Now so much for the life of the farmer, the hunter, and the shepherd. Perhaps I have spent more time on this theme than I should have done, but I desired to show in some way or other that poverty is no hopeless impediment to a life and existence befitting free men who are willing to work with their hands, but leads them on to deeds and actions that are far better and more useful and more in accordance with nature than those to which riches are wont to attract most men.
Well then, it would now be our duty to consider the life and occupations of poor men who live in the capital or some other city, and see by what routine of life and what pursuits they will be able to live a really good life, one not inferior to that of men who lend out money at excessive rates of interest and understand very well the calculation of days and months, nor to that of those who own large tenement houses and ships and slaves in great numbers!
For the poor of this type suitable work may perhaps be hard to find in the cities, and will need to be supplemented by outside resources when they have to pay house rent and buy everything they get, not merely clothes, household belongings, and food, but even the wood to supply the daily need for fire, and even any odd sticks, leaves, or other most trifling thing they need at any time, and when they are compelled to pay money for everything but water, since everything is kept under lock and key, and nothing is exposed to the public except, of course, the many expensive things for sale.
It will perhaps seem hard for men to subsist under such conditions who have no other possession than their own bodies, especially as we do not advise them to take any kind of work that offers for all kinds indiscriminately from which it is possible to make some money. So perhaps we shall be forced in our discussion to banish the respectable poor from the cities in order to make our cities in reality cities "well-inhabited," as Homer calls them, where only the prosperous dwell, and we shall not allow any free laborer, apparently, within the walls.
But what shall we do with all these poor people? Shall we scatter them in settlements in the country as the Athenians are said to have been spread all over Attica in early times and again later when Pisistratus became tyrant? That mode of life did not prove disadvantageous to the Athenians of that time, nor did it produce a degenerate breed of citizens either, but men in every way better and more temperate than those who later on got their living in the city as ecclesiasts, jurymen, and clerks—a lazy and at the same time ignoble crowd.
It will not, therefore, cause any great and dire peril if all these respectable poor shall become by any end and every means rustics, but nevertheless I think that even in the city they will not fail to make a living.
But let us see what the variety and nature of the occupations are which they are to follow in order to live in what we believe is the proper way and not be often compelled to turn to something unworthy because they are out of work. The occupations and trades in the city, if all are taken into consideration, are many and of all kinds, and some of them are very profitable for those who engage in them, if one thinks of money when he says "profitable." But it is not easy to name them all separately on account of their multitude, and equally because that would be out of place here.
Therefore, let this brief criticism and praise of them suffice: all which are injurious to the body by impairing its health or by preventing the maintenance of its adequate strength through their inactive or sedentary character, or which engender in the soul either turpitude or illiberality or, in general, are useless and good for nothing since they owe their origin to the silly luxury of the cities—these cannot properly be called trades or occupations at all.
For Hesiod, a wise man, would never have commended all occupations alike if he had thought that any evil or disgraceful thing was entitled to that name—so where any of these evils, be it what it may, is attached to these activities, no self-respecting and honorable man should himself have anything to do with them or know anything about them or teach them to his sons, for he knows that he will not be what either Hesiod or we mean by "workman" if he engages in any such business, but will incur the shameful reproach of being an idler living on disgraceful gains and hear himself bluntly called sordid, good for nothing, and wicked.
But, on the other hand, where the occupations are not unbecoming to those who follow them and create no evil condition in their souls nor injure their health by inducing, among other diseases, physical weakness in particular, sluggishness, and softness on account of the almost complete lack of exercise, and, further, enable one to make a satisfactory living—the men who engage zealously and industriously in any of these will never lack work and a living from it, nor will they give the rich any justification for calling them the "poor class," as is their wont; on the contrary, they will be rather purveyors to the rich and lack practically nothing that is necessary and useful.
Now without describing in detail each and every occupation, but simply offering a general outline, let us mention in these two classes the kinds we do not approve of, giving our reasons, and the kinds we urge men to undertake without hesitation.
Let them pay no heed to those idle objectors who are wont often to sneer obviously not only at a man's occupation when it has nothing at all objectionable in it, but even at that of his parents, when, for instance, his mother was once on occasion someone's hired servant or a harvester of grapes, or was a paid wet nurse for a motherless child or a rich man's, or when his father was a schoolmaster or a tutor.
Let them, I say, feel no shame before such persons but go right ahead. For if they refer to such things, they will simply be mentioning them as indications of poverty, evidently abusing and holding up poverty itself as something evil and unfortunate, and not any of these occupations.
Therefore, since we maintain that to be poor is no worse and no more unfortunate than to be rich, and perhaps no less advantageous to many, the sneer at one's occupation ought not to give any greater offense than the sneer at one's poverty.
You see, if, without mentioning the thing with which they found fault, they had to bring up and denounce the things it caused from day to day, they would have a great many more and really disgraceful things caused by the possession of wealth to bring up, and not least of all what in Hesiod is adjudged the greatest shame, namely, the charge of idleness, and exclaim, "Sir, never a delver did the gods make thee, nor a plowman," adding, "In vain hast thou hands; soft and tender are they like those of the suitors." . . .
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