Peace and work. Luisa Aurora Viviana Rodal
of children,... and all seeing Zeus never decrees cruel war against them. Neither famine nor disaster ever haunt men who do justice... but they happily tend their fields which all their care” (34).
Women bring about children, sheep grow beautiful fleeces and continually flourish with benefices in a thriving land among just and pacific people (35). But, “those who practice violence and cruel deeds far seeing Zeus... ordains a punish”(36). That is to say, in his Olympic piety, Provident Zeus chastises cruelty and violence. Often, the whole city suffers because a sinful man; plague and hunger overtakes everybody and men perish and women become sterile. Even the army is destroyed (37). Hesiod believes that “Zeus has spirits that watch over men”; because of his spirits, vigilant and attentive to the conduct of human beings, Zeus must be honoured and revered (38).
Zeus is for Hesiod a provident god, in an omnipresent mode, (as the Christian God will be treated later), and he judges the human injustices, violence (39). Zeus does not allow cruelty to be unpunished.
Zeus favours with prosperity the one who is right and knos the best law (40).
Thus, Hesiod warns Perses to stop thinking in violence (41); even when the path to the summit of good is long and steep , he is good who listens to the goodness (42). Because of this, Hesiod says: “Work.... That Hunger may hate you and Demeter... love you”(43). He observes, hence, that men are irritated at a lazy mand, who nourishes himself without working (44).
Hesiod belongs to a civilization far from our technological one; the natural rythms are crucial in the agricultural work. Therefore. He advises to Perses to properly order his tasks, according to the seasons, so the silos are full, and the cattle increase. Through work, men enrichen themselves and are loved by immortals. In words of Hesiod: “Work is no disgrace; it is idleness” (45). Work is no ailing at all. This is noteworthy in Hesiod´s work: the high value of working in peace. It is idleness what turns into a curse, a disgrace. Hence, Hesiod states: “whatever be your lot, work is best for you” (46). That is to say, whatever may your fortune and destiny, work is the best.
So, richness through violence (one must recall that battle for pillage and stealing was natural in that period), or through force by a thief, inasmuch as man deceives and so is dishonoured, only lasts a moment. The cause of that ephimeral existence are the gods themselves in their justice (47).
Hesiod invokes to be pious with gods, family, friends (48), and to work unceasingly : “Work with work upon work” (49), without delaying the task for the future (50), praying Zeus and Demeter (51). Hesiod instructs Perses in the techniques and proper moments for the serene activities, which are possible thanks to peace (52).
According to what Hesiod says in this work at the beginning of Western culture, this essay intuits that the mutual relation of peace and work is transcendent. Both create culture, make possible the effective real ethic. Even the most primitive animals exercise a modifying task on their habitat and so they survive. Human being, since ever felt the proud of being different, and its power lies upon the deep understanding of daily tranquillity in a creative labour.
2. PLATO, ARISTOTLE, ISOCRATES
With Plato and Aristotle, war and slavery shall be elaborated in a founding mode for the Western culture, since they gave the principles for the theory of just war (developed in Middle Ages) and the properties of the citizen as a free man; being the thought of Isocrates a particular case in Greek speculation (necessary to be mentioned because he offers a discourse that dissents with the already mentioned).
Peace in them makes reference to conflict, and in a specific way to war and the pact that ceases it. Work, in its turn, is thought from the ailing tasks of the slave, being the contemplation the goal of leisure of the free citizens of the polis; since then, and not only as chastisement because of sin and the throwing out of Eden, work is suffering. This is the worldview that accompanies the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy.
Nevertheless, since more than three thousand years, Ramses II and the Emperor Hattusiiis III arrived to the older treaties of peace, which ended the Egyptian- Hittite war, which lasted more than eighty years (1276 BC), in Syria. This treaty contains more than twenty principles and obligations for both parties and includes an emergent Right of Peace. The Hittite recognized in a silver tablet the obligation:
“to settle forever among them a good peace and a good fraternity. He is a brother to me and he is at peace with me, and I am a brother to him and I am forever at peace with him... The country of Hatti will be forever in a state of peace and of fraternity as it is with us... peace and fraternity without leaving place among them to any enmity” (53).
So, peace and fraternity are included in the absence of lasting enmity. This involves another obligation: “Neither the Egyptian nor the Hittite should or could occupy the land of the other nation”; hence, the possibility of mutual occupation of land was excluded. It was forged also thus a covenant regarding future wars before a third enemy (54).
The Homeric culture belongs to the warrior mind, creating the heroic ideal, the prestige of the winner (55). Peace is understood from war, including the Olympus piety and the later Roman religion from Ares to Mars (victorious gods in combat) (56). They shared the antique religiosity with Eirene (honoured by Hesiod, Homer, Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes, Diodorus of Siculus), whose sculpture set up in Athens and whose festivities were celebrated the eight of January, converted in goddess Pax during the Roman Empire (57).
It is interesting to remember that the Greek god of work, Ponos, was son of Erix, the discord, and he expressly referred to the hard, difficult task. At her time, Erix, was daughter of Nix, the night. Siblings of Ponos were the forgetfulness or Lethe, the lies or Pseudea, the broken oaths or Horkos, the discussions or Neikea, the dispute or Amphilogiai, the tales or Logoi, the homicide or Androkstasiai, the anarchy or Dysnomia, the famine or Limos, the ailing or ALgea, the ruin or Ate. But it is especially noteworthy the relation of Ponos with the battle or Hysmina and the war or Makhai. Ponos was the god of toil, hard difficult work (58). This is shown in the myth of Herakles. Contrary to or in a different way to what I have exposed about Erinia and the Hesiodic discourse of the pacific daily task, Herakles comprehends the idea of heroic work and battle (united in the intention of overcoming proofs and penalties, which notoriously are called work).
The twelve works of Herakles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alkmena, are realized after a madness access he had, killing his wife Megara and his sons. Repented. He leaves for the service of the king Euristeo along twelve years. He imposes him hardly realizable tasks, which do not depend on a culturally apprehended technique as in the work of Hesiod, but of cunning and force. The “works” or feats of Herakles are: strangulating Nemea´s lion, killing Lerna´s hydra, capturing Cerinea´s doe, capturing alive Erimanto´s boar, cleaning Augias´ barn in only one day, killing Estinfalo´s brids with arrow shots, taming Creta´s bull, stealing Diomedes´ mares, stealing Hypolite belt, stealing Gerion´s cattle, stealing the golden apples of Hesperides garden, raping Cerbero dog and showing it to his brother king. They are twelve but only ten prowess because he was payed for one of them and the other was considered to be done by the rivers. It is noteworthy that the retribution for the labour or tour de force provokes the cancellation of it as such, as also its not authorship. Payment and non authorship destitute the honour of the feat, which more than a work is a heroic task or exploit. It is also observable that in this sense no contemporary task, inasmuch as it is profitable, would be considered as work. The Greek term used for these works is ponos, related to the mentioned god, and it is linked to the tragic conception of the heroe (59), making reference to the grief or atonement (60), and it implies the painful effort of it in actions which escape the common measure (61).
Specifically regarding Plato, I wish to quote the observation of H. Syse, who states that it is in the Republic and the Laws “where war... is directly taken... rearing so good soldiers” (62). That is to say, these dialogues offer a comprehension regarding war and its relative, peace. He continues saying that “War and human conflicts are central topics in the Republic”, being the terms polemos (war) and stasis (agitación) used more often than Eirene (peace). The preparation for the war in the ideal city is referred to the moral character and the justice founded in harmony, but mainly to the tripartition of state and soul (philosophers or kings, soldiers, artisans according