prominent part; and here the details have in part at least survived. The
_Argei_ in this case are not chapels, but a number of puppets or bundles
of rushes, resembling (as Dionysius has recorded) men bound hand and
foot, which were taken down to the _pons sublicius_ by the Pontifices
and magistrates, and cast into the river by the Vestal Virgins[432]. The
Flaminica Dialis, the priestess of Jupiter, was present at the ceremony
in mourning. The number of the puppets was probably the same as that of
the _sacella_ of the same name[433].
Explanations of these rites were invented by Roman scholars. The
_sacella_ were the graves of Greeks who had come to Italy with Hercules;
and the puppets represented the followers of Hercules who had died on
their journey and were to return home as it were by proxy[434]. Apart
from the theories of the learned, it was the fact that the common people
at Rome believed the puppets to be substitutes for old men, who at one
time used to be thrown into the Tiber as victims. _Sexagenarios de
ponte_ was a well-known proverb which in Cicero’s time was explained by
supposing that the bridges alluded to were those over which the voters
passed in the Comitia[435]; but this view may at once be put aside.
Those bridges were certainly a comparatively late invention, while the
proverb was of remote antiquity.
But, given the details of the rite, and the popular belief about the old
men as victims, what explanation can we hope to arrive at? We may freely
admit that no satisfactory etymology of the word _Argei_ is forthcoming;
but this is perhaps, in a negative sense, an advantage to our
inquiry[436]. The Romans derived it from the Greek Ἀργεῖοι; and to this
etymology Mommsen is now disposed to return. The writer of the article
‘Argei’ in the _Mythological Lexicon_ derived it from _varka-s_ =
‘wolf’; others have believed it to come from a root _arg_ = ‘white’ or
‘shining,’ and though the termination _eus_ is hardly a Latin one, it
may be that this is the true basis of the word[437].
Instead of prejudging the case by fanciful etymologies, or by attempting
to decide the question whether the Romans ever practised the rites of
human sacrifice, we will take the leading features of the ceremony, and
see in what direction they may on the whole direct us. That done, it may
be possible to sum up the debate, though a final and decisive verdict is
not to be expected.
The features which demand attention are (1) the processional character
of the rites; (2) the presence of the Pontifices and the Vestals; (3)
the mourning of the Flaminica Dialis; (4) the rush-puppets and their
immersion in the Tiber.
1. We can hardly doubt that there was a procession to the _pons
sublicius_, though the fact is not expressly stated. We are tempted to
believe that it visited each _sacellum_, and there found, or possibly
made, the puppet (_simulacrum_), which thus represented the district of
which the _sacellum_ was the sacred centre; and that it then proceeded,
bearing the puppets, probably by the Forum and Vicus Tuscus to the
bridge[438]. Now if this feature can help us at all—if we accept the
connexion of the March and May ceremonies and their processional
character—it must point in the direction of the purification of land or
city, on the analogy of other Italian ceremonies of the same kind. At
the end of this month took place the Ambarvalia, when the priests went
round the land with prayer and sacrifice to ensure the good growth of
the crops; and we have a remarkable instance of the same kind of
practice in the celebrated inscription of Iguvium. Not only each city,
but each _pagus_, and even each farmer, duly purified his land in some
such way, cleansing it from the powers of evil and sterility, while at
the same time the boundaries were renewed in the memories of all
concerned. Bearing this in mind, and also the season of the year, we may
fairly guess that the Argean processions had some relation to
agriculture, and to the welfare of the precarious stock of wealth of an
agricultural community.
2. _The presence of the Pontifices and Vestals._—The former would be
present, partly as the representative sacred college of the united
city[439], partly as having under their special care the sacred bridge
from which the puppets were thrown. Whether or not the word _pontifex_
be directly derived from _pons_[440], it is certain that the ancient
bridge, with its strong religious associations, was under their care,
and that the river was an object of their constant liturgical
attention[441]. It has been suggested that the whole ceremony was one of
bridge-worship[442]; but this view, as we shall see, will hardly explain
all the facts. It leaves the March rites unexplained, and also the
presence of the Vestals; nor does it seem to suit the season of the
year.
