[464] Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, chapters
l.-lii.: "Gods as guardians of morality."
[465] Crawley, The Tree of Life, in a remarkable
chapter on the function of religion (ch. ix.),
especially p. 287 foll. "Morality," says Mr. Crawley,
"is one of the results of the religious impulse." What
he means here by morality is not "that elaborated by
abstract thinkers," but the "morality of elemental human
nature." "Elemental morality" may be a somewhat obscure
term; but I think it is highly probable that Mr. Crawley
is, in part at least, right in ascribing the origin of
morality to the religious impulse.
[466] Crawley, op. cit., p. 265.
[467] Above, pp. 107-8.
[468] See the author's article in Hibbert Journal for
July 1907, p. 894.
[469] Wissowa, R.K. p. 15 foll.
[470] Ib. p. 421: Aust, Religion der Römer, p. 47.
[471] I am, of course, well aware that quite recently
attempts have been made to explain the plebs as the
original inhabitants of Latium, and the Romans as
conquering invaders; e.g. by Prof. Ridgeway in his
paper, "Who were the Romans," read to the British
Academy, and by Binder in his recently published volume
Die Plebs. The theory is a natural one, and not out
of harmony with the facts as known; but it has yet to be
further developed and tested, and as those who hold it
are not as yet in agreement with each other, and as the
evidence which alone can prove it is of a very special
character, archaeological and linguistic, I have
expressed myself in terms of the older view.
[472] The Religion of Numa, p. 30.
[473] Aen. viii. 184 foll.; the description of the
festival is in 280 foll.; where the interesting points
are the priests of the gentes appointed to look after
the cult (the Potitii only are here mentioned) "pellibus
in morem cincti," and the Salii "populeis evincti
tempora ramis."
[474] Wissowa, R.K. p. 219 foll.; Carter, Religion of
Numa, p. 31 foll. The ground had been prepared for the
new view by the elaborate articles in Roscher's
Mythological Lexicon, vol. ii. pp. 2253 foll. and 2901
foll. Of late a painstaking discussion by J. G. Winter
has appeared in the University of Michigan Studies for
1910, p. 171 foll.; he mainly confirms Wissowa's
conclusions, but provisionally accepts a suggestion of
mine (R.F. 197) that the tithe practice of the ara
maxima may possibly have been of Phoenician origin, and
points out that E. Curtius made the same suggestion as
long ago as 1845. On p. 269 he also dwells, very
properly, I think, on the part which the Etruscans may
have had in the dissemination of the myth and cult of
the Greek Heracles. Wissowa, however, stoutly maintains
that these are simply Greek and of commercial origin. It
has been Wissowa's special and valuable function to
elucidate the Greek origin of many Roman cults and
legends; but I doubt if he has adequately considered the
influence of other peoples, and in particular of
Phoenicians and Etruscans. Certainly the Hercules
question is not finally settled by his masterly analysis
of it in R.K. p. 220 foll. But most of what I said in
R.F. about the Hercules of the ara maxima may now be
considered obsolete; and I may add that my remarks on
the supposed connection of Hercules with Genius, Dius
Fidius, and Jupiter in the same work, p. 143 foll., have
lost much strength since Wissowa's book appeared. Yet I
am not prepared to accept the view which would deny to
Hercules on Italian soil all contamination with Italian
ideas; as Willamowitz-Moellendorf puts it (Herakles,
ed. 2, vol. i. p. 25), "Die Italiker haben dem Körper,
den sie übernahmen, den Odem ihrer eigenen Seele
eingeblasen: aber wie der Name ist der Gestalt des
Hercules hellenischer Import." There are points in
connection with the Roman Hercules, e.g. the nodus
herculaneus of the bride's girdle, which Wissowa does
not explain, and which, so far as I can see, can only be
explained by assuming that, as might have been expected,
the Greek Hercules became to some extent entangled in
the web of Italian thought.
[475] The cult was Greek in detail; Graeco ritu,
according to Varro as quoted by Macrobius iii. 6. 17;
see also references in Wissowa, R.K. 222, note 2.
Following R. Peter in the articles in Roscher, I
assumed, in R.F. p. 194, that this might be a later
reconstruction of an originally Italian cult; but for
the present it is safer to look on the Graecus ritus
as primitive, and on the presence of Salii, a genuine
Italian institution, as brought from Tibur by the gens
Pinaria, of which there is a trace in that city
(C.I.L. xiv. 3541). There also Salii were engaged in
the cult of Hercules Victor, to whom tithes were also
offered (C.I.L. xiv. 3541). The evidence for the
theory that the cult came to Rome from Tibur is
summarised by Wissowa, R.K. p. 220.
