The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Religion of Ancient Rome, by Cyril BaileyThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: The Religion of Ancient RomeAuthor: Cyril BaileyRelease Date: June 12, 2006 [EBook #18564]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROME ***Produced by Jeannie Howse, Thierry Alberto and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
The close spacing of NP in thetable on page 89 isrepresentative of theoriginal ligature.
I wish to express my warm thanks to Mr. W. Warde Fowler for hiskindness in reading my proofs, and for many valuable hints andsuggestions.
C.B.
Balliol College,
Jan 25th, 1907.
The conditions of our knowledge of the native religion of early Romemay perhaps be best illustrated by a parallel from Roman archæology.The visitor to the Roman Forum at the present day, if he wishes toreconstruct in imagination the Forum of the early Republic, must notmerely 'think away' many strata of later buildings, but, we are told,must picture to himself a totally different orientation of the whole:the upper layer of remains, which he sees before him, is for hispurpose in most cases not merely useless, but positively misleading.In the same way, if we wish to form a picture of the genuine Romanreligion, we cannot find it immediately in classical literature; wemust banish from our minds all that is due to the contact with theEast and Egypt, and even with the other races of Italy,[2]and we mustimagine, so to speak, a totally different mental orientation beforethe great influx of Greek literature and Greek thought, which gave anentirely new turn to Roman ideas in general, and in particularrevolutionised religion by the introduction of anthropomorphic notionsand sensuous representations. But in this difficult search we are notleft without indications to guide us. In the writings of the savantsof the late Republic and of the Empire, and in the Augustan poets,biassed though they are in their interpretations by Greek tendencies,there is embodied a great wealth of ancient custom and ritual, whichbecomes significant when we have once got the clue to its meaning.More direct evidence is afforded by a large body of inscriptions andmonuments, and above all by the surviving Calendars of the Romanfestival year, which give us the true outline of the ceremonialobservances of the early religion.
It is not within the scope of this sketch to enter, except by way ofoccasional illustration, into the process of interpretation by whichthe patient work of scholars has disentangled the form and spirit ofthe native religion from the mass of foreign accretions. I intendrather to assume the process, and deal, as far as it is[3]possible inso controversial a subject, with results upon which authorities aregenerally agreed. Neither will any attempt be made to follow thedevelopment which the early religion underwent in later periods, whenforeign elements were added and foreign ideas altered and remouldedthe old tradition. We must confine ourselves to a single epoch, inwhich the native Roman spirit worked out unaided the ideas inheritedfrom half-civilised ancestors, and formed that body of belief andritual, which was always, at least officially, the kernel of Romanreligion, and constituted what the Romans themselves—staunchbelievers in their own traditional history—loved to describe as the'Religion of Numa.' We must discover, as far as we can, how far itsinherited notions ran parallel with those of other primitivereligions, but more especially we must try to note what ischaracteristically Roman alike in custom and ritual and in the motivesand spirit which prompted them.
In every early religion there will of course be found, apart fromexternal influence, traces of its own internal development, of stagesby which it must have advanced from a mass of vague and primitivebelief and custom to the organised worship of a civilised community.The religion of Rome is no exception to this rule; we can detect inits later practice evidences of primitive notions and habits which ithad in common with other semi-barbarous peoples, and we shall see thatthe leading idea in its theology is but a characteristically Romandevelopment of a marked feature in most early religions.
1. Magic.—Anthropology has taught us that in many primitivesocieties religion—a sense of man's dependence on a power higher thanhimself—is preceded by a stage of magic—a belief in man's own powerto influence by occult means the action of the world around him. Thatthe[5]ancestors of the Roman community passed through this stage seemsclear, and in surviving religious practice we may discover evidence ofsuch magic in various forms. There is, for instance, what anthropologydescribes as 'sympathetic magic'—the attempt to influence the powersof nature by an imitation of the process which it is desired that theyshould perform. Of this we have a characteristic example in theceremony of theaquaelicium, designed to produce rain after a longdrought. In classical times the ceremony consisted in a processionheaded by the pontifices, which bore the sacred rain-stone from itsresting-place by the Porta Capena to the Capitol, where offerings weremade to the sky-deity, Iuppiter, but[1] from the analogy of otherprimitive cults and the sacred title of the stone (lapis manalis),it is practically certain that the original ritual was the purelyimitative process of pouring water over the stone. A similarrain-charm may possibly be seen in the curious ritual of theargeorumsacra, when puppets of straw were thrown into the Tiber—a symbolicwetting of the crops to which many parallels may be found among otherprimitive peoples. A sympathetic charm of a rather[6]differentcharacter seems to survive in the ceremony of theaugurium canarium,at which a red dog was sacrificed for the prosperity of the crop—asymbolic killing of the red mildew (robigo); and again the slaughterof pregnant cows at theFordicidia in the middle of April, beforethe sprouting of the corn, has a clearly sympathetic connection withthe fertility of the earth. Another prominent survival—equallycharacteristic of primitive peoples—is the sacredness which attachesto the person of the priest-king, so that his every act or word mayhave a magic significance or effect. This is reflected generally inthe Roman priesthood, but especially in the ceremonial surrounding theflamen Dialis, the priest of Iuppiter. He must appear always infestival garb, fire may never be taken from his hearth but for sacredpurposes, no other person may ever sleep in his bed, the cuttings ofhis hair and nails must be preserved and buried beneath anarborfelix—no doubt a magic charm for fertility—he must not eat or evenmention a goat or a bean, or other objects of an unlucky character.
2. Worship of Natural Objects.—A very common feature in the earlydevelopment of religious consciousness is the worship of naturalobjects—in the first place of the objects[7]themselves and no more,but later of a spirit indwelling in them. The distinction is no doubtin individual cases a difficult one to make, and we find that amongthe Romans the earlier worship of the object tends to give way to thecult of the inhabiting spirit, but examples may be found which seem tobelong to the earlier stage. We have, for instance, the sacred stone(silex) which was preserved in the temple of Iuppiter on theCapitol, and was brought out to play a prominent part in the ceremonyof treaty-making. The fetial, who on that occasion represented theRoman people, at the solemn moment of the oath-taking, struck thesacrificial pig with thesilex, saying as he did so, 'Do thou,Diespiter, strike the Roman people as I strike this pig here to-day,and strike them the more, as thou art greater and stronger.' Here nodoubt the underlying notion is not merely symbolical, but in originthe stone is itself the god, an idea which later religion expressed inthe cult-title specially used in this connection,Iuppiter Lapis. Soagain, in all probability, thetermini or boundary-stones betweenproperties are in origin the objects—though later only the site—of ayearly ritual at the festival of the Terminalia on February the 23rd,and they are, as it were, summed up in 'the[8]god Terminus,' the greatsacred boundary-stone, which had its own shrine within the Capitolinetemple, because, according to the legend, 'the god' refused to budgeeven to make room for Iuppiter. The same notion is most likely at theroot of the two great domestic cults of Vesta, 'the hearth,' andIanus, 'the door,' though a more spiritual idea was soon associatedwith them; we may notice too in this connection the worship ofsprings, summed up in the subsequent deity Fons, and of rivers, suchas Volturnus, the cult-name of the Tiber.
3. Worship of Trees.—But most conspicuous among the cults ofnatural objects, as in so many primitive religions, is the worship oftrees. Here, though doubtless at first the tree was itself the objectof veneration, surviving instances seem rather to belong to the laterperiod when it was regarded as the abode of the spirit. We mayrecognise a case of this sort in theficus Ruminalis, once therecipient of worship, though later legend, which preferred to find anhistorical or mythical explanation of cults, looked upon it as sacredbecause it was the scene of the suckling of Romulus and Remus by thewolf. Another fig-tree with a similar history is thecaprificus ofthe Campus Martius, subsequently the site of the worship of Iuno[9]Caprotina. A more significant case is the sacred oak of IuppiterFeretrius on the Capitol, on which thespolia opima were hung afterthe triumph—probably in early times a dedication of the booty to thespirit inhabiting the tree. Outside Rome, showing the same ideas atwork among neighbouring peoples, was the 'golden bough' in the groveof Diana at Aricia. Nor was it only special trees which were thusregarded as the home of a deity; the tree in general is sacred, andany one may chance to be inhabited by a spirit. The feeling of thecountry population on this point comes out clearly in the prayer whichCato recommends his farmer to use before making a clearing in a wood:'Be thou god or goddess, to whom this grove is sacred, be it grantedto us to make propitiatory sacrifice to thee with a pig for theclearing of this sacred spot'; here we have a clear instance of thetree regarded as the dwelling of the sacred power, and it isinteresting to compare the many similar examples which[2] Dr. Frazerhas collected from different parts of the world.
4. Worship of Animals.—Of the worship of animals we havecomparatively little evidence in Roman religion, though we may perhapsdetect it in a portion of the mysterious ritual of the[10]Lupercalia,where the Luperci dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificedgoats and smeared their faces with the blood, thus symbolically tryingto bring themselves into communion with the sacred animal. We mayrecognise it too in the association of particular animals withdivinities, such as the sacred wolf and woodpecker of Mars, but on thewhole we may doubt whether the worship of animals ever played soprominent a part in Roman religion as the cult of other naturalobjects.
5. Animism.—Such are some of the survivals of very early stages ofreligious custom which still kept their place in the developedreligion of Rome, but by far the most important element in it, whichmight indeed be described as its 'immediate antecedent,' is the stateof religious feeling to which anthropologists have given the name of'Animism.' As far as we can follow the development of early religions,this attitude of mind seems to be the direct outcome of the failure ofmagic. Primitive man begins to see that neither he nor his magiciansreally possess that occult control over the forces of nature which wasthe supposed basis of magic: the charm fails, the spell does notproduce the rain and when he looks for the cause, he can only arguethat these things must[11]be in the hands of some power higher than hisown. The world then and its various familiar objects become for himpeopled with spirits, like in character to men, but more powerful, andhis success in life and its various operations depends on the degreein which he is able to propitiate these spirits and secure theirco-operation. If he desires rain, he must win the favour of the spiritwho controls it, if he would fell a tree and suffer no harm, he mustby suitable offerings entice the indwelling spirit to leave it. His'theology' in this stage is the knowledge of the various spirits andtheir dwellings, his ritual the due performance of sacrifice forpurposes of propitiation and expiation. It was in this state ofreligious feeling that the ancestors of Rome must have lived beforethey founded their agricultural settlement on the Palatine: we musttry now to see how far it had retained this character and whatdevelopments it had undergone when it had crystallised into the'Religion of Numa.'
[1] Frazer,Golden Bough, vol. i. pp. 81 ff.
[2]Golden Bough, vol. i. pp. 181-185.
1. Theology.—The characteristic appellation of a divine spirit inthe oldest stratum of the Roman religion is notdeus, a god, butrathernumen, a power: he becomesdeus when he obtains a name, andso is on the way to acquiring a definite personality, but in origin heis simply the 'spirit' of the 'animistic' period, and retainssomething of the spirit's characteristics. Thus among the divinitiesof the household we shall see later that the Genius and even the LarFamiliaris, though they attained great dignity of conception, and werethe centre of the family life, and to some extent of the familymorality, never quite rose to the position of full-grown gods; whileamong the spirits of the field the wildness and impishness ofcharacter associated with Faunus and his companion Inuus—almost thecobolds or hobgoblins of the flocks—reflects clearly the old'animistic' belief in the natural evilness of[13]the spirits and theirhostility to men. The notion of thenumen is always vague andindefinite: even its sex may be uncertain. 'Be thou god or goddess' isthe form of address in the farmer's prayer already quoted from Cato:'be it male or female' is the constant formula in liturgies and evendedicatory inscriptions of a much later period.
These spirits are, as we have seen, indwellers in the objects ofnature and controllers of the phenomena of nature: but to the Romanthey were more. Not merely did they inhabit places and things, butthey presided over each phase of natural development, each state oraction in the life of man. Varro, for instance, gives us a list of thedeities concerned in the early life of the child, which, though itbears the marks of priestly elaboration, may yet be taken as typicalof the feeling of the normal Roman family. There is Vaticanus, whoopens the child's mouth to cry, Cunina, who guards his cradle, Eduliaand Potina, who teach him to eat and drink, Statilinus, who helps himto stand up, Adeona and Abeona, who watch over his first footstep, andmany others each with his special province of protection orassistance. The farmer similarly is in the hands of a whole host ofdivinities who[14]assist him at each stage of ploughing, hoeing, sowing,reaping, and so forth. If thenumen then lacks personalindividuality, he has a very distinct specialisation of function, andif man's appeal to the divinity is to be successful, he must be verycareful to make it in the right quarter: it was a stock joke in Romancomedy to make a character 'ask for water from Liber, or wine from thenymphs.' Hence we find in the prayer formulæ in Cato and elsewhere themost careful precautions to prevent the accidental omission of thedeity concerned: usually the worshipper will go through the whole listof the gods who may be thought to have power in the specialcircumstances; sometimes he will conclude his prayer with the formula'whosoever thou art,' or 'and any other name by which thou mayestdesire to be called.' Thenumen is thus vague in his conception butspecialised in his function, and so later on, when certain deitieshave acquired definite names and become prominent above the rest, theworshipper in appealing to them will add a cult-title, to indicate thespecial character in which he wishes the deity to hear: the woman inchildbirth will appeal to Iuno Lucina, the general praying for victoryto Iuppiter Victor, the man who is taking an oath to Iuppiter[15]as thedeus Fidius. As a still later development the cult-title will, as itwere, break off and set up for itself, usually in the form of anabstract personification: Iuppiter, in the two special capacities justnoted, gives birth to Victoria and Fides.
