work on this subject has just appeared; it is entirely occupied with
totemism among modern savages, true totemic peoples, with the object of
getting at the real principles of that curious stratum of human thought,
and he leaves to others the discussion of possible survivals of it among
Aryans, Semites, and Egyptians. He himself is sceptical about all the
evidence that has been adduced to prove its existence in classical
antiquity (see vol. i. p. 86 and vol. iv. p. 13). Under these
circumstances, and seeing that Dr. Frazer has always been the accepted
exponent of totemism in this country since the epoch-making works
appeared of Tylor and Robertson Smith, it is obviously unnecessary for
me either to attempt to explain what it is, or to examine the attempts
to find survivals of it in ancient Italy. When it first became matter of
interest to anthropologists it was only natural that they should be apt
to find it everywhere. Dr. Jevons, for example, following in the steps
of Robertson Smith, found plenty of totemistic survivals both in Greece
and Italy in writing his valuable _Introduction to the History of
Religion_; but he is now aware that he went too far in this direction.
Quite recently there has been a run after the same scent in France; not
long ago a French scholar published a book on the ensigns of the Roman
army,[23] which originally represented certain animals, and using Dr.
Frazer's early work on totemism with a very imperfect knowledge of the
subject, tried to prove that these were originally totem signs. Roman
names of families and old Italian tribe-names are still often quoted as
totemistic; but the Fabii and Caepiones, named after cultivated plants,
and the Picentes and Hirpini, after woodpecker and wolf, though tempting
to the totemist, have not persuaded Dr. Frazer to accept them as
totemistic, and may be left out of account here; there may be many
reasons for the adoption of such names besides the totemistic one. In
the course of the last Congress of religious history, a sober French
scholar, M. Toutain, made an emphatic protest against the prevailing
tendency in France, of which the leading representative is M. Salomon
Reinach.[24] Let us pass on at once to the second primitive mode of
thought which I mentioned just now, and which is not nearly so
remote--speaking anthropologically--from classical times as totemism.
Totemism belongs to a form of society, that of tribe or clan, in which
family life is unknown in our sense of the word, and it is therefore
wholly remote from the life of the ancient Italian stocks, in whose
social organisation the family was a leading fact; but _taboo_ seems
rather to be a mode of thought common to primitive peoples up to a
comparatively advanced stage of development, and has left its traces in
all systems of religion, including those of the present day.
By this famous word _taboo_, of Polynesian origin, is to be understood a
very important part of what I have called the protoplasm of primitive
religion, and one closely allied both to magic and fetishism. For our
present purposes we may define it as a mysterious influence believed to
exist in objects both animate and inanimate, which makes them
_dangerous_, _infectious_, _unclean_, _or holy_, which two last
qualities are often almost identical in primitive thought, as Robertson
Smith originally taught us.[25] What exactly the savage or
semi-civilised mind thought about this influence we hardly yet know; we
have another Polynesian word, _mana_, which expresses conveniently its
positive aspect, and may in time help us towards a better understanding
of it.[26] It is in origin pre-animistic, _i.e._ it is not so much
believed to emanate from a _spirit_ residing in the object, as from some
occult miasmatic quality. All human beings in contact with other men or
things possessing this quality are believed to suffer in some way, and
to communicate the infection which they themselves receive. As Dr.
Farnell says in his chapter on the ritual of purification,[27] "The
sense-instinct that suggests all this was probably some primeval terror
or aversion evoked by certain objects, as we see animals shrink with
disgust at the sight or smell of blood. The nerves of savage man are
strangely excited by certain stimuli of touch, smell, taste, sight; the
specially exciting object is something that we should call mysterious,
weird, or uncanny."
Based on this notion of constant danger from infection, there arose a
code of unwritten custom as rigid as that enforced by a careful
physician in infectious cases at the present day; and thus, too, in
course of time there was developed the idea of the possibility of
_disinfection_, an idea as salutary as the discovery in medical science
of effective methods for the disinfection of disease. The code of taboo
had an obvious ethical value, as Dr. Jevons pointed out long ago;[28]
like all discipline carried out with a social end in view, it helped men
to realise that they were under obligations to the community of which
they were a part, and that they would be visited by severe penalties if
they neglected these duties. But it inevitably tended to forge a set of
fetters binding and cramping the minds of its captives with a countless
number of terrors; life was full of constant anxiety, of that feeling
expressed by the later Romans in the word _religio_,[29] which, as we
shall see, probably had its origin in this period of primitive
superstition. The only remedy is the _discovery of the means of
disinfection_, or, as we commonly call it, of _purification_: a
discovery which must have been going on for ages, and only finds its
completion at Rome in the era of the City-state. We shall return to this
part of the subject when we deal with the ritual of purification; at
present we must attend to certain survivals in that ritual which suggest
that at one time the ancestors of the Roman people lived under this
unwritten code of taboo.
