MAIN FEATURES OF THE RELIGION OF NUMA
=1. Theology.=--The characteristic appellation of a divine spirit in
the oldest stratum of the Roman religion is not _deus_, a god, but
rather _numen_, a power: he becomes _deus_ when he obtains a name, and
so is on the way to acquiring a definite personality, but in origin he
is simply the 'spirit' of the 'animistic' period, and retains something
of the spirit's characteristics. Thus among the divinities of the
household we shall see later that the Genius and even the Lar
Familiaris, though they attained great dignity of conception, and were
the centre of the family life, and to some extent of the family
morality, never quite rose to the position of full-grown gods; while
among the spirits of the field the wildness and impishness of character
associated with Faunus and his companion Inuus--almost the cobolds or
hobgoblins of the flocks--reflects clearly the old 'animistic' belief
in the natural evilness of the spirits and their hostility to men. The
notion of the _numen_ is always vague and indefinite: even its sex may
be uncertain. 'Be thou god or goddess' is the form of address in the
farmer's prayer already quoted from Cato: 'be it male or female' is the
constant formula in liturgies and even dedicatory inscriptions of a
much later period.
These spirits are, as we have seen, indwellers in the objects of nature
and controllers of the phenomena of nature: but to the Roman they were
more. Not merely did they inhabit places and things, but they presided
over each phase of natural development, each state or action in the
life of man. Varro, for instance, gives us a list of the deities
concerned in the early life of the child, which, though it bears the
marks of priestly elaboration, may yet be taken as typical of the
feeling of the normal Roman family. There is Vaticanus, who opens the
child's mouth to cry, Cunina, who guards his cradle, Edulia and Potina,
who teach him to eat and drink, Statilinus, who helps him to stand up,
Adeona and Abeona, who watch over his first footstep, and many others
each with his special province of protection or assistance. The farmer
similarly is in the hands of a whole host of divinities who assist him
at each stage of ploughing, hoeing, sowing, reaping, and so forth. If
the _numen_ then lacks personal individuality, he has a very distinct
specialisation of function, and if man's appeal to the divinity is to
be successful, he must be very careful to make it in the right quarter:
it was a stock joke in Roman comedy to make a character 'ask for water
from Liber, or wine from the nymphs.' Hence we find in the prayer
formulæ in Cato and elsewhere the most careful precautions to prevent
the accidental omission of the deity concerned: usually the worshipper
will go through the whole list of the gods who may be thought to have
power in the special circumstances; sometimes he will conclude his
prayer with the formula 'whosoever thou art,' or 'and any other name by
which thou mayest desire to be called.' The _numen_ is thus vague in
his conception but specialised in his function, and so later on, when
certain deities have acquired definite names and become prominent above
the rest, the worshipper in appealing to them will add a cult-title, to
indicate the special character in which he wishes the deity to hear:
the woman in childbirth will appeal to Iuno Lucina, the general praying
for victory to Iuppiter Victor, the man who is taking an oath to
Iuppiter as the deus Fidius. As a still later development the
cult-title will, as it were, break off and set up for itself, usually
in the form of an abstract personification: Iuppiter, in the two
special capacities just noted, gives birth to Victoria and Fides.
The conception of the _numen_ being so formless and indefinite, it is
not surprising that in the genuine Roman religion there should have
been no anthropomorphic representations of the divinity at all. 'For
170 years,' Varro tells us, taking his date from the traditional
foundation of the city in 754 B.C., 'the Romans worshipped their gods
without images,' and he adds the characteristic comment, 'those who
introduced representations among the nations, took away fear and
brought in falsehood.' Symbols of a few deities were no doubt
recognised: we have noticed already the _silex_ of Iuppiter and the
boundary-stone of Terminus, which were probably at an earlier period
themselves objects of worship, and to these we may add the sacred
spears of Mars, and the _sigilla_ of the State-Penates. But for the
most part the _numina_ were without even such symbolic representation,
nor till about the end of the regal period was any form of temple built
for them to dwell in. The sacred fire of Vesta near the Forum was, it
is true, from the earliest times enclosed in a building; this, however,
was no temple, but merely an erection with the essentially practical
purpose of preventing the extinction of the fire by rain. The first
temple in the full sense of the word was according to tradition built
by Servius Tullius to Diana on the Aventine: the tradition is
significant, for Diana was not one of the _di indigetes_, the old
deities of the 'Religion of Numa,' but was introduced from the
neighbouring town of Aricia, and the attribution to Servius Tullius
nearly always denotes an Etruscan[3] or at any rate a non-Roman origin.