The presence of the Vestals is more significant; and it was they, as it
seems, who performed the act of throwing the puppets from the
bridge[443]. In all the public duties performed by them (as we shall see
more fully in dealing with the Vestalia[444]) a reference can be traced
to one leading idea, viz. that the food and nourishment of the State, of
which the sacred fire was the symbol, depended for its maintenance on
the accurate performance of these duties. We have just seen that they
spent the seven days preceding the Ides of May in preparing their sacred
cakes from the first ripening ears of corn. We shall see them using
these cakes in June, September, and at the Lupercalia. At the Parilia
and the Fordicidia they also take a prominent part, both of them
festivals relating to the fruitfulness of herds and flocks; so also at
the harvest festivals in August of Ops Consiva and Consus. And we can
hardly suppose that their presence at the rite under discussion should
have a different significance from that of their public service on all
other occasions. Even if we had no other evidence to go upon, we might
on the facts just adduced base a fair inference that this ceremony too
had some relation to the processes and perils awaiting the ripening
crops.
3. The Flaminica Dialis had on this day to lay aside her usual bridal
dress, and to appear in mourning[445]. The same rule was laid down for
her during the ‘moving’ of the _ancilia_ in March, and during the
Vestalia up to the completion of the purification of the temple of
Vesta. It is not easy to see what the meaning of this rule may have
been. On the other two occasions there is nothing to lead us to suppose
that it was some such terrible rite as human sacrifice which caused the
change of costume; we need not therefore suppose that it was so on May
15. But if all three occasions are times of purification and the
averting of evil influences: if they each mark the conclusion of an old
season, and the necessity of great care in entering on a new one, we can
better understand it. This was the case, as we saw, when in March the
Salii were pervading the city, and it was so also at the Vestalia, which
was preparatory to the ingathering of the crops. Some such critical
moment, I think, the day we are discussing must also have been. Some
light may be thrown on this aspect of the question by practices which
have been collected by Dr. Mannhardt from Northern Europe[446], some of
which still survive. I will give a single instance from Russia. At Murom
on June 29 a figure of straw, dressed in female clothing, is laid on a
bier and carried to the edge of a lake or river; it is eventually torn
up and thrown into the river, while the spectators hide their faces and
behave as though they bewailed the death of Kostroma. In another
district on the same day an old man carried out of the town a puppet
representing the spring, and was followed by the _women_ singing
mournful songs and expressing by their gestures grief and despair.
4. _The Puppets and their immersion in the Tiber._—There are two
possible explanations of this curious practice.
(1) The puppets were substitutes for human victims, and probably for old
men. The evidence for this view is—first, the Roman tradition expressed
in the saying _sexagenarios de ponte_[447], and supported by the fact
that the puppets appeared, to Dionysius at least, like men bound hand
and foot[448]; secondly, the fact that human sacrifice was not entirely
unknown at Rome, though there is no trace of any such custom regularly
recurring. We may allow that Italy could not have been entirely free
from a practice which existed even in Greece, and also that the habit of
substituting some object for the original victim is common and well
attested in religious history; but whether either the Argei, or the
_oscilla_ or _maniae_, which are often compared with the Argei, really
had this origin, may well indeed be doubted[449]. Thirdly, there is
evidence that not only human sacrifice, but the sacrifice of old men,
was by no means unknown in primitive times. Passing over the general
evidence as to human sacrifice, we know that the old and weak were
sometimes put to death[450]. Being of no further use in the struggle for
existence, they were got rid of in various ways—an act perhaps not so
much of cruelty as of kindness, and under certain circumstances not
incompatible with filial piety[451]. The chief objections to this
explanation are—first, that it obliges us to ascribe to the early Romans
a habit which seems quite incompatible with their well-known respect for
old age and their horror of parricide; secondly, that it does not
explain why a practice, which can hardly have ever been a regularly
recurring one, should have passed into a yearly ceremony[452].
