Cited in Aristot. Polit. bk. i. cap. 1.
The land of a fullborn Spartan may have been somewhat less than the Saxon hide: but let those who think these amounts too small, remember the two jugera (under two acres) which formed the haeredium of a Roman patrician.
[195]. Hecataeus says the Arcadians fed upon barley-bread and pork, Ἀρκαδικὸν δὲ δεῖπνον.... Ἑκαταῖος ... μάζας φησὶν εἶναι καὶ ὕεια κρέα. Athen. iv. 148. But the Arcadians, both in blood and manners, probably resembled the Saxons more than any other Greeks did; and what Hecataeus says of them would not apply to the inhabitants of Attica.
[196]. After the Persian wars at least, when the Greeks prided themselves on drinking wine, not beer:
ἀλλ’ ἄρσενας τοι τῆσδε γῆς οἰκήτορας
εὑρήσετ’, οὐ πίνοντας ἐκ κριθῶν μέθυ.
Æsch. Supp. 929.
CHAPTER V.
PERSONAL RANK. THE FREEMAN. THE NOBLE.
The second principle laid down in the first chapter of this book, is that of personal rank, which in the Teutonic scheme appears inseparably connected with the possession of land.
The earliest records we can refer to, place before us a system founded upon distinctions of birth, as clearly as any that we can derive from the Parliamentary writs or rolls of later ages: in our history there is not even a fabulous Arcadia, wherein we may settle a free democracy: for even where the records of fact no longer supply a clue through the labyrinths of our early story, the epic continues the tradition, and still celebrates the deeds of nobles and of kings.