イソクラテスの社会観における傭兵の位置

When we examine Isokrates' writings as historical materials for the socialeconomic situation in Greece in the fourth century B. C, the most important problem to explain is, I think, the effect of the aggravation of poverty on the progress of the mercenary system. In this paper I attempt to glance at the position of the mercenary problem in Isokrates' social view through analyzing his main political discourses in chronological order. I owe very much to L. P. Marinovich's recent work(Л. П. Маринович, Греческое наемничество IV в. до н. э. и кризис полиса, Москва 1975). Through this analysis three major elements which constitute Isokrates' social view are extracted : disintegration of the property relations within the polis through the internal strife, the alarming growth of the roving population(πλανωμενοι)who had been forced to leave their homes because of their poverty, and the necessity of the large-scale colonization in order to defend the interests of the haves against the have-nots. Evolution of all these elements in Isokrates' conception was organically associated with the progress of the mercenary system in the fourth century B.C. In Panegyrikos, written in 380 B. C, all the references to the mercenaries were only used as a means to persuade the necessity of the expedition to Persia. The significance that Isokrates gave to the economic factor in relation to mercenaries is not definite(146, 168) , and there was no accurate reference to the colonization of the poor. Therefore we can not ascertain Isokrates' attitude towards the mercenaries at this stage. Then in Peri Eirenes, written ca. 355 B. C, Isokrates first exhibited the concrete design for the colonization in Thrace and showed some concern about the circumstances of the roving men(24). But this theme was not developed any more in this discourse, so we can only find here a mere clue to the connection between colonization and mercenaries. Finally, ten years later in Philippos, written in the period when the Greek mercenary system attained the acme of development in the pre-Hellenistic age, the growth of the roving men was directly connected with the remarkable increase of mercenaries(96), and further the necessity to remove these roaming bands of mercenaries developed into the very aim of the expedition to Asia(120-123). Thus the mercenaries became one of the major themes of Isokrates' late discourses, as they gave rise to the serious social problem that would need an immediate solution. The social character of mercenaries changed. They were getting the extremely dangerous force to the polis (participation in the social strife, connexion with the new tyrant). In the fact that Isokrates reacted to the mercenaries not only with scorn or reproach, but with an intense fear, we can find the distinct reflection of one aspect of the social-economic situation in the fourth century B. C.