Ill THE FARMERS 87

from meaning a peasant to meaning a bucolic and uneducated
man, even a *barbanan'3 or a man 'making rude jokes, and
telling idle tales in a stupid fashion, relevant to nothing',1 The
god who took no notice of the fact that in his temple someone
loudly broke wind was called a true peasant.2 Demos himself,
when finally dealing with the demagogues, will be on their
trail as a 'fierce agrotkos', he will be a peasant again then, but
he will also be rough and rude.3 Under the influence of the
sophists, town language, above all among the younger genera-
tion, became both refined and affected.4 When speaking in
public, the peasant had to face the arrogance of the towns-
people, and the point is specially stressed when he did not
speak like a rustic 5 If a man found it difficult to proceed in
his speech, he sometimes used the proverbial phrase of an ox
standing on his tongue — a bold allusion to a countryman's
inhibitions.6 It was possible to distinguish three sorts of Attic
pronunciation: 'the average speech of the whole Pohs, the
town-speech which had a flavour of effeminacy, and the rugged
speech with a flavour of the country'.7 It is understandable
that as a rule the farmer did not like to speak in town before
the public, and that the educated townsman did not care for
country people, nor they for the man 'who had tramped the
town and had the knack of words'.8 4If you search a bit, you
will find in the country the anti-heliast's seedling', but those
who always go to the courts and make speeches before the
juries no longer care for rural life and least of all for its hard
labour.9 There is no trace in comedy of the attitude well
known from many ancient writers,1 ° when the peasant is con-
trasted with every other kind of manual worker, when he alone
is not a despised banausos. This is a very remarkable fact in

1 K 41, C 492, 6z8f, 646, 655, W iszof Cf also Eur Rhes. 266, 271
2 PI 705 3 K.SoS 4frg 198
5 adesp 627, 694 Cf also E 24 iff
6 Stratus 67, cf Aisch. Ag. 36, Theognis 815 None of these passages can
vindicate the explanation that the phrase indicates a silence caused by bribery
(a coin showing the picture of a bulP)
7 frg 685 This fragment, in spite of the differentiation it makes, seems to
give proof of the unity of town and country, each had an accent of Its own, but
at the same time there was a way of speech common to the whole of the Pohs
8 Eur Eakch 717 (transl. by VerraU) Cf also Or 902^", Ifh T 275
9 B.I 095" —adesp 382 — 6.143 2ff, PI 903, frg 221*
10 Cf , e.g , Xen Oik, ch 4 and 5