600 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



The downfall began about their time, from the fourth century, 

 since in their social improvidence they did not dream of assuring 

 the duration of the flame which they brightened but for a moment. 



Their principal mistake, shared by all the idle classes, hastened 

 in turn by the gradual increase of intelligence among all those who 

 were forced to do something, was to believe that the faculties would 

 remain intact, and the power to think and to do would keep awake 

 notwithstanding habitual inaction and without a constant exercise 

 of the brain. They have believed that one could conserve the taste 

 for beautiful things, though never realizing or even attemptmg great 

 deeds. 



And the power of Greece, formed by the struggles and through the 

 expeditions of conquest and commerce pursued during the ninth 

 and eighth centuries on all sides, even as far as the Black Sea, in 

 France, in Africa, in Spain, with wonderful boldness, was weakened 

 at the end of tliis period into an egotistic selfisliness from the riches 

 which were accumulated. Greece deteriorated, and was then debased. 



In his life of idleness the Greek developed his oratorical faculties. 

 He must speak at the tribune, in the gymnasium, no matter how un- 

 prepared, or whether there was anyone to listen to him. Ready 

 speech and blundering boastfulness became after awhile the charac- 

 teristics of the race.^ 



No one then wished to work longer. And already in the fourth 

 century the philosopher Hippias was a subject of wonder because he 

 made his own clothes and shoes. All, however, desired more than 

 ever to enjoy every comfort and to sport in luxury. Then the in- 

 creasing of slaves rapidly became tremendous. This was the visible 

 reason for the decay and decline of ancient Greece. They had 

 slaves in all conditions of life and in all degrees of the field of labor. 

 And what slaves! 



One saw in ancient Greece some things of the kind observed in cen- 

 tral Africa in our day. Abductions of children were frequent, and 

 public ceremonies themselves, attracting the crowds, were ordinary 

 occasions for it. The Greek law, besides, authorized parents to aban- 

 don their children on the highway. Those who received them raised 

 them in slavery. At Thebes the father who wished to be rid of his 

 child for profit took it to the magistrates, who sold it at auction. At 

 Athens the father could sell his daughter only when guilty of miscon- 

 duct. Solon had slavery abolished for debts, but the custom never- 

 theless was generally in force. And even at Athens, at the revision 

 of lists of citizens, whoever was fraudulently inscribed was sold. 

 Plato, who wanted all manual work executed under constraint by 

 the slave, was hknself embarked by Denys, of Syracuse, on a Lace- 



> Francotte. L'industrie dans la Grece ancienne. Two volumes. 8°. Brussels, 1900. 



