Chapter V: The Worship of Sacred Utensils 489 (9)

To return to Rome, and to the prayers in Cato's book, to which I referred just now when discussing the word _macte_. Attempts have been made to prove that these were originally written in metre;[395] and this is quite possible. If so, it only means that they retained the outward form of the primitive spell; it must not lead us on to fancy that the sacrifice which accompanied the prayer was a magical act, or that the whole process was believed to compel the deity. No doubt there was believed to be efficacy in the exact repetition, as is shown by the directions for piacular sacrifices in case of error of any kind.[396] But the language is the language of prayer, not of compulsion, nor even of bargaining: "Eius rei ergo te hoc porco piaculo immolando bonas preces precor, ut sies volens propitius mihi, domo familiaeque meis."[397] "Mars pater, te precor quaesoque uti sies volens propitius mihi, domo," etc.[398] No amount of vain repetition or scruple can deprive this language of its natural meaning. The god is powerful in his own sphere of action, and man has no control over him; man is fully recognised as liable to misfortune unless the god helps him; but he can worship in full assurance of faith that his prayer will be answered, if it be such as the authorities of the State have laid down as the right wording, and if the ritual accompanying it is equally in order. The faith is, indeed, thus founded upon man's devices rather than the god's good-will as such; it is a belief in the State and its authorities and _ius divinum_, which is conceived, not indeed as constraining the deity, but as calling upon him (_invocare_) to perform his part, in formulae which he cannot well neglect, simply because it would be unreasonable to do so, contrary to his nature as a deity of the Roman State and its _ager_.

It is obvious in all this sacrificial ritual that the officiating person or persons were expected to observe the traditional forms with the utmost care and exactness. Any slip or omission was, in fact, a _piaculum_, or _sacrum commissum_--terms of the _ius divinum_ which seem to suggest, if I may use the expression, the obverse side of holiness. It is now well known that cleanness and uncleanness, holiness and its opposite, can be expressed in religious vocabulary by the same terms, for in both cases there is something beyond the ordinary, something dangerous, uncanny; thus we are not surprised to find that such words as I have just mentioned can be used to express some kind of impurity caused by a breach of ritual as well as that ritual itself. If we accept the latest theory of sacrifice, _i.e._ the dynamic theory, as it is called, we explain this intense nervousness about a ritualistic flaw as occasioned by the consciousness of a breach in the current of "religious force" (the expression is that of Messrs. Hubert and Mauss[399]), which must pass in regular sequence from the sacrificer through the victim to the deity, or vice versa. If this is the true explanation--and at present it may be said to hold the field--then the extreme exactness of the Roman ritual was a survival from an age when this strange feeling was a reality; but no more than a survival, for, so far as I can discover, the Roman idea was rather that the deity to whom the ritual was addressed was in some way offended by the omission.[400] The dynamic notion is lost, if it ever were there, and its place has been taken by one that we may perhaps call theological. But however that may be, the culprit was regarded as in a state of sin or impurity, "un etre sacre," and had to get rid of this sin or impurity by another sacrifice before the whole ritual could be started afresh (_instaurare_).

According to the "dynamic" theory of sacrifice, we might naturally expect that the victim, as being destined to carry away the unholiness (or whatever we choose to call it) of the culprit, would be burnt whole, not offered to the deity in the form of exta, or eaten by the sacrificers.[401] But this does not seem to have been the case in the Roman practice; in all the examples of _piacula_ of which we have details, the exta are laid on the altar as in the typical sacrifice.[402] The inference seems to be that the theological idea of sacrifice had established itself completely ever since the formation of the _ius divinum_; the victim is not a scapegoat in any sense, but really an expiatory offering; and not only does the sacrificer yield up something of value, but he offers it to increase the strength of the deity as well as to appease his anger.

A curious point may be noticed in the last place. The practical Roman mind seems to have invented a kind of sacrificial insurance, by which a piacular sacrifice might be offered beforehand to atone for any omission in the ritual which was to follow. Thus the Fratres Arvales, if they had to take an iron implement into their sacred grove, offered a piaculum before as well as after this breach of religious rule.[403] Again, the _porca praecidanea_, which I have already mentioned as offered before harvest, was an example of the same system of insurance; for the first cutting of the corn was a sacred rite, and one in which it was easy to take a false step. Writing of this, Gellius says in general terms that _hostiae praecidaneae_ are those which are offered the day before _sacrificia solennia_.[404]

The term "piacular sacrifice" (_piaculum_) had a wide range of meaning, apart from the examples here given. With one important form of it I shall deal in the next lecture:[405] others we shall come across later on.

NOTES TO LECTURE VIII

[340] See Appendix C.

[341] Cato, _R.R._ 139, where the language suggests that
as the deity was unknown, the _ius_ of the religious act
was also uncertain, _i.e._ the ritual was not laid down.
De Marchi translates (_La Religione_ _nella vita
domestica_, i. 132) "sia a te fatto il debito
sacrificio," etc., which sufficiently expresses the
anxiety of the situation. Keil reads here "ut tibi ius
_est_," and gives no variant in his critical note; but
the words just below, "uti id recte factum siet," seem
to me to suggest the subjunctive. In any case there is
no doubt about _ius._ In _Tab. Iguv._ vi. A. 28
(_Umbrica_, p. 58) Buecheler translates the Umbrian
_persei mersei_ by "quicquid ius sit," and compares this
passage of Cato, together with Gellius i. 12. 14, where
the phrase is used of the duties of a Vestal under the
_ius divinum_ in the formula used by the Pontifex
Maximus, _cum virginem capiat_: "Sacerdotem Vestalem,
quae sacra faciat, quae ius siet sacerdotem Vestalem
facere pro pop. Rom." etc.

