Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/343

 CHAP. V. THE GEXS IS DISMEMBERED. 3-^7 ornmcnt of the city. They had not wished, they had not been able, immediately to renounce it, as the chiefs clung to their autiiority, and the lower classes had not at first the desire to free themselves. The rule of the gens was therefore reconciled with that of the city. But these were in reality two antagonistic forms of government, which men could not hope to ally forever, and which must sooner or later be at war with each other. The family, indivisible and numerous, was too strong and too independent for the social power not to feel the temptation, and even the need, of weakening it. Either the city could not last, or it must in the course of time break up the family. The ancient gens, with its single hearth, its sovereign chief, and its indivisible domain, was a convenient ar- rangement so long as the state of isolation continued, and no other form of society than itself existed. But as soon as men were united in cities, the authority of the ancient chief was necessarily diminished; for though he was sovereign in his own gens, he w'as a member of a community ; as such, the general interests obliged him to make sacrifices, and general laws com- manded obedience. In his own eyes, and, above all. in the eyes of his inferiors, his dignity was impaired. Then, in this community, aristocratically as it was con- stituted, the lower classes counted for something, if only on account of their numbers. The family which comprised several branches, and which attended the comitia, surrounded by a multitude of clients, naturally had greater authority in the general deliberations than a small family that counted few hands and few sol- diers. Now, these inferiors were not slow to see their importance and strength. A certain sentiment of pride, and the desire for a better fate, grew up among 22