[197] The histories of Spanish America may be trusted in whatever relates to the acts of the Spaniards, and to the acts and personal characteristics of the Indians; in whatever relates to their weapons, implements and utensils, fabrics, food and raiment, and things of a similar character. But in whatever relates to Indian society and government, their social relations, and plan of life, they are nearly worthless, because they learned nothing and knew nothing of either. We are at full liberty to reject them in these respects and commence anew; using any facts they may contain which harmonize with what is known of Indian society.

[198] The Natural and Moral History of the East and West Indies, Lond. ed., 1604, Grimstone’s Trans., pp. 497-504.

[199] The Natural and Moral History of the East and West Indies, p. 499.

[200] General History of America, Lond. ed., 1725, Stevens’ Trans., iii, 188.

[201] History of Mexico, Philadelphia ed., 1817, Cullen’s Trans., i, 119.

[202] Herrera, Hist. of Amer., iii, 110.

[203] History of Mexico, loc. cit., i, 162.

[204] Clavigero, Hist. of Mex., i, 229: Herrera, iii, 312: Prescott, Conq. of Mex., i, 18.

[205] The Aztecs, like the Northern Indians, neither exchanged or released prisoners. Among the latter the stake was the doom of the captive unless saved by adoption; but among the former, under the teachings of the priesthood, the unfortunate captive was offered as a sacrifice to the principal god they worshiped. To utilize the life of the prisoner in the service of the gods, a life forfeited by the immemorial usages of savages and barbarians, was the high conception of the first hierarchy in the order of institutions. An organized priesthood first appeared among the American aborigines in the Middle Status of barbarism; and it stands connected with the invention of idols and human sacrifices, as a means of acquiring authority over mankind through the religious sentiments. It probably has a similar history in the principal tribes of mankind. Three successive usages with respect to captives appeared in the three sub-periods of barbarism. In the first he was burned at the stake, in the second he was sacrificed to the gods, and in the third he was made a slave. All alike they proceeded upon the principle that the life of the prisoner was forfeited to his captor. This principle became so deeply seated in the human mind that civilization and Christianity combined were required for its displacement.

[206] There is some difference in the estimates of the population of Mexico found in the Spanish histories; but several of them concurred in the number of houses, which, strange to say, is placed at sixty thousand. Zuazo, who visited Mexico in 1521, wrote sixty thousand inhabitants (Prescott, Conq. of Mex., ii, 112, note); the Anonymous Conqueror, who accompanied Cortes also wrote sixty thousand inhabitants, “soixante mille habitans” (H. Ternaux-Compans, x, 92); but Gomora and Martyr wrote sixty thousand houses, and this estimate has been adopted by Clavigero (Hist. of Mex., ii, 360), by Herrera (Hist. of Amer., ii, 360), and by Prescott (Conq. of Mex., ii, 112). Solis says sixty thousand families (Hist. Conq. of Mex., l. c., i, 393). This estimate would give a population of 300,000, although London at that time contained but 145,000 inhabitants (Black’s London, p. 5). Finally, Torquemada, cited by Clavigero (ii, 360, note), boldly writes one hundred and twenty thousand houses. There can scarcely be a doubt that the houses in this pueblo were in general large communal, or joint-tenement houses, like those in New Mexico of the same period, large enough to accommodate from ten to fifty and a hundred families in each. At either number the mistake is egregious. Zuazo and the Anonymous Conqueror came the nearest to a respectable estimate, because they did not much more than double the probable number.

[207] League of the Iroquois, p. 78.

[208] Herrera, iii, 194, 209.

[209] Herrera, ii, 279, 304: Clavigero, i, 146.

[210] Clavigero, i, 147; The four war-chiefs were ex officio members of the Council. Ib., ii, 137.

[211] Herrera, ii, 310.

[212] Herrera, iii, 194.

[213] Cronica Mexicana, De Fernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc, ch. li, p. 83, Kingsborough, v, ix.

[214] History of Mexico, ii, 141.

[215] History of America, iii, 314. The above is a retranslation by Mr. Bandelier from the Spanish text.

[216] Popol Vuh, Intro. p. 117, note 2.

[217] History of the Indies of New Spain and Islands of the Main Land, Mexico, 1867. Ed. by Jose F. Ramirez, p. 102. Published from the original MS. Translated by Mr. Bandelier.

[218] The Natural and Moral History of the East and West Indies, Lond. ed., 1604, Grimstone’s Trans., p. 485.

