Principles of western civilisation

VI THE ASCENDENCY OF THE PRESENT 167

to a comparatively late period in Roman history we may trace both these ideas surviving, however degraded the form under which they have come to exist. Looking back over that history, it may be said of the Romans, in words used by Professor Dill in speaking of the idealised genius of the Latin peoples in the last days of the Western empire, “In every step of that marvellous career the ancient gods had been their partners. The forms of its ancestral religion were inextricably intertwined with the whole fabric of the State. Imbedded in law, language, literature, the deepest instincts of the people, her ancient worship seemed inseparable from the very identity of Rome. The true Roman, even though his religious faith might not be very deep or warm, inherited the most ancient belief of his race that the gods of a city were sharers in all its fortunes.” The same ideas are always in evidence throughout Greek history. In Athens, says Mr. Seebohm, “the actual similarity of the sentiment which surrounded the possession of the privileges of tribal blood and the title to citizenship can hardly be exaggerated.”* Throughout the Greek States the bond of citizenship was everywhere regarded as one possessing deep religious significance,—this significance, we may distinguish, being always accepted as resting on a supposed blood relationship, ‘‘the citizen inheriting

Theseus must needs, as Bacchylides’ pzean shows it, prove himself Poseidon’s son. The gods were, as ancestors, dignified to be the citizens of honour in the State. That was what made the State and gave itits dignity. It was a fraternity in which great immortals, known as gods, were members” (A/exander the Great, by B. 1. Wheeler, Professor of Greek, Cornell University).

1 Roman Soctety in the last Century of the Western Empire, by Samuel Dill, i. c. i.

2 The Structure of Greek Tribal Society, by Hugh E. Seebohm, p. 138.