Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/268

 262 THE CITY. BOOK III. crime, he was treated as a slave, and punished withoui process of law, the city owing him no legal protection." "When men arrived at that stage that they felt the need of having laws for the stranger, it was necessary to establish an exceptional tribunal. At Rome, in order to judge the alien, the pi'etor had to become an alien himself — pj'cetor peregrinus. At Athens the judge of foreigners was the polemarch — that is to say, the magistrate who was charged with the cares of war, and of all transactions with the enemy,* Neither at Rome nor at Athens could a foreigner be a proprietor.' He could not marry; or, if he married, his marriage was not recognized, and his children were reputed illegitimii.to.'' He could not make a contract with a citizen ; at any rate, the law did not recognize such a contract as valid. At first he could take no part in commerce.* The Roman law forbade him to inherit from a citizen, and even forbade a citizen to in- herit from him.^ They pushed this principle so far, that if a foreigner obtained the rights of a citizen with out his son, born before this event, obtaining the same favor, the son became a foreigner in regard to his father, and could not inherit from him.' The distinc- tion between citizen and foreigner was stronger than the natural tie between father and son. At first blush it would seem as if the aim had been ' Demosthenes, in Neosrmn, 49. Lysias, in Pancleonem. " Gaius,/r. 234. Birds, 1G52. ' Cicero, Pro Archia, o. Gaius. II. 110. ' Pausanias, VIII. 43.
 * Aristotle, Politics, III. 1, 3. Plato, Laws, VI.
 * Gaius, 1. G7. Ulpian, V. 4-9. Paulus, II. 9. Aristophanes,
 * Ulpian, XIX. 4. Demosthenes, Pro Phorm.; ii Eubul