{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_18564/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_18564","id":"gutenberg_18564","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18564","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Ancient","Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Cults -- Rome","Numa Pompilius, King of Rome, active 715 B.C.-673 B.C. -- Religion","Paganism","Rome -- Religion"],"text":"Produced by Jeannie Howse, Thierry Alberto and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    +-------------------------------------------------------------+\n    |  Transcriber's Note:                                        |\n    |                                                             |\n    |  NP ligature in the table on page 89 is shown in this       |\n    |  document as [NP]. Bold words are surrounded with ='s.      |\n    |                                                             |\n    +-------------------------------------------------------------+\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTHE RELIGION OF\nANCIENT ROME\n\nBy\nCYRIL BAILEY, M.A.\nFELLOW AND TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD\n\n\nLONDON\nARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD\n\n1907\n\n\n\n\nI wish to express my warm thanks to Mr. W. Warde Fowler for his\nkindness in reading my proofs, and for many valuable hints and\nsuggestions.\n\n  C.B.\n\n  BALLIOL COLLEGE,\n  _Jan 25th, 1907_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAP.                                PAGE\n\nI. INTRODUCTION--SOURCES AND SCOPE                              1\n\nII. THE 'ANTECEDENTS' OF ROMAN RELIGION                         4\n\nIII. MAIN FEATURES OF THE RELIGION OF NUMA                     12\n\nIV. EARLY HISTORY OF ROME--THE AGRICULTURAL COMMUNITY          31\n\nV. WORSHIP OF THE HOUSEHOLD                                    36\n\nVI. WORSHIP OF THE FIELDS                                      58\n\nVII. WORSHIP OF THE STATE                                      75\n\nVIII. AUGURIES AND AUSPICES                                    96\n\nIX. RELIGION AND MORALITY--CONCLUSION                         103\n\n\n\n\nTHE RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROME\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINTRODUCTION--SOURCES AND SCOPE\n\n\nThe conditions of our knowledge of the native religion of early Rome\nmay perhaps be best illustrated by a parallel from Roman archaeology.\nThe visitor to the Roman Forum at the present day, if he wishes to\nreconstruct in imagination the Forum of the early Republic, must not\nmerely 'think away' many strata of later buildings, but, we are told,\nmust picture to himself a totally different orientation of the whole:\nthe upper layer of remains, which he sees before him, is for his\npurpose in most cases not merely useless, but positively misleading.\nIn the same way, if we wish to form a picture of the genuine Roman\nreligion, we cannot find it immediately in classical literature; we\nmust banish from our minds all that is due to the contact with the\nEast and Egypt, and even with the other races of Italy, and we must\nimagine, so to speak, a totally different mental orientation before\nthe great influx of Greek literature and Greek thought, which gave\nan entirely new turn to Roman ideas in general, and in particular\nrevolutionised religion by the introduction of anthropomorphic notions\nand sensuous representations. But in this difficult search we are not\nleft without indications to guide us. In the writings of the savants of\nthe late Republic and of the Empire, and in the Augustan poets, biassed\nthough they are in their interpretations by Greek tendencies, there is\nembodied a great wealth of ancient custom and ritual, which becomes\nsignificant when we have once got the clue to its meaning. More direct\nevidence is afforded by a large body of inscriptions and monuments, and\nabove all by the surviving Calendars of the Roman festival year, which\ngive us the true outline of the ceremonial observances of the early\nreligion.\n\nIt is not within the scope of this sketch to enter, except by way of\noccasional illustration, into the process of interpretation by which\nthe patient work of scholars has disentangled the form and spirit of\nthe native religion from the mass of foreign accretions. I intend\nrather to assume the process, and deal, as far as it is possible in so\ncontroversial a subject, with results upon which authorities are\ngenerally agreed. Neither will any attempt be made to follow the\ndevelopment which the early religion underwent in later periods, when\nforeign elements were added and foreign ideas altered and remoulded the\nold tradition. We must confine ourselves to a single epoch, in which\nthe native Roman spirit worked out unaided the ideas inherited from\nhalf-civilised ancestors, and formed that body of belief and ritual,\nwhich was always, at least officially, the kernel of Roman religion,\nand constituted what the Romans themselves--staunch believers in their\nown traditional history--loved to describe as the 'Religion of Numa.'\nWe must discover, as far as we can, how far its inherited notions ran\nparallel with those of other primitive religions, but more especially\nwe must try to note what is characteristically Roman alike in custom\nand ritual and in the motives and spirit which prompted them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE 'ANTECEDENTS' OF ROMAN RELIGION\n\n\nIn every early religion there will of course be found, apart from\nexternal influence, traces of its own internal development, of stages\nby which it must have advanced from a mass of vague and primitive\nbelief and custom to the organised worship of a civilised community.\nThe religion of Rome is no exception to this rule; we can detect in its\nlater practice evidences of primitive notions and habits which it had\nin common with other semi-barbarous peoples, and we shall see that the\nleading idea in its theology is but a characteristically Roman\ndevelopment of a marked feature in most early religions.\n\n=1. Magic.=--Anthropology has taught us that in many primitive\nsocieties religion--a sense of man's dependence on a power higher than\nhimself--is preceded by a stage of magic--a belief in man's own power\nto influence by occult means the action of the world around him. That\nthe ancestors of the Roman community passed through this stage seems\nclear, and in surviving religious practice we may discover evidence of\nsuch magic in various forms. There is, for instance, what anthropology\ndescribes as 'sympathetic magic'--the attempt to influence the powers\nof nature by an imitation of the process which it is desired that they\nshould perform. Of this we have a characteristic example in the\nceremony of the _aquaelicium_, designed to produce rain after a long\ndrought. In classical times the ceremony consisted in a procession\nheaded by the pontifices, which bore the sacred rain-stone from its\nresting-place by the Porta Capena to the Capitol, where offerings were\nmade to the sky-deity, Iuppiter, but[1] from the analogy of other\nprimitive cults and the sacred title of the stone (_lapis manalis_), it\nis practically certain that the original ritual was the purely\nimitative process of pouring water over the stone. A similar rain-charm\nmay possibly be seen in the curious ritual of the _argeorum sacra_,\nwhen puppets of straw were thrown into the Tiber--a symbolic wetting of\nthe crops to which many parallels may be found among other primitive\npeoples. A sympathetic charm of a rather different character seems to\nsurvive in the ceremony of the _augurium canarium_, at which a red dog\nwas sacrificed for the prosperity of the crop--a symbolic killing of\nthe red mildew (_robigo_); and again the slaughter of pregnant cows at\nthe _Fordicidia_ in the middle of April, before the sprouting of the\ncorn, has a clearly sympathetic connection with the fertility of the\nearth. Another prominent survival--equally characteristic of primitive\npeoples--is the sacredness which attaches to the person of the\npriest-king, so that his every act or word may have a magic\nsignificance or effect. This is reflected generally in the Roman\npriesthood, but especially in the ceremonial surrounding the _flamen\nDialis_, the priest of Iuppiter. He must appear always in festival\ngarb, fire may never be taken from his hearth but for sacred purposes,\nno other person may ever sleep in his bed, the cuttings of his hair and\nnails must be preserved and buried beneath an _arbor felix_--no doubt a\nmagic charm for fertility--he must not eat or even mention a goat or a\nbean, or other objects of an unlucky character.\n\n=2. Worship of Natural Objects.=--A very common feature in the early\ndevelopment of religious consciousness is the worship of natural\nobjects--in the first place of the objects themselves and no more, but\nlater of a spirit indwelling in them. The distinction is no doubt in\nindividual cases a difficult one to make, and we find that among the\nRomans the earlier worship of the object tends to give way to the cult\nof the inhabiting spirit, but examples may be found which seem to\nbelong to the earlier stage. We have, for instance, the sacred stone\n(_silex_) which was preserved in the temple of Iuppiter on the Capitol,\nand was brought out to play a prominent part in the ceremony of\ntreaty-making. The fetial, who on that occasion represented the Roman\npeople, at the solemn moment of the oath-taking, struck the sacrificial\npig with the _silex_, saying as he did so, 'Do thou, Diespiter, strike\nthe Roman people as I strike this pig here to-day, and strike them the\nmore, as thou art greater and stronger.' Here no doubt the underlying\nnotion is not merely symbolical, but in origin the stone is itself the\ngod, an idea which later religion expressed in the cult-title specially\nused in this connection, _Iuppiter Lapis_. So again, in all\nprobability, the _termini_ or boundary-stones between properties are in\norigin the objects--though later only the site--of a yearly ritual at\nthe festival of the Terminalia on February the 23rd, and they are, as\nit were, summed up in 'the god Terminus,' the great sacred\nboundary-stone, which had its own shrine within the Capitoline temple,\nbecause, according to the legend, 'the god' refused to budge even to\nmake room for Iuppiter. The same notion is most likely at the root of\nthe two great domestic cults of Vesta, 'the hearth,' and Ianus, 'the\ndoor,' though a more spiritual idea was soon associated with them; we\nmay notice too in this connection the worship of springs, summed up in\nthe subsequent deity Fons, and of rivers, such as Volturnus, the\ncult-name of the Tiber.\n\n=3. Worship of Trees.=--But most conspicuous among the cults of natural\nobjects, as in so many primitive religions, is the worship of trees.\nHere, though doubtless at first the tree was itself the object of\nveneration, surviving instances seem rather to belong to the later\nperiod when it was regarded as the abode of the spirit. We may\nrecognise a case of this sort in the _ficus Ruminalis_, once the\nrecipient of worship, though later legend, which preferred to find an\nhistorical or mythical explanation of cults, looked upon it as sacred\nbecause it was the scene of the suckling of Romulus and Remus by the\nwolf. Another fig-tree with a similar history is the _caprificus_ of\nthe Campus Martius, subsequently the site of the worship of Iuno\nCaprotina. A more significant case is the sacred oak of Iuppiter\nFeretrius on the Capitol, on which the _spolia opima_ were hung after\nthe triumph--probably in early times a dedication of the booty to the\nspirit inhabiting the tree. Outside Rome, showing the same ideas at\nwork among neighbouring peoples, was the 'golden bough' in the grove of\nDiana at Aricia. Nor was it only special trees which were thus regarded\nas the home of a deity; the tree in general is sacred, and any one may\nchance to be inhabited by a spirit. The feeling of the country\npopulation on this point comes out clearly in the prayer which Cato\nrecommends his farmer to use before making a clearing in a wood: 'Be\nthou god or goddess, to whom this grove is sacred, be it granted to us\nto make propitiatory sacrifice to thee with a pig for the clearing of\nthis sacred spot'; here we have a clear instance of the tree regarded\nas the dwelling of the sacred power, and it is interesting to compare\nthe many similar examples which[2] Dr. Frazer has collected from\ndifferent parts of the world.\n\n=4. Worship of Animals.=--Of the worship of animals we have\ncomparatively little evidence in Roman religion, though we may perhaps\ndetect it in a portion of the mysterious ritual of the Lupercalia,\nwhere the Luperci dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed\ngoats and smeared their faces with the blood, thus symbolically trying\nto bring themselves into communion with the sacred animal. We may\nrecognise it too in the association of particular animals with\ndivinities, such as the sacred wolf and woodpecker of Mars, but on the\nwhole we may doubt whether the worship of animals ever played so\nprominent a part in Roman religion as the cult of other natural\nobjects.\n\n=5. Animism.=--Such are some of the survivals of very early stages of\nreligious custom which still kept their place in the developed religion\nof Rome, but by far the most important element in it, which might\nindeed be described as its 'immediate antecedent,' is the state of\nreligious feeling to which anthropologists have given the name of\n'Animism.' As far as we can follow the development of early religions,\nthis attitude of mind seems to be the direct outcome of the failure of\nmagic. Primitive man begins to see that neither he nor his magicians\nreally possess that occult control over the forces of nature which was\nthe supposed basis of magic: the charm fails, the spell does not\nproduce the rain and when he looks for the cause, he can only argue\nthat these things must be in the hands of some power higher than his\nown. The world then and its various familiar objects become for him\npeopled with spirits, like in character to men, but more powerful, and\nhis success in life and its various operations depends on the degree in\nwhich he is able to propitiate these spirits and secure their\nco-operation. If he desires rain, he must win the favour of the spirit\nwho controls it, if he would fell a tree and suffer no harm, he must by\nsuitable offerings entice the indwelling spirit to leave it. His\n'theology' in this stage is the knowledge of the various spirits and\ntheir dwellings, his ritual the due performance of sacrifice for\npurposes of propitiation and expiation. It was in this state of\nreligious feeling that the ancestors of Rome must have lived before\nthey founded their agricultural settlement on the Palatine: we must try\nnow to see how far it had retained this character and what developments\nit had undergone when it had crystallised into the 'Religion of Numa.'\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, vol. i. pp. 81 ff.\n\n[2] _Golden Bough_, vol. i. pp. 181-185.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nMAIN FEATURES OF THE RELIGION OF NUMA\n\n\n=1. Theology.=--The characteristic appellation of a divine spirit in\nthe oldest stratum of the Roman religion is not _deus_, a god, but\nrather _numen_, a power: he becomes _deus_ when he obtains a name, and\nso is on the way to acquiring a definite personality, but in origin he\nis simply the 'spirit' of the 'animistic' period, and retains something\nof the spirit's characteristics. Thus among the divinities of the\nhousehold we shall see later that the Genius and even the Lar\nFamiliaris, though they attained great dignity of conception, and were\nthe centre of the family life, and to some extent of the family\nmorality, never quite rose to the position of full-grown gods; while\namong the spirits of the field the wildness and impishness of character\nassociated with Faunus and his companion Inuus--almost the cobolds or\nhobgoblins of the flocks--reflects clearly the old 'animistic' belief\nin the natural evilness of the spirits and their hostility to men. The\nnotion of the _numen_ is always vague and indefinite: even its sex may\nbe uncertain. 'Be thou god or goddess' is the form of address in the\nfarmer's prayer already quoted from Cato: 'be it male or female' is the\nconstant formula in liturgies and even dedicatory inscriptions of a\nmuch later period.