Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/136

 120 HISTORY OF GREECE. than two hundred medimni, or drachms, were placed in the fourth class, and they must have constituted the large majority of the community. They were not liable to any direct taxation, and, perhaps, were not at first even entered upon the taxable schedule, more especially as we do not know that any taxes were actually levied upon this schedule during the Solonian times. It is said that they were all called thetes, but this appellation is not well sustained, and cannot be admitted : the fourth compartment in the descending scale was indeed termed the thetic census, be- cause it contained all the thetes, and because most of its members were of that humble description ; but it is not conceivable that a proprietor whose land yielded to him a clear annual return of one hundred, one hundred and twenty, one hundred and forty, or one hundred and eighty drachms, could ever have been desig- nated by that name. 1 Such were the divisions in the political scale established by Solon, called by Aristotle a timocracy, in which the rights, hon- ors, functions, and liabilities of the citizens were measured out according to the assessed property of each. Though the scale is stated as if nothing but landed property were measured by it, yet we may rather presume that property of other kinds was intended to be included, since it served as the basis of every, man's liability to taxation. The highest honors of the state, that is, the places of the nine archons annually chosen, as well as those in the senate of areopagus, into which the past archons always entered, perhaps also the posts of prytanes of the naukrari, were reserved for the first class : the poor eupatrids became ineligible ; while rich men, not eupatrids, were admitted. Other posts of inferior distinction were filled by the second and third classes, who were, moreover, bound to military service, the 1 Sec Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung dcr Athcner, ut suprd.. Pollux gives an Inscription describing Anthemion son of Diphilus, QTJTLKOV uvrl T&ovf imrdd' uftei^ufievof. The word Tefalv does not necessarily mean actual pay- ment, but " the being included in a class with a certain aggregate of duties and liabilities," equivalent to censeri (Boeckh, p. 36). Plato, in his treatise DC Legibus, admits a quadripartite census of citizens, according to more or less of property (Legg. v, p. 744 ; vi, p. 75G). Com- pare Tittmann, Gricchische Staats Vcrfassungcn. pp. 648,653 ; K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Gr. Staats Alt. 108