The conception of thenumen being so formless and indefinite, it isnot surprising that in the genuine Roman religion there should havebeen no anthropomorphic representations of the divinity at all. 'For170 years,' Varro tells us, taking his date from the traditionalfoundation of the city in 754B.C., 'the Romans worshippedtheir gods without images,' and he adds the characteristic comment,'those who introduced representations among the nations, took awayfear and brought in falsehood.' Symbols of a few deities were no doubtrecognised: we have noticed already thesilex of Iuppiter and theboundary-stone of Terminus, which were probably at an earlier periodthemselves objects of worship, and to these we may add the sacredspears of Mars, and thesigilla of the State-Penates. But for themost part thenumina were without even such symbolic representation,nor till about the end of the regal period was any form of templebuilt for them to dwell in. The sacred fire of Vesta near the[16]Forumwas, it is true, from the earliest times enclosed in a building; this,however, was no temple, but merely an erection with the essentiallypractical purpose of preventing the extinction of the fire by rain.The first temple in the full sense of the word was according totradition built by Servius Tullius to Diana on the Aventine: thetradition is significant, for Diana was not one of thedi indigetes,the old deities of the 'Religion of Numa,' but was introduced from theneighbouring town of Aricia, and the attribution to Servius Tulliusnearly always denotes an Etruscan[3] or at any rate a non-Romanorigin. There were, however, altars in special places to particulardeities, built sometimes of stone, sometimes in a more homely mannerof earth or sods. We hear for instance of the altar of Mars in theCampus Martius, of Quirinus on the Quirinal, of Saturnus at the footof the Capitol, and notably of the curious underground altar of Consuson what was later the site of the Circus Maximus. But morecharacteristic than the erection of altars is the connection ofdeities with special localities. Naturally enough in the worship ofthe household Vesta had her seat at the hearth, Ianus[17]at the door,and the 'gods of the storehouse' (Penates) at the cupboard by thehearth, but the same idea appears too in the state-cult. Hilltops,groves, and especially clearings in groves (luci) are the most usualsacred localities. Thus Quirinus has his own sacred hill, Iuppiter isworshipped on the Capitol, Vesta and Iuno Lucina have their sacredgroves within the boundaries of the city, and Dea Dia, Robigus, andFurrina similar groves at the limits of Roman territory. The record ofalmost every Roman cult reveals the importance of locality inconnection with thedi indigetes, and the localities are usuallysuch as would be naturally chosen by a pastoral and agriculturalpeople.
Such were roughly the main outlines of the genuine Roman 'theology.'It has no gods of human form with human relations to one another,interested in the life of men and capable of the deepest passions ofhatred and affection towards them, such as we meet, for instance, inthe mythology of Greece, but only these impersonal individualities, ifwe may so call them, capable of no relation to one another, but ableto bring good or ill to men, localised usually in their habitations,but requiring no artificial dwelling or elaborate adornment of theirabode; becoming[18]gradually more and more specialised in function, yetgaining thereby no more real protective care for their worshippers—acold and heartless hierarchy, ready to exact their due, but incapableof inspiring devotion or enthusiasm. Let us ask next how the Romansconceived of their own relations towards them.
2. The Relation of Gods and Men.—The character of the Roman wasessentially practical and his natural mental attitude that of thelawyer. And so in his relation towards the divine beings whom heworshipped there was little of sentiment or affection: all must beregulated by clearly understood principles and carried out with formalexactness. Hence theius sacrum, the body of rights and duties inthe matter of religion, is regarded as a department of theiuspublicum, the fundamental constitution of the state, and it issignificant, as Marquardt has observed, that it was Numa, a king andlawgiver, and not a prophet or a poet, who was looked upon as thefounder of the Roman religion. Starting from the simple generalfeeling of a dependence on a higher power (religio), which is commonto all religions, the Roman gives it his own characteristic colourwhen he conceives of that dependence as[19]analogous to a civil contractbetween man and god. Both sides are under obligation to fulfil theirpart: if a god answers a man's prayer, he must be repaid by athank-offering: if the man has fulfilled 'his bounden duty andservice,' the god must make his return: if he does not, either thecause lies in an unconscious failure on the human side to carry outthe exact letter of the law, or else, if the god has really broken hiscontract, he has, as it were, put himself out of court and the man mayseek aid elsewhere. In this notion we have the secret of Rome'sreadiness under stress of circumstances, when all appeals to the oldgods have failed, to adopt foreign deities and cults in the hope of agreater measure of success.
The contract-notion may perhaps appear more clearly if we consider oneor two of the normal religious acts of the Roman individual or state.Take first of all the performance of the regular sacrifices or acts ofworship ordained by the state-calendar or the celebration of thehouseholdsacra. Thepietas of man consists in their duefulfilment, but he may through negligence omit them or make a mistakein the ritual to be employed. In that case the gods, as it were, havethe upper hand in the contract and are not obliged to fulfil[20]theirshare, but the man can set himself right again by the offering of apiaculum, which may take the form either of an additional sacrificeor a repetition of the original rite. So, for instance, when Cato isgiving his farmer directions for the lustration of his fields, hesupplies him at the end with two significant formulæ: 'if,' he says,'you have failed in any respect with regard to all your offerings, usethis formula: "Father Mars, if thou hast not found satisfaction in myformer offering of pig, sheep, and ox (the most solemn combination inrustic sacrifices), then let this offering of pig and sheep and oxappease thee": but if you have made a mistake in one or two only ofyour offerings, then say, "Father Mars, because thou hast not foundsatisfaction in that pig (or whatever it may be), let this pig appeasethee."' On the other hand, for intentional neglect, there was noremedy: the man wasimpius and it rested with the gods to punish himas they liked (deorum iniuriae dis curae).
But apart from the regularly constituted ceremonies of religion, theremight be special occasions on which new relations would be enteredinto between god and man. Sometimes the initiative would come fromman: desiring to obtain from[21]the gods some blessings on which he hadset his heart, he would enter into avotum, a special contract bywhich he undertook to perform certain acts or make certain sacrifices,in case of the fulfilment of his desire. The whole proceeding isstrictly legal: from the moment when he makes his vow the man isvotireus, in the same position, that is, as the defendant in a case whosedecision is still pending; as soon as the gods have accomplished theirside of the contract he isvoti damnatus, condemned, as it were, todamages, having lost his suit; nor does he recover his independenceuntil he has paid what he undertook:votum reddidi lubens merito ('Ihave paid my vow gladly as it was due') is the characteristic wordingof votive inscriptions. If the gods did not accomplish the wish, theman was of course free, and sometimes the contract would be carried sofar that a time-limit for their action would be fixed by the maker ofthe vow: legal exactness can hardly go further.
Or again, the initiative might come from the gods. Some markedmisfortune, an earthquake, lightning, a great famine, a portentousbirth, or some such occurrence would be recognised as aprodigium,or sign of the god's displeasure. Somehow or other the contract musthave been[22]broken on the human side and it was the duty of the stateto see to the restoration of thepax deum, the equilibrium of thenormal relation of god and man. The right proceeding in such a casewas alustratio, a solemn cleansing of the people—or the portion ofthe people involved in the god's displeasure—with the double objectof removing the original reason of misfortune and averting futurecauses of the divine anger. The commercial notion is not perhaps quiteso distinct here, but the underlying legal relationship issufficiently marked.
If then the question be asked whether the relation between the Romanand his gods was friendly or unfriendly, the correct answer wouldprobably be that it was neither. It was rather what Aristotle inspeaking of human relations describes as 'a friendship for profit': itis entered into because both sides hope for some advantage—it ismaintained as long as both sides fulfil their obligations.
3. Ceremonial.—It has been said sometimes that the old Romanreligion was one of cult and ritual without dogma or belief. As wehave seen this is not in origin strictly true, and it would be fairerto say that belief was latent rather than non-existent: this we maysee, for instance, from[23]Cicero's dialogues on the subject ofreligion, where in discussion the fundamental sense of the dependenceof man on the help of the gods comes clearly into view: in thedomestic worship of the family too cult was always to some extent'tinged with emotion,' and sanctified by a belief which made it a moreliving and in the end a more permanent reality than the religion ofthe state. But it is no doubt true that as the community advanced,belief tended to sink into the background: development took place incult and not in theology, so that by the end of the Republic, to takean example, though the festival of the Furrinalia was duly observedevery year on the 25th of July, the nature or function of the goddessFurrina was, as we learn from Cicero, a pure matter of conjecture, andVarro tells us that her name was known only to a few persons. Nor wasit mere lapse of time which tended to obscure theology and exaltceremonial: their relative position was the immediate and naturaloutcome of the underlying idea of the relation of god and man.Devotion, piety—in our sense of the term—and a feeling of the divinepresence could not be enjoined or even encouraged by the strictlylegal conception on which religion was based: the 'contract-notion'required not a 'right spirit' but[24]right performance. And so it comesabout that in all the records we have left of the old religion thesalient feature which catches and retains our attention is exactnessof ritual. All must be performed not merely 'decently and in order,'but with the most scrupulous care alike for every detail of theceremonial itself, and for the surrounding circumstances. The omissionor misplacement of a single word in the formulæ, the slightest sign ofresistance on the part of the victim, any disorder among thebystanders, even the accidental squeak of a mouse, are sufficient tovitiate the whole ritual and necessitate its repetition from the verybeginning. One of the main functions of the Roman priesthood was topreserve intact the tradition of formulæ and ritual, and, when themagistrate offered sacrifice for the state, thepontifex stood athis side and dictated (praeire) the formulæ which he must use.Almost the oldest specimen of Latin which we now possess is the songof the Salii, the priests of Mars, handed on from generation togeneration and repeated with scrupulous care, even though the prieststhemselves, as Quintilian assures us, had not the least notion what itmeant. Nor was it merely the words of ceremonial which were of vitalimportance: other details must be attended[25]to with equal exactness.Place, as we have seen, was an essential feature even in theconception of deity, and it must have required all the personalinfluence of Augustus and his entourage to reconcile the people ofRome, with the ancient home of the goddess still before their eyes, tothe second shrine of Vesta within the limits of his palace on thePalatine. The choice of the appropriate offering again was a matter ofthe greatest moment and was dictated by a large number ofconsiderations. The sex of the victim must correspond to the sex ofthe deity to whom it is offered, white beasts must be given to thegods of the upper world, black victims to the deities below. Mars athis October festival must have his horse, Iuno Caprotina her goat, andRobigus his dog, while in the more rustic festivals such as theParilia, the offering would be the simpler gift of millet-cakes andbowls of milk: in the case of the Bona Dea we have the curiousprovision that if wine were used in the ceremonial, it must, as shewas in origin a pastoral deity, always be spoken of as 'milk.' Thepersons who might be present in the various festivals were alsorigidly determined: men were excluded from the Matronalia on March 1,from the Vestalia on the 9th of June, and from the night festival ofthe Bona Dea: the[26]notorious escapade of Clodius in 62B.C.shows the scandal raised by a breach of this rule even at the periodwhen religious enthusiasm was at its lowest ebb. Slaves werespecifically admitted to a share in certain festivals such as theSaturnalia and the Compitalia (the festival of the Lares), whereas atthe Matralia (the festival of the matrons) a female slave was broughtin with the express purpose of being significantly driven away.
The general notion of the exactness of ritual will perhaps becomeclearer when we come to examine some of the festivals in detail, butit is of extreme importance for the understanding of the Romanreligious attitude, to think of it from the first as an essential partin the expression of the relation of man to god.
4. Directness of Relation—Functions of Priests.—In contrast to allthis precision of ritual, which tends almost to alienate humanity fromdeity, we may turn to another hardly less prominent feature of theRoman religion—the immediateness of relation between the god and hisworshippers. Not only may the individual at any time approach thealtar of the god with his prayer or thank-offering, but in everycommunity of persons its religious representative is its natural head.In[27]the family the head of the household (pater familias) is alsothe priest and he is responsible for conducting the religious worshipof the whole house, free and slave alike: to his wife and daughters heleaves the ceremonial connected with the hearth (Vesta) and thedeities of the store-cupboard (Penates), and to his bailiff thesacrifice to the powers who protect his fields (Lares), but theother acts of worship at home and in the fields he conducts himself,and his sons act as his acolytes. Once a year he meets with hisneighbours at the boundaries of their properties and celebrates thecommon worship over the boundary-stones. So in[4] the larger outgrowthof the family, thegens, which consisted of all persons with thesame surname (nomen, notcognomen), the gentilesacra are in thehands of the more wealthy members who are regarded as its heads; wehave the curious instance of Clodius even after his adoption intoanother family, providing for the worship of thegens Clodia in hisown house, and we may remember Virgil's picture of the founders of thegentes of the Potitii and the Pinarii performing the sacrifice toHercules at theara maxima, which was the traditional privilege of[28]their houses. When societies (sodalitates) are formed for religiouspurposes they elect their ownmagistri to be their religiousrepresentatives, as we see in the case of the Salii and the Luperci.Finally, in the great community of the state the king is priest, andwith that exactness of parallelism of which the Roman was so fond,he—like thepater familias—leaves the worship of Vesta in thehands of his 'daughters,' the Vestal virgins. And so, when theRepublic is instituted, a special official, therex sacrorum,inherits the king's ritual duties, while the superintendence of theVestals passes to his representative in the matter of religious law,thepontifex maximus, whose official residence is always theregia, Numa's palace. The state is but the enlarged household andthe head of the state is its religious representative.
If then the approach to the gods is so direct, where, it may be asked,in the organisation of Roman religion is there room for the priest?Two points about the Roman priesthood are of paramount importance. Inthe first place, they are not a caste apart: though there wererestrictions as to the holding of secular magistracies in combinationwith the priesthood—always observed strictly in the case of therexsacrorum and with few exceptions in the case of the greater[29]flamines—yet thepontifices might always take their part inpublic life, and no kind of barrier existed between them and the restof the community: Iulius Cæsar himself waspontifex maximus. In thesecond place they are not regarded as representatives of the gods oras mediators between god and man, but simply as administrativeofficials appointed for the performance of the acts of state-worship,just as the magistrates were for its civil and military government. Inorigin they were chosen to assist the king in the multifarious dutiesof the state-cult—theflamines were to act as special priests ofparticular deities, the most prominent among them being the threegreat priests of Iuppiter (flamen Dialis), Mars, and Quirinus; thepontifices were sometimes delegates of the king on specialoccasions, but more particularly formed his religiousconsilium, aconsulting body, to give him advice as to ritual and act as therepositories of tradition. In later times theflamines still retaintheir original character, thepontifices and especially thepontifex maximus are responsible for the whole organisation of thestate-religion and are the guardians and interpreters of religiouslore. In the state-cult then the priests play a very important part,but their relation to the worship of the individual was very smallindeed. They had[30]a general superintendence over private worship andtheir leave would be required for the introduction of any new domesticcult; in cases too where the private person was in doubt as to ritualor the legitimacy of any religious practice, he could appeal to thepontifices for decision. Otherwise the priest could never intervenein the worship of the family, except in the case of the most solemnform of marriage (confarreatio), which, as it conferred on thechildren the right to hold certain of the priesthoods, was regardeditself as a ceremony of the state-religion.