\n\nThese spirits are, as we have seen, indwellers in the objects of nature\nand controllers of the phenomena of nature: but to the Roman they were\nmore. Not merely did they inhabit places and things, but they presided\nover each phase of natural development, each state or action in the\nlife of man. Varro, for instance, gives us a list of the deities\nconcerned in the early life of the child, which, though it bears the\nmarks of priestly elaboration, may yet be taken as typical of the\nfeeling of the normal Roman family. There is Vaticanus, who opens the\nchild's mouth to cry, Cunina, who guards his cradle, Edulia and Potina,\nwho teach him to eat and drink, Statilinus, who helps him to stand up,\nAdeona and Abeona, who watch over his first footstep, and many others\neach with his special province of protection or assistance. The farmer\nsimilarly is in the hands of a whole host of divinities who assist him\nat each stage of ploughing, hoeing, sowing, reaping, and so forth. If\nthe _numen_ then lacks personal individuality, he has a very distinct\nspecialisation of function, and if man's appeal to the divinity is to\nbe successful, he must be very careful to make it in the right quarter:\nit was a stock joke in Roman comedy to make a character 'ask for water\nfrom Liber, or wine from the nymphs.' Hence we find in the prayer\nformulae in Cato and elsewhere the most careful precautions to prevent\nthe accidental omission of the deity concerned: usually the worshipper\nwill go through the whole list of the gods who may be thought to have\npower in the special circumstances; sometimes he will conclude his\nprayer with the formula 'whosoever thou art,' or 'and any other name by\nwhich thou mayest desire to be called.' The _numen_ is thus vague in\nhis conception but specialised in his function, and so later on, when\ncertain deities have acquired definite names and become prominent above\nthe rest, the worshipper in appealing to them will add a cult-title, to\nindicate the special character in which he wishes the deity to hear:\nthe woman in childbirth will appeal to Iuno Lucina, the general praying\nfor victory to Iuppiter Victor, the man who is taking an oath to\nIuppiter as the deus Fidius. As a still later development the\ncult-title will, as it were, break off and set up for itself, usually\nin the form of an abstract personification: Iuppiter, in the two\nspecial capacities just noted, gives birth to Victoria and Fides.\n\nThe conception of the _numen_ being so formless and indefinite, it is\nnot surprising that in the genuine Roman religion there should have\nbeen no anthropomorphic representations of the divinity at all. 'For\n170 years,' Varro tells us, taking his date from the traditional\nfoundation of the city in 754 B.C., 'the Romans worshipped their gods\nwithout images,' and he adds the characteristic comment, 'those who\nintroduced representations among the nations, took away fear and\nbrought in falsehood.' Symbols of a few deities were no doubt\nrecognised: we have noticed already the _silex_ of Iuppiter and the\nboundary-stone of Terminus, which were probably at an earlier period\nthemselves objects of worship, and to these we may add the sacred\nspears of Mars, and the _sigilla_ of the State-Penates. But for the\nmost part the _numina_ were without even such symbolic representation,\nnor till about the end of the regal period was any form of temple built\nfor them to dwell in. The sacred fire of Vesta near the Forum was, it\nis true, from the earliest times enclosed in a building; this, however,\nwas no temple, but merely an erection with the essentially practical\npurpose of preventing the extinction of the fire by rain. The first\ntemple in the full sense of the word was according to tradition built\nby Servius Tullius to Diana on the Aventine: the tradition is\nsignificant, for Diana was not one of the _di indigetes_, the old\ndeities of the 'Religion of Numa,' but was introduced from the\nneighbouring town of Aricia, and the attribution to Servius Tullius\nnearly always denotes an Etruscan[3] or at any rate a non-Roman origin.\nThere were, however, altars in special places to particular deities,\nbuilt sometimes of stone, sometimes in a more homely manner of earth or\nsods. We hear for instance of the altar of Mars in the Campus Martius,\nof Quirinus on the Quirinal, of Saturnus at the foot of the Capitol,\nand notably of the curious underground altar of Consus on what was\nlater the site of the Circus Maximus. But more characteristic than the\nerection of altars is the connection of deities with special\nlocalities. Naturally enough in the worship of the household Vesta had\nher seat at the hearth, Ianus at the door, and the 'gods of the\nstorehouse' (_Penates_) at the cupboard by the hearth, but the same\nidea appears too in the state-cult. Hilltops, groves, and especially\nclearings in groves (_luci_) are the most usual sacred localities. Thus\nQuirinus has his own sacred hill, Iuppiter is worshipped on the\nCapitol, Vesta and Iuno Lucina have their sacred groves within the\nboundaries of the city, and Dea Dia, Robigus, and Furrina similar\ngroves at the limits of Roman territory. The record of almost every\nRoman cult reveals the importance of locality in connection with the\n_di indigetes_, and the localities are usually such as would be\nnaturally chosen by a pastoral and agricultural people.\n\nSuch were roughly the main outlines of the genuine Roman 'theology.'\nIt has no gods of human form with human relations to one another,\ninterested in the life of men and capable of the deepest passions of\nhatred and affection towards them, such as we meet, for instance, in\nthe mythology of Greece, but only these impersonal individualities, if\nwe may so call them, capable of no relation to one another, but able to\nbring good or ill to men, localised usually in their habitations, but\nrequiring no artificial dwelling or elaborate adornment of their abode;\nbecoming gradually more and more specialised in function, yet gaining\nthereby no more real protective care for their worshippers--a cold and\nheartless hierarchy, ready to exact their due, but incapable of\ninspiring devotion or enthusiasm. Let us ask next how the Romans\nconceived of their own relations towards them.\n\n=2. The Relation of Gods and Men.=--The character of the Roman was\nessentially practical and his natural mental attitude that of the\nlawyer. And so in his relation towards the divine beings whom he\nworshipped there was little of sentiment or affection: all must be\nregulated by clearly understood principles and carried out with formal\nexactness. Hence the _ius sacrum_, the body of rights and duties in the\nmatter of religion, is regarded as a department of the _ius publicum_,\nthe fundamental constitution of the state, and it is significant, as\nMarquardt has observed, that it was Numa, a king and lawgiver, and not\na prophet or a poet, who was looked upon as the founder of the Roman\nreligion. Starting from the simple general feeling of a dependence on a\nhigher power (_religio_), which is common to all religions, the Roman\ngives it his own characteristic colour when he conceives of that\ndependence as analogous to a civil contract between man and god. Both\nsides are under obligation to fulfil their part: if a god answers a\nman's prayer, he must be repaid by a thank-offering: if the man has\nfulfilled 'his bounden duty and service,' the god must make his return:\nif he does not, either the cause lies in an unconscious failure on the\nhuman side to carry out the exact letter of the law, or else, if the\ngod has really broken his contract, he has, as it were, put himself out\nof court and the man may seek aid elsewhere. In this notion we have the\nsecret of Rome's readiness under stress of circumstances, when all\nappeals to the old gods have failed, to adopt foreign deities and cults\nin the hope of a greater measure of success.\n\nThe contract-notion may perhaps appear more clearly if we consider one\nor two of the normal religious acts of the Roman individual or state.\nTake first of all the performance of the regular sacrifices or acts of\nworship ordained by the state-calendar or the celebration of the\nhousehold _sacra_. The _pietas_ of man consists in their due\nfulfilment, but he may through negligence omit them or make a mistake\nin the ritual to be employed. In that case the gods, as it were, have\nthe upper hand in the contract and are not obliged to fulfil their\nshare, but the man can set himself right again by the offering of a\n_piaculum_, which may take the form either of an additional sacrifice\nor a repetition of the original rite. So, for instance, when Cato is\ngiving his farmer directions for the lustration of his fields, he\nsupplies him at the end with two significant formulae: 'if,' he says,\n'you have failed in any respect with regard to all your offerings, use\nthis formula: \"Father Mars, if thou hast not found satisfaction in my\nformer offering of pig, sheep, and ox (the most solemn combination in\nrustic sacrifices), then let this offering of pig and sheep and ox\nappease thee\": but if you have made a mistake in one or two only of\nyour offerings, then say, \"Father Mars, because thou hast not found\nsatisfaction in that pig (or whatever it may be), let this pig appease\nthee.\"' On the other hand, for intentional neglect, there was no\nremedy: the man was _impius_ and it rested with the gods to punish him\nas they liked (_deorum iniuriae dis curae_).\n\nBut apart from the regularly constituted ceremonies of religion, there\nmight be special occasions on which new relations would be entered into\nbetween god and man. Sometimes the initiative would come from man:\ndesiring to obtain from the gods some blessings on which he had set\nhis heart, he would enter into a _votum_, a special contract by which\nhe undertook to perform certain acts or make certain sacrifices, in\ncase of the fulfilment of his desire. The whole proceeding is strictly\nlegal: from the moment when he makes his vow the man is _voti reus_, in\nthe same position, that is, as the defendant in a case whose decision\nis still pending; as soon as the gods have accomplished their side of\nthe contract he is _voti damnatus_, condemned, as it were, to damages,\nhaving lost his suit; nor does he recover his independence until he has\npaid what he undertook: _votum reddidi lubens merito_ ('I have paid my\nvow gladly as it was due') is the characteristic wording of votive\ninscriptions. If the gods did not accomplish the wish, the man was of\ncourse free, and sometimes the contract would be carried so far that a\ntime-limit for their action would be fixed by the maker of the vow:\nlegal exactness can hardly go further.\n\nOr again, the initiative might come from the gods. Some marked\nmisfortune, an earthquake, lightning, a great famine, a portentous\nbirth, or some such occurrence would be recognised as a _prodigium_, or\nsign of the god's displeasure. Somehow or other the contract must have\nbeen broken on the human side and it was the duty of the state to see\nto the restoration of the _pax deum_, the equilibrium of the normal\nrelation of god and man. The right proceeding in such a case was a\n_lustratio_, a solemn cleansing of the people--or the portion of the\npeople involved in the god's displeasure--with the double object of\nremoving the original reason of misfortune and averting future causes\nof the divine anger. The commercial notion is not perhaps quite so\ndistinct here, but the underlying legal relationship is sufficiently\nmarked.\n\nIf then the question be asked whether the relation between the Roman\nand his gods was friendly or unfriendly, the correct answer would\nprobably be that it was neither. It was rather what Aristotle in\nspeaking of human relations describes as 'a friendship for profit': it\nis entered into because both sides hope for some advantage--it is\nmaintained as long as both sides fulfil their obligations.\n\n=3. Ceremonial.=--It has been said sometimes that the old Roman\nreligion was one of cult and ritual without dogma or belief. As we have\nseen this is not in origin strictly true, and it would be fairer to say\nthat belief was latent rather than non-existent: this we may see, for\ninstance, from Cicero's dialogues on the subject of religion, where in\ndiscussion the fundamental sense of the dependence of man on the help\nof the gods comes clearly into view: in the domestic worship of the\nfamily too cult was always to some extent 'tinged with emotion,' and\nsanctified by a belief which made it a more living and in the end a\nmore permanent reality than the religion of the state. But it is no\ndoubt true that as the community advanced, belief tended to sink into\nthe background: development took place in cult and not in theology, so\nthat by the end of the Republic, to take an example, though the\nfestival of the Furrinalia was duly observed every year on the 25th of\nJuly, the nature or function of the goddess Furrina was, as we learn\nfrom Cicero, a pure matter of conjecture, and Varro tells us that her\nname was known only to a few persons. Nor was it mere lapse of time\nwhich tended to obscure theology and exalt ceremonial: their relative\nposition was the immediate and natural outcome of the underlying idea\nof the relation of god and man. Devotion, piety--in our sense of the\nterm--and a feeling of the divine presence could not be enjoined or\neven encouraged by the strictly legal conception on which religion was\nbased: the 'contract-notion' required not a 'right spirit' but right\nperformance. And so it comes about that in all the records we have left\nof the old religion the salient feature which catches and retains our\nattention is exactness of ritual. All must be performed not merely\n'decently and in order,' but with the most scrupulous care alike for\nevery detail of the ceremonial itself, and for the surrounding\ncircumstances. The omission or misplacement of a single word in the\nformulae, the slightest sign of resistance on the part of the victim,\nany disorder among the bystanders, even the accidental squeak of a\nmouse, are sufficient to vitiate the whole ritual and necessitate its\nrepetition from the very beginning. One of the main functions of the\nRoman priesthood was to preserve intact the tradition of formulae and\nritual, and, when the magistrate offered sacrifice for the state, the\n_pontifex_ stood at his side and dictated (_praeire_) the formulae which\nhe must use. Almost the oldest specimen of Latin which we now possess\nis the song of the Salii, the priests of Mars, handed on from\ngeneration to generation and repeated with scrupulous care, even though\nthe priests themselves, as Quintilian assures us, had not the least\nnotion what it meant. Nor was it merely the words of ceremonial which\nwere of vital importance: other details must be attended to with equal\nexactness. Place, as we have seen, was an essential feature even in the\nconception of deity, and it must have required all the personal\ninfluence of Augustus and his entourage to reconcile the people of\nRome, with the ancient home of the goddess still before their eyes, to\nthe second shrine of Vesta within the limits of his palace on the\nPalatine. The choice of the appropriate offering again was a matter of\nthe greatest moment and was dictated by a large number of\nconsiderations. The sex of the victim must correspond to the sex of the\ndeity to whom it is offered, white beasts must be given to the gods of\nthe upper world, black victims to the deities below. Mars at his\nOctober festival must have his horse, Iuno Caprotina her goat, and\nRobigus his dog, while in the more rustic festivals such as the\nParilia, the offering would be the simpler gift of millet-cakes and\nbowls of milk: in the case of the Bona Dea we have the curious\nprovision that if wine were used in the ceremonial, it must, as she was\nin origin a pastoral deity, always be spoken of as 'milk.' The persons\nwho might be present in the various festivals were also rigidly\ndetermined: men were excluded from the Matronalia on March 1, from the\nVestalia on the 9th of June, and from the night festival of the Bona\nDea: the notorious escapade of Clodius in 62 B.C. shows the scandal\nraised by a breach of this rule even at the period when religious\nenthusiasm was at its lowest ebb. Slaves were specifically admitted to\na share in certain festivals such as the Saturnalia and the Compitalia\n(the festival of the Lares), whereas at the Matralia (the festival of\nthe matrons) a female slave was brought in with the express purpose of\nbeing significantly driven away.\n\nThe general notion of the exactness of ritual will perhaps become\nclearer when we come to examine some of the festivals in detail, but it\nis of extreme importance for the understanding of the Roman religious\nattitude, to think of it from the first as an essential part in the\nexpression of the relation of man to god.\n\n=4. Directness of Relation--Functions of Priests.=--In contrast to all\nthis precision of ritual, which tends almost to alienate humanity from\ndeity, we may turn to another hardly less prominent feature of the\nRoman religion--the immediateness of relation between the god and his\nworshippers. Not only may the individual at any time approach the altar\nof the god with his prayer or thank-offering, but in every community of\npersons its religious representative is its natural head. In the\nfamily the head of the household (_pater familias_) is also the priest\nand he is responsible for conducting the religious worship of the whole\nhouse, free and slave alike: to his wife and daughters he leaves the\nceremonial connected with the hearth (_Vesta_) and the deities of the\nstore-cupboard (_Penates_), and to his bailiff the sacrifice to the\npowers who protect his fields (_Lares_), but the other acts of worship\nat home and in the fields he conducts himself, and his sons act as his\nacolytes. Once a year he meets with his neighbours at the boundaries of\ntheir properties and celebrates the common worship over the\nboundary-stones. So in[4] the larger outgrowth of the family, the\n_gens_, which consisted of all persons with the same surname (_nomen_,\nnot _cognomen_), the gentile _sacra_ are in the hands of the more\nwealthy members who are regarded as its heads; we have the curious\ninstance of Clodius even after his adoption into another family,\nproviding for the worship of the _gens Clodia_ in his own house, and we\nmay remember Virgil's picture of the founders of the _gentes_ of the\nPotitii and the Pinarii performing the sacrifice to Hercules at the\n_ara maxima_, which was the traditional privilege of their houses.