neffes *. We find the fame practifed in the primitive ages of Greece. Before these people knew writing, the practice was to give pledges and fecurities for the affurance of the dower and the marriage-contract1. It even appears from Homer, that the Greeks were a long time without knowing the use of written contracts and obligations. It was the deposition of witnesses which made the proof of the reality of deedsm and it was alfo for this reafon that anciently among the Greeks, as well as among all other people, judgments were given before all the world in a public square ».

We see that in the heroic times there were in Greece penalties established against adultery. Those who were accufed, were obliged to pay a pecuniary fine to the husband who had convicted them .. The father of the wife taken in adultery was likewife obliged to give back to his fon-in-law, all the presents that he had received for his daughter ».

I have already faid that Cecrops had established marriage one with one; therefore the plurality of wives was not allowed among the Greeks. They could only marry one . But it appears, that, from the most ancient times, it was permitted to divorce, when they thought they had lawful reafons. What furprises me moft, is, that unlawful commerces were not then dishonourable. The birth of children which proceeded from them, was not looked upon as fcandalous. Agamemnon, to encourage Teucer, brother of Ajax, to continue his exploits, reprefents to him, that, though he was not the legitimate fon of Telamon, that prince had not given less attention or taken lefs care of his education. Now, if there had been at that time any fort of fhame attached to thefe forts of births, it is not probable that Homer would have made Agamemnon make fuch a reproach to one of the

* Part 1. book I.

1 Pollux l. 3. c. 3. fegm. 36.; Servius ad Æneid. 1. 10. v. 79. Iliad. 1. 18. v. 499. &c.

"Ibid. v. 497. 498. &c. See part 1. book 1.

Odyff. 1.8. v. 332,347. & 348. See alfo Diod. 1. 12. p. 491. lin. 89.

P Odyff. 1.8. v. 318.

Herod. 1. 2. n. 92.

See Pauf. 1. 1o. c. 29. p. 870.; Pollux. 1. 3. c. 4. fegm 46.

L. 8. v. 231. &c,"

principal

principal officers of the army, and with whom he in other refpects appears to be well fatisfied.

We fee likewife in the Odyffee, Ulyffes fays he was the fon of a concubine. This is a proof that they avowed at that time these forts of births without any fhame. It is likewife faid in fcripture, that Gideon had feventy children from the many women he had married, and by a concubine, who had even been his fervant, he had a fon called Abimelech, who after the death of his father was King of Sichem". With our ancestors baftardy had nothing dishonourable in it. Hi ftorians give the title of baftards to a number of the most illuftrious and most confiderable perfons. The famous Count de Dunois is not more known by that name than by that of the baftard of Orleans. There is often mention made of the bastard of Rubempré, and many others. It was even a quality which they did not fear to use in their public acts. We often find signed, fuck a one, bastard of such a one. The letters patent granted by William the Conqueror to Alain, Count of Britany, begin thus, "William, called the baftard, King of England, &c. *." But to return to the Greeks: The lawful children inherited the goods of their fathers and mothers: if they were many, they divided the inheritance; and it does not appear that at that time there was any regard paid to feniority. This was the manner in which they proceeded to divide. They made with the utmost exactness as many lots as there were heirs, and afterwards drew them.

This method was not confined to the divifion of the goods of particulars. It took place even in the houtes of fovereigns. Neptune, in the Iliad, fays to Iris who came from Jupiter to order him not to fuccour the Greeks any more, that he was equal in dignity to Jupiter: "We are," adds he, "three

L. 14. V. 202.

"Judges c. 8. v. 32. 31. c. 9. v. 6. & 18. Non enim erat vetitus eo tempore concubinatus, neque concubina a matrona, nifi dignitate, diftabat, fays Grotius on this paffage.

* Mem. de Trevoux. Janv. 1711. p. 118,

y Odyff. 1. 7. v. 149.

2 Ody 1. 14. v. 28.; Arift. polit. 1. 6. c.4. p. 414 B.

VOL. II.

I

<<< brothers,

"brothers, all three fons of Saturn and Rhea. Jupiter is the first, I the fecond, and Pluto the third; the empire "was divided among us. They made three lots, which

were not diftributed according to the order of birth. They "drew the chances, and it was fortune which determined "the part that each fhould have." One might quote many more examples of this ancient practice. Though in the divifion of eftates the condition of the brothers was equal, yet they had great privileges attached to the right of feniority. These privileges confifted in the honour and refpect which the younger were obliged to pay to their elder brothers, and in the authority the elder had over the younger. We might even fay, that the Greeks looked upon the right of feniority as a right divine. Homer gives us a very fenfible proof in the paffage of the Iliad I am going to cite. Jupiter on fending Iris to carry his orders to Neptune, fays to that goddess: "My brother ought to know, that, in quality of el"deft, I am above him." Neptune makes fome difficulty to obey the orders of Jupiter: Iris, to determine him, infifts on the quality of Jupiter, and asks Neptune, if he is ignorant," that the black furies always accompany the eldeft, to revenge the outrages they receive from their bro

thers."

The children of concubines had no right to the inheritance of their fathers; for in thofe forts of commerces they had neither conventions nor folemnities. Accordingly we fee none of the children who fprung from them, partake in the fucceffion with the legitimate children. They had only what their brothers chofe to give to them: even the order of fucceffions was fo well regulated, that when any one died without iffue, his effects went to his collateral relations .

