A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

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540 Some Aspects of the Decline
III.
The Depopulation of Eubcea
Condition
of a certain
city of Eubcea,
about
loo A.D.
Die Chrysostom,
Oration vii.
34 ff.
A great part
of the empire
was falling
into a similar
condition.
About two thirds of our land lies waste for want of cultivators.
in the plain.
I own many acres both in the mountains and
If any one will cultivate them, they may do
it without cost; yes, I will gladly pay them money. It
is clear that the land will thereby increase in value, and
it will certainly be more pleasant to look upon. Waste
The speaker land, besides being useless, arouses pity and makes the
is a leading
owner seem unfortunate. It appears to me advisable
citizen of his
city.
therefore that you persuade as many citizens as possible
to occupy public lands of
the city and to cultivate it
whoever has capital more, and the poor man as much as
he can, that our land may come under the plow, and our
city be freed from two of the greatest evils, idleness and
poverty. Ten years they shall use the land without cost;
then after an estimate is made, they shall pay a small
quota of the grain but not of the cattle.
If a foreigner shall
occupy the land, he shall have it five years free, and then
pay a rent double that of a citizen. And if a stranger
shall occupy two, hundred acres, he shall be given the
citizenship as an encouragement to
to undertake such work.
as many as possible
For now the land just outside
the gates lies waste and unsightly as a desert, wholly unlike
the neighborhood of a city, while inside the walls the
larger part of the ground is sown or pastured. . . . They
plant grain on the exercise ground and pasture their cattle
in the market-place, so that Heracles and many other
statues of the gods and heroes are hidden by the stalks;
and every morning the sheep of a certain
statesman intrudes
upon the market-place and crops grass by the
council chamber and the other public buildings; and strangers
who come here either ridicule or pity our city.