guilt.(414) If this custom (doubtless of great antiquity) is compared with the frequent occurrence of this period of nine years in early times, and especially with the tradition preserved in a verse of Homer, “of Minos, who reigned for periods of nine years, holding intercourse with Zeus,”(415) it is easy to perceive that the dominion of the ancient Doric princes determined, as it were, at the period of every eight years, and required a fresh religious ratification. So intimate in early times was the connexion between civil government and religion. It is clear, from what has been said, that the Dorians considered the kingly office as proceeding from the Deity, and not as originating from the people; which would, I believe, have seemed to them in no-wise more natural, than that the liberty of the people should be dependent on the king. But they were well aware that the elements of the constitution had not been formed by a people consisting, like the American colonists after their defection from the mother-country, of individuals possessed of equal rights: but they had existed at the beginning, and grown with the growth of the nation. For this reason the people were not empowered to nominate the king (from which disputes concerning the rightful succession to the throne should be carefully distinguished;)(416) but the royal dignity passed in a regular succession to the eldest son, with this exception, that the sons born during the reign of the father had the precedence of their elder brothers: if the eldest son died, the throne passed to his next male descendant; and on failure of his line, to the younger brothers in succession; if there was no male issue of the king, the office went to his brother(417) (who also, during the minority of the son of the late king, was his natural guardian),(418) and his heirs; or, lastly, if the whole line was extinct, to the next of kin.(419) The anxiety of the Spartans for the legitimacy of their kings, also serves to prove the high importance which was attached to the genuineness of their birth. Notwithstanding these large privileges, the people believed its liberty to be secured by the oath which was taken every month by the kings, that they would reign according to the laws; a custom also in force among the Molossi;(420) in return for which, the state engaged through the ephors to preserve the dominion of the kings unshaken (ἀστυφέλικτος), if they adhered to their oath.(421)