Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/84

 7c THE FAMILY. BOOK I!. There are three tilings Avhich, from the most ancient times, we find founded and solidly established in these Greek and Italian societies: the domestic religion; the family; and the right of property — three things which had in the beginning a manifest relation, and which appear to have been inseparable. The idea of private property existed in the religion itself. Every family had its hearth and its ancestors. These gods could be adored only by this family, and protected it alone. They were its property. Now, between these gods and the soil, men of the early ages saw a mysterious relation. Let us first take the hearth. This altar is the symbol of a sedentary liiie ; its name indicates this.' It must be placed upon the ground ; once established, it cannot be moved. The god of the family wishes to have a fixed abode ; materially, it is difficult to transport the stone on which he shines; religiously, this is more difficult still, and is permitted to a man only when hard necessity presses him, when an enemy is pursuing him, or when the soil cannot support him. When they establish the hearth, it is with the thought and hope that it will always remain in the same spot. The god is installed there not for a day, not for the life of one man merely, but for as long a time as this family shall en- dure, and there remains any one to support its fire by sacrifices. Thus the sacred fire takes possession of the soil, and makes it its own. It is the god's property. And the family, which through duty and religion remains grouped around its altar, is as much fixed to the soil as the altar itself. The idea of domicile follows ' 'EoTia, 'iartifii, stare. See Plutarch, De primo Jrigido, 21 j Macrob., I. 23; Ovid, Fast., VI. 299.