[342] _e.g._ _Aen._ iv. 56, x. 31 ("si sine pace tua
atque invito numine," etc.). Cp. _Tab. Iguv._ vi. 30,
33, etc. (_Umbrica_, p. 59), "esto volens propitiusque
pace tua arci Fisiae."

[343] Livy vi. 41 _ad fin._

[344] Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 318, and p. 319 for the
illustrations that follow. Cp. Cicero, _Part. Or._ xxii.
78, where _religio_ is explained as "iustitia erga
deos."

[345] _Lex Coloniae Genetivae_, cap. 64; _C.I.L._ ii.,
supplement No. 5439.

[346] Livy i. 20. 5.

[347] This follows from the definition in Festus, p.
321, and in Macrobius iii. 3. 2. This last is quoted
from Trebatius _de religionibus_: "sacrum est quicquid
est quod deorum habetur." In common use _sacrificium_
seems to be reserved for animal sacrifice, but the verb
_sacrificare_ is not so limited. Festus, p. 319: "mustum
quod Libero sacrificabant pro vineis ... sicut
praemetium de spicis, quas primum messuissent,
sacrificabant Cereri." It has been suggested to me by
Mr. Marett that the termination of the word
_sacrificium_ may have reference to the use of _facere_
for animal sacrifice, as in Greek [Greek: rhezein,
erdein, dran]; but on the whole I doubt this. _Facere_
and _fieri_ are in that sense, I think, euphemisms,
occasioned by the mystic character of the act (examples
are collected in Brissonius _de formulis_, p. 9). _Rem
divinam facere_ seems to be the general expression, as
in Cato, _R.R._ 83; or the particular victim is in the
ablative, _e.g. agna Iovi facit_ (Flamen Dialis) in
Varro, _L.L._ vi. 16; cp. Virg. _Ecl._ iii. 77.

[348] This classification, originally due to R. Smith,
article "Sacrifice" in _Encycl. Brit._, ed. 10, has
lately been criticised by Hubert et Mauss, in _Melanges
d'histoire des religions_, p. 9 foll.; but it is
sufficiently complete for our purposes. At the same time
it is well to be aware that no classification of the
various forms of sacrifice can be complete at present;
that which these authors prefer, _i.e._ constant and
occasional sacrifices, is, however, a useful one.

[349] _R.F._ p. 95 foll. Cp. Robertson Smith, _Rel. of
Semites_, Lect. VIII.

[350] _R.F._ p. 217 foll.

[351] _R.F._ p. 302 foll. Meals in connection with
sacrifice are also found at the Parilia (_R.F._ p. 81,
and Ovid, _Fasti_, iv. 743 foll.) and Terminalia (Ovid,
_Fasti_, ii. 657); but in both cases Ovid seems to be
describing rustic rites; nor is it certain that the meal
was really sacramental. What does seem proved is that
the old Latins and other Italians believed the deities
of the house to be present at their meals--

ante focos olim scamnis considere longis
mos erat et mensae credere adesse deos (_Fasti_, vi. 307),

and thus the idea was maintained that in some sense all
meals had a sacred character, _i.e._ all in which the
members of a _familia_ (see above, p. 78), or of _gens_
or _curia_, met together. Cp. R. Smith, _op. cit._ p.
261 foll. We may remember that the Penates were the
spirits of the food itself, not merely of the place in
which it was stored; it had therefore a sacred
character, which is also shown by the sanctification of
the firstfruits (_R.F._ pp. 151, 195). (The _cenae
collegiorum_, dinners of collegia of priests, were in no
sense sacrificial meals; see Marquardt, p. 231, note 7;
Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ pp. 13, 39, 40.)

[352] Cic. _de Legibus_, ii. 8. 19.

[353] Livy i. 18. For constitutional difficulties in
this passage, see, _e.g._, Greenidge, _Roman Public
Life_, p. 50.

[354] For this and the augurs generally, see Lecture
XII.

[355] The passages are collected by Wissowa, _R.K._ p.
420, note 3. There is no doubt about the inauguratio of
the three great flamines and the rex sacrorum, who were
all specially concerned with sacrifice, and of the
augurs, who would obviously need it in order to perform
the same ceremony for others--as a bishop needs
consecration for the same reason. As regards the
pontifices, Dionysius (ii. 73. 3) clearly thought it was
needed for them, and we might a priori assume that one
who might become a pontifex maximus would need it; but
Wissowa discounts Dionysius' opinion, and I am unwilling
to differ from him on a point of the _ius divinum_, of
which he is our best exponent. If he is right, it may be
that the three _flamines maiores_, who were reckoned in
strict religious sense as above the pontifices,
including their head (Festus, p. 185), needed "holiness"
more than any pontifex, and so with the augurs. The
insignia of the pontifices, as well as many historical
facts, show that the pontifices were competent to
perform sacrifice in a general sense (Marq. p. 248
foll.); but it is possible that they never had the
right, like the flamines, actually to slay the victim. I
do not feel sure that the _securis_ was really one of
their symbols, though Horace seems to say so in _Ode_
iii. 23. 12. The whole question needs further
investigation. It may be found that the essential
distinction between the pontifices and magistrates _cum
imperio_ on the one hand, and the flamines on the other,
is to be sought in the ideas of holiness connected with
the shedding of blood in sacrifice. The flamen is
permanently holy, having charge of constant sacrifices;
_e.g._ the Dialis had duties every day. He is the duly
sanctified guide for all rites within his own religious
range.

[356] Wissowa, _R.K._ pp. 339, 410 foll.

[357] The whole subject of the preparation of the
sacrificer for his work, and of the steps by which he
becomes separated from the profane, is well treated by
Hubert et Mauss, _Melanges d'histoire des religions_, p.
23 foll. The reference to Dr. Jevons is _Introduction_,
ch. xx. p. 270 foll.

