f THE ANCIENT CITY: A. STUDY ON THE GREECE AND ROME. BY FUSTEL DE COULANGES. TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST FKEXCII EDITION BY WILLARD SMALL. FOURTH EDITION*. BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD. NEW YORK: CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 1882. entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1378, BY WIIJ.AKD SMALL, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. BOSTON AND COMPA Stack Annex CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. PACK UecessJtv of studying the oldest Beliefs of the Ancients in order to understand their Institutions 9 BOOK FIRST. ANCIENT BELIEFS. -CHAPTER I. Notions about the Soul and Death 15 II. The Worship of the Dead 23 III. The Sacred Fire 29 IV. The Domestic Religion 41 BOOK SECOND. THE FAMILY. CHAPTER I. Religion was the constituent Principle of the an- cient Family 49 II. Ma.-riage a;.iong the Greeks and Romans 53 III. The Continuity of the Family. Celibacy forbidden. Divorce in Case of Sterility. Inequality be- tween the Son and the Daughter. ....... Gl 3 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE IV. Adoption and Emancipation ' C8 V. Kinship. What the Romans called Agnation. . . 71 VI. The Right of Property 76 VII. The Right of Succession 93 1. Nature and Principle of the Right of Succes- sion among the Ancients 93 2. The Son, not the Daughter, inherits 95 3. Collateral Succession 100 4. Effects of Adoption and Emancipation. . . . 103 5. Wills were not known originally 104 6. The Right of Primogeniture 107 VIII. Authority in the Family Ill 1. Principle and Nature of Paternal Power among the Ancients Ill 2. Enumeration of the Rights composing tho Pa- ternal Power 117 IX. Morals of the Ancient Family 123 X. The Gens at Rome and in Greece 131 1. What we learn of the Gens from Ancient Doc- uments 134 2. An Examination of the Opinions that have been offered to explain the Roman Gens. . 138 3. The Gens was nothing but the Family still holding to its primitive Organization and its Unity 141 4. The Family (Gens) was at first the only Form of Society m CONTENTS. BOOK THIRD. THE CITY. CHAITER PAOE I. The Phratry and the Cury. The Tribe 154 II. New Religious Beliefs 159 1. The Gods of Physical Nature 159 2. Relation of this Religion to the Development of Human Soeiety 1C1 III. The City is formed 1G7 IV. The City. Urbs 177 V. Worship of the Founder. Legend of JEneas. . . 188 VI. The Gods of the City 193 VII. The Religion of the City 205 1. The Public Meals 205 2. The Festivals and the Calendar 210 3. The Census 213 4. Religion in the Assembly, in the Senate, in the Tribunal, in the Army. The Triumph. . . 216 VIII. The Rituals and the Annals 222 IX. Government of the City. The King 231 1. Rcliijious Authority of the King 231 2. Political Authority of the King 235 X. The Magistracy 239 XI. The Law 248 XII. The Citizen and the Stranger 258 XIII. Patriotism. Exile 204 XTV. The Municipal Spirit 2C8 XV. Relations between the Cities. War. Peace. The Alliance of the Gods 273 XVI. The Roman. The Athenian 280 XVII. Omnipotence of the State. The Ancients knew nothing of Individual Liberty 293 6 CONTENTS. BOOK FOURTH. REVOLUTIONS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Patricians and Clients 299 - II. The Plebeians o07 III. First Revolution 314 1. The Political Power is taken from the Kings, who still retain their Religious Authority. . 314 2. History of this Revolution at Sparta 316 3. History of this Revolution at Athens. .... 319 4. History of this Revolution at Rome 324 IV. The Aristocracy govern the Cities 330 V. Second Revolution. Changes in the Constitution of the Family. The Right of Primogeniture disappears. The Gens is dismembered. . . . . 336 VI. The Clients are Freed 341 1. What Clicntship was at first, and how it was transformed 341 2. Clientship disappears at Athens. The Work of Solon 349 3. Transformation of Clientship at Rome. . . . ?54 VII. Third Revolution. Plebs enter the City 3GO 1. General History of this Revolution SCO 2. History of this Revolution at Athens 372 3. History of this Revolution at Rome 379 VIII. Changes in Private Law. Code of the Twelve Tables. Code of Solon 410 IX. The New Principle of Government. The Public Interest and the Suffrage 423 X. An Aristocracy of Wealth attempts to establish it- self. Establishment of the Democracy. Fourth Revolution 430 CONTENTS. T CHAPTER PAGE XI. Rules of the Democratic Government. Examples of Athenian Democracy 439- XII. Rich and Poor. The Democracy falls. Popular Tyrants 449 XIII. Revolutions of Sparta 453 BOOK FIFTH. THE MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. I. New Beliefs. Philosophy changes the Principles and Rules of Politics 47& II. The Roman Conquest 481 1. A few Words on the Origin and Population of Rome 482 2. First Aggrandizement of Rome (753-350 B.C.) 486 3. How Rome acquired Empire (350-140 B. C.). 490 4. Rome everywhere destroys the Municipal System 500 6. The Conquered Nations successively enter the Roman City 508 IIL Christianity changes the Conditions of Govern- ment . 619 THE ANCIENT CITY. INTRODUCTION. The Necessity of studying the earliest Beliefs of the An- cients in order to underotand their Institutions. IT is proposed here to show upon what principles and by what rules Greek and Roman society was gov- erned. We unite in the same study both the Greeks and the Romans, because these two peoples, who were two brandies of a single race, and who spoke two idioms of a single language, also had the same insti- tutions and the same principles of government, and passed through a series of similar revolutions. We shall attempt to set in a clear light the radi- cal and essential differences which at all times distin- guished these ancient peoples from modern societies. In our system of education, we live from infancy in the midst of the Greeks and Romans, and become ac- customed continually to compare them with ourselves, to judge of their history by our own, and to explain our revolutions by theirs. What we have received from them leads us to believe that we resemble them. We have some difficulty in considering them as for- 9 10 INTRODUCTION. eign nations; it is almost always ourselves that wo see in them. Hence spring many errors. We rarely fail to deceive ourselves regarding these ancient na- tions when we see them through the opinions and facts of our own time. Now, errors of this kind are not without danger. The ideas which the moderns have had of Greece and Rome have often been in their way. Having imper- fectly observed the institutions of the ancient city, men have dreamed of reviving them among us. They have deceived themselves about the liberty of the an- cients, and on this very account liberty among the moderns has been put in peril. The last eighty years have clearly shown that one of the great difficulties which impede the march of modern society, is the habit which it has of always keeping Greek and Ro- man antiquity before its eyes. To understand the truth about the Greeks and Ro- mans, it is wise to study them without thinking of ourselves, as if they were entirely foreign to us ; with the same disinterestedness, and with the mind as free, as if we were studying ancient India or Arabia. Thus observed, Greece and Rome appear to us in a character absolutely inimitable; nothing in modern times resembles them ; nothing in the future can re- semble them. We shall attempt to show by what rules these societies were regulated, and it will be freely admitted that the same rules can never govern humanity again. Whence comes this? Why arc the conditions of human government no longer the same as in earlier times? The great changes which appear from time to time in the constitution of society can be the effect neither of chance nor offeree alone. INTRODUCTION. 11 The cause which produces them must be powerful, and must be found in man himself. If the laws of human association are no longer the same as in an- tiquity, it is because there has been a change in man. There is, in fact, a part of our being which is modified from age to age; this is our intelligence. It is alwaya in movement; almost always progressing; and on this account, our institutions and our laws are subject to change. Man lias not, in our day, the way of thinking that he had twenty-five centuries ago; and this is why he is no longer governed as he was governed then. The history of Greece and Home is a witness and an example of the intimate relation which always exists between men's ideas and their social state. Examine the institutions of the ancients without thinking of their religious notions, and you find them obscure, whimsical, and inexplicable. Why were there patri- cians and plebeians, patrons and clients, eupatrids and thctes; and whence came the native and ineffaceable differences which we find between these classes ? What was the meaning of those Lacedemonian institutions which appear to us so contrary to nature? How are we to explain those unjust caprices of ancient private law; at Corinth and at Thebes, the sale of land pro- hibited; at Athens and at Rome, an inequality in the succession between brother and sister? What did the jurists understand by agnation, and by gens? Why those revolutions in the laws, those political revolu- tions ? What was that singular patriotism which some- times effaced every natural sentiment? What did they understand by that liberty of which they were always talking? How did it happen that institutions so very different from anything of which we have an idea to-day, could become established and reign for so 12 INTRODUCTION. long a time? What is the superior principle which gave them authority over the minds of men ? But by the side of these institutions and laws place the religious ideas of those times, and the facts at once become clear, and their explanation is no longer doubt- ful. If, on going brick to the first ages of this race, that is to pay, to the time when its institutions were founded. we observe the idea which it had of human existence, of life, of death, of a second life, of the divine principle, we perceive a close relation between these opinions and the ancient rules of private law; between the rites which spring from these opinions and their political institutions. A comparison of beliefs and laws shows that a primi- tive religion constituted the Greek and Roman family, established marriage and paternal authority, fixed the order of relationship, and consecrated the right of property, and the right of inheritance. This same re- ligion, after having enlarged and extended the family, formed a still larger association, the city, and reigned in that as it had reigned in the family. From it came all the institutions, as well as all the private law, of the ancients. It was from this that the city received ail its principles, its rules, its usages, and its magistracies. But, in the course of time, this ancient religion became modified or effaced, and private law and political in- stitutions were modified with it. Then came a series of revolutions, and social changes regularly followed the development of knowledge. It is of the fust importance, therefore, to study the religious ideas of these peoples, and the oldest are the most important for us to know. For the institutions and beliefs which we find at the Nourishing periods of Greece and Rome are only the development of those INTRODUCTION. 13 of an earlier ago; we must seek the roots of them iu the very distant past. The Greek and Italian popula- tions are many centuries older than Romulus an,l Homer. It was at an epoch more ancient, in an an- tiquity without date, that their beliefs were formed, and that their institutions were either established 01 prepared. But what hope is there of arriving at a knowledge of this distant past? Who can tell us what men thought ten or fifteen centuries before our era? Can we recover what is so intangible and fugitive beliefs O O and opinions'? We know what the Aryas of the East thought thirty-five centuries ago: we learn this from the hymns of the Vedas, which arc certainly very ancient, and from the laws of Mann, in which we can distinguish passages that are of an extremely early date. But where are the hymns of the ancient Hellenes r' They, as well as the Italians, had ancient hymns, and old sacred books; but nothing of these has come down to us. What tradition can remain to us of those gen- O erations that have not left us a single written line ? Fortunately, the past never completely dies for rn?.n. Man may forget it, but he always preserves it within him. For, take him at any epoch, and he is the product, the epitome, of all the earlier epochs. Let him look into his own soul, and he can find and distinguish these different epochs by what each of them has left within him. Let us observe the Greeks of the age of Pericles, and the Romans of Cicero's time; they carry within them the authentic marks and the unmi>takable vestiges of the most remote ages. The contemporary of Cicero (I speak especially of the man of the people) has an im- agination full of legends; these legends come to him 14 INTRODUCTION'. from a very early time, and they bear witness to the manner of thinking of that time. The contemporary of Cicero speaks a language whose roots are very ancient ; this language, in expressing the thoughts of ancient ages, has been modelled upon them, and it has kept the impression, and transmits it from century to century. The primary sense of a root will sometimes reveal an ancient opinion or an ancient usage ; ideas have been transformed, and the recollections of them have van- ished; but the words have remained, immutable wit- nesses of beliefs that have disappeared. The contemporary of Cicero practised rites in the sacrifices, at funerals, and in the ceremony of marriage; these rites were older than his time, and what proves it is, that they did not correspond to his religious belief. But if we examine the rites which he observed, or the formulas which he recited, we find the marks of what men believed fifteen or twenty centuries earlier. BOOK FIRST. ANCIENT BELIEFS. CHAPTER I. Uotions about the Soul and Death. X to the latest times in the history of Greece and Rome we find the common people clinging to thoughts and usages which certainly dated from a very distant past, and which enable us to discover what notions man entertained at first regarding his own nature, his soul, and the mystery of death. Go back far as we may in the history of the Indo- European race, of which the Greeks and Italians are branches, and we do not find that this race has ever thought that after this short life all was finished for man. The most ancient generations, long before there were philosophers, believed in a second existence after the present. They looked upon death not as a disso- lution of our being, but simply as a change of life. But in what place, and in what manner, was this second existence passed ? Did they believe that the immortal spirit, once escaped from a body, went to ani- mate another? No; the doctrine of metempsychosis was never able to take root in the minds of the Greco- Italians; nor was it the most ancient belief of the 15 16 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I. Aryas of the East ; since the hymns of the "Vedas tench another doctrine. Did they believe that the spirit ascended towards the sky, towards the region of light? Not at :;11 ; the thought that departed souls entered a celestial home is relatively recent in the West ; \ve find it expressed for the first time by the poet Pho- cylides. The celestial abode was never regarded as anything more than the recompense of a few great men, and of the benefactors of mankind. According to the oldest belief of the Italians and Greeks, the soul did not go into a foreign world to pass its second ex- istence; it remained near men, and continued to live under ground. 1 They even believed for a very long time that, in this second existence, the soul remained associated with the body; born together, they were not separated by death, and were buried together in the grave. Old as this belief is, authentic evidences of it still remain to us. These evidences are the rites of sepul- ture, which have long survived this primitive belief, but which certainly began with it, and which enable us to understand it. The rites of sepulture show clearly that when a body was buried, those ancient peoples believed that they buried something that was living. Virgil, who always describes religious ceremonies with so much care and precision, concludes the account of the funeral of Polydorus in these words: "We enclose the soul in the grave." The same expression is found in Ovid, and in Pliny the Younger; this did not correspond to the ideas which these writers had of the soul r 1 Sub terra censcbant reliquam vitam agi mortuorum. Cicero, Titsc.,I. 1C. Euripides, Ale., 1G3; Ilec., passim. CHAP. I. MOTIONS ABOUT THE SOUL AND DEATH. 17 but from time immemorial it had been perpetuated in the language, attesting an ancient and common belief. 1 It was a custom, at the dose of a funeral ceremony, to call the soul of the deceased three times by the name he had borne. They wished that he might live happy under ground. Three times they said to him Fare thee well. They added, May the earth rest lightly upon thee. 2 Thus firmly did they believe that the per- son would continue to live under ground, and that he would still preserve a sense of enjoyment and suffering. They wrote upon the tomb that the man rested there an expression which survived this belief, and which has come down through so many centuries to our time. We still employ it, though surely no one to-day thinks that an immortal being rests in a tomb. But in those ancient days they believed so firmly that a man lived there that they never failed to bury with him the ob- jects of which they supposed he had need clothing, utensils, and arms. They poured wine upon his tomb to quench his thirst, and placed food there to satisfy his hunger. They slaughtered horses and slaves with the idea that these beings, buried with the dead, would 1 Ovid, Fast., V. 451. Pliny, Letters, VII. 27. Virg., ^ra., III. C~. Virgil's description relates to the employment of cenotaphs; it was admitted that when the body of a relative <:ould not je found, they might perform a ceremony which exactly reproduced all the rites of sepulture ; and it was believed that in this way, in the absence of the body, they enclosed the soul in the tomb. Eurip., Helen., 10G1, 1240. Scholiast, ad Find. Pi/th., IV. 2S4. Virg., VI. 505; XII. 214. * Iliad, XXIII. 221. Pausanias, II. 7, 2. Eurip., Ale., 4C3. Virg., jEn., III. GS. Catul., 98, 10. Ovid, Trist., III. 3, 4^; Fast., IV. 852; Metam., X. G2. Juvenal, VII. 207. Martial, I. 89; V. 35; IV. 30. Servius, ad JEn., II. 644; III. CS; XI. 97. Tacit., Agric., 46. o 18 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK t serve him in the tomb, as they had done during his life. After the taking of Troy, the Greeks are about to return to their country ; each takes with him his beauti- ful captive ; but Achilles, who is under the earth, claims his captive also, and they give him Polyxena. 1 A verse of Pindar has preserved to us a curious vestige of the thoughts of those ancient generations. Phrixus had been compelled to quit Greece, and had fled as far as Colchis. He had died in that country; but, dead though he was, he wished to return to Greece. He appeared, therefore, to Pelias, and directed him to go to Colchis and bring away his soul. Doubtless this soul regretted the soil of its native country, and the tomb of its family ; but being attached to its corporeal remains, it could not quit Colchis without them. 2 From this primitive belief came the necessity of burial. In order that the soul might be confined to this subterranean abode, which was suited to its second life, it was necessary that the body to which it remained attached should be covered with earth. The soul that had no tomb had no dwelling-place. It was a wander- ing spirit. In vain it sought the repose which it would naturajly desire after the agitations and labor of this life ; it must wander forever under the form of a larva, or phantom, without ever stopping, without ever receiv- ing the offerings and the food which it had need of. Unfortunately, it soon became a malevolent spirit; it tormented the living ; it brought diseases upon them, ravaged their harvests, and frightened them by gloomy apparitions, to warn them to give sepulture to its body 1 Eurip., ffec., passim; Ale., Iphig., 1G2. Iliad, XXIII. ICG. Virg., jn., V. 77; VI. 221; XL 81. Pliny, N. H., VIII. 40 Suet., Ccesar, 84. Lucian, De Luctu, 14. * Find., Fythic., IV. 284, ed. Heyne; see the Scholiast. CHAP. I. NOTIONS ABOUT THE SOUL AND DEATH. 19 and to itself. From this came the belief in ghosts. All antiquity was persuaded that without burial the soul was miserable, and that by burial it became forever happy. It was not to display their grief that they performed the funeral ceremony, it was for the rest and happiness of the dead. 1 We must remark, however, that to place the body in the ground was not enough. Certain traditional rites had also to be observed, and certain established formulas to be pronounced. We find in Plautus an account of a ghost; 2 it was a soul that was compelled to wander because its body had been placed in the ground without due attention to thd rites. Suetonius relates that when the body of Caligula was placed in the earth without a due observation of the funeral ceremonies, his soul was not at rest, and continued to appear to the living until it was determined to disinter the body and give it a burial according to the rules. These two examples show clearly what effects were attributed to the rites and formulas of the funeral cere- mony. Since without them souls continued to wan- der and appear to the living, it must have been by them that souls became fixed and enclosed in their tombs; and just as there were formulas which had this virtue, there were others which had a contrary virtue that of evoking souls, and making them come out fora time O * O from the sepulchre. We can see in ancient writers how man was tor- mented by the fear that after his death the rites would 1 Odyssey, XI. 72. Eurip., Troad., 1085. Kelts., V. 92. Virg.,VI. 371, 379. Horace, Odes,I. 23. Ovid, Fas*., V. 483. Pliny, Epist., VII. 27. Suetonius, Calig., 09. Servius, ad JEn., III. OS. * Plautus, Mostellaria. 20 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK 1. not be observed for him. It was a source of constant inquietude. Men feared 'death less than the privation of burial ; for rest and eternal happiness were at stake. We ought not to be too much surprised at seeing the Athenians put generals to death, who, after a naval victory, had neglected to bury the dead. These gen- orals, disciples of philosophers, distinguished clearly between the soul and the body, and as they did not believe that the fate of the one was connected with the fate of the other, it appeared to them of very little con- sequence whether a body was decomposed in the earth or in the water. Therefore they did not brave the tempest for the vain formality of collecting and burying their dead. But the multitude, who, even at Athens, still clung to the ancient doctrine?, accused these gen- erals of impiety, and had them put to death. By their victory they had saved Athens; but by their impiety they had lost thousands of souls. The relatives of the dead, thinking of the long-suffering which these souls must bear, came to the tribunal clothed in mourning, and asked for vengeance. In the ancient cities the law condemned those guilty of great crimes to a terrible punishment the privation of burial. In this manner they punished the soul itself, and inflicted upon it a punishment almost eternal. We must observe that there was among the ancients another opinion concerning the abode of the dead. They pictured to themselves a region, also subterranean, but infinitely more vast than the tomb, where all souls, far from their bodies, lived together, and where re- wards and punishments were distributed according to the lives men had led in this world. But the rites of burial, such as we have described them, manifestly dis- agree with this belief a certain proof that, at the epoch CHAP. I. KOTIONS ABOUT THE SOUL AND DEATH. 21 when these rites were established, men did not yet be- lieve in Tartarus and the Elysian Fields. The earliest opinion of these ancient generations was, that man lived in the tomb, that the soul did not leave the body, and that it remained fixed to that portion of ground where the bones lay buried. Besides, man had no account to render of his past life. Once placed in the tomb, he had neither rewards nor punishments to expect. This is a very crude opinion surely, but it is the beginning of the notion of a future life. The being who lived under ground was not suf- ficiently free from human frailties to have no need of food ; and, therefore, on certain days of the year, a meal was carried to every tomb. Ovid and Virgil have given us a. description of this ceremony. The observance continued unchanged even to their time, although religious beliefs had already undergone great changes. According to these writers, the tomb was surrounded with large wreaths of grasses and flowers, and cakes, fruits, and flowers were placed upon it ; milk, wine, and sometimes even the blood of a victim were added. 1 We should greatly deceive ourselves if we thought that these funeral repasts were nothing more than a sort of commemoration. 'Ihe food that the family brought was really for the dead exclusively lor him. What proves this is, that the milk and wine were poured out upon the earth of the tomb ; that the earth was hollowed out so that the solid food might reach the dead ; that if they sacrificed a victim, all its flesh was burnt, so that none of the living could have any part of it; that 1 Virgil, JZn., III. 300 et seq. ; V. 77. Ovid, Fast , II. 535-542. 22 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I. they pronounced certain consecrated formulas to in- vite the dead to eat and drink; that if the entire family were present at the meal, no one touched the food ; that, in fine, when they went away, they took great care to leave a little milk and a few cakes in vases; and that it was considered gross impiety for any living person to touch this scant provision destined for the needs of the dead. 1 These usages are attested in the most formal manner. "I pour upon the earth of the tomb," says Iphigenia in Euripides, "milk, honey, and wine; for it is with these that we rejoice the dead." 2 Among the Greeks there was in front of every tomb a place destined for the immolation of the victim and the cooking of its flesh. 3 The Roman tomb also had its culina, a species of kitchen, of a particular kind, and entirely for the use of the dead. 4 Plutarch relates that after the battle of Plataea, the slain having been buried upon the field of battle, the Plataeans engaged to oiFer them the funeral repast every year. Consequently, on each anniversary, they went in grand procession, conducted by their first magistrates to the mound under which the dead lay. They offered the departed milk, wine, oil, and perfumes, and sacrificed a victim. When the provisions had been placed upon the tomb, the Plataeans pronounced a formula by which they called the dead to come and partake of this repast. This ceremony was still per- formed in the time of Plutarch, who was enabled to witness the six hundredth anniversary of it. 6 A litt'.e 1 Hdts.,II. 40. Eurip., Hec., 53G. Pausanias, II. 10. Virgil, V. 98. Ovid, Fast., II. 5GG. Lucian, Charon. * .Esch., Ckoeph., 47G. Eurip., Iph., 1C2. 5 Euripides, Electra, 513. * Festus. v. Citlina. 4 Plutardi, Aristides, 21. CHAP. II. THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD. 23 later, Lucian, ridiculing these opinions and usages, shows how deeply rooted they were in the common mind. "The dead," says he, "are nourished by the provisions which we place upon their tomb, and drink the wine which we pour out there ; so './hat one of the dead to whom nothing is offered '.4 condemned to perpetual hunger." 1 These are very old forms of belief, and are quite groundless and ridiculous ; and yet they exercised empire over man during a great number of generations. They governed men's minds ; we shall soon see that they governed societies even, and that the greater part of the domestic and social institutions of the ancients was derived from this source. CHAPTER II. The Worship of the Dead. THIS belief very soon gave rise to certain rules of conduct. Since the dead had need of food and drink, it appeared to be a duty of the living to satisfy this need. The care of supplying the dead with sustenance was not left to the caprice or to the variable senti- ments of men; it was obligatory. Thus a complete religion of the dead was established, whose dogmas might soon be effaced, but whose rites endured until the triumph of Christianity. The dead were held to be sacred beings. To them the ancients applied the most respectful epithets that could be thought of; they 1 Lucian, De Luctu. 24 ANCIKXT BELIEFS. BOOK I. called them good, holy, happy. For them they had all the veneration that man can have for the divinity whom he loves or fears. In their thoughts the dead were gods. 1 This sort of apotheosis was not the privilege of great men ; no distinction was made among the dead. Cicero says, " Our ancestors desired that the men who had quitted this life should be counted in the number of the gods." It was not necessary to have been even a virtuous man: the wicked man, as well as the good man, became a god ; but he retained in the second life all the bad inclinations which had tormented him in the first. 2 The Greeks gave to the dead the name of subter- ranean gods. In ^Eschylus, a son thus invokes his deceased father: "O thou who art a god beneath the earth." Euripides says, speaking of Alcestis, " Near her tomb the passer by will stop and say, ' This is now a thrice happy divinity.' " 3 The Romans gave to the dead the name of Manes. "Render to the manes what is due them," says Cicero; " they are men who have quitted this life ; consider them as divine beings." 4 The tombs were the temples of these divinities, and they bore the sacramental inscription, Dis Manibus, and in Greek, #fo<$ ^dcmoi?. There the god lived JEsch., Choeph., 469. Sophocles, Antig., 451. Plutarch, jolon, 21; Rom. Quest., 52; Gr. Quest., 6. Virgil, V. 47 ; V. 80. 2 Cicero, De Legib., 22. St. Augustine, City of God, IX. 11 ;. VIII. 26. 3 Eurip., Ale., 1003, 1015. * Cicero, De Legib., II. 9 Varro, in St. Augustine, City of God, VIII. 26. CHAP. 11. THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD. 25- beneath the soil, manesque sepidti, says Virgil. Be- fore the tomb there was an altar for the sacrifices, as before the temples of the gods. 1 We find this worship of the dead among the Hel- lenes, among the Latins, among the Sabines, 2 among the Etruscans ; we also find it among the Aryus of India. Mention is made of it in the hymns of the Heg- Veda. It is spoken of in the Laws of Manu as the most ancient worship among men. We see in this book that the idea of metempsychosis Lad already passed over this ancient belief, even before the religion of Brahma was established; and still beneath the worship of Brahma, beneath the doctrine of metemp- sychosis, the religion of the souls of ancestors still subsists, living and indestructible, and compels the author of the Laws of Manu to take it into account, and to admit its rules into the sacred book. Not the least singular thing about this strange book is, that it has preserved the rules relative to this ancient belief, whilst it was evidently prepared in an age when a belief entirely different had gained the ascendency. This proves that much time is required to transform a human belief and still more to modify its exterior forms, and the laws based upon it. At the present day, even, after so many ages of revolutions, the Hindus continue to make offerings to their ancestors. This belief and these ikes are the oldest and the most persist- ent of anything pertaining to the Indo-European race. This worship was the same in India as in Greece and 1 Virgil, J2n., IV. 34. Aulus Gellius, X. 18. Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 14. Eurip., Troades, 9G; Electra, 613. Sue~ tonius, Nero, 50. * Varro, De Ling. Lat., V. 74. 20 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I. Italy. The Hindu bad to supply the manes with the repast, which was called sraddha. " Let the master of the house make the sraddha with rice, milk, roots, and fruits, in order to procure for himself the good-will of the manes." The Hindu believed that at the moment when he offered this funeral repast, the manes of his ancestors came to seat themselves beside him, and took the nour- ishment which was offered them. He also believed that this repast afforded the dead great enjoyment. "When the sraddha is made according to the rites, the ancestors of the one who offers it experience un- bounded satisfaction." l Thus the Aryas of the East had, in the beginning, the same notions as those of the West, relative to man's destiny after death. Before believing in metemp- sychosis, which supposes an absolute distinction be- tween the soul and the body, they believed in the vague and indefinite existence of man, invisible, but not immaterial, and requiring of mortals nourishment and offerings. The Hindu, like the Greek, regarded the dead as divine beings, who enjoyed a happy existence ; but their happiness depended on the condition that the offerings made by the living should be carried to them regularly. If the sraddha for a dead person was not offered regu- larly, his soul left its peaceful dwelling, and became a wandering spirit, who tormented the living; so that, if the dead were really gods, this was only whilst the living honored them with their worship. The Greeks and Romans had exactly the same be- lief. If the funeral repast ceased to be offered to the 1 Laws ofManu, I. 95; III. 82, 122, 127, 146, 189, 274. <3FTAP. II. THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD. 27 dead, they immediately left their tombs, and became wandering shades, that were heard in the silence of the night. They reproached the living with their negli- gence; or they sought to punish them by afflicting them with diseases, or cursing their soil with sterility. In a word, they left the living no rest till the funeral feasts were re-established. The sacrifice, the offering of nourishment, and the libation restored them to the tomb, and gave them back their rest and their divine attributes. Man was then at peace with them. 1 If a deceased person, on being neglected, became a malignant spirit, one who was honored became, on the other hand, a tutelary deity. He loved those who brought him nourishment. To protect them lie con- tinued to take part in human affairs, and frequently played an important part there. Dead though he was, lie knew how to be strong and active. The living prayed to him, and asked his support and his favors. When any one came near a tomb, he stopped, and said, *' Subterranean god, be propitious to me." * We can judge of the power which the ancients attributed to the dead by this prayer, which Electra addresses to the manes of her father: "Take pity on me, and on my brother Orestes ; make him return to this country; hear my prayer, O my father; grant my 1 Ovid, Fast., II. 549-55G. Thus in JEschylus : Clytem- nestra, v arned by a dream that the manes of Agamemnon are irritated against her, hastens to send offerings to his tomb. 2 Eurip., Ale., 1004 (1016) : " They believe that if we have no care for these dead, and if we neglect their worship, they will do us harm, and that, on the contrary, they do us good if .we render them propitious to us by offerings." Porphyry, De Abstin , II. 37. See Horace, Odes, II. 23; Plato, Laws, IX. p. <>2C>. 9i' 7. 28 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I- wishes, receiving iny libations." These powerful gods- did not give material aid only; for Electra adds, " Give me a heart more chaste than my mother's, and purer hands." 1 Thus the Hindu asks of the manes "that in his family the number of good men may incivase r and that he may have much to give." These human souls deitied by death were what the- Greeks called demons, or heroes? The Latins gave them the name of Lares, Manes, Genii. " Our ances- tors believed," says Apuleius, "that the Manes, when they were malignant, were to be called larvae; they called them Lares when they were benevolent and prppitious." 3 Elsewhere we read, "Genius and Lar is the same being; so our ancestors believed." 4 And iu Cicero, "Those that the Greeks called demons we call Lares." 5 This religion of the dead appears to be the oldest that has existed among this race of men. Before men had any notion of Indra or of Zeus, they adored the- dead ; they feared them, and addressed them prayers. It seems that the religious sentiment commenced in this way. It was perhaps while looking upon the dead ., Cfioeph., 122-135. 3 The primitive sense of tins last word appears to have boea that of dead men. The language of the inscriptions, which is that of the common people among the Greeks, often employs it in this sense. Boeckh, Corp. in script., Nos. 1C29, 1723. 1781, 1784, 1786, 1789, 3398. Ph. Lebas, Monum. de Moree, p. 205. Vide Theognis, ed. Welcker, V. 513. The Greeks also gave to one dead the name of da'ifiwv. Eurip. Ale., 1140, et Schol. 2Esch., Pers., 620. Pausanias, VI. 6. 3 Servius, ad sEn., III. G3. 4 Censorinus, 3. 4 Cicero, Timauc, 11. Dionysius Hnlicarnasseus translate* Lar familiaris by 6 XUT' otxluv i^wf. (Antiq. Rom., IV. 2.) VHAP. III. THE SACEED FIRE. 29 that man first conceived the idea of the supernatural, and began to have a hope beyond what he saw. Death was the first mystery, and it placed man on the track of other mysteries. It raised his thoughts from the visible to the invisible, from the transitory to the -eternal, from the human to the divine. CHAPTER III. The Sacred Fire. IN the house of every Greek and Roman was an .altar; on this altar there had always to be a small quantity of ashes, and a few lighted coals. 1 It was a sacred obligation for the master of every house to keep the fire up night and day. "Woe to the house where it was extinguished. Every evening they covered the coals with ashes to prevent them from being entirely consumed. In the morning the first care was to revive this fire with a few twigs. The fire ceased to glow upon the altar only when the entire family had perished ; an extinguished hearth, an extinguished family, were /synonymous expressions among the ancients. 2 1 The Greeks called this altar by various names, (1w?tos t iazdna, tflT/u; this last finally prevailed in use, and was the name by which they afterwards designated the goddess Vesta. The Latins called the same altar ara or focus. 2 Homeric Hymns, XXIX. Orphic Hymns, LXXXIV. He- siod, Opera, 732. ^Esch., Agam., 105C. Eurip., Here. Fur., .603, 599. Time., I. 13G. Aristopli., Plut., 795. Cato, De Rt Rust., 143. Cicero, Pro Domo, 40. Tibullus, I. 1, 4. Horace, -Epod., II. 43. Ovid, A. A., I. C37. Virgil, II. 512. 30 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I It is evident that this usage of keeping fire always upon an altar was connected with an ancient belief. The rules and the rites which they observed in regard to it, show that it was not an insignificant custom. It was not permitted to feed this fire with every sort of wood ; religion distinguished among the trees those that could be employed for this use from those it was impiety to make use of. 1 It was also a religious precept that this tire must always remain pure;* which meant, literally, that no filthy object ought to be cast into it, and figuratively, that noxblameworthy deed ought to be committed in its presence. There was one day in the year among the Romans it was the first of March when it was the duty of every family to put out its sacred fire, and light another immediately. 3 But to procure this new fire, certain rites had to be scrupulously observed. Especially must they avoid using flint and steel for this purpose. The only processes allowed were to concen- trate the solar rays into a focus, or to rub together rapidly two pieces of wood of a given sort." These different rules sufficiently prove that, in the opinion of the ancients, it was not a question of procuring an ele- ment useful and agreeable; these men saw something else in the fire that burnt upon their altars. This fire was something divine ; they adored it, and offered it a real worship. They made offerings to it of whatever they believed to be agreeable to a god 1 Virgil, VII. 71. Festus, v. Felicis. Plutarch, Numa, 9. 1 Eurip., Here. Fur., 715. Cato, De Re Rust., 143. Ovid, Fast., TIL COS. 3 Macrob. Saturn., I. 12. 4 Ovid, Fast., III. 143. Festus, v. Felicis. Julian, Speech on the Sun. CHAP. III. THE SACRED FIEE. 31 flowers, fruits, incense, wine, and victims. They be- lieved it to have power, and asked for its protection. They addressed fervent prayers to it, to obtain those eternal objects of human desire health, wealth, and happiness. One of these prayers, which has been pre- served to us in the collection of Orphic Hymns, runs thus: "Render us always prosperous, always happy, O fire; thou who art eternal, beautiful, ever young; thou who nourishest, thou who art rich, receive favor- ably these our offerings, and in return give us happiness and sweet health." ' Thus they saw in the fire a beneficent god, who main- tained the life of man ; a rich god, who nourished him with gifts; a powerful god, who protected his house and family. In presence of danger they sought refuge near this fire. When the palace of Priam is de- stroyed, Hecuba draws the old man near the hearth. " Thy arms cannot protect thee," she says ; " but this altar will protect us all." 8 See Alcestis, who is about to die, giving her life to save her husband. She approaches the fire, and in- vokes it in these terms: "O divinity, mistress of this house, for the last time I fall before thee, and address thee my prayers, for I am going to descend among the dead. Watch over my children, who will have no mother; give to my boy a tender wife, and to my girl a noble husband. Let them not, like me, die before the time ; but let them enjoy a long life in the midst of happiness." * 1 Orphic Hymns, 84. Plaut, Captiv., II. 2. Tibull., I. 9, 74. Ovid, A. A., I. C37. Plin., Nat. Hist., XVIII. 8. 3 Virgil, ;En., II. 523. Horaco, Epist., I. 5. Ovid, Trist., IV. 8, 22. T Eurip., Ale., 1G2-1G8. 32 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I. In misfortune man betook himself to his sacred tire, and heaped reproaches upon it; in good fortune he returned it thanks. The soldier who returned from war thanked it for having enabled him to escape the perils. JEschylna represents Agnmemnon returning from Troy, happy, and covered with glory. His first act is not to thank Jupiter; he does not go to a temple to pour out his joy and gratitude, but makes a sacri- fice of thank-offerings to the fire in his own house. 1 A man never went out of his dwelling without address- ing a prayer to the fire ; on his return, before seeing his wife or embracing his children, he must fall before the fire, and invoke it. 2 The sacred fire was the Providence of the family. The worship was very simple. The first rule was, that there should always be upon the altar a few live coals; for if this fire was extinguished a god ceased to exist. At certain moments of the day they placed upon the fire dry herbs and wood ; then the god manifested himself in a bright flame. They offered sacrifices to him ; and the essence of every sacrifice was to sustain and reani- mate the sacred fire, to nourish and develop the body of the god. This was the reason why they gave him wood before everything else; for the same rea- son they afterwards poured out wine upon the altar, the inflammable wine of Greece, oil, incense, and the fat of victims. The god received these offerings, and devoured them ; radiant with satisfaction, he rose above the altar, and lighted up the worshipper with his brightness. Then was the moment to invoke him ; and the hymn of prayer went out from the heart of man. ., Agam,, 1015. 1 Cato, De Re Rust., 2. Eurip., Here. Fur., 523. <1HAP. III. THE SACRED FIRB. 33 Especially were the meals of the family religious acts. The god presided there. He had cooked the bread, and prepared the food ; l a prayer, therefore, was due at the beginning and end of the repast. Before eating', they placed upon the altar the first fruits of the food ; before drinking, they poured out a libation of wine. This was the god's portion. No one doubted that he was present, that he ate and drank ; for did they not see the flame increase as if it had been nourished by the provisions offered ? Thus the meal was divided between the man and the god. It was a sacred cere- mony, by which they held communion with each other. 2 This is an old belief, which, in the course of time, faded from the minds of men, but which left behind it, for many an age, rites, usages, and forms of language of which even the incredulous could not free themselves. Horace, Ovid, and Petronius still supped before their fires, and poured out libations, and addressed prayers to them. 3 This worship of the sacred fire did not belong ex- clusively to the populations of Greece and Italy. We find it in the East. The Laws of Manu, as they have <5ome to us, show us the religion of Brahma completely established, and even verging towards its decline; but they have preserved vestiges and remains of a religion still more ancient, that of the sacred fire, which the worship of Brahma had reduced to a secondary rank, but could not destroy. The Brahmin has his fire to keep night and day; every morning and every evening he feeds it with wood ; but, as with the Greeks, this 1 Ovid, Fast., VI. 315. * Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 64; Comm. on Hesiod, 44. Homerit Hymns, 29. 3 Horace, Sat., II. 6, 66. Ovid, Fast., II. 631. Petronius, 60. 3 34 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I. must be the wood of certain trees. As the Greeks and Italians offer it wine, the Hindu pours upon it a fer- mented liquor, which he calls soma. Meals, too, are religious acts, and the rites are scrupulously described in the Laws of Manu. They address prayers to the fire, as in Greece ; they offer it the first fruits of rice, butter, and honey. We read that " the Brahmin .should not eat the rice of the new harvest without having offered the first fruits of it to the hearth-fire; for the sacred fire is greedy of grain, and when it is not hon- ored, it will devour the existence of the negligent Brahmin." The Hindus, like the Greeks and the Ro- mans, pictured the gods to themselves as greedy not only of honors and respect, but of food and drink. Man believed himself compelled to satisfy their hunger and thirst, if he wished to avoid their wrath. Among the Hindus this divinity of the fire is called Agni. The Rig-Veda contains a great number of hymns addressed to this god. In one it is said, " O Agni, thou art the life, thou art the protector of man. ... In return for our praises, bestow upon the father of the family who implores thee glory and riches. . . . Agni, thou art a prudent defender and a father; to thee we owe life; we are thy family." Thus the fire of the hearth is, as in Greece, a tutelary power. Man asks abundance of it: "Make the earth ever lib- eral towards us." He asked health of it: "Grant that I may enjoy long life, and that I may arrive at old age, like the sun at his setting." He even asks wisdom of it: "O Agni, thou placest upon the good way the man who has wandered into the bad. . . . If we have committed a fault, if we have gone far from thee, par- don us." This fire of the hearth was, as in Greece, essentially pure : the Brahmin was forbidden to throw anything filthy into it, or even to warm his feet by it. CHAP. TIL THE SACKED FIKE. 35 As in Greece, the guilty man could not approach his hearth before he had purified himself. It is a strong proof of the antiquity of this belief, and of these practices, to find them at the same time among men on the shores of the Mediterranean and among those of the peninsula of India. Assuredly the Greeks did not .borrow this religion from the Hindus, nor the Hindus from the Greeks. But the Greeks, the Italians, and the Hindus belonged to the same race ; their an- cestors, in a very distant past, lived together in Central Asia. There this creed originated and these rites were established. The religion of the sacred fire dates, there- fore, from the distant and dim epoch when there were yet no Greeks, no Italians, no Hindus; when there were only Aryas. When the tribes separated, they carried this worship with them, some to the banks of the Ganges, others to the shores of the Mediterranean. Later, when these tribes had no intercourse with each other, some adored Brahma, others Zeus, and still others Janus; each group chose its own gods; but all pre- served, as an ancient legacy, the first religion which they had known and practised in the common cradle of their race. If the existence of this worship among all the Indo- European nations did not sufficiently demonstrate its high antiquity, we might find other proofs of it in the religious rites of the Greeks and Romans. In all sac- rifices, even in those offered to Zeus or to Athene, the first invocation was always addressed to the fire. 1 Every prayer to any god whatever must commence and end with a prayer to the fire. 2 At Olympia, the 1 Porphyry, De Abstin., II. p. 10G. Plutarch, De Frigido. 1 Homeric Hymns, 29; Ibid., 3, v. 33. Plato, Cratylus, 18. 36 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I. first sacrifice that assembled Greece offered was to the hearth-fire, the second was to Zeus. 1 So, too, at Rome, the first adoration was always addressed to Vests, who was no other than the hearth-fire. Ovid says of this goddess, that she occupied the first place in the religious practices of men. We also read in the hymns of the Rig-Veda, " Agni must be invoked before all the other O ' O gods. We pronounce his venerable name before that of all the other immortals. O Agni, whatever other god we honor with our sacrifices, the holocaust is always offered to thee." 2 It is certain, therefore, that at Rome in Ovid's time, and in India in the time of the Brahmins, the fire of the hearth took precedence *f all other gods ; not that Jupiter and Brahma had not acquired a greater importance in the religion of men, but it was remembered that the hearth-fire was much older than those gods. For many centuries he had held the first place in the religious worship, and the newer and greater gods could not dispossess him of this place. The symbols of this religion became modified in the course of ages. When the people of Greece and Italy began to represent their gods as persons, and to give each one a proper name and a human form, the old worship of the hearth-fire submitted to the common law which human intelligence, in that period, imposed upon every religion. The altar of the sacred fire was personified. They called it kaila, Vesta; the name was the same in Latin and in Greek, and was the same Hesychius, atp> ioTis. Diodorus, VI. 2. Aristoph., Birds, 665. 1 Pausanias, V. 14. * Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, II. 27. Ovid, Fast., VI. 304. CHAP. in. THE SACKED FIRE. 37 that in the common and primitive language designated an altar. By a process frequent enough, a common noun had become a proper name. By degrees a legend was formed. They pictured this divinity to themselves as wearing a female form, because the word used for O * altar was of the feminine gender. They even went so far as to represent this goddess in statues. Still they could never efface the primitive belief, according to which this divinity was simply the fire upon the altar; and Ovid himself was forced to admit that Vesta was nothing else than a " living flame." ' If we compare this worship of the sacred fire with the worship of the dead, of which we have already spoken, we shall perceive a close relation between them. Let us remark, in the first place, that this fire, which was kept burning upon the hearth, was not, in the thoughts of men, the fire of material nature. What they saw in it was not the purely physical element that warms and burns, that transforms bodies, melts metals, and becomes the powerful instrument of human in- dustry. The fire of the hearth is of quite another nature. It is a pure fire, which can be produced only by the aid of certain rites, and can be kept up only with certain kinds of wood. It is a chaste fire ; the union of the sexes must be removed far from its presence. 8 They pray to it not only for riches and health, but also for purity of heart, temperance, and wisdom. "Render us rich and flourishing," says an Orphic hymn ; "make us also wise and chaste." Thus the hearth-fire is a sort of a moral being; it shines, and warms, and cooks the 1 Ovid, Fast., VI. 291. * Hesiod, Opera, 731. Plutarch, Comm. on lies., frag. 13. 38 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I. sacred food ; but at the snme time it thinks, and has a conscience ; it knows men's duties, and sees that they are fulfilled. One might call it human, for it has the double nature of man ; physically, it blazes up, it moves, it lives, it procures abundance, it prepares the repast, it nourishes the body; morally, it has sentiments and affections, it gives man purity, it enjoins the beautiful and the good, it nourishes the soul. One might say that it supports human life in the double series of its manifestations. It is at the same time the source of wealth, of health, of virtue. It is truly the god of human nature. Later, when this worship had been assigned to a second place by Brahma or by Zeus, there still remained in the hearth-fire whatever of divine was most accessible to man. It became his mediator with the gods of physical nature; it undertook to carry to heaven the prayer and the offering of man, and to bring the divine favors back to him. Still later, when they made the great Vesta of this myth of the sacred fire. Vesta was the virgin goddess. She represented in the world neither fecundity nor power; she was order, but not rigorous, abstract, mathematical order, the^ im- perious and unchangeable law, mo t 41 ; Pro Quintio, 27, 28. 3 Servius, in JEn., III. 134 4 Virgil, IX. 259 j V. 744. 40 ANCIENT BELIEFS. HOOK I words." 1 So, too, ./Eneas, speaking of the sacred fire which he transports across the waters, designates it by the name of the Lar of Assaracus, as if he saw in this fire the soul of his ancestor. The grammarian Servius, who was very learned in Greek and Roman antiquities (which were studied much more in his time than in the time of Cicero) r says it was a very ancient usage to bury the dead in the houses; and he adds, "As a result of this custom, they honor the Lares and Penates in their houses. 9 This expression establishes clearly an ancient relation between the worship of the dead and the hearth-fire. We may suppose, therefore, that the domestic fire was in the beginning only the symbol of the worship of the dead ; that under the stone of the hearth an ancestor reposed ; that the fire was lighted there to honor him, and that this fire seemed to preserve life in him, or represented his soul as always vigilant. This is merely a conjecture, and we have no proof of it. Still it is certain that the oldest generations of the race from which the Greeks and Romans sprang worshipped both the dead and the hearth-fire an an- cient religion that did not find its gods in physical nature, but in man himself, and that has for its object the adoration of the invisible being which is in us, the moral and thinking power which animates and governs our bo-lies. This religion, after a time, began to lose its power over the soul ; it became enfeebled by degrees, but it did not disappear. Contemporary with the first ages of the Aryan race, it became rooted so deeply in the 1 Euripides, Orestes, 1140-1142. 8 Servius, in J?n., V. 84; VI. 152. See Plp.to, Minos, p. 315. DUA.P. IV. DOMESTIC RELIGION. 41 minds of this race that thd brilliant religion of the Greek Olympus could not extirpate it ; only Christianity could do this. We shall see presently what a power- ful influence this religion exercised upon the domestic and social institutions of the ancients. It was con- ceived and established in that distant age when this race was just forming its institutions, and determined the direction of their progress. CHAPTER IV. The Domestic Religion. WE are not to suppose that this ancient religion resembled those founded when men became more en- lightened. For a great number of centuries the human race has admitted no religious doctrine except on two conditions: first, that it proclaimed but one god; and, second, that it was addressed to all men, and was accessible to all, systematically rejecting no class or race. But this primitive religion fulfilled neither of these conditions. Not only did it not offer one only god to the adoration of men, but its gods did not ac- cept the adoration of all men. They did not offer themselves as the gods of the human race. They did not even resemble Brahma, who was at least the god of one whole great caste, nor the Fanhellenian Zeus, who was the god of an entire nation. In this primitive religion each god could be adored only by one family. Religion was purely domestic. We must illustrate this important point; otherwise the intimate relation that existed between this ancient 42 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK. I. religion and the constitution of the Greek and Roman family may not be fully understood. The worship of the dead in no way resembled the Christian worship of the saints. One of the first rules of this worship was, that it could be offered by each family only to those deceased persons who belonged to it by blood. The funeral obsequies could be reli- giously performed only by the nearest relative. As to the funeral meal, which was renewed at stated seasons, the family alone had a right to take part in it, and every stranger was strictly excluded. 1 They believed that the dead ancestor accepted no offerings save from his own family; he desired no worship save from his own descendants. The presence of one who was not of the family disturbed the rest of the manes. The law, therefore, forbade a stranger to approach a tomb. 8 To touch a tomb with the foot, even by chance, was an impious act, after which the guilt> one was expected to pacify the dead and purify himself. The word by which the ancients designated the worship of the dead is significant ; the Greeks said narqi^etv^ the Romans said parentare. The reason of this was because the prayer and offering were addressed by each one only to his fathers. The worship of the dead was nothing more than the worship of ancestors. 3 Lucian, while ridicul- ing common beliefs, explains them clearly to us when 1 Cicero, De Legib., II. 2G. Varro, L. L., VI. 15 Ferunt epulas ad sepulcrum quibus jus ibi parentare. Gaius, II. 6, <5 Si modo mortuifunus ad nos pertineat. Plutarch, Solon. 1 Pittacus omnino accedere quemquam vetat infunus aliorum. Cicero, De Legib., II. 26. Plutarch, Solon, 21. Demosthenes, in Timocr. Isseus, I. 3 In the beginning at least; for later the cities had their local and national heroes, as we shall see. CHAP. IT. DOMESTIC RELIGION. 43 he says the man who has died without leaving a son, receives no offerings, and is exposed to perpetual hunger.' In India, as in Greece, an offering could be made to a dead person only by one who had descended from him. The law of the Hindus, like Athenian law, for- bade a stranger, even if he were a friend, to be invited to the funeral banquet. It was so necessary that these -banquets should be offered by the descendants of the dead, and not by others, that the manes, in their resting- place, were supposed often to pronounce this wish: "May there be successively born of our line sons who, in all coming time, may offer us rice, boiled in milk, honey, and clarified butter." 2 Hence it was, that, in Greece and Rome, as in India, it was the son's duty to make the libations and the sacrifices to the manes of his father and of all his ances- tors. To fail in this duty was to commit the grossest act of impiety possible, since the interruption of this worship caused the dead to fall from their happy state. This negligence was nothing less than the crime of parricide, multiplied as many times as there were an- cestors in the family. If, on the contrary, the sacrifices were always ac- complished according to the rites, if the provisions were carried to the tomb on the appointed days, then the ancestor became a protecting god. Hostile to all who had not descended from him, driving them from his tomb, inflicting diseases upon them if they ap- proached, he was good and provident to his own family. 1 Lucian, De Luctu. 1 Laws of Manu, III. 138 ; III. 274. 44 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK 1- There was a perpetual interchange of good offices between the living and the dead of each family. The ancestor received from his descendants a series of funeral banquets, that is to say, the only enjoyment that was left to him in his second life. The descendant received from the ancestor the aid and strength of which he had need in. this. The living could not do without the dead, nor the dead without the living. Thus a powerful bond was established among all the generations of the same family, which made of it :i body forever inseparable. Every family had its tomb, where its dead went to repose, one after another, always together. This tomb was generally near the house, nor far from the door, "in order,'' says one of the ancients, " that the sons, in entering and leaving their dwelling, might always meet their fathers, and might always address them an invo- cation." ' Thus the ancestor remained in the midst of his relatives; invisible, but always present, he continued to make a part of the family, and to be its father. Im- mortal, happy, divine, he was still interested in all of his whom he had left upon the earth. He knew their needs, and sustained their feebleness; and he who still lived, who labored, who, according to the ancient ex- pression, had not yet discharged the debt of existence, he had near him his guides and his supports his forefathers. In the midst of difficulties, he invoked their ancient wisdom; in grief, he asked consolation of them; in clanger, he asked their support, and after a fault, their pardon. Certainly we cannot easily comprehend how a man could adore his father or his ancestor. To make of 1 Euripides, Helena, 11G3-11G8. -CHAP. IV. DOMESTIC RELIGION". 45 man a god appears to us the reverse of religion. It is almost as difficult for us to comprehend the ancient creeds of these men as it would have been for them to understand ours. But, if we reflect that the ancients had no idea of creation, we shall see that the mystery of generation was for them what the mystery of crea- tion is for us. The generator appeared to them to be a divine being; and they adored their ancestor. This sentiment must have been very natural and very strong, for it appears as a principle of religion in the origin of almost all human societies. We find it amonff the O Chinese as well as among the ancient Getaeand Scyth- ians, among the tribes of Africa as well as among those of the new world. 1 The sacred fire, which was so intimately associated with the worship of the dead, belonged, in its essential character, properly to each family. It represented the ancestors ; it was the providence of a family, and had nothing in common with the fire of a neighboring family, which was another providence. 2 Every fire pro- tected its OAvn and repulsed the stranger. The whole of this religion was enclosed within the walls of each house. The worship was not public. All the cere- monies, on the contrary, were kept strictly secret. 3 Performed in the midst of the family alone, they were concealed from every stranger. The hearth was never placed either outside the house or even near the outer 1 Among the Etruscans and the Romans it was a custom for every religious family to keep the images of its ancestors ranged around the atrium. Were these images simple family portraits, or were they idols? 2 ' Earia narnwa, focus patrius. So in the Vedas Agni is sometimes invoked as a domestic god. 3 Lsteus, VIII. 17, 18. 46 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK I. door, where it would have been too easy to see. 1 The Greeks always placed it in an enclosure, 2 which pro- tected it from the contact, or even the gaze, of the profane. The Romans concealed it in the interior of the house. All these gods, the sacred tire, the Lares, and the Manes, were called the consecrated gods, or gods of the interior. To all the acts of this religion secrecy was necessary. 3 If a ceremony was looked upon by a stranger, it. was disturbed, defiled, made un- fortunate simply by this look. There were neither uniform rules nor a common ritual for this domestic religion. Each family was most completely independent. No external power had the right to regulate either the ceremony or the creed. There was no other priest than the father: as a priest, he knew no hierarchy. The poritifex of Rome, or the archon of Athens, might, indeed, ascertain if the father of a family performed all his religious ceremonies; but he had no right to order the least modification of them. Suo quisque ritu sacrificia faciat such was the abso- lute rule. 4 Every family had its ceremonies, which were peculiar to itself, its particular celebrations, its formulas of prayer, its hymns. 5 The father, sole interpreter and sole priest of his religion, alone had the right to teach it, and could teach it only to his son. The rites, the forms of prayer, the chants, which formed an essential part of this domestic religion, were a patrimony, a sacred property, which the family shared with no one, and 1 This enclosure was called 'IQXOS. 8 Qtoi nvjioi, dii Penates. 3 Cicero. De Arusp. Resp., 17. 4 Varro, De Ling. Lai., VII. 88. 8 Ilesiod, Opera, 753. Macrobius, Sat., I. 10. Cic., De Legib.,ll. 11. CI1AP. IV. DOMESTIC RELIGION. 47 which they were even forbidden to reveal to strangers. It was the same in India. " I am strong against ray enemies," says the Brahmin, "from the songs which I receive from my family, and which my father lias trans- mitted to me." * Thus religion dwelt not in temples, but in the house ; each house had its gods ; each god protected one fam- ily only, and was a god only in one house. We cannot reasonably suppose, that a religion of this character was revealed to man by the powerful imagination of one among them, or that it was taught to them by a priestly caste. It grew up spontaneously in the human mind ; its cradle was the family ; each family created its own gods. This religion could be propagated only by generation. The father, in giving life to his son, gave him at the same time his creed, his worship, the right to continue the sacred fire, to offer the funeral meal, to pronounce the formulas of prayer. Generation established a mys- terious bond between the infant, who was born to life, and all the gods of the family. Indeed, these gods were his family Oeol iyyevetg ; they were of his blood . Of ol atvaifjot.* The child, therefore, received at his birth the right to adore them, and to offer them sac- rifices; and later, when death should have deified him, he also would be counted, in his turn, among these gods of the family. 1 Rig-Veda, Langlois' trans., v. i. p. 113. Tho Laws of Manu often mention rites peculiar to each family. VII. 3 ; IX. 7. 2 Sophocles, Antig., 199; Ibid., C59. Comp. TTUTQWOI 6iol in Aristophanes, Wasps, 388; JEschylus, Pers., 404; Sophocles, Electra, 411 ; Aiul ytviQiiot, Plato, Laws, V. p. 729; Di Generis. Ovid, Fast., II. 48 AXCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK 1. But we must notice this peculiarity that the domes- tic religion was transmitted only from male to male. This was owing, no doubt, to the idea that genera- tion was due entirely to the males. 1 The belief of primitive ages, as we find it in the Vedas, and as we find vestiges of it in all Greek and Roman law, was that the reproductive power resided exclusively in the father, The father alone possessed the mysterious principle of existence, and transmitted the spark of life. From this old notion it followed that the domestic worship always passed from male to male ; that a woman participated in it only through her father or her hus- band; and, finally, that after death women had not the same part as men in the worship and the ceremonies of the funeral meal. Still other important conse- quences in private law and in the constitution of the family resulted from this: we shall see them as we proceed. 1 The Vedas call the sacred fire the cause of male posterity. See the Mitakchai a, Oriannes' trans., p. 139. BOOK SECOND. THE FAMILY. CHAPTER I. Ueligion was the constituent Principle of the ancient Family. IF we transport ourselves in thought to those an- cient generations of men, we find in each house an altar, and around this altar the family assembled. The family meets every morning to address its first prayers to the sacred fire, and in the evening to invoke it for a last time. In the course of the day the members arc once more assembled near the fire for the meal, of which they partake piously after prayer and libation. In all these religious acts, hymns, which their fathers have handed down, are sung in common by the family. Outside the house, near at hand, in a neighboring field, there is a tomb the second home of this family. There several generations of ancestors repose together; death has not separated them. They remain grouped in this second existence, and continue to form an in dissoluble family. 1 1 The use of family tombs by the ancients is incontestable; it disappeared only when the beliefs relative to the worship of the dead became obscured. The words r^ipog nuTQt.,?, r^ifos Twr 4 49 50 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. Between the living part and the dead part of the family there is only this distance of a few steps which separates the house from the tomb. On certain days, which are determined for each one by his domestic religion, the living assemble near their ancestors ; they offer them the funeral meal, pour out milk and wine to them, lay out cakes and fruits, or burn the flesh of a victim to them. In exchange for these offerings they ask protection ; they call these ancestors their gods, and ask them to render the fields fertile, the house prosperous, and their hearts virtuous. Generation alone was not the foundation of the ancient family. What proves this is, that the sister did not bear the same relation to the family as the brother; that the emancipated son and the married daughter ceased completely to form a part of the family; and, in fine, several other important provisions of the Greek TiQoyoriav, appear continually in Greek writers, as tumulus pa- trius or avitus, sepulcrum gentis, are found in Roman writers. See Demosthenes, in, Eubul., 28; inMacart., 79. Lycurgus, in. Leocr., 25. Cicero, De Ojfic., I. 17. De Legib., II. 22 Mortuwm extra gentem inferri fas negant. Ovid, Trist., IV. 3, 45. Velleius, II. 119. Suetonius, Nero, 50; Tiberius, 1. Digest, XI. 5; XVIII. 1, 6. There is an old anecdote that shows how necessary it was thought to be that every one should be buried in the tomb of his family. It is related that the Lacedaemonians, when about to join battle with the Messenians, attached to their right arms their name, and those of their fathers, in order that, in case of death, each body might be recognized on the field of battle, and transported to the paternal tomb. Justin, III. 5. See JEschylus, Sept., 889 (914), ruyiav ncnQwtuv Kt-/ai. The Greek orators frequently refer to this custom : Isceus, Lysias, or Demosthenes, when he wishes to prove that such a man be- longs to a certain family, and has the right to inherit its property, rarely fails to say that this man's father is buried in the tomb of this family. CHAP. I. RELIGION THE CONSTITUENT PRINCIPLE. 51 and Roman laws, that we shall have occasion to ex- amine farther along. Nor is the family principle natural affection. For Greek and Roman law makes no account of this senti- ment. The sentiment may exist in the heart, but it is not in the law. The father may have affection for his daughter, but he cannot will her his property. The laws of succession that is to say, those laws which most faithfully reflect the ideas that men had of the family are in open contradiction both with the order of birth and with natural affection. 1 The historians of Roman laws, having very justly remarked that neither birth nor affection was the foun- dation of the Roman family, have concluded that this foundation must be found in the power of the father or husband. They make a sort of primordial institu- tion of this power; but they do not explain how this power was established, unless it was by the superiority of strength of the husband over the wife, and of the father over the children. Now, we deceive ourselves sadly when we thus place force as the origin of law. We shall see farther on that the authority of the father or husband, far from having been a first cause, was itself an effect; it was derived from religion, and was established by religion. Superior strength, therefore, was not the principle that established the family. The members of the ancient family were united by something more powerful than birth, affection, or phys- ical strength ; this was the religion of the sacred fire, and of dead ancestors. This caused the family to form 1 It must be understood that we here speak of the most an- cient law. We shall soon see that, at a later date, these early laws were modified. 52 THE FAMILY. BOOK U a single body, both in this life find in the next. The ancient family was a religious rather than a natural association ; and we shall see presently that Ilia wife was counted in the family only after the sacred cere- mony of marriage had initiated her into the wo; ship; that the son was no longer counted in it when lie had renounced the worship, or had been emancipated ; that, on the other hand, an adopted son was counted a real son, because, though he had not the ties of blood, he had something better a community of worship ; that the heir who refused to adopt the worship of this fam- ily had no right to the succession; and, finally, that relationship and the right of inheritance were governed not by birth, but by the rights of participation in the worship, such as religion had established tnem. Re- ligion, it is true, did not create the famil^ , but certainly it gave the family its rules; and hence it comes that the constitution of the ancient family was so different from what it would have been if it had owed its foun- dation to natural affection. The ancient Greek language has a very significant word to designate a family. It is ^.i/emor, a word which signifies, literally, that which is near a hearth. A family was a group of persons whom religion per- mitted tc invoke the same sacred fire, and to offer the fnneral repast to the same ancestors. CHAP II. MARRIAGE. 53 CHAPTER II. Marriage. THE first institution that the domestic religion estab- lished, probably, was marriage. We must remark that this worship of the sacred fire and of ancestors, which was transmitted from male to male, did not belong, after all, exclusively to man ; woman bad a part in it. As a daughter, she took part in the religious acts of her father; as a wife, in those of her husband. From this alone we see the essential character of the conjugal unioiMtmong the ancients. T\vo families live side by side; but they have different gods. In one, a young daughter takes a part, from her infancy, in the religion of her lather; she invokes his sacred fire; every day she offers it libations. She surrounds it with flowers and garlands on festal days. She asks its pro- tection, and returns thanks for its favors. This paternal fire is her god. Let a young man of the neighboring family ask her in marriage, and something more is at stake than to pass from one house to the other. She must abandon the paternal fire, and henceforth invoke that of the husband. She must abandon her religion, practise other rites, and pronounce other prayers. She must give up the god of her infancy, and put herself under the protection of a god whom she knows not. Let her not hope to remain faithful to the one while honoring the other; for in this religion it is an im- mutable principle that the same person cannot invoke two sacred fires or two series of ancestors. "From the 54 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. hour of marriage," says one of the ancients, "the wife has no longer anything in common with the domestic religion of her fathers; she sacrifices at the hearth of her husband." ' Marriage is, therefore, a grave step for the young girl, mid not less grave for the husband ; for this religion requires that one shall have been born near the sacred fire, in order to have the right to sacrifice to it. And yet he is now about to bring a stranger to this hearth ; with her he will perform the mysterious ceremonies of his worship ; he will reveal the rites and formulas which are the patrimony of his family. There is nothing more precious than this heritage; these gods, these rites, these hymns which he has received from his fathers, are what protect him in this life, and promise him riches, happiness, and virtue. And yet, instead of keeping to himself this tutelary power, as the savage keeps his idol or his amulet, he is going to admit a woman to share it with him. Thus, when we penetrate the thoughts of these an- cient men, we see of how great importance to them was the conjugal union, and how necessary to it was the intervention of religion. Was it not quite necessary that the young girl should be initiated into the religion that she was henceforth to follow by some sacred ceremony? Was not a sort of ordination or adoption necessary for her to become a priestess of this sacred fire, to which she was not attached by birth ? Marriage was this sacred ceremony, which was to produce these important effects. The Greek and Ro- man writers habitually designate marriage by a word indicative of a religious act. 2 Pollux, who lived in the 1 Stephen of Byzantium, Tiarna. 