[23] Renel, Les Enseignes, p. 43 foll. For the
contrary view, Deubner in Archiv, 1910, p. 490.
[24] On taboo in general, Jevons, Introduction to the
History of Religion, ch. vi.; Robertson Smith,
Religion of the Semites, p. 142 foll.; Frazer, Golden
Bough (ed. 2), i. 343; Crawley, The Mystic Rose,
passim. On the relation of taboo to magic, Marett,
Threshold of Religion, p. 85 foll. Lately M. van
Gennep in his Rites de passage has attempted to
classify and explain the various rites resulting from
taboo.
[25] See the Transactions of the Congress (Oxford
University Press), vol. i. p. 121 foll. M. Reinach had
alleged that the gens Fabia was originally a totem clan,
Mythes et cultes, i. p. 47.
[26] Marett, On the Threshold of Religion, p. 137
foll. "In taboo the mystic thing is not to be lightly
approached (negative aspect); qua mana, it is instinct
with mystic power (positive aspect)": so Mr. Marett
states the distinction in a private letter.
[27] Evolution of Religion, p. 94.
[28] Introduction, ch. viii.; Westermarck, Origin and
Development of Ethical Ideas, i. 233 foll.
[29] See a paper by the author in the Transactions of
the Congress of the History of Religions, 1908, ii. 169
foll.
[30] Macrobius, Sat. i. 16. 36; De Marchi, La
Religione nella vita domestica, i. p. 169 foll.;
Samter, Familienfeste der Griechen und Römer, p. 62
foll., where the dies lustricus is compared with the
Greek [Greek: amphidromia]. Unfortunately the details of
the Roman rite are unknown to us, which seems to
indicate that the primitive or magical character of it
had disappeared. Van Gennep, op. cit. ch. v., reviews
and classifies our present knowledge of this kind of
rite. See also Crawley, Mystic Rose, p. 435 foll.
[31] Crawley, op. cit. p. 436; Frazer, G.B. i. 403
foll. From this point of view Roman names need a closer
examination than they have yet received. See, however,
Marquardt, Privatleben der Römer, pp. 10 and 81, and
Mommsen, Röm. Forschungen, i. 1 foll. Marquardt must
be wrong in stating (p. 10) that only the praenomen
was given on the dies lustricus; children dying before
that day usually, as he says on p. 82 note, have no name
in inscriptions, and that ceremony must surely have
introduced the child to the gens of its parents.
Certainly that introduction had not to wait till the
toga virilis was taken; though Tertull. de Idol. 16
looks at first a little like it. The same statement is
made in the Dict. of Antiq., s.v. "nomen." Macr.
Sat. i. 16. 36, and Fest. 120, simply speak of
nomen.
[32] Fowler, R.F. p. 56; De Marchi, op. cit. p. 176.
For the primitive ideas about puberty, Crawley, Mystic
Rose, ch. xiii. The idea of the Romans seems to have
been simply that the child, who had so far needed
special protection from evil influences (of what kind in
particular it is impossible to say) by purple-striped
toga and amulet (see below, p. 60), was now entering a
stage when these were no longer needed. All notions of
taboo seem to have vanished.
[33] Marquardt, Privataltertümer, p. 337 foll.
[34] Serv. Aen. ii. 714, and especially iii. 64. Other
references in Marq. op. cit. p. 338, note 5, and De
Marchi, La Religione nella vita domestica, p. 190.
For similar usages of prohibition see van Gennep, op.
cit. ch. ii.
[35] Festus, p. 3, "itaque funus prosecuti redeuntes
ignem supragradiebantur aqua aspersi, quod purgationis
genus vocabant suffitionem." For the possibly magic
influence of these elements, see Jevons, op. cit. p.
70.
[36] Frazer, G.B. i. 325, iii. 222 foll.; Jevons, p.
59.
[37] Cato, R.R. 83, "mulier ad eam rem divinam ne
adsit neve videat quomodo fiat."
[38] Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 60. Dogs were also
excluded (ib. 90); Gellius xi. 6. 2; Wissowa, R.K.
p. 227; Fowler, R.F. p. 194, where the private and
public taboos are compared.
[39] Festus, s.v. "exesto." For similar taboos in
Greece, Farnell in Archiv for 1904, p. 76.
[40] Fowler, Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero,
p. 143 foll. Cp. Westermarck, Origin, etc., vol. i.
ch. xxvi., especially p. 652 foll.
[41] G.B. i. 298 foll.
[42] Festus, s.v. "exesto."
[43] Bücheler, Umbrica, p. 94 foll. Cp. Livy v. 50,
where it is said that, after the Gauls had left Rome,
all the temples, quod ea hostis possedisset, were to
be restored, to have their bounds laid down afresh
(terminarentur) and to be disinfected (expiarentur).
