Page:Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire (1926, Abbot and Johnson, municipaladminis00abbo).pdf/37



N the early history of Greece the union of villages and cities had led to the grouping of a large number of tribes  in city-states. These became the political centres of the groups, although a large part of the population remained in the original villages and retained some form of administration in the management of local affairs, such as games and religious festivals. Occasionally we find some political legislation, as, for example, in the Mesogaea of Attica where, in the third century, certain demes united to protect their lands against raids. When Demetrius founded Demetrias by the union of neighboring cities and villages, the former of these, as demes of the new town, still retained a local assembly and local magistrates, although the sovereignty which they possessed must have been limited. In some of the backward districts of Greece, such as Aetolia, Arcadia, and Epirus, villages existed with an independent organization, and were not attached to any city. The records of such communities, however, have not been preserved. In Thrace the tribal organization was governed by a phylarch. The people lived in villages, several of which sometimes united in a, whose chief magistrates were called comarchs. In this province we also find toparchies, which seem to have had a central government modelled on that of the Greek city.