(2) The rite was of a dramatic rather than a sacrificial character[453],
and belongs to a class of which we have numerous examples both from
Greek, Teutonic, and Slavonic peoples. In Greece, or rather in Egypt, we
have the cult of Adonis, in which a puppet is immersed in the water amid
wailings and lamentations. In Greece proper semi-dramatic rites are
found at Chaeronea and Athens[454], though somewhat different in
character to those of the Argei and Adonis. Tacitus describes the
immersion in water of the image of the German goddess Nerthus[455]. But
most significant are the many examples, of which Mannhardt formed an
ample collection, in which puppets are found, made as a rule of straw,
carried along in procession and thrown into a river or water of some
kind, often from a bridge[456]. Sometimes the place of these puppets is
taken by a sheaf, a small tree, or a man or boy dressed up in foliage or
fastened in the sheaf[457]: but in almost all cases the object is ducked
in water or at least sprinkled with it, though now and then it is burnt
or buried. The best known example is that of the Bavarian ‘Wasservogel,’
which is either a boy or a puppet, as the custom may be in different
places; he or it was decorated, carried round the fields at
Whitsuntide[458], and thrown from the bridge into the stream. So
constant and inconvenient was this kind of custom in the Middle Ages
that a law of 1351, still extant, forbade the ducking of people at
Erfurt in the water at Easter and Whitsuntide[459]. In many of these
cases the _simulacrum_ may have been substituted for a human being[460];
but I find none where the notion of sacrifice survived, or where there
was any trace of a popular belief that the object was a substitute for
an actual victim. What these curious customs, according to Dr.
Mannhardt, do really represent, is the departure of winter and the
arrival of the fruitful season, or possibly the exhaustion of the vernal
Power of vegetation after its work is done[461].
Two features in these old customs may strike us as interesting in
connexion with the Argei—(1) The fact that the central object is often
either actually _an old man_, or is at least called ‘the old one.’ A
Whitsuntide custom at Halle shows us, for example, a straw puppet called
_Der alte_[462]. (2) The constant occurrence of white objects in these
customs; the puppet is called ‘the white man with the white hair, the
snow-white husband,’ or is dressed in a white shirt[463]. In these
expressions it is perhaps not impossible that we may find a clue to the
long-lost meaning of the word Argei. Can it be that the Roman puppets
were originally called ‘the white ones,’ i. e. old ones, from a root
_arg_ = ‘white’[464]; and that from a natural mistake as to the meaning
of the word there arose not only the story about the Greek victims but
also the common belief about sexagenarii being thrown over the bridge?
* * * * *
We have to choose between the two explanations given above. I am, on the
whole, disposed to agree with Dr. Mannhardt, and in the absence of
convincing evidence as to the regular and periodical occurrence of human
sacrifice in ancient Italy, to regard these strange survivals as
semi-dramatic performances rather than sacrificial rites. This view,
however, need not exclude the possibility of the union of both drama and
sacrifice at a very remote period, probably before the Latins settled in
the district.
The immersion in water, whether or no it involved the death of a victim,
is reasonably explained, on the basis of comparative evidence, to have
been a _rain-spell_[465]. In the cases already mentioned of Adonis,
Nerthus, &c., this idea seems the prominent one. I am inclined to think,
however, that the notion of purification was also present—the two
uniting in the idea of regeneration. Plutarch calls the Argean rite ‘the
greatest of the purifications,’ and he is here most probably reproducing
the opinion of Varro[466]. This is indicated by the presence of the
priests and the Vestals, by the processions, and by the mourning of the
Flaminica Dialis, as we have already seen. We may regard the rite as in
fact a casting out of old things, and in that sense a purification; and
also at the same time as a spell or earnest of rain and fertility in the
ensuing year. The puppets were perhaps hung in the sacella in the course
of the procession in March, as a symbol of the fertility then beginning,
and cast into the river as ‘the old ones’ when that fertility had
reached its height[467].
In the last place, it might be asked in honour of what deity the rite
was performed. It is hardly necessary, and certainly is not possible, to
answer a question about which the Romans themselves were not agreed.
Ovid and Dionysius[468] believed it was Saturnus, probably following an
old Greek oracle which was known to Varro[469]. Verrius Flaccus thought
it was Dis Pater[470]. Modern writers have concluded on the general
evidence of the rite that it was the river-god Tiberinus; Jordan,
however, regarded the question as irrelevant[471]. We may agree with
him, and at least return a verdict of _non liquet_. If it was a
sacrificial act, the ancient river-god is indeed likely enough; if it
was a quasi-dramatic one, it does not follow that any deity was
specially concerned in it. But we may go so far as to guess that it was
connected with the worship of those vaguely-conceived deities of
vegetation whose influence on the calendar we have been tracing since
March 1.