Digest, xi. 7. 36, "cum loca capta sunt ab hostibus,
omnia desinunt religiosa vel sacra esse, sicut homines
liberi in servitutem perveniunt; quod si ab hac
calamitate fuerint liberata, quasi quodam postliminio
reversa pristino statui restituerentur." Cp. Plutarch,
Aristides, 20. A friend reminds me that Bishop
Berkeley, when in Italy, had his bedroom sprinkled with
holy water by his landlady.
[44] See Marquardt, p. 420, notes 5 and 6. The
verbenarius is mentioned in Serv. Aen. xii. 120, and
Pliny N.H. xxii. 5. For the disinfecting power of
verbena (myrtea verbena) see Pliny xv. 119, where it
is said to have been used by Romans and Sabines after
the rape of the Sabine virgins.
[45] See Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 192 foll., based
on the famous essay of Mommsen in his Römische
Forschungen, i. 319 foll. The passages quoted from Livy
for the practice in early times (i. 45, v. 50) are not,
of course, historical evidence; but we may fairly argue
back from the more explicit evidence of later times,
e.g. the Senatusconsultum de Asclepiade of 78 B.C.
(C.I. Graec. 5879).
There is a good example of the feeling in modern Italy
in a book called In the Abruzzi, by Anne Macdonell, p.
275. I have experienced it in remote parts of South
Wales long ago. Moritz, the German pastor who travelled
on foot in England towards the end of the eighteenth
century, noted that even the innkeepers were constantly
unwilling to take him in. His book was reprinted in
Cassell's National Library some years ago.
[46] See the very interesting chapter in The Origin
and Development of Moral Ideas, vol. i. p. 570 foll.,
especially p. 590 foll. Dr. Westermarck aptly points out
that hospitality is almost universal among "rude"
peoples, and loses its hold as they become more
civilised. M. van Gennep in his recently published work,
Les Rites de Passage, has attempted to classify the
various rites relating to taboo of strangers; see ch.
iii., especially p. 38 foll.
[47] Jevons, Introduction, p. 70.
[48] Gellius x. 15. 8, "vinctum, si aedes eius
introierit, solui necessum est." (In hot countries
chains still usually, or in some degree, take the place
of bolts and bars, e.g. in the Soudan, as I am told by
an old pupil now in the Soudan civil service.) The
regular Latin phrase for imprisonment is "in vincula
conicere": Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. "carcer."
[49] Gellius, l.c.; Serv. Aen. ii. 57, a curious
passage, in which the release of Sinon from his bonds by
King Priam is compared with that of the prisoner who
enters the flaminia (house of the Flamen Dialis). That
there was something in the iron which interfered with
the religious efficacy of the Flamen seems likely; cp.
the rule that he might wear no ring unless it were
broken, and have no knot about his dress. But the latter
restriction suggests that binding may have been
originally the object of the taboo (cp. Ovid, Fasti,
v. 432), and that the iron taboo came in with the iron
age. Appel, de Romanorum precationibus, p. 82, note 2,
seems so to understand it. Cp. Eurip. Iph. Taur. 468,
where Orestes and Pylades are unbound before entering
the temple.
[50] There has been much discussion of this question; I
entirely agree with Wissowa (R.K. p. 354, where
references are given for the opposite opinion) that
there is no evidence for human sacrifice in the old
Roman religion or law, except in the rule that a
condemned criminal was made over to a deity (sacer),
which may have been a legal survival of an original form
of actual sacrifice. The alleged sacrifice by Julius
Caesar of two mutinous soldiers in the Campus Martius
(Dio Cass. xliii. 24) is of the same nature as the
sacrifice of captives to Orcus in Aen. xi. 81, i.e.
it is outside of the civil life and religious law; this
is shown in the latter case by the mention of blood in
the ritual (caeso sparsurus sanguine flammas), and in
the former by the beheading of the mutineers.
[51] Mommsen, Strafrecht, p. 917 foll.; Livy x. 9;
Cic. de Rep. ii. 31. 65. All other methods of
execution were bloodless. Decollatio remained in use
in the army (as in the case just mentioned), but the axe
disappeared from the fasces in the city with the
abolition of kingship. As further illustration of the
dislike of all bloodshed, cp. the rule of XII. Tables,
"mulieres genas ne radunto," i.e. at funerals, Cic.
de Legibus, ii. 59, and Serv. Aen. iii. 67 from
Varro, and v. 78. The gladiatorial ludi may have been
a revival of an old custom akin to human sacrifice of
captives in the field. See Social Life at Rome in the
Age of Cicero, p. 304, note 3.
