decree a body of colonists, collected from various quarters, proceeded to found a new city, which was to be the seat of the general government, and was called Megalepolis, or Megalopolis (the Great City). The city was designed on a very large scale, and the magnitude of the public buildings corresponded to its extent; the theatre was the most spacious in Greece. The population was to be drawn from a great number of the most ancient Arcadian towns. Pausanias gives a list of forty which were required to contribute to it. The greater part of them appear to have been entirely deserted by their inhabitants; others retained a remnant of their population, but in the condition of villages subject to Megalopolis. Trapezus made an obstinate resistance; and its citizens who survived the struggle preferred quitting their native land to changing their abode in it, and having found means for embarking for the Euxine, were hospitably received as kinsmen in the city of the same name. Lycosura--which boasted of being the most ancient city under the sun--was spared out of respect for the sanctity of one of its temples. The districts which were thus drained of their population never recovered it, and were left in a great measure uncultivated. The most interesting subject connected with this event, the constitution under which Arcadia was to be united, is unfortunately involved in the greatest obscurity. Megalopolis was the place appointed for the deliberation of the supreme council of the Arcadian body. But of this council we only know that it was commonly described by the name of the Ten Thousand--an appellation which raises a number of perplexing questions. For that it was a representative assembly, and was not intended to consist only of Megalopolitans, is clear both from the terms in which it is spoken of, and from the nature of the case: this would have been a privilege which the other cities would never have conceded to a colony formed out of the most insignificant townships. On the other hand, that so numerous a body should have been collected, either at stated times or as often as occasion required, from the other parts of Arcadia, is scarcely less hard to understand.