ight first took its
place, although not for long, and with materially weakened functions.
Its task was mainly to attend to the common religious affairs and to the
ceremonial of funerals: to safeguard the mutual obligation of protection
and of help against violence: to enforce the right, and, in certain
cases, the duty of marrying in the gens, in cases when rich heiresses or
female orphans were concerned. The gens, furthermore, administered the
still existing common property. But the segmentation of handicraft from
agriculture; the ever wider expansion of commerce; the founding of
cities, rendered necessary by both of these; the conquest of booty and
prisoners of war, the latter of which directly affected the
household,--all of these tore to shreds the conditions and bonds of eld.
Handicraft had gradually subdivided itself into a larger number of
separate trades--weaving, pottery, iron-forging, the preparation of
arms, house and shipbuilding, etc. Accordingly, it pushed toward another
organization. The ever further introduction of slavery, the admittance
of strangers into the community,--these were all so many new and
additional elements that rendered the old constitution of society ever
more impossible.

Along with private property and the personal right of inheritance, class
distinctions and class contrasts came into existence. Rich
property-owners drew together against those who owned less, or nothing.
The former sought to get into their own hands the public offices of the
new commonwealth, and to make them hereditary. Money, now become
necessary, created thitherto unknown forms of indebtedness. Wars against
enemies from without, and conflicting interests within, as well as the
various interests and relations which agriculture, handicraft and
commerce mutually produced rendered necessary complicated rules of
right, they demanded special organs to guard the orderly movement of the
social machinery, and to settle disputes. The same held good for the
relations of master and slave, creditor and debtor. A power,
accordingly, became necessary to supervise, lead, regulate and harmonize
all these relations, with authority to protect, and, when needed, to
punish. _Thus rose the State, the product, accordingly of the
conflicting interests that sprang up in the new social order._ Its
administration naturally fell into the hands of those who had the
liveliest interest in its establishment, and who, in virtue of their
social powe