304 On some Curiosities and Statistics of ParisJi Registers. 



bringing together the citizens in their primitive unions of family^ &c. 

 . . . marriages were then enrolled^ and acts of adoption certified." 

 This enrolment took place either immediately after birth, or at the 

 age o£ three or four years — very rarely later than the seventh year. 

 There was a subsequent registration in the lexiarchic list which took 

 place at the age of twenty, and which was necessary for the full 

 enjoyment of the rights of citizenship : but this is perhaps less cog- 

 nate with our subject. (See the voyage du jeune Anacharsis, 

 chapter 26, for a most interesting account of both these festivities 

 and comp. also Schomann, Comit. Athen. 379.) 



With regard to the Egyptians I can find no distinct account of 

 anything in the nature of general registration, though from the 

 statements of the priests recorded by Herodotus in his Book II., it is 

 evident that very careful lists and memorials were preserved of per- 

 sons who had occupied any official position or dignity. See Herod. 

 II., 100, 142, 143. 



With the Komans we come upon firmer ground. From the time 

 of Servius Tullius the people had been accustomed to a quinquennial 

 enumeration at which their names and ages, together with those of 

 their wives and children were taken down and inscribed in the Acta 

 Publica, the ceremony being concluded with the great purificatory 

 sacrifice in the Campus Martius called the Lustrum. (The lustrum 

 was sometimes, though rarely, omitted. See Livy, iii., 22.) This 

 enumeration, was made, first by the kings, then by the consuls, and 

 after the year 310 by persons called censors, who were appointed for 

 that purpose. (Adam's Rom. Antiq. sub " Comitia") The object of 

 this census however seems to have been more fiscal than statistical, 

 and in the corresponding festival of the Paganalia (Dionys. iv., 15) 

 in the country villages (which was held every year) I can find no 

 mention of a record of either names or numbers being kept : nor do 

 I see anything about any notice taken of deaths, except that the 

 writer before named (Dionys., iv., 791) says that for eveiy person 

 that died a piece of money had to be paid to Venus Libitina. It was 

 not until the time of Marcus Aurelius, (one of the wisest statesmen 

 that ever occupied the Imperial throne,) that we meet with what we 

 may describe as a fully -developed system of registration throughout 



