But he arranged so that the kings were thenceforth subordinate to the senate in whatever concerned the government, and that they were no longer anything more than presidents of this assembly, and the executors of its decrees.

First, the child is admitted into the family by the religious ceremony, which takes place six days after his birth. Some years later he enters the phratry by a new ceremony, which we have already described. Finally, at the age of sixteen or eighteen, he is presented for admission into the city. On that day, in the presence of an altar, and before

Neither interest, nor agreement, nor habit creates the social bond; it is this holy communion piously accomplished in the presence of the gods of the city.

But when a family consented thus to share its god, it retained at least the priesthood. We may remark that the dignity of priest, for each god, was during a long time hereditary, and could not go out of a certain family.248 This is a vestige of a time when the god himself was the property of this family; when he protected it alone, and would be

As they had not the belief on which it was founded, this law appeared to them to be without foundation.

This was the opinion which a Greek expressed to Flaminius. “In your country,” said he, “riches alone govern, and all else is submissive to it.”625

In the second place men were distributed in the tribes and demes, not according to birth, as formerly, but according to their locality. Birth was of no account; men were equal, and privileges were no longer known.

The fire ceased to glow upon the altar only when the entire family had perished; an extinguished hearth, an extinguished family, were synonymous expressions among the ancients.30

The earliest opinion of these ancient generations was, that man lived in the tomb, that the soul did not leave the body, and that it remained fixed to that portion of ground where the bones lay buried. Besides, man had no account to render of his past life.