\nWhen societies (_sodalitates_) are formed for religious purposes they\nelect their own _magistri_ to be their religious representatives, as we\nsee in the case of the Salii and the Luperci. Finally, in the great\ncommunity of the state the king is priest, and with that exactness of\nparallelism of which the Roman was so fond, he--like the _pater\nfamilias_--leaves the worship of Vesta in the hands of his 'daughters,'\nthe Vestal virgins. And so, when the Republic is instituted, a special\nofficial, the _rex sacrorum_, inherits the king's ritual duties, while\nthe superintendence of the Vestals passes to his representative in the\nmatter of religious law, the _pontifex maximus_, whose official\nresidence is always the _regia_, Numa's palace. The state is but the\nenlarged household and the head of the state is its religious\nrepresentative.\n\nIf then the approach to the gods is so direct, where, it may be asked,\nin the organisation of Roman religion is there room for the priest? Two\npoints about the Roman priesthood are of paramount importance. In the\nfirst place, they are not a caste apart: though there were restrictions\nas to the holding of secular magistracies in combination with the\npriesthood--always observed strictly in the case of the _rex sacrorum_\nand with few exceptions in the case of the greater _flamines_--yet the\n_pontifices_ might always take their part in public life, and no kind\nof barrier existed between them and the rest of the community: Iulius\nCaesar himself was _pontifex maximus_. In the second place they are not\nregarded as representatives of the gods or as mediators between god and\nman, but simply as administrative officials appointed for the\nperformance of the acts of state-worship, just as the magistrates were\nfor its civil and military government. In origin they were chosen to\nassist the king in the multifarious duties of the state-cult--the\n_flamines_ were to act as special priests of particular deities, the\nmost prominent among them being the three great priests of Iuppiter\n(_flamen Dialis_), Mars, and Quirinus; the _pontifices_ were sometimes\ndelegates of the king on special occasions, but more particularly\nformed his religious _consilium_, a consulting body, to give him advice\nas to ritual and act as the repositories of tradition. In later times\nthe _flamines_ still retain their original character, the _pontifices_\nand especially the _pontifex maximus_ are responsible for the whole\norganisation of the state-religion and are the guardians and\ninterpreters of religious lore. In the state-cult then the priests play\na very important part, but their relation to the worship of the\nindividual was very small indeed. They had a general superintendence\nover private worship and their leave would be required for the\nintroduction of any new domestic cult; in cases too where the private\nperson was in doubt as to ritual or the legitimacy of any religious\npractice, he could appeal to the _pontifices_ for decision. Otherwise\nthe priest could never intervene in the worship of the family, except\nin the case of the most solemn form of marriage (_confarreatio_),\nwhich, as it conferred on the children the right to hold certain of the\npriesthoods, was regarded itself as a ceremony of the state-religion.\n\nIn his private worship then the individual had immediate access to the\ndeity, and it was no doubt this absence of priestly mediation and the\nconsequent sense of personal responsibility, no less than its emotional\nsignificance, which caused the greater reality and permanence of the\ndomestic worship as compared with the organised and official cults of\nthe state.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] Etruscan builders were according to tradition employed on the\nearliest Roman temples.\n\n[4] This is all open to doubt, but see De Marchi, _Il Culto Privato_,\nvol. ii.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nEARLY HISTORY OF ROME--THE AGRICULTURAL COMMUNITY\n\n\nAfter this sketch of the main features which we must expect to find in\nRoman religion, we may attempt to look a little more in detail at its\nvarious departments, but before doing so it is necessary to form some\nnotion of the situation and character of the Roman community: religion\nis not a little determined by men's natural surroundings and\noccupations. The subject is naturally one of considerable controversy,\nbut certain facts of great significance for our purpose may fairly be\ntaken as established. The earliest settlement which can be called\n'Rome' was the community of the Palatine hill, which rises out of the\nvalleys more abruptly than any of the other hills and was the natural\nplace to be selected for fortification: the outline of the walls and\nsacred enclosure running outside them (_pomoerium_) may still be\ntraced, marking the limits of 'square Rome' (_Roma quadrata_), as the\nhistorians called it. The Palatine community no doubt pursued their\nagricultural labours over the neighbouring valleys and hills, and\ngradually began to extend their settlement till it included the\nEsquiline and Caelian and other lesser heights which made up the\nSeptimontium--the next stage of Rome's development. Meanwhile a kindred\nsettlement had been established on the opposite hills of the Quirinal\nand Viminal, and ultimately the two communities united, enclosing\nwithin their boundaries the Capitol and their meeting-place in the\nvalley which separated them--the Forum. In this way was formed the Rome\nof the Four Regions, which represents the utmost extent of its\ndevelopment during the period which gave rise to the genuine Roman\nreligion. All these stages have left their mark on the customs of\nreligion. _Roma quadrata_ comes to the fore in the Lupercalia: not\nmerely is the site of the ceremony a grotto on the Palatine\n(_Lupercal_), but when the _Luperci_ run their purificatory course\naround the boundaries, it is the circuit of the Palatine hill which\nmarks its limits. Annually on the 11th of December the festival of the\nSeptimontium was celebrated, not by the whole people, but by the\n_montani_, presumably the inhabitants of those parts of Rome which\nwere included in the second settlement. Finally, the addition of the\nQuirinal settlement is marked by the inclusion among the great\nstate-gods of Quirinus, who must have been previously the local deity\nof the Quirinal community.\n\nBut more important for us than the history of the early settlement is\nits character. We have spoken of early Rome as an agricultural\ncommunity: it would be more exact and more helpful to describe it as a\ncommunity of agricultural households. The institutions of Rome, legal\nas well as religious, all point to the household (_familia_) as the\noriginal unit of organisation: the individual, as such, counted for\nnothing, the community was but the aggregate of families. Domestic\nworship then was not merely independent of the religion of the\ncommunity: it was prior to it, and is both its historical and logical\norigin. Yet the life of the early Roman agriculturalist could not be\nconfined to the household: in the tilling of the fields and the care of\nhis cattle he meets his neighbour, and common interests suggest common\nprayer and thanksgiving. Thus there sprung up the great series of\nagricultural festivals which form the basis of the state-calendar, but\nwere in origin--as some of them still continued to be--the independent\nacts of worship of groups of agricultural households. Gradually, as the\ncommunity grew on the lines we have just seen, there grew with it a\nsense of an organised state, as something more than the casual\naggregation of households or clans (_gentes_). As the feeling of union\nbecame stronger, so did the necessity for common worship of the gods,\nand the state-cult came into being primarily as the repetition on\nbehalf of the community as a whole of the worship which its members\nperformed separately in their households or as joint-worshippers in the\nfields. But the conception of a state must carry with it at least two\nideas over and beyond the common needs of its members: there must be\ninternal organisation to secure domestic tranquillity, and--since there\nwill be collision with other states--external organisation for purposes\nof offence and defence. Religion follows the new ideas, and in two of\nthe older deities of the fields develops the notions of justice and\nwar. Organisation ensues, and the general conceptions of state-deities\nand state-ritual are made more definite and precise.\n\nIt will be at once natural and convenient that we should consider these\nthree departments of religion in the order that has just been\nsuggested--the worship of the household, the worship of the fields, the\nworship of the state. But it must not be forgotten that both the\ndepartments themselves and the evidence for them frequently overlap.\nThe domestic worship is not wholly distinguishable from that of the\nfields, the state-cult is, as we have seen, very largely a replica of\nthe other two. The evidence for the domestic and agricultural cults is\nin itself very scanty, and we shall frequently have to draw inferences\nfrom their counterparts in the state. Above all, it is not to be\nsupposed that any hard and fast line between the three existed in the\nRoman's mind; but for the purposes of analysis the distinction is\nvaluable and represents a historical reality.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nWORSHIP OF THE HOUSEHOLD\n\n\n=1. The Deities.=--The worship of the household seems to have\noriginated, as has been suggested, in the sense of the sacredness of\ncertain objects closely bound up with the family life--the door, the\nprotection against the external world, by which the household went out\nto work in the morning and returned at evening, the hearth, the giver\nof warmth and nourishment, and the store-cupboard, where was preserved\nthe food for future use. At first, in all probability, the worship was\nactually of the objects themselves, but by the time that Rome can be\nsaid to have existed at all, 'animism' had undoubtedly transformed it\ninto a veneration of the indwelling spirits, Ianus, Vesta, and the\nPenates.\n\nOf the domestic worship of Ianus no information has come down to us,\nbut we may well suppose that as the defence of the door and its main\nuse lay with the men of the household, so they, under the control of\nthe _pater familias_, were responsible for the cult of its spirit.\nVesta was, of course, worshipped at the hearth by the women, who most\noften used it in the preparation of the domestic meals. In the original\nround hut, such as the primitive Roman dwelt in--witness the models\nwhich he buried with his dead and which recent excavations in the Forum\nhave brought to light--the 'blazing hearth' (such seems to be the\nmeaning of Vesta) would be the most conspicuously sacred thing; it is\ntherefore not surprising to find that her simple cult was the most\npersistent of all throughout the history of Rome, and did not vary from\nits original notion. Even Ovid can tell the inquirer 'think not Vesta\nto be ought else than living flame,' and again, 'Vesta and fire require\nno effigy'--notions in which he has come curiously near to the\nconceptions of the earliest religion. The Penates in the same way were\nat first 'the spirits'--whoever they might be--who preserved and\nincreased the store in the cupboard. Then as the conception of\nindividual deities became clearer, they were identified with some one\nor other of the gods of the country or the state, among whom the\nindividual householder would select those who should be the particular\nPenates of his family: Ceres, Iuno, Iuppiter, Pales would be some of\nthose chosen in the earlier period. Nor are we to suppose that\nselection was merely arbitrary: the tradition of family and clan, even\npossibly of locality, would determine the choice, much as the\npatron-saints of a church are now determined in a Roman Catholic\ncountry.\n\nTwo other deities are very prominent in the worship of the early\nhousehold, and each is a characteristic product of Roman religious\nfeeling, the Lar Familiaris and the Genius. The Lares[5] seem to have\nbeen in origin the spirits of the family fields: they were worshipped,\nas Cicero tells us, 'on the farm in sight of the house,' and they had\ntheir annual festival in the Compitalia, celebrated at the\n_compita_--places where two or more properties marched. But one of\nthese spirits, the _Lar Familiaris_, had special charge of the house\nand household, and as such was worshipped with the other domestic gods\nat the hearth. As his protection extended over all the household,\nincluding the slaves, his cult is placed specially in the charge of the\nbailiff's wife (_vilica_). He is regularly worshipped at the great\ndivisions of the month on Calends, Nones, and Ides, but he has also an\nintimate and beautiful connection with the domestic history of the\nfamily. An offering is made to the Lar on the occasion of a birth, a\nwedding, a departure, or a return, and even--a characteristically Roman\naddition--on the occasion of the first utterance of a word by a son of\nthe house: finally, a particularly solemn sacrifice is made to him\nafter a death in the family.\n\nThe Genius is perhaps the most difficult conception in the Roman\nreligion for the modern mind to grasp. It has been spoken of as the\n'patron-saint' or 'guardian-angel,' both of them conceptions akin to\nthat of the Genius, but both far too definite and anthropomorphic: we\nshall understand it best by keeping the '_numen_' notion clearly in\nmind and looking to the root-meaning of the word (_genius_ connected\nwith the root of _gignere_, to beget). It was after all only a natural\ndevelopment of the notions of 'animism' to imagine that man too, like\nother objects, had his indwelling spirit--not his 'soul' either in our\nsense of moral and intellectual powers, or in the ancient sense of the\nvital principle--but rather as the derivation suggests, in origin\nsimply the spirit which gave him the power of generation. Hence in the\nhouse, the sphere of the Genius is no longer the hearth but the\nmarriage-bed (_lectus genialis_). This notion growing somewhat wider,\nthe Genius comes to denote all the full powers, almost the personality,\nof developed manhood, and especially those powers which make for\npleasure and happiness: this is the origin of such common phrases as\n_genium curare_, _genio indulgere_, meaning practically to 'look after\noneself,' 'to indulge oneself.' Every man, then, has this 'spirit of\nhis manhood' in his Genius, and correspondingly every woman her Iuno,\nor spirit of womanhood, which are worshipped on the birthdays of their\nowners. No doubt later the Genius was accredited with powers over the\nfortune and misfortune of his possessor, but he never really developed\nanything like the independence of a god, and remained always rather a\n_numen_. The individual revered his own Genius, but the household cult\nwas concerned, as one would expect, with the Genius of the master of\nthe house, the pre-eminent Genius of the family. Its special locality\nwas, for the reason just noticed, the marriage-bed and its symbol, the\nhouse-snake, kept as a revered inmate and cherished in the feeling that\nevil happening to it meant misfortune to the master. The festival of\nthe Genius was naturally the master's birthday, and on that day slaves\nand freedmen kept holiday with the family and brought offerings to the\n_Genius domus_. It is a significant fact, and may serve to bring out\nthe underlying notion, that in later paintings, when anthropomorphism\nand sensuous representation held sway over all Roman religion, though\nthe other gods of the household were depicted after the manner of Greek\ndeities, the Genius is either represented by his symbolic snake or\nappears with the human features and characteristics of the head of the\nhouse, his owner.\n\nThe spirit-gods then of the door and the hearth, the specially chosen\ndeities of the store-cupboard, the particular field-power presiding\nover the household, and the spirit of the master's personality were the\ngods of the early home, and round their worship centred the domestic\nreligion. We must attempt to see what was its relation to family life.\n\n=2. Religion and the Family Life.=--We have already noticed the main\noccasions of regular sacrifice to the deities of the household, the\nofferings to the Lar on Calends, Nones, and Ides, to the Genius on the\nmaster's birthday, and so on, and we are enabled to form a fair picture\nof the rites from paintings which, although of later date, undoubtedly\nrepresent the continuous tradition of domestic custom. In a\nwall-painting at Herculaneum, for instance, we have a picture of the\n_pater familias_, represented with veiled head (according to regular\nRoman custom) and the cornucopia of the Genius, making sacrifice at a\nround altar or hearth. Opposite him stands the flute-player (_tibicen_)\nplaying to drown any unpropitious sound, while on either side are two\nsmaller figures, presumably the sons, acting as attendants (_camilli_),\nand both clad (_succincti_) in the short sacrificial tunic (_limus_);\none carries in his left hand the sacred dish (_patera_), and in his\nright garlands or, more probably, ribbons for the decoration of the\nvictim: the other is acting as _victimarius_ and bringing the pig for\nsacrifice, but the animal is hurrying with almost excessive eagerness\ntowards the altar, no doubt to show that there is none of the\nreluctance which would have been sufficient to vitiate the sacrifice.