The component states were left free to manage their own internal affairs, each holding its own assemblies, electing its own magistrates, and making its own laws on all matters except the few that were reserved to be settled by the central government[259]. It is probable that they might even choose their own constitutions: but practically a state under a tyranny or a close oligarchy or even a strong kingly power like that of Cleomenes at Sparta, was excluded from membership in the league because it could not allow its citizens to take part in the general assemblies which I shall have to describe in speaking of the central government. In course of time all the cities adopted constitutions of a popular but moderate character, and in the second century B.C., when the league included the whole Peloponnesus, Polybius says that all the states employed the same laws, weights, measures, and coinage, and were all alike in their administrative, deliberative and judicial authorities, so that the whole peninsula differed from a single city only in not having all its inhabitants enclosed within a single wall[260]. [259] The component states were called πόλεις, and this fact alone, in the absence of indications tending the other way, is enough to show that they managed their internal affairs. For further evidence see Freeman, _Federal Government_, p. 256. [260] Polybius II. 37. The central government consisted of two deliberative bodies, the assembly and the council, and of an executive officer, the strategus, with several subordinates: its business comprised the conduct of all foreign affairs, and the management of the armed forces. The assembly or synod was attended by all citizens of any city in the league who chose to present themselves[261]: its business was to settle questions of foreign policy and to elect the executive officers of the league. The regular place of meeting was Ægium, a small city on the Corinthian gulf, and it seems that the assembly always met there till 218 B.C.: afterwards it sometimes came together at other cities in the territory of the league[262]. There were ordinary meetings every spring and every autumn[263]: and special meetings could at any time be summoned by the magistrates to settle important and urgent questions of foreign policy, the duration of any special meeting being limited to three days[264]. The votes on questions of policy were taken not by heads but by states: that is to say, each state had one vote, and its vote was given Aye or No, according as the majority of those of its citizens who were present inclined to the one side or the other[265]. [261] Polybius (II. 38) emphatically calls the Achæan system a democracy with free and equal speech.