[160] George Rawlinson, book v., essay ii.
Theseus, _basileus_, or military chieftain of the Athenian tribes, a personage who belongs to the legendary period, was the first to perceive the insufficiency of gentile institutions to meet the needs of the people. Although the primary idea involved in the establishment of political society was the transference of the original governmental functions from the gens to a territorial limit, so deeply had the instincts, ideas, and associations connected with the personal government of the gens taken root that several centuries were required to accomplish the change. To establish the deme or township, in which, irrespective of kinship or personal ties, all its inhabitants (except slaves) should be enrolled as citizens, with rights, privileges, and duties adjusted according to the amount of property owned by each, and which should be a unit of the larger and more important institution—the State,—was an undertaking the mastery of which although seemingly simple, nevertheless involved intricacies and obstacles of such magnitude as to baffle all attempts of the Greeks from the time of Theseus to that of Clisthenes, at which time political society was established, and the gens, shorn of its utility and power, remained only as the embodiment of certain social ideas, or survived as a religious centre, over which their eponymous ancestor, as hero or god, still presided.
The age of Theseus could not have been later than 1050 B.C., and the final overthrow of gentile government did not, as we have seen, occur until the age of Clisthenes, five hundred years later. Throughout the intervening time between Theseus and Clisthenes little real advancement is noted among the Greeks; none, perhaps, except that connected with the growth of the idea of government as indicated by the change from gentile to political institutions, and even this growth, when we observe that nearly five centuries and a half were required to establish it, or to substitute the deme or township in the place of the gens as the unit in the governmental series, can scarcely be regarded as evidence of remarkable genius, or as indicating a notable degree of ingenuity. In the transference of society, however, from gentile to political institutions may be observed a progressive principle, inasmuch as by it the limits of the gens and tribe were gradually broken down or obliterated, and the enlarged conception of the state established in their stead. After the age of Clisthenes an isolated community bound together by kinship, and with interests extending no further than the tribe of which it was a part, no longer constituted the fundamental basis upon which the superstructure of society was to rest; but, on the contrary, the deme or township, with all its free inhabitants, of whatsoever tribe or gens, was to become the recognized unit in organized society.