[185] Kornemann, op. cit. p. 87; Wissowa, Gesammelte
Abhandlungen, p. 230 foll.; Mommsen, Staatsrecht,
iii. p. 790, note 1. For the festival of the
Septimontium, Varro, L.L. vi. 24; Plutarch, Quaest.
Rom. 69; Fowler, R.F. p. 265 foll. This festival does
not appear in the calendar, as not being "feriae populi,
sed montanorum modo" (Varro, l.c.). There are some
interesting remarks on the relation between agricultural
life and the origin of towns in von Jhering's Evolution
of the Aryan (Eng. trans.), p. 86 foll., with special
reference to Rome.
[186] Von Duhn in J.H.S. xvi. 126 foll. The latest
research (Korte in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. "Etrusker," p.
747) concludes that the arrival of the Etruscans on the
west coast of Italy cannot be safely put earlier than
the eighth century.
[187] Hülsen-Jordan, Rom. Topogr. iii. 153. In a brief
but masterly paper in the publications of the American
School at Rome, 1908, p. 173 foll., J. B. Carter deals
with the whole problem of the pomoerium and the
pre-Servian city.
[188] Wissowa, R.K. p. 27.
[189] In C.I.L. i.^2, p. 297 foll. See R.F. p. 14
foll.
[190] See the Fasti in R.F. p. 21 foll.; or in
Wissowa, R.K., at end of the book.
[191] R.F. p. 38 foll. Marindin's article "Salii,"
Dict. of Antiqq., is very useful and sensible. There
is little doubt that the dress and armour of the Salii
represented that of the primitive Latin warrior,
calculated to frighten away evil spirits as well as
enemies, and that their dances in procession had some
object of this kind. It is noticeable that there were
two gilds or collegia of them belonging to the Palatine
and Quirinal cities respectively; and they are also
found at Tibur, Alba, Lanuvium, and other Latin cities.
[192] Or 15th (Ides), according to the conjecture of
Wissowa; see R.F. p. 44 and R.K. p. 131. It is
almost incredible that this should originally have been
on a day of even number, contrary to the universal rule
of the Fasti.
[193] See below, p. 212 foll., for further consideration
of this so-called purification.
[194] R.K. p. 131.
[195] See below, p. 217.
[196] R.K. p. 131.
[197] Popular Religion and Folklore of India, ii. 51.
For the sacredness of the number three and its
multiples, see Diels, Sibyllinische Blätter, p. 40
foll.; but he limits it too much to chthonic religious
ritual. See also H. Usener, "Dreizahl," in Rheinisches
Museum, vol. 58, pp. 1 foll., 161 foll., and 321 foll.
There is a summary of the results of these papers in
Gruppe's Mythologische Literatur, 1898-1905, p. 360
foll. I may also refer to my friend Prof. Goudy's very
interesting Trichotomy in Roman Law (Oxford, 1910), p.
8 foll.
[198] By von Domaszewski in Archiv for 1907, p. 333
foll. The learned author's reasoning is often based on
mere hypotheses as to the meaning of the festivals or
the gods concerned in them, and his ideas as to the
agricultural features of the months July, August,
December seem to me doubtful; but the paper is one that
all students of the calendar must reckon with.
[199] Marquardt, Privatleben, pp. 459 and 569 foll.
[200] For the festivals mentioned in the following
paragraphs see R.F., s.v., and Wissowa, R.K.,
section 63.
[201] "St. George and the Parilia," in Revue des études
ethnographiques et sociologiques for Jan. 1908. I owe
my knowledge of this admirable study to the kindness of
its author.
[202] Frazer, G.B. ii. 318 foll.
[203] Varro, L.L. v. 64, says, "Ab satu dictus
Saturnus." And in Augustine (Civ. Dei, vi. 8) he is
quoted as holding the opinion "quod pertineat Saturnus
ad semina, quae in terram de qua oriuntur iterum
recidunt." He was probably the numen of the
seed-sowing (Saeturnus), and as his festival comes
after the end of sowing, we may presume that he was the
numen of the sown as well as of the unsown seed. In
the article "Saturnus" in Roscher's Lexicon, which has
appeared since the above note was written, Wissowa
provisionally accepts Varro's etymology.
[204] Festus, p. 245a, "Publica sacra quae publico
sumptu pro populo fiunt, quaeque pro montibus, pagis,
curiis, sacellis." See article "Sacra" in Dict. of
Antiqq. ii. 577.
[205] "Routine is the only safeguard of a people under a
perfect autocracy" (Select Charters, Introduction, p.
19).
