Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/48

 42 ANCIENT BELIEFS. BOOK. I. leligion and the constitution of the Greek and Roman family may not be fully understood. The worship of the dead in no way resembled the Christian worshij) of the saints. One of the lirst rules of this worship was, that it could be offered by each family only to those deceased persons who belonged to it by blood. The funeral obsequies could be reli- giously performed only by the nearest relative. As to the funeral meal, which was renewed at stated seasons, the family alone had a right to take part in it, and every stranger was strictly excluded.' They believed that the dead ancestor accepted no offerings save fiom bis own family ; he desired no worship save from his own descendants. The presence of one who was not of the family disturbed the rest of the manes. The law, therefore, forbade a stranger to approach a tomb.* To touch a tomb with the foot, ever, by chance, was an impious act, after which the guilt) one was expected to pacify the dead and purify himself. The word by which the ancients designated the worship of the dead is significant ; the Greeks said Tiar^ici^etJ-, the Romans said parentare. The reason of this was because the prayer and offering were addressed by each one only to his fathers. The worship of the dead was nothing more than the worship of ancestors/ Lucian, while lidicuU ing common beliefs, explains them clearly to us when ' Cicero, De Legib., II. 2G. Varro, L. L., VI. IZ — Feruni epulas ad sepulcrum qvibus jus ibi parentare.' Gaius, II. 5, <; — Si modo mortui funus ad nos pertineat. Plutarch, Solon. Cicero, De Legib.., II. 26. Plutarch, Solon, 21. Demosthenes, in Timocr. Isaeus, I. ' In the beginning at least ; for later the cities had their local and national heroes, as we shall see.
 * Pittacus omnino accedere quemquam vetat in funus aliorum.