CONSULTATIVE BODIES. 401 



Ekklesia or public assembly of citizens, convened for the 

 purpose of approving or rejecting propositions submitted to 

 them, with little or no liberty of discussion&quot; a usage quite 

 explicable if we assume that in the Homeric agora, from 

 which the Spartan constitution descended, the assembled 

 chiefs had to gain the assent of their followers before im 

 portant actions could be undertaken. 



Concluding, then, that war originates political deliberation, 

 and that the select body which especially carries on this deli 

 beration first takes shape on occasions when the public safety 

 has to be provided for, we shall be prepared the better to 

 understand the traits which characterize the consultative 

 body in later stages of its development. 



492. Already we have seen that at the outset the militant 

 class was of necessity the land-owning class. In the savage 

 tribe there are no owners of the tract occupied, save the warriors 

 w r ho use it in common for hunting. During pastoral life 

 good regions for cattle-feeding are jointly held against intru 

 ders by force of arms. And where the agricultural stage has 

 been reached, communal possession, family possession, and 

 individual possession, have from time to time to be defended 

 by the sword. Hence, as was shown, the fact that in early 

 stages the bearing of arms and the holding of land habitually 

 go together. 



While, as among hunting peoples, land continues to be held 

 in common, the contrasts which arise bet\veen the few and 

 the many, are such only as result from actual or supposed 

 personal superiority of one kind or other. It is true that, as 

 pointed out, differences of wealth, in the shape of chattels, 

 boats, slaves, &c., cause some class-differentiations ; and that 

 thus, even before private land-owning begins, quantity of 

 possessions aids in distinguishing the governing from the 

 governed. When the pastoral state is arrived at and the 

 patriarchal type established, such ownership as there is vests 

 in the eldest son of the eldest ; or if, as Sir Henry Maine 



