[224]. “Diis genitos sacrosque reges.” Tac. Orat. 12.
[225]. It is a curious fact that Pontifex, literally the bridge-maker, should be the generic Latin name for a priest. At Athens there was a gens of γεφυραίοι: were these ever a sacerdotal tribe?
[226]. Αἴτιον δὲ ... ὅτι τρόπον τινὰ ἀρετὴ τυγχάνουσα χορηγίας καὶ βιάζεσθαι δύναται μάλιστα, καὶ ἔστιν ἀεὶ τὸ κρατοῦν ἐν ὑπεροχῆ ἀγαθοῦ τινὸς, ὥστε δοκεῖν μὴ ἄνευ ἀρετῆς εἶναι τὴν βίαν.... Arist. Polit. I. cap. 6. (Bekker.) We may remember the Incas in Peru.
[227]. A fact abundantly familiar in the history of India, whether under Afghan, Mogul or Mahratta rule.
[228]. The whole state may possibly consist only of the predominant tribe, as Dorians or Ionians, or Anglosaxons: the rest of the population of the country may be perioecian as were the inhabitants of Laconia, and the British. The ruling tribe itself may have distinctions of rank; as for instance the Hypomeiones among the Spartans, the Ceorlas among the Anglosaxons.
[229]. The rule, reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute, ἀγαθοῦ τινος ὑπεροχὴ, applies in strictness to this case. Agis or Agesilaus might be generals, but Brasidas could not have been a king. Descent from Heracles was to the Spartiate what descent from Wóden was to the Saxon,—the condition of royalty.
[230]. In the Dooraunee empire, the Suddozyes had the exclusive right to royalty. Sooja ul Moolk was the last of the race in Caubul. The Essufzyes were hereditary viziers: the Barukzyes, the family of Dost Mahomet Khan, hereditary commanders in chief: the union of the vizierat with the military command in Dost Mahomet’s father, led to the ultimate ruin of the Suddozye princes. In the Mogul empire, the great offices of state became hereditary, and the historians of India could speak of the Vizier of Oude, the Nizam, the Peishwa or the Guicowar, long after the throne of Aurungzeb had crumbled to the dust.
[231]. Hist. Eccl. v. 10. Ælfred translates the word satrapae by ealdormen.
[232]. Germ. xii.
[233]. Germ. xi.