Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/94

 88 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. European race. It existed among the Hindus at a very early date, and the sacred ceremonies of the boundaries had among them a great analogy with those which Siculus Flaccus has described lor Italy.' Before the foundation of Rome, we find the Terminus among the Sabines;* we also find it among the Etruscans. The Hellenes, too, had sacred landmarks, which they called The Terminus once established according to the re- quired rites, there was no power on earth that could displace it. It was to remain in ihe same place through all ages. This religious principle was expressed at Rome by a legend : Jujiiter, having wished to i)repare himself a site on the Capitoline hill for a temple, could not displace the god Terminus. This old tradition shows how sacred property had become ; for the im- movable Terminus signified nothing less than inviolable property. In fact, the Terminus guarded the limit of the field, and watched over it. A neighbor dared not approach too near it: "For then," says Ovid, "the god, who felt himself struck by the ploughshare, or mattock, cried, ' Stop : this is my field ; there is yours.' " * To encroach upon the field of a family, it was necessary to overturn or displace a boundary mark, and this boundary mark was a god. The saciilege was horrible, and the chas- tisment severe. According to the old Roman law, the man and the oxen who touched a Terminus were devoted* — that is to say, both man and oxen were ' Laws of Manu, VIII. 245. Vriliaspati, cited by Sice, Hindu Legislation, p. 159. « Varro. L. L., V. 74. ^ Pollux, IX. 9. HesycLius, o(jos. Plato, Laws, p. 842. •• Ovid, Fast., II. f)77.
 * Festus, V. Terminus.