Synopses & Reviews
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III INDUSTRY AND SOCIAL ECONOMY Since industry always develops with commerce, Athens became the manufacturing, as well as the commercial, center of Greece. Of course, Athens never became a great industrial center like the factory cities of to-day, for she produced chiefly for home consumption, and most of her exports were the manufactured products of small shops. But from imported raw material, Athens manufactured shields and other metal work. She exported her surplus of wine and oil, and also clay jars, painted vases, statuettes, blocks of Pentelic marble, and the creations of her silversmiths. Xenophon tells us of one merchant who ground only barley meal and yet, from the earnings in this business, was able to maintain not only himself and his domestics, but many pigs and cattle besides. Frequently he realized such large profits in the business that he contributed to the burden of public services. Another man lived luxuriously from the earnings of a bread factory, while others gained a good livelihood out of the cloak business and the manufacture of shawls and sleeveless tunics. A shoemaker is said to have received from the earnings of his employees two obols?about five cents per head?or $16.50 a year. Demosthenes had an income of $725 a year from two shops which he maintained; one, a cutlery; the other devoted to the manufacture of beds. Most of the industrial activities of Athens appear tohave been carried on by workmen in their own shops and homes. The handicraft-domestic system seems to have quite generally prevailed.1 Industrial workers were craftsmen, not factory hands like the workers of to-day. We must remember that in Greece agricultural work was still supreme. It was regarded as the most commendable occupation because it made those who followed it sel...
Synopsis
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