- The ancient societies were almost in perpetual war and the war in a small state is more destructive than in a big state as most inhabitants of a small state must serve in the army; war could be caused by martial spirit, love of liberty, mutual emulation, and hatred for neighbour.
- Not only in war time but even in peace time the condition of ancient society was unfavourable to growth: there was no law, no trial, no pardon and the nobles would butcher the opposite party at the slightest provocation.
- Ancient society had subsistence agriculture, without support of flourishing trade, manufactures and industry as in modern societies.
To quote (Valentey, 1977):
There is a good reason to assume that on the whole, mortality levels in the primeval period were very high. Many of these people would perish from hunger or disease, or after being attacked by wild animals, or after encounters with hostile tribes or natural disasters. Life was particularly hard for people inhabiting lands in the temperate or cold belts, where food shortages in winter probably took a heavy toll of lives each year. Mortality was particularly high among young children and old people, the weakest members of the groups, who must have been the first to suffer from deteriorating conditions. When finding themselves exposed to unexpected dangers these clan or tribal groups often abandoned the old and the children to the mercy of fate. Traditional practices of infanticide as well as the killing of old people in times of hunger that have been discovered in some tribal societies (such as those of the Australians or the Eskimos) are more likely to have been widespread in this primitive period…
The birth rate in this age of the primitive community must also have been high, on an average a little in excess of the death rate, otherwise those primitive peoples would have died out. |
