Page:The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.djvu/139

133. The exclusive privilege of the nobles to fill the offices was included in this innovation. Apart from this privilege the new division remained ineffective, as it did not create any legal distinctions between the classes. But it is important, because it shows us the new social elements that had developed in secret. It shows that the habitual holding of gentile offices by certain families had already developed into a practically uncontested privilege; that these families, already powerful through their wealth, began to combine outside of their gentes into a privileged class; and that the just arising state sanctioned this assumption. It shows furthermore that the division of labor between farmers and tradesmen had grown strong enough to contest the supremacy of the old gentile and tribal division of society. And finally it proclaims the irreconcilable opposition of gentile society to the state. The first attempt to form a state broke up the gentes by dividing their members against one another and opposing a privileged class to a class of disowned belonging to two different branches of production.

The ensuing political history of Athens up to the time of Solon is only incompletely known. The office of basileus became obsolete. Archons elected from the ranks of the nobility occupied the leading position in the state. The power of the nobility increased continually, until it became unbearable about the year 600 before Christ. The principal means for stifling the liberty of the people were—money and usury. The main seat of the nobility was in and around Athens. There the sea trade and now and then a little convenient piracy enriched them and concentrated the money into their hands. From this point the gradually arising money power penetrated like corrugating acid into the traditional modes of rural existence founded on natural economy. The gentile constitution is absolutely irreconcilable with money rule. The