Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/76

 70 rnE FAMILY. BOOK II. lie declares that this adoption is contrary to sacer- dotal law. When a son was adopted, it was necessary, first of all, that be should be initiated into a form of worship, "introduced into a domestic religion, brought into the presence of new Penates." ' Adoption, therefore, was accompanied by a ceremony very like that which took place at the birth of a son. In this way the new comer was admitted to the hearth, and associated in the new religion. Gods, sacred objects, rites, prayers, all be- came common between him and his adopted father- They said of him. In sacra transiit — He has passed to the worship of the new family." By this very ceiemony he renounced the worship of the old one.' "We have seen, indeed, that accord- ing to this ancient belief, the same man could not sac- rifice at two hearths, or honor two series of ancestors. Admitted to a new house, the old became foreisrn to him. He no longer had anything in common with the hearth near which he was born, and could no longer offer the funeral repast to his own ancestors. The ties of birth were broken ; the new tie of a common worship took the ascendency. The man became so completely a stranger to his own family, that, if he happened to die, liis natural father had no right to take charge of the funeral, or to conduct the procession. The adopted son could not return again to the old family ; or, at most, the law permitted this only when, having a son, lie left that son to take his place in the adoptive fiim- ily. They considered that, the pei-petuity of this family ' 'Ejt'i r'u i€Qu uytiy. Isaeus, VII. Venire in Sacra, Cicero, Pro Domo, Vu ; in Penates adsciscere, Tacitus, Hist., I. 15. ' Amissis sacris paternis, Cicero, ibid.
 * Valerius Maximus, VII. 7.