Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/344

 338 THE BEVOLUTIONS. BOOK IT, them. Added to this was the rivalry of the heads of families striving for influence and seeking mutually ta weaken each other. Then, too, they were ambitions of the magistracies of the city. To obtain these they sought popularity, and to hold them, they neglected or forgot their little sovereignties. These causes pro- duced by degrees a sort of relaxation in the constitu- tion of the gens ; those for whose interest it was ta maintain this constitution held to it less, while those who had an interest in modifying it became bolder and stronger. The force of individuality, at first strong in the fim- ily, insensibly became weaker. The right of priroogen- jture, which was the condition of its unity, disappeared. We ought not to expect that any writer of antiquity should furnish us the exact date of this great change. It is probable that there was no date, because the change did not take place in a year. It was effected by degrees — at first in one family, then in another^ and little by little in all. It happened, so to speak, without any one's perceiving it. We can easily perceive, also, that men did not pass at once from the indivisibility of the patrimony to the equal division among the brothers. There was appar- ently a transition period between these two conditions of property. Affairs probably took the same course in Greece and Italy as in ancient Hindu society, where the religious law after having prescribed the indivisi- bility of the patrimony, left the father free to give some portion of it to his younger sons; then, after having required that the oldest should have at least a double portion, permitted the apportionment to be eq'jal, and finished by recommending this arrange- ment.