[655] The story is told in Livy x. 40 and 41, and must
have been taken by him from the records of the
pontifices, which had almost certainly begun by this
date (see above, p. 283). While on these chapters the
reader may also note the curious vow of this Papirius to
Jupiter Victor at the end of ch. xlii.; and the
description of the religious horrors of the Samnites
witnessed by the army, and especially the words
"respersae fando infandoque sanguine arae" (see above,
p. 196), which clearly indicate a practice abhorrent to
Romans.
[656] Val. Max. i. 5. 3 and 4; Cic. de Div. i. 16. 29;
Livy, Epit. xix.
[657] The locus classicus is Livy xxi. 63.
[658] Cic. de Div. ii. 36. 77. I find an illustration
of this effect of lightning in Major Bruce's Twenty
Years in the Himalaya, p. 130: "Directly the ice-axes
begin to hum (in a storm) they should be put away."
[659] He notices it in connection with the war only in
iii. 112. 6, after the battle of Cannae: a striking
passage, but cast in general language.
[660] Livy xxi. 62 foll. Wissowa comments on this
passage in R.K. p. 223.
[661] See the author's Social Life at Rome in the Age
of Cicero, p. 28 foll.
[662] The rule seems to have been that no prodigia
were accepted, and procurata by the authorities, which
were announced from beyond the ager Romanus. See Mommsen
in O. Jahn's edition of the Periochae of Livy's books,
and of Iulius Obsequens, preface, p. xviii. But this
does not appear from the records of this war; and, at
any rate, the religious panic was Italian as well as
Roman.
[663] Red sand still occasionally falls in Italy,
brought by a sirocco from the Sahara, and this accounts
for the prodigium, "pluit sanguine," which is often
met with. I have a record of it in the Daily Mail of
March 11, 1901. But the lapides were probably of
volcanic origin.
[664] Wissowa, R.K. p. 328.
[665] This must have been a special performance of the
yearly Amburbium, of which unluckily we known hardly
anything (Wissowa, R.K. 130).
[666] R.F. p. 56, where unfortunately the word is
misprinted Pubertas. Wissowa, R.K. 126, thinks of Hebe
in a Latin form; in his view it must be a Greek deity,
being brought in by the decemviri and the books. But we
shall find that these begin now to interfere with Roman
cults, and in such a crisis we need not wonder at it.
Wissowa allows that we do not know where this Hebe can
have come from, nor, I may add, why she should have
come. That there was some special meaning in the
combination Juventas, Hercules, Genius I feel sure, and
I conjecture that it may be found in the urgent need of
a supply of iuvenes. Hercules and Genius seem both to
represent the male principle of life (R.F. 142 foll.).
Juventas speaks for herself, but we may remember that
the tirones sacrificed to her on the day of the
Liberalia (17th March), and that Liber is almost
certainly another form of Genius (R.F. 55).
[667] Livy xxii. 1.
[668] It is only from this passage that we know of the
oracle. See Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. de divination, iv.
146. That of Caere is mentioned in Livy xxi. 62. Both
cities were mainly Etruscan.
[669] Livy xxvii. 37 betrays some knowledge of the
infectious nature of prodigy-reporting: "Sub unius
prodigii, ut fit, mentionem, alia quoque nuntiata."
[670] Pliny, N.H. xxxv. 115, where the verses are
quoted as inscribed on the paintings in her temple at
Ardea. Note that Juno is here called the wife of Jupiter
by a Greek artist from Asia.
[671] For Juno as the woman's deity and guardian spirit,
see above, p. 135. To refer this prominence of the
goddess to her connection with Carthage and mythical
enmity to the Romans, as we see it in the Aeneid, is
premature; we must suppose that each Juno was still a
local deity, and no general conception in the later
Greek sense is as yet possible.
[672] For Feronia, see R.F. 252 foll.
[673] The procurationes ordered were doubtless
recorded in the annales maximi. The books of the
decemviri, we must suppose, were burnt with the oracles
in 38 B.C. (Diels, Sib. Blätter, p. 6 note).
[674] Wissowa, R.K. 170; Marq. 586 foll.
[675] Livy xxii. 9-10.
[676] See above, p. 204 foll.; Strabo, p. 250; Festus,
p. 106.
[677] If it be asked why Jupiter is here without his
titles Optimus Maximus, the answer is that just below,
where ludi magni are vowed to him, as all such ludi
were, he is also simply Jupiter.
