heir new confederacy. The
dissolution of an ancient confederacy restored to the independent tribes
their peculiar but long-forgotten appellation. A victorious state often
communicated its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of
volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favorite leader;
his camp became their country, and some circumstance of the enterprise
soon gave a common denomination to the mixed multitude. The distinctions
of the ferocious invaders were perpetually varied by themselves, and
confounded by the astonished subjects of the Roman empire. [86]

[Footnote 86: See an excellent dissertation on the origin and migrations
of nations, in the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii.
p. 48--71. It is seldom that the antiquarian and the philosopher are so
happily blended.]

Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal
subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in these
busy scenes is very different, according to the different condition of
mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient subjects pursue their
useful occupations in peace and obscurity. The attention of the writer,
as well as of the reader, is solely confined to a court, a capital, a
regular army, and the districts which happen to be the occasional scene
of military operations. But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season
of civil commotions, or the situation of petty republics, [87] raises
almost every member of the community into action, and consequently into
notice. The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the people
of Germany, dazzle our imagination, and seem to multiply their numbers.
The profuse enumeration of kings, of warriors, of armies and nations,
inclines us to forget that the same objects are continually repeated
under a variety of appellations, and that the most splendid appellations
have been frequently lavished on the most inconsiderable objects.

[Footnote 87: Should we suspect that Athens contained only 21,000
citizens, and Sparta no more than 39,000? See Hume and Wallace on the
number of mankind in ancient and modern times. * Note: This number,
though too positively stated, is probably not far wrong, as an average
estimate. On the subject of Athenian population, see St. Croix, Acad.
des Inscrip. xlviii. Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, i. 47. Eng Trans,
Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 381. The latter author
estimates the citize