THE ROMAN RELIGION: THE PRIESTHOODS, THE VESTAL VIRGINS
=345. Religious Symbols Everywhere in Rome.=--The circus races and
the amphitheater butcheries are nominally in honor of some god. It is
perhaps Vulcan in whose name Cluentius has hired the gladiators to
slaughter one another. Everywhere about Rome are imposing temples and
lesser shrines, and there are almost more statues of gods and demigods
than there are people in the swarming streets. The symbolic snakes
for the Lares of the locality or of the household, are painted upon
thousands of walls. All this would indicate that the Romans of the
Empire are extraordinarily religious. How far does this outward seeming
correspond to the actual facts?
=346. Epicureanism and Agnosticism among the Upper Classes.=--If
we penetrate the life of men like Publius Calvus and others of the
upper circle, apparently we are dealing with persons who are almost, if
not complete, agnostics. Some are cheerful Epicureans who formally deny
that there are any deities that concern themselves with mortal affairs,
and who for their own part look upon the world as a chance aggregation
of atoms, and upon life as one physical sensation after another with
nothing later awaiting a man but eternal slumber in the grave. Moral
“laws” merely exist to adjust human relationships, so that you can win
the maximum enjoyment from day to day.
Theories like this can be justified in sonorous, noble language,
as in the great poems of Lucretius, but the underlying philosophy
remains the same. Cluentius, the Prætor, whose library is crammed with
Epicurean writings, has, in fact, just been ordering chiseled on his
ostentatious funeral monument, “_Eat, drink, enjoy yourself--the rest
is nothing._”[219]
[Illustration: MAISON CARRÉE, NÎMES, FRANCE: the best
preserved temple of the Roman type in existence.]
=347. Stoicism: Revival of Religion under the Empire.=--Calvus
himself, a decidedly practical man not too fond of nice speculations,
takes greater pleasure in the theories of the Stoics. The stern
teaching that “duty” is the be-all and end-all of life, and that
true freedom and happiness come only by a scrupulous discharge of
every obligation, appeals strongly to many hard-headed Romans. It
fits in well with their old native religion, and they accept it
without much abstract philosophizing. But the “God” discussed by Zeno,
Cleanthes, and the later Stoics is only a hard, impersonal, resistless
force,--“Eternal Law” under another name. He is in nowise a merciful
Heavenly Father, any more than he is a youthful, beauteous, and very
human Apollo. Calvus, in short, is hardly more convinced than his
friend Cluentius, the Epicurean, that there really exists any personal
deity.[220]
However, religion as an outward institution, has been steadily gaining
under the Roman Empire. Probably never were there ever more unabashed
atheists than such personages as Sulla and Julius Cæsar in the last
decades of the Republic,--men not without pet superstitions perhaps
and a belief in their “stars,” but who were almost cynical in their
expressions of disbelief in any ruling Providence, and to whom temples
and worship were only convenient political engines for befooling the
mob.
Augustus nevertheless was probably somewhat more of a believing man
himself, and he grasped the enormous value of reinvigorating the old
cults, rebuilding the crumbling shrines, and finally of rekindling
the conviction that there existed a stabilizing and avenging host of
deities as a means for getting moral sanction and support for his new
imperial régime. Since the battle of Actium, temples have multiplied,
priesthoods have been carefully maintained, and solemn religious
ceremonies and sacrifices have been promoted by the government; in
short, a great and partially successful effort has been put forth to
galvanize into a kind of life that early “Religion of Numa,” which once
molded the ideals of the little city by the Tiber.
=348. Foreign Cults Intruded upon the “Religion of Numa.”=--Religious
beliefs and institutions at Rome, however, are only in part derived
from the cults and forms of old Italy, whether Etruscan or Latin. The
Greek mythology has been so taken over by the poets that often it is
hard to sift out the indigenous Italian stories from the great mass of
imported legends in which Jupiter and Juno manifestly are merely the
Latin names for Hellenic Zeus and Hera. Furthermore, there has come a
perfect influx of oriental gods: Egyptian Isis, Syrian Baal, Phrygian
Cybele, Persian Mithras--these are merely some of the more important.
The Roman attitude toward foreign deities is tolerant; provided one
keeps up the outward forms of reverence for the old native deities, it
does no serious harm if people feel happier because they burn incense
to the dog-headed Anubis, or to the uncouth gods of Phœnicia. Of course
these alien rites must not be too gross; such as were the outrageous
old Bacchanals who were broken up in 186 B.C., or the Gallic Druids
who permitted human sacrifice. Otherwise a “foreign superstition” is a
matter merely for a contemptuous shrug or sneer.
The result is that the cults seen in Rome under the Empire often appear
as a vast jumble of things Greek, Levantine, Oriental, and even Celtic.
The Emperor and Senate seldom bother themselves about matters of inward
belief; Rome has its gladiators but it has no Inquisition.
Nevertheless, the old Italian religion is still the official cultus of
the state. Its forms are carefully cherished; it is insensibly modified
but it is never repudiated. There are almost the same priesthoods, the
same sacred formulas and machinery of religion as in the days of the
Punic Wars.[221] They are kept up partly out of patriotic pride in all
survivals of the heroic past, partly because they help the government
to control the “mob” and the highly superstitious soldiery, partly (it
must in fairness be added) because very intelligent persons believe
that the ancient Italian religion somehow contributes to the safety
and stability of the Empire,--that when Jupiter Capitolinus falls the
dominion of Rome will actually fall with him.
