WORSHIP OF THE STATE
Since, in the matter of religion, the Roman state is in the main but
the agricultural household magnified, we shall not, in considering its
worship, be entering on a new stratum of ideas, but rather looking at
the development of notions and sentiments already familiar. To deal,
however, with the state-worship in full would not only far exceed the
limits of this sketch, but would lead us away from religious ideas into
the region of what we might now call 'ecclesiastical management.' I
propose therefore to confine myself to two points, firstly, the
broadening of the old conceptions of the household and the fields and
their adaptation to the life of the state, and secondly--to be treated
very shortly and as an indication of the Roman character--the
organisation of religion.
=1. Development of the Worship of House and Fields.=--Here we shall
find two main characteristics. The state in the first place, as we
have several times hinted in anticipation, establishes its own
counterpart of the household and rustic cults and adapts to its own use
the ideas which they involve: in the second, and particularly in
connection with some of the field-deities, it evolves new and very
frequently abstract notions, foreign to the life of the independent
country households, but necessary and vital to the life of an organised
community. Let us look first at the fate of the household deities.
=Ianus.=--We left Ianus as the _numen_ of the house-door: he passes
into the state exactly in the same capacity: the state too has its
'door,' the gate at the north-east corner of the Forum, and this
becomes the seat of his state-cult--the door which, according to
Augustan legend, is opened in the time of war and only shut when Rome
is at peace with all the world. But reflection soon gets to work on
Ianus: a door has two sides, it can both open and shut; therefore, as
early as the song of the Salii, he has developed the cult-epithets
'Opener,' 'Shutter' (_Patulci_, _Cloesi_), and as soon as he is thought
of as anything approaching a personality he is 'two-headed'
(_bifrons_), as he appears in later representations. The door again is
the first thing you come to in entering a house: the 'door-spirit'
then, with that tendency to abstraction which we shall see shortly in
other cases, becomes the god of beginnings. He watches over the very
first beginning of human life in his character of _Consevius_; to him
is sacred the first hour of the day (_pater matutinus_), the Calends of
every month, and the first month of the year (_Ianuarius_); to him too
is offered by the _rex sacrorum_ the first sacrifice of the year, the
Agonium on the 9th of January. In this capacity, moreover, his name
comes first in all the formulæ of prayer, and he is looked upon--not
indeed as the father of the gods--for that is a much too
anthropomorphic notion--but as what we might now term their 'logical
antecedent': _divum deus_, as the song of the Salii quaintly puts it,
_principium deorum_, as later interpretation explained it. Yet through
all he remains the most typical Roman deity: he does not acquire a
temple till 217 B.C., nor a bust until quite late, nor is he ever
identified with a Greek counterpart. In his capacity as _pater
matutinus_ he has a native female counterpart in Matuta, a dawn-deity,
who becomes a protectress in childbirth, and as such is the centre of
the matrons' festival, the Matralia of June 11.
=Vesta.=--The history of Vesta is perhaps less romantic, but it affords
a more exact parallel between household and state. In the primitive
community the king's hearth is not merely of symbolical importance, but
of great practical utility, in that it is kept continually burning as
the source of fire on which the individual householder may draw: hence
it is the duty of the king's daughters to care for it and keep the
flame perpetually alight. In Rome the temple of Vesta is the king's
hearth, situated, as one would expect, in close proximity to the
_regia_. The fire is kept continually blazing except on the 1st of
March of every year, when it is allowed to go out and is ceremonially
renewed. The Vestal virgins, sworn to perpetual virginity and charged
with the preservation of the sacred flame, are 'the king's daughters,'
living in a kind of convent (_atrium Vestæ_) and under the charge of
the king's representative, the _pontifex maximus_. It is their duty
too, as the natural cooks of the sacred royal household, to make the
salt cake (_mola salsa_) to be used at the year's festivals and to
preserve it and other sacred objects, such as the ashes of the
Fordicidia, in the storehouse of Vesta (_penus Vestæ_). In the month of
June from the 7th to the 15th, with a climax on the 9th, the day of
the Vestalia, the matrons who all the year round have tended their own
hearths, come in solemn procession bare-footed to make their homely
offerings at the state-hearth, and the virgins meanwhile offer the
cakes that they have made. For eight days the ceremony continues,
during which time the bakers and millers keep holiday; the days are
_religiosi_ (marriages are unlucky and other taboos are observed) and
also _nefasti_ (no public business may be performed); until the
ceremony closes on the 15th, with the solemn cleansing of the temple
and the casting of the refuse into the Tiber, and then the normal life
of the state may be renewed--Q. St. D. F. (_Quando Stercus Delatum Fas_)
is the unique entry in the Calendars. This is all less imaginative than
the development of Ianus, but the underlying feeling is intensely Roman
and there could be no clearer idea of the natural adaptation of the
household-cult to the religion of the state.