In his private worship then the individual had immediate access to thedeity, and it was no doubt this absence of priestly mediation and theconsequent sense of personal responsibility, no less than itsemotional significance, which caused the greater reality andpermanence of the domestic worship as compared with the organised andofficial cults of the state.
[3] Etruscan builders were according to tradition employed onthe earliest Roman temples.
[4] This is all open to doubt, but see De Marchi,Il CultoPrivato, vol. ii.
After this sketch of the main features which we must expect to find inRoman religion, we may attempt to look a little more in detail at itsvarious departments, but before doing so it is necessary to form somenotion of the situation and character of the Roman community: religionis not a little determined by men's natural surroundings andoccupations. The subject is naturally one of considerable controversy,but certain facts of great significance for our purpose may fairly betaken as established. The earliest settlement which can be called'Rome' was the community of the Palatine hill, which rises out of thevalleys more abruptly than any of the other hills and was the naturalplace to be selected for fortification: the outline of the walls andsacred enclosure running outside them (pomoerium) may still betraced, marking the limits[32]of 'square Rome' (Roma quadrata), as thehistorians called it. The Palatine community no doubt pursued theiragricultural labours over the neighbouring valleys and hills, andgradually began to extend their settlement till it included theEsquiline and Caelian and other lesser heights which made up theSeptimontium—the next stage of Rome's development. Meanwhile akindred settlement had been established on the opposite hills of theQuirinal and Viminal, and ultimately the two communities united,enclosing within their boundaries the Capitol and their meeting-placein the valley which separated them—the Forum. In this way was formedthe Rome of the Four Regions, which represents the utmost extent ofits development during the period which gave rise to the genuine Romanreligion. All these stages have left their mark on the customs ofreligion.Roma quadrata comes to the fore in the Lupercalia: notmerely is the site of the ceremony a grotto on the Palatine(Lupercal), but when theLuperci run their purificatory coursearound the boundaries, it is the circuit of the Palatine hill whichmarks its limits. Annually on the 11th of December the festival of theSeptimontium was celebrated, not by the whole people, but by themontani, presumably the inhabitants of those[33]parts of Rome whichwere included in the second settlement. Finally, the addition of theQuirinal settlement is marked by the inclusion among the greatstate-gods of Quirinus, who must have been previously the local deityof the Quirinal community.
But more important for us than the history of the early settlement isits character. We have spoken of early Rome as an agriculturalcommunity: it would be more exact and more helpful to describe it as acommunity of agricultural households. The institutions of Rome, legalas well as religious, all point to the household (familia) as theoriginal unit of organisation: the individual, as such, counted fornothing, the community was but the aggregate of families. Domesticworship then was not merely independent of the religion of thecommunity: it was prior to it, and is both its historical and logicalorigin. Yet the life of the early Roman agriculturalist could not beconfined to the household: in the tilling of the fields and the careof his cattle he meets his neighbour, and common interests suggestcommon prayer and thanksgiving. Thus there sprung up the great seriesof agricultural festivals which form the basis of the state-calendar,but were in origin—as some of them[34]still continued to be—theindependent acts of worship of groups of agricultural households.Gradually, as the community grew on the lines we have just seen, theregrew with it a sense of an organised state, as something more than thecasual aggregation of households or clans (gentes). As the feelingof union became stronger, so did the necessity for common worship ofthe gods, and the state-cult came into being primarily as therepetition on behalf of the community as a whole of the worship whichits members performed separately in their households or asjoint-worshippers in the fields. But the conception of a state mustcarry with it at least two ideas over and beyond the common needs ofits members: there must be internal organisation to secure domestictranquillity, and—since there will be collision with otherstates—external organisation for purposes of offence and defence.Religion follows the new ideas, and in two of the older deities of thefields develops the notions of justice and war. Organisation ensues,and the general conceptions of state-deities and state-ritual are mademore definite and precise.
It will be at once natural and convenient that we should considerthese three departments of religion in the order that has just been[35]suggested—the worship of the household, the worship of the fields,the worship of the state. But it must not be forgotten that both thedepartments themselves and the evidence for them frequently overlap.The domestic worship is not wholly distinguishable from that of thefields, the state-cult is, as we have seen, very largely a replica ofthe other two. The evidence for the domestic and agricultural cults isin itself very scanty, and we shall frequently have to draw inferencesfrom their counterparts in the state. Above all, it is not to besupposed that any hard and fast line between the three existed in theRoman's mind; but for the purposes of analysis the distinction isvaluable and represents a historical reality.
1. The Deities.—The worship of the household seems to haveoriginated, as has been suggested, in the sense of the sacredness ofcertain objects closely bound up with the family life—the door, theprotection against the external world, by which the household went outto work in the morning and returned at evening, the hearth, the giverof warmth and nourishment, and the store-cupboard, where was preservedthe food for future use. At first, in all probability, the worship wasactually of the objects themselves, but by the time that Rome can besaid to have existed at all, 'animism' had undoubtedly transformed itinto a veneration of the indwelling spirits, Ianus, Vesta, and thePenates.
Of the domestic worship of Ianus no information has come down to us,but we may well suppose that as the defence of the door and its mainuse lay with the men of the household, so they, under[37]the control ofthepater familias, were responsible for the cult of its spirit.Vesta was, of course, worshipped at the hearth by the women, who mostoften used it in the preparation of the domestic meals. In theoriginal round hut, such as the primitive Roman dwelt in—witness themodels which he buried with his dead and which recent excavations inthe Forum have brought to light—the 'blazing hearth' (such seems tobe the meaning of Vesta) would be the most conspicuously sacred thing;it is therefore not surprising to find that her simple cult was themost persistent of all throughout the history of Rome, and did notvary from its original notion. Even Ovid can tell the inquirer 'thinknot Vesta to be ought else than living flame,' and again, 'Vesta andfire require no effigy'—notions in which he has come curiously nearto the conceptions of the earliest religion. The Penates in the sameway were at first 'the spirits'—whoever they might be—who preservedand increased the store in the cupboard. Then as the conception ofindividual deities became clearer, they were identified with some oneor other of the gods of the country or the state, among whom theindividual householder would select those who should be the particularPenates of his family: Ceres, Iuno,[38]Iuppiter, Pales would be some ofthose chosen in the earlier period. Nor are we to suppose thatselection was merely arbitrary: the tradition of family and clan, evenpossibly of locality, would determine the choice, much as thepatron-saints of a church are now determined in a Roman Catholiccountry.
Two other deities are very prominent in the worship of the earlyhousehold, and each is a characteristic product of Roman religiousfeeling, the Lar Familiaris and the Genius. The Lares[5] seem to havebeen in origin the spirits of the family fields: they were worshipped,as Cicero tells us, 'on the farm in sight of the house,' and they hadtheir annual festival in the Compitalia, celebrated at thecompita—places where two or more properties marched. But one ofthese spirits, theLar Familiaris, had special charge of the houseand household, and as such was worshipped with the other domestic godsat the hearth. As his protection extended over all the household,including the slaves, his cult is placed specially in the charge ofthe bailiff's wife (vilica). He is[39]regularly worshipped at thegreat divisions of the month on Calends, Nones, and Ides, but he hasalso an intimate and beautiful connection with the domestic history ofthe family. An offering is made to the Lar on the occasion of a birth,a wedding, a departure, or a return, and even—a characteristicallyRoman addition—on the occasion of the first utterance of a word by ason of the house: finally, a particularly solemn sacrifice is made tohim after a death in the family.
The Genius is perhaps the most difficult conception in the Romanreligion for the modern mind to grasp. It has been spoken of as the'patron-saint' or 'guardian-angel,' both of them conceptions akin tothat of the Genius, but both far too definite and anthropomorphic: weshall understand it best by keeping the 'numen' notion clearly inmind and looking to the root-meaning of the word (genius connectedwith the root ofgignere, to beget). It was after all only a naturaldevelopment of the notions of 'animism' to imagine that man too, likeother objects, had his indwelling spirit—not his 'soul' either in oursense of moral and intellectual powers, or in the ancient sense of thevital principle—but rather as the derivation suggests, in originsimply the spirit which gave him the power of generation.[40]Hence inthe house, the sphere of the Genius is no longer the hearth but themarriage-bed (lectus genialis). This notion growing somewhat wider,the Genius comes to denote all the full powers, almost thepersonality, of developed manhood, and especially those powers whichmake for pleasure and happiness: this is the origin of such commonphrases asgenium curare,genio indulgere, meaning practically to'look after oneself,' 'to indulge oneself.' Every man, then, has this'spirit of his manhood' in his Genius, and correspondingly every womanher Iuno, or spirit of womanhood, which are worshipped on thebirthdays of their owners. No doubt later the Genius was accreditedwith powers over the fortune and misfortune of his possessor, but henever really developed anything like the independence of a god, andremained always rather anumen. The individual revered his ownGenius, but the household cult was concerned, as one would expect,with the Genius of the master of the house, the pre-eminent Genius ofthe family. Its special locality was, for the reason just noticed, themarriage-bed and its symbol, the house-snake, kept as a revered inmateand cherished in the feeling that evil happening to it meantmisfortune to the master. The festival of the Genius was[41]naturallythe master's birthday, and on that day slaves and freedmen keptholiday with the family and brought offerings to theGenius domus.It is a significant fact, and may serve to bring out the underlyingnotion, that in later paintings, when anthropomorphism and sensuousrepresentation held sway over all Roman religion, though the othergods of the household were depicted after the manner of Greek deities,the Genius is either represented by his symbolic snake or appears withthe human features and characteristics of the head of the house, hisowner.
The spirit-gods then of the door and the hearth, the specially chosendeities of the store-cupboard, the particular field-power presidingover the household, and the spirit of the master's personality werethe gods of the early home, and round their worship centred thedomestic religion. We must attempt to see what was its relation tofamily life.
2. Religion and the Family Life.—We have already noticed the mainoccasions of regular sacrifice to the deities of the household, theofferings to the Lar on Calends, Nones, and Ides, to the Genius on themaster's birthday, and so on, and we are enabled to form a fairpicture of the rites from[42]paintings which, although of later date,undoubtedly represent the continuous tradition of domestic custom. Ina wall-painting at Herculaneum, for instance, we have a picture of thepater familias, represented with veiled head (according to regularRoman custom) and the cornucopia of the Genius, making sacrifice at around altar or hearth. Opposite him stands the flute-player(tibicen) playing to drown any unpropitious sound, while on eitherside are two smaller figures, presumably the sons, acting asattendants (camilli), and both clad (succincti) in the shortsacrificial tunic (limus); one carries in his left hand the sacreddish (patera), and in his right garlands or, more probably, ribbonsfor the decoration of the victim: the other is acting asvictimariusand bringing the pig for sacrifice, but the animal is hurrying withalmost excessive eagerness towards the altar, no doubt to show thatthere is none of the reluctance which would have been sufficient tovitiate the sacrifice.
But from our point of view such formal acts of worship are of lessimportance than the part played by religion in the daily life of thehousehold. There is evidence both for earlier and later periods thatthe really 'pious' would begin their day with prayer and sacrifice tothe[43]household gods, and like Virgil's Aeneas, typicallypius in allthe meanings of the word, would 'rouse the slumbering flame upon thealtar and gladly approach again the Lar and little Penates whom heworshipped yesterday.' But this was perhaps exceptional devotion, andthe daily worship in the normal household centred rather round thefamily meal. In the old and simple house the table would be placed atthe side of the hearth, and, as the household sat round it, master andman together, a part of the meal, set aside on a special sacred dish(patella), would be thrown into the flames as the gods' portion.Sometimes incense might be added, and later a libation of wine: whenimages had become common, the little statuettes of Lares and Penateswould be fetched from the shrine (lararium) and placed upon thetable in token of their presence at the meal. Even in the luxurious,many-roomed house of the imperial epoch, when the dining-table was farfrom the kitchen-hearth, a pause was made in the meal and an offeringsent out to the household-gods, nor would the banquet proceed untilthe slave had returned and announced that the gods were favourable(deos propitios): so persistent was this tradition of domesticpiety. Prayer might be made at this point on special[44]occasions tospecial deities, as, for instance, before the beginning of the sowingof the crops, appeal was made to Iuppiter, and a special portion ofthe meal (daps) was set aside for him. The sanctification of the oneoccasion when the whole household met in the day cannot fail to havehad its effect on the domestic life, and, even if it was no directincentive to morality, it yet bound the family together in a sense ofdependence on a higher power for the supply of their daily needs.
We observed incidentally how the small events of domestic life weregiven their religious significance, particularly in connection withthe worship of Lar and Genius, but to complete the sketch of domesticreligion, we must examine a little more closely its relation to theprocess of life, and especially to the two important occasions ofbirth and marriage. In no department of life is the specialisation offunction among thenumina more conspicuous than in connection withbirth and childhood. Apart from the general protection of Iuno Lucina,the prominent divinity of childbirth, we can count in the records thathave come down to us some twenty subordinate spirits, who from themoment of conception to the moment of birth watched, each in its own[45]particular sphere, over the mother and the unborn child. As soon asthe birth had taken place began a series of ceremonies, which are ofparticular interest, as they seem to belong to a very early stage ofreligious thought, and have a markedly rustic character. Immediately asacred meal was offered to the two field-deities, Picumnus andPilumnus, and then the Roman turned his attention to the practicaldanger of fever for the mother and child. At night three men gatheredround the threshold, one armed with an axe, another with a stake, anda third with a broom: the two first struck the threshold with theirimplements, the third swept out the floor. Over this ceremony weresaid to preside threenumina, Intercidona (connected with the axe),Pilumnus (connected with the stake,pilum), and Deverra (connectedwith the act of sweeping). Its object was, as Varro explains it, toavert the entrance of the half-wild Silvanus by giving threeunmistakeable signs of human civilisation; we shall probably not bewrong in seeing in it rather an actual hacking, beating, and sweepingaway of evil spirits. On the ninth day after birth, in the case of aboy, on the eighth in the case of a girl, occurred the festival of thenaming (solemnitas nominalium). The ceremony was[46]one ofpurification (dies lustricus is its alternative title), and apiacular offering was made to preserve the child from evil influencesin the future. Friends brought presents, especially neck-bands in theform of a half-moon (lunulae), and the golden balls (bullae) whichwere worn as a charm round the neck until the attainment of manhood.
