or three or four brothers
to share one wife. The poor husbands!--no doubt the lady was a match
for them all! So much for those gentle creatures whom that grave
German professor, M. Mueller, holds up to our admiration and despair.

[145] In Homer the condition of the slave seems, everywhere, tempered
by the kindness and indulgence of the master.

[146] Three of the equals always attended the king's person in war.

[147] The institution of the ephors has been, with probability,
referred to this epoch--chosen at first as the viceroys in the absence
of the kings.

[148] Pausanias, Messenics.

[149] See Mueller's Dorians, vol. i., p. 172, and Clinton's Fast.
Hell. vol. i., p. 183.

[150] For the dates here given of the second Messenian war see Fast.
Hell., vol. i., 190, and Appendix 2.

[151] Now called Messina.

[152] In Phocis were no less than twenty-two states (poleis); in
Boeotia, fourteen; in Achaia, ten. The ancient political theorists
held no community too small for independence, provided the numbers
sufficed for its defence. We find from Plato that a society of five
thousand freemen capable of bearing arms was deemed powerful enough to
constitute an independent state. One great cause of the ascendency of
Athens and Sparta was, that each of those cities had from an early
period swept away the petty independent states in their several
territories of Attica and Laconia.

[153] Machiavel (Discor., lib. i., c. ii.).

[154] Lib. iv., c. 13.

[155] Aristotle cites among the advantages of wealth, that of being
enabled to train horses. Wherever the nobility could establish among
themselves a cavalry, the constitution was oligarchical. Yet, even in
states which did not maintain a cavalry (as Athens previous to the
constitution of Solon), an oligarchy was the first form of government
that rose above the ruins of monarchy.

[156] One principal method of increasing the popular action was by
incorporating the neighbouring villages or wards in one municipality
with the capital. By this the people gained both in number and in
union.

[157] Sometimes in ancient Greece there arose a species of lawful
tyrants, under the name of Aesymnetes. These were voluntarily chosen
by the people, sometimes for life, sometimes for a limited period, and
generally for the accomplishment of some particular object. Thus was
Pittacus of Mitylene elected to conduct the war against the exiles.
With the accomplishme