=349. Superstitious Piety of the City Plebeians.=--As for the
multitude, the enormous population in the insulæ, if it has little
intelligent faith, it has abundant ignorant credulity. The outward
service of the gods brings good luck.
If the public rites fail and if blasphemers (like the execrable
Christians) arise, the corn ships will not get through from Alexandria,
the Tiber will overflow, the pestilence will sweep off thousands
and--almost equal calamity--the favorite aurigæ and gladiators on the
gamblers’ tablets will lose in the games. If a private man neglects the
gods, his shop or business ventures can go bankrupt, his children die,
his wife decamps with a freedman, disease can rack him, premature death
smite him, and his tomb be demolished to the complete obliteration
of his memory. Possibly even his ghost will drift about unhappily in
desert places. Every possible motive, therefore, requires governors and
governed to stand in well with the gods.
Let us, therefore, examine this “Religion of Numa” which is living yet,
as the official cultus of Rome; then a few words can be said about its
alien competitors.
=350. Roman Religion Originally Developed by Italian Farmers.=--The
old Italian farmers who shaped this religion were singularly lacking
in imagination. Very few are the myths for which the poets can claim a
non-Greek origin. The world is conceived of as being full of deities
which often are so little personified that one cannot be sure of their
actual sex: “Be propitious, O Divine One (_numen_), be thou male or be
thou female!” is the proper formula for beginning many ancient prayers.
Some of these divinities, to be sure, are well-defined and powerful
gods such as Jupiter the Sky-God, Mars the War-God, and Juno the potent
and matronly spouse of Jupiter. Such deities came with the ancestors of
the Italians when they wandered down from the North into that southern
peninsula which they occupied many centuries ago.
Other divinities are ancient adoptions from the Etruscans or from the
Greeks. Minerva, the protectress of such female arts as weaving and
spinning and later of the more masculine arts, sciences, and learning,
is pretty clearly the Minerva of the Etruscans, and has caught many
attributes from the Pallas Athena of the Greeks. Apollo came, perhaps,
via Etruria, where they called him Aplu, and not directly from Hellas,
but no temple was built to him until after Greek as well as Etruscan
influence in Rome had become very strong. Diana or Luna (“Madame Moon”)
was an old moon goddess, possibly the same as the Etruscan Losna, and
only by a late and very unfortunate identification has she become
confounded with Apollo’s Greek sister Artemis, the virgin huntress on
the Arcadian hills.
One great goddess, however, Venus, is probably a good old Italian
deity of substantial homely virtues: she is still invoked as Venus
Cloacina (“Venus the Purifier”), when it is necessary to cleanse the
great sewers; a function seldom remembered when giddy youths confound
her with the Greek Aphrodite, and beg her to help their illicit love
affairs!
351. =Native Italian Gods: Janus, Saturn, Flora. The Lares and
Penates.=--All these gods and certain other familiar deities such
as Mercury patron of trade and gain, Neptune lord of the sea, Vulcan
the clever smith, and finally, but in nowise least, Vesta the hearth
goddess, and Ceres the Mistress of the Corn, make up the official
“Great Gods” in whose honor the public games are held, and to whom
Emperors and Consuls proffer vows and sacrifice.
[Illustration: FARMER’S CALENDAR: showing festivals
each month.]
Highly important also is the strictly native Italian Janus, the
two-faced lord of beginnings and endings, probably an ancient Sun-God;
whom one should invoke at the opening of every fresh day, and in
whose honor (quite appropriately) the month of January is named with
New Year’s Day especially designated to his festival.[222] There is
furthermore Saturn, a rural deity, who has been identified with the
Greek Cronos (“Father Time”); there is Orchus who rules the underworld;
there is Liber the masculine field god, consort of Ceres and sometimes
confounded with the Greek Bacchus; there is Bona Dea (“Good Goddess”) a
mistress of agriculture, possibly only another aspect of Ceres; there
is Flora, the kindly patroness not merely of the flowers but of all
the prosaic vegetable gardens; and there also is Robigus, a malevolent
garden deity who must be propitiated with frequent offerings or he will
mildew the crops.
All these gods (except the evil Robigus) are near and dear to the
average plebeian, and especially to the farmers. In addition there
are the Lares and Penates. We have seen how they are guardian spirits
of the households--never forgotten in any mansion or upon any social
occasion.
The state has its own “Public Lares and Penates” as well as private
households; the former are the spirits of the gallant patriots of old
like the first Brutus, Cincinnatus, Camillus, and Scipio Major. The
second are the immortal “Twin Brethren”--Castor and Pollux, who have
ridden to rescue Roman armies on many a hard-fought field. No public
sacrifice can avail unless at least formal reference is made to the
public Lares and Penates along with the special god receiving honor.