[206] The annalists believed that the publication first
took place in the year 304 B.C.: Livy ix. 46. Mommsen
(Chronologie, p. 31) thought it possible that it had
already been done by the Decemvirs in one of the two
last of the XII. Tables, but again withdrawn. The object
of keeping the Fasti secret was, of course, to control
the times available for legal and political business.
[207] This paragraph is abridged from a passage in the
author's paper in the Hibbert Journal for 1907, p.
848.
[208] See Anthropology and the Classics (Oxford,
1908), p. 44.
[209] R.F. p. 241 foll.
[210] Wissowa holds that it dates from the third century
B.C.: Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl., s.v. "Argei." I
endeavoured to refute this view in the Classical
Review for 1902, p. 115 foll., and Dr. Wissowa
criticised my criticism in his Gesammelte
Abhandlungen, p. 222. It is dealt with at length in
R.F. p. 111 foll. See below, p. 321 foll.
[211] This is not exactly the view expressed in R.F.
p. 315 foll., where I was inclined to adopt that of
Mannhardt that the laughing symbolised the return to
life after sacrificial death. I am now disposed to think
of it as parallel with the ecstasy of the Pythoness and
other inspired priests, or the shivering and convulsive
movements which denote that a human being is "possessed"
by a god or spirit. See Jevons, Introduction, p. 174.
Mannhardt's view seems, however, to gain support from
Pausanias' description of the ordeal he underwent
himself at the cave of Trophonius, after which he could
laugh again: Paus. ix. 39. See also Miss Harrison,
Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 580.
Deubner in Archiv, 1910, p. 501.
[212] R.F. p. 109; Ov. Fasti, v. 421 foll. Ovid's
account is of a private rite in the house, as elsewhere
he tells us of things done by private persons on
festival days. We do not know whether there was any
public ritual for these days. For further discussion of
the contrast between the two festivals of the dead, see
below, Lect. XVII. p. 393.
[213] G.B. iii. 138 foll. The attempt to connect the
so-called Saturnalia of the army of the Danube in the
third century A.D. with the early practice of Roman
Saturnalia seems to me to fail entirely, even after
reading Prof. Cumont's paper in the Revue de
philologie, 1897, p. 133 foll. I should imagine that
Cumont would now admit that the Saturn who was
sacrificed on the Danube as described in the Martyrdom
of St. Dasius must have been of Oriental origin, and
that the soldiers concerned were in no sense Roman or
Italian. For the hellenisation of the Saturnalia, see
Wissowa in Roscher's Lexicon, s.v. "Saturnus," p.
432. Wissowa, I may note, does not believe in the
accuracy of the account of the "Martyrdom."
[214] Nothing, that is, in the regular ritual of the
Roman State--except in so far as the killing of a
criminal who was sacer to a god can be so regarded;
and the only instance of any kind that can be quoted is
that of the two pairs of Gaulish and Greek men and women
who in the stress of the second Punic war and afterwards
were buried alive, as it was said, in the Forum Boarium.
Wissowa, R.K. p. 355 and notes. I shall return to this
in Lecture XIV.
[215] The earliest mention of the slaying of a victim
(bestiarius) to Jupiter is in Minucius Felix, Octav.
22 and 30, i.e. towards the end of the second century
A.D. or even later. Cp. Tertull. Apol. 9, Lactantius
i. 21. I do not go so far as to say with Wissowa (p.
109, note 3) that this story is "ganz gewiss apokryph,"
but I take it as simply a case of degeneracy under the
influence of the amphitheatre and of Orientalism.
[216] For Numa see Schwegler, Rom. Gesch. i. 551 foll.
[217] See Dr. Frazer's most recent account of this
subject, in his Lectures on the Early History of the
Kingship, chaps, iii.-v. Prof. Ridgeway's idea that the
Flamen Dialis was really a Numan institution is of
course simply impossible, and the arguments he founds on
it fall to the ground. Ovid, probably reflecting Varro,
speaks of the Flamen Dialis as belonging to the
Pelasgian religion, which at least means that he was
aware of the extreme antiquity of the office; Fasti,
ii. 281. Dr. Döllinger (The Gentile and the Jew, vol.
ii. p. 72) with his usual insight was inclined to see
in this Flamen the "ruins of an older system of
ceremonial ordinances."
[218] He was sui iuris (Gaius i. 130), as soon as he
was chosen or taken (captus) by the Pontifex maximus;
but he was subject to the authority of the P.M., like
all the other flamines and the Vestals. See Wissowa,
R.K. p. 438; Tac. Ann. iv. 16.