“So long as Latium had a dictator, none but he could offer sacrifice on the Alban mount, and preside at the Latin holidays, as the Alban dictator had done before. He sacrificed on behalf of the Romans likewise, as they did in the temple of Diana on the Aventine for themselves and the Latins.... The opinion that the last Tarquinius or his father constituted the festival is quite erroneous, as its antiquity is proved to have been far higher. It is true that Tarquinius converted it into a Roman festival, and probably, too, by throwing it open to a larger body, transformed the national worship of the Latins into the means of hallowing and cementing the union between the states. The three allied republics had each its own place of meeting—at Rome, at the spring of Ferentina, and at Anagnia, where the concilium of the Hernican tribes was held in the circus; that the sittings of the diets were connected with the Latin festival, seems to be evinced by the usage, that the consuls never took the field till after it was solemnised; and by its variableness, which implies that it was regulated by special proclamation. Like the Greek festivals it ensured a sacred truce.”
In these extracts we come upon a federation resembling the Amphictyonic league, whose union is also cemented at a religious festival, the origin of which must be sought for in remote antiquity, and which festival has a direct connection with questions of peace and war. We also catch glimpses of similar federation among the Hernici and Marsi.
Now, let us go to quite an opposite point; and, if we find the same stratification cropping up, may we not conjecture it to have been once the same throughout.
“When the Europeans made their first settlements in America, six such nations had formed a league, had their Amphictyons or states-general, and by the firmness of their union, and the ability of their councils, had obtained an ascendant from the mouth of the St Lawrence to that of the Mississippi. They appeared to understand the objects of the confederacy as well as those of separate nations; they studied a balance of power.... They had their alliances and treaties, which, like the nations of Europe, they maintained or they broke upon reasons of state, and remained at peace from a sense of necessity or expediency, and went to war upon any emergency of provocation or jealousy.”[306]
In Mexico also there was “that remarkable league, which indeed has no parallel in history (?) It was agreed between the States of Mexico, Tezcuco, and the neighbouring little kingdom of Tlascopan, that they should mutually support each other in their wars, offensive and defensive, and that in the distribution of the spoil one-fifth should be assigned to Tlascopan, and the remainder be divided—in what proportions is uncertain—between the two other powers.... What is more extraordinary than the treaty itself, however, is the fidelity with which it was maintained.”—Prescott’s Mexico, i. p. 17. And in the republic of Tlascala, it is said (id. i. 378) “after the lapse of years, the institutions of the nation underwent an important change [they had previously separated into three divisions, of which Tlascala was the largest]. The monarchy was divided, first into two, afterwards into four separate states, bound together by a sort of federal compact, probably not very nicely defined. Each state, however, had its lord or superior chief, independent in his own territories, and possessed of co-ordinate authority with the others in all matters concerning the whole republic. The affairs of government, especially all those relating to peace and war, were settled in a senate or council, consisting of the four lords, with their inferior nobles.” The Tlascalans subsequently incorporated the Othonius, or Otomius (p. 378).
Here, as in the Greek and Latin Leagues, the primary objects of the law of nations seem to have been secured within the limits of their confederation, or of what they would have deemed the pale of civilization. The requirements of their horrible worship (i.e. the necessity of procuring human victims for their sacrifices) seems, however, to have overridden every other consideration, and to have impelled them to frequent wars with the nations outside the pale. In the case of the Tlascalans, the traditional lines seem more clearly defined. I have already hinted, in a note, with reference to the Greek and Latin Leagues that the Atlantis of Plato was, as indeed it professes to be, an embodiment of tradition, and not, as it is commonly regarded, as a figment of the imagination; but this strikes me still more forcibly when the League of the Ten Kings in the Atlantis is compared with the League of the Tlascalans.
Plato says: “The particulars respecting the governors were instituted from the beginning as follows. Each of the ten kings possessed absolute authority, both over the men and the greater part of the laws in his own division and in his own city, punishing and putting to death whomsoever he pleased. But the government and communion of these kings with each other were conformable to the mandates given by Neptune; and this was likewise the case with their laws. These mandates were delivered to them by their ancestors on a pillar of orichalcum, which was erected about the middle of the island, in the temple of Neptune. These kings, therefore, assembled together every fifth, and alternately, every sixth year, for the purpose of distributing an equal part both of the even and the odd; and when they assembled they deliberated on the public affairs, inquired if any one had acted improperly ... a sacrifice of bulls was made in the temple of Neptune, at the foot of the pillar of orichalcum.... But on the pillar, besides the laws, there was an oath, supplicating mighty imprecations against those who were disobedient.... There were also many other laws respecting sacred concerns, and such as were peculiar to the several kings; but the greatest were the following: that they should never wage war against each other, and that all of them should give assistance if any one person in some one of their cities should endeavour to extirpate the royal race. And as they consulted in common respecting war, and other actions, in the same manner as their ancestors, they assigned the empire to the Atlantis family.”—Plato’s Works, Sydenham and Taylor’s tr., ii. 589.
I think it will then be conceded, that whether or not there was a tradition “of a law common to all nations,” there were at any rate channels provided, well adapted to conduct and disseminate it, and that these channels everywhere converge upon the most primitive times. Before proceeding to ascertain whether anything has in fact been transmitted, I must draw attention more particularly to the circumstance that the tradition of all law is everywhere closely connected with the traditions of religion, has been handed down in a similar manner; and, so far as it retains the purity of primitive truth, under the same sanction. From this point of view the following passages from Cicero appears to me to be very significant:
“Hanc igitur video sapientissimorum fuisse sententiam legem neque hominum ingeniis excogitatum, neque scitum aliquod esse populorum, sed æternum quiddam quod universum mundum regerat imperandi, prohibendique sapientiâ.... Quæ non tum denique incipit lex esse, cum scriptum est, sed tum cum orta est; orta autem simul est cum mente divina.” “Jam ritus familiæ patrumque servari, id est quoniam antiquitas proxima accedit ad Deos, a Deis quasi traditam, religionem tueri.”—Cicero de Legibus, ii. 4, 11.
There is another curious passage which seems to prove that the oracles originally existed simply for the preservation of the primitive tradition; and, although mixed up with imposture, that they seem to have had the knowledge, or at least the instinct, that their prestige and power of influence was within the limits of the traditions which they had corrupted or preserved.[307]