[358] Serv. _Aen._ xii. 173; Virgil wrote "dant fruges
manibus salsas, et tempora ferro Summa notant pecudum";
to which Servius adds that the symbolic movement was a
(pretended) cut from head to tail of the victim.
Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 352.

[359] Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encycl., s.v._ "cinctus
Gabinus."

[360] Marquardt, p. 340. The Vestals were never, so far
as we know, directly concerned in animal sacrifice.

[361] See below, p. 190. For the colour of the garments,
and the explanation referred to, see Samter,
_Familienfeste_, p. 40 foll.; Diels, _Sibyllinische
Blaetter_, p. 70; and cp. von Duhn's paper, "Rot und Tot"
in _Archiv_, 1906, p. 1 foll. That red colouring was
used in various ways in sacred and quasi-sacred rites
there is no doubt (see above, p. 89, note 46); but
whether it can be always connected with bloodshed is by
no means so certain (Rohde, _Psyche_, i. 226). In the
case of women it is at least hard to understand. The
idea of consecration through blood, which is very rare
in Roman literature, comes out curiously in the words
which Livy puts into the mouth of Virginius after the
slaughter of his daughter (iii. 48): "Te Appi tuumque
caput sanguine hoc consecro" (_i.e._ to a deity not
mentioned). The sentence to which this note refers was
written before the appearance of Messrs. Hubert et
Mauss' essay on sacrifice (_Melanges d'histoire des
religions_, pp. 1-122). The theory there developed, that
the victim is the intermediary in all cases between the
sacrificer and the deity, and that the _force
religieuse_ passes from one to the other in one
direction or another, does not essentially differ from
the words in the text; but the French savants would, I
imagine, prefer to look on the insignia in a general
sense as bringing the person wearing them within the
region of the _sacrum_, the force of which would react
on him still more strongly after the destruction of the
victim (see p. 28 foll.).

[362] See, _e.g._, _Roman Sculpture_ by Mrs. Strong,
Plates xi. and xv.

[363] For this and other insignia see Marquardt, p. 222
foll. The question is under discussion whether some of
these insignia are not old Italian forms of dress (see
Gruppe, _Mythologische Literatur_, 1898-1905, p. 343).
For the wearing of the skin of a victim, which meets us
also at the Lupercalia (_R.F._ p. 311), see Robertson
Smith, _Semites_, p. 416 foll.; Jevons, _Introduction_,
p. 252 foll.; Frazer, _G.B._ iii. 136 foll.

[364] They, of course, wore the _praetexta_ when
performing religious acts. Cp. the Fratres Arvales, who
laid aside the _praetexta_ after sacrificing. Henzen,
_Acta Fr. Arv._ pp. 11, 21, and 28.

[365] Serv. _Aen._ xi. 543. The _camillae_ assisted the
_flaminicae_, Marquardt, p. 227. This is one of the most
beautiful features of the stately Roman ritual, and has
been handed on to the Roman Church. It was, of course,
derived from the worship of the household (see above, p.
74).

[366] _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, p. 413 foll. Dr. Frazer
is criticising Dr. Farnell, who had touched on the
subject in the _Hibbert Journal_ for 1907, p. 689, and
had taken the more obvious view that death in a family
disqualified for actions requiring extreme holiness.

[367] The passages are collected in Marquardt, p. 174
foll.; we may notice in particular Livy xlv. 5. 4,
where, though only the washing of hands is referred to,
we have the important statement that "omnis praefatio
sacrorum," _i.e._ the preliminary exhortation of the
priest, enjoined _purae manus_. Livy must be using the
language of Roman ritual, though he is not speaking here
of a Roman rite. For the material of sacred utensils see
Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p. 30.

[368] Tibullus ii. 1. 11.

[369] Cic. _de Legibus_, ii. 10. 24.

[370] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of Moral
Ideas_, ii. 352 foll.; consult the index for further
allusions to the subject. Cp. Farnell, _Evolution of
Religion_, Lecture III. [Fehrle, _Die kultische
Keuschheit im Altertum_ (Giessen, 1910), has reached me
too late for use in this chapter.]

[371] Full details, with the most important references
quoted in full, are in Marquardt, p. 172 foll.; but some
of the latter are applicable only to the Graeco-Roman
period.

[372] So we may gather from the Lex Furfensis of 58 B.C.
(_C.I.L._ ix. 3513), and that of the Ara Augusti at
Narbo of A.D. 12 (_C.I.L._ xii. 4333).

[373] The real origin of the pontifices and their name
is unknown to us. If they took their name from the
bridging of the Tiber, as Varro held (_L.L._ v. 83) and
as the majority of scholars believe (see O. Gilbert,
_Rom. Topographie_, ii. 220, note), the difficulty
remains that they are found in such a city as Praeneste,
where there was no river to be bridged, and where they
could not well have been merely an offshoot from the
Roman college; see Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 432, note. Nor can
we explain how they came to be set in charge of the _ius
divinum_; and where there are no data conjecture is
useless.

[374] The covering of the head (_operto capite_, as
opposed to _aperto capite_ of the _Graecus ritus_) is
usually explained as meant to shut out all sounds
belonging to the world of the _profanum_; and the
playing of the tibicines is interpreted in the same way.
Hubert et Mauss explain the covered head differently:
"le rituel romain prescrivit generalement l'usage du
voile, signe de separation et partant de consecration"
(p. 28). Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena to_ _the Study of
Greek Religion_, p. 522, also holds that it is the
outward sign of consecration; cp. S. Reinach, _Cultes,
mythes, et religions_, i. 300 foll. The fact, noted by
Miss Harrison, that in Festus's account of the _ver
sacrum_ (p. 379, ed. Mueller) the children expelled were
veiled, seems to point to the idea of
dedication--unless, indeed, _velabant_ here means that
they blindfolded them.

