THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS.
London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
Glasgow: 263, ARGYLE STREET.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
New York: MACMILLAN AND CO.
THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS
BY
BASIL EDWARD HAMMOND
FELLOW AND LECTURER, TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE:
UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN HISTORY.
LONDON:
C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
1895
[All Rights reserved.]
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
v
PREFACE.
These chapters are not intended to form a whole bythemselves. They are merely an enlarged version of acourse of lectures in which European Political Institutions ingeneral were treated historically and comparatively: and as Iwish hereafter to make similar enlarged versions of the otherparts of the course and to append them to what I have herewritten, I hope that these chapters on the Greek Institutionsmay prove to be only a first instalment of a book on ComparativePolitics. The following pages contain what their titleindicates, a description and examination of Greek governments:but in view of the additions which may probably be made tothem, they also contain a small amount of matter which isnecessary as a preliminary to an examination of Europeangovernments in general.
The attention which I have paid to method and definitionsof terms might lead my readers to suppose that Iconceive Comparative Politics to be a science. It is only fairto them to express the opinions that I have formed on thematter. I do think that the part of the comparative studyof Politics, which deals with barbaric and more particularlywith non-European peoples and their governments, has beenplaced on a scientific footing by Mr Herbert Spencer in hisviPolitical Institutions, though he has attained this great resultby a method which is not purely comparative, and which,as it takes no heed of historical sequence of events, hasnot stood him in good stead where he treats of historicalEuropean communities and their constitutions. The part—themost interesting and important part—of the study,that which is concerned with civilised peoples and governments,seems to me not yet to be science. It does indeedenable us to lay down empirical rules, or rules founded solely onobservation, about peoples and governments, just as the studyof a language enables a grammarian to lay down empirical rulesabout words and sentences. And further, among the ruleswhich have been laid down, there are some, (their number is, Ibelieve, very small,) which seem to be distinguished from therest in two respects, firstly because they are not subject to anyknown exception, and secondly because some of the causeswhich lie at the root of them have been discovered: and theserules have something of the character of scientific laws, orrules which are true, not only in all known instances, butuniversally. But, on the other hand,