Reënforcing these divinities is a whole host of special rural deities,
who, in a country still very dependent on agriculture, receive special
honor in all the profitable villas and farms crowding up to the gates
of Rome; Faunus and Lupercus are herdsmen’s gods well matching the
Hellenic Pan; Silvanus presides over the woodlands and timber-lots,
Pales is a much beloved shepherd’s god, Pomona cares for the orchards,
Vertumnus for the normal change of the seasons; Anna Perena is the
goddess of the circling year; and Terminus takes care that the boundary
stones (so important to farmers) are not disturbed.
=352. Personified Virtues as Gods: Cold and Legalistic Character of
the Roman Religion.=--However, these deities are increased by a
great host of personified moral and civic qualities. Nothing is easier
in Rome than to assume that every desirable virtue must have some kind
of a numen (divine potence) behind it. Around the city one can find
temples, _e.g._ to Honor, Hope, Good Faith, Modesty, Concord,
Peace, Victory, Liberty, Public Safety, Youth, and Fame. This is only a
minor part of the list.
[Illustration: CIRCULAR TEMPLE, PROBABLY OF OLD ITALIAN
GODDESS MATUTA: now Church of Sancta Maria del Sole,
Rome.]
It is assumed in fact that every act or process of human life has its
special numen who can be invoked to make that act successful. Thus
after young Sextus, Calvus’s son, was born, his very pious nurses first
invoked Vaticanus who opened his mouth for his first cry, then Cucina
who guarded his cradle, then Edulia and Potina who taught him to eat
and drink, Stabilius who aided him first to stand up, and Abeona and
Adeona who watched over his first footsteps “going” and “returning.”
His sophisticated parents doubtless smiled at this scrupulous piety,
but they did nothing to discourage it.
These cold impersonal divinities stand to man in a legal rather than
a theological relationship. Men and the numina have made a kind of
contract--so much prayer and ceremonial sacrifice must be offered in
return for so much good favor, prosperity, and protection. _Do ut
des_ (“I give that you may give”) sums up the whole spirit of the
Roman religion.
Numa the alleged founder of so many cults was not a prophet or an
inspired poet but a king and lawgiver. A wise man is always pious;
that is, he always gives to the gods their precise due according to
carefully set forms, otherwise the divinities may evade their part of
the contract, just as a merchant is not bound to execute a bargain in
which the other party has failed to do precisely as was stipulated.
If prayers and sacrifice fail in their purpose, it is reasonable to
suppose that the fault lies in the formula and the victims employed.
The pig, sheep, or other victim must then be sacrificed over again with
greater scrupulosity. On the other hand, willful neglect of worship is
as surely punished by the gods as willful neglect of paying one’s debts
is punished by the Prætor. The fate of the impious will be somewhat
like that of the absconding debtor, only much more dreadful.
Needless to say this “Religion of Numa” contains no more spirituality
than the hard stones which pave the Forum. It does, however, put
a genuine premium upon the rigid performance of duty, and thereby
sometimes reacts favorably upon human conduct.
=353. Priestly Offices: Little Sacrosanct about Them.=--For these
necessary ceremonies mankind requires priests, but they are not
revered interpreters of the divine will, nor are they mysterious
mediators between Providence and men; they are rather attorneys
employed by men to represent them competently in their dealings with
the divinities.
Small religious matters, the minor private sacrifices, etc., can be
attended to without a priest, just as you do not need a jurisconsult to
assist in petty purchases. Greater religious matters, private and still
more if public, however, require experts to see that the right formulæ
are spoken and sacrifices proffered. Any Roman of flawless birth and of
good character is eligible for most of the priesthoods, although there
are a few reserved for the narrow circle of the old patrician families.
Holding these religious offices does not ordinarily imply dropping
one’s secular interests or having the least philosophical belief in
the ceremonies so carefully performed. Julius Cæsar was Pontifex
Maximus while he was Proconsul of the Gauls, and while he was a firm
disbeliever in the existence of any gods at all.
Of course every small temple has to have its proper custodians whom
we may call “priests,” to attend to the private sacrifices; and there
are besides plenty of unofficial diviners and soothsayers who can
answer your question, “Is this a lucky day for the wedding of my
daughter?” or “Do the omens warn against buying this farm?” The great
public ministers of religion, however, are really officers of state,
appointed by the Emperor,[223] and usually they are grouped in famous
“Sacred Colleges” wherein the members hold office for life. Ordinarily
the persons thus honored are distinguished senators selected after an
honorable civil and military career.
=354. The Pontifices.=--On the whole the greatest official glory comes
to the fifteen _pontifices_. Not merely do they possess the general
oversight of everything concerning cultus, but they have as their chief
colleague the Emperor himself, who always holds the post of _Pontifex
Maximus_--head of the Roman religion.
Before Julius Cæsar reformed the calendar the pontifices had the
important task of settling each year what days were to be _dies
fasti_, whereon alone legal business could be lawfully conducted,
and they have still the power to interfere in almost any doings
concerning sacrifice, ritual, temple properties, etc. Their head, the
Pontifex Maximus, has particularly to watch over and control the Vestal
Virgins; and the college at large still has the custody of the famous
_Libri Pontificales_, the “Pontifical Books,” famous and ancient
volumes containing instructions for all kinds of unfamiliar religious
rites and procedure in strange religious emergencies.[224]
=355. The Augurs.=--The pontiffs, however, are really “Commissioners
for Religious Affairs” rather than actual priests, and along with them
goes another important group of “sacred” personages who seem almost
equally unpriestly. These are the _augurs_, the official interpreters
of the will of heaven; and almost every senator cherishes the hope of
being appointed to this college, notwithstanding the fact that long ago
Cicero remarked that “two augurs ought never to meet without winking!”