Of the numerous petty divinities which watched over the child's earlyyears we have already given some account. In their protection heremained until he arrived at puberty, about the age of seventeen, whenwith due religious ceremony he entered on his manhood. At home, on themorning of the festival, he solemnly laid aside thebulla and thepurple-striped garb of childhood (toga praetexta) before the shrineof the household gods, and made them a thank-offering for theirprotection in the past. Afterwards, accompanied by his father andfriends and clad now in thetoga virilis, he went solemnly to theCapitol, and, after placing a contribution in the coffers ofIuventas—or probably in earlier times of Iuppiter Iuventus—made anoffering to the supreme deity Iuppiter Capitolinus. The sacredcharacter of the early years of a young Roman's life could hardly bemore closely marked.
[47]Thoughconfarreatio was the only essentially religious form ofmarriage, and was sanctified by the presence of thepontifex maximusand theflamen Dialis, yet marriage even in the less religiousceremony ofcoemptio was always asacrum. It must not take placeon the days of state-festivals (feriae), nor on certain otherdiesreligiosi, such as those of the Vestalia or the feast of the dead(Parentalia). Both the marriage itself and the preliminary betrothal(sponsalia) had to receive the divine sanction by means of auspices,and in the ceremonies of both rites the religious element, thoughbound up with superstition and folk-customs, emerges clearly enough.The central ceremony of theconfarreatio was an act partly ofsacrifice, partly, one might almost say, of communion. The bride andbridegroom sat on two chairs united to one another and covered with alambskin, they offered to Iuppiter bloodless offerings of a rusticcharacter (fruges et molam salsam), they employed in the sacrificethe fundamental household necessaries, water, fire, and salt, andthemselves ate of the sacred spelt-cake (libus farreus), from whichthe ceremony derived its name. The crucial point in the more civilceremony ofcoemptio was the purely human and legal act of the[48]joining of hands (dextrarum iunctio), but it was immediatelyfollowed by the sacrifice of a victim, which gave the ceremony amarkedly religious significance. The customs connected with thebringing of the bride to the bridegroom's house—so beautifullydepicted in Catullus'Epithalamium—her forcible abduction from herparents, the ribaldry of the bridegroom's companions, the throwing ofnuts as a symbol of fecundity, the carrying of the bride over thethreshold, a relic probably of primitive marriage by capture, theuntying of the bridal knot on the bridal couch—are perhaps more akinto superstition than religion, but we may notice two points in theproceedings. Firstly, the three coins (asses) which the bridebrought with her, one to give to her husband as a token of dowry, oneto be offered at the hearth to her new Lar Familiaris, one to beoffered subsequently at the nearestcompitum (a clear sign ofconnection between the household Lar and those of the fields); andsecondly, an echo of the feature so marked all through domestic life,the crowd of littlenumina, who took their part in assisting theceremony. There was Domiduca, who brought the bride to thebridegroom's house, Iterduca, who looked after her on the transit,Unxia, who[49]anointed her, Cinxia, who bound and unbound her girdle,and many others.
This sketch of the household worship of the Romans will, I hope, havejustified my contention that there was in it an element more truly'religious' than anything we should gather from the ceremonies of thestate. The ideas are simpler, thenumina seem less cold and moreprotective, the worshippers more sensible of divine aid. When we havelooked at the companion picture of the farmer in the fields, we shallgo on to see how the worship of the agricultural household is theprototype and basis of the state-cult, but first we must considerbriefly the very difficult question of the relation of the living tothe dead.
3. Relation of the Living and the Dead.—The worship of the spiritsof dead ancestors is so common a feature in most primitive religionsthat it may seem strange even to doubt whether it existed among theRomans, but, although the question is one of extreme difficulty, andthe evidence very insufficient, I am inclined to believe that, thoughthe living were always conscious of their continued relation to thedead, and sensitive of the influence of the powers of the underworld,yet there was not, strictly speaking, any cult of the dead. Let usattempt briefly to collect the[50]salient features in ritual, and see towhat conclusion they point as to the underlying belief.
One of the most remarkable facts in domestic worship is that, whereasthe moment of birth and the other great occasions of life aresurrounded with religious ceremony and belief, the moment of deathpasses without any trace of religious accompaniment: it is as thoughthe dying man went out into another world where the ceremonials ofthis life can no more avail him, nor its gods protect him. As to hisstate after death, opinion varied at different times under differentinfluences, but the simple early notion, connected especially with thepractice of burial as opposed to cremation,[6] was that his spiritjust sank into the earth, where it rested and returned from time totime to the upper world through certain openings in the ground(mundi), whose solemn uncovering was one of the regular observancesof the festal calendar: later, no doubt, a more spiritual notionprevailed, though it never reached definiteness or universality. Oneidea, however, seems always to be prominent, that the happiness of thedead could be much affected by the due performance[51]of the funeralrites; hence it was the most solemn duty of the heir to perform theiusta for the dead, and if he failed in any respect to carry themout, he could only atone for his omission by the annual sacrifice of asow (porca praecidanea) to Ceres and Tellus—to the divinities ofthe earth, be it noticed, and not to the dead themselves. The actualfuneral was not a religious ceremony; a procession was formed(originally at night) of the family and friends, in which the body ofthe dead was carried—accompanied by the busts (imagines) of hisancestors—to a tomb outside the town, and was there laid in thegrave. The family on their return proceeded at once to rites ofpurification from the contamination which had overtaken them owing tothe presence of a dead body. Two ceremonies were performed, one forthe purification of the house by the sacrifice of a sow (porcapraesentanea) to Ceres accompanied by a solemn sweeping out of refuse(exverræ), the other the lustration of their own persons by fire andwater. This done, they sat down with their friends to a funeral feast(silicernium), which, Cicero tells us, was regarded as an honourrather to the surviving members of the family than to the dead, sothat mourning was not worn. Two other ceremonies within the followingweek, the[52]feriae denicales and thenovendiale sacrum, brought thereligious mourning to a close. Not that the dead were forgotten afterthe funeral: year by year, on the anniversaries of death and burial,and on certain fixed occasions known by such suggestive titles as 'theday of roses' and 'the day of violets,' the family would revisit thetomb and make simple offerings of salt cake (mola salsa), of breadsoaked in wine, or garlands of flowers: there is some trace, on suchoccasions, of prayer, but it would seem to be rather the repetition ofgeneral religious formulæ than a petition to the dead for definiteblessings.
Such are the principal features of the family ritual in relation totheir dead; but if we are to form any just notion of belief, we mustsupplement them by reference to the ceremonies of the state, whichhere, as elsewhere, are very clearly the household-cult 'writ large.'In the Calendars we find two obvious celebrations in connection withthe dead, taking place at different seasons of the year, andconsisting of ceremonies markedly different in character. In thegloomy month of February—associated with solemn lustrations—occursthe festival known popularly (though not in the Calendars) as theParentalia or dies Parentales, that is, the days of sacrifice inconnection[53]with the dead members of the family (parentes,parentare). It begins with the note on February 13,Virgo Vestalisparentat, and continues till the climax,Feralia, on February 21.During these days the magistrates laid aside the insignia of theiroffices, the temples were shut, marriages were forbidden, and everyfamily carried out at the tombs of its relatives ceremonies resemblingthose of thesacra privata. The whole season closed on February 22with the festival of the Caristia orcara cognatio, a family reunionof the survivors in a kind of 'love-feast,' which centred in theworship of the Lar Familiaris. Here we seem to have simply, as in thefamily rites, a peaceful and solemn acknowledgment by the community asa whole of the still subsisting relation of the living and the dead.On the 9th, 11th, and 13th of May occurs the Lemuria, a ceremony of astrikingly different order. Once again temples are shut and marriagesforbidden, but the ritual is of a very different nature. TheLemuresorLarvae—for there seems to be little distinction between the twonames—are regarded no longer as members of the family to be welcomedback to their place, but as hostile spirits to be exorcised.[7][54]Thehead of the house rises from bed at midnight, washes, and walksbarefoot through the house, making signs for the aversion of evilspirits. In his mouth he carries black beans—always a chthonicsymbol—which he spits out nine times without looking round, saying,as he does so, 'With these I redeem me and mine': he washes again, andclanks brass vessels together; nine times he repeats the formula,'depart, Manes of our fathers' (no doubt using the dignified titleManes euphemistically), and then finally turns round. Here we have ina quite unmistakeable manner the feeling of the hostility of thespirits of the dead: they must be given their appropriate food and gotout of the place as quickly as possible. Some scholars have attemptedto explain the difference between these two festivals on theassumption that the Parentalia represents the commemoration of theduly buried dead, the Lemuria the apotropaic right for the aversion ofthe unburied, and therefore hostile spirits; but Ovid has given a farmore significant hint, when he tells us that the Lemuria was the moreancient festival of the two.
So far we have had no indication of anything approaching divinity inconnection with the dead or the underworld as distinct from the[55]earth-goddesses, but the evidence for it, though vague and shadowy, isnot wanting. Certain mysterious female deities, Tarpeia, AccaLarentia, Carna, and Laverna, of whom late ætiological myth had itsown explanation, have, in all probability, been rightly interpreted byMommsen as divinities of the lower world: the commemorative 'sacrificeat the tomb,' which we hear of in connection with the first two, wasin reality, we may suppose, an offering to a chthonic deity at amundus. A rather more tangible personality is Vediovis, who threetimes a year has his celebration (Agonia notferiae) in theCalendar: he, as his name denotes, must be the 'opposite of Iove,'that is, probably, his chthonic counterpart, a notion sufficientlyborne out by his subsequent identification with the Greek Pluto.Finally, of course, there is that vague body, the Di Manes, 'the goodgods,' the principal deities of the world of the dead; to theminvocations are addressed, and they have their place in the formulæ oftheparentalia and the opening of themundi.[8] In connection withthem, acting as a link with the female deities, we have the strangegoddess Genita Mana, the 'spirit of birth and death.'
[56]Controversy is acute as to the interpretation of these facts,especially in regard to the question whether or no the spirits of thedead were actually worshipped. I would hazard the followingreconstruction of history as consistent with what we otherwise know ofRoman religion, and with the evidence before us. From the earliesttimes the Roman looked upon his dead relations as in some senseliving, lying beneath the earth, but capable alike of returning to theworld above and of influencing in some vague way the fortunes of theliving, especially in relation to the crops which sprung from theground in which they lay. At first, when his religion was one of fear,he regarded the dead as normally hostile, and their presence assomething to be averted; this is the stage which gave birth to theLemuria. As civilisation increased, and the sense of the unity ofhousehold and community developed, fear, proving ungrounded, gaveplace to a kindlier feeling of the continued existence of the dead asmembers of household and state, and even in some sense as anadditional bond between the living: this is the period which producedthesacra privata and the Parentalia. When thenumen-feeling beganto pass into that ofdeus, in the first place a connection was feltbetween the spirits of the dead and the[57]deities of the earthassociated with the growth of the crops, in the second the notion thatthe underworld must have its gods as well as the world above, producedthe shadowy female deities and Vediovis. Lastly, the same kind offeeling which added Parentalia to Lemuria developed the vague generalnotion of the Di Manes, not the deified spirits of the dead, butpeaceful and on the whole kindly divinities holding sway in the worldof dead spirits, yet accessible to the prayers of the living. Thedead, then, were not themselves worshipped, but they neededcommemoration and kindly gifts, and they had in their lower worlddeities to whom prayer might be made and worship given.
[5] It is right to state that there is a totally differenttheory, according to which the Lares were the spirits of the deadancestors and the Lar Familiaris an embodiment, as it were, of all thefamily dead.
[6] It is significant that even when the dead were cremated,one bone was carefully preserved in order to be symbolically buried.
[7] We may note that, though it is a state festival, ourinformation is solely of rites in individual households.
[8] Their mention in sepulchral inscriptions dates from thetime of the Empire, when a new conception of their nature had sprungup.
The life of the early Roman in the fields, his activities, his hopesand fears, are reflected in the long list of agricultural festivalswhich constitute the greater part of the celebrations in the Calendar,and follow closely the seasons and occupations of the agriculturalyear. We are, of course, in the Calendar dealing, to speak strictly,with the worship of the state, and not with the semi-private festivalsof groups of farmers, but in many instances, such as the Robigalia,the state seems only to have taken over the cult of the farmers,preserving carefully the site on which the celebration took place; inothers, such as the Terminalia and the Parilia, it seems to haveestablished, as it were, a state-counterpart of a rite performedindependently at many rustic centres: in both cases we are justifiedin inferring the practice of the early Roman agriculturalist. We shallsee that in most cases these festivals are associated—though[59]oftenloosely enough—with the worship of a particular divinity. Sometimes,however,—as in the case of the Lupercalia—it is very difficult todiscover who this divinity was; in other festivals, such as theRobigalia, it looks as if the eponymous deity was a comparatively latedevelopment. We may, therefore, suppose, on the analogy of what wehave already seen to be the general lines of development in Romanreligion, that the festivals in origin centred round a purpose ratherthan a personality, and were addressed 'to all spirits whom it mightconcern'; and that later, when thedeus notion was on the increase,they either attached themselves to some god whose personality wasalready distinct, as the Vinalia were attached to Iuppiter, or'developed' a deity of their own. Among these deities, strictlyfunctional as a rule and existing only in connection with theirspecial festival, we shall notice the frequent recurrence of adivinity pair, not, of course, mythologically related as husband andwife, but representing, perhaps, the male and female aspects of thesame process of development.