\n\nBut from our point of view such formal acts of worship are of less\nimportance than the part played by religion in the daily life of the\nhousehold. There is evidence both for earlier and later periods that\nthe really 'pious' would begin their day with prayer and sacrifice to\nthe household gods, and like Virgil's Aeneas, typically _pius_ in all\nthe meanings of the word, would 'rouse the slumbering flame upon the\naltar and gladly approach again the Lar and little Penates whom he\nworshipped yesterday.' But this was perhaps exceptional devotion, and\nthe daily worship in the normal household centred rather round the\nfamily meal. In the old and simple house the table would be placed at\nthe side of the hearth, and, as the household sat round it, master and\nman together, a part of the meal, set aside on a special sacred dish\n(_patella_), would be thrown into the flames as the gods' portion.\nSometimes incense might be added, and later a libation of wine: when\nimages had become common, the little statuettes of Lares and Penates\nwould be fetched from the shrine (_lararium_) and placed upon the table\nin token of their presence at the meal. Even in the luxurious,\nmany-roomed house of the imperial epoch, when the dining-table was far\nfrom the kitchen-hearth, a pause was made in the meal and an offering\nsent out to the household-gods, nor would the banquet proceed until the\nslave had returned and announced that the gods were favourable (_deos\npropitios_): so persistent was this tradition of domestic piety. Prayer\nmight be made at this point on special occasions to special deities,\nas, for instance, before the beginning of the sowing of the crops,\nappeal was made to Iuppiter, and a special portion of the meal (_daps_)\nwas set aside for him. The sanctification of the one occasion when the\nwhole household met in the day cannot fail to have had its effect on\nthe domestic life, and, even if it was no direct incentive to morality,\nit yet bound the family together in a sense of dependence on a higher\npower for the supply of their daily needs.\n\nWe observed incidentally how the small events of domestic life were\ngiven their religious significance, particularly in connection with the\nworship of Lar and Genius, but to complete the sketch of domestic\nreligion, we must examine a little more closely its relation to the\nprocess of life, and especially to the two important occasions of birth\nand marriage. In no department of life is the specialisation of\nfunction among the _numina_ more conspicuous than in connection with\nbirth and childhood. Apart from the general protection of Iuno Lucina,\nthe prominent divinity of childbirth, we can count in the records that\nhave come down to us some twenty subordinate spirits, who from the\nmoment of conception to the moment of birth watched, each in its own\nparticular sphere, over the mother and the unborn child. As soon as the\nbirth had taken place began a series of ceremonies, which are of\nparticular interest, as they seem to belong to a very early stage of\nreligious thought, and have a markedly rustic character. Immediately a\nsacred meal was offered to the two field-deities, Picumnus and\nPilumnus, and then the Roman turned his attention to the practical\ndanger of fever for the mother and child. At night three men gathered\nround the threshold, one armed with an axe, another with a stake, and a\nthird with a broom: the two first struck the threshold with their\nimplements, the third swept out the floor. Over this ceremony were said\nto preside three _numina_, Intercidona (connected with the axe),\nPilumnus (connected with the stake, _pilum_), and Deverra (connected\nwith the act of sweeping). Its object was, as Varro explains it, to\navert the entrance of the half-wild Silvanus by giving three\nunmistakeable signs of human civilisation; we shall probably not be\nwrong in seeing in it rather an actual hacking, beating, and sweeping\naway of evil spirits. On the ninth day after birth, in the case of a\nboy, on the eighth in the case of a girl, occurred the festival of the\nnaming (_solemnitas nominalium_). The ceremony was one of purification\n(_dies lustricus_ is its alternative title), and a piacular offering\nwas made to preserve the child from evil influences in the future.\nFriends brought presents, especially neck-bands in the form of a\nhalf-moon (_lunulae_), and the golden balls (_bullae_) which were worn\nas a charm round the neck until the attainment of manhood.\n\nOf the numerous petty divinities which watched over the child's early\nyears we have already given some account. In their protection he\nremained until he arrived at puberty, about the age of seventeen, when\nwith due religious ceremony he entered on his manhood. At home, on the\nmorning of the festival, he solemnly laid aside the _bulla_ and the\npurple-striped garb of childhood (_toga praetexta_) before the shrine\nof the household gods, and made them a thank-offering for their\nprotection in the past. Afterwards, accompanied by his father and\nfriends and clad now in the _toga virilis_, he went solemnly to the\nCapitol, and, after placing a contribution in the coffers of\nIuventas--or probably in earlier times of Iuppiter Iuventus--made an\noffering to the supreme deity Iuppiter Capitolinus. The sacred\ncharacter of the early years of a young Roman's life could hardly be\nmore closely marked.\n\nThough _confarreatio_ was the only essentially religious form of\nmarriage, and was sanctified by the presence of the _pontifex maximus_\nand the _flamen Dialis_, yet marriage even in the less religious\nceremony of _coemptio_ was always a _sacrum_. It must not take place on\nthe days of state-festivals (_feriae_), nor on certain other _dies\nreligiosi_, such as those of the Vestalia or the feast of the dead\n(_Parentalia_). Both the marriage itself and the preliminary betrothal\n(_sponsalia_) had to receive the divine sanction by means of auspices,\nand in the ceremonies of both rites the religious element, though bound\nup with superstition and folk-customs, emerges clearly enough. The\ncentral ceremony of the _confarreatio_ was an act partly of sacrifice,\npartly, one might almost say, of communion. The bride and bridegroom\nsat on two chairs united to one another and covered with a lambskin,\nthey offered to Iuppiter bloodless offerings of a rustic character\n(_fruges et molam salsam_), they employed in the sacrifice the\nfundamental household necessaries, water, fire, and salt, and\nthemselves ate of the sacred spelt-cake (_libus farreus_), from which\nthe ceremony derived its name. The crucial point in the more civil\nceremony of _coemptio_ was the purely human and legal act of the\njoining of hands (_dextrarum iunctio_), but it was immediately followed\nby the sacrifice of a victim, which gave the ceremony a markedly\nreligious significance. The customs connected with the bringing of the\nbride to the bridegroom's house--so beautifully depicted in Catullus'\n_Epithalamium_--her forcible abduction from her parents, the ribaldry\nof the bridegroom's companions, the throwing of nuts as a symbol of\nfecundity, the carrying of the bride over the threshold, a relic\nprobably of primitive marriage by capture, the untying of the bridal\nknot on the bridal couch--are perhaps more akin to superstition than\nreligion, but we may notice two points in the proceedings. Firstly, the\nthree coins (_asses_) which the bride brought with her, one to give to\nher husband as a token of dowry, one to be offered at the hearth to her\nnew Lar Familiaris, one to be offered subsequently at the nearest\n_compitum_ (a clear sign of connection between the household Lar and\nthose of the fields); and secondly, an echo of the feature so marked\nall through domestic life, the crowd of little _numina_, who took their\npart in assisting the ceremony. There was Domiduca, who brought the\nbride to the bridegroom's house, Iterduca, who looked after her on the\ntransit, Unxia, who anointed her, Cinxia, who bound and unbound her\ngirdle, and many others.\n\nThis sketch of the household worship of the Romans will, I hope, have\njustified my contention that there was in it an element more truly\n'religious' than anything we should gather from the ceremonies of the\nstate. The ideas are simpler, the _numina_ seem less cold and more\nprotective, the worshippers more sensible of divine aid. When we have\nlooked at the companion picture of the farmer in the fields, we shall\ngo on to see how the worship of the agricultural household is the\nprototype and basis of the state-cult, but first we must consider\nbriefly the very difficult question of the relation of the living to\nthe dead.\n\n=3. Relation of the Living and the Dead.=--The worship of the spirits\nof dead ancestors is so common a feature in most primitive religions\nthat it may seem strange even to doubt whether it existed among the\nRomans, but, although the question is one of extreme difficulty, and\nthe evidence very insufficient, I am inclined to believe that, though\nthe living were always conscious of their continued relation to the\ndead, and sensitive of the influence of the powers of the underworld,\nyet there was not, strictly speaking, any cult of the dead. Let us\nattempt briefly to collect the salient features in ritual, and see to\nwhat conclusion they point as to the underlying belief.\n\nOne of the most remarkable facts in domestic worship is that, whereas\nthe moment of birth and the other great occasions of life are\nsurrounded with religious ceremony and belief, the moment of death\npasses without any trace of religious accompaniment: it is as though\nthe dying man went out into another world where the ceremonials of this\nlife can no more avail him, nor its gods protect him. As to his state\nafter death, opinion varied at different times under different\ninfluences, but the simple early notion, connected especially with the\npractice of burial as opposed to cremation,[6] was that his spirit just\nsank into the earth, where it rested and returned from time to time to\nthe upper world through certain openings in the ground (_mundi_), whose\nsolemn uncovering was one of the regular observances of the festal\ncalendar: later, no doubt, a more spiritual notion prevailed, though it\nnever reached definiteness or universality. One idea, however, seems\nalways to be prominent, that the happiness of the dead could be much\naffected by the due performance of the funeral rites; hence it was the\nmost solemn duty of the heir to perform the _iusta_ for the dead, and\nif he failed in any respect to carry them out, he could only atone for\nhis omission by the annual sacrifice of a sow (_porca praecidanea_) to\nCeres and Tellus--to the divinities of the earth, be it noticed, and\nnot to the dead themselves. The actual funeral was not a religious\nceremony; a procession was formed (originally at night) of the family\nand friends, in which the body of the dead was carried--accompanied by\nthe busts (_imagines_) of his ancestors--to a tomb outside the town,\nand was there laid in the grave. The family on their return proceeded\nat once to rites of purification from the contamination which had\novertaken them owing to the presence of a dead body. Two ceremonies\nwere performed, one for the purification of the house by the sacrifice\nof a sow (_porca praesentanea_) to Ceres accompanied by a solemn\nsweeping out of refuse (_exverrae_), the other the lustration of their\nown persons by fire and water. This done, they sat down with their\nfriends to a funeral feast (_silicernium_), which, Cicero tells us, was\nregarded as an honour rather to the surviving members of the family\nthan to the dead, so that mourning was not worn. Two other ceremonies\nwithin the following week, the _feriae denicales_ and the _novendiale\nsacrum_, brought the religious mourning to a close. Not that the dead\nwere forgotten after the funeral: year by year, on the anniversaries of\ndeath and burial, and on certain fixed occasions known by such\nsuggestive titles as 'the day of roses' and 'the day of violets,' the\nfamily would revisit the tomb and make simple offerings of salt cake\n(_mola salsa_), of bread soaked in wine, or garlands of flowers: there\nis some trace, on such occasions, of prayer, but it would seem to be\nrather the repetition of general religious formulae than a petition to\nthe dead for definite blessings.\n\nSuch are the principal features of the family ritual in relation to\ntheir dead; but if we are to form any just notion of belief, we must\nsupplement them by reference to the ceremonies of the state, which\nhere, as elsewhere, are very clearly the household-cult 'writ large.'\nIn the Calendars we find two obvious celebrations in connection with\nthe dead, taking place at different seasons of the year, and consisting\nof ceremonies markedly different in character. In the gloomy month of\nFebruary--associated with solemn lustrations--occurs the festival known\npopularly (though not in the Calendars) as the Parentalia or dies\nParentales, that is, the days of sacrifice in connection with the dead\nmembers of the family (_parentes_, _parentare_). It begins with the\nnote on February 13, _Virgo Vestalis parentat_, and continues till the\nclimax, _Feralia_, on February 21. During these days the magistrates\nlaid aside the insignia of their offices, the temples were shut,\nmarriages were forbidden, and every family carried out at the tombs of\nits relatives ceremonies resembling those of the _sacra privata_. The\nwhole season closed on February 22 with the festival of the Caristia or\n_cara cognatio_, a family reunion of the survivors in a kind of\n'love-feast,' which centred in the worship of the Lar Familiaris. Here\nwe seem to have simply, as in the family rites, a peaceful and solemn\nacknowledgment by the community as a whole of the still subsisting\nrelation of the living and the dead. On the 9th, 11th, and 13th of May\noccurs the Lemuria, a ceremony of a strikingly different order. Once\nagain temples are shut and marriages forbidden, but the ritual is of a\nvery different nature. The _Lemures_ or _Larvae_--for there seems to be\nlittle distinction between the two names--are regarded no longer as\nmembers of the family to be welcomed back to their place, but as\nhostile spirits to be exorcised.[7] The head of the house rises from\nbed at midnight, washes, and walks barefoot through the house, making\nsigns for the aversion of evil spirits. In his mouth he carries black\nbeans--always a chthonic symbol--which he spits out nine times without\nlooking round, saying, as he does so, 'With these I redeem me and\nmine': he washes again, and clanks brass vessels together; nine times\nhe repeats the formula, 'depart, Manes of our fathers' (no doubt using\nthe dignified title Manes euphemistically), and then finally turns\nround. Here we have in a quite unmistakeable manner the feeling of the\nhostility of the spirits of the dead: they must be given their\nappropriate food and got out of the place as quickly as possible. Some\nscholars have attempted to explain the difference between these two\nfestivals on the assumption that the Parentalia represents the\ncommemoration of the duly buried dead, the Lemuria the apotropaic right\nfor the aversion of the unburied, and therefore hostile spirits; but\nOvid has given a far more significant hint, when he tells us that the\nLemuria was the more ancient festival of the two.\n\nSo far we have had no indication of anything approaching divinity in\nconnection with the dead or the underworld as distinct from the\nearth-goddesses, but the evidence for it, though vague and shadowy, is\nnot wanting. Certain mysterious female deities, Tarpeia, Acca Larentia,\nCarna, and Laverna, of whom late aetiological myth had its own\nexplanation, have, in all probability, been rightly interpreted by\nMommsen as divinities of the lower world: the commemorative 'sacrifice\nat the tomb,' which we hear of in connection with the first two, was in\nreality, we may suppose, an offering to a chthonic deity at a _mundus_.\nA rather more tangible personality is Vediovis, who three times a year\nhas his celebration (_Agonia_ not _feriae_) in the Calendar: he, as his\nname denotes, must be the 'opposite of Iove,' that is, probably, his\nchthonic counterpart, a notion sufficiently borne out by his subsequent\nidentification with the Greek Pluto. Finally, of course, there is that\nvague body, the Di Manes, 'the good gods,' the principal deities of the\nworld of the dead; to them invocations are addressed, and they have\ntheir place in the formulae of the _parentalia_ and the opening of the\n_mundi_.[8] In connection with them, acting as a link with the female\ndeities, we have the strange goddess Genita Mana, the 'spirit of birth\nand death.'