[219] History of America, iii, 224.

[220] Cronica Mexicana, cap. xcvii, Bandelier’s Trans.

[221] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chichimeca, Kingsborough, Mex. Antiq. ix, p. 243.

[222] History of Mexico, ii, 132.

[223] “The title of Teuctli was added in the manner of a surname to the proper name of the person advanced to this dignity, as Chichimeca-Teuctli, Pil-Teuctli, and others. The Teuctli took precedency of all others in the senate, both in the order of sitting and voting, and were permitted to have a servant behind them with a seat, which was esteemed a privilege of the highest honor.”—Clavigero, ii, 137. This is a re-appearance of the sub-sachem of the Iroquois behind his principal.

[224] Historia Chichimeca, ch. xxxii, Kingsborough: Mex. Antiq., ix, 219.

[225] History of Mexico, l. c., ii, 136.

[226] Clavigero, ii, 126.

[227] Historia General, ch. xviii.

[228] In the West India Islands the Spaniards discovered that when they captured the cacique of a tribe and held him a prisoner, the Indians became demoralized and refused to fight. Taking advantage of this knowledge when they reached the main-land they made it a point to entrap the principal chief, by force or fraud, and hold him a prisoner until their object was gained. Cortes simply acted upon this experience when he captured Montezuma and held him a prisoner in his quarters; and Pizaarro did the same when he seized Atahuallpa. Under Indian customs the prisoner was put to death, and if a principal chief, the office reverted to the tribe and was at once filled. But in these cases the prisoner remained alive, and in possession of his office, so that it could not be filled. The action of the people was paralyzed by novel circumstances. Cortes put the Aztecs in this position.

[229] History of Mexico, iii, 66.

[230] Ib., iii, 67.

[231] Clavigero, ii, 406

[232] Ib., ii, 404.

[233] Herrera, iii, 393.

[234] The phratries were not common to the Dorian tribes.—Müller’s Dorians, Tufnel and Law’s Trans., Oxford ed., ii, 82.

[235] Hermann mentions the confederacies of Ægina, Athens, Prasia, Nauplia, etc.—Political Antiquities of Greece, Oxford Trans., ch. i, s. 11.

[236] “In the ancient Rhetra of Lycurgus, the tribes and obês are directed to be maintained unaltered: but the statement of O. Müller and Boeckh—that there were thirty obês in all, ten to each tribe,—rests upon no higher evidence than a peculiar punctuation in this Rhetra, which various other critics reject; and seemingly with good reason. We are thus left without any information respecting the obê, though we know that it was an old peculiar and lasting division among the Spartan people.”—Grote’s History of Greece, Murray’s ed., ii, 362. But see Müller’s Dorians, l. c., ii, 80.

[238] History of Greece, iii, 53, et seq.

[239] History of Greece, iii, 60.

[240] Diogenes Laertius, Vit. Aristotle, v, 1.

[241] Political Antiquities of the Greeks, c. v, s. 100; and vide Eubulides of Demosthenes, 24.

[242] Historical Antiquities of the Greeks, Woolrych’s Trans., Oxford ed., 1837, i, 451.

[243] Political Antiquities, l. c., cap. v, s. 100.

[244] Charicles, Metcalfe’s Trans., Lond. ed., 1866, p. 477; citing Isaeus de Cir. her. 217: Demosthenes adv. Ebul., 1304: Plutarch, Themist., 32: Pausanias, i, 7, 1: Achill. Tat., i, 3.

[245] Hermann, l. c., v, s. 100 and 101.

[246] History of Greece, iii, 55.

[247] “We find the Asklepiadæ in many parts of Greece—the Aleuadæ in Thessaly—the Midylidæ, Psalychidæ, Belpsiadæ, Euxenidæ, at Aegina—the Branchidæ at Miletus—the Nebridæ at Kôs—the Iamidæ and Klytiadæ at Olympia—the Akestoridæ at Argos—the Kinyradæ at Cyprus—the Penthilidæ at Mitylene—the Talthybiadæ at Sparta—not less than the Kodridæ, Eumolpidæ, Phytalidæ, Lykomêdæ, Butadæ, Euneidæ, Hesychidæ, Brytiadæ, etc., in Attica. To each of these corresponded a mythical ancestor more or less known, and passing for the first father as well as the eponymous hero of the gens—Kodrus, Eumolpus, Butes, Phytalus, Hesychus, etc.”—Grote’s Hist. of Greece, iii, 62.