We may also note in this connection that there is no
distinct trace of the blood-feud in old Roman law; see
Zum ältesten Strafrecht der Kulturvölker, p. 38
(questions of comparative law suggested by Mommsen and
answered by various specialists). Doubtless it once
existed, but vanished at an early date.
[52] Fowler, R.F. p. 242. The tail of the sacrificed
horse was carried to the Regia, where the blood was
allowed to drip on the sacred hearth (participandae rei
divinae gratia), Festus, p. 178.
[53] R.F. p. 311 foll., from Plutarch, Rom. 21.
[54] For this practice in many ancient religions, and
its substitute, the smearing of the stone with turmeric
or other red stain, see Jevons, Introduction, p. 139
foll.; Robertson Smith, Semites, p. 415.
[55] This is found in Zosimus ii. 1. 5; Diels,
Sibyllinische Blätter, 132, and 73 note. Cp. Virg.
Aen. viii. 106; also a Greek rite.
[56] G.B. ed. 2, i. 241 foll.
[57] The bronze and iron ages, of course, overlap; see
Helbig, Italiker in der Poebene, p. 78 foll.
[58] Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. pp. 22 and 128 foll.
Other examples are collected by Helbig, op. cit. p.
80.
[59] Dion. Hal. iii. 45; Mommsen in C.I.L. i. p. 177.
It may be as well to point out that iron, like wheat in
the taboos of the Flamen, was considered dangerous, as
being a novelty. The old Italian grain was not true
wheat but far, which continued to be used in religious
rites; R.F. p. 304, and Marquardt, Privatleben der
Römer, p. 399 foll.
[60] Varro, L.L. vii. 84; Ovid, Fasti, i. 629;
Petronius, Sat. 44. There are many parallels in Greek
ritual.
[61] See below, p. 146. Mr. Marett suggests to me a
comparison with the rongo (sacred) of the Melanesians,
and tapu as used of a place by them, i.e. set apart
by a human authority; Codrington, Melanesians, p. 77.
[62] Wissowa, R.K. p. 408 foll.; cp. 323 and notes.
[63] The fullest account of this will be found in
Marquardt, p. 262 foll. For the case of a man killed by
lightning, see note 4 on p. 263; the body was not burnt
but buried, and the grave became a bidental, and
religiosum.
[64] For the intricate pontifical law of burial-places
see Wissowa, p. 409. The quotation from Masurius is in
Gellius iv. 9. 8, "M. Sabinus in commentariis quos de
indigenis composuit." The word sanctitas is here used
merely by way of explanation and not in a technical
sense; for which see Marq. p. 145 and references; but it
seems to have had a special use in the cult of the dead.
(See below, p. 470.)
[65] Quoted by Macrobius, Sat. iii. 3. 8. For
Sulpicius see Social Life at Rome in the Age of
Cicero, p. 118 foll.
[66] Festus, p. 278. This Aelius lived at the end of the
Republican period, and belonged to the school of
Sulpicius; Schanz, Gesch. der röm. Lit. i. pt. 2, p.
486.
[67] e.g. the three days on which the mundus was
open were all comitiales, though at the same time
religiosi.
[68] R.K. pp. 376, 377.
[69] The authorities for the story are Verrius Flaccus,
ap. Gell. v. 17, and Macrobius, Sat. i. 16. 21.
[70] For the extent of the taboo see Gell. iv. 9. 5;
Macr. i. 16. 18.
[71] Gell. v. 17. 3 foll. (annalium quinto).
[72] Festus, p. 278.
[73] R.F. p. 151.
[74] Wissowa, R.K. p. 377, note 6.
[75] Cic. ad Qu. Fratr. ii. 4. 2.
[76] Wissowa, R.K. pp. 187, 189.
[77] R.K. p. 377. Gell. iv. 9. 5 says that the
multitudo imperitorum confused the dies religiosi
and dies nefasti. The distinction is most clearly seen
in the fact that on dies religiosi the temples were
(or ought to be) shut, and "res divinas facere" was
ill-omened (Gell., ib.), while on dies nefasti the
latter was regular, such days being made over to the
gods. No wonder that Gellius brands the popular
ignorance with such words as prave and perperam.
[78] See Prof. Rhys's paper read before the British
Academy, "Notes on the Coligny Calendar," p. 33 and
elsewhere.
[79] Introduction, p. 65 foll.
[80] Since writing this sentence I have read the paper
by W. Otto on "Religio and Superstitio" in Archiv für
Religionswissenschaft, 1909, p. 533 foll.; in which at
p. 544 he hints at a connection of religio with the
practice of taboo. With some of his conclusions,
however, I cannot agree. The same explanation of the
origin of religio, i.e. in an age of taboo, has also
been suggested since my lecture was written by
Maximilianus Kobbert, De verborum "religio atque
religiosus" usu apud Romanos, p. 31 (Königsberg,
1910).