[83] So in reference to the Anglo-Saxon Tythings and Hundreds, and to the still more widely-spread division of the Hundred, which seems to pervade the whole of Teutonic and Scandinavian antiquity, much more extensively than the tything;—there is no ground for believing that these precise numerical proportions were in general practice realized: the systematic nomenclature served its purpose by marking the idea of graduation and the type to which a certain approach was actually made. Mr. Thorpe observes, respecting the Hundred, in his Glossary to the “Ancient Laws and Institutes of England,” v. Hundred, Tything, Frid-Borg, etc. “In the Dialogus de Scaccario, it is said that a Hundred ‘ex hydarum aliquot centenariis, sed non determinatis, constat: quidam enim ex pluribus, quidam ex paucioribus constat.’ Some accounts make it consist of precisely a hundred hydes, others of a hundred tythings, others of a hundred free families. Certain it is, that whatever may have been its original organization, the Hundred, at the time when it becomes known to us, differed greatly in extent in various parts of England.”
[84] See the instructive inscription in Professor Ross’s work (Über die Demen von Attika, p. 26) of the γένος Ἀμυνανδριδῶν, commemorating the archon of that gens, the priest of Kekrops, the Ταμίας, or treasurer, and the names of the members, with the deme and tribe of each individual. Compare Bossler, De Gent. Atticis, p. 53. About the peculiar religious rites of the gens called Gephyræi, see Herodot. v, 61.
[85] Φυλαὶ γενικαὶ, opposed to φυλαὶ τοπικαί.—Dionys. Hal. Ant. Rom. iv, 14.
[86] Plato, Euthydem. p. 302; Aristot. ap. Schol. in Platon. Axioch. p. 465, ed. Bek. Ἀριστοτέλης φησί· τοῦ ὅλου πλήθους διῃρημένου Ἀθήνῃσιν εἴς τε τοὺς γεωργοὺς καὶ τοὺς δημιουργοὺς, φυλὰς αὐτῶν εἶναι τέσσαρας, τῶν δὲ φυλῶν ἑκάστις μοιρὰς εἶναι τρεῖς, ἃς τριττύας τε καλοῦσι καὶ φρατρίας· ἑκάστης δὲ τούτων τριάκοντα εἶναι γένη, τὸ δὲ γένος ἐκ τριάκοντα ἀνδρῶν συνιστάναι· τούτους δὴ τοὺς εἰς τα γένη τεταγμένοις γεννήτας καλοῦσι. Pollux, viii, 3. Οἱ μετέχοντες τοῦ γένους, γεννῆται καὶ ὁμογάλακτες· γένει μὲν οὐ προσήκοντες, ἐκ δὲ τῆς συνόδου οὕτω προσαγορευόμενοι: compare also iii, 52; Mœris. Atticist. p. 108.
Harpokrat. v. Ἀπόλλων Πατρῷος, Θεοίνιον, Γεννῆται, Ὀργεῶνες, etc. Etymol. Magn. v. Γεννῆται; Suidas, v. Ὀργεῶνες; Pollux, viii, 85; Demosthen. cont. Eubulid. p. 1319, εἶτα φράτορες, εἶτα Ἀπόλλωνος πατρῴου καὶ Διὸς ἑκρίου γεννῆται; and cont. Neæram, p. 1365. Isæus uses ὀργεῶνες as synonymous with γεννῆται (see Orat. ii, pp. 19, 20-28, ed. Bek.). Schömann (Antiq. J. P. Græc. § xxvi) considers the two as essentially distinct. Φρήτρη and φῦλον both occur in the Iliad, ii, 362. See the Dissertation of Buttmann Über den Begriff von φρατρία (Mythologus, c. 24, p. 305); and that of Meier, De Gentilitate Atticâ, where the points of knowledge attainable respecting the gentes are well put together and discussed.
In the Theræan Inscription (No. 2448 ap. Boeckh. Corp. Inscr., see his comment, page 310) containing the testament of Epiktêta, whereby a bequest is made to οἱ συγγενεῖς—ὁ ἀνδρεῖος τῶν συγγενῶν,—this latter word does not mean kindred or blood relations, but a variety of the gentile union—“thiasus,” or “sodalitium.” Boeckh.
[87] Herodot. ii, 143. Ἑκαταίῳ—γενεηλογήσαντί τε ἑωυτὸν καὶ ἀναδήσαντι τὴν πατριὴν ἐς ἑκκαιδέκατον θεόν. Again, γενεηλογήσαντι ἑωυτὸν, καὶ ἀναδήσαντι ἐς ἑκκαιδέκατον θεόν. The Attic expression,—ἀγχίστεια ἱερῶν καὶ ὁσίων,—illustrates the intimate association between family relationship and common religious privileges.—Isæus, Orat. vi, p. 89, ed. Bek.
[88] Isæus, Or. vi, p. 61; ii, p. 38; Demosth. adv. Makartatum, pp. 1053-1075; adv. Leochar. p. 1093. Respecting this perpetuation of the family sacred rites, the feeling prevalent among the Athenians is much the same as what is now seen in China.
Mr. Davis observes: “Sons are considered in this country, where the power over them is so absolute through life, as a sure support, as well as a probable source of wealth and dignities, should they succeed in learning. But the grand object is, the perpetuation of the race, to sacrifice at the family tombs. Without sons, a man lives without honor or satisfaction, and dies unhappy; and as the only remedy, he is permitted to adopt the sons of his younger brothers.
“It is not during life only, that a man looks for the service of his sons. It is his consolation in declining years, to think that they will continue the performance of the prescribed rites in the hall of ancestors, and at the family tombs, when he is no more: and it is the absence of this prospect which makes the childless doubly miserable. The superstition derives influence from the importance attached by the government to this species of posthumous duty: a neglect of which is punishable, as we have seen, by the laws. Indeed, of all the subjects of their care, there are none which the Chinese so religiously attend to as the tombs of their ancestors, conceiving that any neglect is sure to be followed by worldly misfortune.”—(The Chinese, by John Francis Davis, chap. ix, pp. 131-134. ed. Knight, 1840.)