Ancient Greek crafts (or the craftsmanship in Ancient Greece) was an important but largely undervalued, economic activity. It involved all activities of manufacturing transformation of raw materials, agricultural or not, both in the framework of the oikos and in workshops of size that gathered several tens of workers.
The artisans or "craftsmen" constituted a minority population in the Greek city or Polis, but their presence in the sources is not disproved since it was seen to grow throughout Greek Antiquity.
In Ancient Greece, there were craftsmen of different social strata. Although the metics and slaves were probably in the majority, there were also many free citizens in the workshops. They developed crafts such as musical instruments, sculptures, pottery, etc.
Much of Ancient Greek craftsmanship was part of the domestic sphere. However, the situation gradually changed between the 8th and 4th centuries BC, with the increasing commercialization of the Greek economy. Thus, important tasks as weaving or baking bread were performed only by women before the 6th century BC. With the growth of trade, slave labor began to be used extensively in handicrafts. Only the best quality dyed cloth, and in particular Tyrian purple, was made in the workshops.
Status of craftsmanship, status of the craftsman
A tricky definition "Craftsmanship" and also "craftsman" are delicate notions to define, insofar as they refer to relatively modern concepts, the definition of which is irrelevant for Ancient Greece.Francine Blondé, Arthur Muller, "Artisanat, artisans, ateliers en Grecice ancienne: définitions, esquisse de bilan", en Francine Blondé y Arthur Muller (dir), L'artisanat en Grèce ancienne: les artisans, les ateliers. Actes du colloque de Lille (11-12 de diciembre de 1997), publicados en Topoi 8/2, 1998, p. 832-834 Historians of antiquity were in agreement in considering an artisan or craftsman an individual with special expertise and who produced material goods intended for marketing outside the agricultural sector. "The artisan could sell his own production, but he should not be confused with the merchant: he manufactures part or all of the product he markets."Christophe Feyel, Les artisans dans les sanctuaires grecs, aux époques classique et hellénistique, Ecole française d'Athènes, 2006, p. 9
Within this framework, some historians add an additional selective criterion considering that craftsmanship was limited to the production of "finished" material goods, which would exclude the extraction of raw materials in quarries or mines,"The quarry does not interest us as it is the property of the workshop that manufactures the statue; if instead it sells or exports the blocks, even started, it does not enter our field." — Francine Blondé and Arthur Muller (dir), op.cit., p. 835 but such a restriction is not taken into account by other historians.Christophe Feyel and Philippe Casier above all
The ancient Greeks did not usually distinguish the artist from the craftsman. As a result, some activities considered artistic in contemporary times were an integral part of craftsmanship in ancient Greece, insofar as they expressed themselves in the manufacture of a concrete object—no more so than activities "to which the ancients accorded the status of artistic production and the patronage of a Muse"Francine Blondé et Arthur Muller (dir), op.cit., p. 835 (like music, poetry, etc.)
An undervalued activity
Diverse designations for a varied reality The fact that Ancient Greek does not have a term that encompasses the set of realities to which the contemporary concept of "craftsman" indicates both a lack of homogeneity in this world of craftsmanship and the great diversity of activities and status of those who depended on them.Raymond Descat, Le monde grec aux temps classiques, tome I: le s. V, PUF, 1995, p. 32. Artisans and craftmen are designated by various terms.
If δημιουργός / demiourgós, which refers to the idea of creation, of making an object, remains rather neutral and general (it designates the potter as well as the aedo or the diviner), the pejorative character of the term βάναυσος / bánausos underlines the contempt of the Greeks for these manual workers (as opposed to the intellectual) who used the fire of their kiln (baunos) to manufacture ceramic or metal objects."Subsequently, the word became associated with manual labor and slave labor." — Philippe Casier, "Le statut social des artisans dans la péninsule balkanique et les îles de la mer Egée de 478 à 88 av. J.-C.", en Michel Debidour (dir), Économies et sociétés dans la Grèce égéenne, 478-88 av. J.-C., éditions du temps, 2007, p. 17 The use of the word τεχνίτης / technítês refers to the mastery of a particular skill and goes far beyond the strict field of craftsmanship in that respect, since it also designates the virtuoso actor or soloist.Francine Blondé et Arthur Muller (dir), op.cit., p. 832
An activity deemed unworthy of a truly free man The sources at our disposal regularly underline the bad image of craftsmen in Greek society, and justify it, as Xenophon: "the so-called manual trades are discredited and, logically, have a very bad reputation in our cities, since they harm the bodies of workers and officials, forcing them to remain seated and to spend the whole day in the shade, and some of them even to be always by the fire. And by effeminizing the bodies, the spirits are also weakened."Xenophon, Económico iv.2. Se encuentra la misma idea en Plato, La República vi.495d-e They are considered unreliable when it comes to taking up arms to defend their city: "they have a bad reputation in dealing with their friends and as defenders of the fatherland. Even in some cities, especially in those which have a reputation for war, no citizen is allowed to engage in manual trades."Xenophon, Económico iv.3
Craft activity was considered incompatible with the ideals of autarky, which irrigated the mentality of the time and lead to privilege agriculture above any other productive activity. In fact, the free man was considered to be the one who does not depend on anyone but himself and his ability to exploit the land he owns, his oikos, for his survival. Living on his goods, he does not depend on the will of another, unlike the craftsman who, to survive, must have customers willing to buy what he produces.Olivier Picard, Économies et sociétés en Grèce ancienne (478-88 av. J-C.), Sedes, 2008, p. 58 Aristotle said that "the condition of a free man is that of one who does not live under obligation to his neighbor."Aristotle, Retóricai.9 In this scheme, the farmer, free "by nature" is more worthy of the status of citizen than the craftsman.
