinkers by identifying overlaps and shifts in the problems, arguments, and concepts these authors set in motion when they deal with the question of the marital bond within the context of the logos oikonomikos. While all recognize it as playing an important role in building a human world defined by its main institutions—­ education, the family, the city-­state and, in a sense, nature—­they do not simply make it a condition for the possibility of all these institutions. Conjugal relationships are also points of convergence or crystallization that give them their singular form. This is shown by the three major questions raised by these authors regarding marriage, which engage their idea of oikonomia and, for us, economics: What are the principles of conjugal union, the driving forces behind the formation of couples? What is the nature of the union thus formed? Finally, what is its purpose?

Th e Dr iving Pr incipl e s o f Uni o n: F rom Natur e to the Ci t y- ­S tat e Where does marriage come from? Is it an institution whose foundations can be located on the side of nature, or is it an artificial creation brought about by the necessary social or political relationships of hu-

Marriage, Household, and Community 57

mankind? On closer inspection, this latter alternative would seem too modern. The political sphere and the natural sphere are not necessarily in conflict among the philosophers examined here. For them, these spheres are, or should be, in agreement with one another. For example, Plato evokes a political art that is “truly in conformity with nature” (ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ἀληθῶς οὖσα ἡμῖν πολιτικὴ, Plt. 308d), and Aristotle makes the city the perfect natural community (τῶν φύσει ἡ πόλις ἐστί, Pol. 1252b30–­1253a2). Therefore, the real question is what “nature” designates for these thinkers and to understand how, in marriage, it is articulated vis-­à-­vis the political or social sphere and how marriage itself receives from this articulation its particular form. This is captured in the passages these thinkers devote to the driving principle of union. Within this framework, three scenarios arise.

Biological Origin The first scenario, specific to Aristotle and partly to Pseudo-­Aristotle, is that of the biological origin of the coming together of the human male and female within a teleological framework. It is by considering humankind as an animal species facing the need to perpetuate itself that Aristotle explains the union of the sexes at the origin of the oikos: “The first coupling together [συνδυάζεσθαι] of persons then to which necessity gives rise is that between those who are unable to exist without one another: for instance the union of female and male for the continuance of the species [θῆλυ μὲν καὶ ἄρρεν τῆς γενέσεως ἕνεκεν], and this not of deliberate purpose [οὐκ ἐκ προαιρέσεως], but with man as with the other animals and with plants there is a natural instinct [φυσικὸν τὸ ἐφίεσθαι] to desire to leave behind one another being of the same sort as oneself ” (Pol. 1252a26–­31). Aristotle is certainly aware that human individuals can choose not to have children.5 However, to account for the observable perpetuation of the species—­and of institutions such as families and cities—­we must assume that an underlying tendency is at work of which individuals are less the agents than the instruments. This natural and necessary anchoring of the union of the sexes at the origin of the oikos is mentioned by Pseudo-­Aristotle, according to whom “the community of female and male is completely natural” (κοινωνία γὰρ φύσει τῷ θήλει καὶ τῷ

58  Chapter Three

ἄρρενι μάλιστά ἐστιν, [Oec.] 1343b8). It occurs without the intervention of reason with regard to procreation, and it can be seen as giving rise to behaviors of mutual assistance and succor in tamed and more intelligent animals ([Oec.] 1343b13–­18). It is clear that Pseudo-­Aristotle here completes Aristotle’s account by combining his own assumptions on politics and biology. He associates the natural anchoring of such unions aimed at procreation (i.e., the instinct to live) to the existence of more complex “conjugal” relations, which, in the form of assistance and succor, establish the premises of the good life invoked by the ethical finality of oikonomia and, more broadly, of politics. However, we will see that the biological anchoring of the conjugal relationship in Pseudo-­ Aristotle is less categorical than in Aristotle: for Pseudo-­Aristotle as for Xenophon (Oec. 7.18), it ultimately depends on the intervention of a divinity who makes nature the instrument of its projects. This biological approach explains that the marriage legislation proposed by Aristotle—­which must ensure, through successful unions, the procreation of children endowed with “a good political disposition” (πολιτικὴν εὐεξίαν, Pol. 1335b6) in particular with regard to their bodies (Pol. 1335a5, 1335b3, 1335b31) but also with regard to their capacity to think (Pol. 1335b31)—­also consists of determining the most appropriate marrying ages for men and women, taking into account mainly, but not exclusively, their optimal period of fertility.6

Forming an Appropriate Partnership Does nature provide sufficient reasons for unions? A second principle, one of a social and economic nature that undoubtedly corresponds to the reality of the time, must be examined further: forming an appropriate partnership. This is what Xenophon evokes in an interview between Ischomachus and his wife: Tell me, dear, have you realized for what reason I took you and your parents gave you to me? [11] For it is obvious to you, I am sure, that we should have had no difficulty in finding someone else to share our beds. But I for myself and your parents for you considered [βουλευόμενος] who was the best partner of home and children [τίν᾽ ἂν κοινωνὸν βέλτιστον οἴκου τε καὶ τέκνων] that we could get. My choice fell on

Marriage, Household, and Community 59

you, and your parents, it appears, chose me as the best they could find [ἐκ τῶν δυνατῶν ἐμέ]. (Oec. 7.10–­11)

The principle of the union, expressed at the level of the awareness of its agents, here stems from a materially based socioeconomic concern that leads individuals to deliberate in order to achieve what would seem to be the best domestic “community” possible, namely, as Ischomachus would specify shortly thereafter, one that “maintains the assets [τά τε ὄντα] [of the oikos] in the best possible state and increases them as much as possible by honorable and legitimate means” (Oec. 7.15). Consolidating and enhancing the value of the oikos was arguably an explicit motivation in classical times, as an alternate translation of the last part of the quotation might suggest—­“among the mighty” (ἐκ τῶν δυνατῶν ἐμέ). This expression prevents us from any temptation to interpret the matrimonial relationship in terms of personal love. This explains what, without it, could pass for evoking a personal feeling of the woman toward her husband based on his own individual traits. Indeed, if Ischomachus were somehow disguised or made up, his wife would be, as she claims, “incapable of cherishing him with all [her] soul” (ἀσπάσασθαι ἐκ τῆς ψυχῆς, Oec. 10.4). This is not a declaration of conjugal love addressed to a husband on the basis of his personal uniqueness but rather an expression of attachment to a partner within the community of the oikos. The context of this quotation, which concerns “the community of bodies,” offers evidence of this: just as the species of the horse and the sheep find nothing more agreeable than the body of the horse and the sheep, so do “men find nothing more pleasant than the human body without any artifice” (οὕτω καὶ οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἀνθρώπου σῶμα καθαρὸν οἴονται ἥδιστον εἶναι, Oec. 10.7). Thus, the conjugal relationship was not understood as a relation between two unique persons but by analogy with the relationship between two members of one and the same species. We will return to this point when discussing the purpose of conjugal unions. The conscious intention presiding over unions represents, in Ischomachus’s speech, a point of convergence between nature, religion, and custom. The three fundamental institutions by which man finds his place in the world all point in the same direction. Indeed, he explains, the gods naturally differentiated the body of man and woman with a view to the economic functions that are accorded to them (ἅ τε

60  Chapter Three

οἱ θεοὶ ἔφυσάν σε δύνασθαι, Oec. 7.16). They (the gods) have “carried out a thorough examination before matching this couple, which are called male and female for the greater benefit of their community” (Oec. 7.18).7 And custom (ὁ νόμος, Oec. 7.16 and 7.30) confirms this distribution of skills and functions. Thus Xenophon bears witness to an ideological system where everything converges in view of what seems to have been the practice, real or ideal, of a certain oikonomia that leaves its mark on the idea and practice of marriage.

A Social, Economic, and Political Strategy Laid Bare Plato, finally, proposes a third kind of approach, distinct from and clearly critical of those of Aristotle or Xenophon, especially the latter. Far from agreeing with Aristotle that the natural foundations of a conjugal relationship—­the difference and the complementarity of the sexes with a view to procreation—­are decisive in order to explain the domestic unity in its conjugal dimension, Plato subordinates them to the construction of a political order. This political order takes precedence as a fundamental institution by which man and the city are constructed or, on the contrary, destroyed. The driving force behind the union of the sexes in ordinary marital relations is not, in Plato’s view, the biological necessity of the species to procreate. Instead, it is a set of social strategies that is generally detrimental to the civic community, and the agents of that community do not fully understand the consequences. Plato begins from the observation that in the empirical and imperfect cities in which we live, unions are poorly consecrated in that the two main motives that guide them as a rule work against the unity and justice of the polis. The first, mentioned by Ischomachus and corresponding to an Athenian reality,8 is the desire to form powerful families distinguished by their wealth and power. A passage from the Statesman and another from the Laws clearly indicate this: T h e S t r a n g e r : For most people make such bonds without proper

regard to the procreation of children. S o c r a t e s t h e You ng e r : How is that? T h e S t r a n g e r : The pursuit of wealth or power in connection with matrimony [τὰ μὲν πλούτου καὶ δυνάμεων]. (Plt. 310b)

Marriage, Household, and Community 61

T h e A t h e n i a n: My child, you must make a marriage that will com-

mend itself to men of sense, who would counsel you neither to shun entirely connection with a poor family, nor to pursue connection with a rich one, but other things being equal, to always prefer an alliance with a family of moderate means. Such a course will benefit both the State and the united families, since in respect of excellence what is evenly balanced and symmetrical is infinitely superior to what is untempered. The man who knows he is unduly hasty and violent in all his actions should win a bride sprung from steady parents; while the man that is of a contrary nature should proceed to mate himself with one of the opposite kind. Regarding marriage as a whole there shall be one general rule: each man must seek to form such a marriage as shall benefit the city, rather than such as best pleases himself [ταῖς τε συνιούσαις ἑστίαις]. [. . .] There is a natural tendency for everyone to make for the mate that most resembles himself, whence it results that the whole State becomes ill-­balanced both in wealth and in moral habits. (Leg. 6.773a–­c)9

While the Statesman is content to point out this problem without really delving into it further, the Laws proposes—­in the name of the equilibrium and unity of the city—­a certain number of provisions so as to avoid having the interplay of money and power interests disrupt unions and the births that might result from them. In addition to general ethical and political provisions—­wealth is immediately placed at the lowest rank of human goods, far behind divine goods (Leg. 1.631b–­ d), and wealth (like poverty) is limited for all citizens (Leg. 5.744d–­ 745b)—­a more specific measure directly concerns marriage: T h e A t h e n i a n: Concerning dowries, it has been stated before, and it

shall be stated again, that an equal exchange consists in neither giving nor receiving any gift, for all those who belong to this city have the necessaries of life provided for them; and the result of this rule will be less insolence on the part of the wives and less humiliation and servility on the part of the husband because of money. (Leg. 6.774c–­d)

To prohibit dowry is to remove marriage from power struggles and their potential repercussions for the city. It is thus to remind the citizens that marriage is above all a political and public institution rather than a private one, of which the citizens are only the instruments or the

62  Chapter Three

implementers in the name of a collective good of which citizens will receive the benefits if they follow the prescriptions of the legislator or the good governor. The second motive that, according to Plato, usually guides unions, is both psychological and political. It concerns the propensity of the two main characters present in cities, namely the vigorous and the temperate, to want to unite with those who resemble them rather than unite with each other: T h e S t r a ng e r : The temperate [οἱ μέν που κόσμιοι] seek, I think, the

character that is theirs, and as much as possible, it is from this side that they seek women; it is also to these same people that they send the daughters they give in marriage, and the vigorous race does exactly as much [τὸ περὶ τὴν ἀνδρείαν γένος], running after its own nature, whereas it would be necessary that the both of these races do just the opposite. (Plt. 310c–­d)

Evidencing tendencies that are both natural as well as shaped by education, these two characteristics in turn support two virtues: Courage and temperance, which, despite their shared nature as virtues, come into conflict with one another (Plt. 306a–­308b). This friction is revealed above all with regard to “important things” (i.e., political affairs), where it becomes “a disease, the most detestable that can befall the cities” (Plt. 307e). Cultivated without mixture, each one leads the city to ruin and servitude—­courage by creating too many enemies against it, and temperance by making it incapable of defending itself (Plt. 307e–­308a). Under the effect of their spontaneous tendency to unite with like individuals, these two virtues then tend to become vices—­respectively, madness and nonchalance (Plt. 310d–­e)—­that are inevitably harmful to the city. Only a perspective shared by the two groups on “good and evil” (Plt. 310e)—­the “divine bond” that the politician must shape—­ can ensure their mixing through the “human bond” of marriage (Plt. 310e–­311a).10 It is only on this condition that their cooperation will be guaranteed at all levels of the city, especially for the magistracies, which are so important to good government (Plt. 311a). That the dialogue on the definition of the statesman and politics ends with the analysis of marriage shows clearly that, for Plato, the oikonomia can only be treated on the scale of the city. The fate of the latter depends, among other things, on the manner in which unions are consecrated.

Marriage, Household, and Community 63

The differences in emphasis are therefore prominent among these authors in the analysis of the principles of marriage, and Plato is obviously quite critical of Aristotle’s naturalism as well as of Xenophon’s social justifications. What, then, about the nature of the marital union? Do these authors concur in this regard?

Th e Nat ure of the Mari ta l B o nd i n th e Oikos: Ver sions of Co m muni t y All the authors who have been compared here are in agreement on at least this point: Man and woman form a community (koinônia) in the oikos.11 In Xenophon, a partner is referred to on various occasions as a koinônos (Oec. 3.15, 7.11, 7.13). What would the purpose of this community in fact be? Based on the distribution of functions delegated to men and women, it engages in each case a certain conception of commonality.

The Oikos: Locus and Principle of Community The vocabulary of community (whether koinônia, koinônos, or koinos) is omnipresent in Xenophon as a qualification of the marital bond. More specifically, it is the oikos that, for Ischomachus, is both the locus and the principle of this community: “At present,” he explains to his wife, “we share in this our home” (νῦν δὲ δὴ οἶκος ἡμῖν ὅδε κοινός ἐστιν, Oec. 7.13). In this sense, though each one is certainly a “partner” (koinônos) for the other, the husband or the wife is above all, literally, a partner of the oikos itself and, less often, of the children (τίν᾽ ἂν κοινωνὸν βέλτιστον οἴκου τε καὶ τέκνων λάβοιμεν, Oec. 7.11, 7.30). At the beginning of the work, Socrates already gives Critobulus a glimpse of the fact that a woman who is a “good partner of the oikos” (κοινωνὸν ἀγαθὴν οἴκου, Oec. 3.15; emphasis added) is equivalent to man in this respect. The union of the spouses therefore only has meaning through this institution: they do not by themselves form a community but only do so through the mediation of the oikos. This is confirmed by the few terms formed from the Greek prefix

64  Chapter Three

sun-­, which evoke an action performed together. Thus, Socrates proposes that Critobulus explain to him how a wife can be invited to “cooperate” (συνεργοὺς, Oec. 3.10) with the husband in the oikos, and the wife of Ischomachus asks him how to “contribute” (συμπρᾶξαι, Oec 7.14) to domestic activities, to which he responds by inviting her to make the oikos grow together (συναύξοιμι, Oec. 7.16). Furthermore, their joint supplication to the gods for what can be “best for us both” (τὰ βέλτιστα ἀμφοτέροις ἡμῖν, Oec. 7.8) does not evoke a relation of reciprocity between Ischomachus and his wife but rather, as the conversation indicates, their common participation in the oikos. More accurately, it is the oikos that makes this participation mutual and of concern to them both. The single binding principle of community between spouses in the oikos does not imply that they play the same role in it. On the contrary, it is their functional complementarity that prevails, which is made possible by their natural corporeal differences (Oec. 7.18–­22) and their moral aptitudes—­affection for women, courage for men (Oec. 7.24–­25)—­which the gods are thought to have carefully considered (διεσκεμμένως μάλιστα, Oec. 7.18). The man, who also exists externally to the oikos, is responsible for bringing in provisions and defending the oikos. The woman, within the oikos, is meanwhile tasked with preserving these provisions, distributing them as deemed appropriate (Oec. 7.39–­ 40), and ministering to the newborn children (Oec. 7.24). Therefore, the corporeal communion evoked when the question arises whether or not to apply makeup (τῶν σωμάτων κοινωνήσοντες, Oec. 10.4; τοῦ σώματος αὖ δοκοίην εἶναι ἀξιοφίλητος μᾶλλον κοινωνός, Oec. 10.5) designates not so much a sexual union as a physical complementarity—­ which is thus functional—­of man and woman for which sexual union is only one possible modality. The economic body is a specific body—­that of the species—­and not an individual one. Ischomachus’s analogy, as quoted above, is particularly expressive: Just as the gods made the bodies of horses, cattle, and sheep the most pleasant things in the world for horses, cattle, and sheep—­that is to say, for members of their own species—­it is in the same sense that “human beings find the human body undisguised most delightful” (Oec. 10.7). Ischomachus’s advice to his wife to remain beautiful confirms this: It is not aimed at enhancing her individual beauty but to ensure that she best fulfills her role in the oikos (Oec. 10.9–­13). As she is

Marriage, Household, and Community 65

always involved in domestic activity or practice, she will thus not have a mere appearance of beauty but a true (inner) beauty: Not that of her own person but that which shines through and can be recognized as maintaining a social order.

The Community of Spouses While they both refer to conjugal relationships as a community, Aristotle and, to a certain degree, Pseudo-­Aristotle nonetheless provide their own distinctions regarding this form of community in relation to Xenophon. They both adopt, in greater or lesser detail, the same basic distribution of functions as Xenophon; however, they offer differing views on the concept of community in marriage. Pseudo-­Aristotle also conceives of the domestic community formed by man and woman ([Oec.] 1343b27) as a coaction (συνεργὰ, [Oec.] 1343b20) with a view to living well yet one that is rooted, as for Aristotle, in the biological community of the male and the female. As an expression inspired by Xenophon indicates,12 the divinity organized nature in such a way as to differentiate bodies and the functions that belong to them within the framework of a complementarity that is similar to the one mentioned by Ischomachus: Men are made stronger and women weaker ([Oec.] 1343b30). The latter is more apt to stand guard impelled by the fear that animates her, the former more apt to repel, by dint of his courage, possible attacks; he is better equipped to bring in what originates from outside, while she is more equipped to safeguard what is inside; her work will be more sedentary, his work, which is less prone toward tranquility, will keep him healthy through constant movement. As for children, she will nourish them, while he will educate them ([Oec.] 1343b23–­1344a6). Aristotle, for his part, elaborates little on the details of this distribution of functions. He indicates only that “his role is to acquire, while her role is to preserve” (Pol. 1277b24–­25). He does, however, underscore the power differential between spouses: The man and the woman in the oikos differ in terms of hierarchy (Pol. 1259a37–­1259b2) because their souls have the same components but they are arranged in different ways. They therefore share the same virtues but in a different configuration (Pol. 1260a9–­21).

66  Chapter Three

Despite their similarities with Xenophon, Aristotle and Pseudo-­ Aristotle thus differ in terms of how they understand the nature of the community, which for them takes place directly between the husband and the wife without any mediation from the oikos. This explains—­or is explained by—­how these thinkers understand the ethical relationship between husband and wife based both on common morality (ὁ κοινὸς νόμος, [Oec.] 1344a10) as well as psychological considerations. Let us examine these two points. Regarding common morality, Pseudo-­Aristotle cites the importance of respecting justice, or more exactly of not committing any injustice against the wife, who is especially vulnerable—­suggesting a reference to the Pythagoreans, according to whom the woman is like “a suppliant, whom one has raised from the hearthstone” ([Oec.] 1344a9–­10). The injustice the author has in mind clearly refers to the so-­called out-­of-­home relations mentioned shortly afterward ([Oec.] 1344a10)—­presumably an allusion to extramarital sex. What meaning, then, to give to the “relations” (περὶ δὲ ὁμιλίας, [Oec.] 1344a11) between husband and wife? Should this expression be considered as having a sexual sense in response to the previous remark on “relations outside the home”? If so, Pseudo-­Aristotle would mean that the husband should act toward his wife such that she does not feel that too much is expected of her when he is present but also that she does not feel neglected when he is absent.13 If we instead interpret the phrase in a “functional” sense directly linked to domestic tasks, then the meaning would seem to be that the woman must be autonomous in performing certain tasks both when her husband is there and when he is not. In either case, it should be noted that Pseudo-­ Aristotle does not use the positive term justice in connection with this relationship, as if the important thing were to not place undue burdens on the relationship rather than to seek the nature of justice in the full sense of the term within the relationship. A further sign of this distance from a positive definition of justice is the brief mention of a form of philia between spouses (φιλικόν, [Oec.] 1344a15), which is supposed to be strengthened by the similarity of their natures or characters ([Oec.] 1344a16). Meanwhile, Aristotle evokes these ethical elements more directly in a passage from the Nicomachean Ethics. For him, the philia that unites spouses can unfold within a vast panoply. Owing to the fact

Marriage, Household, and Community 67

that human beings are made “for the couple” (συνδυαστικὸν, Eth. Nic. 1162a17), they are susceptible to three modalities of friendship: Utility, by which “everyone compensates for the needs of the other by pooling the resources which are proper to him [εἰς τὸ κοινὸν τιθέντες τὰ ἴδια]” (Eth. Nic. 1162a19)—­a statement that would indicate that the community is attached to the relationship between spouses rather than being mediated by the oikos; pleasure; and, finally, virtue, if the spouses are “well suited” or “honest” (ἐπιεικεῖς, Eth. Nic. 1162a21). The attitude of the husband toward his wife should consist of asking “how to do what is right” (πῶς δίκαιον, Eth. Nic. 1162a25). This concept of justice is not abstract; it takes the form of a particular relationship of power specific to the conjugal relationship, which Aristotle defines as “political” in the sense that the relationship is marked by equality between the free man and the free wife, as it is also between ruler and ruled (Pol. 1255b20). This type of relationship generally involves alternating the exercise of command (Pol. 1259b4–­6). However, what is valid for the state does not apply to the oikos: Aristotle attributes to the man a natural faculty to order that he does not grant to the woman (Pol. 1259b2), which goes against the principle of alternation. Why then call their relationship “political” if it leaves no room for alternation in the exercise of power in the oikos? Without denying the equality of husband and wife, Aristotle believes that the exercise of power is accompanied by signs of power (e.g., badges, titles, and honors, Pol. 1259b7–­8). We might therefore assume—­since there is no direct mention of it in the text—­that the man presents these signs more than the woman does, according to Aristotle. The Magna Moralia offers another explanation based on a comparison with the other relationships internal to the oikos, namely, the paternal relationship and the despotic relationship: “The justice that there is in the association of wife and husband comes near to political justice. For the wife is inferior to the husband, but closer to him, and partakes in a way more of equality, because their life is close to political association, so that justice between man and wife is more than any other like political justice” ([Mag. Mor.] 1194b22–­29).14 Compared to other relationships within the oikos, the relationship between husband and wife comes closest to political equality without ever attaining complete equality. In any event, Pseudo-­Aristotle, and

68  Chapter Three

even more so Aristotle, identifies the locus of domestic community not in the entity of the oikos but in a direct relationship between the spouses themselves.

Plato: Political Oikos and the Similarity of Functions Where does Plato fit in this configuration? He does not follow the previous model, since he evokes neither the question of the distribution of functions between spouses nor that of justice between them. Why not? This would, again, be due to his polemical and critical gesture of ascribing to the state what other thinkers attribute instead to the oikos. Regarding the place of the distribution of functions, Plato moves it from the oikos to the polis when discussing the genesis of the state in book 2 of the Republic (369bff.). And he also changes the criterion: it is no longer based on sex, as with the previous thinkers, but rather on talent or competence (Resp. 2.370a–­b), and nothing in the Laws would invalidate this idea. In these two dialogues, on the contrary, Plato puts forward the functional similarity of man and woman in the name of the unity and strength of the state, whether between male and female guardians in the Republic (5.455d–­e) or between husbands and wives within the domestic space. In the Laws, Plato notes “that the female sex must share with the male, to the greatest extent possible, both in education and in all else [καὶ τῶν ἄλλων]” (Leg. 7.805c–­d; emphasis added), which he then specifies by rejecting the Athenian practice of huddling “all our goods together, as the saying goes, within four walls, and then hand[ing] over the dispensing of them to the women, together with the control of the shuttles and all kinds of wool-­work” (Leg. 7.805e). Concerning justice between the spouses, Plato does not mention it in the Laws because he subordinates the domestic community to the community of affects and values that makes up the polis itself: the members of the household belong to the polis before they belong to their own household (Leg. 7.804d, 11.923b). Plato, however, alludes to two measures intended to promote the conjugal bond. The first pertains to the relationship between the bride and groom in choosing each other: they are invited to develop mutual knowledge and familiarity (Leg. 6.771d), the foundations of which are laid during dances where each is able to observe the other’s body. The

Marriage, Household, and Community 69

second measure consists of instituting common meals, the intention of which is to extricate women from domestic seclusion. As they are “used to living in seclusion and in the shadows” (Leg. 6.781c), they must in a way be politicized15 by their inclusion within the civic community of which their husbands are also members. The question remains, then, of what the purpose of the marital union would actually be. Here again, there are differences in emphasis among the thinkers who concern us, differences that reflect the meaning each one gives to oikonomia.

T h e M anufacturing of B o di e s What is the purpose of the marital union in the oikos? It is to produce bodies; not only to create those of a determined type—­the bodies of newborns on which Aristotle and Plato focus their reflection within the framework of eugenics—­but also to reflect on and put into operation the differences and similarities between spouses’ bodies within the domestic space. This, in effect, is what Xenophon does when he accords to procreation only a secondary role in his analyses. In any event, the oikos is an institution the proper administration of which should be geared toward the production of a certain body, the domestic body, on which the civic or political body of individuals must be based, because it is on that domestic body that the perpetuity of the oikos and of the state largely depend.

The Acquisition of Male and Female Bodies Xenophon certainly makes procreation an objective in the relationship that the divinity had foreseen between man and woman by organizing the difference of their bodies and their abilities. Since she is in charge of nourishing the children, the woman also enjoys greater tenderness than the man toward the newborns (Oec. 7.24). Nonetheless, two points indicate that it is the spouses’ bodies rather than the body of the newborn that is at the center of economic practice (and discourse), according to Xenophon.

70  Chapter Three

On the one hand, Ischomachus does not directly say that the divinity designed the body of the woman to give birth to children and to nourish them: it is rather to perform specific tasks in the oikos that the divinity has trained her body and her skills. According to Ischomachus, as we have seen, the more vulnerable woman’s body is made for interior tasks (Oec. 7.23). Of these, the care of newborns (Oec. 7.21) is just one of three examples given, along with the preparation of flour and the making of clothes. In other words, Ischomachus does not make procreation the focal point of his recommendations to his wife. This is confirmed both by the small number of his comments on this subject and the statement, “If the divinity grants us children” (τέκνα μὲν οὖν ἂν θεός ποτε διδῷ ἡμῖν γενέσθαι, Oec. 7.12), as if some element of randomness or contingency—­perhaps a reference to the probably high infant mortality rate at the time—­did not make it possible to guarantee the perpetuation and prosperity of the oikos. For Xenophon or his characters, having children would certainly represent a succor for Ischomachus and his wife in their later years (Oec. 7.19; cf. Pseudo-­ Aristotle, [Oec.] 1343b21–­23) as well as for further uniting their community (Oec. 7.30). However, childbearing is not seen as the essential objective of this union. On the other hand, the explicit objective of the conjugal union, namely “to conserve and increase assets” (Oec. 7.15), depends more on the efficient distribution and realization of the spouses’ skills than on the care given to children. The justification for this distribution of labor stems, as has been said, from the differences foreseen by the divinity in male and female bodies and in their respective aptitudes, bolstered by other moral or psychological differences (Oec. 7.18–­32). The oikos is certainly the locus where such differences are manifested; however, it is above all the institution that makes them meaningful and operational. The idea that the health and beauty of Ischomachus’s wife—­especially the color of her complexion (Oec. 9.11)—­w ill be enhanced by her active engagement in the tasks assigned to her (Oec. 9.9–­13) and that Ischomachus will derive healthful benefits from his economic activities when he goes to the fields (Oec. 11.14, 11.19) indicates that the domestic economy is a discourse and practice inscribing the bodies in a symbolic order shaped by values. It is through this order that the female acquires a female body, the male a male body.

Marriage, Household, and Community 71

Aristotle’s Eugenics: The Biological Conditions for the Production of Free Male Bodies Plato and Aristotle, on the other hand, make procreation one of the main goals of a conjugal union since they see it as one of the essential sources for the perpetuation of the oikos and the state. However, it is on the nature of their eugenic remarks that they part ways, that is to say on the relevant factors of the production of the best bodies, at least the most desirable within the framework of their remarks. We will begin with Aristotle. A passage from the Politics is devoted to this question (1334b30–­1336a2). This passage appears in the more general framework of a reflection on the educational function of the lawmaker, who must deal with the body as well as with the soul (Pol. 1334b25–­26). It is directly with regard to the body—­to ensure that “children have the best possible body” (Pol. 1334b30)—­that the lawmaker must first intervene in unions. His objective would be to promote the birth of bodies possessing “a good political condition” (πολιτικὴν εὐεξίαν, Pol. 1335b6), that is, not the bodies of athletes but bodies suitable for the activities of free men (πρὸς τὰς τῶν ἐλευθερίων πράξεις, Pol. 1335b10–­11). Oikonomia, in its human aspect, is here thought of as an enterprise for the production of a political body. Two questions guide Aristotle in determining the actions of the lawmaker in this regard: “When and between what kinds of people should marital relations take place?” (Pol. 1334b32). But in reality the second question is treated with the first in the sense that the age of the parents exerts an influence on their moral and intellectual dispositions, an influence that can in turn be transferred to their offspring. Broaching the question of When? thus implies dealing with the question of What kinds? These two related questions concern what one might call the optimal time for unions, which gives rise to two further questions: At what age should unions and therefore marriages begin? and When is it desirable for procreation to cease? Regarding the first, Aristotle mentions several factors that should be taken into account: the life span of men and women; the contemporaneity of the ages from which their fertility declines in order to avoid the disagreements which, according to Aristotle, may be triggered by their noncoincidence;16 and the consideration of the optimal differ-

72  Chapter Three

ences between the age of the children and the age of the parents so that there is neither too much nor too little proximity in these mutual relations, with too much proximity being a “source of recriminations in the family administration” (περὶ τὴν οἰκονομίαν ἐγκληματικὸν, Pol. 1335a3–­4) because it does not allow the father to properly exercise his paternal function (Pol. 1334b33–­1335a6). According to Aristotle, it is the age for the end of fertility in both sexes—­seventy years for men, fifty years for women (Pol. 1335b7–­11)—­ that must determine the beginning of their union. This would suggest ruling out overly precocious unions for biological reasons—­the offspring are imperfect, smaller, more probably female than male (Pol. 1335b12–­17), and this affects the growth of future fathers—­as well as for ethical reasons: young girls who have sexual relations tend to become more licentious (ἀκολαστότεραι, Pol. 1335b24). These criteria should lead the lawmaker to determine the minimum age for marriage at about eighteen for women and less than thirty-­seven for men (Pol. 1335b28–­ 30), given that their bodies have by then reached optimal development. As for knowing the optimal time of year for procreation, Aristotle refers this question to those with more specialized knowledge: childcare workers and doctors. Concerning the age limit for procreation, that is to say the age beyond which the body of the newborn risks no longer having the “good political disposition,” Aristotle gives an approximate idea based on the observation that the children born to older people are “imperfect physically and intellectually” (Pol. 1335b31) and that they are weak (Pol. 1335b32). In short, after the age of fifty, one must be “relieved of the function of giving birth” (Pol. 1335b37). Aristotle does not say how the lawmaker should go about achieving this, nor does he mention any prohibitions regarding sexual activity at this age and beyond. The brief lines on adultery that end the passage specify that “in general it must be dishonorable” (ἔστω μὲν ἁπλῶς μὴ καλὸν, Pol. 1335b39) to indulge in it as long as one is said to be a “husband” (Pol. 1335b40), and they also indicate that punishment (ἀτιμίᾳ, Pol. 1336a1) must be meted out to those who indulge in it while they are still in the period of procreation. Are this dishonor and the subsequent punishment one and the same sanction? Or does Aristotle refer to two kinds of punishments—­which seems more likely given that the conjugal relationship goes beyond the period of procreation—­one moral, in the name of the stability of the

Marriage, Household, and Community 73

marital relationship and of the family institution, and the other legal and civic and apparently stronger, possibly because it jeopardizes the lines of succession and inheritance within the oikos? Leaving these questions aside, what is the civic body that is discussed as the object of production? Defined by the activities of which it must be capable once reaching maturity—­those of the free man, that is to say those of the citizen participating in the magistracies, those of the virtuous man, those of the soldier and possibly those of the man turned toward theoretical activities—­its meaning extends to the more general framework of a politics of bodies, the oikonomic dimension of which, as Aristotle quickly describes here, is obviously the most important. Aristotle in fact evokes two other bodies in this passage: That of pregnant women, who are urged to “take care” of themselves (ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τῶν σωμάτων, Pol. 1335b12) while avoiding the two extremes of carelessness and frugality, and the disabled body (πεπηρωμένον, Pol. 1335b21) of some newborns, which are also vulnerable (Pol. 1335b19–­21). Concerning the latter, Aristotle does not specify to which infirmities or to which degree of infirmity he is referring or whether it is an indirect reference to female children, who, as we know, he controversially presents as “infirm males” (πεπηρωμένον, Gen. an. 737a) and who were more often vulnerable than male children.17 As a fundamental dimension of the domestic oikonomia, then, the stake of the conjugal union is therefore to achieve the articulation of the biological and the political within the body. Domestic oikonomia is, in this sense, the locus of a “biopolitics.”