This same day is marked in one calendar as Feriae Iovi, Mercurio, Maiae.
The conjunction of these deities is to some extent accidental. In the
first place the Ides of every month were sacred to Jupiter; and the
addition of Mercurius is probably to be explained simply by the
adaptation of a Greek myth which made Hermes the son of Jupiter,
suggesting the selection of the Ides as an appropriate day for the cult
of the Latin representative of Hermes[472]. Mercurius, again, was
associated with Maia, perhaps simply because the dedication-day of his
oldest temple in Rome (_ad circum maximum_) was the Ides of the Mensis
Maius[473]. The Roman Mercurius was considered especially as the god of
trade, and dated, like Ceres, from the time when an extensive corn trade
first began in Rome[474]. It is highly probable that the Tarquinian
dynasty had encouraged Roman trade, and that the increase of population
which was the result, together with the wars which followed their
expulsion, had occasioned a series of severe famines. To this we trace
the Roman knowledge of the Greek or Graeco-Etruscan Hermes, through a
trade in corn with Sicilian Greeks or Etruscans, and the appearance of
the god at Rome as Mercurius, the god of trade. His first temple was
dedicated in B.C. 495, and as in other cases, the dedication was
celebrated each year by those specially interested in the worship, in
this case the _mercatores_, who were already, at this early period,
formed into an organized guild[475].
XII KAL. IUN. (MAY 21). NP.
AGON[IA][476]. (ESQ. CAER. VEN. MAFF.)
VEDIOVI. (VEN.)
The other days sacred to Vediovis were January 1 and the Nones of March,
from which latter day we postponed the consideration of this mysterious
deity, in hopes of future enlightenment. But Vediovis is wrapped still,
and always will be, in at least as profound an obscurity for us as he
was for Varro and Ovid.
We have but his name to go upon, and two or three indistinct traces of
his cult. The name seems certainly to be Vediovis, i. e. apparently ‘the
opposite of,’ or ‘separated from,’ Jupiter (= Diovis); or, as Preller
has it[477], comparing, like Ovid, _vegrandia farra_ (‘corn that has
grown badly’), _vescus_, &c., Jupiter in a sinister sense. But this last
explanation must, on the whole, be rejected. It is true that each deity
has a sinister or threatening aspect as well as a smiling one; but in no
other case was this separately personified, and the name, if its origin
be rightly given as above (which is not indeed certain), might be
explained by the well-known Roman habit of calling deities by their
qualities and their business rather than by substantival names. In this
case the name would be negatively deduced from that of one of the few
gods who really had a name.
What we know of the cult is only this. First, it was peculiar, so far as
we know, to Rome and Bovillae[478]; secondly, the temples in Rome were
in the space between the arx and Capitolium, ‘inter duos lucos’[479],
and another in the Tiber island[480]—two places outside the Servian
wall, and of importance for the security of the city; thirdly, the god
was represented as young, holding arrows, and having a goat standing
beside him, on account of which characteristics he was usually,
according to Gellius, identified with Apollo[481]; fourthly, the usual
victim was a goat which was sacrificed _humano ritu_[482].
On such faint traces it will be obvious that no sound conclusion can be
based. The connexion with Bovillae and the gens Julia points to a
genuine Latin origin. The sites on the Capitol and the island do not
lead to any definite conclusion; in the former the god seems to have
been connected with the so-called Asylum, in the latter with
Aesculapius; but both these connexions may be accidental or later
developments. Preller conjectured cleverly that Vediovis was a god of
criminals who might take refuge in Rome and there find purification; but
the idea of an Asylum, on which this is based, is Greek, and of much
later date than any age which could have given a definite meaning to
such a deity. We must here, as occasionally elsewhere, give up the
attempt to discover the original nature of this god.
X KAL. IUN. (MAY 23). NP.
TUBIL[USTRIUM]. (ESQ. CAER. VEN. MAFF.)
FER[IAE] VOLCANO. (VEN. AMIT.)
I have already explained[483] the view taken by Mommsen of the two pairs
of days, March 23 and 24 and May 23 and 24, accepting his theory that
the 24th in each month was the day on which wills could be made and
witnessed in the Comitia calata, and that the 23rd in each month was the
day on which the _tubae_ were lustrated by which the assembly was
summoned.