The accuracy of this opinion is illustrated by the ancient authors in the attitude of the craftsmen while they are citizens of a city. Their interventions are presented as disorderly and selfish, not only to defend their individual or class interests: "It is possible to see the craftsmen distracted by many matters in their mind and not at all persevering in one's occupation because of their ambition: some are engaged in agriculture, others participate in trade, others maintain two or three trades and the majority, in democratic cities, corrupt politics by attending the assemblies and get from the paymasters what is necessary."Diodorus Siculus, Biblioteca histórica i.74.7 The legitimacy of removing artisans, as Plato does in his ideal city of the Laws, is justified by the quality of the citizen: it is much greater than their professional activity, which deprives them of the σχολή / scholé, of the leisure indispensable to devote themselves sufficiently to their friends and to the affairs of the city.Xenophon, op. cit. iv.2-3
A more nuanced reality However, the strength of this aristocratic ideal, more or less infused in society as a whole, was not everywhere of the same order. If it was imposed in warlike or rural cities such as Sparta or Thebes—where obtaining citizenship was conditioned by the possession of goods, and where four years of exercising artisan functions condemned them to lose it—the cities more open to trade were much more liberal in recognizing the legitimacy of citizenship for those of their inhabitants who practiced craftsmanship.Édouard Will, Le monde grec et l'orient, tome I: le Ve siècle, PUF, 1994, p. 633
Thus, in Classical Greece, they would be almost 10,000 (out of a total of 30,000 or 40,000 citizens) in Athens,Léopold Migeotte, L'économie des cités grecques, Ellipses, 2007, p. 80 city where the craftsmanship was particularly developed. This significant proportion of artisans among the citizens of Athens is also underlined, in order to denigrate them, by Socrates: "For which of them are you ashamed of? Of the fullers, the shoemakers, the masons, the blacksmiths, the peasants, the merchants, or those who are peddling about the agora concerned with buying something cheap in order to sell it at a higher price? For it is all of them who compose the assembly."Xenophon Recuerdos de Sócrates iii.7.6
The proportion of citizens among the artisans was not negligible. According to the accounts of the Erechtheion, among the workers whose status is specified, there were 23% citizens, compared to 58% metics and 19% slaves.Christophe Feyel, op. cit., p. 320
The real possibilities of enrichment by craftsmanship activity can certainly contribute to explain this discrepancy between discourse and reality. Lysias, in one of his speeches against a proposal to withdraw citizenship from citizens of Athens who were not landowners, remarks that among the 5000 Athenians who would thus be excluded from citizenship there would be "a multitude of hoplites, of horsemen",Lysias, XXXIV, "Contra una proposición tendente a destruir en Atenas el gobierno transmitido por los ancestros'" 4 military functions secured by the wealthier citizens of Athens: "craftsmanship can secure fortune to those who practice it, and one cannot explain the opprobrium that weighs on craftsmanship by its financial situation vis-à-vis other citizens, even if the mass of Athenian craftsmen lived relatively frugally from their activity."
On the other hand, the literary sources available to us that evoke craftsmanship are works by authors who all belong, more or less, to the same milieu. That of an intellectual, political and economic elite that was relatively conservative and hostile to the more radical characters of ancient democracy (Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, etc.) Even if the pejorative discourse disseminated by his sources was, at least in part, shared by the whole of ancient Greek society, we must take into account this relatively partisan and biased character of the sources at our disposal.Philippe Casier, op.cit., p. 15-16
An activity of slaves and metics Most of the artisans belonged to the slave labor force. These slaves were employed by their owners in tasks of more or less importance according to their skills. Thus, while most of the slaves who worked in the Laurion mines, for example, were employed in less complex tasks, there were also slaves specialized in highly technical work, such as metallurgist, ceramist or sculptor. Some could even run a workshop on behalf of their master and had considerable freedom in their activity. These slaves could live separately (chôris oikountes), being able to constitute a peculium that would allow them to redeem their freedom later, insofar as their master was content to have an annuity for life or a fixed percentage of his profits (system of the ἀποφορά / apophorá, put in place from the 4th century BC in Athens).
In a quarry, it seems that the remuneration of slaves was equivalent to that of free workers, a part of the salary being given to their master. During the construction of the Erechtheion, free and slave craftsmen were paid the same amount, about one drachma per day.Édouard Will, op. cit., p. 651