As for Hippodamas of Miletus, it is difficult to gain a clear idea of his ideal state from Aristotle’s meager description,[292] but it seems not to have been markedly socialistic. He divides his body of ten thousand citizens into artisans, farmers, and soldiers.[293] He makes a corresponding triple division of the land—sacred, to provide for the expense of worship; public, for the support of the soldiers; private, to be owned and worked by the husbandmen.[294] Thus only the farmers are to own land, and the question as to who shall work the land for the military class is left in obscurity.[295] It seems likely that Hippodamas intended that the farmers should work all the land, and own one-third of it for their own support. His system contains some communistic elements, as the fact that two-thirds of the land is public, but it is certainly not socialistic in spirit and purpose. The prime interest of Hippodamas was very probably not in a system to supplant private property, but rather in a plan of assured support for the priestly and military classes.[296] Phaleas of Chalcedon, according to Aristotle’s description, approaches much nearer to the modern socialistic idea.[297] Aristotle makes him a type of those thinkers who lay chief stress on the right system of property as the necessary basis of civic peace.[298] His central tenet is equality of possessions and of education for all the citizens,[299] but he seems to have specified only landed property.[300] This demand, though only landed property is included, seems to strike a truly modern socialistic note. But nowhere better than here may we see the gulf that separates ancient and modern socialism. The avowed interest of Phaleas is not in the masses. The artisans are all to be public slaves.[301] His interest is rather in the classes, and not even in these primarily, but rather in the state itself. His entire system has for its fundamental motive the avoiding of civic discord in the state.[302] The ideal state of Plato’s _Republic_ has often been presented by socialists and other modern writers as the great prototype of all socialistic doctrine. We must consider to what extent such a view is justified. In his famous myth of the three metals, Plato divides his citizens into three classes—rulers, auxiliaries, and farmers and artisans.[303] His avowed purpose here, as indeed throughout his _Republic_, is to secure the highest degree of happiness for all the citizens.[304] In order to gain this end, he provides for a most thoroughgoing system of communism, including all property, both for production and for consumption, except such as is necessary for the immediate need.[305] He extends it even to the common possession of wives and children,[306] that all private interests may be reduced to a minimum.[307] He provides further for a common work[308] and education[309] for men and women.