Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/492

 4b6 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V. Carthage, and in Greece against Philip, what advan tage they derived from tliis ancient relationship. The Roman population was, then, a mixture of sev- eral races, its worship was an assemblage of several worships, and its national hearth an association of sev- eral hearths. It was almost the only city whose mu- nicipal religion was not isolated from all others. It was related to all Italy and all Greece. There was hardly a people that it could not admit to its hearth. 2. First Aggrandizement of Home {J3. C. 753-350). During the period when the municipal religion was everywhere powerful, it governed the policy of Rome. We are told that the first act of the new city was to seize some Sabine women — a legend which appears very improbable when we reflect on the sanctity of marriage among the ancients; but we have seen above that the municipal religion forbade marriage between persons of different cities unless these two cities had a common origin or a common worship. The first Ro- mans had the right of intermarriage with Alba, from which they originally came, but not with their other neighbors, the Sabines. What Romulus wished to ob- tain first of all was not a few women; it was the right of intermarriage, — that is to say, the right of contract- ing regular relations with the Sabine population. For this purpose a religious bond must be established be- tween them ; he therefore adopted the worship of the Sabine god Consus, and celebrated his festival.' Tra- dition adds that during this festival he carried off the women. If he had done this, the marriages could not ' Dionysius, II. 30.