When any important affairs were transacted, all the warriors met in arms; the men of greatest authority employed persuasion to engage their consent; the people expressed their approbation by rattling their armour, or their dissent by murmurs; there was no necessity for a nice scrutiny of votes among a multitude, who were usually carried with a strong current to one side or the other; and the measure thus suddenly chosen by general agreement, was executed with alacrity and prosecuted with vigour.

Even in war, the princes governed more by example than by authority; but in peace the civil union was in a great measure dissolved, and the inferior leaders administered justice after an independent manner, each in his particular district.

These were elected by the votes of the people in their great councils; and though regard was paid to nobility in the choice, their personal qualities, chiefly their valour, procured them, from the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, that honourable but dangerous distinction.

The warriors of each tribe attached themselves to their leader with the most devoted affection and most unshaken constancy.

They attended him as his ornament in peace, as his defence in war, as his council in the administration of justice.