There were, however, altars in special places to particular deities,
built sometimes of stone, sometimes in a more homely manner of earth or
sods. We hear for instance of the altar of Mars in the Campus Martius,
of Quirinus on the Quirinal, of Saturnus at the foot of the Capitol,
and notably of the curious underground altar of Consus on what was
later the site of the Circus Maximus. But more characteristic than the
erection of altars is the connection of deities with special
localities. Naturally enough in the worship of the household Vesta had
her seat at the hearth, Ianus at the door, and the 'gods of the
storehouse' (_Penates_) at the cupboard by the hearth, but the same
idea appears too in the state-cult. Hilltops, groves, and especially
clearings in groves (_luci_) are the most usual sacred localities. Thus
Quirinus has his own sacred hill, Iuppiter is worshipped on the
Capitol, Vesta and Iuno Lucina have their sacred groves within the
boundaries of the city, and Dea Dia, Robigus, and Furrina similar
groves at the limits of Roman territory. The record of almost every
Roman cult reveals the importance of locality in connection with the
_di indigetes_, and the localities are usually such as would be
naturally chosen by a pastoral and agricultural people.
Such were roughly the main outlines of the genuine Roman 'theology.'
It has no gods of human form with human relations to one another,
interested in the life of men and capable of the deepest passions of
hatred and affection towards them, such as we meet, for instance, in
the mythology of Greece, but only these impersonal individualities, if
we may so call them, capable of no relation to one another, but able to
bring good or ill to men, localised usually in their habitations, but
requiring no artificial dwelling or elaborate adornment of their abode;
becoming gradually more and more specialised in function, yet gaining
thereby no more real protective care for their worshippers--a cold and
heartless hierarchy, ready to exact their due, but incapable of
inspiring devotion or enthusiasm. Let us ask next how the Romans
conceived of their own relations towards them.
=2. The Relation of Gods and Men.=--The character of the Roman was
essentially practical and his natural mental attitude that of the
lawyer. And so in his relation towards the divine beings whom he
worshipped there was little of sentiment or affection: all must be
regulated by clearly understood principles and carried out with formal
exactness. Hence the _ius sacrum_, the body of rights and duties in the
matter of religion, is regarded as a department of the _ius publicum_,
the fundamental constitution of the state, and it is significant, as
Marquardt has observed, that it was Numa, a king and lawgiver, and not
a prophet or a poet, who was looked upon as the founder of the Roman
religion. Starting from the simple general feeling of a dependence on a
higher power (_religio_), which is common to all religions, the Roman
gives it his own characteristic colour when he conceives of that
dependence as analogous to a civil contract between man and god. Both
sides are under obligation to fulfil their part: if a god answers a
man's prayer, he must be repaid by a thank-offering: if the man has
fulfilled 'his bounden duty and service,' the god must make his return:
if he does not, either the cause lies in an unconscious failure on the
human side to carry out the exact letter of the law, or else, if the
god has really broken his contract, he has, as it were, put himself out
of court and the man may seek aid elsewhere. In this notion we have the
secret of Rome's readiness under stress of circumstances, when all
appeals to the old gods have failed, to adopt foreign deities and cults
in the hope of a greater measure of success.
The contract-notion may perhaps appear more clearly if we consider one
or two of the normal religious acts of the Roman individual or state.
