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NOTES TO LECTURE IV

[131] Frazer, Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, lect. viii. Dr. Frazer finds traces of Mutterrecht only in the succession to the kingship of Alba and Rome, of which the evidence is of course purely legendary. If the legends represent fact in any sense, they point, if I understand him rightly, to a kingship held by a non-Latin race, or, as he calls it, plebeian. Binder, Die Plebs, p. 403 foll., believes that the original Latin population, i.e. the plebs of later times, lived under Mutterrecht.

[132] Aust, Religion der Römer, p. 212.

[133] In historical times the household deities were often represented by images of Greek type: e.g. the Penates by those of the Dioscuri. Wissowa, Rel. und Kult. p. 147, and Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 95 foll., and 289. See also De Marchi, La Religione nella vita privata, i. p. 41 foll. and p. 90 foll.

[134] De Marchi, op. cit. i. 13 foll. In the ordinary and regular religion of the family the State, i.e. the pontifices, did not interfere; but they might do so in matters such as the succession of sacra, the care of graves, or the fulfilment of vows undertaken by private persons. See Cicero, de Legibus, ii. 19. 47.

[135] Mucius Scaevola, the great lawyer, defined gentiles as those "qui eodem nomine sunt, qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt, quorum maiorum nemo servitutem servivit, qui capite non sunt deminuti," Cic. Topica, vi. 29. This is the practical view of a lawyer of the last century B.C., and does not take account of the sacra gentilicia, which had by that time decayed or passed into the care of sodalitates: Marquardt, p. 132 foll.; De Marchi, ii. p. 3 foll. The notion of descent from a common ancestor is of course ideal, but none the less a factor in the life of the gens; it crops up, e.g., in Virgil, Aen. v. 117, 121, and Servius ad loc.

[136] Crawley, The Tree of Life, p. 47.

[137] For the alleged extinction of the gens Potitia, and the legend connected with it, Livy i. 7, Festus 237.

[138] See Marquardt, Privataltertümer, p. 56, and note 6.

[139] There is, I believe, no doubt that the etymological affinities of the word familia point to the idea of settlement and not that of kin; e.g. Oscan Faama, a house, and Sanscrit dhâ, to settle.

[140] The exact meaning and origin of the word has been much discussed. It is tempting to connect it with pax, paciscor, and make it a territory within whose bounds there is pax; see Rudorff, Gromatici veteres, ii. 239, and Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, ii. 8 foll.

[141] See Rudorff, Grom. vet. ii. 236 foll.; Mommsen, Staatsrecht, iii. 116 foll.; Kornemann in Klio, vol. v. (1905) p. 80 foll.; Greenidge, Roman Public Life, p. 1 foll.

[142] Mommsen, Staatsrecht, iii. 22 foll.; Kornemann, l.c.; Roby in Dict. of Antiquities, s.v. "Agrimetatio," p. 85. The view that there was freehold garden land attached to the homestead gains strength from a statement of Pliny (N.H. xix. 50) that the word used in the XII. Tables for villa, which was the word in classical times for the homestead, was hortus, a garden, and that this was heredium, private property. See Mommsen, Staatsrecht, iii. 23. It would indeed be strange if the house had no land immediately attached to it; we know that in the Anglo-Saxon village community the villani, bordarii and cotagii, had their garden croft attached to their dwellings, apart from such strips as they might hold from the lord of the manor in the open fields. See Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, p. 148. For the centuriatus ager, Roby l.c. We have no direct knowledge of the system in the earliest times, but it is almost certain that it was old-Italian in outline, and not introduced by the Etruscans, as stated, e.g., by Deecke-Müller, Etrusker, ii. 128.

[143] For Latium this is proved by the sepulchral hut-urns found at Alba and also on the Esquiline. One of these in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford shows the construction well. See article "Domus" in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie; Helbig, Die Italiker in der Poebene, p. 50 foll. Later there was an opening in the roof.

[144] Von Duhn in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1896, p. 125 foll., and article "Domus" in Pauly-Wissowa.

[145] This is Aust's admirable expression, Religion der Römer, p. 214.

[146] See the author's Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero, p. 242.

[147] Serv. Aen. i. 270; Marquardt, p. 126.

[148] Ap. Gellium, iv. 1. 17. For the sacredness of food and meals, see below (Lect. VIII. p. 172).

[149] See a paper by the author in Classical Rev. vol. x. (1896) p. 317, and references there given. Cp. the passage of Servius quoted above (Aen. i. 730), where a boy is described as announcing at the daily meal that the gods were propitious. For the purity necessary I may refer to Hor. Odes, iii. 23 ad fin., "Immunis aram si tetigit manus," etc.

[150] Primitive Culture, i. 393.

[151] The feminine counterpart of Genius was Juno, of which more will be said later on. Each woman had her Juno; but this "other-soul" has little importance as compared with Genius.

[152] See J. B. Carter in Hastings' Dict. of Religion and Ethics, i. 462 foll. For Genius in general, Birt in Myth. Lex. s.v.; Wissowa, R.K. p. 154 foll.; Stewart, Myths of Plato, p. 450, for the connexion of souls with ancestry.

