Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/271

 CHAP. XIII. PATRIOTISM. 265 Such a country is not simply a dwelling-place for man. Let him leave its sacred walls, let him pass the sacred limits of its territory, and he no longer finds for himself either a religion or a social tie of any kind. Everywhere else, except in his own country, he is out- side the regular life and the law ; everywhere else he is without a god, and shut out from all moral life. There alone he enjoys his dignity as a man, and his duties. Only there can he be a man. Country holds man attached to it by a sacred tie. He must love it as he loves his religion, obey it as he obeys a god. He must give himself to it entirely. Ho must love his country, whether it is glorious or obscure, prosjjerous or unfortunate. He must love it for its favors, and love it also for its severity. Socrates, un- justly condemned by it, must not love it the less. He must love it as Abraham loved his God, even to sacri- ficing his son for it. Above all, one must know how ta die for it. The Greek or Roman rarely dies on account of his devotion to a man, or for a point of honor ; but to his country he owes his life. For, if his country is attacked, his religion is attacked. He fights literally for his altars and his fires, pro aris et focis / for if the enemy takes his city, his altars are overturnei!, his fires are extinguished, his tombs are j^rofaned, his gods are destroyed, his worship is effaced. The piety of the ancients was love of country. The possession of a country was very precious, for the ancients imagined few chastisements more cruel than to be deprived of it. The ordinary punishment of great crimes was exile. Exile was really the- interdiction of worship. To exile a man was, according to the formula used both by the Greeks and the Romans, to cut him off from