Take first of all the performance of the regular sacrifices or acts of
worship ordained by the state-calendar or the celebration of the
household _sacra_. The _pietas_ of man consists in their due
fulfilment, but he may through negligence omit them or make a mistake
in the ritual to be employed. In that case the gods, as it were, have
the upper hand in the contract and are not obliged to fulfil their
share, but the man can set himself right again by the offering of a
_piaculum_, which may take the form either of an additional sacrifice
or a repetition of the original rite. So, for instance, when Cato is
giving his farmer directions for the lustration of his fields, he
supplies him at the end with two significant formulæ: 'if,' he says,
'you have failed in any respect with regard to all your offerings, use
this formula: "Father Mars, if thou hast not found satisfaction in my
former offering of pig, sheep, and ox (the most solemn combination in
rustic sacrifices), then let this offering of pig and sheep and ox
appease thee": but if you have made a mistake in one or two only of
your offerings, then say, "Father Mars, because thou hast not found
satisfaction in that pig (or whatever it may be), let this pig appease
thee."' On the other hand, for intentional neglect, there was no
remedy: the man was _impius_ and it rested with the gods to punish him
as they liked (_deorum iniuriae dis curae_).
But apart from the regularly constituted ceremonies of religion, there
might be special occasions on which new relations would be entered into
between god and man. Sometimes the initiative would come from man:
desiring to obtain from the gods some blessings on which he had set
his heart, he would enter into a _votum_, a special contract by which
he undertook to perform certain acts or make certain sacrifices, in
case of the fulfilment of his desire. The whole proceeding is strictly
legal: from the moment when he makes his vow the man is _voti reus_, in
the same position, that is, as the defendant in a case whose decision
is still pending; as soon as the gods have accomplished their side of
the contract he is _voti damnatus_, condemned, as it were, to damages,
having lost his suit; nor does he recover his independence until he has
paid what he undertook: _votum reddidi lubens merito_ ('I have paid my
vow gladly as it was due') is the characteristic wording of votive
inscriptions. If the gods did not accomplish the wish, the man was of
course free, and sometimes the contract would be carried so far that a
time-limit for their action would be fixed by the maker of the vow:
legal exactness can hardly go further.
Or again, the initiative might come from the gods. Some marked
misfortune, an earthquake, lightning, a great famine, a portentous
birth, or some such occurrence would be recognised as a _prodigium_, or
sign of the god's displeasure. Somehow or other the contract must have
been broken on the human side and it was the duty of the state to see
to the restoration of the _pax deum_, the equilibrium of the normal
relation of god and man. The right proceeding in such a case was a
_lustratio_, a solemn cleansing of the people--or the portion of the
people involved in the god's displeasure--with the double object of
removing the original reason of misfortune and averting future causes
of the divine anger. The commercial notion is not perhaps quite so
distinct here, but the underlying legal relationship is sufficiently
marked.
If then the question be asked whether the relation between the Roman
and his gods was friendly or unfriendly, the correct answer would
probably be that it was neither. It was rather what Aristotle in
speaking of human relations describes as 'a friendship for profit': it
is entered into because both sides hope for some advantage--it is
maintained as long as both sides fulfil their obligations.
