Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/46

26 ment of Greece the clan maintained itself as a corporate power, in contradistinction to that of the state, far even into historical times, the state in Italy made its appearance at once in complete efficiency, inasmuch as, in presence of its authority, the clans were neutralized, and it exhibited a community, not of clans, but of citizens. Conversely, again, the individual attained, relatively to the clan, an inward independence and freedom of personal development far earlier and more completely in Greece than in Rome—a fact reflected with great clearness in the Greek and Roman proper names, which, originally similar, came to assume very different forms. In the more ancient Greek names, the name of the clan was very frequently added in an adjective form to that of the individual; while, conversely, Roman scholars were aware that their ancestors bore originally only one name, the later . But while in Greece the adjective name of the clan early disappeared, it became, among the Italians generally and not merely among the Romans, the principal name; and the distinctive individual name, the prænomen, became subordinate. It seems as if the small and ever diminishing number and the meaningless character of the Italian, and particularly of the Roman, individual names, compared with the luxuriant and poetical fulness of those of the Greeks, were intended to illustrate the truth that it was characteristic of the one nation to reduce all features of distinctive personality to an uniform level, of the other freely to promote their development.

The association in communities of families under patriarchal chiefs, which we may conceive to have prevailed in the Græco-Italian period, may appear different enough from the later forms of Italian and Hellenic polities; yet it must have already contained the germs out of which the future laws of both nations were moulded. The "laws of King Italus," which were still applied in the time of Aristotle, may denote such institutions essentially common to both. These laws must have provided for the maintenance of peace and the execution of justice within the community, for military organization and martial law in reference to its external relations, for its government by a patriarchal chief, for a council of elders, for assemblies of the freemen capable of bearing arms, and for some sort of constitution. Judicial procedure (crimen, 🇬🇷), expiation (pœna, 🇬🇷), retalia-