The Peisistratidæ pursued the same policy in Attica. Aristoph. Lysist. 18, sqq. Suid. v. κατωνάκαι, i. 1421. ----- The corresponding class among the Arcadians, denominated Prospelatæ[273] were said to have amounted to three hundred thousand in number. Their treatment was probably more lenient than in many other parts of Greece, as we find them on public festivals sitting down at table with their masters, like our old farm-servants, eating of the same food, and drinking from the same cup.[274] ----- Footnote 273: Eustath. ad Il. π. p. 1120. Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. viii. 7. 12, who observes that, in later times, the Arcadians though more attached to liberty than any other Greeks, yet maintained a great number of slaves, standing in need of husbandmen, goatherds, swineherds, herdsmen, and drove-keepers, and expert woodsmen. The Corinthians had forty-six myriads of slaves, for which reason the Pythian oracle called them Chœnix-measurers, probably because they allowed their slaves a chœnix of corn per day. Athen. vi. 103. Under the tyranny of Athenion the citizens of Athens were at one time reduced to the fourth part of a chœnix of barley per diem, which, observes the sophist, was rather a cock’s food than a man’s. Athen. v. 53. Footnote 274: Theopomp. ap. Athen. iv. 31. This historian speaks in another passage of people who in the present text of Athenæus are denominated Ariæi, who possessing three hundred thousand slaves, (a favourite number with Theopompos,) were enabled to spend their whole lives in mirth and jollity: Ἀριαῖοι δὲ φησὶ, κέκτηνται προσπελατῶν, ὥσπερ εἱλώτων, τριάκοντα μυριάδασ· καθ᾽ ἑκάστην δὲ ἡμέραν μεθύουσι, καὶ ποιοῦνται συνουσίας, καὶ διάκεινται πρὸς ἐδωδὴν καὶ πόσιν ἀκρατέστερον. Athen. x. 60. Cf. vi. 101. ----- BOOK VI. COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. CHAPTER I. CONDITION OF THE POOR. Respecting the condition of the poor, in ancient nations, very little is commonly known, the great historians, the tragic poets, and the other classic writers who enjoy what may be termed popularity, not having bestowed their attention on the subject; and to mine, for this species of knowledge, amid the speculations of philosophers, or the dusky rubbish of scholiasts and lexicographers, being a task for which few have patience. Even those writers who might have been expected to enter fully into this matter, supply but slight and unsatisfactory information, either because they attached little importance to the question, or because it did not enter into their design to examine in all their details the poor-laws of Athens, or the numerous sources of private and public charity which circumscribed the operation of those laws. To the best of my ability I shall endeavour to supply the deficiency.