veloped. In such relations as these, primitive though they were, the complex political organizations of the present time had their beginnings.

LATER STEPS IN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT

At the time of the Late Stone Age, about 3000 B.C. to 2000 B.C., the peoples of Europe were outgrowing the tribal state and gathering together in numerous villages with a more or less definite organization. Professor Breasted thus interestingly describes these villages:

When we look at such buildings of the Late Stone Age still surviving, they prove to us the existence of the earliest towns in Europe. For near every great group of stone tombs there must have been a town where the people lived who built the tombs. The remains of some of these towns have been discovered, and they have been dug out from the earth covering them. Almost all traces of them had disappeared, but enough remained to show that they had been surrounded by walls of earth, with a ditch on the outside and probably with a wooden stockade along the top of the earth wall. They show us that men were learning to live together in considerable numbers and to work together on a large scale. It required organization and successful management of men to raise the earth walls of such a town, to drive the fifty thousand piles supporting the lake settlement at Wangen (Switzerland), or to move the enormous blocks of stone for building the chieftain's tomb. In such achievements, we see the beginnings of government, organized under a leader. Many little states, each consisting of a fortified town with its surrounding fields, and each under a chieftain, must have grown up in Late Stone Age Europe. Out of such beginnings nations were yet to grow.1

But this advance in civic organization among the peoples of Europe during the Late Stone Age was temporarily arrested. Political progress, as well as progress in general, was reduced to a state of stagnation and so remained until the political and cultural achievements of the Orient were carried into Europe. While a knowledge of the governments developed by the various branches of the Indo-European races, especially by the Greeks and Romans, forms a necessary background to an understanding 1 J. H. Breasted, Ancient Times (Ginn & Co., 1916), pp. 26-28.

of modern governments, it is likewise essential to note the influence of Oriental civilization upon the chief political organization of Greece and Rome, the city-state.

Contributions of the Orient to Political Organization.-An advanced state of civilization with more or less complex political institutions had been flourishing for centuries in the Orient, when the peoples of continental Europe had developed no farther than the tribal state. And at this time the peoples of Indo-Europe were no more than nomadic tribes pushing their way from the East of the Caspian Sea into the fertile valleys of the two rivers, Tigris,. and Euphrates, and over into Europe. The countries of particular interest are Egypt and Babylonia, which were later followed by the Assyrian and Persian empires, with their militaristic organizations. A detailed account of the Oriental countries belongs rather to the study of history than to that of politics. It is nevertheless necessary, in tracing the civic development of continental Europe, to note the various contributions made by the leading countries of the near Orient.

In contrast to the static conditions found in Europe from about 4000 to 3000 B.C., man had made substantial progress along social and political lines in Oriental countries. Within this time he had invented an alphabet, which made permanent intercourse possible, had learned the use of metals, and developed the art of commerce, all of which were practically unknown by the peoples of Europe and without which an advanced state in political organization was impossible.1 As a result of the social progress in the Eastern countries, a corresponding advance appears in political institutions.

By 3400 B.C. the people of Egypt had long since passed through the various stages in civic association, such as the tribal state, the city kingdom, the confederation of numerous cities into larger organizations, and later had accomplished the formation of two large kingdoms. These, J. H. Breasted, Ancient Times (Ginn & Co., 1916), pp. 32–34,

in turn, united into one nation, which held sway for many years and extended through the period known in history as the Pyramid Age, 3000 to 2500 B.C. Here are found for the first time several millions of persons united politically under a centralized government executed by a single ruler with a body of officials responsible to him. After a time, however, this unified government, unable to hold together, was followed by a feudal age based on conquest, about 2000 B.C., when the king granted lands to nobles for reciprocal favors. Still later came the great military empire, which was extended until a large part of the Oriental world at that time was subdued and brought under the rule of the first great political dominion.

Similar progress in political development, but on a smaller scale and of a less enduring character, was made at a later date in Asia, chiefly by the nations of Babylonia and Assyria, and also in Asia Minor by Persia.

