straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through
the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to the sea: these
canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought
down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits
of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into
another, and to the city. Twice in the year they gathered the fruits
of the earth-in winter having the benefit of the rains of heaven, and
in summer the water which the land supplied by introducing streams
from the canals.
As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had to find a
leader for the men who were fit for military service, and the size of
a lot was a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of all
the lots was sixty thousand. And of the inhabitants of the mountains
and of the rest of the country there was also a vast multitude, which
was distributed among the lots and had leaders assigned to them
according to their districts and villages. The leader was required to
furnish for the war the sixth portion of a war-chariot, so as to make
up a total of ten thousand chariots; also two horses and riders for
them, and a pair of chariot-horses without a seat, accompanied by a
horseman who could fight on foot carrying a small shield, and having a
charioteer who stood behind the man-at-arms to guide the two horses;
also, he was bound to furnish two heavy armed soldiers, two slingers,
three stone-shooters and three javelin-men, who were light-armed, and
four sailors to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships. Such
was the military order of the royal city-the order of the other nine
governments varied, and it would be wearisome to recount their several
differences.
As to offices and honours, the following was the arrangement from the
first. Each of the ten kings in his own division and in his own city
had the absolute control of the citizens, and, in most cases, of the
laws, punishing and slaying whomsoever he would. Now the order of
precedence among them and their mutual relations were regulated by the
commands of Poseidon which the law had handed down. These were
inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalcum, which was
situated in the middle of the island, at the temple of Poseidon,
whither the kings were gathered together every fifth and every sixth
year alternately, thus giving equal honour to the odd and to the even
number. And when they were gathered together they consulted about
their common interests, and enquired if any one had transgressed in
anything and passed judgment and before they passed judgment they gave
their pledges to one another on this wise:-There were bulls who had
the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten kings, being left
alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the god that
they might capture the victim which was acceptable to him, hunted the
bulls, without weapons but with staves and nooses; and the bull which
they caught they led up to the pillar and cut its throat over the top
of it so that the blood fell upon the sacred inscription. Now on the
pillar, besides the laws, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty
curses on the disobedient. When therefore, after slaying the bull in
the accustomed manner, they had burnt its limbs, they filled a bowl of
wine and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the
victim they put in the fire, after having purified the column all
round. Then they drew from the bowl in golden cups and pouring a
libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to
the laws on the pillar, and would punish him who in any point had
already transgressed them, and that for the future they would not, if
they could help, offend against the writing on the pillar, and would
neither command others, nor obey any ruler who commanded them, to act
otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon. This
was the prayer which each of them-offered up for himself and for his
descendants, at the same time drinking and dedicating the cup out of
which he drank in the temple of the god; and after they had supped and
satisfied their needs, when darkness came on, and the fire about the
sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful azure robes,