\n\nControversy is acute as to the interpretation of these facts,\nespecially in regard to the question whether or no the spirits of the\ndead were actually worshipped. I would hazard the following\nreconstruction of history as consistent with what we otherwise know of\nRoman religion, and with the evidence before us. From the earliest\ntimes the Roman looked upon his dead relations as in some sense living,\nlying beneath the earth, but capable alike of returning to the world\nabove and of influencing in some vague way the fortunes of the living,\nespecially in relation to the crops which sprung from the ground in\nwhich they lay. At first, when his religion was one of fear, he\nregarded the dead as normally hostile, and their presence as something\nto be averted; this is the stage which gave birth to the Lemuria. As\ncivilisation increased, and the sense of the unity of household and\ncommunity developed, fear, proving ungrounded, gave place to a kindlier\nfeeling of the continued existence of the dead as members of household\nand state, and even in some sense as an additional bond between the\nliving: this is the period which produced the _sacra privata_ and the\nParentalia. When the _numen_-feeling began to pass into that of _deus_,\nin the first place a connection was felt between the spirits of the\ndead and the deities of the earth associated with the growth of the\ncrops, in the second the notion that the underworld must have its gods\nas well as the world above, produced the shadowy female deities and\nVediovis. Lastly, the same kind of feeling which added Parentalia to\nLemuria developed the vague general notion of the Di Manes, not the\ndeified spirits of the dead, but peaceful and on the whole kindly\ndivinities holding sway in the world of dead spirits, yet accessible to\nthe prayers of the living. The dead, then, were not themselves\nworshipped, but they needed commemoration and kindly gifts, and they\nhad in their lower world deities to whom prayer might be made and\nworship given.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[5] It is right to state that there is a totally different theory,\naccording to which the Lares were the spirits of the dead ancestors and\nthe Lar Familiaris an embodiment, as it were, of all the family dead.\n\n[6] It is significant that even when the dead were cremated, one bone\nwas carefully preserved in order to be symbolically buried.\n\n[7] We may note that, though it is a state festival, our information is\nsolely of rites in individual households.\n\n[8] Their mention in sepulchral inscriptions dates from the time of the\nEmpire, when a new conception of their nature had sprung up.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nWORSHIP OF THE FIELDS\n\n\nThe life of the early Roman in the fields, his activities, his hopes\nand fears, are reflected in the long list of agricultural festivals\nwhich constitute the greater part of the celebrations in the Calendar,\nand follow closely the seasons and occupations of the agricultural\nyear. We are, of course, in the Calendar dealing, to speak strictly,\nwith the worship of the state, and not with the semi-private festivals\nof groups of farmers, but in many instances, such as the Robigalia, the\nstate seems only to have taken over the cult of the farmers, preserving\ncarefully the site on which the celebration took place; in others, such\nas the Terminalia and the Parilia, it seems to have established, as it\nwere, a state-counterpart of a rite performed independently at many\nrustic centres: in both cases we are justified in inferring the\npractice of the early Roman agriculturalist. We shall see that in most\ncases these festivals are associated--though often loosely\nenough--with the worship of a particular divinity. Sometimes,\nhowever,--as in the case of the Lupercalia--it is very difficult to\ndiscover who this divinity was; in other festivals, such as the\nRobigalia, it looks as if the eponymous deity was a comparatively late\ndevelopment. We may, therefore, suppose, on the analogy of what we have\nalready seen to be the general lines of development in Roman religion,\nthat the festivals in origin centred round a purpose rather than a\npersonality, and were addressed 'to all spirits whom it might concern';\nand that later, when the _deus_ notion was on the increase, they either\nattached themselves to some god whose personality was already distinct,\nas the Vinalia were attached to Iuppiter, or 'developed' a deity of\ntheir own. Among these deities, strictly functional as a rule and\nexisting only in connection with their special festival, we shall\nnotice the frequent recurrence of a divinity pair, not, of course,\nmythologically related as husband and wife, but representing, perhaps,\nthe male and female aspects of the same process of development.\n\nThe festivals divide themselves naturally into three groups: those of\nSpring, expressive of the hopes and fears for the growing crops and\nherds; those of Summer, the festivals of fulfilment, including the\ncelebration of harvest; and those of Winter, the festivals of sowing,\nof social rejoicing, and in the later months of purificatory\nanticipation of the coming year.\n\n=1. Festivals of Spring.=--The old Roman year--as may be seen clearly\nenough from the names of the months still known by numbers, September,\nOctober, etc.--began in March: according to tradition Romulus reckoned\na year of ten months altogether, and Numa added January and February.\nThe Spring months properly speaking may be reckoned as March, April,\nand May. In March there were in the developed Calendar no festivals of\nan immediately recognisable agricultural character, but the whole month\nwas practically consecrated to its eponymous deity, Mars. Now, to the\nRoman of the Republic, Mars was undoubtedly the deity associated with\nwar, and his special festivals in this month are of a warlike\ncharacter: on the 9th the priests (_Salii_) began the ancient custom of\ncarrying his sacred shields (_ancilia_) round the town from one\nordained resting-place to another: on the 19th, Quinquatrus, the\nshields were solemnly purified, and on the 23rd the same ceremony was\nperformed with the war-trumpets: the Equirria (horse-races) of March\n14 may have had an agricultural origin--we shall meet with races later\non as a feature of rustic festivals--but they were certainly celebrated\nin a military manner. Yet there is good reason for believing that Mars\nwas in origin associated not with war, but with the growth of\nvegetation: he was, as we shall see, the chief deity addressed in the\nsolemn lustration of the fields (_Ambarvalia_), and if our general\nnotion of the development of religion with the growing needs of the\nagricultural community crystallising into a state be correct, it may\nwell be that a deity originally concerned with the interests of the\nfarmer took on himself the protection of the soldier, when the fully\ndeveloped state came into collision with its neighbours. If so, we may\nwell have in these recurring festivals of Mars the sense, as Mr. Warde\nFowler has put it, of 'some great _numen_ at work, quickening\nvegetation, and calling into life the powers of reproduction in man and\nthe animals.' Possibly another agricultural note is struck in the\nLiberalia of the 17th: though the cult of Liber was almost entirely\noverlaid by his subsequent identification with Dionysus, it seems right\nto recognise in him and his female counterpart, Libera, a general\nspirit of creativeness.\n\nThe character of April is much more clearly marked: the month is filled\nwith a series of festivals--all of a clearly agricultural\nnature--prayers for the crops now in the earth, and the purification of\nthe men and animals on the farm. The series opens with the Fordicidia\non the 15th, when pregnant cows were sacrificed: their unborn calves\nwere torn from them and burnt, the ashes being kept by the Vestal\nVirgin in Vesta's storehouse (_penus Vestae_) for use at the Parilia.\nThe general symbolism of fertility is very clear; the goddess\nassociated with the festival is Tellus, the earth herself, and the\nlocal origin of these festivals is shown in the fact that not only was\nthe sacrifice made for the whole people on the Capitol, but separately\nin each one of the _curiae_. The Fordicidia is closely followed by the\nCerealia on the 19th--the festival of another earth-goddess (_Ceres_,\n_creare_)--more especially connected with the growth of corn. A very\ncurious feature of the ritual was the fastening of fire-brands to the\ntails of foxes, which were then let loose in what was afterwards the\nCircus Maximus: a symbol possibly, as Wissowa thinks, of sunlight,\npossibly of the vegetation-spirit. But the most important of the April\nceremonies is undoubtedly the Parilia of the 21st, the festival of the\nvery ancient rustic _numen_, Pales. Ovid's[9] description of the\ncelebration is so interesting and so full of the characteristic colour\nof the Roman rustic festivals that I may perhaps be pardoned for\nreproducing it at greater length. 'Shepherd,' he says, addressing the\nrustic worshipper, 'at the first streak of dawn purify thy well-fed\nflocks: let water first besprinkle them, and a branch sweep clean the\nground. Let the folds be adorned with leaves and branches fastened to\nthem, while a trailing wreath covers the gay-decked gates. Let blue\nflames rise from the living sulphur and the sheep bleat loud as she\nfeels the touch of the smoking sulphur. Burn the male olive-branch and\nthe pine twig and juniper, and let the blazing laurel crackle amid the\nhearth. A basket full of millet must go with the millet cakes: this is\nthe food wherein the country goddess finds pleasure most of all. Give\nher too her own share of the feast and her pail of milk, and when her\nshare has been set aside, then with milk warm from the cow make prayer\nto Pales, guardian of the woods.' The poet then recites a long prayer,\nin which the farmer first begs forgiveness for any unwitting sins he\nmay have committed against the rustic deities, such as trespassing on\ntheir groves or sheltering his flocks beneath their altar, and then\nprays for the aversion of disease and the prosperity of crops, flocks,\nand herds. 'Thus must the goddess be won, this prayer say four times\nturning to the sunrise, and wash thy hands in the running stream. Then\nset the rustic bowl upon the table in place of the wine-bowl, and drink\nthe snowy milk and dark must, and soon through the heaps of crackling\nstraw leap in swift course with eager limbs.' All the worshippers then\nset to leaping through the blazing fires, even the flocks and herds\nwere driven through, and general hilarity reigned. Many points of\ndetail might be noticed, such as that in the urban counterpart of the\nfestival, which Ovid carefully distinguishes from the country\ncelebrations, the fire was sprinkled with the ashes from the calves of\nthe Fordicidia and the blood of Mars' October horse--another link\nbetween Mars and agriculture. But it is most interesting to note the\ndouble character of the ceremony--as a purification of man and beast on\nthe one hand, and on the other a prayer for the prosperity of the\nseason to come. Three special festivals remain in April. At the Vinalia\n(_priora_) of the 23rd, the wine-skins of the previous year were opened\nand the wine tasted, and, we may suppose, supplication was made for\nthe vintage to come, the festival being dedicated to the sky-god,\nIuppiter. At the Robigalia of the 25th the offering of a dog was made\nfor the aversion of mildew (_robigo_), to Robigus (who looks like a\ndeveloped eponymous deity) at the fifth milestone on the Via\nClaudia--the ancient boundary of Roman territory. The Floralia of the\n28th does not occur in the old Calendars, probably because it was a\nmoveable feast (_feriae conceptivae_), but it is an unmistakeable\npetition to the _numen_ Flora for the blossoming of the season's\nflowers.\n\nMay was a month of more critical importance for the welfare of the\ncrops, and therefore its festivals were mostly of a more sombre\ncharacter. The 9th, 11th, and 13th were the days set apart for the\nLemuria, the aversion of the hostile spirits of the dead, of which we\nhave already spoken, and a similarly gloomy character probably attached\nto the Agonia of Vediovis on the 21st. But of far the greatest interest\nis the moveable feast of the Ambarvalia, the great lustration of the\nfields, which took place towards the end of the month: the date of its\noccurrence was no doubt fixed according to the state of the crops in\nany given year. As the individual farmer purified his own fields for\nthe aversion of evil, so a solemn lustration of the boundaries of the\nstate was performed by special priests, known as the Arval brethren\n(_fratres Arvales_). With ceremonial dancing (_tripudium_) they moved\nalong the boundary-marks and made the farmer's most complete offering\nof the pig, sheep, and ox (_suovetaurilia_): the fruits of the last\nyear and the new harvest (_aridae et virides_) played a large part in\nthe ceremonial, and a solemn litany was recited for the aversion of\nevery kind of pest from the crops. In Virgil's account the prayer is\nmade to Ceres, and we know that in imperial times, when the Ambarvalia\nbecame very closely connected with the worship of the imperial house,\nthe centre of the cult was the earth-goddess, Dea Dia; but in the\nearliest account of the rustic ceremony which we possess in Cato, Mars\nis addressed in the unmistakeable character of an agricultural deity.\n'Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee that thou mayest be gracious and\nfavourable to me, to my home, and my household, for which cause I have\nordained that the offering of pig, sheep, and ox be carried round my\nfields, my land, and my farm: that thou mayest avert, ward off, and\nkeep afar all disease, visible and invisible, all barrenness, waste,\nmisfortune, and ill weather: that thou mayest suffer our crops, our\ncorn, our vines and bushes to grow and come to prosperity: that thou\nmayest preserve the shepherds and the flocks in safety, and grant\nhealth and strength to me, to my home, and my household.' We have\nperhaps here another rustic ceremony addressed in origin to all\n_numina_, whom it might concern, and, as it were, specialising itself\nfrom time to time in an appeal to one definite deity or another, but it\nis also clear evidence of an early agricultural association of Mars.\nThe Ambarvalia is one of the most picturesque of the field ceremonies,\nand a peculiarly beautiful and imaginative description of it may be\nfound in the first chapter of Pater's _Marius the Epicurean_.\n\nIn June and July the farmer was waiting for the completion of the\nharvest, and the great state-festivals of the period are not\nagricultural.\n\n=2. Festivals of the Harvest.=--In August the farmer's hopes are at\nlast realised, and the harvest is brought in. The season is marked by\ntwo closely connected festivals on the 21st and 25th in honour of the\nold divinity-pair, Consus (_condere_), the god of the storehouse and\nOps, the deity of the wealth of harvest. At the Consualia, an offering\nis made by the _flamen Quirinalis_, assisted by the Vestal virgins, at\nan underground altar in the Circus Maximus, specially uncovered for\nthe occasion: here we have probably not so much the notion of a\nchthonic deity, as a relic of the simple practices of an early\nagricultural age, when the crops were stored underground. The beasts\nwho had taken part in the harvest were released from their labours\nduring the day, and were decorated with flowers: the festival included\na race of mules, the regular Italian beasts of burden. Four days after\nthis general festivity occurred the second harvest-ceremony of the\nOpiconsivia, held in the shrine (_sacrarium_) of the Regia, and\nattended only by the _pontifex maximus_ and the Vestal virgins. This is\nclearly the state-harvest of the regal period, the symbolic storing of\nthe state-crops in the sacred storehouse of the palace by the king and\nhis daughters. Both festivals are significant, and we shall meet with\nConsus and Ops again in close connection in December. The _Portunalia_\nof the 17th may have been another harvest-home, if we can believe the\nold authorities, who tell us that Portunus was a 'god of doors'\n(_portae_).\n\nThe _Vinalia Rustica_ of August 19 we cannot sufficiently interpret\nthrough lack of information: it cannot, of course, have been the\nfestival of the vintage, for it is too early: it may have been a\npropitiatory ceremony for the ripening grapes, in which case it was\nprobably connected with the _auspicatio vindemiae_, in which the\n_flamen Dialis_ (note again the association of Iuppiter and the vine)\nsolemnly plucked the first grapes; or it may be a festival of wine, not\nvines, in which case its main feature would most likely be the opening\nof the last year's vintage.\n\nSeptember contains no great festival, and the harvest-season closes on\nOctober 11 with the _Meditrinalia_--the nearest approach to a\nthanksgiving for the vintage. On that day the first must of the new\nvintage and the wine of the old were solemnly tasted, apparently as a\nspell against disease, the worshipper using the strange formula, 'I\ndrink the new and the old wine, with new wine and old I heal (_medeor_)\ndisease.' This ceremony gave its name to the festival and was the cause\nof the subsequent evolution of an eponymous deity, Meditrina, but there\nis little doubt that in origin here, as in the other wine-festivals,\nthe deity concerned was at first Iuppiter. Among the other rustic\nceremonies of the month we may notice the festival of springs\n(_Fontinalia_) on October 13: wells were decorated with garlands and\nflowers flung into the waters.\n\n=3. Festivals of the Winter.