across the Taygetus mountains by which travellers could have driven in a chariot to Sparta, as Homer represents the two young men to have done; and he concludes (as Strabo did) that the Pylos referred to must have been the place of the same name much farther north, from which a journey on wheels could be made all the way to Sparta. Even apart from the interest attaching to it as the supposed city of Nestor, Pylos, with the adjacent island of Sphacteria, has had an important place in Greek history, both in ancient and in modern times. In the seventh year of the Pelopennesian war it was the scene of one of the most memorable defeats ever sustained by the Spartans at the hands of the Athenians. Twenty-two centuries afterwards (1770 A.D.) its garrison of Greek insurgents was massacred by the Turks, who, in turn, suffered a similar calamity in 1821 at the outbreak of the War of Liberation, as the Greeks again did at the hands of the Egyptians in 1825; while in 1827 the naval battle of Navarino took place in its bay, resulting in the destruction of the Turkish fleet, with a loss of 6000 lives, in less than two hours, by the combined British, French, and Russian forces. Sparta was the only Greek state that retained the regal form of government all through the period of Hellenic glory. Its government was not, strictly speaking, a monarchy, however, as there were two royal dynasties, descended from the twin sons of the Heracleid Aristodemus, which had continued unbroken in the male line for 500 years, forming a direct connection with the heroic age. The two kings served as a check on one another’s ambition, preventing the growth of such tyranny as had been found intolerable in other states, and had there led to the adoption of an oligarchic or democratic form of government. The rights of the community were further conserved by the modification of two public bodies, dating from the heroic age, of which we often hear in Homer, namely, the _Boulé_ or Senate and the _Ecclesia_ or General Assembly. In Sparta the former received the name of _Gerousia_, and consisted of twenty-eight members above sixty years of age, presided over by the two kings; the latter was called _Apella_, and was periodically convened to consider any proposals submitted to it, and had the right to fill up vacancies in the Gerousia. But the most effectual safeguard against tyranny was found in the annual election, by the Apella, of five officials, named ephors, who came into existence about 750 B.C. and gradually acquired such control of public affairs both at home and abroad that the royal prerogative was virtually reduced to the command of the army in the field, the offering of public sacrifices, the charge of communications with the Delphian oracle, and some other matters of a ceremonial kind. Even in their capacity as commanders-in-chief the kings became subject to the decision of the Assembly as to the making of peace or war, and ultimately had even to