=Penates, Lares, and Genius.=--The other household deities too have
their counterpart, though not so prominently marked, in the worship of
the state. The magistrates, on entering office, took oath by Iuppiter
and the _Di Penates populi Romani Quiritium_, and that the conception
was as wide in the state as in the household is shown by the fact that
on less formal occasions the formula appears as _Iuppiter et ceteri di
omnes immortales_. The Penates of the state then would include all the
state-deities; but that their original character is not lost sight of
we can see from the statement of Varro that in the _penus Vestæ_ (the
'state storehouse') were preserved their _sigilla_--not apparently
sensuous representations, but symbolic objects, such as we have seen
before in cases like that of the _silex_ of Iuppiter. The _Lares_ again
find their counterpart in the _Lares Praestites_ of the state, and
their rustic festival, the Compitalia, has its urban reproduction,
which, as it involved considerable license on the part of populace and
slaves, was often in the later period of the Republic a cause of
serious political disturbance. Even the Genius, though rather vaguely,
passes over to the state and we hear of the _Genius populi Romani_ or
the _Genius urbis Romæ_, with regard to which Servius quotes from an
inscription on a shield the characteristic addition, _sive mas sive
femina_: in much later times we find the exact counterpart of the
domestic worship of the Genius of the _pater familias_ in the cult of
the Genius of the Emperor--the foundation of the whole of the imperial
worship.
We have observed already how the cults of the fields were taken over by
the state and their counterparts established in the great festivals of
the Calendar. Naturally enough most of the deities concerned, existing
only for the part they played in these festivals, retained their
original character without further development. But with a few it was
different: it was their fate to acquire new characteristics and new
functions, and, developing with the needs of the community, to become
the great gods of the state: of these we must give some brief account.
=Iuppiter.=--We have known Iuppiter hitherto either in connection with
certain very primitive survivals, or in the genuine Roman period as a
sky-_numen_, concerned with the grape-harvest in the two Vinalia and
the Meditrinalia, and the recipient at the family meal of a _daps_ as a
general propitiation before the beginning of the sowing. As sky-god he
passes to the state: _Lucetius_ (_lux_) is his title in the song of the
Salii and to him are sacred the Ides of every month--the time of the
full moon, when there is most light in the heavens by night as well as
day. In his agricultural connection he has his wine-festivals in the
state as in the country, and the household _daps_ becomes the more
elaborate _epulum Iovis_, in which the whole community, as it were,
entertained him at a banquet. As a sky-deity, too, he is particularly
concerned with the thunderbolt and the lightning-flash (_Iuppiter
Fulmen_, _Fulgur_), and to him are sacred the always ominous spots
which had been struck by lightning (_bidentalia_): with the more
alarming occurrence of lightning by night he has a special connection
under the cult-title _Iuppiter Summanus_. But as the little community
grew, and especially perhaps after the union of the two settlements,
the worship of Iuppiter Feretrius, associated with the sacred oak upon
the Capitol--the hill between Palatine and Quirinal--comes more and
more into prominence as a bond of union and the central point of the
state's religious life: it tends indeed to take the place of priority,
which had previously been occupied by Ianus. The community goes to war
with its neighbours, and after a signal victory the _spolia opima_ must
be dedicated on the sacred oak: indeed Iuppiter is in a special sense
with them in the battle and must now be worshipped as the 'stayer of
rout' (_Stator_) and the 'giver of victory' (_Victor_). War is a new
province of the state's activity, but, characteristically enough, it
does not evolve its own _numen_, but enlarges the sphere of the
somewhat elastic spirits already existing. So too in the internal
organisation of the state there is felt the need of a religious
sanction for public morality, and Iuppiter--though vaguely at
first--takes on him the character of a deity of justice. In this
connection he is primarily the god of oaths: we have seen how his
sacred _silex_ was used in the oath of treaty: it is also the most
solemn witness to the oath of the citizen. Iuppiter Lapis becomes
specially the Dius Fidius, a cult-title which subsequently sets up for
itself and produces a further offshoot in the abstract Fides. Finally,
towards the end of our period the Iuppiter of the Capitol emerges
triumphant, as it were, from his struggle with his rivals and, with the
new title of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus,--the 'best and greatest,' that
is, of all the Iuppiters--takes his place as the supreme deity of the
Roman state and the personification of the greatness and majesty of
Rome itself. To his temple hereafter the Roman youth will come to make
his offering when he takes the dress of manhood; here the magistrates
will do sacrifice before entering on their year of office: here the
victorious general will pass in procession with the spoils of his
victory: on the walls shall be suspended treaties with foreign nations
and offerings sent by subject princes and states from all quarters of
the world: all that Rome is to be, will be, as it were, embodied in the
sky-spirit of the sacred oak, the god of justice and of victory in war.
