Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/81

 <;HAP. v. of ROMAN AGNATIOX. 75 This man, who, according to our modern customs, would be nearest rehited to Scipio ^niilianus, was not related to him in the remotest degree. It was of small account, indeed, for Tiberius that he was the son of Cornelia, the daugliter of the Scipios. Neither he nor Cornelia herself belonged to that family, in a religious point of view. He has no other ancestors than the Sempronii; it is to them that he offers the funeral re- past ; in ascending the series of his ancestors he never comes to a Scipio. Scipio JErailianus and Tiberius Gracchus, therefore, are not agnates. The tie of blood does not suffice to establish this relationship; a com- mon worship is necessary. We can now understand why, in the eyes of the Roman law, two consanguineous brothers were agnates, while two uterine brothers were not. Still we cannot say that descent by males was the immutable principle on which relationship was founded. It was not by birth, it was by worship alone, that the agnates were jecognized. The son whom emancipation had detached from the worship was no longer the agnate of his father. The stranger who had been adopted, that is to say, who had been admitted to the worship, became the agnate of the one adopting him, and even of the whole family. So true is it that it was religion that established relationship. There came a time, indeed, for India and Greece, as well as for Rome, when relationship of worship was no longer the only kind admitted. By degrees, as this old religion lost its hold, the voice of blood spoke louder, and the relationship of birth was recognized in law. The Ro- mans gave the name of coffnatio to this sort of relation- ship, which was absolutely independent of the I'ules of the domestic religion. When we read the jurists