come to the consideration of this system, it will be necessary to explain the condition of an order of persons, upon which it was in a certain measure founded, namely, the _subject classes_ in the several Doric states. Chapter II. § 1. Origin and distribution of the Periœci of Laconia. § 2. Their political condition and civil rights. § 3. Their service in war, and their occupation in manufactures, trade, and art. § 4. Noble families in Sparta not of Doric origin. Trades and crafts hereditary in Sparta. 1. The clearest notion of the subjection enforced by the dominant race of Dorians may be collected from the speech of Brasidas to the Peloponnesians, in Thucydides.(51) “You are not come,” he says, “from states in which the many rule over the few, but the few over the many, having obtained their sovereignty in no other manner than by victory in the field.” The only right indeed which they possessed was the right of conquerors; the Dorians had by the sword driven out the Achæans, and these again could not rest their claim to Peloponnesus on any better title. It seemed also like a continuation of the heroic age, the existence of which was founded on the rule exercised by the military over the agricultural classes. The relative rights of the Dorians and Achæans appear, however, to have been determined by mutual compact, since the Dorians, obtaining the superiority only by slow degrees, were doubtless glad to purchase the accession of each town on moderate conditions; and this was perhaps especially the case in Messenia.(52) The native inhabitants of the towns, thus reduced to a state of dependence, were called Περίοικοι.(53) The difference of races was strictly preserved; and was not (as elsewhere) obliterated by an union in the same city and political community. The Periœci were always considered as Achæans, that people having in early times composed the larger mass of the people thus subdued. So, for example, the inhabitants of the maritime town of Asopus were called by the title of Ἀχαιοὶ οἱ παρακοπαρίσσιοι.(54) At a later date, when the power of Sparta had been long broken, and her freedom annihilated by the tyrant Nabis, Titus Quinctius detached the hamlets (once called πόλεις, then κῶμαι, _vici_) from all connexion with Sparta, and placed them under the protection of the Achæan league.(55) Augustus confirmed the independence of twenty-four Laconian towns under the name of Eleutherolacones; these, like the former, being entirely released from the power of Sparta, were governed by their own laws,(56) and formed a small distinct confederation. Hence it is evident that these Periœci had previously maintained a certain degree of independence, and composed separate communities. Of these twenty-four towns eighteen are mentioned—viz., Gerenia, Alagonia, Thalamæ, Leuctra, Œtylus, Cænepolis, Pyrrhichus, Las, Teuthrone, Gythium, Asopus, Acriæ, Bœæ, Zarax, Epidaurus, Limera, Prasiæ, Geronthræ, and Marius;(57) a