Note 124 — Chapter XX · STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS AS EXHIBITED IN GRECIAN LEGEND.

See the striking picture in Thucydidês (ii. 65). Xenophôn, in the Cyropædia, puts into the mouth of his hero the Homeric comparison between the good king and the good shepherd, implying as it does immense superiority of organization, morality, and intelligence (Cyropæd. viii. p. 450, Hutchinson).

Volney observes, respecting the emirs of the Druses in Syria: “Everything depends on circumstances: if the governor be a man of ability, he is absolute;—if weak, he is a cipher. This proceeds from the want of fixed laws; a want common to all Asia.” (Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. ii. p. 66.) Such was pretty much the condition of the king in primitive Greece.