The

a L. 15. v. 186. &c. Virgil has exactly followed this tradition. He makes Neptune alfo fay that the empire of the fea fell to him by lot. Sed mihi forte datum. Æneid. 1. 1. v. 138.

b See what we have faid above of the divifion of Peloponnefus among the defcendents of Hercules, art. 7. See Apollod.I. 1. p. 4.; Diod. 1. 3. p. 229. ; Pauf. 1. 8. c. 53.; Strab. 1. 9. p. 6ɔ1. B.

Ibid. v. 204.

* Χηρωσαὶ δὲ διὰ κτῆσιν δατέοντο. lliad. l. 5. v. 158.

Euftathias,

The fame fpirit of order which had affigned to each a certain quantity of goods for their fubfiftence, made them look with contempt on those men whom floth kept from labour, and who were fo mean as to live on the liberality of rich people. When Ulyffes, in the Odyffee, in the form of a beggar, presents himself to Eurymachus; that prince feeing him strong and robuft, offers him work and good wages: but at the fame time gives him to understand, that they had too many of those beggars by profeffion, who liking better to live in idleness, than to get their bread by an honest industry, were the object of general contempt s. They had also the highest contempt for those people who having no fixed place of refidence, wandered continually from city to city. They looked upon a vagabond as an exile, as a wretch, who having abandoned his country, ought to be caft out from fociety ".

But what is most astonishing, is, that then theft was not a difhonourable action. The ancients made no fcruple about it. It was only fhameful when they were taken in the fact *. The greatest part of the laws which I have just given an account of, were not in ufe till after the establishment of agriculture. The firft legiflators of Greece had omitted nothing to engage their people to apply themfelves to

Euftathius, p. 533. lin. 35. and the ancient fcholia ft understand by the word, xnpasai, trufees; and from this they fuppofed magistrates eftablished to take care of the effects of old men who had loft their children, and to preserve them for their collateral relations, by hindering thofe unliappy fathers from difpofing of them. But befides that neither Euftathius, nor the ancient fcholiaft, have quoted any author who mentions the eftablishment of these pretended magiftrates, if they had attended to the word SarioTo, to which pasal is the nominative, they might have feen plainly that Xnpasai could not on that occafion fignify trustees. Trustees, in effect, never fare in the fucceffion; but, agreeable to the etymology of their name, they are charged with the care of it. It is certain then, that in this paffage Xpasal ought to be underflood of collaterals. It is taken in this fenfe by Hefiod. Theog. v. 66. after whom Hefychius, voce xnpasai, fays expressly χηρωςαὶ οἱ μακροθεν συγγενεῖς ; they call χηρωσαί, very diftant relations. alfo Pollux, 1. 3. c. 4. fegm. 47. and the fcholiaft of Hefiod, p. 289.

L. 18. v. 356. &c.

See

Iliad. 1. 9. v. 644. 1. 16. y. 423. See what Plato fays on this fubject by Socrates, in Crito.

i Iliad. 1. 6. v. 153. ; Odyff. 1. 19. v. 395. See Feith. 1. 2. c. 9. Suid. in voce Kairns, t. 2. p. 325.

the culture of the earth. For this end they had established many wife and most useful laws, as the prohibition to have above a certain quantity of arable land; of felling and alienating their inheritance. They had likewife a law which prohibited their mortgaging their arable lands". All the fe laws, according to Aristotle, were of the highest antiquity, and go back to the ages of which we are now giving the hiftory".

I have faid it was in the reign of Erechtheus, the fixth King of Athens from Cecrops, that the knowledge of tillage was difperfed over Greece under the aufpices of Ceres and Triptolemus. As the establishment of agriculture necessarily implies the inftitution of civil laws, all the writers of antiquity have attributed the first laws of Greece to Ceres and Triptolemus . The most certain and moft general tradition fays, that the Athenians were the first to whom Ceres taught agriculture ». Accordingly we have feen, that they paffed for the authors of all civil laws 9. They have likewife attributed to them the invention of all the forms of juftice and the order of proceedings г.

To this fhort explanation, I fhall confine myself as to

1 It is remarked, that, in all the ancient traditions of Greece, Neptune is always faid to have failed in his disputes with Minerva, Apollo, and the other gods. See Plut. t. 2. p. 741.; Pauf. 1. 2. c. 1. p. 112. c. 15. p. 145.

Plutarch even says, that the difpute between Minerva and Neptune, to know whether the or the god fhould be patron of Athens, and the fuccefs of Minerva, was a fable invented and propagated by the ancient kings of Greece, to take from their people the defire of going to fea, and to bring them to cultivate the earth. In Themistocle, p. 121. E.

m Arift. polit. 1. 2. c. 7. p. 323. 1. 6. c. 4. p. 417.

n Ibid.

• A quibus initia vitae atque victus, legum, morum, manfuetudinis, humamitatis exempla hominibus et civitatibus data ac difpertita effe dicuntur. Cicero in Verr. act. 5. n. 72. t. 4. p. 478.

Prima Ceres

Prima dedit leges. Cereris funt omnia munus. Ovid. Met. 1. 5. v. 341. &c.; Diod. 1. 1. p. 18. 1. 5. p. 324. & 385.; Plin. 1. 7. fect. 57. p. 412.; Macrob. fat. 1. 3. c. 12. p. 413.

It is for this reafon that we fo often find the epithet dopopopos, legifera, given to Ceres. See the hiftorical explication of the fable of Ceres by Le Clerc. Bibl. Univ. t. 6. p. 47.

P Cicero in Verr. act. 4, n. 49. t. 4. p. 396.; Diod 1. 1. p. 34. 1. 5. p. 333. 385.

Art. 8. Alian. var. hift. 1. 3. c. 38.

what