There are sixteen augurs, who are entitled to wear the embroidered
toga prætexta and to carry the sacred crooked staff, the lituus. The
science of augury, whereof they are supposedly the supreme custodians,
is something whereon the men of old, especially the Etruscans, expended
an enormous amount of energy.
The Italians in general put relatively little trust in astrology
and not much more in dreams as revealing the divine intentions.
What greatly matters is the flight of birds, the strange actions of
animals, monstrous births, thunder, meteors, and like prodigies. Even
in Hadrian’s day plenty of intelligent men will shudder with dread if
they behold a crow cawing on their funeral monument; or will give up a
journey if a black viper shoots across the road just as their carriage
is starting.
Sneezing or stumbling furthermore can mean much, and before many an
atrium the janitor is constantly shouting “_Dextro pede!_” “Right
foot first!” to every guest entering the vestibule. Certain signs are
very dreadful; _e.g._ any gathering at which somebody is seized
with epilepsy (a manifest token of divine anger) must be instantly
dissolved.
If, however, the gods do not speak thus openly, no public act should
be performed without at least asking the formal question, “Is heaven
favorable?” This may be done by watching the consecrated chickens
while they devour the grain as at the opening of the Senate (see p.
340),[225] but more elaborate and reliable is a careful watching of
the heavens for signs. If an augur sees ravens on the right-hand side
of the sky, the sign is lucky; but a crow in order not to forbode evil
must appear on the left. The actions of eagles, owls, woodpeckers, and
certain other birds are more complicated. Their cries, the manner of
their flight, as well as the direction whence they come all have to be
considered.
Time fails to describe the careful ritual necessary for the augurs,
when, at the request of some high magistrate, they interrogate the gods
to see if heaven is pleased at some proposed official action. It is
not necessary, however, to get a positively favorable sign; often it is
enough that during a suitable interval the augur should _fail_ to
observe any unhappy bird, any meteor, thunder claps, or the like. This
propitious interval constitutes a formal “silence” (_silentium_);
and many an augur has shown himself conveniently deaf or blind to
noises or sights that might prohibit some desired deed. Nevertheless
the solemn farce is always maintained, for when do Romans ever discard
any time-honored custom?
=356. The Flamines.=--The augurs rank with the pontiffs high in
public honors, but the most important actual priests in Rome are the
_flamines_. There are fifteen flamines distributed among the services
of the various gods, but three rank above all others--the flamens of
Jupiter, Mars, and of Quirinus (deified Romulus), with the first named,
called more particularly the _Flamen Dialis_, at their head.
It is an extraordinary honor to be named Flamen Dialis, and Gratia
reckons it among the chief of her family glories that she has an uncle
now enjoying for life this high priesthood. The Flamen of Jupiter
is entitled to a curule chair as if he were a magistrate, and takes
social precedence above nearly everybody save the Emperor and the
consuls; he also wears the toga prætexta like other exalted personages,
although it must be of thick wool woven by the hands of his wife. In
addition he has to appear always crowned with a special high pointed
cap, not unlike the “fool’s-cap” of other times, and tipped with the
_apex_, a pointed spike of olive wood wound with a lock of wool.
Old Papirius is among the most envied men in Rome, yet he complains
bitterly of the price he has to pay for his glory. He cannot mount a
horse, or even look upon an army in battle array. He cannot swear an
oath, or spend a single night away from the city, however comfortable
may be his family villas in the hot season. The cuttings of his hair
and nails must be carefully preserved and buried beneath an _arbor
felix_ (lucky tree). He must never eat of or even mention a goat,
beans, or several other forbidden objects.
Above all Papirius’s wife, the _flaminica_, whom he had to marry
with special ceremonies, is indispensable to him in many acts of
religion and he is forbidden to divorce her, although his life with
the noble Claudia is none too happy. Worse still if she should die, he
must immediately resign his office. The other fourteen flamines enjoy
somewhat lesser glories, offset by slightly lesser taboos. They are,
however, the fifteen most sacred male individuals in all Rome.
=357. The _Salii_ (“Holy Leapers”).=--Of less glory than the flamines,
but nevertheless of venerable sanctity are the twelve other priests
of Mars, the college of the _Salii_ (“Holy Leapers”). To them are
committed the twelve holy shields, the _Anciliæ_, one whereof is
affirmed to have fallen from heaven.
Calvus has an elderly cousin, Donatus, who lately was appointed by
Hadrian to the Salii. During the last Kalends of March nobody cracked
a smile when these twelve sedate and aristocratic gentlemen, wearing
their apex-crowned caps, long embroidered tunics, and brazen cuirasses,
with spear in one hand and the holy shields on the other, went through
the city stopping in many of the squares and before the larger temples
and executing violent dances, leaping, cavorting, and chanting with
loud voice “Salian Hymns”--verses in such ancient Latin that they
hardly understood their own shrill jargon. When the round of the city
was ended and they had danced and sung for the last time, the holy men
were quite exhausted.
