Democratic Communities What was called the People in the most democratic republics of antiquity, was very unlike what we designate by that term.

In Athens, all the citizens took part in public affairs; but there were only 20,000 citizens to more than 350,000 inhabitants.

All the rest were slaves, and discharged the greater part of those duties which belong at the present day to the lower or even to the middle classes.

Athens, then, with her universal suffrage, was after all merely an aristocratic republic in which all the nobles had an equal right to the government.

The struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome must be considered in the same light: it was simply an intestine feud between the elder and younger branches of the same family.