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104- ANCIENT GREECE. [CHAP, ix,CHAPTER IX.CONSTITUTIONS OP THE GRECIAN STATES.the present chapter, we do not undertake to give an outline of the several Grecian states ;but rather to delineatethe general characteristics of the Grecian forms of government. Such a general investigation seems the more essential, as, in the obvious impossibility of analyzingeach oneof them, it will throw light on those., which may hereafterbe selected for particular description.With respect to a nation, in which every thing that couldbe done in public, was public; where everything great andglorious was especially the result of this public life where;even privatelife was identified with that of the public ;where the individual did but live with and for the state,this investigation must have a much higher degree of interest, than if it related to any other, in which the line ofdivision is distinctly drawn between public and private life.He who will judge of the Grecians, must be acquainted withthe constitutions of their states ;and he must not only consider the inanimate forms, as they are taught us by thelearned compilers and writers on what are called Grecianantiquities ;but regard them as they were regarded by theGreeks themselves.If the 1remark, which we made above, that the Grecianstates, with few exceptions, were cities with their districts,and their constitutions, therefore, the constitutions of cities ;if this remark needed to be further confirmed,it could bedone by referring to the fact, that the Greeks designate theideas of state and of city, by the same word. 2 We musttherefore always bear in mind the idea of city constitutions,and never forgetthat those of which we are treating, notonly had nothing in common with those of the large em-1An attempt to collect and arrange the separate accounts has been madeby R W. Tittman. His work on the Grecian Constitutions proves his industry, and the paucity of the accounts that have come down to us,2 IToX*, civitas. Respecting the meaning of ir6\iQ, and the difference between 7r6\i and tdvog, state and nation, consult Aristot. Polit, Op. ii, p. 235,ed. Casaub.