[3] Pausanias. [4] Dion Chrysostom. [5] From E. N. Gardiner: _Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals_. [6] Iliad, XXIII. {70} CHAPTER IV THE GREEK CITY-STATE Whenever men live together in communities, no matter how small they may be, some form of law has to be observed, in order to maintain order, and that there may be justice between man and his neighbours. The form that this law takes in different places and in different communities is what is called government. The earliest form of government in Greece was, like all primitive government, that of the family, and the word of the head of the family was law to all those belonging to it. The land on which they lived belonged to the family as a whole, not to separate individuals, and the dead were always buried there, until in time the family claimed as their own that land, where they had lived for generations, and where their ancestors were buried. After a time it became more convenient for families to join together and live in one community. By this means the labour of cultivating the land could be more evenly distributed, and in times of attack from enemies, larger and stronger forces could be used for defence. This grouping of families {71} together made a _village_ and the strongest and most capable man in the village would become its chief. In time, just as families had found it more to their advantage to group themselves together and form villages, so did the villages living in the same neighbourhood find it a better thing to join together and form a still larger community, which became known as a kingdom, because instead of having a chief they were ruled by a king. At first the kings, like the chiefs, were chosen because of their ability and power, later the office became hereditary and was handed down from father to son. Now because the Greek communities lived in the plains, separated from each other by mountains, instead of forming one large kingdom, they formed a great many small ones. There was in ancient times no King of Greece, but Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes and countless other cities had their own independent forms of government, their own rulers, their own armies, their own ships, and except that they were all Greek and were all bound together by ties of language and religion, they were quite independent of each other. All these independent cities became known in time as City-States, for to the Greek the state meant the city, the territory immediately surrounding it was included in the state, but the city was the most important part of it.