Let us see, in the first place, how human beings were supposed to be
affected by this mysterious influence under certain circumstances and at
particular periods of their existence. As universally in primitive life,
the new-born infant must originally have been taboo; for every Roman
child needed purification or disinfection, boys on the ninth, girls on
the eighth day after birth. This day was called the _dies lustricus_,
the day of a purificatory rite; "est lustricus dies," says Macrobius,
"_quo infantes lustrantur_ et nomen accipiunt."[30] In historical times
the naming of the child was doubtless the more practically important
part of the ceremony; though we may note in passing that the mystic
value attaching to names, of which there are traces in Roman usage, may
have even originally given that part a greater significance than we
should naturally attribute to it.[31] Again, when the child reaches the
age of puberty, it is all the world over believed to be in a critical or
dangerous condition, needing disinfection; of this idea, so far as I
know, the later Romans show hardly a trace, but we may suppose that the
ceremony of laying aside the _toga_ of childhood, which was accompanied
by a sacrifice, was a faint survival of some process of
purification.[32] Once more, after a death the whole family had to be
purified with particular care from the contagion of the corpse,[33]
which was here as everywhere taboo; a cypress bough was stuck over the
door of the house of a noble family to give warning to any passing
pontifex that he was not to enter it;[34] and those who followed the
funeral cortege were purified by being sprinkled with water and by
stepping over fire.[35] _Society had effectually protected itself
against the miasma in all these cases by the discovery of the means of
disinfection._
One of the commonest forms of taboo is that on women, who, especially at
certain periods, were apparently believed to be "infectious."[36] Of
this belief we have very distinct survivals in Roman ritual, which I
must here be content to mention only, leaving details to trained
anthropologists to explain. We find them both in _sacra privata_ and
_sacra publica_. Cato has preserved the formula for the propitiation of
Mars Silvanus in the private rites of the farm; it is to take place _in
silva_, and its object is the protection of the cattle, doubtless those
which have been turned out to pasture in the forest, and are therefore
in danger from evil beasts and evil spirits. Now this _res divina_ may
be performed either by a free man or a slave, _but no woman may be
present_, nor see what is going on.[37] In _sacra publica_ women were
excluded from the cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima, and were not
allowed to swear by the name of that god; facts which are usually
connected with the doubtful identification of Hercules with Genius, or
the male principle of life.[38] More conclusive evidence of taboo in the
case of women is the fact that at certain sacrifices they were ordered
to withdraw, both _mulieres_ and _virgines_, together with other persons
to be mentioned directly.[39] Unfortunately we are not told what those
sacrifices were; but it seems clear enough that there had been at one
time a scruple (_religio_) about admitting women of any age to certain
sacred rites. If so, it is remarkable how the good sense of the Roman
people overcame any serious disabilities which might have been produced
by such ideas; the Roman woman gained for herself a position of dignity,
and even of authority, in her household, which had very important
results on the formation of the character of the people.[40] Traces of
the old superstition doubtless continued to survive in folklore; an
example, interesting because it seems to illustrate the positive aspect
of taboo (_mana_), may be found by the curious in Pliny's _Natural
History_, xxviii. 78.
Another widely-spread example of the class of ideas we are discussing is
the belief that _strangers_ are dangerous. Dr. Frazer tells us that "to
guard against the baneful influence exerted voluntarily or involuntarily
by strangers is an elementary dictate of savage prudence." You have to
disarm them of their magical powers, to counteract "the baneful
influence which is believed to emanate from them."[41] Of this feeling
he has collected a great number of convincing illustrations. We find it
also surviving in Roman ritual. A note, referred to above, which has
come down to us from the learned Verrius Flaccus, informs us that at
certain sacrifices the lictor proclaimed "_hostis vinctus mulier virgo
exesto_," where _hostis_ has its old meaning of stranger.[42] This is,
of course, merely the old feeling of taboo surviving in the religious
ritual of the City-state, and is also no doubt connected with the belief
that the recognised deities of a community could not be approached by
any but the members of that community; but its taproot is probably to be
found in the ideas described by Dr. Frazer. We can illustrate it well
from the ritual of another Italian city, Iguvium in Umbria, which, as I
mentioned in a note to my last lecture, has come down to us in a very
elaborate form. In the ordinance for the _lustratio populi_ of that city
the magistrate is directed to expel all members of certain neighbouring
communities by a thrice-repeated proclamation.[43] Such fear of
strangers is not even yet extinct in Italy. Professor von Duhn told me
that once when approaching an Italian village in search of inscriptions
he was taken for the devil, being unluckily mounted on a black horse and
dressed in black, and was met by a priest with a crucifix, who was at