=3. Ceremonial.=--It has been said sometimes that the old Roman
religion was one of cult and ritual without dogma or belief. As we have
seen this is not in origin strictly true, and it would be fairer to say
that belief was latent rather than non-existent: this we may see, for
instance, from Cicero's dialogues on the subject of religion, where in
discussion the fundamental sense of the dependence of man on the help
of the gods comes clearly into view: in the domestic worship of the
family too cult was always to some extent 'tinged with emotion,' and
sanctified by a belief which made it a more living and in the end a
more permanent reality than the religion of the state. But it is no
doubt true that as the community advanced, belief tended to sink into
the background: development took place in cult and not in theology, so
that by the end of the Republic, to take an example, though the
festival of the Furrinalia was duly observed every year on the 25th of
July, the nature or function of the goddess Furrina was, as we learn
from Cicero, a pure matter of conjecture, and Varro tells us that her
name was known only to a few persons. Nor was it mere lapse of time
which tended to obscure theology and exalt ceremonial: their relative
position was the immediate and natural outcome of the underlying idea
of the relation of god and man. Devotion, piety--in our sense of the
term--and a feeling of the divine presence could not be enjoined or
even encouraged by the strictly legal conception on which religion was
based: the 'contract-notion' required not a 'right spirit' but right
performance. And so it comes about that in all the records we have left
of the old religion the salient feature which catches and retains our
attention is exactness of ritual. All must be performed not merely
'decently and in order,' but with the most scrupulous care alike for
every detail of the ceremonial itself, and for the surrounding
circumstances. The omission or misplacement of a single word in the
formulæ, the slightest sign of resistance on the part of the victim,
any disorder among the bystanders, even the accidental squeak of a
mouse, are sufficient to vitiate the whole ritual and necessitate its
repetition from the very beginning. One of the main functions of the
Roman priesthood was to preserve intact the tradition of formulæ and
ritual, and, when the magistrate offered sacrifice for the state, the
_pontifex_ stood at his side and dictated (_praeire_) the formulæ which
he must use. Almost the oldest specimen of Latin which we now possess
is the song of the Salii, the priests of Mars, handed on from
generation to generation and repeated with scrupulous care, even though
the priests themselves, as Quintilian assures us, had not the least
notion what it meant. Nor was it merely the words of ceremonial which
were of vital importance: other details must be attended to with equal
exactness. Place, as we have seen, was an essential feature even in the
conception of deity, and it must have required all the personal
influence of Augustus and his entourage to reconcile the people of
Rome, with the ancient home of the goddess still before their eyes, to
the second shrine of Vesta within the limits of his palace on the
Palatine. The choice of the appropriate offering again was a matter of
the greatest moment and was dictated by a large number of
considerations. The sex of the victim must correspond to the sex of the
deity to whom it is offered, white beasts must be given to the gods of
the upper world, black victims to the deities below. Mars at his
October festival must have his horse, Iuno Caprotina her goat, and
Robigus his dog, while in the more rustic festivals such as the
Parilia, the offering would be the simpler gift of millet-cakes and
bowls of milk: in the case of the Bona Dea we have the curious
provision that if wine were used in the ceremonial, it must, as she was
in origin a pastoral deity, always be spoken of as 'milk.' The persons
who might be present in the various festivals were also rigidly
determined: men were excluded from the Matronalia on March 1, from the
Vestalia on the 9th of June, and from the night festival of the Bona
Dea: the notorious escapade of Clodius in 62 B.C. shows the scandal
raised by a breach of this rule even at the period when religious
enthusiasm was at its lowest ebb. Slaves were specifically admitted to
a share in certain festivals such as the Saturnalia and the Compitalia
(the festival of the Lares), whereas at the Matralia (the festival of
the matrons) a female slave was brought in with the express purpose of
being significantly driven away.
The general notion of the exactness of ritual will perhaps become
clearer when we come to examine some of the festivals in detail, but it
is of extreme importance for the understanding of the Roman religious
attitude, to think of it from the first as an essential part in the
expression of the relation of man to god.
