Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/336

 330 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. Still it was political royalty only that was suppressed : religious royalty was sacred, and must endure. There- fore men hastened to name a king, but one who was king only for the sacrifices — rex sacrorum. All im- aginable precautions were taken that this king-priest should never take advantage of the great prestige which his office gave him, and seize upon the civi' power. CHAPTER IV. The Aristocracy governs the City. The same revolution, under forms slightly varied, took place at Athens, at Sparta, at Rome, in all the cities, in fine, whose history is known to us. Every- where it was the work of the aristocracy; everywhere it resulted in suppressing political royalty an<l con- tinning religious royalty. From this epoch, during a period whose duration was very unequal in different cities, the government of the city was in the hands of the aristocracy. This aristocracy rested at the same time on birth and religion. It had its foundation in the religious con- stitution of the family. It originated in the same rules that we have noticed above, in the domestic worship and in private law — that is to say, the law of the hereditary descent of the sacred fire, the right of pri- mogeniture, and the right of pronouncing the prayers, which was the prerogative of birth. An hereditary religion was the title of this aristocracy to absolute dominion, and gave it rights that appeared sacred. According to ancient ideas, he alone could be an ownei