The likeness between the earliest political institutions of the Greek, the Italian, and the Teuton is so close, so striking in every detail, that we can hardly fail to see in it possession handed on from the earliest times, a possession which Greek, Italian, and Teuton already had in the days before the separation, in those unrecorded but still authentic times when Greek, Italian, and Teuton were still a single people speaking a single tongue. I have referred more than once to the picture of our race in its earliest recorded times, as set before us by the greatest of Roman historians in the Germany of Tacitus. Let me now set before you some special points of his description in his own words as well as I am able to clothe them in an English dress(23). “They choose their Kings on account of their nobility, their leaders on account of their valour. Nor have the Kings an unbounded or arbitrary power, and the leaders rule rather by their example than by the right of command; if they are ready, if they are foreward, if they are foremost in leading the van, they hold the first place in honour.... On smaller matters the chiefs debate, on greater matters all men; but so that those things whose final decision rests with the whole people are first handled by the chiefs.... The multitude sits armed in such order as it thinks good; silence is proclaimed by the priests, who have also the right of enforcing it. Presently the King or chief, according to the age of each, according to his birth, according to his glory in war or his eloquence, is listened to, speaking rather by the influence of persuasion than by the power of commanding. If their opinions give offence, they are thrust aside with a shout; if they are approved, the hearers clash their spears. It is held to be the most honourable kind of applause to use their weapons to signify approval. It is lawful also in the assembly to bring matters for trial and to bring charges of capital crimes.... In the same assembly chiefs are chosen to administer justice through the districts and villages. Each chief in so doing has a hundred companions of the commons assigned to him, as at once his counsellors and his authority. Moreover they do no matter of business, public or private, except in arms.”