The Religious Experience of the Roman People From the...

229R.F. p. 71; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 631 foll. This was a festival of the populus as a whole, and also of each Curia, like the Fornicalia in February. Both were clearly agricultural in origin, though the Curia as we know it was probably an institution of the city. I must own that I am quite uncertain as to what the thing was which was originally meant by the word Curia; my friend Dr. J. B. Carter may have something to say on the subject in his book on the Roman religion in the Jastrow series.

230 Dieterich, Mutter Erde, pp. 11 and 73 foll.

231 Virg. Aen. iv. 166, "prima et Tellus et pronuba Iuno Dant signum"; commenting on which Servius wrote, "quidam sane etiam Tellurem praeesse nuptiis tradunt; nam et in auspiciis nuptiarum invocatur: cui etiam virgines, vel cum ire ad domum mariti coeperint, vel iam ibi positae, diversis nominibus vel ritu sacrificant." There is little doubt that Tellus is frequently concealed under the names of Ceres, Dea Dia, etc. For Ceres and Juno in marriage rites, see Marquardt, Privatleben, p. 49.

232 See below, p. 206 foll.; Macrob. iii. 9. 11; Deubner in Archiv, 1905, p. 66 foll.

233 See De Marchi, La Religione, etc., i. p. 188 and reff. (The reference to Gellius should be iv. 6. 7, not iv. 67.) Like some other operations of the Roman religion, this became a form, and was used as a kind of insurance, whether or no there had been any omission; Wissowa, R.K. p. 160.

234 That Ceres represented the fructus is shown by the fact that in the XII. Tables the man who raided a field of standing corn at night was made sacer to her; Pliny, N.H. xviii. 12.

235 Cato, R.R. 134. De Marchi, op. cit. p. 135. Janus, Jupiter, and Juno are concerned in this rite, Ceres coming last. Varro has preserved the part of Tellus for us: "quod humatus non sit, heredi porca praecidanea suscipienda Telluri et Cereri, aliter familia non pura est" (ap. Nonium, p. 163).

236 The verses are quoted by Dieterich, Mutter Erde, p. 75, among others from Buecheler's Anthology of Roman Epitaphs, Nos. 1544 and 1476. The story is told in Suetonius' Life of Tib. c. 75, and again of Gallienus by Aurelius Victor (Caes. c. 33).

237 Marquardt, p. 326, who notes that the Romans themselves derived the word from filum, a fillet; e.g. Varro, L.L. v. 84, "quod in Latio capite velato erant semper, ac caput cinctum habebant filo." Modern etymologists equate the word with Brahman.

238 Thus the Flamen Quirinalis sacrificed at the Robigalia, R.F. p. 89, and with the Pontifices and Vestals took part in the Consualia, Marq. 335.

239 We may note here that the most general Latin name for a priest was sacerdos, which seems to have excluded all magic, etc.; it means an office sanctioned by the State. On the general question of the origin of priesthood see Jevons, Introduction, etc., ch. xx., with whose explanations, however, I cannot entirely agree. I should prefer to keep the word priest for an official who sacrifices and prays to his god. In this view I am at one with E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, i.2 p. 121 foll. God and priest go together as permanent, regular in function, and entrusted by a community with certain duties.

240 Marquardt, p. 180; Wissowa, R.K. p. 427. The popa or victimarius is seen in many artistic representations of sacrifice, e.g. Schreiber, Atlas of Classical Antiquities, plate xvii. figs. 1 and 3.

241 Jevons, ch. xx.; Frazer, G.B. i. 245 foll., and Lectures on Early History of Kingship, Lectures ii. and v.

242 Virg. Aen. viii. 352.

243 In a valuable paper in his Gesammelte Abhandlungen (p. 284) Wissowa says that "personal conception of deity is absolutely strange to the old Roman religion of the di indigetes." I believe this to be essentially true; but my point is that localisation and ritual prepared the way for the reception of Greek ideas of personality. The process had already begun in the religion of the house; but it was not likely there to come in contact with foreign germs. When Janus and Vesta, who were in every house (Wissowa, p. 285), were localised in certain points in a city, they would be far more likely to acquire personality, if such an idea came in their way, than in the worship of the family.

244 Aug. Civ. Dei, vii. 28, "quem alii caelum, alii dixerunt esse mundum." Dr. Frazer, citing this passage (Kingship, p. 286) in support of his view that Janus was a duplicate of Jupiter, has omitted to notice that some theorisers fancied he was the universe, which by itself is enough to betray the delusive nature of this kind of theological speculation. Varro elsewhere gives us a clue to the liability of Janus to be exalted in this unnatural fashion, L.L. vii. 27, "divum deo" (in the Salian hymn), if this be taken as referring to Janus, as it may be, comparing Macrob. i. 9. 14. But this is easily explained by the position of Janus in prayers; cp. Cic. Nat. Deor. ii. 27. 67, "cum in omnibus rebus vim haberent maximam prima et extrema, principem in sacrificando Ianum esse voluerunt." The phrase "Deorum" or "Divum deus" is indeed remarkable, and unparalleled in Roman worship; but no one acquainted with Roman or Italian ritual will for a moment suspect it of meaning "God of gods" in either a Christian or metaphysical sense. I shall have occasion to notice the peculiar use of the genitive case and of genitival adjectives in worship later on. See below, p. 153 foll.

