CHAPTER XII
ECONOMICS AND THE STATE
i
ONE of the chief points in the political programme described
by Penkles in the Funeral Speech is that all citizens should
devote their attention to both house and State, to private as
well as public affairs l It can be maintained that at that time,
and later even more, the citizens of Athens represented a
combination of the political and the economic types of man
Naturally members of the upper class had more opportunity
to devote themselves entirely to political life, but democracy
demanded an interest in political activity from the great mass
of the people. In fact, political leaders emerged from the
middle classes at the very time when in these classes political
preoccupation was gradually giving way to economic interests
The ordinary citizen then was neither by instinct nor by
desire the 'political animal' whom Aristotle's phrase has made
famous and who is generally believed to be the true pattern of
the Greek citizen.
Let us recall some of the evidence of comedy The citizen
who is exploited by Kleon is depicted as a stupid and wealthy
man who is not concerned with politics, but actually afraid of
them. He is called apragmon, the unpolitical man 2 Thus
Peithetairos and Euelpides, though citizens belonging to tribe
and clan, left Athens in order to find 'an unpolitical place',
far from the unrest of politics and law-courts.3 It is, like the
ideal of peace, a quietist ideal, but it is here confined to the
internal affairs of the State; it springs from the reaction against
the agitation and restlessness of democracy. The sycophant
who boasts that everything concerning the State lies in his
hands is an undesirable type of leader, especially in the view
of a good citizen.4 Nevertheless he rejects a quiet life as
inhuman and unendurable, and in this he resembles the
aTlmc 11,40,2
2 K.26rff See p 109, n 5, and 017 article mentioned there
*B33f?44 *
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