Plato’s Eugenics: The Ethical Conditions for Procreation Eugenics as a practice inherent to domestic oikonomia also appears in Plato’s Laws. According to him, in fact, “the bride and groom must consider that they should give the state the most beautiful and best children possible” (καλλίστους καὶ ἀρίστους εἰς δύναμιν, Leg. 6.783d). Thus, the conjugal union should, as in Aristotle, produce a body and a political soul, or one that is capable of becoming so. The “beauty” in question is perhaps synonymous with Aristotle’s “without infirmity”; however, unlike the latter, it is less in the general biological condition of the parents’ bodies that Plato is interested in achieving this goal

74  Chapter Three

than it is in their ethical disposition, which, according to him, has repercussions on their own bodies as well as, through procreation, on the soul and body of the embryo. The Athenian therefore refers to the conditions or circumstances in which procreation should take place, distinguishing the particular case of procreation on the wedding night from the general case of procreation during conjugal life. First of all, it is the behavior of the couple on the wedding night, in particular of the husband, that is decisive: procreating that evening might result, under the effect of the wine that would accompany the wedding festivities, in not imparting to the embryo the qualities of consistency, stability, and tranquility that it must have (Leg. 6.775c). In this regard, the Athenian states, the man that is steeped in wine moves and is moved himself in every way, writhing both in body and soul; consequently, when drunk, a man is clumsy and bad at sowing seed and is thus likely to beget unstable and untrusty offspring, crooked in form and character. (Leg. 6.775c–­d)

He then extends his remarks to procreation over the course of married life: “Wherefore he must be very careful throughout all the year and the whole of his life—­and most especially during the time he is begetting—­to commit no act that involves either bodily ailment or violence and injustice; for these he will inevitably stamp on the souls and bodies of the offspring and will generate them in every way inferior” (Leg. 6.775d–­e). It is difficult to know whether the Athenian really believes in the biological transmission of ethical dispositions or more exactly in the psychic and physical impact on embryos of the ethical disturbances of their progenitors18 or whether it is only a belief intended to establish in the minds of citizens the ethical continuity between the domestic oikonomic sphere and the political sphere. Either way, the measures he posits to ensure that procreation takes place under the best conditions are of an ethical and political nature: the newlywed must pay attention to his wife and to procreation. During the procreation period, for ten years from the age of marriage (between sixteen and twenty years for girls and between thirty and thirty-­five years for boys, Leg. 6.785b), the couple will receive a visit from the inspectors charged with ensuring that this task is taken seriously (Leg. 6.783e–­784a). This particular dimension of the domestic economy, entirely subordinated to a political

Marriage, Household, and Community 75

aim, therefore does not have the sole objective of giving shape to the state but also to inscribe the order of the state in the body of individuals. The domestic economy, considered at the level of the union between the spouses, constitutes the fundamental anchor point of politics. The conjugal union—­and this goes for Aristotle, Xenophon, and even more explicitly for Plato—­implies inscribing politics on and in bodies. • The conjugal union is, as we can see, a fundamental dimension of the classical philosophical reflection concerning oikonomia. It forms the subject for debate and controversy regarding its principles, nature, and purpose. A core piece of the sociopolitical edifice and, more broadly, of the relationship between the human being and the world, it is decisive because it is the locus and the inevitable starting point for the articulation between the biological and the political by which the order of the state is inscribed in the body of its members and, through it, in their soul. The conjugal union is not, however, intangible: though Philodemus of Gadara evokes it in the context of the criticisms he addresses to Xenophon and especially toward Pseudo-­Aristotle or Theophrastus (Vices 9.8.45–­46), he himself does not broach the subject in the exposition of his doctrine on domestic oikonomia. Would an oikonomia without marriage therefore be possible? The end of his treatise, it is true, will accord a preponderant role to friendship in the acquisition and expenditure of goods, this second activity being, as with other authors (as we will see), the lot of women. This would explain why Philodemus does not expound specifically on the subject of marriage, and it suggests that he probably relegates reproduction to a form of necessity so natural that he does not even feel the need to discuss it.

◉ 4 ◉ Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos

After the relationship between spouses, the thinkers we have mentioned focus on the enslaved and their relationship with their masters when discussing the question of human “property” within the framework of oikonomia. Slavery is a form of social domination1 by virtue of which an individual, acquired by purchase or conquest or else born of parents who are themselves enslaved, is subject to the dominion of a master. The latter, an individual or a community, as the owner, employs the enslaved for various tasks and can also sell them.2 In this sense slavery is an inescapable reality of the domestic and civic economy in ancient Greece: No state or oikos is without slaves, and for the oikos of which they are part, they are deemed both property and members of the extended family beyond the matrimonial and parent-­child nucleus.3 According to Aristotle, “a complete family [οἰκία] is made up of slaves and free people” (Pol. 1253b3–­4). For Pseudo-­Aristotle, too, human beings are one of the two components of the oikos ([Oec.] 1343a18), with the human beings in question being designated on the one hand as free spouses and, on the other, as possessions or slaves ([Oec.] 1344a23). Xenophon’s Socrates also takes it for granted that there is no domestic economy without slaves, whether they are willing or reluctant to work (Oec. 3.4). The Athenian of Plato’s Laws also assigns to slaves the agricultural work that is to be carried out in the kleroi or the reworked equivalents of the oikoi (Leg. 7.806d–­e). A later exception that would only underscore the general rule can be found in a fragment of the Epicurean Diogenes of Oenoanda (fr. 56), which suggests that an Epicurean community without slaves would be possible in which each one would carry out by himself the few economic tasks required

Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  77

in the limits of natural wealth. To these unanimous textual arguments is added a further linguistic fact: along with doulos and pais, the term oiketês was frequently used to designate the domestic slave.4 But what were the boundaries between masters and the enslaved within the domestic space? It seems to have been one of both nearness and irremediable distance. On the one hand, the strong familial integration of slaves can be seen in the influence they exerted on free children, whom they helped to educate (Resp. 8.549e–­550a), and by the emotional bonds or the close confidence they nurtured with their masters, examples of which Homer provides in the Odyssey, as in the case of Euryclea and Telemachus and Odysseus and Eumeus. Similarly, Plato emphasizes the exemplary conduct of certain slaves toward their masters (Leg. 6.776d–­e).5 In this sense, we cannot consider the enslaved as in a state of passive submission with respect to the will of their owner. We must also understand that they were active subjects capable of negotiating their role in this relationship, of participating in and of determining, to varying degrees, certain aspects of their own livelihoods.6 On the other hand, however, the violence inherent in such a despotic relationship cannot be overlooked. This violence can be categorized in three ways. Stemming, initially, from the modalities of enslavement by war or capture,7 it then extends to the mistreatment of the enslaved by their masters, and finally, it is linked to the fact that the social “honor” attached to the status of master goes hand in hand with the social and moral inferiorization of the enslaved who, for their part, experience a “loss of honor” that can be equated with a visceral “social death.”8 It is within this dual context that we should understand the somewhat ambivalent and paradoxical passages that our authors—­ principally Xenophon, Aristotle, Plato, and Pseudo-­Aristotle—­devote to the enslaved and the institution of slavery as part of their reflections on oikonomia. Indeed, whether it is a question of examining the knowledge and the economic functions of slaves—­what they are required to do, what they must know in order to carry out their specific functions, and what principles determine the distribution of their various tasks—­or whether it is a question of reflecting on the means that the masters must employ to guarantee the efficiency of their work and ensure their obedience, in both cases, the enslaved are presented as both similar to their masters, to the point of being described as free

78  Chapter Four

men, as well as irremediably servile. In other words, the same discourse half-­heartedly grants them a functional centrality in the oikos while nevertheless rendering them invisible by projecting on them a status that is altogether opposed to this same centrality. How then are we to consider the radical difference between masters and slaves and their simultaneous extreme proximity (which sometimes extends as far as a similarity) to each other in the logos oikonomikos? To understand this, one must analyze the views espoused by philosophers regarding the master and the enslaved in their treatises on oikonomia as well as the ambiguous portrait of the enslaved as a (quasi-­)free entity that can also be found in those works. Before proceeding to these texts, two comments are necessary. On the one hand, this chapter will not provide a detailed analysis of the pages Aristotle devotes to the concept of the “slave by nature” in book 1 of Politics. This passage, although unique, is already the subject of an extensive literature,9 unlike the despotic nature of the master-­enslaved relationship, either in Aristotle or the other writers who dealt with oikonomia. Therefore, it is that latter aspect that will be our primary focus. On the other hand, the purpose of this chapter is not merely to denounce the apparent blindness of these ancient authors to the deplorable nature of slavery: instead, this chapter aims at understanding the theoretical and ideological tools they employ when dealing with the differences between the free and the servile and the ambiguities in those differences. Though all agree on the fact that the slave is part of κτήματα, “acquisitions,” “properties,” or “possessions,”10 only Aristotle clearly indicates that the modes of acquisition of slaves in general (and domestic slaves in particular) are a branch of the art of war or the art of hunting (Pol. 1255b38–­39). Through war, vanquished enemies can provide slave labor.11 As for hunting,12 this activity divides humanity into hunters and prey, of which the institution of the cryptia in Sparta seems to provide a historical example.13 The “justice” or “legitimacy” (οἷον ἡ δικαία, Pol. 1255b39) that Aristotle attributes to these practices stems from the fact that they should, according to him, be exercised only toward those who “are born by nature to be commanded [but who] do not consent to it,” a war of this type being deemed “just by nature” (ὡς φύσει δίκαιον, Pol. 1256b26). Whether discussing war or manhunt, in both cases there prevails a “right” of the strongest with the exercise of violence never being called into question, which establishes

Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  79

the sociopolitical sphere in the broad sense on a form of domination. Oikonomic discourse, considered as a whole, is therefore almost silent on the concrete conditions of the possibility of its object: the foundational violence by which a part of humanity is subjected to complete domination by another relies on a technique of power which is political in its effects—­it makes the state and the oikos possible—­but which, because it is perceived as extrapolitical, remains most often disregarded by our authors.

Knowl ed ge a m ong Sl av e s: Th e Knowl ed ge of the M a st e r? What economic functions were assigned to slaves, and what did they need to know in order to perform these tasks properly? The two broad categories of tasks mentioned in the oikonomikos logos—­administration on the one hand and more directly technical and physical tasks on the other—­are treated very unevenly in favor of the former.

Technical and Physical Work: Invisible Tasks and Invisible Slaves Most oikonomic texts are marked by an almost complete silence concerning the exact technical and physical tasks entrusted to the enslaved, although they were clearly essential to the oikos in numerous and very diverse ways: “To take care of children, to care for the sick, answer and watch the door, cook, work wool, carry messages, fetch water, go shopping”14—­the list could go on, notably by mentioning various agricultural tasks. Pseudo-­Aristotle merely points out that “of slaves there are two kinds: those in positions of trust, and the laborers” (δούλων δὲ εἴδη δύο, ἐπίτροπος καὶ ἐργάτης, [Oec.] 1344a25–­26). Apart from the mention of a porter (θυρωρός) required in large estates “to keep his eye on what passes in and out” ([Oec.] 1345a33–­b1), the author does not say anything about the second category, although he gives some details on the first (see below). Xenophon mentions only in passing the task

80  Chapter Four

of working with wool (ταλασίας, Oec. 7.41) entrusted to female slaves as well as some general categories of tools or utensils that give an idea of certain tasks accomplished in the oikos: “implements for spinning, for bread-­making and for cooking; others, again, of the things required for washing, at the kneading-­trough, and for table use” (Oec. 9.7); “the utensils they require daily, for baking, cooking, spinning and so forth” (Oec. 9.9). Only Aristotle mentions this diversity, both technically and hierarchically, within the context of servile work: Yet there might be a science of mastership and a slave’s science [ἐπιστήμη δ᾽ ἂν εἴη καὶ δεσποτικὴ καὶ δουλική]—­the latter being the sort of knowledge that used to be imparted by the professor, for there used to be a man there who for a fee gave lessons to servants in their ordinary duties; and indeed there might be more advanced knowledge of such matters [εἴη δ᾽ ἂν καὶ ἐπὶ πλεῖον τῶν τοιούτων μάθησις], for instance a science of cookery and the other such kinds of domestic service—­for different servants have different functions, some more honorable and some more menial, and as the proverb says, “Slave before slave and master before master.” Such are then all these slave’s sciences [δουλικαὶ ἐπιστῆμαί]. (Pol. 1255b23–­30)

Despite pointing to this diversity, however, Aristotle does not detail the extent of slaves’ knowledge. This relative silence is certainly due to the fact that this passage is part of a larger argument mentioned at the start of the work15 that aims to demonstrate the specificity of political power and art by distinguishing them from the arts that are only apparently similar to them, notably, those pertaining to the master’s power or despotic power. As the lines preceding the quoted passage indicate, while the politician is defined by the science or art he possesses, the condition of master, free man, or slave is a fact, one that does not depend on the possession of a corresponding knowledge: “The term ‘master’ therefore denotes the possession not of a certain branch of knowledge but of the fact of being such [ἀλλὰ τῷ τοιόσδ᾽ εἶναι], and similarly also the terms ‘slave’ and ‘freeman’” (Pol. 1255b20–­22). Nonetheless, as Aristotle explains, one can speak of a science of the master and of a science of the slave if one is always clear in one’s mind that they condition neither these hierarchies nor their corresponding functions. The “fact of being such”—­an ontology that is astonishing to us for how it describes the human condition—­refers to Aristotle’s general theory

Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  81

of slavery, one that infamously proposes that the difference between free and servile is based in nature (Pol. 1253b24–­1255b16). Beyond Aristotle, why is there then a general silence on the exact technical functions of slaves? Three main reasons can be offered. The first relates to the characteristics of the oikonomikos logos as a theoretical genre. Whether it takes the form of a separate economic treatise or it appears in the context of a larger work such as Aristotle’s Politics or Plato’s Laws, the oikonomikos logos is not a technical genre but a philosophical genre. Its object is not to describe in detail the oikonomic tasks that one performs in the oikos, as a manual would do, but rather to analyze the conditions of its proper administration, that is to say, to establish its principles, be they ethical or political. It is precisely the excessive technicality of his remarks concerning agriculture, which are out of step with the nature of the philosophical knowledge required in this kind of treatise, that Philodemus reproaches Xenophon (Vices 9.7.26–­33, Oec. 16–­19.14). The second reason, which is linked to the previous one, is that the oikonomikos logos is addressed to the master, not to his slaves. It is the former who is to be instructed and trained so that he may be afforded the means of proper domestic administration. Even though Aristotle recognizes that there is “mutual advantage and friendship between a slave and his master when both naturally deserve their status” (Pol. 1255b12–­14), this reciprocity is not egalitarian but hierarchical. It is always from the master’s point of view that the relationship is described and considered in the logos oikonomikos, which determines the type of knowledge that comes to be privileged, that is, the knowledge of the master rather than that of the enslaved. This extends to even when the despotic friendship elsewhere becomes quite nuanced: “Therefore there can be no friendship with a slave as slave, though there can be as human being” (Eth. Nic. 1161b5). This explains the long passages Xenophon devotes to agricultural knowledge rather than to other kinds of knowledge: agriculture is not attributed to slaves but presented as an art that belongs to free men, such as Ischomachus. However, this does not prevent such work, as we will see later, from being performed by slaves (Oec. 20.16). Finally, the third reason for this nearly complete silence on the details of the technical functions of slaves is also linked to the fact that they are most often identified with their body and with the brute or

82  Chapter Four

physical force that they, through it, can deploy. For Aristotle, “those whose function is the use of the body [. . .] are by nature slaves” (Pol. 1254b18–­19), and “bodily service for the necessities of life is forthcoming from [. . .] slaves and from domestic animals alike” (Pol. 1254b25–­ 26). The same goes for Plato, who mentions those to whom a salary is paid for “the strength of their body” (Resp. 2.371e) and who are in charge of agricultural work (Leg. 7.806d–­e) as well as other wage-­ paying tasks (Leg. 5.742a). In the passage quoted from the Republic, Plato does not use the term slaves, certainly, but he clearly has them in mind, albeit indirectly, since they are described in the same terms in the Laws (they sell their strength for a salary). In all cases, therefore, the concrete diversity of tasks is erased in favor of what serves as their main instrument—­the body as a source of strength used out of necessity and not, as with the citizen, used out of free will (as would be the case in war) (Pol. 1254b31–­32, 1336a7 and 14–­15). In other words, the oikonomikos logos ignores all servile tasks in which the body is not an essential element, such as educational functions, for example. The identification of slaves with their bodies, however, is only one aspect of the discourse about them. As we will see, they are also sometimes presented as susceptible to moral education based on the same values as their masters’ ethics. While the oikonomikos logos is silent on the technical or physical tasks of the enslaved, it does devote considerable space to male and female stewards or administrators, since this is, first and foremost, a function of the masters.

The Ambivalent Status of Stewards and Administrators The vocabulary of domestic stewardship, that is, the function of administering the oikos by assigning slaves specific tasks, involves, in the classical period,16 four terms that designate the individuals performing this function. The oikonomos, the epitropos, the tamia (though only in Xenophon, Oec. 9.10–­11, 10.1017), and the despotês. This vocabulary poses various difficulties, the most interesting of which, at least when it comes to our philosophical approach and its anthropological extensions, is that of the status of the oikonomos. In our corpus, the epitropos and the tamia clearly occupy the role of slaves, while the despotês is undoubt-

Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  83

edly a free man. The oikonomos, on the other hand, falls under one or the other status according to a given passage, and it is not always easy to determine which it is. For example, in Pseudo-­Aristotle, it is difficult to know whether the oikonomos, the four functions of which (acquiring goods, preserving them, putting them in order, and knowing how to use them) are described ([Oec.] 1344b22), is, as Wartelle translates, “the master of the house,” in the sense of the free man who would have an epitropos under his orders, or whether he is here equivalent to the servile epitropos mentioned a few lines earlier ([Oec.] 1344a26). We find the same ambiguity with Plato. In the Republic, Socrates fears that the guardians of the state could allow themselves to be corrupted by their desire for wealth and thus become oikonomoi (Resp. 3.417a). Though nothing excludes the possibility that he is thinking of free men by using the term oikonomoi, it is probably the servile nature of this domestic function—­by reference to the status of those who sometimes (or even often) perform it—­that Socrates has in mind. On the other hand, in the Statesman, the Stranger seems to situate the oikonomos on the side of the free by identifying him with the despotês (Plt. 259b), unless this enumeration, centered on the function of command, is indifferent to the question of the status of those who exercise it. In Xenophon’s Economics, the term oikonomos appears only twice, and the possibility that the oikonomic art is in the hands of a man “not owning personal property but receiving a salary by administering the house of others” leaves open the options concerning his status (Oec. 1.4). Ischomachus, who displays his oikonomic knowledge in particular by detailing the functions of the epitropos and those of the tamia, is never referred to as an oikonomos in the book. This ambivalent status of the oikonomos is but the corollary of the epistemological in-­betweenness of the economic art itself—­oikonomia or oikonomikê tekhnê—­in relation to the civic functions of the free man. On the one hand, in fact, concern for the oikos is an essential attribute of the citizen. It is from his good administration that he derives what is necessary for himself and his family, and the right to own land sets him apart from all other categories of individuals in the state, in particular slaves and foreigners. Moreover, as Aristotle reminds us, the oikos is the first level of community by and on which the ethical and political sense of the free man is exercised because “he alone has perception of good and bad and right and wrong and the other moral qualities, and it

84  Chapter Four

is partnership in these things that makes a household and a city-­state” (Pol. 1253a17–­18). In this sense, it is legitimate and necessary for the free man to be a good oikonomos and to be equipped with the corresponding knowledge. Only in this way will he be able either to train good stewards who will be subordinate to him or to direct his own instructions to the slaves who are entrusted with more directly material and physical tasks. It is the same in the Laws of Plato: the citizens do not themselves carry out the technical agricultural functions on their land because they “had entrusted all the crafts to other hands” (Leg. 7.806d). More precisely, “their farms were hired out to slaves [δούλοις] [in charge of making] them produce enough for their modest needs” (Leg. 7.806d–­e). But the citizens are no less responsible for the prosperity of their lots within the limits of poverty and wealth fixed by the legislator such that one can speak of an “economic merit” of the citizens. Their level of wealth indicates their degree of attachment to the state, that is, their degree of political commitment, according to the maximum level of agricultural wealth to which they will reach—­a nonpersonal wealth that is donated to the state as a whole and that is rewarded by a more important political status.18 The link between good domestic administration and political commitment is even more explicit in Xenophon. In the Memorabilia, Socrates explains to Nicomachides that “the management of private concerns differs only in point of number [πλήθει] from that of public affairs. In other respects, they are much alike” (Mem. 3.4.12). In the Economics, Ischomachus indicates to his wife that the oikonomic art and the political art abide by the same principles of organization (Oec. 9.14–­15), the first, as we have said, being preparatory for the second (Oec. 21.2).19 All these passages, which justify the existence of the oikonomikos logos as a discourse intended for free men who have to take care of their oikos, thus underscore the close link between the status of a free man and the concern for domestic affairs and how important it is for a citizen to also be a good oikonomos. However, by becoming an oikonomos, does a citizen not risk blurring the line separating him from the other categories present in the oikos, most notably, women and slaves? This question is, first of all, a factual or historical one in that the administration of the oikos was a task meted out to women until the beginning of the last third of the fifth century,20 before becoming—­according to the related texts—­a

Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  85

more male-­defined task (at least with regard to outdoor work). Yet it was also often a task associated with the enslaved, as the terms epitropos and tamia would indicate in our corpus. The question is also theoretical: Of what nature must the knowledge of the master of the oikos be if he must at the same time be able to ensure the good administration of his oikos while not involving himself directly with this task? If, in order to maintain the requisite boundary lines, he is not himself an oikonomos, what oikonomic role can he nonetheless play and based on what sort of knowledge? Such blurring of the boundaries around the function of oikonomos can be seen both in terms of the people performing this function as well as in the distribution of knowledge that corresponds to this function. Regarding the people performing this function, in a passage from Xenophon’s Economics, Ischomachus, referring to the work of his wife and that of the slaves she is responsible for supervising, resorts to the very classic metaphor of bees and their queen.21 However, this metaphor weakens the distinction between the free wife and the enslaved attendants because the queen and the workers are all bees (Oec. 7.17, 32–­34, 38). The choice of this image is not attributable to an inconsistency on Ischomachus’s part: in the context of poetic reference and misogyny,22 it is instead to be attributed to the ambivalence of the status of the managerial function in the oikos as somehow hovering between a free task and a servile task. A similar ambivalence concerns the distribution of the knowledge of the oikonomos. In the three excerpts that follow, the instructional knowledge of the master and that of the slave are indeed quite similar if not identical. Both are equipped with this knowledge and are capable of implementing it, and it is precisely the clear awareness of this confusion over status that leads our authors, in the same passages, to reaffirm the difference in status. Thus, according to Aristotle, “The master’s science [δεσποτικὴ δ᾽ ἐπιστήμη] is the science of employing slaves [. . .]. This science, however, is one of no particular importance or dignity [οὐδὲν μέγα ἔχουσα οὐδὲ σεμνόν]: the master must know how to direct the tasks that the slave must know how to execute. Therefore, all people rich enough to be able to avoid personal trouble have a steward [ἐπίτροπός τις] who takes this office, while they themselves engage in politics or philosophy” (Pol. 1255b30–­37). The steward in question is evidently a slave, since the free man is

86  Chapter Four

reserved for “greater and nobler” activities. The latter is able to accomplish what his slave does—­employ other slaves by assigning them their tasks—­but if he has the means, he does not do so because of the time-­ consuming and unrewarding nature of this task. It must therefore be assumed that the servile steward to whom this function is then entrusted also has an idea of the good use of other slaves and hence of the purpose of the oikos. In short, he possesses reason just as fully as his master does, and he is not content with possessing it in the mere sense that “he perceives it [αἰσθάνεσθαι] in others” (Pol. 1254b22–­24) without having any deliberative reason (ὁ μὲν γὰρ δοῦλος ὅλως οὐκ ἔχει τὸ βουλευτικόν, Pol. 1260a12). However, an epistemological and axiological division reminds us of the necessary distinction between status or conditions: the concern for politics and philosophy reassigns the master and the slave to their determinate social positions even though domestic economy seems to bring them together and even confuse them. This confusion—­ and, simultaneously, this reaffirmation of boundaries—­also appears in a testimony of Plutarch concerning Pericles. The latter shows his great concern for the oikonomia but nonetheless entrusts it to one of his servants: He [Pericles] set his domestic administration into such orderly dispensation as he thought was easiest and most exact [συνέταξεν εἰς οἰκονομίαν ἣν ᾤετο ῥᾴστην καὶ ἀκριβεστάτην εἶναι]. This was to sell his annual products all together in the lump, and then to buy in the market each article as it was needed, and so provide the ways and means of daily life. [. . .] His agent in securing all this great exactitude was a single servant, Evangelus, who was either gifted by nature or trained by Pericles so as to surpass everybody else in domestic economy [ὡς ἕτερος οὐδεὶς εὖ πεφυκὼς ἢ κατεσκευασμένος ὑπὸ τοῦ Περικλέους πρὸς οἰκονομίαν]. (Per. 16.3–­6)23

This passage also highlights the equal interest and skills of the master and his servant regarding oikonomia, which is why either of them would undoubtedly be qualified to be an oikonomos. However, this parallel is also accompanied by a reminder of their differences. Pericles invented the balanced and rigorous mode of domestic administration described by Plutarch, while his slave Evangelus is responsible for implementing it according to a sharing of knowledge and corresponding functions within the distinctly Aristotelian scheme of the provident master and

Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  87

the executing slave. This division of labor is also noticeable in the alternative: Either Evangelus is naturally gifted for this type of task, and not for politics (which would make him a slave by nature), or he was instructed by Pericles, which would follow the same Aristotelian scheme whereby planning is separated from execution. Ischomachus also evokes this concept of shared knowledge—­which is as much his own as that of his slaves—­while, once again, being careful to stress the qualities that separate him from his slaves: “Of course, I try to train my stewards [τοὺς ἐπιτρόπους ἐν τοῖς ἀγροῖς] myself, Socrates. For the man has to be capable of taking charge [ἐπίστασθαι] in my absence; so why need he know anything but what I know myself? For if I am fit to manage the farm [τῶν ἔργων προστατεύειν], I presume I can teach another man what I know myself ” (Oec. 12.4). One could not be clearer on the functional equivalence between the free man, Ischomachus, and his slaves when it comes to the task of the general oversight of the oikos (the function of the latter being to replace their master in his absence) and on their difference: Ischomachus can be absent from the oikos to go to the agora, where he converses with Socrates while waiting for strangers (Oec. 7.1–­2, 12.1–­2). While the explicit reasons for imparting such administrative training may vary slightly in these three excerpts, they nonetheless all refer to an interest in activities outside the oikos—­politics and philosophy for Aristotle, the exercise of power for Pericles, and perhaps trade for Ischomachus—­that necessarily involve time that might otherwise be devoted to domestic functions. Viewed from the perspective of efficacy, this oikonomic knowledge thus transcends status: it is equally possessed by the master as it is by the enslaved. However, this “equality” stops here: since it is transmitted or taught, it is not so much shared as it is delegated. From this perspective, the slave is not the functional copy of the master but his extension. For this reason, the slave’s oikonomic knowledge is never really his own: it is the knowledge of the master. The emphasis placed on the guiding function in relation to the technical functions in the oikonomikos logos is therefore explained by the overriding concern to reaffirm—­albeit not without ambivalence—­the place, status, and function of the free man, and to a lesser extent, the free woman within the domestic unit. Because it is turned toward the satisfaction of both biological as well as material necessities, and toward the realization of a community guided by a specific idea of the

88  Chapter Four

Good, the oikos is necessarily a binary and nebulous space—­a space of intersection and negotiations of status and function, in which everything that proceeds in some direction of convergence or similarity is immediately countered (so as to prevent any possible confusion) by a reconsolidation of boundaries. This twofold treatment can also be perceived in the moral considerations on the relationship between masters and slaves, another major theme of the oikonomikos logos.

Th e A m bigu ou s Portr a i t o f t h e S l av e a s a (Qua si- )­ Fr e e Be i ng In the texts that are dealt with here, how can we explain the constant imperative that the master treat his slaves well and, even more paradoxically, that he educate them in the behavior of the free man? Two main reasons are given: an economic concern to guarantee the efficiency of slave labor and an ethical and collective political motivation, one that exists above the individual interests of slaves. In any event, the oikonomikos logos again underlines the closeness between masters and slaves, presenting the latter as possessing the characteristics of the free man. Here again, however, the boundaries between them remain impassable.

