The specialisation of labour in early Greek society

Abstract

In ancient, as in modern, Greece specialised work was carried out by professionals, who, in early antiquity, were organised in hereditary guilds. In an emergency, however, the services of an amateur might be used. The ability of Odysseus to build a boat and bed is a measure of the hero's versatility and not evidence of a simple society in which labour was less specialised than during the Mycenaean period. The Homeric and Hesiodic poems suggest that, although one collected the material required oneself, a skilled craftsman was responsible for the actual process of construction.