[375] The wine was poured over the altar as well as on
the victim, which suggests a substitution for blood;
Arnobius vii. 29 and 30; Dion. Hal. vii. 72. I cannot
find that any one of the many utensils used in sacrifice
were for pouring out blood. Blood was, however, poured
on the stone at the Terminalia (_R.F._ pp. 325-326); but
the rite here described by Ovid seems to be a rural one,
outside the _ius divinum_. In the sacrifice of victims
to Hecate in Virg. _Aen._ vi. 243 foll., which cannot be
_ritus Romanus_, the warm blood is collected in
_paterae_; but nothing is said of what was done with it,
nor does Servius help. Cp. _Aen._ viii. 106. In
Lucretius v. 1202, "aras sanguine multo spargere
quadrupedum," the context shows that the ritual alluded
to is not old Roman. In Livy's description of the
"occulti paratus sacri" of the Samnites (ix. 41), we
find "_respersae fando nefandoque sanguine arae_, et
dira exsecratio ac furiale carmen." Livy seems to think
of this blood-sprinkling, whether the blood be human or
animal, as unusual and horrible. Ancient, no doubt, is
the practice, recorded in the _Acta Fratr. Arv._ (see
Henzen, pp. 21 and 23), of using the blood in a
religious feast, in the process of cooking: "porcilias
piaculares epulati sunt et sanguem." (There is a mention
of the pouring of blood in an inscription from Lusitania
in _C.I.L._ ii. 2395.) For the use of wine as a
substitute for blood, see the recently published work of
Karl Kircher, "Die sakrale Bedeuting des Weines," in
_Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche, etc._, p. 82 foll.,
where, however, the subject is not worked out.

[376] According to Luebbert (_Commentarii pontificales_,
p. 121 foll.) _magmentum_ is the same as _augmentum_,
which word is also found (Varro, _L.L._ v. 112). Festus,
p. 126, "magmentum magis augmentum"; Serv. _Aen._ iv.
57, to which passage I shall return. For the equivalent
in the Vedic ritual of the cooking and offering of the
exta, see Hubert et Mauss, _op. cit._ p. 60 foll.

[377] _R.F._ p. 89.

[378] _ib._ p. 10.

[379] Buecheler, _Umbrica_, pp. 60, 69, etc. Of course
the prayer might be said while other operations were
going on. For the constant connection of prayer and
sacrifice, see Pliny, _N.H._ xxviii. 10, "quippe
victimam caedi sine precatione non videtur referre aut
deos rite consuli." If Macrobius is right (iii. 2. 7
foll.) in asserting that the prayer must be said while
the priest's hand touches the altar, one may guess that
this was done at the same time that the exta were laid
on it. Ovid saw the priest at the Robigalia offer the
exta and say the prayer at the same time (_Fasti_, iv.
905 foll.), but does not mention the hand touching the
altar. For this see Serv. _Aen._ vi. 124; Horace, _Ode_
iii. 23. 17, and Dr. Postgate on this passage in
_Classical Review_ for March 1910.

[380] Cato, _R.R._ 132, 134, 139, and 141. That these
formulae were taken from the books of the pontifices is
almost certain, not only from the internal evidence of
the prayers themselves, but because Servius (Interpol.)
on _Aen._ ix. 641 quotes the words: "macte hoc vino
inferio esto," which occur in 132, introducing them
thus: "et in pontificalibus sacrificantes dicebant
deo...."

[381] The verb is omitted here for some ritualistic
reason, as in the Iguvian prayers (_Umbrica_, p. 55).

[382] Virg. _Aen._ ix. 641, "macte nova virtute puer,
sic itur ad astra," etc., and many other passages. The
verb _mactare_ acquired a general sense of sacrificial
slaying, as did also _immolare_, though neither had
originally any direct reference to slaughter. The best
account I find of the word is in H. Nettleship's
_Contributions to Latin Lexicography_, p. 520. He takes
_mactus_ as the participle of a lost verb _maco_ or
_mago_, to make great, increase, equivalent to _augeo_,
which is also a word of semi-religious meaning, as
Augustus knew. Nettleship quotes Cicero _in Vatinium_,
14, "puerorum extis deos manes mactare."

[383] Baehrens, _Fragm. Poet. Lat._ 180; Lusilius fragm.
143; Nonius, 341, 28 has "versibus."

[384] It may possibly be objected that some of the
deities were powerful for evil as well as good, _e.g._
Robigus, the spirit of the red mildew, and that the
power of such a deity was not to be encouraged or
increased. But all such deities (and I cannot mention
another besides Robigus) were of course conceived as
able to restrain their own harmful function; they were
not invoked to go away and leave the ager Romanus in
peace, but to limit their activity in the land where
they had been settled for worship. We have no prayer to
Robigus (or Robigo, feminine, as Ovid has it) except
that which Ovid somewhat fancifully versified after
hearing the Flamen Quirinalis say it (_Fasti_, iv. 911
foll.), in which of course the word _macte_ does not
occur. As the victim was a dog, an uneatable one, it is
possible that the ritual was not quite the usual one.
But the language of the prayer is interesting and brings
out my point:

aspera Robigo, parcas Cerialibus herbis.
vis tua non levis est;...
parce precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer
neve noce cultis: posse nocere sat est.

It concludes by praying Robigo to direct her strength
and attention to other objects, _gladios et tela
nocentia_; but this is the poet's fancy.

[385] _Evolution of Religion_, p. 212, quoting _Vedic
Hymns_, pt. ii. pp. 259 and 391.

[386] _Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, vol. ii.
p. 585 foll.; cp. 657. See also Farnell, _Evolution of
Religion_, p. 195.

[387] See above, p. 9. _Religio_ in the sense of an
obligation to perform certain ritualistic acts is in my
view a secondary and later use of the word. See
_Transactions of the Congress of Historical Religion for
1908_, vol. ii. p. 169 foll.

