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fraying the difference of expense from the treasury of the state, was at length, by the ambition of those who aspired to be the masters of the republic, converted into a matter of right*.

But it was only the condition of being a free citizen of Sparta, that could introduce him to the common table of the state; and at Athens or at Rome, that could entitle him to his share of the distribution of the public property; and the same minuteness and accuracy of proof which are now required in parochial settlements, were expected from the Athenian and the Roman, who in virtue of this citizenship demanded the brass tabula, Tivaniov, or the tessera, which was their ticket of claim to the established pay from the public revenues, or to the regular distribution of corn, transmitted to the voracious capital from the fairest and most fertile of its subjected provinces.

Previous, however, to this settled arrangement for the relief of indigence, afterwards concurrent, and in some degree combined with it, there had existed, and still continued to exist, a practice,

in dies singulos ex ærario obolum unum ; vel ut alii duos acciperent, alii drachmas novem in mensem, id est, obolos quinquaginta quatuor accepisse tradunt. . . . ...... et a Suidæ verbis observandum nullum in eorum numerum receptum fuisse nisi approbante senatu."

* Vincentius Contarenus de Frumentaria Roman. Largitione, apud Grævium, c. 6.-" De iis quibus dabatur publicum fru

mentum."

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which in earlier ages might be denominated migration, and in subsequent ages colonization. Infanticide was then, as it still is in savage nations, the mode adopted to keep down increasing population*; and this custom, barbarous and revolting as it is to the feelings of humanity, was of very great antiquity, and even from necessity sanctified by the precepts of superstition, which converted it into a religious ceremony. This rite was called by an almost untranslatable metaphor," the consecrated season of the spring," ver sacrum; and it consisted in offering to the Gods in the spring of the year, in which there had been any great pressure of famine, part of the produce of the year, both human, animal, and vegetable. But nature soon prevailed; and instead of the immolation of helpless infancy, the children born in that year were set apart as consecrated to some divinity, and preserved until they arrived to adult and robust youth; and then, having been provided with arms at the expense of the parent state, were sent forth into foreign lands to seek for themselves territory and subsistence. The high antiquity of this custom is testified by a Greek author, in a passage which is too curious to be here omitted: "In these regions the Aborigines, after the ex* See Humboldt, Personal Narrative, (English translation) vol. v. p. 28. † Strabo, edit, Oxon. p. 359. Dionys. Halicar. Ant. Rom. lib. i.

pulsion of the Umbri, are reported to have made their first settlement. Proceeding from hence, they carried on war for possession of the land, both with the other barbarians, and chiefly with the Siceli, whose territories were adjacent. At first, indeed, a body of young men consecrated to the Gods (iega TIS VEOTNS) went forth, consisting of a few sent out by their parents in quest of sustenance, in conformity with an ancient custom, which I know was in use both among the barbarians and Greeks. For when the cities of any people happened to receive any considerable increase of population, so as to render the domestic supplies of food no longer sufficient for the whole people; or when the land, damaged by the vicissitudes of weather, bore the accustomed produce in too scanty proportion; or when any other circumstance happening to the states, either of a prosperous or adverse nature, imposed a necessity of diminishing their number;-they then dedicated to some deity a part of the population born within a certain year, and having furnished them with arms, dismissed them from their country. If, on the one hand, they rendered to the Gods tributes of gratitude for their flourishing population, or for success of war, they then, after the performance of the usual religious ceremonies, conducted out the colonists with favourable omens: but if, on the other hand, they intreated

the offended Gods for a release from the evils which oppressed them, they acted in a similar manner, excepting that they did so with expressions of sorrow, and with requests for forgiveness from those whom they expelled. As to the emigrating party, since they were no longer to have any interest in their paternal land,—in case they found no other to receive them, they secured to themselves a country, either by amicable means, or by conquest in war; and the God to whom, when expelled, they had been consecrated, appeared generally to assist them, and to prosper the colonies beyond human expectation. Some of the Aborigines, then, acted at that time according to this custom, because their land superabounded in population: for they would not put to death any of their progeny, deeming this a crime of the first magnitude (αγος ουδενός ελαττον) ; but having dedicated to some deity the offspring of the year, they expatriated their sons when grown up to manhood; and these, after having left their own country, continued to plunder the Siceli*"

The superstition remained until the time of the Romans, and was had recourse to by that people in its milder form, as a means of appeasing the

* Messieurs Boivin and Couteure (Mémoires de l'Academie de Belles Lettres, vol. iii. p.86.) adopted two opposite opinions on the meaning of the words "ver sacrum." They were, as not unfrequently happens, both wrong and both right. One custom was, as we see above, commuted for another, and the last re

anger of the Gods in times of danger and calamity. But the modes of colonization pursued by the Greeks and Romans differed much from each other. The superfluous population of the Greek states were simply dismissed from their homes, as the Greek word aronia implies;-"The world was all before them where to choose ;"-and it may even be doubted whether the claims of the mother country extended beyond some superstitious forms of acknowledgment, which did not include the supply of tribute, either in corn or money*. To receive tribute from their numerous colonies, towards the direct subsistence of the sovereign people, certainly does not appear to have been the custom in Athens: the revenues of their subject states were applied to maintain their foreign dominion, or reserved for the peculation of the rich; and only indirectly, through the confiscation of their property, or through the forced appropriations of it to public festivals or sacrifices, did the people at large participate in them.

The comic poet has however shown, that a more direct application would not have been unacceptable. "A thousand cities," says one of the tained the name of the first. Justin uses ver sacrum as synonymous with colony, (lib. 24. c. 14.) " Namque Galli abundante multitudine, cum eos non caperent terræ quæ genuerant, trecenta millia hominum ad sedes novas quærendas, quasi ver sacrum miserunt."

* Xenophon, Anabasis, 1. 5. c. 5.

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