[340] See Appendix C.
[341] Cato, R.R. 139, where the language suggests that
as the deity was unknown, the ius of the religious act
was also uncertain, i.e. the ritual was not laid down.
De Marchi translates (La Religione nella vita
domestica, i. 132) "sia a te fatto il debito
sacrificio," etc., which sufficiently expresses the
anxiety of the situation. Keil reads here "ut tibi ius
est," and gives no variant in his critical note; but
the words just below, "uti id recte factum siet," seem
to me to suggest the subjunctive. In any case there is
no doubt about ius. In Tab. Iguv. vi. A. 28
(Umbrica, p. 58) Buecheler translates the Umbrian
persei mersei by "quicquid ius sit," and compares this
passage of Cato, together with Gellius i. 12. 14, where
the phrase is used of the duties of a Vestal under the
ius divinum in the formula used by the Pontifex
Maximus, cum virginem capiat: "Sacerdotem Vestalem,
quae sacra faciat, quae ius siet sacerdotem Vestalem
facere pro pop. Rom." etc.
[342] e.g. Aen. iv. 56, x. 31 ("si sine pace tua
atque invito numine," etc.). Cp. Tab. Iguv. vi. 30,
33, etc. (Umbrica, p. 59), "esto volens propitiusque
pace tua arci Fisiae."
[343] Livy vi. 41 ad fin.
[344] Wissowa, R.K. p. 318, and p. 319 for the
illustrations that follow. Cp. Cicero, Part. Or. xxii.
78, where religio is explained as "iustitia erga
deos."
[345] Lex Coloniae Genetivae, cap. 64; C.I.L. ii.,
supplement No. 5439.
[346] Livy i. 20. 5.
[347] This follows from the definition in Festus, p.
321, and in Macrobius iii. 3. 2. This last is quoted
from Trebatius de religionibus: "sacrum est quicquid
est quod deorum habetur." In common use sacrificium
seems to be reserved for animal sacrifice, but the verb
sacrificare is not so limited. Festus, p. 319: "mustum
quod Libero sacrificabant pro vineis ... sicut
praemetium de spicis, quas primum messuissent,
sacrificabant Cereri." It has been suggested to me by
Mr. Marett that the termination of the word
sacrificium may have reference to the use of facere
for animal sacrifice, as in Greek [Greek: rhezein,
erdein, dran]; but on the whole I doubt this. Facere
and fieri are in that sense, I think, euphemisms,
occasioned by the mystic character of the act (examples
are collected in Brissonius de formulis, p. 9). Rem
divinam facere seems to be the general expression, as
in Cato, R.R. 83; or the particular victim is in the
ablative, e.g. agna Iovi facit (Flamen Dialis) in
Varro, L.L. vi. 16; cp. Virg. Ecl. iii. 77.
[348] This classification, originally due to R. Smith,
article "Sacrifice" in Encycl. Brit., ed. 10, has
lately been criticised by Hubert et Mauss, in Mélanges
d'histoire des religions, p. 9 foll.; but it is
sufficiently complete for our purposes. At the same time
it is well to be aware that no classification of the
various forms of sacrifice can be complete at present;
that which these authors prefer, i.e. constant and
occasional sacrifices, is, however, a useful one.
[349] R.F. p. 95 foll. Cp. Robertson Smith, Rel. of
Semites, Lect. VIII.
[350] R.F. p. 217 foll.
[351] R.F. p. 302 foll. Meals in connection with
sacrifice are also found at the Parilia (R.F. p. 81,
and Ovid, Fasti, iv. 743 foll.) and Terminalia (Ovid,
Fasti, ii. 657); but in both cases Ovid seems to be
describing rustic rites; nor is it certain that the meal
was really sacramental. What does seem proved is that
the old Latins and other Italians believed the deities
of the house to be present at their meals--
ante focos olim scamnis considere longis
mos erat et mensae credere adesse deos (Fasti, vi. 307),
and thus the idea was maintained that in some sense all
meals had a sacred character, i.e. all in which the
members of a familia (see above, p. 78), or of gens
or curia, met together. Cp. R. Smith, op. cit. p.
