ABSTRACT
THE BEST STATE In democracies everybody deals with everything. The more a city-state tends towards oligarchy, the greater will the splitting-up of necessary functions become, Aristotle concludes. In his own ideal state, not particularly democratic, by necessity the citizens are landowners, but not farmers. In their youth they are occupied by serving as soldiers; later on in life they take over as persons who are legally competent to make decisions; and then, perhaps, end their days as priests. However, they need considerable amounts of supplies, and for this they depend on their own land. Tilling is to be done preferably by slaves or possibly by those whom he calls barbarians, who are perioikoi. His state is a figment of fantasy; but a system whereby farmers and soldiers operated separately still existed in his own time on Crete and in Egypt, so Aristotle claims (Politics 1328b-1329a).
