7. It appears, therefore, that foreign conquest universally in Greece gave birth to that political condition, which may be compared with the villenage or serfage of the Germanic nations; and indeed it does not seem that such a state of society could have any other origin. There would accordingly be matter for surprise if we found a class of bondsmen among the Arcadians, a nation which neither gained its territory by conquest,(268) nor was ever conquered itself: and, accordingly, it can scarcely be doubted that the nation described by Theopompus as possessing 300,000 Prospelatæ, whom he compares with the Helots, is not the Arcadians, but the Illyrian Ardiæans.(269) The distinction of ranks, which we find existing in the Arcadian towns, may be satisfactorily explained by the opposition between the city, properly so called (πόλις), and the country villages (δῆμοι, κῶμαι), which in later times most of the Arcadian cities, for example, Mantinea, Tegea, and Heræa, incorporated with themselves. For although it is asserted that these and other towns were made up of separate villages, it must not be supposed that they had no previous existence as cities. The account is to be understood in the same manner as that of the congregating of the people of Attica to Athens, which is stated to have taken place in the time of Theseus. Nearly all the towns of Arcadia possessed citadels of extreme antiquity, in and near which many princely, sacerdotal, and military families had dwelt from an early period. These formed a nobility, with reference to the agricultural classes in the country, which, however, included by far the greater portion of the Arcadians. If then one large town was formed of several villages, the constitution at the same time necessarily became more democratical, which was the result at Argos of the incorporation of the Periœci,(270) and at Megara also of the same measure.(271) For so long as the people inhabited a particular village, they interested themselves in its affairs alone, and the persons in the chief city managed the concerns of the whole community. But from the moment that they began to live together, every person considered himself entitled to a share in the public councils. Hence it was the interest of the head of the Peloponnesian confederacy again to separate the inhabitants of the towns (διοικίζειν); of the Athenians, to keep them together. The Argives first effected the union of the boroughs at Mantinea, doubtless not until they had seen other instances of the same proceeding, that is, after the Persian war. They united four hamlets with the ancient city,(272) which made the fifth; the Lacedæmonians after some time restored the ancient villages, and with them the aristocracy. The territory of Tegea was also divided into eight hamlets, which were afterwards united to make the city, viz., the Gareatæ, Phylaceans, Caryatæ,(273) Corytheans, Botachidæ, Manthyreans, Echeneteans, and Apheidantes: to these were added, as the