The career of all the Greek communities, except Sparta, divides itself readily into periods. The first period, lasting till perhaps 700 B.C. or 650 B.C., was the period of tribes and tribal governments: the second, lasting to 338 B.C., was the period of cities and city governments. The period of the cities must however be divided into three lesser periods, each characterised by the prevalence of a certain kind of city government: the first of these lesser periods lasted from about 700 B.C. to 600 B.C., the second from 600 B.C. to 500 B.C., and the third from 500 B.C. to 338 B.C. Between 700 B.C. and 600 B.C. Athens, Corinth and Megara were under the domination of groups of privileged families, and many Greek cities in Sicily were also governed by small groups of citizens distinguished either by birth or by wealth: and, since the rule of a few is known as an aristocracy if the few rulers are the men best qualified to rule and if they use their power for the good of the whole community, but as an oligarchy if the few rulers govern for their own selfish interest, the century may be called the period of the early aristocracies and oligarchies. Between 600 B.C. and 500 B.C. nearly every Greek city, both in Greece proper and elsewhere, came under the rule of a τύραννος or usurper of absolute power, so that the century may be called the age of the tyrants or usurpers. And lastly, between 500 B.C. and 338 B.C. in many of the Greek cities a system of government was set up under which the whole body of the citizens acting collectively conducted the work of government, or at least all parts of it which can in the nature of things be conducted by a numerous assembly, while in other cities a small body of the richest citizens ruled selfishly for their own advantage and the advantage of their class; and, since any system in which the whole body of citizens directly conduct the work of government or the greater part of the work of government is known as a democracy, while the selfish rule of a few is, as we have seen, called an oligarchy, the period may best be called the age of the democracies and of the later oligarchies. The Spartans were unlike, in their history their institutions and the aims of their policy, not only to all other Greek communities but perhaps to every other community that has ever existed: they never completely grew out of their tribal condition, never entirely abandoned their tribal government, and never formed themselves into a city like the other Greek cities: and besides all this they were in so many ways unlike to the rest of mankind that it will be necessary for me to speak of them by themselves and apart from the rest of the Greeks.