or president, out of the men of rank around. [18] Aristot. Polit. iii, 9, 7; iii, 10, 7-8. M. Augustin Thierry remarks, in a similar spirit, that the great political change, common to so large a portion of mediæval Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, whereby the many different _communes_ or city constitutions were formed, was accomplished under great varieties of manner and circumstance; sometimes by violence, sometimes by harmonious accord. “C’est une controverse qui doit finir, que celle des franchises municipales obtenues par l’insurrection et des franchises municipales accordées. Quelque face du problême qu’on envisage, il reste bien entendu que les constitutions urbaines du xii et du xiii siècle, comme toute espèce d’institutions politiques dans tous les temps, ont pu s’établir à force ouverte, s’octroyer de guerre lasse ou de plein gré, être arrachées ou sollicitées, vendues ou données gratuitement: les grandes révolutions sociales s’accomplissent par tous ces moyens à la fois.”—(Aug. Thierry, Récits des Temps Mérovingiens, Préface, p. 19, 2de édit.) At Athens, we are told that Kodrus was the last king, and that his descendants were recognized only as archons for life; after some years, the archons for life were replaced by archons for ten years, taken from the body of Eupatridæ, or nobles; subsequently, the duration of the archonship was farther shortened to one year. At Corinth, the ancient kings are said to have passed in like manner into the oligarchy of the Bacchiadæ, out of whom an annual prytanis was chosen. We are only able to make out the general fact of such a change, without knowing how it was brought about,—our first historical acquaintance with the Grecian cities beginning with these oligarchies.