Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/245

 CUAP. X. THE MAGISTRACY. 289^ The people established republican institutions; but the name of king, far from becoming a reproach, re- mained a venerated title. It is customary to say that this word was odious and despised. This is a singular error; the Romans applied it to the gods in their prayers. If the usurpers dared not assume this title, it was not because it was odious, but rather because it was sacred.' In Greece monarchy was many times restored in the cities; but the new monarchs never claimed the right to be called Jcings, and were satisfied to be called tyrants. What made the difference in these names was not the more or fewer moral qualities found in the sovereign. It was not the custom to call a good prince king and a bad one tyrant. Religion was what distinguished one from the other. The prim- itive kings had perfoi'med the duties of priests, and had derived their authority from the sacred fire ; the tyrants of a later epoch were merely political chiefs, and owed their elevation to force or election only. CHAPTER X. The Magistracy. The union of the political authority and the priest- hood in the same person did not cease with royalty. The revolution which established the republican regime., did not separate functions whose connection appeared natural, and was then the fundamental law of human society. The magistrate who replaced the king was, ' Sanditas regum, Suetonius, Julius Cccsar, 6. Livy, III. 39. Cicero, Repub., I. 33.