15. On the constitution of the Tarentine colony HERACLEA (433 B.C.) the monuments extant, although important in other respects, afford little information. In the well-known inscription of this city, an ephor gives his name to the year, five chosen surveyors (ὁρισταὶ) are to value the sacred lands of Bacchus, and to measure it according to the rules of Etruscan _agrimensores_, upon the decree of the public assembly,(826) in order to ascertain what had been lost in the course of time, and to secure the remainder. After this, the state, two polianomi, and the horistæ, let the sacred land according to a decree of the Heracleans, and state the conditions; in which certain officers named σιταγερταὶ are mentioned as inspectors of the public corn-magazine. The annual polianomi are bound to take care that the contracts of lease shall be observed; they carry on inquiries upon this subject jointly with ten sworn colleagues, elected by the people, in case of any breach of contract, collect the appointed fines, and refer, in cases of singular importance, to the public assembly, they themselves being subject to the responsibility. 16. To these we may add CROTON, since this city, founded under the authority of Sparta by a Heraclide, and therefore revering Hercules himself as its founder,(827) must be considered as belonging to the Doric race, although at a later period the more numerous Achæan portion of the population appears to have preponderated. Croton was the soil upon which Pythagoras endeavoured to realise his notions of a true aristocracy, an endeavour in which he succeeded. This, however, we cannot comprehend, unless we consider his ideal state as no airy project or phantom of the brain, but rather as founded upon national feelings, and as being even the foundation of the governments of Sparta, Crete, and the cities of Lower Italy, in which Pythagoras first appeared: and for this reason he is described as in part merely to have restored and renewed; for example, to have destroyed tyrannies, quieted the claims of the people, and re-established ancient rights,(828) &c. Croton, however, he selected as the centre of his operations, as being under the protection of Apollo, his household god;(829) and, secondly, as being the “city of the healthy,” an advantage which it owed to its climate, to gymnastic exercises, and to purer morals than were prevalent at least in the neighbouring cities of Tarentum and Sybaris. The government of this city was, when the philosopher came forward, in the hands of the senate of a thousand,(830) which formed a synedrion; the Crotoniats are reported to have offered to Pythagoras the presidency of this senate,(831) probably as prytanis.(832) A similar senate of a thousand existed at Agrigentum in the time of Empedocles; the same number of persons, elected according to their property, were sole governors at Rhegium.(833) This council of a thousand members also existed at Locri.(834) From this we may infer that the