e domain of
law this meant new problems, new difficulties; and these were met in the
middle of the fifth century B.C., if the received chronology is to be
accepted,[562] by the publication of the XII. Tables.

In order to get some idea of the work of the pontifices at this time,
let us consider one or two of these difficulties and problems.

Within the family every act, every relation, was matter of religion; the
_numina_ had to be considered in regard to it. The end and aim, then as
throughout Roman history, was the maintenance of the _sacra_ of the
family, without which it could not be conceived as existing--the due
worship of its deities, and the religious care of its dead. Take
marriage as an example: "the entry of a bride into the household--of one
who as yet had no lot in the family life--meant some straining of the
relation between the divine and human members,"[563] and the human part
of the family must be assured that the divine part is willing to accept
her before the step can be regarded as complete. She has to enter the
family in such a way as to share in its _sacra_; and if _confarreatio_
was (as we may believe) the oldest form of patrician marriage,[564] the
bride was subjected to a ceremony which was plainly of a sacramental
character--the sacred cake of _far_ being partaken of by both bride and
bridegroom in the presence of the highest religious authority of the
State. In the simplest form of society there would be no call for
further priestly interference in marriage; but in a society growing more
numerous and complex, exceptions, abnormal conditions begin to show
themselves, and new problems arise, which must be solved by new
expedients, prescriptions, permissions, devices, or fictions. For these
the religious authorities are solely responsible; for what is a matter
of religious interest to the family is also matter of religious interest
to the State, simply because the State is composed of families in the
same sense as the human body is composed of cellular tissue. All this,
we believe, was once the work of the Rex, perhaps with the college of
pontifices to help him; when the kingship disappeared it became the work
of that college solely, with the pontifex maximus as the chief
authority.

So, too, in all other questions which concerned the maintenance of the
family, and especially in regard to the devolution of property. I am
here only illustrating the way in which the pontifical college acquired
t