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THE
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
OF THE
ROMAN PEOPLE
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE
AGE OF AUGUSTUS
THE GIFFORD LECTURES FOR 1909-10
DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY
BY
W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A.
FELLOW AND LATE SUB-RECTOR OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD
HON. D.LITT. UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
AUTHOR OF 'THE ROMAN FESTIVALS OF THE PERIOD OF THE REPUBLIC,' ETC.
"Sanctos ausus recludere fontes"
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1911
TO
PROFESSOR W.R. HARDIE
AND
MY MANY OTHER KIND FRIENDS AND FRIENDLY HEARERS
IN EDINBURGH
PREFACE
Lord Gifford in founding his lectureship directed that the lectures
should be public and popular, _i.e._ not restricted to members of a
University. Accordingly in lecturing I endeavoured to make myself
intelligible to a general audience by avoiding much technical discussion
and controversial matter, and by keeping to the plan of describing in
outline the development and decay of the religion of the Roman
City-state. And on the whole I have thought it better to keep to this
principle in publishing the lectures; they are printed for the most part
much as they were delivered, and without footnotes, but at the end of
each lecture students of the subject will find the notes referred to by
the numbers in the text, containing such further information or
discussion as has seemed desirable. My model in this method has been the
admirable lectures of Prof. Cumont on "les Religions Orientales dans le
Paganisme Romain."
I wish to make two remarks about the subject-matter of the lectures.
First, the idea running through them is that the primitive religious (or
magico-religious) instinct, which was the germ of the religion of the
historical Romans, was gradually atrophied by over-elaboration of
ritual, but showed itself again in strange forms from the period of the
Punic wars onwards. For this religious instinct I have used the Latin
word _religio_, as I have explained in the _Transactions of the Third
International Congress for the History of Religions_, vol. ii. p. 169
foll. I am, however, well aware that some scholars take a different view
of the original meaning of this famous word, which has been much
discussed since I formed my plan of lecturing. But I do not think that
those who differ from me on this point will find that my general
argument is seriously affected one way or another by my use of the word.
Secondly, while I have been at work on the lectures, the idea seems to
have been slowly gaining ground that the patrician religion of the early
City-state, which became so highly formalised, so clean and austere, and
eventually so political, was really the religion of an invading race,
like that of the Achaeans in Greece, engrafted on the religion of a
primitive and less civilised population. I have not definitely adopted
this idea; but I am inclined to think that a good deal of what I have
said in the earlier lectures may be found to support it. Once only, in
Lecture XVII., I have used it myself to support a hypothesis there
advanced.
I have retained the familiar English spelling of certain divine names,
_e.g._ Jupiter (instead of Iuppiter), as less startling to British
readers.
I wish to express my very deep obligations to the works of Prof. Wissowa
and Dr. J. G. Frazer, and also to Mr. R. R. Marett, who gave me useful
personal help in my second and third lectures. From Prof. Wissowa and
Dr. Frazer I have had the misfortune to differ on one or two points; but
"difference of opinion is the salt of life," as a great scholar said to
me not long ago. In reading the proofs I have had much kind and valuable
help from my Oxford friends Mr. Cyril Bailey and Mr. A. S. L.
Farquharson, who have read certain parts of the work, and to whose
suggestions I am greatly indebted. The whole has been read through by my
old pupil Mr. Hugh Parr, now of Clifton College, to whom my best thanks
are due for his timely discovery of many misprints and awkward
expressions. The loyalty and goodwill of my old Oxford pupils never seem
to fail me.
W. W. F.
Kingham, Oxon,
_3rd March 1911_.
CONTENTS
LECTURE I
INTRODUCTORY
PAGE
Accounts of the Roman religion in recent standard works;
a hard and highly formalised system. Its interest lies
partly in this fact. How did it come to be so? This the
main question of the first epoch of Roman religious
experience. Roman religion and Roman law compared. Roman
religion a technical subject. What we mean by religion.
A useful definition applied to the plan of Lectures
I.-X.; including (1) survivals of primitive or
quasi-magical religion; (2) the religion of the
agricultural family; (3) that of the City-state, in its
simplest form, and in its first period of expansion.
Difficulties of the subject; present position of
knowledge and criticism. Help obtainable from (1)
archaeology, (2) anthropology 1-23
LECTURE II
ON THE THRESHOLD OF RELIGION: SURVIVALS
Survivals at Rome of previous eras of quasi-religious
experience. Totemism not discernible. Taboo, and the
means adopted of escaping from it; both survived at Rome
into an age of real religion. Examples: impurity (or
holiness) of new-born infants; of a corpse; of women in
certain worships; of strangers; of criminals. Almost
complete absence of blood-taboo. Iron. Strange taboos on
the priest of Jupiter and his wife. Holy or tabooed
places; holy or tabooed days; the word _religiosus_ as
applied to both of these 24-46
LECTURE III
ON THE THRESHOLD OF RELIGION: MAGIC
Magic; distinction between magic and religion. Religious
authorities seek to exclude magic, and did so at Rome.
Few survivals of magic in the State religion. The
_aquaelicium_. Vestals and runaway slaves. The magical
whipping at the Lupercalia. The throwing of puppets from
the _pons sublicius_. Magical processes surviving in
religious ritual with their meaning lost. Private magic:
_excantatio_ in the XII. Tables; other spells or
_carmina_. Amulets: the _bulla_; _oscilla_ 47-67
LECTURE IV
THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY
Continuity of the religion of the Latin agricultural
family. What the family was; its relation to the _gens_.
The _familia_ as settled on the land, an economic unit,
embodied in a _pagus_. The house as the religious centre
of the _familia_; its holy places. Vesta, Penates,
Genius, and the spirit of the doorway. The _Lar
familiaris_ on the land. Festival of the Lar belongs to
the religion of the _pagus_: other festivals of the
_pagus_. _Religio terminorum._ Religion of the
household: marriage, childbirth, burial and cult of the
dead 68-91
LECTURE V
THE CALENDAR OF NUMA
Beginnings of the City-state: the _oppidum_. The
earliest historical Rome, the city of the four regions;
to this belongs the surviving religious calendar. This
calendar described; the basis of our knowledge of early
Roman religion. It expresses a life agricultural,
political, and military. Days of gods distinguished from
days of man. Agricultural life the real basis of the
calendar; gradual effacement of it. Results of a fixed
routine in calendar; discipline, religious confidence.
Exclusion from it of the barbarous and grotesque.
Decency and order under an organising priestly authority
92-113
LECTURE VI
THE DIVINE OBJECTS OF WORSHIP
Sources of knowledge about Roman deities. What did the
Romans themselves know about them? No personal deity in
the religion of the family. Those of the City-state are
_numina_, marking a transition from animism to
polytheism. Meaning of _numen_. Importance of names,
which are chiefly adjectival, marking functional
activity. Tellus an exception. Importance of priests in
development of _dei_. The four great Roman gods and
their priests: Janus, Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus.
Characteristics of each of these in earliest Rome. Juno
and the difficulties she presents. Vesta 114-144
LECTURE VII
THE DEITIES OF THE EARLIEST RELIGION:
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS
No temples in the earliest Rome; meaning of _fanum, ara,
lucus, sacellum_. No images of gods in these places,
until end of regal period. Thus deities not conceived as
persons. Though masculine and feminine they were not
married pairs; Dr. Frazer's opinion on this point.
Examination of his evidence derived from the _libri
sacerdotum_; meaning of Nerio Martis. Such combinations
of names suggest forms or manifestations of a deity's
activity, not likely to grow into personal deities
without Greek help. Meaning of _pater_ and _mater_
applied to deities; procreation not indicated by them.
The deities of the _Indigitamenta_; priestly inventions
of a later age. Usener's theory of Sondergoetter
criticised so far as it applies to Rome 145-168
LECTURE VIII
RITUAL OF THE IUS DIVINUM
Main object of _ius divinum_ to keep up the _pax
deorum_; meaning of _pax_ in this phrase. Means towards
the maintenance of the _pax_: sacrifice and prayer,
fulfilment of vows, lustratio, divination. Meaning of
_sacrificium_. Little trace of sacramental sacrifice.
Typical sacrifice of _ius divinum_: both priest and
victim must be acceptable to the deity; means taken to
secure this. Ritual of slaughter: examination and
_porrectio_ of entrails. Prayer; the phrase _Macte esto_
and its importance in explaining Roman sacrifice.
Magical survivals in Roman and Italian prayers; yet they
are essentially religious 169-199
LECTURE IX
RITUAL (continued)
_Vota_ (vows) have suggested the idea that Roman worship
was bargaining. Examination of private vows, which do
not prove this; of public vows, which in some degree do
so. Moral elements in both these. Other forms of vow:
_evocatio_ and _devotio_.
_Lustratio_: meaning of _lustrare_ in successive stages
of Roman experience. _Lustratio_ of the farm and
_pagus_; of the city; of the people (at Rome and
Iguvium); of the army; of the arms and trumpets of the
army: meaning of _lustratio_ in these last cases, both
before and after a campaign 200-222
LECTURE X
THE FIRST ARRIVAL OF NEW CULTS IN ROME
Recapitulation of foregoing lectures. Weak point of the
organised State religion: it discouraged individual
development. Its moral influence mainly a disciplinary
one; and it hypnotised the religious instinct.
Growth of a new population at end of regal period, also
of trade and industry. New deities from abroad represent
these changes: Hercules of Ara Maxima; Castor and
Pollux; Minerva. Diana of the Aventine reflects a new
relation with Latium. Question as to the real religious
influence of these deities. The Capitoline temple of
Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, of Etruscan origin. Meaning
of cult-titles Optimus Maximus, and significance of this
great Jupiter in Roman religious experience 223-247
LECTURE XI
CONTACT OF THE OLD AND NEW IN RELIGION
Plan of this and following lectures. The formalised
Roman religion meets with perils, material and moral,
and ultimately proves inadequate. Subject of this
lecture, the introduction of Greek deities and rites;
but first a proof that the Romans were a really
religious people; evidence from literature, from
worship, from the practice of public life, and from
Latin religious vocabulary.
Temple of Ceres, Liber, Libera (Demeter, Dionysus,
Persephone); its importance for the date of Sibylline
influence at Rome. Nature of this influence; how and
when it reached Rome. The keepers of the "Sibylline
books"; new cults introduced by them. New rites:
lectisternia and supplicationes, their meaning and
historical importance 248-269
LECTURE XII
THE PONTIFICES AND THE SECULARISATION OF RELIGION
Historical facts about the Pontifices in this period; a
powerful exclusive "collegium" taking charge of the _ius
divinum_. The legal side of their work; they
administered the oldest rules of law, which belonged to
that _ius_. New ideas of law after Etruscan period;
increasing social complexity and its effect on legal
matters; result, publication of rules of law, civil and
religious, in XII. Tables, and abolition of legal
monopoly of Pontifices. But they keep control of (1)
procedure, (2) interpretation, till end of fourth
century B.C. Publication of Fasti and _Legis actiones_;
the college opened to Plebeians. Work of Pontifices in
third century: (1) admission of new deities, (2)
compilation of annals, (3) collection of religious
formulae. General result; formalisation of religion; and
secularisation of pontifical influence 270-291
LECTURE XIII
THE AUGURS AND THE ART OF DIVINATION
Divination a universal practice: its relation to magic.
Want of a comprehensive treatment of it. Its object at
Rome: to assure oneself of the _pax deorum_; but it was
the most futile method used. Private divination; limited
and discouraged by the State, except in the form of
family _auspicia_. Public divination; _auspicia_ needed
in all State operations; close connection with
_imperium_. The augurs were skilled advisers of the
magistrates, but could not themselves take the auspices.
Probable result of this: Rome escaped subjection to a
hierarchy. Augurs and _auspicia_ become politically
important, but cease to belong to religion. State
divination a clog on political progress. Sinister
influence on Rome of Etruscan divination; history of the
_haruspices_ 292-313
LECTURE XIV
THE HANNIBALIC WAR
Tendency towards contempt of religious forms in third
century B.C.; disappears during this war. _Religio_ in
the old sense takes its place, _i.e._ fear and anxiety.
This takes the form of reporting _prodigia_; account of
these in 218 B.C., and of the prescriptions supplied by
Sibylline books. Fresh outbreak of _religio_ after
battle of Trasimene; _lectisternium_ of 216, without
distinction of Greek and Roman deities; importance of
this. Religious panic after battle of Cannae;
extraordinary religious measures, including human
sacrifice. Embassy to Delphi and its result; symptoms of
renewed confidence. But fresh and alarming outbreak in
213; met with remarkable skill. Institution of Apolline
games. Summary of religious history in last years of the
war; gratitude to the gods after battle of Metaurus.
Arrival of the Great Mother of Phrygia at Rome. Hannibal
leaves Italy 314-334
LECTURE XV
AFTER THE HANNIBALIC WAR
Religion used to support Senatorial policy in declaring
war (1) with Philip of Macedon, (2) with Antiochus of
Syria; but this is not the old religion. Use of
_prodigia_ and Sibylline oracles to secure political and
personal objects; mischief caused in this way. Growth of
individualism; rebellion of the individual against the
_ius divinum_. Examples of this from the history of the
priesthoods; strange story of a Flamen Dialis. The
story of the introduction of Bacchic rites in 186 B.C.;
interference of the Senate and Magistrates, and
significance of this. Strange attempt to propagate
Pythagoreanism; this also dealt with by the government.
Influence of Ennius and Plautus, and of translations
from Greek comedy, on the dying Roman religion 335-356
LECTURE XVI
GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND ROMAN RELIGION
Religious destitution of the Roman in second century
B.C. in regard to (1) his idea of God, (2) his sense of
Duty. No help from Epicurism, which provided no
religious sanction for conduct; Lucretius, and Epicurean
idea of the Divine. Arrival of Stoicism at Rome;
Panaetius and the Scipionic circle. Character of Scipio.
The religious side of Stoicism; it teaches a new
doctrine of the relation of man to God. Stoic idea of
God as Reason, and as pervading the universe; adjustment
of this to Roman idea of _numina_. Stoic idea of Man as
possessing Reason, and so partaking the Divine nature.