Pseudo-­Aristotle: “Free” Slaves Who Are Hostages to Their Masters Pseudo-­Aristotle uses the adjective free twice in connection with slaves. The first occurrence is with regard to some of their tasks (τὰ ἐλευθέρια τῶν ἔργων, [Oec.] 1344a28), in which they must be educated, specifically in the requisite moral conditions for the tasks. The nature of these tasks is not specified, but given that Pseudo-­Aristotle previously mentioned the difference between epitropos and ergastês ([Oec.] 1344a26), he is probably thinking of the former’s guidance or oversight, since the epitropos must know how to employ other slaves. The second use of the adjective free concerns the slaves themselves and how to use rewards and punishments with them: “A share of honor should be given to those

Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  89

who are doing more of a freeman’s work” (τοῖς μὲν ἐλευθεριωτέροις τιμῆς μεταδιδόναι, [Oec.] 1344a30–­31). To whom is he referring here? Does Pseudo-­Aristotle think of those who perform the most tasks worthy of free men or those who behave most like free men regardless of the tasks they perform? In any event, this portrait of the slave as a free man is justified by a concern for efficiency in domestic economic administration, which gives rise to succinct recommendations for the moral education of slaves. Based on oversight and on a summary system of punishments and rewards,24 which requires knowing how to balance “work, chastisement, and food” and to distribute “accordingly [. . .] our dispensations and indulgences to their worth [κατ᾽ ἀξίαν], whether it be food or clothing, leisure or chastisement that we are apportioning.” These recommendations aim to ensure that the enslaved are neither too indolent nor overly bold and that they properly carry out their tasks ([Oec.] 1344a35–­b12). The other goals that are evoked are to establish freedom—­their emancipation—­as a reward for their work on the basis of an empirical psychological principle, “since having a prize to work for, and a time defined for its attainment, [the slave] will put his heart into his labors” ([Oec.] 1344b15–­17), or to “take hostages for our slaves’ fidelity by allowing them to beget children” (δεῖ δὲ καὶ ἐξομηρεύειν ταῖς τεκνοποιίαις, [Oec.] 1344b17–­18). This latter formula, which is never commented on, is quite strange given that its relative cynicism tarnishes the author’s apparent concern for the moral freedom of the slaves. With such a measure, Pseudo-­Aristotle seems to say, the slave will be more docile and will apply himself so as to ensure that his own family is preserved, avoiding the consequences that his negligence might bring. Perhaps Ischomachus (or Xenophon?) shares this view of things when he declares that “honest servants generally prove more loyal if they have a family” (οἱ μὲν γὰρ χρηστοὶ παιδοποιησάμενοι εὐνούστεροι ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ, Oec. 9.5), as if the devotion of slaves to their masters were augmented by their own vulnerability—­the difference being that Ischomachus speaks here of slaves who are already good or helpful, not slaves that would be made such by deploying this measure, as Pseudo-­Aristotle envisages. Anyway, despite the mention of the enigmatic term of being “more like a free man,” the conclusion of the passage is clear: The best slaves (γένη [. . .] βέλτιστα, [Oec.] 1344b12) are not those who are most morally similar to the truly free man but those who best cope with the tasks assigned to them.

90  Chapter Four

Xenophon: Is the Slave the Copy of the Master? We shall now move on to Xenophon’s Economics. If the concern for the moral freedom of the enslaved also has the stated objective of ensuring their work for the growth of the oikos, one can nevertheless read a form of cynicism or pure instrumentalization of ethics for economic ends. The moral quality of slaves is an integral part of the successful performance of domestic administration since, as we will see, the moral quality of slaves is thought to be the reflection and the result of that of the free men to whom they are subject. The economic usefulness of the good moral disposition of slaves is a fundamental trait of a good oikos as Socrates describes it to Critobulus: “Then what if I show you besides that in some households nearly all the servants are in fetters and yet continually try to run away, whereas in others they are under no restraint and are willing to work and to stay at their posts? Won’t you think that here, too, I am pointing out to you a notable effect of estate management [τῆς οἰκονομίας]?” (Oec. 3.4). To obtain this good moral disposition from the enslaved, it is up to the master to do everything that he can so that they behave as free men. This is what Ischomachus then explains when he discusses how his wife should behave with domestic slaves—­especially the housekeeper—­and how he himself should educate the farm steward. Two points should be noted. First of all, for both of them, it is about making the slaves devoted, cultivating in them a sort of moral reciprocity. The function of the wife, in fact, is not only to distribute their tasks to each of the “bees”; it is also, by caring for any sick servant, to derive greater dedication from them (Oec. 7.37), and more generally to show them “what makes the bees so devoted to their leader in the hive, that when she forsakes it, they all follow her” (Oec. 7.38). Just as Ischomachus and his wife teach the steward “to show them devotion” (Oec. 9.12) by training “her to be eager for the improvement of our estate, by making her familiar with it and by allowing her to share in our success [τῆς εὐπραγίας αὐτῇ μεταδιδόντες]” (Oec. 9.12)—­without saying whether this strange sharing indicates the efforts she deploys or the (economic? symbolic?) rewards that she receives—­in the same way Ischomachus educates his agricultural steward to be “devoted” to him (Oec. 12.5) in response to the generosity he himself shows toward him

Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  91

(εὐεργετῶν, Oec. 12.6–­7). The good master, Ischomachus continued, is the one who succeeds in arousing in his slaves “a spirit of determination and rivalry and eagerness to excel” in the accomplishment of his tasks (φιλονικία πρὸς ἀλλήλους καὶ φιλοτιμία, Oec. 21.10). Marks of attention and devotion feed each other for the greater good of the oikos, as if the hierarchical relationship and the statutory difference were erased or rendered quite secondary in the interwoven moral and emotional relationship between masters and slaves. Similarly, the expected moral qualities of the female steward (tamia) and male steward would seem to be clearly those of a free woman and man. Regarding the female steward, the moral moderation that Ischomachus and his wife demand of her recalls the traits usually expected of a free woman. This steward should in fact “be the most temperate in eating and wine drinking and sleeping and the most modest with men” (Oec. 9.11), a description that echoes the control of her appetites in which Ischomachus’s wife was herself educated (Oec. 7.6), “the qualities admired in girls [being] the opposite from those expected of boys: Silence, submissiveness, and abstinence from men’s pleasures.”25 The reference to moral freedom becomes explicit when, to prevent her from appropriating assets in the oikos that do not belong to her, Ischomachus and his wife teach the steward that “by diligence and by training, a man is more apt to obtain the good things of life” (Oec. 11.13), an idea expressed in the same terms about the agricultural stewards trained by Ischomachus: Those among them who are just, that is, honest, Ischomachus “treats them like free men” (τούτοις ὥσπερ ἐλευθέροις ἤδη χρῶμαι, Oec. 14.9) by rewarding them with material assets and honors. This portrait of the steward as a free man—­he is never characterized as a slave but rather as “a man fit for stewardship” (ἐπιτροπευτικὸς ἀνήρ, Oec. 12.3)—­culminates in the fact that he is also instructed in the art of command, which, apart from its similarities with the art of being a good king, is precisely the art that Ischomachus exercises toward his slaves (Oec. 13.3–­5). What a strange servile steward, indeed, who must be another Ischomachus when the “real” one is absent (ὅταν ἐγὼ ἀπῶ, Oec. 12.4)! The slave is, in many respects, the copy or the double of his master. However, it would be more correct to speak of a stand-­in than a double: If the master is able to recognize himself in his slave, he must not be less radically different from him. The border between free and

92  Chapter Four

servile remains impassable. The method that Ischomachus described for educating slaves suggests this impassibility, which is based on the distinction between men on the one hand and slaves and animals on the other and which breaks with the similarity between free men and slaves observed above: And men [ἀνθρώπους] can be made more obedient by word of mouth merely [καὶ λόγῳ] by being shown that it is good for them to obey. But in dealing with slaves [τοῖς δὲ δούλοις] the training thought suitable for wild animals [θηριώδης] is also a very effective way of teaching obedience; for you will do much with them by filling their bellies with the food they hanker after. Those of an ambitious disposition [αἱ δὲ φιλότιμοι τῶν φύσεων] are also spurred on by praise, some natures being hungry for praise as others for meat and drink. (Oec. 13.9)

This kind of anthropological division recalls Aristotle’s marked distinction between, on the one hand, the master endowed with reason and, on the other, his slave, who is only capable of perceiving reason in others (Pol. 1254b22–­24) and who is similar to animals in that both use their physical strength for necessary tasks (Pol. 1254b25–­26). However, this break is more radical here than in the Aristotelian version no doubt because it is all the more necessary to mark the difference as the roles have merged. Assimilated to his material desires or his ambitions, the doulos—­a unique appearance of the term in this dialogue between Ischomachus and Socrates—­is excluded from reason. Ischomachus’s comment that he never saw good servants (οἰκέτας) under a bad master but had already observed bad servants under good masters (Oec. 12.19) supports this interpretation. In short, if a slave is good, he does not derive this quality of goodness from himself but from his master. This clear evocation of servitude by nature weakens or at least relativizes the degree of rapprochement between the free and the servile evoked by Ischomachus in the rest of the text. Like any science or knowledge that he may exercise, the potential moral aptitude of the slave cannot belong to him in his own right—­he has only borrowed it. Here again, it is the prerogative and the essential attribute of the master. Aristotle goes partly in the same direction when he writes that “the master must be the cause of virtue of his slave”—­only partly because, unlike Ischomachus, he recognizes the presence of reason in slaves, and he recommends educating them not merely by means of orders (ἐπιτάξει,

Masters and the Enslaved in the Oikos  93

Pol. 1260b6–­8) but by admonitions, which presuppose the ability to hear and understand the discourse of reason.26 How, then, should one interpret the coexistence of these two contrary anthropological cartographies in Xenophon’s text—­one that brings the free and the servile together to the point of confusing them, and the other that radically separates them? Rather than a form of cynicism, this dichotomy can be seen as a sign of a difficulty in conceiving, at the same time, of the functional centrality of the slave in the oikos as a political or protopolitical community and of his complete exclusion from civic life.

Plato: Moral Similarity, Functional Difference Plato’s Laws, finally, follows a similar pattern of assimilating slaves and free men and, at the same time, of clearly distinguishing between them concerning the economic tasks in the oikos or, more exactly, the klêros, a pattern that reveals a similar concern to ensure their loyalty and work. Thus, the portrait of the slave as a free man in book 6, in which the Athenian evokes slaves who are so devoted that they surpass in virtue the brothers and the sons of their master—­therefore free men (Leg. 6.775d7)—­runs parallel with the reminder of sanctions specifically addressed to slaves, which are scrupulously distinguished from the admonitions addressed to free men (μὴ νουθετοῦντας ὡς ἐλευθέρους, Leg. 6.777e5). The portrait of the slave as a free man also parallels the evocation of a preventive measure against slave uprisings, which entails not having many speaking the same language (Leg. 6.777c3), as Pseudo-­ Aristotle also recommends by suggesting that “we avoid the practice of purchasing many slaves of the same nationality” ([Oec.] 1344b18–­19). However, the Laws is marked by two major shifts from the passages of Xenophon and Pseudo-­Aristotle. First of all, the Athenian is aware of the arbitrary and conventional nature of the distinction between the free and the servile, which he attributes to a kind of irreducible political necessity and violence—­“the necessary distinction [τὴν ἀναγκαίαν διόρισιν] between slave and free-­born master” (Leg. 6.777b4–­5).27 This implies, then, that although, apparently like Ischomachus, Plato invites the masters to “sow a germ of virtue” in the souls of their slaves (σπείρειν εἰς ἀρετῆς ἔκφυσιν, Leg. 6.777e2), this is not to recognize only

94  Chapter Four

in the former a monopoly on moral excellence—­because all, the free and the servile are both invited to follow the moral precepts of the law (Leg. 2.665c2–­3)—­but to demonstrate the responsibility that is incumbent on them if they want their slaves to take on economic tasks (as they should) so that they themselves can suitably perform political tasks. Far from an anachronistic recognition of the dignity of slaves, the real moral f­ reedom that the latter must demonstrate stems, for Plato, from the political requirement of integration of their economic function into the order of the polis for the sake of its own good. The Platonic demand for the unity of the polis explains both the clear demarcation of the border between the free and the servile for functional reasons with respect to the distribution of their tasks as well as the attenuation of the distinction between them at the level of political morality. • So close, yet so far apart. In the logos oikonomikos, everything points to a consonance between masters and slaves—­at least as far as stewards are concerned—­and yet everything reverts to a radical difference between them. It is as though the slaves occupied an unthinkable place the centrality of which proves controversial because it is vital for both oikos and polis. There is in this a sort of general denial of the importance of slaves, like a “yes” that emerges, albeit one that is always coupled with a “no” that sends them back into silence. For the thinkers we have examined, there is a way, in all cases, to recognize a form of power and knowledge that is ascribed to the slaves, making them the spectral stand-­in for their masters, their reflection in a shattered mirror.

Pa rt I I I

Putting Things in Their Place

While the oikos admittedly represents a group of people characterized by status, age, and sex, and the distribution of their respective functions fits into a defined whole, it is not reducible to this characterization. Indeed, the oikos also represents the material multiplicity of activities and objects, often overlooked in scholarship for aforementioned reasons. However, as in the case of human beings, this multiplicity also raises the question of its unitary ordering both on the pragmatic level of the expected utility of the realities that compose it as well as on the practical level of the Good with regard to the three fundamental operations of oikonomia—­the acquisition of assets or wealth, their conservation, and their proper use. The next three chapters deal with each of these operations. The acquisition of wealth or assets raises the question of its means and limitations in the context of technical but also ethical and political reflections. The same goes for the conservation of resources, which is closely linked to the question of their expenditure and of their spatial disposition. The disposition of the diversity of material assets in the oikos or the polis, in effect, aims to ensure their effective usefulness but also to make the everyday world intelligible and thereby habitable. Use, finally, concerns the purpose of assets beyond their functional utility. In this respect it constitutes the function most directly linked to the common concern of these three operations: To what extent can oikonomia be considered as knowledge and practice that is aimed at the Good?

◉ 5 ◉ Acquisition and Wealth

Of the three operations making up the architecture of oikonomia—­ acquiring, conserving, and using assets—­the most widely discussed in the logos oikonomikos is acquisition (ἡ κτῆσις). This is not only because it is the primary condition with respect to the other two operations but also because of its complexity. Acquisition, in effect, is a technical act that can be accomplished by way of a wide variety of arts or techniques, but it is also an ethical act in the sense that acquisition brings into play individuals’ moral dimension, in particular, their link to virtue, freedom, and happiness. Acquisition can also be seen as having a political dimension in that it engages the relationship between the agent who acquires and his fellow citizens and given that the methods of acquisition are often linked to the idea that power is based on wealth. Its centrality should therefore not be surprising, as Aristotle points out when he describes the debates of his time on the topic: “There is also a department that some people consider the same as household management [οἰκονομία] and others the most important part of it, and the true position of which we shall have to consider: I mean what is called the art of getting wealth [χρηματιστικῆς]” (Pol. 1253b12–­14; emphasis added). These various facets of acquisition are marked by two main questions that are shared by the thinkers we have been considering. The first is whether or not to put any limitations on acquisition. This question is fundamental. In addition to determining in part the nature of the acquisition techniques to be favored in order to obtain the desired assets (this will be the subject of the second question), it also engages the “moral economics” of individuals and cities, that is, the type of desires

98  Chapter Five

and values that define the scope of their appetite for acquisition as well as their corresponding attitudes and politics. The second question concerns the nature of the activities or arts that are most conducive to acquisition. Their processes and purposes vary depending on whether we consider the oikos, the polis, or any other political entity.

Acqui sition: Wh at Ar e t h e L i m i t s? Should the act of acquiring be constrained by any limitations? And if so, for what reasons, and how would one determine them? Unlike other themes discussed within the framework of the logos oikonomikos, which are sometimes a source of significant disagreement between philosophers, in this case there is a resounding consensus. All argue in favor of limitations, whether the Epicureans or Aristotle, Plato, the Cynics, or Socrates in Xenophon’s Economics. Only Ischomachus, in this latter work, seems favorable to the unlimited growth of the oikos. However, this consensus does not detract from interest in the subject, thanks to the varied and often quite thorough reflections the subject inspires. Against the backdrop of an archaic and classical tradition tending to promote accumulation and wealth,1 these reflections often take the form of critical discussions, which, at first glance, seem to be largely in agreement. There is a contrast between the moderation of the philosopher and the more common tendency to favor limitless acquisition. Thus, in Plato, Socrates is satisfied with little, in contrast to the universal tyrannical propensity to accumulation and expenditure. In Xenophon, Socrates has everything he needs, while Critobulus is enslaved to his insatiable appetites. Finally, the wise Epicurean is happy with what little is demanded by his natural and necessary appetites, while the majority allow themselves to be dominated and led to misfortune by their appetites, which are neither natural nor necessary. The discussion, however, is deeper than it seems. It often exceeds these categorical delineations—­the sage on the one hand, the irrational multitude on the other—­by giving rise to a particular discourse on human beings considered as needing and desiring beings and on the way in which this dimension is inscribed in the oikos and the polis. Although it is indeed the necessary and biological fact of need that

Acquisition and Wealth 99

impels us to acquire and that marks us out as social animals—­for Socrates, need creates the city (Resp. 2.369c), and for Aristotle, the oikos is the first form of social community that is established by “the course of nature for everyday purposes” (Pol. 1252b13)—­this need is never confined to the domain of biological necessity. Instead, it overflows with desire, understood as shaped by social norms and conventions. Thus, one finds in book 2 of the Republic (372e–­373a) a description of the inevitable transition from the healthy city, with limited needs that are satisfied by simple resources, to the feverish city supported by the propensity of each citizen to convert the superfluous into the necessary under the effect of conventions (ἅπερ νομίζεται, Resp. 2.372d). Or, to cite another example, one can consider the Epicurean classification of appetites, distinguished by their degree of autonomy from necessity and nature (Ep. Men. 127). Or, to cite one more case, one finds also the Socratic idea of controlling one’s appetites (ἐγκράτεια, Oec. 2.1, 7.27, 12.16) opposed to tyrannical excess in Xenophon’s Economics. All these examples are so many illustrations of the interest that these philosophers have in the complex relationship between need and desire. When they examine this theme within the more specific framework of the economic question regarding the limits of acquiring, it is most often in the form of two questions, one that we could term objective or ontological, and another, more extensively treated one, that we could term subjective. The former asks, what is wealth? The latter asks, what does it mean to be wealthy? This second relates to the psychological and political modes of organization that correspond to the various modalities of the desire for wealth, which determine the “objective” side of wealth. Within the framework of the logos oikonomikos, some of the philosophers we have discussed raise both questions (Plato, Xenophon, Epicurus, and Philodemus of Gadara), whereas others only raise one (Aristotle, Diogenes the Cynic), and still others none at all (Pseudo-­Aristotle).

Unlimited Wealth The definition of wealth is the subject of many ancient texts given its obvious moral and political dimensions.2 Although it is, for these philosophers, inseparable from ethics, some of these thinkers indicate that

100  Chapter Five

wealth is not purely relative to the ethical state of the subject, that is, to his or her way of desiring and its idea of the Good, but that it is also an objective reality, a degree of material possession. This objective nature of wealth stems from its relationship to the notion of “limit,” a topic on which the authors fall into two main camps. There are those (who are quite rare) who believe that the wealth acquired by means of oikonomia is alien to any concept of limitation, and there are those who instead contend that it must have limits but who attribute different degrees of necessity to this limit. Let us examine these two groups. Only Ischomachus, in the second part of Xenophon’s Economics, seems to put no limitations at all on the wealth that is to be acquired within the framework of oikonomia. The idea that the latter consists of increasing the oikos is presented in the first part of the work, in the interview between Socrates and Critobulus: the man gifted in the arts of economics is capable “of saving money and increase the house [αὔξειν τὸν οἶκον]” (Oec. 1.4), an idea taken up in the summary of the discussion: “We thought that estate management [oikonomia] is the name of a branch of knowledge, and this knowledge appeared to be that by which men can increase [αὔξειν] [their] estates” (Oec. 6.4). Admittedly, the debate which then begins between them pertains to the subjective side of wealth. It depends, above all, on the ability to control one’s own appetites, which allows Socrates to say to Critobulus, who is wealthier than him but who lacks self-­control, that he pities him for his “poverty” (Oec. 2.2–­4). But in the exchange that follows, which takes place between Socrates and the picture of the good oikonomos (Ischomachus), the objective dimension of wealth reappears without any explicit limitation. This is what Ischomachus explains to his wife: “But moderation both in a man and a woman, means acting in such a manner that their possessions shall be in the best condition possible, and that as much as possible [ὅτι πλεῖστα] shall be added to them by fair and honorable means” (Oec. 7.15). These means are the proper distribution of tasks between husband and wife, the good management that each of them exercises over their slaves, in particular over the stewards—­that is, the overseers of the slaves—­and the management and efficient use of resources, all duly allocated within their respective place in the household, while also maintaining the balance between acquisition and expenditure.3 The difficulty and appeal of the work is that it forces one to try to reconcile the teaching of Socrates—­for whom wealth consists of a subjective relationship between limited desires and what is sufficient

Acquisition and Wealth 101

to satisfy them, making the idea of growth irrelevant—­and the fact that Ischomachus is shown to be a competent administrator and worthy of imitation even though he does not assign a quantitative limit to objective wealth but, on the contrary, tends toward its unlimited pursuit. The key to this difficulty can be located in the relationship that Critobulus and Ischomachus maintain with regard to expenditures, that is, desires. Unlike Critobulus, Ischomachus controls his appetites and his spending. While he is similar to Socrates in this regard, he differs from him in that he is responsible for an oikos. Ischomachus, on the other hand, could be described as a sort of reeducated Critobulus or an oikonomikos Socrates, something the latter refuses to become—­not that he would be unable to do so but because he devotes his time and effort to philosophy.4

Limited Wealth However ambivalent it may seem, given its combination of objective growth and subjective moderation, Ischomachus’s remains exceptional in our corpus. Most philosophers agree on the idea that wealth is closely related to the notion of quantitative limits, whether because, as for Plato, it must be limited for political reasons or because, as for Epicurus and Aristotle, limitation is a property inherent to the concept of wealth itself. In the Republic, Socrates argues that the growth of a city—­and the territorial conquest that it implies—­cannot continue once its internal unity is endangered. Under the effect of the feeling of injustice brought on by excessive economic disparities between its members, a city, in fact, ceases to be “one” city and becomes two cities at war against each other: “The city of the poor and city of the rich” (Resp. 4.422e –­423a), as this passage explains: S o c r a t e s: Would not this, then, be the best rule and measure for our

governors of the proper size of the city and of the territory that they should mark off for a city of that size and seek no more? A de i m a n t u s: What is the measure? S o c r a t e s: I think, said I, that they should let it grow so long as in its growth it consents to remain a unity, but no further. A de i m a n t u s: Excellent, he said.

102  Chapter Five

S o c r a t e s: Then is not this still another injunction that we should lay

upon our guardians, to keep guard in every way that the city shall not be too small, nor great only in seeming, but that it shall be a sufficient city and one? (Resp. 4.423b–­423c)

These political limitations assigned to the growth of the city, founded on the idea that civic unity represents the political good, also define the limit of its possible wealth—­a limit whose quantitative value is unspecified, because it is subject to the criterion of political good. In the Laws, what is valid for the entire city-­state in the Republic is also valid for the equally disposed agricultural lots or estates that form the political and economic territory of the just city of Magnesia. The main character in the dialogue, the Athenian, determines a unit of measurement for the material assets authorized in this city as well as a maximum difference between wealth and poverty, with the idea that excessive disparities on a material level would spark dissent and injustice (Leg. 5.744d3–­5). The unit of measurement—­which is both the lower poverty line and the upper limit of the unit of wealth—­is given by the lot itself, that is, one of the 5,040 farms resulting from the initial division of the territory of the city-­state according to the most equitable possible distribution of land, with the differences in size compensating for the differences in fertility (Leg. 5.745d4). Since the conservation of the lots is the basis of the conservation of the city, their number can neither increase nor decrease (Leg. 5.741b2–­3). If Plato does not mathematically determine either their size or their market value, it is because their function is primarily to serve as a standard against which to measure appetites. In other words, their function is for objectifying the subjective: These lots must meet the needs of the families who hold them, live on them, and exploit them, and their needs are understood as limited since the inhabitants of this city were chosen for their moderation (σώφρονας, Leg. 5.737d1). The virtue of moderation would thus constitute the subjective side of wealth on which the objective side, which interests us here, is based. Based on the lot, the Athenian sets the limit of the maximum wealth allowed in the city as follows: “The limit of poverty shall be the value of the allotment: This must remain fixed, and its diminution in any particular instance no magistrate should overlook, nor any other citizen who aspires to goodness. And having set this as the [inferior] limit, the law-

Acquisition and Wealth 103

giver shall allow a man to possess twice this amount, or three times, or four times” (Leg. 5.744d8–­e5). This limited difference between poverty and wealth, from one to four or five depending on whether or not the initial lot itself is considered,5 introduces commensurability between citizens, which has two beneficial effects for the city. On the one hand, no one could be poor or rich to the point that citizens would become complete strangers to each other, and a split of the city comparable to the one described above in book 4 of the Republic is impossible or at least unlikely. On the other hand, any emulation provoked by the public display of material wealth should not take place, and this would impede the speculation and race for luxury to which such emulation usually gives rise.6 However, the objective limit Plato assigns to wealth remains external: even excessive wealth is still considered a form of wealth (Leg. 5.742e6: πλουσίους δ᾽ αὖ σφόδρα; 743c3: οἱ παμπλούσιοιοι; 743d3: χρηματισμὸν πολὺν). We must look to the Epicureans and to Aristotle for the notion of a limit as an inherent part of the concept so that excess wealth ceases to be considered wealth at all. In the Peri oikonomias, Philodemus of Gadara uses the expression “measure of wealth” (πλούτου μέτρον)—­a measure that only the philosopher can determine (Vices 9.12.17–­19). What meaning should we assign to this phrase? The Greek term μέτρον (measure) lends an objective character to the limit of wealth since its primary meaning is that of a standard used to measure quantity. But how does one determine this standard of measurement itself? To understand it, we must turn to the concept of “the richness of nature” developed by Epicurus and taken up by his disciples, such as the Epicurean Metrodorus Lambsacus in his treatise On Wealth, which Philodemus evokes in the same passage (Vices 9.12.26–­27). For Epicurus, “the wealth required by nature [ὁ τῆς φύσεως πλοῦτος] is limited [ὥρισται] [. . .]; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity [εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει]” (RS 15). The link established by Epicurus between nature and limits is what imbues wealth with a sense of objectivity. The phrase “required by nature” means that the practical work of prudential reason, consisting in knowing how to choose the pleasures and pains most conducive to happiness, is based directly on the ontological reality of things, as Epicurus presents it in his physical theory or “physiology,” namely, his theory of nature. If this theory leaves a place for the unlimited—­for

104  Chapter Five

example, with respect to the number of atoms and the vacuum that constitute the first reality (Ep. Pyth. 41) or even the number of worlds (Ep. Pyth. 45, Ep. Hdt. 89)—­this limitlessness nonetheless only serves as a raw material or framework for the individuation of observable bodies or realities, an individuation that itself presupposes a limit. In this sense, we could say that the limit is omnipresent in Epicurean physics whether it concerns the number of varieties of atoms, their size, the size of their ultimate “parts,” the number of possible forms of the universe, or the size of any universe.7 For example, as Epicurus writes, “a world is a circumscribed portion of the sky, containing heavenly bodies and an earth and all the heavenly phenomena [. . .]: it is a piece cut off from the infinite [ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀπείρου] and that ends with a limit [καὶ λήγουσα καὶ καταλήγουσα ἐν πέρατι]” (Ep. Pyth. 88).8 Similarly, “the worlds and indeed every limited compound body that continuously exhibits a similar appearance to the things we see were created from the unlimited [ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀπείρου]” (Ep. Hdt. 73). Now what is valid for the physics of the Garden is valid for its ethics: The natural end to which any inclination or any desire tends to be guided by reason is good insofar as it is limited. Indeed, “He [who] has reasoned out the end ordained by nature [τὸ τῆς φύσεως . . . τέλος] [. . .] understands that the limit of good things is easy to fulfill and easy to attain [τὸ μὲν τῶν ἀγαθῶν πέρας]” (Ep. Men. 133). Here “end” (or “term”) is linked to the fact that all good is “limited” as such, with πέρας having both meanings in Greek. Furthermore, the calculation of pleasures and the discipline of appetites in which prudential reason indulges consist in assigning limits to pleasures and appetites9 in contrast with “unfounded opinions,” which are turned toward the limitless, including “continuous drinking and reveling,” as commonplace manifestations (Ep. Men. 132). The same is true in the particular case of wealth. Prudential reason would understand that “it coincides with that which is materially sufficient for happiness [and] corresponds [. . .] to a type of possession which requires little specific effort [to obtain it] [. . .].”10 In short, it is limited, and conversely, “unlimited wealth is great poverty” (Sent. Vat. 25). This objective character of wealth is directly involved in economic affairs insofar as the stewardship of one’s home or oikos is an integral part of the Epicurean way of life, as Epicurus indicates: “We must laugh and philosophize at the same time and do our household duties [οἰκονομεῖν] and employ our other faculties, and never cease

Acquisition and Wealth 105

proclaiming the sayings of true philosophy” (Sent. Vat. 41). Philodemus confirms this by devoting an entire treatise to this question. While Aristotle, finally, employs an expression in the Politics that is close to what Epicurus indicates—­that of “wealth according to nature” (ὁ πλοῦτος ὁ κατὰ φύσιν, Pol. 1257b19–­20) announced shortly earlier by the expression “true wealth” (ὅ γ᾽ ἀληθινὸς πλοῦτος, Pol. 1256b30)11—­ and while he also places wealth into a framework of limits, he does so in a different sense than Epicurus. The question he examines is whether the art of acquiring wealth (τῇ χρηματιστικῇ), subordinate to that of its use, which is the stewardship of the oikos (Pol. 1256a10), is a part of this latter art or whether in fact it differs from it in its very nature (Pol. 1256a15–­18). What is at stake in this alternative is to what extent the limitless pursuit of wealth—­the form in which the art of acquisition is often practiced—­is compatible with the art of properly managing one’s oikos. Aristotle answers this question by distinguishing two forms of the art of acquiring (κτητικῆ), and he thereby specifies what he means by wealth. For animals as well as for humans, the first consists of using the resources that nature places at their disposal for food—­with the major part of humanity living off the fruits of the earth and of agriculture (Pol. 1256a39). In this sense, “such an acquisition is given by nature [τῆς φύσεως] itself ” (Pol. 1256b8), with “nature” here designating not so much the origin of the resources as much as the fact that they are spontaneously made available to satisfy a finality inherent in living things. This is why, to quote, “One kind of acquisition therefore in the order of nature [κατὰ φύσιν] is a part of the household art [τῆς οἰκονομικῆς]” (Pol. 1256b27; emphasis added). This art consists in obtaining the resources made by nature that are at our disposal. The technical procedures used for this purpose—­agriculture or hunting especially—­are therefore called “natural arts” of acquisition (φύσει κτητική, Pol. 1256b23).12 This is where Aristotle introduces a first reference to “true wealth” and its limits, undermining a long tradition that the “wise” Solon (fr. 13.71) would have helped to disseminate. According to Aristotle, “the amount of such property sufficient in itself for a good life is not unlimited” (Pol. 1256b31–­32). What is his point? Although succinct, its meaning is clear: it consists of reminding us of both the purely instrumental character of wealth and the limited character of any instrument. Indeed, “no tool belonging to any art is

106  Chapter Five

without a limit [ὄργανον ἄπειρον], whether in number or in size, and riches are a collection of tools [ὁ δὲ πλοῦτος ὀργάνων πλῆθός] for the householder and the statesman” (Pol. 1256b34–­36). An art of acquisition that conforms to nature therefore provides a necessarily limited acquisition or wealth—­a limit that is in no way negative but that, on the contrary, corresponds to what wealth must be in order for it to conform to this concept. To this first kind of acquisition, Aristotle opposes a second one he calls “chrematistic,”13 the origin of which relates to the diversion of commerce into a tool for enrichment. Money no longer serves as a means of exchange but as an end itself. Such chrematistics are thus turned toward acquisition and unlimited wealth (Pol. 1256b40–­41; the same idea also appears in 1257b24 and 1257b29) and not toward any meaningful use. We cannot enter here into the difficulties of this passage from Aristotle, difficulties that derive from his at times unclear use of the term chrematistic,14 but the reasons he opposes this form of enrichment lead back to the idea that the administration of the oikos supposes some limitations in the form of “wealth according to nature” in the sense defined above.