=Iuno.=--Iuppiter carries with him into the state-worship his female
counterpart, Iuno, with his own characteristics, in a certain degree,
and his own privileges. She is Lucina and Fulgura as he is Lucetius and
Fulgur: white cows are her offerings as white steers are his: as the
Ides are sacred to Iuppiter, so--though they are not a festival--are
the Calends to Iuno. But from the first she shows a certain
independence and develops on lines of her own. In the curious ceremony
of the fixing of the Nones (the first quarter of the month), held on
the Calends in the _curia Calabra_, she seems to appear as a
moon-goddess: the _rex sacrorum_, after a report from a _pontifex_ as
to the appearance of the new moon, announces the result in the formula:
'I summon thee for five (or seven) days, hollow Iuno' (_dies te
quinque_ [_septem_] _kalo, Iuno Covella_: hence the name _Kalendae_).
But far more prominently--either as a female divinity herself, or, as
some think, owing to the supposed influence of the moon on female
life--does Iuno figure as the deity of women, and especially in
association with childbirth and marriage. As _Lucina_ she is, as we
have seen, the presiding deity of childbirth, and her festival on the
1st of March, though not in the Calendars (because confined to women
and not therefore a festival of the whole people), attained immense
popularity under the title of the Matronalia. She has too a general
superintendence of the rites of marriage, and the various little
_numina_, who play so prominent a part in the ceremonies, tend to
attach themselves to her as cult-titles. The festival of the
servant-maids in honour of Iuno Caprotina on the 7th of July shows the
same notion of Iuno as the women's goddess, which appears again in
common parlance when women speak of their Iuno, just as men do of their
Genius. Later on Iuno acquires the characteristics of majesty
(_Regina_) and protection in war (_Curitis_, _Sospita_), partly no
doubt as Iuppiter's counterpart, but more directly through the
introduction of cults from neighbouring Italian towns.
=Mars.=--We have seen reason to believe that in the earlier stages of
Roman religion Mars was a _numen_ of vegetation, but though the
Ambarvalia was duly taken over into the state-cult and attained a very
high degree of importance, yet there can be no doubt that in the
state-religion Mars was pre-eminently associated with war. Iuppiter
might help at need in averting defeat and awarding victory, but it was
with Mars that the general conduct of war rested. His sacred animal is
the warlike wolf, his symbols the spears and the sacred shields
(_ancilia_), which during his own month (_Martius_)--the 1st of which
is his special festival--his priests (_Salii_) wearing the full
war-dress (_trabea_ and _tunica picta_) carry with sacred dance and
song round the city. His altar is in the Campus Martius, outside the
city-walls and therefore within the sphere of the _imperium militiae_,
and the other festivals associated with him are of a warlike character:
the races of the war-horse (Equirria) on March 14 and February 27, and
the great race on the Ides of October, when the winner was solemnly
slain: the lustration of the arms at the Quinquatrus on March 19 and
the Armilustrium of October 19--at the beginning and end of the
campaigning season: and the lustration of the war-trumpets on the 23rd
of March and the 23rd of May. But above all in honour of Mars is held
the great quinquennial _lustrum_ associated with the census, when the
people are drawn up in military array around his altar in the Campus
Martius and the solemn offering of the _suovetaurilia_ (is this a faint
relic of his agricultural character?) after being carried three times
round the gathered host, is offered on his altar in prayer for the
military future of the state. Hardly any god in the state-cult has his
character so clearly marked, and we may regard Mars as a deity who,
taking on new functions to suit the needs of the times, almost entirely
lost the traces of his original nature.
