Page:The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.djvu/138

132 and navigation, the members of gentes, phratries and tribes very soon intermingled. The districts of the phratry and the tribe received inhabitants who did not belong to these bodies and, therefore, were strangers in their own homes, although they were countrymen. For during times of peace, every phratry and every tribe administered its own affairs without consulting the council of Athens or the basileus. But Inhabitants not belonging to the phratry or the tribe could not take part in the administration of these bodies.

Thus the well-regulated functions of the gentile organs became so disarranged that relief was already needed during the heroic period. A constitution attributed to Theseus was introduced. The main feature of this change was the institution of a central administration in Athens. A part of the affairs that had so long been conducted autonomously by the tribes was declared collective business and transferred to a general council in Athens. This step of the Athenians went farther than any ever taken by the nations of America. For the simple federation of autonomous tribes was now replaced by the conglomeration of all tribes into one single body. The next result was a common Athenian law, standing above the legal traditions of the tribes and gentes. It bestowed on the citizens of Athens certain privileges and legal protection, even in a territory that did not belong to their tribe. This meant another blow to the gentile constitution; for it opened the way to the admission of citizens who were not members of any Attic tribe and stood entirely outside of the Athenian gentile constitution.

A second institution attributed to Theseus was the division of the entire nation into three classes regardless of the gentes, phratries and f^ibes: eupatrides or nobles, geomoroi or farmers, and demiurgoi or