Note 982 — Chapter VII · Corinth

F.H.G. III. p. 393; cp. Heraclides, F.H.G. II. p. 213, “putting a complete stop to the acquisition of slaves and to luxury.” These statements are treated sceptically by Busolt, Gr. G.2 I. p. 646 (mainly on the dangerous ground that Periander’s behaviour is too typical to be true), and by Poehlmann, Grundr. Gr. G.1 62, 479, but accepted or defended by Knapp, op. cit. p. 119; Duncker, G. d. A. VI.5 63; Wilisch, Jahrb. Gym. Zittau, 1901, p. 17; cp. p. 12; Meyer, G. d. A. II. 621; Beloch, Gr. G.2 I. i. p. 270. These writers mainly explain the measures as intended to protect small home industries against large slave factories (so Busolt, Lakedaim. p. 201). Porzio, Cipselidi, p. 235, n., rightly points out that the authors who preserve this notice did not so understand it, but wrongly maintains that this fact is fatal to the explanation. Porzio’s own explanation (that the Cypselids’ taxation led to discontent which endangered the tyrants whose “main care was therefore to empty the city by forcing their subjects to live solitary and scattered in the country,” ibid. p. 236) runs counter to the facts, which show that cities increased under the tyranny.