=Quirinus.=--Iuppiter and Mars then became the great state-deities of
the developed community and to them is added, as the contribution of
the Colline settlement, their own particular deity, Quirinus. He, like
them, has his own _flamen_; like Mars he has his _Salii_, and his
festival finds its place in the Calendars on February the 17th. But of
his ritual and character we know practically nothing: the ritual was
obscured because his festival coincided with the much more popular
festival of the _curiae_, the _stultorum feriae_: of his character, we
can only conjecture that he was to the Colline settlement what Mars was
to the Palatine, whereas later after the complete amalgamation he seems
to have been distinguished from Mars as representing 'armed peace'
rather than war--an idea which is borne out by the associations of the
closely allied word _Quirites_. Be that as it may, we have in Iuppiter,
Mars, and Quirinus the great state-triad of the synoecismus, who held
their own until at the beginning of the next epoch they were supplanted
by the new Etruscan triad of the Capitol, Iuppiter, Iuno and Minerva.
=2. Organisation.=--It might perhaps be thought that the organisation
of religion is a matter remote from its spirit, and is not therefore a
suitable subject for discussion, where the object is rather to bring
out underlying motives and ideas: but in dealing with the Roman
religion, where ceremonial and legal precision were so prominent, it
would be even misleading to omit some reference to the very
characteristic manner in which the state, taking over the rather
chaotic elements of the agricultural worship, organised them into
something like a consistent whole. Its most complete achievement in
this direction was without doubt the regulation of the religious year.
We have spoken many times of the Calendars (_Fasti_): it is necessary
now to obtain some clearer notion of what they were. In Rome itself and
various Italian towns have been found some thirty inscriptions, one
almost complete (Maffeiani), the others more or less fragmentary,
giving the tables of the months and marking precisely the character and
occurrences of every day in the year. We may take as a specimen the
latter half of the month of August from the Fasti Maffeiani.
A. EID. [NP]. | C. VOLC. [NP].
B. F. | D. C.
C. C. | E. OPIC. [NP].
D. C. | F. C.
E. PORT. [NP]. | G. VOLT. [NP].
F. C. | H. [NP].
G. VIN. F.P. | A. F.
H. C. | B. F.
A. CONS. [NP]. | C. C.
B. EN. |
In the first column are given the nundinal letters of the days, showing
their position in the eight days' 'week' from one market day
(_nundinae_) to the next. In the second column are noted first the
great divisions of the month, Calends, Nones, and Ides, and then the
religious character of each individual day is indicated by certain
signs, whose explanations throw a good deal of light on Roman religions
notions. It will be seen that the letters of most frequent occurrence
are F, C, and N (or in our extract [NP]): these correspond to the broad
distinction between days profane and sacred. F (_fastus_) denotes a
day on which the business of the state may be performed, on which the
praetor may say (_fari_) the three words, _do_, _dico_, _addico_, which
summed up the decisions of the Roman law: C (_comitialis_) marks a day
on which the legislative assemblies (_comitia_) may be held: it is by
implication F as well. N (_nefastus_), on the other hand, denotes the
sacred day, consecrated to the worship of the gods, on which therefore
state-business may not be transacted: similarly the very mysterious and
much disputed sign [NP], whether it differs in precise signification
from N or not, certainly marks a day of sacred character. EN, which
occurs once in this extract (from _endotercisus_, the old Latin form of
_intercisus_) signifies a 'split' day (_dies fissus_), the beginning
and end of which were sacred, while the middle period was free for
business. In the second column also (in large letters in some of the
other Calendars) are named the _feriae publicae_, the great annual
state-festivals, fixed for one particular day (_feriae stativae_):
such, in this case, are the Portunalia, Vinalia, and Consualia.
