Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/275

GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE PERSIAN INVASION. 251 about the capacity of Athens to sustain a great power exclusively or chiefly upon maritiipe action. But the Athenian empire was then an established reahty, whereas in the time of Themistokles it was yet a dream, and his bold predictions, surpassed as they were by the future reality, mark that exti-aordinary power of practical divination which Thucydides so emphatically extols in him. And it proves the exuberant hope which had now passed into the temper of the Athenian people, when we find them, on the faith of these predictions, undertaking a new erbterprise af so much toil and expense ; and that too when just returned from exile into a desolated country, at a moment of private distress and public impoverishment. However, Peirieus served other purposes besides its direct use as a dockyard for military marine : its secure fortifications and the protection of the Athenian navy, were well calculated to call back those metics, or resident for- eigners, who had been driven away by the invasion of Xerxes, and who might feel themselves insecure in returning, unless some new and conspicuous means of protection were exhibited. To invite them back, and to attract new residents of a similar description, Themistokles proposed to exempt them from the metoikion, or non-freeman's annual tax : i but this exemption can only have lasted for a time, and the great temptation for them to return must have consisted in the new securities and facilities for trade, which Athens, with her fortified ports and navy, now afforded. The presence of numerous metics was profitable to the Athenians, both privately and publicly : much of the trading, professional, and handicraft business was in their hands : and the Athenian legislation, while it excluded them from the political franchise, was in other respects equitable and protective to them. In regard to trading pursuits, the metics had this advantage over the citizens, — that they were less fre- quently carried away for foreign military service. The great increase of their numbers, from this period forward, while it tended materially to increase the value of property all through- out Attica, but especially in Peiraeus and Athens, where they mostly resided, helps us to explain the extraordinary prosperity, together with the excellent cultivation, prevalent throughout the ' Diodor. xi, 43.