encompass any reform, even in the face of economic laws. To him, therefore, the demand that the state be made the dispenser of private property did not seem unnatural.289 We should be on our guard, however, against exaggerating the extent of this sentiment among the Greek writers, or against reading into them the modern socialistic doctrines.
A consideration of the predecessors of Plato in social speculation may be conveniently introduced at this point, before we proceed to the discussion of the Republic.
Some have thought to find traces of communism in Homer. The evidence of any real communism, however, is very slight, and the frankly individualistic spirit of the poems is against it. Moreover, this is a problem that concerns the economic conditions rather than the theory.290
Little is definitely known of Pythagoras and his school, but it is improbable that he either taught or practiced a real communism.291
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