Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/175

 CHAP. Ul. THE CITY FORMED. 16& slst in the city, and was modified only at a very late period. The mode of founding ancient cities is attested by nsag-es which continued for a very long time. If we examine the army of the city in primitive times, we find it distributed into tribes, curies, and families,' "in such a way," says one of the ancients, "that the warrior has for a neiglibor in the combat one with Avhom, in time of peace, lie has offered the libation and sacrifice at the same altar." If we look at the people when assembled, in the early ages of Rome, we see them voting by curies and by gentes.^ If we look at the worship, we see at Rome six Vestals, two for each tribe. At Athens, the archon ofiers the sacrifice in the name of the entire city, but he has in the religious part of the ceremony as many assistants as there are tribes. Thus the city was not an assemblage of individuals; it was a confederation of several groups, which were established before it, and which it permitted to remain. We see, in the Athenian orators, that every Athenian formed a portion of four distinct societies at the same time; he was a member of a famil}^ of a phiatry, of a tribe, and of a city. He did not enter at the same time and the same day into all these four, like a Frenchman, who at the moment of his birth belongs at once to a family, a commune, a department, and a country. Tiie phratry and the tribe are not administrative divisions. A man enters at diflferent times into these four socie- ties, and ascends, so to speak, from one to the other. First, the child is admitted into the family by the > Homer, Iliad, II. 3G2. Varro, De Ling. Lai., V. 89. Isaeus, II. 42. » Aulus Gellius, XV. 27.