What Does It Mean to Be Rich? The Subjective Aspects of the Definition of Wealth The objective aspects of the concept of wealth are inseparable from an approach to subjective aspects in the logos oikonomikos by most authors—­Pseudo-­Aristotle being the exception that proves the rule. By subjective aspects, we do not mean the idea that, for these philosophers, economic agents would engage in a purely individual and relative appreciation of what it means to be rich but the fact that these philosophers examine the way in which the ethical disposition of these subjects of acquisition intervenes in their appreciation of wealth, that is, in the way in which they view wealth to be limited or unlimited by nature. Two main approaches emerge from this. One identifies the error in judgment that consists in thinking that wealth is inherently unlimited. The other, which is more common, deals with how subjects control their appetites, or fail to do so, within the framework of domestic economics.

Acquisition and Wealth 107

Aristotle is the best representative of the first approach. After showing that wealth is inherently limited, he questions the reasons why “we observe that the opposite takes place; for all men engaged in wealth-­ getting try to increase their money to an unlimited amount” (Pol. 1257b34). According to Aristotle, the cause for this phenomenon is attributable to the objective proximity of the two forms or two practices of chrematistics with regard to the use of the goods that they acquire. On the one hand, it is used with a view to “another end” (τῆς μὲν ἕτερον τέλος, Pol. 1257b37–­38)—­or as a series of actions themselves oriented toward this ultimate end, which is happiness (Eth. Nic. 1094a1–­ 1095a21). On the other hand, it is used “with a view to increase” (τῆς δ᾽ ἡ αὔξησις, Pol. 1257b38), henceforth assimilated to the supreme good itself. This objective proximity of the two practices or of the two forms of chrematistics, which leads one to confuse the means and the end, is difficult to disentangle according to Aristotle because of two subjective reasons. The first is the effort that one makes to live rather than to live well (i.e., to be happy), an effort that is rooted in an unlimited desire to live and that also leads to seeking unlimited means. The reasons behind this confusion, nonetheless, are not clearly established in the text. As differing translations show, it is difficult to know whether by “unlimited desire to live,” Aristotle has in mind a universal anthropological constant, one that would be linked, for example, to “the natural tendency to leave behind another being similar to oneself ” (Pol. 1252a29–­30), or if he is instead thinking of a specific human group characterized by an ethical lack of differentiation between living and living well.15 The second subjective reason for confusion between the two forms or the two practices of chrematistics is much more common. It concerns a group that ascribes too much importance to bodily pleasures in their search for happiness (Pol. 1258a3).16 For such people, enjoyment consists of excess (Pol. 1258a6–­7), which is a mode of unlimitedness, and they thus seek to acquire unlimited means themselves. Aristotle does not wander any further into the study of subjective motives concerning the meaning of wealth. Instead, he stops at the boundaries of oikonomic knowledge and its articulation within politics and ethics. This branch of knowledge and the delimitation of its boundaries,17 which earned Aristotle credit for initiating the scientific analysis of economic phenomena,18 are unique to him among the authors in this corpus. In Xenophon or in others, in fact, the approach of

108  Chapter Five

the subjective side of wealth focuses on the control or lack of control exercised by individuals over their appetites—­which is why some have been able to state that these Greek oikonomic texts are, in effect, ethical texts.19 This approach can be quite general or detailed. It is general when it is content to indicate the virtue(s) required to understand that wealth is or must be limited and to adopt the corresponding behavior. This is the case with Plato and Philodemus, who, despite great theoretical differences between them, both grant temperance a central role in this regard. If the first can propose a scale of wealth extending from one to four or five for the polis in the Laws, it is because its citizens would have been selected for their temperance (σώφρονας, Leg. 5.737d), and they would also be encouraged to “enrich oneself with justice and moderation” (Leg. 9.870b6–­c2). Similarly, Philodemus reproaches Theophrastus—­or Pseudo-­Aristotle—­of encouraging greed in domestic economic activities (φιλοχρημάτου, Vices 9.11.3–­8) and explains what oikonomia consists of for a “wise man” (σώφρων, Vices 9.15.46), one who knows that his “humble and modest way of living” provides for the needs accorded by nature even if “he feels more inclined by his will toward a more affluent way of living” (Vices 9.16.3–­6). This man will be the most able to present the subjective ethical dispositions needed to “remove from oneself, to the extent that it is possible, the envy of things that are not to be envied and the fear of things that are not to be feared, [so being] able both to procure and to preserve [one’s property] in the appropriate manner” (Vices 9.24.6–­11). The close link between the individual ethical disposition and its oikonomic implications for the acquisition of goods and wealth could not be more directly indicated. A more detailed approach to the subjective side of wealth is found in Xenophon’s Economics, where he develops the topic within the framework of the following questions. Does being rich consist in lacking nothing, that is, in having what is necessary? Or does it entail having more than one needs? Contrary to the widely held opinion that leans toward the latter answer, the dialogue between Critobulus and Socrates demonstrates that wealth consists less in the superabundance of material assets than in having what one needs. Let us recall the context. After defining oikonomia as the art of making one’s oikos grow (Oec. 1.4, 16), and after defining assets as anything the use of which proves advantageous (Oec. 1.8–­15), the two interlocutors enter the domain of ethics (Oec. 1.16–­23). Some, they note, have all the required skills to

Acquisition and Wealth 109

properly administer their oikos, yet they are unable to do so because they are bound to their pleasures, whether in terms of being slaves to “laziness, softness of soul, recklessness,” or to tyrannical and greedy appetites that bring about the ruin of their house (Oec. 1.19–­22). Socrates then sets out to discredit Critobulus, who considers himself free from such vices (Oec. 2.1), by raising the question of how to define wealth. Paradoxically, he argues that, although Critobulus’s material holdings are far more important than his, he is richer all the same: My property is sufficient to satisfy my wants, but I don’t think you would have enough to keep up the style you are living in and to support your reputation, even if your fortune were three times what it is. How can that be? exclaimed Critobulus. Because, in the first place, explained Socrates, I notice that you are bound to offer many large sacrifices [. . .]. Second, it is your duty to entertain many strangers, on a generous scale too. Third, you have to give dinners and play the benefactor to the citizens, or you lose your following. Moreover, I observe that already the state is exacting heavy contributions from you [. . .]. Besides all this, I notice that you imagine yourself to be a rich man; you are indifferent to money, and yet go courting minions, as though the cost were nothing to you. (Oec. 2.1–­7)

Socrates’s approach is by no means moralizing. Contrary to what has been said, the philosopher here does not praise poverty over wealth nor does he state that he himself is poor.20 He does not invite Critobulus to give up the wealth that any good oikonomos aims for; he encourages him, on the contrary, to give himself the means to obtain it. As for Critobulus, his main flaw is inconsistency. He believes that he is rich, yet he is poor because of the combined effects of the heavy financial and material contributions weighing on wealthy citizens and the reckless management of his oikos. Socrates in no way criticizes the social obligations that such an activity implies nor does he criticize the search for wealth that is its means; however, he does find fault in his interlocutor’s inconsistency. What makes possible the comparison between Socrates’s wealth and Critobulus’s poverty is the criterion of wealth that the first opposes to the second. This criterion does not consist of the quantity of material one has at one’s disposal, as Critobulus believes, but in the fact that what we have is enough for our needs. On the contrary, as Ischomachus explained to his wife, in perfect coherence

110  Chapter Five

with what Socrates has just said to Critobulus, “not to be able to use a thing when you want it is poverty unquestionably” (Oec. 8.2). Critobulus’s needs are objectively great because of his “mode of life and reputation,” but what he has is not enough because of his carelessness. In the second part of the Economics, Socrates works on remedying Critobulus’s inconsistency by presenting to him in the person of Ischomachus the model of a good oikonomos, one who is neither carefree nor greedy because he demonstrates self-­control (ἐγκράτεια, Oec. 7.27, 9.11). Once this framework is established, it remains to be determined which activities are the most appropriate to acquire.

Wh at Activitie s Ar e Ap p r o p r i at e for Acquisiti on? A Polemical Question The list of acquisition-­related activities presented in the logos oikonomikos is easy to draw up. They mainly pertain to agriculture, commerce broadly speaking, and less often financial mechanisms or even the exercise of philosophy. This list, however, only has a philosophical meaning because of the debate, explicit or not, that consists in making one or the other of these activities the privileged acquisition-­related activity. In the following brief passage, Philodemus of Gadara provides a good example of the controversial nature of this subject: It is [utterly] ridiculous to believe that it is a good thing to earn an income from “practicing the art of horsemanship.” Earning an income “from the art of mining with slaves doing the labor” is unfortunate, and as to securing income “from both these sources by means of one’s own labor,” it is a mad thing to do. “Cultivating the land oneself in a manner involving work with one’s own hands” is also wretched, while cultivating it “using other workers if one is a landowner” is appropriate for the good man. [. . .] However [. . .] the first and noblest thing is to receive back thankful gifts with all reverence in return for philosophical discourses shared with men capable of understanding them, as happened to Epicurus. (Vices 9.23.1–­29)

Acquisition and Wealth 111

Horsemanship is an allusion to a passage from Xenophon’s Economics (Oec. 3.8), which Philodemus interprets as if the latter were formulating an economic principle whereas it is only a question of a methodological analogy placed in the mouth of Socrates. Mining refers to Pseudo-­Aristotle’s Economics ([Oec.] 1343a27), in a passage where the author lists possible acquisitive activities. As for agriculture—­ more specifically the management of agricultural tasks entrusted to slaves—­it is central to these two treatises that Philodemus criticizes, and it was undoubtedly inserted to curry favor among the wealthy Roman landowners to whom he was addressing. Philodemus nevertheless disputes its preeminence at the end of the passage and thus contributes to maintaining the controversial dimension of the subject. However, beginning with Hesiod, the debate has generally been centered between agriculture and commerce. In his advice to his brother Perses in The Works and Days, the poet gives agriculture primacy over maritime trade without, however, entirely excluding the latter. The reason for this is that in his eyes, commercial expeditions were lucrative but dangerous. Furthermore, they clearly testify to an inordinate appetite for wealth on the part of those who undertake them and invest all their possessions in such endeavors instead of being more judicious with their holdings: “Yet in their ignorance men do even this [sailing], for wealth means life to poor mortals” (684–­86; see more broadly 684–­90).21 Plato’s Laws presents a similar debate no longer at the domestic level but within the framework of the polis, which has its own moral and above all political resonances. How will the colony of Knossos—­which the Cretan Clinias is tasked with founding—­manage to provide for itself? In the portrait he paints, the Athenian balances, on the one hand, trade with the outside world, to which he expresses strong reservations in particular because it endangers the moral values of the city, and on the other hand, the city’s capacity to produce everything by itself, especially through agriculture: For the sea is, in very truth, “a right briny and bitter neighbor,” although there is sweetness in its proximity for the uses of daily life; for by filling the markets of the city with foreign merchandise and retail trading, and breeding in men’s souls knavish and tricky ways, it renders the city faithless and loveless, not to itself only but to the rest of the

112  Chapter Five

world as well. But in this respect our city has compensation in the fact that it is all-­productive; and since it is hilly, it cannot be highly productive as well as all-­productive; if it were, and supplied many exports, it would be flooded in return with gold and silver money—­the one condition of all, perhaps, that is most fatal, in a city, to the acquisition of noble and just habits of life. (Leg. 4.705a–­b)

This passage contributes to the debate on the choice of the most relevant acquisitive activity by presenting a hypothesis and its consequences, the negative moral and political effects that foreign trade would have on a city for which it would be the main source of revenue. The moral effects, first of all, would derive from the perverse or evil nature that commerce instills in personal conduct because it lends itself particularly well to deception and is often associated with illusory promises22—­which does not mean that it always implies such characteristics or that they are always intentional.23 This risk of deception, which is inherent in commerce and heightened, for Hesiod, by the universal lure of profit, introduces unstable and thus unreliable mores into souls, resulting in dubious commercial practices, such as, for example, selling the same merchandise at two different prices on the same day, selling counterfeit products, and unduly praising one’s own merchandise.24 As for the negative political effects of a mainly commercial civic oikonomia, they would consist of a lack of unity in mores, with that variegation echoing the portrait of democracy in the Republic (8.557c, 558c)—­a regime of multiplicity rather than unity in which everyone leads the life they want without concern for common value. A predominantly market-­based economy would therefore affect the unity of the polis by depriving it of that friendship (philia) and trust that are essential for uniting citizens.25 This polis would no longer be one—­it would instead be an aggregate of mutually suspicious individuals, and this feeling would also turn against “the rest of men,” that is to say, foreigners. In this regard, trade is often linked to war among the Greeks in general and with Plato in particular.26 The city-­state in Plato’s Laws will, however, have a considerable chance of escaping these shortcomings if the policy that it exercises allows it to take advantage of two fortuitous geographical coincidences concerning its territory. On the one hand, it produces everything (τὸ πάμφορος, Leg. 4.704d, 705b), which enables it to avoid imports and

Acquisition and Wealth 113

endangering the independence of the city. Plato here seems to enter into a dispute with Pericles who, according to Thucydides, values Athenian trade policy even if it is dependent on imports (Thuc. 2.38.2). This geographical factor could nevertheless become a danger if it were not, on the other hand, quantitatively limited: coupled with abundance (πολύφορός, Leg. 4.705b), such diversity would risk fueling an appetite for wealth. As the Athenian has shown, nothing good comes out of such appetites, neither within the city nor in its relations with other cities (Leg. 3.695e–­696b). Fortunately, the production of this territory does not reach large quantities, which, while sufficient for what is necessary, prevents large exports fueled by the insatiable greed for profit. As we have seen, the intensity of the debate concerning the choice of acquisitive activities is also related to the fact that they involve individual behavior as well as civic “economic policies.” Generally speaking, the dividing line runs between those who give primacy to agriculture and a minority who gives preference to other activities.

The Preeminence of Agriculture: Metaphysics, Religion, Ethics, and Politics In this controversial context, agriculture is often presented as the most appropriate art of acquisition not only with respect to the oikos (Xenophon, Oec. 5.1–­20, 6.5–­11; Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1343a25–­b2) but also with respect to the polis (Plato, Leg. 6.737e and 745c–­d in particular). The supporting arguments are of three kinds: Metaphysical, ethical religious, and, above all, political. The metaphysical argument is specific to Aristotle. In keeping with the teleology that characterizes all his philosophical thought, nature provides humanity with the means to be self-­sufficient (αὐτόφυτον, Pol. 1256a41), without which there would be a need to resort to barter or trade. However, among these means, the main ones are fruits taken directly from the earth or derived from cultivation (Pol. 1256a38–­39). Then come the modes of life “of nomads, brigands, fishermen, hunters” with the various diets that correspond to each. Aristotle notes that these ways of life can be combined (Pol. 1256b1–­7) to guarantee the autarky of human groups, which is their finality or their natural horizon

114  Chapter Five

(Pol. 1252b28–­29). Aristotle’s metaphysical argument therefore sets out to explain both the economic reality of Greece, which is mainly based on agriculture, and the diversity of observable acquisitive practices. Pseudo-­Aristotle invokes a similar argument by recalling that “of occupations attendant on our goods and chattels, those come first which are natural [κατὰ φύσιν]. Among these, precedence is given to the one that cultivates the land” as an art of acquisition before “the exploitation of mines and similar activities” ([Oec.] 1343a25–­27)—­“according to nature,” that is to say, in agreement with the idea that all beings receive their sustenance from their mother, and that the earth is, according to a common metaphor, the “mother” of men ([Oec.] 1343a31–­b2).27 Ethical and religious considerations also justify the preeminence of agriculture. This is the case with Xenophon as well as with Pseudo-­ Aristotle, who evidently draws inspiration from him on this point. According to Ischomachus, in addition to the loose bond that unites it with the religious sphere in that it produces “all the things with which people decorate altars and statues [of the gods]” (Oec. 5.3), agriculture owes its sacredness to the fact that “the earth willingly [and being a goddess] teaches righteousness to those who can learn” (Oec. 5.12)—­ an idea that one also finds in Pseudo-­Aristotle: “agriculture [is] in conformity with the justice” ([Oec.] 1343a28). How are we to understand agriculture’s link with justice? And what does this justice, of which agriculture would be the expression, consist of? The definition of this value, clarified immediately after by Xenophon, is based on the idea of reciprocity: the land pays back for the efforts that are expended in working it.28 Thus, as Socrates explains to Critobulus, “in exchange for the services they receive from agriculture, dogs and horses in turn render service to the farm [ἀντωφελοῦσι]” (Oec. 5.6). Similarly, “which art pays better return [ἀντιχαρίζεται] to those who practice it?” (Oec. 5.8) if not agriculture, an idea that also appears in the Cyropaedia (Cyr. 8.3.38): “It was really not such a very bad plot of ground, but, on the contrary, the most honest [δικαιότατον]; for all the seed that it received it returned fairly and honestly [καλῶς καὶ δικαίως ἀπεδίδου] and yet with no very great amount of interest.” In short, “the earth willingly teaches righteousness to those who can learn; for the better she is served, the more good things she gives in return [ἀντιποιεῖ]” (Oec. 5.12). The ethical value of agriculture, which contributes to making it the privileged oikonomic activity, is also due to the fact that it is a school of

Acquisition and Wealth 115

life for the free man (Oec. 5.1): it forms his character and his body and makes him a “real” man (ἀνδρίζει, Oec. 5.4)—­an idea also taken up by Pseudo-­Aristotle (ἀνδρίαν, [Oec.] 1343b2). Hence its political significance in the name of a military conception of power, which, for Xenophon especially, applies just as much in the polis as in the agricultural sector of the oikos. By imparting the values of freedom and courage, agriculture also teaches skills that can ensure the defense of the territory that the free man cultivates, which also forms the territory of his city (Xenophon, Oec. 5.5, 7; Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1343b2–­6)—­as was discussed in chapter 2.29 In general, whether political power is conceived of as being similar to military command or not—­in the texts we have examined, this is a feature uniquely attributable to Xenophon—­ the political importance of agriculture is, as we can see, generally due to the fact that it seals the alliance of a human community and its territory. In the Laws, Plato bases this alliance on the institution of the klêros, the inalienable agricultural lot entrusted to the obligatory maintenance of each citizen and his family, agriculture being their only source of wealth and sustenance for them and for the city itself (Leg. 5.743d, 8.842c, 12.949d). In addition to ensuring the economic independence of the polis and its moral value by making agriculture the country’s primary resource and simultaneously reducing the share of trade with the outside world, the klêros and the agricultural system that it implies allow citizens to belong to their city rather than the other way around (Leg. 11.923a–­c).

Agriculture: An Activity among Others, a Secondary Activity Some authors, nonetheless, question the preeminence of agriculture as an acquisitive activity. They either consider it only as an acquisitive art among others, the relevance of which is limited to certain contexts, or they relegate it to the background in favor of other arts. While Plato, as we have seen, positions agriculture as the principal means for the city to acquire necessities, others supplement it with different activities. These involve the means (πόροι) for obtaining income (προσόδους, Xenophon, Vect. 1.2) or money (πόρον χρημάτων, Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1346a27) that pertain to commerce and other forms of business. The purpose of these forms of revenue can be to

116  Chapter Five

compensate for the general lack of public funds—­this serves as a leitmotif of book 2 of Pseudo-­Aristotle’s Economics—­to get out of critical collective situations such as poverty (τῇ τε πενίᾳ, Xenophon, Vect. 1.1) or famine (Κλαζομένιοι δ᾽ ἐν σιτοδείᾳ ὄντες, Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1348b17–­18) or to face more specific sectoral expenses, in particular those relating to war or the payment of soldiers or mercenaries, as is the case with Pseudo-­Aristotle ([Oec.] 1347a18–­19, 1348b22–­23). The main interest in these passages lies in the various forms of rationality they evoke in order to acquire said revenue. The anecdotes reported by Pseudo-­Aristotle are marked by cunning and subterfuge, where the political figures are constantly grappling to find solutions to specific difficulties. They often exploit psychological methods invoking fear, piety, or concern for their own interests in those from whom they attempt to procure money. Sometimes they impose extreme measures, like the Mendeans who, to meet their war expenses, decided that individuals must limit the number of their slaves to two so that the State can sell the surplus slaves, and individuals would lend the State the sum acquired by this sale ([Oec.] 1350a6–­15). They also sometimes resort to cynicism or sacrilege to maintain power based on financial resources. Thus, Euaises the Syrian, the satrap of Egypt, hanged all the local governors who opposed his authority but informed their families that they were in prison; the latter, wanting to liberate them, sent a ransom set by Euaises who, in exchange, gave them their corpses ([Oec.] 1352a9–­15). Similarly, Dionysius of Syracuse “stripped the statues of their golden raiment and garlands and declared he would give them lighter and more fragrant wear” ([Oec.] 1353b23–­26). Pseudo-­Aristotle’s Economics is thus marked by a strong discrepancy—­the meaning of which remains to be interpreted—­between the description of financial activities in the political domain, from which any ethical consideration seems excluded, and the management of domestic resources where justice is presented as a prime element, especially in the context of relations between the master and his slaves as well as between spouses. Far from shrewd in spirit, Xenophon’s Ways and Means proposes a far-­reaching plan of action to provide the city with resources and guarantee peace between the Greek city-­states.30 This is not a matter of expedients but of what is akin to a commercial and industrial economic policy based on the dual proposal of commercial incentives for foreigners to come and do business in Athens—­which would be subject to taxes—­and

Acquisition and Wealth 117

a public project to exploit the mines of Laurion using enslaved labor. Economic acquisition is thus presented here as a global political project, one that is antithetical to the one Plato advocated in the Laws. Philodemus of Gadara is a good example of the following case, which would place agriculture in an ancillary role. In the passage quoted above, he evinces a preference for philosophical exchange based on the model of what Epicurus would have practiced and immediately adds to it the disciplining of desires and fears, also ensuring the preservation (τήρησις) of what we already have (Vices 9.23.22–­ 43). How is such a recommendation justified? It is mainly due to two things. On the one hand, we have the idea that the nature of acquisitive practices is logically secondary to the individual’s ethical capacity to reduce his appetites to those that are necessary and natural. Without this capacity, no acquisitive practice can by itself contribute to the pleasure—­understood as the absence of disturbances to the soul and bodily pain—­that defines the Epicurean notion of supreme good. It is in this sense that one can understand the advice attributed to Epicurus: “[The wise man] will have regard to his property and to the future [. . .] [κτήσεως προνοήσεσθαι καὶ τοῦ μέλλοντος]. And he will make money, but only by his wisdom, if he should be in poverty [χρηματιεῖσθαί τε, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ μόνης σοφίας, ἀπορήσαντα]” (Diog. Laert. 10.119–­120a–­121b). The qualification “if he should be in poverty” is to be understood less directly as a lack of money than as the risk of disruption and pain that such a lack might cause. The “wisdom” in question, for its part, can evoke both the philosophical teaching to which Philodemus alludes as well as the exercise of another economic activity as long as it is framed by the discipline of appetites and fears. On the other hand, Philodemus’s recommendation is explained by the importance of friendship in Epicureanism, a virtue that has its origin in utility (Sent. Vat. 23) and is indispensable to wisdom (Sent. Vat. 28; RS 27). However, the concern for friendship partly determines the Epicurean oikonomia. Thus, it is in the Garden itself where Epicurus would not have favored the pooling of goods, unlike the Pythagoreans, according to whom “between friends everything is common. For such a precept can only apply to people who are suspicious, and if they are suspicious, they are not friends” (Diog. Laert. 10.11). Although possessions are not pooled, individual resources, starting with Epicurus’s, are placed at the service of friends. His testament provides a good

118  Chapter Five

indication of this (Diog. Laert. 10.16–­21), since it leaves for the use of his closest disciples, in addition to the Garden itself, his house, and his “income” (προσόδων, Diog. Laert. 10.18–­19). Where does this income derive from, what is it, and what is it used for? In addition to the income that Epicurus might have drawn from his teaching before the founding of the Garden (Diog. Laert. 10.4)31 this revenue refers to the contributions that the Garden expected from its members, in currency or in kind: They were perhaps not obligatory, but they were intended to be an indication of this friendship and a way of putting that friendship into practice.32 The Garden also seems to have benefited from donations, such as those that Epicurus evokes in the fragments of the hypothetical Letter to his mother: “I am living in plenty in all respects, because of our friends and because of father constantly sending us money, and recently also through Cleon, sending us nine minas” (Diogenes of Oenoanda fr. 126.3).33 All these sources of income are thus intended to make possible both “living together” (συνδιαγωγήν, Diog. Laert. 10.6) and “philosophizing together” (τῶν συμφιλοσοφούντων ἡμῖν, Diog. Laert. 10.18). They are not pooled to establish a fund from which everyone would be free to draw, but they are shared (μεριζέσθωσαν, Diog. Laert. 10.18), that is, they are employed and assigned according to the needs of each in the Garden in order to ensure friendship its role in the transmission of a model of wisdom. Certainly it is possible that slaves produced fruits and vegetables for communal meals in the Garden,34 but this technical presence of agriculture is thought to be secondary on the economic level compared to the idea that it is a form of individual wisdom (the disciplining of appetites and fears) and a collective virtue (friendship) that in fact form the backbone of acquisition. • The questions raised by the concept of acquisition are fundamentally related to ethical and political concerns that, in the discussions considered here, take greater or lesser precedence over the strictly technical character of the acquisitive activities themselves. It is with the Epicureans that this phenomenon is most evident, since agriculture there acquires a logically ancillary role as an acquisitive practice, which is perfectly explained by the central role that they grant to the idea of giv-

Acquisition and Wealth 119

ing and to friendship in oikonomia. They nonetheless remain faithful to the idea that there can be no oikonomia without acquisition—­they do, indeed, employ the term, as we have seen. It is undoubtedly the Cynics who, here as on other subjects, push the reflection to its extreme limits: insofar as they participate in the logos oikonomikos, acquisition ceases to be a relevant question since, given that their appetites have been reduced to a minimum, they are generally satisfied with what they find or what is given to them. By substituting begging for acquisition and dissociating it from the parasitism with which it is commonly associated, they establish it as part of a practice of giving with a view to a truly communal world in which the concern for acquisition betrays a desire for violent appropriation—­of which Alexander the Great is, for Diogenes, the most perfect symbol.35 That the Cynics push the boundaries on this topic indirectly confirms the primary role that the oikonomikos logos gives to acquisition in the material dimension of oikonomia. That material dimension calls for preservation. But what exactly do we mean by that?

◉ 6 ◉ Preservation and Balance

Preservation should logically follow from acquisition. This activity is expressed by the verbs phulattein or sôzein and other terms of the same family. Thus, Philodemus announces the subject matter of his work by indicating that he will examine “what attitude one must take up both with regard to the acquisition and preservation of wealth” (περί χρημάτων κτήσεως τε καί φυλακῆς, Vices 9.12.8–­9, 23–­24, 28.3–­4). According to Pseudo-­Aristotle, the oikonomos or steward must be able to acquire and preserve what is acquired (φυλάττειν, [Oec.] 1344b22–­ 25). Aristotle and, in Xenophon, Ischomachus, both attribute the latter function to women (τοῦ σώσοντος ταῦτα, Oec. 7.21, φυλάττειν, 7.25; φυλάττειν, Pol. 1277b24–­25), while acquisition is understood as a “male” function. Plato, meanwhile, evokes preservation in the Statesman by alluding to this category of objects that are known as receptacles, namely, ones that are intended for “the safeguarding [σωτηρίας] of what has been produced” (Plt. 287e4–­5). Of what, then, would the preservation of acquired property consist? And is it possible to give this activity a meaning that extends beyond its immediate usefulness? All the passages concerned with this issue point in the same direction—­to preserve is to arrange and to calculate. The activity of storing has to do with architectural organization and with, more broadly, the organization of domestic or civic space with a view to assigning to each thing its rightful place. To this, medical or dietary considerations are sometimes added when it comes to the preservation of “human goods,” namely, slaves. The calculation, for its part, consists of determining the just ratio between expenditures and acquisitions. As for the meaning of these two constituent functions of preservation,

Preservation and Balance 121

they pertain to different economic manifestations of the general good. In other words, they range from the simple utility and material efficiency of things to the aesthetic and moral harmony of a multiplicity of objects brought together in one coherent unit—­the oikos or polis—­ which thus constitutes a “cosmos,” a rational order. This unit or order is intelligible to the mind, and it lends itself to practical activity, thereby mobilizing the ethical excellence of the agents involved, not simply their immediate needs or interests.

Tidine ss On the Usefulness of Goods in the Oikos The preservation of human and material goods proceeds mainly through the organization of the economic space with a view to two main objectives. The first is to ensure the usefulness of the goods thus arranged or stored, that is, to ensure that they are usable and therefore useful when they are needed. Xenophon and Pseudo-­Aristotle offer extensive examples of this. In Xenophon’s Economics, both Socrates and Critobulus signal their concern on this matter by contrasting those who, for having left their tools in disorder (Oec. 3.3), do not know whether they are usable with those who instead have their tools “always ready” (Oec. 3.2) because they are “in their place” (τοῖς δὲ ἐν χώρᾳ ἕκαστα τεταγμένα κεῖται, Oec. 3.3). The two thinkers conclude that the rightful concern for order is part of “domestic affairs” (τῶν οἰκονομικῶν, Oec. 3.3) and thus that it is part of the art of economics. Already present in Hesiod with regard to the preservation of grains,1 this importance given to storage is extended in Pseudo-­Aristotle to three categories of objects—­fruits of the earth or clothing, people, and tools: In constructing a homestead, we have to provide for the stock that it is to shelter, and for its health and well-­being [καὶ πρὸς ὑγίειαν καὶ πρὸς εὐημερίαν αὐτῶν]. Providing for the stock involves questions such as these: What type of building is best for the storage of [1] crops and of clothing? How are we to store the dry crops, and how the moist ones? Of the other stock, [2] how is the living to be housed, and how the

122  Chapter Six

dead? And what accommodation are we to make for slaves and free, for women and men, for foreigners and fellow citizens? For well-­being and health, again, the homestead should be airy in summer and sunny in winter. A homestead possessing these qualities would be longer than it is deep, and its main front would face the south. [. . .] [3] That implements may be ready for use, the Laconian practice should be followed. Each should be kept in its own place; thus, it will always be to hand and not require seeking [χρὴ γὰρ ἓν ἕκαστον ἐν τῇ αὑτοῦ χώρᾳ κεῖσθαι: οὕτω γὰρ ἂν ἕτοιμον ὂν οὐ ζητοῖτο]. ([Oec.] 1345a24–­b2; numbering added)

Proceeding from the definition that the possessions of the oikos are both things (tools or utensils and foodstuffs) and human beings, Pseudo-­Aristotle here reduces the concern for their preservation to a common condition—­that of the spatial organization of the oikos, which involves both its architectural layout and its interior organization. Moisture, as with excessive heat and cold, can damage food or clothing, or it can harm the health of enslaved and free men, with the risk that all these possessions become nonfunctional. Similarly, the disorderly disposition of tools, that is, the fact that they are not stored in a fixed place, can make them unusable, or it can at least threaten their usefulness, for example, if one is unable to locate them at the right time, when they are needed. Pseudo-­Aristotle provides few details, as we can see, yet this passage is sufficient to understand that the preservation of the oikos as a whole implies that of its parts, which entails keeping it organized and tidy. These perhaps tentative architectural evocations also suggest the idea (one that is more evident in Xenophon and Plato) that properly conducted oikonomia implies not only putting in order a given economic space but, as we will see, envisioning said space as an order, as a cosmos.

