Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

SOLON'S CLASSES. 39Being allowed by law no fortresses, theSpartan territorywas not only open to invasion, but the nation was ignorant offortification. Nor did they understand how to lay siege to astrong place.Athens. — From the abolition of the kings down to thedays of Solon (1068-594 b. c), owing to the internal discordsand external conflicts ofAthens, the war-establishmentwas uncertain. Solon's laws aimed at producing a form ofgovernment which should keep the aristocratic element withinbounds, and at the same time not run into pure democracy.He divided the citizens into four classes (or phylae), accordingto wealth, — the pentakosiomedimnoi, the hippeis, orknights, the zeugitoi, and the thetes.The first were the richest,the last the poorest. Every citizen was bound to service.Though Athens was a democracy, the citizens were often in asmall minority. There were at one time but ninety thousandof them to forty-five thousand foreigners andthree hundred and sixty thousand slaves. Anothercensus, taken under Demetrius, showedtwenty-one thousand citizens, ten thousandmetics, and four hundred thousand slaves.The members of the first two classes abovenamed were obliged on requisition to keepeach a horse and serve as cavalry, but werethen free from infantry duty in all but exceptionalcases. The third class furnished theheavy infantry, in which each man must supplyhimseK with arms. Of the fourth class,those who could furnish the proper armsmight serve in the heavy foot ; the othersHeroic Horseman(from a vase).were the light troops.Every Athenian freeman was held to pursue a certain