248 MONEY AND PROPERTY Ix

wealth.1 On the other hand, the importance and usefulness of
wealth were compafed with the advantages of noble birth or
personal character.2 It needed only one step further to realize
the advantages of poverty.

Nowhere is this view more strikingly expressed than in the
scene of Poverty in the Ploutos.* Poverty, generally condemned
as a misfortune and humiliation or even as a cause of crime,
is described as forcing men to work, and making them strong
and enduring, even better and more pious Thus poverty
became the creator of all human achievement and human
civilization 4 It is typical of the working of the Greek mind
that even at a time when the importance of economic factors
had become obvious and their impact on social life far stronger
than before, the problem of wealth and poverty was essentially
regarded as a moral question Whatever the specific social or
economic issue, its influence on the community was primarily
one of individual morals This is probably the chief reason
why the Greeks never succumbed to an economic interpreta-
tion of political and social life.

The measures taken against the rich did not lead to econo-
mic disaster. Though about the end of our period many
might think that there was no prospect of economic recovery,
as we can see, for example, from a speech by Lysias in 3 8 9 B c ,5
the following years and decades proved the contrary to be the
case It is most surprising — especially in the light of modern
experience — how easily the danger of inflation passed The
copper coins, introduced in 406, could be withdrawn after
thirteen years without great difficulty e We must assume that
other difficulties of which we know nothing were solved just
as easily. Athens overcame quickly enough the grave economic
crises of the political collapse and its aftermath, and later there
was never a social revolution such as occurred in many other
Greek States. This was certainly not the result of Athens
being a democracy, for public payments and benefactions

1 Cf , e g , Eur Hek 622$, 864$ Htk %J$W

* See, e g., Eur. Htk 86off, E!, 37!", 373$ 426$ 941 ff, Photn. 404^ 442,
frg. 248-9, 285, 326

* E 605^ Ps -Xen. I, 5, Eur E! tftf -Pl^ioff, 527$ cf Eur. Alex 36,
- 237-8, 248-9, 327.
& Lysias, XXVIII, 15, though he obviously exaggerates.
B F.720; see above, p 222. —