Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/194

 188 THE CITY. BOOK 111. CHAPTER V. Worship of the Founder. The Legend of iEneas. The founder ^vas the man who accomplished the- rehgious act without which a city could not exist. He established the hearth where the sacred fire was eternally to burn. He it was, who, by his prayers and his rites, called the gods, and fixed them forever in the new city. We can understand how much respect would be felt for this holy man. During his life men saw in him the author of a religion and the father of a city ; after death he became a common ancestor for all the generations that succeeded liira. He was for the city what the first ancestor was for the family — a Xar familiarise His memory was perpetuated like the liearth-fire which he had lighted. Men established a worship for him, and believed him to be a god ; and the city adored him as its providence. Sacrifices and festivals were renewed every year over his tomb.' It is well known that Romulus was worshipped, and that he had a temple and priests. The senators might,, indeed, take his life; but they could not deprive him of the worship to which he had a right as the founder of a city. In the same manner every city worshipped the one who had founded it. Cecrops and Theseus, who were regarded as having been successive founders of Athens, had temples there. Abdera ofiered sac- Deor., III. 19. Catullus, VII. 6.
 * Pindar, Pyth., V. 129. Olymp., VII. 145. Cicero, Dc NaU