261 foll. We may remember that the Penates were the
spirits of the food itself, not merely of the place in
which it was stored; it had therefore a sacred
character, which is also shown by the sanctification of
the firstfruits (R.F. pp. 151, 195). (The cenae
collegiorum, dinners of collegia of priests, were in no
sense sacrificial meals; see Marquardt, p. 231, note 7;
Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. pp. 13, 39, 40.)
[352] Cic. de Legibus, ii. 8. 19.
[353] Livy i. 18. For constitutional difficulties in
this passage, see, e.g., Greenidge, Roman Public
Life, p. 50.
[354] For this and the augurs generally, see Lecture
XII.
[355] The passages are collected by Wissowa, R.K. p.
420, note 3. There is no doubt about the inauguratio of
the three great flamines and the rex sacrorum, who were
all specially concerned with sacrifice, and of the
augurs, who would obviously need it in order to perform
the same ceremony for others--as a bishop needs
consecration for the same reason. As regards the
pontifices, Dionysius (ii. 73. 3) clearly thought it was
needed for them, and we might a priori assume that one
who might become a pontifex maximus would need it; but
Wissowa discounts Dionysius' opinion, and I am unwilling
to differ from him on a point of the ius divinum, of
which he is our best exponent. If he is right, it may be
that the three flamines maiores, who were reckoned in
strict religious sense as above the pontifices,
including their head (Festus, p. 185), needed "holiness"
more than any pontifex, and so with the augurs. The
insignia of the pontifices, as well as many historical
facts, show that the pontifices were competent to
perform sacrifice in a general sense (Marq. p. 248
foll.); but it is possible that they never had the
right, like the flamines, actually to slay the victim. I
do not feel sure that the securis was really one of
their symbols, though Horace seems to say so in Ode
iii. 23. 12. The whole question needs further
investigation. It may be found that the essential
distinction between the pontifices and magistrates cum
imperio on the one hand, and the flamines on the other,
is to be sought in the ideas of holiness connected with
the shedding of blood in sacrifice. The flamen is
permanently holy, having charge of constant sacrifices;
e.g. the Dialis had duties every day. He is the duly
sanctified guide for all rites within his own religious
range.
[356] Wissowa, R.K. pp. 339, 410 foll.
[357] The whole subject of the preparation of the
sacrificer for his work, and of the steps by which he
becomes separated from the profane, is well treated by
Hubert et Mauss, Mélanges d'histoire des religions, p.
23 foll. The reference to Dr. Jevons is Introduction,
ch. xx. p. 270 foll.
[358] Serv. Aen. xii. 173; Virgil wrote "dant fruges
manibus salsas, et tempora ferro Summa notant pecudum";
to which Servius adds that the symbolic movement was a
(pretended) cut from head to tail of the victim.
Wissowa, R.K. p. 352.
[359] Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl., s.v. "cinctus
Gabinus."
[360] Marquardt, p. 340. The Vestals were never, so far
as we know, directly concerned in animal sacrifice.
[361] See below, p. 190. For the colour of the garments,
and the explanation referred to, see Samter,
Familienfeste, p. 40 foll.; Diels, Sibyllinische
Blätter, p. 70; and cp. von Duhn's paper, "Rot und Tot"
in Archiv, 1906, p. 1 foll. That red colouring was
used in various ways in sacred and quasi-sacred rites
there is no doubt (see above, p. 89, note 46); but
whether it can be always connected with bloodshed is by
no means so certain (Rohde, Psyche, i. 226). In the
case of women it is at least hard to understand. The
idea of consecration through blood, which is very rare
in Roman literature, comes out curiously in the words
which Livy puts into the mouth of Virginius after the
slaughter of his daughter (iii. 48): "Te Appi tuumque
caput sanguine hoc consecro" (i.e. to a deity not
mentioned). The sentence to which this note refers was
written before the appearance of Messrs. Hubert et
Mauss' essay on sacrifice (Mélanges d'histoire des
religions, pp. 1-122). The theory there developed, that
the victim is the intermediary in all cases between the
sacrificer and the deity, and that the force
religieuse passes from one to the other in one
direction or another, does not essentially differ from
the words in the text; but the French savants would, I
imagine, prefer to look on the insignia in a general
sense as bringing the person wearing them within the
region of the sacrum, the force of which would react
on him still more strongly after the destruction of the
victim (see p. 28 foll.).
