The handicrafts were partly in the hands of citizens, and partly in those of free settlers (μέτοικοι) and slaves. The proportion in which they were divided among these three classes varied a good deal according to time and the nature of the occupation. At Athens the number of free citizens who carried on handicrafts was not small, in spite of the contempt in which they were held; in Peloponnesus, it was only Sparta where the free citizen kept aloof from all trades, while in the other states the conditions were much the same as at Athens and elsewhere. The resident foreigners formed a very important part of the workmen; at the time when industry flourished most in Attica, trade seems to have been almost entirely in their hands; and it is but natural that in those countries where the free citizens kept aloof from trade, the settlers who performed their labour with the help of slaves should have formed a great part of the working population. Every master workman whose position permitted kept working slaves; rich capitalists invested their money in large undertakings, in which the work was done by a great number of slaves, who either belonged to them or were hired for the purpose. We shall have occasion later on to discuss the conditions under which they worked. We know very little about the organisation of labour. There were no castes compelled by law to undertake certain trades, though in some places special occupations were hereditary; thus, for instance, at Sparta, the cooks and flute players always belonged to particular families. Otherwise, when we find any occupation hereditary, this is not due to legal compulsion, but to natural causes; thus the sons of sculptors very often became sculptors, or the medical profession was handed down in certain families, and so on. Nor do we meet with the guilds so early developed in Italy; these are not heard of until the Roman period, when we find them in Asia Minor. It is uncertain to what extent the State was concerned with trade and its productions. There do not seem to have been any limitations put upon it except certain police regulations, such as that at Athens, which compelled tanners and cheesemongers to have their workshops and booths outside the denser parts of the city on account of the smell. There do not seem to have been any taxes on trade; at Athens there was a toll on hetaerae; at Byzantium jugglers, soothsayers, etc., paid one; but there is no reason to suppose that handicrafts were taxed in the same way. [Illustration: FIG. 198.]