Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/253

 rnXF. X. THE MAGISTRACY. 247 that the senate was very glad to be rid of an ill-qual- ified or ill-intentioned consul, the greater part of the time, on the contrary, we cannot impute other motives to them than religious scruples. When the lot or the auspices had designated an archon or a consul, there was, it is true, a sort of proof by which the merits of the newly-elected officer were, examined. But even this will show us what the city Avished to find in its magistrate; and we shall see that it sought not the most courageous warrior, not the ablest and most upright man in peace, but the one best loved by the gods. Indeed, the Athenian senate inquired of the magistrate elect if he had any bodily defect, if he possessed a domestic god, if his family had always been faithful to his worship, if he himself had always fulfilled his duties towards the dead.' Why these questions? Because a bodily delect — a sign of the anger of the gods — rendered a man unfit to fill nny priestly office, and consequently to exercise any magistracy; because he who had no family worship ouglit not to have a national worship, and was not qualified to offer the sacrifices in the name of the city; because, if his fmiily had not always been faithful to his worship, — that is to say, if one of his ancestors had committed one of those acts which affect religion, — the hearth was forever contaminated, and the descendants were detested by the gods ; finally, because, if he him- self had neglected the tomb of his dead, he was ex- posed to their dangerous anger, and was pursued by invisible enemies. The city would have been very daring to have confided its fortunes to such a man. ' Plato, Laws, VI. Xenophon, Mem., II. Pollux, VIII. 85, 86, 95