[362] See, e.g., Roman Sculpture by Mrs. Strong,
Plates xi. and xv.
[363] For this and other insignia see Marquardt, p. 222
foll. The question is under discussion whether some of
these insignia are not old Italian forms of dress (see
Gruppe, Mythologische Literatur, 1898-1905, p. 343).
For the wearing of the skin of a victim, which meets us
also at the Lupercalia (R.F. p. 311), see Robertson
Smith, Semites, p. 416 foll.; Jevons, Introduction,
p. 252 foll.; Frazer, G.B. iii. 136 foll.
[364] They, of course, wore the praetexta when
performing religious acts. Cp. the Fratres Arvales, who
laid aside the praetexta after sacrificing. Henzen,
Acta Fr. Arv. pp. 11, 21, and 28.
[365] Serv. Aen. xi. 543. The camillae assisted the
flaminicae, Marquardt, p. 227. This is one of the most
beautiful features of the stately Roman ritual, and has
been handed on to the Roman Church. It was, of course,
derived from the worship of the household (see above, p.
74).
[366] Adonis, Attis, Osiris, p. 413 foll. Dr. Frazer
is criticising Dr. Farnell, who had touched on the
subject in the Hibbert Journal for 1907, p. 689, and
had taken the more obvious view that death in a family
disqualified for actions requiring extreme holiness.
[367] The passages are collected in Marquardt, p. 174
foll.; we may notice in particular Livy xlv. 5. 4,
where, though only the washing of hands is referred to,
we have the important statement that "omnis praefatio
sacrorum," i.e. the preliminary exhortation of the
priest, enjoined purae manus. Livy must be using the
language of Roman ritual, though he is not speaking here
of a Roman rite. For the material of sacred utensils see
Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. p. 30.
[368] Tibullus ii. 1. 11.
[369] Cic. de Legibus, ii. 10. 24.
[370] Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral
Ideas, ii. 352 foll.; consult the index for further
allusions to the subject. Cp. Farnell, Evolution of
Religion, Lecture III. [Fehrle, Die kultische
Keuschheit im Altertum (Giessen, 1910), has reached me
too late for use in this chapter.]
[371] Full details, with the most important references
quoted in full, are in Marquardt, p. 172 foll.; but some
of the latter are applicable only to the Graeco-Roman
period.
[372] So we may gather from the Lex Furfensis of 58 B.C.
(C.I.L. ix. 3513), and that of the Ara Augusti at
Narbo of A.D. 12 (C.I.L. xii. 4333).
[373] The real origin of the pontifices and their name
is unknown to us. If they took their name from the
bridging of the Tiber, as Varro held (L.L. v. 83) and
as the majority of scholars believe (see O. Gilbert,
Rom. Topographie, ii. 220, note), the difficulty
remains that they are found in such a city as Praeneste,
where there was no river to be bridged, and where they
could not well have been merely an offshoot from the
Roman college; see Wissowa, R.K. p. 432, note. Nor can
we explain how they came to be set in charge of the ius
divinum; and where there are no data conjecture is
useless.
[374] The covering of the head (operto capite, as
opposed to aperto capite of the Graecus ritus) is
usually explained as meant to shut out all sounds
belonging to the world of the profanum; and the
playing of the tibicines is interpreted in the same way.
Hubert et Mauss explain the covered head differently:
"le rituel romain prescrivit généralement l'usage du
voile, signe de séparation et partant de consécration"
(p. 28). Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of
Greek Religion, p. 522, also holds that it is the
outward sign of consecration; cp. S. Reinach, Cultes,
mythes, et religions, i. 300 foll. The fact, noted by
Miss Harrison, that in Festus's account of the ver
sacrum (p. 379, ed. Müller) the children expelled were
veiled, seems to point to the idea of
dedication--unless, indeed, velabant here means that
they blindfolded them.