5 Q' in y^ti'i, sacrum nvptialc. CHAP. II. MARRIAGE. 55 time of the Antonines, but who was well instructed in the ancient usages of his language, says, that in ancient times, instead of designating marriage by its particular name, 7 <<>-', they designated it simply by the word Tt'/.o;, which signifies sacred ceremony, 1 as if marriage had been, in those ancient times, the ceremony sacred above all others. Xow, the religion that created marriage was not that of Jupiter, of Juno, or of the other gods of Olympus. The ceremony did not take place in a temple; it was performed in a house, and the domestic god presided. When the religion of the gods of the sky became pre- ponderant, men could not help invoking them also in the prayers of marriage, it is true; it even became habitual to go to the temple before the marriage, and offer sacrifices to these gods. These sacrifices were called the preludes of marriage; 2 but the principal and essential part of the ceremony always took place before the domestic hearth. Among the Greeks the marriage ceremony consisted, o to speak, of three acts. The first took place before the hearth of the father, c';--/*,' ;,(/<; ; the third before the hearth of the husband, -ti'i.o; ; the second was the passage from the one to the other, 77o i ,T?|. J 1. In the paternal dwelling, in the presence of the future bridegroom, the father, surrounded ordinarily 1 Pollux, III. 3, 38. 2 77ooT/f(o, Troo'/uuia, Pollux, III. 38. 3 Homer, 111., XVIII. 391. Hcsiocl, Scutum, v. 275. Herod- otus, VI. 129, 130. Plutarch, Theseus, 10; Lycurg., passim. Solon, 20; Aristides, 20; Gr. Quest., 27. Demosthenes, in Stephanum, II. Isteus, III. 39. Euripides, Helena, 722-725 ; Phen., 345. Harpocration, v. ruut/.iu. Pollux, III. c. 3. The same usage among the Macedonians. Quintus Curtius, VIII. 16. 56 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. by his family, offers a sacrifice. The sacrifice con- cluded, he declares pronouncing a sacramental formu- la that he gives his daughter to the young man. This declaration is absolutely indispensable to the marriage ; for the young girl would not be able to go at once to worship at the hearth of her husband, if her father had not already separated her from the pater- tal hearth. To enable her to adopt her new religion, she must be freed from every bond that attaches her to her first religion. 2. The young girl is carried to the house of the hus- band. Sometimes the husband himself conducts her. In certain cities the duty of bringing her belongs to one of those men who, among the Greeks, were clothed with a sacerdotal character, and who were called heralds. The bride was usually placed upon a car; her ia.ce was covered with a veil, and on her head was a crown. The crown, as we shall often have occasion to see, was used in all the ceremonies of this worship. She was dressed in white. White was the color of the vestments in all the religious acts. She was preceded by a torch the nuptial torch. For the whole dis- tance they sang around her religious hymns, whose refrain was w r/'V', " vutruie. This hymn they called the Jii/mciical^ and the importance of this sacred c-hant was so great that they gave its name to the whole ceremony. The bride dares not go of her own accord into her ne\v dwelling. Her husband must take her, and simu- late a seizure by force. She must cry out, and the women that accompany her must pretend to defend her. Why this rite? Is it a symbol of the modi-sly of the bride? This is hardly probable: the moment for shame has not yet come; for what is now to take place CHAP. II MAKRIAGE. 57 is a religious ceremony. Was it not to mark more strongly that the wife, who was now to sacrifice to this fire, had herself no right there, that she did not ap- proach it of her own free will, and that the master of the place and of the god introduced her by an act of his power? However this may be, after a feigned struggle, the husband raises her in his arms, and carries her through the doorway, taking great care, however, that her feet do not touch the sill. What precedes is only a preparation, a prelude to the ceremony. The sacred act now commences in the house. 3. They approach the hearth; the wife is brought into the presence of the domestic divinity. She is sprinkled with the lustral water. She touches the sacred fire. Prayers are repeated. Finally, the husband and wife share between themselves a cake or a loaf. This sort of light meal, which commences and ends with a libation and a prayer, this sharing of nourish- ment in presence of the fire, puts the husband and wife in religious communion with each other, and in com- munion with the domestic gods. The Roman marriage closely resembled that of Greece, and, like it, comprised three acts traditio, deductio in domum, confarreatio. 1 1 Varro, L. L., Gl. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 25, 26. Ovid, Fast., II. 558. Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 1.29; Romul., 15; Plin., N. II., XVIII. 3. Tacit. Ann., IV. 1C; XI. 27. Juvenal, Sat. X. 329-336. Gaius, Inst., I. 112. Uplian, IX. Digest, XXIII. 2, 1. Festus, v. Rapi. Macrobius, Sat., I. 15. Servius, ad sEn., IV. 168. The same custom among the Etrus- cans, Varro, De Re Rust., II. 4. The same custom among the ancient Hindus, Laws of Manu, III. 27-SO, 172; V. 152; VIII. 227; IX. 194. Mitakchara, Orianne's trans., p. 166, 167, 236. 58 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. 1. The young girl quits llie patern.nl hearth. As she is not attached to this hearth by her own right, but through the father of the family, the authority of the father only can detach her from it. The tradition is, therefore, an indispensable ceremony. 2. The young girl is conducted to the house of the husband. As in Greece, she is veiled. She wears a crown, and a nuptial torch precedes the cortege. Those about her sing an ancient religious hymn. The words of this hymn changed doubtless with time, accom- modating themselves to the variations of belief, or to those of the language ; but the sacramental refrain continued from age to age without change. It was o o o the word Talassie, a word whose sense the Romans of Horace's time no more understood than the Greeks understood the word vfitvuif, an( i which was, probably, the sacred and inviolable remains of an ancient formula. The cortege stops before the house of the husband. There the bride is presented with fire and water. The fire is the emblem of the domestic divinity ; the water is the lustral water, that serves the family for all religious acts. To introduce the bride into the house, violence must be pretended, as in Greece. The hus- band must take her in his arms, and carry her over the sill, without allowing her feet to touch it. 3. The bride is then led before the hearth, where the Penates, and all the domestic gods, and the images of ancestors, are grouped around the sacred fire. As in Greece, the husband and wife oifer a sacrifice, pouring out a libation, pronouncing prayers, and eating a cake of wheaten flour (panis farreus)* 1 We shall speak presently of other forms of marriage in use among the Romans, in whii-h religion had no part. Let it suffice to say here, that the sacred marriage appears to us to be the CHAP. II. MARRIAGE. 59 This cake, eaten during the recitation of prayers, in the presence and under the very eyes of the domestic divinities, makes the union of the husband and wife sacred. Henceforth they are associated in the same worship. The wife has the same gods, the same rites, the same prayers, the same festivals as her husband. Hence this old definition of marriage, which the jurists have preserved to us : Nuptice sunt dimni juris et humani communicatio ; and this other: Uxor soda humanoB rei atqiie divince. 1 This is because the wife participates in the worship of the husband ; this wife whom, according to the expression of Plato, the gods themselves have introduced into the house. The wife, thus married, also worships the dead ; but it is not to her own ancestors that she carries the fune- ral repast. She no longer has this right. Marriage has completely detached her from the family, and has interrupted all the religious relations that she had with it. Her offerings she carries to the ancestors of her husband ; she is of their family ; they have become her ancestors. Marriage has been for her a second birth; she is henceforth the daughter of her husband \jilice loco, say the jurists. One could not belong to two families, or to two domestic religions; the wife belongs entirely to her husband's family, and to his religion. We shall see the consequences of this rule in the right of succession. The institution of sacred marriage must be as old in the Indo-European race as the domestic religion ; for the one could not exist without the other. This religion oldest; for it corresponds to the most ancient beliefs, and dis- appeared only as those beliefs died out. 1 Digest, XXIII. title 2. Code, IX. 32, 4. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 25 : Koirun-ug ^ni^iurwr xui lt'n~-. Stephen of Byzantium, w^inu. CO THE FAMILY. BOOK II. taught man that the conjugal union was something more than :i relation of the sexes and a fleeting affec- tion, and united man and wife by the powerful bond of the same worship and the same belief. The marriage ceremony, too, was so solemn, and produced effects so grave, that it is not surprising that these men did not think it permitted or possible to have more than one wife in each house. Such a religion could not admit of polygamy. We can understand, too, that such a marriage was indissoluble, and that divorce was almost impossible. The Roman law did indeed permit the dissolution of the marriage by coemptio^ or by iisus. But the dissolu- tion of the religious marriage was very difficult. For that, a new sacred ceremony was necessary, as religion alone could separate what religion had united. The effect of the confarreatio could be destroyed only by the diffarreatio. The husband and wife who wished to separate appeared for the last time before the com- mon hearth ; a priest and witnesses were present. As on the day of marriage, a cake of wheatcn flour was presented to the husband and wife. 1 But, instead of sharing it between them, they rejected it. Then, in- stead of prayers, they pronounced formulas of a strange, severe, spiteful, frightful character, 2 a sort of maledic- tion, by which the wife renounced the worship and gods of the husband. From that moment the religious bond was broken. The community of worship having ceased, every other common interest ceased to exist, and the marriage was dissolved. 1 Festus, v. Diffarreatio. Pollux. III. c. 3: a.-7-Tocrn,'. We read, in an inscription, Sacerdos confarreationum ct diffar" reationum. Orelli, No. 2G48. 2 o . 68 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. qualified to repeat its prayers ; lie honored its ances- tors, and at a later period he would himself become an honored ancestor. CHAPTER IV. Adoption and Emancipation. TUB duty of perpetuating the domestic worship was the foundation of the law of adoption among the ancients. The same religion which obliged a man to marry, which pronounced a divorce in case of sterility, which, in case of impotence or of premature death, substituted a relative in place of the husband, still offered to a family one final resource to escape the so much dreaded misfortune of extinction ; this resource was the right of adoption. "He to whom nature has denied a son can adopt one, so that the funeral cere- monies may not cease." Thus speaks the old legislator of the Hindus. 1 We have a curious plea of an Athe- nian orator in a case where the legitimacy of a son's adoption was contested. The defendant shows us first the motive for which one adopted a son. "Menccles," lie says, "did not wish to die without children ; he was desirous of leaving behind him some one to bury him, and in after time to perform the ceremonies of the funeral worship." He then goes on to show what will happen if the tribunal annuls his adoption ; what will happen, not only to himself, but to the one who has adopted him. Menecles is dead, and still it is the in terc-st of Menecles that is at stake. "If you annul my 1 Laws of Manu, IX. 10. CHAP. IV. ADOPTION AND EMANCIPATION. 09 adoption, you will leave Monocles, who is dead, with- out a son; and consequently no one will perform the sacrifices in his honor, no one will offer him the funeral repast, and thus he will be without worship." ' To adopt a son, was then, to watch over the per- petuity of the domestic religion, the safety of the sacred fire, the continuation of the funeral offerings, and the repose of the manes of the ancestors. There being no reason for adoption, except the necessity of preventing the extinction of a worship, it was per- mitted only to one who had no son. The law of the Hindus is formal on this point.'' That of the Athe- nians is not less so; all the orations of Demosthenes against Leochares are proof of this. 3 No particular passage proves that this was the case in the old Roman law, and we know that in the time of Gains a man might have at the same time sons by nature and sons by adoption. It appears, however, that this point was not admitted as legal in Cicero's time ; for in one of his orations the orator expresses himself thus: '''What is the law concerning adoption? Why, that he may adopt children who is no longer able to have children himself, and who failed of having them when he was of an age to expect it. To adopt is to seek, by regular and sacerdotal la\v, that which by the ordinary process of nature ho is no longer able to obtain."* Cicero attacks the adoption of Clodius, taking the ground that the man who has adopted him already has a son, and 1 IscEus, II. 10-46. 2 Laws of Mann, X. 1G8, 174. Daitaca-Sandrica, Orinn< no's trans., p. 2GO. 3 See also Isams, II. 11-14. 4 Cicero, Pro Domo, 13, 14. Aulus Gellius, V. 19. 70 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. lie declares that this adoption is contrary to sacer- dotal law. When a son was adopted, it was necessary, first of all, that he should be initiated into a form of worship, "introduced into a domestic religion, brought into the presence of new Penates." ' Adoption, therefore, was accompanied by a ceremony very like that which took place at the birth of a son. In this way the new comer was admitted to the hearth, and associated in the new religion. Gods, sacred objects, rites, prayers, all be- came common between him and his adopted father- They said of him, In sacra transiU He has passed to the worship of the new family. 2 By this very ceremony he renounced the worship of the old one. 3 We have seen, indeed, that accord- ing to this ancient belief, the same man could not sac- rifice at two hearths, or honor two series of ancestors. Admitted to a new house, the old became foreign to him. He no longer had anything in common with the hearth near which he was born, and could no longer offer the funeral repast to his own ancestors. The ties of birth were broken ; the new tie of a common worship took the ascendency. The man became so completely a stranger to his own family, that, if he happened to die, his natural father had no right to take charge of the funeral, or to conduct the procession. The adopted son could not return again to the old family ; or, at most, the law permitted this only when, having a son, he left that son to take his place in the adoptive fam- ily. They considered that, the perpetuity of this family 1 ' En'i T'U tenlt itynr. Isasus, VII. Venire in Sacra, Cicero, Pro Domo, 1." ; in Penates adsciscere, Tacitus, JJist., I. 15. 1 Valerius Maximus, VII. 7. 3 Amissis sacris patcrnis, Cicero, ibid. OflAP. V. OF KINSHIP. 71 being thus assured, he might leave it; but, in this case, he severed all the ties that bound him to his own son. 1 Emancipation corresponded, as a correlative, to adop- tion. In order that a son might enter a new family, it was necessary that he should be able to leave the old ; that is to say, that he should be emancipated from its religion.* The principal effect of emancipation was the renunciation of the worship of the family in which one was born. The Romans designated this act by the very significant name of sacrorum detestatio. 3 CHAPTER V. Of Kinship. Of what the Romans called Agnation. PLATO says that kinship is the community of the same domestic gods. 4 When Demosthenes wishes to prove that two men are relatives, he shows that they practise the same religious rites, and offer the funeral repast at the same tomb. Indeed, it was the domestic religion that constituted relationship. Two men could call themselves relatives when they had the same gods, the same sacred fire, and the same funeral repast. Now, we have already observed that the right to 1 I.-feus, VI. 44; X. 11. Demosthenes, against Leochares. Antiphon., Frag., 15. Comp. Laws of Mann, IX. 142. 2 Consuetudo apud antiques fu.it ut qui in familiam trans- irti prius se abdicaret ab ea in qua natus fuerat. Servius, ad sEn., II. 156. 3 Aulus Gellius, XV. 27. 4 Plato, Laws, V. p. 729. 72 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. offer sacrifices to the sacred fire was transmitted only from male to male, raid that the worship of the dead was addressed to the ascendants in the male line only. It followed from this rule that one could not be related through females. In the opinion of those ancient gen- erations, a female transmitted neither being nor wor- ship. The son owed all to the father. Besides, one conld not belong to two families, or invoke two fires; the son, therefore, had no other religion or other family than that of the father. 1 How could there have been a maternal family? His mother herself, the day on which the sacred rites of marriage were performed, had abso- lutely renounced her own family ; from that time she had offered the funeral repast to her husband's ances- tors, as if she had become their daughter, and she had no longer offered it to her own ancestors, because she was no longer considered as descended from them. She had preserved neither religious nor legal connection with the family in which she was born. For a still stronger reason her son had nothing in common with this family. The foundation of relationship was not birth ; it was worship. This is seen clearly in India. There the chief of the family, twice each month, offers the funeral repast; he presents a cake to the manes of his father, another to his paternal grandfather, a third to his great- grandfather ; never to those from whom he is descended on the mother's side, neither to his mother, nor to his mother's father. Afterwards, ascending still higher, but always in the same line, he makes an offering to fourth, fifth, and sixth ascendant. The offering to these last is 1 Patris, ncn. matris, familiam sequitur. Digest, 50, tit- 1C, 196. CHAP. V. OF ROMAN AGNATION. 7o lighter; it i.s a libation of water and a few grains of rice. Such is the funeral repast; and it is according to the accomplishment of these rites that relationship is reckoned. When two men, who offer their funeral repasts separately, can, each one, by ascending through a series of six ancestors, find one who is common to both, they are akin. They are called samanodacas y if the common ancestor is one of those to whom they offer only the libation of water; sapindas, if he is of those to whom the cake is presented. 1 Counting ac- cording to our usage, the relation of the sapindas would go to the seventh degree, and that of the sa- manodacas to the fourteenth. In both cases the rela- tionship is shown by the fact that both make an offer- ing to the same ancestor; aud we see that in this system the relationship through females cannot be admitted. The case was the same in the West. There lias been much discussion as to what the Roman jurists understood by agnation. But the problem is of easy solution as soon as w r e bring agnation and the domestic religion together. Just as this religion was transmitted only from male to male, so it is attested by all the ancient jurists, that two men can be " agnates" only when, ascending from male to male, they were found to have common ancestors. 2 The rule for agnation was, then, the same as that for worship. There %vas between these two things a manifest relation. Agna- tion was nothing more than relationship such as re- ligion had originally established it. 1 Laws of Manu, V. 60; Mitakchara, Orianne's trans., p. 213. 8 Giiius, I. 15G; III. 10. Ulpiiin, 20. Institutes of Justinian* Hi. 2; III. 5. 74 THE FAMILY. BOOK II To rendei this truth clearer, let us trace the genea logical table of a Roman family. L. CORNELIUS SCIPIO, died about 230 B. C. Publius Scipio. Cn. Scipio. ! I Luc. Scipio Asiaticus. P. Scipio Afriennus. P. Scipio Nasica. Luc. Scipio Asiaticus. P. Scipio. Cornelia, P. Scip. Nasica. | wife of Scmpr. Gracchus. | Scipio Asiaticus. Scip. JEinilianus. Scip. Serapio. Tib. Sempr. Gracchus. In this table, the fifth generation, which lived to- wards the year 140 B. C., is represented by four per- sonages. Were they all akin ? According to our modern ideas on this subject, they were ; in the opinion of the Romans, all were not. Now, let us inquire if they all had the same domestic worship; that is to say, if they all made offerings to the same ancestors. Let us suppose the third Scipio Asiaticus, who alone remains of his branch, offering the funeral repast on a particular day; ascending from male to male, lie finds for the third ancestor Publius Scipio. Again, Scipio ^Erailianus, offering his sacrifice, will meet in the series of his ascendants this same Pnblius Scipio. Scipio Asiaticus and Scipio .^Emilianus are, therefore, related to each other. Among the Hindus they would be called sapindas. On the other hand, Scipio Serapio has for a fourth ancestor L. Cornelius Scipio, who is also the fourth ancestor of Scipio ^Emilianus. They are, there- fore, akin. Among the Hindus they would be called samanodacas. In the judicial and religious language of the Romans, these three Scipios are agnates the two first are agnates in the sixth degree, the third is their agnate in the eighth degree. The case is not the same with Tiberius Gracchus wing year. The German was CHAP. VI. THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 77 proprietor of the harvest, but not of the land. The case is still the same among a part of the Semitic race, and among some of the Slavic nations. On the other hand, the nations of Greece and Italy, from the earliest antiquity, always held to the idea, of private property. AVe do not find an age when the soil was common among them; 1 nor do we find any- thing that resembles the annual allotment of laud which was in vogue among the Germans. And here we note ~ O .1 remarkable fact. While the races that do not accord to the individual a property in the soil, allow him at least a right to the fruits of his labor, that is to say, to his harvest, precisely the contrary custom prevailed among the Greeks. In many cities the citizens were required to store their crops in common, or at least the greater prat, and to consume them in common. The individual, therefore, was not the master of the corn which he had gathered; but, at the same time, by a singular contradiction, he had an absolute property in the soil. To him the land was more than the harvest. It appears that among the Greeks the conception of private property M'as developed exactly contrary to what appears to be the natural order. It was not applied to the harvest first, and to the soil afterwards, but fol- lowed the inverse order. 1 Some historians have expressed the opinion that at Rome property was at first puhlic, and did not become private till Xuma's reign. This error comes from a false interpretation of three passages of Plutarch (Xuma, 1C), Cicero (Republic, II. 14), and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (II. 7-4). These three authors fay. it i? true, that Xuma distributed lands to the citizens, but they indicate very clearly that these lands were conquests of his predecessor, agri quos hello Romulus ceperat. As to the Roman si.i! itself ager Romanus it was private property from the origin of the city. 78 THE FAMILY. BOOK I!. There are three tilings -which, from the most ancient times, we find founded and solidly established in these Greek and Italian societies: the domestic religion; the family; and the right of property three things which had in the beginning a manifest relation, and which appear to have been inseparable. The idea of private property existed in the religion itself. Every family had its hearth and its ancestors. These gods could be adored only by this family, and protected it alone. They were its property. Now, between these gods and the soil, men of the early ages saw a mysterious relation. Let us first take the hearth. This altar is the symbol of a sedentary life ; its name indicates this. 1 It must be placed upon the ground; once established, it cannot be moved. The god of the family wishes to have a fixed abode ; materially, it is difficult to transport the stone on which he shines ; religiously, this is more difficult still, and is permitted to a man only when hard necessity presses him, when an enemy is pursuing him, or when the soil cannot support him. When they establish the hearth, it is with the thought and hope that it will always remain in the same spot. The god is installed there not for a day, not for the life of one man merely, but for as long a time as this family shall en- dure, and there remains any one to support its fire by sacrifices. Thus the sacred fire takes possession of the soil, and makes it its own. It is the god's property. And the family, which through duty and religion remains grouped around its altar, is as much fixed to the soil as the altar itself. The idea of domicile follows 1 ' Earia, um;.nf, stare. See Plutarch, De primo frigido, 21 j Macrob., I. 23; Ovid, Fast., VI. 299. CHAP. VI THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 7D naturally. The family is attached to the altar, the altar is attached to the soil; an intimate relation, there- fore, is established between the soil and the family. There must be his permanent home, which he will not dream of quitting, unless an unforeseen necessity con- strains him to it. Like the hearth, it will always occupy this spot. This spot belongs to it, is its prop- erty, the property not simply of a man, but of a family, whose different members must, one after another, be born and die here. Let us follow the idea of the ancients. Two sacred fires represent two distinct divinities, who are never united or confounded ; this is so true, that even inter- marriage between two families does not establish an alliance between their gods. The sacred fire must be isolated that is to say, completely separated from all that is not of itself; the stranger must not approach it at the moment when the ceremonies of the worship are performed., or even be in sight of it. It is for this reason that these gods are called the concealed gods, IAV-/IOI, or the interior gods, Penates. In order that this religious rule may be well observed, there must be an enclosure around this hearth at a certain distance. It did not matter whether this enclosure was a hedge, a Avail of wood, or one of stone. Whatever it was, it marked the limit which separated the domain of one sacred fire from that of another. This enclosure was deemed sacred. 1 It was an impious act to pass it. The god watched over it, and kept it under his care. They, therefore, applied to this god the epithet of iQxeTos* This enclosure, traced and protected by re- 1 "EQXO$ it()'or. Sophocles, Trachin., COG. * At an epoch when this ancient worship was almost effaced by the younger religion of Zeus, and when they associated him 80 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. ligion, was the most certnin emblem, the most un- doubted mark of the right of property. Let us return to the primitive ages of the Aryan race. The sacred enclosure, which the Greeks call f'oxo--, and the Latins herctum, was the somewhat spa- cious enclosure in which the family had its house, its flocks, and the small field that it cultivated. In the midst rose the protecting fire-god. Let us descend to the succeeding ages. The tribes have reached Greece and Italy, and have built cities. The dwellings are brought nearer together : they are not, however, contiguous. The sacred enclosure still exists, but is of smaller proportions; ottenest it is reduced to a low wall, a ditch, a furrow, or to a mere open space, a few feet wide. But in no case could two houses hp joined to each other; a party wall was supposed to be an im- possible thing. The same wall could not be common to two houses; for then the sacred enclosure of the gods would have disappeared. At Rome the law fixed two ieet and a half as the width of the free space, which was always to separate two houses, and this space was consecrated to " the god of the enclosure." ' A result of these old religious rules was, that a com- munity of property vvas never established among the with the fire-god, the new god assumed the title of fgxtfo?. It is not less true that, in the beginning, the real protector of the enclosure was the domestic god. Dionysius of Halicarnassus asserts this (I. G8), when he says that the <;ot foxtfoi are the ^same as the Penates. This follows, moreover, from a compari- son of a passage of Pausanias (IV. 17) with a passage of Eu- ripides (Troad., 17), and one of Virgil (sEn., II. 514); the three passages relate to the same fact, and show that Zti-$ inmiof was no other than the domestic fire. 1 Festus, v. Anilitiis. Varro, L. L., V. 22. Serviua, ad jEn , II. 4G9. CHAP. VI. THE EIGHT OF PROPERTY. 81 ancients. A phalanstery was never known among them. Even Pythagoras did not succeed in establish- ing institutions which the most intimate religion of men resisted. Neither do we find, at any epoch in the life of the ancients, anything that resembled that multitude of villages so general in France during the twelfth century. Every family, having its gods and its worship, was required to have its particular p^ce on the soil, its isolated domicile, its property. According to the Greeks, the sacred fire taught men to build houses; ' and, indeed, men who were fixed by their religion to one spot, which they believed it their duty not to quit, would soon begin to think of raising in that place some solid structure. The tent covers the Arab, the wagon the Tartar; but a family that has a domestic hearth has need of a permanent dwelling. The stone house soon succeeds the mud cabin or the wooden hut. The family did not build for the life of a single man, but for generations that were to succeed each other in the same dwelling. The house was always placed in the sacred en- closure. Among the Greeks, the square which com- posed the enclosure was divided into two parts ; the first part was the court ; the house occupied the sec- ond. The hearth, placed near the middle of the whole enclosure, was thus at the bottom of the court, and near the entrance of the house. At Rome the dispo- sition was different, but the principle was the same. The hearth remained in the middle of the enclosure, but the buildings rose round it on four sides, so as to enclose it within a little court. We can easily understand the idea that inspired tbis 1 Diodorus, V. G8. 82 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. system of construction. The walls are raised around the hearth to isolate and defend it, and we may say, as the Greeks said, that religion taught men to build houses. In this house the family is master and pro- prietor ; its domestic divinity assures it this right. The house is consecrated by the perpetual presence of gods; it is a temple which preserves them. "What is there more holy," says Cicero, "what is there more carefully fenced round with every descrip- tion of religious respect, than the house of each indi- vidual citizen ? Here is his altar, here is his hearth, here are his household gods; here all his sacred rights, all his religious ceremonies, are preserved." ' To enter this house with any malevolent intention was a sacri- lege. The domicile was inviolable. According to a Roman tradition, the domestic god repulsed the robber, and kept off the enemy. 2 Let us pass to another object of worship the tomb ; and we shall see that the same ideas were attached to this. The tomb held a very important place in the religion of the ancients ; for, on one hand, worship was due to the ancestors, and on the other, the principal ceremony of this worship the funeral repast was to be performed on the very spot where the ancestors rested. 3 . The family, therefore, had a common tomb, where its members, one after another, must come to sleep. For this tomb the rule was the same as for the hearth. It was no more permitted to unite two families in the same tomb than it was to establish two domestic hearths in the same house. To bury one out 1 Cicero, Pro Domo, 41. 8 Ovid, Fast., V. 141. 1 Such, at least, was the ancient rule, since they believed that the funeral repast served as food for the dead. Eurip., Tioad.. 381. CHAP. VI. THE EIGHT OF PROPERTY. 88 of the family tomb, or to place a stranger in thitf tomb, was equally impious. 1 The domestic religion, both in life and in death, separated every family from all others, and strictly rejected all appearance of com- munity. Just as the houses could not be contiguous, so the tombs could not touch each other ; each one of them, like the house, had a sort of isolating enclosure. How manifest is the character of private property in all this ! The dead are gods, who belong to a particular family, which alone has a right to invoke them. These gods have taken possession of the soil; they live under this little mound, and no one. except one of the family, can think of meddling with them. Furthermore, no- one has the right to dispossess them of the soil which they occupy; a tomb among the ancients could never be destroyed or displaced ; " this was forbidden by the- severest laws. Here, therefore, was a portion of the soil which, in the name of religion, became an object of perpetual property for each family. The family ap- propriated to itself this soil by placing its dead here; it was established here for all time. Th^ living scion of this family could rightly say, This land is mine. It was so completely his, that it was inseparable from him, and he had not the right to dispose of it. The soil where the dead rested was inalienable and irapre- 1 Cicero, De Legib., 11.22; II. 26. Gaius, Instil., IT. 6. Digest, XLVII. tit. 12. We must note that the slave and the client, as we shall see, farther on were a part of the family, and were buried in the common tomh. The rule which prescribed that every man should be buried in the tomb of his family, ad- mitted of an exception in the case where the city itself granted a public funeral. 2 Lycurgus, against Leocrates, 25. At Rome, before a burial- place could be changed, the permission of the pontiffs was, required. Pliny, Letters, X. 73. 84 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. scriptible. The Roman law required that, if a family sold the field where the tomb was situated, it should still retain the ownership of this tomb, and should always preserve the right to cross the field, in order to per- iorm the ceremonies of its worship. 1 The ancient usage was to inter the dead, not in cemeteries or by the road-side, but in the field belong- ing to the family. This custom of ancient times is attested by a law of Solon, and by several passages in Plutarch. We learn from an oration of Demosthenes, that even in his time, each family buried its dead in its own field, and that when a domain was bought in Attica, the burial-] dace of the old proprietors was found there. 2 As for Italy, this same custom is proved to have existed by the laws of the Twelve Tables, by <_res from two jurisconsults, and by ihis sentence of Siculus Flaccus: "Anciently there were two ways of placing the tomb; some placed it on one side of the field, others towards the middle." 3 From this custom we can see that the idea of prop- erty was easily extended from the simll mound to the field that surrounded this mound. In the works of the elder Cato there is a formula according to which the Italian laborer prayed the manes to watch over his field, to take good care against the thief, and to bless him, with a good harvest. Thus these souls of the dead extended tutelary action, and with it their right of prop- erty, even to the boundaries of the domain. Through 1 Cicero, De Lcgib., II. 24. Digest, XVIII. tit. 1. 6. 8 Laws of Solon, cited by Gaius in Digest, X. tit. 1. 13. De- mosthenes, against Callicles. Plutarch, Aristides, 1. 3 Siculus Flaccus, edit. Goez, p. 4. See Fragm. terminalia, edit. Goez, p. 147. Pomponius, in Digest, XLVII. tit. 12. o Paul, in Digest, VIII. 1, 14. CRAP. VI. THE EIGHT OF PKOPERTY. 85 them the family was sole master in this field. The tomb had established an indissoluble union of the fam- ily with the land that of ownership. In the greater number of primitive societies the right of property was established by religion. In the Bible, the Lord said to Abraham, "I am the Lord, that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land, to inherit it;" and to Moses, "Go up hence, . . . into the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, L'nto thee will I give it." Thus God, the piimitive proprietor, by right of crea- tion, delegates to man his ownership over a part of the soil. 1 There was something analogous among the an- cient Graeco-Italian peoples. It was not the religion of Jupiter that founded this right, it is true; perhaps because this religion did not yet exist. The gods who conferred upon every family its right to a portion of tin- ."-oil, were the domestic gods, the sacred fire, and the manes. The first religion that exercised its empire on their minds was also the one that established the right of property among them. It is clearly evident that private property was an in- stitution that the domestic religion had need of. This religion required that both dwellings and burying- places should be separate from each other; living in common was, therefore, impossible. The same religion required that the hearth should lie fixed to the soil, that the tomb should neither be destroyed nor dis- placed. Suppress the right of property, and the sacred "fire would be without a fixed plaeo, the families would 1 Same traditio i among the Etruscans: " Quum Jupiter ter- ram Ftrurice si'ui vindicavit, constituit jitssitque mctiri campos signarique agros." Audorcs Rei Agraria, in the fragment en- titled Idem Vegoice Arrunti, edit. Gocz. 86 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. become con found eel, and the dead would be abandoned and without worship. By the stationary hearth and the permanent burial-place, the family took possession of the soil ; the earth was in some sort imbued and pen- etrated by the religion of the hearth and of ancestors. Thus the men of the early ages were saved the trouble of resolving too difficult a problem. Without discus- sion, without labor, without a shadow of hesitation, they arrived, at a single step, and merely by virtue of their belief, at the conception of the right of property; this right from which all civilization springs, since by it man improves the soil, and becomes improved himself. Religion, and not laws, first guaranteed the right of property. Every domain was under the eyes of house- hold divinities, who watched over it. 1 Every field had to be surrounded, as \ve have seen for the house, by an enclosure, which separated it completely from the domains of other families. This enclosure was not a wall of stone; it was a band of soil, a few feet wide, which remained uncultivated, r.nd which the plough could never touch. This space w;is sacred ; the Ro- man law declared it indefeasible ; a it belonged to the religion. On certain appointed days of each month and year, the father of the family went round his field, following this line ; he drove victims before him, sang hymns, :ind offered sacrifices. 3 By this ceremony he believed he had awakened the benevo- 1 Lares agri ci'stocles, Tibullus, I. 1, 23. Religio Laruin posita in fundi villaqve conspectu. Cicero, De Legib., II. 11. 2 Cicero, De Legib., I. 21. 3 Cato, De Re L'ust., 141. Script. Rei Agrar., edit. Goez, p 308. Dionysius of Halicurnassus, II. 74. Ovid, Fast., II. G39 Strabo, V. 3. CHAP. fl. TI1E EIGHT OF PROPERTY. 87 lence of his gods towards his field and his house ; above all, he had marked his right of property by proceeding round his field with his domestic worship. The path which the victims and prayers had followed was the inviolable limit of the domain. On this line, at certain points, the men placed large stones or trunks of trees, which they called Termini. We can form a good idea as to what these bounds were, and what ideas were connected with them, by the manner in which the piety of men established them. "This," says Seculus Flaccus, "was the manner in which our ancestors proceeded : They commenced by digging a small hole, and placing the Terminus upright near it ; next they crowned the Terminus with garlands of grasses and flowers ; then they offered a sacrifice. The victim being immolated, they made the blood flow into the hole ; they threw in liv,e coals (kindled, prob- bly, at the sacred fire of the hearth), grain, cakes, fruits, a little wine, and some honey. When all this was consumed in the hole, they thrust down the stone or piece of wood upon the ashes while they were still warm." * It is easy to see that the object of the cere- mony was to make of this Terminus a sort of sacred representation of the domestic worship. To continue this character for it, they renewed the sacred act every year, by pouring out libations and reciting prayers. The Terminus, once placed in the earth, became in some sort the domestic religion implanted in the soil, to in- dicate that this soil was forever the property of the family. Later, poetry lending its aid, the Terminus was considered as a distinct god. The employment of Termini, or sacred bounds for fields, appears to have been universal among the Indo- 1 Siculus Flaccus, edit. Goez, p. 6. 88 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. European race. It existed among the Hindus at a very early date, and the sacred ceremonies of the boundaries had among them a great analogy with those which Siculus Flaccus lias described for Italy. 1 Before the foundation of Rome, we find the Terminus among the Sabines; 2 we also find it among the Etruscans. The Hellenes, too, had sacred landmarks, which they called ooo/, deol 001 Of. 3 The Terminus once established according to the re- quired rites, there was no power on earth that could displace it. It was to remain in the same place through all ages. This religious principle was expressed at Rome by a legend : Jupiter, having wished to prepare himself a site on the Capitoline hill for a temple, could not displace the god Terminus. This old tradition shows how sacred property had become ; for the im- movable Terminus signified nothing less than inviolable property. In fact, the Terminus guarded the limit of the field, and watched over it. A neighbor dared not approach too near it: "For then," says Ovid, "the god, who felt himself struck by the ploughshare, or mattock, cried, ' Stop : this is my field ; there is yours.' " 4 To encroach upon the field of a family, it was necessary to overturn or displace a boundary mark, and this boundary mark was a god. The sacrilege was horrible-, and the chas- tisment severe. According to the old Roman law, the man and the oxen who touched a Terminus were devoted" that is to say, both man and oxen were 1 Laws of Mam/, VIII. 245. Vrihaspati, cited by Sice, Hindu Legislation, p. 159. 8 Varro. L. L., V. 74. 3 Pollux, IX. 9. Ilosychius, ii'yoj. Plato, Laws, p. 842. 4 Ovid, Fast., II. 077. * Festus, v. Terminus. CMAF. VI. THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 8 immolated in expiation. The Etruscan law, speaking in the name of religion, says, "He who shall have touched or displaced a bound shall be condemned by the gods; his house shall disappear; his race shall be extinguished ; his land shall no longer produce fruits; hail, rust, and the fires of the dog-star shall destroy his harvests; the limbs of the guilty one shall become covered with ulcers, and shall waste away." ' We do not possess the text of the Athenian law on this sub- ject; there remain of it only three words, which signify, "Do not pass the boundaries." But Plato appears to complete the thought of the legislator when he says, "Our first law ought to be this: Let no person touch the bounds which separate his field from that of his neighbor, for this ought to remain immovable. . . . Let no one attempt to disturb the small stone which separates friendship from enmity, and which the land- owners have bound themselves by an oath to leave in its place." 1 ' From all these beliefs, from all these usages, from all these laws, it clearly follows that the domestic religion taught man to appropriate the soil, and assured him his right to it. There is no difficulty in understanding that the right of property, having been thus conceived and established, was much more complete and absolute in its effects than it can be in our modern societies, where it is founded upon other principles. Property was so in- herent in the domestic religion that a family could not renounce one without renouncing the other. The house and the field were so to speak incorporated 1 Script. Rei Agrar., ed. Goez, p. 258. 2 Plato, Laws, VIII. p. 842. 90 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. in it, and it could neither lose them nor dispose of them. Pinto, in his treatise on the Laws, did not pretend to advance a new idea when he forbade the proprietor to sell his field ; he did no more than to recall an old law. Everything leads us to believe that in the ancient ages property was inalienable. It is well known that at Sparta the citizen was formally forbidden to sell his lot of land. 1 There was the same interdiction in the laws of Locri and of Leucadia. 2 Pheidon of Corinth, a legis- lator of the ninth century B. C., prescribed that the number of families and of estates should remain un- changeable. 3 Now, this prescription could be observed only when it was foi bidden to sell an estate, or even to divide it. The law of Solon, later by seven or eight generations than that of Pheidon of Corinth, no longer forbade a man to sell his land, but punished the vender by a severe fine, and the loss of the rights of citizenship. 4 Finally, Aristotle mentions, in a general manner, that in many cities the ancient laws forbade the sale of land. 5 Such laws ought not to surprise us. Found prop- erty on the right of labor, and man may dispose of it. Found it on religion, and he can no longer do this; a tie stronger than the will of man binds the land to him. Besides, this field u here ihe tomb is situated, where the divine ancestors live, where the family is forever to perform its worship, is not simply the property of a man, but of a family. It is not the individual actually 1 Plutarch, Lycurg., Agis. Aristotle, Polit., II. 6. 10 (II. 7). * Aristotle, Polit., II. 4. 4 (II. o). 3 Id., Rid., II. 3, 7. 4 .ZEschines, against Timarclius. Diogenes Laertius, I. 55. 6 Aristotle, Polit., VII. 2. CHAP. VI. THE EIGHT OF PROPERTY. 91 living who has established his right over this soil, it is the domestic god. The individual has it in trust only; it belongs to those who are dead, and to those who are yet to be born. It is a part of the body of this family, and cannot be separated from it. To detach one from the other is to alter a worship, and to offend a religion. Among the Hindus, property, also founded upon re- ligion, was also inalienable. 1 We know nothing of Roman law previous to the laws of the Twelve Tables. It is certain that at that time the sale of property was permitted ; but there are reasons for thinking that, in the earlier days of Rome, and in Italy before the existence of Rome, land was inalienable, as in Greece. Though there remains no evidence of this old law, there remain to us at least the modifications which were made in it by degrees. The law of the Twelve Tables, though attaching to the / o o tomb the character of inalienability, has freed the soil from it. Afterwards it was permitted to divide prop- erty, if there were several brothers, but on condition that a new religious ceremony should be performed, and that the new partition should be made by a priest ; 2 religion only could divide what had before been pro- claimed indivisible. Finally, it was permitted to sell the domain ; but for that formalities of a religious char- acter were also necessary. This sale could take place only in the presence of a priest, whom they called Mbwpens, and with the sacred formality which they called mancipation. Something analogous is seen in Greece ; the sale of a house or of land was always ac- 1 JllitaJcchara, Orianne's trans., p. 50. This rule disappeared by degrees after Brahminism became dominant. 2 This priest was called agrimensor. See Scriptores Rei ^Agrance. 92 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. companiecl with a sacrifice to the gods. 1 Every trans- fer of property needed to be authorized by religion. If a man could not, or could only with difficulty, dispose of land, for a still stronger reason he could not be deprived of it against his will. The appropriation of land for public utility was un- known among the ancients. Confiscation was resorted to only in case of condemnation to exile 2 that is to say, when a man, deprived of his right to citizenship, could no longer exercise any right over the soil of the city. oSTor was the taking of property for debt known in the ancient laws of cities. 3 The laws of the Twelve Tables assuredly do not spare the debtor; still they do not permit his property to be sold for the benefit of the creditor. The body of the debtor is held for the debt, not his land, for the land is inseparable from the family. It is easier to subject a man to servitude than to take his property from him. The debtor is placed in the hands of the creditor ; his land follows him, in some sort, into slavery. The master who uses the physical strength of a man for his own profit, enjoys at the same time the fruits of his land, but does not become the proprietor of it. So inviolable above all else, is the right of property. 4 1 Stobaeus, 42. 2 This rule disappeared in the democratic age of the cities. 3 A law of the Eleeans forbade the mortgaging of land. Aris- tot., Polit., VII. 2. Mortgages were unknown in ancient Konian law. What is said of mortgages in the Athenian law before Solon is based on a doubtful passage of Plutarch. 4 In the article of the law of the Twelve Tables which relates to insolvent debtors, we read, Si volet suo vivito ; then the debtor, having become almost a slave, still retains something for him- self; his land, if he has any, is not taken from him. The arrangements known in lioman law under the names of fidu- CHAP. VII. THE RIGHT OF SUCCESSION. 93 CHAPTER VII. The Right of Succession. I. Nature and Principle of the Right of Succession among the Ancients. THE right of property having been established for the accomplishment of an hereditary worship, it was not possible that this right should fail after the short life of an individual. The man dies, the worship remains; the fire must not be extinguished, nor the tomb aban- doned. So long as the domestic religion continued, the right of property had to continue with it. Two things are closely allied in the creeds as well as in the laws of the ancients the family worship and its property. It was therefore a rule without exception, in both Greek and Roman law, that a prop- erty could not be acquired without the worship, or the worship without the property. "Religion prescribes," says Cicero, "that the property and the worship of a ciary mancipation, and of pignus, were, before the introduction of the Servian action, the means employed to insure to the cred- itor the payment of the debt; these prove indirectly that the seizure of property for debt was not practised. Later, when they suppressed corporal servitude, it was necessary that there should be some claim on the property of a debtor. The change was not without difficulty ; but the distinction which was made between property and possession offered a resource. The creditor obtained of the praBtor the right to sell, not the prop- erty, dominium, but the goods of the debtor, bona. Then only, by a disguised seizure, the debtor lost the enjoyment of his property. 94 THE FAMILY. BOOK IU family shall be inseparable, and that the care of the sacrifices shall always devolve upon the one who re- ceives the inheritance." l At Athens an orator claims a succession in these terms: "Weigh it well, O judges, and say whether my adversary or I ought to inherit the estate of Philoctemon, and ofier the sacrifices upon his tomb." 2 Could one say more directly that the care of the worship was inseparable from the succession ? It was the same in India : " He who inherits, whoever he may be, is bound to make the offerings upon the tomb." a From this principle were derived all the rules regard- ing the right of succession among the ancients. The first is that, the domestic religion being, as we have seen, hereditary from male to male, property is the same. As the son is the natural continuator of the re- ligion, he also inherits the estate. Thus the rule of inheritance is found ; it is not the result of a simple agreement made between men ; it is derived from their ~ * belief, from their religion, from that which has the greatest power over their minds. It is not the personal will of the father that causes the son to inherit. The father need not make a will ; the son inherits of full right, -^-ipsojure heres exsistit, says the jurisconsult. He is even a necessary successor heres necessarius* He has neither to accept nor to reject the inheritance. The continuation cf the property, like that of the worship, is for him an obligation as well as a right. Whether he wishes it or not, the inheritance falls to him, whatever it may be, even with its encumbrances 1 Cicero, De Legib., II. 19, 20. Fcstus, v. Everriator. 2 Isaeus, VI. 51. Plato calls the heir diiiSo^og dccov. Laws, V. 740. 3 Laws of Jlfanu, IX. 18G. 4 Digest, XXXVIII. tit. 16, 14. CHAP. VII. THE EIGHT OF SUCCESSION. 95 and its debts. The right to inherit without the debts, and to reject an inheritance, was not allowed to the son in Greek legislation, and was not introduced until a later period into Roman law. The judicial language of Rome calls the son heres suus, as if one should say, heres sui ipsius. In fact, he inherits only of himself. Between his father and him there is neither donation, nor legacy, nor change of property. There is simply a continuation morte parerdis eontinuatur dominium. Already, during the life of the father, the son was co-proprietor of the field and house vivo quoque patre dominus existi- matur. 1 To form an idea of inheritance among the ancients, we must not figure to ourselves a fortune which passes from the hands of one to those of another. The for- tune is immovable, like the hearth, and the tomb to which it is attached. It is the man who passes away. It is the man who, as the family unrolls its generations, arrives at his hour appointed to continue the worship, and to take care of the domain. 2. The Son, not the Daughter, inherits. It is here that ancient laws, at first sight, appear whimsical and unjust. We experience some surprise when we see in the Roman law that the daughter does not inherit if she is married, and that, according to the Greek law, she does not inherit in any case. What concerns the collateral branches appears, at first sight, still farther removed from nature and justice. This is because all these laws flow, according to a very rigor- 1 Institutes, III. 1, 3; III. 9, 7; III. 19, 2. 96 THE FAMILY. BOOK ous logic, from the creed and religion that we have described above. The rule for the worship is, that it shall be trans- mitted from male to male ; the rule for the inheritance is, that it shall follow the worship. The daughter is not qualified to continue the paternal religion, since she may marry, and thus renounce the religion of her father to adopt that of her husband ; she has, there- fore, no right to the inheritance. If a father should happen to leave his property to a daughter, this prop- erty would be separated from the worship, which would be inadmissible. The daughter could not even fulfil the first duty of an heir, which was to continue the scries of funeral repasts; since she would ofier the sacrifices to the ancestors of her husband. Religion forbade her, therefore, to inherit from her father. Such is the ancient principle; it influenced equally the legislators of the Hindus and those of Greece and Rome. The three peoples had the same laws; not that they had borrowed from each other, but because they had derived their laws from the same belief. " After the death of the father," says the Code of Manu, "let the brothers divide the patrimony among them;" and the legislator adds, that he recommends the brothers to endow their sisters, which proves that the latter have not of themselves any right to the paternal succession. This was the case, too, at Athens. Demosthenes, in his orations, often has occasion to show that daughters cannot inherit. 1 He is himself an example of the application of this rule; for he had a sister, and we 1 Demosthenes, in Bosotum. ISSBUS, X. 4. Lysias, in Man- tith., 10. t'HAP. VII. THE RIGHT OF SUCCESSION. 97 know, from his own writings, that he was the sole heii to the estate; his father had reserved only the seventh part to endow the daughter. As to Rome, the provisions of primitive law which excluded the daughtc'rs from the inheritance are not known to us from any formal and precise text ; but they have left profound traces in the laws of later ages. The Institutes of Justinian still excluded the daughter O from the number of natural heirs, if she was no longer under the power of the father; and she was no longer under the power of the father after she had been mar- ried according to the religious rites. 1 From this it follows that, if the daughter before marriage could share the inheritance with her brother, she had not this right alter marriage had attached her to another religion and another family. And, if this was still the case in the time of Justinian, we may suppose that in primitive law, this principle was applied in all its rigor, and that the daughter not yet married, but who would one day marry, had no right to inherit the estate. The Institutes also mention the old principle, then obsolete, but not forgotten, which prescribed that an inheritance always descended to the males. 2 It was clearly as a vestige of this old rule, that, according to the civil law, a woman could never be constituted an heiress. The farther we ascend from the Institutes of Justinian towards earlier times, the nearer we approach the rule that woman could not inherit. In Cicero's time, if a lather left a son and a daughter, he could will to his daughter only one third of his fortune ; if there was only a daughter, she could still have but half. We must also note that, to enable this daughter to 1 Institutes, II. 9. 2. 2 Ibid., III. 1, 15; III. 2, 3. 7 98 THE FAMILY. BOOK 11. receive a third or half of this patrimony, it was necessary that the father should make a will in her favor ; the daughter had nothing of full right. 1 Finally, a century and a half before Cicero, Cato, wishing to revive an- cient manners, proposed and carried the Voconian law, which forbade, 1. Making a woman an heiress, even if she was an only child, married or unmarried. 2. The willing to a woman of more than a fourth part of the patrimony. 2 The Voconian law merely renewed laws of an earlier date; for we cannot suppose it would have been accepted by the contemporaries of the Scipios if it had not been supported upon old principles which they still respected. It re-established what time had changed. Let us add that it contained nothing regard- ing heirship, ab intestat, probably because on this point the old law was still in force, and there was nothing to repair on the subject. At Rome, as in Greece, the primitive law excluded the daughter from the heritage ; and this was only a natural and inevitable consequence of the principles which religion had established. It is true men soon found out a way of reconciling the religious prescription which forbade the daughter to inherit with the natural sentiment which would have her enjoy the fortune of her father. The law decided that the daughter should marry the heir. Athenian legislation carried this principle to its ulti- mate consequences. If the deceased left a son and a daughter, the son alone inherited and endowed his sister; if they were not both children of the same mother, he had his choice to marry her or to endow 1 Cicero, D Rep., III. 7. 8 Cicero, in Verr., I. 42. Livy, XLI. 4. St. Augustine, City of God, III. 21. CHAP. VII. T.JE RIGHT OF SUCCESSION. 99 her. 1 If the deceased left only a daughter, his nearest of kind was his heir; but this relative, who was of course also a near relative of the daughter, was required, nevertheless, to marry her. More than this, if this daughter was already married, she was required to abandon her husband in order to marry her father's heir. The heir himself might be already married ; in this case, he obtained a divorce, in order to marry his relative. 2 We see here how completely ancient law- ignored nature to conform to religion. O O The necessity of satisfying the requirements of re- ligion, combined with the desire of saving the interests of an only daughter, gave rise to another subterfuge. On this point Hindu law and Athenian law corre- spond marvellously. We read in the Laws of Manu, "He who has no male child may require his daughter to give him a son, who shall become his, and who may perform the funeral ceremonies in his honor." In this case the father was required to admonish the husband to whom he gave his daughter, by pronouncing this formula: "I give you this daughter, adorned with jew- els, who has no brother; the sou born of her shall be my son, and shall celebrate my obsequies." :i The cus- tom was the same at Athens; the father could continue 1 Demosthenes, in Eulitl., 21. Plutarch, Themist., 32. Isseus, X. 4. Corn. Ncpos, Cimon. It must be noted that the law did nut permit marrying a uterine brother, or an emancipated brother; it could be only .1 brother by the father's side, because the latter alone could inherit of the father. 2 Isaeus, III. G4; X. 5. Demosthenes, I'M Eubul., 41. The only daughter was called inix/.i/jo?, wrongly translated heiress ; it signifies the daughter who goes with the inheritance. In fact,, the daughter was never an heiress. 3 Laws of Manu, IX. 127, ICG. Vasishta, XVII. 1G. 100 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. his descent through his daughter, by giving her a hus- band on this special condition. The son \vho was born of such a union was reputed the son of the wife's father; followed his worship; assisted at his religious ceremonies; and, lajer, guarded his tomb. 1 In Hindu law this child inherited from his grandfather, as if he had been his son ; it was exactly the same at Athens. When the falher had married his daughter in the manner we have described, his heir was neither his daughter nor his son-in-law ; it was the daughter's son? As soon as the latter had attained his ma- jority, lie took possession of the patrimony of his mater- nal grandfather, though his father and mother were still living. 3 This singular tolerance of religion and law confirms the rule which we have already pointed out. The daughter was not qualified to inherit; but, by a very natural softening of the rigor of this principle, the only daughter was considered as an intermediary by whom the family might be continued. She did not inherit; but the worship and the inheritance were transmitted through her. 3. Of the Collateral Succession. A man died without children ; to know who the heir of his estate was, we have only to learn who was qual- ified to continue his worship. Now, the domestic religion was transmitted by blood from male to male. The descent in the male line alone 1 ISSGUS, VII. * He was not called the grandson ; they gave him tnc par- ticular name of OuyarpuJouj. 1 I--EGUS, VIII. 31; X. 12. Demosthenes, in Steph., II. 20. CHAP. VII. THE EIGHT OF SUCCESSION. 101 establisned oetween two men the religious relation which permitted one to continue the worship of the other. What is called relationship, as we have seen above, was nothing more than the expression of this relation. One was a relative because he had the same worship, the same original sacred fire, the same ances- tors. But one was not a relative because he had the same mother; religion did not admit of kinship through women. The children of two sisters, or of a sister and a brother, had no bond of kinship between them, and belonged neither to the same domestic religion nor to the same family. These principles regulated the order of succession. If a man, having lost his son and his daughter, left only grandchildren after him, his son's sou inherited, but not his daughter's son. In default of descendants, he had as an heir his brother, not his sister, the son of his brother, not the son of his sister. In default of brothers and nephews, it was necessary to go up in the series of ascendants of the deceased, always in the male line, until a branch of the family was found that was de- tached through a male ; then to re-descend in this branch from male to male, until a living man wa. 211. 2 Aristotle, Polit., II. 9 ; II. 3. 3 Jlntnpiia, Demosthenes, Pro Phorm.. 34. 4 Demosthenes, in Basot. de nomine. 110 THE FAMILY. BOOK 11. powerful, was corrected by several of their customs. Sometimes the younger son was adopted into a family, and inherited property there ; sometimes he married an only daughter; sometimes, in fine, he received some extinct family's lot of land. When all these resources failed, younger sons were sent out to join a colony. ' As to Rome, we find no law that relates to the right of primogeniture; but we are not to conclude from this that the right was unknown in ancient Italy. It might have disappeared, and even its traces have been effaced. What leads us to believe that before the ages known to us it was in force is, that the existence of the Roman and Sabine gens cannot be explained without it. How could a family reach the number of several thousand free persons, like the Claudian family, or several hundred combatants, all patricians, like the Fabian family, if the right of primogeniture had not maintained its unity during a long series of generations, and had not increased its numbers from age to age by preventing its dismemberment ? This ancient right of primogeniture is proved by its consequences, and, so to speak, by its works. 1 1 The old Latin language, moreover, has preserved a vestige which, feehle as it is, deserves to be pointed out. A lot of land, the domain of a family, was called sors ; sors patrimoniurn sig- nijicat, says Festus. The word consories was applied then to those who had among them only a single lot of land, and lived on the same domain. Now, the old language designated by this word brothers, and even those quite distantly related. This bears witness to a time when the patrimony and the family were indivisible. (Festus, v. Sors. Cicero, in Vcrrem, II. 323. Livy, XLI. 27, Velleius, I. 10. Lucretius, III. 772; VI. 1280). CTIAr. VIII. AUTHORITY IN THE FAMILY. Ill CHAPTER VIII. Authority in the Family. 1. The Principle and Nature of the Paternal Power among the Ancients. THE family did not receive its laws from the city. If the city had established private law, that law would probably have been different from what \ve have seen. It would have established the right of property and the right of succession on different principles; for it was not for the interest of the city that land should be in- alienable and the patrimony indivisible. The law that permitted a father to sell or even to kill his son a law that we find both in Greece and in Rome was not established by a city. The city would rather have said to the father, "Your wife's and your son's life does not belong to you any more than their liberty does. I will protect them, even against you ; you are not the one to judge them, or to kill them, if they have committed a crime; I will be their judge." If the city did not speak thus, it is evident that it could not. Private law existed before the city. When the city began to write its laws, it found this law already established, living, rooted in the customs, strong by universal ob- servance. The city accepted it, because it could not do otherwise, and dared not modify it, except by degrees. Ancient law was not the work of a legislator; it was, on the contrary, imposed upon the legislator. It had its birth in the family. It sprang up spontaneously from the ancient principles which gave it root. It flowed from the religious belief which was universally 112 TUB FAMILY. . BOOK 11. admitted in tlio primitive age of these peoples, which exercised its empire over their intelligence and their wills. A family was composed of a father, a mother, chil- dren, and slaves. This group, small as it was, required discipline. To whom, then, belonged the chief author- ity '? To the father? No. There is in every house something that is above the father himself. It is the domestic religion ; it is that god whom the Greeks called the hearth-master, tana dia7ion'a ) whom the Romans called Lar familiaris. This divinity of the interior, or, what amounts to the same thing, the belief that is in the human soul, is the least doubtful author- ity. This is what fixed rank in the family. The father ranks first in presence of the sacred fire. He lights it, and supports it; he is its priest. In all religious acts his functions are the highest ; he slays the victim, his mouth pronounces the formula of prayer which is to draw upon him and his the protection of the gods. The family and the worship are perpetuated through him; he represents, himself alone, the whole series of ancestors, and from him are to proceed the entire series of descendants. Upon him rests the do- mestic worship ; he can almost say, like the Hindu, "I am the god." When death shall come, he will be a divine being whom his descendants will invoke. This religion did not place woman in so high a rank. The wife takes part in the religious acts, indeed, but she is not the mistress of the hearth. She does not. derive her religion from her birth. She was initiated into it at her marriage. She has learned from her husband the prayer that she pronounces. She does not represent the ancestors, since she is not descended from them. She herself will not become an ancestor; CHAP. illl. AUTHORITY IN THE FAMILY. 113 placed in the tomb, she will not receive a special wor- ship. In death, as in life, she counts only as a part of her husband. Greek la\v, Roman law, and Hindu law, all derived from this old religion, agree in considering the wife as always a minor. She could never have a hearth of her own; she was never the chief of a worship. At Rome she received the title of mater familias / but she lost this if her husband died. 1 Never having a sacred fire which belonged to her, she had nothing of what gave authority in the house. She never commanded ; she was never even free, or mistress of herself. She was always near the hearth of another, repeating the prayer of another; for all the acts of religious life she needed a, superior, and for all the acts of civil life a guardian. The Laws of Menu say, "Woman, during her in- fancy, depends upon her father ; during her youth, upon her husband ; when her husband is dead, upon her sons ; if she has no son, on the nearest relative of her hus- band ; for a woman ought never to govern herself according to her own will." 2 The Greek laws and those of Rome are to the same effect. As a girl, she is under her fathei - 's control ; if her father dies, she is governed by her brothers ; married, she is under the guardianship of her husband ; if the husband dies, she does not return to her own family, for she has re- nounced that forever by the sacred marriage ; 3 the widow remains subject to the guardianship of her hus- band's agnates that is to say, of her own sons, if she 1 Festus. v. Mater families. 3 Laws ofManu, V. 147, 148 3 She returned only in case of divorce. Demosthenes, t'n Hubulid., 41. 8 114 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. has any, or, in default of sons, of the nearest kin- dred. 1 So complete is her husband's authority over her, that lie can, upon his death, designate a guardian for her, and even choose her a second husband. 8 To indicate the power of the husband over the wife, the Romans had a, very ancient expression, which their jurisconsults have preserved ; it is the word manus. It is not easy to discover the primitive sense of this word. The commentators make it the expression of material force, as if the wife was placed under the brutal hand of the husband. It is quite probable that this is wrong. The power of the husband over the wife results in no wise from his superior strength. It came, like all private law, from the religious belief that placed man above woman. What proves this is, that a woman who had not been married according to the sacred rites, and who, consequently, had not been as- sociated in the worship, was not subject to the maritaJ power. 3 It was marriage which created this subordi- nation, and at the same time the dignity of the wife. So true is it that the right of the strongest did not constitute the family. Let us pass to the infant. Here nature speaks for itself, loud enough. It demands that the infant shall have a protector, a guide, a master. This religion is in accord with nature; it says that the father shall be the 1 Demosthenes, in Steph., II. ; in Aphob. Plutarch, Themist., 32. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 25. Gaius, I. 149, 155. Aulus Gellius., III. 2. Macrobius, I. 3. 2 Demosthenes, in Aphobum ; pro Phormione. 3 Cicero, Topic., 14. Tacitus, Ann., IV. 1C. Aulus Gellius. XVIII. G. It will be seen farther on, that, at a certain epoch, new modes of marriage were instituted, and that they had the eame legal effects as the sacred marriage. CHAP. VIII. AUTHORITY IN THE FAMILY. 115 chief of the worship, and that the son shall merely aid him in his sacred functions. But nature requires this subordination only during a certain number of years ; religion requires more. Nature brings the son to his majority; religion does not grant it to him, according to ancient principles; the sacred fire is indivisible, and the same is true of property. The brothers do not separate at the death of their father ; for a still stronger reason they could not separate from him during his life. In the rigor of primitive law, the sons remained attached to the father's hearth, and, consequently, subject to his authority; while he lived they were minors. We may suppose that this rule lasted only so long as the old domestic religion remained in full vigor. This unlimited subjection of the son to the father disap- peared at an early day at Athens. It subsisted longer at Sparta, where a patrimony was always indivisible. At Rome the old rule was scrupulously observed ; a son could never establish a separate hearth during his father's life; married even, and the father of children, he was still under parental authority. 