tyrant; in other words she virtually enslaved the subject city.  The efforts of Athens tended more in the direction of a peaceful federalism.  In the great Delian confederacy which developed into the maritime empire of Athens, the AEgean cities were treated as allies rather than subjects.  As regards their local affairs they were in no way interfered with, and could they have been represented in some kind of a federal council at Athens, the course of Grecian history might have been wonderfully altered.  As it was, they were all deprived of one essential element of sovereignty,—­the power of controlling their own military forces.  Some of them, as Chios and Mitylene, furnished troops at the demand of Athens; others maintained no troops, but paid a fixed tribute to Athens in return for her protection.  In either case they felt shorn of part of their dignity, though otherwise they had nothing to complain of; and during the Peloponnesian war Athens had to reckon with their tendency to revolt as well as with her Dorian enemies.  Such a confederation was naturally doomed to speedy overthrow.

In the century following the death of Alexander, in the closing age of Hellenic independence, the federal idea appears in a much more advanced stage of elaboration, though in a part of Greece which had been held of little account in the great days of Athens and Sparta.  Between the Achaian federation, framed in 274 B.C., and the United States of America, there are some interesting points of resemblance which have been elaborately discussed by Mr. Freeman, in his “History of Federal Government.”  About the same time the Aetolian League came into prominence in the north.  Both these leagues were instances of true federal government, and were not mere confederations; that is, the central government acted directly upon all the citizens and not merely upon the local governments.  Each of these leagues had for its chief executive officer a General elected for one year, with powers similar to those of an American President.  In each the supreme assembly was a primary assembly at which every citizen from every city of the league had a right to be present, to speak, and to vote; but as a natural consequence these assemblies shrank into comparatively aristocratic bodies.  In AEtolia, which was a group of mountain cantons similar to Switzerland, the federal union was more complete than in Achaia, which was a group of cities.  In Achaia cases occurred in which a single city was allowed to deal separately with foreign powers.  Here, as in earlier Greek history, the instinct of autonomy was too powerful to admit of complete federation.  Yet the career of the Achaian League was not an inglorious one.  For nearly a century and a half it gave the Peloponnesos a larger measure of orderly government than the country had ever known before, without infringing upon local liberties.  It defied successfully the threats and assaults of Macedonia, and yielded at last only to the all-conquering might of Rome.