The consolation for these holy men followed quickly, however. That
evening they held a grand corporation dinner. The augurs are famous
for their elaborate banquets worthy of an Apicius, but the Salii on
the whole surpass the augurs. A _Saliares daps_--“Holy Leaper’s
dinner”--has become the synonym for the triumph of good eating.
=358. The _Fetiales_ (“Sacred Heralds”): Ceremony of Declaring
War.=--Calvus himself belongs to a religious college of rather
waning consequence, but of great antiquity. He is a fetial.
Anciently at least no treaty was binding unless it had been ratified
with most solemn religious ceremonies. To deal with the gods in
international affairs Numa is said, therefore, to have established a
college of twenty _fetiales_--the holy heralds. Their president,
the _Pater Patratus_, represented the whole Roman people when it
came to swearing the oaths and offering the sacrifices for concluding
a treaty, and even in Hadrian’s day some of the ancient usages are
maintained. A peace has lately been made with the King of Parthia, and
in the presence of his envoy at Rome the venerable ex-consul, the Pater
Patratus, took his sacred flints, laid a special wreath of the holy
“verbena” plant on the altar, and kindled the fire for the sacrifice
that confirmed the peace.[226]
More important once was the chief herald’s duty in declaring a war;
for it seemed useless to hope for victory unless first by legalistic
formula the enemy was put in the wrong before the gods. The Pater
Patratus with at least three of his colleagues was expected to march
solemnly to the hostile frontier, next with due ceremony to recite the
wrongs of Rome and demand redress and to hurl a spear dipped in blood
across the boundary; then and not till then could the legions march
forth in any offensive war.
It is a great distance now, however, to the frontier of the Empire and
the white-headed Pater Patratus keenly dislikes to quit for months
his luxurious residence on the Quirinal; but legal ingenuity has long
since enabled him to preserve at once his bodily comfort and the good
old custom. Before the Temple of Bellona in the Campus Martius is a
bit of ground whereon stands a certain column. When recently it seemed
desirable to declare war on an unneighborly German tribe, a captive
from these barbarians was duly hunted up in the slave market at Rome,
and a legal deed was solemnly made out transferring this land to the
prisoner. The spot was now technically “hostile ground,” and the
Pater Patratus and his fellow fetials all ordered their litters and
were peacefully taken out to the Temple of Bellona. The Germans were
carefully summoned to “do the Romans right,” and no answer coming, the
head fetial with all the ancient formulas and curses flung the spear
into the column.
The war could now proceed with the gods’ full blessing--a thoroughly
Roman proceeding, and very typical of many other survivals, religious
or secular.
=359. The Arval Brethren (_Fratres Arvales_).=--There is another
“ancient and honorable” religious brotherhood--the _Fratres Arvales_.
There are twelve Arval brethren, always including the Emperor. In May
they hold a three-day festival to the _Dea Dia_.[227] Besides regaling
themselves then with an extraordinarily luxurious feast, they assemble
in the grove of the Dea Dia and offer to her two pigs, a white heifer,
and a lamb. Next they clear her temple of all but the necessary priests
and attendants, and dividing themselves into two bodies of six, tuck
up their long tunics and execute a solemn dance around the holy house,
singing meantime a kind of hymn for the blessing of the fields, a hymn
preserved in such an uncouth antique Latin that the meaning of many
words is doubtful.[228]
It is a most desirable thing to be one of these “Brothers of the
Fields.” The records of the college are kept with the greatest care and
their dinners compete with those of the Salii.
These are _some_ only of the holy colleges, membership wherein
carries marked social prestige. The fifteen “Keepers of the Sibylline
Books,” the _Epulones_ who arrange many of the banquets in honor of
the gods, and the _Haruspices_ who assist the augurs particularly in
interpreting the omens from the entrails of slaughtered victims, are
all distinguished personages. How many of them have one scintilla of
belief in the deities they address and the rites they execute it were
most unbecoming to inquire closely!
=360. Rustic Ceremonies; Soothsaying, Astrologers, and Witches.=--This
religion, then, is one purely of outward ritual coupled with not a
little superstition. In the country the farmers at the festival to the
Lemures (malevolent ghosts of the dead) still may rise at midnight,
walk barefoot through the house, fill their mouths with black beans
which they spit forth nine times without looking around, saying each
time, “With these beans I redeem me and mine.” Then they clank two
brazen vessels together and nine times shout out, “Manes depart!” This
is a sample of many similar ceremonies.
Soothsayers, who are often sheer charlatans, are very naturally in
constant demand among the unlearned to resolve such queries as, “Will
my mother-in-law recover from jaundice?” or “How long will my husband
live and keep me from my lover?” Such rascals usually tell the future
by examining the lungs of a dove. The entrails of a dog, however, are
better although much more expensive.
