CONCLUSION

A considerable and no doubt constantly increasing number
of the people had little interest in politics and political activi-
ties, The lure of the official payments was less effective than
is generally believed The number of those who actually lived
exclusively on their pay as jurymen, councillors, officials or
members of the assembly, was at no time very large, though
the burden on the State treasury was heavy, and though of
course many welcomed that easily earned money as an addi-
tional means of support. The same is true of the distributions
of corn. On the whole, those who were in fact 'kept by the
State' were in the minority, not only relatively to the number
of the whole working population, but also to that of the citizens
alone The age was characterized by an ever-growing urge to
find new ways of making money, and the very smallness of the
regular public fees proves that the majority of the people
could not live on them The number of those who received
public payment in one form or another increased in the fourth
century, but Aristotle's estimate of 20,000 men is, if not an
'absurd exaggeration',1 certainly misleading, it confuses regu-
lar and irregular payments, and exaggerates the social and
economic importance of both. It is of decisive importance that
most of these payments were very modest allowances paid by
the day, and that it was impossible to live on them, because
there were so many days on which nothing could be earned
from the State. It is hardly just to call the Athenians, either
these receivers of public money or even the people as a whole,
men *on the dole' ; the social question of unemployment never
arose The most we can say is that the very poorest members
of the community, and a certain number of crafty and un-
scrupulous fortune-hunters, relied entirely or chiefly on the
State for money, though a great many received some public
pay. Everybody realized to an increasing extent the impor-
tance of money, and the economic side of life gradually over-
powered the political side.
Thus the political consciousness of the ordinary citizen
diminished, and the small payments offered by the State were
ineffective against this tendency. In the long run, the State
could not compete with the possibilities of economic activity,
though many citizens tried to make the most that was to be
got from politics, and some of them succeeded, frequently by
1 Aristotle, Ath pel 24, 3 Bolkestem, 268