The arguments for mother-right seem to centre most thickly around the last of these kings. His royal descent is on the distaff side, and though he has sons, these do not succeed him. But the weakness of these arguments is apparent if we consider (a) that he was elected, and that one of royal descent through his mother stood as good a chance as anybody, (b) that Livy and his contemporaries were accustomed to reckon descent on both sides, exactly as we do (see below); (c) that to make the picture complete not only should Ancus derive his royalty from the daughter of Numa, and presumably Egeria, but Numa himself should reign as Egeria's husband; (d) that Livy implies that in the natural course of events Ancus' sons would have been chosen, one at least of them, had not the machinations of Tarquinius (i.e. the Etruscan conquest) interfered.
The right solution is in all probability that which Binder suggests in Die Plebs,[1] and Livy himself more than once implies, namely, that the framers of the legends represent the senate and people as the one true source of power, and the kings as their elected magistrates. What we want and do not find is the succession passing to a nephew from his maternal uncle, through the sister of the latter, who is queen in her own right.
(II.) Sir J. G. Frazer[2] finds traces of mother-right in the very heart of Patrician religion. It is well known that the Flamen Dialis not only must be married, but must lay down his office if his wife died. Against the suggestion of Dr. Farnell that the pollution of death would account for this tabu, he points out, pertinently enough, that this pollution is a temporary affair in other cases, and goes on to state his belief that the real source of the flamen's priestly status was the fact that he was husband of the