[248] History of Greece, iii, 62, et seq.

[249] Hist. of Greece, iii, 58, et seq.

[250] History of Greece, iii, 58.

[251] Wachsmuth’s Historical Antiquities of the Greeks, l. c., i, 449, app. for text.

[252] Iliad, ii, 362.

[253] Tacitus, Germania, cap. vii.

[254] Grote’s History of Greece, iii, 55. The Court of Areopagus took jurisdiction over homicides.—Ib., iii, 79.

[255] Ποία δε χέρνιψ φρατέρων προσδέξεται.—Eum., 656.

[256] The Ancient City, Small’s Trans., p. 157. Boston, Lee & Shepard.

[257] Aristotle, Thucydides, and other writers, use the term basileia (βασιλεία) for the governments of the heroic period.

[258] Ἑλληνικὸν δὲ ἄρα καὶ τοῦτο τὸ ἔθος ἦν. τοῖς γοῦν βασιλεῦσιν, ὅσοι τε πατρίους ἀρχὰς παραλάβοιεν καὶ ὅσους ἡ πληθὺς ἀυτὴ καταστήσαιτο ἡγεμόνας, βουλευτήριον ἦν ἐκ τῶν κρατίστων, ὡς Ὅμηρός τε καὶ οἱ παλαιότατοι τῶν ποιητῶν μαρτυροῦσι· καὶ οὐχ ὥσπερ ἐν τοῖς καθ' ἡμᾶς χρόνοις αὐθάδεις καὶ μονογνώμονες ἦσαν αἱ τῶν ἀρχαίων βασιλέων δυναστεῖαι.—Dionysius, 2, xii.

[260] Euripides, Orestes, 884.

[262] History of Greece, ii, 69.

[263] History of Greece, ii, 69, and Iliad, ii, 204.

[264] Mr. Gladstone, who presents to his readers the Grecian chiefs of the heroic age as kings and princes, with the superadded qualities of gentlemen, is forced to admit that “on the whole we seem to have the custom or law of primogeniture sufficiently, but not oversharply defined.”—Juventus Mundi, Little & Brown’s ed., p. 428.

The words in brackets are not found in several MS., for example, in the commentary of Eustasius.

[266] Smith’s Dic., Art. Rex, p. 991.

[267] Thucydides, i, 13.

βασιλείας μὲν οὖν εἴδη ταῦτα τέτταρα τὸν ἀριθμὸν, μία μὲν ἡ περὶ τοὺς ἡρωϊκοὺς χρόνους· αὕτη δ' ἦν ἑκόντων μέν, ἐπὶ τισὶ δ' ὡρισμένων· στρατηγὸς γὰρ ἦν καὶ δικαστὴς ὁ βασιλεὺς καὶ τῶν πρὸς θεοὺς κύριος. Δευτέρα δὲ ἡ βαρβαρικὴ αὕτη δ' ἐστὶν ἐκ γένους ἀρχὴ δεσποτικὴ κατὰ νόμον. Τρίτη δὲ ἣν αἰσυμνητίαν προσαγορεύουσιν· αὕτη δ' ἐστὶν αἱρετὴ τυραννίς. Τετάρτη δ' ἡ Λακωνικὴ τούτων· αὕτη δ' ἐστὶν, ὡς εἰπεῖν ἁπλῶς, στρατηγία κατὰ γένος ἀΐδιος.—Aristotle, Politics, iii, c. x.

[269] History of Greece, ii, 61, and see 69.

[270] Thucydides, lib. i, 2-13.

[271] Thucyd., lib. ii, c. 15. Plutarch speaks nearly to the same effect: “He settled all the inhabitants of Attica in Athens, and made them one people in one city, who before were scattered up and down, and could with difficulty be assembled on any urgent occasion for the public welfare.... Dissolving therefore the associations, the councils, and the courts in each particular town, he built one common prytaneum and court hall, where it stands to this day. The citadel with its dependencies, and the city or the old and new town, he united under the common name of Athens.”—Plutarch, Vit. Theseus, cap. 24.

[272] “Of the nine archons, whose number continued unaltered from 683 B. C. to the end of the democracy, three bore special titles—the Archon Eponymus, from whose name the designation of the year was derived, and who was spoken of as the Archon, the Archon Basileus (King), or more frequently, the Basileus; and the Polemarch. The remaining six passed by the general name of Thesmothetæ.... The Archon Eponymus determined all disputes relative to the family, the gentile, and the phratric relations: he was the legal protector of orphans and widows. The Archon Basileus (or King Archon) enjoyed competence in complaints respecting offenses against the religious sentiment and respecting homicide. The Polemarch (speaking of times anterior to Kleisthenês) was the leader of military force, and judge in disputes between citizens and non-citizens.”—Grote’s History of Greece, l. c., iii, 74.

