430 THE PRIMEVAL TOWN. 



been, described ; tben the army became a nation, and 

 the camp a town. In other cases the tribes, being 

 weaker than their neighbours, were compelled for their 

 mutual protection to draw together into towns, and to 

 fortify themselves with walls. 



In its original condition the town was a federation. 

 Each family was a little kingdom in itself, inhabiting 

 a fortified cluster of dwellings, having its own domestic 

 religion, governed by its own laws. The paterfamilias 

 was king and priest ; he could put to death any member 

 of his family. There was little distinction between 

 the wives, the sons, the daughters, on the one 

 hand, and the slaves, the oxen, and the sheep on the 

 other. These Family Fathers assembled in council, 

 and passed laws for their mutual convenience and pro- 

 tection. Yet these laws were not national ; they 

 resembled treaties between foreign states ; and two 

 Houses would frequently go to war and fight pitched 

 battles in the streets without any interference from the 

 commonwealth at large. If the town progressed in 

 power and intelligence, the advantages of centraliz- 

 ation were perceived by all ; the Fathers were induced 

 to emancipate their children, and to delegate their 

 royal power to a senate or a king ; each man was 

 responsible for his own actions, and for them alone ; 

 individualism was established. This important re- 

 volution which, as we have elsewhere shown, tends to 

 produce the religious theory of rewards and punish- 

 ments in a future state, was itself in part produced by 

 the influence and teaching of the priests. 



Besides the worship of the ancestral shades the 

 ancient people adored the great deities of nature who 

 governed the woods and the waters, the earth and the 

 sky. When men died, it was supposed that they had 



