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Alabaster Blue Sectory 20
Page 05
As in language, so in mythology, investigation has proceeded from, the known to the unknown--from the higher to the lower mythologies. In each step of the progress of opinion on this subject a particular phenomenon may be observed. As each lower status of mythology is discovered it is assumed to be the first in origin, the primordial mythology, and all lower but imperfectly understood mythologies are interpreted as degradations, from this assumed original belief; thus polytheism was interpreted as a degeneracy from monotheism; nature worship, from psychotheism; zooelotry, from ancestor worship; and, in order, monotheism has been held to be the original mythology, then polytheism, then physitheism or nature worship, then ancestor worship.
We disguise the alternative under more fairly-sounding names, but we cannot escape the reality; and we know not, after all, whether there is deeper sadness in a broken Mirabeau or Byron, or in the contented prosperity of a people who once knew something of noble aspirations, but have submitted to learn from a practical age that the business of life is to make money, and the enjoyments of it what money can buy. A few are ignobly successful; the many fail, and are miserable; and the subtle anarchy of selfishness finds its issue in madness and revolution. But we need not open this painful subject. Mr. Arnold is concerned with the effect of the system on individual persons; with the appearance which it wears to young highly sensitive men on their entry upon the world, with the choice of a life before them; and it is happy for the world that such men are comparatively rare, or the mad sort would be more abundant than they are.
The law by which the Judices were to be taken only from the Equites, and not from the Senators, as had been the custom hitherto. This was a very important enactment, and needs a little explanation. All offenses against the state were originally tried in the Popular Assembly; but when special enactments were passed for the trial of particular offenses, the practice was introduced of forming a body of Judices for the trial of these offenses. This was first done upon the passing of the Calpurnian Law (B.C., 149) for the punishment of provincial magistrates for extortion in their government (_De Repetendis_). Such offenses had to be tried before the Praetor and a jury of Senators; but as these very Senators either had been or hoped to be provincial magistrates, they were not disposed to visit with severity offenses of which they themselves either had been or were likely to be guilty. By depriving the Senators of this judicial power, and by transferring it to the Equites, Gracchus also made the latter a political order in the state apart from their military character. The name of Equites was now applied to all persons who were qualified by their fortune to act as Judices, whether they served in the army or not. From this time is dated the creation of an _Ordo Equestris_, whose interests were frequently opposed to those of the Senate, and who therefore served as a check upon the latter.
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