Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/31

 THE HEROIC MONARCHY PASSES INTO AX OLIGARCHY. 15 principle, the petty prince was in too close contact with Lis people, and too humbly furnished out in every way, to get up a prestige or delusion of any other kind : he had no means c f over- awing their imaginations by that combination of pomp, seclusion, and mystery, which Herodotus and Xenophon so well appreciate among the artifices of kingcraft. 1 As there was no new feeling upon which a perpetual chief could rest his power, so there was nothing in the circumstances of the community which rendered the main- tenance of such a dignity necessary for visible and effective union:' 2 in a single city, and a small circumjacent community, collective deliberation and general rules, with temporary and responsible magistrates, were practicable without difficulty. To maintain an irresponsible king, and then to contrive accompaniments which shall extract from him the benefits of responsible government, is in reality a highly complicated system, though, as has been remarked, we have become familiar with it in modern Europe : the more simple and obvious change is, to substitute one or more temporary and responsible magistrates in place of the king himself. Such was the course which affairs took in Greece. The inferior chiefs, who had originally served as council to the king, found it possible to supersede him, and to alternate the functions of administration among themselves ; retaining probably the occasional convocation of the general assembly, as it had existed before, and with as little practical effi- cacy. Such was in substance the character of that mutation which occurred generally throughout the Grecian states, with the exception of Sparta : kingship was abolished, and an oligarchy took its place, a council deliberating collectively, deciding gen- eral matters by the majority of voices, and selecting some individ- uals of their own body as temporary and accountable adminis- 1 See the account of Deiokes, the first Median king, in Herodotiv.. , ., evidently an outline drawn by Grecian imagination : also, the Cyropaedia of Xenophon, viii, 1, 40; viii, 3, 1-14; vii, 5, 37 ov TOVTU fiovu evo- ut^s (Ki'poc) xprjvai rove up^ovrag TUV up^ofievuv dia&tpeiv rtj jieXriovaf avnjv sivai, d/U,o KCU KarayoijTeveiv fiero %pr t vai airotf, etc. Sciences, p. 198, ed. 1760. The effects of the greater or less extent of ter- ritory, upon the nature of the government, are also well discussed in Destutl Tracy Commentaire sur VEsprit des Loix de Montesquieu, ch. viii.
 * David Hume, Essay xvii, On the Rise and Progress of the Arts and