[556] See Mulder, De notione conscientiae, quae et
qualis fuerit Romanis, Leyden, 1908, cap. 2. On p. 56
he quotes Luthard (Die antike Ethik, p. 131), who says
of the Roman religion that it was even more an affair of
the State than with any other people; hence its peculiar
legal character. Though Mulder overworks his point, his
chapter (especially p. 61 foll.) is full of interest.
[557] Wissowa, R.K. p. 431. The first chapter of
Ambrosch's Studien und Andeutungen, in which the
nature and history of the Regia was first really
investigated, is still valuable. An excellent short
account is given by Mr. Marindin in his article in the
Dict. of Antiquities, ed. 2. It is now generally
maintained that the Regia in historical times was rather
a building for sacred purposes than a residence for a
man and his family, and this I hold to be correct; but
it may for all that have originally been the residence
of the Rex and of the Pont. Max. when the Rex had
disappeared.
[558] See Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Literatur, i. 43,
where a succinct account is given of modern opinion as
to the so-called ius Papirianum. The main argument for
the late date of the collection is that Cicero does not
seem to have known of it when he wrote the letter ad
Fam. ix. 21 in 46 B.C. This of course in no way affects
the primitive character of the rules themselves.
[559] The inference that the rules were found in the
Libri pontificum is inevitable in any case, but seems
proved by the fact that one of them, that relating to
the spolia opima, is stated by Festus, p. 189 (s.v.
"opima"), to have been extracted from those books.
[560] Festus, s.v. "pellices" and s.v. "plorare,"
which latter word is interpreted as = inclamare.
[561] The divi parentum are here generally taken as
those of the particular family, and this may have been
so; but cf. Wissowa, R.K. 192.
[562] For the attempts of Pais in Italy and Lambert in
France to date the Tables at the end of the fourth
century or later, see Schanz, op. cit. i. 41. In
Germany opinion is universally in favour of the
traditional date.
[563] See Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero, p.
135.
[564] On the religious character of confarreatio see
De Marchi, La Religione nella vita privata, i. p. 145
foll.
[565] Cic. de Domo, 12. 14; Gellius, v. 19.
[566] See, e.g. Launspach, State and Family in Early
Rome, p. 256 foll. The last three chapters of this
little book, on Patria potestas, Marriage, and
Succession, will be found useful by those who cannot
enter into the many disputes and difficulties which have
arisen out of the attempts of writers on Roman law to
adjust legal ideas to the dim early history of Rome.
Binder, in his work Die Plebs, starts from the
improbable hypothesis that the plebs was the population
of the Latin part of the city as distinct from that
Sabine part on the Quirinal, which he believes to have
been the only patrician body; and he further believes
that the plebs lived originally under "Mutterrecht," the
patres under "Vaterrecht." Such a condition of society
would, of course, have greatly added to the pontifical
work of religious adjustment; it would have been more
than even the pontifices could have successfully
achieved.
[567] See above, note 7. Binder, Die Plebs, p. 488
foll., discusses, and in the main rejects, the arguments
of Pais and Lambert.
[568] So Huvelin, in a paper in L'Année sociologique,
1905-6, p. 1 foll., criticised by Hubert et Mauss,
Mélanges d'histoire des religions, p. xxiii. foll.
[569] From the religious point of view the legis
actiones are best explained in Marquardt, 318 foll. Cp.
Muirhead, Roman Law, ed. 1899, pp. 246-7; Greenidge,
Roman Public Life, index s.v. "legis actio," and
especially p. 87.
[570] The famous passage of Pomponius is in the
Digest, i. 2. 2, sec. 6 (for the work of Aelius, see
Dig. i. 2. 2, 38) "ex his legibus ... actiones
compositae sunt, quibus inter se homines disceptarent:
quas actiones ne populus prout vellet institueret,
certas sollemnesque esse voluerunt.... Omnium tamen
harum et interpretandi scientia et actiones apud
collegium pontificum erant, ex quibus constituebatur,
quis quoquo anno praeesset privatis."
[571] Livy ix. 46 "civile ius, repositum in penetralibus
pontificum, evulgavit (Cn. Flavius), fastosque circa
forum in albo proponit, ut quando lege agi posset
sciretur." Cp. Val. Max. ii. 5. 2. Civile ius is here
usually taken as meaning the procedure; but this is a
passage which may give some countenance to those who
would put the publication of the XII. Tables later than
the traditional date.
[572] For the relation of the Flamines, Vestals, and Rex
sacrorum to the pontifex maximus, see Wissowa, R.K.
