I once heard him discuss
 the subject of estate management in the following
 manner.
 Tell me, Critobulus, is
 estate management the name of a branch of knowledge,
 like medicine, smithing and carpentry? 
 I think so, replied
 Critobulus.

And can we say what the
 function of estate management is, just as we can say
 what is the function of each of these arts? 
 Well, I suppose that the
 business of a good estate manager is to manage his
 own estate well.

Yes, and in case he were
 put in charge of another man’s estate, could he not,
 if he chose, manage it as well as he manages his
 own? Anyone who understands carpentry can do for
 another exactly the same work as he does for
 himself; and so, I presume, can a good estate
 manager. 
 I think so,
 Socrates .

Is it possible, then, for
 one who understands this art, even if he has no
 property of his own, to earn money by managing
 another man’s estate, just as he might do by
 building him a house? 
 Yes, of course; and he
 would get a good salary if, after taking over an
 estate, he continued to pay all outgoings, and to
 increase the estate by showing a balance. 
 But what do we mean now
 by an estate?

Is it the same thing as a house, or is all property that
 one possesses outside the house also part of the
 estate? 
 Well, I think that even
 if the property is situated in different cities,
 everything a man possesses is part of his estate.

Do not some men possess
 enemies? 
 Of course; some in fact
 possess many. 
 Shall we include their
 enemies in their possessions? 
 It would be ridiculous,
 surely, if one actually received a salary for
 increasing the number of a man’s enemies!

Because, you know, we
 supposed a man’s estate to be the same as his
 property. 
 To be sure—meaning
 thereby the good things that he possesses. No, of
 course I don’t call any bad thing that he may
 possess property. 
 You seem to use the word
 property of whatever is profitable to its
 owner. 
 Certainly; but what is
 harmful I regard as loss rather than wealth.

Yes, and consequently if
 a man buys a horse and doesn’t know how to manage
 it, and so keeps on getting thrown and injuring
 himself by trying to ride it, the horse is not
 wealth to him, I presume? 
 No, if we assume that
 wealth is a good thing. 
 It follows that land is
 not wealth either to a man who works it in such a
 way that his work results in loss. 
 To be sure: even land is
 not wealth if it makes us starve instead of
 supporting us.

And the same will hold
 good of sheep, will it not? if a man loses through
 ignorance of sheep farming, his sheep too will not
 be wealth to him? 
 I think not. 
 It seems, then, that your
 view is this: what is profitable is wealth, what is
 harmful is not wealth. 
 Quite so.

That is to say, the same
 things are wealth and not wealth, according as one
 understands or does not understand how to use them.
 A flute, for example, is wealth to one who is
 competent to play it, but to an incompetent person
 it is no better than useless stones. 
 True—unless he sells it.

We now see that to
 persons who don’t understand its use, a flute is
 wealth if they sell it, but not wealth if they keep
 it instead of selling. 
 Yes,
 Socrates ,
 and our argument runs consistently, since we have
 said that what is profitable is wealth. For a flute,
 if not put up for sale, is not wealth, because it is
 useless: if put up for sale it becomes wealth.

Yes, commented
 Socrates ,
 provided he knows how to sell; but again, in case
 he sells it for something he doesn’t know how to
 use, even then the sale doesn’t convert it into
 wealth, according to you. 
 You imply,
 Socrates ,
 that even money isn’t wealth to one who doesn’t know
 how to use it.

And you, I think, agree
 with me to this extent, that wealth is that from
 which a man can derive profit. At any rate, if a man
 uses his money to buy a mistress who makes him worse
 off in body and soul and estate, how can his money
 be profitable to him then? 
 By no means, unless we
 are ready to maintain that the weed called
 nightshade, which drives you mad if you eat it, is
 wealth.

Then money is to be kept
 at a distance, Critobulus, if one doesn’t know how
 to use it, and not to be included in wealth. But how
 about friends? If one knows how to make use of them
 so as to profit by them, what are they to be
 called? 
 Wealth, of course, and
 much more so than cattle, if it be true that they
 are more profitable than cattle.

Yes, and it follows from
 what you say that enemies too are wealth to anyone
 who can derive profit from them. 
 Well, that is my
 opinion. 
 Consequently it is the
 business of a good estate manager to know how to
 deal with enemies so as to derive profit from them
 too. 
 Most decidedly. 
 In fact, Critobulus, you
 cannot fail to notice that many private persons have
 been indebted to war for the increase of their
 estates, and many princes too.

Yes, so far so good,
 Socrates .
 But sometimes we come across persons possessed of
 knowledge and means whereby they can increase their
 estates if they work, and we find that they are
 unwilling to do so; and consequently we see that
 their knowledge profits them nothing. What are we to
 make of that? In these cases, surely, neither their
 knowledge nor their property is wealth?

Are you trying to raise a
 discussion about slaves, Critobulus? 
 Oh no, not at all: I am
 referring to persons of whom some, at any rate, are
 considered men of the highest lineage. I observe
 that there are persons skilled in the arts of war or
 peace, as the case may be, who are unwilling to
 practice them, and the reason, I think, is just
 this, that they have no master over them.

What, no master over
 them, when, in spite of their prayers for prosperity
 and their desire to do what will bring them good,
 they are thwarted in their intentions by the powers
 that rule them?

And who, pray, may these
 unseen rulers be? 
 No, not unseen, but open
 and undisguised, surely! And very vicious rulers
 they are too, as you yourself must see, if at least
 you regard idleness and moral cowardice and
 negligence as vice.

Aye, and then there is a set of deceitful mistresses that
 pretend to be pleasures—such as gambling and
 consorting with bad companions: even the victims of
 their deception find as time goes on that these,
 after all, are really pains concealed beneath a thin
 veneer of pleasures, and that they are hindering
 them from all profitable work by their influence
 over them.

But there are other men,
 Socrates ,
 whose energy is not hindered by these influences, in
 fact they have an eager desire to work and to make
 an income: nevertheless they exhaust their estates
 and are beset with difficulties.

Yes, they too are slaves,
 and hard indeed are their masters: some are in
 bondage to gluttony, some to lechery, some to drink,
 and some to foolish and costly ambitions. And so
 hard is the rule of these passions over every man
 who falls into their clutches, that so long as they
 see that he is strong and capable of work, they
 force him to pay over all the profits of his toil,
 and to spend it on their own desires; but no sooner
 do they find that he is too old to work, than they
 leave him to an old age of misery, and try to fasten
 the yoke on other shoulders.

Ah, Critobulus, we must fight for our freedom against
 these tyrants as persistently as if they were armed
 men trying to enslave us. Indeed, open enemies may
 be gentlemen, and when they enslave us, may, by
 chastening, purge us of our faults and cause us to
 live better lives in future. But such mistresses as
 these never cease to plague men in body and soul and
 estate all the time that they have dominion over
 them.

The word was now with
 Critobulus, who continued thus:
 Well, I think you have
 told me quite enough about such passions as these,
 and when I examine myself I find, I think, that I
 have them fairly well under control; and therefore,
 if you will advise me what I should do to increase
 my estate, I don’t think those mistresses, as you
 call them, are likely to hinder me. So do not
 hesitate to give me any good advice you can: unless,
 indeed, you have made up your mind that we are rich
 enough already,
 Socrates ,
 and think we have no need of more money?

Oh, if you mean to
 include me, I certainly think I have no need of more
 money and am rich enough. But you seem to me to be
 quite poor, Critobulus, and at times, I assure you,
 I feel quite sorry for you.

And how much, pray, 
 asked Critobulus, laughing, would your property
 fetch at a sale, do you suppose,
 Socrates ,
 and how much would mine? 
 Well, if I found a good
 buyer, I think the whole of my goods and chattels,
 including the house, might readily sell for five
 minae. Yours, I feel sure,
 would fetch more than a hundred times that sum.

And in spite of that
 estimate, you really think you have no need of money
 and pity me for my poverty? 
 Yes, because my property
 is sufficient to satisfy my wants, but I don’t think
 you would have enough to keep up the style you are
 living in and to support your reputation, even if
 your fortune were three times what it is.

How can that be? 
 exclaimed Critobulus.
 Because, in the first
 place, explained
 Socrates ,
 I notice that you are bound to offer many large
 sacrifices; else, I fancy, you would get into
 trouble with gods and men alike. Secondly, it is
 your duty to entertain many strangers, on a generous
 scale too. Thirdly, you have to give dinners and
 play the benefactor to the citizens, or you lose
 your following.

Moreover, I observe that already the state is exacting
 heavy contributions from you: you must needs keep
 horses, pay for choruses and gymnastic competitions,
 and accept presidencies; and if war
 breaks out, I know they will require you to maintain
 a ship and pay taxes that will nearly crush you.
 Whenever you seem to fall short of what is expected
 of you, the Athenians will certainly punish you as
 though they had caught you robbing them.

Besides all this, I notice that you imagine yourself to
 be a rich man; you are indifferent to money, and yet
 go courting minions, as though the cost were nothing
 to you. And that is why I pity you, and fear that
 you may come to grief and find yourself reduced to
 penury.

Now, if I ran short of money, no doubt you know as well
 as I do that I should not lack helpers who would
 need to contribute very little to fill my cup to
 overflowing. But your friends, though far better
 supplied with means to support their establishment
 than you, yet look to receive help from you.

I cannot dispute this,
 Socrates , 
 said Critobulus, but it is time for you to take me
 in hand, and see that I don’t become a real object
 of pity. 
 At this
 Socrates 
 exclaimed, What, don’t you think it strange,
 Critobulus, that a little while ago, when I said I
 was rich, you laughed at me, as though I did not
 even know the meaning of riches, and would not cease
 until you had proved me wrong and made me own that
 my possessions were less than one-hundredth part of
 yours, and yet now you bid me take you in hand and
 see that you don’t become in literal truth a poor
 man?

Well,
 Socrates ,
 I see that you understand one process by which
 wealth is created—how to create a balance. So a man
 who saves on a small income can, I suppose, very
 easily show a large surplus with a large one.

Then don’t you remember
 saying just now in our conversation, when you
 wouldn’t give me leave to utter a syllable, that if
 a man doesn’t know how to manage horses, his horses
 are not wealth to him, nor his land, sheep, money or
 anything else, if he doesn’t know how to manage
 them? Now these are the sources from which income is
 derived: and how do you suppose that I can possibly
 know how to manage any of these things, seeing that
 I never yet possessed any one of them?

Still we held that, even
 if a man happens to have no wealth, there is such a
 thing as a science of household management. Then
 what reason is there why you should not know
 it? 
 Exactly the same reason,
 of course, that a man would have for not knowing how
 to play on the flute if he had never possessed one
 himself and had never borrowed one to learn on.

That is just my case with regard to estate management;
 for never having possessed wealth myself, I have not
 had an opportunity of learning on an instrument of
 my own, and nobody has ever let me handle his, until
 you made your offer. Beginners, I fancy, are apt to
 spoil the lyres they learn on; and if I attempted to
 learn to manage estates by practising on yours,
 possibly I might spoil it entirely for you.

Ah,
 Socrates ! 
 rejoined Critobulus, I see you are eager to avoid
 giving me any help towards lightening the weight of
 my troublesome duties. 
 Not at all, not at all, 
 said
 Socrates ,
 I am all eagerness to tell you all I know.

Suppose that you had come to me for fire, and I, having
 none by me, had taken you to some place where you
 could get it; you would not, I think, have found
 fault with me: or, if you had asked for water, and
 I, having none myself, had brought you to some other
 place for it, I feel sure that you would not have
 found fault with me for that either: or, suppose you
 wanted to learn music with me and I directed you to
 persons far more skilled in music than I am, who
 would be grateful to you for taking lessons with
 them, what fault could you find with me for doing
 so?

None, if I were fair,
 Socrates . 
 Well then, Critobulus, I
 will direct you to others far more skilled than I in
 the things you now seek to learn from me. I confess
 that I have made a point of finding out who are the
 greatest masters of various sciences to be found in
 Athens .

For observing once that the same pursuits lead in one
 case to great poverty and in another to great
 riches, I was filled with amazement, and thought it
 worth while to consider what this could mean. And on
 consideration I found that these things happen quite
 naturally.

For I saw that those who follow these pursuits carelessly
 suffer loss, and I discovered that those who devote
 themselves earnestly to them accomplish them more
 quickly, more easily and with more profit. I think
 that if you would elect to learn from these, you too
 with God’s favour would turn out a clever man of
 business.

Socrates , 
 exclaimed Critobulus on hearing this, I don’t
 intend to let you go now, until you have proved to
 my satisfaction what you have promised in the
 presence of our friends here to prove. 
 Well then, said
 Socrates ,
 what if I prove to your satisfaction, Critobulus,
 to begin with, that some men spend large sums in
 building houses that are useless, while others build
 houses perfect in all respects for much less? Will
 you think that I am putting before you one of the
 operations that constitute estate management? 
 Yes, certainly.

And what if I show you
 next the companion to this—that some possess many
 costly belongings and cannot use them at need, and
 do not even know whether they are safe and sound,
 and so are continually worried themselves and
 worrying their servants, whereas others, though they
 possess not more, but even less, have whatever they
 want ready for use? 
 What is the reason of
 this, then,
 Socrates ?