[678] R.K. 356. In his view the new amalgam of twelve
gods was known as di Consentes, an expression of
Varro's which has been much discussed. See
Müller-Deecke, Etrusker, ii. 83; C.I.L. vi. 102;
Wissowa, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, 190 foll. In de Re
Rust. i. 1, Varro speaks of twelve dei consentes,
urbani, whose gilded statues stood in the forum.
[679] Livy xxii. 57.
[680] See above, p. 207. Orosius' account of this is
worth reading; he calls it "obligamentum hoc magicum"
(iv. 13). He mentions a Gallic pair and a Greek woman,
and dates it in 226 (227 according to Wissowa,
Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 227). Cp. Plut. Marcell.
3. Livy's words, "iam ante hostiis humanis, minime
Romano sacro, imbutum," agree with this. There must have
been an outbreak of feeling and recourse to the
Sibylline books in the stress of the Gallic war.
[681] Sib. Blätter, p. 86.
[682] Pliny, N.H. xxviii. 12 and 13. Plutarch, l.c.,
confirms him. Pliny, it may be noticed, is here writing
of spells, etc., among which he classes the precatio
of this rite.
[683] The first gladiatorial show was in 264 B.C. (Val.
Max. ii. 4. 7).
[684] The arguments are stated fully in his Gesammelte
Abhandlungen, 211 foll.
[685] The best account of these, or rather of the Argean
itinerary, of which fragments are preserved in Varro,
L.L. v. 45 foll., is still that of Jordan in his
Römische Topographie, ii. 603 foll. The extracts seem
to be from a record of directions for the passage of a
procession round the sacella (or sacraria, Varro v.
48). Though quoting these, Varro has nothing to say of
their origin, which would be strange indeed if they were
of such comparatively late date.
[686] In Varro, L.L. vii. 44. There is no doubt that
the line is from Ennius; it is also quoted as his in
Festus, p. 355.
[687] Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Literatur, vol. i. ed.
3, p. 110.
[688] Some examples of substitution will be found in
Westermarck, Origin and Development of the Moral
Ideas, i. 469. It is of course a well-known phenomenon,
but is now generally rejected as an explanation of
oscilla, maniae, etc. (see Wissowa, R.K. p. 355,
and Frazer, G.B. ii. 344). I know of no case of it on
good evidence at Rome, unless it be one in the
devotio, of an effigy for the soldier, ("ni moritur,"
Livy viii. 10).
[689] See Roman Festivals, p. 117, with references to
Mannhardt; Frazer, G.B. ii. 256; Farnell, Cults of
the Greek States, v. 181.
[690] Livy xxiii. 11. See also Diels, Sib. Blätter,
pp. 11 and 92.
[691] Livy xxiv. 10.
[692] Ib. xxiv. 44.
[693] Ib. xxv. 1.
[694] Ib. xxv. 12. On the Marcian oracles and their
metre, see Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. de divination, iv.
128 foll.; Wissowa, R.K. 463 note 2; Diels, op. cit.
p. 7 foll.
[695] See above, Lect. xi. p. 262. For the Apolline
games, R.F. p. 179 foll.
[696] Livy xxvi. 23.
[697] Ib. xxvii. 8.
[698] Ib. xxvii. 25; Plut. Marcellus, p. 28.
[699] Ib. xxvii. 23.
[700] Ib. xxvii. 37.
[701] The idea that this number was "chthonic" and a
monopoly of the Sibylline utterances was started by
Diels, Sib. Blätter, p. 42 foll., with imperfect
anthropological knowledge, and has led Wissowa and
others into wrong conclusions, e.g. as to the Argei.
See an article criticising Wissowa in Classical Rev.
1902, p. 211. On the whole subject of the number three
and its multiples, see Usener, "Dreizahl," in
Rheinisches Museum for 1903, and Goudy, Trichotomy in
Roman Law (Oxford, 1910), p. 5 foll.
[702] Livy xxvii. 51. For gratitude among Romans, see
above, p. 202. A gift of thanksgiving was sent to Delphi
(Livy xxviii. 45).
[703] Ib. xxix. 10 foll. For other references see
R.F. p. 69 foll.
[704] Ib. xxix. 10.
[705] Dion. Hal. ii. 19; R.F. p. 70.