The problem as to the relative power of the king and council on the one hand and of the assembly on the other is difficult. It was a disadvantage to the people, over and above their lack of initiative, to have no means of precisely expressing their will. The Greeks signified their approval by acclamation,[986] the Germans by clashing their weapons,[987] and the Celts by both;[988] either demonstration aimed to express, not the will of the majority,[989] but the intensity of conviction on the part of the assembly as a whole. It lacked as well the means of legally enforcing its will.[990] The Achaeans in assembly approved the petition of Chryses, a suppliant priest; nevertheless King Agamemnon rejected it.[991] After the people had divided the spoils of war, Agamemnon seized the prize they had given another.[992] The Trojans were ready to surrender Helen for the sake of peace; but Priam, to gratify his son, refused, and the war went on.[993] In his relations with individuals the king often acted unjustly and tyrannically. Even in affairs which concerned the entire community he might take large liberty. Without consulting the assembly he could count on the support of the people in a war of defence. Treaties of peace, which were often guest-friendships and intermarriages between royal families,[994] did not come before the people for ratification as a right, but only in cases in which their pledge seemed necessary for the prevention of private warfare. The right of the magistrate to conclude peace with or without discussion in the council or senate was recognized by the states of Italy as late as the Second Samnite war.[995] The king might even declare an offensive war on his own responsibility, if without consulting the people he could feel sure of their support.[996] Enterprises requiring their coöperation he usually submitted to them to win their approval, as he had no means of coercing the entire community. His independence of the assembly increased with the growth of heredity. The idea of sovereignty, strictly speaking, was unknown to primitive times; yet so far as people thought of political power, they assigned it to the king and council.[997] Nevertheless the fact of the assembly’s existence and the need of eloquence for persuading it prove it to have been a real force. The suppression of the German assembly or the prohibition of carrying arms to the meeting was looked upon as intolerable tyranny.[998] For the disturbance of an Irish assembly the penalty was death.[999] Public opinion was a check on royalty,[1000] and in extreme cases the people rebelled and killed their king.[1001]