ved
their own temple and divine guardian or heros, whose priest they
elected. The control of the demos was in the hands of the council of
demotoi. This is, as Morgan correctly remarks, the prototype of the
autonomous American township. The modern state in its highest
development ended in the same unit with which the rising state began its
career in Athens.

Ten of these units (demoi) formed a tribe, which, however, was now
designated as local tribe in order to distinguish it from the old sex
tribe. The local tribe was not only an autonomous political, but also a
military group. It elected the phylarchos or tribal head who commanded
the horsemen, the taxiarchos commanding the infantry and the strategic
leader, who was in command of the entire contingent raised in the tribal
territory by conscription. The local tribe furthermore furnished,
equipped and fully manned five war vessels. It was designated by the
name of the Attic hero who was its guardian deity. It elected fifty
councilmen into the council of Athens.

Thus we arrive at the Athenian state, governed by a council of five
hundred elected by and representing the ten tribes and subject to the
vote of the public meeting, where every citizen could enter and vote.
Archons and other officials attended to the different departments of
administration and justice.

By this new constitution and by the admission of a large number of
aliens, partly freed slaves, partly immigrants, the organs of gentile
constitution were displaced in public affairs. They became mere private
and religious clubs. But their moral influence, the traditional
conceptions and views of the old gentile period, survived for a long
time and expired only gradually. This was evident in another state
institution.

We have seen that an essential mark of the state consists in a public
power of coercion divorced from the mass of the people. Athens possessed
at that time only a militia and a navy equipped and manned directly by
the people. These afforded protection against external enemies and held
the slaves in check, who at that time already made up the large majority
of the population. For the citizens, this coercive power at first only
existed in the shape of the police, which is as old as the state. The
innocent Frenchmen of the 18th century, therefore, had the habit of
speaking not of civilized, but of policed nations (nations policees).
The Athenians, then, provided for a police in their new state, a