A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

342 Rome Under the Kings
chopped, and strives hard to drive the branches into the
resisting ground. While he is exciting the kindUng blaze
with dried bark, a boy stands by and holds in his hands a
broad basket. Out of this, when the father has thrice
thrown the produce of the earth into the midst of the
flames, his little daughter offers the sliced honeycombs.
Others have wine; a portion of each thing is thrown into
the lire; the crowd, all arrayed in white, look on and keep
a religious silence. Terminus is sprinkled, too, with the
blood of a slain lamb; he makes no complaint when a
young pig is offered him. The neighbors meet in supplication,
and they celebrate the feast and sing thy praise,
holy Terminus. It is thou that dost set the limits to nations,
and cities, and mighty kingdoms; without thee the
whole country would be steeped in litigation.
III.
Servius Tullius
The census.
This complex
form of the
census did
not arise till
after the institution
of
the censors
in the early
Republic;
see p. 355.
below.
The census
classes.
He then set about a peaceful work of the utmost importance,
that as Numa had been the author of religious institutions,
posterity might celebrate Servius as the founder of
all distinctions among the members of the state, and of
those classes which are based on dignity and fortune. For
he instituted the census,—a most salutary measure for an
empire destined to become so great. According to the census
the services of war and peace were to be performed not
by every person without distinction, but in proportion to
his amount of property. By means of the census he formed
the classes and the centuries,—an arrangement which still
exists and which is eminently suited both to peace and to
war.
Of those who had an estate worth a hundred thousand
asses or more he made eighty centuries, forty of seniors and
forty of juniors. All these centuries constituted the first