The German constitution was also in keeping with the upper stage of barbarism. According to Tacitus, the council of chiefs (principes) universally decided matters of minor importance and prepared important matters for the decision of the public meetings. So far as we know anything of the public meeting in the lower stage of barbarism, viz., among the American Indians, it was only held by gentes, not by tribes or leagues of tribes. The chiefs of peace (principes) were still sharply distinguished from the chiefs of war (duces), just as among the Iroquois. The peace chiefs were already living in part on honorary donations of the gentiles, such as cattle, grain, etc. They were generally elected from the same family, analogous to America. The transition to paternal law favored, as in Greece and Rome, the gradual transformation of office by election into hereditary office. A "noble" family was thus gradually raised in each gens. Most of this hereditary nobility came to grief during the migrations or shortly after. The military leaders were elected solely on their merits. They had little power and were obliged to rely on the force of their example. The actual disciplinary power in the army was held by the priests, as Tacitus implicitly states. The public meeting was the real executive. The king or chief of the tribe presided. The people decided. A murmur signified "No," acclamation and clanging of weapons meant "Yes." The public meeting was at the same time a court of justice. Complaints were here brought forth and decided, and death sentences pronounced. Only cowardice, treason and unnatural lust were capital crimes. The gentes and other subdivisions decided in a body under the chairmanship of the chief, who in all original German courts was only the manager of the transactions and questioner. Among Germans, the sentence has ever and everywhere been pronounced by the community. Leagues of tribes came into existence since Cesar's time. Some of them already had kings. The first chief of war began to covet the usurper's place, as among Greeks and Romans, and sometimes succeeded in obtaining it. Such successful usurpers were by no means absolute rulers. But still they began to break through the bonds of the gens. While freed slaves generally occupied an inferior position, because they could not be members of any gens, they often gained rank, wealth and honors as favorites of the new kings. The same thing took place after the conquest of the Roman empire by those military leaders who had now become kings of great countries. Among the Frankons, slaves and freed slaves of the king played a leading role first at the court, then in the state. A large part of the new nobility were descended from them.