=--The winter-festivals cannot be summed up\nunder one general notion so easily as those of spring or summer, but\nthey fall fairly naturally into two groups--the festivals immediately\nconnected with agricultural life and those associated with the dead and\nthe underworld or with solemn purification. The main action of the\nfarmer's life during the winter is, of course, the sowing of the next\nyear's crop, which was commemorated in the ancient festival of the\nSaturnalia on December 17. Though the Saturnalia is perhaps the most\nfamiliar to us of all the Roman festivals, partly from the allusions in\nthe classics, especially in Horace, partly because it is no doubt the\nsource of many of our own Christmas festivities, it is yet almost\nimpossible now to recover anything of its original Roman character.\nGreek influence set to work on it very early, identifying Saturnus with\nCronos and establishing him in a Greek temple with all the\naccompaniments of Greek ritual. All the familiar features of the\nfestival--the freedom and license of the slaves, the giving of\npresents, even the wax-candles, which are the prototype of those on our\nown Christmas-tree--are almost certainly due to Greek origin. We are\nleft with nothing but the name Saturnus (connected with the root of\n_semen_, _serere_) and the date to assure us that we have here in\nreality a genuine Roman festival of the sowing of the crops. Of a\nsimilar nature--marking, as Ovid tells us, the completion of the\nsowing--was the _feriae sementivae_ or Paganalia, associated with the\nearth-goddesses, Ceres and Tellus. Meal-cakes and a pregnant sow were\nthe offerings, the beasts who had helped in the ploughing were\ngarlanded, and prayer was made for the seed resting in the ground. A\ncurious feature of the winter worship is the repetition of festivals to\nthe harvest deities, Consus and Ops, separated by the same interval of\nthree days, on December 15 and 19: it may be that we have here an\nindication of the final completion of the harvest, or, as Mr. Warde\nFowler has suggested, a ceremonial opening of the storehouses, to see\nthat the harvest is not rotting. Among the other country festivals of\nthe period we may notice that of Carmenta, on the 11th and 15th of\nJanuary: she seems to have been in origin a water-_numen_, but was\nearly associated with childbirth: hence the rigid exclusion of men from\nher ceremonies and possibly the taboo on leathern thongs, on the ground\nthat nothing involving death must be used in the worship of a deity of\nbirth. The repetition of her festival may possibly point to separate\ncelebrations of the communities of Palatine and Quirinal. At this time,\ntoo, occurred the rustic ceremonies at the boundaries (_Terminalia_)\nand the offering to the Lares at the 'marches' (_Compitalia_), of which\nwe have spoken in treating of the worship of the house.\n\nThe other group of winter-festivals is of a much more gloomy and less\ndefinitely rustic type, though they clearly date from the period of the\nagricultural community. Of the Feralia of February 21, the culmination\nof the festival of the kindred dead (_Parentalia_), we have already\nspoken. The Larentalia is a very mysterious occasion, and was supposed\nby the Romans themselves to be an offering 'at the tomb' of a legendary\nAcca Larentia, mistress of Hercules. But we have seen reason to think\nthat Larentia was in reality a deity of the dead, and the 'tomb' a\n_mundus_: if so, we have another link between the winter season and the\nworship of the underworld. There remains the weird festival of the\nLupercalia on February 15, to which we have had occasion to refer\nseveral times, and which has become more familiar to most of us than\nother Roman festivals owing to its political use by Mark Antony in 44\nB.C. As we have argued already, it seems to belong to the very oldest\nstratum of the Palatine settlement, and we may therefore appropriately\nclose this account of the early festivals with a somewhat fuller\ndescription of it. The worshippers assembled at the Lupercal, a cave on\nthe Palatine hill: there goats and a dog were sacrificed, and two\nyouths belonging to the two colleges of Fabian and Quintian (or\nQuintilian) Luperci had their foreheads smeared with the knife used for\nthe sacrifice and wiped with wool dipped in milk--at which point it was\nordained that they should laugh. Then they girt on the skins of the\nslain goats and, after feasting, ran their course round the boundaries\nof the Palatine hill, followed each by his own company of youths, and\nstriking women on their way with strips, known as _februae_ or _Iunonis\namicula_, cut from the goats' hides. Here we have a summary of many of\nthe important points which we have noticed in the rustic festivals:\nfrom the pre-Roman stratum comes the idea of communion with the\nsacrificed animal in the smearing of the blood and the wearing of the\nskin, and also the magic charm involved in the striking of the women to\nprocure fertility: it is typical of the true feeling of Roman religion\nthat we cannot with any certainty tell what deity was associated with\nthe rite, though probably it was Faunus: the rustic character of the\nceremony is indicated by the bowl of milk in which the wool was dipped\nand the sacrifice of goats: the idea of lustration is clearly marked\nin the course round the boundaries: the original Palatine settlement\nstands out in the limits of that course and the site of the Lupercal,\nand the later synoecismus is seen in the, presumably subsequent,\naddition of the second college of Luperci. A careful study of the\nLupercalia as an epitome of the character and development of the Roman\nagricultural festivals, though it would not show the brighter aspect of\nsome of the spring and summer celebrations, would yet give a true\nnotion of the history and spirit of the whole.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9] Ov., _Fast._, iv. 735.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nWORSHIP OF THE STATE\n\n\nSince, in the matter of religion, the Roman state is in the main but\nthe agricultural household magnified, we shall not, in considering its\nworship, be entering on a new stratum of ideas, but rather looking at\nthe development of notions and sentiments already familiar. To deal,\nhowever, with the state-worship in full would not only far exceed the\nlimits of this sketch, but would lead us away from religious ideas into\nthe region of what we might now call 'ecclesiastical management.' I\npropose therefore to confine myself to two points, firstly, the\nbroadening of the old conceptions of the household and the fields and\ntheir adaptation to the life of the state, and secondly--to be treated\nvery shortly and as an indication of the Roman character--the\norganisation of religion.\n\n=1. Development of the Worship of House and Fields.=--Here we shall\nfind two main characteristics. The state in the first place, as we\nhave several times hinted in anticipation, establishes its own\ncounterpart of the household and rustic cults and adapts to its own use\nthe ideas which they involve: in the second, and particularly in\nconnection with some of the field-deities, it evolves new and very\nfrequently abstract notions, foreign to the life of the independent\ncountry households, but necessary and vital to the life of an organised\ncommunity. Let us look first at the fate of the household deities.\n\n=Ianus.=--We left Ianus as the _numen_ of the house-door: he passes\ninto the state exactly in the same capacity: the state too has its\n'door,' the gate at the north-east corner of the Forum, and this\nbecomes the seat of his state-cult--the door which, according to\nAugustan legend, is opened in the time of war and only shut when Rome\nis at peace with all the world. But reflection soon gets to work on\nIanus: a door has two sides, it can both open and shut; therefore, as\nearly as the song of the Salii, he has developed the cult-epithets\n'Opener,' 'Shutter' (_Patulci_, _Cloesi_), and as soon as he is thought\nof as anything approaching a personality he is 'two-headed'\n(_bifrons_), as he appears in later representations. The door again is\nthe first thing you come to in entering a house: the 'door-spirit'\nthen, with that tendency to abstraction which we shall see shortly in\nother cases, becomes the god of beginnings. He watches over the very\nfirst beginning of human life in his character of _Consevius_; to him\nis sacred the first hour of the day (_pater matutinus_), the Calends of\nevery month, and the first month of the year (_Ianuarius_); to him too\nis offered by the _rex sacrorum_ the first sacrifice of the year, the\nAgonium on the 9th of January. In this capacity, moreover, his name\ncomes first in all the formulae of prayer, and he is looked upon--not\nindeed as the father of the gods--for that is a much too\nanthropomorphic notion--but as what we might now term their 'logical\nantecedent': _divum deus_, as the song of the Salii quaintly puts it,\n_principium deorum_, as later interpretation explained it. Yet through\nall he remains the most typical Roman deity: he does not acquire a\ntemple till 217 B.C., nor a bust until quite late, nor is he ever\nidentified with a Greek counterpart. In his capacity as _pater\nmatutinus_ he has a native female counterpart in Matuta, a dawn-deity,\nwho becomes a protectress in childbirth, and as such is the centre of\nthe matrons' festival, the Matralia of June 11.\n\n=Vesta.=--The history of Vesta is perhaps less romantic, but it affords\na more exact parallel between household and state. In the primitive\ncommunity the king's hearth is not merely of symbolical importance, but\nof great practical utility, in that it is kept continually burning as\nthe source of fire on which the individual householder may draw: hence\nit is the duty of the king's daughters to care for it and keep the\nflame perpetually alight. In Rome the temple of Vesta is the king's\nhearth, situated, as one would expect, in close proximity to the\n_regia_. The fire is kept continually blazing except on the 1st of\nMarch of every year, when it is allowed to go out and is ceremonially\nrenewed. The Vestal virgins, sworn to perpetual virginity and charged\nwith the preservation of the sacred flame, are 'the king's daughters,'\nliving in a kind of convent (_atrium Vestae_) and under the charge of\nthe king's representative, the _pontifex maximus_. It is their duty\ntoo, as the natural cooks of the sacred royal household, to make the\nsalt cake (_mola salsa_) to be used at the year's festivals and to\npreserve it and other sacred objects, such as the ashes of the\nFordicidia, in the storehouse of Vesta (_penus Vestae_). In the month of\nJune from the 7th to the 15th, with a climax on the 9th, the day of\nthe Vestalia, the matrons who all the year round have tended their own\nhearths, come in solemn procession bare-footed to make their homely\nofferings at the state-hearth, and the virgins meanwhile offer the\ncakes that they have made. For eight days the ceremony continues,\nduring which time the bakers and millers keep holiday; the days are\n_religiosi_ (marriages are unlucky and other taboos are observed) and\nalso _nefasti_ (no public business may be performed); until the\nceremony closes on the 15th, with the solemn cleansing of the temple\nand the casting of the refuse into the Tiber, and then the normal life\nof the state may be renewed--Q. St. D. F. (_Quando Stercus Delatum Fas_)\nis the unique entry in the Calendars. This is all less imaginative than\nthe development of Ianus, but the underlying feeling is intensely Roman\nand there could be no clearer idea of the natural adaptation of the\nhousehold-cult to the religion of the state.\n\n=Penates, Lares, and Genius.=--The other household deities too have\ntheir counterpart, though not so prominently marked, in the worship of\nthe state. The magistrates, on entering office, took oath by Iuppiter\nand the _Di Penates populi Romani Quiritium_, and that the conception\nwas as wide in the state as in the household is shown by the fact that\non less formal occasions the formula appears as _Iuppiter et ceteri di\nomnes immortales_. The Penates of the state then would include all the\nstate-deities; but that their original character is not lost sight of\nwe can see from the statement of Varro that in the _penus Vestae_ (the\n'state storehouse') were preserved their _sigilla_--not apparently\nsensuous representations, but symbolic objects, such as we have seen\nbefore in cases like that of the _silex_ of Iuppiter. The _Lares_ again\nfind their counterpart in the _Lares Praestites_ of the state, and\ntheir rustic festival, the Compitalia, has its urban reproduction,\nwhich, as it involved considerable license on the part of populace and\nslaves, was often in the later period of the Republic a cause of\nserious political disturbance. Even the Genius, though rather vaguely,\npasses over to the state and we hear of the _Genius populi Romani_ or\nthe _Genius urbis Romae_, with regard to which Servius quotes from an\ninscription on a shield the characteristic addition, _sive mas sive\nfemina_: in much later times we find the exact counterpart of the\ndomestic worship of the Genius of the _pater familias_ in the cult of\nthe Genius of the Emperor--the foundation of the whole of the imperial\nworship.\n\nWe have observed already how the cults of the fields were taken over by\nthe state and their counterparts established in the great festivals of\nthe Calendar. Naturally enough most of the deities concerned, existing\nonly for the part they played in these festivals, retained their\noriginal character without further development. But with a few it was\ndifferent: it was their fate to acquire new characteristics and new\nfunctions, and, developing with the needs of the community, to become\nthe great gods of the state: of these we must give some brief account.\n\n=Iuppiter.=--We have known Iuppiter hitherto either in connection with\ncertain very primitive survivals, or in the genuine Roman period as a\nsky-_numen_, concerned with the grape-harvest in the two Vinalia and\nthe Meditrinalia, and the recipient at the family meal of a _daps_ as a\ngeneral propitiation before the beginning of the sowing. As sky-god he\npasses to the state: _Lucetius_ (_lux_) is his title in the song of the\nSalii and to him are sacred the Ides of every month--the time of the\nfull moon, when there is most light in the heavens by night as well as\nday. In his agricultural connection he has his wine-festivals in the\nstate as in the country, and the household _daps_ becomes the more\nelaborate _epulum Iovis_, in which the whole community, as it were,\nentertained him at a banquet. As a sky-deity, too, he is particularly\nconcerned with the thunderbolt and the lightning-flash (_Iuppiter\nFulmen_, _Fulgur_), and to him are sacred the always ominous spots\nwhich had been struck by lightning (_bidentalia_): with the more\nalarming occurrence of lightning by night he has a special connection\nunder the cult-title _Iuppiter Summanus_. But as the little community\ngrew, and especially perhaps after the union of the two settlements,\nthe worship of Iuppiter Feretrius, associated with the sacred oak upon\nthe Capitol--the hill between Palatine and Quirinal--comes more and\nmore into prominence as a bond of union and the central point of the\nstate's religious life: it tends indeed to take the place of priority,\nwhich had previously been occupied by Ianus. The community goes to war\nwith its neighbours, and after a signal victory the _spolia opima_ must\nbe dedicated on the sacred oak: indeed Iuppiter is in a special sense\nwith them in the battle and must now be worshipped as the 'stayer of\nrout' (_Stator_) and the 'giver of victory' (_Victor_). War is a new\nprovince of the state's activity, but, characteristically enough, it\ndoes not evolve its own _numen_, but enlarges the sphere of the\nsomewhat elastic spirits already existing. So too in the internal\norganisation of the state there is felt the need of a religious\nsanction for public morality, and Iuppiter--though vaguely at\nfirst--takes on him the character of a deity of justice. In this\nconnection he is primarily the god of oaths: we have seen how his\nsacred _silex_ was used in the oath of treaty: it is also the most\nsolemn witness to the oath of the citizen. Iuppiter Lapis becomes\nspecially the Dius Fidius, a cult-title which subsequently sets up for\nitself and produces a further offshoot in the abstract Fides. Finally,\ntowards the end of our period the Iuppiter of the Capitol emerges\ntriumphant, as it were, from his struggle with his rivals and, with the\nnew title of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus,--the 'best and greatest,' that\nis, of all the Iuppiters--takes his place as the supreme deity of the\nRoman state and the personification of the greatness and majesty of\nRome itself. To his temple hereafter the Roman youth will come to make\nhis offering when he takes the dress of manhood; here the magistrates\nwill do sacrifice before entering on their year of office: here the\nvictorious general will pass in procession with the spoils of his\nvictory: on the walls shall be suspended treaties with foreign nations\nand offerings sent by subject princes and states from all quarters of\nthe world: all that Rome is to be, will be, as it were, embodied in the\nsky-spirit of the sacred oak, the god of justice and of victory in war.\n\n=Iuno.