to their elder brothers without a struggle, but as people grew to be
more civilized and peace-loving, they found it better to have the
oldest son looked upon as the rightful heir to the kingship.

As kingdoms grew larger, and more and more people came to be busied in
agriculture, trade, and even, on a small scale, in manufacture, the
warriors grew fewer in proportion, and people began to forget that the
king was originally only a war leader, and that the office was created
through military need. They came to regard the rule of the king as a
matter of course and stopped thinking of themselves as having any
right to say how they should be governed. Kings were quick to foster
this feeling. For the purpose of making their own positions sure, they
were in the habit of impressing it upon their people that the kingship
was a divine institution. They proclaimed that the office of king was
made by the gods, or in Christian nations, by God, and that it was the
divine will that the people of the nations should be ruled by kings.
The great Roman orator, Cicero (Sĭs'erō), in a speech delivered
in the year 66 B.C., referring to people who lived in kingdoms, says
that the name of king "seems to them a great and sacred thing." This
same feeling has lasted through all the ages down to the present time,
and the majority of the people in European kingdoms, even among the
educated classes, still look upon a king as a superior being, and are
made happy and proud if they ever have a chance to do him a service of
any sort.


Questions for Review

1. Why was it that in barbarian tribes there was no private ownership
of land?