Νήποινοί κεν ἔπειτα δόμων ἔντοσθεν ὄλοισθε.
[103] A similar character is given of the public assemblies of the early Franks and Lombards (Pfeffel, Histoire du Droit Public en Allemagne, t. i. p. 18; Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes, t. i. c. 2, p. 71).
Dionysius of Halikarnassus (ii. 12) pays rather too high a compliment to the moderation of the Grecian heroic kings.
The kings at Rome, like the Grecian heroic kings, began with an ἀρχὴ ἀνυπεύθυνος: the words of Pomponius (De Origine Juris, i. 2,) would be perhaps more exactly applicable to the latter than to the former: “Initio civitatis nostræ Populus sine certâ lege, sine jure certo, primum agere instituit: omniaque manu a Regibus gubernabantur.” Tacitus says (Ann. iii. 26), “Nobis Romulus, ut libitum, imperitaverat: dein Numa religionibus et divino jure populum devinxit, repertaque quædam a Tullo et Anco: sed præcipuus Servius Tullius sanctor legum fuit, quis etiam Reges obtemperarent.” The appointment of a Dictator under the Republic was a reproduction, for a short and definite interval, of this old unbounded authority (Cicero, De Repub. ii. 32; Zonaras, Ann. vii. 13; Dionys. Hal. v. 75).
See Rubino, Untersuchungen über Römische Verfassung und Geschichte, Cassel, 1839, buch i. abschnitt 2, pp. 112-132; and Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, i. sect. 18, pp. 81-91.
[104] Iliad, ii. 204. Agamemnôn promises to make over to Achilles seven well-peopled cities, with a body of wealthy inhabitants (Iliad, ix. 153); and Menelaus, if he could have induced Odysseus to quit Ithaka, and settle near him in Argos, would have depopulated one of his neighboring towns in order to make room for him (Odyss. iv. 176).
Manso (Sparta, i. 1, p. 34) and Nitzsch (ad Odyss. iv. 171) are inclined to exclude these passages as spurious,—a proceeding, in my opinion, inadmissible, without more direct grounds than they are able to produce.
[105] Iliad, ii. 74. Πρῶτα δ᾽ ἐγὼν ἔπεσιν πειρήσομαι, etc.
[106] Iliad, ii. 188-196.—
Ὅντινα μὲν βασιλῆα καὶ ἔξοχον ἄνδρα κιχείη,