thousand of Croton were the most wealthy citizens: who in states of which the power is derived from the possession of land are, before the government is disturbed by revolutions, generally identical with the noble families. At Croton they had power to decide in most affairs without the ratification of the popular assembly,(835) and also possessed a judicial authority.(836) Now the council instituted by Pythagoras (which appears not to have been formed of members elected according to property, but to have been chosen on purely aristocratical principles) only contained three hundred members,(837) a number which frequently occurs under similar circumstances;(838) at the head of this council was Pythagoras himself. One of the most remarkable phenomena in the political history of the Greeks is, that the philosophy of order, of unison, of κόσμος, expressing, and consequently enlisting on its side, the combined endeavours of the better part of the people, obtained the management of public affairs, and held possession of it for a considerable time; so that the nature and destination of the political elements in existence being understood, and each having assigned to it its proper place, those who were qualified both by their rank and talents were placed at the head of the state; a strict self-education having in the first place been made one of their chief obligations (as it was of the φύλακες of Plato), in order by this means to prepare the way for the education of the other members of the community. At present it is generally acknowledged that the Pythagorean league was in great part of a political nature, that its object was to obtain a formal share in the administration of states, and that its influence upon them was of the most beneficial kind, which continued for many generations in Magna Græcia after the dissolution of the league itself.(839) This dissolution was caused by the natural opposers of an aristocracy of this description, the popular party and its leaders; for in this character alone could Cylon have been the author of the catastrophe which he occasioned; it is recorded, that the opposition of this order to an agrarian law, which referred to the division of the territory of the conquered Sybaris among the people, served to inflame their minds.(840) The opposite party demanded that the whole people should have admittance to the public assemblies and to public offices, that all magistrates at the expiration of their offices should render an account to a tribunal composed of members elected by lot,(841) that all existing debts should be cancelled, and that the lands should be newly divided:(842) from which we must infer, that the highest officers of the Pythagoreans were, according to the Spartan and Cretan principle, irresponsible, and that they considered election by vote as necessary for all such situations. How fatal to the quiet of Lower Italy were the convulsions which followed the