Failure of Greek states 71 



metic 1 mattered not from the economic point of view. Capitalistic 

 industry was really slave-industry. The 'small man' had the choice of 

 either competing, perhaps vainly, with the 'big man' on the land or in 

 the workshop, or of giving up the struggle and using his political power 

 to make the 'big man' disgorge some of his profits. Moreover military 

 life no longer offered the prospects of conquest and gain that had made 

 it attractive. The tendency was to treat the citizen army as a defensive 

 force, and to employ professional mercenaries (of whom there was now 8 

 no lack) on foreign service. To a thoughtful observer these phenomena 

 suggested uneasy reflexions. Demos in Assembly was a dispiriting 

 spectacle. Selfish 3 and shortsighted, he cared more for his own belly 

 and his amusements than for permanent interests of state. Perhaps 

 this was no new story. But times had changed, and the wealthy im- 

 perial Athens, able to support the burden of her own defects, had passed 

 away. Bad government in .reduced circumstances might well be pro- 

 ductive of fatal results. 



It was not Athens alone that had failed. Fifteen years before 

 Plato's death the failure of both Sparta and Thebes had left Hellas 

 exhausted 4 and without a leading state to give some sort of unity to 

 Greek policy. There was still a common Hellenic feeling, but it was 

 weak compared with separatist jealousy. Antipathy to the Barbarian 

 remained: but the Persian power had been called in by Greeks to aid 

 them against other Greeks, and this was a serious danger to the Greek 

 world. Things were even worse in the West. How anarchic democracy 

 had paved the way for military tyranny at Syracuse, how the tyranny 

 had lowered the standard of Greek civilization in Sicily and Italy, and 

 had been the ruin of Greek cities, no man of that age knew better than 

 Plato. Plato was not singular in his distrust of democracy: that attitude 

 was common enough. Among the companions of Socrates I need only 

 refer to Xenophon and Critias. Socrates had insisted that government 

 is a difficult art, for success in which a thorough training is required. 

 Now, whatever might be the case in respect of tyrannies or oligarchies, 

 democracy was manifestly an assertion of the principle that all citizens 

 were alike qualified for a share in the work of government. Yet no 

 craftsman would dream of submitting the work of his own trade to the 

 direction of amateurs. Why then should the amateur element, led by 

 amateurs, dominate in the sphere of politics? It was easy to find 



1 Plato was evidently uneasy at the growing influence of metics, to judge from the jealous 

 rule of Laws p 850. This is in striking contrast with the view of Xenophon. 



2 Laws 630 6, cf 697 e. 



3 See Republic 565 a on the indifference of the handworking d^pos. Cf Isocr de pace 52 



P 170. 



4 Cf Xenophon hell vii 5 27 on the d/tptcria K.o.1 rapax^j intensified after Mantinca, 

 362 BC. 