432 foll.
[573] See above, p. 283. For the eclipse, Cic. Rep. i.
16. 25; and for the various scientific determinations of
its exact date, Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Lit. vol. i.
(ed. 2) p. 37. "Ex hoc die," writes Cicero, "quem apud
Ennium et in maximis annalibus consignatum videmus,
superiores solis defectiones reputatae sunt."
[574] Cic. Brutus, 55 "longe plurimum ingenio
valuisse."
[575] De Orat. iii. 33. 134.
[576] See Dict. of Classical Biography, s.v.
"Coruncanius."
[577] Nat. deor. ii. 165. Coruncanius is mentioned as
one of those whom the gods love, if indeed they take an
interest in human affairs.
[578] See above, p. 100 foll.; and Roman Festivals, p.
3.
[579] Our knowledge of this tabula chiefly depends on
a passage in the Danielian scholiast on Virg. Aen. i.
373: "ita enim annales conficiebantur. Tabulam dealbatam
quotannis pontifex maximus habuit, in qua praescriptis
consulum nominibus et aliorum magistratum, digna
memoratu notare consueverat domi militiaeque terra
marique gesta per singulos dies. Cuius diligentiae
annuos commentarios in octoginta libros veteres
retulerunt, eosque a pontificibus maximis, a quibus
fiebant, annales maximos appellarunt." The explanation
of the name is no doubt wrong; but all the rest of this
passage can be relied on; cp. Cic. de Orat. ii. 12.
52; Dion. Hal. i. 73, 74; Gell. ii. 28. 6; Cic. Legg.
i. 2. 6. For the idea of the almanac, see Cichorius in
Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl., s.v. "annales maximi."
[580] Proponebat tabulam domi, Cic. de Orat. ii. 12.
52. This must refer to the official residence of the
Pont. Max.; see above, p. 271.
[581] These attempted solutions of an insoluble problem
may be found in brief in Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Lit.
i. 37. Perhaps the boldest is that of Cantorelli, that
the annales were constructed not out of the tabula but
out of the commentarii; but this is in conflict with the
passage in the scholiast on Virgil. To me the difficulty
does not seem overwhelming; events occurring "domi
militiaeque, terra marique," may have filled
considerable space, and yet have been meagre in the eyes
of the rhetoricians of the last century B.C.
[582] Schanz, op. cit. p. 35.
[583] The great authority of the Pont. Max. is well
shown in the story of Tremellius the praetor, who in the
middle of the second century B.C. was fined (by a
tribune?) "quod cum M. Aemilio pontifice maximo
iniuriose contenderat, sacrorumque quam magistratuum ius
potentius fuit." Livy, Epit. 47.
[584] De aedibus sacris populi Romani, p. 10 foll.
[585] Aust, op. cit. p. 14 foll. See also R.F. p.
340 foll.
[586] For Vacuna, Wissowa, R.K. pp. 44 and 128. She
was later, but probably without good reason, identified
with Victoria. The conjecture that she was a hearth
deity rests on the lines of Ovid, Fasti, vi. 305,
which I have before referred to in another context:
ante focos olim scamnis considere longis
mos erat et mensae credere adesse deos.
nunc quoque cum fiunt antiquae sacra Vacunae,
ante Vacunales stantque sedentque focos.
[587] Aust, p. 14. For Vertumnus the locus classicus
is Propert. v. 2. It is not certain that the connection
with gardens was primitive.
[588] R.F. p. 341.
[589] R.F. p. 341.
[590] See Axtell, The Deification of Abstract Ideas in
Roman Literature and Inscriptions (Chicago, 1907), p.
59 foll., where the views of Mommsen, Boissier,
Marquardt, and Wissowa are discussed. Axtell's own
conclusion is given on p. 62 foll. In the main it seems
to agree with that hazarded in my Roman Festivals, p.
190.
[591] For the evidence as to the contents of the
commentarii, which are now generally identified with
the libri, see Wissowa, R.K. 32 and 441; Schanz,
op. cit. i. 32; and the article "Commentarii" in
Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. As Wissowa remarks (p.
441, note 6), we are greatly in need of a complete
collection of all fragments of these archives.
[592] See above, p. 159 foll. The conviction that these
lists are of comparatively late and priestly origin,
which has long been growing on me, was originally
suggested by the learned article "Indigitamenta" by R.
Peter in Roscher's Lexicon, vol. ii. p. 175 foll.
[593] I have here adopted some sentences from my article
in the Hibbert Journal for 1907, p. 854.