Foreigners, who had transported for a permanence their property and families to Athens, and abandoned all connexion with their own countries, were admitted to swell the numbers of the free population.

This made the constituent body.

At the age of eighteen, each citizen was liable to military duties within the limits of Attica; at the age of twenty he attained his majority, and became entitled to a vote in the popular assembly, and to all the other rights of citizenship.

Every free Athenian of the age of twenty was thus admitted to a vote in the legislature.

But the possession of a very considerable estate was necessary to the attainment of the higher offices.