Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/159

 CHAP. X. THE GENS AT ROME AND IN GREECE. 15S client of a family, one could never be separated from it. Clientsliip was even hereditary. From all this we see that the fomily, in the earliest times, with its oldest branch and its younger branches^ its servants and its clients, might comprise a very numerous body of men. A family that by its religion maintained its unity, by its private law rendered itself indivisible, and through the laws of clientsliip retained its servants, came to form, in the course of time, a very extensive organization, having its hereditary chiefs The Aryan race appears to have been composed of an indefinite number of societies of this nature, during a long succession of ages. These thousands of little groups lived isolated, having little to do with each other, having no need of one another, united by no boni religious or political, having each its domain, each its iuternal government, each its gods.