Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/319

 CHAP. 11. THE PLEBEIANS. 313 mind of one of them that such a mavringe was pos- Bible. "We see how many classes in the primitive age of the cities were supei'posed one above another. At the head was the aristocracy of family chiefs, those whom the official language of Rome called patres, whom the clients called reges, whom the Odyssey names §aathxg or (ivaxTBg. Below were the younger branches of the families; still lower were the clients; and lowest were the plebs. This distinction of classes came from religion. For at the time when the ancestors of the Greeks, the Italians, and the Hindus still lived together in Central Asia, religion had said, "The oldest shall offer prayer.'* From this came the pre-eminence of the oldest in every- thing ; the oldest branch in every family had been the sacerdotal and dominant branch. Still religion made great account of the younger branches, who were a species of reserve, to replace the older branch some day, if it should become extinct, and to save the wor- ship. It also made some account of the client, and even of the slave, because they assisted in the religious acts. But the plebeian, who had no part in the wor- ship, it reckoned as absolutely of no account. The ranks had been thus fixed. But none of the social arrangements which man studies out and establishes is unchangeable. This car- ried in itself the germ of disease and death, which was too great an inequalit3 Many men had an interest in destroying a social organization that had no benefits for them.