[476] Op. cit., p. 37.
[477] For the connection of the cult with trade,
Wissowa, R.K. 225; and the story told in Macrobius
iii. 6. 11, from Masurius Sabinus, of a tibicen who
became a merchant and had an interview with the god in a
dream. For the connection with oaths, R.F. p. 138. I
may say before leaving Hercules that though I accept the
latest hypotheses provisionally, I am far from believing
that the last word has been said on the subject.
[478] See, e.g., Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations of
Ancient Rome, p. 271 foll. The date of the temple is
482 B.C., but it was vowed in 496 after the Regillus
battle. The three columns still standing date from 7
B.C.
[479] Wissowa, R.K. p. 217, who points out that the
Dioscuri never appear in lectisternia at Rome, as they
do at Tusculum, which shows that the latter cult was
more directly Greek than that at Rome, and that the
Roman authorities admitted it as a Latin cult without
the Greek details.
[480] Carter, op. cit. p. 38. There seemed to be
difficulties in the way of his conclusion; the Dioscuri
were very strong in the Peloponnese, yet the Spartans
neglected the use of cavalry. At any rate the theory
needs careful historical testing. See article "Dioscuri"
in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. It would seem natural
that when once the cult had been introduced by traders
it might become specially attached to the cavalry, owing
to the ancient connection of the Twins with horses.
[481] Ecastor and Edepol, which were oaths used
especially by women, who were not allowed to swear by
Hercules, Gell. xi. 6.
[482] The reasoning will be found in full in Wissowa,
R.K. p. 203 foll., and in his article "Minerva" in the
Mythological Lexicon. See also Carter, Religion of
Numa, p. 45 foll. For the position of this temple and
that of Diana on the Aventine, a suburb which cannot be
proved to have been then within any city wall, see
Carter in Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society for 1909, p. 136 foll.
[483] Waltzing, Étude historique sur les corporations
romaines, vol. i. pp. 63 and 199. The relation between
town life and trades is stated with his usual insight by
von Jhering, Evolution of the Aryan, p. 93 foll.
[484] See Müller-Deecke, Etrusker, ii. 47; Deecke,
Falisker, p. 89 foll.
[485] Minerva or Menrva is assuredly not Etruscan,
though frequently found on Etruscan monuments; see
Deecke, l.c. p. 89 foll.
[486] Fasti Praenestini in C.I.L. i.^2 March 19.
"Artificum dies (quod Minervae) aedis in Aventino eo die
est (dedicata)." This is one of those additional notes
in the Fast. Praen., which are believed to have been the
work of Verrius Flaccus: see Roman Festivals, p. 12.
[487] Wissowa, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 288. We
know the fact from Strabo's account of Massilia, Bk. iv.
p. 180.
[488] Dion. Hal. iv. 26. See R.F. p. 198.
[489] Statius, Silvae iii. 1. 60. See Wissowa's
article "Diana" in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl.
[490] Wissowa, l.c. p. 332.
[491] Golden Bough, i. p. 1 foll.; Early History of
the Kingship, Lecture I.
[492] Varro, L.L. 5. 43; Carter, op. cit. p. 55.
[493] See on Fortuna the exhaustive article by R. Peter
in the Mythological Lexicon; Wissowa, R.K. 206
foll.; R.F. p. 161 foll., and 223 foll.; Carter, op.
cit. p. 50 foll. Dr. Carter seems to me to be too
certain of the absence of any idea of luck or chance in
the original conception of Fortuna: the word fors, so
far as we know, never had any other meaning, and the
deity Fors must be a personification of an abstraction,
like Ops, Fides, and Salus. See Axtell, Deification of
abstract idea in Roman literature, p. 9, with whom I
agree in rejecting the notion of Marquardt and Wissowa
that she was a deity of horticulture. He rightly points
out that she is not included in the list of agricultural
deities in Varro, R.R. i. 1. 6.
[494] See Aust in his article "Jupiter" in the Myth.
Lex. p. 689, where the evidence for the contemporaneous
origin of the temple on the Alban hill and that on the
Capitol is fully stated. In this case excavations have
confirmed the Roman tradition, which ascribed the former
temple to one or other of the Tarquinii. Jordan, Röm.
Top. i. pt. 2. p. 9.
