Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/139

 CHAP. X. THE GENS AT ROME AND IN GPV«JE. l'^3 remain no documents relating to wliat 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. Tlien, by the aid of these remains, we shall attempt to catch a glimpse of the veritable system of the antique geiis.