Among the rich, however, “Chaldæan astrologers” are somewhat
fashionable, slippery Orientals who know how to wheedle the gold out
of credulous parvenus, even if the official religion sets no great
store upon star-gazing.[229] The women are inevitably the best patrons
of these pretenders, but their husbands and brothers often refuse to
start on a journey or to begin anything else important until assured
“the horoscope is favorable.” Time fails us to tell of the employment
of Etruscan witches, or of the belief in ghosts and goblins. The latter
are dreaded by many hard-headed epicureans who will argue convincingly
that there can be no such thing as a god or immortality.
[Illustration: ROMAN ALTAR.]
=361. A Private Sacrifice.=--Nevertheless, with all its faults this
Roman religion has few truly _debasing_ superstitions. There are
practically no human sacrifices, no constant and outrageous use of
sordid ceremonies, no acts or beliefs which actually degrade one’s
manhood or womanhood.[230] All is deliberate, ordered, and, within
certain pagan limitations, tolerably reasonable.
A typical Roman sacrifice is a dignified and well standardized
procedure. Only recently Publius Calvus enjoyed a birthday, and custom
required that all his kinsmen should come to congratulate him while he
offered to the gods a snow-white lamb, in gratitude for another year
of life and prosperity. The ceremony took place at a small temple of
Juno near the senator’s mansion on the Esquiline, Juno being accounted
the special patron deity of the Junii Calvi. The victim was carefully
selected by Calvus himself, who paid an extra price for a creature
newly weaned and with horns just sprouting. Ostentatious freedmen
sometimes offered a fat bull on their birthdays, and poorer folk
merely a small pig,[231] but a white lamb was a very fitting private
sacrifice, not too mean, not too pretentious, and fell in perfectly
with the Roman idea of dealing with the gods on honorable business
principles.
=362. Ceremony at the Temple.=--On the day of the ceremony Calvus
presented himself at the temple, with his toga girded tightly around
his body in the special “Gabinian Cincture” required in sacrifices. The
groups of kinsmen, friends, freedmen, etc., all followed decorously.
The special Flamen of Juno, a friendly senator, appeared with his
vestments and apex, to direct Calvus in the technical details of the
ceremony, but, be it noticed, the actual priest was Calvus himself.
After all the company had gathered near the altar and put on chaplets
of ivy, a public crier (_præco_) commanded in loud voice, “Let there
be silence!” and a tense interval followed, every person holding
his breath lest an unlucky cough or sneeze should vitiate the whole
proceeding. Nothing ill-omened following, the elder of Calvus’s small
sons acting as camillus (acolyte) extended to his father a silver basin
of purifying water wherein the latter carefully washed his hands, dried
them upon a towel borne by his younger boy, then drew the great folds
of his toga over his head, almost but not quite concealing his face.
[Illustration: A MILITARY SACRIFICE; TRAJAN’S ARMY ON THE
DANUBE: from Trajan’s Column.]
At this juncture a flute player standing near promptly struck up
with a piercing blast, which he continued much of the time until the
ceremony was nearly over, not to supply music but simply to prevent any
ill-omened sound from being heard. Thereupon other youths led up the
lamb. Its little horns had been gilded and a heavy garland of flowers
twined about its neck. It was needful for the creature to _seem_
to approach willingly, therefore the halter had to be quite slack, but
a little fodder spread under the altar made the brute only too ready
for its fate.
Calvus approached the victim, and with the flamen at his elbow to
dictate every detail, took wine, incense, and a mixture of meal
and salt, and sprinkled a trifle of each upon the hungry creature’s
forehead. A professional attendant cut a few hairs from between the
horns and cast them on the burning altar. Then again prompted by the
flamen, Calvus prayed aloud:
=363. A Formal Prayer; the Actual Sacrifice.=--“O Mother Juno, I
pray and beseech thee that thou mayest be gracious and favorable to me
and my home and my household, for which course I have ordained that
the offering of this lamb should be made in accordance with my vows;
that thou mayest avert, ward off, and keep afar all disease visible
and invisible, all barrenness, waste, misfortune and ill-weather;
that thou mayest cause my family, affairs, and business to come to
prosperity; and that thou grant health and strength to me, my home and
my household!”[232]
[Illustration: ROMAN ALTAR WITH DESIGN SHOWING A
SACRIFICE.]
It was all very like the formulas used by the lawyers before the
Prætor. No waste of fine words, but very comprehensive and no
contingency unprovided for.
When Calvus finished, the temple attendant (_popa_) standing near
by asked in set form, “Shall I strike?” “Strike him!” ordered Calvus.
Instantly the attendant smote the lamb a single merciful blow on the
skull with a heavy mallet. The creature dropped dead, and his slayer
immediately knelt and stabbed him with a knife. As the blood ran out,
it was caught in a basin and sprinkled upon the altar, along with some
wine, incense, and a consecrated cake.
The lamb was now promptly cut up, and a crafty-looking haruspex
inspected the color and form of the still palpitating entrails. If
these had been declared “unfavorable” in form, color, or otherwise, a
second lamb must have been procured and the whole ceremony perforce
repeated until the results were fortunate, but the haruspex, certain of
his fee, after a decent studying of the gall, intestines, and liver,
lifted his head and said solemnly, “_Exta bona!_” “The entrails are
good!” Thereupon the flamen, hitherto passive or muttering formulas,
stepped forward, threw wine, meal, and incense upon the entrails; then
cast the whole mass of them upon the brightly kindled altar-fire.
