article "Sacrifice" in _Encycl. Brit._, ed. 10, has
lately been criticised by Hubert et Mauss, in _Melanges
d'histoire des religions_, p. 9 foll.; but it is
sufficiently complete for our purposes. At the same time
it is well to be aware that no classification of the
various forms of sacrifice can be complete at present;
that which these authors prefer, _i.e._ constant and
occasional sacrifices, is, however, a useful one.
[349] _R.F._ p. 95 foll. Cp. Robertson Smith, _Rel. of
Semites_, Lect. VIII.
[350] _R.F._ p. 217 foll.
[351] _R.F._ p. 302 foll. Meals in connection with
sacrifice are also found at the Parilia (_R.F._ p. 81,
and Ovid, _Fasti_, iv. 743 foll.) and Terminalia (Ovid,
_Fasti_, ii. 657); but in both cases Ovid seems to be
describing rustic rites; nor is it certain that the meal
was really sacramental. What does seem proved is that
the old Latins and other Italians believed the deities
of the house to be present at their meals--
ante focos olim scamnis considere longis
mos erat et mensae credere adesse deos (_Fasti_, vi. 307),
and thus the idea was maintained that in some sense all
meals had a sacred character, _i.e._ all in which the
members of a _familia_ (see above, p. 78), or of _gens_
or _curia_, met together. Cp. R. Smith, _op. cit._ p.
261 foll. We may remember that the Penates were the
spirits of the food itself, not merely of the place in
which it was stored; it had therefore a sacred
character, which is also shown by the sanctification of
the firstfruits (_R.F._ pp. 151, 195). (The _cenae
collegiorum_, dinners of collegia of priests, were in no
sense sacrificial meals; see Marquardt, p. 231, note 7;
Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ pp. 13, 39, 40.)
[352] Cic. _de Legibus_, ii. 8. 19.
[353] Livy i. 18. For constitutional difficulties in
this passage, see, _e.g._, Greenidge, _Roman Public
Life_, p. 50.
[354] For this and the augurs generally, see Lecture
XII.
[355] The passages are collected by Wissowa, _R.K._ p.
420, note 3. There is no doubt about the inauguratio of
the three great flamines and the rex sacrorum, who were
all specially concerned with sacrifice, and of the
augurs, who would obviously need it in order to perform
the same ceremony for others--as a bishop needs
consecration for the same reason. As regards the
pontifices, Dionysius (ii. 73. 3) clearly thought it was
needed for them, and we might a priori assume that one
who might become a pontifex maximus would need it; but
Wissowa discounts Dionysius' opinion, and I am unwilling
to differ from him on a point of the _ius divinum_, of
which he is our best exponent. If he is right, it may be
that the three _flamines maiores_, who were reckoned in
strict religious sense as above the pontifices,
including their head (Festus, p. 185), needed "holiness"
more than any pontifex, and so with the augurs. The
insignia of the pontifices, as well as many historical
facts, show that the pontifices were competent to
perform sacrifice in a general sense (Marq. p. 248
foll.); but it is possible that they never had the
right, like the flamines, actually to slay the victim. I
do not feel sure that the _securis_ was really one of
their symbols, though Horace seems to say so in _Ode_
iii. 23. 12. The whole question needs further
investigation. It may be found that the essential
distinction between the pontifices and magistrates _cum
imperio_ on the one hand, and the flamines on the other,
is to be sought in the ideas of holiness connected with
the shedding of blood in sacrifice. The flamen is
permanently holy, having charge of constant sacrifices;
_e.g._ the Dialis had duties every day. He is the duly
sanctified guide for all rites within his own religious
range.
[356] Wissowa, _R.K._ pp. 339, 410 foll.
[357] The whole subject of the preparation of the
sacrificer for his work, and of the steps by which he
becomes separated from the profane, is well treated by
Hubert et Mauss, _Melanges d'histoire des religions_, p.
23 foll. The reference to Dr. Jevons is _Introduction_,
ch. xx. p. 270 foll.
