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16 HISTORY OF GREECE. trators. It was always an oligarchy which arose on the defea* ance of the heroic kingdom : the age of democrat ical movement was yet far distant, and the condition of the people the general body of freemen was not immediately altered, either for better or worse, by the revolution ; the small number of privileged persons, among whom the kingly attributes were distributed and put in rotation, being those nearest in rank to the king himself, perhaps members of the same large gens with him, and pretend- ing to a common divine or heroic descent. As far as we can make out, this change seems to have taken place in the natural course of events and without violence. Sometimes the kingly lineage died out and was not replaced ; sometimes, on the death of a king, his son and successor was acknowledged l only as archon, or perhaps set aside altogether to make room for a prytanis, or president, out of the men of rank around. At Athens, we are told that Kodrus was the last king, and that his descendants were recognized only as archons for life ; after some years, the archons for life were replaced by archons for ten years, taken from the body of Eupatridas, or nobles ; sub- sequently, the duration of the archonship was farther shortened to one year. At Corinth, the ancient kings are said to have passed in like manner into the oligarchy of the Bacchiadag, out of whom an annual prytanis was chosen. We are only able to make out the general fact of such a change, without knowing how it was brought about, our first historical acquaintance with the Grecian cities beginning with these oligarchies. 1 Aristot. Polit. iii, 9, 7 ; iii, 10, 7-8. M. Augustin Thierry remarks, in a similar spirit, that the great political change, common to so large a portion of mediaeval Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, whereby the many different communes or city con stitutions were formed, was accomplished under great varieties of manner and circumstance ; sometimes by violence, sometimes by harmonious accord. " C'est une controverse qui doit finir, que celle des franchises mivnicipalc-s obtenues par 1'insurrection et dcs franchises municipales accorde'es. Quelque face du probleme qu'on envisage, il rcstc bien entendu que les constitutions urbaines du xii et du xiii siecle, comme toutc espece d'institutions politiques dans tous les temps, ont pu s'e'tablir a force ouverte, s'octroyer de guerre lasso ou dtf ))lcin grc. etrc arrachees ou sollicite'es, vendues ou donne'es gratuitc- ment : Ics grandes revolutions sociales s'accomplisscnt par tous ces moycns klafois. 'Aug. Thierry, Becits des Temps Mc'rovingiens, Preface, p. 19