last persuaded to "disinfect" him with holy water as a condition of his
being admitted to the village. But the Romans of historical times, in
this as in so many other ways, discovered easy methods of overcoming
these fears and scruples: we find a good example of this in the
organised college of Fetiales, who, on entering as envoys a foreign
territory, were fully protected by their sacred herbs, carried by a
_verbenarius_, against all hostile contamination.[44]
A remark seems here necessary about the apparent inconsistency between
this feeling of anxiety about strangers and the well-known ancient
Italian practice of _hospitium_, by which two communities, or two
individuals, or an individual and a community, entered into relations
which bound them to mutual hospitality and kindness in case of need:[45]
a practice so widely spread and so highly developed that it may be
considered one of the most valuable civilising agents in the early
history of Italy. There is, however, no real inconsistency here. In the
first place, the stranger who was removed on the occasion of solemn
public religious rites may be assumed not to have been in possession of
the _ius hospitii_ with the Roman state, and in any case it must be
doubtful whether that _ius_ would give him the right of being present at
all sacrificial rites. Secondly, the researches of Dr. Westermarck have
recently, for the first time, made it clear that both the taboo on
strangers and the very widely-spread practice of hospitality can
ultimately be traced down to the same root. The stranger is dangerous;
but for that very reason it is desirable to secure his good-will at
once. He may have the evil eye; but if so, it is as well to disarm him
by offering him food and drink, and, when he has partaken of these, by
entering into communion with him in the act of partaking also yourself.
Expediency would obviously suggest some such remedy for the danger of
his presence, and this would in course of time, in accordance with the
instinct of Romans and Italians, grow into a set of rules sanctioned by
law as well as custom--the _ius hospitii_.[46]
_Hostis vinctus mulier virgo exesto._ We have noticed traces of taboo on
women and strangers: what of the _vinctus_? This is, so far as I know,
the only proof we have that a man in chains was thought to be
religiously dangerous. I am not sure how his expulsion from religious
rites is to be explained. It is, however, as well to note that criminals
were in primitive societies thought to be uncanny, probably because the
commonest of all crimes, if not the only one affecting society as a
whole, was the breaking of taboo, which made the individual an
outcast.[47] And we may put this together with the fact that in the
early City-state such outcasts were probably not kept shut up in a
prison, but allowed to wander about secured with chains; this seems a
fair inference from the power which the priest of Jupiter (_Flamen
Dialis_) possessed of releasing from his chains any prisoner who entered
his house, _i.e._ who had taken refuge there as in an asylum.[48] Thus
the fettered criminal, who was certainly not a citizen, might find his
way to the place where a sacrifice was going on, and have to submit to
expulsion together with the strangers. It is, however, also possible
that the iron of the chains, if they were of iron, made him doubly
dangerous; for, as we shall see directly, iron was taboo, and the chains
of the prisoner who took refuge with the Flamen had to be thrown out of
the house, no doubt for this reason, by the _impluvium_.[49]
Turning to inanimate objects, which are supposed by primitive man to be
dangerous or taboo, we are met by a fact which will astonish
anthropologists, and which I cannot satisfactorily explain. Blood is
everywhere in the savage world regarded with suspicion and anxiety;
there is something mysterious about it as containing (so they thought)
the life, and its colour and smell are also uncanny; horses cannot
endure it, and there are still strong men who faint at the sight of it.
Yet at Rome, so far as I can discover, there was in historical times
hardly a trace left of this anxiety in its original form of taboo; the
religious law had effectually eliminated the various chances that might
arouse it. No student of Roman religious antiquities seems to have
noticed this singular fact. No anthropologist, as far as I know, has
observed that among the many taboos to which the Flamen Dialis was
subject, blood does not appear. The reason no doubt is that
anthropologists are not as a rule Roman historians; their curiosity is
not excited by a fact which must have some explanation in Roman
religious history. From a single passage of Festus (p. 117) we learn
that soldiers following the triumphal car carried laurel "ut quasi
purgati a caede humana intrarent urbem"; and this is the only distinct
relic of the idea that I can find. Pliny's _Natural History_, that
wonderful thesaurus of odds and ends, affords no help; the mystic
qualities of blood are hardly alluded to there, and the same can be said
of Servius' commentary on the _Aeneid_. The word blood is not to be
found in the index to Wissowa's great work, of which the supreme value
is its accurate record of the religious law and all the ceremonies of
the State. I am constrained to believe that the priests or priest-kings
who developed the _ius divinum_ of the Roman City-state deliberately
suppressed the superstition, for reasons which it is impossible to
conjecture with certainty. And this guess, which I put forward with
hesitation, is indeed in keeping with certain other facts of Roman life.
