Note 354 — Chapter I · CONDITION OF THE POOR.

Ἐπισίτιοι. Plat. Rep. iv. § 1. t. i. p. 263. Stallb. Athen. vi. 50. Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. 156, on the lowness of wages. On the Pelatæ see the note of Rünkh. ad Tim. Lex. in v. Meris, p. 208. Bekk.—Plat. Euthyph. t.i. p. 356. Poll. iii. 82. Dionysius of Halicarnassus entertained a strange notion of the θῆτες and πελάται of the Athenians, whose condition he supposes to have been inferior to that of the Roman clients. He pretends, indeed, that clientship arose in Greece, and was only established by imitation at Rome: ἔθος Ἑλληνικὸν καὶ Ἀρχαῖον, he says, ὧ Θετταλοί τε μέχρι πολλοῦ χρώμενοι διετέλεσαν καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι καταρχὰς. ἐκεῖνοι μὲν γὰρ ἐπιτάττοντες οὐ προσήκοντα ἐλευθέροις, καὶ ὁπότε μὴ πράξειάν τι τῶν κελευρομένων, πληγὰς ἐντείνοντες, καὶ τἄλλα ὥσπερ ἀργυρωνήτοις χρώμενοι. ἐκάλουν δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι μὲν Θῆτας τοὺς Πελάτας, ἐπὶ τῆς λατρείας Θετταλοὶ δὲ, Πενέστας, ὀνειδίζοντες αὐτοῖς εὐθὺς ἐν τῇ κλήσει τὴν τύχην. Antiq. Rom. ii. 9. Reiske very justly remarks on this passage, that he does not see with what propriety the Thetes of Attica are classed with the Thessalian Penestæ, in comparing them with the Roman Clients. For it is most certain (as H. Stephens shows in his Schediasm. v. 15, seq.), that the condition of the Penestæ bore little resemblance to that of the Roman Clients. And as to the Attic Thetes and Pelatæ they were completely free, though inferior in rank to the artisans (οἱ βαναυσοὶ, Steph. Thes. v. θῆς); nor did they serve as slaves serve their masters (ut δοῦλοι δεσπόταις); but, as appears from the Scholiast on Odyss. δ. 644, as poor and debt-oppressed persons hire their services to the rich or to their creditors, who were denominated χρήστας, not προστάτας, or δεσπότας. The condition of the Thessalian Penestæ was different: for they were nearly slaves, μεταξὺ δούλων καὶ ἐλευθέρων, as the ancients called them. (Pollux, iii. 83.) Those among them who served in families were named θετταλοικέται. (Reiske, ad Dion. Hal. t. i. p. 255.)