The Ancient City: A Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Illustrated)

The Roman state ( civitas Romana) was not enlarged by conquests; it never included any families except those that figured in the religious ceremony of the census.

When this formula was pronounced between two men, it established between them a legal obligation. Where there was no formula, the obligation did not exist.

She must abandon the paternal fire, and henceforth invoke that of the husband. She must abandon her religion, practice other rites, and pronounce other prayers. She must give up the god of her infancy, and put herself under the protection of a god whom she knows not. Let her not hope to remain faithful to the one while honoring the other; for in th

There is a festival for seed-time, one for the harvest, and one for the pruning of the vines. Before corn has reached the ear, the Roman has offered more than ten sacrifices, and inyoked some ten divinities for the success of his harvest. He has, above all, a multitude of festivals for the dead, because he is afraid of them. He never leaves his own

The Twelve Tables threw aside those old principles; they treated property as belonging, not to the gens, to the individual; they therefore recognized in man the right of disposing of his property by will.

There were still classes, but men were no longer distinguished except by wealth.

From these precise memorials and traditions, which Athens preserved so religiously, there seem to us to be two truths equally manifest: the one is, that the city was a confederation of groups that had been established before it; and the other is, that society developed only so fast as religion enlarged its sphere. We cannot, indeed, say that religi

The principle upon which the governments of cities were founded thenceforth was public interest.

The family, even, is almost suppressed, that it may not come into competition with the city: the state is the only proprietor; it alone is free: the state alone has a will; only the state has a religion and a belief, and whoever does not believe with it must perish.