Meantime the actual flesh of the lamb was being gathered up by Calvus’s
servants to take home for private consumption.
Calvus himself now drew the toga up over his head the second time,
and then called on Juno with loud voice, “since thou hast accepted
this lamb, duly proffered,” to continue her favor on him and his house
during the coming year, “in which case I vow unto thee another lamb,
white and without blemish even as is this.” He was again, it would
seem, the lawyer reminding the other party to the contract that by the
acceptance of the payment proffered, he or she was strictly obligated
to continue friendly for the next twelve months.
The ceremony was therewith ended. The flamen raised his hand and spoke
the solemn word of dismissal, “_Ilicet_,” “It is permitted to go.”
Sacrificer, flamen, spectators, and attendants all now hurried away
with shout and laughter to Calvus’s residence, there to join in a fine
feast wherein everybody received a portion of the slaughtered lamb.
=364. The Vestal Virgins: Their Sanctity and Importance.=--Great
are the pontiffs, the augurs, the flamens, and the members of the
other sacred colleges. But they are all too pragmatic and secular to be
taken quite seriously when they demand religious veneration. There is
one Roman college, however, which is beyond words holy, at whose claims
the most godless never scoff, and whose members will keep alive the
best traditions of the religion of Numa until old Rome is tottering to
its fall--the Sisterhood of the Vestal Virgins.
[Illustration: VESTAL VIRGIN.]
Numa himself, hoary tradition affirms, instituted this body of six
holy maidens, although no doubt similar companies could have been
discovered in many other primitive Italian communities. Their origin
is clear enough. To early man, fire was a thing very mysterious and
very necessary. Before the discovery of flint and steel it was no
trifling matter to kindle a new blaze by rubbing together a hard stick
and a soft; every village, therefore, maintained a central hearth
(_focus_) where some brands were ever smoldering and whither a boy
could be sent running for a spark to replenish the kitchen fires.
But beyond all other peoples the old Latins made of this homely need
a sacrosanct institution and a ritual. The Temple of the Fire Goddess
was perhaps at first only the hearth of the king, and her priestesses
were the king’s own daughters. Then the king disappeared: the Pontifex
Maximus took his place; and quite naturally just as the high pontiff’s
official residence, the Regia, stood on the verge of the Forum, the
Shrine of Vesta and the home of her maiden ministers stood close beside
it.
All across the ages this fire of Vesta has burned, tended with
inconceivable care; and for this humble shrine of Vesta and the six
Vestal Virgins all Romans from Emperor to lowest plebeian still retain
more genuine reverence than for anything else in the world, not
excluding the gilded Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus crowning the
Capitol and its pompous Flamen Dialis.
=365. The Temple of Vesta and the House of the Vestals.=--The Temple
of Vesta, directly on the verge of the roaring Forum and under the
shadow of the Imperial Palatine, is an ostentatiously small, simple
building, with a circular portico of pillars and surmounted with a low
cupola covered with sheets of metal. Often repaired, great pains have
been taken (so Ovid tells us) to preserve the original “style of Numa.”
Directly behind it, as you go east from the Forum, is the _Atrium
Vestæ_, the House of the Vestals, noticed when we traversed the Heart
of Rome.
Very simple externally, once inside those privileged to enter the House
discover not merely a fine comfortable dwelling, suitable for ladies of
rank and their numerous female attendants, but a very beautiful garden
some 200 feet long by 65 wide. There are spreading trees, winding
paths, marble seats, fountains and even a tiny grove--all within easy
stone’s throw of the very center of the metropolis.
The need for this garden, however, is obvious. The Vestals are women
of the very highest rank, yet they cannot leave Rome in the hot
season when nearly all other noble ladies flee to their cool villas.
The garden is their breathing spot and their recompense. Around the
garden runs a line of statues of the _Maximæ_ (Senior Vestals),
an imposing array of dignified elderly women of the grave Roman type.
Here too in the Atrium Vestæ, in a little room, is a small hand-mill
where the sacred virgins themselves can be seen each day laboriously
grinding the consecrated meal required in the cult of the Hearth
Goddess.
Within this house also the six Sisters spend their lives in a routine
of holy duties, and although the building is not an officially
consecrated “temple” it is really the most revered and sacrosanct spot
in Rome. In the Atrium Vestæ, therefore, are deposited the wills and
other precious documents of half the nobility, and the gods pity the
wretch who may do the place violence,--his fate at human hands will be
awful!
=366. Appointment of Vestals.=--This little sisterhood is divided
always into three categories--the novices, the active members, the
senior Vestals, of two members each. When there is a vacancy the
Pontifex Maximus makes choice among the girls of between six and ten
years in the patrician families,[233] who have both of their parents
living and happily married. A girl has to be physically perfect and
intellectually acute, certain, in short, to do honor to the greatest
position open to women in Rome.
