Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/177

Rh of the once living reality. The chief result of such a view (as we may here mention by way of anticipation) may be summed up in saying that fewer traces comparatively of the primitive state of things have been preserved in the case of the Italians and the Romans in particular than in the case of any other Indo-Germanic race. The bow and arrow, the war-chariot, the incapacity of women to hold property, the acquiring of wives by purchase, the primitive form of burial, human sacrifices, blood-revenge, the clan-constitution conflicting with the authority of the community, a lively natural symbolism—all these, and numerous phenomena of a kindred character, must be presumed to have lain at the foundation of civilization in Italy as well as elsewhere; but at the epoch when that civilization comes clearly into view they have wholly disappeared, and it is only the comparison of kindred races which informs us that such things once existed. In this respect Italian history begins at a far later stage of civilization than, e. g. the Greek or the Germanic, and from the first it exhibits a comparatively modern character.

The laws of most of the Italian stocks are lost in oblivion. Some information regarding the law of the Latin land alone has survived in Roman tradition.

All jurisdiction was vested in the community, or in other words, in the king, who administered justice or "command" (jus), on "days lawful for utterance" (dies fasti), at the "judgment platform" (tribunal) in the place of public assembly, sitting on a "chariot-seat" (sella currulis); at his side stood his "messengers" (lictores), and before him the person accused, or the "parties" (rei). In the case of slaves the right of decision lay immediately with the master, and in the case of women with the father, husband, or nearest male relative (P. 60); but slaves and women were not reckoned as being properly members of the community. Over sons and grandsons who were in potestate the power of the pater familias subsisted concurrently with the royal jurisdiction; that power, however, was not a jurisdiction in the proper