=Reforms of Cleisthenes.=--Cleisthenes, leader of one of the parties,
used the occasion to make a thoroughgoing revolution.
There were many strangers in Athens, especially seamen and traders who
lived in Piraeus near the harbor. Cleisthenes gave them the rights of
citizenship and made them equal[68] to the older inhabitants. From
this time there were two populations side by side--the people of
Attica and those of Piraeus. A difference of physical features was
apparent for three centuries afterward: the people of Attica resembled
the rest of the Greeks; those in Piraeus resembled Asiatics. The
Athenian people thus augmented was a new people, the most active in
Greece.
THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE
In the fifth century the society of Athens was definitely formed:
three classes inhabited the district of Attica--slaves, foreigners,
and citizens.
=The Slaves.=--The slaves constituted the great majority of the
population; there was no man so poor that he did not have at least one
slave; the rich owned a multitude of them, some as many as five
hundred. The larger part of the slaves lived in the house occupied
with grinding grain, kneading bread, spinning and weaving cloth,
performing the service of the kitchens, and in attendance on their
masters.
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