[1267a] the upper classes if honors are equally distributed, bringing it about that Noble and base in equal honor stand. Hom. Il. 9.319 Nor do men do wrong for the sake of the bare necessities only, the sort of wrongdoing for which Phaleas thinks that equality of substance is a cure—preventing highway robbery by removing the motive of cold or hunger; men also do wrong to gain pleasure and to satisfy desire. For if they have a desire above the bare necessities of existence, they will transgress to cure this desire; and moreover not because of desire only, but in order that they may enjoy the pleasures that are not associated with pains.[loeb_subsection_8] What remedy then is there for these three classes of offenders? For the first class, a modest competence and work; for the second, temperance; and as for the third sort, any people who desire pleasures that depend on themselves would require no cure for their desires save that which is derived from philosophy, for the other pleasures require the aid of fellow-creatures. Since clearly the greatest transgressions spring from a desire for superfluities, not for bare necessaries (for example, men do not become tyrants in order to avoid shivering with cold, and accordingly high honors are awarded to one who kills a tyrant, but not to one who kills a thief); so that the method of the constitution of Phaleas is efficacious only against the minor social disorders. [loeb_subsection_9] Again, Phaleas desires to frame institutions for the most part which will lead to a right state of affairs in the internal relations of the citizens, but the legislator should also have regard to relations with the neighboring peoples and with all foreign nations.It is essential therefore for the constitution to be framed with a view to military strength, about which Phaleas has said nothing. And the same is true also about property; for the citizens should not only possess enough to meet their requirements in civic life, but also to encounter the perils that face them from outside; hence they should possess neither so large an amount of wealth that it will be coveted by their neighbors and by stronger states while its possessors will be unable to repel their assailants, nor yet so small an amount as not to be capable of sustaining a war even against equal and similar states.[loeb_subsection_10] Phaleas, it is true, has laid down no rule at all, but the question must not be overlooked, what amount of wealth is advantageous. Perhaps therefore the best limit to prescribe is that it must not profit a stronger people to make war upon the state because of its excessive wealth, but only just as it might do even if the citizens had not got so much property. For example, when Autophradates was about to lay siege to Atarneus,A stronghold on the coast of Asia Minor acquired by Eubulus, a Bithynian banker, when the Persian empire was breaking up, middle 4th century B.C.; Autophradates was a Persian general. Eubulus bade him consider how long it would take him to capture the place, and then calculate what his expenditure would be for that period, for he himself was willing for the payment of a smaller sum than that to evacuate Atarneus at once; these words caused Autophradates to ponder and led him to abandon the siege. [loeb_subsection_11] Now equality of property among the citizens is certainly one of the factors that contribute to the avoidance of party faction; it is not however a particularly important one. For the upper classes may resent it on the ground that their merits are not equal, owing to which we actually see them often attacking the government and rebelling;
[1267b] and also the baseness of human beings is a thing insatiable, and though at the first a dole of only two obolsTwopence-halfpenny for a seat in the theater at Athens paid for citizens by the State after the time of Pericles. is enough, yet when this has now become an established custom, they always want more, until they get to an unlimited amount; for appetite is in its nature unlimited, and the majority of mankind live for the satisfaction of appetite. [loeb_subsection_12] The starting-point in such matters therefore, rather than levelling estates, is to train those that are respectable by nature so that they may not wish for excessive wealth, and to contrive that the base may not be able to do so, and this is secured if they are inferior in number and not unjustly treated. And also we cannot approve what Phaleas has said about equality of property, for he makes the citizens equal in respect of landed estate only, but wealth also consists in slaves and cattle and money, and there is an abundance of property in the shape of what is called furniture; we must therefore either seek to secure equality or some moderate regulation as regards all these things, or we must permit all forms of wealth. [loeb_subsection_13] And it is clear from Phaleas’s legislation that he makes the citizen-population a small one, inasmuch as all the artisans are to be publicly owned slaves and are not to furnish any complement of the citizen-body. But if it is proper to have public slaves, the laborers employed upon the public works ought to be of that status (as is the case at Epidamnus and as Diophantus once tried to institute at Athens).
These remarks may serve fairly well to indicate such meritsand defects as may be contained in the constitution of Phaleas.
[loeb_section_5] [loeb_subsection_1] HippodamusA famous architect and town-planner (see 1330b 24) circa 475 B.C. son of Euryphon, a Milesian (who invented the division of cities into blocks and cut up Piraeus, and who also became somewhat eccentric in his general mode of life owing to a desire for distinction, so that some people thought that he lived too fussily, with a quantity of hairAt Sparta men wore their hair long, but at Athens this was the mark of a dandy. and expensive ornaments, and also a quantity of cheap yet warm clothes not only in winter but also in the summer periods, and who wished to be a man of learning in natural science generally), was the first man not engaged in politics who attempted to speak on the subject of the best form of constitution. [loeb_subsection_2] His system was for a city with a population of ten thousand, divided into three classes; for he made one class of artisans, one of farmers, and the third the class that fought for the state in war and was the armed class. He divided the land into three parts, one sacred, one public and one private: sacred land to supply the customary offerings to the gods, common land to provide the warrior class with food, and private land to be owned by the farmers. He thought that there are only three divisions of the law, since the matters about which lawsuits take place are three in number—outrage, damage, homicide. [loeb_subsection_3] He also proposed to establish one supreme court of justice, to which were to be carried up all the cases at law thought to have been decided wrongly, and this court he made to consist of certain selected elders.