Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/73

 CHAP. III. IUEQUALI1?Y OF SON AND DAUGHTER. 67 precious in the eyes of the Greeks ; for hiter he was to perform the sacrifices, offer the funeral repast, and preserve by his worship the domestic rehgion. In accordance with this idea, okl ^schylus calls the sou the savior of the paternal hearth.* The entrance of this son into tho family was signal- ized by a religious act. First, he had to be accepted by the father, who, as master and guardian of the hearth, and as a representative of his ancestors, had to decide whether the new comer was or was not of the family. Birth formed only the physical bond ; the declaration of the fither formed the religious and moral bond. This formality was equally obligatory in Greece^ in Rome, and in India. A sort of initiation was also required for the son, as we have seen it was for the daughter. This took place a short time after birth — the ninth day at Rome, the tenth in Greece, the tenth or twelfth in India.* On that day the father assembled the family, assembled witnesses, and offered a sacrifice to his fire. The child was presented to the domestic gods; a female carried him in her arms, and ran, carrying him, several times round the sacred fire.' This ceremony had a double object; first, to purify the infant — that is to say, to free him from the stain which the ancients supposed he had contracted by the mere fact of gestation ; and, second, to initiate him into the domestic worship. From this moment the infant was admitted into this sort of sacred society or small church that was called the fimily. He possessed its religion, he practised its rites, he was » iEsch.. Qioeph., 2C4 (2G2). ' Aristophanes, Birds, 922. Demosthenes, in liceot., p. lOlG. Macrobius, Sat., I. 17. Laws of Manu, II. 30. ' Plato, ThecBtetus. L} sias, in Harpocration, v. 'J.«f/)iJgo« «.