[273] Public Economy of Athens, Lamb’s Trans., Little & Brown’s ed., p. 353.

[274] History of Greece, iii, 65.

[275] History of Greece, iii, 133.

[276] The Latin tribus = tribe, signified originally “a third part,” and was used to designate a third part of the people when composed of three tribes; but in course of time, after the Latin tribes were made local instead of consanguine, like the Athenian local tribes, the term tribe lost its numerical quality, and came, like the phylon of Cleisthenes to be a local designation.—Vide Mommsen’s Hist. of Rome, l. c., i, 71.

[277] Anglo Saxon Law, by Henry Adams and others, pp. 20, 23.

[278] See particularly the Orations against Eubulides, and Marcatus.

[279] Hermann’s Political Antiquities of Greece, l. c., p. 187, s. 96.

[280] “The primitive Grecian government is essentially monarchical, reposing on personal feeling and divine right.”—History of Greece, ii, 69.

[281] Sparta retained the office of basileus in the period of civilization. It was a dual generalship, and hereditary in a particular family. The powers of government were co-ordinated between the Gerousia or council, the popular assembly, the five ephors, and two military commanders. The ephors were elected annually, with powers analogous to the Roman tribunes. Royalty at Sparta needs qualification. The basileis commanded the army, and in their capacity of chief priests offered the sacrifices to the gods.

[282] “During the period when the Indo-Germanic nations which are now separated still formed one stock speaking the same language, they attained a certain stage of culture, and they had a vocabulary corresponding to it. This vocabulary the several nations carried along with them, in its conventionally established use, as a common dowry and a foundation for further structures of their own.... In this way we possess evidence of the development of pastoral life at that remote epoch in the unalterably fixed names of domestic animals; the Sanskrit gâus is the Latin bos, the Greek [βοῦς Greek: bous]; Sanskrit avis, is the Latin ovis, the Greek ὄϊς; Sanskrit açvas, Latin equus, Greek ἵππος; Sanskrit hañsas, Latin anser, Greek [χήν Greek: chên]; ... on the other hand, we have as yet no certain proofs of the existence of agriculture at this period. Language rather favors the negative view.”—Mommsen’s History of Rome, Dickson’s Trans., Scribner’s ed., 1871, i, 37. In a note he remarks that “barley, wheat, and spelt were found growing together in a wild state on the right bank of the Euphrates, northwest from Anah. The growth of barley and wheat in a wild state in Mesopotamia had already been mentioned by the Babylonian historian, Berosus.”

Fick remarks upon the same subject as follows: “While pasturage evidently formed the foundation of primitive social life we can find in it but very slight beginnings of agriculture. They were acquainted to be sure with a few of the grains, but the cultivation of these was carried on very incidentally in order to gain a supply of milk and flesh. The material existence of the people rested in no way upon agriculture. This becomes entirely clear from the small number of primitive words which have reference to agriculture. These words are yava, wild fruit, varka, hoe, or plow, rava, sickle, together with pio, pinsere [to bake] and mak, Gk. μάσσω, which give indications of threshing out and grinding of grain.”—Fick’s Primitive Unity of Indo-European Languages, Göttingen, 1873, p. 280. See also Chips From a German Workshop, ii, 42.

With reference to the possession of agriculture by the Graeco-Italic people, see Mommsen, i, p. 47, et seq.

[283] The use of the word Romulus, and of the names of his successors, does not involve the adoption of the ancient Roman traditions. These names personify the great movements which then took place with which we are chiefly concerned.

[284] History of Rome, l. c., i, 241, 245.

[285] Qui sint autem gentiles, primo commentario rettulimus; et cum illic admonuerimus, totum gentilicium jus in desuetudinem abisse, superuacuum est, hoc quoque loco de ea re curiosius tractare.—Inst., iii, 17.

[286] Gentiles sunt, qui inter se eodem nomine sunt. Non est satis. Qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt. Ne id quidem satis est. Quorum majorum nemo servitutem servivit. Abest etiam nunc. Qui capite non sunt deminuti. Hoc fortasse satis est. Nihil enim video Scaevolam, Pontificem, ad hanc definitionem addidisse.—Cicero, Topica 6.