Is it not simply this, that the former stow their things
 away anywhere and the latter have everything neatly
 arranged in some place? 
 Yes, of course, arranged
 carefully in the proper place, not just
 anywhere. 
 Your point, I take it, is
 that this too is an element in estate management.

Then what if I show you
 besides that in some households nearly all the
 servants are in fetters and yet continually try to
 run away, whereas in others they are under no
 restraint and are willing to work and to stay at
 their posts? Won’t you think that here too I am
 pointing out to you a notable effect of estate
 management? 
 Yes, of course; very much
 so.

And that when men farm
 the same kind of land, some are poverty-stricken and
 declare that they are ruined by farming, and others
 do well with the farm and have all they want in
 abundance? 
 Yes, of course; for maybe
 some spend money not on necessary purposes only but
 on what brings harm to the owner and the
 estate. 
 Perhaps there are such
 people.

But I am referring rather to those who haven’t the money
 to meet even the necessary expenses, though
 professing to be farmers. 
 Now what can be the
 reason of that,
 Socrates ? 
 I will take you to these
 too; and when you watch them, you will find out, I
 fancy. 
 Of course; that is, if I
 can.

Then you must watch, and
 try by experiment whether you are capable of
 understanding. At present I observe that when a
 comedy is to be seen, you get up very early and walk
 a very long way and press me eagerly to go to the
 play with you. But you have never yet invited me to
 see a drama of real life like this. 
 You think me ridiculous,
 don’t you,
 Socrates ? 
 You think yourself far
 more so, I am sure.

And suppose I show you that some have been brought to
 penury by keeping horses, while others prosper by
 doing so, and moreover glory in their gain? 
 Well, I too see and know
 instances of both; I am not one of the gainers for
 all that.

The fact is you watch
 them just as you watch the actors in tragedy or
 comedy, not, I suppose, to become a playwright, but
 for the pleasure of seeing and hearing something.
 And perhaps there is no harm in that, because you
 don’t want to write plays; but seeing that you are
 forced to meddle with horses, don’t you think that
 common-sense requires you to see that you are not
 ignorant of the business, the more so as the
 self-same horses are both good to use and profitable
 to sell?

Would you have me break
 in colts,
 Socrates ? 
 Of course not, no more
 than I would have you buy children to train as
 agricultural labourers; but horses and human beings
 alike, I think, on reaching a certain age forthwith
 become useful and go on improving. I can also show
 you that husbands differ widely in their treatment
 of their wives, and some succeed in winning their
 co-operation and thereby increase their estates,
 while others bring utter ruin on their houses by
 their behaviour to them.

And ought one to blame
 the husband or the wife for that,
 Socrates ? 
 When a sheep is ailing, 
 said
 Socrates ,
 we generally blame the shepherd, and when a horse
 is vicious, we generally find fault with his rider.
 In the case of a wife, if she receives instruction
 in the right way from her husband and yet does
 badly, perhaps she should bear the blame; but if the
 husband does not instruct his wife in the right way
 of doing things, and so finds her ignorant, should
 he not bear the blame himself?

Anyhow, Critobulus, you should tell us the truth, for we
 are all friends here. Is there anyone to whom you
 commit more affairs of importance than you commit to
 your wife? 
 There is not. 
 Is there anyone with whom
 you talk less? 
 There are few or none, I
 confess.

And you married her when
 she was a mere child and had seen and heard almost
 nothing? 
 Certainly. 
 Then it would be far more
 surprising if she understood what she should say or
 do than if she made mistakes.

But what of the husbands
 who, as you say, have good wives,
 Socrates ?
 Did they train them themselves? 
 There’s nothing like
 investigation. I will introduce Aspasia to you, and
 she will explain the whole matter to you with more
 knowledge than I possess.

I think that the wife who is a good partner in the
 household contributes just as much as her husband to
 its good; because the incomings for the most part
 are the result of the husband’s exertions, but the
 outgoings are controlled mostly by the wife’s
 dispensation. If both do their part well, the estate
 is increased; if they act incompetently, it is
 diminished.

If you think you want to know about other branches of
 knowledge, I fancy I can show you people who acquit
 themselves creditably in any one of them.

Surely,
 Socrates ,
 there is no need to go through the whole list. For
 it is not easy to get workmen who are skilled in all
 the arts, nor is it possible to become an expert in
 them. Pray select the branches of knowledge that
 seem the noblest and would be most suitable for me
 to cultivate: show me these, and those who practise
 them; and give me from your own knowledge any help
 you can towards learning them.

Very good, Critobulus;
 for, to be sure, the illiberal arts, as they are
 called, are spoken against, and are, naturally
 enough, held in utter disdain in our states. For
 they spoil the bodies of the workmen and the
 foremen, forcing them to sit still and live indoors,
 and in some cases to spend the day at the fire. The
 softening of the body involves a serious weakening
 of the mind.

Moreover, these so-called illiberal arts leave no spare
 time for attention to one’s friends and city, so
 that those who follow them are reputed bad at
 dealing with friends and bad defenders of
 their country. In fact, in some of the states, and
 especially in those reputed warlike, it is not even
 lawful for any of the citizens to work at illiberal
 arts.

But what arts, pray, do
 you advise us to follow,
 Socrates ?
 Need we be ashamed of
 imitating the king of the Persians? For they say
 that he pays close attention to husbandry and the
 art of war, holding that these are two of the
 noblest and most necessary pursuits.

And do you really
 believe,
 Socrates , 
 exclaimed Critobulus on hearing this, that the king
 of the Persians includes husbandry among his
 occupations? 
 Perhaps, Critobulus, the
 following considerations will enable us to discover
 whether he does so. We allow that he pays close
 attention to warfare, because he has given a
 standing order to every governor of the nations from
 which he receives tribute, to supply maintenance for
 a specified number of horsemen and archers and
 slingers and light infantry, that they may be strong
 enough to control his subjects and to protect the
 country in the event of an invasion; and,

apart from these, he maintains garrisons in the citadels.
 Maintenance for these is supplied by the governor
 charged with this duty, and the king annually
 reviews the mercenaries and all the other troops
 ordered to be under arms, assembling all but the men
 in the citadels at the place of muster, as it is
 called: he personally inspects the men who are near
 his residence, and sends trusted agents to review
 those who live far away.

The officers, whether commanders of garrisons or of
 regiments or viceroys, who turn out with a full
 complement of men and parade them equipped with
 horses and arms in good condition, he promotes in
 the scale of honour and enriches with large grants
 of money; but those officers whom he finds to be
 neglecting the garrisons or making profit out of
 them he punishes severely, and appoints others to
 take their office. These actions, then, seem to us
 to leave no room for question that he pays attention
 to warfare.

As for the country, he
 personally examines so much of it as he sees in the
 course of his progress through it; and he receives
 reports from his trusted agents on the territories
 that he does not see for himself. To those governors
 who are able to show him that their country is
 densely populated and that the land is in
 cultivation and well stocked with the trees of the
 district and with the crops, he assigns more
 territory and gives presents, and rewards them with
 seats of honour. 
 Those whose territory he finds uncultivated and
 thinly populated either through harsh administration
 or through contempt or through carelessness, he
 punishes, and appoints others to take their office.

By such action, does he seem to provide less for the
 cultivation of the land by the inhabitants than for
 its protection by the garrisons? Moreover, each of
 these duties is entrusted to a separate class of
 officers; one class governs the residents and the
 labourers, and collects tribute from them, the other
 commands the men under arms and the garrisons.

If the commander of a garrison affords insufficient
 protection to the country, the civil governor and
 controller of agriculture denounces the commander,
 setting out that the inhabitants are unable to work
 the farms for want of protection. If, on the other
 hand, the commander brings peace to the farms, and
 the governor nevertheless causes the land to be
 sparsely populated and idle, the commander in turn
 denounces the governor.

For, roughly speaking, where cultivation is inefficient,
 the garrisons are not maintained and the tribute
 cannot be paid. Wherever a viceroy is appointed, he
 attends to both these matters. 
 At this point Critobulus
 said:

Well, Socrates ,
 if the Great King does this, it seems to me that he
 pays as much attention to husbandry as to warfare.

Yet further, continued
 Socrates ,
 in all the districts he resides in and visits he
 takes care that there are paradises, as they call
 them, full of all the good and beautiful things that
 the soil will produce, and in this he himself spends
 most of his time, except when the season precludes
 it.

Then it is of course
 necessary,
 Socrates ,
 to take care that these paradises in which the king
 spends his time shall contain a fine stock of trees
 and all other beautiful things that the soil
 produces.

And some say, Critobulus,
 that when the king makes gifts, he first invites
 those who have distinguished themselves in war,
 because it is useless to have broad acres under
 tillage unless there are men to defend them; and
 next to them, those who stock and cultivate the land
 best, saying that even stout-hearted warriors cannot
 live without the aid of workers.

There is a story that
 Cyrus ,
 lately the most illustrious of princes, once said to
 the company invited to receive his gifts, I myself
 deserve to receive the gifts awarded in both
 classes; for I am the best at stocking land and the
 best at protecting the stock.

Well, if
 Cyrus said
 that,
 Socrates ,
 he took as much pride in cultivating and stocking
 land as in being a warrior.

Yes, and, upon my word,
 if Cyrus had
 only lived, it seems that he would have proved an
 excellent ruler. One of the many proofs that he has
 given of this is the fact that, when he was on his
 way to fight his brother for the throne, it is said
 that not a man deserted from
 Cyrus to
 the king, whereas tens of thousands deserted from
 the king to
 Cyrus .

I think you have one clear proof of a ruler’s excellence,
 when men obey him willingly and choose to stand by him in moments of
 danger. Now his friends all fought at his side and
 fell at his side to a man, fighting round his body,
 with the one exception of Ariaeus, whose place in
 the battle was, in point of fact, on the left
 wing.

Further, the story goes
 that when
 Lysander 
 came to him bringing the gifts form the allies, this
 Cyrus 
 showed him various marks of friendliness, as
 Lysander 
 himself related once to a stranger at Megara , adding
 besides that
 Cyrus 
 personally showed him round his paradise at
 Sardis .

Now Lysander 
 admired the beauty of the trees in it, the accuracy
 of the spacing, the straightness of the rows, the
 regularity of the angles and the multitude of the
 sweet scents that clung round them as they walked;
 and for wonder of these things he cried,
 Cyrus , I
 really do admire all these lovely things, but I am
 far more impressed with your agent’s skill in
 measuring and arranging everything so exactly.

Cyrus was delighted to hear this and said: Well,
 Lysander ,
 the whole of the measurement and arrangement is my
 own work, and I did some of the planting myself.

What, Cyrus ? 
 exclaimed Lysander, looking at him, and marking the
 beauty and perfume of his robes, and the splendour
 of the necklaces and bangles and other jewels that
 he was wearing; did you really plant part of this
 with your own hands?

Does that surprise you, Lysander? asked Cyrus in reply.
 I swear by the Sun-god that I never yet sat down to
 dinner when in sound health, without first working
 hard at some task of war or agriculture, or exerting
 myself somehow.

Lysander himself
 declared, I should add, that on hearing this, he
 congratulated him in these words: I think you
 deserve your happiness, Cyrus, for you earn it by
 your virtues.

Now I tell you this, 
 continued
 Socrates ,
 because even the wealthiest cannot hold aloof from
 husbandry. For the pursuit of it is in some sense a
 luxury as well as a means of increasing one’s estate
 and of training the body in all that a free man
 should be able to do.

For, in the first place, the earth yields to cultivators
 the food by which men live; she yields besides the
 luxuries they enjoy.

Secondly, she supplies all the things with which they
 decorate altars and statues and themselves, along
 with most pleasant sights and scents. Thirdly, she
 produces or feeds the ingredients of many delicate
 dishes; for the art of breeding stock is closely
 linked with husbandry; so that men have victims for
 propitiating the gods with sacrifice and cattle for
 their own use.

And though she supplies good things in abundance, she
 suffers them not to be won without toil, but
 accustoms men to endure winter’s cold and summer’s
 heat. She gives increased strength through exercise
 to the men that labour with their own hands, and
 hardens the overseers of the work by rousing them
 early and forcing them to move about briskly. For on
 a farm no less than in a town the most important
 operations have their fixed times.

Again, if a man wants to serve in the cavalry, farming is
 his most efficient partner in furnishing keep for
 his horse; if on foot, it makes his body brisk. And
 the land helps in some measure to arouse a liking
 for the toil of hunting, since it affords facilities
 for keeping hounds and at the same time supplies
 food for the wild game that preys on the land.

And if husbandry benefits horses and hounds, they benefit
 the farm no less, the horses by carrying the
 overseer early to the scene of his duties and
 enabling him to leave it late, the hounds by keeping
 the wild animals from injuring crops and sheep, and
 by helping to give safety to solitude.

The land also stimulates armed protection of the country
 on the part of the husbandmen, by nourishing her
 crops in the open for the strongest to take.

