In some cases, these alliances were only for a short time and the kingships were merely temporary. In other cases, the wars that drove the tribes to unite under one great chief or king lasted for years or even centuries, so that new generations grew up who had never lived under any other government than that of a king. Thus when the wars were ended, the tribes continued to be ruled by the one man, although the reason for the kingship had ceased to be. In the days of the Roman republic, from 500 to 100 B.C., when grave danger arose, the senate, or council of elders, appointed one man who was called the dictator, and this dictator ruled like an absolute monarch until the danger was past. Then, like the famous Cincinnatus, he gave up the position and retired to private life. The first lasting kingships, then, began, as it were, by the refusal of some dictator to resign when the need for his rule was ended. By this time, the custom of choosing the son of a chief or king to take his father’s place was fairly well settled, and it did not take long to have it understood as a regular thing that at a king’s death he should be followed by his oldest son. Often there were quarrels and even civil wars caused by ambitious younger sons, who did not submit to their elder brothers without a struggle, but as people grew to be more civilized and peace-loving, they found it better to have the oldest son looked upon as the rightful heir to the kingship.