Influence of these two ideas on the best type of Roman;
they appeal to his idea of Duty, and ennoble his idea of
Law. Weak points in Roman Stoicism: (1) doctrine of
Will, (2) neglect of emotions and sympathy. It failed to
rouse an "enthusiasm of humanity" 357-379
LECTURE XVII
MYSTICISM--IDEAS OF A FUTURE LIFE
Early Pythagoreanism in S. Italy; its reappearance in
last century B.C. under the influence of Posidonius, who
combined Stoicism with Platonic Pythagoreanism. Cicero
affected by this revival; his Somnium Scipionis and
other later works. His mysticism takes practical form on
the death of his daughter; letters to Atticus about a
_fanum_. Individualisation of the Manes; freedom of
belief on such questions. Further evidence of Cicero's
tendency to mysticism at this time (45 B.C.), and his
belief in a future life. But did the ordinary Roman so
believe? Question whether he really believed in the
torments of Hades. Probability of this: explanation to
be found in the influence of Etruscan art and Greek
plays on primitive Roman ideas of the dead. Mysticism in
the form of astrology; Nigidius Figulus 380-402
LECTURE XVIII
RELIGIOUS FEELING IN THE POEMS OF VIRGIL
Virgil sums up Roman religious experience, and combines
it with hope for the future. Sense of depression in his
day; want of sympathy and goodwill towards men. Virgil's
sympathetic outlook; shown in his treatment of animals,
Italian scenery, man's labour, and man's worship. His
idea of _pietas_. The theme of the Aeneid; Rome's
mission in the world, and the _pietas_ needed to carry
it out. Development of the character of Aeneas; his
_pietas_ imperfect in the first six books, perfected in
the last six, resulting in a balance between the ideas
of the Individual and the State. Illustration of this
from the poem. Importance of Book vi., which describes
the ordeal destined to perfect the _pietas_ of the hero.
The sense of Duty never afterwards deserts him; his
_pietas_ enlarged in a religious sense 403-427
LECTURE XIX
THE AUGUSTAN REVIVAL
Connection of Augustus and Virgil. Augustus aims at
re-establishing the national _pietas_, and securing the
_pax deorum_ by means of the _ius divinum_. How this
formed part of his political plans. Temple restoration
and its practical result. Revival of the ancient ritual;
illustrated from the records of the Arval Brethren. The
new element in it; Caesar-worship; but Augustus was
content with the honour of re-establishing the _pax
deorum_. Celebration of this in the Ludi saeculares, 17
B.C. Our detailed knowledge of this festival; meaning of
_saeculum_; description of the _ludi_, and illustration
of their meaning from the _Carmen saeculare_ of Horace.
Discussion of the performance of this hymn by the choirs
of boys and girls 428-451
LECTURE XX
CONCLUSION
Religious ingredients in Roman soil likely to be
utilised by Christianity. The Stoic ingredient;
revelation of the Universal, and ennobling of
Individual. The contribution of Mysticism; preparation
for Christian eschatology. The contribution of Virgil;
sympathy and sense of Duty. The contribution of Roman
religion proper: (1) sane and orderly character of
ritual, (2) practical character of Latin Christianity
visible in early Christian writings, (3) a religious
vocabulary, _e.g. religio, pietas, sanctus,
sacramentum_. But all this is but a slight contribution;
essential difference between Christianity and all that
preceded it in Italy; illustration from the language of
St. Paul 452-472
APPENDIX
I. ON THE USE OF HUTS OR BOOTHS IN RELIGIOUS RITUAL 473
II. PROF. DEUBNER'S THEORY OF THE LUPERCALIA 478
III. THE PAIRS OF DEITIES IN GELLIUS xiii. 23 481
IV. THE EARLY USAGE OF THE WORDS IUS AND FAS 486
V. THE WORSHIP OF SACRED UTENSILS 489
INDEX 491
LECTURE I
INTRODUCTORY
I was invited to prepare these lectures, on Lord Gifford's foundation,
as one who has made a special study of the religious ideas and practice
of the Roman people. So far as I know, the subject has not been touched
upon as yet by any Gifford lecturer. We are in these days interested in
every form of religion, from the most rudimentary to the most highly
developed; from the ideas of the aborigines of Australia, which have now
become the common property of anthropologists, to the ethical and
spiritual religions of civilised man. Yet it is remarkable how few
students of the history of religion, apart from one or two specialists,
have been able to find anything instructive in the religion of the
Romans--of the Romans, I mean, as distinguished from that vast
collection of races and nationalities which eventually came to be called
by the name of Rome. At the Congress for the History of Religions held
at Oxford in 1908, out of scores of papers read and offered, not more
than one or two even touched on the early religious ideas of the most
practical and powerful people that the world has ever known.
This is due, in part at least, to the fact that just when Roman history
begins to be of absorbing interest, and fairly well substantiated by
evidence, the Roman religion, as religion, has already begun to lose its
vitality, its purity, its efficacy. It has become overlaid with foreign
rites and ideas, and it has also become a religious monopoly of the
State; of which the essential characteristic, as Mommsen has well put
it, and as we shall see later on, was "the conscious retention of the
principles of the popular belief, which were recognised as irrational,
for reasons of outward convenience."[1] It was not unlike the religion
of the Jews in the period immediately before the Captivity, and it was
never to profit by the refining and chastening influence of such lengthy
suffering. In this later condition it has not been attractive to
students of religious history; and to penetrate farther back into the
real religious ideas of the genuine Roman people is a task very far from
easy, of which indeed the difficulties only seem to increase as we
become more familiar with it.
It must be remarked, too, that as a consequence of this
unattractiveness, the accounts given in standard works of the general
features of this religion are rather chilling and repellent. More than
fifty years ago, in the first book of his _Roman History_, Mommsen so
treated of it--not indeed without some reservation,--and in this matter,
as in so many others, his view remained for many years the dominant one.
