COMPOUND POLITICAL HEADS. 213 



war one with another, there resulted a kindred narrowing of the gov- 

 erning body. The nobility, deserting their castles, began to direct 

 " the municipal government of the cities, which consequently, during 

 this period of the republics, fell chiefly into the hands of the superior 

 families." Then at a later stage, when industrial progress had gener- 

 ated wealthy commercial classes, these, competing with the nobles for 

 power, and finally displacing them, rejDcated within their respective 

 bodies this same process. The richer guilds deprived the poorer of 

 their shares in the choice of the ruling agencies ; the privileged class 

 was continually narrowed by disqualifying regulations ; and newly 

 risen families were excluded by those of long standing. So that, as 

 Sismondi points out, such of the numerous Italian republics as re- 

 mained nominally such at the close of the fifteenth century were, like 

 " Sienna and Lucca, each governed by a single caste of citizens : . . . 

 had no longer popular governments." A kindred result occurred 

 among the Dutch. During the wars of the Flemish cities with the 

 nobles and with one another, the relatively popular governments of 

 the towns became narrowed. The greater guilds excluded the lesser 

 from the ruling body, and their members " clothed in the municipal 

 purple . . . ruled with the power of an aristocracy ; . . . the local 

 government was often an oligarchy, while the spirit of the burghers 

 was peculiarly democratic." And with these illustrations may be 

 joined that furnished by those Swiss cantons which, physically char- 

 acterized in ways less favorable to individual independence, were at 

 the same time given to wars, offensive as well as defensive. Berne, 

 Lucerne, Fribourg, Soleure, acquired political constitutions in large 

 measure oligarchic ; and in " Berne, where the nobles had always 

 been in the ascendant, the entire administration had fallen into the 

 hands of a few families, with whom it had become hereditary." 



We have next to note as a cause of progressive modification in 

 compound heads, that, like sim^^le heads, they are apt to be subordi- 

 nated by their administrative agents. The first case to be named is 

 one in which this effect is exemplified along with the last the case 

 of Sparta. Originally appointed by the kings to perform prescribed 

 duties, the ephors first made the kings subordinate, and eventually 

 subordinated the senate ; so that they became substantially the rulers. 

 From this we may pass to the instance supplied by Venice, Avhere 

 power, once exercised by the people, gradually lapsed into the hands 

 of an executive body, the members of which, habituallyreelected, and 

 at death replaced by their children, became an aristocracy, whence 

 there eventually grew the Council of Ten, who were, like the Spartan 

 ephors, "charged to guard the security of the state with a power 

 higher than the law " ; and who thus, *' restrained by no rule," con- 

 stituted the actual government. Through its many revolutions and 

 changes of constitution, Florence exhibited like tendencies. The ap- 

 pointed administrators, now signoria, now priors, became able, during 



