1909-] CARTER— EVOLUTION OF THE CITY OF ROME. 131 



Quirinal,^ but out of the ruins of our tradition Romulus, Remus 

 and the wolf arise. Thus it is that we are still presenting the 

 subject according to the scheme and phraseology of Varro, though 

 there is scarcely any other part of Varro's learning which we ac- 

 cept unhesitatingly. 



In the first place our study of Roman religion and its coordina- 

 tion with the study of the primitive religions of today have shown 

 us that, down to the dawn of history, the inhabitants of the region 

 of Rome were a semi-barbarous people. Their religion was still 

 involved in animism. They felt themselves surrounded by a count- 

 less host of potentialities, whose names they knew, but of whose 

 nature they were otherwise ignorant, except in so far as that 

 nature externalized itself in definite acts.* Their religious organi- 

 zation shows that this primitive people was divided, as its most 

 original division, into curiae or brotherhoods, and that every mem- 

 ber of the community must of necessity belong to one of these 

 curiae.^ Their religion shows us further that their interests were 

 agricultural.*^ 



Further we know that they lived in little communities on the 

 hilltops surrounded by a circular wall or stockade. Such a primi- 

 tive settlement was certainly not a city — an urbs. At best it might 

 be dignified by being called a town, an oppidum.'^ 



The geological character of the campagna, the presence of vast 



^ See below, and also "Roma Quadrata and Septimontium," American 

 Journal of Archccology, 1908, p. 181. 



*See Wissowa : "Religion und Kultus der Roemer," p. 20, " Sammtliche 

 Gottheiten sind sozusagen rein praktisch gedacht als wirksam in all 

 denjenigen Dingen, mit denen der Roemer im Gange des gewohnlichern 

 Lebens zu thun hat " ; and Carter, " Religion of Numa," p. 5 ff. 



°If we accept the theory that matriarchy existed in Rome before the 

 institution of the patriarchal system, we are virtually driven to consider the 

 Curiae as preceding the family. For an excellent discussion of the Curias^ 

 cp. Eduard Meyer, " Geschichte des Altertums," Vol. II., p. 511 ff. 



" Cp. the table of gods for this early period, as reconstructed by 

 Mommsen, " Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum," Vol. I., Part i, ed 2, p. 288, 

 or by Wissowa, " Religion und Kultus, " p. 18 and cp. p. 20 : " es spiegeln sich 

 in ihr (der alten Gotterordnung) die Interessen einer in Ackerbau und 

 Viehzucht . . . lebenden Gemeinde." 



' Cp. the investigations of E. Kornemann, " Polls und Urbs," in " Klio 

 Beitriige zur alten Geschichte," 1905, p. 72 ff. 



