Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/181

 CHAP. III. THE CITY FORMED. 175 belief grew, and human society grew at the same time. When men begin to perceive that there are common divinities for them, they unite iu larger groups. The same rules, invented and established for the ftmily, are applied successively to the phratry, the tribe, and the city. Let us take in at a glance the road over which man has passed. In the beginning the family lived isolated, and man knew only the domestic gods — deol nnrQaot^ dii gentiles. Above the family was formed the phra- try with its god — dsdg (fouTQio:, Juno curialis. Then came the tribe, and the god of the tribe — Oebg cpiliog. Finally came the city, and men conceived a god whose providence embraced this entire city — Oebg noXieig^pe- nates puhlici ; a hierarchy of creeds, and a hierarchy of association. The religious idea was, among the ancients, the inspiring breath and organizer of society. The traditions of the Hindus, of the Greeks, and of the Etruscans, relate that the gods revealed social laws to man. Under this legendary form there is a truth. Social laws were the work of the gods ; but those gods, so powerful and beneficent, were nothing else than the beliefs of men. Such was the origin of cities among the ancients. This study was necessary to give us a correct idea of the nature and institutions of the city. But here we must make a reservation. If the first cities were formed of a confederation of little societies previously estab- lished, this is not saying that all the cities known to us were formed in the same manner. The municipal organ- ization once discovered, it was not necessary for each new city to pass over the same long and difficult route. It might often happen that they followed the inverse order. When a chief, quitting a city already organized,