Prev | Next | Contents


NOTES TO LECTURE XI

[510] This is the expression of Sallust, Catil. 12. 3.

[511] See my paper on the Latin history of the word religio, in Transactions of the Congress for the History of Religions, 1909, vol. ii. p. 172. W. Otto in Archiv, 1909, p. 533 foll.

[512] Cic. de Nat. Deorum, ii. 8.

[513] Cic. Harusp. resp. 19.

[514] Livy xliv. 1. 11; Sallust, l.c.; Gellius, Noct. Att. ii. 28. 2.

[515] Polyb. vi. 56.

[516] Posidonius ap. Athenaeum vi. 274 A; Dion. Hal. ii. 27. 3.

[517] Gell. ii. 28.

[518] Marquardt, iii. 126.

[519] Cato, R.R. 142.

[520] Calpurnius, Eclogue, v. 24. I have described a similar scene in the Alps in A Year with the Birds, ed. 2, p. 126.

[521] Petronius, Sat. 117: "His ita ordinatis, quod bene feliciterque eveniret precati deos, viam ingredimur." I owe this reference, as others in this context, to Appel's treatise de Romanorum precationibus, p. 56 foll.

[522] Varro, R.R. i. 1.

[523] e.g. Virg. Aen. v. 685 (Aeneas during the burning of the fleet); Aen. xii. 776 (Turnus in extremity). Cp. Tibull. iii. 5. 6 (in sickness).

[524] A good example is Captivi, 922: "Iovi disque ago gratias merito magnas quom te redducem tuo patri reddiderunt," etc.

[525] For gratitude to human beings see Valerius Maximus v. 2. A good example of gratitude to a deity is in Gell. N.A. iv. 18; but it is told of Scipio the elder, who was eccentric for a Roman. When accused by a tribune of peculation in Asia he said, "Non igitur simus adversum deos ingrati et, censeo, relinquamus nebulonem hunc, eamus hinc protinus Iovi Optimo Maximo gratulatum." Public gratitude to the gods is frequent in later supplicationes, e.g. Livy xxx. 17. 6.

[526] Gellius, N.A. xiv. 7. 9.

[527] Servius ad Aen. xi. 301 ("praefatus divos solio rex infit ab alto").

[528] This was in a contio: "Cum Gracchus deos inciperet precari." See above, Lecture VII. note 13.

[529] See R.F. p. 74 foll.; Wissowa, R.K. p. 243. For the relation of the pomoerium to the wall, see above, p. 94.

[530] The process is amusingly explained by Carter in The Religion of Numa, p. 72 foll.

[531] R.F. p. 75.

[532] See Aust, De aedibus sacris P.R., passim.

[533] Lately this has been denied by Pais, Storia di Roma, i. 339.

[534] Pliny, N.H. 35, 154.

[535] I owe the information to my friend Prof. Percy Gardner.

[536] See Carter, op. cit. p. 66; but I am not sure that his reasons are conclusive.

[537] Diels, Sibyllinische Blätter, p. 6 foll., and cp. 79.

[538] It should be noted that the cult of Apollo in Rome was older than the introduction of Sibylline influence; so at least it is generally assumed. Wissowa, however (R.K. p. 239), puts it as "gleichzeitig." The date of the Apollinar in pratis Flaminiis, the oldest Apolline fanum in Rome (outside pomoerium), is unknown; that of the temple on the same site was 431 (Livy iv. 25 and 29). There is little doubt that the Apollo-cult spread from Cumae northwards, and was by this time well established in Italy. (The foundation of the temple of 431, consisting of opus quadratum, still in part survives: Hülsen-Jordan, Rom. Topographie, iii. 535).

[539] Heracleitus, fragm. xii., ed. Bywater.

[540] Phaedrus, p. 244.

[541] So Korte in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl., s.v. "Etrusker."

[542] The present tendency is to take the plebs as representing an older population of Latium before the arrival of the patricians; see, e.g., Binder, Die Plebs, p. 358 foll. But the plebs of later days is not to be explained on one hypothesis only.

[543] e.g. in religious matters the duoviri aedi dedicandae; Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 601 foll.

[544] Carter, Religion of Numa, p. 77 foll. It is uncertain whether there was a Roman Mercurius of earlier origin, or whether the name Mercurius (i.e. concerned in trade) was a new invention to avoid using the Greek name, as in the case of the trias Ceres, Liber, Libera.

[545] Carter, op. cit. 81. The connection of this Poseidon-Neptunus and Hermes-Mercurius is confirmed by the fact that the two were paired in the first lectisternium, 399 B.C. Livy v. 13.

[546] Wissowa, R.K. p. 254.

[547] See Diels, Sib. Blätter, p. 12, note 1.

[548] Livy v. 13.

[549] I have discussed the possibility of the epulum Iovis being an old Italian rite in R.F. p. 215 foll. For the Greek origin of these shows see Dict. of Antiquities, ed. 2, s.v. "lectisternia."

[550] Livy iii. 5. 14, and 7. 7.

[551] The plebeian tendencies of the time are suggested, e.g., by the fact that immediately before the first lectisternium a plebeian was elected military tribune (Livy v. 13). The fourth century is of course the period of plebeian advance in all departments, and ends with the opening of the priesthoods to the plebs by the lex Ogulnia, and the publication of the Fasti. Plebeian too, I suspect, was the keeping open house and promiscuous hospitality which is recorded by Livy of the first lectisternia; this was the practice of the plebs on the Cerealia (April 19), and was perhaps an old custom connected with the supply of corn and the temple of Ceres (see above, p. 255). It was not imitated by the patrician society, with its reserve and exclusiveness, till the institution of the Megalesia in 204 B.C. See Gellius xviii. 2. 11.

[552] The expression crinibus demissis is found in a lex regia (Festus, s.v. "pellices"); the harlot who touches Juno's altar has to offer a lamb to Juno "crinibus demissis." This is therefore Roman practice.

[553] For the supplicationes see Wissowa, R.K. 357 foll.; Marq. 48 and 188; and the author's article in Dict. of Antiquities. The passages already referred to as doubtful evidence (Livy iii. 5. 14, 7. 7) describe all the features of the supplicatio as early as the first half of the fifth century. A list of later passages in Livy will be found in Marq. 49, note 4. On the whole I doubt if much was made of these rites before the third century and the Punic wars.

[554] Wissowa, R.K. 356, note 7.

[555] Caird, Gifford Lectures, vol. ii. p. 46.





Prev | Next | Contents