Book 14
2.5
The Rhodians, although their form of government is not democratic, are attentive to the welfare of the people, and endeavour to maintain the multitude of poor. The people receive allowances of corn, and the rich support the needy, according to an ancient usage. There are also public offices in the state, the object of which is to procure and distribute provisions,ὀψωνιασμοῦ, Kramer’s proposed correction, is adopted for ὀψωνιαζόμενοι. so that the poor may obtain subsistence, and the city not suffer for want of persons to serve her, especially in manning her fleets.
2.5
Some of the dockyards are kept private, and the multitude are prohibited from seeing them. If any person should be found inspecting, or to have entered them, he would be punished with death. As at Massalia and Cyzicus,Marseilles and Artaki. so here particularly, everything relating to architects, the manufacture of engines, stores of arms, and of other materials, is administered with peculiar care, much more so than in other places.
2.6
Like the people of Halicarnasus,Bodrun. Cnidus, and Cos, the Rhodians are of Doric origin. Some of the Dorians, who founded Megara after the death of Codrus, remained there; others associated themselves with the colony which went to Crete under the conduct of Althaemenes the Argive; the rest were distributed at Rhodus, and among the cities just mentioned.
