=Social Strife.=—­The poor governed the cities and had no means of living.  The idea occurred to them to despoil the rich, and the latter, to resist them, organized associations.  Then every Greek city was divided into two parties:  the rich, called the minority, and the poor, called the majority or the people.  Rich and poor hated one another and fought one another.  When the poor got the upper hand, they exiled the rich and confiscated their goods; often they even adopted these two radical measures: 

  1.  The abolition of debts;

  2.  A new partition of lands.

The rich, when they returned to power, exiled the poor.  In many cities they took this oath among themselves:  “I swear always to be an enemy to the people and to do them all the injury I can.”

No means were found of reconciling the two parties:  the rich could not persuade themselves to surrender their property; the poor were unwilling to die of hunger.  According to Aristotle all revolutions have their origin in the distribution of wealth.  “Every civil war,” says Polybius, “is initiated to subvert wealth.”

They fought savagely, as is always the case between neighbors.  “At Miletus the poor were at first predominant and forced the rich to flee the city.  But afterwards, regretting that they had not killed them all, they took the children of the exiles, assembled them in barns and had them trodden under the feet of cattle.  The rich reentered the city and became masters of it.  In their turn they seized the children of the poor, coated them with pitch, and burned them alive.”

=Democracy and Oligarchy.=—­Each of the two parties—­rich and poor—­had its favorite form of government and set it in operation when the party held the city.  The party of the rich was the Oligarchy which gave the government into the hands of a few people.  That of the poor was the Democracy which gave the power to an assembly of the people.  Each of the two parties maintained an understanding with the similar party in the other cities.  Thus were formed two leagues which divided all the Greek cities:  the league of the rich, or Oligarchy, the league of the poor, or Democracy.  This regime began during the Peloponnesian War.  Athens supported the democratic party, Sparta the oligarchic.  The cities in which the poor had the sovereignty allied themselves with Athens; the cities where the rich governed, with Sparta.  Thus at Samos when the poor gained supremacy they slew two hundred of the rich, exiled four hundred of them, and confiscated their lands and houses.  Samos then adopted a democratic government and allied itself with Athens.  The Spartan army came to besiege Samos, bringing with it the rich exiles of Samos who wished to return to the city by force.  The city was captured, set up an oligarchy, and joined the league of Sparta.