Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/377

 C0AP. Til. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 371 If 1)6 complains thus, it is as a sort of pious duty ; it is because lie has received from the ancients " the holy tradition," and his duty is to perpetuate it. But he labors in vain; the tradition itself will perish; the sons of the nobles will forget their nobility; soon all will be seen united by marriage to plebeian families; "they will drink at their festivals and eat at their tables " ; they will soon adopt their sentiments. In Theognis' time, regret was all that was left for the Greek aristoc- racy, and even this regret was soon to disappear. In fact, after Theognis the nobility were nothing but a recollection. The great families continued piously to preserve the domestic worship and the memory of their ancestors, but this was all. There were still men who amused themselves by counting their ancestors; but such men were ridiculed. They preserved the cus- tom of inscribing upon some tombs that the deceased was of noble race, but no attempt was made to restore a system forever fallen. Isocrates said, with truth, that in his time the great families of Athens no longer ex- isted except in their tombs. Thus the ancient city was transformed by degrees. In the beginning it was an association of some hundred chiefs of families. Later the number of citizens in- creased, because the younger branches obtained a position of equality. Later still, the freed clients, the plebs, all that multitude which, during centuries, had remained outside the political and religious association, sometimes even outside the sacred enclosure of the city, broke down the barriers which were opposed to them, and penetrated into the city, where they iui- mediately became the n' asters.