Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/93

III law. The king is indeed the representative of the community in all its most important relations with gods and with men. He knows how to propitiate the gods worshipped by the community, who have given him the by which he rules. He knows how to make war and to make peace, how to receive the guest and the fugitive according to the customs of the people and the will of Zeus. But his duties are neither constant nor defined; and this must be borne in mind if, for convenience' sake, we examine them briefly in the triple form in which they are usually presented.

The King as Sacrificer. — When we find Agamemnon sacrificing for the whole host, we are naturally inclined to ask, Where is the priest? And here we have to learn, once and for all, that there was no such distinction in antiquity between magistrate and priest as our modern ideas would lead us to imagine. As every father of a family was the sacrificer for his own household, so was every king a sacrificer on behalf of his people. Sacrifice was the most universal and efficacious act of early religion; it was matter of daily performance, and nothing could be undertaken without it. Whoever was in authority must be able to perform it