[495] See the speech of Claudius the emperor, C.I.L.
xiii. 1668, printed in Furneaux' Tacitus' Annals, vol.
ii. Gardthausen, Mastarna, p. 40; Müller-Deecke,
Etrusker, i. 111. For the Etruscan name Mastarna, see
Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_^3, ii. 506
foll.: Gardthausen gives a cut of the painting found in
a tomb at Vulci in which he appears with the name
attached. Even the ultra-sceptical Pais does not doubt
the fact of an Etruscan domination in Rome; but he does
not believe the Tarquinii and Mastarna to have been
historical personages, and will not date the temples
attributed to this age earlier than the fourth century
B.C. See his Ancient Legends of Roman History, ch.
vii.; Storia di Roma, i. 310 foll. But the names of
these kings do not concern us, except so far as they
connect Etruria with Roman history in the sixth century.
[496] Cic. Rep. ii. 24. 44; Livy i. 38. and 55;
Dionys. iii. 69; iv. 59. 61. The whole evidence will be
found collected in Jordan, Topogr. i. pt. ii. p. 9
foll., and in Aust, Myth. Lex., s.v. Jupiter, p. 706
foll. If the date 509 were seriously impugned Roman
chronology would be in confusion, for this is believed
to be the earliest date on which we can rely, and on it
the subsequent chronology hangs: Mommsen, Röm.
Chronologie, ed. 2, p. 198.
[497] Aust, p. 707 foll.; Jordan, op. cit., p. 9.
[498] i.e. the admission of more than one deity into a
single building. The word "trias" is sometimes used of
the three old Roman deities, Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus
(e.g. by Wissowa, Myth. Lex. s.v. Quirinus), but
this is in a different sense. On the idea of a trias
generally, see Kuhfeldt, de Capitoliis imperii Romani,
p. 82 foll.; Cumont, Religions orientales dans le
paganisme romain, p. 290, note 51.
[499] The technical name of the temple was aedes Iovis
Opt. Max.: for other indications of Jupiter's supremacy
see Aust, p. 720.
[500] On Oriental developments of Jupiter Opt. Max. see
an interesting paper by Cumont in Archiv for 1906, p.
323 foll. (Iuppiter summus exsuperantissimus). A
relief in the Berlin Museum has a dedication I.O.M.
summo exsuperantissimo; but Prof. Cumont believes the
deity to have been really Oriental, introduced by Greek
philosophical theologians in the last century B.C., but
probably Chaldaean in origin.
[501] Jordan, op. cit. p. 7 and note. It is uncertain
whether the whole hill had any earlier name. The Mons
Saturnius of Varro, L.L. v. 42, with the legend of an
oppidum Saturnia, and the Mons Tarpeius (Rhet. ad
Herenn., iv. 32. 43; Pais, Ancient Legends, chs. v.
and vi.) need not be taken into account.
[502] Pais, Ancient Legends of Roman History, ch. v.
[503] See above, p. 130.
[504] This is an inference from the fact that this
Flamen is nowhere mentioned as connected with the
Capitoline cult. Macrob. i. 15, 16, speaks of the ovis
Idulis as sacrificed on every ides a flamine, and
this, it is true, took place on the Capitolium (Aust, in
Lex. s.v. Jupiter, 655), but (1) Festus, 290,
mentions sacerdotes, Ovid, Fasti i. 588, castus
sacerdos only; and (2) this sacrifice may well, as O.
Gilbert conjectured, have originally taken place in the
Regia (Gesch. und Topogr. Roms, i. 236). In any case
the Flamen was not in any special sense priest of Iup.
Opt. Max.
[505] The locus classicus for this is Pliny, N.H.
xxxv. 157. The artist was said to have been one Volcas
of Veii. Ovid, Fasti i. 201, says that the god had in
his hand a fictile fulmen. Varro believed this to be
the oldest statue of a god in Rome; see above, p. 146,
and Wissowa, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 280, accepts
his statement as probably correct.
[506] Cic. Catil. iii. 9. 21.
[507] Jordan, Topogr. i. 2. pp. 39 and 62, notes. The
most convincing passages quoted by him are Suet. Aug.
59, and Serv. Ecl. iv. 50 (of boys taking toga virilis
who "ad Capitolium eunt"); but was not this to sacrifice
to Liber or Iuventas? R.F. p. 56.
[508] Gellius vi. 1. 6, from C. Oppius et Iulius
Hyginus. In his famous character of Scipio (xxvi. 19)
Livy seems to think that Scipio did this to make people
think him superhuman or of divine descent.
[509] Ovid, Fasti, iv. 158. 257; Virg. Ecl. iv. 4,
Aen. vi. 42; Marquardt, 352, note 7, for evidence that
the books came to Cumae from Erythrae. See also Diels,
Sibyllinische Blätter, p. 80 foll.