And what art produces better runners, throwers and
 jumpers than husbandry? What art rewards the
 labourer more generously? What art welcomes her
 follower more gladly, inviting him to come and take
 whatever he wants? What art entertains strangers
 more generously?

Where is there greater facility for passing the winter
 comforted by generous fire and warm baths, than on a
 farm? Where is it pleasanter to spend the summer
 enjoying the cool waters and breezes and shade, than
 in the country?

What other art yields more seemly first-fruits for the
 gods, or gives occasion for more crowded festivals?
 What art is dearer to servants, or pleasanter to a
 wife, or more delightful to children, or more
 agreeable to friends?

To me indeed it seems strange, if any free man has come
 by a possession pleasanter than this, or has found
 out an occupation pleasanter than this or more
 useful for winning a livelihood.

Yet again, the earth
 willingly teaches righteousness
 to those who can learn; for the better she is
 served, the more good things she gives in return.

And if haply those who are occupied in farming, and are
 receiving a rigorous and manly teaching, are forced
 at any time to quit their lands by great armies,
 they, as men well-found in mind and in body, can
 enter the country of those who hinder them, and take
 sufficient for their support. Often in time of war
 it is safer to go armed in search of food than to
 gather it with farming implements.

Moreover, husbandry helps
 to train men for corporate effort. For men are
 essential to an expedition against an enemy, and the
 cultivation of the soil demands the aid of men.

Therefore nobody can be a good farmer unless he makes his
 labourers both eager and obedient; and the captain
 who leads men against an enemy must contrive to
 secure the same results by rewarding those who act
 as brave men should act and punishing the
 disobedient.

And it is no less necessary for a farmer to encourage his
 labourers often, than for a general to encourage his
 men. And slaves need the stimulus of good hopes no
 less, nay, even more than free men, to make them
 steadfast.

It has been nobly said that husbandry is the mother and
 nurse of the other arts. For when husbandry
 flourishes, all the other arts are in good fettle;
 but whenever the land is compelled to lie waste, the
 other arts of landsmen and mariners alike well-nigh
 perish.

Well,
 Socrates , 
 replied Critobulus to this, I think you are right
 so far. But in husbandry a man can rely very little
 on forecast. For hailstorms and frosts sometimes,
 and droughts and rains and blight ruin schemes well
 planned and well carried out; and sometimes
 well-bred stock is miserably destroyed by an
 outbreak of disease.

Well, said
 Socrates 
 in reply, I thought
 you knew, Critobulus, that the operations of
 husbandry no less than those of war are in the hands
 of the gods. And you observe, I suppose, that men
 engaged in war try to propitate the gods before
 taking action; and with sacrifices and omens seek to
 know what they ought to do and what they ought not
 to do;

and for the business of husbandry do you think it less
 necessary to ask the blessing of the gods? Know of a
 surety that right-minded men offer prayer for fruits
 and crops and cattle and horses and sheep, aye and
 for all that they possess.

Well,
 Socrates ,
 I think you are right when you bid me try to begin
 every undertaking with the gods’ help, since the
 gods control the works of peace no less than of war.
 We will try, then, to do so. But now go back to the
 point where you broke off in your talk about estate
 management, and try to expound the subject
 completely step by step, since after hearing what
 you have said so far, I seem even now to discern
 rather more clearly than before what I must do to
 earn my living.

I suggest then, resumed
 Socrates ,
 that we should first recapitulate those points of
 our discussion on which we have already reached
 agreement, in order that we may try to agree as
 thoroughly, if possible, when we go through the
 remaining steps.

O yes; when several are
 jointly interested in money, it is pleasant to have
 no disagreement in going over the accounts; and it
 is equally pleasant for us, as the interested
 parties in a discussion, to agree as we go over the
 several steps.

Well now, we thought that
 estate management is the name of a branch of
 knowledge, and this knowledge appeared to be that by
 which men can increase estates, and an estate
 appeared to be identical with the total of one’s
 property, and we said that property is that which is
 useful for supplying a livelihood, and useful things
 turned out to be all those things that one knows how
 to use.

Now we thought that it is impossible to learn all the
 sciences, and we agreed with our states in rejecting
 the so-called illiberal arts, because they seem to
 spoil the body and unnerve the mind.

We said that the clearest
 proof of this would be forthcoming, if in the course
 of a hostile invasion the husbandmen and craftsmen
 were made to sit apart, and each group were asked
 whether they voted for defending the country or
 withdrawing from the open and guarding the
 fortresses.

We thought that in these circumstances the men who have
 to do with the land would give their vote for
 defending it, the craftsmen for not fighting, but
 sitting still, as they have been brought up to do,
 aloof from toil and danger.

We came to the conclusion that for a gentleman the best
 occupation and the best science is husbandry, from
 which men obtain what is necessary to them.

For this occupation seemed to be the easiest to learn and
 the pleasantest to work at, to give to the body the
 greatest measure of strength and beauty, and to
 leave to the mind the greatest amount of spare time
 for attending to the interests of one’s friends and
 city.

Moreover, since the crops grow and the cattle on a farm
 graze outside the walls, husbandry seemed to us to
 help in some measure to make the workers valiant.
 And so this way of making a living appeared to be
 held in the highest estimation by our states,
 because it seems to turn out the best citizens and
 most loyal to the community.

I have already heard
 enough, I think,
 Socrates ,
 to convince me that it is in the highest degree
 honourable, good and pleasant to get a living by
 husbandry. But you told me that you have discovered
 the reasons why some farmers are so successful that
 husbandry yields them all they need in abundance,
 and others are so inefficient that they find farming
 unprofitable. I should like to hear the reasons in
 each case, in order that we may do what is good and
 avoid what is harmful.

Well then, Critobulus, I
 propose to give you a complete account of an
 interview I once had with a man whom I took to be
 really one of those who are justly styled
 gentlemen. 
 I should greatly like to
 hear it,
 Socrates ,
 for I long to deserve that title myself.

Then I will tell you how
 I came to take note of him. For it took me a very
 little time to visit our good builders, good smiths,
 good painters, good sculptors, and other people of
 the kind, and to inspect those of their works that
 are declared to be beautiful;

but I felt a desire to meet one of those who are called
 by that grand name gentleman, which implies
 beautiful as well as good, in order to consider
 what they did to deserve it.

And, first, because the epithet beautiful is added to
 good, I went up to every person I noticed, and
 tried to discover whether I could anywhere see
 goodness in combination with beauty.

But after all, it was not so: I thought I discovered that
 some who were beautiful to look at were thoroughly
 depraved in their minds. So I decided to let good
 looks alone, and to seek out someone known as a
 gentleman.

Accordingly, since I heard the name applied to
 Ischomachus by men, women, citizens and strangers
 alike, I decided to meet him, if I could.

So, happening one day to
 see him sitting in the cloister of the temple of
 Zeus Eleutherius apparently at leisure, I
 approached, and sitting down at his side, said:
 Why sitting still,
 Ischomachus? You are not much in the habit of doing
 nothing; for generally when I see you in the
 market-place you are either busy or at least not
 wholly idle.

True, and you would not
 have seen me so now,
 Socrates ,
 had I not made an appointment with some strangers
 here. 
 Pray where do you spend
 your time, said I, and what do you do when you are
 not engaged in some such occupation? For I want very
 much to learn how you came to be called a gentleman,
 since you do not pass your time indoors, and your
 condition does not suggest that you do so. 
 Smiling at my question,

How came you to be called a gentleman? , and apparently
 well pleased, Ischomachus answered: Well,
 Socrates ,
 whether certain persons call me so when they talk to
 you about me, I know not. Assuredly when they
 challenge me to an exchange of property in order to
 escape some public burden, fitting a warship or
 providing a chorus, nobody looks for the
 gentleman, but the challenge refers to me as plain
 Ischomachus, my father’s son. Well now,
 Socrates ,
 as you ask the question, I certainly do not pass my
 time indoors; for, you know, my wife is quite
 capable of looking after the house by herself.

Ah, Ischomachus, said
 I, that is just what I want to hear from you. Did
 you yourself train your wife to be of the right
 sort, or did she know her household duties when you
 received her from her parents?

Why, what knowledge
 could she have had,
 Socrates ,
 when I took her for my wife? She was not yet fifteen
 years old when she came to me, and up to that time
 she had lived in leading-strings, seeing, hearing
 and saying as little as possible.

If when she came she knew no more than how, when given
 wool, to turn out a cloak, and had seen only how the
 spinning is given out to the maids, is not that as
 much as could be expected? For in control of her
 appetite,
 Socrates ,
 she had been excellently trained; and this sort of
 training is, in my opinion, the most important to
 man and woman alike.

But in other respects
 did you train your wife yourself, Ischomachus, so
 that she should be competent to perform her
 duties? 
 Oh no,
 Socrates ;
 not until I had first offered sacrifice and prayed
 that I might really teach, and she learn what was
 best for us both.

Did not your wife join
 with you in these same sacrifices and prayers? 
 Oh yes, earnestly
 promising before heaven to behave as she ought to
 do; and it was easy to see that she would not
 neglect the lessons I taught her.

Pray tell me,
 Ischomachus, what was the first lesson you taught
 her, since I would sooner hear this from your lips
 than an account of the noblest athletic event or
 horse-race?

Well,
 Socrates ,
 as soon as I found her docile and sufficiently
 domesticated to carry on conversation, I questioned
 her to this effect:
 Tell me, dear, have you
 realised for what reason I took you and your parents
 gave you to me?

For it is obvious to you, I am sure, that we should have
 had no difficulty in finding someone else to share
 our beds. But I for myself and your parents for you
 considered who was the best partner of home and
 children that we could get. My choice fell on you,
 and your parents, it appears, chose me as the best
 they could find.

Now if God grants us children, we will then think out how
 we shall best train them. For one of the blessings
 in which we shall share is the acquisition of the
 very best of allies and the very best of support in
 old age; but at present we share in this our home.

For I am paying into the common stock all that I have,
 and you have put in all that you brought with you.
 And we are not to reckon up which of us has actually
 contributed the greater amount, but we should know
 of a surety that the one who proves the better
 partner makes the more valuable contribution.

My wife’s answer was as
 follows,
 Socrates :
 How can I possibly help you? What power have I?
 Nay, all depends on you. My duty, as my mother told
 me, is to be discreet.

Yes, of course, dear, 
 I said, my father said the same to me. But
 discretion both in a man and a woman, means acting
 in such a manner that their possessions shall be in
 the best condition possible, and that as much as
 possible shall be added to them by fair and
 honourable means.

And what do you see
 that I can possibly do to help in the improvement of
 our property? asked my wife.
 
 Why, said I, of
 course you must try to do as well as possible what
 the gods made you capable of doing and the law
 sanctions. 
 And pray, what is
 that? said she.

Things of no small
 moment, I fancy, replied I, unless, indeed, the
 tasks over which the queen bee in the hive presides
 are of small moment.

For it seems to me, dear, that the gods with great
 discernment have coupled together male and female,
 as they are called, chiefly in order that they may
 form a perfect partnership in mutual service.

For, in the first place, that the various species of
 living creatures may not fail, they are joined in
 wedlock for the production of children. Secondly,
 offspring to support them in old age is provided by
 this union, to human beings, at any rate. Thirdly,
 human beings live not in the open air, like beasts,
 but obviously need shelter.

Nevertheless, those who mean to win store to fill the
 covered place, have need of someone to work at the
 open-air occupations; since ploughing, sowing,
 planting and grazing are all such open-air
 employments; and these supply the needful food.

Then again, as soon as this is stored in the covered
 place, then there is need of someone to keep it and
 to work at the things that must be done under cover.
 Cover is needed for the nursing of the infants;
 cover is needed for the making of the corn into
 bread, and likewise for the manufacture of clothes
 from the wool.

And since both the indoor and the outdoor tasks demand
 labour and attention, God from the first adapted the
 woman’s nature, I think, to the indoor and man’s to
 the outdoor tasks and cares.

For he made the man’s
 body and mind more capable of enduring cold and
 heat, and journeys and campaigns; and therefore
 imposed on him the outdoor tasks. To the woman,
 since he has made her body less capable of such
 endurance, I take it that God has assigned the
 indoor tasks.

And knowing that he had created in the woman and had
 imposed on her the nourishment of the infants, he
 meted out to her a larger portion of affection for
 new-born babes than to the man.

And since he imposed on the woman the protection of the
 stores also, knowing that for protection a fearful
 disposition is no disadvantage, God meted out a
 larger share of fear to the woman than to the man;
 and knowing that he who deals with the outdoor tasks
 will have to be their defender against any
 wrong-doer, he meted out to him again a larger share
 of courage.

But because both must give and take, he granted to both
 impartially memory and attention; and so you could
 not distinguish whether the male or the female sex
 has the larger share of these.

And God also gave to both impartially the power to
 practise due self-control, and gave authority to
 whichever is the better—whether it be the man or the
 woman—to win a larger portion of the good that comes
 from it.

And just because both have not the same aptitudes, they
 have the more need of each other, and each member of
 the pair is the more useful to the other, the one
 being competent where the other is deficient.

Now since we know,
 dear, what duties have been assigned to each of us
 by God, we must endeavour, each of us, to do the
 duties allotted to us as well as possible.

