Farmers

And, what is more, I notice that in their opinion about the good land they generally agree exactly with experienced farmers.

First then, Socrates, I want to show you that what is called the most complicated problem in agriculture by the authors who write most accurately on the theory of the subject, but are not practical farmers, is really a simple matter.

The truth is that, whereas other artists conceal more or less the most important points in their own art, the farmer who plants best is most pleased when he is being watched, so is he who sows best.

the farmers attend to their fields, the craftsmen busy themselves with their crafts, and the merchants apply themselves wholly to their trades.

Aristotle says that, the whole multitude at Athens being divided into farmers and craftsmen, their tribes were four, and of each of the tribes there were three parts, which they call thirds and brotherhoods, and of each of these there were thirty clans, and each clan was composed of thirty men.

In old times the multitude of the Athenians, before Cleisthenes arranged the matters concerning the tribes, was divided into farmers and craftsmen.

rather he was the first to set apart separately the eupatrids and the farmers and the craftsmen, and assigning to the eupatrids the knowledge of divine things and the providing of the magistrates and the being teachers of the laws and expounders of sacred and holy things, he established the other citizens, as it were, on an equal footing—the eupatrids being thought to excel in reputation, the farm …

do you also take your turn and share for a little while in the class that performs public services, since those engaged in mining have suffered reverses while you farmers are prospering beyond what is your due.

and farmers wear long hair, never having even heard the name of philosophy, and, by Zeus, the most of the barbarians, some for shelter, some thinking it befits them.

If then we are forming true guardians and keepers of our liberties, men least likely to harm the commonwealth, but the proponent of the other ideal is thinking of farmers and happy feasters as it were in a festival and not in a civic community, he would have something else in mind than a state.

For in like manner we could clothe the farmers in robes of state and deck them with gold and bid them cultivate the soil at their pleasure, and we could make the potters recline on couches from left to right before the fire drinking toasts and feasting with their wheel alongside to potter with when they are so disposed, and we can make all the others happy in the same fashion, so that thus the ent …

in farming the landowners, in illness the patients, in training those who are in training, in fact everybody concerned with anything that needs care, look after it themselves if they think they know how, but, if not, they obey those who know, and not only when such are present, but they even send for them when absent, that they may obey them and do the right thing.

if it is farming, as good farmers;