=4. Directness of Relation--Functions of Priests.=--In contrast to all
this precision of ritual, which tends almost to alienate humanity from
deity, we may turn to another hardly less prominent feature of the
Roman religion--the immediateness of relation between the god and his
worshippers. Not only may the individual at any time approach the altar
of the god with his prayer or thank-offering, but in every community of
persons its religious representative is its natural head. In the
family the head of the household (_pater familias_) is also the priest
and he is responsible for conducting the religious worship of the whole
house, free and slave alike: to his wife and daughters he leaves the
ceremonial connected with the hearth (_Vesta_) and the deities of the
store-cupboard (_Penates_), and to his bailiff the sacrifice to the
powers who protect his fields (_Lares_), but the other acts of worship
at home and in the fields he conducts himself, and his sons act as his
acolytes. Once a year he meets with his neighbours at the boundaries of
their properties and celebrates the common worship over the
boundary-stones. So in[4] the larger outgrowth of the family, the
_gens_, which consisted of all persons with the same surname (_nomen_,
not _cognomen_), the gentile _sacra_ are in the hands of the more
wealthy members who are regarded as its heads; we have the curious
instance of Clodius even after his adoption into another family,
providing for the worship of the _gens Clodia_ in his own house, and we
may remember Virgil's picture of the founders of the _gentes_ of the
Potitii and the Pinarii performing the sacrifice to Hercules at the
_ara maxima_, which was the traditional privilege of their houses.
When societies (_sodalitates_) are formed for religious purposes they
elect their own _magistri_ to be their religious representatives, as we
see in the case of the Salii and the Luperci. Finally, in the great
community of the state the king is priest, and with that exactness of
parallelism of which the Roman was so fond, he--like the _pater
familias_--leaves the worship of Vesta in the hands of his 'daughters,'
the Vestal virgins. And so, when the Republic is instituted, a special
official, the _rex sacrorum_, inherits the king's ritual duties, while
the superintendence of the Vestals passes to his representative in the
matter of religious law, the _pontifex maximus_, whose official
residence is always the _regia_, Numa's palace. The state is but the
enlarged household and the head of the state is its religious
representative.
If then the approach to the gods is so direct, where, it may be asked,
in the organisation of Roman religion is there room for the priest? Two
points about the Roman priesthood are of paramount importance. In the
first place, they are not a caste apart: though there were restrictions
as to the holding of secular magistracies in combination with the
priesthood--always observed strictly in the case of the _rex sacrorum_
and with few exceptions in the case of the greater _flamines_--yet the
_pontifices_ might always take their part in public life, and no kind
of barrier existed between them and the rest of the community: Iulius
Cæsar himself was _pontifex maximus_. In the second place they are not
regarded as representatives of the gods or as mediators between god and
man, but simply as administrative officials appointed for the
performance of the acts of state-worship, just as the magistrates were
for its civil and military government. In origin they were chosen to
assist the king in the multifarious duties of the state-cult--the
_flamines_ were to act as special priests of particular deities, the
most prominent among them being the three great priests of Iuppiter
(_flamen Dialis_), Mars, and Quirinus; the _pontifices_ were sometimes
delegates of the king on special occasions, but more particularly
formed his religious _consilium_, a consulting body, to give him advice
as to ritual and act as the repositories of tradition. In later times
the _flamines_ still retain their original character, the _pontifices_
and especially the _pontifex maximus_ are responsible for the whole
organisation of the state-religion and are the guardians and
interpreters of religious lore. In the state-cult then the priests play
a very important part, but their relation to the worship of the
individual was very small indeed. They had a general superintendence
over private worship and their leave would be required for the
introduction of any new domestic cult; in cases too where the private
person was in doubt as to ritual or the legitimacy of any religious
practice, he could appeal to the _pontifices_ for decision. Otherwise
the priest could never intervene in the worship of the family, except
in the case of the most solemn form of marriage (_confarreatio_),
which, as it conferred on the children the right to hold certain of the
priesthoods, was regarded itself as a ceremony of the state-religion.
In his private worship then the individual had immediate access to the
deity, and it was no doubt this absence of priestly mediation and the
consequent sense of personal responsibility, no less than its emotional
significance, which caused the greater reality and permanence of the
domestic worship as compared with the organised and official cults of
the state.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Etruscan builders were according to tradition employed on the
earliest Roman temples.
[4] This is all open to doubt, but see De Marchi, _Il Culto Privato_,
vol. ii.