380 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



holds and over their clusters of dependents. A community 

 of which the component groups severally retained their in 

 ternal autonomies, with the result that the rule within each 

 remained absolute, was nothing but an aggregate of small 

 despotisms. Institutions under which the head of each 

 group, besides owning slaves, had such supremacy that his 

 wife and children, including even married sons, had no more 

 legal rights than cattle, and were at his mercy in life and 

 limb, or could be sold into slavery, can be called free institu 

 tions only by those who confound similarity of external out 

 line with similarity of internal structure.* 



480. The formation of compound political heads in later 

 times, repeats this process in essentials if not in details. In 

 one way or other, the result arises when a common need for 

 defence compels cooperation, while there exists no means 

 of securing cooperation save voluntary agreement. 



Beginning with the example of Venice, we notice first that 

 the region occupied by the ancient Veneti, included the exten 

 sive marshy tract formed of the deposits brought down by 

 several rivers to the Adriatic a tract which, in Strabo s day, 

 was &quot;intersected in every quarter by rivers, streams, and 

 morasses ;&quot; so that &quot; Aquileia and Eavenna were then cities 

 in the marshes.&quot; Having for their stronghold this region full 

 of spots accessible only to inhabitants who knew the intri 

 cate ways to them, the Veneti maintained their independence, 

 spite of the efforts of the Romans to subdue them, until the 

 time of Ccesar. In later days, kindred results were 



more markedly displayed in that part of this region specially 

 characterized by inaccessibility. From early ages the islets, 

 or rather mud-banks, on which Venice stands, were inhabited 



* I should have thought it needless to insist on so obvious a truth had it 

 not been that even still there continues this identification of things so utterly 

 different. Within these few years has been published a magazine-article by 

 a distinguished historian, describing the corruptions of the Koman Republic 

 during its latter days, with the appended moral that such -were, aud are, 

 likely to be the results of democratic government ! 



