Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/399

 CHAr. YII. THE PLEBS ENTER THE CITY. 39^ the same character to him, just as the consul, in creat- ing other consuls, passed to them the auspices, and the power to perform the sacred rites. Later, the trihune- ship having been interrupted during two years, it was necessary, in order to establish the new tiibunes, to renew the religious ceremony which had been per- formed on the Sacred Mount, We do not sufficiently understand the ideas of the ancients, to say whether tliis sacrosanct character rendered the person of the tribune honorable in tho eyes of the patricians, or marked him, on the contrary, as an object of malediction and horror. The second conjecture is more in accordance with probability. What is certain is, that in every way the tribune was inviolable; the hand of a patrician could not touch him without grave impiety. A law conferred and guaranteed this inviolability j it declared that "no person should use violence to- wards a tribune, or strike him, or kill him." It added that "whoever committed one of these acts against a 'tribune should be impure, that his property should be confiscated to the profit of the temple of Ceres, and that one might kill him with impunity." The law conclud- ed in these words, whose vagueness powerluUy aided the future progress of the tribuneship : " No magis- trate, or private person, shall have the right to do any- thing against a tribune." All the citizens took an oath by which they agreed always to observe this strange law, calling down upon their heads the wrath of the gods if they violated it, and added that whoever ren- dered liimself guilty of an attempt against a tribune "should be tainted with the deepest impurity." ' ' Dionysius. VI. 89; X. 32, 42.