But May 23 is also marked in two calendars as _feriae Volcano_; and Ovid
has noticed this in a single couplet:[484]
Proxima Volcani lux est: Tubilustria dicunt;
Lustrantur purae, quas facit ille, tubae.
The difficult question of the original character of Volcanus must be
postponed until we come to his festival in August. We only need here to
ask whether Ovid was right in regarding Volcanus as the smith who made
the trumpets. This has been strenuously denied by Wissowa[485], who goes
so far as to believe that the deity originally invoked on this day was
not Volcanus but Mars—since the corresponding day in March was a
festival of that deity—and that Volcanus was at an early period thrust
into his place under the influence of Greek notions of Hephaestus as a
smith who made armour and also trumpets. Wissowa has, however, to throw
over the two calendars quoted above (Ven. Amit.) in order to support his
argument—and so far we are hardly entitled to go.
It is safer to take Volcanus as an ancient Roman deity whose cult was
closely connected with that of Maia, or the Bona Dea, and was prominent
in this month as well as in August. The Flamen Volcanalis sacrificed to
the Bona Dea on May 1; and Maia was addressed in invocations as Maia
Volcani[486]. The coincidence of this festival of his with the
Tubilustrium I take to have been accidental; but it led naturally, as
the Romans became acquainted with Greek mythology, to the erroneous view
represented by Ovid that Volcanus was himself a smith[487].
VIII KAL. IUN. (MAY 25). C.
FORTUNAE P[UBLICAE] P[OPULI] R[OMANI] Q[UIRITIUM] IN COLLE QUIRIN[ALI].
(CAER.)
FORTUN[AE] PUBLIC[AE] P[OPULI] R[OMANI] IN COLL[E]. (ESQ.)
FORTUN[AE] PRIM[IGENIAE] IN COL[LE]. (VEN.)
This was the dedication-day of one of three temples of Fortuna on the
Quirinal; the place was known as ‘tres Fortunae[488].’ The goddess in
this case was Fortuna Primigenia, imported from Praeneste—of whom
something will be said later on[489]. The temple was vowed after the
Second Punic War in B.C. 204, and dedicated ten years later[490]. Our
consideration of Fortuna may be postponed till the festival of Fors
Fortuna, an older Roman form of the cult, on June 24.
KAL. IUN. (MAY 29). C.
The Ambarvalia, originally a religious procession round the land of the
early Roman community, the object of which was to purify the crops from
evil influences, does not appear in the Julian calendars, not being
_feriae stativae_; but it is indicated in the later rustic calendars by
the words, _Segetes lustrantur_. Its date may be taken as May 29[491]:
and this fixity will not appear incompatible with its character as a
_sacrum conceptivum_, if we accept Mommsen’s explanation of the way in
which some feasts might be fixed to a day according to the usage of the
Italian farmer, but of varying date according to the civil
calendar[492].
There has been much discussion whether the Ambarvalia was identical with
the similar festival of the Fratres Arvales. On the ground that the
_acta fratrum Arvalium_ seemed to prove a general similarity of the two
in time and place, and at least in some points of ritual, Mommsen,
Henzen, and Jordan answer in the affirmative[493]. On the other side
there is no authority of any real weight. The judicious Marquardt[494]
found a difficulty in the absence of any mention in the _acta fratrum
Arvalium_ of a lustratio in the form of a procession; but it should be
remembered (1) that we have not the whole of the _acta_; (2) that it is
almost certain that, as the Roman territory continued to increase, the
brethren must have dropped the duty of driving victims round it, for
obvious reasons. A passage in Paulus[495] places the matter beyond doubt
if we can be sure of the reading: ‘_Ambarvales hostiae dicebantur quae
pro arvis a duodecim_ (MSS. duobus) _fratribus sacrificantur._’ As no
_duo fratres_ are known, the old emendation _duodecim_ seems certain,
but will of course not convince those who disbelieve in the identity of
the Ambarvalia and the sacra fratrum Arvalium. The question is, however,
for us of no great importance, as the _acta_ do not add to our knowledge
of what was done at the Ambarvalia.
The best description we have of such lustrations as the Ambarvalia is
that of Virgil; it is not indeed to be taken as an exact description of
the Roman rite, but rather as referring to Italian customs generally: