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108 ANCIENT GREECE. [CHAP. a ,rights in the administration of the state ;and yet a perfectequality existed in very few of the cities. Thiswas equalitycommonlylimited to a participation in the popular assemblies and the courts. A 1government did not cease to bea democracy, though the poorer class were entirely excludedfrom all magistracies, and their votes of less weight in thepopular assemblies. On the other hand, an aristocracy always pre-supposed exclusive privileges of individual classesor families. But these were very different and various.There were hereditary aristocracies, where, as in Sparta, thehighest dignities continued in a few families. But this wasseldom the case. It was commonly the richer and moredistinguished class, which obtained the sole administrationof the state ;and it was either wealth, or birth, or both together, that decided. 2 But wealth consisted not so muchin money, as in land and it was estimated ;by real estate.This wealth was chiefly exhibited, in ancient times, in thesums expended on horses. Those whose means were sufficient, constituted the cavalry of the citizens ;and theseformed the richer part of the soldiery, which consisted onlyof citizens or militia. It is therefore easy to understand, howit was possible that the circumstance, whether the districtof a city possessed much pasture land, could have had somuch influence, in practical politics,on the formation of theconstitution. 3 It was therefore these nobles, the Eupatridaeand Optimates, who, though they did not wholly excludethe people from a share in the legislation, endeavoured tosecure to themselves the magistracies, and the seats in thecourts of justice; and wherever this was the case, there waswhat4the Greeks termed an aristocracy.In cities, wealth isjwhere for the most part measured bypossessions in lands, it is almost unavoidable that not only aclass of great proprietors should rise up but;that this inequality should constantly increase; and landed estates1Aristot Polit iii. 1.2 Aristot. Polit Iv. 5.* Aristotle cites examples of it in Eretria, Chalcis, and other cities, Polit.^iv. 3.4Oligarchy was distinguished from this. But though hoth words were inuse, no other line can he drawn between them, than the greater or smallernumber ^of Optimates, who had the government in their hands. That thisremark is a true one appears from the definitions, to which Aristotle, Polit.in. 7, is obliged to have recourse, in order to distinguish them.