The festivals divide themselves naturally into three groups: those ofSpring, expressive of the hopes and fears for the growing crops andherds;[60]those of Summer, the festivals of fulfilment, including thecelebration of harvest; and those of Winter, the festivals of sowing,of social rejoicing, and in the later months of purificatoryanticipation of the coming year.
1. Festivals of Spring.—The old Roman year—as may be seen clearlyenough from the names of the months still known by numbers, September,October, etc.—began in March: according to tradition Romulus reckoneda year of ten months altogether, and Numa added January and February.The Spring months properly speaking may be reckoned as March, April,and May. In March there were in the developed Calendar no festivals ofan immediately recognisable agricultural character, but the wholemonth was practically consecrated to its eponymous deity, Mars. Now,to the Roman of the Republic, Mars was undoubtedly the deityassociated with war, and his special festivals in this month are of awarlike character: on the 9th the priests (Salii) began the ancientcustom of carrying his sacred shields (ancilia) round the town fromone ordained resting-place to another: on the 19th, Quinquatrus, theshields were solemnly purified, and on the 23rd the same ceremony wasperformed with the war-trumpets: the Equirria[61](horse-races) of March14 may have had an agricultural origin—we shall meet with races lateron as a feature of rustic festivals—but they were certainlycelebrated in a military manner. Yet there is good reason forbelieving that Mars was in origin associated not with war, but withthe growth of vegetation: he was, as we shall see, the chief deityaddressed in the solemn lustration of the fields (Ambarvalia), andif our general notion of the development of religion with the growingneeds of the agricultural community crystallising into a state becorrect, it may well be that a deity originally concerned with theinterests of the farmer took on himself the protection of the soldier,when the fully developed state came into collision with itsneighbours. If so, we may well have in these recurring festivals ofMars the sense, as Mr. Warde Fowler has put it, of 'some greatnumenat work, quickening vegetation, and calling into life the powers ofreproduction in man and the animals.' Possibly another agriculturalnote is struck in the Liberalia of the 17th: though the cult of Liberwas almost entirely overlaid by his subsequent identification withDionysus, it seems right to recognise in him and his femalecounterpart, Libera, a general spirit of creativeness.
[62]The character of April is much more clearly marked: the month isfilled with a series of festivals—all of a clearly agriculturalnature—prayers for the crops now in the earth, and the purificationof the men and animals on the farm. The series opens with theFordicidia on the 15th, when pregnant cows were sacrificed: theirunborn calves were torn from them and burnt, the ashes being kept bythe Vestal Virgin in Vesta's storehouse (penus Vestæ) for use at theParilia. The general symbolism of fertility is very clear; the goddessassociated with the festival is Tellus, the earth herself, and thelocal origin of these festivals is shown in the fact that not only wasthe sacrifice made for the whole people on the Capitol, but separatelyin each one of thecuriae. The Fordicidia is closely followed by theCerealia on the 19th—the festival of another earth-goddess (Ceres,creare)—more especially connected with the growth of corn. A verycurious feature of the ritual was the fastening of fire-brands to thetails of foxes, which were then let loose in what was afterwards theCircus Maximus: a symbol possibly, as Wissowa thinks, of sunlight,possibly of the vegetation-spirit. But the most important of the Aprilceremonies is undoubtedly the Parilia of the 21st, the festival of thevery ancient[63]rusticnumen, Pales. Ovid's[9] description of thecelebration is so interesting and so full of the characteristic colourof the Roman rustic festivals that I may perhaps be pardoned forreproducing it at greater length. 'Shepherd,' he says, addressing therustic worshipper, 'at the first streak of dawn purify thy well-fedflocks: let water first besprinkle them, and a branch sweep clean theground. Let the folds be adorned with leaves and branches fastened tothem, while a trailing wreath covers the gay-decked gates. Let blueflames rise from the living sulphur and the sheep bleat loud as shefeels the touch of the smoking sulphur. Burn the male olive-branch andthe pine twig and juniper, and let the blazing laurel crackle amid thehearth. A basket full of millet must go with the millet cakes: this isthe food wherein the country goddess finds pleasure most of all. Giveher too her own share of the feast and her pail of milk, and when hershare has been set aside, then with milk warm from the cow make prayerto Pales, guardian of the woods.' The poet then recites a long prayer,in which the farmer first begs forgiveness for any unwitting sins hemay have committed against the rustic deities, such as trespassing ontheir groves or sheltering[64]his flocks beneath their altar, and thenprays for the aversion of disease and the prosperity of crops, flocks,and herds. 'Thus must the goddess be won, this prayer say four timesturning to the sunrise, and wash thy hands in the running stream. Thenset the rustic bowl upon the table in place of the wine-bowl, anddrink the snowy milk and dark must, and soon through the heaps ofcrackling straw leap in swift course with eager limbs.' All theworshippers then set to leaping through the blazing fires, even theflocks and herds were driven through, and general hilarity reigned.Many points of detail might be noticed, such as that in the urbancounterpart of the festival, which Ovid carefully distinguishes fromthe country celebrations, the fire was sprinkled with the ashes fromthe calves of the Fordicidia and the blood of Mars' Octoberhorse—another link between Mars and agriculture. But it is mostinteresting to note the double character of the ceremony—as apurification of man and beast on the one hand, and on the other aprayer for the prosperity of the season to come. Three specialfestivals remain in April. At the Vinalia (priora) of the 23rd, thewine-skins of the previous year were opened and the wine tasted, and,we may suppose, supplication was[65]made for the vintage to come, thefestival being dedicated to the sky-god, Iuppiter. At the Robigalia ofthe 25th the offering of a dog was made for the aversion of mildew(robigo), to Robigus (who looks like a developed eponymous deity) atthe fifth milestone on the Via Claudia—the ancient boundary of Romanterritory. The Floralia of the 28th does not occur in the oldCalendars, probably because it was a moveable feast (feriaeconceptivae), but it is an unmistakeable petition to thenumenFlora for the blossoming of the season's flowers.
May was a month of more critical importance for the welfare of thecrops, and therefore its festivals were mostly of a more sombrecharacter. The 9th, 11th, and 13th were the days set apart for theLemuria, the aversion of the hostile spirits of the dead, of which wehave already spoken, and a similarly gloomy character probablyattached to the Agonia of Vediovis on the 21st. But of far thegreatest interest is the moveable feast of the Ambarvalia, the greatlustration of the fields, which took place towards the end of themonth: the date of its occurrence was no doubt fixed according to thestate of the crops in any given year. As the individual farmerpurified his own fields for the aversion of evil, so a solemn[66]lustration of the boundaries of the state was performed by specialpriests, known as the Arval brethren (fratres Arvales). Withceremonial dancing (tripudium) they moved along the boundary-marksand made the farmer's most complete offering of the pig, sheep, and ox(suovetaurilia): the fruits of the last year and the new harvest(aridae et virides) played a large part in the ceremonial, and asolemn litany was recited for the aversion of every kind of pest fromthe crops. In Virgil's account the prayer is made to Ceres, and weknow that in imperial times, when the Ambarvalia became very closelyconnected with the worship of the imperial house, the centre of thecult was the earth-goddess, Dea Dia; but in the earliest account ofthe rustic ceremony which we possess in Cato, Mars is addressed in theunmistakeable character of an agricultural deity. 'Father Mars, I prayand beseech thee that thou mayest be gracious and favourable to me, tomy home, and my household, for which cause I have ordained that theoffering of pig, sheep, and ox be carried round my fields, my land,and my farm: that thou mayest avert, ward off, and keep afar alldisease, visible and invisible, all barrenness, waste, misfortune, andill weather: that thou mayest suffer our crops, our corn, our vinesand bushes[67]to grow and come to prosperity: that thou mayest preservethe shepherds and the flocks in safety, and grant health and strengthto me, to my home, and my household.' We have perhaps here anotherrustic ceremony addressed in origin to allnumina, whom it mightconcern, and, as it were, specialising itself from time to time in anappeal to one definite deity or another, but it is also clear evidenceof an early agricultural association of Mars. The Ambarvalia is one ofthe most picturesque of the field ceremonies, and a peculiarlybeautiful and imaginative description of it may be found in the firstchapter of Pater'sMarius the Epicurean.
In June and July the farmer was waiting for the completion of theharvest, and the great state-festivals of the period are notagricultural.
2. Festivals of the Harvest.—In August the farmer's hopes are atlast realised, and the harvest is brought in. The season is marked bytwo closely connected festivals on the 21st and 25th in honour of theold divinity-pair, Consus (condere), the god of the storehouse andOps, the deity of the wealth of harvest. At the Consualia, an offeringis made by theflamen Quirinalis, assisted by the Vestal virgins, atan underground altar in the Circus Maximus, specially uncovered forthe[68]occasion: here we have probably not so much the notion of achthonic deity, as a relic of the simple practices of an earlyagricultural age, when the crops were stored underground. The beastswho had taken part in the harvest were released from their laboursduring the day, and were decorated with flowers: the festival includeda race of mules, the regular Italian beasts of burden. Four days afterthis general festivity occurred the second harvest-ceremony of theOpiconsivia, held in the shrine (sacrarium) of the Regia, andattended only by thepontifex maximus and the Vestal virgins. Thisis clearly the state-harvest of the regal period, the symbolic storingof the state-crops in the sacred storehouse of the palace by the kingand his daughters. Both festivals are significant, and we shall meetwith Consus and Ops again in close connection in December. ThePortunalia of the 17th may have been another harvest-home, if we canbelieve the old authorities, who tell us that Portunus was a 'god ofdoors' (portae).
TheVinalia Rustica of August 19 we cannot sufficiently interpretthrough lack of information: it cannot, of course, have been thefestival of the vintage, for it is too early: it may have been apropitiatory ceremony for the ripening grapes, in[69]which case it wasprobably connected with theauspicatio vindemiae, in which theflamen Dialis (note again the association of Iuppiter and the vine)solemnly plucked the first grapes; or it may be a festival of wine,not vines, in which case its main feature would most likely be theopening of the last year's vintage.
September contains no great festival, and the harvest-season closes onOctober 11 with theMeditrinalia—the nearest approach to athanksgiving for the vintage. On that day the first must of the newvintage and the wine of the old were solemnly tasted, apparently as aspell against disease, the worshipper using the strange formula, 'Idrink the new and the old wine, with new wine and old I heal(medeor) disease.' This ceremony gave its name to the festival andwas the cause of the subsequent evolution of an eponymous deity,Meditrina, but there is little doubt that in origin here, as in theother wine-festivals, the deity concerned was at first Iuppiter. Amongthe other rustic ceremonies of the month we may notice the festival ofsprings (Fontinalia) on October 13: wells were decorated withgarlands and flowers flung into the waters.
3. Festivals of the Winter.—The winter-festivals cannot be summedup under one general[70]notion so easily as those of spring or summer,but they fall fairly naturally into two groups—the festivalsimmediately connected with agricultural life and those associated withthe dead and the underworld or with solemn purification. The mainaction of the farmer's life during the winter is, of course, thesowing of the next year's crop, which was commemorated in the ancientfestival of the Saturnalia on December 17. Though the Saturnalia isperhaps the most familiar to us of all the Roman festivals, partlyfrom the allusions in the classics, especially in Horace, partlybecause it is no doubt the source of many of our own Christmasfestivities, it is yet almost impossible now to recover anything ofits original Roman character. Greek influence set to work on it veryearly, identifying Saturnus with Cronos and establishing him in aGreek temple with all the accompaniments of Greek ritual. All thefamiliar features of the festival—the freedom and license of theslaves, the giving of presents, even the wax-candles, which are theprototype of those on our own Christmas-tree—are almost certainly dueto Greek origin. We are left with nothing but the name Saturnus(connected with the root ofsemen,serere) and the date to assureus that we have here in reality a genuine Roman festival of the sowingof[71]the crops. Of a similar nature—marking, as Ovid tells us, thecompletion of the sowing—was theferiae sementivae or Paganalia,associated with the earth-goddesses, Ceres and Tellus. Meal-cakes anda pregnant sow were the offerings, the beasts who had helped in theploughing were garlanded, and prayer was made for the seed resting inthe ground. A curious feature of the winter worship is the repetitionof festivals to the harvest deities, Consus and Ops, separated by thesame interval of three days, on December 15 and 19: it may be that wehave here an indication of the final completion of the harvest, or, asMr. Warde Fowler has suggested, a ceremonial opening of thestorehouses, to see that the harvest is not rotting. Among the othercountry festivals of the period we may notice that of Carmenta, on the11th and 15th of January: she seems to have been in origin awater-numen, but was early associated with childbirth: hence therigid exclusion of men from her ceremonies and possibly the taboo onleathern thongs, on the ground that nothing involving death must beused in the worship of a deity of birth. The repetition of herfestival may possibly point to separate celebrations of thecommunities of Palatine and Quirinal. At this time, too, occurred therustic ceremonies[72]at the boundaries (Terminalia) and the offeringto the Lares at the 'marches' (Compitalia), of which we have spokenin treating of the worship of the house.