[153] See the fifth of Plutarch's Quaestiones Romanae, and Dr. Jevons' interesting comments in his edition of Phil. Holland's translation, pp. xxii. and xxxv. foll. Cp. the throwing the fetters of a criminal out by the roof of the Flamen's house.

[154] Civ. Dei, vi. 9. These are deities of the Indigitamenta; see below, p. 84.

[155] De Marchi, La Religione, etc. i. 188 foll.; Marquardt, Privatleben der Römer, p. 336, "la porte est la limite entre le monde étranger et le monde domestique" (A. van Gennep, Rites de passage, p. 26, where other illustrations are given).

[156] See below, Lect. XII. p. 281.

[157] Wissowa, R.K. p. 96; Aust, Rel. der Römer, p. 117; Roscher in Myth. Lex. s.v. "Janus"; J. B. Carter, Religion of Numa, p. 13. Cp. Von Domaszewski in Archiv, 1907, p. 337.

[158] Frazer, Lectures on the Early History of Kingship, p. 286 foll.; A. B. Cook in Classical Review, 1904, p. 367 foll.

[159] Gromat. vet. i. 302, line 20 foll., describes the chapels, but without mentioning the Lares. Varro (L.L. vi. 25) supplies the name: "Compitalia dies attributus Laribus Compitalibus; ideo ubi viae competunt tum in competis sacrificatur." Cp. Wissowa, R.K. p. 148. But the nature of the land thus marked off is not clear to me, nor explained (for primitive times) by Wissowa in Real-Encycl., s.vv. "Compitum" and "Compitalia."

[160] "Enos Lases juvate." See Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. p. 26 foll.

[161] Cato, R.R. 5. Cp. Dion. Hal. iv. 13. 2. In Cato 143 the vilica is to put a wreath on the focus on Kalends, Nones and Ides, and to pray to the Lar familiaris pro copia (at the compita?).

[162] Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 172.

[163] The controversy about the Lar may be read in the Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, 1904, p. 42 foll. (Wissowa), and 1907, p. 368 foll. (Samter in reply). De Marchi (La Religione, etc. i. 28 foll.) takes the same view as Samter, who originally stated it in his Familienfesten, p. 105 foll., in criticism of Wissowa's view. See also a note by the author in the Archiv, 1906, p. 529.

[164] Wissowa, R.K. p. 148; the details as to the altar occur in Gromatici vet. i. 302. It was on this occasion that maniae and pilae were hung on the house and compitum ("pro foribus," Macr. i. 7. 35); see above, p. 61. For the religio Larium, Cic. de Legg., ii. 19 and 27. That the Compitalia was an old Latin festival is undoubted; but as we are uncertain about the exact nature of the earliest form of landholding, we cannot be sure about the nature of the compita in remote antiquity. The passage from the Gromatici (Dolabella), quoted above, refers to the fines templares of possessiones, i.e. the boundaries marked by these chapels in estates of later times. See Rudorff in vol. ii. p. 263; Wissowa in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. "Compitum."

[165] Varro, L.L. vi. 26. I have discussed this passage in R.F. p. 294; it is still not clear to me whether Varro is identifying his Paganicae with the Sementivae, but on the whole I think he uses the latter word of a city rite (dies a pontificibus dictus), and the former of the country festivals of the same kind.

[166] Fasti, i. 663.

[167] Cl. Rev., 1908, p. 36 foll.

[168] Georg. i. 338 foll.

[169] See my discussion of Faunus in R.F. p. 258 foll. I am still unable to agree with Wissowa in his view of Faunus (R.K. p. 172 foll.). I may here mention a passage of the gromatic writer Dolabella (Gromatici, i. 302), in which he says that there were three Silvani to each possessio or large estate of later times: "S. domesticus, possessioni consecratus: alter agrestis, pastoribus consecratus: tertius orientalis, cui est in confinio lucus positus, a quo inter duo pluresque fines oriuntur." Faunus never became domesticated, but he belongs to the same type as Silvanus. Von Domaszewski, in his recently published Abhandlungen zur röm. Religion, p. 61, discredits the passage about the three Silvani, following a paper of Mommsen. But his whole interesting discussion of Silvanus shows well how many different forms that curious semi-deity could take.

[170] Odes, iii. 18.

[171] Cic. de Inventione, ii. 161.

[172] pp. 236-284.

[173] R.F. 325, condensed from Siculus Flaccus (Gromatici, i. 141).

[174] Fasti, ii. 641 foll.

[175] See, e.g., Jevons, Introduction, etc., p. 138; Robertson Smith, Semites, p. 321.

[176] See, e.g., Tibullus ii. 1. 55; Virg. Ecl. vi. 22, x. 27, and Servius on both these passages. Pliny, N.H. xxxiii. 111; and cp. below, p. 177. For primitive ideas about the colour red see Jevons, Introd. pp. 67 and 138; Samter, Familienfeste, p. 47 foll. Cp. also the very interesting paper of von Duhn in Archiv, 1906, p. 1 foll., esp. p. 20: "Es soll eben wirklich pulsierendes kraftvolles Leben zum Ausdruck gebracht werden." His conclusions are based on the widespread custom of using red in funerals, coffins, and for colouring the dead man himself: the idea being to give him a chance of new life--which is what he wants--red standing for blood.

