Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/76

52, or, as we may imagine them, village communities of various sizes and growth, had their population transferred to that imposing stronghold which has lately been in part excavated by members of the British school at Athens. The foundation answered its purpose, and Megalopolis was destined to play a great part in the last struggles of the Greeks for liberty; but the forcible method used was perhaps hardly well suited to the conditions of the considerable territory which was laid under contribution, for we know that the land became eventually depopulated, and thereby deprived of its natural strength. In a Greek City-State, city and land must be one whole, admitting of no disproportion or division of natural interest.

If we turn to Italy we find our knowledge of the genesis of the City-State even more scanty; and of the beginnings of any other Italian city than Rome we may be said to know nothing at all. It has been already said that the earliest inhabitants lived in small communities (vici and pagi) within reach of a fortified place of vantage and refuge, which probably also served as a centre both for worship and traffic. Each ring-wall, or citadel (arx, urbs, oppidum), was common, so far as we can discover, to several village communities, and was the object of special religious observance and care, both in its foundation and its maintenance, — a fact which