Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/332

 326 THE KEVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV consequently very strongly attached to the religious constitution of the families and the city. He was a king after the hearts of the patricians, and died peacea- bly in his bed. It should peem that, under Nuraa, royalty had been reduced to its priestly functions, as it had been in the Greek cities. It is at least certain that the religious authority of the king was entirely distinct from his political, and that one did not necessarily accompany the other. What proves this is, that there was a double election. By virtue of the first, the king was merely a religious chief; if to this dignity he wished to join the political pov.'cr, imperium^ it was necessary that the city should confer it upon him by a special decree. This conclusion follows clearly from what Cicero has told us of the ancient constitution. Thus the j)riesthood and the political power were distinct ; they might be placed in the same hands, but for that two coraitia and a double election were necessary. The third king certainly united them in his own hands. He held both the priestly office and the com- mand ; he was even more warrior than priest ; he neglected, and wished to diminish, the religious element, the strength of the aristocracy. We see him welcome a multitude of strangers to Rome, in spite of the reli- gious principle which excluded them; he even dared to live in the midst of them on the Cajlian Hill. We also see him distribute to plebeians lands, the revenue of which, up to that time, had been appropriated to de- fraying the expenses of the sacrifices. The patricians accused him of having neglected the rites, and, what was even worse, of having modified and altered them. And so he died like Romulus; the gods of the patricians destroyed him and liis sons with a thunderbolt. This