Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/140

 134 THE FAMILY. BOOK H. 1. What Aiiciejit 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 his orations produces seven witnesses, who certify that they belong to the same yivog, that of the Brytida3. What is remarkable in this example is, that the seven persons cited as mem- bers of the same yifog are inscribed in six different demes. This shows that the yit>o; did not correspond exactly with the deine, and was not, like it, a simple administrative division.' Here is one foct 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 worshi|) ; 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."* Plutarch speaks of the place where the Lycomedse sacrificed, and ^schines speaks of the altar of the gens of the Butadae.' ' Demosthenes, in Near.., 71. Plutarch, Themist., 1. Ms- chines, De Falsa Legal., 147. Boecldi, Corp. Insc, 385. Ross. Demi Aitici. 2-i. Tl)e gejis among the Greeks is often called nccTQa. Pindar, passim. ' Hesychius, Ytrnjai. Pollux, III. 62, Ilarpocration, ogytrnvt;, » Plutarch Themist, I. .Esch., De Falsa Legal.. 147.