ON THE VERGE OF HISTORY
of these posts were not removable at the caprice of the Sovereign, and they enjoyed the privilege of transmitting their offices to their sons; a system of hereditary officialdom which remained in operation through long ages.
Thus the national polity in the earliest times assumed a patriarchal form. Public affairs were administered by a group of official families, and at the head of all stood a lineal descendant of the divine ancestors, the degree of his sway varying from time to time according to the docility of his coadjutors.
All these great families were supposed to be of divine lineage; they traced their origin to a Mikoto (an augustness) just as the Sovereign himself did. Some, presumably the most deserving, obtained offices near the throne when the spoils of conquest were distributed; others were appointed to provincial posts, and as these latter generally found their administrative regions occupied by barbarians whom they had to subdue at first and to hold in check afterwards, they gradually organised principalities virtually independent of the central government. That, however, is a historical development subsequent to the era now under consideration.
It does not appear that there was anything like a fully organised administration until some thirteen hundred years after the date traditionally assigned for the conquest of Yamato by the Emperor Jimmu. The functions of government
51
