placed in the first rank, under the title of Pentacosiomedimnians.
The second class, termed Hippeis, knights or horsemen, was composed of
those whose estates yielded three hundred measures. Each man
belonging to it was obliged to keep a horse for the public service,
and to enlist himself, if called upon, in the cavalry of the military
forces (the members of either of these higher classes were exempt,
however, from serving on board ship, or in the infantry, unless
intrusted with some command.) The third class was composed of those
possessing two hundred [205] measures, and called Zeugitae; and the
fourth and most numerous class comprehended, under the name of Thetes,
the bulk of the non-enslaved working population, whose property fell
short of the qualification required for the Zeugitae. Glancing over
these divisions, we are struck by their similarity to the ranks among
our own northern and feudal ancestry, corresponding to the nobles, the
knights, the burgesses, and the labouring classes, which have so long
made, and still constitute, the demarcations of society in modern
Europe. The members of the first class were alone eligible to the
highest offices as archons, those of the three first classes to the
political assembly of the four hundred (which I shall presently
describe), and to some minor magistracies; the members of the fourth
class were excluded from all office, unless, as they voted in the
popular assembly, they may be said to have had a share in the
legislature, and to exercise, in extraordinary causes, judicial
authority. At the same time no hereditary barrier excluded them from
the hopes so dear to human aspirations. They had only to acquire the
necessary fortune in order to enjoy the privileges of their superiors.
And, accordingly, we find, by an inscription on the Acropolis,
recorded in Pollux, that Anthemion, of the lowest class, was suddenly
raised to the rank of knight. [206]