He looked at this religion, as was natural to him, from the point of
view of law; in religion as such he had no particular interest. If I am
not mistaken, it was for him, except in so far as it is connected with
Roman law, the least interesting part of all his far-reaching Roman
studies. More recent writers of credit and ability have followed his
lead, and stress has been laid on the legal side of religion at Rome; it
has been described over and over again as merely a system of contracts
between gods and worshippers, secured by hard and literal formalism, and
without ethical value or any native principle of growth. Quite recently,
for example, so great an authority as Professor Cumont has written of it
thus:--
"Il n'a peut etre jamais existe aucune religion aussi froide, aussi
prosaique que celle des Romains. Subordonnee a la politique, elle
cherche avant tout, par la stricte execution de pratiques appropriees, a
assurer a l'Etat la protection des dieux ou a detourner les effets de
leur malveillance. Elle a conclu avec les puissances celestes un contrat
synallagmatique d'ou decoulent des obligations reciproques: sacrifices
d'une part, faveurs de l'autre.... Sa liturgie rappelle par la minutie
de ses prescriptions l'ancien droit civil. Cette religion se defie des
abandons de l'ame et des elans de la devotion." And he finishes his
description by quoting a few words of the late M. Jean Reville: "The
legalism of the Pharisees, in spite of the dryness of their ritualistic
minutiae, could make the heart vibrate more than the formalism of the
Romans."[2]
Now it is not for me to deny the truth of such statements as this,
though I might be disposed to say that it is rather approximate than
complete truth as here expressed, does not sum up the whole story, and
only holds good for a single epoch of this religious history. But
surely, for anyone interested in the history of religion, a religious
system of such an unusual kind, with characteristics so well marked,
must, one would suppose, be itself an attractive subject. A religion
that becomes highly formalised claims attention by this very
characteristic. At one time, however far back, it must have accurately
expressed the needs and the aspirations of the Roman people in their
struggle for existence. It is obviously, as described by the writers I
have quoted, a very mature growth, a highly developed system; and the
story, if we could recover it, of the way in which it came to be thus
formalised, should be one of the deepest interest for students of the
history of religion. Another story, too, that of the gradual discovery
of the _inadequacy_ of this system, and of the engrafting upon it, or
substitution for it, of foreign rites and beliefs, is assuredly not less
instructive; and here, fortunately, our records make the task of telling
it an easier one.
Now these two stories, taken together, sum up what we may call the
_religious experience of the Roman people_; and as it is upon these that
I wish to concentrate your attention during this and the following
course, I have called these lectures by that name. My plan is not to
provide an exhaustive account of the details of the Roman worship or of
the nature of the Roman gods: that can be found in the works of
carefully trained specialists, of whom I shall have something to say
presently. More in accordance with the intentions of the Founder of
these lectures, I think, will be an attempt to follow out, with such
detailed comment as may be necessary, the religious experience of the
Romans, as an important part of their history. And this happens to
coincide with my own inclination and training; for I have been all my
academic life occupied in learning and teaching Roman history, and the
fascination which the study of the Roman religion has long had for me is
simply due to this fact. Whatever may be the case with other religions,
it is impossible to think of that of the Romans as detached from their
history as a whole; it is an integral part of the life and growth of the
people. An adequate knowledge of Roman history, with all its
difficulties and doubts, is the only scientific basis for the study of
Roman religion, just as an adequate knowledge of Jewish history is the
only scientific basis for a study of Jewish religion. The same rule must
hold good in a greater or less degree with all other forms of religion
of the higher type, and even when we are dealing with the religious
ideas of savage peoples it is well to bear it steadfastly in mind. I may
be excused for suggesting that in works on comparative religion and
morals this principle is not always sufficiently realised, and that the
panorama of religious or quasi-religious practice from all parts of the
world, and found among peoples of very different stages of development,
with which we are now so familiar, needs constant testing by increased
knowledge of those peoples in all their relations of life. At any rate,
in dealing with Roman evidence the investigator of religious history
should also be a student of Roman history generally, for the facts of
Roman life, public and private, are all closely concatenated together,
and spring with an organic growth from the same root. The branches tend
to separate, but the tree is of regular growth, compact in all its
parts, and you cannot safely concentrate your attention on one of these
parts to the comparative neglect of the rest. Conversely, too, the great
story of the rise and decay of the Roman dominion cannot be properly
understood without following out the religious history of this
people--their religious experience, as I prefer to call it. To take an
example of this, let me remind you of two leading facts in Roman
history: first, the strength and tenacity of the family as a group under
the absolute government of the paterfamilias; secondly, the strength and
tenacity of the idea of the State as represented by the _imperium_ of
its magistrates. How different in these respects are the Romans from the
Celts, the Scandinavians, even from the Greeks! But these two facts are
in great measure the result of the religious ideas of the people, and,
on the other hand, they themselves react with astonishing force on the
fortunes of that religion.
