Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/793

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 777

estates to be imprescriptible. Exactly this is the case with the frontiers of the enlarged state ; there the ager publicus is formed, not capable of being lost or impaired by the claims of anyone founded on prescription.

At different days of the month the head of the family strode around his field, following carefully the uncultivated and hallowed strip. He drove before him victims; he sang hymns; he made sacrifices. 14 On this frontier, at certain intervals, big rocks or trunks of trees, called termini, termones, termina, were placed. Similarly, the chiefs of the city went regularly the rounds at the frontiers, inspecting the military detachments and the military frontiers. Only the heroes and the gods of the city were here exempted from the defense ; their tombs and temples were placed along the military routes and even as far as the higher divinities of the state were concerned within the cities.

Siculus Flaccus 15 describes the ceremonies connected with the estate of the family. We shall see that the rites relating to the territory of the state are analogous, if not absolutely identical. Says Flaccus:

In this manner our ancestors proceeded: First they dug a small ditch; at its border they set up the " term," which they crowned with garlands of herbs and of flowers. Then they sacrificed ; the blood of the immolated victim they caused to flow into the ditch ; they threw into it burning charcoal, grain, cakes, fruits, and poured over it some wine and honey. When all this was burned up in the ditch, the stone or the wooden trunk was sunk down and driven into the still glowing ashes.

Stone and trunk represent symbolically the site occupied by the dead buried in the ground ; the bones of the ancestors symbolized the frontiers of the traditional property of the family, the frontiers of the commonwealth. At the boundaries of the field the victims are slain, their blood flowing to strengthen the guards of the field. Also at the frontiers of the state the blood will continually be spilled, and the fields, fertilized by the remains of the dead, as the infelicitous saying goes, will be considered the legitimate prize of the sacrifices that were made to win and to defend them.

14 Cato De re rustica, 141 ; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI, 74; Ovid, Fasti, 639 ; Strabo, V, 3.

" De conditione agrorum, ed. Lachmann, p. 141.