[358] Serv. _Aen._ xii. 173; Virgil wrote "dant fruges
manibus salsas, et tempora ferro Summa notant pecudum";
to which Servius adds that the symbolic movement was a
(pretended) cut from head to tail of the victim.
Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 352.
[359] Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encycl., s.v._ "cinctus
Gabinus."
[360] Marquardt, p. 340. The Vestals were never, so far
as we know, directly concerned in animal sacrifice.
[361] See below, p. 190. For the colour of the garments,
and the explanation referred to, see Samter,
_Familienfeste_, p. 40 foll.; Diels, _Sibyllinische
Blaetter_, p. 70; and cp. von Duhn's paper, "Rot und Tot"
in _Archiv_, 1906, p. 1 foll. That red colouring was
used in various ways in sacred and quasi-sacred rites
there is no doubt (see above, p. 89, note 46); but
whether it can be always connected with bloodshed is by
no means so certain (Rohde, _Psyche_, i. 226). In the
case of women it is at least hard to understand. The
idea of consecration through blood, which is very rare
in Roman literature, comes out curiously in the words
which Livy puts into the mouth of Virginius after the
slaughter of his daughter (iii. 48): "Te Appi tuumque
caput sanguine hoc consecro" (_i.e._ to a deity not
mentioned). The sentence to which this note refers was
written before the appearance of Messrs. Hubert et
Mauss' essay on sacrifice (_Melanges d'histoire des
religions_, pp. 1-122). The theory there developed, that
the victim is the intermediary in all cases between the
sacrificer and the deity, and that the _force
religieuse_ passes from one to the other in one
direction or another, does not essentially differ from
the words in the text; but the French savants would, I
imagine, prefer to look on the insignia in a general
sense as bringing the person wearing them within the
region of the _sacrum_, the force of which would react
on him still more strongly after the destruction of the
victim (see p. 28 foll.).
[362] See, _e.g._, _Roman Sculpture_ by Mrs. Strong,
Plates xi. and xv.
[363] For this and other insignia see Marquardt, p. 222
foll. The question is under discussion whether some of
these insignia are not old Italian forms of dress (see
Gruppe, _Mythologische Literatur_, 1898-1905, p. 343).
For the wearing of the skin of a victim, which meets us
also at the Lupercalia (_R.F._ p. 311), see Robertson
Smith, _Semites_, p. 416 foll.; Jevons, _Introduction_,
p. 252 foll.; Frazer, _G.B._ iii. 136 foll.
[364] They, of course, wore the _praetexta_ when
performing religious acts. Cp. the Fratres Arvales, who
laid aside the _praetexta_ after sacrificing. Henzen,
_Acta Fr. Arv._ pp. 11, 21, and 28.
[365] Serv. _Aen._ xi. 543. The _camillae_ assisted the
_flaminicae_, Marquardt, p. 227. This is one of the most
beautiful features of the stately Roman ritual, and has
been handed on to the Roman Church. It was, of course,
derived from the worship of the household (see above, p.
74).
[366] _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, p. 413 foll. Dr. Frazer
is criticising Dr. Farnell, who had touched on the
subject in the _Hibbert Journal_ for 1907, p. 689, and
had taken the more obvious view that death in a family
disqualified for actions requiring extreme holiness.
[367] The passages are collected in Marquardt, p. 174
foll.; we may notice in particular Livy xlv. 5. 4,
where, though only the washing of hands is referred to,
we have the important statement that "omnis praefatio
sacrorum," _i.e._ the preliminary exhortation of the
priest, enjoined _purae manus_. Livy must be using the
language of Roman ritual, though he is not speaking here
of a Roman rite. For the material of sacred utensils see
Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p. 30.
[368] Tibullus ii. 1. 11.
[369] Cic. _de Legibus_, ii. 10. 24.