I do not indeed wish to be understood as maintaining that the religion
of the Roman was the most important element in his mental or civic
development: far from it. I should be the first to concede that the
religious element in the Roman mind was not that part of it which has
left the deepest impress on history, or contributed much, except in
externals, to our modern ideas of the Divine and of worship. It is not,
as Roman law was, the one great contribution of the Roman genius to the
evolution of humanity. But Roman law and Roman religion sprang from the
same root; they were indeed in origin _one and the same thing_.
Religious law was a part of the _ius civile_, and both were originally
administered by the same authority, the Rex. Following the course of the
two side by side for a few centuries, we come upon an astonishing
phenomenon, which I will mention now (it will meet us again) as showing
how far more interest can be aroused in our subject if we are fully
equipped as Roman historians than if we were to study the religion
alone, torn from the living body of the State, and placed on the
dissecting-board by itself. As the State grew in population and
importance, and came into contact, friendly or hostile, with other
peoples, both the religion and the law of the State were called upon to
expand, and they did so. But they did so in different ways; Roman law
expanded _organically_ and intensively, absorbing into its own body the
experience and practice of other peoples, while Roman religion expanded
_mechanically_ and extensively, by taking on the deities and worship of
others _without any organic change of its own being_. Just as the
English language has been able to absorb words of Latin origin, through
its early contact with French, into the very tissue and fibre of its
being, while German has for certain reasons never been able to do this,
but has adopted them as strangers only, without making them its very
own: so Roman law contrived to take into its own being the rules and
practices of strangers, while Roman religion, though it eventually
admitted the ideas and cults of Greeks and others, did so without taking
them by a digestive process into its own system. Had the law of Rome
remained as inelastic as the religion, the Roman people would have
advanced as little in civilisation as those races which embraced the
faith of Islam, with its law and religion alike impermeable to any
change.[3] Here is a phenomenon that at once attracts attention and
suggests questions not easy to answer. Why is it that the Roman religion
can never have the same interest and value for mankind as Roman law? I
hope that we shall find an answer to this question in the course of our
studies: at this moment I only propose it as an example of the advantage
gained for the study of one department of Roman life and thought by a
pretty complete equipment in the knowledge of others.
At the same time we must remember that the religion of the Romans is a
highly technical subject, like Roman law, the Roman constitution, and
almost everything else Roman; it calls for special knowledge as well as
a sufficient training in Roman institutions generally. Each of these
Roman subjects is like a language with a delicate accidence, which is
always presenting the unwary with pitfalls into which they are sure to
blunder unless they have a thorough mastery of it. I could mention a
book full of valuable thoughts about the relation to Paganism of the
early Christian Church, by a scholar at once learned and sympathetic;[4]
who when he happens to deal for a moment with the old Roman religion, is
inaccurate and misleading at every point. He knew, for example, that
this religion is built on the foundation of the worship of the family,
but he yielded to the temptation to assume that the family in heaven was
a counterpart of the family on earth, "as it might be seen in any palace
of the Roman nobility." "Jupiter and Juno," he says, "were the lord and
lady, and beneath them was an army of officers, attendants, ministers,
of every rank and degree." Such a description of the pantheon of his
religion would have utterly puzzled a Roman, even in the later days of
theological syncretism. Again he says that this religion was strongly
moral; that "the gods gave every man his duty, and expected him to
perform it." Here again no Roman of historical times, or indeed of any
age, could have allowed this to be his creed. Had it really been so, not
only the history of the Roman religion, but that of the Roman state,
would have been very different from what it actually was.
The principles then on which I wish to proceed in these lectures
are--(1) to keep the subject in continual touch with Roman history and
the development of the Roman state; (2) to exercise all possible care
and accuracy in dealing with the technical matters of the religion
itself. I may now go on to explain more exactly the plan I propose to
follow.
It will greatly assist me in this explanation if I begin by making clear
what I understand, for our present purposes, by the word _religion_.
There have been many definitions propounded--more in recent years than
ever before, owing to the recognition of the study of religion as a
department of anthropology. Controversies are going on which call for
new definitions, and it is only by slow degrees that we are arriving at
any common understanding as to the real essential thing or fact for
which we should reserve this famous word, and other words closely
connected with it, _e.g._ the supernatural. We are still disputing, for
example, as to the relation of religion to magic, and therefore as to
the exact meaning to be attributed to each of these terms.
Among the many definitions of religion which I have met with, there is
one which seems to me to be particularly helpful for our present
purposes; it is contributed by an American investigator. "_Religion is
the effective desire to be in right relation to the Power manifesting
itself in the universe._"[5] Dr. Frazer's definition is not different in
essentials: "By religion I understand a propitiation or conciliation of
powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the
course of nature and of human life;"[6] only that here the word is used
of acts of worship rather than of the feeling or desire that prompts
them. The definition of the late M. Jean Reville, in a chapter on
"Religious Experience," written near the end of his valuable life, is in
my view nearer the mark, and more comprehensive. "Religion," he says,
"is essentially a principle of life, the feeling of a living relation
between the human individual and the powers or power of which the
universe is the manifestation. What characterises each religion is its
way of looking upon this relation and its method of applying it."[7] And
a little further on he writes: "It is generally admitted that this
feeling of dependence upon the universe is the root of all religion."
