Although there appears to be nothing inconsistent in this account, it is nevertheless singular that a whole court of justice bore the name of prytanes, whereas in other states the number of these magistrates was always very small; and hence we are led to conjecture that the prytanes, as in other places, were merely the leaders and presidents of this supreme court. It is, however, certain that in later times the phylobasileis presided in the Prytaneum, four eupatridæ, who were at the head of the four ancient tribes; and doubtless performed other duties than the sacred functions which are ascribed to them;(606) like the phylarchs of Epidamnus, whose extensive duties were in later times transferred to a senate.(607) We must therefore suppose that these phylobasileis, who, in consequence of political changes, had at an early period fallen into oblivion, were once, under the name of prytanes, one of the highest offices of the state. Now these four prytanes, or phylobasileis, were assisted in their court by the ephetæ, who, as I have already remarked,(608) were before the time of Solon identical with the court of the Areopagus, when they had the management of the criminal jurisdiction, and a superintendence over the manners of the citizens in an extended sense of the word. Both these were also duties of the Doric gerusia, to which the kings stood in nearly the same relation as the prytanes of Athens to the areopagites or ephetæ. Their number was fifty-one, which probably includes the basileus: there could not, however, have been fifty previously to the new division of the tribes by Cleisthenes, before which change their number was forty-eight, according to the four tribes, either with or without the phylobasileis. If this view of the subject is correct, there is a remarkable correspondence, both in their respective numbers and constitutions, between the criminal court and the first administrative office in the ancient state of Athens. These latter were the naucrari. The naucrari, who were also anciently forty-eight in number, and fifty after the new division of the tribes, in early times managed the public revenue, and therefore fitted out armies and fleets.(609) Now Herodotus also mentions prytanes of the naucrari, who in early times directed the government of Athens.(610) Unless we suppose the existence of two kinds of prytanes (which does not appear suitable to the simplicity of ancient institutions), the same persons must have presided over both colleges, and have had an equal share in the jurisdiction and government. The regularity of these institutions would appear surprising, if we were not certain that the same order existed in all the ancient political establishments; at the same time we must leave the relative powers of many officers, such, for example, as those of the archons and prytanes, without any attempt at elucidation.