=--Iuppiter carries with him into the state-worship his female\ncounterpart, Iuno, with his own characteristics, in a certain degree,\nand his own privileges. She is Lucina and Fulgura as he is Lucetius and\nFulgur: white cows are her offerings as white steers are his: as the\nIdes are sacred to Iuppiter, so--though they are not a festival--are\nthe Calends to Iuno. But from the first she shows a certain\nindependence and develops on lines of her own. In the curious ceremony\nof the fixing of the Nones (the first quarter of the month), held on\nthe Calends in the _curia Calabra_, she seems to appear as a\nmoon-goddess: the _rex sacrorum_, after a report from a _pontifex_ as\nto the appearance of the new moon, announces the result in the formula:\n'I summon thee for five (or seven) days, hollow Iuno' (_dies te\nquinque_ [_septem_] _kalo, Iuno Covella_: hence the name _Kalendae_).\nBut far more prominently--either as a female divinity herself, or, as\nsome think, owing to the supposed influence of the moon on female\nlife--does Iuno figure as the deity of women, and especially in\nassociation with childbirth and marriage. As _Lucina_ she is, as we\nhave seen, the presiding deity of childbirth, and her festival on the\n1st of March, though not in the Calendars (because confined to women\nand not therefore a festival of the whole people), attained immense\npopularity under the title of the Matronalia. She has too a general\nsuperintendence of the rites of marriage, and the various little\n_numina_, who play so prominent a part in the ceremonies, tend to\nattach themselves to her as cult-titles. The festival of the\nservant-maids in honour of Iuno Caprotina on the 7th of July shows the\nsame notion of Iuno as the women's goddess, which appears again in\ncommon parlance when women speak of their Iuno, just as men do of their\nGenius. Later on Iuno acquires the characteristics of majesty\n(_Regina_) and protection in war (_Curitis_, _Sospita_), partly no\ndoubt as Iuppiter's counterpart, but more directly through the\nintroduction of cults from neighbouring Italian towns.\n\n=Mars.=--We have seen reason to believe that in the earlier stages of\nRoman religion Mars was a _numen_ of vegetation, but though the\nAmbarvalia was duly taken over into the state-cult and attained a very\nhigh degree of importance, yet there can be no doubt that in the\nstate-religion Mars was pre-eminently associated with war. Iuppiter\nmight help at need in averting defeat and awarding victory, but it was\nwith Mars that the general conduct of war rested. His sacred animal is\nthe warlike wolf, his symbols the spears and the sacred shields\n(_ancilia_), which during his own month (_Martius_)--the 1st of which\nis his special festival--his priests (_Salii_) wearing the full\nwar-dress (_trabea_ and _tunica picta_) carry with sacred dance and\nsong round the city. His altar is in the Campus Martius, outside the\ncity-walls and therefore within the sphere of the _imperium militiae_,\nand the other festivals associated with him are of a warlike character:\nthe races of the war-horse (Equirria) on March 14 and February 27, and\nthe great race on the Ides of October, when the winner was solemnly\nslain: the lustration of the arms at the Quinquatrus on March 19 and\nthe Armilustrium of October 19--at the beginning and end of the\ncampaigning season: and the lustration of the war-trumpets on the 23rd\nof March and the 23rd of May. But above all in honour of Mars is held\nthe great quinquennial _lustrum_ associated with the census, when the\npeople are drawn up in military array around his altar in the Campus\nMartius and the solemn offering of the _suovetaurilia_ (is this a faint\nrelic of his agricultural character?) after being carried three times\nround the gathered host, is offered on his altar in prayer for the\nmilitary future of the state. Hardly any god in the state-cult has his\ncharacter so clearly marked, and we may regard Mars as a deity who,\ntaking on new functions to suit the needs of the times, almost entirely\nlost the traces of his original nature.\n\n=Quirinus.=--Iuppiter and Mars then became the great state-deities of\nthe developed community and to them is added, as the contribution of\nthe Colline settlement, their own particular deity, Quirinus. He, like\nthem, has his own _flamen_; like Mars he has his _Salii_, and his\nfestival finds its place in the Calendars on February the 17th. But of\nhis ritual and character we know practically nothing: the ritual was\nobscured because his festival coincided with the much more popular\nfestival of the _curiae_, the _stultorum feriae_: of his character, we\ncan only conjecture that he was to the Colline settlement what Mars was\nto the Palatine, whereas later after the complete amalgamation he seems\nto have been distinguished from Mars as representing 'armed peace'\nrather than war--an idea which is borne out by the associations of the\nclosely allied word _Quirites_. Be that as it may, we have in Iuppiter,\nMars, and Quirinus the great state-triad of the synoecismus, who held\ntheir own until at the beginning of the next epoch they were supplanted\nby the new Etruscan triad of the Capitol, Iuppiter, Iuno and Minerva.\n\n=2. Organisation.=--It might perhaps be thought that the organisation\nof religion is a matter remote from its spirit, and is not therefore a\nsuitable subject for discussion, where the object is rather to bring\nout underlying motives and ideas: but in dealing with the Roman\nreligion, where ceremonial and legal precision were so prominent, it\nwould be even misleading to omit some reference to the very\ncharacteristic manner in which the state, taking over the rather\nchaotic elements of the agricultural worship, organised them into\nsomething like a consistent whole. Its most complete achievement in\nthis direction was without doubt the regulation of the religious year.\nWe have spoken many times of the Calendars (_Fasti_): it is necessary\nnow to obtain some clearer notion of what they were. In Rome itself and\nvarious Italian towns have been found some thirty inscriptions, one\nalmost complete (Maffeiani), the others more or less fragmentary,\ngiving the tables of the months and marking precisely the character and\noccurrences of every day in the year. We may take as a specimen the\nlatter half of the month of August from the Fasti Maffeiani.\n\nA. EID. [NP].       |   C. VOLC. [NP].\nB. F.               |   D. C.\nC. C.               |   E. OPIC. [NP].\nD. C.               |   F. C.\nE. PORT. [NP].      |   G. VOLT. [NP].\nF. C.               |   H. [NP].\nG. VIN. F.P.        |   A. F.\nH. C.               |   B. F.\nA. CONS. [NP].      |   C. C.\nB. EN.              |\n\nIn the first column are given the nundinal letters of the days, showing\ntheir position in the eight days' 'week' from one market day\n(_nundinae_) to the next. In the second column are noted first the\ngreat divisions of the month, Calends, Nones, and Ides, and then the\nreligious character of each individual day is indicated by certain\nsigns, whose explanations throw a good deal of light on Roman religions\nnotions. It will be seen that the letters of most frequent occurrence\nare F, C, and N (or in our extract [NP]): these correspond to the broad\ndistinction between days profane and sacred. F (_fastus_) denotes a\nday on which the business of the state may be performed, on which the\npraetor may say (_fari_) the three words, _do_, _dico_, _addico_, which\nsummed up the decisions of the Roman law: C (_comitialis_) marks a day\non which the legislative assemblies (_comitia_) may be held: it is by\nimplication F as well. N (_nefastus_), on the other hand, denotes the\nsacred day, consecrated to the worship of the gods, on which therefore\nstate-business may not be transacted: similarly the very mysterious and\nmuch disputed sign [NP], whether it differs in precise signification\nfrom N or not, certainly marks a day of sacred character. EN, which\noccurs once in this extract (from _endotercisus_, the old Latin form of\n_intercisus_) signifies a 'split' day (_dies fissus_), the beginning\nand end of which were sacred, while the middle period was free for\nbusiness. In the second column also (in large letters in some of the\nother Calendars) are named the _feriae publicae_, the great annual\nstate-festivals, fixed for one particular day (_feriae stativae_):\nsuch, in this case, are the Portunalia, Vinalia, and Consualia.\n\nThese _fasti_ were exhibited in the Forum and on the walls of temples,\nand the conscientious Roman could have no possible difficulty in\nfinding out when he might lawfully transact his business and what\nfestivals the state was observing: of the 355 days of the old Calendar\n11 were _fissi_, 235 were _fasti_ (192 _comitiales_), and 109\n_nefasti_. We may remark as curious features in the Calendar, denoting\nrigid adherence to principle, that with one exception, the Poplifugia\nof July 5, no festival ever occurs before the Nones, that with two\nexceptions, the Regifugium of February 24 and the Equirria of the 14th\nof March, no festival falls on an even day of the month, and that there\nis a marked avoidance of successive feast-days: even the three days of\nthe Lemuria allow an interval of a day between each.\n\nIn the matter of ritual and observance, state-organisation--and its\nabsence--are alike significant. Of the general exactness of ritual and\nits specific variations on different occasions a fair notion has\nperhaps already been gathered; it may help to fill out that notion if\nwe can put together a sketch of the normal process of a sacrifice to\nthe gods. Before the sacrifice began the animal to be offered was\nselected and tested: if it had any blemish or showed any reluctance, it\nwas rejected. If it were whole and willing, it was bound with fillets\n(_infulae_) around its forehead, and long ribbons (_vittae_) depending\nfrom them. It was then brought to the altar (_ara_) by the side of\nwhich stood a portable brazier (_foculus_). The celebrant--magistrate\nor priest--next approached dressed in the _toga_, girt about him in a\npeculiar manner (_cinctus Gabinus_), and carried up at the back so as\nto form a hood (_velato capite_): the herald proclaimed silence, and\nthe flute-player began to play his instrument. The first part of the\noffering was then made by the pouring of wine and scattering of incense\non the brazier: it was followed by the ceremonial slaughter\n(_immolatio_) of the animal. The celebrant sprinkled the victim with\nwine and salted cake, and made a symbolic gesture with the knife. The\nvictim was then taken aside by the attendants (_victimarii_), and\nactually slaughtered by them: from it they extracted the sacred parts\n(_exta_), liver, heart, gall, lungs, and midriff, and after inspecting\nthem to see that they had no abnormality--but not in the earlier period\nfor purposes of augury--wrapped them in pieces of flesh (_augmenta_),\ncooked them, and brought them back to the celebrant, who laid them as\nan offering upon the altar, where they were burnt. The rest of the\nflesh (_viscera_) was divided as a sacred meal between the celebrant\nand his friends--or in a state-offering among the priests, and\nprobably the magistrate. We cannot refrain from remarking here the\nextreme precision of ritual, the scrupulous care with which the human\nside of the contract was fulfilled and the--almost legal--division of\nthe victim between gods and men. But though the ritual was so exact,\none must not be led away by modern analogies to suppose that there was\never anything like a rigid constraint on the private citizen for the\nobservance of festivals. The state-festivals were in the strictest\nsense offerings made to the gods by the representative magistrates or\npriests, and if they were present, all was done that was required: the\nwhole people had been, by a legal fiction, present in their persons. No\ndoubt the private citizen would often attend in large numbers at the\ncelebrations, especially at the more popular festivals, but from some,\nsuch as the Vestalia, he was actually excluded. On the other hand,\nthough it did not demand presence, the state did--at least\ntheoretically--demand the observance of the feast-day by private\nindividuals. The root-notion of _feriae_ was a day set apart for the\nworship of the gods, and on it therefore the citizen ought to do 'no\nmanner of work.' The state observed this condition fully in the\nclosing of law-courts and the absence of legislative assemblies, and\nin theory too the private citizen must refrain from any act which was\nnot concerned with the worship of the gods, or rendered absolutely\nnecessary, as, for instance, if 'his ox or his ass should fall into a\npit.' But it is characteristic of Rome that the state did not seek for\noffence, but only punished it if accidentally seen: on a feast-day the\n_rex sacrorum_ and the _flamines_ might not see work being done; they\ntherefore sent on a herald in advance to announce their presence, and\nan actual conviction involved a money-fine. Perhaps more scrupulously\nthan the _feriae_ were observed the _dies religiosi_, days of\n'abstinence,' on which certain acts, such as marriage, the beginning of\nany new piece of work, or the offering of sacrifice to the gods, were\nforbidden: such, in the oldest period, were the days on which the\n_mundus_ was open, or the temple of Vesta received the matrons, the\ndays when the Salii carried the _ancilia_ in procession, and the\nperiods of the two festivals of the dead in February and May; but for\neluding their observance too devices were not unknown.\n\nIn the state-organisation of religion, then, we seem to see just the\nsame features from which we started: as a basis the legal conception\nof the relation of god to man, as a result the extreme care and\nprecision in times and ceremonials, as a corollary in the state the\nidea of legal representation and the consequent looseness of hold on\nthe action of the individual.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nAUGURIES AND AUSPICES\n\n\nSo far we have been considering the regular relations of man and god,\nseen in recurring or special offerings, in vows and in acts of\npurification and lustration--all based on the contract-notion, all\nendeavours on man's part to fulfil his bounden duty, that the gods may\nbe constrained in turn to theirs. But so strong was the feeling of\ndivine presence and influence in the Roman's mind, that he was not\ncontent with doing his best by these regular means to secure the favour\nof the gods, but wished before undertaking any business of importance\nto be able to assure himself of their approval. His practical\ncommon-sense evolved, as it were, a complete 'code'--in the flight and\nsong of birds, in the direction of the lightning-flash, in the conduct\nof men and animals--by which he believed that the gods communicated to\nhim their intentions: sometimes these indications (_auspicia_) might be\nvouchsafed by the gods unasked (_oblativa_), sometimes they would be\ngiven in answer to request (_impetrativa_): but as to their meaning,\nthere could be no doubt, provided they were interpreted by one skilled\nin the lore and tradition of augury. We may observe here, though our\nevidence is much slighter, the same three stages which we have noticed\nin the sacrificial worship, the homely domestic auspices, the auguries\nof the agricultural life, and the organised system in the state.\n\nIn the household the use of auspices was in origin at any rate very\ngeneral indeed: 'Nothing,' Cicero tells us, 'of importance used to be\nundertaken unless with the sanction of the auspices' (_auspicato_). The\nright of interrogating the will of the gods, rested, as one might\nexpect, with the master of the house, assisted no doubt by the private\naugur as the repository of lore and the interpreter of what the master\nsaw. But of the details of domestic augury we know but little. Cato in\none passage insists on the extreme importance of silence for the\npurpose, and Festus suggests that this was secured by the master of the\nhouse rising in the depths of the night to inspect the heavens. We have\nseen already that the taking of the auspices played an important part\nin the ceremonies of betrothal and marriage, and that the indications\nof the divine will might be very varied we may gather from a story in\nCicero. An aunt wishing to take the auspices for her niece's betrothal,\nconducted her into an open consecrated space (_sacellum_) and sat down\non the stool of augury (_sella_) with her niece standing at her side.\nAfter a while the girl tired and asked her aunt to give her a little of\nthe stool: the aunt replied, 'My child, I give up my seat to you':\nnothing further happened and this answer turned out in fact to be the\nauspicious sign: the aunt died, the niece married the widower and so\nbecame mistress of the house.\n\nOf augury in agricultural life we have some indication in the annual\nobservance of the 'spring augury' (_augurium verniserum_) and the\nmidsummer ceremony of the _augurium canarium_, which seems to have been\na combination of the offering of a red dog (possibly to avert mildew)\nand an augury for the success of the crops. To the rustic stratum\npossibly belongs also the _augurium salutis populi_, though later it\nwas a yearly act celebrated whenever the Roman army was not at war and\nso became connected with the shutting of the temple of Ianus.\n\nThe state greatly developed and organised the whole system of auguries\nand auspices. The college of augurs ranked second only in importance to\nthe pontifical college, and their duties with regard to both augury and\nauspice are sufficiently clear. Like the _pontifices_ in relation to\ncult, they are the storehouse of all tradition, and to them appeal may\nbe made in all cases of doubt both public and private: they were\njealous of their secrets and in later times their mutual consciousness\nof deception became proverbial. The right of augury--in origin simply\nthe inspection of the heavens--was theirs alone, and it was exercised\nparticularly on the annual occasions mentioned and at the installation\nof priests, of which we get a typical instance in Livy's account of the\nconsecration of Numa.