Order: Beauty and Intelligibility in Xenophon, Justice and Truth in Plato The second objective sought in the material arrangement of the economic space—­either the oikos or the public space of the polis—­within the general framework of the preservation of goods is to configure it in a certain order so as to give it a meaning and also give a meaning

Preservation and Balance 123

to the economic activities that occur therein. Pseudo-­Aristotle indicates this in a somewhat furtive way when he writes that “the functions of the master of the oikos are four in number: [. . .] to acquire, to conserve, [. . .] to put his goods in order [κοσμητικὸν τῶν ὑπαρχόντων], and to know how to use them, because it is with a view to these two activities that the preceding ones are required” ([Oec.] 1344b22–­27; emphasis added). Order is thus presented as one of the purposes of oikonomia, and this interest in the order resulting from tidying up goes beyond mere functionality. Rather, it takes on a broader moral meaning as indicated in a quote from the Lexicon of Hesychios as noted by Democritus: “Well-­being: happiness, deriving from ‘the house is in good order’” ( εὐθηνία ἀπὸ τοῦ . Καὶ εὐδαιμονία ἀπὸ τοῦ εὖ τὸν οἶκον, Diels–­Kranz 68B140).2 Xenophon and Plato are, however, the two most significant authors on this question. The former sees in the beauty of a correctly arranged domestic space the sign of its successful administration; the latter sees in the orderly arrangement of goods in the marketplace the inscription of truth and justice in the stone of the just city of the Laws. Order plays an essential role for proper domestic management in Xenophon’s Economics. The aforementioned dialogue between Socrates and Critobulus concerning the importance of assigning a specific place to each tool gives rise to an extended development in the subsequent discussion between Socrates and Ischomachus. In two long sections (Oec. 8.1–­23, 9.1–­10), the latter explains that he praised the merits of order to his wife (τάξις) for what it provides in beauty and utility to men (εὔχρηστον [. . .] καλὸν ἀνθρώποις, Oec. 8.3). In doing so, he uses the model of order within an army, that of a trireme, and that of the cultivation of various grains (Oec. 8.4–­9), before developing at greater length the example of a Phoenician ship and how its rigging and its cargo were so well arranged, and the captain’s mate “so well acquainted with the place for everything that, even off the ship, he could tell you where each set of things was laid and how many there were of each, just as well as anyone who knows his alphabet could tell you how many letters there are in ‘Socrates’ and the order in which they stand” (Oec. 8.14–­15). Transposing the model of this Phoenician ship to the oikos, Ischomachus informs his wife that “there is nothing, in short, that does not gain in beauty when set out in order [κατὰ κόσμον κείμενα]. For

124  Chapter Six

each set looks like a choir of utensils, and the space between the sets is beautiful to see, when each set is kept clear of it” (Oec. 8.20). He then tells her where to store the various items, depending on the architecture of the house whose “rooms were built expressly with a view to forming the most apt receptacles [ὡς συμφορώτατα] for whatever was intended to be put in them” (Oec. 8.2). We certainly find here, as in Pseudo-­Aristotle above, a central concern for the material preservation of various foodstuffs, with similar architectural considerations and an obvious utilitarian aim: Ischomachus showed his wife “the several dwelling-­rooms, all beautifully fitted up for cool in summer and for warmth in winter [. . .]; the house enjoyed a southern aspect, whence it was plain, in winter it would catch the sunlight and in summer lie in shade” (Oec. 9.4). However, this utilitarian preoccupation is accompanied here by two other dimensions: the beauty born of order and, as the metaphor of the letters penned by Socrates suggests, the intelligibility that this ordering confers on the material diversity of the oikos. Indeed, after the visit of the house, Ischomachus accompanies his wife in the arrangement of various objects “by type” (κατὰ φυλὰς διεκρίνομεν, Oec. 9.6), with the aim of assigning to each one the most suitable domestic place. This arrangement, which, on the theoretical level, is also a classification, proceeds through the combination of several criteria. The fixed and primary criterion of the function of these various types of objects (sacrificial instruments, adornments, blankets, shoes, weapons, tools for working with wool, utensils for making bread, for cooking, for bathing, Oec. 9.6–­7) can be combined, as necessary, with other criteria. Starting with that of the gender or sex of the users, which, with respect to clothing, blankets, and adornments introduces a further ramification in the classification: Adornments are to be only for festive uses for women, whereas they are used on festive occasions and for war by men (Oec. 9.6). The criterion of frequency of use also comes into play in terms of what is used every day and what is only donned on festive or otherwise special occasions. On this last distinction is then grafted the criterion of the hierarchical difference among the servants, namely, between ordinary slaves, who will have access only to daily tools and utensils, and their steward, who alone will have access to objects used for festive purposes (Oec. 9.7, 9). Finally, the criterion of time or temporality (which we can call “economic”) is mentioned,

Preservation and Balance 125

a criterion that consists of ordering goods “by setting aside [χωρὶς δὲ καὶ] what we spend month by month, and by separating [δίχα δὲ καὶ] what we have calculated for a year, so that it escapes us less [ἧττον λανθάνει] how the provisions will go to the end” (Oec. 9.8).3 A literal interpretation of this last sentence is something of a conundrum, depending on the meaning one assigns to the expressions “χωρὶς δὲ καὶ” and “δίχα δὲ καὶ.” Does Ischomachus mean that we collect in one place the quantity of provisions required for a year and then divide the monthly quantities into separate piles? Be that as it may, the purpose is clear—­to make visible in space the evolution of the relationship between what is already consumed and what remains, in short, to make visible the ethical dimension of oikonomic activity to the extent that it engages the control of appetites. We will return to this specific subject later on. These passages are thus presented as a sort of Platonic dialectic that is applied to the perceptible world, a practice involving the articulated unification of a material multiplicity. Organized in this way by being arranged into a coherent unit, the oikos therefore forms an order that is at once social, technical, and moral, one that is rendered visible, readable, and intelligible to all its constituent agents. Domestic management is not limited, as we can see, to the management of necessities; it inscribes in space a sort of everyday grammar, a material language common to all members of the oikos. This “material” language, however, bears all the aspects of a “mother” tongue. What we are to understand by this is that, as Ischomachus presents it, the order called for out of a concern for the preservation of the oikos and its possessions owes much to the political and economic ideology of its time, to the economic “language” and policy in the city-­state. In other words, the organizing principles of this oikos reflect the dominant idea at the time of a properly managed house. We must turn to Plato to see a different view on the same subject. Within the framework of the displacement that it undergoes at the core of oikonomia, from the oikos toward the polis, Plato’s reflections on the organization of the marketplace in the Laws must also be understood as positing a similar concern regarding the importance of order for preservation. But this time the concern reflects not as much on the goods themselves as on the relations of justice and truth between the members of the city-­state, and they

126  Chapter Six

are seen as part of the more general framework of a spatial reorganization of the entire city.4 To understand Plato’s preoccupation with the spatial order of the marketplace, let us recall that the just city that the Athenian and his interlocutors propose to establish in the Laws rests on the strict separation of political and economic functions—­even if the citizens, without working there directly, must ensure the smooth running of their agricultural activities or their “lot” (klêros). This separation is accompanied by a functional, geographical, and moral relegation of trade, the practice of which is vigorously prohibited for citizens because by risking an incitement of the lure for gain, these practices risk spawning divisions and conflicts in the city.5 Trade would therefore be the business of slaves and foreigners. In the laws that govern the establishment of markets within civic space, this relegation of trade is reflected on two levels. First, the city is organized in such a way that the citizens and the slaves who serve them as agricultural and domestic stewards never come into contact with retail activities or those who practice it, whether in the form of selling or buying. The commercial space of this polis is in fact based on the separation between what the stewards who manage such agricultural lots sell wholesale to foreigners and what foreigners then retail to artisans and their slaves, for which there are, respectively, two kinds of marketplaces. First, there are those located in each of the twelve villages that make up the city (Leg. 8.848d). It is there that, under the supervision of the agoranomoi responsible for overseeing matters relating to “moderation and excess” (σωφροσύνης τε καὶ ὕβρεως, Leg. 8.849a), the stewards sell to foreigners that part of the harvest reserved for such purposes as well as other products. Since the retail sale of these products is prohibited at this place (Leg. 8.849c), foreigners would have to go to the second type of marketplace—­the exact location of which is never specified—­to engage in these retail transactions with the artisans of the city and their slaves. Moved by a similar concern for the organization of civic space, Aristotle proposes to establish two agoras in his “ideal” city: one, which is termed “free,” as is the practice in Thessaly, would be intended for the moral and political education of young people under the supervision of the magistrates of the city. It must “be kept clear of all merchandise and into which no artisan

Preservation and Balance 127

or farmer or any other such person may intrude unless summoned by the magistrates.” The other, “the agora for merchandise, must be different from the free agora and in another place [χωρίς]” (Pol. 1331a30–­b4). Contrary to what was practiced in Athens and in a large number of Greek cities where the agora brought together all types of activities—­“administrative, political, judicial, commercial, social, cultural and religious”6—­the separation of functional spaces seems, for Plato as for his disciple, to be indispensable to the organization of the political community. Second, however, while Aristotle stops at the summary separation of two agoras—­“Hence we will relinquish for the present the further consideration of matters of this sort,” he writes (Pol. 1331b18)—­Plato presses his analysis of the commercial space further. In addition to the requirement of separation of economic and political functions in the space of the entire city, there is indeed a concern for transparency in the site of commercial activity, namely, the marketplace under the form of an exact arrangement of the products offered for sale there—­as may very well have been the case in Athens:7 “As to all other goods and utensils that each party requires, they shall be brought for sale to the public market, each kind to its appointed place location [φέροντας εἰς τὸν τόπον ἕκαστον], wherever the law-­wardens and market-­stewards, with the help of the city-­stewards, have marked out suitable sites and set up the stalls for market-­stuff [τεκμηράμενοι ἕδρας πρεπούσας, ὅρους θῶνται τῶν ὠνίων]” (Leg. 8.849e). Later in the dialogue, Plato also advocates for the notion that “any exchange by purchase or sale between one person and another will be by delivery to the place assigned for each item [ἐν χώρᾳ τῇ τεταγμένῃ] on the marketplace” (Leg. 11.915d). The idea of assigning a specific place to the objects of such transactions guarantees a certain degree of transparency, the function of which is to hinder acts of fraud, which would not be foreign to the ethical and political issues of trust, truth, and justice that Plato inserts into commerce.8 Here again, the economic space—­understood at the level of the city-­state—­is conceived of as an order or a cosmos whose meaning, beyond merely practical or utilitarian issues, is entirely moral and political. However, unlike what we have observed in Xenophon, the intelligibility of this order in Plato and the practical issues that result from it do not derive from the simple spatial projection of ideological prejudices inherited

128  Chapter Six

from fifth-­century Athens: they come from the philosophical reflection of the interlocutors and of the author of the Laws.

Manage men t The Concern for Balance and Preservation of “Capital” The preservation of economic institutions does not arise solely from the tidy and orderly arrangement of economic, domestic, or civic spaces; it also derives from the management or the calculation of the just ratio between acquisitions and expenditures. By management or calculation (the latter a term that does not appear in the passages under discussion) is meant here not a mathematical tallying of inflows and outflows but the act of comparing them and acting accordingly on the basis of a qualitative (ethical or political) assessment of human needs. The problematic nature of this evaluation relates to the disputes, explicit or tacit alike, concerning whether the expenditure, and more importantly the acquisition of goods should be limited or not. This question is addressed, as we have seen,9 both by Aristotle, when he distinguishes between a natural chrematistic practice from an unnatural one, as well as Plato, when he sets limits to the wealth of the lots in the city of Laws and to the extension of the city in the Republic, and finally also Xenophon, when he has Socrates and then Ischomachus say that the purpose of the oikonomic art is the growth of the oikos. In other words, the definition of good management always involves a certain idea of the economic good in its ethical or political dimensions, and it is at times accompanied by technical and material considerations on how to make such management operational. All these authors begin with the principle that expenditures and acquisitions must be balanced, which is what the common metaphor of cracked jars and jars in good condition reflects (Xenophon, Oec. 7.40; Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1344b23–­25). The key to such a balance is to ensure that the oikos (understood in this regard as funds or as capital) is not compromised. But can one really acquire and spend while avoiding such an error? Except for Aristippus of Cyrene, who would have modeled the movement of his extravagant spending on an indefinite series

Preservation and Balance 129

of pleasures implied by his conception of the present as a succession of moments (Diog. Laert. 2.66, 69, 75–­77, 81),10 the solution involves the necessary imposition of a limit on the relationship between acquisitions and expenditures. However, on this point, our authors apparently diverge, depending on whether they impose a limit on expenditures or on acquisitions, that is, depending on whether they place most of the weight of preservation on one or the other of these two activities.

Preservation through Acquisitions: Limitations on Expenditures A first management model consists of placing the weight of preservation on acquisition by establishing limitations on it but, above all, by limiting expenditures. By this we mean that the concern is not to undermine the capital acquired and to keep it, as much as possible, within certain limits, which also means containing expenditures. It is thus a question of preserving oneself from the tyrannical tendency to limitless spending, as Plato portrays it in the private individual as well as in the politician. The insatiable appetites that have taken control of the soul would necessarily lead the individual, in order to satisfy them, to dissipate all his goods and possibly those of his relatives or his city (Resp. 9.573d–­574d, 577e). He is then able to go so far as to undermine his capital by “borrowing and withdrawing from the fund” (καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο δὴ δανεισμοὶ καὶ τῆς οὐσίας παραιρέσεις, Resp. 9.573e). The tyrant does not seek to preserve himself; he, in fact, destroys himself—­he is perpetually “needy” and “poor” (πενιχρὰν, Resp. 9.578a; πένης τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, Resp. 9.579e).11 Limiting expenses so as not to compromise the oikos would mean that these expenses would have to be based on the income obtained through the exploitation of one’s resources, which would be principally agricultural in nature. Testimonies on this subject point to a particular methodology of which Pericles, according to Plutarch, offers the clearest example: During all these years he kept himself untainted by corruption, although he was not altogether indifferent to money-­making; indeed, the wealth that was legally his by inheritance from his father, that it

130  Chapter Six

might not from sheer neglect take to itself wings and fly away nor yet cause him much trouble and loss of time when he was busy with higher things, he set into such orderly dispensation as he thought was easiest and most exact [συνέταξεν εἰς οἰκονομίαν ἣν ᾤετο ῥᾴστην καὶ ἀκριβεστάτην εἶναι]. This was to sell his annual products all together at once, and then to buy in the market each article as it was needed, and so provide the ways and means of daily life. For this reason he was not liked by his sons when they grew up, nor did their wives find in him a liberal purveyor, but they murmured at his expenditure for the day [τὴν ἐφήμερον ταύτην . . . δαπάνην] merely and under the most exact restrictions, there being no surplus of supplies at all, as in a great house and under generous circumstances, but every outlay and every intake proceeding by count and measure [ἀλλὰ παντὸς μὲν ἀναλώματος, παντὸς δὲ λήμματος δι᾽ ἀριθμοῦ καὶ μέτρου βαδίζοντος]. (Per. 16.3–­4)

For some historians, this passage signals the invention of an “Attic tekhnê oikonomikê” consisting of selling one’s surpluses to the market and living on the income thus produced, the market then being used as mechanism to preserve the capital of the oikos by providing it with a productive outlet.12 A similar idea appears in Pseudo-­Aristotle and in Xenophon. According to the former, “For the safe-­keeping of our property [πρὸς δὲ φυλακὴν] [. . .] the Athenian housecraft has, however, some advantages. The Athenian buys immediately with the produce of his sales [ἀποδιδόμενοι γὰρ ὠνοῦνται], and the smaller households keep no idle deposits in store [ἐν ταῖς μικροτέραις οἰκονομίαις]”13 ([Oec.] 1344b30–­33). No details are given regarding the procedure of this “Attic economy.” Would it imply, as with Pericles, selling the entire harvest at once? Or would there be a gradual sale as suggested by the Armstrong translation (“buys immediately with the produce of his sales”), a translation no doubt motivated by no mention of any warehouse, which would eliminate the possibility of large-­scale storage, and thus imply purchases? Be that as it may, in addition to underlining the direct link between the two functions of “preservation,” namely, the mode of management of the oikos and the aforementioned question of its storage and spatial organization, this passage would confirm the concern to preserve capital by living on the income of the oikos obtained by the sale of its harvests, which would in turn set an immediate limit on expenses. Xenophon also evokes the idea that agricultural work must produce gains that

Preservation and Balance 131

would be “profitable for the expenditure,” that is, that would cover the expenses of the oikos and thereby avoid the need to resort to capital reserves: “These, then, are the evils that crush far more than sheer lack of knowledge. For if you will consider; on the one hand, there is a steady outflow of expenses from the house estates [τὸ γὰρ τὰς μὲν δαπάνας χωρεῖν ἐντελεῖς ἐκ τῶν οἴκων], and, on the other, a lack of profitable works outside to meet expenses [τὰ δὲ ἔργα μὴ τελεῖσθαι λυσιτελούντως πρὸς τὴν δαπάνην]; after that there’s no need to wonder whether the expected surplus [περιουσίας] is converted into a loss [ἔνδειαν]” (Oec. 20.21). Here again, expenses must be balanced against the acquisition comprising these gains. The latter thus set limits on spending beyond which the capital reserves of the oikos would be used. All these passages, however, do not lend themselves only to a historical reading centered on the technical and institutional dimensions of economic practices. They are also part of a philosophical reflection. Plutarch’s text, although not particularly philosophical in itself, bears the traces of those questions raised on this subject in the oikonomikos logos. Two points would underscore this. The first has to do with the emphasis placed by Pericles on the acquisition of necessities as opposed to any tendency toward the superfluousness exercised by those close to him (a likely allusion to the ethical issues debated by philosophers about acquisition and spending). The second centers on the definition of an economic temporality resulting from the combination of, on the one hand, the annual sale of the entire harvest, defining the quantity of capital available for a year,14 and, on the other, daily expenditures, which would require that this capital be spent judiciously and parsimoniously so that no real need would arise before the subsequent harvest. The temporality referred to here is not the indefinite future of productive credit or the unlimited future of creative investment: it is both the extended present of the whole year as well as the day-­to-­day present, which requires an ethics of wise spending. In Xenophon’s Economics, acquisition, which sustains preservation, also serves as a benchmark for resolving expenditures. In this work, however, acquisitions and expenditures lend themselves to two competing visions or two different forms of measurement depending on whether or not they are based on the control of one’s appetites (enkrateia). First, there is the vision of Critobulus, who considers himself rich in the sense that his material assets are much greater than those of Socrates (Oec.

132  Chapter Six

2.3–­4) and who believes that he has mastered his passions (ἐγκρατῆ, Oec. 2.1). However, Socrates disagrees with this view, since poverty threatens Critobulus without his knowing it, for men who claim that they are rich in this sense must also incur considerable expenses (Oec. 2.4–­7). Large-­scale acquisition would then be, according to Critobulus, the means for meeting these expenses, and he expects Socrates to teach him how to achieve this if it is true that the latter manages to generate profit (περιουσίαν ποιεῖν, Oec. 2.10) from his modest possessions. Unlimited acquisition and endless expenditure: Critobulus is thus not far from the tyrannical model, which Socrates discreetly evokes (Oec. 1.15).15 Another model of acquisition and expenditure, which can be found in Socrates, is entirely based on the enkrateia, the control of appetites, reflected in the metaphor of the struggle for freedom against the enslavement to cravings in which he invites his interlocutor to engage (Oec. 1.16–­23).16 Socrates’s own acquisitions are considerable, not because he accumulates excessively but because, besides having limited needs, he spends little thanks to this form of self-­control. In the same work, Ischomachus also ascribes a central role to the enkrateia (Oec. 7.27, 9.11), yet he diverges from Socrates on two points as to the use he makes of it. On the one hand, he applies it to the management of his oikos, while Socrates, who would make a good oikonomos because of this same enkrateia, refuses to do so. On the other, while Socrates claims to be sufficiently affluent and considers that he does not need to increase his wealth (Oec. 2.2), Ischomachus seeks to expand his oikos (Oec. 7.16). Management thus consists of having the enkrateia bear on one’s expenditures—­thereby controlling and limiting them—­as well as in adding to it concern for the unlimited acquisition or accumulation of goods so that the differential between expenditures and acquisitions can continue to increase positively. Ischomachus’s concern for controlling expenditures appears in the recommendation he makes to his wife “not to incur in a month the expenditure planned for a year” (Oec. 7.36), supported by the aforementioned stratagem involving the storage and visibility of monthly and annual expenses (Oec. 9.8). We see here an annual approach to economic temporality similar to that of Pericles, with the difference being that the rate of expenditure here is monthly and not daily. As for the process of acquisition in the sense of accumulation, Ischomachus learned it from his father: it consists of buying abandoned lands, working them to make them fertile, and reselling them at a higher

Preservation and Balance 133

price (Oec. 20.22–­26). Socrates’s reply at the end of the passage in question—­“all naturally love what they think they will benefit from” (Oec. 20.29)—­leaves open the question of knowing to what extent the concern for growth (about which Ischomachus evokes no quantitative limit) testifies to a real enkrateia or whether the version proposed by Ischomachus is the best—­or the least bad—­that one might deploy as the manager of an oikos. While Socrates shows mastery in both spending and acquisition, Ischomachus displays it only in connection with spending. Nonetheless, the social use he makes of his wealth—­it enables him “to honour [the] God[s] magnificently, to lend assistance to [his] friends in answer to their wants, and, so far as lies within [his] power, not to leave [his] city unadorned with anything which riches can bestow” (Oec. 11.7)—­can be regarded as a principle aimed at increasing acquisition more generally by linking it to expenses that are in the collective interest. There is, however, another way of bringing the full weight of preservation to acquisition, and that is what Aristotle describes in book 1 of Politics. In the discussion devoted to the two forms of chrematistics, he does not examine the expenditure but only the acquisition, presenting it as the capacity to obtain “the goods that must be put in reserve and that are necessary for life” (θησαυρισμὸς χρημάτων πρὸς ζωὴν ἀναγκαίων, Pol. 1256b28–­29). The heart of the passage focuses on the limits within which acquisition must be kept as part of the art of household administration. It ends with the formulation of the concept of “wealth according to nature” (ὁ πλοῦτος ὁ κατὰ φύσιν, Pol. 1257b19–­ 20), which Aristotle defines as instrumental and, therefore, as limited. He makes a significant shift here: to the classic pair of acquisition and expenditure, he opposes that of acquisition and use, good use consisting above all in the capacity to see in wealth only a means and not an end in itself17—­as if the fact of spending were not unimportant but totally absorbed by the primacy given to the idea of limit inherent in true wealth as well as to the use of what has been acquired, of which the expenditure is just a particular modality.

Preservation through Expenditures Against the management model that focuses on acquisition procedures and the curbing of expenditures, Philodemus of Gadara proposes a more paradoxical idea; namely, that, on the contrary, it is through

134  Chapter Six

properly thought-­out expenditures that the preservation of the oikos can be ensured. This produces a gain consisting of the consolidation of a network of friends with whom to practice philosophy and which thus provides the security that is essential for the contentment of any Epicurean. This would in no way legitimize the tyrannical model, since the expenses of the Epicurean philosopher are regulated through the discipline of desires, which imposes a limitation on them—­expressed by the idea that “for a philosopher, there is a measure of wealth” (Vices 9.12.17–­19), or this even more explicit formula according to which good domestic management “prevents one from getting rich beyond all measure” (mê pros hupermetron khrêmatismon, Vices 9.16.37–­39).18 Rather, Philodemus’s approach aims to prevent the tendency toward limitless acquisition in a new way compared to the model mentioned in the previous section. He achieves this in three steps. First of all, Philodemus attacks the prevailing opinion, which sees an inherent loss in expenditures given that it presupposes the elimination of an asset that one owns. In this view, spending is diametrically opposed to conserving. Against this idea, Philodemus makes the following remarks: “Moreover, one should not be disposed in such a manner that, if these goods are consumed [eav analôthêi tauta] and no other resources are destined to be found, there will be a lot of indolence [rhaistônê] regarding financial matters” (Vices 9.15.6–­12); “For it is stupid not [to preserve the oikos] in so far as neither is any unseemly labor involved nor do we omit to spend anything of what must be spent” (Vices 9.16.21–­30). Making the necessary expenses—­arguably those involved in maintaining the estates of the wealthy Roman landowners whom Philodemus addresses19—­would not undermine the material integrity of the oikos. Within the framework of the disciplining of desires and inviting us to remove from “oneself, to the extent that it is possible, the envy of things that are not to be envied” (Vices 9.24.6–­9), what has been spent will be easily compensated, because it represents little. Second, Philodemus further contradicts common sense by showing that the expense that takes the form of sharing one’s resources with friends does not affect one’s own oikos either. The idea of a natural measure of wealth leads the wise Epicurean who correctly administers his domain to “share everything” (Vices 9.18.6–­7) because nothing could be lost by sharing the little required by limited desires. Those who be-

Preservation and Balance 135

lieve that “acts of imparting money [metadoseis] to one’s friends [. . .] amount to subtractions [aphaireiseis] and diminutions of the property” are wrong (Vices 9.24.41–­46). This point is decisive for the practices, so central in the Epicurean economy, of sharing and giving among friends.20 Finally, Philodemus goes so far as to make expenditures the occasion of a gain by attacking the current opinion according to which injustice and the absence of friends increase incomes (Vices 9.24). To do this, he first shows that these two attitudes bring nothing positive: “Further, while the lack of friends seems [dokei] to relieve one’s expenses [analômatôn kouphizein], in fact it causes people to remain without support, to be held in contempt by everybody, and to be little honored by the favors of benefactors. On account of these features, neither is one’s income [prosodos] considerable [axiologos] nor its preservation secure [asphalês], so that it is if one acquires friends that one will be happy in both these respects” (Vices 9.24.19–­29). Here, Philodemus denounces a common miscalculation: Even if injustice and the absence of friends lead to material gain, leading to an overall positive balance, the latter would not be deemed worthy of consideration, perhaps because it is quite often a meager sum that is involved, but above all because it is tainted with dishonorable pettiness. Moreover, it does not come with any “security,” probably because the injustice of not giving to a friend risks causing a lack of reciprocity and security in the future. “Security” is a core virtue in Epicurean ethics, whether it derives from a political context, from inner wisdom, or from the friendship established by the sharing of this wisdom:21 it is the condition for the possibility of maximizing pleasure in the form of stable pleasure—­that which is absence of pain through an absence of disturbance. In addition to yielding nothing, injustice and the absence of friends also cause real loss: harshness and the lack of human feeling “do much damage and leave men helpless and often cause their property [tên ousian] to be utterly ravaged” (Vices 9.24.31–­33). It is then that the reversal of loss and gain occurs from the following argumentative method. If cause A leads to effect B, the opposite of A must lead to the opposite of B, that is, in the terms Philodemus uses in this passage: “Contrary dispositions [diatheseis] [. . .] produce contrary effects,” virtue thus producing the opposite of what vice produces

136  Chapter Six

(Vices 9.24.33–­40). Thus, if the lack of humanity and kindness—­or the reluctance to share—­produces evils, then spending wisely, sharing, and demonstrating humanity and kindness—­all these attitudes, far from causing loss, must produce gain. This is confirmed by the Epicurean Hermarchus, quoted by Philodemus: Acts of sharing (metadoseis) with friends constitute signs of concern involving expenditure, but they turn out to be “more useful acquisitions [ktêseis lusitelesterai] than lands, and they are the safest treasures [asphalestatoi] with regard to the turns of fortune” (Vices 9.25.1–­4). Conceived within the framework of natural wealth and the purposes of Epicurean ethics, spending—­or sharing—­ ceases to be synonymous with loss and is instead associated with a different kind of gain. Philodemus’s position is quite original insofar as it is opposed to two principles held by some of the thinkers mentioned above that consider preservation to be dependent upon acquisition. The first is that one would have to own a considerable amount in order to be able to spend on friends, an idea inherited from Aristotle’s ethics in which liberality and magnificence are the virtues of the rich.22 For Philodemus, on the contrary, “people should spend money [analiskein] in proportion to their income and not determine their expenses according to the high or low price of things” (Vices 9.25.23–­26) because the material value of these expenses is relative to the wealth that one possesses: one can spend when having little as well as when owning a lot. Epicurean spending is indifferent to the economic level of individuals. Ever desirable, it is understood as always possible, at any time. The second idea that Philodemus opposes has to do with economic temporality, which consists in drawing up a monthly or daily list of expenditures based on an annual calendar. To this strategy, Philodemus opposes a modulation of savings and spending depending on the situation given that “sometimes [it becomes necessary] to spend much more,” that “it is equally absurd to divide up the income from additional resources,” and that it is better to “measure [parametrein] [expenses and savings] against the circumstances and the pleasure of offering things [epiphorais]” (Vices 9.25.31–­48). To the abstract calendar measurement, closed to contingencies and therefore a source of insecurity with regard to the present and future maximization of pleasure, Philodemus opposes the temporality of circumstances and human relationships, which he integrates into an art of

Preservation and Balance 137

measurement or the “measuring” of spending and savings. This art is intended to make the present always feel secure, that is to say always pleasant and felicitous. • The proper arrangement of economic space and its corresponding management, achieved by balancing expenditures and acquisitions, represent neither simple commonsense practices nor the emergence of an economic rationality that is merely calculative or utilitarian or even indexed only to a civic competence (by virtue of which oikonomia would fall under matters pertaining to politics).23 As a knowledge and a practice, oikonomia is highly complex and global. It has to do with what it means to live in this world at the intersections of its domestic, political, and cosmic dimensions. This is confirmed by the last of its constituent aspects: the use of goods acquired and conserved.