It is doubtful whether human sacrifice ever existed among this
people;[50] it is certain that the execution of citizens in civil life
by beheading was abandoned at a very early period.[51] The shedding of
blood, except when a victim was sacrificed under the rules of sacred
law, was carefully avoided; thus the horror of blood had a social and
ethical result of value, instead of remaining a mere _religio_ (taboo).
It is true that in one or two rites, such as that of the October horse,
the blood of a sacrifice seems to have been thought to possess peculiar
powers;[52] but it is at the same time noticeable that this rite is not
included in the old calendar, a fact of which a wholly satisfactory
explanation has not yet been offered. In the Lupercalia there is a trace
of the mystic use of blood in sacrifice, but a very faint one: to this
we shall return later on. The two Luperci had their foreheads smeared
with the knife bloody from the slaughter of the victims, but the blood
was at once wiped off with wool dipped in milk.[53] This rite is of
course in the old calendar; it stands almost alone in its mystical
character, and may have been taken over by the Romans from previous
inhabitants of the site of Rome. Lastly, in the Terminalia, or
boundary-festival of arable land in country districts, the
boundary-stone was sprinkled with the blood of the victims, showing that
a spirit, or _numen_, was believed to reside in it;[54] but I cannot
find that this practice survived in the public sacrifices of the city.
It is found only in the sacrifices (_Graeco ritu_) supervised by the _XV
viri sacris faciundis_ in that part of the Ludi Saeculares of Augustus
which was concerned with Greek chthonic deities in the Campus
Martius.[55]
Yet unquestionably there had been a time when many inanimate objects
were supposed to have a mystic or dangerous influence; this is
sufficiently proved by the long list of taboos to which the unfortunate
Flamen Dialis was even in historical times subject. He was forbidden to
touch a goat, a dog, raw meat, beans, ivy, wheat, leavened bread; he
might not walk under a vine, and his hair and nails might not be cut
with an iron knife; and he might not have any knot or unbroken ring
about his person. Dr. Frazer has the merit of being the first to point
out the real meaning of this strange list of disabilities, and to
explain the mystic or miasmatic origin of some of them.[56] They need
not detain us now, as they are survivals only, and survivals of ideas
which must have been long extinct before Roman history can be said to
begin. Almost the only one among them of which we have other traces is
the taboo on iron, which must have been of comparatively late date, as
the use of iron in Italy seems only to have begun about the eighth
century B.C.[57] This is found also in the ritual of the Arval
Brotherhood, the ancient agricultural priesthood revived by Augustus,
and better known to us than any other owing to the discovery of its
_Acta_ in the site of the sacred grove between Rome and Ostia. These
Brethren had originally suffered from the taboo on iron; but in
characteristic fashion they had discovered that a piacular or
disinfecting sacrifice would sufficiently atone for its use whenever it
was necessary to take a pruning-hook within the limits of the grove.[58]
We may here also recall the fact that no iron might be used in the
building or repairing of the ancient _pons sublicius_, the oldest of all
the bridges of the Tiber.[59]
Every one who wishes to get an idea of the nature of taboo in primitive
Rome, and of the way in which it was got rid of, should study the
disabilities of the Flamen Dialis, and satisfy himself of their absence,
with the exception just mentioned, and possibly one or two more, in the
ritual of historical Rome. Nothing is more likely to convince him of the
way in which Roman civilisation contrived to leave these superstitions
as mere fossils, incapable any longer of doing mischief by cramping the
conscience and inducing constant anxiety. If he is disposed to ask why
such a large number of these fossils should be found attached to the
priesthood of Jupiter, I must ask him to let me postpone that question,
which would at this moment lead us too far afield.
I may, however, mention here that the Flaminica Dialis, who was not
priestess of Juno as is commonly supposed, but assisted her husband in
the cult of Jupiter, was also subject to certain taboos. On three
occasions in the religious year she might not appear in public with her
hair "done up," viz. the moving of the _ancilia_ in March, the festival
of the Argei in March and May, and during the cleansing of the _penus
Vestae_ in June. Also she might not wear shoes made from the skin of a
beast that had died a natural death, but only from that of a sacrificial
victim. There are traces of a _religio_ about shoe-leather, I may
remark, both in the Roman and in other religious systems. Varro tells us
that "in aliquot sacris et sacellis scriptum habemus, Ne quid scorteum
adhibeatur: ideo _ne morticinum_ quid adsit." Leather was taboo in the
worship of the almost unknown deity Carmenta. Petronius describes women
in the cult of Jupiter Elicius walking barefoot; and we are reminded of
the well-known rule which still survives in Mahommedan mosques.[60] The
original idea may have been that the skin of an animal not made sacred
by sacrifice might destroy the efficacy of the worship contemplated. On
the other hand, the skin of a duly sacrificed animal had potency of a
useful kind--a fact or belief so widespread as to need no illustration
here; but we shall come upon an example of it in my next lecture.