3. But with all this difference in the races of which the Grecian nation consisted, there was, in the development of the constitutions of the Greek states, a common progress, which extended a certain influence even to such as retained their earlier impressions with a firm adherence to antiquity. As it is our present object to give a general view of this advance, we will begin with the constitution of the heroic age, so clearly described in Homer. This can scarcely be called by any other name than that of _aristocracy_, as its most important feature is the accurate division between the nobles(11) and the people. The former composed the deliberative councils, and the courts of justice;(12) and although both were commonly combined with a public assembly (ἀγορὰ), the nobles were the only persons who proposed measures, deliberated and voted; the people was only present in order to hear the debate, and to express its feelings as a body; which expressions might then be noticed by princes of a mild disposition.(13) The chief ruler himself was properly of equal rank with the other nobles, and was only raised above them by the authority intrusted to him as president in the council, and commander in the field. This form of government continued to exist for a considerable time in the Ionian, Achæan, and Æolian states; but the power of the chief ruler gradually declined, and was at last wholly abolished. With the Dorians, however, the case was very different; they were peculiar in possessing a very limited nobility, for the Heraclidæ had nearly an exclusive right to that appellation: while, on the other hand, a whole nation occupied by means of conquest, a station analogous to that of an aristocracy, uniting military pursuits with independence obtained by the possession of the land.