[370] Westermarck, _Origin and Development of Moral
Ideas_, ii. 352 foll.; consult the index for further
allusions to the subject. Cp. Farnell, _Evolution of
Religion_, Lecture III. [Fehrle, _Die kultische
Keuschheit im Altertum_ (Giessen, 1910), has reached me
too late for use in this chapter.]
[371] Full details, with the most important references
quoted in full, are in Marquardt, p. 172 foll.; but some
of the latter are applicable only to the Graeco-Roman
period.
[372] So we may gather from the Lex Furfensis of 58 B.C.
(_C.I.L._ ix. 3513), and that of the Ara Augusti at
Narbo of A.D. 12 (_C.I.L._ xii. 4333).
[373] The real origin of the pontifices and their name
is unknown to us. If they took their name from the
bridging of the Tiber, as Varro held (_L.L._ v. 83) and
as the majority of scholars believe (see O. Gilbert,
_Rom. Topographie_, ii. 220, note), the difficulty
remains that they are found in such a city as Praeneste,
where there was no river to be bridged, and where they
could not well have been merely an offshoot from the
Roman college; see Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 432, note. Nor can
we explain how they came to be set in charge of the _ius
divinum_; and where there are no data conjecture is
useless.
[374] The covering of the head (_operto capite_, as
opposed to _aperto capite_ of the _Graecus ritus_) is
usually explained as meant to shut out all sounds
belonging to the world of the _profanum_; and the
playing of the tibicines is interpreted in the same way.
Hubert et Mauss explain the covered head differently:
"le rituel romain prescrivit generalement l'usage du
voile, signe de separation et partant de consecration"
(p. 28). Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena to_ _the Study of
Greek Religion_, p. 522, also holds that it is the
outward sign of consecration; cp. S. Reinach, _Cultes,
mythes, et religions_, i. 300 foll. The fact, noted by
Miss Harrison, that in Festus's account of the _ver
sacrum_ (p. 379, ed. Mueller) the children expelled were
veiled, seems to point to the idea of
dedication--unless, indeed, _velabant_ here means that
they blindfolded them.
[375] The wine was poured over the altar as well as on
the victim, which suggests a substitution for blood;
Arnobius vii. 29 and 30; Dion. Hal. vii. 72. I cannot
find that any one of the many utensils used in sacrifice
were for pouring out blood. Blood was, however, poured
on the stone at the Terminalia (_R.F._ pp. 325-326); but
the rite here described by Ovid seems to be a rural one,
outside the _ius divinum_. In the sacrifice of victims
to Hecate in Virg. _Aen._ vi. 243 foll., which cannot be
_ritus Romanus_, the warm blood is collected in
_paterae_; but nothing is said of what was done with it,
nor does Servius help. Cp. _Aen._ viii. 106. In
Lucretius v. 1202, "aras sanguine multo spargere
quadrupedum," the context shows that the ritual alluded
to is not old Roman. In Livy's description of the
"occulti paratus sacri" of the Samnites (ix. 41), we
find "_respersae fando nefandoque sanguine arae_, et
dira exsecratio ac furiale carmen." Livy seems to think
of this blood-sprinkling, whether the blood be human or
animal, as unusual and horrible. Ancient, no doubt, is
the practice, recorded in the _Acta Fratr. Arv._ (see
Henzen, pp. 21 and 23), of using the blood in a
religious feast, in the process of cooking: "porcilias
piaculares epulati sunt et sanguem." (There is a mention
of the pouring of blood in an inscription from Lusitania
in _C.I.L._ ii. 2395.) For the use of wine as a
substitute for blood, see the recently published work of
Karl Kircher, "Die sakrale Bedeuting des Weines," in
_Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche, etc._, p. 82 foll.,
where, however, the subject is not worked out.
[376] According to Luebbert (_Commentarii pontificales_,
p. 121 foll.) _magmentum_ is the same as _augmentum_,
which word is also found (Varro, _L.L._ v. 112). Festus,
p. 126, "magmentum magis augmentum"; Serv. _Aen._ iv.