The law, moreover, approves of them, for it joins
 together man and woman. And as God has made them
 partners in their children, so the law appoints them
 partners in the home. And besides, the law declares
 those tasks to be honourable for each of them
 wherein God has made the one to excel the other.
 Thus, to be woman it is more honourable to stay
 indoors than to abide in the fields, but to the man
 it is unseemly rather to stay indoors than to attend
 to the work outside.

If a man acts contrary to the nature God has given him,
 possibly his defiance is detected by the gods and he
 is punished for neglecting his own work, or meddling
 with his wife’s.

I think that the queen bee is busy about just such other
 tasks appointed by God. 
 And pray, said she,
 how do the queen bee’s tasks resemble those that I
 have to do?

How? she stays in the
 hive, I answered, and does not suffer the bees to
 be idle; but those whose duty it is to work outside
 she sends forth to their work; and whatever each of
 them brings in, she knows and receives it, and keeps
 it till it is wanted. And when the time is come to
 use it, she portions out the just share to each.

She likewise presides over the weaving of the combs in
 the hive, that they may be well and quickly woven,
 and cares for the brood of little ones, that it be
 duly reared up. And when the young bees have been
 duly reared and are fit for work, she sends them
 forth to found a colony, with a leader to guide the
 young adventurers.

Then shall I too have
 to do these things? said my wife.
 Indeed you will, said
 I; your duty will be to remain indoors and send out
 those servants whose work is outside, and
 superintend those who are to work indoors, and to
 receive the incomings,

and distribute so much of them as must be spent, and
 watch over so much as is to be kept in store, and
 take care that the sum laid by for a year be not
 spent in a month. And when wool is brought to you,
 you must see that cloaks are made for those that
 want them. You must see too that the dry corn is in
 good condition for making food.

One of the duties that fall to you, however, will perhaps
 seem rather thankless: you will have to see that any
 servant who is ill is cared for. 
 Oh no, cried my wife,
 it will be delightful, assuming that those who are
 well cared for are going to feel grateful and be
 more loyal than before.

Why, my dear, cried I,
 delighted with her answer, what makes the bees so
 devoted to their leader in the hive, that when she
 forsakes it, they all follow her, and not one thinks
 of staying behind? Is it not the result of some such
 thoughtful acts on her part?

It would surprise me, 
 answered my wife, if the leader’s activities did
 not concern you more than me. For my care of the
 goods indoors and my management would look rather
 ridiculous, I fancy, if you did not see that
 something is gathered in from outside.

And my ingathering
 would look ridiculous, I countered, if there were
 not someone to keep what is gathered in. Don’t you
 see how they who draw water in a leaky jar, as the
 saying goes, are pitied, because they seem to labour
 in vain? 
 Of course, she said,
 for they are indeed in a miserable plight if they
 do that.

But I assure you, dear,
 there are other duties peculiar to you that are
 pleasant to perform. It is delightful to teach
 spinning to a maid who had no knowledge of it when
 you received her, and to double her worth to you: to
 take in hand a girl who is ignorant of housekeeping
 and service, and after teaching her and making her
 trustworthy and serviceable to find her worth any
 amount: to have the power of rewarding the discreet
 and useful members of your household, and of
 punishing anyone who turns out to be a rogue.

But the pleasantest experience of all is to prove
 yourself better than I am, to make me your servant;
 and, so far from having cause to fear that as you
 grow older you may be less honoured in the
 household, to feel confident that with advancing
 years, the better partner you prove to me and the
 better housewife to our children, the greater will
 be the honour paid to you in our home.

For it is not through outward comeliness that the sum of
 things good and beautiful is increased in the world,
 but by the daily practice of the virtues. 
 Such was the tenor of my
 earliest talks with her,
 Socrates ,
 so far as I can recall them.

And did you find,
 Ischomachus, that they acted as a stimulus to her
 diligence? I asked.
 Yes, indeed, answered
 Ischomachus, and I recollect that she was vexed and
 blushed crimson, because she could not give me
 something from the stores when I asked for it.

And seeing that she was annoyed, I said: 
 Don’t worry,
 dear, because you cannot give me what I am asking
 for. For not to be able to use a thing when you want
 it is poverty unquestionably; but a failure to get
 the thing that you seek is less grievous than not to
 seek it at all because you know that it does not
 exist. The fact is, you are not to blame for this,
 but I, because I handed over the things to you
 without giving directions where they were to be put,
 so that you might know where to put them and where
 to find them.

My dear, there is nothing so convenient or so good for
 human beings as order. Thus, a chorus is a
 combination of human beings; but when the members of
 it do as they choose, it becomes mere confusion, and
 there is no pleasure in watching it; but when they
 act and chant in an orderly fashion, then those same
 men at once seem worth seeing and worth hearing.

Again, my dear, an army in disorder is a confused mass,
 an easy prey to enemies, a disgusting sight to
 friends and utterly useless,—donkey, trooper,
 carrier, light-armed, horseman, chariot, huddled
 together. For how are
 they to march in such a plight, when they hamper one
 another, some walking while others run, some running
 while others halt, chariot colliding with horseman,
 donkey with chariot, carrier with trooper?

If there is fighting to be done, how can they fight in
 such a state? For the units that must needs run away
 when attacked are enough to trample underfoot the
 heavy infantry.

But an army in orderly array is a noble sight to friends,
 and an unwelcome spectacle to the enemy. What friend
 would not rejoice as he watches a strong body of
 troopers marching in order, would not admire cavalry
 riding in squadrons? And what enemy would not fear
 troopers, horsemen, light-armed, archers, slingers
 disposed in serried ranks and following their
 officers in orderly fashion?

Nay, even on the march where order is kept, though they
 number tens of thousands, all move steadily forward
 as one man; for the line behind is continually
 filling up the gap.

Or, again, why is a man-of-war laden with men terrible to
 an enemy and a goodly sight to friends, if not for
 its speed? Why do the men on board not hamper one
 another? Is it not just because they are seated in
 order, swing forward and backward in order, embark
 and disembark in order?

If I want a type of disorder, I think of a farmer who has
 stored barley, wheat and pulse in one bin; and then
 when he wants a bannock or a loaf or a pudding, must
 pick out the grain instead of finding it separate
 and ready for use.

And so, my dear, if you
 do not want this confusion, and wish to know exactly
 how to manage our goods, and to find with ease
 whatever is wanted, and to satisfy me by giving me
 anything I ask for, let us choose the place that
 each portion should occupy; and, having put the
 things in their place, let us instruct the maid to
 take them from it and put them back again. Thus we
 shall know what is safe and sound and what is not;
 for the place itself will miss whatever is not in
 it, and a glance will reveal anything that wants
 attention, and the knowledge where each thing is
 will quickly bring it to hand, so that we can use it
 without trouble.

Once I had an
 opportunity of looking over the great Phoenician
 merchantman,
 Socrates ,
 and I thought I had never seen tackle so excellently
 and accurately arranged. For I never saw so many
 bits of stuff packed away separately in so small a
 receptacle.

As you know, a ship needs a great quantity of wooden and
 corded implements when she comes into port or puts
 to sea, much rigging, as it is called, when she
 sails, many contrivances to protect her against
 enemy vessels; she carries a large supply of arms
 for the men, and contains a set of household
 utensils for each mess. In addition to all this, she
 is laden with cargo which the skipper carries for
 profit.

And all the things I mention were contained in a chamber
 of little more than a hundred square cubits. 
 And I noticed that each kind of thing was so neatly
 stowed away that there was no confusion, no work for
 a searcher, nothing out of place, no troublesome
 untying to cause delay when anything was wanted for
 immediate use.

I found that the steersman’s servant, who is called the
 mate, knows each particular section so exactly, that
 he can tell even when away where everything is kept
 and how much there is of it, just as well as a man
 who knows how to spell can tell how many letters
 there are in
 Socrates 
 and in what order they come.

Now I saw this man in his spare time inspecting all the
 stores that are wanted, as a matter of course, in
 the ship. I was
 surprised to see him looking over them, and asked
 what he was doing. 
 Sir, he answered, I am looking
 to see how the ship’s tackle is stored, in case of
 accident, or whether anything is missing or mixed up
 with other stuff.

For when God sends a storm at sea, there’s no time to
 search about for what you want or to serve it out if
 it’s in a muddle. For God threatens and punishes
 careless fellows, and you’re lucky if he merely
 refrains from destroying the innocent; and if he
 saves you when you do your work well, you have much
 cause to thank heaven.

Now after seeing the
 ship’s tackle in such perfect order, I told my wife:
 Considering that folk aboard a merchant vessel,
 even though it be a little one, find room for things
 and keep order, though tossed violently to and fro,
 and find what they want to get, though
 terror-stricken, it would be downright carelessness
 on our part if we, who have large storerooms in our
 house to keep everything separate and whose house
 rests on solid ground, fail to find a good and handy
 place for everything. Would it not be sheer
 stupidity on our part?

How good it is to keep
 one’s stock of utensils in order, and how easy to
 find a suitable place in a house to put each set in,
 I have already said.

And what a beautiful sight is afforded by boots of all
 sorts and conditions ranged in rows! How beautiful
 it is to see cloaks of all sorts and conditions kept
 separate, or blankets, or brazen vessels, or table
 furniture! Yes, no serious man will smile when I
 claim that there is beauty in the order even of pots
 and pans set out in neat array, however much it may
 move the laughter of a wit.

There is nothing, in short, that does not gain in beauty
 when set out in order. For each set looks like a
 troop of utensils, and the space between the sets is
 beautiful to see, when each set is kept clear of it,
 just as a troop of dancers about the altar is a
 beautiful spectacle in itself, and even the free
 space looks beautiful and unencumbered.

We can test the truth
 of what I say, dear, without any inconvenience and
 with very little trouble. Moreover, my dear, there
 is no ground for any misgiving that it is hard to
 find someone who will get to know the various places
 and remember to put each set in its proper place.

For we know, I take it, that the city as a whole has ten
 thousand times as much of everything as we have; and
 yet you may order any sort of servant to buy
 something in the market and to bring it home, and he
 will be at no loss: every one of them is bound to
 know where he should go to get each article. Now the
 only reason for this is that everything is kept in a
 fixed place.

But when you are searching for a person, you often fail
 to find him, though he may be searching for you
 himself. And for this again the one reason is that
 no place of meeting has been fixed. 
 Such is the gist of the
 conversation I think I remember having with her
 about the arrangement of utensils and their use.

And what was the
 result? I asked; did you think, Ischomachus, that
 your wife paid any heed to the lessons you tried so
 earnestly to teach her? 
 Why, she promised to
 attend to them, and was evidently pleased beyond
 measure to feel that she had found a solution of her
 difficulties, and she begged me to lose no time in
 arranging things as I had suggested.

And how did you arrange
 things for her, Ischomachus? I asked.
 Why, I decided first to
 show her the possibilities of our house. For it
 contains few elaborate decorations,
 Socrates ;
 but the rooms are designed simply with the object of
 providing as convenient receptacles as possible for
 the things that are to fill them, and thus each room
 invited just what was suited to it.

Thus the store-room by the security of its position
 called for the most valuable blankets and utensils,
 the dry covered rooms for the corn, the cool for the
 wine, the well-lit for those works of art and
 vessels that need light.

I showed her decorated living-rooms for the family that
 are cool in summer and warm in winter. I showed her that the whole
 house fronts south, so that it was obvious that it
 is sunny in winter and shady in summer.

I showed her the women’s quarters too, separated by a
 bolted door from the men’s, so that nothing which
 ought not to be moved may be taken out, and that the
 servants may not breed without our leave. For honest
 servants generally prove more loyal if they have a
 family; but rogues, if they live in wedlock, become
 all the more prone to mischief.

And now that we had
 completed the list, we forthwith set about
 separating the furniture tribe by tribe. We began by
 collecting together the vessels we use in
 sacrificing. After that we put together the women’s
 holiday finery, and the men’s holiday and war garb,
 blankets in the women’s, blankets in the men’s
 quarters, women’s shoes, men’s shoes.

Another tribe consisted of arms, and three others of
 implements for spinning, for bread-making and for
 cooking; others, again, of the things required for
 washing, at the kneading-trough, and for table use.
 All these we divided into two sets, things in
 constant use and things reserved for festivities.

We also put by themselves the things consumed month by
 month, and set apart the supplies calculated to last
 for a year. For this plan makes it easier to tell
 how they will last to the end of the time. When we
 had divided all the portable property tribe by
 tribe, we arranged everything in its proper place.

After that we showed the servants who have to use them
 where to keep the utensils they require daily, for
 baking, cooking, spinning and so forth; handed them
 over to their care and charged them to see that they
 were safe and sound.

The things that we use only for festivals or
 entertainments, or on rare occasions, we handed over
 to the housekeeper, and after showing her their
 places and counting and making a written list of all
 the items, we told her to give them out to the right
 servants, to remember what she gave to each of them,
 and when receiving them back to put everything in
 the place from which she took it.

