LYCURGUS. 91

cil of thirty elders, the leaders included, and shall, from time to time, apelluzein the people betwixt Babyca and Cnacion, there propound and put to the vote. The com- mons have the final voice and decision." By phyles and obes are meant the divisions of the people ; by the leaders, the two kings ; apeUasein, referring to the Pythian Apollo, signifies to assemble ; Babyca and Cnacion they now call CEnus ; Aristotle says Cnacion is a river, and Babyca a bridge. Betwixt this Babyca and Cnacion, their assem- blies were held, for they had no council-house or building to meet in. Lycurgtis was of opinion that ornaments were so far from advantaging them in their counsels, that they were rather an hinderance, by diverting their atten- tion from the business before them to statues and pic- tures, and roofs curiously fretted, the usual embellish- ments of such places amongst the other Greeks. The people then being thus assembled in the open air, it was not allowed to any one of their order to give his advice, but only either to ratify or reject what should be pro- pounded to them by the king or senate. But because it fell out afterwards that the people, by adding or omitting words, distorted and perverted the sense of propositions, kings Polydorus and Theopompus inserted into the Rhe- tra, or grand covenant, the following clause : " That if the people decide crookedly, it should be lawful for the elders and leaders to dissolve ; " that is to say, refuse rati- fication, and dismiss the people as depravers and pervert- ers of their counsel. It passed among the people, by their management, as being equally authentic with the rest of the Rhetra, as appears by these verses of Tyr- tasus, — These oracles they from Apollo heard, And brought from Pytho home the perfect word : The heaven-appointed kings, who love the land,

Shall foremost in the nation's council stand ;