◉ 7 ◉ Self-­Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use

To understand the meaning and the risks involved in this last constituent aspect of oikonomia, we must return to one of the prejudices mentioned at the beginning of this book. Many have held that, for the Greeks, the sphere of economic activities was relegated to the domain of necessity, far from any consideration relating to values and to the Good, the knowledge of which was reserved to ethics and politics. This quite “modern” interpretation, which radically separates the domain of necessity and that of freedom, was expressed by Hannah Arendt (as we saw in the passages quoted in the introduction), among others, and it is in complete contradiction to the complexity and nuance of oikonomia. Its dual epistemological status, as we have seen,1 makes it both a technê, which is inevitably rooted in our appetites, as well as a practice aimed at the Good, seen from the angle of moral and political freedom. The link that philosophers establish between these two aspects is both general and specific. It is general insofar as theoretical reflections on oikonomia always include a reflection on the right way to undertake it and are characterized by an enduring concern to distinguish simple technical or functional efficiency on the one hand from the Good in its practical manifestations on the other, whether these be ethical or political in nature. This is evidenced especially by the vocabulary of advantage or benefit that can be derived from well-­conducted oikonomia. Since it obeys a certain semantic regularity, the variety of this vocabulary makes it possible to differentiate in translations what the terms usefulness and utility mean in a given instance, that is, usefulness in the sense of means adapted to achieve an end as opposed to usefulness in the axiological

Self-­Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use 139

sense of advantage or good exceeding the intended functional goal. The term khrêsimon, which often means “useful” in the former sense, corresponds to the pragmatic and technical dimension of oikonomia,2 whereas the word kerdos, most often rendered as “gain” or “profit” in the corpus,3 points in part to the axiological dimension of oikonomia. While this term has the neutral meaning of personal or private benefit,4 it is also used with a negative moral connotation in the sense of a love of profit gained over justice.5 Plato is an exception, however, when he raises the question of the possible positive aspect of this notion in the Hipparchus. To love profit is in a sense to love the Good, if it is true, as Socrates suggests in the Cratylus (Cra. 417b), that kerdos “designates the Good in another way,”6 which could suggest that the Good is not foreign to economic affairs. The axiological dimension of oikonomia is even clearer with the terms to ophelimon7 and to sumpheron, literally “what one carries with oneself,” again following the etymology Socrates gives in the Cratylus in reference to his soul (Cra. 417a).8 In addition to this general association between economic practices and the values of the practical sphere, there is a more specific association. Each of the activities falling under oikonomia thus far—­human relations between spouses and with slaves within the oikos as well as the acquisition, preservation, and use of property in the oikos or in the polis—­is often considered according to this dual aspect of functional efficiency and the general good, which are in turn linked to realization. For example, the preservation of property acquired in the oikos focuses not only on physical integrity aimed at ensuring usefulness but also on the development of a domestic nature, a cosmos, the beauty and intelligibility of which are added to the overall utility of this property. However, the reflections made by these philosophers regarding how to use these assets also testify to the acute awareness they have of the problematic relationship between necessity and freedom within the economic domain as well as of the axiological dimension that they consider inherent in oikonomia. Three points demonstrate this. All indicate, first of all, the objective or practical purpose of the assets acquired, which extends beyond their utilitarian use and is directed to a supreme good. Second, these philosophers then present precise descriptions of the different expressions of such a purpose ranging from individual or collective ethical benefits to political consequences. Finally—­and this is the most speculative and philosophical part of this reflection,

140  Chapter Seven

though also its most aporetic, because of the dual epistemological status particular to oikonomia—­they raise several theoretical difficulties concerning the nature of the exact knowledge of proper use.

No U se : No Value If economic management, particularly in the domestic sphere, aims to provide for what is necessary, is acquiring income, resources, or profits sufficient to achieve this purpose and for the master of the oikos to be said competent in this domain? It seems this is not necessarily the case. Acquisition is not the whole of oikonomia—­it is, as Aristotle reminds us (Pol. 1256a5–­6), only one of its parts alongside preservation and use of acquired goods. Thus, from the outset of the Economics, Pseudo-­ Aristotle specifies, in the context of an analogy with politics and the city, that “the [art or science of] economics has as its object the acquisition of the house and its use” (καὶ κτήσασθαι οἶκον καὶ χρήσασθαι αὐτῷ, [Oec.] 1343a9). He continues, in a passage already quoted: “The functions of the master of the oikos are four in number: [. . .] To acquire, to preserve, [. . .], to put his goods in order and to know how to use them, because it is in view of these two activities that the preceding ones are required” (ἔτι δὲ καὶ εἶναι κοσμητικὸν τῶν ὑπαρχόντων καὶ χρηστικόν: τούτων γὰρ ἕνεκα κἀκείνων δεόμεθα, [Oec.] 1344b22–­27). The difference between acquisition and preservation on the one hand and use on the other is not only due to the fact that use is the intended outcome of the first two, which are also its means; it also depends on their distinct axiological nature. Acquiring and conserving are neutral private activities; they are neither good nor bad, and the same is true of their related objects. Use, on the contrary, determines the axiological quality of all economic practices as well as that of things acquired and conserved. Although they may express themselves differently, all our authors agree with this conclusion. They do this by questioning the commonly held view that material possessions or wealth are in themselves good. Thus, with Socrates and Critobulus in Xenophon’s Economics: Any object, in particular money, is good only if one knows how to use it, that is, only if one makes good use of it. This is because “a possession [or wealth] is what can be advantageous to someone” (ἀφ᾽ ὧν

Self-­Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use 141

τις ὠφελεῖσθαι δύναται, χρήματα εἶναι, Oec. 1.13), and what passes for an asset would not be one “if one does not know how to use it” (εἰ μή τις ἐπίσταιτο χρῆσθαι αὐτῷ, Oec. 1.8–­15, in particular 13–­14). This confirms the summary passage of book 6: “‘Possessions’ again we defined to include those things that the possessor should find advantageous [ὠφέλιμα] for the purposes of his life [ἐπίσταιτο χρῆσθαι]” (Oec. 6.4). The same is true of Plato, albeit in passages that do not directly concern economic management. In Euthydemus, Clinias first admits that certain things, including wealth, are considered by everyone to be goods in themselves (Euthyd. 279a), then he agrees with Socrates’s view according to which “there is nothing useful in possessing them” (οὐδὲν ὄφελος τῆς κτήσεως γίγνεται, Euthyd. 280d). It is necessary to “use them” (τὸ χρῆσθαι αὐτοῖς, Euthyd. 280e)—­that is, to make “a correct use” (ὀρθῶς χρῆσθαι, Euthyd. 281a) of them—­in order to make them useful or advantageous. The question that Socrates asks in the Meno about what is ordinarily considered to be good—­health, strength, beauty “and wealth” (Men. 87e)—­points in the same direction: “Are they not profitable when the use of them is right, and harmful when it is not?” (Men. 88a). Finally, even if it would seem that he takes an opposite approach to these thinkers with regard to an inherent mistrust of wealth, Philodemus of Gadara nonetheless comes to the same conclusion: “If wealth brings harmful difficulties, this is not of its own doing but because of the vicious nature of those who use it [tèn tôn khrômenôn kakian]” (Vices 9.24.8–­9). It remains to be seen what this good use consists of and which part of economic expertise it would fall under. The question is twofold. On the one hand, what is the substance of this good use, that is, what are its manifestations? On the other hand, what is the nature of the knowledge or expertise on which it depends?

The Ethical and Pol i t i ca l Man i f e stations of Go od U se o f Acquir ed and Conserve d A sset s Although most people, according to our authors, believe that things acquired or possessed are in themselves good without seeing that it is their use that makes them so or not, in reality their practice provides

142  Chapter Seven

an indirect confirmation of the thesis upheld by these philosophers. They make some use of these “goods” but are often in error as to the true nature of “good” use. In short, they are wrong about what the general good is. They usually equate it with utmost pleasure or the accumulation of money or material wealth, which results only in negative consequences. When it is badly used, money is comparable, according to Socrates and Critobulus, to “a poison the property of which is to drive those who take it mad” (Oec. 1.13), and it is therefore necessary that it “be banished to the remote corners of the earth rather than be reckoned as wealth” (Oec. 1.14). What, then, can the good economic use of acquired goods consist of? That use should aim to achieve, all agree, a form of plenitude of an ethical or more frequently political nature that both transcends the economic sphere and yet is already manifested within it. In other words, these varied expressions have in common that they grant an authentic axiological dimension to oikonomia without the latter ever representing a supreme practical activity—­ this role would be ascribed to ethics or politics, as we shall see below. This is shown by the importance of the concept of self-­sufficiency in the Epicureans and Aristotle as well as the alignment of the good use of economic goods with the laws and practices or customs of the city-­ state in Xenophon and Plato.

Self-­Sufficiency Self-­sufficiency, or autarky, is clearly the modality for the proper use of goods that best provides oikonomia with its axiological dimension. Self-­sufficiency is not only financial or material independence, as we understand it nowadays, but it is certainly based on it because of either an individual or collective control of appetites while keeping in view ethical or political independence as the true form of self-­ sufficiency.9 For instance, to achieve ethical independence, Philodemus advocates an economic practice based on the principles of Epicureanism, in particular the idea, already mentioned in the chapter devoted to acquisition, that there is a “natural measure of wealth” articulated through the individual and collective disciplining of desires. This disciplining aims to reduce such desires to the greatest degree possible, to what is natural and necessary to “remove oneself

Self-­Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use 143

from the envy of things that are not to be envied” (Vices 9.24.6–­9); in short, by making frugality the measure of all desire in the name of the Good that is sustainable pleasure.10 What has been acquired by the exploitation of domestic resources, mainly agricultural in nature, must be used to enable as many friends of the Epicurean community as possible to achieve such self-­sufficiency. To achieve this, said goods must be the object of “a complete sharing” (παντός μεταδότας, Vices 9.18.6–­7), as Epicurus suggested, according to whom “the wise man [. . .] knows better how to give than to receive, so great is the treasure of self-­sufficiency which he has discovered”11 (Sent. Vat. 44). The bond between the Epicureans and security (ἀσφάλεια)—­ that is, peace of mind freed from troubles—­w ill be consolidated. In short, oikonomia as presented by Philodemus consists of making self-­ sufficiency the practical aim of the goods acquired through domestic agricultural economy by inscribing in the economic practice itself in the form of the proper use of goods, a large part of its ethical repercussions. This link between the material and ethical dimensions of oikonomia is even more evident in the practice of philosophical exchanges, which, according to Philodemus, surpasses agricultural activity to obtain resources. By receiving “thankful gifts with all reverence in return for philosophical discourses shared with men capable of understanding them, [. . .] as happened to Epicurus” (Vices 9.23.22–­32), the sage fuses in the same practice the acquisition of necessary goods, their proper use (by philosophizing, he shares his wisdom with his interlocutors), and self-­sufficiency. Because he also makes self-­sufficiency the completed form of the Practical Good, Aristotle engages in a dynamic similar to that of Philodemus but on the political level and no longer solely on the ethical level. After defining the city-­state as the human community when “it has attained the limit of virtually complete self-­sufficiency” (Pol. 1252b29; cf. Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1343a10–­11), he reveals the meaning and the possible conditions for this self-­sufficiency at the level of domestic economic practice. The meaning of this autarky of the polis is not economic independence—­the best city maintains commercial relations with other cities, after all (Pol. 1327a19–­20)—­ but rather moral independence. It involves the sharing of common values (Pol. 1253a16–­18) and good deeds accomplished together (Pol. 1281a1–­2). Such a political purpose of the civic community excludes

144  Chapter Seven

the possibility that its happiness would derive from the accumulation of wealth and the conquest of other territories (Pol. 1324b1–­1325a5). Regarding the possible conditions for self-­sufficiency, achieving such an end is, however, only conceivable in the continuity of good domestic management already oriented toward such values even if the degree of moral self-­sufficiency of the oikos is lower than that of the city. Three elements—­the rejection of distorted chrematistics turned toward the unlimited acquisition of wealth (Pol. 1257b18–­19), the definition of wealth as an instrument and a limited external good (Pol. 1256b35–­38), and the idea that the house is also a community of values (Pol. 1253a16–­18) and not primarily a production unit—­these three elements show that the proper use of goods acquired in the domestic context is certainly geared entirely toward the self-­sufficiency of the city but that domestic economic activity itself already has a vocation to achieve a part of this self-­sufficiency and that it is not content to provide a raw material for skilled statesmanship, which alone would determine this proper use.

The Political Side of Oikonomia Without actually engaging the concept of self-­sufficiency, Xenophon and Plato also regard oikonomia as a practical sphere that is open to the Good, which in turn extends to the domain of politics. It is in many ways true that these two thinkers are opposed in most matters. Xenophon, at least through his characters, believes that the purpose of the economic domain is the growth of the oikos, as it must also be the case for the city-­state, while Plato assigns a limit to the growth of houses and cities in the name of the internal unity of the polis. However, despite what seems to separate them regarding the content they ascribe to the economic and political expression of the “Good,” both share the same general model between the economic aspect of the proper use of goods and its corresponding political component: proper use of acquired resources involves exploiting the oikos by conforming to the customs and laws of the city on behalf of the ultimate good of each of these two institutions. In Xenophon, the proper use of acquired goods raises a moral and political question. If, in accordance with the definition of oikonomia

Self-­Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use 145

as the art of the growth of the oikos, acquired goods necessarily increase and with them the social and civic obligations that wealth entails, how can the master of the oikos avoid playing into the hands of his own private passions to which he might be tempted to devote his wealth instead of benefiting the city? This is the whole point of the comparison between Critobulus and Ischomachus. To Critobulus, who considers himself richer than Socrates simply because he has more wealth, the latter replies that it is Critobulus who is actually poorer than he in the sense that his needs are insatiable. While what he owns seems sufficient for Socrates, conversely, Critobulus’s reputation and related entrapments oblige him to acquire more and more (Oec. 2.2–­4) simply to meet the enormous expenses to which custom and the law oblige the rich. Custom indeed requires that he often commit great sacrifices, that he receive foreign guests (proxenia), that he offer meals to his fellow citizens, while the law requires him to bear the costs of breeding horses, assembling a chorus of singers, a sports festival, all at a considerable cost, as well as to make extraordinary contributions in the event of war (Oec. 2.5–­6). To which Socrates adds that relatives or friends of Critobulus are also “looking in his direction in the hope of an advantage.” He does not mean that they are “interested” in the negative sense of the term12 but simply that the social function of the rich is to be of service to those in their proximity. Socrates here advances no accusation or criticism against such obligations; instead, he only emphasizes that they imply knowing how to acquire wealth and not squandering it to satisfy our private passions when they threaten to enslave us (Oec. 2.21–­23). Although he himself escapes these obligations because his modest life is based on the control of his appetites and because, for lack of goods to manage, oikonomia is not his responsibility (Oec. 2.12–­13), it remains to be seen how the one who has domestic goods to manage can do so by fulfilling the social and civic obligations implied by wealth yet without ever falling into a state of relative poverty, that is to say, by always having what is sufficient for oneself and for the community. It is Ischomachus who—­because he is perceived as a “good man” (καλός τε κἀγαθὸς ἀνήρ, Oec. 6.12, 17) and practices a carefully regulated oikonomia, aiming for growth “as much as possible with respect to the beautiful and the good” (Oec. 7.15)—­embodies the model of such success. He fulfills civic obligations with regard to his fellow citizens

146  Chapter Seven

through “the fitting out of a trireme, or the training of a chorus” (Oec. 7.3), and he also “lends assistance to [his] friends in answer to their wants, and so far as lies within [his] power, [he does] not leave [his] city unadorned with anything which riches can bestow” (Oec. 11.7). The proper use of goods thus culminates in the political sphere, but it is already present, as we can see, in the attention given to the growth of the oikos, which is the essence of Xenophon’s text and which Ischomachus describes in great detail. Where Plato differs is not so much in the overall architecture of this scheme as the nature of the norms on which it is based. Rather than self-­sufficiency or the growth of the city, Plato puts the concern for its unity on the horizon of the proper use of acquired goods. The Laws are more explicit than the Republic on how these goods can contribute to such an end. Within the framework of the dual boundaries of the poverty line and the limit to wealth (Leg. 5.744d–­745b), the citizen of the city of Magnesia who is responsible for the use of an agricultural lot that only the city owns (Leg. 9.877d) is invited to distribute “to the polis and the gods” anything that exceeds the maximum level of wealth defined by law regardless of how he obtained this surplus (Leg. 5.744d2–­745b2). This is a political expression of the proper use of goods by which the citizen can demonstrate that he is playing city’s game by adhering to its values. By practicing a form of moderation or temperance on the economic level, he communicates this temperance to the city. Whether ethical or political, these manifestations of the proper use of acquired goods lead to a single question: On what principles are they based? In other words, what makes this use genuinely good? If oikonomia is a form of knowledge and a practice of the Good, how does one know this? Because, as Socrates indicates in Xenophon’s Economics (with an irony that Critobulus does not seem to notice), one could also suppose that it “is the part of a good household manager [οἰκονόμου (. . .) ἀγαθοῦ] to know how to deal with his own or his employer’s foes so as to get profit out of them” given that “you need but use your eyes to see how many private persons have been indebted to war for the increase of their estates, and many tyrants too” (Oec. 1.15). How then can one be certain of the real value, that is, the genuinely good nature, of the means and ends involved in the use of acquired goods?

Self-­Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use 147

T h e Science of U se : Hete r o no m y a n d Specificit y of Oi kon om i a What Epistemological Status Can Be Ascribed to Oikonomia? The central philosophical question raised by these texts is less that of the variable manifestations or expressions concerning the proper use of goods than that of the epistemological nature of the Good that makes them possible. In other words, from what knowledge does a science of the Good operating within proper use—­and to which oikonomia owes its axiological dimension—­derive? Is this Good in itself a solely economic one, the knowledge of which is the sole responsibility of oikonomia? Or is it still only the shadow cast by a Supreme Good, the knowledge of which reflects a more fundamental knowledge and that secondarily governs the knowledge of proper use? And if this were the case, which knowledge would that be? According to all our sources, as the previous section has indicated, we might be invited to adopt this latter hypothesis, that of the axiological heteronomy and epistemological subordination of oikonomia to a more fundamental form of knowledge. Two clarifications, however, must be made, ones that considerably qualify Finley’s formula that Xenophon’s Economics, and treatises like it, are only ethical books.13 On the one hand, the epistemological configuration into which the oikonomia fits is much more complex than it seems. Ethics is not, in fact, the only knowledge guiding good economic use; indeed, politics is another fundamental one, and these two forms of knowledge are themselves closely linked to philosophical knowledge as knowledge of principles in general and of the Good in particular. On the other hand, the axiological heteronomy of oikonomia and its epistemological subordination do not imply a conceptual heteronomy. In other words, proper use may be “good” only by virtue of a more fundamental Good, the knowledge of which derives from another science. This would not detract, however, from the specificity of oikonomic knowledge or from the diversity of knowledge and practices that it covers or from the specific concepts that it engages and the questions that it raises. Since the whole purpose of this work is to address this second point, I will limit myself here to examining the first, which involves various positions among our authors.

148  Chapter Seven

Ethics and Politics as the Source of the Economic Good Ethics is for Philodemus, and the Epicureans in general, the sovereign science that guides economic practice: “Thus, this man [the good oikonomos] will perhaps be much the best measuring what is advantageous [to sumpheron] to both acquisition and maintenance, so that he does not toil for the sake of possessions more than he enjoys them [eupathein]” (Vices 9.18.40–­44). The advantage looming on the horizon of Philodemus’s economic reflections is explicitly identified in this passage with the sovereign Epicurean Good that is pleasure, of which the wise man knows how to calculate the corresponding measures in keeping with the consequences that the bad and the good would cost him respectively when conducting oikonomic matters. There is no more mention here than anywhere else in the work of a strictly economic Good, for what is discussed is only what achieving the sovereign Epicurean Good would mean at the economic level. In other words, proper use rests on the knowledge of the Good residing under the ethical knowledge of the Epicurean philosopher. In other authors, the foundational knowledge of proper use and the economic Good resides with politics, especially in Pseudo-­Aristotle and Plato, although in a different way. A few lines after beginning the Economics, Pseudo-­Aristotle formulates the following analogy: “Statecraft on the other hand shows us how to build up a city from its beginning, as well as how to make good use [χρήσασθαι καλῶς] of a city that already exists; from which we infer that the art of household management [τῆς οἰκονομικῆς] also tells us first how to acquire a household [οἶκον] and then how to make use of it [χρήσασθαι]” ([Oec.] 1343a7–­9). How are we to understand the absence of the adverb well (καλῶς) in connection with the second occurrence of the verb to use (χρήσασθαι) employed in connection with household management while it is present when it comes to politics? In at least two ways. It can be simply a matter of avoiding repetition, with the economic context requiring that the oikos be used “rightly.” Yet in this case does economics prescribe its own good, or does it derive it from something else? Or, conversely, it could be the case that politics alone can determine the proper use of the city and all that it contains, including the oikoi that are its parts ([Oec.] 1343a16). This latter hypothesis is the most plausible in particu-

Self-­Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use 149

lar because it is consistent with the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, where politics is defined as the only science capable of determining the nature of the supreme end, to which are subordinated “even the most highly esteemed of the faculties, such as strategy, domestic economy [οἰκονομικὴν], [and] oratory” (Eth. Nic. 1094b2–­3). Like any activity or art, oikonomia therefore aims at a good that constitutes its end, however this end is ordered by the Supreme Good, which is the purpose of politics and which can be defined as happiness or good living. In this regard, and similarly to Aristotle, according to whom the city exists “with a view to good living” (Pol. 1252b29–­31), Pseudo-­Aristotle holds that, given that the city is “a self-­sufficient set of houses, land and material goods with a view to living well [πρὸς τὸ εὖ ζῆν]” ([Oec.] 1343a10–­11), oikonomia is therefore the art of managing material, animal, and human resources with a view to this aim, and its specific tasks are those mentioned above (acquiring and preserving, putting in order, and knowing how to use, [Oec.] 1344b23–­27). If justice seems to hold an important place within the framework of the various economic activities—­it is evoked as an intrinsic property of agriculture ([Oec.] 1343a27–­28) and as an important element in relations between spouses ([Oec.] 1344a8–­9) and toward slaves ([Oec.] 1344b15–­16)—­it cannot therefore constitute an autonomous economic good. It is, rather, the manifestation of the supreme end in a particular practical sphere. However, the matter is different with Plato, and for two reasons. First, although he, too tends to identify knowledge of proper use with politics, he does so in a more radical way. On this point, he leaves no room for domestic oikonomia because it is the scale of the entire polis, not just that of the oikos, that he considers to be relevant to understanding economic management.14 Second, he makes knowledge of proper use closely dependent on philosophy. It is undoubtedly the Euthydemus that, despite its aporetic conclusion, best evokes these two aspects. Having mutually agreed that the utility of goods depends on their use and that, in order to be happy (πρὸς τὸ εὐδαίμονα, Euthyd. 280e), the acquisition of goods must be supplemented by their “right use” (Euthyd. 280b–­e), Socrates and Clinias ponder the nature of that knowledge to which this right use falls, which would thus be knowledge of happiness. According to them, to acquire this knowledge supposes a love of knowledge—­that is to say to be a “philo-­sopher” (Euthyd. 288d)—­philosophy being thus presented as a condition for

150  Chapter Seven

the knowledge of proper use. As for the knowledge of proper use itself, Socrates and Clinias exclude the art of making speeches and that of the general or military command as possible candidates (Euthyd. 289e–­290d) and then arrive at the political art or royal science. However, they cannot fathom what Good such an art communicates to men (Euthyd. 292c–­e). The Statesman proceeds in the same direction: “For the art that is truly kingly [the art of the statesman or political science] ought not to act itself but should rule over the arts that have the power of action; it should decide upon the right or wrong time for the initiation of the most important measures in the state, and the other arts should perform its behests” (Plt. 305c–­d; emphasis added). The link between the guiding function of politics and the economic sphere is not explained in this passage; however, it is the former that is responsible for inscribing the Good within the practical sphere in all its various dimensions. Moreover, the fact that philosophy is essential to political knowledge is quite clearly indicated by the concept of the philosopher-­king of the Republic, not only because, as in the Euthydemus, the philosopher is in search of knowledge but also because, in order to become a good guardian of the city, he or she must have knowledge of Good (Resp. 6.505e–­506b). • Would the philosopher thus be the best oikonomos, the best positioned to make proper use of the resources acquired through oikonomia, given that he would know how to correctly link necessity and the knowledge of Good, thus guaranteeing his freedom and—­if he exercises power or is in proximity to power—­that of the whole city? Paradoxically, this link of which he has mastery lends itself just as much in favor of his economic role (as we see in Philodemus) as it does to the distance that he sometimes maintains from it. Socrates, in Xenophon’s Economics, offers a particularly interesting illustration of this. On the one hand, everything points to him being a perfect oikonomos, in particular because of a “deep doctrinal agreement [with the good oikonomos] Ischomachus on subjects as important as the role of enkrateia‚ the need for karteria (physical endurance)‚ divine teleology‚ the obligation to honor the gods according to one’s means‚ the importance of epimeleia‚ voluntary obedience‚ the care and exercise of the body‚ the way of

Self-­Sufficiency and the Science of Proper Use 151

building and develop the oikos, etc.”15 At the same time, however, he refuses to become an oikonomos because the self-­sufficiency that his humility enables him to achieve assumes a renunciation of the enrichment aimed at by oikonomia even though similar moral qualities are engaged in both cases. In any case, the theme of the proper use of goods is probably the most revealing of the richness of oikonomia as a practice and as the knowledge of the link between the knowledge of the Good, in the sense of a normative and guiding principle of the practical sphere—­which is required in order to speak of proper use—­and that of necessity—­ which would be ostensibly alien to any axiological consideration. In this sense, oikonomia is not content with being a particular or even secondary expression of ethics or politics. Even if it receives light from these sources, it has in itself an authentic axiological dimension and its own conceptual nature. This is undoubtedly its major characteristic, which modernity has either banished or forgotten: it does not relate to production but to practice. It is, to put it another way, a knowledge or know-­how of the Good, and therefore a possible art of freedom. In short, it transcends economics in its dominant modern and contemporary expressions.

Conclusion

Greek philosophers did not neglect economics—­on the contrary, they took the subject quite seriously, treating it as an integral and even “central” part of their conception of humans as social or political animals. It was for them a central part insofar as they made it one of the main questions and concepts by which, in related but distinct forms, they proposed to understand the various facets of the utterly complex animal known as the human. It was in and through oikonomia, as we have seen, that they interwove the threads of ethics, politics, and metaphysics, and most broadly, the question of the Good in its various manifestations. Though this function of economics as theoretical and practical knowledge has certainly not lost its relevance, Greek philosophers present to us a completely different conceptualization of economics in the form of oikonomia both with regard to its constituent practices as well as what it means for humans to pursue the collective satisfaction of their needs. It is true that, in certain aspects, their approach echoes contemporary debates on the subject, for example, regarding growth and degrowth, and, more broadly, regarding the importance these texts give to the concept of limited acquisition and expense in order to protect what looks like environmental balance as well as in terms of social and political justice by contrast with the importance placed on the unlimited and the deregulated in modern and contemporary economies and economics.1 But the main thing is not to invoke these thinkers as reinforcement for a determinate position or to credit them as possessing in nuce some eternal “modernity,” which would, in fact, prevent us from grasping what their otherness can offer, which is its most unsettling and richest

154  Conclusion

aspect. Because it submits to values other than capitalism, because it is part of a society marked by slavery, and because it is calibrated in a particular way to specific forms of knowledge, Greek philosophers’ reflections on oikonomia provide us with valuable tools for understanding certain aspects of the present. They offer models of intelligibility that make it possible to better grasp, because of their distance, the current roles of the economy and economics and what they involve in terms of the meaning that humans give to their own presence in the world. Most importantly, they reveal that the economy is not limited to a collection of techniques, institutions, and practices aimed at satisfying human needs in the name of a calculating form of reason but that it is always part of a way of inhabiting the world and giving it meaning.

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my gratitude to Marc-­Antoine Gavray (Université de Liège), Olivier Renaut (Université Paris Nanterre), Maria Cecilia D’Ercole and Violaine Sebillotte (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales), and Jean-­Baptiste Gourinat (Centre Léon Robin), all of whom allowed me to present preliminary materials from this book in their seminars. My gratitude as well to Jean Andreau, Sally Everson, the late Marcel Hénaff, and David A. Auerbach, the careful and patient translator of this book from French into English. I also wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for their generous financial support, which made the book possible.

Notes

I n t r oduc t ion 1 2 3 4 5

Zurbach 2012, 179. Zurbach, 179. Zurbach 2012; Sauge 2018; Oost 1973. Ober 2012. Chapter 1 is devoted to unpacking the meaning of the term oikonomia. Although it is an interesting topic, the management of greater forms of collectivity, such as the polis or kingdom, is not discussed in this book, as a full consideration of this question would lead me astray from my main topic, that is, the administration of the oikos. 6 See chapter 6. 7 Ramelli 2009, 93–­96. 8 Pébarthe 2012, 134. 9 Plato, Prt. 318e. See also Men. 91a–­b. Cf. Isocrates, Antid. 285. The abbreviations of classical texts come from the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed., https://​oxfordre​ .com/​classics/​page/​ocdabbreviations. 10 Gavray 2016. 11 Finley 1973, 21. 12 Finley, 20. 13 For a starting point on this topic, see Bresson (2000) on the topic of commerce, and more generally Scheidel, Morris, and Saller (2007). For further reading, see the bibliography provided by Feyel and Pébarthe (2007). 14 See, for instance, Davies (2007), Möller (2007), and von Reden (2007), all in Scheidel, Morris, and Saller (2007). 15 Arendt 1958, 13, 30, 36–­37. 16 Polanyi 1977. 17 Polanyi, 29. 18 Polanyi, 19.

158 

Notes to Chapter One

19 Polanyi, 21. 20 The bibliography on all these points is vast. For a sampling, see Scheidel, Morris, and Saller (2007, 769–­917), and Feyel and Pébarthe (2007).

C h a p t e r On e 1 For summaries of the relationship between ancient economic history and archaeology, see Mossé (1993, esp. 32, 47, and 59), Redfield (1993), Esposito and Sanidas (2012), Sanidas (2013), and D’Ercole (2017). On the impact of gender studies on the history of ancient economics, see Foxhall (1989) and Sébillotte (2016). 2 Descat 1990, 85; see also Natali 1995, esp. 95–­97. 3 On Aristotle, see Polanyi (1957), Finley (1970), Koslowski (1979), Brown (1982), Rutten (1988), and Meikle (1995). On Xenophon, see Strauss ([1970] 1998), Houmanidis (1993), and Lowry (1998). On Plato, see Berthoud (2002, 15–­45), Helmer (2010), and Föllinger (2016). On Philodemus of Gadara, see Tsouna’s (2012) translation of On Property Management. 4 General histories of economic thought include Gray (1931, 11–­39), Robbins (2000, 5–­25), Samuels, Biddle, and Davis (2003, 11–­27), and Medema and Samuels (2003, 1–­15). Studies that focus on the ancient world include Baloglou (2012) and Föllinger (2014). 5 The exception is Leshem 2012. 6 Beutler 1973. 7 Mabilon-­Bonfils 2012. 8 Mabilon-­Bonfils, 137. 9 Mabilon-­Bonfils, 136. 10 Mabilon-­Bonfils, 135–­40. 11 Schumpeter (1912) 1954, 9–­41; (1954) 2006, 49ff. 12 Schumpeter (1954) 2006, 51. 13 Weber (1921) 1968, 1354. 14 Schumpeter (1912) 1954, 11. 15 Schumpeter, 13. 16 By way of example, “adumbration of economic theory among the Greeks will rather appear in the form of incidental observations” (Gray 1931, 13; emphasis mine). 17 Finley 1970, 15. 18 Finley 1973, 18. 19 Finley, 21. 20 For example, “The discourse on the organization of the oikos and the economy of the city was not seen as a sphere of autonomous thought and analysis” (Baloglou 2012, 11). 21 Pébarthe 2012, 136.

