As for Hippodamas of Miletus, it is difficult to gain a clear idea of his ideal state from Aristotle’s meager description,292 but it seems not to have been markedly socialistic. He divides his body of ten thousand citizens into artisans, farmers, and soldiers.293 He makes a corresponding triple division of the land—sacred, to provide for the expense of worship; public, for the support of the soldiers; private, to be owned and worked by the husbandmen.294 Thus only the farmers are to own land, and the question as to who shall work the land for the military class is left in obscurity.295 It seems likely that Hippodamas intended that the farmers should work all the land, and own one-third of it for their own support. His system contains some communistic elements, as the fact that two-thirds of the land is public, but it is certainly not socialistic in spirit and purpose. The prime interest of Hippodamas was very probably not in a system to supplant private property, but rather in a plan of assured support for the priestly and military classes.296
Phaleas of Chalcedon, according to Aristotle’s description, approaches much nearer to the modern socialistic idea.297 Aristotle makes him a type of those thinkers who lay chief stress on the right system of property as the necessary basis of civic peace.298 His central tenet is equality of possessions and of education for all the citizens,299 but he seems to have specified only landed property.300 This demand, though only landed property is included, seems to strike a truly modern socialistic note. But nowhere better than here may we see the gulf that separates ancient and modern socialism. The avowed interest of Phaleas is not in the masses. The artisans are all to be public slaves.301 His interest is rather in the classes, and not even in these primarily, but rather in the state itself. His entire system has for its fundamental motive the avoiding of civic discord in the state.302