Claudius F. Mayer: From Plato to Pope Paul / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 17. (Budapest, 1989)

of the Greek cities. The earliest colonial foundations were Cumae in 750 B. C, Sybaris and Tarentum in 700 B. C. 152 Cf. PLUTARCH

: Lycurgos. The "krypteia" was a drastic method in Sparta of the limitation of population. 152/a XENOPHON: Reip. Lac. xiv. 153 PLUTARCH

: Lycurgos, 15. 154 Men with three children were excused of night watch, those with four were immune from taxation and all public services. Cf. AELIAN

: Varia história, VI: 6. Also ARISTOTLE: Politics, 11:9. 155 Ibid.—Later the foreigners were excluded from the land. Cf. also PLUTARCH: Theseus. Theseus wanted to enlarge Athens, and invited all strangers to come and enjoy equal privileges with the natives. 156 PLUTARCH: Theseus. Th. divided the commonwealth into three ranks: nobleman, husbandmen, and artificers. 157 PLUTARCH: Lycurgos. This amounts to polyandry. See also POLYBIUS, XII, 6:8. 158 PLUTARCH: Lycurgos, xxxi: 25, The only son of Lycurgos, Antiorus, died childless. 159 GOULD. 1. c. footnote 86. By free admission of strangers to citizenship, Athens added ca. 30 000 to its population. 160 PLUTARCH

: Agis, 5. 161 This was also the reason that the hereditary custom of three brothers marrying one and the same woman was maintained (Cf. POLYBIOS, XII, 6:8). 162 POLYBIOS, XI, 6b :5; See also DENIS, I.e. footnote 128, v. 1, p. 146. 163 PLATO

: Laws, V :741. 164 ARISTOTLE: Politics, 11:9, This was the overall practice in the ancient world. 165 LIVY

: Histories, xxxix :24. 166 POLYBIOS, XX, 6:1-6; XXXVI, 17:5-10: "In our own time the whole of Greece has been subject to a low birth-rate (apaidia), and a general decrease of the population (oliganthroopia), owing to which cities have become deserted, and the land has ceased to yield fruit.

.. If, then any one had advised us to send and ask the gods about this, and find out what we ought to say or do, to increase in number and make our cities more populous, would it not seem absurd, the cause of the evil being evident and the remedy being in our own hands? For as men had fallen into such a state ... that they did not wish to marry, or if they married to rear the children born to them.

.. the evil rapidly and insensibly grew.

.. Any ordinary man will tell you that the most effectual cure had to be men's own action, in either striving after other objects, or if not, in passing laws making it compulsory to rear children. Neither prophets nor magic were here of any service.

.." 167 The ancients, including the physicians, were unanimous as to the effect of the parents' excessive wine-drinking upon future generations. 168 REID, G. A. (1902): Alcoholism; a study in heredity, N. Y..

.. LYCURGOS cut off the legs of drunkards, and destroyed all the vines he could (100). SOLON condemned an archon to death for being drunk. Lycurgos also prohibited any sexual intercourse when the partners were drunk. In Greek mythology, Zeus begot the lame Hephaistos while in an alcoholic stupor. 169 Lycurgos preached racial purity (ä la Hitler). Cf. GOULD, 1. c. footonote 86. Most of the Greek cities required that their citizens should match with none but citizens. In Athens, if a citizen married a foreigner, the children were doomed to slavery. If a foreigner married a free woman of Athens, it was lawful for any person to persecute him, and if he was convicted, he was sold for a slave. (Cf. Thomas SALMON

: Critical Essays on the Marriage Rites of the Greeks

).

—The problem of nature-nurture was also considered, but the conclusion was that no education can make a bad stock good. See also the opinions about this in SOPHOCLES

: Antigone (fierce daughter from a fierce father) and in EURIPIDES: Electra ("No good child will come from an evil parent"). 170 PLATO: Republic; also his Laws. 171 PLATO subjected to legal regulation almost every phase of human life, marriage, procreation, development from infancy to old age, even the actions in the marriages bed. He argued that the same principles of selection should be applied for the improvement of the human race as used in improving the stock of domestic animals. 56