The other group of winter-festivals is of a much more gloomy and lessdefinitely rustic type, though they clearly date from the period ofthe agricultural community. Of the Feralia of February 21, theculmination of the festival of the kindred dead (Parentalia), wehave already spoken. The Larentalia is a very mysterious occasion, andwas supposed by the Romans themselves to be an offering 'at the tomb'of a legendary Acca Larentia, mistress of Hercules. But we have seenreason to think that Larentia was in reality a deity of the dead, andthe 'tomb' amundus: if so, we have another link between the winterseason and the worship of the underworld. There remains the weirdfestival of the Lupercalia on February 15, to which we have hadoccasion to refer several times, and which has become more familiar tomost of us than other Roman festivals owing to its political use byMark Antony in 44B.C. As we have argued already, it seems tobelong to the very oldest stratum of the Palatine settlement, and wemay therefore appropriately close this account of the early festivalswith a[73]somewhat fuller description of it. The worshippers assembledat the Lupercal, a cave on the Palatine hill: there goats and a dogwere sacrificed, and two youths belonging to the two colleges ofFabian and Quintian (or Quintilian) Luperci had their foreheadssmeared with the knife used for the sacrifice and wiped with wooldipped in milk—at which point it was ordained that they should laugh.Then they girt on the skins of the slain goats and, after feasting,ran their course round the boundaries of the Palatine hill, followedeach by his own company of youths, and striking women on their waywith strips, known asfebruae orIunonis amicula, cut from thegoats' hides. Here we have a summary of many of the important pointswhich we have noticed in the rustic festivals: from the pre-Romanstratum comes the idea of communion with the sacrificed animal in thesmearing of the blood and the wearing of the skin, and also the magiccharm involved in the striking of the women to procure fertility: itis typical of the true feeling of Roman religion that we cannot withany certainty tell what deity was associated with the rite, thoughprobably it was Faunus: the rustic character of the ceremony isindicated by the bowl of milk in which the wool was dipped and thesacrifice of[74]goats: the idea of lustration is clearly marked in thecourse round the boundaries: the original Palatine settlement standsout in the limits of that course and the site of the Lupercal, and thelater synœcismus is seen in the, presumably subsequent, addition ofthe second college of Luperci. A careful study of the Lupercalia as anepitome of the character and development of the Roman agriculturalfestivals, though it would not show the brighter aspect of some of thespring and summer celebrations, would yet give a true notion of thehistory and spirit of the whole.
[9] Ov.,Fast., iv. 735.
Since, in the matter of religion, the Roman state is in the main butthe agricultural household magnified, we shall not, in considering itsworship, be entering on a new stratum of ideas, but rather looking atthe development of notions and sentiments already familiar. To deal,however, with the state-worship in full would not only far exceed thelimits of this sketch, but would lead us away from religious ideasinto the region of what we might now call 'ecclesiastical management.'I propose therefore to confine myself to two points, firstly, thebroadening of the old conceptions of the household and the fields andtheir adaptation to the life of the state, and secondly—to be treatedvery shortly and as an indication of the Roman character—theorganisation of religion.
1. Development of the Worship of House and Fields.—Here we shallfind two main[76]characteristics. The state in the first place, as wehave several times hinted in anticipation, establishes its owncounterpart of the household and rustic cults and adapts to its ownuse the ideas which they involve: in the second, and particularly inconnection with some of the field-deities, it evolves new and veryfrequently abstract notions, foreign to the life of the independentcountry households, but necessary and vital to the life of anorganised community. Let us look first at the fate of the householddeities.
Ianus.—We left Ianus as thenumen of the house-door: he passesinto the state exactly in the same capacity: the state too has its'door,' the gate at the north-east corner of the Forum, and thisbecomes the seat of his state-cult—the door which, according toAugustan legend, is opened in the time of war and only shut when Romeis at peace with all the world. But reflection soon gets to work onIanus: a door has two sides, it can both open and shut; therefore, asearly as the song of the Salii, he has developed the cult-epithets'Opener,' 'Shutter' (Patulci,Cloesi), and as soon as he isthought of as anything approaching a personality he is 'two-headed'(bifrons), as he appears in later representations. The door again isthe first thing you come to in entering[77]a house: the 'door-spirit'then, with that tendency to abstraction which we shall see shortly inother cases, becomes the god of beginnings. He watches over the veryfirst beginning of human life in his character ofConsevius; to himis sacred the first hour of the day (pater matutinus), the Calendsof every month, and the first month of the year (Ianuarius); to himtoo is offered by therex sacrorum the first sacrifice of the year,the Agonium on the 9th of January. In this capacity, moreover, hisname comes first in all the formulæ of prayer, and he is lookedupon—not indeed as the father of the gods—for that is a much tooanthropomorphic notion—but as what we might now term their 'logicalantecedent':divum deus, as the song of the Salii quaintly puts it,principium deorum, as later interpretation explained it. Yet throughall he remains the most typical Roman deity: he does not acquire atemple till 217B.C., nor a bust until quite late, nor is heever identified with a Greek counterpart. In his capacity aspatermatutinus he has a native female counterpart in Matuta, a dawn-deity,who becomes a protectress in childbirth, and as such is the centre ofthe matrons' festival, the Matralia of June 11.
[78]Vesta.—The history of Vesta is perhaps less romantic, but itaffords a more exact parallel between household and state. In theprimitive community the king's hearth is not merely of symbolicalimportance, but of great practical utility, in that it is keptcontinually burning as the source of fire on which the individualhouseholder may draw: hence it is the duty of the king's daughters tocare for it and keep the flame perpetually alight. In Rome the templeof Vesta is the king's hearth, situated, as one would expect, in closeproximity to theregia. The fire is kept continually blazing excepton the 1st of March of every year, when it is allowed to go out and isceremonially renewed. The Vestal virgins, sworn to perpetual virginityand charged with the preservation of the sacred flame, are 'the king'sdaughters,' living in a kind of convent (atrium Vestæ) and under thecharge of the king's representative, thepontifex maximus. It istheir duty too, as the natural cooks of the sacred royal household, tomake the salt cake (mola salsa) to be used at the year's festivalsand to preserve it and other sacred objects, such as the ashes of theFordicidia, in the storehouse of Vesta (penus Vestæ). In the monthof June from the 7th to the 15th, with a climax on the 9th, the day[79]of the Vestalia, the matrons who all the year round have tended theirown hearths, come in solemn procession bare-footed to make theirhomely offerings at the state-hearth, and the virgins meanwhile offerthe cakes that they have made. For eight days the ceremony continues,during which time the bakers and millers keep holiday; the days arereligiosi (marriages are unlucky and other taboos are observed) andalsonefasti (no public business may be performed); until theceremony closes on the 15th, with the solemn cleansing of the templeand the casting of the refuse into the Tiber, and then the normal lifeof the state may be renewed—Q. St. D. F. (Quando Stercus DelatumFas) is the unique entry in the Calendars. This is all lessimaginative than the development of Ianus, but the underlying feelingis intensely Roman and there could be no clearer idea of the naturaladaptation of the household-cult to the religion of the state.
Penates, Lares, and Genius.—The other household deities too havetheir counterpart, though not so prominently marked, in the worship ofthe state. The magistrates, on entering office, took oath by Iuppiterand theDi Penates populi Romani Quiritium, and that the conceptionwas as wide in the[80]state as in the household is shown by the factthat on less formal occasions the formula appears asIuppiter etceteri di omnes immortales. The Penates of the state then wouldinclude all the state-deities; but that their original character isnot lost sight of we can see from the statement of Varro that in thepenus Vestæ (the 'state storehouse') were preserved theirsigilla—not apparently sensuous representations, but symbolicobjects, such as we have seen before in cases like that of thesilexof Iuppiter. TheLares again find their counterpart in theLaresPraestites of the state, and their rustic festival, the Compitalia,has its urban reproduction, which, as it involved considerable licenseon the part of populace and slaves, was often in the later period ofthe Republic a cause of serious political disturbance. Even theGenius, though rather vaguely, passes over to the state and we hear oftheGenius populi Romani or theGenius urbis Romæ, with regard towhich Servius quotes from an inscription on a shield thecharacteristic addition,sive mas sive femina: in much later timeswe find the exact counterpart of the domestic worship of the Genius ofthepater familias in the cult of the Genius of the Emperor—thefoundation of the whole of the imperial worship.
[81]We have observed already how the cults of the fields were taken overby the state and their counterparts established in the great festivalsof the Calendar. Naturally enough most of the deities concerned,existing only for the part they played in these festivals, retainedtheir original character without further development. But with a fewit was different: it was their fate to acquire new characteristics andnew functions, and, developing with the needs of the community, tobecome the great gods of the state: of these we must give some briefaccount.
Iuppiter.—We have known Iuppiter hitherto either in connection withcertain very primitive survivals, or in the genuine Roman period as asky-numen, concerned with the grape-harvest in the two Vinalia andthe Meditrinalia, and the recipient at the family meal of adaps asa general propitiation before the beginning of the sowing. As sky-godhe passes to the state:Lucetius (lux) is his title in the song ofthe Salii and to him are sacred the Ides of every month—the time ofthe full moon, when there is most light in the heavens by night aswell as day. In his agricultural connection he has his wine-festivalsin the state as in the country, and the householddaps becomes themore elaborateepulum Iovis,[82]in which the whole community, as itwere, entertained him at a banquet. As a sky-deity, too, he isparticularly concerned with the thunderbolt and the lightning-flash(Iuppiter Fulmen,Fulgur), and to him are sacred the alwaysominous spots which had been struck by lightning (bidentalia): withthe more alarming occurrence of lightning by night he has a specialconnection under the cult-titleIuppiter Summanus. But as the littlecommunity grew, and especially perhaps after the union of the twosettlements, the worship of Iuppiter Feretrius, associated with thesacred oak upon the Capitol—the hill between Palatine andQuirinal—comes more and more into prominence as a bond of union andthe central point of the state's religious life: it tends indeed totake the place of priority, which had previously been occupied byIanus. The community goes to war with its neighbours, and after asignal victory thespolia opima must be dedicated on the sacred oak:indeed Iuppiter is in a special sense with them in the battle and mustnow be worshipped as the 'stayer of rout' (Stator) and the 'giver ofvictory' (Victor). War is a new province of the state's activity,but, characteristically enough, it does not evolve its ownnumen,but enlarges the sphere of the somewhat elastic[83]spirits alreadyexisting. So too in the internal organisation of the state there isfelt the need of a religious sanction for public morality, andIuppiter—though vaguely at first—takes on him the character of adeity of justice. In this connection he is primarily the god of oaths:we have seen how his sacredsilex was used in the oath of treaty: itis also the most solemn witness to the oath of the citizen. IuppiterLapis becomes specially the Dius Fidius, a cult-title whichsubsequently sets up for itself and produces a further offshoot in theabstract Fides. Finally, towards the end of our period the Iuppiter ofthe Capitol emerges triumphant, as it were, from his struggle with hisrivals and, with the new title of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus,—the 'bestand greatest,' that is, of all the Iuppiters—takes his place as thesupreme deity of the Roman state and the personification of thegreatness and majesty of Rome itself. To his temple hereafter theRoman youth will come to make his offering when he takes the dress ofmanhood; here the magistrates will do sacrifice before entering ontheir year of office: here the victorious general will pass inprocession with the spoils of his victory: on the walls shall besuspended treaties with foreign nations and[84]offerings sent by subjectprinces and states from all quarters of the world: all that Rome is tobe, will be, as it were, embodied in the sky-spirit of the sacred oak,the god of justice and of victory in war.
Iuno.—Iuppiter carries with him into the state-worship his femalecounterpart, Iuno, with his own characteristics, in a certain degree,and his own privileges. She is Lucina and Fulgura as he is Lucetius andFulgur: white cows are her offerings as white steers are his: as theIdes are sacred to Iuppiter, so—though they are not a festival—arethe Calends to Iuno. But from the first she shows a certainindependence and develops on lines of her own. In the curious ceremonyof the fixing of the Nones (the first quarter of the month), held onthe Calends in thecuria Calabra, she seems to appear as amoon-goddess: therex sacrorum, after a report from apontifex asto the appearance of the new moon, announces the result in the formula:'I summon thee for five (or seven) days, hollow Iuno' (dies tequinque [septem]kalo, Iuno Covella: hence the nameKalendae).But far more prominently—either as a female divinity herself, or, assome think, owing to the supposed influence of the moon on femalelife—does Iuno figure as the[85]deity of women, and especially inassociation with childbirth and marriage. AsLucina she is, as wehave seen, the presiding deity of childbirth, and her festival on the1st of March, though not in the Calendars (because confined to womenand not therefore a festival of the whole people), attained immensepopularity under the title of the Matronalia. She has too a generalsuperintendence of the rites of marriage, and the various littlenumina, who play so prominent a part in the ceremonies, tend toattach themselves to her as cult-titles. The festival of theservant-maids in honour of Iuno Caprotina on the 7th of July shows thesame notion of Iuno as the women's goddess, which appears again incommon parlance when women speak of their Iuno, just as men do of theirGenius. Later on Iuno acquires the characteristics of majesty(Regina) and protection in war (Curitis,Sospita), partly nodoubt as Iuppiter's counterpart, but more directly through theintroduction of cults from neighbouring Italian towns.
Mars.—We have seen reason to believe that in the earlier stages ofRoman religion Mars was anumen of vegetation, but though theAmbarvalia was duly taken over into the state-cult and attained a veryhigh degree of importance, yet[86]there can be no doubt that in thestate-religion Mars was pre-eminently associated with war. Iuppitermight help at need in averting defeat and awarding victory, but it waswith Mars that the general conduct of war rested. His sacred animal isthe warlike wolf, his symbols the spears and the sacred shields(ancilia), which during his own month (Martius)—the 1st of whichis his special festival—his priests (Salii) wearing the fullwar-dress (trabea andtunica picta) carry with sacred dance andsong round the city. His altar is in the Campus Martius, outside thecity-walls and therefore within the sphere of theimperium militiae,and the other festivals associated with him are of a warlikecharacter: the races of the war-horse (Equirria) on March 14 andFebruary 27, and the great race on the Ides of October, when thewinner was solemnly slain: the lustration of the arms at theQuinquatrus on March 19 and the Armilustrium of October 19—at thebeginning and end of the campaigning season: and the lustration of thewar-trumpets on the 23rd of March and the 23rd of May. But above allin honour of Mars is held the great quinquenniallustrum associatedwith the census, when the people are drawn up in military array aroundhis altar in[87]the Campus Martius and the solemn offering of thesuovetaurilia (is this a faint relic of his agricultural character?)after being carried three times round the gathered host, is offered onhis altar in prayer for the military future of the state. Hardly anygod in the state-cult has his character so clearly marked, and we mayregard Mars as a deity who, taking on new functions to suit the needsof the times, almost entirely lost the traces of his original nature.
