... process forced upon the Greeks as a result of resource deficiency and deliberate political decision rather than intellectual calculation. Every time the population surpassed a certain figure, an expedition embarked to create a new colony. For example, "Athens had some 40,000 inhabitants during the time of Pericles, and only three other cities, Syracuse, Agrigentum and Argos, possessed more than 20,000. During the fifteenth century Syracuse reached the total of approximately 50,000 inhabitants by forcibly containing the populations of the cities it had conquered. There were only fifteen cities with a population of about 10,000, the number which was considered appropriate for a large city and which theorists advised against exceeding (Benevolo 1980: 57)." This enforced population boundary was not viewed as being restrictive; it was, "a necessary pre-condition for the orderly way of life (Benevolo 1980: 57)." The population had to be between a certain level of compromise; substantial enough to ...

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