  The possibility that the Galactic spheroid was assembled from numerous
chemically-distinct, proto-Galactic fragments is investigated using a
Monte-Carlo technique designed to simulate the chemical evolution of the Galaxy
in hierarchical formation scenarios which involve no gas dissipation. By
comparing the observed and simulated metallicity distributions of Galactic
globular clusters and halo field stars, we estimate the level of fragmentation
in the collapsing proto-Galaxy. Although the formation process is highly
stochastic, the simulations often show good agreement with the observed
metallicity distributions, provided the luminosity function of proto-Galactic
fragments had a power-law form with exponent ~ -2. While this steep slope is
strongly at odds with the presently observed luminosity function of the Local
Group, it is in close agreement with the predictions of semi-analytic and
numerical models of hierarchical galaxy formation. We discuss a number of
possible explanations for this discrepancy. These simulations suggest that the
Galactic halo and its globular cluster system were assembled via the accretion
and disruption of approximately 1000 metal-poor, proto-Galactic fragments by
the dominant Galactic building block: a proto-bulge whose own metal-rich
globular clusters system has been preferentially eroded by dynamical processes.
We argue that the same process (ie, hierarchical growth involving little gas
dissipation) is responsible for the formation of both giant elliptical galaxies
and the bulge-halo components of spiral galaxies. (ABRIDGED).