1 Besides, it was the same with the paternal as with the marital authority; its principle and condition were the domestic worship. A son born of concubinage was not placed under the authority of the father. Between his father and himself there existed no community of religion ; there was nothing, therefore, that conferred 1 When Gaius said of the paternal power, Jus proprium est dvium Bomanorum, we must understand that in his time tlie Roman law recognized this power only in the Roman citizen : this does not mean that the power had not existed hefore in other places, or that it had not been recognized by the law of other, cities. 116 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. authority upon the one and commanded obedience of the other. Paternity, of itself, gave the father no rights. Tbanlcs to the domestic religion, the family was a small organized body; a little society, which had its chief and its government. Nothing in modern society can give us an idea of this paternal authority. In prim- itive antiquity the father is not alone the strong man, the protector who has power to command obedience ; lie is the priest, he is heir to the hearth, the continuator of the ancestors, the parent stock of the descendants, the depositary of the mysterious rites of the worship, and of the sacred formulas of prayer. The whole religion resides in him. The very name by winch he is called pater con- tains in itself some curious information. The word is the same in Greek, in Latin, and in Sanskrit; from which we may conclude that this word dates from a time when the Hellenes, the Italians, and the Hindus still lived together in Central Asia. What was its signification, and what idea did it then present to the minds of men? We can discover this; for the word has preserved its primary signification in the formulas of religious language and in those of judicial language. When the ancients, invoking Jupiter, called him pater homiimm deorumque, they did not intend to say that Jupiter was the father of gods and men, for they never considered him as such ; they believed, on the contrary, that the human race existed before him. The same title of pater was given to Neptune, to Apollo, to Bac- chus, to Vulcan, and to Pluto. These, assuredly, men never considered as their fathers ; so, too, the title of mater was applied to Minerva, Diana, and Vesta, who were reputed three virgin goddesses. In judicial Ian- CHAP. VIII. AUTHORITY IX THE FAMILY. 117 guage, moreover, the title of pater, or pater familias, might be given to a man who had no children, who was not married, and who was not even of age to contract marriage. The idea of paternity, therefore, was not attached to this word. The old language had another word which properly designated the father, and which, as ancient as pater, is likewise found in the language of the Greeks, of the Romans, and of the Hindus (ffdnitar, l irn l T l ' l <>, genitor). The word pater had an- other sense. In religious language they applied it to the gods; in legal language to every man who had a Avorship and a domain. The poets show us that they applied it to every one whom they wished to honor. The slave and the client applied it to their master. It was synonymous with the words rex, a*'u$, tiuuileig. It contained in itself not the idea of paternity, hut that of power, authority, majestic dignity. That such a word should have been applied to the father of a family until it became his most common appellation, is assuredly a very significant fact, and one whose importance will appear to all who wish to under- stand ancient institutions. The history of this word suffices to give us an idea of the power which the father exercised for a long time in the family, and of the senti- ment of veneration which was due him as a pontiff and a sovereign. 2. Enumeration of the Rights that composed Pater- nal Power. Greek and Roman laws recognized in the father this unlimited power with which religion had at first clothed him. The numerous and diverse rights "which these laws conferred upon him may be divided into three 118 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. classes, according as we consider the father of a family as a religious chief, as the master of the property, or as a judge. I. The father is the supreme chief of the domestic religion : he regulates all the ceremonies of the wor- O ' O ship, as he understands them, or, rather, as he has seen his father perform them. No one contests Ins sacer- dotal supremacy. The city itself and its pontiffs can change nothing in his worship. As priest of the hearth he recognizes no superior. As religious chief, he is responsible for the perpetuity of the worship, and, consequently, for that of the fam- ily. Whatever affects this perpetuity, which is his first care and his first duty, depends upon him alone. From this flows a whole series of rights : The right to recognize the child at its birth, or to reject it. This right is attributed to the father by the Greek laws, 1 as well as by those of Rome. Barbarous as this is, it is not contrary to the principles on which the family is founded. Even uncontested filiation is not sufficient to admit one into the sacred circle of the family; the consent of its chief, and an initiation into its worship, are necessary. So long as the child is not associated in the domestic religion, he is nothing to the father. The right to repudiate the wife, either in case of sterility, because the family must not become extinct, or in case of adultery, because the family and the de- scendants ought to be free from all debasement. The right to give Ins daughter in marriage that is to say, to cede to another the power which he has over her. The right of marrying his son; the marriage of the son concerns the perpetuity of the family. 1 Herodotus, I. P9. Plutarch, Alcib.. 23 ; Agcsilaus, 3. CHAP. VIII. AUTHORITY IK THE FAMILY. 119 The right to emancipate that is to say, to exclude a son from the family and the worship. The right to adopt that is to say, to introduce a stranger to the domestic hearth. The right, at his death, of naming a guardian for his wife and children. It is necessary to remark that all these rights be. longed to the father alone, to the exclusion of all the other members of the family. The wife had not the right of divorce, at least in primitive times. Even when a widow, she could neither emancipate nor adopt. She was never the guardian even of her own children. In case of divorce, the children remained with the father, even the daughters. Her children were never in her o power. Her consent was not asked for the marriage of her own daughter. 1 II. We have seen above that property was not understood, originally, as an individual right, but as a family right. The fortune, as Plato says, formally, and as all the ancient legislators say, implicitly, belongs to the ancestors and the descendants. This property, by its very nature, could not be divided. There could be in each family but one proprietor, which was the family itself, and only one to enjoy the use of property the father. This principle explains several peculiarities of ancient law. The property not being capable of division, and rest- ing entirely on the head of the father, neither wife nor children had the least part in it. The dotal system, and even the community of goods, were then unknown. The dowry of the wife belonged, without reserve, to the husband, who exercised over her dowry uot only 1 Demosthenes, in Eubul., 40 and 43. Gains, I. 155. Ulpian, VIII. 8. Institutes, I. 9. Digest, I. tit. 1, 11. 120 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. the rights of an administrator, but of an owner. What- ever the wife might have acquired during her marriage fell into the hands of her husband. She did not even recover her dower on becoming a widow. 1 The son was in the same condition as the wife; he owned nothing. No donation made by him was valid, since he had nothing of his own. He could acquire nothing; the fruits of his labor, the profits of his trade, were his father's. If a will was made in his favor by a stranger, his father, not himself, received the legacy. This explains the provision of the Roman law which forbade all contracts of sale between father and son. If the father sold to the son, he sold to himself, as the son acquired only for the father. 2 We see in the Roman laws, and we find also in the laws of Athens, that a father could sell his son. 3 This was because the father might dispose of all the prop- erty of the family, and the son might be looked upon as property, since his labor was a source of income. The father might, therefore, according to choice, keep this instrument of labor, or resign it to another. To resign it was called selling the son. The texts of the Roman law that we have do not inform us clearly as to the nature of this contract of sale, nor on the reservations that might have been contained in it. It appears cer- tain that the son thus sold did not become the slave of the purchaser. His liberty was not sold ; only his labor. 1 Gaius, II. 98. All these rules of primitive law were modi- fied by the pretorian law. 2 Cicero, De Legib., II. 20. Gaius, II. 87. Digest, XVIII. tit. 1, 2. 3 Plutarch, Solon, 13. Dionys. of Ilalic., II. 2G. Gaius, I. 117; I. 132; IV. 79. Ulpian, X. 1. Livy, XLI. 8. Festus, v. Deminutus. C&A.P. VIII. AUTHORITY IN THE FAMILY. 121 Even in this state the son remained subject to the paternal authority, which proves that he was not con- sidered to have left the family. We may suppose that this sale had no other effect than to cede the possession of the son for a time by a sort of contract to hire. Later it was employed only as an indirect means of emancipating the son. III. Plutarch informs us that at Rome women could not appear in court even as witnesses. 1 We read in the jurisconsult Gains, " It should be known that noth- ing can be granted in the way of justice to persons under power that is to say, to wives, sons, and slaves. For it is reasonably concluded that, since these persons can own no property, neither can they reclaim anything in point of justice. If a son, sub- ject to his father's will, has committed a crime, the action lies against the father; nor has the father him- self any action against his son." 2 From all this it is clear that the wife and the son could not be plaintiffs or defendants, or accusers, or accused, or witnesses. Of all the family the father alone could appear before the tribunal of the city; public justice existed only for him ; and he alone was responsible for the crimes committed by his family. Justice for wife and son was not in the city, because it was in the house. The chief of the family was their judge, placed upon a judgment seat in virtue of his marital and parental authority, in the name of the fam- ily and under the eyes of the domestic divinities. 3 1 Plutarch, Publicola, 8. 2 Gaius, II. 96; IV. 77, 78. 3 There came a time when this jurisdiction was modified; the father consulted the whole family, and formed it into a tribunal, over which he presided. Tacit., XIII. 32. Digest, XXIII. tit. 4, 6. Plato, Laws, IX. 122 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. Livy relates that the senate, wishing to extirpate the worship of Bacchus from Rome, decreed the pun- ishment of death against all who had taken part in it. The decree was easily executed upon the citizens, but when it came to the women, who were not the least guilty, a grave difficulty presented itself; the women were not answerable to the state; the family alone had the right to judge them. The senate respected this old principle, and left to the fathers and husbands the duty of pronouncing the sentence of death against the women. This judicial authority, which the chief of the family exercised in his house, was complete and without appeal. He could condemn to death like the magistrate in the city, and no authority could modify his sentence. " The husband," says Cato the Elder, "is the judge of his wife; his power has no limit; he can do what he Avishes. If she has committed a fault, he punishes her; if she has drank wine, he condemns her; if she has been guilty of adultery, he kills her." The right was the same in regard to children. Valerius Maximus cites a certain Atilius who killed his daughter as guilty of unchastity, and everybody will recall the father who put his son, an accomplice of Catiline, to death. Facts of this nature are numerous in Roman history. It would be a false idea to suppose that the father had an absolute right to kill his wife and children. He was their judge. If he put them to death, it was only by virtue of his right as judge. As the father of the family was alone subject to the judgment of the city, the wife and the son could have no other judge than him. Within his family he was the only magistrate. We must also remark that the paternal authority was not an arbitrary power, like that which would be CHAP. IX. MORALS OF THE ANCIENT FAMILY. 123 derived from the right of the strongest. It had its foundation in a belief which all shared alike, and it found its limits in this same belief. For example : the father had the right to exclude his son from the fam- ily ; but he well knew that if he did this the family ran a risk of becoming extinct, and the manes of his ances- tors of falling into eternal oblivion. He had the right to adopt a stranger ; but religion forbade him to do this if he had a son. He was sole proprietor of the goods; but he had not, at least originally, aright to alienate them. He could repudiate his wife ; but to do this he had to break the religious bond which mar- riage had established. Thus religion imposed upon the father as many obligations as it conferred rights. Such for a long time was the ancient family. The spiritual belief was sufficient without the need of the law of force, or of the authority of a social power to constitute it regularly, to give it a discipline, a govern- ment and justice, and to establish private law in all its details. CHAPTER IX. Morals of the Ancient Family. HISTORY does not study material facts and institu- tions alone ; its true object of study is the human mind : it should aspire to know what this mind has believed, thought, and felt in the different ages of the life of the human race. We described, at the opening of this book, the an- cient opinion which men held concerning their destiny after death. We have shown how this creed produced 124 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. domestic institutions and private la\v. It remains to discover what its action was upon morals in primitive societies. Without pretending that this old religion created moral sentiments in the heart of man, we may at least believe that it was associated with them to fortify them, to give them greater authority, to assure their supremacy and their right of direction over the conduct of men, sometimes also to give them a false bias. The religion of these primitive ages was exclusively domestic; so also were morals. Religion did not say to a man, showing him another man, That is thy brother. It said to him, That is a stranger ; he can- not participate in the religious acts of thy hearth ; he cannot approach the tomb of thy family ; lie has other gods than thine, and cannot unite with thee in a com- mon prayer ; thy gods reject his adoration, and regard him as their enemy ; he is thy foe also. In this religion of the hearth man never supplicates the divinity in favor of other men ; he invokes him only for himself and his. A Greek proverb has re- mained as a souvenir and a vestige of this ancient isola- tion of man in prayer. In Plutarch's time they still said to the egotist, You sacrifice to the hearth. 1 This signified, You separate yourself from other citizens; you have no friends ; your fellow-men are nothing to you; you live solely for yourself and yours. This proverb pointed to a time when, all religion being around the hearth, the horizon of morals and of affec- tion had not yet passed beyond the narrow circle of the family. It is natural that moral ideas, like religious ideas, 1 'Earia 6i'ng. Pseudo-Plutarch, ed. Dubner, V. 1G7. -CHAP. IX. MORALS OF THE ANCIENT FAMILY. 125 should have their commencement and progress, and the god of the primitive generations in this race was very small ; by degrees men made him larger ; so morals, very narrow and incomplete at first, became insensibly enlarged, until, from stage to stage, they readied the point of proclaiming the duty of love to- wards all mankind. The point of departure was the family, and it was under the influence of the domestic religion that duties first appeared to the eyes of man. Let us picture to ourselves this religion of the fire and of the tomb in its flourishing period. Man sees a divinity near him. It is present, like conscience it- self, to his minutest actions. This fragile being finds himself under the eye of a witness who never leaves him. He never feels himself alone. At his side in the house, in the field, he has protectors to sustain him in the toils of life, and judges to punish his guilty ac- tions. " The Lares," said the Romans, " are formida- ble divinities, whose duty it is to punish mankind, and to watch over all that passes in the interior of the house." The Penates they also describe as "gods who enable us to live ; they nourish our bodies and regulate our minds." ' Men loved to apply to the holy fire the epithet of chaste, and they believed that it enjoined chastity upon mortals. No act materially or morally impure could be committed in its presence. The first ideas of wrong, of chastisement, of expia- tion, seem to have come fom this. The man who felt guilty no longer dared to approach his own hearth ; his god repelled him. lie who had shed blood was JIG longer allowed to sacrifice, or to offer libations, or 1 Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 51. Macrobius, Sat., III. 4. 126 THE FAMILY. BOOK II- prayer, or to offer the sacred repast. The god was so severe that he admitted no excuse ; he did not dis- tinguish between an involuntary murder and a pre- meditated crime. The hand stained with blood could no longer touch sacred objects. 1 To enable a man to renew his worship, and to regain possession of his god, he was required at least to purify himself by an expiatory ceremony. 2 This religion knew pity, and had rites to efface the stains of the soul. Narrow and material as it was, it still knew how to console man for his errors. If it absolutely ignored the duties of charity, at any rate it traced for man with admirable precision his family duties. It rendered marriage obligatory ; celi- bacy was a crime in the eyes of a religion that made the perpetuity of the family the first and most holy of duties. But the union which it prescribed could be accomplished only in the presence of the domestic divinities; it is the religious, sacred, indisso- luble union of the husband and wife. No man could omit the rites, and make of marriage a simple contract by consent, as it became in the latest period of Greek and Roman society. This ancient religion forbade it, and if one dared to offend in this particular, it pun- ished him for it. For the son sprung from such a union was considered a bastard, that is to say, a being who had neither place nor sacred fire ; he had no right t } perform any sacred act ; he could not pray. 3 This same religion watched with care over the purity of the family. In its eyes the greatest of crimes was adultery. For the first rule of the worship wag 1 Hdts., I. 35. Virgil, JEn., II. 710. Plutarch, Tliescus, 12. 8 Apollonius of Rhodes, IV. 704-707. ^Esch., Choeph,, 9G. 3 ISSBUS, VII. Demosthenes, in Mvcart. CHAP. IX. MORALS OF THE ANCIENT FAMILY. 127 that the sacred fire should be transmitted from father to son, and adultery disturbed the order of birth. An- other rule was, that the tomb should contain only mem- bers of the family ; but the son born of adultery was a stranger. If he was buried in the tomb, all the princi- ples of the religion were violated, the worship defiled, the sacred fire became impure; every offering at the tomb became an act of impiety. Worse still, by adultery the series of descendants was broken ; the family, even though living men knew it not, became extinct, and there was no more divine happiness for the ancestors. The Hindu also says, "The son born of adultery annihilates in this world and in the next the offerings made to the manes. 1 Here is the reason that the laws of Greece and Rome give the father the right to reject the child just born. Here, too, is the reason that they are so rigor- ous, so inexorable, against adultery. At Athens the husband is allowed to kill the guilty one. At Rome the husband, as the wife's judge, condemns her to death. This religion was so severe that a man had not even the right to pardon completely, and that he was forced at least to repudiate his wife. 8 These, then, are the first moral and domestic laws discovered and sanctioned. Here is, besides the nat- ural sentiment an imperious religion, which tells the husband and wife that they are united forever, and 1 Laws of Mann, III. 175. * Demosthenes, in Xecer., 89. Though this primitive moral- ity condemned adultery, it did not reprove incest; religion authorized it. The prohibitions relative to marriage were the reverse of ours. One might marry his sister (Demosthenes, in Near., 22 ; Corn. Xepos., proaemium ; id., Life of Cimon ; Minu- cius Felix, in Octavio}, but it was forbidden, as a principle, to marry a woman of another city. 128 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. that from this union flow rigorous duties, the neglect O ' O of which brings with it the gravest consequences in this life and in the next. Hence came the serious and sacred character of the conjugal union among the an- cients, and the purity which the family long preserved. This domestic morality prescribed still other duties. It taught the wife that she ought to obey; the hus- band, that he ought to command. It instructed both to respect each other. The wife had rights, for she had her place at the sacred fire; it was her duty to see that it did not die out. 1 She too, then, has her priest- hood. Where she is not found, the domestic worship is incomplete and insufficient. It was a great misfor- tune to a Greek to have a " hearth deprived of a wife." * Among the Romans the presence of the wife was so necessary in the sacrifices that the priest lost his office on becoming a widower. 3 It was, doubtless, to this division of the domestic priesthood that the mother of the family owed the veneration with which they never ceased to surround her in Greek and Roman society; hence it came that the wife had the same title in the family as the hus- band. The Romans said pater familias and mater familias ; the Greeks, olode(rn6iijs and olxdinnotru the Hindus, grihapati and yreliapatni. Hence also came tin's formula, which the wife pronounced in the Roman marriage: ubi tu Cains, eyo Caia a formula which tells us that, if in the house there was not equal authority, there was equal dignity. As to the son, we have seen him subject to the 1 Cato, 143. Dionys. of Halic., II. 22. Laws of Manu, III. C2; V. 151. * Xenophon, Govt. of the Lacedemonians \ 3 Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 50. CHAP. IX. MORALS OF THE AXC1EXT FAMILY. 1'2 ( J authority of a father, who could sell him or condemn him to death. But this son had also his part in the worship ; he filled a place in the religious ceremonies ; his presence on certain days was so necessary that the Roman who had no son was forced to adopt a fictitious one for those days, in order that the rites might be per- formed. 1 And here religion established a very power- ful bond between father and son. They believed in a second life in the tomb a life happy and calm if the funeral repasts were regularly offered. Thus the father is convinced that his destiny after this life will depend upon the care that his son will take of his tomb, and the son, on his part, is convinced that his father will be- come a god after death, whom he will have to invoke. We can imagine how much respect and reciprocal affection this belief would establish in the family. The ancients gave to the domestic virtues the name of piety the obedience of the son to his father, the love which he bore to his mother. This was piety pietas erga parentes. The attachment of the father for the child, the tenderness of the mother, these, too, were piety pietas erya liberos. Everything in the family was divine. The sense of duty, natural affection, the religious idea, all these were confounded, were con- sidered as one, and wnre expressed by the same word. It will, perhaps, appear strange to find love of home counted among the virtues; but it was so counted among the ancients. This sentiment had a deep and powerful hold upon their minds. Anchises, when he sees Troy in flames, is still unwilling to leave his old home. Ulysses, when countless treasures, and immor- tality itself, are offered him, wishes only again to see the flame of his own hearth-fire. Let us come down to 1 Dionys. of Halic., II. 20, 22. 9 180 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. Cicero's time ; it is no longer a poet, but a statesman, who speaks : " Here is my religion, here is my race, here are the traces of my forefathers. I cannot express the charm which I find here, and which penetrates my heart and my senses." ' AVe must place ourselves, in thought, in the midst of those primitive generations to understand how lively and powerful were these senti- ments, which were already enfeebled in Cicero's day. For us the house is merely a domicile a shelter; we leave it, and forget it with little trouble ; or, if we are attached to it, this is merely by the force of habit and of recollections; because, for us, religion is not there; our God is the God of the universe, and we find him everywhere. It was entirely different among the an- cients ; they found their principal divinity within the house : this was their providence, which protected them individually, which heard their prayers, and granted their wishes. Out of the house, man no longer felt the presence of a god ; the god of his neighbor was a hostile god. Then a man loved his house as he now loves his church. 2 Thus the religion of the primitive ages was not foreign to the moral development of this part of hu- manity. Their gods enjoined purity, and forbade the shedding of blood; the notion of justice, if it was not born of this belief, must at least have been fortified by it. These gods belonged in common to all the mem- bers of the same family ; thus the family was united by a powerful tie, and all its members learned to love and respect each other. These gods lived in the in- 1 Cicero, De Legib., IT. 1. Pro Domo, 41. * Of the sanctity of the domicile, which the ancients always spoke of as inviolable, Demosthenes, in Androt., 52; in Ever' gum, GO. Digest, de in jus voc., II. 4. CHAP. X. TRE GENS AT ROME AXD IX GREECE. 131 terior of each house; a man loved his house, his home, fixed and durable, which he had received from his an- cestors, and which he transmitted to his children as a sanctuary. Ancient morality, governed by this belief, knew no charity; but it taught at least the domestic virtues. Among this race the isolation of the family was the commencement of morals. Duties, clear, precise, and imperious, appeared, but they were restricted within a narrow circle. This narrow character of primitive morals we must recollect as we proceed ; for civil so- ciety, founded later on these same principles, put on the same character, and several singular traits of an- cient politics are explained by this fact. 1 CHAPTER X. The Gens at Rome and in Greece. WE find in the writings of Roman jurists nnd in Greek writers the traces of an antique institution which appears to have had its flourishing period in the first ages of Greek and Italian societies, but which, be- coming enfeebled by degrees, left vestiges that were hardly perceptible in the later portion of their history. We speak of what the Romans called gens, and the Greeks yiro;. ' What is said of ancient morals in this chapter is intended to apply to those peoples that afterwards became Greeks and Ro- mans. Tins morality was modified with time, especially among the Greeks. Already in the Odyssey we find new sentiments and other manners. 132 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. As the nature and constitution of the gens have been much discussed, it may not be amiss here to point out what lias constituted the difficulty of the problem. The gens, as we shall see presently, formed a body whose constitution was radically aristocratic. It was through their internal organization that the patricians of Rome and the Eupatrids of Athens were able to perpetuate their privileges for so long a time. No sooner had the popular party gained the upper hand, than they attacked this old institution with all their power. If they had been able completely to destroy it, they would probably not have left us the slightest memorial of it. But it was singularly endowed with vitality, and deeply rooted in their manners, and they could not entirely blot it out. They therefore contented themselves with modifying it. They took away its essen- tial character, and left only its external features, which were not in the way of the new regime. Thus, at Rome, the plebeians undertook to form gentes, in imitation of the patricians ; at Athens they attempted to overthrow the gentes,to blend them together, and to replace them by the demes, which were established in imitation of them. We shall have to return to the subject when we speak of the revolutions. Let it suffice here for us to remark, that this profound alteration which the democracy introduced into the regime of the gens is of a nature to mislead those who undertake to learn its primitive constitution. Indeed, almost all the in- formation concerning it that has come down to us dates from the epoch when it had been thus transformed, and shows us only that part which the revolutions had allowed to subsist. Let us suppose that, twenty centuries hence, all knowledge of the middle ages has perished; that there CHAP. X. THE GENS AT EOME AND IN GPSSJE. 1^3 remain no documents relating to what passed before the revolution of 1789; and that, notwithstanding this, an historian of that time wishes to form an idea of insti- tutions of an earlier date. The only documents that he would have at hand would show him the nobility of the nineteenth century that is to say, something very different from that of feudalism; but he would suspect that a great revolution had taken place, and he would rightly conclude that this institution, like all the others, must have been modified. This nobility, which his au- thorities would describe to him, would no longer be for him anything but the shadow or the enfeebled and altered image of another nobility, incomparably more powerful. Finally, if he examined with attention the slight remains of ancient monuments, a few ex- pressions preserved in the language, a few terms escaped from the law, vague souvenirs or sterile re- grets, he would perhaps be able to conjecture some- thing concerning the feudal system, and would obtain an idea of the institutions of the middle ages that would not be very far from the truth. The difficulty would assuredly be great; nor is it less for him who to-day desires to understand the antique gens; for he has no information regarding it except what dates from a time when it was no longer anything but a shadow of itself. We will commence by analyzing all that the ancient writers tell us of the gens / that is to say, what remained of it at the epoch when it was already greatly changed. Then, by the aid of these remains, we shall attempt to catch a glimpse of the veritable system of the antique gens. 134 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. 1. What Ancient Writers tell us of the Gens. If we open a Roman history at the time of the Punio wars we meet three personages, whose names are Claudius Pulcher, Claudius Nero, and Claudius Centho. All three belong to the same gens the Claudian gens. Demosthenes in one of Ins orations produces seven witnesses, who certify that they belong to the same j^oj, that of the Brytidae. What is remarkable in this example is, that the seven persons cited as mem- bers of the same yivo; are inscribed in six different demes. This shows that the ytVo; did not correspond exactly with the demc, and was not, like it, a simple administrative division. 1 Here is one fact established : there were gentes at Rome and at Athens. We might cite examples rela- tive to many other cities of Greece and Italy, and conclude from them that, in all probability, this in- stitution was universal among these ancient nations. Every gens had a special worship ; in Greece the members of the same gens were recognized " by the fact that they had performed sacrifices in common from a very early period." 2 Plutarch speaks of the place where the LycomedsB sacrificed, and ^Eschines speaks of the altar of the gens of the Butadae. 3 1 Demosthenes, in Neeer., 71. Plutarch, Themist., 1. 2Es- chines, De Falsa Legal., 147. Boeckh, Corp. Insc., 385. Eoss. Demi Attici. 21. The gens among the Greeks is often called naTQa. Pindar, passiui. r Hesychius, ytvi/^Tai. Pollux, III. 52, Ilarpocration, onysoJvs;. 3 Plutarch Themist , I. .Esch., De Falsa Legal.. 147. CHAP. X. THE GENS AT EOME AND IX GREECE. 135 At Rome, too, each gens had religious ceremonies to perform; the day, the place, and the rites were fixed by its particular religion. 1 When the capital is be- sieged by the Gauls, one of the Fabii, clothed in re- ligious robes, and carrying sacred objects in his hands, is seen to go out and cross the enemy's lines; he goes to offer sacrifice on the altar of his gens, which is situ- ated on the Qnirinal. In the second Punic war, another Fabius, whom they called the Shield of Rome, is making head against Hannibal. Certainly it is of the first importance to the republic that he remains with his army ; and yet he leaves it in the hands of the im- prudent Minucius: this is because the anniversary of the sacrifice of his gens has arrived, and he must be at Rome to perform the sacred act. 2 It was a duty to perpetuate this worship from genera- tion to generation, and every man Avas required to leave sons after him to continue it. Claudius, a per- sonal enemy of Cicero, abandoned his gens to enter a plebeian family, and Cicero says to him, " Why do you expose the religion of the Claudian gens to the risk of becoming extinct through your fault ? " The gods of the gens Dii gentiles protected no other gens, and did not desire to be invoked by an- other. No stranger could be admitted to the religious ceremonies. It was believed that if a stranger had a part of the victim, or even if he merely assisted at the sacrifice, the gods of the gens were offended, and all the members were guilty of grave impiety. Just as every gens had its worship and its religious 1 Cicero, De Arusp. Resp., 15. Dion. Halic., XI. 14. Fes- tus, Propudi. 2 Livy, V. 4G ; XXII. 18. Valer. Max., I. 1, 11. Polyjiius, III, 94. Pliny, XXXIV. 13. Macrobius, III. 5. 106 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. festivals, so also It had its common tornb. "We read in an oration of Demosthenes, "This man, having lost his children, buried them in the tomb of his fathers, in that tomb that is common to all those of his gens." The rest of the oration shows that no stranger could be buried in this tomb. In anolher discourse, the same orator speaks of the tomb where the gens of the Busel- idae buried its members, and where every year it per- formed its funeral sacrifices: "this burial-place is a large field, surrounded with an enclosure, according to the ancient custom." l The same was the case among the Romans. V r el- leius Paterculus speaks of the tomb of the Quintilian gens, and Suetonius informs us that the Claudian gens had one on the slope of the Capitoline Hill. The ancient law of Rome permits the members of a gens to inherit from each other. The Twelve Tables declare that, in default of sons and of agnates, the gentilis is the natural heir. According to this code, therefore, the gentiles are nearer akin than the cog- nates; that is to say, nearer than those related through females. Nothing is more closely united than the members of a gens. United in the celebration of the same sa- cred ceremonies, they mutually aid each other in all the needs of life. The entire gens is responsible for the debt of one of its members ; it redeems the prison- er and pays the fine of one condemned. If one of its members becomes a magistrate, it unites to pay the expenses incident to the magistracy. 8 The accused was accompanied to the tribunal by all 1 Demosthenes, in Macart., 79; in Eubul., 28. * Livy, V. 32. Dion. Ilalic., XIII. 5. Appian, Annib., 28. CHAP. X. THE GENS AT ROME AND IN GREECE. 13? the members of his gens; this marks the close relation which the law established between a man and the body of which he formed a part. For a man to plead or bear witness against one of his own gens was an act contrary to religion. A certain Claudius, a man of some rank, was a personal enemy of Appius Claudius the Decemvir; yet when the latter was placed on trial, and was menaced with death, this Claudius appeared in his defence, and implored the people in his favor, but not without giving them notice that he took this step " not on account of any affection which he bore the accused, but as a duty." If a member of a gens could not accuse another member before a tribunal of the city, this was because there was a tribunal in the gens itself. Each gens had its chief, who was at the same time its judge, its priest, and its military commander. 1 Every one knows that when the Sabine family of the Claudii established itself at Rome, the three thousand persons who composed it obeyed a single chief. Later, when the Fabii took upon themselves the whole war against the Veientes, we see that this gens had its chief, who spoke in ita name before the senate, and who led it against the enemy. 2 In Greece, too, each gens had its chief; the inscrip- tions confirm this, and they show us that this chief generally bore the title of archon. 3 Finally, in Rome,, as in Greece, the gens had its assemblies; it passed laws which its members were bound to obey, and which the city itself respected. 4 1 Dion. Halic., II. 7. 2 Ibid., IX. 5. 3 Boeckh, Corp. Inscrip., 897, 399. Ross, Demi Attici, 2i. 4 Livy, VI. 20. Suetonius, Tiber., 1. Ross, Demi Attici.. 24. 138 THE FAMILY. BOOK n. Such are the usages and laws which we find still in force at an epoch when the gens was already enfeebled and almost destroyed. Such are the remains of this ancient institution. 2. An Examination of certain Opinions that have been put forth to explain the Roman Gens. On this subject, which has long been the theme of learned controversy, several theories have been offered. Some say that the gens was nothing more than a simi- larity in name ; ' others, that the word (/ens designated a sort of factitious relationship. Still others hold that the gens was merely the expression of a relation be- tween a family which acted as patrons and other fami- lies that were clients. But none of these explanations answer to the whole series of facts, laws, and usages which we have just enumerated. Another opinion, more plausible, is, that the gens was a political association of several families who were ori- ginally strangers to each other ; and that in default of ties of blood, the city established among them an im- aginary union and a sort of religious relationship. But a first objection presents itself: If the gens is only a factitious association, how are we to explain the fact that its members inherited from each other? Why is the yentilis preferred to the cognate? It has been seen above what the rules of succession were, and we have pointed out the close and necessary relation which religion had established between the ricrht of inheritance and mas- o 1 Two passages of Cicero, Tuscul., I., 1C, and Topica, 6, have tended to confuse the question. Cicero, like most of his con- temporaries, appears not to have understood what the ancient gens really was. CH-iP. X. THE GRIN'S AT ROME AND IN GREECE. 139 culine kinship. Can we suppose that ancient law de* viated so far from this principle as to accord the right of succession to the gentiles if they had been strangers to each other? The best established and most prominent character- istic of the gens is, that, like the family, it had a worship. Now, if we inquire what god each adores, we find almost always that it is a deified ancestor, and that the altar where the sacrifice is offered is a tomb. At Athens the Eu- molpidce worshipped Eumolpus, the author of their race ; the Phytalidao adored the hero Phytalus; the Butadae, Butes; the Basel id SB, Buselus; the Lakiada?, Lakios; the Amynandridje, Cecrops. 1 At Rome the Claudii are descended from a Clausus ; the Ca3uilii honored as chief -of their race the hero Caeculus ; the Calpurnii, a Calpus ; the Julii, a Julus; the Cloclii, a Clcelus. 2 \Ve may easily suppose, it is true, that many of these genealogies were an afterthought ; but we must admit that this sort of imposture would have hud no motive if it had not been a constant usage among the real gen- tes to recognize and to worship a common ancestor. Falsehood always seeks to imitate the truth. Besides, the imposture was not so easy as it might seem to us. This worship was not a vain formality for parade. One of the most rigorous rules of the religion was, that no one should honor as an ancestor any except those from whom ho was really descended ; to offer this worship to a stranger was a grave impiety. If, then, the members of a gens adored a common ancestor, it was because they really believed they were descended 1 Demosthenes, in Macart., 79. I'ausanias, I. 37. Inscrip- tion of the Amy nandr idee, cited by Uoss, p. 24. 3 Festus, CcBculus, Calpurnii, Glalii. 140 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. from him. To counterfeit a tomb, to establish anniver- saries and an annual worship, would have been to carry falsehood into what they held most dear, and to trifle with religion. Such a fiction was possible in the time of Cassar, when the old family religion was cher- ished by nobody. But if we go back to the time when this creed was in its vigor, we cannot imagine that sev- eral families, taking part in the same imposture, could say to each other, We will pretend to have a common ancestor; we will erect him a tomb; we will offer him funeral repasts; and our descendants shall adore him in all future time. Such a thought could not have pre- sented itself to their minds, or it would have been scouted as an impiety. In the difficult problems often found in history, it is well to seek from the terms of language all the instruc- tion which they can afford. An institution is some- times explained by the word that designates it. Now, the word gens means exactly the same as the word genus ; so completely alike are they that we can take the one for the other, and say, indifferently, gens Fabia and genus Fdbiutn; both correspond to the verb gig- nere and to the substantive genitor, precisely as y^o? corresponds to -(ffvav and to yo*'fic. All these words convey the same idea of filiation. The Greeks also designated the members of a ye'^oc by the word o/'o;"i- J.xrf.-, which signifies nourished by the samemiUc. Let these words be compared with those which we are ac- customed to translate by family the Latin familia^ the Greek dixo;. Neither of these last has the sense of generation or of kinship. The true signification of familia is property; it designates the field, the house, money, and slaves; and it is for this reason that the Twelve Tables say, in speaking of the heir, familiam CHAP. X. THE GENS AT ROME AND IN GREECE. 141 nancitor let him take the succession. As to Zixo:, it is clear that this word presents to the mind no other idea than that of property or of domicile. And yet these are the words that we habitually translate by family. Xo\v, is it admissible that terms whose intrinsic meaning is that of domicile or property were often used to designate a farr.i!\% and that other words whose primary sense is fili- ation, birth, paternity, have never designated anything but an artificial association ? Certainly this would not be in conformity with the logic, so direct and clear, of the ancient languages. It is unquestionable that the Greeks and the Romans attached to the words gens and -/eVo,- the idea of a common origin. This idea might have become obscured after the gens was modified, but the word has remained to bear witness of it. The theory that presents the gens as a factitious association has against it, therefore, 1st, the old legis- lation, which gives the gentiles the right of inheritance ; 12, the old religion, which allowed a common worship only where there was a common parentage; 3d, the terms of language, which attest in the gens a common origin. The theory has also this other defect, that it supposes human societies to have commenced by a convention and an artifice a position which historical science can- not admit as true. 8. The Gens is the Family still holding its primitive Organization and its Unity. All the evidence presents us the gens as united by the tie of birth. Let us again consult language: the names of the gentes, in Greece as well as in Rome, all have the form which was used in the two languages for patronymics. Claudius signifies the son of Clausus, and Butadie, the sons of Butes. 142 THE FAMILY. BOOK H. Those who think they see in the gens an artificial association, set out from a false assumption. They suppose that a gens always consisted of several families having different names, and they eite the Cornelian gens, which did indeed include Scipios, Lentuli, Cossi, and Sylla?. But this is very far from having been a general rule. The Marcian gens appears never to have had more than a single line. We also find but one in the Lucretian gens, and but one in the Quintil- lan gens, for a long time. It would certainly be very- difficult to tell what families composed the Fabian gens, for all the Fabii known in history belong manifestly to the same stock. At first they all bear the same sur- name of Vibulanus; they all change it afterwards for that of Ambustus, which they replace still later by Maximus or Dorso. We know that it was customary at Rome for all patricians to have three names. One was called, for example, Publius Cornelius Scipio. It may be worth the while to inquire which of these three names was considered as the true name. Publius was merely a name placed before prcenomen; Scipio was a name added agnomen. The true name was Cornelius ; and this name was at the same time that of the whole gens. Had we only this single indication regarding the an- cient gens, it would justify us in affirming that there were Cornelii before there were Scipios, and not, as it is often said, that the family of the Scipios associated with others to form the Cornelian gens. History teaches us, in fact, that the Cornelian gens was for a long time undivided, and that all the mem- bers alike bore the surname of Maluginensis,and that of Cossus. It was not till the time of the dictator Camillas that one of its branches adopted the surname of Scipio. CHAP. X. THE GENS AT KOHE AND IN GREECE. 143 A little later another branch took the surname of Rufus, which it replaced afterwards by that of Sylla. The Lentuli do not appear till the time of the Samnite wars, the Cethegi not until the second Punic war. It is the same with the Claudian gens. The Claudii remained a long time united in a single family, and all bore the surname of Sabinus or of Regillensis, a sign of their origin. We follow them for seven generations without seeing any branches formed in this family, although it had become very numerous. It was only in the eighth, that is to sny, in the time of the first Punic war, that we see three branches separate, and adopt three sur- names which became hereditary with them. These were the Pulchri, who continued during two centuries; the Centhos, who soon became extinct, and the Neros, who continued to the time of the empire. From all this it is clear that the gens was not an association of families, but that it was the family itself. It might either comprise only a single line, or produce several branches; it was always but one family. Besides, it is easy to account for the formation of the antique gens and for its nature, if wo but refer to the old belief and to the old institutions that we have already described. We shall see, even, that the gen? is derived very naturally from the domestic religion and from the private law of the ancient ages. Indeed, what did this primitive religion prescribe ? That the ances- tor, that is to say, the man who was first buried in the tomb, should be perpetually honored as a god. and that his descendants, assembled every year near the sacred place where he reposed, should offer him the funeral repast. This fire always kept burning, this tomb always hon- ored with a worship, were the centre around which all 144 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. later generations came to live, and by which all the branches of the family, however numerous they might be, remained grouped in a single body. What more does private law tell us of those ancient ages? While studying the nature of authority in the ancient family, we saw that the son did not separate from the father ; while studying the rules for the transmission of the patrimony, we saw that, on account of the right of pri- mogeniture, the younger brothers did not separate from the oldest. Hearth, tomb, patrimony, all these, in the beginning, were indivisible. The family, consequently, was also indivisible. Time did not dismember it. This indivisible family, which developed through ages, per- petuating its worship and its name from century to century, was really the antique gens. The gens was the family, but the family having preserved the unity which its religion enjoined, and having attained all the development which ancient private law permitted it to attain. 1 1 We need not repeat what we have already said of agnation (B. II., ch. v). We can see that agnatio and gentilitns the relationship of the gentiles flowed from the same principles, nnd were relationships of the same nature. The passage in the law of the Twelve Tables which assigns the inheritance to the gentiles, in default of agnati, embarrassed the jurisconsults, and led to the opinion that there was an essential difference between these two kinds of kinship. But this difference is nowhere found. One was agnatus, as one was gentilis, by masculine de- scent and the religious bond. There Avas only a difference of degree, which began when the branches of the same gens were separated. The agnatus was a member of the branch ; the gen- tilis of the gens. There was therefore the same distinction between the terms gentilis and agnatus as between the words gens and familia. Familiam dicimus omnium agnatorum, says Ulpian in the Digest, L. tit., 1C. 195. One, when he was the agnate of a man, was, for a still stronger reason, his genti- .*D IN GREECE. 151 joined in the prayers, and took part in the festivals. 1 The fire protected him ; the religion of the Lares be- longed to him as well as to his master. This is why the slave was buried in the burial-place of the family. 2 But by the very act of acquiring this worship, and the right to pray, he lost his liberty. Religion was a chain that held him. He was bound to the family for his whole life and alter his death. His master could raise him from his base servitude, and treat him as a free man. But the servant did not on this account quit the family. As he was bound to it by his worship, he could not, without impiety, sep- arate from it. Under the name of freed/nan, or that of client, he continued to recognize the authority of the chief or patron, to be under obligations to him. He did not marry without the consent of the master, and his children continued to obey this master. There was thus formed in the midst of the great family a certain number of small families of clients and subordinates. The Romans attributed the establish- ment of clientship to Romulus, as if an institution of this nature could have been the work of a man. Client- ship is older than Romulus. Besides, it has existed in other countries, in Greece as well as in all Italy. It was not the cities that established and regulated it ; they, on the contrary, as we shall presently see, weak- ened and destroyed it by degrees. Clientship is an institution of the domestic law, and existed in families before there were cities. 1 Ferias i n famulis habento, Cicero, De Legib. II. 8; II. 12. 2 Quum dominis, turn famulis religio Lamm. Cicero, De Legib., II. 11. Comp. ^sch., Agam., 1035-1038. The slave could even perform a religious act in the name of his master. Cato, De Re RUST., 83. 152 THE FAMILY. BOOK U. We are not to judge of the clientship of earlier ages from the clients that we see in Horace's time. The client, it is clear, was for a long time a servant attached to a patron. But there was then something to give him dignity; he had a part in the worship, and was associated in the religion of the family. He had the same sacred fire, the same festivals, the same sacra as his patron. At Rome, in sign of this religious com- munity, lie took the name of the family. He was con- sidered as a member of it by adoption. Hence the close bond and reciprocity of duties between the patron and the client. Listen to the old Roman law: "If a patron has done his client wrong, let him be accursed, sacer esto, let him die." The patron was obliged to protect his client by all the means and with all the power of which he was master; by his prayers as a priest, by his lance as a warrior, by his law as a judge. Later, when the client was called before the city tribunal, it was the patron's duty to defend him. It was his duty even to reveal to him the mysterious formulas of the law that would enable him to gain his cause. One might testify in court against a cognate, but not against a client ; and men continued long to consider their duties towards clients as far above those towards cognates. 1 Why? Because a cognate, con- nected solely through women, was not a relative, and had no part in the family religion. The client, on the contrary, had a community of worship ; he had, in- ferior though he was, a real relationship, which con- sisted, according to the expression of Plato, in adoring the same domestic gods. Clientship was a sacred bond which religion had Ibrmed, and which nothing could break. Once the 1 Cato. in Aulus Gellius, V. 3; XXI. 1. CHAP. X. THE GENS AT ROME AND IN GREECE. 153 client of a family, one could never be separated from it. Ciientship was even hereditary. From all this we see that the family, in the earliest times, with its oldest branch and its younger branches, its servants and its clients, might comprise a very numerous body of men. A family that by its religion maintained its unity, by its private law rendered itself indivisible, and through the laws of clientship retained its servants, came to form, in the course of time, a very extensive organization, having its hereditary chief. The Aryan race appears to have been composed of an indefinite number of societies of this nature, during a long succession of nges. These thousands of little groups lived isolated, having little to do with each other, having no need of one another, united by no boni religious or political, having each its domain, each its internal government, each its gods. BOOK THIRD. THE CITY. CHAPTER I. The Phratry and the Cury. The Tribe. As yet we have given no dates, nor can we now. In the history of these antique societies the epochs are more easily marked by the succession of ideas and of institutions than by that of years. The study of the ancient rules of private law has enabled us to obtain a glimpse, beyond the times that are called historic, of a succession of centuries during which the family was the sole form of society. This family might then contain within its wide compass several thousand human beings. But in these limits human association was yet too narrow ; too narrow for material needs, since this family hardly sufficed for all the chances of life; too narrow for the moral needs of our nature, for we have seen how incomplete was the knowledge of the divine, and how insufficient was the morality of this little world. The smallness of this primitive society corresponded well with the narrowness of the idea then entertained of the divinity. Every family had its gods, and men neither conceived of nor adored any save the domestic 154 -CHAP. I. TJIE PHRATKY AND THE CUBY. 155 divinities. But he could not have contented himself long with these gods so much below what his intelli- gence might attain. If many centuries were required for him to arrive at the idea of God as a being unique, incomparable, infinite, he must at any rate have insen- sibly approached this ideal, by enlarging his conception from age to age, and by extending little by little the horizon whose line separated for him the divine Being from the things of this world. The religious idea and human society went on, there- fore, expanding at the same time. The domestic religion forbade two families to mingle and unite; but it was possible for several families, without sacrificing anything of their special religions, to join, at least, for the celebration of another worship which might have been common to all of them. And this is what happened. A certain number of families formed a group, called, in the Greek language, a phra- tria, in the Latin, a curia. 1 Did there exist the tie of birth between the families of the same group ? This cannot be affirmed. It is clear, however, that this new association was not formed without a certain enlarge- ment of religious ideas. Even at the moment when they united, these families conceived the idea of a divinity superior to that of the household, one who was common to all, and who watched over the entire group. They raised an altar to him, lighted a sacred fire, and founded a worship. There was no cury or phratry that had not its altar 1 Homer, Iliad, II. SC2. Demosthenes, in Macart. Isacus, III. 37; VI. 10; IX. 33. Phratries at Thebes, Pindar, Isthm., VII. 18, and Scholiast. Phratria and curia are two terms that were translated the one by the other. Dion, of Halic., II. 85; Dion Cassius,/r. 14. 156 THE CITY. BOOK III. and its protecting god. The religious act here was of the same nature as in the family. It consisted essen- tially of-a repast, partaken of in common ; the nourish- ment had been prepared upon the altar itself, and was consequently sacred ; while eating it, the worshippers recited prayers ; the divinity was present, and received his part of the food and drink. These religious repasts of the cury lasted a long time at Rome ; Cicero mentions them, and Ovid describes them. 1 In the time of Augustus they had still pre- served all their antique forms. "I have seen, in those sacred dwellings," says a historian of this epoch, "the repast displayed before the god ; the tables were of wood, according to ancestral usage, and the dishes were of earthen ware. The food was loaves, cakes of fine flour, and fruits. I saw the libations poured out; they did not fall from gold or silver cups, but from vessels of clay, and I admired the men of our day who remain so faithful to the rites and customs of their fathers." 2 At Athens these repasts took place during the festival called Apaturia? There were usages remaining in the latest period of Greek history which throw some light upon the nature of the ancient phratry. Thus we see that in the time 1 Cicero, De Orat., I. 7. Ovid, Fast., VI. 305. Dionysius, II. 05. 2 Dionysius, II. 23. And yet some changes had been intro- duced. The feasts of the cury had become a vain formality. The members of the cury willingly neglected them, and the custom was introduced of replacing the common meal by a dis- tribution of victuals and money. Plautus. Aulularia, V. 69 nd 137. 3 Aristophanes, Achcf-n., 146. Athenaeus, IV. p. 171. Suidas, HAP. I. THE PHBATKY AND THE CURT. 157 of Demosthenes, to be a member of a phratry, one must have been born of a legitimate marriage in one of the families that composed it ; for the religion of the phra- try, like that of the family, was transmitted only by blood. The young Athenian was presented to the phratry by his father, who swore that this was his son. The admission took place with a religious ceremony. The phratry sacrificed a victim, and cooked the flesh upon the altar. All the members were present. If they refused to admit the new comer, as they had a right to do, if they doubted the legitimacy of his birth, they took away the flesh from the altar. If they did not do this, if, after cooking, they shared with the young man the flesh of the victim, then he was admitted, and became a member of the association. 1 The ex- planation of these practices is, that the ancients believed any nourishment prepared upon an altar, and shared between several persons, established among them an indissoluble bond and a sacred union that ceased only with life. Every phratry or cury had a chief, a curion, or phra- triarch, whose principal function was to preside at the sacrifices. 2 Perhaps his attributes were at first more extensive. The phratry had its assemblies and its tri- bunal, and could pass decrees. In it, as well as in the family, there were a god, a worship, a priesthood, a legal tribunal, and a government. It was a small society that was modelled exactly upon the family. The association naturally continued to increase, and after the same fashion; several phra tries, or curies, were grouped together, and formed a tribe. 1 Demosthenes, in EubuL. ; in Macart. Isaeus, VIII. 18. z Dionysius, II. 64. Varro, V. 83. Demosthenes, in Eulul., 23. 158 THE CITY. BOOK III. This new circle also had its religion ; in each tribe there were an altar and a protecting divinity. The god of the tribe was generally of the samo nature as that of the pbratry, or that of the family. It was a man deified, a hero. From him the tribe took its name. The Greeks called him the eponymous hero. He had his annual festal day. The principal part of the religious ceremony was a repast, of which the entire tribe partook. 1 The tribe, like the phratry, held assemblies and passed decrees, to which all the members were obliged to submit. It had a chief, tribunus, v/o.-, from rutu> t to inhabit) was, moreover, built after the fashion of the ancient sanctuary; it was, as before, A cella opposite a hearth; but the cella was enlarged and embellished, and became a temple. The holy fire remained at the entrance of the god's house, but appeared very small by the side of this house. What had at first been the principal, had now become only an accessory. It ceased to be a god, and descended to the rank of the god's altar, an in- CHAP. llf. THE CITY FORMED. 167 strument for the sacrifice. Its office was to burn the flesh of the victim, and to carry the offering with men'te prayers to the majestic divinity whose statue resided in the temple. When we see these temples rise and open their doors to the multitude of worshippers, we mny be assured that human associations have become enlarged. CHAPTER III. The City formed. THE tribe, like the family and the phratry, was es- tablished as an independent body, since it had a special worship from which the stranger was excluded. Once formed, no new family could be admitted to it. No more could two tribes be fused into one ; their religion was opposed to this. But just as several phratries were united in a tribe, several tribes might associate together, on condition that the religion of each should be respect- ed. The day on which this alliance took place the city existed. It is of little account to seek the cause which deter- mined several neighboring tribes to unite. Sometimes it was voluntary ; sometimes it was imposed by the superior force of a tribe, or by the powerful will of a man. What is certain is, that the bond of the new association was still a religion. The tribes that united to form a city never failed to light a sacred fire, and to adopt a common religion. Thus human society, in this race, did not enlarge like a circle, which increases on all sides, gaining little 168 THE CITY. BOOK. Ill by little. There were, on the contrary, small groups, which, having been long established, were finally joined together in larger ones. Several families formed the phratry, several phratries the tribe, several tribes the city. Family, phratry, tribe, city, were, moreover, soci- eties exactly similar to each other, which were formed one after the other by a series of federations. We must remark, also, that when the different groups became thus associated, none of them lost its individu- ality, or its independence. Although several families were united in a phratry, each one of them remained constituted just as it had been when separate. Nothing was changed in it, neither worship nor priesthood, nor property nor internal justice. Curies afterwards be- came associated, but each retained its worship, its as- semblies, its festivals, its chief. From the tribe men passed to the city ; but the tribe was not dissolved on that account, and each of them continued to form a body, very much as if the city had not existed. In religion there subsisted a multitude of subordinate worships, above which was established one common to all; in politics, numerous little governments continued to act, while above them a common government was founded. The city was a confederation. Hence it was obliged, at least for several centuries, to respect the religious and civil independence of the tribes, curies, and families, and had not the right, at first, to interfere in the private affairs of each of these little bodies. It had nothing to do in the interior of a family ; it was not the judge of what passed there ; it left to the father the right and duty of judging his wife, his son, and his client. It is for this reason that private law, which had been fixed at the time when families were isolated, could sub- CHAP. UI. THE CITY FORMED. sist in the city, and was modified only at a very late period. The mode of founding ancient cities is attested by usages which continued for a very long time. If we examine the army of the city in primitive times r we find it distributed into tribes, curies, and families, 1 "in such a way," says one of the ancients, "that the warrior has for a neighbor in the combat one with whom, in time of peace, he has offered the libation and sacrifice at the same altar." If we look at the people when assembled, in the early ages of Rome, we see them voting by curies and by gentes? If we look at the worship, we see at Rome six Vestals, two for each tribe. At Athens, the arch on offers the sacrifice in the name of the entire city, but he has in the religious part of the ceremony as many assistants as there are tribes. Thus the city was not an assemblage of individuals; it was a confederation of several groups, which were established before it, and which it permitted to remain. We see, in the Athenian orators, that every Athenian formed a portion of four distinct societies at the same time; he was a member of a family, of a phratry, of a tribe, and of a city. He did not enter at the same time and the same day into all these four, like a Frenchman, who at the moment of his birth belongs at once to a family, a commune, a department, and a country. The phratry and the tribe are not administrative divisions. A man enters at different times into these four socie- ties, and ascends, so to speak, from one to the other. First, the child is admitted into the family by the 1 Homer, Iliad, II. 3G2. Varro, De Ling. Lett., V. 89. Isaeus, II. 42. 2 Aulus Gellius, XV. 27. 170 THE CITY. BOOK III. religious ceremony, which takes place six days after his birth. Some years later lie enters the phratry by a new ceremony, which we have already described. Finally, at the age of sixteen or eighteen, he is pre- sented for admission into the city. On that day, in the presence of an altar, and before the smoking flesh of a victim, he pronounces an oath, by which he binds himself, among other things, always to respect the re- ligion of the city. From that day he is initiated into the public worship, and becomes a citizen. 1 If we observe this young Athenian rising, step by step, from worship to worship, we have a sjmbol of the degrees through which human association has passed. The course which this young man is constrained to follow, is that which society first followed. An example will make tin's truth clearer. There have remained to us in the antiquities of Athens traditions and traces enough to enable us to see quite clearly how the Athenian city was formed. At first, says Piu- tarch, Attica was divided by families. 2 Some of these families of the primitive period, like the Eumolpidae, the Cecropidae, the Gephyrasi, the Phytalidse, and the Lakiadae, were perpetuated to the following ages. At that time the city did not exist; but every family, surrounded by its younger branches and its clients, occupied a, canton, and lived there in absolute inde- pendence. Each had its own religion; the EnmolpidfB, fixed at Eleusis, adored Demeter; the Cecropidae, who inhabited the rocks where Athens was afterwards built, had Poseidon and Athene for protecting divinities. 1 Demosthenes, in Eulul. ISJEUS. VII. IX. Lycurgus, I. 76. Sc\\o\., in Demosth., p. 438. Pollux, VIII. 105. Stobaeus, De Repub. * KUT'U yirt;, Plutarch, Theseus. 24, 13. 2HAP. III. THE CITY FOKMED. 171 Near by, on the little hill of the Areopagus, the pro- tecting god was Ares. At Marathon it was Hercules ; at Prasiffi an Apollo, another Apollo at Phlius, the Dios- curi at Cephalus, and thus of all the other cantons. 1 Every family, as it had its god and its altar, had also its chief. When Pausanias visited Attica, he found in the little villages ancient traditions which had been perpetuated with the worship ; and these traditions informed him that every little burgh had had its king before the time when Cecrops reigned at Athens. Was not this a memorial of a distant age, when the great patriarchal families, like the Celtic clans, had each its hereditary chief, who was at the same time priest and judge? Some hundred little societies then lived isolated in the country, recognizing no political or re- ligious bond among them, having each its territory, often at war, and living so completely separated that marriage between them was not always permitted. 2 But their needs or their sentiments brought them together. Insensibly they joined in little groups of four, five, or six. Thus we find in the traditions that *,he four villages of Marathon united to adore the same Delphian Apollo ; the men of the Piraeus, Phalerum, and two neighboring burghs, united and built a temple to Hercules. 3 In the course of time these many little states were reduced to twelve confederations. This change, by which the people passed from the patriarchal family state to a society somewhat more extensive, was attributed by tradition to the efforts of Cecrops: we are merely to understand by this, that it was not ac- Pausanias, I. 15; 31, 37, II. 18. 2 Plutarch, Theseus, 13. 3 Id., ibid., 14. Pollux, VI. 105. Stephen of Byzantium, i/t f.ldat. 172 THE CITY. BOOK 111. complished until the time at which they place this per- sonage that is to say, towards the sixteenth century before our era. We see, moreover, that this Cecrops reigned over only one of these twelve associations, that which afterwards became Athens; the other eleven were completely independent; each had its tutelary deity, its altar, its sacred fire, and its chief'. 1 Several centuries passed, during which the Cecrop- ida3 insensibly acquired greater importance. Of this period there remains the tradition of a bloody struggle sustained by them against the Eumolpiclae of Eleusis, the result of which was, that the latter submitted, with the single reservation that they should preserve the hereditary priesthood of their divinity.' 2 There were doubtless other struggles and other conquests, of which no memorial has been preserved. The rock of the Cecropidse, on which was developed, by degrees, the worship of Athene, and which finally adopted the name of their principal divinity, acquired the supremacy over the other eleven states. Then appeared Theseus, the heir of the Cecropidce. All the traditions agree in declaring that he united the twelve groups into one city. He succeeded, indeed, in bringing all Attica to adopt the worship of Athene Polias, so that thenceforth the whole country celebrated the sacrifice of the Pa- nathenaBa in common. Before him, every burgh had its sacred fire and its prytany. He wished to make the prytany of Athens the religious centre of all Attica. 3 From that time Athenian unity was established. In 1 Philochorus, quoted by Strabo, IX. Thucydides, II. 1G. Pollux, VIII. 111. 2 Pausanias, I. 38. 3 Thucydides, II. 15. Plutarch, Theseus, 24. Pausanias, I. 26-, Mil. 2. CHAP. III. THE CITY FORMED. 116 religion every canton preserver! its ancient worship, but adopted one that was common to all. Politically, each preserved its chiefs, its judges, its right of assem- bling; but above all these local governments, there was the central government of the city. 1 From these precise memorials and traditions, which Athens preserved so religiously, there seem to us to be two truths equally manifest : the one is, that the city was a corrtederation of groups that had been established before it; and the other is, that society developed only 1 According to Plutarch and Thucydides, Theseus destroyed the local prytanies, and abolished the magistracies of the burghs. If he attempted this, he certainly did not succeed: for a long while after him we still find the local worships, the assemblies, and the kings of tribes. Bocckh, Corp. Inscrip., 82, 85. De- mosthenes, in Theocrinem. Pollux, VIII. 111. We put aside the legend of Ion, to which several modern historians seem to us to have given too much importance, by presenting it as an indi- cation of a foreign invasion of Attica. This invasion is indicated by no tradition. If Attica had been conquered by these lonians of the Peloponnesus, it is not probable that the Athenians would have so religiously preserved their names of Cecropidae, and Erechtheidae, and that they would have been ashamed of the name of lonians. (Hdts, I. 143.) We can also reply to those who believe in this invasion, and that the nobility of the Eupa- trids is due to it, that most of the great families of Athens go back to a date much earlier than that given for the arrival of Ion in Attica. The Athenians certainly belong to the Ionic branch of the Hcllen ; c race. Strabo tells us that, in the earliest times, Attica was called Ionia and las. But it is a mistake to make the son of Xutlius, the legendary hero of Euripides, the parent stock of these lonians; they are long anterior to Ion, and their name is perhaps much more ancient than that of Hellenes. It is wrong to make all the Eupatrids descendants of this Ion, and to present this cliss of men as conquerors who oppressed a conquered people. There is no ancient testimony to support this opinion. 174 THE CITY. BOOK III. so fast as religion enlarged its sphere. We cannot^ indeed, say that religious progress brought social prog- ress ; but what is certain is, that they were both pro- duced at the same time, and in remarkable accord. We should not lose sight of the excessive difficulty which, in primitive times, opposed the foundation of regular societies. The social tie was not easy to es- tablish between those human beings who were so diverse, so free, so inconstant. To bring them under the rules of a community, to institute commandments and insure obedience, to cause passion to give way to reason, and individual right to public right, there cer- tainly was something necessary, stronger than material force, more respectable than interest, surer than a philosophical theory, more unchangeable than a con- vention; something that should dwell equally in all hearts, and should be all-powerful there. This power was a belief. Nothing has more power over the soul. A belief is the work of our mind, but we are not on that account free to modify it at will. It is our own creation, but we do not know it. It is human, and we believe it a god. It is the effect of our power, and is stronger than we are. It is in us ; it does not .quit us: it speaks to us at every moment. If it tells us to obey, we obey ; if it traces duties for us, we submit. Man may, indeed, subdue nature, but he is subdued by his own thoughts. Now, an ancient belief commanded a man to honor his ancestor; the worship of the ancestor grouped a family around an altar. Thus arose the first religion, the first prayers, the first ideas of duty, and of morals. Thus, too, was the right of property established, and the order of succession fixed. Thus, in fine, arose all private law, and all the rules of domestic organization. Later the CHAP. III. THE CITY FORMED. 