[375] The wine was poured over the altar as well as on
the victim, which suggests a substitution for blood;
Arnobius vii. 29 and 30; Dion. Hal. vii. 72. I cannot
find that any one of the many utensils used in sacrifice
were for pouring out blood. Blood was, however, poured
on the stone at the Terminalia (R.F. pp. 325-326); but
the rite here described by Ovid seems to be a rural one,
outside the ius divinum. In the sacrifice of victims
to Hecate in Virg. Aen. vi. 243 foll., which cannot be
ritus Romanus, the warm blood is collected in
paterae; but nothing is said of what was done with it,
nor does Servius help. Cp. Aen. viii. 106. In
Lucretius v. 1202, "aras sanguine multo spargere
quadrupedum," the context shows that the ritual alluded
to is not old Roman. In Livy's description of the
"occulti paratus sacri" of the Samnites (ix. 41), we
find "respersae fando nefandoque sanguine arae, et
dira exsecratio ac furiale carmen." Livy seems to think
of this blood-sprinkling, whether the blood be human or
animal, as unusual and horrible. Ancient, no doubt, is
the practice, recorded in the Acta Fratr. Arv. (see
Henzen, pp. 21 and 23), of using the blood in a
religious feast, in the process of cooking: "porcilias
piaculares epulati sunt et sanguem." (There is a mention
of the pouring of blood in an inscription from Lusitania
in C.I.L. ii. 2395.) For the use of wine as a
substitute for blood, see the recently published work of
Karl Kircher, "Die sakrale Bedeuting des Weines," in
Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche, etc., p. 82 foll.,
where, however, the subject is not worked out.
[376] According to Lübbert (Commentarii pontificales,
p. 121 foll.) magmentum is the same as augmentum,
which word is also found (Varro, L.L. v. 112). Festus,
p. 126, "magmentum magis augmentum"; Serv. Aen. iv.
57, to which passage I shall return. For the equivalent
in the Vedic ritual of the cooking and offering of the
exta, see Hubert et Mauss, op. cit. p. 60 foll.
[377] R.F. p. 89.
[378] ib. p. 10.
[379] Buecheler, Umbrica, pp. 60, 69, etc. Of course
the prayer might be said while other operations were
going on. For the constant connection of prayer and
sacrifice, see Pliny, N.H. xxviii. 10, "quippe
victimam caedi sine precatione non videtur referre aut
deos rite consuli." If Macrobius is right (iii. 2. 7
foll.) in asserting that the prayer must be said while
the priest's hand touches the altar, one may guess that
this was done at the same time that the exta were laid
on it. Ovid saw the priest at the Robigalia offer the
exta and say the prayer at the same time (Fasti, iv.
905 foll.), but does not mention the hand touching the
altar. For this see Serv. Aen. vi. 124; Horace, Ode
iii. 23. 17, and Dr. Postgate on this passage in
Classical Review for March 1910.
[380] Cato, R.R. 132, 134, 139, and 141. That these
formulae were taken from the books of the pontifices is
almost certain, not only from the internal evidence of
the prayers themselves, but because Servius (Interpol.)
on Aen. ix. 641 quotes the words: "macte hoc vino
inferio esto," which occur in 132, introducing them
thus: "et in pontificalibus sacrificantes dicebant
deo...."
[381] The verb is omitted here for some ritualistic
reason, as in the Iguvian prayers (Umbrica, p. 55).
[382] Virg. Aen. ix. 641, "macte nova virtute puer,
sic itur ad astra," etc., and many other passages. The
verb mactare acquired a general sense of sacrificial
slaying, as did also immolare, though neither had
originally any direct reference to slaughter. The best
account I find of the word is in H. Nettleship's
Contributions to Latin Lexicography, p. 520. He takes
mactus as the participle of a lost verb maco or
mago, to make great, increase, equivalent to augeo,
which is also a word of semi-religious meaning, as
Augustus knew. Nettleship quotes Cicero in Vatinium,
14, "puerorum extis deos manes mactare."
[383] Baehrens, Fragm. Poet. Lat. 180; Lusilius fragm.
143; Nonius, 341, 28 has "versibus."
[384] It may possibly be objected that some of the
deities were powerful for evil as well as good, e.g.
Robigus, the spirit of the red mildew, and that the
power of such a deity was not to be encouraged or
increased. But all such deities (and I cannot mention
another besides Robigus) were of course conceived as
able to restrain their own harmful function; they were
not invoked to go away and leave the ager Romanus in
peace, but to limit their activity in the land where
they had been settled for worship. We have no prayer to
Robigus (or Robigo, feminine, as Ovid has it) except
that which Ovid somewhat fancifully versified after
hearing the Flamen Quirinalis say it (Fasti, iv. 911
foll.), in which of course the word macte does not
occur. As the victim was a dog, an uneatable one, it is
possible that the ritual was not quite the usual one.
