The sentiment of gentilism seems to have been stronger in the Upper Status of barbarism than in earlier conditions, through a higher organization of society, and through mental and moral advancement. Each gens usually had a burial place for the exclusive use of its members as a place of sepulture. A few illustrations will exhibit Roman usages with respect to burial.
Appius Claudius, the chief of the Claudian gens, removed from Regili, a town of the Sabines, to Rome in the time of Romulus, where in due time he was made a senator, and thus a patrician. He brought with him the Claudian gens, and such a number of clients that his accession to Rome was regarded as an important event. Suetonius remarks that the gens received from the state lands upon the Anio for their clients, and
. a burial place for themselves near the capitol.[297] This statement seems to imply that a common burial place was, at that time, considered indispensable to a gens. The Claudii, having abandoned their Sabine connection and identified themselves with the Roman people, received both a grant of lands and a burial place for the gens, to place them in equality of condition with the Roman gentes. The transaction reveals a custom of the times.
The family tomb had not entirely superseded that of the gens in the time of Julius Caesar, as was illustrated by the case of Quintilius Varus, who, having lost his army in Germany, destroyed himself, and his body fell into the hands of the enemy. The half-burned body of Varus, says Paterculus, was mangled by the savage enemy; his head was cut off, and brought to Maroboduus, and by him having been sent to Caesar, was at length honored with burial in the gentile sepulchre.[298]
In his treatise on the laws, Cicero refers to the usages of his own times in respect to burial in the following language: now the sacredness of burial places is so great that it is affirmed to be wrong to perform the burial independently of the sacred rites of the gens. Thus in the time of our ancestors A. Torquatus decided respecting the Popilian gens.[299] The purport of the statement is that it was a religious duty to bury the dead with sacred rites, and when possible in land belonging to the gens. It further appears that cremation and inhumation were both practiced prior to the promulgation of the Twelve Tables, which prohibited the burying or burning of dead bodies within the city.[300] The columbarium, which would usually accommodate several hundred urns, was eminently adapted to the uses of a gens. In the time of Cicero the gentile organization had fallen into decadence, but certain usages peculiar to it had remained, and that respecting a common burial place among the number. The family tomb began to take the place of that of the gens, as the families in the ancient gentes rose into complete autonomy; nevertheless, remains of ancient gentile usages with respect to burial manifested themselves in various ways, and were still fresh in the history of the past.
III. Common sacred rites; sacra gentilicia.
The Roman sacra embody our idea of divine worship, and were either public or private. Religious rites performed by a gens were called sacra privata, or sacra gentilicia. They were performed regularly at stated periods by the gens.[301] Cases are mentioned in which the expenses of maintaining these rites had become a burden in consequence of the reduced numbers in the gens. They were gained and lost by circumstances, e. g., adoption or marriage.[302] “That the members of the Roman gens had common sacred rites,” observes Niebuhr, “is well known; there were sacrifices appointed for stated days and places.”[303] The sacred rites, both public and private, were under pontifical regulation exclusively, and not subject to civil cognizance.[304]
The religious rites of the Romans seem to have had their primary connection with the gens rather than the family. A college of pontiffs, of curiones, and of augurs, with an elaborate system of worship under these priesthoods, in due time grew into form and became established; but the system was tolerant and free. The priesthood was in the main elective.[305] The head of every family also was the priest of the household.[306] The gentes of the Greeks and Romans were the fountains from which flowed the stupendous mythology of the classical world.
In the early days of Rome many gentes had each their own sacellum for the performance of their religious rites. Several gentes had each special sacrifices to perform, which had been transmitted from generation to generation, and were regarded as obligatory; as those of the Nautii to Minerva, of the Fabii to Hercules, and of the Horatii in expiation of the sororicide committed by Horatius.[307] It is sufficient for my purpose to have shown generally that each gens had its own religious rites as one of the attributes of the organization.
IV. The obligation not to marry in the gens.