Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/79

 CHAP. V. OF ROMAN AGNATION". YJ lighter; it i.s a libation of water and a few grains of rice. Such is the funeral repast; and it is according to the accomplishment of these rites that relationship is reckoned. When two men, who offer their funeral repasts separately, can, each one, by ascending through a series of six ancestors, find one who is common to both, they are akin. They are called samanodacaSy if the common ancestor is one of those to whom they offer only the libation of water; sapindas, if he is of those to whom the cake is presented.' Counting ac- cording to our usage, the relation of the sapindas would go to the seventh degree, and that of the sa- manodacas to the fourteenth. In both cases the rela- tionshijD is shown by the fact that both make an offer- ing to the same ancestor; aud we see that in this system the relationship through females cannot be admitted. The case was the same in the West, There has been much discussion as to what the Roman jurists understood by agnation. But the problem is of easy solution as soon as we bring agnation and the domestic religion together. Just as this religion was transmitted only from male to male, so it is attested by all the ancient jurists, that two men can be " agnates " only M'hen, asce)idiug from male to male, they were found to have common ancestors.* The rule for agnation was, then, the same as that for worship. There was between these two things a manifest relation. Agna- tion was nothing more than relationship such as re- ligion had originally established it. ' Laws of Manu, V. 60; Mitakchara, Orianne's trans., p. 213. ^ Gains, I. 156; III 10. Ulpian, 26. Institutes of Tustiniany III. 2; HI. 5.