344 THE KEVOLUTIOXS. BOOK IV from father to son. A passage in Livy leads ;3 to sup pose that he was forbidden to marry outside the gens, as the serf was forbidden to marry outside the village. It is certain that he could not contract marriage without the permission of his patron. The patron could take possession of the soil which the client cultivated, and the money which he possessed, as the lord could do ia the case of the serf. If the client died, all that he bad been in possession of returned of right to the patron, just as the succession of the serf belonged to the lord. The i)atron was not only a master; he was a judge;, he could condemn a client to death. He Avas, more- over, a religious chief The client bent under this au- thority, at the same time material and moral, which held both body and soul. His religion, it is true, im- posed duties upon the patron, but they were duties of which he alone was the judge, and for which there waa^ no sanction. The client saw nothing that protected him: he was not of himself a citizen ; if he wished to- appear before the tribunal of the city, his patron might conduct him there, and speak for him. Did he ask the protection of the laws? He did not know the sacred formulas; and if he knew them, the first law for him was never to testify or to speak against his patron^ Without the patron there was no justice; against the patron there was no recourse. The client did not exist at Rome only; he was found among the Sabines and the Etruscans, making a part of the manits of every chief He existed in the ancient Hellenic gens as well as in that of Italy. We must not look for him in the Dorian cities, it is true, where tho rule of the gens disappeared at an early date, and where the conquered peoples were bound, not to a master, but to a lot of land. We find a similar cl iss at
