3. In the Argive colony of RHODES, it may be supposed that an ancient Doric constitution existed; for there were kings of the Heraclide family, and probably also a council with the same powers as the Spartan gerusia. The royalty expired after the 30th Olympiad (660 B.C.); but the ancient family of the Eratidæ at Ialysus, retained a considerable share in the government; probably exercising nearly the powers of a prytanis. Pindar shows that the frame of justice belonged to this once royal family,(654) when he says, “_Give, O father Zeus, to Diagoras favour both with citizens and with strangers, since he walks constantly in the way opposed to violence, knowing well what the just minds of noble ancestors have inspired in him. Destroy not the common progeny of Callianax. At the solemnities for the victory of the Eratidæ, the whole city rejoices in banquets. Yet in a moment of time many winds meet from many quarters._” Pindar thus early (464 B.C.) predicts the dangers that then awaited the ancient family, to which Rhodes owed so much, from the growing influence of Athens;(655) throughout the whole ode he cautions the citizens against precipitate innovation, and prays for the continuance of the ancient firmly-seated constitution.(656) Both prophecies were fulfilled. The sons of Diagoras were condemned to death, and banished by the Athenians, as heads of the aristocracy; but the hero Dorieus returned to his country from Thurii, with Thurian ships, and fought with them against the enemies of his family, as a faithful partisan of the Spartans. He was taken by the Athenians in the year 405 B.C., who, when about to condemn him, were moved by the appearance of the noble son of Diagoras (whose boldness of spirit corresponded with the size and beauty peculiar to his family), to release him from imprisonment and death.(657) The ancient fortune of the Rhodians, which was owing to their strict adherence to the Doric customs, and to their great commercial activity, was interrupted by the troubles of the Peloponnesian war, in which the alternation of the Athenian and Lacedæmonian influence by turns introduced democracy and aristocracy. At the time of the Sicilian expedition, Rhodes was under the power of Athens;(658) but the Spartans having in 412 B.C. obtained the superiority in this island,(659) and Dorieus having been recalled by them (413 B.C.) in order to suppress internal dissensions, the governing power again reverted to the nobles: these latter having been compelled to unite against the people by the demagogues, who, while they distributed the public money among the people in the shape of salaries, had not repaid the sums due to the trierarchs, and at the same time vexed them by continual lawsuits.(660) Soon after this period (408 B.C.),(661) the large city of Rhodes was founded, by collecting to one spot the inhabitants of the three small cities of the island, Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus. But in 396 B.C.