Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/276

 270 TUK CITY. BOOK III. mountains which intersect each other establish natural lines of demarcation among men. But there were no mountains between Thebes and Plataea, between Argos and Sparta, between Sybaris and Crotona. There were none between the cities of Latium, or between the twelve cities of Etruria. Doubtless physical na- ture has some influence upon the history of a people, but the beliefs of men have a much more powerful one. In ancient times there was something more im- passable than mountains between two neighboring cities, there were the series of sacred bounds, the dif- ference of worship, and the hatred of the gods towards the foreigner. For this reason the ancients were never able to es- tablish, or even to conceive of, any other social organiza- tion than the city. Neither the Greeks, nor the Latins, nor even the Romans, for a very long time, ever had a thought that several cities might be united, and live on an equal footing under the same government. There might, indeed, be an alliance, or a temporary association, in view of some advantage to be gained, or some danger to be repelled ; but there was never a complete union ; for religion made of every city a body which could never be joined to another. Isolation was the law of the city. With the beliefs and the religions usages M'hich we have seen, how could several cities ever have become united in one state ? Men did not understand human association, and it did not appear regular, unless it was founded upon religion. The symbol of this association was a sacred repast partaken of in common. A few thousand citizens might indeed literally unite around the same prytaneum, recite the same prayer, and par- take of the same sacred dishes. But how attempt, with