[388] Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p. 26 foll.; _C.I.L._
vi. 2104, 32 foll.; Buecheler und Riese, _Carmina Lat._,
epigr. pars ii., no. 1. All surviving Roman prayers are
collected in Appel's _De Romanorum precationibus_,
Giessen, 1909.

[389] Pliny, _N.H._ xxviii. 10 foll.

[390] In _Anthropology and the Classics_, p. 94.

[391] Cp. Tibullus ii. 1. 84, "vos celebrem cantate deum
pecorique vocate, Voce palam pecori, clam sibi quisque
vocet." This murmuring was certainly characteristic of
Roman magic; see Jevons, p. 99, and especially the
reference to a Lex Cornelia, which condemned those "qui
susurris magicis homines occiderunt" (Justinian, _Inst._
iv. 18. 5).

[392] On the nature of this _tripodatio_ see Henzen,
_op. cit._ p. 33. Buecheler, _Umbrica_, p. 69, gives the
Umbrian verb a different meaning, though he translates
it _tripodato_.

[393] Buecheler, _Umbrica_, pp. 13 and 52.

[394] Wissowa, _R.K._, 333, inclines to the belief that
prayer had a legal binding force upon the deity; but he
does not cite any text which confirms this view, and is
arguing on general grounds. I gather from the language
of Aust (_Religion der Roemer_, p. 30) that he thinks
there was a germ which might have developed into a more
truly religious attitude towards the gods, if it had not
been killed by priestly routine and quasi-legal
formulae. With this opinion I am strongly inclined to
agree. Cp. the story of Scipio Aemilianus audaciously
altering and elevating the formula dictated by the
priest in the censor's lustratio (Val. Max. iv. 1. 10),
to which I shall return in the proper place.

[395] Westphal, quoted by De Marchi, _La Religione,
etc._, i. p. 133, note.

[396] See, _e.g._, ch. 141 _ad fin._ The prayer in the
Acta of the Ludi Saeculares to the Moirae is an
imitation of old prayers. See below, p. 442.

[397] _ib._ ch. 139.

[398] _ib._ ch. 141.

[399] Hubert et Mauss, _Melanges d'histoire des
religions_, p. 74.

[400] So Cato, _R.R._ 141, "si minus in omnes litabit,
sic verba concipito; Mars pater, quod tibi illuc porco
neque satisfactum est, te hoc porco piaculo." (The word
for the slaughter is here euphemistically omitted; De
Marchi, p. 134.)

[401] Hubert et Mauss, _op. cit._ p. 55 foll.; Leviticus
vi. I doubt whether the theory of the learned authors
will hold good generally on this point.

[402] Marquardt, p. 185, asserted the contrary, but
cited no evidence except Serv. _Aen._ vi. 253, which
does not prove the practice of the holocaust to be
really Roman. Wissowa's exactness is well illustrated in
his detection of this error; see _R. K._ p. 352, note 6.
Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p. 135, leaves no doubt on
the question possible.

[403] Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p. 131. See above, p.
35. Festus, p. 218.

[404] Gellius iv. 6. 7.

[405] _i.e._ lustratio. That this was a form of piaculum
is clear from the use of the word _pihaklu_ of the
victim in the lustratio of the arx of Iguvium, _e.g._
Buecheler, _Umbrica_, index, 5, v.

LECTURE IX

RITUAL--_continued_

In the last lecture we found that the magical element in the Roman ritual is exaggerated by recent writers. But it has also long been the practice to describe that ritual as a system of bargaining with the gods: as partaking of the nature of a legal contract. "The old Roman worship was businesslike and utilitarian. The gods were partners in a contract with their worshippers, and the ritual was characterised by the hard formalism of the legal system of Rome. The worshipper performed his part to the letter with the scrupulous exactness required in pleadings before the praetor."[406] This is an excellent statement of a view very generally held, especially since Mommsen, whose training in Roman law made him apt to dwell on the legal aspects of Roman life, wrote the famous chapter in the first volume of his history. I now wish to examine this view briefly.

No doubt it was suggested by the necessary familiarity of the Roman historian with _vota publica_, the vows so frequently made on behalf of the State by its magistrates, in terms supplied by the pontifices, and dictated by them to the magistrate undertaking the duty. Some few of these formulae have survived, and it may certainly be said of them that they are analogous to legal formulae, and express the quasi-contractual nature of the process. Such legalised religious contracts seem to be peculiar to Rome; they are curiously characteristic of the Roman genius for formularisation, which in course of time had most important effects in the domain of civil law. But the vow as such is, of course, by no means peculiar to Rome; it is familiar in Greek history, and is found in an elementary form among savages at the present day.[407] But at Rome both in public and private life it is far more frequent and striking than elsewhere. This is a phenomenon that calls for careful study; and we must beware that we are not misled by quasi-legal developments into missing the real significance of it from the point of view of morality and religion.

The _vota privata_, which include vows and offerings made to deities by private individuals, had never been adequately examined till De Marchi wrote his book on the private religion of the Romans; nor could they have been so examined until the _Corpus Inscriptionum_ was fairly well advanced. There the material is extraordinarily abundant, but it is, of course, almost entirely of comparatively late date, and the great majority of votive inscriptions belong to the period of the Empire. Yet it is quite legitimate to argue from this to an origin of this form of worship in the earliest times, and we have enough early evidence to justify the inference. Among the oldest Latin inscriptions are some found on objects such as cups or vases, showing that the latter were votive offerings to a deity: thus we have _Saeturni poculum, Kerri poculum_, and other similar ones which will be found at the beginning of the first volume of the _Corpus_.[408] They give only the name of the deity as a rule, and do not tell us why the object was offered to him; but they must have been thank-offerings for some supposed blessing. In one case, not indeed at Rome, but not far away at Praeneste, we have proof of this; for a mother makes a dedication to Fortuna _nationu cratia_, which plainly expresses gratitude for good luck in childbirth;[409] and this inscription is one of the oldest we possess. Nor do they tell us whether there was a previous vow or promise of which the offering is the fulfilment. But in the majority of inscriptions of late date the familiar letters V.S.L.M. (_votum solvit lubens merito_) betray the nature of the transaction, and it is not unreasonable to guess that there was usually a previous undertaking of some kind, to be carried out if the deity were gracious.