But the language of the prayer is interesting and brings
out my point:
aspera Robigo, parcas Cerialibus herbis.
vis tua non levis est;...
parce precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer
neve noce cultis: posse nocere sat est.
It concludes by praying Robigo to direct her strength
and attention to other objects, gladios et tela
nocentia; but this is the poet's fancy.
[385] Evolution of Religion, p. 212, quoting Vedic
Hymns, pt. ii. pp. 259 and 391.
[386] Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, vol. ii.
p. 585 foll.; cp. 657. See also Farnell, Evolution of
Religion, p. 195.
[387] See above, p. 9. Religio in the sense of an
obligation to perform certain ritualistic acts is in my
view a secondary and later use of the word. See
Transactions of the Congress of Historical Religion for
1908, vol. ii. p. 169 foll.
[388] Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. p. 26 foll.; C.I.L.
vi. 2104, 32 foll.; Buecheler und Riese, Carmina Lat.,
epigr. pars ii., no. 1. All surviving Roman prayers are
collected in Appel's De Romanorum precationibus,
Giessen, 1909.
[389] Pliny, N.H. xxviii. 10 foll.
[390] In Anthropology and the Classics, p. 94.
[391] Cp. Tibullus ii. 1. 84, "vos celebrem cantate deum
pecorique vocate, Voce palam pecori, clam sibi quisque
vocet." This murmuring was certainly characteristic of
Roman magic; see Jevons, p. 99, and especially the
reference to a Lex Cornelia, which condemned those "qui
susurris magicis homines occiderunt" (Justinian, Inst.
iv. 18. 5).
[392] On the nature of this tripodatio see Henzen,
op. cit. p. 33. Buecheler, Umbrica, p. 69, gives the
Umbrian verb a different meaning, though he translates
it tripodato.
[393] Buecheler, Umbrica, pp. 13 and 52.
[394] Wissowa, R.K., 333, inclines to the belief that
prayer had a legal binding force upon the deity; but he
does not cite any text which confirms this view, and is
arguing on general grounds. I gather from the language
of Aust (Religion der Römer, p. 30) that he thinks
there was a germ which might have developed into a more
truly religious attitude towards the gods, if it had not
been killed by priestly routine and quasi-legal
formulae. With this opinion I am strongly inclined to
agree. Cp. the story of Scipio Aemilianus audaciously
altering and elevating the formula dictated by the
priest in the censor's lustratio (Val. Max. iv. 1. 10),
to which I shall return in the proper place.
[395] Westphal, quoted by De Marchi, La Religione,
etc., i. p. 133, note.
[396] See, e.g., ch. 141 ad fin. The prayer in the
Acta of the Ludi Saeculares to the Moirae is an
imitation of old prayers. See below, p. 442.
[397] ib. ch. 139.
[398] ib. ch. 141.
[399] Hubert et Mauss, Mélanges d'histoire des
religions, p. 74.
[400] So Cato, R.R. 141, "si minus in omnes litabit,
sic verba concipito; Mars pater, quod tibi illuc porco
neque satisfactum est, te hoc porco piaculo." (The word
for the slaughter is here euphemistically omitted; De
Marchi, p. 134.)
[401] Hubert et Mauss, op. cit. p. 55 foll.; Leviticus
vi. I doubt whether the theory of the learned authors
will hold good generally on this point.
[402] Marquardt, p. 185, asserted the contrary, but
cited no evidence except Serv. Aen. vi. 253, which
does not prove the practice of the holocaust to be
really Roman. Wissowa's exactness is well illustrated in
his detection of this error; see R. K. p. 352, note 6.
Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. p. 135, leaves no doubt on
the question possible.
[403] Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. p. 131. See above, p.
35. Festus, p. 218.
[404] Gellius iv. 6. 7.
[405] i.e. lustratio. That this was a form of piaculum
is clear from the use of the word pihaklu of the
victim in the lustratio of the arx of Iguvium, e.g.
Buecheler, Umbrica, index, 5, v.