4:76 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



to be rendered. Thus in Greece under Solon, those whose 

 properties yielded less than a certain revenue were exempt 

 from duty as soldiers, save in emergencies. In &quot;Home, with a 

 view to better adjustment of the relation between means and 

 requirements, there was a periodic &quot; revision of the register of 

 landed property, which was at the same time the levy-roll.&quot; 

 Throughout the middle ages this principle was acted upon 

 by proportioning the numbers of warriors demanded to the 

 sizes of the fiefs ; and again, afterwards, by requiring from 

 parishes their respective contingents. 



A dissociation of military duty from land-ownership 

 begins when land ceases to be the only source of wealth. 

 The growth of a class of free workers, accumulating pro 

 perty by trade, is followed by the imposing on them, also, of 

 obligations to fight or to provide fighters. Though, as appa 

 rently in the cases of Greece and Kome, the possessions in 

 virtue of which citizens of this order at first become liable, 

 are lands in which they have invested ; yet, at later stages, 

 they become liable as possessors of other property. Such, at 

 least, is the interpretation we may give to the practice of 

 making industrial populations furnish their specified numbers 

 of warriors ; whether, as during the Eoman conquests, it took 

 the shape of requiring &quot; rich and populous &quot; towns to maintain 

 cohorts of infantry or divisions of cavalry, or whether, as with 

 chartered towns in mediaeval days, there was a contract with 

 the king as suzerain, to supply him with stated numbers of 

 men duly armed. 



Later on, the same cause initiates a further change. As 

 fast as industry increases the relative quantity of trans 

 ferable property, it becomes more easy to compound for 

 service in war ; either by providing a deputy or by paying to 

 the ruler a sum which enables him to provide one. Origi 

 nally the penalty for non-fulfilment of military obligation 

 was loss of lands ; then a heavy fine, which, once accepted, 

 it became more frequently the custom to bear; then an 

 habitual compounding for the special services demanded j 



