By the Eev. W. C. Tlenderleath. 303 



And first with regard to the origin of registers. Now some sort 

 of system of general registration appears to have existed from the 

 very earliest period among almost all civilized nations. And by 

 general registration I mean such a system as would include, if not 

 the whole, yet at any rate the main part, of the nation (with the 

 exception ©£ the proletarian class), independantly of any profession 

 or official position. In the third chapter of the book of Nehemiah, 

 V. 5, the prophet mentions his having "found a register of the 

 genealogy of them which came up " out of the captivity. And that 

 this register had been carefully kept, and was supposed to be an 

 exhaustive one, we may gather from his subsequent statement, 

 with regard to certain persons who claimed to belong to the priestly 

 family, that " These sought their register among those that were 

 reckoned by genealogy, but it was not found, therefore were they, 

 as polluted, put from the priesthood.'^ Ibid, v. 64. 



Among the Greeks an almost perfect system o£ registration ex- 

 isted in connexion with the Apaturian festival, the origin of which 

 is placed by Baehr as early as B.C. 1190. This festival was held 

 at Athens in the autumn of every year, and lasted three days, the 

 third day being devoted to the enrolment of the children of citizens, 

 who were there registered each in the phratry of his father.^ See 

 Schol. Ar. Pac. 890. Nor was this observance confined to Athens. 

 Herodotus says that it was common to the whole Ionian nation with 

 the exception of the inhabitants of the cities who had given up the 

 celebration "on mere pretence of a murder." (Herod, i., 147.) 

 And Grote says " It was the characteristic festival of the Ionic race. 



* Potter in his " Archseologia Grseca," (i., 369,) gives two derivations for the 

 name of this festival, either of which would oonDect it with the ceremony of 

 registration. They do not however, I admit, appear to me to be very probable. 

 " Apaturia, quasi apatoria i.e., homopatoria, because upon this festival children 

 accompanied their fathers, to have their names entered into the publick register. 



. . . . Others will have Apaturia to be so named, because the children 

 were till that time apatores, t.e., without fathers, in a civil sense; for that it 

 was not till then publickly recorded whose they were. For a like reason, 

 Melohisedec is by some thought to be called apator, ametor, i.e., without 

 father, without mother ; viz : because his parentage was omitted in the sacred 

 genealogies." 



