The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 3 (of 3) — Key Ideas to Explore

The Language of Labor and Status

St. John's diction when describing slaves and laborers is notably precise. He distinguishes between "slaves" who perform "mean and painful drudgery" and the "poor" free citizens who engage in industry. The word "drudgery" recurs, emphasizing the physical burden of servile work. In discussing the serfs of Sparta, Crete, and Thessaly, he uses terms like "helots" and "penestae," but also notes the legal and social gradations among unfree populations. His choice of verbs—"infest," "plunder," "devastate"—when describing pirates and slave-traders reveals a moral stance, yet he avoids overt condemnation, preferring to let the actions speak through the sources. The phrase "a nest of pirates" applied to Aegina is drawn from Demosthenes, and St. John retains its vividness without embellishment.

Commerce as a Lens on Character

In the chapters on commerce, St. John uses economic activity to infer collective traits. He notes that Aeginetan merchants were regarded as "skin-flints" and "pedlars," a reputation he compares to that of Scots in Britain and Jews in Europe. This is not casual stereotyping but an observation rooted in ancient sources: he cites the phrase "Æginetan wares" for humble goods and references St. Paul's characterization of Cretans as "noted liars." The author is careful to balance such judgments with evidence of large-scale trade, noting that Aegina also sent ships to Tartessos and the Black Sea. His method is to juxtapose the petty and the grand, suggesting that a people's commercial habits reveal deeper cultural patterns.

The Texture of Daily Industry

St. John's catalog of trades—millers, bakers, perfumers, barbers, goldsmiths, armourers, potters, weavers—is remarkably detailed. He does not merely list occupations but describes the materials, tools, and social standing of each. For instance, he notes that "Italian warehouses" in Greek cities sold imported goods, and that "druggists" collected "simples" (medicinal herbs). The author's interest in the physicality of work is evident: he writes of charcoal-making, mining, and the dyeing of purple cloth. These passages are dense with technical vocabulary, yet St. John never loses sight of the human element, remarking on the skill required for certain crafts and the low status of others. The effect is to make the reader feel the weight of ancient labor.

Piracy and the Margins of Trade

A recurring motif in the commerce chapters is the thin line between trade and piracy. St. John documents how Aeginetan pirates, after being restored to their island following the Peloponnesian War, obtained Spartan permission to "infest the Attic coasts." He traces this tradition from the tyrant Hippias to the age of Demosthenes, when Aegina was both "a nest of pirates" and "a fair for the sale of their plunder." The author does not moralize but presents piracy as an economic strategy, one that coexisted with legitimate commerce. This nuanced view extends to his discussion of the slave trade, where he notes that captives taken in raids were a major source of slaves. St. John's treatment of these marginal activities underscores the complexity of ancient economic life.

The Architecture of Argument

St. John structures his volume thematically rather than chronologically, moving from slavery to industry to commerce to funeral rites. Each chapter is built around a central claim supported by multiple ancient authorities. For example, in discussing the commerce of Aegina, he cites Herodotus on Sostratos, Aristotle on the specialization of shipping, and Strabo on the island as an emporium. The footnotes (over 2,700 in the volume) are integral to the argument, providing the original Greek or Latin references. St. John's prose is formal and periodic, with long sentences that accumulate clauses like evidence piling up. This style suits his purpose: to persuade through accumulation rather than rhetoric.

Readers approaching this volume should expect a work of synthesis rather than narrative history. St. John's strength lies in his ability to gather and juxtapose disparate sources, revealing patterns that a single author might miss. The index, which references all three volumes, is a valuable tool for tracing themes across the entire work. For those interested in the texture of ancient life—the tools, trades, and transactions that sustained Greek civilization—this volume offers a wealth of concrete detail, even if its judgments occasionally reflect the biases of its own era.

Reading how St. John pieces together the lives of enslaved laborers in Athens, I thought of my grandfather’s old ledger book, marginal notes in his careful hand. That feeling of uncovering hidden work returned when I later found Woman; Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, and Among the Early Christians — A Reader’s Guide—another quiet excavation of lives the big histories barely mention.