Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/70

46 fame of some holy place, where a deity was worshipped whose protecting power was notorious, would assist in the union of village communities. "The forming," says Duncker, "of the agricultural communities around the Cecropia (i.e. the later Acropolis) under the protection of Athena, around Eleusis under the protection of Demeter, and the community of shepherds in the South under the protection of Pallas, is the oldest known fact in Attic history." And indeed, wherever we turn in Greek or Italian history, we find that all unions of communities, small and great, are invariably held together by the bond of a common worship, a special devotion to some protecting deity, or combination of deities. For, as De Coulanges has well said, it is only a belief which could overcome the immense difficulty which men felt in giving up old habits and small liberties for the restrictions and discipline of a more highly-organised life; a belief, we may add, not destitute of reason, but based on the actual necessities of life, which themselves suggested union, while religion made it practicable.

Before we turn to examine one or two examples of this process of union, one question seems to call for such an answer as we may be able to find for it. Have we any evidence which will enable us to fix with any kind of certainty the period during which the City-State came into existence? As regards Italy, it may be said at once that we have no such evidence. The traditional date of the foundation