604 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



The cities themselves had never been very populous. Athens 

 and Syracuse reached and no doubt exceeded 100,000 inhabitants; 

 Cormth, 70,000; Sidon and Tyre, in the fourth century, 40,000; and 

 city-states numbering 20,000 citizens were rare. Athens had reached 

 30,000 citizens at the mid,dle of the fifth century. In 309 B. C, less 

 than a century and a half later, there were not more than 21,000. 

 Then the number fell to scarcely 14,000 or 15,000, or only one-half 

 that of the prosperous perio*d of the fifth century. 



In the territor}^ of Agrigentum, m Sicily, Diodorus states that in 

 406 B. C. there were only 20,000 citizens out of 200,000 inhabitants. 

 Pray, in view of this weakness, this small contingent of real Greeks, 

 the only legitimate descendants of the Hellenes, what was the number 

 of slaves ? 



As early as the fifth century, according to the most moderate esti- 

 mates, the slaves represented two-fifths of the population of all Greece 

 (1,000,000 against 1,600,000). In the interior regions, however, where 

 there were no manufactures, where commerce scarcely reached, and 

 particularly in the poor agricultural regions, they did not need and 

 they could not purchase many slaves. Omitting these somewhat iso- 

 lated places without influence, the number of slaves in Greece much 

 exceeded the free men. 



At Corcyra, where there were 30,000 free men, they had 40,000 

 slaves. According to the census of 309 B, C. (Demetrius of Pha- 

 lerum), fixing the number of citizens of Athens at 21,000, there were 

 then about 400,000 slaves m Attica. Aristotle (384-322 B. C.) esti- 

 mated that a little before that time there were 470,000 slaves in 

 .^gina, and Timaeus reckoned 460,000 in Cormth. Without doubt 

 in these exaggerated figures should be included m^teques, the for- 

 eigners already mentioned by Solon and by Pericles. 



Among the merchants and artisans there were 42 or 50 m^teques 

 to 3 or 4 citizens. These figures indicate m every respect a serious 

 condition. At the battle of Sybota, Corinth took 1,050 prisoners, 

 among whom there were only 250 free men, almost a fourth. Here 

 is an accurate figure, and much more indicative, that the profession 

 of arms was most honorable in principle and was reserved for free 

 men by reason of its very object. Other estimates have been made, 

 but they are not as reliable as those furnished by the Greeks them- 

 selves. Their results reveal, as well during the fifth century, when 

 civilization blazed at its height, as also during the century of Aristotle 

 (384-322) and of Alexander the Great (356-323), a strange condition 

 of affairs which would explain the egotism of the patriotic efforts of 

 Demosthenes (385-322), who was himself, moreover, a veiy rich 

 partisan of slaves. At this same epoch of Alexander the Great (the 

 second half of the fourth century) the number of citizens in Attica 



