William Gladstone - Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3

And I believe that, were it not too late to change a name, ‘political œcophely’ precisely expresses the idea of the science, which, having its fountain-head in good housekeeping, treats, when it has reached its expansion and maturity, of the ‘Wealth of Nations.’

It was not surprising, that the Greeks of the heroic age should have a name for the business of growing wealthy; for it was one to which Hellenes, as well as Pelasgians, appear to have taken kindly. Of this we find various tokens. Though the spirit of acquisition had not yet reached the point, at which it becomes injurious to the general development of man, we appear to have in the distinguished house of the Pelopids at least one isolated example of its excess. We have the friendly testimony of Nestor, as well as the fierce invective of Achilles 169 169 Il. ix. 70-73, 330-3. i. 121. , to show that in Agamemnon it constituted a weakness: and he is distinguished in war from the other great chieftains 170 170 Il. xi. 100, 110. , by his habit of forthwith stripping those whom he had slain. But Ulysses also, to whom we may be certain that Homer did not mean in this matter to impute a fault, was, according to Eumæus 171 171 Od. xiv. 96-104. , richer than any twenty; and after making every allowance for friendly exaggeration, we cannot doubt that Homer meant us to understand that, in the wealth of those days, he was very opulent. The settlement from time to time of Phœnicians in Greece, and the ready docility of the Hellenes in the art of navigation, are signs to the same effect. The idea of wealth again is deeply involved in the name of ὄλβος, which appears to mean a god-given felicity: and μάκαρ is the epithet in common of the gods, the rich man, and the happy man 172 172 The gods, Il. i. 599 et alibi . The rich man, Il. xi. 68. Od. i. 217. The happy man, Od. vi. 158. xi. 482. Il. iii. 182. xxiv. 377. . Not that the Greeks of those times were, in a greater degree than ourselves, the slaves of wealth, but that they spoke out in their simplicity, here, as also with other matters, what we keep in the shade; and thus they made a greater show of particular propensities, even while they had less of them in reality.

But, even more than from particular signs, I estimate the capacity of the Homeric Greeks for acquisition from the state of facts in the poems. Here we observe a remarkable temperance, and even a detestation of excess, in all the enjoyments of the senses, combined with the possession, not only of a rude abundance in meat, corn, and wine, but with the principle of ornament, largely, though inartificially, established in their greater houses and gardens; with considerable stores of the precious as well as the useful metals, and of fine raiment; and with the possession of somewhat rich works of art, both in metal and embroidery. This picture seems to belong to a stage, although a very early one, in a process of rapid advance to material wealth and prosperity. The wealth and the simplicity of manners, taken together, would seem to imply that they had not yet had time to be corrupted by it, and consequently that, by their energy and prudence, they had gathered it promptly and with ease.

The precious metals not a measure of value.

The commercial intercourse of the age, however, was still an intercourse of barter. There can hardly be a stronger sign of the rudeness of trading relations, than the Homeric use of the word χρεῖος. It signifies both the obligation to pay a debt regularly contracted for value received (Od. iii. 367), and the liability to sustain retaliation after an act of rapine (Il. xi. 686, 8). The possession of the precious metals was probably confined to a very few. Both these, and iron, which apparently stood next to them in value, formed prizes at the Games; in which, speaking generally, only kings and chiefs took part. A certain approximation had been made towards the use of them as money, that is, as the measure of value for other commodities. For, as they were divided into fixed quantities, those quantities were in all likelihood certified by some mark or stamp upon them. Nor do we ever find mere unwrought gold and silver estimated or priced in any other commodity. The arms of Glaucus are indeed ἑκατομβοῖα 173 173 Il. vi. 236. , and they are χρύσεα. But this means gilded or adorned with gold; an object made of gold would with Homer be παγχρύσεος. Such are the θύσανοι, the gold drops or tassels of Minerva’s Ægis; each of which is worth an hundred oxen. Thus gold, when manufactured, even if not when in mass, had its value expressed in oxen 174 174 Il. ii. 448, 9. .

It is possible that gold and silver may, to a limited extent, have been used as a standard, or as a medium of exchange. The payment of the judge’s fee in the Eighteenth Iliad suggests, though it does not absolutely require, this supposition. Like writing in the Homeric age, like printing when it was executed from a mould among the Ancients, the practice may have existed essentially, but in a form and on a scale that deprived it of importance, by limiting its extent.

Oxen in some degree a measure of value.

The arms of Glaucus and Diomed, and the drops of Minerva’s Ægis, are, as we have seen, valued or priced in oxen. The tripod, which was the first prize for the wrestlers of the Twenty-third Book, was valued at twelve oxen: the captive woman, who was the second, accomplished in works of industry, was worth four 175 175 Il. xxiii. 702-5. .

But Laertes gave for Euryclea no less than twenty oxen, or rather the value of twenty oxen (ἐεικοσάβοια δ’ ἔδωκεν, Od. i. 431). We need not ascribe the difference in costliness to the superior merit of Euryclea; but we may presume the explanation to be, that Laertes, in time of peace, paid for Euryclea the high price of an importing market; whereas the Greeks, in a state of war before Troy, had probably more captives than they knew how to feed. They were, at any rate, in the country of production: and the price was low accordingly.

When we find it said that a woman slave was estimated at four oxen, we are not enabled at once to judge from such a statement whether oxen were a measure of value, or whether the meaning simply was, that a man, who wanted such a slave, would give four oxen for her. But the case of Euryclea clears up this point. For what Laertes gave was not the twenty oxen, but something equal to them, something in return for which they could ordinarily be had. Again, Lycaon brought Achilles the value of a hundred oxen, a hundred oxen’s worth 176 176 Il. xxi. 79. . In this case, then, oxen are used as a medium for the expression of value.

In a passage of the Odyssey, we find that the Suitors, when they try to make terms with Ulysses in his wrath, promise as follows by the mouth of Eurymachus 177 177 Od. xxii. 57-9. ;

This has been rendered as a double engagement to pay the oxen and the metals. It seems to me, from the construction of the passage, as if it would be more properly understood to be a declaration, that they would each of them bring him a compensation of the value of twenty oxen in gold, and in copper. If Eurymachus had meant to express the restoration of the live stock of Ulysses, it is not likely that he would have spoken of oxen only, especially in the goat-feeding and swine-feeding Ithaca.