Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/153

 CHAP. X. THE GENS AT KOME AND IN GEEECl!-. 147 not be propngated, this antique morality which pre- scribed the isolation of families, — it is clear that beliefs of this nature could not have taken root in the minds of men, except in an age when larger societies were not yet formed. If the religious sentiment was satis- fied with so narrow a conception of the divine, it was because human associations were then narrow in pro- portion. The time when men believed only in the domestic gods was the time when there existed only families. It is quite true that this belief might have subsisted afterwards, and even for a long time, when cities and nations existed. Man does not easily free himself from opinions that have once exercised a strong influence over him. This belief might endure, there- fore, even when it was in disaccord with the social state. What is there, indeed, more contradictory than, to live in civil society and to have particular gods ia ivs. This was none the less the true name. In daily life a man might be called by his individual surname ; but in the official language of politics or religion, his complete name, and above all the name of the yt'iof, was required. (Later the democracy substituted the name of the deme for that of the yivog.^ The history of names followed a different course in ancient from what it has followed in modern times. In the middle ages, until the twelfth century, the true name was the individual or baptismal name. Patronymics came quite late, as names of estates or surnames. It was just the reverse among the an- cients; and this difference is due to the difference of the two religions. For the old domestic religion, the family was the true body, of which the individual was but an inseparable mem- ber; the patronymic was, therefore, the first name in date and in importance. Tiie new religion, on the contrary, recognized in the individual complete liberty and entire personal indepen- dence, and was not in the least opposed to separating him from the fat lily. Baptismal names were, therefore, the first, and for a long t!me the only, names.