ABSTRACT
The decline of Athens is a singularly fascinating story. The ancient writers were aware of this: first Plato, then Aristotle and the Stoics, finally Polybios and Cicero examined the development and the destiny of the polis. The concept of the polis was, originally, that of a community of free men, living in perfect autarchy under the protection of the gods and defending themselves against any attack from outside. Deprived of her allies, Athens was condemned to provide for herself the resources which would enable democracy to survive and to protect itself; and to accomplish this she must give up the traditional ethic of the polis, that autarchy of which some theorists were still dreaming in the fourth century, and to seek an opening on to the outside world, to develop her industry by a large-scale recourse to slave-labour, to attract foreign traders and integrate them into the civic community.