[287] Gentilis dicitur et ex eodem genere ortus, et is qui simili nomine appellatur.—Quoted in Smith’s Dic. Gk. & Rom. Antiq., Article, Gens.

[288] The following is the text extended: Ut in hominibus quaedam sunt agnationes ac gentilitates, sic in verbis; ut enim ab Aemilio homines orti Aemilii, ac gentiles; sic ab Aemilii nomine declinatae voces in gentilitate nominali; ab eo enim, quod est impositum recto casu Aemilius, Aemilium, Aemilios, Aemiliorum; et sic reliqua, ejusdem quae sunt stirpes.—Varro, De Lingua Latina, lib. viii, cap. 4.

[289] Quid enim in re est aliud, si plebeiam patricius duxerit, si patriciam plebeius? Quid juris tandem mutatur? nempe patrem sequuntur liberi.—Livy, lib. iv, cap. 4.

[290] “When there was only one daughter in a family, she used to be called from the name of the gens; thus, Tullia, the daughter of Cicero, Julia, the daughter of Caesar; Octavia, the sister of Augustus, etc.; and they retained the same name after they were married. When there were two daughters, the one was called Major and the other Minor. If there were more than two, they were distinguished by their number: thus, Prima, Secunda, Tertia, Quarta, Quinta, etc.; or more softly, Tertulla, Quartilla, Quintilla, etc.... During the flourishing state of the republic, the names of the gentes, and surnames of the familiæ, always remained fixed and certain. They were common to all the children of the family, and descended to their posterity. But after the subversion of liberty they were changed and confounded.”—Adams’s Roman Antiquities, Glasgow ed., 1825, p. 27.

[291] Suetonius, Vit. Octavianus, c. 3 and 4.

[292] Gaius, Institutes, lib. iii, 1 and 2. The wife was a co-heiress with the children.

[293] Ib., lib. iii, 9.

[294] Gaius, Inst., lib. iii, 17.

[295] A singular question arose between the Marcelli and Claudii, two families of the Claudian gens, with respect to the estate of the son of a freedman of the Marcelli; the former claiming by right of family, and the latter by right of gens. The law of the Twelve Tables gave the estate of a freedman to his former master, who by the act of manumission became his patron, provided he died intestate, and without sui heredes; but it did not reach the case of the son of a freedman. The fact that the Claudii were a patrician family, and the Marcelli were not, could not affect the question. The freedman did not acquire gentile rights in his master’s gens by his manumission, although he was allowed to adopt the gentile name of his patron; as Cicero’s freedman, Tyro, was called M. Tullius Tyro. It is not known how the case, which is mentioned by Cicero (De Oratore, i, 39), and commented upon by Long (Smith’s Dic. Gk. & Rom. Antiq., Art. Gens), and Niebuhr, was decided; but the latter suggests that it was probably against the Claudii (Hist. of Rome, i, 245, note). It is difficult to discover how any claim whatever could be urged by the Claudii; or any by the Marcelli, except through an extension of the patronal right by judicial construction. It is a noteworthy case, because it shows how strongly the mutual rights with respect to the inheritance of property were intrenched in the gens.

[296] History of Rome, i, 242

[297] Patricia gens Claudia ... agrum insuper trans Anienem clientibus locumque sibi ad sepulturam sub capitolio, publice accepit.—Suet., Vit. Tiberius, cap. 1.

[298] Vari corpus semiustum hostilis laceraverat feritas; caput ejus abscisum, latumque ad Maroboduum, et ab eo missum ad Caesarem, gentilitii tumuli sepultura honoratum est.—Velleius Paterculus, ii, 119.

[299] Iam tanta religio est sepulcrorum, ut extra sacra et gentem inferi fas negent esse; idque apud majores nostros A. Torquatus in gente Popilia judicavit.—De Leg., ii, 22.

[300] Cicero, De Leg., ii, 23.

[301] “There were certain sacred rites (sacra gentilicia) which belonged to a gens, to the observance of which all the members of a gens, as such, were bound, whether they were members by birth, adoption or adrogation. A person was freed from the observance of such sacra, and lost the privileges connected with his gentile rights when he lost his gens.”—Smith’s Dic. Antiq., Gens.

[302] Cicero, Pro Domo, c. 13.

[303] History of Rome, i, 241.

[304] Cicero, De Leg., ii, 23.

[305] Dionysius, ii, 22.

[306] Ib., ii, 21.