But this is not so succinct as the definition which I quoted first, and
it introduces at least one term, _the individual_, which, for certain
good reasons, I think it will be better for us to avoid in studying the
early Roman religious ideas.
"_Religion is the effective desire to be in right relations with the
Power manifesting itself in the universe._" This has the advantage of
treating religion as primarily and essentially a _feeling_, an
instinctive desire, and the word "effective," skilfully introduced,
suggests that this feeling manifests itself in certain actions
undertaken in order to secure a desired end. Again, the phrase "right
relations" seems to me well chosen, and better than the "living
relation" of M. Reville, which if applied to the religions of antiquity
can only be understood in a sacramental sense, and is not obviously so
intended. "Right relation" will cover all religious feeling, from the
most material to the most spiritual. Think for a moment of the 119th
Psalm, the high-water mark of the religious feeling of the most
religious people of antiquity; it is a magnificent declaration of
conformity to the will of God, _i.e._ of the desire to be in right
relation to Him, to His statutes, judgments, laws, commands,
testimonies, righteousness. This is religion in a high state of
development; but our definition is so skilfully worded as to adapt
itself readily to much earlier and simpler forms. The "Power manifesting
itself in the universe" may be taken as including all the workings of
nature, which even now we most imperfectly understand, and which
primitive man so little understood that he misinterpreted them in a
hundred different ways. The effective desire to be in right relation
with these mysterious powers, so that they might not interfere with his
material well-being--with his flocks and herds, with his crops, too, if
he were in the agricultural stage, with his dwelling and his land, or
with his city if he had got so far in social development--this is what
we may call the religious instinct, the origin of what the Romans called
_religio_.[8] The effective desire to have your own will brought into
conformity to the will of a heavenly Father is a later development of
the same feeling; to this the genuine Roman never attained, and the
Greek very imperfectly.
If we keep this definition steadily in mind, I think we shall find it a
valuable guide in following out what I call the religious experience of
the Roman people; and at the present moment it will help me to explain
my plan in drawing up these lectures. To begin with, in the prehistoric
age of Rome, so far as we can discern from survivals of a later age, the
feeling or desire must have taken shape, ineffectively indeed, in many
quaint acts, some of them magical or quasi-magical, and possibly taken
over from an earlier and ruder population among whom the Latins settled.
Many of these continued, doubtless, to exist among the common folk,
unauthorised by any constituted power, while some few were absorbed into
the religious practice of the State, probably with the speedy loss of
their original significance. Such survivals of ineffective religion are
of course to be found in the lowest stratum of the religious ideas of
every people, ancient and modern; even among the Israelites,[9] and in
the rites of Islam or Christianity. They form, as it were, _a kind of
protoplasm of religious vitality_, from which an organic growth was
gradually developed. But though they are necessarily a matter of
investigation as survivals which have a story to tell, they do not carry
us very far when we are tracing the religious experience of a people,
and in any case the process of investigating them is one of groping in
the dark. I shall deal with these survivals in my next two lectures, and
then leave them for good.
I am more immediately concerned with the desire expressed in our
definition _when it has become more effective_; and this we find in the
Latins when they have attained to a complete settlement on the land, and
are well on in the agricultural stage of social development. This stage
we can dimly see reflected in the life of the home and farm of later
times; we have, I need hardly say, no contemporary evidence of it,
though archaeology may yet yield us something. But the conservatism of
rural life is a familiar fact, and comes home to me when I reflect that
in my own English village the main features of work and worship remained
the same through many centuries, until we were revolutionised by the
enclosure of the parish and the coming of the railroad in the middle of
the nineteenth century. The intense conservatism of rural Italy, up to
the present day, has always been an acknowledged fact, and admits of
easy explanation. We may be sure that the Latin farmer, before the
City-state was developed, was like his descendants of historical times,
the religious head of a family, whose household deities were
_effectively_ worshipped by a regular and orderly procedure, whose dead
were cared for in like manner, and whose land and stock were protected
from malignant spirits by a boundary made sacred by yearly rites of
sacrifice and prayer. Doubtless these wild spirits beyond his boundaries
were a constant source of anxiety to him; doubtless charms and spells
and other survivals from the earlier stage were in use to keep them from
mischief; but these tend to become exceptions in an orderly life of
agricultural routine which we may call _religious_. Spirits may accept
domicile within the limits of the farm, and tend, as always in this
agricultural stage, to become fixed to the soil and to take more
definite shape as in some sense deities. This stage--that of the
agricultural family--is the foundation of Roman civilised life, in
religious as in all other aspects, and it will form the subject of my
fourth lecture.
The growing effectiveness of the desire, as seen in the family and in
the agricultural stage, prepares us for still greater effectiveness in
the higher form of civilisation which we know as that of the City-state.