These _fasti_ were exhibited in the Forum and on the walls of temples,
and the conscientious Roman could have no possible difficulty in
finding out when he might lawfully transact his business and what
festivals the state was observing: of the 355 days of the old Calendar
11 were _fissi_, 235 were _fasti_ (192 _comitiales_), and 109
_nefasti_. We may remark as curious features in the Calendar, denoting
rigid adherence to principle, that with one exception, the Poplifugia
of July 5, no festival ever occurs before the Nones, that with two
exceptions, the Regifugium of February 24 and the Equirria of the 14th
of March, no festival falls on an even day of the month, and that there
is a marked avoidance of successive feast-days: even the three days of
the Lemuria allow an interval of a day between each.
In the matter of ritual and observance, state-organisation--and its
absence--are alike significant. Of the general exactness of ritual and
its specific variations on different occasions a fair notion has
perhaps already been gathered; it may help to fill out that notion if
we can put together a sketch of the normal process of a sacrifice to
the gods. Before the sacrifice began the animal to be offered was
selected and tested: if it had any blemish or showed any reluctance, it
was rejected. If it were whole and willing, it was bound with fillets
(_infulae_) around its forehead, and long ribbons (_vittae_) depending
from them. It was then brought to the altar (_ara_) by the side of
which stood a portable brazier (_foculus_). The celebrant--magistrate
or priest--next approached dressed in the _toga_, girt about him in a
peculiar manner (_cinctus Gabinus_), and carried up at the back so as
to form a hood (_velato capite_): the herald proclaimed silence, and
the flute-player began to play his instrument. The first part of the
offering was then made by the pouring of wine and scattering of incense
on the brazier: it was followed by the ceremonial slaughter
(_immolatio_) of the animal. The celebrant sprinkled the victim with
wine and salted cake, and made a symbolic gesture with the knife. The
victim was then taken aside by the attendants (_victimarii_), and
actually slaughtered by them: from it they extracted the sacred parts
(_exta_), liver, heart, gall, lungs, and midriff, and after inspecting
them to see that they had no abnormality--but not in the earlier period
for purposes of augury--wrapped them in pieces of flesh (_augmenta_),
cooked them, and brought them back to the celebrant, who laid them as
an offering upon the altar, where they were burnt. The rest of the
flesh (_viscera_) was divided as a sacred meal between the celebrant
and his friends--or in a state-offering among the priests, and
probably the magistrate. We cannot refrain from remarking here the
extreme precision of ritual, the scrupulous care with which the human
side of the contract was fulfilled and the--almost legal--division of
the victim between gods and men. But though the ritual was so exact,
one must not be led away by modern analogies to suppose that there was
ever anything like a rigid constraint on the private citizen for the
observance of festivals. The state-festivals were in the strictest
sense offerings made to the gods by the representative magistrates or
priests, and if they were present, all was done that was required: the
whole people had been, by a legal fiction, present in their persons. No
doubt the private citizen would often attend in large numbers at the
celebrations, especially at the more popular festivals, but from some,
such as the Vestalia, he was actually excluded. On the other hand,
though it did not demand presence, the state did--at least
theoretically--demand the observance of the feast-day by private
individuals. The root-notion of _feriae_ was a day set apart for the
worship of the gods, and on it therefore the citizen ought to do 'no
manner of work.' The state observed this condition fully in the
closing of law-courts and the absence of legislative assemblies, and
in theory too the private citizen must refrain from any act which was
not concerned with the worship of the gods, or rendered absolutely
necessary, as, for instance, if 'his ox or his ass should fall into a
pit.' But it is characteristic of Rome that the state did not seek for
offence, but only punished it if accidentally seen: on a feast-day the
_rex sacrorum_ and the _flamines_ might not see work being done; they
therefore sent on a herald in advance to announce their presence, and
an actual conviction involved a money-fine. Perhaps more scrupulously
than the _feriae_ were observed the _dies religiosi_, days of
'abstinence,' on which certain acts, such as marriage, the beginning of
any new piece of work, or the offering of sacrifice to the gods, were
forbidden: such, in the oldest period, were the days on which the
_mundus_ was open, or the temple of Vesta received the matrons, the
days when the Salii carried the _ancilia_ in procession, and the
periods of the two festivals of the dead in February and May; but for
eluding their observance too devices were not unknown.
In the state-organisation of religion, then, we seem to see just the
same features from which we started: as a basis the legal conception
of the relation of god to man, as a result the extreme care and
precision in times and ceremonials, as a corollary in the state the
idea of legal representation and the consequent looseness of hold on
the action of the individual.