[138] See Marquardt, _Privataltertuemer_, p. 56, and note 6. [139] There is, I believe, no doubt that the etymological affinities of the word _familia_ point to the idea of settlement and not that of kin; _e.g._ Oscan _Faama_, a house, and Sanscrit _dha_, to settle. [140] The exact meaning and origin of the word has been much discussed. It is tempting to connect it with _pax_, _paciscor_, and make it a territory within whose bounds there is _pax_; see Rudorff, _Gromatici veteres_, ii. 239, and Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, ii. 8 foll. [141] See Rudorff, _Grom. vet._ ii. 236 foll.; Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, iii. 116 foll.; Kornemann in _Klio_, vol. v. (1905) p. 80 foll.; Greenidge, _Roman Public Life_, p. 1 foll. [142] Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, iii. 22 foll.; Kornemann, _l.c._; Roby in _Dict. of Antiquities_, _s.v._ "Agrimetatio," p. 85. The view that there was freehold garden land attached to the homestead gains strength from a statement of Pliny (_N.H._ xix. 50) that the word used in the XII. Tables for villa, which was the word in classical times for the homestead, was _hortus_, a garden, and that this was _heredium_, private property. See Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, iii. 23. It would indeed be strange if the house had no land immediately attached to it; we know that in the Anglo-Saxon village community the villani, bordarii and cotagii, had their garden croft attached to their dwellings, apart from such strips as they might hold from the lord of the manor in the open fields. See Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, p. 148. For the _centuriatus ager_, Roby _l.c._ We have no direct knowledge of the system in the earliest times, but it is almost certain that it was old-Italian in outline, and not introduced by the Etruscans, as stated, _e.g._, by Deecke-Mueller, _Etrusker_, ii. 128. [143] For Latium this is proved by the sepulchral hut-urns found at Alba and also on the Esquiline. One of these in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford shows the construction well. See article "Domus" in Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encyclopaedie_; Helbig, _Die Italiker in der Poebene_, p. 50 foll. Later there was an opening in the roof. [144] Von Duhn in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, 1896, p. 125 foll., and article "Domus" in Pauly-Wissowa. [145] This is Aust's admirable expression, _Religion der Roemer_, p. 214. [146] See the author's _Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero_, p. 242. [147] Serv. _Aen._ i. 270; Marquardt, p. 126. [148] _Ap. Gellium_, iv. 1. 17. For the sacredness of food and meals, see below (Lect. VIII. p. 172).