But these private _vota_ were not, strictly speaking, legal transactions, supposed to bind both parties in a contract, as we shall see was to some extent the case with the _vota publica_. They could not have needed the aid of a pontifex, or a solemn _voti nuncupatio_, _i.e._ statement of the promise; they were rather, as De Marchi asserts,[410] spontaneous expressions of what we may call religious feeling; and it may be that he is right in maintaining that throughout Roman history they remained as expressions of the religious sense and of the better feeling of the lower classes. The practice implies three conceptions: (1) of the deity as really powerful for good and evil; (2) of the gift, a work of supererogation, as likely to please him; (3) of the grateful act and feeling as good in themselves. Surely there must have been in this practice a germ of moral development; I am surprised that Dr. Westermarck has not mentioned in his chapter on gratitude the extraordinary abundance of Roman votive offerings and inscriptions. Doubtless there lies at the root of it the idea of _Do ut des_, or rather of _Dabo ut des_; doubtless also it could be turned to evil purposes in the form of _devotio_, when promises were made to a deity on condition that he killed or injured an enemy; but in the ordinary and common example it is impossible to deny that the final act, the performance of the vow, must have been accompanied by a feeling of gratitude. The merest recognition of a supposed blessing is of value in moral development.

But it is in the _vota publica_ that we undoubtedly find something in the nature of a bargain--covenant would be a more graceful word--with a deity in the name of the State. Even here, however, the impression is rather produced by the use of legal terms and the formularisation of the process, than by any assumed attitude of contempt towards, or even of equality with, the deity concerned. There is no trace in early Roman religious history of any tendency to abuse or degrade the divine beings if they did not perform their part, such as is well known in China,[411] or even, strange to say, occasionally met with in the southern Italy of to-day; the attitude towards the deity in cult (though not invariably in the later Graeco-Roman literature) was ever respectful, as it was towards the magistrates of the State. The farthest the Romans ever went in condemning their gods was when misfortune persuaded them that they were become indifferent or useless; then they began to neglect them, and to turn to other gods, as we shall see in subsequent lectures.

The public _vota_ were of two kinds: the ordinary, or regularly recurring, and the extraordinary, which were occasioned by some particular event. Of the ordinary, the most familiar is that undertaken by the consul, and no doubt in some form by the Rex in the days of the kingship, for the benefit of the State on the first day of the official year. Accompanied by the Senate and a crowd of people, the consuls went up to the Capitoline temple, and performed the sacrifice which had been vowed by their predecessors of a year before; after which they undertook a new _votum_, "_pro reipublicae salute_."[412] We have not the formula of this vow, and cannot tell what resemblance it bore to a bargain; but the ceremony itself must have been most impressive, and calculated to remind all who were present of the greatness and goodwill of the supreme deity who watched over the interests of the State. So too at the _lustrum_ of the censors, which took place in the Campus Martius every five years, it is almost certain that the _votum_ of the predecessors in office was fulfilled by a sacrifice, and a new one undertaken. Here again we are without the formula, but that there was one we know from a very interesting passage of Valerius Maximus. He tells us that Scipio Aemilianus, when as censor he was conducting this sacrifice, and the _scriba_ (on behalf of the pontifex?) was dictating to him the _solemne precationis carmen ex publicis tabulis_, in which the immortal gods were besought to make the prosperity of the Roman State "better and greater," had the audacity to interrupt him, saying that the condition of the State was sufficiently good and great: "itaque precor ut eas (res) perpetuo incolumes servent." This change, Valerius says, was accepted, and the formula altered accordingly in the _tabulae_.[413] This story, which is probably genuine and is quite characteristic of Scipio, must convince an impartial mind that in this votive ceremony there was enough truth and dignity to suggest a real advance in religious thought, so far at least as the State was concerned.

The extraordinary _vota_ were innumerable. They were occasioned by dangers or misfortunes of various kinds, the magistrate undertaking to dedicate something to the god concerned if the State should have come safely through the peril. Many temples had their origin in this practice;[414] we meet also with _ludi_, special sacrifices, or a tithe of the booty taken in war. In two or three cases Livy has copied the formula from the _tabulae_ of the pontifices; thus before the war with Antiochus in 191 B.C., the consul recited the following words after the pontifex maximus: "Si duellum quod cum Antiocho rege sumi populus iussit, id ex sententia senatus populique Romani confectum erit; tum tibi Iuppiter populus Romanus ludos magnos dies decem continuos faciet ... quisquis magistratus eos ludos quando ubique faxit, hi ludi recte facti, donaque data recte sunto."[415] This document dates from the days of the decay of the Roman religion, and is, of course, modernised by Livy; but it may give an idea of what is meant by writers who speak of an element of bargain or covenant in these _vota_. Still more elaborate, and probably more antique, is the famous formula of the vow of the _ver sacrum_ in the darkest hour of the war with Hannibal.[416] This very curious rite, which proves beyond question the devotion of the Italian stocks to the principle of the _votum_, consisted of a promise to dedicate to Mars or Jupiter all the valuable products of a single spring, including the male children born at that time; to this the Romans had recourse for the last time in 217 B.C., and Livy has fortunately preserved the words of the vow. These, with the exception of the dedication of the children, which is judiciously omitted, probably stand much as they had come down from a remote antiquity. The _votum_ is put in the form of a _rogatio_ to the people, without whose sanction it could not be put in force; are they willing to dedicate to Jupiter all the young of oxen, sheep, or pigs born in the spring five years after date, if the State shall have been preserved during those years from all its enemies? The curious feature of the document is, not that it binds the deity to any course of action, but that it secures the individual Roman against his anger in case of any chance slip in his part of the process, and the people against any evil consequences arising from such a slip or from misdoing on the part of an individual. "Si quis clepsit, ne populo scelus esto neve cui cleptum erit: si atro die faxit insciens, probe factum esto."[417] Of this formula a recent writer of great learning and ability has written thus: "The well-known liturgical archive containing Rome's address to Jupiter in the critical days of the Hannibalic war is a wary and cleverly drawn legal document, intended to bind the god as well as the State."[418] He is no exception to the rule that those who have not habitually occupied themselves with the Roman religion are liable to misinterpret its details. This is not an address to Jupiter, nor is there any sign in it that the god was considered as bound to perform his part as in a contract; the covenant is a one-sided one, the people undertaking an act of self-renunciation if the god be gracious to them, and thereby going far to assure themselves that he will so be gracious. And the legal cast of the language, which seems so apt to mislead the unwary,[419] is only to be found in the clauses which guarantee the people against the contingency of the whole vow being ruined by the inadvertence or the rascality of an individual; surely a very natural and inevitable _caveat_, where for once the whole people, and not only their priests or magistrates, were concerned in the transaction.