Notes to Chapter One 159 22 See, for example, Baloglou (1998, 2012). See also Baeck (2005, specifically 5–­6). 23 Lowry 1987, 11, more generally, 7–­30. In the same vein, see Meikle’s (1979) criticism of Finley’s positions. 24 Lowry 1987, 12. See also Figueira 2012. 25 This objection is formulated in Meikle (1995, 178). 26 Amemiya 2007, 57–­58. 27 For this response, see Leshem (2012, 6). 28 Leshem 2013, 46. 29 The following scholars address this philosophical dimension of ancient economic thought: Bonar (1893, 3–­5), Descat (1988, 104–­5), and Natali (1995, 99). 30 Hausman 2008, 1–­38. 31 Descat 2010, 408; Pébarthe 2012, 134–­36. 32 Dorion 2008. 33 On this sense of “philosophy,” see Eth. Nic. 1096b31 and 1181b15–­16, in which Aristotle discusses the “philosophy of human affairs.” 34 The references given for On Vices 9 are the column number followed by the line number, in accordance with the Greek text published by Jensen in 1907. 35 Principal Doctrines 15 and Vatican Sayings 8. 36 The English version of the ninth section of Philodemus’s Vices and the Opposite Virtues (hereafter Vices) is compiled in Philodemus, On Property Management, translated with an introduction and notes by Voula Tsouna, published in 2012. (Translator’s note.) 37 Diog. Laert. 6.74; cf. 6.30–­31. 38 Regarding these paradoxes, see Brunt (1973), Dawson (1992, 188), and Bénatouïl (2008). 39 Campagnolo and Gharbi 2017, 4–­27. 40 Berthoud 2002, 9–­10. 41 Berns 2013, 13, emphasis mine. 42 Tsouna McKiharan 1996, 2:701. 43 Singer 1958, 36–­39. On the meaning of nemo, see Laroche (1949, specifically 21). 44 Singer 1958, 33–­36, 46–­47. 45 Respectively, Treatise on Political Economy (1615), and Discourse on Political Economy (1758). 46 See Maucourant (2007) for a detailed discussion of what market meant before the nineteenth century. 47 Andreau 2018, 224–­26. 48 Andreau, 234–­35. 49 Polanyi 1977, 13. 50 Bresson 2003; Christensen 2003. 51 Polanyi 1977, xl. 52 Amemiya 2007, x–­xi. 53 Diog. Laert. 6.16.

160 

Notes to Chapter Two

54 Descat 1988, 104. 55 Descat 1988, 111. See also the analysis of Descat’s arguments by Pébarthe (2012, 133–­34). 56 See Descat (1988, 111, esp. nn27–­29) for the specific references to these texts. 57 Finley 1973, 20. 58 See the reconstruction proposed by Natali (1995, 99–­100). 59 On the range of ancient texts devoted to oikonomia, see Leshem (2012, 4–­5). 60 Book 2 of this work consists of a series of financial stratagems invented by cash-­ strapped politicians; the third book, which is in Latin and not in Greek like the previous two, is a treatise on conjugal relations. On the composition of the whole book, and in particular book 2, see van Groningen (1933). 61 Cited here following Thesleff 1965, 56–­58, 102–­7. 62 Ramelli 2009, 92–­95. 63 From Hense IV–­IX. On the dual influences of Dio Chrysostom, see Brunt (1973). 64 Diog. Laert. 6.12 and 6.16, respectively. 65 Finley 1973, 21. 66 See, for example, Helmer (2013). 67 On this topic, see Anquetil (2008). 68 Metrodorus: Diog. Laert. 10.24. Philodemus: On Wealth, vol. Herc. 2, 3.91, 96, 98, 101 = Usener 42–­45. Philodemus refers to his own text in Vices 9.12.21. 69 Regarding this text, see Annas (1989). 70 Protreptique 20, 102. 22–­103.3 (E. Pistelli, ed., Iamblichi Protrepticus [Leipzig: Teubner, 1888]).

C h a p t e r T wo 1 Aristotle 1935, vol. 18. (This translation is used in all subsequent quotations, sometimes with some minor changes.) 2 See, for example, Natali (1995, 97–­99). 3 Descat 1988, 107. 4 “The word economy or oeconomy is derived from oikos, a house, and nomos, law, and generally means the wise and legitimate government of the house for the common good of the entire family. The meaning of this term was then extended to the government of the great family, the state.” Jean-­Jacques Rousseau, “Economy,” in Denis Diderot, The Encyclopedia: Selections, trans. Stephen J. Gendzier (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). 5 Oec. 21.2. See also Oec. 13.5 and Mem. 3.6.14 for the propaedeutic function of economics. 6 Descat 2010, 407. 7 Aristotle 1935, vol. 21. (This translation is used in all subsequent quotations, sometimes with some minor changes.) 8 See, for example, Aristotle (1993, 85n2), and Descat (1988, 108).

Notes to Chapter Two 161 9 Plato 1921, vol. 12, translated by Harold N. Fowler. (This translation is used in all subsequent quotations, sometimes with some minor changes.) 10 For a detailed analysis, see Helmer (2010, 210–­21). 11 See, for example, Aristotle: “The citizen is not a citizen by the fact of living such place, because metics and slaves share their residence [τῆς οἰκήσεως] with him” (Pol. 1275a8). The mention of metics suggests that oikèsis does not mean here the house but rather the space of the city. 12 For example, Men. 91a; Prt. 318e–­319a. 13 Xenophon (1921) 1923, vol. 4. (This translation is used in all subsequent quotations, sometimes with some minor changes.) 14 Brown 2009 and Morel 2007. 15 Whom we refer to as Pseudo-­Aristotle. 16 Philodemus was probably reading a text quite different from ours, because in the version of Oeconomicus we have, Theophrastus (or Pseudo-­Aristotle) does not say that there is no analogy between economics and politics. 17 The fragments from Callicratidas are quoted from Thesleff (1965, 102–­7). 18 Delatte 1922, 164. 19 Delatte, 167. 20 Stob. 4.28.18, 687; Hense (Mullach 2, 30); Thesleff 1965, 106. 21 Contrary to Plácido Suárez (2001, 20). 22 Xenophon (1921) 1923, vol. 7. 23 Regarding this theme, see chapter 6. 24 The primary texts I focus on do not provide many details on the practice of “accounting,” as they are not technical treatises but philosophical texts dealing with general concepts centered on the idea of balance and measure between acquiring and spending. For historical aspects of this topic, see in particular Chankowski (2014), Doyen (2014), and Schärlig (2014). These papers are part of a special issue of the journal Comptabilité(s): Revue d’histoire des comptabilités (2014) on accountants and accounting in antiquity. 25 Descat 2010, 405. Plato’s criticism of the tyrant: Resp. 9.573e1. On the expenditure, see chapter 6. 26 Xenophon (1921) 1923, vol. 7. 27 “To generate a surplus” rather than “to save money” (Xenophon 1949, translated by Chantraine), which is the way to generate this surplus. 28 The same idea can be found in the Cyropaedia (8.3.38), cited in chapter 5, 114. 29 Agricultural tributes are also mentioned by Pseudo-­Aristotle in connection with the “Satrapic economy” ([Oec.] 1346a1–­2). 30 See Descat 1988, 118. See, also, in Xenophon’s Oec. 4.4. 31 In this same sense, see Mem. 3.6.7–­8. 32 See chapter 7. 33 Regarding these different nonpolitical oikoi, see Nagle (2006, 135–­51). 34 Nagle, 122. 35 Helmer 2010, 111–­21.

162 

Notes to Part Two

36 Plato 2018, 589–­99. 37 Odyssey 10.488–­91. 38 See chapter 5. 39 The authenticity of this passage is debated: see Pellegrin (1993, 123n1). 40 Regarding the ethical implications of oikonomia, see chapter 7. 41 On the preparation of the land before sowing, see Oec. 16.9–­15; on sowing, see 17.1–­11; on weeding, see 17.12–­15; on the harvest, see 18.1–­2; on winnowing, see 18.6–­10; and on how to plant fruit trees, see 19.1–­14. 42 See chapter 6.

Pa r t T wo 1 In these quotations, the singular noun ἡ κτῆσις is sometimes translated using the plural, “the goods.” The same word can also refer to the activity of acquiring these goods. 2 On reason in the slaves according to Aristotle, see Heath 2008; on capture, see Chamayou 2010. 3 Leshem 2012, 6–­9. 4 For instance, Foucault (1984) 1990. 5 For instance, Foley 1974; Baloglou 1993. 6 Séris 1994, 13–­15.

Chapter Thr ee 1 Foucault (1984) 1990, 142–­84. 2 For this reason, we do not consider Musonius Rufus’s treatises on that subject. See King (2011) and Laurand (2014, 199–­403). 3 On this renewed concept of the oikos in the Republic, see Helmer (2011). 4 Helmer 2017, 132. 5 See Riddle (1998) and Kapparis (2002) on abortion and contraception in ancient Greece. 6 On these bodily aspects of oikonomia in Aristotle’s Politics, see Helmer (2020b). 7 See Oec. 7.22 on the difference between indoor tasks and outdoor tasks. 8 Cox 1998, 38. 9 Plato 1926, vol. 10, translated by R. G. Bury. 10 See also Leg. 6.773a–­b. 11 Leg. 6.773a, 773d; Pol. 1252b10; Xenophon, Oec. 7.18; Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1343b27. 12 Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1343b26–­27; Xenophon, Oec. 7.18. 13 This is how Tricot understands the passage in his French translation (Les économiques [Paris: Vrin, 1958]).

Notes to Chapter Four 163 14 Aristotle 2014. 15 Helmer 2010, 247–­49. 16 Aristotle does not explain the reasons for these disputes stemming from delayed procreation. Is Aristotle making reference to a possible danger for nature’s ultimate goal—­that of leaving a being similar to oneself—­or to other social considerations, linked to one’s legacy, for example? 17 Brulé 2009. 18 We find a similar idea regarding the relationship between justice and injustice among individuals in Resp. 1.335c, cf. Grg. 476b.

C h a p t e r Fou r 1 Descat 2007, 201. 2 See the analysis in Descat (2007). 3 Regarding domestic servitude in Ancient Greece, see Golden (2011). With respect to the political role of the enslaved, see Ismard (2015). 4 Concerning the related terminology, see Vlassopoulos (2011, 117). 5 See, also, Golden (2011, 135–­36). 6 Vlassopoulos 2011, 115–­30. 7 Chamayou 2010, chap. 1. 8 Patterson 1982, 11–­12. 9 Which would include, among others, Brunt (1993), Garnsey (1996), Lockwood (2007), Heath (2008), Karbowski (2013), and Kamtekar (2016). 10 Plato, Leg. 6.776b–­d; Plt. 289d. Aristotle, Pol. 1253b32. Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1344a23. Xenophon in Economics, and Philodemus of Gadara in Vices 9 are all silent on this particular point. 11 Cf. Plato, Resp. 5.469b–­c. 12 Plato, Soph. 222c. 13 Ducat 1997. 14 Golden 2011, 140. 15 Initially in Pol. 1252a7–­9 and resumed in 1253b19–­20. 16 During the Hellenistic period, epitropos is less often used, and dioikêtês appears in its stead, the latter term pertaining to the management of the affairs of a large landowner within the state (Chandezon 2011, 103). On this terminology, particularly oikonomos, see Cales (2019, chap. 1). 17 The term also appears in Aristotle to designate the function of treasurer of public goods or, as in Plato, of sacred goods (Pol. 1321b34, 1322b25; Leg. 6.759e3, 774b3, d6, e1). 18 On the economic aspects of citizenship in Plato, see Helmer (2010, 263–­65). 19 See chapter 2, 29. 20 Chandezon 2011, 99. See Lysias, On the Murder of Eratosthenes 7; Aeschylus, Agamemnon 155.

164 

Notes to Chapter Five

21 On this metaphor, see Zeitlin (1996). 22 Mossé 1991, 98–­99. 23 Plutarch 1916. 24 Xenophon, Oec. 13.6–­8. 25 Pomeroy 1994, 74. 26 For an interpretation of this passage, see Aristotle (2002, 101–­2). 27 For a detailed study of this passage on slavery in the Laws, see Helmer (2019).

Chapter Five 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

See Finley (1973, 35–­36), for his assessment of wealth in the classical period. See Helmer (2016), for a study of the various approaches to this subject. See subsequent chapters. Dorion 2008, particularly 269–­73. Saunders 1961. For a contemporary equivalent of this phenomenon, see Frank (2010). De Lacy 1969, 106. Laertius, 1925. (This translation, abbreviated Diog. Laert., is used in all subsequent quotations of Epicurus’s works, sometimes with some minor changes.) 9 Morel 2013. 10 Morel 2016, 117. 11 Aristotle (1995) 2002, 92–­93. 12 Aristotle also provides the certainly controversial example of the art of war: “Even the art of war will by nature be in a manner an art of acquisition (for the art of hunting is a part of it) that is properly employed both against wild animals and against such of mankind as though designed by nature for subjection refuse to submit to it, inasmuch as this warfare is by nature just” (Pol. 1256b23–­26). 13 Rackham translates this as “wealth-­getting.” (Translator’s note.) 14 Regarding the associated difficulties, see Natali (1990) and Tabosa (2016). 15 Translated in the sense of a universal constant by Pellegrin (Aristotle 1993) and Saunders (Aristotle [1995] 2002) and in the sense of a specific phenomenon by Rackham (Aristotle 1932). 16 For intemperance associated with the bodily pleasures, see Eth. Nic. 1148a5 ss. 17 Adkins 1984; Vergnières 1995. 18 Schumpeter (1912) 1954, 12–­13. 19 See Finley (1973, 18), regarding Xenophon’s Economics. 20 Contrary to what is presented in Desmond (2006, 57), and Strauss ([1970] 1998, 103). 21 Hesiod 1914. See Bravo (1984) regarding the social value of commerce and trade in Hesiod. 22 Herodotus, Histories 1.153, and Kurke (1989, 540) regarding Theognis. 23 Prt. 313c–­d.

Notes to Chapter Six 165 24 Leg. 11.917b–­d. See Helmer 2018. 25 Resp. 3.386a; Leg. 8.836e–­837a. 26 See Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 1.6–­17, as well as Garlan 1978. 27 See the poetic references to the “Gaia kourotrophe” in Vilatte (1991, 19). 28 On agriculture and justice in Xenophon’s Economics, see Helmer (2022). 29 See chapter 2, 40. 30 For a comprehensive study of this work by Xenophon, see Gauthier (1976) and Schorn (2012). 31 The clearly hostile testimony cited by Diogenes Laertius on this point should be taken with some caution. 32 DeWitt 1936, 57–­58; Schmid 1984, 72–­74. 33 The authenticity of this quote is debated: see Diogenes of Oinoanda (1993, 555–­ 58). The identity of the “father” is also uncertain. He is undoubtedly a protector, perhaps Mithres. 34 Farrington (1891) 1967, 12. 35 Helmer 2017, 69–­70; 2020a.

Chapter Six 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Works and Days 597–­608. My translation. Cf. Plato, Leg. 8.849b–­c. See Helmer 2017 and 2018. See chapter 5, 111–13. McK Camp II 2003, 4; Thompson 1993. Harris 2002. Johnstone 2011. Chapter 5. See Teisserenc 2016. This is a minor exception, however, since Aristippus would also have considered that wealth is not necessary for pleasure but that it is only useful for it; see Lampe (2015, 73–­74). 11 See also Xenophon, Hiero 4.9. 12 Chankowski-­Sablé 2005, 79–­81; Descat 1995, 968–­69. 13 Oikonomia may also be a synonym for that which pertains to the oikos: see Henry G. Liddell, Robert Scott, and Henry S. Jones, A Greek-­English Lexicon, 9th ed. rev. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, [1940] 1996), s.v. “Oikonomia,” A.1. 14 Cf. Resp. 8.543c: the guardians of the polis must “receive from others, for the year, remuneration for their oversight, enough to feed themselves and fulfill their function” (emphasis added). 15 See the detailed study of Critobulus presented by Noël (2015, particularly §23–­31). 16 On the importance that Socrates accords to the enkrateia, see Memorabilia 1.5.1, 2.1.1. 17 See chapter 7.

166 

Notes to Chapter Seven

18 On the nature of wealth according to Epicurus, see chapter 5, 103–5. 19 Asmis 2004, 151, 175. 20 Asmis, 139. 21 On the concept of security (asphaleia), see RS 6, 7, 13, 14, 28, 40. 22 Eth. Nic. 1119b22–­1122a16 on liberality and 1122a17–­1125a35 on magnificence. 23 Regarding these two last points, see Descat (2010, 405) and Pébarthe (2014, 79–­80).

Chapter Seven 1 Chapter 2, 28–30. 2 For example, Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1343b28, 1344b32, 1345a17; Aristotle, Pol. 1254b30, 1256b30, 1257a26, 1257a37, 1257b13, etc.; Xenophon, Vect. 3.2, 4.10, 4.42; Philodemus, Vices 9.17.12, 9.17.47. We also sometimes encounter a third term, beneficial (to lusitelê and the verb lusitelein), the meaning of which oscillates between the two aspects of usefulness (Aristotle, Pol. 1258b13, 16; Pseudo-­Aristotle, [Oec.] 1345b25; Xenophon, Oec. 6.11; Philodemus, Vices 9.19.30, 9.22.1). 3 In Homer, kerdos designates, in the good sense, a skill, and in the bad sense, deceit: Nagy (1989, 134). 4 For example, Xenophon, Oec. 3.8, 8.12; Aristotle, Pol. 1257b5, Plato, Leg. 8.835b. 5 For example, Xenophon, Oec. 14.10; Aristotle, Pol. 1287a40, 1302a32, 39, b5; Plato, Leg. 6.754e, 8.831c. See also Theognis 50, cited by Nagy (2013, 284). 6 See Davis 2006, 549 in particular. 7 For example, Xenophon, Oec. 1.7–­9, 11–­15, 20, 5.11, 6.4, 7.18. 8 For example, Callicratidas, On the Happiness of the oikos Stob. 4.28.16, 682; Hense (Mullach 2, 28); Thesleff (1965), 104; Stob. 4.28.17, 684; Hense (Mullach 2, 31); Thesleff (1965), 105; Philodemus, Vices 9.13.21, 9.18.42, 9.18.45–­46. 9 On this already acknowledged difference between ancient and modern autarky, see Landry (1936). On ancient debates on what autarkeia could have meant, see, among others, Derks (2022) and Bosman (2015). 10 See chapter 6, 117. 11 Translation by Cyril Bailey, Oxford, 1926. 12 Contrary to what Chantraine’s translation suggests, which adds in French a restriction that is absent from the Greek: “[your friends] have their eyes turned toward [you] only in the expectation of some advantage” (οἱ δὲ σοὶ φίλοι [. . .] παρὰ σοῦ ὠφελησόμενοι ἀποβλέπουσι, Oec. 2.8; emphasis added). 13 Finley 1973, 18. 14 Helmer 2010, 19–­21, 167–­265. 15 Dorion 2008, 269. See, further, 269–­73.

C onc l u s ion 1 On Plato, see, for instance, Lane (2011, 29–­46), Helmer (2015), and Stone (2018).

References

Adkins, Arthur William Hope. 1984. “The Connection between Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics.” Political Theory 12 (1): 29–­49. Amemiya, Takeshi. 2007. Economy and Economics of Ancient Greece. London: Routledge. Andreau, Jean. 2018. “Concepts économiques dans les oeuvres des juristes romains.” In Diritto romano e economia: Due modi di pensare e organizzare il mondo (nei primi tre secoli dell’Impero), edited by Elio Lo Cascio and Dario Mantovani, 223–­54. Pavia: Pavia University Press. Annas, Julia. 1989. “Cicero on Stoic Moral Philosophy and Private Property.” In Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society, edited by Miriam Griffin and Jonathan Barnes, 150–­73. Oxford: Clarendon. Anquetil, Alain. 2008. Qu’est-­ce que l’éthique des affaires? Paris: Vrin. Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Aristotle. 1915. The Works of Aristotle. Magna Moralia, Ethica Eudemia. De Virtutibus et Vitiis. Translated by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1932. Politics. Translated by H. Rackham. Harvard: Harvard University Press. ———. 1935. Aristotle in 23 Volumes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann. ———. 1968. Économique. Translated by A. Wartelle. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. ———. 1993. Les politiques. Translated by P. Pellegrin. Paris: Flammarion. ———. (1995) 2002. Politics. Books I and II. Translated by T. J. Saunders. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2014. Aristotle’s Ethics: Writings from the Complete Works. Revised, edited, and with an introduction by J. Barnes and A. Kenny. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Asmis, Elizabeth. 2004. “Epicurean Economics.” In Philodemus and the New Testament World, edited by John Fitzgerald, Glenn Holland, and Dirk Obbink, 133–­76. Leiden: Brill.

168  References

Ault, Bradley Allen. 2007. “Oikos and oikonomia: Greek Houses, Households and the Domestic Economy.” In Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond, British School at Athens Studies 15, 259–­65. London: British School at Athens. Baeck, Louis. 2005. The Mediterranean Tradition in Economic Thought. London: Routledge. Baloglou, Christos, 1993. “La division des tâches chez Platon.” Archives of Economic History 2:45–­60. ———. 1998. “Hellenistic Economic Thought.” In Ancient and Medieval Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice, edited by S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon, 105–­46. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2012. “The Tradition of Economic Thought in the Mediterranean World from the Ancient Classical Times through the Hellenistic Times until the Byzantine Times and Arab-­Islamic World.” In Handbook of the History of Economic Thought, edited by J. G. Backhaus, 7–­91. New York: Springer. Barney Smith, Stanley. 1940. “The Economic Motive in Thucydides.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 51:267–­301. Bénatouïl, Thomas. 2008. “Les possessions du sage et le dépouillement du philosophe.” Rursus 3. http://​journals​.openedition​.org/​rursus/​213. Berns, Egidius. 2013. La porosité: Un essai sur le rapport entre économie et politique. Brussels: Ousia. Berthoud, Arnaud. 2002. Essais de philosophie économique: Platon, Aristote, Hobbes, A. Smith, Marx. Villeneuve-­d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Beutler, Corinne. 1973. “Un chapître de la sensibilité collective: La littérature agricole en Europe continentale au XVIe siècle.” Annales: Économies, sociétés, civilisations 5:1280–­1301. Bonar, James. 1893. Philosophy and Political Economy in Some of Their Historical Relations. New York: MacMillan. Bosman, Philip. 2015. “Ancient Debates on autarkeia and Our Global Impasse.” Phronimon 16 (1): 1–­16. Bravo, Bernadette. 1984. “Commerce et noblesse en Grèce archaïque: À propos d’un livre d’Alfonso Mele.” Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 10:99–­160. Bresson, Alain. 2000. La cité marchande. Paris: De Boccard. ———. 2003. “Merchants and Politics in Ancient Greece: Social and Economic Aspects.” In Mercanti e politica nel mondo antico, edited by Carlo Zaccagnini, 139–­63. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider. Brown, Eric. 2009. “Politics and Society.” In The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, edited by James Warren, 179–­96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

References 169

Brown, Warren. 1982. “Aristotle’s Art of Acquisition and the Conquest of Nature.” Interpretation 10:159–­95. Brulé, Pierre. 2009. “L’exposition des enfants en Grèce antique: Une forme d’infanticide.” Enfances & Psy 44 (3): 19–­28. Brûlé, Pierre, Jacques Oulhen, and Francis Prost, eds. 2007. Économie et société en Grèce antique. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Brunt, Peter Astbury. 1973. “Aspects of the Social Thought of Dio Chrysostom and the Stoics.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 19:9–­34. ———. 1993. “Aristotle and Slavery.” In Studies in Greek History and Thought, 434–­88. Oxford: Clarendon. Cales, Sabrina. 2019. L’oikonomos dans les cités grecques aux époques classique et hellénistique. PhD diss., Université Bordeaux Montaigne. Campagnolo, Gilles, and Jean-­Sébatien Gharbi. 2017. “Philosophie économique, un état des lieux.” In Philosophie économique, un état des lieux, edited by Gilles Campagnolo and Jean-­Sébatien Gharbi, 3–­48. Paris: Éditions matériologiques. Chamayou, Grégoire, 2010. Les chasses à l’homme: Histoire et philosophie du pouvoir cynégétique. Paris: La fabrique. Chandezon, Christophe. 2011. “Some Aspects of Large Estate Management.” In The Economies of Hellenistic Societies: Third to First Century B.C., edited by Zosia Archibald, John Davies, and Vincent Gabrielsen, 97–­121. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chankowski, Véronique. 2014. “Comptables et comptabilités dans l’Antiquité: Propos introductifs.” Comptabilité(s) 6. http://​journals​.openedition​.org/​ comptabilites/​1435. Chankowski-­Sablé, Véronique. 2005. “Techniques financières, influences, performances dans les activités bancaires des sanctuaires grecs.” Topoi 12/13 (1): 69–­93. Christesen, Paul. 2003. “Economic Rationalism in Fourth-­Century BCE Athens.” Greece & Rome 50 (1): 31–­56. Cox, Cheryl Anne. 1998. Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Damet, Aurélie, and Philippe Moreau. 2017. Famille et société dans le monde grec et en Italie du Ve s. av J.-­C. au IIe s. av. J.-­C. Paris: Armand Colin. Davies, John. 2007. “Classical Greece: Production.” In The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-­Roman World, edited by Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller, 331–­61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, Michael. 2006. “Making Something from Nothing: On Plato’s Hipparchus.” Review of Politics 68:547–­63. Dawson, Doyne. 1992. Cities of the Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought. New York: Oxford University Press.

170  References

De Lacy, Phillip. 1969. “Limit and Variation in the Epicurean Philosophy.” Phoenix 23 (1): 104–­13. Delatte, Armand. 1922. Essai sur la politique pythagoricienne. Paris: Honoré Champion. Delebecque, Édouard. 1951. “Sur la date et l’objet de l’Économique.” Revue des Études Grecques 64:21–­58. D’Ercole, Maria Cecilia. 2017. “Archaeology and Economic History: Between Affinities and Discord.” In “Archaeology and Social Sciences,” edited by Philippe Boissinot. Special issue, P@lethnology 9:62–­74. Derks, Hans. 2022. “Autarkeia in Greek Theory and Practice.” In The Market and the Oikos, vol. 2, The Peasant and the Nomad in History, 92–­110. Leiden: Brill. Descat, Raymond. 1988. “Aux origines de l’oikonomia grecque.” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 28 (1): 103–­19. ———. 1990. “De l’économie tributaire à l’économie civique: Le rôle de Solon.” In Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, vol. 5, Anthropologie et société, 85–­100. Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-­Comté. ———. 1995. “L’économie antique et la cité grecque: Un modèle en question.” Annales Histoire, Sciences Sociales 5:961–­89. ———. 2007. “La place de l’esclavage dans la société et l’économie grecques à l’époque classique.” Pallas 74:201–­12. ———. 2010. “Thucydide et l’économie, aux origines du logos oikonomikos.” In Ombres de Thucydide: La réception de l’historien depuis l’Antiquité jusqu’au début du XXe siècle, edited by Valérie Frometin, Sophie Gotteland, and Pascal Payen, 403–­9. Paris: De Boccard. Desmond, William. 2006. The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. DeWitt, Norman. 1936. “Epicurean Contubernium.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 67:55–­63. Diogenes of Oinoanda. 1993. The Epicurean Inscription. Edited and translated by M. F. Smith. Naples: Bibliopolis. Dorion, Louis-­André. 2008. “Socrate oikonomikos.” In Xénophon et Socrate, edited by Michel Narcy and Alonso Tordesillas, 253–­81. Paris: Vrin. Doyen, Charles. 2014. “Pratiques comptables en Grèce hellénistique.” Comptabilité(s) 6. https://​journals​.openedition​.org/​comptabilites/​1465. Ducat, Jean. 1997. “La cryptie en question.” In Esclavage, guerre, économie en Grèce ancienne: Hommages à Yvon Garlan, edited by Pierre Brulé and Jacques Oulhen, 43–­74. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Epicurus. 1926. Epicurus: The Extant Remains. Translated by C. Bailey. Oxford: Clarendon. Esposito, Ariana, and Giorgos Sanidas, eds. 2012. “Quartiers” artisanaux en Grèce ancienne, une perspective méditerranéenne. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.

