Chapter XVIII.—The Succession to the Kingdom in Ancient Latium Pp.

266-323

The sacred functions of Latin kings in general probably the same as those of the Roman kings; question of the rule of succession to the Latin kingship; list of Alban kings; list of Roman kings; Latin kingship apparently transmitted in female line to foreign husbands of princesses; miraculous births of kings explained on this hypothesis; marriage of princesses to men of inferior rank in Africa; traces of female descent of kingship in Greece; and in Scandinavia; reminiscence of such descent in popular tales; female descent of kingship among the Picts, the Lydians, the Danes, and the Saxons; traces of female kinship or mother-kin among the Aryans, the Picts, and the Etruscans; mother-kin may survive in royal families after it has been superseded by father-kin among commoners; the Roman kings plebeians, not patricians; the first consuls at Rome heirs to the throne according to mother-kin; attempt of Tarquin to change the line of succession from the female to the male line; the hereditary principle compatible with the elective principle in succession to the throne; combination of the hereditary with the elective principle in succession to the kingship in Africa and Assam; similar combination perhaps in force at Rome; personal qualities required in kings and chiefs; succession to the throne determined by a race; custom of racing for a bride; contests for a bride other than a race; the Flight of the King (_Regifugium_) at Rome perhaps a relic of a contest for the kingdom and the hand of a princess; confirmation of this theory from the practice of killing a human representative of Saturn at the Saturnalia; violent ends of Roman kings; death of Romulus on the _Nonae Caprotinae_ (7th July), an old licentious festival like the Saturnalia for the fertilisation of the fig; violent deaths of other Roman kings; succession to Latin kingship perhaps decided by single combat; African parallels; Greek and Italian kings may have personated Cronus and Saturn before they personated Zeus and Jupiter.