Ancient Greek Βαναυσος (banausos, plural βαναυσοι, banausoi) is derived from Banausia, which an ancient Greek lexicographer defines as "every craft (techné) [conducted] by means of fire". It came to mean "sweaty" or "sooty toil". The word, and its relatives, are irregularly formed from the word βαυνος (baunos) meaning furnace and αυω (auō) meaning 'to dry'. They are not attested outside Attic (and Ionic) or before the 5th Century B.C.. The epic heroes call their smiths dēmiourgoi.

Contents

1 Athenian usage 2 Philosophers 3 Excerpts from classical texts 3.1 Occurences of the word "banausic" in English literature 4 Quotes 5 References 6 Related Topics 7 Bibliography 7.1 Commentary Works 8 External links

Athenian usage

Thus, the existence of banausos follows an economic transition in Greece: the use of coinage, the invention of the trireme and of hoplite armor, the prevalence of chattel slavery permitted the rise of a new hoplite class, who used the term to divide themselves from the artisans.

Banausos was used as a term of invective, meaning 'cramped in body' (Politics 1341 a 7) and 'vulgar in taste'(1337 b 7) ², by the extreme oligarchs in Athens in the 5th century BC, who were led by Critias. These were the men who yearned for the good old times when there was none of this "equality" nonsense, and you could beat your neighbor's slave in the street (see Ps.-Xenophon : Constitution of Athens). In this usage, it refers to the laboring class as a whole; i.e. the artisans, such as potters, stone masons, carpenters, etc; professional singers; artists; musicians; and all persons engaged in trade or retail. It makes no distinction between slave or free.

These extreme oligarchs were opposed both to the moderate oligarchs, such as Theramenes, and to the democrats, such as Pericles, Cleon, and Thrasybulus. They held power at Athens for less than a year, with the assistance of a Spartan army; and, because of their employment of exile, purges, midnight arrests, and judicial murder, are remembered as the Thirty Tyrants. But while they vanished from the political scene, the term remained.

Philosophers

Plato, the philosopher, was Critias's nephew, and used banausos in much the same sense; although he prefered the installation of philosophers, such as himself, above the hoplites, who were in turn above the artisan. It was also current among the first generation of his pupils, such as Aristotle, who writes, "Those who provide necessaries for an individual are slaves, and those who provide them for society are handicraftsmen and day-laborers."

After the time of Alexander the Great, however, philosophers largely avoided practical politics. Thereafter banausos mostly appears in glossaries to Plato and Aristotle.

Later philosophic schools had different politics. For example Cassius Dio defined democracy:(dēmocrateía) thus "when every man gets the honor that is his due."

In Early Modern English the term was rendered as "mechanical" (as used in e.g. Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream) but in Greek it is an epithet of contempt; it is not a complimentary term. "It is used of people who spend money with vulgar ostentation, of accomplishments inconsistent with a perception of the true purpose of life, and it is constantly coupled with the word “aneleutheros”, ‘illiberal’, ‘unworthy of a free man’ (or, as it was said in Victorian England 'unworthy of a gentleman'." ¹ In ancient Athens, this derision heaped upon retailers and artisans was so overpowering that a law had to be passed to protect those in the agora.⁴ "Even where the marketplace was allowed to intrude upon the political life, the merchant and craftsmen were generally objects of contempt, ridiculed on the stage, if not banished from respectable society." ⁵

The ancient Greek polities were "brotherhoods of peasant warriors". ⁶ They saw that commerce had a corrupting influence in communities and acquisition of wealth destroyed their homónoia (like-mindedness) and was the principle cause of stásis (faction). Furthermore, "merchants and craftsmen would be less willing to defend the civic territory than farmers would" and saw that commerce and mercantilism had a morally corrupting influence. ⁷ Βαναυσος is a word that describes the "prejudice" of the warrior class for the "values" of the commercial class. Moreover, it was a psycological device to train their people to turn away from the commercial fields of endeavor by it being a word of contempt. Many Greek states implemented steps to exclude those engaged in trade and industry from participation in politics.⁵ The Doric states of ancient Crete, Sparta, and non-Doric Thebes set up their constitutions to take this into account.³

In political philosophy, the Greeks are concerned with the "best" state and the best state requires citizens who are the best and in consequence practice arete. This required leisure accompanied with pursuit of arete. Technical education was necessary but did not make good citizens. Leisure was a necessity of good citizenship something the βαναυσοι do not have. βαναυσια deforms the body rendering it useless for military and political duties. Those occupations tire out the body and therefore the mind preventing self education by reading and conversing with others. "It accustoms a man's mind to low ideas, and absorbs him in the pursuit of the mere means of life."

Plato and Aristotle teach that the highest thing in man is reason and therefore, the purpose of human perfection lies with the activity of reason; i.e. the 'theoretic' or contemplative life. Trade, industry and mechanical labour prevent this idea. These activities are necessary for a good human condition of life but when these activities are merely regarded as means to making money and not as acts of service to truth, service to others and arete, then these, occupations become base.

Cicero also commented on the dangers to republics that commerce entailed and that maritime trade brought with it "a corruption and degeneration of morals". ⁸

This Greek martial idea in classical republicanism influenced the English language. The word βαναυσοι became an adjective for the mechanical trades. (See below: "Occurences of the word".)

