Page:The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.djvu/149

143 and horseback. This police force consisted—of slaves. The free Athenian regarded this police duty as so degrading that he preferred being arrested by an armed slave rather than lending himself to such an ignominious service. That was still a sign of the old gentile spirit. The state could not exist without a police, but as yet it was too young and did not command suflScient moral respect to give prestige to an occupation that necessarily appeared ignominious to the old gentiles.

How well this state, now completed in its main outlines, suited the social condition of the Athenians was apparent by the rapid growth of wealth, commerce and industry. The distinction of classes on which the social and political institutions are resting was no longer between nobility and common people, but between slaves and freemen, aliens and citizens. At the time of the greatest prosperity the whole number of free Athenian citizens, women and children included, amounted to about 90,000; the slaves of both sexes numbered 365,000 and the aliens—foreigners and freed slaves—45,000. Per capita of each adult citizen there were, therefore, at least eighteen slaves and more than two aliens. The great number of slaves is explained by the fact that many of them worked together in large factories under supervision. The development of commerce and industry brought about an accumulation and concentration of wealth in a few hands. The mass of the free citizens were impoverished and had to face the choice of either competing with their own labor against slave labor, which was considered ignoble and vile, besides promising little success, or to be ruined. Under the prevailing circumstances they necessarily chose the latter course and being in the majority they ruined the whole Attic state. Not democracy caused the downfall of Athens, as the European glorifiers of princes and lickspittle