Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/261

 CHAP. XI. THE LAW. 255 of this custom have remained in languajje: the Ro- mans called the laws carmina — verses ; the Greeks said v6iJ.oi — songs.' These ancient verses were invariable texts. To change a letter of them, to displace a word, to alter the rhythm, was to destroy the law itself, by destroy- ing the sacred form under which it was revealed to man. The law was like prayer, which was agreeable to the divinity only on condition that it was recited correctly, and which became impious if a single word in it was changed. In primitive law, the exterior, the letter, is everything; there is no need of seeking the sense or spirit of it. The value of the law is not in the moral principle that it contains, but in the words that make up the formula. Its force is in the sacred words that compose it. Among the ancients, and especially at Rome, the idea of law was inseparably connected with certain sacramental words. If, for example, it was a question of contract, one was expected to say, Dari spondes f and the other was expected to reply, Spondeo. If these words were not pronounced, there was no contract. In vain the creditor came to demand payment of the debt — the debtor owed nothing ; for what j)laced a man un- der obligation in this ancient law Avas not conscience, or the sentiment of justice; it was the sacred formula. When this formula was pronounced between two men, it established between them a les^al oblicration. Where there was no formula, the obligation did not exist. The strange forms of ancient Roman legal procedure See Plutarch, De Musica, p. 1133; Pindar, Pyth., XII. 41* fragm., 190 (Edit. Ileyne). Sclioliast on Aristoplianes, Knights, 9; N<Jfioi xakuvvTai ol tiq 6iovs iifiioi.
 * Ni^ita, to divide; vofiog, division, measure, rliythm, song.