The city-kingdoms of western Asia, among which was Babylon, were brought in time to a position cf co-operation and unification under the leadership of Sargon, 2750 to 2550 B.C. A great nation evolved with the union of the states of Sumer and Akkad, and survived for a number of centuries, when it was finally followed by the powerful and influential nation with Babylon as the center, and from which the subjugated and politically organized territory derived the name of Babylonia. To this period belongs the first codification of ancient laws, which, through the efforts of Hammurapi, about 2100 B.C., was so thoroughly accomplished that, in addition to the advantages afforded to the people of that time, it furnished a precedent from which future civilizations have profited. Judging from the content of the laws which have been constructed from the fragments that remain of the Babylonian legal customs and procedure, everything points to an advanced state of civilization based upon a unified legal system. All the important human relationships were provided for, and laws bearing upon family ties and responsibilities,

upon the art of commerce and of credit, upon contract and an elaborate form of conveyance, and an extensive banking system, were well formulated and executed. The exercise of judicial functions was primarily in the hands of the priesthood, and in the administration of justice the approval of the principal god of the country or of the ruling sovereign was evoked. However, the nature and extent of the laws, as well as their codification, represent a recognized legal basis for political organization far in advance of anything attained up to that time.1

To Assyria belongs possibly no other credit politically than that at her height in power and influence as a nation, 750 to 606 B.C., she represented the greatest military organization which had as yet been set into operation. The numerous districts and provinces and subject territories, though ruled over by local governors and kings, were under the powerful control of the central military machinery, which in time sapped the vitality and brought about the decline of Assyria.

Though the first form of provincial government was established in Assyria, the Persian Empire-about 530 to 330 B.C.-carried this form of government to a greater degree of perfection. Here, provinces, or satrapies, enjoyed a certain amount of local autonomy while still subject to the central authority of the king, to whom taxes were due and, in times of war, allegiance on the part of all men bearing arms. The central government, on the whole, was just and considerate of the rights of its subjects, but the people had no voice in its management, and in spite of their independence in their local affairs they were essentially a part of a great military organization.

To the Orient, then, civilization owes the achievement of definite and systematic political organization under one ruler, whose greatest asset, however, was frequently his military supremacy. There were in these nations, never

1 G. C. Lee, Historical Jurisprudence (The Macmillan Company, 1900), chap. i.

theless, no political freedom and no citizenship such as we understand the terms in modern times. In the Oriental countries, the rule of the king was unquestioned, and the individual did not share responsibility in political affairs. With the decline of the kingdoms of the Orient, the further development of civilization and the advancement of political institutions passed from the East to Europe.

The chief routes by which Oriental political institutions were carried into Europe were: first, by water, the highway being the Mediterranean Sea, from Egypt to the islands of the Ægean Sea, especially to the island of Crete; and, second, by land, through the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers into Asia Minor, and thence to the mainland of Europe. Chief among the islands of the Mediterranean Sea which were to receive the benefit of Egyptian culture and political achievements was Crete. A unique civilization developed on this island, which greatly influenced and stimulated the life of the Greeks, the first of the European nations to rise into prominence.

Contributions of Greece.-The Greeks, a branch of the Indo-European race, leaving their old nomadic life on the grass plains of the north, very probably along the eastern part of the Caspian Sea, poured down upon the peninsula and the islands of the Ægean, and took possession of this part of southern Europe during the period from about 2000 B.C. to 1000 B.C. Here they came in contact with the superior culture and mode of living of the Cretans. After this invasion the Cretan civilization disappeared, but not until the Greeks had appropriated a sufficient amount of it to form a basis for the culture and institutions which they later developed. With them, the Greeks brought some of the elements of their primitive forms of civic association, which, when grafted upon the remnants of the civilization they had overriden, developed into the highest political institutions that had thus far been established.

Their original organization consisted of loose groups of families, which formed clans or gens differing greatly in