A curious form of the _votum_, which, however, I can only mention in passing, is that addressed to the gods of a hostile city, with a view to induce them to desert their temples and take up their abode at Rome; this is the process called _evocatio_, which was successfully applied at the siege of Veii, when Juno Regina consented to betray her city.[420] Macrobius, commenting on Virgil's lines (_Aen._ ii. 351),

excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis
di quibus imperium hoc steterat,

has preserved the _carmen_ used at the siege of Carthage.[421] It is cast in the language of prayer: "Si deus si dea est cui populus civitasque Carthaginiensis est in tutela ... precor venerorque veniamque a vobis peto ut vos populum civitatemque Carthaginiensem deseratis," etc.; but it ends with a vow to build temples and establish _ludi_ in honour of these deities if they should comply with the petition. It is worth noting here that it was, of course, impossible to make a bargain with strange or hostile gods, or in any way to force their hand; the promise is entirely one-sided; and I am inclined to think that in dealing with his own gods the mental attitude of the Roman was much the same, though his faith in them was undoubtedly greater.

This is the proper place to mention another very curious rite, closely allied to the _votum_, but differing from it in one or two important points, which is almost peculiar to the Romans and most characteristic of them; I mean the _devotio_ of himself on the field of battle by a magistrate _cum imperio_.[422] The famous example, familiar to us all, is that of Decius Mus at the battle of Vesuvius in the great Latin war[423] (340 B.C.): the same story is told of his son in a war with Gauls and Samnites, and of his grandson in the war with Pyrrhus.[424] The historical difficulties of these accounts do not concern us now; by common consent of scholars the method and formula of the _devotio_ are authentic, and the rite must have had its origin in remote antiquity.

The story runs[425] that Decius, at whose preliminary sacrifice before the battle with the Latins the liver of the victim had been found imperfect, while that of his colleague was normal, perceived that his wing of the army was giving way. He therefore resolved to sacrifice himself by _devotio_, and called on the pontifex maximus, who was present, to dictate for him the correct formula. He was directed to put on the toga praetexta, to wear it with the cinctus Gabinus, to veil his head with it, to touch his chin with his hand under the folds of the robe, and to stand upon a spear. He then repeated after the pontifex the following formula: "Iane, Iuppiter, Mars pater, Quirine, Bellona, Lares, divi Novensiles, di Indigetes, divi quorum est potestas nostrorum hostiumque, diique Manes, vos precor, veneror, veniam peto feroque, uti populo Romano Quiritium vim victoriamque prosperetis, hostesque populi Romani Quiritium terrore formidine morteque adficiatis. Sicut verbis nuncupavi, ita pro re publica Quiritium, exercitu legionibus auxiliis populi Romani Quiritium, legiones auxiliaque hostium _mecum_ deis Manibus Tellurique devoveo" (Livy ix. 9). He then mounted his horse and rode into the midst of the enemy to meet his death. The Latins were seized with panic and the Romans were victorious.

Here the vow is made and fulfilled almost at the same moment,--_the fulfilment takes place before the gods have done their part_. Here too the offering made is the life of a human being which brings the act within the domain of sacrifice. Its sacrificial nature is obvious in all the details.[426] The dress is that of the sacrificing priest or magistrate;[427] Decius was therefore priest and victim at the same time, and the two characters seem to be combined in the symbolic touching of the chin, which has been rightly explained,[428] I think, as analogous to the laying on of hands in the consecratio of the Rex, as we saw it in the case of Numa, and perhaps to the _immolatio_ of a victim by sprinkling the _mola salsa_ on its head; where the object of consecration is made holy by contact with holy things.[429] The standing on the spear is difficult to explain; it may have been a symbolic dedication to Mars, whose spear or spears, as we have seen, were kept in the Regia.[430]

The formula contains certain points of great interest. Firstly, it is not only the Roman gods of all sorts and conditions who are invoked, but those of the enemy also, or, in vague language, those who have power over both Romans and Latins.[431] Secondly, it begins with a prayer combined with a curse upon the enemy: in which respect it resembles the prayer at the _lustratio populi_ at Iguvium[432] (which I shall mention again directly) and to a later type of _devotio_ used at the siege of Carthage and preserved by Macrobius.[433] Thirdly, in spite of this religious aspect of the formula, it ends with what can only be called a magical spell. By the act of self-sacrifice, which is the potent element in the spell, Decius exercises magical power over the legions of the enemy, and devotes them with himself to death,--to the Manes and Mother Earth.[434]