57, to which passage I shall return. For the equivalent
in the Vedic ritual of the cooking and offering of the
exta, see Hubert et Mauss, _op. cit._ p. 60 foll.
[377] _R.F._ p. 89.
[378] _ib._ p. 10.
[379] Buecheler, _Umbrica_, pp. 60, 69, etc. Of course
the prayer might be said while other operations were
going on. For the constant connection of prayer and
sacrifice, see Pliny, _N.H._ xxviii. 10, "quippe
victimam caedi sine precatione non videtur referre aut
deos rite consuli." If Macrobius is right (iii. 2. 7
foll.) in asserting that the prayer must be said while
the priest's hand touches the altar, one may guess that
this was done at the same time that the exta were laid
on it. Ovid saw the priest at the Robigalia offer the
exta and say the prayer at the same time (_Fasti_, iv.
905 foll.), but does not mention the hand touching the
altar. For this see Serv. _Aen._ vi. 124; Horace, _Ode_
iii. 23. 17, and Dr. Postgate on this passage in
_Classical Review_ for March 1910.
[380] Cato, _R.R._ 132, 134, 139, and 141. That these
formulae were taken from the books of the pontifices is
almost certain, not only from the internal evidence of
the prayers themselves, but because Servius (Interpol.)
on _Aen._ ix. 641 quotes the words: "macte hoc vino
inferio esto," which occur in 132, introducing them
thus: "et in pontificalibus sacrificantes dicebant
deo...."
[381] The verb is omitted here for some ritualistic
reason, as in the Iguvian prayers (_Umbrica_, p. 55).
[382] Virg. _Aen._ ix. 641, "macte nova virtute puer,
sic itur ad astra," etc., and many other passages. The
verb _mactare_ acquired a general sense of sacrificial
slaying, as did also _immolare_, though neither had
originally any direct reference to slaughter. The best
account I find of the word is in H. Nettleship's
_Contributions to Latin Lexicography_, p. 520. He takes
_mactus_ as the participle of a lost verb _maco_ or
_mago_, to make great, increase, equivalent to _augeo_,
which is also a word of semi-religious meaning, as
Augustus knew. Nettleship quotes Cicero _in Vatinium_,
14, "puerorum extis deos manes mactare."
[383] Baehrens, _Fragm. Poet. Lat._ 180; Lusilius fragm.
143; Nonius, 341, 28 has "versibus."
[384] It may possibly be objected that some of the
deities were powerful for evil as well as good, _e.g._
Robigus, the spirit of the red mildew, and that the
power of such a deity was not to be encouraged or
increased. But all such deities (and I cannot mention
another besides Robigus) were of course conceived as
able to restrain their own harmful function; they were
not invoked to go away and leave the ager Romanus in
peace, but to limit their activity in the land where
they had been settled for worship. We have no prayer to
Robigus (or Robigo, feminine, as Ovid has it) except
that which Ovid somewhat fancifully versified after
hearing the Flamen Quirinalis say it (_Fasti_, iv. 911
foll.), in which of course the word _macte_ does not
occur. As the victim was a dog, an uneatable one, it is
possible that the ritual was not quite the usual one.
But the language of the prayer is interesting and brings
out my point:
aspera Robigo, parcas Cerialibus herbis.
vis tua non levis est;...
parce precor, scabrasque manus a messibus aufer
neve noce cultis: posse nocere sat est.
It concludes by praying Robigo to direct her strength
and attention to other objects, _gladios et tela
nocentia_; but this is the poet's fancy.
[385] _Evolution of Religion_, p. 212, quoting _Vedic
Hymns_, pt. ii. pp. 259 and 391.
[386] _Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, vol. ii.
p. 585 foll.; cp. 657. See also Farnell, _Evolution of
Religion_, p. 195.
[387] See above, p. 9. _Religio_ in the sense of an
obligation to perform certain ritualistic acts is in my
view a secondary and later use of the word. See
_Transactions of the Congress of Historical Religion for
1908_, vol. ii. p. 169 foll.
