n
this feeling, which they justified on the ground that the sedentary life
and unceasing house-work of the artisan were inconsistent with military
aptitude. The town-occupations are usually described by a word which
carries with it contemptuous ideas, and though recognized as
indispensable to the existence of the city, are held suitable only for
an inferior and semi-privileged order of citizens. This, the received
sentiment among Greeks, as well as foreigners, found a strong and
growing opposition at Athens, as I have already said--corroborated also
by a similar feeling at Corinth. The trade of Corinth, as well as of
Chalcis in Euboea, was extensive, at a time when that of Athens had
scarce any existence. But while the despotism of Periander can hardly
have failed to operate as a discouragement to industry at Corinth, the
contemporaneous legislation of Solon provided for traders and artisans a
new home at Athens, giving the first encouragement to that numerous
town-population both in the city and in the Piraeus, which we find
actually residing there in the succeeding century. The multiplication of
such town residents, both citizens and _metics_ (_i.e.,_ resident persons,
not citizens, but enjoying an assured position and civil rights), was a
capital fact in the onward march of Athens, since it determined not
merely the extension of her trade, but also the preeminence of her naval
forces--and thus, as a further consequence, lent extraordinary vigor to
her democratical government. It seems, moreover, to have been a
departure from the primitive temper of Atticism, which tended both to
cantonal residence and rural occupation. We have, therefore, the greater
interest in noting the first mention of it as a consequence of the
Solonian legislation.

To Solon is first owing the admission of a power of testamentary bequest
at Athens in all cases in which a man had no legitimate children.
According to the preexisting custom, we may rather presume that if a
deceased person left neither children nor blood relations, his property
descended (as at Rome) to his gens and phratry. Throughout most rude
states of society the power of willing is unknown, as among the ancient
Germans--among the Romans prior to the twelve tables--in the old laws of
the Hindus, etc. Society limits a man's interest or power of enjoyment
to his life, and considers his relatives as having joint reversionary
claims to his property, which take effect, in certain de