Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/179

VI them. Under the oligarchical regime the ordinary Athenian had little benefit from the government, little interest in the State; he was a part of the State only in a very doubtful sense, and politically was not on a much higher level than the Attic slave. After Solon he could feel that the government was of advantage to him, that he himself had a distinct share in it, and a very lively interest in its good management. He is raised a whole stage higher in the social system, and removed far above the level of the slave. But this identification of the interests of individual and State might be made still more complete and fruitful.

If we could in imagination transport ourselves to the Athens of a century and a half later, and mingle in the city and the port of Piræus with the busy crowd of citizens, we should find a very different state of things from that left by Solon. Not only has the city greatly increased in size, population, and magnificence, as well as in fame and influence; not only has a new port arisen, in which a splendid navy is sheltered, and whose streets are thronged by strangers from all parts of Hellas and the surrounding countries; but by questioning and observing we should discover as a fact beyond all doubt, that every Athenian citizen is now a citizen in the fullest sense of which the word is capable. The words and  have here a closer relation than they have ever yet reached in Greek history, and express the fact that the full identification of the State and the individual is here at last achieved.