The story suggests to me that the rite had been at one time well known; the pontifex maximus was ready with the instructions and formula. It was a survival from an age of magic, but the priests have given it a religious turn, and the language of the first part is quite as much that of prayer as is the language of the collect to be said in time of war which still disfigures the Anglican prayer-book.[435] What is still more remarkable is that it has not only a religious but an ethical character. The idea of service to the State is here seen at its highest point. The sacrifice is a vicarious one.[436] Livy significantly adds that a private soldier might be chosen by the commander to represent him, and that if this man were not killed by the enemy an image seven feet long must be buried in the earth and a piacular sacrifice offered.[437] Later on it would seem that instead of sacrificing himself, the consul might implore the gods to accept the hostile army or city as his substitutes: "eos _vicarios_ pro me fide magistratuque meo pro populi Romani exercitibus do devoveo, ut me exercitumque nostrum ... bene salvos siritis esse."[438] The idea here, and indeed in the _devotio_ of Decius, bears some analogy to that which lies at the root of the old Roman practice, of making a criminal _sacer_ to the deity chiefly concerned in his crime; when this was done, any man might kill him, and he was practically a victim offered as _vicarius_ for the Roman people, who had been contaminated by his deed.[439]

But I must now pass on the last kind of ritual to be explained in these lectures, and far the most impressive of all, that of _lustratio_, or the purification, as it is commonly called, of land, city, human beings, or even inanimate objects, by means of a solemn procession accompanied with sacrifice.

So important a part did these processional rites play in the public life of the Roman people,--so characteristic are they too of the old Roman habit of thought and action, that they have given a wonderful word to the Latin language. _Lustrare_ has many meanings; but the one which is immediately derived from the rites I speak of, that of slow processional movement, is the most beautiful and impressive of them all. When Aeneas first sees Dido in all her stately beauty, he says:[440]

in freta dum fluvii current, _dum montibus umbrae
lustrabunt convexa_, polus dum sidera pascet,
semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt,
quae me cunque vocant terrae.

"So long as the cloud-shadows move slowly over the hollows of the hills." Here in Scotland you must have all seen this procession of the shadows, as I have watched it when fishing in Wales; let us always associate it with the magic of a poet of nature as well as with the religious processions of his people.

_Lustrare_, _lustratio_, are words which, as I think, belong to an age of religion, that is, according to our formula, of effective desire to be in right relation with the Power manifesting itself in the Universe. In other processes which are usually called purificatory, magic seems to survive: the word _februum_, from which comes the name of our second month, meant an object with magical potency, such as water, fire, sulphur, laurel, wool, or the strips of the victims sacrificed at the Lupercalia, and the verb _februare_ meant to get rid of certain unwholesome or miasmatic influences by means of these objects.[441] What was the really primitive idea attached to these words need not concern us now; but Varro, and Ovid following him, explicitly explain them as meaning _purifying_ agents and processes,[442] from which we may infer that they had a magical power to produce certain desired conditions, or to protect from evil influences, like charms and amulets. But _lustrare_ and _lustratio_ seem to belong to an age when the thing to be driven or kept away is rather spiritual mischief, and when the means used are sacrifices and prayers, with processional movement.

What is the original meaning of the word _lustrare_? It seems to be a strong form of _luere_; and _luere_ is explained by Varro as equivalent to _solvere_.[443] The word _lustrum_, he says, _i.e._ the solemn five-yearly ceremony in the Campus Martius, is derived from _luere_ in the sense of _solvere_, to pay; because every fifth year the contract-moneys for the collection of taxes and for public undertakings were paid into the treasury through the censors. Servius,[444] doubtless following him, explains such expressions as _peccata luere_, _supplicium luere_, on the same principle--in the sense of payment, just as we speak of paying the penalty. We might thus be tempted to fancy that the root-idea of _lustrare_ is to perform a duty and so get rid of it, as we do in paying for anything we buy; but this would be to misapprehend the original meaning of the word as completely as Varro did when he explained _luere_ by reference to the payments of contractors. Varro and Servius do, however, suggest the right clue; they see that the idea lurking in the word is that of getting rid of something, but they understand that something in the light, not of primitive man's intelligence, but of the duty of man in a civilised State. What exactly it was that was to be got rid of is a more difficult question; but all that we have so far learnt about the early religious ideas of the Romans strongly suggests that they were in what we may call an advanced _animistic_ stage of religious ideas, and that whatever may have been the notion of their primitive ancestors, they themselves, in these rites as we know them, saw the means of getting rid of and so keeping away hostile spirits. A French sociologist, M. van Gennep, whose book _Les Rites de passage_ I have read with great interest, has kindly written me a long letter in which he insists that this animistic interpretation of _lustratio_ is really superfluous, and that the idea of separation alone, _i.e._ of separation between sacred and profane, without any reference to spirits or _dei_, is a fully sufficient explanation. So no doubt it may be among many savage peoples; but he would probably allow that as a people advances from one stage of superstition to another, while it retains in outline the scheme of its rites, it will apply new meanings to them in keeping with the changes in its mental attitude. This is one of the most interesting processes with which modern research has been occupied; we are now familiar with the adoption of pre-Christian ceremonies, with a complete change of meaning, in the ritual of the Christian Church. These very processions of _lustratio_, which had already been once metamorphosed in an animistic period, were seized upon by the Roman Church with characteristic adroitness, adapted to its ritual, and given a new meaning; and the Catholic priest still leads his flock round the fields with the prayers of the _Litania maior_ in Rogation week, begging a blessing on the flocks and herds, and deprecating the anger of the Almighty.[445]

But let us now pass briefly in review the more important of these rites of lustration and compare them with each other; we shall find the essential features the same in all of them.