175 belief gre\v, and human society grew at the same time. When men begin to perceive that there are common divinities for them, they unite iu larger groups. The same rules, invented and established for the family, are applied successively to the phratry, the tribe, and the city. Let us take in at a glance the road over which man has passed. In the beginning the family lived isolated, and man knew only the domestic gods 6sol TKITQQJOI, dii gentiles. Above the family was formed the phra- try with its god deb; qoodroio.:, Juno curialis. Then came the tribe, and the god of the tribe Osbg (pvliog. Finally came the city, and men conceived a god whose providence embraced this entire city Oeu; nolietg^pe- nates publici ; a hierarchy of creeds, and a hierarchy of association. The religious idea was, among the ancients, the inspiring breath and organizer of society. The traditions of the Hindus, of the Greeks, and of the Etruscans, relate that the gods revealed social laws to man. Under this legendary form there is a truth. Social laws were the work of the gods ; but those gods, so powerful and beneficent, were nothing else than the beliefs of men. Such was the origin of cities among the ancients. o o This study was necessary to give us a correct idea of the nature and institutions of the city. But here we must make a reservation. If the first cities were formed of a confederation of little societies previously estab- lished, this is not saying that all the cities known to us were formed in the same manner. The municipal organ- ization once discovered, it was not necessary for each new city to pass over the same long and difficult route. It might often happen that they followed the inverse order. When a chief, quitting a city already organized, 176 THE CITY. BOOK III. went to found another, he took with him commonly only a small number of his fellow-citizens. He associ- ated with them a multitude of other men who came from different parts, and might even belong to different races. But this chief never failed to organize the new state after the model of the one he had just quitted. Consequently he divided his people into tribes and phratries. Each of these little associations had an altar, sacrifices, and festivals; each even invented an ancient hero, whom it honored with its worship, and from whom, with the lapse of time, it believed itself to have been descended. It often happened, too, that the men of some country lived without laws and without order, either because no one had ever been able to establish a social organiza- tion there, as in Arcadia, or because it had been cor- rupted and dissolved by too rapid revolutions, as at Cyrene and Thurii. If a legislator undertook to estab- lish order among these men, he never failed to com- mence by dividing them into tribes and phratries, as if this were the only type of society. In each of these organizations he named an eponymous hero, established sacrifices, and inaugurated traditions. This was always the manner of commencing, if he wished to found a regular society. 1 Thus Plato did when he imagined a model city. 1 Herodotus, IV. 161. Cf. Plato, Laws, V. 738; VI. 771. CHAP. IV. THE CITY. 177 CHAPTER IV. The City. CIVITAS, and UKBS, either of which we translate by the word city, were not synonymous words among the ancients. Civitas was the religious and political associ- ation of families and tribes ; Urbs was the place of assembly, the dwelling-place, and, above all, the sanc- tuary of this association. We are not to picture ancient cities to ourselves as anything like what we see in our day. We build a few houses; it is a village. Insensibly the number of houses increases, and it becomes a city; and finally, if there is occasion for it, we surround this with a wall. With the ancients, a city was never formed by de- grees, by the slow increase of the number of men and houses. They founded a city at once, all entire in a day ; but the elements of the city needed to be first ready, and this was the most difficult, and ordinarily the largest work. As soon as the families, the phratries, and the tribes had agreed to unite and have the same worship, they immediately founded the city as a sanc- tuary for this common worship, and thus the foundation of a city was always a religious act. As a first example, we will take Rome itself, not- withstanding the doubt that is attached to its early history. It has often been said that Romulus was chief of a band of adventurers, and that he formed a people by calling around him vagabonds and robbers, and that all these men, collected without distinction, built at hazard a few huts to shelter their booty ; but ancient 12 178 THE CITT. BOOK III. writers present the facts in quite another shape, and it seems to us that if we desire to understand antiquity, our first rule should be to support ourselves upon the evidence that comes from the ancients. Those writers do, indeed, mention an asylum that is to say, a sacred enclosure, where Romulus admitted all who presented themselves ; and in this he followed the example which many founders of cities had afforded him. But this asylum was not the city ; it was not even opened till after the city had been founded and completely built. It was an appendage added to Rome, but was not Rome. It did not even form a part of the city of Romulus; for it was situated at the foot of the Capi- toline hill, whilst the city occupied the Palatine. It is of the first importance to distinguish the double ele- ment of the Roman population. In the asylum are adventurers without land or religion ; on the Palatine are men from Alba that is to say, men already organized into a society, distributed into gentes and curies, having a domestic worship and laws. The asy- lum is merely a hamlet or suburb, where the huts are built at hazard, and without rule; on the Palatine rises a city, religious and holy. As to the manner in which this city was founded, antiquity abounds in information; we find it in Dio- nysius of Halicarnassus, who collected it from authors older than his time; we find it in Plutarch, in the Fasti of Ovid, in Tacitus, in Cato the Elder, who had consulted the ancient annals; and in two other writers who ought above all to inspire us with great con- fidence, the learned Yarro and the learned Verrius Flaccus, whom Festus has preserved in part for us, both men deeply versed in Roman antiquities, lovers oi truth, in no wise credulous, and well acquainted with CHIP. IV. THE CITY. the rules of historical criticism. All the.;e writers have transmitted to us the tradition of the religious ceremony which marked the foundation of Rome, and we are not prepared to reject so great a number of witnesses. It is not a rare thing for the ancients to relate facts that surprise us; but is this a reason why we should pronounce them fables? above all, if these facts, though not in accord with modern ideas, agree perfectly with those of the ancients ? We have seen in their private life a religion which regulated all their acts; later, we saw that this religion established them in communities: why does it astonish us, after this, that the foundation of a city was a sacred act, and that Romulus himself was obliged to perform rites which were observed everywhere? The first care of the founder was to- choose the site for the new city. But this choice weighty question, on which they believed the destiny of the people depended was always left to the decis- ion, of the gods. If Romulus had been a Greek, he would have consulted the oracle of Delphi; if a Sam- uite, he would have followed the sacred animal the wolf, or the green woodpecker. Being a Latin, and a neighbor of the Etruscans, initiated into the augurial science, 1 he asks the gods to reveal their will to him by the flight of birds. The gods point out the Pal- atine. The day for the foundation having arrived, he first offers a sacrifice. His companions are ranged around him ; they light a fire of brushwood, and each one leaps through the flame. 2 The explanation of this rite is, Cicero, De Divin., I. 17. Plutarch, Camillas, 32. Pliny, XIV. 2; XVIII. 12. * Dionysius, I. 88. 180 THE CITY. BOOK III. that for the act about to take place, it is necessary that the people be pure; and the ancients believed they could purify themselves from all stain, physical or moral, by leaping through a sacred flame. When this preliminary ceremony had prepared the people for the grand act of the foundation, Romulus dug a small trench, of a circular form, and threw into it a clod of earth, which he had brought from the city of Alba. 1 Then each of his companions, approaching by turns, following his example, threw in a little earth, which he had brought from the country from which he had come. This rite is remarkable, and reveals to us a notion of the ancients to which we must call attention. Before coming to the Palatine, they had lived in Alba, or some other neighboring city. There was their sacred fire; there their fathers had lived and been buried. Now, their religion forbade them to quit the land where the hearth had been established, and where their divine ancestors reposed. It was necessary, then, in order to be free from all impiety, that each of these men should employ a fiction, and that he should carry with him, under the symbol of a clod of earth, the sacred soil where his ancestors were buried, and to which their manes were attached. A man could not quit his dwell- ing-place without taking with him his soil and his ancestors. This rite had to be accomplished, so that he might say, pointing out the new place which he had adopted, This is still the land of my fathers, terra pa- trum, patria ; here is my country, for here are the manes of my family. The trench into which each one had thrown a little enrth was called mwidus. Now, this word designated in 1 Plutarch, Romulus, 11. Dion Cassius, Fragm., 12. Ovid, i, IV. 821. Festus, v. Quadrata. CHAP. IV. THE CITY. 181 the ancient language, the region of the manes. 1 From this place, according to tradition, the souls of the dead escaped three times a year, desirous of again seeing the light for a moment. Do we not see also, in this tra- dition, the real thought of these ancient men ? When placing in the trench a clod of earth from their former country, they believed they had enclosed there the souls of their ancestors. These souls, reunited there, required a perpetual worship, and kept guard over their descendants. At this same place Romulus set up an altar, and lighted a fire upon it. This was the holy fire of the city. 2 Around this hearth arose the city, as the house rises around the domestic hearth ; Romulus traced a furrow which marked the enclosure. Here, too, the smallest details were fixed by a ritual. The founder made use of a copper ploughshare; his plough was drawn by a white bull and a white cow. Romulus, with his head veiled, and in the priestly robes, himself held the handle of the plough and directed it, while chanting prayers. His companions followed him, observing a religious silence. As the plough turned up clods of earth, they carefully threw them \vithin the enclosure, that no particle of this sacred earth should be on the side of the stranger. 3 This enclosure, traced by re- ligion, was inviolable. Neither stranger nor citizen had 1 Fcstus, v. Mundus. Scrvius, ad JEn., III. 13i. Plutarch, Romulus, 11. 2 Ovid, ibid. Later the hearth was removed. When the three cities, the Palatine, the Capitoline, and the Quirinal were united in one, the common hearth, or temple of Vesta, was placed on neutral ground between the three hills. 3 Plutarch, Romulus, 11. Ovid, Ibidem. Yarro, De Ling. Lat., V. 143. Festus, v. Frimigenius; v. Urvat. Virgil, V. 755. 182 THE CITY. BOOK in. the right to cross over it. To leap over this little furrow was an impious act; it is a Roman tradition that the founder's brother committed this act of sac- rilege, and paid for it with his life. 1 But, in order that men might enter and leave the city, the furrow was interrupted in certain places. 2 To accomplish this, Romulus raised the plough and carried it over; these intervals were called portce ; these were the gates of the city. Upon the sacred furrow, or a little inside of it, the walls afterwards arose ; they also were sacred. 3 No one could touch them, even to repair them, without per- mission from the pontiffs. On both sides of this wall a space, a few paces wide, was given up to religion, and was called the pomcerium;* on this space no plough could be used, no building constructed. Such, according to a multitude of ancient witnesses, was the ceremony of the foundation of Rome. If it is asked how this information was preserved down to the writers who have transmitted it to us, the answer is, that the ceremony was recalled to the memory of the people every year by an anniversary festival, which they called the birthday of Rome. This festival was celebrated through all antiquity, from year to year, and the Roman people still celebrate it to-day, at the same date as formerly the 21st of April. So faithful are men to old usages through incessant changes. We cannot reasonably suppose that such rites were observed for the first time by Romulus. It is certain, on the contrary, that many cities, before Rome, had 1 See Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 27. * Cato, in Servius, V. 755. 3 Cicero, De Nat. Deor., III. 40. Digest, 8, 8. Gains, II. 8. 4 Varro, V. 143. Livy, I. 44. Aulus Gcllius, XIII. 14. CHAP. IV. THE CITY. 183 been founded in the same manner. According to Varro, these rites were common to Latiura and to EtrurJu. Cato the Elder, who, in order to write his Oriffines, had consulted the annals of all the Italian nations, informs us that analogous rites were practised by all founders of cities. The Etruscans possessed liturgical books in which were recorded the complete ritual of these ceremonies. 1 The Greeks, like the Italians, believed that the site of a city should be chosen and revealed by the divinity. So, when they wished to found one, they consulted the oracle at Delphi. 2 Herodotus records, as an act of im- piety or madness, that the Spartan Dorieus dared to build a city " without consulting the oracle, and with- out observing any of the customary usages;" and the pious historian is not surprised that a city tlms con- structed in despite of the rules lasted only three years. 3 Thucydides, recalling the day when Sparta was founded, mentions the pious chants, and the sacrifices of that day. The same historian tells us that the Athenians had a particular ritual, and that they never founded a colony without conforming to it. 4 We may see in a comedy of Aristophanes a sufficiently exact picture of the ceremony practised in such cases. When the poet represented the amusing foundation of the city of the birds, he certainly had in mind the customs which were observed in the foundation of the cities of men. Now he puts upon the scene a priest who lighted a fire while invoking the gods, a poet who sang hymns, and a divine who recited oracles. 1 Cato, in Servius, V. 755. Varro, L. L., V. 143. Festus, v. Rititales. 2 Diodorus.XII. 12; Pausanias, VII. 2. Athenajus, VIII. 62. 3 Herodotus, V. 42. Thucydides, V. 10; III. 24. 184 THE CITY. BOOK 111. Pausanias travelled in Greece about Adrian's time. In Messenia he had the priests describe to him the foundation of the city of Messene, and he has trans- mitted this account to us. 1 This event was not very ancient; it took place in the time of Epaminondas. Three centuries before, the Messenians had been driven from their country, and since that time they had lived dispersed among the other Greeks, without a country, but preserving their customs and their national religion with pious care. The Thebans wished to restore them to Peloponnesus, in order to place an enemy on the flank of the Spartans ; but the most difficult thing was to persuade the Messenians. Epaminondas, having superstitious men to deal with, thought it his duty to circulate an oracle predicting for this people a return to their former country. Miraculous apparitions proved to them that their gods, who had betrayed them at the time of the conquest, had again become favorable. This timid people then decided to return to the Pelo- ponnesus in the train of a Theban army. But the question was, where a city should be built ; for it would not do to think of re-occupying the old cities of the country: they had been soiled by the conquest. To choose the place where they should establish them- selves, they could not have recourse to the Delphian oracle, for at this time the Pythia was favorable to the Spartans. Fortunately, the gods had other methods of revealing their will. A Messenian priest had a dream, in which one of the gods of his nation appeared and directed him to take his station on Mount Ithome, and invite the people to follow him there. The site of the new city was thus indicated, but it was still neces- 1 Pausanias, IV. 27. CHAP. IV. THE CITY. 185 sary to know the rites to be performed at the founda- tion, for the Messenians had forgotten them. They could not adopt those of the Thebans, or of any other people ; and so they did not know how to build the city. A dream, however, came very opportunely to another Messenian ; the gods commanded him to ascend Mount Ithorne, and find a yew tree that stood near a myrtle, and to dig into the earth in that place. He obeyed, and discovered an urn, and in this urn were leaves of tin, on which was found engraved the com- plete ritual of the sacred ceremony. The priests immediately copied it, and inscribed it in their books. They did not doubt that the urn had been deposited there by an ancient king of the Messenians, before the conquest of the country. As soon as they were in possession of the ritual the foundation commenced. First, the priests offered a sacrifice ; they invoked the ancient gods of the Messe- nians, the Dioscuri, the Jupiter of Ithome, and the ancient heroes, ancestors known and venerated. All these protectors of the country had apparently quitted it, according to the belief of the ancients, on the day when the enemy became masters of it. They were en- treated to return. Formulas were pronounced, which, it was believed, would determine them to inhabit the new city in common with the citizens. This was the great object ; to fix the residence of the gods with, themselves was what these men had the most at heart, and we may be sure that the religious ceremony had no other aim. Just as the companions of Romulus dug a trench and thought to bury the manes of their ancestors there, so the contemporaries of Epaminondas called to themselves their heroes, their divine ancestors, and the gods of their country. They thought that 186 THE CITY. BOOK III. by rites and formulas they could attach these sacred beings to the soil which they themselves were going to occupy, and could shut them up within the enclosure which themselves were about to trace, and they said to them, "Come with us, O divine kings, and dwell with us in this city." The first day was occupied with these sacrifices and these prayers. The next day the boundaries were traced, whilst the people sang religious hymns. We are surprised, at first, when we see in the an- cient authors that there was no city, however ancient it might be, which did not protend to know the name of its founder and the date of its foundation. This is because a city could not lose the recollection of the sacred ceremony which had marked its birth. For every year it celebrated the anniversary of this birth- day with a sacrifice. Athens, as well as Rome, cele- brated its birthday. It often happened that colonists or conquerors estab- lished themselves in a city already built. They had not to build houses, for nothing opposed their occupy- ing those of the vanquished ; but they had to perform the ceremony of foundation that is, to establish their sacred fires, and to fix their national gods in their new home. This explains the statements of Thucydides and Herodotus that the Dorians founded Lacedremon, and the lonians Miletus, though these two tribes found Lace- daemon and Miletus built and already very ancient. These usages show clearly what a city was in the opinion of the ancients. Surrounded by a sacred en- closure, and extending around an altar, it was the reli- gious abode of gods and citizens. Livy said of Rome, "There is not a place in this city which is not impreg- nated with religion, and which is not occupied by some CHAP. IV. THE CITY. 187 divinity. The gods inhabit it." "What Livy said of Rome any man might say of his own city; for if it had been founded according to the rites, it had received within its walls protecting gods who were, as we may say, implanted in its soil, and could never quit it. Every city was a sanctuary; every city might be called holy. 1 As the gods were attached to a city forever, so the people could never again abandon a place where their gods were established. In this respect there was a reciprocal engagement, a sort of contract between gods and men. At one time the tribunes of the people pro- posed, as Rome, devastated by the Gauls, was no longer anything but a heap of ruins, and as, five leagues dis- tant, there was a city all built, large, beautiful, well situated, and without inhabitants, since the Romans had conquered it, that the people should abandon the ruins of Rome, and remove to Veil. But the pious Camillas replied, "Our city was religiously founded ; the gods themselves pointed out the place, and took up their abode here with our fathers. Ruined as it is, it still remains the dwelling of our national gods." And the Romans remained at Rome. Something sacred and divine was naturally associated with these cities which the gods had founded, 2 and which they continued to fill with their presence. "We know that Roman traditions promised that Rome should be eternal. Every city had similar traditions. The ancients built all their cities to be eternal. 1 "Iliog I'QJ], "tqat '^46i^Qai (Aristoph., Knights, 1319). Jaxt- iaiuuvi Sii) (Theognis, v. 837) ; Itnuv nuin; says Theognis, speak- ing of Mcgara. * Neptunia Troja, Oeofyj;Toi 'A6r,vat. See Theognis, 755. (Welcker.) 188 THE CITY. BOOK III CHAPTER V. Worship of the Founder. The Legend of Eneas. THE founder was the man who accomplished the religious act without which a city could not exisU He established the hearth where the sacred fire was eternally to burn. He it was, who, by his prayers and his rites, called the gods, and fixed them forever in the new city. We can understand how much respect would be felt for this holy man. During his life men saw in him the author of a religion and the father of a city ; after death he became a common ancestor for all the generations that succeeded him. He was for the city what the first ancestor was for the family a Lar familiaris. His memory was perpetuated like the hearth-fire which he had lighted. Men established a worship for him, and believed him to be a god ; and the city adored him as its providence. Sacrifices and festivals were renewed every year over his tomb. 1 It is well known that Romulus was worshipped, and that he had a temple and priests. The senators might,, indeed, take his life; but they could not deprive him of the worship to which he had a right as the founder of a city. In the same manner every city worshipped the one who had founded it. Cecrops and Theseus, who Avere regarded as having been successive founders of Athens, had temples there. Abdera offered sac- 1 Pindar, Pyth., V. 129. Ohjmp., VII. 145. Cicero, DC Nat. Dear., III. 19. Catullus, VII. 6. CHAP. V. WORSHIP OF THE FOUNDER. 189 rifices to its founder, Timesius, Thera to Theras, Tene- aQpux6?. They also purified the domestic hearth every year. Clioeph., 96G. 214 THE CITY. BOOK III. among the Romans, an expiatory sacrifice. Priests and victims followed the procession. When the third circuit was completed, the magistrate pronounced a set form of prayer, and immolated the victims. 1 From this moment every stain was effaced, all negligence in the worship repaired, and the city was at peace with, its gods. Two things were necessary for an act of this nature, and of so great importance; one was, that no stranger should be found among the citizens, as this o o * would have destroyed the effect of the ceremony; the other was, that all the citizens should be present, with- out which the city would have retained some stain. It was necessary, therefore, that this religious ceremony should be preceded by a numbering of the citizens. At Rome and at Athens, they were counted with scru- pulous care. It is probable that the number was pro- nounced by the magistrate in the formula of prayer, as it was afterwards inserted in the account of the cere- mony which the censor drew up. The loss of citizenship was the punishment of the man who failed to have his name enrolled. This sever- ity is easily explained. The man who had not taken part in the religious act, who had not been purified, for whom the prayer had not been pronounced or the victim sacrificed, could no longer be a member of the city. In the sight of the gcds, who had been present at the ceremony, lie was no longer a citizen. 2 1 Varro, L. L., VI. 86. Valerius Maximus, V. 1, 10. Livy, I. 44; III. 22; VI. 27. Propertius, IV. 1, 20. Servius, ad Eclog., X. 55 ; ad jn., VIII. 231. Livy attributes tins institu- tion to king Servius; but probably it is older than Rome, and existed in all the cities, as well as at Rome. It is attributed to Servius just because he modified it, as we shall see. * Citizens absent from Rome were rqnirei to return home for CHAP. TIT. THE EELIGION OF THE CITY. 215 We are enabled to judge of the importance of this ceremony by the exorbitant power of the magistrate who presided at it. The censor, before commencing the sacrifice, ranged the people in a certain order; the senators, the knights, and the tribes, each rank in its appropriate place. Absolute master on that day, he fixed the place of each man in the different categories. Then, all having been arranged according to his direc- tions, he performed the sacred act. Now, a result of this was, that from that day to the following lustration, every man preserved in the city the rank which the censor had assigned him in the ceremony. He was a senator if on that day he had been counted among the senators ; a knight if he had figured among the knights ; if a simple citizen, he formed a part of the tribe in the ranks of which he had been on that day; and if the magistrate had refused to admit him into the ceremony, he was no longer a citizen. Thus the place which one had occupied in the religious act, and where the gods had seen him, was the one he held in the city for five years. Such was the origin of the immense power of the censor. In this ceremony none but citizens took part ; but their wives, their children, their slaves, their prop- erty, real and personal, were in a manner purified in the person of the head of the family. It was for this reason that, before the sacrifice, each citizen was re- quired to give to the censor an account of the persons and property belonging to him. The lustration was accomplished in Augustus's time with the same exactitude and the same rites as in the the lustration; nothing could exempt them from this. W-.lleius II 15. 216 THE CITY. BOOK III. most ancient times. The pontiffs still regarded it as a religious act, while statesmen saw in it an excellent measure of administration, at least. 4. Religion in the Assembly, in the Senate, in the Tribunal, in the Army, in the Triumph. There was not a single act of public life in which the gods were not seen to take a part. As he was under the influence of the idea that they were by turns ex- cellent protectors or cruel enemies, man never dared: to act without being sure that they were favorable The people assembled only on such days as religion permitted. They remembered that the city had suf- fered a disaster on a certain day; this was, doubtless, because on that day the gods had been either absent or irritated ; they would probably be in the same mood at the same season every year, for reasons unknown to mortals. This day, therefore, was forever unlucky; there were no assemblies, no courts ; public life was suspended. At Rome, before an assembly proceeded to business, the augurs were required to declare that the gods were propitious. The assembly commenced with a prayer r which the augur pronounced, and which the consul repeated after him. There was the same custom among the Athenians. The assembly always commenced by a religious net. Priests offered a sacrifice ; a large circle was then traced by pouring lustral water upon the ground, and within this sacred circle the citizens assembled. 1 Before any 1 Aristophanes, Acharn., 44. JEschines, in Timarch., I. 21; in Ctesiph., 17G, and Scholiast Dinarch., in Aristog., 14- CHAP. Vll. 'I HE RELIGION OF THE CITY. 217 oratoi began to speak, a prayer was pronounced be- fore the silent people. The auspices were also con- sulted, and if any unfavorable sign appeared in the heavens, the assembly broke up at once. 1 The tribune, or speaker's stand, was a sacred place, and the orator never ascended it without a crown upon his head. 2 The place of assembly of the Roman senate was always a temple. If a session had been held else- where than in a sacred place, its acts would have been null and void ; for the gods would not have been pres- ent. Before every deliberation, the president offered a sacrifice and pronounced a prayer. In the hall there was an altar, where every senator, on entering, offered a libation, at the same time invoking the gods. 3 The Athenian senate was little different. The hall also contained an altar and a sacred fire. A religious ceremony was observed at the opening of each session. Every senator, on entering, approached the altar, and pronounced a prayer. While the session lasted, every senator wore a crown upon his head, as in religious ceremonies. 4 At Rome, as well as at Athens, courts of justice were open in the city only on such days as religion pro- nounced favorable. At Athens the session of the court was held near an altar, and commenced with a sac- 1 Aristophanes, Acharn., 171. * Aristophanes, Thesmoph., 381, and Scholiast. 3 Varro, cited by Aulus Gellius, XIV. 7. Cicero, ad Famil., X. 12. Suetonius, Aug., 35. Dion Cassius, LIV. p. C21. Ser- vius, VII. 153. 4 Andocides, De Myst., 44, De Red., 15. Antiphon, Pro Ghor., 45. Lycurgus, in Leocr., 122. Demosthenes, in Meidi- am, 114. Diodorus, XIV. 4. 218 THE CITY. BOOK TIL rifice. 1 In Homer's time the judges assembled "in a holy circle." Festus says, that in the rituals of the Etruscans were directions as to the founding of a city, the consecra- tion of a temple, the arrangement of curies and tribes in a public assembly, and the ranging of an army in ordei of battle. All these things were marked in the ritual, because all these things were connected with religion. In war, religion was as influential, at least, as in peace. In the Italian cities 2 there were colleges of priests, called fetiales, who presided, like the heralds among the Greeks, at all the sacred ceremonies to which international relations gave rise. A fetialis, veiled, and with a crown upon his head, declared war by pro- nouncing a sacramental formula. At the same time, the consul, in priestly robes, offered a sacrifice, and solemnly opened the temple of the most venerated and most ancient divinity of Italy. Before setting out on an expedition, the army being assembled, the general repeated prayers and offered a sacrifice. The custom was the same at Athens and at Sparta. 3 During a campaign the army presented the image of the city; its religion followed it. The Greeks took with them the statues of their divinities. Every Greek or Roman army carried with it a hearth, on which the sacred fire was kept up night and day. 4 A Roman 1 Aristophanes, Wasps, 860-865. Homer, Iliad, XVIII. 504. 2 Dionysius, II. 73. Servius, X. 14. 3 Dionysius, IX. 57. Virgil, VII. 601. Xenophon, Hellen., VI. 5. 4 Herodotus, VIII. 6. Plutarcii, Agesilaus, 6 ; Publicola, 17. Xenophon, Gov. Laced., 14. Dionysius, IX. 6. Stobaeus, 42. Julius Obsequens, 12, 116. CHAP. VII. THE RELIGION OF THE CITY. 219 army was accompanied by augurs nn<\ pullarii (feeders of the sacred chickens) : every Greek army had a diviner. Let us examine a Roman army at the moment when it is preparing for battle. The consul orders a victim to be brought, and strikes it with the axe; it falls: its entrails will indicate the will of the gods. An aruspex examines them, and if the signs are favorable, the con- sul gives the signal for battle. The most skilful dis- positions, the most favorable circumstances, are of no account if the gods do not permit the battle. The fundamental principle of the military art among the Romans was to be able to put off a battle when the gods were opposed to it. It was for this reason that they made a sort of citadel of their camp every day. Let us now examine a Greek army, and we will take for example the battle of Plataea. The Spartans are drawn up in line; each one has his post for battle. They all have crowns upon their heads, and the flute- players sound the religious hymns. The king, a little in rear of the ranks, slaughters the victims. But the entrails do not give the favorable signs, and the sacri- fice must be repeated. Two, three, four victims are successively immolated. During this time the Persian cavalry approach, shoot their arrows, and kill quite a number of Spartans. The Spartans remain immova- ble, their shields placed at their feet, without even putting themselves on the defensive against the arrows of the enemy. They await the signal of the gods. At last the victims offer the favorable signs; then the Spartans raise their shields, seize their swords, move on to battle, and are victorious. After every victory they offer a sacrifice ; and this is the origin of the triumph, which is so well known 220 THE CITY. BOOK III among the Romans, and which was not less common among the Greeks. This custom was a consequence of the opinion which attributed the victory to the gods of the city. Before the battle the army had addressed a prayer to them, like the one we read in JEschylus : "To you, O gods, who inhabit and possess our land, if our arms are fortunate, and if our city is saved, I promise to sprinkle your altars with the blood of sheep, to sacrifice bulls to you, and to hang up in your holy temples the trophies conquered by the spear." ' By virtue of this promise, the victor owed a sacrifice. The army entered the city to offer it, and repaired to the temple, forming a long procession, and singing a sa- cred hymn (9^/,wj?o;. 2 At Rome the ceremony was very nearly the same. The army marched in procession to the principal tem- ple of the city. The priests walked at the head of the cortege, leading victims. On reaching the temple, the general sacrificed the victims to the gods. On their way the soldiers all wore crowns, as was becoming in a sacred ceremony, and sung a hymn, as in Greece. There came a time, indeed, when the soldiers did not scruple to replace the hymn, which they did not under- stand, by barrack songs and raillery at their general ; but they still preserved the custom of repeating the re- frain Jo triumphe. 3 Indeed, it was this refrain which gave the name to the ceremony. Thus, in time of peace, as in war time, religion inter- vened in all acts. It was everywhere present, it en- 1 JSschylus, Sept. Cont. Theb., 252-260. Eurip., rhoen., 573. ? Diodoius, IV. 5. Photius, Qitiappos, tnitinzis vlxr t g, nouni], s Varro, L. L., VI. Gi. Pliny, H. II., VII. 56. Macrobius,. I. 19. CHAP. VII. THE RELIGION OF THE CITY. 221 veloped man. The soul, the body, private life, public life, meals, festivals, assemblies, tribunals, battles, all were under the empire of this city religion. It regu- lated all the acts of man, disposed of every instant of his life, fixed all his habits. It governed a human being with an authority so absolute that there was nothing beyond its control. One would have a very false idea of human nature to believe that this ancient religion was an imposture, and, so to speak, a comedy. Montesquieu pretends that the Romans adopted a worship only to restrain the people. A religion never had such an origin ; and every religion that has come to sustain itself only from motives of public utility, has not stood long. Mon- tesquieu has also said that the Romans subjected reli- gion to the state. The contrary is true. It is impossi- ble to read many pages of Livy without being con- vinced of this. Neither the Romans nor the Greeks knew anything of those sad conflicts between church and state which have been so common in other societies. But this is due solely to the fact that at Rome as well as at Sparta and Athens, the state was enslaved by its religion; or, rather, the state and religion were so com- pletely confounded, that it was impossible even to dis- tinguish the one from the other, to say nothing of forming an idea of a conflict between the two. 222 THE CITY. BOOK III CHAPTER VIII. The Rituals and the Annals. THE character and the virtue of the religion of th ancients was not to elevate human intelligence to the conception of the absolute ; to open to the eager mind a brilliant road, at the end of which it could gain a glimpse of God. This religion was a badly connected assemblage of small creeds, of minute practices, of petty observances. It was not necessary to seek the meaning of them ; there was no need of reflecting, or of giving a reason for them. The word religion did not signify what it signifies for us; by this word we understand a body of dogmas, a doctrine concerning God, a symbol of faith concerning what is in and around us. This same word, among the ancients, sig- nified rites, ceremonies, acts of exterior worship. The doctrine was of small account: the practices were the important part ; these were obligatory, and bound man (ligare, religio}. Religion was a material bond, a chain which held man a slave. Man had originated it, and he was governed by it. He stood in fear of it, and dared not reason upon it, or discuss it, or examine it. Gods, heroes, dead men, claimed a material worship from him, and he paid them the debt, to keep them friendly, and, still more, not to make enemies of them. Man counted little upon their friendship. They were envious, irritable gods, without attachment or friendship for man, and willingly at war with him. Neither did the gods love man, nor did man love his gods. He believed in their existence, but would have CHAP. VIII. THE RITUALS AND THE ANNALS. 225 wished that they did not exist. He feared even his domestic and national gods, and was continually in fear of being betrayed by them. Hi.s great inquietude was lest he might incur their displeasure. He was oc- cupied all his life in appeasing them. Paces deorum qucerere, says the poet. But how satisfy them? Above all, how could one be sure that he had satisfied them, and that they were on his side ? Men believed that the employment of certain formulas answered this pur- pose. A certain prayer, composed of certain words, had been followed by the success that was asked for ; this was, without doubt, because it had been heard by the god, and had exercised an influence upon him ; that it had been potent, more potent than the god, since he had not been able to resist it. They therefore pre- served the mysterious and sacred words of this prayer. After the father, the son repeated it. As soon as writ- ing Avas in use it was committed to writing. Every family, every religious family at least, had a book in which were written the prayers of which the ancestors had made use, and with which the gods had complied. 1 It was an arm which man employed against the incon- stancy of the gods. But not a word or syllable must be changed, and least of all the rhythm in which it had been chanted. For then the prayer would have lost its force, and the gods would have remained free. But the formula was not enough ; there were exterior acts whose details were minute and unchangeable. The slightest gesture of the one who performed the sacri- fice, and the smallest parts of his costume, were gov- erned by strict rules. In addressing one god, it was 1 Dionysius, I. 75. Varro, VI. 90. Cicero, Brutus, 16. Aulus Gellius, XIII. 19. 224 THE CITY. BOOK IIL necessary to have the head veiled; in addressing an- other, the head was uncovered ; for a third, the skirt of the toga was thrown over the shoulder. In certain acts the feet had to be naked. There were certain prayers which were without effect unless the man, after pronouncing them, pirouetted on one foot from left to right. The nature of the victim, the color of the hair, the manner of slaying it, even the shape of the knife, and the kind of wood employed to roast the flesh all was fixed for every god by the religion of each family, or of each city. In vain the most fervent heart offered to the gods the fattest victims: if one of the innumer- able rites of the sacrifice was neglected, the sacrifice was without effect; the least failure made of the sacred act an act of impiety. The slightest alteration dis- turbed and confused the religion of a country, and changed the protecting gods into so many cruel ene- mies. It was for this reason that Athens was so severe against the priest who made some change in the ancient rites. 1 It was for the same reason that the Roman senate degraded its consuls and its dictators who had committed any error in a sacrifice. All these formulas and practices had been handed dowi. by ancestors who had proved their efficacy. There was no occasion for innovation. It was a duty to rest upon what the ancestors had done, and the highest piety consisted in imitating them. It mattered little that a belief changed ; it might be freely modified from age to age, and take a thousand diverse forms, in accordance with the reflection of sagos, or with the popular imagination. But it was of the greatest im- portance that the formulas should not fall into oblivion, 1 Demosthenes, in NetBram, 11G, 117. CHAT. VIII. THE RITUALS AND THE ANNALS. 225 and that the rites should not be modified. Every city, therefore, had a book in which these were preserved. The use of sacred books was universal among the Greeks, the Romans, and the Etruscans. 1 Sometimes the ritual was written on tablets of wood, sometimes on cloth ; Athens engraved its rites upon tablets of copper, that they might bo imperishable. Rome had its books of the pontiffs, its books of the augurs, its book of ceremonies, and its collection of Indigitamen- ta. There was not a city which had not also its col- lection of ancient hymns in honor of its gods. 2 In vain did lancrua^e chancre with manners and beliefs; the o o o * words and the rhythm remained unchangeable, and on the festivals men continued to sing these hymns after they no longer understood them. These books and songs, written by the priests, were preserved by them with the greatest care. They were never revealed to strangers. To reveal a rite, or a formula, would have been to betray the religion of the city, and to deliver its gods to the enemy. For greater precaution they were concealed from the citizens themselves, and the priests alone were allowed to know them. In the minds of the people, all that w r as ancient was venerable and sacred. When a Roman wished to say that anything was dear to him, he said, "That is an- cient for me." The Greeks had the same expression. The cities clung strongly to their past, because they found in the past all the motives as well as all the rules 1 Pausanias, IV. 27. Plutarch, Cont. Colot., 17. Pollux, VIII. 128. Pliny, N. IT., XIII. 21. Val. Max., I. 1, 3. Var- ro, L. L., VI. 1C. Ccnsorinus, 17. Pcstus, v. Rititales. 2 Plutarch, Theseus. 1C. Tac., Ann., IV. 43. 2Elian, H. V., II. 39. 15 226 THE CITY. BOOK III of their religion. They had need to look back, for it, was upon recollections and traditions that their entire worship rested. Thus history had for the ancients a greater importance than it hns for us. It existed a long time before Herodotus and Thucydides, written or unwritten; as simple oral traditions, or in books, it was contemporary with the birth of cities. There was no city, however small and obscure it might be, that did not pay the greatest attention to preserving an account of what had passed within it. This was not vanity, but religion. A city did not believe it had the right to allow anything to be forgotten ; for everything in its history was connected with its worship. History commenced, indeed, with the act of founda- tion, and recorded the sacred name of the founder. It was continued with the legend of the gods of the city, its protecting heroes. It taught the date, the origin, and the reason of every worship, and explained its obscure rites. The prodigies which the gods of the country had performed, and by which they had manifested their power, their goodness, or their anger, were recorded there ; there were described the ceremonies by which the priests had skilfully turned a bad presage, or had appeased the anger of the gods ; there were recorded the epidemics which had afflicted the city, on what day a temple had been consecrated, and for what rea- son a sacrifice had been established ; there were record- ed all the events which related to religion, the victories that proved the assistance of the gods, and in which these gods had often been seen fighting, the defeats which indicated their anger, and for which it had been necessary to institute an expiatory sacrifice. All this was written for the instruction and the piety of the de- scendants. All this history was a material proof of the CHAP. VIII. THE RITUALS AND THE ANNALS. 227 existence of the national gods ; for the events which it contained were the visible form under which these gods had revealed themselves from age to age. Even among these facts there were many that gave rise to festivals and annual sacrifices. The history of the city told the citizen what he must believe and what he must adore. Then, too, this history was written by priests. Rome had its annals of the pontiffs; the Sabine priests, the Samnite priests, and the Etruscan priests had similar ones. 1 Among the Greeks there has been pre- served to us the recollection of the books or secret annais of Athens, Sparta, Delphi, Naxos, and Taren- tum. 2 When Pausanias travelled in Greece, in the time of Hadrian, the priests of every city related to hint the old local histories. They did not invent them, but. had learned them in their annals. This sort of history was entirely local. It commenced at the foundation,. because what had happened before this date was of no> interest to the city ; and this explains why the an- cients have so completely ignored their earliest history. Their records related only to affairs in which the city had been engaged, and gave no heed to the rest of the world. Every city had its special history, as it had its religion and its calendar. We can easily believe that these city annals were exceedingly dry, and very whimsical, both in substance and in form. They were not a work of art, but a re- ligious work. Later came the writers, the narrators, 1 Dionysius, II. 49. Livy, X. 33. Cicero, DeDivin., II. 41 ; 1.33; II. 23. Censorinus, 12, 17. Suetonius, Claudius, 42. Miicrobius, I. 12; V. 19. Solin., II. 9. Servius, VII. G78; VIII. 398. Letters of Marc. Aurel., IV. 4. 2 Plutarch. Cont. Colot., 17; Solon. 11; Moral, 8C9. Atlie- reus, XL 49. Tac., Ann., IV. 43. 228 THE CITY. BOOK III. like Herodotus ; the thinkers, like Thucydides. Histo- ry then left the hands of the priests, and became some- thing quite different. Unfortunately these beautiful and brilliant writings still leave us to regret the early annals of the cities, and all that they would have taught us of the beliefs and the inner life of the an- cients. But these books, which appear to have been kept secret, which never left the sanctuaries, which were never copied, and which the priests alone read, have all perished, and only a faded recollection of them lias remained. This trace, it is true, has a great value for us. With- out it we should perhaps have a right to reject all that Greece and Rome relate to us of their antiquities ; all those accounts, that appear to us so improbable, be- cause they differ so much from our habits and our man- ner of thinking and acting, might pass for the product of men's imnginations. But this trace of the old an- nals that has remained shows us the pious respect which the ancients had for their history. Every city had archives, in which the fucts were religiously pre- served as fast as they took place. In these sacred books every page was contemporary with the event which it recorded. It was materially impossible to alter these documents, for the priests had the care of them ; and it was greatly to the interest of religion that they should remain unalterable. It was not even easy for the pontiff, as he wrote the lines, skilfully to insert statements contrary to the truth ; for lie believed that all events came from the gods ; that he revealed their will, and that he was giving future generations subjects for pious souvenirs, and even for sacred acts. Every event that took placx? in the city commenced at once to form a part of the religion of the future. With CHAP. VIII. THE RITUALS AND THE AXNALS. 229 such beliefs we can easily understand that there would be much involuntary error a result of credulity, of a love for the marvellous, and of faith in the nation- al gods ; but voluntary falsehood is not to be thought of; for that would have been impious; it would have violated the sanctity of the annals, and corrupted the religion. "VVe can believe, therefore, that in these books, if all was not true, there was nothing at least that the priests did not believe. Now, for the his- torian who seeks to pierce the obscurity of those early times, it is a great source of confidence to know that, if he has to deal with errors, he has not to deal with imposture. These errors even, having still the advan- tage of being contemporary with those ancient ages that he is studying, may reveal to him, if not the de- tails of events, at least the sincere convictions of men. These annals, it is true, were kept secret ; neither Herodotus nor Livy read them. But several passages of ancient authors prove that some parts became pub- lic, and that fragments of them came to the knowl- edge of historians. O There were, moreover, besides the annals, these written and authentic documents, oral traditions, which were perpetuated among the people of a city ; not vague and indifferent traditions, like ours, but tra- ditions dear to the cities, such as did not vary to please the imagination, such as men were not at liberty to modify ; for they formed a part of the wor- ship, and were composed of narrations and songs that were repeated from year to year in the religious festi- vals. These sacred and unchangeable hymns fixed the memory of events, and perpetually revived the tra- dilions. Doubtless we should be wrong in believing that these traditions had the exactitude of the annals ^230 THE CITY. BOOK III. The desire to praise the gods might be stronger than the love of truth. Still they must have been at least a reflection of the annals, and must generally have been in accord with them. For the priests who drew up and who read the annals were the same who pre- sided at the festivals where these old lays were sung. There came a time, too, when these annals were divulged. Rome finally published hers; those of other Italian cities were known ; the priests of Greek cities no longer made any scruple of relating what theirs contained. Men studied and compiled from these authentic monuments. There was formed a school of learned men from Varro and Verrins Flaccus to Aulus Gellius and Macrobius. Light was thrown upon all ancient history. Some errors were corrected which had found their way into the traditions, and which the historians of the preceding period had repeated : men learned, for example, that Porsenna had taken Rome, and that gold had been paid to the Gauls. The age of historical criticism had begun. But it is worthy of remark that this criticism, which went back to the sources, and studied the annals, found nothing there that authorized it to reject the historic whole which writers like Herodotus and Livy had constructed. CHAP. IX. GOVERNMENT. THE KING. 231 CHAPTER IX. Government of the City. The King. 1. Religious Authority of the Einy. WE should not picture to ourselves a city, at its foundation, deliberating on the form of government that it will adopt, devising and discussing its laws, and preparing its institutions. It was not thus that laws were made and that governments were estab- lished. The political institutions of the city were born with the city itself and on the same day with it. Every member of the city carried them within himself, for the germ of them was in each man's belief and religion. Religion prescribed that the hearth should always have a supreme priest. It did not permit the sacer- dotal authority to be divided. The domestic hearth had a high priest, who was the father of the family; the hearth of the cury, had its curio, or phratriarch ; every tribe, in the same manner, had its religious chief, whom the Athenians called the king of the tribe. It was also necessary that the city religion should have its supreme priest. This priest of the public hearth bore the name of king. Sometimes they gave him other titles. As he was especially the priest of the prytaneum, the Greeks preferred to call him the prytane ; sometimes also they called him the archon. Under these different names of king, prytane, and archon we are to see a personage who is, above all, the chief of the worship. He keeps up the fire, offers the sacrifice, pronounces the prayer, and presides at the religious repasts. 232 THE eixvr. BOOK in. It may be worth while to offer proof that the ancient kings of Greece and Italy were priests. In Aristotle we read, "The care of the public sacrifices of the city belongs, according to religious custom, not to special priests, but to those men who derive their dignity from the hearth, and who in one place are called kings, in another prytanes, and in a third archons." 1 Thus writes Aristotle, the man who best understood the con- stitution of the Greek cities. This passage, so precise, shows, in the first place, that the three words king, prytane, and archon were a long time synonymous. So true is this, that an ancient historian, Charon of Lampsacus, writing a. book about the kings of Lace- daemon, entitled it Archons and Prytanes of the Lace- dcemonians? It shows also that the personage to whom was applied indifferently one of these three names perhaps all of them at the same time was- the priest of the city, and that the worship of the public hearth was the source of his dignity and power. This sacerdotal character of primitive royalty is clearly indicated by the ancient writers. In ^Eschylus the daughters of Danaus address the king of Argos- in these terms: "Thou art the supreme prytane, and watchest over the hearth of this country." 3 In Eurip- ides, Orestes, the murderer of his mother, says to Menelaus, "It is jast that I, the son of Agamemnon, should reign at Argos." And Menelaus replies, " Art thou, then, fit, thou, .1 murderer, to touch the ves- sels of lustral water for the sacrifices? Art thou fit to slay the victims ?" 4 The principal office of a king was, 1 Aristotle, Polit., VII. 5, 11 (VI. 8). Comp. Dionysius, II. Go. 2 Suiclas, v. Xuocor. 3 J2sch., Supp., 3d (357). 4 Euripides, Orestes, 1605. CHAP. IX. THE KING. 'l'6'6 therefore, to perform religious ceremonies. An ancient king of Sicyon was deposed because, having soiled his hands by a murder, he was no longer in a condition to offer the sacrifices. 1 Being no longer fit for a priest, he could no longer be king. Homer and Virgil represent the kings as continually occupied with sacred ceremonies. We know from Demosthenes that the ancient kings of Attica per- formed themselves all the sacrifices that were pre- scribed by the religion of the city ; and from Xcnophon that the kings of Sparta were the chiefs of the Lacedae- monian icligion. 2 The Etruscan Lucumones were, at the same time, magistrates, military chiefs, and pontiffs. 3 The case was not at all different with the Roman kings. Tradition always represents them as priests. The first was Romulus, who was acquainted with the. science of augury, and who founded the city in accord- ance with religious rites. The second was iNuina: he fulfilled, Livy tells us, the greater part of the priestly functions; but he foresaw that his successors, often having wars to maintain, would not always be able to take care of the sacrifices, and instituted the flamens to replace the kings when the latter were absent from Rome. Thus the Roman priesthood was only an emanation from the primitive royalty. These king-priests were inaugurated with a religious ceremonial. The new king, being conducted to the summit of the Capitoline Hill, was seated upon a stone seat, his face turned towards the south. On his left was seated an augur, his head covered with sacred fillets, and holding in his hand the augur's staff. Pie 1 Nic. Damas., Frag. Hist. Gr., t. III. p. 304. 2 Demosthenes, in Nccer. Xenophon, Gov. Laced., 13. 3 Virgil, X. 175. Livy, V. 1. Censorious, 4. 234 THE CITY. BOOK III. marked off certain lines in the heavens, pronounced a prayer, and, placing his hand upon the king's head, supplicated the gods to show, by a visible sign, that this chief was agreeable to them. Then, as soon as a flash of lightning or a flight of birds had manifested the will of the gods, the new king took possession of his charge. Livy describes this ceremony for the installa- tion of Numa; Dionysius assures us that it took place for all the kings, and after the kings, for the consuls ; he adds that it was still performed in his time. 1 There was a reason for such a custom ; as the king was to be supreme chief of the religion, and the safety of the city was to depend upon his prayers and sacrifices, it was important to make sure, in the first place, that this king was accepted by the gods. The ancients have left us no account of the manner in which the Spartan kings were elected ; but we may be certain that the will of the gods was consulted in the election. We can even see from old customs which survived to the end of the history of Sparta, that the ceremony by which the gods were consulted was renewed every nine years; so fearful were they that the king might lose the favor of the divinity. "Every nine years," says Plutarch, " the Ephors chose a very clear night, but without a moon, and sat in silence, with their eyes fixed upon the heavens. If they saw a star cross from one quarter of the heavens to tho other, this indicated that their kings were guilty of some neglect of the gods. The kings were then sus- pended from their duties till an oracle came from Delphi to relieve them from their forfeiture." 8 1 Livy, I. 18. Dionysius, II. G; IV. 80. 2 Plutarch, Agis, 11. CHA.P. IX. THE KING. 235 2. l^olitical Authority of the King. Just as in the family the authority was inherent in the priesthood, and the father, as head of the domestic worship, was at the same time judge and master, s< the high priest of the city was at the same time its political chief. The altar to borrow an expression of Aristotle conferred dignity and power upon him. There is nothing to surprise us in this confusion of the priesthood and the civil power. We find it at the beginning of almost all societies, either because during the infancy of a people nothing but religion will com- mand their obedience, or because our nature feels the need of not submitting to any other power than that of a moral idea. We have seen how the religion of the city was mixed up with everything. Man felt himself at every moment dependent upon his gods, and consequently upon this priest, who was placed between them and himself. This priest watched over the sacred fire ; it was, as Pindar says, his daily worship that saved the -city every day. 1 He it was who knew the formulas and prayers which the gods could not resist ; at the moment of combat, he it was who slew the victim, and drew upon the army the protection of the gods. It was very natural that a man armed with such a power should be accepted and recognized as a leader. From the fact that religion had so great a part in the gov- ernment, in the courts, and in war, it necessarily fol- lowed that the priest Avas at the same time magistrate, judge, and military chief. " The kings of Sparta," says Aristotle, 2 "have three attributes: they perform the 1 Pindar, Nem., XI. 5. 2 Aristotle, Politics, III. 9. 236 THE CITY. BOOK III, sacrifices, they command in war, and they administer justice." Dionysius of Halicarnassus expresses himself in the same manner regarding the kings of Rome. The constitutional rules of this monarchy were very simple ; it was not necessary to seek long for them ; they flowed from the rules of the worship themselves. The founder, who had established the sacred fire, was naturally the first priest. Hereditary succession was the constant ru'c, in the beginning, for the transmission of this worship. Whether the sacred fire was that of a family or that of a city, religion prescribed that the care of supporting it should always pass from father to son. The priesthood was therefore hereditary, and the power went with it. 1 A well-known fact in the history of Greece proves, in a striking manner that, in the beginning, the kingly office belonged to the man who set up the hearth of the city. We know that the population of the Ionian col- onies was not composed of Athenians, but that it was a mixture of Pelnsgians, ^Eolians, Abantes, and Cad- means. Yet all the hearths of the cities were placed by the members of the religious family of Codrus. It followed that these colonists, instead of having for leaders men of their own race, the Pelasgi a Pelasgian, the Abantes an Abantian, the ^Eolians an^olian, all gave the royalty in their twelve cities to the Codrida3. 8 Assuredly these persons had not acquired their author- ity by force, for they were almost the only Athenians in this numerous agglomeration. But as they had 1 We speak here only of the early ages of cities. We shall see, farther on, that a time came when hereditary succession ceased to he the rule, and we shall explain why at Rome royalty was not hereditary. * Herodotus, I. 142-148. Pausanias, VI. Straho. CHAP. IX. THE KING. 237 established the sacred fires, it was their office to main- tain them. The royalty was, therefore, bestowed upon them without a contest, and remained hereditary in their families. Battus had founded Gyrene in Africa ; and the Battiadaa were a long time in possession of the royal dignity there. Protis founded Marseilles; -and the Protiadse, from father to son, performed the priestly office there, and enjoyed great privileges. It was not force, then, that created chiefs and kings in those ancient cities. It would not be correct to say that the first man who was king there was a lucky soldier. Authority flowed from the worship of (he sa- cred fire. Religion created the king in the city, as it had made the family chief in the house. A belief, an unquestionable and imperious belief, declared that the hereditary priest of the hearth was the depositary of the holy duties and the guardian of the gods. How could one hesitate to obey such a man ? A king was i sacred bc'ing; Gnaileiz IFQO], says Pindar. Men saw in him, not a complete god, but at least "the most powerful man to call down the anger of the gods;" l the man without whose aid no prayer was heard, no sacrifice accepted. This royalty, semi-religions, semi-political, was estab- lished in all cities, from their foundation, without effort on the part of the kings, without resistance on the part of the subjects. We do not see at the origin of the ancient nations those fluctuations and struggles which mark the painful establishment of modern societies. We know how long a time was necessary, after the fall of the Roman empire, to restore the rules of a regular society. Europe saw, during several centuries, opposing 1 Sophocles, CEdipus Hex, 34. 238 THE CITY. BOOK III. principles dispute for the government of the people, and the people at times rejecting all social organization. No such spectacle was seen in ancient Greece, or in ancient Italy; their history does not commence with conflicts: revolutions appeared only at the close. Among these populations, society formed slowly and by degrees, while passing from the family to the tribe, and from the tribe to the city, but without shock and without a struggle. Royalty was established quite naturally, in the family first, in the city later. It was not devised in the imagination of a few ; it grew out of a necessity that was manifest to the eyes of all. During long ages it was peaceable, honored, and obeyed. The kings had no need of material force ; they had neither army nor treasury ; but, sustained by a faith that had a powerful influence over the mind, their authority was sacred and inviolable. A revolution, of which we shall speak farther on, overturned the kingly power in every city ; but when it fell, it left no rancor in the hearts of men. That contempt, mingled with hatred, which ordinarily at- tends on fallen grandeur, it never experienced. Fallen as it was, the affection and respect of men remained attached to its memory. In Greece we see something which is not very common in history : in the cities where the royal family did not become extinct, not only was it not expelled, but the same men who had despoiled it of power continued to honor it. At Ephesus, at Marseilles, at Cyrene, the royal family, de- prived of power, remained surrounded with the respect of the people, and even retained the title and insignia of royalty. 1 1 Strabo, IV. 171; XIV. G32; XIII. COS. Athenceus, XIII. 676 C1IAP. X. THE MAGISTRACY. The people established republican institutions; but the name of king, far from becoming a reproach, re- mained a venerated title. It is customary to say that this word was odious and despised. This is a singular error; the Romans applied it to the gods in their prayers. If the usurpers dai'ed not assume this title, it was not because it was odious, but rather because it was sacred. 1 In Greece monarchy was many timea restored in the cities; but the new monarchs never claimed the right to be called kings, and were satisfied to be called tyrants. What made the difference in these names was not the more or fewer moral qualities found in the sovereign. It was not the custom to call a good prince Icing and a bad one tyrant. Religion was what distinguished one from the other. The prim- itive kings had performed the duties of priests, and had derived their authority from the sacred fire ; the tyrants of a later epoch were merely political chiefs, and owed their elevation to force or election only. CHAPTER X. The Magistracy. THE union of the political authority and the priest- hood in the same person did not cease with royalty. The revolution which established the republican regime, did not separate functions whose connection appeared natural, and was then the fundamental law of human society. The magistrate who replaced the king was, 1 Sanctitas region, Suetonius, Julius Cccsar, 6. Livy, III. 89. Cicero, Repub., I. 33. 240 TIIE CITY. BOOK III like him, a priest, and at the same time a political chief. Sometimes this annual magistrate bore the sacred title of king. 1 In other places the title of prytanef which he retained, indicated his principal function. In other cities the title of archon prevailed. At Thebes, for example, the first magistrate was called by this name; but what Plutarch says of this office shows that it differed little from the priesthood. This archon, dur- ing his term of office, was required to wear a crown, 3 as became a priest ; religion forbade him to let his hair grow, or to carry any iron object upon his person a regulation which made him resemble the Roman flamen. The city of Plata3a also had an archon, and the religion of this city required that, during his whole term of office, he should be clothed in white 4 that is to say, in the sacred color. The Athenian archons, when entering upon their duty, ascended the Acropolis, their heads crowned with myrtle, and offered a sacrifice to the divinity of the city. It was also a custom for them, in the exercise of their duty, to wear a crown of leaves upon their heads. 6 Now, it is certain that the crown, which in the course of time became, and has remained, the symbol of power, was then only a religious emblem, an ex- terior sign, which accompanied prayer and sacrifice. 7 1 At Megara, at Samothracc. Livy, XLV. 5. Boeckh, Corp. Inner., 1052. 2 Pindar, Nem., XL 3 Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 40. 4 Plutarch, Aristides, 21. * Thucydides, VIII. 70. Apollodorus, Fragment, 21 (coll. Didot). 6 Demosthenes, in Meidiam, 83. 2Eschines, in Timarch., 19. 7 Plutarch, fricias, 3; Phocion, 37. Cicero, in Verr., IV. 50. CUAP. X. TUB MAGISTRACY. 241 Among the nine nvchons the one called king was especially a religious chief; but each of his colleagues hal i Eubul 6 Cicero, Pro Archia, o. Gaius. II. 110. 7 Pausanias, VIII. 43. CHAP. XII. YHE CITIZEN AND THE STRANGER. 263 to establish a system that should be vexatious towards foreigners ; but there was nothing of this. Athens and O ' O Rome, on the contrary, gave him a good reception, both for commercial and political reasons. But neither their good will nor their interest could abolish the ancient laws which religion had established. This religion did not permit the stranger to become a proprietor, because he could not have any part in the religious soil of the y the vestiges of their camps than by the solitude which reigned in the neighborhood. When the conquerors did not exterminate the van- quished, they had a right to suppress their city that is to say, to break up their religious and political asso- ciation. The worship then ceased, and the gods were forgotten. The religion of the city being destroyed, the religion of every family disappeared at the same time. The sacred fires were extinguished. With the worship fell the laws, civil rights, the family, property, everything that depended upon religion. 1 Let us listen to the prisoner whose life is spared ; he is made to pro- nounce the following formula : "I give my person, my city, my land, the water that flows over it, my boundary gods, my temples, my movable property, everything which pertains to the gods, these I give to the Ro- man people."" From this moment the gods, the tem- ples, the houses, the lands, and the people belonged to 1 Cicero, in Verr., II. 3. G. Siculus Flacc % us, passim. Thu- cydides, III. 50 and GS. 1 Livy, I. 38. Plautu.s. Amphitr., 100-105. JHAP. XV. PEACE. 277 the victors. We shall relate, farther on, what the result of this was under the dominion of Rome. When a war did not end by the extermination or subjection of one of the two parties, a treaty of peace mio'ht terminate it. But for this a convention was not O sufficient ; a religious act was necessary. Every treaty was marked by the immolation of a victim. To sign a treaty is a modern expression ; the Latins said, strike a kid, icere hcedus, or foedus / the name of the victim most generally employed for this purpose has remained in the common language to designate the entire act. 1 The Greeks expressed themselves in a similar manner; they said, offer a libation onivStaQui. The ceremony of the treaty was always accomplished by priests, who conformed to the ritual. 2 In Italy they were called feciales, and spendophoroi, or libation-carriers, in Greece. These religious ceremonies alone gave a sacred and inviolable character to international conventions. The history of the Caudine Forks is well known. An entire army, through its consuls, questors, tribunes, and cen- turions had made a convention with the Samnites ; but no victims had been offered. The senate, therefore, believed itself justified in declaring that the treaty was not valid. In annulling it, no pontiff or patrician be lieved that he was committing an act of bad faith. It was the universal opinion among the ancients that a man owed no obligations except to his own gods. We may recall the saying of a certain Greek, whose city adored the hero Alabandos ; he was speaking to an inhabitant of another city, that worshipped Hercules. 1 Festus, Fasdum, and Fcsdits. 2 In Greece they wore a crown. Xenophon, Hell., IV. 7, 3. 278 THE CITY. BOOK III. "Alabandos," said he, "is a god, and Hercules is not one." ' With such ideas it was important, in a treaty of peace, that each city called its own gods to bear witness to its oaths. "We made a treaty, and poured out the libations," said the Plataeans to the Spartans; "we called to witness, you the gods of your fathers, we the gods who occupy our country."* Both parties tried, indeed, if it was possible, to invoke divinities that were common to both cities. They swore by those gods that were visible everywhere the sun, which shines upon all, and the nourishing earth. But the gods of each city, and its protecting heroes, touched men much more, and it was necessary to call them to witness, if men wished to have oaths really confirmed by religion. As the gods mingled in the battles during the war, they had to be included in the treaty. It was stipulated, therefore, that there should be an alliance between the gods as between the men of the two cities. To indicate this alliance of the gods, it sometimes happened that the two peoples agreed mutually to take part in each other's sacred festivals. 3 Sometimes they opened their temples to each other, and made an exchange of religious rites. Rome once stipulated that the city god of Lanuvium should thence- forth protect the Romans, who should have the right to invoke him, and to enter his temple. 4 Afterwards each of the contracting parties engaged to worship the divinities of the other. Thus the Eleans, having con- cluded a treaty with the JEtolians, thenceforth offered an annual sacrifice to the heroes of their allies. It often happened, after an alliance, that the divini- 1 Cicero, De Nat. Deor., III. 19. 2 Thucydides, II. 3 Thucydides, V. 23. Plutarch, Theseus, 25, 33. 4 Livy, VIII. 14. 3 Pausanias, V. io. CHAP. XV. THE ALLIANCE OF THE GODS. U79 ties of two cities were represented by statues or medals holding one another by the hand. Thus it is that there are medals on which are seen united the Apollo of Miletus and the Genius of Smyrna, the Pallas of the Sideans and the Artemis of Perga, the Apollo of Hie- rapolis and the Artemis of Ephesus. Virgil, speaking of an alliance between Thrace and the Trojans, represents (he Penates of the two nations united and associated. These strange customs corresponded perfectly with the idea which the ancients had of the gods. As every city had its own, it seemed natural that these gods should figure in battles and treaties. War or peace between two cities was war or peace between two religions. International law among the ancients was long founded upon this principle. When the gods were en- emies, there was war without mercy and without law ; as soon as they were friends, the men were united, and entertained ideas of reciprocal duties. If they could imagine that the protecting divinities of two cities had some motive for becoming allies, this "was reason enough why the two cities should become so. The first city with which Rome contracted ties of friendship was 'Caere, in Etruria, and Livy gives the reason for this : in the disaster of the Gallic invasion, the Roman gods had found an asylum in Ca3re ; they had inhabited that city, and had been adored there ; a sacred bond of friendship was thus established between the Roman gods and the Etruscan city.' Thenceforth religion would not permit the two cities to be enemies; they were allied forever. 8 1 Livy, V. 50. Aulus Gellius, XVI. 13. 3 It does not enter into our plan to speak of the numerous confederations or amphictyonies in ancient Greece and Italy. 