[900] A summary of the relations between Virgil and
Augustus may be found in Mr. Glover's Studies in
Virgil, p. 144 foll.
[901] Tiberius added to his Augustan inheritance a
curious and possibly morbid anxiety about religious
matters and details of cult, of which examples may be
found in Tac. Ann. iii. 58, vi. 12, among other
passages. Perhaps, however, the most interesting is that
connected with the famous story of "the Great Pan is
dead," told by Plutarch in the de Defectu Oraculorum,
ch. xvii. The news of this strange story reached the
ears of Tiberius, who at once set the learned men about
him to inquire into it; and they came to the no less
strange conclusion that "this was the Pan who was born
of Hermes and Penelope." S. Reinach has recently offered
an explanation of this story, which is at least better
than previous ones, in Cultes, mythes, et religions,
vol. iii. p. 1 foll.
[902] C.I.L. vi. 1001.
[903] Jul. Capitolinus, 13.
[904] Symmachus, Rel. 3.
[905] Cod. Theod. xvi. 10. 2. On this subject
generally consult Dill's Roman Society in the Last
Century of the Western Empire, bk. i. chs. i. and iv.
[906] This idea is exactly expressed by Horace in Odes
iii. 23, perhaps addressed to the vilica of his own
farm. Cp. Cato, R.R. 143, where the vilica is to
pray to the Lar familiaris pro copia. Horace mentions
only the Kalends for this rite; Cato adds Nones and
Ides. Cp. Tibull. i. 3. 34; i. 10. 15 foll.
[907] See above, Lectures iv. and v.
[908] Greatness and Decline of Rome (E.T.), v. 93.
[909] See especially lines 45 foll. and 56 foll.
[910] C.I.L. vi. 32,323, or Dessau, Inscriptiones
selectae, vol. ii. part i. p. 284.
[911] For this reason the veiled figure in one of the
fine sculptures on the Ara Pacis frieze, which used to
be taken as Augustus Pont. Max., cannot be so identified
(see Domaszewski, Abhandlungen zur römischen Religion,
p. 90 foll.), for the date of the Ara Pacis is 13 B.C.,
the year before Lepidus died. The figure can be most
conveniently seen by English students in Mrs. Strong's
Roman Sculpture, plate xi. p. 46. It may be Agrippa
acting as Pont. Max. for Lepidus.
[912] Monumentum Ancyranum, ed. Mommsen (Lat.), iv.
17.
[913] See above, p. 129.
[914] Livy iv. 20. 7.
[915] Valerius Maximus, Epit. 3, 4.
[916] Ovid, Fasti, iv. 901 foll.
[917] See Marquardt, 326 foll.
[918] Dio Cassius, l. 4, 5.
[919] Henzen, Acta Fratrum Arvalium, p. xxv. of the
exordium.
[920] Henzen, p. 154.
[921] See above, p. 98.
[922] Henzen, pp. 24, 28.
[923] For the hymn, Henzen, p. 26; Dessau, Inscr.
select. ii. pt. i. p. 276. See also above, p. 186.
[924] Wissowa, R.K. p. 487, note 5.
[925] Henzen, 142 foll.; Dessau, p. 279; see above, p.
162.
[926] Henzen, p. 105.
[927] Ib. p. 107.
[928] Tac. Ann. iii.
[939] Zosimus, ii. 5 and 6. The oracle and the extract
from Zosimus are printed in Dr. Wickham's introduction
to the Carmen saeculare, and in Diels, Sibyllinische
Blätter, p. 131 foll.
[930] C.I.L. vi. 32,323. Ephemeris epigraphica,
viii. 255 foll., contains the text and Mommsen's
exposition. Dessau, Inscr. selectae, ii. pt. i. 282,
does not give the whole document.
[931] Wissowa, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 192 foll.;
Ferrero, vol. v. 85 foll.
[932] The word was first explained by Mommsen, Röm.
Chronologie, ed. 2, p. 172.
[933] See, e.g., Golden Bough, ed. 2, vol. ii. p. 70
foll.
[934] The religious or mystical conception of time is
the subject of an interesting discussion by Hubert et
Mauss, Mélanges d'histoire et de religion, p. 189
foll.; but the saeculum does not seem to have
attracted their attention.
[935] The actual words of Varro, from his work de gente
Populi Romani, are quoted by St. Augustine, de Civ.
Dei, xxii. 28: "Genethliaci quidam scripserunt esse in
renascendis hominibus quam appellant [Greek:
palingenesian] Graeci; hac scripserunt confici in annis
numero quadringentis quadraginta, ut idem corpus et
eadem anima, quae fuerint coniuncta in homine aliquando,
eadem rursus redeant in coniunctionem." The passage well
illustrates the mystical tendency of which I was
speaking in the last lecture.
