484 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



kindred arrangement existed in early Eoman times : the city- 

 army was &quot; distributed into tribes, curiae, and families.&quot; It 

 was so, too, with the Germanic peoples, who, in the field, 

 &quot; arranged themselves, when not otherwise tied, in families 

 and affinities;&quot; or, as is said by Kemble of our ancestors in 

 old English times, &quot;each kindred was drawn up under an 

 officer of its own lineage and appointment, and the several 

 members of the family served together.&quot; This organization, 

 or lack of organization, continued throughout the feudal period. 

 In France, in the 14th century, the army was a &quot; horde of 

 independent chiefs, *each with his own following, each doing 

 his own will ;&quot; and, according to Froissart, the different groups 

 &quot; were so ill-informed &quot; that they did not always know of a 

 discomfiture of the main body. 



Besides that increased subordination of local heads to the 

 general head which accompanies political integration, and 

 which must of course precede a more centralized and com 

 bined mode of military action, two special causes may be 

 recognized as preparing the way for it. 



One of these is unlikeness of kinds in the arms used. 

 Sometimes the cooperating tribes, having habituated them 

 selves to different weapons, come to battle already marked 

 off from one another. In such cases the divisions by 

 weapons correspond with the tribal divisions ; as seems to 

 have been to some extent the case with the Hebrews, among 

 whom the men of Benjamin, of Gad, and of Judah, were 

 partially thus distinguished. But, usually, the unlikenesses of 

 arms consequent on unlikenesses of rank, initiate these milit 

 ary divisions which tend to traverse the divisions arising from 

 tribal organization. The army of the ancient Egyptians 

 included bodies of charioteers, of cavalry, and of foot ; and 

 the respective accoutrements of the men forming these bodies, 

 differing in their costliness, implied differences of social posi 

 tion. The like may be said of the Assyrians. Similarly, the 

 Iliad shows us among the early Greeks a stattf in which the 