280 THE CITY. BOOK. III. CHAPTER XVI. The Roman. The Athenian. THIS same religion which had founded society, and which had governed it for a long time, also gave the human mind its direction, and man his character. By its dogmas and its practices it gave to the Greek and the Roman a certain manner of thinking and acting, and certain habits of which they were a long time in divesting themselves. It showed men gods every- We will only remark here that they were as much religious as political associations. There was not one of them that had not a common worship and a sanctuary. That of the Boeotians wor- shipped Athene Itonia, that of the Achasans Demeter Panachaea, the god of the lonians in Asia Minor was Poseidon Ilelliconius, as that of the Dorian Pentapolis was Apollo Triopicus. The confederation of the Cyclades offered a common sacrifice in the isle of Delos, the cities of Argolis at Calauria. The Amphic- tyony of Thermopylae was an association of the same nature. All their meetings took place in temples, and were principally for offering sacrifices. Each of the confederate cities sent citizens clothed for the time with a sacerdotal character, and called theori, to take part in these meetings. A victim was slain in- honor of the god of the association, and the flesh, cooked upon the altar, was shared among the representatives of the cities. The common meal, with the songs, prayers, and sacred plays that accompanied them, formed the bond of the confederation. The same usage existed in Italy. The cities of Latium had the feriae Latinae, in which they shared the flesh of a victim. It was the same with the Etruscan cities. Besides, in all these amphictyonies, the political hond was always weaker than the religious one. The confederate cities preserved perfect inde- pendence. They might even make war against each other, provided they observed a truce during the federal festival. CHAP. XVI. THE ROMA>f. '281 where, little gods, gods easily irritated and malevolent. It crushed man with the fear of always having gods against him, and left him no liberty in his acts. We must inquire what place religion occupied in the lite of a Roman. His house was for him what > temple is for us. He finds there his worship and his gods. His fire i" a god ; the walls, the doors, the thresh- old are gods ; ' the boundary marks which surround his field are also gods. The tomb is an altar, and hi* ancestors are divine beings. Each one of his daily actions is a rite; his whole day belongs to his religion. Morning and evening lie invokes his fire, his Penates, and his ancestors; in leav- ing and entering his house he addresses a prayer to them. Every meal is a religious act, which he share* with his domestic divinities. Birth, initiation, the taking of the toga, marriage, and the anniversaries of O O ' O * all these events, are the solemn acts of his worship. He leaves his house, and can hardly take a step with- out meeting some sacred object either a chapel, or a place formerly struck by lightning, or a tomb ; some- times he must step back and pronounce a prayer; some- times lie must turn his eyes and cover his face, to avoid the sight of some ill-boding object. Every day he sacrifices in his house, every month in his cury, several months a year with his gens or his tribe. Above all these gods, he must offer worship ta those of the city. There are in Rome more gods than citizens. He offers sacrifices to thank the gods ; he offers them, and by far the greater number, to appease their wrath. 1 St. Augustine, City of God, VI. 7. Tertullian, Ad. Nat. t II. 15. 282 THE CITY. BOOK III. One day he figures in a procession, dancing after a certain ancient rhythm, to the sound of the sacred flute. Another day he conducts chariots, in which lie statues of the divinities. Another time it is a lectisternium . a table is set in a street, and loaded with provisions upon beds lie statues of the gods, and every Roman passes bowing, with a crown upon his head, and a branch of laurel in his hand. 1 There is a festival for seed-time, one for the harvest, and one for the pruning of the vines. Before corn has reached the ear, the Roman has offered more than ten sacrifices, and invoked some ten divinities for the suc- cess of his harvest. He has, above all, a multitude of festivals for the dead, because he is afraid of thorn. He never leaves his own house without looking to ee if any bird of bad augury appears. There are words which he dares not pronounce for his life. If he experiences some desire, he inscribes his wish upon a tablet which he places at the feet of the statue of a divinity. At every moment he consults the gods, and wishes to know their will. He finds all his resolutions in the entrails of victims, in the flight of birds, in the warning of the lightning. The announcement of a shower of blood, or of an ox that has spoken, troubles him and makes him tremble. He will be tranquil only after an expiatory ceremony shall restore him to peace with the gods. He steps out of his house always with the right foot first. He has his hair cut only during the full moon. He carries amulets upon his person. He covers the walls of his house with magic inscriptions against fire. 1 Livy, XXXIV. 55 ; XL. 37. CHAP. XVI. THE ROMAN. 283 He knows of formulas for avoiding sickness, and of others for caring it ; but he must repeat them twenty- seven times, and spit in a certain fashion at each repetition. 1 He does not deliberate in the senate if the victims have not given favorable signs. He leaves the as- sembly of the people if he hears the cry of a mouse. He renounces the best laid plans if he perceives a bad presage, or if an ill-omened word has struck his ear. He is brave in battle, but on condition that the aus- pioes assure him the victory. . This Roman whom we present here is not the man of the people, the feeble-minded man whom misery and ignorance have made superstitious. We are speak- ing of the patrician, the noble, powerful, and rich man. This patrician is, by turns, warrior, magistrate, consul, farmer, merchant; but everywhere and always he is a, priest, and his thoughts are fixed upon the gods. Patriotism, love of glory, and love of gold, whatever power these may have over his soul, the fear of the gods still governs everything. Horace has written the most striking truth concerning the Romans : " Dis te minorem quod geris, imperas." Men have sometimes called this a political religion ; but can we suppose that a senate of three hundred mem- bers, a body of three thousand patricians, should have -agreed so unanimously to deceive an ignorant people? and that, for ages, during so many rivalries, struggles, and personal hatreds, not a single voice was raised to say, This is a falsehood '? If a patrician had betrayed 1 Cato, De Re Rust., 160. Varro, De Re Rust., 1.2; I. 37. Pliny, N. If., VIII. 82; XVII. 28; XXVII. 12; XXVIII. 2. Juvenal, X. 55. Aulus Gellius, IV. 5. 284 THE CITY. BOOK III. the secrets of his sect, if, addressing himself to the plebeians, who impatiently supported the yoke of this religion, he had disembarrassed and freed them from these auspices and priesthoods, this man would imme- diately have obtained so much credit that lie might have become the master of the state. Does any one suppose that if these patricians had not believed in the religion which they practised, such a temptation would not have been strong enough to determine at least one among them to reveal the secret? We greatly deceive ourselves on the nature of man if we suppose a reli- gion c;m be established by convention and supported by impos'.ure. Let any one count in Livy how many times ttas religion embarrassed the patricians them selves, how many times it stood in the way of the sen- ate and impeded its action, and then decide if this religion was invented for the convenience of statesmen. It was very late not till the time of the Scipios that they began to believe that religion was useful to the government ; but then religion was already dead in their minds. Let us take a Roman of the first days : we will choose one of the greatest commanders, Camillus, who was five times dictator, and who was victorious in more than ten battles. To be just, we must consider him quite as much a priest as a warrior. He belonged to the Furian gens ; his surname is a word which designates a priestly function. When a child he was required to wear the prcetexta, which indicated his caste, and the lulla, which kept bad fortune from him. He grew up, taking a daily part in the ceremonies of the worship; he passed his youth in studying religious rites. A war oroke out, and the priest became a soldier ; he was seen, when wounded in the thigh, in a cavalry combat,. CHAP. XVI. THE ROMAN. 285 to draw the iron from the wound and continue to fight. After several campaigns he was raised to magistracies', as consular tribune he offered the public sacrifices, acted as judge, and commanded the army. A day comes when men think of him for the dictatorship. On that day, the magistrate in office, after having watched during a clear night, consults the gods; his thoughts are fixed upon Camillas, whose name he pronounces in n low voice, and his eyes are fixed upon the heavens, where he seeks the presages. The gods send only good ones, for Camillas is agreeable to them, and he is named dictator. Xow, as chief of the army, he leaves the city, not without having consulted the auspices and slain many victims. He has under his orders many officers and almost as many priests, a pontiff, augurs, arnspices, keepers of the sacred chickens, assistants at sacrifices, and a bearer of the sacred fire. His work is to finish the war against Veii, which for nine years has been besieged without success. Veii is an Etruscan city that is to say, almost a sacred city ; it is again** piety, more than courage, that the Romans have to contend. If the Romans have been unsuccessful for nine years, it is because the Etruscans have a better knowledge of the rites that are agreeable to the gods, and the magic formulas that gain their favor. Rome, on her side, has opened the Sibylline books, and has sought the will of the gods there. It appears that the Latin festival h;is been vitiated by some neglect of form, and the sacrifice is renewed. Still the Etruscans retain their superiority; only one resource is lei't to seize an Etruscan priest and learn the secret of the gods from him. A Veientine priest is taken and brought to the senate. "To insure the success of Rome," he says, 286 THE CITY. BOOK III. " the level of the Alban Lake must be lowered, taking good care that the water does not run into the sea." The Romans obey. They dig many canals and ditches, and the water of the lake is lost iu the plain. At this moment Camillus is elected dictator. He repairs to the army at Veii. He is sure of success; for all the oracles have been revealed, all the commands of the gods have been fulfilled. Moreover, before leav- ing Rome, he has promised the protecting gods festi- vals and sacrifices. In order to insure success he does not neglect human means ; he increases the army, im- proves its discipline, and constructs a subterranean gallery, to penetrate into the citadel. The day for the attack arrives; Camillus leaves his tent; he takes the auspices and sacrifices victims. The pontiffs and au- gurs surround him ; clothed in the paludamentum, he invokes the gods : " Under thy conduct, O Apollo, and by thy will which inspires me, I march to take and de- stroy the city of Veii : to thee I promise and devote a tenth part of the spoils." But it is not enough to have gods on his side ; the enemy also has a powerful divin- ity that protects him. Camillus invokes this divinity in these words : "Queen Juno, who at present inhabit- est Veii, I pray thee come with us conquerors; follow us into our city; let our city become thine." Then, the sacrifices being finished, the prayers pronounced, the formulas recited, when the Romans are sure that the gods are for them, and no god any longer defends the enemy, the assault is made, and the city is taken. Such was Camillus. A Roman general was a man who understood admirably how to fight, who knew, above all, how to command obedience, but who believed firm- ly in the augurs, who performed religious acts every day, and who was convinced that what was of most CH4.P. XVI. THE ATHENIAN. 287 importance was not courage, or even discipline, but the enunciation of certain formulas exactly pronounced, according to the rites. These formulas, addressed to the gods, determined them and constrained them almost always to give him the victory. For such a general the supreme recompense was for the senate to- permit him to offer the triumphal sacrifice. Then he ascends the sacred chariot drawn by four white horses;. he wears the sacred robe with which the gods are clothed on festal days ; his head is crowned, his right hand holds a laurel branch, his left the ivory scep- tre; these are exactly the attributes and the costume of Jupiter's statue. 1 With this almost divine majesty he shows himself to the citizens, and goes to render homage to the true majesty of the greatest of the Ro- man gods. He climbs the slope of the Capitol, arrives- before the temple of Jupiter, and immolates victims. The fear of the gods was not a sentiment peculiar to the Roman ; it also reigned in the heart of the Greek. These peoples, originally established by reli- gion, and elevated by it, long preserved the marks of their first education. We know the scruples of the Spartan, who never commenced an expedition before the full moon, who was continually sacrificing victims to know whether he ought to fight, and who renounced the best planned and most necessary enterprises be- cause a bad presage frightened him. The Athenian was not less scrupulous. An Athenian army never set out on a campaign before the seventh day of the month r and when a fleet set sail on an expedition, great care was taken to regild the statue of Pallas. 1 Livy, X. 7 ; XXX. 15. Dionysius, V. 8. Appian, Punic Wars, 59. Juvenal, X. 43. Pliny, XXXIII. 7. 288 THE CITY. BOOK III. Xenophon declares that the Athenians had more religious festivals than any other Greek people. 1 "How many victims offered to the gods!" says Aristophanes, 2 "how many temples! how many statues! how many sacred processions! At every moment of the year we see religious feasts and crowned victims." The city of Athens and its territory are covered with temples and chapels. Some are for the city worship, others for the tribes and denies, and still others for family wor- ship. Every house is itself a temple, and in every field there is a sacred tomb. The Athenian whom we picture to ourselves as so inconstant, so capricious, such a free-thinker, has, on the contrary, a singular respect for ancient traditions and ancient rites. His principal religion that which secures his most fervent devotion is the worship of ancestors and heroes. He worships the dead and fears them. One of his laws obliges him to offer them yearly the first fruits of his harvest; another forbids him to pronounce a single word that can call down their an- ger. Whatever relates to antiquity is sacred to the Athenian. He has old collections, in which are record- ed his rites, from which he never departs. If a priest introduces the slightest innovation into the worship, he is punished with death. The strangest rites are observed from age to age. One day in the year the Athenians offer a sacrifice in honor of Ariadne; and because it was said that the beloved of Theseus died in childbirth, they are compelled to imitate the cries and movements of a woman in travail. They cele- brate another festival, called Oschophoria, which is a 1 Xenophon, Gov. of the Athenians, III. 2. 2 Aristophanes, Clouds. CHAP. XVI. THE ATHENIAN. 289 sort of pantomime, representing the return of Theseus to Attica. They crown the wand of a herald because Theseus's herald crowned his staff. They utter a cer- tain cry which they suppose the herald uttered, and a procession is formed, and eacli wears the costume that was in fashion in Theseus's time. On another day the Athenians did not fail to boil vegetables in a pot of a certain kind. This was a rite the origin of which was lost in dim antiquity, and of which no one knew the significance, but which was piously renewed each year. 1 The Athenian, like the Roman, had unlucky days : on these days no marriage took place, no enterprise was begun, no assembly was held, and justice was not admin- istered. The eighteenth and nineteenth day of every month was employed in purifications. The day of the Plynteria a day unlucky above all they veiled the statue of the great Athene Polias. On the contrary, on the day of the Panathenaea, the veil of the goddess was carried in grand procession, and all the citizens, with- out distinction of age or rank, made up the cortege. The Athenian offered sacrifices for the harvests, for the return of rain, and for the return of fair weather; he offered them to cure sickness, and to drive away famine or pestilence. 2 Athens has its collection of ancient oracles, as Rome has her Sibylline books, and supports in the Pryta- neum men who foretell the future. In her streets we meet at every step soothsayers, priests, and interpreters of dreams. The Athenian believes in portents; sneez- 1 Plutarch, Theseus, 20, 22, 23. 8 Plato, Laws, p. 800. Philochorus, fragm. Euripides, SuppL, 80. 19 290 THE CITY. BOOK III. ing, or a ringing in the ears, arrests him in an enter- prise. He never goes on shipboard without taking the auspices. Before marrying he does not fail to consult the flight of birds. The assembly of the people disperses as soon as any one declares that there lias appeared in the heavens an ill-boding sign. If a sacri- fice has been disturbed by the announcement of bad news, it must be recommenced.' The Athenian hardly commences r. sentence without first invoking good fortune. He puts the same words at the head of all his decrees. On the speaker's stand the orator prefers to commence with an invocation to the gods and heroes who inhabit the country. The people are led by oracles. The orators, to give their advice more force, repeat, at every moment, "The goddess ordains thus." " Nicias belongs to a great and rich family. While still young he conducts to the sanctuary of Delos a iheoria that is to say, victims, and a chorus to sing the praises of the god during the sacrifice. Returning to Athens, he offers a part of his fortune in homage to the gods, dedicating a statue to Athene and a chapel to Dionysius. By turns he is hestiator, and pays the expense of the sacred repast of his tribe; and chore- ffus, when he supports a chorus for the religious festi- vals. No day passes that he docs not offer a sacrifice to some god. He has a soothsayer attached to his house, who never leaves it, and whom he consults on public affairs, as well as on his own. Having been ap- pointed a general, he commands an expedition against 1 Aristophanes, Peace, 1084; Birds, 59G, 718. Schol. ad Avcs, 721. Thucyd., II. 8. 1 Lycurgus, I. 1. Aristophanes, Kniqhts, 903, 999, 1171, 1179. CHAP. XVI. THE KOMAN. THE ATHENIAN. 291 Corinth; while he is returning victorious to Athens, lie perceives that two of his dead soldiers have been left, without burial, upon the enemy's territory. He is seized with a religious scruple ; he stops his fleet, and sends a herald to demand of the Corinthians permission to bury the two bodies. Some time after, the Athenian people are deliberating upon the Sicilian expedition. Nicias ascends the speaker's stand, and declares that his priests and soothsayers announce prestiges which are opposed to the expedition. Alcibiades, it is true, has other diviners who interpret the oracles in a contrary sense. The people are undecided. Men come in who have just arrived from Egypt; they have consulted the god Ammon, who is beginning to be quite the fashion, and they report this oracle from him. The Athenians will capture all the Syracusaus. The people immedi- ately decide for war. 1 Nicias, much against his will, commands the expedi- tion. Before setting out, he offers a sacrifice, according to custom. He takes with him, like other generals, a troop of diviners, sacrificers, aruspices, and heralds. The fleet carries its sacred fire; every vessel has an emblem representing some god. But Nicias has little hope. Is not misfortune an- nounced by prodigies enough ? Crows have injured a statue of Pallas; a man has mutilated himself upon an altar; and the departure takes place during the unlucky- days of the Plynteria. Nicias knows only too well that this war will be fatal to him and his country. During the whole course of his campaign he always appears, timorous and circumspect : he hardly dares to give the signal for a battle, ho whom they know to be so brave 1 Plutarch, yicias. Thucydides, VI. 292 THE CITY. BOOK. IIL a soldier and so skilful a general. The Athenians cannot take Syracuse, and, after cruel losses, they are forced to decide upon returning home. Nicias pre- pares his fleet for the return ; the sea is still free. But an eclipse of the moon happens. He consults his divin- er ; the diviner answers that the presage is unfavor- able, and that they must wait three times nine days. Nicias obeys ; he passes all this time inactive, offering many sacrifices to appease the wrath of the gods. During this delay the enemy close up the port and destroy his fleet. Nothing is left for him but to retreat by land, and this is impossible. Neither he nor any of his soldiers escapes the Syracusans. What did the Athenians say at the news of this disaster? They knew the personal courage of Nicias, and his admirable constancy. Nor did they dream of blaming him for having followed the dictates of religion. They found but one thing to reproach him for; this was for having taken with him an ignorant diviner. For CJ O this man had been mistaken as to the meaning of the eclipse of the moon ; he ought to have known that, for an army wishing to retreat, a moon that conceals its light is a favorable presage. 1 1 Plutarch, Nicias, 23. CHAP XVII. OMNIPOTENCE OF THE STATE. CHAPTER XVII. The Omnipotence of the State- The Ancients knew nothing of Individual Liberty. THE city had been founded upon a religion, and constituted like a church. Hence its strength ; hence, also, its omnipotence and the absolute empire which it exercised over its members. In a society established on such principles, individual liberty could not exist. The citizen was subordinate in everything, and without any reserve, to the city ; he belonged to it body and soul. The religion which had produced the state, and the state which supported the religion, sustained each other, and made but one ; these two powers, associated and confounded, formed a power almost superhuman, to which the soul and the body were equally enslaved. There was nothing independent in man ; his body belonged to the state, and was devoted to its defence. At Home military service was due till a man was fifty years old, at Athens till he was sixty, at Sparta always. His fortune was always at the disposal of the state. If the city had need of money, it could order the women to deliver up their jewels, the creditors to give up their claims, and the owners of olive trees to turn over gra- tuitously the oil which they had made. 1 Private life did not escape this omnipotence of the state. The Athenian law, in the name of religion, for- bade men to remain single. 2 Sparta punished not only those who remained single, but those who married 1 Aristotle, JZconom., II. 8 Pollux, VIII. 40. Plutarch, Lysander, 30. 294 THE CITY. BOOK 111. late. At Athens the state could prescribe labor, and at Sparta idleness. It exercised its tyranny even in the smallest things ; at Locri the laws forbade men to drink pure wine ; at Rome, Miletus, and Marseilles wine was forbidden to women. 1 It was a common thing for the kind of dress to be invariably fixed by each city; the legislation of Sparta regulated the head-dress of women, and that of Athens forbade them to take with them on a journey more than three dresses. 2 At Rhodes and Byzantium the law forbade men to shave the beard. 3 The state was under no obligation to suffer any of its citizens to be deformed. It therefore commanded a father to whom such a son was born, to have him put to death. This law is found in the ancient codes of Sparta and of Rome. We do not know that it existed at Athens ; we know only that Aristotle and Plato in- corporated it into their ideal codes. There is, in the history of Sparta, one trait which Plutarch and Rousseau greatly admired. Sparta had just suffered a defeat at Leuctra, and many of its citi- zens had perished. On the receipt of this news, the relatives of the dead had to show themselves in public with gay countenances. The mother who learned that her son had escaped, and that she should see him again, appeared afflicted and wept. Another, who knew that 1 Athenseus, X. 33. .Elian, V. ZT., II. 37. * Fragm. Hist. Grcec. Didot, t. II. p. 129, 211. Plutarch, Solon, 21. 3 Atlicnaeus, XIII. Plutarch, Cleomenes, 9. "The Romans thought that no marriage, or rearing of chil- dren, nay, no feast or drinking bout, ought to be permitted according to every one's appetite or fancy, without being ex- amined and inquired into." Plutarch, Cato the Elder, 23. CHAP. XVII. EDUCATION. 295 t>he should never again see her son, appeared joyous, and went round to the temple to thank the gods. What, then, was the power of the state that could thus order the reversal of the natural sentiments, and be obeyed ? The state allowed no man to be indifferent to its interests; the philosopher or the studious man had no right to live apart. He was obliged to vote in the assembly, and be magistrate in his turn. At a time when discords were frequent, the Athenian law per- mitted no one to remain neutral; he must take sides with one or the other party. Against one who at- tempted to remain indifferent, and not side with either faction, and to appear calm, the law pronounced the punishment of exile with confiscation of property. Education was far from being free among the Greeks. On the contrary, there was nothing over which the state had greater control. At Sparta the father could have nothing to do with the education of his son. The law appears to have been less rigorous at Athens; still the state managed to have education in the hands of masters of its own choosing. Aristophanes, in an elo- quent passage, shows the Athenian children on their way to school ; in order, distributed according to their district, they march in serried ranks, through rain, snow, or scorching heat. These children seem already to understand that they are performing a public duty. 1 The state wished alone to control education, and Plato gives the motive for this: 2 "Parents ought not to be free to send or not to send their children to the masters whom the city has chosen ; for the children belong less to their parents than to the city." Aristophanes, Clouds, 9CO-9G5. 2 Plato, Laws, VII. THE CITY. BOOK III. The state considered the mind and body of every citizen as belonging to it; and wished, therefore, to fashion this body and mind in a manner that would enable it to draw the greatest advantage from them. Children were taught gymnastics, because the body of a man was an arm for the city, and it was best that this arm should be as strong and as skilful as possible. They were also taught religious songs and hymns, and the sacred dances, because this knowledge was neces- sary to the correct performance of the sacrifices and festivals of the city. 1 It was admitted that the state had a right to prevent free instruction by the side of its own. One day Athens made a law forbidding the instruction of young people without authority from the magistrates, and another, which specially forbade the teaching of philosophy. 2 A man had no chance to choose his belief. He must believe and submit to the religion of the city. He could hate and despise the gods of the neighboring 3ity. As to the divinities of a general and universal character, like Jupiter, or Cybele, or Juno, he was free to believe or not to believe in them; but it would not do to entertain doubts about Athene Polias, or Erech- theus, or Cecrops. That would have been grave im- piety, which would have endangered religion and the state at the same time, and which the state would have severely punished. Socrates was put to death for this crime. Liberty of thought in regard to the state re- ligion was absolutely unknown among the ancients. 1 Aristophanes, Clouds, 9GO-9G8. 2 Xenophon, Memor., I. 2. Diogenes Laertius, Tlieoplir. These two laws did not continue a long time; but they do not the less prove the omnipotence that was conceded to the state ia matters of instruction. CHAP. XVII. INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. 297 Men had to conform to all the rules of worship, figure in all the processions, and take part in the sacred repasts. Athenian legislation punished those by a fine who failed religiously to celebrate a national festival. 1 The ancients, therefore, knew neither liberty in pri- vate life, liberty in education, nor religious liberty. The human person counted for very little against that holy and almost divine authority which was called country or the state. The state had not only, as we have in our modern societies, a right to administer jus- tice to the citizens ; it could strike when one was not guilty, and simply for its own interest. Aristides as- suredly had committed no crime, and was not even suspected ; but the city had the right to drive him from its territory, for the simple reason that he had acquired by his virtues too much influence, and might become dangerous, if he desired to be. This was called ostra- cism ; this institution was not peculiar to Athens ; it was found at Argos, at Megara, at Syracuse, and we may believe that it existed in all the Greek cities. 2 Now, ostracism was not a chastisement; it was a precaution which the city took against a citizen whom it suspected of having the power to injure it at any time. At Athens a man could be put on trial and con- demned for incivism that is to say, for the want of affection towards the state. A man's life was guaran- teed by nothing so soon as the interest of the state was at stake. Home made a law by which it was permitted to kill any man who might have the intention of be- 1 Pollux, VIII. 4G. Ulpian, Schol. in Demosthenes ; in Mei- diam. 8 Aristotle, Pol., VIII. 2, 5. Scholiast on Aristoph., Knights* 851. 298 THE CITT. BOOK III. coming king. 1 The dangerous maxim that the safety of the state is the supreme law, was the work of an- tiquity. 2 It was then thought that law, justice, morals, everything should give way before the interests of the country. It is a singular error, therefore, among all human errors, to believe that in the ancient cities men enjoyed liberty. They had not even the idea of it. They did not believe that there could exist any right as against the city and its gods. We shall see, farther on, tha, the government changed form several times, while the nature of the state remained nearly the same, and its omnipotence was little diminished. The government was called by turns monarchy, aristocracy, democracy ; but none of these revolutions gave man true liberty, individual liberty. To have political rights, to vote, to name magistrates, to have the privilege of being archon, this was called liberty; but man was not the less enslaved to the state. The ancients, especially the Greeks, always exaggerated the importance, and above all, the rights of society ; this was largely due, doubt- less, to the sacred and religious character with which society was clothed in the beginning. 1 Plutarch, Publicola, 12. * Cicero, De Legib., III. 3. CHAP. I. PATRICIANS AND CLIENTS. 299 BOOK FOURTH. THE REVOLUTIONS. CHAPTER I. Patricians and Clients. CERTAINLY we could imagine nothing more solidly constituted than this family of the ancient ages, which contained within itself its gods, its worship, its priest, and its magistrate. There could be nothing stronger o o o than this city, which also had in itself its religion, its protecting gods, and its independent priesthood, which governed the soul as well as the body of man, and which, infinitely more powerful than the states of our day, united in itself the double authority that we now see shared between the state and the church. If any so- ciety was ever established to last, it was certainly that. Still, like everything human, it had its revolutions. We cannot state at what period these revolutions com- menced. We can understand that, in reality, this epoch was not the same for the different cities of Greece and Italy. All that is certain is, that from the seventh cen- tury before our era, this social organization was almost everywhere discussed and attacked. From that time it was supported only with difficulty, and by a more or less skilful combination of resistance and concessions. 300 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK JV It struggled thus for sever.il centuries, in the midst of perpetual contests, and finally disappeared. The causes of its destruction may be reduced to two. One was the change which took place in the course of time in ideas, resulting from the natural development of the human mind, and which, in effacing ancient beliefs, at the same time caused the social edifice to crumble, which these beliefs had built, and could alone sustain. The other was a class of men who found themselves placed outside this city organization, and who suffered from it. These men had an interest in destroying it, and made war upon it continually. When, therefore, the beliefs, on which this social re- gime was founded, became weakened, and the interests of the majority of men were at war with it, the sys- tem fell. No city escaped this law of transformation ; Sparta no more than Athens, Rome no more than Greece. We have seen that the men of Greece and those of Italy had originally the same beliefs, and that the same series of institutions was developed among both; and we shall now see that all these cities passed through similar revolutions. We must try to understand why and how men became separated from this ancient organization, not to fall, but, on the contrary, to advance towards a social organiza- tion larger and better. For under the semblance of disorder, and sometimes of decay, each of their changes brought them nearer an object which they did not com- prehend. Thus far we have not spoken of the lower classes, because we have had no occasion to speak of them. For we have been attempting to describe the primitive organization of the city; and the lower classes counted absolutely for nothing in that organism. The city was CHAP. I. PATRICIANS AND CLIENTS. 301 constituted as if these classes had not existed. We were able therefore to defer the study of these till we had arrived at the period of the revolutions. The ancient city, like all human society, had ranks, distinctions, and inequalities. We know the distinc- tion originally made at Athens between the Eupatrida and the Thetes ; at Sparta we find the class of Equals and that of the Inferiors ; and in Eubcea, that of the Knights and that of the People. The history of Rome is full of the struggles between the Patricians and Ple- beians, struggles that we find in all the Sabine, Latin, and Etruscan cities. We can even remark that the higher we ascend in the history of Greece and Italy, the more profound and the more strongly marked the distinction appears a positive proof that the in- equality did not grow up with time, but that it existed from the beginning, and that it was contemporary with the birth of cities. It is worth while to inquire upon what principles this division of classes rested. We can thus the more easily see by virtue of what ideas or what needs the struggles commenced, what the inferior classes claimed, and on what principles the superior classes defended their empire. We have seen above that the city grew out of the confederation of families and tribes. Now, before the day on which the city was founded, the family already sontained within itself this distinction of classes. In- deed, the family was never dismembered ; it was indivis- ible, like the primitive religion of the hearth. The oldest son alone, succeeding the father, took possession of the priesthood, the property, and the authority, and his brothers were to him what they had been to their fa- ther. From generation to generation, from first-born 302 THE BE VOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. to first-born, there was never but one family chief. Ho presided at the sacrifice, repeated the prayer, pro- nounced judgment, and governed. To him alone ori- ginally belonged the title of 'pater ; for this word, which signified power, and not paternity, could be applied only to the chief of the family. His sons, his brothers, his servants, all called him by this title. Here, then, in the inner constitution of the family is the first principle of inequality. The oldest is the priv- ileged one for the worship, for the succession, and for command. After several centuries, there were natu- rally formed, in each of these great families, younger branches, that were, according to religion and by cus- tom, inferior to the older branch, and who, living under its protection, submitted to its authority. This family, then, had servants, who did not leave it, who were hereditarily attached to it, and upon whom the pater, or patron, exercised the triple authority of master, mngistrate, and priest. They were called by names that varied with the locality : the more common names were Clients and Thetes. Here was another inferior class. The client was infe- rior not only to the supreme chief of the family, but to the younger branches also. Between him and them there was this difference, that a member of a younger branch, by ascending the series of his ancestors, always arrived at a pater, that is to say, a family chief, one of those divine ancestors, whom the family invoked in its prayers. As he was descended from a pater, they called him in Latin patriclus. The son of a client, on tho con- trary, however high he might ascend in his genealogy, never arrived at anything but a client or a slave. There was no pater among his ancestors. Hence came for him a state of inferiority from which there was no escape- CHAP. I. PATRICIANS AND CLIENTS. 303 The distinction between these two classes of men was manifest in what concerned material interests. The property of the family belonged entirely to the chief, who, however, shared the enjoyment of it with the younger branches, and even with the clients. But Avhile the younger branch had at least an eventual right to this property, in case of the extinction of the elder branch, the client could never become a proprietor. The land that he cultivated he had only in trust; if he died, it returned to his patron ; Roman law of the later ages preserved a vestige of this ancient rule in what was called jus applicationis. The client's money, even, did not belong to him ; the patron was the true owner of it, and could take it for his own needs. It was by virtue of this ancient rule that the Roman law required the client to endow the daughter of the patron, to pay the patron's fine, and to furnish his ransom, or con- tribute to the expenses of his magistracy. The distinction is still more manifest in religion. The descendant of the pater alone can perform the ceremonies of the family worship. The client takes a part in it; a sacrifice is offered for him; he does not offer it for himself. Between him and the domestic divinity there is always a mediator. He cannot even replace the absent family. If this family becomes ex- tinct, the clients do not continue the worship ; they are dispersed. For the religion is not their patrimony ; it is not of their blood, it does not come from their own ancestors. It is a. borrowed religion ; they have not the enjoyment or the ownership of it. Let us keep in mind that according to tho ideas of ancient generations, the right to have a god and to pray was hereditary. The sacred tradition, the rites, the sacramental words, the powerful formulas which 304 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. determined the gods to act, all this was transmitted only with the blood. It was therefore very natural that in each of these ancient families, the free person who was really descended from the first ancestor, was alone in possession of the sacerdotal character. The Patricians or Eupatrids had the privilege of being priests, and of having a religion that belonged to them alone. Thus, oven before men left the family state, there existed a distinction of classes ; the old domestic re- ligion had established ranks. Afterwards, when the city was formed, nothing was changed in the inner con- stitution of the family. We have already shown that originally the city was not an association of individuals, but a confederation of tribes, curies, and families, and that in this sort of alliance each of these bodies re- mained what it had been before. The chiefs of these little groups united with each other, but each remained master in the little society of which he was already chief. This explains why the Roman law so long left to the pater the absolute authority over his family, and the control of and the right of judging his clients. The distinction of classes, born in the family, was con- tinued therefore in the city. The city in its first age was no more than an alliance of the heads of families. There are numerous evi- dences of a time when they alone were citizens. This rule was kept up at Sparta, where the younger sons had no political rights. We may still see vestiges of it in an ancient law of Athens, which declared that to be a citizen one must have a domestic god. 1 Aristotle remarks that anciently, in many cities, it was the rule that the son was not a citizen during the life of his 1 Harpocration, Zti-g i^-/.tux; CHAP. I. PA1KICIANS AXD CLIENTS. 305 father, and that, the father being dead, the oldest son alone enjoyed political rights. 1 The law then counted in the city neither the younger branches of the family, nor, for still stronger reason, the clients. Aristotle also adds that the real citizens were at that time very few. The assembly which deliberated on the general in- terests of the city was composed, in those ancient times, only of heads of families patres. We may be al- lowed to doubt Cicero when he tells us that Romulus called the senators fathers, to mark their paternal affection for the people. The members of the senate naturally bore this title because they were the chiefs of the gentes. At the same time that these men, united, represented the city, each one of them re- mained absolute master in his gens, which was for him a kind of little kingdom. We also see, from the com- mencement of Rome, another more numerous assembly, that of the curies ; but it differs very little from that of the patres. These formed the principal element of this assembly ; only, every pater appeared there sur- rounded by his family ; his relatives, his clients, even, formed his cortege, and marked his power. Each family had, moreover, but one vote in the comitia. 2 The chief might, indeed, consult his relations, and even his clients, bnt he alone voted. Besides, the law forbade a client to have a different opinion from his patron. If the clients were connected with the city, it was through ttteir patrician chiefs. They took part in public wor- ' Aristotle, Pol, VIII. 5,2-3. 2 Aulus Gcllius, XV. 27. We shall sec that clientship under- went changes later. We speak here only of the first ages of Rome. 20 306 THE EE VOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. ship, they appeared before the tribunal, they entered the assembly, but it was in the suite of their patrons. We must not picture to ourselves the city of these an- cient ages as an agglomeration of men living mingled together within the enclosure of the same walls. In tho earliest times the city was hardly the place of hab- itation ; it was the sanctuary where the gods of the community were; it was the fortress which defended them, and which their presence sanctified; it was the centra of the association, the residence of the king and the priests, the place where justice wan administered ;. but the people did not live there. For several genera- tions yet men continued to live outside the city, in isolated families, that divided the soil among them. Each of these families occupied its canton, where it had its domestic sanctuary, and where it formed, under the authority of its pater, an indivisible group. Then, on certain days, if the interests of the city or the obliga- tions of the common worship called, the chiefs of these families repaired to the city and assembled around the king, either to deliberate or to assist at a sacrifice. If it was a question of war, each of these chiefs arrived, followed by his family and his servants (sua manus) : they were grouped by phratries, or curies, and formed the army of the city, under t-Le cvai~.o~c.it *>*' the king. CUAV. II. THE PLEBEIANS. 307 CHAPTER II. The Plebeians. WE must now point out another element of the population, which was below the clients themselves, and which, originally low, insensibly acquired strength enough to break the ancient social organization. This class, which became more numerous at Rome than in any other city, was there called the plebs. We must understand the origin and character of this class to understand the part it played in the history of the city, and of the family, among the ancients. The ple- beians were not the clients; the historians of antiq- uity do not confound these two classes. Livy, in one place, says, " The plebeians did not wish to take part in the election of the consuls; the consuls were there- fore elected by the patricians and their clients." And in another, "The plebeians complained that the patri- cians had too much influence in the comitia, on account of the votes of their clients." 1 In Dionysius of Hali- carnassus we read, "The plebeians left Rome and re- tired to Mons Sacer; the patricians remained alone in the city with their clients." And farther along, "The plebeians, being dissatisfied, refused to enroll their names. The patricians, with their clients, took arms and carried on the war." 2 These plebeians, completely distinct from the clients, formed no part of what was called the Roman people, at least in the first centuries. 1 Livy, II. G4; II. 56. 1 Dionysius, VI. 46; VII. 10; X. 27. 308 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. In an old prayer, which was still repeated in the time of the Punic wars, the gods were asked to be propitious " to the people and the plebs." ] The plebs were not, therefore, comprised in the people, at any rate not originally. The people comprised the patricians and the clients: the plebs were excluded. What constituted the peculiar character of the plebs was, that they were foreign to the religious organiza- tion of the city, and even to that of the family. By this we recognize the plebeian, and distinguish him from the client. The client shared at least in the wor- ship of his patron, and made a part of the family and of the gens. The plebeian, at first, had no worship, and knew nothing of the sacred family. What we have already seen of the social and religious state of ancient times explains to us how this class took its rise. Religion was not propagated ; born in a family, it remained, as it were, shut in there ; each family was forced to create its creed, its gods, and its worship. But there must have been, in those times, so distant from us, a great number of families in which the mind had not the power to create gods, to arrange a doctrine, to institute a worship, to invent hymns, and 1 Livy, XXIX. 27 : Ut ea mihi popnlo plelique Romanes oene verruncent, Cicero, pro Murena, I. Ut ea res mihi magistra- tuique meo, popnlo plcbique Romance bene atque feliciter eve- niat. Macrobius (Saturn., I. 17) cites an ancient oracle of the prophet Marcius, which had the words, Prcetor qui jus populo plcbique dalit. That ancient writers have not always paid attention to this essential distinction between populus and plebs ought not to surprise us, when we recollect that the dis- tinction no longer existed at the time when they wrote. In Cicero's age the plebs had for several centuries legally made a part of the populus. But the old formulas which Livy, Cicero, and Macrobius cite, remain as memorials of the time when the two classes were not yet confounded. CHAP. II. THE PLEBEIAN'S. 60\) the rhythm of the prayer. These families naturally found themselves in a state of inferiority compared with those who had a religion, and could not make a part of society with them; they entered neither into the curies nor into the city. In the course of time it even happened that families which had a religion lost it either by negligence, forgetting the rites, or by one of those crimes which pi-evented a man from approach- ing his hearth and continuing his worship. It must have happened, also, that clients, on account of crime or bad treatment, quitted the family and renounced its religion. The son, too, who was born of a marriage in which the rites had not been performed, was reputed a bastard, like one who had been born of adultery, and the family religion did not exist for him. All these men, excluded from the family and from the worship, fell into the class of men without a sacred fire that is to say, became plebeians. "We find this class around almost all the ancient'cities, but separated by a line of demarcation. Originally a Greek city was double ; there was the city, properly so called 7ioA<;, which was built ordinarily on the sum- mit of some hill; it had been built with the religious rites, and enclosed the sanctuary of the national gods. At the foot of the hill was found an agglomeration of houses, which were built without any religious ceremo- ny, and without a sacred enclosure. These were the dwellings of the plebeians, who could not live in the sacred city. At Rome the difference between the two classes was striking. The city of the patricians and their clients was the one that Romulus founded, according to the rites, on the Palatine. The dwellings of the plebs were in the asylum, a species of enclosure situated on the 310 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK It slope of the Capitoline Hill, where Romulus admitted people without hearth or home, whom he could not admit into his city. Later, when new plebeians came to Rome, as they were strangers to the religion of the city, they were established on the Aventine th?4 is to say, without the pomcerium, or religious city. One word characterizes these plebeians they were without a hearth ; they did not possess, in the begin- ning, at least, any domestic altars. Their adversaries were always reproaching them with having no ances- tors, which certainly meant that they had not the wor- ship of ancestors, and had no family tomb where they could carry their funeral repast. They had no father pater / that is to say, they ascended the series of their ascendants in vain ; they never arrived at a religious family chief. They had no family gentem non habent ; that is to say, they had only the natural fam- ily; as to the one which religion formed and consti- tuted, they had not that. The sacred marriage did not exist for them ; they knew not its rites. Having no hearth, the union that the hearth established was forbidden to them; there- fore the patricians, who knew no other regular union than that which united husband and wife in presence of the domestic divinity, could say, in speaking of the plebeians, " Columbia promiscua habent more fera- rum? There was no family for them, no paternal authority. They had the power over their children which strength gave them ; but that sacred authority with which religion clothed the father, they had not. For them there was no right of property ; for all property was established and consecrated by a hearth, a tomb, and termini that is to say, by all the ele- ments of the domestic worship. If the plebeian pos- CHAP. 11. THE PLEBEIANS. 311 sessed land, that land had no sacred character; it Avas profane, an I had no boundaries. But could he hold land in the earliest times? We know that at Rome no one could exercise the right of property if he waa not a citizen; and the plebeian, in the first ages of Rome, was not a citizen. According to the juris- consult, one could not be a proprietor except by qui- ritary right; but the plebeians were not counted at first among the Quirites. At the foundation of Rome tl e ager Romanus was divided up among the tribes, the curies, and the gentes. Now, the plebeians, who belonged to none of these groups, certainly did not share in the division. These plebeians, who had no religion, had not the qualification which enabled a man to make a portion of the soil his own. We know that they long inhabited the Aventine, and built houses there; but it was only after three centuries, and many struggles, that they finally obtained the ownership of this territory. For the plebeians there was no law, no justice, since the law was the decision of religion, and the procedure was a body of rites. The client had the benefit of the Roman franchise through his patron ; but for the ple- beian this right did not exist. An ancient historian says formally that the sixth king of Rome was the first to make laws for the plebs, whilst the patricians had had theirs for a long time.'" It appears even that these laws were afterwards withdrawn from the plebs, or that, not being founded upon religion, the patricians refused to p.'iy any attention to them. For we see in the histo- rian that, when tribunes were created, a special law was required to protect their lives and liberty, and that 1 Dionysius, IV. 43. 312 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. this law was worded thus: "Let no one undertake to strike or kill a tribune as he would one of the plebs." ' It seems, therefore, that any one had a right to strike or to kill a plebeian ; or, at least, that this misdeed committed against a man who was beyond the pale of the law was not punished. The plebeians had no political rights. They were not at first citizens, and no one among them could be a magistrate. For two centuries there was no other assembly at Rome than that of the curies; and the curies did not include the plebeians. The plebs did not even enter into the composition of the army so long as that was distributed by curies. But what manifestly separated the plebeian from the patrician was, that the plebeian had no part in the re- ligion of the city. It was impossible for him to fill the priestly office. We may even suppose that in the earliest ages prayer was forbidden him, and that the rites could not be revealed to him. It was as in India where "the Sudra should always be ignorant of tho sacred formulas." He was a foreigner, and consequently his presence alone defiled the sacrifice. lie was re- pulsed by the gods. Between him and the patrician there was all the distance that religion could place between two men. The plebs were a despised and abject class, beyond the pale of religion, law, society, and the family. The patrician could compare such an existence only with that of the brutes moreferarum. The touch of the plebeian was impure. The decem- virs, in their first ten tables, had forgotten to interdict marriage between the two orders; for these first de cemvirs were all patricians, and it never entered the 1 Dionysius, VI. 89. CHAP. II. THE PLEBEIANS. 313 mind of one of them that such a marriage was pos- sible. We see how many classes in the primitive age of the cities were superposed one above another. At the head was the aristocracy of family chiefs, those whom the official language of Rome called patres, whom the clients called reyes, whom the Odyssey names fiaailfiz or avaxreg. Below were the younger branches of the families; still lower were the clients; and lowest were the plebs. This distinction of classes came from religion. For at the time when the ancestors of the Greeks, the Italians, and the Hindus still lived together in Central Asia, religion had said, "The oldest shall offer prayer.'* From this came the pre-eminence of the oldest in every- thing ; the oldest branch in every family had been the sacerdotal and dominant branch. Still religion made great account of the younger brandies, who were a species of reserve, to replace the older branch some day, if it should become extinct, and to save the wor- ship. It also made some account of the client, and even of the slave, because they assisted in the religious acts. But the plebeian, who had no part in the wor- ship, it reckoned as absolutely of no account. The ranks had been thus fixed. But none of the social arrangements which man studies out and establishes is unchangeable. This car- ried in itself the germ of disease and death, which was too great an inequality. Many men had an interest in destroying a social organization that had no benefits for them. 314 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. CHAPTER III. Firct Revolution. 1. Political Authority taken from the I&ngs. WE have said that, originally, the king was the religious chief of the city, the high-priest of the puhlic hearth, and that he .had added political authority to '.he priestly, because it appeared natural that the man who represented the religion of the city should at the same time be the president of the assembly, the judge, and the head of the array. By virtue of this principle, it happened that all the powers of the state became united in the hands of the king. But the heads of families, the patres, and above them the chiefs of the phratries and tribes, formed, by ihe side of this king, a very powerful aristocracy. The king was not the only king; every pater was king in his own gens: even at Rome it was an ancient custom to call each one of these powerful patrons by the name of king. At Athens every phratry and every tribe had its chief, and by the side of the king of the city there were the kings of the tribes, that of the pater. This assembly of the curies was, then, nothing but the patrician city united in presence of the kings. By this we see that Rome was in the same state as the other cities. The king was in the presence of an aristocratic body very strongly organized, and Avhich derived its power from religion. The same conflicts which we have seen in Greece, therefore, took place in Rome. The history of the seven kings is the history of this long quarrel. The first wished to increase his power and free himself from the authority of the sen- ate. He sought the favor of the inferior classes, but the Fathers were hostile to him ; and he perished, as- sassinated in an assembly of the senate. The aristocracy immediately dream of abolishing royalty, and the Fathers fill by turns the place of the king. The lower classes are agitated, it is true ; they do not wish to be governed by the chiefs of the getites, and demand the restoration of royalty. 1 But the patri- cians satisfy themselves by deciding that henceforth it shall be elective, and they fix the forms of election with marvellous skill. The senate must choose the candi- date ; the patrician assembly of the curies must con- firm this choice; and, finally, the patrician augurs must declare whether this newly-elected king is pleasing to '.he gods. Numa was elected according to these rules. He was very religious rather a priest than a warrior, a very scrupulous observer of all the rites of worship, and 1 Livy, I. Cicero, De Repub., II. 3:26 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV consequently very strongly attached to the religious constitution of the families and the city. He was a king after the hearts of the patricians, and died peacea- bly in his bed. It should seem that, under Nuraa, royalty had been reduced to its priestly functions, as it had been in the Greek cities. It is at least certain that the religious authority of the king was entirely distinct from his political, and that one did not necessarily accompany the other. What proves this is, that there was a double election. By virtue of the first, the king was merely a religious chief; if to this dignity he wished to join the political power, imperium, it was necessary that the city should confer it upon him by a special decree. This conclusion follows clearly from what Cicero has told us of the ancient constitution. Thus the priesthood and the political power were distinct ; they might be placed in the same hands, but for that two comitia and a double election were necessary. The third king certainly united them in his own hands. He held both the priestly office and the com- mand ; he was even more warrior than priest ; he neglected, and wished to diminish, the religious element, the strength of the aristocracy. We see him welcome a multitude of strangers to Rome, in spite of the reli- gious principle which excluded them; lie even dared to live in the midst of them on the Ccelian Hill. We also see him distribute to plebeians lands, the revenue of which, up to that time, had been appropriated to de- fraying the expenses of the sacrifices. The patricians accused him of having neglected the rites, and, what was even worse, of having modified and altered them. And so he died like Romulus; the gods of the patricians destroyed him and his sons with a thunderbolt. Thia CHAP. III. FIRST. REVOLUTION". 327 event restored the supremacy to the senate, which set up a king of its own choice. Ancus scrupulously ob- served all the religious rites, made war as seldom as possible, and passed his life in the temples. Dear to the patricians, he died in his bed. The fifth king was Tarquin, who obtained the throne in spite of the senate, and by the help of the lower classes. He was troubled little with religious scruples ; indeed, he was very incredulous; nothing less than a miracle could convince him of the science of the augurs. He was an enemy of the ancient families; he created patricians, and changed the old religious constitution of the city as much as possible. Tarquin was assassi- nated. The sixth king gained possession of the throne by stratagem : it should seem, indeed, that the senate never recognized him as a legitimate king. He flat- tered the lower classes, distributed lands among them without regard to the rights of property, and even con- ferred political rights upon them. Servius was mur- dered on the steps of the senate house. The quarrel between the kings and the aristocracy assumed the character of a social struggle. The kings sided with the people, and depended for support upon the clients and the plebs. To the patrician order, so powerfully organized, they opposed the lower classes, so numerous at Rome. The aristocracy then found itself threatened by a double peril, the worst of which was not the necessity of giving way before royalty. It saw rising in its rear the classes that it despised. It saw the plebs organizing, a class without religion and without a sacred fire. It saw itself in danger of being attacked by its clients, within the family itself, whose constitution, rights, and religion were discussed and 328 THE BEVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. jeopardized. In the eyes of the aristocracy, therefore, the kings were odious enemies, who, to augment then o\vn power, were planning to overthrow the sacred organization of the family and of the city. The second Tarquin succeeded Servius ; he disap- pointed the hopes of the senators who had elected him, and wished to be master de reye dominus exstitit. He weakened the patricians to the extent of his power; he struck off the highest heads; reigned without con- sulting the Fathers, and made war and peace without asking their approval. The patricians seemed com- pletely subdued. Finally, an occasion presented itself. Tarquin was far from Rome ; his army that is to say, his support was also away. The city was, for a time, in the hands of the patricians. The prefect of the city that is to say, the one who held the civil power during the absence of the king was a patrician, Lucretius. The commander of the cavalry that is to say, the one whose military authority was next to that of the king was a patrician, Junius. 1 These two men prepared the insurrection. They had, as associates, other pa- tricians, Valerius and Tarquinius Collatinus. The place of meeting was not at Rome, but at the little city of Collatia, which was the property of one of the conspirators. There they showed the people the body of a woman ; they said this woman bad taken her own life as a punishment for the crime of a son of the king. The people of Collatia, revolt and move on to Rome ; there the same scene is renewed. Men are taken by surprise ; the king's partisans are disconcerted, and be- sides, at this very moment, the legal power in Rome belongs to Junius and Lucretius. 1 The Junian family was patrician. Dionysius, IV. C8 CHAP. ITT. FIRST REVOLUTION. 3'2l> The conspirators take good care net to assemble the people, but to repair to the senate house. The senate declares Tarquin dethroned and royalty abolished. But the decree of the senate must be confirmed by the city. Lucretius, as prefect of the city, has the right to con- voke the assembly. The curies are assembled, and they agree with the conspirators; they declare for the dep- osition of Tarquin, and the creation of two consuls. This principal point being decided, they leave the nomination of the consuls to the assembly by centuries. But will not this assembly, in which some plebeians vote, protest against what the patricians have done in the senate and the curies? It cannot. For every Roman assembly is presided over by a magistrate, who states the object of the vote, and no other question can come up for deliberation. More than this, none but the president at this period has the right to speak. If a law is to be voted upon, the centuries can vote only yes or no. If it is an election, the president pre- sents the candidates, and no candidate except those presented can be voted for. In the present case, the president appointed by the senate is Lucretius, one of the conspirators. He states that the only object of the meeting is the election of two consuls. He presents two names, those of Junius and Tarquinius Collatinus, as candidates for the office. These two men are neces- sarily elected. The senate now ratify the election, and lastly the augurs confirm it in the name of the gods. This revolution did not please every body at Rome. Many plebeians joined the king, and followed his for- tunes. On the other hand, a rich Sabine patrician, the powerful chief of a numerous gens, the haughty Attus Clausus, found the new government so much to his taste that he came to Rome to live. 330 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. Still it was political royalty only that was suppressed : religious royalty was sacred, and must endure. There- fore men hastened to name a king, but one who was king only for the sacrifices rex sacrorum. All im- aginable precautions were taken that this king-priest should never take advantage of the great prestige which his office gave him, and seize upon the civi) power. CHAPTER IV. The Aristocracy governs the City. THE same revolution, under forms slightly varied, took place at Athens, at Sparta, at Rome, in all the cities, in fine, whose history is kno\vn to us. Every- where it was the work of the aristocracy; everywhere it resulted in suppressing political royalty and con- tinuing religious royalty. From this epoch, during a period whose duration was very unequal in different cities, the government of the city was in the hands of the aristocracy. This aristocracy rested at the same time on birth and religion. It had its foundation in the religious con- stitution of the family. It originated in the same rules that we have noticed above, in the domestic worship and in private law that is to say, the law of the hereditary descent of the sacred fire, the right of pri- mogeniture, and the right of pronouncing the prayers, which was the prerogative of birth. An hereditary religion was the title of this aristocracy to absolute dominion, and gave it rights that appeared sacred. According to ancient ideas, he alone could be an ownei CHAP. IV. THE ARISTOCEACY GOVERNS. 331 of land who had a domestic worship ; he alone was a member of the city who embodied the religious char- acter which constituted the citizen ; he alone could be a priest who was a descendant of a family having a wor- ship ; he alone could be a magistrate who had the right to offbr the sacrifices. A man who had no hereditary worship might be the client of another man ; or, if he preferred it, he could remain without the pale of all soci- ety. For many generations it did not enter the minds of men that this inequality was unjust. No one had thought of establishing human society upon any other principles. At Athens, from the death of Codrus to the time of Solon, all authority was in the hands of the Eupatrids. They alone were priests and archons. They alone acted as judges, and knew the laws, which were not written, and whose sacred formulas were transmitted from father to son. These families preserved as much as possible the an- cient forms of the patriarchal regime. They did not live united in the city, but continued to live in the various cantons of Attica, each on its vast domain, surrounded by its numerous servants, governed by its Eupatrid chief, and practising its hereditary worship in absolute independence. 1 During four centuries the Athenian city was merely a confederation of these powerful heads of families, who assembled on certain days for the celebration of the central worship, or for the pursuit of common interests. Men have often remarked how mute history is re- garding this long period in the life of Athens, and in general in the lite of Greek cities. They are surprised 1 Thucydides, II. 15, 16. 382 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK l\ . that, when it has [(reserved the memory of so many events from the times of the ancient kings, it has re- corded so few of the time of the aristocratic govern- ments. The reason is doubtless because at that time very few acts of general interest took place. The re- turn of the patriarchal regime had almost suspended the national life. Men lived apart, and had few com- mon interests. The horizon of each one was the small group and the small hamlet where he lived, as Eupatrid or as servant. At Rome, too, each patrician family lived upon its estate, surrounded by its clients. Men came to the city to celebrate the festivals of the public worship, and for the public assemblies. During the years that followed the expulsion of the kings, the power of the aristocracy was absolute. None but a patrician could fill the priestly office in the city ; the vestals, the pontiffs, the salii, the flamens, and the augurs, were chosen exclu- sively from the sacred caste. Patricians alone could be consuls ; they alone composed the senate. Though they did not suppress the assembly by centuries, to which the plebeians had access, they at any rate re- garded the assembly by curies as the only one that was legitimate nnd sacred. The centuries had, in appear- ance, the election of the consuls ; but we have seen that they could vote only on the names that the pa- tricians presented, and, besides, their decisions were submitted to the triple ratification of the senate, the curies, and the augurs. Patricians alone administered justice, and knew the forms of the law. This political system lasted at Rome only a few years. In Greece, on the contrary, there was a long period during which the aristocracy was master. The Odyssey presents us with a faithful picture of this CHAP. IV. THE ARISTOCRACY GOVERNS. 833 social state in the western portion of Greece. We see there a patriarchal regime strongly resembling what we have remarked in Attica. A few great and rich families own the whole country. Numerous slaves cul- tivate the soil, or tend the flocks; the manner of living is simple a single table sufliccs for the chief and the servants. These chiefs are called by a name which becomes, under other circumstances, a pompous title a^axTfc, fiuadei:. Thus it happened that the Athenians of primitive times gave the chief of the j'tVo, the title of fluadeu;, and tliat at Rome the clients preserved the custom of calling the chief of the gens rex. These heads of families have a sacred character; the poet calls them divine kings. Ithaca is very small, yet it contains a great number of these kings. Among them there is indeed a supreme king; but he is of little im- portance, and appears to have no other prerogative than that of presiding at the council of the chiefs. It appears, even, from certain indications, that this office is elective, and it is clear the Telemachus will not be the supreme chief of the isle, unless the other chiefs, his equals, wish to elect him. Ulysses, returning to his country, appears to have no other subjects than the servants who belong to him personally. When he has slain some of the chiefs, their servants take up arms and sustain a contest which the poet does not think blameworthy. Among the Phtoacians, Alcinous has supreme authority ; but we see him repair to an assem- bly of the chiefs ; and we may remark tliat he docs not convoke the council, but that the council summons the king. The poet describes an assembly of the Phoea- cian city. It is far from being an assembly of the mul- titude; the chiefs alone, individually convoked by a herald, as at Rome for the comitia ccilata, assemble ; 334 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. they occupy seats of stone; the king makes an address, and calls his auditors sceptre-bearing kings. In Hesiod's city, the rocky Ascra, we find a class of men whom the poet calls the chiefs, or kings. They are those who administer justice to the people. Pin- dar also shows us a class of chiefs among the Cadmae- aus ; at Thebes he extols the sacred race of the Sparti, from which, at a later date, Epaminondas derives his descent. We can hardly read Pindar without being struck with the aristocratic spirit which still reigned in Greek society in the time of the Persian wars. From this we may imagine how powerful the aristocracy was a century or two earlier. For what the poet boasts of the most in his heroes, is their family; and we must suppose that this sort of praise was at that time highly valued, and that birth still seemed the supreme good. Pindar shows us the great families which were then conspicuous in each city; in the single city of ^Egina he names the Midylidae, the Theandridae, the Euxenidae,. the Blepsiadffi, the Chariadac, the BalychidaB. At Syra- cuse he extols a priestly family of the lamidas ; at Ag- rigentum, that of the Emmenida3, and so on for all the cities of which he has occasion to speak. At Epidaurus, the entire body of the citizens that is to say, of those who had political rights was for a long time composed of no more than one hundred and eighty members. All the rest " were outside the city." l The real citizens were still fewer at Heraclea, where the younger members of the great families had no political rights. 2 The case was a long time the same at Cuidus, at Istros, and at Marseilles. At Thera. 1 Plutarch. Gr. Quest., I. 8 Aristotle, Politics, VIII. 5, 2. CHAP. IV. THE AKISTOCRACY GOVERNS. 335 all the power was in the hands of a few families which were reputed sacred. It was the same at Apollonia. 1 At Erythrae there was an aristocratic class called the Basilida3. In the cities of Eubcea the ruling class were called the knights. 2 We may remark here that among the ancients, as in the middle ages, it was a privilege to fight on horseback. The monarchy had already ceased to exist at Corinth when a colony set out from there to found Sj racuse. The new city, therefore, knew nothing of royalty, and was ruled from the first by an aristocracy. This class was called Geomori, that is to say, proprietors. It was ocmposed of families which, on the day of the founda- tion, had distributed among themselves, with all the ordinary rites, the sacred parts of the territory. This aristocracy remained for several generations absolute master of the government, and it preserved its title of proprietors, which seems to indicate that the lower classes had not the right of property in the soil. An aristocracy of the same, kind ruled for a long time at Miletus and at Samos. 3 1 Aristotle, Politics, III. 9, 8 ; VI. 3, 8. 8 Aristotle, Politics, VIII. 5, 10. 3 Diodorus, VIII. 5. Thucydides, VIII. 21. Herodotus, VII 155. 336 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. CHAPTER V. Second Revolution. Change in the Constitution of the Family. The Right of Birth disappears. The Gens is dismembered. THE revolution which had overturned royalty had modified the exterior form of the government rather than changed the constitution of society. It had not been the work of the lower classes, who had an interest in destroying the old institutions, but of the aristocracy, who wished to maintain them. It had not been under- taken in order to overturn the ancient constitution of the family, but rather to preserve it. The kings had often been tempted to elevate the inferior classes and to weaken the gentes, and for this the kings themselves had been dethroned. The aristocracy had brought about a political revolution only to prevent a social one. They had token the power in hand, less from the pleasure of ruling than to protect their old institutions, their ancient principles, their domestic worship, their paternal authority, the regime of the gens in fine, the private law which the primitive religion had estab- lished. This great and general effort of the aristocracy was to meet a danger. Now, it appears that, in spite of these efforts, and of the victory itselij the danger con- tinued. The old institutions began to totter, and grave changes were about to be introduced into the inner constitution of the family. The old rule of the gens, founded by the domestic religion, had not been destroyed at the time when men passed to the gov- CHAP. V. THE GEXS IS DISMEMBERED. 