in which some dominant city was almost always an element of insecurity, the Achæan federation was composed of cities among which no single one was decidedly preponderant; each of these had one vote only in the common assembly, which was held in the later period of the League at least turn by turn in all of them. And further, the central government was a strong one, consisting of a single στρατηγός or general, assisted by a council of ten, and having for the year of his office complete administrative and executive power. The central government thus constituted exercised control over the foreign policy of the League, over its military resources, its finance, coinage, and weights and measures. What was the judicial and constraining power which supported the central government we do not clearly know; but we can hardly doubt that there was a judicial tribunal of some kind common to the whole League.[1]
These facts show beyond question that the Achæan federation formed a State in itself as distinct from the States composing it; and in this
- ↑ The evidence for this constitution is to be found discussed in Freeman's History of Federal Government (unfortunately a difficult book to procure), vol. i. 236 foll.; or in a more concentrated form in Gilbert, Handbuch, ii. 110 foll. The authorities are chiefly Polybius, Livy's later books, Plutarch's Lives of Aratus, Cleomenes, and Philopœmen, and a few passages in Pausanias, etc.
showing that some important cities, e.g. Argos and Sicyon, issued their own coinage independently of that of the League. Hence we learn (1) that the spirit of autonomy was still alive in them, and (2) that though no one city was preponderant, a few were far more powerful than the rest, — many in fact being still mere villages. See Brit. Mus. Catalogue, Peloponnesus, p. 24 foll.
