Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/56

 50 THE FAMILY. BOOK 11. Between the living part and the tlead part of the family there is only this distance of a few steps which separates the liouse from the tomb. On certain days, which are determined for each one by his domestic religion, the living assemble near their ancestors ; they offer them the funeral meal, pour out milk and wine to them, lay out cakes and fruits, or burn the flesh of a victim to them. In exchange for these offerings they ask protection ; they call these ancestors their gods, and ask them to render the fields fertile, the house prosperous, and their hearts virtuous. Generation alone was not the foundation of the ancient family. What proves this is, that the sister did not bear the same relation to the family as the brother; that the emancipated son and the married daughter ceased completely to form a part of the family; and, in fine, several other important provisions of the Greek nqoyovoivj appear contiuually in Greek writers, as tumulus pa- trius or avitus, sepulcrum gentis, are found in Roman writers. See Demosthenes, rra Eitbvl., 28; inMacart., 79. Lycurgus, in Leocr., 25. Cicero, De Offic, I. 17. De Legih., II. 22 — Mortuum extra gcntem inferri fas negant. Ovid, Trist., IV. 3, 45. Velleius, II. 119. Suetonius, Nero, 50; Tiberius, 1. Digest, XI. 6; XVIII. 1, 6. Tlicre is an old anecdote that shows how necessary it was ihouglit to be that every one should be buried in the tomb of his family. It is related that the Lacedaemonians, when about to join battle with the Messenians, attached to their right arms their name, and those of their fathers, in order that, in case of death, each body might be recognized on the field of battle, and transported to the paternal tomb. Justin, III. 5. See ^schylus, Sept., 889 (914), tu(/iwj' mxTQwtov XUyun. The Greek orators frequently refer to this custom : Isosus, Lysias, or Demosthenes, when he wishes to prove that such a man be- longs to a certain family, and has the right to inherit its property, rarely fails to say that this man's father is buried in the tomb of this family.