3->7 eminent of the city. They had not wished, they had not been able, immediately to renounce it, as the chiefs clung to their authority, and the lower classes had not at first the desire to free themselves. The rule of the gens was therefore reconciled with that of the city. But these were in reality t\vo antagonistic forms of government, which men could not hope to ally forever, and which must sooner or later be at war with each other. The family, indivisible and numerous, was too strong and too independent for the social power not to feel the temptation, and even the need, of weakening it. Either the city could not last, or it must in the coarse of time break up the family. The ancient gens, witli its single hearth, its sovereign chief, and its indivisible domain, was a convenient ar- rangement so long as the state of isolation continued, and no other form of society than itself existed. But as soon as men were united in cities, the authority of the ancient chief was necessarily diminished; for though he was sovereign in his own gens, he was a member of a community ; as such, the general interests obliged him to make sacrifices, and general laws com- manded obedience. In his own eyes, and, above all. in the eyes of his inferiors, his dignity was impaired. Then, in this community, aristocratically as it was con- stituted, the lower classes counted for something, if only on account of their numbers. The family which comprised several branches, and which attended the comitia, surrounded by a multitude of clients, naturally had greater authority in the general deliberations than a small family that counted few hands and few sol- diers. Now, these inferiors were not slow to see their importance and strength. A certain sentiment of pride, and the desire for a better fate, grew up among 22 338 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV them. Added to this was the rivalry of the heads of families striving for influence and seeking mutually to- weaken each other. Then, too, they were ambitious of the magistracies of the city. To obtain these they sought popularity, and to hold them, they neglected or forgot their little sovereignties. These causes pro- duced by degrees a sort of relaxation in the constitu- tion of the gens ; those for whose interest it was to maintain this constitution held to it less, while those who had an interest in modifying it became bolder and stronger. The force of individuality, at first strong in the fam- ily, insensibly became weaker. The right of prwnogen- iture, which was the condition of its unity, disappeared. We ought not to expect that any writer of antiquity should furnish us the exact date of this great change. It is probable that there was no date, because the change did not take place in a year. It was effected by degrees at first in one family, then in another, and little by little in all. It happened, so to speak, without any one's perceiving it. We can easily perceive, also, that men did not pass at once from the indivisibility of the patrimony to the equal division among the brothers. There was appar- ently a transition period between these two conditions of property. Affairs probably took the same course in Greece and Italy as in ancient Hindu society, where the religious law after having prescribed the indivisi- bility of the patrimony, left the father free to give some portion of it to his younger sons; then, after having required that the oldest should have at least a double portion, permitted the apportionment to be equal, and finished by recommending this arrange- ment. CHAP. V. THE'GEKS IS DISMEMBERED. 339 But we have no precise information upon these points. A single fact is certain that the right of pri- mogeniture existed at an ancient epoch, and that after- wards it disappeared. This change was not accomplished at the same time, nor in the same manner, in all the cities. In some legislation maintained it for a long time. At Thebes and at Corinth it was still in vigor in the eighth century. At Athens legislation still showed some preference for the oldest. At Sparta the right of primogeniture con- tinued until the triumph of democracy. There were cities where it disappeared only after an insurrection. At Heraclea, Cnidus, Istros, and Marseilles the younger branches took up arms to destroy at the same time the right of primogeniture and the paternal authority. 1 From that time Greek cities that had not before counted more than a hundred men enjoying political rights, could count five or six hundred. All the members of aristocratic familes were citizens, and magistracies and the senate were open to them. It is impossible to tell at what time the privilege of birth disappeared at Rome. It is probable that the kings, in the midst of their struggle against the aris- tocracy, did all that lay in their power thus to suppress and disorganize the gentes. At the beginning of the republic, we see a hundred new members enter the senate. Livy believed that they came from the plebs ; a but it is not possible that the hard rule of the patricians could have commenced with a concession of this nature. 1 Aristotle, Politics, VIII. 5, 2, ed. B. Saint Hilaire. 2 He contradicts himself elsewhere. Ex primoribus ordinis equestris, he says. Now, the primores of the equestrian order that is to say, the knights of the first six centuries were patri- cians. See Belot, Hist, des chevaliers remains, liv. I. eh. 2. 340 THE REVOLUTION'S. BOOK IV. These new senators must have been taken from patri- cian families; they had not the same title as the oM members of the senate; these latter were called patres (chiefs of families) ; the new ones were called conscripti (chosen). 1 Does not this difference of name make it probable that the hundred new senators, who were not family chiefs, belonged to younger branches of patrician gentes ? We may suppose that this class of the younger branches, being numerous and energetic, lent its sup- port to the enterprise of Brutus and the fathers, only on the condition of receiving civil and political rights. These branches thus acquired, through the need which the patres had of them, what the same class conquered by its arms at Heraclea, Cnidus, and Marseilles. The right of primogeniture, then, disappeared every- where nn important revolution which began to trans- form society. The Italian gens and the Hellenic 7^05 lost their primitive unity. The different branches sep- arated ; thenceforth each had its share of the property, its domicile, its own interests, and its independence. Singuli singulas familias incipiunt habere, says the jurisconsult. There is in the Latin language an old expression which appears to date from this epoch; familiam ducere, they said of one who separated from the gens, and established a new stock, just as they said ducere coloniam of one who quitted the metropolis, and went to found n colony. The brother who thus separated from the oldest brother had thenceforth his own sacred fire, which, doubtless, he had lighted at the common fire of the gens, as the colony lighted its fire at the prytaneum of the metropolis. The gens no longer 1 Festus, v. Conscripti, Allecii. Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 58. For several centuries the patres were distinguished from the conscripti. CHAP. V. THE CLIEXTS BECOME FREE. 341 preserved anything more than a sort of religious author- ity over the different families that had left it. Its worship had the supremacy over theirs. They were not allowed to forget that they had sprung from this gens ; they con- tinued to bear its name; on fixed days they assembled around the common fire, to venerate the ancient ances- tor or the protecting divinity. They continued even to have a religious chief, and it is probable that the oldest preserved his privilege of the priesthood, which long remained hereditary. With this exception, they were independent. This dismemberment of the gens led to important consequences. The antique priestly family, which had formed a group so firmly united, so strongly consti- tuted, so powerful, was forever weakened. This revolu- tion paved the way for other changes, and rendered them easier CHAPTER VI. The Clients become Free. 1. What Clientship teas at first^ and how it was transformed. HEKE is another revolution, the date of which wo cannot indicate, but which certainly modified the con- stitution of the family and of society itself. The ancient family comprised, under the authority of a single chief, two classes of unequal rank; on the one side were the younger branches that is to say, individuals naturally free ; on the other, the servants or clients, inferior by birth, but connected with the chief by their partkipa 342 THE BEVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. lion in the domestic worship. We have just seen one of these classes emerge from its inferior condition ; the second also aspired at an early date to become free. It succeeded in the course of time; clientship became modified, and finally disappeared. This was an immense change, which the ancient writers have given us no account of. In the same way, in the middle ages, the chroniclers do not tell us how the rural population were transformed by degrees. There has been in the existence of human societies a great number of revolutions no trace of which has been handed down to us in any document. Writers have not noticed them, because they were accomplished slowly, in an insensible manner, without any apparent struggle ; profound and silent revolutions, which moved the foundations of human society, without anything ap- pearing on the surface, and which remained concealed even from the generations that took part in them. History can seize them only a long time after they have taken place, when, in comparing two epochs in the life of a people, it sees differences between them, which show that a great revolution has been acomplished. If we credit the picture which writers have traced of the primitive clientship of Rome, that must have been truly a golden age. Who could be more humane than this patron, who defended his client before the courts, who sustained him with his money if he was poor, and who provided for the education of his children ? What could be more touching than to see this client sustain the patron when he had fallen into debt, paying his debts, giving all he had to procure his ransom? But there was not so much sentiment among the ancients. Disinterested affection and devotion were never institu- tions. We must have another idea cf client and patron. oriAV. VI. THE CLIENTS BECOME FREE. 343 What we know with the greatest certainty concern^ ing the client is, that he could not leave one patron and choose another, and that he was bound, from father to son, to the same family. If we knew only this, it would be sufficient to convince us that his condition could not be a very desirable one. Let us add that the client was not a proprietor of the soil ; the land belonged to the patron, who, as chief of a domestic worship, and also as a member of a city, was the only one qualified to be a proprietor. If the client cultivated the soil, it was in the name and for the profit of the master. He was not even the owner of personal property, of his money, of his peculium. As a proof of this, the patron could take from him all these tilings to pay his own debts or his ransom. Thus nothing belonged to the client. True, the patron owed him and his children a living; but, in turn, his labor was due to the patron. We cannot say that he was precisely a slave; but he had a master, to whom he belonged, and to whose will he was in all things subject. During his whole life he was a client, and his sons after him were clients. There is some analogy between the client of ancient times and the serf of the middle ages. The principle which condemned them to obedience was not the same, it is true. For the serf, this principle was the right of property, which was exercised at the same time over the soil and over man ; for the client, this principle was the domestic religion, to which he was bound under the authority of the patron, who was its priest. Otherwise the subordination of the client and of the serf was the same; the one was bound to his patron as the other was bound to his lord; the client could no more quit the gens than the serf could quit the glebe. The client, like the serf, remained subject to a master, 344 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV from father to son. A passage in Livy leads us to sup pose that he was forbidden to marry outside the gens, as the serf was forbidden to marry outside the village. Jt is certain that he could not contract marriage without the permission of his patron. The patron could take possession of the soil which the client cultivated, and the money which he possessed, as the lord could do in the case of the serf. If the client died, all that he had been in possession of returned of right to the patron, just as the succession of the serf belonged to the lord. The patron was not only a master; he was a judge ^ he could condemn a client to death. He was, more- over, a religious chief. The client bent under this au- thority, at the same time material and moral, which held both body and soul. His religion, it is true, im- posed duties upon the patron, but they were duties of which he alone was the judge, and for which there was no sanction. The client saw nothing that protected him: lie was not of himself a citizen ; if he wished to appear before the tribunal of the city, his patron might conduct him there, and speak for him. Did lie ask the protection of the laws ? He did not know the sacred formulas; and if he knew them, the first law for him was never to testify or to speak against his patron. Without the patron there was no justice; against the patron there was no recourse. The client did not exist at Rome only; he was found among the Sabines and the Etruscans, making a part of the mamis of every chief. He existed in the ancient Hellenic gens as well as in that of Italy. We must not look for him in the Dorian cities, it is true, where the rule of the gens disappeared at an early date, and where the conquered peoples were bound, not to a master, but to a lot of land. We find a similar cl iss al CHAP. VI. THE CLIENTS BECOME FKEE. 345 Athens, and in the Ionian and ^Eolian cities, undei the name of Thetes, or Pelatce. So long as the aristocratic government lasted, these Thetes did not make a part of the city. Shut up in families, which they could not leave, they were in the power of the Eupatrids, who had the same character and the same authority as the Roman patrons. We can easily believe that at an eariy date there was hatred between the patron and the client. It is not difficult to picture to one's self the kind of life that was passed in that family where one had the authority and the other had no rights ; where obedience, without reserve and without hope, was placed by the side of unrestrained power; where the best master had his angry moods and his caprices ; where the most resigned servant had his rancor, his complaints, and his hatred. Ulysses was a good master; see what a paternal affec- tion he has for Eumaeus and Philastius. But he orders to be put to death a servant who has insulted him without knowing him, and others who have fallen into the bad ways to which his absence has exposed them. He is responsible to the city for the death of his de- pendants; but for the death of his servants no one asks any reason. In the state of isolation in which the family had long lived, clieutship sprang up and maintained itself. The domestic religion was then all-powerful over the soul. The man who was its priest by hereditary right ap- peared to the inferior classes as a sacred being. More than man, he was an intercessor between man and God. From his mouth went forth the powerful prayer, the irresistible formula, which brought down the favor or the anger of the divinity. Before such a power he felt compelled to bow; obedience was commanded both by 346 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. faith and by religion; and, besides, what temptation could the client have to free himself? lie saw no horizon beyond this family, to which everything be- longed. In it alone he found life cairn and subsistence assured ; in it alone, although he had a master, he bad also a protector; in it alone, in fine, he found an altar which he could approach, and gods whom he was permitted to invoke. To quit this family was to place himself outside all social organization and all law ; it was to lose his gods and to renounce the right of prayer. But when the city had been founded, the clients of the different families could see each other, could confer together, could make an interchange of their desires and griefs, compare their masters, and obtain a glimpse of a better fate. Then their view began to extend be- yond the limits of the family. They saw that beyond their circle there existed society, rules, laws, altars, temples, and gods. To quit the family was no longer, therefore, for them, an evil without a remedy. The temptation' became every day stronger; clientship t?eemed to them a burden every day heavier, and they ceased to believe that the master's authority was legit- imate and sacred. Then sprang up in the hearts of these men an ardent desire to be free. True, we do not find in the history of any city mention made of a gen- eral insurrection among this class. If there were armed struggles, they were shut up and concealed within the circle of each family. For more than one generation there were on one side energetic efforts for independence, and implacable repression on the other. There took place in each house a long and dramatic series of events which it is impossible to-day to retrace. All that we can say is, that the efforts of the lower 'HAP. \I. THE CLIENTS BECOME FREE. 347 classes were not without results. An invincible neces- sity obliged the masters, little by little, to relinquish some of their omnipotence. When authority ceases to appear just to the subjects, time must still elapse be- fore it will cease to appear so to the masters. But this happens after a while, and then the master, who no longer believes in the justice of his authority, defends it badly, or ends by renouncing it. Besides, this in- ferior class was useful ; by cultivating the earth, it accumulated the riches of the master, and by carrying arms, it constituted his strength in the midst of family rivalries. It was therefore wise to satisfy these men, and interest united with humanity to recommend con- cessions. It appears certain that the condition of clients im- proved by degrees. At first they lived in the master's house, cultivating the common domain together. Later a separate lot of land was assigned to each. The cli- ent must already have found himself happier. He still worked for his master's profit, it is true ; the field was not his; he rather belonged to that. Still he cultivat- ed it for a long succession of years, and he loved it. There grew up between it and him, not that bond which the religion of property had created between it and the master, but another bond that which labor 1111 d suffering even can form between the man who gives his care, and the earth which gives its fruits. Later came new progress. He no longer worked for the master, but for himself. On condition of an an- nual rent, which at first was perhaps variable, but which afterwards became fixed, he had the benefit of the har- vest. He thus found some recompense for his labor, and his life was at the same time freer and more inde- pendent. "The chiefs of families," says one of the 348 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOCK IV. ancients, " assigned portions of land to their inferiors, as if they had been their own children." ' So, too, we read in the Odyssey, " A kind master gives his servant a house and a field;" and Eumseus adds, a "desired wife," because the client could not yet marry without the consent of the master, and it was this master who chose his companion for him. But this field, where, thenceforward, his life was passed, where he found all his labor and all his enjoy- ment, was not yet his property. For this client did not possess that sacred character which enabled him to hold property. The lot that he occupied continued to be bounded by the sacred landmarks the god Termi- nus, whom the family of the master had formerly placed there. These inviolable bounds attested that the field, attached to the family of the master by a sacred tie, could never become the absolute property of a freed client. In Italy the field, and the house which the villicus the client of the patron occu- pied, contained a sacred fire, a Lar familiaris / but this fire did not belong to the cultivator; it was the mas- ter's fire. 2 This established at the same time the right of property in the patron, and the religious subordina- tion of the client, who, so long as lie belonged to the patron, still followed the patron's worship. The client, as soon as he came into possession of property, suffered from not being the proprietor, and aspired to become such. It became his ambition to remove from this field which seemed to be his by the right of labor those sacred bounds which made it forever the property of the former master. 1 Festus, v. Patres. * Cato, De Re Rust., 143. Columella, XI. 1, 19. JHAP. VI. THE CLIENTS BECOME FREE. 349 We see clearly that in Greece the clients attained their object ; but we do not know by what means. How much time and how many efforts were required for this we can only guess. Possibly the same series of social changes took place in antiquity which Europe saw in the middle ages, when the slaves in the coun- try became serf's of the glebe, when the latter, from serfs, taxable at will, were changed to serf's with a fixed rent, and when finally they were transformed, in the course of time, into peasant proprietors. 2. Clientship disappears at Athens. The Work of Solon. This sort of a, revolution is clearly marked in the history of Athens. The effect of the overthrow of royalty had been to revive the regime of the -/t'foc, families had returned to their isolated condition, and each had begun to form a little state, with a Eu- patrid for a chief, and a multitude of clients for sub- jects. This government appears to have weighed heavily upon the Athenian population, for they retained an unfavorable recollection of it. The people thought themselves so unhappy that the preceding period ap- peared to have been a sort of golden age. They re- gretted their kings, and began to imagine that under the monarchy they had been happy and free ; that they had then enjoyed equality, and that it was only since the fall of the kings that inequality and suffering had commenced. This was such an illusion as men often entertain. Popular tradition placed the commence- ment of the inequality at the time when the people began to find it odious. This clicntship, this sort of slavery, which was as old as the constitution of the 350 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. family, they dated from the time when men had first felt its weight and understood its injustice. It is very certain, however, that it was not in the seventh cen- tury that the Eupatrids established the hard laws of clientship. They did no more than to preserve them. In this alone was their injustice; they maintained these laws beyond the time when men accepted them with- out complaint, and maintained them against the will of the people. The Eupatrids of this epoch were per- haps easier masters than their ancestors had been ; and yet they were more heartily detested. It appears that even under the rule of this aristocracy the condition of the lower class was improved; for cer- tainly at that time it obtained possession of lots of land on the single condition of paying a rent, which was fixed at one sixth of the harvest. These men were thus almost emancipated ; having a home and living no longer under the master's eye, they breathed more freely and labored for their own profit. But such is human nature that these men. as their condition improved, felt more keenly the inequality that remained. Not to be a citizen, and to have nc part in the administration of the city, doubtless touched them somewhat; but not to be capable of owning the soil upon which they were born and died, affected them much more. What rendered their condition sup- portable, let us add, lacked stability. For though they were really in possession of the soil, no formal law as- sured them either this possession or the independence that flowed from it. We see in Plutarch that the former patron could renew his claim upon his former servant. If the annual rent was not paid, or for any other cause, these men relapsed into a sort of slavery. Grave questions were agitated in Attica, therefore,. CHAP. VI. THE CLIENTS BECOME FREE. 851 during a series of four or five generations. It was hardly possible that men of the lower class could re- main in this unstable and anomalous position towards which an insensible progress had conducted them. One of two things was sure to follow : either, losing this position, they must relapse into the bonds of an oner- ous clientship, or, completely freed by a still farther progress, they must rise to the rank of landed proprie- tors and free men. We can imagine all the efforts on the part of the la- borer, the former client, and all the resistance on the part of the proprietor, the former patron. It was not a civil war. The Athenian annals have not preserved the record of a single combat. It was a domestic war in each hamlet, in each house, from father to son. These struggles appear to have had various fortunes, according to the nature of the soil in different cantons in Attica. In the plain where the Eupatrid had his principal domain, and where he was always present, his authority over the little group of servants who were always under his eye remained almost intact; the Pedieis or men of . the ilain therefore, generally showed themselves faithful to the old regime. But the Diaciii, those who cultivated the sides of the moun- tain with severe toil, being farther from the master, more habituated to an independent life, more hardy and more courageous, laid up in their hearts a violent ha- tred for the Eupatrid, and a firm resolve to be free. These especially were the men who were indignant to see about the fields the "sacred bounds" of the mas- ter, and to feel that "their soil was enslaved." * As to the inhabitants of the cantons near the sea, the 1 Solon, Ed. Bach, pp. 104, 105. 352 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. Paralii, the ownership of the soil tempted them less; they had the sea before them, and commerce, and trade. Several had become rich, and with riches they were nearly free. They therefore did not share the ardent desire of the Diacrii, and did not feel any vigorous hatred of the Enpatrids. They had not, however, the base resignation of the Pedieis; they demanded more stability in their condition, and better assured rights. Solon satisfied these wishes so far as was possible. There is a part of the work of this legislator which the ancients have very imperfectly explained to us, but which appears to have been the principal part of it. Before his time, the greater part of the inhabitants of Attica still held but a precarious possession of the soil, and might be reduced to personal servitude. After him this class was no longer found ; the right of prop- erty was accessible to all ; there was no longer any slavery for the Athenian; the families of the lower classes were forever freed from the authority of the Eupatrid families. Here was a great change, whose author could be no other than Solon. According to Plutarch's account, it is true, Solon did no more than to soften the rigor of the law of debt by abolishing the right of the creditor to enslave the debtor. But we should carefully examine what a writer so long after this period says of those debts that troubled the Athenian city, as well as all the cities of Greece and Italy. It is difficult to believe that before Solon there was so great a circulation of money that there were many borrowers and lenders. We are not to judge those times by the period that followed. There was at that time very little commerce; bills of exchange were unknown, and credits must have been very rare, On what security could a man borrow who CHAP. VV, THE CLIENTS BECOME FKEE. 353 owned nothing? Men are not much accustomed, in any society, to lend to the poor. The assertion is made, it is true, on the faith of the translator of Plutarch rather than on Plutarch himself, that the borrower mortgaged his land; but, supposing this land was his property, he oould not have mortgaged it, for mortgages were not then known, and were contrary to the nature of pro- prietary right. In those debtors of whom Plutarch speaks we must see the former clients; in their debts, the annual rent which they were to pay to their former masters; and in the slavery into which they fell if they failed to pay, the former clientship, to which they were again reduced. Perhaps Solon suppressed the rent; or, more proba- bly, reduced the amount of it, so that the payment became easy. He added the provision, that in future the failure to pay should not reduce the laborer to servitude. He did more. Before him these former clients, when they came into possession of the soil, could not become the owners of it; for upon their fields the sacred and inviolable bounds of the former patron still stood. For the enfranchisement of the soil and of the cultivator, it was necessary that these bounds should disappear. Solon abolished them. We find the evidence of this great reform in some verses of Solon himself: "It was an unhoped-for work," said he ; "I have accomplished it with the aid of the gods. I call to witness the god- dess Mother, the black earth, whose landmarks I have in many places torn up, the earth, which was enslaved, and is wow free." In doing this, Solon had accomplished a considerable revolution. He had put aside the an- cient religion of property, which, in the name of the immovable god Terminus, retained the land in a small 23 354 TOE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. number of hands. He had wrested the earth from re- ligion to give it to labor. He had suppressed, with the Eupatrid's authority over the soil, his authority over man, and ho could say in his .verses, " Those who in this land suffered cruel servitude and trembled before a master, I have made free." It is probable that this enfranchisement is what the contemporaries of Solon called aeiaazQsin (shaking off the burdens). Later gen- erations, who, once habituated to liberty, would not> or could not, believe that their forefathers had been serfs, explained this word as if it merely marked :m abolition of debts. But there is an energy in it which reveals a greater revolution. Let us add here this sen- tence of Aristotle, which, without entering into an account of Solon's labors, simply says, "He put an end to the slavery of the people." ' 3. Transformation of Clientship at Home. This war between clients and patrons also filled a long period of Rome's history. Livy, indeed, says nothing of it, because he is not accustomed closely to observe the changes in institutions; besides, the annals of the pontiffs, and similar documents, from which the ancient historians whom Livy consulted had drawn,, could have contained no account of these domestic struggles. One thing, at least, is certain. There were clients in the very beginning of Rome; there has even come down to us very precise evidence of the dependence in which their patrons held them. If, several centuries afterwards, we look for these clients, we no longer find 1 Aristotle, Gov, of Ath., Fragm., coll. Didot, t. II. p. 107. CHAP. TI. THE CLIENTS BECOME FKEE. 855 them. The name still exists, but not clientship. For there is nothing more distinct from the clients of the primitive period than these plebeians of Cicero's time, who called themselves the clients of some rich man in order to have the right to the sportula. There were those who more nearly resembled the ancient clients; these were the freedmen. 1 No more did one freed from servitude at once become a free man and a citizen at the end of the republic, than in the first ages of Rome. He remained subject to a master. Formerly they called him a client, now they call him a freedman ; the name only is changed. As to the master,, his name does not even change; formerly they called him patron, and they still call him by the same name. The freedman, like the client of earlier days, remains- attached to the family; he takes its name, like the an- cient client. He depends upon the patron ; he owes him not only gratitude, but a veritable service, whose measure the master himself .fixes. The patron has the fight to judge the freedman, as he had to judge the client; he can remit to slavery for the crime of in- gratitude. 2 The freedman, therefore, recalls the ancient client. Between them there is but one difference : clientship formerly passed from father to son ; now the condition of freedman ceases in the second, or, at far- thest, in the third generation. Clientship, then, has not disappeared ; it still seizes a man at the moment when 1 The freedman became a client. The identity of these lw terms is marked in a passage of Dionysius, IV. 23. 2 Digest, XXV. tit. 2, 5 ; L. tit. 1C, 195. Valerius Maxitnus,. V. 1, 4. Suetonius, Claudius, 25. Dion Cassius, LV. The legislation was the same at Athens ; see Lysias and HyperiJes in Harpocration, v. 'Anomuaiov. Demosthenes in Aristogitonem^ and Suidas, v. 'Avayxatuv. 356 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. servitude gives him up; only it is no longer hereditary. This alone is a considerable change; but \ve are unable to state when it took place. We can easily discover the successive improvements that were made in the condition of the client, and by what degrees he arrived at the right to hold property. At first the chief of the gens assigned him a lot of laud to cultivate; ' he soon became the temporary possessor of this lot, on condition that he contributed to all the expenses of his former master. The severe conditions of the old law, which obliged him to pay his patron's ransom, the dowry of his daughter, or his legal fine!-", clearly prove that when this law was written he was already the temporary possessor of the soil. The client made one farther step of progress; lie obtained the right of transmitting, at his death, this lot to his son ; in default of a sou, the land returned, it is true, to the patron. But now comes new progress: the client who leaves no son obtains the right of making a will. Here custom hesitates and varies; sometimes the patron takes half the property, sometimes the will of the tes- tator is fully respected ; in any case his will is never invalid. 2 Thus the client, if he cannot yet call himself a proprietor, has, at least, as extended an enjoyment of property as is possible. True, this was not complete enfranchisement. But no document enables us to fix the epoch when the clients were definitively detached from the patrician families. There is a passage of Livy (II. 1C) which, if we take it literally, shows that from the first years of the republic the clients were citizens. There is a 1 Festus, T. Pat res. 8 Institutes of Justinian, III. 7. CHAP. VI. THE CLIENTS BECOME FREE. 357 strong probability that they were already citizens in the time of king Servius; perhaps they even voted in the comitia curia ta from the foundation of Rome. But we cannot conclude from this that they were then entirely enfranchised, since it is possible that the patricians found it for their interest to give their clients political rights without consenting on that account to give them civil rights. It docs not appear that the revolution which freed the clients at Rome was accomplished at once, as at Athens. It took place very slowly and imperceptibly, without ever having been consecrated by any formal laws. The bonds of clientship were relaxed little by little, and the client was removed insensibly from the patron. King Servius introduced a great reform to the ad- vantage of the clients; he changed the organization of the army. Before his reign the army was divided into tribes, curies, and gentes; this was the patrician division; every chief of the gens was at the head of his clients. Servius divided the army into centuries; each had his rank according to his wealth. By this arrangement the client no longer marched by the side of his patron; he no longer recognized him as a chief in battle; and he became accustomed to independence. This change produced another in the constitution of the comitia. Formerly the assembly was divided into curies and gentes, and the client, if he voted at all, voted under the eye of the master. But the division by cen- turies being established for the comitia as well as for the army, the client no longer found himself in the same division as the patron. The old law, it is true, com- manded him to vote the same as his patron voted, but how could his vote be known ? o58 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV It was a great siep to separate the client from the patron in the most solemn moments of life, at the mo- ment of combat, and at the moment of voting. The authority of the patron was greatly diminished, and what remained to him was more hotly contested daily. As soon as the client had tasted of independence, he wished for the complete enjoyment of it. Pie aspired to separate from the gens and to join the plebs, where he might be free. How many occasions presented themselves ! Under the kings, he was sure of being aided by them, for they asked nothing better than to enfeeble the gentes. Under the republic, he found tho protection of the plebs themselves, and of the tribunes. Many clients were thus freed, and the gens could not recover them. In 472 B. C., the number of clients was still considerable, since the plebs complained that by their votes in the comitia centuriata, they caused the balance to incline in favor of the patricians. 1 About the same time, the plcbs having refused to enroll, the patricians were able to form an army with their clients. 8 It appears, however, that these clients were no longer numerous enough alone to cultivate the lands of the patricians, and that the latter were obliged to borrow the labor of the plebs. 3 It is probable that the crea- tion of the tribuneship, by protecting the escaped cli- ents against their former patrons, and by rendering the condition of the plebs more enviable and more secure, hastened this gradual movement towards enfranchise- ment. In the year 372 there were DO longer any clients, and Manlius could say to the plebs, "As many clients as you have been about a single patron, so many Livy, II. 56. 2 Dionysius, VII. 19; X. 27. J Inculti per seccssionem plcbis agri. Livy, II. 34. CHAP. TI. THE CLIENTS BECOME FEEE. 359 now shall you be against a single enemy. 1 Thence- forth we no longer see in the history of Rome these ancient clients, these men hereditarily attached to the gens. Primitive clientship gave plate to a clientship of a new kind, a voluntary, almost fictitious bond, which 110 longer imposed the same obligations. We no longer see in Rome the three classes, patricians, clients, and plebeians. Only two remain ; the clients are con- founded with the plebs. The Marcelli appear to be a branch thus detached from the Claudian gens. They were Claudii; but as they were not patricians, they belonged to the gens only as clients. Free at an early period, and enriched, by what means we know not, they were first raised to plebeian dignities, and later to those of the city. For several centuries the Claudian gens seems to have for- gotten its rights over them. One day, however, in Cicero's time,"' it recalled them to mind very unex- pectedly. A freedman or client of the Marcelli died, leaving property, which, according to law, would revert to the patron. The patrician Claudii claimed that the Marcelli, being clients, could not themselves have cli- ents, and that their freed men and their property should belong to the chief of the patrician gens, who alone was capable of exercising the rights of a patron. This suit very much astonished the public, and embarrassed the lawyers : Cicero himself thought the question very ob- scure. But it would riot have been so four centuries earlier, and the Claudii would have gained their cause. But in Cicero's time the laws upon which they founded their claim were so old that they had been forgotten, and the court easily decided the case in favor of tho -Marcelli. The ancient clieutship no longer existed. 1 Livy, VI. 18 * Cicero, De Oratorc, I. 39- 360 THE EE VOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. CHAPTER VII. Third Revolution. The Plebs enter the City. 1. General History of this Revolution. THE changes which, in the course of time, had taken place in the constitution of the family, brought with th-em ethers in the constitution of the city. The old aristocratic and sacerdotal family became weakened. The right of primogeniture having disappeared, this family lost its unity and vigor ; the clients having been for the most part freed, it lost the greater part of its subjects. The people of the lower orders were no longer dis- tributed among the gentes, but lived apart, and formed a body by themselves. Thus the city assumed quite another aspect. Instead of being, as at an earlier date, a fully united assemblage of as ma.ny little states as there were families, a union was formed on the one side among the patrician members of the gentes, and on the other side between men of the lower orders. There were thus two great bodies, t\vo hostile socie- ties, placed face to face. It was no longer, as in a pre ceding period, an obscure struggle in each family ; there was open war in each city. One of these classes wished to maintain the religious constitution of the city, and to continue the government and the priesthood in the hands of the sacred families. The other wished to break down the barriers that placed it beyond the pale of the law, of religion, and of politics. CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 361 In the beginning of the struggle, the advantage was with the aristocracy of birth. It had not, indeed, its former subjects, and its material strength had disap- peared ; but there remained its religious prestige, its regular organization, its habit of command, its tradi- tions, and its hereditary pride. It never doubted the justice of its cause, and believed that in defending itself it was defending religion. The people, on the other hand, had nothing but numbers on their side. They were held back by a habit of respect, of which they could not easily free themselves. Then, too, they had no leaders, and every principle of organization was wanting. There were, in the beginning, a ruulti- O ' O O 7 tudc without any bond of union, rather than a vigor- ous and well-constituted body. If we bear in mind that men had not yet discovered any other principle of association than the hereditary religion of the fam- ily, and that they had no idea of any authority that was not derived from a worship, we shall easily under- stand that the plebs, who had been excluded from all the rites of religion, could not at first form a regular society, and that much time was required for them to discover the elements of discipline and the rules of a regular government. This inferior class, in its weak- ness, sa'w at first no other means of combating the aristocracy than by meeting it with monarchy. In the cities where the popular class had been al- ready consolidated in the time of the ancient kings, it sustained them with all its strength, and encouraged them to increase their power. At Rome it demanded the restoration of monarchy after Romulus, and caused Hostilius to be nominated ; it made Tarquinius Prisons king; it loved Servius, and regretted Tarquinius Sn- perbus. When the kings had been everywhere over- 362 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. thrown, and the aristocracy bad become supreme, the people did not content themselves with regretting the monarchy; they aspired to restore it under a new form. In Greece, during the sixth century, they suc- ceeded generally in procuring leaders; not wishing to call them kings, because this title implied the idea of religious functions, and could only be borne by the sacerdotal families, they called them tyrants. 1 Whatever might have been the original sense of this word, it certainly was not borrowed from the language of religion. Men could not apply it to the gods, as they applied the word king ; they did not pronounce it in their prayers. It designated, in fact, something quite new among men an authority that was not de- rived from the worship, a power that religion had not established. The appearance of this word in the Greek language marks a principle which the preceding gener- ations had not known the obedience of man to man. Up to that time there had been no other chiefs of the state than those who had been chiefs of religion ; those only governed the city who offered the sacrifices and invoked the gods for it. In obeying them, men obeyed only the religious law, and made no act of submission except to the divinity. Obedience to a man, authority given to this man by other men, a power human in its origin and nature this had been unknown to the an- cient Eupatrids, and was never thought of till the day when the inferior orders threw off the yoke of the aris- tocracy and attempted a new government. Let us cite a few examples. At Corinth, " the peo- 1 The name of king was sometimes given to these popular ctticfs when tlu'y were descended from religious families. He- rodotus, V. 92. CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 363 pie supported the government of the Bacchiadae very unwillingly ; Cypselus, understanding this hatred, and seeing that the people sought a chief to conduct them to freedom," offered himself to become their chief. The people accepted him, set him up as their tyrant, drove out the Bacchiadae, and obeyed Cypselus. Mi- letus had as a tyrant a certain Thrasybulus ; Mitylene obeyed Pittacus, and Samos Polycrates. We find tyrants at Argos, at Epidaurus, and at Megara in the sixth century ; Sicyon had tyrants during a hundred and thirty years, without interruption. Among the -Greeks of Italy we see tyrants at Cuma3, at Crotona, at Sybnris indeed everywhere. At Syracuse, in 485, the lower orders made themselves masters of the city, and banished the aristocratic class; but they could neither maintain nor govern themselves, and at the nd of a year they had to set up a tyrant. 1 Everywhere these tyrants, with more or less violence, had the same policy. A tyrant of Corinth one day nsked advice concerning government of a tyrant of Miletus. The latter, in reply, struck off the heads of grain that were higher than the others. Thus their rule of conduct was to cut down the high heads, and to strike at the aristocracy, while depending upon the people. The Roman plebs at first formed conspiracies to restore Tarquin. They afterwards tried to sot up ty- rants, and cast their eyes by turns upon Publicola, Spurius Cassius, and Manlius. The accusation which the patricians so often addressed to those of their own order who became popular, cannot have been pure 1 Nicholas of Damascus, Fragm. Aristotle, Pol., V. 9. Thucydides, I. 12G. Diodorus, IV. 5. 364 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. calumny. The fear of the great attests tbe desire of the plebs. But we ought to remark that, if the people in Greece and Rome sought to restore monarchy, it was not from real attachment to this sort of government. They loved tyrants less than they detested aristocracy. For them the monarchy was a means of conquering and avenging themselves ; but this government, which was the result of force alone, and never rested upon any sacred tradition, took no root in the hearts of the peo- ple. They set up a tyrant for the needs of the strug- gle ; they left him the power afterwards from gratitude or from necessity. But when a few years had elapsed, and the recollection of the hard oligarchy had been effaced, they let the tyrant fall. This government never had the affection of the Greeks ; they accepted it only as a temporary resource, while the popular party should find a better one and should feel strong enough to gov- ern itself. The inferior class increased by degrees. Progress sometimes works obscurely, yet decides the future of a class, and transforms society. About the sixth century before our era, Greece and Italy saw a new source of riches appear. The earth no longer sufficed for all the wants of man ; tastes turned towards beauty and luxu- ry; the arts sprang up, and then industry and commerce became necessary. Personal property was created by degrees; coins were struck, and money appeared. Now, the appearance of money was a great revolution. Money was not subject to the same conditions as land- ed property. It was, according to the expression of the lawyers, res nee mancipi, and could pass from hand to hand without any religious formality, and without difficulty could reach the plebeians. Religion, CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 365 which had given its stamp to the soil, had no power -over money. Men of the lower orders now learned other occupa- tions besides that of cultivating the earth; there were artisans, sailors, manufacturers, and merchants; and oon there were rich men among them. Here was a a singular novelty. Previously, the chiefs of the gentes alone could be proprietors, and here were former cli- ents and plebeians who were rich and who displayed their wealth. Then, too, the luxury which enriched the plebeian impoverished the noble. In many cities, especially at Athens, were a part of the aristocratic body seen to become miserably poor. Now, in a soci- ety where wealth is changing hands, rank is in danger of being overthrown. Another consequence of this change was, that among the people themselves, distinc- tions of rank arose, as must happen in every human society. Some families were prominent; some names increased- in importance. A sort of aristocracy was formed among the people. This was not an evil; the people ceased to be a confused mass, and began to re- semble a well-constituted body. Having rank among themselves, they could select leaders without any long- er having to take from the patricians the first ambi- tious man who wished to reign. This plebeian aristoc- racy soon had the qualities which ordinarily accompany Avealth acquired by labor that is to say, the feeling of personal worth, the love of tranquil liberty, and that spirit of wisdom which, though desiring improve- ments, fears risking too much. The plebs followed the lead of this new aristocracy, which they were proud of possessing. They renounced tyrants as soon as they felt that they possessed among themselves the ele- ments of a better government. Indeed, riches became, 366 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. for some time, as we shall see by and by, a principle of social organization. There is one other change of which we must speak, for it greatly aided the lower class to rise the change that took place in the military art. In the first ages of the history of cities, the strength of armies was in their cavalry. The real Avarrior was the one who fought from a horse or from a chariot. The foot- soldier, of little service in combat, was slightly es- teemed. The ancient aristocracy, therefore, every- where reserved to themselves the right to fight on o o horseback. 1 In some cities the nobles even gave them- selves the title of knights. The celeres of Romulus,, the Roman kmghts of the earlier ages, were all patri- cians. Among the ancients the cavalry was always the noble arm. But by degrees infantry became more important. Improvement in the manufacture of arms, and in discipline, enabled it to resist cavalry. When this point was reached, infantry took the first rank in battle, for it was more manageable, and its manoeuvre* easier. The legionaries and the hoplites thenceforth formed the main strength of armies. Now the legion- aries and the hoplites were plebeians. Add to this that maritime operations became more extended, es- pecially in Greece, that there were naval battles, and that the destiny of a city was often in the hands of the rowers that is to say, of the plebeians. Now, a class that is strong enough to defend a people is strong enough to defend its rights, and to exercise a legiti- mate influence. The social and political state of a nation always bears a certain relation to the nature and. composition of its armies. 1 Aristotle, Politics, VI. 3, 2. CHAP. VII. 1 HE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 367 Finally, the inferior class succeeded in having a re- ligion of its own. These men had in their hearts, we may suppose, that religious sentiment which is insepa- rable from our nature, and which renders adoration and prayer necessary to us- They suffered, therefore, to find themselves shut out from all religion by the ancient principle which prescribed that every god belonged to a family, and that the right of prayer was transmitted with the blood. They strove, therefore, to have a worship of their own. It is impossible to enter here into the details of the efforts that they made, of the means which they in- vented, of the difficulties or the resources that occurred to them. This work, for a long time a separate study for each individual, was long the secret of each mind; we can see only the results. Sometimes a plebeian family set up a hearth of its own, whether it dared to light the fire itself or procured the sacred fire else- where. Then it had its worship, its sanctuary, its pro- tecting divinity, and its priesthood, in imitation of the patrician family. Sometimes the plebeian, without hav- ing any domestic worship, had recourse to the temples of the city. At Rome those who had no sacred fire, and consequently no domestic festival, offered their annual sacrifices to the god Quirinus. 1 When the upper class persisted in driving the lower orders from the temples, the latter built temples of their own. At Rome they had one on the Aventine, which was sacred to Diana; they also had the temple of Plebeian Modesty. The Oriental worships, which began in the sixth century to overrun Greece and Italy, were eagerly received by the plebs ; these were forms of worship which, like Buddhism, 1 Varro, L. L., VI. 13. 368 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. excluded no caste, or people. Often, too, the plebeians would make themselves gods, like those of the patrician curies and tribes. Thus king Servius erected an altar in every quarter of the city, so that the multitude might have places to sacrifice ; just as Peisistratus set up Herma3 in the streets and squares of Athens. 1 Those were the gods of the democracy. The plebeians, pre- viously a multitude without worship, thenceforth had religious ceremonies and festivals. They could pray ; this in a society where religion made the dignity of man was a great deal. When once the lower orders had gained these points ; when they had among themselves rich men, soldiers, and priests; when they had gained all that gave man a sense of his own worth and strength; when, in fine, they had compelled the aristocracy to consider them of some account, it was impossible to keep them out of social and political life, and the city could be closed to them no longer. The entry of this inferior class into the city was a revolution, which, from the seventh to the filth century, filled the history of Greece and Italy. The efforts of the people were everywhere successful, but not everywhere in the same manner, or by the same means. In some cases the people, as soon as they felt themselves to be strong, rose, sword in hand, and forced the gates of the city where they had been forbidden to live. Once masters, they either drove out the nobles and occupied their houses, or contented themselves with proclaiming an equality of rights. This is what happened at Syracuse, at Erythrse, ami at Miletus. In other cases, ou the contrary, the people employed 1 Dionysius, IV. 5. Plato, Ilipparchus. CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTEK THE CITY. 369 means less violent. "Without an armed struggle, and merely by the moral force which their last step had given them, they constrained the great to make con- cessions. They then appointed a legislator, and the constitution was changed. This was the course of events at Athens. Sometimes the inferior class arrived by degrees, and without any shock, at its object. Thus, at Curnaj, the number of members of the city, very few in the begin- ning, was increased at first by the admission of those of the people who were rich enough to keep a horse. Later the number of citizens was raised to one thousand, and by degrees the city reached a democratic form of government. 1 In a few cities, the admission of the plebs among the citizens was the work of the kings; this was the case at Rome. In others it was the work of popular tyrants, as at Corinth, at Sicyon, and at Argos. When the aristocracy regained the supremacy, they generally had the good sense to leave to the lower orders the rights of citizens which the kings or tyrants had given them. At Samos the aristocracy did not succeed in its struggle with the tyrants until it had freed the lower- classes. It would occupy us too long to enumerate all the different forms under which this great revolution appeared. The result was everywhere the same ; the inferior class entered the city, and became a part of the body politic. The poet Theognis has given us a very clear idea of this revolution, and of its consequences. He tells us that in Megara, his country, there were two sorts of men. He calls one the class of the good, ayuOoi this, 1 Heracleidcs of Pontus. Fragm., coll. Diclot, t. 11, p. 217. 24 370 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. indeed, is the name which they took in most of the Greek cities. The other he calls the class of the bad, xuxol this, too, is the name by which it was custom- ary to designate the inferior class. The poet describes the ancient condition of this class: "Formerly it knew neither tribunals nor laws;" this is as much as to say that it had not the right of the citizenship. These men were not even permitted to approach the city ; " they lived without, like wild beasts." They took no part in the religious repasts; they had not the right to marry into the families of the good. But how changed is all this ! Rank has been over- thrown ; "the bad have been placed above the good." Justice is disturbed ; thu ancient laws are no more, and laws of strange novelty have replaced them. Riches have become the only object of men's desires, because wealth gives power. The man of noble race marries the daughter of the rich plebeian, and " marriage con- founds the races." Theognis, who belonged to an aristocratic family, vainly strove to resist the course of events. Con- demned to exile, and despoiled of his property, he could no longer protest and fight except in his verses. But if he no longer hoped for success, at least he never doubted the justice of his cause. He accepted defeat, but lie still preserved a sense of his rights. In his eyes, the revolution which had taken place was a moral evil, a crime. A son of the aristocracy, it seemed to him that this revolution had on its side neither justice nor the gods, and that it was an attempt against re- ligion. "The gods," he says, "have quitted the earth; no one fears them. The race of pious men has dis- appeared ; no one now cares for the Immortals." But these regrets are useless, and he knows it welL O0AP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 371 If he complains thus, it is as a sort of pious duty ; it is because he has received from the ancients " the holy tradition," and his duty is to perpetuate it. But he labors in vain; the tradition itself will perish; the sons of the nobles will forget their nobility; soon all will be Been united by marriage to plebeian families; "they will drink at their festivals and eat at their tables " ; they will soon adopt their sentiments. In Theognis' time, regret was all that was left for the Greek aristoc- racy, and even this regret was soon to disappear. In fact, after Theognis the nobility were nothing but a recollection. The great families continued piously to preserve the domestic worship and the memory of their ancestors, but this was all. There were still men who amused themselves by counting their ancestors; but such men were ridiculed. They preserved the cus- tom of inscribing upon some tombs that the deceased was of noble race, but no attempt was made to restore a system forever fallen. Isocrates said, with truth, that in his time the great families of Athens no longer ex- isted except in their tombs. Thus the ancient city was transformed by degrees. In the beginning it was an association of some hundred chiefs of families. Later the number of citizens in- creased, because the younger branches obtained a position of equality. Later still, the freed clients, the plebs, all that multitude which, during centuries, had remained outside the political and religious association, sometimes even outside the sacred enclosure of the city, broke down the barriers which were opposed to them, and penetrated into the city, where they im- mediately became the iv asters. S72 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV 2. History of this devolution at Athene. The Eupatrids, after the overthrow of royalty, gov- erned Athens during four centuries. Upon tins long dominion history is silent ; we know only one fact that it was odious to the lower orders, and that the people tried to change the government. In the year 598, the discontent, which appeared general, and certain signs which showed a revolution to be at hand, aroused the ambition of a Eupatrid, Cylon, who undertook to overthrow the government of his caste, and to establish himself as a popular tyrant. The energy of the archons frustrated the en- terprise, but the agitation continued after him. In vnin the Eupatrids employed all the resources of their religion. In vain did they announce that the gods were irritated, and that spectres had appeared. In vain did they purify the city from the crimes of the people, and raise two altars to Violence and Insolence to ap- pease these two divinities, whose malign influence had agitated all minds. 1 All this was to no purpose. The feeling of hatred was not appeased. They brought from Crete the pious Epimenides, a mysterious person- age, who was said to be the son of a goddess, and he performed a series of expiatory ceremonies ; they hoped, by thus striking the imaginations of the people, to revive religion, and consequently to fortify the aristoc- racy. But the people were not moved ; the religion of the Eupatrids no longer had any influence upon their minds; they persisted in demanding reform. For sixteen years longer the fierce opposition of the 1 Diogenes Laertius, I. 110. Cicero, De Leg., II. 11. Athe- naeus, p. <302. CHAP. VII THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 373 peasants of the mountain and the patient opposition of the rich men of the shore waged war against the Eu- patrids. Finally, those who were wisest among the three parties agreed to intrust to Solon the care of terminating the discords, and of preventing still greater misfortunes. Solon had the rare fortune to belong at the same time to the Eupatrids by birth, and to the merchants by the occupation of his earlier years. His poetry exhibits him to us as a man entirely free from the prejudice of caste. By his conciliatory spirit, by his taste for wealth and luxury, by his love of pleasure, he Avas far removed from the old Eupatrids. He belonged to new Athens. We have said above that Solon began by freeing the land from the old domination which the religion of the Eupatrid families had exercised over it. He broke the chains of clientship. So great a change in the social state brought with it another in the political order. The lower orders needed thenceforth, according to the expression of Solon himself, n shield to defend their newly-found liberty. This shield was political rights. Solon's constitution is far from being well known to us; it appears, however, that all the Athenians made from that time a part of the assembly of the people, and that the senate was no longer composed of Eupa- trids alone; it appears even that the archons could be elected outside the ancient priestly caste. These grave innovations destroyed all the ancient rules of the city. The right of suffrage, magistracies, priesthood, the direction of society, all these had to be shared by the Eupatrid with the inferior caste. In the new constitu- tion no account was taken of the rights of primogeni- ture. There were still classes, but men were no longer 374 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. distinguished except by wealth. The rule of the Eu- patrids disappeared. The Eupatrid was no longer of any account, unless he was rich; he had influence through his wealth, and not through birth. Thence- forth the poet could say, " In poverty the noble is of no account," and the people applauded in the theatre this line of the poet' "Of what rank is this man? Rich, for those are now the noble." ' The system which was thus founded had two sorts of enemies the Eupatrids, who regretted their lost privileges, and the poor, who still suffered from the inequality of their rank. Hardly had Solon finished his work when agitation recommenced. "The poor," says Plutarch, "showed themselves the fierce enemies of the rich." The new government displeased them, perhaps, quite as much as that of the Eupatrids. Besides, seeing that the Eupatrids could still be archons and senators, many imagined that the revolution had not been complete. Solon had maintained the republican forms ; now the people still entertained a blind hatred against these forms of government under which they had seen, for four centuries, nothing but the reign of the aristocracy. Alter the example of many Greek cities, they wished for a tyrant. Peisistratus, a Eupatrid, but following his own per- sonal ambition, promised the poor a division of the lands, and attached them to himself. One day he ap- peared in the assembly, and, pretending that he had been wounded, asked for a guard. The men of the higher classes were about to reply and unveil his false- hood, but "the people were ready to resort to violence 1 Euripides, Fhaeniss. Alexis, in Athenseus, IV. 49. UH.4.I . VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 375 to sustain Peisistratus; the rich, seeing this, fled in dis- order." Thus one of the first acts of the popular as- sembly recently established was to enable a man to become master of his country. But it does not appear that the reign of Peisistratus offered any check to the development of the destinies of Athens. Its principal effect, on the contrary, was to guarantee this great social and political reform, which had just taken place, against a reaction. The Eupatrids never regained their lost power. The people showed themselves little desirous of re- covering their liberty. Twice a coalition of the great and the rich overthrew Peisistrntus; twice he returned to power, and his sons governed Athens after him. The intervention of the Lacedemonian army was re- quired in Attica to put an end to this family's rule. The ancient aristocracy had for a moment the hope of profiting by the fall of Peisistratus, and regaining its privileges. They not only failed of this, but re- ceived a still ruder blow. Cleisthenes, who belonged to this class, but who was of a family which it had covered with opprobrium, and had seemed to reject for three generations, found the surest means of taking away the little of its power that still remained. Solon> in changing the constitution, had retained the old reli- gious organization of Athenian society. The population remained divided into two or three hundred gentes, into twelve phratries, and four tribes. In each one of these groups there were, as in the preceding period, an hereditary worship, a priest, who was a Eupatrid, and a chief, who was the same as the priest. All this was a relic of the past, which disappeared slowly. Through this the traditions, the usages, the rules, the distinc- tions that existed in the old social state, were perpetu- 376 THE REVOLUTIONS. B( OK IV. ated. All these had been established by religion, and iu their turn they maintained religion that is to say,, the power of the great families. There were in each of these organizations two classes of men. On tho one side were the Eupatrids, who had, by right of birth, the priesthood and the authority; on the other r men of an inferior condition, who were no longer either slaves or clients, but who were still retained by reli- gion under the authority of the Eupatrids. In vain did the laws of Solon declare that all Athenians were free. The old religion seized a man as he went out of the assembly where he had voted freely, and said to him, " Thou art bound to the Eupatrid through worship ;. thou owest him respect, deference, submission ; as a member of the city, Solon has freed thee ; but as a member of a tribe, thou obeyest the Eupatrid ; as a member of a phratry, thou also hast a Eupatrid for a chief; in the family itself, in the gens where thou wort born, and which thou canst not leave, thou still findest the authority of the Eupatrid." Of what avail was it that the political law had made a citizen of this man, if religion and manners persisted in making him a cli- ent? For several generations, it is true, many men lived outside these organizations, whether they had come from foreign countries, or had escaped from the gens and the tribe, to be free. But these men suffered in another way ; they found themselves in a state of moral inferiority compared with other men, and a sort of ignominy was attached to their independence. There was, therefore, after the political reform of So- lon, another reform to be made in the domain of reli- gion. Cleisthenes accomplished it by suppressing the four old religious tribes, and replacing them with ten. tribes, which were divided into demos. CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 377 These tribes and denies resembled in appearance the ancient tribes and gentes. In each one of these or- ganizations there were a worship, a priest, a judge, assemblies for religious ceremonies, and assemblies to deliberate upon the common interests. 1 But the new groups differed from the old in two essential points. First, all the free men of Athens, even those who had not belonged to the old tribes and gentes, were included in the divisions of Cleistheues.* This was a great reform ; it gave a worship to those who before had none, and included in a religious association those who had previously been excluded from every associa- tion. In the second place, men were distributed in the tribes and demes, not according to birth, as for- merly, but according to their locality. Birth was of 110 account; men were equal, and privileges were no longer known. The worship for which the new tribe and deme were established was no longer the heredita- ry worship of an ancient family ; men no longer assem- bled around the hearth of a Eupatrid. The tribe or derne no longer venerated an ancient Eupatrid as a divine ancestor ; the tribes had new eponymous heroes chosen from among the ancient personages of whom the people had preserved a grateful recollection, and as for the demes, they uniformly adopted as their protect- ing gods Zeus, the guardian of the walls, and the pater- nal Apollo. Henceforth there was no reason why the priesthood should be hereditary in the derne, as it had been in the gens,- or why the priest should always be a Eupatrid. In the new groups the priestly office, as 1 .TEschines, in Ctesiph., 30. Demosthenes, in Eubul. Pol- lu>, VIII. 19, 95, 107. 3 Aristotle, Politics, III. 1, 10; VII. 2. Scholiast on 2Ea* chines, edit. Didot, p. 511. 378 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. well ns that of the chief, was annual, and every mem- ber might enjoy it in his turn. This reform completed the overthrow of the aristoc- racy of the Eupatrids. From this time there was no longer a religious caste, no longer any privileges of birth, either in religion or in politics. Athenian socie- ty was completely transformed. 1 Now, the suppression of the old tribes, replaced by new ones, to which ;ill men had access, and in which they were equal, \v:is not a fact peculiar to the history of Athens. The same change took place at Gyrene, Sicyon, Elis, and Sparta, and probably in many other Greek cities. 2 Of all the means calculated to weaken the ancient aristocracy, Aristotle saw none more effi- cacious than this: "If one wished to found a democ- racy," he says, " he would proceed as Cleisthenes did at Athens ; he would establish new tribes and new phratries; for the hereditary family sacrifices he would substitute sacrifices where all men might be admitted, and he would associate and blend the people together as much as possible, being careful to break up all ante- rior associations." 3 When this reform has been accomplished in all the cities, it may be said that the ancient mould of society has been broken, and that a new social body has been formed. This change in the organizations which the ancient hereditary religion had established, and which 1 The ancient phratries and the ylrri were not suppressed ; they continued, on the contrary, down to the close of Greek history ; hut they vrere thenceforth only religious bodies, and of no account politically. 2 Herodotus, V. C7, G8. Aristotle, Politics, VII. 2, 11. Pau- sanias, V. 9. 3 Aristotle, Politics, VII. 3, 11 (VI. 3). HAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 379 it had declared immutable, marks the end of the reli- gious government of the city. 3. History of this' devolution at Home. At Rome the plebs had a great influence at an early date. The situation of the city, between the Latins, the Sabines, and the Etruscans, condemned it to perpetual war, and war required that there should be a numerous population. The kings, therefore, had welcomed and invited all foreigners, without regard to their origin. Wars succeeded each other without in- termission, and as there was a need of men, the most common result of every victory was to take away the inhabitants of the conquered city and transfer them to Rome. What became of these men, brought with the booty ? If there were found among them patrician and priestly families, the patricians hastened to associ- ate them with themselves. As to the multitude, some of them became the clients of the great, or of the king, and a part were left with the plebs. Still other elements entered into the composition of this class. Many foreigners flocked to Rome, as a place whose situation rendered it convenient for com- merce. The discontented among the Sabines, the Etruscans, and the Latins, found a refuge there. All this class joined the plebs. The client who succeeded in escaping from the gens became a plebeian. The patrician, who formed a misalliance, or was guilty of any crime that lost him his rank, fell into the inferior class. Every bastard was cast out by religion from pure ia.nilies, and counted among the plebs. }}\c all these reasons the plebs increased in numbers. The ss,- ggle which had begun between the patricians 380 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV and the king increased their importance. The kings and the plebs early felt that they had the same ene- mies. The ambition of the kings was to cut loose from the old principles of government, which limited the exercise of their power. The ambition of the ple- beians waf? to break the anci'-nt barriers which exclud- ed them from the religious and political associations. A tacit alliance was established the kings protected the plebs, and the plebs sustained the kings. The traditions and testimony of antiquity place the great progress of the plebeians under the reign of Ser- vius. The hatred whicli the patricians preserved for this king sufficiently shows what his policy was. His first reform was to give lands to the plebeians, not, it is true, in the ager JRomanus, but in the territory taken from the enemy ; still, this conferring the right to own land upon families that had previously cultivat- ed only the fields of others was none the less an in- novation. 1 What was graver still was, that he published laws for the plebs, which had never been done before. These laws, for the most part, related to obligations which the plebeian might contract with the patrician. It was the commencement of a common law between the two orders, and for the plebs it was the commencement of equality.