In appointing the
 housekeeper, we chose the woman whom on
 consideration we judged to be the most temperate in
 eating and wine drinking and sleeping 
 and the most modest with men, the one, too, who
 seemed to have the best memory, to be most careful
 not to offend us by neglecting her duties, and to
 think most how she could earn some reward by
 obliging us.

We also taught her to be loyal to us by making her a
 partner in all our joys and calling on her to share
 our troubles. Moreover, we trained her to be eager
 for the improvement of our estate, by making her
 familiar with it and by allowing her to share in our
 success.

And further, we put justice into her, by giving more
 honour to the just than to the unjust, and by
 showing her that the just live in greater wealth and
 freedom than the unjust; and we placed her in that
 position of superiority.

When all this was done,
 Socrates ,
 I told my wife that all these measures were futile,
 unless she saw to it herself that our arrangement
 was strictly adhered to in every detail. I explained
 that in well-ordered cities the citizens are not
 satisfied with passing good laws; they go further,
 and choose guardians of the laws, who act as
 overseers, commending the law-abiding and punishing
 law-breakers.

So I charged my wife to consider herself guardian of the
 laws to our household. And just as the commander of
 a garrison inspects his guards, so must she inspect
 the chattels whenever she thought it well to do so;
 as the Council scrutinises the cavalry and the
 horses, so she was to make sure that everything was
 in good condition: like a queen, she must reward the
 worthy with praise and honour, so far as in her lay,
 and not spare rebuke and punishment when they were
 called for.

Moreover, I taught her
 that she should not be vexed that I assigned heavier
 duties to her than to the servants in respect of our
 possessions. Servants, I pointed out, carry, tend
 and guard their master’s property, and only in this
 sense have a share in it; they have no right to use
 anything except by the owner’s leave; but everything
 belongs to the master, to use it as he will.

Therefore, I explained, he who gains most by the
 preservation of the goods and loses most by their
 destruction, is the one who is bound to take most
 care of them.

Well, now, Ischomachus, 
 said I, was your wife inclined to pay heed to your
 words? 
 Why,
 Socrates , 
 he cried, she just told me that I was mistaken if I
 supposed that I was laying a hard task on her in
 telling her that she must take care of our things.
 It would have been harder, she said, had I required
 her to neglect her own possessions, than to have the
 duty of attending to her own peculiar blessings.

The fact is, he added, just as it naturally comes
 easier to a good woman to care for her own children
 than to neglect them, so, I imagine, a good woman
 finds it pleasanter to look after her own
 possessions than to neglect them.

Now when I heard that his
 wife had given him this answer, I exclaimed; Upon
 my word, Ischomachus, your wife has a truly
 masculine mind by your showing! 
 Yes, said Ischomachus,
 and I am prepared to give you other examples of
 high-mindedness on her part, when a word from me was
 enough to secure her instant obedience. 
 Tell me what they are, 
 I cried; for if Zeuxis showed me a fair woman’s
 portrait painted by his own hand, it would not give
 me half the pleasure I derive from the contemplation
 of a living woman’s virtues.

Thereupon Ischomachus
 took up his parable. Well, one day,
 Socrates ,
 I noticed that her face was made up: she had rubbed
 in white lead in order to look even whiter than she
 is, and alkanet juice to heighten the rosy colour of
 her cheeks; and she was wearing boots with thick
 soles to increase her height.

So I said to her, 
 Tell me, my dear, how should I appear
 more worthy of your love as a partner in our goods,
 by disclosing to you our belongings just as they
 are, without boasting of imaginary possessions or
 concealing any part of what we have, or by trying to
 trick you with an exaggerated account, showing you
 bad money and gilt necklaces and describing clothes
 that will fade as real purple?

Hush! she broke in
 immediately, pray don’t be like that—I could not
 love you with all my heart if you were like
 that! 
 Then, are we not joined
 together by another bond of union, dear, to be
 partners in our bodies?

The world says so, at
 any rate. 
 How then should I seem
 more worthy of your love in this partnership of the
 body—by striving to have my body hale and strong
 when I present it to you, and so literally to be of
 a good countenance in your sight, or by smearing my
 cheeks with red lead and painting myself under the
 eyes with rouge before I show myself to you and
 clasp you in my arms, cheating you and offering to
 your eyes and hands red lead instead of my real
 flesh?

Oh, she cried, I
 would sooner touch you than red lead, would sooner
 see your own colour than rouge, would sooner see
 your eyes bright than smeared with grease.

Then please assume, my
 dear, that I do not prefer white paint and dye of
 alkanet to your real colour; but just as the gods
 have made horses to delight in horses, cattle in
 cattle, sheep in sheep, so human beings find the
 human body undisguised most delightful.

Tricks like these may serve to gull outsiders, but people
 who live together are bound to be found out, if they
 try to deceive one another. For they are found out
 while they are dressing in the morning; they
 perspire and are lost; a tear convicts them; the
 bath reveals them as they are! 
 And, pray, what did she
 say to that?

I asked.
 
 Nothing, he said, only
 she gave up such practices from that day forward,
 and tried to let me se her undisguised and as she
 should be. Still, she did ask whether I could advise
 her on one point: how she might make herself really
 beautiful, instead of merely seeming to be so.

And this was my advice,
 Socrates :
 Don’t sit about for ever like a slave, but try, God
 helping you, to behave as a mistress: stand before
 the loom and be ready to instruct those who know
 less than you, and to learn from those who know
 more: look after the bakingmaid: stand by the
 housekeeper when she is serving out stores: go round
 and see whether everything is in its place. For I
 thought that would give her a walk as well as
 occupation.

I also said it was excellent exercise to mix flour and
 knead dough; and to shake and fold cloaks and
 bedclothes; such excercise would give her a better
 appetite, improve her health, and add natural colour
 to her cheeks.

Besides, when a wife’s looks outshine a maid’s and she is
 fresher and more becomingly dressed, they’re a
 ravishing sight, especially when the wife is also
 willing to oblige, whereas the girl’s services are
 compulsory.

But wives who sit about like fine ladies, expose
 themselves to comparison with painted and fraudulent
 hussies. And now,
 Socrates ,
 you may be sure, my wife’s dress and appearance are
 in accord with my instructions and with my present
 description.

At this point I said,
 Ischomachus, I think your account of your wife’s
 occupations is sufficient for the present—and very
 creditable it is to both of you. But now tell me of
 your own: thus you will have the satisfaction of
 stating the reasons why you are so highly respected,
 and I shall be much beholden to you for a complete
 account of a gentleman’s occupations, and if my
 understanding serves, for a thorough knowledge of
 them.

Well then,
 Socrates , 
 answered Ischomachus, it will be a very great
 pleasure to me to give you an account of my daily
 occupations, that you may correct me if you think
 there is anything amiss in my conduct.

As to that, said I,
 how could I presume to correct a perfect gentleman,
 I who am supposed to be a mere chatterer with my
 head in the air, I who am called—the most
 senseless of all taunts—a poor beggar?

I do assure you, Ischomachus, this last imputation would
 have driven me to despair, were it not that a day or
 two ago I came upon the horse of Nicias the
 foreigner. I saw a crowd walking
 behind the creature and staring, and heard some of
 them talking volubly about him. Well, I went up to
 the groom and asked him if the horse had many
 possessions.

The man looked at me as if I must be mad to ask such a
 question, and asked me how a horse could own
 property. At that I recovered, for his answer showed
 that it is possible even for a poor horse to be a
 good one, if nature has given him a good spirit.

Assume, therefore, that it is possible for me to be a
 good man, and give me a complete account of your
 occupations, that, so far as my understanding allows
 me, I may endeavour to follow your example from
 to-morrow morning; for that’s a good day for
 entering on a course of virtue.

You’re joking,
 Socrates , 
 said Ischomachus; nevertheless I will tell you what
 principles I try my best to follow consistently in
 life.

For I seem to realise that, while the gods have made it
 impossible for men to prosper without knowing and
 attending to the things they ought to do, to some of
 the wise and careful they grant prosperity, and to
 some deny it; and therefore I begin by worshipping
 the gods, and try to conduct myself in such a way
 that I may have health and strength in answer to my
 prayers, the respect of my fellow-citizens, the
 affection of my friends, safety with honour in war,
 and wealth increased by honest means.

What, Ischomachus, I
 asked on hearing that, do you really want to be
 rich and to have much, along with much trouble to
 take care of it? 
 The answer to your
 questions, said he, is, Yes, I do indeed. For I
 would fain honour the gods without counting the
 cost,
 Socrates ,
 help friends in need, and look to it that the city
 lacks no adornment that my means can supply.

Truly noble aspirations,
 Ischomachus, I cried, and worthy of a man of
 means, no doubt! Seeing that there are many who
 cannot live without help from others, and many are
 content if they can get enough for their own needs,
 surely those who can maintain their own estate and
 yet have enough left to adorn the city and relieve
 their friends may well be thought high and mighty
 men.

However, I added, praise of such men is a commonplace
 among us. Please return to your first statement,
 Ischomachus, and tell me how you take care of your
 health and your strength, how you make it possible
 to come through war with safety and honour. I shall
 be content to hear about your money-making
 afterwards.

Well,
 Socrates , 
 replied Ischomachus, all these things hang
 together, so far as I can see. For if a man has
 plenty to eat, and works off the effects 
 properly, I take it that he both insures his health
 and adds to his strength. By training himself in the
 arts of war he is more qualified to save himself
 honourably, and by due diligence and avoidance of
 loose habits, he is more likely to increase his
 estate.

So far, Ischomachus, I
 follow you, I answered. You mean that by working
 after meals, by diligence and by training, a man is
 more apt to obtain the good things of life. But now
 I should like you to give me details. By what kind
 of work do you endeavour to keep your health and
 strength? How do you train yourself in the arts of
 war? What diligence do you use to have a surplus
 from which to help friends and strengthen the city?

Well now,
 Socrates , 
 replied Ischomachus, I rise from my bed at an hour
 when, if I want to call on anyone, I am sure to find
 him still at home. If I have any business to do in
 town, I make it an opportunity for getting a walk.

If there is nothing pressing to be done in town, my
 servant leads my horse to the farm, and I make my
 walk by going to it on foot, with more benefit,
 perhaps,
 Socrates ,
 than if I took a turn in the arcade.

When I reach the farm, I may find planting, clearing,
 sowing or harvesting in progress. I superintend all
 the details of the work, and make any improvements
 in method that I can suggest.

After this, I usually mount my horse and go through
 exercises, imitating as closely as I can the
 exercises needed in warfare. I avoid neither slope
 nor steep incline, ditch nor watercourse, but I use
 all possible care not to lame my horse when he takes
 them.

After I have finished, the servant gives the horse a roll
 and leads him home, bringing with him from the farm
 anything we happen to want in the city. I divide the
 return home between walking and running. Arrived, I
 clean myself with a strigil, and then I have
 luncheon,
 Socrates ,
 eating just enough to get through the day neither
 empty-bellied nor too full.

Upon my word,
 Ischomachus, cried I, I am delighted with your
 activities. For you have a pack of appliances for
 securing health and strength, of exercises for war
 and specifies for getting rich, and you use them all
 at the same time! That does seem to me admirable!

And in fact you afford convincing proofs that your method
 in pursuing each of these objects is sound. For we
 see you generally in the enjoyment of health and
 strength, thanks to the gods, and we know that you
 are considered one of our best horsemen and
 wealthiest citizens.

And what comes of these
 activities,
 Socrates ?
 Not, as you perhaps expected to hear, that I am
 generally dubbed a gentleman, but that I am
 persistently slandered.

Ah, said I, but I was
 meaning to ask you, Ischomachus, whether you include
 in your system ability to conduct a prosecution and
 defence, in case you have to appear in the
 courts? 
 Why,
 Socrates , 
 he answered, do you not see that this is just what I am constantly
 practising—showing my traducers that I wrong no man
 and do all the good I can to many? And do you not
 think that I practise myself in accusing, by taking
 careful note of certain persons who are doing wrong
 to many individuals and to the state, and are doing
 no good to anyone?

But tell me one thing
 more, Ischomachus, I said; do you also practise
 the art of expounding these matters? 
 Why,
 Socrates , 
 he replied, I assiduously practise the art of
 speaking. For I get one of the servants to act as
 prosecutor or defendant, and try to confute him; or
 I praise or blame someone before his friends; or I
 act as peace-maker between some of my acquaintances
 by trying to show them that it is to their interest
 to be friends rather than enemies.

I assist at a court-martial and censure a soldier, or
 take turns in defending a man who is unjustly
 blamed, or in accusing one who is unjustly honoured.
 We often sit in counsel and speak in support of the
 course we want to adopt and against the course we
 want to avoid.

I have often been singled out before now,
 Socrates ,
 and condemned to suffer punishment or pay
 damages. 
 By whom, Ischomachus? I
 asked; I am in the dark about that!’ 
 By my wife, was his
 answer.
 And, pray, how do you
 plead? said I.
 Pretty well, when it is
 to my interest to speak the truth. But when lying is
 called for,
 Socrates ,
 I can’t make the worse cause appear the better—oh
 no, not at all. 
 Perhaps, Ischomachus, I
 commented, you can’t make the falsehood into the
 truth!