Excerpts from classical texts

• "Citizens must not live a mechanic or mercantile life (for such a life is ignoble and inimical to virtue (arete)), nor yet must those who are to be citizens of the best state be tillers of the soil (for leisure is needed both for the development of virtue (arete) and for active participation in politics)." Politics, Aristotle, Loeb, Book VII, viii., 2; 1328b35f; pg 575.

• "A task and also an art or a science must be deemed vulgar if it renders the body or soul or mind of a free men useless for the employments and actions of arete. Hence, we entitle vulgar all such arts as deteriorate the condition of the body, and also the industries that earn wages; for they make the mind preoccupied and degraded. And even with the liberal sciences, although it is not illiberal to take part in some of them up to a point, to devote oneself to them too assiduously and carefully is liable to have the injurious results specified." Politics, Aristotle Book VIII, ii, 1-2; 1237b 5-10; pg 639.

• "And besides all this, agriculture contributes notably to the making of manly character; because unlike the mechanical arts (βαναυσοι), it does not cripple and weaken the bodies of those engaged in it, but inures them to exposure and toil and invigorates them to face the perils of war". Oeconomica, Aristotle, Loeb, Bk I, ii, 3; 1343b 1-5; pg 331.

• "For such an organization (talking about his {Plato's} planned state that no citizen can sell his land) leaves no great room for the making of fortunes; 'tis a consequence of it that none has either need or license to make them in any sordid calling--as even the sound of the reproach 'base mechanical' repels the man of free soul--and none will stoop to amass wealth by such devices." Laws, Plato, 731d-e.

• "Oftentimes, we take pleasure in the work, but despise the workman (dēmiourgós)—as in the case of perfumes and dies. For we enjoy these things, but regard dyers and perfumers as unfree men (aneleuthérous) and as rude mechanicals (banaúsous)...If a man applies himself to servile or mechanical employments, his industry in those things is a proof of his inattention to nobler studies. No young man of noble birth or liberal sentiments, from seeing the Jupiter at Pisa, would desire to be Phidias, or, from the sight of the Juno at Argos, to be Polycletus; or Anacreon, or Philemon, or Archilochus, though delighted with their poems." Plutarch's Life of Pericles (Langhorne's translation).

Occurences of the word "banausic" in English literature

• "When the Banausic principle (we must coin a word from the most expressive of languages to express all its intense vulgarity) to obtain.", G. Smyth in Oxford & Cambridge Review, Aug. pg 206, 1845. OED
• "Alleged that the teaching music as a manual art was banausic and degrading." Grote, Ethical Fragments, vi, pg 227. OED
• "A sensitive, self concious creature...in sad revolt against uncongenially banausic employment". London Magazine, July 1957. OED

Quotes

• "Where money is prized, virtue is despised".
  

—Socrates.

References

1. Greek Ideals, p. 105.
2. Politics, Loeb Classical Library, 1990 Vol. #264, editors footnote, p. 52.
3. In Sparta and Crete, the citizens were not allowed to perform any mechanical, artistic job. "And the bestowal of a share in the government...as at Thebes, to people after they have abstained for a time from mechanic industries". Politics, Loeb, 1990, Vol. #264, p. 517.
   1. "In some states these theories were actually applied. Sparta excluded the industrial, commercial and farming class from citizenship. In Thebes no retail trader of artisan was eligible for office till ten years after he had retired from business.", "Humanism in Politics and Economy", Sir, Livingstone, Martin Classical Lectures, Vol V, pp 105–106.
4. "The fact that there had to be a law at Athens against heaping insults on those practicing a profession in the agora indicates just how difficult it was to overcome this prejudice." Republics, Ancient and Modern, Rahe, Vol. I, p. 251
5. Republics, Ancient and Modern, Rahe, Vol. I, p. 44.
6. Republics, Ancient and Modern, Rahe, Vol. I, p. 45.
7. Republics, Ancient and Modern, Rahe, Vol. I, p. 46.
8. Republics, Ancient and Modern, Rahe, Vol. I, p. 59.
9. Republics, Ancient and Modern, Rahe, Vol. I, p. 68.

Related Topics

• Classical definition of effeminacy

Bibliography

• Newman's edition of the Politics, vol. i, pp 98f.
• Chap II, "Opinions, Passions, and Interests", Republics, Ancient and Modern, Vol. I, Paul A. Rahe, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1992.
• The People of Aristophanes, Victor Ehrenberg, New York, 1962. pp 113–146.
• Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle, Kenneth J. Dover, Oxford, 1974. pp 39–41; 172–174.
• "L'idée de travail dans la Grèce archaïque", André Aymard, Journal de psychologie 41, 1948. pp 29–45.
• "Hiérarchie du travail et autarcie individuelle", André Aymard, Études d'histoire ancienne, Paris, 1967. pp 316–333.
• "Work and Nature in Ancient Greece", Jean-Pierre Vernant, Myth and Thought among the Greeks, London, 1983. pp 248–270.

Commentary Works

• "Humanism in Politics and Economics", Greek Ideals and Modern Life, Sir R. W. Livingstone, Martin Classical Lectures, Vol. V, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA., 1935.

External links

• Globalism or an individual revolution with the term "banausic used.
• Classical and Hellenistic Greece see chapter by Sarah B. Pomeroy.
• The Economy of Ancient Greece
• Dictionary of Philosophy the entry "banausic".