* Later this same king established a new division in the city. Without destroying the three ancient tribes, where the patrician families and clients were classed 1 Liry, I. 47. Dionysius. IV. 13. The preceding kings had already distributed the lands taken from the enemy ; but it is not certain that they admitted the plebs to share in the di- vision. * Dionysius, IV. 13; IV. 43. CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 381 according to rank, he formed four new tribes, in which the entire population was distributed according to resi- dence. We have seen this reform at Athens, and we know what were its effects; they were the same at; Rome. The plebeians, who did not enter the ancient tribes, were admitted into the new ones. 1 This multi- tude, up to that time a floating mass, a species of no- madic population that had no connection with the city had thenceforth its fixed divisions and its regular or- ganization. The formation of these tribes, in which the two orders were mingled, really marked the entrance of the plebs into the city. Every tribe had a hearth and sacrifices. Servius established Lares in every pub- lic place of the city, in every district of the country. They served as divinities for those who had no rank. The plebeian celebrated the religious festivals of his quarter, and of his burgh (comjntalia, paf/analia}, as the patrician celebrated the sacrifice of his gens and of his cury. The plebeian had a religion. At the same time a great change took place in the sacred ceremony of the lustration. The people were no longer ranged by curies^ to the exclusion of those whom the curies did not admit. All the free inhabit- ants of Rome, all those who formed a part of the new tribes, figured in the sacred act. For the first time all men, without distinction of patrician, or client, or ple- beian, were united. The king walked around this mixed assembly, driving victims before him, and sing- ing solemn hymns. The ceremony finished, all alike found themselves citizens. Before Servius, only two classes of men were dis- tinguished at Rome the sacerdotal caste of patii 1 Dionysius, I. 26. 382 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV, cians with their clients, and the plebeian class. No- other distinction was known than that which religion had established. Servius marked a new division, which had wealth for its foundation. Pie divided the inhab- itants of Rome into two great categories ; in the one were those who owned property, in the other those who had nothing. 'The first was divided into five classes, in which men were divided off according to the amount of their fortune. 1 By this means Servius in- troduced an entirely new principle into Roman society; wealth began to indicate rank, as religion had done before. Servius applied this division of the Roman popula- tion to the military service. Before him, if the plebe- ians fought, it was not in the ranks of the legion. But as Servius had made proprietors and citizens of them, he could also make them legionaries. From this time the army was no longer composed of men exclusively from the curies ; all free men, all those at least who- had property, inacle a part of it, and the poor alone continued to be excluded. The rank of patrician or client no longer determined the armor of each soldier and his post in battle ; the army was divided by classes, exactly like the population, according to wealth. The first class, which had complete armor, and the two fol- lowing, which had at least the shield, the helmet, and 1 Modern historians generally reckon six classes. In reality there were but five: Cicero, De Pepub., II. 22; Aulus Gellius, X. 28. The knights on the one hand, and the proletarii, poor inhabitants, on the other, were not counted in the classes. We must note, moreover, that the word classis had not, in the an- cient language, a sense similar to our word class ; it was applied to a military body; and this shows that the division established by Servius was rather military than political. CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTEK THE CITY. 383 the sword, formed the three first lines of the legion. The fourth and the fifth, being light-armed, made up the body of skirmishers and slingers. Each class was divided into companies, called centuries. The first of these consisted, we are told, of eighty men ; the four others twenty or thirty each. The cavalry was a, sepa- rate body, and in this arm also Servius made a great innovation. Whilst up to that time the young patri- cians alone made up the centuries of the knights, Ser- vius admitted a certain number of plebeians, chosen from the wealthiest, to fight on horseback, and formed of these twelve new centuries. Now, the army could not be touched without at the same time modifying the political constitution. The plebeians felt that their importance in the state had in- creased : they had arms, discipline, and chiefs; every century had its centurion and its sacred ensign. This military organization was permanent; peace did not dissolve it. The soldiers, it is true, on their return from a campaign, quitted their ranks, as the law forbade them to enter the city in military order. But after- wards, at the first signal, the citizens resumed their arms in the Campus Martins, where each returned to his century, his centurion, and his banner. Now, it happened, twenty-five years alter Servius Tullius, the army was called together without any intention of making a military expedition. The army being as- sembled, and the men having taken their ranks, every century having its centurion at Us head, and its ensign in the centre, the magistrate spoke, proposed laws, and took a votel The six patrician centuries and the twelve of the plebeian knights voted first; alter them the centuries of infantry of the first class, and the othera in turn. Thus was established in a short time the 384 THE EEVOI.UTIOXS. BOOK 17 comitia centuriata, where every soldier had the right of suffrage, and where the plebeian and the patrician were hardly distinguished. 1 All these reforms made a singular change in the ap- pearance of the Roman city. The patricians remained, with their hereditary worship, their curies, their senate. But the plebeians became accustomed to indepen- dence, wealth, arms, and religion. The plebs were not confounded with the patricians, but became strong by the side of them. The patricians, it is true, took their revenge. They commenced by killing Servius; later, they banished 1 It appears to us incontestable that the comitia by centuries were identical with the Roman army. What proves this is, first, that this assembly is often called the army by Latin writers : urbanus exercitus (Varro, VI. 93) ; quum comitiorum causa exer- citus eductus esset (Livy, XXXIX. 15) ; miles ad svffragia voca- tur et comitia centuriata.dicuntur (Ampelius, 48) : second, that these comitia were convoked exactly as the army was when it entered on a campaign that is to say, at the sound of a trum- pet (Varro, V. 91) ; two standards floated from the citadel, one red, to call the infantry, the other dark-green for the cavalry : third, that these comitia were always held in the Campus Martius, because the army could not assemble within the city (Aulus Gellius, XV. 27) : fourth, that every voter went with his arms (Dion Cassius, XXXVII.) : fifth, that the voters were dis- tributed by centuries, the infantry on one side, and the cavalry on the other : sixth, that every century had at its head its cen- turion and its ensign, Z>onto ti 7roAji(q)(Dionysius, VII. 59) : sev- enth, that men more than sixty years of age, not being a part of the army, had not the right to vote in these comitia (Macrobius, I. 5; Festus, v. Depontani). Then, in the ancient language, the word classis signified a military body, and the word centuria de- signated a military company. The prohtarii did not appear in this assembly at first; still, as it was a custom in the army to form a century of laborers, they might form a century in the coiritia. OHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 385 Tarquin. The defeat of royalty was the defeat of the plebs. The patric-ians attempted to take a\vay from them all the conquests which they had made under the kings. One of the first acts \vas to take from them the lands that Servius had given them ; and we must remark, the only reason given for despoiling them thus, was that they were plebeians. 1 The patricians, therefore, re- stored the old principle, which required that hereditary religion alone should establish the right of property, and which did not permit a man without religion and without ancestors to exercise any right over the soil. The laws that Servius had made for the plebs were also withdrawn. If the system of classes and the comi- tia centuriata were not abolished by the patricians, it was because the state of war did not allow them to dis- organize the army, and also because they understood how to surround the comitia with formalities such that they could always control the elections. They dared not take from the plebs the title of citizens, and allowed them to figure in the census. But it is clear that, while allowing the plebs to form a part of the city, they shared with them neither political rights nor religion, nor the laws. In name, the plebs remained in the city ; in fact, they were excluded. Let us not unreasonably accuse the patricians, or suppose that they coldly conceived the design of op- pressing and crushing the plebs. The patrician who was descended from a sacred family, and felt himself the heir to a worship, understood no other social system than that whose rules had been traced by the ancient religion. In his eyes the constituent element of every 1 Cassius Hcmina, in Nonius, Book II. v. Flevitas. 25 386 THE KEVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. society was the gens, with its worship, its hereditary chief, and its clier.tship. For him the city could not be anything except an assembly of the chiefs of the gentes. It did not enter his mind that there could be any other political system than that which rested upon worship, or othor magistrates than those who performed the public sacrifices, or other laws than those whose sacred formulas religion had dictated. It was useless to say to him that the plebeians also had within a short time adopted a religion, and that they offered sacrifices to the Lares of the public squares. lie would reply that this religion had not the essential character of a real religion, that it was not hereditary, that the* fires were not ancient fires, and that these Lares were not real ancestors. He would have added, that the plebeians, in adopting a worship, had done what they had no right to do, and to obtain one, had violated all principle; that they had taken only the external forms of worship, and had neglected the essential principle; it was not hereditary; that, in fine, this image of religion was ab- solutely the opposite of religion. Since the patrician persisted in thinking that heredi- tary religion alone should govern men, it followed that he saw no religion possible for the plebs. He could not understand how the social power could be regularly exercised upon this class of men. The sacred law could not be applied to them ; justice was sacred ground, which was forbidden to them. So long as there had been kings, they had taken upon themselves to govern the plebs, and they had done this according to certain rules, which had nothing in common with the ancient religion, and which necessity or the public interest had produced. But by the revolution, which had abolished royalty, religion had assumed its empire ; it necessarily CHAP. Vn. Tllj: PLEBS EXTEK THE CITY. 387 followed that the whole plebeian class were placed bf- yond the reach of social laws. The patricians then established a government con- formable to their own principles ; but they had not dreamed of establishing one for the plebs. The patri- cians had not the courage to drive the plebeians from Rome, but they no longer found the means of organizing them into a regular society. We thus see, in the midst of Rome, thousands of families for which there ex- isted no fixed laws, no social order, no magistrates. The city, the populus, that is to say, the patrician society, \vith the client that had remained to it, arose powerful, organized, majestic. About it lived a plebeian multi- tude, which was not a people, and did not form a body. The consuls, the chiefs of the patrician city, maintained order in this confused population; the plebeians obeyed: feeble, generally poor, they bent under the power of the patrician body. The problem that was to decide the future of Rome was this : Ho\v can the plebs become a regular society ? Now, the patricians, governed by the rigorous prin- ples of their religion, saw only one means of resolving this problem ; this was to adopt the plebs, as clients, into the sacred organization of the gentes. It .appears that one attempt was made in this direction. The question of debts, which agitated Rome at this period, can only be explained, if we see in it the more grave question of clientship and slavery. The Roman plebs. robbed of their lands, were no longer able to support themselves. The patricians calculated that, by the sacrifice of a little money, they could bring this poor class into their hands. The plebeian begin to borrow. In borrowing, he gave himself up to the creditor sold himself. It was so much a sale that it was a transao- 388 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. tion per ces et libram that is to say, with the solemn formality which was cummonly employed to confer upon a man the right of property in any object. 1 The plebeian, it is true, took security against slavery. By a sort of fiduciary contract, he stipulated that he should retain his rank of freeman until the day of the pay- ment, and that on that day he should recover full pos- session of himself on paying the debt. But on that day, if the debt was not paid, lie lost the benefit of his contract. He was in the power of his creditor, who took him to his house and made him his client and servant. In all this the creditor did not think he was committing any act of inhumanity ; the ideal of society being, in his eyes, the government of the gens, he saw nothing more legitimate or more commendable than to O O bring men into it by any means possible. If this plan had succeeded, the plebs would have disappeared in little time, and the Roman city would have been noth- ing but an association of patrician gentes, sharing among them a multitude of clients. But this clientship was a chain which the plebeian held in horror. He fought against the patrician who, armed with his debt, wished to make a client of him. Cliunt.-hip was for him equivalent to slavery ; the pa- trician's house was, in his eyes, a prison (ergastuluni). Many a time the plebeian, seized by the patrician, called upon his associate*, and stirred up the plebeians, cry- ing that he was a free man, and displaying the wounds which he had received in the defence of Rome. The calculation of the patricians only served to irritate the plebs. They saw the danger, and strove with all their 1 Varro, L. L., VII. 105. Livy, VIII. 28. Aulus Gellius, XX. 1. Fcstus, v. Xexv.m. CHAP, en. THE PLEBS EXTER THE CITY. 389 energy to free themselves from this precarious state, in which the fall of the royal government had placed them. They wished to have laws and rights. But it does not appear that these men aspired at first to share the laws and rights of the patricians. Perhaps they thought, with the patricians themselves, that there could be nothing in common between the two orders. Xo one thought of civil and political equality. That the plebeians could raise themselves to the level of the patricians, never entered the minds of the plebeian of the first centuries any more than it occurred to the patrician. Far, therefore, from claiming equality of rights and laws, these men seem to have preferred, at first, com- plete separation. In Rome they found no remedy for their sufferings ; they saw but one means of escaping from their inferiority this was to depart from Rome. The historian has well expressed their thoughts when he attributes this language to them : " Since the patri- ~ O 1 cians wish to possess the city alone, let them enjoy it at their ease. For us Rome is nothing. We have neither hearths, nor sacrifices, nor country. We only leave a foreign city; no hereditary religion attaches us to this place. Every land is good for us : where we find liberty, there shall be our country." : And they went to take up their abode on the SacreJ Mount, beyond the limits of the ager Horaanus. In view of such an act the senate was divided in opinion. The more ardent of the patricians showed clearly that the departure of the plebs was far from afflicting them. Thenceforth the patricians alone would remain at Rome with the clients that were t-till ' Dionysius, VI. 45. 79. 390 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. faithful to them. Rome would renounce its future grandeur, but the patricians would be masters there. They would no longer have these plebeians to trouble them, to whom the rules of ordinary government could not be applied, and who were an embarrassment to the city. They ought, perhnps, to have been driven out at the same time with the kings; but since they had of themselves taken the resolution to depart, the pa- tricians ought to let them go, and rejoice at their de- parture. But others, less faithful to old principles, or solici- tous for the grandeur of Rome, were afflicted at the departure of the plebs. Rome would lose half its sol- diers. What would become of it in the midst of the Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans all enemies? The plebs had good qualities; why could not these be made use of for the interests of the city? These senators desired, therefore, at a cost of a few concessions, of which they did not perhaps see all the consequences, to bring back to the city those thousands of arms that made the Ftrength of the legions. On the other side, the plebs perceived, at the end of a few months, that they could not live upon the Sacred Mount. They procured, indeed, what was materially necessary for existence, but all that went to make up an organized society was wanting. They could not found a city there, because they could not find a priest who knew how to perform the religious ceremony of the foundation. They could not elect magistrates, for they had no prytaneum with its perpetual fire, where the magistrate might sacrifice. They could find no foundation for socinl laws, since the only laws of which men then had any idea were derived from the patrician religion. In a word, they had not among them the ele- CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 391 ments of a city. The plebs saw clearly that by being move independent they were not happier; that they did not form a more regular society than at Rome ; and .that the problem, whose solution was so important to them, was not solved. They had gained nothing by leaving Rome ; it was not in the isolation of the Sacred Mount that they could find the laws and the rights to which they aspired. It was found, therefore, that the plebs and patricians, though they had almost nothing in common, could not live without each other. They came together and concluded a treaty of alliance. This treaty ap- pears to have been made on the same terms as those which terminate a war between two different peoples. Plebeians and patricians were indeed neither the same people nor the same city. By this treaty the patrician did not agree that the plebeian should make a part of the religious and political city ; it does not appear that the plebs demanded ii. They agreed merely that in the future the plebs, having been organized into some- thing like a regular society, should have chiefs taken from their own number. This is the origin of the tribuneship of the plebs an entirely new institution, which resembled nothing that the city had known before. The power of the tribunes was not of the same na- ture as the authority of the magistrates ; it was not de-rived from the city worship. The tribune performed no religious ceremony. He was elected without the auspices, and the consent of the gods was not neces- sary to create him. 1 He had neither curule chair, nor purple robe, nor crown of leaves, nor any cf those 1 Dionysius, X. Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 84. 392 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK TV. insignia which, in all the ancient cities, designated ma- gistrates and priests, for the veneration of men. He was never counted among the Roman magistrates. What, then, was the nature, and what was the princi- ple, of his power? Here we must banish from our minds all modern ideas and habits, and transport our- selves as much as possible into the midst of the ideas of the ancients. Up to that time men had understood political authority only as an appendage to the priest- hood. Thus, when they wished to establish a power that was not connected with worship, and chiefs who were not priests, they were forced to resort to a singu- lar device. For this, the day on which they created the first tribune, they performed a religious ceremony of a peculiar character. 1 Historians do not describe the rites; they merely say that the effect was to render these first tribunes sacrosancti. Now, these words signified that the body of the tribune should be reck- oned thenceforth among the objects which religion forbade to be touched, and whose simple touch made a man unclean. 2 Thus it happened, if some devout Roman, some patrician, met a tribune in the public street, he made it a duty to purify himself on return- ing home, " as if Ids body had been defiled simply by the meeting." 3 This sacrosanct character remained attached to the tribune during the whole term of his office ; then in creating his successor, he transmitted 1 Livy, III. 55. 2 This is the proper sense of the word sacer. Plautus Baccli. , IV. G, 13. Catullus, XIV. 12. Festus, v. Sacer. Macrobius, III. 7. According to Livy, the epithet sacrosanctus was not at first applied to the tribune, but to the man who injured the pur- son of the tribune. 3 Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 81. CHAT\ VII. THE PLEBS ENTEK THE CITY. 393 the same character to him, just as the consul, in creat- ing other consuls, passed to them the auspices, and the power to perform the sacred rites. Later, the tribune- ship having been interrupted during two years, it was necessary, in order to establish the new tribunes, to renew the religious ceremony which had been per- formed on the Sacred Mount. We do not sufficiently understand the ideas of the ancients, to say whether this sacrosanct character rendered the person of the tribune honorable in tho eyes of the patricians, or marked him, on the contrary, as an object of malediction and horror. The second conjecture is more in accordance with probability. What is certain is, that in every way the tribune was inviolable; the hand of a patrician could not touch him without grave impiety. A law conferred and guaranteed this inviolability; it declared that "no person should use violence to- wards a tribune, or strike him, or kill him." It added that " whoever committed one of these acts against a tribune should be impure, that his property should be confiscated to the profit of the temple of Ceres, and that one might kill him with impunity." The law conclud- ed in these words, whose vagueness powerfully aided the future progress of the tribuneship : " No magis- trate, or private person, shall have the right to do any- thing against a tribune." All the citizens took an oath by which they agreed always to observe this strange law, calling clown upon their heads the wrath of the gods if they violated it, and added that whoever ren- dered himself guilty of an attempt against a tribune "should be tainted with the deepest impurity." ' 1 Dionysius, VI. 89; X. 32, 42. 394 THE EE VOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. This privilege of inviolability extended as far as the body of the tribune could extend its direct action. If a plebeian was maltreated by a consul who condemned him to imprisonment, or by a creditor who laid hands on him, the tribune appeared, placed himself between them (inter cessio), and stayed the patrician hand. Who would have dared " to do anything against a tribune," or expose himself to be touched by him. But the tribune exercised this singular power only where he was present. Out of his presence plebeians might be maltreated. He had no power over what took place beyond the reach of his hands, of his sight) of his word. 1 The patricians had not given the plebeians rights ; they had only agreed that certain ones among them should be inviolable. Still this was enough to afford some security to all. The tribune was a sort of living altar, to which the right of refuge was attached. The tribunes naturally became the chiefs of the plebs, and assumed the power of deciding causes for them. They had not, it is true, the right of citing before them 1 even a plebeian, but they could seize upon a person. 3 Once in their hands, the man obeyed. It was suffi- cient even to be found within the circle where their voice could be heard ; this word was irresistible, and a man had to submit, even if he were a patrician or a consul. The tribune had no political authority. Not being a magistrate, he could not convoke the curies or the 1 Tribuni antiquitus creati, non juri dicundo nee causis que- relisquc de absentibus noscendis, sed intercessionibus faciendii quibus prcssentes fuissent, ut injuria qua coram fieret at cere- tur. Aulus Gcllius, XIII. 12. Aulus Gellius, XV. 27. Dionysius, VIII. 87; VI. 90. CDAP. VII. THE P-LEBS ENTER THE CITY. 395 centuries. He could make no proposition in the sen- ate ; it was not supposed, in the beginning, that he could appear there. He had nothing in common with the real city that is to say, with the patrician city, where men did not recognize any authority of his. He was not the tribune of the people; he was the tribune of the plebs. There were then, as previously, t\vo societies in Rome the city and the plebs ; the one strongly organ- ized, having laws, magistrates, and a senate; the other a multitude, which remained without rights and laws, but which found in its inviolable tribunes protectors and judges. In succeeding years we can see how the tribunes took courage, and what unexpected powers they as- sumed. They had no authority to convoke the peo- ple, but they convoked them. Nothing called them to the senate ; they sat at first at the door of the cham- ber ; later they sat within. They had no power to judge the patricians; they judged them and con- demned them. This was the result of the inviolability attached to them as sacrosancti. Every other power gave way before them. The patricians were disarmed the 'day they had pronounced, with solemn rites, that whoever touched a tribune should be impure. The law said, "Nothing shall be done against a tribune." If, then, this tribune convoked the plebs, the plebs assembled, and no one could dissolve this assembly, which the presence of the tribune placed beyond the power of the patricians and the laws. If the tribune entered the senate, no one could compel him to retire. If he seized a consul, no one could take the consul from his hand. Nothing could resist the boldness of a tribune. Against a tribune no one had any power, except another tribune. 396 THE DEVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. As soon as the plebs thus had their chiefs, they did not wait long before they had deliberative assemblies. These did not in any manner resemble those of the patricians. The plebs, in their comitia, were distrib- uted into tribes; the domicile, not religion or wealth, regulated the place of each one. The assembly did not commence with a sacrifice; religion did not appear there. They knew nothing of presages, and the voice of an augur, or a pontiff, could not compel men to sep- arate. It was really the comitia of the plebs, and they had nothing of the old rules, or of the religion of the patricians. True, these assemblies did not at first occupy them- selves with the general interests of the city; they named no magistrates, and passed no laws. They de- liberated only on the interests of their own order, named the plebeian chiefs, and carried plebiscita. There was at Home, for a long time, a double series of decrees senatusconsulta for the patricians, ple- biscita for the plebs. The plebs did not obey the sen- atusconsulta, nor the patricians the plebiscita. There were two peoples at Rome. These two peoples, always in presence of each other, and living within the same walls, still had almost noth- ing in common. A plebeian could not be consul of the city, nor a patrician tribune of the plebs. The ple- beian did not enter the assembly by curies, nor the patrician the assembly of the tribes. 1 They were two peoples that did not even understand 1 Livy, II. GO. Dionysius, VII. 1C. Festus, y. Scita plebis. AVe speak only of the earliest times. The patricians were en- rolled in the tribes, hut certainly took no part in assemblies which met without auspices and without a religious ceremony, and in which for a long time they recognized no legal authority. CHAP. VII. THE PLEB3 ENTER THE CITY. 397 each other, not having so to speak common ideas. If the patrician spoke in the name of religion and the laws, the plebeian replied that he did not know this hereditary religion, or the laws that flowed from it. If the patrician alleged a sacred custom, the plebeian replied in the name of the law of nature. They re- proached each other with injustice ; each was just ac- cording to his own principles, and unjust according to the principles and beliefs of the other. The assembly of the curies and the reunion of the patres seemed to the plebeian odious privileges. In the assembly of the tribes the patrician savv a meeting condemned by re- ligion. The consulship was for the plebs an arbitrary and tyrannical authority ; the tribuneship, in the eyes of the patrician, was something impious, abnormal, con- trary to all principles; he could not understand this sort of chief, who was not a priest, and who was elected without auspices. The tribuneship deranged the sa- cred order of the city ; it was what a heresy is in re- ligion the public worship was destroyed. "The gods will be against us," said a patrician, "so long as we have among us this ulcer, which is eating us up, and which extends its corruption to the whole social body." The history of Rome, during a century, was tilled with similar discords between these two peoples, who did not seem to speak the same language. The patricians persisted in keeping the plebs without the body poli- tic, and the plebs established institutions of their own. The duality of the Roman population became from day to day more manifest. And yet there was something which formed a tie between these two peoples: this was war. The patri- cians were careful not to deprive themselves of sol- diers. They had left to the plebeians the title of citi 898 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. zens, if only to incorporate them into the legions. They had taken care, too, that the inviolability of the tribunes should not extend outside of Rome, and for this purpose had decided that a tribune should never go out of the city. In the array, therefore, the plebs were under control; there was no longer a double power; in presence of the enemy Rome became one. Then, thanks to the custom, begun after the expul. sion of the kings, of assembling the array to consult on public interests and on the choice of magistrates, there were mixed assemblies, where the plebeians appeared by the side of the patricians. Now we see clearly in history that the comitia by centuries became more and more important, and became insensibly what were called the great comitia. Indeed, in the conflict which sprang up between the assembly by curies and the assembly by tribes, it seemed natural that the comitia centuriata should become a sort of neutral ground, where general interest would be debated. The plebeian was not always poor. Often he be- longed to a family which was originally from another city, which was there rich and influential, and whom the fate of war had transported to Rome without taking away his wealth, or the sentiment of dignity that ordi- narily accompanies it. Sometimes, too, the plebeian, had become rich by his labor, especially in the time of the kings. When Servius had divided the population into classes according to their fortunes, some plebeians belonged to the first class. The patricians had not dared, or had not been able, to abolish this division into classes. There was no want of plebeians, therefore, who fought by the side of the patricians in the foremost ranks of the legion, and who voted with them in the first centuries. CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 39D This class, rich, haughty, and prudent as well, who could not have been pleased with disturbances, and must have feared them, who had much to lose if Rome fell, and much to gain if it prospered, was a natural mediator between the two hostile orders. It does not appear that the plebs felt any repugnance at seeing distinctions of wealth established among them. Thirty-six years after the establishment of the tribuneship, the number of tribunes was increased to ten, that there might be two for each of the five classes. The plebs, then, accepted and clung to the division which Servius had established. And even the poorer portion, which was not comprised in the classes, made no complaint ; it left the privileges to the wealthier, and did not demand its shai-e of the tribunes. As to the patricians, they had little fear of the im- portance which wealth assumed, for they also were rich. Wiser or more fortunate than the Eupatrids of Athens, who were annihilated on the day that the direc- tion of affairs fell to the rich, the patricians never neg- lected agriculture, or commerce, or even manufactures. To increase their fortunes was always their great care. Labor, frugality, and good speculations were always their virtues. Besides, every victory over an enemy, every conquest, increased their possessions; and so they saw no great evil in uniting power and wealth. The habits and character of the nobles were such that they could not feel contempt for a rich man even though he was a plebeian. The rich plebeian ap- proached them, lived with them, and many relations of interest and friendship were established. This per- petual contact brought about a change of ideas. The plebeian made the patrician understand, little by little, the wishes and the rights of his class. The patrician 400 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. ended by being convinced. Insensibly he came to have a less firm and haughty opinion of his superiority; he was no longer so sure about his rights. Now, an aristocracy, when it comes to doubt that its empire is legitimate, either no longer has the courage to defend it, or defends it badly. As soon as the prerogatives of the patricians were no longer an article of faith for them, this order might be said to be half vanquished. The rich men appear to have exercised an influence of another kind on the plebs, from whom they sprang, and from whom they did not yet separate. As they desired the greatness of Rome, they wished for the union of the two orders. Besides, they were ambitious ; they calculated that the absolute separation of the two orders forever limited their own career, by chaining them forever to the inferior class, whilst a union would open a way to them, the end of which they could not see. They tried, therefore, to give the ideas and wishes of the plebeians another direction. Instead of persisting in forming a separate order, instead of making laws for themselves which the other order would never recog- nize, instead of working slowly by plebiscita to make a species of laws for their own use, and to prepare a code which would have no official value, they inspired the plebs with the idea of penetrating into the patrician city, and sharing its laws, institutions, and dignities. From that time the desires of the plebs turned to a union of the two orders on the condition of equality. The plebs, once started in this direction, began to demand a code. There were laws at Rome, as in all cities, unchangeable and holy laws, which were written, and the text of which was preserved by priests. 1 But these laws, which were a part of the religion, applied 1 Dionysius, X. 1. CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 401 only to the members of the religious city. The plebe- ians had no right to know them ; and we may believe that they had no right to claim their protection. These laws existed for the curies, for the gentes. for the pa- tricians and their clients, but not for others. They did not recognize the right to hold property in one who had no sacra; they granted justice to no one who had not a patron. It was the exclusively religious character of the law that the plebs wished to abolish. They de- manded not only that the laws should be reduced to writing and made public, but that there should be laws that should be equally applicable to the patricians and themselves. The tribunes wished at first, it appears, that the laws should be drawn up by the plebeians. The patricians replied, that apparently the tribunes were ignorant of what a law was, for otherwise they would not have made such a claim. " It is a complete impossibility," said they, "for the plebeians to make laws. You who have no auspices, you who do not perform religious acts, what have you in common with sacred things, among which the laws must be counted?" 1 This notion of the plebeians appeared monstrous to the pa- tricians; and the old annals, which Livy and Dionys- ius of Halicarnassus consulted in this part of their his- tories, mention frightful prodigies the heavens on fire, spectres leaping in the air, and showers of blood. 2 The real prodigy was that the plebeians thought of making laws. Between the two orders, each of which was astonished at the persistence of the other, the republic remained eight years in suspense. Then the tribunes made a compromise. " Since you are unwilling that the 1 Livy, III. 31. Dionysius, X. 4. 2 Julius Obsequens, 16, 26 402 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. laws should be written by the plebeians," they said, "choose the legislators in the two orders." By this they thought they were conceding a great deal; but it was little according to the rigorous principles of the patrician religion. The senate replied that it wa? in no way averse to the preparation of a code, but that this code could be drawn up only by patricians. Finally, they found a means of conciliating the interests of the plebs with the religious requirements on which the pa- tricians depended. They decided that the legislators should all be patricians, but that their code, before be- ing promulgated and put in force, should be exhibited to the eyes of the public, and submitted to the appro- bation of all classes. This is not the moment to analyze the code of the decemvirs. It is only necessary at present to remark, that the work of the legislators, primarily exposed in the forum, and freely discussed by all the citizens, was afterwards accepted by the comitia centuriata the assembly in which the two orders were confounded. In this there was a grave innovation. Adopted by all the classes, the law thenceforth was applied to all. We do not find, in what remains to us of the code, a single word that implies any inequality between the plebeian and the patrician, either in the rights of prop- erty, or in contracts and obligations, or in legal pro- ceedings. From that moment the plebeian appeared before the same tribunal as the patrician, proceeded in the same manner, and was judged according to the same law. Now, there could not have been a more radical revolution ; the daily usages, the manners, the sentiments of man towards man, the idea of personal dignity, the principles of law, all were changed in Rome. CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 403 As there remained laws to make, new decemvirs were appointed, and among them were three plebeians. Tli us, after it had been proclaimed with so much energy that the making of laws belonged to the patrician class, so rapid was the progress of ideas that at the end of a year plebeians were admitted among the legislators. The manners tended towards equality. Men were upon an incline where they could no longer hold back. It had become necessarv to make a law forbidding / O marriage between the two orders a certain proof that religion and manners no longer sufficed to prevent this. But hardly had they had time to make the law, when it fell before an almost universal reprobation. A few patricians persisted, indeed, in calling upon their re- ligion. "Our blood will be attainted, and the hereditary worship of every family will be destroyed by it ; no one will any longer know of what race he is born, to what sacrifices he belongs; it will be the overthrow of all institutions, human and divine." The plebeians did not heed these arguments, which appeared to them mere quibbles without weight. To discuss articles of faith before men who had no religion was time lost. Be- sides, the tribunes replied very justly, "If it is true that your religion speaks so loud, what need have you of this law? It is of no account; withdraw it, you re- main as free as before not to ally yourselves \vith ple- beian families." The law was withdrawn. At once marriages became frequent between the two orders. The rich plebeians were so sought after, that, to speak only of the Licinii, they allied themselves with three of the patrician gentes, the Fabii, the Cor- neiii, and the Manlii. 1 It could then be seen that the 1 Livy V. 12; VI. 34, 39 404 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. law had been for a moment the only barrier which separated the two orders. Thenceforth the patriciau blood and plebeian blood were mingled. As soon as equality was conquered in private life, the great difficulty was overcome, and it seemed natural that equality should also exist in politics. The plebs then asked why the consulship was closed to them, and they saw no reason why they should be withheld from it. There was, however, a very potent reason. The consulship was not simply a command ; it was a priest- hood. To be a consul it was not sufficient to offer guarantees of intelligence, of courage, of probity ; the consul must also be able to perform the ceremonies of the public worship. It was necessary that the rites should be duly observed, and that the gods should be satisfied. Now, the patricians alone possessed the sa- cred character which permitted them to pronounce the prayers, and to call down the divine protection upon the city. The plebeian possessed nothing in common with the worship; religion, therefore, forbade him to be consul nefas plebeium consulem fieri. We may imagine the surprise and indignation of the patricians, when plebeians claimed for the first time the right to be consuls. Religion itself appeared to be menaced. The nobles took a great deal of pains to make the plebs understand this; they told them how important religion was to the city, that religion had founded the city, and that it presided over a)l public acts, directed the deliberative assemblies, and gave the republic its magistrates. They added, that this religion was, according to ancient customs (more ma- jorum), the patrimony of the patricians, that its rites could be known and practised only by them, and, in fine, that the gods would not accept the sacrifice of a CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 405 plebeian. To propose to have plebeian consuls was to wish to suppress the religion of the city. Thenceforth the worship would be impure, and the city would no longer be at peace with its gods. 1 The patricians used ail their influence and all their address to keep the plebeians from the magistracies. They were defending at the game time their religion and their power. As soon as they saw that the con sulship was in danger of falling into the hands of plebe- ians, they separated from it the religious function which was the most important of all, that which consisted in makincr the lustration of the citizens, and thus the O * censorship was established. At the moment when it seemed impossible to resist the claims of the plebeians, the consulship was replaced by the military tribune- ship. But the plcbs showed great patience; they waited seventy-five years before their hopes were realized. It is clear that they displayed less ardor in obtaining the high magistracies than they had shown in conquer- ing the tribuneship and a code. But if the plebs were somewhat indifferent, there was a plebeian aristocracy that was ambitious. Here is a legend of this period: "Fabius Ambustus, one of the most distinguished of the patricians, had married his two daughters, one to a patrician, who became a military tribune, the other to Licinius Stole, a promi- nent plebeian. TLis plebeian's wile was one day at the house of her sister, when the lietors:, conducting the military tribune to his house, struck the door with their fasces. As she was ignorant of this usage, she showed signs of fear. The laughter and the ironical questions of her sister showed her how much a plebe- 1 Livy, VI. 41. 406 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. ian marriage had degraded her by placing her in a house where dignities and honors could never enter. Her father guessed her cause of trouble, and consoled her by promising that she should see at her own house what she had seen at her sister's. He planned with his son-in-law, and both worked with the same object in view." This legend teaches us two things one, that the plebeian aristocracy, by living with the patri- cians, shared their ambitions, and aspired to their dig- nities ; the other, that there were patricians who encour- aged and excited the ambition of this new aristocracy, which was united with them by the closest ties. It appears that Licinius and Sextius, who was joined with him, did not calculate that the plebs would make great efforts to gain the right of being consuls; for they thought it necessary to propose three laws at the same time. The one, the object of which was to make it imperative that one of the consuls should be chosen from the plebs, was preceded by two others, one of which diminished the debts, and the other granted lands to the people. The two first, it is evident, were intended to warm up the zeal of the plebs in favor of the third. For a moment the plebs were too clear- sighted ; they fell in with the laws that were for them, the reduction of debts, and the distribution of lands, and gave little heed to the consulship. But Licini- us replied that the three laws were inseparable, and that they must be accepted or rejected together. The Roman constitution authorized this course. Very natu- rally the plebs preferred to accept all, rather than to lose all. But it was not enough that the plebs wished to make these laws. It was also necessary at that time that the senate should convoke the great comitia, and should CHAP. VII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 407 afterwards confirm the decree. 1 It refused for ten years to do this. Finally an event took place which Livy has left too much in the shade. 2 It appears that the plebs took arms, and that civil war raged in the streets of Home. The patricians, when conquered, approved and confirmed in advance, by a senatusconsultum, all the decrees which the people should pass during that year. Now, nothing prevented the tribunes from pass- ing their three laws. From that time the plebs had every year one of the two consuls, and they were not long in succeeding to other magistracies. The plebeian wore the purple dress, and was preceded by the fasces; he administered justice; he was a senator; he gov- erned the city, and commanded the legions. The priesthoods remained, and it did not seem as if these could be wrested from the patricians; for, in the old. religion, it was an unchangeable dogma that the right of reciting the prayers, and of touching sacred objects, was transmitted with the blood. The knowl- edge of the rites, like the possession of the gods, was hereditary. In the same manner as the domestic wor- ship was a patrimony, in which no foreigner could take part, the worship of the city, also, belonged exclusively to the families that had formed the primitive city. As- suredly, in the first centuries of Rome, it would not have entered the mind of any one that a plebeian could be a pontiff; but ideas had changed. The ple- beians, by taking from religion its hereditary character, had made a religion for their own use. They had made for themselves domestic Lares, altars in public squares, and a hearth for the tribes. At first the patri- cians had nothing but contempt for this parody upon 1 Livy, IV. 49. * Livy, IV. 42. 408 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. their religion. But, with the lapse of time, it became a serious thing, and the plebeian came to believe that, even as to worship and the gods, he was equal to the pa- trician. Here were two opposing principles in action. The patrician persisted in declaring that the sacerdotal character and the right of adoring the divinity were hereditary. The plebs freed religion and the priest- hood from the old hereditary character, and main- tained that every man was qualified to pronounce prayers, and that, provided one was a citizen, he had the right to perform the ceremonies of the city wor- ship. He thus arrived at the conclusion that a plebe- ian might be a priest. If the priestly offices had been distinct from the mili tary commands, and from politics, it is possible that the plebeians would not have coveted them so ardently. But all these things were confounded. The priest was- a magistrate; the pontiff was a judge; the augur could dissolve the public assemblies. The plebeians did not fail to perceive that, without the priesthoods, they had not really civil or political equality. They therefore claimed that the pontificate should be shared by the two orders, as the consulship had been. It became difficult to allege their religious incapacity as an objection, since, for sixty years, plebeians had been seen, as consuls, performing the sacrifices ; as censors, making the lustrations; as conquerors of the enemy, fulfilling the sacred formalities of the triumph. Through the magistracies the plebs had already gained possession of a part of the priestly offices ; it was not easy to save the rest. Faith in the hereditary princi- ple of religion had been destroyed among the patricians themselves. In vain a few arnon choose their legatees. Still, while suppressing the rights which the -{foos had over each of its members, he did not suppress the rights of the natural family, the son remained the necessary heir. If the deceased left only a daughter, he could choose his heir only on con- dition that this heir should marry the daughter. A 422 THE KE VOLUTIONS. BOOK IV man without children was free to will his property ac- cording to his fancy. 1 Tliis last rule was absolutely new in Athenian legis- lation, and we can see by this how many new ideas concerning the family sprang up at that time. The primitive religion had given the father sovereign authority in his own house. The ancient law of Athens went so far as to permit a father to sell his son, or to put him to death. 2 Solon, conforming to new manners, limited this power. 3 It is certainly known that he for- bade a father to sell his daughter, and it is probable that the same injunction protected the son. The pa- ternal authority went on diminithing as the ancient religion lost its power, an event which happened earlier at Athens than at Rome. The Athenian law, therefore, was not satisfied to say, like the Twelve Ta- bles, "After a triple sale, the son shall be free." It permitted the son, on reaching a certain age, to escape from the paternal power. Custom, if not the laws, insensibly came to establish the majority of the son" during the lifetime of his father. There was an Athe- nian law which enjoined the son to support his father when old or infirm. Such a law necessarily indicates that the son might own property, and consequently that he was freed from parental authority. This law did not exist at Rome, because the son never possessed anything, and always remained a minor. As for females, the law of Solon still conformed to the earlier law, when it forbade her to make a will be- cause a woman was never a real proprietor, and could have only the usufruct. But it deviated from the an- ' I>cus, III. 41, G8, 73; VI. 9 ; X. 9. 13. Plutarch, Solon, 21 * Plutarch, Solon, 13. a Plutarch, Solon, 23. CHAP. IX. NEW PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. 423 cient code when it permitted women to claim their dower. 1 There were still other innovations in this code. In opposition to Draco, who permitted only the family of the victim to prosecute one for a crime, Solon granted this right to every citizen. 8 Here was one more old pa- triarchal right abolished. Thus at Athens, as at Rome, law began to undergo a change. For the new social state a new code sprang up. Beliefs, manners, and institutions having been modified, laws which had before appeared just and wise ceased to appear so, and by slow degrees wei'e abolished. CHAPTER IX. Hew Principles of Government. The Public Interest and the Suffrage. THE revolution which overthrew the rule of the sacer- dotal class, and raised the lower class to a level with the ancient chiefs of gentes, marked a new period in the history of cities. A sort of social reconstruction was accomplished. It was not simply replacing one class of men in power by another. Old principles had been thrust aside, and new rules adopted that were to govern human societies. The new city, it is true, pre- served the exterior forms of the preceding period. The republican system remained; almost everywhere the 1 Isasus, VII. 24> 25. Dion Chrysostomus, ITeQl &ntOTia$. Harpocration, IJiQa fitdtpvov. Demosthenes, in JSvergum ; in JSceotum de dote ; in Near am, 51, 52. 8 Plutarch, Solon, 18. 424 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. magistrates preserved their ancient mimes. Athens still had its archons, and Rome its consuls. Nor was anything changed in the ceremonies of the public re- ligion ; the repasts of the prytaneum, the sacrifices at the opening of the public assembly, the auspices and the prayers, all were preserved. It is quite common with man, when he rejects old institutions, to wish to preserve their exterior forms. In reality all was changed. Neither institutions, nor laws, nor beliefs, nor manners were in this new period what they had been in the preceding. The old system disappeared, carrying with it the rigorous rules which it had established in all things; a new order of things was established, and human life changed its aspect. During long ages religion had been the sole princi- ple of government. Another principle had to be found capable of replacing it, and which, like it, might gov- ern human institutions, and keep them as much as pos- sible clear of fluctuations and conflicts. The principle upon which the governments of cities were founded thenceforth was public interest. "We must observe this new dogma which then made its appearance in the minds of men and in history. Heretofore the superior rule whence social order was derived was not interest, but religion. The duty of performing the rites of worship had been the social bond. From this religious necessity were derived, for some the right to command, for others the obligation to obey. From this had come the rules of justice and of legal procedure, those of public deliberations and those of war. Cities did not ask if the institutions which they adopted were useful ; these institutions were adopted because religion had wished it thus. Neither interest nor convenience had contributed to establish them. CHAK IX. NEW PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. 425 And if the sacerdotal class had tried to defend them, it was not in the name of the public interest; it was in the name of religious tradition. But in the period which we now enter, tradition no longer holds empire^ and religion no longer governs. The regulating prin- ciple from which all institutions now derive their au- thority the only one which is above individual wills*- and which obliges them all to submit is public inter- est. What the Latins call res publica, the Greeks r(> xotj'oj', replaces the old religion. This is what, from this time, establishes institutions and laws, and by this all the important acts of cities are judged. In the de- liberations of senates, or of popular assemblies, when a law is discussed, or a form of government, or a question of private right, or a, political institution, no one any longer asks what religion prescribes, but what the gen- eral interest demands. A saying is attributed to Solon which well charac- terizes this new regime. Some one asked him if he had given his country the best constitution. "No," he replied, "but the one which is the best suited to it." Now it was something quite new to expect in forms of gov- ernment, and in laws, only a relative merit. The an- cient constitutions, founded upon the rules of a worship, were proclaimed infallible and immutable. They pos- sessed the rigor and inflexibility of the religion. Solon indicated by this answer that, in future, political con- stitutions should conform to the wants, the manners, and the interests of the men of each age. There was no longer a question of absolute truth; the rules of government were for the future to be flexible and va- riable. It is said that Solon wished at the most that his laws might be observed for a hundred years. The precepts of public interest are not so absolutev 426 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. so clear, so manifest, as are those of religion. We may always discuss them ; they are not perceived at once. The way that appeared the simplest and surest to know what the public interest demanded was to assemble the citizens, and consult them. This course was thought to be necessary, and was almost daily employed. In the preceding period the auspices had borne the chief weight of the deliberations; the opinion of the priest, of the king, of the sacred magistrate was all-powerful. Men voted little, and then rather as a formality than to express an opinion. After that time they voted on every question ; the opinion of all was needed in order to know what was for the interest of all. The suffrage became the great means of government. It was the source of institutions and the rule of right; it decided what was useful and even what was just. It was above the magistrates and above the laws; it was sov- ereign in the city. The nature of government was also changed. Its essential function was no longer the regular perform- ance of religious ceremonies. It was especially consti- tuted to maintain order and peace within and dignity and power without. What had before been of secon- dary importance was now of the first. Politics took precedence of religion, and the government of men be- came a human affair. It consequently happened either that new offices were created, or, at any rate, that old ones assumed a new character. We can see this by the example of Athens, and by that of Rome. At Athens, during the domination of the aristocracy, the iirchons had been especially priests. The care of de- ciding causes, of administering the law, and of making war was of minor importance, and might, without in- convenience, be joined to the priesthood. When the CHAP. IX. NEW PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. 427 Athenians rejected the old religious form of govern- ment, they did not suppress the archonship, for they had an extreme repugnance to abolishing what was ancient. But by the side of the archons they elected other magistrates, who, by the nature of their duties, corresponded better with the wants of the age. These were the strategi. The word signifies chief of the army, but the authority of these offa'cers was not purely military; they had the care of the relations with other cities, of the finances, nnd of whatever concerned the police of the city. We may say that the archons had in their hands the state religion and all that related to it, and that the strategi had the political power. The archons preserved the authority such as the ancient ages had conceived it; the strategi had what new wants had caused to be established. Finally a time came when the archons had only the semblance of power, and the stategi had ail the reality. These new magistrates were no longer priests; they hardly per- formed the ceremonies that were indispensable in time -of war. The government tended more and more to free itself from religion. The strategi might be chosen outside the Eupatrids. In the examination which they had to undergo before they were appointed ((Jox/^aaiV/), they were not asked, as the archons were, if they had a domestic worship, and if they were of a pure family ; it was sufficient if they had always performed their du- ties as citizens, and held real property in Attica. 1 The archons were designated by lot, that is to say, by the voice of the gods ; it was otherwise with the strategi. As the government became more difficult and more complicated, as piety was no longer the principal qual- 1 Deinarclms, I. 171 (coll. Didot). 428 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. ity, and as skill, prudence, courage, and the art of com- manding became necessary, men no longer believed the choice by lot was sufficient to make a good magistrate. The city no longer desired to be bound by the pre- tended will of the gods, and claimed to have a free choice of its chiefs. That the archon, who was a priest, should be designated by the gods, was natural ; but the strategus, who held in his hands the material in- terests of the city, was better elected by the citizens. If we closely observe the institutions of Rome, we see that changes of the same kind were going on there. On the one hand, the tribunes of the people so aug- mented their importance that the direction of the re- public at least, whatever related to internal affairs finally belonged to them. Now, those tribunes who had no priestly character bore a great resemblance to the strategi. On the other hand, the consulship itself could subsist only by changing its character. What- ever was sacerdotal in it was by degrees effaced. The respect of the Romans for the traditions and forms of the past required, it is true, that the consul should con- tinue to perform the ceremonies instituted by their ancestors; but we can easily understand that, the day when plebeians became consuls, these ceremonies were no longer anything more than vain formalities. The consulship was less and less a priesthood, and more and more a command. This transformation was slow, in- sensible, unperceived, but it was not the less complete. The consulship was certainly not, in the time of the Sc-ipios, what it had been in Publicola's day. The military tribuneship, which the senate instituted in 443, and about which the ancients give us very little information, was perhaps the transition between the consulship of the first period and that of the second. CHAP. IX. NEW PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. 429 We may also remark that there was a change in the manner of nominating the consuls. Indeed, in the first ages, the vote of the centuries in the election of the magistrates was, as we have seen, a mere formality. In reality, the consul of each year was created by the consul of the preceding year, who transmitted the au- spices to him after having obtained the assent of the gods. The centuries voted on the two or three candi- dates presented by the consul in office; there was no debate. The people might detest a candidate; but they were none the less compelled to vote for him. In the period at which we have now arrived, the election is quite different, although the forms are still the same. There is still, as formerly, a religious ceremony and a vote; but the religious ceremony is the formality, and the vote is the reality. The candidate is still presented by the consul who presides ; but the consul is obliged, if not by law, at least by custom, to accept all candi- dates, and to declare that the auspices are equally favorable to all. Thus the centuries name those whom they honor. The election no longer belongs to the gods; it is in the hands of the people. The gods and the auspices are no longer consulted, except on the con- dition that they will be impartial towards all the candi- dates. Men make the choice. 430 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOR IV. CHAPTER X. An Aristocracy of Wealth attempts to establish itself. Establishment of Democracy* Fourth Revolution. THE government which succeeded to the rule of the religious aristocracy was not at first a democracy. We have seen, from the example of Athens and Rome, that the revolution which took place was not the work of the lowest classes. There were, indeed, some cities where these classes rose first ; but they could found nothing durable. The protracted disorders into which Syracuse, Miletus, and Samos fell are a proof of this. The new governments were not established with any so- lidity, except where a class was at once found to take in hand, for a time, the power and moral authority which the Eupatrids and the patricians had lost. What could this new aristocracy be ? The hereditary religion be- ing thrown aside, there was no longer any other social distinction than wealth. Men demanded, therefore, that wealth should establish rank ; for they could not admit at once that equality should be absolute. Thus Solon did not think- best to do away with the ancient distinction founded on hereditary religion, except by establishing a new division, which should be founded on riches. He divided the citizens into four ranks, and gave them unequal rights ; none but the rich could hold the highest offices; none below the two intermediate classes could belong to the senate, or sit in the tribunals. 1 1 Plutarch, Solon, 18; Aristides, 13. Aristotle, cited by HarpocratioUj at the words 'Innug, O^rtg. Pollux, VIII. 129. CHAP. X. ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCKACY. 431 The case was the same at Rome. We hsve seen that Servius destroyed the power of the patricians only by founding a rival aristocracy. He created twelve centuries of knights, chosen from the richest plebeians. This was the origin of the equestrian order, which was from that time the rich order at Rome. The plebeians who did not possess the sum required for a knight were divided into five classes, according to the amount of their fortunes. The poorest people were left out of all the classes. They had no political rights ; if they figured in the comitia by centuries, it is certain that they did not vote. 1 The republican constitution pre- served these distinctions, established by a king, and the plebeians did not at first appear very desirous of estab- lishing equality among themselves. What is seen so clearly at Athens and at Rome appears in almost all the other cities. At Cums, for example, political rights were given at first only to those who, owning horses, formed a sort of equestrian order; later, those who ranked next below them in wealth obtained the same rights, and this last measure raised the number of citizens only to one thousand. At Rhegium the government was for along time in the hands of a thousand of the wealthiest men of the city. At Thurii, a large fortune was necessary to enable one to make a part of the body politic. We see clearly iu the poetry of Theognis that at Megara, after the fall of the nobles, the wealthy took their places. At Thebes, in order to enjoy the rights of a citizen, one could be neither an artisan nor a merchant. 2 Thus the political rights which, in the preceding 1 Livy, I. 43. * Aristotle, Politics, III. 3, 4; VI. 4, 6 (edit. Didot). 432 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. epoch, belonged to birth, were, during some time, en- joyed by fortune alone. This aristocracy of wealth was established in all the cities, not by any calculation, but by the very nature of the human mind, which, escaping from a regime of great inequality, could not arrive at once at complete equality. We have to remark that these new nobles did not found their superiority simply upon wealth. Every- where their ambition was to become the military class. They undertook to defend the city at the same time that they governed it. They reserved for themselves the best arms and the greater part of the perils in bat- tle, desiring to imitate in this the nobility which they had replaced. In all the cities the wealthiest men formed the cavalry, the well-to-do class composed the body of hoplites, or legionaries. The poor were ex- cluded from the army, or at most they were employed as skirmishers or light-armed soldiers, or among the rowers of the fleet. 1 Thus the organization of the army corresponded with perfect exactitude to the political organization of the city. The dangers were propor- tioned to the privileges, and the material strength was found in the same bands as the wealth. 2 1 ^Lycias, in Alcib., I. 8 ; II. 7. Isaeus, VII. 39. Xenophon, Ilellen., VII. 4. llarpocration, <-)i]rig. * The relation between military service and political rights is manifest : at Rome the ccnturiate assembly was no other thar the sirmy. So true is this, that men who had passed the age for military service no longer had the right to vote in these comitia. Historians do not tell us that there was a similar law at Athens ; but there are figures that are significant. Thucydides says (II. 31, 13) that at the beginning of the war, Athens had thirteen thousand hoplites; if to these we add the knights, numbered by Aristophanes (in the Wasps') at about a thousand, we arrive at the number of fourteen thousand soldiers. Now, Plutarch tells CHAP. X. ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY. 433 There was thus, in almost all the cities whose history is known to us, a period during which the rich class, or at any rate the well-to-do class, was in possession of the government. This political system had its merits, as every system may have, when it conforms to the manners of the epoch, and the religious ideas are not opposed to it. The sacerdotal nobility of the preceding period had assuredly rendered great services. They were the first to establish laws and found regular gov- O O ernments. They had enabled human societies to live, during several centuries, with calmness and dignity. The aristocracy of wealth had another merit; it im- pressed upon society and the minds of men a new impulse. Having sprung from labor in all its forms, it honored and stimulated the laborer. This new gov- ernment gave the most political importance to the most laborious, the most active, or the most skilful man ; it was, therefore, favorable to industry and commerce. It was also favorable to intellectual progress; for the acquisition of this wealth, which was gained or lost, ordinarily, according to each one's merit, made instruc- tion the first need, and intelligence the most powerful spring of human affairs. We are not, therefore, surprised that under this government Greece and Rome enlarged the limits of their intellectual culture, and advanced their civilization. The rich class did not hold the empire so long as the ancient hereditary nobility had held it. Their title to dominion was not of the same value. They had not the sacre"d character with which the ancient Eupatrid us, that at the same date there were fourteen thousand citizens. The proletariat, therefore, who could not serve among the hoplites, were not counted among the citizens. The Athenian constitution, then, in 430 was not yet completely democratic. 28 434 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. was clothed. They did not rule by virtue of a belief and by the will of the gods. They had no quality that had power over consciences, that compelled men to submit. Man is little inclined to bow, except before what he believes to be right, or before what his notions, teach him is far above him. He had long been made to bend before the religious superiority of the Eupatrid, who repeated the prayers and possessed the gods. But wealth did not overawe him. In presence of wealth, the most ordinary sentiment is not respect; it is envy. The political inequality that resulted from the difference of fortunes soon appeared to be an iniquity, and men strove to abolish it. Besides, the series of revolutions, once commenced^ could not be arrested. The old principles were over- turned, and there were no longer either traditions or fixed rules. There was a genei'al sense of the insta- bility of affairs, which prevented any constitution from enduring for any great length of time. The new aris- tocracy was attacked, as the old had been ; the poor wished to be citizens, and in their turn began to make efforts to enter the body politic. It is impossible to enter into the details of this new struggle. The history of cities, as it gets farther from their origin, becomes more and more diversified. They follow the same series of revolutions; out these revolu- tions appear under a great variety of forms. We can, at any rate, make this remark that in the cities where the principal element of wealth was the possession of the soil, the rich class was longer respected, and held its dominion longer; and that, on the coii'.rary, in cities like Athens, where there were few lanf'.e^ estates, and where men became rich especially by industry, man- ufactures, and commerce, the instability of fortunes. CHAP. X. ESTABLISHMENT OV DEMOCRACY. 435 sooner awakened the cupidity or hopes of the lower orders, and the aristocracy was sooner attacked. The rich class of Rome offered a much stronger re- sistance than that of Greece; this was due to causes which we shall state presently. But when we read Grecian history, we are somowhat surprised that the new nobles defended themselves so feebly. True, they could not, like the Eupatiids, oppose to their adversa- ries the great and powerful argument of tradition and piety. They could not call to their aid their ancestors and the gods. They had no point of support in their own religious notions; nor had they any faith in the justice of their privileges. They had, indeed, superiority in arms; but this su- periority finally failed them. The constitutions which the states adopted would have lasted longer, no doubt, if each state could have remained isolated, or, at least, if it could have lived in peace. But war deranges the machinery of constitutions, and hastens changes. Now, between these cities of Greece and Italy war was al- most perpetual. Military service weighed most heavily upon the rich class, as this class occupied the front rank in battle. Often, at the close of a campaign, they re- turned to the city decimated and weakened, and con- sequently not prepared to make head against the popu- lar party. At Tarentum, for example, the higher class having lost the greater part of its members in a war against the lapygians, a democratic government was at once established in the city. The course of events was the same at Argos, some thirty years before ; at the close of an unsuccessful war against the Spartans, the number of real citizens had become so small that it was found necessary to grant the rights of citizens to 436 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. a multitude of Periceci? It was to avoid falling into this extremity that Sparta was so sparing of the blood of the real Spartans. As to Rome, its revolu- tions are explained, in a great measure, by its con- tinual wars. First, war destroyed its patricians ; of the three hundred families which this caste comprised under the kings, there remained hardly n third part, after the conquest of Samniurn. War afterwards har- vested the primitive plebeians, those rich and coura- geous plebeians who filled the five classes and formed the legions. One of the effects of war was that the cities were almost always brought to the strait of putting arms into the hands of the lower orders. It was in this way that at Athens, and in all the maritime cities, the need of a navy and the battles upon the water gave the poor class that importance which the constitution refused them. The Thetes, raised to the rank of row- ers, of sailors, and even of soldiers, and holding in their hands the safety of their country, felt their importance, and took courage. Such was the origin of the Athe- Carthage, and in Greece against Philip, what aclvan tage they derived from this ancient relationship. The Roman population was, then, a mixture of sev- eral races, its worship was an assemblage of several worships, and its national hearth an association of sev- eral hearths. It was almost the only city whose mu- nicipal religion was not isolated from all others. It was related to all Italy and all Greece. There was hardly a people that it could not admit to its hearth. 