That some of the great gods of Rome were but Greek gods borrowed is
universally admitted (see _e.g._ Mommsen's _History of Rome_, i. 186 _ff._,
or Ihne, i. 119). Even so strong a supporter of the theory of a
Græco-Italian period as Roscher admits unreservedly that the mythology,
worship, and the very name of Apollo were borrowed in early but still
historic times (_Lexikon_, i. 446). When, then, we find Plutarch putting
the question why the temples of Æsculapius and Vulcan were built outside
Rome (_Romane Questions_, 94 and 47), we at once surmise that these were
imported gods, whose worship was indeed sanctioned and ordained by the
Roman State but was not admitted within the sacred circle of the
_pomœrium_, reserved for the temples of indigenous Roman gods. In the case
of Æsculapius we have historical proof that his was an imported worship; in
consequence of a pestilence in Rome in B.C. 293 the god was fetched from
Epidaurus, and the temple in question was erected two years afterwards.[1]
We do not happen to have any similar historical record of the introduction
of Vulcan's worship, but the name of the god, be it Cretan or Etruscan, is
foreign.[2]
Having eliminated these and other loan-gods, we find that the genuine
Italian deities which remain fall into two classes. The one class consists
of such abstractions as Forculus, the spirit of doors; Cardea, that of
hinges; Limentinus, that of the threshold, &c., which can scarcely be
dignified by the name of gods, but are rather spirits, and amply warrant
Chantepie de la Saussaye's remark that Roman religion was still steeped in
animism.[3] The other class includes such gods as Janus, Jupiter, Mars,
Diana, Venus, Hercules, &c. It is necessary to note, however, that the
worship even of these gods can be proved to have been considerably
Hellenised in historic times:[4] some of their ritual and all their
mythology was borrowed from Greece, as we shall subsequently see. And when
the loan-myths and loan-cults have been removed, the genuine Italian gods
stand forth essentially and fundamentally different from those of
Greece.[5] Here, too, we may note that if comparative mythologists adhere
to their principle of not identifying the gods of different nations, unless
their names can be shown by comparative philology to be identical, they
must admit that Mars and Ares, Venus and Aphrodite, Diana and Artemis, Juno
and Hera, and all the other pairs of deities which the ancients identified,
are, with the sole exception of Jupiter and Zeus and of Vesta and Hestia,
not of cognate but of diverse origin. In fine, the differences between
Greek and Italian gods are fundamental and original: the resemblances can
be shown to be due to borrowing in historic times.
There is, however, one of the great Roman gods who was never identified
with any Hellenic deity, Janus. Now, although Janus ranks with Jupiter and
Mars in the Roman system as an indubitable god, yet in origin and function
he is not to be distinguished from those inferior, animistic powers to whom
the title of spirit is the highest that can be assigned. Janus is the
spirit that resides in or presides over door-openings (_ianus_, _ianua_),
just as Forculus has to do with doors (_fores_), Limentinus with the
threshold (_limen_), and Cardea with the hinges (_cardo_). He is also the
"spirit of opening,"[6] who was to be invoked at the commencement of every
act. Plutarch's questions why he should be represented with two heads, and
why the year should begin with the month named after him, January (_R. Q._,
22 and 19), are thus at once explained: "The double-head looking both ways
was connected with the gate that opened both ways;" and in January, "after
the rest of the middle of winter, the cycle of the labours of the field
began afresh."[7]
That the door or the threshold is the seat of a tutelary spirit or genius
is a belief familiar enough in folk-lore: the door must not be banged,[8]
nor wood chopped on the threshold,[9] for fear of disturbing him. He is apt
to disappear, taking the luck of the house with him, if a cat is
maliciously buried under the door-sill,[10] or if human hair is so
buried.[11] The importance of the door as a possible entrance for evil
spirits, or exit for lucky ones, is manifest in many customs, _e.g._,
nailing a horse-shoe on the door or sticking a knife into the door, and in
such beliefs as that when a door opens (apparently) of itself, a spirit is
entering.
Whether the Italian spirit of the doorway, who in origin is
indistinguishable from the similar though nameless spirits to be found
elsewhere, was capable by his own unaided efforts of raising himself to the
rank of a god, is matter for speculation. What is clear is that he had not
the chance: the introduction of Greek polytheism into Italy promoted him
without exertion on his part.