\n\nThe auspices on the other hand--in origin 'signs from birds' (_avis_,\n_spicere_)--were the province of the magistrate about to undertake some\ndefinite action on behalf of the state whether at home or on the field\nof battle. Here the augur's functions were merely preparatory and\nadvisory. It was his duty to prepare the _templum_, the spot from which\nthe auspices are to be taken--always a square space, with boundaries\nunbroken except at the entrance, not surrounded by wall or necessarily\nby line, but clearly indicated (_effatus_) by the augur, and marked off\n(_liberatus_) from the surroundings: in the comitia and other places in\nRome there were permanent _templa_, but elsewhere they must be\nspecially made. The magistrate then enters the _templum_ and observes\nthe signs (_spectio_): if there is any doubt as to interpretation--and\nseeing the immense complication of the traditions (_disciplina_), this\nmust often have been the case--the augur is referred to as interpreter.\nThe signs demanded (_impetrativa_) were originally always connected\nwith the appearance, song or flight of birds--higher or lower, from\nleft to right or right to left, etc. Later others were included, and\nwith the army in the field it became the regular practice to take the\nauspices from the feeding of the sacred chickens (_pulli_): the best\nsign being obtained if, in their eagerness to feed, they let fall some\nof the grain from their beaks (_tripudium solistimum_)--a result not\ndifficult to secure by previous treatment and a careful selection of\nthe kind of grain supplied to them. But besides this deliberate 'asking\nfor signs,' public business might at any moment be interrupted if the\ngods voluntarily sent an indication of disapproval (_oblativa_): the\naugurs then had always to be at hand to advise the magistrates whether\nnotice should be taken of such signs, and, if so, what was their\nsignification, and they even seem to have had certain rights of\nreporting themselves (_nuntiatio_) the occurrence of adverse ones. The\nsign of most usual occurrence would be lightning--sometimes such an\nunexpected event as the seizure of a member of the assembly with\nepilepsy (_morbus comitialis_)--and we know to what lengths political\nobstructionists went in later times in the observation of fictitious\nsigns, or even the prevention of business by the mere announcement of\ntheir intention to see an unfavourable omen (_servare de caelo_). The\ncomplications and ramifications of the augur's art are infinite, but\nthe main idea should by now be plain, and it must be remembered that\nthe kindred art of the soothsayer (_haruspex_), oracles, and the\ninterpretation of fate by the drawing of lots (_sortes_) are all later\nforeign introductions: auspice and augury are the only genuine Roman\nmethods for interpreting the will of the gods.\n\nHere then in household, fields, and state, we have a second type of\nrelation to the gods, running parallel to the ordinary practice of\nsacrifice and prayer, distinct yet not fundamentally different. As it\nis man's function to propitiate the higher spirits and prevent, if\npossible, the wrecking of his plans by their opposition, so it is his\nbusiness, if he can, to find out their intentions before he engages on\nany serious undertaking. As in the _ius sacrum_ his legal mind leads\nhim to assume that the deities accept the responsibility of the\ncontract, when his own part is fulfilled, so here, like a practical man\nof business, he assumes their construction of a code of communication,\nwhich he has learned to interpret. In its origin it is a notion common\nto many primitive religions, but in its elaboration it is peculiarly\nand distinctively Italian, and, as we know it, Roman.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nRELIGION AND MORALITY--CONCLUSION\n\n\nIt might be said that a religion--the expression of man's relation to\nthe unseen--has not necessarily any connection with morality--man's\naction in himself and towards his neighbours: that an individual--or\neven a nation--might perfectly fulfil the duties imposed by the 'powers\nabove,' without being influenced in conduct and character. Such a view\nmight seem to find an apt illustration in the religion of Rome: the\nceremonial _pietas_ towards the gods appears to have little to do with\nthe making of man or nation. But in the history of the world the test\nof religions must be their effect on the character of those who\nbelieved in them: religion is no doubt itself an outcome of character,\nbut it reacts upon it, and must either strengthen or weaken. We are not\ntherefore justified in dismissing the 'Religion of Numa' without\ninquiry as to its relation to morality, for on our answer to that\nquestion must largely depend our judgment as to its value.\n\nWe are of course in a peculiarly difficult position to grapple with\nthis problem through lack of contemporary evidence. The Rome we know,\nin the epochs when we can fairly judge of character and morality, was\nnot the Rome in which the 'Religion of Numa' had grown up and remained\nunquestioned: it had been overlaid with foreign cults and foreign\nideas, had been used by priests and magistrates as a political\ninstrument, and discounted among the educated through the influence of\nphilosophy. But we may remember in the first place that even then,\nespecially in the household and in the country, the old religion had\nprobably a much firmer hold than one might imagine from literary\nevidence, in the second that national character is not the growth of a\nday, so that we may safely refer permanent characteristics to the\nperiod when the old religion held its own.\n\nIt may be admitted at once that the direct influence on morality was\nvery small indeed. There was no table of commandments backed by the\nreligious sanction: the sense of 'sin,' except through breach of\nritual, was practically unknown. It is true that in the very early\n_leges regiae_ some notion of this kind is seen--a significant glimpse\nof what the original relation may have been: it is there ordained that\nthe patron who betrayed his client, or the client who deceived his\npatron, shall be condemned to Iuppiter; the parricide to the spirits of\nhis dead ancestors, the husband who sells his wife to the gods of the\nunderworld, the man who removes his neighbour's landmark to Terminus,\nthe stealer of corn to Ceres. All these persons shall be _sacri_: they\nhave offended against the gods and the gods will see to their\npunishment. But these are old-world notions which soon passed into the\nbackground and the state took over the punishment of such offenders in\nthe ordinary course of law. Nor again in the prayers of men to gods is\nthere a trace of a petition for moral blessings: the magistrate prays\nfor the success and prosperity of the state, the farmer for the\nfertility of his crops and herds, even the private individual, who\nsuspends his votive-tablet in the temple, pays his due for health or\ncommercial success vouchsafed to himself or his relations. 'Men call\nIuppiter greatest and best,' says Cicero, 'because he makes us not just\nor temperate or wise, but sound and healthy and rich and wealthy.'\nStill less, until we come to the moralists of the Empire, is there any\nsense of that immediate and personal relation of the individual to a\nhigher being, which is really in religion, far more than commandments\nand ordinances, the mainspring and safeguard of morality: even the\nconception of the Genius, the 'nearest' perhaps of all unseen powers,\nhad nothing of this feeling in it, and it may be significant that, just\nbecause of his nearness to man, the Genius never quite attained to\ngod-head. As far as direct relation is concerned, religion and morality\nwere to the Roman two independent spheres with a very small point of\ncontact.\n\nNor even in its indirect influence does the formal observance of the\nRoman worship seem likely at first sight to have done much for personal\nor national morality. Based upon fear, stereotyped in the form of a\nlegal relationship, _religio_--'the bounden obligation'--made, no\ndoubt, for a kind of conscientiousness in its adherents, but a cold\nconscientiousness, devoid of emotion and incapable of expanding itself\nto include other spheres or prompt to a similar scrupulousness in other\nrelations. The rigid and constant distinction of sacred and profane\nwould incline the Roman to fulfil the routine of his religious duty\nand then turn, almost with a sigh of relief, to the occupations of\nnormal life, carrying with him nothing more than the sense of a burden\nlaid aside and a pledge of external prosperity. Even the religious act\nitself might be without moral significance: as we have seen, the\nworshipper might be wholly ignorant of the character, even the name of\nthe deity he worshipped, and in any case the motive of his action was\nnaught, the act itself everything. Nor again had the Roman religion any\ntrace of that powerful incentive to morality, a doctrine of rewards and\npunishments in a future life: the ideas as to the fate of the dead were\nfluctuating and vague, and the Roman was in any case much more\ninterested in their influence on himself than in their possible\nexperiences after death.\n\nThe divorce then between religion and morality seems almost complete\nand it is not strange that most modern writers speak of the Roman\nreligion as a tiresome ritual formalism, almost wholly lacking in\nethical value. And yet it did not present itself in this light to the\nRomans themselves. Cicero, sceptic as he was, could speak of it as the\ncause of Rome's greatness; Augustus, the practical politician, could\nbelieve that its revival was an essential condition for the\nrenaissance of the Roman character. Have we, in our brief examination\nof its characteristics, seen any features which may suggest the\nsolution of this apparent antagonism? Was there in this formalism a\nlife which escapes us, as we handle the dry bones of antiquarianism?\n\nIn the first place there may be a danger that we underrate the value\nof formalism itself. It spells routine, but routine is not without\nvalue in the strengthening of character. The private citizen, who\nconscientiously day by day had carried out the worship of his household\ngods and month by month observed the sacred abstinence from work on the\ndays of festival, was certainly not less fitted to take his place as a\nmember of a strenuous and well-organised community, or to serve\nobediently and quietly in the army on campaign. Even the magistrate in\nthe execution of his religious duties must have acquired an exactness\nand method, which would not be valueless in the conduct of public\nbusiness. And when we pass to the origin of this formalism--the legal\nrelation--the connection with the Roman character becomes at once more\nobvious. The 'lawgivers of the world,' who developed constitution and\ncode to a systematised whole such as antiquity had not dreamed of\nbefore, imported, we may say if we like, their legal notions into the\nsphere of religion: but we must not forget the other side of the\nquestion. The permanence and success of this greater contract with\nhigher powers--the feeling that the gods did regard and reward exact\nfulfilment of duty--cannot have been without re-action on the relations\nof the life of the community: it was, as it were, a higher sanction to\nthe legal point of view: a pledge that the relations of citizen and\nstate too were rightly conceived. 'There is,' says Cicero, speaking of\nthe death of Clodius in the language of a later age, 'there is a divine\npower which inspired that criminal to his own ruin: it was not by\nchance that he expired before the shrine of the Bona Dea, whose rites\nhe had violated': the divine justice is the sanction of the human law.\nEven in the fear, from which all ultimately sprang, there was a\ntraining in self-repression and self-subordination, which in a more\ncivilised age must result in a valuable respect and obedience. The\ndescendants of those who had made religion out of an attempt to appease\nthe hostile _numina_, feeling themselves not indeed on more familiar\nterms with their 'unknown gods,' but only perhaps a little more\nconfident of their own strength, were not likely to be wanting in a\ndisciplined sense of dependence and an appreciation of the value of\nrespect for authority, which alone can give stability to a\nconstitution. If fear with the Romans was not the beginning of\ntheological wisdom, it was yet an important contribution to the\ncharacter of a disciplined state.\n\nBut, as I have hinted in the course of this sketch more than once, the\nanswer to this problem, as well as the key to the general understanding\nof the Roman religion, is to be found in the worship of the household.\nIf we knew more of it, we should see more clearly where religion and\nmorality joined hands, but we know enough to give us a clue. There not\nonly are the principal events of life, birth, adolescence, marriage,\nattended by their religious sanction, but in the ordinary course of the\ndaily round the divine presence and the dependence of man are\ncontinually emphasised. The gods are given their portion of the family\nmeal, the sanctified dead are recalled to take their share of the\nfamily blessings. The result was not merely an approach--collectively,\nnot individually--to that sense of the nearness of the unseen, which\nhas so great an effect on the actions of the living, but a very strong\nbond of family union which lay at the root of the life of the state.\nIt would be difficult to find a clearer expression of the notion than\nin the fact that the same word _pietas_, which expresses the due\nfulfilment of man's duty to god, is also the ideal of the relations of\nthe members of a household: filial piety was, in fact, but another\naspect of that rightness of relation, which reveals itself in the\nworship of the gods. No doubt that, in the city-life of later periods,\nthis ideal broke down on both sides: household worship was neglected\nand family life became less dutiful. But it was still, especially in\nthe country, the true backbone of Roman society, and no one can read\nthe opening odes of Horace's third book without feeling the strength of\nAugustus' appeal to it.\n\nAnd if we translate this, as we have learned to do, into terms of the\nstate, we can get some idea of what the Romans meant by their debt to\ntheir religion. As the household was bound together by the tie of\ncommon worship, as in the intermediate stage the clan, severed\npolitically and socially, yet felt itself reunited in the gentile\nrites, so too the state was welded into a whole by the regularly\nrecurring annual festivals and the assurance of the divine sanction on\nits undertakings. It might be that in the course of time these rites\nlost their meaning and the community no longer by personal presence\nexpressed its service to the gods, but the cult stood there still, as\nthe type of Rome's union to the higher powers and a guarantee of their\nassistance against all foes: the religion of Rome was, as it has been\nsaid, the sanctification of patriotism--the Roman citizen's highest\nmoral ideal. It has been remarked, perhaps with partial truth, that the\nreligion of the _AEneid_--in many ways a summary of Roman thought and\nfeeling--is the belief in the _fata Romae_ and their fulfilment. The\nvery impersonality of this conception makes it a good picture of what\nreligion was in the Roman state. It was not, as with the Jews, a strong\nconviction of the rightness of their own belief and a certainty that\ntheir divine protectors must triumph over those of other nations, but a\nfeeling of the constant presence of some spirits, who, 'if haply they\nmight find them,' would, on the payment of their due, bear their part\nin the great progress of right and justice and empire on which Rome\nmust march to her victory. It was the duty of the citizen, with this\nconception of his city before his eyes, to see to it that the state's\npart in the contract was fulfilled. From his ancestors had been\ninherited the tradition, which told him the when, where, and how, and\nin the preservation of that tradition and its due performance consisted\nat once Rome's duty and her glory. 'If we wish,' says Cicero, 'to\ncompare ourselves with other nations, we may be found in other respects\nequal or even inferior; in religion, that is in the worship of the\ngods, we are far superior.' The religion of Rome may not have advanced\nthe theology or the ethics of the world, but it made and held together\na nation.\n\n\n\n\nWORKS BEARING ON THE EARLY RELIGION OF ROME\n\n\n_The Golden Bough_, (2nd Ed.). J.G. FRAZER.\n\n_History of Rome_, BOOK I. CHAP XII. TH. MOMMSEN.\n\n_Die Religion der Roemer._ E. AUST.\n\n_Religion und Kultus der Roemer._ G. WISSOWA.\n\n_Il Culto Privato di Roma Antica_, PART I. A. DE-MARCHI.\n\n_The Roman Festivals._ W. WARDE FOWLER.\n\n_The Religion of Numa._ J.B. CARTER.\n\n\n  Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty\n  at the Edinburgh University Press\n\n       *       *       *       *       *","title":"The Religion of Ancient Rome","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":23297}