Aristotle, in his general theory of government,[92] lays down the position, that the earliest sources of obedience and authority among mankind are personal, exhibiting themselves most perfectly in the type of paternal supremacy; and that therefore the kingly government, as most conformable to this stage of social sentiment, became probably the first established everywhere. And in fact it still continued in his time to be generally prevalent among the non-Hellenic nations, immediately around; though the Phœnician cities and Carthage, the most civilized of all non-Hellenic states, were republics. Nevertheless, so completely were the feelings about kingship reversed among his contemporary Greeks, that he finds it difficult to enter into the voluntary obedience paid by his ancestors to their early heroic chiefs. He cannot explain to his own satisfaction how any one man should have been so much superior to the companions around him as to maintain such immense personal ascendency: he suspects that in such small communities great merit was very rare, so that the chief had few competitors.[93] Such remarks illustrate strongly the revolution which the Greek mind had undergone during the preceding centuries, in regard to the internal grounds of political submission. But the connecting link, between the Homeric and the republican schemes of government, is to be found in two adjuncts of the Homeric royalty, which are now to be mentioned,—the boulê, or council of chiefs, and the agora, or general assembly of freemen. [92] Aristot. Polit. i. 1, 7. [93] Καὶ διὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἴσως ἐβασιλεύοντο πρότερον, ὅτι σπάνιον ἦν εὑρεῖν ἄνδρας διαφέροντας κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν, ἄλλως τε καὶ τότε μικρὰς οἰκοῦντας πόλεις (Polit. iii. 10, 7); also the same treatise, v. 8, 5, and v. 8, 22. Οὐ γίνονται δ᾽ ἔτι βασιλεῖαι νῦν, etc. Aristotle handles monarchy far less copiously than either oligarchy or democracy: the tenth and eleventh chapters of his third book, in which he discusses it, are nevertheless very interesting to peruse. In the conception of Plato, also, the kingly government, if it is to work well, implies a breed superior to humanity to hold the sceptre (Legg. iv. 6. p. 713). The Athenian dramatic poets (especially Euripidês) often put into the mouths of their heroic characters popular sentiments adapted to the democratical atmosphere of Athens—very different from what we find in Homer.