The inner political history of Athens is the history of the extension of the franchise to the lower classes of citizens, with the privileges of holding office and receiving emoluments. In early times, either by Solon (q.v.) or previously, the citizens were classified on the basis of property. The rich retained the franchise and the right of holding office; the middle classes obtained the franchise; the fourth or lowest class gained neither. By the reforms of Cleisthenes (509 B.C.) the clan-family and the phratry were set aside for the deme or parish, a geographical division superseding the social. Finally, about 478 B.C., when all had acquired the franchise, the right to hold office also was obtained by the third class. These changes coincided with a period of economic progress. The rate of interest was high, usually 12%; and in trading and bottomry the returns were much higher. A small capital at this interest soon produced comparative wealth; and simultaneously prices were falling. Then came the reaction. “After the Peloponnesian war” (432–404 B.C.), writes Professor Jebb, “the wealth of the country ceased to grow, as population had ceased to grow about 50 years sooner. The rich went on accumulating: the poor, having no means of enriching themselves by enterprise, were for the most part occupied in watching for some chance of snatching a larger share of the stationary total.” Thus the poorer classes in a time of prosperity had won the power which they were able to turn to their own account afterwards. A period of economic pressure followed, coupled with a decline in the population; no return to the land was feasible, nor was emigration; the people had become town-folk inadaptable to new uses; decreasing vitality and energy were marked by a new temper, the “pauper” temper, unsettled, idle and grasping, and political power was utilized to obtain relief. The relief was forthcoming, but it was of no avail to stop the general decline. The state, it might almost be said, in giving scope to the assertion of the spirit of dependence, had ruined the self-regarding energy on which both family and state alike depended. The emoluments were diverse. The number of citizens was not large; the functions in which citizens could take part were numerous; and when payment was forthcoming the poorer citizens pressed in to exercise their rights (cf. Arist. Pol. 1293 a). All Athenian citizens could attend the public assembly or ecclesia. Probably the attendance at it varied from a few hundred to 5000 persons. In 395 B.C. the payment for attendance was fixed at 3 obols, or little more than 412d. a day—for the system of payment had probably been introduced a few years before (but see Ecclesia and refs.). A juror or dicast would receive the same sum for attendance, and the courts or juries often consisted of 500 persons. If the estimate (Böckh, Public Economy of Athens, Eng. trans. pp. 109, 117) holds good that in the age of Demosthenes (384–323 B.C.) the member of a poor family of four free persons could live (including rent) on about 3.3d. or between 2 and 3 obols a day, the pay of the citizen attending the assembly or the court would at least cover the expenses of subsistence. On the other hand, it would be less than the pay of a day labourer, which was probably about 4 obols or 6d. a day. In any case many citizens—they numbered in all about 20,000—in return for their participation in political duties would receive considerable pecuniary assistance. Attending a great public festival also, the citizen would receive 2 obols or 3d. a day during the festival days; and there were besides frequent public sacrifices, with the meal or feast which accompanied them. But besides this there were confiscations of private property, which produced a surplus revenue divisible among the poorer citizens. (Some hold that there were confiscations in other Greek states, but not in Athens.) In these circumstances it is not to be wondered that men like Isocrates should regret that the influence of the Areopagus, the old court of morals and justice in Athens, had disappeared, for it “maintained a sort of censorial police over the lives and habits of the citizens; and it professed to enforce a tutelary and paternal discipline, beyond that which the strict letter of the law could mark out, over the indolent, the prodigal, the undutiful, and the deserters of old rite and custom.”
(6) In addition to public emoluments and relief there was much private liberality and charity. Many expensive public services were undertaken honorarily by the citizens under a kind of civic compulsion. Thus in a trial about 425 B.C. (Lysias, Or. 19. 57) a citizen submitted evidence that his father expended more than £2000 during his life in paying the expenses of choruses at festivals, fitting out seven triremes for the navy, and meeting levies of income tax to meet emergencies. Besides this he had helped poor citizens by portioning their daughters and sisters, had ransomed some, and paid the funeral expenses of others (cf. for other instances Plutarch’s Cimon, Theophrastus, Eth., and Xen. Econ.).