2. First Aggrandizement of Home (J3. C. 753-350). During the period when the municipal religion was everywhere powerful, it governed the policy of Rome. We are told that the first act of the new city was to seize some Sabine women a legend which appears very improbable when we reflect on the sanctity of marriage among the ancients; but we have seen above that the municipal religion forbade marriage between persons of different cities unless these two cities had a common origin or a common worship. The first Ro- mans had the right of intermarriage with Alba, from which they originally came, but not with their other neighbors, the Sabines. What Romulus wished to ob- tain first of all was not a few women ; it was the right of intermarriage, that, is to say, the right of contract- ing regular relations with the Sabine population. For this purpose a religious bond must be established be- tween them ; he therefore adopted the worship of the Sabine god Census, and celebrated his festival. 1 Tra- dition adds that during this festival he carried off the women. If he had done this, the marriages could not 1 Dionysius, II. 30. -CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 487 have been celebrated according to the rites, since the first and most necessary act of the marriage was the traditio in manum, that is to say, the giving away of the daughter by the father; Romulus would have failed of his object. But the presence of the Sabines and their families at the religious ceremony, and their participation in the sacrifice, established between the two nations a bond such that the connubium could no longer be refused. There was no need of a seizure ; the right of intermarriage was a natural consequence of the festival. And the historian Dionysius, who con- sulted ancient documents and hymns, assures us that the Sabines were married according to the most solemn rites, which is confirmed by Plutarch and Cicero. It is worthy of remark that the result of the first effort of the Romans was to throw down the barriers which the municipal religion had placed between two neigh- boring nations. Xo similar legend relative to Etruria has come down to us, but it appears quite certain that Rome had the same relations with that country as with Latium and the Sabines. The Romans therefore had the address to unite themselves, by worship and by blood, with nil the nations around them. They took care to have the connubium with all the cities; and what proves that they well understood the im- portance of this bond is, that they would not permit other cities, their subjects, to have it among them- selves. 1 Rome then entered upon the long series of its wars. The first was against the Sabines of Tatitis; it was ter- minated by a religious and political alliance between these two little nations. It next made war upon Alba, 1 Livy, IX. 43; XXIII. 4. 488 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. The historians say that the Romans dared, to attack this city, though they were a colony from it. It was precisely because they were a colony from Alba thru* they judged it necessary to destroy that city. Indeed, every metropolis exercised a religious supremacy over- its colonies, and religion then had so great an influence that while Alba remained standing, Rome could be only a dependent city, and her progress would be for- ever arrested. After the destruction of Alba, Rome was no longer content to remain a colony, but claimed to take the rank of a metropolis, by inheriting the rights and the religious supremacy which up to that time Alba had exercised over the thirty colonies of Latium. The Ro- mans sustained long wars to obtain the presidency of the sacrifice at the ferice Latince. This was a means of acquiring the single kind of superiority and dominion which was understood at that time. They built at home a temple to Diana; they obliged the Latins to come and offer sacrifices there, and even attracted the Sabines to it. 1 By this means they habit- uated these two nations to share with them, under their presidency, the festivals, the prayers, and the sacred flesh of the victims. Rome thus united them under her re- ligious supremacy. Rome was the only city that understood how to augment her population by war. The Romans pur- sued a policy unknown to the rest of the Graaco-Italian world; they annexed all that they conquered. They brought home the inhabitants of captured cities, and gradually made Romans of them. At the same time they sent colonists into the conquered countries, and in 1 Livy, I. 45. Dionysius, IV. 48, 49. CHAP. IL THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 189 this manner spread Rome everywhere; for ther col- onists, while forming distinct cities, in a political point of view, preserved a religious community with the me- tropolis; and this was enough to compel the colonies to subordinate their policy to that of Rome, to obey her, and to aid her in all her wars. One of the remarkable peculiarities. of the policy of Rome was, that she attracted to her all the worships of the neighboring cities. She obtained possession of a Juno from Veii, a Jupiter from Pra3neste, a Minerva from Falerii, a Juno from Lanuvium, a Venus from, the Samnites, and many others that we do not know. 1 "For it was the custom of the Romans," says one of the ancients, 2 "to take home the religions of the con- quered cities ; sometimes they distributed them among the gentes, and sometimes they gave them a place in their national religion." Montesquieu praises the Ro- mans for a refinement of skilful policy in not having imposed their gods upon the conquered nations. But that would have been contrary to their ideas, and to those of all the ancients. Rome conquered the gods of the vanquished, and did not give them hers. She kept her protectors for herself, and even labored to in- crease the number. She tried to possess more worships and more tutelary gods than any other city. As, moreover, these worships and gods were, for the most part, taken from the conquered, Rome was placed by them in religious communion with all the surround- ing nations. The ties of a common origin, the possession of the connubium, that of the presidency of the ferice ) that of the vanquished gods, the right, which 1 Livy, V. 21, 22; VI. 29. Ovid, Fa.sii, III. 837, 843 Plu- tarch, Paralltlof Greek and Roman Hist , 75. * Cincius, cited by Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, III. 33. 490 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. they pretended to have, of sacrificing at Olyrnpia and at Delphi, were so many means by which the Romans prepared their dominion. Like all the cities, Rome had her municipal religion, the source of her patriotism ; but she was the only city which made this religion serve for her aggrandizement. Whilst other cities were isolated by their religion, Rome had the address or the good fortune to employ hers to draw everything to herself, and to dominate over all. 3. How Home acquired Empire (B. C. 350-140). Whilst Rome grew thus slowly by the means which religion and the ideas of that age placed at her disposal, a series of social and political changes was taking place in all the cities and in Rome itself, transforming at the same time the governments of men and their ways of thinking. We have already traced this revolution. What is important to remark here is, that it coincides with the great development of the Roman power. These two results, which took place at the same time, were not without influence upon each other. The con- quests of Rome would not have been so easy if the old municipal spirit had not been everywhere extinct; and we may also believe that the municipal system would not have fallen so soon if the Roman conquest had not dealt it the final blow. In the midst of the changes which took place in in- stitutions, in manners, in religious ideas, and in laws, patriotism itself had changed its nature; and this is one of the events which contributed most to the great prog- ress of Rome. We have described this sentiment as it was in the first ages of the city. It was a part of re- ligion ; men loved their country because they loved its CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 491 protecting gods, because they there found a prytaneum, a holy fire, festivals, prayers, and hymns, and because beyond its borders they no longer found either gods or worship. This patriotism was faith and piety. But when the domination had been withdrawn from the sacerdotal caste, this sort of patriotism disappeared with other old religious notions. Love of the city still sur- vived, but it took a new form. Men no longer loved their country for its religion and its gods ; they loved it only for its laws, for its institutions, and for the rights and security which it afforded its members. We see in the funeral oration which Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles what the reasons are that Athens was loved ; they are be- cause this city " wishes all to be equal before the law;" " because she gives men liberty, and opens the ways of honor to all ; because she maintains public order, as- sures authority to the magistrates, protects the weak, and gives to all spectacles and festivals, which are the education of the mind." And the orator closes by say- ing, " This is why our warriors have died heroically rather than allow their country to be torn from them ; this is why those who survive are all ready to suffer, and to devote themselves for it." Man, therefore, still owes duties to the city; but these duties do not flow from the same principle as before. He still gives his blood .find his life, but it is no longer to defend his national divinity and the hearth of his fathers; it is to defend the institutions which he enjoys, and the advantages which the city procures him. Now, this new patriotism had not exactly the same effects as that of the ancient ages. As the heart was no longer attached to the pry tarn-urn, to the protecting gods, and to the sacred soil, but simply to the institu 492 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V tions and the laws, and as, moreover, the latter, in the state of instability in which all the cities then found themselves, changed frequently, patriotism became a variable and inconsistent sentiment, which depended upon circumstances, and which was subject to the same fluctuations as the government itself. One loved his country only as much as he loved the form of govern- ment that p'-evailed there for the moment ; and he who found its laws bad had no longer anything to at- tach him to it. Municipal patriotism thus became weakened and died out in men's minds. Every man's opinion was more precious to him than his country, and the triumph of his faction became much dearer to him than the gran- deur or glory of his city. Each one, if he did not find in his own city the institutions that he loved, began to prefer some other city, where he saw these institutions established. Men then began to emigrate more freely, and feared exile less. What did it matter if they were excluded from the prytaneurn and the lustral water ? They thought little now of the protecting gods, and were easily accustomed to live away from their country. From this to taking up arms against it was not a great step. Men joined a hostile city to make their party victorious in their own. Of two Argives, one preferred an aristocratic government ; he preferred Sparta to Argos: the other preferred democracy; he preferred Athens. Neither cared a great deal for the independence of his own city, and was not much averse to becoming the subject of another city, provided that city sustained his faction in Argos. It is clear, from Thucydidcs and Xenophon, that it was this disposition of men's minds that brought on and sustained the Pelo- ponnesian war. At Plataea the rich were of the Theban OHAP. II. THE KOMAN CONQUEST. 493 and Lacedemonian party, tlie democrats were in favor <>f Athens. At Corcyra the popular faction were for Athens, and the aristocracy for Sparta. 1 Athens had allies in all the cities of Peloponnesus, and Sparta had them in all the Ionian cities. Thucydides and Xeno- phon agree in saying that there was not a single city where the people were not favorable to the Athenians, and the aristocracy to the Spartans." This war rep- resents a general effort which the Greeks made to establish everywhere a single constitution with the hegemony of a city ; but a part desired an aristocracy under the protection of Sparta, while others favored a democracy with the support of Athens. It was the same in Philip's time. The aristocratic party, in all the cities, desired the domination of Macedon. In Philopcemcu's time the cases were reversed, but the sen- timents remained the same ; the popular party accepted the empire of Macedon, and all who were in favor of the aristocracy joined the Achaean league. Thus the wishes and the affections of men no longer had the city as the object. There were few Greeks who were not ready to sacrifice municipal independence in order to obtain the constitution which they preferred. As to honest and scrupulous men, the perpetual dissensions which they saw disgusted them with the municipal system. They could not love a form of society, where it was necessary to fight every day, where the rich and the poor were always at war, and where they saw popular violence and aristocratic ven- geance alternate without end. They wished to escape from a regime which, after having produced real gran- 1 Thucydides, II. 2; III. C5, 70; V. 29, 7G. 2 Thucydides, III. 47. Xenophon, Hell., VI. 3 494 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V.. deur, no longer produced anything but suffering nrxl hatred. They began to feel the necessity of abandon- ing the municipal system, and of arriving at some other form of government than the city. Many men dreamed at last of establishing above the cities a sort of sover- eign power, which should look to the maintenance of order, and compel those turbulent little societies to live in peace. It was thus that Phocion, a good citizen, ad- vised his compatriots to accept the authority of Philip, and promised them, at this price, concord and security. In Italy affairs were in much the same condition as in Greece. The cities of Latium, of the Sabines, and of Etruria were distracted by the same revolutions and the same struggles, and love of the city disappeared. As in Greece, every man was ready to join a foreign city, in order to make his opinions and interests prevail in his own. These dispositions of mind made the fortune of the Romans. They everywhere supported the aristocracy; everywhere, too, the aristocracy were their allies. Let us take a few examples. The Claudian gens left the Sabines because Roman institutions pleased them bet- ter than those of their own country. At the same epoch many Latin families emigrated to Rome, because they did not like the democratic government of Latium, and the Romans had just established the reign of the patricians. 1 At Ardea, the aristocracy and the plebs being at enmity, the plebs called the Volscians to their aid, and the aristocracy delivered the city to the Ro- mans. 2 Etruria was full of dissensions ; Vcii had over- thrown her aristocratic government; the Romans at- tacked this city, and the other Etruscan cities, where the 1 Dionysius, VI. 2. * Livy, IV. 9, 10. CHAP. II. THE KOMAN CONQUEST. 495 sacerdotal aristocracy still hekl sway, refused to aid 1 the Veientines. The legend adds that in this war the Romans carried away a Veientine aruspcx, and made him deliver them an oracle that assured them the vic- tory. Does not this legend signify that the Etruscan priests delivered the city to the Romans? Later, when Capua revolted against Rome, it was remarked that the knights that is to say, the aristo- cratic body took no part in that insurrection. 1 In 813, the cities of Ausonn, Sora, Minturnre, and Vcscia were delivered to the Romans by the aristocratic party. 2 When the Etruscans were seen to form a coalition against Rome, it was because popular governments had been established among them. A single city that of Arretium refused to enter this coalition; and this was because the aristocracy still prevailed in Arretium. "When Hannibal was in Italy, all the cities were agi- tated ; but it was not a question of independence. In every city the aristocracy were for Rome, and the plebs for the Carthaginians/' The manner in which Rome was governed will ex- plain this constant preference which the aristocracy entertained for it. The scries of revolutions continued as in other cities, but more slowly. In 509, when the Latin cities already had tyrants, a patrician reaction had succeeded at Rome. The democracy rose after- wards, but gradually, and with much moderation and self-restraint. The Roman government was, therefore,, for a longer time aristocratic than any other, and was long the hope of the aristocratic party. The democracy, it is true, finally carried the- day in 1 Livy, VIII. 11. s Livy, IX. 24, 25; X. 1. 3 Livy, XXIII. 13, 14, 30; XXtV. 2, '6. 496 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. Rome; but even then the proceedings, nnd what one might call the artifices, of the government remained aristocratic. In the cornitia centuriata the votes were distributed according to property. It was not alto- gether different with the comitia tributa : legally, no distinction of wealth was admitted there; in fact, the poor class, being included in the four city tribes, had but four votes to oppose to the thirty-one of the class of proprietors. Besides, nothing was more quiet, ordi- narily, than these assemblies; no one spoke there, ex- cept the president, or some one whom he called upon. Orators were little heard there, and there was little discussion. More generally there was simply a vote of yes or no. and a count of the votes. This last oper- ation, being very complicated, demanded much time and patience. Add to this that the senate was not renewed annually, as in the democratic cities of Greece; it sat for life, and very nearly recruited itself. It was really an oligarchic body. The manners of the Romans were still more aristo- cratic than their institutions. The senators had reserved at the theatre. The rich alone served in the cavalry; the grades of the army were in great part ved for the young men of the great families. Scipio was not sixteen years old when he already com- manded a squadron. The rule of the rich class was kept up longer at Rome than in any other city. This was due to two causes. One was, that Rome made great conquests, nnd the profits of these went to the class that was already rich ; all lands taken from the conquered were pos.- by them ; they seized upon the commerce of the con- quered countries, and joined with it the benefits derived from the collection of duties and the administration of the CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 497 provinces. These families, thus increasing their wealth with every generation, became immeasurably opulent, and each one of them was a power, compared with the people. The other cause was, that the Roman, even the poorest, hail an innate respect for wealth. Long after real clients!) ip had disappeared, it was, in a certain sense, resuscitated under the form of a homage paid to great fortunes; and it became a custom for the poor to go every morning to salute the rich. It docs not follow from this that the struggle be- tween rich and poor was not seen at Rome, as well as in other cities; but it commenced only in the time of the Gracchi, that is to say, after the conquest was almost achieved. Besides, this struggle never had at Rome that character of violence which it assumed everywhere else. The lower orders of Rome never ardently coveted riches. They aided the Gracchi in a lukewarm manner; they refused to believe that these reformers were working for them, and abandoned them at the decisive moment. The agrarian laws, so often presented to the rich as a menace, always left the peo- ple quite indifferent, and agitated them only on the surface. It is clear that they were not very eager to possess lands; for, if they were offered a share in the public lands, that is to say, in the domain of the state, they at least never had a thought of despoiling the rich of their property. Partly from inveterate re- spect, and partly from a habit of doing nothing, they loved to live by the side of the rich, and as it were in their shadow. The rich class had the wisdom to admit to its circle the most considerable families of the suljcct and allied cities. All who were rich in Italy came gradually to form the rich class of Rome. This body continued to 32 498 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. increase in importance, and became the master of the state. The rich alone filled the magistracies, because these cost a groat sum to purchase. They alone com- posed the senate, because it required a very large prop- erty to be a senator. Thus we see this strange fact r that, in spite of democratic laws, a nobility was formed, and that the people, who were all-powerful, suffered this- nobility to take rank above them, and never made any real opposition to it. Rome, therefore, from the third to the second cen- tury before our era, was the most aristocratically gov- erned city that existed in Italy or Greece. Finally, let us remark that, if the senate was obliged to manage- the multitude on home questions, it was absolute master so far as concerned foreign affairs. It was the senate that received ambassadors, that concluded alliances, that distributed the provinces and the legions, that ratified the acts of the generals, that determined the conditions allowed to the conquered all acts which everywhere else belonged to the popular assembly. Foreigners, in their relations with Rome, had, there- fore, nothing to do with the people. The senate alone spoke, and the idea was held out that the people had no power. This was the opinion which a Greek expressed to Flamimus. " In your country," said he, " riches alone govern, and all else is submissive to it." ' As a result of this, in all the cities the aristocracy turned their eyes towards Rome, counted upon it, looked to it for protection, and followed its fortunes. This seemed so much the more natural, as Rome was a foreign city to nobody ; Sabines, Latins, and Etrus- cans saw in it a Sabine, Latin, or Etruscan city, and the Greeks recognized Greeks in it. 1 Li vy, XXXIV. 31. <:HAP. 11. THE KOMAN CONQUEST. 499 As soon as the Romans appeared in Greece, the aristocracy surrendered to them. Hardly anybody thought then that they were choosing between inde- pendence and subjection ; for most men the question was only between aristocracy and the popular party. In all the cities the latter was for Philip, Antiochus, or Perseus, and the former for Rome. We may see in Polybius and Livy that when Argos opened her gates, in B. C. 198, to the Macedonians, the people had the swaj* there ; that the next year, it was the party of the rich that gave up Opuntii to the Romans ; that, among the Acarnanians, the aristocracy made a treaty of alliance with Rome, and that in the following year this treaty was broken, because, in the interval, the people had recovered the ascendency ; that Thebes was allied with Philip so long as the popular party had the po\ver, and sided with Rome the moment the aristoc- racy became the masters ; that at Athens, at Deme- trias, and at Phocasa the populace were hostile to the Romans ; that Nabis, the democratic tyrant, made war upon them; that the Achaaan leaguej as long as it was governed by the aristocracy, was favorable to them; that men like Philopcemen and Polybius desired na- tional independence, but preferred Roman rule to democracy; that in the Acha3an league itself there came a moment when the popular party rose in its turn, and from that moment the league was the enemy of Rome; that Diajus and Critolaus were at the same time the chiefs of the popular faction and the generals of the league against the Romans, and that they fought bravely at Scarphea and at Leucopetra, less perhaps for the independence of Greece than for the triumph of democracy. Such facts show clearly enough how Rome, without 500 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V any very great efforts, obtained the empire. The mu- nicipal spirit gradually disappeared. The love of independence became a very rare sentiment, and all hearts were entirely enlisted in the interests and pas- sions of parties. Insensibly men forgot the city. The barriot'3 which had previously separated cities, and had made of them so many distinct little worlds, whose horizons bounded the wishes and thoughts of every one, fell one after another. In all Italy and in all Greece, only t\vo groups of men were distinguished: on one hand was an aristocratic class, on the other a popular party. One party labored for the supremacy of Rome, the other opposed it. The aristocracy were victorious, and Rome acquired the empire. 4. Rome everywhere destroys the Municipal System. The institutions of the ancient city had been weak- ened, and almost exhausted, by a scries of revolutions. One of the first results of the Roman dominion was to complete their destruction, and to efface what still re- mained of them. This \ve can see by observing the condition into which the nations fell as they became subject to Rome. We must first banish from our minds all the customs of modern politics, and not picture to ourselves the nations entering the Roman state, one after another, as in our day provinces are annexed to a kingdom, which, on receiving these new members, extends its boundaries. The Roman state (civitas Romanci) was not enlarged by conquests; it never included any fam- ilies except those that figured in the religious ceremony of the census. The Roman territory (tiger Romanics] never increased. It remained enclosed within the CHAP. H. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 501 immutable limits which the kings hnd traced for it, and which the ceremony of the Ambarvalia sanctified every year. What increased with every conquest was the dominion of Rome (imperium Homanum). So long as the republic lasted, it never entered the mind of any one that the Romans and the other peo- ples could form a single nation. Rome might, indeed, receive a few of the conquered, allow them to live within her walls, and transform them, in the course of time, into Romans; but she could not assimilate a whole foreign people to her people, an entire territory to her territory. Still this was not peculiar to the policy of Rome, but a principle that held through all antiquity; it was a principle from which Rome would sooner have departed than any other city, but from which she could not entirely free herself. Whenever, therefore, a people was conquered, it did not enter the Roman state; it entered only the Roman dominion. It was not united to Rome, as provinces are to-day united to a capital ; between other nations and itself Rome knew only two kinds of connection subjection or alliance. From this it would seem that municipal institutions must have subsisted among the conquered, and that the world must have been an assemblage of cities distinct from each other, and having at their head a ruling city. But it was nothing of the kind. The effect of the Roman conquest was to work in every city a complete transformation. On one side were the subjects ckdititii, or those who, having pronounced the formula of the deditio, had delivered to the Roman people "their persons, their walls, their lands, their waters, their houses, their temples, and their gods." 502 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK T. They had therefore renounced, not only their muni- cipal government, but all that appertained to it among the ancients, that is to say, their religion and their private la\v. From that moment these men no longer formed a political body among themselves; nothing that goes to make up a regular society remained to them. Their city (urbs) might remain standing, but the state (civitas) had perished. If they continued to live together, they lived without institutions, laws, or magistrates. The arbitrary authority of a prcefectus sent by Rome maintained material order among them. 1 On the other hand were the allies fozderati, or socii. They were less cruelly treated. The day on which they entered the Roman dominion, it had been stipu- lated that they should preserve their municipal govern- ment, and should remain organized into cities. They therefore continued to have in every city a constitution, magistracies, a senate, a prytaneum, laws, and judges. The city was supposed to be independent, and seemed to have no other relations with Rome than those of an ally with its ally. Still, in the terms of the treaty which had been drawn up at the time of the conquest, Rome had been careful to insert these words: Mujes- tatempopuli liomani corniter conservator 1 These terms established the dependence of the allied city upon the metropolitan city, and as they were very vague, it hap- pened that the measure of this dependence was always in accordance with the will of the stronger. These cities, which were called free, received orders from Rome, obeyed proconsuls, and paid taxes to the col- 1 Livy, I. 38; VII. 31; IX. 20; XXVI. 1C; XXVIII. 34. Cicero, DC Lege Agr., I. G; II. 32. Festus, v. Prafectura. 1 Cicero. Pro Balbo, 1G. CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. &03 lectors of the revenue. Their magistrates rendered their accounts to the governor of the province, who also heard the appeals from the judges. 1 Now, such was the nature of the municipal system among the an- cients that it needed complete independence, or it ceased to exist. Between the maintenance of the in stitutions of the city and their subordination to a for- eign power, there was a contradiction which perhaps does not clearly appear to the eyes of the moderns, but which must have struck every man of that period. Mu- nicipal liberty and the government of Rome were ir- reconcilable; the first could be only an appearance, a falsehood, an amusement calculated to divert the minds of men. Each of those cities sent, almost every year, a deputation to Rome, and its most minute and most pri- vate affairs were regulated by the senate. They still had their municipal magistrates, their arch on s, and their strategi, freely elected by themselves; but the archon no longer had any other duty than to inscribe his name on the registers for the purpose of marking the year, and the strategus, in earlier times the chief of the army and of the state, now had no other care than to keep the streets in order, and inspect the mar- kets. 2 Municipal institutions, therefore, perished among the nations that were called allies as well as among those that bore the name of subjects; there was only this -difference, that the first preserved the exterior forms. Indeed, the city, as antiquity had understood it, was no longer seen anywhere, except within the walls of Rome. 1 Livy, XLV. 18. Cicero, ad Attic., VI. 1, 2. Appian, Civil Wars, I. 102. Tacitus, XV. 45. 2 Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, I. 23. Boeckh., Corp Inscr., passim. 504 MUNICIPAL EEGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. Then, too, the Romans, while everywhere destroying the municipal system, substituted nothing in its place. To the people whose institutions they took away, they did not give their own instead. The Romans never thought of creating new institutions for their use; they never made a, constitution for the people of their em- pire, and did not understand how to establish fixed rules for their government. Even the authority which Rome exercised over the cities had no regularity. As they made no part of her state, or of her city, she had no legal power over them. Her subjects were stran- gers to her a reason why she exercised this irregular and unlimited power which ancient municipal law al- lowed citizens to exercise towards foreigners and ene- mies. It was on this principle that the Roman admin- istration was a long time regulated, and this is the manner in which it was carried on. Rome sent one of her citizens into a country. She made that country the province of this man, that is to say, his charge, his own care, his personal affair; this was the sense of the word provincia. At the same time she conferred upon this citizen the imperium ; this signified that she gave up in his favor, for a deter- mined time, the sovereignty which she held over the country. From that time this citizen represented in his person all the lights of the republic, and by this means he was an absolute master. He fixed the amount of taxes; he exercised the military power, and admin- istered justice. His relations with the subjects, or the allies, were limited by no constitution. When he sat in his judgment-seat, he pronounced decisions accord- ing to his own will ; no law controlled him, neither the provincial laws, as lie was a Roman, nor the Roman laws, as he passed judgment upon provincials. If there CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 505 were laws between him and those that he governed, he had to make them himself, for he alone could bind him- self. Therefore the imperium with which he was clothed included the legislative power ; and thus it happened that the governors had the right, and estab- lished the custom, on entering the provinces, of pub- lishing a code of laws, which they called their Edict, and to which they morally promised to conform. But as the governors were changed annually, these codes changed every year, for the reason that the law had its source only in the will of the man who was for the time invested with the imperium. This principle was so rigorously applied that, when a judgment had been pronounced by a governor, but had not been entirely executed at the time of his departure from the province, the arrival of his successor completely annulled this judgment, and the proceedings were recommenced. 1 Such was the omnipotence of the governor. He was the living law. As to invoking the justice of Rome against his acts of violence or his crimes, the provin- cials could not do this unless they could find a Roman citizen who would act as their patron ; a for, as to them- selves, they had no right to demand the protection of the laws of the city, or to appeal to its courts. They were foreigners; the judicial and official language called them peregrini ; all that the law said of the kostis con- tinued to be applied to them. The legal situation of the inhabitants of the empire appears clearly in the writings of the Roman juris- consults. We there see that the people are considered as no longer having their own laws, and as not yet hav- ing those of Rome. For them, therefore, the law 1 Gaius, IV. 103, 105. ' Cicero, De Orat., I. 9. 506 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPFEABS. BOOK V did not exist in any manner. In the eyes of the Ro- man jurisconsult, a provincial was neither husband nor father, that is to say, the law recognized neither his marital nor his paternal authority. For him property did not exist. It was a double impossibility for him to become a proprietor; it was impossible by reason of his personal condition, because he was not a Roman citizen, and impossible by reason of the condition of the land, because it was not Roman territory, and the law admitted the complete right of ownership only within the limits of the ayer Homanus. For the lawyers taught that the land in the provinces was never private property, and that men could have only the possession and usufruct thereof. 1 Now, what they said in the sec- ond century of our era of the provincial territory had been equally true of the Italian soil before Italy ob- tained the Roman franchise, as we shall presently see. It is certain, then, that the people, as fast as they en- tered the Roman empire, lost their municipal religion, their government, and their private law. We can easi- ly believe that Rome softened in practice whatever was destructive in this subjection. We see, indeed, that, though the Roman laws did not recognize the paternal authority in the subject, they allowed this authority till to subsist in practice. If they did not permit a certain man to call himself a proprietor of the soil, they still allowed him the possession of it; he cultivated his land, sold it, and devised it by will. It was not said that this laud was his, but they said it was as good as his, 2'0 suo. It was not his property, dominium, but it was among his goods, in lonis 2 Rome thus invented 1 Gaius, II. 7. Cicero, Pro Flacco, 32. 2 Gams, I. 62; II. 5, G, 7. HAP. II. THE KOMAN CONQUEST. 507 for the benefit of the subject a multitude of turns and artifices of language. Indeed, the Roman genius, if its municipal traditions prevented it from making laws for the conquered, could not suffer society to fall into dis- solution. In principle the provincials were placed out- side the laws, while in fact they lived as if they had them; but with the exception of this, and the tolerance of the conquerors, all the institutions of the vanquished and all their laws were allowed to disappear. The Roman empire presented, for several generations, this singular spectacle : A single city remained intact, pre- serving its institutions and its laws, while all the rest that is to say, more than a hundred millions of souls either had no kind of laws, or had such as were not recognized by the ruling city. The world then was not precisely in a state of chaos, but force, arbitrary rule, and convention, in default of laws and principles, alone sustained society. Such was the effect of the Roman conquest on the nations that successively became its prey. Of the city everything went to ruin ; religion first, then the gov- ernment, and finally private law. All the municipal institutions, already for a long time shaken, were finally overthrown and destroyed ; but no regular society, no system of government, replaced at once what had dis- appeared. There was a period of stagnation between the moment when men saw the municipal governments dissolve and that in which another form of society ap- peared. The nation did not at once succeed the city, for the Roman empire in no wise resembled a nation. It was a confused multitude, where there was real order only in one central point, and where all the rest en- joyed only a factitious and transitory order, and ob- lained this only at the price of obedience. The con- 508 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEAES. 11OOK V. quered nations succeeded in establishing themselves as an organized body only by conquering in their turn the rights and institutions which Rome was inclined to keep for itself. In order to this they had to enter the Roman city, make a place for themselves there, press forward, and transform that city also, in order to make of themselves and Rome one body. This was a long and difficult task. 5. The Conquered Nations siiccessively enter the Roman City. We have seen how deplorable was the condition of the Roman subject, and how the condition of the citi- zen was to be envied. Not vanity alone, but the most real and dearest interests had to suffer. Whoever was not a Roman citizen was not reputed to be either a husband or a father; legally he could be neither pro- prietor nor heir. Such was the value of the title of Roman citizen, that without it one was outside the law, and with it he entered regular society. It hap- pened, therefore, that this title became the object of the most lively desires of men. The Latin, the Italian, the Greek, and, later, the Spaniard and the Gaul, aspired to be Roman citizens the single means of having rights and of counting for something. All, one after another, nearly in the order in which they entered the Roman empire, labored to enter the Roman city, and, after long efforts, succeeded. This slow introduction into the Roman state is the last act in the long history of the social transformations of the ancients. To ob- serve this great event in all its successive phases, we must examine its commencement, in the fourth century before our era. CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 509 Latium had been conquered ; of the forty small peo- ples who inhabited it, Home had exterminated half. She had despoiled some of their lands, and had left to others the title of allies. In B. C. 840 the latter per- ceived that the alliance was entirely to their detriment, that they were expected to obey in everything, and that they were required every year to lavish their blood and money for the sole benefit of Rome. They formed a coalition ; their chief, Annius, thus stated their demands in the Roman senate: "Give us equality. Let us have the same laws; let us form but a single state una civitas ; let us have but a single name; let us all alike be called Romans." Annius thus announced, in the year 340, the desire which all the nations of the empire, one after another expressed, and which was to be com- pletely realized only after five centuries and a half. Then such a thought was new and very unexpected; the Romans declared it monstrous and criminal. It was, indeed, contrary to the old religion and the old law of the cities. The consul, Manlius, replied, that if such a proposition should be accepted, he would slay with his own hand the first Latin who should come to take his seat in the senate; then, turning towards the altar, he called upon the god to witness, saying, "Thou hast heard, O Jupiter, the impious words that have come from this man's mouth. Canst thou tolerate, O Jupiter, that a foreigner should come to sit in thy sa- cred temple as a senator, as a consul ?" Thus Manlius expressed the old sentiment of repulsion that separated the citizen from the foreigner. lie was the organ of the ancient religious law, which prescribed that the for- eigner should be detested by the men because he was cursed by the gods of the city. It appeared to him im- possible that a Latin should be a senator because the 510 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEAKS. BOOK V. place of meeting for the senate was a temple, and the Roman gods could not suffer the presence of a foreigner in their sanctuary. War followed : the Latins, being conquered, stir rendered, that is to say, they gave up to the Romans their cities, their worships, their laws, and their lands. Their position was cruel. A consul said in the senate that, if they did not wish Rome to be surrounded by a vast desert, the fate of the Latins should be settled with some regard to clemency. Livy does not clearly explain what was done. If we are to trust him, the Latins obtained the right of Roman citizenship without including in the political privileges the right of suffrage, or in the civil the right of marriage. We may also note, that these new citizens were not counted in the census. It is clear that the senate deceived the Latins in giving them the name of Roman citizens. This title disguised a real subjection, since the men who bore it had the obligations of citizens without the rights. So true is this, that several Latin cities revolted, in order that this pretended citizenship might be withdrawn. A century passed, and, without Livy's notice of the fact, we might easily discover that Rome had changed her policy. The condition of the Latins having the rights of citizens, without suffrage and without connu- bium, no longer existed. Rome had withdrawn from them the title of citizens, or, rather, had done away with this falsehood, and had decided to restore to the dif- ferent cities their municipal governments, their laws, and their magistracies. But by a skilful device Rome opened a door which, narrow as it was, permitted subjects to enter the Roman city. It granted to every Latin who had been a magis- trate in his native city the right to become a Roman CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 511 citizen at the expiration of his term of office.' This time the gift of this right was complete and without reserve; suffrage, magistracies, census, marriage, pri- vate law, all were included. Rome resigned itself to share with the foreigner its religion, its government, and its laws; only its favors were individual, and were addressed not to entire cities, but to a few men in each of them. Rome admitted to her bosom only what was best, wealthiest, and most estimable in Latium. This right of citizenship then became precious, first, because it was complete, and secondly, because it was a privilege. Through it a man figured in the comitia of the most powerful city of Italy; he might be consul and commander of the legions. There was also the menns of satisfying more modest ambitions; thanks ta this right, one might ally himself, by marriage, to a Roman family; or he might take up his abode at Rome, and become a proprietor there ; or he might carry on trade in Rome, which had already become one of the first commercial towns in the world. One might enter the company of farmers of the revenue, that is to say, take a part in the enormous profits which accrued from the collection of the revenue, or from speculations in the lauds of the ager publicus. Wherever one lived he was effectually protected ; he escaped the authority of the municipal magistrate, and was sheltered from the caprices of the Roman magistrates themselves. By being a citizen of Rome, a man gained honor, wealth,, and security. The Latins, therefore, became eager to obtain this title, and used all sorts of means to acquire it. One day, when Rome wished to appear a little severe, she 1 Appian, Civil Wars, II. 26. 512 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. found that twelve thousand of them had obtained it through fraud. Ordinarily, Home shut her eyes, knowing that by this means her population increased, and that the losses of war Avere thus repaired. But the Latin cities suffered ; their richest inhabitants became Roman citizens, and Latium was impoverished. The taxes, from which the richest were exempt as Roman citizens, became more and more burdensome, and the contingent of soldiers that had to be furnished to Rome Avas every year more difficult to fill up. The larger the number of those who obtained the Roman franchise, the harder Avas the lot of those who had not that right. There came a time Avlien the Latin cities demanded that this fran- chise should cease to be a privilege. The Italian cities, which, having been conquered two centuries before, Avere in nearly the same condition as those of Latium, and also saw their richest inhabitants abandon them to become Romans, demanded for themselves the Roman franchise. The fate of subjects and allies had become all the less supportable at this period, from the fact that the Roman democracy Avas then agitating the great question of the agrarian IUAVS. Now, the principle of all these laAvs was, that neither subject nor ally could be an o\vner of the soil, except by a formal act of the city, and that the greater part of the Italian lands be- longed to the republic. One party demanded, there- fore, that these lands, which were nearly all occupied by Italians, should be taken back by the state, and dis- tributed among the poor of Rome. Thus the Italians Avcre menaced Avith general ruin. They felt keenly the need of civil rights, and they could only come into possession of these by becoming Roman citizens. The Avar that followed Avas called the social war / CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 513 the allies of Rome took up arms that they might no longer be allies, but might become Romans. Rome, though victorious, was still constrained to grant what was demanded, and the Italians received the rights of citizenship. Thenceforth assimilated to the Romans, they could vote in the forum ; in private life they were governed by Roman laws; their right to the soil was recognized, and the Italian lands, as well as Roman soil, could be owned by them in fee simple. Then was established the jus Italicum: this was the law, not of the Italian person, since the Italian had become a Ro- man, but of the Italian soil, which was susceptible of ownership, just as if it had been the ager liomanus. 1 From that time all Italy formed a single state. There still remained the provinces to enter into the Roman unity. We must make a distinction between Greece and the provinces of the west. In the west were Gaul and Spain, which, before the conquest, knew nothing of the real municipal system. The Romans attempted to create this form of government among them, either thinking it impossible to govern them otherwise, or judging that, in order gradually to assimilate them to the Italian nations, it would be necessary to make them pass over the same route which the Italians had fol- lowed. Hence it happened that the emperors who suppressed all political life at Rome, kept up the forms of municipal liberty in the provinces. Thus cities were formed in Gaul ; each had its senate, its aristocratic body, its elective magistrates ; each had even its local worship, its Genius, and its city-protecting divinity, after the manner of those in ancient Greece and an- 1 Thenceforth also called res mancipi. See Ulpian. 33 514 MUNICIPAL EEGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. cient Italy. Now, this municipal system, thus estab- lished, did not prevent men from arriving at the Roman citizenship ; on the contrary, it prepared them for it. A gradation, skilfully arranged among these cities, marked the steps by which they were insensibly to approach Rome, and finally to become assimilated with it. There were distinguished, first, the allies, who had a government and laws of their own, and no legal bond with Roman citizens; second, the colonies, which en- joyed the civil rights of the Romans, without having political rights; third, the cities of the Italian right, that is to say, those to whom, by the favor of Rome, the complete right of property over their lands had been granted, as if these lands had been in Italy; fourth, the cities of the Latin right, that is to say, those whose inhabitants could, following the custom formerly established in Latium, become Roman citizens after having held a municipal office. These distinctions were so deep, that between persons of two different classes no marriage or other legal relation was possible. But the emperors took care that the cities should rise iu the course of time, and one after another, from the condition of subjects or allies, to the Italian right, from the Italian right to the Latin right. When a city had arrived at this point, its principal families became Romans one after another. Greece entered just as little into the Roman state. At first every city preserved the forms and machinery of tin; municipal government. At the moment of the conquest, Greece showed a desire to preserve its au- tonomy ; and this was left to it longer, perhaps, than it would have wished. At the end of a few generations it aspired to become Roman ; vanity, ambition, and interest worked for this. CHAP, II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 515 The Greeks had not for Rome that hatred which is usually borne towards a foreign master. They admired it ; they had a veneration for it ; of their own accord they devoted a worship to it, and built temples to it as to a god. Every city forgot its protecting divinity, and worshipped in its place the goddess Rome and the god Cjcsar ; the greatest festivals were for them, and the first magistrates had no higher duty than celebrating with great pomp the Augustan games. Men thus be- came accustomed to lift their eyes above their cities; they saw in Rome the model city, the true country, the prytaneum of all nations. The city where one was born seemed small. Its interests no longer occupied their minds; the honors which it conferred no longer satisfied their ambition. Men thought themselves noth- ing if they were rot Roman citizens. Under the em- perors, it is true, this title r.o longer conferred political rights; but it offered more solid advantages, since the man who was clothed with it acquired at the same time the full right to hold property, the right to inherit, the right to marry, the paternal authority, and all the private rights of Rome. The laws which were found in eaeh city were variable and without foundation ; they were merely tolerated. The Romans despised them, and the Greeks had little respect for them. In order to have fixed laws, recognized by all as truly sa- cred, it was necessary to have those of Rome. We do not see that all Greece, or even a Greek city, formally asked for this right of citizenship, so much de- sired; but men worked individually to acquire it, and Rome bestowed it with a good grace. Some obtained it through the favor of the emperor; others bought it. It was granted to those who had three children, or who served in certain divisions of the army. Some- 516 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. times to construct a merchant vessel of a certain ton- nage, or to carry grain to Rome, was sufficient to ob- tain it. An easy and prompt means of acquiring it was to sell one's self as a slave to a Roman citizen, for the act of freeing him according to legal forms con- ferred the right of citizenship. 1 One who had the title of Roman citizen no longer formed a part of his native city, either civilly or politically. He could continue to live there, but he was considered an alien; he was no longer subject to the laws of the city, he no longer obeyed its magistrates, no longer supported its pe- cuniary burdens. 2 This was a consequence of the old principle, which did not permit a man to belong to two cities at the same time. a It naturally happened that, after several generations, there were in every Greek city quite a large number of men, and these ordinarily the wealthiest, who recognized neither its government nor its laws. Thus slowly, and as if by a natural death, perished the municipal system. There came a time when the city was a mere framework that contained nothing, where the local laws applied to hardly a per- son, where the municipal judges no longer had anything to adjudicate upon. Finally, when eight or ten generations had sighed for the Roman franchise, and all those who were of any account had obtained it, there appeared an imperial 1 Suetonius, Nero, 24. Pctronius, 57. Ulpian, III. Gaius, I. 1C, 17. 2 He became an alien even in respect to his own family, if it luul not, like him, the right of citizenship. lie did not inherit its property. Pliny, Panegyric, 37. 3 Cicero, Pro Balbo, 28; Pro Archia, 5; Pro Ceccina, 36. Cornelius Nepos, Atticus, 3. Greece long before had abandonsJ this prin iple, but Rome held faithfully to it. CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 517 decree which granted it to all free men without dis- tinction. What is remarkable here is, that no one can tell the date of this decree or the name of the prince who is- sued it. The honor is given, with some probability of truth, to Caracalla, that is to say, to a prince who never had very elevated views ; and this is attributed to him as simply a fiscal measure. We meet in history with few more important decrees than this. It abol- ished the distinction which had existed since the Ro- man conquest between the dominant nation and the subject peoples ; it even caused to disappear a much older distinction, which religion and law had made be- tween cities. Still the historians of that time took no note of it, and all we know of it we glean from two vague passages of the jurisconsults and a short notice in Dion Cassius. 1 If this decree did not strike contempo- 1 "Antoninus Pius jus Romanes civitaiis omnibus suljcdis donavit." Justinian, Novels, 78, ch. 5. '' In orle Romano qui sunt, ex constitutione imperatoris Antonini, cives Romani ejfecti sunt." Ulpian, in Digest, I. tit. 5, 17. It is known, moreover, from Spartianus, that Caracalla was called Antoninus in official acts. Dion Cassius says that Caracalla gave all the inhabitants of the empire the Roman franchise itforder to make general the impost of tithes on enfranchisements and successions. The dis- tinction between pcregrini, Latins, and citizens did not entirely disappear; it is found in Ulpian and in the Code. Indeed, it appeared natural that enfranchised slaves should not imme- diately become Roman citizens, but should pass through all the old grades that separated servitude from citizenship. We alsa judge from certain indications that the distinction between the Italian lands and the provincial lands still continued for a long time. (Code, VII. 25; VII. 31; X. 39. Digest, L. tit. 1.) Thus the city of Tyre, in Phoenicia, even later than Caracalla, enjoyed as a privilege the jus Itulicitm. (Digest, IV. 15.) The continuance of this distinction is explained by the interest of the 518 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEAES. BOOK. V. raries, and was not remarked by those who then wrote history, it is because the change of which it was the legal expression had been accomplished long before. The inequality between citizens and subjects had been lessened every generation, and had been gradually ef- faced. The decree might pass unperceivcd under the veil of a fiscal measure ; it proclaimed and caused to pass into the domain of law what was already an ac- complished fact. The title of citizen then began to fall into desuetude; or, if it was still employed, it was to designate the con- dition of a free man as opposed to that of a slave. From that time all that made a part of the Roman em- pire, from Spain to the Euphrates, formed really one people and a single state. The distinction between cities had disappeared; that between nations still ap- peared, but was hardly noticed. All the inhabitants of this immense empire were equally Romans. The Gaul abandoned his name of Gaul, and eagerly assumed that of Roman; the Spaniard, the inhabitant of Thrace, or of Syria, did the same. There was now but a single name, a single country, a single government, a single code of laws. We see how the Roman city developed from age to age. At first it contained only patricians and clients; afterwards the plebeian class obtained a place there; then came the Latins, then the Italians, and finally the provincials. The conquest had not sufficed to work this great change ; the slow transformation of ideas, the prudent but uninterrupted concessions of the em- perors, and the eagerness of individual interests had been necessary. Then all the cities gradually disap- empcrors, who did not wi.*h to be deprived of the tribute which the provincial lands paid into the treasury. CUA.P. III. CHRISTIANITY. 519 pearcd, and the Roman city, the last one left, was it- self so transformed that it became the union of a dozen great nations under a single master. Thus fell the mu- nicipal system. It does not beloi.g to our plan to tell by what system of government this was replaced, or to inquire if this change was at first more advantageous than unfortu- nate for the nations. We must stop at the moment when the old social forms which antiquity had estab- lished were forever effaced. CHAPTER III. Christianity changes the Conditions of Government. THE victory of Christianity marks the end of ancient soviet y. With the new religion this social transforma- tion, which w r e saw begun six or seven centuries earlier, was completed. To understand ho\v much the principles and the es- sential rules of politics were then changed, we need only recollect that ancient society had been established by an old religion whose principal dogma was that every god protected exclusively a single family or a single city, and existed only for that. This was the time of the domestic gods and the city-protecting di- vinities. This religion had produced laws; the rela- tions among men property, inheritance, legal pro- ceedings all were regulated, not by the principles of natural equity, but by the dogmas of this religion, and with a view to the requirements of its worship. It was this religion that had established a government among 520 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. men; that of the father in the family; that of the king or magistrate in the city. All had come from religion, that is to say, from the opinion that man had enter- tained of the divinity. Religion, law, and government were con-fo uncled, and had been but a single thing un- der three different aspects. We have sought to place in a clear light this social system of the ancients, where religion was absolute master, both in public and private life ; Avhere the state was a religious community, the king a pontiff, the ma- gistrate a priest, and the law a sacred formula ; where patriotism was piety, and exile excommunication;. where individual liberty was unknown; where man was enslaved to the state through his soul, his body, and his property; where the notions of law and of duty, of justice and of affection, were bounded within the limits of the city; where human association was neces- sarily confined within a certain circumference around a prytaneum ; and where men saw no possibility of founding larger societies. Such were the character- istic traits of the Greek and Italian cities during the first period of their history. But little by little, as we have seen, society became modified. Changes took place in government and in laws at the same time as in religious ideas. Already, in the fifth century which preceded Christianity, the alliance was no longer so close between religion on the one hand and law and politics on the other. The ef- forts of the oppressed classes, the overthrow of the sacerdotal class, the labors of philosophers, the progress of thought, had unsettled the ancient principles of hu- man association. Men had made incessant efforts to free themselves from the thraldom of this old religion, in which they could no longer believe; law and politics. CHAP. III. CHRISTIANITY. 521 as well as morals, in the course of time wore freed from its fetters. But this species of divorce came from the disappear- ance of the ancient religion ; if law and politics began to be a little more independent, it was because meu ceased to have religious beliefs. If society was no longer governed by religion, it was especially because this religion no longer had any power. But there came a day \\ hen the religious sentiment recovered life and vigor, and when, under the Christian form, be- lief regained its empire over the srul. Were men not then destined to see the reappearance of the ancient confusion of government and the priesthood, of faith and the law ? With Christianity not only was the religious senti- ment revived, but it assumed a higher and less material expression. Whilst previously men had made for them- selves gods of the human soul, or of the great forces of nature, they now began to look upon God as really for- eign by his essence, from human nature on the one hand, and from the world on the other. The divine Being was placed outside and above physical nature. Whilst previously every man had made a god for him- self, and there were as many of them as there were families and cities, God now appeared as a unique, im- mense, universal being, alone animating the worlds, alone able to supply the need of adoration that is in man. Religion, instead of being, as formerly among the nations of Greece and Italy, little more than an as- semblage of practices, a series of rites which men re- peated without having any idea of them, a succession of formulas which often were no longer understood be- cause the language had grown old, a tradition which had been transmitted from age to age, and which owed 522 MUNICIPAL KEGIME DISAPPEAKS. BOOK V. its sacred character to its antiquity alone, was now a collection of doctrines, and a great object proposed to faith. It was no longer exterior; it took up its abode especially in the thoughts of man. It was no longer matter; it became spirit. Christianity changed the nature and the form of adoration. Man no longer of- fered God food and drink. Prayer was no longer a form of incantation ; it was an act of faith and a humble petition. The soul sustained another relation with the divinity; the fear of the gods was replaced by the love of God. Christianity introduced other new ideas. It was not the domestic religion of any family, the national reli- gion of any city, or of any race. It belonged neither to a caste nor to a corporation. From its first appear- ance it called to itself the whole human race. Christ said to his disciples, "Go yc into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." This principle was so extraordinary, and so unex- pected, that the first disciples hesitated for a moment; we may see in the Acts of the Apostles that several of them refused at first to propagate the new doctrine outside the nation with which it had originated. These disciples thought, like the ancient Jews, that the God of the Jews .would not accept adoration from foreign- ers; like the Romans and the Greeks of ancient times, they believed that every race had its god, that to propa- gate the name and worship of this god was to give up one's own good and special protector, and that such a work was contrary at the same time to duty and to in- terest. But Peter replied to these disciples, "God gave the gentiles the like gilt as he did unto us." St. Paul loved to repeat this grand principle on all occasions, and iu every kind of form. "God had opened the door CHAP. III. CHRISTIANITY. 523 of faith unto the gentiles." "Is he the God of the Jews, only? Is he not also of the gentiles?" "We are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or gentiles." In all this there was something quite new. For, everywhere, in the first ages of humanity, the divinity had been imagined as attaching himself especially to one race. The Jews had believed in the God of the Jews; the Athenians in the Athenian Pallas; the Ro- mans in Jupiter Capitolinus. The right to practise a worship had been a privilege. The foreigner had been repulsed from the temple ; one not a Jew could not enter the temple of the Jews ; the Lacedaemonian had not the ricjht to invoke the O Athenian Pallas. It is just to say, that, in the five cen- turies which preceded Christianity, all who thought were struggling against these narrow rules. Philoso- phy had often taught, since Anaxagoras, that the god of the universe received the homage of all men, without distinction. The religion of Eleusis had admitted the initiated from all cities. The religion of Cybele, of Serapis, and some others, had accepted, without dis- tinction, worshippers from all nations. The Jews had begun to admit the foreigner to their religion ; the Greeks and the Romans had admitted him into their cities. Christianity, coming after all this progress in thought and institutions, presented to the adoration of all ir.en a single God, a universal God, a God who be- longed to all, who had no chosen people, and who made no distinction in races, families, or states. For this God there were no longer strangers. The stranger no longer profaned the temple, no longer tainted the sacrifice by his presence. The temple was to all who believed iu God. The priesthood t)24 MUNICIPAL REGIME DTSAPPEAES. BOOK VI ceased to be hereditary, because religion was no longer a patrimony. The worship was no longer kept secret; the rites, the prayers, the dogmas were no longer con- cealed. On the contrary, there was thenceforth religious instruction, which was not only given, but which was offered, which was carried to those who were the far- thest away, and which sought out the most indifferent. The spirit of propagandist!! replaced the law of ex- clusion. From this great consequences flowed, as well for the relations between nations as for the government of states. Between nations religion no longer commanded hatred; it no longer made it the citizen's duty to detest the foreigner; its very essence, on the contrary, was to teach him that towards the stranger, towards O * the enemy, he owed the duties of justice, and even of benevolence. The barriers between nations or races were thus thrown down ; the pomcerium disappeared. "Christ," says the apostle, "hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." " But now are they many members," he also says, "yet but one body." "There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free t but Christ is all, and in all." The people were also taught that they were all de- scended from the same common father. With the unity of God, the unity of the human race also appeared to men's minds; and it was thenceforth a religious neces- sity to forbid men to hate each other. As to the government of the state, we cannot say that Christianity essentially altered that, precisely be- cause it did not occupy itself with the state. In the ancient ages, religion and the state made but one ; every CHAP. in. CHRISTIANITY. 525 .people adored its own god, and every god governed his own people ; the same code regulated the relations among men, and their duties towards the gods of the city. Religion then governed the state, and designated its chiefs by the voice of the lot, or by that of the auspices. The state, in its turn, interfered with the domain of the conscience, and punished every infraction of the rites and the worship of the city. Instead of this, Christ leaches that his kingdom is not of this world. He separates religion from government. Religion, being no longer of the earth, now interferes the least possible in terrestrial affairs. Christ adds, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that O ' O arc God's." It is the first time that God and the state arc so clearly distinguished. For Caesar at that period was still the pontifex maximvs, the chief and the prin- cipal organ of the Roman religion ; he was the guardian and the interpreter of beliefs. He held the worship and the dogmas in his hands. Even his person was sacred and divine, for it was a peculiarity of the policy of the emperors that, wishing to recover the attributes of ancient royalty, they were careful not to forget the divine character which antiquity had attached to the king-pontiffs and to the priest-founders. But now Christ breaks the alliance which paganism and the em- pire wished to renew. He proclaims that religion is no longer the state, and that to obey Caesar is no longer the same thing as to obey God. Christianity completes the overthrow of the local worship ; it extinguishes the prytanea, and complete- ly destroys the city-protecting divinities. It does more ; it refuses to assume the empire which these wor- ships had exercised over civil society. It professes that between the state and itself there is nothing in common. 520 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. It separates what all antiquity had confounded. We may remark, moreover, that during three centuries the new religion lived entirely beyond the action of the state ; it knew how to dispense with state protection, and even to struggle against it. These three centuries established an abyss between the domain of the gov- ernment and the domain of religion ; and, as the recol- lection of this period could not be effaced, it followed that this distinction became a plain and incontestable truth, which the efforts even of a part of the clergy could not eradicate. This principle was fertile in great results. On one hand, politics became definitively freed from the strict rules which the ancient religion had traced, and could govern men without having to bend to sacred usages, without consulting the auspices or the oracles, without conforming all acts to the beliefs and requirements of a worship. Political action was freer; no other authority than that of the moral law now impeded it. On the other hand, if the state was more completely master in certain things, its action was also more limited. A complete half of man had been freed from its control. Christianity taught that only a part of man belonged to society ; that he was bound to it by his body and by his material interests; that when subject to a tyrant, it was his duty to submit; that as a citizen of a republic, he ought to give his life for it, but that, in what re- lated to his soul, he was free, and was bound only to God. Stoicism had already marked this separation; it had restored man to himself, and had founded liberty of conscience. But that which was merely the effort of the energy of a courageous sect, Christianity made a universal and unchangeable rule for succeeding genera- CHAP. III. CHRISTIANITY. 527 tions; what was only the consolation of a few, it made the common good of humanity. If, now, we recollect what has been said above on- the omnipotence of the states among the ancients, if we bear in mind how far the city, in the name of its sacred character and of religion, which was inherent in it, exercised an absolute empire, we shall see that this new principle was the source whence individual lib- erty flowed. The mind once freed, the greatest difficulty was over- come, and liberty was compatible with social order. Sentiments and manners, as well as politics, were then changed. The idea which men had of the duties of the citizen were modified. The first duty no longer consisted in giving one's time, one's strength, one's life to the state. Politics and war were no longer the whole of man ; all the virtues were no longer comprised in patriotism, for the soul no longer had a country. Man felt that he had other obligations besides that of living and dying for the city. Christianity distinguished the- private from the public virtues. By giving less honor to the latter, it elevated the former; it placed God, the family, the human individual above country, the neigh- bor above the city. Law was also changed in its nature. Among all ancient nations law had been subject to, and had re- ceived all its rules from, religion. Among the Persians, the Hindus, the Jews, the Greeks, the Italians, and the Gauls, the law had been contained in the sacred books or in religious traditions, and thus every religion had made laws after its o\vn image. Christianity is the first religion that did not claim to be the source of law. It O occupied itself with the duties of men, not with their interests. Men saw it regulate neither the laws of 628 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. property, nor the order of succession, nor obligations, nor legal proceedings. It placed itself outside the law, and outside all things purely terrestrial. La - \vas in- dependent; it could draw its rules from nature, from the human conscience, from the powerful idea of the just that is in men's minds. It could develop in com- plete liberty; could be reformed and improved without obstacle ; could follow the progress of morals, and could conform itself to the interests and social needs of every generation. The happy influence of the new idea is easily seen in the history of Iloman law. During several centuries preceding the triumph of Christianity, Roman law had already been striving to disengage itself from reli- gion, and to approach natural equity ; but it proceeded only by shifts and devices, which enervated and en- feebled its moral authority. The work of regenerating legislation, announced by the Stoic philosophers, pur- sued by the noble efforts of Iloman jurisconsults, out- lined by the artifices and expedients of the pretor, could not completely succeed except by favor of the independence which the new religion allowed to the law. We can see, as Christianity gained ground, that the Roman codes admitted new rules no longer by subterfuges, but openly and without hesitation. The domestic penates having been overthrown, and the sacred fires extinguished, the ancient constitution of the family disappeared forever, and with it the rules that had flowed from this source. The father had lost the absolute authority which his priesthood had former- ly given him, and preserved only that which nature itself had conferred upon him for the good of the child. The wife, whom the old religion placed in a position inferior to the husband, became morally his equal. The CHAP. m. CHBISTIANITY. 529 laws of property were essentially altered ; the sacred landmarks disappeared from the fields; the right of prope no longer flowed from religion, but from labor ; its acquisition became easier, and the formalities of the ancient law were definitively abolished. Thus, by the single fact that the family no longer had its domestic religion, its constitution and its laws were transformed ; so, too, from the single fact that the state no longer had its official religion, the rules for the government of men were forever changed. Our study must end at this limit, which separates ancient from modern polities. We have written the history of a belief. It was established, and human society was constituted. It was modified, and society underwent a series of revolutions. It disappeared, and society changed its character. Such was the law of ancient times. 34 HI" 1 7 University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. ' Date: Wed* 11 Nov 92 17:54 PST To: ECL4BAT Subject: SRLF PAGING REQUEST Deliver to Shelving # UCSD CENTRAL A 000 196 779 3 Item Information Fustel de Coulanges, 1830-1889. The ancient city : a study on the relig Item : ORION # : 2376204MC Requester Information Unit : UNKNOWN Terminal : User Information Name Kristina Giannotta Lib card undergrad Phone Address cul C-T A A 000 196 779