456 HISTORY OF GREECE. community.! It is not often that we are allowed to sec so much in detail the early difficulties and dangers of a Grecian colony. Massalia itself was situated under nearly similar circumstjwices among the rude Ligurian Salyes ; we hear of these Ligurians hiring themselves as laborers to dig on the fields of Massaliot proprietors.2 The various tribes of Ligurians, Gauls, and Ibe- rians extended down to the coast, so that there was no safe road along it, nor any communication except by sea, until the con» quests of the Romans in the second and first century before the Christian ei-a.^ The government of Massalia was oligarchical, carried on chiefly by a Senate or Great Council of Six Hundred (called Timuchi), elected for life — and by a small council of fifteen, chosen among this larger body to take turn in executive duties.* The public habits of the administrators are said to have been ex- tremely vigilant and circumspect ; the private habits of the citi- zens, frugal and temperate — a maximum being fixed by law for dowries and marriage-ceremonies.^ They were careful in their dealings with the native tribes, with whom they appear to have maintained relations generally friendly. The historian Ephorus (whose history closed about 340 B. c.) represented the Gauls as ' Livy, xxxiv. 8 ; Strabo. iii. p. 160. At Massalia, it is said that no armed stranger was ever allowed to enter the city, without depositing his arms at the gate (Justin, xliii. 4). This precaution seems to have been adopted in other cities also: sec .Slneas, Poliorket. c. 30.
- Strabo, iii. p. 163. A fact told to Poscidonius by a Massaliot proprietor
who was his personal friend. In the siege of Massalia by Caesar, a detachment of Albici, — mountaineers not far from the town, and old allies or dependents — were brought in to help in the defence (Caesar, Bell. G. i. 34). 3 Strabo, iv. p. 180.
- Strabo, iv. p. 181 ; Cicero, De Republ. xxvii. Fragm. Vacancies in the
senate seem to have been filled up from meritorious citizens generally — as far as we can judge by a brief allusion in Aristotle (Polit. vi. 7). From another passage in the same work, it seems that the narrow basis of the oligarchy must have given rise to dissensions ("v. 6). Aristotle had included the "MaaaaXiuTuv ■Ko?.tTeia in his lost work Jlepi Ho?.iTeiuv.
- Strabo. / c. However, one author from whom Athenaeus borrowed (xiL
p. 523^, described the Massaliots as luxurious in their habits.
