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 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY XV

PART III. GENERAL STRUCTURE OF SOCIETIES

CHAPTER VII. THE SOCIAL FRONTIERS (CONTINUED)

SECTION VI. THE ROMAN WORLD (CONTINUED)

G. DE GREEF Rector of the Nouvelle Universite, Brussels, Belgium

We have seen that the Roman ceremony relating to the delimitation of the city, a preliminary which is the prime condi- tion of all social structure, was modeled upon Etruscan cere- monies. These in their turn rested upon analogous beliefs derived from similar economic conditions antecedent to the division of lands among families and the foundation of towns in Greece. Everywhere the reality is constantly the same. Accord- ing to times and circumstances, its interpretation and its forms alone vary. Always and everywhere also the social fact, whether it is military or peaceful, has an economic foundation at once material and psychic.

With Greeks and Romans defeat brought in its train destruc- tion of the social autonomy of the defeated group. It lost its frontier, with everything connected with it the town with all its contents, living and dead, men and gods, goods, animals, and people. Thus the conquered city gave itself over entirely to the conqueror, with its territory and its population, including its ancestors. The formula of surrender or deditio, as given by Livy runs : " I give my person, my town, my land, the water which runs there, my boundary gods, my temples, my furniture, all the things that belong to the gods, I give these to the Roman people." 1 The formula of surrender is also found in the Amphitryon of Plautus : " Urbem, agrum, aras, focos, seque uti dederent;" 2 and later: "dedunteque se divina humanaque people." 1 The formula of surrender is also found in the "omnia, urbem et liberos." 8

I. 38; VII, 31 ; XXVIII, 34. See also Polybius, XXXVI, 2. Vs. 71. Vs. 101.

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