Quirinus.—Iuppiter and Mars then became the great state-deities ofthe developed community and to them is added, as the contribution ofthe Colline settlement, their own particular deity, Quirinus. He, likethem, has his ownflamen; like Mars he has hisSalii, and hisfestival finds its place in the Calendars on February the 17th. But ofhis ritual and character we know practically nothing: the ritual wasobscured because his festival coincided with the much more popularfestival of thecuriae, thestultorum feriae: of his character, wecan only conjecture that he was to the Colline settlement what Marswas to the Palatine, whereas later after the complete amalgamation heseems to have been distinguished from Mars as representing 'armedpeace' rather than war—an idea which is borne out by the[88]associations of the closely allied wordQuirites. Be that as it may,we have in Iuppiter, Mars, and Quirinus the great state-triad of thesynœcismus, who held their own until at the beginning of the nextepoch they were supplanted by the new Etruscan triad of the Capitol,Iuppiter, Iuno and Minerva.
2. Organisation.—It might perhaps be thought that the organisationof religion is a matter remote from its spirit, and is not therefore asuitable subject for discussion, where the object is rather to bringout underlying motives and ideas: but in dealing with the Romanreligion, where ceremonial and legal precision were so prominent, itwould be even misleading to omit some reference to the verycharacteristic manner in which the state, taking over the ratherchaotic elements of the agricultural worship, organised them intosomething like a consistent whole. Its most complete achievement inthis direction was without doubt the regulation of the religious year.We have spoken many times of the Calendars (Fasti): it is necessarynow to obtain some clearer notion of what they were. In Rome itselfand various Italian towns have been found some thirty inscriptions,one almost complete (Maffeiani), the others more or less fragmentary,[89]giving the tables of the months and marking precisely the characterand occurrences of every day in the year. We may take as a specimenthe latter half of the month of August from the Fasti Maffeiani.
| A. EID.NP. | C. VOLC.NP. |
| B. F. | D. C. |
| C. C. | E. OPIC.NP. |
| D. C. | F. C. |
| E. PORT.NP. | G. VOLT.NP. |
| F. C. | H.NP. |
| G. VIN. F.P. | A. F. |
| H. C. | B. F. |
| A. CONS.NP. | C. C. |
| B. EN. |
In the first column are given the nundinal letters of the days,showing their position in the eight days' 'week' from one market day(nundinae) to the next. In the second column are noted first thegreat divisions of the month, Calends, Nones, and Ides, and then thereligious character of each individual day is indicated by certainsigns, whose explanations throw a good deal of light on Romanreligions notions. It will be seen that the letters of most frequentoccurrence areF,C, andN (or in ourextractNP ): these correspond to the broad distinctionbetween[90]days profane and sacred.F (fastus) denotes a dayon which the business of the state may be performed, on which thepraetor may say (fari) the three words,do, dico, addico, whichsummed up the decisions of the Roman law:C (comitialis)marks a day on which the legislative assemblies (comitia) may beheld: it is by implicationF as well.N(nefastus), on the other hand, denotes the sacred day, consecratedto the worship of the gods, on which therefore state-business may notbe transacted: similarly the very mysterious and much disputed signNP, whether it differs in precise signification fromN or not, certainly marks a day of sacred character.EN, which occurs once in this extract (fromendotercisus,the old Latin form ofintercisus) signifies a 'split' day (diesfissus), the beginning and end of which were sacred, while the middleperiod was free for business. In the second column also (in largeletters in some of the other Calendars) are named theferiaepublicae, the great annual state-festivals, fixed for one particularday (feriae stativae): such, in this case, are the Portunalia,Vinalia, and Consualia.
Thesefasti were exhibited in the Forum and on the walls of temples,and the conscientious Roman could have no possible difficulty in[91]finding out when he might lawfully transact his business and whatfestivals the state was observing: of the 355 days of the old Calendar11 werefissi, 235 werefasti (192comitiales), and 109nefasti. We may remark as curious features in the Calendar, denotingrigid adherence to principle, that with one exception, the Poplifugiaof July 5, no festival ever occurs before the Nones, that with twoexceptions, the Regifugium of February 24 and the Equirria of the 14thof March, no festival falls on an even day of the month, and thatthere is a marked avoidance of successive feast-days: even the threedays of the Lemuria allow an interval of a day between each.
In the matter of ritual and observance, state-organisation—and itsabsence—are alike significant. Of the general exactness of ritual andits specific variations on different occasions a fair notion hasperhaps already been gathered; it may help to fill out that notion ifwe can put together a sketch of the normal process of a sacrifice tothe gods. Before the sacrifice began the animal to be offered wasselected and tested: if it had any blemish or showed any reluctance,it was rejected. If it were whole and willing, it was bound withfillets (infulae) around its[92]forehead, and long ribbons (vittae)depending from them. It was then brought to the altar (ara) by theside of which stood a portable brazier (foculus). Thecelebrant—magistrate or priest—next approached dressed in thetoga, girt about him in a peculiar manner (cinctus Gabinus), andcarried up at the back so as to form a hood (velato capite): theherald proclaimed silence, and the flute-player began to play hisinstrument. The first part of the offering was then made by thepouring of wine and scattering of incense on the brazier: it wasfollowed by the ceremonial slaughter (immolatio) of the animal. Thecelebrant sprinkled the victim with wine and salted cake, and made asymbolic gesture with the knife. The victim was then taken aside bythe attendants (victimarii), and actually slaughtered by them: fromit they extracted the sacred parts (exta), liver, heart, gall,lungs, and midriff, and after inspecting them to see that they had noabnormality—but not in the earlier period for purposes ofaugury—wrapped them in pieces of flesh (augmenta), cooked them, andbrought them back to the celebrant, who laid them as an offering uponthe altar, where they were burnt. The rest of the flesh (viscera)was divided as a sacred meal between the celebrant and his friends—orin[93]a state-offering among the priests, and probably the magistrate.We cannot refrain from remarking here the extreme precision of ritual,the scrupulous care with which the human side of the contract wasfulfilled and the—almost legal—division of the victim between godsand men. But though the ritual was so exact, one must not be led awayby modern analogies to suppose that there was ever anything like arigid constraint on the private citizen for the observance offestivals. The state-festivals were in the strictest sense offeringsmade to the gods by the representative magistrates or priests, and ifthey were present, all was done that was required: the whole peoplehad been, by a legal fiction, present in their persons. No doubt theprivate citizen would often attend in large numbers at thecelebrations, especially at the more popular festivals, but from some,such as the Vestalia, he was actually excluded. On the other hand,though it did not demand presence, the state did—at leasttheoretically—demand the observance of the feast-day by privateindividuals. The root-notion offeriae was a day set apart for theworship of the gods, and on it therefore the citizen ought to do 'nomanner of work.' The state observed this condition fully in theclosing[94]of law-courts and the absence of legislative assemblies, andin theory too the private citizen must refrain from any act which wasnot concerned with the worship of the gods, or rendered absolutelynecessary, as, for instance, if 'his ox or his ass should fall into apit.' But it is characteristic of Rome that the state did not seek foroffence, but only punished it if accidentally seen: on a feast-day therex sacrorum and theflamines might not see work being done; theytherefore sent on a herald in advance to announce their presence, andan actual conviction involved a money-fine. Perhaps more scrupulouslythan theferiae were observed thedies religiosi, days of'abstinence,' on which certain acts, such as marriage, the beginningof any new piece of work, or the offering of sacrifice to the gods,were forbidden: such, in the oldest period, were the days on which themundus was open, or the temple of Vesta received the matrons, thedays when the Salii carried theancilia in procession, and theperiods of the two festivals of the dead in February and May; but foreluding their observance too devices were not unknown.
In the state-organisation of religion, then, we seem to see just thesame features from which we started: as a basis the legal conceptionof[95]the relation of god to man, as a result the extreme care andprecision in times and ceremonials, as a corollary in the state theidea of legal representation and the consequent looseness of hold onthe action of the individual.
So far we have been considering the regular relations of man and god,seen in recurring or special offerings, in vows and in acts ofpurification and lustration—all based on the contract-notion, allendeavours on man's part to fulfil his bounden duty, that the gods maybe constrained in turn to theirs. But so strong was the feeling ofdivine presence and influence in the Roman's mind, that he was notcontent with doing his best by these regular means to secure thefavour of the gods, but wished before undertaking any business ofimportance to be able to assure himself of their approval. Hispractical common-sense evolved, as it were, a complete 'code'—in theflight and song of birds, in the direction of the lightning-flash, inthe conduct of men and animals—by which he believed that the godscommunicated to him their intentions: sometimes these indications(auspicia) might be vouchsafed by the gods[97]unasked (oblativa),sometimes they would be given in answer to request (impetrativa):but as to their meaning, there could be no doubt, provided they wereinterpreted by one skilled in the lore and tradition of augury. We mayobserve here, though our evidence is much slighter, the same threestages which we have noticed in the sacrificial worship, the homelydomestic auspices, the auguries of the agricultural life, and theorganised system in the state.
In the household the use of auspices was in origin at any rate verygeneral indeed: 'Nothing,' Cicero tells us, 'of importance used to beundertaken unless with the sanction of the auspices' (auspicato).The right of interrogating the will of the gods, rested, as one mightexpect, with the master of the house, assisted no doubt by the privateaugur as the repository of lore and the interpreter of what the mastersaw. But of the details of domestic augury we know but little. Cato inone passage insists on the extreme importance of silence for thepurpose, and Festus suggests that this was secured by the master ofthe house rising in the depths of the night to inspect the heavens. Wehave seen already that the taking of the auspices played[98]an importantpart in the ceremonies of betrothal and marriage, and that theindications of the divine will might be very varied we may gather froma story in Cicero. An aunt wishing to take the auspices for herniece's betrothal, conducted her into an open consecrated space(sacellum) and sat down on the stool of augury (sella) with herniece standing at her side. After a while the girl tired and asked heraunt to give her a little of the stool: the aunt replied, 'My child, Igive up my seat to you': nothing further happened and this answerturned out in fact to be the auspicious sign: the aunt died, the niecemarried the widower and so became mistress of the house.
Of augury in agricultural life we have some indication in the annualobservance of the 'spring augury' (augurium verniserum) and themidsummer ceremony of theaugurium canarium, which seems to havebeen a combination of the offering of a red dog (possibly to avertmildew) and an augury for the success of the crops. To the rusticstratum possibly belongs also theaugurium salutis populi, thoughlater it was a yearly act celebrated whenever the Roman army was notat war and so became connected with the shutting of the temple ofIanus.
[99]The state greatly developed and organised the whole system of auguriesand auspices. The college of augurs ranked second only in importanceto the pontifical college, and their duties with regard to both auguryand auspice are sufficiently clear. Like thepontifices in relationto cult, they are the storehouse of all tradition, and to them appealmay be made in all cases of doubt both public and private: they werejealous of their secrets and in later times their mutual consciousnessof deception became proverbial. The right of augury—in origin simplythe inspection of the heavens—was theirs alone, and it was exercisedparticularly on the annual occasions mentioned and at the installationof priests, of which we get a typical instance in Livy's account ofthe consecration of Numa.
The auspices on the other hand—in origin 'signs from birds' (avis,spicere)—were the province of the magistrate about to undertakesome definite action on behalf of the state whether at home or on thefield of battle. Here the augur's functions were merely preparatoryand advisory. It was his duty to prepare thetemplum, the spot fromwhich the auspices are to be taken—always a square space, withboundaries[100]unbroken except at the entrance, not surrounded by wall ornecessarily by line, but clearly indicated (effatus) by the augur,and marked off (liberatus) from the surroundings: in the comitia andother places in Rome there were permanenttempla, but elsewhere theymust be specially made. The magistrate then enters thetemplum andobserves the signs (spectio): if there is any doubt as tointerpretation—and seeing the immense complication of the traditions(disciplina), this must often have been the case—the augur isreferred to as interpreter. The signs demanded (impetrativa) wereoriginally always connected with the appearance, song or flight ofbirds—higher or lower, from left to right or right to left, etc.Later others were included, and with the army in the field it becamethe regular practice to take the auspices from the feeding of thesacred chickens (pulli): the best sign being obtained if, in theireagerness to feed, they let fall some of the grain from their beaks(tripudium solistimum)—a result not difficult to secure by previoustreatment and a careful selection of the kind of grain supplied tothem. But besides this deliberate 'asking for signs,' public businessmight at any moment be interrupted if the gods voluntarily sent anindication of[101]disapproval (oblativa): the augurs then had always tobe at hand to advise the magistrates whether notice should be taken ofsuch signs, and, if so, what was their signification, and they evenseem to have had certain rights of reporting themselves (nuntiatio)the occurrence of adverse ones. The sign of most usual occurrencewould be lightning—sometimes such an unexpected event as the seizureof a member of the assembly with epilepsy (morbus comitialis)—andwe know to what lengths political obstructionists went in later timesin the observation of fictitious signs, or even the prevention ofbusiness by the mere announcement of their intention to see anunfavourable omen (servare de caelo). The complications andramifications of the augur's art are infinite, but the main ideashould by now be plain, and it must be remembered that the kindred artof the soothsayer (haruspex), oracles, and the interpretation offate by the drawing of lots (sortes) are all later foreignintroductions: auspice and augury are the only genuine Roman methodsfor interpreting the will of the gods.
Here then in household, fields, and state, we have a second type ofrelation to the gods, running parallel to the ordinary practice ofsacrifice and prayer, distinct yet not[102]fundamentally different. As itis man's function to propitiate the higher spirits and prevent, ifpossible, the wrecking of his plans by their opposition, so it is hisbusiness, if he can, to find out their intentions before he engages onany serious undertaking. As in theius sacrum his legal mind leadshim to assume that the deities accept the responsibility of thecontract, when his own part is fulfilled, so here, like a practicalman of business, he assumes their construction of a code ofcommunication, which he has learned to interpret. In its origin it isa notion common to many primitive religions, but in its elaboration itis peculiarly and distinctively Italian, and, as we know it, Roman.
It might be said that a religion—the expression of man's relation tothe unseen—has not necessarily any connection with morality—man'saction in himself and towards his neighbours: that an individual—oreven a nation—might perfectly fulfil the duties imposed by the'powers above,' without being influenced in conduct and character.Such a view might seem to find an apt illustration in the religion ofRome: the ceremonialpietas towards the gods appears to have littleto do with the making of man or nation. But in the history of theworld the test of religions must be their effect on the character ofthose who believed in them: religion is no doubt itself an outcome ofcharacter, but it reacts upon it, and must either strengthen orweaken. We are not therefore justified in dismissing the 'Religion ofNuma' without inquiry as to its relation to[104]morality, for on ouranswer to that question must largely depend our judgment as to itsvalue.
