In the Peloponnesos we find it was the custom for itinerant icthyopolists to carry fish in baskets probably, suspended from both ends of a rough pole (τραχεῖα ἄσιλλα) thrown across the shoulders. This fact is alluded to in an Olympic inscription preserved in part by Aristotle. Rhet. i. 7. Footnote 402: Casaub. ad Theoph. Charact. p. 185. On sedentary trades, see Poll. i. 51, and Muret, ad Arist. Eth. p. 63. ----- As an encouragement to the citizens to addict themselves to industrious pursuits, foreigners, and all persons not free of the city, were legally incapacitated from carrying on business in the agora;[403] but this came in later times to be disregarded, since we find Egyptians, Phœnicians, and other aliens, possessing shops, and growing rich there. It was conceived, moreover, that, if men confined themselves to one calling, they would arrive therein at greater excellence; and the law, accordingly, forbade them to be of two trades.[404] Plato, whose ideal republic was modelled in so many particulars on that of Athens, adopted this law; and for the reason I have stated; comprehending thoroughly what advantages arise from the division of labour. He would not, he says, have the cordwainer meddle with husbandry, weaving, or architecture, that he might carry shoemaking to as great perfection as possible; and, in other branches of industry, men were in like manner to cultivate that only for which nature had fitted them, and wherein they might thus excel.[405] The same philosopher, while on the subject of industry, makes a remark worthy of consideration: It is not, he says, for the interest of the community, that men engaged in any branch of the arts should be so rich as to be independent of their business or profession, which, in such case, they will be apt to neglect; or so poor as to be harassed in mind, or cramped in the means of carrying on their occupations satisfactorily. In these things, as in every other, a comfortable competence is to be preferred to the extremes both of wealth and poverty.[406] ----- Footnote 403: Demosth. in Eubulid. § 10. The Lydians were said to be the first retail traders. Herod. i. 94. Cf. Huet, Hist. of Commerce, p. 52. Footnote 404: Demosth. in Timocrat. § 32. Ulpian ad loc. Arist. Polit. ii. 11. p. 55. Bekk. Petit, Legg. Att. p. 425. Potter, i. 199. Footnote 405: Repub. ii. § 11. Stallb. Cf. iii. § 7. In the Laws he states these reasons more strongly, t. viii. p. 110. Footnote 406: Repub. iv. 2. Stallb. -----