No Greek term corresponds exactly to the English word farmer. The Greek word γεωργός (geōrgós) described someone who cultivated the land, whether landowner, simultaneously proprietor and farmworker, or merely a farmworker (Xen. Oec. 5,4); it thus applied to rich and poor, citizen and non-citizen, slave or free man. The relatively unusual term αὐτουργός (autourgós) meant someone who worked for himself or with his own hands, and was restricted to free men; although it means ‘men who have no leisur…
Cite this page
Osborne, Robin (Oxford) and
Rathbone, Dominic (London),
“Farmers”, in:
Brill’s New Pauly, Antiquity volumes edited by: Hubert Cancik and , Helmuth Schneider, English Edition by: Christine F. Salazar, Classical Tradition volumes edited by: Manfred Landfester, English Edition by: Francis G. Gentry.
Consulted online on 28 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e214050>