Note 254 — Chapter III · PLATO

The passages above cited, n. 1 above, need not imply labor for capitalists. It does not appear that there was ever a considerable body of free citizen laborers at Athens, who worked for capitalists, though the number of free workers, aside from labor on the farms, was fairly large. Cf. C.I.A. for records of such labor on the buildings of the acropolis; Boeckh, op. cit., I, 58: “Der geringere war durch seine Umstände so gut als der arme Schutzverwandte oder Sklave zur Handarbeit genöthigt.” On the favorable attitude toward free labor at Athens, cf. above, p. 29, n. 4. Poehlmann (op. cit., in loc.) takes the opposite view as to the number of free laborers for capitalists.