Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/345

 CHAP. V. THEGEXS IS DISMEMBERED. 339 But vre have no precise information upon these points. A single fact is certain — that the right of pri- mogeniture existed at an ancient epoch, and that after- wards it disappeared. This change was not accomplished at the same time, nor in the same manner, in all the cities. In some legislation maintained it for a long time. At Thebes and at Corinth it was still in vigor in the eighth century. At Athens legislation still showed some preference for the oldest. At Sparta the right of primogeniture con- tinued until the triumph of democracy. There were cities where it disappeared only after an insurrection. At Heraclea, Cnidus, Istros, and Marseilles the younger branches took up arms to destroy at the same time the right of primogeniture and the paternal authority.' From that time Greek cities that had not before counted more than a hundred men enjoying political rights, could count five or six hundred. All the members of aristocratic familes were citizens, and magistracies and the senate were open to them. It is impossible to tell at what time the privilege of birth disappeared at Rome. It is probable that the kings, in the midst of their strucrgle against the aris- tocracy, did all that lay in their power thus to suppress and disorganize the gcntes. At the beginning of the republic, we see a hundred new members enter the senate. Livy believed that they came from the plebs ; ' but it is not possible that the hard rule of the patricians could have commenced with a concession of this nature. ' Aristotle, Poliiics, VIII. 5, 2, ed. B. Saint Hilaire. eqvesiris, he says. Now, the primores of the equestrian order — that is to say, the knights of the first six centuries — were patri- cians. See Belot, Hist, des chevaliers romains, liv. I. ch. 2.
 * He contradicts himself elsewhere. Ex primoribus ordinis