As, thus far, I have assumed a distinction between "gods" and "spirits,"
and have also assumed that a belief in the latter may exist without
polytheism and precede it, it will be well here to state explicitly the
distinction. And that I may not be suspected of drawing the distinction so
as to suit my own ends, I shall here borrow from a standard work, Chantepie
de la Saussaye's _Religionsgeschichte_ (i. 90). De la Saussaye notes five
characteristics involved in the conception of "gods." First, they are
related to one another as members of a family or community, and as subject
to one god, who is either lord of all, or at any rate _primus inter pares_.
Second, with the growth of art, they are represented plastically and are
made in the image of man. Third, as ethics advance, moral benefits are
associated with their worship. Hence, in the fourth place, the gods are
conceived as personal, individual beings, ideally good and beautiful.
Finally, the human intellect demands that the relations of the gods to one
another and to Nature should be co-ordinated into a system, and so
theogonies and cosmogonies are invented.
Now, if these be the marks whereby gods are distinguished from spirits, I
submit that, before the introduction of Greek gods and cults, the Romans
had not advanced as far as polytheism, but were still in the purely
animistic stage. Here again, to avoid the temptation of interpreting the
evidence unduly in favour of the conclusion to which it seems to me to
point, I will confine myself to quotations. Ihne (_Hist. of Rome_, i. 118)
says that to the Romans, before the period of Hellenic influence, "the gods
were only mysterious spiritual beings, without human forms, without human
feelings and impulses, without human virtues or weaknesses.... Though the
divine beings were conceived as male or female, they did not join in
marriage or beget children.... No genuine Roman legend tells of any race of
nobles sprung from gods." Again, "The original Roman worship had no images
of the gods or houses set apart for them" (Mommsen, i. 183). "A simple
spear, even a rough stone, sufficed as a symbol" (Ihne, 119). Roman
religion had nothing to do with morality: "it was designed for use in
practical life" (_Ibid._ 120). "The religion of Rome had nothing of its own
peculiar growth even remotely parallel to the religion of Apollo investing
earthly morality with its halo of glory" (Mommsen, 172). Mommsen's
observation that "the hero-worship of the Greeks was wholly foreign to the
Romans" (174) is explained by the fact that a hero is a being of human
origin raised by good deeds to the rank of a god, and the Romans had no
gods. Myths about the love-adventures of the gods and theogonies were
unknown to early Rome.[12] An Italian cosmogony has not yet been
discovered, and even the wide-spread belief in the union of Father Sky and
Mother Earth had not been evolved in Italy.
In fine "the beings which the Romans worshipped were rather _numina_ than
personal gods."[13] Even the spirits whom we can trace back under definite
names to the purely Italian period, such as Jupiter, Juno, Vesta, Mars, are
not individual, personal beings. Each of these names is the name of a class
of spirits. "Each community of course had its own Mars, and deemed him to
be the strongest and holiest of all" (Mommsen, i. 175). Each household had
its own Vesta. There were many Jupiters, many Junos. In England, in the
same way, the name of Puck, who is a definite individual personality in one
stage of our fairy mythology, was originally a class-name of the spirits
whom, as Burton says in his _Anatomy_, "we commonly call poukes."
I will conclude this section with quotations from two distinguished
authorities on Mythology, who would both dissent from the views which have
been advanced above, but whose words seem to me to bear unintentional
testimony in favour of those views. E. H. Meyer, in his _Indogermanische
Mythen_ (ii. 612), says, "Roman religion seldom displays more than the
_elementary rudiments_, or rather let us say the last remnants of
mythology," and "whereas the cult of the greater gods is known to us in a
form greatly affected by Hellenism, ... the local gods usually scarcely
rise above the rank of spirits (_sich meistens kaum über daemonischen Rang
erheben_)." Preller, in his _Römische Mythologie_ (i. 48), says, "The
Romans' belief in gods would be termed more rightly _pandæmonism_ than
_polytheism_.... One is involuntarily reminded of those Pelasgians of
Dodona who, according to Herodotus, assigned neither names nor epithets to
their gods.... Indeed, most of the names of the oldest Roman gods have such
a shifting, indefinite meaning, that they can scarcely be regarded as
proper names, as the names of persons."