We are of course in a peculiarly difficult position to grapple withthis problem through lack of contemporary evidence. The Rome we know,in the epochs when we can fairly judge of character and morality, wasnot the Rome in which the 'Religion of Numa' had grown up and remainedunquestioned: it had been overlaid with foreign cults and foreignideas, had been used by priests and magistrates as a politicalinstrument, and discounted among the educated through the influence ofphilosophy. But we may remember in the first place that even then,especially in the household and in the country, the old religion hadprobably a much firmer hold than one might imagine from literaryevidence, in the second that national character is not the growth of aday, so that we may safely refer permanent characteristics to theperiod when the old religion held its own.
It may be admitted at once that the direct influence on morality wasvery small indeed. There was no table of commandments backed by thereligious sanction: the sense of 'sin,' except through breach ofritual, was practically[105]unknown. It is true that in the very earlyleges regiae some notion of this kind is seen—a significant glimpseof what the original relation may have been: it is there ordained thatthe patron who betrayed his client, or the client who deceived hispatron, shall be condemned to Iuppiter; the parricide to the spiritsof his dead ancestors, the husband who sells his wife to the gods ofthe underworld, the man who removes his neighbour's landmark toTerminus, the stealer of corn to Ceres. All these persons shall besacri: they have offended against the gods and the gods will see totheir punishment. But these are old-world notions which soon passedinto the background and the state took over the punishment of suchoffenders in the ordinary course of law. Nor again in the prayers ofmen to gods is there a trace of a petition for moral blessings: themagistrate prays for the success and prosperity of the state, thefarmer for the fertility of his crops and herds, even the privateindividual, who suspends his votive-tablet in the temple, pays his duefor health or commercial success vouchsafed to himself or hisrelations. 'Men call Iuppiter greatest and best,' says Cicero,'because he makes us not just or temperate or wise, but sound andhealthy and rich and wealthy.' Still less, until[106]we come to themoralists of the Empire, is there any sense of that immediate andpersonal relation of the individual to a higher being, which is reallyin religion, far more than commandments and ordinances, the mainspringand safeguard of morality: even the conception of the Genius, the'nearest' perhaps of all unseen powers, had nothing of this feeling init, and it may be significant that, just because of his nearness toman, the Genius never quite attained to god-head. As far as directrelation is concerned, religion and morality were to the Roman twoindependent spheres with a very small point of contact.
Nor even in its indirect influence does the formal observance of theRoman worship seem likely at first sight to have done much forpersonal or national morality. Based upon fear, stereotyped in theform of a legal relationship,religio—'the boundenobligation'—made, no doubt, for a kind of conscientiousness in itsadherents, but a cold conscientiousness, devoid of emotion andincapable of expanding itself to include other spheres or prompt to asimilar scrupulousness in other relations. The rigid and constantdistinction of sacred and profane would incline the Roman to fulfilthe routine of his[107]religious duty and then turn, almost with a sighof relief, to the occupations of normal life, carrying with himnothing more than the sense of a burden laid aside and a pledge ofexternal prosperity. Even the religious act itself might be withoutmoral significance: as we have seen, the worshipper might be whollyignorant of the character, even the name of the deity he worshipped,and in any case the motive of his action was naught, the act itselfeverything. Nor again had the Roman religion any trace of thatpowerful incentive to morality, a doctrine of rewards and punishmentsin a future life: the ideas as to the fate of the dead werefluctuating and vague, and the Roman was in any case much moreinterested in their influence on himself than in their possibleexperiences after death.
The divorce then between religion and morality seems almost completeand it is not strange that most modern writers speak of the Romanreligion as a tiresome ritual formalism, almost wholly lacking inethical value. And yet it did not present itself in this light to theRomans themselves. Cicero, sceptic as he was, could speak of it as thecause of Rome's greatness; Augustus, the practical politician, couldbelieve that its revival was an essential condition for the[108]renaissance of the Roman character. Have we, in our brief examinationof its characteristics, seen any features which may suggest thesolution of this apparent antagonism? Was there in this formalism alife which escapes us, as we handle the dry bones of antiquarianism?
In the first place there may be a danger that we underrate the valueof formalism itself. It spells routine, but routine is not withoutvalue in the strengthening of character. The private citizen, whoconscientiously day by day had carried out the worship of hishousehold gods and month by month observed the sacred abstinence fromwork on the days of festival, was certainly not less fitted to takehis place as a member of a strenuous and well-organised community, orto serve obediently and quietly in the army on campaign. Even themagistrate in the execution of his religious duties must have acquiredan exactness and method, which would not be valueless in the conductof public business. And when we pass to the origin of thisformalism—the legal relation—the connection with the Roman characterbecomes at once more obvious. The 'lawgivers of the world,' whodeveloped constitution and code to a systematised whole such asantiquity had not dreamed of before,[109]imported, we may say if we like,their legal notions into the sphere of religion: but we must notforget the other side of the question. The permanence and success ofthis greater contract with higher powers—the feeling that the godsdid regard and reward exact fulfilment of duty—cannot have beenwithout re-action on the relations of the life of the community: itwas, as it were, a higher sanction to the legal point of view: apledge that the relations of citizen and state too were rightlyconceived. 'There is,' says Cicero, speaking of the death of Clodiusin the language of a later age, 'there is a divine power whichinspired that criminal to his own ruin: it was not by chance that heexpired before the shrine of the Bona Dea, whose rites he hadviolated': the divine justice is the sanction of the human law. Evenin the fear, from which all ultimately sprang, there was a training inself-repression and self-subordination, which in a more civilised agemust result in a valuable respect and obedience. The descendants ofthose who had made religion out of an attempt to appease the hostilenumina, feeling themselves not indeed on more familiar terms withtheir 'unknown gods,' but only perhaps a little more confident oftheir own strength,[110]were not likely to be wanting in a disciplinedsense of dependence and an appreciation of the value of respect forauthority, which alone can give stability to a constitution. If fearwith the Romans was not the beginning of theological wisdom, it wasyet an important contribution to the character of a disciplined state.
But, as I have hinted in the course of this sketch more than once, theanswer to this problem, as well as the key to the generalunderstanding of the Roman religion, is to be found in the worship ofthe household. If we knew more of it, we should see more clearly wherereligion and morality joined hands, but we know enough to give us aclue. There not only are the principal events of life, birth,adolescence, marriage, attended by their religious sanction, but inthe ordinary course of the daily round the divine presence and thedependence of man are continually emphasised. The gods are given theirportion of the family meal, the sanctified dead are recalled to taketheir share of the family blessings. The result was not merely anapproach—collectively, not individually—to that sense of thenearness of the unseen, which has so great an effect on the actions ofthe living, but a very strong bond of family union which[111]lay at theroot of the life of the state. It would be difficult to find a clearerexpression of the notion than in the fact that the same wordpietas,which expresses the due fulfilment of man's duty to god, is also theideal of the relations of the members of a household: filial pietywas, in fact, but another aspect of that rightness of relation, whichreveals itself in the worship of the gods. No doubt that, in thecity-life of later periods, this ideal broke down on both sides:household worship was neglected and family life became less dutiful.But it was still, especially in the country, the true backbone ofRoman society, and no one can read the opening odes of Horace's thirdbook without feeling the strength of Augustus' appeal to it.
And if we translate this, as we have learned to do, into terms of thestate, we can get some idea of what the Romans meant by their debt totheir religion. As the household was bound together by the tie ofcommon worship, as in the intermediate stage the clan, severedpolitically and socially, yet felt itself reunited in the gentilerites, so too the state was welded into a whole by the regularlyrecurring annual festivals and the assurance of the divine sanction onits undertakings. It might be that in the course of time[112]these riteslost their meaning and the community no longer by personal presenceexpressed its service to the gods, but the cult stood there still, asthe type of Rome's union to the higher powers and a guarantee of theirassistance against all foes: the religion of Rome was, as it has beensaid, the sanctification of patriotism—the Roman citizen's highestmoral ideal. It has been remarked, perhaps with partial truth, thatthe religion of theÆneid—in many ways a summary of Roman thoughtand feeling—is the belief in thefata Romae and their fulfilment.The very impersonality of this conception makes it a good picture ofwhat religion was in the Roman state. It was not, as with the Jews, astrong conviction of the rightness of their own belief and a certaintythat their divine protectors must triumph over those of other nations,but a feeling of the constant presence of some spirits, who, 'if haplythey might find them,' would, on the payment of their due, bear theirpart in the great progress of right and justice and empire on whichRome must march to her victory. It was the duty of the citizen, withthis conception of his city before his eyes, to see to it that thestate's part in the contract was fulfilled. From his ancestors hadbeen inherited the tradition, which told him the when,[113]where, andhow, and in the preservation of that tradition and its due performanceconsisted at once Rome's duty and her glory. 'If we wish,' saysCicero, 'to compare ourselves with other nations, we may be found inother respects equal or even inferior; in religion, that is in theworship of the gods, we are far superior.' The religion of Rome maynot have advanced the theology or the ethics of the world, but it madeand held together a nation.
The Golden Bough, (2nd Ed.).J.G. Frazer.
History of Rome,BOOK I. CHAP XII.Th. Mommsen.
Die Religion der Römer.E. Aust.
Religion und Kultus der Römer.G. Wissowa.
Il Culto Privato di Roma Antica,PART I.A.De-Marchi.
The Roman Festivals.W. Warde Fowler.
The Religion of Numa.J.B. Carter.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Religion of Ancient Rome, by Cyril Bailey*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROME ******** This file should be named 18564-h.htm or 18564-h.zip *****This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/5/6/18564/Produced by Jeannie Howse, Thierry Alberto and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.netUpdated editions will replace the previous one--the old editionswill be renamed.Creating the works from public domain print editions means that noone owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States withoutpermission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply tocopying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works toprotect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. ProjectGutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if youcharge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If youdo not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with therules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purposesuch as creation of derivative works, reports, performances andresearch. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may dopractically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution issubject to the trademark license, especially commercialredistribution.*** START: FULL LICENSE ***THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSEPLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORKTo protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the freedistribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "ProjectGutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full ProjectGutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online athttp://gutenberg.org/license).Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tmelectronic works1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tmelectronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree toand accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by allthe terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroyall copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a ProjectGutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by theterms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person orentity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only beused on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people whoagree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a fewthings that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic workseven without complying with the full terms of this agreement. Seeparagraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with ProjectGutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreementand help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronicworks. See paragraph 1.E below.1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of ProjectGutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in thecollection are in the public domain in the United States. If anindividual work is in the public domain in the United States and you arelocated in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you fromcopying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivativeworks based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenbergare removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the ProjectGutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works byfreely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms ofthis agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated withthe work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement bykeeping this work in the same format with its attached full ProjectGutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also governwhat you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are ina constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, checkthe laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreementbefore downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing orcreating derivative works based on this work or any other ProjectGutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerningthe copyright status of any work in any country outside the UnitedStates.1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediateaccess to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominentlywhenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which thephrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "ProjectGutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,copied or distributed:This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derivedfrom the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it isposted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copiedand distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any feesor charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a workwith the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on thework, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and theProject Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or1.E.9.1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is postedwith the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distributionmust comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additionalterms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linkedto the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with thepermission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tmLicense terms from this work, or any files containing a part of thiswork or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute thiselectronic work, or any part of this electronic work, withoutprominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 withactive links or immediate access to the full terms of the ProjectGutenberg-tm License.1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including anyword processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to ordistribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official versionposted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide acopy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy uponrequest, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or otherform. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tmLicense as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm worksunless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providingaccess to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works providedthat- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm works.- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tmelectronic work or group of works on different terms than are setforth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing fromboth the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and MichaelHart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact theFoundation as set forth in Section 3 below.1.F.1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerableeffort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofreadpublic domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tmcollection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronicworks, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate orcorrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectualproperty infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, acomputer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read byyour equipment.1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Rightof Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the ProjectGutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the ProjectGutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a ProjectGutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim allliability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legalfees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICTLIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSEPROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THETRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BELIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE ORINCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCHDAMAGE.1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover adefect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you canreceive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending awritten explanation to the person you received the work from. If youreceived the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium withyour written explanation. The person or entity that provided you withthe defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of arefund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entityproviding it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity toreceive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copyis also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without furtheropportunities to fix the problem.1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forthin paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHERWARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TOWARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain impliedwarranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates thelaw of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall beinterpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted bythe applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of anyprovision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, thetrademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyoneproviding copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordancewith this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you door cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tmwork, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to anyProject Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tmProject Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution ofelectronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computersincluding obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It existsbecause of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations frompeople in all walks of life.Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with theassistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm'sgoals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection willremain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the ProjectGutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secureand permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundationand how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary ArchiveFoundationThe Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of thestate of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the InternalRevenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identificationnumber is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted athttp://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project GutenbergLiterary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extentpermitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scatteredthroughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, emailbusiness@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contactinformation can be found at the Foundation's web site and officialpage at http://pglaf.orgFor additional contact information: Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director gbnewby@pglaf.orgSection 4. Information about Donations to the Project GutenbergLiterary Archive FoundationProject Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission ofincreasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can befreely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widestarray of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exemptstatus with the IRS.The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulatingcharities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the UnitedStates. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes aconsiderable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep upwith these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locationswhere we have not received written confirmation of compliance. ToSEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for anyparticular state visit http://pglaf.orgWhile we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where wehave not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibitionagainst accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states whoapproach us with offers to donate.International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot makeany statements concerning tax treatment of donations received fromoutside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donationmethods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of otherways including checks, online payments and credit carddonations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donateSection 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronicworks.Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tmconcept of a library of electronic works that could be freely sharedwith anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed ProjectGutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printededitions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarilykeep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: http://www.gutenberg.orgThis Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg LiteraryArchive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how tosubscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.*** END: FULL LICENSE ***