ABSTRACT
Authority in classic antiquity was attributed to the natural institutions of the family and the tribe. Inheritance gave to the head of each household the right to his home lands, his cattle, and his slaves, a right sanctioned by the cult of traditonal deities, agricultural, civic, and domestic. These landlords and their sons were the free citizens of the fortified market-town in the midst of their estates. The whole formed a compact territory, closely bounded by other States, or extending more vaguely, with more questionable rights of possession, over the inland mountains and moors, or the islands visible beyond the little port. The fundamental political duty and pride in such a domestic society was to perfect and defend it, that it might last for ever.