References 171

Farrington, Benjamin. (1891) 1967. The Faith of Epicurus. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Feyel, Christophe, and Christophe Pébarthe. 2007. “Bibliographie: Économies et sociétés de 478 à 88 en Grèce ancienne (Grèce continentale, îles de l’Égée et cités côtières d’Asie mineure).” Historiens & géographes 399:99–­144. Figueira, Thomas. 2012. “Economic Thought and Economic Fact in the Works of Xenophon.” In Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry, edited by Fiona Hobden and Christopher Tuplin, 665–­88. Leiden: Brill. Finley, M. I. 1970. “Aristotle and Economic Analysis.” Past Present 47:3–­25. ———. 1973. The Ancient Economy. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 1977. “The Ancient City: From Fustel de Coulanges to Max Weber and Beyond.” Comparatives Studies in Society and History 19 (3): 305–­27. Foley, Vernard. 1974. “The Division of Labor in Plato and Smith.” History of Political Economy 6:220–­42. Föllinger, Sabine. 2014. “Ökonomische Literatur.” In Handbuch der griechischen Literatur der Antike, vol. 2, Die Literatur der klassischen und hellenistischen Zeit, edited by Bernhard Zimmermann and Antonios Rengakos, 584–­90. Munich: C. H. Beck. ———. 2016. Ökonomie bei Platon. Berlin: De Gruyter. Foucault, Michel. (1984) 1990. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 2, The Use of Pleasure. Translated by Robert Furley. New York: Vintage. Fouchard, Alain. 1989. “L’éloge de l’agriculture et des agriculteurs en Grèce au IVe siècle avant J.-­C.” In Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, vol. 3, Anthropologie et société, 133–­47. Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-­Comté. Foxhall, Lin. 1989. “Household, Gender and Property in Classical Athens.” Classical Quarterly 39 (1): 22–­44. Frank, Robert. 2010. La course au luxe: L’économie de la cupidité et la psychologie du bonheur. Geneva: Markus Haller. Garlan, Yvon. 1978. “Signification historique de la piraterie grecque.” Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 4:1–­16. ———. 1982. Les esclaves en Grèce ancienne. Paris: Maspero. Garnsey, Peter. 1996. Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gauthier, Philippe. 1976. Un commentaire historique des Poroi de Xénophon. Geneva: Droz-­Minard. Gavray, M. A. 2016. “De l’Anonyme à Jamblique, ou de l’usage politique de la richesse.” In Richesse et pauvreté chez les philosophes de l’Antiquité, edited by Étienne Helmer, 275–­303. Paris: Vrin. Golden, Mark. 2011. “Slavery and the Greek Family.” In The Cambridge World History of Slavery, vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge, 134–­52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

172  References

Gray, Alexander. 1931. The Development of Economic Doctrine: An Introductory Survey. London: Longmans, Green. Harris, Edward. 2002. “Workshop, Marketplace and Household: Technical Specialization in Classical Athens.” In Money, Labour and Land: Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece, edited by Paul Cartledge, Edward Cohen, and Lin Foxhall, 74–­75. London: Routledge. Hausman, Daniel. 2008. Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heath, Malcolm. 2008. “Aristotle on Natural Slavery.” Phronesis 53 (3): 243–­70. Helmer, Étienne. 2010. La part du bronze: Platon et l’économie. Paris: Vrin. ———. 2011. “Le remodelage politique de l’oikos dans la République: De la famille au modèle familial, de l’économie domestique à l’économie politique.” Internet Journal of the International Plato Society 11. https://​www​ .academia​.edu/​4161669/​_Le​_remodelage​_politique​_de​_l​_oikos​_dans​ _la​_R​%C3​%A9publique​_de​_la​_famille​_au​_mod​%C3​%A8le​_familial​ _de​_l​_​%C3​%A9conomie​_domestique​_​%C3​%A0​_l​_​%C3​%A9conomie​ _politique​_The​_Internet​_Journal​_of​_the​_International​_Plato​_Society​ _Plato​_11​_2011​_mars​_2012. ———. 2013. L’économie du bonheur: Epicure et l’économie. Neuvy-­en-­ Champagne: Le Passager clandestin. ———. 2015. “Pensar el decrecimiento con Platón.” In En torno a Platón, edited by O. M. Donato, 149–­200. Bogota: Universidad Libre. ———, ed. 2016. Richesse et pauvreté chez les philosophes de l’Antiquité. Paris: Vrin. ———. 2017. Diogène le cynique. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. ———. 2018. “Le commerce de la vérité: Économie et commerce dans les Lois de Platon.” Plato Journal: The Journal of the International Plato Society 17:51–­64. ———. 2019. “La frontière politique intérieure: Le sens de l’esclavage dans les Lois et dans le Politique de Platon.” Méthexis 31:25–­44. ———. 2020a. “L’autarcie à l’épreuve de la mendicité cynique.” In Mendiants et mendicité en Grèce ancienne, edited by Étienne Helmer, 209–­33. Paris: Garnier. ———. 2020b. “Les deux corps de l’économie dans les Politiques d’Aristote.” In Aristotele citatore, o, La riappropriazione da parte della filosofia dei discorsi di sapere anteriori / Aristote citateur, ou, La réappropriation par la philosophie des discours de savoir antérieurs, edited by Elisabetta Berardi, Maria Paola Castiglioni, Marie-­Laurence Desclos, and Paola Dolcetti, 467–­73. Alexandrie: dell’Orso. ———. 2022. “Agriculture and Justice in Xenophon’s Economics.” Diálogos 53 (111): 423–­47. Hesiod. 1914. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-­W hite. London: Heinemann.

References 173

Houmanidis, Lazaros. 1993. “Xenophon’s Economic Ideas.” Archives of Economic History 2:79–­102. Ismard, Paulin. 2015. La démocratie contre les experts. Paris: Le Seuil. ———. 2019. La cité et ses esclaves: Institution, fictions, expériences. Paris: Le Seuil. Johnstone, Steven. 2011. A History of Trust in Ancient Greece. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kamtekar, Rachana. 2016. “Studying Ancient Political Thought through Ancient Philosophers: The Case of Aristotle and Natural Slavery.” Polis 33:150–­71. Kapparis, Konstantinos. 2002. Abortion in the Ancient World. London: Duckworth. Karbowski, Joseph. 2013. “Aristotle’s Scientific Inquiry into Natural Slavery.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 51:331–­53. King, Cynthia. 2011. Musonius Rufus: Lectures and Sayings, translated and with an introduction by C. King, edited with a preface by W. Irvine. Create­ Space. https://​www​.amazon​.com/​Musonius​-­­Rufus​-­­Lectures​-­­Cynthia​ -­­King/​dp/​145645966X. Koslowski, Peter. 1979. Zum Verhältnis von Polis und Oikos bei Aristoteles: Politik und Ökonomie bei Aristoteles. Munich: Donau. Kurke, Leslie. 1989. “Kapèleia and Deceit Theognis 59–­60.” American Journal of Philology 110 (4): 535–­44. Laertius, Diogenes. 1925. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R. D. Hicks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lampe, Kurt. 2015. The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Landry, Adolphe. 1936. “L’autarcie.” Revue d’économie politique 50 (1): 37–­66. Lane, Melissa. 2011. Eco-­Republic: Ancient Thinking for a Green Age. Oxford: Peter Lang. Laroche, Emmanuel. 1949. Histoire de la racine Nem-­en grec ancien. Paris: Klincksieck. Laurand, Valéry. 2014. Stoïcisme et lien social: Enquête autour de Musonius Rufus. Paris: Garnier. Leshem, Dotan. 2012. “The Ancient Art of Economics.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 21 (2): 1–­29. ———. 2013. “Oikonomia Redefined.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 35 (1): 43–­61. Lévy, Edmond. 1989. “La théorie aristotélicienne de l’esclavage et ses contradictions.” In Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, vol. 3, Anthropologie et société, 197–­213. Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-­Comté. Lockwood, Thornton. 2007. “Is Natural Slavery Beneficial?” Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:207–­21.

174  References

Lowry, S. Todd. 1987. “The Greek Heritage in Economic Thought.” In Pre-­ Classical Economic Thought from the Greek to the Scottish Enlightenment, edited by S. Todd Lowry, 7–­30. Boston: Kluwer Academic. ———. 1998. “Xenophons ökonomisches Denken über ‘Oikonomikos’ hinaus.” In Xenophons “Oikonomikos”: Vademecum zu einem Klassiker der Haushaltsökonomie, edited by S. Todd Lowry, Bertram Schefold, Karl Schefold, and Arbogast Schmitt, 77–­93. Düsseldorf: Wirtschaft und Finanzen. ———. 2003. “Ancient and Medieval Economics.” In A Companion to the History of Economic Thought, edited by W. Samuels, J. Biddle, and J. Davis. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Mabilon-­Bonfils, Béatrice. 2012. “Croyance et rationalité économique: La science économique comme croyance et les croyances économiques comme savoir pratique.” Noesis 20:135–­50. http://​journals​.openedition​.org/​noesis/​ 1827. Maucourant, Jérôme. 2007. “Le marché, une institution entre économie et histoire: Plaidoyer pour une économie politique institutionnaliste.” Cahiers lillois d’économie et de sociologie, no. HS-­2006, 87–­108. McK Camp II, John, 2003. The Athenian Agora: A Short Guide. [Athens]: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Medema, Steven, and Warren Samuels, eds. 2003. History of Economic Thought. A Reader. New York: Routledge. Meikle, Scott. 1979. “Aristotle and the Political Economy of the Polis.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 99:57–­73. ———. 1995. Aristotle’s Economic Thought. Oxford: Clarendon. Möller, Astrid. 2007. “Classical Greece: Distribution.” In The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-­Roman World, edited by Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller, 362–­84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morel, Pierre-­Marie. 2007. “Les communautés humaines.” In Lire Épicure et les épicuriens, edited by Alain Gigandet and Pierre-­Marie Morel, 167–­86. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. ———. 2013. “Conformité à la nature et décision rationnelle dans l’éthique épicurienne.” In Nature and the Best Life: Exploring the Natural Bases of Practical Normativity in Ancient Philosophy, edited by Gabriela Rossi, 249–­74. Zurich: Hildesheim. ———. 2016. “Épicure et les biens matériels, ou la pauvreté bien tempérée.” In Richesse et pauvreté chez les philosophes de l’Antiquité, edited by Étienne Helmer, 111–­23. Paris: Vrin. Mossé, Claude. 1975. “Xénophon économiste.” In Le monde grec: Pensée, littérature, histoire, documents. Edited by Jean Bingen, Guy Cambier, and Georges Nachtergael, 169–­76. Brussels: Éditions de l’université. ———. 1991. La femme dans la Grèce antique. Paris: Complexes.

References 175

———. 1993. “L’homme économique.” In L’homme grec, edited by Jean-­Pierre Vernant, 31–­63. Paris: Le Seuil. Nagle, Brendan D. 2006. The Household as the Foundation of Aristotle’s Polis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nagy, Gregory. 1989. “The ‘Professional Muse’ and Models of Prestige in Ancient Greece.” Cultural Critique 12:133–­43. ———. 2013. The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Natali, Carlo. 1990. “Aristote et la chrématistique.” In Aristoteles’ Politik, edited by Günther Patzig, 296–­324. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ———. 1995. “Oikonomia in Hellenistic Political Thought.” In Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy, edited by André Laks and Malcolm Schofield, 95–­128. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2005. “L’élision de l’oikos dans la République de Platon.” In Études sur la République, vol. 1, edited by Monique Dixsaut, 199–­223. Paris: Vrin. Noël, Marie-­Pierre, 2015. “Critobule dans les écrits socratiques de Xénophon: Le portrait d’un mauvais élève.” Kentron 31:43–­58. http://​journals​ .openedition​.org/​kentron/​289. Ober, Josiah. 2012. “Thucydides as Prospect Theorist ( July 28, 2012).” Princeton/Stanford working paper. https://​papers​.ssrn​.com/​sol3/​papers​.cfm​ ?abstract​_id​=​1431169. Oost, Stewart. 1973. “The Megara of Theagenes and Theognis.” Classical Philology 68 (3): 186–­96. Patterson, Orlando. 1982. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pébarthe, Christophe. 2012. “Le mot et la chose: De la possibilité du marché en Grèce ancienne.” In Stephanèphoros: De l’économie antique à l’Asie mineure, edited by Koray Konuk, 125–­38. Bordeaux: Ausonius. ———. 2014. “Oikonomia, entre champ économique, champ politique et champ philosophique en Grèce ancienne: Méditations bourdieusiennes sur l’Économique de Xénophon.” Revue française de socio-­économie 13 (1): 67–­84. Philodemus of Gadara. 1907. Philodemi περὶ οἰκονομίας qui dicitur libellus. Edited by C. Jensen. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. Plácido Suárez, Domingo. 2001. La dépendance dans l’Économique de Xénophon. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Plato. 1921–­30. Plato in Twelve Volumes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann. ———. 2018. Le politique. Translated by Monique Dixsaut, Dimitri El Murr, Alexandre Hasnaoui, Étienne Helmer, Marc-­Antoine Gavray, Annie Larivée, Antoine de la Taille, and Fulcran Teisserenc. Paris: Vrin.

176  References

Plutarch. 1916. Lives. Vol. 3, Pericles and Fabius Maximus, Nicias and Crassus. Translated by B. Perrin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Polanyi, Karl. 1957. “Aristotle Discovers the Economy.” In Trade and Market in the Early Empires, edited by Karl Polanyi, Conrad Arensberg, and Harry W. Pearson, 64–­94. Chicago: Henry Regnery. ———. 1977. The Livelihood of Man. Edited by H. W. Pearson. New York: Academic Press. Pomeroy, Sarah. 1994. Xenophon, Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon. Ramelli, Ilaria. 2009. Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics; Fragments and Excerpts. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Redfield, James. 1993. “Homo domesticus.” In L’homme grec, edited by Jean-­ Pierre Vernant, 185–­222. Paris: Le Seuil. Riddle, J. M. 1998. Eve’s Herbs. A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Robbins, Lionel. 2000. A History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures. Edited by Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rutten, Christian. 1988. “L’économie chez Aristote.” Les cahiers de l’analyse des données 13 (3): 289–­94. Samuels, Warren, Jeff Biddle, and John Davis, eds. 2003. A Companion to the History of Economic Thought. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Sanidas, Giorgos. 2013. La production artisanale en Grèce, une approche spatiale et topographique, à partir des exemples de l’Attique et du Péloponnèse, VIIe–­Ier s. av. J.-­C. Paris: CTHS. Sauge, André. 2018. L’Odyssée ou le Retour d’Ulysse: Un traité d’économie politique. Bern: Peter Lang. Saunders, Trevor. 1961. “The Property Classes and the Value of the klêros in Plato’s Laws.” Eranos 59:29–­39. Schärlig, Alain. 2014. “Les moyens de calcul du comptable antique.” Comptabilité(s) 6. http://​journals​.openedition​.org/​comptabilites/​1491. Scheidel, Walter, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller, eds. 2007. The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-­Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmid, Wolfgang. 1984. Epicureo e l’epicureismo Cristiano. Brescia: Paideia. Schorn, Stefan. 2012. “The Philosophical Background of Xenophon’s Poroi.” In Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry, edited by Christopher Tuplin and Fiona Hobden, 689–­723. Leiden: Brill. Schumpeter, Joseph. (1912) 1954. Economic Doctrine and Method. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. (1954) 2006. History of Economic Analysis. London: Allen & Unwin. Sébillotte, Violaine. 2016. “Women and the Economic History of the Ancient

References 177

Greek World: Still a Challenge for Gender Studies.” In The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ancient Near East, edited by Brigitte Lion and Cécile Michel, 543–­63. Boston: De Gruyter. Séris, Jean-­Pierre. 1994. Qu’est-­ce que la division du travail? Paris: Vrin. Singer, Kurt. 1958. “Oikonomia: An Inquiry into Beginnings of Economic Thought and Language.” Kyklos 11:29–­57. Stone, Mark. 2018. “Plato, Environmental Sustainability, and Social Justice.” Athens Journal of Humanities & Arts 5 (1): 105–­18. Strauss, Leo. (1970) 1998. Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse: An Interpretation of the Oeconomicus. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press. Tabosa, Adriana. 2016. “Les métamorphoses de la richesse: Économie et chrématistique chez Aristote.” In Richesse et pauvreté chez les philosophes de l’Antiquité, edited by Étienne Helmer, 251–­73. Paris: Vrin. Teisserenc, Fulcran. 2016. “Usage et mésusage de l’argent: La leçon d’Aristippe.” In Richesse et pauvreté chez les philosophes de l’Antiquité, edited by Étienne Helmer, 15–­45. Paris: Vrin. Thesleff, H., ed. 1965. The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period. Åbo: Åbo Akademi. Thompson, Dorothy. 1993. An Ancient Shopping Center: The Athenian Agora. [Athens]: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Tsouna McKiharan, Voula. 1996. “Epicurean Attitudes to Management and Finance.” In Epicureismo Greco e Romano, edited by G. Giannantoni and M. Gigante. Naples: Bibliopolis. Tsouna, Voula. 2012. Philodemus: On Property Management. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Van Groningen, Bernard. 1933. Aristote: Le second livre de l’Économique. Leyde: Sijthoff. Vergnières, Solange. 1995. Éthique et politique chez Aristote: Φύσις, ἦθος, νόμος. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Vilatte, Sylvie. 1991. “La nourrice grecque: Une question d’histoire sociale et religieuse.” L’antiquité classique 60:5–­28. Vlassopoulos, Kostas. 2011. “Greek Slavery: From Domination to Property and Back Again.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 131:115–­30. Von Reden, Sitta. 2007. “Classical Greece: Consumption.” In The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-­Roman World, edited by Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller, 385–­406. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weber, Max. (1921) 1968. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. New York: Bedminster. Xenophon. 1923. Xenophon in Seven Volumes. Translated by E. C. Marchant and O. J. Todd. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann.

178  References

Zeitlin, F. I. 1996. “L’origine de la femme et la femme origine: La Pandore d’Hésiode.” In Le métier du mythe: Lectures d’Hésiode, edited by Fabienne Blaise, Pierre Judet de La Combe, and Philippe Rousseau. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Zurbach, Julien. 2012. “Hésiode oriental ou: Le discours sur l’économie avant le logos oikonomikos.” In Stephanèphoros: De l’économie antique à l’Asie mineure, edited by Koray Konuk, 179–­91. Bordeaux: Ausonius.

Index locorum

Aristotle Economics ([Oec.]) (Pseudo-­Aristotle) 1343a1–­9: 33 1343a7–­9: 28, 148 1343a9: 140 1343a10–­11: 143, 149 1343a16: 148 1343a18: 76 1343a25–­27: 114 1343a25–­b2: 113 1343a27–­28: 149 1343a28: 40 1343a31–­b2: 114 1343b2–­6: 115 1343b8: 58 1343b13–­18: 58 1343b20: 65 1343b21–­23: 70 1343b23–­1344a6: 65 1343b26–­27: 162n12 1343b27: 65 1343b28: 166n2 1343b30: 65 1344a8–­9: 149 1344a9–­10: 66 1344a10: 66 1344a11: 66 1344a15: 66 1344a16: 66

1344a23: 76 1344a23–­25: 53 1344a25–­26: 76 1344a25: 51 1344a26: 83, 88 1344a30–­31: 89 1344a35–­b12: 89 1344b12: 89 1344b15–­16: 149 1344b17–­18: 89 1344b18–­19: 93 1344b22: 83 1344b22–­25: 120 1344b22–­27: 123, 140 1344b23–­25: 128 1344b32: 166n2 1345a14–­15: 17 1345a16–­17: 17 1345a17: 166n2 1345a24–­b3: 122 1345a33–­b1: 79 1345b4–­5: 27 1345b25: 166n2 1346a1–­2: 161n29 1346a27: 115 1347a18–­19: 116 1348b17–­18: 116 1348b22–­23: 116 1350a6–­15: 116

1352a9–­15: 116 1353b23–­26: 116 Generation of Animals (Gen. an.) 737a: 73 Magna Moralia ([Mag. Mor.]) 1194b22–­29: 67 Nicomachean Ethics (Eth. Nic.) 1094a1–­1095a21: 107 1094b2–­3: 149 1096b31: 159n33 1119b22–­1122a16: 166n22 1122a17–­1125a35: 166n22 1148a5: 164n16 1161b5: 81 1162a17: 67 1162a19: 67 1162a21: 67 1162a25: 67 1181b15–­16: 159n33 Politics (Pol.) 1252a8–­16: 31 1252a26–­31: 57

180  Index locorum Aristotle (continued) 1252a29–­30: 107 1252b13: 99 1252b28–­29: 114, 143 1252b29–­31: 149 1253a16–­18: 143 1253b3–­4: 76 1253b5: 51 1253b12–­14: 97 1253b24: 51 1254b18–­19: 82 1254b22–­24: 86 1254b25–­26: 92 1254b30: 166n2 1254b31–­32: 82 1255b12–­14: 81 1255b23–­30: 80 1255b30–­37: 85 1256a5–­6: 140 1256b23: 104 1256b26–­31: 48 1256b27: 104 1256b28–­29: 133 1256b30: 105, 166n2 1256b31–­32: 105 1256b34–­36: 106 1256b35–­38: 144 1256b40–­41: 106 1256b40–­1258a18: 48 1257a26: 166n2 1257a37: 166n2 1257b5: 166n4 1257b13: 166n2 1257b18–­19: 144 1257b19–­20: 105 1257b24: 106 1257b29: 106 1257b34: 107 1257b37–­38: 107 1257b38: 107 1258a3: 107 1258a6–­7: 107 1259a1: 47 1260a12: 86

1260b6–­8: 93 1277b24–­25: 120 1281a1–­2: 143 1287a40: 166n5 1302a32: 166n5 1302a39: 166n5 1302b5: 166n5 1324b1–­1325a5: 144 1331a30–b4: 127 1331b18: 127 1334b25–­26: 71 1334b30: 71 1334b30–­1336a2: 71 1334b32: 71 1334b33–­1335a6: 72 1335a3–­4: 72 1335b6: 58, 71 1335b7–­11: 72 1335b10–­11: 71 1335b12: 73 1335b12–­17: 72 1335b19–­21: 73 1335b21: 73 1335b24: 72 1335b28–­30: 72 1335b31: 72 1335b32: 72 1335b37: 72 1335b40: 72 1336a1: 72 1336a7: 82 1336a14–­15: 82 Diogenes Laertius Lives of Eminent Philosophers (Diog. Laert.) 2.66: 129 2.69: 129 2.75–­77: 129 2.81: 129 6.12: 160n64 6.16: 159n53 6.30–­31: 159n37 6.74: 159n37

6.88: 56 6.96–­97: 56 10.4: 118 10.6: 118 10.11: 117 10.16–­21: 118 10.18: 118 10.18–­19: 118 10.119: 117 10.120a: 117 10.121b: 117 Diogenes of Oenoanda Fragments (fr.) 56: 76 126: 118 Epicurus Letter to Herodotus (Ep. Hdt.) 73: 104 89: 104 Letter to Menoeceus (Ep. Men.) 127: 99 132: 104 133: 104 Letter to Pythocles (Ep. Pyth.) 41: 104 45: 104 88: 104 Principal Doctrines (RS) 6: 166n21 7: 166n21 14: 166n21 15: 103 27: 117 28: 166n21 40: 166n21

Index locorum 181 Vatican Sayings (Sent. Vat.) 23: 117 25: 104 28: 117 41: 105 44: 143 Philodemus of Gadara On Vices (Vices) 9 7.26–­33: 48 8.45–­46: 75 11.3–­8: 108 12.8–­9: 120 12.15–­17: 17 12.17–­19: 103 12.21: 160n68 12.23–­24: 120 12.26–­27: 103 13.21: 166n8 15.6–­12: 134 15.46: 108 16.3–­6: 108 16.21–­30: 134 16.37–­39: 134 17.2–­3: 49 17.7: 48 17.12: 166n2 17.21–­27: 49 17.47: 166n2 18.6–­7: 134 18.40–­44: 148 18.41: 49 18.42: 166n8 19.30: 166n2 19.41: 49 19.45: 49 22.1: 166n2 23.1–­29: 110 23.22–­32: 143 23.22–­43: 117 24.6–­9: 134 24.6–­11: 108 24.19–­29: 135

24.31–­33: 135 24.33–­40: 136 24.41–46: 135 25.1–­4: 136 25.23–­26: 136 25.31–­36: 49 25.31–­48: 136 26.9–­14: 18 28.3–­4: 120 Plato Cratylus (Cra.) 417a: 139 417b: 139 Euthydemus (Euthyd.) 279a: 141 280b–­e: 149 280d: 141 280e: 141 281a: 141 288d: 149 289e–­290d: 150 292c–­d: 150 Gorgias (Grg.) 476b: 163n18 (chap. 3) Laws (Leg.) 1.631b–­d: 61 2.665c2–­3: 94 3.695e–­696b: 113 4.704d: 112 4.705b: 112 5.736e4: 45 5.737d: 102, 108 5.737e: 113 5.741b2–­3: 102 5.742e6: 103 5.743d: 103, 115 5.744d–­745b: 146 5.744d2–­745b2: 146 5.744d3–­5: 102

5.744d8–­e5: 103 5.745c–­d: 113 5.745d4: 102 6.754e: 166n5 6.759e3: 163n17 (chap. 4) 6.771d: 68 6.773a–­c: 61 6.774b3: 163n17 (chap. 4) 6.774c–­d: 61 6.775c: 74 6.775c–­d: 74 6.775d–­e: 74 6.775d7: 93 6.776b–­d: 163n10 6.776d–­e: 77 6.777b4–­5: 93 6.777c3: 93 6.777e2: 93 6.777e5: 93 6.781c: 69 6.783d: 73 6.783e–­784a: 74 6.785b: 74 7.804d: 68 7.805c–­d: 68 7.805e: 68 7.806d–­e: 76 8.831c: 166n5 8.835b: 166n4 8.836e–­837a: 165n25 8.842c: 115 8.848d: 126 8.849a: 126 8.849e: 126 9.870b6–­c2: 108 9.877d: 146 11.915d: 127 11.917b–­d: 165n24 11.923a–­c: 115 11.923b: 68 12.949d: 115

182  Index locorum Plato (continued) Meno (Men.) 91a: 161n12 Protagoras (Prt.) 318e–­319a: 161n12 Republic (Resp.) 1.335c: 163n18 (chap. 3) 2.369b–­c: 42 2.369c: 43 2.369e: 43 2.370a–­b: 68 2.371b: 43 2.371e: 82 2.372d: 99 3.416d–­417b: 43 3.417a: 83 4.422e–­423a: 101 4.423b–­423c: 102 4.423e–­424a: 43 5.455d–­e: 68 5.463a–­b: 43 5.463b1: 45 5.464b–­e: 43 5.469b–­c: 163n11 6.502d1: 45 6.505e–­506b: 150 8.543b: 43 8.543c: 165n14 8.547a–­c: 43 8.549e–­550a: 77 8.557c: 112 8.558c: 112 9.573d–­574d: 129 9.573e: 129 9.577e: 129 9.578a: 129 9.579e: 129 Statesman (Plt.) 259b2–­c5: 31 259c6–­9: 47

281e1–­3: 44 287e4–­5: 120 287e6: 45 287e8–­288a2: 45 287e9: 45 288b6: 45 288b6–­8: 46 289c4–­290a7: 46 289e1: 46 289e4–­290a2: 46 305c–­d: 150 308d: 57 310b: 60 310c–­d: 62 Plutarch Life of Pericles (Per.) 16.3–­6: 86 Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War (Thuc.) 1.6–­17: 165n26 2.38.2: 113 Xenophon Cyropaedia (Cyr.) 8.3.38: 114 Economics (Oec.) 1.2: 28 1.4: 100 1.8–­15: 108 1.13: 141 1.14: 142 1.15: 146 1.16–­23: 108 1.19–­22: 109 2.1: 109, 132 2.1–­7: 109 2.2: 132 2.2–­4: 100, 145 2.3–­4: 132 2.4–­7: 132

2.5–­6: 145 2.10: 38 2.12–­13: 145 2.21–­23: 145 3.2: 121 3.3: 121 3.3–­10: 51 3.4: 76 3.10: 64 3.15: 63 4.4: 40 4.9–­11: 40 5.1: 115 5.3: 114 5.1–­17: 39 5.1–­20: 113 5.4: 40, 115 5.5: 39, 115 5.6: 40, 114 5.7: 40 5.8: 40 5.12: 40, 114 5.14: 40 5.15–­16: 40 6.4: 141 6.5–­11: 113 6.8: 39 6.11: 166n2 6.12: 145 6.17: 145 7.1–­2: 87 7.6: 91 7.11: 63 7.12: 70 7.13: 63 7.14: 64 7.15: 36, 39, 59, 70, 100, 145 7.16: 36, 60, 132 7.17–­32: 37 7.18: 58, 60 7.18–­22: 64 7.19: 70 7.21: 70, 120

Index locorum 183 7.23: 70 7.24: 64, 69 7.24–­25: 64 7.27: 99, 110, 132 7.30: 60, 63, 70 7.33: 37 7.36: 37 7.37: 90 7.39–­40: 37 7.40: 128 7.41: 80 8.1–­23: 123 8.1–­9.10: 37 8.2: 110 8.3: 123 8.4–­9: 123 8.12: 166n4 8.14–­15: 123 8.20: 124 9.4: 124 9.5: 89 9.6: 124 9.6–­7: 124 9.7: 80, 124 9.8: 125, 132 9.9: 80 9.10–­11: 82 9.11: 70

9.12: 90 9.14–­15: 84 10.4: 59, 64 10.5: 64 10.7: 59, 64 10.9–­13: 64 10.10: 82 11.7: 133 11.13: 38 11.14: 70 11.19: 70 12.1–­2: 87 12.3: 91 12.4: 91 12.5: 90 12.6–­7: 91 12.16: 99 12.19: 92 13.3–­5: 91 13.5: 160n5 13.6–­8: 164n24 13.9: 92 14.10: 166n5 16–­19.14: 81 16.1: 48 20.21: 131 21.2: 84 21.10: 91

Memorabilia (Mem.) 1.5.1: 165n16 2.1.1: 165n16 3.4.1–­12: 32 3.4.6–­7: 32 3.4.12: 36 3.6.2: 37 3.6.7–­8: 161n31 3.6.14: 160n5 Ways and Means (Vect.) 1.1: 116 1.2: 115 2.7: 38 3.1: 37 3.2: 166n2 3.4: 37 3.6: 38 4.10: 166n2 4.36–­38: 38 4.42: 166n2 5.8: 38 5.11: 37 6.1–­2: 39

General Index

agriculture, agricultural work, 2, 12, 29, 36, 39, 40, 45, 48, 76, 81, 82, 105, 110, 111, 113–­15, 117, 118, 130, 149 Arendt, Hannah, 4, 15, 138 Aristotle, 2, 5, 11, 13, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 29–­31, 33, 41, 42, 47, 48, 51, 52, 55, 57, 58, 60, 65–­69, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80–­83, 85, 87, 92, 97, 98, 99, 101, 103, 105–­7, 113, 120, 126–­28, 133, 140, 142, 143, 149 Critobulus, 28, 36, 38, 39, 63, 64, 90, 98, 100, 101, 108–­10, 114, 121, 123, 131, 132, 140, 142, 145, 146 Descat, Raymond, 24 Diogenes of Oenoanda, 76, 118 Diogenes the Cynic, 2, 18, 99, 119 Finley, M. I., 13, 21, 23, 25, 26, 147 Foucault, Michel, 55 Ischomachus, 36, 38, 39, 58–­60, 63–­65, 70, 81, 83–­85, 87, 89–­92, 93, 98, 100, 101, 109, 110, 114, 120, 123–­25, 128, 132, 133, 145, 146, 150

military, 20, 38, 39, 40, 115, 150 Philodemus of Gadara, 26, 33, 34, 48, 49, 52, 75, 81, 99, 103, 105, 108, 110, 111, 117, 120, 133–­36, 141–­43, 148, 150 Plato, 2, 11, 13, 17, 21, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 41, 42, 44–­46, 55–­57, 60, 62, 63, 68, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 82, 83, 84, 93, 94, 98, 99, 101–­3, 108, 112, 113, 115, 117, 120, 122, 123, 125, 127–­29, 139, 141, 142, 144, 146, 148, 149 Polanyi, Karl, 5, 6, 22, 23 poor, poverty, 26, 45, 61, 84, 100–­104, 109, 110, 116, 117, 129, 132, 145, 146 Schumpeter, Joseph A., 13, 14, 15, 23 slavery, slaves, 18, 38, 42, 46, 51–­53, 76–­94, 98, 100, 109–­11, 116–­18, 120, 122, 124, 126, 132, 139, 142, 145, 149, 154 Socrates, 17, 19, 28, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37–­39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 48, 60, 63, 64, 76, 83, 84, 87, 90, 92, 98–­102, 108–­11, 114, 121, 123, 124, 128, 131–­33, 139–­42, 145, 146, 149, 150

186  General Index usefulness, utility, utilitarian, 40, 67, 90, 95, 117, 120–­23, 124, 127, 137, 138, 139, 149 values, 21, 26, 37, 59, 102, 112, 114, 115, 136, 140, 146 wealth, wealthy, 17, 18, 24, 26, 27, 38, 45, 47, 48, 60, 61, 77, 83, 84, 95, 97–­109, 111, 113, 115, 120, 128, 129, 132–­34, 136, 140–­42, 144–­46

Weber, Max, 13, 15 women, 11, 36, 37, 53, 55, 58, 59, 62–­73, 75, 84, 87, 91, 100, 120, 122, 124 Xenophon, 2, 11–­13, 17, 19, 25, 27–­29, 31–­41, 48, 49, 51, 52, 55, 58, 60, 63, 65, 66, 69, 70, 75, 76, 77, 79, 81–­85, 89, 90, 93, 98–­100, 107, 111, 113–­16, 120–­23, 127, 128, 130, 131, 140, 142, 144, 146, 147, 150