Independently of other factors the mark-community might have permitted certain diversities in size. The groups were rendered uniform, however, through the influence of another organization, whose divisions, on the one hand, were necessarily identical with the mark-communities but, on the other hand, possessed by their very nature a strong inherent tendency toward regularity of size. I refer to the _military organization_, which was created by the political society in the interest of self-protection. In the early part of the heroic period, the individual champion was doubtless of such pre-eminent importance that the masses formed but a somewhat unorganized background. Homer presents such a picture, though his account is perhaps not so much a faithful representation of actual conditions as the result of the individualizing tendency of poetic narrative. But just as the masses very soon gain greater prominence in political life, so also do they in warfare. This encourages tactical organization. At this stage of political and military development, therefore, companies of one hundred, and soon afterwards groups of one thousand, are formed, and are organized as the chief divisions of the army. That these groups be always of approximately equal size is required by military tactics; that the group of one hundred is the tactical unit of which the other divisions are composed, is due to the circumstance that such a group is not too large to permit of being directed by a single leader; that the number is an even one hundred results solely from the tendency toward decimal enumeration. Since the political society is composed of individuals who are, as a rule, both mark-associates and companions in war, the two groups coalesce. The distribution of property and territorial and military organization are the determining factors in political society.