But perhaps I am keeping
 you, Ischomachus, I continued, and you want to get
 away now? 
 Oh no,
 Socrates , 
 he answered; I should not think of going before the
 market empties.

To be sure, I
 continued; you take the utmost care not to forfeit
 your right to be called a gentleman! For I daresay
 there are many things claiming your attention now;
 but, as you have made an appointment with those
 strangers, you are determined not to break it. 
 But I assure you,
 Socrates ,
 I am not neglecting the matters you refer to,
 either; for I keep bailiff’s on my farms.

And when you want a
 bailiff, Ischomachus, do you look out for a man
 qualified for such a post, and then try to buy
 him—when you want a builder, I feel sure you inquire
 for a qualified man and try to get him—or do you
 train your bailiff’s yourself?

Of course I try to train
 them myself,
 Socrates .
 For the man has to be capable of taking charge in my
 absence; so why need he know anything but what I
 know myself? For if I am fit to manage the farm, I
 presume I can teach another man what I know myself.

Then the first
 requirement will be that he should be loyal to you
 and yours, if he is to represent you in your
 absence. For if a steward is not loyal, what is the
 good of any knowledge he may possess? 
 None, of course; but I
 may tell you, loyalty to me and to mine is the first
 lesson I try to teach.

And how, in heaven’s
 name, do you teach your man to be loyal to you and
 yours? 
 By rewarding him, of
 course, whenever the gods bestow some good thing on
 us in abundance.

You mean, then, that
 those who enjoy a share of your good things are
 loyal to you and want you to prosper? 
 Yes,
 Socrates ,
 I find that is the best instrument for producing
 loyalty.

But, now, if he is loyal
 to you, Ischomachus, will that be enough to make him
 a competent bailiff? Don’t you see that though all
 men, practically, wish themselves well, yet there
 are many who won’t take the trouble to get for
 themselves the good things they want to have?

Well, when I want to
 make bailiffs of such men, of course I teach them
 also to be careful. 
 Pray how do you do that?

I was under the impression that carefulness is a virtue
 that can’t possibly be taught. 
 True,
 Socrates ,
 it isn’t possible to teach everyone you come across
 to be careful.

Very well; what sort of
 men can be taught? Point these out to me, at all
 events. 
 In the first place,
 Socrates ,
 you can’t make careful men of hard drinkers; for
 drink makes them forget everything they ought to
 do.

Then are drunkards the
 only men who will never become careful, or are there
 others? 
 Of course there
 are—sluggards must be included; for you can’t do
 your own business when you are asleep, nor make
 others do theirs.

Well, then, will these
 make up the total of persons incapable of learning
 this lesson, or are there yet others besides? 
 I should add that in my
 opinion a man who falls desperately in love is
 incapable of giving more attention to anything than
 he gives to the object of his passion.

For it isn’t easy to find hope or occupation more
 delightful than devotion to the darling! aye, and
 when the thing to be done presses, no harder
 punishment can easily be thought of than the
 prevention of intercourse with the beloved!
 Therefore I shrink from attempting to make a manager
 of that sort of man too.

And what about the men
 who have a passion for lucre? Are they also
 incapable of being trained to take charge of the
 work of a farm? 
 Not at all; of course
 not. In fact, they very easily qualify for the work.
 It is merely necessary to point out to them that
 diligence is profitable.

And assuming that the
 others are free from the faults that you condemn and
 are covetous of gain in a moderate degree, how do
 you teach them to be careful in the affairs you want
 them to superintend? 
 By a very simple plan,
 Socrates .
 Whenever I notice that they are careful, I commend
 them and try to show them honour; but when they
 appear careless, I try to say and do the sort of
 things that will sting them.

Turn now, Ischomachus,
 from the subject of the men in training for the
 occupation, and tell me about the system: is it
 possible for anyone to make others careful if he is
 careless himself?

Of course not: an
 unmusical person could as soon teach music. For it
 is hard to learn to do a thing well when the teacher
 prompts you badly; and when a master prompts a
 servant to be careless, it is difficult for the man
 to become a good servant.

To put it shortly, I don’t think I have discovered a bad
 master with good servants: I have, however, come
 across a good master with bad servants—but they
 suffered for it! If you want to make men fit to take
 charge, you must supervise their work and examine
 it, and be ready to reward work well carried
 through, and not shrink from punishing carelessness
 as it deserves.

I like the answer that is attributed to the Persian. The
 king, you know, had happened on a good horse, and
 wanted to fatten him as speedily as possible. So he
 asked one who was reputed clever with horses what is
 the quickest way of fattening a horse. The master’s
 eye, replied the man. I think we may apply the
 answer generally,
 Socrates ,
 and say that the master’s eye in the main does the
 good and worthy work.

When you have impressed
 on a man, I resumed, the necessity of careful
 attention to the duties you assign to him, will he
 then be competent to act as bailiff, or must he
 learn something besides, if he is to be efficient?

Of course, answered
 Ischomachus, he has still to understand what he has
 to do, and when and how to do it. Otherwise how
 could a bailiff be of more use than a doctor who
 takes care to visit a patient early and late, but
 has no notion of the right way to treat his
 illness?

Well, but suppose he has
 learned how farm-work is to be done, will he want
 something more yet, or will your man now be a
 perfect bailiff? 
 I think he must learn to
 rule the labourers.

And do you train your
 bailiffs to be competent to rule too? 
 Yes, I try, anyhow. 
 And pray tell me how you
 train them to be rulers of men. 
 By a childishly easy
 method,
 Socrates .
 I daresay you’ll laugh if I tell you.

Oh, but it is certainly
 not a laughing matter, Ischomachus. For anyone who
 can make men fit to rule others can also teach them
 to be masters of others; and if he can make them fit
 to be masters, he can make them fit to be kings. So
 anyone who can do that seems to me to deserve high
 praise rather than laughter.

Well now,
 Socrates ,
 other creatures learn obedience in two ways—by being
 punished when they try to disobey, and by being
 rewarded when they are eager to serve you.

Colts, for example, learn to obey the horsebreaker by
 getting something they like when they are obedient,
 and suffering inconvenience when they are
 disobedient, until they carry out the horsebreaker’s
 intentions.

Puppies, again, are much inferior to men in intelligence
 and power of expression; and yet they learn to run
 in circles and turn somersaults and do many other
 tricks in the same way; for when they obey they get
 something that they want, and when they are
 careless, they are punished.

And men can be made more obedient by word of mouth
 merely, by being shown that it is good for them to
 obey. But in dealing with slaves the training
 thought suitable for wild animals is also a very
 effective way of teaching obedience; for you will do
 much with them by filling their bellies with the
 food they hanker after. Those of an ambitious
 disposition are also spurred on by praise, some
 natures being hungry for praise as others for meat
 and drink.

Now these are precisely the things that I do myself with
 a view to making men more obedient; but they are not
 the only lessons I give to those whom I want to
 appoint my bailiffs. I have other ways of helping
 them on. For the clothes that I must provide for my
 work-people and the shoes are not all alike. Some
 are better than others, some worse, in order that I
 may reward the better servant with the superior
 articles, and give the inferior things to the less
 deserving.

For I think it is very disheartening to good servants,
 Socrates ,
 when they see that they do all the work, and others
 who are not willing to work hard and run risks when
 need be, get the same as they.

For my part, then, I don’t choose to put the deserving on
 a level with the worthless, and when I know that my
 bailiffs have distributed the best things to the
 most deserving, I commend them; and if I see that
 flattery or any other futile service wins special
 favour, I don’t overlook it, but reprove the
 bailiff, and try to show him,
 Socrates ,
 that such favouritism is not even in his own
 interest.

Now, Ischomachus, said
 I, when you find your man so competent to rule that
 he can make them obedient, do you think him a
 perfect bailiff, or does he want anything else, even
 with the qualifications you have mentioned?

Of course,
 Socrates , 
 returned Ischomachus, he must be honest and not
 touch his master’s property. For if the man who
 handles the crops dares to make away with them, and
 doesn’t leave enough to give a profit on the
 undertaking, what good can come of farming under his
 management?

Then do you take it on
 yourself to teach this kind of justice too? 
 Certainly: I don’t find,
 however, that all readily pay heed to this lesson.

Nevertheless I guide the servants into the path of
 justice with the aid of maxims drawn from the laws
 of Draco and
 Solon . For
 it seems to me that these famous men enacted many of
 their laws with an eye on this particular kind of
 justice.

For it is written: thieves shall be fined for their
 thefts, and anyone guilty of attempt shall be
 imprisoned if taken in the act, and put to
 death. The object of these enactments
 was clearly to make covetousness unprofitable to the
 offender.

By applying some of these clauses and other enactments
 found in the Persian king’s code, I try to make my
 servants upright in the matters that pass through
 their hands.

For while those laws only penalise the wrongdoer, the king’s code not only
 punishes the guilty, but also benefits the upright.
 Thus, seeing that the honest grow richer than the
 dishonest, many, despite their love of lucre, are
 careful to remain free from dishonesty.

And if I find any attempting to persist in dishonesty,
 although they are well treated, I regard them as
 incorrigibly greedy, and have nothing more to do
 with them.

On the other hand, if I discover that a man is inclined
 to be honest not only because he gains by his
 honesty, but also from a desire to win my
 approbation, I treat him like a free man by making
 him rich; and not only so, but I honour him as a
 gentleman.

For I think,
 Socrates ,
 that the difference between ambition and greed
 consists in this, that for the sake of praise and
 honour the ambitious are willing to work properly,
 to take risks and refrain from dishonest gain.

Well, well, I won’t go
 on to ask whether anything more is wanting to your
 man, after you have implanted in him a desire for
 your prosperity and have made him also careful to
 see that you achieve it, and have obtained for him,
 besides, the knowledge needful to ensure that every
 piece of work done shall add to the profits, and,
 further, have made him capable of ruling, and when,
 besides all this, he takes as much delight in
 producing heavy crops for you in due season as you
 would take if you did the work yourself. For it
 seems to me that a man like that would make a very
 valuable bailiff. Nevertheless, Ischomachus, don’t
 leave a gap in that part of the subject to which we
 have given the most cursory attention. 
 Which is it? asked
 Ischomachus.

You said, you know, that
 the greatest lesson to learn is how things ought to
 be done; and added that, if a man is ignorant what
 to do and how to do it, no good can come of his
 management.

Then he said,
 Socrates ,
 are you insisting now that I should teach the whole
 art and mystery of agriculture? 
 
 Yes, said I; for maybe
 it is just this that makes rich men of those who
 understand it, and condemns the ignorant to a life
 of penury, for all their toil.

Well,
 Socrates ,
 you shall now hear how kindly a thing is this art.
 Helpful, pleasant, honourable, dear to gods and men
 in the highest degree, it is also in the highest
 degree easy to learn. Noble qualities surely! As you
 know, we call those creatures noble that are
 beautiful, great and helpful, and yet gentle towards
 men.

Ah, but I think,
 Ischomachus, that I quite understand your account of
 these matters—I mean how to teach a bailiff; for I
 think I follow your statement that you make him
 loyal to you, and careful and capable of ruling and
 honest.

But you said that one who is to be successful in the
 management of a farm must learn what to do and how
 and when to do it. That is the subject that we have
 treated, it seems to me, in a rather cursory
 fashion,

as if you said that anyone who is to be capable of
 writing from dictation and reading what is written
 must know the alphabet. For had I been told that, I
 should have been told, to be sure, that I must know
 the alphabet, but I don’t think that piece of
 information would help me to know it.

So too now; I am easily convinced that a man who is to
 manage a farm successfully must understand farming,
 but that knowledge doesn’t help me to understand how
 to farm.

Were I to decide this very moment to be a farmer, I think
 I should be like that doctor who goes round visiting
 the sick, but has no knowledge of the right way to
 treat them. Therefore, that I may not be like him,
 you must teach me the actual operations of farming.

Why,
 Socrates ,
 farming is not troublesome to learn, like other
 arts, which the pupil must study till he is worn out
 before he can earn his keep by his work. Some things
 you can understand by watching men at work, others
 by just being told, well enough to teach another if
 you wish. And I believe that you know a good deal
 about it yourself, without being aware of the fact.

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. Question him
 about any piece of work well done: and he will tell
 you exactly how he did it.

So farming,
 Socrates ,
 more than any other calling, seems to produce a
 generous disposition in its followers.

An excellent preamble, 
 I cried, and not of a sort to damp the hearer’s
 curiosity. Come, describe it to me, all the more
 because it is so simple to learn. For it is no
 disgrace to you to teach elementary lessons, but far
 more a disgrace to me not to understand them,
 especially if they are really useful.

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.

For they tell us that to be a successful farmer one must
 first know the nature of the soil. 
 Yes, and they are
 right, I remarked; for if you don’t know what the
 soil is capable of growing, you can’t know, I
 suppose, what to plant or what to sow.

Well then, said
 Ischomachus, you can tell by looking at the crops
 and trees on another man’s land what the soil can
 and what it cannot grow. But when you have found
 out, it is useless to fight against the gods. For
 you are not likely to get a better yield from the
 land by sowing and planting what you want instead of
 the crops and trees that the land prefers.