(7) There were also mutual help societies (ἔρανοι). Those for relief would appear to have been loan societies (cf. Theoph. Eth.), one of whose members would beat up contributions to help a friend, who would afterwards repay the advance.
The criticisms of Aristotle (384–321 B.C.) suggest the direction to which he looked for reform. He (Pol. 1320 a) passes a very unfavourable judgment on the distribution of public money to the poorer citizens. The demagogues (he does not speak of Athens particularly) distributed the surplus revenues to the poor, who received them all at the same time; and then they were in want again. It was only, he argued, like pouring water through a sieve. It were better to see to it that the greater number were not so entirely destitute, for the depravity of a democratic government was due to this. The problem was to contrive how plenty (εὐπορία, not poverty, ἀπορία) should become permanent. His proposals are adequate aid and voluntary charity. Public relief should, he urges, be given in large amounts so as to help people to acquire small farms or start in business, and the well-to-do (εὔποροι) should in the meantime subscribe to pay the poor for their attendance at the public assemblies. (This proves, indeed, how the payments had become poor relief.) He mentions also how the Carthaginian notables divided the destitute amongst them and gave them the means of setting to work, and the Tarentines (κοινὰ ποιοῦντες) shared their property with the poor. (The Rhodians also may be mentioned (Strabo xiv. c. 652), amongst whom the well-to-do undertook the relief of the poor voluntarily.) The later word for charitable distribution was a sharing (κοινωνία, Ep. Rom. xv. 26), which would seem to indicate that after Aristotle’s time popular thought had turned in that direction. But the chief service rendered by Aristotle—a service which covered indeed the whole ground of social progress—was to show that unless the purpose of civil and social life was carefully considered and clearly realized by those who desired to improve its conditions, no change for the better could result from individual or associated action.
Two forms of charity have still to be mentioned: charity to the stranger and to the sick. It will be convenient to consider both in relation to the whole classical period.
With the growth of towns the administration of hospitality was elaborated.
(1) There was hospitality between members of families bound by the rites of host and guest. The guest received as a right only shelter and fire. Usually he dined with the host the first day, and if afterwards he was fed provisions were supplied The stranger. to him. There were large guest-chambers (ξενών) or small guest-houses, completely isolated on the right or left of the principal house; and here the guest was lodged. (2) There were also, e.g. at Hierapolis (Sir W. M. Ramsay’s Phrygia, ii. 97), brotherhoods of hospitality (ξένοι τεκμηρεῖοι, bearers of the sign), which made hospitality a duty, and had a common chest and Apollo as their tutelary god. (3) There were inns or resting-places (καταγώγια) for strangers at temples (Thuc. iii. 68; Plato, Laws, 953 A) and places of resort (λέσχη) at or near the temples for the entertainment of strangers—for instance, at a temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus (Pausanias ii. 174); and Pausanias argues that they were common throughout the country. Probably also at the temples hospitable provision was made for strangers. The evidence at present is not perhaps sufficiently complete, but, so far as it goes, it tends to the conclusion that in pre-Christian times hospitality was provided to passers-by and strangers in the temple buildings, as later it was furnished in the monasteries and churches. (4) There were also in towns houses for strangers (ξενών) provided at the public cost. This was so at Megara; and in Crete strangers had a place at the public meals and a dormitory. Xenophon suggested that it would be profitable for the Athenian state to establish inns for traders (καταγώγια δημόσια) at Athens. Thus, apart from the official hospitality of the proxenus or “consul,” who had charge of the affairs of foreigners, and the hospitality which was shown to persons of distinction by states or private individuals, there was in Greece a large provision for strangers, wayfarers and vagrants based on the charitable sentiment of hospitality. Among the Romans similar customs of private and public hospitality prevailed; and throughout the empire the older system was altered, probably very slowly. In Christian times (cf. Ramsay above) Pagan temples were (about A.D. 408) utilized for other purposes, including that of hospitality to strangers.
Round the temples, at first probably village temples, the organization of medical relief grew up. Primitive medicine is connected with dreams, worship, and liturgical “pollution,” punishment and penitence, and an experimental practice. Finally, systematic observation The sick. and science (with no knowledge of chemistry and little of physiology) assert themselves, and a secular administration is created by the side of the older religious organization.