[388] Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p. 26 foll.; _C.I.L._
vi. 2104, 32 foll.; Buecheler und Riese, _Carmina Lat._,
epigr. pars ii., no. 1. All surviving Roman prayers are
collected in Appel's _De Romanorum precationibus_,
Giessen, 1909.
[389] Pliny, _N.H._ xxviii. 10 foll.
[390] In _Anthropology and the Classics_, p. 94.
[391] Cp. Tibullus ii. 1. 84, "vos celebrem cantate deum
pecorique vocate, Voce palam pecori, clam sibi quisque
vocet." This murmuring was certainly characteristic of
Roman magic; see Jevons, p. 99, and especially the
reference to a Lex Cornelia, which condemned those "qui
susurris magicis homines occiderunt" (Justinian, _Inst._
iv. 18. 5).
[392] On the nature of this _tripodatio_ see Henzen,
_op. cit._ p. 33. Buecheler, _Umbrica_, p. 69, gives the
Umbrian verb a different meaning, though he translates
it _tripodato_.
[393] Buecheler, _Umbrica_, pp. 13 and 52.
[394] Wissowa, _R.K._, 333, inclines to the belief that
prayer had a legal binding force upon the deity; but he
does not cite any text which confirms this view, and is
arguing on general grounds. I gather from the language
of Aust (_Religion der Roemer_, p. 30) that he thinks
there was a germ which might have developed into a more
truly religious attitude towards the gods, if it had not
been killed by priestly routine and quasi-legal
formulae. With this opinion I am strongly inclined to
agree. Cp. the story of Scipio Aemilianus audaciously
altering and elevating the formula dictated by the
priest in the censor's lustratio (Val. Max. iv. 1. 10),
to which I shall return in the proper place.
[395] Westphal, quoted by De Marchi, _La Religione,
etc._, i. p. 133, note.
[396] See, _e.g._, ch. 141 _ad fin._ The prayer in the
Acta of the Ludi Saeculares to the Moirae is an
imitation of old prayers. See below, p. 442.
[397] _ib._ ch. 139.
[398] _ib._ ch. 141.
[399] Hubert et Mauss, _Melanges d'histoire des
religions_, p. 74.
[400] So Cato, _R.R._ 141, "si minus in omnes litabit,
sic verba concipito; Mars pater, quod tibi illuc porco
neque satisfactum est, te hoc porco piaculo." (The word
for the slaughter is here euphemistically omitted; De
Marchi, p. 134.)
[401] Hubert et Mauss, _op. cit._ p. 55 foll.; Leviticus
vi. I doubt whether the theory of the learned authors
will hold good generally on this point.
[402] Marquardt, p. 185, asserted the contrary, but
cited no evidence except Serv. _Aen._ vi. 253, which
does not prove the practice of the holocaust to be
really Roman. Wissowa's exactness is well illustrated in
his detection of this error; see _R. K._ p. 352, note 6.
Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p. 135, leaves no doubt on
the question possible.
[403] Henzen, _Acta Fratr. Arv._ p. 131. See above, p.
35. Festus, p. 218.
[404] Gellius iv. 6. 7.
[405] _i.e._ lustratio. That this was a form of piaculum
is clear from the use of the word _pihaklu_ of the
victim in the lustratio of the arx of Iguvium, _e.g._
Buecheler, _Umbrica_, index, 5, v.
LECTURE IX
RITUAL--_continued_
In the last lecture we found that the magical element in the Roman
ritual is exaggerated by recent writers. But it has also long been the
practice to describe that ritual as a system of bargaining with the
gods: as partaking of the nature of a legal contract. "The old Roman
worship was businesslike and utilitarian. The gods were partners in a
contract with their worshippers, and the ritual was characterised by the
hard formalism of the legal system of Rome. The worshipper performed his
part to the letter with the scrupulous exactness required in pleadings
before the praetor."[406] This is an excellent statement of a view very
generally held, especially since Mommsen, whose training in Roman law
made him apt to dwell on the legal aspects of Roman life, wrote the
famous chapter in the first volume of his history. I now wish to examine
this view briefly.