If it happens that the land does not declare its own
 capabilities because the owners are lazy, you can
 often gather more correct information from a
 neighbouring plot than from a neighbouring
 proprietor.

Yes, and even if the land lies waste, it reveals its
 nature. For if the wild stuff growing on the land is
 of fine quality, then by good farming the soil is
 capable of yielding cultivated crops of fine
 quality. So the nature of the soil can be
 ascertained even by the novice who has no experience
 of farming.

Well, I think I am now
 confident, Ischomachus, that I need not avoid
 farming from fear of not knowing the nature of the
 soil.

The fact is, I am reminded that fishermen, though their
 business is in the sea, and they neither stop the
 boat to take a look nor slow down, nevertheless,
 when they see the crops as they scud past the farms,
 do not hesitate to express an opinion about the
 land, which is the good and which is the bad sort,
 now condemning, now praising it. And, what is more,
 I notice that in their opinion about the good land
 they generally agree exactly with experienced
 farmers.

Then,
 Socrates ,
 let me refresh your memory on the subject of
 agriculture; but where do you wish me to begin? For
 I am aware that I shall tell you very much that you
 know already about the right method of farming.

First, Ischomachus, I
 think I should be glad to learn, for this is the
 philosopher’s way, how I am to cultivate the land if
 I want to get the heaviest crops of wheat and barley
 out of it.

Well, you know, I take
 it, that fallow must be prepared for sowing? 
 Yes, I know.

Suppose, then, we start
 ploughing in winter? 
 Why, the land will be a
 bog! 
 How about starting in
 summer? 
 The land will be hard to
 plough up.

It seems that spring is
 the season for beginning this work. 
 Yes, the land is likely
 to be more friable if it is broken up then. 
 Yes, and the grass
 turned up is long enough at that season to serve as
 manure, but, not having shed seed, it will not grow.

You know also, I presume, that fallow land can’t be
 satisfactory unless it is clear of weeds and
 thoroughly baked in the sun? 
 Yes, certainly; that is
 essential, I think.

Do you think that there
 is any better way of securing that than by turning
 the land over as often as possible in summer? 
 Nay, I know for certain
 that if you want the weeds to lie on the surface and
 wither in the heat, and the land to be baked by the
 sun, the surest way is to plough it up at midday in
 midsummer.

And if men prepare the
 fallow by digging, is it not obvious that they too
 must separate the weeds from the soil? 
 
 Yes, and they must throw
 the weeds on the surface to wither, and turn up the
 ground so that the lower spit may be baked.

You see, then,
 Socrates ,
 that we agree about the fallow. 
 
 It does seem so, to be
 sure. 
 
 And now as to the time
 for sowing,
 Socrates .
 Is it not your opinion that the time to sow is that
 which has been invariably found to be the best by
 past experience, and is universally approved by
 present practice?

For as soon as autumn ends, all men, I suppose, look
 anxiously to God, to see when he will send rain on
 the earth and make them free to sow. 
 Yes, Ischomachus, all
 men have made up their minds, of course, not to sow
 in dry ground if they can help it, those who sowed
 without waiting to be bidden by God having had to
 wrestle with many losses.

So far, then, said
 Ischomachus, all the world is of one mind. 
 
 Yes, said I, where God
 is our teacher we all come to think alike. For
 example, all agree that it is better to wear warm
 clothes in winter, if they can, and all agree on the
 desirability of having a fire, if they have wood.

But, said Ischomachus,
 when we come to the question whether sowing is best
 done early or very late or at the mid-season, we
 find much difference of opinion,
 Socrates . 
 And God, said I, does not regulate the year by fixed laws; but in one year it may be
 advantageous to sow early, in another very late, in
 another at mid-season.

Then do you think,
 Socrates ,
 that it is better to select one of these times for
 sowing, whether you sow much or little, or to begin
 at the earliest moment and continue sowing to the
 latest?

For my part,
 Ischomachus, I think it is best to sow for
 succession throughout the season. For in my opinion
 it is much better to get enough food at all times
 than too much at one time and not enough at
 another. 
 Here again, then,
 Socrates ,
 pupil and teacher are of one opinion; and, moreover,
 you, the pupil, are first in stating this opinion.

Well now, is casting the
 seed a complicated problem? 
 By all means let us take
 that also into consideration,
 Socrates .
 I presume that you know as well as I that the seed
 must be cast by the hand? 
 Yes, I have seen
 it. 
 
 Ah, he said, but some
 men can cast evenly, and some cannot. 
 Then sowers no less than
 lyre-players need practice, that the hand may be the
 servant of the will. 
 Certainly.

But suppose that some of the land is rather light and
 some rather heavy? 
 
 What do you mean by
 that? I interrupted. 
 By light do you mean
 weak, and by heavy, strong ? 
 Yes, I do; and I ask you
 whether you would give the same quantity of seed to
 both kinds, or to which you would give more?

Well, my principle is
 this: the stronger the wine, the more water I add;
 the stronger the bearer, the heavier the burden I
 put on his back; and if it is necessary to feed
 others, I should require the richest men to feed the
 greatest number. But tell me whether weak land, like
 draught animals, becomes stronger when you put more
 corn into it.

Ah, you’re joking,
 Socrates , 
 he said, laughing, but allow me to tell you that,
 if after putting in the seed you plough it in again
 as soon as the blade appears when the land is
 obtaining plenty of nourishment from the sky, it
 makes food for the soil, and strengthens it like
 manure. If, on the other hand, you let the seed go
 on growing on the land until it is bolled, it’s hard
 for weak land to yield much grain in the end. It’s
 hard, you know, for a weak sow to rear a big litter
 of fine pigs.

Do you mean,
 Ischomachus, that the weaker the soil the less seed
 should be put into it? 
 Yes, of course,
 Socrates ;
 and you agree when you say that your invariable
 custom is to make the burden light that is to be
 borne by the weak.

But the hoers, now,
 Ischomachus, why do you put them on the corn? 
 I presume you know that
 in winter there is a heavy rainfall? 
 Of course. 
 Let us assume, then,
 that part of the corn is waterlogged and covered
 with mud, and some of the roots are exposed by
 flooding. And it often happens, you know, that in
 consequence of rain weeds spring up among the corn
 and choke it.

All these things are
 likely to happen. 
 Then don’t you think
 that in such circumstances the corn needs prompt
 succour? 
 Certainly. 
 What should be done, do
 you think, to succour the part that is under the
 mud? 
 The soil should be
 lifted. 
 And the part that has
 its roots exposed? 
 It should be earthed
 up.

What if weeds are
 springing up, choking the corn and robbing it of its
 food, much as useless drones rob bees of the food
 they have laid in store by their industry? 
 The weeds must be cut,
 of course, just as the drones must be removed from
 the hive.

Don’t you think, then,
 that we have good reason for putting on men to
 hoe? 
 No doubt; but I am
 reflecting, Ischomachus, on the advantage of
 bringing in an apt simile. For you roused my wrath
 against the weeds by mentioning the drones, much
 more than when you spoke of mere weeds.

However, I continued,
 after this comes reaping, I fancy. So give me any
 information you can with regard to that too. 
 Yes—unless I find that
 you know just what I do about that subject too. You
 know, then, that the corn must be cut. 
 I know that,
 naturally. 
 Are you for standing
 with your back to the wind when you cut corn, or
 facing it? 
 Not facing it, no! I
 think it is irritating both to the eyes and to the
 hands to reap with cornstalks and spikes blowing in
 your face.

And would you cut near
 the top or close to the ground? 
 If the stalk is short, I
 should cut low down, so that the straw may be more
 useful; but if it is long, I think it would be right
 to cut in the middle, in order that the threshers
 and winnowers may not spend needless trouble on what
 they don’t want. I imagine that the stubble may be
 burnt with advantage to the land, or thrown on the
 manure heap to increase its bulk.

Do you notice,
 Socrates ,
 that you stand convicted of knowing just what I know
 about reaping too? 
 Yes, it seems so; and I
 want to know besides whether I understand threshing
 as well. 
 Then you know this much,
 that draught animals are used in threshing?

Yes, of course I do; and
 that the term draught animals includes oxen, mules
 and horses. 
 Then do you not think
 that all the beasts know is how to trample on the
 corn as they are driven? 
 Why, what more should
 draught animals know?

And who sees that they
 tread out the right corn, and that the threshing is
 level,
 Socrates ? 
 The threshers, clearly.
 By continually turning the untrodden corn and
 throwing it under the animal’s feet they will, of
 course, keep it level on the floor and take least
 time over the work. 
 So far, then, your
 knowledge is quite as good as mine.

Will not our next task
 be to clean the corn by winnowing, Ischomachus? 
 Yes,
 Socrates ;
 and tell me, do you know that if you start on the
 windward side of the floor, you will find the husks
 carried right across the floor? 
 It must be so.

Is it not likely, then,
 that some will fall on the grain? 
 Yes, it is a long way
 for the husks to be blown, right over the grain to
 the empty part of the floor. 
 But what if you start
 winnowing against the wind? 
 Clearly the chaff will
 at once fall in the right place.

And as soon as you have
 cleaned the corn over one half of the floor, will
 you at once go on throwing up the rest of the chaff
 while the corn lies about just as it is, or will you
 first sweep the clean corn towards the edge, so as to occupy
 the smallest space? 
 Of course I shall first
 sweep the clean corn up, so that my chaff may be
 carried across into the empty space, and I may not
 have to throw up the same chaff twice.

Well,
 Socrates ,
 it seems you are capable of teaching the quickest
 way of cleaning corn. 
 I really wasn’t aware that I understood these things; and so I have been thinking for some time whether my knowledge extends
 to smelting gold, playing the flute, and painting
 pictures. For I have never been taught these things
 any more than I have been taught farming; but I have
 watched men working at these arts, just as I have
 watched them farming.

And didn’t I tell you
 just now that farming is the noblest art for this
 among other reasons, because it is the easiest to
 learn? 
 Enough, Ischomachus; I
 know. I understood about sowing, it seems, but I
 wasn’t aware that I understood.

However, is the planting
 of fruit trees another branch of agriculture? I
 continued.
 It is, indeed, answered
 Ischomachus.
 Then how can I
 understand all about sowing, and yet know nothing of
 planting?

What, don’t you
 understand it? 
 How can I, when I don’t
 know what kind of soil to plant in, nor how deep a
 hole to dig, nor how broad, nor how much of the
 plant should be buried, nor how it must be set in
 the ground to grow best?

Come then, learn
 whatever you don’t know. I am sure you have seen the
 sort of trenches they dig for plants. 
 Yes, often enough. 
 Did you ever see one
 more than three feet deep? 
 No, of course not—nor
 more than two and a half. 
 Well, did you ever see
 one more than three feet broad? 
 Of course not, nor more
 than two feet. 
 Come then, answer this
 question too.

Did you ever see one less than a foot deep? 
 Never less than a foot
 and a half, of course. For the plants would come out
 of the ground when it is stirred about them if they
 were put in so much too shallow.

Then you know this well
 enough,
 Socrates ,
 that the trenches are never more than two and a half
 feet deep, nor less than a foot and a half. 
 A thing so obvious as
 that can’t escape one’s eyes.

Again, can you
 distinguish between dry and wet ground by using your
 eyes? 
 Oh, I should think that
 the land round Lycabettus and any like it is an
 example of dry ground, and the low-lying land at
 Phalerum and any like it of wet.

In which then would you
 dig the hole deep for your plant, in the dry or the
 wet ground? 
 In the dry, of course;
 because if you dug deep in the wet, you would come
 on water, and water would stop your planting. 
 I think you are quite
 right. Now suppose the holes are dug; have you ever
 noticed how the plants for each kind of
 soil should be put in? 
 Oh, yes.

Then assuming that you
 want them to grow as quickly as possible, do you
 think that if you put some prepared soil under them
 the cuttings will strike sooner through soft earth
 into the hard stuff, or through unbroken
 ground? 
 Clearly, they will form
 roots more quickly in prepared soil than in unbroken
 ground.

Then soil must be placed
 below the plant? 
 No doubt it must. 
 And if you set the whole
 cutting upright, pointing to the sky, do you think
 it would take root better, or would you lay part of
 it slanting under the soil that has been put below,
 so that it lies like a gamma upside down?

Of course I would; for
 then there would be more buds underground; and I
 notice that plants shoot from the buds above ground,
 so I suppose that the buds under the ground do just
 the same; and with many shoots forming underground,
 the plant will make strong and rapid growth, I
 suppose.

Then it turns out that
 on these points too your opinion agrees with mine.
 But would you merely heap up the earth, or make it
 firm round the plant? 
 I should make it firm,
 of course; for if it were not firm, I feel sure that
 the rain would make mud of the loose earth, and the
 sun would dry it up from top to bottom; so the
 plants would run the risk of damping off through too
 much water, or withering from too much heat at the
 roots.

About vine planting
 then,
 Socrates ,
 your views are again exactly the same as mine,
 too? I asked.
 Yes, and to all other
 fruit trees, I think; for in planting other trees
 why discard anything that gives good results with
 the vine?