[936] For attempts to explain the difficulty see
Wissowa, op. cit. p. 204.
[937] The cakes offered to Eilithyia, and again to
Apollo, are nine in number; see the inscription lines
117 and 143. The choirs of boys and girls were each
twenty-seven.
[938] The suffimenta are described by Zosimus, l.c.
There is a coin of Domitian, who also celebrated Ludi
saeculares, in which he appears seated and distributing
the suffimenta, as the inscription shows.
[939] So Zosimus, who says they consisted of wheat,
barley, and beans.
[940] R.F. p. 148 foll.
[941] See the inscription, line 92 foll. Ferrero assumes
that these words were to be taken as representing the
families of all worshippers present, who would repeat
the words "mihi domo familiae." But this is arbitrary;
the prayer follows the old form as we have it, e.g.,
in Cato, R.R. (see above, p. 182), and as Cato or any
landowner would represent the rest of the human beings
on the estate, so did Augustus represent the whole
community.
[942] So J. B. Carter, Religion of Numa, p. 160.
[943] The matrons, equal in number to the years of the
saeculum, first appear on 2nd June in the worship of
Juno.
[944] Mon. Ancyr. (Lat.), iv. 21.
[945] Zosimus, l.c., says that "hymns" were sung in
Greek as well as Latin; but this is not borne out by any
other authority.
[946] Line 31 (et Iovis aurae), where Jupiter simply
stands for the heaven and its influence on the earth;
and line 73 (haec Iovem sentire, etc.), where he is
introduced in the most general way as head of all
deities.
[947] Line 147 of the inscription: "Sacrificioque
perfecto puer[i X] XVII quibus denuntiatum erat patrimi
et matrimi et puellae totidem carmen cecinerunt:
eodemque modo in Capitolio. Carmen composuit Q.
Horatius Flaccus."
[948] Eph. epigr. viii. 256. Wissowa, Gesamm.
Abhandl. p. 206, note, who refers to Vahlen and Christ
as differing from Mommsen, in papers which I have not
seen. Wissowa says that the threefold division of the
hymn "springt in die Augen"; but this has never been my
experience.
[949] Apart from the awkwardness for singers of the
descent from the Palatine and the steep ascent to the
Capitol, we may remember that they would have to pass
under the fornix Fabianus, which was not much more than
nine feet broad (Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations, p.
217).
[950] See Hülsen-Jordan, Topographie, iii. 72 and
note. See also map at the end of the volume, No. 1 of
the series. There is, however, some doubt as to whether
the site was not on the side of the Palatine looking
towards the Tiber over the Circus maximus. See my paper
in the Classical Quarterly, 1910, p. 145 foll. If so,
my explanation of the performance of the hymn seems
rather to be confirmed than weakened.
[951] Ovid, Tristia, iii. 1. 59 foll.
[952] Propertius, iii. 28 (31): "In quo Solis erat supra
fastigia currus." No one seems to have noticed the
connection between this and Horace's allusion to Sol,
which is otherwise not easy to explain.
[953] I will not enter on the insoluble question as to
what stanzas or parts of stanzas were sung by the boys
and girls respectively. That the hymn was so sung in
double chorus is intrinsically probable, and stated in
the oracle, lines 20, 21. Some of the schemes which have
been propounded are given in Wickham's Horace. I
imagine that the stanzas may have been sung alternately
except in the case of the first two and the last, but
the ninth looks as though it might have been divided
between the two choirs. Ferrero has a scheme of his
own, p. 91 foll.; and if he had taken a little more
pains might have worked out the whole problem
satisfactorily.
[954] Of these quasi-deities Fides is the oldest, and
was associated with Jupiter on the Capitol; Wissowa,
R.K. 103 foll. Thus we may find a callida iunctura
between the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
stanzas, for Fides and Pax would fit in well with the
responsa petunt of the fourteenth. Whether Pax was
recognised as a deity at this time is not quite certain;
but a few years later, in 9 B.C., an altar of Pax
Augusta was dedicated. The Ara Pacis was begun in 13
B.C. See Axtell, Deification of Abstract Ideas
(Chicago, 1907), p. 37, who may also be consulted for
the other deities here mentioned. See also above, p.
285. In Tibull. i. 10. 45 foll., Pax seems to be on the
verge of deification, but not to have attained it except
in the poet's fancy.
[955] The route may be followed in the map of the Via
Sacra in Lanciani's Ruins and Excavations, and in his
chapter entitled, "A Walk through the Sacra Via," or
more shortly in my Social Life in the Age of Cicero,
p. 18 foll.
Note.--The whole question of the singing of
the Carmen saeculare in its relation to the two
principal sites and to the topography of the festival
generally, is fully discussed by the author in
Classical Review for 1910, p. 145 foll.