Schemes for promoting equality had been mooted in Greece from an early period (see Aristotle, _Politics_, ii, 6, 7, 8). Thus, "Pheidon the Corinthian, one of the oldest of legislators, thought that the families and number of citizens ought to continue the same." Phaleas of Chalcedon proposed to keep fortunes and culture equal; and Hippodamus the Milesian had a system of equality for a State of 10,000 persons. Some States, too, put restraints on the accumulation of land. But, save for transient successes, such as that of Solon at Athens, and of the compromise at Tarentum (see Aristotle, v, 5; and Müller, _Dorians_, Eng. tr. ii, 184-86), there was no adequate adjustment of means to ends, as indeed there could not be. Aristotle's own practical suggestions show the hopelessness of the problem. In the commercial cities, where industry was encouraged and wealth tended to take the form of invested capital, it could not readily get into so few hands; and as commerce developed and the investments were more and more in that direction, there would arise an idle rich class which could be best got at by way of taxation. In such communities, though the division and hostility of rich and poor were as unalterable as in Sparta, there was more elasticity of adjustment; so that we see maritime and trading communities like Heracleia and Rhodes maintaining their oligarchic government, with vicissitudes, down into the Roman period,[254] somewhat as Venice in a later age outlasted the other chief republics of Italy. The ruin of Corinth, though indirectly promoted by class strifes,[255] need not have occurred but for the Roman overthrow.[256]