But the olive—how shall
 we plant that, Ischomachus? 
 You know quite well, and
 are only trying to draw me out again. For I am sure
 you see that a deeper hole is dug for the olive (it
 is constantly being done on the roadside); you see
 also that all the growing shoots have stumps
 adhering to them; and you see that all the heads of
 the plants are coated with clay, and the part of the
 plant that is above ground is wrapped up.

Yes, I see all
 this. 
 You do! Then what is
 there in it that you don’t understand? Is it that
 you don’t know how to put the crocks on the top of
 the clay,
 Socrates ? 
 Of course there is
 nothing in what you have said that I don’t know,
 Ischomachus. But I am again set thinking what can
 have made me answer No to the question you put to
 me a while ago, when you asked me briefly, Did I
 understand planting? For I thought I should have
 nothing to say about the right method of planting.
 But now that you have undertaken to question me in
 particular, my answers, you tell me, agree exactly
 with the views of a farmer so famous for his skill
 as yourself!

Can it be that questioning is a kind of teaching,
 Ischomachus? The fact is, I have just discovered the
 plan of your series of questions! You lead me by
 paths of knowledge familiar to me, point out things
 like what I know, and bring me to think that I
 really know things that I thought I had no knowledge
 of.

Now suppose I questioned
 you about money, said Ischomachus, whether it is
 good or bad, could I persuade you that you know how
 to distinguish good from false by test? And by
 putting questions about flute-players could I
 convince you that you understand flute-playing; and
 by means of questions about painters and other
 artists—— 
 You might, since you
 have convinced me that I understand agriculture,
 though I know that I have never been taught this
 art. 
 No, it isn’t so,
 Socrates .

I told you a while ago that agriculture is such a humane,
 gentle art that you have but to see her and listen
 to her, and she at once makes you understand her.

She herself gives you many lessons in the best way of
 treating her. For instance, the vine climbs the
 nearest tree, and so teaches you that she wants
 support. And when her clusters are yet tender, she
 spreads her leaves about them, and teaches you to
 shade the exposed parts from the sun’s rays during
 that period.

But when it is now time for her grapes to be sweetened by
 the sun, she sheds her leaves, teaching you to strip
 her and ripen her fruit. And thanks to her teeming
 fertility, she shows some mellow clusters while she
 carries others yet sour, so saying to you: Pluck my
 grapes as men pluck figs,—choose the luscious ones
 as they come.

And now I asked, How is
 it then, Ischomachus, if the operations of husbandry
 are so easy to learn and all alike know what must
 needs be done, that all have not the same fortune?
 How is it that some farmers live in abundance and
 have more than they want, while others cannot get
 the bare necessaries of life, and even run into
 debt? 
 Oh, I will tell you,
 Socrates .

It is not knowledge nor want of knowledge on the part of
 farmers that causes one to thrive while another is
 needy.

You won’t hear a story like this running about: The
 estate has gone to ruin because the sower sowed
 unevenly, or because he didn’t plant the rows
 straight, or because someone, not knowing the right
 soil for vines, planted them in barren ground, or
 because someone didn’t know that it is well to
 prepare the fallow for sowing, or because someone
 didn’t know that it is well to manure the land.

No, you are much more likely to hear it said: The man
 gets no corn from his field because he takes no
 trouble to see that it is sown or manured. Or, The
 man has got no wine, for he takes no trouble to
 plant vines or to make his old stock bear. Or, The
 man has neither olives nor figs, because he doesn’t
 take the trouble; he does nothing to get them.

It is not the farmers reputed to have made some clever
 discovery in agriculture who differ in fortune from
 others: it is things of this sort that make all the
 difference,
 Socrates .

This is true of generals also: there are some branches of
 strategy in which one is better or worse than
 another, not because he differs in intelligence, but
 in point of carefulness, undoubtedly. For the things
 that all generals know, and most privates, are done
 by some commanders and left undone by others.

For example, they all know that when marching through an
 enemy’s country, the right way is to march in the
 formation in which they will fight best, if need be.
 Well, knowing this, some observe the rule, others
 break it.

All know that it is right to post sentries by day and
 night before the camp; but this too is a duty that
 some attend to, while others neglect it.

Again, where will you find the man who does not know
 that, in marching through a defile, it is better to
 occupy the points of vantage first? Yet this measure
 of precaution too is duly taken by some and
 neglected by others.

So, too, everyone will say that in agriculture there is
 nothing so good as manure, and their eyes tell them
 that nature produces it. All know exactly how it is
 produced, and it is easy to get any amount of it;
 and yet, while some take care to have it collected,
 others care nothing about it.

Yet the rain is sent from heaven, and all the hollows
 become pools of water, and the earth yields herbage
 of every kind which must be cleared off the ground
 by the sower before sowing; and the rubbish he
 removes has but to be thrown into water, and time of
 itself will make what the soil likes. For every kind
 of vegetation, every kind of soil in stagnant water
 turns into manure.

And again, all the ways
 of treating the soil when it is too wet for sowing
 or too salt for planting are familiar to all men—how
 the land is drained by ditches, how the salt is
 corrected by being mixed with saltless substances,
 liquid or dry. Yet these matters, again, do not
 always receive attention.

Suppose a man to be wholly ignorant as to what the land
 can produce, and to be unable to see crop or tree on
 it, or to hear from anyone the truth about it, yet
 is it not far easier for any man to prove a parcel
 of land than to test a horse or to test a human
 being? For the land never plays tricks, but reveals
 frankly and truthfully what she can and what she
 cannot do.

I think that just because she conceals nothing from our
 knowledge and understanding, the land is the surest
 tester of good and bad men. For the slothful cannot
 plead ignorance, as in other arts: land, as all men
 know, responds to good treatment.

Husbandry is the clear accuser of the recreant soul. For
 no one persuades himself that man could live without
 bread; therefore if a man will not dig and knows no
 other profit-earning trade, he is clearly minded to
 live by stealing or robbery or begging—or he is an
 utter fool.

Farming, he added, may
 result in profit or in loss; it makes a great
 difference to the result, even when many labourers
 are employed, whether the farmer takes care that the
 men are working during the working hours or is
 careless about it. For one man in ten by working all
 the time may easily make a difference, and another
 by knocking off before the time;

and, of course, if the men are allowed to be slack all
 the day long, the decrease in the work done may
 easily amount to one half of the whole.

Just as two travellers on the road, both young and in
 good health, will differ so much in pace that one
 will cover two hundred furlongs to the other’s
 hundred, because the one does what he set out to do,
 by going ahead, while the other is all for ease, now
 resting by a fountain or in the shade, now gazing at
 the view, now wooing the soft breeze;

so in farm work there is a vast difference in
 effectiveness between the men who do the job they
 are put on to do and those who, instead of doing it,
 invent excuses for not working and are allowed to be
 slack.

In fact, between good work and dishonest slothfulness
 there is as wide a difference as between actual work
 and actual idleness. Suppose the vines are being
 hoed to clear the ground of weeds: if the hoeing is
 so badly done that the weeds grow ranker and more
 abundant, how can you call that anything but
 idleness?

These, then, are the
 evils that crush estates far more than sheer lack of
 knowledge. For the outgoing expenses of the estate
 are not a penny less; but the work done is
 insufficient to show a profit on the expenditure;
 after that there’s no need to wonder if the expected
 surplus is converted into a loss.

On the other hand, to a careful man, who works
 strenuously at agriculture, no business gives
 quicker returns than farming. My father taught me
 that and proved it by his own practice. For he never
 allowed me to buy a piece of land that was well
 farmed; but pressed me to buy any that was
 uncultivated and unplanted owing to the owner’s
 neglect or incapacity.

Well farmed land, he would say, costs a large sum and
 can’t be improved; and he held that where there is
 no room for improvement there is not much pleasure
 to be got from the land: landed estate and livestock
 must be continually coming on to give the fullest
 measure of satisfaction. Now nothing improves more
 than a farm that is being transformed from a
 wilderness into fruitful fields.

I assure you,
 Socrates ,
 that we have often added a hundredfold to the value
 of a farm. There is so much money in this idea,
 Socrates ,
 and it is so easy to learn, that no sooner have you
 heard of it from me than you know as much as I do,
 and can go home and teach it to someone else, if you
 like.

Moreover, my father did not get his knowledge of it at
 secondhand, nor did he discover it by much thought;
 but he would say that, thanks to his love of
 husbandry and hard work, he had coveted a farm of
 this sort in order that he might have something to
 do, and combine profit with pleasure.

For I assure you,
 Socrates ,
 no Athenian, I believe, had such a strong natural
 love of agriculture as my father. 
 Now on hearing this I
 asked, Did your father keep all the farms that he
 cultivated, Ischomachus, or did he sell when he
 could get a good price? 
 He sold, of course, 
 answered Ischomachus, but, you see, owing to his
 industrious habits, he would promptly buy another
 that was out of cultivation.

You mean, Ischomachus,
 that your father really loved agriculture as
 intensely as merchants love corn. So deep is their
 love of corn that on receiving reports that it is
 abundant anywhere, merchants will voyage in quest of
 it: they will cross the Aegean , the Euxine, the Sicilian sea;

and when they have got as much as possible, they carry it
 over the sea, and they actually stow it in the very
 ship in which they sail themselves. And when they
 want money, they don’t throw the corn away anywhere
 at haphazard, but they carry it to the place where
 they hear that corn is most valued and the people
 prize it most highly, and deliver it to them there.
 Yes, your father’s love of agriculture seems to be
 something like that.

You’re joking,
 Socrates , 
 rejoined Ischomachus; but I hold that a man has a
 no less genuine love of building who sells his
 houses as soon as they are finished and proceeds to
 build others. 
 Of course; and I
 declare, Ischomachus, on my oath that I believe you,
 that all men naturally love whatever they think will
 bring them profit.

But I am pondering over
 the skill with which you have presented the whole
 argument in support of your proposition,
 Ischomachus. For you stated that husbandry is the
 easiest of all arts to learn, and after hearing all
 that you have said, I am quite convinced that this
 is so.

Of course it is, cried
 Ischomachus; but I grant you,
 Socrates ,
 that in respect of aptitude for command, which is
 common to all forms of business alike—agriculture,
 politics, estate-management, warfare—in that respect
 the intelligence shown by different classes of men
 varies greatly.

For example, on a man-of-war, when the ship is on the
 high seas and the rowers must toil all day to reach
 port, some boatswains can say and do the right thing
 to sharpen the men’s spirits and make them work with
 a will, while others are so unintelligent that it
 takes them more than twice the time to finish the
 same voyage. Here they land bathed in sweat, with
 mutual congratulations, boatswain and seamen. There
 they arrive with a dry skin; they hate their master
 and he hates them.

Generals, too, differ from one another in this respect.
 For some make their men unwilling to work and to
 take risks, disinclined and unwilling to obey,
 except under compulsion, and actually proud of
 defying their commander: aye, and they cause them to
 have no sense of dishonour when something
 disgraceful occurs.

Contrast the genius, the brave and scientific leader: let
 him take over the command of these same troops, or
 of others if you like. What effect has he on them?
 They are ashamed to do a disgraceful act, think it
 better to obey, and take a pride in obedience,
 working cheerfully, every man and all together, when
 it is necessary to work.

Just as a love of work may spring up in the mind of a
 private soldier here and there, so a whole army
 under the influence of a good leader is inspired
 with love of work and ambition to distinguish itself
 under the commander’s eye.

Let this be the feeling of the rank and file for their
 commander; and I tell you, he is the strong leader,
 he, and not the sturdiest soldier, not the best with
 bow and javelin, not the man who rides the best
 horse and is foremost in facing danger, not the
 ideal of knight or targeteer, but he who can make
 his soldiers feel that they are bound to follow him
 through fire and in any adventure.

Him you may justly call high-minded who has many
 followers of like mind; and with reason may he be
 said to march with a strong arm whose will many an
 arm is ready to serve; and truly great is he who can
 do great deeds by his will rather than his strength.

So too in private
 industries, the man in authority —bailiff or
 manager—who can make the workers keen, industrious
 and persevering—he is the man who gives a lift to
 the business and swells the surplus.

But, Socrates , if
 the appearance of the master in the field, of the
 man who has the fullest power to punish the bad and
 reward the strenuous workmen, makes no striking
 impression on the men at work, I for one cannot envy
 him. But if at sight of him they bestir themselves,
 and a spirit of determination and rivalry and
 eagerness to excel falls on every workman, then I
 should say: this man has a touch of the kingly
 nature in him.

And this, in my judgment, is the greatest thing in every
 operation that makes any demand on the labour of
 men, and therefore in agriculture. Mind you, I do
 not go so far as to say that this can be learnt at
 sight or at a single hearing. On the contrary, to
 acquire these powers a man needs education; he must
 be possessed of great natural gifts; above all, he
 must be a genius.

For I reckon this gift is not altogether human, but
 divine—this power to win willing obedience: it is
 manifestly a gift of the gods to the true votaries
 of prudence. Despotic rule over unwilling subjects
 they give, I fancy, to those whom they judge worthy
 to live the life of Tantalus, of whom it is said
 that in hell he spends eternity, dreading a second
 death.