Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/189

 CnF. IV. THE CITY. 183 been founded in the same manner. According to Varro, these rites were common to Latiura and to Etrurhi. Cato the Elder, who, in order to write his Origines, had consiilted the annals of all the Italian nations, informs us that analogous rites were practised by all founders of cities. The Etruscans possessed liturgical books in which were recorded the complete ritual of these ceremonies.* The Greeks, like the Italians, believed that the site of a city should be chosen and revealed by the divinity. So, when they wished to found one, they consulted the oracle at Delphi.'' Herodotus records, as an act of im- piety or madness, that the Spartan Dorieus dared to build a city " without consulting the oracle, and with- out observing any of the customary usages;" and the pious historian is not surprised that a city thus con- structed in despite of the rules lasted only tliree years.' Thucydides, recalling the day when Sparta was founded, mentions the pious chants, and the sacrifices of that day. The same historian tells us that the Athenians had a particular ritual, and that they never founded a colony without conforming to it." We may see in a comedy of Aristophanes a sufficiently exact picture of the ceremony practised in such cases. When the poet represented the amusing foundation of the city of the birds, he certainly had in mind the customs which were observed in the foundation of the cities of men. Now he puts upon the scene a priest who lighted a fire while invoking the gods, a poet who sang hymns, and a divine who recited oracles. ' Cato, in Servius, V. 755. Varro, L. L., V. 143. Festus, V. RiUiales. =• Herodotus, V. 42. * Thucydides, V. 10; III. 24.
 * Diodorus.XII. 12; Pausanias, VII. 2. Athenajus, VIII. 62.