Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/342

 336 THE EEVOLUTION8. BOOK IV. CHAPTER V. Second Revolution. Change in the Constitution of the Family. The Right of Birth disappears. The Gens is dismembered. The revolution ■which had overturned royalty had modified the exterior form of the government rather than changed the constitution of society. It had not been the work of the lower classes, who had an interest in destroying the old institutions, but of the aristocracy, who wislied to maintain them. It had not been under- taken in order to overturn the ancient constitution of the family, but rather to preserve it. The kings had often been tempted to elevate the inferior classes and to weaken the gentes, and for this the kings themselves had been dethroned. The aristocracy had brought about a political levolution only to prevent a social one. They had taken the power in hand, less from the pleasure of ruling than to protect their old institutions, their ancient principles, their domestic worship, their paternal authority, the regime of the gens — in fine, the piivate law which the primitive religion had estab- lished. This great and general effort of the aristocracy was to meet a danger. Now, it appears that, in spite of these efforts, and of the victory itseltj the danger con- tinued. The old institutions began to totter, and grave changes were about to be introduced into the inner constitution of the family. The old rule of the gens, founded by the domestic religion, had not been destroyed at the time when men passed to the gov-