[177] I am not sure that I am right in calling this whitethorn. For the qualities of the Spina alba see Ovid, Fasti, vi. 129 and 165, "Sic fatus spinam, quae tristes pellere posset A foribus nexas, haec erat alba, dedit." In line 165 he calls it Virga Janalis. See also Festus, p. 289, and Serv. ad Ecl. viii. 29; Bücheler, Umbrica, p. 136.

[178] The details are fully set forth in Marquardt, Röm. Privataltertümer, p. 52 foll. The religious character of confarreatio and its antiquity are fully recognised by Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 427. Some interesting parallels to the smearing of the doorposts from modern Europe will be found collected in Samter, Familienfeste, p. 81 foll. The authority for the wolf's fat was Masurius Sabinus, quoted by Pliny, N.H. xxviii. 142 (cp. 157), who adds from the same author, "ideo novas nuptas illo perungere postes solitas, ne quid mali medicamenti inferretur." The real reason was, no doubt, that it was a charm against evil spirits, not against poison; but it is worth while to quote here another passage of Pliny (xx. 101), where he says that a squill hung in limine ianuae had the same power, according to Pythagoras. Some may see a reminiscence of totemism in the wolf's fat: in any case the mention of the animal as obtainable is interesting.

[179] Dieterich, Mutter Erde, p. 6 foll. The idea is that the child comes from mother earth, and will eventually return to her.

[180] For Roman names Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 7 foll., and Mommsen, Forschungen, i. I foll., are still the most complete authorities. For the importance of the name among wild and semi-civilised peoples, Frazer, G.B. i. 403 foll.; Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 430 foll. All these ceremonies of birth, naming, and initiation (puberty) have recently been included by M. van Gennep in what he calls Rites de passage (see his book with that title, which appeared after these lectures were prepared, especially chapters v. and vi.). In all these ceremonies he traces more or less successfully a sequence of rites of separation (i.e. from a previous condition), of margin, where the ground is, so to speak, neutral, and of "aggregation," when the subject is introduced to a new state or condition of existence. If I understand him rightly, he looks on this as the proper and primitive explanation of all such rites, and denies that they need to be accounted for animistically, i.e. by assuming that riddance of evil spirits, or purification of any kind, is the leading idea in them. They are, in fact, quasi-dramatic celebrations of a process of going over from one status to another, and may be found in connection with all the experiences of man in a social state. But the Roman society, of which I am describing the religious aspect, had beyond doubt reached the animistic stage of thought, and was in process of developing it into the theological stage; hence these ceremonies are marked by sacrifices, as marriage, the dies lustricus (see De Marchi, p. 169, and Tertull. de Idol. 16) most probably, and puberty (R.F. p. 56). I do not fully understand how far van Gennep considers sacrifice as marking a later stage in the development of the ideas of a society on these matters (see his note in criticism of Oldenburg, p. 78); but I see no good reason to abandon the words purification and lustration, believing that even if he is right in his explanation of the original performances, these ideas had been in course of time engrafted on them.

[181] In historical times the toga pura was assumed when the parents thought fit; earlier there may have been a fixed day (R.F. p. 56, "Liberalia"). In any case there was, of course, no necessary correspondence between "social and physical puberty"; van Gennep, p. 93 foll.

[182] Wissowa, R.K. p. 191; J. B. Carter in Hastings' Dict. of Religion and Ethics, i. 462 foll.; Dieterich, Mutter Erde, p. 77. The whole question of the so-called cult of the dead at Rome calls for fresh investigation in the light of ethnological and archaeological research. The recent work of Mr. J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion, seems to throw grave doubt on some of the most important conclusions of Rohde's Psyche, the work which most writers on the ideas of the Greeks and Romans have been content to follow. Mr. Lawson seems to me to have proved that the object of both burial and cremation (which in both peninsulas are found together) was to secure dissolution for the substance of the body, so that the soul might not be able to inhabit the body again, and the two together return to annoy the living (see especially chapters v. and vi.). But his answer to the inevitable question, why in that case sustenance should be offered to the dead at the grave, is less satisfactory (see pp. 531, 538), and I do not at present see how to co-ordinate it with Roman usage. But I find hardly a trace of the belief that the dead had to be placated like the gods by sacrifice and prayer, except in Aen. iii. 63 foll. and v. 73 foll. In the first of these passages Polydorus had not been properly buried, as Servius observes ad loc. to explain the nature of the offerings; the second presents far more difficulties than have as yet been fairly faced.

[183] For recent researches about beans as tabooed by the Pythagoreans and believed to be the food of ghosts, see Gruppe, Mythologische Literatur, p. 370 (Samter and Wünsch). Cp. R.F., p. 110.

[184] Ov. Fasti, v. 421 foll.; R.F. p. 107.





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