The present Maxima is Salvia, a distant kinswoman of the late Emperor
Nerva. She was appointed many years ago in the reign of Titus. There
was such competition for the vacancy then that several noble families
offered their daughters, but Salvia was chosen because her parents were
on the best of terms, whereas her nearest rival’s father and mother
were known to have quarreled. The high pontiff (Titus) solemnly took
her by the hand repeating the ritualistic words, “I take you to be
‘Amata,’ that as Vestal Virgin you may perform the sacred rites lawful
for vestal virgins.” The title of _Amata_ was simply honorary. It
implied the gentle and loving character of the service of Vesta.
Salvia was immediately led over to the house of Vesta, her hair was cut
off, and hung upon the sacred lotus-tree in the garden; she was clothed
in long white garments with a special white band around her head, the
holy _infula_; and next she took oath to abide in her office and
to maintain her virginity not less than thirty years. She was now a
lawful vestal, withdrawn from the power of her father, and subject only
to the jurisdiction of the Pontifex Maximus.
=367. Duties of the Vestals: the Maxima.=--The six vestals enjoy
no sinecure. From the fountain of Egeria by the Cœlian Hill they must
bear all the water required for kneading their sacred cakes.[234] Daily
they must carefully cleanse the actual Temple in front of their mansion
with a mop, and deck it around with laurel. There are various great
festivals in which they have to play an important part, especially in
the very important Vestalia held June 9th, when all Rome unites to
honor the beloved Hearth Mother; and on June 15th when there is the
official cleansing of the Temple, and all the refuse of the year is
collected and removed with scrupulous ceremonies just as a good farmer
should cleanse his barns before the harvest.
The chief duty is, however, the simple and gracious task of tending
the sacred fire. For the first ten years of her sisterhood Salvia was
learning her responsibilities in this all-important particular; for the
next ten, she, or her associated second-class Vestal, had the actual
watch-care of the holy flame on the maintenance whereof seemed to rest
the prosperity of Rome; after that as one of the two senior Vestals she
could turn over to her juniors the active duties, confining herself to
the general oversight of the sisterhood. When the older senior Vestal
died she herself became Maxima--the most important woman in Rome,
enjoying a reverence and a certainty of tenure by no means shared by
every Empress.
=368. Punishments of Erring Vestals.=--To allow the sacred fire to
go out, by some fearful mischance, is an almost unheard-of calamity.
The ancient books ordain that the responsible Vestal on duty shall
first be stripped and scourged by the Pontifex Maximus, administering
his blows in the dark, then two pieces of wood must be taken from a
“lucky tree” and he must laboriously rekindle the fire with elaborate
ceremonies. After that other prolonged rites are needful to save the
state from the results of such a fearful “prodigy.”
Such lapses in the service of Vesta almost never occur. Slightly more
frequent have been charges of breaking the vow of chastity. In the few
recorded cases the guilty sister after trial before the college of
pontiffs has been buried alive with a kind of funeral ceremony in the
“Accursed Field” (_Campus Sceleratus_) just within the Colline
Gate. It is “bad luck” actually to put to death a consecrated Vestal,
but a deep pit is dug and in it are placed a couch, a lamp, and a
table bearing a little food. Then the guilty woman is lowered into the
pit and earth heaped upon it. She has simply been dismissed from the
presence of men:--what occurs out of all human sight is strictly the
affair of gods! Meantime her paramour has been publicly scourged to
death in the Forum with every form of ignominy.
The vow of virginity, nevertheless, is not perpetual. After thirty
years in the service, at an age still far below old womanhood, a Vestal
can quit the Atrium, and marry; but Salvia and her sisters seldom dream
of such a thing. Public opinion, though not the law, frowns upon the
act, and it means resigning a position of incomparable importance,
honor, and dignity.
=369. Remarkable Honors Granted the Vestals.=--If Salvia, for twenty
years at least, has thus taken her duties very seriously, she has
her great compensation. The Vestal Sisterhood is rich with a great
corporate income. The members alone of all Romans give their testimony
in court without the least oath. They have the seats of honor at all
public games and festivals. A lictor precedes each of them everywhere,
securing for his mistress the same public honors granted a magistrate,
and a magistrate’s lictors lower their fasces in respectful homage when
in a Vestal’s superior presence.
The slightest molestation of these priestesses’ persons is of course
punished capitally. They have the right to intercede even with the
Emperor in matter of pardons, and they nominate to sundry public
offices--_e.g._ the librarianship of the Imperial library, and
certain military tribuneships. Finally if they chance accidentally
to meet a criminal bound for execution, upon their demand he must be
spared and released--not out of motives of mercy, but because it is a
bad omen for the State for any holy Vestal to meet a person formally
condemned to die.[235]
One crowning honor also Salvia can anticipate: even Emperors
must ordinarily be buried outside the consecrated city limits
(_pomerium_), but the law specifically admits Vestals not merely
to the glories of a public funeral, but to burial inside the Heart of
Rome itself. What wonder that Salvia is loath to quit a post of such
glory and power for the uncertain prospects of matrimony!
Despite all the ceremonies, irrational and vain though they may seem
to a later standpoint, the worship of Vesta, the goddess of the honest
home, and the corporate life of her six maiden ministers remain among
the fairest things of the Roman Empire. Matters cannot be hopelessly
bad, when thus, in the center of the great, luxurious, sensual Imperial
city, womanly purity and orderly virtue are preëminently honored.