No doubt it was suggested by the necessary familiarity of the Roman
historian with _vota publica_, the vows so frequently made on behalf of
the State by its magistrates, in terms supplied by the pontifices, and
dictated by them to the magistrate undertaking the duty. Some few of
these formulae have survived, and it may certainly be said of them that
they are analogous to legal formulae, and express the quasi-contractual
nature of the process. Such legalised religious contracts seem to be
peculiar to Rome; they are curiously characteristic of the Roman genius
for formularisation, which in course of time had most important effects
in the domain of civil law. But the vow as such is, of course, by no
means peculiar to Rome; it is familiar in Greek history, and is found in
an elementary form among savages at the present day.[407] But at Rome
both in public and private life it is far more frequent and striking
than elsewhere. This is a phenomenon that calls for careful study; and
we must beware that we are not misled by quasi-legal developments into
missing the real significance of it from the point of view of morality
and religion.
The _vota privata_, which include vows and offerings made to deities by
private individuals, had never been adequately examined till De Marchi
wrote his book on the private religion of the Romans; nor could they
have been so examined until the _Corpus Inscriptionum_ was fairly well
advanced. There the material is extraordinarily abundant, but it is, of
course, almost entirely of comparatively late date, and the great
majority of votive inscriptions belong to the period of the Empire. Yet
it is quite legitimate to argue from this to an origin of this form of
worship in the earliest times, and we have enough early evidence to
justify the inference. Among the oldest Latin inscriptions are some
found on objects such as cups or vases, showing that the latter were
votive offerings to a deity: thus we have _Saeturni poculum, Kerri
poculum_, and other similar ones which will be found at the beginning of
the first volume of the _Corpus_.[408] They give only the name of the
deity as a rule, and do not tell us why the object was offered to him;
but they must have been thank-offerings for some supposed blessing. In
one case, not indeed at Rome, but not far away at Praeneste, we have
proof of this; for a mother makes a dedication to Fortuna _nationu
cratia_, which plainly expresses gratitude for good luck in
childbirth;[409] and this inscription is one of the oldest we possess.
Nor do they tell us whether there was a previous vow or promise of which
the offering is the fulfilment. But in the majority of inscriptions of
late date the familiar letters V.S.L.M. (_votum solvit lubens merito_)
betray the nature of the transaction, and it is not unreasonable to
guess that there was usually a previous undertaking of some kind, to be
carried out if the deity were gracious.
But these private _vota_ were not, strictly speaking, legal
transactions, supposed to bind both parties in a contract, as we shall
see was to some extent the case with the _vota publica_. They could not
have needed the aid of a pontifex, or a solemn _voti nuncupatio_, _i.e._
statement of the promise; they were rather, as De Marchi asserts,[410]
spontaneous expressions of what we may call religious feeling; and it
may be that he is right in maintaining that throughout Roman history
they remained as expressions of the religious sense and of the better
feeling of the lower classes. The practice implies three conceptions:
(1) of the deity as really powerful for good and evil; (2) of the gift,
a work of supererogation, as likely to please him; (3) of the grateful
act and feeling as good in themselves. Surely there must have been in
this practice a germ of moral development; I am surprised that Dr.
Westermarck has not mentioned in his chapter on gratitude the
extraordinary abundance of Roman votive offerings and inscriptions.
Doubtless there lies at the root of it the idea of _Do ut des_, or
rather of _Dabo ut des_; doubtless also it could be turned to evil
purposes in the form of _devotio_, when promises were made to a deity on
condition that he killed or injured an enemy; but in the ordinary and
common example it is impossible to deny that the final act, the
performance of the vow, must have been accompanied by a feeling of
gratitude. The merest recognition of a supposed blessing is of value in
moral development.