245Fasti, i. 89 foll.; R.F. p. 281 foll.

246 Frazer, l.c. (a page of which every line appears to me to be written under a complete misapprehension of the right methods of research into the nature of Roman gods); A. B. Cook, Classical Review, vol. xviii. 367 foll.; Professor Ridgeway, Who were the Romans? p. 12, where, among other remarkable statements, Janus is confidently said to have been introduced at Rome by the Sabine Numa, and therefore to have been a Sabine deity, an assumption quite irreconcilable with those of Dr. Frazer and Mr. Cook. In striking contrast with such speculations is a sensible paper on Janus in M. Toutain's Études de mythologie et d'histoire, p. 195 foll. (Paris, 1909).

247 Dr. Frazer is aware of this; see his Kingship, p. 285, note 1. See also Roscher in Myth. Lex., s.v. "Janus," p. 45 foll.

248 For the evidence for this and the following facts, see Roscher's article just cited, or Wissowa, R.K. p. 91 foll.; cp. R.F. p. 280 foll. The cult epithets of Janus are thus explained by von Domaszewski, Abhandlungen, p. 223, note 1, "Bei Ianus tritt regelmässig der Begriff des Wesens hinzu, dessen Wirkung er von Anfang an bestimmt, so I. Consevius der Anfang der in Consus wirkenden Kraft, und in derselbe Weise I. Iunonius, Matutinus," etc. This is reasonable, but it does not suit with I. Patulcius-Clusius, and I cannot accept it with confidence at present.

249 Roscher, op. cit. p. 34.

250 Wissowa, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 284 foll.

251 Festus, p. 185.

252 It is due to the good sense and learning of Dr. Roscher; he had previously, when working on the old methods, tried to prove that Janus was a "wind-god" (Hermes der Windgott, Leipzig, 1878); but a more searching inquiry into the Roman evidence, when the prepossessions had left him which the comparative method is so likely to produce, brought him to the view I have explained in outline, which has been adopted in the main by Wissowa, Aust, and J. B. Carter, as well as by myself in R.F. The last word about so puzzling a deity can of course never be said; but if we indulge in speculations about him we must use the Roman evidence with adequate knowledge of the criticism it needs.

253 This difference between Zeus and Jupiter has been pointed out by Wissowa, R.K. p. 100; Jupiter stands for the heaven even in classical Latin literature, as we all know.

254 See his papers in the Classical Review, vol. xvii. 270 and xviii. 365 foll., and in Folklore, vol. xv. 301; xvi. 260 foll.

255Kingship, p. 196 foll.

256 Macrobius i. 15. 14. In historical times a white victim, ovis idulis, was taken to the Capitol by the via sacra in procession (Ov. Fasti, i. 56. 588). Festus says that some derived the term via sacra from this procession (p. 290); and to this Horace may be alluding in Ode iii. 30. 8, "dum Capitolium Scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex."

257R.F. pp. 86, 204.

258R.F. p. 160.

259 No doubt Jupiter was specially connected with the oak, as Mr. Cook has shown with great learning in the paper cited above, note 36; but at Rome he had an ancient shrine among beeches, and was known as I. Fagutalis: Varro, L.L. v. 152; Paulus 87. For I. Viminalis, see R.F. p. 229.

260 See Aust's article "Jupiter" in Myth. Lex. p. 673.

261 Aust gives a cut of a coin of the consul Claudius Marcellus (223 b.c.) dedicating spolia opima in this little temple, according to the ancient fashion, supposed to be initiated by Romulus, Livy i. 10.

262 Dionys. Hal. ii. 34.

263R.F. p. 230.

264 See De Marchi's careful investigation, La Religione, etc., i. p. 156 foll.; Gaius i. 112. The cult-title should indicate that the god was believed to be immanent in the cake of far, rather than that it was offered to him (so I should also take I. Dapalis, though in later times the idea had passed into that of sacrifice, Cato, R.R. 132), and if so, the use of the cake was sacramental; cp. the rite at the Latin festival, R.F. p. 96.

265 There are distinct traces of a practice of taking oaths in the open air, i.e. under the sky; of Dius Fidius, unquestionably a form of Jupiter, Varro says (L.L. v. 66), "quidam negant sub tecto per hunc deiurare oportere." Cp. Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 28; R.F. p. 138. For the conception of a single great deity as primitive, see Lang, The Making of Religion, ch. xii.; Flinders Petrie, Religion of Egypt (in Constable's shilling series), ch. i.; Ross, The Original Religion of China, p. 128 foll.; Warneck, Die Lebenskräfte des Evangeliums, p. 20 (of the Indian Archipelago). The last reference I owe to Professor Paterson, of Edinburgh University.

266 Serv. Aen. viii. 552, "more enim veteri sacrorum neque Martialis flamen neque Quirinalis omnibus caerimoniis tenebantur quibus flamen Dialis, neque diurnis sacrificiis distinebatur." It is, however, possible that under the word caerimonia Servius is not here including taboos, but active duties only.

267 See my paper, "The Strange History of a Flamen Dialis," in Classical Review, vol. vii. p. 193.

268 Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arv. p. 26.