Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/153

V according to tradition, ordered the public religion anew, purified the country, and tranquillised its inhabitants for a time.

These three events, showing stir in the Athenian population, prepare us for the approach of democracy, and through democracy for the ripening of the choicest fruit that the wonderful Greek people ever produced. But democracy could not even approach without still greater pain and trouble than we have yet met with in Attica. It is always social discontent and economical distress which causes friction between a people and its rulers to become a positive danger and to lead to revolution and anarchy; while an unprivileged class is still materially comfortable, it does not feel keenly its want of privilege. The unprivileged at Athens, according to our accounts, had been long growing more and more uncomfortable, and the oligarchs were probably well aware that revolution was at hand. Neither the laws of Draco nor the purification by Epimenides had sufficed. At the root of all the troubles lay an economical distress, which is thus briefly described by the author of the treatise on the Athenian constitution: —

"Not only was the constitution at this time oligarchical in every respect, but the poorer classes, men, women, and children, were in absolute slavery to the rich. They were known as Pelatæ and also as Hektemori, because they