Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/145

V learning, have had an influence beyond their own ranks.

Those free persons who are not dwellers in the city, i.e. the fortress, like the king or the leading nobles, appear in Homer as either, i.e. tillers of the soil, shepherds, and herdsmen, or, on the other hand, as , or , namely, craftsmen, tradesmen, and what we should call professional men. All these clearly formed part of the community, as distinguished from the slaves; they served in war (Il. ii. 362), i.e. according to the groups of kinship in which they lived at home. On the whole, the "people" of the Homeric age must be thought of as numerous, industrious, and content with their position as labourers on the land or artisans in the city.

We do not know for certain what part of Greece the Homeric descriptions represent; but in historical times the lower populations of many States do not accord with them, owing to changes caused by migrations and conquests, of which the greatest was

3 This population may have been gradually increased in certain ways, e.g. by liberation of slaves, and by reception of foreigners skilled in some craft; as e.g. in Od. xvii. 383, "craftsmen of the people, a prophet or a healer of ills, a shipwright, or a godlike minstrel"; but whether such persons were admitted into the and  must be very doubtful.