Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/341

 CHAP. IV. THE ARISTOCEACY GOVERNS. 335 all the power was in the hands of a few families which were reputed sacred. It was the same at Apolloiiia.' At Erythra3 there was an aristocratic class called the Basilidce. In the cities of Eubcea the ruling class were called the knights.* We may remark here that among the ancients, as in the middle ages, it was a privilege to fight on horseback. The monarchy had already ceased to exist at Corinth when a colony set out from there to found Sj racuse. The new city, therefore, knew nothing of royalty, and was ruled from the first by an aristocracy. This class was called Geomori, that is to say, proprietors. It was ocmposed of families which, on the day of the founda- tion, had distributed among themselves, with all the ordinary rites, the sacred parts of the territory. This aristocracy remained for several generations absolute master of the government, and it preserved its title o^ proprietors, which seems to indicate that the lower classes had not the right of property in the soil. An aristocracy of the same, kind ruled for a long time at Miletus and at Samos.^ » Aristotle, Politics, III. 9, 8 ; VI. 3, 8. ' Aristotle, Politics, VIII. 5, 10. " Diodorus, VIII. 5. Timcydides, VIII. 21. Herodotus, VII 155.