Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/237

 CnAl'. IX, GOVERNMENT. THE KING. 231 CHAPTER IX. Government of the City. The King. 1. Heligioiis AuthoriUj of the Kbuj. We should not picture to ourselves a city, at its foundation, deliberating on the form of government that it will adopt, devising and discussing its laws, and preparing its institutions. It was not thus that laws were made and that governments were estab- lished. The political institutions of the city were born with the city itself and on the same day with it. Every member of the city carried them within himself, for the germ of them was in each ninn's belief and religion. Religion prescribed that the hearth should always have a supreme priest. It did not permit the sacer- dotal authority to be divided. The domestic hearth had a high priest, who was the father of the family ; the hearth of the cury, had its curio, or phratriarch ; every tribe, in the same manner, had its religious chief, whom the Athenians called the king of the tribe. It was also necessary that the city religion should have its supreme priest. This priest of the public hearth bore the name of king. Sometimes they gave him other titles. As he was especially the priest of the prytaneum, the Greeks preferred to call him the prytane ; sometimes also they called him the archon. Under these different names of king, prytane, and archon we are to see a personage who is, above all, the chief of the worship. He keeps up the fire, offers the sacrifice, pronounces the prayer, and presides at the religious repasts.