That desire, let me say once more, is to be in right relations with the
Power manifesting itself in the universe. It is only in the higher
stages of civilisation that this desire can really become effective;
social organisation, as I shall show, produces an increased knowledge of
the nature of the Power, and with it a systematisation of the means
deemed necessary to secure the right relations. The City-state, the
peculiar form in which Greek and Italian social and political life
eventually blossomed and fructified, was admirably fitted to secure this
effectiveness. It was, of course, an intensely _local_ system; and the
result was, first, that the Power is localised in certain spots and
propitiated by certain forms of cult within the city wall, thus bringing
the divine into closest touch with the human population and its
interests; and secondly, that the concentration of intelligence and
will-power within a small space might, and did at Rome, develop a very
elaborate system for securing the right relations--in other words, it
produced a religious system as highly ritualistic as that of the Jews.
With the several aspects of this system my fifth and succeeding lectures
will be occupied. I shall deal first with the religious calendar of the
earliest historical form of the City-state, which most fortunately has
come down to us entire. I shall devote two lectures to the early Roman
ideas of divinity, and the character of their deities as reflected in
the calendar, and as further explained by Roman and Greek writers of the
literary age. Two other lectures will discuss the ritual of sacrifice
and prayer, with the priests in charge of these ceremonies, and the
ritual of vows and of "purification." In each of these I shall try to
point out wherein the weakness of this religious system lay--viz. in
attempts at effectiveness so elaborate that they overshot their mark, in
a misconception of the means necessary to secure the right relations,
and in a failure to grow in knowledge of the Power itself.
Lastly, as the City-state advances socially and politically, in trade
and commerce, in alliance and conquest, we shall find that the ideas of
other peoples about the Power, and their methods of propitiation, begin
to be adopted in addition to the native stock. The first stages of this
revolution will bring us to the conclusion of my present course; but we
shall be then well prepared for what follows. For later on we shall find
the Romans feeling afresh the desire to be in right relation with the
Power, discovering that their own highly formalised system is no longer
equal to the work demanded of it, and pitiably mistaking their true
course in seeking a remedy. Their knowledge of the Divine, always narrow
and limited, becomes by degrees blurred and obscured, and their sight
begins to fail them. I hope in due course to explain this, and to give
you some idea of the sadness of their religious experience before the
advent of an age of philosophy, of theological syncretism, and of the
worship of the rulers of the state.
Let us now turn for a few minutes to the special difficulties of our
subject. These are serious enough; but they have been wonderfully and
happily reduced since I began to be interested in the Roman religion
some twenty-five years ago. There were then only two really valuable
books which dealt with the whole subject. Though I could avail myself of
many treatises, good and bad, on particular aspects of it, some few of
which still survive, the only two comprehensive and illuminating books
were Preller's _Roemische Mythologie_, and Marquardt's volume on the cult
in his _Staatsverwaltung_. Both of these were then already many years
old, but they had just been re-edited by two eminent scholars
thoroughly well equipped for the task--Preller's work by H. Jordan, and
Marquardt's by Georg Wissowa. They were written from different points of
view; Preller dealt with the deities and the ideas about them rather
than with the cults and the priests concerned with them; while Marquardt
treated the subject as a part of the administration of government,
dealing with the worship and the _ius divinum_, and claiming that this
was the only safe and true way of arriving at the ideas underlying that
law and worship.[10] Both books are still indispensable for the student;
but Marquardt's is the safer guide, as dealing with facts to the
exclusion of fancies. The two taken together had collected and sifted
the evidence so far as it was then available.
The _Corpus Inscriptionum_ had not at that time got very far, but its
first volume, edited by Mommsen, contained the ancient Fasti, which
supply us with the religious calendar of early Rome, and with other
matter throwing light upon it. This first volume was an invaluable help,
and formed the basis (in a second edition) of the book I was eventually
able to write on the _Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_. At
that time, too, in the 'eighties, Roscher's _Lexicon of Greek and Roman
Mythology_ began to appear, which aimed at summing up all that was then
known about the deities of both peoples; this is not even yet completed,
and many of the earlier articles seem now almost antiquated, as
propounding theories which have not met with general acceptance. All
these earlier articles are now being superseded by those in the new
edition of Pauly's _Real-Encyclopaedie_, edited by Wissowa. Lastly,
Wissowa himself in 1902 published a large volume entitled _Die Religion
und Kultus der Roemer_, which will probably be for many years the best
and safest guide for all students of our subject. Thoroughly trained in
the methods of dealing with evidence both literary and archaeological,
Wissowa produced a work which, though it has certain limitations, has
the great merit of not being likely to lead anyone astray. More
skilfully and successfully than any of his predecessors, he avoided the
chief danger and difficulty that beset all who meddle with Roman
religious antiquities, and invariably lead the unwary to their
destruction; he declined to accept as evidence what in nine cases out of
ten is no true evidence at all--the statements of ancient authors
influenced by Greek ideas and Greek fancy. He holds in the main to the
principle laid down by Marquardt, that we may use, as evidence for their
religious ideas, what we are told that the Romans _did_ in practising
their worship, but must regard with suspicion, and subject to severe
criticism, what either they themselves or the Greeks wrote about those
religious ideas--that is, about divine beings and their doings.