Note 94 — Chapter X · IONIC PORTION OF HELLAS. — ATHENS BEFORE SOLON.

See the valuable chapter of Niebuhr, Röm. Gesch. vol. i, pp. 317, 350, 2d edit.

The Alberghi of Genoa in the Middle Ages were enlarged families created by voluntary compact: “De tout temps (observes Sismondi) les familles puissantes avaient été dans l’usage, à Gênes, d’augmenter encore leur puissance en adoptant d’autres familles moins riches, moins illustres, ou moins nombreuses,—auxquelles elles communiquoient leur nom et leurs armes, qu’elles prenoient ainsi l’engagement de protéger,—et qui en retour s’associoient à toutes leurs quérelles. Les maisons dans lesquelles on entroit ainsi par adoption, étoient nommées des alberghi (auberges), et il y avoit peu de maisons illustres qui ne se fussent ainsi récrutées a l’aide de quelque famille étrangère.” (Républiques Italiennes, t. xv, ch. 120, p. 366.)

Eichhorn (Deutsche Staats und Rechts-Geschichte, sect. 18, vol. i, p. 84, 5th edit.) remarks in regard to the ancient Germans, that the German “familiæ et propinquitates,” mentioned by Tacitus (Germ. c. 7), and the “gentibus cognationibusque hominum” of Cæsar (B. G. vi. 22), bore more analogy to the Roman gens than to relationship of blood or wedlock. According to the idea of some of the German tribes, even blood-relationship might be formally renounced and broken off, with all its connected rights and obligations, at the pleasure of the individual: he might declare himself ἐκποιητὸς, to use the Greek expression. See the Titul. 63 of the Salic law, as quoted by Eichhorn, l. c.

Professor Koutorga of St. Petersburg (in his Essai sur l’Organisation de la Tribu dans l’Antiquité, translated from Russian into French by M. Chopin, Paris, 1839) has traced out and illustrated the fundamental analogy between the social classification, in early times, of Greeks, Romans, Germans, and Russians (see especially, pp. 47, 213). Respecting the early history of Attica, however, many of his positions are advanced upon very untrustworthy evidence (see p. 123, seq.).