Sublime

One loved his country only as much as he loved the form of government that prevailed there for the moment; and he who found its laws bad had no longer anything to attach him to it.

There were distinguished, first, the allies, who had a government and laws of their own, and no legal bond with Roman citizens; second, the colonies, which enjoyed the civil rights of the Romans, without having political rights; third, the cities of the Italian right, — that is to say, those to whom, by the favor of Rome, the complete right of prop

A result of these old religious rules was, that a community of property was never established among the ancients.

By this means Servius introduced an entirely new principle into Roman society; wealth began to indicate rank, as religion had done before.

They were never revealed to strangers. To reveal a rite, or a formula, would have been to betray the religion of the city, and to deliver its gods to the enemy. For greater precaution they were concealed from the citizens themselves, and the priests alone were allowed to know them. In the minds of the people, all that was ancient was venerable and

The constitutional rules of this monarchy were very simple; it was not necessary to seek long for them; they flowed from the rules of the worship themselves. The founder, who had established the sacred fire, was naturally the first priest. Hereditary succession was the constant rule, in the beginning, for the transmission of this worship. Whether t

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.

Numa is said to have established, more or less single-handedly, the structure of official Roman religion, and religious institutions that left their mark, and their names, well beyond the limits of this book. In fact, the official title of the Catholic popes even now – pontifex, or ‘pontiff’ – derives or was borrowed from the title of one of the pr

In ancient times men knew of no other union than that which religion established.