4. With respect to the influence and importance of the obæ in a political view, it was equal to, or even greater than, that of the phratriæ in ancient Athens. For, in the first place, the assembly of the people, in obedience to a rhetra of Lycurgus, was held according to tribes and obæ; afterwards the high council was constituted, and probably the 300 knights were chosen, upon the same principle. At the same time, all public situations and offices were not filled in this manner, but only where distinguished dignity and honour were required: this mode of election, as will be shown below, had always an aristocratic tendency. Magistrates, on the contrary, of a more democratical character, particularly the ephors, were nominated without regard to the division of tribes, as their number alone shows: it is probable that this had some relation to the number of the divisions of the city, of which, as was shown above, there were five. A striking analogy, with regard to this numerary regulation, is afforded by Athens, while yet under an aristocratic government. The tribe of the nobles and knights was in this state divided into three phratriæ, which may be compared with the three tribes of the Doric Spartans. Now, when the nobility (like a chamber of peers) constituted a court of justice over the Alcmæonidæ, 300 eupatridæse, 100 out of each phratria, composed the court.(319) And when Cleisthenes the Alcmæonid had been expelled by the aristocratic party, and the democratic senate (βουλὴ) overthrown, Isagoras established a high council of 300.(320) Whereas the senate, to which Cleisthenes gave existence and stability, consisted of 500 citizens, and was chosen, without any regard to the ancient division into phratriæ, according to the new local tribes.